A similar interest in detail might be found in the research reports
on the Taiwan aborigines written by Japanese officials in the initial
period of Colonisation. They were not professional bureaucrats, but
were temporarily employed for the research work. Though
not as vivid as Ennin's description, the reports surpass the plain
collection of norms and rules about customs. Though not written in
the form of a dialogue with informants, a part of the interpretation
is based on discussions with them. One can find later scholars with
a similar orientation. Shiratori Kurakichi (1865-1942) was a leading
figure in the foundation in Japan of a new tradition of research
into oriental history, using the modern historical methods which he
studied abroad. Though he was not an ethnologist, he also greatly
influenced Japanese ethnologists including Torii, since he was particularly
interested in the minority peoples on the periphery of Han China.
He also established a section for historical and geographical research
in the South Manchuria Railway Company. The quality and importance
of the data collected by the company has since been confirmed in re-studies
such as those by Philip Huang (1985: 34-46).
We can trace the appearance of an organisation of professional
anthropologists back to 1884 when the Japanese Anthropological Association
was organised by Tsuboi Shogoro, a physical anthropologist. Though
it was mainly a group of physical anthropologists,
ethnologically
oriented scholars and amateurs also contributed short essays to its
journal during the first few decades. Their miscellaneous interests,
or absence of interest in society were similar to those to be found
in British anthropology and ethnology at the time of the foundation
of their associations, in 1843 and 1863 respectively. The ethnologists
were more interested in the aborigines of Taiwan than the Han in Taiwan
or mainland China. Even though papers in the Tokyo Jinruigakkai
Zasshi (The Bulletin of the Tokyo Anthropological Society )
in the initial period were extremely short, we may be able to take
the number as representing the interests of the members. Between 1886
and 1935, twenty-five ethnological articles on the Han of mainland
China appeared in the journal or 3.4% of the total, compared with
90 on the Taiwan aborigines, or 12.5% of the total.
Torii Ryuzo (1870-1963) was the first professional anthropologist
and a pioneer who surveyed almost the whole region of East Asia, even
though his wide interests and research style did not produce a direct
successor. He made field surveys covering Japan, the
Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Southwest China, Northeast
China, Mongolia, Siberia, and Korea. After his brief survey on the
Liaodong peninsular (five months, 1895), his early fieldwork was conducted
in Taiwan (twenty-two months, in 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1900). Being
trained as a general anthropologist, his interests ranged over physical
anthropology, linguistics and archaeology. He was less concerned with
social organisation, even though some of his descriptions of the sinicised
aborigines on the east coast are pertinent to an understanding of
migrations and the relations between ethnic groups. His survey trip
to Yunnan (seven months in 1902 and 1903) shows the same tendency,
except that the use of historical material in Chinese begins to have
more weight. In later work on Northern and North Eastern China, he
concentrated more on archaeological research using historical documents.
By producing a general ethnographic record, his contribution to anthropology
may lie more in his role as a pioneer in the survey of East Asia,
presenting a broad view and lines of future advancement for research.
Some of his bold insights were shown to be true in the later development
of an East Asian archaeology. Also impressive are his clear and interesting
photographs (1,859 in all) which have been preserved on dry plates
and recently published.
North China was also an area that attracted Japanese anthropologists
when the Japanese Society of Ethnology was established in 1934. Some
ethnographies of minority groups started to be written based on fieldwork
by Japanese scholars. The expansion of the area
of interest followed the expansion of Japanese power. Though the two
seem to be closely related, it would not be true to conclude that
anthropologists were mobilised by colonial policy and served it directly
in the invasion of China. Most research was planned and conducted
on the initiative of scholars, even though they might be belong to
colonial research institutes or were funded by the government. Of
course we should not forget that the colonial situation hindered the
establishment of equal relationships between the researcher and informants.
But most of the research results were so academic as to be "useless"
for practical direct administrative and military use. The situation
was similar in Taiwan. As Mabuchi mentioned, the voices of anthropologists
were weak and often neglected by the colonial government in Taiwan.
