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Newly laid road in Sihanoukville
This unattributed photograph shows a car travelling on a newly laid asphalt road connecting Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh in the mid 1960s. The photograph is part of the collection that was donated to the National Archives of Cambodia from the Library of the Royal University of Fine Arts by Darryl Collins and Helen Grant Ross in 2003. The collection was used by Collins and Ross for their research into urbanisation. The images were probably originally used to mount the Sangkum Reastr Niyum Permanent Exhibition at the Exhibition Hall, Bassac area, Phnom Penh.
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Win-Win Monument bas-relief
This photograph provides a view of bas-relief on the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument. This section celebrates the achievements of different ministries, in this detail the Ministry of Tourism. The ministry is represented by a carving of Angkor Wat on a Naga (a mythological part-human part-cobra creature). The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
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Miniature monuments at the Win-Win Monument complex
This photograph shows a miniature reproduction of a four-faced Buddha statue at the Temple Bayon (Angkor Wat). A garden located on the northern side of the Win-Win Monument complex displays several miniature reproductions of iconic Khmer monuments. The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
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Huanan huabao (South China Graphic) cover, January 1941
This cover image is taken from Huanan huabao (South China graphic) 3.1 (January 1941). The staged photograph deploys one of the standard tropes of Japanese propaganda in occupied China, i.e., that of a Japanese woman and Chinese woman fraternising with each other. This trope was derived from Manchukuo propaganda and the notion of “gozoku kyōwa” (“the harmony of the five races”), as well as attempts to feminise the image of an occupied China. Note how the Japanese woman is pictured as being slightly higher than her Chinese peer.
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Ertong zuopin (works by children), I
This is a selection of images (most being pencil drawings) contributed to the magazine Ertong huakan (Children’s Pictorial) 9.10 (April 1941) by readers. The images offer a fascinating insight into the ways in which official ideas about perceived notions of student behaviour in occupied China were reflected in the artwork of Chinese school children living in the RNG capital. Two of the drawings in this selection, for example, relate to the hardships of studying (in difficult weather, poor light, etc), while one depicts children playing in a classroom.
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Yaodi shengmiao jidian (Ceremony at the Emperor Yao Temple)
This poster was produced (almost certainly by the Japanese military) with the aim of advertising the re-opening of the Emperor Yao Temple (Yaodi shengmiao) in Linfen (Shanxi Province). This site was taken by the Japanese from communist resistance fighters, and was used by the Japanese as a symbol of the apparent iconoclasm and lack of religious sensitivity shown by the communists. The re-opening the temple to worshippers in the spring of 1938 by the Japanese was used to demonstrate the extent to which occupation supposedly included respect for Chinese religious traditions. The painted image of the female worshipper here was based on a photograph of a female worshipper at the same temple produced in other propaganda leaflets some months earlier.
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Qiantu wuliang (An immeasurable future)
Cover of a magazine which was published in Nanjing for children themselves during the Japanese occupation. The artist who created this image is not named. Publication details are: Ertong huakan (Children’s Pictorial) 9.10 (April 1941): cover image
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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, September 1944
This cover image from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 6.9 (September 1944) shows Chen Juanjuan. Chen was a film celebrity active in wartime Shanghai. 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.
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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, November 1943
This cover image from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 5.11 (November 1943) shows an unattributed painting of the Beijing opera actress Huang Yuhua. Huang starred in Pansi dong (The Cave of the silken web), an opera film produced by the North China Film Company (Huabei Dianying Gongsi) in 1943. The image used here is from promotional material relating to that film. 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.
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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, July 1942
This cover image from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 4.7 (July 1942) shows Nancy Chan (Chen Yunshang). Chan was one of the most popular film celebrities in wartime Shanghai, and was favoured by the occupation regime in pro-government media, despite emulating Hollywood stars in terms of her dress and public image. The New China Pictorial was a bilingual (Chinese-English) published from 1939 through 1944 in Shanghai by the occupation journalist Wu Linzhi for distribution in China and throughout Southeast Asia.
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RNG leaders on steps of Government Headquarters, November 1940
Flanked by civilian and military staff, Wang Jingwei, Zang Shiyi (the Manchukuo ambassador to the RNG) and Chu Minyi (RNG foreign minister) pose for photographs in front of the ceremonial hall (litang) in the national government compound in Nanjing after the signing of the Japan-Manchukuo-China Joint Declaration on 30 November 1940, through which RNG China recognised Manchukuo.
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Park in Wuhan, spring 1943
Photograph of a park in Wuhan festooned to “Celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the founding of the Hankou Municipal Government” (Qingzhu Hankou tebie shi zhengfu san zhounian jinian). While Wuhan is often remembered as a centre of anti-Japanese resistance in the early war years, it was also incorporated into the RNG realm in 1940, and became a major political and cultural centre for that administration. Interestingly, the ROC flag shown here still includes the RNG pennant (which read “peace, anti-communism, and nation building”, and which had been added to the flag in 1940), even though Chinese authorities in occupied areas were, from January 1943 onwards, not obliged to include this pennant.