“EATING RIGHT” in MODERN JAPAN, 1905-1945 a Dissertation
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
FOOD AS MEDICINE: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF “EATING RIGHT” IN MODERN JAPAN, 1905-1945 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Soo Kyeong Hong August 2017 © 2017 Soo Kyeong Hong FOOD AS MEDICINE: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF “EATING RIGHT” IN MODERN JAPAN, 1905-1945 Soo Kyeong Hong, Ph. D. Cornell University 2017 This dissertation traces the history of a dietary reform movement, which sought “right eating” in early twentieth-century Japan. The movement revolved around the concept of shokuyō, which broadly referred to the art of nourishing life and vitality—yōjō— through proper eating. Its central proposition was a call for the return to “natural and traditional” foodways with a particular emphasis on the consumption of unpolished rice and largely plant-based foods. Chapter One explores how the movement and discourse of shokuyō came into being and developed as a reaction against modern transformations of Japanese society since the Meiji Restoration. It situates the shokuyō movement within the context of discourses on hygiene, health, and the overarching project of civilization and enlightenment. Although the late Meiji shokuyō advocates sought to associate its ideal diet within the boundaries of orderliness of nature and civil morality, the way to understand the relationship between food and health became increasingly overshadowed by the ascendance of institutionalized nutrition science in the 1920s. Chapter Two looks at how “efficiency” and “rationalization” became catchwords in food-related public campaigns and medical discourse in which the concept of shokuyō was superseded by that of eiyō (nutrition). In spite of this, the shokuyō movement, evolved toward another direction with a new critique of modern medicine. Chapter Three concerns this transformation by analyzing how Sakurazawa Yukikazu reconceptualized shokuyō theories as “Natural Medicine” by drawing on contemporary French critiques of biomedicine and Shinto ideology. The following two chapters trace the movement’s transformation in the 1930s from an esoteric and upper-class-centered one into a large-scale movement targeting wider sectors of society. Chapter Four looks at how the campaigners actively intervened in the wartime standardization of brown rice as the national staple in face of total war. Chapter Five on the other hand analyzes the shokuyō movement’s crusade against sugar consumption in Japanese migrants’ diets in Manchuria, showing how they attempted to bring together tenets of “eating right” and the project of Empire. This dissertation ultimately argues that shokuyō’s “traditionalist” and “natural” dietary persuasion fed into a cultural nationalist and imperialist political imagination grounded in a holistic understanding of the body, health, and environment. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Sookyeong Hong received B.A.s in Chinese Language and Literature & East Asian History in 2003 and a M.A. in Modern Japanese History in 2007 from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the outcome of longtime generosity and patience of a number of individuals around me during my years as a graduate student. I would like to first thank my advisor and committee chair, J. Victor Koschmann, whose supervision and mentoring guided me through every stage of my PhD studies. He has been particularly supportive and patient during my dissertation writing years. Without those engaging conversations with him over the years, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation. Naoki Sakai has always encouraged me to think critically and theoretically, and also for the many times he explained to me those challenging philosophical works we read together. TJ Hinrichs has not only provided me with detailed comments and insightful suggestions on my writing, but also lent me great moral support. I would like to express gratitude to Hirano Katsuya for introducing me to the paradigm of cultural studies through stimulating coursework. Despite him being halfway across the country, he has nonetheless always found time to give me comments and incisive questions on my dissertation chapters. I would also like to express my appreciation to Brett de Bary and Suyoung Son for their encouragement and support. I am also greatly indebted to my mentors and friends across the Pacific. I thank my longtime mentor, Yim Sung-mo, at Yonsei University for his unwavering support and guidance, which continued even after I had left Seoul for Cornell. During a year of research in Tokyo, I had many fruitful discussions with Yonetani Masafumi and Nishitani Osamu at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, both of whom had provided me with fresh insights that allowed my dissertation to take initial form. I am also thankful to Helen Lee and other members of The Korean Association for Japanese vi History, especially those who gave me helpful suggestions on my preliminary research paper of this project. I was fortunate to meet a remarkable group of colleagues and friends at Cornell and beyond. My life in