The Girl With Seven Names Analysis

Lost Names portrays Japanese colonial rule in Korea from 1933 to 1945. It illustrates the harsh experiences that many Koreans faced under Japanese rule and occupation. Each chapter tells a different story. It begins with the narrator retelling his experience of crossing into Manchuria at one year old. It then follows the narrator’s life experiences until their liberation in 1945. Throughout the novel, Japanese suppression leads to the loss of cultural identity for the occupied Koreans. Koreans come to question what it means to be Korean. The loss of cultural identity is illustrated through the title of the book, Lost Names. Also, the family is forced to adopt Japanese names. As subjects to the great Japanese Emperor, Koreans are forced to

The main characters go through character development in the novel, maturing in both their thoughts and state of mind. After facing the intense guilt from thinking that her uncle was going to be caught by the Japanese government, Sun-hee makes sure to not jump to conclusions: “Tae-yul was going to be a kamikaze...But maybe I was wrong. Remember Tomo-remember Uncle. I’d been so sure, and had made a terrible mistake. Don’t make a mistake this time” (Park 143). After her uncle had run away because of her misinterpretation of a warning, Sun-hee had blamed herself, not trusting anything she thought. Instead of completely discrediting her thoughts, she only warned herself to think it through more. Her careful mindset allowed her to confirm her Korean identity and that her culture had to be protected. This maturity gave her the freedom in knowing her thoughts about her culture were well-thought-out. Tae-yul’s growth is evident by his body language and reactions to certain events. Near the beginning of the story, he is

As a result of the regimes isolationist policy the people of North Korea suffered greatly in both mental and physical health. The hold the state had over the beliefs of the citizens presented in “Nothing to Envy”, varied from absolute belief to uncomfortable awareness. The reader is presented often with Mrs. Song’s dedication to the regime, and Kim Il-sung himself. A mother of four she was often gone from home, working and attending ideological training sessions. “Fridays she stayed especially late for self-criticism. In these sessions members of her work unit- the department to which she was assigned- would reveal to the group anything they had done wrong—Mrs. Song would usually say, in all sincerity, that she feared she wasn’t working hard enough” (Pg. 43).When Kim Il-sung died, she

In writing Escaping North Korea Mike Kim brought to light the struggles North Koreans face in North Korea, then escaping, and seeking asylum. Kim, before working on the China-Korea boarder, had his own financial planning business but one trip to China changed his world drastically. After hearing the stories of North Korean refugees, Kim found his calling to help these refugees escape a tyrant leadership and create a new life for themselves. Kim in writing Escaping North Korea described his experiences in aiding these refugees escape a repressive country. Escaping North Korea addresses the aspects of life in North Korea that led for them to escape, the problems they face once crossing to China and the

My nonfiction book is called “I Have Lived a Thousand Years” and the author’s name is Livia Bitton-Jackson. This book is about a girl named Elli Friedmann who is Jewish. She lives during the time of the Holocaust, were she was taken to many concentration camps. She went from a normal life to being a prisoner in camps, where she was treated so horribly. She is sick, hungry, and having to take care of mother, which she needs her to stay alive. She meets new people, and sees relatives that sadly are taken away. She learns how to stay strong during these hard times, and she has to fight threw everything to stay alive.

In this work, Kang’s family is living in North Korea when he and his family are sent to Yodok prison camp for the supposed crimes of his grandfather. It is important to note that Kang was only nine years of age at the time. He, his young sister, his grandmother, his father, and his uncle were sent to Yodok where they were placed in a cold hut and immediately forced to learn how to survive without the amenities they were accustomed to in

North Korea’s prison camps are extremely horrifying. A decade later after World War l, North Korea established its own system of prison camps (Szoldra). As same as concentration camps, prisoners were inhumanly punished. Since then, prison conditions in North Korea are horrendous and not tolerated by prisoners as well as their family members and society. North Korea’s prison systems not only frightened the prisoners, but the society as well. Because of the issues generated by North Korea’s horrifying prison conditions have not only been serious problems in history but also today, this issue is being resolve by the collaboration of society.

