Joseon in Color : “Colored Clothes Campaign” and the “White Clothes Discourse”

Abstract

Foreigners who visit Korea today usually associate Korea with traditional Korean clothing (hanbok), and with all the colors usually featured in that clothing. Koreans in general want foreigners to associate all those beautiful and gorgeous colors with Korea, and the power of mass media have been employed toward that end. Yet only a century ago, most Koreans living in colonized Joseon wore nothing but “white hanbok.” Remarks made by visitors from foreign countries confirm this fact. Then, the Japanese colonial authorities promoted a policy that banned the wearing of all white clothing and encouraged (and enforced) the wearing of “colored clothes.” The justification behind this campaign can be seen from all the press materials released at the time, containing many comments that cast “white” as a “weak” and “helpless” color. This so-called “Colored Clothes Campaign” became quite oppressive and violent beginning in 1932 and encountered significant resistance by the Korean people. The Japanese authorities promoted this policy based on the notion that white clothes were not “economic” and therefore had to be transformed through a process of “modernization.” Yet in retrospect, it is clear that this notion was intended to aid the Japanese themselves and Japan’s war efforts. Colonial authorities debased white as a color, and cast it as a symbol of “weak Korea,” then forced Koreans to wear “dyed attire” made from “artificial fiber,” while extracting all the cotton produced in on the peninsula for use in making Japanese army uniforms. The campaign itself is detailed in a novel entitled Deep in the Bush, by a Korean writer named Kim Sa-Ryang. This novel not only portrays the campaign with great details, but also shows us the plight of the Joseon people who were coerced and forced to abandon their existing way of life. And quite ironically, the novel also portrays a situation in which the Koreans were harassed by a false cult that exploited the people’s very resentment toward the campaign. Kim not only criticized the reality of a colonized society, but also depicted how a mere image could be turned into a deadly weapon.