Exposing Imperial Japan

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Police

Japanese Keijo Nippo reporters interviewed Korean abductee held captive in May 1939 by Kim Il-sung’s Korean communist guerrillas in Taehongdan (대홍단, 大紅湍)-the fighters mostly conversed in Chinese, abducted young men for recruiting, beheaded comrades for breaking strict male-female conduct rules

2023-10-27

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I found these remarkable 1939 Japanese articles about Kim Il-sung and his comrades in Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo), the official

Military

Shamseinoor Berikova, 19-year-old blue-eyed Russian Tatar refugee woman and Seoul resident in 1938, featured in Keijo Nippo as a pro-Imperial Japan patriotic model minority speaking fluent Japanese and supporting Imperial soldiers on their way to China

2023-10-23

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This article from 1938 features Shamseinoor Berikova, a 19-year-old blue-eyed Russian Tatar woman who was a daughter of a clothing

Post-Liberation

In Dec. 1945, an ethnic Japanese Keijo Nippo journalist wrote a heartfelt personal essay to the Korean people asking for forgiveness for not understanding their desire for independence, and predicted that Korea will “become the birthplace of a new world culture in literature and in the arts”

2023-10-19

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This is another interesting article that I found at the National Library of Korea last month. The article is from

Military

This is the only known bilingual Japanese-Korean wartime propaganda poster that Imperial Japan is known to have published on Keijo Nippo (October 7, 1944)

2023-10-15

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This rare Korean-Japanese bilingual wartime propaganda poster, published in Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo) on October 7, 1944, was extremely interesting,

Military

Japanese abductee escaped Korean Communist guerrillas in 1939 and told police about meeting Kim Il-sung and his comrades, many of whom were women

2023-10-13

395

This is a short article from 1939 where a Japanese abductee escaped captivity from Korean Communist Guerrillas to tell the

Daily Life

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

277

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

Police

Saiga Shichirō (斎賀七郎), an Imperial Japanese Ideological Police officer responsible for the torture, false imprisonment, and deaths of countless Korean patriots, was assassinated in Seoul on Nov. 2, 1945 (reported by newly liberated Keijo Nippo)

2023-09-28

322

For my fourth post that I am making during my stay in Korea, I am sharing a Keijo Nippo news

Imperial Way

Korean staff at the newly liberated Keijo Nippo Newspaper published this editorial and illustration in December 1945 denouncing the atrocities of Japanese Imperialism and repudiating the myth of ‘Japanese-Korean Unification’

2023-09-26

225

For my third post that I am making during my stay in Korea, I thought it would only be fitting

Press

Korean staff at Keijo Nippo took over news operations from their former Japanese bosses in Nov 1945 and then sent this message to Korean readers announcing continued publication in Japanese for the time being until Korean typefaces are ready for use

2023-09-25

278

For my second post that I am making during my stay in Korea, I thought it would only be fitting

Uncategorized

I finally accessed the 1945 Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo) archives in-person at the National Library of Korea – Korean employees apparently rebelled against their Japanese bosses in Nov. 1945 and took over news operations until the last issue published on Dec. 11, 1945

2023-09-24

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For over two years, I have been passionately posting about Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo), a newspaper from the Japanese colonial