The Role of the Museum in the Rise of Modern Nationalism in East Asia:
Competing Identity Politics in Shaping Historical Memory,
“Manchukuo” (1932-1945) as a Case Study
Yujia Li S2007983
yokkalyj@gmail.com
Supervisor: Mirjam Hoijtink
MA Arts and Cultures: Museums and Collections Leiden University
Contents
INTRODUCTION 2
CHAPTER 1 9
THE IDEALIZATION OF IMPERIALIST EXPANSION: THE NATIONAL CENTRAL
MUSEUM OF MANCHUKUO (1939-1945) 9
I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT: MANCHUKUO AND MANCHURIAN IDENTITY IN CONTESTATION 9 II. IDEOLOGICAL GUIDELINE: PROTECTION OF “THEIR” LAND AND COMPASSION FOR “OUR”
PEOPLE 13
III. INSTITUTIONAL REALIZATION: A NATIONAL MUSEUM THAT FACILITATES SOVEREIGN
DOMINANCE 16
IV. ACADEMIC FRAMING: CONSTRUCTION OF A “NATIONAL” PAST DE FACTO 19
CHAPTER 2 24
THE TURNING AND RETURNING OF GAZE: CULTURAL IDENTITY AS A MEDIUM
OF NATIONALISM 24
I. MODERNIZING THE JAPANESE IDENTITY: “JAPONISME” WITH MORE COMPETENCE 24 II. EXPERIMENTING ON TŌYŌ: A MANCHUKUO FOR JAPAN AND A JAPAN FOR ASIA 29 III. CONFRONTING THE WEST: PROMOTION OF AN ORIENTAL “CIVILIZATION” PAR EXCELLENCE
35
CHAPTER 3 38
THE GENEALOGY OF RACISM: RE-PRESENTING MANCHURIA IN
HISTORIOGRAPHY AND REGIONAL MUSEUM 38
I. THE COMPETITION OF CONCEPTUAL NATION BUILDING: RACE AS A VARIABLE 38 II. THE LEGACY OF REDEMPTIVE TRANSNATIONALISM: MANCHURIA’S PAST RETOLD IN THE
PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 42
CONCLUSION 47
ILLUSTRATIONS 51
BIBLIOGRAPHY 56
Introduction
The significance of museums in facilitating the nation-states’ colonial governance in the 19th century has already been commonly recognized in the academia. Benedict Anderson talks about the interrelations among census, map and museum for the colonial states to legitimize their rules on the colonies. He points out that the deployment of these three institutions profoundly shaped how the dominions and the people were anticipated, classified, concretized and historicized through the imperialists’ imagination of reality.1 Sharon Macdonald believes that the action of modern collecting not only allowed for a manifestation of possession and power, but also provided the “objective” evidence for the nation-states to turn history into a righteous justification of being.2 Since the emergence and the general acceptance of nationalism, the consciousness of national identity has been constantly shaped and reshaped by the authority of state through various forms. Although it was commonly assumed that nationalism in colonized worlds took shape from the dynastic states of 19th century Europe and evolved into an anti-colonial ideology,3 the genealogy among imperialism, colonial expansionism and nationalism is much more complicated and intertwined with other factors. As the museums in Europe nowadays are being more and more open to discuss about their colonial history and willing to reflect upon the cultural/ethnical/artistic values of the peoples that were once defined as “primitives”, the time has come for the non-western worlds to also reexamine how the Eurocentric representations on their cultures have affected the way the descendants perceive themselves. Although most of the global museums in Europe have been devoted to advocate racial/cultural equality and multiculturalism to their utmost, the binaries such as colonizer/colonized, modern/indigenous, west/non-west are still unavoidable in the narratives and labeling of the cultures from other continents in relation to Europe. In this case, it is interesting to notice how the role of East Asia as one of the major representatives of Asian cultures, has complicated these binaries established by the western postcolonial perspectives.
Strolling through the exhibition areas of Japan, China and Korea in the Volkenkunde Museum4 in the Netherlands, the visitors gain a vivid imagination of the long-lasting oriental civilizations from the pacifying atmosphere that the exhibits create. Traditional calligraphy
1 Anderson, “Census, map, museum”, Imagined communities, 163-185, 1991 2 Macdonald, “Collecting practices”, A companion to museum studies, 85, 2006 3 Anderson, 163
and antiquities juxtaposing with religious objects and household utensils, the image of East Asia has been presented as a homogenized cultural entity isolated from not only the modernized world outside, but also the rest of the museum where connotations of colonization, resistance and struggles of self-identification throughout the 19th and 20th century were legibly presented. The bizarre disconnection between a museological representation of East Asia and the real experiences of the people is not only presence in the museum of world cultures in Europe but also in the national museums in Japan and China, where the power of “culture” is mostly recognized to harmonize political/social relations and to facilitate the shaping of national identity, pretty much like anywhere else in the cosmopolitan world. However, it is impossible to ignore the question how have the ancient civilizations in the East reached to today’s modern stage of highly centralized nationalism. Could the tacit consent of a totalizing narrative of national history be traced to imperialism and colonialism from the west? Prasenjit Duara contextualizes the link between nationalism and imperialism in the global embrace of expansionism that generated fierce competition among nation-states.5 Mitani Hiroshi examines the emergence of nationalism in Japan, China and Korea from two aspects: ideology and political movement. According to his comparison, the ideology of nationalism in Japan already emerged in 18th century but the actual political movement occurred in reaction to the arrival of American warships in 1853. In contrast, in China and Korea the ideology of nationalism was formed up simultaneously with political movements after the Sino-Japanese war in 1894-1895. While Chinese nationalists were provoked by the defeat, Korean nationalists saw the chance to shake off their subordination to China.6 Mitani attributes the movement of nationalism to the awakening of rival relationship in East Asia in the process of globalization. Another scholarly attention on cultural history links the self-identification of Asian nation-states closely to the objectification by the “western gaze”, to be more specific the result of Orientalism. The impact of Orientalism is unneglectable for on the one hand the provoked interest from the Western world served as a stimulus of national identity perceived by the Eastern countries, encouraging them to garner international recognition;7 on the other hand the Eurocentric prejudice against the Orient’s “backwardness” evoked Eastern intellectuals to reflect on their traditionalistic religiosity in
5 “Imperialism and nationalism in the twentieth century”, Sovereignty and authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian modern, 9, 2003
6 Mitani, Hiroshi, “Nashonarizumu keisei no san kyokumen”, 41-45, 2013
7 Conant, Ellen P., “Refractions of the rising sun”, Japan and Britain: An aesthetic dialogue 1850-1930, 79, 1991
relation to the national identity.8 This intertwined relationship between globalization propelled by imperialist expansionism and the rise of national identity sheds light on the significant role of Japan, given its complex historical nature of being both an oriental civilization threatened by western expansionism and an aggressive imperialist power in the competition of capitalization in Asia.
