![[100 Years Ago Today] October 2, 1925 – When Television Was Born While Korea Prepared for a Shrine](https://thekoreantoday.com/gangdong/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2025/10/featured-image-133.png "[100 Years Ago Today] October 2, 1925 – When Television Was Born While Korea Prepared for a Shrine")
100 YEARS AGO TODAY
“As you wind down your day, reflect on when television was born while Korea faced forced emperor worship”
Published at 10:10 PM KSTAs you settle in this evening, imagine ending your day unable to speak your own language at home, teaching your children prayers to foreign gods, knowing that tomorrow you must bow to an occupier’s flag.
As night fell across Seoul—then called Keijo by its Japanese occupiers—on Friday, October 2, 1925, Korean families gathered in darkened homes, speaking their forbidden language in whispers. Earlier that day at 10:10 AM, while John Logie Baird in London achieved the world’s first television transmission, 20 million Koreans lived through another day preparing for something far more sinister: the forced worship at a Japanese shrine to be erected on their sacred mountain.
The Korean Shrine (Chosen Jingu), scheduled to open in just 13 days, represented the spiritual colonization of Korea—a Shinto shrine on Namsan mountain where Koreans would be compelled to worship the Japanese emperor as divine. As families prepared their evening meals, rumors circulated that Korean independence fighters had dispatched a “bombing special force” from Shanghai. The streets were tense, the night uncertain.
📰 Korea Under Japanese Rule – A Day’s End
Evening Reflection: As another day ended in colonial Korea, families gathered in secret to preserve their culture. Children learned Korean alphabets by candlelight, hidden from authorities. Traditional songs were sung in whispers. This was resistance at its most intimate—keeping culture alive in the darkness.
Historical Note: Information based on censored Korean newspapers and Japanese colonial records. Many evening resistance activities—secret schools, underground meetings—went unreported. We know of them only through survivor testimonies recorded decades later.
Today’s Headlines in Review
The Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo reported with coded language about shrine preparations. By evening, word had spread: the Kyunggi Province Police had deployed plainclothes officers throughout Seoul. Every Korean knew what this meant—mass arrests were coming. Families prepared for the worst, some burning letters from relatives in Manchuria who had joined the resistance.
🏛️ Official Evening Orders
The Government-General issued special nighttime curfews for October 15. Japanese emissaries would arrive from Tokyo on October 13. Every Korean household was ordered to display Japanese flags and prepare offerings for the shrine. Failure to comply meant immediate arrest. As darkness fell, Japanese patrols increased.
✊ Evening Acts of Resistance
After dark, secret Korean schools operated in basements. Teachers risked death to preserve Hangul literacy. Underground newspapers were printed in hidden rooms. The Righteous Brotherhood (Uiyeoldan) held meetings planning their response to the shrine. Every whispered lesson, every hidden book, was an act of defiance.
💰 A Day’s Wages and Evening Costs (1925)
🌏 East Asia After Dark
🇨🇳 China – Revolution by Night
In Shanghai’s French Concession, Korean Provisional Government members worked through the night planning operations. The anti-imperialist May 30th Movement had spread nationwide. Chinese instability both helped and hindered Korean independence fighters who used Shanghai as their base. Many planning sessions happened after dark, away from Japanese spies.
🇯🇵 Japan – Empire’s Evening Prayers
In Tokyo, officials planned the Korean Shrine ceremony. Despite “Taisho Democracy,” militarists gained strength. The shrine represented spiritual colonization—forcing subjects to perform evening prayers to the emperor. This religious imperialism would intensify, culminating in the brutal “Japanization” campaigns that would attempt to erase Korean identity completely.
🇷🇺 Soviet Nights & Manchurian Hideouts
Under cover of darkness, Korean independence armies trained in Manchurian forests. 2 million ethnic Koreans in the region supported resistance movements. The New People’s Association launched nighttime raids across the border. Stalin’s rising power meant new alliances—and new dangers—for Korean communists training in Moscow.
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[Image: Evening in Seoul, October 2, 1925 – Lantern-lit streets under curfew, Japanese patrols, Korean families behind closed doors, Namsan silhouette with shrine construction visible against darkening sky]
🌍 The World in 1925 – As Day Ends
🇬🇧 London – Television Is Born!
Earlier today, John Logie Baird achieved the impossible in his Soho attic. The first true television image—a ventriloquist’s dummy called “Stooky Bill,” then office boy William Taynton. As London celebrated this miracle of technology, Korean families hid their radios, knowing possession of unauthorized communication devices meant death.
🇺🇸 America – Jazz Clubs Opening for the Night
As speakeasies prepared for another night defying Prohibition, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the era’s excess in “The Great Gatsby.” Wall Street traders counted their profits, unaware the Great Depression lurked four years away. America remained willfully ignorant of Asia’s colonial struggles, lost in its own roaring prosperity.
🇪🇺 Europe – Locarno’s False Peace
Diplomats prepared for the Locarno Treaties, believing they could guarantee eternal peace. In Germany, Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” circulated in beer halls. Mussolini consolidated power in Italy. The “war to end all wars” had ended just 7 years ago, but the next catastrophe was already brewing in European hearts.
