Sad Peninsula Read Online Free PDF Page A

teachers’ patience. Questions like: Why can’t I eat rice while sitting at my desk? Why must I ask before I can go to the bathroom? But also: Why do we stand each day at the beginning of class to sing the Kimigayo , the Japanese national anthem? Why is there a picture of Emperor Hirohito on the wall above the blackboard? Why must we bow to it several times when we finish singing? And why have you given me a Japanese name — Meiko ? I hate this name. It sounds so babyish. This is not the name my mother calls me. It alarmed the girl how forcefully her teachers could quash those plaintive whys, cut them off before they were even all the way out of her mouth.
    Despite these mysterious dead ends, the little girl did enjoy studying. Her first year was her favourite because they got to learn how to read and write Hangul — the Korean language that her family spoke in the privacy of their home. It enraptured Meiko to watch her tiny hand convert words and phrases into script, a multitude of tiny circles and tents and perpendicular dashes. Doing it correctly, getting full marks on her workbook, filled Meiko with greedy pride. And yet, in Grade Two, things inexplicably changed. All of a sudden, the girls were not allowed to write or even speak Korean. If one of them was caught doing so, the teacher would make her stand in the corner under the picture of Hirohito and hold a metal pail heavy with pebbles over her head. “You’re not babies anymore,” the teacher would tell the rest of the class while the offending girl, head down, struggled in the corner to keep the pail upright. “It’s time to leave your childish habits behind.”
    So every class became in some way about Japan. The girls learned to read and write its language. In geography class, they memorized Japan’s islands and major cities. They learned about the bodies of water surrounding the nation, including the one that led to its colony of Korea, the very colony they lived on, but the geography for which they were taught nothing. By Grade Four, the girls began learning Japanese history. They were told of how Japan had generously taken over the “administration” of the Korean peninsula in 1910 with the idea of leading its illiterate peasants toward an overdue modernization. This, they were taught, was part of an even grander initiative that Japan, in its infinite graciousness, had taken upon itself throughout the wider region, a program called “the Co-prosperity Sphere in Asia.” This involved Japan overseeing the administration of less-evolved nations all around the Pacific Rim (the teacher pointed to these countries on her map), to insulate and expand the Oriental way of life in the face of growing influences from the West. The teacher spoke as if this were her nation’s greatest accomplishment, its gift to the world. Meiko raised a hand. If the Co-prosperity Sphere was so great, then why had all-out war erupted between Japan and China the previous year? (Meiko had, after all, overheard her parents arguing about it: the conflict had increased her father’s hours at the munitions plant and also threw into doubt the future of Meiko’s two older brothers.) The young teacher, usually a tight drum of calm, grew instantly enraged by these questions. She stomped over and began screaming into Meiko’s face in a flurry of Japanese that came too fast to follow. She then struck Meiko around the head with her pointing stick, dragged her by the collar of her dress to the corner, filled the pail with a double helping of pebbles and made her hold it over her shoulders for the remainder of the class.
    Despite these cruelties, Meiko could not deny how much she enjoyed being smart. She loved to pore over a text, to memorize fascinating facts and fill out answers in her workbook, even if they were all in Japanese. The knowledge she gained gave her an advantage over the children in her neighbourhood who did not get to