Japan, S. Korea researchers at odds over forced labor, 'comfort women'

A little old, but interesting and relevant nonetheless.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Japan, S. Korea researchers at odds over forced labor, 'comfort women'
Kyodo News
Japanese and South Korean historians have again failed to reach a consensus view on Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, notably its recruitment of Korean laborers and women, as well as the drafting of Koreans into the Japanese military.


Agree to disagree: South Korean junior high and high school history textbooks are displayed in Seoul. KYODO PHOTO



The two countries' second joint history study group issued a 2,200-page report Tuesday nearly three years after discussions got under way in June 2007. A report by the first study group was released in June 2005.

The joint team, comprising 17 scholars each from Japan and South Korea, conducted discussions in four subcommittees covering ancient, history, modern and contemporary history, and history textbooks. The history textbook panel was set up for the second round of discussions.

In talks by the textbook subcommittee, a Japanese historian argued that South Korea made efforts to keep Japanese imperialist thinking out of the country after the occupation ended and that this eventually became anti-Japan education.

A South Korean scholar expressed understanding of that argument, saying the Japanese historian's view was an honest effort by the Japanese side to deepen understanding of South Korea. But the Korean scholar nevertheless rejected the argument that South Korea's curriculum was anti-Japanese.

Also in the latest report, a Japanese historian argued that Japanese emperors and prime ministers expressed a sense of remorse or offered apologies Japan's past misdeeds, but no South Korean history textbooks touch on this.

The Japanese side called for creating history textbooks that would teach students the neighboring country's modern and contemporary history.

Another South Korean scholar took up Japan's use of Korean laborers, the so-called comfort women, and the pressing of Koreans into Japanese military service under the theme of "recruitment of labor."

The term "comfort women" refers to women, mainly from Korea, whom Japan sent to frontline brothels to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.

The Korean scholar argued that Japan recruited labor from the Korean Peninsula "systematically and deceptively." The Japanese side denied that contention, saying there were no systematic policies on the use of forced labor and comfort women during Japan's rule over the Korean Peninsula.

On Japanese-language education in Korea during the colonial period, a Japanese historian said Japanese teachers did their best to teach Korean students and that Japanese was considered a tool to acquire modern knowledge and technology.

In response, a South Korean scholar said Japanese-language education was forced, terming the Japanese historian's view "selfish."

Japanese historians avoided mentioning the territorial dispute over the South Korean-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.

South Korean historians were critical of Japan's claim to the islands and said it represents Japan's ignorance of its wartime responsibilities.

The Japanese scholars regard the territorial dispute as beyond the scope of the history discussions because it is an issue between the two governments.

The joint panel was led by Yasushi Toriumi, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, and Cho Kwang, a professor at Korea University's College of Liberal Arts.

Japan and South Korea agreed to the joint historical study in 2001 as part of a bilateral project aimed at promoting mutual understanding and bridging gaps in historical perceptions between the two countries.

Relations at the time were chilled by a dispute over a Japanese history textbook for public schools that South Korea said whitewashed Japan's wartime atrocities.

In the 2005 report by the first study panel, which comprised 11 historians from each side, South Korean historians stated Japan forced Korea to accept the Second Japan-Korea Agreement in 1905, which made Korea a Japanese protectorate, and the 1910 Annexation Treaty.

The South Koreans argued these pacts were invalid because procedures for their signing and ratification were lacking.

A Japanese scholar asserted that there was nothing in the treaties that would make them invalid under international law.

Japan established a similar joint historical study group with China. In late January, scholars from Japan and China issued a 549-page report covering ancient, medieval and modern history.

North Korea's star at the World Cup

North Korea's star at the World Cup
Striker Jong Tae-se of North Korea's 2010 World Cup team was raised in Japan, had a pro-Pyongyang education and has dreamed of soccer greatness since elementary school.

By Barbara Demick and Yuriko Nagano, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Beijing and Tokyo — He is the new public face of North Korea:

Jong Tae-se is a 26-year-old publicity hound with his own blog, where he strikes a sultry bare-chested pose. He has appeared in television commercials. He drives a silver Hummer and likes to dress like hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. When he goes on the road, he travels with a laptop, iPod and sometimes a Nintendo DS and a Sony PlayStation Portable.

Jong is the star striker of North Korea's 2010 World Cup team. That makes him at this particular moment the most recognizable living North Korean, with the possible exception of the Dear Leader himself, Kim Jong Il.