Professor Utsushikawa, an anthropologist with field experience, stated
his opinions on building a modern community in a mountain area, paying
much attention to the environment and opposing government policy to
move the aborigines' villages closer to the plains. His ideas were
criticised as "desk-work comment ignorant of the scene"
(Iwaki, 1935: 324-329). This tradition of a lack of enthusiasm towards
government policy-making has continued to make the field of applied
anthropology unpopular in Japan.
The development of the study of minority groups in Taiwan and
in North China was halted by the Second World War, and the establishment
of the Communist government prevented fieldwork in mainland China
until the 1980s. This was critical in that it made it impossible
to conduct orthodox social anthropological research in most of China.
The weakness of Japanese research into China, however, was not simply
a result of this ban, as Taiwan and Hong Kong were still open. I think
the main reason was that Japanese anthropologists were more interested
in small-scale societies, given that ethnology had been the major
interest before the end of the World War II. It was only later that
research into the cultural and social anthropology of more complex
societies began to be more prominent. It is only recently therefore
that the study of Chinese society has become one of the major streams
within Japanese anthropology. Even until a decade ago, it occupied
only a minor position, even though interest in China has been historically
important among the Japanese in general.
Next let us consider the main developments in studies of minority
groups and the Han Chinese in each region.
The anthropological study of the Taiwanese aborigines was initiated
by Torii's research in 1886, the year following the colonisation of
the island by the Japanese. His monograph (1902) was the first to
be written by a professional anthropologist in Japan.
The
description focuses more on physical than on social data. Rather more
interesting ethnological data are to be found in some of his travel
sketches and in his photographic documents. His interpreter, Mori
Ushinosuke (1917) compiled a general description of Atayal. A historian,
Ino (1904), using mainly documentary sources, described how the aborigines
had had contacts with the foreign powers and other inhabitants of
the island since pre-Dutch times.
The Japanese colonial government carried out extensive research
on the natural environments, customs, social organisation, and oral
traditions of seven ethnic groups of Taiwan aborigines. They were
published in two series of eight volumes each by the Taiwan
Sotokufu (colonial government) from 1913-1921 and 1915-1922. Even
though this research was not conducted by professional anthropologists
or other social scientists, their detailed description covers a wide
area with few distortions created by a ready-made theoretical framework,
so that even today we can treat some of their material as reliable
data. This is in contrast with another series of eight volumes compiled
by Okamatsu (1918-1921), a famous jurist of customary law at that
time and the organiser of the research project. He arranged these
materials and based his interpretations on the evolutionism popular
at that time. The outdated content now attracts few anthropologists,
while the other two series are full of descriptions of customs that
not even the aborigines can now remember. The colonial government
also published some reports containing detailed statistical information
on each village (Taiwan Sotokufu, 1936-39). Teikoku Gaukushiin
( 1941) is a glossary of local concepts concerning customs
compiled by Mabuchi Toichi. Based on his experiences among all the
aboriginal groups in Taiwan, its quality can be compared with that
of the survey of Indonesia compiled in Leiden. Some essays were written
by those who were not anthropologists but who visited the villages
of aborigines to record their customs (Koizumi Tetsu, 1932; Kawamura
Tadao, 1939). Of these Ando Kiichirou (1930) is the most unique, depicting
the contrast of cultural configurations between a dispersed village
of the Atayal and a compact village of the Bunun.
The academic study of Taiwan by professional anthropologists was
given a firmer foundation in 1928 when a department of anthropology
was founded at the Imperial University of Taipei. The work by Utsushikawa,
Miyamoto, and Mabuchi (1935) is an ambitious attempt
to reconstruct ethnohistory based on data which were collected by
three professional anthropologists visiting most of the villages of
all of the nine groups. Besides the reconstruction of genealogies
and the history of migration, the analysis is full of social anthropological
insights. Though carried out as a piece of extensive survey research,
the relations between anthropologists and informants were close enough
to allow the collection of good-quality data. For example, I remember
that Professor Mabuchi could remember all the names of the older villagers
on the spot when he revisited my research village after thirty years
absence.
Mabuchi Toichi was a leading figure whose works linked the study
of Taiwanese aborigines with the stream of modern western anthropology.
