This year marks the 70th anniversary of Korea's independence from Japan. The two countries are hard at work, albeit belatedly, trying to come up with mutually satisfying way to mark the occasion. An ideal formula would include reconciliation over the past and a deep vision for future camaraderie. Given the on-again, off-again postwar relations between the two neighbors, many observers are carefully watching the steps Seoul and Tokyo take.
The score card thus far shows mixed results. While summit meetings have yet to be held, Korea made a compromise for Japan's successful UNESCO bid for the Meiji-era industrial facilities to be named as world heritage sites. While a resolution of the comfort women issue remains at an impasse, a Sankei reporter was permitted to return to Japan after his months-long defamation battle in court. Whilst Korea is expecting a thoughtful apology and honest admissions of past wrongs, Prime Minister Abe reportedly remarked that Korea almost always concedes to Japan's terms as long as it stands firm.
These confusing signals boil down to strategic miscalculations and misreading of each other's stance. Should reconciliation entail emotive aspects, a method for meaningful fence-mending should be accompanied by heartfelt inspiration.
Here we have the beautiful, yet little known, example of Ms. Tauchi Chizuko, the "Japanese mother of Korean orphans." She was born in the Wakamatsu City of Kochi Prefecture in 1912. Tauchi and her mother moved to the Korean peninsula in 1918 to join her father, a colonial government official, in the port city of Mokpo. All her schooling took place in Mokpo where she benefitted from the privileged colonial education reserved for Japanese citizens.
Tauchi's speaking with Mr. Takao Matsutaro, her high school English teacher, alerted her to the harsh colonial realities. Upon her graduation from high school in 1929, Tauchi began her work as a music teacher at the Jungmyung Girls' High School. After 3 years of teaching, she developed an ovarian cystic tumor, and underwent a surgery which required a prolonged period of hospitalization.
Upon recovery Takao suggested Tauchi volunteer at the orphanage located on the City periphery. She began teaching the Korean orphans music and the Japanese language. The facility, Gongsaengwon, was run by Yoon Chi Ho, known as the "leader of beggars." Chi Ho and Tauchi were married in 1938. He was 29 and she was 26 years of age. The couple produced 4 children together.
Japan's defeat in 1945 brought harsh reality for the Japanese living in Korea. In the post-liberation chaos, the couple became the target of anti-Japanese campaigns. Tauchi decided to return to Japan in 1946. After living in her hometown for two years, Tauchi and the children returned to the Gongsaengwon in 1948.
Upon returning to the orphanage, Tauchi started a new life in liberated Korea. She never uttered a word of Japanese since then, and began wearing traditional Korean dress in daily life. She also changed her name from Tauchi Chizuko to Yoon Hak Ja. She put her own children in the orphans' compartments and began treating them equally with the rest of the orphanage's children.
Only two years after her return to the peninsula, the Korean War broke out in 1950. When Mokpo was under the control of the North Korean Army, the couple was put on summary trial as pro-Japanese anti-revolutionaries. The couple, later on, was accused of being communist-sympathizers when the city was recovered by the South Korean Army. Her husband, Chi Ho, never returned to Gongsaengwon after going to the adjacent city of Gwangju to find food for the orphans. The number of orphans was increasing day by day as the war was getting more violent.
Tauchi began taking care of the orphans on her own. During the three-year war period (1950-53), she provided shelter and other basic necessities to the thousands of Korean War orphans. After years of hard work, Tauchi passed away on October 31, 1968 on her 56th birthday. She raised more than 3,000 Korean orphans in her lifetime.
Inspiring figures are not rare, and most of them do not survive the erosive powers of time. Tauchi's life story connotes something meaningful and worthy of remembering for Koreans. The 70th commemoration should touch upon ‘something' in order to instill common and binding inspirations for the people of Korea and Japan. Words can lie, but actions never do.
Kim Mi-kyoung is associate professor at Hiroshima City University-Hiroshima Peace Institute. She can be reached at mkkim_33@hotmail.com.