Author Eve J. Chung's latest novel The Young Will Remember follows a Chinese American war correspondent who has made a name for herself covering the women at the heart of the Korean War. After being stranded in a place she's only known as enemy territory, the two worlds that Eleanor "Ellie" Chang has straddled her entire life become one, and she is left with one ally and enemy in the same: humanity.
Chung, a Taiwanese American human rights lawyer focusing on gender equality, has delivered a well-researched, historical novel that tackles some topics American history books and school curriculums often fail to address: the Korean War (known as "the Forgotten War" for a reason), war-time sexual violence, and the impact of mass bombings on civilians.
After being turned away from press briefings and denied the opportunities afforded to her white, male colleagues, Ellie decides to take her reporting instincts elsewhere. She hitches a ride with a military plane largely carrying injured men. When their plane is shot down in North Korean territory, Ellie is saved by a North Korean woman who claims Ellie as her long lost daughter, Yun-Hee, a girl who was drafted – at 14 – during the Imperial Japanese occupation of Korea.
As Ellie gets to know this woman, she learns that Yun-Hee is missing: The mother fears her daughter was forced to become a "comfort woman" and won't acknowledge the possibility that she is dead.
During World War II, which took place shortly before the events of this novel, the Japanese Imperial Army implemented "comfort stations" — a system that forced women from Japanese colonies, including Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and more to become sex slaves. Later in the novel, Chung references Kim Hak-soon, a victim of sexual slavery who publicly testified about her experience in 1991, opening the floodgates for other survivors to come forward.
Throughout the novel, Chung places an emphasis on the power of words. Yun-Hee's mother never calls Yun-Hee or other women forced into that position "comfort women," a deceptively disarming term. She calls them slaves. Chung is careful to write in the reluctance of many to confront such sexual violence by name. In dialogue, even Ellie skirts around the direct term: rape.
Published in a time with no lack of global conflicts, the book begs us to more carefully consider the way we choose to speak about war. Just as Yun-Hee's mother is careful to identify comfort stations as slavery, we too should take care to know the difference between war and genocide. Chung's writing is an important reminder that the way we choose to talk and write about current events ultimately affects the way they are remembered.
Names have power too. Yun-Hee's mother, whose true name is Moon Hwa-Ja, calls herself Eomma — the affectionate Korean term for mother — in front of the soldiers who first confronted Ellie when her plane went down. Ellie mistakes this for the name "Emma," and inadvertently gives her an American name.
As they journey south in an attempt to get Ellie home, Ellie continues to call her companion "Emma." Almost her mother, but not quite. Moon Hwa-Ja continues the search for her daughter. Eventually giving Ellie a Korean name, "Eun-Ha" meaning "silver river," something that is so vast in its beauty it is almost a dream. Moon Hwa-Ja forms a bond with Ellie, a girl who is scared, but brave, and far away from home. A girl who reminds her of Yun Hee. Almost her daughter, but not quite.
As Ellie spends more time in the company of North Koreans, soldiers and citizens alike, everything she knows about her identity begins to come into question. The distinction between what Ellie has come to know as "us" and "them" increasingly disappears. As an American hiding in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, are the bombs coming down on the compound she's taken refuge in still from "us?" When Ellie and the people who took her in try to flee to Japan from Seoul, are the flares that barrel toward her still meant for "them?"
Ever the correspondent, even as Ellie fights for survival she continues collecting stories of the people around her. Through Ellie, Chung reminds us that global conflicts — so often sanitized and minimized in contemporary media coverage and later historical recollections — always have a human toll, particularly on the humans who are cast to the side. It exposes the ugly side of humanity nobody likes to claim: that some are capable of seeing and labelling others as expendable.
The Young Will Remember is a cold splash reminder that in a war, some people have a heart of gold. Many have hearts that are hardened. But every person has a heart that bleeds.
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