Waiting for yesterday UPDATED 이미 이루어졌다

팔 chapter eight- into the past

It happened gradually, writes Ethan, I didn't just wake up one day and change my friends. Being half Korean, I had one Korean friend at school who I'll call M. M was deeply patriotic and we had begun to have arguments that went beyond jostling or even debate. I'd begun to suspect that I was the offspring of a Japanese person. Perhaps a Japanese person and an American. Perhaps I wasn't Korean at all.

If you're Japanese we can't be friends, M said one day jokingly. We'd started arguing then, because I had begun learning about what had happened during the Japanese occupation. The Japanese had indeed assassinated the Korean emperor. They had, under the name of reform, changed Korea's laws. This was what M said. That the Japanese had been doing things under the name of reform. Reform means a change for the better. Japan, which was westernised, had tried to westernise Korea also. Whether the changes were for the better really needs an objective mind looking at the facts. One of the the things they changed was making it so that the emperor had less power. This was supposedly to make things more egalitarian, but was actually a bid for power. At least according to M. If the Korean emperor had less power, Japan could effectively control Korea— her laws, and thus her population. They could find an inroad into completely erasing korean culture.

Another thing the Japanese did was to make it so that widows could remarry. Previously a korean widow, even if she was young, could not remarry and would have to spend the rest of her life serving her in laws, or else commit suicide and be considered a virtuous woman (suicide was considered virtuous here). So personally I thought that this law was a change for the better. I might be male but I believe in rights for women. If my father died, leaving my mother a widow, I would hope that she would be able to experience love or at least companionship again. M however disagreed. M said that it would only open her up to scoundrels who would marry the widow for her wealth and then discard her or take advantage of her her whole life. I have to admit that I could see it from Ms point of view. I had an aunt on my foster mothers side who had fallen prey to a love scam. She's now tens of thousands in debt and she's still in love with the picture of the decorated American soldier that the scammers used, refusing to believe that it was a scam, and has alienated her children. Even today people take advantage of people like that, especially the lonely.

Additionally the Japanese changed the law so that a criminal would be punished alone, not their extended family. Previously in Korea if someone committed a crime their whole family would be punished. This might seem really backwards but I think it would be a good deterrent. The thought of my parents being punished and jailed for something I did would really stop me from doing it. M tried to explain to me that the Japanese were erasing Korean culture. The banning of the wearing of the topknot as a cultural signifier was serious, he said. It wasn't just that. The traditional values of Korean culture were being pushed aside. It was still hard for me to empathise. So many laws that the Japanese changed seemed like progress to me, particularly abolishing child marriage. Even M had to agree that that was undeniably an improvement. Before, children were married off as young as twelve.

I like to think that what happened between M and I was a difference in values but I think to a large extent what really happened was I rejected Asian culture as I was embracing western culture. I started dating a white girl, I'll call her J.

I stop reading then. Do I really want to keep reading, I ask myself. J is obviously Jacinta Jones. My name is Lydia, so J can't possibly be me. Also I'm not a white girl. Ethan likes white girls. Or at least he liked white girls. I don't know about now. I don't know if I should keep reading because I might upset myself.

That's when I see my colleague who has ducked out for a cigarette post lunch. She lights up, and offers me one. I decline, but the smell of the cigarette does something to me. I feel dizzy and strange. I don't know what it is. I suddenly can't stand up properly. This can't be happening, I think. I don't know if it's the news that Ethan, my old crush, likes white girls, that's got me feeling faint, but I suddenly feel faint.

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