Public divided over pro-Japanese ancestors as debate reopens on where 'sins of the father' end

How far should guilt travel down a family tree? That question is shaking up Korean social media this week, after an actor's offhand mention of her great-grandfather reopened one of Korea's most sensitive wounds: its unresolved reckoning with Japan's colonial collaborators.

One expert argues that Korea’s colonial-era collaborators largely escaped accountability and that celebrating a collaborator's descendant is itself an insult to independence fighters and their families. The other warns that branding someone a "collaborator" based on thin evidence — and holding their descendants responsible generations later — is its own kind of injustice.

"Pro-Japanese collaborator" is the term used in Korea for Koreans who cooperated with or actively supported Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945, ranging from officials and police who enforced colonial policy to businessmen, landowners and intellectuals who benefited from or lent legitimacy to Japanese governance.

The controversy began after 32-year-old actor Ha Young appeared on the KBS show "Problem Child in House" (2018–) on Friday and described the four generations of doctors in her family. Her great-grandfather studied Western medicine in Japan, opened one of the first Western clinics in Seoul and treated Emperor Gojong (1852-1919), the actor detailed on the program. After the show aired, viewers identified him as An Sang-ho, a member of the pro-Japanese group Daejeong Chinmokhoe, also known as the Taisho Friendship Association. 

Novelist So Jae-won on Tuesday criticized the actor's family on social media. "Now even having a pro-Japanese ancestor has become something to boast about. I never thought I'd live to see people bragging about a pro-Japanese ancestor," he wrote. "If our history had punished pro-Japanese collaborators, would their descendants be able to speak about it so proudly today?"

Korea's post-liberation effort to prosecute colonial-era collaborators was disbanded in 1949 under political pressure before convicting nearly anyone, and the issue has remained unresolved ever since.

So in his post he also included a sarcastic and fictional letter from a father to son: "Son, if we ever lose our country, you must become a traitor so that you can grow wealthy by threatening and oppressing those who try to take the country back."

He added that only when the descendants of collaborators feel shame and the descendants of independence fighters can stand proud "can we finally be at peace before history, before the great independence fighters and before their descendants."

"Let's make sure we leave behind a history of punishing treason, so that descendants who boast about it learn shame," So concluded. 

Historian Shim Yong-hwan, head of the Shim Yong-hwan History and Education Institute (translated), took a different view, calling it "a dangerous idea" to easily label An a collaborator.

He pointed to a rumor that An was involved in the poisoning of Emperor Gojong and claimed it was unfounded. 

"The rumor is considered a factor that helped spark the March 1st Movement, but it was only a rumor, not a historical fact," he wrote on social media Tuesday. "Frankly, there was no reason for Japan to suddenly poison Gojong after 10 years of him offering no resistance. So it is wrong to brand his physician at the time a collaborator on that basis."

The March 1st Movement of 1919 was a nationwide uprising against Japanese colonial rule that began days after Gojong's death, when rumors that Japan had poisoned the former emperor helped galvanize public anger.

“It is true that, by the end of his life, he was not someone who should be revered, given that he was an elite of his time, belonged to organizations with many pro-Japanese members, including the Daejeong Chinmokhoe and that the Japanese authorities used his family in promoting their colonial administration," Shim said.

But "labeling him a 'collaborator' based solely on his membership in a certain organization, without clear evidence of collaborationist acts, is a dangerous idea," he said, adding that the academic research on An only examined his life during the enlightenment period and does not support the claim that he was pro-Japanese.

Shim thus described the ongoing controversy surrounding Ha Young as "an unreasonable spiral."

"The truth is probably closer to her having been targeted out of resentment after bragging about her family of doctors on a broadcast," he said. 

Shim also broadened his argument to the historical record more generally, warning against applying the collaborator label loosely.

"The important point is that if we too easily brand someone a 'pro-Japanese collaborator,' far too many people from our past will end up labeled that way," and, "in the end, the standard itself for what constitutes collaboration — and what we should be criticizing and remembering — could disappear," he said. 

He then called for clearer criteria on how far the definition of "descendant" should extend. 

"Just as guilt by association is wrong, an ancestor's achievements are not one's own," he said. "We need to finally reach a conclusion on how far the category of 'descendant of an independence fighter' should go, and what rights and responsibilities should come with it."

Ha Young's agency, Bistrus Entertainment, had initially called the allegations of her ancestors' pro-Japanese ties "unfounded" on Monday, but reversed course the next day, saying, "We have confirmed that a record does exist showing An Sang-ho's name on the 1916 roster of council members of the Daejeong Chinmokhoe."

The agency apologized for "hastily responding that the allegations were unfounded without sufficient verification, causing confusion," and said the actress mentioned her family's four generations of doctors while answering a question on the broadcast, "unintentionally" sparking the controversy. It added that Ha Young "takes the concern this has caused seriously and will approach the matter with more caution and humility going forward."

BY JANG GU-SEUL, SHIN HYE-YEON [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]