DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Article

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Article Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 356 2nd International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2019) The Image of Japan in Hong Ying's Novels Ting Ye Jinan University Guangzhou, China Abstract—With the advent of globalization, transnational Japanese War of aggression against China launched by Japan writing has become an important feature of writers' writing. in the 20th century has had a profound impact on the Many meaningful factors can be found in the investigation of relations between the two countries. foreign images in the works of writers. Hong Ying is a famous overseas writer of Chinese literature. She has written many Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has developed rapidly works about Japan, especially the novel Green Sleeves. Under and ranks among the world's powerful countries. The Hong Ying's description, Japan is a cruel aggressor for China. powerful Japan has sprouted the ambition to dominate Asia, Yuji Yamazaki in Green Sleeves is typical Japanese. He is embarked on the path of imperialism, invaded other serious, cultivated and knows a lot about Chinese culture. He countries, and sought profits. In addition, Japan tastes the acts in accordance with Bushidou and is very arrogant towards sweetness of war from the Japan-Russia War and Sino- China. Japanese culture is poetic and wins the favor of Hong Japanese War of 1894-1895, which even inspired Japan's Ying, whether the distinctive Japanese color, sakura (oriental motives for aggression against China. In the 1930s, the cherry), a symbolic symbol of Japan, kimono, or simpleness, undercurrent of severe confrontation between China and Mono no aware aesthetics. The image of Japan under Hong Japan was surging violently. Japan was closing in on China Ying's description is not only related to the historical context of and China was in a dangerous situation. In Japan, "With the China and Japan, but also to Hong Ying's Japanese complex. deterioration of economic conditions and the intensification of social unrest, fascist ideas are gradually spreading." [1] Keywords—Hong Ying; Japanese elements; collective Japan's expansionism was driven not only by economic imagination; personal appeal reasons, but also by unease about the growing power of the Soviet Union and Chiang Kai-shek's growing success in I. INTRODUCTION unifying China. In addition, they are fully aware of the China and Japan are separated by a strip of water, so unemployment situation and other problems in Japan at the exchanges between the two countries are inevitable. Japan is time. These reasons were reflected in a memorandum the country with the longest and most complicated General Honjo Shigeru sent to the Military Secretary in the relationship with China, and its image in Chinese novels summer of 1931, just six months before the Japanese shows different characteristics and profound meanings in invasion of Manchuria: different periods with the development of history, society In order to strengthen Japan's position and strength, it is and political situation. necessary to immediately take advantage of the fact that the Hong Ying is a famous new immigrant writer who has Soviet Union has not yet completed its five-year plan and created famous works such as Lord of Shanghai, Daughter of China has not yet become a unified country, as well as the the River and Green Sleeves. It is worth noting that the difficult situation of the world economy. All of these factors creation of Hong Ying involves Japanese themes and has must be harnessed to achieve the goal of further occupying distinct characteristics. Manchuria and Mongolia and achieving the positive goals of the earlier expedition to Siberia. The unification of China, Researchers generally study the literary creation of Hong the existence of the Soviet Union and the invasion of the Far Ying from the perspectives of feminism, Shanghai image, East by the United States are all not in Japan's interest. and personal autobiography. The perspective to study Hong Ying needs to be updated. This paper interprets the image of It is no accident that Honjo made Manchuria the first Japan in Hong Ying's novels from the perspective of target of their expansionist project. The province in the comparative literary imagery. This paper attempts to make a northeast corner of China has two favorable conditions: it new interpretation of Hong Ying's works through meticulous has loose links with the Nanjing National Government and is text analysis, and analyzes the Japanese view presented by rich in natural resources, including iron, coal and vast, fertile the novel. The view of exotic countries is an observation of plains. In addition, Japan has acquired certain privileges in the image of a foreign country and an interpretation of the Manchuria through previously agreed treaties; these other. privileges can be used to make excuses for its acts of aggression. When the Japanese military determined in the autumn of 1931 that the time of the invasion had matured, II. JAPAN — THE CRUEL INVADERS they began to invade China. Sino-Japanese relations in the 20th century serve as a crucial page in the history of Sino-Japanese relations. The Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 621 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 356 On the evening of September 18, 1931, a bomb broke a Whether it is "Man Ying" or the urban architecture of small section of the South Manchu railway, which was Changchun, it reflects the colonial sentiments that the controlled by the Japanese and led to the northern part of Chinese have in creating the image of Japan. Shenyang. After a few minutes later, a train going south went through the railway without difficulty, and the Japanese As invaded nation, the Chinese people's inner pain is refused to let the journalists go to the "accident" in the