Final Project

Bento and the Ideology Beyond It

        I am going to talk about bento, Japanese lunchbox. Originally I planned to choose ikebana, namely Japanese flower arrangement as my topic. I would like to thank Prof. Mizenko for recommending this new topic to me. I finally realized that I am more into food than flower arrangement. In fact, this topic reminds me of my childhood school days when we had similar things. If I could have box lunches like this, I swear I would have been more willing to go to school every day. I would like to explore what bento is and the ideology behind bento.

        Bento is the Japanese word for a meal served in a box. The ingredients of the food can vary. The containers can be different, too. It is quite common in Japan. Bento is an important part of Japanese food culture and everyday life. People eat bento at schools which don’t provide lunch to students. The custom of bringing lunch from home is also quite prevalent among company employees. Japanese people also eat bento when enjoying hanami in spring, that is, cherry blossom viewing. Before I did this project, I got most of my impression about Bento from Japanese anime and TV shows. I did not know that there are so many types of bento, including Makunouchi, Ekiben, Koraku, Kyaraben, etc. Bento served in restaurants are called Makunouchi bento, which are quite elaborate and are arranged in elegant lacquered boxes. This kind of bento are usually presented at formal meals and people are supposed to eat it at table. Its other name “Between Acts Bento” suggests its origin, because it was historically eaten in-between kabuki or other shows in a theatre in the Edo period (1603-1868)[1]. In the past, they usually came with equally exquisite lids. The best way is to first gaze at the lid for a while before open it to enjoy its beauty inside. When you open the lid, it is like a carnival. You don’t know where to look, because there are so many colors. The lunchbox is subdivided into four smaller squares, while symbolically denote rice planting fields (Ekuan 3). People would also relate rice to harvest, relate fish to sea, and green leaves to mountains. I tried this type of bento once here in the United States and I liked it. The only problem was that the portion was too big for me to consume it up. But I do not think that it would be problem back in the past, because kabuki shows are said to be very slow and long, typically lasting about four hours. You really need a large portion.

    Another bento is called Ekiben, or the “Train Station Bento,” which are boxed meals sold at train stations for travelers. Nowadays they are also available onboard the trains, in department stores near major stations, or convenience stores. Koraku, or the “Picnic Bento,” is made to be eaten outside in occasions like picnic, excursion or cherry blossom viewing. Because it is meant to be shared among many people, the koraku bento usually has big boxes. Kyaraben, or the “Character Bento”, is probably the most famous among all these types. Kyaraben usually contains food that is made into the shape of anime characters, trees, flowers, animals and so on so forth. Normally this kind of bento are made for young children, but nowadays adults are big fans too. Bento are not always that fancy. With more and more Japanese women working outside, they do not have enough time to prepare exquisite bento, especially when you get them mad. They will give you a Shikaeshi Bento, the “Revenge Bento”.

   Bento is a reflection of both relationships and personality. As a form of communication, it can “reveal the state of the maker/consumer relationship, or the state of the individual, in the case of bentō made for oneself” (Occhi 65).    Parents make nutritious bento to show their love to their children. Students have bento mates whom they often eat bento with. It can be a symbol of friendship. Bento as a surprise gift can sometimes help to start a romance. I found a life manga series that entirely deal with the topic of bento. Its title is Takasugi-san chi no Obento (The Takasugi Family’s Bento), by Yanahara Nozomi. It’s not like those cookbooks that teach you how to make bento, but it depicts stories in which bento has become a unique warm thing that get people closer. It is through bento making and bento sharing that the characters overcome their difficulties, reach understanding and become a true family. There are also many other manga series that take bento as their topic, and these manga indicates that personality can be revealed through bento. For example, Nichinichi bentō (Daily Bento), “relies heavily on this trope as a means for exploring the characters’ differences” (Occhi 65). 

    For Anne Allison, however, bentos are used by the highly centralized Japanese educational system as a way to training young children to accept ideas of what it meant to be Japanese.   Therefore, I would like to explore the relationships around bento and the meaning of bento for different age groups and genders through analyzing blogs of three popular Japanese bento bloggers (who are a female homemaker at her 40s, a male system engineer at his 30s, and another female homemaker at her 20s, respectively). A little bit historical perspective is also adopted in this analysis, to give a panoramic view of the bento world. By sorting the differences and similarities between the three bloggers of different ages, I have also found that they themselves present the aesthetic preferences of each generation respectively, but at the same time, they are still “manipulated by the state ideological indoctrination”, just as Anne Allison stated in her article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus” in 1991.

