A unique language and culture. So entwined is the Japanese language with culture (Xxxxxxx, 2012, p. 37) that it is difficult to mention one without mentioning the other. As Japanese culture ‘is encoded and carried within the Japanese language’ (Stanlaw, 2004, p. 275) both are portrayed as being unique and it is widely believed that they are only accessible to the racially ‘pure’ Japanese. Japaneseness tends to be represented as relational, you are either Japanese or you are ‘foreign’, and a number of binary sets can be used to represent this distinction (XxXxxxx, 2014, p. 108). The binary set most applicable to my thesis is the wa/yo binary. Nihonjinron is based upon differences between a unique essentialist Japanese (wa) culture (the exception) which is always set in opposition with a European (yo) culture (the norm) (Xxxxxxx, 1992). Wa literally means harmony (XxXxxxx, 2014) and it ‘designates a specifically Japanese cultural sphere’ (Xxxxxx, 2011, p. 274) and yo literally means ocean, which can be extended to mean Western (XxXxxxx, 2014, p. 109). Washiki (Japanese style) is connoted with being at home (uchi) where traditional Japanese artefacts and practices are preferred, whereas yoshiki (western style) is connoted with being outside the home (xxxx) in public buildings with Western furnishings which necessitate Western artefacts and practices (XxXxxxx, 2014, p. 109). The wa/yo binary would seem to define those who have insider (uchi) status and those who have outsider (xxxx) status (see chapter 7). Xxxxxxx (1992, p. 28) tries to defend the linking of ‘race’ to culture in the Nihonjinron literature as he states that it is not necessarily linked to racism but to “‘race’ thinking” as in Japan there is a belief that: Particular cultural traits should belong to, or are the exclusive property of, a particular group with particular phenotypical and genotypical traits (‘racially exclusive possession of a particular culture’) (Xxxxxxx, 1992, p. 28). Xxxxxxx (1992) believes that this notion is different from the one which was used to justify colonisation in Britain which was based on the idea that ‘genetically transmitted traits determine (or condition) cultural traits (genetic determinism). He maintains that the racially exclusive possession of a particular culture is stressed over genetic determinism in the Japanese context so it cannot be linked to racism. However, Xxxxx (1993, p. 21) argues that although racism started during colonialism, its reproduction is determined by the rise of the ...
