Even before the Japanese first ventured abroad in the modern era, they came to understand that Shanghai was the closest and easiest way to learn about the wider world. They sent a series of missions abroad, most to Europe and several to Shanghai specifically. Virtually all of the European voyages called at Shanghai coming and going. Liu Jianhui shows what the Japanese saw in Shanghai and how they interacted with the Chinese.Liu then describes what he calls an informational network in East Asia whereby the latest scientific and political development from the West were written up in Chinese-language journals published by Protestant missionaries (with its hub in Shanghai) and how those journals circulated among Japanese as well. Shanghai was also the place that Japanese elites first learned about the modern printing press. Indeed, as Liu puts it, they first experienced “modernity” in Shanghai. And, he looks at the role of Shanghai in the opening of Japan.He shows how Shanghai went from being a place onto which Japanese projected their hopes to a place deemed the center of modernity and ultimately to the height of decadence (not necessarily a bad thing for many of them). It came to be dubbed the “demon capital,” and countless Japanese authors (from Meiji through WW II) set their fiction in it. Moviemakers, songwriters, and poets also saw fit to use Shanghai as a core theme.

Demon Capital Shanghai: The "Modern" Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

History

Jianhui, Liu

Asia

MerwinAsia

Even before the Japanese first ventured abroad in the modern era, they came to understand that Shanghai was the closest and easiest way to learn about the wider world. They sent a series of missions abroad, most to Europe and several to Shanghai specifically. Virtually all of the European voyages called at Shanghai coming and going. Liu Jianhui shows what the Japanese saw in Shanghai and how they interacted with the Chinese. Liu then describes what he calls an informational network in East Asia whereby the latest scientific and political development from the West were written up in Chinese-language journals published by Protestant missionaries (with its hub in Shanghai) and how those journals circulated among Japanese as well. Shanghai was also the place that Japanese elites first learned about the modern printing press. Indeed, as Liu puts it, they first experienced "modernity" in Shanghai. And, he looks at the role of Shanghai in the opening of Japan. He shows how Shanghai went from being a place onto which Japanese projected their hopes to a place deemed the center of modernity and ultimately to the height of decadence (not necessarily a bad thing for many of them). It came to be dubbed the "demon capital," and countless Japanese authors (from Meiji through WW II) set their fiction in it. Moviemakers, songwriters, and poets also saw fit to use Shanghai as a core theme.

Modern Japanese Women Writers as Artists as Cultural Critics

Modern Japanese women writers as artists as cultural critics is a subject that has not received adequate attention from Japan specialists in North America. Translated and discussed here are critical essays by three of the most innovative, outspoken, and provocative women writers in recent Japanese literary history: Yuriko Miyamoto (1899–1951), Saegusa Kazuko (1929– ), and Minako Oba (1930–2007) with the objective of, one, presenting a Japan that thrives in and on a multiplicity of voices, in contrast to its conformist image in the West; and, two, filling the critical need for English translations of primary sources aimed, in particular, at non-Japan specialists. The notion of women as “cultural critics” stretches back to the Heian era (797–1190 ce), and is notably exmplified by Sei Shonagon’s work The Pillow Book (992 ce), which, with its wit, barbed references, and no-nonsense comments on life around her, has become part of the Japanese literary canon. Her legacy reappeared after a long hiatus in the generation of women writers who swiftly took advantage of the “Taisho (1911–1926) Democracy.” The “Woman Question” debate in Japan today, which Japanese women view as a basic human rights issue, has been revisited by contemporary Japanese women writers who have also gradually developed a feminist credo that espouses the equality of men and women concomitant with the expansion of the emotional interaction and intellectual interchange between the sexes.

Literature & Fiction

Wilson, Michiko Niikuni

History & Criticism

Modern Japanese women writers as artists as cultural critics is a subject that has not received adequate attention from Japan specialists in North America. Translated and discussed here are critical essays by three of the most innovative, outspoken, and provocative women writers in recent Japanese literary history: Yuriko Miyamoto (1899-1951), Saegusa Kazuko (1929- ), and Minako Oba (1930-2007) with the objective of, one, presenting a Japan that thrives in and on a multiplicity of voices, in contrast to its conformist image in the West; and, two, filling the critical need for English translations of primary sources aimed, in particular, at non-Japan specialists. The notion of women as "cultural critics" stretches back to the Heian era (797-1190 ce), and is notably exmplified by Sei Shonagon's work The Pillow Book (992 ce), which, with its wit, barbed references, and no-nonsense comments on life around her, has become part of the Japanese literary canon. Her legacy reappeared after a long hiatus in the generation of women writers who swiftly took advantage of the "Taisho (1911-1926) Democracy." The "Woman Question" debate in Japan today, which Japanese women view as a basic human rights issue, has been revisited by contemporary Japanese women writers who have also gradually developed a feminist credo that espouses the equality of men and women concomitant with the expansion of the emotional interaction and intellectual interchange between the sexes.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Women in Japanese Cinema: Alternative Perspectives

By studying Japanese films and their associated literature, Tamae K. Prindle reveals the covert stories of Japanese women versus orthodox history. Fifteen films bring this theme into focus. "Mother," "Wife," "Prostitute," "Girl," and "Woman," represent categories the public used to code Japanese women in the pre-feminist age. Each chapter features three films depicting women in the premodern age, in the World War II period, and in late twentieth-century Japan, and each embraces the three films within the perspective of ecological feminism, sexuality, alienation, illusion, and power-over/power-to. Shedding light on cultural, historical and/or ideological backgrounds of the films under study in important new ways, this book breaks new ground in the study of women in Japanese culture.--Adapted from page 4 of cover.

