Writing Manchukuo: Peripheral Realism and Awareness in ... · Writing Manchukuo Cross-Currents 28 | 52 mode of imperialism, which “required a restructuring of the feudal system

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WritingManchukuo:PeripheralRealismandAwarenessinKangKyŏngae’sSalt

JeehyunChoi,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley

Choi,Jeehyun.2018.“WritingManchukuo:PeripheralRealizmandAwarenessinKangKyŏngae’sSalt.”Cross-Currents:EastAsianHistoryandCultureReview(e-journal)28:48–68.https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-28/choi.

Abstract

In light of recent studies that situate the early twentieth-century Korean-ManchurianwriterKangKyŏngaewithintheglobalformationofcolonialmodernityratherthanthechroniclesofnationalistanticolonialism,thisarticlearguesfortherelevanceofKangandofthestateofManchukuototheongoingstudyoftherelationshipbetweenperipheralliterary forms and capitalist modernity. Because it was an economic and ideologicaltesting ground, Manchukuo challenges the apparent characteristics of a periphery.ExaminingManchukuo’sculturaland literaryproductionthuscalls foranewmeansofunderstanding peripheral literature’s capacity to reveal nuanced dimensions of thecapitalist world-system. This article shows how the idea of peripheral realism, atheoreticalframeworkproposedbyJedEstyandColleenLye(2012),makesitpossibletoconstellateKang’snovelistic formwithinnewhorizonsofcomparabilityandrecoveredhistoriesofculturalproductionfarfromcapitalism’scenters.Viewedthroughthislens,Kang’swork in turnhelps tobreakupa falselymonolithicnotionof thenon-Westernperipheryandillustrateitsvariegatedtexture.Todemonstratethisprocess,Kang’s1934novella Salt (Sogŭm) is examined through the protagonist’s incongruous yet highlyreflective cognitive capacity, which operates as the very mode of registering andrespondingtoManchukuo’sinternalcontradictions.TotheextentthatSaltattemptstograsp the reality of a complicated capitalist imperialist society from a peripheralsubject’scompromisedvantagepoint,Kangstandsasaconsequentialvoiceforcomingtotermswithperipheralrealismanditspossibilities.

Keywords:KangKyŏngae,Manchukuo,peripheralrealism,Japaneseimperialism,Manchurianliterature,Koreanliterature,derangement

LivingasamigrantinKando—anarealargelyintoday’sYanbianprefectureinNortheastChina—from1931to1939,theprolificKorean-ManchurianwriterKangKyŏngae(1906–1944) left a rich archive of essays, letters, and novels that provides a glimpse into avibrant locality in the thick of world-historical events. Kangwas a witness to Japan’s

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ruthless imperial expansion across Manchuria throughout the height of her literarycareer, and her writings depict colonial peasant lives unraveling under harsh naturalconditions,poverty,andmilitaryviolence.1Kang’soeuvrehasbeenwidelydiscussedinbothNorthKoreanandSouthKoreanscholarship.2AccordingtoCuiHesong’saccount,South Korean scholarship on Kang starts to take shape in the 1970s and can becategorizedintofourcampsoftheoreticalinterest:thenatureofKang’srealism;Kang’sgender consciousness and examination of womanhood; comparative possibilitiesbetween Kang and non-Korean writers; and, lastly, the relationship between Kang’sworkandher“livedexperience”(ch’ehŏm)ofManchuria(Cui2014,243).Althoughthiscompartmentalization,inmyview,isbynomeansclear-cut,Iarguethatthereismorework to be done in the last category—historical contextualization—that attends toManchukuo’s specificity as a politico-economic space. This is the angle Cui himselfemploys when he underscores Kang’s indebtedness to Manchuria’s Korean malesocialistactivists.YiSangkyŏng,apioneerinKangKyŏngaestudies,tracksKang’searliesttravelstonorthernManchuriaandherencounterwithproletarianinternationalism,themarks of which are evident in Kang’s later works (Yi 2017). Nayoung Aimee Kwonforegrounds Manchukuo in Anglophone scholarship and interprets Kang’s stories as“revealing the anxieties of imperial borderline encounters and [raising] complexquestions about the triangulatedpositionofKorea inbetween JapanandChina”; thisperspective in turn helps complicate the “simplistic binary of resistance versuscollaboration” that emerged as a by-product of postcolonial nationalism (Kwon 2015,178).3 All three scholars’ efforts situate Kang within the transnational formation ofcolonialmodernityratherthanthediscourseofnationalistanticolonialism.

ThisarticleexpandstheconversationaboutKangKyŏngaebyadvocatingfortherelevanceofherwritingaboutManchukuotoongoingstudiesofhowperipheralliteraryforms register the combined and uneven development of themodernworld-system.4Given Manchukuo’s uniqueness as a periphery that was central to the Japanese

1ForaconciseyetcomprehensiveoverviewofKang’slifeinEnglish,seeKim(2013).2SouthKoreanscholarshipgainedmomentumonlyafterthegovernmentliftedthebanonthepublicationandresearchof“writerswhowentNorth”(wolbukchakka)inthelate1980s.Foraside-by-sidecomparisonofKang’sdifferenttreatmentsinthetwoKoreas,seeKimetal.(2006),acollectionofessaysproducedunderthecollaborationofNorthandSouthKoreancritics.AprominenttendencysharedwithinNorthKoreanscholarshipisthecelebratoryinterpretationofKangasarelentlessproponentofCommunism,atendencyalsofoundinthe1985NorthKoreanfilmadaptationofSalt.3ForanarticlethatdoesnotdiscussManchukuobutishelpfulinthinkingaboutKang’srelationshiptogloballiterarycontexts,seePerry(2013),whichputsKang’slongestwork,thenovelTheHumanProblem(In’ganmunje,1934),inproductiveconversationwiththegenreoftheWesternBildungsroman.4Thephrase“combinedandunevendevelopment”isoriginallyattributedtoLeonTrotsky.HereIfindhelpfultheWarwickResearchCollective’s(WReC)deploymentofthephrasetoidentifytheformal,generic,andaestheticconnectednessinthe“typologyofcombinedandunevendevelopment”(2015,17).

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imperialist vision of a utopic future, it is well worth considering how literature thatemergesfromthisspaceencodesinnarrativethesuperimpositionofcolonialmodernityover its complicated demography. Kang, whose work strove to expose the lives ofimpoverishedKoreanpeasantsinManchukuo,mustbeconsideredacriticalfigureinthisliterature.

