A Long Loop: Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan

A Long Loop: Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan

Sonia Ryang

Johns Hopkins University

Focusing on new women immigrants/migrants from Korea to Japan in recent years, this article explores the form of transmigratory practice of U-turnees, who have past experiences of having lived in Japan or been born there prior to the end of Japans colonial rule in 1945 and returned to Japan around the year 1989 when the South Korean government lifted the restriction of overseas travel for its citizens. I suggest through mini life histories of five women that their lives can best be understood in terms of ongoing engagement with more than one nation-state as home. On this basis, I argue that what might look like a chaotic swirl of new immigrants/migrants is in fact not based on the discovery of a brave new world, but firmly based on family history and configurated by state-to-state relations.

The decade of the 1990s began with the explosive awareness of the new migrations that no longer succumbed to a set of one-dimensional problems of settlement and acculturation. By the mid-1990s, we acquired a host of new vocabulary, including "global ethnoscape," "deterritorialization," "global implosion," "transnationalism," and "transnationalization" in order to fully account for the rapidly changing global human geography (Appadurai, 1991; Kearny, 1995; Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton-Blanc, 1995; Friedman, 1998). New space, new flows, and new media such as the Internet were introduced with great excitement into academic tropes, and the hopeful language abounded predicting the declining role of the nation-state, radical break with the old culture by migrating into the new, and the creation of transnational spaces both through migration and by multinational corporations.

By the end of the century, however, as Basch, Glick Schiller and Szanton-Blanc suggested (1994), nation-states are -- deterritorialized or not -- more or less intact, multinationals are firmly based in their home states, and internal migrants and transnationals who seem to form "urban swirls" (Han-nerz, 1992), upon closer examination, are indeed in ongoing close contact with their hometown or homeland, hardly deserting their old enclaves. Far from making a radical break from rural origins, like Kikuyu and Zimbabwean labor migrants studied respectively by Droz and Sottas (1997) and Fer-

0198-9183/02/3603.0139

894 IMR Volume 36 Number 3 (Fall 2002):894-911

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 895

guson (1990a, 1990b), migrants come, go, stay or indeed do all those, making the migration cyclical and circular between home and the city and delaying the commitment to become the urban poor or acculturated alien residents. In other words, constant communication and communion with their homes are ever present.

Similarly, many international migrants continue to be connected with their domestic and kin groups, no matter how internationally scattered they may be, especially in the case of former refugees, and continue to move around, often returning to the homeland they thought they had left. There are many reasons for this: racism and discrimination in the host society; sufficient money saved to start a business at home; and the change of the politico-economic situation back home. Either way, those migrants are more aptly called "transmigrants" as defined by Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton-Blanc (1995), who state: "Transmigrants are immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one nation-state" (p. 48).

In this connection, it would be useful to note what William Scheuerman (1999) warns with respect to die overstatement of globalization, where the primacy of the regional economic integration is forgotten behind the exaggerated language of open markets, capital mobility, and the diminished role of states. He points out that multinational corporations in many ways continue to be nationally based, while nation-states continue to play an important role in markets. Transmigrational operation is often made possible not despite, but precisely because of this condition created by the continuing presence of the nation-states in regulating the flows in and out of national borders.

The term transmigration captures the case of Korean migrants in Japan, or more precisely Korean migrant women in this article, who travel, settle, or do both between Japan and Korea, over many decades, often their entire life, encompassing the colonial period of 1910 to 1945, Cold War tension of the 1960s and 1970s, and the post-Cold War age of free travel. In their lives, as indicated by Scheuerman's point above, the role played by interstate and international relations of power deeply influence their transmigration. At any rate, far from diminishing or declining, the state-to-state relations between Japan and Korea ever since the colonial period have preemptively structured their limits and possibilities. At the same time, their personal resourcefulness and imaginative ability to carve out the niche amply supplement the internationally-conditioned possibilities.

896 International Migration Review

Their transmigration forms a circular movement, just like Kikuyu and Zimbabwean rural migrants who return home after having lived in urban areas: Korean women transmigrants move in a loop between Japan and Korea over many decades of their life course, reflecting political and economic changes in the relations between the nation-states of Korea and Japan, including colonialism, economic boom and, in particular, different pace of the boom, and the rise and fall of Cold War tension.

These Koreans represent the new type of migrants in the long history of Korean migration to Japan. Due to the prolonged Cold War tension in the region, Koreans who stayed on in Japan after the end of World War II have formed the stateless minority who had no substantial rights or civil status inside Japanese society for a long time. In 1989 the South Korean government lifted the restriction of overseas travel for its citizens. Since then, tens of thousands of South Koreans have migrated to Japan for better job opportunities, which is reminiscent of the colonial period. They are referred to as newcomers. According to the Japanese Immigration Bureau, 360,159 South Korean citizens visited Japan in 1985; in 1989, the figure went up to 515,807; to 978,984 in 1990, and in 1991 it reached the total of 1,097,601. (Nyukoku Kanrikyoku, 1992:234). Upon closer examination, however, one finds that not all newcomers are new. Indeed, there are interesting cases of U-turns, examples of which are shown in this article.

