Take Under The Black Umbrella: Voices From Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 Drafted By Hildi Kang Depicted In Digital Copy

Maus II, Spiegelman carries an interesting discussion with a family friend about Holocaust narratives: the ones who died never get to tell their story so maybe it's best not to have more of them.


In Under the Black Umbrella, these are stories by the survivors, Survivors who are now residing, retired, in California, Consequently most of the stories here are disproportionally from Christians, the privileged wealthy landowners who fled the communist purge from Pyeongan and the resourceful a Korean farmboy who stole money from his parents and worked under the Yakuza to fund an education in Japan.


There's one particular story that exemplifies this in which a Korean farm head talks about watching a Japanese inspector force a poorer Korean farmer to eat beetle larvae that he couldn't afford to clean off from his roof.
"The bitterest memory of colonial rule" as Chung Taeuk calls it, but he observed without interfering and wasn't the target of humiliation, Even the tales of activism are mostly oriented around covert education rather than politics such as Ahn Changho, Kim Kyusik or violence such as Yun Bonggil, Kang Wookyu.


Nonetheless, these primary accounts hold a lot of value because this realm hasn't really been explored in Anglophone literature, nonfiction or fiction, They hold plenty of powerful insight and emotional endurance, Despite them all being survivors, there was a healthy diversity of background: students, businessmen, housewives, conscripts,

I strongly approve of how the author presented this book: putting the stories chronologically, with historical context via footnotes and otherwise, complete with an introduction explaining their process of their research.
There has been great care and attention put into the translation often at the expense of the prose, but all serves to provide a historical experience into colonial Korea.
It's quite true when people say those studying history are studying humankind's ability to inflict pain, To read this book was a test of emotional endurance but I welcomed the rest, It is better to be fully knowledge than to remain ignorant and not respect the pain these people had to go through,

Most of the interviewees were spared from torture and discrimination but a few individuals truly had the most horrific stories to tell, It just goes to show how broad history is in the perspectives of the same people who were oppressed, The stories highlighted in this oral history portray a diverse portrait of life in Korea under Japanese colonization, We can see tales ranging from collaboration, to silent acceptance, to rebellion, While I did feel there was a very slight nationalist undercurrent due in part to a highly oversimplified and outdated bibliography on the author's part, I felt that many different circumstances were depicted fairly, demonstrating the complexity of history and memory.
Of course, interviews were all conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, which can potentially narrow the scope of this oral history, In addition, the author noted that many stories were omitted for repetitive elements or for mundanity, I can understand that this attitude can help sell books, but I do hope these records survive, as a proponent of understanding "everydayness, " Overall, I thought it was a fine book that can give some insight into life in colonial Korea, especially for newcomers to the subject, I really enjoyed the Under the Black Umbrella, Being a compilation of interviews made it very effective, Personal stories are always more interesting and emotional than just a book describing the facts as a secondary source, I also liked it because the book wasnt set up to prove a point but just to show what life was like, Everyones experiences were different: some good and some bad, Everyone was in different points in their life: some were poor some were rich, some were farmers some were in government, Some people were involved while others were left alone, It just makes the whole book seem more honest and true, Koreans have developed compared to the dark ages as this book describe, The Koreans used to be dominated by the Japanese and suffered sexual and violent abuses, This book contains the story of those who were lucky enough to get help from neighbors and sometimes, the Japanese, I liked this story because it reveals in a way that in the dark, there's always light, One of the only books giving insight into Korea under Japanese control right before WWII, Documentary style, interviews with individuals, rather than a novel, Very interesting, though, really makes you wonder what you would do to help your family survive and where you would draw the line morally, This is exactly what you want this type of book to be, Surprising, eyeopening, reliable, welledited and jawdropping, If you are the least bit curious as to why your Korean grandmother hates all things Japanese, pick this book up, If you are in the pursuit of scholarly research and you need some oral history recollections, these are gold, The author has done extremely well in translating, arranging, presenting and setting historical context for each chapter,

Some stories are just a paragraph long while others go one for pages, Despite the sample being taken from elderly Koreans living in the American west coast, the people interviewed are amazing diverse and wellrepresented, The stories are captivating, earnest and beautifully told, I can't imagine how the stories must have sounded in the original language because the English translation is simply breathtaking,

The reader may find it unusual to hear that many Koreans became civilized or even friends with Japanese living in their towns during this period.
The honesty of the interviewees runs counter to the widespread belief that all Japanese were zealous conquerors bent on world domination, Don't misunderstand, some of the stories indeed paint a terrible picture in terms of cultural repression, but as mentioned before, the book is wellbalanced,

My only disappointment was the short length of the book, That's it. It's readable by anyone with a passing interest in Japanese colonial history, It's what you want a collection of stories that completes any academic background you might have read,

Simply a gem, Powerful personal accounts of the Japanese occupation of Korea during the second World War, Don't have much to say besides that, A fascinating curated collection of interviews of Koreans remembering stories from the lives under Japanese colonial rule, Firsthand accounts and individual stories play a significant role in how we understand complicated and difficult periods of history, and this volume certainly adds complexity to conventional narratives of colonial Korea.
A series of reminiscences in thes ands by elderly Koreans mostly in the S, F. Bay area who lived under the Japanese occupation from, the end of World War II, For those unfamiliar with modern Korean history, it tells of the harshness of Japanese rule and how their policies were aimed at obliterating Korean identity by absorbing Koreans into Japanese culture forbidding their language, taking over the public schools, enforcing public attendance at Shinto religious shrines, and finally pushing Koreans to take Japanese names by withholding employment, ration cards, and other forms of coercion.
It shows clearly the variety of experience from torture and various forms of oppression to nearnormal life in remote areas and small villages, It also shows how humanity is never extinguished, and that compassion survives in the oppressors as well as the oppressed, The most affecting part for me was reading of the kindness and friendships that passed between Koreans and Japanese despite the brutality of the Japanese occupation.
Apart from the quality of the content which is also very well put together, the format is a really interesting way to tell history through individual stories.
Its the most humanizing way Ive ever read or heard about history, Really compelling I wish more books were written in this way "It is inevitable that over time, powerful personal events gradually become impersonal facts and detach from the lives that generated them.
However, these events did once live and breathe as real people, " "This book gave me another perspective on what life was like under Japanese occupation, Some of what more This book gave me another perspective on what life was like under Japanese occupation, Some of what I read, I expected, but others were surprising, I wish it could have more detailed descriptions on the comfort women experience, Usually you don't get to see history through the lives of ordinary people, This book, a collection of memories from people who lived through the Japanese occupation of Korea before World War, is a fascinating reminder that there are many sides to every story told about the past.


One random observation: at the heading of each vignette, the author listed the person who was speaking, their gender, date of birth, and occupation.
The occupation of every single woman who was interviewed was "housewife"an understated reminder

of a very different time, I didn't love the format of the book each chapter contains a long experience followed by a series of vignettes though considering how the material was collected, it's understandable why it was done this way, but the stories contained are more than worthwhile, showing the complexity and variety of experiences, both good and bad, that Koreans had during the Japanese occupation.
It is a testament that history should never be drawn in broad strokes, its a beautiful yet sometimes soulcrushing read, and a great way to view firsthand what life was like under japanese occupation, I learned more about my own family through the experiences of others, .