Interview with Professor Choi Seong-hee, a third-generation Korean-Japanese historian who researched the Japanese NHK hit drama ‘Wings to the Tiger’
“I still vividly remember when I was contacted to take charge of the historical research for a drama about the lives of Koreans during the Japanese colonial period. ‘This era has finally arrived. The words, ‘It’s only in this way that history is receiving attention during the Japanese colonial period,’ came to me naturally. “I felt moved and a sense of duty.”
Choi Seong-hee (47), a professor of international studies at Osaka Sangyo University and a third-generation Korean in Japan who was in charge of historical research for the drama ‘Wings to the Tiger’, which aired on NHK in Japan from April this year to the 27th of last month, said this in a video interview with the Dong-A Ilbo on the 1st. ‘Wings for a Tiger’, which aired in the 63-year-old NHK morning drama (Asadora, aired on weekdays from 7:30 to 45 a.m.), dealt with the biographies of first-generation Japanese legal women from the 1930s to 1960s. It was so loved that the final episode, which aired on the 27th of last month, recorded an audience rating of 18.7%. Among the drama’s main characters, the ‘Gang of 6 from the Class of 1932’, was Choi Hyang-suk, an international student from Joseon. In addition, Korean minor characters appeared, and situations such as the Great Kanto Earthquake, the massacre of Koreans, and discrimination against Koreans living in Japan were also dealt with.
Professor Choi said, “I advised the production team to accurately portray the difficulties that Hyang-suk and the Korean people experience in Japan in the drama,” and added, “I believe that Hyang-suk should not be depicted as a person who cooperated with Japanese colonialism while clearly revealing her turbulent life.” “I worked with it,” he said. He added, “This is a drama that the production team produced with great courage in a situation where historical revisionists and right-wingers are speaking out.”
Professor Choi, who studies the Japanese colonial period, often visits Korea. Also, whenever he has the opportunity, he emphasizes to those around him, “It is my calling as a scholar to sow the seeds of friendship between Korea and Japan.” He is also actively involved in lectures and social media activities. His efforts also resulted in meaningful results. A teacher’s college student who grew up with parents who hated Koreans listened to Professor Choi’s lecture on ‘Modern and Contemporary History of Korea’ in 2018 and cried on the last day of the lecture, saying, “My life has changed.”
I had a special experience in Nara Prefecture, which I visited for research in 2020. In the 1920s and 1930s, letters sent by Korean students at Japan’s Girls’ High School Normal School to a Japanese scholarship recipient were discovered. Most of them returned to Joseon and became teachers. Professor Choi said, “As I read the letter, I felt as if I had been asked by Joseon women 100 years ago to ‘please leave us in history.’”
Although he was born and raised in Japan, people who meet him for the first time still see him as a Korean professor. Professor Choi said, “Fortunately, after ‘Wings to a Tiger’ was aired, Japanese society’s understanding of Koreans living in Japan increased. It was a drama that gave me great reward and gave me wings.”
Professor Choi graduated from the Department of History at Tokyo Women’s University and entered Hitotsubashi University, which is considered the ‘cradle of modern Korean history research in Japan’. He received a master’s degree in research on the Dong-A Ilbo’s Bnarod Movement (1931-1934) and a doctorate in research on youth careers in the 1920s and 1930s. did it
Reporter Lee Ji-yoon [email protected]
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2024-10-07 07:26:30