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The blog of Kaoru Hasuike featuring a travelogue on his visit to South Korea.
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A Japanese man who spent some 23 years in North Korean captivity has posted a glowing account of his first visit to South Korea on the Internet. Kaoru Hasuike, who is also known as a translator of Korean literature, made his first visit to the South from Feb. 23 to March 1 with his wife.
Hasuike and his wife were kidnapped by North Korea in his hometown of Niigata in 1978, when he was a law student at Chuo University. He was held in the North for 23 years and only returned to Japan in 2003. ¡°There is a country which shares a border and a national bloodline with North Korea but has a totally different political and economic system,¡± he says on his blog. ¡°I just wanted to see South Korea with my own eyes.¡±
Hasuike has not decided how many entries on the trip he will post. But he said there are many valuable things he and his wife saw in South Korea. In an e-mail, he told the Chosun Ilbo he felt that ¡°South Korea is so close and familiar that it wasn¡¯t like a foreign country at all,¡± and he found it easy to make friends with South Koreans, whom he described as ¡°straightforward and honest.¡±
Since being freed, Hasuike has translated Korean literary works like Kim Hoon's "Song of Sword", Ryu Shiva's "I Miss You Even When You Are With Me" and Gong Ji-young's "Our Happy Time" into Japanese to stimulate cultural exchange between the two countries. ¡°South Korea and Japan started paving the way for cultural exchanges in literature, and they are open enough to understand each other,¡± he said in the e-mail. He vowed to work to broaden the way further.
Currently teaching Korean at Niigata Sangyo University, he also in 2004 re-started his studies, which were interrupted by the abduction. He is finally to get his diploma on March 25, 30 years after the kidnapping.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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