next indescribable. The history of Japan's aggression against five days — the Japanese at the time prudently called the China was so painful that the hatred and fear of Japan explosion an accident — for on-site interviews, so most became the collective consciousness of the Chinese nation. people at the time thought that the whole incident was Japan's aggression against China has filled Chinese people fabricated. Now, people have figured out that this happened, with hatred towards Japan. This aversion and fear is evident because Baron Kijūrō Shidehara proved this in the in the Chinese vocabulary. Since the Japanese War of International Military Tribunal for the Far East in June 1946. aggression against China, "little japs" has become a Baron Shidehara served as the foreign minister in 1931. He frequently used word. admitted that some officers had planned the incident at the The Japanese War of aggression against China ended in time. Although he managed to stop it, he did not succeed. failure, and the Japanese people experienced a miserable life His testimony can be confirmed by the speed and accuracy after the war. The Japanese economy was depressed after the of the immediate action of the Japanese army stationed on war and the common people lived a hard life. the Kanto Peninsula, the so-called "Kanto Army". The Kwantung Army captured Shenyang and Changchun within III. THE JAPANESE YUJI YAMAZAKI 24 hours without a declaration of war, and then fanned out in all directions. The occupation of Harbin in late January 1932 Characters are the most important elements of the novel, meant the end of various organized resistance in Manchuria. and the shaping of characters is the core of the novel's artistic In March 1932, the winners renamed their occupied land as creation. Taking the image of the Japanese in Hong Ying's "Manchuria." In need of a puppet emperor, they brought out novels as the object of investigation, the author strives to the abdicated emperor Bo Yi, a survivor of the Qing dynasty reflect the characteristics of Chinese people's perception of that collapsed in 1911, and appointed him regent. Japan in the context of Sino-Japanese relations through the "exotic image". Hong Ying made a detailed description of this grim scene of colonial war in China in Green Sleeves. The main Hong Ying separated the Japanese people from the characters lived in an era of colonial and turbulent times. The Japanese soldiers who invaded China. Therefore, in line with scene of the novel occurred in Manchuria, the colony of the art exchange in East Asia and the Japanese complex, Japan. In 1945, "In the spring, Changchun was also called Hong Ying has shaped the Japanese director Yuji Yamazaki Xinjing, and the flag of Manchuria was floating." [2] in Green Sleeves. According to the situation of Manchuria in China, Japan Yuji Yamazaki is typical Japanese in the 1930s. adopted a cultural colonial policy. In order to eliminate the Yamazaki came to China in the era of Japanese War of patriotic enthusiasm of the people in the Northeast, Japan aggression against China, and he is not only an invincible forced the Manchukuo government to adopt a series of "de- legendary director, but also a personal figure full of sinicization" policies. "In August 1937, "Man Ying" contradictions. (Manchuria Film Association) was established, and the film was used as a tool to promote enslavement education in Artistic supremacy is Yamazaki's defining characteristic. China, creating the illusion of peace and tranquility under the As the president and general director of the Manchuria Film Japanese occupation in the northeast, deceiving the broad Association, Yamazaki is desperately trying to complete the masses of people." [3] Japan launched the war of aggression new film "Green Clothes".
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Katsushika Hokusai and a Poetics of Nostalgia
    ACCESS: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN EDUCATION 2015, VOL. 33, NO. 1, 33–46 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2014.964158 Katsushika Hokusai and a Poetics of Nostalgia David Bell College of Education, University of Otago ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article addresses the activation of aesthetics through the examination of cultural memory, Hokusai, an acute sensitivity to melancholy and time permeating the literary and ukiyo-e, poetic allusion, nostalgia, mono no aware pictorial arts of Japan. In medieval court circles, this sensitivity was activated through a pervasive sense of aware, a poignant reflection on the pathos of things. This sensibility became the motivating force for court verse, and ARTICLE HISTORY through this medium, for the mature projects of the ukiyo-e ‘floating world First published in picture’ artist Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai reached back to aware sensibilities, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2015, Vol. 47, No. 6, subjects and conventions in celebrations of the poetic that sustained cultural 579–595 memories resonating classical lyric and pastoral themes. This paper examines how this elegiac sensibility activated Hokusai’s preoccupations with poetic allusion in his late representations of scholar-poets and the unfinished series of Hyakunin isshu uba-ga etoki, ‘One hundred poems, by one hundred poets, explained by the nurse’. It examines four works to explain how their synthesis of the visual and poetic could sustain aware themes and tropes over time to maintain a distinctive sense of this aesthetic sensibility in Japan. Introduction: Mono no aware How can an aesthetic sensibility become an activating force in and through poetic and pictorial amalgams of specific cultural histories and memories? This article examines how the poignant aesthetic sensibility of mono no aware (a ‘sensitivity to the pathos of things’) established a guiding inflection for social engagements of the Heian period (794–1185CE) Fujiwara court in Japan.
