뉴스레터

The Seoul branch of the Oriental
Development Company in the period of
Japanese occupation

Euljiro is a major business district in Seoul and home to large shopping centers and the headquarters of big-name companies. The streets from Myeongdong to Namdaemun are lined with shops and stores, large or small, and always crowded with tourists visiting Seoul. When the holiday season approaches, tall and beautifully decorated Christmas trees and colorful lights also add to the scenery that could not have been imagined eighty years ago.

A renowned Korean financial company has its main office at a site near Exit No. 5 of Euljiro 1-ga Station. It was also at this site that Japan established the Oriental Development Company ("ODC") in 1908 in the name of "increasing production and promoting industries (富源開拓)" and "developing wealth (富源開拓)," although its real purpose was to exploit the land and resources of its colony Korea (Joseon). Indeed, the ODC was a typical colonial institution engaged in exploitation in the form of exorbitant rents charged to poor Korean farmers, tenants of the land that was sold dirt cheap and transferred to Japanese by the ODC.

In one particular farm run by the ODC in Jaeryeong-gun, Hwanghae Province, the tenants were forced to pay up to 50 percent of their proceeds as rents, even in bad years. In 1922, they could not take it anymore and finally put up a struggle. But the response of the ODC and the Japanese landowners was to deprive the tenants of their farming rights and oppress them by force, which resulted in bloodshed. The leaders of the struggle ended up in prison and a majority of the tenants, having lost the means of making a living, ended up emigrating to Manchuria.

This was terrible news, especially for Nah Seok-ju, who was born in 1892 in Jaeryeong-gun, Hwanghae Province, and raised there. A graduate of the Yangsan School established by Baekbeom Kim Gu, Nah Seok-ju had been a long-time independence activist with the Righteous Patriots Corps, when handpicked by Kim Gu himself in 1926 to rekindle the national spirit and reactivate the independence movement that had lost some steam since the March 1st Movement of 1919.

In the cold, windy afternoon of the 28th day of December in 1926, Nah Seok-ju threw one of the two bombs, which he was carrying with him along with a pistol, into the building of the Industrial Bank of Joseon, another major colonial institution that exploited the Koreans as did the ODC. But the bomb did not go off. Frustrated, Nah Seok-ju hurried toward the ODC, where he shot five to six Japanese to death, including the executives of the Land Improvement Department, threw the remaining bomb before leaving the building. Unfortunately, no explosion was heard.

Nah Seok-ju found himself in a gunfight with the Japanese police on the Euljiro 2-ga streets. As the police came closing in around him, Nah Seok-ju saw that he did not have much choice but to choose a death with dignity.

"I've fought for the liberty of my country. Twenty million fellow Koreans, keep fighting and never stop!"

Nah Seok-ju cried out these last words before he pointed the gun at himself and pulled the trigger.

He was only thirty-five years old. This young man in his prime age must have had a family who loved him and a home he wanted to go back to. But he never looked back, but went on to sacrifice himself for the future of his country. Without his sacrifice, it would not be possible to enjoy winter in such comfort and luxury as we do today.

eference: Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs - Independence Activist of the Month Nah Seok-ju
http://cafe.naver.com/bohunstar.cafe
The Independence Hall of Korea 《Independence Movement Sites in Seoul》 - The Oriental Development Company site
http://sajeok.i815.or.kr/ebook/ebookh01/book.html