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Mean Saman with foreign visitor at Pochentong Airport
This photographs shows of Mean Saman, president of the National Association of Women for the Salvation of Kampuchea, welcoming foreign female visitor (possibly the president of the International Women’s Democratic Federation) at Pochentong airport. The latter has a flower garland around her neck and holds a conical hat (possibly an indication she has been transiting through Vietnam). In the background, one sees the plane’s empennage and a few other Cambodian women. 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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Female soldier of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation
This unattributed photograph shows an unidentified young Cambodian female soldier of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS, also known as FUNSK) [Front or Renakse]. She is smiling and holds firmly the straps of her rucksack. 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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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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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, April 1944
This cover from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 6.4 (April 1944) shows an image of an unnamed Javanese woman harvesting rice. Harvesting had been a common theme of propaganda in areas conquered by the Japanese (including Manchukuo and China) since at least the early 1930s. The New China Pictorial was a bilingual (Chinese-English) magazine published from 1939 through 1944 in Shanghai by the occupation journalist Wu Linzhi for distribution in China and throughout Southeast Asia. This magazine employed cover images of women from areas of Southeast Asia that had been occupied by Japan with increasing regularity over the course of 1943 and 1944, having previously focused on Chinese film celebrities.
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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.