In November 1943, colonial authorities implemented a...

A look into the foreign films showing...

Governor-General Koiso blamed excessive chili peppers for...

Korean modern dancer Choi Seung-hee featured in...

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister...

Educational supervisor declares that ‘old ways of...

Part 1 – Thousands of young Korean...

Propaganda story of Japanese couple adopting poor...

Minakai Department Store in Seoul featured a...

A tour of Sinuiju Yamato Imperial Boarding...

This Korean family donated their metallic tableware...

Bilingual Korean-Japanese propaganda posters started to be...

‘We’re going to Washington!’ – a 1944...

In Japan-occupied Korea, Koreans often mixed their...

Spotlight on 1943 Seoul: A Glimpse into...

Month: January 2023

School

Korean kindergartners holding rising sun flags shouting ‘Banzai!’, schoolchildren worshiping at Shinto Shrines vowing to ‘defeat the U.S. and Britain’, high school girls ice skating on Chundangji Pond in Changgyeonggung Palace grounds – a series photos of student life in Seoul, late January 1943

2023-01-26

307

The third and final school semester (January to March) began in Seoul in late January 1943, and the Keijo Nippo

Entertainment

Imperial Army general describes crowded movie theaters and cafes in Myeong-dong where Japanese and Korean ‘young people in flashy overcoats would flow into coffee shops, chatting with their friends using exaggerated American gestures’ in his January 1943 essays about daily life in Seoul

2023-01-23

278

I found these four ‘slice-of-life’ personal essays written by an Imperial Army general in the Imperial Army press department describing

Entertainment

In January 1943, Hollywood films were banned in Korea, but 2 French films and 6 German films were showing in Seoul movie theaters: only ‘working women’ could watch Wunschkonzert, a Nazi propaganda drama, and only ‘industrial warriors’ could watch Kora Terry, a German spy thriller

2023-01-20

300

In January 1943, exactly eighty years ago, Imperial Japan was at war, but some Seoul residents still had time to

Japanese Language

Governor Koiso likened Korea to a disabled body whose brain (regime) could not talk to the limbs (Korean people), so an ‘exclusive use of Japanese’ policy was forced on Koreans, starting with Seoul city employees who were labeled ‘inferior’ and ‘weak-willed’ if they still spoke Korean at work

2023-01-15

385

In 1943, Governor-General Koiso kicked off the new year by intensifying his campaign to further restrict the public spaces in

Business

Western firms including Shell, Mobil, HSBC, Otis Elevator, Singer were active in colonial Korea, a US firm had a corn starch factory in Pyongyang, until the regime confiscated their assets with the outbreak of war, accused of having a ‘Jewish spirit’ which ‘exploits the entire wealth of mankind’

2023-01-11

417

This is an article from December 1942, and it particularly stands out for its especially antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-British messaging.

Philosophy

Master Imaizumi Teisuke, the spiritual leader of the ruling class of colonial Korea, taught that Japanese-Korean unification should be thought of as a relationship between husband and wife, between a horse and its rider, and between a parent and a child, during his 12-day tour of Korea in 1942

2023-01-07

294

Master Imaizumi Teisuke was a prominent Shinto theologian and spiritual leader of Imperial Japan. By 1942, when he went on

Police

‘Jeon’ became ‘Takamatsu’ and ‘Park’ became ‘Masaki’: 1940 profiles of Korean families in Seoul adopting Japanese names to purportedly honor their Korean roots, be accepted by Japanese neighbors, to better interact with the public, to instill a ‘spirit befitting Imperial subjects’ in their children

2023-01-02

325

This 1940 article profiles two Korean families in Seoul who adopted Japanese names: the Jeon family, which became the Takamatsu