Ethnicity and Masculinity in Shin-Okubo

• In Event: Leaving Home: Feeling Asian Urban Spaces in Motion

Abstract

According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of registrations of foreigners in the Shinjuku ward in 2010 was 34,416, which is the largest number among the 23 wards of Tokyo. Of this total, 13,506 of the registered foreigners have Korean citizenship, followed by Chinese, American and Filipino citizenships . This area has been widely known as a multi-ethnic area.

Because of Hallyu drama and the K-pop boom, the image of Shin-Okubo in Shinjuku ward has been emphasized as Hallyu town. The number of newcomer Koreans is increasing, and many shops related to Korea or Hallyu have opened. But it is not always a positive response that Hallyu receives in Japan because there is antagonistic views towards Korea, Korean and Korean-Japanese. Shin-Okubo is not only the place where the desires of hosts and guests meet and conflict but the place where the one of targets of hate speech and anti-Hallyu movement.

In this presentation, I examine the present and the past in Shin-Okubo and fans’/tourists’ gaze toward Shin-Okubo. Also I analyse Shin-Okubo as a place for negotiation between a staged ethnicity and masculinity that are highly commercialized and the establishment of fan’s/tourist’s identity with consumption.

Author

• Yukie Hirata, Dokkyo University