This is the first time North Korea has qualified for the World Cup since 1966. Although the country is as much a pariah as ever, having been implicated in the recent torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 people, its novelty value keeps it in the headlines coming out of South Africa. At the bottom of the 32 teams in competition, North Korea is pitted against top-ranked Brazil in its first match, on Tuesday, a classic minnow-against-the-whale competition that should be curiosity enough to attract a strong following.

"People don't know about North Korea. We want to change North Korea's image," Jong told reporters last week outside the Makhulong Stadium in Tembisa, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

If Jong sounds like a most improbable North Korean, it might be because he was born and grew up in a community of 600,000 Koreans who live in Japan. Most of them are descendents of laborers who came over during Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula. He was educated in pro-Pyongyang schools run by the General Assn. of Korean Residents in Japan.

As a child, Jong obsessively watched videos of one of the most famous World Cup upsets of all time: a 1966 match in which North Korea beat Italy to advance to the quarterfinals.

North Korea started wooing him during his sophomore year at Tokyo-based Korea University. But the effort was complicated by the fact that Jong had been registered by his father as a South Korean. (Like most Korean residents of Japan, he didn't have Japanese citizenship.) The South Korean government would not let him give up his citizenship because it doesn't recognize North Korea.

"I am not South Korean!" Jong protested to a South Korean sports magazine in the midst of a protracted battle to renounce his citizenship. He qualified for the North Korean team anyway, since soccer federation rules allow dual nationality, but Jong is dogged by criticism that he is not North Korean enough. He has never lived in the country except for short stretches training with the team.

"It is hard to say what nationality he is," said Masafumi Mori, author of a recently published Japanese-language biography. "Jong is like this figure, standing right on top of where the Earth's crusts of the three countries of North Korea, South Korea, Japan meet."

Despite his attempt to renounce his citizenship, Jong's popularity extends to both sides of the border. South Korea's team is in the World Cup too, but when it comes to soccer, the estranged Koreans usually cheer each other on. Jong appeared last year in a television commercial for the South Korean energy drink Bacchus with Park Ji-sung, captain of South Korea's World Cup team. He also writes a column for a South Korean Web portal.

"I think it is too bad we didn't notice him when he was in high school or college. Maybe we would have picked him instead for the South Korean team," said Do Young-in, a reporter covering the World Cup for Sports Seoul.

For the North Koreans, using players raised in Japan has its advantages. Their team is handicapped by the country's poverty and isolation. Although top athletes have adequate food and training facilities, they have limited opportunity to play outsiders — or even to watch matches, since foreign television broadcasts are banned in North Korea.

"It was a very clever move for them to bring in people who live abroad and have experience playing in more competitive leagues," said Simon Cockerell, a Briton living in Beijing who has organized a North Korean soccer fan club.

Another player raised in Japan is midfielder Ahn Yong-hak. The team's Hong Yong-jo also has an international reputation, playing with the Russian premier league team FC Rostov. But it is Jong, with an impish grin and a full crest of hair that gives him a cone-headed look (his nickname among North Korean fans is "Acornhead"), who has captured the public's attention.

"He's good-looking. He scores lots of goals. He knows how to deal with media," Cockerell said.

Beyond the flamboyance is a serious athlete, say those who have worked with him.

After college, he became a professional player for the J-League's Kawasaki Frontale. "We chose him because he had these powerful moves that were rare with Japanese players," said his coach there, Tsutomu Takahata. "He has grown into a player who moves symbiotically with the others."

"He's the real thing," said Lee Chang-gang, a professional player with Japan's Fagiano Okayama team who played soccer with Jong in elementary school. He remembers him as a hotheaded kid who was sometimes taken out of a game for bad behavior. But Jong was sufficiently serious about the sport that he learned to control his temper, Lee said. "He aimed to be a professional soccer player from his elementary school days."

The transition to playing with the North Korean national team was not easy for Jong. He had to learn how to care for and assemble his own equipment, how to do his own laundry and carry his own bags, according to his biographer.

Jong had spoken and written openly about his irritation at times with the lack of worldliness of his North Korean teammates.

In a blog posting May 24, Jong recalled a stop during a trip from Switzerland to Austria, when his teammates headed to the men's room and then came rushing out in consternation. They had not expected a pay toilet.

"I laughed a little seeing this. Then they turned to me and said, 'This is truly what capitalist society is like,' " Jong wrote.

He used to have a hard time with the way his teammates would handle his personal possessions, especially his cellphone. With time, he learned that he needed to allow them to use his Nintendo and PlayStation to build goodwill within the team. "It has taken a lot to accept their culture," he told reporters in South Africa.

