"Musashi" <Miyamoto@Hosokawa.co.jp> wrote in message

> Well I for one did notice some "discomfort" in their use of Japanese when
> they first returned

They were supposed to feel the discomfort of emotion,
reversed-culture-shock. At first,
when they spoke Chosen-go, I was already surprised by their skills as
orators, how they presented themselves to the media. They seemed trained
like talentos or politicians.
The children are not like that, so that's not genetic.

About the look, you should observe Soga in photos of when she was in
North-Korea (she looked very Japanese in hair-cut, make-up, clothes), when
she arrived (with a look of North-Korean farmer in Sunday suit), and after 3
weeks in Japan (back to a normal Japanese appearance).
Too bad we didn't see pictures of the others.

> and saw more ease and fluency as time passed.

They spoke Japanese a bit slowly during about 2 or 3 weeks....then, they
were so natural, and also great mediatic orators in Japanese. Particularly
Soga.

> And Korean while as we all know is
> far from Japanese, still is closer
> than western languages in terms of pronunciation.

Ah yeah ? Anyway, I don't think that would help, they'd have to make more
efforts  to avoid mixing words and accents of the 2 languages.

> Therefore I think it would be an an error to assume that we shuld have
seen
> the kind of "discomfort using Japanese"

I don't assume, I have observed most other people have either a discomfort,
a change of accent and gestures, obsolete words, something different. And
they take months or years to "recover", or never regain their former
fluency. It's rare to readapt imediatly.

I compare their reaction with other returnees I know, and people that were
in the media like French people that were hostages in Lebanon during a few
years, that French woman that spent 20 yrs in jail in Thailande, and much
closer, to the other North-Korean abductee that still lives there and came
to Japan just for a visit and to see his Mum.
I find the 5 too exceptional to be true.

CC