Chinese and Korean Intellectual Exchange: The Significance
The following post is Part II in a series containing the introduction to my PhD dissertation. New readers might find it helpful to begin here. Below I explain the significance of my study within the context of other research about Chinese and Korean literature in Manchukuo.
The contribution of my thesis lies in its analysis of the direct forms of intertextual exchange that occurred between Chinese and Korean writers. In contrast, scholarship to date has generally focused on the way these groups have represented one another in fiction. Indeed, many Korean short stories and novels written in Manchuria in the early twentieth century portrayed Chinese characters and vice versa. Authors negotiated their social positions via the other because they experienced an environment where social relations were not equal, a point examined in depth throughout the thesis chapters. Fictional works by Chinese and Korean authors demonstrate that writers were concerned with many shared issues and often presented different perspectives on the same problems.
Authors of fictional representations from Manchuria typically depict Koreans as displaced, their social identity compromised by their existence on the border between Korea and China. Many such works exist, for example, the short story “Meiyou zuguo de haizi” (“Children without a Homeland,” 1936) by Shu Qun (1913-1989) about a homeless Korean boy who becomes friends with Russian and Chinese peers. Another oft-studied example is the novel Ijung kukjok (Dual Nationality, 1946) by Kim Mansŏn (1915-?), which follows the life of a Korean man who takes on multiple nationalities over his lifetime in Manchuria.[1] Of course, depictions of stateless Koreans had their basis in reality.
Mass migration of Korean farmers and political refugees into Kando (C: Jiandao), the area in eastern Manchuria that borders the peninsula, began around the time of the March 1, 1919 Korean independence movement, although Koreans had lived in the area for centuries.[2] Once across the border, peasant migrants often leased land belonging to Han, Manchu, or other owners. However, because Koreans could be considered Japanese colonial subjects, and the Japanese retained extraterritorial rights in Manchuria, land that passed between Chinese owners and Korean tenants was seen as a weak point for Chinese national sovereignty.[3] Accordingly, writers from both groups represented in fiction the poor relations that developed between Korean and Chinese inhabitants of Manchuria.
Representations of the Chinese Other by Korean authors, and vice versa, often convey ambivalence, antagonism, inequality, judgment, discrimination, and even violence towards each other.[4] The Wanbaoshan Incident on July 1, 1931, for example, captured the attention of Korean writers An Sugil (1911-1977) and Yi Tae-jun (1904-1970) as well as Chinese writers Li Huiying (1911-1991) and his editor Ding Ling (1904-1986).[5] The incident occurred when approximately 400 Chinese farmers rioted against the construction of an irrigation canal that Korean peasants were building, because it cut across land owned by these Chinese families. During the riot, the Japanese consular police came, eventually firing warning shots. No one was killed, and the Chinese farmers dispersed while the Koreans continued to build the canal with the Japanese police overseeing its reconstruction.[6] An Sugil, Yi Tae-jun, and Li Huiying depicted the Wanbaoshan Incident for different purposes, according to Lee Hyun-jeong, each of these authors creating a distinct vision of “Chinese and Korean nationhood based on the collective action of the peasants.”[7] Karen Thornber argues that similarities in fictional representations can be seen as passive intertextuality, or “coincidentally composing creative texts with numerous intersections,” such as drawing from the same event (Wanbaoshan) or social practices (tenant farming).[8]
The representative texts discussed in my dissertation are different from representations of the Chinese or Korean Other because they are based in reality, not fiction. Passive or indirect intertextuality, as Thornber describes, is often based on coincidence. More direct forms of intertextuality include critiquing, adapting, translating, and otherwise intentionally interacting with someone else’s work. There is no specific extant evidence that the Chinese fictional pieces described above were read by Koreans or vice versa. In fact, there is only one known case from 1930s Manchuria where a fictional work by a Korean author that depicted Chinese characters in the region was commented on by a local Chinese intellectual. Kim Tong-in’s (1900-1951) short story Rust-Colored Hills is set in Manchuria and a Chinese writer, Chen Yin, reviews it as part of an extended newspaper article.[9] Case Study 1 of this thesis discusses Chen Yin’s review and places it into historical context with other instances of Chinese and Korean interaction. While there are fewer instances of active interactions compared to fictional representations, the texts discussed in this thesis represent more direct access to the writers’ views about the pressing concerns of the time.
While Chinese and Korean intertextual exchanges may have been few, Manchukuo witnessed many interactions between Japanese and Chinese intellectuals. Studies about the literature from this period have tended to focus on the Japanese-Chinese relationship and its development within the semi-colonial environment. Annika Culver argues that Japanese officials in Manchukuo were also intellectuals and often produced literary works that doubled as propaganda.[10] Similarly, Louise Young shows how Japanese cultural producers changed the perceptions of Manchuria in Japan over the course of the early twentieth century.[11] One of the most important methods for propagating Japan’s designs in Manchuria, Ying Xiong argues, was translating works by Chinese writers into Japanese.[12] Japanese authorities in Manchukuo viewed Chinese intellectual production as essential to their propaganda, an issue discussed further in Chapter 2. Junko Agnew shows how Chinese participation in public debates concerning the future of Manchukuo’s cultural heritage differed in significant ways from that of their Japanese counterparts.[13]
Readers may come away from the above studies well-informed about the movement of ideas, colonial governance, and the effects of imperialism on society and individuals in Manchuria. The communities and individuals evaluated, however, are predominantly Chinese and Japanese. Moreover, they are based in Manchukuo’s cities. By focusing on different forms of Korean and Chinese intellectual relationship, this thesis adds an important dimension to past scholarship. Existing studies have taken for granted the similarities in ideological, material, and institutional experiences among intellectuals from various cultural backgrounds who were active during the Manchukuo period. That is, the absolute value of the intellectual has remained unquestioned. By identifying a writer’s productive value, I demonstrate how some forms of intellectual work are privileged over others and what purposes that serves.
