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Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia
With the economic and political rise of East Asia in the second half of the twentieth century, many Western countries have re-evaluated their links to their Eastern counterparts. Thus, in recent years, Asian German Studies has emerged as a promising branch within interdisciplinary German Studies. This collection of essays examines German-language cultural production pertaining to modern China and Japan, and explicitly challenges orientalist notions by proposing a conception of East and West not as opposites, but as complementary elements of global culture, thereby urging a move beyond national paradigms in cultural studies. Essays focus on the mid-century German-Japanese alliance, Chinese-German Leftist collaborations, global capitalism, travel, identity, and cultural hybridity. The authors include historians and scholars of film and literature, and employ a wide array of approaches from postcolonial, globalization, media, and gender studies. The collection sheds new light on a complex and ambivalentset of international relationships, while also testifying to the potential of Asian German Studies.
316 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2014
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April 20, 2020
Talk about a book starting so well but ending badly.
And there were some early warning sings, like when the short intro sounded a bit like they only mention bad stuff in regard to the german speaking countries. And this wasn't completely wrong as several of the chapters, all written by different authors, apparently chose to focus on very stereotypical topics, like yellow peril and considering Japan as an alien country.
It started in the first chapter on Japanese portrayal in german newsreels from the 1920s onwards. It was interesting to read but how is the author so sure that newsreels about Japan from the time really looked down on the Japanese respectively were afraid of their coming might? How does she know how audiences back then reacted to what they saw? Two people can see the same thing and react differently to it. Sometimes incredibly different. At least that in regards to Japan, Nazism found Beauty in the Beast sounds about right for Nazism.
But what was actually ironic is that the critics of "The Samurai's Daughter" said that the film was "un-Japanese," but it broke box-office records in Japan and launched the career of Setsuko Hare, one of Japanese cinema's great female stars. That reminds me of the age old difference between critics and audiences.
But what was odd in the chapter is that the author only talked about Nazi racial politics but not about Japanese ones. She does know about Japanese militarism, expansionism and colonialism, so does she really not know about japanese racial politics of the time?
In addition she correctly points out that both Japan and Weimar/Nazi Germany were marked by ambivalence towards modernity and nostalgia for an idealized past but she seems to be unaware how much western stereotypes of Asian women as fragile, passive, resigned to their fate, matches with traditional Japanese demands towards women. Does she really not know? Does she ignore it?
The film "The Samurai's Daughter" on its own sounds fascinating. However, I doubt I would enjoy it from an aesthetic point of view.
In the next chapter the author had a good question: Was the German Japanese alliance during WW II really just convenience or does it point to some deeper cultural or political commonality? It could be. Despite common misconception, the Nazis did ally and had relationship with other countries, especially Turkey.
Apparently these essays featured in the article about the similarities/connection between Germans and Japanese from 1944 were quite striking in how little their valorization of German and Japanese martial ethics fits with the realities on the battle fields. Hard to tell how much the writers knew. In either way, it is ironic to read about this perceived connection between the two peoples.
And the connection in these essays was mostly due to the equating of samurai and bushido with the teutonic knights and their chivalry codes. Fun fact: This is based on the very nationalist and historically incorrect notion of bushido that the Japanese had themselves propagated since the 19th century. And boy is there a lot of interesting things here, too much to make notes of them all. Or remember all of them.
And the essays do not hold back, they even have comparing the story of the 47 rhonin with the Nibelungenlied, speaking of seppuku with admiration and chastizing the allies for their arial bormbardment. There is even admiration for the Japanese for achieving national unity before the Germans.
And essayist from Nazi Germany saying that the Yellow Peril is just a made up myth to hinder the acendency of the Japanese, and at least one essayist stated that it was the Anglo-American nations and the European Jews who created it because they recognized the affinity between Germans and Japanese. Oh the irony of it all.
This whole German/Japanese dynamic is not only defying the categories typically used when speaking about Western/non-Western interaction but is also a transcultural romanticism.
From there the book went to China and I wondered:
Was the interaction between German and Chinese left wing intellectuals really as significant as this book states?
At least it seams that way, as Seghers, Thälmann and Pieck, among others, all had connections to chinese leftists/communists. And the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by the nationalists caused China to be noticed in Europe for more than classical philosophy and fine arts. It's suddenly constantly changing political landscape was a strict opposite to the image of thousands of years of alleged static dynasty. If just that had stuck instead of the thousand years crap.
