In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 naoko shimazu Colonial Encounters JapaneseTravelWritingonColonialTaiwan Colonial travel is a form of appropriation of colonies by the metropole. In a sense it is a sign of the “maturing” of the metropole as an imperial power, as the metropole begins to take a cultural interest in its periphery, even if only as a means of reinforcing its own identity. Accordingly, an interest in colonial tourism develops latently because there needs to exist an established sense of imperial consciousness in the metropole about its role as an imperial and colonial power. In the case of Japan, colonial travel began to develop in the 1920s and became popular in the 1930s, but even then it was limited to the economically privileged classes.1 By the 1930s, colonial tourism had become a regular feature of magazines such as Tabi (Travel). Taiwan was a popular destination for the Japanese colonial traveler because it represented the exotic “South” or nanyō (the South Seas), as readers will see explored in detail in Toshio Watanabe’s contribution to this volume.2 I have selected three Japanese bunkajin (cultural elites) who wrote their personal impressions of Taiwan in the style of kikōbun (travel writing) when they visited the colony between 1920 and 1935. Although all three of them—Tokutomi Sohō, Satō Haruo, and Nogami Yaeko—visited Taiwan as official guests of the colonial administration, their accounts reveal different levels of observation and analysis. Arguably, Tokutomi can be regarded as the odd one out because he was a journalist, while the others were writers. Nonetheless, I have decided to include him as representative of the “official mind,” whose approach stands in sharp contrast to the more subtle andcomplexculturalanalysesofSatōandNogami.Focusingontheimages of “Taiwan” held by the Japanese literary elites, this chapter complements that by Hsien-tien Liao in this volume on how Japanese painters portrayed images of “Taiwan.” Colonial travel writing offers many interesting insights into the men- 22 | naoko shimazu tality of the colonizer. I will outline the salient features of each of the three bunkajin’s writings on Taiwan, bearing in mind the conceptual issues briefly discussed in the next section. It will become evident that the encounter of these people with colonial Taiwan challenged some of their underlying assumptions about the implicit balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized. Encounters in the colonial territory brought to the fore elements of ambiguity that sometimes lead to a reassessment of the Self and the Other. Above all, however, colonial travel within the framework of Japanese colonization represented a quest for modernity, by offering the opportunity of experiencing a different form of “modernity.” Conceptual Issues As is well known, travel writing has developed in the past decade into a popular area of study with the field of European imperialism. There are numerous studies of English travelers, especially those the nineteenth century to India and Africa, as well as other parts of the world, including East Asia.3 It would not be an exaggeration to state that almost all this literature has been influenced to some degree by Edward Said’s Orientalism , published in 1978. My primary interest here lies with the observations that these three Japanese colonial travelers made about Taiwan, and how their contact with Taiwan influenced their attitudes towards the land and its people. Because of this, the rigid binary structure of Said’s theoretical framework tends to be limiting, for this study focuses on the “site” of interaction between the colonizer and the colonized. In this sense, Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the “contact zone” is more appropriate for the task: “. . . the space of colonial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict.”4 Pratt’s concept allows us to examine the site of interaction and how it affects the agents involved. Similarly, Peter Burke provides the useful concept of “cultural distance” in studying travel writing: “They [travel narratives] are precious documents of cultural encounters, revealing both the perception of cultural distance and the attempt to come to terms with or ‘translate’ it to something more familiar.”5 Another perspective to be addressed is the role of gender in colonial travel writing. As Alison Blunt states, “[g]endered subjectivity is an important element in the construction of identity, and the conditions under which writing takes place, what is written, and how it is read are inseparable from the gender of the author...

Share