Fortunately for Jong, he probably will not have to do much adjusting to North Korean culture, as he showed no interest in settling down in Pyongyang. His goal during the World Cup, Jong has said repeatedly, is to score once in each game, just once.

And then to sign on to play in England.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Nagano is a special correspondent in Tokyo.
This is the first time North Korea has qualified for the World Cup since 1966. Although the country is as much a pariah as ever, having been implicated in the recent torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 people, its novelty value keeps it in the headlines coming out of South Africa. At the bottom of the 32 teams in competition, North Korea is pitted against top-ranked Brazil in its first match, on Tuesday, a classic minnow-against-the-whale competition that should be curiosity enough to attract a strong following.

"People don't know about North Korea. We want to change North Korea's image," Jong told reporters last week outside the Makhulong Stadium in Tembisa, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

If Jong sounds like a most improbable North Korean, it might be because he was born and grew up in a community of 600,000 Koreans who live in Japan. Most of them are descendents of laborers who came over during Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula. He was educated in pro-Pyongyang schools run by the General Assn. of Korean Residents in Japan.

As a child, Jong obsessively watched videos of one of the most famous World Cup upsets of all time: a 1966 match in which North Korea beat Italy to advance to the quarterfinals.

North Korea started wooing him during his sophomore year at Tokyo-based Korea University. But the effort was complicated by the fact that Jong had been registered by his father as a South Korean. (Like most Korean residents of Japan, he didn't have Japanese citizenship.) The South Korean government would not let him give up his citizenship because it doesn't recognize North Korea.

"I am not South Korean!" Jong protested to a South Korean sports magazine in the midst of a protracted battle to renounce his citizenship. He qualified for the North Korean team anyway, since soccer federation rules allow dual nationality, but Jong is dogged by criticism that he is not North Korean enough. He has never lived in the country except for short stretches training with the team.

"It is hard to say what nationality he is," said Masafumi Mori, author of a recently published Japanese-language biography. "Jong is like this figure, standing right on top of where the Earth's crusts of the three countries of North Korea, South Korea, Japan meet."

Despite his attempt to renounce his citizenship, Jong's popularity extends to both sides of the border. South Korea's team is in the World Cup too, but when it comes to soccer, the estranged Koreans usually cheer each other on. Jong appeared last year in a television commercial for the South Korean energy drink Bacchus with Park Ji-sung, captain of South Korea's World Cup team. He also writes a column for a South Korean Web portal.

"I think it is too bad we didn't notice him when he was in high school or college. Maybe we would have picked him instead for the South Korean team," said Do Young-in, a reporter covering the World Cup for Sports Seoul.

For the North Koreans, using players raised in Japan has its advantages. Their team is handicapped by the country's poverty and isolation. Although top athletes have adequate food and training facilities, they have limited opportunity to play outsiders — or even to watch matches, since foreign television broadcasts are banned in North Korea.

"It was a very clever move for them to bring in people who live abroad and have experience playing in more competitive leagues," said Simon Cockerell, a Briton living in Beijing who has organized a North Korean soccer fan club.

Another player raised in Japan is midfielder Ahn Yong-hak. The team's Hong Yong-jo also has an international reputation, playing with the Russian premier league team FC Rostov. But it is Jong, with an impish grin and a full crest of hair that gives him a cone-headed look (his nickname among North Korean fans is "Acornhead"), who has captured the public's attention.

"He's good-looking. He scores lots of goals. He knows how to deal with media," Cockerell said.

Beyond the flamboyance is a serious athlete, say those who have worked with him.

After college, he became a professional player for the J-League's Kawasaki Frontale. "We chose him because he had these powerful moves that were rare with Japanese players," said his coach there, Tsutomu Takahata. "He has grown into a player who moves symbiotically with the others."

"He's the real thing," said Lee Chang-gang, a professional player with Japan's Fagiano Okayama team who played soccer with Jong in elementary school. He remembers him as a hotheaded kid who was sometimes taken out of a game for bad behavior. But Jong was sufficiently serious about the sport that he learned to control his temper, Lee said. "He aimed to be a professional soccer player from his elementary school days."

The transition to playing with the North Korean national team was not easy for Jong. He had to learn how to care for and assemble his own equipment, how to do his own laundry and carry his own bags, according to his biographer.

Jong had spoken and written openly about his irritation at times with the lack of worldliness of his North Korean teammates.

In a blog posting May 24, Jong recalled a stop during a trip from Switzerland to Austria, when his teammates headed to the men's room and then came rushing out in consternation. They had not expected a pay toilet.

"I laughed a little seeing this. Then they turned to me and said, 'This is truly what capitalist society is like,' " Jong wrote.