I present and analyze transmigrational practices of five women: some are distinctly circular U-turn migrants, others are frequently-flying traders, but in all cases transmigration with ongoing deep engagements with more than one home across the borders is at the core of their mobile forms of life. The overall picture of recent Korean transmigration in Japan, which is highly complex in time and space, will emerge more clearly through case studies and mini life histories of those women I interviewed. I further discuss the dimensions of gender factors in relation to transnational human flow between the states of Japan and Korea. By so doing, this article will fill the often-mentioned gap in the studies of migration, and immigration in general, by locating such life histories at the center of the study (see Lie, 1995). At the same time, the article casts a new light on the studies of recent Korean migration to Japan that have yet to delineate diverse migratory practices beyond a simple dichotomy of newcomers and "old comers."

A BRIEF HISTORY

Korea officially became Japan's colony in 1910 and remained so until Japan's

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 897

defeat in World War II in 1945. Japan proved to be a popular destination for uprooted Korean peasants from southern provinces in particular, who lost tenantship because of newly introduced colonial land regulations. In 1911, there were 2,527 Koreans on record. In the decennial censuses of 1920, 1930, and 1940, Koreans numbered 40,755, 418,989, and 1,241,178, respectively (Morita, 1996:33). From 1939 onwards, as part of the reinforcement of wartime homefront production, Koreans began to be brought to Japan en masse. Originally, it was a voluntary labor recruitment, but because of the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the government and the military more aggressively recruited laborers, often involving coercion (see, e.g., Рак and Yamada, 1993; Hayashi, 1989). In 1945, when the war was over, there were 2.4 million Koreans in Japan.

Ninety-eight percent of the first generation originally came from the southern provinces, reflecting the geographic proximity to Japan. During the colonial period, Koreans formed ethnic neighborhoods which were largely organized on the basis of regional ties. That was because those who came to Japan as free migrants would have had to rely on relatives or friends, neighbors from home or other connections (see Kim, 1985; Harajiri, 2000). Given that in the pre-1945 agricultural villages Koreans rarely married beyond the prescribed circle of matchmaking, when a single migrant worker married, he would either go home for betrothal and bring the bride back to Japan, or the bride would travel to Japan with a relative who was assigned the responsibility. The sex ratio of Koreans in Japan during the colonial period, however, consistently remained out of proportion, with far greater numbers of males; for example, men and women between the ages 20 and 24 show the uneven ratio of approximately 12:1 (1920), 3:1 (1930), and 1.8:1 (1940) (Morita, 1996:41).

Korean women rarely came to Japan as free laborers. There were some occurrences of groups of women recruited to work in Japanese factories (Kim, 1985), but it is safe to infer that the majority of Korean women came to Japan through marriage. Women who were married to migrant-turned-immigrant Korean men often traveled back and forth between Japan and Korea. The reasons for women to travel were predominantly domestic, including the occasions of childbirth or taking care of the elderly who had fallen sick back home. For example, a few months prior to the due date, especially for the first child, a woman would take a ferry to return home where her kinswomen or in-laws would help with birth and postpartum. A newborn would travel back to Japan with the mother to join the father. The child

898 International Migration Review

would make the trip again whenever younger siblings were born. Men also traveled. Because the employment Korean migrant workers were able to obtain in Japan's labor market was extremely unstable, they often tried their luck on both sides of the Japan Strait whenever a good opportunity arose. Families would travel without knowing their final destinations. In this kind of life cycle, transmigration became the norm.

As soon as World War II was over, the majority of die total 2.4 million Koreans in Japan returned to their South Korean homeland. They had no means to eke out a living without the wartime infrastructure, and they had no choice but to return. Thousands of families also returned home hoping that their kin connections would help them set up new lives in their home towns. As a result, the Korean population in Japan decreased drastically. According to the statistics of the Allied Occupation, Koreans who did not apply for immediate repatriation numbered 647,006. In 1947, the first Alien Registration Law applied to Koreans in Japan counted 529,907 (Morita, 1996:103).

Various events followed the initial zeal of repatriation and caused Koreans to remain in Japan. Korea was divided into North and South Korea, governed respectively by the Soviets and the American military government. The Cold War was already beginning, and, by the time the Korean War was over in 1953, the peninsula had two extremely antagonistic regimes with conflicting ideologies, whose borders were closely guarded against enemy penetration. At that point, no one imagined that the partition would last until after the turn of the century: it was widely regarded as a temporary measure.

