Japanese Imperial Education in Korea and Taiwan and the Lens of Reciprocal Assimilation

Abstract

While the Japanese Empire colonial relationship with Taiwan and Korea was undoubtedly unequal—the Japanese Empire exerting its power and influence even to a coercive extent in Korea when it brutally suppressed peaceful protest during the May 1^st movement—there were also attempts by the Japanese colonial governments and Japanese citizens (both in the metropole and abroad) to establish and maintain a symbiotic relationship and (at least to some extent) learn about the culture, language, and experience of the colonies that the Japanese Empire held. This is especially relevant to education as ethnic Japanese both living in colonies abroad and the metropole would either experience firsthand or learn secondhand about the colonies that the Empire had subjugated. The assimilatory policies employed in Korea and Taiwan worked to integrate these colonies and their inhabitants into the Japanese Empire. As ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese began to enter the metropole, they also exposed ethnic Japanese in educational hubs such as Tokyo to the lives of colonized subjects in a more personal manner. Reciprocal assimilation therefore also took place as Taiwan and Korea were respectively inducted into the wider Japanese empire because at the same time that the Japanese Empire sought assimilate its colonial subjects, Japan too became a part of a wide-reaching colonial family.