It is impossible to define the Japanese as purely Japanese. In this essay, I will explore how the Western cultural influence during the Meiji restoration from (1868 - 1889) and the Meiji era (1968 - 1912) of Japan (Weir, 2000) has affected and merged with traditional Japan. Thus creating a country of multi-layered culture, that cannot be reduced to just ‘Japanese’. Found in my primary readings, the works of Natsume Soseki, the importation, and assimilation of both western products and cultural ideology are illustrated in everyday Japanese life. Sanshiro (1908, Soseki) depicts a young Japanese protagonist confronted with the unfamiliar modernization of Tokyo and I am a Cat (1906, Soseki) illustrates the assimilation of Western ideology and literature of upper-middle-class intellectuals. During this essay, I will focus on chapters one and two of Sanshiro and the final third installment of I am a Cat, using this evidence alongside Watsuji Tetsuro's ideas about Japanese cultural hybridity to support and develop my argument and explore whether I agree with his concepts about the Japanese spirit in relation to the presentation of the Westernisation and the modernization and the ‘Japanese’ in Soseki's literary works.
Firstly, the Meiji restoration (1868 - 1889) had a significant effect on domestic Japanese life and civilization. In pursuit of development, the new Meiji government outlined its new objective fukoku Kyohei (a rich nation strong military). (Hane, 2013), stated how the Japanese government released they ‘must adopt Western science and technology' (Hane, 2013), to develop power as a nation. Similarly, Barker argued that the strengthening of Japan required the pursuit of Western knowledge. Both technological and ideological advances followed, and Western technology, ideology, and literature were soon imported and assimilated into everyday life during the Meiji era. Technologically, steam engines, cameras, horse-drawn carriages, steamboats, etc... were imported, and culturally, Western books were translated and foreign languages taught (Hane, 2013). This can be described as the fulfillment of the objectives of the ‘fukoku (rich nation)’. I will focus on the presentation of these Western advances in domestic Japanese life and Soseki presents them within Sanshiro and I am a Cat and how they have led to Japan being a country of cultural hybridity, that cannot be described as inherently ’Japanese'.
Sanshiro is set in 1908, during the end of the Meiji era. Soseki explores the effect of western modernization on both Japan and the Japanese civilization as a ‘rich nation'. During chapters one and two, the young protagonist is thrust into the westernizing city of Tokyo, amid what (Weir, 2000) described as ‘scientific-technological Westernisation. Firstly, the immediate setting is a Train, a Western product, and throughout the next chapter trains and street, cars are frequently referenced in the narrative. Weir states how the modern train was initially viewed as an aesthetic abomination to the Japanese not situated in the capital, like Sanshiro. Soseki describes his struggle to accept the new, foreign technology. The protagonist complained that the more ’convenient’ it gets the more confused I get (Sanshiro, Soseki, P27)' it refers to both the streetcars and the modernization of the city. Within the novel, scientific technology is a symbol of the West, and its fast integration in a rapidly expanding Tokyo (Burton,..). This is evidence of the fukoku (rich nation) being developed through the advancement of Western technology.
Furthermore, Soseki himself declared the Meiji era as a bridge between ‘old’ Japan and a new ‘Westernised’ Japan (Weir, 2000). This is evident in his description of a rapidly developing Tokyo, as 'everything looked as if it were being destroyed, and at the same time, everything looked as if it were under construction.' (Sanshiro, Soseki, P26). And in the intersection harboring two shops, one ‘handling imported goods’ and ‘one Japanese’ - the sensory description illustrates the diversity of the streets, which Sanshiro has yet to fully comparand and understand. However, his companion, the minor character Tetsuro, is not phased by the image of western goods. This illustrates the effect of the abnormally high rate of westernization in Tokyo. To him living in Tokyo, the west is completely assimilated, merged within his everyday life.
