[Choi Seung-hee 100 Scenes] 1. Tokyo Station

Choi Seung-hee undertook a world tour for three full years, from 1937 to 1940. According to Jeong Byeong-ho’s biography Dancing Choi Seung-hee (1995, p. 192), Choi Seung-hee “held some 150 performances of Chosun Dance (조선무용) in over 30 cities across the United States, Europe, and Latin America.”

 

This world tour began on December 29, 1937. Choi Seung-hee traveled by train from Tokyo Station to Yokohama, where she boarded the Chichibu Maru, Japan’s largest luxury passenger liner owned by Nippon Yusen (Japan Mail Steamship Company), and crossed the Pacific Ocean. At the time, the Chichibu Maru was known by the nickname “Queen of the Pacific.”

 

This photograph captures Choi Seung-hee and her entourage departing Tokyo Station for their world tour. It was taken around noon on December 29, 1937, in the Marunouchi Waiting Room at Tokyo Station.

 

In the photo, Choi Seung-hee (red star) is in the center left, An Mak (blue star) is on the right, and pianist Lee Gwang-jun (green star) is to Choi Seung-hee’s left. Her husband, An Mak, served as the manager for Choi Seung-hee’s touring performances, and Lee Gwang-jun was the pianist who accompanied her during her 1938 tour of the United States.

 

The identities of the three women, excluding the three members of the touring troupe, remain unknown. It has not been determined whether they were part of the troupe or friends and acquaintances seeing them off. No clues are provided in the photograph or its caption to identify them.

 

 

This photograph was taken in the Marunouchi waiting room, located in the station lobby before passing through the ticket gates at Tokyo Station. When compared with photographs of the waiting room interior taken shortly after Tokyo Station’s completion in 1914, there is no doubt that this photograph was taken in the Marunouchi Waiting Room at Tokyo Station; however, it is difficult to determine from this photograph alone whether it was the South Marunouchi Waiting Room or the North Marunouchi Waiting Room.

 

Judging by the fact that everyone in the photo is wearing thick, long coats and scarves, it appears that the weather outside was cold. Of the four women, two—including Choi Seung-hee—are wearing fur coats, and the men’s coats are also thick woolen coats. This suggests that they were financially well-off.

 

Thanks to Gemini, we were able to determine the weather conditions on that day. The Japan Meteorological Agency had announced that December 29 was a clear day with no snow or rain, with a low of -3°C and a high of 9°C. Since this photo was likely taken between 10:00 a.m. and noon, the outside temperature would have been around 5°C, and the interior of the waiting room—with its many entrances and frequent foot traffic—would not have been any warmer than outside.

 

 

Choi Seung-hee and An Mak lived in Eifukucho, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, starting in September 1936. Therefore, to reach San Francisco, the first stop on their world tour—at a time when commercial passenger flights did not exist—they had to take a passenger ship across the Pacific Ocean, and to board the ship, they first had to take a train from Tokyo to Yokohama. The train ride from Tokyo to Yokohama took 30 minutes.

 

On the back of this photograph, under the title “News from the Mainland: Dancer from Korea Heads to the U.S.,” the location and date are noted as “Tokyo, December 29, 1937 (Showa 12),” and the following explanation is written: “Popular dancer Choi Seung-hee, having completed her performance in the film The Song of Mount Daegumgang, departed from Tokyo Station at 12:30 p.m. on the 29th and boarded the Chichibu Maru, which departed at 3:00 p.m., embarking on a world dance tour.”

 

 

The text on the back of the photograph is in the style of a news article. Judging by the typewritten text, it appears to be a manuscript written by a reporter and transcribed by a typist before being sent to the typesetting department. It is presumed that this article was prepared to be published alongside the photograph in the Tokyo daily newspaper Jiji Shinpo (時事新報), but neither the photograph nor the article were found during a search of old newspapers at the National Diet Library of Japan. It seems to have been excluded from publication.

 

It is unusual that the article refers to “12:30 p.m.” as “0:30 p.m.” However, this article confirms that Choi Seung-hee’s world tour began at Tokyo Station at 12:30 p.m. on December 29, 1937, and that the group departed for the United States aboard the Chichibu Maru from Yokohama at 3:00 p.m. on the same day.

 

 

This photograph was originally stored in the archives of Nippō Jiji (日布時事), a Japanese American newspaper  published in Honolulu, Hawaii, before being transferred to the Japanese Archives at Stanford University Library; it was discovered through the author’s research.

 

Judging by the notation “Mainland News (內地ニユース)” and the date “January 1938 (JAN 1938)” stamped on the back of the photograph, it can be concluded that this photograph was taken at Tokyo Station by a photographer from the Jiji Shinpo in mainland Japan. The fact that a clipping from a Jiji Shinpo article was pasted onto the back of the printed photograph indicates that it was sent to the Hawaii branch, Nippu Jiji, sometime in January 1938. (jc, 11/11/2025) ⓒCho Jeong-hee