Have you heard of anti-Japanese propaganda “Japanese BRUTAL rule over Korea” ? This is completely a lie. Do we have to distort a history to be nice to others? NO. The history is history. You can't bring your own agenda to it. So this is it.
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1) Korea was at the dead end with a filth and degeneracy with selfish Korean royals and many arrogant nobles which even King couldn't control. No nation treated Korea equally. 2) Initially Korean king Gojong resisted Japanese advice, but then he realized the real situation of Korea and its surrounding in the world. Next king, Sunjong agreed on annexation by Japan in 1910. Korea was revolutionized from a filth to prosperity and first time Koreans were treated equally by the Powers by becoming Japanese. Reforming Korea was not easy such as upper class Yangban’s objection against abolishing the class system, which Korean King once attempted bit he didn’t have an enough power to enforce it. When Japan annexed Korea, initially there were some resistive movement such as 3.1 agitated by those against a reform by Japanese but it was nothing but a violent riot setting fire, attacking school, and killing a police officer. And its conflict was NOT Korea vs Japan but [Korean] vs [Korean royals, Korean, and Japan coalition ] . 3) During annexation, Koreans were taught Korean language, there were films with Korean tradition. Koreans in Japan were eligible for elections and there were Korean politicians in Japan. Eventually Koreans in Korea (also Taiwanese in Taiwan) were going to be eligible for Japanese election. Unfortunately it didn't happen because Japan lost a war in 1945. |
Currently in Korea, anyone who speaks in favor of Japanese annexation period faces the attack verbally or even physically by anti-Japanese Koreans as below.
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95 years old Korean says " I fondly recall the period of the Japanese rule. It was fortunate for Korea to have been ruled by Japan.", and he was beaten to death by an angry 35 years old Korean . Segye Ilbo (World Daily) on September 12, 2013 Professor Choe Ki-ho says " I am 92 years old, and I want to tell you the truth" . “ I want to tell you the truth. Telling the truth could threaten my life in South Korea, but I feel it is my duty to do so.” “Nowadays the Koreans who speak positively of the Japanese are criticized as "Chinilpa (pro-Japanese)" but in those days over 90% of Koreans were pro-Japanese.” https://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/2014/10/i-am-91-years-old-and-i-want-to-tell.html |
The truth is if you consider the three periods of Korea in a modern era, Japanese annexation period was the best for Korean people as described in US president Hoover described in his book "Freedom Betrayed".
| ~1910 : The miserable Yi dynasty era |
| 1910 to 1945 : During Japanese annexation, revolutionized Korea with Japan |
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1945~ current: Two atomic bombs killed 20K Korean people in Japan, including Korean prince, Yi U(이우) Because FDR foolishly asked Stalin to join a war against Japan at Yalta at the almost the end of WW2, Soviet invaded Manchuria, north of Korea. After WW2 because of the conflict between US and Soviet, Korea was split into North and South. The US annihilated Korea by air raid at Korean war causing the death of 20 percent of people. |
¶ ~1910 : The miserable Yi dynasty era 李氏朝鮮
These are testimonies and how Westerners saw.
📕 Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath by George H. Nash
THE HISTORY OF KOREA is largely one of conflicts between China on the west and Japan on the east of this 6oo miles of a peninsula extending south from Manchuria. Neither the Yellow Sea to the west or the Sea of Japan have afforded them much protection as they have never been a [illegible word-ed. people. In fact the Koreans, being a race without aggressive or military instincts, their independence has been most uncertain. Recorded history of Korea reaches back for over 2,000 years. It was united into a kingdom in 669 A.D. For centuries, Korean allegiance was mostly to China. But in 1895, in a war between Japan and China, the victorious Japanese exacted a declaration of Korean independence from China. Ten years later, in 1905, in the Russo-Japanese War, the victorious Japanese occupied Korea militarily, and in 1910 formally annexed it. Japan's possession of Korea ended with her defeat in the Second World War, in August, 1945.
