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Exposing Imperial Japan

Imperial Japanese newspapers transcribed and translated into English

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Korean director of Straits of Chosun (1943)...
Koreans first read of the US/Soviet Division...
Minakai Department Store in Seoul featured a...
Korean schoolgirls in 1943 mending military uniforms...
In January 1943, the CEO of a...
A look into the foreign films showing...
Angry Koreans filed numerous complaints against local...
Simon Young Kim (김영근), a South Korean...
Propaganda article contrasting the ‘Bad Korean Retailer’...
On October 10, 1938, the US women’s...
Governor-General Koiso blamed excessive chili peppers for...
A Japanese author took a Busan-Seoul train...
February 1943, Seoul high school girls perform...
Imperial Japan published propaganda science fiction during...
Koreans generally used to make their own...

Month: February 2022

Korean Workers

Imperial Japan called Seoul residents the laziest people in the world when it came to paying their taxes, and unleashed patriotic ‘Tax Collection Assault Units’ to more aggressively collect taxes from ‘delinquent tax collection districts’ (February 1942)

2022-02-28

126

1199

  Notes: This propaganda article from 1942 claims that 25 out of every 100 taxpayers in Seoul were delinquent in

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Military

Korean schoolgirls in 1943 mending military uniforms almost nonstop with minimal breaks from 8:30a to 4p as Imperial Japanese soldiers loom over watching

2022-02-25

94

373

  (Translation) Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) July 19, 1943 A heart of sincerity in every stitch Repairing military uniforms at

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Japanese Language

Korean comfort women interviewed after whirlwind 1943 Japan tour visiting wounded Imperial Japanese soldiers who ‘showed us again and again with their bodies, not with their words, that Japan and Korea were to be unified as one’ and ‘we were often moved to tears because we did not feel worthy’

2022-02-21

98

1814

  Notes: This article contains an interview with the Korean comfort women who were part of a ‘comfort team’ which

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Uncategorized

Korean father and sushi chef boasts that his two children ages 3 and 7 not only don’t know a single word of Korean, they don’t even know yet that they’re Korean, he doesn’t let his 20 employees speak Korean, he hopes ‘all Koreans will become true Japanese people as soon as possible’ (Seoul 1942)

2022-02-17

112

867

  Left-to-right: father Umeyoshi (42), daughter Hideko (7), mother Tokuko (40), son Yōzō (3).  (Translation) Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) May

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Uncategorized

Simon Young Kim (김영근), a South Korean violin virtuoso and disciple of famous violinist Jascha Heifetz, Simon was once my teacher and mentor, and his son was my best friend in elementary school

2022-02-12

0

3406

Simon Young Kim is a violin virtuoso who is apparently somewhat of a celebrity in the South Korean classical music

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School

Korean schoolgirls make improvised ‘tadon’ coal dumplings for the war effort, and they gang up on a dissenting girl who protested against the dirty working conditions, taunting her as being a weakling since before the battles in the Solomon Islands started (1943, Duksung Women’s Vocational School)

2022-02-07

103

399

  Notes: The vocational students of Duksung Women’s Vocational School were making improvised, handmade coal briquettes, or balls of coal

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Uncategorized

British and Australian prisoners of war arrive in Seoul and Incheon on September 25, 1942

2022-02-04

112

2457

  Notes: For the best experience, I recommend also reading the first-hand accounts of the Allied prisoners of war to

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Recent Posts

  • 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
  • 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’
  • 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
  • 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’
  • 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

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    • Imperial Japanese penal official said Korean 'ideological criminals' (independence activists) were 'not well made as human beings', but 'if only their thoughts could be corrected, then they will get better' so they can be 'used' for wartime labor, but 'this is not the case with ordinary criminals'
    • Nostalgia for Imperial Japan and its undercurrents in Kishi Nobusuke's legacy in postwar Japan, in Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan's legacy in South Korea, and why access to wartime newspapers of Japan-occupied Korea is important to combat historical misinformation by the far-right in both countries
    • Simon Young Kim (김영근), a South Korean violin virtuoso and disciple of famous violinist Jascha Heifetz, Simon was once my teacher and mentor, and his son was my best friend in elementary school

    Exposing Imperial Japan

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