Just to the right of the Shin Okubo station is a cute little neighborhood for all things Korean. The station is only one stop away from the popular Shinjuku station on the Yamanote line. One of my favorite things here in Tokyo is that in the huge metropolis that is Tokyo, every train stations and neighborhoods have a different feel to them. Some of them are crawling with tourists and locals alike like Harajuku, some are more residential but with a life of its own, and some are defined by certain characteristics.
My little visit to the Korea town of Tokyo made me aware of the globalization that is happening everywhere. Living in America makes it easy to take for granted the different backgrounds of all kinds of people, yet we are all connected through being American. In Japan and many other countries, the meaning of being Japanese is more heavily ethnically emphasizes. Even in the international city of Tokyo, it’s still relatively easy to stand out as foreigner. However, there are still many people who calls Japan their home even if they may or may not be so-called ethnically Japanese. I would love to learn more about their stories, and relate it back to mine and others stories in America.
On our midterm test, there was a reading session about how there was a recent increase in Japanese students learning Asian languages that I thought was interesting. According to this essay, there is an increase interest in dramas and pop cultures from Korea and China that cause this increase in the language studies.
