Like Na, most Korean women affected by the new era encountered definite limitations on their dreams and ambitions. The group of women who perhaps embodied these constraints the most were the thousands of young factory workers who “manned” much of the burgeoning manufacturing sector, in industries ranging from textiles to food processing. From having been nearly absent from enterprises at the turn of the century, women accounted for a fifth of the factory work force in the early 1920s and a third by the mid-1930s. Both the pull factors of regular wages and city life as well as the push factor of rural immiseration brought these girls, caught between puberty and marriage, into the factories. Their lives, however, were in many ways Dickensian: they were herded into tight and tedious working conditions and paid paltry wages. And despite the allure of the big city, they could enjoy at most one day a week off, and usually they spent this day in their cramped dormitories recuperating from their 12-hour shifts. These jobs also presented only meager opportunities for schooling, given the incessant work demands, and even for consumption, since whatever they earned in wages was usually sent directly to their families back home. The lives of these factory girls, then, fell far short of the glamorous existence of the “modern girl” lore. But their experiences offered them at least the foundation, however restricted, of self-determination through work and training.
This phenomenon also affected the countryside, though of course with differences in the scope and character of the changes. While most young women worked the fields or engaged in household work, unprecedented social forces, including the colonial government and private groups, gradually made possible educational and training opportunities—including, for a fortunate few, schooling
itself. And here, too, women often stood at the forefront of generating the very changes affecting them as a group. An example comes from Ch’oe Yongsin, a rural educator whose life and activities were dramatized in a famous novel of the 1930s. After having attended a girls’ high school in the 1920s, Ch’oe entered a women’s seminary and thereafter used her newfound connections, in particular to the Korean YMCA, to engage in work to eradicate illiteracy and provide basic schooling to children in the countryside. Her close connection to church-sponsored activities exemplified the major role of religion, particularly Protestantism, in bestowing opportunity for rural women. Ch’oe was one of countless Christian women who served simultaneously as translators for foreign missionaries, as liaisons for outside educators, and as pastoral deputies dealing with people, especially females, who could not be easily approached. In turn, these women used this activity as a stepping stone to a higher calling, whether in religious or other kinds of work, and regardless of their social background.
RELIGION AND SOCIAL CHANGE
The connection between Protestant activities in colonial Korea and changes affecting Korean females bespeaks a larger issue of the relationship between religion and social change in the early twentieth century. This in turn compels us to ponder one of the great historical questions about modern Korea, namely, the cause of the unusual success of Christianity in Korea compared to other non-Western countries. And while Catholicism, as well as Buddhism, also experienced dramatic growth, the development of Protestantism is most notable. Foreign Protestant missionaries began their activities in the 1880s, having entered through a back door, in a sense, as attachments to the increasing diplomatic, educational, and commercial presence of North Americans. Through their unshakable aura of advancement, resourcefulness in employing the Korean alphabet, implicit promises of social liberation, and explicit promises of salvation in the afterlife, the missionaries found great success. Significantly, they counted among their converts many of the most influential social elites at the turn of the twentieth century. An early peak in Protestant growth was reached in 1907 through the Great Pyongyang Revival, a gathering of thousands in what quickly became the center of Korean Christianity, the northwestern region surrounding the city of Pyongyang.
In the colonial period Pyongyang came to be known as the “Jerusalem of the East,” a designation pointing to its centrality in Korean Protestantism, but also to the incorporation of Protestantism in the city’s self-identity as a beacon of freedom from the darkness of foreign rule. That the majority of the most prominent nationalists and independence activists of the early twentieth century were also Protestant could not have been a coincidence. Indeed many of these figures, including 16 out of the 33 signers of the March First Declaration of Independence, pointed to their Protestant faith as inspiring their work. Most conspicuous in this regard was An Ch’angho, from Pyongyang, who began his activities as an educator and independence activist in the first decade of the twentieth century, and soon became one of the first Korean immigrants to the US. Traveling to and from his home in southern California, which acted as a base for the early Korean American community, An organized and inspired efforts to achieve Korean independence throughout this period. His life and thought exemplified the role of both religion and nationalist activity as havens of collective identity away from the colonial state, and in turn as further examples of the forces of social change that marked the long 1920s.
