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North Koreans in Japan tight-lipped over Kim's death

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If they are so loyal why don't they just go back to North Korea?

14 ( +16 / -3 )

It's truly sad that an entire country and literally generations of its citizens whether they live in the country or not have been brainwashed to the point that they have to put on an insincere act of pain and sorrow over the death of their so called leader.

Oh a side note I do not believe that the term "Hermit Kingdom" is appropriate for NK either, something along the lines of Mordor would fit better.

7 ( +6 / -0 )

"The pro-Pyongyang minority have maintained their loyalties and have their own civic organizations and educational institutions funded by the North, while integration with the host culture is strongly discouraged"

I've never seen s better reason for immediate mass deportation.

6 ( +12 / -6 )

It appears that J-media is confused about 'no comments' from North Koreans in Japan.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

I can only hope that the above calls for mass deportation are only poor attempts at humor. This is a population that has lived in Japan for generations, and has been discrimated against. Most of the people who are in Japan and called "Korean" speak Japanese, and are for most practical purposes culturally Japanese.

This would be akin to calling for all african americans to "return to africa"--- something I highly doubt anyone on this bb would suggest.

By the way, I heard most of SMAP are actually Korean, not sure if this is true.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

They deserve to be confused. Nobody knows what will happen in NK or to the NK's relatives. Why are there tears flowing from the eyes of the wailing NK women? Maybe they are the ones who are confused.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

North Korean flags flew at half mast at the university, and at the North Korean residents’ association headquarters, the de facto embassy in Japan,

"Half mast" is a nautical term, and since these places are presumably on land, the correct word would be "half-staff."

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Gurukun, Maybe you should do an effort and speak to some of the NKs here. You would get a very different attitude.

Grieving is done in silence worldwide, why can't that be respected?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

@Virtuoso

This has been explained many times

Sorry, I must have been asleep at the time. How would NK agents pretend to be a 13 year old girl for example? Do they have teenage spies?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Love of government and love of country is completely different. I would bet most NK people are not actually pro-NK government.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Forget about interviews! Just have mass celebrations, haha!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Foxie, I'm following you, however, when the NK's in Japan follow orders not to intergrate withthe local culture, and they do, this is not "keeping thier culture or protecting thier roots." I understand that 100% intergration is not feasible, but when they are instructed that intergration is highly discouraged, that to me, says 100% no to intergrating at all. That is also not feasible.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

The pro-Pyongyang minority have maintained their loyalties and have their own civic organizations and educational institutions funded by the North, while integration with the host culture is strongly discouraged.

I'm mot getting why or the reasoning there are N koreans in Ja.....never mind. .

2 ( +6 / -4 )

"Half mast" is a nautical term, and since these places are presumably on land, the correct word would be "half-staff."

Doesn't matter that it is a nautical term, half-staff is used in the US and maybe elsewhere but half-mast is used in UK and the Commonwealth.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Who in their right mind would think of a diet of tree bark when they're eating steak ? That these people escaped to begin with and probably have family at risk ,Silence is Golden. -And these folks have the right to say "No Comment!".

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@ ItsMe

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you. Yes, my suitcase crack was crass - I'm not in favor of creating hardship, especially on a large scale, and especially where families would be involved.

But these Koreans in question are the ones who don't integrate. As for the ones who do, they have every right to live in Japan and be treated no differently to the rest of the population. In fact, there should be no such thing as a second generation Korean in Japan (or any other nationality) if they are living there permanently and intend to keep doing so.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

"Why are there tears flowing from the eyes of the wailing NK women?" make ZERO mistake that this is staged and faked!!! I mean they blamed their world cup loss on the team getting struck by lighting! Kim Jong Ill says claims the single best golf score in the world. The country is nothing but lies and propoganda. it is a 100% propogands nation. Have you never seen vice guide to N.K. The guy goes to dinner and they have 100 tables set with food, but he is the ONLY one eating. That represents the entire country. They want to show you how popular this place is and how much food they have... when in reality we all know it isnt true.

if anything they are tears of joy. You can see factories from the Chinese border whose lights have not been seen turned on in 20 years. just look at the statilte phots of pyonyang on google. NO ONE is on the streets. on the largest roads and highways you can only see 4 or 5 trucks. and maybe a couple dozen people walking. watch one documentary about the country and you will never there will be no doubt that those tears are as fake as they come. they probably told those women to get on the ground and cry or they would starve their grand childen even more for the next month.

