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Danish gymnastic [sic]
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “Some graduate of the Jiyu Gakuen were sent to Danmark [sic] in order to study the gymnastics, and now the Chinese girls are given the new type of physical training in China [sic]”. “Danish gymnastics” was a form of mass athletic exercise popular in Europe in the inter-war period.
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An di Dongjing; li dashiguan (Arriving safely in Tokyo; visiting the embassy)
This photomontage is taken from Huang Qingshu (ed), Wang zhuxi fang Ri jinian huakan (Special pictorial in commemoration of Chairman Wang’s visit to Japan) (Nanjing: Xuanchuanbu, 1941). It includes images of Wang Jingwei arriving in Tokyo during his 1941 visit to Japan, and specifically his visit to the RNG embassy in Tokyo.
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Children at the Olympic Stadium, Phnom Penh
This unattributed image of children with balloons and flags at the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh, possibly for a ceremony celebrating the fall of Democratic Kampuchea (i.e, the Khmer Rouge). The group includes about fifteen boys and girls. Groups of adults can be seen in the background. This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and Cambodia’s Ministry of Information. This collection, which documents the early years of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea as photographed by the Vietnamese and a small team of Cambodian photographers, has not yet been classified or indexed.
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Writing letters to their parents
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “Writing letters to their parents describing their happy days at school”.
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A young Japanese teacher is instructing in Japanese
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “This instructor is not very much older than 20 years old [sic]”.
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Zhong-Ri qinshan, tianzhen lanman (Sino-Japanese amity, innocent and unaffected)
This series of unattributed photographs is taken from the Daminhui publication Xin Zhongguo (New China) 3.1 (January 1940). They are used here to present scenes of “Sino-Japanese friendship”. In the top two images, Chinese and Japanese children greet each other and waves the flag of Japan and of the Reformed Government of the Republic of China (RGROC). In the image at the bottom of the page, some unnamed performers do an “autumn dance” (qiu wu) entitled “Xing Ya de shuguang” (The light of a revitalized Asia).
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Japanese language is exclusively used in the classroom
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “Japanese language is exclusively used in the classroom”.
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“Great housewife” with the school bell [sic]
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “The girls have to bring the bell in turn every day with the title of ‘great housewife’. Chinese girls have no conception of TIME but they know morning, noon and evening. Teaching the idea of time is the first fundamental step towards a better education [sic]”.
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Washing hour
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “Evidently the girls are enjoying a ‘new domestic arts’ [sic]”.
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Kagayaku Tōa no michi (The road to a shining East Asia)
This postcard, featuring an illustration by the prolific Japanese artist Riichiro Kawashima, shows a Japanese soldier celebrating “kagayaku Tōa no michi” (the road to a shining East Asia), with Chinese civilians. Of interest here is the fact that the Republican Chinese flag appears to have been drawn onto the postcard (and made to look as if it is being held by the child dressed in white), while other figures in the image hold the “five-coloured flag (wuseqi). The “five-coloured flag” was used by the Reformed Government of the Republic of China (RGROC) up until March 1940, but was replaced by the Republican Chinese flag with the formation of Wang Jingwei’s government. This suggests that the postcard was made prior to March 1940, but used some time thereafter. Text reading “qing zhu xin zhongyang zhengfu chengli” (Celebrating the founding of the new central government) has also been added above the figures, while the phrase “Ri-Hua qinshan” (Japanese-Chinese friendship) has been added to the boy in white.
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Ertong xin leyuan, Zhong-Ri chang qinshan (New paradise for children; China and Japan will forever be close)
This poster, almost certainly produced with the aim of encouraging civilians in occupied Beijing to embrace Japanese rule, includes many of the standard tropes of early occupied north China propaganda: a “new woman” with a male child; city walls; Japanese soldiers fraternising with Chinese infants; the “five-coloured flag” (wuseqi); and a sky filled with Japanese airplanes.
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Group of villagers (survivors), Cambodia
This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and the Ministry of Information of Cambodia. This collection, which documents the early years of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea as photographed by the Vietnamese and a small team of Cambodian photographers, has not yet been classified or indexed.