A 64-year-old South Korean resident in Japan, Ko Gonsi, is happy that he has finally acquired the ability to write Japanese-language letters for the first time since the hardships he had to endure during his childhood years.
     The second-generation Korean resident, who graduated from evening classrooms at the Higashi-Ikuno Junior High School in Osaka's Ikuno Ward in mid-March, gained entrance into the Osaka prefectural Momodani Senior High School on Friday.
     In his first Japanese-language composition, entitled ''South Korea and Japan to Me'' he writes, ''Japan was the assailant, while (South) Korea was the victim, this is the fact. But it will be difficult to maintain friendships with those who do not acknowledge the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945) and continue to be hung up on old issues.''
     His dream had been to extend his feelings in writing. In his youth he could not write back to any ''love'' letters he received.
     The turning point was 12 years ago, when a woman aged nearly 70 years old who was one of his dancing school students said to him, ''I'm a student at a night junior high school.''
     At the time he was running a dancing school in Osaka's Ikuno Ward and is now a dance instructor.
     A decade later he entered night classes at the Osaka municipal school at the age of 62, where Korean students account for about 89.5 percent of the total 267. The Japanese students are only 8.6 percent.
     Ko, who was born in Higashinari Ward in January 1943 with two sisters, experienced two wars -- World War II and the Korean War (1950-1953). He was ordered to change his Korean school immediately after he joined it at age 6 in 1949, because the Japanese government forced all the Korean schools to close their gates as part of its assimilation policy.
     On a cold winter day in February 1950 his father, who had divorced his Korean wife and married a Japanese woman, returned to Busan with him and Aeja, one of his two sisters, three years older than him.
     The family fled to Cheju Island immediately after the Korean War broke out on June 25 that year.
     Ko, who found he was not able to fit into an anti-Japanese education system on the island, slipped back into Japan in search for his father and sister, who had returned earlier. He failed to attend more than the half of the classes at the South Korean junior high school.
     In Osaka's Nishinari Ward he began work at a shoe manufacturer and later married a Korean at the age of 26. But he later decided to surrender to the immigration authorities as his daughter and son had reached kindergarten age. ''I wanted to live and cope with things with a sense of pride,'' he said.
     Thus escaping a forced repatriation he received a permanent residence status for his four-member family. All the necessary documents including a certificate of his birth in Japan were prepared by a ghost-writer.
     He began to devote long hard hours toward his language studies while he worked as a dancing instructor during the daytime. To pick up knowledge of the Japanese alphabet better he transcribed all the books he read, wrote an apology letter to his teacher, with whom he had quarreled, and sent a lot of New Year and summer greeting post cards to friends and relatives.
     The first letter written by him in his life was addressed to Yuka Kanazawa, a pupil of nearby Miyukimori Primary School, who had lent him kanji-writing drill papers for fourth-grade primary school students. ''My schooling began with your papers. Many thanks,'' the letter said.
     His long 4,000-letter composition, which features the lives of him and his sister, won a special award in a contest at the end of 2006. His sister was not allowed to go to school by her relatives and was told to sell salt and bread for their living during her stay in Cheju Island, where Ko was a junior high school student. The demand for salt, which was under government control, was strong in the autumn months for the making of kimchi.
     The composition was a means for him to narrow a gap between himself and his sister. Aeja was reduced to tears to know what Ko felt and thought after reading the composition. ''We are very close as brother and sister. And we became able to understand each other even without words,'' Ko said.
     She cried for some four hours over the frustration of her weak writing ability. ''I'm proud of my brother, who wrote what I wanted to say, even though it is a very small fraction of what I would have wanted to say,'' the 67-year-old sister said, managing a smile under a veil of tears.
     ''This (Higashi-Ikuno) school is borderless. Koreans get along well with both Japanese and Chinese. The youth of both countries are broad-minded, accepting each other's cultures,'' Ko said in his composition.
     The prize-winning composition was a more of a psalm of praise for his sister. ''The composition is evidence that my sister and I lived real lives. Now I plan to write my own history. The words will not disappear, I believe,'' Ko said.
     The Higashi-Ikuno school is one of the nation's 35 night junior high schools, where about 2,500 can attend from the age of around 10 to those into their 80s. There are more than 20 different nationalities represented as well.
     Zengo Shirai, 60, a teacher at No. 3 Night Junior High School in the city of Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, said, ''Night schools are not a charity for the weak but places which can give a boost for those who want to get an education. They present solutions to questions like what is true education.''
     On March 14 Ko and his sister, Aeja, attended a graduation ceremony together after having attended for three years and two years, respectively. ''I'm a slow starter. But I hope to challenge for a place at university even as I grow older and enter my 70's, he said.
==Kyodo