Zainichi Music Project by Yukimi Song Podcast
A personal Substack podcast from pianist Yukimi Song exploring the music, stories and cultural heritage of Zainichi Koreans in Japan. Episodes pair piano performance and conversation, drawing on Song's own family background and on the wider Zainichi musical community. It is released alongside the written Zainichi Music Project newsletter, which collects research, interviews and reflections on the topic. Listeners can expect solo piano playing, guest musicians and discussion of identity, migration and memory.
Episodes
A Zainichi Mother’s Vision
Twenty-nine years after my mother died, I can no longer hear her voice clearly in my memory. Then I began reading the poems of Ch’u-wol Chong, a Zainichi Korean writer whose Osaka rhythms sounded so familiar that I could almost feel my mother sitting beside me.On this rainy anniversary, I’m sharing a short, personal tribute to my mother: a second-generation Zainichi Korean woman who built a busine
Eps. 10: Ch’u-wol Chong: The First Zainichi Korean Woman Writer of Literature
In this episode, I begin exploring the life and work of Chuwol Chong (1944–2011), a pioneering Zainichi Korean woman poet and writer whose work centers the lives, language, labor, and resilience of ordinary Zainichi women.I first encountered Chong more than a decade ago through her poem “Two Names.” Returning to her work now, especially The Korean Women I Love and “Name,” has felt deeply personal.
Eps. 9 Behind the Scenes of ZMP: Summer 2026 Updates Part Two
What happens when telling your story changes the way you understand your family—and yourself?In Part Two of this behind-the-scenes reflection, I share what happened when the Zainichi Music Project connected me with two fellow third-generation Zainichi Koreans in Brooklyn. After decades without a Zainichi community around me in the United States, I could finally speak about my experiences without h
Eps. 9 Behind the Scenes of ZMP: Learning from Setbacks — Part One
What happens when a carefully organized plan meets a project that refuses to develop according to a spreadsheet?In Part One of this two-part behind-the-scenes episode, I reflect on a transformative summer for the Zainichi Music Project. I share how I built a trusted support system, continued developing ZMP’s public voice, sent cold emails that unexpectedly opened doors to professors and institutio
Episode 8: When Rumor Became Massacre: Koreans and the Great Kantō Earthquake
In Episode 8 of the Zainichi Music Project podcast, Yukimi Song examines the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and the massacre of Koreans that followed.After the earthquake devastated Tokyo, Yokohama, and the surrounding region, false rumors spread that Koreans were poisoning wells, setting fires, looting, and planning an uprising. These claims drew on stereotypes already created through Japanese colon
Episode 7:Foreigners Overnight
In Episode 7 of the Zainichi Music Project, Yukimi reflects on Professor John Lie’s writing about the moment Koreans in Japan became “foreigners overnight.”During Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, Koreans were classified as Japanese imperial subjects, though they were never treated as equals. In 1952, after the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect, Koreans living in Japan lost their Japanese natio
Episode 6: Sōren and the Search for Dignity
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 histor
Episode 5: Reading My History Back to Myself
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 experienc
Episode 4: Statelessness
Episode 4: Statelessness — The Chameleon Identity of Zainichi KoreansWhat 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 the
Episode 3: Two Names — A Life Split in Two
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 b
Episode 2: Colonial History Made Simple — How We Got Here
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 ess
Episode 1: Welcome to the Zainichi Music Project
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 Music
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