Japan's resident Koreans endure a climate of hate | The Japan Times
Fighting 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
NATIONAL / MEDIA | MEDIA MIX
Japan’s resident Koreans endure a climate of hate
BY PHILIP BRASOR
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
MAY 7, 2016 ARTICLE HISTORY PRINT SHARE
Later 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.
In 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.
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In 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.
In 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.
This 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.
To 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.
The 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.
Lee 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.”
Perhaps 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.
It 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.
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Sharad Majumdar • a day ago
I feel sorry if many long-term residents in Japan feel a sense of separation from the larger Japanese society. However, the tone of the article suggests a desire to have one's cake and eat it too. It is only natural that as you spend your entire life in a particular culture and your link to your ancestral culture weakens and becomes more distant, there will come a time when you assimilate and assume a new identity - one aligned with your immediate environment. There is nothing shameful or shocking about this. Someone should explain to them that they are far better off and have a great many more opportunities living in Japan than if they were to live in North Korea. It's perfectly acceptable to remember and commemorate your ancestral roots, but living in a bubble and creating a forced "otherness" can't be good for your mental equilibrium! Besides which, I have a feeling reporting on the extreme fringe elements rather than on the well-adjusted Japan-Korean mainstream sells more papers.
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doninjapan Sharad Majumdar • 21 hours ago
Wait... you feel that they can't have nationality and retain their cultural identity?
How very Borg of you...
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Sharad Majumdar doninjapan • 15 hours ago
I didn't say that! I only said that it is natural for us to lose our ties to our ancestral homelands after a few generations. The divide between long-term Korean residents in Japan and the Japanese population at large may be self-imposed to some extent.
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nosnurbd Sharad Majumdar • 13 hours ago
The Koreans, I'm sure don't like it this way, but the Japanese do. Japan maintains the division by family records and such; the purpose of which is to maintain racial purity, I think.
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Tim Groves nosnurbd • an hour ago
Literally millions of foreigners have come to Japan since the arrival of the "black ships", fraternized with or married natives and contributed their DNA to the Japanese gene pool, and there have never been laws in Japan forbidding miscegenation as there were, for instance, in parts of the USA until 1967. Also, large numbers of Korean or "Chosen" nationals have married Japanese citizens, and others become naturalized Japanese. So I don't think "the Japanese", as in the Japanese government and administration, or the vast majority of Japanese individuals are concerned to maintain racial purity. There is a strong element of "us and them" in the relationship between the Japanese as a people and the Japanese resident Koreans as a people, and this manifests itself in many sorts of ways. But "maintaining racial purity" is not a consideration in my humble opinion.
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zer0_0zor0 doninjapan • 18 hours ago
Borg?
Speak English, please.
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doninjapan zer0_0zor0 • 8 hours ago
Erm... I am. Referencing *the Borg collective*. It's a movie reference insinuating that everyone must assimilate.
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zer0_0zor0 Sharad Majumdar • 19 hours ago
Plus there is an ethnic Balkanization being promoted by the CIA/MI6 in Japan as a divide-and-conquer strategy.
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Sharad Majumdar zer0_0zor0 • 15 hours ago
I don't even know how to respond to this...
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disqus_fnwCMQDX7u Sharad Majumdar • an hour ago
Zero thinks they're special because like every other foreigner in Tokyo they've ran into some old CIA agent posted up with not much to do and not much incentive to keep anything confidential...
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Liars N. Fools • a day ago
"Since there is no Chosen, these full time residents of Japan are people without a country." It is not accurate to say there is no Chosen (朝鮮) because North Korea is officially named Joseon 조선인민공화국 which is the same word. The boxer in the photo wears a Joseon High School shirt.
It is accurate that many/most do not wish to live in North Korea (many who moved permanently have never been allowed back, including Japanese who married into Korean families.)
The discrimination is certainly real, and Yoshida Shigeru's attitude persists to this day and is directed by right wing nationalists and the hate media. We Americans had a hand in this. John Dower's book on embracing defeat has a nice segment on what we wanted in the constitution on guaranteeing the rights of people, but which the Japanese limited only to Japanese people 国民 telling the American drafters that the phrase meant "the people." The Japanese knew precisely what they were doing to leave out non-Japanese, but we didn't get it.
