Natural_Born_Cynic wrote: ↑January 1st, 2023, 7:57 am
It's very dicey. Koreans born and living in Japan are not considered "real or full koreans" by Koreans themselves. They consider those people as
"Japs" or 쪽빠리 instead of Koreans despite having Korean blood. I mean Korean Americans are also not considered as true Koreans either...
This is not so unusual I would say. Not typical only for Koreans. If you live long time outside or are even born and grown up away from your own native country, your feeling about your own ethnicity is declining.
I noticed this with myself too. It's about estrangement which takes place with such people in their mindset, me included. I am from Europe, native German speaker, I can confirm that I am the generation no.9 from Austria/with history proven back to 1620, but living among Japanese with my Japanese family in Japan since more than 40 years already, my life is not anymore like those of my countrymen in my own country.
No foreigner is living next to my home, only Japanese, I live now in a smaller city after my retirement. I speak in general Japanese with everybody next to me, my own two daughters and grandchildren cannot speak my native German language, I had to pass the exam for my technical certificate in Japanese etc. and I got really more critical about the life-style in Europe, no way for me to go back...
I would find myself in trouble if I did, even might be discriminated...as Europen life-style is not my way of life anymore.
I posted recently in another thread in this forum a link to a video about a black woman, who is from USA, her parents both of them are also black US citizens living in Japan. She was grown up in the Japanese society in a rural area, rejects any suggestion that she was felt ever been excluded in Japan, but mentioned that she felt really discriminated when living a few years in the States, as black people told her, she is not black enough, telling her she is different from black people...
---
Koreans who are living in Korea and never been out of the country of course feel likely the same way... A native Korean is visiting Korea, but living in Japan all his life - speaking Japanese (always with some accent - LOL) better than Korean and using a Japanese name....so who are you?
The North and South are two hostile countries and the Korean war is not over yet! They just had a truce or armistice instead of real peace back in 1953. How do you expect citizens from both sides to talk to each other on their cell phone?
I remember the post-WWII situation and I was living only 20 km away from the iron curtain (the border between Western Europe and Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe) next to Hungary. During my military obligatory service I was for a while a border guard along the fences.
I can tell you that the situation was NEVER like what we see between North and South Korea.
Phone lines were soon operating between West and East, including directly to private homes. Western citizens could visit the Communist controlled countries. Some of them (for Austrian citizens) abolished even visa (Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland) and others issued short time visa (for Austrians very easy to enter Hungary with a 3-days permit and using your own car, you got the permit within half an hour even at the border).
And now even between Ukraine and Russia, despite the war and unable to meet each other, mobile phone connection is said to operate in general.
About Asia, phone lines are fully operating from Japan to Russia, despite both countries are not the best friends, and phone lines are also operate perfectly between Taiwan/Japan and China. Also personal visits to relative living on the other side of the border are not a problem.
Japanese citizens are visiting China visafree for 14 days, can you believe that....
Why is only North Korea reclusive like that? I don't understand this North Korean government.
The Taiwanese doesn't really like the Japanese because they were also colonized back in 1910.. The Japanese think Koreans as inferior and both countries are still fighting over a tiny island Dokdo or Takeshima. The Korean society hates the Japanese and they glee over Japan's "lost 30 years". How do you expect both of them to corporate?
. Despite Japanese government paying 800 million dollar reparations to South korean government back in 1965, the Korean public still want to see Japan burn and the Japanese public are not fond of Koreans either!
Time is moving on, many elderly people are not with us anymore (I am also getting old now, but I was born after WWII).
Unfortunately the political situation in Far East is unpredictable and not stable.
Taiwan has a choice - to be with China, but it seems they don't really like that idea - or to co-operate with USA and also with Japan.
North and South Korea are divided - to such an extent hardly seen anywhere else
Japan still has not even a peace treaty with Russia....
Just waiting... there is nothing else what you could do as an ordinary citizen.