Volume 14 | Issue 15 | Number 11 | Article ID 4922 | Aug 01, 2016 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Focus

The Rise and Fall of Chongryun—From Chōsenjin to Zainichi and beyond

Sonia Ryang

In the Beginning situation more likely to incur harassment, blame, penalty, or punishment. Perhaps the Horrified by the sight of the lynching of African worst moment for anyone to be a Korean in Americans, Abel Meeropol wrote a poem called Japan came in 1923 in the aftermath of the Strange Fruit that is perhaps better known in Great Kanto Earthquake, when pogrom-like the form of the 1939 rendition by Billie Holiday. hunt for spread across the scorched African Americans continued to suffer lynching lands of Tokyo and its vicinity. Like the black for many decades after the American Civil bodies hanging from those southern trees, War—mostly in the South, but also in many Korean bodies were on display without other states all around the country. Being black eyeballs, without nose, without breasts, their meant risking being turned into a strange fruit thighs and arms covered with lacerations and hanging from a poplar tree, giving off the smell with very little skin surface intact (Ryang of burnt flesh as it swung in the southern 2007). The end of Japan’s colonialism twenty- breeze. Being black meant close proximity to two years later did not of course end the peril death—by accidentally stumbling into a white of being Korean overnight. Just as the shift person, by not adhering to prescribedfrom public lynching to racial profiling, police etiquette, by not addressing a white person brutality, and the disproportionately large properly, or simply by making eye contact with number of incarcerations in the case of African a white woman. In a word, lynching could and Americans attests, for Koreans, too, the form of did take place at the whim of certain white peril shifted as they were incorporated into a people. Hardly any explanation, let alone more formal, administrative apparatus. justification, was required. In some states, a lynching would be announced in advance in the In contrast with 1923, what Koreans faced in local newspaper so that white people could 1945 after thirty-six years of colonial rule was gather and enjoy a picnic while watching it. abject poverty, disenfranchisement, and Men and women, old and young, and boys and tremendous uncertainty. One factor girls participated, eager and curious witnesses differentiating their case from that of African to the spectacle of black bodies being beaten, Americans persecuted in twentieth-century severed, carved, sliced, burned, and mutilated. America was that their former colonizer, the Today, half a century after the passing of the Japanese, had been defeated by the Allied Civil Rights Act, great numbers of black Forces and rendered powerless—as powerless Americans die at the hands of police or while in as their former colonial subjects—making police custody, reminding us that to erase a possible Korean independence. The majority of belief and the system that it is founded upon Koreans who were in Japan at the end of World takes more than the declaration of a new law. War II did not view themselves as Japanese and considered it natural that they be repatriated to Being Korean in Japan during the twentieth Korea now that Korea was an independent century carried a similar peril for a long time. nation. And indeed, about 1.4 million Koreans Being a chōsenjin (Korean) meant to be in a voluntarily returned to Korea, following Japan's

1 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF defeat in 1945, leaving around 600,000 in (hereafter referred to using Japan (Morita 1996; Ryang 1997: Ch.3). For the abbreviated Korean nameJoryeon), was those who remained, the peril of beingformed in October of 1945, the hegemonic chōsenjin continued, although, unlike the case ethos was nationalism. The same applied to the of African Americans, their similar skin color anti-communist alternative for Koreans in with the majority of Japanese would create a Japan, which was formed shortly after different dynamic of discrimination andthe establishment of Joryeon. disenfranchisement. As well, especially for the Japan-born generations, their ability to speak Although the majority of Koreans in postwar Japanese as their native language (without any Japan originated from the south of the Korean accent) would enhance their opportunities even peninsula, most Koreans supportedJoryeon given obvious limitations. But, suchwhich was more sympathetic toward the opportunities would only emerge after a northern half of the peninsula under Soviet generation or two of living in Japan. Following occupation, while Mindan supported the south World War II, Koreans in Japan foundunder American military occupation. This was a themselves in a peculiarly fragile situation of reflection of the widespread belief that the being chōsenjin in the former colonial partition of the Korean peninsula that had metropolis, their former masters defeated and taken place in 1945 would be merely forced to give up their colonial possessions and temporary. Moreover, Joryeon’s sympathy to rebuild their nation from the ruins of war. toward northern Korea was not exclusive; by The story ofChongryun, or the General locating its Korea office in Seoul,Joryeon Association of Korean Residents in Japan, preserved ties with the original homes of its begins here. members from the southern half of the peninsula. Genesis This is an important point: Joryeon was not a In the early months of the Allied occupation of North Korean organization and its goal was to Japan, at a time when authorities were more enable all Koreans in Japan to repatriate to a open to liberal reform, wartime political would-be unified Korea. For, in the eyes of prisoners were released, including several Koreans in Japan, the separate occupation of prominent Korean members of the Japanese Korea’s northern and southern halves who quickly rose torespectively by the Soviets and the Americans leadership positions among the Koreanswould be transient—indeed, why should it not remaining in Japan. be, since Korea had not played any hostile role in WWII against the Allied powers and Koreans The vast majority of Koreans in Japan had who were conscripted and participated in the moved or been transferred to Japan from the war did so as Japanese subjects (Fujitani southern provinces of the Korean peninsula 2011)? Moreover, the American Military during the colonial period. Like most other Government occupying the southern half of the newly-liberated peoples in the post-WWII peninsula was deemed less favorable to period, Koreans in Japan were ferventlyKoreans than the Soviet one occupying the nationalistic, with even those self-identifying as North. The primary reason for this was that the communist more nationalist than Marxist. Thus, Americans relied heavily upon former colonial when the left-leaning Korean expatriateelements, while the Soviets entered Korea with organization, known in Japanese asZainichi the agenda of building a newly independent chōsenjin renmei, in Korean as Jaeil joseonin nation on a new footing, shedding the legacy of yeonmaeng and in English as the League of the colonial past. The Soviets brought to the

