This article is yet another example of "model Korean" propaganda, which props up an exemplary Korean collaborator as a model for all Koreans to follow.
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| Ms. Makiyama Tae |
The subject is 31-year-old Makiyama Tae, a mother of a 6-year-old daughter, and the eldest daughter of prominent Korean collaborator Lee Jin-ho (1867-1946), who built a notable career under Japanese rule as a provincial governor, a senior education official in the colonial administration, and later a parliamentarian. In 1944, Makiyama is praised for performing unpaid labor for the Patriotic Women's Association, where she conducts outreach to rural Korean women with the stated aim of “transforming” their clothing, food, and housing to conform to wartime needs.
At the same time, the propaganda logic is strained. Presenting Makiyama as a model to be emulated would likely have been alienating to many ordinary Koreans. She operated from a position of elite privilege, backed by wealth, status, and political connections, while the article implicitly asks working women and rural peasants to accept unpaid or minimally compensated labor under vastly different material conditions.
The article also reveals the extent to which the Patriotic Women’s Association functioned as an instrument of total war mobilization. Civilian homes were recast as extensions of the military-industrial system, tasked not only with producing rudimentary goods such as straw bags, but also with performing labor directly connected to weapons manufacturing, including the manufacturing of winding coils for engine stators.
[Translation]
Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijō Nippo) February 6, 1944
Working Women (7)
Planning Nutritious Meals for Wartime
Ms. Makiyama Sweats “Without Pay”
With the slogan “Even housewives shall contribute to the strengthening of the war effort,” the Greater Japan Patriotic Women’s Association has launched a nationwide all-out mobilization movement. As Minister of Health Koizumi has stated, “Housewives should, insofar as possible, participate in wartime production for strengthening the war effort from within the home.”
This represents a decisive leap beyond the usual forms of labor service such as making sandal straps, pasting paper bags, or collecting scrap metal. Housewives are now called upon to devote themselves directly, within their own homes, to the production of wartime materials.
Already in the Home Islands, households are producing military straw bags (kamasu) or winding coils for engine stators brought into the home, while hinges for weapon-packaging crates are assembled in rotation by neighborhood Patriotic Women’s Association members. The home itself has become a battlefield. Now is the autumn in which six million members of the Patriotic Women’s Association in Korea must wholly commit themselves to wartime life.
At the Wartime Living Division of the Korean Headquarters of the Patriotic Women’s Association, located in Seorin-dong, Jongno Ward, Seoul, new forms of guidance are about to be implemented so that housewives may offer up every aspect of their “clothing, food, and shelter” to the nation. Standing prominently among the wartime living instructors is 31-year-old Ms. Makiyama Tae.
Ms. Makiyama is the eldest daughter of the well-known House of Peers member, Mr. Lee Jin-ho (이진호, 李軫鎬).
When the all-out mobilization movement of the Patriotic Women’s Association began last October, she volunteered to join the Korean Headquarters. “I do not need a salary. If I can instill wartime consciousness into Korean women, that alone will fulfill my every wish. Please allow me to realize this long-held aspiration of mine.” Such was her impassioned appeal.
Her plea, made with her whole being aflame with fervor, was accepted, and Ms. Makiyama took up her post. Three months have passed since then, and the advance of Korean women has been remarkable. “I have been entrusted with the ‘housing’ section and am devoted entirely to designing improvements to women’s daily lives. To presume to instruct others would be unthinkable. Through my daily work, I myself am given profound self-reflection and a new path forward. This is a joy beyond anything I could have hoped for.”
She seeks only to devote herself to the task of how to raise the often-lagging awareness of current affairs among Korean women to the necessary level. “I have only just begun studying this problem,” Ms. Makiyama says with a modest demeanor. Behind her few words lies a sharp, deeply held resolve that action must come before words.
Soon after graduating from the First Girls’ High School, she entered married life, and for the past ten years has served as a Patriotic Women’s Association member, contributing to various activities. However, as the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese war gave way to the Greater East Asia War, the situation changed dramatically, and the duties of women on the home front grew ever more demanding and ever more important.
“This will not do. There is no progress in protecting only individuals. We must call out to the masses of Korean women…” Ms. Makiyama could no longer remain still. Fortunately, with only a single six-year-old daughter, Fumi-chan, she was relatively unencumbered, and resolved last autumn to enter the Patriotic Women’s Association full-time. Her husband, of course, and her strict father, Mr. Lee, were deeply moved, blinking back tears as they offered their encouragement.
