Here are three sample essays from Sant Bani School's Class of 2007.
They are the result the following
classroom assignments and activities.

1. Give general introduction and assign class to read Lost Names by Richard E. Kim. Students read interview with Richard Kim on the website and look at maps.

2. The class is divided into groups of two or three. Each group is asked to compose three guiding questions to serve as discussion starters for a Harkness discussion. Group One’s questions center on Chapter One, Group Two on Chapter Two, and so on.

3. Spend a class period discussing Lost Names using Harkness method. The teacher does not participate but instead takes notes.

4. Teacher’s notes and students' questions are assembled and posted.

5. Paper is assigned. Students can choose any question or compose a new question as the focus of the paper.

6. Some papers or sections of papers are read in class and some are put on the website.

Cari Steiger

English

15 October 2006

Lost Names paper

Part of what makes Richard E. Kim’s Lost Names such an effective work of literature is the use of subtle themes that run like fine threads through a rich tapestry. Kim, unlike many other revered contemporary authors, not only makes superb use of his themes to tie the pages of his book together, but also somehow escapes the tendency to overemphasize these recurring thoughts, and thus avoids beating the reader over the head with their obviousness.

One of the most artfully hidden of these themes, while arguably most important, is that of tears and crying. Among the earliest examples in the book, the narrator sees his Japanese schoolteacher leaving the bookstore in tears after a conversation with his father. He does not understand what the man has to cry about (80). Not long after, the Koreans lose their family names and register for Japanese ones. This is a day of mourning, as Kim describes it:

He and my father bow, lowering their faces, their tears flowing now unchecked, their foreheads and snow-covered hair touching the snow on the ground. I, too, let my face fall and touch the snow … and I, too, am weeping, though I am vaguely aware that I am crying because the grown-ups are crying (111).

The boy is too young to identify with his father and grandfather, to realize their great sense of loss at changing their names. He becomes outraged by their weakness and asks, “How long – for how many generations – are you going to say to each other, ‘I am ashamed to look into your eyes’? Is that going to be the only legacy we hand down to the next generation and the next and the next?” (113). It is in this bout of self-righteousness that Kim reveals the meaning behind the tears. They stand for shame, the shame of a downtrodden nation, the shame of the nation’s invaders. It is when Japan is defeated and Korea wrenches itself free from Japan’s hold that the main character asks, “We are not going to cry anymore, are we, Father?” (187).

Of course the most prevalent theme to occupy the book starts with the very title itself: Lost Names. The narrator refers to every character in the book with an apt-enough common noun. There is a Principal, a Student-of-the-Day, a Japanese teacher, a Teacher-of-the-Day. All of these vague descriptions suffice in distinguishing each character for as long as there are necessary.

“I call the names of one of my friends. ‘You take charge while I am gone’” (130).

Kim does not even give in even when the necessity of naming a character becomes almost inevitable. “The principal tells the policeman who I am, the son of ---” (130). This sentence serves not only to keep the boy’s father nameless, but also to evoke a certain sense of the mystical and taboo, as though his name contains power and would best remain unspoken.

Early in the book, we meet a big boy called Pumpkin. Pumpkin is not actually his name, but the narrator takes to referring him as such upon hearing another boy call him a pumpkin (40). Similarly, the main character refers to a teacher he had in the fourth grade, calling him “Chopstick,” which is clearly not his real name (130). The narrator, too, goes nameless throughout the entire book until his family receives its Japanese surname – Iwamoto, or “Rock-Foundation” (105). It seems interesting that by revealing it to the reader, he confers upon his Japanese name the same sense of insignificance that he bestows upon the inconsequential nicknames of his friends or acquaintances.

The question soon arises in every reader’s mind, what is the merit of this exercise? Why must every character remain nameless? There is, of course, the ready explanation of the title. The point seems to be that the Koreans lost their names to the Japanese, and that is the symbol of suppression that Kim has allowed to represent Japan’s occupation of Korea. However, perhaps more important, is the book’s subtitle, Scenes from a Korean Boyhood. The keyword here is actually the article “a.” It is not Scenes from My Korean Boyhood, but Scenes from a Korean Boyhood. This is one consistent idea about this book: it is meant to be representative. It is not meant to tell an individual boy’s coming-of-age tale in occupied Korea. This explains why many a reader is left with the impression of a removed, unbelievable main character, while still maintaining a positive impression of the book overall. The story is meant to represent an entire culture of three generations under Japanese rule.

My father’s generation had it in their power and will to set the country straight and do something about the declining fortune of the nation before it was too late… When it came to my generation, it was too late. The Japanese had taken over the country and their control was too entrenched and too strong to resist… I am only hoping your generation will have enough will and strength to makes sure the country will not have the same mistakes and repeat its shameful history” (185-86).

The boyhood painted by Kim may have been atypical in many respects. His family was comparatively well-to-do, Christian, and westernized. His father was a landowner. However, what is important is that the general spirit of Lost Names remains true to a culture that lost its identity before and during World War II. And somehow, through a sinuous textile of persisting concepts and ideas, Kim has created a family that feels, to the reader, truly unique, as well as sincere and genuine.