She found a group of people that she belonged with and when her bone graft surgery that gave her the shape of a normal chin was complete she discovered that wasn’t what she wanted. She traveled out of the country to find a belonging in Europe with her art and

Lost Names: Scenes From A Korean Boyhood by Richard E. Kim is an autobiographical fictionalization of the author’s youth in Japanese occupied Manchuria. Though not a traditional autobiography, the author tells his own story through the eyes of a nameless young man. The story takes place between 1932 and 1945. The young man grows and changes from the start of the novel to the end and meditates on the nature of war, family, duty and education among other things. However, the most important aspect of the novel is the way in which it portrays the Japanese occupation and the state of the main character’s family as a result of it.

She risked her life and freedom to escape from North Korea and lead a better life for her and her family. In Hyeonseo Lee's manuscript she states on page 2, "I Impulsively stood up, and I told him that these are deaf and dumb people that I was chaperoning. " The way she came up with an excuse on the spot was extremely creative. If she wasn't so creative then her and her families life could have been in danger. If the excuse seemed fake her family would have been forced to take the Chinese test and they would have failed which results in imprisonment or death.

She was forced away from her family and was supposed to become a child soldier with no questions that you can ask them. Loung’s six siblings were taken to labor camps and there they were being forced

Jun-sang was one of the interviewed defectors and was the son of two relatively wealthy Japanese parents, which leads to an issue of equality in terms of class. In an attempt for North Korea to be the “true” Korea, they tried to remove any foreign influence. As a result, there was a lot of hatred against Japanese collaborators. Japanese Koreans that were prominent in society were purged, which perhaps meant being sent to the gulag (Demick 35). As a result, Jun-sang’s family is already at a disadvantage socially as they are forced to remain in the lower class to

Yi Chongbun, who fell in love with a composer named Kang Ujin is a victim of the Cold War ideologies which forced her to become a political and social mute. Everything seemed to fit perfectly for Chongbun to form a stable family with her lover who is a successful composer and their seven-month-old infant son. However, when the Korean War broke out, Kang Ujin joined a communist party in the South. As Kang became a member of the Southern Communist Party, Chongbun's relationship with him was now forbidden and thus, she was forced by her family to cut ties with him. Chongbun refused to listen to her family's orders regardless of their threats and brutal beating. She was certain and firm on her decision to stay with her lover and child, until she was eventually beaten by her family members in Kojin. At the end, Yi Chongbun had to leave her infant son in Kojin and was forced to marry another man when she came back to Seoul. This tragic incident left her scarred for life, it caused her to lose everything she had and isolated her not only from the family but from the society as well. A complete isolation forced her to keep her past as a deep

In China, her father passed away from a generalized cancer and they didn’t found her older sister yet. Her mother and herself were trapped in the human trafficking network, living in the fear of being caught by the Chinese authorities and being send back to North Korea. To have a decent job, they needed identification card, but it’s obviously hard to get. In that dead end, rumors of people fleeing through Mongolia to reach South Korea got to their ears. They decided to take the risk.

Hyeonseo Lee gave a presentation on TED Talk entitled, “My Escape from North Korea”, summarizing about her life in North Korea. She was born and raised there and sing patriotic songs. All the history books told her that North Korea was the best country in the world. As she got older, a famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990’s. Although, she never experienced starvation, she witnessed the events first hand. This was the pushing point for Hyeonseo, who decided to leave North Korea. Due to China and North Korea’s stringent border policies and the Chinese government immigration policy, the life of a North Korean refugee is challenging and extremely risky. They risk being deported back to the very country that they escaped from. There are reports and stories about the violation of human rights and labor camps in North Korea. She would live in China for ten years before moving to South Korea. Hyeonseo was forced to help her family escape from North Korea. The regime caught Hyeonseo for sending money to her family. Lee’s family to be relocated by the order of the North Korean government. She needed to smuggle them through China to a South Korean embassy in Laos. Unfortunately, Hyeonseo Lee’s story won’t be the last we hear about the abysmal conditions in North Korea. There are, potentially millions more, stories detailing the humanitarian disaster in the country and we must take steps to prepare for the eventual collapse of the country.