The anti-Korean sentiments seem to be fairly widespread even if the rightists doing the sort of harassment of Korean school children and businesses are few in number. I met with some zainichi in Fukuoka who noted that the problems in Honshu had hit them, too, despite a long history of mostly harmony based on proximity.
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zer0_0zor0 Liars N. Fools • 18 hours ago
Chosen is a country that ended in the 19th century.
Perhaps most zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated, and the only rights that permanent residents such as myself lack are political rights; that is, voting in elections. It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights, for example. That is an incorrect reading of the Constitution.
Just like dual citizenship is not permitted, you have to take a Japanese passport to vote in elections or stand for office.
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • an hour ago
zer0_0zor0
Perhaps most zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated
There is no assimilation, for assimilation is considered a surrender to evil Japan.
It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights
In the US, a permanent resident can be a government employee and serve in the military.
In Japan, a permanent resident cannot be a government employee or serve in the SDF.
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Liars N. Fools zer0_0zor0 • 9 hours ago
Note:
第十一条 国民は、すべての基本的人権の享有を妨げられない。この憲法が国民に保障する基本的人権は、侵すことのできない永久の権利として、現在及び将来の国民に与へられる。
Article 11. The people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights. These fundamental human rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be conferred upon the people of this and future generations as eternal and inviolate rights.
第十二条 この憲法が国民に保障する自由及び権利は、国民の不断の努力によつて、これを保持しなければならない。又、国民は、これを濫用してはならないのであつて、常に公共の福祉のためにこれを利用する責任を負ふ。
Article 12. The freedoms and rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be maintained by the constant endeavor of the people, who shall refrain from any abuse of these freedoms and rights and shall always be responsible for utilizing them for the public welfare.
第十三条 すべて国民は、個人として尊重される。生命、自由及び幸福追求に対する国民の権利については、公共の福祉に反しない限り、立法その他の国政の上で、最大の尊重を必要とする。
Article 13. All of the people shall be respected as individuals. Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shall, to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare, be the supreme consideration in legislation and in other governmental affairs.
第十四条 すべて国民は、法の下に平等であつて、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分又は門地により、政治的、経済的又は社会的関係において、差別されない。
Article 14. All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
It all deals with 国民 the Japanese people and not "the people" in the wider sense.
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • 11 hours ago
zer0_0zor0
It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights, for example. That is an incorrect reading of the Constitution.
An example. Let's say you are an aspiring Zainichi baseball player; the only way to play pro in Japan is to sign up in the foreign player quota, or be naturalized.
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zer0_0zor0 TV Monitor • 10 hours ago
That's news to me, are you sure about that?
There is an Article in the Constitution (26?) of Japan that guarantees the right to seek one's one profession.
Since the league is not nationalized, I find that hard to believe. On the other hand, it cold depend on some legal definition of "foreign player", I suppose, which might relate to the original charter of the league. Is it he same for soccer players and Sumo wrestlers?
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • 2 hours ago
zer0_0zor0
Since the league is not nationalized, I find that hard to believe.
Permanent residents in Japan would be counted in the foreign player quota. The exception to this rule is that those foreign national players who were registered as baseball players in Japanese high school teams would not be counted against the foreign player quota.
However, this would only apply toward Zainichi who attended Japanese or ROK-backed high schools, since ROK-backed high schools are counted as regular Japanese high schools under Japanese education law, and also Korean regular high schools under Korean education law, and are funded by both governments.
Students who attend Joseon schools do not benefit from this loophole, since Joseon schools are not considered regular schools under Japanese law. If you graduate from a Joseon high school, then you are considered to have received no formal high school education and cannot apply to Japanese colleges, so you must pass a GED before applying to colleges in Japan. Certain Zainich professional sports players take advantage of this loophole to play in Korea, since they are considered to have received no formal education and cannot be conscripted, because the minimum education level for conscription is a high school degree.
Different sporting federations set their own rules governing foreign players, I just pointed out the baseball since this is the biggest and best-paid professional sports in Japan.