    I plan to look at bento preparation time and food content & arrangement in the light of gender and age.

     From the perspective of the time spent in preparing bento, it is clear that Japanese women put more efforts and time than men do. According to a survey conducted by the website nippon.com, the engineer man spends about 30 minutes each time, 3 days a week on average in making bento, whileママちゃん, the mom in her 20s, makes bento 30 minutes each time, but 5 days a week, and Rumi, the female homemaker in her 40s, spends 40 minutes each day, 5 days a week in making bento. It takes so much time for experienced bento experts like these bloggers to make bento, and I cannot imagine how long it takes for ordinary people to make it. According to a report on NPR news in July 2016, the moms who are taking a local bento class block out as much as 90 minutes every morning to make kyaraben for their children. In fact, a 2007 Japan Today article said that 70 percent of Japanese women quit working after having a baby. So women are still the main force of preparing lunches.

     From the perspective of food content & arrangement, it is apparent that Japanese women are inclined to make more kawaii bento than men. The engineer man makes bento for himself, so it’s obvious that he hasn’t got married and that the function of bento weighs more than its appearance. However, he would try to make his bentos as good-looking as possible to attract blog followers. 

    So it is fair to say that we eat bento with our eyes, as appearance is still an important element in Japanese food.ママちゃんhas two sons and one daughter who are all under 10 year’s old, so most of her bentos are kyarabento—bright colors, animal shapes, anime characters, anything with faces, etc. 

      The level of cuteness in Rumi’s bentos is between the engineer man andママちゃん. She sometimes make elegant bentos without any significant anime features like animal or people’s faces, but she does add some little cute plastic decorations around the food (sometimes outside the lunch boxes), instead of making food into shapes that resemble some cartoon characters, especially when she is making bentos for her high school daughters. Even when she is making bentos for her husband, the semi-kawaii feature appears.

   It looks like little children’s lunches are always made in the form of colorful kyarabentos, which were used to trick picky children to eat nutritious food that they did’t like. But now it looks like it’s a norm. Also, high school girls may still be into cute things, just as Rumi’s bentos for her daughter indicate. Young people’s taste is always the trend. So this can suggest the trend towards increased cuteness in bento in Japanese society.

     But their bento also have something in common. For example, they are all rich of colors, colors in strong contrast like red against green, pink against light green, brown against buff, yellow against purple. The shapes are various, too—round, oval, square little flag, waves of corrugated paper. The types of food are also various. They tend to be small, separated but compacted, reminding me of the compactness of many things in Japan, like small apartment rooms, and crowded trains in rush hour.

       In Rumi’s bento image posted in Oct 2011, the sweet potato balls are made into the shape of chestnuts with the burr, to indicate that it is an autumn food. The egg and tofu look like autumn leaves. Namafu, which is a wheat gluten, has been colored and shaped like maple leaves. 

      Similarly, ママちゃんposted a bento picture on Oct. 17^th, 2011. It’s for her 3-year-old son. In this bento, a rice ball is made into the shape of an apple, with a face, because apples come into season in the fall. We can also grapes, because it is a fall food, too.

     The two moms’ efforts of using fresh in-season ingredients in bentos to show their appreciation of nature. They not only make all kinds of food in shapes of things we find in nature, but also add some real things from nature. For example, in this bento made by Rumi, a small real branch is put on top of food, which is put in a bento box made of bamboo. 

        

        All these embody what Allison calls the “naturalization” code of bento style. “The emphasis is on presentation of the natural rather than the nature itself” (Allison 157). The combination of using real things from nature like tree leaves and reconstructing food materials into nature has allowed bento to be culturally and ideologically manipulated. She described bento as an ‘ideological state apparatus’ to train mothers into socially-recognized ideal mother and train young children who go to nursery schools into good citizens. Nursery schools are supervised by the Ministry of Education, and it is a place for little children to socialize and learn rules and rituals in real world for the first time. Children often take bento to nursery school. The more elaborate and exquisite the bento is, the good mother she is considered. On the other hand, bento much be eaten up in nursery schools. If you eat very slowly, the entire class would have to wait for you before they can move on to the next activity. Therefore, according to Allison, bento is a tool used by the Ministry of Education to “socialize children and mothers into the gendered roles and subjectivities they are expected to assume in a political order desired and directed by the states” (Allison 158). In other words, by making and consuming bento, mothers and children are trained to be good citizens that the community expects them to be.

