hankyoreh

Yang Su-jee

“If you too have blood and bones, / May you be courageous fighters for Korea / Raise the national flag high / And then come to my empty tomb to pour out a glass.” (from “To Two Soldiers in Swaddling Clothes,” written by Yun Bong-gil to his two sons before his death)

“How many fathers are there in this world who would leave a message like this to their beloved young children before going out to give up their life for their country and people?”

Yang Su-jee, a Hongik University professor and co-translator of the recently published “My Friend Yun Bong-gil,” describes this passage as the most striking part of Yun’s biography as the 59-year-old Taiwanese-born Korean studies scholar read it for the first time.

“My Friend” is a new translation of Kim Gwang’s “The Story of Yun Bong-gil,” originally published in Chinese by Hanguang in Shanghai’s French concession in 1933, a year after Yun - known by the pen name Maeheon - threw a bomb in Shanghai’s Hongkew Park that killed several Japanese dignitaries on Apr. 29, 1932. The book, which includes footnotes to aid reader understanding, was co-published by the Northeast Asia History Institute, under director Lee Min-won, and the Seonin Institute of History and Culture, under director Lee Dong-eon, for the 85th anniversary of the incident. Co-translator Lee Min-won is also Yang’s husband.

“The sentences were somewhat peculiar because he was a Korean writer writing in Chinese,” Yang explained.

“The original draft translation was done for publication of a ‘Yun Bong-gil collection’ for the 80th anniversary of his heroism, at the suggestion of Maeheon Institute director Yun Byeong-seok. Every morning for four months, I would do the first translation and my husband would revise my clumsy Korean. For this publication for the general public, we included around 100 new annotations.”

The book, which also includes the initial photoprint and photographs of Yun, is designed to help readers understand Yun’s character as a young scholar, activist for farming community education, teacher, poet, and patriot, by sharing information about his inner consciousness; the teachings of Lee Kwang-woon, who had a profound effect on him; and the international situation at the time of the bombing.

“I would like to study about more about the writer, Kim Gwang,” Yang said. “He’s believed to be someone named Ko Young-hee who lived with Yun for around one year before the bombing while working at the troop information and education office for the general command of the Korean Independence Army, but his precise activities are unknown.”

“The calligraphy for the title ‘Story of Yun Bong-gil’ on the first edition was done by Ma Gun-mu, an anti-Japanese activist and scholar who was noted as a great calligrapher in China at the time, and I‘d also like to research how he became involved.”

Yang, whose father left for Taipei from mainland China after fighting Japan with the Kuomintang, majored in Korean in the Eastern languages department of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.

“I originally chose it because of my entrance exam scores, but I ended up finding Korean really difficult, and I was more interested in my minor, international relations,” she explained. “But I ended up coming to Seoul to study after I had the good fortune of being chosen for financial aid from the South Korean government through my relationship with Kang Sin-hang of Sungkyunhwan University, who was there as an exchange professor.”

After completing a master‘s degree in history at Sungkyunkwan University in 1981, Yang went on to enter the doctoral program at the Academy of Korean Studies in 1984, earning her PhD ten years later with a dissertation on diplomatic relations between Korea and Okinawa.

“My husband was a teaching assistant in the history department at the time I was in graduate school,” Yang recalled. “We taught each other Chinese and Korean, and we ended up getting married in 1987. We found out about the Hankyoreh’s publication when we were financially struggling newlyweds in my husband‘s hometown of Cheongju in 1988, and I ended up participating as a shareholder [in Lee’s name].”

Yang was cautious at the time, recalling that “I kept getting requests to teach Chinese part-time from early on during my time in graduate school at Sungkyunkwan, and even my husband wanted me to teach Chinese more, so I never really had the opportunity to study Korean.”

But Yang would go on to lecture as a guest professor at Chung-Ang University during her doctoral program. She also taught as a guest professor at Kongju National University, Chungbuk National University, and Konkuk University before becoming a full-time foreign professor at Hongik University in 2005. She has formed relationships with countless South Korean students and teachers over her 30-year academic history.

By Kim Kyung-ae, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]