Figure1.Self-portraitbyauthorKangKyŏngae.Source:Yŏsŏngmagazine,Nov.1939. My aim is first to historicize Manchukuo’sposition in the development of the modern world-system. This context will lay the groundwork forshowing how the concept of “peripheral realism,” atheoretical framework articulated by Jed Esty andColleen Lye (2012), provides a productivemeans forplacing Kang into a more expansive literaryunderstanding. Peripheral realism makes it possibleto simultaneously constellate Kang’s novelistic formwithin new horizons of comparability and recoveredhistories of variegated cultural production incapitalism’s peripheries. To substantiate this claim, I

turntoKang’s1934novellaSalt(Sogŭm),theauthor’slongestworksetinManchukuo.ThedestructivecolonialorderofManchukuodoesnotaffordKangtheideologicaltoolsor values throughwhich toproducea coherentaesthetic form. In this sense,Salt is aproduct of “historical derangement,” a term Sanjay Krishnan uses to describe theperipheral conditions of being “violently inducted into modern institutions ofproduction and exchange” (2012, 434). But in Kang’s sympathetic treatment, throughwhich she preserves the cognitive awareness of her subjects, we can discover anunlikelyperspectivethatregistersandcritiquestheglobaldynamicsofpower.

An inquiry into Kang’s peripherality requires discussion of recently renewedacademic concern with the history of literary realism in the peripheries of capitalistcenters.5 “Peripheral Realisms Now,” a special 2012 issue of Modern LanguageQuarterly,isthemostnotableinstantiationofthisinterest,andprovidesananalyticforuncoveringthetracesofrealism inperipheral, transnational,andcolonial regions.Theframework of peripheral realism is valuable for redressing the debilitating notion ofrealism as a bygone form by urging literary studies to reinvigorate realism’s radicalcredentials, which were lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. The understanding of

5Theterm“peripheral”originallydrawsfromworld-systemstheory,notablyImmanuelWallerstein’seconomicterminologyofcore,periphery,andsemi-periphery.Wallersteinspatializesthemoderncapitalistworld-systemintoregionalzonesaccordingtotheirrolesintheglobaleconomy.Foranencapsulatedversionoftheidea,seeWallerstein(2004).

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realism as a form “meant not to reproduce reality but to interrupt the quasi-naturalperceptionof realityasameregiven” is vital to recoveringperipheralnovels thatarecritically realist in theLukácianvein—oriented toward thedeepdynamicsofhistoricaland material forces informing their social referent (Esty and Lye 2012, 277).6 Theseeffortstouncoverthecorrespondencebetweensocialstructuresandliteraryformcanbe traced back to earliermoments of peripheral criticism, such as Roberto Schwarz’sinfluential work on “the dialectic of literary form and social process” in the Braziliancontext(Schwarz2012,10).7

Theconceptofperipheral realismhelpsmake itpossible to seeKangasbothManchukuo’s and global modernity’s writer, with realism providing the connectingtissue. But while preserving the language of (semi-)periphery and core, which keepsopenthepossibilityofconstellatingliteraturesofunder-discussedregionsandspaces,itseems pertinent here to consider whose periphery Manchukuo is. The notion thatEurope is not the “singular repository of capitalism” is especially important in Kang’scase,giventhatJapannotonlyentersthecapitalistworld-systemasauniqueforcebutalso takes a distinct course in developing its peripheries (Choi 2003, 336).8 Themostimportant distinction here is that, in order to overcome its status as a latecomer toimperialism and emerge as a fully capitalist empire, Japan needed “to sanctify andlegitimise its colonial project as ‘redeeming Asia from the exploitation of theWest’”(Choi2003,333).Thatis,Japan’scapitalistexpansionviaimperialismcruciallydependedon the ideologicalandpolemicaldevelopmentof thesocialandcultural sphere.Whatconsequences do such conditions hold, then, for the consciousness of Manchukuo’speripheral subjects? Moreover, how does the way in which capitalist modernitymanifested in colonial spaces of Japan add to or shift existing conceptions of literaryperipheries?Inotherwords,doJapan’speripheriesproduceadistinctkindofperipheralliterature?

Inheressay,“ThePan-AsianEmpireandWorldLiteratures,”SowonParktakesupthesequeriesbyintroducingEastAsiaasahithertoneglectedperspectiveinthinkingaboutworldliterature.Sheexploresthepossibilityofimaginingcoherenceinliteraturebeyond thenationwhile tending to theepistemicdivergences thatarise from Japan’s6Peripheralrealismhasbeenmetwithasearchforperipheral“irrealism”deployedbytheWReC.Despitetheseeminglycontrastingtakesonthekindofformthatperipheralliteraturesshare,Lyearguesthatrealism“persistswithinandevendefinestheWReC’smethodofreadingmodernistorexperimentalformsthatare‘irrealist’inappearance”(Lye2016,345).Thatis,thedebatesshareadesiretoseekoutliteraturethatisrealistintheirattempttograsptotality,orcapitalism’screationofunevenrelationsofpowerbetweenregionsandclasses,whetherornottheoutwardformofthatdesireisrecognizablyorconventionallyunderstoodtoberealist.7SeealsoSchwarz(2001)forabook-lengthstudyoftherelationshipbetweenaestheticformandsocialcontentintheworkofMachadodeAssis.8AlsoseeCumings,whotracesthehistoryofJapanesecapitalism,notingthat,unlikemanyEuropeancases,Japan’s“lateralexpansion”involved“ahighlyarticulated,disciplined,penetratingcolonialbureaucracy”thatcombinedmilitarypowerwithaggressivedevelopmentagendassuchaslandreformsandinfrastructuralgroundwork(1984,10).

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mode of imperialism, which “required a restructuring of the feudal system into anindustrialcapitaliststate,butalsoaspecificallyAsianideology”(2013,4).AnEastAsianperspective, Park argues, doesnotpromptone todiscard the conceptsof center andperipherybutprovidesan“additionalandatypicalmodel”inthatthedisparateregionalresponses to Japan’sabsorptionanddisseminationofEuropean literary textsproduceEastAsiaasa“‘surrogateperiphery’withTokyoasthecenterofthatperiphery”(2013,8). Even though practitioners ofworld-systems theory like ImmanuelWallerstein andGiovanniArrighiundercutthesimplicityofabinarysystembydevelopingtheconceptofsemi-peripheries, Park distances herself from that language,which describes politico-economic mediation. Rather, she opts to specify Japan’s particular and forcefuldevelopmentofculturalandideologicalrelationshipsbetweenitselfanditsperipheries.Whereas Park provides an overview of how Japan’s pan-Asianism guided thedisseminationof European literature’s translation and adaptation in the colonies, thisarticle takes a ground-up approach to peripheral literatures by examining therelationship between Manchukuo’s distinctive material conditions and literary formthrough the case study of Kang. This case also illuminates a dimension of worldliterature that Park neglects, namely, a world literature that is co-constituted by theSovietUnion and Japan, amodel thatmakesmore sensewhen considering Kang andcolonialKorea’ssocialistwriters.AlthoughPark’sideathatEastAsianliteraturepromptsan understanding of world literature as multicentric is certainly useful, the centersexcavatedherearetheSovietUnion(ratherthanWesternEurope)andJapan.But,mostimportantly, situating Kang’s novella Salt in world literature means examining itsrelationshiptothedeepersocialstructuresofManchukuo.

