#hws manchuria

[tianshiisdead]

Jurchen Shaman

[irithnova]

What your Mongolia ships say about you (from things I've seen in the fandom):

Monchu: You're into size difference and hatesex

Turkmon: You unironically believe in the Altaic language theory.

Manmon: You like younger obsessed top reluctant older bottom

Tibmon: You're either extremely kinky or extremely vanilla

Rusmon: "how the turntables!"

Monpan: You like sumo and bear on bear action. Or you're just a Japanese Mongolia stan

Monkaz: You really like wolves

[stirringwinds]

Hi! I saw some of your hws China thoughts lately and they were really fun to read, it's always especially interesting to see takes from other sino related people 😆 Do you think Manchu(ria) would be a separate figure (from Wang Yao) during the Qing dynasty, or do you think the Jurchen tribes would've just been absorbed along the way? People always have such different takes on it so I'm curious to know your thoughts.

hey, thanks for this question! :-) i do enjoy thinking about yao's characterisation, even more so in relation to other nations. this is my view of it:

i'm personally inclined to see manchuria as a separate personification during the qing dynasty (though i admittedly haven't developed a detailed idea of their character/personality). i've previously written scenes in the aftermath of the opium wars where yao was at the signing of the treaty of nanking (for example)—but i see it as a situation where yao is rather being ordered around by manchuria (and the humans think yao is a qing official). my thought process is that while the manchu rulers may have adopted certain aspects of han chinese culture to bolster their legitimacy with the wider population, they still held real power, retained certain customs, influenced chinese dressing (the cheongsam) and even tried imposing some of their cultural norms on the entire population. the queue hairstyle for men, and less successfully, the attempt to ban foot-binding for women (that's one thing where i'm "really? you guys should've already cut that bullshit out centuries ago" @ the ancestors 😔). so, to me this is very far from a situation where a nation dies.

in my view of chinese history, there have been times when yao, as an empire, (like rome or persia) has ended or absorbed other nations. the southwards expansion of the han dynasty, for example: the disappearance of the "baiyue" tribes, through conquest, settlers and sinicisation (the totality of that cultural conquest always struck me—that we don't even know what they called themselves today). the conquest of vietnam is one instance where that didn't happen—and even more so for qing china, where manchuria is the one calling the shots. and i don't see a nation adopting some aspects of another nation's culture = death precisely because all cultures change. there's that joke classicists have made about "did the romans conquer greece, or did the greeks conquer rome?" given how much they adopted greek culture aesthetics but we wouldn't say "the romans were not a distinct cultural entity" either. naturally, there are big differences between the qing and roman empires, but most empires weren't above adopting some customs of those they conquered—it's indeed often how successful incorporation worked.

it's also about characterisation and narrative choices for me too; imo yao saw the opium wars as a doubled humiliation. being subject to the "western barbarians"—while being ruled by other "barbarians"; yao's pride is one thing that is stubborn, and he'll cling to the shreds of it. my immediate thought is that if manchuria isn't a separate character, a lot of this narrative loses the force; when it comes to how i'd translate the history into interactions between all these eldritch beings. this is especially when i'm thinking of the subsequent anti-qing movements; and how folks like sun yat-sen laid the blame for china's downfall at the hands of western empires on the manchu ruling dynasty and even characterised them as a colonial force ultimately hobbling china's progress (even if of course, irl history is more complex and there were manchu officials/figures who supported republicanism and the end of the regime). so in this context, to me it's best represented as a multi-layered power struggle between yao, manchuria and of course all the other western nations.

so overall, while history can always be interpreted and translated into hetalia many ways, and i wouldn't say there's a definitive "right" or "wrong" criteria when translating it into whether a hetalia personification dies or endures— personally, it makes the most sense for me if manchuria is a separate character during this era for all the abovementioned reasons. nations after all, aren't states, with all that strict international legal criteria about what a "legitimate" state is—but imagined communities. hetalia personifications are that idea extended further— given flesh and incarnated by the dreams, beliefs and imagination of humans: they're fluid and ambiguous—but also resilient, because it's not so easy to kill an idea.

[blueskywater-happiness]

A quick doodle for a weird au I was thinking about, Hoshi no Ko and Hetalia :)

Nyo America as Hoshino Ai

Philippines as Hoshino Ruby

Molossia as Hoshino Aqua

[who1kio]

So, uh.. here's some infos about my Buryatia oc;

-Human name: Khulan Darqan

-Human age: 16

-Real age: 200 or 300 idk

-he really loves Boorsaq.