Following the fall of Syngman Rhee in April 1960, South Korea entered a long period of military dictatorship led by Presidents Park, Chun, and Roh. It was only in 1989, following the Seoul Olympic Games, that ordinary South Korean citizens were able to travel abroad without being subjected to strict governmental investigation prior to the trip and scrutiny during the trip through its embassies abroad. Any contact with a North Korean person, or even a person who was known to be a North Korea sympathizer, would have created a great personal peril involving imprisonment and torture.

Under these circumstances, Japan proved to be one of the most dangerous places for ordinary South Koreans to visit during the Cold War. Following the partition in 1945 and the establishment of the two antagonistic regimes in 1948, the more popular leftist Korean organization, the League of Koreans, supported North Korea and adopted it as an ideal form of the nation under which the eventual reunification should be achieved. In 1949, the League of Koreans was suppressed by the Allied Occupation forces in

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 899

Japan. After the internal turmoil, the leftists formed a new organization in 1955, uniting the broad nationalist forces alleging a firm loyalty to North Korea. One Japanese intelligence source in 1955 estimated that up to 90 percent of Koreans in Japan supported the northern regime (Hiroyama, 1955:10). This organization, Chongryun in the Korean abbreviation of its name, established a systematic web of affiliations throughout its nationwide organizational units. It reorganized Korean ethnic education that had been destroyed by the Allied Occupation and reoriented the curriculum clearly on educating children to become loyal followers of North Korea and its leader Kim II Sung (1912-1994) (see Ryang, 1997).

For any South Korean visitors to Japan, Chongryun was a life-threatening organization, since the South Korean government by law prohibits its citizens from contact with North Korean or North Korea-supporting individuals abroad. The visitors to Japan were strictly instructed not to contact any Chongryun affiliates and, had such a contact accidentally happened, they were obliged to report to the embassy. Under such conditions, Japan was not the easiest destination for South Korean visitors.

Although prior to 1989 the South Korean government had begun to grant permission to visit families in Japan if the applicants were very elderly, it was after the Seoul Olympic Games that visitors to Japan from South Korea increased at a remarkable pace, as stated above. By that time, the hegemony of Chongryun had declined and, with the shifting generational contour of Korean residents in Japan, homeland politics was no longer the primary concern for younger Koreans who were born in Japan and would live in Japan all their lives.

Prior to the 1965 treaty between South Korea and Japan, Koreans in Japan had no nationality. After 1965, many obtained South Korean nationality, opening up the possibility of traveling overseas and obtaining permanent residence in Japan, which was granted only to those who applied for South Korean nationality. Although postcolonial settlement should not have involved contemporary Cold War politics, the Japanese government explicitly sided with the U.S.-supported southern government and denied permanent residence to Koreans who did not support the latter, grossly violating the basic human rights of those who supported North Korea. Many who acquired South Korean nationality have done so at great political cost, including the ostracization and even the need to leave the North Korea-supporting community altogether. However, with the easing of Cold War tensions, more Koreans in Japan now hold South Korean nationality. The option of not hav-

900 International Migration Review

ing South Korean nationality, unlike at the height of the Cold War, may not mean support for North Korea. Rather, it has more to do with one's immediate personal situation, removed from the expatriate politics that has long since become obsolete, especially in the eyes of younger generations.

Younger Koreans in Japan today look for new possibilities of living in Japan as a non-Japanese minority, a task that is not easy given the tendency found in Japanese society that assumes racial homogeneity as the nation's best feature, although some changes have been made since 1965, including the granting of more secure permanent residence to all Koreans in Japan in 1992 regardless of which regime one supports. It is against this background that we need to understand the lives of recent Korean migrants in Japan.

OSAKA'S KOREATOWN

While doing fieldwork among Koreans in Osaka, Japan, in the early- to mid-1990s, I came across a number of interesting cases of Korean women's migration. As I collected those cases, a certain similarity emerged, notably a loop or a circular migratory pattern, in the sense that many women lived in Japan as children decades ago during the colonial period and, therefore, for them, migrating to Japan was not a move to a brave new world but a return to a place they knew or to which they could personally relate. Cases were taken from my interviews conducted in Osaka's Koreatown, Japan's largest ethnic market with the highest concentration of Koreans in Japan, always maintaining about one third of all the Koreans in Japan -- that is, around 200,000.

My fieldwork initially focused not on women transmigrants, but on the Korean ethnic market in Osaka. As I talked with storeowners who are long-term resident Koreans in Osaka, two new phenomena caught my attention: a wide presence of new immigrant employees from South Korea in those stores and the reference to peddlers, or pottari ajumma (wrapping cloth aunties) who frequently travel between Korea and Japan for import and export of goods. These were unheard of before, measured against my long-term contact with the market going as far back as to the 1970s as a child visiting relatives who lived in the area. Precisely because there are no multinational corporations, Korean market storeowners rely on South Korean traders to secure cheaper wholesale routes. Due to the currency exchange rate difference and cheaper labor costs in South Korea, Korean goods gave greater margins to the retailers in the market {see Ryang, 2000c).