TheQuestionofManchukuoLiterature

Imperial Japan had ambitious geostrategic and economic interests in makingManchukuo a central part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Taedongakongyŏng), a self-sufficient economic bloc consisting of Japan, Manchukuo, Korea,China’s eastern parts, and Southeast Asian nations. Prasenjit Duara argues thatManchukuo was the world’s first instantiation of “the new imperialism,” a particularform of empire that “reflected a strategic conception of the periphery as part of anorganicformationdesignedtoattainglobalsupremacyfortheimperialpower”(2006a,2).ManchukuowasnotsimplytheperipheryoftheWestbutalsobothaperipheryofTokyo in amulticentricworld-system and an “autonomous empirewithin an empire”(Hotta 2007, 110).9 This particular economic and geopolitical configuration positsManchukuoasastrangeandatypicalkindofperipheryburdenedwithimperialvisionsforitsriseaspartoftheimperial“core.”LouiseYoungsuccinctlydescribesManchukuoas a space in which these inextricable ties between capitalism and cultural, social,military,andpoliticalspherescreateda“totalempire”thatwasonceveryrealand“took

9ForthehistoryofthediversenationalitiesinManchuriapriortotheoccupation,seeS.Park(2016).

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placeintherealmoftheimagination”(1998,17).Toaddtothecomplexity,thestrongChinesepresenceintheregionmeantthatitwasahotbedofmultipleambitions.HyunOkParkexplains,“AlthoughtheJapaneseandChinesepowerscompetedforterritorialsovereignty in Manchuria, they shared dreams of the capitalist development ofagriculture.ItwaswithintheentangledrelationshipbetweentheJapaneseandChinesepowers that Koreans (and Chinese) found an interstitial space where they sought tonegotiatewithboth”(2005,20).

Japan’s economic vision for Manchukuo required ideological grounds thatassignedcolonialrelationsdifferentlyfromthatofEuropeanmodels.KariShepherdson-Scottnotesthat“Japanesepolitical,military,andeconomicstateinstitutionscultivatedthe image ofManchukuo as an ideal, multiethnic state and a ‘paradise’ (rakudo) forsettlement inorder togeneratedomesticsupportandto legitimizeoccupationontheworldstage” (2012,9).The Japanesestate’s termfor this idealized imageofaunifiedAsianfrontisojokhyŏphwainKorean,meaningthe“harmonyofthefiveraces.”Duaratraces the inspiration ofManchukuo’s ideological constitution to Soviet promotion ofinterethnic harmony: “Several political analysts in Manchukuo drew their ideas ofnationality from the Soviet model. Tominaga Tadashi…notes admiringly, thatnationalism was not suppressed but utilized positively for the goals of the socialiststate” (2006b, 9). Thus,Manchukuowas not simply a periphery subjected to colonialcapitalistexploitationbutinsteadwasmadeintoatestinggroundofoverlappingidealsandpractices.Itwas,infact,aspacethatwasbeingfast-trackedtoplaytheroleoftheimperialutopicproxycoreonthecontinent.

ButalthoughtheKwantungArmyhadsuchambitiouseconomicandideologicalvisionsinstoreforManchukuo,theactualimplementationofJapan’spolicieshardlymetexpectations. From 1931 to 1933—the early years of Manchukuo providing thebackdrop of Salt—the economic implementation and the enforcement of interethniccooperationwasvagueandwithoutstructure.10Oneofthearmy’sstrategiesofinvasionwas to co-opt the local eliteswhose distance from the Chinesemetropole allowed adegree of independence.When it came to the larger ideal of cultivating multiethniccoexistence,however,thisapproachhadtheoppositeresultfromwhatwasintended.InthevacuumofeconomicandideologicalcontrolintheearlyperiodofcolonialholdoverManchuria, Manchukuo took on different valences of significance for different anti-imperialcollectives,inthatitbecameacriticalfrontierforChineseCommunists,Koreansocialist-nationalists,andJapaneseleftistintellectuals.11Theboundariesbetweenthese

10SeeMitter,“Evenaslateas1March1933…theManchukuogovernment’spublishedplanforeconomicconstructionwas‘vagueandgeneral,’althoughitwasmadeclearthatthegovernmentintendedtocontrolstrategicindustriesandaimforagriculturalself-sufficiency.Thislackofdecisionsonthepolicyinthenewstateexplainswhysolittleappearedtochangeineconomictermsintheinitialphaseoftheoccupation”(2000,76).11See,forexample,Smith,whoprovidesanaccountofhowChinesewomen-authoredtextsshedlightonJapaneseimperialisminManchukuo(2007),andCulver,whotracksJapaneseleft-wing

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groupswere not always clear, towit: KoreanCommunists in Chinawere obligated tointegratethemselvesintotheChineseCommunistParty(CCP)underthedirectionoftheSixthCominternCongress in1928,but they continued toequatenational causeswiththeirsocialistactivities.Theywerepersecutedinturnbyanticommunist,pro-JapaneseKoreans(Minsaengdan),whoattemptedtodismantlethealliancebetweenChineseandKoreanCommunists.12Fromthetrajectoriesofsuchinterwovenalliancesandconflictinginterests, we can conclude that, with the establishment of Manchukuo, theManchuregion underwent a transformation in multiple national and other collectiveimaginations.FromanimperialJapaneseperspective,itbecamean“elevated”peripheryinterlacedwithaprojectionof imperialdesireandfuturity.FromtheChinese,Korean,andJapaneseleft-wingangles,itwasahinterlandrepurposedasthepoliticalcenterofanti-imperial activities. On an ideological level,Manchukuo afforded some Koreans achoicetorefusetheenforcementofnaesŏnilch’e—theidea,propagatedinKorea,thatJapanandKoreaareof“onebody”—andtoliveinsteadunderManchukuo’ssloganofmultiethnicharmony,howeverfraughtthepractice(Kim2014,2).Onapractical level,particularly for the stateless Korean peasantry, Manchuria offered both the literalgroundsforself-sufficientagricultural laborandthesymbolicgroundsforsurvival. It isimportant to note that other persecuted ethnic groups inManchukuo often failed tomake the distinction betweenKoreans and Japanese.However,Manchukuo seems tohave been an attractive option to Korean peasants compared with the systematicoppressionofidentityexpressioninKorea.13

