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Projected coevalness and post-colonial tourism: the persistence of cultural hierarchy in contemporary Japanese-Taiwanese film

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Projected coevalness and post-colonial tourism: the persistence of cultural hierarchy in contemporary Japanese-Taiwanese film

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Content 1

Projected Coevalness and Post-Colonial Tourism:
The Persistence of Cultural Hierarchy in Contemporary Japanese-Taiwanese
Film

Megan Kai-Yen Ong
East Asian Area Studies Master of Arts degree
from the USC Graduate School
at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles
August 2018
2

Contents

I. Introduction 3
II. Historical background of the Japan-Taiwan relationship 6
III. Colonial tourism and foundations of Japanese soft power 10
IV. Contemporary geopolitics and pop culture 13
V. Discussion of film, Mom Thinks I’m Crazy to Marry a Japanese Guy (Mamadame) 24
VI. Conclusions 35
VII. Bibliography 38

3

Introduction
The Japanese media representation of Asian nostalgia does not simply fail to recognize ‘Asia’ as
an equal interlocutor; it also suppresses the history of subjugation of other Asian countries that
has been constitutive of Japanese modernity.
Kōichi Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism,
180.

The colonial hierarchies of the colonizer and the colonized, the civilized and the barbaric,
and the modernized and the backwards continue to reveal their legacy despite the corresponding
post-World War II economic “miracles” and geopolitical developments in Japan and Taiwan. As
noted by many scholars, such as Leo Ching and Kuan-Hsing Chen, this is in part due to the lack
of a decolonization process during the United States’ occupation of Japan, as well as US support
of the anti-Communist Kuomintang in Taiwan. This situation has pushed serious reckoning with
the colonial past between Japan and Taiwan aside in favor of nation-building through economic
development. In the postwar era, Japan developed a high speed economic growth model which
then spread throughout East Asia, with prominent examples being the Four Asian Tigers, namely
South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. By the late twentieth century, it seemed that
the game of catch-up between Taiwan and Japan was narrowing in various regards: political
democratization, modernized infrastructure, transportation and telecommunications, and
booming technological and even entertainment industries. Kōichi Iwabuchi argued his 2002 book,
Recentering Globalization for “an emerging sense among the Taiwanese of coevalness… with
the Japanese, that is, the feeling that Taiwanese share a modern temporality with Japan.”
1
The
concept of “coevalness” provided one avenue through which to reimagine Japan’s relationship
with “Other Asias” amidst these changes.
2

1
Kōichi Iwabuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. (Duke University
Press, 2002), 122.
2
Iwabuchi discussed a Japan which has left Asia (referencing the famous Meiji-era work, Datsu-A Ron) and the
possibilities of Japan rejoining Asia amidst a new age of globalization. Yet this seems unlikely, especially from the
perspective of postcolonial studies. See Gayatri Spivak’s notable exclusion of Japan from Other Asias (Foreword, 11)
4

Yet today there remains a perceptible hierarchy in cultural exchange between the two,
with Japan as the primary producer/exporter and Taiwan the consumer/importer. Based upon my
own travels to the capital Taipei in 2018, it is apparent that there is an oversaturation of Japanese
products and the use of Japan as a marketing ploy to project an image of the modern, cute, and
cutting edge. In fact, the very notion of ‘catching up’ implies the persistence of the hierarchy
between the two which has existed since the colonial era. Additionally, the concept of coevalness
implies that two societies exist not only contemporaneously but also at the same level of
technological, economic and cultural development. This concept is not an objective reality but
rather an attitudinal projection by the colonizer to assert their superiority. Colonizers have used
the supposed lack of coevalness between nations to define their group (such as a nation or race)
as "modern" and "advanced," and to often justify their dominance and exploitation of the Other
group. This is then often internalized by the colonized subject resulting in the perpetuation of a
sense of cultural inferiority and imperial hierarchy, as explored in Frantz Fanon’s examination of
the psyche of the colonial subject in his groundbreaking book, The Wretched of the Earth. In the
case of the Taiwanese, the yearning for a material life of modernity takes the form of Japanese
products, services and lifestyles, even today.
Contemporary cinematic representations of tourism and intercultural exchange between
Taiwan and Japan continue to exemplify and perpetuate these hierarchies. These cultural
imaginaries do not exist in isolation, but are formed amidst the international system of nation-
states, with “global capitalism unif[ying] the plurality of geographic spaces and histories.”
3

