Diaspora and Gender Identity in Asia - Research Paper Example

 Diaspora and Gender Identity in Asia DIASPORA AND GENDER IDENTITY IN ASIA People commonly identify themselves with a nation, an ethnic group or state. National identity is believed to be a central component of a person’s conception of selfhood. National identity is however, an ambiguous category for many members of minority immigrant communities the world over. Gender identity seems to be an even more basic component of a person than their national identity, but this too in many people seems to be flexible. In this essay we shall discuss two amorphous national identities, that of the Korean Diaspora in China and the Korean Diaspora in Japan and two amorphous gender identities, that of the male actors who impersonate females in traditional Chinese and traditional Japanese theatre. THE KOREAN DIASPORA IN CHINA AND JAPAN Many sociologists believe that the presence of a national, ethnic or religious identity is an important for a person’s self esteem. Researchers have found that the presence of inter-group bias in a person is directly related to their self-esteem. People who have a strong belief that they belong to a particular group are likely to feel better about themselves and the more clearly a person distinguishes their in-group from the out-group, the more their self-esteem rises1. People feel a need to belong to one group or another; in the words of some sociologists, “Identity is a sense of uniqueness, of knowing who we are and where we stand2”. Yet for many minority communities achieving this sense of belonging and uniqueness becomes very difficult due to many different reasons. In this essay we shall examine and compare the national identities of two different Korean Diaspora communities; the Korean community in Japan and the Korean community in China. Aside from a similarity in outward appearance, Korean, Chinese and Japanese people share a certain cultural and ethnic heritage. China and Japan have long been ‘centers of civilization’ or ‘super powers’ in the East Asian region. Empires based in China or Japan has at various times in history occupied part or whole of the area comprising the modern day nation states of North and South Korea. At other times, governments based in Korean region have been satellites of Chinese or Japanese super powers. The Korean language and literature has been heavily influenced by the Chinese language and literature and even today some Chinese pictographs are used in conjunction with the phonetic Hangul writing system in Korea. Chinese language and literature have affected the Japanese language and literature in similar ways3. Another shared aspect of culture between China, Japan and Korea is that of religion. Buddhism is a major religion in all three countries and similarly the Confucianist system of philosophy and ethics has exerted enormous influence in the culture of all three nations4. However despite all this there is a strong national identity in each of these nations. Case 1: The Korean Diaspora in China The presence of huge numbers of ethnic Koreans in China has a relatively recent history. Large numbers of Koreans started immigrating to China to seek work and escape famine toward the end of the Joseon Empire, starting in the late nineteenth century. The number of Korean immigrants crossing the Northern border into China in the last two decades of the nineteenth century reached tens of thousands. In 1905, with the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, Korea, which had been a Russian satellite, came under Japanese influence. In 1910, the Japanese Empire formally annexed the Korean state and instituted authoritarian policies in the cultural, economic and political spheres. As a result of Japanese agricultural policies many Korean farmers were left without land and chose to immigrate to China, the greater part of them settling in the Yanbian province in North-Eastern China5. The Japanese Imperial government pursued a policy of industrialization in the mainland and in the conquered territories. In order to precipitate industrialization in the Chinese province of Manchuria, the Japanese Imperial government recruited thousands of Koreans as laborers and sent them there6. Another source of Korean migration into China was the Korean independence movement. Korean freedom fighters often fled to China to organize the independence movement7. The rise of Korean Nationalism occurred during and around the Japanese colonial rule from 1910-1945. The Koreans commonly believe themselves to have been one homogeneous and united people throughout history, but this has been recognized as a fiction arising from the Korean struggle for independence8. The number of people of Korean ethnicity living in China today is estimated to be around 1.92 million. Ninety-nine percent of the total Korean population in China resides in the North -Eastern part of the country. A large percentage of these Korean-Chinese, estimated to be about forty-two percent of the whole Korean-Chinese population, reside in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture located in the Jilin province, which borders North Korea which was founded by China in 1952. Another Korean autonomous region is the Changbai Korean Autonomous County also in Jilin. In addition 32 Korean Autonomous Villages exist in China9. The presence of Korean autonomous regions helps the Korean-Chinese maintain their culture and language. The governments of the autonomous regions are obliged to issue all official documents in both Chinese and Korean. The education system too, accommodates the cultural requirements of the Korean community. Education in the medium of the Korean language is available at primary, secondary and advanced level. Due to increased Han immigration, the proportion of the Korean ethnicity in Yanbian has been reduced to thirty-eight percent, with the Han Chinese forming the majority at sixty-two percent, despite this, the protected the Korean minority still has control of the local government and the Korean language and culture are given official patronage10. Early Korean immigrants, to