He used to have a hard time with the way his teammates would handle his personal possessions, especially his cellphone. With time, he learned that he needed to allow them to use his Nintendo and PlayStation to build goodwill within the team. "It has taken a lot to accept their culture," he told reporters in South Africa.

Fortunately for Jong, he probably will not have to do much adjusting to North Korean culture, as he showed no interest in settling down in Pyongyang. His goal during the World Cup, Jong has said repeatedly, is to score once in each game, just once.

And then to sign on to play in England.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Nagano is a special correspondent in Tokyo.

Zainichi player, Jong Tae Se in North Korean Soccer team

NKorea’s Rooney loves his cars, clothes and rap

By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer jun 14, 13:01 EDT

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TEMBISA, South Africa (AP)—He plays like Rooney but behaves more like Beckham. He loves his cars, his rap music and his clothes, and changes hairstyles more often than you can say “Kim Jong Il.”

North Korea striker Jong Tae Se is not your average North Korean.

Born and raised in Japan, the 26-year-old forward has never lived in communist North Korea, and says he has no plans to. He loves to shop, snowboard and dreams of marrying Korea’s Posh Spice—none of which would be possible in the impoverished North, one of the most isolated countries in the world.

But he wears the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea jersey with pride, and is moved to tears when he hears the country’s anthem. The boy from Nagoya could become North Korea’s biggest international soccer star since Pak Doo Ik scored the goal that knocked Italy out of the World Cup in 1966.

“He is Japanese but isn’t a Japanese, he is Korean but is playing on the North Korean squad, he is a North Korean national but lives in Japan—all these things are very difficult for the world to understand,” Shin Mu Koeng, a friend and his biographer, said Monday from Tokyo.

North Korea is back in the World Cup for the first time in 44 years. They were the mystery team in 1966, and they’re the mystery team in 2010. Very little is known about the team from North Korea, sheltered players mostly in their early 20s with limited international experience.

Jong, witty and personable, with a dazzling smile, cheeky personality and talent for making goals, gives lowest-ranked North Korea a bit of star power as they face teams from Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast stacked with big names.

Jong is quickly becoming his team’s biggest personality and most powerful asset, setting himself apart on and off the field, from his fashion sense to his playing style.

On the pitch, Jong is fast and aggressive, North Korea’s leading scorer with 16 goals in 24 international matches. His impressive play earned him comparisons to England’s Wayne Rooney among South Korean media.

He collects sneakers and considers himself a bit of a fashion hound. Last Wednesday, he was sporting gelled hair. By Thursday he had shaved it all off. And he’s not shy about admitting that he cried like a baby watching South Korea’s most famous soap opera, “Winter Sonata.”

This is how he sees himself in five years: driving a car worthy of a rap star, with a pop star like one of the singers from the Wondergirls—South Korea’s version of the Spice Girls—on his arm, and playing for a big-name club in Europe.

“North Korea’s Wayne Rooney?” North Koreans hope Rooney will someday be seen as “England’s Jong Tae Se.”

Jong could have played in South Korea or Japan, but he chose North Korea.

Born in Nagoya to an ethnic Korean family, he inherited his father’s South Korean citizenship but was raised and schooled in his mother’s pro-North Korean community.

He is among Japan’s nearly 600,000 “zainichi,” ethnic Koreans who live in Japan as long-term residents, many of them third- and fourth-generation descendants of laborers or conscripts who have lived there since Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea.

Their first language may be Japanese, but Jong and midfielder An Yong Hak were raised within the zainichi community, attending Korean-language schools and pledging allegiance to North Korea founder Kim Il Sung and current leader Kim Jong Il.

Still, Jong’s zainichi background sets him apart. He says he never travels without his iPod, laptop and Nintendo, much to the curiosity of teammates from a country with only one state-run TV channel where such luxuries are reserved for top officials.

Their games are simple: rock, scissors and paper are enough to send them into fits of shouts and laughter, he says. Teammates flock to his room during overseas matches, asking to listen to his music, play Super Mario, borrow his books or fluorescent Nike running shoes and hear about life in the J-League— including how much money he makes.

“Tae Se worried a lot about the difference in background,” said Shin, who has known Jong since elementary school. “The North Korean team lacks a lot of the equipment and the infrastructure that Jong’s been used to, as a J-League player” for Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale.

He’s developed a close bond with An, a lanky fellow zainichi North Korean teammate who now plays for Omiya Ardija in Japan but also for the South Korean club Suwon Bluewings.