Following the geocolonial historical materialist framework proposed by Kuan-Hsing Chen,
4
the

3
Kuan-Hsing Chen. Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization. (Durham and London: Duke University Press,
2010), 66.
4
Ibid., “The formulation proposed here is based on historical materialism, an approach which informs much
cultural-studies research, but locates historical materialism in geographic space… In this context, the formation of
5

legacies of Japan and Taiwan’s colonial history and postwar geopolitics persistently impact and
are reflected through the contemporary industries of popular media, film and tourism. Film and
tourism are important tools for understanding how nations deliberately market and project
images of themselves towards the goal of nation-building, as discussed by Youngmin Choe,
Shuling Huang, and other scholars.
My analysis will include various pieces of contemporary film and literature which tackle
the representations of and relationships between Japanese and Taiwanese, but will primarily
focus on the film, Mom Thinks I’m Crazy to Marry a Japanese Guy (2017), henceforth shortened
to Mamadame (based upon the Japanese title, ママは日本へ嫁に行っちゃダメと言うけれ
ど). This romantic comedy is based on an autobiographical book about a real intercultural couple:
a Taiwanese woman named Yi-han Lin and her Japanese husband, Hiromichi Mogi. Their story
began with Yi-han donating to the March 2011 disaster in support of Japan, her future partner
Mogi, noticing this via a Facebook post. The montages of tourism in the film project a superficial
perception of Taiwan and Japan as equally advanced and “modern,” seemingly far beyond their
colonial history of domination and exploitation. Yet I argue that the relationship between the
characters, which for better or worse serves as a representation of their respective nationalities,
ultimately remains within the framework of the established power balance which echoes colonial
precedents.
Thus, the prewar colonial history continues to play a role in the complex,
multidimensional, yet markedly unequal relationship between Taiwan and Japan. These histories
are deeply and intricately entangled, influencing each other and producing the cultural
imaginaries and perceived understandings of Japanese to Taiwanese and Taiwanese to Japanese.

postcolonial discourse is intended not to announce the happy arrival of a postcolonial era, but rather as an attempt to
foreground the deep-seated forces of colonialism in history.” 66.
6

My aim in this paper is to integrate the framework of geocolonial historical materialism and
analysis of films such as Mamadame to draw a clearer connection between the legacies of
imperialism and contemporary Taiwan-Japan relations within the context of intra-East Asian
relations.

Historical background of the Japan-Taiwan relationship
First I would like to further clarify the connection between the contemporary geopolitical
economic situation and the colonial past. Why does the asymmetrical relationship between Japan
and “the rest” of Asia continue to persist? Why is Japan able to ignore its colonial past with
Taiwan in a way that it cannot with mainland China or Korea? What are the contingencies that
explain why Taiwanese today are forced or choose to accept Japan’s position of superiority?
Many factors explain this in ways which are both disturbing yet pragmatic.
A major explanation lies in Leo Ching’s established theory of "decolonization, as
opposed to postcolonialism."
5
Ching poignantly argues that this (lack of) decolonization has
largely "prevented both Japan and Taiwan from addressing and confronting their particular
colonial relationship and the overall Japanese colonial legacy."
6
With Japan's defeat in World
War II and the ensuing Cold War geopolitics dominated by American military prerogatives, the
Japanese were able to avoid the actual logistical procedures of decolonization and the
confrontations of independence movements, unlike for example the British or the French. The
manipulation of Japan’s postwar image into one of “peace” is largely due to “the patronage of
the United States,” and with it, “Japan was able to achieve unprecedented economic prosperity

