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Japanese language learning brought prosperity and persecution for women in Korea

Japanese language learning in post-colonial Korea

In the 1960s, newspaper articles in Korea about Japanese language learning tended to focus on two types of women as the only people to study the language.

Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University

In the 1960s, Japanese books became immensely popular in South Korea. Interestingly, Korean newspapers often wrote about this trend as if mainly women were interested in learning Japanese.

Osaka Metropolitan University Associate Professor Jinsuk Yang examined South Korean newspaper articles and other historical documents from the 1960s and 1970s to understand why Japanese language learning was often described as something women did, even though men were also learning Japanese. Additionally, Professor Yang studied how women’s ability to speak Japanese affected their lives during and after the time when Japan colonized Korea.

As a result, it was found that the Korean newspapers often focused on two groups of women learning Japanese: university students and workers in the entertainment industry. These articles stated that female university students were learning Japanese only to read novels, and women in the entertainment industry were learning it to talk to tourists. However, they didn’t say much about the men learning Japanese for work or study. Further, the ability to speak Japanese gave women new opportunities and ideas, which challenged traditional roles for women in Korea.

“This research helps us understand more about the relationship between language, gender, and national identity in Korea after Japanese colonial rule,” Professor Yang stated. “It can teach us about how countries and cultures influence each other, even after difficult historical periods. In the future, this kind of research might help us better understand the relationship between Japan and Korea today.”

Her findings were published in Asian Studies Review.

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant number 22K13150.

Paper information

Journal: Asian Studies Review
Title: The Gendered Construction of the Japanese Language-Learning Boom in Postcolonial Korea
DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2024.2393726
Authors: Jinsuk Yang
Published: 2 September 2024
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2024.2393726

Contact

Jinsuk Yang

Graduate School of Sustainable System Sciences
Email: yang[at]omu.ac.jp

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