-besties with Hong Kong? (I know this doesn't even makes sense)

-Little brother of Mongolia and Kalmykia!!

-Turkey is encouraging him to become independent, he even says "When are you going to be a Genghis Khan 2.0 and make me proud?" :D

-While he is in the city to mingle with people, he works in a temple under an old monk. But when he's in the countryside, he's just an ordinary shepherd.

-he has a goat named Baikal.

-he plays tsuur.

-He steals Mongolia's wallet and buy unnecessary things with Kalmykia and Manchuria.

-He loves to scare people!

-He loves to sing with Tuva, like a sibling activity.

-Youngest nation of East Siberia.

-He also loves wrestling, he always wrestles with Mongolia. (tho he always lose lol)

[0mega-x]

Please don't ask me why or how, but I somehow got caught up watching clips of a C-Drama about Qing dynasty harem (Ruyi's royal love) and started looking a little bit into Manchuria.

Imagine Manchuria in Hetalia. How would they interact with China or Mongolia, especially during Qing rule ? Would they be the main "representative" of China as a state ? Then, would China(Yao) represent the Han people ? In a Manchu dominated China, how would both interact ? Now, that would also mean a reflexion on what the nations' role would be in Imperial China (and in the rest of the world too now that I think of it). If Himaruya gave infos in canon about what the nations' role are exactly, please tell me.

Now, how would Manchuria be now ? I don't know much about China as a country. Would China(Yao) and Manchuria have some sort of rivalry (friendly or not?) with each other ? Because after Qing's fall, manchus never dominated China again, would Manchuria be bitter or melancholic ?

And for Manchuko... how would that play out ?

And would there be a similar reflexion to be made about Mongolia and the Yuan dynasty ?

[fumblingmusings]

Hi, I'm also not the original asakiku anon, but regarding Japan and China fics, I recommend downloading the Asia edition of the following historical hetalia zine. The artists/writers are predominantly Asian and other POC. There’re multiple entries about Japan and China’s relationships with other Asians, listed chronologically below. A number explore Japanese imperialism really well too.

Zine link: hwsrazzledazzle(dot)itch(dot)io/hwsrazzledazzle02

versailles, 1919: comic touching on china and japan’s historical relationship and sino-japanese tensions after WWI.  

a bird’s eye view of the taiwan expo: art and fic exploring japanese colonialism in the 1930s, features taiwan, japan and south korea.

1942: japan focused-fic, character exploration about propaganda, nationalism and imperialism after the battle of midway.

wild: poem written from mongolia’s perspective in the 1960s but with references to china’s influence on her history.

the long spring: fic about china and manchuria/the qing dynasty. alternates between 1970s china and older flashbacks over the centuries.

letter from india to china: india reflecting on his relationship with china over the 20th century on the eve of the new millennium.

I encourage you and anyone else to also read the contributors' historical footnotes, to understand their characterization of Yao and Kiku and why it differs from how western fandom often overemphasizes them being soft, shy, cute, or emotionally-repressed/stunted next to more expressive white characters. I get that most ppl incl you aren’t ill-intentioned and are maybe thinking it makes Kiku (or Yao) endearing. But some tropes that are innocuous for white characters are condescending and inappropriate for fics where Yao and Kiku represent old nations. Because they stem from harmful, historical orientalist stereotypes that simplify, fetishize and infantilize east asians in very problematic ways to be love interests for white characters, and this was a distinct problem with how Kiku was depicted in SPE.

Additionally, intra-Asian relationships are important to providing more holistic characterization, because another issue is when i) historical hetalia fics make Japan or China disproportionately trusting or devoted to a white fave, while minimizing irl racism/imperialism they faced from said Western country in the interests of romance ii) while downplaying or omitting intra-Asian relationships that were in reality equally or far more important to Japan and China to center whiteness. As a Sino fan, I ship Asian+Western characters too (Eng/chu, Ame/pan), so I'm not against that. What I mean is being mindful, acknowledging unequal dynamics/grievances that did affect ties between that Asian and Western country as challenges the characters have to work through (or fail to do so, with consequences), and also visibly integrating Yao and Kiku's important relationships with other Asians into their characterization. Just as I’m sure few England fans would dispute France’s importance to England, even if Fruk isn’t their OTP, and would include him as a character in an England fic. I hope this all makes sense.

