| Volume Thirty-Nine | 1997 | |
Okakura Kakuzo's (1862-1913) works, published in the first decade of the twentieth century both in the United States and Great Britain, sought to address the dearth in dependable information about Japan. Okakura is indeed one of the more reliable transmitters of Japanese culture of the time. A renowned and internationally acclaimed collector and historian of the arts of East Asia, Okakura's works, especially The Book of Tea (1905), are still today consulted in regard to matters of Japanese aestheticism. To read Okakura only for his insight into Japanese art, however, is to miss out on an entirely different dimension to Okakura that earned him the designation of being "Japan's first pan-Asian ideologue."1
Okakura's literary output as well as those products by "Japan experts" that are discussed below, are part of a deluge of books on Japan that were published during and immediately in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War (1904/5). A contemporary reviewer of The Literary Digest (New York) attributed the sudden demand for information about the "Orient," and specifically about Japan, to the long-time interest in and amazement over Japan's rapid modernization.2 Nevertheless, Japan's victory over Russia, one of the great world powers, came as a major surprise on the heels of Japanese success in the Sino-Japanese War only a few years earlier. The American audience seemed to appreciate especially the peculiar dimension of the Russo-Japanese War which was portrayed as the proverbial conflict between David and Goliath.
The same reviewer makes claims for the existence of a still vague yet pervasive sentiment among the intellectual and political American elite that eventually "the Far East is destined to figure more impressively than ever before in the economic and political life of the world, and that . . . Japan will be preeminently the representative of the Far East."3
If previous literature focused predominantly on the "exotic" aspects of Japan, literary products of the early 1900s sought to remedy this imbalance by offering a variety of accounts of highly uneven quality, ranging from the intellectually exacting Japan handbook to sloppily-researched, error-infested, quaint curio books. Among the plethora of Japan treatises, those produced by Japanese authorities of the likes of Nitobe Inazao or Okakura Kakuzo were unvaryingly praised for their superior quality -- or rather, what the contemporary reviewer could not help but perceive as the more authentic, thus superior work. This in part may explain why numerous works by contemporary Japanese authors that today are recognized for their ideologically-charged contents, were accepted uncritically with great enthusiasm by the majority of readers and reviewers.
That we today can submit their books to a critical reading is in no small part due to the benefit of hindsight. In the first decade of the 1900s, it was by no means obvious, even to the skilled observer, that Japan was in the process of joining the ranks of the established imperialistic powers. Despite hysterical denunciations of Japan (and Asia) as the "yellow peril," Japan's success still did not appear to fit a pattern. After all, Japan would spend the next several decades trying to shake the image of an upstart whose fortune had been no more than an anomaly.
Convention dictated that any nation that presumed to have graduated to advanced, modern, and "civilized" nation status, was to adopt an aggressive, self-assertive foreign policy -- a challenge that Japan could not leave unanswered were she ever to gain equality. The fact that technological and cultural offerings from the West had made it possible for Japan to enter into the competitive world arena in the first place, was a painful reminder of Japan's prostrate position not long ago. Yet, that Japan was driving herself and her people so mercilessly ever since the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, and had shouldered enormous political and economic risks -- not to mention the cost in human lives -- to win two wars back to back, did strike a small number of observers as odd. It would have been no small feat to recognize in Japan's actions symptoms of a nation plagued by a perennial feeling of inferiority vis-à-vis the West.
It is not surprising that apparently only reviewers in the British realm were able to pick up on the implications of Japan's frantic struggle for recognition, as we will see below. Until the end of World War I, Great Britain was the uncontested leader of the great powers -- in no small part due to her large colonial empire -- and possessed an experienced and sophisticated diplomatic service. World War I exacted a tremendous toll from the British Empire; England "was crippled, partially recovered, but never regained the economic strength to revive fully the pre-1914 system of international trade and finance. The United States . . . fulfilled ad hoc . . . some but not all of the functions performed by Britain during the pre-1914 century."4
The United States that otherwise had preferred to continue on a neutral course, did take on the task of world leadership as late as the early 1920s. The long delay and the reluctance with which the United States finally took its place as the leading power as well as the lingering effects of the U.S. having been the foremost proponent of the highly controversial Open-Door Policy in Asia may explain why in the mid-1910s Nitobe's and Okakura's works were met in the U.S. with unmitigated enthusiasm, lacking for the most part a critical reading.
To appreciate Okakura's argument for the uniqueness of Asia and the need for "Asia to become one" with Japan in the leading position, it is helpful to examine the social context in which Okakura's works were produced and to scrutinize the argumentative structure of the discourse as well as the specific "vocabulary" he uses. The last portion of this study will focus on the degree to which imperialism and pan-Asianism as ideological phenomena were accepted forms of "social arrangements" at the turn of the century.
To provide an insight -- as preliminary as it may be -- into the generation of the Japan discourse in the early twentieth-century United States, it is in order to select from a wide range of Okakura's contemporaries, both American and Japanese, that sought to present to the American public a specific image of Japan, like Okakura himself.
A large audience, political prominence, or scholarly reputation served as parameters of the selection process. From the vast pool of "Japan literature," I chose Nitobe Inazao, Bushido, The Soul of Japan. An Exposition of Japanese Thought for its wide readership and great popularity.5 Japan to America, published under the auspices of The Japan Society of America in 1915, is not known for its mass appeal as there were no reviews available in either scholarly nor popular organs, but features some of Japan's politically most prominent personalities speaking out on Japan.6 By 1904, Lafcadio Hearn, author of Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation, already had established a reputation as a serious Japan scholar, especially in the field of Japanese religion.7 After his death in the same year, Okakura Kakuzo was considered Hearn's rightful successor as "the foremost interpreter of his people to the western world."8
Styling himself Japan's "personal defendant" who is to "present the cause of Japan . . . ," Nitobe proposes in the Preface to the First Edition that "without understanding feudalism and Bushido, the moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume."9 Bushido is presented as the pivot around which Japanese culture and society revolves. According to Nitobe, it is futile to attempt to comprehend modern Japan, her motives and actions, without an appreciation for the "martial spirit."
