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Exposing Imperial Japan

Exposing Imperial Japan

Viewing the suffering of colonized people through the lens of the colonizer's propaganda

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Dehumanization in Colonial Korea, 1943: Branding Koreans...
Propaganda editorials about Shinto shrines built in...
March 1945: Taxis in Seoul nearly vanish,...
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister...
Angry Koreans filed numerous complaints against local...
Imperial Japanese PSA ordering residents to avoid...
Part 2 – Thousands of young Korean...
Korean candidate defiantly ran for office in...
Educational supervisor declares that ‘old ways of...
Imperial Japan published propaganda science fiction during...
Amid severe wartime food shortages in 1943,...
Propaganda articles say Koreans men are cowards...
1943 Imperial Japanese editorial decries liberalism, individualistic...
Korean high school student uses anonymous tip...
Hollywood movies and Western cosmetic brands were...

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

691

1199

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

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Uncategorized

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

787

373

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

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Comfort Women

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

740

1814

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

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Japanese Language

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

759

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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Uncategorized

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

744

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

883

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

  • Nazi German community in Seoul December 1941 celebrating Imperial Japan’s declaration of war
  • Wartime rations often vanished amid corrupt neighborhood leadership, leading to so much public anger that Imperial officials pleaded, ‘let us avoid becoming emotional with one another’ (Feb. 1945)
  • Inside the 1943 Seoul Crackdown on ‘Demonic Music’: Imperial Japan’s Campaign to Purge American and British Records, From Hawaiian Jazz to Dvořák, but German music (Beethoven, Mozart, Bach) and Italian music (Verdi) were allowed
  • How Imperial Japan spun a dead Korean industrial accident victim into a wartime hero: ‘Follow in the spirit of Mr. Lim!’, ‘The flower of the workplace!’ at Tōyō Metal in Sinuiju (October 1, 1943)
  • Rule by Fear: How Imperial Japan Expanded the Death Penalty and Toughened Sentences in Wartime Korea – Crackdowns on Protesters After Just One Warning (February 1944)

Recent Comments

  • vong quay on Imperial officials fanned out across rural Korea visiting townships one by one to indoctrinate villagers in Imperialist ideology in ‘Grassroots Penetration’ Campaign (March 1944)
  • act-two on Koiso’s 1943 ‘Great Leader’ Strongman Tours: Surprise village inspections to intimidate local leaders and impose Japanese language and culture all over the Korean countryside
  • laser marking machine on Koiso’s 1943 ‘Great Leader’ Strongman Tours: Surprise village inspections to intimidate local leaders and impose Japanese language and culture all over the Korean countryside
  • zorse on April 1945 Seoul dining: the public endured price-gouging and scraps, while privileged Japanese and Korean collaborator elites drank and feasted behind closed doors

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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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