Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945

Preface and Acknowledgments

xiii In the process of writing this book, I have realized anew that some, if not all, history is autobiographical. This preface is thus a way for me both to acknowledge that truism and to thank the many individuals whom I have met along the arduous but rewarding path of producing a scholarly monograph. I am often asked in South Korea and Japan as well as in the United States and elsewhere why a white American-born scholar—more specifically, of Jewish ancestry—would decide to write a book about the Japanese rule of colonial Korea and its capital city. My usual answer to that ethnocentric question is to say, “Well, of course! Now, let me tell you my story.” As are all serendipitous experiences, the path leading to this study began in unexpected ways. Looking back on that journey with the perspective of hindsight, I can now say that it started by befriending several Japanese exchange students living in Corrientes , Argentina (where I was an exchange student), and in Milwaukee , Wisconsin (where I attended high school). Hoping to better interact with these friends and their compatriots, I chose to minor in Japanese language and literature at The George Washington University, a decision that subsequently took me to Osaka as an exchange student between 1993 and 1995. A childhood neighbor (the Florsheims) with business connections to an Osaka merchant (the Yasudas) led me to pursue a homestay in the southern part of the city, a meeting ground for the country’s disenfranchised ethnic and class minorities, including burakumin outcastes, resident Koreans, paupers, and gangsters, to Preface and Acknowledgments xiv | Preface and Acknowledgments identify just a few. That experience—of being surrounded by nearly invisible minorities, but ones clearly known and implicitly despised by at least some of my Japanese friends due to their “unfortunate” residence (i.e., my own neighborhood of Hanazono-cho -)—forced me to think seriously about the spatial dimensions of power relations, including my own positionality as an upwardly mobile queer “Jewbu” (Jewish-Buddhist) and, of course, much more. It also led me to master the Korean language and to become a specialist of the peninsula’s recent past, especially that of one of its most important contact zones. Assimilating Seoul is one attempt to understand the social and cultural relations of Japanese rule through the city’s lived spaces. I also hope that this book can be read for what it says about wider themes animating the critical humanities, ones that ultimately pertain to my life and those of others both like and unlike me. As this brief description of the project’s serendipitous genesis suggests , the many people and institutions who have made it possible are numerous and far-flung. Words alone cannot do justice to the immense debt of gratitude I feel for those who have guided, taught, supported, and loved me along this wonderful journey of discovery. I first want to thank Sonja Ivanovich, my high school social studies teacher, and my college Japanese instructors, Kimura Takeo and Fukui Nanako, for opening my horizons well beyond the boundaries of the US nation-state. All of them remain role models for my pedagogical and scholarly work. Iwasaki (formerly, Kato -) Wakako, Tateiwa Taro -, Shimada Yo -hei, Kuwahira Eiji, and their respective families have been loyal friends and generous hosts for more than twenty years. At Sophia University in Tokyo where I was a Japanese government–supported master’s student from 1996 until 1999, I had the good fortune of working with Miwa Kimitada, Takahashi Hisashi, and Kate Nakai Wildman, all of whom taught me much about modern Japan, especially in relation to its East Asian neighbors. At UCLA, where I completed my PhD in 2006, my advisors were and continue to be unfailing sources of wisdom, support, and friendship. The early loss of the brilliant and inspiring Miriam Silverberg , the person who opened the door for me to become a professional historian, has been an especially painful burden to bear, but she would be happy to know that her feisty spirit lives on in me and so many of her students. John Duncan and Namhee Lee expanded my horizons of Korean history, pulling me backward and forward into the pre- and postcolonial periods. I thank both of them for their generosity and support over the years, and I am proud to claim myself as part of Preface and Acknowledgments | xv the “Westwood faction...