The majority of Koreans living in Japan who are currently coming, belong
to the forth or fifth generation of immigrants. In other words, Koreans
have been living in Japan for a long time.
However, even 50 years of history, the Koreans who make up Japan's largest
minority group have not become socially well-accepted. The Koreans in Japan
have occasionally been viewed as "problems" by Japan's sensationalistic
mass media, and have yet to be recognized as "close neighbors"
who created and nurtured a unique ethnic culture. There are many reasons
for discrimination. Koreans are considered inferior. Ethnic relationships
between the Japanese and Koreans in Japan are still very poor.
This is also true in Japanese social empirical research. Although Koreans
residing in Japan constitute a valuable group for studying inter-ethnic
relationships, social scientists in Japan have, for some strange reason,
ignored their existence until recently. Only a few years ago have researchers
of Koreans in Japan become more visible in the academic world, although
the findings of their studies were not very insightful. The reality is
that hardly any research on this subhect, let alone studies with positive
connotations and/or results, has been conducted.
In view of such problems and the existing situation, HAN is a page provided to promote a better understanding of Koreans in Japan from a scientific viewpoint. The study reported here is small-scale; it has the following four objectives;
* The "Research on Consciousness among Korean Youth in Japan, 1993" was conducted by the Korean Youth Association in Japan under the joint guidance of Professor Yasunori FUKUOKA (of Saitama University) and myself, Myung-Soo KIM. This is the first nationwide survey of Koreans living in Japan.
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