But Jong has said he admires his North Korean teammates’ passion for soccer, and noted that they are largely indifferent to money and materialism.

“He had many doubts, but as he trained with the North Korean players, he saw their pureness,” said Shin, whose biography about Jong was released in South Korea and Japan. “They never complained about the inadequacies and they did their absolute best.”

“They were playing for their team and for victory, nothing else.”

Jong is also well aware of the controversies surrounding North Korea, which remains locked in a standoff with the international community over its nuclear program and has been hauled before the U.N. Security Council on accusations of sinking a South Korean warship in March.

“You don’t cut off your parents from your life just because they’ve made mistakes. I, too, can’t betray my parents who have raised me,” referring to North Korea,” Jong says in Shin’s biography, “Our Player, Unseen Us.”

Don’t expect him to move anytime soon to Pyongyang. “My homeland is not Japan. There’s another country in Japan, called Zainichi,” he says in the book. “None of these countries—South Korea, North Korea and Japan—can be my home country, because I’m a zainichi and therefore Zainichi is my native land.

“And I think that’s the purpose of my life—letting the world know of the zainichi existence.”

On his blog, he wrote from Johannesburg that he was filled with renewed awe for the power of football and the role he can play in the sport.

“Yesterday, I clarified a new goal and dream,” he wrote in Japanese last week. “Instead of sticking within the line of national boundaries, I’ll be acclaimed in the wider world as a player who tore down such high and invisible walls.”

Associated Press writers Sangwon Yoon, Mirae Kang and Claire Lee in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

ER member Haruki's on the Bay Area Reporter!

Queer graduate receives special honor at SF State
by Matthew S. Bajko
m.bajko@ebar.com

Among the top 10 graduating students at San Francisco State University this year was a queer student from Japan who spent the last four years working to better the lives of other LGBT Asian and Pacific Islanders on and off campus.

At the May 22 commencement ceremonies sociology major Haruki Eda received a symbolic hood on behalf of the students in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. The faculty picked Eda after he received a distinguished achievement award within the Sociology Department.

Eda, 23, grew up in Koka, a city in Shiga Prefecture famous for its ninja history. Fluent in English, his parents encouraged him to study abroad in the states. He chose sociology due to his interest in reducing discrimination in society.

"Sociology should be about social justice and reducing social injustice," he said. "It really has the potential to be a tool for social change."

During his time on campus, Eda embraced his queer identity. He founded an organization for queer API students called AQUA – Asians and Queers United for Awareness. Off campus he volunteered at a queer Asian and Pacific Islander youth program run by the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center in the Polk.

He also blogs about what it means to be queer and Asian at the website http://www.wiqaable.com.

"I wasn't really out in Japan. I came here determined to be out," said Eda, who disclosed his sexual orientation to his family during his freshman year.

While at SFSU Eda also became involved with Eclipse Rising, a Bay Area group for Zainichi Koreans. The term Zainichi means "staying in Japan" and it refers to Koreans living in Japan who retain their Korean nationality. Eda's Korean grandfather came to Japan as a soldier after the country annexed Korea in 1910.

The Zainichi are the largest minority group in Japan and they have struggled against discriminatory policies imposed on them by the Japanese. Because his father married a Japanese woman, Eda has Japanese citizenship and more privileges in Japanese society. But bridging his family's two cultures has not been easy, he said.

"It is a struggle to belong to the Japanese or Korean community," said Eda, who said he only started hanging out with other Koreans when he came to America and first visited South Korea in 2007.

Once in California, Eda experienced not only what it is like to be an ethnic minority but also discriminated against for being LGBT.

"I am not just queer here, I am also Asian. I have been interested in those dynamics of oppression both in Japan and the United States," he said.

This summer Eda will return home to Japan and then plans to move to Oakland this fall. He is applying for an unpaid internship at DataCenter Research for Justice, a progressive think tank focused on social justice and environmental issues.

By the fall of 2011 he intends to enter a Ph.D. program at a University of California campus or in a school in the Chicago or New York area. He would like to be a professor and do sociology research or work for the United Nations.

And like so many before him, Eda has come to consider the Bay Area home.

"Whenever I go back to Japan, I miss San Francisco. When I am here, I don't miss Japan," said Eda. "I really like this city."

Jong Tae-Se, 3rd gen. Zainichi soccer player leads DPRK!

ESPN World Cup Blog (May 26, 2010)
The 'Asian Wayne Rooney' leads North Korea
Posted by Mike Griffin

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/blog?entryID=5222674&name=worldcup2010blog&cc=5901&ver=us

The week of international friendlies for World Cup participants continued on Tuesday. While the United States and Paraguay looked unimpressive in their encounters -- although each were resting some star players -- little-known North Korea put on a positive display in battling back to a 2-2 draw with Greece in a match played in Austria.