and yeah. how can their be loyllists in Japan. THAT confuses me! its one thing to be fed lies and belive them becuase you do not know the truth. But to know the truth and know the lies are lies and still CHOOSE to believe the lies. there is name for that... but I dont want to be rude.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Pro-Pyongyang Korean communities in Japan were “confused”

Maybe they should all get tickets, and head over to NK to see if they can help out with a bit of self mutilation, and fake crying while slapping the ground.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Nothing to be "confused" about. The guy is dead, unless their micro-chip link to their motherland has gone haywire and they are no longer getting "guidance" from the propaganda ministry!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Why did NK need to kidnap when it could have asked for Japanese-speaking volunteers from this mob?

This has been explained many times -- it has been assumed that the NK agents would assume the identity (name and family background, regional accent, etc.) of the abducted person. It would give them a plausible cover while operating in Japan. (Provided they were in a big city and not the abducted person's home town.) Or with forged Japanese passports the operatives could move freely in Europe or SE Asia -- something NKs cannot easily do. Remember Kim Hyon Hui (aka "Mayumi Hachiya"), who was arrested following the bombing of KAL 858 in 1987?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Anyone living outside North Korea who decides to be pro-North Korea when we can all fully see what a horrifying concentration camp the place is, needs help and guidance.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Dislike north korea!!! Especially for the crime they did! I ber the ppl are scared to make a comment if they do they will be killed

1 ( +2 / -1 )

y3chome: there are other channels. Many others.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

...again, not an expert here, but I have heard there are multiple "benefits" to the NK population in Japan not to "integrate" fully with the population. Some are "soft" and some are "hard", but they all work in conjunction to keep this population separated. 1) Discrimination by the populace around where they live. Unfortunately, this is the hardest to correct, because discrimination (more in past, less in current) leads to isolation, which leads to more discrimination, etc. 2) NK Money helps fund the schools, which they need because of the discrimination listed in #1 above. 3) Due to this discrimination, I have heard the govt has actually given a number of fiscal benefits to the resident NK population. I do not know specifics, but from what I understand there is a monetary reason why they would not fully integrate (change name, registration, etc), as they would lose out on money. 4) Where you are from is part of your identity. Being from NK doesn't mean you believe/support the NK government, but a bad government doesn't mean you refuse to acknowledge your culture... I, for one, disagree with much of the American foreign policy, but I'm not about to "fully integrate" into the Japanese system...

I would suspect the majority of the NK population in Japan doesn't give a rats-ass about Kim Jung Il, but doesn't want to go on the record saying so because of possible financial repercussions to their family and/or schools...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

What I'd like to know is, just what is it that the pro-NK community in Japan love about NK? Do any of them ever elect to repatriate? I bet not. I've always thought it so puzzling that anyone not forced to, would have a love of repression and slavery. The mind is a strange thing.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Gurukun, Maybe you should do an effort and speak to some of the NKs here. You would get a very different attitude.

Foxie, even if I did talk with them, you think they would give true answers or hold an honest conversation?

"NKoreans in Japan are instructed that intergration with the host culture is highly discouraged" This statement has nothing to do with the mourning and silence for the death of "Dear Leader." I wonder how they felt when NK shot missles over Japan? If they don't want to be a part of the local community, then they should go back where they can be a productive member of thier own country. As I posted in a another thread, I do not feel as though I'm prejudice. However, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

1 ( +3 / -1 )

Why should there be a reaction from people living in Japan? Better to go and report in North Korea eh?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

"Why are there tears flowing from the eyes of the wailing NK women?" make ZERO mistake that this is staged and faked!!!

Add to that, those women wailing in front of cameras are all with some (high) tech thingy. The government wants to show the world that NK is high tech advanced country? I saw 6~7 women wailing grabbing escalator (NK has escalator!) in the department store (NK has department stores!), wailing and pounding TVs (NK has TVs), wailing coming out of subway (NK has subway!),

1 ( +2 / -1 )

they are confused! and we are confused too!? idk im not NK ...

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The pro-Pyongyang minority have maintained their loyalties and have their own civic organizations and educational institutions funded by the North, while integration with the host culture is strongly discouraged.

