ID :
19510
Mon, 09/15/2008 - 12:11
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/19510
The shortlink copeid
Memorial event held in Fukuoka for Korean victims of 1945 typhoon
KITAKYUSHU, Japan, Sept. 14 Kyodo - A group of citizens held a memorial event Sunday in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, for Korean people who died in a powerful typhoon as they were returning to their homeland from Japan by sea shortly after World War II.
The participants in the event, held in Odayamabochi graveyard, listened to a lecture about relations between Japan and the Korean Peninsula and music played on traditional Korean instruments, and offered flowers to comfort the spirits of the victims.
A cenotaph was erected by the city in the graveyard in 1990 in response to calls from citizen groups to honor the around 80 Korean victims buried there.
The monument is surrounded by rose of Sharon, South Korea's national flower,
and a signboard nearby carries an explanation in both Japanese and Korean.
According to Yoshiaki Kawamoto, a member of the executive committee for the
annual memorial event, many Koreans came to live and work in Kitakyushu because
the western Japan city is close to the Korean Peninsula. Some were forced to
come during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula.
The Koreans formed a community in Kitakyushu's Wakamatsu Ward, which had a port
that shipped coal. After the war ended, some of them tried to return to the
Korean Peninsula but died as the powerful Makurazaki typhoon hit Japan on Sept.
17, 1945, leaving over 3,000 people dead and missing.
''Over 100 bodies were washed ashore, believed to be those of Korean victims of
the typhoon,'' said Kawamoto, a 65-year-old former teacher.
They were buried in a place which later became the Odayamabochi graveyard. The
site had been abandoned for about 30 years before a Korean man who had helped
to carry the bodies told a research group that the victims had been buried
there.
Since the 1990s, teachers and university students from South Korea have visited
the graveyard on study tours.
Ju Mon Hong, a priest of a Korean church in Kitakyushu, has guided the visitors
for over 10 years.
''Younger generation South Koreans don't know much about the fact that many
Koreans were not able to return to the peninsula after the war and, even more,
that some of them died on the way,'' said Ju, 53, who believes that such study
tours provide a good opportunity to learn about the sad history of Koreans in
Japan.
Eidai Hayashi, a 74-year-old nonfiction writer, said, ''It's very meaningful
that some Japanese continue to mourn at the memorial with feelings of regret. I
think the victims would appreciate it.''
==Kyodo
The participants in the event, held in Odayamabochi graveyard, listened to a lecture about relations between Japan and the Korean Peninsula and music played on traditional Korean instruments, and offered flowers to comfort the spirits of the victims.
A cenotaph was erected by the city in the graveyard in 1990 in response to calls from citizen groups to honor the around 80 Korean victims buried there.
The monument is surrounded by rose of Sharon, South Korea's national flower,
and a signboard nearby carries an explanation in both Japanese and Korean.
According to Yoshiaki Kawamoto, a member of the executive committee for the
annual memorial event, many Koreans came to live and work in Kitakyushu because
the western Japan city is close to the Korean Peninsula. Some were forced to
come during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula.
The Koreans formed a community in Kitakyushu's Wakamatsu Ward, which had a port
that shipped coal. After the war ended, some of them tried to return to the
Korean Peninsula but died as the powerful Makurazaki typhoon hit Japan on Sept.
17, 1945, leaving over 3,000 people dead and missing.
''Over 100 bodies were washed ashore, believed to be those of Korean victims of
the typhoon,'' said Kawamoto, a 65-year-old former teacher.
They were buried in a place which later became the Odayamabochi graveyard. The
site had been abandoned for about 30 years before a Korean man who had helped
to carry the bodies told a research group that the victims had been buried
there.
Since the 1990s, teachers and university students from South Korea have visited
the graveyard on study tours.
Ju Mon Hong, a priest of a Korean church in Kitakyushu, has guided the visitors
for over 10 years.
''Younger generation South Koreans don't know much about the fact that many
Koreans were not able to return to the peninsula after the war and, even more,
that some of them died on the way,'' said Ju, 53, who believes that such study
tours provide a good opportunity to learn about the sad history of Koreans in
Japan.
Eidai Hayashi, a 74-year-old nonfiction writer, said, ''It's very meaningful
that some Japanese continue to mourn at the memorial with feelings of regret. I
think the victims would appreciate it.''
==Kyodo
