Medium Post #3 (Week 4)

This week’s main theme is complicity — that is, how did ordinary Japanese people become implicated (consciously or not) in the act of inflicting colonial violence? Consider this question from the readings for lecture 7. Is there a link between someone like Ayako in Mizoguchi’s Osaka Elegy and Koizumi Kikue, who wrote “Manchu Girl” based on her experiences in Manchuria? How might these very different representations of late 1930s femininity in imperial Japan connect to the kinds of imperialist masculinity we see explored in the readings for lecture 8?

Ideas and gossip can spread like wildfire. Propaganda can also spread super fast. People of Japan were consciously and unconsciously influenced by ideas of imperialism. Many times imperialist conquest were set out through military methods. Political means were also used as we witness with the Ainu. Generally imperialism ties together with the idea that one country is superior to another. With this concept, the Japanese were influenced into viewing their country and culture as superior to others. This idea that other countries that Japan was colonizing must submit to Japan and be “Japanese.”

I believe that both Ayako and Koizumi illustrate this idea of Giri which is based on Confucian ideas of relationships. Confucianism brought forth the social relations of early Japan and how to interact with one another. This explained the relations between the lord and commoners and samurai, and between family members. In relation to imperialist ideas, Koizumi began to realize their own bias after the girl she hired began viewing her as a mother.

Koizumi and Ayako represented the femininity in imperial Japan. Japan, as found in lecture 8, was was being portrayed as a big family with the emperor as the head. Japan throughout history was largely based on family relations and ancestry was largely important. Therefore, keeping with the theme, they portrayed themselves that way to other countries. However, the imperialist masculinity shows itself in the form that Japan saw itself as better than others. Much like the idea of hegemonic masculinity, others who were not Japanese but were apart of this “Japanese family” were seen as lesser. They could never truly measure up to Native Japanese people.