Local Spaces and Identities— Moments of Being Korean in Kyoto
In 1994, for the anthropology (AAA) meetings in Atlanta, I wrote a list of the various identity “moments” that the Koreans I met in Kyoto had described to me as occasions where their Koreanness was most deeply evident to them. Let me repeat these briefly:
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Being Korean under Japanese colonial rule;
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being quasi-Japanese under the American occupation;
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being non-Japanese when Japanese government war-time compensation plans were determined;
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being “North” Korean when the South makes peace with Japan (without compensation for resident Koreans in Japan), or;
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being “South” Korean on your passport when the North builds schools in Japan (the only escape from the Ministry of Education’s walloping dose of pure-Japanese cultural content);
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being Japanese-enough not to know the Korean language well enough to talk with newcomers from Korea, or having learned Korean in a North Korean school, and so failing the Japanese government test that would allow you to be a tourist guide for Koreans, because your accent is wrong;
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being informed enough to despise the unnatural process of naturalization in Japan;
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being disconnected in a city where lives and livelihoods are built on connections—and also having no connections to give to your children;
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being a buraku dweller in a city where people make this sigma stick;
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being old and finally beyond most of the fears that have marked your everyday life, except for that of poverty, because being Korean means being locked out of the government pension system you have been paying into for decades—and also seeing your children and grandchildren kept out of schools, businesses, condominiums, and marriages, or;
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being young, and learning to labor instead of study, and wanting all the things that they show on television, but you can’t come close t o affording them;
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being told that discrimination is illegal and the problem is being resolved, but watching as the Japanese government sets up a program to bring in “pure-blood Japanese” laborers from South America, while you work at three part-time jobs to scrape by;
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being tired of being shut out of social or economic interaction with Japanese, and so trying to pass using some Japanese name, and getting found out and being exposed;
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being told by your parents to never break the rules, to never give them a reason to say you did whatever it was you did because you are Korean;
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being proud of being Korean despite not knowing what this means apart from it signifying a dangerous other within yourself;
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being an “alien,” above all, in and to the city of your birth.
- “Surrounded by magnificent hills, Kyoto with her poetry reflects the changing of the seasons, and has provided over the last twelve centuries a natural cradle for the art and culture of Japan, and a noble heritage for her people. For this reason Kyoto is known as the spiritual home of the Japanese people; it is said that without knowing Kyoto, it is impossible to understand the real Japan. But on the other hand, Kyoto is not only an old, former capital but also a modern city anxious to develop new culture based on a precious inheritance. Kyoto is now flourishing as the center of traditional industries, art, scholarship and religion”
Kyoto city tourist info webpage.
These are some of the moments of being that roll through the resident Korean community in Higashi-Kujo Kyoto. Some of them reflect Japan’s colonizing history. Other moments occur today on a daily basis. Many of these are moments that might connect them to other dislocated individuals in other cities around the world. At each moment, the individual must face a locally applied identity: “You Koreans...”. And there are more Koreans in Kyoto than one might guess and more than the City can even begin to officially ignore, although it also seems uneasy1 with the fact that they are, by far, the most prevalent population of international residents within Kyoto. With the advent of the Madang, there are new moments, a few of which I managed to share with members of the community: Madang night.
1A few years ago, the city’s ‘international” office stopped giving out the percentages of populations of foreign residents in its foreigner’s “Guide to Kyoto.”
