Spent Friday night hanging out with some Korean friends in Japan.
I've met several Korean friends at the free Japanese lessons given weekly at the international center, and have hit it off with a few of them. In fact this summer I was somewhat romantically involved with a Korean girl from this group, but that's a bit of a long story.
Anyway, it's interesting to hang out with them. In Japan there has been a long history of discrimination against the Korean residents in Japan. The group I hang out with is made up of only exchange students, not permanent residents of Japan, so no doubt they are coming at things from a different perspective than a long term resident.
But it is interesting to talk to them about how they are treated in Japan, because their experience seems to be the opposite of what I was lead to believe from the books I had read. Most Japanese people seem to be bending over backwards to please them, and none of them can recall any incidents of discrimination.
I am somewhat reminded of Angela Davis' Autobiography. In her autobiography, Angela Davis recalls how she was somewhat apprehensive about attending a predominately white University, and was determined to always be on her guard against any racism she might encounter. Instead, she said, she found herself with almost the opposite problem, that white liberals were overly solicitous of their few black friends.
I suspect this might be what is happening in here. Perhaps a lot of Japanese people, in an effort to prove that they are not racist, are overly kind to the Korean people they encounter. This certainly seemed to be the case with the Korean girl I was seeing this summer. It was really hard to get a free night with her, because she had been taken in by a group of middle aged Japanese women, who all acted like her Japanese mother. These women were really looking out for her interests, and in addition to taking her out for dinner all the time, tried to solve any problems she might possibly encounter in Japan, to the point of even giving her extra spending cash to go shopping with.
And last year in Ajimu, during the international festival, a couple Korean exchange students came from Beppu University to do traditional Korean dances. And they were also really treated like royalty.
I've enjoyed discussing politics with the Korean students as well. I've read in the newspapers that the current Korean president, Roh, was popular with younger people but hated by the older people. My friends have confirmed at least the latter. All their parents hate Roh. They themselves are somewhat ambivalent.
The subject of the U.S. military in South Korea comes up from time to time as well. All of the Koreans I've talked to still fell very angry about the two South Korean girls killed last year by US military. And whenever we talk about the subject, the Kwangju massacre invariably comes up. Kwangju was South Korea's Tienanmen square. It occurred in the 1980s, before South Korea became a democracy. And it was done with U.S. approval. There are still a lot of sore feelings about this.
I had never heard about this before they brought it up, but have since researched it a bit on the internet. A good article about it can be found here:

http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/kwangju3.htm

Remember last year, when there were a lot of anti-U.S. protests in South Korea? Remember all the editorials that ran in US newspapers about that time? "These ungrateful Koreans, don't they appreciate all we've done for them, blah blah blah." How strange that this little detail about the Kwangju massacre was never mentioned in the US press.