Japanese Identity Essay -- Japan Culture History Essays

lacquerese IdentityThroughout its history, Japan has striven to define its content identity non by its own means, but by those predefined by foreign, and around recently, Western powers. Despite legends of the is bring in archipelago being created by the sun goddess Amat termsu, Japan seems to have consistently maintained a indecisive self-image with respect to its neighbors. In the past, China had represented the pinnacle of culture and technology and had bigly influenced some other surrounding countries in Asia and in the world. Indeed, Japan owes its written language to merchandise and adapted Chinese characters. Without question, China remained for a long time the virtually influential force upon Japan. However, island nation maintained a rather shaky self-identity How could a estate like Japan, which was supposedly created by the gods and therefore a divine nation, consider itself the apex of the world, given Chinas tremendous influence and power? Could Japan truly con sider itself the greatest land in the world if China, or Chugoku in Japanese, literally meant the central country? For this reason, Japan never truly accepted a position of belong to Asia. That is, despite a considerable amount of imported culture, Japan was mollify somehow inherently different from other Asian countries. So, if Japan does not belong to Asia, does it belong to some other amorphous collection of nations, namely Europe or the West? Certainly in the modern post-WWII era Japan has seen phenomenal economic growth, even to the point of threatening the US as the primary global economic power during the height of the ruffle economy. Some credit this success to the changes implemented during the US occupation. Undoubtedly without US assistan... ...th can be seen walking around in some of the most bizarre looking clothing. I once saw a preteen girl wearing a swan dress not contradictory the one worn by Bjork. I have seen some of the mop fashion faux-pas, with severely c onflicting colors, completely mismatching styles of the top, bottom, and shoes, makeup seemingly make by a five-year-old. As one might like to bank that these styles were mistakenly created by the individual(a), it is clear that they are intended, whether for shock value or for personal satisfaction. It seems as though in places such as Harajuku, the to a greater extent unique, the better. While Miyake seemed to have far reaching consequences for Japanese identity on the international level, Kawakubos constant questioning of societal norms helped foster individual deviations, thereby creating a new identity which, ironically enough, is not particular to or by itself.