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Academy of East Asian StudiesSungkyunkwan University

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J o u r n a l o fE a s tA s i a nS t u d i e sVol.15 No.2 OCT. 2015

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SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol.15 No.2 2015 Academy of East Asian Studies. 263-289

email of the authors: [email protected]; [email protected] 263

Introduction: The Honam Plain as a Rice Bowl for the Japanese EmpireThe migration of citizens from the metropole provides a pretext for direct colonial rule by the metropole government. In the first half of the twentieth century, colonial Korea had the highest proportion of metropole migrants among its population after Algeria when it was under French rule. A great majority of Japanese immigrants to colonial Korea were urban residents, especially in former treaty ports. Still, even in rural areas like the Honam Plain, pockets of immigrant communities emerged from the beginning of the protectorate (1905). The Honam Plain, located in the southwest of the Korean peninsula, is one of the oldest rice baskets in the East Asian region, and in the first half of the twentieth century it shared with the Yangzi delta leased by the British, the Mekong delta under France, and the Java plains under the Netherlands, the fate of supplying food to a colonial empire (Scupin 2006). All these regions were marked by intensive paddy rice cultivation and the growth of colonial settler communities (Elkins and Pederson 2005).

The Honam Plain, as shown in Figure 1, stretched along the Yellow Sea coast in North Cholla Province, and included the Chonju Plain centered around Iksan

Japan, as a latecomer to imperial expansion, began to seek a food supply for its empire in its

neighbor Koreas southern rice basketthe Honam Plain. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese

War (1904-1905), a massive wave of Japanese immigration brought many settlers to the Honam

Plain, where they initiated their own development (takushoku ) and production (shokusan ) activities centered around their farms, ahead of officials and merchants. Emerging in time as local elites or notables (K. yuji, J. yushi ), these settler farm owners extended their activities to the arena of public and community projects by organizing and supporting a host of public and

semi-official organizations. Economically based on agricultural farms tilled by Korean tenants,

they succeeded in turning themselves into colonial masters in their localities by dominating the

colonial public sphere that was largely closed to Koreans and local politics. During the period of

the well-known Campaign to Increase Rice Production (1920-1933), they served as symbiotic local

partners of the Government-General of Korea in implementing assimilation (doka ) through local development. Their activities also allowed the authorities to present their rule in a positive

light, in spite of worsening conditions for the Korean rural population.

Keywords: Japanese colonialism, colonial settlers, migration, development, local elite, public

sphere, assimilation

Takenori MATSUMOTO**

The University of TokyoSeungjin CHUNG***

Sungkyunkwan University

Japanese Colonizers in the Honam Plain of Colonial Korea*

Takenori MATSUMOTO; Seungjin CHUNG

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(to the north of the Mangyong River) and the Mangyong Plain centered around Kimje (to the south of the Tongjin River) (Namgung Pong 1990; Ryu Chehon 1994). Right after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), this region drew Japanese attention for development (takushoku1) into a rice bowl for the homeland, a market for manufactured goods, and a destination for immigration. As will be described below, the Honam Plain was described in local gazetteers as a treasure of Korea because of its vast tracts of rice-producing farms, connected via its agricultural and trade centers, such as Iksan and Kimje, to the treaty port of Kunsan (opened in 1899), which in turn was connected to the Japanese empires economic capitals, like Osaka and Kobe (Kim Yongjong et al. 2006; Hong Songchan et al. 2006).

In the Honam Plain, colonial penetration was spearheaded by the landowner class, who were farm managers as well as commercial traders, rather than by government officials, in contrast to Hokkaido and Taiwan, where civilian and military officials played the leading role in colonial development (Kimura 1989; Takasaki 2002). Streams of immigrants flowed into the Honam Plain through the entry port of Kunsan, especially from the prefectures of Kyushu, with the prefectural government of Kumamoto being known for its proactive role in promoting emigration to Korea (Kang Changil 2002; Chae Sudo 2011). These Japanese pioneer immigrants, thanks to their agricultural economic base, became dominant leaders of local economic and social projects, including education, in the settlement region in the coastal area of North Cholla Province (Figure 1).

Earlier studies on Japanese immigrants in colonial Korea focused on their agricultural activities as farm managers and landlords (Asada 1968; So Sunyol 1994). Recent studies, however, have drawn attention to their activities as local and community leaders in organizing various cooperatives and associations to conduct local projects (Kimura 1989; Yi Kyusu 2007; Uchida 2011; Matsuda and Jin 2013; Yi Hyongsik 2013). In particular, Korean scholars have concerned themselves with conceptualizing the Japanese settler leaders social and community activities as part of the colonial public sphere (Hong Sungwon et al. 2009; Yun Haedong et al. 2010). Building on the studies with this approach and turning to the rural rather than urban settlement areas, this paper aims to show the limited nature of the colonial public sphere by tracing the behavior patterns of the Japanese settler leaders in the Honam Plain who acted as local agents of the assimilation policy of the colonial state. Thus, this is an attempt to supplement the existing city-focused studies with a rural case study that seeks to comprehend rural Japanese settlers pattern of behavior by examining their community and public activities as local notables (K. yuji, J. yushi) in the Honam Plain during the protectorate period (1905-1910) right after the Russo-Japanese War and the first half (1910-1930) of colonial rule.

1 The term takushoku has colonial overtones, as it implies the development of resources that had not yet been made productive, suggesting that the natives had not been able to do this and that development had to wait until the Japanese appeared on the scene. Hence in certain contexts takushoku may also be translated as colonialism.

* This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea from funding supplied by the Korean Government (MOE) (NRF-2007-361-AL0014).

** First Author.*** Corresponding Author.

Japanese Colonizers in the Honam Plain of Colonial Korea

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A demographic outline of the Japanese settlers in the Honam Plain (in particular, Iksan County) is in order before analyzing their activities. As of 1926, the population percentage of Japanese settlers in the main counties in the Honam Plain was well below 5 percent: 4.4 percent in Iksan, 3.2 percent in Chonju, 2.1 percent in Okku, 2.1 percent in Kimje, and only 1.8 percent in Chongup. Yet, in cities and towns the percentage of Japanese population increased sharply; for example, 33.5 percent in Kunsan City, and 30 percent in Iri City, because, like their fellow expatriates in Seoul, Japanese immigrants in Honam also preferred to live in cities and towns, such as Kunsan, Chonju, Iri, and Chongup.2 It should be noted that all cities in the Honam Plain, except for the ancient city of Chonju, were of the newly-rising colonial type, developing quickly following the opening of the treaty-

2 New colonial cities like Kunsan and Iri, as well as immigrant villages, had a relatively high proportion of Japanese immigrants. Even, in an old city like Chonju, 23.3 percent of the population were Japanese immigrants in 1919. See Zenshufu, Zenshufu-shi [History of Chonju City] (Zenshufu: 1942), 200. The proportion rate of the Japanese population in colonial cities (including treaty ports) was over 25 percent (Son Chongmok 1992).

