Colonial Hero: Son Kijŏng in Narratives of Popular and National Korean History

ABSTRACT

Son Kijŏng’s monumental victory in the 1936 Berlin Olympic marathon propelled him to the status of hero in both colonial Korea and Imperial Japan. His triumph symbolised the successful fulfilment of Japan’s colonial policy of assimilation (dōka). Yet, this very event – the moment when assimilation was ostensibly realised – created the opening for a legendary act of resistance to Japanese colonial authority: the publication, in the Tonga ilbo, of a photograph with the Japanese flag on Son’s chest blotted out. This article explores colonial-era representations of Son’s achievement as well as the formation and solidification of a historical narrative that portrays Son as a champion of Korean nationalism. Rather than any act performed by Son, it is the malleability of representation established during the colonial era that has allowed for the valorisation of Son as a symbol of resistance to Japanese colonial authority. More recently, colonial-period images of Son, building on the established dominant historical narrative of resistance, have been refashioned as blank canvases from which imagined historical outcomes can be created and formed into narratives that speak to current ideological demands for portrayals of active resistance to Japanese colonial rule.

Korean abstract

1936년 베를린 올림픽 마라톤에서 금메달을 회득함으로써 손기정은 식민지 조선과 일본제국에서 영웅이 되었다. 그의 우승은 일본제국에 있어 식민지 정책인 ‘동화’의 성공을 상징했다. 그러나 표면적으로 동화가 성취된 이 때에 일본제국을 저항한 매우 유명한 일장기 말소 사건이 발생했다. 이 논문은 일제시대의 그 당시 손의 우승에 관한 묘사 및 한국 민족주의의 투사로 표상하는 역사서사의 형성과 고착을 살펴보고자 한다. 손기정의 행동보다 식민지 시대에 형성된 표상의 유연성으로 인해, 손기정이 일본의 식민지 권한에 대한 저항의 상징으로 추앙된 것이다. 최근 들어 지배적인 저항의 역사서사를 기반으로 하는 식민지 시대의 손기정의 이미지가, 일제 강점에 적극적으로 항거하는 표상에 관한 현재의 이념적 요구에 응하는 허구의 역사적 사건을 창작할 수 있는 백지가 되었다.

KEYWORDS:

• Narration of history
• colonial Korea
• Japanese Empire
• Son Kijŏng
• collaboration
• resistance
• assimilation (dōka)
• Olympics
• popular history
• memory

Introduction

Finishing in record time, Son Kijŏng (1912–2002) reached the pinnacle of world track accomplishment as victor in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.¹ Son’s performance propelled him to the status of ‘national hero’ in both Korea and Japan. Although an ethnic Korean who lived and trained in Korea, he won the gold medal representing Imperial Japan as Son Kitei – the Japanese reading for his name.

Sharing the awards podium with bronze medallist and fellow Korean Nam Sŭng-nyong, Son stood solemnly, decorated with a laurel crown, as the Japanese national anthem ‘Kimigayo’ reverberated throughout the crowd of approximately 100,000 onlookers (see Figure 1). Conspicuously displayed on Son and Nam’s chests, the red circle of the Japanese ‘Hinomaru’ flag marked both as members of Imperial Japan’s Olympic team. Even if only temporarily, the feat of two Koreans winning medals as Japanese imperial subjects signified the successful fulfilment of the Japanese colonial policy of assimilation (dōka). Yet, this very event – the moment when assimilation was ostensibly realised – created the opening for a legendary act of resistance to Japanese colonial authority: the publication of a photograph with the Japanese flag on Son’s chest blackened out (Tonga ilbo, 1936b). A demonstration of defiance that resulted in an immediate clampdown by Japanese colonial authorities, the symbolic import of this act has only deepened with the passage of time. As Seok Lee (2016, 114) asserts: ‘It is still engraved in Koreans’ memory today as the culmination of Korean resistance against Japanese colonialism through sports’.

Figure 1. Son Kijŏng and Nam Sŭng-nyong on the awards stand at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (public domain)

Slightly over a year after Son’s Olympic achievement, renowned Korean dancer Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi (1911–1969) embarked on a three-year world tour. Already revered throughout the Japanese Empire, Ch’oe shifted her focus to an international audience that was largely unfamiliar with Korean dance. Commonly referred to as the ‘dancing girl of the Peninsula’ (hantō no maihime) in Japan, Ch’oe represented Imperial Japan on the global stage as Sai Shōki (the Japanese pronunciation of the characters for her name) and gained wide acclaim as a skilled dancer after performing for audiences in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and China (Park, 2006).

Ch’oe, whose stardom within the empire only grew during her sojourn across the globe, serves as an illuminating contrast to Son Kijŏng. Both highly esteemed figures during the last decade of Japan’s colonisation of Korea, their lives travelled vastly different paths after the fall of the Japanese Empire. Son, although originally from the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, settled in South Korea, where he remained a key figure in the sports world until his death in 2002. Ch’oe, after a short stay in her hometown of Seoul, ventured North, where she maintained a position of prominence before eventually falling out of political favour in 1958 (J. Kim, 2003, 46).²

Mirroring their divergent life trajectories, treatment of the two in South Korean historiography has varied significantly. As a historical figure, Son’s status as a national (Korean) hero – his name is all but synonymous with the Korean term ‘yŏngung’ (hero) – has never wavered; his symbolic relevance within the popular memory of South Korea has endured throughout decades of political tumult and change. Having gone North (wŏlbuk), Ch’oe’s initial disappearance from popular historical narratives in South Korea is of little surprise. The large amount of recent attention she has received from scholars, however, stands in sharp contrast to the relative lack of attention paid to Son by researchers.³ Considering the overlaps – both celebrated imperial subjects who actively supported the Japanese Empire – this contrast is striking. As with other key figures who chose to live in North Korea after World War II, Ch’oe re-emerged in the popular consciousness of South Korea after democratisation in the late 1980s (S. Park, 2006, 299). Even so, she has been widely criticised as a ‘pro-Japanese collaborator’ (ch’inilp’a); Son, for the most part, has avoided such accusations.