When Japan was forced open to the Western imperialists in 1854, Asian countries did not foresee that their upcoming suffering with colonial encroachments would be pinnacled by Japan, nor did they realize the aftermaths of this passive form of modernization would become a legacy of their national identities. As soon as Japan had grasped the tools of transforming itself into a modern industrial power after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it started to subjugate the neighboring dominions (Hokkaido and Ryukyu followed by Taiwan, Korea, China and then Southeast Asia) by strengthened military forces to indulge the growing appetite for imperialist expansions.9 The victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905 not only stimulated a strong sense of national pride among the Japanese but also generated admiration in other Asian countries that were exploited by western powers, persuading into the possibility of overthrowing the power relations in the Eurocentric global orders.10 The presence of Genyōsha at the time could be an instance of this complex mentality across Asia. Founded in 1881, the society advocated the sacred status of Japan in traditional history and the honorable mission of the nation to lead Asia out of savagery, impacting the ideological formation of Pan-Asianism. The annexation of Manchuria in 1930s is believed as a realization of Genyōsha’s political ideals.11 Japan’s colonial rule on the land of Northeast China and the establishment of Manchukuo are of crucial relevance to its conduct of nationalism, transnationalism and expansionism, as Narangoa and Cribb describe it, “…it entailed the selective use of Japanese-style institutions to increase the cultural compatibility of the rulers and the ruled, within a hierarchical order placing Japan at the summit…”12 As a result, the thesis is going to zoom in on the institutionalization of cultural policies established by Japanese imperialist powers in Manchuria (1932-1945), using the
8 Tanaka, Stefan, “Introduction: The discovery of history”, Japan’s Orient, 3, 1993
9 Narangoa, Li and Cribb, Robert, “Japan and the transformation of national identities in Asia in the imperial era”, Imperial Japan and national identities in Asia, 1895-1945, 1, 2003
10 Ibid., 2
11 Joos, Joël, “The Genyōsha (1881) and premodern roots of Japanese expansionism”, Pan-Asianism: A documentary history, volume 1: 1850-1920, 61-68, 2011
National Central Museum of Manchukuo (1939-1945) founded under Japan’s rule as a case study, in order to find out how the museum as a modern institution of knowledge (implanted from the western world) functioned in the construction of a newly established national identity representing the Pan-Asiatic ideology, taking into consideration the historical context of Japan’s imperialist expansions and the sprouting interest towards a scientific/scholarly restoration of the traditionalistic past.
The analysis of the establishment of the National Central Museum of Manchukuo is going to be contextualized in the simultaneous movements in historiography, anthropology, literature, art and etc., which have attracted much attention in contemporary scholarship, with a particular emphasis on the conception of racial, ethnical and national identity among the agents under examination. Kawamura Minato studies the representation of a multi-ethnical Manchukuo (composed of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Manchus and Mongols) in literatures by classifying the authors by their ethnic/racial origins. He observes that while the romanticization of the nation building of Manchukuo was broadly embraced among Japanese writers, there was a discernible racial prejudice in the realistic depiction of the environment, expressing the repellency of Manchurian Chinese lifestyle and the sensitivity towards Chinese inhabitants’ hostility.13 Annika A. Culver looks into the Japanese avant-garde propaganda in Manchukuo. Her research on landscape paintings and the surrealist depictions of Manchurian labor shows that the region often appeared as alien, harsh, empty land accompanied by symbols of lower-class abjection, exoticized by the rural people and wild horses.14 She also discusses the Japanese artists’ bias of “continental laziness” of the Han Chinese in Manchuria,15 which echoes Winslow Homer’s painting of the African American soldiers in The bright side (1865). The notion of racism was inherent in the nation building of Manchukuo, due to the diverse ethnicity and a sense of racial superiority among the Japanese and Han Chinese settlers, who also held cultural bias against each other, as suggested by Mariko Asano Tamanoi, who believes Japanese colonial racism was the result of a lack of confident among the government functionaries.16 The racial antagonism in Manchukuo was entangled with nationalism, since the term Minzu in Chinese was borrowed from Minzoku in
13 Kawamura, Minato, “Shōnen shōjo tachi no Manshū”, Bungaku kara miru “Manshū”, 35-38, 41-44, 1998 14 Culver, Annika A., “Surrealism in service of the state”, Glorify the empire, 72-74, 2013
15 Ibid., 67-68
16 Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, “Knowledge, power and racial classifications: The ‘Japanese’ in ‘Manchuria’”, 258, 261-262
Japanese, which signifies both race and nation.17 As a result, the rival relationship generated from the competitive national identity politics between China and Japan on the land of Manchukuo unavoidably led to racial issues, victimizing the indigenous groups and ethnical minority societies on the land, the genealogy of which could also be perceived after war in China’s reconstruction of the history of the region.
