My Top 5 Favorite NAUA Songs
The Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (NAUA) was a coalition of Chinese and Korean, communist and non-communist, guerrilla forces that banded together starting in 1934. They were generally divided into “route armies” that marched across Manchuria (Northeast China), which was, at that time, a Japanese puppet state called Manchukuo. My interest in the NAUA stems from the hundreds of songs that are attributed to the army and, especially, its leaders. The songs give scholars a rare glimpse into the ways that Chinese and Korean thinkers interacted with each other. Furthermore, the tunes help us better understand the intellectual strains in anti-Japanese cultural products of the war period across linguistic divides.
What’s interesting about the route armies mentioned above is that many of them had their own song, like a calling card for other troops to know who was in the vicinity. The songs were also a way for the soldiers to become a unified entity—brothers and sisters in arms. The first of these songs, as its title implies, is “Song of the First Route Army” (东北抗日联军第一路军军哥), which you can listen to here. I love it because it’s an upbeat, declarative tune with a strong military march aesthetic.
The following songs are my top five favorite NAUA songs. I chose them for their musical, lyrical, and symbolic importance. They give a great sense of the themes in NAUA music, which tells us a lot about what the soldiers felt and believed to be worth fighting for. All of the translations below are my own.
1. “The Encampment Song” (露营之歌) (Listen)
Cliffs of sheer, sharp rock, the thick forest overgrown,
Storms and gales in the wasteland, on river banks battle steeds cry
Armed, sitting around a campfire, the sky bathed in red,
Comrades! With firm determination,
Fearless of the Songhua River’s unrestraint.
Arise, courageously charge,
Chase the Japanese invaders, restore the Northeast,
Like the heavens at daybreak, fathomless splendor will rush forth.
鐵嶺絕岩林木叢生，暴雨狂風，荒原水畔戰馬鳴。
圍火齊團結，普照滿天紅。
同志們，銳志哪怕松江晚浪生。
起來呀果敢沖鋒，逐日寇復東北，天破曉光華萬丈湧。
“The Encampment Song” is the most famous NAUA song. In fact, it lay at the heart of a dispute among former NAUA members in the 1980s, which led to a lawsuit filed in 1999. If you listen to the song in full, you will begin to understand the song as a kind of epoch. The lyrics are highly poetic, mainly describing the natural setting and pairing it with grand images of victory on the battlefield.
2. “China and Korea Have Come Together” (중국, 조선잇대였다)
The mountain streams and rivers of the two countries,
China and Chosŏn, have come together.
History has been raised like a building
on the two plots of the Amnok River and Changbai Mountain.
중국, 조선 두 나라는
강하산천 잇대였다
압록강 장백산 잇대이둣이
분호력사도 어울려있다
“China and Korea Have Come Together” is one of the NAUA’s most symbolic songs. One of the biggest challenges that faced the NAUA when the guerrilla troops first started to work together was the cultural and linguistic differences between Chinese and Korean soldiers. Music became a great way to foster unity among these disparate groups. The above song likens the physical terrain that naturally separates Northeast China and the Korean peninsula to the Chinese and Korean soldiers. In other words, if the land can be thought of as one, then so can the people who live there. There are Chinese and Korean versions of this song, too, which adds to its significance because not all NAUA songs existed in both languages. Indeed, it’s unclear in which language the song was first rendered. All told, this song is truly a transcultural gem and shows how the NAUA aimed to engender a dual Chinese-Korean community.
3. “Song Written in Blood” (혈서가)
Bite the fourth finger painfully paint a red flag
When the flag goes up call out “Hurrah, hurrah! (mansei)”
Record your name in blood
Join the army to do the work of the class revolution.
무명지 깨물어 피로 붉은 기를 그립니다
붉은기 앞에 서서 만세 만세 부릅니다
혈서에 다 이름을 적어 념원을 표시합시다
무산계급 혁명사업위해 참군한다고
I love “Song Written in Blood” for many reasons. First, at only four lines long, this one verse is one of the most succinct songs in the NAUA canon. Second, despite its brevity, the lyrics really pack a punch. They describe an almost gruesome image of drawing blood from one’s own finger to draw a flag, which signifies pledging oneself to the socialist cause. Third, the song seems to have been originally written in Korean, which makes a lot of sense considering that Koreans were the major communist force in the NAUA at its start. Lastly, the song presents and represents the vow that all NAUA members needed to make and embody if they were to unite and build a new society.
4. “Four Seasons of Guerrilla Warfare” (四季游击歌)
Warring in the snow doesn’t compare to summer and autumn,
North winds cry, heavy snows fly, the snowy ground icy for days,
The winds pierce the bones and snow hits the face,
hands and feet cracking with ice,
Patriotic men don’t fear death so how could they fear affliction?
雪地里游击不比夏秋间，
朔风吹大雪飞雪地又冰天，
风刺骨雪打面手足冰开裂，
爱国男儿不怕死哪怕艰难。
“Four Seasons of Guerrilla Warfare” is stylistically and musically similar to “The Encampment Song.” Both tunes describe the seasons, starting with spring through to the winter climax. “Four Seasons,” however, comprises two verses per season, which makes it double the length of “The Encampment Song.” Additionally, “Four Seasons” conflates the soldiers with the land more prominently than its sister tune. In the spring, the soldiers are “young plant shoots” whereas in the fall they are “eggs of a broken nest” (signifying Manchuria’s state of being occupied by the Japanese). The final winter verse, provided above, poses an important rhetorical question: “Patriotic men don’t fear death, so how could they fear affliction?” Many NAUA songs use similar rhetorical devices to present what I call the “logic of suffering.” These types of lyrics present two unwelcome circumstances (e.g. death vs affliction) and then show how one is better than the other—as long as it means that the Japanese are defeated. In other words, if one suffers frostbite while fighting the Japanese, surely that is still the better option compared to living under an oppressive regime. Songs that show this kind of logic are fascinating because they show how the songwriters combined discourse and rhetoric for emotional effect.
5. “Chinese and Koreans Unite” (中朝民族联合起来)
Chinese and Korean nations, toiling masses unite,
Uniformly fire at the Japanese imperialists.
Only when we destroy the common enemy, can we live a life of freedom.
Strengthen our union, Chinese, Koreans—cherish unity!
Charge! Storm! Towards the Japanese empire.
中朝民族劳苦民众亲密地联合，
一齐向着日本帝国主义者开火。
只有我们消灭这一共同的敌人，
那时我们才能取得自由的生活。
亲密的巩固的中朝民族！
冲锋呀！杀进哪！向着那日帝国。
Yet another song about unifying Chinese and Koreans. “Chinese and Koreans Unite” was one of the first NAUA songs that centered the dilemma of how to bring the two cultural groups into better communication. The song was purportedly written by Yang Jingyu, the general behind the creation of the NAUA. Intriguingly, there are two versions of this song, one from 1935 and another from 1938. The lyrics of the 1935 version are relatively dry compared to the 1938 version. Where the 1935 lyrics are stoic and political, the 1938 lyrics are poetic and filled with longing for a new country, pain and suffering caused by the war, and angst about Chinese and Korean in-fighting. The simple call in the chorus to “Charge! Storm! Towards the Japanese empire” gave NAUA soldiers an unequivocal directive regardless of their personal history and background. Through such powerfully simple lyrics, the NAUA built a solid community intent on living peacefully together and renewing the society around them.