He explicitly stressed the importance of maternal kin and affines
in patrilineal societies (1938). When the analysis of
non-unilineal descent was developed in the 1950's, he understood its
importance and used it to interpret Taiwanese data (1960). Furuno
Kiyoto (1945) is a description and analysis based on a short field
study which focused on religion and ritual among aborigines. He was
much influenced by Durkheimian sociology and his discussion is well
balanced. Okada Yuzuru (1942) is a sociological ethnography based
on a field survey.
After the end of the Second World War, Mabuchi Toichi edited a
special issue to review the study of the aborigines of Taiwan (Japanese
Journal of Ethnology , vol.18, 1954) and he continued to write
papers based on his previous field materials from a structuralist
perspective (Mabuchi, 1966, 1970).
The anthropologists in the next generation began fieldwork from
the middle of the 1960's. The results were Kurata (1970), Suenari
(1970, and chapter 13 of this book), Matsuzawa (1976), Yamaji (1980,
1990), Kasahara (1980), and Mabuchi Satoru (1982). So far,
two monographs based on longer fieldwork have been published (Suenari,
1983c, Shimizu, 1992). The topics have mostly been classical: kinship,
villages, age grades, the life cycle and religion. Although some studies
have dealt with the processes of change, greater attention will have
to be paid to these, using historical documents, if we want to analyse
successfully the aboriginal experience of radical change, moving from
small-scale subsistence to post-industrial society in a single century.
In summary, detailed records of the customs of these minorities
were accumulated mainly by non-professional researchers. After the
establishment of a department of ethnology at Taihoku University in
1928, the methods and themes became more sophisticated and
some of the papers started to reach an international level. After
an empty two decades following the end of World War II, one can see
an increasing number of studies by the following generation. But they
do not seem to have taken full advantage of the past to become involved
with interesting current issues in the discipline. One of the major
reasons might be that most of them were written in Japanese, and this
has restricted Taiwanese aboriginal studies to a smaller audience
and a narrower range of interests.
The customs of the Tungus tribes were investigated by Kondo Juzo
as early as at the beginning of the 19th century. He made a field
survey along the Amur River (1924 [1804]). Torii carried out nine
surveys in Manchuria (the present northeastern region of China)
between 1895 and 1935. His wife Torii Kimiko lived with her husband
in Inner Mongolia as a teacher. Her record of travel gives more ethnographic
description than the work of her husband who was more interested in
archaeology at that time.
Akiba Takashi (1936a, 1936b) is a concise but accurate description
of the social structure and shamanism among the Orochon based on his
fieldwork. An academic expedition to the Great Xing-an Mountains produced
a few pioneering anthropological works by the leader
Imanishi Kinji (1947) and by Imanishi together with Ban Yutaka (1948).
This work is to be noted for its unique analysis based on their field
data of the ecosystem of the Orochon. (The second part was not completed
due to the death in the war of the main author, Ban.) The study of
Akamatsu Chijo and Izumi Seiichi (1938) is the only monograph on Hodgen
written by Japanese anthropologists based on their fieldwork. Even
if the accumulation of ethnologically valuable records had started,
the War deprived researchers of the possibility of fieldwork and ended
this development. It is only since the late 1980's that some field
surveys have become possible again. Hatanaka Sachiko and Harayama
Akira (1990) is a collection of ten short papers, including a description
of the daily life of the Man royal family. Sasaki Shiro (1990) discusses
the ethnicity of the minorities during the Qing period based on documents.
Konagaya (1991) focuses on the relationships between people and domestic
animals in the spring season. Since this area is restricted for foreigners,
Chinese anthropologists have many more advantages in their access
to it. A few graduate students from China are engaged in fieldwork
there.
Kawaguchi Ekai (1904) wrote a kind of ethnography based on his
experiences during his travels and stay in Tibet in 1901-02. It contains
a vivid and detailed description of the customs and institutions of
Tibet at that time. Torii (1926) is a record of a journey
of a journey to Yunnan (January 1902 to March 1903). On this trip
he also made more reference to documentary history.