Thank you for the link and the additional context and explanation! It absolutely does make sense, thank you for taking the time to explain and send over, I really appreciate it.

[peonycats]

I have a question. Would you consider Manchuria a separate character from China, due to Pre-Qing Manchuria history? If so, how do you think their relationship between Canon China, especially after the Manchus took over during the Qing Dynasty?

Yessiree! Manchuria's still running around as the personification of the manchu people, prbly bragging about how she used to rule the worldddddd or smth

(jurchen is prbly her dad or mom or smth?? havent decided...)

)-)o Manchu-Han ties are... pretty complicated to get into but I think during Qing dynasty was definitely a lot of resentful submission ("Another northern steppe barbarian? cmon") to Manchuria on China's part, biting back his retorts and keeping his head down, for the time being. At the best of times, he would acknowledge when something she did was commendable and furthered both their ambitions, whether it was military or cultural; but I think like with like a lot of things in life, in China's heart of hearts, he would never acknowledge her as an equal, only someone who was previously uncultured, and then took his own, enlightened culture for her own to remake herself in *his* image 😩

post qing dynasty and the world wars and the current state of chinese ethnic minority relations is a whole nother can of worms that i dont feel like getting into for now hdsfjjds

[tianshiisdead]

On loanwords.

First panel references Japanese loaning of Chinese characters early on. The next 3 are from ~1920s, Second is Chinese intellectual loaning of Japanese words for western technology/political and social concepts after attending university in Japan like so many of them did back then, often through borrowing Japanese created character combinations and bringing them back to China to pronounce as you'd expect in Chinese, leading to even commonly used words like the word for phone and the word for society being borrowed from Japanese. Third and fourth are Japanese loanwords in Dongbei dialect (incl Dalian specific ones), that are more commonly transliterations of Japanese words born from direct and relatively longer term colonization, words picked up by lower class and farmers living alongside Japanese settlers and soldiers.

It's interesting to look at different loanwords. You can see the movements of power and people clearly through the contrasts

[tianshiisdead]

Korea - Jurchen/Manchu relations go crazy

[tianshiisdead]

Before I sleeby here's an old messy thing I never posted of a Jurchen girl

[tianshiisdead]

happy new years! i dont rlly have time to draw anything properly this time around bc of school

[irithnova]

[tianshiisdead]

doodling

[tianshiisdead]

the school uniforms of boys schools in manchukuo resembled the army uniform, with dark green fabric and caps and the number of the class/year on the collar. unlike in taiwan where the schools were a symbol of japanese modernity, the schools in manchukuo were unstructured, messy, and generally ineffective. In later years as the war began, the schools became increasingly militarized and abandoned teaching curriculum in favour of forcing the students into labour to fund the war effort. racial inequality was rampant, with the japanese students dining separately and eating separate (and fuller) meals. violence and abuse was common, not only from the teacher to the chinese students but also among the students, as fighting and bullying was encouraged as a show of martial strength. In later years as military training became mandatory, officers who’d fought in the chinese mainland were brought in to train the students - which largely backfired as the teacher’s rampant abuse and tendency to conflate their students with the chinese they had fought in battle only further pushed the students to turn away from state ideology. it seems that school was the place where the pro state ideology was disseminated most successfully, however the abuse and militarization in later years undid a lot of the work from early years. despite many of the major cities having a japanese colonial presence for longer than the 14 official years manchukuo existed, the schools were only established after the takeover resulted in a new direction for japanese imperialism in the region. even in dalian, the only city formally colonized in the 1910s and 20s (and not simply a concession/part of the railway zone), before 1932 the number of schools established for chinese students were quite limited, and the form of colonialism was primarily economic.

girls schools also existed but it seems the english language research on the topic is limited

[irithnova]

Mongolia: Anyways I am the DIRECT heir to the GREAT KHUNNU (Xiongnu) Empire 💪💪 Don't question me

Xiongnu watching from hell: Who the hell is this person

China: ....

A few hundred years later

Manchuria: Anyways Mongolia told me HIMSELF that I am his son and the direct heir to the yuan <3

Mongolia: I never fucking said that

China: ...Northerners