An instance of Othering in R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War
Photo credits: https://ausometraining.com/what-is-othering/
Although not ostensibly a postcolonial work, R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War Trilogy can trace its foundational setting and themes to 20th century East-Asian colonial discourse – namely, Chinese historiography. Despite the real-life Chinese unfortunately not being able to channel the power of malevolent, chaotic gods to harness the fire or summon three-headed chimeras, striking similarities can still be drawn between the fictitious events of The Poppy War and the Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895.
It is within this context that we can draw comparisons between the characters represented in Kuang’s novel and their counterparts in reality. Nikan is evidently the representation of imperialistic China, Mugen, the expansionist Japanese Empire. Hesperia can be read as an allusion to the Western powers – specifically, they are most closely associated with the British Empire, who in both reality and in Kuang’s text flooded the country with the slow poison of opium.
Within this period Kuang sketches binaries not only between the Empires of Nikan, Mugen, and Hesperia, but also within Nikan’s own fractured provinces. The shape of the other bends with each faction, yet always with intent – in an era defined by unrelenting war, the dehumanisation of the enemy becomes a necessary mechanism of survival. To march into battle without flinching, one must first fashion a mirror that reflects only monstrosity; to kill without guilt, one must first conjure and christen the Other.
Across the novel, I found it immensely fascinating how Kuang utilised language to paint entire races and even entire countries as other through language and diction. Through this short piece, I wanted to explore one small example of this: Chiefly, the othering of the South from the North.
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Kuang presents the North and South of Nikan as diametrically opposed in every facet: divergent in cultural and industrial composition. Because of its poorer status owing to its agricultural-based economy, The South is linguistically constructed as inferior to the industrialised North. When Rin arrives in the Capital Sinegard in the North, she keenly notes these differences. She marvels that “the women here are so white … like the girls in Wall Paintings.” This is juxtaposed against her own “dark-skinned” face and body. Throughout Chinese history, pale skin has historically been seen as a marker for affluence and wealth, as the colour of your skin was a direct correlation to the amount of time spent labouring under the sun. Kuang expertly portrays this in the novel, casting the pigmentation of Rin’s skin as a perceived inferiority and a marker of her otherness at the Sinegard Military academy. This is immediately perceptible through the judgement and scorn levelled at her by her fellow classmates, denigrating her skin to be as “brown as cow manure”, making her look “coarse and unsophisticated”. Through this, Kuang creates a physical binary between Rin and her classmates – dark versus pale, rural versus urban, South versus North. The very physicality of Rin’s body becomes the canvas upon which social prejudices are written.
Kuang does not stop at the visible. Rin is also othered as a southerner because of her Tikanese accent. Her classmates made “snide comments” and “started snickering every time she talked”. Power begets acceptability: because Sinegard is the capital of the country and the Empire’s cultural and military powerhouse, the Sinegardian accent is construed as the standardised norm. Anything that differs from it is hence seen as uncivilised. Thus, Rin has two choices; to assimilate through erasing her “southern” accent, a marker of her culture ; conversely, she can withstand the taunts. Yet this binary is illusory. As a war orphan with no safety net, her future is invariably tied to the opportunities the North can offer her, and thus is forced to conform to its hegemonic power structures dictated upon her. She learns to “eradicate all hints of her southern drawl”. In these instances, language, and the capacity to speak “proper” Sinegardian becomes politicised. Language signifies Rin’s outsider status; crucially, the changes she makes in her language act as a symbol for the changes to one’s identity.
Kuang further exemplifies how “deeply entrenched” this contempt is for the South through the Combat Master Jun’s treatment of Rin. In the scene where he expels her from his class, he deploys dehumanizing, degrading language to humiliate her, exposing the prejudices underpinning his worldview. He dismisses her as “some country bumpkin” and “just peasant trash.” Master Jun is not a marginal figure but an ex-member of the militia who now occupies one of the most prestigious positions at Sinegard as its Combat Master. For someone of such rank and authority to echo this rhetoric underscores how Northern superiority is not confined to individual attitudes but is institutionalised at the highest levels of power. The insult therefore functions on two registers: a personal attack on Rin’s origins and a reinforcement of the systemic belief that Southerners are inherently unworthy. Kuang uses Jun’s authority to reveal how prejudice is not merely social mockery from peers but a sanctioned ideology, one that permeates the structures of education, the military, and by extension, the state itself.
Michael Foucault’s theory of power illuminates this dynamic. He notes that othering is strongly connected with power and knowledge. When we “other” another group, we point out their perceived weaknesses to make ourselves look stronger or better. It implies a hierarchy, and it serves to keep power where it already lies. By casting Southerners as linguistically unsophisticated and physically undesirable, the North ensures that cultural capital remains concentrated in its hands.
Writing up to this point, I first question why I decided to write this on my first free Saturday after prelims, and possibly only free Saturday before IB ends. But the second, and arguably more important question, is why Kuang herself chose to include such an intricate exploration of othering through accent, language, and ideology in a novel otherwise consumed with the grotesque horrors of war, colonialism, and conflict. The answer, I think, lies in the way Kuang linguistically constructs an empire so fractured that its very people turn against and dehumanise their own darker, poorer components. It is this deep-seated divisiveness, entrenched in everyday speech and thought, that sows the seeds of greater conflict and infighting.
Book review: 3.6/5