5
Leo Ching, Becoming "Japanese": Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2001), 12.
6
Ibid., 20.
7

and continues to circumvent and disavow the colonial question.”
7
Kate McDonald supports this
by showing the deliberate creation of “Peaceful Japan” in campaigns propagated by the Japan
Tourist Bureau and the GHQ immediately following the war.
8
Therefore, although the colonial
system is a thing of the past, the legacy of its dismantlement in the Pacific during the Cold War
by the US has left consequences which continue to shape the power relations between Japan and
its ex-colonies, including Taiwan.
Kuan-Hsing Chen further explains why Cold War geopolitics stunted Taiwan’s serious
reckoning with the colonial past. Chen recuperates historical materialism as a framework,
bringing attention to the geocolonial postwar context and psychoanalytics of colonial mimicry,
echoing the works of Homi Bhabha and Franz Fanon. Amidst this avoidance of directly
addressing the colonial past whilst moving forward into an increasingly globalized world system,
“imperialism expresses itself in a new form.”
9
Specifically regarding Taiwan, Chen discusses the
concept of imperial identification, which highlights the agency of the colonized in choosing to
identify with the stronger power for strategic reasons. In one extreme example presented by
Chen, a radical Taiwanese group called Club 51 has since the 1990s advocated for Taiwan to
attempt to join the United States as the 51
st
state. Chen interprets these impulses as rooted in the
“nostalgic longing for empire,” which is directly related to Taiwan’s relationship with Japan and
even previously to the Qing empire.
10
Chen also draws a connection between Taiwan’s economic
development and the “southward advance” of the 1990s with its “obviously imperialist origins”
in the 1930s Japanese empire, which “used Taiwan as a strategic point from which to invade

7
Ibid., 43.
8
Kate McDonald. Placing Empire: Travel and the Social Imagination in Imperial Japan. (University of California
Press: Oakland, 2017), 170.
9
Kuan-Hsing Chen, 4.
10
Ibid., 173.
8

several Southeast Asian countries.”
11
This has major underlying implications regarding the
supposed Taiwanese nationalism of policy makers who have adopted Japanese-style high speed
economic growth strategies which are based upon imperial patterns of exploitation. Chen cites
this as further proof of the claim “that decolonization in Taiwan has not yet really taken place,”
12

opening up an entirely new conversation on the nature and even plausibility of decolonization
and deimperialization.
During the heyday of its empire, Japan propagated itself as a civilized model to which
colonized subjects should strive towards. This is most commonly identified in the dōka (同化)
and kōminka undō ( 皇民化運動) movements. The Japanese colonial government promoted a sort
of quasi-assimilation into the empire through Japanese language education, name-changing and
“volunteering” to join the war effort, although as Ching argues that there was much fluctuation in
the strains and strengths of justification, implementation and consequences of these policies.
13

Colonial Taiwanese intellectuals and elites debated the conflation between Japanese
imperialization and “the desire for ‘modernity,’”
14
offering various perspectives on how to
pragmatically, nationalistically or otherwise respond to their supposed and indoctrinated
inferiority to Japan. One example is Bo-seng Lim, a Taiwanese elite whose dissertation in 1929
reveals this very struggle over colonial modernity. Lim’s work adds the layers of the influence
from British missionaries and the larger Western civilization in comparison to Japan’s supposed
civilizing mission and justification for both developing and exploiting Taiwan.
15
According to
McDonald, a stronger backlash eventually crystalized amongst the disillusioned “second-

11
Ibid., Preface, xiii.
12
Ibid., Preface, xiii.
13
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” Ch 3, “Between Assimiliation and Imperialization.”
14
Ibid., 28.
15
Takeshi Komagome. “Colonial Modernity for an Elite Taiwanese, Lim Bo-Seng: The Labyrinth of
Cosmopolitanism,” Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory. Ed. Liao Ping-
Hui, David Der-wei Wang. (Columbia University Press: New York, 2006), 141-159.
9

generation,” who realized the contradictions in the rhetoric of the Japanese empire which failed
to follow through with their promises, sparking dissent and ethno-nationalism among the
Taiwanese.
16