Several studies in East Asian academia have been dedicated to the National Central Museum of Manchukuo. Ōide Shōko focuses on the functioning of the museum in facilitating political interests of the colonial government as well as the relationship between museological practices such as collecting and representing cultural objects and scholarly discourses of archaeology and anthropology. She sees the museum as a concretization of the advocated ideology of “a Concordia of peoples” in Japan-ruled Manchuria.18 Similarly, Inuzuka Yasuhiro approaches to the organizational history of the museum by locating it in the theoretical development of modern museums in Japan. In addition, by seeing the vice director Fujiyama Kazuo as an agent of the institutional realizations, Inuzuka examines how the individual representative of Japanese elite group was contributing to and maneuvered by the mechanism of imperialist domination on territorial sovereignty in Manchukuo.19 Liu Chun-ying argues that Fujiyama’s enthusiastic concerns with the forest and environmental significance of Japan’s immigration policy (visualized in his project of ethnographic museum) shows the typicality of colonizer’s mentality.20 Chen Yan on the other hand identifies the unique “anticolonial” quality of Fujiyama’s museological theories and sympathizes with his “ecologist” beliefs in his vision of ethnographic museum.21 This research draws inspiration from their viewpoints to see the case of National Central Museum of Manchukuo as both an organizational product of Japan’s imperialist expansion within the global structure of colonialism and a temporal manifestation of the genealogical evolution from modern imperialism to transnationalism. Although the above mentioned studies all criticize the colonial/imperialist agenda of Japan’s cultural policies in Manchuria, they tend to see the
17 Dikötter, Frank, “Group definition and the idea of ‘Race’ in modern China”, Racism, 156, 1999
18 Ōide, “Politics within the historical and archaeological museum of former Japanese colonial governments: A case study of the national museum of Manchukuo and the government-general museum of Korea”, 2012; “Creation of Manchurian characteristics in the exhibition at the National Museum of “Manchukuo”: Based on archaeological surveys of the Koguryo, Bohai and Liao Dynasties”, 2010
19 Inuzuka, The intellectual history of museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th century, 2015; Museum as artistic creation by Kazuo Fujiyama: Dream of vice director of national central museum of Manchukuo, 2016 20 Liu, “The scenery of Manchurian forest in Fujiyama Kazuo's writing”, 2013
21 Chen, “The territorial construction, spatial representation and the establishment of museums: Fujiayama's study of literature and geopolitics”, 2017
modern state of Japan as a natural stakeholder in history telling without further questioning the rationale behind the objectification and domestication of the modern invention of nation- building. Therefore the study intends to trace further back to the rudimentary stage of Japan’s acceptance of the western concepts of “museum” “cultural heritage” “art” “national history” and so forth, in order to find out how Japan strategically deployed the institutional and epistemological tools of western colonialism and transformed itself from the observed to the observer. Furthermore, how these conceptual instruments were applied in reshaping the identity of Manchukuo favoring Japan’s political agenda in the competition with Chinese nationalists.
By seeing the ideological construction of Manchukuo not as a static result of Japan’s expansionist imperatives but a dynamic intersection where the identification of the “self” confronted the observation of the “other”, the analysis would have a closer look at Japanese scholars’ systematic reinterpretation of the “orient” in relation to Japan’s own identity in the 19th-20th century. Tanaka analyzes how Japan was reluctant to fall victim to the Western invention of “orientalism” while trying to distinguish itself from the “backward” Asian civilizations through the promotion of science and modernization.22 However, just as the Western world’s imagination of the “East” was merely a reflection of Eurocentric superiority, Japan’s vision of Asia was also composed of ethnical/racial prejudice. Duara elaborates on Japan’s cultural construction in Manchukuo by introducing the concept of modern “geo-body”, the artificial territorial concept invented by the disciplines of nationalism. As Duara suggests, the historical complexity of the region often contests the practical distinction between imperialism and nationalism.23 Following this line of thoughts, the National Central Museum of Manchukuo should not be merely perceived as a colonial institution for cultural encroachment, but also a visualization of the problematic spatio-political naturalization of peripheral societies by the authoritative nation-state. Although the original museum was closed down after 1945, the legacy of imperial nationalism has been passed on through the shaping and reshaping of cultural identities and integrated into the national narratives of history and civilization.
The layout of the thesis conforms to this logic of reasoning, dedicating the first chapter to present the National Central Museum of Manchukuo within its historical context along with the theoretical guidelines in anthropology and ethnography. The vice director Fujiyama’s
22 see Tanaka, Stefan, Japan’s Orient, 1993
close communication with the western world provides a bridge to make correlation between the museological theories in the west and Japan’s up-to-date response to the international discourses. The second chapter traces back to Japan’s early awareness of modernity, racial superiority and national consciousness in association with the “rediscovery” of ancestral origins in religion and folklore beyond national boundaries. In addition, the construction of a hierarchical classification of Asian cultures was systematized through modern definitions of art and crafts, which was appropriated as a powerful instrument to reinforce hegemonic governance and cultural assimilation through public education. Japan’s improvisation of modern science on traditional values paved the way for the ambitious project of pan-Asian revival. The third chapter discusses about the long lasting influence of pan-Asiatic ideology and Japan’s well-constructed image of ethnic differences on today’s Northeast China by giving a brief analysis of the Liaoning Provincial Museum, the collection of which derived from the vanished National Central Museum of Manchukuo. By examining the representations of a regional identity and its link to the national past, it becomes clearer how the authoritative voice in PRC incorporates the history of former Manchuria into its narrative of the indisputable sovereignty over the territorial space. Though the different political parties and stakeholders appeared to have disagreements with regard to the legitimate ownership of the land, the similar imperatives generated by the emergence of nationalism suggest that certain genealogical relationships could be drawn from the methods and rationale of nation building conducted by the succeeding regimes.
Chapter 1
The Idealization of Imperialist Expansion: The National Central Museum
of Manchukuo (1939-1945)
I. Historical Context: Manchukuo and Manchurian Identity in Contestation
Before getting into the discussion of cultural policies in Manchukuo, it is necessary to understand the complexity of seeing the state of Manchukuo as both a colonial territory and an independent empire. The term of ‘Manchuria’ was most commonly referred to as the region of northeastern China in the 18th-20th century, the territory (Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and the northeast of Inner Mongolia) of which has been part of the sovereignty of People’s Republic of China since 1949. (Fig 1) However the autonomous authenticity of the region in the 20th century has been contested among historians and politicians. The word Manchukuo, or Manzhouguo in Chinese already denotes the sense of an autonomous sovereign state, since “kuo” means nation-state. Duara points out the significance of it being founded as a nation-state by the builders who sought for international recognition. While most scholars use the term directly, many prefer to add quotation marks when referring to its illegitimacy. In contemporary China, Manchukuo is referred to as Weiman (the fake Manchukuo), to emphasize its colonial nature. 24 The land of Manchuria was originally inhabited by several non-Han ethnic groups including the Manchu. After the Manchu conquest of China and the establishment of Qing Empire in 1644, the new rulers of Manchu origins endeavored to prevent their own homeland from the influence of Sinicization by the Han populations. Practices including banning Han immigrations, the ritualization of Shamanism, cultural isolation and political controls all contributed to the sense of independence from the official “Chinese rule” (subjugated to the Han majority) while remaining a part of the imperial frontier. Due to the decline of the Qing court and Japan’s rising intrusion into the continent, the circumstances of Manchuria began to change drastically with the flood of Chinese immigration in the late 19th century. Threatened by Russian and later Japanese expansionists, the imperial court gradually relaxed the ban on Han immigration and finally extended to the entire region in 1902.25 By the time of the foundation of Manchukuo, a proportion of 96% of the total population was Han Chinese, outnumbering
