Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
Manchukuo was the Japanese puppet state set up in Manchuria after the Japanese Army seized the province from China. We have little information on school
uniforms yet, but we do have some information on the schools run by the Japanese. There were seperate schools for Chinese and Japanese children, with Chinese
children given inferior schools and education. All the teachers were Japanese and instruction was in Japanese. Children were forbidden to speak Chinese in school.
Discipline was very strict.
The Japanese Kwantung Army occupied Manchuria, a Chinese province, using as a pretext a faked incident on the main railroad (1931). Japan then decalared "Manchukuo" an independent state, setting up Pu Yi, the last Manchu Emperor of China as puppet Emperor (1932). Anti-Japanese disturbances broke out in Shanghai. The Japanese bombed the unprotected city to quell the disturbances. There was no effort to hit military targets. This was the first of many Japanese terror bombings of civilian populations. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations as a resulted of the criticism of her military operations in Manchuria and China (1933). The Japanese encouraged Japanese "colonizers" to emmigrate to Manchukuo, but few responded to the propaganda films depicting an Asian paradise. For the Chinese in Manchukuo, life became increasingly difficult.
We do have some information on the schools run by the Japanese. There were seperate schools for Chinese and Japanese children, with Chinese children given inferior schools and education. The Japanese teachers told the Chinese children that Japan was making Manchukuo paradise on earth, but even younger Chinese children in the schools could see that this was far from reality. The separate Japanese schools were well equipped and well-heated and were kept cleaner. The Chinese children were sent to make-shift schools in run down old temples and old ramshacled old houses that had been donated by private individuals. The schools were not heated which meant that it was terribly cold for the children during the bitter Manchurian winter. Classes would run in circles or stamp their feet to ward off the cold. [Chang] Manchuria has important coal mines, but the Japanese were shipping as much as possible back to Japan.
We have no information about school attendance. Presumavly the Japanese children were required or expected to attend school. I doubt if the Japanese authorities required or even incouraged Chinese children to attend school, but here we have no information. I suspect that school attendance was primarily in the urban areas. Nor do I know to wht extent there were secondary schools for Chinese children.
All the teachers were Japanese and instruction was in Japanese. Children were forbidden to speak Chinese in school.
Discipline was very strict. Japanese methods were used, including routienly striking the children. Even minor infractions might result in blows from the teachers. Both boys and girls were regularly hit on the head with a wooden club. Teachers also made children kneel for long periods, sometimes in the snow. [Chang] Children when they passed a Japanese in the street, even a younger child, had to bow. It was not uncommon for Japanese children to slap Chinese for failing to do so or for other reasons that the Chinese children often did not understand. Chinese children passing one of their teachers were expected to bow elaborately. One account indicates that "a Japanese teacher passing by was like a whirlwind sweeping through a sea of grass--you just saw the grass bending as the wind blew by." [Chang]
We have little information on school uniforms yet.
There were very strict rules about how the children had to wear their hair. A girl had to wear her hair "half an inch below her ear lobes". Girls who did not have their hair just right were beaten. [Chang] I am not sure what the rules were for boys.
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Harper Collins: London, 1991).
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