Event overview
Forming a Musical Culture: Japanese Music and Colonial Korea (1910-1945). This lecture explores the cultural environment in Korea under Japanese rule.
This presentation examines how Japanese music (ambivalently considered both ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ at the same time) influenced the formation of Korea’s own musical culture. This event will be chaired by Dr Naomi Matsumoto.
After signing the Japan-Korea Treaty of Amity in 1876, the Japanese government encouraged its citizens to emigrate to Korea. Japan’s unexpected victory in the Russo-Japanese War (February 1904-May 1905) engendered a more aggressive territorial ambition towards the Korean peninsula, and February 1906 saw the establishment of the Japanese Resident-General, a ministry within Korea. This marked the commencement of Japan’s ‘advisory’ rule over Korea. Later, in August 1910, Japan officially ‘annexed’ Korea. The Governor-General of Korea, set up the Japanese rule and introduced capitalism there by establishing Korea as an independent economic sphere with its own infrastructure and systematizing bureaucratic administration.
Colonial Korea comprised of a mixture of the Japanese and the Koreans. However, viewing simplistically the Japanese as ‘the dominant’ and the Koreans as the ‘Subjugated’ will not give us a full understanding of the situation. It is true that, at times, the Governor-General of Korea censored public speeches, publications and films to maintain security and to control ideologies. But, in fact, a great deal of autonomy and creativity was allowed, under the aegis of ‘modern society’. Hence, cultural productions in colonial Korea were not always those arising from the ‘politics of resistance’.
This presentation will discuss the ways in which musical culture was formed in Korea at that time and how ‘Japanese music’ played a role there. Western music has been influential and musical education has helped to incorporate it within the musical scene of present-day Korea. However, it is Japanese music, enjoyed by the Japanese diaspora in colonial Korea, that shaped the future of Korean music, even if Japan’s defeat at the end of the second world war and the subsequent liberation of Korea made it possible to obscure the effect of that dynamic.
At first glance, Japanese music in Korea might be taken as an indication of ‘colonialism’. In reality, however, the music culture of Korea during the occupation was diverse and unique: concerts often programmed Japanese, Korean and Western musics, in both art and popular veins, together. In such a practice, Japanese music to the Koreans was more ‘innocuous’ and less oppressive than hitherto claimed.
By way of conclusion, this presentation will argue that Korea’s musical culture was formed uniquely by the coexistence and cooperation between the rulers and the ruled, a fact which may well problematize our post-colonial discourses.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2021 | 2:00pm - 4:00pm |
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