24 See Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, “Knowledge, power and racial classifications: The ‘Japanese’ in ‘Manchuria’”, 249; Duara “Introduction”, 1, 2003
the Manchus.26 The overwhelming growth of Han’s immigration also caused Sinicization in the use of language. The Manchu language derived from Jurchen languages (now extinct), the ethnic group of which Qing founders originated from.27 The formation of Manchu language was based on a society of hunting and fishing. However as the influence from Han’s agricultural mode of living increased, more and more vocabularies were borrowed from Chinese. While showing a sense of fascination with Manchu’s ample descriptive vocabularies for dogs, horses and fishes etc., contemporary Chinese scholarship looks at this process of linguistic Sinicization from a historical materialistic point of view, suggesting the inevitable changes in language system caused by “development” in the mode of production.28 During the Qing’s regime the Manchu language had an official status while most official documents were written bilingually. The Manchu-speaking community declined significantly as the process of (self-)Sinicization went on.29 A news article in China in 2007 suggested that the real extinction of Manchu language would happen within ten years.30
After Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905, the construction of railroads became significant for Japan to take hold of territorial management in Manchuria. However since the establishment of Chinese Nationalist Party in 1912, the warlord government in the region had been the Fengtian Clique until 192831, implicitly accommodating the cooperation between the Japanese imperialist and the local elites.32 Although colonization and military occupation have been seen as the most common forms to practice imperialism, imperialist expansion also took on less visible strategies than territorial conquest in the 20th century.33 The deployment of cultural policies gained crucial place in the combat of claiming sovereignty. Some Chinese patriots claimed Japan’s occupation of Manchuria as the opening of a “cultural war”.34 Among the historians many agree to see Manchuria before 1937 (when the Second Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino- Sino-
26 Tamanoi, 249
27 “Manchu-Tungus languagues”, Encyclopedia Britannica
28 Zhang, “Manyu xiaowang de lishi beijing tanjiu”, (The historical reasons for the Manchu language’s extinction), 2008
29 “Manchu-Tungus languagues”, Encyclopedia Britannica
30 “Manyu xiaoshi de zuihou yishun”, (The last moment of the disappearance of Manchu language), 2007, http://www.china.com.cn/city/txt/2007-07/26/content_8584001.htm
31 The local official of the Fengtian Faction Zhang Xueliang claimed a unified China, claiming allegiance to the Chinese Nationalist Party. See Duara, Sovereignty and authenticity, 51
32 Mitter, “Evil empire? Competing costructions of Japanese imperialism in Manchuria, 1928-1937”, 147, 2003 33 Duus, “Introduction: Japan’s informal empire in China, 1895-1937: An overview”, xi, 1989
34 Leibold, “Competing Narratives of Racial Unity in Republican China: From the Yellow Emperor to Peking Man”, 188, 2006
Japanese War started) as the ‘informal empire’. In the late 19th century, Japan’s interest in China was mainly stirred up by economic imperatives, in terms of which the importance of controlling China was prioritized compared to Japan’s formal colonies. However, Japan’s presence in China was not as secure and stable due to their divergent political opinions towards modernization and China’s sense of intransigence to Japan’s self-imposed superiority. Qing’s constant concession on the unequal treaty system with the colonial powers was only an expedient measure to pacify conflicts. As a result, while securing their privileges in the unequal treaties signed with China, Japan endeavored to build up a less aggressive image to accommodate their further encroachment in competence with other colonial powers from the West that aspired to partition China. After the Chinese revolution in 1911, which ushered a series of nationalist movements, Japan felt compelled to carry out an alternative strategy in relation building with especially the northeast China, where their major interests were concentrated.35 This notion of “informal imperialism” provides grounds for the complexity of Japan’s colonial considerations in claiming territorial sovereignty and its cultural strategies of nation building in Manchuria. Although Japan had not made any assertion of authority until the full occupation in 1931, the cultural construct of Manchuria’s link to the Japanese identity emerged in the early 20th century, during the time of which academic research in anthropology and ethnology became increasingly instrumental in Japan’s self-construction of racial superiority. This was initially stirred up by the Chinese ethnocentrism in traditional historiography and Western scholar’s objectification of the Japanese ‘race’.36 Listed among the “eastern savages” that were in need of pacification by the central emperor in China, the early modern Japan had already in the 18th century adapted a reminiscent strategy on its own peripheral lands.37 In 1877 the discovery of Edward Morse suggested the origins of Japanese among cannibals, which later evolved into a national issue that motivated increasing anthropological inquiries of Japan’s history. The controversy concerning Japan’s origin motivated the scholars to gain academic autonomy from the western gaze.38 Consequently the urge to establish an independent Japanese history led to re-examinations of China’s traditional historiography, which posed huge influence on Japan’s self-identification. Naitō Konan (1866-1934) perceived the cultural influence from China to
35 Duus, “Introduction: Japan’s informal empire in China, 1895-1937: An overview”, xii-xxix
36 Shimizu, Akitoshi, “Colonialism and the development of modern anthropology in Japan”, 115-122, 1999 37 Ibid., 123
Japan as a center-shifting movement. He believed that as the culture spreads, it is also localized and developed by the recipient and eventually rises against the original center.39 In contrast, Tsuda Sōkichi (1873-1961) denied Japan’s dependency on Chinese culture, advocating a national ideology substantial to the life of Japanese citizens that develops independently.40 However, as a student of Shiratori Kurakichi (1865-1942),41 Tsuda also believed that in order to understand why Chinese culture is not applicable to the reconstruction of Japanese history, China should be as thoroughly studied as possible.42 As the significance of modern scholarship increased, the perception of inferiority towards the West and superiority towards the East was formulated, which set the base for Japan’s cultural policies in the 20th century.43
On 1st March 1932, Manchukuo was declared by the Japanese imperialists to be an independent nation. The ‘informal empire’ had become a ‘formal’ one. Puyi from the former Qing Dynasty was appointed the emperor of the “puppet regime”. The alleged autonomy watched over by Japanese military forces (the Kuantong Army) is characterized by Duara as a form of fascism in disguise of anti-imperialist nationalism, despite that a policy of multiculturalism was applied instead of the homogenization of ideologies, the governmentality of the state resembles those nondemocratic regimes such as Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.44 The blurry line between imperialism and nationalism concerning the construction of a collective identity thus makes it difficult to categorize the National Central Museum of Manchukuo, institutionalized in 1939, whether as a modern national museum or a colonial museum. Therefore the analysis of it should not be limited to the history of its collections and foundation or the representation methods, but also taking into consideration the historical and sociopolitical context, the anthropological and epistemological frameworks, the agents who carried out the practices and the vigorous changes in power relation from a transnational perspective.
