Postsecular Cities by Beaumont Justin; Baker Christopher;

Author:Beaumont, Justin; Baker, Christopher;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2011-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Noting a counterpart

The Jesuits were among the first missionaries to travel to Japan, their missionary activities beginning in earnest around 1549 with the arrival of Father Francis Xavier, though all activities ended abruptly when, in the mid-1600s, all Christian missionaries were banned from Japan. Xavier was excited about Japan: ‘they are the best race yet discovered, and I think among non-Christians their match will not easily be found’ (Lidin, 2002: 166). Also, a few decades later, the Italian Jesuit, Alexandro Valignano,2 reported meetings with an exotic, strange and yet strikingly familiar culture: ‘ . . . Japan is a world the reverse of Europe; everything is so different and opposed that they are like us in practically nothing’. Yet he added, ‘this would not be surprising if they were like so many barbarians, but what astonishes me is that they behave as very prudent and cultured people’ (Shelton, 1999: 3). The missionaries were stunned and probably felt insecure about where to start their work of converting non-Christians into civilized people. Christians came with precise ideas about the very idea of a ‘religion’ as a contradiction to the idea of a ‘primitive’ magic cult, and they believed that Christianity would offer the only true path to civilization. However, in this strange Oriental culture, codes for civility seemed to be a key order of social encountering.

During the Tokugawa era (1603–1867), visitors from abroad were rare. In The History of Japan Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, published in 1727, Engelbert Kaempfer described ‘a valiant and virtuous people, enriched by a mutual commerce among themselves, possessed of a country on which nature hath lavish’d her most valuable treasures . . . “populous and wealthy Nipon’ ” (Screech, 1996: 14). At the end of the eighteenth century, Carl Peter Thunberg, pupil and successor of Linnaeus, one of the great fathers of modern science, spent 18 months in Japan. He wrote (Screech, 1996: 210): ‘their doctrine chiefly inculcates the following maxims: to lead a virtuous life, to do justice to every man, to behave at the same time to all persons with civility, to govern with equality, and to maintain an inviolate integrity of heart’.

How can an Oriental culture, which, following Max Weber, is of a completely different nature compared to Occidental culture, manifest such familiarity when it comes to universal codes for civility? This was the era of European colonialism, with its precise ideas about the relationship between Europe and other parts of the world as a relationship between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. In this historical period, ‘the West never invaded Japan nor blockaded it, and it never had the writ to command. Japan, consequently remained fully independent’ (Screech, 1996: 1). When the country finally opened its doors to foreign influences, it was more than well prepared for modernity. What had happened in the meantime?

In this chapter, I will use the gaze of the visitor and the experience of strangeness and familiarity as keys for methodology. The experience of both strangeness and familiarity is my point of departure.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.