In the summer of 1943, Yoon Dong-joo (front row, second from left) and his classmates at Doshisha University on the Uji River Suspension Bridge in Japan. Shortly thereafter, on July 14, he was arrested by Japanese police. (Courtesy of the publisher of "Night of Counting Stars")
"It's hard to say that life is hard / It's so easy to write a poem / What a shameful thing it is."
In June 1942, the young Korean poet Yoon Dong-joo wrote this "Easy-to-Write Poem" in Japan. At that time, he was studying at Rikkyo University in Japan, and his hometown of northeast China and his home country of Korea were being ravaged by the Japanese army, and the poetry of this poem was somewhat close to the philosopher Adorno's famous words after World War II: "After Auschwitz, it was barbaric to write poetry." ”
In July 1943, Yin Dongzhu and his cousin Song Mengkui were arrested by the Japanese police on suspicion of discussing the "independence movement", and his books, poems, and diaries were confiscated, and "Easy to Write Poems" became his last poem that can be read today.
More than half a century later, the Chinese Korean writer and poet Quan Yongxian "heard" Yin Dongzhu's poems for the first time. Jeon Yong did not know Korean at first, but he could understand Korean. In 1995, he was nearly thirty years old, and his mother, who knew Korean, read to him a poem by Yoon Dong-joo published in a Korean magazine, and the unique full emotions and sonorous tone of the Korean language, combined with Yoon Dong-joo's simple verses, immediately grabbed Quan Yongxian's ears and shocked him, "It is hard to imagine that in that terrible era, there was such a great poet." Quan Yong first spent three years translating most of Yin Dongzhu's poems in collaboration with his sister Quan Minglan, using his famous work "The Night of Counting Stars" as the title of the book, which was published in 2021.
"I/ Carefree / As if I can count out / All the stars in autumn... One star about remembrance / one star about love / one star about desertion / one star about longing ..."
This is "Night of Counting Stars", written in the late autumn of 1941.
In 1944, Yoon Wasjo was sentenced to two years in prison by the Kyoto District Court in Japan and held in Fukuoka Prison in Kyushu, Japan. In prison, Yin Dongzhu and Song Mengkui were subjected to inhuman torture, they were used in human experiments by the Japanese army, they were injected with some unknown liquid, their faces were disfigured, and their bones were thin. On February 16, 1945, on the eve of the dawn of Japan's defeat, Yoon Dong-joo died in Fukuoka Prison.
In the May Day 2021 show, the movie "On the Cliff", written by Quan Yongxian and directed by Zhang Yimou, was released. The story of the old Northeast told in the film, the story of Quan Yongxian's own family and the story of Yin Dongzhu are intertwined and are a big picture of the history of Northeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century.
Yin Dongzhu, taken between 1940 and 1941. At that time, Yoon Dong-joo studied at the Faculty of Liberal Arts of Yeon hee College (now Yonsei University, South Korea). (Courtesy of the publisher of "Night of Counting Stars")
<h3>Cross the frozen Tumen River</h3>
Yin Dongzhu was born in 1917 in the region of northeast China known as "Majima". For hundreds of years, The Rulers of the Qing Dynasty considered the northeast to be their "land of longxing" and strictly forbade han Chinese in Guannei to settle the northeast. As a result, the sparsely populated and fertile northeast attracted the people of the Korean Kingdom, and many Korean civilians crossed the Tumen River to explore the land. Gradually, a Korean community was formed, and this area became known as "Madao", and its approximate geographical scope was today's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, China. The place where Yin Dongzhu was born is now Mingdong Village, Longjing City, Yanbian Prefecture.
At the end of the 19th century, Japan's aggression against Korea intensified until it was completely annexed in 1910. During that period, there was unrest in North Korea, and a large number of North Koreans fled to "Majima Island". In February 1899, Kim Yue-won, Kim Ha-kyu, Moon Byeong-kyu, and Nam Jong-kyu, who lived in Jongseong-gun, North Hamgyong Province, Hamgyong Province , in present-day Cheongjin Province, North Hamgyong Province , led 142 tribesmen across the frozen Tumen River and moved to Longjing City. They bought land from Chinese, changed the name of the village to "Mingdong", which means to illuminate the east, and settled down ever since. Jin Yueyuan is Yin Dongzhu's uncle.
In 1900, Yin Dongzhu's grandfather Yin Hexian also moved to Mingdong Village. In 1910, Yin Ha-hyun embraced Christianity and became the leader of the local church. It can be seen from the former residence of Yin Dongzhu that the Yin family is a local family.
His uncle Kim Yue-won was full of anti-Japanese enthusiasm, and it is said that before Ahn Jung-geun assassinated Ito Hirobumi, he had a long conversation with him all night. Jin Yueyuan founded the Mingdong School in Mingdong Village to spread the advanced anti-Japanese ideas in education. The school has produced many important figures in North Korean history, such as North Korean film pioneer Luo Yunkui and the first generation of North Korean pilots.
