探花直播 of Cambridge - Department of East Asian Studies

鈥楬erbivore boys鈥� and other fault lines in Japan鈥檚 gender crisis

fpjl2 — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:42:32 +0000

There is a picture of Japanese gender roles familiar to many - the suited 鈥榮alary man鈥� with the stoic work ethic and slavish commute, and the housewife, single-mindedly occupied with her children鈥檚 education and tending to the home.

But, beginning during the nineties recession and snowballing with recent economic meltdowns, rigid gender definitions are being subverted by a generation with shifting values and uncertain futures. 探花直播challenges and consequences for Japanese society as a result could prove far-reaching.聽聽

Now, a new book from Cambridge鈥檚 Department of East Asian Studies has collected the latest research into Japan鈥檚 emerging gender identities, covering transgender people and absent fathers, girls in manga comics and the emergence of 鈥楬erbivore boys鈥�, young men uninterested in careers and relationships.

探花直播book, Manga Girl Seeks Herbivore Boy, is published by Lit and launched on 23rd February at Robinson College. 探花直播book not only features vanguard research in this field but also represents some of the very best undergraduate work from the Department鈥檚 Japanese Studies course over the last three years.

探花直播editors say that the collection is relevant for both academic and general audiences interested in Japanese society, and hope it will inspire current and future students.

鈥淪ome of this research represents the only academic work on these issues currently in English - even in Japan there isn鈥檛 much about 鈥榟erbivore boys鈥� and transgender people,鈥� said Dr Brigitte Steger from the Department, who co-edited the book with researcher Angelika Koch.

鈥淛apan鈥檚 gender identities are in turmoil. 探花直播essays in this volume provide fascinating insights into gender diversity in modern Japan, as well as telling the story of what we are doing at Cambridge.鈥�

One of the four featured essays looks at changing politics around transgender communities. Although sex change surgery was illegal in Japan until the late nineties, there has been cultural acceptance of transgender people as long as they adopt the right stereotype of the flamboyant gay man, often wheeled out on TV shows.

Transgender people have fought successfully for the legalisation of sex reassignment surgery and gender change on their family registers 鈥� although in order to be eligible they have to fit these conservative gender moulds.

Another focus of the book is the 鈥楬erbivore boy鈥�, a subversion of the classic hard-working, sexually assertive male increasingly adopted by young men who assume traits of general sexual apathy, fashion consciousness through make-up and clothes, and refuse to engage with the 鈥渃orporate employment and marriage鈥� lifestyle that defined Japan for much of the last fifty years.

鈥淢any young men don鈥檛 see the point of conforming to 鈥榮alary man鈥� models anymore. With economic collapse, they don鈥檛 see why they should repress creativity and prolonged adolescence - often as a conscious rebellion against the lifestyle of their fathers,鈥� said co-editor Koch.

Fathers and their absence are explored in the book. At the turn of the century, Japan鈥檚 ailing birth rate prompted the government to launch campaigns encouraging men to be more active in family life. This, however, isn鈥檛 translating into the education for the next generation - quite the opposite according to research from former student Zoya Street.聽

Moral education textbooks used in Japanese classrooms still promote the distant 鈥榓bsent鈥� father archetype as the ideal, a persistence that may prove increasingly damaging for family life.

探花直播book also examines the role of women in 鈥榖oys manga鈥� comics, most commonly a strange mix of pornography and innocence. But increasingly women are given meatier roles, for instance as criminal masterminds.

Such shifting gender types, and other aspects of societal change, have led Japan to experience a 鈥渃ontinuous drop鈥� in marriages as well as fertility rates in recent years. Many no longer consider marriage an integral part of their life.

With an ageing population living ever-longer past retirement, and a younger generation disengaging from social contributions that form Japan鈥檚 backbone, there is increasing concern about redefined gender roles and their impact on society.

鈥淭his isn鈥檛 just exceptional undergraduate research,鈥� added Steger. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very timely examination of the seismic ructions in gender roles that are taking place in modern Japan, and their ramifications鈥�.

For more information, please contact Brigitte Steger: bs382@cam.ac.uk

A new book of student research into key areas of gender in modern Japan highlights emerging trends of redefinition between sexes, and the impact on its society.

