Zainichi playwright lingers on stories of survival

“Sumire Hair Salon,” a play by Zainichi playwright and director Jeong Ui-sin, 69, tells the story of an ethnically Korean family living in a coal-mining town in Kyushu, Japan, in the 1960s. At the center of the story is Sumi, the second of three sisters, who dreams of opening a hair salon. A series of tragedies unfolds, including a mining accident and seizures caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. In the midst of all this despair, however, Sumi’s father urges his daughter and her husband to keep living. “Sumire Hair Salon” is the final installment of Jeong’s “Zainichi trilogy,” following “For Example, Like a Flower Blooming in the Field” (2007) and “Yakiniku Dragon” (2008). Fourteen years after its Japanese premiere, the play is being performed for Korean audiences for the first time at M Theater at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. The Hankook Ilbo recently met Jeong at Sejong Center. Jeong was born and raised in Himeji, Japan, an area with a large population of Zainichi —ethnic Koreans whose families have resided in Japan for generations. His work is kno