A Journey through Colonial Korea：Iwaya Sazanami’s Experiences in Korea

Abstract

Iwaya Sazanami (1870-1933) was a prominent figure in modern Japanese children’s literature. He traveled to the colonial Korean peninsula eight times in his life, the main purpose of these journeys being to give oral presentations of fairy tales to children in Korea. He energetically traveled throughout the country, including Keizyo (Seoul), Pyongyang, Kaesong, Wonsan and Busan.Regarding Sazanami’s visits to Korea, there have been excellent studies by Kim Sung-yeon(2010) and Otake Kiyomi(2008). However, previous studies have mainly focused on Sazanami as a children’s author and oral storyteller, and analysis of his literary works, political thought and ideology outside of this framework has not always been sufficient.Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify what kind of experiences Sazanami had in Korea under Japanese rule, and the essence of the literature, political thought, and political ideology he formed there.This is important because he was a committed imperialist and colonialist with close ties to Saito Makoto and other officials in the Korean Governor-General’s Office. In the haiku he wrote in Korea, we can see a kind of “Japanese-style Orientalism” through which a writer from an imperialist state that was one of the first to modernize in Asia discovers and grows to love the pre-modern cultural customs and manners of its colonies.