The School Life and City Experience in Colonial Manchuria: An Analysis of a Chinese Youth’s Diary of 1936

• In Event: The Conformed/Deviated Self in Diaries of Modern Japan: The Diversity and Contradiction of Self-expression

Abstract

This paper explores the school life and city experience in Manchuria under Japanese occupation by focusing on a diary written by a Chinese student of Nanman Chugakudo南満中学堂, a Japanese-run secondary school in Mukden city. The school was founded by South Manchuria Railway Company (SMR) in 1917 as the only secondary educational institution of SMR for Chinese students. Most of the faculty members were Japanese, and the language used in school was Japanese. Until the Manchurian Incident of 1931, Nanman Chugakudo had been regarded as a symbol of Japanese educational invasion in Manchuria. Following the formation of Manchukuo in 1932, the number of applicants to this school dramatically increased while the popularity of Japanese language skyrocketed. The Chinese student, who is the author of the said diary, entered this school in 1932, the same year Manchukuo was established. In his diary entries during 1936, he comments on various events: the Manchukuo National Sports Festival, the fifth anniversary of the Manchuria Incident, and the school trip to Japan. Moreover, by tracing his footsteps in Mukden that encompassed SMR zone and Chinese residential zone, we can see that his consumption activities mostly took place in the former area, while entertainments, such as cinema and eating out, were enjoyed in the latter. By reading between the lines of the diary written both in Japanese and Chinese, this paper attempts not only to reveal his psychological world, but also to illuminate colonial history from a more personal perspective.

Author

• En Ko, Komazawa University