       Bloggers enjoy sharing food recipes and show their cooking skills, which becomes part of the pressure and state ideological indoctrination from the media side. Therefore, Allison suggests that the only way out is to redesign bento, in a gender neutral way, for example.

        Although the codes of making bento mentioned by Allison in 1991 still exist now, things have changed somehow. They have realized the phenomenon. If a mother makes lame bentos, her child may be laughed at in school. Bento time is a like a competition. Making bentos consumes a lot of time. Many people are now trying to resume the real naturalness of food in bento. The engineer man seems to be one of them. Itoh Makiko is also a popular blogger who advocates healthy and simple bento, though her standard about the appearance of bento is to make it look appetizing, not she doesn’t want to spend longer than 20 or 30 minutes to make a bento.

        In my opinion, redesigning bento may work, but it is far from enough. We have to encourage critical thinking in the educational system, to teach young children to form the habit of thinking for themselves.

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[1] Do You Know Your 4 (+1) Bento Types? Updated October 19, 2015 | Food & Drink , Bento. https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/277/

References:

Allison, Anne. “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus”. Food and Culture—A Reader. New York, 2013. 154-169.

Do You Know Your 4 (+1) Bento Types?  Updated October 19, 2015 | Food & Drink , Bento     https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/277/

Ekuan, Kenji. The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox By Kenji Ekuan, edited by David B Stewart. MIT Press, 1998.

Occhi, Debra J. "Kyaraben (character bento): The cutesification of Japanese food in and beyond the lunchbox." East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 2, no. 1, 2016, p. 63+. Academic OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=coll33478&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464354374&it=r&asid=bf98724afc97ab37e453cc80977f0a04. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.

Rumi’s Bento Blog  http://hotlunchtime.blog95.fc2.com/page-1.html

The engineer guy’s Bento Blog   http://bokuben.jugem.jp/

ママちゃん’s Bento Blog   http://ameblo.jp/tajw8259/

Shofuso Assignment- due by Mon. April 24

It's my first time to sit on a tamami mat. Completely different from the softness of sitting on a carpet, the tatami mat makes me want to sit straight when people are around and lie down comfortably when I am alone. This dual feeling may come from the rice straws as the main material for making tamami mats. Rice straws give off that fresh scent which reminds me of my childhood in the countryside of China. Sitting on the mat lowers my vision and draws me down to earth, making me feel like I am part of the nature, as the traditional wooden house makes a maximum exposure to the beautiful scenery outside. I like that feeling. I like to be inside the house. I also like to be outside and gaze at the moss on its roof.

Pictures to be submitted for the contest:

Sontag Assignment for Tuesday, April 18th

1.  What is your main takeaway from Sontag’s essay?

We cannot truly understand or imagine how terrifying wars are. Photographers know that, so they take pictures of people's suffering, making it into an art that aims at shocking people. The media use these pictures to justify wars or calling for revenge, but sometimes these cruel pictures make people indifferent, not empathetic. To stop the war, showing cruel images is not enough. Compassion needs to be translated into action.

2.  Give at least two smaller takeaways from the essay.  Things that you found 

to be of particular interest.  This can include things that surprised you or provoked 

some thoughts.

1) It is a shame and shock to look at pictures of people suffering in war. The author is saying that maybe only people who can alleviate the pain have the right to look at those images. That gives me an excuse of avoiding looking at these cruel images. I have to admit that I feel empathetic and terrified at the same time when looking at these images. I just want to cry when even thinking of their sufferings. 

2) Media like to use shocking and dramatic images as a source of value, as a lost art. That reminds me of Beato who usually rearranged bodies before he took a picture. These pictures turn people into things that can be possessed, without any dignity. 

3.  Upload an image of pain/suffering to your blog and discuss it.  You can be 

straightforward about this, or you can take a well-known image that you may 

look at differently after reading Sontag.  

I cannot look at any cruel pictures. This picture is my limit. Like many people, I was empathetic when seeing a little kid lying dead on beach, wondering what happened to him. It is because of wars that people become refugees and have to flee their country. There have been heated debates about how to deal with these refugees, but few questions are asked about how to stop wars. Images like this seem unreal, and people cannot imagine other people's pain by simply looking at these cruel images. But at least compassion is part of the human being and also the seed for action. 

