Northeast Asia

Overview

Classical Chinese served as a common written language for Korea, Japan and Vietnam for more than a thousand years, as Latin did in Europe: people read the same texts without speaking the same language. Japan invented its syllabaries in the ninth century, Korea its alphabet in 1443, and each then developed a literature in its own tongue. The twentieth century saw these countries finally read one another, often after making war: Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman, published in 1918, opened modern Chinese prose in the spoken language.

What circulates

Japanese translates a great deal and has long done so, which made Tokyo a relay towards the rest of Asia; Chinese translates less and publishes more. North Korea exports almost nothing and imports nothing: its films and books circulate only at home, which this catalogue reflects in a small number of titles.

Limits of this grouping

Mongolia appears here through geography more than letters: its epic and its language draw it towards Turkic Central Asia. Taiwan and the two Koreas are given as distinct countries, which is a choice, contested by some states, and one this catalogue accepts in order to account for separate output.

Works cited

• NovelDream of the Red Chamber紅樓夢Cao Xueqin · 1750Eighteenth-century novel about a great Beijing family and its love affairs, left unfinished by its author.Literature
• Short storiesDiary of a Madman狂人日記Lu Xun · 1918A short story of 1918, the first signed by Lu Xun, which makes cannibalism the figure of the Confucian tradition.Literature
• CinemaTokyo Story東京物語Yasujiro Ozu · 1953A 1953 film about parents who travel from the provinces to see, in Tokyo, children who have no time to receive them.Cinema
• CinemaYellow Earth黃土地Chen Kaige · 1984A collector of songs for the Communist army among poor peasants in Shaanxi, in 1939.Cinema