AAS Report 3 – The Ming Lives On

The elaborate, ornate costume associated with the Ming in kabuki, loaded with ruffles, can be seen in this “Battles of Coxinga” triptych by Kunichika.

Satoko Shimazaki was the third presenter on the panel “Early Modern News: The Fall of the Ming on a Global Stage,” which I wrote about in my previous post. I was particularly excited to meet her, as she is not only a kabuki specialist, but combines this with research on popular publishing, and on perceptions of the foreign – all things at the core of my research interests.

In her presentation, Shimazaki discussed the appearance of Ming China, or Ming individuals, in kabuki, with a particular focus on the 1715 play “The Battles of Coxinga” (Kokusen’ya kassen).

She first introduced the 1818 play Shitennô ubuyu no Tamagawa　(四天王産湯玉川), in which a Ming princess travels all the way to Japan to see the great actor Ichikawa Danjûrô, and showed us some images of that scene, from illustrated woodblock-printed books of the time. I tried to find a similar image, on Google Image Search, to share with you, but was sadly not successful. This seems a wonderful, amusing example of how playful and humorous kabuki can be – and, also, the cult of the actor, i.e. the power of celebrity, which plays such a major role in the character of the kabuki theatre.

She then turned to discussing The Battles of Coxinga, an epic-length jidaimono based on the legend of Coxinga, aka Zheng Chenggong, a half-Japanese Ming loyalist who led forces on Taiwan in raiding the Chinese coast and otherwise fighting off the Qing (Manchu) forces which had taken much of mainland China. In the play, Zheng is referred to as Watônai, typically written 和藤内, but a reference to 和唐内, meaning “between (内, nai) China (唐, tô) and Japan (和, wa).” Shimazaki argued, however, that these three characters can also be interpreted as meaning not only “both Chinese and Japanese,” but also “neither Chinese nor Japanese,” or “heard of in both China and Japan.”

Shimazaki tells us the term “Japan” appears numerous times in the script. What form this takes, whether it’s Nihon, or Wa, or some combination of those and other terms, is unclear (though I imagine one could figure out quite easily by just finding a copy of the play… and, at least in one scene, a Ming princess in Japan, asking for help, employs the term “Nihonjin”), but, regardless, this is pretty important. Many scholars argue that there was no sense of “national” identity in the Edo period, but, while I agree that there certainly is no integrated nation-state of Japan in the modern sense, and that modern(ist) discourses of “nationalism” might likewise not apply, it is nevertheless clear that there was a conception of “Japan” during the Edo period. It was not solely a local conception, in which identity was based in village, province, or domain. This conception of “Japanese” identity was, however, different from modern conceptions of ethnicity in important ways. David Howell writes about the Ainu being able to become Wajin (and vice versa) simply by changing their appearance, behavior, and customs. This sort of malleable notion of identity is seen too in the play, as Watônai converts some Tartars into Japanese by shaving their pates (i.e. giving them Japanese hairdos) and giving them samurai swords.

This brings us to the question of the word “Tartars.” “Tartar” is a broad, all-encompassing word employed in pre-modern Europe to refer indiscriminately to any and all steppe peoples, including Mongols, Manchus, and various sorts of Turks. This seems a pretty good translation for the Japanese word Tattan (韃靼), which similarly refers indiscriminately to a variety of steppe peoples. The similarity between these two terms – neither of which refers accurately to a specific people – is surprising and interesting; I wonder if Shimazaki addresses this in a fuller (published or to-be-published) paper. I’ve looked it up briefly in JapanKnowledge (an online resource which searches multiple encyclopedias and dictionaries), but didn’t find anything much on the origins of the term… Though, we are told that the Wakan sansai zue (one of the most prominent encyclopedias published in Edo period Japan) associates the term Tattan with the Mongols, Jurchens, Manchus, and even the Russians – anyone who could fit within the category of “Northern Barbarians” (北狄). Part of the identification of the Tattan as barbarians, Shimazaki explained, derives from their identity/location outside of the classic Three Realms: India as the home of Buddhism, China as the home of Confucianism, and Japan as the Land of the Gods (i.e. the home of Shintô), with Tattan thus being the home of none of the major Teachings (教) or Ways (道).

Through these examples, and others, Shimazaki showed that the Ming represented in Edo period popular culture was not the actual contemporary China, but rather an idea, an imagined space of a past era. In other words, the Ming survives on, as an idea in the Japanese collective imagination.

This can be seen, too, in some of the works which I’ve been looking at in my own research, and which Shimazaki brought forward too; books such as Bankoku jinbutsu zue (“Pictures of the Peoples of the World”) by Nishikawa Joken show the Ming and the Qing separately. Of course, there is some validity to this, as in our modern conception of race and ethnicity, we would think to organize such a book separating the (Han) Chinese from the Manchus, which is essentially what they’re doing. But, in works such as Joken’s “Peoples of 42 Countries” (四十二国人物図) and “Expanded Thoughts on Trade & Commerce with Civilization & Barbarians” (増補華夷通商考, Zôho ka’i tsûshôkô, 1708), he labels the Ming explicitly as equaling Chinese civilization or culture (中華), and the Qing as being the Chinese civilization or culture of “today” (今の中華). In other words, there is a sense that the Qing is not the real China, that the Ming is the real China, controlled, occupied, or suppressed, that the Qing may be temporary, and that the Ming could come back. Of course, as of 1708 or so, not even the Qing Court could have predicted that their rule would last the better part of 300 years, all the way until 1911. Even today, when “The Battles of Coxinga” is performed, the Qing is represented as lasting only 180 years, as Chikamatsu had it (actually, it’s kind of surprising that Chikamatsu, in 1715, would put it at 180 years, and not some shorter period, if indeed people had a sense of the Qing being only a temporary blip, and the Ming rising again). Of course, it’s not as if the play is particularly historically accurate in other respects, anyway. It does end, after all, with the revival of the Ming, something that (sadly, arguably) did not occur in reality – the entirety of the Chinese Imperial system, and so much of its traditional culture, fell with the Qing, in 1911, or with the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

As the Qing Dynasty went on, Shimazaki argues, the concept of the Ming became detached somewhat from the geography – people recognized that Qing Dynasty China was the China of their time. Ming thus became a marker for historical China, for Chinese culture and civilization in a somewhat free-floating way, existing no longer in the physical space of China, but now in a more free-floating cultural, intellectual, conceptual space.

And, while certain aspects of the understanding or conceptualization of the Ming may have been based in accurate historical/cultural understandings, as Keiko Suzuki and others have also detailed, the conceptualization of what comprised Ming culture or identity quickly came to be confused and conflated with a variety of other elements, forming a broader, more general concept of the “foreign.” Shimazaki cites pennants carried in the production of The Battles of Coxinga which read 「清道」 (lit. “Pure Way” or “Way of the Qing”?), and which closely resemble those carried by Korean – not Chinese – embassies to Japan. Another prominent element which she shows us appears frequently in theatre and in prints is the association of the Ming with lavish, ornate clothing, with lots of ruffles. I am no expert on Chinese theatre, but I can kind of see how elements of this aesthetic could be taken from jingju costume; that said, however, when would kabuki performers or ukiyo-e print designers have gotten a chance to see jingju costumes or performances? Shimazaki also pointed out that the goddess Benten is often depicted in these Ming-style robes, looking very much like a Ming princess from the kabuki theatre; why, however, remains unclear, as Benten is, so far as I know, not generally associated with being Chinese any more so than the other six of the Seven Lucky Gods.

In the course of the Q&A after Shimazaki-sensei’s presentation, a number of other questions and issues came up. One was the question of how depictions of China in bunraku & kabuki, as discussed in her talk, compare to representations of China in the Noh. This is certainly an interesting question, given that the Noh comes from a different period, and a rather different cultural context. I would imagine, just off the top of my head, I feel as though Noh is more connected to classic stories of classic figures, and would represent China more as a classical source of Confucianism, Taoism, wisdom, magic, certain legendary figures or certain gods, rather than as a contemporary foreign country or culture in the way Coxinga does, when it engages with recent historical events.

Shimazaki had also mentioned at one point that it was difficult for theatres to put on productions of Coxinga, explaining that kabuki theatres operated on a schedule organized around certain themes. The majority of kabuki plays retell stories from the Japanese past (or from legend), and most plays fit into a particular sekai (“world”), whether that be stories of Yoshitsune & Benkei, or stories of the Soga Brothers; Coxinga, Shimazaki argued, did not fit well into this schema, and so, thematically, it was difficult to find a thematically appropriate time/space to fit it into the schedule of a theatrical season. Indeed, many 19th century guides to the various sekai of kabuki plays either omit Coxinga entirely, or list it under “miscellany.” I have never read or seen Coxinga myself, or studied much about it, but I was interested to learn that, in fact, it was originally composed as a gamble, as something very new and different, to draw audiences to the theatre and keep the theatre going after it lost its chief chanter (Takemoto Gidayû – more or less the founder/inventor of the chief bunraku chanting style). This brings us back to Sarah Kile’s presentation about Chinese playwright Li Yu, who was constantly preoccupied with remaining cutting-edge, new, and fresh, and which I wrote about in the previous post.

I think that Prof. Shimazaki’s research on conceptualizations of the foreign in the Edo period will be of great use for me as I move forward with my research on Ryukyuan-Japanese interactions in that period, and I love that she does kabuki as well. I suppose I won’t be working with her directly any time soon, since we are not at the same institution, but I do eagerly look forward to reading more of her scholarship, and perhaps getting a chance to speak with her more in future.

