"The more I put on an invincible appearance, the more domineering I am, the more respect these people who emphasize appearance and ritual will respect me... Time will tell you the truth. ”
U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry said of the Japanese. In 1853, in order to force Japan to open its doors, he led four heavily armed warships into The Gulf of Tonkin.
The ships of Perry's fleet were called "black ships" because of their pitch-black hulls. Since then, the "black ship" has become a metaphor for Western thought in Japan
In the face of the ominous roar of steam ships at sea, the Japanese samurai lined up on the shore, no one knew what was happening outside the country, and the only certainty was that the sword in his hand was no match for the strong ship cannon of the "Citi foreign ghost".
This scenario is very similar to the situation china faced in the early 19th century, except that the Japanese replaced the war with virtual and vicious negotiations and successfully dragged the negotiations into an impasse. But when Perry sailed again a year later, nine ships appeared at sea, and the larger number of cannons on board delivered a clearer message than the last time, and the two sides signed the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Goodwill.
The Japanese want to gain respect with grand pomp and circumstance, but these are not deterrent in the eyes of the Americans
This "Black Ship Incident" profoundly changed The History of Japan. If China was once the center of its wisdom, then when the old order could not adapt to the "new morality" of the new century, anxious Japan quickly turned the hull and worshiped the Docks of the West.
Yoshida Shoin, whom Liang Qichao called "the first achievement of Japan's restoration," asked the Americans to take him on a ship to see the Western Ocean. In this regard, Perry, who has always regarded the Japanese as a frog at the bottom of the well, wrote objectively: From the strong intellectual curiosity of Japanese young people, we can judge what possibilities are in the future of this interesting country.
Fukuzawa Yukichi
Fukuzawa Yukichi, an educator who was later long printed on Japan's ten thousand-dollar banknotes, regarded Japan's neighboring China and South Korea as a great misfortune in his "Theory of Detachment": "The two countries are ignorant, and the Westerners say that I am the same... If you leave the ranks early and join hands with the Western countries, and treat the other two countries, you can be like the Westerners. Therefore, our country is bound to reject this evil neighbor of the East from the mind. ”
These countries, where "mountains and rivers are exotic, the wind and the moon are the same as the sky", have become "evil neighbors of the East" for a time, and the Japanese have avoided them. In Creating Japan: 1853-1964, author Ian Bruma summarizes this "flexibility" as marginality in Japanese culture. Replacing one imported idea with another, the Japanese have not encountered psychological obstacles from the history that has already occurred.
Cultural elites like Natsume Soseki have warned Japanese society that digesting Western civilization too quickly could lead to a collective mental breakdown
By contrast, Western thought has a more damaging impact on Chinese ethics, Chinese takes longer to dissolve it, and in the process, the Japanese, who are gradually benefiting from new wisdom, see a highly seductive possibility. Beginning with the Battle of Kaso-Wu in 1894, Japan fantasized like a madman about unrealistic "causes."
Despite being seen as a moderate, reserved people, Japanese history has often been dominated by radicalism and hysteria. And every time they do something bad, the Japanese can always find a way to reassure themselves about their evil deeds.
Kiryu, the protagonist of Kiyoshun Suzuki's "Elegy of Violence", always thinks of fighting with others
In the 1930s, the sculptor Kotaro Takamura wrote in a poem to Chiang Kai-shek: "My motherland Japan is not destroying your country, sir, we are only destroying anti-Japanese ideas." ”
By 1941, the news of the successful attack on Pearl Harbor made the literary critic Keno Okino write excitedly: "All the inferiority of a colored person from a backward country in the face of white people in developed countries disappeared in an instant." ”
Beneath these veiled formulations, Japan is really driven by deep anxiety, as Ian Bruma puts it, "overconfidence, fanaticism, deep inferiority, and sometimes obsession with national status—all of which have influenced Japan's modern history," which are both the cause and effect of anxiety.
"Belly Cutting" on the Japanese Stage
From "Washi Hancai" to "Washi Soul Foreigner", the japanese soul has never changed, and anxiety lingers like a ghost. In the more than 100 years since the "Black Ship Incident", Japan has experienced a series of shocks and great changes, such as the Fall of the Curtain Movement, the Meiji Restoration, the Russo-Japanese War, the War of Aggression against China, the Tokyo Trial... Anxiety sometimes brings glory to the country, and sometimes sends the nation to the end of the road.
After World War II, the Japanese government, which was taken over by the United States, implemented a series of reforms in many aspects of social, political, and economic life, and in just over a decade, Japan achieved miraculous reconstruction and rise in the ruins. By the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Japan seemed to have become a whole new country.
1964 Tokyo Olympics
8,000 peace doves are released in the brand-new gymnasium, as if Japan had never been fierce in a world war. A young man from Hiroshima who was born on the day of the atomic bombing lit the Olympic flame as if Japan were the victims of the war.
Describing the athletes' entrance ceremony, a small poem in the local newspaper read: "One after another, ninety-four flags in all; some of them may have met on the battlefield." ”
"Indeterminate"? It's not so much implicit as it is ambiguous. As the Emperor phrased in his edict on the end of the war, "The enemy has recently used cruel bombs to kill innocent people... It is difficult to endure what you want to endure, and it is difficult to endure, thinking that it is the peace of all worlds. ”
In 1972, China and Japan normalized diplomatic relations. In the decades since, Chinese has been trying to look at Japan with forgiveness, after all, whether you love it or hate it, it is there, a neighbor who always has to come.
The more people who have been to Japan, the more goodwill there is. We regard Japan as a quick textbook, not stingy and overflowing, some praise is right, some are misread, but it is not a big deal, it is better than condescending, just like Mu Xin said, the cultures of China and Japan are intertwined, it has always been Japan to learn China, China does not learn Japan, in fact, it is a loss, it is long overdue to give back to Japanese culture.
However, a good neighbor should not throw dirty water into the community, and it is still poisonous dirty water, which is harmful to others and not to themselves. Moreover, Japan is a lame debater, and the words it says to itself have never convinced anyone.
Indeed, for Japan, which has brought suffering across Asia, the smartest thing to do is not to evoke old memories of its neighbors: That Japan is an abnormal country.