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vagabundacsm • 9 hours ago
Sounds like they treat ethnic Koreans how Trump talks about immigrants in our country (implicit in that, of course, is anyone of Hispanic descent, regardless of citizenship status). Scary and disappointing. Whenever someone tells me, "Japan isn't like that anymore!"...I have to wonder, especially when it's the people at the top keeping these archaic and discriminatory laws on the books.
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TV Monitor vagabundacsm • an hour ago
vagabundacsm
Newer arriving Koreans who immigrated from the ROK after 1990 don't face much discrimination, since they are associated with the ROK which is now a rich and powerful country.
Zainichis, who are third, fourth, and even fifth gen residents, are associated with Joseon and North Korea and don't get the respect.
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zer0_0zor0 • a day ago
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.
Park was right: assimilate or move back to Korea, either one...
...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
That is ridiculous, because being American is not an ethnic identity, for starters. Americans speak English, the lingua Franca of the world, that is their primary advantage--unless, of course, they are in the CIA and have more than one paycheck coming in...
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Cakeface zer0_0zor0 • a day ago
Americans are made up of many different ethnic groups. English, Irish, German, French, Mexican, Russian, Puerto Rican, West African, Chinese, etc. Yet they are all American in nationality. That is what was meant. They are able to celebrate their ethnic identity as well as their nationality, together. The two concepts are allowed to coexist in harmony. That is what was meant.
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TV Monitor Cakeface • 11 hours ago
Cakeface
In Japan, one's identified along the ethnicity, not citizenship.
Keiko Fukimori(The leading Peruvian Presidential Candidate) is seen as Japanese even if her ancestors left Japan 100 years ago.
On the other hand, Masayoshi Son, who is either no. 1 or no. 2 richest man in Japan depending on year and stock market conditions, is always regarded as a Zainichi foreigner even though he acquired Japanese citizenship.
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zer0_0zor0 Cakeface • 18 hours ago
So you take her as referring to Americans in the USA, not Japan, I take it.
America is a pluralistic society that used to be referred to as a "melting pot", because the idea was that one's common identity as an American was primary, and assimilation coupled with evolution was the expectation.
Society is more Balkanized along religious-ethic and economic-class lines in America nowadays, perhaps to a point of a reverse identity crisis, which is why partly why Trump and Sanders are popular. There is no such harmony of which you speaketh, so you are probably no America. Granted there is discrimination against some Koreans here, particularly those intent on asserting themselves as a separate society-unto-themselves within Japanese society. Furthermore, connections to the yakuza (30% are Koreans) and the CIA have also been well documented.
Japan is not a pluralistic society, and shouldn't have that imposed on it as a goal. Why should the Japanese care to celebrate anyone's nationality outside of the private context, such as a food fair, for example? Because Korea was colonized by Japan with the approval of the USA?
Many--perhaps the majority--of zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated, and that is the normal course, as it was with Koreans that migrated to Japan 1,000 years ago, not the psychologically problematic disposition depicted by these delusional people with a persecution complex clinging to an obsolete identity tied to a non-existent country.
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AJ zer0_0zor0 • 16 hours ago
Japan is not a pluralistic society because the Japanese government does not recognize ethnicity as distinct from nationality. But to say separate cultures do not exist would certainly be news to the Ainu, Ryukyuan, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Brazilian, and so on that live in Japan and try to assimilate to Japanese society, if not becoming Japanese citizens.
Recognizing that different cultures exist within Japan wouldn't be imposing anything on society, it would be liberating people to identify with separate cultures while still being part of Japan. It's long past due for Japan to realize that "foreigners" coming to Japan and learning the language and culture is a good thing.
I find your last paragraph in regards to Zainichi Korean attitudes to be condescending and pretty offensive.
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zer0_0zor0 AJ • 15 hours ago
I never said that "separate cultures do not exist", as in have some degree of presence in Japan. I don't think you--or anyone else in this thread--has presented a rational basis for asserting that ethnicity should be recognized by the Japanese government in any way as distinct from nationality. Ethnicity doesn't give you any special rights within Japan unless you are Ainu, though I believe that people of Japanese descent are allowed to return to Japan, similar to the EU.
