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60 pages 2 hours read

Richard E. Kim

Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1970

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Before Reading

Reading Context

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

List examples of colonialism throughout history and/or in modern times. Historically, what are some of the most significant impacts of a colonizer/colonized relationship on each side?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question introduces students to the book’s historical context in conjunction with Kim’s themes of Hubris of the Colonizer and The Remembrance of Things Lost. Kim’s text is an account of life in Korea under the authority of Japan in the years prior to and during World War II, mostly through his own perspective as a young boy. In his vignettes of life in occupied Korea, Kim recounts the attempts of imperialist Japan to erase Korean culture, including limiting church attendance of Koreans, effacing Korean history and language for young students, and even forcing Korean communities to adopt Japanese names. In this vein, Kim’s text is a larger commentary on the adverse effects of colonizers on colonized communities.

  • National Geographic provides an overview of the history of colonialism.
  • This “Key Points Across East Asia” info-guide from Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s Asia for Educators site at Columbia University offers bulleted historical facts and summary information for both Japan and Korea. (Scroll past the information for China or use the clickable sidebar topics.)

Short Activity

In 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, ultimately forming the Axis Powers during World War II (WWII). Work with a partner to review your knowledge of Axis powers. Use a selection of scholarly resources to fill in a 3-column comparison chart (one country in each column). Include notes in rows for each of these categories:

  • Size (land mass and population) and location relative to other nations in Europe and Asia
  • Any colonized territories in 1940
  • Structure of government
  • Political goals in signing the Tripartite Pact

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Activity will help students to find footing with the book’s historical context: Japanese-occupied Korea during WWII. After winning both the Russo-Japanese and the Sino-Japanese Wars at the turn of the 20th century, Japan established itself in East Asia as a formidable military power. As a result, Japan’s invasion into Korea in 1910 was largely unchallenged by regional powers, and over the next few decades, Japan expanded its territory into mainland China as well as the surrounding islands. By the start of WWII, Japan had formed an allyship with fascist European Axis leaders Hitler and Mussolini; each leader sought to expand their national boundaries into surrounding regions. Kim points to these changes by highlighting the constantly transforming maps in his account; in fact, these maps are a representation of the fluidity of war and Japan’s changing position in global politics. These and similar resources may be useful in student research. Students might post their 3-column charts and review each pair’s work for additional information; charts may be useful references during the reading of the text.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

In your experiences, is the connotation of the word pity more positive or more negative? Explain your rationale. Examples can come from your own experiences, your observed experiences, or history and literature.

Teaching Suggestion: Students might respond privately in a journal or reading log. In an extended response, they might address how self-pity compares to pity in connotation and explain their reasoning. This question provides an opportunity to introduce the text’s theme of Han and the Trap of Self-Pity. In the Preface, Kim defines the Korean word Han as “a composite [...] of human responses and reactions to what we may call man’s inhumanity to man” that ultimately made Korea  “pliant” to colonizers in their occupation. Kim notes that his text is a way of moving past this idea of pity, as pity reduces agency of the colonized communities.

Differentiation Suggestion: For an approach that focuses on building vocabulary, students might address this question instead:  The words pity, empathy, and sympathy have overlapping meanings; however, their definitions demonstrate “shades of meaning” or differences in terms of human character, emotion, and interaction. Using a scholarly dictionary, define each word. What are some of the similar characteristics in their meanings? What are the differences? Based on the definitions alone, can you ascertain if pity is a negative or positive trait to possess? Do you agree? Explain.

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