In Between

          In the northern region of Japan where the winter is long, there is a small school somewhat different from the others, that tries to keep that difference throughout the cold, warm, and hot moments of history. The Film ‘Our School (Uri Hakkyo)’ by Kim Myeong-Joon is a documentary about the everyday lives of Zainichi Chosenjin (Foreign Korean in Japan) students and teachers at Hokkaido Korean Primary Middle and High School.

          From daily classroom conversations and playing for the school in many different local and national sports events to visiting North Korea, the film allows the viewer a glimpse into the lives of Korean immigrants in Japan as they work, learn, and live in order to maintain their identity as Zainichi Chosenjin. But it is not an easy task as ‘Introduction: Between the Nations, diaspora and Koreans in Japan’ by Sonia Ryang helps us understand the state of limbo that the Chosenjins live in. Passing on values of any kind to the next generation is a difficult task faced by every culture. But when it is so easy to just hide yourself and let your national heritage assimilate into the surrounding dominant culture, it is a miracle that the school can succeed in changing the attitudes of the students towards their Chosenjin identity. And I believe the film shows that this is possible because of the relationships between the teachers and the students. In other words, the magic is in relationships.

          In Hokkaido Korean Primary Middle and High School, the teachers and students are one. They live together, they laugh together, and they cry together. And the classrooms do not merely teach facts about Korea and the Korean language, but show what it actually looks like to care for one another and treasure what they have. By creating ownership of the school through various activities and by practicing an accepting atmosphere of who they are, the sincerity of the teachers reach into the students and shape their perspectives from wanting to deny their Korean heritage to fully embracing what it means to be a Zainichi Chosenjin.

          Some might ask the question ‘Why?’ ‘Why go through the trouble of keeping a national identity of the past?’ ‘Why bother at all?’ The answer I find in the documentary ‘Our School’ is that without a community, without the link to each other, without a shared identity within family to care, we cannot survive. Like everything that has value, we choose to care even though it is hard. And our caring gives us purpose and a bit more to live for, as in the case of the Chosenjin community of ‘Our School’, friends, family and teachers who live together, for each other.