General Society: Society: News: Hankyoreh

Kim In-seon said, “Wherever they are born, who they love, whether they have money or not, humans have the right to enjoy dignity by themselves.” Photo knife and wooden pencil provided

Born in Korea, I left a Korean school and worked for Korean internet newspapers to write Korean articles. I came to Japan in 2016 to study and have been living as a foreigner for six years. It would be forcible if I could say a sense of isolation, like a former international student essayist or a European immigrant, who receives several photos of my nephew in Korea via’KakaoTalk’ every day in Asia’s largest metropolis. It was also a very close place, so at first, I quickly left. However, the deeper the adaptation is, the more it comes to saying that it is a foreigner. Adjusting here was a process that became a more realistic prospect to remain here even after graduation, and it became clear that I would continue to be a foreigner as the schedule of the one-way course was vacated indefinitely. It may sound excessive to support this reality more intensely than the documents issued by the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the language barriers still encountered, and the cultural differences in everyday life, but death or illness. It is latent even at this very moment in that we do not know when it will happen. If I die tomorrow, is there anyone who can hand over these books, which are only useful in dissertations I haven’t written, to a suitable place? Or, if the time comes someday to organize my life, who will help me relieve the terrible loneliness next to me. Changes in the conditions of the round trip between Korea and Japan due to the coronavirus over the past year, and the experience of being unable to attend the funeral of a dear friend in July, brought this sense of reality to the fore. Not long ago, I chatted with a friend at the gopchang house in Shin Okubo. My friend said that after accepting the results of the medical checkup, he was starting to think seriously about creating a family as a reason to live here. At the end of 2019, I thought of another friend who had organized life in Japan for nearly 10 years due to health problems. My friend also said that after the coronavirus outbreak, some of my colleagues in the same office have returned to Korea, but certainly there are not a few friends around me who have returned to Korea or are considering returning home. The specific reasons may vary, but I thought that if the picture depicts the foreign life of female friends of my age, including myself, the question “can I bury the bones here” on one side, and on the other side, it is like a balance that puts a reason for combining this and that. When I encountered the life story of Kim In-seon (71), who moved to Germany under the Park Chung-hee era nurse dispatch system and lived there for 50 years, despite the huge difference in context between our’migration’, I I was curious about the faces when heading to Germany and Korea. His autobiography (wooden pencil), published earlier this year, was read in bed at once on the night when he received a gift as an e-book. The evening after meeting my friend, I met In-sun Kim and Zum through Zum, who met the same morning in Berlin. Unlike in a book that calmly wrote about his life with many twists and turns, his voice was so cheerful.

If you seem to have heard of the name Kim In-seon, the prediction is correct. Even so far, his interviews have been published several times. The first article in 2010 introduces him as “the first generation of migrant nurses” led by “a hospice group for East Asians in Germany, “Affiliation” (currently named “Companion-Intercultural Hospice”). Established in 2005, he has won numerous awards in Germany and Korea for the work of this group helping many migrants die in distant foreign lands. Many media and publishers paid attention to his activities, and in 2011, he published a book on his activities. On the cover of this book, it is written, “’Beautiful finish’ delivered by In-sun Kim, the great mother of hospice in Germany, who appeared on KBS’s morning yard and rang the hearts of viewers.” When I think of the person I saw through the zoom screen, this phrase is too much and something Lack. It is probably because the phrase was written before another life history of his life as important as this activity was known. After passing through the articles in 2014 and 2015, which were also introduced as representatives of’Companion’, articles dealing with the same Kim In-seon will turn into a rainbow. In May of that year, through a lecture at the Diaspora Film Festival in Incheon, he shared his story as a lesbian living with a female partner. It was a coming out from Korea. The following year, he was invited to the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary, and raised his voice that he should meet young LGBT people and respect various lives as senior LGBT people, which are rarely seen in Korean society. As I flip through the photos of the scraped article, I see his face becoming much richer. In some scenes, you look infinitely free, and in some scenes, you can feel the treasure of a person who is prepared for his social use in the future. “Looking at (sexual minorities) being discriminated against and hurt… Now, when I go to Korea, I think there are some things I need to do.” He says of the experience of returning home, where the’theme’ has changed from before the spring of 2019. It was impossible in 2020 due to the aftermath of the pandemic, but it is his hope that he will continue to have a lot of conversations and discussions at the same level as young Korean queers in the future.