🔄 Colonial Parallels: Korea in Global Context
🇮🇳 British India at Night
Secret meetings after dark planned boycotts. Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement grew despite mass arrests. Like Korea, Indians faced language suppression—English-only courts, schools. But unlike Korea’s armed resistance, Gandhi chose satyagraha. Both strategies required immense courage as families risked everything for freedom.
🇮🇪 Ireland – Fresh Scars
Just 3 years free after centuries of British rule. Their guerrilla tactics—ambushes, intelligence networks, night raids—inspired Korean fighters. But freedom came with partition. Northern Ireland remained British, families divided. Korea watched, learning both from Ireland’s success and its painful compromises.
🇵🇭 American Philippines
The 1925 Monroe Report revealed a tragedy: forcing English created a generation unable to express themselves fully in any language. Filipino children forgot their mother tongues but never mastered English. Korea faced identical trauma—children punished for speaking Korean, but never truly becoming Japanese.
🇹🇼 Taiwan’s Submission
Japan’s “model colony” since 1895. Less resistance meant more economic development—sugar production up 15-fold by 1925. Japan pointed to Taiwan as proof colonization “helped” Asia. But Taiwanese paid with their identity, their children forgetting their ancestors’ language. Korea refused this devil’s bargain.
👤 Person of the Day – An Evening Portrait
Meet Park Sun-cheon, Age 19 – As His Day Ends
The sun sets. Park Sun-cheon pulls his last passenger of the day—a Japanese official who doesn’t acknowledge his existence except to bark directions. 12 hours of work for 50 sen. His Japanese counterpart driving motor taxis earned 2 yen today. Sun-cheon’s back aches, his hands are raw, but he’s alive.
At home, his mother has saved him rice. They eat in darkness—candles cost 5 sen. She whispers news: more arrests in Jongno district. His younger brother has been gone three months now—probably joined the independence fighters in Manchuria. They don’t speak of it, even in their own home. Walls have ears in colonial Korea.
“Mother hums an old Korean lullaby—illegal now. I close my eyes and remember grandfather’s stories of when we were free. Someday, I tell myself as sleep comes. Someday we will sing loudly again.”
As thousands like Sun-cheon drifted to sleep, they couldn’t imagine that their grandchildren would live to see Korea become one of the world’s most prosperous democracies, its culture celebrated globally.
🏮 Understanding Evening Life in 1925 Seoul
🌅 Evening Rituals
Curfew bells at 8 PM
Secret Korean lessons begin
Traditional songs sung in whispers
Families huddle around hidden radios
Every night, culture survived in shadows
🌙 Night Labor
Women sewing by candlelight: 30 sen/night
Underground newspapers printed in basements
Secret couriers moving through darkness
Resistance meetings in abandoned buildings
The night shift of freedom
🎭 Hidden Night Culture
Korean schools in basements
Traditional music in hidden rooms
Banned books passed hand to hand
Stories of heroes whispered to children
Resistance wore the cloak of night
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[Image: Century comparison at night – Left: 1925 Namsan with Japanese Shrine under construction, curfew darkness | Right: 2025 Seoul’s glittering nightscape with N Seoul Tower, the city that never sleeps]
🔄 A Century Later: From Silent Nights to Global Spotlight
| Aspect | 1925 Evening | 2025 Evening |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Korean whispered after dark | Korean taught worldwide online |
| Culture | Hidden in basements | K-dramas streaming globally tonight |
| Night Life | 8 PM curfews and surveillance | Seoul never sleeps – 24/7 city |
| Evening News | Censored papers, hidden radios | Free press, instant global news |
| Global Status | Invisible colony in darkness | Cultural superpower lighting up screens |
💡 Tonight’s Reflection
As you end your day in comfort and freedom, remember that 100 years ago tonight, Korean families ended theirs in fear and hope. The K-pop songs streaming as you prepare for bed, the Korean dramas you’ll watch before sleeping—they exist because those who whispered Korean in the dark never gave up their language.
The Korean Shrine that caused such terror? Demolished in 1945. On that exact spot now stands the Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Hall, honoring the assassin of the Japanese leader who colonized Korea. Where Japan forced emperor worship, Korea celebrates freedom fighters. History’s irony is complete.
Tomorrow Evening’s Story
Tomorrow evening at 10:10 PM
October 3, 1925
“While Europe prepares for the Locarno peace conference believing war is over forever,
Korean resistance fighters prepare their response to forced emperor worship…”
Yesterday Evening’s Story
October 1, 1925
10:10 PM
Tomorrow Evening’s Story
October 3, 1925
The Korean Today – Evening Edition
global@thekoreantoday.com
Bringing you forgotten stories from Korea’s colonial past
Every evening at 10:10 PM KST
A moment to reflect on history as your day ends
About This Evening Edition
As you wind down your evening, we bring you stories from 100 years ago—not just as history lessons, but as reflections on human resilience. Based on censored newspapers, colonial records, and survivor testimonies, we reconstruct the nights when Korean culture survived in whispers and shadows. Tonight’s special note: While Korea prepared for forced shrine worship, John Logie Baird invented television in London—one culture being erased while technology to spread culture globally was born.
© 2025 The Korean Today. All rights reserved.
This evening edition is based on verified historical records and primary sources.
End your day with history. Tomorrow evening at 10:10 PM.
<저작권자 ⓒ 코리안투데이(The Korean Today) 무단전재 및 재배포 금지>