Fashion- Assignment for Tuesday, April 10

In the Sakura Festival in Philadelphia last Sunday, I saw some American girls dressed as Ama-Loli, so I took some pictures of them. Their costumes are mostly white, and they behave like innocent and elegant Victorian children, sitting very straight on embroidered white and red blankets, enjoying their food and talk. I used to think that Ama-Lolis only exist in manga or amine, but it turns out that people like to wear them in their daily life (these girls were just having fun wearing the exaggerated clothes). Maybe they sometimes just want to live in their own pure and elegant noble world.


Several years ago I saw an anime whose name I cannot recall. In that anime, there are three plain-looking skinny girls (who are not important characters at all) wearing black dresses like the one in the above picture. Every time they appear or disappear, they would say the same words in their witch-like voices: "ゴスゴス, ロリロリ, ゴスゴス, ロリロリ". I thought the anime was just making fun of Gothic Loli. After reading the texts, I realized that there are real people who dress themselves like that because they simply want to be visible in public and get a sense of belonging, instead of expressing some political ideology.

Cuteness- Assignment for Tuesday, April 4

Part I:  After you read the texts and reflect on what the two authors had to say about the cute in Japan, please think about the place of the cute in your current life.  (I would assume that there were tons of "cute" things in your childhood, so as in the articles, I'd like you to focus on you as you are today--an adult, if you like.)  Choose one thing to reflect on, and post a relevant image.  Think about corresponds to or differs from the meaning/significance/implications of "cute" as presented in the articles.  Choose anything, including a cat video if you swing that way. 
I am always attracted by cute foods, foods that are made into animal shapes. Whenever I walk into a bakery, I would either buy one of those cute cakes or take pictures of them. I guess they do provide a childhood nostalgia that allows me to escape temporarily from the fast-paced and stressful adult society, as indicated in the articles. 

Part II: Find something cute (kawaii) from Japanese culture, and discuss it in terms of the ideas presented in the articles and our discussions in class.  For this assignment, please try to go for something that seems to be intended to be truly cute, and not something that, like most of Nara's images, has a more complicated (and possibly subversive) relationship with the cute.  Be sure to post an image (or short video) of what you will be discussing.  Do not do Hello Kitty.  (If you really really want to post something on Hello Kitty, you can do that in Part I, or you can add it to the two parts of the assignment.

This black bear is called Kumamon, a mascot created in 2010 to draw tourists by the government of a Japanese prefecture named Kumamoto. I have seen a lot of mascots for different places, but I think Kumamon is probably one of the most successful and most impressive among them. The idea of using real person to play the role of Kumamon, combining manga, official website and videos, makes it more vivid and have personality. The word "government" gives people the feeling of seriousness and responsibility, but by using a cute character to represent a government is novel, constructing a completely different image. People like cute things because they find comfort and nostalgia in them. Cute things help people escape real life and feel to be in childhood again, which they are not able to do or do not dare to do in strict society in Japan.  

Murakami and Nara (Assignment for Thursday, March 30th)

1. Panda Family - Happiness    by  Murakami Takashi

        In this image, Panda Geant and her children are riding on a ball made up of various colorful skulls, flying over a field of colorful flowers. Several bamboo trees are growing on the ball and one of the baby panda is holding one bamboo branch. There are two fire-like things which are probably will-o'-the-wisps, red and white, under the skull ball. In the sky behind them are white clouds which look like cotton candies, fluffy and soft. 
        All the living things with mouths in this image seem to be smiling and very happy, including the flower on the lower right corner, as the title "Happiness" indicates. The colors used are quite rich. Even in the mouth of Panda Geant, there are five colors including blue, yellow, orange, pink, green. All these correspond well with "happiness", except the giant skull ball and two fires which implies death. Does that mean that happiness does not exist if death is still there, that true happiness can only be found when death is overcome? The rainbow-like colors in the mouth of Panda Geant look like her teeth, which makes her laughing a teasing grin. This does not go well with her cuteness at all. It is like she is saying: "You want happiness? First learn how to travel through time and space like me." But on the other hand, I am also thinking that maybe she is saying: "Seize the day, and be happy, because everyone is on a skull ball."  



