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DESCRIPTION:11/10/10 Berkeley Screening Of\n"Korean Schools in Japan 100 years of 
 struggle against discrimination"\n\n(Documentary film – 99 min, 2019, - 
 Japanese with English subtitle) by Ko Chinyu\n\nSunday, November 10th, 
 2019\n\n1:30- 4:00 pm (Door Opens 1:10)\nAt: Berkeley Central Public 
 Library, 3rd-Floor Meeting Room 2090 Kittridge St., Berkeley, CA 
 94704\n\nKorean schools in Japan were established right after WWII, and at 
 the early years, there were about 500 schools and 50,000 students were 
 there. Shortly after, the US occupational force GHQ and the Japanese 
 government ordered them to close down. However, after a long struggle, 
 there are about 60 schools from kindergarten to university that still exist 
 now.\n\nIn 2010, the Abe government decided that senior high school 
 education should be free. However, in 2013, the government decided to omit 
 the Korean schools from this subsidy. Local governments also decided to cut 
 the funding.\n\nThis film was produced by a nonfiction writer Ko Chanyu and 
 this is his first documentary film.\n\nSponsored by No Nukes 
 Action\n\nhttps://nonukesaction.wordpress.com\n\nJapan excludes Zainichi 
 Korean children from free preschool 
 education\n\nhttp://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/915734.html\nPosted 
 on : Nov.4,2019 17:44 KST Modified on : Nov.4,2019 17:44 KST	\n\nOn Nov. 2, 
 Zainichi Koreans and Japanese residents rallied in Tokyo in response to the 
 Japanese government’s exclusion of Chosen gakko (Korean schools in Japan 
 sponsored by North Korea) from a policy to provide free preschool 
 education. Chosen gakko supporters allied with civic groups and human 
 rights activists accused the government of discriminating against children. 
 AS of Oct. 1, the Japanese government has provided 25,700 yen (US$237.37) 
 per month for every child in preschool, with the exception of children in 
 preschools affiliated with the Chosen gakko.\n\nJapan's resident Koreans 
 endure a climate of 
 hate\nhttps://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/05/07/national/media-national/japans-resident-koreans-endure-climate-hate/#.XFdc-i2ZPxU\n\n\nFighting 
 for a place in Japan: Lee Il-ha's 2015 documentary "A Crybaby Boxing Club," 
 about North Korea-affiliated Joseon High School in Tokyo, highlights the 
 identity crisis suffered by many resident Koreans by focusing on the 
 school's boxing club. They have to win at any price, especially when they 
 fight boxers from Japanese schools, but the emotional cost is so high that 
 they break down in tears after every bout. | WAFACTORY\n\n\nBY PHILIP 
 BRASOR\nSPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES\nMAY 7, 2016\nARTICLE 
 HISTORY\nPRINTSHARE\nLater this month, the Diet’s Upper House will pass a 
 bill submitted by the ruling coalition addressing the problem of hate 
 speech, specifically directed at non-Japanese. As sociologist Takehiro 
 Akedo explains in his article for the Web magazine Synodos, the Liberal 
 Democratic Party isn’t enthusiastic about the bill, but when the 
 Democratic Party of Japan was in power it drafted its own, so the LDP feels 
 it has to follow through, especially since the U.N. has told Japan it needs 
 such a law. Akedo pointed out the bill’s flaws: The definition of victims 
 is too narrow and — a flaw in the DPJ draft, as well — there are no 
 enforceable punishments. The main opposition party complained that the LDP 
 bill doesn’t even “prohibit” hate speech.\nIn order to appreciate how 
 pointless the bill is, it’s important to know that the main target of 
 Japanese hate speech is resident Koreans, most of whom were born and raised 
 here. Since they don’t have Japanese nationality, they are technically 
 foreigners, though many have never stepped outside of Japan. The government 
 has always insisted they can become Japanese nationals, and each year about 
 7,000 do, but in any case, many want to keep their Korean identity.\nIn his 
 1991 book, “Zainichi Gaikokujin” (“Foreigners Living in Japan”), 
 Hiroshi Tanaka writes that after World War II, Japan reserved the right to 
 decide on whether Koreans could naturalize, whereas almost all other 
 erstwhile colonial powers at the time left the naturalization decision up 
 to their former subjects. Though many Koreans “returned” to the 
 peninsula, a large portion stayed and, in order to preserve their language 
 and culture, which had been taken away by their Japanese overlords, they 
 built 525 schools in Japan within a year of the surrender. This did not sit 
 well with the government, which refused to recognize these schools. Those 