Because Manchukuo with its politico-economic history evades any simplecenter-peripherybinarymodel, examining its cultural and literaryproduction suggeststhecapacityofperipheral literaturetorevealmorenuanceddimensionsof theworld-system.Thatis,culturalexpressionsregistermorethanthestrictlyeconomicdynamicsthat define a periphery and instead represent the lived experience within a society,suspended inwhatRaymondWilliams calls “structures of feeling” (1977, 132). In thisview,surelytheentangleddreamsthatpervadedManchukuomarktheworksofwriterslikeKang.

intellectualswho,alongsideKoreanintellectualsandartists,foundManchkuo“aspacefortheprojectionofvariousideologicalandculturaldreams”(2013,23).12OntherelationsbetweenKoreanandChineseCommunists,VladimirTikhonovwrites,“KoreanexclusionofresidentChinese,combinedwithadmirationforChina’srevolutions,wasparalleledbytheoutburstsofanti-KoreansentimentsinChinaandthecontrastbetweensuchsentimentsonthegroundandtheofficialpronouncementsforSino-KoreansolidarityatbothGuomindangandChineseCommunistPartyheadquarters.BothKoreanandChinesenationalismswerealienatedbytheJapaneseexpansiononthecontinentinthefirsthalfofthetwentiethcentury,butthepoliticalalliancebetweenthemdidnotimplyblurringoftheethnicboundaries:onthecontrary,moderndevelopmentsworkedrathertoreifythem”(2016,186).13ForadetailedaccountofthemigrationofKoreanpeasantsasan“osmoticprocess,”seethefirstchapterofPark(2005).

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ContextualizingKangKyŏngaeinthiswaystartstoshedlightonhertrajectoryasawriterwhoisasanomalousasManchukuoisatypical.Ontheonehand,althoughKangisofteninvokedasaKoreanrealistwriteranda“fellowtraveler”oftheKoreanArtistaProletaFederacio (KAPF), theofficial centerofKoreansocialistartisticactivities in thelate 1920s and early 1930s, she differed from her urban and mostly male Koreancontemporaries.Herconnectiontorecognizedglobalandregionalmovements,suchassocialist internationalismoranti-Japaneseresistance, ismoretenuousthanthatoftheKAPF,not leastbecauseshehada lowereconomicstatusthanthemanyKAPFwriterswhohad themeans to study in Japan.On theotherhand,Kangwashardly like someothercontemporarywritersofManchukuo,inthatshedidnotparticipateinthequestto lay cultural claims on the land, as did the historian Sin Ch’aeho by incorporatingManchuria into the scope of Korean national history, or measuring up Manchukuo’ssuccess or failure in fulfilling Japan’s idealized vision, as did pro-Japanesewriters likeChangHyŏkchu and Chŏng Int’aek.14 Kang’sworks are thematically closer to those ofliterary writers like An Sukil, Choe Sŏhae, and Yi Kiyŏng, who traveled to or lived inKando and depicted its peasant life. But no Korean-Manchurian writer of the 1930sfocused on women’s lives in asmuch detail as Kang. This commitment to colonized,impoverished,migrant Korean female subjectsmaps Kang onto political, literary, andgeographicalperipheries,but insuchmarginalizationKang findsuniquewaysofgivingnovelisticformtothesocialandpoliticalcontentofManchukuo.

ThenovellaSaltisexemplaryinillustratingKang’srefusaltoportrayManchukuoas anything other than what it is: a paradoxical space whose social history suggestsconquest, oppression, and neglect coexisting simultaneously with liberation, utopicvisions, and hope. The complexity of social relations in Salt reveals Kang’s deepcommitmenttorealism,inthatthetextrepresentsandregistersthesocialrelationsandsubjective experiences that undergo transformation in the unfolding of colonialmodernity.Fromthemostperipheralvantagepoint,thetextapproachesanexperienceof theworld-systemasone that canbe articulated, howevermediated and fractionalthat articulation might be. That is, it is ultimately the local, the quotidian, and themarginalsubjectandauthorwhocangivelanguagetothedynamicsoftheglobal.

14Manchukuo’scriticalimportanceasaperipheryburdenedwithcarryingtheimperialutopicfuturegalvanizedboththeJapanesestateandKoreancolonialsubjectsintolayingcompetingculturalclaimsontheland.ForstudiesofChangHyŏkchuandChŏngInt’aek,seeKim(2014)andSeo(2014),respectively.ForanexampleofhowJapanesepolicinginfluencedtheKoreanliterarysceneinManchukuothroughinterferencewiththepublicationprocessoftheManchuriannewspaperMansŏnilbo,seeJin(2009,15–27).RegardingKoreannationalistrewritingsofManchurialikeSin’s,AndreSchmidnotesthatarcheologicaldiscoveriesofKoreanrelicsintheregion“stimulated[forKoreans]anostalgiaandromanticyearningforastronger,moreancientKoreawhenthelandstothenorthwerenotoccupiedbyothers”(2002,226).

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DerangementandReflectioninSalt

TheconcernsofSaltarelegibleinKang’snonfictionwritingsfromthesameperiod.Inashort,impressionisticessaywrittenonawinternight,KangelucidatestheoveralleffectofManchukuolifeasforeign,disorienting,andevenabsurd,asinthefollowinglament:

ThisisKando.ThelandbordersSiberiainthenorthwest,Chosŏninthesoutheast.Itisalandthatisnegativefortydegreeswhenitiscold.Aftertoilingontheland,[thepoorfarmers]cryintheextremecold!Seventy-fivechŏnforonetuofwhiterice,twowŏnandtwentychŏnforonetuoftablesalt,atawhoppingthreetimesthepriceofrice!…Thesituationthat surrounds this land is inescapably complicated. This landhas lostneutralityinbetweenextremes.(Kang[1933]1999,744)15Kangisfirstbaffledbythepricesthatshedeemspreposterouslyoutofscale—

whatwasonceacommoncondimentinKoreahasbecomeanunaffordableluxury.Buttheobservationofaworldoutofproportion,asitwere,seguesintoKang’sawakeningtothelarger,“inescapablycomplicated”politicalandeconomicdynamicsofManchukuoaroundthesalttax.16Theunjustorderoftheempireisviscerallyfeltatitsnewlymadeborders.