探花直播essays in this volume provide fascinating insights into gender diversity in modern Japan, as well as telling the story of what we are doing at Cambridge

Brigitte Steger

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Out of the ashes of Empire

admin — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:27:36 +0000

Barack Obama鈥檚 resolution to kick off foreign policy for his second term with a tour of the Asia-Pacific region, at the end of 2012, was testimony not only to that area鈥檚 growing economic importance, but also to the聽 increasing significance of its politics. East Asia, Southeast Asia and the disputed China Seas now comprise the theatre in which the world鈥檚 two superpowers meet. In the eyes of many, it is there that key decisions about supremacy, ideology 鈥� perhaps world politics as a whole 鈥� will, in future years, be made.

In the West, China鈥檚 rise is the subject of constant media analysis and it has almost become de rigueur to ask ourselves how well we really understand this new giant of the world stage. But as America begins to 鈥榩ivot鈥� eastwards, by striking deals with China鈥檚 neighbours, perhaps it is as important to question how much we understand East Asia as a whole. Do we really know what drives the world view of South Korea, or Taiwan, for example? And given the growing importance of that theatre, how effective is our grasp of how these countries view one another?

Historically, the emergence (and re-emergence) of these nations after World War II is a surprisingly neglected topic. Many people are only vaguely aware that, until 1945, many parts of China, along with Taiwan, the Koreas and sections of Indochina, were at various times part of an expanding Japanese Empire that began in 1895. At its height, in 1942, this territory spanned 2.8 million square miles. Yet when two atomic bombs effectively ended the war in August 1945, the entire Empire disappeared, almost overnight.

In the wake of this collapse, new political entities appeared, but it was not always clear what the extent of their power was, or who managed which territory. 鈥淏efore the Japanese Empire, nation states had not existed in East Asia the same way they had in Europe,鈥� said Dr Barak Kushner, an historian based at the Department of East Asian Studies. 探花直播next decades would see millions of lives lost as competing forces sought to stamp their authority on parts of Japan鈥檚 former Imperial domain, with bitter conflicts in China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and spilling into Indochina, which later developed into the longer Vietnam War.

Post-war East Asian identities formed, then, not in the context of China鈥檚 rise, but Japan鈥檚 retreat. Historians, meanwhile, have tended to investigate this story from America鈥檚 viewpoint, not least because they lacked access to many first-hand sources that could tell the tale from an Asian perspective. Now that is beginning to change. Recent years have witnessed the declassification of numerous government and private archives. Even China recently opened up many of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs records up to 1965. For researchers, this is a golden opportunity to examine and understand what motivated and inspired the emergent powers of East Asia as they came into being.

Kushner is the Principal Investigator for a major new project which, over five years, will attempt to research that issue. Funded by the European Research Council, its title is 鈥� 探花直播Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Postwar East Asia, 1945鈥�1965鈥�. Its main focus, however, will be the war crimes trials that took place in East Asia after the war, as the new administrations attempted to bring Japanese war criminals, and those people who were believed to have supported the Japanese regime, to justice.

探花直播records of those trials offer a perhaps unrivalled view of how political and legal authority was brokered. As these countries stepped out of the Imperial shadow, the trials became statements of whom they believed themselves to be as Chinese, Korean, or Taiwanese citizens, rather than subordinates of Japan.

This was not simply a matter of enfranchising former Imperial subjects, however. Ethnicity, let alone loyalty, in East Asia was exceptionally blurred. Millions of Japan鈥檚 own people remained in both Asia and the western Pacific. Their own stricken government did not want them back and many wanted to stay. In some countries, like China, where Chiang Kai-shek actively courted the Japanese to help him in the civil war, their expertise was still much in demand. Elsewhere, people who had for decades lived as Imperial subjects were, in the space of a few weeks, expected to abandon that way of life and all its symbols for something more 鈥榠ndigenous鈥�. Many, not surprisingly, struggled to understand what that meant. Identity was flexible to say the least.

Against that backdrop, the trials began. 鈥� 探花直播business of identifying who was in power and how a break with the past was to be achieved all came out in the trials,鈥� Kushner said. 鈥淭hey were platforms from which the new authorities could make a statement about their emergent identities. That was not an issue that the Americans, conducting trials in Japan itself, had to worry about; for them identity was a moot point.鈥�

For this reason, the project will not look at the US-backed 鈥楾okyo Trial鈥� that arraigned the 鈥楥lass A鈥� war criminals who had prosecuted Japan鈥檚 war. Instead, it will focus on 5,700 class B/C criminals who were tried around East Asia. These were people who had allegedly committed crimes on the ground 鈥� rape, murder, illegal incarceration, the abuse of POWs, or general 鈥榗rimes against humanity鈥�. Tens of thousands more were tried for treason and collaboration. In both cases, the penalty, if found guilty, was often death.

