Published : Dec. 2, 2015 - 17:20
Last week, I chaperoned a field trip at my son’s school.
In more ways than one, it turned out to be quite a memorable event.
Physically, it was one of the most challenging days of my life since, oh, let’s say my last hangover. Try dragging five incredibly energetic and highly opinionated second graders on a scavenger hunt, and you’ll know what I mean.
Among the items we were instructed to collect was an “unusually shaped leaf.” One of the boys kept scooping up rotten foliage off the ground, insisting it looked “unusual.” Another asked me about 10 times what a “usually shaped” leaf was (unusual, sweetie, not usual). My son was trying to stuff everything he could find – including litter – into his plastic baggie.
When the kids decided they had found what they were looking for, each boy ran off in a different direction, leaving me contemplating which one to chase.
When we finally broke for lunch, a group of Korean boys crowded together on someone’s picnic mat. There, they proceeded to launch into an animated discussion about who would play which Pokemon character at play time.
Just as I was about to tell them to pipe down, a Japanese boy spoke up. “I want some more Japanese people around me,” he said.
Stung, I waited a moment before asking him what he meant.
“I mean, there are too many people here who are not Japanese. I want to sit next to Japanese people.” So I did hear you correctly the first time.
The boy’s mother is one of the most outgoing Japanese parents I have met here, and she told me once she loved the spontaneity of Koreans. That was after I treated my class parents to waffles during a coffee break without asking first. “I love your culture,” she had said.
The unexpected words from her son brought to mind another memory, this time of a ball game.
A couple of weeks ago, South Korean baseball players trumped their Japanese rivals — on their home turf no less — in a stunning comeback in the Premium12 semifinals. The crucial hit made in the ninth inning was by Korean Lee Dae-ho, ironically the reigning MVP in the Japan Series.
In the ensuing days, I heard that there was considerable tension among the older boys. Some of the Japanese kids apparently made disparaging remarks about the Korean team, which were hotly refuted by the Korean boys. And vice versa.
The school my son attends to is an international school, where, supposedly, kids and families hail from different cultures and nationalities.
The diversity, however, was reduced significantly following the Sendai earthquake when a huge chunk of the foreign community moved back home.
Koreans, however, stuck it out, or came back after things started to turn back to normal. And a lot of us have since then gradually taken up the places that would have normally been occupied by non-Asian students. Korean students now take up more than 30 percent of places at some of the most prominent international schools in the greater Tokyo area.
Perhaps it’s natural for even little kids to harbor a little nationalistic animosity. But I do wonder, what teaches these kids to form such opinions? Or rather: who? Is it the media or is it their parents or is it the rest of us?
Personally, I have never once felt unwelcome or mistreated because I was a Korean.
But when too many people stare at me or my son and his friends when they are somewhat loudly conversing in Korean, I do remember that I am a foreigner here. That our similarities end in our looks.
At school, I have heard that some Japanese parents are quite outspoken in their criticism toward the management for accepting too many Koreans.
Korean parents’ comeback to this is that the school is also accepting too many Japanese kids, considering its status as an international school and not a Japanese school for English-speaking children. In the lower grades, kids play well together, but they soon begin mingling based on nationality when they hit puberty.
All understandable, but not exactly encouraging behavior.
The popularity of Hallyu has definitely waned. But I do still feel its feeble pulse when a nurse at clinic in my neighborhood talks to me in broken Korean, or when a Japanese Starbucks employee blurts out his love for some Korean celebrity.
Despite the lingering positive sentiment, Koreans and Japanese seem to be living in an uneasy state of cohabitation in Japan. And the mutual distrust is rubbing off on the younger generation.
I do wonder if comfort women and Dokdo will continue to be a pressing dilemma for these boys when they become adults, or if they would be reduced to ghosts of a troubled past that has been since undone.
By Kim Ji-hyun
Kim Ji-hyun is The Korea Herald’s Tokyo correspondent. — Ed.