Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History

by Stefan Tanaka

Stefan Tanaka examines how late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japanese historians created the equivalent of an "Orient" for their new nation state. He argues that the Japanese attempted to use a variety of pasts―Chinese, Indian, and proto-historic Japanese―to construct an identity that was both modern and Asian.

Genres: Japan, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanaka's main idea is simple, yet profound. His argument is that in seeking equivalence with the West, Japan created difference, and inadvertently created a totality that rivalled the West's - toyoshi (the Orient). In this regard, Japanese historian used precisely the same forms of objectivism that bedeviled the study of history in the West, an objectivism that seemed fair but masked biasness. Tanaka looks at how Japanese historians appropriated various sources of history (like the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki) to substantiate their claims that Japan had a past epitomized in the toyo. My main gripe is with the accessibility of Tanaka's writing as he uses way too much jargon. It's probably directed more at upper-division academic readers than the general reader.

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had hoped that this would tackle the topic of the Japanese and their own imperial and supremacist ambitions but this introduction made it sound once again like this "woe is the Japanese victims dealing with the European racists". I mean, it's not as if "Westerners" were the only ones at the time with ethnocentric notions.
I was hesitant at first, but after reading about the arguments for why "shina" should be used instead of "chugoku" for China (the latter is basically china-centric and -supremacist), even with the shinajin argumentation, makes me more curious for this book. However, I once again have to go through dozens of pages of introduction. And the moment that the introduction talked about the structure of the book, I decided to skip the rest.
And naturally there were some headscratching moments. Like, was that one author trying to say that the word "orient" being applied to the Far East in "the West" is due to Japanese authors widening the term to include the Near and Far East? Btw. in that case, she is wrong because Germany is part of "the West" and "Orient" refers to the Near and Middle East here, maybe even India, but not the Far East, that is Asian and not Oriental here, two different things. Another author that the book refers to here considered Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism a corrupting influence on Japan... I heard that somewhere before. And apparently this definition of Orient being used actually excludes Southeast Asia. Interesting. However, one of the few interesting things here, the book is written quite boringly. And that was the reason why I gave up. It was just too boring. Constant writing about people writing about Japanese place and history and it's just too dull.

[Benemint · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall good stuff. I'm grateful to Tanaka for summarizing the argument nicely in the introduction.