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Paper short abstract

This paper examines two popular song genres that emerged through transnational collaboration in the early twentieth century and were later redefined in postwar Japan and Korea. Focusing on lyrics, it analyzes how perspective structures subjectivity and shared emotional experience in the regions.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines Japanese enka and Korean trot as two interrelated popular song genres that crystallized in the early twentieth century through close interactions between Japanese and Korean musicians within a shared imperial and colonial cultural space. Although today they are widely regarded as distinct national traditions, enka and trot were initially shaped through collaboration and mutual influence, before being renamed, redefined, and institutionalized as separate genres in postwar Japan and Korea.

Focusing on song lyrics, this study analyzes how the narrative perspective functions as a central mechanism for constructing subjectivity and emotional meaning in these genres. Perspective is understood here not merely as a grammatical point of view but as a relational structure that connects narrative voice, experiential focus, and listener engagement. In enka and trot, shifts between internal and external perspectives organize how longing, loss, and endurance are narrated and shared, transforming individual emotion into a collectively resonant experience.

By comparing representative postwar lyrics from Japan and Korea, this paper demonstrates that enka and trot share a common narratological logic shaped by the historical conditions of modernity, war, and social upheaval in East Asia, while also developing culturally specific modes of emotional articulation. These songs embody a distinctive fusion of Western musical forms and East Asian sensibilities, producing narrative structures rooted in orality and voice.

Through this analysis, the paper argues that enka and trot should be understood as original twentieth-century popular music genres of East Asia—hybrid cultural forms that reinterpret Western music through local emotional and narrative traditions. Their narratological features reveal how modern East Asian popular music functions as a site where orality, modernity, and subjectivity intersect, offering insight into the broader cultural history of the region.