The making of Tojin: construction of the other in early modern Japan

要旨

This article investigates the visual representation of foreigners in the Japanese popular art of ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) during the Edo Period. Foreigners found their niche in the Japanese folk cosmology even during the period of seclusion (1639-1853), typically through the stereotype of tōjin (Tang Chinese). The popular imagery of tōjin, with its distinctive characteristics-nonsensical, superhuman or subhuman beings with distinctive outfits and behavior-formed a general category of foreigner that included both Westerners and non-Westerners, and served as travesties of human beings. Tojin stresses inclusiveness, an inter-national combination of elements that enhances Otherness. Moreover, the tojin being inter-national means that with their nationalities and national identities taken away, they are also stateless; in this way traits specific to different groups of Others were made interchangeable, or homogenized, in imagery. This visual discourse served as a valuable, unique way for the nonelite to organize or categorize the Japanese Self vis-a-vis foreigners.

主題