The implementation of the Korean Volunteer Soldier System and the mobilization of students for the front followed one after another in dizzying succession. The time had come for Korean women to rise up in total mobilization. Witnessing with her own eyes the many Korean women who, without shedding tears, waved the Rising Sun flag and stood resolute as they sent their children off to the field of battle, Ms. Makiyama felt her efforts spurred on with renewed force.
“Why must wartime life be pared down so severely? I fight every day to answer that ‘why.’ In particular, I struggle over the transformation of clothing, food, and shelter for Korean women in farming villages. This has been my dream for ten years, and to see it realized is the fulfillment of a lifelong wish of my entire being,” Ms. Makiyama said, smiling brightly.
(Photograph: Ms. Makiyama Preparing Wartime Nutritional Meals)
[Transcription]
京城日報 1944年2月6日
はたらく女性（７）
戦う栄養食の設計へ
”無報酬”で汗する牧山さん
家庭婦人も戦力増強へーを合言葉に大日本婦人会では全国的に総蹶起運動を展開しているが、小泉厚相も述べる如く『家庭婦人はなるべく家庭で戦力増強の生産に参加する』というにある。
従来のように鼻緒造りとか紙袋貼り或は金属回収の勤労奉仕作業を一段と飛躍、直接家々において戦時物資の生産に挺身する事となった。
すでに内地では軍用叺織又は発動機固定子のコイル巻を家庭に持込んで製造したり兵器包装用箱の蝶番が隣組の日婦会員の奉仕で交替に組合わされている。
家庭も戦場、今こそ半島六百万日婦会員は戦時生活へ徹するの秋だ。府内鐘路区瑞麟町日婦朝鮮本部戦時生活部では家庭婦人の『衣、食、住』一切を挙げてお国へ捧げる為の新しい指導がなされんとしている戦時生活指導者の一人牧山多恵女史（３１）の姿が大きく浮び上る。
牧山さんは人も知る貴族院議員、李家軫鎬氏の長女である。
日婦総蹶起運動の始まる昨年十月志願して日婦朝鮮本部に入り、『給料など要りません。半島婦人に戦時意識を吹っ込むことが出来れば私の希望の全部なのです。永い間の私の希望を叶えさせてください』
全身熱情にしての請が入れられ牧山さんは就職した。あれから三ヶ月目覚しい半島婦人の進出ぶりだ。「私は『住』の部を任せられて専ら婦人の生活改善の設計に当っていますが、他人様を指導するなどとは以てのほかで日々の仕事を通じ私自身大きな反省と新しい進路が与えられます事は望外の歓びです」
半島婦人の立遅れかちの時局認識をどうして水準に引上げるべきかについて献身的な努力を希うのみです。勉強はこれからですと牧山さんは謙譲な態度で語る。言葉より実践だと深い決意が少い言葉の裏に鋭く秘められている。
第一高女を卒えて間もなく家庭生活に入るとこの十年間は婦人会員として各種行事に奉仕したが、支那事変から大東亜戦争と戦局は大きく転換し銃後婦人の務めは益々繁忙且つ重要性を増して来た。
『これではいけない。個人を守っていたのでは進歩がない。半島婦人大衆に呼び懸けなくては．．．』と牧山さんは居ても立ってもいられなくなった。幸い家庭には六歳になる女児の婦美ちゃん只一人という身軽さから昨年秋日日婦入りを決意した。夫君はもとより厳父李家氏も感激の瞳をしばたたいて激励した。半島志願兵制度の施行、学徒出陣と目まぐるしい転換が行われた。半島婦人は今こそ総蹶起すべき秋は来た。日の丸の旗を打振りつつ眼に涙さえ浮べず毅然として我が子を戦いの庭に見送る幾多の半島婦人の姿を目のあたりにして牧山さんの努力に一段の拍車が掛けられた。
『何故戦時生活はかく切り詰めなければならないかーこの何故に答える為に私は日々を闘っています。殊に半島農村婦人の衣食住の切り替えについてたたかいます。これが十年間の私の夢であり、これが実現をみることが畢生の望みです』と牧山さんは明るく微笑んだ。
【写真＝戦時栄養食を作る牧山女史】
Source: National Library of Korea, Digital Newspaper Archive
See also: Niece of Korean collaborator nobleman Yoon Deok-yeong (윤덕영, 尹徳栄) was featured in 1939 article declaring ‘I really want to marry a Japanese man’ and adopting the Japanese surname ‘Izu’ to improve her marriage prospects (link)
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