I am a British national who spent several years stationed in Seoul before moving to my current home in Tokyo.
Living in these two nations, I have frequently encountered a passionate historical debate: “Who is the ancestor of whom?”
In Seoul, I often heard the explanation that the ancestors of the Japanese people migrated from the Korean peninsula.
However, since arriving in Tokyo, I have heard counterarguments, especially from those with a keen interest in history, suggesting, “Recent research indicates it’s not that simple.”
What is the truth?
Allowing this discussion to devolve purely into a clash of nationalisms would be a terrible waste of an intellectual opportunity.
Fortunately, I have no emotional ties to either specific nation.
Therefore, I decided to take a dispassionate, objective look at this deep-seated East Asian ancestry debate, relying on established knowledge from archaeology and genetics.
The answer to this question, I found, is far more intricate than we imagine. The easy assumption that “one is the pure origin of the other” brightly betrays the profound complexity of the historical narrative.
