Japan is the country that considered as a peaceful, equal society. It does not seem as a country with harsh discrimination against minority. That is because, almost every region, there are many foreigners from all around the world and it is not hard to see immigrants. However, the situation in Japan is actually far away from what we know and believe. Ainu and Buraku tell it. They have negative feelings for Japanese society and try to raise their voice as possible as they can. Not only them, but Zainichi, also have same kind of problems. As I went to high school with Zainichi friends, I have seen their sadness. The biggest problem is that many Zainichi students are having the identical agony. Even their ancestors were Korean, they born in Japan and many cannot speak Korean fluently. Their backgrounds are all belongs to Japan. Therefore, in this report, I’d like to discuss about Zainichi situation in two parts: school and society.

First of all, I want to discuss about Korean schools in Japan. There are two schools in Osaka and one in Kyoto. In this school, students learn not only the history or Korean, but to success Korean culture, it is famous for having traditional Korean dance and music circle. It is very moving that even in Korea, people are forgettable about tradition. Not only Korean stuff, they need to learn some subjects belong to that of Japan. However, although this great system, many of students move to the other when they grow up. Especially, many consider going to Japanese private school before high school. The reason for this is that, it is hard to attain real Japanese education and that leads to difficulty of getting into universities. Moreover, many choose to change their nationality to Japanese, to adjust Japanese society. Those reasons make Zainichi go to Japanese school more and more. Therefore, the Korean schools that exist right now might not be last continuously in the future. The success of Korean school is in crisis.

Next, Zainichi do not have any place to go in Japan. It is hard to get into the company even one has graduated from high level university. That made Zainichi work hard on creating businesses. Most of Pacchinco, the game center for gambling in Japan belong to Zainichi. It might seem that they earn a lot of money; however, it is not according to everyone. And those who want to become a lawyer or government official, they are hard to chase their dream for only reason that they are Zainichi.

More than 1^st generation, 3^rd, 4^th generation have difficulties. However, I want them to have the pride. That is because they can have two countries. It will be helpful to live in globalized society such world now. Moreover, they should raise voices bigger, now the information flows so fast, so if their problems will spread faster than ever. In the last, both governments, Korea and Japan should consider counterplans to Zainichi.

by Sujin Kim