Source: Chosen sotokufu, Noshokobu ed., 474.

Figure 1. Map of the Honam Plain (Mangyong River and Tongjin River) in the early 20th Century


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ports and annexation (1910). Significantly, the construction of the Honam rail line (1912) brought rapid growth to settlements along its path, such as Iri and Kimjehybrid agricultural towns, a mixture of the traditional village and modern urban structures. The Japanese immigrants in these regions, with their relatively early settlement and economic power based on their ownership of tenant farms, could exercise unrivaled influence over neighboring rural communities. Moreover, their local position was further strengthened thanks to their high proportion of land-tax payment (37 percent in Iksan County), opening opportunities for them to join a variety of local public projects (Kihara 1928).

Major Local Gazetteers in the Honam PlainThe cultural rule (bunka seiji) policy adopted by the Japanese colonial government in response to the March First Movement of 1919 occasioned an explosive growth in the Korean print and publication industrythe arrival of what may be referred to as print capitalism. A wide range of publications, including clan genealogies, vernacular literary works, such as new novels and nonfiction, and school textbooks were printed. In the region under study, the mushrooming of local gazetteers and magazines, as is shown in Table 1, in conjunction with the nation-wide publication boom, was one remarkable local trend in the Honam Plain where many influential Japanese settled. The expansion of local gazetteers was encouraged in an attempt to propagate the colonial ideologies of development (kaihatsu) and assimilation (doka) on the cultural level, following the imperial doctrine of achieving its civilizing mission. The phrases colonial development (takushoku) and harmony between Japanese and Koreans (naisen yuwa) in rural Korea constituted the principal slogans of the Government-General (Chosen sotokufu ) in the 1920s (Kwon Taeok 2014). However, such slogans appeared earlier in the settler communities in the Honam Plain, beginning from the 1910s.

The local gazetteers in the Honam localities (Iksan, Kunsan, Kimje, and Chonju) can be classified into two categories, one being that of the official gazetteers compiled by Koreans following the tradition of conventional county gazetteers (upchi ), the other being the publicity materials assembled by Japanese settlers who were eager to publicize their efforts to promote Korean assimilation through developmental projects. Notably, local Japanese journalists were active in publishing local promotional materials. As shown in Table 1, Utsuki Hatsusaburo, a reporter for a Kunsan newspaper, published a monthly industrial magazine titled Chosen no sangyo (, Industry of Korea), and other promotional materials like Konan no hoko, Kintei hattatsushi (, , Developmental History of Kimje, A Treasure of Honam), and Chosen no hoko, Zenrahokudo hattatsushi (, , History of North Cholla, A Treasure of Korea). Utsuki tried to draw attention to development projects of Japanese local elites in an effort to highlight their support for and cooperation with the official colonial policy of assimilation through promoting modern development (Chung Seungjin 2013).

Dubbed kusawakemono (, early pioneers), the Japanese settlers managed to carve out a colonial public sphere through their participation in local


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developmental, social, and public projects, eventually succeeding in transforming themselves into a local elite class. The colonial public sphere can therefore be seen as a conceptual framework to categorize the organizations of colonial settlers public activities and the discourses surrounding them. In the case of Japanese settlers in Honam, their participation in the colonial public sphere as local elites was made possible through the establishment of varied public associations and the attainment of public posts (K. kongjik; J. koshoku ) in such associations (Chi Sugol 2010).

Below is a brief survey of subtle differences in Korean and Japanese perceptions of the colonial public sphere, the arena of local elite politics, based on the comparison of the contents of two categories of local gazetteers. As Table 1 shows, Iksan County published both categories of local gazetteersthe Iksan kunji [Gazetteer of Iksan County] in 1932 and the Ekisangun jijo [Conditions of Iksan County] in 1928. Both have been used in this study as sources for this comparison.

Table 1. Catalogue of Major Local Gazetteers in the Honam Region

Compiler Name of Local Gazetteer Publication Year

Yamashita Eiji

(Guide to Iri: A Treasure of Honam)1917

Yamashita Eiji ( )

(A Treasure of Honam: A Guide to Iri, or Developmental History of Iksan)

1927

Kihara Hitoshi

(Conditions of Iksan County)1928

So Kiyong

(Gazetteer of Iksan County)1932

Utsuki Hatsusaburo,

(Developmental History of Kimje: A Treasure of Honam)

1934

Miwa Tadashi, et al.

(Wealth of Kunsan)1907

Hodaka Masaki

(History of Opening Kunsan)1925

Kunsan City

(History of Kunsan City)1935

Chonju City

(History of Chonju City)1942

Provincial Office of North Cholla

(A Survey of North Cholla province)1928

Utsuki Hatsusaburo,

(History of North Cholla: A Treasure of Korea)

1928

Utsuki Hatsusaburo

(Industry of Korea)1929-1936

(monthly journal)


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The Iksan kunji was an augmented and updated combination of the four old county gazetteers of Iksan, Yosan, Hamyol, and Yongan. The compiler cum publisher of the Iksan kunji was So Kiyong (1861-?), a resident of Iksan County (Kumma-myon), who served as an official in the last years of the Choson Dynasty.3 It seems he did not serve in the local government during the colonial era. Still, a newspaper in 1930 described him as a special donor of one thousand yen to the school board of the Kaejong Common School of Okku County, even though he was not an Okku resident. So Kiyong can be viewed as a traditional yangban intellectual, and at the same time as a local elite who played the role of contributing to local development, educational promotion, and other social projects.4

The editorial format of the Gazetteer of Iksan County of 1932 is noteworthy in that it superimposed current developments and changes over what had been recorded in the old gazetteer. For example, under the heading of Roads, the identical part from the old gazetteer was repeated and followed by the rating of roads based on a new system of road classification adopted during colonial rule, such as first-rate, second-rate, and unrated. Under the heading of Stations and Hostels, the identical part from the old gazetteer was likewise repeated and followed by details of current railway stations. Under the heading of Local Production, the local specialties were cited from the old gazetteer and then followed by the Government-General statistics on the current size of cultivated fields and their yields. Under the headings of Household and Population and Land under Cultivation, the old data on land and people preceded current Government-General statistics. Similarly, under the heading of Factories, the old entries of blacksmiths and carpenters were followed by information on rice mills and porcelain factories to show new developments during colonial rule. Thus, contemporary information in the Gazetteer of Iksan County largely overlapped with that of Conditions of Iksan County published by the Japanese in 1928. However, it should be noted that whereas the Conditions of Iksan County focused on the contemporary present, the Gazetteer of Iksan County tried to maintain the conventional categories (or conceptual framework) of the old gazetteer to subsume the institutional reforms in land and agriculture as well as the progress in industry and infrastructure.

On the other hand, some new modern categories were introduced even in the Gazetteer of Iksan County, such as police stations, post offices, financial institutions, irrigation associations, educational institutions, farms, hospitals, and pharmacies. These new modern facilities and organizations were dominated by the Japanese settler leaders who were deeply involved with local development projects, and thus functioned as the base for the colonial public sphere.

