) \6 @) E/ q: n, n8 Y2 y% Q8 ^展览的总结部分: ; L4 T3 |1 v' p3 O6 ?% E8 l: x $ {( C3 `0 x- ?' `7 [& iBecause racism in the age of imperialism is most commonly associated with “white supremacism” (and the smug rhetoric of a “white man’s burden”), this explosive outburst of Japanese condescension toward China and the Chinese seems all the more stunning. In the Western hierarchy of race, so-called Orientals or Asiatics or Mongoloids were lumped together—below the superior Caucasians and above the “Negroid.” In their inimitable way, the Japanese promoted these stereotypes where the Chinese were concerned, even while trying to demonstrate their own identity with the Caucasians. ( d2 i$ M, e( g" G/ L6 q + o+ k1 p* K) X7 z: ^0 |; nWhat made this even more disconcerting was the intimate overlay of race and culture in the case of Japan and China. No non-Chinese society was more indebted to China. Japan’s written language, its great traditions of Buddhism and Confucianism, vast portions of its finest achievements in art and architecture—all came from China. In an abrupt phrase familiar to all literate Japanese, even in the Meiji period, China and Japan were culturally as close as “lips and teeth.” / z2 o+ N; N* |& l! U j* E6 v# q6 J" \5 X9 `9 Z! K; a; D
But that, of course, was the point—and what made this outburst of anti-Chinese sentiment a very peculiar sort of racism on the part of the Japanese. The Chinese were contemptible because they were deemed inept. At the same time, however, “China” was symbolic and self-referential. “China,” that is, stood for “Asia.’ It stood for “the past.” It stood for outmoded “traditional values.” It stood for “weakness” vis-à-vis the Western powers. It stood, coming even closer to home, for “evil customs of the past” that Japanese leaders ever since the Meiji Restoration argued had to be eradicated within Japan itself if their nation—and Asia as a whole—were to survive in a dog-eat-dog modern world." ^# R/ J( u& ~) @0 d
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“Old” China was the Anti-West, the Anti-Modern (a notion China’s own Communist leaders would later embrace with a vengeance themselves). As a consequence, while the corpses were unmistakably and brutally Chinese, they stood for a great deal more as well. / M& h9 o6 T1 f9 r4 N/ k5 i& d/ h+ U6 |' m( B# [% ^
To return to Fukuzawa’s famous phrase, killing Chinese amounted to “throwing off Asia” in every conceivable way. This was seen to be essential to Japan’s security, its very survival. It was deemed progressive. It amounted, when all was said and done, to embracing a “modern” kind of hybridization. Where the old Japan had been distinguished by enormous indebtedness to traditional Chinese culture, the new Japan would be distinguished by wholesale borrowing from the modern West.( x. g8 J0 w% t. h |, l7 G9 m
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发表于 2012-9-1 12:27:41
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