Korean Job Discussion Forums

[billybrobby]

get it? NuKe test? Anyways...

this is translated by me, so don't take it as gospel.

http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSS2D&office_id=028&article_id=0000173785&section_id=104&section_id2=231&menu_id=104

"There's a bomb in the school, you Chosun bastards."

These were the words said by a Japanese person in a threatening phonecall made on the afternoon of the 13th to the Chosun Elementary-Middle School in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. School president Oh Baekgun said, "Since 2004 when the Japanese government announced that the remains of Yokota Megumi returned by North Korea were fake, the threats and misdeeds towards the ethnic school have not stopped." According to the school, starting 2 years ago they have been making students wear uniforms that are different from the white Korean-style jacket and black skirt combination that had come to symbolize Chosun style school uniforms. This is because they could become a target for terror from the Japanese right-wing.

Since North Korea's announcement of a nuclear weapons test on the 9th, the [North Korea-related] General Association of Korean Residents in Japan's ethnic schools have once again become enveloped in anxiety. There hasn't been confirmed 'personal violence' like schoolgirls getting their skirts slashed with knives, but several schools have received threatening phonecalls. Japanese police have increased their patrols around the ethnic schools since the 10th, the day after the North Korean nuclear test announcement.

Hokkaido Chosun Elementary-High School received 13 threatening phone calls in two days on the 9th and the 10th. The calls said such things as "Go back to North Chosun" and "Bakayaro (stupid bastard)". Also, in July when North Korea conducted a missle launch the school received 20 phone calls pouring out threats and abuse such as, "Within a week I'll kill 5 high school students" and "You are animals." From the 10th this school also switched from wearing school uniforms to wearing regular clothes or excercise clothes. During school hours teachers are going out in front of the school doors to be ready for "possible situations", and many of the school parents are going to the school with their children. School president Shin Kyung-hwa says, "Classes are going on as normal, but to block outside people from entering, the school doors are all being
locked during school hours after this." It has been confirmed that at Hiroshima Chosun Elementary-Middle School and Tokyo Nanbu Chosun Elementary School the students are being made to not wear the skirt-jacket school uniforms.

According to those connected to the ethnic schools in the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, after the Japanese press' widespread coverage of the Yokota Megumi kidnapping incident, a "Chosun=Kidnapping" kind of equivalence has been made, and it has become connected to the antipathy towards Korean residents in Japan, particularly those carrying North Korean citizenship. Ethnic schools have become targets for intimidation and threats of terror since that time.

According to novelist Lee Hweseung, the first non-Japanese to receive Japan's highest literary award the Akutakawa Prize in 1971, "Korean residents in Japan have been placed in a tough situation by the North Korean nuclear test. He also said "Every time problems erupt with North or South Korea, there are many instances of Korean-Japanese experiencing intimidation." Citing as a reason why this kind of intimidation has increased publicly, Lee said, "America is reserving the strength that started a war of aggression like WWII and it is "cultivating" this."

Because of a decrease in recent students and the discrimination in Japanese society, there has been a rapid decrease in the number of schools associated with General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. In 2003 the number of schools was 140, but through mergers and closings there are about now about 80 schools giving education. In Japan there are also schools built by the [South Korea-related] Korean Residents Association in Japan and these are popularly known as "Korea Schools".

IMPORTANT NOTE - honestly, that novelist's comment is so off-the-wall I don't know if I've translated it correctly. The original quote is:

2차대전과 같은 침략전쟁을 일으킨 세력을 미국이 보호하면서 �배양�한 데 있다

Which to me says that America is cultivating the kind of strength that Japan used during its war of aggression in WWII, i.e. America plans to use the Japanese antipathy towards NK to pressure NK. Actually, that kinda make sense when I put it like that. But again, I might have translated it wrong.

And for anybody who doesn't know, NK refers to itself as "Chosun" so that's basically a code word for something that's NK related.