Some scholars, for example Makino, Shiratori Yoshio, and Matsumoto
Nobuhiro have reconstructed ethnic histories, including those of the
neighbouring area, based on documentary sources. Makino (1950) compared
social institutions among the rice cultivating peoples
in Southeast and East Asia and noted the absence of clan exogamy among
the indigenous peoples in South China.
The possibility of fieldwork has gradually opened up since 1979,
when a group of Japanese ethnologists visited Southwest China. Many
of the studies of Southwest China are strongly coloured by the search
for the roots of Japanese culture. Obayashi Taryo (1977)
has long since noted that the area south of the Yangtze river is one
of the major areas from which the southern elements of Japanese culture
came. Some scholars (Nakao Sasuke, Sasaki Komei) have put forward
a theory called shouyoujurin bunkaron which relates
the conspicuous cultural similarities between Southwest China and
Japan to similarities in ecological conditions. It is based on the
fact that in these areas there exists similar vegetation, laurisilvea
forests or shouyou jurin . However, the causal relationships
are not clearly spelled out, whether cultural similarities are due
to the similar natural environment, or to cultural diffusion through
historical processes. Sasaki Komei (1984) is the result of a group
survey by the National Museum of Ethnology, including botanists and
an ethnomusicologist.
Ethnicity has become more popular theme, which reflects the shift
in interest towards the cultures of individual ethnic group at present.
Kurihara (1989), Yokoyama (1992), Hasegawa (1993), Tsukada (1994),
and Zeng (chapter 15 of this book) all discuss ethnic
identity in a situation of rapid change. Some papers such as Tezuka
(1990) or Yokoyama (chapter 11 of this book) are more sociologically
oriented.
Taiwan Sotokufu (1910) was compiled as part of this research.
It cites many cases from original documents. It indicates the high
academic standards of historians of Japan and Taiwan and is of such
historical value that anthropologists interested in historical
change can also greatly benefit from it.
During the colonial period there were much fewer anthropological
studies conducted on the Han Chinese than on the aborigines. Taiwan
Sotokofu (1919) is a compact report full of information on the traditional
religion of the Han Taiwanese. Ino (1928) compiled
a general history of Taiwan. Kataoka (1921), with a good command of
the vernacular, compiled a collection of descriptions of customs.
Masuda (1939) and Suzuki Seiichiro (1934) collected information on
Taiwanese religious customs. Ikeda (1944) was a constant visitor to
a old section of Taipei and described the folklore and customs of
the Fujian inhabitants. Okada (1937) carried out a sociological survey
and his concept of the "religious sphere" was developed
by Taiwanese anthropologists after the end of the Second World War.
None of these authors were professional anthropologists. At that time
Japanese anthropologists were oriented towards the study of the "primitive",
though a physical anthropologist, Kanazeki, left some good essays
on the Han Chinese. Kokubu Naoichi carried out archaeological excavations
and some studies of the ancestral rituals of the sinicised aborigines
on the west coast of the island (1968, 1981). Some Japanese and Taiwanese
scholars and intellectuals tried to preserve Taiwanese customs and
traditions against the assimilation policy instigated by the Japanese
government in the 1940s. They published Minzoku Taiwan
(Taiwanese Folklore). Kanazeki Takeo was a leading figure and Ikeda
did the editing. Their mild opposition toward the policy, however,
provoked discontent from more radical Taiwanese, as is found in their
criticism of the nature of the editing of the Journal.
After the end of the Second World War, it was only from the late
1970s that Japanese anthropologists began to carry out research on
Taiwan once more. Some were published based on short periods of research
such as Kani (1970) on fishing on a small island off
the coast of Taiwan, and Matsuzono (1973) on a lineage trust in Taipei.
Wang's study (1967) of a fishing village in Taiwan was the only study
based on long term fieldwork.
Ishida (1979, 1985) is a collection of his sociological surveys
of the Han Chinese in Taiwanese villages, and of village shrines.
His perspective is in line with traditional theory that sees community
solidarity as focused on the village shrine. Suenari Naoe (1967) is a collection of folklore data he collected during
his stay in Beijing in the 1940s. Nakao Katsumi (1989) is a restudy
of one of the villages that the Chugoku Noson Kanko Chosakai investigated.
