A graphic novel becomes the starting point to talk about decades of history, the ferocious submission of a people and the heartbreaking condition of comfort women. All this is The Weeds Of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim published by Bao Publishing.
INFORMATION SHEET:
Title: The Weeds
Author: Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Publisher: Bao Publishing
Type: Graphic Novel
Pages: 487
Order link: https://amzn.to/3eHoSwG
Cost: €13.99 Kindle – €25.00 hard cover
Plot:
The Korean cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim worked for years on this story, based on the direct testimony of a survivor, on the drama of the comfort women, women who – during the war of conquest that Japan waged against Korea and China in the early 1940s – were sold, kidnapped or forced by deception to work as prostitutes, raped daily by soldiers. This book is deeply painful and brings to light a past that we have often tried to forget or deny, but which is important to know and remember. Much more than a biography, Le malerbe is an intimate and heartfelt story, in which even the narrator's voice is recognizable and important, and is intertwined with the sometimes understandably fragmentary stories of a woman who feels she has not had a single happy moment since she left her mother's womb, as she herself says.
REVIEW:
The Weeds by the Korean cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim it's a graphic novel which tells us, through black and white drawings, a piece of Korean history that has often been tried to hide or forget. The one drawn by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim is not a fictional reconstruction, but a hard work of research into reality starting from the direct testimony of one of these women, now elderly, who survived this abuse.
The designer talks to us about the comfort women, those who, during the war of conquest that Japan waged against Korea and China in the last forty years of the twentieth century, were sold, kidnapped or forced by deception to prostitute themselves with the soldiers.
It is a story that is at times harsh and ruthless, created with a drawing that is perfectly suited to showing this ferocious pain.
It's not a stylistic trait that I really like; accustomed to manhwa and manga with perfect and harmonious features, these black and white plates have almost gloomy, dark characters, with essential features that I wouldn't define as beautiful in the strict sense. But once you start reading, the drawing takes a back seat to the narrative voice that takes us through those years of hunger and deprivation in Korea. The drawing becomes a frame in which all that suffering finds greater acuteness.
The protagonist of this story remained away from her homeland, Busan, for fifty-five years, yet she never forgot her name, her origins, her family, despite the fact that in those years the Japanese government tried to erase every memory of their Korean life. The scars were repeated and continuous, from abandoning one's Korean identity, to giving up one's language, to forgetting where one came from.
The beauty of this devastating story is that it doesn't just focus on comfort women, but we follow the life of the old woman Yi Okseon since she was just a little girl eager to study and instead had to look after her little brothers and help out around the house. He tells us about those years of deprivation due to Japanese rule which took possession of all the crops; it tells us the atrocities of a war that gives you shivers. And yes, because for decades here in the West we have been accustomed to seeing Japan as paradise, that place where we live in perfect harmony, and thinking about the crimes committed by these people creates a strong and unexpected idiosyncrasy. Reading about people being buried alive to avoid wasting bullets, or about people being burned alive, brutally brings Japanese soldiers closer to the Nazis in Europe.
The worst thing, however, is letting these pieces of history be erased from memory forever. The atrocities suffered by a people must be remembered as a future warning to avoid falling back into the same monstrous behaviors.
The victims are compared to Malerba, the grass that grows on the field, that strong grass that never dies and always grows back.
I don't want to tell you much else about Yi Okseon because I don't want to take away the taste of discovery, even if in this case it tastes as bitter as gall. His was a life of unhappiness, renunciation and deprivation. A life in which to pursue the dream of studying she fell victim to much more atrocious suffering. Since she has been confined to the eastern airport, as comfort women, we have witnessed human degradation and the perpetration of unspeakable crimes and abuses, involving beatings, humiliations and violence. Imagining that those women lived for years in these inhumane conditions still makes you truly helpless today.
Yi Okseon after fifty-five years he returns home, a Korea he no longer recognizes.
Everything on this earth changes so quickly that even the designer herself struggles to keep up.
Yi Okseon searches for his home, his origins, but it is heartbreaking to discover with her that his blood no longer wants anything to do with this woman. Her truth, instead of bringing her closer to her family, has divided her irreparably, creating a strong sense of humiliation..
Unfortunately, situations with such a strong emotional impact can generate closure between people. Many read them only as a source of embarrassment and shame, instead of accepting and welcoming them. Better to remain silent than tell the truth. Luckily Yi Okseon had the courage and strength to make his voice heard and talk about his life, full of hardship and violence.
Thanks to the cartoonist who decided to work on this story and to Bao publishing who brought this illuminating story of real life to Italy.
Fabiana Andreozzi
Photo credit: Fabiana Andreozzi