Imonbukuro

Depiction of an imonbukuro. V. l. Right : Name ( 氏名 ), address ( 住所 ), Imonbukuro ( 慰問袋 ), "Pray for long war fortunes " ( 祈武運長久 ).

As Imonbukuro ( Japanese. 慰問袋 , dt. About: "Consolation bag, Aufmaufungsbag") were given gifts that were sent by Japanese civilians between 1937 and 1945 to soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces . Filled with non-perishable food and toiletries that were not allocated by the army, the Imonbukuro provided civil support for the war effort.

history

Korean women in what was then the Japanese colony of Korea pack food cans and other items in Imonbukuros.

After the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937, Japanese civilians sent their loved ones gift packages called Imonbukuro to raise their morale. During the 1930s, the Imonbukuro were just one type of many different civilly organized aid programs. They resembled the gifts of love that had been sent to German soldiers by civilians in the German Empire during the First World War . Organized by Japanese civilians, the operation collected non-perishable food, mostly canned food , and toiletries that were not delivered by the army. These were packed in white sacks with labels containing the name and address (unit) of the soldier in question. Furthermore, the sentence Inoru buun chōkyū ( 祈武運長久 ) was attached to the Imonbukuro , which roughly corresponds to "Pray for long war fortunes". The Imonbukuros were often wrapped up in public events, mostly by youths who were encouraged to serve in patriotic roles.

Korean teenagers with imonbukuros.

The Imonbukuro were sent to the soldiers until the end of the war in 1945.

American citizens of Japanese origin serving in the US Army also received Imonbukuros from their relatives in the USA. This tradition continues to this day.

literature

Brian Niiya: Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present , Facts on file 1993, ISBN 978-0-81602-680-7 .
Brian Hayashi: For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren: Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism Among the Japanese of Los Angeles, 1895-1942 (Asian America) , Stanford University Press 1995, ISBN 978-0-80472-374-9 .
C. Sarah Soh: The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) , University of Chicago Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-22676-776- 5 .

Web links

Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. Google Books, Biran Niiya, accessed April 25, 2016 .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Niiya, p. 173.
↑ Hayashi, p. 104.
↑ Soh, p. 104.

[Niiya-1] Niiya, p. 173.

[Hayashi-2] Hayashi, p. 104.

[3] Soh, p. 104.