Nitobe holds that since Bushido is suffusing culture and society, it is tantamount to Japan's national character -- "an element which unites the most forcible persons of every country [here Japan]; makes them intelligible and agreeable to each other;"10 A case in point is Japan's transformation that followed after the Meiji Restoration. Nitobe argues that "if one were to name the principal, one could not hesitate to name Bushido" as the single driving force behind Japan's recent success.11 Education, and technological and industrial advances alone could not have generated Japan's preeminent position in Asia, for ". . . it is the spirit that quickeneth, without which the best of implements profiteth but little."12
To the uneducated reader of Nitobe, Bushido neatly -- too neatly -- accounts for Japan's radical change and her surfacing as the leading power in Asia. Proffering Bushido as the single universal answer to any queries the occidental world may have about Japan, Nitobe has skillfully constructed a smokescreen that conveniently deflects any deeper probing into the less palatable aspects of Japan as a society and nation.
Nitobe's Bushido appears to be a dramatic reaction to Japan's thorough and still ongoing Westernization. The reviewer of The Athenaeum (London) pointedly remarks that "the book is a signal proof of the reaction -- now, apparently, in full swing -- from the ideas of the seventies and eighties, when the completest Westernization was ideal . . . time has brought about its revenge . . . it is to the military caste of the Shogunate . . . that modern Japan is taught to look for the source of its national virtues."13 Nitobe therefore cannot avoid rejecting the aims -- namely Westernization for the sake of reform -- of the very men who, as prominent members of the Bushi class themselves, deserve credit for launching the Meiji Restoration. Interestingly enough, Nitobe not once attempts to inform the reader about the highly pragmatic considerations that moved Meiji leaders to undertake reforms in the first place. Scrambling to avoid a fate similar to that of her neighbor China, Japan rallied her efforts around the slogan fukoku kyôhei, "rich nation, strong military."
To reduce Japanese history -- as Nitobe has done it -- to one that hinges solely on Bushido, is not only misleading, but anachronistic and thus unhistorical. Nitobe isolates one single cultural trait, the "Warrior's Code," and claims it to be representative for an entire people, whereas it is well known that the Bushi class comprised only a small percentage of the entire population. In reference to Bushido, Nitobe makes mention only to high-flying moral ideals, such are courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor, loyalty. Bushido's close association with warfare and raw ambition that characterized large parts of Japanese history is an issue Nitobe skirts. Nor does Nitobe inform the reader about the decline of the Bushi class into poverty and ignominy during the latter half of the Tokugawa -- a long cry from the nobility of Nitobe's Bushi. The uninformed reader, however, remains unaware of Nitobe's lapse.
Equally problematic is that Japan's military victory over Russia coincides with the publication of Nitobe's Bushido. We will never learn the ultimate motive that drives the author to write his book. As much one is tempted to perceive a direct relation between the Russo-Japanese War and the publication of Nitobe's (but also Okakura's!) work, any speculation concerning the author's intent can only be guesswork. When inquiring into the implications of specific statements, the authorial intent may even be deemed irrelevant. What may not be irrelevant is the fact that in constructing Bushido as a code of ethics that first operated exclusively among the warrior-class, but eventually came to permeate the nation, Nitobe was forced to be highly selective.
At this point, reviewers from both The Athenaeum (London) and The Literary Digest (New York) agree that Nitobe's argument is no longer convincing.14 The Athenaeum, however, ventures yet further in its criticism. ". . . Prof. Nitobe's book is a misleading piece of special pleading. He makes out his case by partial statement and wholesale suppression." Nor does the reviewer hold back on what he believes to be the implications of Nitobe's book: ". . . it is not the supposed Bushido of old Japan, but that of new Japan -- the military virtues shown on the plains of Manchuria and in the seas of Japan, the sophosyne15 exhibited by the Japanese army and navy, the . . . thoroughly competent diplomacy of the Japanese Government -- that reads a lesson to the West."16
In Masaoka Naoichi (ed.), Japan to America, the president of The Japan Society of America, Lindsay Russell, makes the following statement in the introduction: "The utterances of statesmen and other leaders of thought in Japan which are presented . . . as a message to the United States are regarded by The Japan Society as possessing present interest and continued importance for the American public."17 What is the nature of this message? What role does The Japan Society play in the production and transmission of the Japan image?
In the absence of reviews, we may draw upon the brief characterization of The Japan Society provided by the great publisher George Haven Putnam who co-operated with Russell on the production of this book and had published previously Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, in 1906. According to Putnam, The Japan Society was composed of "citizens who are interested in doing what may be practicable to further harmonious and satisfactory relations between Japan and the United States, and to frustrate the wicked attempts that are made from time to time to work up friction or schemes that would interfere with these relations."18 Putnam's remark on the membership being composed of ordinary citizens, not Japan experts or scholars, is reason for concern -- as in the case of reading Nitobe's Bushido, the uninformed reader is unaware of his being fed highly ideologized text.