2 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF fore indigenous Korean leaders of diverse April 1948. The protests culminated in the persuasions, including Christians and anti- shooting of unarmed demonstrators by military Japanese guerrilla veterans including Kim Il police, with one youth shot to death, a girl left Sung (Armstrong 2003). to die from a head injury, and a Korean teacher dying while in custody in jail (Inokuchi 2000; Divide Koshiro 1999). It is notable that this was the only incident in which martial law was declared Once separate regimes began operating in each during the entire seven-year Allied occupation half of the Korean peninsula in 1948, however, of Japan. Even the waves of mass the situation became immensely unstable, with demonstrations led by the Japanese Communist deepening mutual animosity and numerous Party did not result in a declaration of martial border skirmishes and confrontations along the law. One can discern in this state of affairs the line of partition, the thirty-eighth parallel lingering figure of the chōsenjin as a group (Cumings 1981). In Japan, reflecting rapidly lacking basic rights in postwar Japan, a figure rising Cold War tensions in East Asia and the that posited more threat to American and rise of the People’s Republic of China, the Japanese authorities than did the Japanese left. Allied occupation took a radical anti-communist turn. One result was that expatriate Korean Purge politics began exhibiting a clearer division with pro-North and pro-South orientationsThe legal status of the Koreans remaining in respectively sustained by Joryeon and Mindan. Japan remained ambiguous throughout the Allied occupation, often referred to as Among Koreans in Japan Joryeon commanded daisangokujin or third-country nationals, broader and stronger mass appeal than meaning neither Japanese nor Allied nationals. Mindan. The operations of the former group Koreans assumed that the end of Japanese encompassed a comprehensive assortment of colonialism meant that they had acquired civil activities, including community organization, propaganda, and, perhaps most importantly, and legal rights, including the right to engage instruction. Starting from in education in Korean language, culture, and October 1945, Joryeon built makeshift Korean history. The reality, however, was that Koreans schools in key urban areas where Koreans were in Japan were as stateless, if not more so, than concentrated. Behind this undertaking lay the they had been during the colonial period. assumption that all Koreans would soon be Under the Allied occupation administration, repatriated to Korea. they were, collectively, an unwanted legacy of the colonial era, initially deemed an anomalous When the Occupation administration and population by the Allied powers as well as by Japanese authorities decided in 1948 that all the Japanese government, and later schools would have to be accredited by the troublemakers that Japan would eventually rid Japanese education authorities and that the itself of. Either way, chōsenjin were deemed sole language of instruction should beunruly, and inferior to the Japanese. Japanese, mass protests erupted in the Korean enclaves. Koreans in , in western Japan, Reflecting rapidly rising Cold War tensions in protested, insisting that they should beEast Asia, with the rise of the People’s Republic exempted from the ruling on the basis that they of China, Koreans in Japan increasingly came to were former colonial subjects. When this be seen as a serious problem, such protest was spurned, Koreans and Japanese apprehension peaking whenJoryeon began supporters occupied the offices of the Mayor of publicly supporting the North Korean regime Kobe and carried out street demonstrations in after its foundation in September 1948. In

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1949, the Allied occupation and the Japanese languages, including Japanese, English, government forcefully suppressed Joryeon. Its Spanish, and French and operated numerous offices were shut down, properties confiscated, business and cultural organizations including assets frozen, and arrest warrants issued for its its own art troupes, soccer team, nationwide leaders. This resulted in a strange twist in the credit union, and film production company. history of the expatriate nationalist movement Chongryun’s organizational network of local as remaining Joryeon activists joined the headquarters (sub-divided into lower branches , which already had and cells) extended to every prefecture from a sizeable Korean contingent. Interestingly, the to Okinawa and was under the authorities allowed the JCP to remain intact, direction of Chongryun’s central headquarters despite its conspicuous and often violent in Tokyo. opposition to the Japanese government. Coexistence The situation underwent another drastic change after the broke out in The most formidable element ofChongryun ’s 1950. In 1952, as truce talks continuedorganization was its independent school between and U.N. forces, the system, and its ability to sustain itself was North Korean foreign ministry issued a number closely related to its new identity as an of communiqués stating that its government organization representing North Korea was prepared to enter into a normal diplomatic overseas. In order to avoid the violent relationship with Japan. Under thesesuppression suffered by its predecessor at the circumstances, Korean members withdrew hands of the authorities in 1948/49, Chongryun from the JCP en masse and formed their own declared itself to be an entity existing outside unified underground organization with the domestic Japanese politics. WhileChongryun abbreviated Korean nameMinjeon. existed within Japanese jurisdiction, it defined itself as an organization that would not When the Korean War truce agreement was interfere in Japan’s internal politics. Thus, its signed in 1953, Minjeon began a prolonged criticism of the Japanese government was period of self-examination. Two years later, in confined to issues involving Japan’s foreign May 1955, the forces organized under Minjeon policy toward North Korea. Chongryun did not re-emerged as the General Association of demand Japanese citizenship or residential Korean Residents in Japan (known in Korean as rights for Koreans as former colonial Jaeilbon joseonin chongryeonhaphwe or by its immigrants. Nor did it call for postcolonial abbreviation Chongryun and in Japanese as reparations. Rather, its political focus was the Zainihon chōsenjin sōrengōkai). It soon promotion of North Korea’s position and embraced a diverse assortment of political securing mass support for the regime among organizations, including a youth league, a Koreans in Japan. women’s union, a writers’ association, an artists’ association, a scientists’ association, an Against the backdrop of what was later named athletic union, merchants’ and entrepreneurs’ the , in which the long-ruling associations, and the Young Pioneers.Liberal Democratic Party reached a structural Chongryun soon came to command mass compromise with other parties including the support among Koreans in Japan for whom JCP and thereby making North Korea still had greater sway than South possible a certain peaceful co-existence, the Korea, which remained under militarydeclaration of non-interference in Japan’s dictatorship. It issued its own publications, not domestic affairs byChongryun created a only in Korean, but also in many foreign situation that suited the Japanese authorities.

