Japan’s image in imagology is a paradox. From the beginning, Japan’s image to the Westerners has been shaped by its
Remoteness, both geographical and cultural. Located on the other side of the world, it presented as a natural antithesis to the West . . . In almost every aspect of daily life Japanese customs seemed opposite of European, from the way they read books to the way they cut watermelons. (Littlewood 200) However, Japan is also a civilized nation, which was a contrast to the Western belief that the West is civilized and others are savages. This created a paradox where the Japanese are
“affectionate but treacherous, polite but violent, responsive to beauty but brutally cruel”
(Littlewood 200). Besides this internal contrast, there is also the contrast between Japan and the West. According to Guo, “In the divide between the West and the East of the hemisphere, there are not only geographical differences, but also political, social, cultural, religious, and racial differences. Western culture gained its strength and identity as a result of European expansion and domination in the east, particularly from 1815 to 1914” (33).
As Western countries connect power with domination, it was natural that “Because of its
‘natural absence’ of all virtues and values possessed by the Western culture, the Oriental culture is subject to western domination and oppression. An Oriental person is consequently deprived of his or her humanity” (Guo 33). However, the West failed to dominate Japan until after World War II. This gave time for more stereotypes related to the exotic Japan to be created. In addition, these stereotypes created will last, as “To the Westerners, Japan or the Japanese people should always maintain her or their image as the Oriental other to justify the domination of the Occident over the Orient” (Guo 35).
In the 17th century Japan closed itself to the West but before that stereotypes had already been created in the West of Japan with four main aspects: “the martial arts culture of the samurai warrior, the grace and delicacy of Japanese women […] the high priority given to aesthetic concerns, and […] the overwhelming otherness […]” (Littlewood 200).
These stereotypes exist even today with a few others that were established after Japan reopened to the West. First after reopening Japan was not that strong, which created a more submissive and weak image, but at the end of the 19th century the image became masculine as Japan triumphed over the Chinese army. The image of Japan became more masculine however as the World War II came. The image changed more towards inhuman as the
“geishas and rock gardens were now replaced by a nation of sub-human butchers, whose warrior code was little more than a mask for sadistic cruelty” (Littlewood 201). There was a change again when Japan lost the war because
With the Japan’s surrender in World War II, the West, especially Britain and U.S., becomes the ‘winner’ and Japan the ‘loser’. Needless to say, these two terms are paradoxically hierarchical. The winning team is associated with anything better, and the losing one is everything inferior, sub-ordinated, bad.
As a consequence, the inevitable process of mimicry begins surfacing. Some of the Japanese started to internalize in their mind that everything about Western is fascinating. At the same time, they began to identify their traditional value as something shameful, outdated, and not good. (Nurkhasanah 2)
Losing the war turned Japanese image to a subservient to the West. Because of this the image also changed to a more Westernized as Western culture, especially American, got more of a hold in Japan.
Few years after the war, the focus shifted back to the aesthetics of Japan until Japan began its economic rise which, once again, shifted the image to a more negative direction as the West started to fear Japan’s economic progress. Western people thought that
“Technological ingenuity was just the latest manifestation of oriental cunning, economic expansion towards world domination. And before long the old wartime stereotypes were back in action” (Littlewood 201). The image became positive again after the economic bubble burst. As the image became more positive, people started paying more attention to the unique culture of Japan and this has continued to this day.
However, these types of shifts in image are not that simple. There images will
“always overlap and contradict each other. But the essential components remain much the same” (Littlewood 201). These basic characteristics of a culture have remained unquestioned throughout years because people need them in order to understand the complex world, they “offer us a purchase on what would otherwise be a bewilderingly
complex reality” (Littlewood 201). In Japan, these stereotypes survive also because Japanese themselves “embrace the concepts of racial difference that underpin this imagery.
The deep conviction of their uniqueness that has so much influenced their attitudes to the outside world has also served to reinforce traditional stereotypes” (Littlewood 201). In order to maintain their unique culture, the Japanese people have been influenced to act more stereotypically even if it is not necessarily the original image. Recently these stereotypes have been gradually disappearing with the coming of modern life where people around the world are more and more involved with each other.
One aspect of “Japaneseness” that comes from the Japanese people rather than from Western stereotypes, is the attitude against people who have left Japan. These people who have for some reason left their homeland can be called diaspora and “in contemporary cultural discourse, the term diaspora can be used almost indiscriminately to refer to any group of people dispersed outside their traditional homeland” (Edmond et al. 149). While there is a change taking place as
in the contemporary globalized world, we are gradually moving from negative connotations inherent in diasporas to potentially positive possibilities. This is not the case, however, with established Japanese diasporic communities, whose image as kimin or abandoned people is still symbolic of their relationship with their homeland. (Edmond et al. 151)
This happens because of the image associated with these diasporas because “the early examples of stereotypes surrounding kimin as relating to Japanese people who had to emigrate overseas because either socially or financially they could not make it at home”
(Edmond et al. 152) and thus could be seen as failures. Because of the stereotypes,
Japanese people who left Japan have to endure judgement from their homeland as well as judgement from the new country they moved to.