[KS] Jazz in Korea--Josephine Baker

Steven Capener sotaebu at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 21 22:01:28 EST 2011


Dear list members,
 
Unfortunately for those so highly invested in Josephine Baker having not visited Japan, Korea, or Manchuria in the 1930s, Yi Hyoseok's description of her visit to the port of Chongjin is not fiction, it is a factual account of his visit to the port with friends from Pyeongyang to see Baker perform (he gives a two paragraph description of the performance). He says that she is stopping by on her way to do a performance tour (연주여행) of Manchuria. Again, we must assume she is arriving from Japan. This account is a four page essay and is included in volume 6 of his collected works, the volume of essays. It was not written as fiction, was not intended as fiction, and is not classified as fiction by Changmisa, the publishing company that compiled Yi's collected works and was run by his daughter Nam Mi.  
 
Best,
 
Steven Capener
From: Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>
To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws> 
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: [KS] Jazz in Korea--Josephine Baker

Thanks Antti.
There is really nothing in that Tonga ilbo article that would indicate that this  is in Asia, or even in Korea. To the opposite, as Antti already pointed out, this shows Josephine Baker with French or maybe British soldiers.

Baker was also very prominent in East Asia, more so since the late 1930s. There are countless reports of how influential she was in Japan, still so during the Pacific War. And she "appeared" also in Korean and Japanese advertisements, and was a role model for the "Modern Girl" of the 1930s. Steven mentioned the magazin _Chogwang_ and Yi Hyo-sôk's short novel in there, in August 1936, "Kû hangguûi mam," where there is a scene were Baker is going to leave from the Korean city "C-hanggu" (C-Harbor)--which is
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