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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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Severe 1940s wartime housing crisis in urban...
1943 editorial calls for Korean language to...
‘Malicious brokers’ and impoverished Koreans fought each...
Pro-Japanese Korean colonel (신태영)’s full 1943 speech...
Korean forced laborers worked the Gyeongsan cobalt...
Western firms including Shell, Mobil, HSBC, Otis...
In 1938, an Imperial Japanese ideologue took...
Imperial Japanese colonial regime instilled intense fear...
Ms. B.F. Starkey, blue-eyed American missionary featured...
Nov. 1945 news articles called out Korean...
U.S. soldiers guard the Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo...
‘Selfless’ Imperial Japanese policeman visits pregnant Korean...
How Imperial Japan used the Shinto holy...
Optimistic news coverage of Syngman Rhee meeting...
Imperial Japan’s railway system in Korea was...

Month: December 2023

Post-Liberation

Keijo Nippo editors endorsed the People’s Republic of Korea and ‘class liberation’ in Nov. 3, 1945 commemoration of the 1929 Gwangju Student Movement with calls to ‘eradicate the remnants of Japanese imperialism and national traitors’

2023-12-25

904

1143

This is an intriguing article from November 5, 1945, originating from Keijo Nippo, which I found at the National Library

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Post-Liberation

Kim Ku leads the way towards Korean independence with support of the Korean people (news editorial cartoon in liberated Keijo Nippo, Dec. 2, 1945)

2023-12-23

812

397

This is an intriguing editorial cartoon from December 2, 1945, originating from Keijo Nippo, which I found at the National

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Entertainment

A look into the foreign films showing in Seoul movie theaters in June to Dec. 1943: Ohm Krüger (1941) was heavily promoted to foment anti-British sentiment

2023-12-20

809

1160

This post will be a continuation of my exploration into the kinds of foreign movies that Seoul residents might have

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Prisoners of War

February 1943 news article of British prisoners of war interviewed by their Imperial Army captors in Keijo (Seoul) POW camp

2023-12-16

961

2110

This is a news article from February 1943, published in Keijo Nippo newspaper, an organ of the Imperial Japanese colonial

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Daily Life

American soldiers meeting local women and shopping for flowers and dolls in Seoul and Incheon, providing trucks to Patriotic Groups to clean the streets (September 21-22, 1945)

2023-12-16

773

1004

These photos are from pages of the Keijo Nippo newspaper that I stumbled upon during my visit to the National

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Post-Liberation

U.S. soldiers guard the Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) newspaper office on September 11, 1945, three days after the start of the U.S. military occupation of southern Korea

2023-12-11

846

535

This photo is from a page in the Keijo Nippo newspaper that I stumbled upon during my visit to the

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Post-Liberation

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

726

1640

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

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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

745

870

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

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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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