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Quick Links – Mary Louise Pratt Edition

It’s time for another Quick Links. Well, sort of. Even in my efforts to keep the description/commentary on each link short, the total blog post still comes up quite long. So, I’ll focus on just two links today, and save the rest for another day.

Classes have started here at my new school, and boy have we hit the ground running. I’m quite accustomed, by now, to having to read upwards of 100 pages (i.e. for example, three journal articles of roughly 30-something pages each) each week, but never before have I been asked to read entire books in such a short period of time. Still, despite my incredible stress over it initially, I’ve found myself having finished all my assigned reading (and then some) for this coming week, just in time to get started on the next set of books.

One book we have been assigned this term is Mary Louise Pratt’s 1992 volume ”Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation”. I won’t get into discussing that book too much here, but, it either cites or coins a good number of terms which have (apparently?) rather entered the jargon of post-colonial discourse, and yet which I have myself never heard of. Transculturation, as seen in the title, is one. Anti-conquest is another. Seeking to figure out what “anti-conquest” is supposed to mean, and finding Pratt’s own explanations woefully unclear, I did what any kid of the Internet age would do – I googled it. And found, quite high up on the list, the first Link I’d like to share with you today.

*I do not know if RDK Herman’s 2009 article “The Aloha State: place names and the anti-conquest of Hawaiʻi” uses the term “anti-conquest” in the same way Pratt intends it, but the meaning of the term in Herman’s usage is much clearer. In this essay, Herman describes efforts in Hawaiʻi to change placenames (especially street names) from names with Anglo origins to names deriving from the Hawaiian language (if not necessarily from the actual Hawaiian name for that place). The article touches upon fascinating concepts about the colonized or decolonized nature of a space, and the powerful role of naming within those processes or discourses. In his usage, the concept of “anti-conquest” comes into play where actions are taken that seem on the surface to be recognizing, acknowledging, honoring the native people and restoring the usage of their language, their culture, into the space, while not truly granting those native people any true power or agency. The Hawaiian street names are assigned by the State or city government, i.e. the colonizing power, which in doing so speaks for the Hawaiians, or makes them seem to be speaking, without actually granting them voice. And, of course, the Hawaiians are not actually given back control of their land, or increased actual political power, but merely this show of Hawaiʻi being made to look and feel a little more Hawaiian.

Herman points out, though, that “anti-conquest is never a conscious process. Colonizers usually perceive it as paying genuine respect to the local culture” (p78), the implication being that they do not realize or recognize the power politics at play, in which the very fact that they are the ones doing these things, rather than the colonized doing it for themselves, marks them as still very much being the ones in power, i.e. still the colonial power, and as not actually giving up any power or agency to the colonized. Theory is not my strong point, and you can take this or leave it as you will – or, feel free to correct me, explaining out either the actual meaning of the term “anti-conquest,” and/or the discursive implications of this case of the Hawaiian placenames. In any case, I do think it a very interesting article, and I plan to hold onto it for if I ever teach a historiography seminar.

I’ve tried to touch upon the key points here, but if you’re interested, please do go and take a look at the whole article. This summary here is only sort of a rough stab at just some of Herman’s points.

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Looking into who Mary Louise Pratt (author of Imperial Eyes) is, I came upon a paper she wrote as her “Silver Dialogue” (apparently the great honor of “Silver Professor,” given out by NYU, comes with the obligation to write a single paper to be identified as your “Silver Dialogue“). Largely separate from the subject of post-colonial discourse, and addressing more pressing practical concerns, in this essay, Pratt calls for “a new public idea about language.” In summary, she suggests that US attitudes about multilingualism are terribly misguided, and present serious problems for our country. She calls the US el cementerio de lenguas, “the cemetery of languages,” the place where languages go to die, and goes through a short list of key, prime American “myths” about multilingualism that have helped make America the place it is today – where, even though the vast majority of us have grandparents whose first language was not English, the vast majority of us today do not speak that other language with any degree of fluency. A place where it took something like 9/11 to shock us into realizing (and even then, only some of us) how woefully disconnected we are from understanding our geopolitical place in the world, and lacking the linguistic skills to (paraphrasing slightly) “prevent or anticipate crises and respond adequately when they came” (p2). She then goes on to attack the notion that security concerns are the chief application of, or need for, multilingualism, pointing to broader cultural and societal benefits.

As I made my way through this document, I came to feel that the problem of our language attitudes, and hence language abilities, is far more serious than I might have thought, and more to the point, that the necessary changes are really quite radical and extensive. We need to make a pretty profound change, and it’ll take a lot to make that happen, but if it can somehow be made to come about, wow, what an incredible change for the better it will be.

To summarize, let me quote Pratt’s own summary of her statements:

1. All things being equal, bilingual families usually prefer to stay bilingual. Immigrant families do not simply want to lose their home languages, and they *do* (emphasis added) want to learn English.
2. Americans are not hostile to multilingualism; they are ambivalent, both proud of their multilingual history and committed to English as the lingua franca. …
3. It’s never too early and never too late to learn a language. Second-language learning does not have to begin in early childhood.
4. National security concerns define our language needs too narrowly. We need knowledge and interaction of all kinds. …
5. Monolingualism is a handicap. [We need to make this a widespread attitude.]
6. Local heritage communities must be engaged by our language programs. [Why do we not draw more extensively on native/heritage speakers for our multifarious language needs?]
7. Advanced competence [must become] a key educational goal.
8. We need linguistic pipelines at every level [i.e. a greater focus on the importance of language ability, and guiding students into, and through, effective language programs, beginning in high school or earlier]

This article is a quick and interesting read, though, so I do recommend reading the whole thing and not just taking my summary as the SparkNotes version.

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Portraiture Now! – Roger Shimomura

I didn’t realize that I had so much to say about this exhibit, especially since I said so much already before even seeing the exhibition. But, since the review I posted yesterday ended up being so long, I broke it off and am now writing a Part Two, focusing on prominent Japanese-American artist Roger Shimomura.

Shimomura is, of course, one of the real stars of the show. Or, at least, it is to me, as I’ve heard of him before and really like his work. Much of the media for this show focuses on his piece Shimomura Crossing the Delaware, and I have already discussed it myself, too, so I’ll keep it limited. But, just two things about it that make that piece even more incredible than I thought originally – one, that the silhouette of the original piece (George Washington and friends, in their boat) can be seen in the background, a seemingly minor detail, perhaps, which actually alters the narrative of the piece fairly dramatically. Shimomura is not replacing Washington, after all, but only upstaging him. Throughout American history, Asian-Americans have been, essentially, also-rans, or footnotes. Here, Shimomura places himself in the forefront and in the spotlight, implying something about a narrative of American history in which Washington and his ilk are still present, and still play out their important and influential historical roles, but in which Asian-Americans are shown to be Americans as well, to be present in the narrative. On a second note, I really like that Shimomura made his piece on roughly the same scale as the original now hanging in the Metropolitan Museum. It gives his piece grandeur, power, and impact, and also, if we want to read into it, says something about his piece, himself, and Japanese-Americans, Asian-Americans in general, not being smaller or lesser.

In some of the other pieces included in the exhibition, Shimomura addresses American stereotypes of Japanese, along two different lines. In American Hello Kitty and American Pikachu, Shimomura incorporates a self-portrait into the iconic cartoon characters, commenting, I guess, on American associations of Japan with anime (above all else). Frankly, I’m not quite sure exactly what he’s going for here. Is it meant to be a criticism? Is it a bad thing to associate Japan primarily/chiefly with anime? The Japanese government has been actively pushing quote-unquote “Cool Japan” for the last several years, as part of a concerted effort to expand Japanese soft power, and to thereby increase pro-Japan sentiments. Would Shimomura prefer that we associate Japan instead with negative things? That is, unless Shimomura’s whole point is not about Japan, but is instead about how we associate Japanese-Americans with Japanese culture rather than with American identity. If that’s it, that makes a lot more sense… especially in consideration of the themes of his other works.

Another set of works, titled American vs Japs and American vs Japs 2 depict Shimomura, painted relatively realistically, punching and kicking cartoonish stereotypical “Japs” drawn in the style of 1940s American propaganda. My kneejerk reaction is to see this as a terribly outdated battle. It’s not the 1940s anymore, and depictions of Japan in US mass media today doesn’t resemble this propaganda at all. Yet, on second thought, I realize that there are far too many in this country who, sadly, have not gotten the memo, and still hold onto completely outdated notions of anti-Japanese hatred. Comments of “that was for Pearl Harbor” and the like, as well as much worse vitriol, have appeared in disgustingly vast numbers on Internet forums and the like during US-Japan sporting events, and, perhaps most upsettingly of all, during the 3/11 disaster. Is this what Shimomura is fighting against? Actually, I kind of doubt it. Perhaps he’s more fighting that he (and other Americans) be the target of these attitudes, moreso than actually fighting against those attitudes existing. This is just my guess, based on his personal history of having been imprisoned in the WWII-era Internment Camps, and all the surrounding issues of Japanese-Americans as loyal Americans, being continually seen as not American enough, or as still foreign. I don’t know how much Shimomura has any real connections with Japan… from what little I know about him and his work, he’s much more focused on Japanese-American issues.

