Anti-Korean Sentiment Simmers in Japan

There is a Japanese word meaning “half men,” a derogatory term that was coined at the end of the 19th century. The term is now only used disparagingly to describe ethnic Koreans. TV, radio, and newspapers have all banned it, but it persists in the ears of the general public by making an unpleasant amount of social media appearances, especially in the past few years, likely in response to the tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In 2019, as tensions between Japan and Korea increased, Kawasaki, which is home to one of the largest Korean communities in the greater Tokyo area, enacted the first law against hate speech in Japan, with repeat offenses subject to a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($4,000). Prohibited actions listed include promoting physical assaults on minorities, seeking to have minorities evicted from their homes, and referring to them in a derogatory manner.

To understand why this type of legislation is necessary, we need to go to Shin-Okubo, the little Korea in Tokyo.

“Kaere!” – Go home! That’s what Na, a 24-year-old from Busan who now works at a fast-food shop in Shin-Okubo, is often told when she is overheard talking in her native Korean.

“They targeted my appearance and made fun of my use of Japanese, as I was still not fluent at the time,” Na recalled.

But the stifled resentment against ethnic Koreans doesn’t detonate only at the hearing of the “wrong” accent. There is a troubling tendency to lay blame on Koreans for nearly any misfortune that befalls Japan. After the 500-year-old Shuri castle in Okinawa caught on fire in 2019, fake news began circulating on the web that the fire was an arson attack perpetrated by Koreans residing in Japan. The origin of the disinformation remains unknown.

Earlier this summer, in the immediate aftermath of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s assassination in broad daylight on July 8, baseless rumors began flying online that his killer was an ethnic Korean who hated Japan. South Korea’s consulate in Fukuoka reportedly warned that Koreans living in Japan might become the victims of violence as a response to the misinformation.

Just recently a Japanese court sentenced to four years in prison a 23-year-old man who had set fire to empty houses in a neighborhood populated by Korean residents in Kyoto prefecture.