85-year-old Grandmother Takes Korean Citizenship

by Sonagi on November 24, 2009

An 85-year-old Japanese national and lifelong resident of Korea has finally been naturalized as a Korean citizen. Born in Hwanghae Province, the woman graduated from a high school in Gongju and became a teacher. She fell in love with a married colleague and had five children with him. Receiving no inheritance upon his death in 1975, she went back to work as a hakwon teacher while raising their children. Unable to obtain citizenship through her late partner, she initiated the naturalization process in her early 80s and received citizenship along with 25 others from 6 countries. Through October of this year, 21,691 foreign nationals have become Korean citizens.

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 BusanAjossi November 24, 2009 at 1:00 pm: Nearly 30 years for naturalization? Man. I wonder how long it took her to get HER driver’s license.
2 bumfromkorea November 24, 2009 at 5:06 pm: Nearly 30 years for naturalization? Man. I wonder how long it took her to get HER driver’s license.

That’s her 80′s, not the 80′s. Took her about five years, according to the article & the OP.
3 WangKon936 November 25, 2009 at 2:59 am: Picture of Masashi’s family getting their Korean citizenship:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2913015
4 hardyandtiny November 25, 2009 at 8:56 am: probably wanted to leave comments on raysoda
5 cm November 25, 2009 at 10:02 am: #3, WangKon, they don’t look Japanese to me. They look like any other typical Korean family. Are you sure they are not Zainichi?
6 Sonagi November 25, 2009 at 10:23 am: I wondered about the elderly woman’s ethnicity. She was probably still childless at the end of WWII and if she were ethnic Japanese, she would probably have had a better future in Japan than in Korea. If she were ethnic Korean, then why couldn’t she have obtained citizenship in the newly established Republic of Korea? It occurred to me that she might have been the daughter of a Japanese father and Korean mother and thus ineligible for Korean citizenship by birth.
7 WangKon936 November 25, 2009 at 2:39 pm: Sonagi,

Maybe she’s burakumin or Okinawan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin

Boy were the burakumin glad that the chosenjin took their place…

cm,

They are Japanese. The family was highlighted here first.

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/10/08/japanese-family-wants-korean-citizenship/
8 Koreansentry November 27, 2009 at 10:46 am: Japanese living in Korea look just like Koreans, and Koreans living in Japan look like Japanese.