Hosaka Yuji, a professor at Sejong University, has renounced his Japanese citizenship. Known for his criticism and indignation over insulting remarks towards Korea by Japanese politicians, he has taken Korean citizenship after living in the country for 15 years.
¡±I have always been upset by the way Japanese people falsify their history, especially the history involving Korean-Japanese relations. Now that I have become a true Korean, I wish to conduct serious research in this area,¡± Hosaka said.
Asked his opinion on the recent remark made last month by Ishihara Shintaro, the Governor of Tokyo, justifying the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea, Hosaka simply shook his head.
"Japan is becoming more conservative and right-wing," he says. "The Japanese politicians at the top are using that social mentality to gain popularity. Korea should strongly condemn such remarks, instead of being quiet. If Koreans remain silent, the Japanese people will believe that Koreans acknowledge such remarks to be true."
Why is it that Hosaka gets as angry as a native Korean, if not more, over such remarks? The reason goes back to when Hosaka was an undergraduate studying Engineering at Tokyo University.
"I heard about the murder of the last empress in Korea, 'Myungsung hwanghu,' by chance, and was very shocked. I came to Korea to study so that I could find out why Japan did such a horrible thing." After learning Korean, Hosaka went to Korea University for his master's degree and doctorate, where he did historical research.
Hosaka¡¯s research on the Japanese colonial era in Korea eventually led to a dissertation, "Analysis of the Nation-Unification Policies of Japanese Imperialism." Since 1998, Hosaka has taught at the Japanese Language and Literature Department at Sejong University, where he has conducted courses on modern Japanese history, as well as on the Japanese language.
He says that he eventually realized that "the violent murder of the last empress was really true." Hosaka says that each time he learned about something that the Japanese did during that era, including the infamous Unit 731, which conducted biological experiments on living people, or policies forcing Koreans to change their names to Japanese names, he thought about becoming a Korean citizen.
Hosaka is married to a Korean woman, and has two boys and one girl. He says he became a Korean citizen because he loves the way Koreans are warm hearted and caring. ¡°These days, however, it seems like many Koreans are going abroad because they don't like Korea, which I think is a pity,¡± he said.
(Shin Ji-eun, ifyouare@chosun.com )
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