ItseemsthatKang,tohersurprise,foundthelocalinhabitantsofManchukuotobenolessperceptivethansheindetectingtheillogicoftheirsharedworld.Inavignettefromthefollowingyear,sherecallsalumberjackwhodeceivedherintobuyingastackofpoor-qualityfirewood.WhenKangconfrontshim,themandoesnotapologizeforhismisdeedbut insteadretorts,“Whenall things [deceive],whyshouldatreenotdothesame?” (Kang [1934b] 1999, 748). Kang writes that the matter-of-fact quality of theresponseastonishedherintopayingfullpriceforthewood,andsheexpressescuriosityandadmiration forKando’speasants.Whatcapturesheradmiration is thecapacityofthepeculiarremarktoterselybutincisivelydistillaprofoundoutlookacquiredfromthelivedexperience.Thisimageofthepeasant,lucidlyunderstandingtheabsurd,inhumanematerialconditionsinwhichtheymustoperate,appearsinmanyofKang’sstoriessetinKando.Forexample,theKoreanlaborerin“Existence,Nonexistence”(“Yumu,”[1934a]1999)surprisesthenarratorwiththeclaritywithwhichhedescribesasuspiciouslyrealdreaminwhichhiswifeandbabyaremassacred.In“MotherandChild”(“Moja,”[1935]1999), themotherwalks intoadeadlysnowstormwithanewfounddetermination for

15AlltranslationsofKanginthisarticlearemine,andanyfaultsormistakesaremineandmineonly.OriginaltextsfoundinreprintedforminKangKyŏngaechŏnjip,editedbyYiSangkyŏng(1999).16TaxonsaltwasoneofthemainsourcesofrevenuefortheManchuriangovernmentevenbeforetheestablishmentofManchukuo.Onceinpower,theKwantungArmytookoverexistinginfrastructurestosecurecontinuousprofit:“In1932thegovernmentassumedresponsibilityforthecollectionofmaritimetariffsandthesaltmonopoly,andunifiedcustomsandtaxcollection”(Paine2010,75).

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life. In “Underground Village” (“Chihach’on,” [1936] 1999), the beggar, once anexemplary factory worker, hints at knowing that his disabled legs involve largerstructural forces at play. These glimpses afford Manchukuo’s wretched inhabitantsincomplete but sober awareness of the internal contradictions of colonialism,capitalism, and structural poverty.But perhaps none provides as detailed a sketch ofManchukuo’sdisorientedyetconscioussubjectasdoesSalt,whichtracksthehardshipsofaKoreanwomanwhocomestomakeherlivingbysmugglingsaltacrosstheKoreanborder. The story’s protagonist, named simply “Pongyŏm’s mother” (hereafter, “themother”),standsoutnotonlyinherrelentlesssurvivalinthemaddenedcircumstancesofherworld,butalsointhewaythatshefirstexposesandthenrefusestomakesenseofManchukuo’sincomprehensibility.

SetinthesouthernManchuriancityofYongjŏng(Ch.Longjing),thenovellaisanunflinching depiction of an impoverished Korean tenant farming family thatdisintegrates after the father is murdered by communist guerillas, allegedly for hisdealings with a local Chinese landlord, P’angdung. Pongsik, the son, leaves thedespondent mother, while the mother and Pongyŏm, the daughter, take temporaryresidence in P’angdung’s household, where they are employed as menial workers.P’angdungrapesandimpregnatesthemother,andhesoondrivesherandPongyŏmoutofhishouse, reasoning thathewitnessedPongsik’sexecution forbeingaCommunist.Themother,distraughtatthenewsthathersonhadjoinedthepeoplewhohadkilledhisfather,wandersthebarrenlandandgivesbirthtoPonghŭi,herseconddaughter,inashed.WiththehelpofaKoreanacquaintance,themotherbecomesalive-inwetnurseforawealthierKoreanhousehold,butherownneglecteddaughterslaterdieofpoverty-relatedillnesses.ThemothereventuallyjoinsagroupofKoreansaltsmugglerswhotakeadvantage of Japan’s salt monopoly in Manchukuo. When the group encounterscommunistguerillasontheir journey,themother issurprisedthattheCommunistsdonot steal fromherandactually seem interested inherwelfare.ThenovellaconcludeswithhercapturebytheJapanesepoliceattheendofhertreacherousjourney.

Inthisdisparagingstorytoldthroughakindoffreeindirectnarration—weavingin and out of the suffering consciousness of the mother—is it possible to identify anarrative impulse that grasps at some order beneath themisfortunes? Critics of Salthave predominantly framed the mother’s encounter with Communists as the story’sinflection point and a revelatory moment for the mother, in which she corrects hermisjudgments about the guerillas and comes to recognize them as allies againstJapaneseoppression.17Readingthestory’slastscenesasresolvingthetensionbetween

17ForafewexamplesofreadingsthatemphasizetheCommunistappearanceinSaltasthecriticalturningpointofthenarrativedirection,seeKim(2000,97)and,inKimetal.(2006),theworksofHaChŏngil(15),HaSangil(57),KimChŏngung(205),andOhHyangsuk(236–237).Incontrasttosuchreadings,NayoungAimeeKwon(2015,182–183)criticizestheinterpretivedesiretoexaggeratethemother’sresistanceandtoreadnationalisticundertoneswheretherearenone.KwonseesthenovellaascooptedbytheKorean“postcolonialregimeofrealism,apoliticizeddemandfortherepresentationofcolonialreality(whichoftenmeansanexposéof

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the Communists and themother casts the latter as a divided subjectwho enters theworld ignorant and is saved by enlightenment brought by external forces. Such areadingobscuresKang’sdepictionofthemother’sstrikinglycomplexself-understandingthroughoutherhardships.18Bytrackingthemomentsofapparent inconsistency inthenarrativeofthemother’spsychology,Iwouldliketoofferadifferentaccountofsubjectformation, in which the mother is a consistently “aware” or reflective figure whoseseeminglyincongruousandconfusedmomentsoperateastheverymodeofregisteringdeeperhistoricalpredicaments.

AhelpfulpointofreferenceformyreadingofSaltcanbefoundinthenotionofhistoricalderangementadvancedbySanjayKrishnan,mentionedearlier.InhisstudyoftheBritish-basedIndo-TrinidadianauthorV.S.Naipaul,Krishnansetsouttocorrectthediscomfort that Naipaul’s caustic representation of the peripheries carries forpostcolonial critics. Bridging Naipaul’s fictional and nonfictional accounts, Krishnanreads Naipaul’s unsympathetic portrayal of peripheral societies as conveying anattentiveness—rather thancontemptorEurocentrism—thatmustaccompany the taskof writing about the peripheries. Naipaul understands that a peripheral writer, inencounteringthe“derangingeffects”ofmodernity,mustleaveuntreated“theabsenceorfailureoftheepistemicinterfacewearetreatedtobyCartesianrationality”(Krishnan2012,449).Inotherwords,thesystematicnatureofthecapitalistworldcanbegraspedonlyby authorswhohave theprivilegeof a vantagepoint.Not all peripheralwriters,however, lack this viewpoint. For example, Brazilian writers in Roberto Schwarz’sanalyses are able to express the social contradictionsof their nationwith thehelpofmediating ideologies that allow them to “claim metropolitan values” whileexperimenting with distinctive formal gestures (Krishnan 2012, 442). But Krishnan’sNaipaul must contemplate the lack of coherent ideological prisms through which toseamlesslymakesenseofhisperipheralsociety.Thusderangement—theundergirdingreasonwhy postcolonial critics findNaipaul unpalatable—becomes amodeofwritingthat carries the inevitablemark of the periphery’s violent integration intomodernity.Thus, Krishnan assesses the derangement informing Naipaul’s work as a potentiallyproductivemethodofanalyzingperipheralrealisms,remarking,“[Derangement]makesavailable perspectives derived from shared but diverse expressions of peripheralhistoricity”(2012,435).

