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Yang Yonghi
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A documentary traces an ethnic Korean family in Japan, living on both sides of the DMZ
The nationality and residency of second-generation Zainichi Korean Yang Yonghi, 41, is a complicated matter. Zainichi is the term to describe ethnic Koreans in Japan, who have not been granted citizenship, despite some having been there since the beginning of the last century. Yang’s parents, who live in Osaka, chose to take up North Korean citizenship after the division of the two Koreas. Her three brothers carry North Korean nationality as well, and they crossed over to North Korea in 1971, living there ever since. But Yang, now in Tokyo, decided to switch her citizenship to South Korean, completing the paperwork two years ago. "Dear Pyongyang," a documentary released last August, journeys between Pyongyang and Tokyo to tell the intricate story of Mrs. Yang’s family. It is set for its first screening in South Korea this November. A follow-up project received funding from the Pusan International Film Festival as part of money for the production of documentaries by overseas Koreans. The second film will focus on the life of Mrs. Yang’s nephew in Pyongyang.I met Yang on October 15 in Busan. The stories she told me seemed to capture the contradictions and irony of national division in an age of globalization. Her father, Yang Gong-seon, came to Japan from his homeland of Jeju Island with his siblings in 1942 at the age of 15. Though he tried to return home after Korea’s liberation, his mother warned him against going after the April 3, 1947 uprisings, in which many residents of Jeju Island, suspected of being communists, were massacred. Her father chose to take up North Korean citizenship but remain in Japan, eventually becoming a high-ranking officer in Chongryeon, or the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the pro-Pyongyang group of ethnic Koreans in Japan. When Yang was six, her three brothers left for Pyongyang. "I vividly remember people bidding farewell to the boat bound for North Korea at the Port of Nigata," she said. "They sang songs and shouted ’hurray!’ as confetti filled the air. It seemed at the time as if my brothers were going further away than I could imagine." Eleven years later, Yang went to Pyongyang to meet her brothers. "It was awkward, and I didn’t know what to say," she recalled. "All we could do was exchange simple words. Our meeting time was also very short." Though she would return to Pyongyang many times in the following years, and despite the fact that she and her brothers would talk more deeply on those occasions, a sense of doubt began to grow within her heart. Following pro-Pyongyang high school policy, which says that "graduates must perform service for Chongryeon," she went to Osaka against her will and spent three years teaching at a pro-North Korean school. After that, she said to herself, "I have done all I can, and now I will live as I choose." Finding work as a waitress instead, she pursued her long-held dream of working in theater. Though she thought of changing her nationality to South Korean at the age of 30, her father strongly opposed, vowing that he would "never forgive" her, even after his death. After her 30th birthday, Yang’s interests started to lean toward documentary films. "At first, I thought I would film my family for the sake of leaving a record behind," she said. "However, after attending a documentary festival, I started to think more and more about the format’s possibilities." She went to New York at 34 to study documentary production. "Though it was complicated as a Zainichi with North Korean citizenship to go to America, it was not impossible," she said. "But it has become all but impossible since the inauguration of the Bush administration." Present in New York on 9/11, she spoke of her sorrow on that day. And also of her realization of her own tenuous identity. "When I thought about it, if I had been a victim, there would have been no embassy there to help me. I met the North Koreans employees working under the U.N. secretariat, and they asked me whether it was even legal for a North Korean citizen to come to America in the first place." With time’s passage, the world changed, and so did the attitude of her father. "He once lamented, ’How on earth can my daughter be going to imperialistic America?’ but afterward, he pondered taking a trip to New York himself. But I told him he could not come." Finally, after gaining the permission of her father, she changed her citizenship to South Korean in 2004. From tracking down her brothers in Pyongyang in 1995 to her father bedridden with illness in 2005, the images captured in "Dear Pyongyang" are at once distinct yet universal, thus making for a moving picture about one family’s story. This year, it was awarded the NETPAC Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. "I hope to go to North Korea once every two or three years," she said, "but I worry about the bad state of the North Korean economy. My parents used to send all sorts of goods over there, and now it would seem that this role has been left to me. After all, I cannot go there with empty hands." Recently, however, a formidable barrier has formed. With the latest nuclear crisis, the North Korean vessels that used to travel frequently to and from Japan have been barred from entry altogether. Reporter Lim Beom wrote this article and Daniel Rakove translated it. Pictures were provided by Free Vision.