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Nation, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Late Colonial Period
CHRONOLOGY
1925 Founding of the Korean Communist Party and KAPF
1931 Korean newspaper campaigns to eliminate illiteracy in the countryside
1931 Manchurian Incident and invasion of Manchuria by imperial Japan
1932 Establishment of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo
1936 Olympic marathon victory by Son Kijng, defacement of Japanese flag on newspaper picture of Son
THE DOCTORING OF A NEWSPAPER PHOTO OF THE OLYMPIC MARATHON CHAMPION, 1936
The first evening edition of the August 24, 1936 issue of the Korean language newspaper, Tonga ilbo, had cleared the colonial censors. But just as the authorities had feared, a second evening edition quickly published thereafter caused quite a stir. On its front page was emblazoned the picture of national hero Son Kijng, who two weeks earlier had captured the gold medal in the marathon in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The cause for alarm was not that Son himself, pictured solemnly on the medal stand, was prominently featured, but rather that the Japanese flag on Son’s uniform had been rubbed out, leaving a black smudge in its place (see Image 18). Unbeknownst to their own editors and managers, a group of journalists had pulled off the stunt in a fit of emotion comprised of both pride and shame: pride that a Korean had reached a pinnacle of world sport, and shame that he had been forced to don a foreign conqueror’s flag. Not surprisingly, the ringleaders were fired, blacklisted, even jailed, and the newspaper was shut down for almost a year.
Image 18 Son Kijng’s photo, Tonga ilbo newspaper, Tuesday, August 25, 1936
This episode surrounding the picture of Son Kijng—or “Son Kitei,” the Japanese pronunciation of his name through which he was officially known outside the peninsula—is commonly viewed as an act of nationalist defiance. This is undoubtedly true, but the event also represents a window into the overarching patterns of culture and daily life in the late colonial period, with recurring exposure to each others’ lives through mass culture strengthening a sense of commonality. The newspaper, in fact, played the central role in circulating these observations, impressions, and ideas. This prodded Koreans to contemplate and reconsider their collective identity, both through an active engagement with pressing issues of nationhood and a more pedestrian pursuit of their lives.
EXPRESSION, WITHIN LIMITS
The brazen effacement of the Japanese flag on the picture of Son Kijng, in fact, epitomized the cat-and-mouse game Korean publications constantly played with colonial censors, as well as the ambiguities straddling the fine line between the overlooked and forbidden. The colonial state had itself unleashed the expressive energies of the Korean people through the “Cultural Rule” approach launched with great fanfare in the 1920s (Chapter 17). And Korean writers, artis
ts, and journalists had no qualms about testing the limits of colonial censorship. After having nipped in the bud potentially disruptive movements throughout the 1920s, in the 1930s the colonial state, whether in print or in action, found itself having to deal with a more fully matured realm of social discourse and interaction. These challenges reached another level altogether with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria following the Manchurian Incident of September 1931, and with the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo a year later. Thereafter, Korea gradually turned into an industrial base for the Japanese Empire’s advance into the Asian mainland.
Ironically, Korean newspapers had served unwittingly as propagandistic conduits for such Japanese designs, as reports about the Manchurian Incident and the imperial army’s exploits fed a growing competition for readership. This was particularly important because reporting about these developments often included news on Korean settler communities in Manchuria. But Korean newspapers in the late colonial period also exhibited behaviors that deliberately fueled anti-colonial or anti-Japanese sentiments. Their coverage of Koreans in Manchuria, for example, included reports about the anti-Japanese Korean guerilla groups operating there. Back home, the newspapers and magazines that grew in circulation and influence served to transmit the Korean colonial experience, especially as windows into and mirrors of everyday life. They also stood as the authoritative forums for debates on the entire range of issues concerning life in colonial Korea. Most strikingly, the opinions, which often became heated, went so far as to condemn colonial policies, wonder about the justice of the colonial condition itself, and even promote specific steps toward independence. A full spectrum of ideologies, from anarchism to communism, found voice in these pages, although many of the most offending passages were excised by the censors before reaching the reader. The consequences for crossing the line often were severe— including dismissal and even, occasionally, incarceration—but this was not a totalitarian system, at least not until the 1940s wartime mobilization (Chapter 19); Koreans, including the elites of the publishing world who had the most to lose, were not brutalized for thought crimes.
Such a delicate equilibrium was sustained also by the fact that Korean newspapers and magazines found outlets for promoting national interests through more benign activities as well. For one, such publications were the canvasses for the most important intellectuals and writers of the time, who established in these pages the foundation for modern Korean literature and thought. Rarely did a full-length novel from this period, for example, first get published outside the established mode of serialization in newspapers or magazines. The publications, in particular the monthly journals whose circulation sometimes outpaced that of the newspapers themselves, also printed the reflections of philosophers and social commentators, the latest findings of scholars, and the works of budding poets. Consumers of the popular press in the late colonial period in turn constituted the first mass reading public in Korean history, and publishers grew powerful as purveyors of information, insight, and opinion.
