A bamboo forest becomes a city with bustling streets that then smoothly transform into photographs: never really in focus, ever more fragmentary and blurred. Born in Gunsan and after seven years, I was repatriated to Japan… begins as a formidable exercise in fūkei-ron, only to turn into a meditation on what remains of the past, with worlds, eras and personal views colliding.

Akio Kambayashi was born in 1938 in Gunsan, Korea, during the Japanese occupation, and following Japan's defeat in the war in October 1945 he was repatriated to Japan. It is with surprising ease that Born in Gunsan lets you enter the incredibly detailed layers of Kambayashi’s memory and his accounts of his hometown. 

His memories become a fascinating reflection of events, from personal anecdotes to information entered into world history books.  What does it really mean to be Zainichi Korean? What impact has this minority had on the history and politics of Japan and Japanese occupation in Manchuria, Taiwan or Korea? What is the story of the colonisation of Asia that surpasses the version told in history books? Gripping and contemplative, Born in Gunsan is a monumental essay whose grandeur can only be fully realised by experiencing it.

– kijA