Putnam himself appears representative of the archetypal American participant in the Japan discourse: ". . . I have found myself . . . strengthening my interests in and my sympathies with a people which present a curious combination of energy, effective force, and quiet charm and courtesy." As the "peculiar charm" of the Japanese and their culture wins so many admirers, among them Putnam, critical inquiry takes second seat. Putnam who, as head of a renowned publishing house, should be expected to possess a good deal more sophistication and finesse than the average consumer of Japan to America, believed in all seriousness that his publishing efforts were a significant contribution to the betterment of international relations. In his own words, Putnam denies to "know another case where publishing machinery has been utilized so directly for the purpose of furthering the exchange of sound information and of sympathetic views."19
As this book contains more than thirty brief essays authored by Japan's political and economic elite, the scope of this paper necessitates a selective discussion of those essays that provide insight in the perspectives communicated to the reader. Although published in 1915, the message that is projected in Japan to America remains surprisingly in tune with that of Nitobe. The book commences with the brief, yet highly programmatic "Our National Message" by Okuma Shigenobu who had played a pivotal role in Japan's development since the Meiji Restoration.20
Similar to Nitobe, Okuma attempts to solicit the understanding and sympathy of the Western World. The special standing of Japan is this time not expressed in terms of cultural uniqueness only, as Nitobe has done, but justified by casting Japan as "interpreter . . . of the Orient" that seeks to "harmonize the East and the West," thus contributing to "the unification of the world."21 Simultaneously, Okuma pleads for Japan's admission to the family of nations as an equal member. Japan's mission is "to make a large contribution to human progress by playing an active part in the great drama of world-politics."22 Although Okuma spends much time and effort on pointing to the leveling of cultural differences by virtues of faster and more efficient means of communication,23 national pre-eminence is derived not from "the color of the skin nor [from] the frame of the body," but is after all still found "in the degree of culture itself."24 For Okuma, like Nitobe before him, culture has become the yardstick of national prestige.
In "Outline of Japanese Civilization," Soyeda Juichi who is introduced as special member of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, continues Okuma's argument on civilization, culture, and race.25 Soyeda, unlike Okuma, however, spells out Japan's role in Asia in greater detail. Although admitting that the Japanese are a "mixed people," of both continental and Pacific stock, they have developed truly non-Mongolian traits, for Japan's original descent is Aryan in nature.26
Accordingly, while Japan did adopt "Oriental civilization," she deserves credit for its transformation, complete with the development of very "peculiar features" like Bushido. Likewise, it would be inappropriate to consider the adoption of "Occidental civilization" a mere "apish imitation," for Japan proved herself "by the late war in Manchuria and . . . by her political, social, and economic progress."27 Japan's pre-eminent position in Asia then manifests itself in "encouraging" and "uplifting" of "other races of lower civilization . . . Such is, indeed, her noble mission and such is the aspiration of the Japanese nation -- the culmination of a civilization so peculiar to Japan, and beneficial to the cause of peace and the welfare of mankind."28 The pan-Asian tendencies that swing in Soyeda's argument are absent from Okuma's essay, but are neither new nor unique to Japan's ideological repertoire.
The pan-Asian element is expressed stronger yet in Nakahashi Tokugoro, "Japan and the Preservation of China's Integrity."29 For reasons of ever-widening Sino-Japanese trade relations, Nakahashi, an Osaka tycoon and member of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce, makes a strong argument for maintaining China's territorial integrity, albeit under Japanese sponsorship: ". . . not only has Japan the greatest interests in China, but it is Japan and the Japanese, who, for reasons of geography, history, and otherwise [!], are able to understand China best of all foreign nations."30 Understandably, Nakahashi is little concerned with soliciting China's opinion on Japanese involvement. Nakahashi rather deems it ". . . Japan's duty toward her neighbor, China, and her mission in the Orient."31
Similar to his Japanese counterparts, Lafcadio Hearn also strives to enhance Western understanding of and knowledge about Japan. Hearn laments the absence of any good history of Japan. Furthermore, the subject of Japanese religion, Shintô especially, has experienced unjust treatment chiefly at the hands of those that were "the sworn enemies of that religion."32 Hearn's concern with rectifying the history of Shintô is generated by his belief that Japan can "be understood only through the study of her religious and social evolution" -- an approach that at the time was innovative and scientifically sound, thus helping to distinguish Hearn's account from the majority of Japan treatises that relied on anything but solid research.
This paper is not the place to enter into a detailed analysis of Hearn's work; it must be noted, however, that despite Hearn's novel approach and praiseworthy intentions, his argument is neither free from oversimplification nor historical distortion. Edmund Buckley who reviewed Hearn in The American Journal of Sociology,33 commends Hearn for giving "a more complete and intimate account than had previously been done of the ancestorism in Shintô and of its profound influence upon politics and morality."34 Buckley, however, does not fail to alarm the reader that Hearn ". . . overdid his contention, just because such excess is the well-nigh inevitable reaction from the underestimate that he found current and sought to correct."35 Like Nitobe who reduces Japan's national character to Bushido, Hearn's treatise equally becomes a victim of oversimplification by declaring ancestor-worship "the foundation of all civilized religion, and of all civilized society."36
To recapitulate briefly, the works discussed above, represent the upper end of the spectrum in regard to information that was made available to the common reader in the early twentieth-century United States. However, despite their popularity, mass appeal, and scholarship, they were not unproblematic. On one hand, the Japan discourse was beset by problems of oversimplification and misrepresentation which proffered to the reader a highly distorted image of Japanese history and culture. On the other hand, the Japan discourse was heavily laced with ideological meaning, ranging from Japanese cultural uniqueness to the notion of Japan's national mission in Asia and the world. It remains to be seen in the course of this analysis how Okakura's work is placed in the evolving context of the Japan discourse.
The situation of Okakura's works in their respective literary context demands a brief investigation into the nature of the publishers that distributed his books. The Awakening of Japan was published in 1905 by both John Murray in London and The Century Company in New York. The Book of Tea was issued by G. P. Putnam's Sons of New York in 1906. The three publishing houses selected, comprise only a small sample of numerous publishers that came to distribute Okakura's works over the years. However, they range from the prestigious, established publishing enterprise that represented the cream of British literary greats to the ambitious hopes of two American literary dilettantes who established a literary magazine that eventually grew into a major publishing house.
John Murray of London is distinguished by a long publishing history harkening back to 1768 and a long list of illustrious authors of the likes of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, the D'Israelis, and so forth.37 John Murray's literary ambitions were supplemented by the publication of several periodicals and newspapers -- The Quarterly Review (ca. 1808), The Guardian (1820), The Representative (1826) -- that were the mouthpiece of Britain's literary elite. As Samuel Smiles' account only covers the history of John Murray's publishing house until 1843, it remains unclear what circumstances preceded and ultimately determined the publication of both The Ideals of the East and The Awakening of Japan -- books that obviously were neither fiction nor of British authorship.