Similar to the western colonial powers, imperialist Japan was also content with its self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self- self-
39 Masubuchi Tatsuo, “Nihon no kindaishi gakushi ni okeru Chūkoku to Nihon (I)”, Rekishika no dōjidai shiteki kōsatsu ni tsuite, 8, 1983
40 Ibid., 6-10
41 Considered as the founder of Tōyōshi (Eastern Studies) in Japan, influenced by positivistic methodology from German historians, he conducted extensive researches on Asian history, questioning the accuracy of ancient historiography and mythology in China. See Tanaka, Japan’s Orient, 25-26, 59-61
42 Matsubuchi, 10-12 43 Ibid., 4
determined role of metropolitan modernity. However, different from most of the conventional colonizers in the west that executed the mission of “cultivation” through religion, language and forms of cultural homogenization, Japan advocated the ideology of a “Concordia of Peoples” in Manchuria, promoting a co-existence of the “developed” and the “primitives”; the modern and the traditions.45 In 1933, the Manchu-Japanese Cultural Conference, organized in preparation for the establishment of a national museum of Manchukuo, consisted of both Japanese and pro-independence Manchurian scholars, with the aim of protecting Manchukuo’s cultural heritage from destruction caused by social disorders or abrupt conflicts during wartime. In the same year, the Manchu-Japanese Cultural Community was invented, which contributed largely to gathering collections and administering cultural activities.46 After the Mukden Incident in 1931 when Fengtian Clique lost Manchuria to Japan, many Chinese nationalists escaped and joined the anti-Japan alliance. The private properties the former Fengtian officials left behind were confiscated by the Kwantung Army, later making up a major part of the Manchukuo national collections. However, there arose some disputations concerning the ownership of the objects. A main purpose of the Manchu-Japanese Cultural Community was to institutionalize the safekeeping of confiscated cultural objects as national cultural heritage of Manchukuo, which was protected by the legislation of antiquities, in order to pacify the outcomes of Japanese military invasion.47 In 1939, the institutional organization of the National Central Museum was drawn up, appointing Fujiyama Kazuo to be the Executive Vice Director. The post of Executive Director was allegedly to be reserved for a Manchurian official and remained vacant. 48 It requires no effort to see the rhetoric gesture of putting a Manchurian at a prior position while granting the actual power to Japanese elites in writing and representing the history and culture of Manchuria.
II. Ideological Guideline: Protection of “Their” Land and Compassion for “Our” People
Before taking over the National Central museum of Manchukuo, Fujiyama had never worked as a museum professional. Nevertheless, he had already encountered the development of
45 Duara, “Imperial nationalism and the frontier”, Sovereignty and authenticity, 179-187, 2003 46 Inuzuka, The Intellectual History of Museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th Century, 58-60
47 Lin, “Production and Reconstruction of Colonial Knowledge: Antiquities Surveys and Activities in the Manchukuo Period”, 18-19, 2015
museological practices during his trips in Europe and the United States and published several articles about museum studies.49 Fujiyama’s book Shin Hakubutsukan Taisei (The New Museum Situations) in 1940 offers an elaborate depiction of his conception of the modern museum enterprise. The book chapters are devoted to different museums He visited around the world (such as the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, the Nordic Museum in Sweden and Smithsonian Institution etc.) as well as the ones in Manchukuo under his directorship.50 His selections suggest a quite explicit preference for museums of a more dynamic educational function over the imperialist ones manifesting power. He praised the Nordic Museum highly for using folk art to preserve cultural history, which gave inspiration for the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Mingeikan), established in 1936 with the mission of using artifacts to popularize the appreciation of “beauty” in ordinary life.51 His view on the museum of Shakespeare’s Birthplace is filled with amazement of how a former residence of a great man could serve to vitalize and impart the essential spirit of a unique culture to the next generations, infusing energy to the formation of collective consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon identity.52 However is his book there is no mention of the British Museum, the Louvre or the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum. This tendency of stressing on the authenticity of a living culture rather than showcasing treasures is articulated more clearly in his museological practices.
Fujiyama was critical of museums in the imperial Japan that he equated to mere showcases of antiques. He was especially dissatisfied with the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum, which he believed was nothing more than an archaic symbol of imperialism, having distorted the concept of museum, incapable of benefiting people’s real life.53 What is also worth mentioning is that despite being the author of the “Declaration of Independence of Manchukuo”, during Fujiyama’s years in the Manchukuo General Affairs State Council until his resignation in 1937, he faced a rather difficult time due to his dissent from Japan’s immigration policies in Manchuria. Only later in 1939 he was invited back to the administrative in charge of cultural affairs.54 Without doubt his empathetic and idealistic vision of museums and of ordinary life also set the base of his aspiration of using museum to
49 Inuzuka, Museum as artistic creation by Fujiyama, 9-13, 2016 50 Ibid., 58-99
51 The foundation of the museum was related to Yanagi Sōetsu and his Mingei theory, which will be elaborated on in the second chapter. See museum’s homepage: http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/about/, and Inuzuka, 69-72 52 Fujiyama, Shin Hakubutsukan Taisei, 124-125, 1940
53 Inuzuka, The Intellectual History of Museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th Century, 80-82 54 Inuzuka, Museum as artistic creation by Fujiyama, 9-13, 2016
teach people the “essence of life”.55 Thus the National Central Museum of Manchukuo came into fulfillment of his dream. Seemingly Fujiyama’s imagination of the museum project was far from imperialist. Some scholars have even characterized him as an ecologist in integrating nature, geopolitics and ethnology into the formation of knowledge, which is beyond the political ideology of colonialism.56 Chinese scholar Liu Chunying relates Fujiyama’s fondness of nature and the modernization of resources development (especially forest) to his literati aspiration of achieving national wellbeing for the people (Japanese migrants in Manchukuo), which by encouraging a general attachment to the new land with the aim of easing population pressure in Japan, politically evolved into the ultimate solution of liberating Asia from the Western expansionist oppression.57 Nevertheless, judging from a postcolonial perspective, the result of the National Central Museum of Manchukuo actually confirmed the imperialist strategic construction of hierarchical culture rather than opposed to it.
