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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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In 1938, an Imperial Japanese ideologue took...
Korean schoolgirls attend a five-day swimming camp...
Propaganda story of Japanese couple adopting poor...
Imperial Japan’s manhunt for the “Communist Bandit...
Colonial authorities abruptly abolished Korean translations of...
Model Korean mother left baby and bedridden...
Spotlight on 1943 Seoul: A Glimpse into...
The Lim Family portrayed as happy, model...
Koreans generally used to make their own...
The film that tried to make Koreans...
March 1945: Taxis in Seoul nearly vanish,...
Mixed marriages in 1939 Korea: a Korean...
In 1917, an 11-year-old Korean girl in...
‘Sweaters are tools of suicide’: Koreans were...
Editorial says the unity of god and...

Category: Business

Entertainment

Imperial Japanese and Korean collaborator elite partied in brothels and luxury restaurants while ordinary Koreans starved in wartime Seoul, early 1945

2025-07-08

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Below is a translation of an Imperial Japanese news article from the Keijō Nippo (京城日報), dated March 5, 1945, reporting

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Post-Liberation

How the war criminals of Imperial Japan shaped modern South Korean politics and business: the pro-Japanese legacy that Kishi, Sasakawa, and Kodama left behind in Korean conservatism

2024-12-10

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As a Japanese blogger posting content about Imperial Japan’s colonization of Korea, I have been following the latest news coming

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Currency

Korea in November 1945 was beset by rampant inflation, which the Koreans editors of newly liberated Keijo Nippo blamed on ‘Korean traitors’ and departing Japanese who liquidated their property and spent cash ‘indulging in lavish eating and wastefulness’

2023-10-11

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In my recent trip to Seoul, I visited the National Library of Korea and took many photos of pages from

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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

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

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Police

Korean economic crimes suspects interrogated by Seoul economic police; the police chief boasts of having eyes and ears everywhere on the ground, and contrasts the polite, law-abiding ‘good Korean retailers’ with the rude, greedy, dishonest ‘bad Korean retailers’ in 1942 interview

2022-12-10

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This photo shows the inside of an interrogation room of the economic police in the Dongdaemon precinct of Seoul. It

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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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