In the United States, The Awakening of Japan was published by The Century Company in the same year. Unlike its British competitor, The Century Company does not possess as impressive a pedigree.38 From humble beginnings back in the 1870s, The Century Magazine that had been the forum of writers like Mark Twain, Tennyson, Longfellow, and so on, was consolidated in The Century Company in 1881. Rather than remaining devoted to America's great literary figures exclusively, The Century Company soon branched out into popular entertainment, educational material, and religious texts, seeking to satisfy the tastes of a highly diverse readership.
The history of The Century Company notes, however, that the publishing house " . . . appreciated its obligations to scholarship and research and, . . . its contributions entered into partnership with several learned societies -- The American Historical Association, The Modern Language Association of America, The American Council of Learned Societies, etc., etc. -- in the publishing and distribution of non-commercial, learned works."39 Perhaps Century's scholarly involvement is a clue as to why Okakura was selected for publication -- the Publisher's Preface in the 1905-edition does not comment on editorial considerations that may have entered into the decision to publish Okakura.
Of the three publishing houses that represented Okakura, G. P. Putnam's Sons appears to be the most interesting in the context of the emerging Japan discourse. Catering not necessarily to the scholarly "crowd," but rather to the educated reader, G. P. Putnam's Sons was especially proud on its international series that tackled such topics as the histories of nations and international sciences. The strong outward-looking emphasis that manifested itself in Putnam's soliciting for its international series "contributions from representatives of all nationalities," may be attributed to George Haven Putnam's strong personal predilections for the history of diplomatic and international relations and his strong belief in the duty of an enlightened citizen to work for the "exchange of sound information and of sympathetic views."40 His outlook propelled Putnam's to "the cutting edge" of publishing.
Of even greater significance is George Haven Putnam's brief account on his numerous acquaintances and close friendships with high-powered Japanese from Japan's political and cultural scene.41 Putnam had met Itô Hirobumi and Iwakura Tomomi during their stopover in the United States before Iwakura began his ambassadorship in London. On behalf of Iwakura, Itô had asked Putnam for the delivery of all available books on international law, a request to which Putnam readily obliged. Although Putnam fails to comment on Okakura whose work, The Book of Tea, G. P. Putnam's Sons had published in 1906, Putnam fondly remembers Nitobe Inazao. Putnam had published Nitobe's Bushido: the Soul of Japan in 1905, one year prior to Okakura's The Book of Tea.42 Putnam's links to The Japan Society of America have been discussed earlier in this paper.
Putnam certainly fits the profile of the Japanophile. As a young boy, his father introduced him to Commodore Matthew Perry and by virtue of his privileged social standing, Putnam had many opportunities to meet Japan's political and cultural elite throughout his life. Putnam's personal interest in Japan alone would suffice to account for the publication of Okakura's The Book of Tea. As in the case of John Murray and The Century Company, however, there is no immediate information available that would shed light on the editorial process.
Despite differences in background and publishing outlook, John Murray, The Century Company, and G. P. Putnam's Sons got involved in the publishing of Japan material without any intimation that a "Japan craze" was in full swing around 1905. Time and again, the typical consumer of Japan literature to whom these publishing houses catered chiefly, was not the scholarly Japan expert, but rather the above-average educated, enlightened citizen who scrambled to stay informed in a rapidly changing world. With improving means of communication, the generation of knowledge about the world quickened its pace daily. Thus, it is questionable whether the average reader of Japan literature who was faced with the sorting and the absorption of information so produced, could ever become aware of the highly ideolized contents tucked away in Okakura's works.
Over a time span of only three years, Okakura Kakuzo published three books in rapid succession: The Ideals of the East (1904), The Awakening of Japan (1905), and The Book of Tea (1906).43 All were intended for a an English-speaking audience, and were therefore published first in New York and London.
Okakura who was born in Japan to a semi-wealthy samurai family in 1862, spent the first thirty years of his life studying the arts of Japan, China, India, and Europe. Employed in the arts administration section of the Ministry of Education, he co-founded the Kangakai (Painting Appreciation Society) for the specific purpose of recording, cataloging, authenticating, and exhibiting Japanese art. He later helped establish Japan's first art academy (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko) that was supplemented by a private institution of similar purpose.
His activities in Japan were regularly interrupted by numerous trips to Europe, America, China, and India where he both continued to study and collect art. However, in the judgment of one scholar, "his real mission lay in the West."44 At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where Okakura had become adviser and assistant curator of the Chinese and Japanese Department in 1905, he made it his task to educate the West about Asian culture. To this end, he tirelessly lectured, organized exhibits, and eventually came to write the very same books that are the focus of the analysis below.
Without going into detail, these books differ both in subject matter and argumentative structure: the first is an art history of East Asia, the second a polemic that seeks to stake Japan's claims in Asia by way of a cultural critique of Western civilization, and the third focuses on Japanese tea aestheticism. However, to a differing degree, in all of Okakura's works reverberates a strong ideological perception of the West in terms of the "other." Okakura maintains that the West has found its match in East Asian, especially Japanese, culture that is equal if not superior to that of the West.
Okakura goes on to argue that Japan's strength and model function for all East Asia is justified by Japan's unique ability to selectively adopt, assimilate, and synthesize non-Japanese cultural products that are deemed in tune with Japanese needs. Japan is able to make them her own without sacrificing or altering Japan's national character. Thus, Japan is no longer trapped in the "oriental" slumber that the West had come to associate with attributes such as fatalism, lethargy, and a lack of individualism and self-consciousness. Unlike the rest of East Asia that still remains caught up in the "oriental" mode, Japan has become an advanced, civilized and modern nation that deserves respect and equal treatment.