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This unusual situation – contrasting sharply severe military dictatorship which monopolized with the situation in other Asian nations such postcolonial settlement funds from Japan and as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Korea, in redistributed them among the largejaebeol which irreconcilable differences between left enterprises, leaving the vast majority of people and right resulted in massive bloodshed – in deplorable conditions. The continued heavy benefited Chongryun too. By presenting itself US military presence emphatically reinforced as an entity that was not demanding civil rights the image of as an American for Koreans in Japan or postcolonialpuppet, while North Korea had rid itself of reparations, Chongryun secured a semi- Soviet and other foreign forces (including autonomous space for itself within Japan, Chinese Korean War volunteers) by the enabling it to create an organizationmid-1950s. North Korea began to be seen as a representing overseas nationals of North leading force among the non-aligned and newly Korea. independent nations of Asia and Africa. The popularity and rapid growth ofChongryun’s Legally speaking, there was no such category school system needs to be seen against this as “overseas national of North Korea living in backdrop of North Korea’s increasing Japan.” Japan and North Korea did not have international standing. diplomatic relations (a situation that remains true today), so there is no legal structure allowing citizens of each country to reside in the other’s territory. Rather, this identity was politically and ideologically coded and reinforced byChongryun through its propaganda, its public discourse, and, above all, its school system. This became a real identity for Koreans joining Chongryun, who proudly identified themselves with North Korea and refused to accept the label of a marginalized minority in Japan. The Japanese authorities, while closely monitoring and collecting intelligence onChongryun, also maintained the stance that would be characterized as laissez-faire, so long as Chongryun did not exceed the boundaries. A man in a Japanese ultra-nationalist demonstration holds sign stating: "Put the Growth trash in the trash can; Send Koreans back to the Korean peninsula." Photo taken International trends in the 1950s and 1960s from a blog site Tadashii rekishi ninshiki, were on Chongryun’s side: North Korea, in kokueki jūshi no gaikō, kakubusō no contrast to the US-backed South Korea, looked jitsugen [The Correct Understanding of almost heroic in singlehandedly resisting the History, the National Interest-First U.N. invasion during the Korean War. (This was Diplomacy, the Materialization of Nuclear not, of course, true, as the Chinese People’s Armament]. Source Army and the provided crucial support.) Its economy demonstrated strong growth, while South Korea struggled with At its peak, Chongryun had more than 160 massive poverty under the constraints of a schools all over Japan from Hokkaido to

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Kyushu, including rural prefectures on the explicitly de-emphasizing demands for civil Japan Sea side of the archipelago, itsrights within Japan, Chongryun was able to institutions offering education at all levels, redirect the passion of its followers away from from right up to graduatetheir disenfranchised civil status in Japan and programs, and all-Korean instruction, except toward the utopic (and positive) future of for Japanese and English classes. Subjects that rejoining a reunified Korea, the genuine were included in fourth through twelfth grades homeland of all Koreans remaining in Japan. included “The revolutionary history of Marshal Kim Il Sung” and “Revolutionary activities of What is remarkable is not so much the fact that Great Leader Kim Il Sung.” Aside fromChongryun’s strategy succeeded in certain promoting Kim Il Sung’s authority andways, but the fact that hundreds of thousands authenticity as leader of all Koreans,of Koreans in Japan welcomed it, supported it, Chongryun’s education was patriotic and and eagerly enrolled their children in its nationalistic in tone, emphasizing the suffering schools—not only in order to raise their that Koreans had endured during the colonial children as part of the future generation of a era, the pride that Koreans needed to feel with reunified nation, but also to shed themselves of respect to their national traditions, and the the colonial past. For, even until well into the superiority of Korean culture. 1970s, the official ideal of the reunification of North Korea took notice, sending funds in 1956 Korea and the eventual return of all Koreans to to assist with the construction of the campus of their unified motherland was alive and well Chongryun’s new university. Further funds among Chongryun Koreans. This should be followed in 1957, marked for educational seen not as simply the product of subsidies. Until the early 1970s,Chongryun indoctrination, but rather more as part of a held frequent public meetings at which thanks process of self-decolonization that Koreans in would be offered for funds that had been sent Japan opted for. by North Korea, primarily to assist with Chongryun’s educational activities.

