Representation of Minorities in the Context of the ‘Other’ in Haruki Murakami's ‘Slow Boat to China’

Year 2023, Issue: 59, 129 - 152, 31.03.2023

Aytemis Depci , Ayşe Nur Tekmen

https://doi.org/10.53568/yyusbed.1229779

Abstract

In this study, the experience of the protagonist in three phases of his life with three Chinese characters, living in Japan and exposed to the social exclusion, are examined in the story of Slow Boat to China of Haruki Murakami, in relation to the concept of the "other" in postcolonialism and orientalism. The different identities and cultures in a society have been consciously or unconsciously suppressed while considering downward as a consequence of the practices that colonial rhetoric is trying to justify. In the story, the characters in the position of other, have been removed from the society as inferior other due to the orientalist disscourse and the practices of society. The purpose of the study is to disscuss the experiences of the protagonist with these characters, and his alieanation, elaborating the issue of other described by postcolonial and orientalist discourse. In the paper, the prejudiced view regarding minorities – in this sense the Chinese characters- and their alienation have been explored in the light of the postcolonial method and orientalist disscourse while tracing the experience of domination in social life. It has been concluded that the protagonist is alienated from his own society due to the effect of the ethnic label in the perception of the Japanese society and the cultural prejudices and discrimination that the protagonist creates against the other in his own subconscious.

Keywords

Other, alienation, postcolonialism, orientalism, Japanese literature

Haruki Murakami’nin Çin’e Giden Yavaş Gemi Öyküsünde ‘Öteki’ Bağlamında Azınlıkların Temsili

Abstract

Makalede, Haruki Murakami’nin Çin’e Giden Yavaş Gemi adlı öyküsündeki Japon başkişinin hayatının üç farklı döneminde karşılaştığı toplumun dışlamasına maruz kalmış Japonya’da yaşayan üç Çinli karakter ile ilgili deneyimleri postkolonyalizm ve oryantalizmdeki “öteki” kavramı ile ilişkilendirilerek irdelenmektedir. Kolonyal söylemin haklı göstermeye çalıştığı uygulamalar sonucu bir toplumun içindeki farklı kimlikler ve kültürler daha aşağı görülerek, bilinçli ya da bilinçsizce bu bireyler üzerinde baskı oluşturulmaktadır. Öyküde toplumsal pratikler ve oryantalist söylemin etkisi ile ‘öteki’ konumunda olan karakterlerin toplumdan uzaklaşarak toplumun dışında kaldıkları görülmektedir. Başkişinin bu karakterler ile ilgili deneyimleri ve yaşadığı yabancılaşma duygusunun postkolonyal ve oryantalist söylemin ele aldığı öteki sorunu üzerinden değerlendirilmesi makalenin amacını oluşturmaktadır. Makalede öyküdeki Çinli karakterler bağlamında azınlıklara yönelik önyargılı bakış ve yabancılaştırılmaları oryantalist söylemin etkisi ve postkolonyal yöntem ışığında tahakkümün sosyal hayatta deneyimlenmesinin izleri sürülerek açıklanmıştır. Japon toplumunun algısında etnik etiketin etkisi ve başkişinin bilinçdışında ötekiye karşı oluşturduğu kültürel önyargılar ve ayrımcılık nedeniyle başkişinin kendi toplumuna yabancılaştığı sonucuna varılmıştır.

