At the very beginning of the “Great Asia War and Our Resolve”, written at the very beginning of Pacific War, Takeuchi Yoshimi exclaims: “The history has been created! The World has been transformed!” Then he argues in the article: “the Sina Incident has been completed by Great Asia War successfully and gains its rebirth in the world history.” In this sense, we could hardly distinguishes Yoshimi from those who were swept by the war and condemned as “intellectual chaos and complete abandonment of the intellect” by Yoshimi himself. Thus, when Yoshimi claims that his effort of studies on “Overcoming Modernity” symposium is to “strip the ideology from ideas” or “to extract the ideas from ideology” after the war, I believe that Yoshimi is also trying to start reflection on himself. While he argues: “the real legacy of the ‘Overcoming Modernity’ symposium was not its status as war and fascist ideology. Rather it lies in the fact that the symposium failed to achieve even this, and that its attempt at intellectual formation resulted in intellectual loss”, I find his ambition to the “intellectual re-formation” in the “What is Modernity”, by bringing China, from which Japan …show more content…
Although Yoshimi maintains the “West/East” monolithic opposition, new concepts he brought in such like “history/self-consciousness” and “resistant/defeat” make his elaboration intriguing, especially the part of the comparison between China and Japan. By having recourse to Lu Xun’s story of “wise man, fool, slave”, Yoshimi suggests that Japan is the slave bearing “the hallucination of liberation”, which refers to the reception of European modernity without resistance, and Japan is crueler to others than the “master” (European Colonialism?) inasmuch as Japan is actually a slave; By contrast, China owns more possibility of modernization and self-consciousness because of its resisting
Much of what is considered modern Japan has been fundamentally shaped by its involvement in various wars throughout history. In particular, the events of World War II led to radical changes in Japanese society, both politically and socially. While much focus has been placed on the broad, overarching impacts of war on Japan, it is through careful inspection of literature and art that we can understand war’s impact on the lives of everyday people. The Go Masters, the first collaborative film between China and Japan post-WWII, and “Turtleback Tombs,” a short story by Okinawan author Oshiro Tatsuhiro, both give insight to how war can fundamentally change how a place is perceived, on both an abstract and concrete level.
The modern nation of Japan is a result of expansionist prospects that resulted in war between the nations of Korea, China, and the United States. Modern Japan is a result of the Sino-Japanese War, conflict with China, and the Pacific War, as well as the process of establishing a democratic state. These events combined (as well as numerous others not mentioned in this paper) marked the transformation of a militaristic and expansionist empire in to a democratic nation and ally.
"(Doc. A) The beliefs Japanese grew up with were that the Emperor was sublime and his empire should be followed everywhere nerveless by everyone. They were trained to be dedicated; willing to do anything to please their superior. “An old order... (European and American)... is now crumbling.
Japanese immigration created the same apprehension and intolerance in the mind of the Americans as was in the case of Chinese migration to the U.S at the turn of the 19th century. They developed a fear of being overwhelmed by a people having distinct ethnicity, skin color and language that made them “inassimilable.” Hence they wanted the government to restrict Asian migration. Japan’s military victories over Russia and China reinforced this feeling that the Western world was facing what came to be known as “yellow peril”. This was reflected in the media, movies and in literature and journalism.4 Anti-Oriental public opinion gave way to several declarations and laws to restrict Japanese prosperity on American land. Despite the prejudice and ineligibility to obtain citizenship the ...
In Nakae Chomin’s A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government, Chomin delineates a discussion between three men; the Gentleman of Western Learning, the Champion of the East, and Master Nankai. For the most part, the book handles the question of Japan’s future, for which each of these men has distinct view on. Although through the amiable and democratic viewpoint of the Gentleman of Western Learning and the belligerent nationalist viewpoint of the Champion of the East, Chomin shows appreciation towards western political theories and understanding of traditional Japanese approach, His personal views are conveyed through the character of Master Nankai.
In dealing with the issues of Japan at the time, this Discourse was written in 1887 concerning political thought and written by Nakae Chomin and translated by Nobukuo Tsukui who is a major Japanese scholar in literature. Nakae Chomin was very interested in the area of political theory in his home country of Japan. There had been a call, in particular by Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher with many areas of study of which one in particular was political theory. Spencer as well as others had called for changes in Japanese culture and to conform to the ideas of social progress. Nakae and other intellectuals had spent a decade with the idea that this call should be met as a challenge and as a cause for freedom rather than accommodating the western powers of Great Britain, Russia, France and Germany. The competition of these countries gaining dominance in Asia was creating a strain on Japan and had to be addressed. Japan could not ignore what was happening internationally on the world stage or ultimately be left behind as a nation to never be recognized unless it could show the will to conform to western culture. Nakae was focused on the issues of national defense and pacifism especially in the twentieth century where men decided that national well-being was more important than national defense. There are three characters in the book: the Gentlemen who is promotes the idea of democracy, the Champion who promotes the thought of aggression and lastly, Nankai who loves to drink and discuss politics of the time. It seems that none of these characters hold the greatest wisdom but the one that is closest to Nakae is Master Nankai. Western liberal politics is well received by Nakae through the Gentlemen, Japanese traditionalist...