The reason that such things were possible in Japan—not hidden in some obscure enclave, but openly and all over the country without repeating the 1948-style suppression under the martial law of Korean schools—was closely related to Chongryun’s strategic self-definition. By declaring itself to be a non-Japanese, North Korean organization, and by adopting the strategy of registering its schools as non- academic institutions (miscellaneous schools) or kakushu gakkō, thereby placing them beyond the purview of the Japanese education A glimpse at aChongryun school authorities, Chongryun was able to legitimize classroom. Female students wear school its identity to the massive population of uniforms made of modified Korean followers that it acquired in the early days traditional dress for women. Photo source: following its foundation. In exchange,Roland Buerk, "North Koreans in Japan Chongryun high school graduates’ education Remain Loyal to Pyongyang,"BBC was not recognized as a GED equivalent. By Asia/Pacific, October 28, 2010. Source

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I would also associate the broad andemerge as a viable alternative. enthusiastic mass support thatChongryun enjoyed from its inception in 1955 through until From December 1959 through the 1970s, over the late 1970s with the primordial sense of 90,000 Koreans were repatriated to North being a chōsenjin, and the perils associated Korea (Morris-Suzuki 2007). This was an with such an identity, that every Korean in anomaly, given that the majority of the Japan experienced. For those too young to have returnees had originated from the southern experienced such a sense first-hand, their provinces of the Korean Peninsula. But the parents’ recollections of their poverty-stricken North Korean promise of steady employment lives and lack of access to education, along for parents, education for children, and better with the raw anger and violence that they housing—all relayed byChongryun in an displayed to them domestically, would have emphatic propaganda campaign— looked sufficed. As recently as the early 1970s, extremely attractive to the poor Koreans. Koreans in Japan continued to live tough and Besides, the assumption still remained that all deprived lives. They were poor—much poorer Koreans would eventually be repatriated to the reunified motherland. While repatriating to than the Japanese poor. The typical education North Korea meant a one-way journey with no level of a member of the Korean population was possibility of return to Japan, many chose this extremely low, and they suffered from high option. unemployment (Ryang 2000; Ryang 2008). The combination of a lack of a steady livelihood, It needs to be underscored that the legal poor living conditions, unsanitary housing residential status of Koreans in Japan was left (often with limited access to running water and unresolved until 1965, twenty years after the sewerage with shared communal outhouses), end of WWII, which meant that Koreans were confined many Koreans to a slum-likerequired to renew their limbo-like status as existence. Even though the colonial era was temporary foreign residents annually in person over, deprived of their civil rights and with no at local municipal offices including mandatory stable residential status, Koreans hovered on finger-printing—the rule applying to all the edges of Japanese society. Koreans above the age fourteen. Upon the normalization of diplomatic relations between Repatriation Japan and South Korea in 1965, permanent resident status became available—but only to The repatriation of Koreans from Japan to those who opted to become South Korean North Korea, starting in December 1959 and nationals. lasting until the end of the 1970s, should also be understood as having taken place during a The 1960s were a decade deeply fraught with period when many Koreans in Japan were Cold War tensions in Korea, leading thousands suffering from the effects of poverty and of Chongryun followers to refuse to become deprivation of all kinds. WhileChongryun’s South Korean nationals on the basis of their propaganda, often involving exaggerated opposition to the brutal military dictatorship claims relating to the benefits that were then in power in South Korea. This meant that accessible in North Korea, played a large part the majority of Koreans in Japan remained in motivating Koreans in Japan to make the stateless, as Chongryun commanded a far journey to North Korea, the peril of being a broader support base than did the pro-South chōsenjin in Japan in the late 1950s and early Korean Mindan. 1960s was an ontological condition that Koreans lived every day and that made the This situation created a perfect storm for option of being repatriated to North Korea Chongryun to fan the zeal for repatriation to