Sasaki Mamoru (1993) attempts to construct a theory
of social structure and change based mainly on his five years of joint
field research in northern China (1990, 1991).
Nie (1992) is a monograph based on seven months of fieldwork.
Her description of the process by which party policy has permeated
the village and lineage down to the level of family and individuals
is especially vivid. She deals with local concepts such as the
"closeness" of relationships of which the native anthropologist
is likely to be particularly aware.
Fukuda (1992) is the result of joint research by folklore groups
in Japan and China. Compensating for the disadvantage of short stay
research by visiting the same villages three times every year, they
have succeeded in collecting not only information on folklore,
but also some sociologically interesting data, as is shown by Oguma's
work (chapter 8 in this book).
Han (1993) is a monograph on a village dominated by a single lineage
in Anhui Province. Using rich data, she delineates the process of
change caused mainly by outside political and economic influences.
Even though in general she argues for the continuity of
the traditional culture, she notes important changes in the position
of women, the Christianisation of some of the villagers, and the revitalisation
of the lineage and affinal networks (see chapter 5 in this book).
Tanaka (1993), a historian, discusses the antecedents of the Han
Chinese theatre based on his field data from Central and Southern
China supplemented by data from minority groups in Southwest China.
The quality of the field data and the full command of documentary
materials would be a good starting point for future anthropologists
wanting to use this work as a basis for their own research based on
participant observation and longer-term fieldwork.
It was only in the 1980's that more anthropologists of the younger
generation began to be involved in Chinese studies in Japan. In the
early 1980s some young anthropologists wrote papers based on library
work and studies in other fields. An important development
was the formation of a study group "Sen'nin no kai" (lit.
"Society of Mountain Hermits"), a group of younger scholars
and students interested in China, at whose monthly gatherings a research
report is followed by free discussion. Appendix 1 is the list of topics
of these reports which reflects well the range and direction of the
interests of the younger scholars in Japan. It is important that these
meetings are attended not only by anthropologists but also by many
scholars from related disciplines. Even though the main interest is
sociological and ethnological, history and archaeology are also popular
and various related areas such as folklore, linguistics, geography,
etc. are also covered. In addition the area discussed is not limited
to China, but includes neighbouring regions and their relations with
China. Many of these reports have led to later publications. As an
area of interest, Southwestern China is the most popular followed
by Taiwan and Hong Kong, despite the fact that it was, and still is,
difficult to carry out long-term fieldwork in the People's Republic.
The group's strong interest in comparative studies has meant that
papers have also dealt with other countries such as India or Korea.
The group is an inter-college organisation, with the secretary changing
every year. This is reflected in the range of places in which workshops
have been held. In order of frequency they are: the University of
Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Sophia University, Musashi University,
University of the Sacred Heart, Hosei University, Keio University,
Tokyo University of Foreign Languages, and Nippon University.
Table 1.1. Subjects of reports to Sen'nin no kai , 1981-93
Table 1.2. Areas discussed in reports to
Sen'nin
no kai , 1981-1993
Besides Sen'nin no kai, two other study groups have been active
in Chinese studies: Chugoku Minwa no Kai (Chinese Folklore Research
Group), started by Iikura Shohei, in the department of Chinese literature
at Tokyo Metropolitan University; and Tsukuba Daigaku
Hikaku Minzoku Kenkyukai (Tsukuba University Comparative Folklore
Study Group) organised by Sano Kenji of the Department of History
and Anthropology at Tsukuba University. The former publishes a Newsletter
and the latter publishes a journal, Comparative Folklore Studies .
More temporary study groups have also been organised. To mention
some examples, for three years (1987-1990) a workshop was organised
on the Han Chinese and their neighbours by Takemura Takuji and the
results were published as Han
Chinese and Their Neighbours: Essays in the Comparative Study of Ethnic
Identity , by the National Museum of Ethnology at Osaka. Workshops
on Hong Kong and on the Overseas Chinese were organised by Kani Hiroaki
at the Center for Area Studies of Keio University. The published results
are Hong Kong oyobi Honkon mondai no kenkyu [Studies
of Hong Kong and the problem of Hong Kong], Tokyo: Toho Shoten, 1991.
