Takao Ouchi And Manchukuo

Takao Ouchi was born in 1907 in Yanagawa Fukuoka of southern Japan.He came to northeastern China as a Japanese immigrant at the age of 14,and went back to Japan at the age of 39 after Japan's failure in the war of aggression against China.He had been living in China for 25 years.As a literary translator in the Manchukuo period,Takao Ouchi spent his best time in "Manchukuo" and make considerable contributions to translation of modern northeastern literature.He kept a low profile and worked hard.His literary translated works have long been ignored by the literary world and critics,but they are really prominent in Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges during the war of aggression against China.In early days after his migration to China,Takao Ouchi was dispatched by the Manchuria Railway Company to pursue college education in Shanghai from 1925 to 1929.During this period,his literary talent and life goal were affected by the ideological trend of the Chinese left-wing literary movement.He had come into contact with members of the Creation Society,such as Tian Han,Yu Dafu,Guo Moruo and so on.At the budding stage,Takao Ouchi had special experience.His left-wing radical trend had attracted attention to the Japanese Kwantung Army military police,and become a root of misfortune for his entire life in Manchuria.Back to the northeast,Takao Ouchi still appeared as a literary man to live in the era of turmoil.He was once an editor of "Manchuria Review",published many articles,and worked together with Shinaki Tachibana to compile the "New Manchuria Dictionary".If it is not the fault of the times,he was likely to become a prominent writer of Manchukuo.In 1932,he was arrested in the left-wing investigation centered by the Manchuria Railway Company,and soon left the Manchuria Railway Company.In 1933,he returned to Fengtian from Tokyo,and lived in seclusion.In 1935,he was re-recruited into the Hsinking Daily News Agency.Later,he took a post in the"Manchuria Pictures Corporation" as the then largest film studio in Manchuria.After his comeback,he no longer appeared as a literary man,but devoted himself to Chinese-Japanese translation.Within about 10 years before the end of the war,he became a famous translator of modern northeastern literature.Takao Ouchi's achievements in translation of northeastern literature were found by a Japanese professor Hideki Okada,50 years later.Hideki Okada,as the most famous professor specializing in studying Manchukuo Literature,gave the following assessment for Takao Ouchi."Takao Ouchi has a high proficiency in Chinese.Regardless of his Japanese proficiency,his translation is basically accurate.Moreover,he shows good performance in selecting works for translation.For example,Blood Seller of Dan Di,Wilderness of Gu Ding,2 Boatmen of Guan Monan,Book of Ruins of Jue Qing,Green Valley of Shan Ding,Pit of Wang Qiuying,Artificial Silk of Xiao Song,Northern Wilderness of Yichi and Neighboring 3 people of Yuan Xi are representative works of famous writers.I once compiled a list of works which were written by Chinese people and translated into Japanese in Manchuria.According to incomplete statistics,142 works whose translators were clear were listed,and 110 of them were translated by Takao Ouchi.This list requires a substantial supplement,but we can ascertain the actual situation about "singled-handled completed works" by Takao Ouchi.Hideki Okada identified Takao Ouchi as a "translator of Chinese literature".The author wants to study Takao Ouchi more deeply,based on existing studies.Therefore,the topic of this rpaper is "Modern Northeastern Literary Translator:Takao Ouchi".This research is conducted for 2 purposes.On the one hand,the author believes that it is more accurate to take Takao Ouchi as a "modern northeastern literary translator",compared with the "translator of Chinese literature" identified by Hideki Okada.Moreover,the author lacks courage to discuss literary translation form the perspective of China.On the other hand,Takao Ouchi was discussed in the third chapter of the volume 3 of "Manchukuo Literature" by Hideki Okada.Although a full chapter was used to discuss achievements of Takao Ouchi,the discussion was made over a decade ago.Therefore,the author attempts to go deeper to analyzed achievements of Takao Ouchi,on the basis of research findings of Hideki Okada.