This struggle of identity and belonging is artfully captured in Zhuoliu Wu’s Orphan of
Asia. Originally written in Japanese during the end of colonial era and published in 1946, this
novel documents the Taiwanese dilemma of being caught between the Japanese colonial
domination and the lost past of Qing China. Additionally, despite their ultimate suppression by
the Japanese colonial authorities, it is important to note the numerous acts of defiance and
rebellion within Taiwan. Perhaps the most famous is the Musha Incident of 1930, led by an
indigenous Taiwanese tribe against Japanese imperial soldiers. This has recently garnered
significant attention in scholarly research, films, and novels such as Wu He’s experimental 1999
novel, Remains of Life. This sheds light on the experiences of Taiwanese aborigines, which in the
past have been neglected and suppressed under waves of Han Chinese immigration to and
dominion over the island. Another example is the 2011 Taiwanese blockbuster, Warriors of the
Rainbow: Seediq Bale by Wei Te-sheng, which had the largest budget in Taiwan’s cinematic
history. This film highlighted a recollection of Japanese violence toward aborigine populations,
in particular the near genocide of the Seediq following the Musha Incident. Wei Te-sheng also
notably directed Cape No. 7, a 2008 film which intertwines a colonial era intercultural love story
and a modern day one between Japanese and Taiwanese characters. These works serve as proof
of demand within the Taiwanese market for more complex renderings of their colonial past.

16
McDonald, 111.
10

Colonial tourism and foundations of Japanese soft power
Yet in looking at cultural representations of the Japanese-Taiwanese relationship within
the tourism industry, another story is being told. Since its establishment in the colonial era,
tourism between Japan and Taiwan has evolved into an incredibly pertinent industry to both
national economies today. As “an industry devoted to selling experiences of places,”
17
tourism
both creates and perpetuates the cultural and temporal imaginations of the colonizer and the
colonized, and is integrally connected to contemporary film production, marketing and nation-
branding. In a similar vein, Youngmin Choe notes in her discussion of the Hallyu (the Korean)
wave “a convergence of the film and tourism industries” in East Asia.
18
These industries in South
Korea, Japan and Taiwan are indeed to be analyzed within the rearranging roles of East Asian
nations in the postcolonial age. However, my argument is in slight contrast to the approach taken
by Choe, who argues that;
…as the region becomes increasingly disconnected from the painful histories,
bitter conflicts, and political rivalries that shaped affective experiences along national
lines for the better part of the twentieth century, tourist films and film tourism become
part of a larger project of forming the transnational emotional bonds that contribute to the
shaping of a newly imagined East Asia and that might presage more concrete
transnational economic bonds between nations that were fairly recently antagonistic.
19

I argue that politically, antagonisms and hierarchies continue to exist and perpetuate despite
attempts through pop culture to mitigate and reinvent the emotional relationships between East
Asian countries after the colonial era.
Beginning with the colonial-era tourist industry, “‘colonial tours of the
metropole’ …sought to induce submission to and desire for the metropole among colonized

17
McDonald, 5.
18
Youngmin Choe. Tourist Distractions: Traveling and Feeling in Transnational Hallyu Cinema. (Durham, London,
Duke University Press, 2016), 7.
19
Ibid., 8.
11

subjects by bringing elite members of these societies to see Tokyo and other urban areas.”
20

These examples show one strategy of the Japanese imperial tourist propaganda to woo colonized
subjects into awe of the modernized greatness of Japan. According to McDonald, “in the context
of the Japanese Empire, the idea of using tourism to produce affective ties to particular
territories…began in 1897, in Taiwan. Indeed, the word for ‘tourism,’ kankō, was first
applied…to a group of thirteen indigenous leaders from Taiwan who were brought to Tokyo and
other areas within Japan in 1897.” Cultural sites such as parks, zoos, aquariums and gardens also
offered a tantalizing vision for colonial subjects as to the fruits of self-subjugation to the imperial
power Japan.
21
This carrot approach coupled with the stick of advanced military technology
show the various strategies employed by the Japanese empire in dealing with their colonial
subjects. This also reveals the foundations of the tourist industry in Japan’s modern era as based
upon the territorial acquisitions within its former empire.
As the tourist industry developed in the 1920s with the rise of mass consumer culture,
familiar functions began to take shape that are still relevant and identifiable today. “Local color
tourism naturalized this new imaginary by emphasizing the sensory experience of difference
between places—now understood to be static and fixed—and encouraged travelers to reproduce
this imaginary through the act of appreciating the complementary capacities and commodities
that each region and ethnic nation had to offer.”
22
This colonial era balancing act of modernizing
grace brought by Japan as well as appreciating the value of the local flavors of Taiwan serves as
a foundation for the tactics of appeal used in many contemporary films, such as Mamadame, as
will be later discussed. According to Mariko Tamanoi, “‘Nostalgia tourism represents the
nation’s yearning for the landscapes, lifestyles, and spectacles of the lost empire… assisting the

