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Transpacific Acts of Memory: The Afterlives of Hanako
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2016
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In producing Chungmi Kim's eponymous Hanako (1999), the first Asian American play on the topic of “comfort women,” East West Players (EWP) provided a critical space for addressing this devastating chapter of Asian history and showing its relevance to communities in the United States. It also inadvertently launched the play on a ten-year transpacific journey as Comfort Women (2004) in New York and as Nabi (2005–9) throughout South Korea and Canada. Hanako dramatizes the intergenerational bonds between a Korean American university student, her grandmother, and Korean “comfort women” survivors who travel to New York to give their public testimonies. As the play develops, one learns that the grandmother has been repressing her own memories of enslavement as one of an estimated two hundred thousand young girls and women euphemistically called “comfort women” whom the Japanese Imperial military forced into sexually servicing its troops in the years leading up to and during World War II. Survivors kept their wartime experiences a secret from the public until the early 1990s, when a social movement for redress emerged in Asia. Over the past two and a half decades, activists and artists from around the world have joined survivors in their quest for justice. The recent agreement in 2015 between South Korea and Japan to “resolve” the “comfort women” issue sparked outcry from survivors and their supporters for its insincerity and inadequacy, further galvanizing the movement. Hanako and its afterlives as Comfort Women and Nabi are part of the transpacific culture of political activism and artistic expression that contends with the ongoing struggle over the history of “comfort women.”
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Endnotes
1. Estimates of the number of “comfort women” range from several thousand to two hundred thousand. See Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II, trans. Suzanne O'Brien (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000 [Jugun ianfu, 1995]), 43, 91–4.
2. Hanako, Comfort Women, and Nabi join a flourishing body of theatrical work on the history of “comfort women.” Select theatrical representations include Doo-rae Han, A Silent Dirge (Korea, 1993); Gil-cha Hur, Coming and Going at Sundown (Korea, 1996); Miyagi Satoshi, Medea (Japan, 1999); Chen Shi-Zheng, Forgiveness (United States, 2000); Jeany Park, Falling Flowers (United States, 2003); Eve Ensler, “Say It, for the ‘Comfort Women,’” in The Vagina Monologues as part of the V-Day Global Campaign for “Comfort Women” (United States, 2006); Aida Karic, The Trojan Women: An Asian Story (Austria, United States, and Korea, 2007); Haerry Kim, Face (United States and Korea 2009); Hae-sung Lee, Red Poem (Korea, 2013); and Jeong-mo Yoon, Bongseonhwa (Korea and United States, 2013, 2014). These stage productions join an extant body of aesthetic productions representing the history of “comfort women,” including literature, visual art, music, dance, and documentary film.
3. Esther Kim Lee, “Introduction,” in Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas, ed. Esther Kim Lee (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), xvi.
4. East West Players, “Production History & Archive,” accessed 12 June 2015, www.eastwestplayers.org/about/production-history-archive/.
5. Lee makes note of a few exceptions. See Esther Kim Lee, “Introduction,” xvii.
6. Ibid.
7. In her Los Angeles Times article on Chungmi Kim and the story behind Hanako, Diane Haithman writes, “East West Players artistic director Tim Dang says he already was interested in the story of comfort women when Kim sent her script to the theater for consideration. And the play fit, too, because the theater had been looking for ways to reach out to Los Angeles’ fast-growing Korean community.” See Diane Haithman, “Baring the Scars of Shame,” Los Angeles Times, 4 April 1999, accessed 23 April 2015, http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/04/entertainment/ca-23914. EWP has recently reported that Dang will be stepping down in June 2016 after a tenure of almost twenty-three years: East West Players, “Tim Dang to Step Down, Making Way for New Leadership; East West Players to Engage in Year of Transition,” news release, 30 June 2015, accessed 9 February 2016, www.eastwestplayers.org/news/tim-dang-to-step-down-making-way-for-new-leadership/.
8. As quoted in Sam Chu Lin, “A Tragedy Retold,” Asiaweek, 7 May 1999, accessed 23 April 2015, www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/99/0507/feat2.html.
9. Ibid.
10. The season also included Philip Kan Gotanda's Yohen. For more on the season, see East West Players, “Production History & Archive,” accessed 12 June 2015, www.eastwestplayers.org/about/production-history-archive/.
11. Alice Tuan, “The Crisis of Label,” in Theatre in Crisis?: Performance Manifestos for a New Century, edited by Maria M. Delgado and Caridad Svich (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 112–20, at 116.
12. The Comfort Women won the Grand Prize at the University of Southern California (USC) One-Act Play Festival in 1995. It was completed with the Jerome Lawrence Playwright Award from the USC Professional Writing Program and was also a finalist of the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. It was published in D. L. Lepidus, ed., New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2005 (Hanover: Smith & Kraus, 2006), 51–100, where see Lepidus, “Playwright's Biography,” 52; and C. Kim, “From the Playwright,” 54.
13. C. Kim, “From the Playwright,” 54; and Haithman.
14. C. Kim, “From the Playwright,” 54.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Hanako premiered at East West Players on 7 April 1999 as part of the thirty-third season. See also C. Kim, “From the Playwright,” 54.
18. Haithman.
19. Julio Martinez, “Review: Hanako,” Variety, 14 April 1999, accessed 23 April 2015, http://variety.com/1999/film/reviews/hanako-1200457299/.
