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Download Issue Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 http://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/ Downloaded from Volume 13, Number 1: Spring/Summer 2015 Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 Asia Pacific Perspectives EDITORIAL BOARD Guest Editor Dayna Barnes Editorial Board Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University Thomas Gold, Professor, UC Berkeley Margaret Kuo, Assistant Professor, CSU Long Beach Rachel Rinaldo, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia John Nelson, Professor, University of San Francisco University of San Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies Melissa S. Dale, Executive Director http://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/ Downloaded from Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 Asia Pacific Perspectives Volume 13, Number 1 • Spring/Summer 2015 ARTICLES Guest Editor’s Introduction Dayna Barnes 4 Articles Protestant Funeral Processions in Southeast China: From Gangnam Style to Overt Evangelization Chris White 5 Using Geospatial Data to Study the Origins of Japan’s Post-Occupation Maritime Boundaries Thomas French 28 Paternalism and Peril: Shifting U.S. Racial Perceptions of the Japanese and Chinese Peoples from World War II to the Early Cold War Brandon P. Seto 57 http://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/ The TPP Debate in Japan: Reasons for a Failed Protest Campaign Ulli Jamitzky 79 Think Piece “Uniqueness” in Japanese Art Photography: Toward Situating Images Downloaded from in Context Pablo Figueroa 98 Graduate Student Paper The Question of Japanese-ness: Repatriation and Guilt in Postwar Japan Kilby Hammond 102 ©2015 University of San Francisco Center for Asia Pacific Studies Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 Guest Editor’s Introduction Asia Pacific Perspectives is a journal with broad vision. The interdisciplinary work highlighted in its pages considers the links between Asian states, and between the region and the world. As an international historian, I am pleased to be guest editor of an issue that maintains the expansive view which APP is known for, and that ties the present to the past. In this issue, Chris White considers one legacy of China’s nineteenth century interaction with the West, the practice of Christianity in southern China. Drawing on his extensive fieldwork, White argues that local funeral practices strengthen and engage modern Chinese Christian communities, while also serving as a tool for proselytization. Thomas French too blends the past and present, bringing digital mapping tools to visualize historical records on fishing vessel captures in the waters of North East Asia following World War II. This approach offers a new way to evaluate the current maritime sovereignty disputes between China, Korea, and Japan. Returning to the theme of East-West relations, Brandon Seto provides a survey of the role racism has played in American relations with China and Japan. From World War to Cold War, Seto argues, American understanding of these major Asian powers has been dominated by themes of paternalism and fear. Seto describes the fluidity with which Americans shifted between these two paradigms, as China and Japan alternated positions as allies and enemies of the United States. Ulli Jamitzky returns the focus to modern Asia, as he examines the movement within Japan against large multilateral trade deals like the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP). His article examines Japan’s domestic politics, with implications for the country’s future as a major trading power. This issue also includes a Think Piece, in which cultural anthropologist Pablo Figueroa analyzes the claim of “uniqueness” in Japanese art. Considering the history of art photography in Japan, he finds that globalization and social media http://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/ have a profound impact on Japanese artists today, and that their work is best understood within the context of a globalized art community. The editors are pleased to include on our website the winner of the graduate student essay prize. Kilby Hammond, a recent graduate of the Masters in Asia Pacific Studies program at USF, has written a thoughtful essay examining the Downloaded from experiences of Japanese repatriates following World War II. He uses memoirs and secondary literature to explore the connections between repatriation, questions of war guilt, national identity, and memory. We thank Jan Vaeth, who is leaving the Center for Asia Pacific Studies this month, for his dedication and work on the journal. We also thank Amanda Dzida for her efforts in web editing to bring Asia Pacific Perspectives to you, its readers. Dayna Barnes Guest Editor and 2014–15 Kiriyama Fellow Center for Asia Pacific Studies University of San Francisco Guest Editor’s Introduction 4 Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 Protestant Funeral Processions in Southeast China: From Gangnam Style to Overt Evangelization Chris White, Max Planck Institute Abstract: Christian funeral services and processions, replete with Christian-inspired banners and signs, church bands, and conspicuous crosses, are ways in which Protestant communities in South Fujian actively promote their faith. These events, which are often quite evangelistic, are more than simple demonstrations of faith. They are also formative because the expressions of social cohesion are meant to elevate the status of the church community or family in the eyes of society at large. This article will demonstrate that the renao (socially vibrant) atmosphere of Protestant funerals reflects how such activities are important avenues for church communities to gather and celebrate. Key Words: Protestant, funerals, South Fujian Introduction “Oooh, sexy lady!” One can imagine the scene, with the music of the popular hit Gangnam Style playing in the background, the dance team in a rural village in South Fujian enthusiastically performed their “horse dance,” following the motions made famous by the South Korean pop star Psy. However, what made this event in the fall of 2013 particularly interesting is that the performers were members of the local Protestant church dance team and the performance was part of the funeral service of a departed fellow church member. Not only did church members dance at the service, but the ceremony was a “Christian funeral,” presided over by church leaders and accentuated by red crosses http://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/ adorning the scene, emblazoned on clothing, musical instruments, and banners. The celebratory atmosphere, punctuated by international pop music, dance teams, a long funerary procession, and Christian paraphernalia combine for an interesting display of local customs and religious belief. The relaxing of restrictions placed on traditional customs during the Maoist Downloaded from years, coupled with economic growth during the last three decades, has resulted in a resurgence of a vibrant religious life in rural South Fujian. As Kenneth Dean notes, ritual events found in this region “are not remnants of a rapidly vanishing traditional past but are instead arenas for the active negotiation of the forces of modernity.”1 Funerals offer a microcosm of the revival of traditional rituals and customs. Today, as before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), funerals are celebratory affairs often involving loud music, bright colors, sumptuous banquets, lively performances, and public processions. Most funerals organized by Chinese Protestant communities follow many of these local conventions, but also appropriate such activities to reflect a distinctly Christian identity. This article, based on personal observation and informal interviews with dozens of pastors and rural church members, will look at how Protestant communities in rural South Fujian are in the process of negotiating funeral Protestant Funeral Processions / White 5 Asia Pacific Perspectives ∙ Spring/Summer 2015 practices, producing ceremonies that reflect their embeddedness in the local society while simultaneously exhibiting their religious identity as Christians.2 To be sure, there are some funerary rituals that most Protestants in South Fujian refuse to do. Examples of these absent actions may include offering fruit or alcohol sacrifices for the departed, burning incense, creating an ancestral tablet for the deceased, bowing in front of the corpse (though some Protestants in areas of South Fujian may do this), or more overt contradictions such as inviting Buddhist or Daoist religious specialists to perform rituals. In fact, the conspicuous exclusion of some rituals could be thought of as a ritual itself, or as a “non-ritual.”3 However, this article will focus on what actions and rituals are present in most Protestant funerals. Specifically, the analysis here will center on the funeral procession and how Protestant communities adapt local customs common in rural areas of South Fujian. Chinese funeral practices have long been a topic of interest for historians and anthropologists because they reflect organizational networks and social allegiance.4 In their edited volume on funerals in the Late Imperial era, James Watson and Evelyn Rawski note that “the rituals performed at marriage and at death were central to definitions of Chinese cultural identity.”5 Discussion of how the dual status of Chinese and Christian is expressed today in South Fujian funerals is an important topic because from it we can see how Chinese Protestant communities form boundaries and construct identities that both distinguish their group from
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