20
McDonald, 16.
21
Ibid., 42.
22
Ibid., 107.
12

Japanese people to forget the power of their own state, which once dominated ordinary Chinese
people in a place where they now entertain themselves.’”
23
The Japanese sense of entitlement
and privilege goes unnoticed by the Japanese themselves and by some Taiwanese, who may be
forced to accept it as an unavoidable reality. It is imperative to note that this phenomenon of
privileged ignorance based upon ongoing legacies of the colonial and postwar hierarchy is
characteristic of neocolonial systems throughout the world, and not unique to the Japan-Taiwan
relationship. Additionally, the Taiwanese response to this should not be seen as mere ignorance
or avoidance of the colonial past, but also a strategic complicity as discussed by Chen and Ching
and also seen in the introspections of other colonized subjects as described by Fanon.
Attempting to redefine national reputation and self-representation through tourism also
strikes me as one of the goals of contemporary films such as Mamadame and Cape No. 7. This is
just as much an attempt from the colonial power as it is one of the colonized. Specific to Taiwan,
the issue of “cooked” or “uncooked” from the colonial era
24
has evolved into one of
backwardness and underdevelopment since the post-war era. In the colonial era, “the Taiwan
Association (Taiwan kyōkai), a booster organization headquartered in Tokyo, attempted to
elevate the civilizational status of Taiwanese Chinese in the metropolitan imagination by
referring to them in a way that did not condemn the island as a whole to an image of savagery
and lawlessness.”
25
This imagery is indeed starkly reversed in Mamadame, showing a peaceful
and approachable image of daily life with its urban conveniences and tropical paradise beach
scenes. A similar marketing strategy is employed in Cape No. 7, though it is addressed within the
narrative somewhat metafictionally, providing more depth from the Taiwanese perspective.
Attention is drawn to more local regions in opposition to the typical focus on Taipei. The

23
Ibid., 49.
24
For more, see Emma Teng’s Taiwan’s Imagined Geography and Wu He’s Remains of Life.
25
McDonald, 56.
13

imposed internationalization led by a Japanese and Taipei-centered characters is balanced by the
insistence on showcasing local talent from southern Taiwan, with a bittersweet nostalgic feeling
towards colonial memory. The popularity of Cape No. 7 domestically indicates the identification
that many Taiwanese feel with a more complex reckoning with the colonial past and the
Taiwanese self-identification and representation.

Contemporary geopolitics and pop culture
In the current Taiwanese-Japanese relationship, there exist layers of emotional and
sentimental affection and admiration which some may argue have evolved, at least superficially,
beyond the realms of colonial influence. According to Ching, this over-essentialized positive
image of Taiwan-Japan relations points to “commonsense” notions of Taiwanese ethno-national
character in the eyes of the Japanese.
Unlike [for example,] the Koreans, who vehemently detested and tenaciously
opposed the Japanese and their colonial occupation, the Taiwanese are said to have
retained a fairly positive image of the Japanese and recollected approvingly virtues of
Japanese rule. If the Koreans speak of oppression and resistance, the Taiwanese speak of
modernization and development. The popular postwar, post-colonial Japanese view of the
Taiwanese as "pro-Japan" (shinnichi) and of the Koreans as "anti-Japanese" reveals the
extent to which the Japanese perceive their colonial differences through the lens of this
kind of national-racial essentialization.
26

Specifically in pop culture there is strong evidence to back this commonsense notion that
Taiwanese relations with Japan are generally friendly. In Taiwan, there exists a phenomenon of a
love for all things Japanese, especially amongst Taiwanese women. This fetishization is difficult
to capture, yet has been attempted by Taiwanese bloggers such as Kyōko Hari,
27
who coined the

