On the edge of the orient: english representations of Japan, circa 1895–1910

Pham, Phuong

doi:10.1080/10371399908727675

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Yet there is a This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Journal of Australian Studies in 2017, available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2017.1342685 7 comparable desire to position Japan as the subordinate to Britain and Europe, which are implicitly cast as more developed and advanced. 7 The description of Japan as "the child of the world's old age" provided a very popular means of reconciling this sense of ancient Japan with its Meiji-era modernity. This very pervasive expression was popularised by Henry Norman's book The Real Japan, 8 and was used repeatedly in the Australian press to describe Japan as "young in years, but old in wisdom" during the first decades of the twentieth century.…”

Section: Two Child Nationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Child of the World’s Old Age”: Australian Perceptions of Japan-as-Child

Miles

2017

Journal of Australian Studies

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interests and values. 3 Visual culture has figured prominently in these histories as a site in which ideologies of childhood are defined and reproduced. 4 However, the special role of photographs of children in representing and redefining Australian relationships with Japan has yet to be examined. One of the compelling qualities of photographs is that they rely upon a referent in the world-a child who stood in front of the lensbut they also have important symbolic meanings that underscore the historically and culturally specific qualities of both the representation and the child itself. These meanings inform the desire to produce the photograph, its composition, tone, commercial value, changing patterns of interpretation over time, travellers' perceptions of the Japanese children whom they encounter and the performances of children as they pose for the camera. Photographs of actual children accordingly cannot be divorced from larger symbolic values and systems.Personal and public modes of cross-cultural photographic encounters are similarly intertwined in these photographs. The scale and low weight of photographs made them highly portable objects of material culture and facilitated their movement across the seas with travellers, through the mail, or among family and friends at home.

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Section: Two Child Nationsmentioning

confidence: 99%