In this article, I map out the various components of Son Kijŏng’s historical legacy, exploring both the events and images emphasised in historical narratives and those that have been neglected, ignored, or explained away. As part of this mapping process, Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi serves as a point of orientation against which to situate Son’s enduring image as a colonial hero. Further, I examine the formation and solidification of a historical narrative that portrays Son as a champion of Korean nationalism. Rather than any act performed by Son, it is the malleability of representation established during the colonial period that has allowed for the valorisation of Son as a symbol of resistance to Japanese colonial authority. More recently, colonial-era images of Son, building on the established dominant historical narrative of resistance, have been refashioned as blank canvases from which imagined historical outcomes can be created and formed into narratives that speak to current ideological demands for portrayals of active resistance to Japanese colonial rule.

Malleable Representation

Imperial Japan mobilised multiple ideologies to justify its territorial advances in Asia. These ideologies, though containing areas of overlap, were composed of seeming contradictions: conceptions of the multiethnic origin of the Japanese people clashed with the notion of the Japanese as possessing a pure bloodline that had descended from a single lineage (Oguma, 1995). Although Japan’s colonial strategy was one of assimilation (dōka) and later ‘imperialisation’ (kōminka), the need to legitimise colonial expansion, as Leo Ching (2001, 25) notes, resulted in ‘persistent attempts to differentiate the Japanese people both racially and culturally from their neighbors’ as demonstrated by how ‘military and political advantages’ were translated ‘into the cultural and racial superiority of the Japanese nation and its people’.

Employing slogans such as dōbun dōshu (same language, same race), Imperial Japan appealed to the notion of a shared ‘race’ and ‘language’ to position Japanese imperialism as resistant to Western imperialism. As Kazuki Sato contends, however, this was a pliable construct that could be employed for other purposes:

In fact, the myth of dōbun dōshu was more than a mere nationalist appeal to defend the ‘yellow race’ from the ‘white race’. As Japan moved into the 20^th century, it became a convenient ploy used to rationalise Japan’s entry into China … (Sato, 1997, 131).

Seemingly contradictory notions of ethnic ‘difference’ and ethnic ‘affinity’, therefore, were used simultaneously to legitimate Japan’s colonial expansion in Asia. Images played a key role in the construction of these intersecting, yet also competing, discourses of ethnic difference and affinity. In his study on colonial-period amateur photography, Michael Kim (2021, 382) argues that images were used ‘to visually “stage” everyday life, transforming the images into symbolic representations that legitimated the colonial project and regulated the conduct of the colonised’. These ‘symbolic representations’ were only further strengthened by the narratives to which they were attached: as Roland Barthes (1977, 39) explains, the caption that accompanies a photograph defines ‘the correct level of perception’ and, in so doing, directs the focus of both the viewer’s gaze and understanding.

Colonial-era images of Son Kijŏng and Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi are prime examples of the ambiguity inherent in the promotion of the contradictory ideologies of Imperial Japan: rather than the images themselves, it was the accompanying linguistic messages that shaped the discourse. The malleability of these images, as well as the corresponding historical narratives they were used to uphold, only became more pronounced after the ideological bifurcation of national ‘division’: Son continued to be regarded as a national hero in South Korea, while Ch’oe disappeared from South Korean history books and popular discourse until the late 1990s due to the ban on research relating to artists who went North after liberation in 1945. Though neither changed their surname in line with the colonial-era ‘name change policy’ (sōshi kaimei/ch’angssi kaemyŏng) – maybe in large part due to the prominence they both achieved before the policy was enacted – Ch’oe was eventually listed in the Biographical Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators (Ch’inil inmyŏng sajŏn p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe & Minjok munje yŏn’guso, 2009); Son’s name is not on the list.

More recently, Ch’oe’s historical relevance and position within the narratives of South Korean history have, to a large extent, been redeemed by a significant amount of scholarly attention in both Korean and English (J. Kang, 2012; Y. Kim, 2006; S. Park, 2006; Van Zile, 2011; 2013; A. Yi, 2002; Y. Yi, 2014). Much has been written about Son in Korean, but it tends to fall into one of three categories: popular history (H. Kang, 2004; K. Kim, 2019; C. Sin, 2019; H. Sin, 2021), celebratory explorations of his status as a national sports hero (Ha, 2012; Kwak & Yi, 2009; H. Son, 2004; Son & Ha, 2013; T. Yi, 2012), and narrowly focused examinations of Son’s Olympic achievement and the related ‘Japanese flag erasure incident’ (Ch’ae, 2007; 2008; Ch’oe, 2006). As such, these studies overlook or downplay Son’s later participation in acts of collaboration and, consequently, do not critically engage with his treatment in historical accounts. Though frequently mentioned in English-language research on Korea, Son is rarely the focus of such studies (Atkins, 2010, 42; Bridges, 2012, 27–28; Caprio, 2009, 188, 195; De Ceuster, 2003, 53–55; Kwon, 2015, 144; Large, 2007, 257–259; C. Lee, 1963, 262–263; Mandell, 1987, 215–220; Shin, 2015, 388). The result is a conspicuous absence of studies that carefully examine Son’s historical legacy, in both Korean- and English-language scholarship. This absence is even more striking given Son’s significance as a historical figure and his ongoing relevance within the narratives of popular history.

Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi: From Multiethnic Icon to Face of Empire

Born to a yangban family in 1911, Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi enjoyed, at least initially, an affluent upbringing. Although her family’s financial situation deteriorated as Japan’s colonial rule became entrenched, she was still able to graduate from the prestigious Sungmyŏng Girls’ High School in 1925. One year later, at the age of 14, she moved to Japan to study dance with Ishii Baku (Van Zile, 2011, 171). After years of training and some time spent in Korea, Ch’oe performed her first dance recital in Japan in 1934 and quickly rose to a position of prominence within the cultural landscape (Y. Kim, 2006, 175).

Early depictions of Ch’oe emphasised her Koreanness. In an August 1935 advertisement, Ch’oe’s name appears in large Chinese characters glossed with the Japanese readings ‘sai’ ‘shō’ ‘ki’ – in a smaller font to the side for Japanese readers still unfamiliar with her name. A descriptive blurb next to her name reads, ‘With distinctive Korean folksongs (Chōsen minyō) and famous dance numbers, the performance is enjoying popular acclaim’ (Yomiuri shimbun, 1935). Here, the modifier ‘distinctive’ (dokutoku no) emphasises the uniqueness of the featured folk songs as being ‘Korean’ (Chōsen), a separate category from Japanese folk songs, and, in so doing, produces an image of ethnic and cultural difference.

As Ch’oe’s fame grew, however, the geographic modifier she was most associated with shifted from Chōsen (Korea) to hantō (Peninsula). By designating her place of origin as the ‘Peninsula’ – a region within the Japanese Empire – rather than Chōsen, she was integrated into the broader whole of the Japanese Empire. During the height of her popularity in Japan, Ch’oe was often referred to by the moniker of ‘Hantō no maihime’ (dancing girl of the Peninsula), a phrase that was also used as the title of a film about her (Kon, 1936). Here, the linguistic message of ‘Peninsula’ makes it possible to acknowledge Ch’oe’s homeland as lying outside the Japanese archipelago while also laying claim to her as a cultural icon within Japan’s multiethnic empire.

Ch’oe’s persona transitioned, once again, while touring throughout the globe between 1938 and 1940. No longer merely a symbol of multiethnicity within the empire, she became a cultural ambassador for Imperial Japan. In reviews and articles published in the United States, Ch’oe’s Korean ethnicity was almost always mentioned. Yet, even with the designation of ‘Korean’, Ch’oe’s ethnic identity was far from distinct: the name used in the international media outlets was always Sai Shōki, demonstrating how at the time – as is evident in the case of Son Kijŏng (i.e., Son Kitei) – Korea’s interaction with the global community often occurred via the filter of Japan. For audiences in the US, Ch’oe was often viewed as a representative of the ‘Orient’ more broadly: the Atlantic Highlands Journal (1938) described her tour as that of a ‘dance interpreter of Oriental History’, and the San Francisco Chronicle (1940) lamented that her dancing demonstrated ‘little of the stylisation and technical control of the various Oriental traditions’. Even when praised, Ch’oe’s abilities as a dancer were often framed within a narrow understanding of Japanese culture: ‘These dances were characterised by many of the graceful postures with which Japanese prints have made us familiar’ (Smith, 1940). Though by no means ignored, Ch’oe’s Korean ethnicity was treated as an insignificant detail with little relevance to her image as a representative of Imperial Japan.

Having toured the world for the better part of three years, Ch’oe returned to Japan in late 1940. In an article published shortly after her return to Japan, the term ‘pure Japanese dance’ (junnihonbuyō) is used in the headline to situate Ch’oe as the point of cultural connection between Japan and the United States, Europe, and Latin America (Yomiuri shimbun, 1940a). In the article, Ch’oe is unproblematically placed in the position of informing Japanese readers about the reception of ‘Japanese dance’ by international audiences. Echoing the portrayals in media coverage outside Japan, Ch’oe’s ethnicity is no longer a point of emphasis, with her role as a cultural intermediary now the focus.

Just two days later, a story published in the Yomiuri shimbun (1940b) reports that Ch’oe has ‘cut ties’ (zetsuen) with ‘foreign dance’ (gaikoku buyō) and will be staying home. Here again, Ch’oe is placed within the category of ‘Japanese’ in opposition to the category of ‘foreign’. The article further reports that Ch’oe will travel the ‘country’ (zenkoku) to study ‘local dance’ (kyōdobuyō). In this article, the empire is characterised as a single country consisting of different geographical regions with distinctive ‘local’ characteristics. During the short span of 10 years (1935–1945), Ch’oe’s image within the media underwent multiple transformations: from performer of Korean folk dance to dancing girl of the Peninsula and then, later, to representative of Japan and researcher of local dance within the empire. This malleability of representation made it possible to construct a dual image of Ch’oe as both a model of multiethnicity within the empire and an outward facing emissary of Imperial Japan.

Son Kijŏng: Ethnic Korean as Japanese Hero

Born in 1912, less than a year after Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi, Son spent his childhood in the city of Shinŭiju, which is located across the Yalu River from China in what is now North Korea. Contrasting with Ch’oe, Son spent his formative years in rather humble circumstances. At the age of 14, his family’s home and small shop upon which their livelihood depended were destroyed by flooding – a tragedy that compelled Son to drop out of school and sell Korean melons (ch’amoe) and sugar cubes to help his family make ends meet (T. Yi, 2012, 60). Due to this economic hardship, Son delayed enrolment in high school until the age of 19, at which point he moved South to Seoul to attend Yangjŏng High School (Yangjŏng kodŭng pot’ong hakkyo). Benefitting from the ability to focus on running and the training offered by the school’s elite long-distance track programme, Son quickly developed into a world-class marathoner.

