Change and Differentiation of Japan's Perception about South Korea during 'the New Era of Japan-South Korea' in the 1980s : Focusing on Reactions toward the Boom of 'Come Back to Busan Port'

This paper analyzes how Japan reacted to the cover boom of ‘Come Back to Busan Port’ around 1984, which was originally released in 1976 by Cho Yongpil and became a mega-hit song in South Korea. The lyrics of the song was about a brother who became separated probably during the colonial period and finally returned to Busan from Japan. In 1975, South Korean government started to permit the visit by Koreans in Japan, who had supported North Korea and therefore had been deprived of opportunities to visit their homeland. Their massive return from Japan was a primary reason for the mega-hit of ‘Come Back to Busan Port’. Few years later, when the development of political relation between the two governments led to the declaration of ‘the New Era of Japan-South Korea’ in 1983, ‘Come Back to Busan Port’ became a big hit in Japan and was covered by a lot of Japanese singers. Since the mid 1970s when the political suppression in South Korea was reported in Japanese media, some Japanese started to learn Korean language as a part of social movement. They compared the original Korean lyrics and the Japanese lyrics of ‘Come Back to Busan Port’, and criticized the latter had eliminated the historical context of the original lyrics such as the colonial rule of Japan and the Cold War. Usuki Keiko, born in 1948, witnessed sex tourism by Japanese men on her first visit to Seoul in the late 1970s. When she returned from her one-year stay in Seoul to study Korean, ‘Come Back to Busan Port’ was usually being sung in Karaoke Bars by women from Asian countries including South Korea, which she perceived as a continuation of colonialism. On the other hand, there were also some journalists who studied Korean. Kuroda Katsuhiro, born in 1941, worked as a correspondent in Seoul from 1980 to 1984. When the cover boom of ‘Come Back to Busan Port’ was reported in South Korea, he confronted deep-rooted vigilance of Koreans toward Japan. While some Japanese activists and Koreans argued that the boom was an expression of imperialist nostalgia of Japan, he emphasized that the popularity of the song was an indication of normalization of the asymmetric relation between Japan and South Korea. He also highlighted the fact that the original singer of the song was male, which he thought was an important sign of change of sex imperialism by Japan. The first appearance of Japanese who studied Korean language, supported the expansion and diversification of the image of South Korea in Japan. At the same time, the emergence of opposite reactions toward the boom of ‘Come Back to Busan Port’, also exposed the differentiation of Japan’s perception about South Korea.