Childhood mother and grandmother together. In-sun Kim, wooden pencil provided

I have lived in Germany for 50 years. His trip to Germany, saying, “Now his thoughts, emotions, and identity are closer to Germans,” took place in September 1972, when he was twenty-two. Born in Masan, Gyeongsangnam-do on January 2nd, 1950, he says that he was “inevitable” and “in a world with no welcome”. He was a 20-year-old’new woman’, who was full of ambitions for learning and success, who met a married man who was a hardworking man by mistake and’made up’. When she was three years old, the woman left for Japan to study, leaving him to her mother and younger brother. And six years later, he came back and worked as a newspaper reporter and interpreter, but he acted as if he had never had children. Amid irresponsibility and indifference that are close to abuse, young Kim In-sun travels from place to place. It was for a while that he lived with the only maternal grandmother in the world who loves him. When he was 16, his maternal grandmother passed away, and as soon as the funeral was over, his mother married a German man who was a UN employee and left Korea. The youngest aunt attends high school, but the family immigrates to the United States. My second aunt, whom I called my mother when I was a child, also went to the United States, and my uncle continued to live in Japan, so there was no need to rely on Korea. His mother’s letter, wandering around the world, arrives to him, wondering how to live. It said,’The stepfather will invite you to Germany as a nursing student.’ Thinking that he had no reason to remain in Korea, he swelled up on a plane to Germany in September 1972. However, life in other countries was not easy and suffered from confusion and depression of identity. A hospital sister, who had been generously caring for him from the beginning, offered a proposal to him, who could not endure and return. What if I left my luggage? After three years and six months, I suddenly realized the same facts as the title of this book while working in a coffee shop to help my father’s family. The most important thing is you, let’s live for yourself. So he thought on his way back to Germany after six months. “I wondered if I could live in Korea, but I couldn’t. Korea has no blood ties and studies, but it was not a place where women could live alone. Then I decided to go to Germany, where no one knows, and live faithfully. It was desperate, and it was the only chance for me. I was born in an environment that would have been nice if I hadn’t been born, so I couldn’t afford to think about my own identity or presence until I came to Germany. It was just a struggle to survive.”

Wearing a pastoral uniform while studying at a German seminary. In-sun Kim, wooden pencil provided

He left Korea and came back to Germany and began another new solitude, but thanks to the hospital nuns who welcomed him, he had a more direct relationship with religion, he said. “The Sisters gave me a very good understanding of God and those who believe in God.” After returning, she graduated from nursing school in 1979 and started working as a nurse. She married in 1984 when she was 34 years old. The other person was a Korean man with German citizenship, whom he met as an introduction at a Korean church after moving to Duisburg. For him, aspiring to study, marriage and acquisition of German nationality also served as a conducive environment for studying theology. From 1985 to Diakonise (professional Christian female volunteer) education and ordination, to a thirty-seven late night high school student, then to Bochum University to a master’s degree at Berlin Humboldt University in 2003, studying theology is more than just a major. It was meaning. I got to know the thoughts and sentiment of Germany in depth, settled in German society, and asked, above all, how to live as a human being. “The most important thing in German education was that, as a human being, I had the right to make decisions. So I have to take responsibility. And it is the idea of ​​human rights in Germany that no matter who they are, their rights and responsibilities are recognized as individuals, they are equally dignified, and that everyone has the same eye level.” Having learned this thought, he let him decide the path he really wanted, without having to see anyone’s eyes. When he started receiving Diakonise education, he decided to divorce to live with Lee Soo-hyun, a fateful partner who fell in love with him. I never imagined that I would love a woman on my own, and the divorce process was lonely and difficult. People in the Korean community said, “I called day and night and alternated between giving advice and swearing.” He was struggling with criticism and even thought about quitting his theological studies. But when he heard his story, the gift of theology convinced him, “If you don’t accept yourself, how can someone else accept you?”

During a video interview, Kim In-seon shows a medal, the symbol of Diaconise. The right is an interview with Eunbyul Ahn. Provided by Eunbyul Ahn

“From the ethics perspective of Koreans here, it’s an uproar because I’m divorced and living with a woman. Hahaha. I swear a lot. But what’s the problem? People love people. People who are tied up without breaking their heart are rather sad. Whatever it may be, won’t you have no regrets if you do what you want to do?” Speaking of the German view of humanity, which everyone is universally respected, what he showed me was the cross on the necks of the Diaconises. Previously, the Diaconises were a group of single women wearing uniforms and living in a strict community, but after the reforms, they only had to wear this medal. The pendant was designed to break the frame of the cross that I used to know, which seemed to show a gentle ripple when a stone was thrown on the surface of the water. This shape resembles his life itself, which has caused calm ripples in people and society through his own changes. What he came to think about while studying was to help women who migrated to Germany and the second generation of Korean Americans born in Germany. In the 1960s and 1970s, Koreans, who came as miners and nurses, often formed families, and the patriarchal gender norms for which “updates” stopped by bringing each one from Korea became stronger, causing problems ranging from conflict to violence. In particular, the cultural antagonism between the first generation and the second generation born in Germany was severe. Looking at the cross-cultural issues encountered in the most intimate areas, I began to see the lives of migrants and international students from other Asian countries. The confusion when the walls separating the two Germany collapsed and the alertness seen by East German nurses came into sight, and I was thinking of the future of a divided home country where even round trips were difficult. Through his hospice activities, which began in 2001, he became deeply concerned about the same fate,’dying as a stranger’. After that, a network was created in Korea and more visits were made through the’companion’ activity established by tearing down old funds and insurance funds. In order to better consult migrants, I needed to understand what kind of environment they lived in and how Korea is changing, so I looked at it with interest. A place that had not welcomed him from the time he was born, and after his maternal grandmother passed away, the relationship with his home country, where there was really no one, and so determined not to return forever, was reestablished through long studies. Through the medium of Kim In-sun’s body and his experiences, the era of global migration, Germany and Korea, which embrace many foreigners, face each other. However, Korea still has a long way to go not only in its awareness of LGBTI people, but also in taking care of the minimum human rights immigrants should have. Under the last generation, Sok Heng, a female worker from Cambodia, died too cold in a green house. With a terrible look, Kim In-seon continued. “Where they were born, who they love, with or without money, humans have the right to dignity in themselves. In that respect, I am very sorry for Korea, and I feel that I have work to do.”

