I am just finishing Chi-Ming Yang's Performing China (2011), in which she examines several ways in which the West (specifically, 17-18th century England) interpreted Chinese culture for a popular audience. While her interest is mostly in the performance of Restoration plays based on sometimes very odd interpretations of Chinese history, story, folktale or some mashup of all three things, she also discusses the English craze for imported material goods, such as porcelain (i.e., "china"), lacquerware and other commodities. The epilogue is one of the best parts of the book, wherein Yang discusses a production of Puccini's Turandot that was performed at the Forbidden City in Beijing in the late '90's.
One of the cool things about current scholarship on Asian-European (or -American) interactions is that nowadays it's not just white people writing about them. Yang is (at least at the time of publication) an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but as a native Chinese, she is able to give some first-hand impressions from a Chinese perspective of what Edward Said referred to as "orientalism" - a broad category that covers, in effect, how the West has dealt (and continues to deal) with the East.
My one criticism of the book is that not much more than snippets of actual Chinese history or culture are mentioned which planted the seeds of such productions as The Orphan of China (1759), or, of great interest to me, the character of the Chinese female warrior-hero in Settles' The Conquest of China, by the Tartars (1676), played by famous actresses of the day, who were then new to the Restoration stage. A careful look at the notes to each chapter introduces some tantalizing bits of historical veracity to some very convoluted plotlines. Picking up on that info is what is known in academia as "areas for further reading and research," and I am embarking on some, to slake my curiosity.
However, this is not a review. Many of us who have watched films like The Last Samurai know that the best fiction mixes in elements of non-fiction. If it's a subject we know something about, we can take a distanced view at the cleverness of the director and producer at how they make use of that information, whether in costumes, decor, or even dialect and the retelling of historical incidents. If a viewer is not familiar with the historical background material of a fictional work, she can nonetheless be drawn in by that sense of verisimilitude - everything seems so plausible. Take for example, the film Bridges of Madison County. Some fans swore they owned, or at least read, the fictional National Geographic article the photographer (Clint Eastwood) was working on in the film. The filmakers had to clarify several times that such an article was never written. But it seemed so real.
Yang's book (and obviously other things, but that's how my mind works) led me to think further on some of my encounters with American budoka. Some of the ways in which American students (and some European ones, for that matter) reintrepret Japanese culture (and I realize I am switching cultures here, thanks) are far off the mark and sort of amusing. I have encountered non-Japanese who have grown their hair into topknots. I have met others who have festooned their dojo space with souvenirs until there is almost no room for practice. I once almost accidentally stabbed a beautiful wedding uchikake (a large, embroidered and padded kimono) because it was hanging on the wall of an American teacher's training space. But these are obvious, fantasy-driven, or ego-driven interpretations. Topknots went "out" (by decree) in the 19th century (except for sumo wrestlers). Dojo walls in Japan are generally plain and unadorned, for both aesthetic and practical reasons. We smirk a little when we see earnest students of some oddly named "ryuha" walking about in hakama with sneakers on, practice-cutting rolled up paper painted to look like bamboo, or, my personal favorite, American students who are left-handed, so they draw a sword that way. As one awful video put it (approximately), "Doesn't everyone's martial arts practice involve a little bit of fantasy?" No.
These are obvious, and sometimes honest, misinterpretations. American education, until one gets beyond secondary school, is fairly ignorant on the subject of Asian culture and history, unless one's family is actually from Asia. Unless students are motivated to pick up and read some non-required (generally non-internet) texts, they may never understand that there are still cultures out there that are different from our own. And that the historical past is - actually - past.
But I don't regard the above as a real problem. In at least some cases, the misunderstanding is so blatant it's funny, and blatant misunderstandings, if the person is sincere, can be corrected, or at least ignored. I think the bigger problem is more subtle. It lies in using real stuff as a basis for whatever a teacher wants to accomplish. For example, I know of several high-ranking practitioners (and heard of others second-hand) who insist on a high degree of loyalty and engagement from their students. People have to commit to a certain amount of time per week or month in order to train with the teacher. In at least one case, I have seen some of these students demonstrate, and they are awesome - a result of that large time commitment. It is true that before the late 19th century, samurai pledged loyalty to their overlords, and may have signed blood oaths to that effect. It was their job. But that was then. However, that did not stop one American martial arts teacher/writer. After learning of this custom, he created his own loyalty oath, written in his own blood, which he then presented to his traditional Japanese teacher. If I am recalling his piece correctly, he wrote that his teacher was somewhat surprised (I'll bet). The teacher then gently pointed out that no one did that stuff anymore. However, the writer notes that he felt the need to express the depth of his commitment to his training in this way, so he revived a tradition from almost 200 years ago in order to accomplish it.
I could never study with either of the above, no doubt excellent American teachers because I have a job and a family - I am not able to make the time (or blood) commitment that their small groups of students have. I envy their students in a way, but I also wonder about them: what happens if their life circumstances change? Do they have to leave the practice?
I have written elsewhere that in traditional koryu dojo in Japan, budoka consider their practice to be a part of their identity, but it is not all of their identity. Japanese people are at least as busy as Americans - they have jobs and family obligations like the rest of us. They come to practice when they can. I remember one dojo where I trained where students sometimes left their sarariman jobs to come to okeiko for a couple hours, and then went back to the office. So they were dedicated, but they also had priorities. And lives. Another story told to me by a budo colleague was of a gentleman who really wanted to take up a koryu budo practice, but had a hideously demanding job. The week after he retired (at 65) he came to the dojo, became a regular student, and even earned a menkyo from the teacher of the ryuha after much hard work. But his first priority was to support his family.
So is there some danger to all this? Probably not, unless you get swept up in it yourself. And certainly, there are teachers in Japan who are happy to indulge American students' fantasies and misinterpretations if it works for their bottom lines. To draw another parallel with Performing China, Yang writes about the production of Turandot in Beijing. The plot actually does have a little, tiny bit of basis in some Chinese legend/history, but of course the opera is all Puccini. The production at the Forbidden City cost upwards of $15 million, and drew rich and influential people from all over the planet. Yang notes, and I concur, that China managed to appropriate a piece of Italian opera and turn it to its own profit, turning Westerners' orientalism on its head, as it were. I have met Japanese budo teachers, for example, who have decided it is more beneficial for them if their students believe their style dates to hoary antiquity rather than the mid- to late-20th century. They may even have the scrolls to prove it. Of course, said scrolls might have been picked up at the Toji flea market in Kyoto, but since no one can read Japanese, how will they know?
I cringe, though, when I meet American martial artists who think that this mishmash of reality, history and fantasy are somehow more authentic than just showing up to the dojo for practice of good technique with a competent teacher. And I cringe even more when I am at a public demonstration and see their fantasies on display, as I did recently, when a kung fu group presented a history of Chinese martial arts complete with a soundtrack from Schwartzenegger's Conan, among other popular films. I mean, Conan is one of my favorite movies, but it's also incredibly silly. It's one thing when the practitioners practice goofy things. It's another when they ask an audience to believe it.
The book:
Yang, Chi-Ming
Performing China, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
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