Description

This presentation considers the intersection of tourism and war at the 1940 Chosŏn Grand Exposition, which was held in Seoul at the height of Asia-Pacific War. Its opening event was replete with spectacular military images, from warships and tanks to various tributes to the war dead; among other things, the Holy War Pavilion and a tower for military services were exclusively devoted to militarism and the war. However, this talk seeks to extend the reading of this exhibition from a site of wartime propaganda more toward one of wartime battlefield tourism. Located at East Kyŏng Sŏng Station, which connected Korea with Japan and its other colonies, and by exhibiting virtual tours of other regions, the 1940 Exposition can be duly regarded as a part of wartime tourism. This presentation, specifically by juxtaposing the 1940 Exposition with group travel activities, including school excursions (shūgaku ryokō in Japanese; suhak yŏhaeng in Korean), suggests the possibility of reading this exposition as a site of mass mobilization at the level of individuals and of multitudes of people. By virtually touring battlefields, this paper will examine how tourists might have projected their own feelings onto tourist sites and thus have become unconsciously engaged with a larger political agenda. In doing so, these tours played roles both in mobilizing the youth for the war and in creating a larger imperial community for which all the colonies would fight.

Inhye Kang is currently a Korea Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD from McGill University’s Department of Art History and Communication Studies. She is currently transforming her thesis to focus on the intersection of tourism and exhibitions in Japan and Korea from the prewar to the postwar period.