Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1970

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Scene 2

Scenes 3-4

Scenes 5-7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Scenes 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Scene 3 Summary: “Once Upon a Time, on a Sunday”

On a late-August Sunday morning, Mrs. Kim wakes Kim up early for chores. She is pregnant, and Kim hopes for a little brother—he has a sister already. They stay at a cottage by the family apple orchards during the summer, visiting Kim’s grandparents in town on Sundays.

Kim received a bicycle from his maternal uncles for becoming class leader in third grade. He and his father typically ride alongside the oxcart Mrs. Kim and Kim’s sister are riding in. Mr. Kim goes on ahead to supervise the market, and Kim rides until he is out of breath and gets on the oxcart.

On Sundays, all school children must attend a morning assembly for the Japanese principal’s lecture and calisthenic exercises. This also ensures that the Christian children are unable to attend church. Class leaders have to stay even longer to help out with whatever tasks the teachers assign them.

Kim scans the vast apple orchard, then he calls for his father, who calls back that he is coming. The family goes to town to have breakfast with Kim’s grandparents. Kim rushes through breakfast, eager to get to school to catch up with his friends.

A large, slow transfer student has attached himself to Kim, his class leader. The boy’s brother was forced to join the military. The Japanese “are now allowing Koreans to volunteer for their army. Special Volunteer Soldiers, they call those young Koreans” (69). The boy is not confident that his brother will return alive. This makes Kim worry about his own uncle. The boy gives Kim a homemade slingshot.

Kim tells his father about the boy, and Mr. Kim sends the boy’s family apples and white rice. The boy brings it up in school, and the other students are amazed by the fact that Kim’s family has white rice—a scarce commodity—every day. Kim’s eyes well up “from embarrassment, from shame, or from sympathy” (70). Kim looks at the other boys and thinks about how they are all going to lose their names.

School is exclusively in Japanese. Kim’s Korean teacher has him help hang up new world maps, indicating the countries Japan is allied with, the ones it is at war with, and the sites of important battles. The main change appears to be a treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union. The teacher unexpectedly asks about Kim’s father. Mr. Kim is taking Kim to the bookstore after church. The teacher timidly hopes to meet them there.

Kim and his father browse the bookstore. Mr. Kim will allow him to buy one book a week. The teacher enters the store. Kim greets him in Japanese, but the teacher says it is all right to speak Korean. Mr. Kim dismisses Kim and has a hushed discussion with the teacher in Korean. Mr. Kim tells him “We’ll soon find out” what is going on in the world (75). Germany invades Poland soon after, on September 1, 1939, dragging the world into war. Mr. Kim is disquieted that America declares itself neutral.

Mr. Kim and the bookstore owner discuss the fact that all grades will soon be taught in Japanese. The owner berates Kim’s teacher for betraying his people, language, and culture. Kim watches his teacher “shrinking, as it were, in stature and manliness in the presence of the two men—the two most illustrious members of the small elite in town who have been to college” (76). Kim feels sorry for him.

Mr. Kim tells them to have patience and to wait for a revelation that will shed light on the events to come. When they leave, Kim remarks that his teacher was crying. Kim helps a tenant farmer, a bachelor who plans to get married. Mr. Kim will give him a piece of land when he does. Kim and the farmer share cooked beans and joke together about the farmer’s marriage prospects. Kim’s world is serene, and the war feels distant. That night in bed, however, he thinks of the vastness of the world, and of his teacher’s tears, and he begins to cry.

Scene 4 Summary: “Lost Names”

February is the harshest month of winter in Kim’s region. On a cold, gray morning, Kim watches the new tenant farmer, who replaced the other one who recently got married. Mrs. Kim is away in Pyongyang, visiting family with Kim’s new baby sister. Kim and his six-year-old sister discuss this.

Kim is ashamed of eating white rice with his lunch at school every day. His sister tries to use it as blackmail. He later breaks down about this to Mr. Kim. Th other boys in class tease him and steal his lunch because their families are too poor to afford white rice. Kim feels as though he is showing off. Mr. Kim understands. The Japanese exploit the Koreans, forcing them to sell rice and meat at low prices to feed the Japanese mainland. This is especially atrocious to Kim’s grandmother, who views food as an indicator of stability. Many farmers have ceased growing crops and raising livestock beyond what they need to survive to avoid the requisitioning of their labors.

