A brief look at Koreans in Japan

A few months back my family and I attended a dinner with a friend who is a Korean-Japanese, or zainichi (在日), meaning someone of Korean descent who grew up in Japan.whose mother came all the way from Japan. For this particular dinner, her mother happened to be in town all the way from Japan, and spoke fantastic English, despite never having lived in the West. Instead, she had been just taking classes at her local YMCA, and working at a travel agency back home.1 Anyway, after dinner, I asked her about Koreans in Japan because frankly I know almost nothing about this second-largest ethnic group in Japan.

She explained that her husband and her were third and second generation Korean-Japanese respectively. Her husband’s parents had grown up in Korea, at the time when Korea was part of the Empire of Japan, and as they were technically citizens of that empire, they decided to move to Japan for work. As World War II worsened though, many Koreans were simply pressed into labor both in Mainland Asia, the Pacific islands, and in Japan itself, and they often did not fare well (to put it mildly), so it seems like there’s a difference between generations of Koreans as well in how they came to Japan (e.g. work, forced conscription, refugees, etc). In the case of my wife’s friend’s parents, after the War, they had the option to move back to Korea, but as they grew up their whole life in Japan and knew nothing of the Korean language, they saw little reason to, and stayed in Japan.

Becoming a citizen of Japan is much harder though. I remember another Korean friend years ago who grew up in Japan, but of North Korean ancestry. He was Japanese in every sense but his ethnicity, and yet still had a North Korean passport until adulthood when his application for Japanese citizenship finally was processed. Sadly he died in a car accident about a year later. I remember meeting his father who came with the family to the US for the funeral, and I remember talking with him (through my wife) about such things. The father too had grown up in Japan all his life, and at some point in adulthood resolved to get in touch with his Korean past, and learned Korean language from the ground-up through books and TV, and used it as much as possible.

The history of Koreans in Japan (and of the annexation of Korea) is a long and complex subject I cannot do justice here, but I wanted to at least get people thinking. Koreans in Japan, though the second-largest ethnic group, are still comparatively small in numbers, and have often lived on the fringes of society, occasionally as gangsters, pachinko parlor owners, or marginalized groups. In Sayo Masuda’s tragic autobiography, she relates a chapter when she escaped the bathhouse-geisha life and spent time among a ghetto of Koreans in Kanagawa Prefecture, and became a de-facto part of the gang there selling overpriced, poor-quality soap to tourists. Her memories of the Koreans there is one of her more pleasant memories, as beyond their tough-guy gangster exterior, they were like a family to her.

Another article by the Asahi Shinbun shows how when the Korean War broke out, Koreans in Japan were forced to take sides either supporting the North or the South, and the divide still exists in the community today between pro-Seoul Mindan (민단) and the pro-Pyongyang Chongryon (총련). The situation gets even more complicated for Koreans who were relocated to other parts of the Empire of Japan, and left behind when the Soviets took over.

Even now, the Korean community in Japan is only beginning to gain mainstream acceptance, as Koreans are running successful mainstream businesses, and becoming celebrity singers. Still, the struggle to tune in to their ancestral past, but also gain acceptance in Japan is a tough one, and one thing I learned from talking to my wife’s friend’s mother is that there’s a lot more to the Korean community in Japan than I thought, and it’s a subject that warrants further research and awareness by people in Japan, and abroad.

1 Proof-positive that you can learn a language well if you know how to learn it. This is not accomplished by brute-force memorization by constant exposure over the long-term to media, and study based on what you encounter.


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2 Comments on “A brief look at Koreans in Japan”

  1. wolfram says:

    thanks for posting this. the situation of the zainichi kankokujin is very complex and is not very well known outside japan. i was also encouraged by the story of your friend’s father who learned korean, since i am of korean descent but sadly did not grow up speaking the language and don’t speak a word. i hope to one day master both korean and japanese.

  2. Doug says:

    Hi Wolfram,

    I am glad you found the post inspiring. :) I am not Korean myself, but I was pretty impressed by his determination at the time. For my part, I lived in Ireland for a time, and being of Irish descent (6-7 generations ago though), I discovered a deeper appreciation for my heritage, though also a bit of a sobering reminder that I wasn’t really Irish anymore since I never grew up there and had no real ties left. Not to mention I’m also Scottish-German too. ;p

    But I hope in your case you take up Korean studies because it’s certainly time well-spent, and I am sure your fellow Koreans would support and bolster your studies. I grew up around a lot of Korean friends, so I can vouch for this to some degree. ;) Having a community like that helps immensely when learning a language.

    Best wishes!
    Doug