Center for Korean Studies

This talk explores the significance of the politically detached Korean community in Manchuria portrayed in An Sugil’s novella Rice Plants (1941), which was written and published in Manchuria. Considered to be based on the Manbosan (C: Wanbaoshan) Incident (1931), a crucial event of the Sino-Korean conflict in Manchuria over the Koreans’ construction of irrigation routes, Rice Plants depicts how an immigrant Korean community is formed through the incident. Based on textual analysis, I demonstrate that the emerging immigrant community in this novella is relatively detached from such political positions as anti-Japanese or anti-Chinese nationalism or pro-Japanese collaboration. Finally, the talk suggests that, given the historical turmoil around Manchuria in the 1930s and 40s, the imagination of such a politically detached community in Manchuria was possible for the Korean immigrants only in the political conditions of Manchuria: At that time the new puppet state Manchukuo was founded, and the Koreans could hold relatively ambiguous positions there in terms of their political allegiance. For a comparison, I introduce two completely nationalist narratives of the incident written decades later in South Korea and in Northeast China, respectively.

This lecture is sponsored by the Korea Foundation and a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. For more information, please contact the Center for Korean Studies at 734-764-1825.