South Korean students flock to Japan • Hacker News Board

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#31

Post by mirimir » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #22

jpatokal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, Korea was repeatedly invaded by Japan. More recently, Korea was a Japanese colony between 1910 and 1945, during which the Japanese ruled with an iron fist and did their best to destroy Korean identity by forcing people to take Japanese names etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan%E2%80%93Korea...

Which certainly explains why Korea doesn't like Japan, but why does Japan seem to dislike Korea so much?

Maybe because they're not Japanese enough.

See https://www.upi.com/TOP_NEWS/WORLD-NEWS/2019/04/17/ANTI-KORE...

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#32

Post by T-R » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #19

jpatokal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Japan has apologized repeatedly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements... However, Japan has more than its fair share of far-right fruitcakes who deny everything, and in both Korea and China politicians have found Japan to be a convenient whipping boy whenever they need a distraction from domestic problems.

However, Japan has more than its fair share of far-right fruitcakes who deny everything They elected a far right "fruitcake" to the post of prime minister.

To be fair, they only elected the conservative party, the LDP; the party elected the prime minister. Granted, they've elected the LDP almost continuously since 1955. Of course, they tried electing the other party in 2009, but their leadership kept resigning. Of course, given the LDP's stranglehold on politics, one has to wonder why they feel a need to pander to the nettouyo.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#33

Post by max76 » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

baolongtrann wrote: post #4

thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

I don't get the "as birthrate sinks and unemployment climbs". It's not like Japan is doing well there. And Japan is infamous for its incredibly negative attitude towards Koreans...

Have to admit I am clueless about the history between these two. Why don't they like each other?

One small chapter of the history "The Mimizuka ... is a monument in Kyoto, Japan, dedicated to the sliced noses of killed Korean soldiers and civilians as well as Ming Chinese troops taken as war trophies during the Japanese invasions of Korea from 1592 to 1598."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimizuka

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#34

Post by School-Cotton » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans

This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.)

Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#35

Post by user982 » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #7

thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

I don't get the "as birthrate sinks and unemployment climbs". It's not like Japan is doing well there. And Japan is infamous for its incredibly negative attitude towards Koreans...

Both countries have low birthrates, but Japan is far enough along the labor shortage curve that unemployment has been essentially eradicated in Japan. From the friendly article: According to Statistics Korea, the national statistics office, the unemployment rate last year for people aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent, compared with 3.8 percent overall and 3.6 percent for Japanese 15 to 24. Also, Japan has a vocal…

> Also, Japan has a vocal far-right fringe, but the average Japanese person has no qualm with Koreans and Korean TV, music, food etc is widely popular.

And Israelis love Palestinian/Arab hummus. That feeling is not transitive to the Palestinian people.

> There are over 500,000 Koreans living in Japan, many 2nd or 3rd generation, and plenty more naturalized Japanese of Korean descent. If anything, I'd suspect there's a lot more antipathy in Korea towards Japan than the other way around...

Zainichi Koreans of any generation are not citizens and have limited rights in Japan, and can face widespread discrimination if they do not hide their identities/ancestry.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#36

Post by School-Cotton » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:44 AM UTC

theaustinseven wrote: post #11

baolongtrann wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to admit I am clueless about the history between these two. Why don't they like each other?

Japan invaded the Korean peninsula as well as a sizeable portion of China and enacted horribly cruel war crimes against the citizens of those places. I won't get into details, but this comment would be akin to asking "What's the history between the Germans and Jews? Why don't they like each other?". The primary difference being that Germany had a reckoning with the history of what happened during that time, while the…

It's worth pointing out, I think, that nowadays most Germans and Jews get along perfectly fine, despite their history a few generations ago.

So just citing that case isn't a full explanation of the enmity between Japanese and Koreans.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#37

Post by entelechy0 » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

You're not considering the Korean perspective. If Korean is your native language, Japanese is significantly easier to pick up than English due to similarities in the grammatical structure and syntax of both languages. Your surprise is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding and stereotype about English because English is, I'm guessing, your native language.

It is mine as well, but I considered the questions you're asking when I was teaching myself Japanese around age 9. I'm 33 now. The barrier of difficulty is all in your mind. You're the only limiting factor. You decide for yourself how difficult something is to do.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#38

Post by asutekku » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

Some of the characters are similar as well as grammar. English follows a completely new set of rules.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#39

Post by duckonomy » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #13

baolongtrann wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to admit I am clueless about the history between these two. Why don't they like each other?

Historically, Korea was repeatedly invaded by Japan. More recently, Korea was a Japanese colony between 1910 and 1945, during which the Japanese ruled with an iron fist and did their best to destroy Korean identity by forcing people to take Japanese names etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan%E2%80%93Korea...

The identity-destroying part only came after 1938. They were trying to do 내선일체 [內鮮一體] (not sure how to translate this in English).

Before that, they actually helped Koreans learn Hangul. I was also very anti-Japan as a I grew up under typical Korean parents.

But after reading the actual history, there were some good parts during the colonization. Although, I'm not denying the horrific parts caused by war. But that's just war. It's horrible to begin with. Not to mention what Koreans did in the Vietnam War to the locals.

I think part of the hostility from either of the countries is caused by only seeing part of the reality.

Re: South Korean students flock to Japan

#40

Post by Zarath » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #34

nemonemo wrote: post #25

South Korean here. My anecdata: some of my friends went to Japan for advanced degrees. Most of them came back within a couple of years after their study. 10x or more people around me went to US. The majority of them are still in the country after a few years. Such tendency was remarkable to me, given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans. There is one thing I can't under…

> given the difficulty of learning English and relative ease of learning Japanese by Koreans This surprises me a bit (I believe you; I am just surprised.) Why do Koreans think learning Japanese is easier than learning English?

Their syntax and grammar is very similar. Korean and Japanese are both among the most difficult languages for an English speaker to learn, so I would imagine the reverse is true for Japanese and Korean speakers as well.

Consider the difference between English and Spanish vs. English and Japanese. If you look at a Spanish sentence, you can more or less translate it word for word to and from English so long as you know the vocabulary and verb conjugations. Japanese on the other hand has an entirely different grammar, uses the case (particle) system, has honorifics and levels of politeness, has entirely different parts of speech from english, is far less ego-oriented (I don't mean this in a judgemental way, just that objects are much more often the subjects of sentences)