Fukuyama, F. (1989). The End of History.The National Interest, Summer. Retrieved February 2, 2014, from http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm
Initially, a change in historical evidence can drastically affect our emotions. In reality this is seen most commonly in the relationship between two countries. Concurrently, this is most evidently portrayed between China and Japan’s strife of the Diaoyu or Shekaku Islands. The islands are located west of the Chinese coast. The conflict between the two nations arose because of disagreements between their two independent versions of history. For most of China, the war represents the social emotion of embarrassment and a time of suffering. It is this embarrassment that eventually led to the more nationalistic protests that occurred throughout the Chinese mainland. The many protest...
middle of paper ... ... In conclusion, Japan tried to isolate themselves, and China tried to compete with them, using their land, and excess population. Documents one through ten were all about China, and documents eleven through sixteen were about Japan. Documents one, two, three, and seven talked about whether China was prepared for the European countries, and documents five, six, and nine talked about whether or not China compared to the European countries.
For centuries, Japan has been influent by the Chinese. Chinese was a part of every aspect of Japan. “The growing power of China and Silla helped prompt the Soga uji’s Empress Suiko and her nephew, Prince Shotoku, to connect Yamato more firmly to the mainland and its conception of politics, culture, literature, and ultimately, the imperial system itself.” (Patterns of World History, Brief Edition, Volume I, Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow, 363) Shintoism was Japan’s main religion until the Heian period, when “the widespread adoption of Buddhism culture plugged Japan into an enormous, interconnected economic and cultural Asian sphere.” (Patterns of World History, Brief Edition, Volume I, Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow, 363). But the Japanese did not
Look at your local Chinese food takeaway, half of it is Americanized, sweetened and thickened to suit our tastes. Anything that is labelled ‘sweet and sour’ for instance, Sweet and sour pork, that’s a lie. Countries like Japan have become a war ground for the constant battle between tradition and Americanization. Here we can see this battle through the woman dressed in a traditional Kimono, sitting almost helpless, contrasting the English typography in the background and reflecting on the window of the car. This casts the woman as not belonging, being the foreigner in her own country. The glass of the window seeming to become a shield, or container to maintain the last of Japanese culture from the attacks of Americanization. But this wave of Americanization was not always feared. If you lived in a country where your leaders had led you, young teenagers, off to fight a war you don’t believe in, on a side you think is wrong, you came to distrust them. So when the Americans flew in, they were welcomed with open arms, the American democracy became a model for Japan, and soon the government was controlling newspapers and magazines to explain and popularize the new democratic legal system. ‘Japanese conformity and homogeneity’, Tetsuo Kogawa states in his essay ‘Japan as a Manipulated Society, ‘can be seen as the production of conscious and unconscious control of
The embarrassing defeat of China directly influenced Japan to voluntarily accept Western culture. Both Japan and China adopted bits and pieces from Western culture and adapted it to their traditional culture rather than becoming Westernized. The Boxer Rebellion is proof of China’s refusal to accept Western culture, in particular for Christianity. The slaughtering of practicing Christians, both Chinese and Western, is a very distinct rejection of Western religion.
In her essay “Inside and Outside: An Analysis on Shutting Out the Sun”, Jiang first identifies the concept of “inside and outside” as the most prominent cause of the phenomenon of hikikomori (Jiang, 1). Second, Jiang asserts that because of his perspective as an outsider, Zielenziger is bias and unfairly uses Western values to judge Japan. To the first point, while I agree that the division of “inside and outside” is important to the emergence of hikikomori, I think Jiang’s account is an oversimplification. As to the second point, I agree that Zielenziger is inevitably biased. However, I think Jiang mischaracterizes this “bias”. In fact, since everyone with a distinct perspective is more or less biased, a biased account is not necessarily bad.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
Griffith’s study also includes four different appendixes. The first is A Note from Wu Ch’I, the second is titled Sun Tzu’s Influence on Japanese Military Thought, the third is Sun Tzu in Western Languages, and the fourth appendix is Brief Biographies of the Commentators.