colonialexploitationbyJapanandcolonialresistancebyKorea)”(2015,175).Approachingtheissuefromafeministangle,SunyoungParkalsonotesthatnationalistdesirestocelebratethe“salvificlove”ofthemotherpreventsthemorenuancedreadingofKang’sfeminism;“Kang’sdestructiveexposureofafailingmotherhood”allowsinsteadfor“apositiverecastingofdomesticityintruerandmoreresponsibleterms”(Park2015,220).BothKwonandParkguidemyreadingofSaltasastoryofambivalence,contradictions,andlimitations,ratherthanalineartaleofideologicalgains.18HereIdifferfromKwon’sclaimthat“thestoryismoreabouttheutterlackofaccesstothisreality”(2015,182)toarguethatthemother’slucidperceptionofherownlimitationsprovesamorecomplicatedpictureofthecharacter.

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Indemonstrating themakingofaperipheralhistory, Salt’s initial treatmentofManchukuo complements Naipaul’s rendering of peripheral society. The novella’sopeningevidencesa tumultuous landscape thatdiffers fromthe impoverishedKoreanvillageundersystematicexploitation,familiarfromstoriespennedbytheKAPF:

ThePowitan [保衛團,ChineseArmy]wouldroamthefarmland, takingwhattheycouldtosupplementtheirmeagerwages.Butnowadays,thearmy did not hesitate to threaten and steal from peasants in broaddaylight. Thepeasants knew theyhad tohavemoneyor rice ready topreserve their lives. Then the Communists arrived, which led thelandlordsandthearmytofleeforthecitiesandtoneverventure intoCommunist-occupied territories even on occasional return visits. Buttimes changed once more, and the Chawitan [自衛團, pro-Japanesevigilante corps] appeared while the Communists retreated. ([1934c]1999,492)Thisvisionofapolitical landscape inconstant turmoil revealsa traumaticand

violentemergenceintomodernitymarkedbythestruggleamongcommunistguerillas,Chinese landlordsofapre-existingeconomic system,andpeasantparamilitarygroupsunderJapanesecontrol. Itquicklyachievesasenseofsimultaneouscolonialextractionandrefuge,ofnoncapitalistagrarianandcapitalistmodesofproduction,ofmultiracialcohabitationandhostility.Fromthenon,Kang’snarrationgoesthroughrapidchangesinscale, oscillating between a bird’s-eye view of Manchukuo’s palimpsest-like world,crudelyoverlainwithcapitaliststructures,andtheprotagonist’slistlessglanceataflagmountedonaclaywall—theformer,anemblemofJapaneseoccupiers;thelatter,theremnants of peasant toil under the preceding regime of Chinese landlords ([1934c]1999,493).Directionlessmodernityunfoldsalongsidetheprotagonist’squandariesoverheruglynailsandwonderingsabouthowtomakefoodpalatableintheabsenceofsalt.

DerangementandincongruityarecertainlyapartofManchukuo’sconstitutionin Salt. But it cannot be ignored that Kang is hardly as unsympathetic toward herpeasant characters as Naipaul is toward his subjects. Kang’s exposure to socialistprinciplesmayhavecontributedtothistrait,asCui(2014,248–249)notes.However,itis clear frompersonalessays like “Kando” ([1934]1999) thatKang’s sympathy for thepeasants isverymuchgroundedineverydayinteractionwiththemandafaith intheircognitive abilities to recognize, even without fully comprehending, the socialcontradictionsthatshapetheir lives.This isnottosaythatderangedcircumstances inKang’swritingsdemonstratean“epistemicprivilege”onherpartorhercharacters’.ButKangiscompelledtofindpotentialwithinpaucity,assheiscompelledtopreserveinhercharacters the fragmented and vertiginous capacity to reflect, which cannot changerealitybut isactivenonetheless.Suchwritingprocuresa futureby locatingdiscordantawareness—even if thatawarenessmusttaketheformofdiscordanceor interruptionitself—and recalls that Manchukuo, in its social constitution, was a periphery shot

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through with the contesting hopes of imperialism and revolution. The mother’spsychological travails, however myopic they might seem, are therefore at once theproductandprismofManchukuo’sformation.

In moments when the effects of historical derangement encroach mostprominently on the mother’s subjectivity, we see a kind of psychological responsetingedwithself-awarenessthatisfarfromanyformcomparabletobourgeoisinteriorityormetropolitan rationality. Two scenes in the novella particularly characterize Kang’srenderingofsuchderangement.Thefirstsceneoccursafterthewidowedprotagonistisraped and impregnated by P’angtung. In the aftermath of this sexual violence, she isfilledwithdesireforherassailant’slove.19Thepassageisworthquotingatsomelengthforitsportraitofanerraticmind:

She felt an endless stream of affection toward P’angtung. She sighedandwipedthesweatoffherforehead.WhenwillIbeabletotalktohimcomfortablyandreceivehislove?Themerethoughtgavehershiversofjoy.Butwhensherealizedthepredicamentherlifewasin,shewantedtocry.SheenviedP’angtung’swife….Shetriedtofighthimtodeathbutlost, and now shewas pregnant with his child.When she consideredthis,itdidnotseemthatthecrimewashers.Butwhywassheunabletoexpressall this toP’angtung?Andwhydid shehave to suppressevenher desire to eat a bowl of cold noodles? “Why can’t I tell him?Whyhesitate?Iwilltellhimso.Iwill.AndthatIwantabowlofnoodles,”shethought, and her mouth watered as she imagined the sight of thenoodles. But realizing that such a thoughtwasmerely a thought, shesighed and chuckled at herself. The fact that she wanted noodles sochildishly,when all kinds of problems surrounded her likemountains,seemedridiculousandpathetic.Butnothingcanbedoneabouthunger.Thethroatitchesfromit.([1934c]1999,507)Themother’slongingforherassailant—difficulttointerpret,forboththereader

and thevictimherself—is interruptedby the recognition thatgross injusticehasbeencommitted against her. This is a potentially formative moment in which the motherrefuses self-blame. But that sense is quickly overthrown by a digressive craving for abowlofcoldnoodles (naengmyŏn) that, sheangrily realizes,P’angtung’smoneycouldbuyher.Theseboutsoffixationandself-perceptionareincongruousanddiscordantin

19SeeBerlantforaprovocativereadingoftherelationshipbetweenmasscrisisandproblematicattachmentsthatprovide“negotiatedsustenancethatmakeslifebearableasitpresentsitselfambivalently,unevenly,incoherently”(2011,14).Berlantdefinestheseattachmentsas“cruel”inthat“thesubjectswhohavexintheirlivesmightnotwellendurethelossoftheirobject/sceneofdesire,eventhoughitspresencethreatenstheirwell-being,becausewhateverthecontentoftheattachmentis,thecontinuityofitsformprovidessomethingofthecontinuityofthesubject’ssenseofwhatitmeanstokeeponlivingonandtolookforwardtobeingintheworld”(2011,24).

