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From Workers to ‘Minority Middleman’? : Koreans in Manchuria between Representation and Reality

  • Journal of Manchurian Studies
  • Abbr : 만주연구
  • 2021, (31), pp.129~162
  • DOI : 10.22888/mcsa..31.202104.129
  • Publisher : The Manchurian Studies Association
  • Research Area : Social Science > Area Studies > East Asia > China
  • Received : March 29, 2021
  • Accepted : April 23, 2021
  • Published : April 30, 2021

Lee, Dongjin 1

1경북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Part one and two of The Human Condition (人間の條件) by Jumpei Gomikawa is set in Gonhchangling (⼸⻑嶺) Iron Mine of the Showa Steel Mill (昭和製鋼所) in 1943 and features a Japanese supervisor as a protagonist and Chinese “prisoners of war laborers” as major characters. In the novel, a Korean “evil” minority middleman is featured as a secondary figure, and among miners, the Japanese and Korean workers are described as having advantages over Chinese workers. This article contrasted the representation in the novel and statistical and oral data on wanrenkeng (mass grave; a pit of ten thousand corpses) to see if Koreans in Manchuria had changed from laborers to “minority middleman” as in the novel. The oral data did not show any testimony on Koreans having been “minority middleman”, but this data had limits as testimony representative of Koreans, since it was written to collect data on wanrenkeng--that is, on Japan’s exploitation and slaughter of Chinese mining workers. The statistical data did not confirm the existence of Korean “illegal” middlemen, either, but showed that Korean mining workers had occupied the middle position of Japanese and Chinese mining workers. Therefore, the Manchurian Korean mining workers in the early 1940s and their surrounding world, including the “illegal minority middleman”, represented in the novel The Human Condition, are believed to provide a valuable clue to understanding Koreans in Manchuria.

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