A day after Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal teammates failed to score a goal at home against lowly Cape Verde Islands, it was enlightening to see Group G opponents North Korea put two past former European champions Greece, a side known for its defensive strength. The star man for North Korea was Jong Tae-Se, who scored both of his country's goals with brilliant individual efforts to scorch a backline that did include its regulars in the starting lineup.

Greece took an early lead in the third minute, but Jong equalized midway through the first half after cutting in from the left side to unleash a right-footed rocket from outside the box that beat keeper Michalis Sifakis and clipped the bottom of the crossbar on its way in. Angelos Charisteas gave Greece a 2-1 lead just after halftime before Jong struck again four minutes later to even the match. The physical striker known as the "Asian Wayne Rooney" expertly collected a long diagonal pass before beating his defender and blasting the ball into the net at the near post.

Jong plays for Kawasaki Frontale in Japan's J-League, and is one of the few players to ply their trade outside the closed borders of the DPR. Born in Japan and originally holding South Korean citizenship, the striker decided to seek a North Korean passport due to his parents' heritage and after attending schools partially funded by Korea DPR.

He was top scorer at the 2008 East Asian Championship, and registered four goals in each of his first two games for North Korea in international competition. Having improved his scoring in the Japanese league in recent years, Jong helped his country finish second behind rival South Korea in Group B of the Asian confederation's final round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.

Last week, Ivory Coast coach Sven-Goran Eriksson claimed that underdog North Korea could be a tough proposition for his side in Group G at the World Cup. "Nobody speaks about North Korea, but they play good football," Eriksson told reporters. "Physically they are better than anyone because they have been in the training camp for six months. I think we are going to have three very difficult games, and we have to be very organized."

The media basically dismissed the former England manager's comments as typical "coachspeak" prior to a major competition, but after Tuesday's result against Greece, maybe more teams will begin to take note of Jong Tae-Se and North Korea.

NHK Documentary on Mixed Roots Youth in Japan! CLICK HERE!

NHK made a documentary about the group called "Mix Roots Kansai" -a group of mixed heritage youth in Japan. It started as a web-based group 2 years ago and now expanded to a nation-wide organization. "Shake the Forward" is an annual concert in addition to many other programs (family gatherings, radio programs, podcasts, different kinds of workshops...etc) that build intimate relationships amongst "mixed youths" (whether mixed race or mixed cultural heritage) and cross-cultural understanding. The documentary was aired July 19, 2008. Their official website is: http://www.mixroots.jp/

http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2010/spring/48.html

Our very own Eclipse Rising member recognized for his superb academic excellence and dedication to community service!
Congratulations Haruki!

Exceptional graduating students profiled
May 17 , 2010 -- One outstanding student from each academic college, Liberal Studies/Special Majors and Graduate Studies will be honored at SF State's 109th Commencement on Saturday, May 22. They will receive the symbolic investiture of the hood on behalf of their fellow students. In addition, Marilyn Thomas, hood recipient for the College of Science and Engineering, will be this year's student speaker. SF State News is pleased to introduce these students to the campus community and friends of SF State:



College of Behavioral and Social Sciences: Haruki Eda
When sociology major Haruki Eda arrived in San Francisco from Japan, he struggled to find a community he truly belonged to as a mixed Queer Zainichi Korean man whose first language isn't English. In Japan, Eda was part of a population of ethnic Koreans known as Zainichi Koreans. He has turned his multiple marginalized statuses into a commitment to work with oppressed communities. He founded an organization for Queer Asian and Pacific Islander students on campus, volunteered at a Queer Asian and Pacific Islander youth program in the city and served as a Resident Assistant in University Housing. He is also involved with a Zainichi Korean community organization that raises awareness about racism in Japan. As a sociologist, Eda plans to continue pursuing his interest in issues of sexuality and globalization in a doctoral program. "In the future, I would like to conduct community-based participatory
action research," Eda said.

Japan's colonial rule of Korea not fact, says city education board head

Wow, Are you kidding me?


Saturday 28th June, 09:17 AM JST

KITAKYUSHU —
The head of the Shimonoseki city education board in Yamaguchi Prefecture has told officials of a Korean school that Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula ‘‘contradicts a historical fact,’’ the education board and the Korean school officials said Friday.

Tsuyoshi Shimakura made the remark on Thursday when he met the officials and students’ parents from Yamaguchi Korean school who visited Shimakura to ask for an increase of education subsidies, they said.

