Documentary to shed light on forgotten factory girls during Japanese colonial period
It is well known that many Koreans were forcibly conscripted and worked as sex slaves during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea. However, the story of around 30,000 Korean women who worked at spinning mills over 40 years from 1910 in Osaka is not widely known.
To shed light on lesser-known figures, “A Song of Korean Factory Girls,” an upcoming documentary film, tells the story of the women who endured a time of discrimination yet demonstrated great perseverance in an unfamiliar place.
The film vividly recreates the memories of these workers — more than 80 percent of whom were teenage girls — who crossed the sea to work in spinning mills and support their families during the Japanese colonial era. It does so through survivors’ testimonies, historical records and actors’ reenactments.
However, the tone of the film portrays these workers as independent, strong women who have carved out their own lives, not simply just as victims of discrimination and violence.
They chose to work in Japan, drawn by the promise of a monthly pay of 20 yen ($0.13). However, they faced harsh conditions: 12-hour shifts, beatings from supervisors if threads broke and confinement behind a 커뮤니티 high fence to prevent escape from the dormitory.
Also, lacking money to buy food, they had to roast and eat pig intestines from butcher shops and endure contempt from the Japanese people.
Despite their circumstances, these women opened night schools to study Korean and went on strike to protest against the unfair treatment. They even fought for Japanese colleagues who were unjustly fired.
“There was discrimination and various incidents. But now I don’t hold those things in my heart. It’s the life I’ve lived until now,” Shin Nam-sook, now in her 90s, a former worker at the spinning mill, said in the film.