    [Show full text]
  • Positive Psychology – Unmitigated Good, and Pessimism As a Categorical Impediment to Wellbeing
    E L C I contrasting phenomena were implicitly T conceptualised as negative, positioned as R intrinsically undesirable. So, for example, A optimism tended to be valorised as an Positive psychology – unmitigated good, and pessimism as a categorical impediment to wellbeing. Some scholars did paint a more nuanced the second wave picture; for instance, Seligman (1990, p.292) cautioned that one must be ‘able Tim Lomas delves into the dialectical nuances of flourishing to use pessimism’s keen sense of reality when we need it’. However, in terms of the broader discourse of the field, and its cultural impact, a less nuanced binary t is nearly 20 years since Martin wellbeing – could be brought together message held sway. Seligman used his American and considered collectively. Thus, as While seemingly offering an upbeat IPsychological Association presidential a novel branch of scholarship focused message – linking positive emotions to address to inaugurate the notion of specifically and entirely on ‘the science beneficial outcomes, such as health ‘positive psychology’. The rationale for its and practice of improving wellbeing’ (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998) – this creation was Seligman’s contention that (Lomas et al., 2015, p.1347), it was valorisation of positivity was problematic, psychology had tended to focus mainly a welcome new addition to the broader for various reasons. Firstly, it often failed on what is wrong with people: on church of psychology. to sufficiently appreciate the contextual dysfunction, disorder and distress. There However, positive psychology was complexity of emotional outcomes. For were of course pockets of scholarship that not without its critics. A prominent instance, ‘excessive’ optimism can be held a candle for human potential and focus of concern was the very notion harmful to wellbeing (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Noh Theater and Religion in Medieval Japan
    Copyright 2016 Dunja Jelesijevic RITUALS OF THE ENCHANTED WORLD: NOH THEATER AND RELIGION IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN BY DUNJA JELESIJEVIC DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultures in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Elizabeth Oyler, Chair Associate Professor Brian Ruppert, Director of Research Associate Professor Alexander Mayer Professor Emeritus Ronald Toby Abstract This study explores of the religious underpinnings of medieval Noh theater and its operating as a form of ritual. As a multifaceted performance art and genre of literature, Noh is understood as having rich and diverse religious influences, but is often studied as a predominantly artistic and literary form that moved away from its religious/ritual origin. This study aims to recapture some of the Noh’s religious aura and reclaim its religious efficacy, by exploring the ways in which the art and performance of Noh contributed to broader religious contexts of medieval Japan. Chapter One, the Introduction, provides the background necessary to establish the context for analyzing a selection of Noh plays which serve as case studies of Noh’s religious and ritual functioning. Historical and cultural context of Noh for this study is set up as a medieval Japanese world view, which is an enchanted world with blurred boundaries between the visible and invisible world, human and non-human, sentient and non-sentient, enlightened and conditioned. The introduction traces the religious and ritual origins of Noh theater, and establishes the characteristics of the genre that make it possible for Noh to be offered up as an alternative to the mainstream ritual, and proposes an analysis of this ritual through dynamic and evolving schemes of ritualization and mythmaking, rather than ritual as a superimposed structure.
    [Show full text]
  • Tokimeku: the Poetics of Marie Kondo's Konmari Method
    Flowers, Johnathan. “Tokimeku: The Poetics of Marie Kondo’s KonMari Method.” SPECTRA 7, no. 2 (2020): pp. 5–12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/spectra.v7i2.146 ARTICLE Tokimeku: The Poetics of Marie Kondo’s KonMari Method Johnathan Flowers Worcester State University, US [email protected] Mono no aware is a poetic term developed by Motoori Norinaga to refer to the driving force behind aesthetic works, specifically poetry, and to refer to the human awareness of the qualitative nature of our experience in the world. For Norinaga, the cultivation of mono no aware necessarily leads to heightened sensitivity to both natural and man-made objects. As mono no aware is the natural response of the cultivated heart to the world around us, Norinaga takes it to be fundamental to human experience. Norinaga’s interpretation of the term aware as “to be stirred” bears striking similarities to the concept of “sparking joy” or tokimeku as used by Marie Kondo in her KonMari system. In Japanese, Kondo’s phrase “spark joy” is written as tokimeku, a word whose literal translation means “throb,” “pulsate,” or “beat fast,” as in the heart’s response to anticipation or anxiety. The aim of the present work is to make clear the connection between tokimeku in the KonMari system and Norinaga’s poetics of mono no aware. Specifically, this paper indicates the ways in which the KonMari system functions in line with a tradition of Japanese aesthetics of experience. This philosophy informs Japanese aesthetic practices and is articulated throughout Japanese poetics. This paper places Kondo in conversation with Norinaga’s work on aware and mono no aware towards a conceptualization of the KonMari system as an implement for cultivating a mindful heart.
