HIS EDITING OF THE SONG OF ARIRANG
The Song of Arirang was first published by Helen Foster Snow in 1941, under the pen name of Nym Wales. She wrote it after a long series of interviews with a man in Yan’an in 1937, to whom she gave the pen name of Kim San. The book’s subheading was The Life Story of a Korean Rebel. It was published by The John Day Company in 1941, 258 pp.
When George first edited the book, he revised the title to Song of Aeirang: A Korean Communist in the Chinese Revolution. This copy was published by Ramparts Press, San Francisco, 1972, 348 pp. This edition first revealed that the real name of the author was Helen Foster Snow. She was the former wife of Edgar Snow, who authored Red Star over China, the world’s first close look at Mao Zedong.
In this present, new edition, published by the University of Washington Press, George had corrected or brought up-to-date all the formerly used names of people and places, and added needed footnotes, including the fact that the real name of Kim San was Jang Ji-rak. It was his hope that this edition remains as exciting and alive as the original, if not even more so.
JAPANESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE SONG OF ARIRANG
The original Song of Arirang, as published in 1941, was first translated by Japanese POWs at George’s behest. But then it was more officially translated into Japanese and published in Japan in 1953 by Asahi Shobo (Morning Sun Book Company).
In 1965 it was again translated into Japanese and published by the Misuzu Book Company as The Song of Arirang: The Life Story of a Korean Rebel by Helen Snow, translated by Ando Jiro, 282 pp. Another edition was translated by a woman, Matsudaira Ioko, in 1987, in 434 smaller-sized pages, by Iwanami Shoten Press.
George read these books in Japanese, since, as mentioned, he had learned Japanese in the Army. From these Japanese translations, George learned the Chinese characters for the names of people and places, since the Japanese used the Chinese characters, though with a Japanese pronunciation, so he learned both pronunciations.
KOREAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE SONG OF ARIRANG
The Song of Arirang was first translated into Korean Hangeul and published in the magazine Sincheonji (New Heaven and Earth) in serial form, from October 1946 to January 1948. Since then, it has been republished five times in Hangeul by Dongnyeok Publishers under the title Arirang, with Nym Wales as author, and translated by Jo U-hwa. The book was at first denounced by the South Korean government, because it was about a “communist” and his activities. Despite this, it was nevertheless widely circulated in South Korea. In 1986, the same Korean edition was published in New York by Galilee Mungo, stating it was written by “Kim San and Nym Wales.” The publisher decided to publish the book, even without the permission of Dongnyeok, because of the “political situation” in South Korea, stating the book was the “proud heritage” of a Korean hero in times of suffering by the Korean people.
Another edition in Korean was published in 1986 in China, titled Shadows of the White-Clothed People, 507 pp, by Liaoning People’s Publishers. There still exists a large population of Korean- speakers in northeast China today. This edition includes a letter from Helen to Gao Yongguang, the son of Jang Ji-rak (although in that book, he is still referred to as Kim San). A Japanese commentary followed, edited by Yi Hoe-seong (a Japanese-speaking Korean) and a Japanese, named Mizuno Naoki, titled Memoranda on the Song of Arirang by Kim San and Nym Wales, published by Iwanami Shoten, first and second editions, both in 1991, 518 pp.
In 2005, a new Korean edition of the Song of Arirang was published in South Korea in hardback without any objections from the South Korean Government, also by Dongnyeok Publishers, saying it was written by Nym Wales and Kim San, and translated by Song Yeong-in. Its 512 pages included a new 19-page introduction by Nym Wales and a 26-page postscript by George, as well as a 1-page postscript by the translator.
This book quickly became a best seller in South Korea. In October of that year, the South Korean Ministry of Education gave out a number of awards to authors from other countries for books that had become popular in South Korea. As a result, the Ministry called George in the US and asked George who was the most direct descendant of Helen, because they wanted to honor her. Because she had died, a direct descendant could receive the honor in her place. George told them that Helen had had no children but her niece was the one who had taken care of her.
As a result, the South Korean government in October 2005 invited Sheril Foster Bischoff, whom George recommended, to receive the award for Helen. Together, Sheril and George flew to Korea. George sat in the audience, while Sheril mounted the platform and was given a beautiful gown, as were others who received awards. No other American was given an award that year. The ceremony was very impressive.
As to why the book was never published in North Korea, George can only speculate. But he believed it was because the North Korean Communists, who came back into the northern part of Korea right after the war from the Soviet Union, were mainly Russian-speaking and were not interested in the book, since it said little about the Koreans in Russia.
CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE SONG OF ARIRANG
In 1993, Song of Arirang: A Korean Communist Party Member in the Chinese Revolution was translated into Chinese by Zhao Zhongqiang with a 15-page Introduction by George, and an 11-page Second Edition Forward by Helen Foster Snow, as well as a one-page postscript by the translator It was published twice that year in Beijing, with a foreword to the series by Huang Hua, 263 pp.
George was strongly influenced by his Chinese teacher John DeFrancis and his other colleague, who convinced George that only the wide-spread use of pinyin (i.e., Romanization rather than characters) in China would eventually enable China to reduce its staggering illiteracy rate. There are also hundreds of thousands of foreigners living in China, who speak Chinese rather fluently, but cannot read the characters. So, if George were able to publish the Song of Arirang in Chinese characters with pinyin on the line below, separating words from one another, as in all other countries in the world, all Mandarin-speaking Chinese could read it, and all other Chinese who can read characters in their own dialect, could learn Mandarin, which the Chinese government has designated as putonghua, the ‘common language’ for all Chinese.
HIS last project was to publish the Song of Arirang in a special version, meeting the need of at least four different groups of readers. It would be a Chinese version with three lines: Characters, pinyin and English, to serve as a practice text for Chinese who want to learn English, and for English speakers who want to read in Chinese, either with or without knowledge of Chinese characters. This might have the widest audience of all. There are literally millions of Chinese who want to learn English, and many English speakers who need to learn Chinese. George had been working on this project till the last days of his life.