Even before his Olympic victory, Japanese media representations of Son placed little to no emphasis on his Korean ethnicity. Contrasting with the image of ethnic ‘other’ found in early reporting about Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi, media coverage of Son was inclusive and, whether directly or tacitly, laid claim to Son as a representative of the Japanese Empire. He first appeared in the Tokyo asahi shimbun in March 1935 after unofficially breaking the world record for the marathon. There is no direct reference to Son being Korean in the article – just a brief reference to his high school (Keijō Yōsei/Kyŏngsŏng Yangjŏng). Since Keijō (the name used for Seoul during the colonial period) is included in the high school’s name, a connection to Korea would have been established in readers’ minds, if not already obvious from his name. This detail, however, is of little relevance to the article, which focuses on how both Son and Suzuki Fusashige unofficially bested the time for the existing world record (Tokyo asahi shimbun, 1935).

Similarly, in an article about Nam Sŭng-nyong’s first-place finish in the final qualifier before the Berlin Olympics (an event at which Son took second), Nam is designated as being from Meiji University, which he was attending at that time; Son, once again, is listed as representing Keijō Yōsei high school (Tokyo asahi shimbun, 1936a). In this article, the two athletes are treated no differently from their Japanese counterparts, whose names are also linked to a school or region in Japan. Further, the caption for the accompanying photograph, which highlights Nam and Son as the first- and second-place finishers, reads ‘the final all-Japan [zennihon] marathon qualifier’, essentially designating Son and Nam, as well as Korea more generally, as contained within the category of ‘Japan’.

On 10 August 1936 – the day following Son’s Olympic triumph – the Yomiuri shimbun released a special edition in tribute to the achievement. One front-page headline lauds Son as ‘Our Hero!’ (Warera no eiyū). In the corresponding article (Saijō, 1936), no mention of Chōsen is made in the lengthy description of the marathon; all traces of Son’s Korean origins – he is referred to as a Japanese person (Nihonjin) – are eliminated in celebration of a triumph for the Japanese Empire. The following day, the Tokyo asahi shimbun featured a commemorative essay that extols Son’s victory as the crowning achievement of Japanese marathon running. In his praise, the author draws attention to Son’s Korean ethnicity:

It is significant that the Japanese flag was raised because of the vigorous efforts of a Peninsula (hantō) athlete. Undoubtedly, the groundwork for this achievement was laid over the past 20 or so years, which makes it all the more remarkable that this elusive crown – for which Marathon Japan (marason Nippon) has long been waiting – was placed upon the head of ‘Japan’ by a young Peninsula athlete (Tokyo asahi shimbun, 1936b).

Rather than a distinction of difference, Son is inclusively marked as belonging to the ‘Peninsula’ and is credited with elevating ‘Japan’ to previously unattained heights – an approving nod towards Japan’s assimilation polices.

In the international press, there were references to Son’s Korean ethnicity, but most headlines labelled him as Japanese: ‘Japanese smashes Olympic mark’ (Daley, 1936), ‘Japanese smashes Olympic marathon record’ (Chicago Daily Tribune, 1936), and ‘Record is set in marathon by Japanese’ (Gould, 1936). Even those that mentioned Korea were quick to make the connection to Japan: one article reported that ‘Korean athlete, wearing Japan’s colors, wins marathon’ (China Press, 1936) and another headline read ‘Test of endurance: Korean wins marathon’ but the report referred to Son as both a ‘Korean peasant’ and ‘the Japanese Son’ (West Australian, 1936). Echoing the sentiments of the Japanese news media, international reporting also framed Son’s accomplishment as a triumph for Japan: ‘Son lay there and only smiled. He realised he had supplied Japan with the hero she had been seeking ever since the games began here’ (Associated Press, 1936).

Although Son was labelled as ‘Japanese’ both inside and outside Japan, ethnic difference – marked by his name – would have always been apparent to Japanese audiences. Even while he was being claimed by Japan, therefore, Son’s place within the imperial hierarchy as colonised subject remained constant. The image of Son as a hero of the empire was based on a notion of mimicry: ‘the desire for a reformed, recognisable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite’ (Bhabha, 1994, 86). Although ethnic difference, in the cases of Son and Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi, was of little significance on the international stage, within the empire, the marking of ethnicity was necessary to tout the ‘achievements’ of assimilation policies.

Narrative Formation: Symbol of Resistance

Son’s current legacy and position within the narratives of history can, in large part, be traced back to the ‘Japanese flag erasure incident’ (Ilchanggi malso sagŏn). Although there has been much debate over which newspaper first published an image of Son with the Japanese flag removed, the consensus is that the Chosŏn chungang ilbo (1936) and a regional edition of the Tonga ilbo (1936a) were the first to do so, on 13 August (Ch’ae, 2008). Due to the low quality of the published images, these two publications did not draw the immediate ire of colonial authorities – a stark contrast with the uproar that followed the publication of a similar image in the Tonga ilbo on 25 August (1936b), which can be seen in Figure 2.⁴

Figure 2. Son Kijŏng article in Tonga ilbo, 25 August 1936 (public domain)

The image used in the 13 August editions of the Chosŏn chungang ilbo and the Tonga ilbo – the moment that British athlete Ernest Harper is awarded the silver medal – had appeared two days earlier in the Tokyo asahi shimbun (1936c) and the Yomiuri shimbun (1936). The image later used in the 25 August edition of the Tonga ilbo can be traced back to the Osaka asahi shimbun (Chŏng, 2008, 43). Far from visual depictions of defiant resistance, the images that have come to signify Son’s symbolic importance as a figure of resistance were created from photographs used by Japanese newspapers to promote Son as an icon of loyal imperial subjecthood. This act of resistance, then, is one in which Son Kijŏng did not actively participate. For those directly involved, there were real consequences. Colonial authorities arrested and detained 11 people while also suspending publication of the Tonga ilbo indefinitely (Ch’ae, 2008, 123–127). Additionally, 13 employees eventually ‘resigned’ in connection with the crackdown, and the Tonga ilbo was not allowed to resume publication until nine months later, on 2 June 1937 (Ch’ae, 2007, 31).

