Colonial rule brought many changes to people’s production activities, too. The colonial authorities imported Japanese farming methods and tools as part of their reforms, teaching Koreans to make straw ropes and straw bags which would nominally encourage people to earn money through secondary employments. However, this also increased the value of Korean grain exported to Japan and standardized Korean grains and straw bags. In the fishing industry, many Japanese people gained fishing licenses and joined fishing at Yeongilman (gulf), the only fishing ground for herring in Korea. They spread the use of pound nets and began to harvest vast quantities of herring there.

In 1914 the Government-General announced its “Ordinance regarding Markets” to control markets in rural areas. It considered traditional markets to be primitive and expected that they would disappear. Through the 1914 ordinance the Government-General intended to control these markets using administrative and policy institutions, and to ultimately control the everyday life of the Korean people. However, those markets instead expanded and developed in local areas and they further provided social and cultural resources that provoked the people to participate in demonstrations during the time of the March First Movement in 1919. Accordingly, the Government-General acknowledged the importance of markets. In the 1930s it advertised its policies in markets on market day, when people gathered.

Ordinary Koran people maintained their daily lifestyle while under colonial rule. They still observed existing seasonal customs and folk games, despite the Japanese assimilation policies. People still dressed up traditionally for the New Year, and the Daegu Youth Association and Daegu Branch of the Korean Workers’ Fraternal Organization chose a traditional game, tug-of-war, for citizens’ exercise. 『Ssireum』, Korean traditional wrestling, was played on sports days at modern schools. People’s daily lives continued in line with the seasons. The Japanese took pictures of these scenes in order to preserve them as anthropological records or to demonstrate that prior to colonization Korea had been backward. Nevertheless, the constancy of the people’s lives itself was the biggest resistance against the foreign ruler.