Yin Dongzhu graduated from Mingdong Primary School, and although he was influenced by anti-Japanese ideas from an early age, his poetry is particularly "quiet". "What I think is most precious is that he was in such a dark age, and there was no resentment, uneasiness, or restlessness in his poems, and he was quiet." Quan Yongxian told Southern Weekend reporters.
Yin Dongzhu was kind by nature, and when he was a child, he was particularly timid, he was afraid of horses, and he was once scared and cryed by the roar of horses. When the family rabbit dies, he will cry too. Quan Yongxian believes that Yin Dongzhu's poetry has universal human compassion and kindness, "He is not a national poet of any nation. His words are simple and the old ladies can understand them, but the emotions he conveys are common to all human beings. ”
In 2015, it had been twenty years since Quan Yongxian first listened to his mother read Yin Dongzhu, and his mother had died ten years earlier. That year, Quan Yong first went to Yanbian to receive a literary prize, and the organizers drove him to Longjing City to visit. "I suddenly remembered that Yin Dongzhu was born in this place, and then I immediately remembered his poems, remembered my mother's reading, and that day was exactly the tenth anniversary of my mother's sacrifice..." Like a call in the darkness, Quan Yongxian was pulled back to Yin Dongzhu's world.
In the three-year cooperative translation process, her sister Quan Minglan first translated the poetry into Chinese, and Quan Yong first processed and polished the Chinese language, and strived to restore Yin Dongzhu's natural and easy language style. Quan Yong first speculated that some of Yin Dongzhu's poems may still be preserved in an archive in Japan—when Yin Dongzhu was arrested in 1943, all his manuscripts and documents were confiscated.
Longjing in the 1930s. Yoon Dong-joo's grandfather, Yoon Ha-hyun, and uncle Kim Yue-won were pioneers of the Koreans who went to Longjing to pioneer the wilderness. (Courtesy of the publisher of "Night of Counting Stars")
<h3>Memories of the shadowy river</h3>
The "fate" of Quan Yongxian and Yin Dongzhu is not only in poetry, but also in their families. Like Yoon Dong-joo's family, the migration path of the Jeon Yong-hyun family is also in the context of the wave of immigration from Korea to northeast China (which lasted from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century).
In March 1932, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established. In the same year, Japanese Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii established the Dongxiang Force in the village of Beiyinhe, 80 kilometers south of Harbin, and then built Zhongma Castle, where human bacteria were tested. The "Shadow River" was the original address of the infamous Japanese Unit 731.
In the hearts of the people of old Harbin, the back-shaded river and the Zhongma City built here carry a frightening historical memory. Compared to Japan, where Yin Dongzhu was tortured, the Back Shadow River is a more terrifying hell on earth.
In 1942, Jeon Yong-hyun's grandfather, Jeon Do-joon, took a family of five, carrying a water scoop and a pot, from Changyu County (now part of South Korea) in the central Part of the Korean Peninsula to puppet Manchukuo. "My grandfather was a cultured farmer who ran around and had insight, and when he saw that Manchuria was more developed at that time, he immigrated with his whole family." Quan Yong said first.
Their first stop in puppet Manchukuo was the village of Beiyinhe. As soon as he got off the train and looked at the endless snowfield, Quan Yongxian's grandmother cried. The historical tragedy that once took place in this village became part of the family's memory. Quan Yongxian's parents still remember the street talk in the northeast about the back-shadow river at that time. At that time, the crimes of Unit 731 had not yet been revealed, but "my mother had the impression when she was a child, saying that Chinese knew that it was definitely not a good thing," Quan Yongxian recalled to Southern Weekend reporters.
With Harbin as a transit station, they went further north to Yichun, where Quan Yongxian was born. This Korean family, "like a dandelion that drifts with the wind," has since taken root in China.
In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1934, many prisoners in Zhongma City, led by Wang Ziyang, implemented a prison escape plan. When the Japanese army found out, they hunted down and hunted most of them, and only Wang Ziyang managed to escape. In order to cover up the crime, the Japanese army blew up the city of Zhongma and rebuilt the base for bacteria testing in the bungalow closer to Harbin.
Wang Ziyang's escape from prison became the historical background for Quan Yong to create the script of the movie "On the Cliff". Quan Yongxian liked to listen to the stories of the old people telling stories about the Northeast and Pseudo-Manchuria since he was a child, An Jung-geun assassinated Itō Hirobumi in Harbin, and Zhao Yiman used his personality charm to influence nurses in his hospital bed to help him escape... Harbin's landmarks, such as the Madier Hotel, the Asia Cinema, and the St. Nicholas Cathedral, also appeared repeatedly in his literary works thereafter.
The film focuses on how four Communist Party agents get in touch with the party organization, and their rescue of Wang Ziyang is not specifically shown. "I actually wrote this part, and the director thought it was too long, so he gave it up." Quan Yong said first.
The film also stops at Wang Ziyang's successful escape, but in reality, Wang Ziyang's report on the Back Shade River after the escape did not attract the attention of the Comintern. "I've read the 15-page report," Quan Yongxian said, which was ironclad evidence of the crimes of Japanese imperialism against humanity.