I tried to find women transnational merchants one by one; they would also take the initiative of introducing their friends and acquaintances to me.

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 901

It was clear to me that they had a well-knit network of women who were either newcomers or transnational merchants, and many of them, as we shall see, were U-turnees. Some of my interviewees started as frequent-flyers between Korean markets in Osaka and South Korea as transborder traders and eventually settled (but, again, only temporarily), while others continue to travel frequently between Korea and Japan, though with the hope that they too would settle in Japan in the long run. In the following, I introduce two older women who settled in Osaka, but maintain live, ongoing engagements with Korea.¹

Yusun came over to Japan as a retailer ten years ago. She visits Korea frequently. The most recent time was a ten-day stay in southeastern Korea. Nearly 70 years old, she has several children across Japan and Korea. Born in southwestern Japan during the colonial period, she went to Korea with her parents when she was four years old. After Korea's liberation, she and her family were repatriated. She married in a southwestern port town of Korea, where she eventually opened a beauty salon. She maintained the salon for about 30 years and saved quite substantial money. Seeing an opportunity for investment in transborder clothes trading, Yusun moved to Japan in the late 1980s and began exporting clothes from South Korea. She could migrate to Japan by using the family reunion route: one of her remote relatives in Osaka became her sponsor. Eventually, she opened her own shop in Osaka's Kore-atown. Yusun goes to Korea at least twice a month for stocktaking for both her own store and other stores in the market whose owners rely on her to obtain staple items such as T-shirts, underwear, and stockings from South Korea. Sometimes Yusun buys more adventurous lines and leaves them with other stores in the market, letting them take the margin.

This lifestyle, for her, is akin to her younger days. Her father worked in southwestern Japan first, then moved to Osaka for a slightly better job. Although she was born in Japan, she and her mother stayed in Korea with her grandparents, frequently visiting her father until he found a better place for the family in Osaka. The family expanded in the meantime, her mother giving birth to her brothers and sisters in either Korea or Japan, depending on where she was at the time of labor. When the war was over, the family was living in Osaka and then eventually moved back to Korea. Except during the height of Cold War tension - from the 1960s to 1980s - her life has always been transborder. Now her health is not good, but she says she cannot think

'All the personal names cited in the text are fictitious for the purpose of protecting privacy.

902 International Migration Review

of living in one country only. She says she is not too concerned about territorial attachment, although she would definitely classify herself as Korean. Yusun told me:

I was 17 when my family went back to Korea. Yes, I went to the high school here [in Osaka]; you know, that one in U town. We lived here by then. My Japanese reading was very good. Although I never learned Japanese formally since we went back to Korea, I manage with my high school level Japanese. It's improved much more since I moved back here. My children had all settled by the time I decided to move back to Japan. My husband did not want it. He still lives in Korea and visits me regularly. I visit him and my children regularly, also. I'm not feeling all that strong any more, and so I might pack up again and go back to Korea. I've saved an okay amount of money to do that.

Hyosuk came to Japan twelve years ago, although, like Yusun, she was born and raised in Japan during the colonial period. She has many relatives living in Osaka and moved to Japan by taking advantage of the family reunion option. When she moved back to Japan from South Korea, she first opened a pickle stand, operating in the corner of her house and selling wholesale to other shops. From the beginning, there were occasions on which she had to travel to Korea for various reasons. Her children at that time stayed in Korea, while she and her second husband came to Japan. After a couple of trips, Korean storeowners in Osaka started to ask her to get certain goods from Korea, if possible. In those days, Korea was not easy to reach for resident Koreans in Japan - especially those who did not have South Korean nationality - due to Cold War complications. The situation has changed, but the storeowners find it much easier to stock their shops through Hyosuk's transnational trips.

The orders Hyosuk receives include all kinds of food, herbs, and traditional medicine, in addition to a variety of items such as steel cutlery, dish-wares, pottery, clothes, fabrics, and other sundries such as key rings and photo frames.

After the 1989 liberalization of overseas travel for Koreans, what initially started as favors expanded into a fully stable business. As the number of orders increased, she closed her own pickle stand and began to double the process by making some contacts in Korea. Hyosuk would buy goods in Korea and sell them in Japan, and then buy other goods in Japan and sell them in Korea. The items that reach Korea include sesame seed oil, plastic carry-all bags, particular brands of nylon stockings, glass jewelry, vinyl sandals, and other items that are generally inexpensive. This reflects the currency exchange difference between Japanese yen and Korean won. Sesame seed

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 903

oil is traditionally a Korean ingredient, but a certain Japanese brand turned out to be much more popular in Korea, and that is how what was once a Korean item now gets imported from Japan. Hyosuk enjoys her traveling lifestyle and says she is equally at home in Korea and Japan.