the Chinese border regions with Korea, did not view themselves as Chinese people. Rather they viewed the lands they settled in as part of their extended ethnic homeland. They thought of themselves as a sort of permanent guests in an extension of their homeland11. This view underwent some changes when the Korean homeland was occupied by the Japanese, the Koreans who came to the region after the Japanese annexation in 1910 were part of the Imperial Japanese project of modernization that intended to create a “Great Asian Co-prosperity Sphere” under Japanese rule. These Korean immigrants were mostly forced or coerced into migrating in order to create a new ‘Japanese’ identity encompassing the Japanese all the Asian people colonized by the Japanese12. The Japanese government enacted policies which created ethnic tensions between the Chinese and the Koreans settlers in Manchuria. Ethnic conflicts between the two colonized people enabled the Japanese to control the two populations better through a divide and conquer strategy13. The Japanese attempted to nationalize all Koreans as Japanese citizens including those that were settled in Manchuria and in other parts of China not occupied by the Japanese. The Chinese government too, attempted to counter Japanese efforts to use the Koreans as leverage by encouraging the Koreans to adopt Chinese citizenship. The Chinese government instituted policies restricting ownership of land to only those Korean who adopted Chinese citizenship, however despite the efforts of the two nations to assimilate them, by 1932 only fifteen percent of the Koreans had been naturalized. Many of the Koreans adopted Chinese or Japanese citizenships but continued to consider themselves as Koreans14. The Japanese attempted to use the Koreans to control the Chinese, many Korean communist who joined the Chinese communists in freedom struggle against the Japanese were executed in the suspicion that they were Japanese spies15. At the end of the Second World War, the Chinese communists soon gained control of the country. The communist leadership recognized the importance of resolving the tension between the different ethnicities of China. Under the General Programme for the Implementation of Nationality Regional Autonomy; the PRC formed the autonomous regions for minorities. The constitution of China, approved in 1954, also reinforced the status of Korean-Chinese as people living in their own land by proclaiming China a multi-ethnic nation16. The integrationist policies enacted during the Rectification Movement from 1957 to 1959 were a setback to Korean cultural autonomy and the strong position of the Koreans in China suffered a bloody blow during the tumultuous days of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ from 1966 to 1976. The Koreans were suspected of insurrectionary or rightist tendencies and thousands were executed, imprisoned or tortured. Many ethnic Koreans sought escape from the purges by fleeing to North Korea17. At the end of the Cultural Revolution the original minority policy, which allowed great cultural autonomy to the Korean-Chinese, was reinstated by the Communist leadership. In order to encourage education in minority communities, students from minority communities have been allowed to give entrance examinations to Chinese universities in their own languages, they are also admitted into Universities with below standard scores in the entrance tests. In addition minimum quotas for entry have been allotted to each recognized ethnic minority18. The first and second generation Korean immigrants to China were likely to see Korea as their ‘Fatherland’ and China as the land of adoption. This identification with Korea was primarily with the North Korean communist government rather than the American-friendly South Korean government. The third generation of Korean-Chinese is less likely to see themselves as Koreans. Most third generation Koreans are more likely to have studied at Chinese schools than ethnic Korean schools and are likely to be employed in Chinese-run businesses and companies, they tend to reject any notions of Korean superiority to the Chinese that their parents may have held19. A revival of Korean ethnic identity occurred with the enactment of the Chinese economic open-door policy in 1978. The Chinese began encouraging people of recognized “Chinese ethnicities” such as South Koreans to live and do business in China. South Korean business became established in China and the story of South Korean economic success has spread among the Korean-Chinese, while the image of the North Korean government as the true representative of the ‘fatherland’ has suffered due the increasing numbers of refugees entering China from North Korea, fleeing floods and famine However the Korean-Chinese’s enthusiasm for South Korea suffered greatly when the South Korean government, alarmed at the rising numbers of Korean-Chinese attempting to settle in South Korea, enacted laws excluding the Korean-Chinese from South Korean citizenship20. Case 2: The Korean Diaspora in Japan As we have mentioned previously, the Japanese Imperial government coerced and recruited Koreans to use them in their national projects. Some of these projects were in Korea, some were in other occupied territories such as Manchuria and others were in the Japanese mainland. The Japanese considered the Koreans to be barbarians but much closer to them than any other race of outsiders. They instituted a social order where the Japanese were first class citizens, the Koreans were second class citizens and the rest of the conquered people were third class citizens21. In the view of the Japanese, although the Koreans were better than the other conquered people, they were still beasts in a human form. Japanese writers portrayed the Koreans as lazy, amoral familists. The Japanese ambiguity regarding the Koreans can be seen in this caricature of the Koreans by a Japanese author: “Considering that the appearance and build of the Koreans and Japanese are generally the same, that the structure and grammar of their language are exactly the same, and that their ancient customs