As for the farm category, which was an important economic basis for the Japanese settler elite, both the Gazetteer of Iksan County and the Conditions of Iksan County listed a total of nineteen large farms, respectively, of which eighteen farms (fourteen Japanese farms and four Korean farms) were listed in both gazetteers.

4 Maeil sinbo [Daily News], November 9, 1930.

3 So Kiyong was appointed to a secretarial post of the Punggyong royal palace in April 1906, according to the Taehan maeil sinbo [Korea Daily News], April 8, 1906.


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Hence, it can be said that both Korean and Japanese compilers were very much conscious of the socio-economic predominance of Japanese farms in the locality. Among them, the Taejangchon Farm gained national fame as an officially-designated model farm from the beginning of colonial rule, not only because the Japanese farm owners introduced new modern agricultural techniques, but also because they were eager to organize public associations, such as irrigation associations and tenant organizations, with which to lead local agricultural and social projects (Chung and Matsumoto 2005; Matsumoto and Chung 2009). Likewise other Japanese farm owners followed the examples of the Taejangchon Farm in organizing public associations and institutions through which to voice their interests and opinions about local development projects. For example, local gazetteers and works that served similar purposes, such as Chosen no sangyo [Industry of Korea], also served, in a way, as cheerleaders for these farm owners by playing up their agricultural successes based on new agricultural skills and their community contributions in a highly exalted tone. The audience of these local gazetteers included readers from the metropole as well, and these success stories of Japanese immigrants in Korea certainly inspired would-be immigrants in the homeland (Chung Seungjin 2015).

It is true that in both gazetteers, categories other than that of the farms covered much the same types of information. Looking more closely, however, will reveal subtle yet significant differences between the two gazetteers compiled by Koreans and Japanese respectively. For example, under the heading of Educational Institutes, the Conditions of Iksan County strictly adhered to a hierarchical order between schools, putting secondary institutes like the Iri Agricultural High School and girls middle schools before primary institutes like public primary schools (teaching in Japanese), public common schools (teaching in Korean), private schools, and traditional Korean sodang (Confucian schools). In contrast, the Gazetteer of Iksan County was occasionally loose in keeping this order, mixing some descriptions of the secondary institutes like the agricultural high school and girls middle schools with those of the primary institutes, such as public primary schools, public common schools, private schools, and kindergartens.5 While the Japanese compiler Kihara Hitoshi of the Conditions of Iksan County endeavored to establish a hierarchy between these ethnically divided schools, Korean compiler So Kiyong of the Gazetteer of Iksan County tended to subsume them under the undifferentiated category of primary educational institutes.

As is well known, the second Korean Educational Ordinance of 1922 stipulated that primary educational institutes be divided in terms of Japanese-language usagethe primary school (jinjo shogakko) for Japanese and the common school (futsu gakko) for Koreans. The difference between these two types of elementary education, which was based on the Japanese perception of distinct levels of civilization (mindo) of Koreans and Japanese, also involved the authority

5 The Gazetteer of Iksan County lacked the category of sodang, while the Conditions of Iksan County lacked that of kindergarten.


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to manage school expenseswhich rested with the school board for primary schools and with the myon authorities for common schools. In this context it is relevant that the school boards of the Japanese-language primary schools were predominantly filled by Japanese community leaders (Chung Seungjin 2015).

Under the heading of Hospitals and Drugstores, the Conditions of Iksan County listed a total of 11 facilities, including 2 Korean hospitals, 4 Japanese hospitals, 2 Japanese dental clinics, and 3 Japanese drugstores, while the Gazetteer of Iksan County included more Korean facilities to make a total of 16, including 5 Korean hospitals (with one run by a traditional doctor), 3 Japanese hospitals, 2 Japanese dental clinics, 5 Korean drugstores (with one run by a traditional doctor), and 1 Japanese drugstore. The much smaller number of Korean medical facilities (only 2 Korean hospitals) in the Conditions of Iksan County indicated that the Japanese had much lower esteem for Korean facilities than Japanese ones, classifying Korean traditional doctors (isei) into a lesser category of medical doctors (Matsumoto 2005). The traditional doctor was allowed only the role of assistant in the colonial governments Regulations for Traditional Doctors. However, the Gazetteer of Iksan County included Korean traditional doctors as an integral and equal part of the modern medical facilities available to Koreans.

Both gazetteers paid attention to the personal data of Japanese farm owners. They held public posts (K. kongjik; J. koshoku) on the provincial, county, and district levels, which in turn empowered them to voice their opinions in what might be referred to as the colonial public sphere. In particular, the Japanese settler elite in Iksan County were prominent enough to be introduced as provincial-level elite in the History of North Cholla, A Treasure of Korea (1928), listed in Table 1.6 These public officials, invested in local industrial projects and donated funds to build and renovate local infrastructure.7 Moreover, taking advantage of their connections with the provincial office, officials of the Government-General, and officials and politicians of the home government, these Japanese settlers possessed the power to distribute or expedite governmental funds to their respective localities. This type of negotiating power that allowed them to bring economic benefits to their localities constituted their source of influence in local politics, and might well favorably impress local Korean elites.8 Yet, it should be noted that there developed a division between Korean and Japanese elites in their perception of the semi-governmental and community institutions brought about as a result of such local politics, as will be discussed below. This gap was created by the contradictions inherent in the Japanese assimilation policy, which condoned discrimination against Korean

6 They were introduced as equally prominent again in Kamata Hakudo, Chosen no jinbutsu to jigyo: Konanhen (1) [Koreas people and projects: Honam, vol. 1] (1936).

7 It should be noted that their main source of income were rent fees collected from Korean tenants who tilled their farms (Matsumoto and Chung 2009; Chung and Matsumoto 2013).

8 The economic benefits from the local projects were not evenly distributed to all classes and genders of local Koreans. However, the local Korean elite, like the compiler of the Gazetteer of Iksan County, who were well-off and deeply interested in local educational and economic projects, might well have felt that the presence and activities of the Japanese public officials yielded benefits to the Korean village community.


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colonial subjects. Hence, the public sphere, as it existed in Honam, remained of a limited and closed nature.

Colonial Development Projects in the Honam PlainRural Korea in the Honam region served as a laboratory for Japanese imperialist experiments with modern projects and the provision of infrastructure, including urban amenities. In the first place, with the completion of the railway line between Seoul and Mokpo in 1912, the Honam region began to be developed in earnest as a granary of the empire. Newly-rising cities in the Honam rice-producing plain, such as Iri and Kimje, came to be connected by land transportation to the old treaty port of Kunsan (opened in 1899), which in turn was connected to metropole cities like Osaka and Kobe by sea routes. Infrastructure building in this region began earlier than elsewhere in terms of facilities or transportation, communication, security, education, and medical treatment, as local gazetteers indicated.

