He and his schoolmates are assigned with the task of collecting rubber balls. Kim is very conflicted about this role and tries to figure a way out of playing it. 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 feels a growing distaste for the way the older generations have handled the Japanese occupation. Kim visits the family section of the local cemetery to beg forgiveness from their ancestors. 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. 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.Īs World War II rages, Kim and his fellow Koreans face food scarcity and Japanese oppression. He becomes aware of the complexities of the lives of Korean adults. This is the first instance of the cruelty he experiences at the hands of the Japanese authorities. On his first day of school, Kim makes two friends, but a Japanese teacher attacks him for singing “Danny Boy” in English.

School is conducted in Japanese, and the Japanese teachers attempt to indoctrinate students in Japanese ideology.

The Japanese have asserted cultural dominance over Korean society. When Kim is in his second year of school, his family moves back to Korea. Having missed the train, the family crosses the treacherous, frozen river into Manchuria, where they live for several years in a Korean Christian community. After a tense interval of hours, the police release Mr. Kim’s past anti-Japanese activism and subsequent prison sentence, Japanese police harass him and take him away, leaving Mrs. Kim recounting the family moving to Manchuria in the winter of 1932. This guide uses the Barnes and Noble Nook edition of Lost Names.

The book of lost names