    [Show full text]
  • The Art of Haiku: Its History Through Poems And
    Reviews reviews Selected Haiku, with Essays and Commentary. Part I: 1937–1960, BY +ANEKO 4OHTA 4RANSLATED BY THE +ON .ICHI 4RANSLATION 'ROUP 7INCHESTER 6A 2ED -OON 0RESS PAGES ¼˝ x½˝. 'LOSSY WHITE CARD COVERS PERFECTBOUND )3". 0RICE FROM THE PUBLISHER AT WWWREDMOONPRESSCOM Reviewed by Hiroaki Sato aneko Tôta B WRITES THE KIND OF HAIKU THAT +some of those not in the know — those not familiar with “modern HAIKUv— may find to be clumsy, incompetent, or nothing more than snippets of prose left unfinished. Take the two pieces that the tanka POET )WATA 4ADASHI B exalts as “the masterpieces that FORM THE HIGH PEAKS IN THE HISTORY OF MODERN HAIKUv wankyokushi kashôshi bakushinchi no marathon kareina hakahara join arawani mura nemuri 4HE BOOK UNDER REVIEW GIVES THE NAME AS +ANEKO 4OHTA ON THE GROUND THAT IT IS THE POETS hESTABLISHED STYLE AND THE APPELLATION HE CHOOSES TO USE IN %NGLISH v Kaneko Tohta: Selected Haiku, Part I ) PUT THE TWO WORDS IN QUOTATION MARKS BECAUSE 2ICHARD 'ILBERT THE LEADER of the translation group that produced the book under review, seems to have an odd notion of gendai HAIKU ) EXPECT TO DEAL WITH THE MATTER IN A FUTURE ARTICLE FOR Modern Haiku. )IDA 2Yûta et al., eds., Gendai haiku zenshû )) 4OKYO 2IPPû 3HOBô Modern Haiku 44.1 The first one could easily be a puzzle. Read it simply, without, for ex ample, speculating from the Chinese characters employed what might be meant, and it seems to say, “Curved, burnt, (a or the) marathon at GROUND ZEROv "ECAUSE bakushinchi hGROUND ZERO v STILL MEANS ONLY
    [Show full text]
  • The Dialectics of Well-Being Tim Lomas, Ph.D. Introduction It Is a Real
    The Dialectics of Well-being Tim Lomas, Ph.D. Introduction It is a real honour to be standing up here. It is been such a great conference, with such a beautiful spirit. I have heard so many fantastic talks, met many great people, and I feel very honoured that Paul asked me to do a keynote talk, particularly because he has been so influential for me and my colleagues. For instance, our conceptualisation of the second wave of positive psychology is directly influenced by his prior and similar idea of PP 2.0. And beyond that, his scholarship on Eastern philosophies and traditions has been equally important and inspiring. Moreover, Paul is not merely influential, but encouraging and supportive, acting as a mentor figure to me and others, and I would not be standing here without his kind attention. And what I would like to talk about is the dialectics of well-being. More broadly, this presentation is about what we’ve been calling the second wave of positive psychology (PP 2.0). I am going to give you my take on where I see the field as having come from, where it is, and where it might be going. To begin with though, I would briefly like to let you know a bit more about who I am, partly because I feel scholarship is a function of the nature of the person undertaking it, their background, their history, their story, and so on. So, I would like to mention a few things about myself which have fed into the way in which I have approached positive psychology.
