by Kim Jina

How much do you know about hafu in Japan? Hafu means that they have a Japanese parent and a foreign parent. Actually, I have never thought about hafu, because there were no hafu around me and there are not many mixed blood people in Korea (I am a Korean). However, through my English class, I have learned a lot regarding hafu and how Japanese society treats hafu. I read some articles stories about how hafu are treated in Japan, how do they feel and so on.

There are bunch of hafu who are suffering from the way they are treated in Japan and even in some other countries. Even if hafu have Japanese nationality and fluency in the Japanese language, Japanese people divide them into non-Japanese because of their non-Japanese look. Although many hafu have Japanese nationality by law, they have difficulty to fit in Japanese society and to be admitted by other Japanese as Japanese. Then, is the law not an important thing? Why are they treated differently in Japan?

On occasion, a fixed idea plays a more powerful role in treating people. Japan is so-called a homogeneous society and that is why Japanese people feel uncomfortable with others and fine it hard to understand others. Many of hafu said that they feel they belong in Japan and try to fit in Japanese society. However, somehow Japanese people do not recognize them as Japanese. Therefore, the most important thing to change the situation facing hafu is conversion of the way people think about hafu.

To change over the way people think about hafu, people should reconsider that all of us have a unique gene which is make us different from others and at the same time we all have something in common. To put it simply, people should stop othering hafu and dividing them into non-Japanese due to the foreign look so that the situation facing hafu will be improved. Letting people know regarding hafu might be a very useful work to make new progress and improvement for hafu such as The Hafu Project.

In addition, making more interchange programs with hafu in school educations helps students to understand hafu and expand their point of views. Without any information about hafu, it is hard to understand them. Even if the situation facing hafu in Japan seems difficult to be solved, globalization is widely spread in Japan and many of Japanese young people have an open-minded and flexible attitude, hence, the situation could be improved in Japan.

With the efforts of hafu, change of times, and conversion of a fixed idea, hafu could be provided better environment to live in Japanese society without being othered or classified.