1st Edition

Japan in Australia Culture, Context and Connection

Edited By David Chapman, Carol Hayes Copyright 2020
    264 Pages 24 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    264 Pages 24 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge



    Japan in Australia is a work of cultural history that focuses on context and connection between two nations. It examines how Japan has been imagined, represented and experienced in the Australian context through a variety of settings, historical periods and circumstances.





    Beginning with the first recorded contacts between Australians and Japanese in the nineteenth century, the chapters focus on ‘people-to people’ narratives and the myriad multi-dimensional ways in which the two countries are interconnected: from sporting diplomacy to woodblock printing, from artistic metaphors to iconic pop imagery, from the tragedy of war to engagement in peace movements, from technology transfer to community arts. Tracing the trajectory of this 150-year relationship provides an example of how history can turn from fear, enmity and misunderstanding through war, foreign encroachment and the legacy of conflict, to close and intimate connections that result in cultural enrichment and diversification.





    This book explores notions of Australia and ‘Australianness’ and Japan and ‘Japaneseness’, to better reflect on the cultural fusion that is contemporary Australia and build the narrative of the Japan–Australia relationship. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian, Japanese and Japanese-Pacific studies.





    List of figures



    List of tables



    Acknowledgements



    List of contributors



    Prologue: Celebrating Japan in Australia



    ALAN RIX



    1 Japan in Australia, an introduction



    DAVID CHAPMAN AND CAROL HAYES



    2 Youthful first impressions: Tsurumi Kazuko and Shunsuke in Australia, 1937



    TOMOKO AOYAMA



    3 Forging an Australian artistic modernity: how Japanese woodblock prints informed Margaret Preston’s early paintings and prints



    PENNY BAILEY



    4 Japan-Australia friendship through bat and ball: the Yomiuri Giants’ baseball tour of Australia in 1954



    AI KOBAYASHI



    5 Japan at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics



    MORRIS LOW



    6 Japanese sleeping beauties abroad: Australian retellings of Kawabata Yasunari’s fairy-tale novella



    LUCY FRASER



    7 The irrepressible magic of Monkey: how a Japanese television drama depicting an ancient Chinese tale became compulsory after-school viewing in Australia



    REBECCA HAUSLER



    8 Nikkei Australian identity and the work of Mayu Kanamori



    TIMOTHY KAZUO STEAINS



    9 Trans-Asian engagement with Japan in/and Australia



    KOICHI IWABUCHI



    10 The Australian literary scene and Murakami Haruki: Nobel laureate heir apparent or marketing overhype?



    LAURA EMILY CLARK



    11 Why introductory Japanese? An Australian case study



    CHIHIRO KINOSHITA THOMSON



    12 Mobility and Children Crossing Borders



    IKUO KAWAKAMI



    Coda



    ROGER PULVERS



    On the streets of our town



    VERA MACKIE



    Index

    Biography

    Dr David Chapman is Associate Professor of Japanese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Queensland in Australia. His research interests include history, identity and citizenship. He is the author of The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality (2016), coauthor of Koseki, Identification and Documentation: Japan’s Household Registration System and Citizenship (Routledge 2014) and author of Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity (Routledge 2007).





    Dr Carol Hayes is Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Studies in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Her research interests include literature, identity and language teaching methodologies and practice. She is the author of ‘Sashiko Needlework Reborn: From Functional Technology to Decorative Art’ (Japanese Studies 2019) and ‘Women Writing Women: "A Woman’s Place" in Modern Japanese Women’s Poetry’ (JSOA 2016), and coauthor of Reading Embraced by Australia: Oosutoraria ni Idakarete (2016).