Fujiyama’s compassion for the people in Manchukuo is most significantly articulated in his theory of the “living museum”, as discussed above, which dedicates museum to public education about life experiences. This teaching of life experiences was especially necessary to help the Japanese migrants who have just settled on the new land, the climate, natural resources and living habits of which are of much difference from those of their hometown. As a result the emphasis was on protecting natural resources and accommodating agricultural development in replacement of reckless exploitation of the environment under colonization. It manifests that Fujiyama recognized the severe damages that the conventional imperialist expansion brought. However, he was still in favor of the colonialist mastery of the land, only with a rather benevolent method of domination, and in the name of the people. His ecological consciousness of territory management can be traced to an influence from Denmark, as suggested by several scholars.58 During his journey in Europe, besides visiting museums Fujiyama also spent time inspecting the agricultural development, labor management and forest utilization in Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, which he believed could
55 Inuzuka, The Intellectual History of Museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th Century, 76
56 Chen, “The territorial construction, spatial representation and the establishment of museums: Fujiayama's study of literature and geopolitics”. Report of symposium The colonialism and cultural interaction among Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea. Tokyo, 2017
57 Liu, Chunying, “The Scenery of Manchurian Forest in Fujiyama Kazuo's Writing”, Japanese Studies Forum,
2013: 4, 9-14
provide a paradigm for Manchukuo in pedagogy and revitalizing the society.59This strategy of land cultivation was taken further to the cultivation of native peoples, as he believed firmly that the Japanese in Manchukuo had to learn from the local population about farm life first and then took the lead in industrialization and modernization for prosperity. Similarly, the attempt to protect forest was also linked to the need to preserve the “primitivity” of indigenous cultures (the ethnically minority groups differentiated from the Han). According to Duara’s study, the Oroqen inhabitants, a minority group living on the border region between China and Russia, and despite their little population60, were isolated from other ethnic groups and forced back to the forests that the Japanese rulers believed to be the “virgin lands” for the “primitive” Oroqens. And by doing so, Fujiyama suggests, the Japanese ruling class also manages to “preserve the forest upon a non-Chinese history of the region.”61 It seems that the original inhabitants in Manchuria were objectified as part of the nature rather than a people that is qualified to gain self-development and equal respect from the Japanese newcomers. Therefore the advocacy of co-prosperity between human and nature became compatible with the colonial construct of concord between the ruling class and the dominated indigenous groups. By reserving the racial pureness of the native peoples for a more comprehensive construction of modernity, the racist imperialists exploited both the land and the population in the name of progression, preservation and cultivation. This mindset of harmonious domination was embedded in the ambitious projects of museums and identity formation in Manchukuo.
III. Institutional Realization: A National Museum that Facilitates Sovereign Dominance
The official body of the National Central Museum of Manchukuo in 1939 was a merger between two cultural organizations, namely the Manchukuo National Museum in Fengtian (1934-1939) and the Educational Reference Center (1936-1938) belonged to the South Manchuria Railway Corporation. The Manchukuo National Museum in Fengtian was housed in a four-storeyed private property that belonged to a Nationalist official Tang Yulin who escaped after the Japanese occupation in 1933.62 Tang had left behind a major part of his collection of Qing handicrafts, royal antiquities and archaeological objects illicitly acquired
59 Ibid., 10-12
60 Nakao, Katsumi, “Japanese colonial policy and anthropology in Manchuria”, in Anthropology and colonialism in Oceania and Asia, 255, 1999
61 Duara, “Imperial nationalism and the frontier”, Sovereignty and authenticity, 186-187
62 Ōide, Shōko, “Creation of Manchurian Characteristics in the Exhibition at the National Museum of ‘Manchukuo’”, 125, 2010
during his governorship of Rehe.63 The chairman of the Manchu-Japanese Cultural Comminity Luo Zhenyu donated his own collection of ancient bronze, burial objects and tomb figures to the museum.64 Like the other parts of the museum collections accumulated from various private collectors, many artifacts came from loot of mausoleums, tomb robbing and smuggling during the warlord government. For the leaders of Manchu-Japanese Cultural Community, one of the main motivations to establish a national museum was to prevent the cultural objects and precious documents being transferred out of Manchukuo.65 This scholarly concern about the vital importance of the region’s cultural heritage and archaeological excavations reveals the eagerness for the elite group to define a national identity confined within its geopolitical borders. After the new establishment of the main body of the National Central Museum in Xinjing in 1939, the former national museum in Fengtian became part of the bigger complex, retaining its role of humanities study, storage and preservation, as well as reordering archives.66 Fujiyama’s innovation of the “living museum” was centered on the National Central Museum of Manchukuo in Xinjing, where he endeavored to integrate natural history, science and folklore into one comprehensive project. The museum in Xinjing was derived from the Educational Reference Center under the South Manchuria Railway Corporation, dedicated to scientific sample collections and school education. The Educational Reference Center (1936-1938) was terminated when the administrative power of the railway company was transferred to Manchukuo government. As a result the custodianship of the collections was handed over to the National Central Museum.67 The Xinjing museum was planned to have two major exhibition venues, the Dajing Road venue in the city center and the open-air venue outside the city. The analysis here focuses on the latter.
