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Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes Hinata Nobuo's 1937 story, "Train Junction No. 8" and the politics of Manchukuo as a "multiethnic nation." Hinata grapples with the double-bind of local Chinese under the transition to Japanese rule by using strategic ambiguity to allow both nationalistic and subversive readings.

Paper long abstract

Writer and editor Aoki Minoru was a central figure of the Japanese-language Manchurian literary establishment, and influentially penned a series of short stories later dubbed "Manchu works" (Manjin mono). These works contained sympathetic portrayals of their continental subalterns in narratives mostly or completely absent of Japanese characters. Crucially, Aoki chose to write from the perspective of Chinese characters from all walks of life, rather than portraying Manchukuo from a Japanese point-of-view character's perspective. While Manchu works were not as popular as other genres of Japanese-language writing, some notable examples later appeared, including some from the less-prolific author Hinata Nobuo. Hinata's award-winning 1937 short story "Train Junction No. 8" engages directly with the complicated politics of Manchukuo as a "multiethnic nation" (fukugo minzoku kokka) by centering its plot around railway workers during the transition from Russian to Japanese ownership of the Hokutetsu railway line. Like Aoki, he writes from the perspective of Chinese railway workers and sympathetically portrays a versions of their lives under Japanese rule. He contextualizes these lifestyle changes in particular through very concrete examples of changes to the rhythms of the workers' lives, with an eye toward very practical matters concerning their diverse economic incentives and planning. These issues are crystallized through the contrasting reactions to the two central characters: one man endeavors to stay with the Japanese railway company while the other flees to the city to begin a Russian-style bakery. Throughout the narrative, rather than replicate staid narratives of railroad-driven modernization, Hinata grapples with the double-bind these Chinese were caught in as they struggled to quickly adapt to demands for Japanese language and work ethic. He does not shy away from describing the compounded pressures applied by the new railroad management, yet also paints a laudatory picture of the Japan-led advancements in continental transportation. In this way, Hinata's story maintains a careful ambiguity about its subjects, allowing it to be read in multiple ways, both aligning with the Japanese project in Manchuria and critiquing its implementation through an empathetic portrayal of its characters.