Narrative Solidified

Buoyed by a compelling historical narrative with broad appeal, Son Kijŏng continues to be revered as a national hero in South Korea. In 2011, the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee selected him as (South) Korea’s inaugural ‘sports hero’ (sŭp’och’ŭ yŏngung) (Son & Ha, 2013, 20). Since 2019, three children’s books celebrating Son’s athletic achievements have been published (K. Kim, 2019; C. Sin, 2019; H. Sin, 2021). He appeared as a character in the 2011 film My Way (Maiwei) and was a central focus of the film Road to Boston (Bosŭt’ŏn 1947), which is scheduled for release in 2023. Clearly, Son’s legacy has been one of remarkable staying power and enduring relevance.

In his autobiography, Son recalls his thoughts after winning the marathon: ‘However, at the moment I reached the top, my feeling was not just the joy of victory … filled with rising sadness and fury, I bowed my head and cried’ (K. Son, 1983, 139). Further, he connects this individual sadness to a shared ‘sorrow of a people without a country’ (nara ŏmnŭn minjok; K. Son, 1983, 139). It is the expression of ‘sorrow of a people without a country’ that has become the accepted understanding of Son’s downward-facing posture on the Olympic podium.

At the 1935 Meiji Shrine Games, a year prior to the Olympics, Son also found himself atop the podium. In images of this awards ceremony, Son, assuming a sombre pose, bends his head forward, and focuses his eyes intently on his feet (see Figure 3). Photographs of Son at the 1935 Meiji Shrine Games are considerably more difficult to find than images from the Berlin Olympics. In one of the few articles that includes this image, the following explanation of the photograph is provided: ‘Son Kijŏng also lowered his head when victorious at the 1935 Meiji Shrine Games, which took place just one year before the Berlin Olympics. He cried, “Why don’t we have a national flag?”’ (K. Pak, 2018).

Figure 3. Son on the podium after winning the marathon at the 1935 Meiji Shrine Games (public domain)

The caption directs the reader’s understanding toward a nationalist (South) Korean perspective and presupposes the visually represented moment as an act of resistance by Son – the implication being that the only possible interpretation would be sorrow over the subjugation of the ‘nation’ by Japanese colonisers. That Son’s head is bent forward with his gaze cast downward is plainly visible. The motivations behind this pose, however, are only ‘revealed’ through retroactive linguistic framing. My goal here is not to use evidence to construct an accurate interpretation of images of Son on the Olympic awards podium; nor is it to critique interpretations that are generally accepted. Rather, it is to underscore the ease with which images, as pliable signifiers, can be imbued with meaning and manipulated to substantiate ideology. With the narrative of ‘resistance’ firmly in place, all interpretations of colonial-period images of Son and the actions they depict have a predetermined outcome: sadness over the tragedy of Korea’s colonisation. There is no space of possibility outside of the representation of the Korean nation and a correlating resistance to colonial subjugation.

In popular historical accounts as well as many scholarly studies, every expression, pose, and object captured in photographs of Son on the Olympic podium is imbued with meaning that reinforces the established narrative of sadness over Son’s inability to represent the Korean nation on the international stage:

[Son and Nam’s] sadness is laid bare in the photographs taken of the awards ceremony. Of all the pictures taken by reporters and photographers from around the globe, there is not one that shows any human joy in the winners – only tragedy can be found in their dignified figures (H. Kang, 2004, 29).

By contrast, British silver medallist Ernest Harper, who also took on a rather expressionless pose during the medal ceremony (see Figure 1), is often described as relishing the moment: ‘At the back is the British silver medallist Ernie Harper. He is standing tall, shoulders back and head held high, a proud smile on his face’ (Bull, 2011).

While in Berlin, Son demonstrated a Korean consciousness in how he signed his name on lists of gold medal winners (H. Kang, 2004, 45, 48). Rather than using Chinese characters (hanja/kanji), which would have been the most common way to write his name in both Korean and Japanese at the time, Son chose to sign his name in Hangul. The romanised version of his name that he signed, ‘K. C. Son’, also corresponded to the Korean pronunciation of his name (Kee Chung Son) – not the Japanese pronunciation Kitei Son. It is plausible that Son felt sadness over Korea’s colonial subjugation and the resultant inability to represent Korea at the Olympics, and Koreans certainly expressed immense joy over Son’s accomplishment (Cheon, 2013, 218–219). However, these are usually the only components used in the configuration of historical accounts of Son, with elements possibly disruptive to the narrative of resistance being disregarded or overlooked.

Destabilising the Narrative

Son received a warm welcome upon his return to Korea from the Olympics in October 1936. In a photograph accompanying a story about his return, Son is pictured alongside Minami Jirō, the Governor-General of Korea at the time, with a caption that reads ‘Son worshipping at Chōsen Shrine’ (Maeil sinbo, 1936). In effect, Son was the ideal propaganda instrument for the colonial government: an ethnic Korean athlete who not only achieved success on the biggest of international stages, but who also enjoyed immense popularity among his fellow Koreans. Although these instances of acquiescence to colonial authorities can be explained away as a necessity of survival under an oppressive Japanese colonial regime, Son’s later active support for Imperial Japan’s war efforts is much more difficult to reconcile with a historical narrative of Son as actively resistant to Japanese colonial rule.

