Wu Ying. Not only Chinese but also Manchu and East Asian writer

0577754 - OÚ 2024 eng A - Abstract
Blahota, Martin
Wu Ying. Not only Chinese but also Manchu and East Asian writer.
[AAS-in-Asia 2023 Conference. Daegu, 24.06.2023-26.06.2023]
Method of presentation: Přednáška
Event organizer: Association for Asian Studies
URL events: https://asianstudies.confex.com/asianstudies/asia2023/meetingapp.cgi 
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : Wu Ying * Manchukuo * hybrid identities * modern Chinese literature
OECD category: Specific literatures

The notion of a “unified” Chinese nation, which emerged during the Japanese invasion of China, often narrows our view of what China looked like before the occupation. This paper explores how we remember the literary work of the Chinese-language writer Wu Ying 吳瑛 (1915–61), who was active in Manchukuo (1932–45) during the years of Chinese identity’s turbulent transformation. Applying Stuart Hall’s cultural identity theory, I compare the identities represented in the early and late works of this female writer. While contemporary research emphasizes primarily the national resistance to Japanese occupation represented in her works from the early 1940s, thus constructing an image of Wu Ying as a distinctly “Chinese” writer, my analysis of her early work demonstrates that in the early period she identified much more intimately with “Manchuria” and “East Asia,” and only began to embrace the Chinese nation later, after the colonial control of Manchukuo had significantly tightened. This paper thus highlights elements of Wu Ying’s identity that have been silenced by existing academic discourse and points to the complexities and dynamics of “Chineseness” in the colonial period and its reflection in present-day research. In particular, my findings contribute to the debate on the relationship between Chinese nationalism and Asianism in the first half of the twentieth century and show the risks of retrospective attribution of cultural identity. Indeed, one’s perception of one’s place in the world evolves dramatically, in some cases within just a few years.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0346937