I first visited Korea in 1910 [1909-ed.], to advise some Japanese industrialists on engineering matters. The Korean people at that time were in the most disheartening condition that I had witnessed in any part of Asia. There was little law and order. The masses were underfed, under-clothed, under-housed and under-equipped. There was no sanitation, and filth and squalor enveloped the whole countryside. The roads were hardly passable, and there were scant communication or educational facilities. Scarcely a tree broke the dismal landscape. Thieves and bandits seemed to be unrestrained.
During the thirty-five years of Japanese control, the life of the Korean people was revolutionized. Beginning with this most unpromising human material, the Japanese established order, built harbors, railways, roads and communications, good public buildings, and greatly improved housing. They established sanitation and taught better methods of agriculture. They built immense fertilizer factories in North Korea which lifted the people's food supplies to reasonable levels. They reforested the bleak hills. They established a general system of education and the development of skills. Even the dusty, drab and filthy clothing had been replaced with clean bright colors.
📕Korea from Its Capital: With a Chapter on Missions, by George William Gilmore
Page.88
Koreans are wretchedly poor; poor not merely according to our standard, but judged by one much lower. One gauge of this poverty is afforded by their scale of wages.
Page. 92
The people have been much maligned in the matter of cleanliness. In the East one learns to beware of aphorisms. Foreigners like to be witty at the expense of natives. So an Englishman was once heard to say that the dirtiest man he ever saw was a clean Korean. The impression the speaker meant to convey was that Koreans are the dirtiest people on earth.
📕KOREA: A DEGENERATE STATE, by GEORGE KENNAN
Special Correspondent for The Outlook in the Fat East
The first thing that strikes a traveler in going from Japan to Korea is the extraordinary contrast between the cleanness, good order, industry, and general prosperity of one country, and the filthiness, demoralization, laziness, and general rack and ruin of the other. The inhabitants of the two empires seem to be ethnologically related, and they resemble each other somewhat in color and in physical type; but in moral and intellectual characteristics they are as far apart as the Dutch and the Venezuelans. The Japanese are clean, enterprising, intelligent, brave, well educated, and strenuously industrious, while the Koreans strike a newcomer as dirty in person and habits, apathetic, slow-witted, lacking in spirit, densely ignorant, and constitutionally lazy.
So far as history enables one to judge, the two peoples had a fair and equal start, and there is reason to believe that at first the Koreans took the lead; but, as a result of the feudal system, and of other causes not fully and clearly ascertainable, Japan advanced, improved, and eventually developed a high type of individual and national character, while Korea gradually declined, lost what character and culture she had,
📕Corea, The Hermit Nation, by Matthew Calbraith Perry
THE inhabitants of the Hermit Kingdom are peculiarly proficient in the art of doing nothing gracefully.
📕Histoire de l'église de Corée by Dallet in 1874
Claud-Chsrles Dallet wrote a book “The History of Church of Korea” by collecting the great work written by the martyred bishop, Antonie Daveluy.
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Condition des femmes. - Mariage. En Corée, comme dans les autres pays asiatiques, les mœurs sont effroyablement corrompues, et par une suite toute natu-relle, la condition ordinaire de la femme est un état d'abjection et d'infériorité choquantes. Elle n'est point la compagne de l'homme, elle n'est qu'une esclave, un instrument de plaisir ou de travail, à qui la loi et les mœurs ne reconnaissent aucun droit et, pour ainsi dire, aucune existence morale. C'est un principe généralement admis, consacré par les tribunaux, et que personne ne songe à contester, que : toute femme qui n'est pas sous puissance de mari ou de parents, est, comme un animal sans maitre, la propriété du premier occupant. |
Korean women were slaves with no name.
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📕 THE NEW KOREA, by Ireland, Alleyne
The time Japan annexed Korea, in 1910, the actual conditions of life in the Peninsula were extremely bad. This was not due, however, to any lack of inherent intelligence and ability in the Korean race, but to the stupidity and corruption which for five hundred years had, almost continuously, characterized the government of the Korean dynasty, and to the existence during that period of a royal court which maintained throughout Korea a system of licensed cruelty and corruption.
