Introduction
Thesis statement
The essay will describe the World War 11 in various aspects; it reflects the culture, society and politics that characterized the World war 11, Sino-Japanese war and the Korean Japan War. The essay will capture imperialism that characterized that period.
World War 11 in East Asian Context
The boy knows the story very well due to the several times he has been told as a tale by his mother. The next scene in the book is in 1938, during this time, the boy and the family had moved to Korea where he joins school and learns new routines such as bowing his head towards the location of Japanese emperor in Tokyo. The book captures good moments throughout the life of the boy, the occupation of Korea by Japan and the experiences of the boy attending Japanese school while in Korea, the politics of collection rubber for the Japanese war efforts and the surrender by Japan to America in the year 1945 (Kim 3).
The cultural importance of Confucianism is captured in the book, particularly among teachers, grandparents, friends and parents. The book discusses the Confucianism philosophy and its manifestation in the world. It also discusses traditional beliefs, practices and experiences like reverence and ancestor worship as reflected when people of Korean descent are compelled to accept Japanese surnames, making them to disgrace their ancestors. The Koreans were oppressed by the Japanese and were subjected to mental brutality (Kim 116).
In Osaka, just before the World War 11, the history of four aristocratic women: Tsuruko Makioka, Sachiko Makioka, Yukiko Makioka and Taeko Makioka. The four come from a wealthy family and are leaving off their father’s money; the girls have different characters. They are interested in preserving a way of life that is diminishing. The story forms one of the best Japanese narratives and a portrait of a family and a society that moving towards depth of modernity. The eldest sister Tsuruko clings to the past prestige of her family despite her husband wanting to move their entire household to Tokyo. Sachiko tries by compromising valiantly in order to secure the future of her younger sisters. Yukiko is unmarried and she is considered to be the hostage to the standards of the family; Taeko on the other hand indulges in scandalous relationship. The story of the Makioka sisters depicts the behavior of upper class Japanese life.
The sisters start gathering in Kyoto and enjoy their happy times as the try to find a suitor to Yukiko. The setting of the film is in Osaka, Japan in the year around 1938. Tatsuo is married to Tsuruko and shockingly he takes the Makioka name, this is an indication that he wanted to be associated with the family class. He sells the shop and wants to see the Makioka house; this is an indication that he does not care about the family. When Sachiko is married to Teinosuke, he moves with her young sisters; this is against the culture because it was suppose for Tsuruko,as the first born, to take care of the young siblings. Teinosuke later admits love for Yuniko. The third sister Yukiko is very caring and quite; she has not found a suitor and when she gets she rejects. This is an indication that she is hallucinated by class. The youngest sister Taeko has embraced the western type of lifestyle as captured in her dressing and by the fact that she smokes clandestinely. She defies orders given by the other people and also she has passion for dolls (Tanizaki 1).
The story of the makioka sisters happened around this time, from 1936 to 1941 and just ended some few months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The novel also captures contemporary events like the Kobe flood of the year 1938, increasing tensions in Europe and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Makioka sisters represent the fading culture of Japanese aristocracy in the years preceding the World War 11. They are making use of their family name which lets them run out of reality. They work towards preserving past rituals despite them running out of money or growing old or living in falling houses; with time they start lowering their standards. This is narrative that reflects a country where previous aristocrats and their tribes live as relics, only grasping at a past through manners, gestures and intricate private wars. The story is a declining years of a powerful family and its descendants (Tanizaki 26).
During this period, the United States of America was perpetuating imperialism and although Korea was susceptible to domination and control, every country should not run away from its mistakes of the past. Richard Kim provides a historical account of a Korean life during the period of 1930s when Japan occupied Korea and other events leading to the World War 11. Kim’s book exposes the mistakes and faults of the past and how the younger generations should learn from it to make the world a better place. The action of Japan to make Koreans adopt Japanese surnames was an imperialist agenda aimed at supplanting Korean culture with their own. In abandoning their names and culture, Koreans feel some disgrace and their traditional clothing is the only way they use to demonstrate their culture, they also turn to praying for their ancestors for forgiveness. The boy develops some defiance by be acquiring a symbolic name that captures the moods of the Koreans towards anti-Japanese imperialism (Kim 87). Japanese have preserved their past in the Yasukuni shrine to remember people, who lost their lives during war time or in the course of their service to the nation (Woolf 1).
As captured in the Grave of fireflies there is a strong determination by the little sisters and young boys to survive during the World War 11. They are struggling to survive during the last few years of the World War 11. They had a firsthand experience of bombings during the war and capture the image and reflection of how people lived a failed life as a result of isolation from the people during the war period; the film invokes sympathy and suffering during the darkest period in the history of Japan (Ebert 1).
Conclusion
The Japanese started developing natural fear for the Koreans. This happened when the Koreans were rescued by the Americans and this was a happy moment for them because they were free from any oppression. The Japanese were unhappy about this action and they started for their lives. The Koreans were driven by vengeance. It became very difficult to heal this scars that took 36 years and hence, there has been an existence of animosity between Japan and South Korea. The lesson learned from this context is that it is very difficult to wish away thoughts of a horrible war; it is an injustice to wish it away easily or to ignore the events of the Korean-Japanese War.
Works Cited
Ebert, Roger. Grave of the fireflies. 2000. Web. 8th April, 2014. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-grave-of-the-fireflies-1988>
Kim, Richard E. Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2010. Print.
Tanizaki, Junʼichirō. The Makioka Sisters. Tokyo: Tuttle, 1958. Print.
Woolf, Christopher. Why is the Yasukuni Shrine so controversial? 2013. Web, 8th April, 2013, <http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-26/why-yasukuni-shrine-so-controversial>