To further understand Soseki's representation of Japan of westernization, I have looked at Watsuji Tetsuro's ideas about Japanese cultural hybridity and how the importation and embodiment of foreign and Western thought, ideas, and products lead to a diverse modern Japan. Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960) was a Japanese philosopher who, like Natsume Soseki had a diverse educational background. Tetsuro received a balanced education in both western and Japanese subjects (Weir, 2000) and Natsume studied abroad (Hane, 2013). Keeping in mind that they had direct experience with both Japan and the West, makes their ideas and concepts more unbiased and rounded, speaking from first-hand experience, rather than relying on secondary sources, like my other references.
In, Watsuji stated that No matter how far we go back in Japanese culture we will not find an age in which evidence of admiration of foreign cultures is not to be found' (Watsuji 1998, 250)
This quotation summarizes his view on how the Japanese throughout history demonstrated an intense curiosity and a robust desire to learn, and to learn from cultures quite different from their own. Though this statement risks the generalization of all Japanese into one category, I agree that Japan has imported ideas and products from the West in pursuit of modernization and national power. Evident in Soseki's constant placement of western products in Sanshiro, and his constant reference to western literature and language in I am a Cat, Which I will explore in the next section. Suh's assimilation and borrowing of foreign ideas and culture, suggests that Japan is a country of hybridity.
Furthermore, Watsuji Tetsuro also describes an authentic Japanese spirit. He suggests that the importation and humble appreciation of foreign culture makes Japan culturally unique and assumes to describe the unified group of people ‘the Japanese’ (Sakai, 2008). However, this notion I somewhat disagree with this, as diversity within Meiji japan is presented by soseki, despite all sharing the new western ideologies. For Example, Hybridity and social dis-unity are evident in Soseki's works, the initial setting of the western train is a diverse collection of people and personalities, etc, I cannot agree all share the same, collective identities of a ‘Japanese spirit’. Noaki Sakai further supports my argument, suggesting that âthe presence of a name in a certain historical period does not necessarily guarantee the presence of social unity, they do not form a single community' Thus, the Westernisation in the Meiji era doesn't define and unite the Japanese as a whole.
Having previously explored the technological westernizing presented in Sanshiro, I will now focus on I am a Cat, to explore the cultural and ideological Westernisation of Meiji Japanese civilization. During the third installment, Soseki explores the bourgeois upper-middle-class characters, particularly the protagonist Sneeze. He is I am a cat is an example of the effects of western cultural influence, harboring an obsession and appreciation of Western civilization, language, and literature. Though some critics (Fujii, 1989) argued that this was an ‘appropriation of Western literary conventions’ but I agree with Watsuji, describing it as evidence of admiration of foreign culture. As stated above, Barker argued that in line with the objectives of fukoku Kyohei (a rich nation strong military), the Japanese Government rapidly translated and adopted foreign languages, in pursuit of enriching western knowledge.
For example, through this section of the novel Sneeze references a vast variety of Western authors, etc., illustrating the influence of translated literature. The protagonist himself is a product of what Soseki described as a new ‘Westernised’Japan (Weir, 2000), an English professor, teaching and engaging in a foreign language. His character provides us evidence of how western thought began to integrate into Japan in the late Meiji era.
To conclude, I don't believe that we can simply define the Japanese as ‘Japanese’. Firstly, I have concluded this through evidence of westernization and modernization in the works of soseki natsume, which, as Watsuki recognized, illustrates the integration of western technological products and thought. The streetcars and foreign goods in Sanshiro, and the literature and western language in I am a Cat provide evidence of a merging of the West and Japan. Secondly, Sakai's idea about the Japanese not being defined as social unity by westernization further supports my argument that the Japanese cannot be defined as inherently Japanese, and Watsuji's statement about Japan's humble appreciation of foreign ideas and products, supports the argument. During the Meiji era, Japan imported so much Western idea and thought, today, one cannot define the Japanese as a singular identity. I've concluded that the country is one of hybridity, enriched and influenced by the ideology of the West.