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Pro-colonial or Postcolonial? Appropriation of Japanese Colonial Heritage in Present-day Taiwan

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  • Yoshihisa Amae

Abstract

Since the end of World War II, the Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang) government has erased all traces of Japanese rule from public space, deeming them “poisonous†to the people in Taiwan. This frenzy, often termed “de-Japanization†or qu Ribenhua in Chinese, included the destruction and alteration of Japanese structures. Yet, with democratization in the 1990s, the Japanese past has been revisited, and many Japa-nese structures have been reconstructed and preserved. This paper examines the social phenomenon of preserving Japanese heritage in present-day Taiwan. It mainly investigates religious/ spiritual architecture, such as Shinto shrines and martial arts halls (Butokuden), war monuments and Japanese statues and busts. A close investigation of these monuments finds that many of them are not restored and preserved in their original form but in a deformed/ transformed one. This finding leads the paper to conclude that the phenomenon is a postcolonial endeavour, rather than being “pro-colonial†, and that the preservation of Japanese heritage contributes to the construction and consolidation of a Taiwan-centric historiography in which Taiwan is imagined as multicultural and hybrid.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoshihisa Amae, 2011. "Pro-colonial or Postcolonial? Appropriation of Japanese Colonial Heritage in Present-day Taiwan," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 19-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:gig:chaktu:v:40:y:2011:i:1:p:19-62
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    File URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jcca/article/view/403/401
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jacqueline Elfick, 2011. "Class Formation and Consumption among Middle-Class Professionals in Shenzhen," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 187-211.
    2. Yoshihisa Amae & Jens Damm, 2011. "“Whither Taiwanization?†State, Society and Cultural Production in the New Era," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 3-17.
    3. Tanguy Le Pesant, 2011. "Generational Change and Ethnicity among 1980s-born Taiwanese," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 133-157.
    4. Amae, Yoshihisa, 2015. "A Japanese engineer who became a Taiwanese deity: Postcolonial representations of Hatta Yoichi," SocArXiv 94my3, Center for Open Science.
    5. Yin C. Chuang, 2011. "Divorcing China: The Swing from the Patrilineal Genealogy of China to the Matrilineal Genealogy of Taiwan in Taiwan’s National Imagination," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 159-185.
    6. Green, Frederik H., 2017. "All Under Heaven KANO: The Politics of Nostalgia and the Making of a New Taiwanese Identity in Wei Te-sheng’s Taiwan-Japan Trilogy," SocArXiv j8253, Center for Open Science.
    7. Jens Damm, 2011. "Taiwan’s Ethnicities and their Representation on the Internet," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 99-131.
    8. Lutgard Lams & Xavier Liao, 2011. "Tracing “Taiwanization†Processes in Taiwanese Presidential Statements in Times of Cross-Strait Rapprochement," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 40(1), pages 63-98.

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