According to Okakura, Japan's imperialistic "adventures" -- the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Korean protectorate -- are in keeping with the newly-gained modernity. Had not Western powers themselves engaged in aggressive nation-building that manifested itself in the acquisition of colonies to provide resources, markets, and a safety valve for surplus population? Hence, Okakura claims, Japan has not abandoned her pacifist, non-aggressive tradition and is therefore undeserving of the epithet "yellow peril."
In an effort to deflect Western attention away from the militant aspect of Japanese culture that had been emphasized by Japan's recent wars against China and Russia and was further reinforced by Nitobe's highly popular Bushido, Okakura seeks to emphasize Japan's creative spirit that generated a great civilization worthy of admiration and respect. Due to the unceasing influx of Western culture into Japan, Okakura sees this very civilization in the process of being obliterated. Although pan-Asian thought was not new to Japan, Okakura establishes himself as the first pan-Asian theoretician, as he calls for the unity of all Asian nations with Japan in the leadership position to counter-balance Western encroachment.45
Did contemporary readers of Okakura pick up on the ideological dimension of his works? With Japan rising phoenix-like from its backward past, was there a sense of foreboding of what the future was yet to hold for Japan? Were readers disturbed by Okakura pushing Japan's own brand of "manifest destiny"? What was the puzzling mystery on which the American audience came to consult Okakura?
Generally, all books by Okakura were met by both American and, to a lesser degree, British reviewers with an enthusiastic response and rhapsodic praise. Okakura's works were hailed as a milestone in the Japan discovery process the West was engaged in. As the Western World was still caught up in amazement over Japan's rapid progress, writers gushed about "the story of Japan . . . [being] not unlike the fairy-tales of modern science."46
Much was made of the apparent inability of "occidental thinkers," the renowned Japan expert Lafcadio Hearn included, to "faithfully depict . . . the life, ideas, and aspirations of the Japanese people."47 Okakura's books were welcomed as a much-anticipated change from the common globe-trotter account that "discoursed to us of pretty toys and dancing girls and paper lanterns."48 The reviewer of The Spectator expressed respect for Okakura who "writes with that behind-the-scenes and scholarly knowledge which is not possessed by the superficial and often flippant observer who has been so much in evidence since the war between Russia and Japan began."49
However, as much as Okakura was receiving praise for adding -- apparently! -- an objective dimension to the Japan discourse, one doubts whether his admirers were actually ready to appreciate the novelty of Okakura's argument. A case in point are the reviews on The Book of Tea. Frederick W. Gookin held that "it is not a book of the hour," but its "charming group of essays" makes for pleasant reading.50 A colleague of Gookin's related that "the latest book by that charming Japanese author, Okakura Kakuzo, . . . is an historical sketch about and an appreciative tribute to the great drink which . . . began as a medicine and grew into a beverage a thousand years before Christ."51 Like numerous of his fellow reviewers, Gookin applauded Okakura for crucifying twentieth-century "vulgar materialism." Yet, while he echoed Okakura's sentiments about Western progress having gone awry, Gookin seemed strangely oblivious to Okakura's scathing critique of Western culture.52
Some of Okakura's critics were too readily professing helplessness at the apparently radical differences separating the East from the West. Claiming to lack "the broad range of information and intuitive comprehension of Oriental thought," they pronounced any attempt by a non-Japanese to produce a valid interpretation of Japan a fruitless endeavor.53 Even Lafcadio Hearn was known to have attested to the futility to bridge the cultural chasm.54 Their attitude proved that Westerners had bought all too eagerly into the myth of Japanese uniqueness -- so much so that from the outset, the playing field of the Japan discourse was surrendered to the likes of Okakura or Nitobe with little resistance.
There was the occasional instance when a reviewer came to challenge the accuracy of Okakura rendering Asian history -- "so widely does his reading of Indian, Chinese and Japanese history vary from what we have hitherto conceived, that it is difficult to accept all that he says without question. How far, we ask, has he built on solid ground, and to what extent on mere fable? His statements are put forth with such calm assurance that it may be he has had access to sources of authentic information of which we as yet remain in ignorance. . . . the burden of proof . . . would seem to be on him to show that there is not a large admixture of myth in the alleged facts upon which he bases his theory when dealing with the early history of the East."55 However, intimidated by Okakura's "wealth of knowledge and penetrative insight," the "alien critic" was more than willing to dismiss Okakura's inaccuracy "as a detail not necessarily affecting the force of the author's argument."56
Nor could the reviewer of The Academy and Literature help feeling overwhelmed by Okakura's allusive style: "He [Okakura] talks of Neo-Confucianism, Zen doctrines, and Oyomians as if he politely expected the average Englishman to know something about them. His history too hardly takes the ignorance of his readers into sufficient account. It is as if you button-holed the first Japanese you met and spoke to him of Martin Luther and the death of Charles I."57 But as Okakura "hardly touches on the lighter side of his national life," a quality that set Okakura's books apart from the majority of Japan products, Okakura was forgiven.
The reviewer of The Athenaeum appeared the most sophisticated in his rejection of Okakura's interpretation of ancient Japanese history. Beside holding Okakura responsible for a flawed chronology, this reviewer was aware that Okakura's version of history was an artificial construct. "The 'ideals of the East' have never been the ideals of either China or Japan. . . . China is Asiatic geographically, but not morally; Japan is not Asiatic in either sense, and has always been isolated in position and policy."58 This insight did not prevent the reviewer to fall into the opposite extreme, declaring Japan a mere derivative of Chinese culture.
