Writing Kimchi, Inscribing Koreanness : Korean Food Between Stigma and Commodity in Contemporary Zainichi Poetry

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Other Title
  • 詩に刻むキムチ : 「在日」詩人の描く食・ジェンダー・差別

Abstract

This paper explores the intersections of food, gender, and ethnicity in the literature of Zainichi Korean writers. Far more than simply a biological necessity, food functions as a marker of social identity, from nation to ethnicity, from class to age or gender. In Zainichi literature, therefore, representations of food, cooking, and eating do not primarily serve to add realism to the narrative. Rather, food is used as shorthand for the ties that persist between Korean immigrants and their pasts, and to indicate the degree of their assimilation in Japan. This function is particularly clear in poetry. With a focus on two representative poems, I examine how ethnic food such as Korean kimch’i and Japanese takuan is celebrated, and simultaneously resisted, as (gendered) cultural heritage. I show how food is used to highlight cultural anxieties and desires, mark processes of inclusion and exclusion, and express a wavering sense of connectedness between Korea, the imagined country of their descent, and Japan, the country of their own birth.

Journal

  • JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究

    JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 11 58-71, 2020-03-26

    Center for Transregional Culture and Society, Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University

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