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cuisine to the Japanese public were limited to guidebooks for settlers and
tourists heading for the colony. Korean restaurants in Japan were rare and
rather exclusive. For example, Meigetsukan – the most famous Korean
restaurant in Tokyo – charged 3–7 yen for a set menu at a time when a
bowl of Shina soba could be had for 0.10 yen and a meal of sushi for 0.25
yen. The very first Korean restaurant that opened in Japan was Kansanrō,
set up in Tokyo in 1905 by a Korean named Yi In-sik. Establishments such
as these were targeted chiefly at Korean diplomats and intellectuals residing
in Japan, as well as the Japanese elite composed either of gourmands
hungry for exotic experience or former members of the Korean colonial
establishment. A much greater number of cheap eateries operated within
Korean residential areas in Japan – 160 such establishments were counted
in 1930. 31
The migration of Koreans to Japan remained very limited during
the first decade following the annexation of Korea in 1910. The situation,
however, began to change during the 1920s, stimulated by the recruitment
of colonial labour in Japanese heavy industry. Between 1920 and 1930
the number of Korean migrants in Japan increased almost tenfold (from
approximately 30,000 to 298,091). By 1939 nearly a million Koreans resided
in Japan, and another million arrived during the following five years
under labour mobilization programmes and forced ‘labour conscription’ to
supplement shortages of manpower in the war industries. 32 After Japan’s
defeat in 1945, approximately 600,000 Koreans remained in Japan, while
most were repatriated, either under the official repatriation programme or
through illegal channels. 33
Despite the presence of such a large Korean community, Korean
food was practically unknown beyond Korean residential areas. The
Japanese public encountered Korean food in the midst of the period of
severe food shortage, which lasted from 1945 to 1949. Koreans operated
food stalls at black markets, where thousands of undernourished civilians
flocked in pursuit of something to assuage their hunger. 34 Black markets
functioned as the centres of business and trade in Japan between 1945 and
1951. The black market in Tokyo emerged within a few days after capitulation.
By October 1945 an estimated 17,000 open-air markets had blossomed
nationwide, mostly in large cities. They were run by gangster gangs
headed by godfather-type individuals. For example, in Tokyo the market
in the Shinbashi district was controlled by the Matsuda gang, Asakusa by
the Shibayama gang, the Ginza area by the Ueda gang, Ikebukuro by the
Sekiguchi gang, and Shinjuku by the Ozu and Wada gangs. Well-organized
Formosan and Korean gangs were also involved. The black market
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