Exposing Imperial Japan - Imperial Japanese newspapers transcribed and translated into English

Mixed marriages in 1939 Korea: a Korean...

Dehumanization in Colonial Korea, 1943: Branding Koreans...

Tracing the origins of the myth that...

Korean girls in a “women’s volunteer corps”...

A mere 3 days after surrender, liberated...

Another part of a propaganda interview of...

Korean father and sushi chef boasts that...

Koreans first read of the US/Soviet Division...

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister...

By December 1943, poultry was unavailable anywhere...

Spotlight on 1943 Seoul: A Glimpse into...

Amid severe wartime food shortages in 1943,...

Korean director of Straits of Chosun (1943)...

In Japan-occupied Korea, Koreans often spoke Japanese...

Wartime news coverage of Prince Yi Un...

Latest Posts

Entertainment

August 28, 1945: Colonial regime announces a peaceful transition of power to the new incoming Korean government, reopens comfort women services, department stores, cafés in Seoul as popular uprising subsides, plans orderly repatriation of Japanese residents

2023-12-06

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This is another fascinating historical article that I stumbled upon during my visit to the National Library of Korea a

Post-Liberation

Koreans first read of the US/Soviet Division of Korea on Aug. 25th, 1945 in this historic Keijo Nippo news article explicitly announcing for the first time that ‘Korea is to be made free and independent’

2023-12-03

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This is another fascinating historical article that I stumbled upon during my visit to the National Library of Korea a

Military

Imperial Japanese Army finally acknowledges Korea’s imminent independence just over a week after liberation (Aug. 23, 1945) with a jumbled announcement full of desperate denials, threats, and unconvincing reassurances to fend off Korean armed resistance

2023-11-28

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This is another fascinating historical article that I stumbled upon during my visit to the National Library of Korea a

Post-Liberation

A mere 3 days after surrender, liberated Koreans were already attempting to overthrow the colonial regime in Korea, alarming the Imperial Japanese Army who made this radio broadcast on August 18, 1945 to threaten military action against ‘individuals harboring evil thoughts’

2023-11-24

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This is another fascinating historical article that I stumbled upon during my visit to the National Library of Korea a

Annie Ellers Bunker, American missionary who went from personal physician to Empress Myeongseong to thriving philanthropist in Colonial Korea, was praised in this 1938 Keijo Nippo obituary for endorsing the Imperial Japanese Army

Christianity

Annie Ellers Bunker, American missionary who went from personal physician to Empress Myeongseong to thriving philanthropist in Colonial Korea, was praised in this 1938 Keijo Nippo obituary for endorsing the Imperial Japanese Army

2023-11-14

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This obituary from October 1938, published in Keijo Nippo newspaper, an organ of the Imperial Japanese colonial regime which ruled

Foreign Residents

Ms. B.F. Starkey, blue-eyed American missionary featured in 1938 Keijo Nippo as a pro-Imperial model foreigner inspired by Japanese-Korean Unification policy to join the Patriotic Women’s Association in Seoul

2023-11-11

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This 1938 article is a historical account in a colonial propaganda newspaper about Ms. B.F. Starkey, an American missionary in

Internment Camp

A tour of Sinuiju Yamato Imperial Boarding School in 1942, where Korean nationalism was considered a moral defect to be ‘purified’ away so that Korean ‘thought criminals’ become ‘completely Japanese’

2023-11-07

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In June 1942, a magazine called “Chōsen” (Korea) published an article that offers a stark window into a grim chapter

Military

In June 1945, Imperial Japan announced a mass mobilization of nearly all able-bodied Korean civilian men ages 12-65 and women ages 12-45 into Volkssturm-like ‘Volunteer’ Corps (義勇隊) and Suicide Squads (特攻隊) to wage last resort armed combat against Allied troops stepping into Korea

2023-10-31

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I’d like to bring to your attention a fascinating article from June 1945, which I found in the archives of

Military

Japanese Keijo Nippo reporters interviewed Korean abductee held captive in May 1939 by Kim Il-sung’s Korean communist guerrillas in Taehongdan (대홍단, 大紅湍)-the fighters mostly conversed in Chinese, abducted young men for recruiting, beheaded comrades for breaking strict male-female conduct rules

2023-10-27

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I found these remarkable 1939 Japanese articles about Kim Il-sung and his comrades in Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo), the official

Military

Shamseinoor Berikova, 19-year-old blue-eyed Russian Tatar refugee woman and Seoul resident in 1938, featured in Keijo Nippo as a pro-Imperial Japan patriotic model minority speaking fluent Japanese and supporting Imperial soldiers on their way to China

2023-10-23

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This article from 1938 features Shamseinoor Berikova, a 19-year-old blue-eyed Russian Tatar woman who was a daughter of a clothing