Denogean: Tucsonan is a rock in protest over islets
by Anne T. Denogean on Aug. 26, 2008, under Local, Nation/World, SpecialPuts spotlight on coveted acres between South Korea, Japan
Youngsang Oh, 58, is staging a one-man protest against Japan on the Dokdo islets in the East Sea. He's also collecting signatures to present to the Japanese.
A heated international dispute over a tiny pair of islands has prompted the return of a Tucson resident to his homeland of South Korea to stage a one-man, monthlong protest against Japan.
The journey of Youngsang Oh, 58, is nothing short of quixotic. It’s a story of sacrifice, history and destiny.
At stake in the international dispute are the rocky islets of Dokdo in the waters between South Korea and Japan. Dokdo is small in acreage but much coveted by both Korea and Japan for the fertile fishing grounds and possible reserves of natural gas and minerals in the seas and seabed surrounding the islets.
For more than a century, the Koreans and the Japanese have wrangled over Dokdo, from Japan annexing the islets in 1905 while denying Dokdo’s long history as Korean territory to South Korea reasserting control over the islands in the early 1950s without the authority of a treaty.
Tensions over Dokdo reignited in July with the news that the Japanese Education Ministry approved guidelines for textbook publishers and middle school teachers defining the Dokdo islets as Japanese territory.
That didn’t sit well with South Koreans, nor with Americans of Korean ancestry such as Oh. Oh, whose grandfather fought for liberation from Japanese imperialism, was outraged by the Japanese attitude and decided to visit Dokdo.
Oh is a native of South Korea who came to Tucson in 1999 after living in Alaska for a couple of years. He owns a sportswear store with his wife.
When Oh talked to local restaurateur K.C. An about his desire to visit Dokdo, An agreed to pay for his plane ticket. The Arizona Korean Association and the Southern Arizona Korean Association, of which Oh is president of the board, also are helping to pay for the trip.
Oh left Tucson on Aug. 11, armed with proclamations from 18 Korean-American associations calling for Japan to renounce its claim to Dokdo.
Oh arrived in Seoul on Aug. 13. After a visit to the presidential palace in Seoul, he began his protest Aug. 15.
Each day for 18 days, he planned to board a cruise ship from Ullung Island to Dokdo, where he would disembark, climb a rocky hill, turn to face Japan and read one of the 18 proclamations.
The trip hasn’t gone exactly as planned. For the last week, stormy weather trapped Oh on Dokdo, where there are no hotels or restaurants. He slept and ate at the police station. He finally was able to return to Ullung and his hotel Monday morning.
When Oh finishes reading all 18 proclamations at the beginning of September, he’ll return to the port city of Mookho and begin walking to Seoul, a journey expected to take seven to 10 days.
Along the way, he plans to collect at least 10,000 signatures to present to the Japanese embassy. His final hope, as his story is covered by South Korean media, is to inspire thousands of South Koreans to engage in a candlelight protest against Japan.
I wasn’t able to speak to Oh in Korea because he doesn’t speak English well enough for us to conduct a phone interview. A Korean-American newspaperman, Frank Song, told me Oh’s story.
Song, the Tucson manager of The Korean Arizona Times, said Oh was determined to make the trip despite worries about the impact it would have on his family and business. His wife didn’t want him to go.
But Oh felt the trip was in keeping with the memory and legacy of his grandfather, Changsun Oh, who fought valiantly against the Japanese rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
“This Mr. Oh think that, ‘My grandfather is patriotic person and he fights against the Japanese. And the Japanese are still fighting about this island,’ ” Song said.
The Koreans, who date their claim to Dokdo back to A.D. 512, view the Japanese claim to Dokdo as rooted in imperialism. Japan annexed the islands in 1905 when Korea was too weak to protest.
Japan unilaterally annexed Korea in 1910 and spent the next three decades trying to rub out Korean culture, history and language. For rebelling against Japanese rule, Changsun Oh was imprisoned by the Japanese in 1919 for six years. Upon his release, he left Korea for Manchuria, where the resistance was based, and joined the liberation movement. Captured again in 1939, Changsun Oh was imprisoned until the end of World War II in 1945.
The peace treaties signed after the end of World War II stripped Japan of territories it gained through aggression but left the question of the Dokdo’s jurisdiction unsettled.
Korea asserted control of Dokdo in the 1950s, stationing its coast guard there in 1954, and has protected its claim on the islets ever since.
Changsun Oh died soon after his release from prison, his body broken by the ill treatment he received at the hands of his Japanese jailers.
The Korean government honored him posthumously with three awards for patriotism.
CORRECTION: In my Aug. 19 column, I got the name wrong of one the young American Indians participating in a 3,000-mile walk across the country. My apologies to 12-year-old Trudy Silas.
Anne T. Denogean can be reached at 573-4582 and adenogean@tucsoncitizen.com. Address letters to P.O. Box 26767, Tucson, AZ 85726-6767. Her columns run Tuesdays and Fridays.
Oh has lived in Tucson since 1999. He's president of the board of directors of the Southern Arizona Korean Association.
