Zainichi Music Project by Yukimi Song Podcast

Why would an excluded community search for dignity through an imagined homeland? In this episode of the Zainichi Music Project Podcast, I continue reflecting on sociologist John Lie’s work on Zainichi Koreans, diasporic nationalism, and postcolonial identity. This episode turns to Sōren, also known as Chongryon, the pro-North Korea organization in Japan — a difficult, complex part of Zainichi hist...

What happens when scholarship gives language to a life you have already lived? After several months away from the Zainichi Music Project Podcast , I’m returning with a new phase of the project — one rooted in reading, reflection, memory, and critique. In the first four episodes, I introduced the foundations of Zainichi history: who Zainichi Koreans are, how this community came to exist, the experi...

Episode 4: Statelessness — The Chameleon Identity of Zainichi Koreans What does it mean to belong to a country where you were born, but never legally claimed? In this episode of the Zainichi Music Project Podcast, Yukimi explores statelessness as lived reality: not as a single legal definition, but as a shifting condition that shaped generations of Zainichi Koreans in Japan. From the collapse of t...

In this episode, I step into one of the most defining—and often misunderstood—parts of Zainichi life: the experience of carrying two names. For decades, Zainichi Koreans had a legal Korean name on paper and a Japanese alias used in everyday life. This wasn’t about hiding; it was about navigating systems that never fully knew what to do with us. I share how this unfolded in my own childhood—moving...

In this week’s episode, I’m taking a step back and laying the historical foundation of the Zainichi story — clearly, calmly, and in a way that brings context to everything that will follow in this series. Last week, I shared publicly for the first time that I am a third-generation Zainichi Korean. Many listeners told me they had never heard this history before. So today’s episode focuses on the es...

In this very first episode of my new podcast, Zainichi Music Project with Yukimi Song , I’m sharing something I’ve carried for most of my life — my identity as a third-generation Zainichi Korean, and the history that shaped my family and our community. Most people know me through The Piano Pod , my long-running interview show that explores the evolving world of classical music. But the Zainichi Mu...