U.S. Culture / A Japanese perspective on history : The Language Connection : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)
U.S. Culture / A Japanese perspective on history : The Language Connection : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)
U.S. Culture / A Japanese perspective on history
Kimiko Manes Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Many of my students belong to the Pokemon generation: They grew up collecting Pokemon cards, bringing anime and manga culture straight into my Japanese class at the community college. The Japan these students learned about through pictures, animated or not, might be ideal for understanding Japanese living customs and daily actions of today, but rarely do students know the historical background behind those images. Therefore, their questions sometimes come across to me as being naive.
Here's a sample:
"American parents teach their children to be independent while in anime the characters all display group behavior. Japanese parents seem to expect their children to learn harmony among people."
"Characters in anime take forever to say, 'I love you' to someone they love."
"In America, it is considered common courtesy to look someone in the eye when speaking to them, but I've read that in Japan, it'll be considered an affront. It seems that Japanese customs are opposite those of the West."
I replied, "Historically, Japan was never invaded by a foreign power until World War II, which might be why a distinct value system emerged without foreign influence. During the late 13th century, China tried to invade Japan twice, but they weren't successful."
The two Chinese students in my class looked each other, perplexed. "Did we attack Japan?"
"Didn't you learn in history that Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, sent a navy to invade Japan?" I asked.
One of them replied, "That's Mongolia, not China."
This comment really struck me. Genghis Khan was indeed a Mongol. But Kublai Khan moved the capital to Beijing and founded the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), which ruled China for close to a century. Not only that, the Yuan dynasty was geographically one of the most expansive empires on the Asian mainland. From the perspective of an outsider, it is part of Chinese history. But from the perspective of the Chinese today, that part of history is considered the "Mongolian occupation." To be sure, there are many ethnic groups in China, and at different points in history, different ethnic groups invaded, seized power and founded dynasties. It wasn't that I was oblivious to Chinese history, but I had never considered things from the perspective of those who lived there.
If we try to apply China's situation to Japan, it would be analogous to having part of history in which Japan was occupied by China, Korea or even Russia. While there were civil wars in Japan, the victors were always ethnically "Japanese." "When I followed this line of thinking, I realized the uniqueness of Japanese history. It can be said that the Japanese have never had to compromise or were coerced into creating a certain type of social order, but were free to make their own civilization.
In ancient times, the world developed by exchanging ideas. Europe and Asia are, really, one large continent that is also connected to Africa. Influenced by many factors, including wars and commerce, people were able to migrate across three continents. Many ethnic groups have come to Japan, too, but it was an archipelago at the end of Eurasia: People couldn't go any further, as the Pacific Ocean blocked their way. So they had to remain, and adapted to the land.
Climatically, I think Japan was a great place to live for these ancients. The parts of Japan that developed earliest were points west and south of the Kansai region. Yamaguchi Prefecture, situated at the center of this area, is in a zone where temperate and tropical plants coexist. The part of Japan that developed first didn't have the brutal cold of the continent, and neither did it have tropical diseases like malaria and amoebic dysentery.
Situated in the monsoon zone, it had plenty of rain, resulting in naturally soft water. Both the land and the sea provided food, and there were no predatory powers in the form of outside ethnic groups. It isn't a large place, but it must've been an easy place to make a living. Communities were built, and the beginnings of the Japanese civilization came to be.
In contrast, the Chinese tend to have strong familial and friendship ties, but fundamentally, I think they may have a more individualistic culture.
During the seventh and eighth centuries, the Japanese Imperial Court sent delegates to the Sui dynasty and Tang dynasty China. They brought philosophy, religion and technology back to Japan, much of it in text form.
In 1543, a drifting ship ended up on Tanegashima island off southern Kyushu and brought the first gun into Japan. Within a couple of years, guns were in production in many areas of Japan. In 1549, the missionary Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan, but in 1587, the shogun forbade missionary work, and in 1612, Christianity was made illegal.
The ban on Christianity occurred because the system of thought did not work well with the Japanese social order; in addition, it was to protect Japan from the Western attempts at colonization that inevitably followed missionaries at the time.
The shogunate knew that trade came along with Christianity, bringing wealth to Japan, but they had no choice but to prohibit Christianity. In 1635, Japan isolated itself from the world, a situation that lasted until U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrived and demanded the opening of Japan's doors in 1853. For nearly 2-1/2 centuries, Japan was free to explore its own values and philosophy without any interference from the outside, and the unique civilization of Japan blossomed.
It is interesting that Japan had established its own values and morals partly through the influence of imported philosophies and partly through mutual respect developed for survival in a group-oriented society, rather than having morals handed down by a particular religion or god. It's a unique quality setting Japan apart from Western morals, which were nurtured with religion and a god.
I don't think Japan's seclusion from the rest of the world and its refusal of Christianity on the one hand, and the enforcement of morals based on pride, honor, and discipline from the Kamakura period (1192-1333) on the other, are unrelated. Japan had boasted the lowest crime rate in the world until recently due to the strict adherence to pride, honor and discipline.
New ideas, philosophies, knowledge, technology and information are transmitted and evolve. But after these things have entered Japan, they had no way to flow out again due to mandated isolation. Perhaps because the Japanese have a long history of bringing in things from the outside and then changing them to suit their own likes and needs, they like to fiddle with new technologies.
This might also be because nothing, neither objects nor ideas, was ever forced upon them by an outside power. This also explains why anything that has come in from another place has not been adopted wholesale, but has been adapted for suitable use in a Japanese context. The way that kanji is used and the creation of hiragana and katakana are good examples.
Manes resides in Philadelphia and teaches Japanese at Bucks and Montgomery county community colleges. She is the author of "Culture Shock of Mind" (Sunmark Publishing Company; in Japanese). Manes may be contacted at maneskim@gmail.com.
(Feb. 21, 2006)
Friday, March 10, 2006
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