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[Reporter's Eye]
Excessive Japaneseization
by Lee Hyeon-ju, Culture Reporter, twohj1218@mju.ac.kr
It is known that a real estate developer and a Japanese franchise food company will establish 'Japan Town' on the first and second floors of residence complex located in a Baegot new town at Siheung, Gyeonggi-do Province. This Japan town, which is set up as a business run by private companies to promote commercial areas, will have about 50 famous restaurants in Osaka, Japan, and Japanese locals will directly run their own shops.
The problem is, people are strongly opposing to this project. Because this year in 2019, is the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Movement, this year is more anti-Japanese than ever. In this situation, making a town full of Japanese and Japanese national flags in the middle of the new town is a movement contrary to the national sentiment. The controversy about Japan town became even hotter as the Cheongwadae National People 's Petition bill called for the nullification of Japan Town.
The publisher of the petition wrote, "Our country suffered a great deal of historical pain due to Japanese imperialism and such pain has not been solved yet. In addition, many problems such as the comfort women, the patriotism, and the Dokdo provocation remains unresolved. Our ancestors have made a lot of efforts to eradicate Japanese-style buildings and culture in our territory. So it is doubtful that if it is right to form Japan town because of the revitalization of local commercial areas.” More than 60,000 people agreed to the petition.
Local and new town residents don't care about these introduction of Japanese-style waves. A cafe owner in the complex said she expected that the complex’s economy will revive once the visitor arrives to Japan town because there are at least as many as twenty teams a day. There are about 150 shops in this mall, but only 25 have been found of their owners, and 11 of them are real estate agents. Those who approve of Japan town argued that history and economy should be considered separately. They also expressed hope that the new town will become a tourism city filled with attractions as well as food.
Despite the opposition to Japan town, the real estate companies are moving to continue their business, saying that bringing in Japan town is not related to international politics but revitalizing local commercial areas. Business officials are embarrassed about that the number of Japanese tourists in Korea is more than 1.5 million, and despite the fact that there are a lot of Japanese foods in the country, negative reactions to the creation of Japan town are continuing, and they said the name of Japan town will be changed.
As the official said, many Koreans are traveling to Japan every year, and there are many Japanese restaurants in our country. Due to geographical advantages, short holidays, cheap travel costs due to weak yen effect and an increase in Japan routes, the number of Japanese tourists in Korea is increasing every year. Also, before the controversy over the creation of the Japan town, there was a point that there were many Japanese-style buildings and streets on the Hongdae and Jongno, Seoul. You can easily find Japanese signboards in this alley. A Japanese style bar makes people confused whether this place is Korea.
As a result of this phenomenon, the popularity of Japanese food culture such as Japanese homemade dishes and Japanese style desserts among young people has increased the number of signboards, menus, and products in Japanese. It is pointed out although there are Korean words widely used in our country, we are using Japanese even where we do not even need to use it.
If you search the word 'Sando' by any social network service, more than 9,000 posts are searched. 'Sando' is the sum of the two letters in front of Sandoichi(サンドイッチ), which is a Japanese foreign word of sandwich. If you search for "tamago sando" (egg sandwich), "huleucheu sando" (fruit sandwich) and "katsu sando" (pork cutlet sandwich), you can find 40 thousands posts about the Japanese expression. "Sando" is only one example of Japanese flooding.
At the cafe, you can easily find the menu name in Japanese written in Korean, or many places have written menu name in Japanese hiragana or katakana. Here's an example: Matcha (Malcha or Powdered greend tea), Kohi (coffee), Mochi (glutinous rice cake), keki (cake), stekki (steak), and ang-butter (Bean-butter bread). In addition, many restaurants have written menus only in Japanese style, making it difficult to know what the menu is unless you read the explanations in Korean below.
As the use of Japanese becomes common, major companies have recently begun to label their product names in Japanese. Recently, CJ CheilJedang changed a product's name sold under the name of "eolkeun-udong" to "Karai Udon," meaning spicy Udon in Japanese. Convenience Store Seven-Eleven also launched a Japanese sandwich in November last year, introducing sandwiches and egg sandwiches in the name of " Katsu Sando" and "Tamago sando," respectively. Convenience store CU launched a chewy rollcake named "Mozzi role."
Such indiscreet use of Japanese may confuse language recognition of Korean speakers. According to the article 'Study on Japanese Language Consciousness and Sign Language' (2010, Chungang University Japanese Language Education), about 362 out of 522 respondents answered 'difficult to understand' about Japanese signboards used in Korea. In this paper, author Jin Oc-ja said, "It is not proper to accept and misuse Japanese language indiscriminately," she said. "You should not confuse Koreans' language consciousness by using correct notation when practically necessary."
Due to the historical pain and many unresolved issues, the criticism of Japanese culture in Korea is more severe than any culture. It is also true that it is an anachronistic idea to unconditionally reject Japanese culture. The reason why a culture is popular and widely consumed is that it has attracted popularity which is worthy of its value. In addition, there is also the opinion that there will be more positive aspects such as increasing understanding of each other as the private sector and economic cooperation between Korea and Japan become more active.
However, it is necessary to closely examine whether the Japanese culture we encounter is related to war criminals or extreme right organizations. This is because the profits of Japanese culture that have been consumed as individual freedom flow into the profits of war criminals and extremist organizations, and they can flow into the funds to help comfort troops and Dokdo territorial disputes to Japan. For this reason, we should be wary of accepting their culture indiscriminately in situations where various historical problems have not been solved.
Reporter-s eye, Excessive Japaneseization 내부교정 최종.docx