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Entry tags:	japanese culture

No Koreans Allowed

A Japanese TV program visits the island of Tsushima to investigate the frictions between Korean tourists and locals. At one restaurant, they found a sign banning the entry of Korean customers. Here’s a subtitled video clip of them speaking to the restaurant owner:




The owner was fed up with the “bad manners” of Korean tourists, so he decided to reject everyone from their country.

Afterwards, they visit a restaurant that is happy to welcome Koreans. The owner used to be involved in the fishing industry and would frequently travel to South Korea, so he has some experience with Korean culture. He says that Koreans tend to act the same way at restaurants in their own country, so it’s not like they are deliberately being rude in Japan. Some Japanese without his experiences might not understand the differences in manners and customs between the two countries.

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The next clip shows some behavior that is a deliberately rude

At Tsushima’s Watatsumi shrine, they find a prayer tablet with Korean writing on it. Their interpreter tells them that it contains the message “Tsushima belongs to Korea” alongside a declaration of Korean sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks.

The issue of Koreans trying to claim Tsushima as their own territory has been mentioned in previous posts about Korean visitors to Tsushima. The South Korean city Masan has passed an ordinance claiming ownership of the Japanese island, and nationalist groups have also held “Tsushima belongs to us” protests on Japanese soil.

Other Japanese news reports have included images of prayer tablets that had their original Japanese messages crossed out and replaced with nationalistic messages from Korean vandals.

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Finally, here’s a clip about Korean garbage that litters the shores of Tsushima and the illegal fishing practices of some Korean tourists:


The marine garbage problem has been getting a lot of Japanese media attention, as Tsushima isn’t the only area being hit by a flood of junk with Korean writing on it. As has been mentioned in previous posts, South Korean volunteer organizations have been helping clean up the trash on Tsushima’s beaches.

The fishing issue involves the dumping of bait into the water to attract extra fish. To prevent overfishing, there is a law that bans non-citizens from engaging in this practice. Every time the Japanese media sends a camera crew to Tsushima, they seem to have little trouble finding Koreans who are violating this law. Some are unaware of the law, while others knowingly violate it. The South Korean media has even aired TV reports about the illegal fishing and bad manners of Korean tourists who visit Tsushima.

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Over at the Marmot’s Hole, Robert has been posted a video clip of a small group of Japanese welcoming South Korean tourists to Tsushima with cries of “Go back to Korea!”　　They use the term “chosenjin” when referring to the Koreans, apparently because it is considered an offensive term in Korea:

The people in the clip are identified as members of the Tokyo citizen’s group Shuken Kaifuku wo Mezasu Kai (The Society to Seek Restoration of Sovereignty), which has also been active in pushing for changes to Japanese history textbooks that “give school children false information.” It would seem that they got so riled up about the actions of certain Korean tourists that they bought plane tickets from Tokyo and flew over for a protest.

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