    [Show full text]
  • Happiness Is a Glass Half Empty” Oliver Burkeman1
    Borough of Manhattan Community College City University of New York English Department “Happiness Is a Glass Half Empty” Oliver Burkeman1 Be positive, look on the bright side, stay focused on success: so goes our modern mantra. But perhaps the true path to contentment is to learn to be a loser are we maybe just looking for happiness in the wrong way? In an unremarkable business park outside the city of Ann Arbor, in Michigan, stands a poignant memorial to humanity’s shattered dreams. It doesn’t look like that from the outside, though. Even when you get inside – which members of the public rarely do – it takes a few moments for your eyes to adjust to what you’re seeing. It appears to be a vast and haphazardly organized supermarket; along every aisle, grey metal shelves are crammed with thousands of packages of food and household products. There is something unusually cacophonous about the displays, and soon enough you work out the reason: unlike in a real supermarket, there is only one of each item. And you won’t find many of them in a real supermarket anyway: they are failures, products withdrawn from sale after a few weeks or months, because almost nobody wanted to buy them. In the product-design business, the storehouse – operated by a company called GfK Custom Research North America – has acquired a nickname: the Museum of Failed Products. This is consumer capitalism’s graveyard – the shadow side to the relentlessly upbeat, success-focused culture of modern marketing. Or to put it less grandly: it’s almost certainly the only place on the planet where you’ll find Clairol’s A Touch of Yogurt shampoo alongside Gillette’s equally unpopular For Oily Hair Only, a few feet from a now-empty bottle of Pepsi AM Breakfast Cola (born 1989; died 1990).
    [Show full text]
  • Keichū, Motoori Norinaga, and Kokugaku in Early Modern Japan
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Jeweled Broom and the Dust of the World: Keichū, Motoori Norinaga, and Kokugaku in Early Modern Japan A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Emi Joanne Foulk 2016 © Copyright by Emi Joanne Foulk 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Jeweled Broom and the Dust of the World: Keichū, Motoori Norinaga, and Kokugaku in Early Modern Japan by Emi Joanne Foulk Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Herman Ooms, Chair This dissertation seeks to reconsider the eighteenth-century kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga’s (1730-1801) conceptions of language, and in doing so also reformulate the manner in which we understand early modern kokugaku and its role in Japanese history. Previous studies have interpreted kokugaku as a linguistically constituted communitarian movement that paved the way for the makings of Japanese national identity. My analysis demonstrates, however, that Norinaga¾by far the most well-known kokugaku thinker¾was more interested in pulling a fundamental ontology out from language than tying a politics of identity into it: grammatical codes, prosodic rhythms, and sounds and their attendant sensations were taken not as tools for interpersonal communication but as themselves visible and/or audible threads in the fabric of the cosmos. Norinaga’s work was thus undergirded by a positive understanding ii of language as ontologically grounded within the cosmos, a framework he borrowed implicitly from the seventeenth-century Shingon monk Keichū (1640-1701) and esoteric Buddhist (mikkyō) theories of language. Through philological investigation into ancient texts, both Norinaga and Keichū believed, the profane dust that clouded (sacred, cosmic) truth could be swept away, as if by a jeweled broom.
    [Show full text]
  • Special Article 2
    Special Article 2 By Mukesh Williams Author Mukesh Williams Murakami’s fictional world is a world of elegiac beauty filled with mystical romance, fabulous intrigues and steamy sex where his stories race towards a dénouement hard to fathom. Within the wistful experience of this world people disappear and reappear recounting strange tales of mutants, alternate reality, cults, crime and loneliness. Occasionally with a sleight of hand Murakami switches the world that his characters inhabit and absolves them of any moral or legal responsibility. Much to the dislike of Japanese traditionalists, Murakami’s fiction has gained wide readership in both Japan and the West, perhaps making him the new cultural face of Japan and a possible choice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Though some might dismiss him as a pop artist, eccentric lone wolf, or Americanophile, he represents a new Japanese sensibility, a writer who fuses Western and Japanese culture and aesthetics with unique Japanese responses. In this sense he is the first Japanese writer with a postmodernist perspective rooted within the Japanese cultural ethos, outdoing Junichiro Tanizaki’s modernist viewpoint. Impact of the Sixties composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Handel, Mozart, Schubert and Wagner, and jazz artists like Nat King Cole, Murakami’s fiction also returns to the powerful American era of the Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Interestingly Murakami has rejected 1960s and its impact upon Japan in later decades. The literature, much of Japanese literature but likes to read a few modern Japanese attitudes, and music of the Sixties are just waiting to be told in writers such as Ryu Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto.