In some of the reviews, however, predominantly those that originated in Britain, did swing a distinct sense of foreboding, usually in reference to Japan's military might and state of national preparedness -- Okakura "gives you a picture of a warlike and devoted Japan."59 Some reviewers even noticed the pan-Asian thought Okakura put forth. "Mr. Okakura's book is a trumpet-blast recalling the Asiatic peoples to the pursuit of those proper ends which have constituted their greatness in the past and are capable of bringing about its restitution." Further on, the same reviewer predicted Japan's course over the next thirty or forty years: "It is the mission of Japan, the new Asiatic power, to return to her own past ideals not only, but also to feel and revivify the dormant life of the old Asiatic unity."60 Unbeknownst to the reviewer, his remark, made in the context of Asian art history, foreshadowed Japanese colonization efforts, military intervention in Asia, and the organization of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Again, the reviewer of The Athenaeum went one step further. He seemed to hint at a hidden agenda that might lurk in Okakura's desire to call on "the world to share his perfervid admiration of his own country and her doings past and present." Calling attention to Japan's involvement in Korea in the 1870s, he rejected Okakura's attempt at portraying Japan as a victim. "In the seventies Japan was ready enough to exert extra-territorial sway over Korea, a country which has suffered far more at the hands of Japan than Japan ever has under any policy of the Western Powers."61
Looking back today, it seemed odd that the implications of Okakura's argument go largely undetected. However, contemporary readers of Okakura were not blessed with hindsight. Judging from the lacking references to the Russo-Japanese War, one may even surmise that although Japan's victory over Russia came as a major surprise to the Western Powers, the remoteness of the battlefield may have helped to assign this event soon a lesser priority as developments that would eventually lead to the outbreak of World War I, accelerated, thus drawing attention away from Asia.62
In some reviews did swing a certain cockiness as well. Much was made of "Asiatics" having to emulate "Western methods which had been found so much more efficacious than their [Asiatics] own," if they ever hoped to attain a high degree of "civilization."63 At the time when Okakura was published, the Western nations were at the height of their colonial and imperial power -- just having "carved the Chinese melon," the Western Powers were entrenched firmer than ever in their respective colonial dominions. It took World War I and the devastation it wrought among the European nations to diminish some of this imperial swagger.
If not to gain insight into the Japanese version of "manifest destiny," why, then, was Okakura so widely read? What about Japan did invariably puzzle American and British readers that they came to consult Okakura for clues? The statement made by the reviewer of The Critic, was to the point: ". . . there is something we should all like to know, . . . and that is, how it has come to pass that a hermit nation, despising foreigners, and disdaining intercourse with them, could in the twinkling of an eye become zealous pupils of the peoples they had so recently looked down on, better the instruction they received, and in little more than a single generation beat them at their own games?"64
Okakura's books were believed to contain the answer to this riddle. Before Okakura, there was ". . . nothing that gives us the profounder aspects of this civilization or that reveals the deeper well-springs from which the Japanese draw their inspiration and which feed their ideals and stimulate their aspirations."65 The secret of Japan's renaissance was discovered to be the long-standing tradition of ". . . his [Okakura's] country to adopt, adapt, and improve upon the ideas of other nations."66 Thus, a reviewer concluded, "before the awakening came from without, the national consciousness had already been stirred by the voice within."67
The reviewer of The Athenaeum agreed with his colleagues that "the problem in Japan is to understand how it came about that, in the early
sixties, the middle-class Samurai of some of the daimiates set to work, with the concentration of purpose and persistence of endeavour they exhibited, to
acquire a practical knowledge of . . . Western methods . . . ."68 Firm in his belief in the superiority of Western ways, the same reviewer tried to tone
down the hysteria surrounding Japan's rapid progress. "The real merit of modern Japan -- which the West has surely already sufficiently appreciated --
is that she should have spontaneously adopted what may be termed the mechanical side of Western civilization." The reviewer concluded that "it was a
change effected
While the majority of the reviewers seemed to take Okakura's testimony on Japan's modernity at face value, the reviewer of The Athenaeum went to some lengths to point out that "the real condition of the country is hidden from the West . . ." Japan's modern veneer was skin-deep at best: "even now, what we on this side of the globe understand as civilization is, so far as it really exists in Japan, the almost exclusive property of not many thousands of Japanese, who constitutes a nation within a nation;" Accordingly, the reviewer regarded Okakura's views as not representative of the majority of Japanese writers and those "who are doing the real work of Japan by sea and land, in the departments of the Government, in factory and office."69
As we have learned above, Okakura appeared to satisfy the curiosity his readers held about Japan's spectacular rise to national power. Japan's success story seemed to be something an American audience especially could relate to and appreciate. Was not the United States a fairly young nation herself that had gained her position of world power by self-reliance and hard work? Did American readers of Okakura, perhaps, see in Japan a kindred spirit that -- like the United States -- had beaten the odds and prevailed?
For the most part, however, Okakura's reviewers were largely oblivious to his ideological message, much less its implications. Any misgivings a reviewer might have had about inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Okakura's argument, were quickly brushed aside as these reviewers did not feel themselves educated enough to challenge Okakura.
The reviewer of The Athenaeum seemed to have been an exception. He charged Okakura not only with factual errors but also hinted at
Okakura manipulating the "truth" -- at least what the reviewer considered to be the "truth" -- thereby casting Japan in the role of the victim, still
suffering at the hands of the Western Powers. One might speculate, however, that this reviewer's criticism was not so much due to his greater
knowledge about Japan, but rather to the somewhat frantic attempt of a member of the British Empire to assure his readers (and himself) that Japan,
little more than an upstart nation, was in no position to threaten the superiority of the Western Powers.
"The utterance of the simplest expression is an intervention in the world . . ."70 The following discursive analysis will be inquiring into the methods Okakura employed to transmit his message. Much of this analysis will focus on Okakura's language -- specifically the organization and the vocabulary of Okakura's The Awakening of Japan, as it is his only work that spells out his ideological convictions in very clear terms.71 An examination of language must be part of any analysis of ideology, for "language . . . is . . . the very locus of ideology."72 In other words, language, as the medium, transmits and sustains ideology.
