Life at a North Korean school in Japan 60 so-called "pro-Pyongyang" schools in Japan cater to an ethnic Korean community that -- over decades -- developed and maintained a link to North Korea despite never living there. There are around 500,000 ethnic Koreans in Japan -– mostly descendants of civilians taken from their homes during Japan's brutal colonisation from 1910 until Tokyo's defeat in World War II in 1945. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES