Nanyo-Orientalism: Japanese Representations of the Pacific By Nao ...

country or area), cultural modernization did not take place as a direct copy of Western models; rather, it produced “Nanyo-Orientalism” as an “excuse” for Japan's inability to assimilate perfectly into the West or to absorb perfectly Japan's neighboring areas into itself.

Nanyo-Orientalism depicts Nanyo as primordial chaos to be reclaimed or liberated from Western rules by the Japanese. Yano Ryukei's fictional work Ukishiro monogatari (The story of the floating-castle, 1890) can be taken as one of the earliest examples. The allegorical story represents both traditional and modern worldviews in justification of Japan's incomplete self-colonization. The protagonist, Kamii Seitaro, joins a battleship called the Ukishiro that is bound for Madagascar, which has yet to be colonized. (The protagonist's given name “Seitaro” indicates “pure Japanese man,” and the story suggests that his surname is related to the fabulous first Japanese emperor, Jinmu.) Kamii, a poor young man, comes to life again as a samurai-like hero through his contact with the ship's captain, or “his lord.” The captain and crew members, including Kamii, annihilate cannibals, drive away a Dutch fleet, and domesticate meek Nanyo islanders. Often labeled a “political novel,” this work can also be described as a fictional version of books called nanshin ron (the discourse of southward advance), which were written around 1890 by samurai descendants like Yano who no longer held significant political power. Such nanshin ron advocates include Shiga Shigetaka, Taguchi Ukichi, Suganuma Teifu, and Suzuki Tsunenori. These books highlight uninhabited, or uncivilized, islands in Micronesia and Southeast Asia as places that remain to be colonized and cultivated by the Japanese. Emigration to Nanyo, preceding Ezo (renamed Hokkaido), was regarded as an important way for samurai descendants to get out of financial trouble and as a solution to the Japanese population problem.