Here’s the conundrum. How come is Japanese government still leaving these institutions un-investigated if they are indeed financed by a hostile regime? Although there’s absolutely no reason to harass Korean students walking in the streets or at school like Zaitokukai racists, the central government should put their interests—i.e.,Korean General Headquarters and Korean schools—in Japanese soil on the radar on a growing tension of crisis.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Has anybody noticed that although we see so many people crying, I haven't seen one real tear yet except from his son and the mistery woman standing behind him who are showing watery eyes.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

It is difficult to understand why any Koreans living in Japan would be loyal to the North when they must be well aware that Japanese society is open (except perhaps in regards to contaminating 1/3 of the population with radioactive substances) and more prosperous. But freedom is a relative situation. Japanese teachers are not free to refuse to sing the national anthem. Japanese writers, politicians and people in general risk threats or worse from right wing gangsters if they criticise the imperial system. Politicians in recent years have been shot or their property visited with arson for doing so. The police and bureaucracy use gangsters to stifle antigovernment and antinuclear protesters.

Right after the war, most people were completely ignorant of Stalin's atrocities and it was not at all clear which economic system would prevail. Most of urban capitalist Japan was in ashes. The US government initially encouraged unionism only to change its mind and stifle worker dissent. A capitalist nation, Japan, had colonised Korea, trampled on and in some cases enslaved its citizens. South Korea was a dismal military dictatorship that massacred Korean citizens assembled to commemorate the Korean liberation from Japanese oppression (see Jeju Uprising). In that environment, people chose sides, they were forced to choose sides, as if choosing a religion and for some, that choice has remained to the third or fourth generation, the way a religion does. For the faithful, facts seldom get in the way of beliefs. The Japanese government, so concerned, as well it should be, by the fate of the citizens that North Korea brutally kidnapped, had a policy to actively encourage ethnic Koreans and even their Japanese relatives to move to North Korea until the 1980s, even though it knew the situation there. If you're Japanese by birth, we'll worry about you. But if you're a Korean who was born in Japan and speaks Japanese, has lived in Japan all your life, you can go to hell and we'll even give you the handbasket in which to get there.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

"We have been told not to speak to journalists"

By people who do not have your best interests at heart.

Are there pro-Pyongyang groups of Koreans in other countries, or just Japan?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Serrano, tells me a power struggle is in progress. Open your mouth wrong and if a different side wins it is off to the camps. So they are looking after the interest of the kids. As for Kim, he is now beyond receiving punishment by man. It is in hands now and not my business. Sure I can go Blah, blah and blah but thinks its serves no purpose. The people of North Korea need to find their own way.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@ItsMe

Love of government and love of country is completely different.

100% agree with you there.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I've never seen s better reason for immediate mass deportation.

Sure - that would be wonderful PR for Japan to add to her other woes.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

This is a population that has lived in Japan for generations, and has been discrimated against.

ItsMe, this also works both ways. When the NKoreans in Japan are instructed that intergration with the host culture is highly discouraged, then the NK's are also discriminating against the Japanese. If they don't want to take the liberty in taking part in the Japanese culture because of thier brain washig, then why live here in the first place. Of they don't reciprocate with the locals. of course they are going to be discriminated against. You can only hold a one way conversation for so long.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

How do they "Remit" money home when it is illegal and you always have to fill out the form saying you are not remitting to NK?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It's "funny" that there are no North Koreans to be found who would complain about Japan and Japanese, telling how much they hate them. The hate seems to be very one-sided. Oh well, cruel is the world we made.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Hate, anger, and greed are the 3 evils of this world. People need to work on removing these from oneself and not get caught up in the outer world which is just a playground to test your weakness. To say that you hate North Korea means that you really hate yourself in some aspect. The whole world is inside of us. These NK people who live in Japan is astonishing but it is what it is. What I feel is that they are just brain washed--but I do not know enough to say that with 100% confidence. If they are pro-Stalinist then they are brain washed. I do not hate someone because they are pro-Stalinist or pro-Reagan (I do not think he was that bad but he still was a liar) or pro-Alien (like us in Japan!). I just realize that that person has limited knowledge and really feel sorry for them. Or maybe they do not feel the same love that I can feel all around me from the plants to the animals to the humans (people say we are animals but that is only if you act like one!).