In reality, there was no Communist Party member "Zhou Yi" who had been infiltrated into the Special Affairs Section of the Puppet Manchu Police Department. At that time, Harbin was a large international city, with Koreans, Japanese, Russians, Jews, and 35% of the population was foreigners. The State, the Communist Party, the Puppet, Japan, the Soviet Union, the British, and many forces competed here. Such a complex situation has become a good background for spy novels and movies.
Quan Yong first created spy novels and scripts set in the northeast because he was familiar with the history and humanities there. He remembers his grandmother saying to him, "Japanese devils, people who eat fine grain will be arrested and jailed..." He used this detail in the novel "Holvat Street" and the TV series "Cliff" based on the novel: a pregnant woman on the train, because of morning sickness, spit out lunch, there is fine grain in it, and she is found by the pseudo-Manchu police on the train, so she is taken away...
Chronologically, the movie "On the Cliff" is a prequel to the TV series "Cliff". At the end of the TV series, the dawn of Japan's defeat is approaching, and the Allied air raids have made the Pseudo-Manchuria Police Department panic. However, the fate of the protagonist Zhou Yi is the same as that of Yin Dongzhu, who died before dawn.
<h3>"My struggle has only just begun"</h3>
Japan surrendered, the shackles of puppet Manchukuo disappeared, but history did not stop, and the heroic spirit of Yin Dongzhu and the footprints of Quan Yongxian still shuttled between China, Japan, and South Korea.
"If I understand 'motherland' as 'ancestral country', then my motherland is Korea. However, when I heard the word 'motherland', I thought of the land under my feet. Quan Yongxian said that the land under his feet was China," I grew up speaking the language of this place and watching the scenery of this place, and all I recorded in my mind was the people and things in this place. ”
In the summer of 1992, like their ancestors, in order to make a living, Jeon Yong-hyun, his cousin Jeon Yong-chul and brother-in-law Lee Sang-hee left the "land under their feet" and took a boat to South Korea.
Relatives in Korea led Jeon Yong to see where his father was born. There is exactly where the "38th Line" runs, the old houses are razed to the ground, the farmland has been turned into a wasteland, covered with barbed wire and mines...
At the beginning, he worked in an iron company, with high-intensity manual labor, with a monthly salary of 300,000 won, and the exchange rate at that time was equivalent to more than 2,000 yuan. Later, I went to a plastic factory, stood for 12 hours a day, and shaved the edge of plastic. Quan Yongxian could not bear such a day, and on Christmas Eve in 1992, he returned to China. That year, China and South Korea established diplomatic relations. Officials from the Korea Immigration Administration harassed him, and relatives next to him quickly explained: "He is a Chinese poet." ”
Like Jeon Yong-hyun, Yoon Dong-joo also "came" to South Korea. Today, in South Korea, Yoon Dong-joo is a well-known poet, and there is a pocket edition of his poetry collection in the Korean subway, which was bought by a consortium and placed there for passengers to freely read. The film about him, East Pillar, was also released in 2016. A 2012 survey showed that 95 percent of young people between the ages of 20 and 30 in South Korea knew Yoon Dong-joo.
Yin Dongzhu was killed in Japan, but many Japanese people were inspired by his poetry and personality. In Fukuoka City, where he was killed, a poetry reading party was held every year for Yoon Dong-joo. In 1950, the Japanese Tokuyama Shuno joined the anti-war wave of the Korean War in Japan, and after his arrest, he said: "Five years after Yoon Dong-joo was killed in pursuit of national independence, my struggle over Korea had just begun. Later, he founded the Kyoto University of The Arts (now Kyoto University of the Arts), located in Yoon Dong-joo's original dormitory in Kyoto, "I want to pursue peace through art." He said.
Compared with his popularity in Japan and South Korea, Yin Dongzhu spread much later in China. "Yin Dongzhu was Chinese knew that the Japanese Omura Yoshio was indispensable." Quan Yong said first.
In 1985, Yoshio Omura, a professor of Chinese and Korean literature at Waseda University, applied for a foreign teaching position at Yanbian University in order to follow in Yoon Dong-joo's early years, and every weekend he took teachers and students out to look for it, and finally found Yin Dongzhu's tomb in a grave in the wilderness. "At that time, Yanbian's literary circles had no idea who Yin Dongzhu was or his works." Yoshio Omura wrote in his "Investigation Report on Yin Dongzhu's Deeds", published in 1986.
After finding the tomb, Yoshio Omura came to visit the shrine every year, and for more than twenty years, he never stopped. The last time was in 2019, before the outbreak of the "new crown" outbreak, when he was 85 years old. "How much do you say a man loves this poet before he can do this?" Quan Yong said first.
Now scholars have studied and learned that after Yin Dongzhu was killed, the ashes were brought back to his hometown by his family. On March 6, 1945, Yin Dongzhu's ashes were buried in the cemetery of Dongshan Church in Longjing. At the funeral, relatives and friends recited two poems he published, "Self-Portrait" and "New Road". In The New Road, Yin Dongzhu writes:
"My path / Whenever / is a new road / Today is / Tomorrow or."
Southern Weekend reporter Wang Huazhen