SENIOR THESIS
A REGION AT ODDS:
An Analysis of the Conflict between Japan and Korea
ABSTRACT
The two nations in East Asia, Japan and Korea, have maintained a hostile relationship due to the historical hatred for decades. Despite the fact that the two nations have shared cultures historically, the rise of imperialism led Japan to colonize other neighboring nations. During this period, the wartime crimes of comfort women, forced labour, and suicide squads, left nothing but deep scars Korea. However, the Japanese government tends to deny the impact of these events and refuses to officially apologize to Korea for the atrocities. Two nations were not able to resolve the conflicts, and it ultimately became a significant work for today’s generations to overcome.
BIOGRAPHY
Hi, I am Peter Kong and a senior at Wakefield school, the plains. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to America when I was in 7th grade. This year, I had great opportunity to develop my interests over modern history of Korea for my senior thesis. Despite of the fact that, I had spent most of my life time in Korea, I was not fully aware of the accurate history. However, as I continued to research on my paper, I not only was able to acknowledge the fact that historical grudges still result various conflicts between Japan and Korea until today, but also ashamed of myself for not understanding accurate history. From this work, I learned that current generations of two nations are responsible to resolve the conflicts over historical conflicts because the reconciliation will eventually help both korea and Japan immensely.
QUESTIONS
1.What are the early twentieth century history of Korea (Korean war and colonization
period)?
2. How do the autocracies committed by Japanese government to colonies create the
conflicts until nowaday?
3. Why do Japan need to apologize officially to the colonies for the wartime crimes?
4. How do the historical grudges initiated from twentieth century still affect today, and
what other new conflicts did it create?
5. How do the younger generation of Koreans and Japanese view the current
relationships of two nations? How can the resolve it?
SELF EVALUATION
What I learned from the project
INFORMATIVE SPEECH
As I was working on my thesis, the most interesting thing that I have learned about the topic was the brutality of the war and people's different perspective towards the period of Japanese occupation in early twentieth century. Despite the fact that Korean War is relatively familiar topic to me who was born and raised in South Korea, from this research, I was able to take closer look on the brutality of the war through reliable statistics and personal experiences from the veterans. In addition, another topic that interested me the most was the different perspective of Korean occupation. Even though it was irrefutable fact that during the period many Koreans were persecuted by the Japanese both physically and mentally, some people viewed the term as a significant opportunity for Korea in terms of modernization. At first, I began to work on my thesis only on Korean War. However, as I continue my research, the Japanese occupation was another topic that immensely attracted me. Currently, not only I am gathering all the informations about both Japanese occupation and Korean war, but also, working on the transition between two periods; Korean War and Japanese occupation. I think I am moving forwards significantly once my topic was set. In terms of my performances, I have collected enough sources about personal experiences of veterans and the history of Korean War. However, I still need to research more about Japanese occupation and its effects. I think the research has gone well for me due to the fact that was familiar with the topics and I was also able to receive the informations from my grandparents who have gone through the periods. However, the aspects of the process that have been the most challenging for me is to find the informations that expresses the neutral perspective towards the Japanese occupation. Thus, in order to address the challenges I have combined both perspectives to stand neutral.
PERSUASIVE ESSAY 1 & 2
The first trimester of this year, I began research about history of Korea and wrote a paper. While I was mainly focused on the perspectives and the actual experiences of the Korean war veterans, I was able to approach differently for the second trimester. Instead of focusing on the causes and effects of the Korean war(Due to the conflicts of two different ideology), I focused on the autocrises committed by Japan such as comfort women and forced labour camp. To be honest, unlike I was very aware with the topic “Korean War” and its consequences, I did not have much of the details during the period under control of Japan. However, as I continued to develop my paper, I was able to learn about the scars of my ancestors from early twentieth century and allow to reflect myself how immature I was in terms of acknowledging the history of my country. Like it mentioned previously, I was briefly aware with the fact that the South Korea had been colonized by Japan for several decades, I never imagined the period under Japan to be as terrible as I researched. Among various autocrices committed by Japan during the wartime, the comfort women who were forced to become a sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers during the war, led me to think about how blessed I am to live in this current generations and remind myself to never forget ancestors who inevitably had to go through the period. Moreover, the unfortunate realities of Japanese government attempts to hide the accurate history through distorted education, once again taught me the lessons of not forgetting the history and acknowledging the importance of understanding the accurate history.
RESEARCH PAPER & INTERVIEW
I believe the fourth and fifth assignments led me to develop my thesis topic over modern history of South Korea more deeply. Despite of the fact that I wasn't plan to research on the perspectives of young generations from both nations at first, I was able to learn that the historical grudges ,which should be resolve peacefully in the future, are still deeply remains until today as I continue the assignments. If I have chance to do my thesis again, I would want to focus on other nations point of view on the conflicts between Korea and Japan. For instance, I would like to initiate research on does global society views the Dokdo Island issues. The most important thing I have learned this year is the importance of acknowledging accurate history. Understanding and having proper historical view points will not only encourage today's generations to move more forward, but also prevent similar mistakes from past to occur once again in future.