Peculiar Characteristics of Japanese Colonialism

The most fascinating comparison of colonization could possibly be the differences between Japanese colonization in Korea and American colonization in Africa. “The enormous gap between the colonizer and the colonized made it easy for the Westerners to construct images of subject peoples that licensed massacres and sanctioned suppression and control of a kind intolerable at home” (397). For the Japanese, however, it was far more difficult to distinguish between themselves and the Koreans; they shared similar physical appearances, a past, and a culture. While Europeans used differences between themselves and their colonized Africans to keep themselves separate and superior, the Japanese used their similarities to justify the need for a more civilized people to exist in Korea.

Oddly enough, despite a vast number of visual similarities, Koreans were seen as being less civilized and of a lowly cultural status by the Japanese. A cartoon in Japan in 1878 had similar effects as soap advertisements had during American colonization of Africa; the cartoon featured the presentation of the nations of the world in a festival of dolls. Not only were the dolls placed in specific social and cultural hierarchy, but it was noticed that while the Western dolls posed in grand and imposing ways, the Koreans bowed with averted eyes and were quite representative of the subservience and inferiority of the Koreans.

Additionally, the cultural inferiority of Korean civilization was displayed in travel accounts and guidebooks, just as Africans had been portrayed in soap advertisements and just as – to this day – Africans are portrayed in American publications, such as National Geographic. “The reader of travel accounts and guidebooks would be struck by the differences at so many levels -language, emotions, architecture, food, social divisions, political structure – that it might seem difficult to believe that people who lived so close should be so strange” (401). It was said that upon first landing in Korea, travelers were often greeted by a practically barbaric society who, in one account, was said to have both shit and flies as two of their most prevalent products.

Though not exploited to great extents, as it was in the Americas, it was discovered that the colonized people made very good physical workers, like oxen. Koreans were very strong and were said to be quite useful under proper supervision. Interestingly, when used properly, Koreans were said to have even greater working power and potential than the Japanese.

Both the Americans and the Japanese felt that the people they colonized were uncivilized and culturally inferior, though they did feel that with proper leadership, both the Africans and the Koreans could thrive.