Busan was exposed to outsider’s views as it was opened to the outside world. Sakrurai Kunnoske(1894) didn’t stop viewing the city under colonization from the imperialistic perspective. He clearly discriminated the colonial city and its peripheries...
Busan was exposed to outsider’s views as it was opened to the outside world. Sakrurai Kunnoske(1894) didn’t stop viewing the city under colonization from the imperialistic perspective. He clearly discriminated the colonial city and its peripheries by defining them as civilized and barbarian, respectively, or specifically, healthy and sick or clean and dirt. Meanwhile, George Lynch(1903) predicted that Japan and Russia would struggle with each other in colonizing Joseon, resulting in the annexation of Joseon into Japan. For him, Busan was like a prism through which he could see the dynamics of the then global powers. At that time, thus, Busan was never free from outsiders’ biased views.
It was Lee In Jik(1906) who made literary writings about colonial marine city, Busan for the first time in this country. He depicted Busan as a newly formed markets or a window open to the civilized world. This clearly suggests that he formed his own world view orienting outsiders, not insiders as he observed the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese Wars. Without insiders’ self-awareness of outsiders, Lee In Jik’s novel is devoid of viewing the city from the geopolitical perspective. The novel provides a panoramic view of the openness of Busan, sometimes depicting the city as a place where criminals hide themselves or a place that they cross through to escape. Choi Chan Sik(1912) associated Busan with cultural hybridization that became the focus of his novel. However, his novel shows little or no attention to the dualistic aspects or their unequal developments.
Yeom Sang Seop(1922) looked substantially into the colonial marine city as he stood himself upon so-called the theory of imperial reorganization that emerged after the 1st World War. In his novel, the main character as an urban promenader tries to be not obsessed with the particulars of Busan while examining the substantial reality of the city. The promenade finds that the dualistic aspects of Busan were being unequally developed and that the colonial city as the central area was being hybridized with its peripheral areas by interacting with them. In the novel, the author suggests that Busan has a substantial or total quality as the miniature of colonized Joseon. As implied by spaces, characters’ facial expressions and a half-blooded woman of a restaurant that are described in the novel, the author sees the city as dark like the inside of a tomb. Ironically, it may be attributed to the fact that he came to hope for world and imperial reorganization after the 1st World War