Scripting a Multicultural Future: The Chinese and Korean Songs of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army

Abstract

Hundreds of military songs are credited to the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army (NAUA). The NAUA was a coalition of Chinese and Korean guerrilla armies that operated in Northeast China during the Manchukuo period (1932–45). The NAUA used songs to teach and inculcate new behaviors in line with socialist and communist ideologies. Most importantly, the songs worked on an emotional level, meaning that they conveyed collective sentiments while also directing their appropriate expression in order to foster camaraderie and boost morale. Drawing from concepts formulated by historians of emotions, I argue that the NAUA became what Barbara Rosenwein terms an “emotional community.” As such, the NAUA defied strict nationalist sentiments primarily due to the discursive power and easy dissemination of the military songs. The Chinese and Korean songs, along with their aesthetic features, have not been studied comprehensively. As literary products of a tumultuous era, the NAUA songs deliver historical evidence of the transnational and transcultural ideologies present in resistance groups across the Japanese empire.