A life-sized record of studying abroad in Korea (12) – The delicate position of “Korean residents in Japan” in both Japan and Korea
2023.12.29 (Fri) Han Kwang-hoon Follow Following
Winter in Seoul is cold. Children playing on the snow sledding slope at Ttukseom Hangang Park (file photo, source: Seoul Metropolitan Government website)
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Han Kwang-hoon, a third-generation Korean living in Japan, studied abroad in South Korea for the first time at the age of 30. Mr. Han, who was born and raised in Osaka and worked as a newspaper reporter, writes about his experiences and discoveries in a “foreign country.” (JBpress)
(Han Kwang-hoon: 3rd generation Korean resident in Japan writer)
I went to jjimjilbang with a Japanese friend in Seoul. Korean style sauna. It was a jjimjilbang in a cave-like kiln heated by charcoal.
It was a day when the temperature was -10 degrees. While I was warming myself in the jjimjilbang, my girlfriend’s aunties started talking to me. Probably because I was talking to my friend in Japanese. I was told, “Japanese people are coming too. It’s nice because Japanese people are quiet. Koreans and Chinese people talk a lot and are noisy.” “I see. But I didn’t know there were so many people in Jjimjilbang,” I said. He said, “Wow, you speak Korean well.”
If I had been like this when I first started studying abroad, I think I would have been quite shocked by people thinking I was “Japanese” and being told that “You speak Korean well.” It doesn’t mean that I don’t like being thought of as Japanese. I feel disappointed that even though I worked so hard to study Korean, I was not able to join the group of “Koreans.”
But now I think, “People think I’m Japanese, just normal.” I’ve come to think that this is not such a shocking thing. For example, if you are speaking Korean with a Korean friend in Japan, people will naturally think that you are Korean. It’s the same.
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2023-12-28 21:00:00