Since annexation, the local administration system had gone through a series of reorganizations in 1914, 1917, 1920, and 1931 (Son Chongmok, 1992). In 1914, counties (kun ) were reorganized, and in 1917 the sub-county (myon) system was introduced to take on some of the functions hitherto assigned to counties. Consequently both kun and myon emerged as local units of the colonial public sphere and local politics. The growth of sizable towns as administrative and commercial centers of sub-counties or counties was one remarkable change in the provinces of the colony. For example, Iri and Chonju were designated as sub-county centers in 1917, and Iri and Kimje were classified as county centers. Following such established towns as Chonju and Kunsan, Iris growth as a railway station was dramatic, thanks to the pioneering role of Ohashi Yoichi.9 His large tract of land (14 hectares) in front of the Iri station provided space for constructing commercial streets and a market, and his leadership in the Iri chamber of commerce and in the school board empowered him to push ahead with local development projects. Together with Hashimoto O in Kimje, Ohashi typified the pioneer developer in the Honam region. Iri, as a newly-rising colonial town with its thriving rice market directly connected to the metropole (i.e., Osaka), entered the spotlight as a major attraction to immigrants. In the Honam Plain, Japanese settler communities were shaped by the expansion of colonial landlordism and commercial farming using tenant farmers (So Sunyol 1994; Chung Seungjin 2004; Hong Songchan 2006).

The early colonial development of industry in the 1910s in the north Honam plain focused on irrigation and agricultural development along the Mangyong River valley. Referred to as the Chonju plain, this region was a stretch of rice paddy fields in the hinterland of Kunsan Port, a major outlet of Korean rice to Japan. The rice paddies were centered around the southern part of Iksan County (Iri City), covering parts of Chonju County (mainly Samnye), Iksan County, and Kunsan (mainly Impi). Among Japanese agricultural developers there, Fujii Kantaro, who

9 Yamashita Eiji, Konan hoko: Iri annai [A treasure of Honam: Guide to Iri] (1915); Yamashita Eiji, Konan hoko: Iri annai (ichimei Ekisan hattatsushi) ( ) [A treasure of Honam: A guide to Iri, or developmental history of Iksan] (1927).


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earned the nickname of irrigation tycoon, played the leading role in establishing large tenant farms and building dikes and dams for irrigation (Yi Kyusu 2007, chapter 2). As a result, starting with the Imik Irrigation Association led by Fujii, five irrigation associations were organized by Japanese farm owners in the 1910s (which eventually merged into two in the 1920s). Yet, it should be noted that the irrigation projects were closely tied to Japanese farm management, producing a kind of synergic effect in agricultural skills with a combination of irrigation, improved farming, and the provision of rural amenities. This development of irrigation channels for tenant farms set the farm-management pattern for succeeding Japanese farm owners to follow. Thus, this type of irrigation work can also be found in the village of Taejangchon, where Hosokawa Farm (founded in 1905) organized the Chonik Irrigation Association based on traditional canals in 1910 and engaged in rice production and local development (Matsumoto and Chung 2009; Chung Seungjin 2013).

In the meantime, the Imik Irrigation Association led by Fujii Kantaro was based on a large reservoir, called Hwangdung-je, and had become a model association in promotional material as early as 1909. However, the Hwangdung-je Reservoir was assessed to be of inadequate construction and therefore disqualified as a source of irrigation water by the mid-1930s.10 As this failed case suggests, not all Japanese agricultural enterprises in the colony were success stories. As a matter of fact, many failures and errors of Japanese agricultural projects entailed economic hardship, such as the burden of irrigation fees or land expropriation, which was borne by Korean tenant farmers.

It was in the 1920s that the Tongjin River basin, south of the Honam Plain, began to be developed on a large scale. Still, even from the 1910s, not a few development (takushoku ) and production (shokusan ) activities, especially those centered around Kimje, were initiated by individual Japanese immigrants. Kimje County had been known as a center of rice production, as evinced by the location of the North Cholla branch of the Oriental Developmental Company (abbreviated to Totaku) there until September 1921.11 Among the pioneer settlers, Hashimoto O was best known for his tireless endeavors to promote local public projects, earning him the praiseKimjes Hashimoto? or Hashimotos Kimje? (Utsuki 1934) Following a successful project of land reclamation (covering 120 hectares) at his first settlement (Chuksan Sub-county, Kimje), he held a series of public posts, including that of manager of the Kimje School Board, head of the Kimje Sub-county, member of the Tongjin Irrigation Association, and member of the Provincial Council.

The Tongjin Irrigation Association in Kimje, the largest irrigation project in the peninsula, was completed in the late 1920s, mobilizing a huge amount

10 Fujii Kantaro, Chosen tochi dan [Talks on land in Korea] (1911); Chonbuk nongji kaeryang chohap, Chonbuk nong jo 70nyonsa 70 [Seventy-year history of agricultural cooperatives in North Cholla] (1978).

11 The branch office of the ODC was moved to Iri. See Tonga ilbo, September 11, 1921. For more on the ODC, see Kawai Kazuo, et al., Kokusaku kaisha: Totaku no kenkyu [A study of the ODC: A strategic company of the nation] (Tokyo: Fuji shuppan, 1999).


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of capital and covering a vast space of approximately 20,000 hectares.12 The management style of the Association was hardly in line with the principle of naisen yuwa (harmony between Japanese and Koreans), because its organization was of a bureaucratic and hierarchical nature, and Koreans were excluded from all decision- and policy-making processes. With its establishment, a host of agriculture-related facilities and factories, such as hulling factories, rice mills, and breweries were constructed in the newly-rising town of Kimje, the cityscape of which, like that of the new towns of Iri or Kunsan mentioned above, appeared quite outlandish with these transplanted manifestations of modernity against the backdrop of traditional Korean village structures (Utsuki 1934).

The river improvement project of the Mangyong River (the first project for the Government-General) started with its tributary, the Chongju Stream, in 1925, but before it was completed in the early 1940s, its scope had been enlarged several times. The main driving force of the project was the River Improvement Association (with its office in Iri) dominated by local Japanese large landlords, which provided a rallying point for consensus for the project, and further played a leading role in building local infrastructure by utilizing its close ties with the Iri Branch Office of Construction Work (see Table 3), which was affiliated with the Government Generals construction department.13 Such irrigation and river projects, combined with arable land rearrangement projects, resulted in a drastic change in the agricultural landscape of the region.

In the meantime, the city landscape of Chonju underwent a transformation from the early 1930 as the old fortress walls were torn down and new modern-style buildings began to line the streets. During the development from sub-county (myon) in 1917 to township (up) in 1931, and finally to city (pu) in 1935, the Japanese settler leaders gathered in the Chonju school board were a moving spirit behind this process of growth (Zenshufu 1942). (Once a Japanese school board member was even appointed as head of the township.) A similar role of the Japanese leaders can be also found in the growth of neighboring cities and towns like Iri and Kimje.