Earlier, we learned that Okakura's works elicited a particularly favorable response from his American patrons. Okakura wrote all his books in English specifically for American readers. Did he also taylor the language in Awakening to this specific audience? The analysis below will attempt to discover what, beside contents, may have attracted readers to Okakura.
Okakura organized Awakening in ten chapters that roughly follow a straight timeline, spanning from Asia immediately prior to the Mongol invasion to contemporary Japan. Striking are some of the chapter headings Okakura has chosen. "The Night of Asia," "The Chrysalis," "The Voice from Within," and so forth, seem highly evocative of Japan as a living and breathing entity. They invite the reader to take an active interest in Japan's fate, to identify with Japan as she suffers through her trials and tribulations.
Having caught the reader's attention, Okakura must package the content for maximum effect. Okakura manages to streamline more than one thousand years of history into roughly two hundred and thirty pages. As he takes Japan from decadence to triumph in one sweeping motion, Japan's evolution is starkly devoid of any major stumbling blocks that commonly accompany the growth of a developing nation.
Apparently intent on imbuing the history of Japan with a strong sense of destiny, Okakura seems to play on his readers' familiarity with mythical themes. In Awakening, Okakura fashions his own version of the Japanese creation myth. Okakura sets out with the "Golden Age" of Asia that he characterizes as a time of unity and free cultural exchange among the Asian nations. He proceeds to the Mongol invasion which causes Asia's -- and Japan's -- fall from grace. After her expulsion from "Buddhaland," Japan remains alienated from her original cultural ideal over a long period of time, until Japan is able to recover what Okakura deems to be Japan's unique quality of assimilation and "careful eclecticism."73 According to Okakura, it allows Japan to adopt Western ways and yet remain faithful to her national character. In Okakura's scheme, Japan has redeemed herself and is ready to enter the family of nations.
Okakura's imagery serves to demonstrate that Japan's most recent advances are unmatched by any Asian nation. Hence, Okakura is able to cement Japan's claim to her leadership position in Asia. Furthermore, having adopted the trappings of a modern Western nation, Japan is equally entitled to pursue an aggressive course of nation-building. In Okakura's view, imperialism and pan-Asianism are the rightful tools to propel Japan into a yet brighter future.
Okakura supplements the carefully constructed organizational structure of Awakening with several catchy, highly evocative images. To make Japan distinct from other Asian countries, Okakura employs the concept of the "Oriental" and the "Asiatic." The "Orient," or the "Oriental," denotes all those qualities the West had come to associate with troubled countries such as China or India. Not long ago, Japan herself, on behalf of her backward state, was considered "Oriental." Now that Japan began to pursue modernization after a Western fashion, Okakura takes great pains to educate his readers that Japan is "Oriental" no longer. At the same time, Okakura seeks to persuade his audience that Japan, despite her modern veneer, remains true to her Asian heritage that he characterizes as peace-loving and non-aggressive. Perhaps sensing the inconsistency of his argument, Okakura brings in yet another image, that of the "White Disaster." By pointing accusingly at the Western Powers as the original aggressors, Okakura seeks to allay fears of Japan, the "Yellow Peril."
Judging from Okakura's enthusiastic reception in the United States, American readers seemed to have transferred their traditional affinity for the underdog on to Japan. There is evidence that Okakura capitalized on American sympathy with those who, against all odds, triumph by virtue of hard work and self-reliance. A brief look at Okakura's vocabulary confirms his deliberate bid for the sympathy of the American public. Throughout Awakening, Okakura scatters terms that hold a distinctive place in the American national consciousness. A small sample may suffice: "change," "self-reliance," "Federalists," "Unionists," "George Washington," "democracy," "freedom," and "equality."74
That the meaning of an expression "is not a fixed and invariant given, but is a fluctuating phenomenon which is determined as much by the contextual conditions of its production and reception as by the syntactic features of its construction," rings true in Okakura's case.75 "Change" is perceived by Okakura on the background of Wang Yang-ming's teachings that understand ultimate reality as a process of constant transformation.76 Okakura likens Wang's concept of change to that "held by modern evolutionists."77 The scope of this paper does not allow an inquiry into the compatibility of these two concepts of "change." The fact, however, that Okakura uses them indiscriminately in one and the same sentence, seems problematic.
Okakura claims that Japan comes to rely on herself by "break[ing] loose from blind slavery to Chinese and Indian ideals."78 Were one to assume -- for argument's sake only -- that there is some truth to Okakura's statement, how could Okakura account for Japan's radical Westernization drive in the wake of the Meiji Restoration? Japan's wholehearted adoption of Western ways seems a long cry from self-reliance.
The way Okakura orchestrates the tug-of-war between several samurai factions immediately after the Meiji Restoration, parallels the perennial tension between a nation organized in the form of a loose federation and one that is highly centralized, a conflict that permeates American history. According to their respective political beliefs, he identifies the samurai parties as "Federalists," "Imperialists," and "Unionists." Their struggle over the form of government, however, appears in a very different light, as Japan does neither possess a Constitution, nor a Bill of Rights.
Okakura's argument approaches the absurd when he sees democracy manifested in a "return to the democratic ideas of ancient China. . . . In the idealized Confucian state all men were equal and the head of the government ruled . . . by virtue of his personal rectitude."79 While Confucianism does sport some rudimentary democratic characteristics, it never advocated government by the people, thus lacking the fundamental essence of democracy.
Why, one might ask, does Okakura spend so much time and effort on manipulating history unduly, risking to collapse history by forcing comparisons across many centuries, and different societies and cultures? In his own words, Okakura must produce "common point[s] of contact" without which "an Oriental race like ours would never have adopted Occidental ideas with the enthusiasm that we did."80 Establishing -- fictitious! -- parallels with the history of his readers' native country, the United States, an evidently modern and advanced nation, allows Okakura to underscore his claim for Japan's pre-eminent position in Asia, and petition the family of nations for Japan's international acceptance.