According to the Korean school officials and the education board, the officials made the request, saying, ‘‘We’d like the education board to respond based on the fact that children of Korean people who had no choice but to travel to Japan due to colonial rule are attending the school.’‘

Shimakura told them, ‘‘We cannot accept that because the part about colonial rule contradicts a historical fact,’’ they said.

Shimakura said he made the remark and said, ‘‘There is no relation between education administration and history, and it goes against the rules to bring the subject up.

‘‘It is free regarding how to express the annexation of Japan and Korea,’’ Shimakura added.

Kisaburo Tokai, minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, said at a news conference, ‘‘It is very regrettable if the remark contradicts the government’s recognition.’‘

Touching on that he does not know the detail of the remark, Tokai said, ‘‘The government has expressed recognition that it inflicted suffering and damage on the people of Asia due to colonial rule.’‘

Shimonoseki and the Korean Peninsula have a close relationship historically, with the city and South Korea’s Busan concluding a sister-city relationship.

Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration

Sound familiar? Reminded me of how Zainichis can be stopped any time in Japan to present their immigration papers.


Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration into law on Friday. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.
Enlarge This Image

Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill, SB 1070, on Friday.
The move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally.

Even before she signed the bill at an afternoon news conference here, President Obama strongly criticized it.

Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty service members in the Rose Garden, he called for a federal overhaul of immigration laws, which Congressional leaders signaled they were preparing to take up soon, to avoid “irresponsibility by others.”

The Arizona law, he added, threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

The political debate leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, and Mr. Obama’s criticism of the law — presidents very rarely weigh in on state legislation — underscored the power of the immigration debate in states along the Mexican border. It presaged the polarizing arguments that await the president and Congress as they take up the issue nationally.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was worried about the rights of its citizens and relations with Arizona. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said the authorities’ ability to demand documents was like “Nazism.”

As hundreds of demonstrators massed, mostly peacefully, at the capitol plaza, the governor, speaking at a state building a few miles away, said the law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”

The law was to take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends, meaning by August. Court challenges were expected immediately.

Hispanics, in particular, who were not long ago courted by the Republican Party as a swing voting bloc, railed against the law as a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling. “Governor Brewer caved to the radical fringe,” a statement by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said, predicting that the law would create “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.”

While police demands of documents are common on subways, highways and in public places in some countries, including France, Arizona is the first state to demand that immigrants meet federal requirements to carry identity documents legitimizing their presence on American soil.

Ms. Brewer acknowledged critics’ concerns, saying she would work to ensure that the police have proper training to carry out the law. But she sided with arguments by the law’s sponsors that it provides an indispensable tool for the police in a border state that is a leading magnet of illegal immigration. She said racial profiling would not be tolerated, adding, “We have to trust our law enforcement.”

Ms. Brewer and other elected leaders have come under intense political pressure here, made worse by the killing of a rancher in southern Arizona by a suspected smuggler a couple of weeks before the State Legislature voted on the bill. His death was invoked Thursday by Ms. Brewer herself, as she announced a plan urging the federal government to post National Guard troops at the border.

President George W. Bush had attempted comprehensive reform but failed when his own party split over the issue. Once again, Republicans facing primary challenges from the right, including Ms. Brewer and Senator John McCain, have come under tremendous pressure to support the Arizona law, known as SB 1070.

Mr. McCain, locked in a primary with a challenger campaigning on immigration, only came out in support of the law hours before the State Senate passed it Monday afternoon.

Governor Brewer, even after the Senate passed the bill, had been silent on whether she would sign it. Though she was widely expected to, given her primary challenge, she refused to state her position even at a dinner on Thursday for a Hispanic social service organization, Chicanos Por La Causa, where several audience members called out “Veto!”

Among other things, the Arizona measure is an extraordinary rebuke to former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who had vetoed similar legislation repeatedly as a Democratic governor of the state before being appointed Homeland Security secretary by Mr. Obama.

The law opens a deep fissure in Arizona, with a majority of the thousands of callers to the governor’s office urging her to reject it.

In the days leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat, called for a convention boycott of his state.

The bill, sponsored by Russell Pearce, a state senator and a firebrand on immigration issues, has several provisions.

It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.

It also makes it a state crime — a misdemeanor — to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.

States across the country have proposed or enacted hundreds of bills addressing immigration since 2007, the last time a federal effort to reform immigration law collapsed. Last year, there were a record number of laws enacted (222) and resolutions (131) in 48 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The prospect of plunging into a national immigration debate is being increasingly talked about on Capitol Hill, spurred in part by recent statements by Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, that he intends to bring legislation to the Senate floor after Memorial Day.