Both Yusun and Hyosuk are placed halfway between the old comer and the new-comer. The fact that they could move to Japan a few years prior to the 1989 shift of South Korean policy was because they took advantage of the family reunion route and, above all, they were not total strangers to Japan. After 1989, they no longer had to worry about the South Korean side in terms of legal control. Both women hold Japanese legal residence, which is not as secure (relatively speaking) as that held by the old comers, but they say it does not bother them, since they can always move back to Korea. Both Yusun and Hyosuk are constrained by the South Korean and Japanese states in terms of border control, legal residency, and other wide areas of everyday life. Even when they visit their immediate families, they have to cross national borders, go through immigration inspections, and so on. At the same time, the state-to-state relation between Japan and Korea in the historical spectrum ensures their well-being. They benefit from their colonial residential experiences in Japan, which enabled them to take border-crossing at an older age with relative ease. What is also characteristic is their gendered location in the nation state border-crossing.

I now introduce three women whose life histories will expand more fully on the gendered location. These women are post-1989 migrants and younger than the previous two women. Unlike Yusun and Hyosuk, who are more or less settled in Japan with ongoing ties to Korea, Ch'unran is a transnational merchant, frequently traveling between Japan and Korea and having only a temporary room in Osaka. Another, Okju, has a well-established business, while the third, Rihui, came to Japan for marriage but, as we shall see, she also has done a loop.

Ch'unran shares an apartment with five other women, all of whom are transnational traders from Korea, but also are looking for an opportunity to have a better base in the Korean market in Osaka, first by establishing their businesses by building connections with locals {i.e., old comers) and then eventually opening a formal store, just like Yusun did. Among her roommates, Ch'unran is the most experienced, having started her trade soon after 1989. She exclusively deals with Korean traditional bridal boutiques. From small to large, there are dozens of Korean bridal shops in the market. These shops, along with Korean food stores, attract clientele from all over Japan.

904 International Migration Review

However, whereas food businesses can be found in other parts of Japan where Koreans live, bridal shops are hard to come by. For a proper celebration of a child's wedding, Korean parents travel to Osaka, where many boutiques rely on traders such as Ch'unran.

I accompanied Ch'unran to visit her customers. The owner of the first boutique we visited spoke very little Korean -- the daughter who was educated in Japanese schools just recently inherited the business. Although Ch'unran spoke hardly any Japanese, she had no problem communicating with the customer due to her samples. The second shop, according to her, was one of her oldest dealers. With various orders secured - complicated color combinations and extremely dexterous designs - Ch'unran was happy. The third boutique was owned by a young second-generation Korean woman who was educated in Chongryun schools. Her Korean was as good as Ch'unran's, and they had no problem communicating. They discussed what was in fashion in Korea, and Ch'unran gave her some tips for sewing. The owner told me that nowhere but Korea could she obtain inexpensive gilded silk tape that she needs for hemming dresses, for example. Ch'unran's transnational trading is extremely helpful for her, since she does not have South Korean nationality and cannot travel to Korea herself.

Ch'unran told me that currently the more tradition-conscious style of wedding gowns is popular among Koreans in Japan - there is a noticeable ethnic revival in terms of bridal ceremonies. According to her:

I'm not sure if it's because Koreans in Japan are craving for their national roots or simply because it's more colorful than western wedding dresses. Either way, the more traditional, the more popular. I find in this sense local Koreans in Osaka very good to work with. They respect my advice on color and style. They work hard and they are honest. I learn a lot from them. I feel close to them - closer than Koreans in Korea, and especially those ones who look down on divorced women like me, you know. This may be because my grandparents lived in Japan before the war. When I was a baby, my parents moved in with them for a short while, but as soon as the war started, we had to move back to Korea. In this sense, Japan is not totally new to me.

Ch'unran's parents were from the southeastern province. Her mother went back to Korea to deliver Ch'unran. Her father joined them, and the family returned to Japan to live with her father's parents. Due to the tension of the war in Japan, the whole family went back to Korea. "Psychologically," said Ch'unran, "Japan was always closer to me than was the U.S. or South America, where everybody else migrated to." Ch'unran is a divorcee and a single mother. She sent her son to a relative who migrated to Argentina, where he goes to high school. Ch'unran visits them at least once a year. Her divorce cost her psycho-

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 905

logically and economically, since, according to her, divorcees are not well accepted in Korean society. But, she tells me, because she is divorced and has no husband to tell her what to do, she can work as a transnational trader, a lifestyle she finds satisfying except for the fact that she cannot live with her son. She hopes to send her son to a college. She, herself, would try basing in Japan where she sees more opportunities and would like to employ trustworthy younger women from South Korea to do the traveling for her.