探花直播process varied across the region. In China, 30,000 people were charged from 1945鈥�1947 and 15,000 convicted for treason alone. Such was the zeal of the Kuomintang that in the end evidence collection was capped because the courts could not cope, and the government was more concerned about the civil war with the Communists.

In Korea, by contrast, tensions along the 38th parallel induced the southern administration to ignore collaborators altogether, and set about trying Communists from the start. In Taiwan, even identifying collaborators was coloured by the trials鈥� function as a stage for the Chinese Nationalists as they sought legitimacy.

Kushner believes that as this process went on, over almost 20 years, 1945 became less significant as a marker for the war鈥檚 end and the dawn of a new age. As well as the trials themselves, media coverage, films, literature, monuments and memorials reinforced specific views of what had happened under the Japanese as these cultural responses emerged from the judicial process. And in Japan itself, many people adopted the stance of part-chastened aggressors and part-victims of deeply partial tribunals, in what Kushner calls a 鈥渄iscordant swirl of public opinion.鈥� Little wonder that he anticipates the project will lead not only to a powerful retelling of this chapter in East Asian history, but 鈥減olicy-relevant findings regarding Asian regionalism鈥� as well.

One reason that ideology and identity during this period remain understudied is that many historians have, understandably, focused on the details of war crimes themselves rather than on the subsequent trials. Accounts of the latter have also tended to dwell on specific and personal aspects of the process, such as individual memoirs, or localised grudge-matches that played out during the hearings. Kushner hopes to move beyond this, arguing that while personal recollections are important in the historical record, the legal process was an expression of broader, large-scale ambitions that offer a genuinely transnational perspective on East Asia after the war. 鈥� 探花直播war crimes trials are the point at which the precedents for public attitudes thereafter are set up,鈥� he added. 鈥淭hey provide a written record on which a number of post-war policies about authority would be based. 探花直播time is now ripe to investigate them, and start a new historical assessment from the inside.鈥�

探花直播new identities and ideologies that emerged in East Asia after the fall of Japan鈥檚 Empire have rarely been studied. Now, as the region again becomes a major theatre in world politics, a new project aims to tell that history from the inside.

探花直播time is now ripe to start a new historical assessment from the inside

Barak Kushner

Center for Research Libraries in Chicago

Cartoon produced as state propaganda in China during the 1950s

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Identity, trial and retribution: East Asia after World War II

tdk25 — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:07:55 +0000

A major historical research project which will examine how East Asia redefined itself after World War II, with results that affect international relations in the region even today, has been announced.

探花直播five-year project, in the Department of East Asian Studies at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, aims to understand how political and legal authority was established by different regimes in countries such as China, Korea and Taiwan, as the area emerged from the shadow of Japanese Imperial rule after 1945. 探花直播Department is currently advertising for new postdoctoral research positions and PhD scholarships to work on the project (details below).

Japan鈥檚 surrender at the end of World War II led to a series of social and political transformations in East Asia as new political entities and powers surfaced. In many cases this struggle for political autonomy led to the eruption of new conflicts over the next two decades, among them the Korean War, the so-called 鈥淢alayan Emergency鈥�, and a string of conflicts in what had been Indochina, culminating in the Vietnam War.

探花直播new project will attempt to explain the ways in which East Asian countries and communities understood, or tried to understand, themselves as this new, definitive era in the region鈥檚 history began. 探花直播results continue to have deep resonance even in the 21st century, shaping the alliances between different East Asian states and Japan鈥檚 often strained relationship with some of its nearest neighbours.

Dr Barak Kushner, who will lead the project, said: 鈥� 探花直播region鈥檚 understanding of its own past and its internal dynamics remain deeply rooted to the manner in which World War II ended. 探花直播legacy of the issues this research project will look at weighs heavily even today, because it provided a new vocabulary to East Asian political entities, as critical decisions were made about how Japanese imperialism should be replaced and adjudicated in the post-war era.鈥�

A key focus of the project will be the local war crimes trials that took place in East Asia after the war, and the broader pursuit of justice against those who had supported 鈥� or were accused of supporting 鈥� the Japanese regime.

