Latest Stories: A Crossroads of Former Manchuria

This story is about people’s identity in Manchuria, now called as China’s North East, that is created, manipulated by two essential vectors: one -- upheavals in the history such as migration and war; the other – the current radical economic development in the area, creating a gap between the rich and poor, as well as contributing to a rise in unemployment. In such a paradigm, people of the region are, whether conscious or not, feeling / or looking for “belonging or exclusiveness”, “conformity or originality” and “the thirst for power or dependence”.  

The region was a significant crossroads of many ethnic groups -- Tungusic peoples, Mongols, Koreans, and Han-Chinese, as well as Russians, Japanese and Jews. Among them, Jurchens, later called as Manshus by themselves and part of Tungus, were the most outstanding people in the region. They created Jin Dynasty (1115 – 1234) and later China’s last dynasty Qing (1644 - 1912).  

In the early 20th century, the region suffered political, military turmoil. The Russian-Japanese War happened in 1904, and continued next year. Japan’s influence replaced Russian’s in the region, especially over the Railway system. The region became a battleground between Russia, Japan, and China, till the end of World War II. Manchuria, properly called as “Manchukuo”, was a puppet state that was created by Kantogun, part of the Imperial Japanese Army, following the 1931 Liutiaohu Incident, or the September 18 Incident in Chinese term. It was superficially governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, or Puyi as Emperor, from 1931 to 1945, who was also the last Emperor of Qing Dynasty. 

Now the former Manshukuo is no doubt the territory of the People's Republic of China. Most of the ethnic groups are assimilated to Han-Chinese, even most Manchu People, for the last 100 years or so. Yet some still keep their strong ethnicity like Koreans, in proper term Korean Chinese or Korean Tribes. They have huge Korean towns in China’s North East, and communicate in Korean language in daily life. In the regions many Koreans exist, since part of Manchuria was Goguryeo, an ancient Korean kingdom, and during the Japanese occupation time on Manchuria and Korea in the early 20th century, Japan encouraged Koreans to migrate into Manchuria. In addition, a certain number of North Korean nationals can work in China especially in Manchuria, by an agreement with China, to help their families and fellows in the country. 

This region is now furthermore experiencing a new type of crossroads. It is a wave of the globalization with China’s leading economic power in the world. Many counties, such as Japan, US, and Europeans, have been investing in China’s North East. The Chinese themselves, especially young generations, are vigorously absorbing the materialistic cultures of foreign countries, including Japan and Russia – former enemies or occupiers. Moreover, due to the globalization, a new economic phenomenon has been emerging. Despite the fact that China has double-digit economic growth per year for more than two decades, the gap between the rich and the poor is radically growing everywhere in the country. Even unemployment people are more created in this region, since its economic growth is slow in the world wide slump after the Lehman Brothers shock in 2008 (though much better, compared to other counties), and China’s North East has been nearly always behind the development, compared to other parts of China’s coast lines.  

In the environments of their diluted/ non-diluted ethnic groups and of their newly emerged classes, that were created by the alloy of two types of crossroads, people in Manchuria are exploring their new identity by which they want to feel stability and comfortableness, although those often comes with opposite feeling -- instability, isolation, and even fear. 

P.S.: Foreigners/ outsiders might also feel such elements in this region. Japanese are likely one of them. It is not only because they were historically involved in the fightings in the recent history, but also their ancestors came through the Manchuria region so long time ago That was one of the biggest reasons I went.