When a North Korean missile flown over Japan makes headlines, Jinhee – and all Korean students – become prominent public scapegoats, immediately identifiable by their school uniforms. When Jinhee transferred from a Japanese to Korean school in sixth grade, whatever cultural and social benefits she might have gleaned from being educated by and with other Zainichi was initially overshadowed by her inability to speak Korean, making her an easy target for bullies. To understand why is to return to her Tokyo middle school where Ginny was Jinhee Pak, a Zainichi Korean, someone born in Japan of ethnic Korean heritage. She’s facing expulsion at her latest school in Oregon after being forced out of Hawaii and Tokyo. “High school was as cruel as ever,” Ginny Park comments. The result, The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart, is a literary triumph that’s both outstanding storytelling and searing societal commentary. Through these features, the novel communicates a sense of the problems faced by minority groups within Japanese society and demonstrates the immense potential of Zainichi Korean literature.Īppears in Collections: Graduate School of International Studies (국제대학원) Institute for Japanese Studies(일본연구소) Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies (SJJS) Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies vol.7 no.Debut author Chesil commemorated the end of her 20s by writing a novel based on her childhood experiences. Furthermore, it sends a message to Japan as it enters an era of multicultural co-existence by making manifest the multilayered issues faced by Zainichi Koreans.

The work also highlights the role of Chosŏn schools and ethnic education by showing how Jini chooses a rebellious path. Jini no pazuru illuminates the significance of ethnic education by introducing this narrative framework. By creating a more generalized experience in a third country, the novel sheds new light on the place of the individual within the community. At the same time, by innovatively incorporating the geographical space of the US, it moves away from the cliché of existing Zainichi Korean literature, which usually tends to circle around the subjects of Japan, North Korea, and Zainichi Korean society.

In this process, the novel questions the function of ethnic education, and mounts a critique of North Korea and Japanese society at large. In particular, the novel highlights the difficulties faced by Zainichi Korean schoolchildren, who are doubly marginalized figures in Japanese society. The novel focuses on Jini, a student at a Chosŏn school, and the personal turmoil she undergoes in her experience of this school. Against the backdrop of “Chosŏn schools” (Chōsen gakkō/Chosŏn hakkyo), which are Zainichi institutions of ethnic education, Jini no pazuru deals with multiple issues pertaining to Zainichi Koreans, including ethnic education, North Korea and the North Korean repatriation project, and anti-Korean sentiment. 1-22Ībstract This study analyzes the function and significance of Zainichi ethnic education in the era of multicultural coexistence through an exploration of Jini no pazuru (Jini’s Puzzle), a novel published in 2016 by Zainichi Korean author Che Sil, and its treatment of ethnic education. Publisher Institute for Japanese Studies, Seoul National UniversityĬitation Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol.7 No.1, pp.