The Mobilization Of Women And Agricultural Emigration During Manchukuo Period

This article studies the Training Centers for Migrant brides in Japan and Manchukuo.The Training Centers for Migrant brides were dormitory-type education premises and propaganda centers designed by the Japanese government and the Kwantung Army to train and procure spouses for Japanese male settlers who moved to Manchuria.The centers were established and operated by private partners.The Japanese and Manchukuo governments financially supported the centers through recruiting emigration of women from the devastated rural regions in Japan to Manchuria and operating the centers.In the late 1930 s,as the Sino-Japanese War broke out,it became increasingly difficult to recruit male immigrants from Japan.As a result,the project of the Agricultural Emigration lost its legitimacy and was carried out in a way of public mobilization by propagating the national ideology.From the early days of the immigration project,only a small number of women participated in the marriage of Manchuria.Immigration area communities and private organizations promoted the Migrant Bride Project under the name of Enlightenment Education to meet the increasing demand of unmarried men.However,after completing the training at the centers in Japan,many women reversed their wishes for marriage to Manchuria due to family opposition,which did not have much effect on the increase in the transmission of brides.In order to form an effective mobilization system,the Japanese government set up systems in sporadically established Training institutions in Japan and re-organized the project-related organizations.In addition,the scope of educational targets for bridal projects has been expanded from single women to married women.It was an attempt to induce many women into Manchuria by forming a flow of advancing to northeast China among women in Japan.The Training Centers for Migrant Brides Founded in Japan and Manchuria conducted an education that emphasizes nationalist ideology and traditional female role rather than useful skills in immigrant life for smooth female mobilization.In particular,the leaders,who were in charge of recruitment,advocated a decrease of and denounced the forms of marriage after completion of education,while advertising the Training centers and supporting the women from a rural family in the learning and social participation.Many women,unaware of the reality of their immigrant lives,headed for Manchuria,led by a large propaganda education by the centers.Migrant brides were required to play the role of women in Manchuria,which is necessary for Japan's imperial expansion policy.The analysis of the Training centers for Migrant brides is based on the policy materials and testimonies from the women who were instructed at the Training institutes in Japan and Manchuria.All the institutes in Japan and Manchuria were established and operated by private partners who were the leaders of the pioneer groups and the leaders of the female colonial enterprise.Therefore,there are some differences between the training centers in how they achieved their key policy objectives and in what they trained the women.These differences cannot be identified by the policy materials.Meanwhile,the preceding study focused on women who became "Migrant Brides" is insufficient to grasp the overall institutional changes in the centers.Therefore,this study analyzed the process of establishing and changing the Training centers based on the major policies involved and testimonies from the women who educated in the Training centers in Japan and Manchuria.Though this,the article argues that the centers for Migrant Brides were operated with the purpose of mobilizing women to invade northeast China.At the same time,through the Training centers,the article points out the methods and characteristics of female mobilization by Japan Empire in Manchuria.