At the time of the annexation of Korea, his late Majesty the Emperor Meiji of Japan authorized the setting aside of 30 million yen from the Imperial treasury for the benefit of his new Korean subjects. Of this sum, 17,398,000 yen was invested as a permanent fund and distributed among various provinces. The interest, amounting to nearly 900,000 yen annually, is devoted to various forms of social service throughout the Peninsula.
📕 Korea and Her Neighbors by Isabela Bird
The cleansing of the Augean stable of the Korean official system, which the Japanese had undertaken, was indeed an Herculean labor. Traditions of honor and honesty, if they ever existed, had been forgotten for centuries. Standards of official rectitude were unknown. In Korea when the Japanese undertook the work of reform there were but two classes, the robbers and the robbed, and the robbers included the vast army which constituted offi-cialdom. "Squeezing" and peculation were the rule from the highest to the lowest, and every position was bought and sold.
(Note: Above is even before Japanese annexation in 1910, Japan supported Korea for a better nation. )
📕 Last Words on Korea, Korea and Her Neighbours, by Isabella Bird
I believe that Japan was thoroughly honest in her efforts; and though she lacked experience, and was ofttimes rough and tactless, and aroused hostile feeling needlessly, that she had no intention to subjugate, but rather to play the rôle of the protector of Korea and the guarantor of her independence.
📕 Glimpse of Korea
📕 Defining and Defending the Open Door Policy: Theodore Roosevelt and China by Gregory Moore
The United States might not have been able to act in order to preserve Korean independence, but that made little difference as the (Theodore) Roosevelt administration obviously did not care to do anything. "We cannot possibly interfere for the Koreans against Japan," Roosevelt wrote to Hay late in January of 1905, "they couldn't strike one blow in their own defense." In another letter to Hay a few days later, the president added: "Japan ought to have a protectorate over Korea (which has shown an utter inability to stand by itself). As Japan prepared to place Korea under its suzerainty, the Korean emperor sent a lengthy letter in secret to Roosevelt in which he made an impassioned plea to the president to use his influence with Japan to prevent it from taking over Korea's foreign affairs." Roosevelt told Root that because the letter had been sent in secret and that the Korean representatives to the United States knew nothing about it, it would not be possible to treat the document as an official communication. Additionally, the United States had been informed that Korea had arranged to allow Japan to secure control over its foreign policy. "All things considered. I do not see that any practical action on the letter is open to us," Roosevelt concluded.
📕 Histoire de l'église de Corée by Dallet in 1874
One of the sources of the problem, Korean arrogant nobles, Yanban(両班)
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¶ Japan killed Korean Queen?
Probably you have seen the woman left below as Korean Queen (閔妃) in anti-Japanese propaganda, but she is not but “maid”. They are photos of Korean servants for Korean royal. There is no official photo recognized as Korean Queen.
Anti-Japanese propaganda says Korean Queen Min/Myeongseong, one of wives of Gojong(her only son was Sunjong) was assassinated by Japanese. But this is not correct. Korean fraction of king's father Daewongun wanted to kill her. But they failed at the Im-o Military Rebellion(壬午軍乱). Then they asked some of Japanese for an assistance to kill her at the Eul-mi Incident(乙未事変). These Koreans thought that was a good for Korea to kill evil queen. Today, it is completely hypocrite for Koreans to blame Japan when Koreans were the ones who dragged Japanese into Korean internal conflict between Korean King's father and Queen.
Source about Yu Gil-jun who asked Japanese for a help to kill queen
¶ 1910 to 1945 : During Japanese annexation, Korea was revolutionized by Japan👏
There was a big group of Koreans referred to Ilchinhoe/Iljinhoe/一進会/일진회 who wanted Japan to annex Korea, and made a petition for it.