And this is not everything, as apparently the KMT had offices in Germany. How much connection was there in the Weimar period? Even Anna Segher's "Liau" characters have these names because they are named after a personal friend and the constant political changes in China gave Weimar writers lots of material for novels and the like. Ironically, Liao Huanxing's activities in Berlin and his role as a key figure in the german-chinese collaboration have been purposely minimized in the CCP's official party history because he worked as the secretery of Wang Ming, Mao's rival, in Moscow after leaving Germany in 1928.
Later on, the DEFA did some documentaries on China before the Sino-Soviet split and after China's opening in the 1980s. And the GDR was really interested in the People's Commune and the Great Leap Forward. Quite frankly, not sure if this split beforehand was good or bad, after all had there been none, perhaps there would be more record of Mao's famine, or the GDR would have suffered famine as well.
The chapter about a novel called "Yellow Wind," was puzzling. What makes the author of the chapter think that the author of "Yellow Wind" did not know how the term might be interpreted? He could have done that deliberately for various reasons. Plus, what makes him think the average German knows what the Boxer Rebellion was? Then again, he also suggests that colonial past is widely known in Germany and our media usually does the opposite. Sure, it is telling that the author of "Yellow Wind" barely mentions the Japanese and Russians, but it is also telling how the author of this chapter doesn't mention the Manchu's and the anti-Manchu riots of the Boxers at all. Also, he claims that gruesomeness has been a staple feature in Western imaginings of China since the middle of the 16th century, as if this is something china-specific. Later something was very telling: Not only did the author act as if uneasiness towards China could not be justified (he even seems to doubt that China is authoritarian), but seems to equate China with East Asia. He talks about East Asia's ascendency, but the thing is: South Korea and Japan already have "ascended, "which is known, and who in the West is uneasy about that? Taiwan is lesser known for most people, so I excluded it, but still, no one who knows it in the West seems uneasy about its status as an industrial country.
I was happy when the book finally was at the chapter on Anna May Wong. However, the author calls Wong an "ethnic" actress, a distinction based on the idiotic white/non-white dichotomy, that in my mind, never brings out anything good. This assumed that this chapter could get interesting and that the author will go to the worst things imaginable to her.
I got some interesting things, like that in the script for the movie "Song" from 1928 there was already supposed to be a kiss between Wong and her "white" co-actor. And it was cut because they wanted to distribute the film in America... funny how such stuff is left out on the history of Hollywood and Weimar Germany. Also, in 1928 Wong was more prominent than either Marlene Dietrich or Leni Riefenstahl.
Sadly the author shows her own ignorance in my mind, as she considers "better to die with honor than live without it" as a colonial mantra that ennobled the self-sacrifice of Asian women for white male privilege. The thing is: I remember a story in Pu Songling's collection where a girl committed suicide because of dishonor. Better to die with honor than live without it is nothing new in Chinese or Japanese fiction. So how is that a colonial mantra to her, as it suggests, that it is not true and just made up.
Her historical information also seems to be full of holes and misleading. It is true that the chinese presence in the working-class district around today's Ostbahnhof was know as the Chinese quarter but in what way was that one connected to widespread anxiety about immigrant "ethnic" communities? They were merchants and even reports back then stated at most that they could pay higher rents and so push out other residents, but that is it. Also, the author ignores Kantstraße and its residents, which were usually Chinese students and rarely interacted with the workers in the Chinese quarter. In fact the Kantstraße is considered the "China Town" of sorts of Berlin today and sometimes called Kantonstraße (after Canton) while the Chinese Quarter seems to be forgotten.
And why does she think the poster for Nachtwelt "emphasizes the ascendancy of racial difference, where the white woman is displaced and marginalized by the looming presence of her Asia rival at the center of the image"? Does she not consider, that Wong is more prominent on the poster because she was the bigger star? The film was from 1929 and just a year before Wong was a bigger star than Marlene Dietrich.
And not only does the author seem to be convinced that Josephine Baker did what she claims that Wong did not (the whole subversion thing) but she seems to ignore all the critics she herself quoted and who decried the censorship and racism at the time when she makes her generalizing statements? This chapter should not be read uncritically.