resemble each other's, you might think the Japanese and Koreans are the same type of human being But if you look closely [at the Koreans], they appear to be a bit vacant, their mouths open and their eyes dull, somehow lacking.... In their lines of their mouths and faces you can discern certain looseness, and when it comes to sanitation and sickness they are loose in the extreme. Indeed, to put it in the worst terms, one could even say that they are closer to beasts than to human beings22.” There are close to eight hundred thousand members of the Korean Diaspora living in Japan today. Most of these were those shipped to Japan, during the years of the Japanese occupation of Korea, often involuntarily. The number of Koreans who were shipped off to Japan in the colonial years formed around ten percent of the total population of Korea. Most of these were eventually shipped back to Korea at the end of the Second World War, but political uncertainty in the Korean peninsula and various other reasons prompted around six hundred thousand of them to stay in Japan23. Only a fraction of the Korean-Japanese has achieved Japanese citizenship, the majority of Korean-Japanese continues to retain their Korean nationality. The Korean Japanese face all sorts of legal and social discrimination in the Japanese society; these discriminatory practices include barriers to getting married, barriers in procuring employment and housing and barriers to participating in civil life24. In addition, the Korean people are looked down upon in Japanese society as an inferior racial element and are often the target of the right wing Japanese nationalists. In order to facilitate their interactions with the Japanese society, Korean-Japanese make use of ‘pass-names’ or Japanese sounding names that they use to pass themselves as ethnic Japanese in environments where they fear unfriendliness from the Japanese25. The Japanese government has enacted many barriers to the Korean-Japanese naturalization and integration into the society. Korean-Japanese who wish to be naturalized as Japanese citizens have to forego their Korean ethnic and cultural identity by such important socio-cultural identifiers as legally adopting Japanese names, this sort of heavy handed cultural imposition is rejected by a majority of Korean-Japanese who reject the acquisition of Japanese nationality as a betrayal of their Korean identity26. Members of the Korean Diaspora in Japan have four broad choices available to them; To attempt to assimilate into the society by adopting the culture of Japan as much as possible. Attempt to retain their ancestral identity as much as possible and form communities cut off from the mainstream. Attempt to create a hybrid identity and try to foster a tolerance for minority communities and cultures in Japan. A fourth option is that adopted by Korean-Japanese believers in Western-style individualism who emphasize person fulfillment and material achievement over political and social considerations27. The Korean Diasporic community is also severely divided into two opposite camps: those supporting the communist regime in North Korea and those supporting the capitalist regime in South Korea. The Japanese government’s relationship with two Koreas is fraught with tension especially the relationship with North Korea. Sixty-five percent of the Korean-Japanese who have not become naturalized citizens of Japan have membership in the Korean Residents Union in Japan or Mindan, which is an organization affiliated with the South Korean government, about twenty-five percent of the Korean-Japanese members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon, an organization affiliated with the North Korean regime28. The Chongryon runs a network of ethnic Korean schools in Japan where the children are taught to strongly identify themselves with the North Korean government as illustrated by the following passage from a Chongryon textbook for children: “Our country is called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Our Father Marshal built it and leads it. Our country is the most beautiful in the world. Our country is the most advanced in the world. People live there very happily29.” Chongryon educated Korean-Japanese have acquired a strong pride in their Korean heritage and have an unfavorable view of the Japanese as a result of learning about the Japanese occupation and the atrocities visited by the Japanese upon Korean people. They limit their interactions with the Japanese society and tend to work in Chongyron affiliated businesses, organizations and institutions30. The Mindan too emphasizes primary identification with mainland Korea, holding that the government of South Korea is the genuine government of the Korean ‘fatherland’. In contrast to Chongryon and Mindan, the Mintohren movement composed mostly of young Korean-Japanese deemphasizes the ‘foreign’ origins of the Korean-Japanese and attempts to defeat racism and discrimination in the Japanese society by increasing multiculturalism. Mintohren advocates an end to the use of ‘pass-names’ and tries to promote a society where the Korean-Japanese would be recognized as an essential element of the Japanese society and respected despite their different ethnic identity31. Conclusion The differences between the Korean-Chinese and the Korean-Japanese communities show that successful integration of a minority group into a society requires a respect for their culture. The fact that the majority of Japanese Koreans continue to be ‘resident aliens’ highlights the failure of the policy of enforced cultural conformity. It also shows that enforced cultural conformity may result in the rejection of the host society by the members of minority groups as in the case of the Chongyron organization. The use of the Japanese ‘pass-names’ by most Korean-Japanese, even those affiliated with the hyper nationalist Chongyron organization underscores the fact that a national identity is a fluid and malleable thing, speaking on the ‘Chineseness’ of the Chinese Diaspora Ien Ang says: “Central to the diasporic paradigm is the theoretical axiom that Chineseness is not a