Author: wssxasd Date of submission: September 8, 2005 8: 52: 00 Interview: 258 Reply: 2
More than ten years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Japan, where I lived for nearly four years, worked in various jobs, met all kinds of people, did guest research in universities, and got to know something about Japanese academic circles. The actual life experience has revised my imagination and understanding of Japan. —— Li, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Literature, China Academy of Social Sciences, famous Japanese cultural research expert, art critic, and author of Ambiguous Japanese.
In China's narration about Japan in the past, the Japanese were either murderous demons, such as "Captain Pig", "Captain Donkey" and "Commander Cat's Eye" in the novel "King Kong of Fire", or they were symbols of politeness, both of which were conceptual things. This division is undoubtedly a special historical situation and sinister in modern times.
China people have all kinds of illusions and ignorance in their exaggerated and self-righteous imagination of Japanese. Although China had contacts with Japan for nearly 2,000 years, and in modern times, it suffered heavy losses from Japan and almost perished. In this sense, this ignorance is unforgivable. I have visited Japan and the Japanese people written by China in the past hundred years, and they have generally gone through the stages of caricature → demonization → symbolization, and have always been separated from the real Japan and the Japanese people by a layer, which has greatly misled China people's understanding of Japan. Of course, this is not only the collective imagination of Japanese people in China, but also exposes a huge blind spot.
When China people look at Japan, they are often influenced by three kinds of bad mentality: First, "Greater China", which is a deep-rooted concept. In many people's minds, everything in Japan is copied from China. Many people come to Kyoto and Nara, and they can't help crying when they see antique architectural streets. This was also true in the Han Dynasty, and that was also true in the Tang Dynasty. Their pride was beyond words. This recognition may not be borrowed, but just seeing it makes me feel very dangerous. This "big China" mentality will inevitably lead to contempt for "small Japan". When the groggy Qing officials called Japan an "island" at that time, they didn't know the exact geographical location of Japan. As a result, "Little Japan" defeated "Greater China". Second, the "victim" mentality. In modern times, Japan has indeed caused great disasters to China, but it is very dangerous to just remember these things without reflecting on the reasons, especially on one's own weaknesses and inferiority. No one can guarantee that similar victims will never happen again. Third, vulgar sociology. For example, regarding the war, for many years, we always thought that the Japanese people were peace-loving and anti-war. At best, they were deceived, and only a few Japanese rulers were belligerent. As a diplomatic strategy, this approach is necessary. If you really think so, it's dangerous. As long as you know a little about the social history of Japan, you can find how wrong this view is. Of course, this does not mean that there are no anti-war activists and just voices in Japan. However, what is their voice compared with the absolute majority of solidarity vows? Later, in the voting of various parties on the war bill, even the Japanese * * * production party voted in favor. After the war, Japanese Prime Minister Togo put forward the slogan of "100 million repentance" and reviewed the reasons for the failure of the war from the aspects of military discipline and morality. The Japanese production party simply thinks that "100 million people, 100 million war criminals". It can be seen that I don't believe that "the Japanese people are anti-war" myself. This vulgar sociological way of thinking, which divides rulers and ordinary people into two, is at least not suitable for a nation like Japan.
So, what are the characteristics of the Japanese? What is the internal mechanism of Japanese cultural psychology?
Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe was the winner of 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature. At the award ceremony in Stockholm, he delivered a speech entitled "Ambiguous Japanese Me", in which he said-
In the not-too-distant past, this destructive blind belief trampled on the rationality of the people at home and in neighboring countries. I am a citizen of a country with such a history.
As a person living in this era, as a memory branded with such a painful history, I can't shout out "Beautiful Japanese Me" with Yasunari Kawabata (referring to Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968). I can only use "ambiguous Japanese me" to express it.
In my opinion, Japan is still continuing the modernization process since the founding of the People's Republic of China 120 years ago, and is being fundamentally placed between ambiguous poles. And I, as a novelist deeply moved by a wound, live in this ambiguity.
The following passage is very important-
This powerful and sharp ambiguity that distinguishes the country from the people of China is emerging in various forms between Japan and the Japanese. Japan's modernization is characterized by blindly imitating western Europe. However, Japan is located in Asia, and the Japanese firmly and continuously guard the traditional culture. The ambiguous process made Japan play the role of an aggressor in Asia. However, modern Japanese culture, which was open to western Europe in all directions, was not understood by western Europe, or at least, understanding was delayed, leaving a dark side. In Asia, Japan is increasingly isolated, not only politically, but also socially and culturally.