The above mentioned industrial infrastructure, like railway lines, and agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation reservoirs, as well as the growth of colonial towns, and the modern reform of local institutions, were all favorite themes of local gazetteers in the Honam plain. It should be pointed out that local industrial, community, public, and social projects provided the Japanese settler leaders with a kind of colonial public sphere in which they emerged as a closed cadre of local elites, especially on the county level, by dominating the

12 For the construction process of the Tongjin irrigation project, see the Tongjin nongji kaeryang chohap, Tongjin nongji kaeryang chohap osimnyonsa [Fifty-year history of the Tongjin Agricultural-Land Improvement Cooperative] (1975); Ho Suyol, Ilche chogi Choson ui nongop [Korean agriculture under early Japanese imperial rule] (2011).

13 The Mangyong River Improvement Association, which appeared as a landowner a number of times in the land registers of Chunpo-myon, Iksan County in the late 1920s, was reported to have raised large loans needed to purchase the riverside plots and to compensate people for the houses removed. On completing the purchase and compensation, the Association was reported to have been dissolved in May, 1933. See Maeil sinbo [Daily news], April 18, 1928; Chosen sotokufu kanho [Official gazette of the GGK], no. 1929 (June 16, 1933).


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decision-making process and local projects (Matsumoto 2005; Chung 2015). As political entrepreneurs, they were eager to publicize their contributions to given local projects by providing large investments and donations, and to flaunt their negotiating power with the authorities through appeals and requests, all under the clichd slogan that it was for the sake of local development.14 The Japanese projects of modernity, as demonstrated in their local and public projects in the colony, were used to support the colonizers claims of racial superiority and the legitimacy of their colonial rule, creating an ever deepening gap between Japanese and Koreans in rural Korea. Equating local economic development with a civilizing mission that entailed a cocktail of colonial modernity, Japanese colonists tried hard to promote their colonial enterprises as assimilation by way of development.

Self-evaluation of Japanese Farm Owners as Local ElitesTable 2 below is an encapsulation of Japanese farm owners meritorious deeds drawn from articles about Industrial Contributors, introduced by a local Japanese monthly published in Iri City, Chosen no sangyo (1929-1936).15 These Japanese farm owners were hardly equal in their holdings, the largest owner possessing as much as ten times the holdings of the smallest one. Yet, a majority of them possessed more than 100 hectares and thus can be classified as large landowners in colonial Korea.16

Meritorious deeds can be classified into three categories: first, management of their own farms by the landowners themselves; second, the spreading of agricultural methods in their locality; third, contributions to local society. Of these, the accounts of the management of their own farms are most substantial, mentioning topics such as the encouragement of tenant production (rice and supplementary crops), organizing activities for tenant communities (lending of production materials and agricultural funds, organizing tenants into work teams, and rewarding exemplary tenants), and improving strains of rice for commercial production.

The encouragement of tenant production included distributing superior varieties of rice imported from Japan, setting up improved seed beds, promoting regularity in the transplanting of the seedlings, and applying fertilizers, all activities focused on introducing those agricultural skills that had proven successful in the homeland. And the success in transferring Japanese agricultural methods

14 For example, such slogans were frequently used to introduce or praise the personality of Japanese elites by Kamata Hakudo in his Chosen no jinbutsu to jigyo: Konan hen [People and projects in Korea: The Honam region] (1936).

15 The editor of Chosen no sangyo [Industries in Korea], Utsuki Hatsusaburo, was a local pundit of the Honam region, compiling Konan no hoko: Kintei hattatsushi , [Developmental history of Kimje, A treasure of Honam] and Chosen no hoko: Zenrahokudo hattatsushi , [History of North Cholla: A treasure of Korea], as shown in Table 1.

16 In colonial Korea, landowners who possessed more than 50 or 100 hectares were classified as large landowners. For a list of large landowners in North Cholla see Hanguk nongchon kyongje yonguwon, Nongji kaehyoksi pibunbae chiju mit Ilcheha taejiju myongbu [Land recipients during the land reform, and roster of large landowners under Japanese imperial rule] (Seoul: 1985).


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was extolled as a meritorious deed. When such improved Japanese skills were disseminated beyond Japanese farms, those acts were also commended in the same way. For example, it was reported that in a Korean farm (owned by Paek Namsin), a homeland man was invited as a manager to handle all farm affairs in homeland manner (Yamashita 1915, 97).

In addition to the above contributions to agricultural progress, Industries in Korea drew attention to community services performed by members of the Japanese local elite, such as donations to building projects or public facilities (schools and research institutes), and their assumption of such public posts as membership in various councils at the sub-county, county, city, and provincial levels. As explained below, the Honam region witnessed a proliferation of local public associations designed to advance local development and community projects. Participation in and contribution to these public associations was deemed the surest index that particular individuals were members of the local elite. These public associations were loosely defined, including not only official councils on various administrative levels, but also a whole range of semi-official associations, such as irrigation associations, industrial associations (for animal husbandry, sericulture, poultry raising, etc.), financial cooperatives, landlord societies, sanitary associations, and fire-fighting associations. Listing their participation in such associations, the journal tried to portray Japanese large farm owners as the builders of local communities.

Underlying this Japanese notion that every instance of development brought to a local community warranted classification as a meritorious deed was the view that Korea had remained unexploited a treasure and that it demanded great toil to bring development to it (Utsuki 1929-1936, 3-10, 33). This distinct sense of pride as colonizers was premised on the Japanese prejudice that Korea not only remained stagnant but that Koreans also lacked the capacity to make progress on their own. True to the Japanese colonists racially biased view against Koreans in general, Korean peasants were regarded as indolent (Utsuki 1929-1936, 40), idle (41), and vain (39). Against this general assumption of Korean inaction, the Japanese settlers encouragement of such auxiliary occupations as sericulture and weaving rice-straw bags could stand out as meritorious. Similarly, self-employment in farm management was deemed a contribution to the neighborhood in the sense that it set an example of a proper work ethic for Korean neighbors to follow.

The Japanese farm owners encouragement of Korean tenants rice production was in the first place a pursuit of private interest, because they sought to increase their income through increasing rice production. Moreover, profitable farm management based on stable tenant farming provided them with the economic means to donate to community projects and to assume public posts in local areas. Yet, their farm management was considered to have greater national dimensions, as in the light of developing the hitherto unexploited treasure in the colony, it could be commended as a part of the colonial enterprise. Furthermore, since a great deal of the rice they collected as rent was ultimately shipped to Japan, their farm management was seen to play a part in meeting the growing demand for food in the metropole.