But while an immigration debate could help energize Hispanic voters and provide political benefits to embattled Democrats seeking re-election in November — like Mr. Reid — it could also energize conservative voters.

It could also take time from other Democratic priorities, including an energy measure that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described as her flagship issue.

Mr. Reid declined Thursday to say that immigration would take precedence over an energy measure. But he called it an imperative: “The system is broken,” he said.

Ms. Pelosi and Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, have said that the House would be willing to take up immigration policy only if the Senate produces a bill first.

Helene Cooper and Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 23, 2010


A earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of the Arizona state senator who sponsored several provisions of the bill. He is Russell Pearce, not Pierce.

Zainichis Rising - a blog post about ER's fundraising event!

Zainichis Rising
By Sylvie Kim
Originally posted on

You can count the number of things I don’t know about Korean history and culture on many fingers and toes. Usually, I utilize my standby excuse of “But I’m an Asian American Studies scholar” and then huff and puff about my second generation identity issues.

However, I am slowly but steadily learning more about my ancestral homeland, and more importantly, the issues affecting people of Korean descent.


Last year, I attended an academic talk about Zainichi Koreans with my one of my friends who is an East Asian Studies scholar. It was my first time learning about this population of ethnically Korean, multigenerational “outside residents” of Japan since that country’s colonization of Korea, residents who continually face systematic discrimination.

From an informational standpoint, it was an interesting event to attend but in essence, it was a lecture. It wasn’t until last week, from inside a cozy home in the East Bay, that I saw the human element of Zainichi Korean identity and experience. My classmate and friend Kei Fischer invited me to a meeting of Eclipse Rising, a Bay Area Zainichi Korean community organization of which she is co-coordinator as well as one of the founding members along with Miho Kim, Amana Oh, Yongna Ryo, and Kyung Hee Ha. Their mission is to “recognize and celebrate the rich and unique history of Koreans in Japan, promote Zainichi community development, peace and reunification, and work for social justice for all minorities in Japan.”

The diversity of people in the room was amazing: Kei and member Richard Plunk are two hapa Zainichi Koreans who did not discover until later in childhood that they were half-Korean, not half-Japanese as they were led to believe; Haruki Yang-Saeng Pak is half-Japanese and half-Korean but was granted Japanese citizenship through his mother’s side, meaning he has two last names: Eda and Pak. Miho Kim is a third generation Zainichi Korean from Fukuoka, Japan and in 2008 was the first Zainichi Korean to win the Yayori Award for achievement in Women’s human rights work.

Guests included Manami Kishimoto, an activist for the Buraku people in Japan; San Francisco State University Asian American Studies students; members of nihonmachiROOTS , a group of young Japanese American leaders focusing on issues regarding the redevelopment of San Francisco’s Japantown; as well as two visiting guests from abroad: Zainichi Korean brothers from Okinawa who are now in college and graduate school in Japan. Listening to the brothers talk about how the gathering gave them a sense of confidence to be themselves and speak out at school, where they are the only two Zainichi Korean students that they know of, was what really crystallized the purpose of Eclipse Rising for me.

Living under discriminatory policies is only part of their plight; Zainichis are not recognized by either Japan or Korea as legal or symbolic citizens. Language, culture, ethnicity all come into complicated play: ethnic Koreans cannot be granted citizenship in Japan even by birth and to return to Korea is to return to a country whose language and culture are wholly unfamiliar. Stories from Eclipse Rising members reveal that Zainichis of this current generation often face hostility in Korea since their relatives were thought of as “traitors” for moving to Japan to find work and feed their families during colonization.

In addition to learning about Zainichis from a historical and sociological perspective, being at the meeting kept my privilege in check: a clear acknowledgment of my nationality and ethnicity and that of my family and ancestors is something I take for granted. As the beginning of my post explains, there’s so much I don’t know but could know due to an contradictory mix of desire to educate myself and lack of motivation to get started. But, perhaps the most significant impression left on me was an urge to keep deconstructing and reconstructing what it means to “be Korean.” I don’t think Korean identity is something that can necessarily be quantified or qualified in so-called definitive ways: vocabulary, names, or what country issues your passport.

We’re descendants of passionate, proud people, and I like to believe that within that collective spirit, there’s room for difference: different identities and different histories that are all a part of the Korean consciousness.

If you would like to learn more about Eclipse Rising, their events, and how you can contribute, visit their website or Facebook group page.