2. I Think, Therefore I Am... A Dog     by Nara Yoshitomo


        This is an installation by Nara Yoshitomo. I found it interesting mostly because of its title "I Think, Therefore I Am... A Dog". It turns a famous saying by French philosopher René Descartes into a normal sentence in our daily life. The dog closes its eyes and seems to smelling the bone hung on a train from a steel pipe sticking out of the wall. We can only see half of the dog's body and imagine from its connecting to the wall that maybe it comes out of the empty wall directly. It implies that when people think, they are free, like the blank wall, but they cannot cut themselves away from the instinct or desire. People tend to be lured by all kinds of temptations, which draws them from rational thinking. Then we become animal again, no longer the advanced privileged species that can think and be free. 
        But after reading the text about Nara's interview, in which he says that his works has no definite meaning, and that viewers often see themselves in his works, I start to think that maybe I am the one who is not able to resist desires and temptations, like this dog. Is this necessarily a good thing or bad thing? Not sure. 

Project Progress March 23, 2017

        I was studying the Ikebana school of Sogetsu (http://www.sogetsu.or.jp/e/ ), but found that it may have gone beyond my ability, so I shifted to another topic that I am also interested in: children. So I have searched for some materials to read, among which the following two are what I am reading:

1. Visual Representations of Children (http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791231/obo-9780199791231-0060.xml)

2. Children's Picturebooks, The Art of Visual Storytelling by Martin Salisbury, Morag Styles. (https://archive.org/stream/Childrens_Picturebooks_The_Art_of_Visual_Storytelling_by_Martin_Salisbury_Morag_/Childrens_Picturebooks_The_Art_of_Visual_Storytelling_by_Martin_Salisbury_Morag_Styles_djvu.txt )
        Honestly I am still trying to figure out where this interest would take me and it would be great if you can give me some professional advice. Thank you.

"In Praise of Shadows" Assignment (due March 15)

1.  Read “In Praise of Shadows” if you haven’t already.  Then, on your personal blog, do the following:

a. Present what you think is the main point of the essay.

        I think the main point of the essay is that Japanese people base their aesthetic taste on the appreciation of shadows, which can be seen from traditional Japanese architecture (especially toilets), food, food containers, kimono, Nō and nearly every aspect of life. However, in the process of Westernization and modernization, the beauty of darkness is appreciated and sought by less and less Japanese people. Therefore, while grateful for the advantages brought by the age, the author is also calling for resuming this traditional taste of beauty at least in some areas like literature or the arts.

b. Discuss two items/discussions from the essay that you found interesting, and post images that illustrate points made by Tanizaki.  Even if you don’t necessarily agree with his points, try to find images that illustrate the points from his perspective. Please do not deal with certain content that might be considered today to be overtly racist or sexist (although you can deal with such things as kimono or teeth-blackening if you wish).  

        The two discussions that I found interesting are:

       1) Drinking soup in a lacquer bowl is a delight.

2) Nō has great sexual appeal than Kabuki.

 

c. Present one or two questions or topics for discussion in class. You can include points he makes where you don’t understand what he’s trying to say.

       The preservation of traditional aesthetic ideology and elements is important and necessary in this globalized age. The question is that it is expensive to do so and people nowadays are so used to modern facilities. What should we do to resume these aesthetic traditions or integrate them into our modern life?

My Personal Album- Assignment for Thursday, March 2nd

I am an American tourist who are interested in gardening and flowers. I have been in Japan for two weeks and I have seen a lot of gardens and flowers here, which are really beautiful. The following five images are what I have chosen to take with me to my homeland.

1.

 Japanese people grow azaleas, too. They line roads with azaleas of different colors in parks. The Japanese woman in the image is wearing a yellow kimono, who is simply gorgeous among the colorful azaleas. It is such a delight to eyes.

2.

 Look, two Japanese women in kimono are arranging flowers in a tatami room. They are so tranquil and talented. The flower container is very archaic and quaint, which goes with the mat and the flowers. This is real art. Looking at them arranging flowers would make me feel calm and forget all about worries in life.

3.

 The garden in the image makes me want to settle in the house like that. The stone paths, cute flowers, clear water, elegant maple trees, and wooden gate, comprise a multi-layered dynamic world, much better, more beautiful and interesting than the American lawns which simply cover the earth with a green quilt.