26
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 8.
27
Shuling Huang, “Nation-Branding and Transnational Consumption: Japan-Mania and the Korean Wave in
Taiwan,” Media, Culture &Amp; Society, vol. 33, no. 1, (2011), 10.
14

term “hārì” (哈日), or a “total adoration for Japan.”
28
This is evidenced by the well-documented
and long-established popularity of Sanrio’s Hello Kitty
29
and other Japanese mascot characters in
Taiwan. The cultural-economic exchange extends to many other entertainment industries as well,
such as popular music, anime, games, manga and TV dramas. Shuling Huang links the
development of Japanese postwar national and cultural identity with the consumption of their
pop culture products spreading to other countries in East and Southeast Asia.
30
In the case of
Taiwan, these did not enter with full force until the 1990s due to the KMT ban on Japanese
products lifting only in 1993. But why were these so well-received in Taiwan, a former colony of
the Japanese empire which had just emerged from a phase of a government-imposed anti-
Japanese Sinicization movement?
This can be partially explained by Taiwan’s troubled relationship with both the Chinese
Communist and the Nationalist parties, which is rooted in its pre- and post-colonial history.
According to Ching, the harsh occupation by Kuomintang forces from the mainland "fostered in
the Taiwanese a deep resentment against the Chinese, and they consequently reconstituted and
reimagined their colonial relationship with Japan,"
31
ironically to the benefit of the Japanese. The
point of this example is to show that Taiwan’s back and forth history of domination under
Chinese (the Qing dynasty then the KMT) and Japanese imperial rule have long standing impacts
on their current economic situation and cultural orientation. The 2016 election of Democratic
Progressive Party leader Tsai Ing-wen showed a political shift towards pro-Taiwanese
independence, which has hindered tourism from the mainland considerably, as shown by the
following data:

28
Kyōko Hari. “Taiwan’s Complicated Love Affair with Japan,” Nippon.com, Aug 30, 2013.
https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a02201/.
29
See Christine Yano’s Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific.
30
Huang, 6.
31
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 20.
15

 Number of tourist from China: 3,510,000
 Accounts for the most number of tourists; 32.9% of all visitors
 Compared to 2015, down by 16.1% in 2016
32

The KMT and other conservatives sympathetic to the mainland and reunification recognize the
negative economic impact which forging ahead for Taiwanese independence risks. This is
especially worrisome as the rise of current Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping
further exacerbates the shaky relationship between Taiwan and the PRC. The CCP’s increasingly
nationalistic agenda is accompanied by more aggressive interpretations of the One China policy
with the United States. However, the economic ties between China and Taiwan persist, China
still being Taiwan’s major trading partner. This locks Taiwan in a perilous situation, fearful to
jeopardize its financial stability for the sake of political autonomy.
The next best option seems to be to turn to Japan instead. Data shows that the decline in
Chinese tourists “was offset by tourists visiting from countries other than China, which lifted
almost 15 percent to 7.18 million. A significant number came from Japan, which saw a 16.5
percent increase in tourists to Taiwan to 1.9 million people, and South Korea, with a 34 percent
lift to 880,000 people. Japan and South Korea accounted for 18 percent and 8 percent of all
visitors respectively.”
33
As shown by this data, Japanese tourists rank high in supporting the
tourist industry in Taiwan, and coupled with the sustained demand for Japanese goods in Taiwan,
this supports the overall notion of Japanese-Taiwanese economic and cultural cooperation. The

32
Rosemary Chen. “Taiwan Hits Record Tourist Numbers Despite Plunge in Chinese.” The News Lens
International. Feb 6, 2017. https://international.thenewslens.com/article/60842.
33
Ibid.
16

Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs official website also provides statistics and basic
explanations characterizing the friendly, cooperative relationship with Taiwan from 2013.
34

Shifting gears to discuss Japan’s government-led cultural self-branding, the past decade
of Japanese pop culture production has failed to achieve its desired goals, especially in the face
of the enormous success of the South Korean Hallyu wave. Dubbed as "Cool Japan," the
government has funded the appropriation and exploitation of cultural products to rebrand and
recreate the "uniqueness" of Japan. Under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry (METI), the Cool Japan initiative of the early 2000’s has since been largely regarded by
both academics and media sources as a failure.
35
Recent efforts by the Japanese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (MOFA) include the Japan House initiative, opening in Los Angeles in 2017
with other locations in Sao Paolo and London, with a goal of “seek[ing] to foster awareness and
appreciation for Japan around the world by showcasing the very best of Japanese art, design,
gastronomy, innovation, technology, and more.”
36
No longer appropriating “lower” forms of
grassroots cultural products (such as Harajuku youth subcultures, fashion, anime and music) this
attempt instead takes a higher branding approach, with its target as being more elite and
wealthier foreign consumers.
However, this strategy seems to repeat the baseline problem of self-focused promotion
rather than consumer-based marketing. In sharp contrast, the Hallyu wave owes much of its
success to the research and integration into foreign markets, increasing accessibility to foreign