Just like Ch'unran, Okju is also in her early 50s. She runs a small restaurant near the area called Imazato that is full of Korean bars and pubs, meaning that they serve Korean food and drinks and the hostesses are Korean women. Thousands of women from South Korea work as barmaids in Japan. Okju was one of them. A divorcee with a teenage daughter, she had to find the way to save money quickly. In a few years working as a hostess, she met a Japanese man who financed her restaurant. She works more than ten hours a day, opening the restaurant for lunch and dinner; after dinnertime, the restaurant becomes a karaoke pub.

Okju's restaurant is a gathering place for South Korean hostesses who recycle clothes and exchange information among themselves. Okju herself employs a South Korean immigrant woman as a waitress. Okju is a pious Christian and never misses church services on Sundays. She also sees the pastor frequently to talk about her personal problems.

I was born in Japan, but before I entered the school, the war was over and my parents and grandparents decided to return. My parents had a hard time back in Korea. They had no financial basis to start their new life and also the neighbors were suspicious of them simply because they were the returnees. I learned a bit of Japanese from my mother. Mother always missed Japan. We lived in Kyushu [southwestern Japan] and her Japanese had a lot of dialect on top of the Korean accent. Only now I can tell, now that I myself speak Japanese all right. I came over to Japan because I needed to start over myself. I've worked hard - hard enough to save money to send my daughter to Australia for high school. I find Japan a very homely place - perhaps because I have many friends from South Korea who work here, along with my family background, particularly my mother. I've tried [to migrate to] the U.S. too, but it did not work out, I never liked it.

Okju does not know whether she will return to Korea eventually or not. But she is determined to work as hard as possible while she can so she can save some money for herself and her daughter.

Just like Okju met a Japanese sponsor, Rihui met her Japanese husband through an introduction by her Korean friend who had moved to Japan earlier. In Osaka's Koreatown, this friend got to know a Japanese widower who owned a small but stable food business. Rihui was a widow with two grown

906 International Migration Review

children and one teenage son. She married this man and moved to Japan. Rihui was born in Japan, but returned to Korea with her family when she was still an infant. The fact that she was born in Japan was a factor for her friend to introduce her to a Japanese man. Rihui tells me:

I miss Korea a lot, now that I am here, but I like it here [in Japan] too. It's okay. I have friends and my son [the youngest] is in a college in Tokyo. He's doing well. For all that, I'm glad that I decided to come over here. My days are busy [she helps her husband full time, packing and weighing the goods], but when I have a bit of time, I call up friends [all from South Korea] and we get together for a chat. No, I don't know many of the local Koreans [old comers] and I really do not know any Japanese personally.

Rihui travels to Korea regularly, to get together with her other children. At least once every two months she said she'd be in Korea.

A LONG LOOP

So far, studies of Korean minorities in Japan captured the dimensions of identity, expatriate politics, and diaspora, on the one hand; on the other hand, in contradistinction to the above, issues pertaining to the post-1989 migrants are understood as those of "new comers" (for a fuller exploration of Koreans in Japan, their past and present, see Lee and DeVos, 1980; Weiner, 1994; Ryang, 1997; Ryang, 2000a; Ryang, 2000b). It has been said that there are no notable contacts between the old comers and the new comers, as in Rihui's case, due mainly to the advanced acculturation of the old comers to the Japanese social norms (Ко, 1995). Beyond the binary opposition of old and new Koreans in Japan, as can be seen in the examples of my women interviewees, there is a third space for the U-turnees or circular migrants, no matter how long it took them to return to Japan. This is perhaps understandable in light of the continuing presence of Koreans in Japan since the colonial period and the recent economic benefit that Koreans in Japan belatedly gained toward die end of Japans long boom, lasting from the Korean War of 1950 to the late 1980s. Also, ties to relatives were revived, reflecting the lessened possibility of political persecution and violence that had been a real threat to safety during the Cold War.

But why women? Needless to say it is possible that there are men U-turnees just like those women I introduced in this article. But, in the network of informants in Osaka, it was predominantly women, or indeed mothers, that most readily came forward to talk to me about meir circular migration. It was also the case that these mothers formed loose but ongoing networks among

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 907

themselves and got in touch with each other fairly regularly and whenever necessary.

In light of the gender ideology and gendered practice in everyday life in South Korea, the fact that these U-turnees I met tended to be women was no coincidence. Unlike the male household head, women have the "freedom" to leave Korea, since women have no entitlement in the lineage -- both paternal and matrimonial. The traditionally marginalized position of Korean women ironically enables them to enjoy mobility. We may also note from the example that many women moved in order to better provide for their children and secure their future. Rather than individualistically motivated, their concern tends to be first and foremost their children.

Single motherhood and widowhood are not well protected or supported, not just by the governmental system of welfare and social security, but also by the moral standard of the society in general in Korea. For the women to seek new terrain where they can better provide for their children is imperative, even though it might mean leaving Korea. If they are not located to inherit family names, honors, and ancestral rituals, and if they are either old enough to have lost their parents-in-law to serve or made single by widowhood or divorce, crossing the border would not appear to be much of an obstacle as long as there is a real possibility of improving their situations for themselves and their children.

