Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood

Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood is a fictionalized autobiography and bildungsroman by author and literature professor Richard E. Kim (1932-2009). Originally published in 1970, Lost Names is a collection of seven scenes from Kim’s life from 1932 (birth) to 1945 (age 13). Kim examines the Korean experience of Japanese colonial occupation through the eyes of himself as a child. Though it is autobiographical, Kim was ambivalent about its status as fiction or nonfiction: he regarded Lost Names as nonfiction insofar as all the events happened, and all the characters were real. His hindsight analysis and insight into the behavior of adults, as well as portrayal of events he would not have been aware of in the first chapter, lend it a fictional aspect. Kim was a Guggenheim recipient and was influential in establishing copywrite protection for Korean works of fiction in the United States.

This guide uses the Barnes and Noble Nook edition of Lost Names.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Mrs. Kim recounting the family moving to Manchuria in the winter of 1932. Because of Mr. Kim’s past anti-Japanese activism and subsequent prison sentence, Japanese police harass him and take him away, leaving Mrs. Kim and the infant Richard E. Kim alone in a freezing railway station. After a tense interval of hours, the police release Mr. Kim bloodied, but otherwise unharmed. Having missed the train, the family crosses the treacherous, frozen river into Manchuria, where they live for several years in a Korean Christian community.

When Kim is in his second year of school, his family moves back to Korea. The Japanese have asserted cultural dominance over Korean society. School is conducted in Japanese, and the Japanese teachers attempt to indoctrinate students in Japanese ideology. On his first day of school, Kim makes two friends, but a Japanese teacher attacks him for singing “Danny Boy” in English. This is the first instance of the cruelty he experiences at the hands of the Japanese authorities.

Kim becomes class leader in third grade. He becomes aware of the complexities of the lives of Korean adults. Some, like Mr. Kim and the owner of the local bookstore, regard others who work for the Japanese, like Kim’s Korean teacher, as traitors to their culture.

As World War II rages, Kim and his fellow Koreans face food scarcity and Japanese oppression. The most traumatic instance of this is the passing of the Name Change Order, where Koreans are coerced (but not forced) to take on Japanese surnames. It is a moment of great disgrace for Mr. Kim and his father. Kim visits the family section of the local cemetery to beg forgiveness from their ancestors. Kim feels a growing distaste for the way the older generations have handled the Japanese occupation.

In sixth grade, Kim is assigned the role of a Japanese military official in a school play honoring the birthday of Japan’s crown prince. Kim is very conflicted about this role and tries to figure a way out of playing it. He and his schoolmates are assigned with the task of collecting rubber balls. When Kim defends his decision to pop the balls to fit more in bags, the Japanese athletics teacher beats him brutally with a wooden sword. Though grotesquely bruised, Kim manages to give part of an important speech in the play anyway, humiliating his teacher.

In his second year of junior high school, the Japanese war effort is going badly. Kim and his classmates labor under horrible conditions to construct an airbase for Japanese fighter pilots retreating from Manchuria. Mrs. Kim visits to take her son out of school. Mr. Kim has been taken to a Japanese prison camp.

Kim and his family prepare for the imminent Japanese surrender, which is broadcast over the radio. Mr. Kim organizes the prison camp; the guards surrender, and Mr. Kim is free to reunite with his family. Kim uses the militaristic training he underwent in the Japanese-controlled school system to help his father organize the reoccupation of their town. Under Mr. Kim’s leadership, the Koreans retake the town. The surrender of the Japanese police chief marks their success. Kim, Mr. Kim, and the other men of the community have participated in the making of history together.