Manchuria and Korean People

The South Korean film, “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”, is set in the wilderness of 1930s Manchuria (which resembles the Wild West in U.S.), the vast land where Yoon Tae-goo, “the Weird”, Park Chang-yi, “the Bad”, and Park Do-won, “the Good” roam searching for the allegedly hidden treasure of the former Qing Dynasty. Later in the film, the Weird (a thief) who has the map, is not only chased by the Bad (a hitman), and the Good (a bounty hunter), but also by Chinese bandits and Japanese imperial army bringing diverse groups into the chase.

It is interesting to see how the film is set in Manchuria, not Korea, and although there are non-Korean characters such as Japanese soldiers and Chinese bandits and townspeople, it is the three Korean guys: the Good, the Bad, and the Weird who dominate the plains of Manchuria, a foreign exotic land.

Yet, a question that crossed my mind is “What is so special about Manchuria to Korean people?”

Seo Jae-sik, who is involved in opium trade and who pretends to be a Korean Independence Movement supporter in the film, explains the Korean connection and attachment to this region. When the Weird meets him, Seo mentions about the lost territory of Gando (Jiandao in Chinese). Many Korean nationalists believe that Gando is a special place that has been part of their history and should be incorporated into their country. As Seo explains to the Weird, Gando located in Southern Manchuria which shares the current border with North Korea, was inhabited and ruled by ancient Korean kingdoms such as Goguryeo and Balhae. Furthermore Gando and Manchuria have been the active place for many Korean independence movement fighters and Korean communist guerrillas and “new home” for many Korean expatriates who decided to settle in a cold, inhospitable frontier after losing their country to Japan. Such examples are Kang Kyong-ae, the author of “From Wonso Pond” who lived some time in Manchuria before going back to her homeland and Choe Sohae who emigrated to Chientao, Manchuria and who at one point joined a Korean guerrilla troop in that region (Park 113).

To many Koreans, Manchuria was not just new home with new life, but was also thought to be the Land of Opportunity and the Land of Freedom. They were able to escape from direct Japanese colonial rule. Manchuria: the multicultural and multiethnic crossroads of Chinese, Manchurian, Japanese, Russian, and Korean acted as the frontier of Korean nationalism. However, that same land turned into the Land of Demise after Japan’s expansion and war with China in the 1930s. After the Japanese Empire enacted the Public Security Preservation Law of 1925 in order to suppress political dissent of communists by using the term, Kokutai, meaning sovereign or national character, the Japanese government had the power to outlaw any type of dissent, not just that of communists, but that of people who were seen as altering the kokutai (Max Ward, Imperial Sovereignty and Colonial Violence: An Analysis of the Japanese Peace Preservation Law through the Colonial Question). The Public Security Preservation Law touched many lives of Koreans and those involved in the independence movement. As the film shows the mighty force of Japanese imperial army encroaching and assailing people in Manchuria, Koreans are left defenceless. 

Manchuria, the last frontier of Korean nationalism and independence movement, is already under the influence of Japanese imperialism. Where can Koreans in Manchuria go now? To the mainland China? Siberia? The United States?