Being Zainichi 在日

The complexity of the patient-analyst dyad increases when the two have different cultural backgrounds. I am an analyst-in-training who has worked and lived in many contexts, in Japan and the UK. In Japan, I have lived as a third-generation Zainichi Korean. Zainichi refers to Korean immigrants or their descendants (in Japanese, 在zai means “present” and 日nichi means “Japan”). Japan adopts jus sanguinis: Nationality and citizenship are determined by one’s parental heritage, not the country of birth (jus soli). In addition, one cannot hold dual citizenship. After Japan colonised Korea in 1910, Koreans were forced to become Japanese. Of approximately 2 million Koreans who moved to Japan, roughly 40% were forced migrants. After World War II, 30% remained, and many became temporarily stateless under chaos(1,2). Zainichi Koreans suffered severe discrimination in Japan, having a complicated history, while in Korea, they were considered as traitors called 교포 kyoppo, which has a negative connotation. Zainichi Koreans have no country to belong to, and I have always felt like I live in an in-between place. 

Here is an example of how my identity became unsettling from the first day of my psychotherapy training in Japan. My patient was an intelligent, professional woman who was unaware of my background because I had adopted a Japanese name after my marriage. I began to feel terrified as she repeatedly blamed the Zainichi Koreans in a firm tone. “Filthy” and “cheater” were the words she used. I took a leave during her treatment for a personal reason, but looking back, I wondered if this was my acting out to escape from her.

Shortly after that, I had another patient criticising her daughter-in-law, saying she hated the seaweed her daughter-in-law used because it was Korean, not Japanese, and the intense odour of sesame oil disgusted her. Neither of my patients knew my background, but I felt attacked. I did not know how to handle the countertransference I had about the sudden negative reaction to my hidden identity. I felt I was not honest, as if I was lying to my patients, not making it clear that I was Zainichi.

Thinking about my childhood, what my mother always told me comes back: “You should not think they (the Japanese people) will treat you the same. You are different. You don’t belong to them. They will attack you, so you have to exceed them in every way.” So, from early on, I was made to prepare for how to survive in Japanese society. As is common among many minority groups, my family regarded education and specific professional qualifications, such as being a lawyer or a medical doctor, as indispensable to having a safe life in a country where you don’t belong and where you are not welcomed. 

My mother tongue is Japanese, and I would have passed as Japanese had I had a Japanese name, but my family name was peculiar to my classmates. Because of how it sounded, they associated it with various things to make fun of me: mothballs, or the name of a fox that a hunter killed in a Japanese folktale. I hated my name, as it made it impossible for me to blend in. My parents taught me that the name reflects our family’s Yangban (the ruling class of Joseon Korea, circa 1392–1897) heritage. It had no meaning to me as a young child, and I felt intense shame. 

When I was six, my family moved to the US, and I was the only Asian child in my class. Again, the children made unpleasant comments, but this time because my difference was apparent to me, and somehow it didn’t matter that much. The Western children looked different and spoke an unfamiliar language. As a small child in the US, where I felt truly foreign, it was much easier not to care so deeply about being different, and there was so much to absorb, including learning English. All the misunderstandings were understandable. After being able to communicate, I felt accepted as a child from Japan with a Korean background.

 We came back to Japan after a few years, and something else was added to my identity: I gradually began to notice my experience of living in a Western country had a positive impact on those around me. Nevertheless, it did not erase my anxiety that I would be attacked and bullied for being a Zainichi Korean. I tried not to think my friends regarded me as an outsider, and I tried to act as if I was “one of them,” knowing all the time that I was not.

Everything changed after I married a Japanese man and changed my family name and nationality. Now no one could tell I was a Zainichi Korean. It was a profound change, almost like waking up from a nightmare or suddenly finding oneself in a completely different place. I didn’t have to feel nervous when I introduced myself to someone. I would no longer have to carry around my “alien registration card.” I didn’t have to go to a different gate to submit an extra document for re-entry when I came back to Japan from abroad.

My decision to give up my Korean citizenship came out of the blue. As a Zainichi Korean, I had to report all my life events, such as marriage, to Korea through the Korean Union in Japan, even though I didn’t have command of the language. My mother recommended that I become a Japanese citizen just because the bureaucratic procedures would become much easier. Unconsciously, she might have wanted me to do that for my family-in-law, considering how Zainichi were perceived, although my in-laws showed deep respect for my Korean heritage.     

There is a moment I can never forget. When I went through the process of becoming a Japanese citizen, the officer, declaring me a Japanese citizen, said, “Congratulations!” I felt a silent anger. Why? For the twenty-five years of tolerating being a second-class citizen? Being confused, wondering what all the effort was for to stay proud of my Korean heritage? I didn’t want to collude with him, assuming he thought I didn’t want to be Korean anymore. I almost said, “There is nothing to congratulate.” 

What I soon found out was that changing my name and nationality did not change my feeling of isolation. It remained. I never felt I belonged to any group. Once, as I was watching a sports match between Japan and Korea, my husband asked which team I was supporting. I couldn’t answer. So, what did I do? I pursued my career as I had always done. I was convinced that that was the only way to live, and I was enthusiastic about finding “my place” somewhere in this world. I moved to urban cities in Japan, and eventually to London to deepen my psychoanalytic training. 

In London, I again became one of the Asians in a Western country. My patients assumed I was Japanese from my name, and the transference was expressed through various images and materials associated with Japan. In Japan, I was forced to face my hidden Korean self; in the UK, my Japanese surface was under the spotlight. I came to accept my part, born and raised in Japan, seeing how my patients were using me as a transferential object. It made me contain the Japanese identity I had to keep on refusing, not to betray my origin. But as much as I cannot erase my roots as a Zainichi Korean, I cannot erase my Japanese part, my own history as an individual raised in Japan. They began to coexist; each started to have a legitimate place in myself. It had been more than ten years since I had changed my nationality, and the time and experience I had needed started helping me weave both countries together. 

As these changes slowly took place, one Japanese patient began making Korean food, even though she had no way of knowing about my background. There was a quiet pleasure in being able to cook. I find myself still deeply affected by that moment she expressed her satisfaction, assuming there might have been some unconscious communication between us. I felt I was allowed to have my double self in the room. 

London helped me reconcile the two different countries within me. Its diversity allowed me to be myself. And looking back, I think my analyst’s containment of both countries had a profound impact on this process. I didn’t want to leave, but after completing my training, I couldn’t extend my visa. I had to return to Japan. 

I find it intriguing that I still wonder where I will settle. I feel I live in the in-between space of the various places I’ve lived. My colleague who immigrated to London once told me, “Once you move, you cannot return to who you were, and you belong not to the places but to those who moved.”