34
First and Second China and Mongolia Divisions Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Recent Japan-Taiwan Relations and the Taiwan Situation.” July 2013. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-
paci/taiwan/.
35
Nancy Snow. "Uncool Japan: Japan's Gross National Propaganda." Metropolis, Issue 1024, Nov. 7, 2013.
http://www.academia.edu/13477916/Uncool_Japan_Japans_Gross_National_Propaganda.
Benjamin Boas. "'Cool Japan' needs to listen to its target market". The Japan Times, Apr 24,
2016. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/04/24/general/cool-japan-needs-listen-target-market/#.Wp2aW-
jwbIU.
36
“About us: Vision,” Japan House: Los Angeles Official website, accessed May 7, 2018.
http://www.japanhouse.jp/losangeles/aboutus/index.html.
17

consumers with interactive social media campaigns. K-pop stars are trained in various languages
such as English, Japanese and Mandarin, and many groups are formed including multi-ethnic and
national members. Their success with these consumer-based strategies is evident throughout
Southeast and East Asia, even breaking into the US market, a longtime goal of many Asian
groups. A major example includes the K-pop group BTS, which in 2018 was the first Korean
group to perform at the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and other major events, even
debuting at No.1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
37
The K-pop group Twice, consisting of
South Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese members, also recently showed impressive gains in the
Japanese market with a Platinum-certified album and ranking third on the Japanese Billboard
charts out of all artists in 2017.
38

One might wonder why the Japanese have been unable to break free from this cycle of
inward-looking branding and marketing. This type of strategy is only viable when targeted
towards countries such as Taiwan, which holds a particular bond to Japan both due to its intimate
historical background and its current geopolitical positioning. When promoting and selling their
goods to Taiwan, government-funded Japanese businesses are able to comfortably maintain a
false sense of national superiority which has been dwindling in its relations with other East Asian
neighbors and even its equitable relations with the West. The failure of the “Cool Japan” policies
to take off abroad can be tied to a broad range of issues within and outside of Japan. The
conservative backlash in the Japanese social imagination of the international may be
compounded by domestic contingencies. According to The Japanese Ministry of Education,

37
Keith Caulfield. “BTS Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With 'Love Yourself: Tear.'”
Billboard.com, May 27, 2018.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8458036/bts-earns-first-no-1-album-billboard-200-chart-
love-yourself-tear.
38
“ ビルボードジャパン 2017 年年間チャート発表.” Billboard Japan.com. http://www.billboard-
japan.com/special/detail/2183.
18

Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, there has been a notable decrease in Japanese going
overseas for study from 2004 to 2011,
39
although there seems to be some discrepancies between
the MEXT approximations and those of other organizations such as the Japan Association of
Overseas Studies, which report higher levels of study abroad.
40
And although annual tourism has
remained relatively constant in the past two decades, with around 17 million in 2017,
41
in
comparison, foreign tourists to Japan have increased sharply since 2011 from 6 million annual
visits to 28 million in 2017, with Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese topping the list of overseas
visitors to Japan.
42
This rise in tourism to Japan could be interpreted as a “success” to the
Japanese efforts to market their “coolness.”
However, I would argue that this influx of tourists does not actually indicate the success
of the “Cool Japan” campaign. These Asian foreign consumers are not being shepherded by
marketing plans of Japanese companies, but instead are merely following their own consumer
desires. The previous example of MOFA’s Japan House initiative’s prioritization of “awareness”
and “appreciation” does not quite match up with Chinese tourists’ “explosive purchasing” (爆発
的な購買), which remains a mystery to many Japanese. More importantly, there are strong anti-
foreign sentiments in areas with high levels of mainland Chinese tourists, such as in Osaka,
despite (or ironically perhaps due to) their impressive spending power.
43
This is often explained
by the lack of manners and disruption Chinese tourists around the world have become infamous