4.

 Look at these chrysanthemums at the flower display. They come with different shapes and colors. I have never seen some many chrysanthemums in the United States. It is so oriental, which goes with the three women in kimono. Look at the women. They look so beautiful when appreciating the flowers. They are like angels or goddess of flowers, pure and innocent.

5.

 The sakura trees are blossoming, so beautiful. But I think if all the Japanese men in the image were substituted by young Japanese women in kimono, the image would look much better and more coordinate. Pink cherry blossoms are like innocent Japanese women. They are very mild, tranquil and beautiful.


A More "Academic" Analysis of the Album and Commentary
The album focuses on gardening and flowers, but it also includes people in many images. In fact, there is only one image which doesn't involve any person in it. The fictional traveler seems to have a fantasy or imagination on Japanese woman to be innocent, childlike, and mild. They are like objects, specifically flowers, only for men to look at. If they are old and wither like flowers, no one would like to look at them. Women in kimono in these images are part of the flowers. They signify virtue, innocence and beauty. Also, the fictional traveler has a fantasy of romanticizing everything in Japan.

Assignment for Tuesday, Feb. 28-"Globetrotters' Japan: People, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan"

 1.  THREE takeaway points from the essay.  These should be points that you find to be of particular interest with regard to the representation of Japan in this context.  
1) Globetrotter photograph deliberately catered to Westerners. It reflected and reinforced Westerner’s fantasies and stereotypes of Japan, giving Japanese people in the images no opportunity to correct any misunderstandings a foreigner might have. It is far from the lived experience of actual Japanese.

2) Globetrotters were interested in buying images of Japanese places and people that best represent their experiences and meet their expectations.

3) Photographers constructed stereotypes with a sense of authenticity by using “costumes”. Japanese people in these images are no longer individuals with their own stories, but tools to display costumes.

4) Westerners have this fantasy on Japanese women. They imagine that Japanese must be childlike, submissive and mild.

2.  TWO images from the unit. Please write an analysis that encompasses both a visual analysis of the image and a content analysis that addresses the "politics of representation" as seen in the image.  (The "politics of representation" has to do with ways in which meaning is constructed/conveyed through visual media or language, utilizing the various things we have discussed thus far, including ideology, coding, and myth.)  

1. This is an image of two Japanese women in kimono appreciating peonies in a greenhouse. They are surrounded by colorful peonies, with one looking directly at the camera eye while the other looking elsewhere, mouth closed in a slightly awkward way, which suggests that she knows the camera eye is focusing on her and that she is probably from a well-to-do family. There are a group of men, young and old, in the background looking at the camera eye, too. But it gives the viewer the feeling that they are looking at the two women in the image. It seems that they are stunned by the elegance and beauty of the kimono women. The peonies signify beauty. The men in the background signify beauty evaluator. All of these comprise the myth of oriental beauty and elegance. The ideology here is that Westerners think that young Japanese women in kimono are as beautiful and innocent as flowers, to be appreciated and looked at by men.

 

2.  This is an image of a line of Japanese people growing rice sprouts in a rice field. Five of them are not looking at the camera while the other two looked directly at the camera, smiling and being curious. They are bare-footed and working very hard. It must be quite tiring while bending your body forward and growing rice sprouts at the same time, especially when they have pose for a long while because of the long exposure time of 19-century cameras. These constitute the myth of farm life. Westerners who want to purchase this image are apparently interested in the agriculture life of farmers. The code here is that Japanese farmers were doing their farm work in such a backward and tiring way at that time, instead of using advanced machines. The ideology is that Westerners may feel superior that they have more advanced ways to do farm work back in their own countries. 

Feb. 23, Globetrotters' Japan: Places, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan.

1)    Globe-trotters who travelled to Meiji Japan can be classified as Globe-trotter communis, Globe-trotter scientificus, Globe-trotter elegans, Globe-trotter independens, Globe-trotter princeps, Globe-trotter desperatus, Globe-trotter dolosus, Globe-trotter locustus and so on. I found the vivid descriptions of these different Globe-trotters quite amusing, because they remind me of modern tourists. For Griffis, Chamberlain, and other Westerners, the term Globe-trotters can also refer to people who only travel shorter journeys, and it has the connotation of travelers’ attitude and the commercial nature of their journeys. Globetrotters only stay in one place for a short period of time, which indicates that they are very likely to have a limited understanding or engagement with its places, people, and culture.

