Seashores of Narratives: Collecting Conchs in the Intertwined Korean World
Keren Piao
The current English research on the Korean Diaspora, especially oral history projects, is based on Korean Americans and other Korean immigrants living in the English-speaking world. As the other party of the war, the North Korean immigrants in China are relatively unrepresented. Under China’s minority policy, they navigate life as ethnic minorities in China. However, the unique patriotic education in China unconsciously stifles their openness toward their native memories and original culture. Simultaneously, the immigrants who left the Korean Peninsula around the time of the Korean War are gradually fading away. Their voices and stories are in urgent need of preservation. This thesis project aims to shed light on the Korean Diaspora by documenting more testimonial accounts of war and forced migration. It seeks to retrieve the other half of the broken mirror of Korean War history.
Thesis-Finalized-Version_Keren-PiaoKeren Piao graduated from Zhejiang University (Class of 2019) with double degree of History and Japanese Language and literature. Her motivation in east Asian culture and history was originally triggered by her Korean Chinese background. Some of her research interests include ethnic Korean immigrant culture and history, East Asian Buddhism studies and ethnic minorities in China.
Keren’s path to oral history budded during her undergraduate when she was engaged in an oral history project of a rural clan rooted in Zhejiang. The fieldwork comprises with local belief of Zhejiang Province and immigrant history of local clan. Through re-collecting local pedigree and chorography, she found how the moral value in text recordings was reflected in physical relics like shrines and inscriptions. During interviewing left-behind elderly folks, she was able to take a glimpse of the trace of immigrant history of local clan.
Illuminated by how personal narratives echo the weight of individual as witness of history, Keren was thrilled to join 2020 cohort of OHMA. She is looking forward to diving deeper into historical conversation with ethnic Korean immigrants after the Korean War.