Reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Just finish reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. The book triggered my childhood memories.

I’m a non-Korean, non-Burakumin Japanese. So I was not on the receiving end of the racial/cultural discrimination growing up in Japan. But I have lived, on occasions, in their neighborhood as a child.

I remember wanting to spend time after school at “rimpo-kan”, a community center, as I understood it when I was 7 years old, situated right next to my elementary school, as most of my classmates did. My mother forbade it, because “rimpo-kan” is considered a “social welfare facility” and my mother told me I don’t belong to the group. In that school, I only had one friend whom I remember hanging out with. I think I was his only friend too… because we two were the only non-Buraku Japanese kids in the class.

Before the end of the first school year, I moved to another city.

I went to 6 different elementary schools before I finished 6th grade because I was relocated due to my parents’ divorce, custody issues, work, etc. So, pretty much almost every year, I was the new kid in the class, going through yet another cycle of making new friends and trying not to be a target of bullying… but sometimes, it’s just not avoidable; being a new kid alone is enough to warrant some kind of “initiation” or “hazing” phase before you are accepted - a dark aspect of Japanese culture that I don’t miss at all.

This “hazing” or “bullying” period forced me to work in pairs or in groups with those who had been the targets of bullies on a permanent basis. One time, in third grade, I was forced to pair up with a boy. He was a loner, and nobody liked him. I didn’t like him either; he talked down to me because I was a girl. I remember him having a strong garlic scent. I knew his family had an okonomiyaki shop. Some kids told me he is not Japanese, though I didn’t understand what it meant. He spoke Japanese, he didn’t look any different (to me at least). I remember not liking other people’s reasons for disliking him. But then I couldn’t like him or defend him because he was mean to me. In retrospect, as an adult, I can think that his meanness could be a form of his defense or something he was taught without fully understanding… but back then I was too young to give him the benefit of the doubt; I wasn’t compassionate toward him, but I had a feeling of unexplainable guilt at the same time.

My stepfather had a large social circle. And he didn’t have discriminatory views; his circle of friends was truly diverse. My mother, on the other hand, though she was a true social butterfly, could be shallow and cruel. She would befriend a Korean Japanese lady. Then when their friendship fell apart, she would attribute the race as the reason for the fallout. Or, she would tell me that my grandmother would be furious if I dated a Korean or a Korean Japanese… even though I’ve never heard or observed my grandmother being disrespectful to anyone ever. I remember feeling skeptical if it was really her, not her mother, who was not comfortable with me dating a Korean descendant.

I’m told you can tell if a person is a “non-Japanese” native resident by their look, their name, their mannerism. Personally, I think it’s a bunch of BS. I don’t even know, for sure, if I’m “Japanese” Japanese. My ancestor may have secretly changed their citizenship or class in the past—a practice that wasn’t uncommon. And frankly, I don’t care enough about my genetic heritage to research my family tree to find out. I don’t think my feeling toward my identity will change with new information.

And I don’t know and I don’t care to know whether my “Japanese” friends are “non-Japanese” or not. Some have been publicly open about their “non-Japanese” or “Buraku” heritage; some are not so public but shared their story privately; and I wouldn’t be surprised if some never shared the info with me. While the experiences associated with the heritage may be invaluable, the biological aspect of the attribute (or lack of) does not impact my relationship with them.

But it is heartbreaking to see your friend struggle living in Japan, the only country he or she has known, the only language he or she speaks, the only culture he or she is familiar with. And it is infuriating to see us accepting the injustice as a way of life, “shōganai” (it can’t be helped).

I think back, and it makes sense to me why I left Japan, leaving my family behind, permanently. I too felt powerless to change.

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