Yeon Mi-dang

Yeon Mi-dang (延薇堂, 15 July 1908 – 1 January 1981), also known as Yeon Chung-hyo, was a Korean independence activist during Korea under Japanese rule.

Early life

Born on 15 July 1908 at the Yongjeong customs office in Northern Jiandao, she emigrated with her father to Shanghai in 1920, after her father, Yeon Byeong-hwan, had been arrested by Japanese police for two months in 1919 while supporting the March 13 Independence Movement in Longjing, Jilin, in what corresponds to Northern Jiandao.¹² At the time, the Japanese consulate pressured China to prevent the spread of anti-Japanese movements, and China mobilized police to attack the demonstrators. On that day, Chinese troops opened fire and killed 17 people, and the Chinese Maritime Customs ordered the transfer of Yeon Byeong-hwan, who was then working at the Yongjeong customs office, to the Tianjin Customs. On 18 June 1919, while the family was away attending a farewell party, police from the Japanese consulate raided the house, fabricated a claim that opium had been found on Yeon Byeong-hwan, and arrested him. However, because he held naturalized Chinese status, he was detained for two months and then released. In October, when he was transferred to the customs office in Shanghai, Yeon Mi-dang and the rest of the family moved to Shanghai.³ After emigrating to Shanghai, she attended Inseong School in Shanghai and the Zhenjiang Girls' Middle School in Zhenjiang, and after her father died in Zhenjiang in 1926, she settled in Shanghai.⁴

Life

On 20 March 1927, she married Eom Hang-seop, an official working for the French Concession Public Works Bureau who was also an independence activist.⁵ The following year, on 21 January 1928, she gave birth to a daughter, . Eom Gi-seon later took part in the Provisional Government, and was subsequently awarded the Order of National Foundation. In November of the same year, Yeon Mi-dang worked as a provisional member of the Shanghai-based Chinese Headquarters Korean Youth League, and in the Shanghai Korean Women's Youth League, which was formed in August 1930, she worked to encourage women's participation in the independence movement and to develop their capabilities. She also served as a member of the Provisional Assembly of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and as a member of the Korean Independence Party. On 29 April 1932, she made the cloth wrapping for the lunchbox bomb that used for his suicide attack in the . To evade Japanese pursuit, she accompanied Provisional Government officials as they moved to Changsha until May 1936, and at the Three-Party Unification Conference held in Changsha, she nursed , who had been shot by . After the Provisional Government moved to Changsha, Yeon Mi-dang began using her childhood name, Yeon Mi-dang, and because of this she became better known by that name than by her birth name. At the memorial service for held on 15 April 1938, she attended and sang a funeral song together with Yi Bok-yeong and Kim Jeong-suk, and in October of the same year she joined the Korean Liberation Front Youth Task Force, taking part in propaganda and public relations work. After the in September 1940, she helped form the Korean Revolutionary Women's Founding Alliance and served as organization department head of the Korean Patriotic Women's Association.