Photo/Illutration Yun Dong-ju (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A copy of a letter displayed at Rikkyo University’s campus in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district contains a poem written in Korean: “Night rain is whispering outside the window / My six-mat tatami room is a foreign country,” it begins.

Its author, Korean poet Yun Dong-ju (1917–1945), who studied at the university, sent the letter to his friend in 1942.

The poem goes on, “People say life is hard to live/ That I can write a poem so easily/ Makes me feel ashamed.”

“A Poem Easily Written” shows the poet’s sharply clear and deeply refined sensitivity.

In 1943, Yun was arrested in Kyoto on charges that he had violated the Peace Preservation Law by getting involved in the pro-independence movement in the Korean Peninsula, which was then under Japan’s colonial rule.

He died in prison on Feb. 16, 1945, half a year before the end of World War II, at the young age of 27.

The poems he wrote in Japan were confiscated and now all that remain are the five pieces in the letter.

For years, Yasuko Yanagihara, 74, and other members of a Rikkyo University alumni group to commemorate the poet, have been holding public readings of Yun’s poems at the university every year around the date of his death.

No matter how soured the relationship between Japan and South Korea may have become, the group will again hold a public reading this year, which will be attended by Japanese and South Koreans who love his poems.

“Yun Dong-ju connects us (Japanese and South Korean people) with warm ties,” says Yanagihara.

Her words make me feel disconsolate about the current poisonous atmosphere between Tokyo and Seoul.

In Japan, we hear a plethora of insults against people in South Korea. Exchanges of acrimony and invective have badly hurt bilateral ties.

The number of South Koreans who visited Japan last year declined by a quarter from the previous year.

The situation reminds me of a Korean proverb that Japanese poet Noriko Ibaragi refers to in her book “Hanguru eno Tabi” (A journey to the Hangul alphabet): “If the outgoing words are beautiful, then the incoming words will be beautiful, too.”

As I read Yun’s poems, I say to myself, “Let our words fly to that country, for a beautiful exchange.”

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 26

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.