As a foreigner myself with permanent residency in Japan, I haven't taken Japanese citizenship, yet, but am fairly well assimilated, and am not interested in asserting my (non-ethnic) identity as an American aside from its relationship to modern political culture where that elucidates something meaningful for the Japanese members of my family and friends, etc. Of course, I engage American culture, too, in appropriate contexts, all of which are basically private, as in not related to the government of Japan.
I also happen to be well acquainted with the modern history of Korea, so I could respond to anything you specifically found offensive, if you were to specify some such thing.
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AJ zer0_0zor0 • 14 hours ago
You said "Japan is not a pluralistic society", but now you're saying separate cultures do exist and going in a rationalist direction. OK, we can go there. It's about individual freedom of belief regarding their identity. Ethnicity doesn't give any special rights within Japan except for the one for people to celebrate their individual culture as distinct from their Japanese citizenship or residency.
You choose to celebrate yours as American only in a private way and that's fine. But why not allow others who want to celebrate theirs in a public context? Now you're the one imposing on them that they should shut up about their own identity and just behave like you do...or be labeled as having a "psychologically problematic disposition depicted by these delusional people with a persecution complex clinging to an obsolete identity tied to a non-existent country".
As for what's offensive about that, read it again and then read the article. It's a disgusting way to describe people who say they have been long abused in their country of residence and feel abandoned by their country of origin.
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zer0_0zor0 AJ • 13 hours ago
You seem to be confused about the difference between Japan and the USA with respect to what pluralism means. The USA was founded as a nation of immigrants, thousands of years after the only known wave of immigration from continental Asia to Japan during the Yayoi period. Based on archaeological (including DNA analysis) evidence, the people from Okinawa and Hokkaido (i.e., the Ainu) are the closest genetic ancestors of the Jomon people.
There also seems to be a disconnect between the classical distinction I'm trying to make between public and private. Everyone in Japan has the right to their beliefs and their culture so long as it isn't in contravention to the Constitution and the law. The just don't have a legal right to some formal recognition by the government as an "ethnic group" with special rights.
You may find my description 'disgusting', but I don't particularly identify with those people or their cause--as you seem to do--and am more interested about the general context of the content of the article in terms society at large. I do think that any ultranationalist, etc., groups that abuse them should be subject to the legal consequences of their actions for any violation of constitutional rights, etc.
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Cakeface zer0_0zor0 • 16 hours ago
Yes that is what I assumed she was referring to. Americans in America. Not expatriate Americans in Japan.
And I am American. And I can cite countless examples of people I know and have known who celebrate their ethnicity, and also their nationality as Americans. The Italian-American neighbors I grew up with, friends from the Caribbean islands (I'm from Florida), my mothers side Irish-American family members and my fathers side Lithuanian-American family members just to name a few. All American, speak with American accents, born and raised here, yet still celebrate where their forbearers came from.
Your Trump and Sanders references are too tone deaf to warrant the lengthy correction that they need....
I DO think Japan should have pluralism forced on it, for their own good and not for any of the pretentious reasons you listed. Sorry if that sounds imperialistic to you, but the Japanese demographics speak for themselves. Without immigrants (who should be welcomed as citizens and not cast as perpetual outsiders) the country is just going to slowly grow older and older (and older). They already have the highest proportion of elderly people of any nation, and to top it off they have an abysmally low birth-rate.
"Granted there is discrimination against some Koreans..." Seriously?? Are you joking? Talk about white washing a horrible element of your society. AND Chinese, AND Pacific Islanders and let's not even mention attitudes towards Africans or Europeans....
...Actually, let's... Look at the recent debacle with the newest Miss Japan beauty queen, who because she is half African, even though she is a Japanese citizen, is seen as "not-Japanese." Because blood ethnicity is tied into what makes a person a citizen of the nation? It is a positively medieval concept. One that goes back the nation being isolated from the outside world for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile the Japanese themselves are a genetic mixture of prehistoric hunter-gatherers who settled there from Siberia during the last glacial maximum who were later admixed with migrations of people from the mainland thousands of years later. There is nothing pure about the Japanese in that regard. The whole idea is simply farcical, but more importantly than that it's fictitious.