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Quick Links: May 2012

I have just returned home to New York after completing my MA in Art History at the University of Hawaiʻi. I really cannot believe that chapter of my life has closed – it doesn’t feel like an ending, like it should, but only a break. The people and places and feel of Hawaiʻi are already starting to fade from my mind, as I so wish they wouldn’t. I eagerly look forward to a summer in New York, to enjoying the very different energy here, and of course spending quality time with family and friends. But I so wish I were going back to Hawaiʻi after that. I’m not ready for that to be done and over. But, on the positive side, I do expect to go back for conferences, research, and the like, to stay closely in contact with friends from there (I hope!), and to retain the valuable life lessons I learned there. I have become a very different person, in my outlook and attitudes, since first leaving for Hawaiʻi, and I hope that I do not fall backwards.

Photo taken myself, at an International Food Festival in Yokohama. What is “ethnic” food? What isn’t?

The first link in today’s post addresses precisely the sort of post-colonial and intercultural issues that I gained such a new, more nuanced, perspective of during my time in Hawaiʻi.

*A writer for Maori/Pacific Islander magazine SPacifik mag complains about the use of the term “ethnic,” and about the language and approach otherwise, in discussion of so-called “ethnic foods” or “ethnic restaurants.”

“Ethnic” here is used to mean exotic, Other, non-white. The obvious issue with this is that it involves an Othering, an exoticization. See “Orientalism theory.” But what is ironic is that in order to argue against the use of the word “ethnic” as applying only to non-white cultures, the blogger has to argue for the validity of European cultures as being distinct ethnicities and cultures, something that I feel few non-whites readily admit or acknowledge. In order to eliminate the white / non-white binary, and the colonialist Othering and exoticization it involves, we need to acknowledge Spanish, German, Irish, and Italian cultures (and their food) as being just as cultural, just as traditional, just as interesting and “ethnic” as Chinese, Maori, Kenyan, or Persian cultures – rather than seeing the one as a generic White, a generic colonizing, oppressing, majority culture lacking in heritage, tradition, or “ethnic” diversity and flavor.

This article touches upon a great many very complex, nuanced, problematic issues. I think it addresses them in perhaps too simplistic a way, speaking out for the minorities against the white voice, attacking colonialist discourses from within the duality rather than trying to break it down. But the points it makes are nevertheless very much valid and important. This is a discussion we need to be having more and more, in order to eventually work out a solution, or at least a sea change.

Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, surrounded by Ginowan City. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
*The National Bureau of Asian Research has an interview with government/politics professor Jennifer Lind of Dartmouth College about Okinawa and the Future of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. In the interview, Dr. Lind provides an enlightening overview/summary of the basis of the US-Japan Security Alliance, why it exists, and how it functions. We talk so much about post-colonial legacies, or US neo-colonialism, that we forget there are very real political reasons that this situation came into place and remains in place. That the US bases are not in Japan simply because they are, but rather that there is a give-and-take, an exchange, of land (bases) in exchange for protection (i.e. US military protection of Japan). It is good to be reminded.

I don’t tend to read that much politics / economics / contemporary policy stuff. There’s just so much out there, it’d be impossible to keep up with; and, besides, I’m much more inclined towards cultural topics & affairs anyway. So, for me, reading about the Okinawa bases issue from a more upper-level political/military point of view, rather than from an Okinawan popular point of view, is both jarring, and new and interesting for me. What does the US presence really stem from? What is its purpose? How do Washington and Tokyo each benefit? Important aspects to understand.

But, returning to the aspect that most interests me, the cultural/lifestyle impact on the ground in Okinawa, I think one of the keys to a viable solution, perhaps, is the idea that “we need excellent leadership at these facilities to ensure that every soldier, sailor, and Marine knows that his or her daily conduct with the Japanese has a big effect on the U.S.-Japan relationship.” And, taking that further, we need to ensure that every soldier, sailor, and Marine has a respect for the Okinawan people as people, as individuals, as equals, and that they know the impact their daily conduct has on life in Okinawa. The military, both as an organization, and on the individual level of individual military men & women, is I think fairly oblivious as to its impact. Either that, or it is too self-important or uncaring. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines need to relearn to think like civilians, and they need to consider what it would be like if the tables were turned. What would life be like in your hometown in Ohio if half the town were a Japanese military base? What would it mean to be from Ohio if 20% of the state’s land were taken up by foreign military bases? What would it mean for Ohio’s history, its culture, its identity? These are the things we need to remember.

Rapes and helicopter crashes are isolated incidents, but the overwhelming presence of the military in everyday Okinawan lifestyle and culture is not. It may not seem as heinous on the surface, but the US military presence has dramatically and irrevocably altered the image of Okinawa in the minds of its people, countless Japanese, and numerous Americans. The association of Okinawa with the US military – rather than associating it with its own “native” or “traditional” culture – is evident, for example, in the innumerable military-related T-shirt designs that can be found just about anywhere in Okinawa, and in websites like Remembering Okinawa, which focus not on “remembering” an Okinawa inhabited by Okinawans, or one defined by Okinawan culture, but rather on “remembering” Okinawa as “The Rock,” that is, as military base. I have a whole post dedicated to this website, and this concept, which I’ve been working on (or, rather, sitting on), which might get put up soon.

In short, we take it far too much for granted that these bases are our territory, our land – that we belong there, that we’re allowed to be there. We must remember that we are guests in a foreign country, invited not by the local people but by the geographically distant national government, and we need to start acting like it.

*Finally, for today, a 48-minute documentary about tens of thousands of books taken by Israelis from Palestinians in the course of the 1948 War, and never returned. Is this stealing? Looting? Cultural protection? From what little I see here, and not knowing much more about the situation, I cannot 100% defend or justify such relocation of materials, such “taking” or “appropriation,” however much I should like to. The more I learn about 1948, and the events leading up to it, the more embarrassing and regrettable episodes I discover. I will always be pro-Israel; I will not, cannot, ever see Israel as anything but the “good guys,” so to speak. But, boy have we done some seriously inappropriate and regrettable things.

Did we think we were “rescuing” books from destruction in the war? Were we right in believing that? Certainly, as an Okinawan Studies person, I mourn the loss of so much historical materials in the War of Okinawa, and wish we could have rescued more of it. Of course, even if we had, to then keep all those rescued materials in an American archive, and not in a Japanese or Okinawan one, would be terribly wrong. So, maybe we were “rescuing”, or maybe we were just “looting,” in 1948. It’s hard to say. I would rather not jump to conclusions, to praise or to condemn. What exactly was the intention? Would the books have been lost if we’d not done this? What were the Palestinians (the Arabs) doing to protect their own books during the conflict? When and why and by whom was the decision made to launch this systematic acquisition of Arab books?

And, perhaps most importantly, what are the details behind why the books were never returned? Certainly, it may have been far too logistically difficult to actually return these thousands of books to the individual homes and individual people from whom they were taken. But could we not have given the books to a Palestinian university or library or archive? Perhaps it is here where the key stumbling block lies. After all, the Palestinians are known to put far more energy and money into destruction than construction. I firmly believe that if they’d put the kind of energy into wiping out Arab terrorism that they do into wiping out Israel, we’d see a much more prosperous West Bank & Gaza today. But I fully admit that I don’t know the details of whether or not there are, or have been in the past, safe places in the West Bank, well-maintained libraries, to which these objects could have been returned.

Certain phrases in this documentary annoy me. One woman questions whether she should consider the Israeli occupant of a home in her town to be the “owner.” It would have been so simple to just call him the Israeli owner, and move on. “The current owner of the property won’t let me into the house.” Period. But this she refuses to say. Instead, she insists at poking a jab at the idea that any Israeli could be considered to legally or rightfully “own” property in this town (or at all), seizing any and every opportunity, it would seem, to remind us yet again of Palestinian suffering and Israeli wrongdoing – that is, of the pro-Palestinian narratives and discourses she and so many others wish us to believe.

An Arab man’s comment that the term “Israeli Arab” is “a repulsive concept,” that it means something like being owned by Israel, being “Israel’s Arab,” annoys me in a different way. This man obviously does not understand, or appreciate, the meaning of citizenship. Now, granted, if he were to go into detail about Israel using Arabs for discursive purposes, treating them in some way as “our” Arabs, that would be one thing. But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he denies, refuses, spits on the very concept of the modern international concept of citizenship, saying that to be “Israeli Arab” somehow is an attack on his identity as an Arab Arab.

Look, you don’t have to politically favor this or that Israeli policy. Plenty of citizens of plenty of countries around the world disagree vehemently with their governments’ stances on this or that issue. But to enjoy the benefits of citizenship in a first-world, advanced country while at the same time spitting on the idea of belonging to that country… that, to me, is a “repulsive concept.”

Everyone in the United States, and I am sure a great majority of the people all around the world, negotiate with multiple identities. I am myself both Jewish and American, while others are both British and Indian, both Okinawan and Japanese, or both Chinese and Christian. Thousands of Japanese Americans worked, spoke out, and fought on battlefields to prove their loyalty to the United States in the early 1940s, and people of all stripes continue to do so today, fighting with words and with actions to prove their identity as American, or as British, as members of Japanese society, for example, despite their lack of Japanese ethnic (racial/genetic) background, to fight for their right to be considered French, etc. I sincerely hope that not all Arabs think the way this man does. Imagine someone sitting there saying “Arab-American – it’s a repulsive concept. As if we are owned by America; as if we are America’s Arabs, rather than being Arab Arabs.” It would go against everything the Japanese-American community (and countless others) have fought for, and would only serve to solidify the idea that Arabs have no love for America, no loyalty to the place they live, the place they grew up, to their neighbors…

He claims that the severing of Palestine from connections to the wider Arab world has left him without a cultural space, without the connections that once existed to Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus. This, I can appreciate; I can sympathize. You used to feel connected to the cultural activity of these places, and now Arab Palestine has become Jewish Israel and it is no longer an Arab space, and it is no longer as easy as it once was to feel connected to these other places. As if New York had suddenly become a different country, and I found myself suddenly in a foreign place, no longer in the same country, the same cultural space as Boston and DC. Sure. But, if you miss the cultural scene in Beirut, go there. No one is stopping you. And, more importantly, you say that you cannot redefine your identity here in Israel, that you feel disconnected from the ability to have an Arab cultural space? Why? You’ve had 60 plus years to create or recreate Palestinian identity within Israel. This is no different from the formation of a Jewish-American identity (as distinct from Jewish or Israeli identity elsewhere in the world), or the formation of a distinctly Arab-American or British Arab identity. If it can be done by these other groups, why can it not be done for/by you? There is so much scholarship out there on diasporas and identity formation. I can appreciate the frustration with being in, in a sense, a diaspora, in a place that is no longer wholly or chiefly an Arab place when once it was, but that does not mean you cannot redefine, recreate, or relocate an identity. Jewish-Americans did it; Hawaiians under occupation have done it; peoples define and redefine their identities every day. If you have not found it, it is because you are not looking, or are unwilling to accept what you have.

