Choi Seung-hee and Sohn Kee-chung
This is a picture of Choi Seung-hee and Sohn Kee-chung when they met at the Myeong –wol-kwan in Kyungsung (Seoul, 1936).
Choi Seung-hee was a dancer who had entranced audiences in Korea, Japan, Europe, the U.S., and China. Kawabata Yasunari wrote, “I was asked who is the best young female dancer in Japan, and I answered Choi Seung-hee....She undoubtedly possesses something special that makes me say so....It is the scale of her dance. It is its strength. She is in her artistic prime. Furthermore, there is about her a powerful aura of the Korean people” (Bungei, 1934). Kawabata's mention of her “powerful aura of the Korean people” was incisive and apt.
Another Korean figure who caught the close attention of the Japanese was the Berlin Olympics marathon gold medalist Sohn Kee-chung. The people who set up the meeting between these two were Yeo Un-hyung and Song Jin-woo. The “aura of the Korean people” can be felt in this meeting.
Choi Seung-hee’s husband, An Mak (an alumnus of Waseda University; Russian literature major), was subjected to constant state surveillance. Sohn Kee-chung also became subjected to surveillance because he won the gold medal in the Olympics. He was permitted to study at Meiji University on the condition that he pledge to stop running marathons. These are just some of the sorrows of a people deprived of independence.
