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Living as a Colonial Girl: The Sonyǒ (少女) Discourse of School Curriculum and Newspapers in 1930s Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2020

Kyung-Sook Shin  and
Helen J. S. Lee
Kyung-Sook Shin*
Affiliation:
Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea
Helen J. S. Lee*
Affiliation:
Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea
*
*Corresponding authors. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
*Corresponding authors. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

This essay explores how the term ‘girl,’ or 少女 (sonyŏ), in 1930s colonial Korean society simultaneously created and resisted homogeneity. We analyze the different contexts and cultural forces that shaped the term ‘girl’ in colonial Korea in order to illustrate some phases of the relationships that historical girls of colonial Korea had with their nation and state, the nation, that is, to which they thought they belonged at births and the state for which they were mobilized while they were systematically otherized. In our examination, we scrutinize the ways in which the subjectivities of colonial girls were ideologically forged through educational and institutional interventions and cultural interpellation. The first section discusses the concept of the girl in colonial Korea. The second part analyzes the various ideological functions that school textbooks played in gender-specific inculcation of colonial state ideals. We then read the ways The Chosŏn Ilbo (Chosŏn Daily) used the term the ‘girl’ in the 1930s, the period when the conceptual distinction between children and adults was further solidified, and the call on children was gender-specific in public. We finally elucidate the colonial processes of which girls of colonial Korea became part, albeit unknowingly.

Keywords

colonial Koreaeducationgenderimperial Japanchildhood
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 119 - 134
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This research was supported by the Amore Pacific Foundation of Korea in 2016.

