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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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Pro-Japanese Korean colonel (신태영)’s full 1943 speech...
In Japan-occupied Korea, Koreans often mixed their...
A Korean father spent 8 years looking...
U.S. soldiers guard the Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo...
Elderly Korean farmer Kim Chi-gu (김치구, 金致龜),...
Korean comfort women interviewed after whirlwind 1943...
Propaganda article contrasting the ‘Bad Korean Retailer’...
In 1942, Matsumoto Chitei reportedly became the...
Another part of a propaganda interview of...
Book review of Anti-Japan Tribalism (반일종족주의, 反日種族主義),...
Why did many Koreans “voluntarily” enlist in...
In April 1943, Seoul high school girls...
A tour of Sinuiju Yamato Imperial Boarding...
Imperial Japan’s manhunt for the “Communist Bandit...
Severe 1940s wartime housing crisis in urban...

Tag: 1943

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Angry Koreans filed numerous complaints against local Imperial Japanese party officials for abuse of power, only to be told publicly by General Secretary Hada to stop complaining and obey their patriotic group leaders with harmony and gratitude for their leaders’ hard work (Chungcheongnam-do, 1943)

2022-06-05

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

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Internment Camp

Converted Korean ‘ideological criminals’ (a.k.a. independence activists) at ‘Yamato Cram School’ tearfully apologize for fighting against Imperial Japan and are spellbound as Governor Koiso explains in propaganda speech that the greatest significance of life is hidden in Japanese mythology (1943)

2022-05-31

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

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Uncategorized

Imperial Japanese penal officials brag about brainwashing Korean ‘ideological criminals’ (a.k.a. independence activists) in ‘Yamato cram schools’ and converting them into enthusiastic collaborators willing to die shouting ‘Banzai to the Emperor!’ (Seoul 1943)

2022-05-23

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These are very interesting articles describing Korean ‘ideological criminals’, many of whom had upper class Yangban backgrounds, and how they

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Uncategorized

Amid severe wartime food shortages in 1943, propaganda article notes that Korean laborers are not coming to work in the cities due to hunger, but suggests hunger can be a productivity booster if workers get used to it, and full stomachs are not necessary for proper nutrition

2022-05-19

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  (Translation) Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) July 26, 1943 Discussing Wartime Nutritional Foods Roundtable discussion hosted by the head office

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Uncategorized

Another part of a propaganda interview of Korean comfort women who returned from a whirlwind 1943 Japan tour visiting wounded Imperial Japanese soldiers, and one of the comfort women retired to “live life without shame as a sister and mother of splendid soldiers of the Korean peninsula”

2022-05-15

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(Translation) Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) August 14, 1943 A chorus of sincerity in response to gratitude Receiving encouragement from the heroes

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Food Shortages

As food shortages deepened in Korea by 1943, Imperial propagandists encouraged Koreans to eat wild grasses as meat substitutes, which they insisted were nutritionally comparable to meat, and follow food quack Horace Fletcher’s advice to chew food 30 times to make up for the lack of food quantity

2022-05-06

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  (Translation) Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) July 18, 1943 The way to solve the food problem Wild grasses are also

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Comfort Women

Korean comfort women in a “performing arts comfort team” embark on whirlwind July-August 1943 Japan tour visiting wounded Imperial Japanese soldiers

2022-04-26

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  There was a “performing arts comfort team” of 14 Korean comfort women who went to Japan in July and

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Uncategorized

In 1943, Japanese company bosses discussed how to ‘train’ Korean workers to work even harder – one punished workers who suffered heat exhaustion by making them run, pushed them to work until they collapsed, strictly reprimanded them for consuming a 10-day food supply in only 3 days

2022-04-21

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  Notes: It is July 1943. Imperial Japan, including Japan-colonized Korea, has been mobilized in total war against the United

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Philosophy

Tracing the origins of the myth that the Korean people invited Imperial Japan to colonize Korea, comparing anti-Korean comments on online Japanese forum, 2channel, and 1943 propaganda article defending the colonization of Korea

2022-04-02

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  (Notes) This propaganda editorial from 1943 spreads the myth that the Korean people invited Imperial Japan to colonize Korea,

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Uncategorized

Korean schoolgirls attend a five-day swimming camp at Songdo, Incheon in the summer of 1943, learning to become “healthy mothers of Japan the Oceanic Nation”

2022-03-20

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  (Notes) Duksung Women’s Vocational School was also featured in two other articles previously featured in this blog: this one from August 22,

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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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