Welcome again to JJNN for Friday July 4th, 2008. Today I will talk about the story of Megumi Yokota.
The original news story can be found here. For those of you that don't know who Megumi Yokota is, she is someone that was abducted from Japan in November of 1977. She was taken away to North Korea and never seen again. She was only 13 when she was abducted so her loss greatly shocked her parents. They are still working now to see if they can get her back from North Korea or avenge her if she was killed. It was announced that she died in North Korea, but her parents still fight on her behalf.
Megumi Yokota's parents have done so many things to tell as many people as possible about the fact that these North Korean kidnappings did happen. They have made movies, written books, had comic books drawn. All they want to do is get the word out. This time they decided to have their book about their daughter translated into English. The name of the book roughly translates into "Megumi, your mother will save you," but of course that is not quite as catch in English as it is in Japanese. That is why they changed the name of the book to "North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter." Quite the flashy name.
They are planning on selling the book from January in America. When it comes out it will be about the 100th work that they have had translated into English. It is also suppose to be the crown of all their works. Megumi's mother even gave a copy of the book to the prime minister of Japan so he can pass it on to the president of the US when he comes to Japan next.
Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 拉致(らっち). It is pronounced racchi and means abduction. The North Korean abductions happened a lot in the prefecture I live in because it is close to North Korea. Even now Niigata refuses to accept boats from North Korea.
That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.
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