Summary of the January 22 (Mon) Lecture
"The Lure of the Orient: Contemporary Western Representations of
Japan", by Mr. Joshua Dale
Mr. Joshua Dale said that in his inquiry into the lure of the Orient he
was first prompted to look up the word "exotic" in the "Oxford
English Dictionary", and found the phrase "exotic dancer"
meaning a striptease dancer. He was then reminded that Roland Barthes had
written that striptease actually desexualizes the dancer at the moment when
she is stripped of her exotic costume and becomes naked; in her resulting
"natural" state she is in fact dehumanized, an object rather than
a human being. Similarly, he felt, Westerners investigating "exotic"
Eastern cultures often stripped away the exotic layers to discover the true
"nature" of Asian cultures and people, but in the process rendered
their subject cold and lifeless. In his paper, Mr. Dale wished to explain
both how and why this phenomenon occurred.
Western countries had recently seen a rapid rise of interest in Japan, but
the tendency was for books, articles etc. to be written by people with very
little personal or academic experience of Japan. Mr. Dale took as his first
example an article by David Duckett, Jr., in the February 1993 issue of
"Tokyo Journal", titled "Nailed: The Art of Becoming a Japan
Expert"; the background of the magazine cover was completely filled
with permutations of the most often repeated adage about the Japanese, "The
nail that sticks out gets hammered down." The premise of his article
was that it was quite simple to become a "Japan expert"; your
ignorance would be interpreted as "freshness of vision" and "deep
insight". Duckett noted ironically that these novice "Japan experts"
seemed to be positively encouraged to write voluminously after only short
stays. Similarly, Claude Levi-Strauss, in his book "Tristes Topiques",
complained of the perennial popularity of "armchair travel" books,
lectures and films, containing scraps of hackneyed information interspersed
among the anecdotes of the trips. His conclusion was that platitudes seemed
to have been transformed into revelations solely by virtue of the fact that
the author had travelled thousands of miles to write them. The popularity
of these works was due to the fact that the readers and audiences were interested
in the exotic, and accuracy and truth were not at issue when it came to
the exotic.
Next Mr. Dale introduced a description of a three-hour course given at an
adult education centre in Washington, D.C., which had the intriguing title
"Zen Painting and Zen Writing: Trust Your Natural Instincts."
In the first paragraph, describing Zen painting, Zen is defined according
to the popular imagination of the average Westerner as "a meditative
practice teaching spontaneity and trust in our natural instincts."
And the second paragraph promises to teach spontaneous writing following
the examples of ancient Chinese poetry (was this ever spontaneous?) and
the "automatic writing" technique begun by Jack Kerouac, thus
moving from exotic Eastern forms to Western ones. What this course in fact
offers is an escape from the alienation which is the product of Western
society to a pure state where one follows one's natural instincts. In fact
the course has nothing to do with learning about Japanese culture and arts,
and the word "Zen" is simply tacked on to create a spurious association
with Japanese culture. Nevertheless, the course might succeed in its purpose,
which was to produce self-knowledge among the students. They would be able
to grind "sumi" ink and handle Japanese brushes and handmade paper,
and perhaps these visual and tactile sensations would enable them to find
some sort of Buddhistic calm and some temporary relief from their alienation.
This course makes no attempt to show how the Japanese aesthetic affects
the daily life of modern Japanese people, and in fact cultivates an atmosphere
of exoticism which aids in the generation of insight into the Western psyche;
it captures the essential self-centredness of the West's preoccupation with
the "Orient". This "Orient" is a term that requires
elucidation. Edward Said, in his book "Orientalism", exposes how
the Western colonial powers created the distinction between East and West;
this "Orientalism" is an accumulation of Western concepts of Asian
cultures, which usurps the power of self-definition from Asian peoples and
places it in Western hands. Every new writer on the Orient writes against
a background of prior impressions to which he refers and on which he relies.
Moreover, European culture gains in strength and identity when mirrored
by the Orient. At the same time, Said says that it is possible for Westerners
to distance themselves enough from their own cultural stereotypes to take
an objective humanistic view of other cultures, as "citizens of the
world".
One author who typifies this humanistic approach is Pico Iyer, who has written
several books about Asia in general and Japan in particular. In his 'Video
Night in Kathmandu, and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East" he
acknowledges that he is writing as a casual traveller making casual observations,
without having made any formal study of any Asian culture. In so doing he
seeks to avoid colouring his insights with the prior impressions of Orientalism.