In conjunction with the implementation of the Korean Student Special Volunteer Soldier System (Chōsenjin gakuto tokubetsu shiganhei seido) in October 1943, numerous prominent Koreans were called upon by Japanese authorities to offer their influence in support (Palmer, 2013). During the media blitz that promoted the initiative between 4 November 1943 and 23 January 1944, the Keijō nippō and the Maeil sinbo published 73 articles by elite Koreans such as scholar Ch’oe Nam-sŏn, nationalist Yun Ch’i-ho, business mogul Kim Yŏn-su, members of the Korean royal family, and author Yi Kwang-su (Palmer, 2013, 66). Kim Sŏng-su, the founder of the Tonga ilbo and brother of Kim Yŏn-su, was one of the first to lend his voice in support of the volunteer system with and article titled ‘Dying for a righteous cause: The responsibility for imperial citizens is great’ (Eckert, 1991, 246).

Son (1943) was among the prominent Koreans who contributed articles of support and was listed as a member of the ‘encouragement force’ (kyŏngnyŏdae) that promoted enlistment in his home province of North Hamgyŏng (Maeil sinbo, 1943). Although he participated in these collaborationist activities, Son Kijŏng, unlike those mentioned in the previous paragraph, is not listed in the Biographical Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators. Published by the Center for Historical Truth and Justice (Minjok munje yŏn’guso), the Biographical Dictionary was intended to be a final and comprehensive list of pro-Japanese collaborators. Others listed in the dictionary include Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi and Yi Sang-bŏm, the artist who, while working at the Tonga ilbo, removed the Japanese flag from the image of Son on the victory stand – an act for which he was arrested and detained by the Japanese colonial police.

According to the Center for Historical Truth and Justice’s own definition, Son is undeniably a collaborator: ‘Those who inflicted harm – either directly or indirectly – on fellow Koreans or those of other nations by actively collaborating in Imperial Japan’s usurpation of Korean sovereignty, colonial rule of Korea, and wars of invasion’ (Minjok munje yŏn’guso, 2016). In his article for the Keijō nippō, Son (1943) implored: ‘When better than now for the youth of the Peninsula to take part in the fight of the ongoing Great East Asia War? With so much bloodshed and death, we must ask this of the earnestness of youth’. Further, in contrast with many Koreans at the time, Son occupied a relatively privileged position in colonial Korea. After graduating from Meiji University in Tokyo in 1940, he returned to Korea where he was employed at Chōsen Savings Bank – an extension of the Japanese colonial government’s financial arm.

Discussion of Son’s involvement in collaborative activities is rare and, even when mentioned, is done in a cursory manner (S. Lee, 2016; T. Yi, 2012). Interestingly, two recent Japanese-language books about Son take a more detailed look at his collaboration (Kimu, 2020; Terashima, 2019), but both contain rather sympathetic portrayals of Son’s actions.⁵ One of the only scathing critiques of Son’s complicity with the Japanese colonial government was published by the Korean news site Teillian: ‘By showing the Korean people that you can live well as an imperial subject and inducing them to abandon their anti-Japanese resolve, Son Kijŏng was a propaganda tool of Imperial Japan and nothing more than a pro-Japanese traitor’ (H. Pak, 2007). The article further criticises those behind the government-led effort (i.e., groups such as the Center for Historical Truth and Justice) at the time, to ‘settle the issue of pro-Japanese collaboration’ (ch’inil ch’ŏngsan) and asserted that their labelling of Son as a ‘hero’ (yŏngung), when he was a collaborator who ‘wielded immense influence’, was a ‘distortion of history’ (H. Pak, 2007).

Shortly thereafter, an article refuting this critique of Son appeared in the newspaper Han’gyŏre (C. Yi, 2007). The rebuttal quotes Yi Chun-sŭng, Son’s grandson and Secretary-General of the Son Kijŏng Memorial Foundation (Son Kijŏng kinyŏm chaedan), who states that a suit for defamation has been filed against the author of the article as well as the chief executive officer of Teillian. The article goes on to announce the launch of a ‘knowing Son Kijŏng correctly’ (Son Kijŏng paro algi) campaign, an effort that eventually led to the creation of the Son Kee Chung Memorial Hall (located a short distance from Son Kijŏng Road in central Seoul). As an object of the Tellian critique, the Center for Historical Truth and Justice chose to republish (Minjok munje yŏn’guso, 2007) the refutation that appeared in Han’gyŏre – a not-so-tacit disavowal of the claim that Son should be regarded as a collaborator and not a hero.

As detailed above, Son expressed a Korean consciousness while in Berlin. It is also true that he later described listening to the Japanese national anthem during the medal ceremony as ‘an unbearable humiliation’ (K. Son, 1983, 145). That he lent his voice in support of Japanese militarism is also a historical fact. Acknowledging this range of seemingly contradictory positions is where narratives of history, particularly those relating to colonial Korea, often fall short. In a critique of how ‘nationalist historiography gives us no room to wonder about the difficulties for an individual trying to navigate and survive’ colonial society, AhRan Ellie Bae suggests that most Koreans were ‘destined to struggle in the gray areas, where what they were fighting against and for often became murky and obscured’ (Bae, 2017, 132). Indeed, it was nearly impossible for even the most ardent Korean nationalists to maintain ‘purity’ during the latter stages of Japan’s colonial rule.

