Impact of Japanese Rule

Oct. 11, 2012

Review•How did Koreans react to encroaching

Japanese rule before 1910?

•What were the different ways Koreans defined what it meant to be a Korean?

•Were there any religious responses to growing Japanese power in Korea?

•What was the reaction of the Korean people to annexation in 1910?

March 1 movement

Prelude: The 1911 conspiracy caseWhy the eruption of nationalist sentiment in 1919?Death of King Kojong, President Wilson’s talk of self-

determination, and the arrest of Korean students in Tokyo, after their Feb. 8 declaration of independence from Japanese rule. Plus Japanese actions had begun to stimulate Korean

nationalism Modernizing steps: land ownership rationalized,

education expanded, a more intrusive state (bureaucracy and police), promotion of a modern commercial economy.

March 1 (continued)

What was the March 1st movement? (Sources, p. 336)

Who were its leaders?

Did all Koreans support the demonstrations?

Why did it fail?

The world didn’t support Koreans. Why not? No clear direction, merely unorganized expressions of anger at the Japanese.

What were the results of the demonstrations? A provisional government abroad, and a lighter Japanese hand at home.

Changes to Korean identity

The discovery of a “glorious past”

Sin Ch’aeho and the separation of government and minjok--Sources, pp. 317-319

Mun Ilp’yŏng and Korea remembered as a cultural pioneer. (Sources, pp.319-320)

The rediscovery of Tan’gun and Manchuria

new literature, creating a modern Korean culture--poetry and short stories,using Han’gŭl (Sources, pp.313-14)

Yi Kwangsu, and literary nationalism and modernity

Religion under colonial rule

• Christianity: The Shinto Shrine issue and the problem of “ancestor worship”

• Buddhism: Temples designated cultural properties to be protected by the state.

• Unified order of monks and nuns--called Chogye-jong.

• Confucianism: supported by the Japanese. Why?

• New religions: Ch’ŏndogyo, Taejonggyo, and Poch’ŏngyo: Why did they rise and fall so fast?

Colonial Education• Created universal public education--at the

elementary school level. (5 years)

• That was followed by a more-difficult-to-enter secondary school (another five years)

• Subjects taught included ethics, Japanese language, Chinese, arithmetic, science, music, physical education, art, the manual arts, and basic agricultural and commercial skills.

• There was only one university-established in 1926. It was primarily for Japanese living in Korea.

• However, there were“specialized schools for higher education,” out of which Yonsei University, Korea University, etc. evolved after liberation in 1945.

Modern mass culture

• Growth of literacy led to increased publication of, and readership of, modern poetry and fiction.

• newspapers and magazines led to growing awareness of the outside world

• radio led to not only a greater knowledge of the outside world, but the spread of traditional culture such as p’ansori as well as the birth of new forms of music, such as the bongjjak pop songs, and the spread of arigang. Also we see traditional music in new forms (more sanjo) and new venues (stages).

• modern theatre and movies, such as Arirang, expanded mass culture.

• In the cities, we see the birth of “tabang” and cafe culture.

Colonial DevelopmentGrowth in agricultural productivity, along with a decline in Korean diet.

•Why is agricultural growth important in the long run? Provides a surplus for investment.

Creating an infrastructure for development:

oBanking

oRailroads

oCommunication: the telegraph, radios, newspapers

oSchools--Korea’s first mass public education

Modernizing Society

A public health system

•A failed attempt to move from Oriental medicine to nothing but Western-style medicine

• Industrialization and the creation of Korea’s first modern labour force.

• From animate to inanimate power (electricity): another sign of modernization

The legacy of colonial development

Provided infrastructure for industrializationProvided public education and a modern public health systemProvided a more efficient bureaucracyProvided a more productive agricultureInadvertently created nationalism

Other long-term effects of Japanese colonial rule

Enshrined a pivotal role for the state in economic development.Provided a model of concentrated economic power: from zaibatsu to chaebŏlPromoted an export-oriented economy

• And a dependent economy

• Provided a model of what a modern government could look like: it could be authoritarian and militaristic, as long as it promoted economic development and governed in an intrusive but impersonal manner.