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Fighting 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
NATIONAL / MEDIA | MEDIA MIX
Japan’s resident Koreans endure a climate of hate
BY PHILIP BRASOR
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
MAY 7, 2016 ARTICLE HISTORY PRINT SHARE
Later 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.
In 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.
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In 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.
In 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.
This 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.
To 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.
The 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.
Lee 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.”
Perhaps 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.
It 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.
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Sharad Majumdar • a day ago
I feel sorry if many long-term residents in Japan feel a sense of separation from the larger Japanese society. However, the tone of the article suggests a desire to have one's cake and eat it too. It is only natural that as you spend your entire life in a particular culture and your link to your ancestral culture weakens and becomes more distant, there will come a time when you assimilate and assume a new identity - one aligned with your immediate environment. There is nothing shameful or shocking about this. Someone should explain to them that they are far better off and have a great many more opportunities living in Japan than if they were to live in North Korea. It's perfectly acceptable to remember and commemorate your ancestral roots, but living in a bubble and creating a forced "otherness" can't be good for your mental equilibrium! Besides which, I have a feeling reporting on the extreme fringe elements rather than on the well-adjusted Japan-Korean mainstream sells more papers.
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doninjapan Sharad Majumdar • 21 hours ago
Wait... you feel that they can't have nationality and retain their cultural identity?
How very Borg of you...
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Sharad Majumdar doninjapan • 15 hours ago
I didn't say that! I only said that it is natural for us to lose our ties to our ancestral homelands after a few generations. The divide between long-term Korean residents in Japan and the Japanese population at large may be self-imposed to some extent.
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nosnurbd Sharad Majumdar • 13 hours ago
The Koreans, I'm sure don't like it this way, but the Japanese do. Japan maintains the division by family records and such; the purpose of which is to maintain racial purity, I think.
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Tim Groves nosnurbd • an hour ago
Literally millions of foreigners have come to Japan since the arrival of the "black ships", fraternized with or married natives and contributed their DNA to the Japanese gene pool, and there have never been laws in Japan forbidding miscegenation as there were, for instance, in parts of the USA until 1967. Also, large numbers of Korean or "Chosen" nationals have married Japanese citizens, and others become naturalized Japanese. So I don't think "the Japanese", as in the Japanese government and administration, or the vast majority of Japanese individuals are concerned to maintain racial purity. There is a strong element of "us and them" in the relationship between the Japanese as a people and the Japanese resident Koreans as a people, and this manifests itself in many sorts of ways. But "maintaining racial purity" is not a consideration in my humble opinion.
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zer0_0zor0 doninjapan • 18 hours ago
Borg?
Speak English, please.
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doninjapan zer0_0zor0 • 8 hours ago
Erm... I am. Referencing *the Borg collective*. It's a movie reference insinuating that everyone must assimilate.
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zer0_0zor0 Sharad Majumdar • 19 hours ago
Plus there is an ethnic Balkanization being promoted by the CIA/MI6 in Japan as a divide-and-conquer strategy.
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Sharad Majumdar zer0_0zor0 • 15 hours ago
I don't even know how to respond to this...
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disqus_fnwCMQDX7u Sharad Majumdar • an hour ago
Zero thinks they're special because like every other foreigner in Tokyo they've ran into some old CIA agent posted up with not much to do and not much incentive to keep anything confidential...
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Liars N. Fools • a day ago
"Since there is no Chosen, these full time residents of Japan are people without a country." It is not accurate to say there is no Chosen (朝鮮) because North Korea is officially named Joseon 조선인민공화국 which is the same word. The boxer in the photo wears a Joseon High School shirt.
It is accurate that many/most do not wish to live in North Korea (many who moved permanently have never been allowed back, including Japanese who married into Korean families.)
The discrimination is certainly real, and Yoshida Shigeru's attitude persists to this day and is directed by right wing nationalists and the hate media. We Americans had a hand in this. John Dower's book on embracing defeat has a nice segment on what we wanted in the constitution on guaranteeing the rights of people, but which the Japanese limited only to Japanese people 国民 telling the American drafters that the phrase meant "the people." The Japanese knew precisely what they were doing to leave out non-Japanese, but we didn't get it.