🗒️The Late Korean Emperor(Sunjong 純宗)'s Rescript on Cession of Sovereignty (Promulgated on August 29, 1910)
Sunjong 's personal name Yi Cheok (이척; 李坧)
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Notwithstanding Our unworthiness We succeeded to a great and arduous task, and from Our accession to the Throne down to the present time We have used Our utmost efforts to follow the modern principles of administration. In view, however, of the long-standing weakness and deep rooted evils, We are convinced that it would be beyond Our power to effect reforms within a measurable length of time. Day and night We have been deeply concerned about it, and have been at a loss to find the means how to rectify the lamentable state of things. Should it be left as it goes on, allowing the situation to assume more serious phase, We fear that We will finally find it impossible to adjust it in any way. Under these circumstances We feel constrained to believe it wise to entrust Our great task to abler hands than Ours, so that efficient measures may be carried out and satisfactory results obtained therefrom. Having taken the matter into Our serious consideration and firmly believing that this is an opportune time for immediate decision, We have ceded all the rights of sovereignty over Korea to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan in whom we have placed implicit confidence and with whom we have shared joy and sorrow from long time since, in order to consolidate the peace of the Extreme East and ensure the welfare of our people. You, all the people, are expected not to give yourselves up to commotion, appreciating the present national situation as well as the trend of the times, but to enjoy the happiness and blessings by pursuing your occupations in peace and obeying the enlightened new administration of the Empire of Japan. We have decided to take this step by no means disregarding your interest but in our eagerness to relieve you of this deplorable situation. We command you, therefore, to take due cognizance of our wishes. Sunjong (純宗) |
Korean king, Sunjong felt relieved, now Korean royal is the safe from his people or attack from foreign countries as long as Japan was there. Sunjong(純宗) , his father Gojong(高宗) and all the other Korean royals were treated well.
1) For instance from 1935 to 1940(昭和十年～十五年), (李王朝歳費)1.8 million JPY ( ≒ 18 million current JPY) was given to Korean royal family every year.
2) Gojong(高宗) demanded impudently a further aid.
3) Sunjong(純宗) employed best cook.
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¶ Peaceful demo 3.1 movement?
March 1st, 1919, after the death of King Kojong, Korean people were agitated by Korean religious groups and started to protest. In Japanese archive, it was recorded as 朝鮮騒擾事件(Chyou-sen Sou Jyou Jikenn), “the Korean Riots”, and it says mobs armed themselves, set fire, assaulted school and residences, and killed a police officer. After this period, there was no further riots or movement against Korean/Japanese authority.
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¶ Did Japan force Koreans to change their names into Japanese? No.
Koreans didn't have Western/Japanese last name system. So they need to have it, but it was not mandatory. Koreans were never forced to use Japanese name either. As below, you see many Korean names in archives. Many Koreans were willing to use Japanese name for better opportunity with 19Japanese.
¶ The life in Korea during annexation period
🎥Archive film, “Keijo 京城” (present-day Seoul)
This film was produced by the Railway Bureau of the Government-General of Korea (朝鮮総督府鉄道局) to introduce Korea at Japanese annexation. This unadorned film captures a day in Keijo from morning to night, entirely without narration. It offers a fascinating glimpse of Korea at the time, unfiltered and without embellishment.
※Production: Dai Nippon Bunka Eiga Seisakusho 大日本文化映画製作所 (Greater Japan Cultural Film Production Studio) July 1940
(Movie) The life of Korea at Japanese annexation_part1
(Movie) The life of Korea at Japanese annexation_part2
(Movie) The life of Korea at Japanese annexation_part3
(Movie) The life of Korea at Japanese annexation_part4
(Movie) The life of Korea at Japanese annexation_part5
¶ Korean Royal Joseon dynasty
The merge of Korean and Japanese royals
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📕 Memorandun of Conversation. with Mr. Komiya, Vice-Minister of Coreen Imperial
Household.
I have just had the
As to his means of existence, Mr. Komiya told me that an allowance of Yen 300,000 was paid to the Bx-Emperor perannum but that he, invarlably got short of cash and made constant demands in excess of that sun on the Exchequer of the Imperial Household and that it was now a 10,000 Yen and then a 20,000 Yen that he required to pay his debts. Whenever possiu-were scraped up and handed over to pay his creditors. Ankad why the Ex-Emperor was snort of funds,
🗒️ Post WW2 declassified US document
II. NATURE OF KOREAN INTEREST IN THE PEACE SETTLEMENT
The Japanese annexation of Korea by Treaty in 1920 was recognized by almost all countries, including the US, and no general recognition was given any Korean state or government until 1948. Resistence to Japanese rule within Korea was restricted to localized or brief disorders; the people generally, albeit grudgingly, nocepted the rule of the Japanese Government General. The rival Korean nationalist organizations outside Kores, most of which were established after World War I, were not given any formal international recognition and appear to have had very little force in the homeland.