 sentiments were duly expressed by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in a 
 letter to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, head of the U.S. Occupation authorities, 
 in 1949 suggesting that all Koreans in Japan be deported, citing as reasons 
 their lack of “contribution” to rebuilding the country and their 
 seemingly inherent penchant for criminal activity.\nIn the 1950s, after 
 they had lost their Japanese nationality but were permitted to remain in 
 Japan as resident aliens, these Koreans were registered as people from 
 Chosen — Japan’s name for the Korean peninsula before it split in half 
 after gaining independence in 1945. Since there is no Chosen, these 
 full-time residents of Japan are people without a country.\nThis amorphous 
 national identity is the subtext of Lee Il-ha’s 2015 documentary, “A 
 Crybaby Boxing Club,” about North Korea-affiliated Joseon High School in 
 Tokyo. The prologue offers a summary of what life is like for Koreans in 
 Japan and includes footage of demonstrators spewing hate speech, which 
 reportedly shocked South Korean audiences who apparently know little about 
 the Korean situation in Japan. Lee, who is South Korean but now lives in 
 Japan, made the film for that reason.\nTo the resident Koreans on the 
 screen, Chosen is an ideal, a kind of Valhalla: pure and impossible to 
 achieve. During a school sports festival one elderly man tells Lee why he 
 and other Zainichi (resident Koreans) rejected South Korea. They believe 
 the dictator Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country from 1962 until his 
 assassination in 1979, betrayed them when he said they should become 
 Japanese since that’s where they live. Many shifted their allegiance to 
 North Korea, which, culturally at least, leans closer to the concept of 
 Chosen.\nThe school has paid for that choice. The central government has 
 tried to withhold subsidies and female students no longer wear traditional 
 Korean dress during their commute to class, since some have been attacked 
 by anti-Korean fanatics. They change into such attire after they 
 arrive.\nLee highlights the identity crisis suffered by many resident 
 Koreans by focusing on the boxing club, whose members are sensitive to 
 their second-class status and use the sport as a means of demonstrating 
 their worth. They have to win at any price, especially when they fight 
 boxers from Japanese schools, but the emotional cost is so high that they 
 break down in tears after every bout, regardless of whether they win or 
 lose (thus the film’s title). Though Lee admires their pluck, he finds 
 their nationalism puzzling. One boxer tells him how much he enjoyed a 
 school trip to North Korea because “they treated us so well.” Lee says 
 he’d like to visit but can’t, for obvious reasons, and the student 
 replies, “After unification, let’s go together.”\nPerhaps because 
 Kenjiro Minato, the director of another recent documentary about resident 
 Koreans, “Hana no Yo ni Aru ga Mama ni” (“Just Like a Flower”), is 
 Japanese, he takes a more cautious approach to the question of identity. 
 His subject is Bae Ewha, a resident Korean from Kyoto who makes a living as 
 a traditional Korean dancer and also gives lectures at schools on human 
 rights. Unlike the boys in Lee’s movie, Bae engages with Japanese 
 counterparts in order to “change society,” and Minato keeps the mood 
 positive. Much of the film is about Bae’s late father, who was brought 
 over from Korea before the war to work in a mine. The theme is overcoming 
 adversity, and while Japanese injustices are readily described, she 
 acknowledges that she is also Japanese, at least in sensibility, and says 
 she longs for the circumstances enjoyed by Americans, who can celebrate 
 both their ethnic identity and their U.S. citizenship without compromising 
 either.\nIt is ethnic identity and the determination to hold onto it that 
 enrages the parties who use hate speech against resident Koreans. And while 
 the government has softened its hard line over the years — naturalized 
 Koreans no longer have to assume Japanese names — there’s still enough 
 equivocation in its position to encourage anti-Korean feelings. No 
 well-meaning but inactionable gesture is going to change that.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/11/06/18827904.php
SUMMARY:Screening of "Korean Schools in Japan 100 years of struggle against discrimination"
LOCATION:Berkeley Central Public Library, 3rd-Floor Meeting Room 2090 Kittridge St., 
 Berkeley, CA 94704
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/11/06/18827904.php
DTSTART:20191110T213000Z
DTEND:20191111T003000Z
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