[100 Years Ago Today] September 21, 1926 – Chuseok Moon Over Seoul, Ten Days Before the New Government-General Building, and Fonck

100 YEARS AGO TODAY

“As you wind down your day, reflect on a century of history”

So we will not invent a festival scene. What we can verify is the calendar: ten days from now, on October 1, the colonial government will hold the completion ceremony for its enormous new headquarters in front of Gwanghwamun gate. Because Tuesday’s theme is law and culture, tonight we visit the courtrooms and the cinemas.

For International Readers: Korea in 1926 was sixteen years into Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945). Korean-language newspapers existed, but they lived under press laws that could turn a single column into a criminal case.

📰 Korea Under Japanese Rule – As Day Ends

🌏 East Asia in Turmoil

China. Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition set out on July 9 to break the warlords. Hanyang fell on September 6 and Hankou on September 7, but the walled city of Wuchang held out. It would fall on October 10.

Japan. Emperor Taisho was too ill to rule, and Crown Prince Hirohito had governed as regent since 1921. Three months from now, on December 25, the emperor will die and the Showa era will begin.

Korea abroad. The Provisional Government in Shanghai had been led by Hong Jin since July 7. Kim Gu takes over on December 14.

🌍 The World Stage

Long Island, New York. French war ace René Fonck tried to win the Orteig Prize for the first non-stop flight between New York and Paris. His three-engine Sikorsky S-35 was thousands of pounds overweight, and its auxiliary landing gear broke away during takeoff. The aircraft plunged down a slope at the end of the runway and burst into flames. Fonck and his co-pilot escaped; the radio operator and a mechanic died. Charles Lindbergh would win the prize eight months later.

The Gulf Coast. The Miami hurricane weakened as it moved over Mississippi and Louisiana. The Red Cross counted 373 dead and 6,381 injured. A day earlier, gunmen had fired more than a thousand rounds at Al Capone’s headquarters in Cicero, Illinois, and missed him.

Europe. Germany had joined the League of Nations this month. “Away with cannon and machine guns,” said France’s Aristide Briand. “Instead, conciliation, arbitration, and peace!” Four days ago he and Gustav Stresemann met privately at Thoiry, near Geneva.

🌐 Colonial Parallels

China was never formally colonized, but its rivers carried foreign steamers and gunboats under treaty privileges. In late August and early September, the Wanhsien incident on the Yangtze pitted a Sichuan warlord’s soldiers against British merchant shipping and ended with Royal Navy gunboats in action. Korea and China stood on different roads, but both faced the same question: who decides what happens on our own land, and under whose guns? We found no same-day comparison for September 21 itself.

👤 Person of the Day: Choe Won-sun

Choe Won-sun was a columnist at Dong-A Ilbo. His August 22 column brought a Public Security Law prosecution and a demand for eight months in prison. The paper was already in trouble: in March it had been suspended a second time for reprinting a Moscow telegram to Korean farmers on the anniversary of the March 1st Movement. What Choe’s column actually said we could not verify, so we say nothing about its content. What we know is the price attached to it.

🎭 Understanding Daily Life: The Picture Houses

We could not confirm what was showing tonight. What is confirmed is the map: Dansungsa, Joseon Theater, and Umigwan were the main venues for Koreans in northern Seoul. In an age of silent film, a live narrator called a byeonsa [byuhn-sah] spoke the dialogue. In late February, Umigwan staged Korea’s first sound-film demonstration, sixteen short films by Lee de Forest.

Ten days from now, on October 1, Dansungsa will open Arirang, written, directed by, and starring Na Un-gyu. On opening day, mounted police were called out to handle the crowds, and colonial detectives sat in the audience because the narrators’ lines sometimes veered into anti-Japanese expression. Under tonight’s moon, that premiere is still ten days away.

🔄 Century Mirror

K-culture now travels the world, and one of its roots is a film that police watched as closely as the audience did. Freedoms we take for granted were argued over in rooms like the ones we visited tonight.

Tomorrow’s Preview

Join us tomorrow at 10:10 PM KST for Wednesday, September 22, 1926. Nine days remain until the new headquarters is dedicated. Elsewhere in the world, Thomas Edison will declare radio broadcasting “a commercial failure.” Rest well.

The Korean Today • global@thekoreantoday.com

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