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The categories of meritorious deeds also included organizing the activities of Korean tenants by Japanese farm owners, which straddled the boundary between private economic pursuits and public/social activities. Tenant members of such organizations as small cooperatives of farm households and agricultural production cooperatives were rewarded as model tenants or provided with production materials and loans in an attempt to bring stability to farm management. Yet, the reason why these private aims were deemed meritorious was because such acts were seen to exemplify paternalism (Utsuki 1929-1936, 48 and 51) shown by benevolent fathers (35 and 40) that would mitigate or avert the tenant disputes so prevalent throughout the Honam region at that time (So Sunyol 1994; Matsumoto 1998). In the eyes of Japanese journalists and the colonial authorities in Seoul, the activities of Japanese large farm owners aimed at organizing and controlling Korean tenant peasants were exemplary deeds of promoting ethnic and class harmony to stabilize rural conditions, and therefore deserved high praise.

Not only Japanese journalists, but also Japanese colonizers in general believed that the ethnic and class harmony in the colony presupposed Japanese paternalism toward Koreans and Korean respect for the Japanese as benevolent father figures. The sense of pride as colonizers was closely associated with this Japanese paternalistic attitude toward Koreans. For the Japanese colonizers to show patronizing and condescending attitudes toward the colonized Koreans was nothing less than the Japanese expression of their sense of racial superiority. Such Japanese paternalism, however, did not give rise to Korean respect for the Japanese overlords as benevolent father figures insofar as it was based on racial prejudice and discrimination. It was a parallel to the intimacy without equality, based on the unilateral sentiment of the colonizers, of which George Orwell spoke in his Burmese Days (1934). The paternalism of Japanese farm owners portrayed by Japanese journalists was little more than the colonizers projection of the image which they desired the colonized would accept.

The Colonial Public Sphere and Local PoliticsReplacing the traditional position of the yangban, a new cadre of local elites (K. yuji; J. yushi ), comprising mostly Japanese settlers and a small number of cooperative Koreans, emerged in the Honam plain, as in other local communities in the context of the colonial rule. Relying on the disciplinary power of the colonial authorities and economically based on colonial landlordism, this local elite group assumed a range of public posts on each administrative level and claimed to represent the local population. They were variously referred to as men of good reputation, men of influence, or political entrepreneurs, according to their personal capacities and the roles they played in local projects. With regard to their roles in local society, Chi Sugol notes that the local elite during the Japanese colonial rule exercised their control over the peasants using their government-backed position as landlords, and at the same time they represented local residents and communities by way of taking up official posts in various local institutions (Chi Sugol 2010, 162-64). Thus, colonial local society witnessed the rise of a new local elite class empowered by their position as petty local partners to the colonial state (i.e., the Government-


278

General), displacing traditional yangban and local clerks.The Japanese settlers had begun to secure a foothold in the northern Cholla

plain just after the Russo-Japanese War, and within the relaxed context of cultural rule (bunka seiji ) led local politics centered around such places as Okku (including Kunsan City), Iri, and Kimje. The venues of local politics included an assorted array of community institutions intended to support local self-rule, such as local councils of provinces, counties, cities, and towns, as well as agricultural associations, school boards, financial cooperatives, and irrigation associations. In addition, those community societies meant to promote the friendship and interest of local veterans of the Imperial Army, merchants, housewives, and youths also joined local politics in indirect ways. Thus, the influential actors of local politics included not only the heads and executives of official local institutions related to local self-rule, but also the leaders of semi-official or para-official community societies.

These community institutions, official or semi-official, may be understood as a kind of public sphere in local areas, considering the fact that they provided public forums in which to discuss community issues, including local complaints and grievances (Hong Songchan et al. 2006; Chi Sugol 2010). Yet the local politics conducted in this public sphere was by no means limited to challenging local public opinions about the industrial, public, and social projects of given localities, but also included varied examples of underhanded politics, such as lobbying, collusion, entertaining, soliciting, and so on. More often than not, a given local elites ability and reputation for local projects arose from the bargaining power gained through such underhanded politics. Through local politics, a number of influential Japanese settlers (i.e., Japanese yushi) emergedOhashi Yoichi of Iri, the Hosokawa family and Imamura Ichijiro of Taejangchon in Iksan, Hashimoto O of Kimje, Kumamoto Rihei and Miyazaki Yoshitaro of Kunsan, and Fujii Kantaro from a large farm in Iksan (Utsuki 1929-1936; Kamata 1936). To this list we can add a few local Korean elites (i.e., Korean yuji): the Pak family (Pak Kisun and his son Pak Yongchol) from Iri, and the Paek family (Paek Namsin) who moved to Iri from Chonju (O Miil 2005).

The politics conducted by the local elite frequently invoked the clichd slogan of local community-wide development, which was supposed to be beyond any private interests. Justifying their activities in the names of community, public, and social development, a large number of community institutions proliferated. In terms of their sustained activities, notable ones included school boards, chambers of commerce, financial cooperatives, local veterans associations, and irrigation associations. To these, a variety of industrial cooperatives for raising silkworms, livestock, and chickens, as well as various promotion societies, may be added.17 Table 3 lists the names of administrative agencies, cooperatives, and associations

17 Sources are numerous: Yamashita Eiji, Konan hoko, Iri annai (ichimei Ekisan hattatsushi) ( ) [A Treasure of Honam: A guide to Iri, or Developmental history of Iksan] (1927); Utsuki Hatsusaburo, Konan no hoko, kintei hattatsushi , [A Treasure of Honam: Developmental history of Kimje] (1934); Kunsan City, Gunsan-fu shi [History of Kunsan city] (1935); Provincial Office of the North Cholla, Zenrahokudo yoran [A Survey of North Cholla Province] (1928).


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Table 3. Government Organs and Public Associations in Iksan (Iri) and Kimje

Iksan () in 1915 Iksan () in 1927 Kimje () in 1934

(1911)County office

(1912)Squad of military police

(1912)Office of branch rail line

(1912)Train station

(1912)Branch factory for Taejon locomotives

(1911)Post office

(1912)School board

(1912)Branch office of veterans association

(1914)Cooperative

(1912)Fire-fighting squad

(1911)Cooperative for merchants

(1915)Peer society

(1915)Youth society

(1910)Sub-county office

County officePolice office

Office of branch rail line

Train station

Factory for locomotivesPost office

School board

Branch office of imperial veterans

association

Fire-fight squad

Cooperative for merchants

Sub-county office (1916)

Branch office of Chonju local court (1917)Branch office of North Cholla grain

inspection (1922)Branch office of Chonju monopoly

bureau (1925)

Branch office of construction work (1926)

Agricultural association

(1914)County office

(1919)Police office

(1926)Agricultural association

(1913)Train station

(1906)Post office

(1931)Township office

(1911)School board

(1913)Fire-fighting squad

(1916)Cooperative for rice merchants

(1925)Tongjin water irrigation association

(1918)Branch office of Shokusan Bank

(1909)Financial cooperative

(1915)Association for youth education

Sources: Yamashita (1915), 12-48; (1927), 8-18 and Utsuki (1934), 62-101.

active in Iksan for the period of 1915 to 1927, and those in Kimje for 1934. As seen in this table, the local gazetteers subsumed local administrative offices and community institutions under one single category, suggesting close relations between them in implementing various local developmental projects.