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North Korea among Koreans in the 1960s and was accompanied with the ability to obtain re- well into the 1970s. During those decades, entry permits to Japan. Chongryun solidified its already-strong ties with North Korea, the strength of theThis opened the possibility ofChongryun connection exemplified in the lavish list of gifts Koreans paying visits to North Korea and being presented to Kim Il Sung on his sixtieth reunited with their repatriated families. Even birthday in 1972—Mangyeongbong, thethough diplomatic relations did not (and still do repatriation ship, left the Japanese port of not) exist between North Korea and Japan, filled with an inventory that included Chongryun Koreans became able to visit North items as diverse as Mercedes Benzes and Korea on humanitarian grounds for the purpose bushels of premium-grade Koshihikari rice. of visiting family members, including those that had been repatriated. Thus, during the 1980s, As stated earlier, the zeal shown toward North the ferry service between Niigata, Japan, and Korea by Koreans in Japan in those days was a , North Korea, came to be redefined as child born from perilous memories of a colonial a family reunion route, replacing the one-way past, as well as the abject living conditions and journey of repatriation. After experiencing an complete disenfranchisement from Japanese initial wave of emotion during their reunions, civic life that Koreans in Japan were subjected Chongryun visitors to North Korea realized that to during the 1950s and well into the 1970s. It their repatriated families and friends were not was not until the 1980s that this pattern began living in a “paradise on earth,” as North Korean to change, which was the product of several propaganda insisted. Instead, the lack of major historical factors: changes in thematerial means as well as the surveillance residential status of Koreans in Japan, changes factor that Koreans in Japan were not familiar in the South Korean political and economic with made them increasingly uncomfortable. environments, and Chongryun’s own internal Although witnessing the material shortages strife reflecting a demographic shift in the motivated Koreans in Japan to send overseas Korean population in Japan from first-remittances to North Korea,Chongryun generation colonial immigrants to Japan-born followers came to feel not only deceived, but generations. deeply concerned over the fate of their relatives, especially those that they had been Erosion unable to locate, growing increasingly suspicious of North Korea and Chongryun. With At the very beginning of the 1980s, Japan North Korean education funds long since ratified the International Covenants for Human stopped, many Chongryun Koreans came to the Rights and joined the UN Refugee Convention. realization that North Korea was a land of These moves made it necessary for thematerial shortage and political repression. Japanese government to amend its previous human rights breaches, including theChanges in the residential status of Chongryun deprivation of residential stability for those Koreans in Japan came in stages. During the Koreans in Japan who had migrated to Japan 1980s, every effort was made to intimidate during the colonial period (and theirChongryun Koreans who applied for re-entry descendants) and who had not acquired South permits to visit North Korea and return to Korean nationality after the 1965 normalization Japan. Upon their departure and arrival, their of relations between Japan and South Korea. paperwork was subjected to excessive scrutiny, The majority of Chongryun Koreans belonged while it was not uncommon to hear the to this category. Starting from 1981, they were uniformed immigration officer utter words such able to gain permanent resident status, which as "chōsenjin no kuse ni," equivalent of: "Who

8 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF do you think you are, you f-ing Korean." Each entered a phase in which politics alone no time that they applied for a re-entry permit, longer ignited passions. While the lack of they were required to submittangansho, a economic data relating to the Korean personal petition in writing using the polite population in Japan makes it difficult to form begging the Japanese Foreign Minister for statistically demonstrate, by the end of the the permit. twentieth century Koreans were no longer living below the poverty line. Their livelihoods In the 1990s, reflecting the improvement in had improved, and they were enjoying the relations between Japan and South Korea benefits of higher education levels and following the end of the decades-long military improved residential status in Japan, albeit dictatorship, Koreans in Japan were given a slowly (Kim 2003). more comprehensive form of permanent residence on the basis of their colonial past, Kim Il Sung died in July 1994, to be quickly this time without a distinction being made replaced as North Korean leader by his son, between those who had South KoreanKim Jong Il. This dynastic succession became a nationality and those who did not. Moreover, substantial—and for many insurmountable demographic shifts in the Korean population in —hurdle for Chongryun’s rank and file. Many Japan meant that, now, the majority had been distanced themselves fromChongryun and born in Japan and, therefore, calling North removed their children from its schools, placing Korea or South Korea their motherland was them in Japanese schools, despite feeling basically a political act rather than a visceral or extremely ambivalent about this. affective one. As such, sections of the Korean population in Japan, includingChongryun Chongryun’s difficulties were compounded by a affiliates, began acquiring permanent residence looming distrust in its leadership. Ever since its in Japan; before long, they would acquire South foundation, Han Deok-su had presided as its Korean nationality. chairman. By the early 1990s, he and his family were living a life of luxury, occupying a massive The 1990s was a decade characterized by mansion in a choice Tokyo neighborhood that steady attrition in Chongryun membership and was staffed with domestic workers, body support for North Korea among Koreans in guards, personal assistants, academic tutors for Japan on one hand and an equally steady the children, chefs, and chauffeurs. His increase in the number of Koreans in Japan younger daughters had a limousine transport acquiring South Korean nationality. The latter them between the residence and their school. trend did not, however, signify a transfer of Chongryun employees were paid very modest support from North to South Korea. Now that salaries, barely getting by with their rental South Korea was governed by a civilian head of payments, making Han Deok-su’s lifestyle stand state, the act of acquiring South Korean out as being excessively indulgent. Given that nationality primarily seemed a matter of Chongryun’s predominant sources of revenue convenience for the purpose of securing a were membership dues, school tuition fees, and passport rather than continuing to rely only on charitable gifts from supportive Koreans, a re-entry permit. For, by then, the majority critical voices became louder. The rise of such Koreans in Japan had been born in Japan and voices reflected the inevitable demographic had no intention of repatriating either to the shift inside the Korean population in Japan. To North or the South. Reflecting the sea change older generation Koreans, Han represented the in Europe and elsewhere after thetough past which he survived to eventually disintegration of the Soviet Union and the build this formidable organization. For this collapse of , Koreans in Japan, too, generation, it was tolerable that he received