The next chapter was just a waste of time. The author seemed to be in love with "big" words. I mean, take this for an example:
"Finally, one has to take into account the etymological double bind of tissue and text, and conceive of the body as a transcultural image and intertextual space. The cross-mapping of avant-garde literature and bio art here provides a novel approach for Tawada scholarship by suggesting that her writings deconstruct the biopolitical territorialization of gender images."
Can anyone explain what this means?
I had usually no idea what on earth the author was talking about. And figures that the one with the "biggest" words also has the longest list of notes of all in this book.
The "big" words thankfully did not exist in the following chapter, but I had never heard of the Dörrie filmmaker. And what is described here sounds like she uses German stereotypes. The sequel to her film "Hanami" at least uses visual ones as well with the German father, mother and daughter all being blonds.
The chapter on hairnet manufacturing in the late 19th and early 20th century was way more interesting, even though we had the typical problem of an author mentioning German anti-Czech attitudes but no anti-German attitudes by Czechs.
But that was a minor issue with the chapter and it got to better stuff: So first hair nets were made out of silk, but then people noticed that human hair is better. However, Northern European hair was too soft, Southern European hair not present in suitable numbers, Japanese hair was too stiff and coarse and so only Chinese hair was plentiful and suitable enough. That is ironic.
But later on first the Japanese push the Czechs out of the hairnet market and then later China is forced to make their own instead of just exporting the raw materials.
Btw. When the Qing dynasty fell there was a spike in raw material "production" because so many of the men were cutting of their long braids.
From this fine chapter we got to the last two one and they were pretty crap. In the second to last the author talks of recent German short stories, but never said from when they are and the topic they have sounds really odd. Especially the whole emptiness as a topos does not sound familiar as any topos on Japan. These three short stories all sound like their authors either wanted to parody stereotypes on Japan (which the first one did) or were so full and fond of their stereotypes that they did not even try to give it up. One did not even bother to learn the language.
The last chapter was even worse and that was clear from the start. You see, the author states that according to some person named Lang, German literature is characterized by a tendency to use Asia as a metaphor and a contrast to Europe. I found that odd to generalize so much and checked the notes. That Lang wrote in 1986 and this book is from 2014!!!!!!! The prior chapter already had the problem of using decades old sources and this here was even worse. The autjor also calls using translators, middlemen and go-betweens as corresponding to what was used by colonial oppressors. But even when you want to learn a language, you will have to rely on these at first. So what other options does one have for getting to know Japan? Also, I am troubled by this constant lack of perceiving Japan as an imperial power.
Comsidering that the author never states what a non-eurocentric approach is supposed to be or why that is a good thing, I suspect he is eurocentric himself and doesn't actually care for changing this.
Sadly, this was the last chapter and the end of the text in this book and it was a very weak ending.
And there were some early warning sings, like when the short intro sounded a bit like they only mention bad stuff in regard to the german speaking countries. And this wasn't completely wrong as several of the chapters, all written by different authors, apparently chose to focus on very stereotypical topics, like yellow peril and considering Japan as an alien country.
It started in the first chapter on Japanese portrayal in german newsreels from the 1920s onwards. It was interesting to read but how is the author so sure that newsreels about Japan from the time really looked down on the Japanese respectively were afraid of their coming might? How does she know how audiences back then reacted to what they saw? Two people can see the same thing and react differently to it. Sometimes incredibly different. At least that in regards to Japan, Nazism found Beauty in the Beast sounds about right for Nazism.
But what was actually ironic is that the critics of "The Samurai's Daughter" said that the film was "un-Japanese," but it broke box-office records in Japan and launched the career of Setsuko Hare, one of Japanese cinema's great female stars. That reminds me of the age old difference between critics and audiences.
But what was odd in the chapter is that the author only talked about Nazi racial politics but not about Japanese ones. She does know about Japanese militarism, expansionism and colonialism, so does she really not know about japanese racial politics of the time?
In addition she correctly points out that both Japan and Weimar/Nazi Germany were marked by ambivalence towards modernity and nostalgia for an idealized past but she seems to be unaware how much western stereotypes of Asian women as fragile, passive, resigned to their fate, matches with traditional Japanese demands towards women. Does she really not know? Does she ignore it?
The film "The Samurai's Daughter" on its own sounds fascinating. However, I doubt I would enjoy it from an aesthetic point of view.
In the next chapter the author had a good question: Was the German Japanese alliance during WW II really just convenience or does it point to some deeper cultural or political commonality? It could be. Despite common misconception, the Nazis did ally and had relationship with other countries, especially Turkey.
