About the translator:

Ever since someone dumped a trove of old newspaper issues onto the Internet Archive in October 2021, I have been slowly translating and posting select articles to share my findings with the wider community. I am a US-educated Japanese person concerned about the spread of historical misinformation by Japanese far-right activists supporting revisionist and denialist viewpoints about the history of Imperial Japan, especially with respect to war crimes and atrocities. I hope that this blog will help combat historical misinformation about Imperial Japan on the Internet, and that professional historians will be inspired to start an online resource like this one, but on a much larger scale.

About the Yoko vs. Hoshiko stories:

‘Yōko versus Hoshiko’ was a Keijo Nippo newspaper serial featuring fictional educational dialogues pitting Yōko, the ‘good’ Korean woman who is selfless and cares about others, against Hoshiko, the ‘bad’ Korean woman who is selfish, greedy, and only cares about herself, as they argue about the correct way to live their daily lives governed by the Patriotic Groups of wartime Seoul. It’s a very interesting glimpse into how Koreans lived their lives in 1944 Seoul. Keijo Nippo was more than just a newspaper – it also functioned like a textbook to spread propaganda throughout Korea, so chances are that, all over Korea, each Patriotic Group leader talked with their followers about Yōko and Hoshiko during their group meetings.

Patriotic groups:

Patriotic Groups (JP: aikoku-han, KR: aeguk-ban, 愛國班) were neighborhood cells which functioned as the local arm of the Korean Federation of National Power (国民総力朝鮮連盟, 국민총력조선연맹), the single ruling party of colonial Korea. They typically consisted of a few households, led by a Patriotic Group leader, who acted as a mini-tyrant micromanaging the lives of everyone within the Patriotic Group. That included things like rationing food and goods, enforcing mandatory State Shinto prayer times and shrine visits, ‘volunteering’ laborers upon the colonial government’s request, arranging marriages, holding mandatory Japanese language classes, spying on ‘ideological criminals’, etc.

The Patriotic Group leaders were often corrupt, enriching themselves and their friends and families at the expense of the rest of the group members. Many Koreans filed complaints to report such leaders, but it’s unclear whether this had any effect on reducing corruption.

It should be noted that former Patriotic Group leaders were among the first to be targeted for reprisals following Korean Independence in August 1945 – many of their homes were set on fire, as witnessed later by incoming American soldiers who were initially confused as to what was going on.