Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Taiwan Government-General Library and Its Art-related Collections

The colonial government of Taiwan opened its library in 1915 in Taipei as part of a shift towards cultural rule (Ibid., 84. Ujigo Tsuyoshi, “Kindai Kankoku toshokanshi no kenkyū: shokuminchiki o chūshin ni,” Sankōshoshi kenkyū, no. 34 (1988): 5-6. The colonial government in Korea opened its library in 1925 in Seoul. Scholars have suggested that the relatively late establishment of both Governor-General Libraries reflects the discriminatory policy of keeping the colonized people from going beyond their station in life. Kawata, “Ajia shinryaku to Chōsen Sōtokufu Toshokan (1),” 87-88). Historians have proposed viewing the libraries established by the Japanese colonial governments in Taiwan and Korea as active agents in imperial expansion and called for linking their histories to the history of libraries in Japan (Kawata Ikohi, “Ajia shinryaku to Chōsen Sōtokufu Toshokan (1),” Jōkyō to shutai, no. 140 (1987). Katō Kazuo, Kawata Ikohi, and Tōjō Fuminori, Nihon no shokuminchi toshokan: Ajia ni okeru Nihon kindai toshokanshi (Tōkyō: Shakai Hyōronsha, 2005), 12-14.).

Next to public schools teaching Japanese language, public libraries constituted a crucial part of the cultural infrastructure of the expanding empire. They catered to Japanese settlers and the colonized, a growing number of whom could read Japanese (The Taiwan Government-Genera Library also had some books in Chinese and Western languages). The knowledge of Japanese language varied among the colonized subjects based on their level of contact with the Japanese population, class, education, and the year of birth. By 1941, 57% of population in Taiwan was being or had been educated in Japanese language, which was the highest literacy rate in any colony (Kleeman 2003, 142). We need to remember, however, that this seemingly "natural" development was a result of violence of imperial censorship and assimilation policies (See Kwon, Intimate Empire, 190-91.).

This pathway examines user statistics and art-related holdings of the Taiwan Government-General Library to illuminate the role of the library and books in the making of the nascent imperial art world. As discussed in the "Art Education and Professional Development" pathway, studying from books constituted the most informal method of art education and was relatively available.  

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