The Model Village of Daejangchon: The Image of Imperial Japan in the Eyes of Rural Korea

Abstract

In contrast to many feudal lords who lost their political and economic positions in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the Hosokawa family from Kumamoto Japan succeeded in transforming themselves to be significant landlords, both in their old prefecture and in the new Korean colony. The Hosokawa family came to Korea immediately after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), where they acquired a large tract of land upon which they built a tenant farm and model village. The family put forth a large amount of investment and donation to the immigrant village of Daejangchon, so as to develop social infrastructure as well as to carry out land improvement for rice production. Daejangchon was in North Jeolla Province, a famous bread-basket in Korea, and was a Korean branch of the Hosokawa Farm Headquarters in the Kumamoto Prefecture. As a model village, Daejangchon experienced rapid development among immigrant society. However, this highly developed community caused confusion and alienation among the native Korean villagers, and presented itself as a contradiction to the assimilation policy of the colonial authorities. This was because Daejangchon represented a kind of transplantation of the Japanese local improvement movement to the colony, rather than an outgrowth of autonomous rural development in the context of Korean local society.