Keywords

Öteki, yabancılaşma, postkolonyalizm, oryantalizm, Japon edebiyatı

References

• Asari, F.(2010). (村上春木の中国　「中国行きスロウ・ボートという観点から」)Murakami Haruki no Chuugoku ‘Chuugoku yuki surou bouto to iu kanten kara. Hosei Daigaku, 253-266.
• Bezci, B. & Çiftçi, Y. (2012). Self oryantalizm: İçimizdeki modernite ve/veya içselleştirdiğimiz modernleşme. Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi, 7(1), 139-166.
• Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
• Boyd, J. (2002) In Pursuit of an Obsession: Japan in Inner Mongolia in the 1930s, Japanese Studies, 22:3, 289- 303, DOI: 10.1080/1037139022000036977.
• Buruma, I. (1996). Becoming Japanese. The New Yorker, 60-71. Web. 11 Mart 2020.
• Depci, A. (2021). Haruki Murakami’nin “Yaban Koyununun İzinde” adlı romanında modernizm, militarizm, emperyalizm ve kapitalizm bağlamında koyun imgesi. Humanitas, 9(17), 143-163.
• Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (A.M. Sheridan-Smith Trans.). NY: Pantheon.
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power / Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. NY: Pantheon Books.
• Hasegawa, Y. & Yukio H. (2005). What the Japanese language tells us about the alleged Japanese relational self. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 25(2), 219-251.
• Hutchinson R. & Williams M. (2007). Representing the other in modern Japanese literature: a critical approach. NY: Routledge.
• Iwabuchi, K. (1994). Complicit exoticism: Japan and its other. Continuum, 8(2), 49-82.
• Karatani, K. (2013). Tarih ve Tekerrür. İstanbul: Metis.
• Keyman, E.F. (2002). Globalleşme, oryantalizm ve öteki sorunu: 11 Eylül sonrası dünya ve adalet. Oryantalizm-II Doğu-Batı Dergisi, 20, 11-32.
• Kleeman, F.Y. (2007). Modernity, history, and the uncanny: Colonial encounter and the epistemological gap. In M. Williams & R. Hutchinson (Eds), Representing the other in modern Japanese literature: a critical approach pp 271-291. NY: Routledge.
• Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese culture constructed by discourses: Implications for applied linguistics research and ELT. Quarterly, 33(1), 9-35.
• Lacan, J. (2006). Écrits: The first Complete edition in English. (Trans. B. Fink). NY: W.W. Norton. (Original work published 1966).
• Lo, K. C. (2004). Return to what one imagines to be there: Masculinity and racial otherness in Haruki Murakami’s writings about China. Novel, 37(3), 258-276.
• Miller, R. A. (1982). Japan's modern myth: The language and beyond. NY: Weather Hill.
• Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Japan’s Growth and Education 1963. Japan. Web. 12 Kasım 2019.
• Morley, J. W. (1983). The China Quagmire, Japan’s Expansion on the Asian Continent, 1933—1941. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Murakami, H. (1991). (象の消滅) Zō no shōmetsu. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.
• Murakami, H. (1994). (ねじまき鳥クロニクル)Nejimakidori kuronikuru. Tokyo: Shinchousha.
• Murakami, H. (2004). (羊をめぐる冒険)Hitsuji o meguru bouken. Tokyo: Kabushikigaisha.
• Murakami, H. (2017).　(騎士団長殺し) Kishidanchō Goroshi. Tokyo: Shinchousha.
• Murakami, H. (2009, 28 Şubat).Haruki Murakami’s acceptance speech for the Jerusalem award. Atticus in Japan.
• https://atticusinjapan.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/haruki-murakamis-acceptance-speech-for-the- jerusalem-award/
• National Archives. The Cabinet Papers: China and Japan. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/china-japan.html
• Nishihara, D. (2005). Said, Orientalism, and Japan, Journal of Comparative Poetics. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 25, 241-253.
• Peattie, M.R. (1975). Ishiwara Kanji and Japan’s Confrontation with the West. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Pinnington, A. (2006). Foreign bodies': 'Race', gender and orientalism in Tanizaki Junichiro's 'the mermaid's lament. In Representing the other in modern Japanese literature: A critical approach (pp. 75-95). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
• Said, E. W.(2013). Şarkiyatçılık: Batı'nın sark anlayışları (B. Ülner Çev). İstanbul: Metis Yayınları.(Orijinal basım tarihi 1978).
• Saito, Y. (2004). The history of Japan’s educational development.
• https://www.jica.go.jp/jica-ri/IFIC_and_JBICI- Studies/english/publications/reports/study/topical/educational/pdf/educational_02.pdf
• Selden R., Widdowson P. & Brooker P. (2005). A Reader’s guide to contemporary literary theory (5th Edition). London: Longman.
• Shimada Toshihiko (1963). Taiheiyō sensō e no michi: Kaisen gaikōshi. Nihon Kokusai Seiji Gakkai Taiheiyō Sensō Gen'in Kenkyūbu. 太平洋戦争への道:　海戦外交史．日本国際政治学会太平洋戦争原因研究部Volume 2. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Sha.
• Spivak, G. C. (1987). In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. NY: Methuen.
• Sugihara, K. (1997). The Economic Motivations behind Japanese Aggression in the late 1930s: Perspectives of Freda Utley and Nawa Toichi. Journal of Contemporary History, 32(2), 259–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/002200949703200208
• Takagi, C. (2009). From postmodern to post bildungsroman from the ashes: An alternative reading of Murakami Haruki and postwar Japanese culture (Diss). The University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
• Wilson, Sandra. (2002). The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931—33 (London: Routledge. pp. 1– 11.Yokoyama, M. (2006). (日本における外国人児童生徒の教育) Nihon ni okeru gaikokujin jidou seito no kyouiku. Kokusaigakubu Kokusaigakka, 1-24.