Hybrid Baihua 白話 as a Third Space: East Asian Anticolonial Writing in Modern China

Abstract

After the colonial invasion of East Asia, numerous Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese went to China and began a long anticolonial struggle. During this period, they chose to write and communicate in a fourth language, Baihua 白話, for anticolonial purposes. While writing in Baihua, they brought the grammar and word order of their mother tongues into Baihua, creating “Korean-style vernacular Chinese,” “Japanese-style vernacular Chinese,” and “Vietnamese-style vernacular Chinese.” The emergence of these hybridized Baihuas is related to the anticolonialists’ cooperation with the Kuomintang government, the oppression of the Kuomintang government, and the authority of Literary Sinitic and Baihua. As a form of subversion of and resistance to the authority of Literary Sinitic and Baihua, the hybrid Baihuas thus constructed served as an anticolonial third space.