“Let’s Go Home!:” Representing Space and Time through Travel and Photographs in “Zainichi” Cinema

This essay aims to address depictions of an originary 'return' for 'Zainichi' subjects in Isao Yukisada's Go (2001), Yang Yong-hi's Dear Pyongyang, and Eric Khoo's Ramen Teh (2018) through their representations of travel and photographs. As motifs across all three films, these function as ciphers of space and time, integral to the Abstract: conceptualization of feeling rooted as opposed to the sensation of the "unhomely'. Scenes of travel present both its possibilities and impossibilities, how movement may not be enough to enable a departure from Japan, but also how a departure from Japan may not resolve knotty questions of identification. Photographs, similarly, may aid in presenting an idealization or reminder of the past depending on who is being presented and where.