이진희 - 해협: 한 재일 사학자의 반세기

Most of the books in the Korean Church bookshelf are in poor condition. While I was looking for a book that was in a better condition, I came across an autobiography of a Korean historian who had lived most of his life in Japan. For some time, I've felt the need to approach Korean history as I do to English history in my A-level courses, so this book looked like a good start.

He was born in Gimhae but moved to Japan during WW2. In Japan, while he taught in Korean schools, he studied Korean archaelogy, and went to become a professor in various universities in Japan. His main motivation in his life were to preserve a national identity for the Koreans living in Japan and use archaeology to correct any wrong historical theory between Korea and Japan.

The book gave me an insight to the life of an intellectual. It isn't an attractive life to pursue; it doesn't make you into a millionaire or a celebrity. The life of an intellectual only makes sense if you have a strong sense of duty and responsibility to achieve something, and studying and researching is the way of achieving that. At first, I was skeptical about how interesting a life of an historian/archaeologist could be, but as I read on, I saw how he used his profession to try correct the flawed history regarding Korea in Japanese textbooks, and I came to think that such life was one worth living.

The book also gave me a first hand account of the Cold War. Before, I had thought that socialism/communism was the obvious evil, and that only the poor and the uneducated supported it. However, the author was a committed socialist, as were many of his fellow intellectuals, and they all supported North Korea after WW2 until by the 1970s they realized how Kim Il-Sung had perverted the ideals of socialism. Also, although I was aware of the dictatorship and terror in South Korea before 1980s, I didn't know that the situation was on par with that of North Korea. The two Korean governments were almost equally ruthless, and it was only recently that South Korea became more democratic and safe.

Although this book is hardly famous, it taught me a great deal. This book inspires me to read as much as possible, regardless of the fame of the author; all books teach me something.