 

 

 

Laura Anderson

October 2, 2006

Lost Names

Richard E. Kim’s Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood is set in Korea during World War II, when the Japanese occupied the country. Not all Koreans shared the same experiences during this time, but to portray all that they went through in the pages of one book would be impossible. Instead, Kim focuses on one boy and his family and their struggle to hold onto their culture and identity when it was being so forcibly taken away from them. During the occupation, many Koreans found the strength to fight to free their country from the Japanese. One of them was the protagonist’s father who organized a resistance movement in college and was put in jail for many years because of this. He was seen as a hero by the Korean people and especially by his son.

Because his father was such a role model, the boy tried to emulate his father’s responsibility and courage even at a young age. In the first chapter he is a baby being carried over a frozen river by his father and mother to escape from Korea to start new lives as teachers at a missionary school. It is winter and the ride in his father’s arms is cold and bumpy, but he does not cry. Even as baby, he shows courage.

In the second chapter, he is now a second grader starting school for the first time back in Korea. When he sings an English song to his Korean classmates, he is severely beaten by another Japanese teacher, and even when his face swells and he must be put to bed, he does not complain or beg not to go back to school. Instead, he uses this opportunity for his classmates to rally around him in opposition of Japanese brutality.

Later, he steps into another role of leadership just like his father when he assumes the position of class leader. He does not enjoy the extra duties, but he is proud to be a leader, just like the rest of his family, and he would have it no other way. From a very young age, he sees that even while the Japanese are taking over, it is very important to keep up the honor and dignity of his family and, in that way, keep the Korean culture alive.

As the Japanese are losing the war, they elicit more and more help from the Korean children to gather supplies from the villagers. One day, it is the task of his Korean class to collect rubber balls from the villagers. Since he realizes that the balls are needed only for their rubber, he decides to pop all the balls to save room in his sack. In doing this, he shows the rest of the Korean children how needy the Japanese are, and the Japanese punish him by beating him again. This time the beating is much worse, but he will still not give in. There is even a time while being beaten that he transcends the pain, knowing that he is a young martyr who is bringing honor to his family just like his father. After the beating, he braves the cold so that he can stand up on stage to show the whole community what the Japanese have done to him. His parents could not be more proud, for, like his father, he has found his strength and his place in the resistance.

In the end, when the Japanese are defeated and his family’s town is won back, he is finally able to identify not as the son of his father, but as an individual. The book is about boyhood, but it is also about a coming of age like all boyhoods must be. The boy has made his father’s values his own by demonstrating courage and leadership even before adulthood, but he has also surpassed his father by stepping into the shoes of duty that the older generation has left behind for his generation to fill. At one time he might have followed in his father’s footsteps, but now he is confident to stride ahead to rebuild Korea.

 

 

Lost Names

A Reflection by Becky Houran

The novel “Lost Names” is centered on the strife and cruelty of the occupying Japanese in Korea. The main character leads us through snapshots of his life from infancy through his development into a strong young adult. These pictures contain powerful descriptions and depictions of the horrors the young hero and his people were forced to endure. But one thing was omitted, leaving a gaping absence: their names.

Though some characters were referred to by name, most were simply denoted by “the Japanese teacher,” or “Korean teacher” and “Father.” There may be several possibilities as to why the author, Richard Kim, left out the names. The most prominent may have been to emphasize the theme of the story, as reflected in the name of the book. At the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that family names are one of the most precious possessions and traditions of the Korean people. In a culture so rich in ancient beliefs and traditions, to strip a people of their names was perhaps the cruelest thing the Japanese could have done.

Twenty or thirty people are moving about the burying ground. Some are in white; some, in gray, like my father and my grandfather. All are shrouded with white snow; now, some are kneeling before graves; some, brushing the snow off gravestones; some, wandering about like lost souls. (p. 111)

This description is from a scene in which the main character, his father, and his grandfather go to the cemetery. While there, people of the older generation mourn the loss of their names. It is a sad image, to picture these people bent over the graves of their ancestors, proclaiming their shame.

Perhaps it was Mr. Kim’s intention to leave the characters nameless in order to create an underlying feeling of despair and to form a gap between the reader and the people. This gap creates the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that one sometimes gets when reading the book. In a way, the absence of the names lets us understand, if only a little bit, how confused, helpless, or detached the Korean people felt when their names were stolen from them. To Koreans, as with Japanese, a name is a large part of one’s identity. To strip the Koreans of their names was to strip them of their Korean heritage.

The Japanese and Koreans seem to have many similarities in culture. Whether or not Mr. Kim was considering these similarities as he wrote does not change the fact that the only way the Japanese could have known the emotional and moral damage that taking away the names would cause, was because they felt exactly the same way about their names. Lineage, family ties and respect between generations are some of the many traditions of the two countries. Because of this, in many ways, the Japanese truly understood their “enemy” Korea. In a story situated deep in Asian customs, the missing character names boldly stood out. Being of Korean descent himself, Mr. Kim must have known this, and used it to strengthen the theme of the book—losing identity.

Lost Names takes us through selected scenes of one boy’s sad and hopeful childhood. The book contains many windows into a young man’s journey through the Japanese occupation, and attempted destruction of a people with a deeply rooted culture of family. This nameless young hero takes us through the story with incredibly detailed emotional and physical imagery. And yet, with all the specificity, this boy remains simply one child without an identity, for he and his people have lost their names.