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- Convenor:
-
Misato Shimizu
(Rikkyo University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Ann Heylen
(National Taiwan Normal University)
- Section:
- History
- Sessions:
- Saturday 28 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel examines how the memory of the Japanese empire was retained, rediscovered and rewritten in post-war Japan, in order to review Japan's relationship with Asian countries, using as examples representations of Colonial Taiwan, 1960s Singapore and a film about a Japanese female anarchist.
Long Abstract:
This panel examines how the memory of the pre-war and wartime Japanese empire was retained, rediscovered and rewritten in post-war Japan. Generally, it is believed that in establishing a new regime, post-war Japanese had forgotten their former colonies and occupied areas. However, recent historical studies have called for review of this popular historical narrative. This panel will elucidate the historical process that, although Japanese people's memories of former colonies and occupied areas were presumed to have fallen into oblivion, they were, in fact, sustained unconsciously, that these memories turned into nostalgia during Japan's economic expansion into other Asian areas during the Cold War and that they transformed into a new version of imagined Asia, in order to fit into Japan's post-war regime and the international environment. The first paper, focusing on Taiwan, analyses visual materials on Japanese civil engineer Hatta Yoichi, known for constructing irrigation facilities in Colonial Taiwan. Comparing materials from Japan and Taiwan, this paper indicates that Hatta attracted Japanese construction companies' attention during their developmentalism and international cooperation, with diminishing memories of colonial rule in Japanese works. The second paper takes up a 1960s Japanese film on a Japanese man's romance with a Singaporean woman. Analysing the story and its production background, the paper reveals that Japan's experience and human networks of wartime occupation were mobilised and that this memory was whitewashed to adapt to the context of a peaceful country's economic cooperation. The final paper addresses the Korean film Anarchist from Colony (2017), also successful in Japan. Focusing on representation of the 1920s Japanese female anarchist Kaneko Fumiko, this paper presents a perspective of solidarity of the transnational feminism movement between Korea and Japan. Through these analyses of memories of empire in post-war Japan, this panel will review Japan's relationship with Asian countries from the perspective of socio-cultural history and redefine the shape of post-war Japanese history.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 28 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Through visual materials produced in Japan and Taiwan,this paper analyses representations of Japanese civil engineer Hatta Yoichi, known for constructing irrigation facilities in Colonial Taiwan, in order to elucidate differences in his images' 'mythification'.
Paper long abstract:
Hatta Yoichi (1886-1942), a civil engineer famous for constructing the Chianan irrigation canal in Colonial Taiwan, is highly appreciated not only in Japan but also in contemporary Taiwan. Even former Taiwanese presidents Lee Teng-hui and Ma Ying-jeou have honoured Hatta for his achievements in irrigation engineering during the colonial period. Based on Hatta's story, the Taiwanese television drama Shui se Chianan (2008; literally, 'Chianan in Light Blue') and the Japanese animation film Pattenrai!! (2009; literally, 'Hatta has come!!' in Taiwanese) were produced. Furthermore, in both Taiwan and Japan, the Taiwanese baseball film KANO (2014) drew wider attention to Hatta's contribution to the colony's development. Against such popular narratives, however, criticism charges that these narratives glorify Japan's colonial rule and distort historical understanding.
This paper reconsiders such a dichotomic framework for evaluation of Hatta's story. Despite superficial similarity in Hatta's representations, Taiwan and Japan perceive and understand his story differently. People in Tainan city in southern Taiwan and in Ishikawa prefecture in northwestern Japan, are respectively holding ceremonies to commemorate Hatta, each 'mythicising' his story differently. Although both commemorations are joined with regional promotions, the former is held within the context of Taiwanese folk religion, while the other is secular. Considering this difference, the paper reinterprets meanings of 'mythification' of Hatta's images in visual materials from both Taiwan and Japan, points out that the myths are parallel and questions popular understandings of Japan-Taiwan relations.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the reimagination of the post-war Japanese people's memories of the occupation of Singapore during the Second World War, analysing both the story and the production process of the Japanese film Under the Stars of Singapore (1967) and the song on which the film is based.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the reimagination of the post-war Japanese memories of the occupation of Singapore during the Second World War through a Japanese pop song film Under the Stars of Singapore, (Shingapōru no yo wa fukete, 1967). The genre of pop song films (kayō eiga), many made in the 1960s, is a kind of media mix that places a traditional Japanese pop song (kayōkyoku) sung by a star singer at the centre of the film. The film's marketing then depends on the song and the star singer's popularity. Due to low budgets, pop song films generally deal with themes of ordinary people's everyday lives. Therefore, these films can represent general values and understandings of the world. The film Under the Stars of Singapore, based on Japanese star singer Hashi Yukio's song released the previous month, follows the main character's (played by Hashi) visit to Singapore to discover a wartime romance between his father and a Chinese Singaporean woman and to discover the truth of his sister's death.
This paper analyses the representation of Japanese and Southeast Asians, particularly focusing on gendered images, and secondarily, indicating that the Japanese people's wartime experience and their networks with local people were mobilised in producing this film and song. Previous studies on Japanese popular culture and 1960s Japanese relations with Southeast Asia have revealed that pop song films portray Japanese society's mentality at that time, that Hashi is positioned in the genealogy of post-war Japan's 'new rhythm', a series of dance tunes coming mainly from Latin America and the Caribbean through America, and that in dealing with Southeast Asia, 1960s Japanese popular media created an image of Japan as Asia's leader. The paper discusses not only how memories of the Second World War influence this film but also how it whitewashes memories of the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines a film's functions within the context of Korean and Japanese historical understandings, focusing particularly on the representation of 1920s Japanese anarchist Kaneko Fumiko in the Korean film Anarchist from Colony (2017) and its reception.
Paper long abstract:
Kaneko Fumiko is a Japanese female anarchist who was tried just after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 on charges of plotting the assassination of members of the imperial family. Kaneko was despised and abused in Japanese society because she was an unregistered person(mukoseki-sha). When she was nine, she went to Korea and stayed there for about seven years. Even in the period of Japanese imperialism, her experience in colonial Korea was different from those of other Japanese colonists.
Her background as an unregistered person and her experience in the colony led her to sympathize with the Koreans who suffered from discrimination. In this context, she established a strong comradeship with Korean activist Park Yeol after coming back to Japan, with their relation turning into a partnership.
This paper examines a new interpretation of Kaneko's story both in Korean and Japanese society through the reception of the film "Anarchist from Colony" (2017) in the two countries. Because of Kaneko's anti-Emperor system ideology, it has been difficult to endorse her in Japan. Meanwhile, this film, which enjoyed tremendous success in Korea and was released in Japan in 2019, gained unusual popularity among the Japanese audience despite the theme of Japan's "dark" history.
In Korea, the character of Kaneko whom the film portrays as a dignified woman, attracted more attention than Park. Yet, her role was still mainly perceived as that of wife to the Korean independence activist. On the other hand, the Japanese audience received the film as a love story between Kaneko and Park rather than a story about opposition to the Japanese Empire. Nonetheless the work presented the Japanese public with a new image of this female historical figure. By employing a feminist perspective, the paper will thus analyze the representation and the interpretation of Kaneko's story in "Anarchist from Colony" in order to show how the film has popularized her character in Korea and Japan and how it thereby has also influenced the understanding of the two countries' modern history.