Returning to the matter of the 1948 “looting” of Arab books by Jewish (Israeli) soldiers, at 20 minutes into this 48-minute documentary, these questions I have posed above remain entirely unanswered. These seem to me the most key questions about this situation, and yet, the documentary seems to have some other agenda – namely, to take it as a given that it’s a crime that these were taken, and that they ought to be given back. We finally begin to see in the last 10 minutes, some answers to some of these questions. We learn that many of the books were taken from empty homes, not stolen from owners who were present; we learn that there were Arab students working with the collections, and that there was never any intention to “hide” the books, nor in fact a belief that they had in fact been hidden – there were Arabs who knew quite well where they were, and how to access them. We learn as well that the goal was very explicitly to safeguard and protect these books from destruction, but also that there was a hope that many of the books would end up being kept by the Library and not returned.

It would have been nice to see a documentary explaining, in more objective, historical detail, why this was done, what was the thinking at the time, what efforts were made to return the books over the years, and if not why not. But, so it goes. Some reports are better than others… at least, I think it valuable and interesting to have learned about this collection, to learn that it exists, and that this “acquisition,” “looting,” whatever we want to call it, happened. I’d had no idea.

I am glad to see that these objects are accessible to the public, and are not simply “locked away” in archives as the film states them to be. I hope that a solution can be reached – either that the collection be relocated to a Palestinian National Library, or that the Palestinians should (god forbid) start considering the Israeli National Library as their own as well.

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On Leaving the Islands

This is a rather more personal post, so I was hesitant at first to post it here. But, I feel the need to post it somewhere, to get these thoughts down on “paper.” And, since it’s relevant to Hawaii, to graduate school adventures, and to cultural experiences, I figure it’s perhaps not too personal to be put here. In other words, could be quite relevant to others’ experiences.

After three years in Hawaii, I feel like I am just now really starting to get really settled and established here. Up until the beginning of this school year (last August/September), I never really considered trying to organize an event on my own on campus – I didn’t feel it was my place, or I didn’t feel comfortable enough with my position, or with my relationships with faculty/staff to take that initiative. Up until this past year, I wouldn’t have thought of trying to organize something off-campus, either, as I felt that I scarcely knew anyone who could provide a venue, and perhaps didn’t really think about knowing anyone well enough to ask them to perform at my hypothetical event.

That’s just one aspect, but I think it says a lot. I cannot believe that in a little over two weeks time, I will be flying out of here, more or less permanently. Oh, sure, I tell myself that I’ll be back for research, or for conferences or something. But will that really happen? And even if it does, will it ever be the same? (No.) It’s one thing to leave for the summer, but to leave entirely? I am, strangely enough, having a very difficult time wrapping my head around this idea. When I first came here, I had little interest in staying. I had a lot of culture shock issues, and I just sort of felt like I would do my thing and then get out of here. Honolulu is way too small, too isolated, not only geographically, but perhaps more importantly, it’s small and isolated in people’s minds. People here have little desire to think globally, to think of themselves as part of an active, vibrant network of international travel, communication, and exchange. They’re much more interested in the local – who and what is important here, not who or what is prominent in the outside world. And that really rubbed me the wrong way when I first got here.

But after three years here, I have not only turned over a new leaf, coming to see things in a different light, but I have also found a community here that, sure, it’s not nearly as Japanese as Japan, not by a long shot, but it really is far more Japanese than anywhere I’ve experienced on the mainland. Now, of course, “more Japanese” is not really the phrase I mean to use. But, living here, one not only has extremely easy access to Japanese (and other East Asian) culture, but one is also surrounded and immersed in it, albeit in a rather uniquely Hawaiian local version of Japanese culture. It’s not just a matter of having Japanese grocery stores. We have those in NY, too. And in Boston, San Francisco, and elsewhere. In fact, you might have better luck looking for certain things (e.g. Japanese books) in New York than here – the BookOff’s selection is terrible here. And, sure, New York has plenty of izakaya and Japanese restaurants. But there’s something special about the izakaya and Japanese restaurants here. Well, three things. One, they’re more ubiquitous, more ever-present. They’re not just one option among myriad cultural options as they are in NY; they’re one of the main things here. Two, they’re as often as not operated by locals, which is something that really turned me off at first, since it felt far less authentic. But what’s “authenticity” anyway? When I came here, I had no interest in this bastardized local Hawaiian version of Japanese culture; I wanted the real thing, imported directly from Japan, an experience as close as I could get to as if I were in Japan for real. But I gradually came to appreciate local Hawaiian Japanese culture for its own thing. And the people are, in their own way, all the more genuine since there’s an air of the family-run, mom & pop sort of establishment, connected to the history of the place, the history of their family, and of Japanese in Hawaii, whereas the more “authentic” Japanese places are just chain stores, corporate things brought over here, with a sense of plasticness to it, lacking that friendly, local, family-run sort of feeling. Three, is the availability of Okinawan cuisine here. There are only a handful of places I know of on the island that specialize in Okinawan food, but that’s a handful more than I know of in New York.

Whereas there are many aspects of Japanese culture quite available in New York, it’s the fact that you don’t have to go and seek them out here, or feel like you’re occupying some remote niche of the city’s society/culture in doing so. Just being here, without having to really hunt it down at all, I have seen or been involved in numerous Asian theatre performances, Asian dance and music performances, Asian Art events, and the like. We have kabuki on-campus. We have a gazillion Bon Dancing events all summer (I’ve never actually managed to go to any). We have not one, but something like ten or fifteen Okinawan Lunar New Year celebrations; and that’s just the Okinawans. I wonder how many Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Korean Lunar New Year events there are on the island. We have Okinawa Festival, we have KZOO Japanese-language Radio station. We have Shirokiya Japanese department store, and we have andagi (Okinawan donuts) at the coffee shop on campus.

…

I have made tons of friends here, and a few who have become truly among my closest and dearest friends, and I will miss them very much. But many of them are leaving anyway, and so the idea of “I don’t want to leave because I’m leaving my friends” is sort of a moot point. More to the point, then, I guess, is that I’ll really miss all the opportunities to continue being involved in Japanese & Okinawan Studies and Japanese & Okinawan local communities, especially where the performing arts come into play. I have a sanshin teacher here now, and not only that, but I have started to get to know many people in the local Okinawan community. I regret not getting to know them better, both the local community, and the on-campus Okinawan students’ community. These are two places I could really have networked and made connections.

I am going to miss the wonderfully strong Asian Theatre program here, and the impact it has upon so many things that go on in the Theatre. I’m not saying that their productions of Hamlet and Oklahoma! were Asian-influenced, but I’m saying that no other school in the country so far as I am aware has so many smaller performances such as the scenes my friends will be organizing next week as the final projects for their Asian Directing class. No other school in the country has full-on Kabuki productions, or Randai. And I am most definitely going to miss that. But it’s not the productions themselves. It’s the attitudes, the interest. The presence of so many likeminded Asian Studies people, in Theatre, in Dance, in Music, in Art History, in Anthropology…. the very strong Asia-Pacific focus here, and the relative absence of any overpowering, dominating Western Studies-by-default sensibility. The ability to feel like Asian Studies is not a niche, off in the corner, but is the main event; and the ability to meet people, and talk to people, in all different departments, and find common interests, and common knowledge. How many Theatre students am I going to find at Santa Barbara who are interested in Kabuki? How am I even going to meet these people and get involved in getting to know anyone in the department, when there’s basically no Asian Theatre at all going on?

This post is really rambly, and I apologize for that.

One thing I realized today. I went to a talk about rhetorical sovereignty and the rhetoric conveyed by the newly renovated Hawaii Hall at Bishop Museum. First, as a total sidenote, I think it really interesting that this word “rhetoric” has never before come up in my studies. Perhaps it’s something worth looking into as an alternative to the discourses on, achem, “discourse.” But, anyway, when I first came to Hawaii, I was very much put off by post-colonial attitudes and post-colonial theory. I came into the Museum Studies class, and said that I was taking the class in order to learn how to design and execute Metropolitan Museum-style exhibitions of 13th century ink paintings, and people looked at me like I had three heads. The entire course was about how to represent indigenous peoples in a culturally sensitive way, how to give them “voice,” how to deal with post-colonial issues. And, at first, I was not only disinterested – I was downright opposed to it. It made me angry, and I rebelled. But, you know what, in the end, once I got over that anger and found the way to discuss these issues on a more removed, objective, “isn’t that interesting” sort of level, I found it all not only fascinating, but really relevant to and inspiring of topics I might want to look into with Okinawa.