9 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF special treatment. Younger, Japan-borntaught properly, if at all. After haunting Chongryun Koreans did not share such Koreans in Japan for nearly half a century, the sentiments. In their more pragmatic approach figure of the chōsenjin was being replaced by to the future, it was inevitable that such that of the zainichi, a Japanese term denoting treatment of the chairman’s family be seen as a “being in Japan” or “existing in Japan.” great disservice to the unity of theWhereas in the past, the chōsenjin represented organization, resulting in further attrition and the face of the colonial—undernourished, distancing. speaking Japanese with a Korean accent, walking with strangely broad gait, and characterized by the colonial authorities as ignorant, insolent, and quick to resort to a fist fight, the zainichi had a different face—a native speaker of Japanese with a high level of education, perhaps enjoying minor commercial success, aware of his or her ethnic origin, yet dignified, assimilated into the Japanese cultural environment, while also knowing how to distinguish him or herself from the rest of Japanese society. The zainichi constituted a different form of existence from the chōsenjin. While the latter evoked ontological peril, the A Chongryun high school Korean dance former denoted an alternative future in Japan, club. Korean dance clubs are one of the while building upon complex reflections on most popular among female postcolonial life (Lie 2008). and high school students ofChongryun schools in Japan. Photo credit: EmilFor those Japan-born zainichi Koreans who Truszkowski , "What I Learnt at a N. were raised according to the tenets of Korean School Festival at Japan," July 21, Chongryun and who had lent it their support, 2015, NKNews.Source the decades of the 1980s through 1990s proved to be crucial in marking Chongryun’s definitive Zainichi fall from its status as the object of mass support. The gradual replacement of the figure By the end of the 1990s, Chongryun Koreans of the chōsenjin with that of the zainichi cost were no longer passionate about North Korea. Chongryun its political identity or raison d’être. Rather than pursuing the end of diaspora and Japanese society was changing, and the ethnic an eventual return to the homeland, younger, discrimination and sense of disenfranchisement Japan-born Koreans sought an alternative that the chōsenjin had formerly experienced as future in Japan. Even though some continued parts of everyday life in Japan were becoming placing their children inChongryun schools, less pronounced. The figure of thezainichi their primary reason for doing so shifted from would appear in public discourse, in a vast the ideological commitment of their parents’ array of publications, including prize-winning generation to the lack of an acceptablenovels, and even in popular films (Iwabuchi alternative in the Japanese public education 2000; Kuraishi 2008; Ryang 2008b: system, where the homogeneity of theIntroduction). Whereas thechōsenjin was population was fundamentally assumed and the abominable and grotesque, in the public basic historical sources of ire for Koreans, such imagery of Japan, in the new millennium the as Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, was not zainichi appeared in a form comparable to that

10 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF of a minor star, a cool alternative to simply Yet another factor, which became evident in being Japanese. In other words, the emergence the early years of the twenty-first century, was of the zainichi stripped the political edge from the steady increase in the number of Koreans Korean identity in Japan, somewhatbeing naturalized as Japanese citizens. The normalizing or at least politically neutralizing number would reach an average of 10,000 to it, thereby accentuating the prospect for 15,000 per year during the early 2000s, Koreans born in Japan to be part of Japan, indicating a fundamental shift in the area of albeit in a special framework. This contrasted postcolonial identity formation that involved with Chongryun’s self-exile from Japan and its practical considerations, such as gaining full identification as a North Korean organization. citizenship, even though that citizenship was In this new setting, the home of thezainichi that of Japan, the former colonizer (Ryang was Japan, not North Korea or South Korea. 2010).

It must also be borne in mind that the very last The trend toward gaining Japanese citizenship decade of the twentieth century was a time of was a challenge toChongryun ’s program, unprecedented optimism, albeit short-lived. It which insisted that the homeland of Koreans in was the decade in which the Japanese left Japan was North Korea, that Korea would be showed its final demonstration of integrity. In eventually be reunified through the initiative of 1995, Japan Socialist Party Prime Minister, North Korea, and that all Koreans in Japan Murayama Tomiichi, issued a statement of would repatriate to the reunified Korea to apology for the sexual slavery of women from regain the national independence that had been the Korean peninsula by the Japanese Army taken away originally by Japanese colonialism during World War II. On the local level, there and then through the partition of the peninsula was a hope for zainichi Koreans to gain wider that was the product of US and the civic enfranchisement and solidarity with their cooperation of its South Korean lackeys. This Japanese neighbors without having to platform implicitly relied on the continuing compromise their identity. Some municipalities peril of being a chōsenjin. voluntarily abolished nationality hurdles for public service positions, for example, in order The replacement of thechōsenjin with the to accommodate the broader participation of zainichi, and perhaps, eventually, the zainichi zainichi Koreans in civic affairs (Chung 2003). as a Japanese citizen,was not a welcome It was also around this time that the post-1988 development for Chongryun. Yet, the changing liberalization of overseas travel for South institutional and socio-cultural structure of Korean citizens began to have a real impact on disenfranchisement among Koreans that is now zainichi life. The so-called newcomers began seen in the availability of a relatively reaching ethnic enclaves that had hitherto been permanent residence status has steered the left without any tangible contact with ancestral dynamic for Koreans in Japan, especially those homes in South Korea. Accompanied by a shift born in Japan, the numerical majority, away in the South Korean political environment from from homeland politics and toward an one of the most oppressive militaryexploration of the possibilities for improving dictatorships in the world to a civiliantheir livelihoods in Japan and contributing to government, the influx of South Koreanreshaping Japanese politics. Chongryun lacked migrants as employees, co-workers, andthe proclivity, let alone the capacity, to respond business partners recast the divisive Cold War- to these changes, causing the organization to inspired stance that had been rife amongst steadily lose legitimacy in the eyes of zainichi Koreans in Japan. Koreans.