Deliberately looking beyond the western-sponsored International Military Tribunal for the Far East ( 探花直播Tokyo Trials), the researchers will examine how East Asian countries searched internally for war criminals, collaborators or suspected traitors.

By identifying these individuals and attempting to bring them to justice, the new powers in the region made important declarations about their own authority, legitimising themselves and therefore determining what shape a post-Imperial future in East Asia might take. 探花直播process effectively made a series of statements about how former Imperial subjects now intended to behave as independent, subjective political actors 鈥� not only in East Asia itself, but on the world stage. Numerous local grudges were also played out through these acts of justice.

Through the prism of this legal process, and the 鈥減olitical rituals鈥� it represented, the research project will seek to explain how different political forces made a bid to control the future of East Asia, and how new communist entities in countries such as China and Korea tried to secure their positions against what they saw as the new imperial player in the region 鈥� namely the United States.

More broadly, the examination of local war crimes also defined who was who in the region, as attempts were made to explain what it meant to be Chinese, Japanese or Korean in the context of bringing criminals to justice. While on the surface this seemed relatively clear cut, it rapidly became apparent that local loyalties and blurred ethnic boundaries would make the determination of national identity in East Asia a highly complex task.

Funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the project is entitled 鈥� 探花直播Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Postwar East Asia, 1945 鈥� 1965鈥�.

Over five years, the project will employ four postdoctoral research associates and two PhD students on full scholarship. In addition, the project will convene two international conferences.

*Parties interested in the postdoctoral research positions should see:
https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/jobs/aggregator

*Students interested in the PhD scholarships should go to:
https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/jobs/aggregator

For more information on the project contact the project director, Dr. Barak Kushner (bk284@cam.ac.uk).

A five-year research project will examine East Asia鈥檚 emergence and struggle for self-definition after the fall of the Japanese Empire.

East Asia鈥檚 understanding of its own past and its internal dynamics remain deeply rooted to the manner in which World War II ended

Barak Kushner

Wikimedia Commons.

General Chen Yi of China accepts the surrender of And艒 Rikichi, the Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan. 探花直播collapse of Japanese Imperial rule in the area marked the beginning of a new era for both countries.

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Tracing the history of modern globalisation in China

bjb42 — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:41:03 +0000

Walking through the streets of Shanghai today, you see a city full of dynamism, enterprise and quirky creativity, a 鈥榤ust visit鈥� place that draws talents from across China and the rest of the world. Yet, in the mid-1980s you would have been struck by the fact that the former 鈥楶aris of the East鈥� seemed a gothic ruin, a melancholy reminder of a past that China had turned against after the 1949 victory of the Chinese Communist Party. China鈥檚 recent rapid take-off into globalisation, only a few short years after Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong鈥檚 successor, instituted the policy of 鈥榬eform and open up鈥�, shows that China was never entirely a closed country. History shows that wave after wave of foreign goods, people and ideas have rolled into China, been absorbed, and in turn have transformed its economy, patterns of consumption, lifestyles, imaginative life, architecture and spatial organisation.

Professor Hans van de Ven, Chair of the 探花直播鈥檚 Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, has been researching a key resource in tracing the history of modern globalisation in China: the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. In its almost century-long history between 1853 and 1950, the Customs Service kept records detailing how the key globalising commodities of the time 鈥� opium, sugar, kerosene, tobacco and arms 鈥� spread through China and were taken up differently in its regions. This little-studied institution was at the heart of China鈥檚 encounter with globalisation in the years between the Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s and the Communist assumption of power. 探花直播鈥榠n-between鈥� nature of the Customs, at the interface between China and the rest of the world, has provided a remarkable opportunity to examine how globalisation played out in the century before China was closed off from the rest of the world in the 1950s.

Seeded by a serendipitous encounter

In the late 1990s, while Professor van de Ven was studying documents at the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing, a chance conversation with Vice-Director Ma Zhendu led to him hearing about the recent acquisition of 55,000 files from the Customs that had just arrived by train from various parts of China. Out of this has grown a fruitful collaborative project involving historians in China and Britain that continues today.

