Presentation and Discussion Summary

In cycle 2, I researched about current life of Zainichi Korean. In cycle 1, I researched about their history mainly. In this presentation, I focus on news about social aid for foreigners, especially for ZainichiRecently, over 43,000 foreigners have received social aid, and two-thirds of them are North and South Zainichi Korean. Why the number of foreigners who receive social aid is increasing in spite of the fact that the money of social aid is from the money which is produced by Japanese people’s working. Do they just receive social aid because they can get it easy? Some foreigners may be so. But, there may be one reason that they have to receive social aid. So, I tried to research about the reason why they receive social aid and how good their current lifestyle. There are three aspects to catch up this topic. One is about their work place. Second aspect is their education continuance rate. The last one is about social security for foreigners.

In the first place, 60% of Zainichi Korean owns his/her own business. The parents of my Zainichi Korean friend is also own Yakiniku store in Shinjuku! Although recent Japanese company accepts many good foreigners, discrimination in work place has existed for a long time still now. In the second place, whether education continuance rate of Zainichi Korean is higher or lower than counterpart of Japanese. This answer is that there is no difference between Japanese and Korean in either when they enter high school and university. Therefore, this aspect doesn’t become main reason why many Zainichi Korean receive social aid. The last one is about social security for foreigners. Current policy is made completely for every people who live in Japan including foreigners. But, these policies made about 30 years ago. So, old Zainichi people couldn’t join national pension. As a result, they can’t give any money from government now. Then, they have no choice except they receive social aid.

After my presentation, Go and I discuss about the topic that whether Japanese government should support Zainichi foreign people. I think Japanese government shouldn’t help Zainichi foreigners in terms of monetary problem. Because they choose to come to Japan on their own judge. If they are under difficult situation and think that they can’t live in Japan anymore, they should go back to their own country. When we go overseas, it means we have to accept the culture of the country. Sometimes you may be discriminated by the people because of the different background. I think the citizens aren’t bad. Bad man is man who never accept the culture of the country where you go to.

On the other hand, Go says that all Zainichi Korean are second, third or forth generation now, and they are almost Japanese except their nationality. They don’t know their culture of the country very much. Some Zainichi people don’t know he/she is Zainichi Korean until they grow up. So, he thinks young Zainichi Korean or other foreigners have the same right to receive social security with Japanese people. I agreed the point that young zainichi foreigners situation is different from their original generation who came to Japan. But, if he didn’t lose their culture of their country, I think we shouldn’t support them as a policy of government.