For these women, much like Pinero women of the Dominican Republic described by Eugenia Georges (1992), the traditional gender ideologies played a certain role in defining and redefining their ontological position in opting to migrate (back) to Japan. In these cases, however, rather than being a follower of Korean traditional codes for femininity, which frowns upon widow marriage or intermarriage, especially with Japanese (due to anti-Japanese nationalism deriving from past colonial relations), women go against the norm: Okju entered a relationship with a Japanese man; Rihui saw in her marriage to a Japanese man an opportunity to better provide for her children; Yusun practically left her husband in Korea.

As Aihwa Ong eloquently shows, gender relations after border-crossing are often radically rearranged even within a marriage (1996). Women I interviewed and their relationships to their male partners were no exception. As Hania Zlotnik reports (1995:265), "migration and marital dissolution are closely linked" in the case of women. These transgressions are, in turn, within the expectations of traditional notions of motherhood -- to be dedicated to one's children's well-being. Their gendered location thus reveals a multifacetedness in the process of transmigration.

908 International Migration Review

If we were to confer too strongly an image of freedom and self-determination to the cases of these women, we would be mistaken, however. Unlike early assumptions of immigrant women's emancipation through economic independence, women's post-migration employment creates far more complex situations, stretching from empowerment to debilitation (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999). The image of individual emancipation that we in the West tend to celebrate certainly is not the case for the women I met in Osaka's Koreatown, whose primary goal of migration and the transmigratory business pattern is to ensure their children's well-being.

As Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton-Blanc (1992:19) allude to, although these women may seem "culturally creative as actors," they operate within "an arena that they do not control" in the final analysis; that is, they are ultimately subjected to the intervention, policing, regulations, and restrictions placed upon them by the nation-states. Such is the reality for all citizens, not just migrants. However, as transmigrants between the former colonizer and the colonized, they are in a more vulnerable position, the double-policing by both Japanese and Korean authorities being a factor.

At the same time, it needs also to be borne in mind that because of (not despite) the nation-state boundaries, women's small businesses can find a niche in which to operate. For example, if Japan and South Korea had an open market of the EU type, Yusun and the others' retail import would not make sense. If labor costs in Japan and South Korea were unified by some kind of higher regulative authority, Ch'unran's costume parts business or Okju's bar would lose their rationale. Consequently, they would not be able to provide for their children in Korea or elsewhere. The local arena women found for their transmigrational operations are viable only inasmuch as the nation-state system continues to control the economic flow between the borders.

Given that the Korean diaspora in Japan has sustained itself, due mostly to the fact that "collective histories of displacement and violent loss cannot be 'cured' by merging into a new national community" (Clifford, 1997:250)

- in this case Japan the former colonial metropolis, the society that upholds
unusually strong faith in racial homogeneity and cultural uniqueness of itself

-- it is hard to say where those U-turnees or circular migrants and other new
comers would be placed in Japanese society.

The prospect of acculturation is a difficult one to predict, but at least one can say that, unlike earlier Korean migrants during the colonial period, those women locate themselves in the valley of complex nation-state systems

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 909

of control and regulation, within the given limitations of their resources, the location as a woman being one of them, the location as mothers being another, and the location of being elderly yet another. In such processes, women renegotiate gender relations and reclaim their positions within the existing mesh of patriarchy, nation-state system, and maternal duties (see Clifford, 1997:258-261). With Japan's recession lasting longer than initially anticipated, it would not be surprising if many "packed up and left" for Korea, as Yusun said; it would be equally possible that they might come back again to Japan, now making a much shorter loop unlike the prior loop that was made much too long due to the Cold War-created absence of contact with relatives in Japan and beyond.

REFERENCES

Appadurai, A.

1991 "Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology." In Recapturing Anthropology. Ed. R. Fox. Sante Fe: School of American Research Press. Pp. 191-210.

Basch, L, N. Glick Schiller and C. Szanton-Blanc

1994 Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States. Langhorne: Gordon & Breach.

Boyd, M.

1989 "Family and Personal Networks in International Migration: Recent Developments and New Agendas," International Migration Review, 23(3):638-670.

Clifford, J.

1997 "Diasporas." In Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. J. Clifford. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 244-277.

Droz, Y. and B. Sottas

1997 "Partir ou Rester? Partir et Rester: Migration des Kikuyu au Kenya," L'Homme, 142:69-

QQ OO.

Ferguson, J.

1990a "Mobile Workers, Modernist Narratives: A Critique of the Historiography of Transition

on the Zambian Copperbelt [Part One]," Journal ofSouthern African Studies, 16(3):385-

412.

1990b "Mobile Workers, Modernist Narratives: A Critique of the Historiography of Transition on the Zambian Copperbelt [Part Two]," Journal of Southern African Studies, 16(4):6O3-621.

