By Neil Hogan
Until this course I used to associate the word ‘Asia’ with people of an oriental appearance and a culture influenced by Japan and China. I soon learnt that India and some other countries are also included in the West’s idea of Asia. In Western textbooks, the word ‘Asia’ is used to collect multiple countries under a single umbrella, yet Asia is not homogenised. “A zone of cultural and political plurality, in which a vast array of migrations, imaginings, representations and discourses are constantly bumping up against political and cultural borders” (Edwards, 2017, p64). It’s actually not definable as ‘Asia’ is constantly changing, continually being shaped by societal expectations, beliefs, attitudes and definitions.
My choice of Asian Popular Culture as an extension course was due to the need to understand Asia better, as I plan to retire in Japan. I spent some time in Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong (SARPRC), and mainland China, searching for something uniquely Asian, though I experienced them all through the prism of a guidebook and a phrasebook, staying in places where both English and the native tongue is spoken. Everything around me was identifiable and supportive, with similar methods of exchange such as cash, cards and ATMs. Transport systems used almost identical card scanners or payment systems to the West, vehicles operated the same, and even road rules were not difficult to work out. Essentially, the semiotics (symbolism) were the same and no decoding was needed to understand the broader cultural codes. People in the city areas were even wearing the latest fashions from New York and Milan. And, in most places, I was able to play Pokémon Go using the local Wi-Fi networks – a popular phone game based on a Japanese anime using maps of the world available in almost every country. Asia had been westernised, overrun with popular world culture, making it more accessible to someone like myself who not only wasn’t Asian, but completely clueless at the time that this isn’t how an Asian country should be.
But I also realised something else. A flow of influence must have been happening from West to East, being adopted by the people there and changing their society. If they chose to become a new Asia, who am I to disagree? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas, yet more as a hedonist than an observer. Never have I analysed like Arjun Apadurai who suggests things have changed due to increasing globalisation transforming the five areas of society such as the technology landscape (technoscape) that influence transnational cultural flows. His five main areas – ethnoscapes, technoscapes, ideoscapes, financescapes and mediascapes. In essence, if I had wanted to see the real Asia, I should have travelled 200 years ago. It was far too late, now.
But I still wanted to find something completely alien to my culture and customs. The real Asia, so to speak. The idea that humanity was so homogenised and identical no matter which country was visited, while comforting, did not have any appeal to me. Were we destined to become bland, identical sheep, mindlessly working to death chasing pieces of plastic with a monetary value, as per the Frankfurt School of thought? “Culture is determined by the production & organisation of material existence” I disagree with that stance. There had to be something new out there, and Asia was as different as I could identify from my culture as any other. “It gives you the sense of culture as something you learn, perhaps without really being aware of it, yet it shapes your awareness of everything around you and how you react to things.” (Wark, 1997)
As I frowned at the ferris wheel and theme park slide that adjoined the Great Wall of China tourist trap, I felt disheartened. It was then that I believed I was only ever going to see the Western face of the East, and not truly find an exotic alienness completely different to myself. Perhaps the Asian Popular Culture course at RMIT could help me identify the real Asia underneath the façade. However, “the knowledge of Asia, is in some sense a possession of the West,” (Milner, 2002) suggesting that there is no actual ‘Asia’ at all.
Was there a country where I could finally find something that was really Asian? I decided to start with Japan. My search took me across the country to Niigata where I took a ferry to the low-population island of Sado. (Hogan, 2015). There I found something that could be considered uniquely Japanese, and perhaps decidedly Asian. A form of transport called a tarai-bune, a tub boat that moved by swinging a stick like a pendulum in the water in front of it. Physics seemed to reject that these could travel, or that they were even able to move a person, but I soon realised that making a figure eight movement with the front oar created a propelling turbulence under the tub. This was most definitely a uniquely Japanese experience. I’d found something unencumbered by the views of the West and I was ecstatic.
Spurred on by this discovery, when I returned to Australia, I researched further and found that Japan also claimed a unique society called the Itako – blind women living in the icy wastes of Mt Osore, in the Aomori prefecture, that could speak to the spirits of the dead. (Zanetta, 2016). A well-kept secret, the Itako, for me, also represented something uniquely Asian; uniquely Japanese.
I believe these enabled me to finally peer through the westernised veneer into the real essence of Japan. I’d finally found something Asian. But then, thanks to the Asian Popular Culture course, I realised, it wasn’t that it was representative of Asia, it was that it wasn’t representative of the West. This finally clarified for me that there really is no such thing as Asia. It is a purely Western concept to make these countries easier to categorise. Perhaps it would be better, if talking about the region, to refer to them by location such as ‘Countries near the North Pacific Ocean’. But I know it’s too late. ‘Asia’ has been accepted worldwide. Perhaps the only answer for me then is to always try to find the real individual culture hidden under the West’s nomenclature and influence.
References
Appadurai, A., 1990. Disjuncture And Difference In The Global Cultural Economy. Middlesbrough: Theory, Culture and Society, pp.295-310.
Edwards, D., Ho, L. and Choi, S., 2017. Media, Mobilities and Identity in East and Southeast Asia: Introduction. Cultural Studies Review, [online] 23(1), p.64. Available at: <https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v23i1.5494> [Accessed 31 August 2020].
Hogan, N., 2015. Tarai-Bune Rides (Tub Boat Rides) Ogi Area, Sado Island, Niigata, Japan. Video. – Travel Wine Food. [online] Travel Wine Food. Available at: <https://travelwinefood.com/tarai-bune-rides-tub-boat-rides-ogi-area-sado-island-niigata-japan-video/> [Accessed 31 August 2020].
Walton, S., 2017. How The Frankfurt School Diagnosed The Ills Of Western Civilisation – Stuart Walton | Aeon Essays. [online] Aeon. Available at: <https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-frankfurt-school-diagnosed-the-ills-of-western-civilisation> [Accessed 31 August 2020].
Milner, A. and Johnson, D., 2002. Faculty Of Asian Studies: The Idea Of Asia. [online] Openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au. Available at: <https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/41891/1/idea.html> [Accessed 31 August 2020].
Wark, M., 1997. The Virtual Republic. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, p.19.
Zanetta, M., 2016. Meeting An Itako: Nakamura-San | Japan Soul Traveler. [online] Japan soul traveler. Available at: <https://www.mariannazanetta.com/2016/06/02/meeting-an-itako-nakamura-san/> [Accessed 31 August 2020].