20. Chungmi Kim, phone conversation with author, 27 May 2015.
21. Urban Stages, founded by Frances Hill, aims to showcase new playwrights. Hill is also interested in plays that “[bring] out the cross-cultures in New York, where we live,” so Urban Stages develops and produces plays by “multiethnic playwrights that speak to the whole of society.” Comfort Women is an example of such a play. See Adrienne Onofri, “Women Who Run the Show: Frances Hill of Urban Stages,” Broadway World, 26 March 2009, accessed 20 October 2010, http://offbroadway.broadwayworld.com/article/Women_Who_Run_the_Show_Frances_Hill_of_Urban_Stages_20090326.
22. Lindsey Wilson, “Comfort Women,” Talkin’ Broadway, 28 October 2004, accessed 20 October 2010, www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/10_28_04.html.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Jenny Sandman, “Comfort Women,” CurtainUp, n.d., accessed 12 August 2015, www.curtainup.com/comfortwomen.html.
26. Dan Bacalzo, “Comfort Women,” TheaterMania, 2 November 2004, accessed 13 August 2015, www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/11-2004/comfort-women_5286.html.
27. Don Shirley, “A Grim Past Lives with Them Still: Hanako Struggles to Capture the Soul-Searing Experiences of WWII ‘Comfort Women,’” Los Angeles Times, 9 April 1999, accessed 19 October 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/09/entertainment/ca-25560.
28. Ibid.
29. The grandmother was not completely forthright with her granddaughter, who thinks her uncle was “drafted into the Japanese Army and got killed during World War II.” The grandmother opens up to the other survivors and tells only them the truth about her brother. See C. Kim, Comfort Women, 61, 69.
30. Kang, Laura Hyun Yi, “Conjuring ‘Comfort Women’: Mediated Affiliations and Disciplined Subjects in Korean/American Transnationality,” Journal of Asian American Studies 6.1 (2003): 25–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 33.
31. C. Kim, Comfort Women, 64.
32. Since the 1990s, Asian American students and organizations have organized fund-raisers and supported visits by survivors to testify at universities.
33. The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan advocated for the South Korean government to provide support for survivors. In 1993, the 일제하 일본군 ‘위안부’ 피해자 생활안정지원법 (Iljeha Ilbongun Wianbu Pihaeja Saenghwaranjeongjiwonbeop; Daily Life Stability Support Act for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan) was passed. The Korean government provides survivors with “housing, living expenses, and free medical services.” See 한국정신대문제대책협의회 (Hanguk Jeongsindae Munje Daechaek Yeobuihoe; The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan), 지울 수 없는 역사, 일본군 ‘위안부’ (Jiul Su Eomneun Yeoksa, Ilbongun Wianbul; History That Can't Be Erased: Japanese Military “Comfort Women”) (Seoul: The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family, 2005), 40.
34. Sang-hun Choe, “Japan and South Korea Settle Dispute Over Wartime ‘Comfort Women,’” New York Times, 29 December 2015, A1.
35. C. Kim, Comfort Women, 64.
36. A typical script for testimonies includes information about where the woman was born, the circumstances in which she entered sexual slavery, her experience during captivity, her return home, and her involvement in the social movement for redress.
37. C. Kim, Comfort Women, 91.
38. Ibid.
39. Nabi means butterfly in Korean. Activists use butterflies as a mascot for the survivors, symbolizing their coming out with their past and their liberation as survivors. Eunmi Bang, the play's director, adds that the character of Jina's grandmother is like a butterfly; when she repressed her past, she was trapped in the “caterpillar stage,” and when she accepted her past, she emerged as a butterfly. Bang also adds that she hopes that the story of survivors as told through her productions will “spread far with the butterfly effect.” Finally, the audience transitions from a “caterpillar” state of ignorance about the past to “butterflies” who know the “truth and follow through with action.” See Eunmi Bang, interview with the author, Seoul, 2 August 2008.
40. Bang interview.
41. Bang told me that a dear friend of hers translated the script, but she would not offer the friend's name. She shared the translations with the playwright, who also offered suggestions.
42. Yoon-young Lee, “연출가와 관객 울린 연극 ‘나비’” (Yeunchulgawa Gwangaek Oohlleen Yeunguk “Nabi”; Tears of the Producers and Audience for Nabi), Yonhap News, 6 May 2005, accessed 9 March 2011, http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=104&oid=001&aid=0000995377.
43. Bang's Arirang Theatre Company first produced the play. They later changed their name to the Nabi Theatre Company. For a review of the production in Vancouver that was presented at the Evergreen Cultural Centre, see Yeonyong An, “위안부 할머니 실화 연극 ‘나비’” (Wianbu Halmeoni Silhwa Yeongeuk Nabi; The True Story of “Comfort Women” Grandmothers in the Drama Nabi), 19 November 2008, accessed 23 April 2015, www.koreatimes.com/article/487414.
44. Bang interview.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. For more on other productions of Nabi in Seoul schools, see Sangdon Pak, “연극 ‘나비’ 서울 6 개 학교서 공연” (Yeongeuk “Nabi” Seoul 6 Gae Hakgyoseo Gongyeon; Performances of the Play “Nabi” at 6 Schools in Seoul), Yonhap News, 8 May 2007, accessed 12 August 2015, http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=103&oid=001&aid=0001629972.
49. Bang interview.
50. Ibid.
51. Postperformance discussion of Nabi, Sookmyung Girls’ High School, 20 July 2007.