Humor & Entertainment

Prindle, Tamae

Movies

By studying Japanese films and their associated literature, this book reveals the covert stories of Japanese women of various statuses and time periods in an exegesis of their story versus orthodox history. Fifteen films are studied to bring this theme into focus. They are: Imamura Shohei's The Ballad of Narayama , Naruse Mikio's Mother , Idemitsu Mako's Great Mother , Kinugasa Teinousuke's Gate of Hell , Kurosawa Akira's No Regrets for Our Youth , Kuwabata Kagenobu's Love and Lie , Toyoda Shiro's The Mistress , Kumai Kei's Sandakan Brothel  8 , Takahashi Banmei's A New Love in Tokyo , Nishikawa Katsumi's A Dancing Girl in Izu , Obayashi Nobuhiko's Chizuko's Younger Sister , Ichikawa Jun's Tsugumi , Mizoguchi Kenji's Life of Oharu , Itami Juzo's Tampopo , and Ishikawa Jun's Grass Fish on a Tree . The five chapters, ""Mother,"" ""Wife,"" ""Whore,"" ""Girl"" and ""Woman,"" represent categories the public used to code Japanese women in the pre-feminist age. Each chapter features three films depicting women in the pre-modern age, in the World War II period, and in late twentieth century Japan, and each embraces the three films within the thematic perspective of ecological feminism, sexuality, alienation, illusion, and power-over/power-to, respectively. The book sheds light on cultural, historical, and/or ideological backgrounds of the films under study in important new ways and breaks new ground in the study of women in Japanese culture.

In this collection of short stories, Ma Yuan tells enigmatic tales about an eponymous narrator's travels in Tibet that question the very meaning of "story" and our assumptions about meaning itself. Yang Xiaobin's introduction explores Ma Yuan's role as China's first postmodernist author. Ma Yuan's stories and novellas develop metafiction in synergy with Tibetan Buddhism's notion of the cosmos as an illusion. Ma Yuan is of interest for his cloaked allusions to the tortured relationship between Chinese and Tibetans. Where government propaganda portrays the Chinese as the liberators of Tibet, "Vagabond Soul" depicts Chinese economic exploitation of Tibetans--the Chinese narrator bribes a Tibetan beggar to steal rare a rare old Tibetan coin mold for the narrator to mold counterfeits. A Fiction" is a tongue-in-cheek allegory of the Chinese fascination with "primitive" Tibet: a Chinese narrator's love affair with a nubile Tibetan leper. An aficionado both of western postmodernist fiction and of traditional Chinese Daoism, Ma Yuan portrays the disorienting interaction of traditional Tibetan life and Chinese "modernization" so as to render absurd the rational premises of what we usually call "the modern world."

Ballad of the Himalayas: Stories of Tibet

Yuan, Ma

Tattoo: Three Novellas

Tong, Su

Genre Fiction

Cell Phone: A Novel

Popular TV host Yan Shouyi has it all: A great job, a loyal wife and a beautiful young lover. It all begins to unravel when he accidently leaves his cellphone at home one fateful day. Cell Phone is part comedy, part romance and part social commentary on the changing nature of Chinese society and the impact of technology on relationships. Beginning in 1968 in the protagonist’s childhood rural hometown, Liu’s fast-paced, contemporary tale takes us into the complicated family and social relationships of Yan Shouyi, telling a tale of friendship, love and betrayal. The cellphone becomes the “grenade” in this tale that dramatically “detonates” in the life of the main character―a telling tale in a country which is the largest user of mobile phones in the world. The book closes with an epilogue set decades earlier when communications were primitive and unreliable, but with remarkable similarities to the problems and pitfalls of the communication age illustrated in Liu’s modern-day story.

Zhenyun, Liu

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Books by MerwinAsia

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the MerwinAsia publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Demon Capital Shanghai: The "Modern" Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Demon Capital Shanghai: The "Modern" Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Modern Japanese Women Writers as Artists as Cultural Critics

Modern Japanese Women Writers as Artists as Cultural Critics

Women in Japanese Cinema: Alternative Perspectives

Women in Japanese Cinema: Alternative Perspectives

Ballad of the Himalayas: Stories of Tibet

Ballad of the Himalayas: Stories of Tibet

Tattoo: Three Novellas

Cell Phone: A Novel