The two major Korean newspapers of the time, though sometimes criticized by contemporaries as well as later historians for a preoccupation with commercial gain, also displayed a Confucian sense of didactic social responsibility. To be sure, they benefited from their ties to the colonial authorities and often, even if unwittingly, furthered state interests. But they also were quick to promote national causes and laud Korean accomplishments, as exemplified by their leadership in public campaigns on behalf of Korean commercial products. Often the Korean press struck an unabashedly nationalist tone, as seen in the blaring headlines of “Hail the Global Triumph!” and “The Greatest Victory in All of Humanity!” in the Tonga ilbo newspaper’s front page the day after Son Kijng’s marathon victory. They furthermore pursued a spirited effort to curb illiteracy and expand educational opportunities among the overwhelming majority of Koreans still living in the countryside. They sent educated youth to the provinces to operate and teach in village schools on subjects ranging from hygiene to
history, and of course to propagate the use of the Korean alphabet. One could suggest that this, too, was commercially driven—that the newspapers were simply looking to expand their readerships. But the newspaper companies were often harassed by the authorities on suspicions of inciting nationalism or simply of impeding the colonial government’s own efforts at rural welfare, such as organizing agricultural cooperatives for water, fertilizer, and credit.
THE QUOTIDIAN BLOSSOMING OF MODERN CULTURE
Novels and short stories published in the newspapers and monthly magazines represented only a fraction of the totality of cultural production in the late colonial period that amounted, in hindsight, to the formation of modern Korean culture itself. Indeed, the very notion of a Korean culture to be explored and celebrated as a distinctive, self-enclosed civilizational entity reached full bloom in this era. That this feat was achieved when Koreans did not possess political autonomy constitutes a great irony, but this did not make Korea unique. Colonial or subject peoples throughout world history, if they could evade extinction itself, often forged a keener, sharper sense of collective self. In the modern world, this phenomenon resulted in the creation of wholly new nationalities or, as in the case of India (and Korea), a rejuvenated sense of national identity replenished by cultural enterprises now definitively identified with the nation.
In Korea, the project of creating modern culture through the combination of cultural production and systematic reevaluation of older cultural products had begun at the turn of the century, but it was not until the late colonial period that a critical mass of achievements appeared. The colonial authorities, while remaining on the lookout for explicit calls for independence, not only allowed these activities but actually promoted them. Japanese officials believed that such efforts would act as safe outlets for frustrations on the political front and even result in a reinforcement of the civilizational bonds between Japan and Korea. Regardless, Korean intellectuals began to engage intensively in research that they openly labeled “Korean Studies” (Chosnhak). Korean historical scholarship, helped in part by large-scale projects sponsored by the government, reached new levels of depth and sophistication, and it sometimes even challenged the validity of colonial rule. Some prominent people of letters, such as Ch’oe Namsn and Yi Nnghwa, turned their attention to incorporating the study of Korean religion into grand theories of Korea’s place in Asian civilization. Still others took on the task of systematizing and standardizing the Korean written vernacular, which had enjoyed widespread use since the turn of the century but still suffered from a lack of usage standards. The Korean Language Society, comprised of many outstanding scholars of the time, took to fixing this problem by promulgating grammar and spelling rules and compiling an authoritative dictionary.
The emergence of a standard Korean vernacular resulted from several sources, including the work of linguists. Also playing a major role were the increasing propagation of common forms of mass culture and entertainment, and a shortening of distances through both communication and transportation technologies. And, notably, the lyric poetry of this era expanded the expressive potential of the Korean language, as shown by the three most renowned poets of the first half of the twentieth century: Kim Sowl, Han Yongun, and Chng Chiyong. Kim’s best known poem, “Azaleas”—indeed the most famous and probably most popular poem in modern Korea—taps into the powerfully recurring theme in Korean folklore of sorrowful parting and unrequited love. This theme appears in everything from the Tale of Ch’unhyang to the semi-official national folk song of “Arirang,” as well as in hit songs of this period such as “Tuman River, Full of Tears.” It also is central to the title poem of Han Yongun’s great collection of lyrics, Silence of the Beloved. While revealing himself a passionate nationalist and Buddhist reformer in his activities as educator and essayist, in his verse Han couched his concerns about the contemporary situation in allegories of love, lament, and reconciliation. Chng Chiyong, a Catholic and perhaps t
he most noteworthy stylist, painted serenely evocative images of nature and rustic life with breathtaking fluency. That Chng, who worked as an English teacher at a secondary school for the duration of the late colonial period, could consistently find outlets for publishing his poetry in various journals, including those he helped to edit, testified to the flourishing literary culture of this era.
Other forms of mass culture also enjoyed a major boom, helped by advances in technology and commercial development, including a thriving consumerism in the cities. Music and theater performances became popular events, and they featured both foreign and native works. Korean plays and musicals were offered through creative stagings of traditional folk tales as well as new works, and retellings of famous Korean stories not surprisingly became embraced by the early Korean cinema as well, the first “talkie” of which appeared in 1935. And in music a star system of singers emerged in the 1930s, with their most popular hits instantly becoming iconic treasures that remain in the popular consciousness today. These songs enjoyed distribution through the proliferation of phonographs among the upper and middle classes, but it was the advent of the radio that was most responsible for the widespread dissemination of popular music in the colonial period. Radio supplied people with news and education as well as entertainment, infusing the growing listening public in both rural and urban areas with a new sense of connection to each other and to the world at large.
A History of Korea Page 20