An eyewitness account from early-1980s Seoul exposing how Japanese journalists prioritized ideology over facts in reporting on Korea.

2017-05-04
I no longer believe this to be mere coincidence, but after August three years ago, I first came to know Professor 古田博司 of the University of Tsukuba.
As previously stated, he is one of the foremost experts on Korea and the Korean Peninsula of our time.
In the latest issue of the monthly magazine Seiron, released today for 840 yen, his serialized column “After Modernity,” spanning four pages in three-column format, contained an essay that perfectly proved the correctness of my arguments.
This is a fact that all Japanese citizens and people around the world should know.
What follows is a continuation of “The Era of Leftist Propaganda.”
Around 1982 and 1983, Japanese public opinion was still under the influence of socialist propaganda, and the two individuals known as “T.K. students,” Ik Myung-gwan and Ryosuke Yasue, were running a long-term series titled “Correspondence from Korea” in the journal Sekai, from its May 1973 issue through March 1988.
Compared to North Korea, Korea was painted solely with the heavy keyword “dictatorial rule of the Korean military regime,” making the series, in today’s terms, a deformed, performative misreading—a kind of “deconstruction.”
Correspondent 清田治史 had probably read these articles, and may have been shocked by the starkly different reality of Korea.
This was because the only world depicted was one overflowing with poverty and social contradictions.
Fragments of my memory asking, “What on earth was that?” are drawn from here.
One night, while I was having dinner with Mr. Kiyota at the original Samgyetang restaurant in Jongno-gu, Seoul, 若宮啓文, later the editorial chief of the Asahi Shimbun, called out to us from a neighboring seating area.
When Mr. Kiyota stood up and went over, a sudden shouting match erupted.
At that time, Korean restaurants often had bare floors without concrete, and the shouting eventually escalated into a physical scuffle on the dirt floor.
I am not the type to retrieve chestnuts from a fire, so I watched silently, but Mr. Wakamiya’s repeated shouts remain etched in my ears.
“Why do you write only bad things about Korea?”
Hearing this, I was astonished at how foolish a person he was.
If newspaper reporters investigate matters and write only good things, what in the world would society become?
To be continued.