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Japan-Korea
Student Exchange
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To commemorate the
Year of Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) National Exchange and
this year's soccer World Cup, cohosted by Korea and Japan, the
Soka Gakkai student division has created an exhibition on the
theme "A Future Shaped by Dialogue" and a survey
into the attitudes of university students in the two
countries. The exhibition, seen by 120,000 students in 130
locations in Japan, features historical artifacts from Korea,
highlighting the vast cultural heritage Japan inherited from
its neighbor, as well as covering the Japanese Imperial Army's
encroachment on the Korean Peninsula and the atrocities it
committed there during its 35-year colonial occupation.
The same exhibition has also been shown at over 120
universities in Korea by the SGI-Korea student division.
According to the survey, two-thirds of Japanese students think
that the future of their country is "rather dark" or
"very dark," while more than half of the Korean
students responded that their country's future is "very
bright" or "rather bright." Asked whether they
could become close friends with people from the other country,
90 percent of Japanese students answered "yes," but
36.5 percent of Korean students said "no" or
"it would be difficult." Forty-seven percent of
Korean students said that promoting a correct historical
understanding of Korea-Japan relations is crucial to the
development of Korea-Japan friendship.
From this survey, Soka University Professor of Law Yoon Yong
Taek concluded that students of both countries recognize that
sincere, heartfelt dialogue is the only way to build
friendship between the people of Korea and Japan.
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