The open-air museum lies at the core of Fujiyama’s museum philosophy in Manchuria, a project that he gained inspiration from the Skansen in Stockholm, which used to be part of the Nordic Museum.68 Skansen is thought to be the oldest open-air museum of the world, which was inaugurated in 1891. The original idea of open-air museums was to restore the rural culture of pre-industrial times, trying to preserve a unique identity against the rapid
63 Inuzuka, The Intellectual History of Museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th Century, 60 64 Ōide, Shōko, 124
65 Ibid., 127
66 Inuzuka, The Intellectual History of Museums in Japan and Manchoukuo in the 20th Century, 68 67 Ibid., 61-62
assimilation by industrial revolutions in Europe. At that time cultural identity of a nation appeared to become vague and controversial due to modernization and the emerging social tensions. Therefore the urgency to reinforce national identity was unproblematic to the museum founders. Jan Vaessen believes that the nationalist nature of open-air museum has become more legible in retrospect.69 Whereas Debra A. Reid argues that in 1920s-1930s open-air museums were made politically useful in building collective memory via standardized education and industrialization.70 Witnessing the proliferation of open-air museums in Europe, Fujiyama applied a similar method to represent the cultural diversity unique to the land of Manchuria, making a selection of representative images of different cultures and juxtaposing them together within the museum space. The envisioned exhibition themes included, to name a few, the farmhouse from northern Manchuria, the Russian village, home of a North Korean family, the Mongolian yurt and the house of a Japanese settler.71 It occurs to be surprising that the Japanese settlers were to be objectified and presented alongside those awaiting to be observed and “civilized”. Nevertheless, the gesture of self-inclusion of the Japanese outsiders becomes more than symbolic when examined through Kirshenblatt’s theory of “performing differences”.72 Fujiyama’s utopian visionary of the ethnographic display originated from his dissatisfaction with Imperialist Japan’s migration policies. He believes that using tough measures to propel Japanese immigration to Manchukuo regardless of the economical and physical adjustability the people were actually facing was no different than treating them as the “watchdogs” of the national periphery.73 Rather, he aspires to create a learning opportunity that assists the mass of settlers and encourage “mutual” understanding between different groups. Therefore the Japanese visitors, as the primary audiences of the museum, were expected not only to watch the living cultures but also to participate, of course not without superiority, in the constructed racial ecosystem by constituting the complicated local community. As ideal as the assumption may seemed, the only part that came into realization was the farmhouse from Northern Manchuria and the rest of his plan remained untouched to the end of Japan’s occupation. The exhibition space of the farmhouse was modeled on an actual farmer’s residence (Fig 2), equipped with living
69 Vaessen, Jan, “Know thy neighbour”, On the future of open air museums, 23-24, 2008
70 Reid, Debra A., “What can we learn from the history of our museums”, On the future of open air museums, 34-35
71 Inuzuka, Museum as artistic creation by Fujiyama, 110
72 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, Destination culture: Tourism, museums, and heritage, 75-78, 1998 73 Inuzuka, Museum as artistic creation by Fujiyama, 105-106
space, pigpen, stables and storages; the exhibit room for costumes, furniture and interior structure; farm tools and other ethnographic objects; library (for folklore literatures) and ticket office…(Fig 3) However due to the instability of wartime and the abortion of the rest of the construction plan, such an ambitious project with full facilities was never opened to the general public since its completion in 1941. The museum had to hire a Manchurian farmer to live there and work as the caretaker of the property. According to the review from a personal visit in 1943, the resident of the museum was raising livestock and growing crops, possibly for the maintenance of his own living, but somehow unexpectedly fulfilled Fujiyama’s ideal of the authentic representation of life.74 The distinction between performance and reality also got blurry. In fact, Fujiyama’s proposal of having local people living in the museum as part of the exhibition was controversial among the officials. One fear from the colonial government was that certain cultural groups being exhibited might feel insulted, “judging from their sense of inferiority and extreme vanity.”75 Although for Fujiyama the exhibition of native lifestyle was probably less about curiosity or scientific interest and more about demonstrating the practical utilization of ethnical/cultural traditions in life. There was an attention of what Kirshenblatt refers to as the “drama of the quotidian”,76 highlighting differences in terms of communication and education. For the Japanese imperialist officials, the struggle between constructing a rhetoric harmony to realize its own imperial ambition and the awareness of other peoples’ rejection of subjugation is entangled with a self-contradicted cultural policy of identity. On the one hand they need to present themselves as the legitimate inhabitants on the land just like other cultural groups; on the other the emphasis on cultural diversity stirred up their appetite for the construction of hierarchical differences, granting themselves the position of prestigious evaluator/educator of cultures. The result of these concerns may seem to be poorly received by the public, but the ideological root and theoretical principles that nurtured Fujiyama’s museological practices and the imperialist officials’ decisions deserve further examination.
IV. Academic Framing: Construction of a “National” Past de Facto
As can be concluded from above, the comprehensive structure of the National Central Museum of Manchukuo was fundamentally based on two disciplines: the knowledge of the land, hence archaeology and natural science; and the knowledge of the peoples, including
74 Ibid., 126-136 75 Ibid., 154-156
anthropology, ethnology and racial classification. In order to legitimize Japanese imperial rule over the territory, it was necessary to get rid of the impact of conventional Chinese (Han) imperialism and to reestablish a history that is exclusively “Manchurian”. As a result, the period of Japanese occupation saw a significant movement in archaeology. The players in the field were eager to find traces that can represent a “national” origin in the ancient past. It is estimated that 77 archaeological excavations took place in Northeast China during Japan’s occupation from 1931 to 1945.77 The massive excavation activities were safeguarded by a legislation of antiquity preservation in 1933, which facilitated political encroachment in the form of academic investigations, since many explorations were accompanied by armed forces; at the same time criticized the former Chinese governors’ neglect of cultural heritage and their abuse of power in antiquarian acquisitions.78 One of the goals of archaeological research was to find scientific proof of a Manchurian history dated back to the pre-historical times, in response to the discovery of the Peking Man in China in 1926. The scholars aspired to trace the existence of a Manchurian Man.79 Another goal was to formulate a linear history of the dynastic conquests on the land of Manchuria in order to obtain viable legitimacy for the Manchukuo regime, since the land not only accommodated Qing emperor’s abode but was also related to the history of Balhae Kingdom (7th-10th CE), Liao Dynasty (10th-12th CE) and Jin (12th-13th CE), all were ruled by the non-Han peoples.80 According to Ōide’s study, the national museum in Fengtian before 1939 focused largely on showcasing antiques such as embroidery and manuscripts from the Qing Empire but from 1939 onwards, the exhibits were gradually replaced by archaeological objects newly discovered, mostly from Balhae, Liao as well as Goguryeo, an ancient Korean kingdom (37 BCE- 668 CE), attempting to repaint the Qing identities with a new Manchurian one.81 The Japanese scholars were especially keen about the history of Balhae, which had a close relationship with Japan during Nara and Heian Era (8th-12th CE), the time of which Japan received significant influence from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE).82 Torii Ryūzō (1870-1953) was one of the most enthusiastic and prestigious archaeologist/ethnologists in this discourse. He brought up the existence of Stone
77 Lin, “Production and Reconstruction of Colonial Knowledge: Antiquities Surveys and Activities in the Manchukuo Period”, 26, 2015