Four years after his Olympic feat, Son wrote about his reflections upon watching the film Festival of Nations (Part 1 of the two-part Nazi film Olympia):

As the recipient of undeserved support from the people of my native land (kot’o yŏrŏbun), I was moved to tears when awarded the laurel of glory at the Berlin Olympic Games. Seeing the scenes of that experience captured on film, I cannot help but feel moved once again today (K. Son, 1940, 132).

This reflection, written in Korean for a Korean readership, makes no mention of the ‘sadness’ that has become the dominant depiction in narratives of Son’s Olympic experience – only tears of gratitude and joy are described. As an essay that appeared in the magazine Samch’ŏlli, Son’s use of the term kot’o is significant because it limits the boundary of ‘undeserved support’ to that received from Koreans. Although it is impossible to know Son’s actual thoughts at the time of his victory, that he felt joy and was grateful for the support of fellow Koreans is certainly plausible. Yet, even though Son himself recalls, in 1940, being ‘moved to tears’ because of the ‘undeserved support’ he received from fellow Koreans, this is never mentioned as a possibility in the historical writings about Son’s ‘reaction’ on the Olympic podium – as there is no room for this level of nuance within the confines of the dominant narrative of resistance to Japan’s colonisation of Korea.

Narrative Legacy and Desired History

Fortified against possible critiques and disruptions, the representation of Son as a national hero who resisted the Japanese colonial regime has, more recently, expanded to include narratives of overt, externally performed resistance – a trend visible in both Korean- and English-language depictions of Son. As part of this re-narration process, the image of Son atop the Olympic podium has transformed from one of sadness and tragedy to one of ‘silent protest’ (C. Kim, 2021) where Son ‘bowed his head and refused to acknowledge [the Japanese flag]’ (Bridges, 2012, 27). Consequently, within the realm of popular discourse, images of Son now often function as components from which to mould narratives of desired history. Imbued with the legacy of Son’s symbolic resistance, these popular imaginations move beyond actual historical events to produce fictional outcomes that cater to the existing appetite for portrayals of active resistance.⁶

The 2012 historical drama Bridal Mask (Kaksit’al) reimagines 1930s colonial Korea as a setting where active, public resistance to Japanese colonial authority is pervasive (Yu et al., 2012). As a means of constructing a romanticised version of colonial Korea, the drama draws on the symbolic power of Son’s image. In one particularly evocative scene, a parade is held in an attempt to validate the success of the assimilation policy of ‘Japan and Korea as one body’ (naesŏn ilch’e). Featured in this event is a young Korean man riding in a Jeep emblazoned with a banner that pays tribute to his recent crowning as a world boxing champion. Included on the celebratory banner, designating him as a subject of the Japanese Empire, is the phrase Pando ch’ŏngnyŏn (Peninsula youth). The Jeep slowly proceeds through a jubilant crowd waving Japanese flags until one onlooker unfurls a Korean flag (t’aegŭkki) and cries out ‘Chosŏn ch’ŏngnyŏn manse’ (long live Korean youth) – an act that sets off an eruption of shouts of ‘manse’, with many in the crowd now brandishing previously hidden Korean flags. Inspired by the brave acts of the cheering supporters, the young boxing champion defiantly tears off the Japanese flag adorning his shirt and joins in the chorus of ‘manse’ cheers. In the following scene, a photograph of the boxer with the Japanese flag removed from his chest – an obvious allusion to Son Kijŏng – appears on the front page of a newspaper, much to the chagrin of Japanese colonial authorities.

Bridal Mask, here, replaces the original passivity of Son atop the Olympic podium with a narrative of defiant resistance performed in tandem with a mass demonstration. The word ‘manse’, which can be translated as a celebratory exclamation akin to ‘hooray’, connotes a sense of ‘national independence’ due to its association with various colonial-era independence movements. Although throngs of people shouting ‘manse’ were certainly a part of the 1919 March 1^st Movement (also referred to as the March 1^st Manse Movement), mass demonstrations were almost non-existent during the late 1930s. Bridal Mask, using the image of Son as a template, recasts 1930s colonial Korea as a time of fervent national consciousness and outwardly manifested resistance to the colonial government.

In a similar vein, Linda Sue Park’s English-language historical novel (written for an American audience) When My Name was Keoko simultaneously personalises and expands upon the Japanese flag erasure incident by inserting the uncle of the novel's two main characters as a participant in the historical event:

Uncle and some of his friends changed all the newspapers. They crossed out the Japanese name and wrote [Son Kijŏng’s] Korean name in its place. They altered the Japanese flag on his uniform, too – they drew a wavy line in the middle of the circle, so it looked like the Korean flag instead (L. Park, 2002, 11).

Moving a step beyond the mere ‘erasure’ of the actual historical incident, the novel emphatically stamps the image of Son as ‘Korean’ with a wavy line reminiscent of the ‘Korean flag’. Somewhat detached from the historical context surrounding the event – Son did not have a ‘Japanese name’ in that the same Chinese characters were used to spell Son’s name in both Japanese and Korean newspapers (i.e., Son Kijŏng and Son Kitei are different readings of the same name), and Hangŭl was also used frequently and unproblematically at the time in Korean publications – this fictional outcome establishes a clear connection between Son’s achievement and a visibly displayed notion of Korean national consciousness.

In both Bridal Mask and When My Name was Keoko, the imagined historical narratives consist of two key components: active and externally performed resistance and the replacement of the Japanese flag with the T’aegŭkki. The emblematic power of the T’aegŭkki stems from both how it was used by independence actors during the colonial period and its sustained relevance as the national flag, though altered slightly, of South Korea. Similarly, recently constructed monuments – such as statues of Son erected in Seoul (K. Pak, 2016) and Berlin (Sŏ, 2016) – have also been anachronistically adorned with the T’aegŭkki. With both physical memorials and narratives of desired history, the affixing of the T’aegŭkki onto the image of Son functions not only as a figurative act of resistance to the past of Japanese colonial rule, but also as a declaration that South Korea is the true Korean nation and proper inheritor of Son Kijŏng’s historical legacy.

