Loving Our Neighbors.(relationship between Japanese, South Koreans)(Brief Article)

In February, my daughter married a young Korean man whom she had met while studying in China. They're now enjoying life together as newlyweds in a suburb of Seoul. A year ago I never dreamed that something like this could happen. To my wife and me, Korea is no longer just a country adjacent to Japan--it's where we have family.

When my daughter revealed to us that she wanted "to get married to a Korean man," my wife was utterly opposed to the whole affair. She held the same attitude toward Koreans as many Japanese: a completely groundless prejudice that pictured Koreans as inferior and backward. But in the last five months, her opposition has mellowed into an enthusiasm for anything Korean. Now she's the one who keeps on bugging me, "Let's go to Seoul once more!"

What forced her change of heart? First, the young Korean man who became our son-in-law asked for our daughter's hand in a moving letter: "Considering what has happened over our long history, I thought there was no way I could ever get to like Japanese people," he wrote. "However, strangely enough, I became entranced by your daughter. Now her existence is more important to me than my own life." Those were frank, passionate words. If we had resisted, I suspect our daughter would simply have defied her mother and eloped to Korea.

A friend of mine recommended that my wife visit Korea and see the place and the people for herself. There we met the man who had asked to marry our daughter; he showed up carrying a giant bouquet of lilies for my wife, and took us to the new house he had prepared for the two of them. He had spent his days off repainting the whole place himself, using an elegant color scheme, and the kitchen was stocked with a complete set of new appliances and utensils. The ...