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Pro-colonial or postcolonial? Appropriation of Japanese colonial heritage in present-day Taiwan
Prokolonial oder postkolonial? Verwendung des japanischen kolonialen Erbes im gegenwärtigen Taiwan
[journal article]
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 Ja... view more
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 Japanese 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 endeavor, 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.... view less
Keywords
Asia; historical analysis; culture; nationalism; monument; war; hybridity; reminiscence; collective memory; post-colonial society; Taiwan; domination; religion; contemporary history; Japan
Classification
International Relations, International Politics, Foreign Affairs, Development Policy
Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Art, Sociology of Literature
Method
descriptive study
Free Keywords
Social science; applied science; architecture and design; colonial history; preservation of historical monuments; contemporary
Document language
English
Publication Year
2011
Page/Pages
p. 19-62
Journal
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 40 (2011) 1
ISSN
1868-4874
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works