From Korea to Kyoto— Annexation of the Korean Peninsula
Back in Korea, Japanese military/police rule of the “annexed” Peninsula had encountered moments of serious resistance, and had responded with a program of cultural assimilation aimed at erasing those Korean cultural practices that informed this resistance (such as the use of the Korean language). A policy of assimilation to Japanese institutional cultures (business, government, and religion) and the promulgation of the Japanese language in education and official business replaced Korean dominant institutions and discourses with Japanese1 ones.
- “...When special supplementary rations were distributed to most foreign nationals in Japan, Koreans were not included. The SCAP directive of 8 January 1948 on rationing specifically stated that ‘nothing in this directive will be construed to change the food ration for Korean nationals who have elected to remain in Japan, and who receive the same ration as Japanese nationals.’ Furthermore, SCAP noted that legal jurisdiction over Koreans was to continue to be exercised by the Japanese authorities....”
(Lee 1981, 76-77)
The use of Koreans as conscripted labor in Japan during World War II—a time when the circumstantial slavery of colonization gave way to an outright enslavement of millions of women and men, including tens of thousands of women who were used as sexual slaves by the Japanese military—brought an increase in the Korean population in Japan to nearly three million (Fukuoka 1996, n.p.).
When Japan was defeated at the end of World War II, most of the surviving conscripted workers returned to Korea as soon as transport could be arranged. But many of the Korean families who had resettled in Japan from before the War, and whose language, livelihood, and affinities were now locally attached within Japan, did not leave for Korea immediately, for several reasons, including the fact that the American authorities (SCAP) were not allowing the export of capital resources (including family savings) from Japan as a part of the reconstruction effort.
1A case might be made that this was a part of a plan to integrate the entire space of Korea and Japan into one nation/state. But any argument about the ultimate goal of this erasure of Korean cultural practices must also look ahead to the way that assimilated Koreans living in Japan were treated by the Japanese government under the American Occupation. For despite their knowledge of the Japanese language and familiarity with Japanese customs, and despite the fact that many had been born in Japan, as soon as Japan’s colonizer status dissolved, these would-be citizens were declared to be foreign nationals. In any case, as soon as the War started, the dominated status of Koreans became quite obvious.
