This paper is about a travel essay to Tokyo, a capital city of Imperial Japan, written by intelligent people from the colonial Joseon. So far, the relationship between intellectuals of modern Joseon and the urban space (‘Tokyo’) has been barely st...
This paper is about a travel essay to Tokyo, a capital city of Imperial Japan, written by intelligent people from the colonial Joseon. So far, the relationship between intellectuals of modern Joseon and the urban space (‘Tokyo’) has been barely studied. In literature, in particular, it has been partially discussed in terms of the studies on works and writers. Recently, the related studies have been carried out little by little. However, the cultural space of Tokyo from the late 1920s to the 1930s has been barely studied. Therefore, this paper has attempted to investigate how and what kind of cultural space the intellectuals of Joseon Dynasty experienced in Tokyo and how and what perspective they developed on themselves and the world.
This paper has focused on the trip to Tokyo from the late 1920s to the 1930s to examine the travelers’ awareness on ‘place.’ This paper has attempted to figure out how human bodies react in a specific place (‘Tokyo’). The investigation on ‘place’ is closely related with the studies on the urban cultural space and daily space in the colonial modernity. As the topography of Keijo cultural space changed because of the introduction of adult entertainment culture to Japan in the form of ‘café’ and ‘dance hall,’ it had an absolute influence on Joseon and Joseon people as well. In this sense, a study on the experience of modern Tokyo would result in the study on the formation of empirical modernity of the colonial Joseon through experience of daily routine places.
Before getting deeper, this paper has briefly examined change in the characteristics of the experience of Tokyo from the opening of Korean ports to the 1930s. It has been specifically discussed in the chapter of ‘Trip to Tokyo, Learning of Modern Civilization to Experience of Consumption Culture.’ After the Great Kanto Earthquake the center of Tokyo shifted from Asakusa, a district where Japanese tradition was valued and preserved, to Ginza, a space of modern consumption culture. Because of this change, the citizens of Tokyo who enjoy walking along the Ginza Street have been the mass culture consumers. In this process, it is necessary to examine the mechanism that the logic of the imperial Japan appears in Joseon people who experienced Tokyo culture. It appears that this examination would make a contribution to the reassessment of the cultural, political and historical significance of urban cultural spaces such as park, department store, dance hall and café.
In Chapter 2, the cultural spaces of Tokyo are examined by space. Based on the result of the examination, this paper has attempted to find out what kind of cultural space the travelers of Joseon discovered and describe what they saw and felt in Tokyo. The cultural spaces of Tokyo include dance hall, department store, bookstore, garden, library, Ginza Street, theater and old capital. They slightly differ from each other in terms of cultural characteristics. In this chapter, the difference has been investigated.
In Chapter 3, Ginza, the most modern street in Tokyo, has been examined. In other words, how the street has developed and evolved has been investigated by seeing Ginza in terms of the relationship with the general view on Tokyo. Lee Tae-jun, Lee Gwang-su and Choi Jae-seo wrote a trip essay to Tokyo in 1936. In their papers, Ginza Street accounts for a great portion. In this chapter, how Ginza Street has developed has been examined in comparison with other spaces of Tokyo.
In Chapter 4, main topics have been examined under the topic of ‘the Cultural Consciousness of the Colonized and Space of Empire.’ Based on the discussions so far, how the intellectuals of Joseon Dynasty responded to the culture of Japanese Empire and what kind of life they lived under the space have been examined. Then, how the intellectuals of Joseon developed their identity through otherness-based cultural experience as the colonized has been examined.