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form, alternating between the “mountains” of problems thatweigh on her existenceand a bowl of noodles. The mother is fully cognizant of her unquenchable physicalhunger for cold noodles as inappropriate and untimely. She makes, however, anextraordinarymovetoletherdesiretakeitscourse,andallowsherselftofeelherowndeficient reason:“Butnothingcanbedoneabouthunger.”Here, theslip intopresenttense, although frequent enough throughout the novella, becomes charged with adeclarative power and makes it unclear as to whether the wielder of the revelatoryvoice is themother, the narrator, or Kang. Themother’s self-aware irrationality, thecatalyst of which is ineradicable hunger, becomes both a symptom of and defianceagainstthelogicofhergenderedandcolonizedreality.

In the second scene thatdemonstratesKang’s renderingof derangement, themother undergoes anothermoment ofmisidentificationwhen she discovers that hertwodaughtershavestarvedtodeathwhilesheservedasawetnurseforaninfantinawealthier Koreanhousehold. In the courseof grieving for herowndead children, themotherbecomesobsessedbydesireto layclaimonMyŏngsu,thechildforwhomshehasbeencaring:

She got up. She paced the room to stop her thinking. But the painfulmemories were like fire sparks and could not be stopped. NowMyŏngsu’sfaceentershermindandwhirlsabout.Hesmiles.“Iwonderifheiscrying…”shewonderedoutloud,andtriedtodistractherselfbyutteringthingsshedidnotmean.“Youbastard,PongyŏmandPonghŭidied because of you. Go away!” ButMyŏngsu’s face draws closer, somuch so that she could touch him if she reached out… She bites herhand.Thepainofmissingthechildisasmuchasthepaininherhand.([1934c]1999,524)AsmuchasSaltisastoryofthemother’sworkingbody,hereitbecomesatale

of anoverwhelmedmind, loadedwithuncontrollable thoughts. Themother’s anguishstems from recognizing her love as nonsensical—her love for the child who literallydrainedherofthenutrientsthatcouldhavefedherownchildren.Shebitesherhandasa formof self-punishment,but the feeling isonly reinforced.That themother fails toremedy her own fixation, despite rationalizing self-talk, exemplifies the entangledrelationship between emotional attachment and deranged realities. Just as she hasserviced the future of others, while facing the impossibility of her own future, shecannotproperlymournherdaughtersbecauseoftheemotionaltiesthatherlaborhasproduced. Infact,Manchukuomakesmourningstructurally impossible: ifPonghŭi, theillegitimatefemalechild,physicallymaterializestherealitiesofthemother’sexperienceasaprecariousfemalesubject,the likelihoodofsustainingthatfuture isshadowedbythe legitimacy of (and the mother’s own recognition of) Myŏngsu’s viable future. Inotherwords,themother’sdoomeddesireto“mother”Myŏngsuthenbecomesaform

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ofdesiretoassociatewithafuturethatisdeniedtoher—adesirethatdoesnotknowtheproperboundariesbetween“usandthem”andismonstrouslyconsuming.

The episodes concerning P’angdung and Myŏngsu exemplify the tensionbetweenthemother’soverabundantdesiresandhercapacitytounderstand,howeverpartially, the inevitability of those desires. The desires are ultimately unstoppableinsofarastheyaredesiresforaviablefuture,whetherasaChineselandlord’swifeorawealthier(andmale)Korean,butalsodoomed,assheherselfrecognizes.Inshort,thiscognitivetensionexpressesthecontradictorinessofManchukuo’sreality,namely,tothestate’sdenialofa future to thosewhocannotacceptcolonialmodernityasa rationaland undisturbing reality. The mother’s incorrigible irrationality—the meta-self thatobserves herself trapped inManchukuo’s social fabric— reveals in its wake the veryirrationality of Manchukuo’s constitution, much like the firewood seller’s potentrhetoricalquestioninKang’smemory.

Tracing howManchukuo’s social unevenness provides cause for themother’s“confused yet lucid” subjectivity yields in amore ambivalent reading of Salt’s endingthanwhathasbeenprovidedinmostaccountsofthenovella.Theimpassesofcolonialreality culminate in themostdifficult challengeagainst themother’sability to reflect,namely,thecontradictionbetweencommunistviolenceandsocialisthope.Afterlosingher daughters, the mother commits herself to the treacherous illegal trade of saltsmuggling.Whereasherpreviousexperienceswereshapedpredominantlybyisolation,the community of smugglers offers themother a heightened sense of solidarity thatdoesnotexistintherestofthenovella.Butevenwhenthemothernearlydrownsinariverwhile trying toprotecther assigned loadof salt, and the leaderof the salt packrisks his own life to save her, a possible form of compassion is inextricable from itsboundedness to the logic of minimizing loss and maximizing profit. It is during thishaphazard journey to outsmart the colonial tax system that the smugglers encounterthe Communists, whose men have killed—so the mother was told by Pongsik—themother’shusband.TheCommunists,symbolicallypositionedattheborderofKoreaandManchuria,impartamessagetoawakenthesmugglerstothedeeperinjusticesoftheirdirereality:

“People! Do you know why you toil under your loads of salt in themiddle of the night, deprived of sleep?” A metallic and stately voicerises and fallswith thewind. “Right, Communists!At least theywon’tconfiscatethesalt,”thesmugglersthought,astheywonderedhowtheyshould plead their release. The more the voice continued, the moretheywished tobe released. Theywerebecoming increasinglyworriedthat the [Japanese] security forcesmight behiding in or on theothersideofthemountainsanddiscoverthattheyhavebeenlisteningtothelectureof theCommunists.Pongyŏm’smotherrecalledthetimewhenshewenttoPongyŏm’sschoolinSsandŏgŏuandheardateacherspeak,and noted how similar this voicewas to the teacher’s. She raised her