In the final part of this analysis we will turn our attention to the interpretation of Okakura's ideological message. We have learned earlier that Okakura's ideological message passed largely uncontested. Could it have been that what Okakura proposed, was something his American readers were long since familiar with? We may be able to account for their equanimity by conducting a brief investigation into the history of imperialism and popular nationalism.
Western civilizations, since the end of the Middle Ages, had come to assume the superiority of their cultures. Extending their control across the globe, "the confidence and aggressiveness of western Europeans and Americans became especially marked in the late nineteenth century."81 The notion of cultural superiority was soon after complemented by Social Darwinism. Based on Charles Darwin's observations, Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner argued that "the same laws of survival governed the social order" which was translated into the white race, the fittest people, assuming dominion over "the lesser peoples of the world." In its more humane vesture, white supremacy understood its task also in the "uplift[ing of] the 'lower' races by teaching them Western ideas, converting them to Christianity, and introducing law and government."82
The overarching motive of imperial expansion was the "commercial imperative." George Lichtheim argued that by the 1880s, ". . . the mid-Victorian free-trade boom was over, German and American competition was getting stiffer, and laissez faire no longer seemed quite as convincing . . ." to the British. As the United States, Germany, and Japan made great strides in their industrial development, British "liberal imperialism" went into a crisis.83 "When the system began to break down, because Britain's competitors were unwilling to play the game according to the rules of free-trade logic, 'imperialism' returned. Actually it had never disappeared, but now the veil was cast off. Economic preponderance was gone, and mercantilist modes of thought came back into fashion."84
In the nineteenth century, Britain had built an empire in India, Russia in Central Asia, and France in Africa. No conflict existed the colonial powers among them, the system was stable and self-perpetuating. However, as Lichtheim pointed out, "the trouble was started by newcomers who did not possess an empire -- Germany and Japan."85 With Britain as the guarantor of stability weakening, "'imperialism' -- the division of the world into formal colonies and 'spheres of influence' . . . became universally popular among the large powers."86
By the late 1800s, nationalism was a popular movement, cutting across all social classes. In the case of Russia and Germany, the transformation of patriotism into nationalism manifested itself in the emergence of pan-Slavic and pan-Germanic movements respectively, fusing nationalism with imperialism. The common feature of such "pan" movements -- true for Japanese pan-Asianism also -- is the sentiment of "unite or perish." Okakura expressed it adroitly in The Ideals of the East: "Victory from within, or a mighty death without."87
Pan-Asianism, unlike its European counterparts, was not a popular movement, at least not at the time of its inception. Like imperialism, it "was an urban doctrine, the creation of schoolmasters and journalists who preached it to the middle class." Pan-Asianism, as Okakura understood it, was an artificial construct, based on alleged commonalties shared by all Asian nations. Although patriotic sentiments had to be mobilized to sustain the movement, "the transition from patriotism to nationalism, let alone imperialism, was not perceived by peasants, who traditionally thought in terms of defending 'the home land.'"88
Far from a justification, we have to recognize that both imperialism and popular nationalism were, at least since the mid-1850s, a reality. Imperialist policies promised opportunities to increase foreign trade, enhance national prestige, and vouchsafe future security. Overlaid by notions like "the white man's burden," imperialism was even seen as beneficial to mankind, as it claimed responsibility for imposing order and bringing "civilization" to "lesser" peoples.89
The United States added their own twist to the international scramble for trade concessions in Asia. The Open Door policy were to guarantee equal access to trade benefits in China. In the wake of the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Japan, Russia, Germany, and France sought to establish "spheres of influence," in which each nation would reign supreme. Britain and the United States feared the intense international rivalry were to preclude them from gaining access to trading concessions could they not persuade the other major nations to agree on leaving their spheres of influence open. The Open Door policy seemed to prevent China's loss of national sovereignty virtually in the last minute, and as such deserves praise. However, it was not motivated by selfless concern for China, but was instituted for economic gain.
Notions like "the survival of the fittest," "the white man's burden," and policies like the Open Door in China appeared to have forestalled any misgivings a nation might have possibly harbored about pursuing a course of territorial and/or economic expansion. In short, imperialism -- and nationalism, as it was a natural complement to imperialism -- was not a "dirty word" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
This insight perhaps explains why Awakening would not offend the American reader, for any major power was expected to participate in the competition for power, authority, or influence. Japan, seeking to graduate to a position among the major powers, was willing to accept the challenge. Yet, it makes Okakura's play for Japanese ideological equality no less deplorable.
Today's reaction to Okakura's works is expressed either in admiration for his still-pertinent comments on Japanese aestheticism, or in repugnance over Okakura's chauvinist attitude that sought to rationalize Japan's adoption of imperialism and nationalism. Okakura seems to stand out as a demagogue and agitator, providing a justification to Japanese leaders to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. With the extension of Japanese dominion over neighboring Asian nations and her involvement in World War II, it seems justified to point the finger at Okakura as one of those Japanese intellectuals who can be blamed for contributing to Japan's descent into aggression, exploitation, and war.
However, this analysis, if nothing else, has demonstrated that Okakura was just one voice of many in the emerging Japan discourse in the early twentieth-century United States -- albeit one of the most popular and authoritative voices. As such we have to regard his works, at least in part, as an attempt to make Japan's exceptional development plausible. Okakura appeared to be aware that this was a splendid opportunity to plead Japan's case before the American public that seemed sympathetic to his cause -- this accounts for The Awakening of Japan being custom-tailored to reverberate especially with the American experience.
As this paper is not concerned with assigning blame, it is the more important to understand that Okakura's works were written during an era of intense international competition. Although Okakura in his function as assistant curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts could have confined himself to his foremost domain, namely Far Eastern art, he chose to serve as Japan's cultural ambassador to the United States. In this capacity, he made a conscious decision to help perpetuate one of the darkest aspects of Western civilization of the post-Industrial Revolution period, imperialism -- and for that we can hold him responsible.