Week 1: Seoul

My first week in Korea focused on visiting and exploring the museums in the Jongno District, which is not only the center of Seoul but also a symbol of Korea’s history and culture. Throughout this week, I visited a variety of museums from the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History to the Seodaemun Prison History Hall. The main focus of my visits to these museums was to investigate the ways in which Korean institutions portray the history of Zainichi Koreans. Surprisingly, I didn’t find a huge focus on the history of Zainichi Koreans with only slight mentions here and there. Rather, I noticed that there was a heavy focus on the Japanese colonial empire. There were only tad bits of Zainichi Koreans mentioned within the period of Japanese colonization of South Korea in relation to how Koreans immigrated or how Zainichi Koreans assisted in gaining independence for Korea. There was never a separate exhibit or section in the museums solely dedicated to the history of Zainichi Koreans. However, something I did notice within the context of biases within different institutions and resources was the ways in which texts were translated across different languages. It was clear that a specific message was being conveyed through text explanations through specific word choices.

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