The anti-Korean sentiments seem to be fairly widespread even if the rightists doing the sort of harassment of Korean school children and businesses are few in number. I met with some zainichi in Fukuoka who noted that the problems in Honshu had hit them, too, despite a long history of mostly harmony based on proximity.
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zer0_0zor0 Liars N. Fools • 18 hours ago
Chosen is a country that ended in the 19th century.
Perhaps most zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated, and the only rights that permanent residents such as myself lack are political rights; that is, voting in elections. It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights, for example. That is an incorrect reading of the Constitution.
Just like dual citizenship is not permitted, you have to take a Japanese passport to vote in elections or stand for office.
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • an hour ago
zer0_0zor0
Perhaps most zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated
There is no assimilation, for assimilation is considered a surrender to evil Japan.
It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights
In the US, a permanent resident can be a government employee and serve in the military.
In Japan, a permanent resident cannot be a government employee or serve in the SDF.
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Liars N. Fools zer0_0zor0 • 9 hours ago
Note:
第十一条 国民は、すべての基本的人権の享有を妨げられない。この憲法が国民に保障する基本的人権は、侵すことのできない永久の権利として、現在及び将来の国民に与へられる。
Article 11. The people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights. These fundamental human rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be conferred upon the people of this and future generations as eternal and inviolate rights.
第十二条 この憲法が国民に保障する自由及び権利は、国民の不断の努力によつて、これを保持しなければならない。又、国民は、これを濫用してはならないのであつて、常に公共の福祉のためにこれを利用する責任を負ふ。
Article 12. The freedoms and rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be maintained by the constant endeavor of the people, who shall refrain from any abuse of these freedoms and rights and shall always be responsible for utilizing them for the public welfare.
第十三条 すべて国民は、個人として尊重される。生命、自由及び幸福追求に対する国民の権利については、公共の福祉に反しない限り、立法その他の国政の上で、最大の尊重を必要とする。
Article 13. All of the people shall be respected as individuals. Their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shall, to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare, be the supreme consideration in legislation and in other governmental affairs.
第十四条 すべて国民は、法の下に平等であつて、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分又は門地により、政治的、経済的又は社会的関係において、差別されない。
Article 14. All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.
It all deals with 国民 the Japanese people and not "the people" in the wider sense.
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • 11 hours ago
zer0_0zor0
It is not true that residents do not enjoy full civil rights, for example. That is an incorrect reading of the Constitution.
An example. Let's say you are an aspiring Zainichi baseball player; the only way to play pro in Japan is to sign up in the foreign player quota, or be naturalized.
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zer0_0zor0 TV Monitor • 10 hours ago
That's news to me, are you sure about that?
There is an Article in the Constitution (26?) of Japan that guarantees the right to seek one's one profession.
Since the league is not nationalized, I find that hard to believe. On the other hand, it cold depend on some legal definition of "foreign player", I suppose, which might relate to the original charter of the league. Is it he same for soccer players and Sumo wrestlers?
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TV Monitor zer0_0zor0 • 2 hours ago
zer0_0zor0
Since the league is not nationalized, I find that hard to believe.
Permanent residents in Japan would be counted in the foreign player quota. The exception to this rule is that those foreign national players who were registered as baseball players in Japanese high school teams would not be counted against the foreign player quota.
However, this would only apply toward Zainichi who attended Japanese or ROK-backed high schools, since ROK-backed high schools are counted as regular Japanese high schools under Japanese education law, and also Korean regular high schools under Korean education law, and are funded by both governments.
Students who attend Joseon schools do not benefit from this loophole, since Joseon schools are not considered regular schools under Japanese law. If you graduate from a Joseon high school, then you are considered to have received no formal high school education and cannot apply to Japanese colleges, so you must pass a GED before applying to colleges in Japan. Certain Zainich professional sports players take advantage of this loophole to play in Korea, since they are considered to have received no formal education and cannot be conscripted, because the minimum education level for conscription is a high school degree.
Different sporting federations set their own rules governing foreign players, I just pointed out the baseball since this is the biggest and best-paid professional sports in Japan.
