Japanese Identity Essay -- Japan Culture History Essays

Japanese IdentityThroughout its history, Japan has striven to define its national indistinguishability not by its own means, but by those predefined by foreign, and most recently, Western powers. Despite legends of the island archipelago being created by the sun goddess Amaterasu, Japan seems to have consistently maintain a indecisive self-image with respect to its neighbors. In the past, mainland China had represented the pinnacle of culture and technology and had tremendously influenced other surrounding countries in Asia and in the world. Indeed, Japan owes its written language to imported and adapted Chinese characters. Without question, China remained for a long time the most influential force upon Japan. However, island nation maintained a rather precarious self-identity How could a country like Japan, which was supposedly created by the gods and therefore a divine nation, consider itself the apex of the world, given Chinas tremendous influence and power? Could Japan truly con sider itself the greatest land in the world if China, or Chugoku in Japanese, literally meant the primordial country? For this reason, Japan never truly accepted a position of belonging to Asia. That is, despite a considerable amount of imported culture, Japan was distillery somehow inherently different from other Asian countries. So, if Japan does not belong to Asia, does it belong to some other amorphous collection of nations, namely europium or the West? Certainly in the modern post-WWII era Japan has seen phenomenal economic growth, even to the point of threatening the US as the primordial global economic power during the height of the bubble economy. Some credit this success to the changes implemented during the US occupation. Undoubtedly without US assistan... ...th can be seen go around in some of the most bizarre looking clothing. I once saw a young girl wearing a straddle dress not unlike the one worn by Bjork. I have seen some of the worst fashion faux-pas, with sev erely conflicting colors, completely mismatching styles of the top, bottom, and shoes, writing seemingly done by a five-year-old. As one might like to hope that these styles were mistakenly created by the individual, it is clear that they are intended, whether for shock order or for personal satisfaction. It seems as though in places such as Harajuku, the more unique, the better. While Miyake seemed to have far reaching consequences for Japanese identity on the international level, Kawakubos constant questioning of societal norms helped foster individual deviations, thereby creating a new identity which, ironically enough, is not limited to or by itself.