The Tsou People Under Japanese Rule Essay
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GPR 209
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History
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Nov 24, 2024
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The Tsou People Under Japanese Rule Essay
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The Tsou people are one of fourteen aboriginal groups in Taiwan. They live in the mountainous areas of the Chiayi, the Nantou, and the Kaohsiung counties. The Tsou people experienced a dramatic change during the Japanese colonial period in terms of their lifestyle, economic activities, and culture. This paper discusses the concept of Orientalism, Go-between, and cultural hybridity. This paper will explore the following questions: Why was Japan itself an orientalist? What role did Tsou youths play in the colonial education system? And what were the motivations behind this role? What cultural hybridity occurred during this time? This paper will first talk about Japan’s Orientalism over the Taiwanese aboriginals. Later, it will analyze how Tsou youths played the role as a go-
between that led to the following changes: the emergence of a capitalist economy; the emergence of foreign popular cultures; the decreasing use of the Tsou language; the collapse of traditional social hierarchy, and social practices. At the same time, it will also analyze why Tsou youths wanted to play the role of go-between. Finally, it will discuss cultural hybridity. In conclusion, I will argue that Japan was an Orientalist based on its ideology and practices. The Japanese adopted the strategy of assimilating the younger generation of the Tsou people through education that greatly affected the Tsou people in terms of their lifestyle and culture. Most importantly, Tsou youths were the go-between between the Japanese and the older generations of the Tsou people. The reason why Tsou wanted to play the role of a go-between is that they wanted to “connect” to mainstream Japanese society. Therefore, they pursued “modernity” (grew cash crops, spoke Japanese, listened to Japanese popular music, played western sports games), “science” (destroyed the witch class, stopped practicing tooth extraction), and economic benefits (spoke Japanese, grew cash crops, stopped practicing headhunting and cultural hybridity was that they liked to dance while
singing Japanese popular songs. Evidence from Tsou students’ diaries, lecture notes, and letters are used to support the arguments.
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Orientalism
During the Japanese colonial period, Japan had its Orientalism. The Japanese had two types of Orientalism: One is the ideology, and another is the approach (practices). For the ideology, the Japanese had their stereotype and bias against the Taiwanese aboriginals (including the Tsou people) that the Taiwanese aboriginals were uncivilized. Therefore, they should be civilized. As Edward Said says, “The Orient is seen as separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive… The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.” Said’s words say that the West had been stereotyped and biased against the East. In 1868 the Meiji Emperor waged the Meiji Restoration and westernization. Japan fully adopted western technology, cultural, military, political, and legal systems. Japan became a mighty country, and it defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). Since China was defeated, China was forced to cede Taiwan and a huge indemnity to Japan. Since then, Japan has become the only non-west major power in the world. The Japanese felt proud, and they looked down on other Asian people. For example, in 1896, the Japanese colonial government sent an article to the Japanese central government that “The Gaosa (the Taiwanese aboriginals) had no civilization at all… What they have are all childish things: tattoos, headhunting, witchcraft…” This colonial government’s report shows that the Japanese are biased and had a
biased and single image that the Taiwanese aboriginals are savages. Another example is that novels which depict the images of the Taiwanese aboriginals were very popular at that time in Japan. These novels’ authors had never been to
Taiwan, but they all depicted the Taiwanese aboriginals were evil that they loved headhunting and practice witchcraft to curse the Japanese. These novels’ biased
opinion shows that the Japanese had Orientalism in their mind.
Despite ideologies, the Japanese also have their Orientalism in terms of practice.
Since 1895, the colonial government started to hire Han Taiwanese who could speak at least one aboriginal language (most of them were traders or Qing officials) to teach Japanese anthropologists aboriginal languages. The Japanese colonial governments then ordered these anthropologists to visit native tribes and
take photos of the aboriginals to gather first-hand information about native cultures. Besides, the colonial government also ordered anthropologists to translate aboriginal texts that were written in Latin alphabets by educated aboriginals (the Presbyterian church’s missionaries went to Taiwan since the mid-19th century, and they taught Taiwanese aboriginals to use Latin alphabets to write their languages because Taiwanese aboriginals had no written system). Once the aboriginal texts were translated, and photos were taken, the Japanese then asked Japanese scholars to edit Japanese perspective textbooks for the Taiwanese aboriginals and established compulsory public schools for the Taiwanese aboriginals, Fan Ren Gong Xue Xiao. Both the textbooks and aboriginal schools were used to civilize the Taiwanese aboriginals for the purpose of colonial rule to reduce natives’ resistance against the Japanese. Therefore, the process that the Japanese did was to understand the native culture first and then translate native texts, and finally control the knowledge of the Taiwanese aboriginals (Similar to what Kapil Raj and Bernard Cohn argument that the British studied, and then translated Indian languages and texts
to control the knowledge of the Indians.) Edward Said says, “Orientalism is a Western-style for dominating, reconstructing and having authority over the Orient.” Said says that Orientalism is westerners’ reconstruct and control over the
East. Therefore, Japanese colonialism is a type of Orientalism in terms of its practices.
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Go-Between
During the Japanese colonial period, Tsou youths played the role of go-between. Go-between means “a person who acts as an agent between two people or more
in a transaction.”The following seven paragraphs talk about Tsou youths’ role as a go-between in different aspects of social changes. It will focus on explaining why Tsou youths wanted to play the role of go-between.
The first change was in economic activities. Before the Japanese colonial period,
men went hunting for wild boar, bird, deer, fish, and hare. Women grew rice in shifting cultivation. Tsou women usually worked on a piece of farmland for 18 months, and then they worked another piece of farmland for farming. Colonial education played an important role in the change of economic activities from shifting cultivation and hunting to sedentary farming. Firstly, teachers taught students that hunting, gathering, and shifting cultivation were uncivilized. For example, a student’s dairy said the following in 1918: “My friends and me feel sad that we (the Tsou people) are so backward”….Mr. Komoto (a Japanese teacher) said the following in the class: “The earliest human beings lived for eating. They did not have any spare time to develop their civilizations. Those barbarians were childish, and they did not know the benefits of sedentary farming… We are humans so we should behave differently from animals.” This shows the Japanese used the excuse of modernity to urge Tsou youths to change their economic activities. Secondly, Japanese teachers promoted the benefits of sedentary farming. For example, a Tsou boy wrote the following in his diary in 1923: “Today, Mr. Minoru told us the importance of sedentary farming. Mr. Minoru said that sedentary farming is not only a symbol of modernity, but it also improves the economy of our