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headandpeeredintothedark.Butundertheveilofdarkness,onlythevoicetraveled. IsPongsikwiththem?Shequicklydismissedtheworry.SheconcludedthatPongsikwasunusuallysmartandthuswouldneverjoinsuchpeople.([1934c]1999,534–535)The voice detached from any identifiable body becomes one with the

atmosphereandthenight,asifthemessageofCommunismispropagatednotsomuchby the guerillas but as a counter-logic of sorts endemic to the very environment ofManchukuo. The speech, on the one hand, seems to urge self-reflection as a pathtowardreclaimingtheirlabor.Ontheotherhand,thespeechisironic:thesmugglersaredistractedlistenerspreciselybecausetheyareawareoftheircriticalsituationasvictimsat the crossroads of theCommunists and the Japanese security guards.Moreover, asseen earlier in this article, the mother has repeatedly demonstrated that herfragmentedbutactivepowersof reflectiongrasp the social relationships thatoppressher in complex ways. The power of the speech, then, is diminished in the narrativecontext,makingtheencountermorehollowandanticlimacticthanrevelatory.Addingtothis effect, the mother regains her capacity for effusive contemplation to locate thecontradictorinessofthisencounterafterherrelease:

Asshecalmedherselfdown,itoccurredtoherthatthosepeoplewereindeedCommunists. She scoffed contemptuously at herself for havingbeen paralyzed in front of them and considered herself the mostwretchedpersononearth.Shestoodfacetofacewithherenemieswhohad killed her husband and pushed her into desperation. In thatmoment,shecouldnotevendarefeeltheabominationthatshealwayshadtowardthem.Ah!Heresheis,movinghertwolegsunderthebagofsalt,becauseshewantstolive.Itwaslaughable.([1934c]1999,535)With this reemergence of the mother’s reflective voice in the narrative, it

becomes clear that the Communists offer her neither a resolution to aworld repletewith contradictions nor a cohesive understanding of her lived experience. TheCommunists’ gesture to stand together against the common enemy of Japaneseimperialists cannot simply overwrite the destruction of themother’s domestic worldandpalliatethepainwith idealism. Inasense,then,theCommunistsbecomeyetonemoredimensionofManchukuo’sirrationality.

Thenovellanonethelessclosesatthethresholdofsocialistconsciousness,withtheJapaneseofficialsdiscoveringthemother’shidingplaceandarrestingher.Itshouldbenotedthatthislastsegmentof240wordswasdeletedbyJapanesecensorsbeforeitsoriginalpublication,butwaspartiallyrestoredin2006.Initscurrentlyrecoveredextent,theexcerptreadsasfollows:

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Thewordssheheardwithoutinterestandonlycontemptthatnightonthemountainnowreturntohermind.“Youareourcomrade!Wecanonly fight the richby joining forces!”…Theydidnot takeher salt. Shethinks that if theywereherenow theymight help her fight.No, theycertainlywouldhelp her fight. “So itwas the richwho took awaymysalt!”Shefeltaburstofragehotasacolumnoffire.Shestoodup.20ItistruethattheCommuniststakeonamoreovertpresencehereastheforce

that conceptualizes the path of resistance for the mother. This ending, however, astriumphant as it may be for those seeking narrative resolution befitting Kang’sreputation as a socialist-influencedwriter, also warrants amore sober reading as anarrest or standstill resulting from the submergence of the mother’s reflectivesubjectivitythathashithertoregisteredManchukuo’ssocialprocesses.Inotherwords,ifthemothergainsthebeginningsofclass-consciousnesshere,itcomesattheexpenseofa self-awareness, the ultimate end point ofwhich is not yet determined but open tograsping the more nuanced interrelations of race, gender, and intraethnic divisionswithin capitalist imperialism. But most importantly, although the Communists herearrogate to themselves the ability to resolve the mother’s problems through theresolvingof class conflict, theypose a contradiction inManchukuo,where ideologicalhope is commensurate with the violent destruction of personal life. In a word,Communismistheriddlethatbringsthestorytoanarrest.

That the narrative endswith an ambiguous image of a future-facing but alsoparalyzedsubjectpositsthepossibilitythatKangisnotblindtotheirresolvabletensionbetween the clear agendas of Communism and the less clear agendas of reflectivesubjectivity.KanghadtogaugewhatshecouldwriteunderJapanesecensorshipwithoutbeingcompletelybanned fromwriting.21Thesecircumstancesof the text’sproductionmay have kept her from making any direct political claims that she would haveotherwisemade.Nevertheless,IcontendthatthenarrativelogicofSaltcanonlyallowclass-consciousness to be set in the future tense. The novella cannot reduce itsdepiction of constantly disorienting, contradictory, maddening social dynamics ofManchukuobyproposinga coherentand ready-madesolution.Rather, it constructsasubject who is aware, however tenuously, that she is up against the derangingstructuresof theworld.Kangdiscovers, in theeffusivevoiceof themother,neitheracleverly capable form of navigating peripheral modernity—like Schwarz’s Brazilianwriters—norabrokenanddisparagingepistemeasinKrishnan’sreadingofNaipaul,but

20HereIusetheSouthKoreanversionrecoveredbyHanMansu(2006,35–36).SeeHan(2006)foranaccountofthescientificproceduresinvolvedintherecovery,aswellasacomparisonbetweenthisversionandNorthKoreanrewritingsoftheending.21Hanemphasizesthatthoroughunderstandingofthecriteriaofcensorshipisnecessarytosensitivelydiscernwhatanauthormayhavewantedtowriteandwhatheorshedeemed“writeable”(2006,45).

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adiscordant and resilient capacityofhuman thought, notunlike thewayManchukuooffereditsinhabitantsaprecarioussenseofreadiness.

ThisarticlehasengagedwithKang’swritingofManchukuoasaspecificcaseofglobalmodernitythatisyetlocatableinabroader,worldlyliteraryaspirationtonarratethe development of the capitalist system. Kang’sManchukuowas neither the barrenhinterlandsof theWestand Japan,noradogmaticallyanti-imperialistoranticapitalistperiphery,butasiteofawakenedconsciousnessinthefaceofthederangingrealitiesofmodernity’s manifestations. To read Salt by contextualizing it in the discourse ofperipheries means to understand its representation of Manchukuo as an activity ofperipheralrealism.AsDuarastates,“Open-ended,variable,andconfused…Manchukuofailed to settle upon a vision of community” (2003, 79). Interpreting this historicalsettingthroughKang’sworkoffersaperspectiveofhowthisambiguousspaceenabledaperipheral writer to find a new “community” of writing that trafficked between theglobalandlocaltocreateuniquesubjectivitiesverymuchoftheworld.

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AbouttheAuthor

JeehyunChoiisaPhDcandidateinEnglishattheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley.