Infinity Challenge and Utoro Village
Infinity Challenge is a really good Korean variety show. It consists of a group of guys and one woman who are given various challenges which usually involve games that include a lot of running, getting muddy, going through supposedly haunted buildings, etc. It's an excellent program and an absolute must to watch. They even do a music festival every couple of years or so and you can see how the teams are chosen and how hard they work to get their music and dance ready for the festival.
Sometimes, though, they get very serious. One episode included a visit by two of the members to a place in Africa that took care of orphaned baby elephants. This was an extremely moving episode as you saw the results of poachers and how wonderfully the workers took care of the baby elephants. The two members from the group were taught how to feed the elephants, wash the elephants and even sleep in the same room as the babies. You could see in one particular case a very strong bond developed between one baby elephant and one of the team's members. When he returned to the area later the elephant obviously remembered him and his care.
There was a series of episodes where the members prepared food for Koreans living outside of Japan. They visited them and usually brought along a video message from some relative who had requested the visit. This was quite moving. One particular place they went, though, was to a place called Utoro village in Japan.
This was a place that originally existed for the use of Korean forced laborers brought to Japan during World War II. The history of what happened is covered and how badly the villagers were treated by the Japanese after the war is also discussed. The show resulted in a number of articles online about the village and I'm going to include a couple below.
The show presented the Japanese government in a very bad light. This ties in to what is going on there even now where the Japanese government has never really apologized for the atrocities committed by their military (such as the Rape of Nanking, the use of comfort women and the use of Koreans and others for forced labor).
Ethnic Koreans in Japan's Utoro village wait for Seoul's help. Apr.17,2007.
At age 74, Hwang Sun-rye, a small woman clad in lumpy, homey clothes, calls herself a fighter. She says she doesn't mind a laborious flight across the East Sea and hours of waiting in the South Korean National Assembly hall to talk to politicians.
Too old or not, she is fighting for a plot of Japanese land her parents cultivated out of wild bamboo and pine trees and her children now call their home.
"Foxes howled, and there was nothing," she said after delivering a letter to a senior lawmaker on Monday to seek support.
"Our parents cultivated the Japanese land day and night. At every step they took, they got scratches in their face from the tree boughs."
Hwang and more than 200 other ethnic Koreans face evacuation from Utoro, a small derelict Korean village in Japan's Kyoto Prefecture. Japanese courts have denied their property rights.
South Korea hesitated to get involved, as their case is entangled in the unsettled legacy of Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula in the previous century.
The Utoro case has become one of Japan's longest-running legal disputes.
"I've been told that the (South Korean) government has been reminding the Japanese government of the issue, but that is not enough," Rep. Kim Won-wung, chairman of the Assembly's unification, foreign affairs and trade committee, said after receiving the letter from Hwang. In the letter, she called for the South Korean government to help the efforts by Utoro residents to retain their little-known community facing demolition.
The story of Utoro began in 1940, when the wartime Japanese government had 1,300 conscripted Koreans work there to build a military airport and installations in the isolated area. But the project was doomed, as Japan was defeated in World War II in 1945.
When the war ended, Japan left them in the wilderness. Some managed to return to Korea, but others who couldn't afford the trip had to remain, cultivating the deserted land into farms. No water or electricity was provided from outside.
The plot of land was owned by Nissan Shatai, an affiliate of the Japanese carmaker. In 1987, with its business in trouble, the company secretly sold the 5-acre plot to a land developer, making the dwellers illegal squatters and prompting the comlex dispute that continues until today. After more transactions occurred, a new owner took the residents to a Kyoto court in 1989, demanding their evacuation. The court ruled in favor of the company. The appeal was rejected in Osaka High Court in 1998. Hopes for a legal settlement were entirely squashed when the Supreme Court rejected their appeals in 2000.
Outside the court, the residents have collected signatures from Japanese neighbors and collected money to buy back the land.
With the property dispute entwined with history, South Korean authorities have been divided on what actions to take. The Foreign Ministry, in charge of handling affairs of its nationals abroad, has asked Japan to make "humanitarian considerations" in their case, but that action stopped short of what the parliament and dwellers have called for.
A group of legislators organized to protect the ethnic Koreans wants the Korean government to buy the plot and make it a public asset that provides public residential homes for the displaced Koreans. They say the Utoro case represents Japan's unwillingness to apologize and compensate for its 35-year colonial occupation of Korea, during which 660,000 Koreans were conscripted to serve in the Japanese military and industrial installations, according to historians.
The Japanese government says issues on the colonial occupation were settled in a package treaty it signed with South Korea in 1965. In normalizing diplomatic relations, South Korea gave up all its rights to ask for compensation from Japan for its colonial rule. In return, Japan provided US$300 million as "economic cooperation" funds for Korea.
"In principle, the Japanese government should resolve the issue because the cause was its militarism, but the Korean government has its own part to work out," Kim Won-wung said.
Kim said the legislature is pushing for a two-track approach, pressing Japan to take responsibility for its forcible conscriptions of Koreans and designing measures to buy the plot for the residents.
The legislators and Foreign Ministry officials are to hold a discussion session on Wednesday to coordinate the government's stance on the Utoro case.
A Utoro resident for 62 years, Hwang called the land her home, paid for by toilsome labor.
"It just takes one second to say 62 years, but how long is it to live the years?" she said. "Our wish is that our children, they may not live under the suppression we suffered, they may spread their wings, they may call it their home."
Ethnic Koreans in Japan's Utoro village wait for Seoul's help
By Kim Hyun SEOUL, April 17 (Yonhap) -- At age 74, Hwang Sun-rye, a small woman clad in lumpy, homey clothes, calls herself a fighter. She says she doesn't mind a laborious flight across the East Sea and hours of waiting in the South Korean National Assembly hall to talk to politicians.
Too old or not, she is fighting for a plot of Japanese land her parents cultivated out of wild bamboo and pine trees and her children now call their home.
"Foxes howled, and there was nothing," she said after delivering a letter to a senior lawmaker on Monday to seek support.
"Our parents cultivated the Japanese land day and night. At every step they took, they got scratches in their face from the tree boughs."
Hwang and more than 200 other ethnic Koreans face evacuation from Utoro, a small derelict Korean village in Japan's Kyoto Prefecture. Japanese courts have denied their property rights.
South Korea hesitated to get involved, as their case is entangled in the unsettled legacy of Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula in the previous century.
The Utoro case has become one of Japan's longest-running legal disputes.
"I've been told that the (South Korean) government has been reminding the Japanese government of the issue, but that is not enough," Rep. Kim Won-wung, chairman of the Assembly's unification, foreign affairs and trade committee, said after receiving the letter from Hwang. In the letter, she called for the South Korean government to help the efforts by Utoro residents to retain their little-known community facing demolition.
The story of Utoro began in 1940, when the wartime Japanese government had 1,300 conscripted Koreans work there to build a military airport and installations in the isolated area. But the project was doomed, as Japan was defeated in World War II in 1945.
When the war ended, Japan left them in the wilderness. Some managed to return to Korea, but others who couldn't afford the trip had to remain, cultivating the deserted land into farms. No water or electricity was provided from outside.
The plot of land was owned by Nissan Shatai, an affiliate of the Japanese carmaker. In 1987, with its business in trouble, the company secretly sold the 5-acre plot to a land developer, making the dwellers illegal squatters and prompting the comlex dispute that continues until today. After more transactions occurred, a new owner took the residents to a Kyoto court in 1989, demanding their evacuation. The court ruled in favor of the company. The appeal was rejected in Osaka High Court in 1998. Hopes for a legal settlement were entirely squashed when the Supreme Court rejected their appeals in 2000.
Outside the court, the residents have collected signatures from Japanese neighbors and collected money to buy back the land.
With the property dispute entwined with history, South Korean authorities have been divided on what actions to take. The Foreign Ministry, in charge of handling affairs of its nationals abroad, has asked Japan to make "humanitarian considerations" in their case, but that action stopped short of what the parliament and dwellers have called for.
A group of legislators organized to protect the ethnic Koreans wants the Korean government to buy the plot and make it a public asset that provides public residential homes for the displaced Koreans. They say the Utoro case represents Japan's unwillingness to apologize and compensate for its 35-year colonial occupation of Korea, during which 660,000 Koreans were conscripted to serve in the Japanese military and industrial installations, according to historians.
The Japanese government says issues on the colonial occupation were settled in a package treaty it signed with South Korea in 1965. In normalizing diplomatic relations, South Korea gave up all its rights to ask for compensation from Japan for its colonial rule. In return, Japan provided US$300 million as "economic cooperation" funds for Korea.
"In principle, the Japanese government should resolve the issue because the cause was its militarism, but the Korean government has its own part to work out," Kim Won-wung said.
Kim said the legislature is pushing for a two-track approach, pressing Japan to take responsibility for its forcible conscriptions of Koreans and designing measures to buy the plot for the residents.
The legislators and Foreign Ministry officials are to hold a discussion session on Wednesday to coordinate the government's stance on the Utoro case.
A Utoro resident for 62 years, Hwang called the land her home, paid for by toilsome labor.
"It just takes one second to say 62 years, but how long is it to live the years?" she said. "Our wish is that our children, they may not live under the suppression we suffered, they may spread their wings, they may call it their home."
Seoul, April 17 (Yonhap News)
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Yoo Jae-suk, Haha visit Utoro village on ‘Infinite Challenge’. September 06 2015.
Yoo Jae-suk and Haha, hosts of MBC’s variety show “Infinite Challenge,” visited Japan’s Utoro village during the latest episode of the show.
Utoro village was formed by Koreans, who were conscripted by the Japanese government during the colonial period and forced into hard labor to build an air base in Kyoto. Even after Korea was liberated, the Koreans, who were not compensated for the hard labor, could not return to the country due to poverty and have been scratching a living until now.
At the village, Yoo and Haha met a Japanese old lady Dagawa Akiko, who has been living there for 30 years.
Akiko said, “27 years ago, I was too shocked to see my (Korean) friend, who grew up in Utoro and had no access to a water supply. I thought I should do something.” That was the beginning of initiating a campaign to install water supply facilities in the village.
Yoo and Haha also visited Koreans living there to deliver food and gifts. They met a Korean old lady Kang Kyung-nam, whose hometown is Sacheon, located in southeast of Korea, and gave her some photos and films of the village scenery. They told her in tears, “Sorry. We visited you so late.”
UNESCO recently recognized Japan‘s 23 facilities including the one in Hashima Island dubbed “Island of Hell” where thousands of Koreans and Chinese died after brutal forced labor.
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If you want to see part of the episode you can just check You Tube under Infinity Challenge Utoro Village.
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