WORLD LITERATURE

ASIAN LITERATURE
EAST ASIA AND PHILIPPINES
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
 China and Japan are the two most
powerful countries in Asia.
 Their influence and power are not only
economic but cultural as well.
 Both countries have produced
Nobel Laureates
- (Japan) Kenzaburo Oe and Yasunari
Kawabata
- (China) Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
 They have a great influence on the
current cultural landscape of Philippine
society.
 At present, the Philippines has a strong
Chinese diaspora that has been
influential in various avenues of
Philippines social and cultural life.
 Japan’s connection in the Philippines,
on the other hand, has produced
thriving scholarship
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES

in Philippine studies, with a good

number of Japanese professors
speaking in Filipino and studying
Philippine history.
 The rise of the South Korean
population in the Philippines is due to a
lot of Korean students are studying
English in different schools in the
country while others are in the country
for business interest.
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
 Korean history has been shaped by the
centuries of Chinese cultural migration
through trade and commerce across East
and Southeast Asia, as well as Korea’s
experience of occupation and
colonization from Japan.
 Korea eventually split into two countries,
divided by ideologies:
 North Korea (socialism)
 South Korea (capitalism)
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
 North Korea remained closed and isolated
until the 21st century.
 South Korea has become more and more
visible as its popular culture such as
television, films and music have grown
into worldwide sensation.
 The Philippines has become a recipient of
this cultural development, leading to
engaging cultural exchanges between
Filipinos and South Koreans
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
 East Asia’s political and cultural
influence is becoming more prominent .
 Both Japanese and South Korean
cultural exports such as food and
entertainment have become ever-
present in the country.
 East Asia is getting closer to Philippines
as the channels from these countries to
ours are bridged and made close to one
another through
EAST ASIA AND THE PHILIPPINES

the exportation of Japanese

culture such as the anime, manga
or its national cuisine
 China has been involved in
territorial issues with the
Philippines, as well as influential in
the rise of the Filipino-Chinese.
 East Asia are very receptive to one
another in terms of welcoming
each other’s culture.
21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.
 East Asia is considered as the most
economically progressive block in
the Asian continent.
 With the wealth and progress
pervasive in this region, the
region’s literature has captured
the baffling effect of such growth.
 HARUKI JAPAN
MURAKAMI- wrote
the novel
NORWEGIAN
WOOD
 articulated the
consciousness of
the students who
protested against
the government
during the 1960s.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.
 Murakami exposed the psyche of
Japan, showing the troubles and
emotional fragility of the youth.
 Most of the thematic concerns
were about loss of innocence, the
alienating nature of progress, the
nightmare of socialism from China
and uncertainty in one’s sexuality.
 MO YAN – a CHINA
Chinese novelist
and short story
writer who won
the NOBEL PRIZE
for LITERATURE
 He was famous
for his novel THE
RED SORGUM: A
NOVEL OF CHINA.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.
 The novel mapped the experiences
of the Chinese during the Sino-
Japanese war until the rise of the
Cultural Revolution.
 The novel attempted to animate the
deep-seated issues within the
historical wars between China and
Japan and how both countries took
different paths in terms of ideology
and political systems.
21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.

KOREAN LITERATURE
 Many contemporary writers have

addressed the turbulent years of

South Korea from around the 1940s
and the 1970s, an era of radicalism
that was led by Korean nationalists
against Japanese imperial
expansion, but was eventually
influenced by China’s socialism.
 PARK WAN-SUH’s KOREA

novel THE
NAKED TREE
(1970) narrates
the history of
war as a
traumatic
episode in
Korean national
history.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.,
 KO UN, a poet who participated in
democracy movements against
the continuing Korean war,
explores the trauma and violence
of such a war in his poetry
collection, Ten Thousand Lives.
 HWANG SOK-YONG, KOREA
who witnessed
firsthand the
ravages of the
Vietnam war;
exposed the
damages such
enterprise can inflict
on man and to call
for political actions
that enable justice

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.

21ST CENTURY CANON OF EAST ASIAN LIT.,
 The East Asian literary canon for
the 21st century is made up of a
body of writing that is historical
while exploring the psychological
effects of economic progress,
social upheaval and war,
QUIZ
ANSWER THE FF QUESTIONS BRIEFLY:
(1/2 crosswise)
1. Why is the culture of East Asia
considered rich and diversed?
2. How did Chinese influence reach the
Philippines?
3. Give the themes of the 21st Century
Literature of Japan
4. How does history describe Korean
culture?
5. Describe East Asian Literary Canon
for the 21st Century
FOR NEXT MEETING:
 The history of Chinese in the
Philippines should be presented in
photographs or clippings, accompanied
by brief discussion on the assigned
topics.
I – Filipino Chinese Art
II – Filipino Chinese Cuisine
III – Filipino Chinese Architecture
IV- Filipino Chinese Literature
FOR NEXT MEETING:
 Get a copy and Read the short story
by Caroline Hau – “Stories”
 Be ready to discuss and analyze the
story next meeting
CAROLINE HAU
  Chinese-Filipino author
and academic known for
her work on Filipino
culture and literature
and for her books The
Chinese Question:
Ethnicity, Nation and
Region In and Beyond
the Philippines and
Necessary Fictions:
Philippine Literature and
the Nation
CAROLINE HAU
 Hau intervenes in the study of culture and
literature by showing how the nation-state
is framed and shaped at the same time by
our literatures.
 By looking at the works of Jose Rizal, Nick
Joaquin, Amado Guerrero and other
important writers in Philippine Literature,
Hau sought to understand how these
novels were fundamental in shaping our
country’s national sense of nationhood, our
national identity
CAROLINE HAU
and the way we understand the position of
the country within the debates on the
meanings and functions of the state and
the world.
 Hau is also a fictionist whose breadth of
imagination is seen in her first collection of
short stories entitled Recuerdos de Patay.
 Hau demonstrates how fiction could also
engage with the issues of nationalism,
ethnicity and history.
CAROLINE HAU
 She showed fiction could also imagine
possibilities for nation-state, for the
Chinese-Filipino, as well for a history of
the Chinese migration to the
Philippines.
STORIES
Caroline Hau
WHAT MAKES IT LITERARY?