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Comment by dennisgorelik | Hacker News Reader

> hate her if they somehow came to believe she was Korean

Why would they hate her for having Korean ancestry?

A typical Japanese will not hate a person because of having a Korean ancestry. Actually there are many celebrities who have a korean background and also are very respected.(e.g. Masayoshi Son, Akiko Wada, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Akira Maeda)

Typically, Japanese people are kind and generous, and they will closely look at the person's attitudes. The people who are not liked are the people who hate Japan and the Japanese people.

As an example, people who graduated from the Korean School (Chousengakkou) will be given an Anti-Japanese education. I heard from a Korean background person that at a Korean School, if you speak Japanese at the school, you will be beaten by your mates.

Few years ago, there were K-POP trend in Japan, and people were very interested in Korean culture and the Korean people. But when they start knowing that the majority of Korean people have huge hatred towards Japan and also the Japanese people, now many Japanese people are becoming suspicious when they hear the word Korea. It is not because they are racist or not. It is just a rule of thumb or statistics.

I admit that many Koreans have unhealthy level of hatred towards Japan as a nation, but your description neatly sidestepped the whole issue of "why", didn't it.

Koreans do remember the times when Japanese teachers would beat up Korean boys at school for using Korean, force Koreans to adopt Japanese-style names, and send young Koreans to the Pacific to be slaughtered, for the glory of Emperor Hirohito.

Personally, all the Japanese I met were nice people, and I normally don't talk history with them (I mean, what's the point?), because there are more pleasant stuff to talk about. Hopefully many others in Japan would also meet some Koreans some day and realize we are all the same people, with different historical baggages, trying to make sense in a world that doesn't make sense.

But then there are always some jerks who would say "Koreans are so mean, why do they hate Japan so much?"

Well, duh.

That is very true and thanks for telling from the other side. Hope that Koreans and Japanese will get along.

Sidenote: the "Korean Schools" mentioned here are specifically North Korean (Chosen) schools. There are South Korean schools as well, but far fewer, and both are a dying breed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Dsen_gakk%C5%8D

Racism?

It takes different forms in different countries, but it is alive and well.

Why is racism still alive and well?

Does it help in anything?

One theory would be that humans have a biological sense of other. In-group, out-group, etc. People fight for the same resources, preferentially for their genetically similar groups.

If there are 10 people at a table about to starve to death, and only 5 of them are related, it helps their genetic lineage to prefer to feed relatives.

Racism, as an outgrowth of us-versus-them, most likely helped with keeping a lineage alive.

It's self-perpetuating. People do mean things to other people because other people have done mean things to them or their group because of that group and the cycle continues. It doesn't help that people often fail to recognize the fundamental attribution error in play, either.

> Does it help in anything?

Many argue that an arbitrary division among the disenfranchised and poor is an effective barrier for them to rise up against the minority that hoard the resources for themselves. So one could argue that it does help someone.

Japan is very, very racist.

But why?

Considering that racism is quite impractical.

Japan and Korea share a long and unfortunate history[0,1,2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_Japan

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Korean_sentiment#Japan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan#Korean_...

It is not just Korea.

I know. But dennisgorelik's original comment was about prejudice against Zainichi Koreans specifically, so I was just addressing that. I probably should have commented up a level.

Homogeneity. Japan has been shut off from the world for most of its history.

I agree that a lot of people have preconceived notions and can be prejudiced, but I think "very, very racist" is going a bit overboard.

I don't think it would be very hard to find places that are a lot more racist that Japan. (Not that you'd want to go there…)

How?

They have a long history of not getting along and the chains of hatred from the past have continually bound new generations as grudges transfer from one generation to another in the form of prejudicial actions.

We can only hope that these chains loosen over time as people reject the prejudicial treatment of others.

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