ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how, in a relatively early and little-known work, Takeda Taijun evokes the landscape of the West Hunan region of China in order to render tolerable the memory of Imperial Japanese Army atrocities on the Asian mainland. A close reading of “The Journey of a Young Soldier” reveals a romanticization of landscape by means of which Takeda, in a manner that veers disturbingly close to a fascist aesthetic, constructs the West Hunan region of China as a timeless paradise. Takeda’s commentary on Shen’s Congwen autobiography provides contemporary readers with insights into the difficulties encountered by the Japanese writer as a “long-distance cultural specialist” attempting to ascribe meaning to the discursive site of China. Takeda’s annotated translation of Shen’s autobiography notes that because “to kill was the only way to suppress unrest,” for both the officers and soldiers of Shen’s unit, “watching killings was the most common way to pass the time.”.
