The Western Invasion of Japan: Belief and Tradition in Colliding Cultures

Readers and social historians alike often view literature as a product of its culture and a source of information for its time. Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters certainly provides its readers with insight into Japanese culture through the lives of four Japanese sisters living in Osaka, Japan just prior to World War II. While the women are a part of a traditional culture that is vanishing with the emergence of Western influence, Japanese belief still plays a large role in the lives of these aristocratic women. The novel conveys through these women that the Japanese responded to the Western invasion in two contrary ways: by embracing the West and by reviving their non-Western identities through the renewal of time-honored Japanese practices.

During the late 1630s, Japan enforced a seclusion policy that forbade the Japanese to leave Japan and restricted the country’s relations with the rest of the world. The policy was most frequently referred to as the sakoku, meaning “closed country.” This terminology, however, was not coined until the early nineteenth century when the West began once more to include Japan as a result of the development of steam navigation, an innovation that put no territory off limits to ships. In 1844, King William II of Holland sent a letter to the shogun of Japan “warning him that the quickening pace of world events made the continuance of the Japanese policy of national seclusion both unwise and untenable.” Although the issue of the seclusion policy was debated among the Tokugawa officials, they did not act in response to the letter of the Dutch king. However, in the summer of 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry was dispatched by President Millard Fillmore to attempt to open commercial relations with Japan, and he succeeded as Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Friendship. Two years later, Townsend Harris secured a commercial pact that opened some Japanese ports to trade. Not too long after, other European nations also secured trade agreements with Japan, and Western influence was soon infiltrated into Japanese culture.

Approximately twenty years after Japan engaged in commercial relations with the West, the introduction of a modern school system in Japan began in 1872; the institution of this school system is “the first and most striking example of Westernization in the non-Western world,” and the transformation of the education system became the key to modernizing other areas of Japan. The law of 1872, best known in America as the Fundamental Code of Education, “represented a positive response to Westernization.” However, the transformation of Japan’s education did not immediately occur with the passing of this law. For twenty years, there was a “period of trial and error during which various educational systems and modes of thought were tried and discarded” as a result of Japan’s attempt to “develop their own approach to modernization.” In 1890, modern Japanese education became stabilized and was the first major step toward the modernization of Japan; however, when a non-Western society attempts to discover their own path to modernization, “it faces a situation in which the choices are not simply between West and non-West but are complicated by the dissonance between heterogeneous elements with the West itself” (Tradition and Modernization). Japanese education looked for a model of an educational system in France, Germany, Holland, England, America, and Russia, countries which all had different educational systems and philosophy. While the education system became a compilation of these various influences, “French influence was dominate,” a fact which the novel validates by its many references to France and French education. Many Japanese citizens saw the new school system as a challenge to Japan’s cultural authenticity, a fact that is evident by the long delay in the establishment of the new education system because of the search for a distinctively Japanese pattern of development.

Set in the 20th century, The Makioka Sisters presents the struggle to remain “uniquely Japanese” despite the Western invasion of Japanese culture. The novel does not provide an East meets West moment, as the text begins with the Japanese people already influenced by the Western world. The text reveals this cultural merging through the lives of the Makioka sisters who eat at Chinese restaurants and delve into the latest European culture and fashion. One of the sisters, Yukiko, is described as a “thoroughly Japanese lady” on the surface because her dress, appearance, and speech are “so Japanese.” However, it is Yukiko that studies French and “understood Western music far better than Japanese.” On the other hand, Taeko, who is the most Western in appearance, makes authentic Japanese dolls and performs the traditional Osaka Snow Dance. Yukiko and Taeko both embody the cultural battle between East and West that Japan was facing. Just as Japan attempted to put a Japanese mark on the emerging Western traditions to make these traditions somehow their own, Taeko and Yukiko are both combinations of authentic Japanese elements and Western culture, suggesting that being entirely Japanese or entirely Western is impossible. Toward the end of the novel, the sisters even struggle to find something that is “uniquely Japanese” for a farewell present “that would please foreigners.” Both the novel and the history of Japan reveal a desire to find something “distinctly” and “uniquely” Japanese in a Westernized Japan, but both also suggest the difficulty of this feat.

Despite the cultural changes in wardrobe and food, many of the characters’ beliefs did not change with the influx of the West, a fact, which suggests an external change in culture, is far easier than an internal one. In 1875, Four years after the new French-influenced school system was put in place, Fukazawa Yukichi, a leading advocate of modernization, wrote of the challenges in the process of Westernization: “In civilizations one can distinguish two types of elements—those things which are externally visible and those of the spirit which dwell within. External civilization is easy to adopt but to seek internal civilization is difficult.” The Makioka Sisters reveals this to be true. The novel contains several moments that reveal Japanese belief as the Makioka sisters speak of omens, taboos, and luck. What can be deemed by readers as superstition in the novel is not just superstition but rather beliefs that actually dictate the women’s actions and lives. Sachiko thinks her sister Taeko’s being photographed “in the middle” of her, Etsuko, and Teinosuke is an “unhappy omen,” “horrid memorial,” and “a little frightening.” The characters also believe certain years are “bad years.” According to the family, one of the reasons Yukiko has no luck in finding a husband is because she was born in “the Year of the Ram.”

Finally, the characters uphold the religious beliefs in Japan prior to World War II. They practice Shintoism, a religion that emphasizes respect for nature and rituals in sacred sites. The novel does not contain many “religious” instances; in fact, even when a death occurrs, the characters do not pray or practice any form of religious ritual. Throughout the novel, the sisters visit both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, acts which accurately reveal the presence of both religions in Japan. The sisters’ beliefs, which determine their actions and many of their life decisions, are the one thing that does not reflect the influence of Western culture and remains “uniquely Japanese.”

At one point in the novel, Itani comments to Mrs. Makioka about how clever the young wives have become at such a young age and “how fast times are changing.” While Itani is correct that the times were changing for Japan, the moments in the novel that convey the characters’ beliefs in Japanese customs and traditions reveal that changes in dress, accent, or cuisine are not indicative of a wholesale change of outlook or belief. Even with all of the modern advances entering Japan, Japan did not become “Westernized” to the fullest extent but rather the country sought to bring “Japanization” in place of Westernization to the country; in other words, Japan attempted to become more Western using ideas and traditions that were “uniquely Japanese.”

--Alisha Tynes, UWF Student