-
4. Chinese and Japanese Migration in Context
- University Press of Florida
- Chapter
- Additional Information
98 4 Chinese and Japanese Migration in Context In his 1986 dissertation on Chinese miners in New Zealand, Ritchie (1986: 652) remarked on the absence of information regarding the degree to which Chinese adopted European goods prior to emigration; yet subsequent archaeological research has done little to address this knowledge gap. This is, or should be, a central consideration in any interpretation of the nature of cultural persistence and change in overseas contexts because it exposes the complexity of what it means for something to be indigenous or foreign. It relates closely to Jones’s (1997: 125–26) broader point, addressed in chapter 2, about the importance of the past in understanding processes of identification (and, by implication, patterns of material consumption ) in new sociocultural contexts. One might also add the need to comprehend the broader context of migrants’ lives within the societies into which they have migrated. Consequently, this chapter is dedicated to outlining aspects of Chinese and Japanese life at home and abroad relevant to interpreting archaeological remains in North America. This discussion is accompanied by details relating to nationalism, the social and legal status of Asian migrants in Canada, and information on everyday consumer habits of these migrants to provide this broader context for making sense of material patterns on Don and Lion Islands explored in chapters 5 and 6. Such contextual information will also be relevant in interpreting archaeological remains from other Chinese and Japanese sites in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. The chapter begins with a summary of industrialization and Westernization in Japan and China and of consumer patterns at home and abroad, followed by more focused discussions of continuities and transformations in diet and beverage consumption , activities that are among the best represented archaeologically. 99 Chinese and Japanese Migration in Context It concludes by considering the role of structural conditions in the host society and emergent nationalism at home in influencing consumer habits and identification in diasporic contexts. Consumer Patterns at Home and Abroad Modernization in Japan and China Beginning in the 1630s, the Tokugawa shogunate maintained strict control over external relations by forbidding most Japanese from traveling abroad and excluding all foreigners from the country, excepting a small number of traders received at strategically located peripheral ports (Jansen 2000). The rationales for this policy were to centralize control over trade and to minimize European religious and political influence, which the shogunate considered a threat to the stability of its rule. In 1868 political instability, partly derived from (and certainly exacerbated by) forced opening of trade relations with the United States and European nations in the 1850s, led to deposition of the shogun, a return to imperial rule, and a move toward representative government, ushering in the Meiji period (1868–1912). During its period of isolation, Japan had fallen behind Western nations both technologically and economically, and modernization in emulation of these Western countries was promoted as a means of strengthening the foundations of the new government and making Japan competitive in the global marketplace. Among the reforms instituted during the Meiji period, leaders sought to industrialize the economy by sending students abroad and bringing to Japan foreign specialists in various fields of science and technology. The new Meiji government promoted modernization and industrialization by spearheading importation of Western infrastructure and technology , including railways, telegraphs, mining, factories, and military hardware (Morris-Suzuki 1994). It played a key role in promoting an ideology of technological change through compulsory education with emphasis on scientific inquiry and establishment of technical schools. At the same time, local and regional production centers incrementally adapted foreign technology to existing industries and economic structures. By the turn of the twentieth century, these local and national efforts were linked by multiple channels of communication that played a key role in spreading technological innovations across the country at all levels of production. [44.222.122.246] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:22 GMT) 100 An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism The preceding Tokugawa period (1603–1868) had seen rapid internal development and diffusion of production techniques in the principal craft industries. Meiji developments continued that process, whereby Western techniques were selectively borrowed or adapted to indigenous practices. At the local and regional levels, emphasis of local governments and private trade associations was on protecting craft industries against competition from foreign imports by promoting exchanges of technical knowledge. It was these small-scale craft industries that comprised the bulk of output and industrial employment into the 1920s. Hanley (1997) argues that, despite dramatic...