🗒️No. 1. Mr. Takaaki Kato to Sir Edward Grey.— (Received August 25.)
Sir,
UNDER instructions, I have the honour to transmit to you the Declaration of the Imperial Government, the text of which is herewith enclosed, in connection with the annexation of Corea to the Empire of Japan, as communicated to you in my note of even date.
I have, &e. TAKAAKI KATO.
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Enclosure in No. 1.
Declaration of the Imperial Government as to the Annexation of Corea to the Empire of Japan.
(Confidential.
NOTWITHSTANDING
earnest and laborious work of reform in administration of Corea, in which the Governments of Japan and Corea have been engaged for more than four years, since the conclusion of the agreement of 1905, the existing system of government in that country has not proved entirely equal to the duty of preserving public order and tranquillity, and, in addition, the spirit of suspicion and misgiving dominates the whole peninsula.
In order to maintain peace and stability in Corea, to promote the prosperity and welfare of Coreans, and at the same time to ensure the safety and repose of foreign residents, it has been made abundantly clear that fundamental changes régime of government are absolutely essential.
The Governments of Japan and Corea, being convinced of the urgent necessity reforms responsive to the requirements of the situation and of furnishing sufficient guarantee for the future, have, with the approval of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor of Corea, concluded through their respective plenipotentiaries a treaty providing for complete annexation of Corea to the Empire of Japan. By virtue of that important Act, which shall take effect on its promulgation on the 29th August, 1910, the Imperial Government of Japan undertake the entire government and administration Corea
, and they hereby declare that the matters relating to foreigners and foreign trade in Corea shall be conducted in accordance with the following rules
📕 JAPAN KOREA AND FORMOSA by F. M. TRAUTZ
The Koreans are physically and mentally a peculiar type with an interesting language of their own. Although they are tall, powerful and meat-eaters, they are anything but savage and rough in their behaviour.
In their attitude towards life and in their industrial methods they are extremely conservative. It is due to Japanese administration that hygiene, schools and economies have greatly developed.
📕 My Voyage in Korea by M Eissler 1918
page:25
Since the Japanese occupation the status of the women is raised to a higher level and it is not so easy to get rid of an obstreperous wife.
page.78
can be seized and held as prisoners until the trial of the case and can be tortured so as to get the testimony out of them. 👉Korea had no lawyers till the Japanese occupation, therefore the criminal has to conduct his own case. The witnesses to avoid torture will testify what the Judge wants to know and the difficulty they were under was for the witnesses to find out what the Judge wanted them to testify to.
📕IN KOREAN WILDS AND VILLAGES by STEN BERGMAN, Translated by FREDERIC WHYTE
The Koreans have both a spoken language and a written language of their own, both of which differs entirely from Chinese and Japanese. Korean, like Japanese, is polysyllabic and its grammar resembles that of Japanese, but it has almost no likeness to it in other respects.
The Korean is not delighted with the Japanese rule but he finds that things go well with him and he is quite ready to admit that Japan has done a great deal for the welfare of the country and has created greater possibilities for him.
If Japan had not taken Korea, either Russia or China would have done so for the country was in a demoralized condition and unable to look after itself. Enlightened Koreans take the view therefore that Japan's annexation of the country was the only thing possible for their welfare, even if they feel that she has gone a little too far in many cases.
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But since Japan happened to be the nation to resist the Russian advance in the Far East, one may call attention to the historical fact that Japan had made more real progress in five decades of contact with the Western world than Russia had made in five centuries. Japan was far from perfect, but it was better for the interests of mankind that Korea and lower Manchuria should develop under Japanese influence than under Russian.