I can’t even find a way to describe it without it sounding like the very thing I was opposed to to begin with. But, there is something in the academic approaches, or scholarly theories, about rhetoric and discourses, about the symbolism of a colonized place as deployed by the colonizer, that’s really interesting. The multiple meanings of a place, or an object, or an image, a symbol… I have no interest in being anti-American, or anti-Japanese, or anything like that. My interest in Hawaii, and in Ryukyu, is more or less apolitical, and almost entirely non-activist. I just find it interesting. And I think that being surrounded by discussion of these issues has been really interesting for me, really inspiring, and I wonder what I could come up with if I were encouraged to continue in this vein. But, since I’m leaving, not having that Hawaiian environment, I don’t think I’ll really find myself doing that sort of thing any more. I am so influenced by the topics around me – I get so interested in whatever it is I’m being taught at the moment – this is part of why I have so much trouble deciding on a field or a discipline, because wherever I am, it either feels really attractive, or makes the opposite option really attractive, but either way is extremely influential. … Hearing talks about the discursive or symbolic meaning of ‘Iolani Palace makes me think about how these same exact issues might apply to Okinawa’s Shuri Palace. Talks about how Bishop Museum is seen by many/most native Hawaiians as a colonial institution, as a creation of the oppressors, and not as a place that genuinely represents their voice – and also about what the museum is doing to try to rectify past wrongs and to represent the Hawaiian people, their history and culture, in the most culturally sensitive way – these kinds of talks make me really want to go investigate the Okinawa Prefectural Museum, and the internal politics, and discursive or rhetorical impacts of the gallery exhibitions there.

I don’t know that I’m really interested in indigenous movements, per se, and I’m not looking to become activist. I’m still often very annoyed at comments people make, such as suggesting that a museum in Massachusetts has no right to a Hawaiian statue. (Wait, that’s actually a really nice museum, and it has its own story to tell, an interesting and exciting and romantic story about cultural explorers from New England who were some of the first to introduce the US to Asian and Pacific culture, and to advocate for Asians & Pacific peoples, and for the beauty and value of their culture, etc…. not to mention the whole issue of if we repatriate everything then what is left in the museum, and if we repatriate everything, then how is anyone supposed to learn about, or be inspired by, another culture, without traveling halfway around the world? But I don’t want to get into that now. That’s not at all what this post is about right now.) … But I do think that, resistant as I was at first, having learned about all these indigenous and post-colonial issues has been extremely good for me as a person. A real learning, growing experience, making me into a better person. I hope that I might continue to be exposed to these issues, so that I can continue to engage with them, to figure out my stance as a result of talking it through more with others…. Controversy can be a turn-off, but it can also give a place so much more character, and make it so much more intriguing. ‘Iolani Palace and Bishop Museum are key examples. Sometimes I may feel personally attacked, or I may get angry about certain points, but for the most part, it’s really just about taking an objective, secular, stand-back, removed view, and thinking it interesting and fascinating. As if it were a really intricate and interesting fantasy story. No personal investment in who the good guys are or anything, just a really engaging and twisted network of rhetorical/discursive/political phenomena.

Part of me was, and I guess still is, really psyched to go back to the mainland and to experience a more intensively scholarly, academic, rigorous, History-oriented program. And, to interact with historians of Europe, and otherwise with a scholarly community that can present me with a new and different environment or set of approaches. Part of me imagines that the experience on the mainland will be more rigorous in precisely the sort of way of training me to be a proper scholar in the way that mainland scholars are, essentially, retraining the “local Hawaiian” or the “uniquely Hawaiian” methodologies or approaches out of me, and preparing me for actually getting ahead in the field, by becoming the kind of scholar who everyone is looking for me to be. Or something like that. Of course, I have no idea what the program is actually going to be like. But, part of me really wants now to stay here, to do the sort of thing we’ve been doing so much of here, sitting around, calmly and engagedly talking about discourses, rhetoric, and symbolism, about cultural impacts. I feel comfortable here, not in a bad way, not in a “you’re too comfortable, it’s time to move on, there’s no new challenges for you here” kind of way, and certainly not in the way I imagine most people get too comfortable in Hawaii. I love the weather, how could you not? But I’m no surfer, or beach bum. I scarcely ever get out to the beach, or hiking in the mountains, let alone regularly doing anything like surfing or canoeing or paddleboarding or anything. But I know people here, and I find connections, interesting topics of research, interesting approaches, among so many people I meet for the first time. It feels like there are so many more people to meet, and conversations to have, and people I’ve already met who I’d want to talk to more, as we have such great common interests. Why am I leaving such a fruitful and vibrant and productive and inspiring academic environment? … Maybe it’ll be just as good at Santa Barbara. Maybe even better. Who knows?

But I do know that I have a very long list of things I’m going to miss.
*Leis – It’s so wonderful to go to an art opening, or other event, and know who the artists or speakers are, because they’re wearing leis. And it’s so wonderful to receive a lei. It goes far beyond the stereotype of being given a lei by a hula girl as you step off the plane. I’ve certainly never been given one in that context. It’s about honoring you that you’ve accomplished something, or that you’re someone special, a special guest, for the day.
*Japanese connection – Again, the fact that Japanese culture seeps into everything. The fact that you can go to the thrift shop, and find more Japanese dishes and furniture than Western ones.
*Community arts, esp. the Asian-American community – I wrote a whole post about this at one point; I’ve really turned around and come to appreciate the beauty, and authenticness, of arts performed in/by a community. Playing sanshin not only in class, but for the Okinawan Lunar New Year dinner, was fantastic. And there’s Bon Dance. And there’s this community of people who you get to know, who you see at all the events, who you see perform (or get to perform with). And I really do wish I could continue my sanshin, and maybe Okinawan dance, if only I had a teacher.
*Language – When I first got here, I was disgusted by the idea that pidgin should deserve any respect at all. And to a large extent I still feel that way. It’s just bad English, is all it is. But, when native Hawaiian words, or other local words, are thrown into everyday language, it makes you feel like you’re a part of something special. Drawing upon a special, unique identity, upon a beautiful culture. That you’re connecting to the local culture, and also becoming more global/cultural in the process. I love that we have Aloha and Mahalo to use in our emails, and I really struggle to write emails without them now, sometimes. If you don’t know who you’re writing to, what do you use? “Greetings,”? Bah. “Aloha,” is so much smoother and nicer. And we’ve got words like kokua, kuleana, ‘aina, kapu, mana, pau and puka, that add flavor to everything.
*There is also a profound feeling here of being somewhere special, somewhere unique and spiritually or culturally just very special. It’s because of the friction about the overthrow and colonization and all that, yes. But, people make sure to have you be aware of the history, and of the culture, and even pushy political stuff aside, we all know we’re in Hawaii. We all know at least something, at least some very little something, about the heritage of this place. In New York, or Chicago, or Santa Barbara (I’m presuming) we more or less go about our business and it all feels quite normal and everyday. Sure, New York and Boston have their own individual cultural character, their own energy. But in terms of magical, spiritual, ancient, cultural heritage, in terms of having something like what England or Wales has, or what Vietnam or China or Japan has, I don’t feel that the mainland US really compares. Maybe in some parts where the Native American presence is more felt, as it is here. But, whether thinking about it secularly, from a cultural/historical point of view, or from a slightly more spiritual point of view, in terms of Hawaii being a special place, a sacred place, either way, it definitely has an energy that distinguishes it from nearly anywhere else. And as exciting as New York may be in its own way, it will always feel like going home, like something boring and ordinary, for me.
*Which brings us to oli and hula. I really will miss the Hawaiian chants, known as oli and mele, and the hula. If the me from a few years ago were reading myself writing this, he’d think I was crazy. But I really have grown to appreciate these things over the last few years. The infusion of traditional culture, the maintenance of traditional performing arts traditions, is something we really just don’t have so much in the West. Perhaps partially because the line between traditional & modern is so much blurrier in Western culture, and because we see something very different in non-Western arts that we can’t necessarily appreciate in our own arts. But it really is something, and I really will miss it.
*I met a girl recently from New Zealand, who has been studying in Australia, and who says that acknowledging the indigenous peoples when beginning a talk is disgustingly politically correct, and just meaningless, and ultimately colonialistic. I guess her argument is that we do it just to make ourselves feel better, or something. Or that we say it and yet still go on dominating and controlling and occupying these lands. I don’t know what exactly her argument is, but when people come here from New Zealand or Fiji or from Native American communities, or wherever, and acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, I feel there is a cultural exchange, an acknowledgement, that I am denied a part of. No one goes to Israel and acknowledges the traditional owners of that land (i.e. us, the Jews). You don’t see Frenchmen or Irishmen going to one another’s country and acknowledging the deep cultural significance, and long histories, of that land. PC or no, I think it’s a beautiful practice, and I think that we in the Western world do far too little everyday to acknowledge and remember culture, history, and heritage. We think of our land as purely modern, as purely utilitarian to our everyday life in the now, in the today, and we just don’t have the same respect for the land, for culture and heritage, and for history as embedded in the land and in ourselves as these indigenous peoples do.
*FOOD. You can get almost anything in New York. And there are tons of things, tons, that you cannot get here. But, while much of the food here may simply be East Asian food (e.g. sushi), or Western/mainland food (e.g. burgers), I was kind of surprised, actually, at how many things there are that are more or less unique to this place. Poké (chunks of raw fish, with soy sauce or sesame oil, and a few other mix-ins/toppings). Manapuas (a uniquely local Hawaiian word for steamed buns such as exist in exactly the same form in Japan, China, and elsewhere). Malasadas (a Portuguese fried dough sort of thing that I certainly had never heard of before coming here). Andagi (an Okinawan thing, not a Hawaiian thing, but definitely much easier to come by than anywhere on the mainland in my experience, or even for that matter in the Japanese mainland, outside of specifically Okinawan specialty restaurants). And Shave Ice, which, yes, is done in a different way than on the mainland or in Japan.
*Finally, I may have railed against the small community when I first got here, thinking it terribly quiet and boring, looking at everything as a sort of third-string knockoff of the real thing going on on Broadway, or in the galleries of Chelsea, or whatever. But there are advantages to being in a small community. It blocks out a lot of pretentiousness, because people know one another, and are comfortable with one another, and you can get to be known far more quickly and more easily, without having to work so hard to pretend to be more professional, or more experienced, or more intelligent. You can just be, and people will welcome and appreciate you. Being here, I have truly lost patience with the idea of dressing up and playing at being professional. Fuck it. Once, I would have wanted nothing more than to be invited to a private party at the posh private apartment of a Guggenheim curator. But now, what the hell do I care? Everyone there is fake, and constantly working to keep up the fakeness. Or maybe it comes easy to them. I dunno. It doesn’t come easy to me, and I don’t have the energy to not be genuine. I don’t want to sit around in seminar constantly locked in a mental battle to prove I’m intelligent enough, or intellectual enough, and I don’t want to show up to art gallery shows constantly feeling like I have to work so hard for people to know who I am, to think that I belong there, to think that I’m someone worth talking to, or worth inviting back. I’d rather just go to my friends’ shows, and know nearly everyone, and get introduced around, and be someone with little to no effort. I’d rather have intelligent, intellectual, engaging discussions with people feeling like we are already, just by being, members of the same community, and thus already ‘ohana (family) to some small extent. No pretentiousness, no competitiveness, no going out there to prove anything, but just relaxed, engaged, fun, interesting, friendly discussion with one another about interesting academic topics.

