Portrait of a Japanese person

When I satrted to think about who to make a portrait of, I realised that most of my Gaidai friends aren't fully, or officially Japanese per se, so the first question I had to make is "who can I consider Japanese?". But there again, who am I to judge that? So I just asked one of my friends to explain for herself.

I picked someone who was born and educated in Japan, her family has lived in Japan for four generations now, but according to the government she isn't officially Japanese, but South Korean. When I asked about her nationality, she simply said "I'm zainichi, Japanese-Korean".

For those who aren't very versed in Japanese diversity, Japan isn't a homogeneous country, there are minorities, foreign residents and also remainings of former class distributions that remain in the population in form of prejudices. The zainichi, particularly, are the Korean permant residents in Japan. Their families might have been living in Japan, and can be traced back in the country much further than other people`s, more Japanese families, but they still won't be considered Japanese. Would they want to, they could become Japanese, but it isn't particularly easy, and it involves several fee payments. In her case, she accepts her origins and is proud of them, but there are several people from Korean origins that don't use their Korean names, but only their Japanese ones, and try to hide their classification as zainichi for fear of exclusionism by society. For more information about minorities and Japanese regulations click here.

It is important to understand her origins in order to undersand and become to know her. Also, it is one of the first thing I came to know about her. Some friends introduced us and I said; "what's your name?"; she said "Jineui". The whole conversation was conducted in Japanese, so the sound of a Korean name stood out, and when I looked at her mildly confused, she said "I'm zainichi", and you can use my Japanese name.

Since then I became to know her more, she just turned 20, so she is officially an adult in Japan, her area of studies is English, she likes Iceland music groups and is a very interesting and rich person, but the thruth is that my first impression, and what made me want to know more about her was that initial honesty, self-knowing, awareness sort of presentation. Also, that introductions speaks a lot for her sense of belonging, of identity, not just as a person but rather as a part of a community.

Here you can see a home-made video, not of the best quality but interesting, about the opinion of Japanese nationals on Zainichi:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enas8kJGkx8    Warning! it's in Japanese