Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese “Comfort Women”
Joshua Pilzer
Oxford University Press, 2012
Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese “Comfort Women” examines the role of music in shaping memory, identity, and resilience among women subjected to wartime sexual slavery. Drawing on nearly a decade of ethnographic fieldwork with three Korean survivors—Pak Duri, Mun Pilgi, and Bae Chunhui—Pilzer explores how song functions as both personal expression and communal testimony in the face of profound trauma and social stigma. Through singing, the women crafted alternative narratives of their lives, conveyed experiences otherwise silenced in public discourse, and engaged in acts of resistance, healing, and community building. Rather than framing them solely as victims, Pilzer foregrounds their agency and humanity, presenting song as a living archive that complicates dominant histories. The study offers a humanistic ethnomusicology attentive to the individuals behind the music, illustrating how songs can operate as vehicles of survival, historical witness, and enduring presence.