My thesis thus makes a contribution to the intellectual history of East Asia by re-evaluating the value of intellectuals vis-à-vis their role in creating discourses of nation-building. The extant studies of intellectual activity in Manchuria (Chinese, Korean, or otherwise) limit their scope to texts that appeared in newspapers, literary journals, and magazines with an indelible link to Manchukuo nation-building ideals. Case Study 1 looks at Chinese and Korean intertextual exchange within the same publication spaces in order to stress how intellectuals viewed themselves in relation to Manchuria. Case Study 2 presents an alternative conceptualization of intellectual production a few steps removed from the formation of a nation. That is, the NAUA operated in direct opposition to the national idea as expressed by Manchukuo state-builders. Along with analyzing the army songs in relation to the Manchukuo nation-building project, I also present the tunes as an alternative literary and intellectual space in Manchukuo.
Finally, as I discuss, Chinese and Korean intellectuals shared an affinity towards Manchuria that played upon their minds when in direct contact with each other’s work. The particular context of Manchuria defined the social relations that formed within its space and characterized how literary works set in the region were perceived. As self-appointed cultural spokespeople, Korean and Chinese intellectuals attempted to represent their place of residence faithfully, which included ambivalent and unequal social relations. However, intercultural contact raised questions about authenticity and the possibility of cooperation. This thesis relates the multifaceted history of Chinese and Korean intellectuals who interacted as a function of, and in order to understand, their relationships to Manchuria as a place.
[1] For a discussion of Shu Qun’s and Kim Mansŏn’s stories, see InYoung Bong, “Destabilizing ‘Racial Harmony’: Hybridity, Nationality, and Spatiality in the Law and Cultural Production of Manchukuo” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 2010). See also Hyun Ok Park, Two Dreams in One Bed: Empire, Social Life, and the Origins of the North Korean Revolution in Manchuria (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
[2] Kando is the Korean name for the region largely equivalent to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture on the border of China and North Korea today. See Seonmin Kim, Ginseng and Borderland (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017); Woosung Bae, “Literature on Manchuria during the Qing Period and Korea’s Perception of Manchurian Geography during the Late Joseon Period,” Journal of Northeast Asian History 5, no. 2 (2008); and Chong Eun Ahn, “From Chaoxian ren to Chaoxian zu: Korean Identity under Japanese Empire and Chinese Nation-State” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2013).
[3] For the most comprehensive coverage of the triangular relationship between Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese in Manchuria before and after 1931, see Hyun Ok Park, Two Dreams in One Bed.
[4] The Korean author, Ch’oe Sŏhae (1901-1932), wrote particularly violent stories depicting Korean migrants as victims of their Chinese landlords. See Vladimir Tikhonov, Modern Korea and Its Others: Perceptions of the Neighbouring Countries and Korean Modernity (London: Routledge, 2015). Kang Kyŏng-ae (1906-1943) also lived and set most of her stories in Manchuria She often depicted unequal and destructive relations between Chinese men and Korean women. See Yi Sanggyŏng, ed., Kang Kyŏng-ae chŏnjip 강경애 전집 (Collected Works of Kang Kyŏng-ae) (Seoul: Somyŏng Ch’ulp’an, 2002), 877-879 and Samuel Perry, “Translator’s Introduction,” in From Wonso Pond, by Kang Kyŏng-ae, trans. Samuel Perry (New York City: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2009), vii–xx.
[5] Ding Ling was a famous leftist writer who wrote The Diary of Miss Sophie (Shafei nyushi riji) in 1927, joined the CCP in 1932, and journeyed to Yan’an in 1936. See Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ding Ling’s Fiction: Ideology and Narrative in Modern Chinese Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).
[6] The dispute occurred two months before the Mukden Incident in September 1931, so it has been considered a harbinger of the establishment of Manchukuo. In reality, the Wanbaoshan Incident was relatively minor, but it became an international conflict because of exaggerated reports in the Seoul press saying that Chinese landlords had killed the Korean peasants. Anti-Chinese riots ensued with over a hundred Chinese people killed in the first incident that occurred in Inchŏn on July 3, 1931 alone. For a comprehensive treatment of the incident, see Hyun-Jeong Lee, “Reimagining the Nation in Manchuria: The Representation of Peasant Collectivity in Chinese and Korean Discourses on the Wanbaoshan Incident (1931)” (PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2009).
[7] Lee, “Reimagining the Nation in Manchuria,” 29.
[8] Karen Laura Thornber, Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009), 216.
[9] Kim Tong-in was one of the most influential of Korea’s early modern writers. Known for realism and naturalism, his most famous work is the short story “Potato” (Gamja) published in 1935. For a recent translation of Kim’s works with accompanying author introduction, see Kim Tongin, Sweet Potato: Collected Short Stories by Kim Tongin, trans. Grace Jung (Croydon: Honford Star, 2017).
[10] Annika A. Culver, Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013).
[11] Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
[12] Ying Xiong, Representing Empire: Japanese Colonial Literature in Taiwan and Manchuria (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
[13] For an example of these public debates, see “Manchukuo Culture and the Culture of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere” (満州文化と共栄文化 Manshū bunka to kyōwei bunka) in Manshū kōron 満州公論 (Manchukuo Review), March, 1945, 22. Cited in Junko Agnew, “Rewriting Manchukuo: The Question of Japanese Literary Colonialism and Chinese Collaboration” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2009), 11.