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vagabundacsm • 9 hours ago
Sounds like they treat ethnic Koreans how Trump talks about immigrants in our country (implicit in that, of course, is anyone of Hispanic descent, regardless of citizenship status). Scary and disappointing. Whenever someone tells me, "Japan isn't like that anymore!"...I have to wonder, especially when it's the people at the top keeping these archaic and discriminatory laws on the books.
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TV Monitor vagabundacsm • an hour ago
vagabundacsm
Newer arriving Koreans who immigrated from the ROK after 1990 don't face much discrimination, since they are associated with the ROK which is now a rich and powerful country.
Zainichis, who are third, fourth, and even fifth gen residents, are associated with Joseon and North Korea and don't get the respect.
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zer0_0zor0 • a day ago
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.
Park was right: assimilate or move back to Korea, either one...
...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
That is ridiculous, because being American is not an ethnic identity, for starters. Americans speak English, the lingua Franca of the world, that is their primary advantage--unless, of course, they are in the CIA and have more than one paycheck coming in...
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Cakeface zer0_0zor0 • a day ago
Americans are made up of many different ethnic groups. English, Irish, German, French, Mexican, Russian, Puerto Rican, West African, Chinese, etc. Yet they are all American in nationality. That is what was meant. They are able to celebrate their ethnic identity as well as their nationality, together. The two concepts are allowed to coexist in harmony. That is what was meant.
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TV Monitor Cakeface • 11 hours ago
Cakeface
In Japan, one's identified along the ethnicity, not citizenship.
Keiko Fukimori(The leading Peruvian Presidential Candidate) is seen as Japanese even if her ancestors left Japan 100 years ago.
On the other hand, Masayoshi Son, who is either no. 1 or no. 2 richest man in Japan depending on year and stock market conditions, is always regarded as a Zainichi foreigner even though he acquired Japanese citizenship.
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zer0_0zor0 Cakeface • 18 hours ago
So you take her as referring to Americans in the USA, not Japan, I take it.
America is a pluralistic society that used to be referred to as a "melting pot", because the idea was that one's common identity as an American was primary, and assimilation coupled with evolution was the expectation.
Society is more Balkanized along religious-ethic and economic-class lines in America nowadays, perhaps to a point of a reverse identity crisis, which is why partly why Trump and Sanders are popular. There is no such harmony of which you speaketh, so you are probably no America. Granted there is discrimination against some Koreans here, particularly those intent on asserting themselves as a separate society-unto-themselves within Japanese society. Furthermore, connections to the yakuza (30% are Koreans) and the CIA have also been well documented.
Japan is not a pluralistic society, and shouldn't have that imposed on it as a goal. Why should the Japanese care to celebrate anyone's nationality outside of the private context, such as a food fair, for example? Because Korea was colonized by Japan with the approval of the USA?
Many--perhaps the majority--of zainichi Koreans have become Japanese citizens and assimilated, and that is the normal course, as it was with Koreans that migrated to Japan 1,000 years ago, not the psychologically problematic disposition depicted by these delusional people with a persecution complex clinging to an obsolete identity tied to a non-existent country.
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AJ zer0_0zor0 • 16 hours ago
Japan is not a pluralistic society because the Japanese government does not recognize ethnicity as distinct from nationality. But to say separate cultures do not exist would certainly be news to the Ainu, Ryukyuan, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Brazilian, and so on that live in Japan and try to assimilate to Japanese society, if not becoming Japanese citizens.
Recognizing that different cultures exist within Japan wouldn't be imposing anything on society, it would be liberating people to identify with separate cultures while still being part of Japan. It's long past due for Japan to realize that "foreigners" coming to Japan and learning the language and culture is a good thing.
I find your last paragraph in regards to Zainichi Korean attitudes to be condescending and pretty offensive.
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zer0_0zor0 AJ • 15 hours ago
I never said that "separate cultures do not exist", as in have some degree of presence in Japan. I don't think you--or anyone else in this thread--has presented a rational basis for asserting that ethnicity should be recognized by the Japanese government in any way as distinct from nationality. Ethnicity doesn't give you any special rights within Japan unless you are Ainu, though I believe that people of Japanese descent are allowed to return to Japan, similar to the EU.