Ithaca, Tokyo, and Seoul would not have been as high-spirited and healthy without them: Kasai Hirotaka, Mizutamari Mayumi, Jiyoung Shin, Soonyi Lee, Soonyoung Choi, Nari Yoon, Taomo Zhou, Yuna Won, Noriaki Hoshino, Deokhyo Choi, Akiko Ishii, Ai Baba, among many others. A special thanks to Seokwon Lee and Sujin Lee, both of whom have always offered me intellectual stimulation, wisdom, and encouragement. I also thank Jooeun Noh and Suji Jang for their friendship and support. I am especially indebted to Clarence I-Zhuen Lee, who carefully read all my draft chapters and gave me thoughtful editorial advice as well as constructive suggestions throughout the revision process. I wish to thank the Japan Foundation and the D. Kim Foundation for funding my dissertation research. The Department of History, East Asia Program in Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Graduate School at Cornell had also provided generous financial support during my years as a PhD student. Finally, I thank my parents, Byung-ki Hong and Young-mi Uhm, for their unwavering support and love, and my sister and her family, Soojung, Ui-hyung, and Eun-su, for their love and laughter throughout the tough times. I dedicate this dissertation to them, with love and respect. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch v Acknowledgements vi Table of Contents viii List of Figures ix Introduction: The Cultural Politics of “Eating Right” 1 1. Digesting Modernity, Healing with Nature: The Birth of a “Natural” Food Movement in the Late Meiji Period 15 2. Rationalizing Eating Habits in the Era of Nutritional Science 52 3. Toward a New Oriental “Natural Medicine”: Sakurazawa Yukikazu, 1930-1940s 92 4. Rice for Total War: The Darker, The Better 134 5. Table for the Empire: Sugar, Modernity and Health 164 Conclusion 199 References 204 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Modified table of potassium-to-sodium ratio from Kagakuteki Shokuyō Chōjuron by Ishizuka Sagen Figure 2. “Musō Genri At a Glance Diagram” from Eki by Sakurazawa Yukikazu ix INTRODUCTION: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF “EATING RIGHT” In the early years of the twenty-first century, the long-forgotten term shokuiku (食育food education) resurfaced in Japanese vocabulary when the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) launched the Shokuiku Research Committee in 2002 and the Koizumi Administration enacted the Shokuiku Law in 2005 (Shokuiku Kihonhō). The preamble of the Law proclaimed that “for the development of our nation, it is essential that children foster sound minds and bodies and thrive in the international society of the future; it is just as well that all our citizens (kokumin) nurture sound minds and bodies, thereby leading vibrant lives throughout their lifetime.” To this end, the Law declared that shokuiku ought to be the foundation of intellectual, moral, and physical education (知育・徳育・体育).1 In reality, this government-led food education program aimed to tackle several contemporary “food problems” such as an increase of metabolic syndrome, eating alone or separately (孤食 or 個食koshoku), the skipping of breakfast, and the disappearance of home cooking as well as the practice of families eating together.2 As the tasks and rationale of the shokuiku initiative reveal, the program was geared toward public campaigns for individual awareness and enlightenment, rather than for dealing with regulatory measures or policy reforms at the level of the agri- food system. In the course of its initial setup of the Committee, the shokuiku program excluded existing grass-roots food activisms such as those concerned with consumer 1 “Shokuiku Kihonhō (Heisei 17 nen hōrei dai 63 gō), Shokuiku Hakusho 2005, 152-156. 2 Aya Hirata Kimura, “Nationalism, Patriarchy, and Moralism: The Government-Led Food Reform in Contemporary Japan,” Food and Foodways, 19:3 (2011): 209-210. 1 cooperatives, anti-GMOs, organic agriculture, and local foods.3 Instead, its major dictates focused on the importance of individual choice on what and how to eat. In addition, the program valorized family commensality (kyōshoku) and washoku (Japanese-style meal) prepared by “mothers’ love” (ofukuro no aji), thereby revitalizing traditional family values based on gendered division of labor.4 In this sense, as sociologist Kimura has argued, the shokuiku program epitomized the government’s neoliberal initiative to emphasize individual responsibility and moral decision in dietary health and food culture. Considering that this heavy leaning toward such a form of neoliberal traditionalism is one of the main characteristics of the shokuiku law, it thus comes as no surprise that the campaigners remained almost voiceless after the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Even though the “food safety” issue was high on the shokuiku agenda, the 2011 shokuiku white book spent only two pages on the topic related to the disaster with little reference to internal exposure or possible radioactive contamination in food and water.5 Nowhere in the white book or the official program contained politically sensitive issues on the dangers of radioactivity and health risks involved in radioactive contamination of food.