This is far too long already, so I won’t pretty it up with pictures or anything (that’ll just make it longer). It’s terribly rambling, but I feel like I want to just leave it be. Here are my thoughts. I’m still working them out, so please don’t attack me for anything I’ve said. But I’d be more than happy to have a further discussion about any of this, if you find it interesting and having some reactions or thoughts you’d like to share.

Lots of good posts on the backburner, up and coming, if and when I get around to it. Stay tuned!

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Museum News: Paris & New York

As usual, I’m behind a bit, so this isn’t exactly breaking news, but the New York Times announced about a week ago the appointment of a new head of the Asian Art department at the Metropolitan Museum. James Watt, who has headed the department for ten years, is retiring, and Maxwell Hearn, currently curator of Chinese art, who has been at the Metropolitan since 1971, will be taking over. Both men are giants in the field, producing some excellent Chinese art exhibitions over the many years they’ve been at the Met.

Photo copyright Ruth Fremson/The New York Times.

In a video attached to the article (no embedding possible, it would seem), Hearn shares with us a Chinese handscroll painting, and how they should be viewed.

As seems fairly typical for this sort of article, we are told how it is that Mr Hearn got interested in Asian art to begin with, and how he secured his job at the Metropolitan. Many of the older generation got their start in ways nearly impossible for one of us today. To take a few examples, Gerald Curtis was hired by Columbia before he even finished his PhD, as one of the only experts in the US on Japanese politics, at a time when, I guess, Columbia was one of the first universities in the US to seek to teach East Asian politics; the late Kenneth Butler, director of the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama for many many years, claimed to have been one of only a literal handful of American men who spoke Japanese at a certain time in the late 40s or 1950s (excluding Japanese-American native speakers, of course), and so had little difficulty moving up through the ranks to play an important role in the Occupation and in Japanese Studies back home in the US afterwards.

For whatever reason, I had assumed that Hearn’s story would be the same. And perhaps, to some extent, it is. But, reading about how he got his first job at the Met as the result of the networking connections and guidance and help of his Princeton advisor, Wen Fong, who called in favors, or perhaps was asked by the Met to suggest his best students, or something to that effect. Is that really so different from how I expect to get my foot in the door?

In any case, Mr Hearn (Dr Hearn?) has been in the Chinese art department in one capacity or another for 27 years, and has played a part in a great many major exhibitions, and in making the Chinese garden a reality. As the NY Times article relates, the museum had just finished re-doing its A/C ducts or something to that effect, and Thomas Hoving vetoed any idea of undoing that expensive work to install some new section with skylights and such, altering the ceiling and the A/C ducts within it. Still, Brooke Astor, a prominent and super wealthy board member (as board members tend to be), put up the funds to make it financially reasonable and doable, and so the beautiful Chinese garden which stands today at the center of the Chinese galleries was built.

The Times article goes on to discuss some of the major challenges facing Asian art today. Hearn’s story of how he got involved in Asian art, and in working at the Met, may not be that different from what I hope will become my own, but exhibitions simply cannot be held like they used to, and collections cannot be grown like they used to. Asian art has become too expensive for even large museums like the Met to afford (that’s a scary thought!!), and loans from Chinese and Japanese museums are more difficult and more expensive than ever (well, I shouldn’t say that – I don’t know the politics of borrowing objects during the Mao / pre-Nixon era when the US & China weren’t talking to each other and the Cold War was in full swing, but anyway) …. It makes me nervous and worried what things will be like if/when I ever become Curator myself. But it’s great to see it discussed in the paper like this, and to be given some idea what it is that’s actually going on.

My best wishes to both James Watt and Maxwell Hearn, as things change hands and move forward at the Metropolitan. Looking forward to some jump-starting of the Japanese exhibitions. Maybe? Please?

———-

Meanwhile, in France, President Sarkozy has apparently stirred up some controversy by suggesting the establishment of a museum of national history, something I am amazed to hear does not already exist in France.

The controversy is a familiar one. Whose history, which history, is “French” history? It is one we discussed almost to no end in my Museum Studies seminar last term, and is indeed very much a 21st century, post-modern, post-colonial issue that cannot seem to be solved or allowed to rest.

I can appreciate how this issue might be a difficult and touchy one in a place like the United States, especially in Hawaii, and also in places such as Australia. Where do aborigines fit into Australian history, i.e. the history of a former British colony, now white-dominated country?

But, in France, where there is no indigenous population that has been displaced or overthrown, and where there is in fact a singular national ethnic group – the French, as in the white French descended from the Gauls and Franks and Normans and whoever else – it is a very different situation. Now, I don’t presume to be any kind of expert on French society or societal issues, but basically, unlike the United States, France is a nation-state, a state (country) that controls territory roughly co-terminus with the traditional lands of a single nation (ethnic group) – the French. It is not a colonized place like Hawaii or Australia, or a country whose borders and identity has only come into existence in recent decades, such as, oh, I dunno, Ghana. France, like China, has in one form or another, existed for at least 2000 years, ruled by the Gauls or Franks or the French.

When it comes to US history, the history of a country founded and formed by immigrants, I think that to some extent the argument that Chinese-American history is just as much a part of American history as Jewish-American history or Irish-American history has some real validity to it. There is no such thing as US culture, US society, US anything without blacks, East Asians, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Latinos…. But there is a such thing as French culture that stands on its own, that others can adopt, can assimilate into, if they choose to. As one of my professors once said, “egalitarianism in France means everyone having equal opportunity to choose to become French,” meaning that the French have their own elite high culture, and you can choose to adopt it and become cultured if you so choose. What I am getting at is the idea that, in theory, ideally (ideologically?), French culture is a monolithic and static thing, that did not form from a mishmash of the cultures of other peoples, like US culture or Hawaiian ‘local’ culture¹, but comes from the singular identity of the French people. Now, I do not mean to argue this point too strongly, for fear of coming across as right-wing or something, or worse, racist, but I am simply trying to be clear, from my point of view as a historian.

It is easy for the journalist, the activist, the politician, the social justice blogger, who have their heads firmly, solely, in the present, to look around at a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic France and assume that this current situation defines France, and that any argument otherwise is racist or imperialist or something. Yet, there is a such thing as France that is different from what we see today, different from something which should be subject to the political attitudes and trends in political correctness of today.

We are talking about a museum of history, and there has been a lot of French history without the Vietnamese, the Arabs, the Algerians. It’s called “pre-colonial” or “pre-modern” history. There were no Vietnamese in France during the reign of Charlemagne, and as late as the reign of Louis XVI, long after France first planted its flag in Canada and in many other parts of the world, there was still at that time no such thing as Algeria or Algerians.

Societies and cultures change, and today in the 21st century, French identity may indeed be on the way to becoming, as Wikipedia has it, more a matter of French citizenship, “regardless of ancestry,” than a singular ethnic identity. But that does not mean that we can or should read this back through history – reading current situations back into history is among the worst of the historians’ fallacies, and while historians know to watch out for it, and to be careful not to do it, non-historians commit this error all the time. Just because today’s French society consists of Vietnamese, Arabs, Algerians, and people from any number of other origins does not mean that their stories constitute “French history.” They may constitute some portion of French history, and I do think that any French history museum that purports to relate a relatively full, thorough account of the country’s history needs to address colonialism and imperialism, inter-cultural exchanges and influences, etc.

As the NY Times article relates, Sarkozy has stated that France “has a problem with Islam,” the implication being, though not directly quoted or discussed in the article, that he believes this is a major problem to be addressed and corrected.

