The Cultural Rule: Hong Ulsu And Kang Pyongju

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Another thing that the cultural rule helped to benefit Hong Ulsu and Kang Pyongju was to provide them jobs that Koreans would never had before under Japan’s rule. The cultural rule not only helped in the expansion of schools which allowed Koreans more opportunities to gain advanced studies and more job options, but appointed more Koreans to civil services and judiciary, created advisory councils of carefully chosen Koreans, and nominally re-adjusted dual pay scale for bureaucrats. Again, Hong Ulsu met a kind Japanese person who became his boss when he work for him as an apprentice in which he was the one who helped him the most when he arrived in Japan, such as he provided meals for him, paid him his wages, and also paid for his schooling. …show more content…

This shows how complex Japanese and Korean interactions with each other are during this time period, because on one hand many people are experiencing extreme racism such as vulgar racism, while here a Japanese person is treating a Korean person with respect and kindness. This shows how nothing is black and white when interacting with people, however it can also be credited for this period of cultural rule and the government’s effort at assimilation with Koreans and Japanese. Kang Pyongju’s experience differs from Ulsu’s experience in which he did not have a close relationship with his business partner, however, the relationship he had with his work was subtle and affective racism where he observed racism and how it disenfranchise him and his people throughout his work. For example, he noticed that now the Bank of Agriculture now decided to let Koreans apply which benefited him and any other Koreans, however it has its flaw when the bank selected more Japanese than Koreans, regardless of how qualified a Korean is. He also noticed that although it appeared as if the salaries for both Japanese and Korean bank managers appeared to be the same, Japanese people received …show more content…

However, many Koreans are easily punished and scrutinized in their everyday activities by the Japanese government in which anything minute they did could be considered offensive. Because the police and government put more and more restrictions on Koreans during the early 1940s, Hong Ulsu formed a secret group to share his frustration with the people and he also “knew the advantage of cultivating friendship with people in high positions” (A Map Changed My Life, Pg. 34) so that he would not get in trouble and still retain some of his freedom. This led him to befriend a police officer who was promoted to the Japanese High Police Staff as detective and has the job of keeping an eye on the independence activist and radical agitators. Ulsu was able to still form his secret group because he bribed the officer with liquor and money in which helped saved his life. Although, Kang Pyongju was not in danger for his life like Hong Ulsu, he was more unfortunate in the fact that he did not have a law enforcer on his side. Because the war intensified, Japanese management became more paranoid in which Pyongju was demoted for taking an unauthorized trip that the Japanese

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