References

References

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Lee, Helen J. S. (2014). “Negotiating Imagined Imperial Kinship: Affects and Comfort Letters of Korean Children.” Review of Korean Studies 17:1, pp. 93–113.Google Scholar
Lee, Helen J. S. (2019). “Cultural Assimilation in the Kokugo (国語) Classroom: Colonial Korean Children's Tsuzurikata (綴り方) Compositions from the Early 1930s.” Japanese Literature and Language 53:1, pp. 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Hye-ryoung (2007). “Newspaper, Narod, Novel: Hierarchy of Literacy and Its Representation.” Hanguk kŭndae munhak yŏngu (Journal of Modern Korean Literature) 15:4, pp. 165–96.Google Scholar
Murata, Noboru (村田昇) (2006). “Shushin kyokash: Miejiki kara Showasenzenki no hennyo 第１部 修身教科書 「明治期から昭和戦前期の変遷」.” Kindai nihon no kyokasho no ayumi: Meijiki kara gendai made『近代日本の教科書の歩み：明治期から現代まで』, pp. 15–21.Google Scholar
Park, Hyun Ok (2000). “Korean Manchuria: The Racial Politics of Territorial Osmosis.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 99, pp. 193–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverberg, Miriam (2006). Erotic, Grotesque, and Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
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Yuh, Leighanne (2010). “Contradictions in Korean Colonial Education.” International Journal of Korean History 15:1, pp. 121–50.Google Scholar
“National Newspaper Archive of Korea.” Library of Korea. https://www.nl.go.kr/newspaper/sub05.do. Accessed August 1, 2018.Google Scholar
Office for National Statistics. https://www.ons.gov.uk/. Accessed May 20, 2018.Google Scholar
Bunshū, Chŏllabukdo kyōiku kai (Northern Chŏlla Provincial Education Bureau), 1934.Google Scholar
The Chosŏn Ilbo (The Chosŏn Central Daily).Google Scholar
The Dong-A Ilbo (The Dong-A Daily).Google Scholar
Heitai no oniisan e, Ryokki renmei (The Green Flag Association), 1944.Google Scholar
The Maeil Shinbo (The Daily News).Google Scholar
Bingham, Adrian (2004). Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-War Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith (2009). “Performativity, Precarity, and Sexual Politics.” AIBR 4, pp. 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Mikyŏng (2008). “Kŭndae hanil yŏsŏng kyoyuk kwa sosŏl yŏngu,” Ph.D. dissertation. Chŏnnam taehakkyo, 2008.Google Scholar
Driscoll, Mark (2010). Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895–1945. Durham and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fraleigh, Matthew (2012). “Transplanting the Flower of Civilization: The “Peony Girl” and Japan's 1874 Expedition to Taiwan.” International Journal of Asian Studies 9 (2012), pp. 177–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Jihee (2013). “Choe Namsŏn ŭi sonyŏn ŭi kihoek kwa sonyŏ ŭi ingyŏ” (“Choi Namsŏn's Cultural Project of ‘Sonyŏn’ and the Supplementary of ‘Sonyŏ’”). Chendŏ wa munhwa (Gender and Culture) 6:1, pp. 124–48.Google Scholar
Hanna, Martha (1985). “Iconology and Ideology: Images of Joan of Arc in the Idiom of the Action Française, 1908–1931.” French Historical Studies 14, pp. 215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heo, Jaeyoung (2017). “Ilje kangjŏmgi hanguŭl undong kwa munmaeng t'oech’i (munja pogŭp) undong yŏngu” (“The Study of Hangeul Movement and the Eradication Movement of Illiteracy during the Colonial Periods”). Toksŏ yŏngu (Journal of Reading Research) 44, pp. 127–61.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, Jennifer (2011). “Fair Maids and Golden Girls: The Vocabulary of Female Youth in Early Modern English.” Modern Philology 109:1, pp. 171–96.Google Scholar
Honda, Masuko (2010). “The Genealogy of hirahira: Liminality and the Girl.” In Girl Reading Girl in Japan, eds. Aoyama, Tomoko and Barbara Hartley, Tr. Tomoko Aoyama, Barbara Hartley, . London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kim, Bok-soon (2008). “Sonyŏ ŭi t'ansaeng kwa pangongjuŭi sŏsa ŭi kyebo: Ch'oe Chŏnghŭi ŭi ‘Noksaek ŭi mun’” (“The Discovery of Girls and Genealogy of Anti-Communist Narratives – focused on Choi Jung Hee's ‘Green Door’”). Hanguk kŭndaehak yŏngu (Journal of Modern Korean Literature) 18, pp. 203–34.Google Scholar
Kim, Chuhyŏn (2008). “Puru sonyŏdŭl ŭi kach'ul kwa wŏlkyŏng – 1930 nyŏn sonyŏ kongch'ul chŏnhusa.” Yŏsŏng munhak yŏngu 28, pp. 449–83.Google Scholar
Kim, Jy-hyon (2012). “Puru sonyŏ ŭi kach'ul kwa wŏlgyŏng – 1930 nyŏndae sonyŏ kongch'ul chŏnhusa” (“Runaway and Crossing the Border of Disadvantaged Girls – History before and after ‘Forced Supply of Young Girls’ in the 1930s”). Yŏsŏng munhak yŏngu (Feminism and Korean Literature) 28, pp. 449–83.Google Scholar
Kim, Kyong-il (2007). “A Study on the Question of Early Marriage in Colonial Korea.” Hankukak Nonjip (Essays in Korean Studies) 41, pp. 363–95.Google Scholar
Kim, Min-Ji (2014). “Sikminji chosŏn ŭi sonyŏ tokcha wa kŭndae taejung munhak ŭi tongsidaesŏng – Ilbon munhak kwa ilbonŏ chapchi toksŏ kyŏnghyang ŭl chungsim ŭro” (“Girl Readers and Contemporaneity of Popular Literature in the Colonial Era: Focusing on Reading Trend of Japanese Literary Works and Popular Magazines”). Taejung sŏsa yŏngu (Journal of Popular Narrative) 20, pp. 7–35.Google Scholar
Kim, Poksun (2008). “Sonyŏ ŭi t'ansaeng gwa pangongjuŭi sŏsa ŭi kyebo: Ch'oe Chŏnghŭi ŭi ‘noksaek ŭi mun’.” Hanguk kŭndae munhak yŏngu 18, pp. 203–34.Google Scholar
Kim, Puja (2008). “Sikminji sigi Chosŏn pot'ong hakkyo ch'wihak tondgi wa ilbonŏ: 1930 nyŏndae rŭl chungsim ŭro” (“Purposes of Enrolling in Common School and Japanese Language in Colonial Korea”). Sahoe wa yŏksa 77, pp. 39–55.Google Scholar
Kim, Sunjŏn oe (2006). Chosŏn ch'ongdokpu ch'odŭnghakkyo susinsŏ wŏnmun sanggwŏn 朝鮮総督府初等学校修身書原文（上）. Chei aen ssi. Kim Sunjŏn oe. Chosŏn ch'ongdokpu ch'odŭnghakkyo susinsŏ wŏnmun hagwŏn 朝鮮総督府初等学校修身書原文（下）. Chei aen ssi.Google Scholar
Kim, Naknyeon and Ki-Joo, Park (2011). “Sikminjiki Chosŏn ŭi imgŭm sujun kwa imgŭm kyŏkcha—kongjang imgŭm ŭl chungsim ŭro” (“Level and Differentials of Wages in Colonial Korea: Focusing on Factory Wages”). Taedong munwha yŏngu 74, pp. 379–411.Google Scholar
Kumar, Krishna (2010). “Culture, State, and Girls: An Educational Perspective.” Economic and Political Weekly 45:17, pp. 75–84.Google Scholar
Lee, Helen J. S. (2014). “Negotiating Imagined Imperial Kinship: Affects and Comfort Letters of Korean Children.” Review of Korean Studies 17:1, pp. 93–113.Google Scholar
Lee, Helen J. S. (2019). “Cultural Assimilation in the Kokugo (国語) Classroom: Colonial Korean Children's Tsuzurikata (綴り方) Compositions from the Early 1930s.” Japanese Literature and Language 53:1, pp. 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Hye-ryoung (2007). “Newspaper, Narod, Novel: Hierarchy of Literacy and Its Representation.” Hanguk kŭndae munhak yŏngu (Journal of Modern Korean Literature) 15:4, pp. 165–96.Google Scholar
Murata, Noboru (村田昇) (2006). “Shushin kyokash: Miejiki kara Showasenzenki no hennyo 第１部 修身教科書 「明治期から昭和戦前期の変遷」.” Kindai nihon no kyokasho no ayumi: Meijiki kara gendai made『近代日本の教科書の歩み：明治期から現代まで』, pp. 15–21.Google Scholar
Park, Hyun Ok (2000). “Korean Manchuria: The Racial Politics of Territorial Osmosis.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 99, pp. 193–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverberg, Miriam (2006). Erotic, Grotesque, and Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Sarah E. (2003). “Figuring Modernity: The New Woman and the Modern Girl in Republican China.” NWSA 15:3, pp. 82–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, Kanto (2010). “Sikiminji Chosŏn esŏ ŭi kŭndae hwa wa ilbonŏ kyoyuk” (“Modernization and Japanese-language Education in Colonial Korea”). Hanil Yŏksa Kongdong Bogosŏ 4. Seoul: Hanil Yŏksa Kongdong Yongu Uiwonhoe, pp. 237–64.Google Scholar
Yuh, Leighanne (2010). “Contradictions in Korean Colonial Education.” International Journal of Korean History 15:1, pp. 121–50.Google Scholar