Initial funding for the project came from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, an organisation for international scholarly exchange that supports and promotes the understanding of Chinese culture and society overseas. This allowed the cataloguing of all 55,000 files in the archives; an effort that took a team of four Chinese archivists four years to conclude. Professor van de Ven and his collaborator, Professor Robert Bickers of the 探花直播 of Bristol, simultaneously compiled databases from Customs data on China鈥檚 international trade, wages and arms trade. In 2003, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Major Research Grant allowed the employment of a research assistant and the recruitment of two PhD students. 探花直播project is now in full swing, with a website in operation(www.bristol.ac.uk/history/customs), monographs being produced, guides to the archives being completed, databases in the final stages of verification, and 350 reels of microfilms now published to enable researchers worldwide to make use of the archives.

A unique institution in Sino-British history

探花直播Customs was founded in Shanghai at the time when the Taiping Rebellion against the authority of the Qing government raged inland, and a local uprising drove Qing Dynasty officials out of the city in 1853. Bound by treaty obligations to ensure that foreign merchants fulfilled their tax obligations, the British, French and US consuls stepped in. They established a foreign board for the local Customs Stations to enforce trade tariffs. Although intended as a temporary measure, out of this small beginning grew a huge organisation whose influence rippled out across China and to the rest of the world.

探花直播Customs managed nearly 60 harbours along China鈥檚 coast and rivers; collected about a third of the entire national revenue; established China鈥檚 national postal service; financed China鈥檚 legations abroad; assembled its contributions to international fairs and exhibitions; funded a Quarantine Service to protect China from pandemics; formed China鈥檚 coastguard and railroad police; and supported scholarly enterprises such as the translation of Western textbooks on political economy and international law.

Unique in many ways, the Customs was the only integrated national bureaucracy that continued to function through the many civil wars and foreign invasions that preceded the establishment of the People鈥檚 Republic of China. Although the Customs was always a Chinese organisation, foreigners dominated its upper echelons in rough proportion to a country鈥檚 significance in their trade with China. As Britain was the dominant trade partner, the Head of the Customs was British until the final few years of the institution, when it was led by an American. A cosmopolitan mix of French, British, Russian, German and Japanese staff worked together in the Customs, even as their countries went to war elsewhere or their armies invaded China.

Researching the files has yielded details of the complex roles that the foreigners performed within the institution. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Sir Robert Hart, the Head at the time, secured the food supply to the city and effectively knocked foreign and Chinese heads together to end the fighting and restore central administration, thus helping to prevent the country鈥檚 dismemberment. (Unfortunately, he also negotiated an indemnity that crippled China financially for many years.)

探花直播Customs was a pillar of foreign privilege in China, but China鈥檚 rulers also used 鈥榝oreigners to control foreigners鈥�, establishing Customs Stations with foreign Commissioners along China鈥檚 borders as bulwarks against foreign encroachment. Because of this role, Custom Houses appeared in some rather odd places, including along the mountainous border with Burma and the arid deserts of Xinjiang, as well as between Chinese and Japanese frontlines deep in inland China during the 1937鈥�1945 War of Resistance against Japan.

More than a collector of taxes

探花直播Customs was always much more than just a tax collection agency. It was well informed about local conditions, deeply involved in local, provincial and national politics, and also in international affairs. To some extent, its influence is still felt today. China鈥檚 Custom Houses and lighthouses often occupy the same place as those before 1949, sometimes still operating from the same buildings. Hosea Ballou Morse, one of the Chinese Customs Commissioners, and his wife were avid botanists whose samples continue to enrich Kew Gardens and helped make China鈥檚 flora popular in Britain. Many foreign Customs officials learned Chinese, wrote on Chinese history and translated Chinese books, some of which are still read today. As Chinese Studies became established as an academic discipline, universities around the world recruited Customs scholars: indeed, the founder of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, Sir Thomas Wade, was the first Professor of Chinese at Cambridge. By tapping into the vast resources of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, this research project is casting a fascinating historical perspective on the history of globalisation in China.

For more information, please contact the author Professor Hans van de Ven: (jjv10@cam.ac.uk) at the Department of East Asian Studies, or see the project website聽(www.bristol.ac.uk/history/customs), which was created by Professor Robert Bickers and hosts research tools and publications.

A Sino-British project is examining the history of China鈥檚 first age of modern globalisation, enabling China and Britain to rediscover their interconnected past.

探花直播鈥榠n-between鈥� nature of the Customs, at the interface between China and the rest of the world, has provided a remarkable opportunity to examine how globalisation played out in the century before China was closed off from the rest of the world in the 1950s.

GW Swire and Sons Ltd and SOAS

Huangpu River, Shanghai from a China Navigation Company steamship

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