Sohn Kee-chung was a Korean marathon runner who ran in the 1938 Berlin Olympics. At the time Korea was occupied by Japan, forcing Sohn Kee-chung to participate under Japan’s Olympic team and use a Japanese name. This cruel striping of country-hood continues its legacy in the continued use of a Japanese name in Google results and Olympic records.
After a whole year of communications between VANK and google, the results for Sohn Kee-chung have been corrected. Upon searching Sohn Kee-chung’s name in google the results before would show his name in Japanese and his nationality as Japanese rather than Korean. Through VANK’s “Remember Sohn Kee-chung” project this error was properly corrected.
However, despite success with Google the effort to change The Olympics official website has had some difficulty as the website still actively uses the Japanese name more prominently than the Korean name.
VANK’s leader Park Gi Tae stated “The IOC’s display of the Japanese version of Sohn Kee-chung’s name runs counter to the idea that the Olympics are an international organization fostering liberty and peace against imperialism.” He also emphasized that “The ‘Remember Sohn Kee-chung’ project which has progressed as a visibility campaign since 2004 will propelled more proactively going forward.”
The display of Sohn Kee-chung’s name in Japanese, although properly reflecting records of the time, is problematic because it erases the reality that Sohn Kee-chung was Korean and not Japanese. It is a continuation of the Japanese imperialism that stole Korea’s independence. In order to break this cycle of Japanese control of the Korean peninsula’s history, culture, and people changing Japanese names like ‘Son Kitei’ back to their original Korean names is a necessary gesture of the international community.