Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!np0.iij.ad.jp!news.iij.ad.jp!sophia.ac.jp!not-for-mail From: "John R. Yamamoto- Wilson" Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,fj.life.in-japan,soc.culture.korean Subject: Re: Why Koreans hate Japanese Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 14:52:32 +0900 Organization: Computer Center, Sophia University Lines: 88 Message-ID: References: <365fcc52.0305201057.565afc97@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305211539.597ffdc@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305232156.7695534a@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305281748.6fd5360d@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305291840.7b936ae6@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 133.12.17.31 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: kanna.cc.sophia.ac.jp 1054273714 94435 133.12.17.31 (30 May 2003 05:48:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 May 2003 05:48:34 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:340 > > but you > > are unlikely to hear anyone referring to "Black Japanese". > > Because historically we don't have any relationship between Africa. Well, up to a point, I suppose, but the reason we say Black British is not so much because of a historical relationship as because the concept of "Britishness" is linked, not so much with ethnicity as with nationality. For example, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Japan, and is ethnically Japanese, but he has British nationality, and is British to all intents and purposes. In Japan, on the other hand, "Japaneseness" cannot be acquired simply by taking Japanese nationality. It is something that comes from one's ethnic make-up, something one is *born* with. Even then, one can "cease" to be Japanese, by living abroad for too many years. Ishiguro would not be considered Japanese, and returnee (kikokushijo) students at Japanese universities are very often there for the simple reason that - even though they are Japanese by birth and perhaps by nationality - if they graduate at a university outside Japan they will no longer be perceived as Japanese. That was the difference I was getting at. There's some disagreement about whether Koreans born in Japan and with Japanese nationality are "Japanese", but when it comes to people who don't even *look* as if they *might* be Japanese (whether they are black or white or brown), there is more or less universal consensus that, even if they have Japanese nationality and were born in Japan, they are not really "Japanese". > The Japanese are not a homogeneous race as people think. As well as > Britain, there are mainly two major origins, Yoyoi and Jomon. Yayoi > refers to those who immigrated from the continent as well as > Anglo-Saxon, and Jomon refers to those aboriginal Japanese including > Ainu and Hayato. Yes, exactly, although even the people you call "aboriginal" came originally from elsewhere. Western part of Japan except southern Shikoku and > Kyushu, that is close to the continent is the region that the more > Yayoi folks inhabit, and the north eastern part of Japan is the Jomon > region. The well-known conflict of "Kansai vs Kanto(west vs east)" is > originated because of this ethnical difference, I think. Well, there's a lot of debate about this. According to one school of thought the Jomon people took over the Yayoi language and culture, but the Yayoi were few in number, and were basically assimilated, genetically speaking, into the Jomon stock. The opposing school contends that the Yayoi pretty much destroyed the original Jomon stock and replaced it. From what we are currently learning about how human populations met and mixed during that period it seems likely that the truth is somewhere in between. During the Kofun period Kanto, Tohoku and Hokkaido were outside the incipient "Japanese" culture, which was being defined by Yamato. Yamato was basically located in the area from Kyushu to the Kinai plain (i.e., it included the Kinki, or Kansai, area). There doesn't seem to be any certainty about whether Yamato culture was developed by the Yayoi people, but it is not implausible. If so, you could make the following analogy: the older, "Jomon", areas of Kanto, Tohoku and Hokkaido were to the newer, "Yayoi" culture of Yamato as the Celtic areas of Britain were to Anglo-Saxon England. An attractive, and not implausible analogy, but there's no real proof about it either way. Has anyone conducted tests on the genetic make up of the present-day inhabitants of the different regions of Japan? Tests on the genetic make-up of the Celts and the English are giving some very interesting (but still inconclusive) results. Another very important aspect is language. The Celts had (and still have, up to a point) their own languages, unrelated to English, which is a pretty clear determiner of a separate culture. The Ainu language survived until comparatively recent times, but what language(s) would the inhabitants of Kanto and Tohoku have been speaking in the Kofun period? At any rate, whereas England continued to be the main power-holder in the British Isles, Yamato finally gave way, and the seat of power shifted. I wonder whether this sense of having been bypassed, overlooked, ousted (whatever you'd want to call it) lies more at the core of the sense of Kansai resentment felt by Kaz than any supposed genetic difference between the Kansai and Kanto stock? Still, it'd be interesting to see some actual *research* (as opposed to speculation). Perhaps there *is* a genetic difference. -- John http://rarebooksinjapan.com