Here we have one justification for the amateur approach lampooned by Duckett
and derided by Levi-Strauss. Iyer assumes that long exposure to Eastern
cultures might compromise an objective, detached viewpoint. However, in
Dale's opinion his encounters with cultural differences place him squarely
in the realm of Duckett's "Japan expert". A case in point is his
discussion of baseball in Japan. Noting that Japanese fans only cheer in
unison he says the experience made him part of a single huge body, thus
seemingly evincing his cultural flexibility. But then he goes on to turn
this into a judgment of the Japanese, saying that group expression invariably
overcomes individual expression in Japanese culture. In so doing he is producing
an Orientalist theory of Japanese culture; the masses of Japanese people
in the stands become a massive Other from whom he distances himself. According
to Dale's analysis, Iyer is motivated by a fear of losing his identity,
which compels him to deny the crowd in the stands their individuality. From
this Dale deduces that it is the fear of difference that drives novice "Japan
experts" to take refuge in their accustomed cliches.
Iyer also contrasts the Disneylands in America and Tokyo. In America the
perfection of the mechanical figures presents a stark contrast with the
gross humanity of the visitors. In Tokyo, both offer images of manufactured
perfection; the doll-like children and regimented crowds are as mechanical
as the attractions. Like the course on "Zen Painting and Writing",
Iyer's representation of Japanese baseball and Tokyo Disneyland takes the
content of Japanese lives and empties it out, leaving nothing but an exotic
image of Oriental perfection. Both the course instructor and Iyer, though
their avowed intent is to shed light on the relationship between Westerners
and Japanese, are in fact inward-looking. They turn to exotic, "Oriental"
Japan to find a cure for Western alienation, but in so doing they immobilize
the exotic object, emptying it of life.
Not every writer ignores the industrialized, urban side of Japan in order
to create the exotic. William H. Gass, in an article in the March 1990 issue
of "The New York Times Magazine", sees Japan as an exemplar of
the post-modern which refuses to correspond to his expectations of an exotic
Oriental culture. Nevertheless, he is determined to use the Japanese scene
to reveal something about the West by comparison. He sees Japanese culture
as a "pidgin culture" in which the exotic is overlaid by an adaptation
of Western culture, threatening the "us-them" distinction between
East and West. In his attempt to account for his experiencing of Japan as
West but not West he searches for the essential Japanese element. He dutifully
travels to Kyoto, but finds only crowds of tourists. (By contrast, Iyer
found in Kyoto the stillness he was looking for.) In his determination to
encapsulate his experience of the exotic Other, Gass is ultimately led to
Roppongi cemetery, located in the centre of the busy entertainment district.
There he constructs for himself an illusory exotic heart of Japan, which
he was unable to find in the streets of post-modern Tokyo. Overwhelmed by
his inability to comprehend the purpose behind the frenetic energy of Tokyo
residents, he brings the chaos to a forcible standstill, recreating it in
a more reassuring form, but in the process he stills the breath of the Japanese
people.
In summing up, Mr. Dale said we had seen how the Western desire for Oriental
exoticism was tied to a drive to explicate the difference between East and
West, and was also linked to the production of self-knowledge. In the case
of Iyer and Gass, the longing to know the Other was allied with a corresponding
fear of losing their own identity within this desire. They therefore both
felt compelled to construct theories of Japan to explain away the exotic,
but this required silencing Japan and denying the Japanese people any individual
agency. In their flight from the encounter with difference they constructed
for themselves a realm of emptiness and silence. At the same time they produce
knowledge of the Western psyche, and end up by reinforcing their sense of
self. Their search for the exotic turns into a retreat which runs full circle,
ending with a look in the mirror. The force hammering down the Japanese
nail is in reality the Westerner who writes about Japan, hammering away
in self-defence and forcing his experience into neatly definable capsules
of exoticism.
There followed a lively question time, after which Dr. Terry Wilson proposed
the vote of thanks on behalf of the Society. We then adjourned to the lobby
for refreshments which were vastly superior to those promised in the January
Bulletin. Mrs. Shigeko Tanaka, standing in for Mrs. Uta Schreck who was
overseas, excelled herself on a very limited budget. She was assisted by
a team of ladies, Ms. Noriko Iriyama and Miss Yumiyo Yamamoto, who had helped
in preparing sandwiches and rice balls, and Mrs. Kuniko Atarashi, who donated
"senbei" (rice crackers) and cookies. We were also once again
greatly indebted to Mr. Takeo Yamaoka for his generous gift of "sake"
and specially inscribed "masu" (small cedar boxes for drinking
"sake").
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin
No. 2", February 1996, compiled by Hugh Wilkinson.
return to Asiatic
Society Home Page, 1996 Lectures