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@Harry Gatto

Doesn't matter that it is a nautical term, half-staff is used in the US and maybe elsewhere but half-mast is used in UK and the Commonwealth.

Minor point, but In the U.S. we use both expressions, at least in my part of the country, the upper mid-west/Great Lakes area.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No public wailing and tears ? yes, they are confused.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japan should turn its back on nk! life moves on lol yay he's dead!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

even if I did talk with them, you think they would give true answers or hold an honest conversation?

I can't speak for all of them but I do have several friends from NK and we do have honest conversations. I guess after 20 years I would know whether someone is honest or not. It is only natural that one loves his mother country, people tend to look at the good things in general. I also have many NK friends that got displaced by Stalin to central Russia. They have the same feelings than the ones here, they had it much harder there than the ones who came here. 100% integration into a country is not feasable, people like to protect their roots and it is completely understandable. Why do foreigners here send their kids to Tokyo International school? Why do they talk to them in 2 languages? Why do they keep their culture alive? Why is it ok for those foreigners to do it but not for NKs? We are foreigners here and so are they. Japan is not a colony from Britain, so immigration and integration are a completely different problem and it is very natural that people form groups just as they do when immigrating to non-British colony countries.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

NK's in Japan follow orders not to intergrate withthe local culture

Gurukun: Never heard about that from them personally, it might just be fabricated propaganda. And they all went to NK school. Do you have any proof of this?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Opps left out God, he is in Gods hands now. It is not my place to determine or judge.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Yuri san good points, McCain this old American dude in the USA made a similar comment about where Kim Jong Il may be now, I think he said in a warm corner of hell, along with Stalin, Osama bin laden and others.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Gurukun: Never heard about that from them personally, it might just be fabricated propaganda

NK's in Japan follow orders not to intergrate withthe local culture

. Foxie, I don't have friends from NK, however, with everything I have read (various news stories and reports), of course you wouldn't have heard it personally from any of your friends. I'm sure the NK friends you have are wonderful people, however, while living in Japan they a being controlled by NK. If they cant be an open, productie member of Japan and want to be still controlled by NK, then maybe they should thing about thier priorities a little bit more.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Is this article referring to all the people who thought Lil' Kim died?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

The last time anyone checked, Japan is a free country. Free speech is one of them. Even those who refuse to sing the national anthem are expressing a silent form of free speech. As long as the NK and Japanese go back and forth about apologies, etc. there will never be progress and global understanding of differences.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

There is something good about North Korea. I heard that women from North Korea are 100% natural and beautiful. South Korean women 100% plastic.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

“Both students and faculty members, we are all deeply confused,” said an official at the gate of Korea University in western Tokyo. “We just want to be left alone for some time.”

This North Korean University is right in front of my house here in Tokyo, so they are VERY, VERY quiet now, kind of nice for a change to having them all drunk and loud, you know, like regular young people, RIP old North Korean dictator dude.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I've never seen s better reason for immediate mass deportation.

Me either. Feel sorry for the kids brought up in this never-ending circle of hate.

I'm guessing they are showing their loyalty by "toughing it out" in Japan. As a major source of revenue, they are directly assisting a hostile nation and Japan is well within it's rights to deport them. Problem is - who is who? Start with the known offenders, anyone connected with pro-Pyongyang activities gets sent first - one suitcase each.

Why did NK need to kidnap when it could have asked for Japanese-speaking volunteers from this mob?

-2 ( +2 / -3 )

Many of them use Japanese name and many others are embedded in japanese politics.

If you look on the internet know who they are.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

First they will cry from joy and as it becomes worse and worse when they are invaded by the USA, the real tears of horror and desperation will come.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

"I can only hope that the above calls for mass deportation are only poor attempts at humor. This is a population that has lived in Japan for generations, and has been discrimated against. Most of the people who are in Japan and called "Korean" speak Japanese, and are for most practical purposes culturally Japanese."

I and most Japanese would be happy if they returned to their motherland.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

Japan was so pathetic! They dont like Kim JonIl and theyw ere frustrated by the North Korean ballistic missile flew over their airspace, they biggoted over the abduction issue...etc. And the Japnese society tolerant or willfully offsight those nationalist thugs bullying and assaulting those innocent North Korean people! I think the Japanese society and their government were practicing a kind of 'apartheidism' without annoucement!

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

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