Chair: Toshio Watanabe, London Institute

This session aims to investigate the impact of Japanese cultural imperialism on Taiwanese identities as evidenced in modern/contemporary art and design. This is an inter-disciplinary panel based on some members of an international, collaborative exhibition project led by Professor Toshio Watanabe and Dr. Yuko Kikuchi, involving art historians, historians, and curators from the United States, Japan, Britain, and Taiwan. As the international exhibition is scheduled for 2003–04, the purpose of the panel will be three-fold: to introduce the idea of the project, to offer some preliminary findings, and to gain feedback from AAS members which could be usefully incorporated into the project.

The main question asked is: how did the Japanese cultural dominance in the colonial period effect the construction of Taiwanese identities? The particular focus will be on the phenomenon of "refraction" in the construction of modern Taiwanese identities as expressed through visual arts. The main issues involved are cultural representations, "Orientalism" and cultural identity, the notion of the vernacular "Taiwaneseness" and the continuity/discontinuity of the colonial Taiwanese identities into the post-colonial period.

This session will also raise questions about the notion of "Art History." In line with the recent seminal works of Craig Clunas’s Art in China (1997) and John Clark’s Modern Asian Art (1998), discussions will be encouraged to explore the possibility of an alternative framework to accommodate multiple Asian art histories.

In July 1941, under the "kominka" (Japanization) policy by the Japanese colonial government, a small group of intellectuals, centered around professors at Taihoku Imperial University and officials in Taiwan Government-General, published a new journal, Minzoku Taiwan, that would introduce and research Taiwanese folklore and customs.

The appearance of the journal was a revision of the "kominka" policy of the late 1930s, showing the effort on the part of a small group of progressive Japanese who loved Taiwanese culture and who were favorably inclined towards the Taiwanese people to resist the imperial "kominka" policy and preserve Taiwan’s original culture. However, a more prevalent reason for its appearance was probably the Konoe cabinet’s promotion of local culture. When Japan employed the Sinocentric (Zhong-hua zhuyi) slogan "Greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere" to rationalize further territorial expansion, she was forced to recognize the existence of other ethnicities/peoples (minzu) within the sphere of the Japanese Empire. Thus, in addition to the "kominka" tendencies that threatened to destroy Taiwanese tints/colors, the Japanese government had to preserve a portion of Taiwanese culture.

This paper will attempt to analyze Minzoku Taiwan from an alternative context. That is to say, the appearance of the journal was the manifestation of a Taiwan version of the "local culture movement," but one that was still supportive of Japanese imperialist policies.

Naoko Shimazu, University of London

This paper examines Japanese perceptions of colonial Taiwan through an analysis of Japanese travel writing of the period. The focus will be on the Japanese bunkajin, many of whom took interest in visiting the colonies. Some of the bunkajin who visited Taiwan were Nogami Yaeko, Tokutomi Soho, Takahama Kyoshi, and Sato Haruo. They all wrote about their impressions of Taiwan, often in the form of kikobun (travel writing). The main question asked is whether or not the literary ‘landscapes,’ (moji no fukeiga) of Taiwan drawn by them were "orientalist" in nature. If so, what can be defined typically as "orientalist" in their writings? How important was it to them that Taiwan should be categorized first and foremost as a colony? Was there an element of "refraction," implying their adoption of Western imperialist attitude, in their depictions of Taiwan?

Yoshitaka Mori, Kyûshû University

The paper examines the way in which the Japanese government gained its political legitimacy through urban construction in Taipei after Japan colonized Taiwan in 1894. In particular, it looks at architectural styles that the Japanese government adopted in order to demonstrate its authority.

Gotô Shimpei, the civilian chief of colonial government in Taiwan, was the most important figure in my argument because he introduced a new way of colonization. Until Gotô’s appointment in 1898 the Japanese government had failed to control population in Taiwan due to strong resistance by native Taiwanese. Gotô was the first person who understood the importance of controlling the population not only by coercive force but also through a kind of consensus. By introducing a way of Western urban planning, in particular the idea of public sanitation, he established magnificent governmental buildings, hospitals and schools to display Japanese authority. New buildings with Western-Japanese hybrid effectively functioned to stabilize upheaval in the city, while he ordered the destruction of old traditional buildings which might evoke memories of Taiwanese past.

The paper aims to explore how colonial power was exercised and aestheticized through architectural practices, by looking at some colonial architectures established under Gotô’s regime.

Yuko Kikuchi and Kiyoko Mitsuyama-Wdowiak, The London Institute

This paper examines the discourse on Taiwanese identity in modern/contemporary art and crafts from the 1940s, in the last period of Japanese colonisation, to the present. The focus is on the impact of Japanese cultural imperialism on Taiwanese identities and its relation to the modernisation of Taiwanese culture with particular reference to the phenomenon of ‘refraction’ and Taiwanese localisation. Main issues are cultural representations, ‘Orientalism’ and cultural identity, the notion of the vernacular ‘Taiwaneseness’ (xiangtu) and the continuity/discontinuity of the colonial Taiwanese identity into the post-colonial period.

In part one, exotic Taiwanese landscapes in paintings, and vernacular objects (i.e. Bamboo) in folkcrafts ‘discovered’ by the Japanese and Taiwanese artists trained in Japanese institutions will be discussed. Our main theme of ‘refraction’ will also be discussed in terms of the cultural politics under the policy of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (Daitôa Kyôeiken) and the transmission of Euramerican modernism through Japan to Taiwan.