This present volume is also the first publication to result from the
workshop on "Cultural Dynamics between the Han-Chinese and the
surrounding Minority Groups" (Kan minzoku to shuuhen shousuu
minzoku no bunka no sesshoku to henyou ) organised by Mio Yuko
at the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and
Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
1. First there is the persisting interest in facts and detailed
description which I mentioned at the start of the paper, and this
might be one of the major reasons why British social anthropology
has long been so popular in Japan.
2. Second, though there has also been a long tradition of
interest in "grand theory" among Japanese intellectuals,
there are differences in emphasis when compared with the West. Even
though most of the theoretical frameworks which have become popular
in the
West over the years have been sooner or later taken up in Japan as
well, some have been less popular than others. An interesting case
is that of Marxism. Even though many social scientists in Japan have
long been interested in Marx, anthropologists have been generally
less so. An interesting example is the writing of Ishida Eiichiro
who played a leading role in founding an American-style department
of cultural anthropology in the University of Tokyo after the end
of the Second World War. He sympathised with Marxism during his university
student days but later became critical of its doctrinaire attitude.
Even when Marxism once more became popular in Europe and North America
after 1968, it still had relatively little impact in Japanese anthropology,
compared with, for instance, French structuralism and modern cultural
theory. During this period, many of the Japanese anthropologists concerned
with China remained more involved with empirical than grand theoretical
issues.
3. Compared with other foreign scholars of China, many of the
Japanese anthropologists have been less interested in lineages, in
spite of the influence of what might be called the "Freedman
model", and more interested in other types of social relationships.
This may be because many of the young researchers chose to do their
fieldwork where the strength of lineages was relatively weak. This
resulted in a stress on the importance of affinal ties (Ueno, 1987a),
fictive kin (Horie, 1988) or loosely structured business groups (Numazaki,
1987, 1989). Wang (1985, 1987 and this volume) suggests that the Chinese
family might be more aptly viewed as a network of relationships rather
than a corporate group with a fixed boundary. Segawa (1986) points
out that the lineages of a smaller scale also have corporate features,
even though they lack common property. Suenari discusses the importance
of the distinction between the family altar and the ancestral hall
as analytical concepts, while the customary usage of the word "ancestral
hall" as a wide blanket category tends to blur the distinction.
4. Many Japanese anthropologists have focused on the issue of
local and regional solidarity. This debate can be traced back to heated
discussions of typical "Asian communities" among Weberian
and the Marxist historians and other social scientists in Japan.
A popular viewpoint was that there existed widely in Asia a type of
community distinguished by strong social solidarity supported by a
communal religious centre. Some criticism arose of this model because
of its absence in communities such as those in northern China described
in the Mantetsu data (i.e. the data collected by the South Manchuria
Railway) or in central China, as exemplified by Fukutake (1946).
5. Related to this issue is the discussion of the effectiveness
of the concept of the religious sphere as an analytical tool. This
concept, which refers to the regional significance of groups of people
who cooperate in holding a central religious festival,
was originally used by Okada (1937) and re-evaluated by Taiwanese
anthropologists. Segawa (1987), Kikuchi (1991) and Suenari (1991)
have commented on ways in which the concept may be used most effectively.
The examples discussed by Choi (1988) and Ueno (1992) also show the
importance of religious activities in transcending village boundaries.
6. Ethnic identity and the sinicisation of neighbouring minorities
has been a popular theme in Japan, particularly in Chinese studies.
Many studies have been carried out of the relations between minority
groups and the Han Chinese, and here "sinicisation" may
be the most important theme. Shimizu (1989, 1991, and chapter 14 of
this volume) discusses the influence of the Chinese on ancestor worship
among the Kvalan, a sinicised group in Taiwan and has found that among
the Kvalan personal and bilateral kinship structures are more important
than among the Puyuma who have ambilineal descent groups as well as
bilateral kindreds (Suenari, 1970, and in this volume). Yokoyama (1992,
and in chapter 11 of this volume) considers the impact of relations
with the Han on both Bai religion and kinship. Segawa (1992, and chapter
12 in this volume) deals with ethnic boundaries based on fragile and
delicate criteria. This case is interesting not only for throwing
light on the nature of ethnic identity among minorities, but also
on the identity of the Han groups, including in this case the Hakka.