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Death or Rebirth Friendship Association, the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of The crisis in the legitimacy ofChongryun as Korea. Source shown above was, through yet another ironic turn of events, temporarily mitigated, as it were, by the robust rise of the rightwing and Unprecedented audit assaults were waged growth in all-out hostility toward North Korea against Chongryun offices, credit unions, in Japan in the early twenty-first century, businesses, and businesses operated by trampling the short-lived optimism of the individuals that were sympathetic with mid-1990s. In 2001, during a historic first Chongryun, revealing irregularities in tax meeting between Kim Jong Il and the then payments, resulting in exorbitant fines, court Japanese Prime Minister, Koizumi Junichiro, it cases, and arrests (e.g. “Tokyo Police Raid N was revealed that North Korean agents had Korea HQ” 2001). During the last decade and a kidnapped innocent Japanese citizens from half, Chongryun has lost a substantial portion Japan’s shores during the 1970s and 1980s. of its assets including its now-defunct credit This revelation led to an all-out assault on union, dozens of schools, press buildings, Chongryun. Its assets were thoroughly audited, printing facilities, and most symbolically, its resulting in numerous charges of tax evasion headquarters building in Tokyo. Funds from and other illegal acts, subsidies that its schools North Korea have long since dried up, while the had received from local governments (not from donor basis has crumbled, with many the central government) were suspended, the entrepreneurs and business people expressing media began carpet-bombing Chongryun with disenchantment. hostile questions, and right-wing and ultra- nationalist organizations launched campaigns of intimidation and harassment against Chongryun schools, offices, and individuals, including women and children--not entirely unlike the repression of 1948 and 1949.

The Japanese authorities raid Chongryun Headquarters in Tokyo. The tall white The 23rd congress of Chongryun, May building in the left rear is the Chongryun 2014. The Large screen on the left front Headquarters building. The building has introduces the message sent from Kim since been sold to a non-Korean entity, Jong Un. The venue is filled with gray- although Chongryun is said to be renting haired participants, reflecting the younger it. Photo source: "Decision on generation's distancing from theSite Delayed," Japan Times October 22, organization. Photo source: Korean2013. Source

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What I meant by the ironic turn above is that earlier kidnappings of Japanese citizens the more persecutions Chongryun receives, the mentioned above (“Chongryon Chief’s Son stronger Koreans unite around it. And indeed, Arrested over Suspected N. Korea Mushroom the rage against Japanese ultra-nationalism Imports” 2015). These mushrooms, known as which normally comes hand in hand with the matsutake in Japanese, are a delicacy in Japan state-staged audits would remind Koreans in and yield substantial profits. Pyongyang joined Japan of the reality of disenfranchisement they Chongryun in denouncing the Japanese continue to face. But, unlike the 1950s or even authorities, a show of solidarity of a kind that the 1990s, today, the threat is less acute: had been absent for the past decade. It appears chōsenjin, the figure of anger and indignation, that Chongryun and North Korea have entered does not emerge in response to thisinto a business partnership in illegally persecution. Rather, zainichi strategize and importing and selling North Korean products in make calculated moves in response to the Japan and possibly elsewhere. This form of situation. So, even though, temporarily and relationship does not require a mass support sporadically, Koreans are made to feel the base. Taken altogether, the current situation is necessity for action and representation of something of a prolonged death for Chongryun themselves as a group, the reaction is no longer as a mass organization of Korean expatriates in the earlier reflex of uniting around Chongryun. Japan. The open hostility expressed toward How is it possible, then, thatChongryun Chongryun functions something like a continues to exist, albeit with a greatly reduced ventilator for the final breaths of this once number of schools, each with far fewerrobust organization. Its schools still exist, their students and teachers, with its press offices curricula still including some North Korean now operating in rented suites on a much material. Its performing arts company still smaller scale, and with very few Koreans even exists, its repertoire having become less concerned with North Korea, save for the revolutionary and more traditional, so to speak. welfare of family members who wereIts publications still exist, although the repatriated. Despite public denunciation of predominant language is now Japanese not Chongryun by the Japanese media and right- Korean. Its public rallies still take place, albeit wing organizations, despite repeated raids of with notably thinning levels of its offices throughout Japan by Japanese participation—down from the thousands of taxation authorities, and despite visiblyparticipants of all age groups in its glory days diminished support from Koreans in Japan, to a few hundred seniors today. The skeleton of reduced, shrunk, disgraced, and weakened, the utopia of Korean reunification coupled with Chongryun still exists. the peril of being a chōsenjin clings to the final stretch of its life. Or, perhaps, it is developing a new relationship with North Korea in these post-2001 conditions Ultimately, the chōsenjin has died its death of adversity. This can be glimpsed in the May through history—it was not through lynching or 2015 arrest and indictment ofChongryun mob violence, but via historical shifts and employees, including a son of currentstructural readjustments that Koreans in Japan Chongryun chairman, Mr. Ho Jong-man. A have been subjected. The chōsenjin came to be charge was laid against four people, including replaced by the zainichi, bringing about a Mr. Ho’s son, for illegally importing three tons steady weakening in Chongryun’s mass basis of mushrooms from North Korea and using fake and pretty much taking the life out of it. labels to suggest that they were imported from Koreans in Japan today, regardless of their past China: Japan had placed an embargo on North support for or opposition toChongryun, face Korean trade since 2006 as punishment for the their future in Japan and the question of how to

