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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 1944, the Japanese govt built internment...
Korean girls in a “women’s volunteer corps”...
Imperial Japan purged Korean schools of ‘pro-American’...
Hollywood movies and Western cosmetic brands were...
Korean father and sushi chef boasts that...
Koreans in Seoul streetcar observing mandatory daily...
The Korean people were allegedly liars, slackers,...
When all of Korea was forced to...
In Japan-occupied Korea, Koreans often spoke Japanese...
Korean writers in the ‘Korean Literary Association’...
Imperial Japan shamed Koreans for going to...
In October 1922, a hit squad of...
Bilingual Korean-Japanese propaganda posters started to be...
Western firms including Shell, Mobil, HSBC, Otis...
Niece of Korean collaborator nobleman Yoon Deok-yeong...

Category: School

School

A tour of Sinuiju Yamato Imperial Boarding School in 1942, where Korean nationalism was considered a moral defect to be ‘purified’ away so that Korean ‘thought criminals’ become ‘completely Japanese’

2023-11-07

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In June 1942, a magazine called “Chōsen” (Korea) published an article that offers a stark window into a grim chapter

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Education

Tourist groups visiting the historical sites of Buyeo (부여, 夫餘) had to perform 3 hours community service (road repair, water pipes, tree planting) under Imperial Army command and indoctrinated in ‘Japanese-Korean Unification’ propaganda with mandatory Shinto worship, no individual tourists allowed (1943)

2023-04-09

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This article is the last one in a series of three educational articles published by the colonial regime to promote

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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

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

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School

Colonial authorities abruptly abolished Korean translations of the neighborhood meetings of Patriotic Groups in May 1942 as part of a ‘radical treatment’ to make Koreans speak Japanese, equating the inability to speak Japanese to a serious medical illness

2022-12-18

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This May 1942 article announces that Korean translations of the regular meetings of the Patriotic Groups are hereby abolished. The

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Korean Workers

This Japanese teacher devoted a decade of his life going door to door preaching “You Koreans and we Japanese are brothers, so dedicating yourselves to the Imperial nation is the only way!” the Koreans initially hated him, but eventually came to welcome him with respect, allegedly (Shimonoseki, 1943)

2022-11-21

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The following propaganda article profiles one Japanese teacher in Shimonoseki who took it upon himself to organize Korean residents into

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Korean schoolgirls standing in front of Seoul Whashin Department Store in 1943 as Korean women make some stitches in Shinto cloth amulets to be gifted to Imperial Japanese soldiers
School

Korean schoolgirls standing in front of Seoul Whashin Department Store in 1943 as Korean women make some stitches in Shinto cloth amulets to be gifted to Imperial Japanese soldiers

2022-11-14

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In Imperial Japan, schoolgirls would stand around public places like department stores and hold white strips of cloth, and then

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A back-to-school article telling Korean parents what their children would expect on their first day at Imperial Japanese elementary school: Shinto prayers to the Emperor, a free piece of bread for lunch, students were encouraged to earn their own money to buy some school supplies (April 1944, Seoul)
School

A back-to-school article telling Korean parents what their children would expect on their first day at Imperial Japanese elementary school: Shinto prayers to the Emperor, a free piece of bread for lunch, students were encouraged to earn their own money to buy some school supplies (April 1944, Seoul)

2022-10-25

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Imagine you are parent in 1944 Seoul and it is April, the beginning of the new school year. You are

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Japanese Language

Young Korean teachers teach children the ‘will to fight and destroy the U.S. and Britain’ and the Imperial Way of Labor where ‘every stalk of grass and every tree’ is connected to the Japanese nation and everything in the villages is ‘all solely dedicated to the Emperor’ (Sosa, 1943)

2022-10-10

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This is a ‘feel-good, heartwarming’ story of a novice teacher who gradually gets used to teaching her fourth grade students

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Small community of ~100 Russian Tatars in Seoul featured in 1942-1944 propaganda articles: a young 19-year-old Tatar girl is praised for filling out immigration forms for her neighbors, a Tatar woman is commended for scolding her friends with red fingernails for wearing ‘British-American’ cosmetics
Japanese Language

Small community of ~100 Russian Tatars in Seoul featured in 1942-1944 propaganda articles: a young 19-year-old Tatar girl is praised for filling out immigration forms for her neighbors, a Tatar woman is commended for scolding her friends with red fingernails for wearing ‘British-American’ cosmetics

2022-06-15

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This is my translation and transcription of four news articles from Keijo Nippo, a propaganda newspaper and mouthpiece of the

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Uncategorized

Propaganda articles say Koreans men are cowards because of ‘literary effeminacy’ and too much filial piety toward Korean parents who ‘just play around and live off their children’s income’ after age 50, and resolves to ‘reshape’ Korean Confucianism by ‘beating it’ into a Japanese form (1943)

2022-06-09

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This is my translation and transcription of two news articles from Keijo Nippo, a propaganda newspaper and mouthpiece of the

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Posts pagination

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Recent Posts

  • “Demonic Americans”: How Imperial Japan Tried to Turn Koreans Against U.S. Missionaries in 1944
  • A Rare 1944 Korean–Japanese Bilingual Propaganda Poster Promoting Forced Labor Conscription
  • Terrified by rumors of forced labor conscription under the Imperial Army, young Korean women rushed into marriages to escape, prompting officials to hold April 1944 press conference to deny and deflect
  • Koreans tried to bribe their way out of Imperial Japan’s forced labor conscription, but patriotic student informants turned them in (June 1945)
  • In 1944, Imperial Japan launched an “all-out campaign” to erase Hangul from public life, mobilizing teachers and Korean youth to destroy Korean signs, books, and even phonograph records

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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