Kim heads to school with the three pieces of firewood he is required, as class leader, to bring. The other students must bring two. Kim’s teacher is a thin, poetic Japanese man nicknamed “Chopstick.” Chopstick announces that today he must have his class’s new names; those who have not chosen new names will be sent home to do so. Kim is the only one dismissed.

Kim recalls the freezing day when his father and his friends, including the bookstore owner, walked to the police station in traditional Korean garb to have their names changed. Everyone in attendance, including the presiding Japanese officer, treat Mr. Kim with deference. Kim watches as an old man is given a random Japanese name because he will not pick one. Mr. Kim chooses “Iwamoto” as their new family name. Mr. Kim tells his son to take a good look at the scene and to never forget it. After the class’ new names are submitted, they have to go to the Shinto shrine to pray for the Luftwaffe pilots in the Battle of Britain. The Shinto priest tells them to “report to the gods and the Emperor our new names” (99).

Chopstick dismisses the class early and escorts Kim home. To Kim’s surprise, the young Japanese teacher apologizes to Mr. Kim. He says, “Even the British wouldn’t have thought of doing this sort of primitive thing in India” (100). He apologizes to Mr. Kim on behalf of their common Asian ancestors; they agree that the whole world has gone back to a darker time. They bow to each other, and Chopstick leaves. Mr. Kim says that Chopstick’s behavior is a first step. He tells Kim that one day, he hopes Kim’s generation forgives the older generations. Kim does not know what this means, but he promises to do so. They then go to visit the cemetery; Kim realizes that it is a day of mourning.

Kim’s ancestors, less prosperous than his living family, are interred in the commoner’s burying grounds. Kim’s grandfather kneels before the family graves and begs for their forgiveness. He and Mr. Kim openly weep. They drink cups of rice wine in front of the graves. An old man weeps bitterly. Kim is suddenly disgusted with the behavior of the adults in the graveyard. He wonders if a time will ever come when the old generations will not have to apologize to the newer ones. Mr. Kim tells him that this is another first step.

Scenes 3-4 Analysis

In the stories in this section, Kim becomes acclimated to life in Japanese-occupied Korea and begins to develop a rebellious streak, tempered by a growing capacity for empathy. He demonstrates his empathy in the way he cries for the timid teacher, and the way he treats the large boy at school. The influence Mr. Kim holds over his community becomes more apparent. While Kim still does not know what his father did to land himself in prison during his college years, his esteem for his father is such that Mr. Kim is a hero to his son. The scene in the bookstore in “Once Upon a Time, on a Sunday” emphasizes how important Mr. Kim is to the community.

Kim’s timid teacher demonstrates the conflict felt by many Koreans working for the colonial oppressors. The new maps Kim helps the teacher hang in the classroom demonstrate the confusion and uncertainty prior to the start of World War II. Previously, an alliance against communism is what united Japan, Italy, and Germany. The USSR and Japan fought over territory in Manchuria and Mongolia and were thus considered enemies. However, a treaty forged by Germany and the USSR, depicted on the new map, means that Japan and the Soviets could be de facto allies. Kim’s teacher, a young man of 22, is unable to provide Kim with adequate answers for what this means for occupied Korea. The teacher received his education through the same Japanese-sponsored public-school system where he now works and now teaches exclusively in Japanese. To the bookstore owner, this represents a great betrayal to his language, culture, and community.

This section depicts the various ways that the Japanese subjugated the Korean people by attempting to erase their culture, as well as the ways the Koreans resist this erasure. In addition to forcing Korean children to learn solely in Japanese and forcing all Koreans to take on Japanese surnames, school children were indoctrinated in Shintoism, Imperial Japan’s national religion. Kim and his community practice various forms of Christianity; the animistic practices of Shintoism run contrary to Christian doctrine. Kim foretells the fall of the Shinto shrine at the end of colonial occupation: The townspeople destroy the shrine, revealing within “two wooden sticks to which we have been bowing and praying all those years” (99). To Kim and his fellow Christians, the Shinto dominance proves as flimsy as a stick of wood.

Mr. Kim is a religious man who is proud of his faith and his culture. When forced to adopt a new Japanese surname, he goes to the police station dressed in traditional Korean garb, and chooses the name “Iwamoto,” which he translates as “‘Foundation of Rock,’” evoking Matthew 16:18, “on this rock I will build my church” (98).