Apparently these essays featured in the article about the similarities/connection between Germans and Japanese from 1944 were quite striking in how little their valorization of German and Japanese martial ethics fits with the realities on the battle fields. Hard to tell how much the writers knew. In either way, it is ironic to read about this perceived connection between the two peoples.
And the connection in these essays was mostly due to the equating of samurai and bushido with the teutonic knights and their chivalry codes. Fun fact: This is based on the very nationalist and historically incorrect notion of bushido that the Japanese had themselves propagated since the 19th century. And boy is there a lot of interesting things here, too much to make notes of them all. Or remember all of them.
And the essays do not hold back, they even have comparing the story of the 47 rhonin with the Nibelungenlied, speaking of seppuku with admiration and chastizing the allies for their arial bormbardment. There is even admiration for the Japanese for achieving national unity before the Germans.
And essayist from Nazi Germany saying that the Yellow Peril is just a made up myth to hinder the acendency of the Japanese, and at least one essayist stated that it was the Anglo-American nations and the European Jews who created it because they recognized the affinity between Germans and Japanese. Oh the irony of it all.
This whole German/Japanese dynamic is not only defying the categories typically used when speaking about Western/non-Western interaction but is also a transcultural romanticism.
From there the book went to China and I wondered:
Was the interaction between German and Chinese left wing intellectuals really as significant as this book states?
At least it seams that way, as Seghers, Thälmann and Pieck, among others, all had connections to chinese leftists/communists. And the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by the nationalists caused China to be noticed in Europe for more than classical philosophy and fine arts. It's suddenly constantly changing political landscape was a strict opposite to the image of thousands of years of alleged static dynasty. If just that had stuck instead of the thousand years crap.
And this is not everything, as apparently the KMT had offices in Germany. How much connection was there in the Weimar period? Even Anna Segher's "Liau" characters have these names because they are named after a personal friend and the constant political changes in China gave Weimar writers lots of material for novels and the like. Ironically, Liao Huanxing's activities in Berlin and his role as a key figure in the german-chinese collaboration have been purposely minimized in the CCP's official party history because he worked as the secretery of Wang Ming, Mao's rival, in Moscow after leaving Germany in 1928.
Later on, the DEFA did some documentaries on China before the Sino-Soviet split and after China's opening in the 1980s. And the GDR was really interested in the People's Commune and the Great Leap Forward. Quite frankly, not sure if this split beforehand was good or bad, after all had there been none, perhaps there would be more record of Mao's famine, or the GDR would have suffered famine as well.
The chapter about a novel called "Yellow Wind," was puzzling. What makes the author of the chapter think that the author of "Yellow Wind" did not know how the term might be interpreted? He could have done that deliberately for various reasons. Plus, what makes him think the average German knows what the Boxer Rebellion was? Then again, he also suggests that colonial past is widely known in Germany and our media usually does the opposite. Sure, it is telling that the author of "Yellow Wind" barely mentions the Japanese and Russians, but it is also telling how the author of this chapter doesn't mention the Manchu's and the anti-Manchu riots of the Boxers at all. Also, he claims that gruesomeness has been a staple feature in Western imaginings of China since the middle of the 16th century, as if this is something china-specific. Later something was very telling: Not only did the author act as if uneasiness towards China could not be justified (he even seems to doubt that China is authoritarian), but seems to equate China with East Asia. He talks about East Asia's ascendency, but the thing is: South Korea and Japan already have "ascended, "which is known, and who in the West is uneasy about that? Taiwan is lesser known for most people, so I excluded it, but still, no one who knows it in the West seems uneasy about its status as an industrial country.
I was happy when the book finally was at the chapter on Anna May Wong. However, the author calls Wong an "ethnic" actress, a distinction based on the idiotic white/non-white dichotomy, that in my mind, never brings out anything good. This assumed that this chapter could get interesting and that the author will go to the worst things imaginable to her.
I got some interesting things, like that in the script for the movie "Song" from 1928 there was already supposed to be a kiss between Wong and her "white" co-actor. And it was cut because they wanted to distribute the film in America... funny how such stuff is left out on the history of Hollywood and Weimar Germany. Also, in 1928 Wong was more prominent than either Marlene Dietrich or Leni Riefenstahl.