From the perspective of international politics, DJI deeply reflected on and revealed what Japan did in modern times and the embarrassing situation caused by it, which was called burning with anger. Inspired by it, my long-term thinking and confusion about Japanese culture also suddenly became clear. I think the word "ambiguous" at least summarizes the characteristics of Japanese culture and provides us with an important way to understand Japan.
Of course, ambiguity is not unique to Japan. The cultures of all countries and nationalities in the world have their own ambiguities, but their degrees and expressions are different. However, it is very rare for Japan to go so far and act so extreme and become a "brand" of national character. As far as Japan is concerned, "ambiguity" is by no means a new thing in modern times, but a long-standing character. The ambiguous expression of Japan in modern times revealed by DJI is actually an extension and development of Japan's inherent nationality in modern times. In other words, when Japan's native world outlook (nihilism and secularism in essence) is combined with advanced "social Darwinism", the above-mentioned "ambiguity" phenomenon arises.
From the geographical conditions, the island of Japan itself is an "ambiguous" existence, surrounded by vast oceans, between closed and open, narrow and broad; Located in the extreme east, it has become a special existence in the East Asian canonization system, maintaining a detached relationship with the Great China Empire, and its international status is between the suzerain country and the vassal country; The lack of living resources and beautiful natural scenery have cultivated the national character of advocating martial arts and loving beauty; Natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and typhoons have cultivated the duality of resisting fate and obeying it; The four distinct seasons and ever-changing geographical climate have cultivated the Japanese people's uneven aesthetic feeling and regarded "instant" as "eternity"-all these constitute a specious, contradictory and internally related picture.
American anthropologist Ruth? Benedict's first sentence in the famous chrysanthemum and the knife is: "Among the enemies that the United States has tried its best to fight, the Japanese temper is the most elusive. The action and thinking habits of this powerful opponent are so different from ours that we must take them seriously. This situation is not found in other wars. " After describing the westerners' confusion about the Japanese character, the author concludes
These contradictions have become interwoven warp and weft in Japanese works, and they are all true. Chrysanthemum and knife are both part of the painting. The Japanese are very aggressive and very gentle; Militant and loving beauty; Pride, self-esteem and politeness; Stubborn but weak and fickle; Docile and unwilling to be pushed around; Loyalty is easy to defect; Brave and timid; Conservative but very welcome to the new way of life. They are very concerned about what others think of their actions, but when others know nothing about their own misdeeds, they will be conquered by their own sins. Their army is well-trained, but it is also very rebellious.
As a western scholar who doesn't know Japanese, has never been to Japan, and lacks personal experience of Japanese life, Benedict interprets "unpredictable" Japanese with his profound knowledge and western theoretical model, and makes strict logical reasoning, discovering the duality of Japanese culture "chrysanthemum and knife" and demonstrating the powerful power of western rational speculation. However, as a native of China, I prefer to grasp directly. For example, the words of former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew are very penetrating. He said: "Japan is not an ordinary and normal country. It's special. It is necessary to remember this. "
What is this "special"? Lee Kuan Yew has a detailed account. To sum up, it is an unparalleled single ethnic group and unscrupulous enterprising hidden under the appearance of "ambiguity"; In other words, both "Chrysanthemum" and "Knife" are means to maintain Yamato's national identity and aggression and expansion-different means. In the Japanese world, two diametrically opposed things constitute a strange "complementarity".
In my opinion, the ambiguity of the Japanese just shows the uniqueness of the Japanese; Even if the Japanese have a thousand ambiguities and 10,000 ambiguities, it is a matter of national life and death, and they are never vague. As long as it is beneficial to Japan, they can do anything, even change their race, abolish Japanese and become the fifth1state in the United States. Only in this way, historically, Japan was sometimes open and sometimes closed; Sometimes worshipping foreign things, sometimes British and American ghosts and animals; Sometimes you leave Asia, sometimes you enter Asia; When you enter Europe, sometimes you will leave Europe ... everything is based on this premise. This dazzling "fuzziness" is actually a clear and extreme performance.