Following the end of the Korean war, writers have grappled with what the division of the peninsula means for Korean nationhood, question whether either state has a unique claim to the Korean nation as a whole. Sci-Fi is a uniquely revealing medium to analyse these shifting attitudes because discussing a post-unification future intertwines fictious speculation with genuine policy studies. The vacuum of space, free from the constructed states of the post war world gives writers a chance to explore Korean culture with a new sense of freedom.
During the space race, North Korean writers were deeply influenced by the Soviet Union, as such they play a leading role in depictions of space travel. In Youth space expedition team (1960), a unified Korean expedition to the moon is led by a Soviet mentor and the journey involves stopping at many Soviet space stations.1. However reflecting the internationalist attitude of socialism, the Koreans are joined by peoples from across the world including Americans and Europeans, all of whom have embraced socialism.2. Whilst Koreans play a leading role in the story, the implication is that humanity has only succeeded due to the victory of Socialism and the success of the Soviet Union, putting the unification of Korean nationhood second to the spread of Communism.
When North Korean space stories do make a post-renunciation distinctions between Koreans, South Koreans are viewed with suspicion.3 In King of rare metals (1959), three Korean boys discover a utopian new power source on the moon, but are betrayed by a South Korean scientist who aims to harvest the crystals to make weapons of mass destruction.2This reflects the attitude that even following the triumph of North Korea, South Koreans could still be uniquely selfish due to their contact with capitalism. It is a given that North Korea represents all Koreans and that socialism is the superior system.
South Koreans never held the internationalist views of their Northern counterparts, with president Park Chung Hee writing that reunification would represent “regeneration” of Korean civilization, restoring Korea rightful place within Asia, free from the need for American assistance.4 Whilst Scifi such as Beneath a blue moon (1992), reflects North Korean views that post-unification cultural divisions would still exist, there are distinctions in the way Korean nationhood is discussed.
In Beneath a blue moon, Korea is governed by a federation between North and South, with each having a distinct lunar base.5 The Northern protagonist starts out as a sceptic of this unification, as Southern corporate greed had led to the death of her family, but she felt it necessary to cooperate due to wealth disparities. Over the course of the story, she allured to capitalism, starting with their experience in a lunar casino. Even though she believes the Northern “altruism is better than self-interest” of the South, she is convinced by the results of capitalism and comes around to reunification. (Ibid, 131.)) At the end of the story, both lunar bases apply to unify, but this is rejected by the federation, leading to their secession.
This achievement of han minjok (one ethnos) in space is done at the expense of the Korea on earth, reflecting the view that neither state represents Korean nationhood, but instead are active barriers to reunification.6 This post cold war perspective can also be seen in the depictions of the avarices of South Korean society alongside the authoritarian nature of the North. Whilst the author describes the successes of capitalism as self-evident, unity is achieved through the joining of Northern altruism with Southern ingenuity, reflecting the “true” Korea and not the colonial construct that exists in the present.7Unlike Northern science fiction, foreign powers play no role in the story and people on the other side of the 38th parallel are depicted favourably regardless of their political differences.
- Zur, Dafna. “Let’s Go to the Moon: Science Fiction in the North Korean Children’s Magazine Adong Munhak, 1956–1965.” The Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 2 (May 2014): 338. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩] [↩]
- Ibid, 343. [↩]
- Samuel Gerald Collins, “Train to Pyongyang: Imagination, Utopia, and Korean Unification,” Utopian Studies 24, no. 1 (2013): 122. [↩]
- Ibid, 129 [↩]
- Ibid, 132. [↩]
- Ibid, 131. [↩]