Friedman, J.

1998 "Transnationalization, Socio-political Disorder, and Ethnification as Expressions of Declining Global Hegemony," International Political Science Review, 19(3):233-250.

910 International Migration Review

Georges, E.

1992 "Gender, Class, and Migration in the Dominican Republic: Women's Experiences in a Transnational Community." In Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. Ed. N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch and C. Szanton-Blanc. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Pp. 81-99.

Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch and C. Szanton-Blanc

1995 "From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration," Anthropological Quarterly, 68(l):48-63.

1992 "Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration." In Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. Ed. N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch and С Szanton-Blanc. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Pp. 1-24.

Hannerz, U.

1992 Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press.

Harajiri, H.

2000 Korian Taun no Minzokushi-Hawai, LA, Ikuno (Ethnography of Korean towns-Hawaii, LA, Ikuno). Tokyo: Cikuma Shobo.

Hayashi, E.

1989 Kesareta Chosenjin Kyoseirenko no Kiroku: Kanpurenrakusen to Kasho no Kbfutachi (The Erased Record of the Forced Labor Mobilization of Koreans: Pusan-Shimonoseki Ferry and the Miners under the Burning Ground). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.

Hiroyama, S.

1955 "Minsen no Kaisan to Chosensoren no Keisei ni Tsuite" (Dissolution of Minjon and Emergence of Chongryun), Koanjoho, 22:5-11.

Hondagneu-Sotelo, P.

1999 "Introduction: Gender and Contemporary U.S. Immigration," American Behavioral Scientist, 42(4):565-576.

Kearney, M.

1995 "The Local and the Global; The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism," Annual Review of Anthropology, 24:547-565.

Kim, С

1985 Ihbjin wa Kimigayomaru ni None (Foreigners Came on Board Kimigayomaru). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

Ко, S.

1995 "'Shin Kankokujin no Teijuka: Enerugisshu na Gunzo" (The Sedentalization of "New

Koreans": Energetic Images). In Teijuka Sum Gaikokujin (Settling foreigners). Ed. H.

Komai. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Pp. 227-254.

Lee, C. and G. De Vos, eds.

1980 Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lie,J.

1995 "From International Migration to Transnational Diaspora," Contemporary Sociology, 24(4):303-306.

Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan 911

Morita, Y.

1996 Sijiga Kataru Zainichi Chosenjin (Koreans in Japan Seen from Statistics). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.

Ny"koku Kanrikyoku (The Immigration Bureau, Japan)

1992 Shutsunyukoku Kami: Kokusaika Jidai eno Aratana Таю (Immigration Control: New
Approaches toward the Age of the Internationalization). Tokyo: Homusho.

Ong, A.

1996 "Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Cultural Boundaries in the United States," Current Anthropology, 37'(5) :7'32-7'62.

Рак, К. and S. Yamada, eds.

1993 Chosenjin Kyoseirenkb Ronbunshusei (Collected Studies on the Forced Labor Mobiliza
tion of Koreans). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.

Ryang, S., ed.

2000a Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin. London: Routledge.

2000b Koreans in Japan: New Dimensions of Hybrid and Diverse Communities, Korean and Korean American Studies Bulletin, 11(1).

2000c "Osaka's Transnational Town: An Ethnography," Koreans in Japan: New Dimensions of Hybrid and Divers Communities, Korean and Korean American Studies Bulletin, 11(1). Ed. S. Ryang, New Haven: East Rock Institute. Pp. 71-93.

1997 North Koreans in Japan: Language, Ideology, and Identity. Boulder: Westview Press.

Scheuerman, W.

1999 "Economic Globalization and the Rule of Law," Constellations, 6(l):3-25.
Soh, S.

2000 "From Imperial Gifts to Sex Slaves: Theorizing Symbolic Representations of the 'Com
fort Women,'" Social Science Japan Journal, 3(l):59-76.

Tani, T.

1992 "A Study of Inter-Ethnic Relationship: The Growing Ethnic Complexity in the Japanese City," International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 1:115-135.

1995 "Zainichi Kankoku Chosenjin Shakai no Genzai: Chiiki Shakai ni Shoten о Atete" (The Present State of Korean Society in Japan: With Particular Attention to Local Communities). In TeijUka Sum Gaikokujin (Settling Foreigners). Ed. H. Komai. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Pp. 133-161.

Weiner, M.

1994 Race and Migration i, > Imperial Japan. London: Routledge.

Zlotnik, H.

1995 "Migration and the Family: The Female Perspective," Asian and Pacific Migration Jour
nal, 4(2-3):253-271.

Оставить комментарий © Copyright Ryang S. (kazgugnk@yahoo.com) Обновлено: 10/09/2011. 79k. Статистика. Статья: США		Ваша оценка:

Ryang S.: другие произведения.

A Long Loop: Transmigration of Korean Women in Japan