    [Show full text]
  • Wabi-Sabi, Mono No Aware, and Ma: Tracing Traditional Japanese Aesthetics Through Japanese History
    Studies on Asia Wabi-Sabi, Mono no Aware, and Ma: Tracing Traditional Japanese Aesthetics Through Japanese History Lauren Prusinski Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana Introduction Japanese cultural standards and definitions of beauty have been nurtured over many generations. Starting in the Heian era, Japan revitalized its focus on the natural world, embracing its unpredictable fluctuations and adopting a sensitivity to and appreciation for nature. The Japanese developed a distinct sense of aesthetics, including wabi sabi, mono no aware, and ma, to guide their feelings in regard to nature and its influence in their art and culture. Each of these aesthetics depicts a different kind of beauty, often describing beauty found in unexpected forms. Wabi sabi represents rustic and desolate beauty; mono no aware, a fleeting, varying beauty; ma, an empty or formless beauty.1 By defining beauty through these aesthetics, Japan has generated an awareness of the beauty of nature not typically found in other societies, especially in sprawling urban settings. Japan has always been a nation focused on beauty in all realms of culture: in arts like poetry and calligraphy; through ritualssuch as the ancient tea ceremony; and in contemporary Japan urban life, consumer goods and architecture. With a keen eye for their surroundings, the Japanese have effectively melded ancient aesthetics with modern advancement, deferring to their natural roots by highlighting rather than diminishing their eternal presence in society. For example, the Kyoto 1 Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno, “Bigaku” in The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture (Boston: Tuttle, 2002), 37-8, 223-24. 25 Series IV, Volume 2, No.
    [Show full text]
  • Studio Ghibli Feature Films and Japanese Artistic Tradition
    Studio Ghibli Feature Films and Japanese Artistic Tradition Roslyn McDonald June 2004 Summary. The animated feature films of Studio Ghibli are contemporary works of art which also incorporate Japanese artistic and cultural traditions. Human’s relationship with nature and the gods of nature (kami), continuity and change, the bitter-sweet awareness of the transience of beauty, life and love (mono no aware) and the struggle between and accommodation of old and new, good and bad are recurring themes in Japanese art and literature. This essay examines how these artistic traditions are expressed through stories, themes, characters and imagery in four of Studio Ghibli films: Tombstone for Fireflies directed by Isao Takahata and My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Note: As a Western, non-Japanese speaker, I cannot hope to identify all the traditional artistic and literary influences and allusions in the films. There is not scope in this essay to discuss comprehensively even those I have identified. Nor have I attempted to demonstrate the reflexive processes by which contemporary Japanese animation and the films of Studio Ghibli are both influenced by other countries’ art and literature, particularly film, and in turn influence those. Introduction All art is a product of both its history and its time. Napier (2001) has described anime as “a richly fascinating contemporary Japanese art form that both harks back to traditional Japanese culture and moves forward to the cutting edge of art and media”. Japanese artistic evolution has been driven by internal factors and by the appropriation and adaptation of outside influences initially primarily from China and then later Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • 5 Aesthetic Characteristics- Mono No Aware.Pdf
    Background Information: Mono No Aware Mono no Aware : Aesthetic Characteristics The aesthetic category of mono no aware ( 物の哀れ ), or the “poignant beauty of things,” describes a cultivated sensitivity to the unavoidable transience of the world. Due to their vivid fragility, cherry blossoms, which are easily scattered by the slightest wind or rain, have become the archetypal symbol of the melancholic beauty of impermanence — the transitory presence of the cherry blossom intensifies the experience by underscoring the blossoms’ delicate beauty. Mono no aware foregrounds finite existence within the flow of experience and change. Since mono no aware developed as an everyday expression of pathos, it resides at the center of the Japanese premodern aesthetic sensibility and thereby has become something of a broad aesthetic category. However, since the interpretation of MOTOORI Norinaga (1730-1801) mono no aware has been most notably associated with literary texts like Heian (794-1185) court poetry (waka — Chinese-style poetry in Japan ) and The Tale of Genji by MURASAKI Shikibu (ca. 1010). Mono no Aware : Philosophical Significance The notion of mono no aware originates in the indigenous Shintō ( 神道 ) sensibility, which was highly sensitive to the awe-inspiring dimensions of the natural world. As a religious sensibility, mono no aware is related to two other notions, namely, “the vitality of things” (mono no ke 物の 気 ) and “the mood of things” (mono no kokoro 物の心 ). • The vitality of things concerns the vital energy (ke) exuded by real world things (mono). For example, the gates or archways (torii 鳥居 ) of shrines and temples originally were meant to have a vital energy and therefore served as a sacred place with cosmic charisma.
    [Show full text]