As a foreigner myself with permanent residency in Japan, I haven't taken Japanese citizenship, yet, but am fairly well assimilated, and am not interested in asserting my (non-ethnic) identity as an American aside from its relationship to modern political culture where that elucidates something meaningful for the Japanese members of my family and friends, etc. Of course, I engage American culture, too, in appropriate contexts, all of which are basically private, as in not related to the government of Japan.
I also happen to be well acquainted with the modern history of Korea, so I could respond to anything you specifically found offensive, if you were to specify some such thing.
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AJ zer0_0zor0 • 14 hours ago
You said "Japan is not a pluralistic society", but now you're saying separate cultures do exist and going in a rationalist direction. OK, we can go there. It's about individual freedom of belief regarding their identity. Ethnicity doesn't give any special rights within Japan except for the one for people to celebrate their individual culture as distinct from their Japanese citizenship or residency.
You choose to celebrate yours as American only in a private way and that's fine. But why not allow others who want to celebrate theirs in a public context? Now you're the one imposing on them that they should shut up about their own identity and just behave like you do...or be labeled as having a "psychologically problematic disposition depicted by these delusional people with a persecution complex clinging to an obsolete identity tied to a non-existent country".
As for what's offensive about that, read it again and then read the article. It's a disgusting way to describe people who say they have been long abused in their country of residence and feel abandoned by their country of origin.
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zer0_0zor0 AJ • 13 hours ago
You seem to be confused about the difference between Japan and the USA with respect to what pluralism means. The USA was founded as a nation of immigrants, thousands of years after the only known wave of immigration from continental Asia to Japan during the Yayoi period. Based on archaeological (including DNA analysis) evidence, the people from Okinawa and Hokkaido (i.e., the Ainu) are the closest genetic ancestors of the Jomon people.
There also seems to be a disconnect between the classical distinction I'm trying to make between public and private. Everyone in Japan has the right to their beliefs and their culture so long as it isn't in contravention to the Constitution and the law. The just don't have a legal right to some formal recognition by the government as an "ethnic group" with special rights.
You may find my description 'disgusting', but I don't particularly identify with those people or their cause--as you seem to do--and am more interested about the general context of the content of the article in terms society at large. I do think that any ultranationalist, etc., groups that abuse them should be subject to the legal consequences of their actions for any violation of constitutional rights, etc.
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Cakeface zer0_0zor0 • 16 hours ago
Yes that is what I assumed she was referring to. Americans in America. Not expatriate Americans in Japan.
And I am American. And I can cite countless examples of people I know and have known who celebrate their ethnicity, and also their nationality as Americans. The Italian-American neighbors I grew up with, friends from the Caribbean islands (I'm from Florida), my mothers side Irish-American family members and my fathers side Lithuanian-American family members just to name a few. All American, speak with American accents, born and raised here, yet still celebrate where their forbearers came from.
Your Trump and Sanders references are too tone deaf to warrant the lengthy correction that they need....
I DO think Japan should have pluralism forced on it, for their own good and not for any of the pretentious reasons you listed. Sorry if that sounds imperialistic to you, but the Japanese demographics speak for themselves. Without immigrants (who should be welcomed as citizens and not cast as perpetual outsiders) the country is just going to slowly grow older and older (and older). They already have the highest proportion of elderly people of any nation, and to top it off they have an abysmally low birth-rate.
"Granted there is discrimination against some Koreans..." Seriously?? Are you joking? Talk about white washing a horrible element of your society. AND Chinese, AND Pacific Islanders and let's not even mention attitudes towards Africans or Europeans....
...Actually, let's... Look at the recent debacle with the newest Miss Japan beauty queen, who because she is half African, even though she is a Japanese citizen, is seen as "not-Japanese." Because blood ethnicity is tied into what makes a person a citizen of the nation? It is a positively medieval concept. One that goes back the nation being isolated from the outside world for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile the Japanese themselves are a genetic mixture of prehistoric hunter-gatherers who settled there from Siberia during the last glacial maximum who were later admixed with migrations of people from the mainland thousands of years later. There is nothing pure about the Japanese in that regard. The whole idea is simply farcical, but more importantly than that it's fictitious.
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