Sadly the author shows her own ignorance in my mind, as she considers "better to die with honor than live without it" as a colonial mantra that ennobled the self-sacrifice of Asian women for white male privilege. The thing is: I remember a story in Pu Songling's collection where a girl committed suicide because of dishonor. Better to die with honor than live without it is nothing new in Chinese or Japanese fiction. So how is that a colonial mantra to her, as it suggests, that it is not true and just made up.
Her historical information also seems to be full of holes and misleading. It is true that the chinese presence in the working-class district around today's Ostbahnhof was know as the Chinese quarter but in what way was that one connected to widespread anxiety about immigrant "ethnic" communities? They were merchants and even reports back then stated at most that they could pay higher rents and so push out other residents, but that is it. Also, the author ignores Kantstraße and its residents, which were usually Chinese students and rarely interacted with the workers in the Chinese quarter. In fact the Kantstraße is considered the "China Town" of sorts of Berlin today and sometimes called Kantonstraße (after Canton) while the Chinese Quarter seems to be forgotten.
And why does she think the poster for Nachtwelt "emphasizes the ascendancy of racial difference, where the white woman is displaced and marginalized by the looming presence of her Asia rival at the center of the image"? Does she not consider, that Wong is more prominent on the poster because she was the bigger star? The film was from 1929 and just a year before Wong was a bigger star than Marlene Dietrich.
And not only does the author seem to be convinced that Josephine Baker did what she claims that Wong did not (the whole subversion thing) but she seems to ignore all the critics she herself quoted and who decried the censorship and racism at the time when she makes her generalizing statements? This chapter should not be read uncritically.
The next chapter was just a waste of time. The author seemed to be in love with "big" words. I mean, take this for an example:
"Finally, one has to take into account the etymological double bind of tissue and text, and conceive of the body as a transcultural image and intertextual space. The cross-mapping of avant-garde literature and bio art here provides a novel approach for Tawada scholarship by suggesting that her writings deconstruct the biopolitical territorialization of gender images."
Can anyone explain what this means?
I had usually no idea what on earth the author was talking about. And figures that the one with the "biggest" words also has the longest list of notes of all in this book.
The "big" words thankfully did not exist in the following chapter, but I had never heard of the Dörrie filmmaker. And what is described here sounds like she uses German stereotypes. The sequel to her film "Hanami" at least uses visual ones as well with the German father, mother and daughter all being blonds.
The chapter on hairnet manufacturing in the late 19th and early 20th century was way more interesting, even though we had the typical problem of an author mentioning German anti-Czech attitudes but no anti-German attitudes by Czechs.
But that was a minor issue with the chapter and it got to better stuff: So first hair nets were made out of silk, but then people noticed that human hair is better. However, Northern European hair was too soft, Southern European hair not present in suitable numbers, Japanese hair was too stiff and coarse and so only Chinese hair was plentiful and suitable enough. That is ironic.
But later on first the Japanese push the Czechs out of the hairnet market and then later China is forced to make their own instead of just exporting the raw materials.
Btw. When the Qing dynasty fell there was a spike in raw material "production" because so many of the men were cutting of their long braids.
From this fine chapter we got to the last two one and they were pretty crap. In the second to last the author talks of recent German short stories, but never said from when they are and the topic they have sounds really odd. Especially the whole emptiness as a topos does not sound familiar as any topos on Japan. These three short stories all sound like their authors either wanted to parody stereotypes on Japan (which the first one did) or were so full and fond of their stereotypes that they did not even try to give it up. One did not even bother to learn the language.
The last chapter was even worse and that was clear from the start. You see, the author states that according to some person named Lang, German literature is characterized by a tendency to use Asia as a metaphor and a contrast to Europe. I found that odd to generalize so much and checked the notes. That Lang wrote in 1986 and this book is from 2014!!!!!!! The prior chapter already had the problem of using decades old sources and this here was even worse. The autjor also calls using translators, middlemen and go-betweens as corresponding to what was used by colonial oppressors. But even when you want to learn a language, you will have to rely on these at first. So what other options does one have for getting to know Japan? Also, I am troubled by this constant lack of perceiving Japan as an imperial power.
Comsidering that the author never states what a non-eurocentric approach is supposed to be or why that is a good thing, I suspect he is eurocentric himself and doesn't actually care for changing this.
Sadly, this was the last chapter and the end of the text in this book and it was a very weak ending.
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