The Curious Tale of Mandogi's Ghost

by Kim Sok-pom, Cindi Textor (Translator)

The Curious Tale of Mandogi's Ghost incorporates Korean folk tales, ghost stories, and myth into a phenomenal depiction of epic tragedy. Written by a zainichi, a permanent resident of Japan who is not of Japanese ancestry, the novel tells the story of Mandogi, a young priest living on the island of Cheju-do. Mandogi becomes unwittingly involved in the Four-Three Incident of 1948, in which the South Korean government brutally suppressed an armed peasant uprising and purged Cheju-do of communist sympathizers. Although Mandogi is sentenced to death for his part in the riot, he survives (in a sense) to take revenge on his enemies and fully commit himself to the resistance. Mandogi's indeterminate, shapeshifting character is emblematic of Japanese colonialism's outsized impact on both ruler and ruled. A central work of postwar Japanese fiction, The Curious Tale of Mandogi's Ghost relates the trauma of a long-forgotten history and its indelible imprint on Japanese and Korean memory.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Kim Sok-pom, also spelled Kim Suok-puom (born October 2, 1925) is a Zainichi Korean novelist who writes in Japanese.

Born in Osaka to parents of Jeju origin, Kim accompanied his family to Jeju, a Korean island, where he became acquainted with supporters of the Korean independence movement. In 1945, when he had returned to Osaka, the war ended. Directly after that, he went to Seoul, but came back to Japan again after that, where he would stay. He graduated from the Department of Literature at Kyoto University, having specialized in literature. Soon after his graduation, the April 3 massacre broke out in his ancestral hometown of Jeju, an incident which became a motif of his later work.

In 1957, Karasu no shi and Kanshu Baku Shobō appeared in Bungei Shuto magazine. Around this time, Kim was involved in organising Chongryon, the pro-North Korean ethnic association in Japan, but after Karasu no shi was published as a stand-alone book with three other short stories of his, he left the organisation. With the change to be published further, Kim focused on writing in Japanese, in 1970 writing Mandoku yūrei kitan, which confirmed his position as a novelist. The same work would be published in serial form between 1976 and 1981 in Bungakukai literary magazine under the title Tsunami; afterwards, the name was changed to Kazantō'.

Kim has not obtained South Korean citizenship following the division of Korea after the Korean War. In 1988, at the invitation of a civic group, Kim travelled to Seoul and Jeju Island, despite still holding North Korean citizenship. When fellow Zainichi Korean novelist Lee Hoesung took South Korean citizenship in 1998, Kim criticised him, and a debate between the two developed in the media. Kazantō, his book about the 1945 Jeju Massacre has been controversial in South Korea, and he was denied entry to South Korea twice: in 1980 and in 2015.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting novella dealing with the ideas of identity and humanity centering around the main character Mandogi. I found it to be enjoyable but thought-provoking at the same time. I definitely recommend reading this if you are interested in the history of Japan-occupied Korea and the aftermath of WW2 from an Asian perspective.
As a side note, my professor is the translator for this novella which is pretty cool. 😂

[Letitia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating novella that filled a gap in my own literary experience. There are few, if any, narratives written from this perspective in the Western canon.

At times the looping, non-chronological storytelling was hard to follow, and I attribute this somewhat to the translation, which I don't think is the best. But the circular consciousness of Mandogi's own story is not simply an aspect of the translation; it is meant to be, I think, a way to see into his mind.

I won't spoil this little book further other than to say it was both precious and difficult to read. I think it is something that should be far more common in western literature courses.

[John Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard book to categorize. The tone is wry black humor and the narrative somewhere between realism and fable. (The term mythorealism, which Chinese writer Yan Lianke coined – over 30 years later – to describe his own 2013 novel The Explosion Chronicles work might be applicable.) The narrator describes it as follows at the very end (in what used to be called the colophon): “The story of the ghost of Mandogi, who added his name at a young age to the annals of the dead in the Republic of Korea, who never had a name, and who never had a family register, was put away in the people’s bag of stories. And every time the string was unfastened on the story bag, the ghost flew out from there and wandered the earth. Finally, as the story spread, the people of the world called it “The Curious Tale of the Ghost,” and when they attached the name, it became the “The Curious tale of Mandogi’s Ghost.”

The story is set on Jeju Island, around the time of Liberation. A woman leaves her mentally challenged child, whom she has never formally named but refers to as “dog shit”, on the steps of a nearby Buddhist temple, where he was taken in and raised. At some point he was given the name Mandogi (or rather the Japanese equivalent), which evidently has no meaning but fulfilled the administration requirement of the occupying Japanese that everyone have a name. As the child develops it becomes clear that he is mentally handicapped, but he is given a role in the temple including general maintenance as well as rudimentary priestly duties. He becomes the ward of a female temple worker, nicknamed “Mother Seoul”, who treats him with a strange mix of affection and physical abuse and, in time, sexual attention. But life becomes more complicated for everyone in April 1948 when Jeju Communists launched an uprising against the ROK authorities on the Island, who responded with brutality befitting a totalitarian state. Mandogi is drawn into the struggle and ultimately becomes a ghost – a ghost who appears with the Communist insurgents up on the mountain and strikes terror in the ROK forces below.

The author was born in Osaka to parents who moved there from Jeju Island. He has lived his whole life in Japan except for a stay in his family’s hometown in Jeju in the early 1940’s, and has written mostly in Japanese, including this work. He is what is termed (or was up until the term became controversial) a zainichi (permanent Japanese resident of Korean origin). His sympathies seem to be with the Communist ideals professed by North Korea if not with the actual regime, and he has to date not opted for South Korean citizenship.

[Alessandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was written by one of the most famous zainichi authors emerging during the Korean War. I found the ambiguity given by the unreliable narrator created a thought-provoking space, and I enjoyed analyzing it, especially with the context given by my Korean Literature professor. I had not known about the 4.3 Incident on Jeju Island previously, only having known Jeju as a much-sought-after tourist destination, prominently featured in Korean dramas. Learning about the strong individuality and history of it was very interesting, and the turmoil they had to go through not only during the Japanese occupation, but the oppression they faced from their own government soon afterward. I also really appreciated learning more about the zainichi struggle in Japan. I felt personally connected with the identity crisis they experience as an invisible minority conflicted between different worlds.

*spoilers*

My own takeaway from the novel is that it deals with the question of what it really means to be human - is it about your social identity and how others perceive you, or is it about having an inner sense of morality? Mandogi's identity is unrecognized by society, and he ultimately transforms into a kind of living ghost. It is unclear on if he is truly alive or dead, but the point is that it doesn't matter what the truth is. Because society perceives him as a ghost, therefore he is a ghost. I feel that Kim Sok Pom is commenting on how the zainichi are ghosts in society, but he also mentions that many others are ghosts as well - only those in power and recognized by those in power are considered humans, and the rest are not. The aspect of morality in this story is also something I'd like to delve into more, as Mandogi transforms from an innocent templehand to a vengeful ghost.

I found myself struggling to pinpoint the ending message of the novel when Mandogi becomes a sort of revolutionary figure - my best guess is that by realizing his ghostliness, he became enlightened in his own power, and took advantage of it to fight for what was right, inspiring others along the way. Perhaps Kim Sok Pom was encouraging other zainichi in Japan to realize their power in camaraderie, and fight to be heard, and even broadening the message to include all those who are marginalized and oppressed in society.

One more thing I'd like to point out is the Christianization of the Buddhism in the novel's translation was an issue, and there might have been more errors I was unable to discern, but it overall was a smooth reading experience.