¶ Korean politician/Scholars in Japan
Korean had a right to vote and become a politician.
(Below) Over 50,000 Koreans in Japan Gain Voting Rights
Korean-Language Voting Confirmation Further Expands Rights, The Daily Shinpo February 7, 1930
內地의 朝鮮人有權者 五萬人以上 朝鮮文投票確認으로 權利는 一層伸張
每日申報 1930년02월07일
(Below) Korean first national polititian in Japan,Park Chun-gin, his wife and his supporters.
Long live, Banzai ! Korea's first national polititian in Japan, Mr. Park Chun-gin, has brilliantly hit! Kyungseong Daily News February 24, 1932
萬歲萬歲, 朝鮮人最初の代議士, 見事金的を射落した朴春琴氏 #朴春琴
京城日報 1932년02월24일
(Below) First Korean Assembly in Tokyo
First Korean Elected to Tokyo City Council: Mr. Lee Dong-hwa, Born in Tongchuan
The Daily Shinpo, March 12, 1937
東京市議員에 朝鮮人初當選 通川出生 李東華氏
每日申報 1937년03월12일
(Below) Encouraging Koreans in Osaka not to waive a right for a vote.
Please take care to ensure no abstentions occur, says Chief Political Affairs Officer Ikegami regarding
👉 voting rights for Koreans residing in Japan.
Kyōto Daily News, Page 2, Column 5 February 1, 1928
棄權が無い樣に注意して貰ひ度い, 內地在住朝鮮人の選擧權につき池上政務總監語る
京城日報2面5段 1928년02월01일
(Below) Tokyo Korean Voters: 2,047. Korean-style Names of Candidates. Distributed to Each Polling Station
The Daily Shinpo, February 16, 1930
東京朝鮮人有權者 二千四十七名 候補者氏名의 朝鮮文式 各開票所에 配布
每日申報 1930년02월16일
(Below) The names of the election candidates written in Korean subscription.
(Below) First Korean assistant professor in Tokyo University.
朝鮮人最初의 東帝大（東京帝國大學）助敎授 理博 李泰圭氏, 朝鮮中央日報(여운형) 1935년05월04일
(Below) First Korean female teacher at school in Japan
Ms. Cho Kyung-hee, the First Korean Female Teacher in Japan, Girls' High School, a Woman of Immense Spirit, Bachelor of Arts from Sookmyung
Kyungjeong Daily News April 7, 1933
朝鮮女性最初の內地高女の先生, 萬丈の氣を吐いた趙慶喜さん, 淑明出身の文學士, 京城日報 1933년04월07일
¶ Korean politician/Scholars in Korea
Koreans in Korea were going to have the rights for vote for Japanese government. Unfortunately this never happened because Japan lost WW2 before that happened.
¶ Korean military
In 1938, the Korean Volunteer Soldier System (Army Special Volunteer Order) was established in response to a petition by Korean Diet member Park Chun-geum (elected from Tokyo Prefecture's 4th district), allowing Koreans to volunteer as regular enlisted soldiers. The application ratio in 1942 was 62.4 times. Conscription in the Korean Peninsula was not implemented until 1944.
It was highly competitive to be a soldier.
¶ 1945~current: After the world war 2, Korea got split into North & South and got annihilated with US air raid
After Franklin Roosevelt'(FDR) forcing Japan to attack on Pear Harbor, WW2 started. Luckly Korea was safe without any air raid by US bomber. But FDR who caught up with the idea of a new world order with Stalin ignored Japanese attempt for a peace negotiation two days before meeting with Stalin at Yalta and foolishly asked Stalin to join a war against Japan giving him Manchuria(Manchu homeland in North East of China). This led the spread of communisms over East Asia as in East Europe. FDR died with illness in an anger realizing Stalin betrayed him.
At the next president Truman administration, the two atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is said that 20K Koreans were killed in Hiroshima alone including Korean prince Yi U(이우) .
The conflict between the US and Soviet started leading to the split of Korea into North and South and Korean War. Lemay says “20 percent of Koreans were killed.”