material photo” alt=”In-sun Kim attended the Seoul Queer Culture Festival on June 1, 2019. material photo” />

In-sun Kim attended the Seoul Queer Culture Festival on June 1, 2019. <한겨레> Material photo

From the life of a mother who was not able to fully understand the irresponsibility of her mother’s life as the same woman who was born with the wrong age, to a master’s thesis that started from a problem consciousness about the interpretation of the Bible, where women were excluded, and positive changes in Korean society. We also talked a lot about the feminism that brings. There were a lot of moments when Lee Soo-hyun appeared on the screen from time to time and the three of them smiled. His mother said,’If I’m 20 years younger, I want to live with a woman’, but seeing this couple really resonates. This book was written during chemotherapy. It was the second cancer in his life. For that reason, he says, he seems to have written it more sincerely than his first book 10 years ago. Although it is a short and condensed history of life, I see this book as an important performance work of In-Sun Kim, not only as the content contained therein, but as the act of’writing a biography’. In the text, this is the content. ‘What impressed me most about hospice education in Germany was that the volunteers went through the process of organizing their own biography. It was an education that originated from the idea that only those who looked back on their own lives and summarized their positions and perspectives on him could help those in the face of death.’ “As I wrote the book, I got a lot of things in me organized. When I wrote, I knew the meaning of things that happened in the past. In that respect, I want to encourage anyone to write about their life once in a while. If you write things that happened moment by moment, it becomes a’roman’. If you look at it again a few years later, you will have different feelings.” Writing doesn’t just save what happened. It is to elevate the temporal past into a prospect by making meanings in relation to the things to be made in the future. It is actively discovering how to live. For him who wants to continue using it in the future, it is not a big problem to live with the possibility of recurrence of cancer. When it happens, they say they will accept what happens. Rather than asking about his plans for the future, I wanted to ask him what excites him most right now. “Are you making me flutter now? Eating poop (a nickname for partner Lee Soo-hyun) and pork kimchi stew? Ha ha ha ha ha. Do you want to come to my house? When do you come to work.”

In-seon Kim and his partner Soo-Hyun Lee stand in front of a monument commemorating the Nazi oppression of homosexuals. Photograph Yajima Tsukasa

He asked me several times, “How about Japan?” He was a person who wanted to talk rather than talk unilaterally. Looking at it, listening to other people’s stories is what he did in Germany. The exclusionaryism of foreigners in Japan is another problem that I have resigned from the experience of hearing every other house in real estate saying “The landlord is not a foreigner”, saying that it cannot be helped. Japan has actively opened its doors to foreigners amid progress in internationalization since the 1980s, aging aging since the 1990s, and labor shortages, but they have been forced to come in through the’back door’ or’side door’ so that they will only work and return without notice. The policy of accepting and accepting as members of society has been abandoned. Han Dong-hyun, a sociologist who is a Korean resident in Japan, describes this as “institutionalization of camouflage,” and says that the situation surrounding Chosun schools is the most distorted form of Japanese exclusionism in Heisei (1989-2019). Chosun School was excluded from the subject of free high school education in 2013 due to’public sentiment’ toward North Korea, and was recently excluded from the Corona 19 infection prevention countermeasure support project and the emergency benefit support project for students. The government’s position is in line with the social sensibility that firmly believes that’Japanese people do not discriminate’, which can be seen from the extreme criticism of Nike’s advertisement, which deals with discriminatory views toward Korean students and mixed races in Japan.

In such a place, can the story written by In-seon Kim, “Supporting the last path of the strangers without being lonely,” can be used? Somehow I can’t imagine now. However, whether this story is possible or not is still unknown to anyone, and depends on the movements to realize the possibility from now on. And these are the stories I want to add strength to if I continue to live here.
Eunbyul Ahn, a researcher in Japan <프레시안> reporter