![]() ![]() The Koreans underwent tough and painful times under the Japanese rule. At one point, the narrator’s father takes the young boy to the cemetery so that they can ask the ancestors to forgive them for humiliation- the dropping of the ancestral names (Kim, 6). They must be angry that the colonizers are stealing their cultural identity. They have a feeling that the ancestors must be angry about the change of names. This is something that does not go well with the Korean people. ![]() Instead, they took up new Japanese names. The Koreans were forced to renounce their names. Their only option is to subject to their masters. The Koreans are confused about the new set of practices the Japanese authorities subject them to. Korean echoes the boy’s worries about the changes he sees at school. In Richard Kim’s, Lost Name, the boy wonders whether the emperor even knows that the children are bowing for him. At school, the boy learns this routine of bowing down, facing Tokyo, where the emperor is supposed to be (Kim, 45). ![]() The Japanese imposed practices such as bowing of heads to acknowledge authority of the Japanese emperor. ![]() All over a sudden, it was as if a new culture, a culture they were alien to, was being imposed on them. By giving them new names, the Koreans literally lost their identity. Richard Kim’s Lost NameJapan’s colonization of Korea resulted in the transformation of their culture. ![]()
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