78 Ibid., 7-9 79 Ibid., 26-27 80 Ibid., 13
81 Ōide, Shōko, “Creation of Manchurian Characteristics in the Exhibition at the National Museum of ‘Manchukuo’”, 134
Age history in Manchuria and introduced fieldwork into the regional researches.83 His focus on Manchuria was related to his interest of rooting tracing for the Japanese people, since he believed that only Ainu was the aboriginal race on Japan’s land and most Japanese were settlers from across the continent. However his theories did not share entirely identical interests with the Japanese imperialists.84 Antiquarians in the museum were intent on discovering a characteristic Manchurian style that signifies heterogeneity and cultural hybridity, since the political ideology was to shape Manchukuo into a racial-melding geo-body, distinct from China proper under the homogenizing Han’s dominance.85 In 1940 the National Central Museum also held exhibition of Japan’s archaeological objects from the Asuka (6th-8th century) and Nara (8th century) period, in exchange the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum housed the exhibition of Manchukuo treasures in 1942.86 The events were highly symbolic gestures of mutual acknowledgement of political standings between Japan and Manchukuo, glorifying Japan’s colonial domination in the name of cultural revival in East Asia. By distancing Manchukuo from China’s political interference while retaining the cultural influence from the old civilizations, Japan placed the region of Manchuria along with Korea at the intersection of cultural exchange between Japan and China, asserting the aim of Pan-Asian co-prosperity, in confrontation with Western imperialism. According to Duara, this transformation from an old-style colonialism to the new “commonality of co-nations” enabled the imperialist expansionism to take on a new spatio-political form, which comprised the elements of ethnological discourses, administrative technologies and cultural technologies.87
In the field of ethnology and anthropology, the aim of reshaping Manchurian consciousness was more straightforward, since the discourse did not only reinforce cultural identity but also accommodated economical and political control as well as military aggression. The ethno-historical representations of different cultures in the National Central Museum were based on the guideline of racial classification supported by scientific knowledge. For Fujiyama and other museum officials in Japan, the link between Japanese and the natives of Manchuria was
83 Dong, Xinlin, “Zhongguo kaogu shiyezhong de Niaoju longzang” (Torii Ryūzō from the viewpoint of Chinese archaeology), 102-107, 2017:1
84 Tabata, Hisao, “Niaoju longzang de manmeng diaocha: Genju diaocha jilu fenxi” (Torii Ryūzō’s investigation of Manchu-Mongolia), 69-87, 2014
85 Lin, 16 86 Ōide, 136-137
inherent and concrete, not only culturally but also evolutionarily. Before 1930s, the South Manchurian Railway Corporation was the major sponsor of ethnological researches. The institution invested vastly on territorial development of commerce and industry as well as migration management. The primary objective was to economically and politically control the area by retaining the power of internal safekeeping.88 The researches helped understand local customs that could help the acquisition of the land for railway constructions and to investigate on anti-Japanese movements and ethnic conflicts. After Manchukuo became nominally independent from China, the ethnological research activities became institutionalized, integrating individual researchers into an academic society, holding meetings and publishing reports and bulletins, which contributed a lot to using knowledge to facilitate colonial policies. A large number of the researches focused on ethnic minority groups.89 For instance Nagata Uzumaro conducted a research on Oroqens in 1937-1938. The Oroqen that has been mentioned earlier in the chapter was characterized by the Japanese ethnic studies as an ancient subgroup of the Tungusic race, to which other cultural communities such as Japanese, Korean, original Shandong peoples, Mongols and the Manchus all belonged. Nagata’s analysis positioned northeast Asia at the meeting ground of all Far Eastern races, suggesting the role of Manchukuo as a unifying foundation of all Tungusic subgroups.90 Furthermore, the Japanese ethnologists elaborated on Oroqen’s virtues such as community cooperation and egalitarianism that resembled the modern Japanese society, highlighting the spiritual bond between the “primitive” other and the “civilized” self. The ethnologist suggested that the Oroqen people were the purest prototype of the advanced Japanese, basing on the narrative of evolutionism.91 This dominating narrative was propelled by political imperatives of establishing allied contacts on the border of Russia. The Oroqens were forced to do military trainings and worked for the Japanese army against Soviet Union, because of their excellent hunting skills and familiarity with Russian language. They were also forbidden to farm and were limited the use of opium, which was commonly used by the Oroqens to ease fatigue and alleviate the fear of Shamanistic ghosts.92 The ethnologists’ research on Shamanism further dramatized and mystified the living environment of the
88 Matsusaka, Yoshihisa Tak, “Introduction”, The making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932, 4-5, 2001 89 Nakao, Katsumi, “Japanese colonial policy and anthropology in Manchuria”, in Anthropology and colonialism in Oceania and Asia, 250-252, 1999
90 Duara, “Imperial nationalism and the frontier”, 182-183 91 Ibid., 186
Oroqens, adding exoticism to their ethnicity. This appropriation of “primitive authenticity” not only privileged Japan in political discourses but also confined the minority cultural groups in their alleged primordiality and subjugated them to Japan’s control.
As Duus has commented on Japan’s successful appropriation of the unequal treaty system in the late Qing China, “the Japanese…demonstrated their ability to take a foreign invention…and turn it to their advantage in ways the foreign inventor was unable to.”93 Japan managed to make use of the modern knowledge system of museology, archaeology, anthropology, science and technology to expand their reaching beyond the traditional colonialist agenda. Now it is time to go back to the starting point of their first encounter with the modern instruments to see how it happened.
Chapter 2
The Turning and Returning of Gaze: Cultural Identity as a Medium of
Nationalism
I. Modernizing the Japanese Identity: “Japonisme” with More Competence
As shown in the First chapter, Fujiyama’s theory of museums received much influence from the western modern museology. While advocating the popularization of knowledge and beauty in ordinary life, he placed the Japanese immigrants at the core of racial differentiation and national revival. In the western world, current discussions regarding the flourishing of national museums are often related to the development of scientific knowledge and rationalism in the 18th century and the spread of colonialism and industrial capitalism in the 19th century.94 The same period witnessed a centralization of national sovereignty and territorial control, stimulating the consciousness of a national identity and racial hierarchy within the geographical form of borders. In Fujiyama’s book Shin Hakubutsukan Taisei, he dedicated one chapter to the study of Smithsonian Institution in the United States, which Fujiyama saw as the paradigm closest to his ideal of a modern museum, using technological innovation to facilitate the elevation of ‘beauty’, in combination with a precise representation of well-ordered objects according to scientific disciplines.95 The coming into being of the Smithsonian Institution had an important history with the world fairs in the 19th century. The collections started off as exhibit materials for the world fairs. Later the assistant secretary G. Brown Goode (also working as a curator in the world fairs) was provocatively making the museum a more inclusive exhibitionary complex for the masses, using taxonomy and labeling to formulate an informative image of the hierarchical relations between “savagery” and “civilization”.96 Goode’s theory “to see is to know” rendered the museum an authoritative vehicle for regulating public minds through a purposeful display of “objectivity” and “reality”. Moreover, the representation of spectacles related to scientific and technological achievements was perceived as part of national progress that stirred up a sense of pride for the self as well as a sense of discrimination towards the others.97
94 Kaplan, “Making and remaking national identities”, in A companion to museum studies, 152 95 Inuzuka, Museum as artistic creation by Fujiyama, 76-77
96 Rydell, “World fairs and museums”, in A companion to museum studies, 2006, 136-140 97 Ibid., 141-144
