Word: korean
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When he was younger, Lee Chek says, he wanted to be a soldier for Kim Jong Il, and "fight Japan." He'd have been fighting from behind enemy lines, of course, because the ethnic-Korean Lee was born and raised in Japan, where has always lived. The 35-year-old is a third-generation zainichi, one of 600,000 ethnic Koreans who dwell in Japan. And, like many zainichi, he grew up identifying with the North Korean regime. Lee attended Korean-language schools run by Chongyron, the fiercely pro-Pyongyang Korean residents association in Japan, where he was taught that...
...Jong Il, and in 2001 he broke with the organization, becoming a freelance journalist. (Lee Chek is a pen name he uses to protect relatives still living in North Korea from retribution.) Chongyron - which functions as North Korea's de-facto diplomatic voice in Japan - took away his North Korean passport, and he hasn't been back to Pyongyang. Permitted to take Korean or Japanese nationality, last year Lee took South Korean citizenship in order to travel abroad...
...decades after World War II and the division of the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang commanded the affection of a large proportion of the Koreans living in Japan, with an obedient and well-funded Chongyron as its organizer. That meant vital cash for the regime's leaders - some Japanese experts believe that Chongyron has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to Pyongyang from semi-mandatory contributions by the zainichi community. But in recent years, the "Dear Leader" has lost the love of Koreans in Japan, thanks to a stream of ugly revelations about the Pyongyang regime, plus the inevitable influence of assimilation...
...seized last month by government creditors. "I think there are a lot of people who feel less allegiance or loyalty to North Korea now," admits one Chongyron associate, who prefers to remain anonymous. "And people are distancing themselves from Chongyron because the organization cannot address the needs of the Korean community...
...that harsh environment, the militant Chongyron organization founded in 1955 proved an effective answer to the need of the zainichi to band together to protect themselves and their identity. Kim offers an example from his own life: As a Korean college graduate in 1961, no Japanese company would hire him, so he went to work for Chongyron...