The Strangers' Apparel

I am very pleased to announce that my first translation was published in the 100th (and, sadly, final) issue of Renditions in December 2024 (pp. 178-187). Besides being a significant milestone for me, this news is even more exciting because two translations by Howard Goldblatt are also featured in this issue. My master’s thesis was about Howard Goldblatt’s role in helping Mo Yan receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012. To say this is a full-circle moment for me is an understatement!

“Sprinkling Death”: Using the Subversive Humor of Mock-Translation in the Classroom

The following abstract is from a reflective practice article published in the International Journal of Chinese and English Translation & Interpreting, December 2023.

Four students in the third-year undergraduate course CHN 3003: Reading and Translating Chinese at the University of Malta worked together to create a mock-translation of a fast-food menu. This article examines this collaborative task and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses against the theoretical framework of mock-translation, while also taking into account the socio-cultural particularities of the Maltese context. Malta is a small island nation in the Mediterranean and a former British colony. Students at the University of Malta, including those who study Chinese, are often bilingual in English and Maltese (a Semitic language) or another European language. Instructors working in the Chinese-English translation classroom may find the collaborative translation exercise a useful tool for getting students to consider the intersection between theory and practice.

Scripting a Multicultural Future: The Chinese and Korean Songs of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army

“Come Out Before the Revolution,” found on p. 117 in Kim Ch’un-sŏn 김춘선, ed., Chungguk Chosŏnjok saryo chŏnjip: munhwa yesul pyŏn 중국 조선족 사료 전집: 문화 예술 편 (Historical Materials of Chinese Koreans: Culture and Arts Edition), vol. 1, 33 vols. (Yanji: Yŏnbyŏn inmin ch’ulp’ansa, 2013).

Below is the abstract for my article published in the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, Volume 23, no. 1, May 2023.

Hundreds of military songs are credited to the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (NAUA). The NAUA was a coalition of Chinese and Korean guerrilla armies that operated in Northeast China during the Manchukuo period (1932–45). The NAUA used songs to teach and inculcate new behaviors in line with socialist and communist ideologies. Most importantly, the songs worked on an emotional level, meaning that they conveyed collective sentiments while also directing their appropriate expression in order to foster camaraderie and boost morale. Drawing from concepts formulated by historians of emotions, I argue that the NAUA became what Barbara Rosenwein terms an “emotional community.” As such, the NAUA defied strict nationalist sentiments primarily due to the discursive power and easy dissemination of the military songs. The Chinese and Korean songs, along with their aesthetic features, have not been studied comprehensively. As literary products of a tumultuous era, the NAUA songs deliver historical evidence of the transnational and transcultural ideologies present in resistance groups across the Japanese empire.

The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang: Republican-Era Martial Arts Fiction by John Christopher Hamm (review)

The following is the first paragraph of my review in Twentieth-Century China, Volume 46, Number 3, October 2021.

John Christopher Hamm's The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang: Republican-Era Martial Arts Fiction brings the topic of genre fiction off the sidelines of modern Chinese literature and into center field. The clever and perceptive narrative revolves around the novelist Xiang Kairan (向愷然 1895–1957), who wrote under the pen name Buxiaosheng (不肖生) or "The Unworthy Scholar" and is considered to be the father of Republican-era martial arts fiction (武俠小說 wuxia xiaoshuo). John Christopher Hamm establishes a scholarly approach to Xiang Kairan that, on the one hand, pays homage to the nostalgia that martial arts fiction often evokes in general readers and, on the other, newly conceptualizes the oft-discussed foundations of modern Chinese literature. Moreover, Hamm presents an enlightening characterization of the publishing networks that formed the basis for Chinese genre fiction. The book is a relevant reminder that Chinese genre fiction, especially considering our current age of translating and promoting it to global audiences, came of age during the commercialization of literature in 1920s Shanghai.

Abstract: Writing “Manchurian-Korean Literature” in the Manseon ilbo, 1937–1942

This short video introduces my article titled "Writing 'Manchurian-Korean Literature' in the Manseon ilbo, 1937-1942."

I am pleased to announce that my first academic article has been published in the Seoul Journal of Korean Studies. While the video provides a brief overview, the following is the full abstract for the article.

This paper examines the intellectual discourse regarding the place and function of Korean-language writing in Manchuria during the Manchukuo period. I look specifically at several editorials that appeared in the Korean newspaper Manseon ilbo. These primary sources appeared during the literary zenith of the Manchukuo period between 1937 and 1942, five years mainly characterized by widespread debates about what constituted Manchukuo national culture. I argue that the participation of Korean intellectuals in these debates indicates their desire to be seen as an autonomous group
disassociated with the Japanese. The fact that some of the subsequent writing appeared in Chinese translation suggests that it was important for Chinese people as well to see Koreans in a new light. The newspaper articles discussed below show a propensity to change perceptions about Korean belonging in Manchuria through literature and intellectual production. From another perspective, the Manseon ilbo articles shed light on how Korean intellectuals understood their production value vis-à-vis the nation-building discourses of Manchukuo.

UPDATE: This article was translated by 백종륜 Baek Chong-ryun and published in the Journal of Manchurian Studies, Volume 35, April 2023.