European Journal European Journal of of East Asian Studies 19 (2020) 209–236 East Asian Studies brill.com/ejea Thatched Cottage in a Fallen City The Poetics and Sociology of Survival under the Occupation Zhiyi Yang Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
[email protected] Abstract This article examines the construction of lyric identities by Li Xuanti, a classical- style poet, cultural celebrity and prominent civil servant in collaborationist regimes based in Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It argues that Li used his poetry to explore the confusion, ambivalence and sense of cultural pride while liv- ing with the occupiers. Despite his collaboration, a frequent identity that appears in Li’s poetry is that of a yimin (loyalist), who has retreated to the inner world of reclu- sion. With the progress of the war, however, another identity eventually emerged in Li’s poetry, namely that of a patriot. Historical allusions in Li’s poems thus acquire double- entendre, expressing his ambivalent loyalty. Li was also at the social centre of a group of like-minded collaborators and accommodators in Nanjing, bound by their common practice of classical-style poetry and arts.Their community thus becomes a special case of study for the sociology of survival under the Japanese occupation. Keywords Li Xuanti – collaboration – accommodation – Japanese occupation – classical-style Chinese poetry – Second Sino-Japanese War In September 1940, Li Xuanti 李宣倜 (1888–1961), chief of the Bureau of Engrav- ing and Printing in the collaborationist Reorganised National Government (rng) in Nanjing, was awarded a vacant two-storey house in the Three-Steps- Two-Bridges (Sanbu liangqiao 三步兩橋) residential quarter.