In the case of Iksan County, as of 1915, apart from the above governmental and community organs, other notable community organizations, included irrigation associations (Imik, southern Imik, and Chonik), financial cooperatives (Iri and Iksan), a hygiene agency, and various industrial cooperatives. These appeared just a few years ahead of their counterparts in Kimje County, which almost repeated the same pattern of local institutions as that of Iksan County. Another indispensable community organization were school boards, which were led mostly by the top leaders of Japanese settler communities, such as Ohashi Yoichi of Iri, Fujii Kantaro of Osanni, Imamura Ichijiro of Taejangchon, Hashimoto O of Kimje (Chuksan). (Cf. Table 2). Furthermore, in the 1920s, a number of social organizations, such


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as youth associations, womens associations, and religious societies, came into being under the aegis of the colonial authorities.18 The nature of the relationship between these community organizations and the state authorities on the whole was marked by close cooperation and effective division of labor, though it was true that private and vested interests caused some moments of mutual conflict and division. Through these public institutions, Japanese settler leaders made the most of their close connection with the colonial authorities and aggressively conducted a variety of local projects. In the end, these colonial leaders succeeded in creating their own narrow colonial public sphere.

The access to public posts in a diversity of organizations became an important barometer to measure the influence of local elites in local society and their negotiating power with government organs. An outstanding example was Imamura Ichijiro, who was acclaimed as the unsurpassed exemplary agriculturalist of colonial Korea and whose public functions in the mid-1930s included vice chairman of the Agricultural Association in Iksan County, manager of the Taejangchon School Board, government-appointed member of the Provincial Council of North Cholla, and advisor to the Agricultural Association of North Cholla, with his public career culminating in his recognition as a meritorious contributor to Koreas industry by the chairman of the Agricultural Association of Japan while he was working as the president of the Livestock Company of North Cholla (Kamata 1936: 166-67). Other examples were Fujii Kantaro, who practically assumed control of the Mangyong River irrigation projects, Hashimoto O, dubbed the builder of Kimje County, and farm-owner Seki in Hwangdung, who managed to hold public posts even at a young age. Table 4 below shows the range of official and semi-official posts held by Japanese settler elites in the early 1930s in the area covering Okku (including Kunsan), Iksan, and Kimje, who were all said to have made profound contributions to local development and the public good of local communities. Among them, some farm owners like Miyazaki Yoshitaro of Okku (Mimyon) and Hashimoto O of Kimje (Chuksan) presented themselves as benevolent father figures for local communities, and expressed their wish to have a monument (i.e., a bronze statue) erected to commemorate their contributions to various local projects.19

These public posts in community institutions occupied by Japanese settler leaders gave them monopolistic power in local politics. A closed public sphere was created in the colonial settler community by a small number of Japanese elites who monopolized the leadership positions of these semi-governmental associations, and this exclusive public sphere functioned as a hotbed of local politicsa situation similar to the county-level public sphere in Japan during the period of Taisho

18 For example, the Tonga ilbo (1920-1921) reported on youth and religious (Christian and Chondogyo) associations in the area and introduced their activities, such as lectures and athletic meetings, in a positive light.

19 In August 2014, this writer (Seungjin Chung) visited the office of Hashimotos farm, now in Kimje City (registered cultural property of ROK, number 61), and found a monument in honor of him.


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Table 4. Public Posts Held by Japanese Settlers in the Honam Plain in the 1930s

Farm (Surname)(Locality)

Public post Laudatory remarks

Shimatani ()(Okku)

Founding member of Samgun irrigation co-op. Member of spiritual development campaign

Devoted to local public projects of education, hygiene, and transportation

Maki ()(Okku)

Manager of school boardMember of county agricultural association

Member of sub-county councilMember of Imik irrigation co-op.Auditor of Impi financial co-op.

Executive of rural revitalization campaign

Pioneer of agricultural improvement/Known for public-mindedness/Devoted to the public good

Katagiri ()(Iksan)

Chief of Imik irrigation co-op.Member of North Cholla council

Manager of school boardChief of Sochon irrigation co-op.

Contributed to building Changhang city street, school, and Shinto shrine/Donated land for

railway/Awarded the glory of receiving a gift of imperial food

Okura ()(Okku)

Founding member of Chonju irrigation co-op.Chief of south Imik irrigation co-op.

Member of Ikok irrigation co-op.

His merit deserved to be recorded as the first entry in the history of Korean agricultural

development

Imamura ()(Taejangchon)

Vice chief of county agricultural associationManager of school board

Member of provincial councilAdvisor to province agricultural association

Devoted to the development of industry and education in Korea/Awarded the first prize at the

1929 Korea Exposition

Kobayashi ()(Chonju)

Manager of Samnye school boardBranch chief of Samnye veterans society

Chief of fire-fighting squad

As executive of Ito Farm spared no effort in promoting public projects and local

development

Itai ()(Iri)

Head of Iksan sub-countyChairman of sub-county peoples association

Manager of school boardMember of province council

The first among those devoted to the development of Iri city

Hashimoto ()(Kimje)

Representative of settlers corpsMember of chamber of commerce

Member of city councilFounding member of Kunsan port building

Founding member of Tongjin irrigation co-op.Manager of school board

Head of sub-county

Made unsurpassed contributions to local agricultural and public projects

Ushio ()(Kunsan)

Representative of settlers corpsVice chief of chamber of commerceChief of commerce industry co-op.

Chief of financial co-op.Vice chairman of city council

Vice chief of city promotion association

Chief executive of Kunsans big commercial industrial companies/Magnate in the

business world in Kunsan City

Miyazaki ()(Okku)

Representative of landlord associationMember of North Cholla councilMember of Imik irrigation co-op.

Head of Mimyon sub-county

Benevolent patron for local development/A bronze statue erected at the Mimyon sub-

county office

Ohashi ()(Iri)

Chairman of Iri chamber of commerceManager of school board

Executive of Oriental Development Company

Made giant strides for the development and prosperity of Iri City

Source: Kamata, 1936


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democracy.20 These semi-governmental associations proliferated in the early 1930s as a local voluntary reaction to cope with the depressed economy. The closed nature of their leadership and management was indicative of Japanese sett lers adaptation to colonial state-init iated corporatism which represented the newly adopted state ideology to mitigate against the class conflicts growing in rural Korea (Shin and Han 1999).

The colonial public sphere or the venue of local politics as outlined in this study should be differentiated from that of civil society in Western Europe in terms of its relation with the state and the rest of society. The colonial public sphere was pro-state and largely closed off from the majority of society: the Korean population. In later years it can be interpreted as reflecting a policy shift of the colonial authorities who, faced with the Showa depression (1930-1934), came to conclude that liberalism, individualism, and market mechanisms would no longer serve the colonial empire. The organizing principle of the colonial public sphere was what might be called colonial corporatism, strongly oriented toward agrarianism, which ideologically underpinned the rural revitalization movement (1932-1940), until it was replaced by the colonial totalitarianism of the war mobilization of the late 1930s and the early 1940s (Shin 1999; Chung Seungjin 2013).