category with a fixed content-be it racial, cultural, or geographical-but operates as an open and indeterminate signifier whose meanings are constantly renegotiated and rearticulated in different sections of the Chinese diaspora32.” The changes brought on to the ‘Korean’ identity of the Korean Diaspora in China and Korea as well as their willingness to adopt a competing national identity for pragmatic reasons shows that ‘Korean-ness’ is similarly an indeterminate signifier. CONSTRUING THE FEMALE GENDER IN CHINESE AND JAPANESE TRADITIONAL THEATER The use of male actors to perform both male and female roles is a common practice in both Chinese and Japanese traditional opera. The tradition originally came about due to strict enforcement of the Confucianist ideals of separate social spheres for males and females but lead to the creation of amorphous sexual identities among its practioners. Case 3: The Tradition of the Male ‘Dan’ in Chinese Opera In traditional Chinese plays, the female roles are termed dan. The tradition of the male dan has ancient roots in China. Chinese historians have documented the existence of male actors playing female roles in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 219). In traditional Chinese opera, the exclusive use of male performers to portray female roles started with in the Ming dynasty, when the government, alarmed at the use of prostitutes to play female roles in theatres, placed periodical bans on the use of female actors in plays33. The boy male dan actors were selected for their feminity and their physical attractiveness rather than any artistic ability. These young actors commonly became the subject of the pederastic attentions of older men34. The older male dan actors advanced the art of female impersonation into a heavily ritualized and formally encoded system governing the articulation, the singing, the gestures and the movement of the actors35. The male dan actors were method actors who learned to identify themselves, internally as women while portraying females. Their conceptions of females were idealized or stereotypical female archetypes such as that of the ‘slut’, the ‘chaste housewife’ and the ‘noble woman’ etcetera36. Case 4: Female Impersonation in Japanese ‘Kabuki’ Theatre The traditional Japanese Kabuki theatres are performed by an all-male caste as well. Male actors play both the male and female roles. The fact that the actors are male allows them to verbalize and express sentiments that would be considered impolite or shameful coming from a traditional Japanese woman. In the words of the Japanese classical dramatist Chikamatsu: "In recent plays many things have been said by female characters which real women could not utter. Such things fall under the heading of art; it is because they say what could not come from a real woman's lips that their true emotions are disclosed. If in cases the author were to model his character on the ways of a real woman and conceal her feelings, such realism, far from being admired, would permit no pleasure in the work37." Thus the onnagata or male actors who portray females in traditional Kabuki theatre, portray women in greatly stylized ways, exaggerating female mannerisms in the way they walk, speak and in their body language38. According to the experts of Kabuki theatre and the Japanese aesthetes, the use of a male performer is necessary to express the idealized conception of a woman in societal imagination. In the words of the Japanese dramatist Zeami: "If a woman connives to make herself beautiful and expends efforts to manifest grace, her actions will be quite ineffective.... A woman never imitates herself. But if the real essence of a woman is given reality through an actor's performance, then the sphere of accomplishment represented by that woman has been portrayed39." The celebrated Onnagata of classical times, Yoshizawa Ayame expressed similar sentiments: "If an actress were to appear on the stage she could not express ideal feminine beauty, for she would rely only on the exploitation of her physical characteristics, and therefore not express the synthetic ideal. The ideal woman can be expressed only by an actor40." Conclusion The institution of female impersonators in traditional Chinese and Japanese theatre is quite similar. The rise of female impersonation as a highly developed art form demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese societies are not quite so gender stratified as is commonly believed. These performers think of themselves as a hyper-feminine synthetic gender that represents the true spirit or the essence of feminity. This reflects a general blurring of the gender lines especially in context of the performance. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ang, Ien. On not speaking Chinese: living between Asia and the West. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001. Brown, Ju, and Brown, John. China, Japan, Korea Culture and Customs. North Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing, 2006. Fukuoka, Yasunori. "Koreans in Japan: Past and Present." han.org. 1996. http://www.han.org/a/fukuoka96a.html (accessed May 27, 2010). Fukuoka, Yasunori, and Yukiko Tsujiyama. 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International Migration Review 26, no. 01 (Spring 1992): 4-21. Oh, Kong Dan, and Hassig, Ralph, C. North Korea through the looking glass. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000. Pronko, Leonard Cabell. Theater East and West: perspectives toward a total theater. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967. Robinson, Michael Edson. Korea's twentieth-century odyssey. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Ryang, Sonia. North Koreans in Japan: language, ideology, and identity. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Spinner-Halev, Jeff, and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. "National Identity and Self-Esteem." Perspectives on Politics, 2003: 515-532. Tian, Min. "Male Dan: The Paradox of Sex, Acting, and Perception of Female Impersonation in Traditional Chinese Theatre." Asian Theatre Journal, 2000: 78-97. Read More