The Study Of 1932-1945: The Northeast Occupied China Translation Literature

The whole history of modern China is hardly ever in lack of martial participation.However, due to the game among different forces from1932to1945, the establishment of“Manchukuo” as a country was declared in Northeast China, and this political freak has aspecial organizational type. This dissertation mainly studies the processes ofterritorialization and redeterrito-rialization that the organizational structure of Manchuriancultural system had undergone, and they were both unfolded in the form of translatedliterature that existed the historical period of this special political freak. The thesis thenmoves on to explore their traces of appearance both inside and outside the Manchuriancultural system. Therefore, in the course of investigation, this paper selects translatedliterary works published in Japan-funded newspapers as its empirical research objects. TheJapanese colonists had tried to rewrite the coding stream of the cultural system within theoccupied area of Northeast China. It is in this particular context that the present dissertationdemonstrates how cultural policies and strategies formulated by Manchurian authoritiesmanifested themselves through the externalized medium of the press. Based on thisempirical research object, this study continues to argue about the relationship between thepsychological transmutations of translators within this specific region and the culturaldemands of invaders (or colonists) for redeterrito-rialization. Hence this dissertationconsists of five sections:The first section (Introduction) is an academic summary of previous comments on andstandpoints and ideas about literary modalities in “Manchukuo”. In addition, it attempts tobreak away from the set pattern of binary opposition, and to put forward original argumentsfrom a diversified perspective.The second section studies the formation of the Manchurian ethnic structure and thecultural characteristics of this region from perspective of geography, and then probes intothe connection between ethnic structure and regional culture. In the process of exploration,such a research frame has been developed: A pluralized ethnic structure had already beenformed in the area of Northeast China before the invasion. Residents living on this landinclude indigenous ethnic minorities of the north, Han immigrants from hinterlands atdifferent times, Byelorussians flooding to Northeast China from Soviet Russia in variouspolitical situations, Japanese immigrants who have gradually settled down there accordingto colonial policies ever since the Japanese occupation of Northeast China, and even aconsiderable number of North Koreans immigrating into Northeast China for a variety of reasons. Each ethnic group has its own cultural customs. Hence Northeast China, which hasabsorbed a large influx of people from different places and at different times, has generateda special form of cultural structure. This means that Manchuria possesses a feature ofcultural mixture. In other words, the unique geographical conditions and constant changesin ethnic structure of Northeast China have given birth to a multiplicity of ethnic structurein this area. Moreover, each ethnic group inhabiting there has distinctive cultural customsof its own, thus giving rise to a unique and rather complicated cultural hybridity as well ascultural type different from that of Central China. All of these are indispensable convincingevidences for game relationships between the indigenous culture of Northeast China andthe colonial culture transplanted from Japan in the period of1932-1945.The third section deals with the traces of violent writing left by Japanese colonists as asingle cultural identity in the process of Manchurian redeterrito-rialization after theinvasion, the means by which a malicious destruction of the native cultural coding systemwas made, and the goals of a new colonial culture to be created. All these have been studiedagainst the background of a pluralistic ethnic structure and cultural form of this occupiedarea. The violent territorialized colonization of Japanese invaders, which is characterizedby force and power, has vividly interpreted the term “deterritorialization” proposed byGilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to indicate the eradication of colonized native cultures, orthe so called “decoding” of relevant cultural concepts. Besides, the further reconstructionof cultural systems of occupied areas is defined as “redeterrito-rialization” or “recoding”.As an inalienable part of Chinese territory with a history of several thousand years,Northeast China has cultural and ethnic identities no different from those of hinterlands.Hence this section discusses in detail the strong stance that Japanese colonists had taken toreconstruct the coding stream of Manchurian culture in the course of culturalredeterrito-rialization.On the basis of a huge amount of firsthand data from1932to1945, the fourth and fifthsections take translated literary works published in Japan-funded (also financed by thegovernment of “Manchukuo”) newspaper supplements as the starting point to the wholeargumentation. Within the two sections, the third chapter proves that the press served associus of views for Japanese colonists. They picked out some translated literary works onpurpose and produced much propaganda about them, to accomplish the reconstruction ofManchurian cultural coding stream in a short time. Selected works include those glorifyingwars of aggression and those with a strong flavor of colonialism, such as The Corps in theRye, Ode to the White Orchid (Byakuran No Uta), and etc. The fourth chapter elaborates how Manchurians had rejected cultural colonization by Japanese invaders and how they hadoffered strong resistance to this practice under the colonial dominance with an iron fist.Native intellectuals even uttered their voices of dissent exactly in the same newspapers,denying the cultural coding imposed upon them by Japanese colonists via a peculiarmetaphorical system of their own, and this could be defined as the refusal of decoding. Asfor the selection of literary works to be translated and published in newspaper supplements,they were more concerned with writers and works from nations forbidden by Japanesecolonists. For instance, we could find apparent evidences of the publication of Gorky’sworks and those by anti-fascistic writers in this period. The two chapters mainlyconcentrate on comparative analysis of the colonists and natives, with an attempt to restoreprecisely the historical conditions and cultural context of Manchurian cultural system atthat time.The Japanese colonists assisted Emperor Pu Yi and old adherents of the past QingDynasty with the foundation of “Manchukuo”, but their real intention was to fulfill the planof territorial expansion and to realize their ambition of colonizing Northeast China. In theprocesses of Manchurian deterritorialization and redeterrito-rialization, they sought toreplace the diversified cultural structure of Northeast China with a new one rooted in theconcept of single cultural identity. Although they achieved the goal ofredeterrito-rialization within a short period of time in aspects of politics, economics, andetc., they were in fact not successful in the remolding of its cultural system. In contrast, thecolonized natives had strong appeals to the inheritance of their own traditional culture andthe freedom of spirit, which instead caused fierce resistance from aboriginal Manchuriansand even people all over the country accompanied with the implementation of the colonialmechanism of cultural might.