Concluding Remarks: The Ambivalent Nature of Japanese Assimilation With regard to local elites in the colony, some scholars draw attention to Korean local yangban landlords who tried to play a mediating role between the colonial authorities and the local population (Chi Sugol 2010). However, this paper argues that the Japanese settlers in the local (Honam) setting also deserve to considered, with an emphasis on their behavioral pattern as local community leaders. The Honam Plain, dubbed the rice granary of the empire, witnessed, from the earliest time of the Japanese colonial enterprise (right after the Russo-Japanese War), the successful immigration and settlement of Japanese owners of large farms. The activities of these pioneers were not limited to the agricultural management of their farms, but extended to what may be referred to as the colonial public sphere, when they organized and ran a wide range of public and community associations to lead local development projects. Yet, this colonial public sphere was closed in nature as far as Koreans were concerned, as the Japanese settlers dominated the public posts of such associations, largely to the exclusion of the local Korean elite, let alone the Korean peasant population.

It is true that Japanese settlers in the Honam Plain were put in a seemingly contradictory position in that they wanted to maximize their own private economic interests as large farm owners on the one hand, yet at the same time wanted to initiate and lead local development projects for the public good by dominating leadership posts in various local semi-official associations on the other. Still, it should be kept in mind that Japanese settler leaders public and community activities were predominantly defined by the two principal national goals set

20 In Japan, the county as an administrative unit was abolished in the late 1920s as a hotbed of unseemly local politics (Ishikawa Hisao 1996).


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forth by the central governments in the colony and the metropolethe increase of rice production and, in the case of the Honam region, the stabilization of rural conditions. The Japanese settler leaders were required to carry out their part in the state-initiated colonial policy of rural development and stabilization. In fact, they endeavored to remain effective collaborators with official colonial policy by entering into close relationships with the colonial authorities through their leadership in semi-official associations devoted to the efficient implementation of local development and stabilization projects. In short, it should be noted that the local initiatives attempted by the Japanese settler communities were never advanced to the extent that they created any division from or conflict with the grand policy of Japanese empire building through assimilating (or civilizing) colonial subjects (Said 1993; Kwon Taeok 2013). As a matter of fact, to the Japanese settler leaders, the ideals of naisen yuwa and naisen ittai did not remain optional political slogans, but served as the only ideological justification in their promotion of local projects.

Japanese Orientalism, as some scholars argue, informed Japanese colonial policies and reflected the characteristics and limits of Japanese imperialism as a latecomer (Tanaka 1993; Kang Sangjung 1996). On the psychological level, it reflected a sense of inferiority and anxiety stemming from Japanese (or broader Asian) experiences as a target of Western imperial aggression. A binary division between civilization and barbarism directed the course of the colonists imaginary mapping of the empire, wherein the rays of civilization spread from the inner land of the metropole to the outer regions by means of assimilation (Anderson 1983; Kang Sangjung 1996). Japanese colonial policies were enacted in neighboring territories, first in Hokkaido and Okinawa, and then in Taiwan and Korea, turning these places into laboratories of the civilizing mission (Oguma Eiji 1998; Caprio 2009). The Japanese migrants in the Honam Plain were constantly driven by a sense of anxiety and impatience as late and Oriental colonizers to push ahead with ever new initiatives, resulting in a proliferation of rapidly-planned local development projects and the mushrooming of a host of public and community institutions.

The assimilation of colonial subjects, a form of the civilizing mission espoused by later Enlightenment thinkers, was exemplified in French-style direct rule of colonies. The imperialists or colonizers employed slogans of a civilizing mission to justify their industrial development projects and cultural engineering (Ikeda Hiroshi 2007). In Japanese farm villages and settler towns in the Honam region, all Japanese efforts for promoting urbanization, a market system, industrialization, Japanese values, and the Shinto religion were ardently propagandized in the name of the civilizing mission. Whereas conventional studies on Japanese assimilation policies have focused on political and cultural assimilation in such fields as political participation, self-rule, education, language, and religion, the present study draws attention to the Japanese colonizers assimilation (or civilization) through development (Chung and Matsumoto 2013). In the Honam region, the Japanese settlers economic base was their agricultural land tilled by Korean tenants, the development of which was presented as improving the economic conditions of Koreans, thus contributing to the ultimate goal of the assimilation policy to achieve equality between the two ethnic groups.


284

The disjunction between the professed assimilation policy and the Japanese version of racism confronted both colonized Koreans and Japanese colonizers with a stark dilemma. The Japanese sense of racial superiority over Koreans turned the promises of Japanese assimilation into a set of pretentious claims even in the eyes of colonized Korean collaborators (Chung Seungjin 2013). In a Honam society dominated by Japanese settler leaders, though all the local associations and organizations claimed to represent the interests and benefits of a broader multiethnic community, colonized Koreans were largely excluded and alienated from the important decision- and consensus-making processes. As a result, many Koreans found themselves in a frustrating grey zone in which they oscillated between resistance and collaboration (Yun Haedong 2003). Behind the faade of Japanese assimilation enterprises, like in the back alleys of the colonial town of Kunsan, most Koreans were suspended between the ambivalent boundaries of resistance and collaboration, as elegantly depicted in Chae Mansiks novel Tangnyu (Unclean Stream 1939).

The Japanese colonists transplanted a range of specimens of hybridity produced in the metropole to colonial society (Said 1993). In the memories of colonists in the Honam Plain, the newly-rising city of Iri, the Hosokawa farm at Taejangchon (Iksan), and the Fujii farm at Kanchokchon (Okku) were cherished as model towns and villages. In addition, a whole gamut of illustrative examples, such as model farms, model schools, model associations, model tenants, epitomized the impatiently pursued efficacy of Japans rapid industrial development, displaying it in the localized colonial setting (Ishii Kanji 2012). Ignoring the actual conditions of the Korean population, these colonial displays of Japanese-style modernity were touted as the material manifestations of assimilation through local development, and were also praised as major achievements of colonial governance.

GLOSSARY

bunka-seiji Imamura Ichijiro Chongup Iri (J) IriChonju (J) Zenshu isei doka (J) jinjo shogakko Fujii Kantaro kaihatsu futsu gakko Kimje (J) KinteiHashimoto O kongjik (J) koshokuHonam (J) Konan Kumamoto Rihei Hosokawa Farm kun (J) gunHwangdung-je Kunsan (J) GunsanIksan (J) Ekisan kusawakemono


285

Mangyong-gang pu (J) fumindo (J) Showa Miyazaki Yoshitaro sodang myon (J) men Taejangchon (J) Obamuranaisen yuwa takushoku Ohashi Yoichi Tongjin-gang Okku Totaku Paek Namsin up (J) yuPak Kisun upchi Pak Yongchol yuji (J) yushi

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