Exposing Imperial Japan

Latest Posts

Press

Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo) was Korea’s largest newspaper at its peak, boasting the best exclusive news access provided by the colonial regime, the best American printing equipment, correspondents stationed all over the world, printing from Sept. 1906 to Dec. 1945 under 3 different governments

2023-02-05

1177

In December 1938, Keijo Nippo newspaper published a self-promoting advertisement on a full-page spread boasting about how it is the

Model Korean Family

Mixed marriages in 1939 Korea: a Korean teenage girl left home and married the brother of her Japanese best friend, a Korean husband and Japanese wife met at a Tokyo music school and overcame ‘persecution’ from friends and family to become ‘pioneers of Japanese-Korean Unification’

2023-02-02

1023

The following two articles from 1939 profiled two mixed Japanese-Korean families: the first one had a Japanese husband and a

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

879

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

Daily Life

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

737

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

Daily Life

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

906

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

1007

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

1047

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

942

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

983

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

Foreign Residents

Seoul police busted some British and American residents in early 1942 for trying to buy the book ‘Korea of the Japanese’ by H.B. Drake, and a deported American was discovered to have sold ‘Banzai!’ by Parabellum to a Jongno bookstore, allegedly uncovering an ‘American conspiracy’ to poison Korea

2022-12-29

1000

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