Factoid of the day

You might have read a snippet in the Japan news coverage about all those North Koreans living in Japan.

The backstory: They are pre WWII immigrants/ forced laborers who didn't go back, and were forced to chose which country they wanted to belong to, and many chose the North when given the choice in the 1950's since propaganda pushed by the north insisted that the UN forces were just another evil outsider seeking to take over Korea, whereas the communist North was really Korea.

.JapanTimes has backstory.

but leaves out that Korea was a colony of Korea before WWII, and that one reason their kids don't chose to become Japanese citizens is the prejudice against them.

so you have second and third generation Korean ethics who are not granted citizenship, and don't feel welcome.

something for the US to remember: both the bigots who think Muslims/Hispanics will never become "True 'Mericans" and the left, who push "multiculturalism" to make them believe they are stuck in their culture and only their culture, so don't dare try to change.

more atWikipedia/Koreans_in_Japan

I ran into a novel about the problem: Pachinko. Book review.