초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Before its introduction during the Japanese colonial era, milk was very unfamiliar to Koreans except occasional use by small number of nobility. According to the media back then, including newspapers and magazines, milk was introduced as an ideal, healthy diet for men and women of all ages. Moreover, people related drinking milk to the idea of “cultural development and proportion,” as if it were the measure of civilization. Given the idea that cow milk could replace women’s breast milk, social changes did occur. Although the experts emphasized that mother’s milk was superior to cow milk, the influence of public mass media about the new parenting style of modern women and western people at the time assured the public that cow milk was a good substitution for human breast milk. Meanwhile, the influence of newspapers and magazines advertising different kinds of condensed, powdered, and raw milk boosted the consumption of milk. Because of the media’s assertions that milk could help people get over illnesses and live longer and improve women’s beauty, milk became a symbol of happiness, love, modernization, and hope. Likewise, milk represented not only the high nutrition value that it brought to people, but also the new culture that reflected the image that Japan and the western nations had about Korea’s situation during the Japanese colonial era.
