Western Bushido: the American Invention of Asian Martial Arts
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
WESTERN BUSHIDO: THE AMERICAN INVENTION OF ASIAN MARTIAL ARTS A Dissertation by JARED TYLER MIRACLE Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Thomas A. Green Committee Members, D. Bruce Dickson J. Lawrence Mitchell Vaughn Bryant Head of Department, Cynthia Werner December 2014 Major Subject: Anthropology Copyright 2014 Jared Tyler Miracle ABSTRACT Prior to the Second World War, very few Americans were aware that martial arts existed outside of the Olympic institutions (e.g. boxing and wrestling) and it wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that Asian martial culture became mainstream in the English- speaking world. This changed when a group of dedicated, unorthodox Westerners applied themselves to the study and dissemination of East Asian martial arts, soon raising their popularity to its current level. This project explores the social and cultural process whereby the martial arts were imbued with a violent nationalist rhetoric in Japan before World War II and came to be a part of daily life in the United States in the decades that followed. Central ideas in this process are the creation of an imagined and exotic Asia and discourses of masculinity as they are negotiated within the larger framework of transforming American society. Source material for this contextual cultural analysis includes archival and interview data as well as popular publications, films, and other multimedia in addition to standard library research. By merging these three methods, it is possible to develop a well-rounded picture of trends in society over time and, in particular, how the folk history of any one group has influenced the broader zeitgeist. In this case, the invented traditions of prewar Japanese martial arts can be seen to travel across the Pacific via American servicemen and undergo radical transformations over time depending on the needs of practitioners and spectators in any given period. ii DEDICATION For my family. Sorry about the long absence. For my teachers. What I don’t know could fill a volume. Specifically, this one. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Offering thanks should not be conflated with a suggestion of blame; any faults in the following pages are entirely my own. That said, I would like to thank my committee, which consists of a kung fu master, two boxers, and a man distinguished variously as an expert on honey, the history of kissing, and/or fossilized ordure. Thomas Green, Bruce Dickson, Larry Mitchell, and Vaughn Bryant provided me with the guidance to navigate graduate school without losing my sanity. The value of their mentorship cannot be overstated. Any meaningful contents found herein are due to their influence. Thanks also to my friends and colleagues at A&M and elsewhere for their support and commiseration over this long haul. Special thanks to Nick and Angela for reading over portions of the early draft. My three surrogate families, the Peppers, the Mizers, and the Pepplers, opened their homes and refrigerators at crucial moments when being far from home was proving most difficult. A debt of gratitude is owed to the Department of Anthropology staff for their tireless support efforts on behalf of all graduate students. The department head, Cynthia Werner, is an absolute wizard in administrative matters of all kinds. Cindy Hurt and Rebecca Luza are actually cyborgs sent from the future on a mission to save us academics from ourselves. Or at least that’s how it seems when they answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning to call in a rental car and hotel because I’ve managed to strand myself in an airport. Again. Marco Valadez serves the dual function of navigator and ship’s counselor. Thanks for always being a calm in the storm. iv My gratitude to the Office of Graduate (and Professional) Studies, the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, all of which provided support for my research. The staff at the Library of Congress, the American Folklife Center, the Smithsonian, and Cushing Library were most helpful in tracking down the pieces of this puzzle. I would especially like to thank Rebecca Hankins, Steve Bales, Ann Hoog, Megan Harris, Mari Nakahara, and the LoC Prints and Photographs Division staff. Thanks also to those who agreed to be interviewed for and otherwise contributed to this project, especially “Professor Kaicho” Jon Bluming PhD., Russ Mason (whose guanxi is strong), Ben Fusaro, John Donohue (who was wise enough to stay out of the cage), Bubba Bush and the members of Brazos Valley Mixed Martial Arts (who can’t seem to get enough of the cage), Ben Costa of Iron Crotch University Press, David McClung, Emily Egan of the Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, and the sundry others who prefer to remain unnamed. I hope that I have told this part of your story with a modicum of accuracy. Finally, thanks to my folks, who taught me that education is valuable for its own sake and who, as Dad says, probably let me “watch a few too many Jackie Chan movies” as a kid. v NOMENCLATURE AND TRANSLITERATION The Victorian swordsman/scholar/linguist Capt. Sir Richard Francis Burton preferred the verb “Englished” over the less prosaic “translated.” This shows the degree to which the meaning of a word or phrase can be lost when searching for cultural equivalents. That being the case, I have attempted to minimize frustration for the reader by following standard modern Pinyin and revised Hepburn Romanization when presenting Mandarin and Japanese words, respectively. This guiding principle is ignored, however, when either an established alternate spelling is more common, such as ‘jiu- jitsu’ instead of the more accurate ‘jujutsu,’ or when in a quotation, where I have not altered the original spelling. In the same line of thought, Japanese and Chinese names are generally presented in the traditional format—family name first—except where the individual is more commonly known in English elsewise. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. iv NOMENCLATURE AND TRANSLITERATION............................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW..................................... 1 Influences ............................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter Outline................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER II WESTERN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ......... 13 Muscular Christianity ....................................................................................................... 13 Spreading Democracy ...................................................................................................... 19 Commercialization ........................................................................................................... 23 Strongmen and Fisticuffs ........................................................... ........................................ 27 The 1920s, Secularism, and Print Media ........................................................................ 32 Challenges to Masculinity: Women and Suffrage .......................................................... 37 Boxing’s Golden Age and the Great Depression ............................................................ 40 CHAPTER III TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR FIGHTING ARTS IN EAST ASIA ......................................................................................................... 49 Origins of Japanese Nationalism ..................................................................................... 55 Judo, Karate, and th e Japanese Nation-State................................................................... 59 Nationalism, Adventurism, and Ethos ............................................................................. 66 Negotiating Nationalism .................................................................................................. 70 China a nd Martial Art as Cultural Identity ...................................................................... 73 CHAPTER IV WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH ............................................................... 85 Occupation ........................................................................................................................ 90 The Barbarians Invade ..................................................................................................... 96 vii Judo and Karate Become Manly Arts ........................................................................... 100 Return and Transformation ............................................................................................ 105 Masculinity in Crisis Again ..........................................................................................