2)    Guidebooks were quite popular because of the booming of the tourism industry in Meiji Japan. They included first-hand experiences and contacts from foreign specialists who lived in Japan for a long period of time. Photographs and souvenir albums with exotic symbolic designs and content also appealed to globetrotters because they evoke their adventure in this exotic land. The commercial industry has made their experience predictable and profitable. Customers can select and arrange the images in their albums, make personal narratives, which reflect their own stories.   

Image analysis

This is an image of a lotus pond with traditional Japanese architecture as its background (which looks like Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, which used to be a Buddhist Temple). A blossoming pink lotus flower and several buds in the middle of the image are  quite distinct from the green leaves and yellow architecture. With approximately 80% of green, 15% of yellow, and 5% of pink, it looks so beautiful aesthetically. Lotus usually signifies Buddhism, which coordinates with the architecture behind. It also connotes the myth of orientalism and exoticism. European and American people at that time did not usually see lotus and they were not familiar with Buddhist or traditional Japanese architecture. When they visited this place, maybe the weather was not good or they came in a wrong season so they were not able to see such a beautiful summer scene in person. Therefore, they would like to buy such a photograph to evoke their experience in this place or recreate their memory of this place. And for people who haven't been there, it is a good aesthetic image to appreciate.   

Feb. 21 Beato: People

1.  Write at least three things that you take away from the article.  These should be major, significant points that you found to be thought-provoking and/or helpful in analyzing and understanding Beato's photography.

1) Men are always the ones who look and women are always the ones that are looked at.

2) There are different layers of gaze in an image. For example, the photographer's gaze "is represented by the camera's eye and leaves its clear mark on the structure and content of the photograph" (Lutz and Collins 137). The magazine's gaze includes the editors' decisions and choice. The magazine reader are encouraged to imagine the ideological aspects of the image...

3) Whether the person in the image look into the camera's eye or not reveals power dynamics about the relationship between the viewer and the viewed.

2.  With reference to some of the concepts you acquired from the article, copy two photographs from Beato's album into a post on your personal blog and present your analysis.  You should give as detailed an analysis as possible, but put an emphasis on your analysis of the "gaze" as it relates to the article, including "the non-Western subject's gaze," but also including "the reader's gaze," as well as any other gazes that you find relevant.

 

This is an image of a Japanese officer’s wife. She could be the real Japanese officer’s wife as indicated in the caption, or she could only be a model dressed and posing as a Japanese officer’s wife. Anyway, from the Beato’s gaze, the woman in the image should tell the viewer what a Japanese married woman looks like. She sticks her right hand into the belt. It seems that she is trying to protect the white thing in her belt. In terms of viewers’ gaze, viewers are invited to take a close look at the image and dream in its ideological space with the help of the caption. In the caption, Beato talks about how ugly a married Japanese woman is, because he thinks that their staining teeth black and shaving eyebrows are far more barbarous than body piercing. Although we cannot see from the image that she has stained her teeth black or completely shaved her eyebrows, the viewers are invited by the photographer to imagine what that would look like. In terms of the woman’s gaze, she does not look directly at the camera, but looks elsewhere, which signifies her high social status, just as Lutz and Collins indicate that the more powerful social status the depicted person is in the image, the more likely he or she is looking elsewhere. She is not smiling, which indicates that she is not so approachable.

 

This is an image of a man feeling the impulse of a woman. The man signifies the “type” of Japanese doctors, while the woman who has a white band around her head signifies a patient. From the photographer’s gaze point of view, Beato planned to scatter all the doctor’s tool kits abound, trying to show the viewers that Japanese traditional doctors had very limited tools and equipment to diagnose or cure patients. In the middle of the image, a sword handle is revealed, indicating the doctor’s identity. Beato is trying to create the myth of traditional Japanese medical system. From the caption, we can see that Beato contempt traditional Japanese doctors and their ways of diagnosing and curing with herbal medicine. Again it indicates the West-centered ideology. In terms of the woman’s gaze in the image, she lowers her eyes and looks at her arm, completely avoiding any eye contact either with the doctor or anyone. She is not smiling, which signifies further that she is not feeling very well or she is satisfied with the doctor’s treatment. The doctor is not looking at anyone, either, which signifies that he is very focused on his job.