Rose Colored
Glasses are not completely out of Fashion
By:
Yuki Allyson Honjo
Like
a new lover who sees only perfection in his mate, Britain experienced
a brief and intense period of infatuation when it first encountered
Japan in the 19th century. When reports first filtered back to
Britain, the London press was filled with descriptions of a "Faerieland"—an
unspoiled Eden, replete with women who had no shame in their nakedness.
Even the children of Japan were said to have cried less than those
in Britain. So willing were the British to don rose colored glasses
that some asserted that the Japanese did not physically resemble
the Chinese: it was even suggested that the Japanese were Semitic
in origin, possibly the Lost Tribe.
The observer's self portrait can be as telling as the account
of the object observed: unconscious prejudices and assumptions
are laid bare. British perceptions of the Japanese attest to the
Victorian convictions of race, physiognomy, and a willful persistence
to see the world as they thought it should be, not as it was.
Ian Buruma's book, The Missionary and the Libertine, Love and
War in East and West, bespeaks of savvy, sly, intelligent
observer. He skewers and dissects the movers and shakers of Asia,
as well as the "chatterati" who make their living commenting on
all things Oriental. The book is comprised of a number of essays
previously published in the New York Review of Books, all
loosely tied to the notional concept of "The East."
Buruma points out that both the present day "East" and "West"
co-opt the old chestnut of "the East as passive, feminine receptacle
of masculine Occidental vigour." The "West" has traditionally
defined itself by its Protestant work ethic and its missionaries
who go forth into the night to spread the doctrine of rationality.
The "East" is supposedly unchanging, childlike, emotive, and erotic—the
libertine.
In short, Buruma is required reading for all those who persist
on seeing Asia as some inscrutable "other"—a sort of dark
continent forever be locked in its own enigma. Neither the "West"
nor the "East" has a monopoly on carnality or reason: people everywhere,
he seems to suggest, are driven by their motivations and passions-greed,
lust, or altruism.
The author's subjects are at times infuriatingly diverse and can
be challenging to read: they flit from topic to topic in a bewildering,
but logically linked, array. The two dozen or so essays cover
quite a bit of ground: his chosen themes—"sex" and "power"—certainly
allow for that amount latitude. The self-contained essays range
from S&M in early 20th Japanese literature, Benazir Bhutto,
to the Hong Kong hand-over. The essays read like jazz riffs: alluding
and giving shape to the intangible, and fleshing out the most
elusive of associations.
One intriguing aspect of Buruma's book lies in his idea that the
"passive" Eastern libertine has its own story to tell. Buruma
also takes the idea of the supposedly feminine "East," the object
of the West's thrusting cultural and political expansion, and
turns it on its head-even in this day and age, it has a disquieting
effect. In the chapter, "Mircea Eliande, Bengal Nights" he presents
us with both sides of the old love story, "young, romantic Westerner
falls in love with the mysterious Oriental girl and, through her,
with mysterious Orient, only to bang his head on the prison wall
of exclusive Oriental customs." Mircea Eliande, the "young, romantic
Westerner" of this story fell in love with India and the teenage
daughter of his professor, presumably in that order. The love
affair goes awry, and the now older, wiser, romantic young man
writes of his affair in a best selling novel. Forty years later,
the object of his love, Maitreyi Devi, published her version of
the story. This "primitive and irrational creature" love who,
in his version, looked a him as "the embodiment of some god" turns
out to be quite an intelligent, rational, clever-far more so than
her Western paramour-woman who had since become a well known poet
and writer on philosophy and social reform. She had her own pointed
comments on the affair, and expresses resentment at being turned
a character in a myth. Eliande, it seems, was determined, though
will and ignorance, to see what he wished to see.
Buruma also explores how the concepts of East and West were sometimes
reversed or conflated: the West is now seen to be decadent and
soft, and East now the land of the messianic mania for work: "The
missionaries, then, have taken post in Kuala Lumpur, and the whores
of Babylon have moved to London and New York." In another chapter
he discusses Yukio Mishima, and his manipulation of western and
eastern imagery to further his mythos in Japan, and even more
so in the West. He rather archly notes that Mishima's "Japanese"
Noh-play movie, Patriotism, was set to Wagner's Tristan and
Isolde and premiered in Paris. Buruma is both pithy and harsh:
"Mishima was like those Japanese society ladies who dress in evening
gowns in Tokyo but in kimonos abroad."
In Buruma's romp though Asia, he pauses to take a well-placed
swipe at Michael Crichton's Rising Sun, all with his distinctive
self assured style and meticulous reasoning. Crichton wanted to
"wake America up" to the coming Japanese yellow peril. The Japanese,
according to Crichton, are "a strange people" who believed in
(*gasp!*) "order and discipline." Buruma teasingly insinuates
that Chichton's vision of a new world order (with Japan on top)
may be more indicative of Americans who were tired of "freewheeling
individualism and the hurly-burly marketplace." Perhaps, Buruma
suggests, they wished to become more Japanese and "belong" to
a one family nation.
In the end, the book is a "best practice" guide to those looking
at other cultures. The lesson we could take away from the book?
Be skeptical of easy explanations and above all, have a sense
of humor.
East and West do meet in Buruma's book. As he tells us in his
acknowledgements, it is a record of his journey through Asia,
as well as London and Berlin. The sub-title, after all, is "Love
and War in East and West." At its best, Buruma's book forces the
reader to take a second look at the bromides and tropes that are
used to construct political and personal realities. At its worst,
it all may look a bit muddled. But then again, that is perhaps
the way it should be. 
Yuki Allyson Honjo. "Rose-colored glasses are not completely out
of fashion." The Asahi Evening News. November 19, 2000.
Pg. 4.
"Buruma
is required reading for all those who persist on seeing Asia as
some inscrutable 'other'—a sort of dark continent forever
be locked in its own enigma. Neither the 'West' nor the 'East'
has a monopoly on carnality or reason: people everywhere, he seems
to suggest, are driven by their motivations and passions-greed,
lust, or altruism."
-
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