It is true that any museum is ideological, and that in creating such a museum, curators will need to tread very carefully to present a version of events that is both accurate and “true” – not sullied by political correctness or conscious intentional efforts to shade or color things are certain way – and at the same time acceptable. The museum must not be too pro-colonialist, of course, but neither should it be too anti-colonialist. It must treat Islam fairly, to combat the issues and difficulties so prominent in French society today, not decrying or disparaging it, which would of course only worsen the problem, but neither should such a museum extol Islam, a totally political move that would have everything to do with political motives of today, whitewashing things and completely failing to put into proper perspective the violence committed on both sides against the other – Muslims and Christians – for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Nicolas Offenstadt, a professor of history at the Sorbonne, argues that “To know about French Algeria you need to know about Algeria before France arrived there … If we need any history museum, it would be a world history museum, not a French history museum, to give us a real perspective on who we are, and what is France today.” But while he accuses “The very idea of a specifically French history museum [as] ideological,” his suggestion seems to me just as ideological, if not more so. To have a museum, or any accounting of history, be as objective, fair, accurate, and balanced as possible, it needs to be organized, not based on anything tied to the present, any idea of better understanding who we are today, but rather, in being tied to understanding who we once were in the past. A museum focusing on the impacts of France around the world and/or on the countries and cultures from which prominent minorities in France come, is a museum that picks and chooses and is very selective in what it addresses and in what manner, for the very ideological purpose of furthering certain political views – certain liberal, anti-imperialist, progressive, pro-multicultural views – which are ultimately, it would seem, opposed to the idea of a distinctly French people or French culture prior to the influx of peoples from around the world.

Some of the words Sarkozy has chosen do in fact make me nervous, and worry that he is politically motivated and ideological – stating that “French people want to reappropriate their history.”

But my point is simply to say that there is a such thing as French history prior to imperialism and multiculturalism, and that this, from Charlemagne down to the 16th century, should be understood on its own merits, and not purely or primarily from a post-modern, post-colonial, point of view that acts to serve 2011 politics. One must of course tread lightly when discussing the Crusades and certain other topics, but the Hundred Years War and countless other aspects of French history should be addressed in a manner that helps us better understand the 13th century, not the 21st. Twisting history to serve purposes of the present is pretty much the definition of ideological, and it is what we should avoid, whether it be twisting history to serve a nationalistic purpose, glorifying the white French ethnic nation and its history (as some are accusing Sarkozy of advocating), or whether it be twisting history to serve a post-colonial, pro-minorities sort of agenda.

I do not follow French news or situations particularly closely, but from what one hears in the news, it seems France is something of an example of the formerly imperial nation-state struggling to find a post-modern identity. It seems to be struggling more than England or Germany, more than China or Japan, and one can predict history books 100 years from now, or for that matter, journal articles which may already be being written, using it as an ideal case study for how societies deal with these issues. How does a nation-state, built on nearly 2000 years of being its own specific, distinct people – the white French people, descended from Gauls and Franks, from Charlemagne and Louis XVI and Napoleon, none of whom were Arab, Algerian, Tahitian, or Vietnamese – refashion itself into the kind of post-modern state that allows people of different ethnic backgrounds to be just as French, just as integrated and accepted, as the ethnic French themselves?

Whatever happens, continued developments should prove quite interesting.

—–
(1) Hawaiian ‘local’ culture, as distinguished from native Hawaiian culture, derives from the interaction of Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawaiian, Samoan, and other peoples and their cultures, resulting in a unique ‘local’ culture exemplified by pidgin English, plate lunch and other typical ‘local’ foods, etc.

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Wise Words: In Wild Places…

I think I am myself too used to the urban lifestyle, to electricity and internet, and too unused to being dirty and otherwise lacking in modern amenities, never mind real wilderness survival skills, to ever really think of retreating to the wilderness to seek enlightenment or commune with nature or anything like that… But these words, from an 18th century Tibetan yogi named Shabkar, as presented accompanied by beautiful visuals in the documentary film “Bhutan: Taking the Middle Path to Happiness,” I nevertheless found quite inspirational:

“In wild places where no one lives
One’s consoling friends will be birds and animals.
In wild places where no one lives
One’s nourishment will be roots and berries.

In wild places where no one lives

Consider the world as a Pure Land, a celestial palace.

In mountain solitudes under peaks wrapped in mist
One’s home will be pleasant caves in rocky cliffs.

Natural beauty will be delightful to behold

And dwelling there will bring ultimate joy.”

Trailer for the documentary:

I cannot say that I did not have some issues with the film – especially with its relatively un-nuanced use of the term “traditional,” and contrasting it with the “modern” as a strict dichotomy.

There is also the sadly unavoidable Orientalist aspect of the film, though, as this is something I myself struggle with, I cannot really assign blame. How does one justify one’s interest in, and affection for, a place, its people, and its culture, without falling into the trap of appearing to blatantly fall into standard stereotypical (and stereotyping) tropes? The filmmaker, like myself, a Westerner, a white man, who is disenchanted with life in the West, who sees something different in Bhutan, or in Japan, sees societies more closely in touch with their “traditional” culture, and with a sort of native, non-Judeo-Christian spirituality and cultural identity, societies with beautiful customs, rituals, architecture, clothing, artistic traditions, beautiful and compelling all the more because they are foreign and exotic to our eyes. To say we like it because it’s different, because it’s foreign and exotic, well, that’s unavoidable and unarguable. And that we romanticize it or idealize it, essentialize it – that too is unavoidable. It’s inevitable that we all, everyone, regardless of our ethnic or cultural background, approach things from that background, from that point of view. I cannot and will not ever be able to truly see things from a Japanese point of view, but only from a white man’s point of view… and so, in the end, the unspoken accusations are correct. But, then, how do we justify what we do? How do we forgive ourselves, let alone gain acceptance and forgiveness from those who would accuse us of Orientalism? Can there ever be an answer, a solution? Can we ever move past this?

… That whole discussion is a powerfully important one, of course. But, for now, that is not the purpose or point of this post, and I don’t want it to take over. Despite my few criticisms, overall, this is indeed a beautiful film, and a very uplifting one, addressing the issues and difficulties Bhutan faces, but also presenting it as a country very much on the right track – a nation that experiences peace, widespread contentment, free public education and health care; effective, efficient, and honest governance; a king who does not hoard wealth, but mingles happily among the people and is presented as being purely benevolent; a country that is going forward with all the best ideas in mind as to how to modernize carefully and slowly, while doing everything possible to protect both the natural environment and “traditional” culture. A nation that, though it does score very low on development scales, in terms of poverty, GDP, etc., could very well serve as a model for spiritual contentment and cultural preservation, and benevolent rule with carefully controlled modernization.

Bhutan serves as a fascinating case study of a country struggling with many of the same issues China and Japan did in the late 19th century – namely, modernizing while maintaining “traditional” culture and national identity – and going about it without violent revolutions, without Maoist (or militarist/ultranationalist) factions, or many of the other directions other countries went in over the course of the 20th century. I continue to keep my eyes out for news about developments in Bhutan, and hope to visit someday.

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On Orientalism

I find myself on the verge of doing, essentially, the last thing I ever wanted to do in my academic career, the thing I most sought to avoid – taking a course, particularly a seminar, on Orientalism.

I am to some extent put at ease by the fact that the professor has already expressed his view that that classic of anti-imperialist and anti-Western thought, Edward Said’s “Orientalism,” is quite flawed. He seems a rather laid-back fellow, and the course seems to be fairly balanced. Still, I am put on edge by the prospect of falling into the trap of becoming entranced by this extremely trendy and popular view.

I am thus putting to digital paper, so to speak, my thoughts on the matter as they are today, shaped by countless experiences and readings, not least of which was my experience at SOAS, that bastion of anti-American, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-Western thought run rampant. I do this before my opinions are altered or influenced by the readings and discussions for this course.

A note: This is just one of countless possible drafts of my thoughts on this matter. It has not been reviewed and refined. It is far from perfect. There may be points where I misrepresent myself and my views, and aspects I fail to address. Have some understanding, and stop and think for a bit, allow me some leeway, before tearing into me.

Terminology
Let us start with terminology. There is a backlash against use of the word Orient, or its derivative Oriental (as in Oriental Studies), as it is seen to have imperialistic overtones. Well, outside of the fact that the word derives etymologically from the meaning of “east”, thus raising the question of “east from where?”, A: from the West (thus this is a Eurocentric construct, and thus an imperialistic and inappropriate one), I see no evil undertones to it. I’m sorry, I just don’t. Terms like Jap, Chink, Yellow Peril, White Man’s Burden, Greater East Asia, Co-Prosperity Sphere, these are terms that have imperialistic overtones, but as far as I am aware, “Oriental” was never used in any major way to directly refer to anyone or anything as inferior or deserving or needing of conquest. Quite to the contrary, when speaking of Orientalism as it pertains to China and Japan, Oriental was a word that contained positive connotations of beautiful arts, exotic places, ancient secret knowledges, magics, skills and technologies, etc.

Now, in a much more apolitical sense, yes, there is a problem with the word Orient in that it refers to different places to different people at different times in different contexts. Is the Orient synonymous with the Near or Middle East, with that area from Turkey through Iraq or Afghanistan/Pakistan which has a certain set of cultures, religions, languages, and aesthetics as different from those of the Far East as they are from those of Europe, Africa, or the Pacific? Or does the Orient refer to the Far East, i.e. China, Korea, Japan, and perhaps Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia? This is a problem, and so, yeah, maybe the term should be thrown out.