13 14 | 15 | 11 APJ | JF live—and die—in Japan. Many will beresearch in the early 1990s. I realize in naturalized as Japanese citizens. Many will retrospect that those were the last days for remain South Korean overseas nationals. But Chongryun's strength. Today, only ruins not many will call themselves overseasremain. nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As such, zainichi, too, is faced with Note on romanization the possibility of being replaced with that of the new figure, the naturalized Japanese citizens In this article, I use the spelling of Chongryun with Korean heritage. Whether such a figure is denoting the General Association of Korean able to retain his/her heritage with pride Residents in Japan. While its current English remains to be seen: the answer will hinge on name is spelled Chongryon, it long used the possibility of multicultural tolerance and Chongryun. There exists no state-officiated acceptance on the part of Japanese society, Romanization/transliteration system in North resilience of Koreans in Japan, and taken Korea, and measured against the current South together, possibility of coexistence of different Korean transliteration system, neither is peoples that were once unequivocally superior correct. and inferior, the master and the subjugated. Related article Edward Said wrote in the late 1970s: John Lie, The Nation (and the Family) That The life of an Arab Palestinian in the West, Failed: The Past and Future of North Koreans particularly in America, is disheartening. There in Japan exists here an almost unanimous consensus that politically he does not exist, and when it is References allowed that he does, it is either as a nuisance or as an Oriental. (Said 1978: 27) Armstrong, Charles. 2003. The North Korean Revolution, 1945—1950. Ithaca, NY.: Cornell Would a Japanese who was formerly a Korean University Press. be able to have a life that is not disheartening in the twenty-first century Japan? The question “Chongryon Chief’s Son Arrested over warrants future inquiry. For, 40 years later, I Suspected N. Korea Mushroom Imports.” 2015. suspect, the life of an Arab Palestinian in May 12, 2015. Online (accessed US has gotten much more precarious despite, March 1, 2016). or precisely because of, . Is chōsenjin, and then, zainichi, able to be reborn Chung, Erin. 2006.Immigration and as some other figure that can find a meaningful Citizenship in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge place in Japan? And can this figure still claim University Press. traces of Korea that was once colonized and erased? Or, indeed, will this figure still be Cumings, Bruce. 1981. Origins of the Korean interested in such an endeavor? War, vol. 1: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947. Princeton, NJ.: Acknowledgements Princeton University Press.

More than twenty years ago, I embarked on my Fujitani, Takashi. 2011.Race for Empire: research on Chongryun and the Korean Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as community surrounding this organization. I Americans during World War II. Berkeley, CA.: thank Mark Selden and Asia-Pacific Journal for University of California Press. giving me the opportunity to revisit this topic. Much has changed since I first started this Inokuchi, Hiromitsu. 2000. “Korean Ethnic

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Schools in Occupied Japan, 1945—52.” In S. Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield. Ryang ed., Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin, London: Routledge. Ryang, Sonia. 1997. North Koreans in Japan: Language, Ideology, and Identity. Boulder, CO.: Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2000. “Political Correctness, Westview Press. Postcoloniality and the Self-representation of ‘Koreanness’ in Japan.” In S. Ryang ed., Ryang, Sonia. 2000. “The North Korean Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Homeland of Koreans in Japan.” In S. Ryang Margin, London: Routledge. ed., Korans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin, London: Routledge. Kim, Myungsoo. 2003. "Ethnic Stratification Ryang, Sonia. 2007. “The Tongue That Divided and Inter-Generational Differences in Japan: A Life and Death: The 1923 Earthquake and the Comparative Study of Korean and Japanese Massacre of Koreans,”The Asia-Pacific Status Attainment," International Journal of Journal/Japan Focus September 3, 2007, Vol. 5, Japanese Sociology 12: 6-16. Issue 9. Online (accessed February 14, 2016).

Koshiro, Yukiko. 1999. Transpacific Racisms Ryang, Sonia. 2008a. “The De-Nationalized and the U.S. . New York: Have No Class: The Banishment of Japan’s Columbia University Press. Korean Minority—A Polemic,” The Asia-Pacific Journal/Japan Focus June 1, 2008, Vol. 6, Issue Kuraishi, Ichiro. 2008. “PACCHIGI! And GO: 6. Online (accessed February 14, 2106). Representing Zainichi in Recent Cinema.” In S. Ryang and J. Lie eds.,Diaspora without Ryang, Sonia. 2008b.Writing Selves in Homeland: Being Korean in Japan, Berkeley, Diaspora: Ethnography of Autobiographics of CA.: University of California Press. Korean Women in Japan and the United States. Lanham, MD.: Lexington Books. Lie, John. 2008. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and PostcolonialRyang, Sonia. 2010. “To Be or Not to Be – In Identity. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Japan and Beyond: Summing up and Sizing Press. down Koreans in Japan,” Asia Pacific World Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 7-31. Morita, Yoshio. 1996. Sūjiga kataru zainichi chōsenjin no rekishi [A history of Koreans in Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Japan told through statistics]. Tokyo: Akashi Random House. shoten. “Tokyo Police Raid N. Korea HQ.” 2001. BBC Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. 2007. Exodus to North News Asia PacificNovember 29, 2001. Korea: Shadows from Japan’s Cold War. Online (accessed March 1, 2016).

Sonia Ryang is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Asian Studies in Rice University and the Director of the Chao Center for Asian Studies. Her recent publications include: Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) and Reading North Korea: An Ethnological Inquiry (Harvard University Press, 2012). She is currently conducting anthropological research on North Korea with funding from the National Science Foundation. She is an Asia-Pacific Journal editor. A complete bio and a list of her works are available on the website of the Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University.

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