The bakery where most of today's Gunsan visitors line up before breakfast didn't start out Korean-owned. In 1906, a man named Hirose Yasutaro left Shimane Prefecture, Japan, for colonial Korea — reportedly to keep his son out of Japanese military conscription — and opened a bakery here under the name "Izumoya" (出雲屋), borrowing the name of his own hometown.
When Japan surrendered in 1945 and Korea was liberated, the Hirose family running Izumoya was repatriated to Japan along with other Japanese residents of colonial Korea. The bakery was classified as "enemy property" (jeoksan) under the U.S. military government and transferred to a Korean owner, Yi Seok-u, who renamed it "Isungdang" (李盛堂). That's why Isungdang today counts its own history starting from 1945, the year of liberation — even though the bakery itself, as a physical business, traces back to 1906. The current name and ownership only began once colonial rule had ended. Next time you're standing in the long line for the bakery's signature red-bean or vegetable bread, it's worth remembering why the name changed once along the way.