But, before I go on for too long, let me say something more generally. Terminology exists for a reason. There is a certain degree to which we can all agree on what a term means, what it refers to, even if we disagree that it’s an appropriate term. Jargon, terminology, just like language more widely, exists to provide a medium for communication, for understanding. Once we start questioning and pulling apart these terms, declaring them inappropriate, and rendering them meaningless, we are left with a situation of far greater difficulty in communication. I could think of a gazillion examples to back this up, but to take just one, there is a reason we continue to use terms like “Chinese history” and “Japanese art” even while understanding that neither of these countries were fully unified throughout their histories, lacked a sense of nationhood or national identity until recent centuries, etc.

It’s a shorthand, and people understand what is meant, and it allows us to move on. Dissecting and rethinking our understandings of what different terms – like Orient, like Near East and Far East – mean is the exact opposite of moving on, which is what makes me nervous about this course.

To quickly address the issue of Near East, Middle East, Far East – yes, all of these terms are unforgivably inappropriate in a post-colonialist anti-imperialist vocabulary, because they stem from a Eurocentric point of view (again, east of what?). But, while these terms tend to be somewhat fuzzy on their borders, and leave out many regions/countries, I think these terms are great. Firstly, they are already, in everyday usage, significantly abstracted from this problematic meaning. Think about how many times, or for how long, you used these terms or at least heard them, before you thought about them as problematically Eurocentric and motivated by colonialist, imperialist overtones. You probably didn’t even know words like Eurocentric and overtones for a long time when you were already gaining an idea of what the Middle East was. Stop the average person on the street, and they’ll have the same attitude towards it.

We all know where the Middle East is. It’s basically the Arab World (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and some other tiny countries) plus Turkey, Iran, and Israel which are not demographically predominantly Arab, plus perhaps North Africa (from Egypt all the way west along the Mediterranean coast to Morocco) and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Near East is basically a subset of the Middle East. While this seems confusing or even absurd on the surface of the thing (near should be nearer than middle), it’s also a relatively well-defined area based on historical significance and cultural similarities, covering essentially Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt, i.e. the Levant, i.e. the easternmost parts of the Mediterranean coast, i.e. those nations having the most direct connection to the Orient as viewed by the Greeks – Troy, other Anatolian (Turkish) societies, the Phoenecians, the Hebrews, the Egyptians.

The Far East is essentially China, Korea, and Japan, three nations with very close cultural and historical ties which set them apart from the more Indianized nations of Southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia) and from the more Islamicized ones (Malaysia, Indonesia). Vietnam, I would argue, belongs in “the Far East”, but is often overlooked and ignored just as Korea often is, overshadowed by the two giants in the region.

This leaves a number of regions – mainly India and much of SE Asia, and the Himalayan regions, not to mention Mongolia and “Central Asia”, i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc – absent from Near and Middle and Far East. This could be seen as a problem from the point of view of nationalistic sympathies, but from the more cold, objective point of view of the categorizer, labeler, or name-setter, i.e. the objective historian without a nationalistic, post-colonial or anti-imperialist agenda, I don’t think it’s a problem at all.

I have seen the term “West Asia” thrown around a lot lately. At first, this seems a natural addition to a naming/categorization scheme which includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia, and which is centered on an objective, removed, geographer’s perspective on Asia. It suits just as well as Western Europe and Eastern Europe do. Except for one problem – “West Asia”, that is, the Middle East, i.e. the Arab World, has a very very distinct set of cultures, aesthetics, climate, atmosphere, and history to it which sets it apart very much from anything Asian. Consider the fact that when we talk about “Africa”, we are most often talking about sub-Saharan Africa – that portion of the continent which has far more in common within itself (from Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire on the northwest coast to Kenya in the east to South Africa in the south) than with the Arabs and/or Muslims on the north, Mediterranean, coast of the continent. In short, there needs to be an understanding of cultural and historical geographical spheres, not just pure geographical happenstance. Indeed, the division between Europe and Asia is an accident of semantics and terminology, not a hard-and-fast scientific or geographical fact. So why can we not just have the Middle East – as we all already call it and know it – remain its own distinct part of the world, apart from Asia?

*Edward Said
Let us move on. I have dawdled for far too long.

Edward Said wrote a text entitled “Orientalism” in 1978 or so, a text which I have not read, and never intended to read. It is a book founded on an anti-Western, anti-imperialist, political agenda and spawned from the political and cultural views of someone who is not only Arab, but Palestinian, and who has a serious axe to grind.

I cannot discount Said purely on the basis of his being Arab or Palestinian. To do so would be horribly hypocritical, and would lend credence to those assholes pushing for an academic boycott of Israeli scholars. However, the fact remains that his cultural and ethnic background colors this work irrevocably, and its fundamental argument – like all based on a political agenda rather than objective scholarly attitudes or intents – makes the entire book quite precariously unbalanced indeed.

Furthermore, I presume (and I shall discover upon reading it), Said expounds upon his Middle Eastern -centered argument, applying it to all of Asia and perhaps even beyond, to the whole non-Western world. As a Japanologist or Japanist, as a specialist in East Asian Studies, I cannot abide the idea that anyone should think they understand China or Japan because they understand Palestine. That’s a complete absurdity. And yet, countless supporters of Said’s views continue to do the same.

The fundamental flaw in Said’s argument, and indeed in all anti-imperialist arguments, is as follows – in deriding the West for treating the East as a single, exotic Other to be colonized or civilized or whatever, the argument makes the folly of discussing “the East” or “the non-West” as a single entity, and treating “the West” as a single entity as well. The Arab world is not the same as China or Japan, which are quite different from one another, as any Chinese or Japanese would be quick to tell you. And more importantly, something that the raving mobs of anti-imperialists which inhabit the halls of SOAS, and so many other places, fail to recognize is that there is no single West. The US is not guilty of the so-called sins of British Imperialism, nor were French, Portuguese, and German attitudes towards colonization, empire, etc the same as one another.

I oppose revisionism as reactionary and unnecessary, as trendy and subjective, as politically charged and as truly disrespectful to scholars of the past, indeed to all peoples of the past, and as damaging to our ability to communicate effectively, with simple direct terms that we can all agree upon and that are not overwhelmingly bogged down with problematizations, hidden connotations, and analysis.

One can spend an entire course, or an entire lifetime, debating what “the East” or “Japan” or “fascism” mean… or one can accept the term, move on, and focus on discussing the history and culture of the so-called East.

…

Yet, as much as I would like to do just that, I will be taking this course and delving into precisely that which I sought to avoid. I intend to resist using this blog (or my personal one) as a venting place, but we shall see how developments develop.

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Why it’s good that the Middle East loves European Orientalist painting

I apologize to post a second article from the same source one after another; I hope I’m not pushing the boundaries of journalism and/or fair use.

Please do visit the website of The Art Newspaper and take a look around. It’s a wonderful publication, with lots of interesting material.

I was intrigued by the headline “Why it’s good that the Middle East loves European Orientalist painting” and curious, at the very least, to discover what “Orientalist” was referring to. Is the author referring to the Near/Middle East of Edward Said’s “Orientalism”, or the Japonisme and other European arts inspired by The Orient, i.e. the Far East?

Well, it turns out he is talking about the Middle East, and about Edward Said. For the record, I have never read Said’s famous book, and I don’t intend to. Philip Mansel describes Said in this article as “a literary critic and polemicist, not a historian, [and someone who] makes mistakes,” and points out that Said has been called “the most eloquent spokesman of the Palestinian cause in the west [sic].” Sorry, but I have no interest in reading someone like that; also, I find it hard to believe that his arguments about the Middle East, even if you think them valid, truly apply just as well to the vastly different cultures and historical situations of the Far East.

I do strongly recommend this article, as an eloquent, historically informed, and much needed refutation of Said’s premise – namely, that he accuses “European writers and painters of the Middle East of being part of a ‘project’ over many centuries to help or justify western empires in the region: ‘a relationship of power, of domination, of various degrees of a complex hegemony.’ The will to know reflected the will to dominate.”

Mansel aptly points out that Said minimizes or ignores the strong ties between the Ottoman Empire and Western European powers, on more or less equal footing. Said fails to recognize that “Orientalists were not necessarily more hegemonic than other disciplines, or indeed than many people in the Middle East—no one could be more contemptuous of Arabs than their Turkish rulers.” And, making a point that could apply just as easily to the cases of the cultures of the Far East, he points out that Orientalist artists and writers from the West, “whatever their biases, … took the trouble to go to Aleppo or Jerusalem or Cairo and record in books and pictures what they learnt. They did not always have a hidden agenda of western triumphalism.”

It is a refreshing point of view, in this world where far too many Americans, Europeans, and other Westerners despise their own cultures, and anything and everything associated with imperialism or colonialism, holding to the writings of Said, Chomsky, and the like as their personal Bibles. I am all too familiar with this breed from my time at SOAS. They are caught up in an ideological trend, or should I say a trendy ideology, a liberal university campus frame of mind which fails to recognize the complexities of history, culture, and the world around them. They fail to recognize that few things in history are black and white, and that in fact all things operate in multiple directions – Europe and the Arab world having a far more complex cultural relationship than anything that can be summed up by words such as oppression, subjugation, Orientalism or imperialism (and that in fact these words too are far more complex, multi-layered, and mixed in meaning than the wholly negative associations these people pile onto them).

I look forward to coming across more of Mr. Mansel’s writings, and hope that they reflect the same refreshing objectivity and refusal to give in to trendy political attitudes.

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