Conclusion

Although the historical narrative of Son as a champion of nationalist Korean resistance during the colonial period has taken root both inside and outside Korea, claim to his Olympic legacy remains highly contested more than 80 years after his gold medal win. The ongoing controversy surrounding Son’s inclusion, by the Japan Olympic Museum, among Japan’s gold medal winners received renewed attention during the runup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (Bahk, 2021; Kuroda, 2021; Shim, 2021; Yu, 2021). Extending even further beyond a disagreement between (South) Korea and Japan, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) also currently categorises Son as a representative of Japan – listing him under the name Kitei Son.

After extensive pressure from the Korean Olympic Committee, the IOC, though refusing to change Son’s nationality, did agree to add a description that reflects the established historical narrative of nationalist resistance.⁷ In his bio on the official Olympics website, he is labelled as ‘Sohn Kee-Chung of Korea (South Korea)’ and described as a ‘fervent nationalist’ who ‘always signed his Korean name in Korean’ and ‘made it a point to explain Korea was a separate nation’ (International Olympic Committee, n.d.). Further, Son’s posture while atop the Olympic podium is assigned motive:

At the medal ceremony Sohn had to watch as his victory was celebrated by the raising of the Japanese flag and by the playing of the Japanese national anthem. Both Sohn and Nam registered a silent protest by bowing their heads (International Olympic Committee, n.d.).

Not only is Son represented in a way that imposes a historical understanding from a future perspective where division is a foregone conclusion – with his origins from the northern half of the Peninsula elided – but nationalist motives are assigned to his (in)action during the medal ceremony. The chasm between images mobilised by Imperial Japan to assert ‘success’ as a coloniser and the grim realities of life in colonial Korea is widely acknowledged and emphasised in the historiography of colonial Korea. By contrast, the incongruity between the nationalistic meaning imposed upon the malleable colonial images of Son Kijŏng and the seeming passivity of the ‘actions’ being represented is rarely, if ever, addressed.

My aim here is not to critique Son’s own recounting of his Olympic experience; nor is it to minimise the symbolic importance of his accomplishments and how he continues to be celebrated as a hero in South Korea. Rather, this article, by highlighting the way in which a single image can be mobilised to represent vastly different narratives, demonstrates how the malleability of representation has allowed for the formation of a historical narrative – constructed upon images of Son as an official representative of Imperial Japan – that celebrates Son as an active resistor to Japan’s colonial rule. The continual disregarding or overlooking of images and historical sources that would destabilise this narrative has allowed for the formation of new narratives of imagined historical outcomes that cater to current political sentiments. Conversely, treatment of Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi in the popular narratives of history has been much less forgiving. Certainly, there is room for critique of collaboration as well as debate over the severity of different collaborative acts, but the inescapability of some form of collaboration for prominent figures such as Son and Ch’oe (see Figure 4) speaks to the penetrative power of Japan’s colonial authority and the need to allow room for historical narratives, as evidenced in the case of Son Kijŏng, that speak to the realities of colonial Korea.

Figure 4. Choi and Son at an event celebrating Son’s victory in Seoul in 1936 (public domain)

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Seed Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2019-INC-223000X).

Notes

^1. Several different romanisations have been used for Son’s name. For the sake of consistency, I have chosen to use Son Kijŏng – the most commonly used romanisation in academic writing. His preferred spelling was Sohn Kee-chung, which has also been used quite frequently in English-language media coverage of Son.

^2. Although the details are not clear, available sources and information suggest that Ch’oe was purged and forced to leave P’yŏngyang in 1967, dying shortly thereafter in 1969 (J. Kim, 2003).

^3. A search of online Korean research database Dbpia finds more than 60 academic articles on Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi. By contrast, a search for Son Kijŏng only finds five such articles.

^4. After ‘voluntarily suspending publication’ (chajin hyugan) on 4 September 1936, Yo Un-hyŏng, the President of Chosŏn chungang ilbo, made the decision to permanently cease publication of the newspaper in November 1937 due to an increasingly difficult publication environment (Chŏng, 2008, 143–144).

^5. Terashima’s (2020) biography of Son has been translated into Korean and received some coverage in the South Korean press (e.g., Yonhap nyusŭ, 2020). The book notes that Son was involved in the promotion of volunteering for the Imperial Japanese Military but that it was his biggest ‘regret’ (huhoe) in life (Terashima, 2019, 80).

^6. This trend has been discussed in studies on Korean film (H. Lee, 2020; Shin, 2019) that identify a shift from the lacklustre performance of films with a more nuanced depiction of the colonial era during the first decade of the 2000s such as YMCA Baseball Team (Yagudan, 2002), Blue Swallow (Ch’ŏngyŏn, 2005), and Modern Boy (Modŏn poi, 2008), to the more successful – in terms of both box office and critical acclaim – recent films that focus on colonial-period resistance, such as Assassination (Amsal, 2015), The Age of Shadows (Miljŏng, 2016), and The Battle: Roar to Victory (Pongodong chŏnt’u, 2019).

^7. Since the 1980s, the Korean Olympic Committee has called on the IOC to change Son’s nationality and name. Before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the IOC made changes to reflect Son’s accomplishments and explain the historical background but refused to change his nationality and registered name because it would distort history (Chosun ilbo, 2011).