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Shin Tae-young Speech #2
ChatGPT Korean translation from the Original Japanese: 조선의 장래는 학도에게 달려 있다 (하) 반도 출신 육군 중령 히라야마 스케히데 (수기)
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Business
How the war criminals of Imperial Japan shaped modern South Korean politics and business: the pro-Japanese legacy that Kishi, Sasakawa, and Kodama left behind in Korean conservatism
As a Japanese blogger posting content about Imperial Japan’s colonization of Korea, I have been following the latest news coming
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Internment Camp
Japanese colonial masters were told to ‘love’ their Korean subjects by punching them ‘Bam!’ with an ‘iron fist’ if they became ‘unsteady and unfocused’ during their rigorous training to cultivate the ‘Japanese Spirit’ (Sasakawa remarks, Seoul 1943)
During World War II, in colonial Korea, guest speakers from mainland Japan frequently visited to give speeches aimed at boosting
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Daily Life
Koreans needed Imperial police-issued ‘travel purpose certificates’ to travel on buses and trains by April 1944, police cracked down on female passengers for illegal food vending and ‘unnecessary and non-urgent travel’
In the midst of World War II, life in Korea under Imperial Japanese rule was marked by increasing restrictions and
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Police
Korean rice farmers barely survived eating grass roots as they worked tirelessly to meet the rice quotas imposed by the Imperial Army in 1944, even sacrificing their own personal rice supplies to face starvation under pressure from the police inspector and the township chief
This disturbing propaganda news story from 1944 is about a rice farming township (Seonso-myeon) in Suncheon County, South Pyeongan Province
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Korean Workers
Imperial Japan’s railway system in Korea was falling apart by early August 1945 with severe overcrowding, parts and labor shortages, exhausted staff causing more accidents, train conductors gone rogue …
This article offers a fascinating glimpse into the decrepit state of the streetcar system in Seoul at the beginning of
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Korean Workers
Colonial regime called for intensified Imperialist training to make Koreans more ‘Japanese’ to address low morale, high turnover rates, and black market activities among Korean forced laborers in 1944 Japan
This 1944 wartime editorial, written by the staff of the Keijo Nippo newspaper, calls for Japanese-Korean unity as it addresses
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Korean Workers
Korean forced laborers worked the Gyeongsan cobalt mine under Japanese control from 1940 to 1945, which later became the site of a massacre of political prisoners in 1950 at the onset of the Korean War
This article from 1943 highlights Korean forced laborers in a Japanese-owned cobalt mine located in what is now Gyeongsan City.
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Model Korean Family
Pro-Japanese Korean colonel (신태영)’s full 1943 speech offering Koreans redemption from their “shame” inherited from ancestors who made them “like cats and dogs” that seek safety and parental attachments over national duty, giving them a chance to volunteer in the Imperial Army
Throughout 1943 in colonial Korea, the main national newspaper of the country, Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo), was filled with war
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Military
“Koreans need to assimilate with the Japanese people as soon as possible … There is no other way. This is also the path to our boundless happiness as Koreans!” said Imperial Army veteran 신태영 in 1943 memoir, who later became Minister of National Defense of South Korea and is now buried at Seoul National Cemetery
“As Koreans, we have been given the new mission of becoming subjects of Imperial Japan, uniting completely with the Yamato
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