His paper also raises the possibility of finding non-Han elements
in Han Chinese culture.
7. At present Japan has many graduate students from other East
Asian regions such as mainland China, Taiwan and Korea. One can recognise
a tendency for them to choose the society of their own for research,
even though the frequency is not so high as it is in
the United States. There are both strengths and problems with "anthropology
at home" and these have been discussed by Suenari (1992b). Some
cultural elements are so close as to allow the observer a direct understanding,
which may be an advantage as long as there really is a similarity
between the cultures of the observer and the observed, but it may
prevent us from seeing important differences, or misunderstanding
them, if there is only a superficial similarity, and one must be cautious
of this danger. Only by making an effort to understand similarities
and differences at a deeper level will one prevent such unconscious
mistakes.
The issue of the strengths and weaknesses of home anthropology
is particularly important in the study of East Asian societies which
share many cultural elements, mostly as an outcome of the influence
of Chinese civilisation. The very presence of differences
of emphasis among scholars from different backgrounds may itself lead
to some interesting results. For example, Chinese anthropologists
seem to show a keener interest in macro-level political processes,
on a wider scale, while Japanese scholars seem to show more interest
in describing concrete facts than developing grand theory. There are
as yet few Korean anthropologists working in Chinese societies, but
it will be very interesting to see in future how they observe and
describe these societies, given the background of their own cultural
tradition.
8. As for studies comparing different East Asian societies, Nakane
(1973) was the first systematic attempt to do this from an anthropological
perspective. Comparisons based on field data have also been made by
Suenari (1989) between China and Korea and by Segawa
(1991a) between China and Vietnam. Vietnam would be an interesting
test case for many hypotheses about social institutions in East Asia,
for it shares many different features of its cultural and social organisation
with China, Korea and Japan.
My view in this paper is that the study of China in Japanese anthropology
has some unique features. This is partly because Japanese researchers
have sometimes been rather passive, making little attempt to communicate
with scholars in the outside world. There
has been little incentive, given the cozy environment provided by
a large readership within Japan. However, a more positive feature
of Japanese research is its attention to detail. This is linked to
other advantages which Japanese scholars have had in relation to China,
such as geographical closeness, familiarity with the culture over
a long period, and the accumulation of work on China by Japanese historians
and scholars in related fields of study.
In writing this essay, I have been greatly indebted to the following
reviews: Mabuchi (1953), Takemura (1966, 1986), Kani (1986), Sasaki
Shiro (1990, 1994), Kurihara (1991), Nishizawa (1994) and Konagaya
(1994). The comments from Zeng Shicai and Yokoyama Hiroko
on an earlier draft were also helpful.
The Study of Minority Groups
TaiwanNorth China
South China
The Study of the Han Chinese
Taiwan
In the initial period of the colonisation of Taiwan (1895-1945),
the Taiwan Sotokufu assigned to jurists and historians the organisation
of a special committee for research into the customary law of Taiwan.
Judging from the published results, the research seems
to have been conducted on the initiative of these academic figures,
even though the object of the research was to benefit colonial policy.
The research was so successful that the result became a basic resource
for Japanese colonial policy on the mainland.
North China
The work of the Chugoku Noson Kanko Chosakankokai (Chinese
Rural Customs Survey Research Group, 1952-58) has also been a good
source of vivid data for anthropological studies in Japan, even though
no anthropologists participated in the research. The data were
detailed and of good quality, enabling the reader to cross check some
of them. The field experience enabled participants to write papers
that are also familiar to anthropologists, even if they wrote from
within their own disciplines. The influential leader, Suehiro Gentaro,
a jurist, stressed that the objective of the field research was to
discover the grass roots customs of the peasants, rather than prepare
basic materials for administration. Another reason for its success
in producing results which are also useful for anthropological research
might have been that the methods of jurists share some similarity
with those of anthropologists, e.g. in the holistic coverage and the
interplay of case material with generalisation.
Central China
Even though there was very little anthropological research in
Central China, some studies deal with various topics worth further
study. Hayashi (1953) is a sociological monograph of a village in
Zhejiang based on his field survey carried out over six visits
between 1939 and 1943. Fukutake (1946) also made a field survey in
the area and stressed the weakness of lineage and village solidarity
in Jiangsu Province. He concluded that group solidarity is more conspicuous
in lineage and hamlets in Northern China, citing mainly data from
the rural customs survey discussed above. Ueda (1986) presents an
interesting model of how individualistic Chinese group together in
response to outside power such as the state. Nishizawa's study (chapter
three of this book) raises some issues concerning internal migration.
South China
Few Japanese anthropologists have conducted field research in,
or published on, this area. This seems strange, considering that this
area seems to be more open to foreign researchers since the start
of the open door policy than central or northern areas. Nakada
(1989) discusses lineages, and Suenari (1992), and Segawa (chapter
12 in this book) present data collected during short visits.
Hong Kong
The work of Kani (1970) is on the Tan on the coast of Hong Kong.
Though it does not contain anthropological case studies, it does describe
the process of change and adaptation to modern world. Naoe and Kubo
(1987) is a collection of papers on religion and ritual
among overseas Chinese in southeast Asia. Tanaka (1981, 1985, 1989)
analyses the origin and development of Chinese folk opera. Though
written by a historian, these studies are in line with anthropological
work in that they are based on field data, including the author's
observations, and they consider many other factors such as lineage,
dialect groups and markets. Segawa (1991b) is the first Japanese anthropological
monograph of this area, based on orthodox fieldwork. It is unique
in studying smaller lineages in the New Territories within a historical
perspective. Segawa (1993) has also discussed ethnicity among the
the Hakka, based mainly on his own fieldwork. Yoshihara (chapter 7
of this volume) has studied surname associations among the Hong Kong
and overseas Chinese.
Overseas Chinese
The anthropological study of the overseas Chinese is also a new
development in Japan. Kawasaki (1984, chapter 10 of this volume) analyzes
an overseas Chinese village in Malaysia and traces its relations with
the homeland in Chao-zhou (Kawasaki 1991). Zeng (1987)
describes the Bon ritual held by overseas Chinese in Japan and points
out clear differences from the original. Kubo (1983) is a group report
on religion among the Taiwanese in the Ryukyu Islands. Oguma (1989)
discusses changes in identity among the same people. Yoshihara (1991)
investigates the associations of overseas Chinese in Hong Kong in
relation to their native place on the mainland. The issue of the relations
between the overseas Chinese and their homeland is systematically
discussed in a symposium organised by Kani (1992).
Study groups and trends among younger researchers
While Japanese anthropologists began to conduct fieldwork in many
areas since the 1960s, even a field survey in China was almost impossible
until the open door policy was implemented for foreign researchers
in the early 1980s. Chuugoku Tairiku Kobunka Kenkyuukai
(Group for the Study of the Ancient Culture of Mainland China) was
organised in the early 1960s. The first volume of its journal contains
papers by major figures: Shiratori Yoshio (1965) on the ethnohistory
of South China, Obayashi Taryo (1965) on cultural history, Kimishima
(1965) on folk tales of minority groups, Ogawa Hiroshi (1965) on the
leader of minority group of rebels on the border between Vietnam and
China, and Takemura Takuji (1965) on the Yao. The research group functioned
until the early 1980s.
Social Anthropology 48
Ethnology 34
Folklore 2
History 6
Archaeology 7
Linguistics 2
Geography 2
Others 3
Total 104
China General 23
North China 9
Central China 2
Southern China 4
Southeastern China 2
Southwestern China 28
Hong Kong 5
Taiwan 10
Japan 4
Thailand 4
Southeast Asia 4
East Asia 1
Others 8
Total 104
Discussion
Are there distinctive features of Japanese anthropology which
distinguish it from research and writing elsewhere?
Acknowledgements