39
MEXT, “The Number of Japanese Nationals Studying Overseas and the Annual Survey of International Students
in Japan. ” Office for Student Exchange, Student Support and Exchange Division, Higher Education Bureau. Feb 27,
2015. http://www.mext.go.jp/en/news/topics/detail/1372624.htm.
40
“Survey on the Status of Japanese Studying Abroad by 36 Study Abroad Agencies,” Japan Association of
Overseas Studies, Nov 16, 2016. http://www.jaos.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/JAOS-survey_Eng161130.pdf
41
“Japanese outbound tourists Statistics.” JTB Tourism Research & Consulting Co. Dec 7, 2017.
https://www.tourism.jp/en/tourism-database/stats/outbound/
42
Ibid. “Japanese inbound tourists Statistics.” https://www.tourism.jp/en/tourism-database/stats/inbound/
43
Stephen Chen. “‘Please just go’: thumbs down after Chinese tourists asked to leave Osaka restaurant.” The South
China Morning Post. Jun 8, 2018. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2149928/please-just-go-thumbs-
down-after-chinese-tourists-asked-leave
19

for.
44
However, it is important to note that this hostility is primarily directed, largely in part to
negative political and media representations, against mainland Chinese and Korean tourists,
Taiwanese tourists being set aside as an exception.
45
Both Japanese and Taiwanese working in
the tourism industry seem to make a distinct separation in the reputation of Chinese and
Taiwanese tourists. In an industry where attractiveness, leisure and luxury are prioritized, it
comes as no surprise that the Taiwanese are incentivized to distance themselves from the
notorious image of Chinese tourists. This again reveals the continuation of the postwar precedent
of Taiwanese preferred cultural association with Japan over China, as previously discussed. In
addition, the Japanese also have reason to promote tourism with Taiwanese visitors as a safer and
less disruptive option, despite the growing spending power of the Chinese.
To more broadly contextualize Japan’s competition in East Asia for cultural hegemony,
Shuling Huang explains “how popular culture helps polish the image of a nation and thus
strengthens its economic competitiveness in the global market. Consequently, nation-branding
has become incorporated into the project of nation-building in light of globalization.” She also
“...illuminate[s] the processes in which nation-branding is not only promoted by a nation as an
international marketing strategy, but also appropriated by a receiving country as a pattern of
consumption,”
46
specifically by both Japanese and South Korean governments engaging in
nation-building via nation-branding with Taiwan as a target consumer.
47
Huang goes on to
explain the “mechanisms [which] contribute to Taiwanese acceptance of all things Japanese and
Korean” including, “the marketing of Japanese and Korean culture industries… the promotion of

44
Karla Cripps. “Chinese tourism: The good, the bad and the backlash.” CNN Travel. Jun 15, 2017.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chinese-tourism-impact/index.html
45
Kyodo News. “Taiwan, Japan aim for 7 mil. 2-way tourist exchanges in 2019.” Jun 2, 2018.
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2018/06/a20a99da4363-no-of-tourists-traveling-between-taiwan-japan-nears-7-
milyr-goal.html.
46
Huang, 3.
47
Ibid., 6.
20

Japanese and Korean popular cultures by local media,” and “transnational tourism.” The
asymmetrical, triangular structure between Japan/Korea and Taiwan is further evidenced by the
financial trade imbalance, as “in 2004, Taiwan’s trade deficit with Korea rapidly increased to US
$6 billion, second only to its deficit with Japan.”
48

Yet one drawback of categorizing Japan and Korea together in this way is that it
minimizes the historical differences between them and props up the two competing nations as
economically and culturally equal in relation to Taiwan. This runs the risk of oversimplifying the
relations between Korea and Japan, especially considering the historical grouping of Taiwan and
Korea as colonies under Japan and now Taiwan as consumer of both Korea and Japan. It may
seem like from the Taiwanese standpoint, Korea and Japan are basically equivalent producers of
cool products, but this ignores the historical exploitation and hierarchical subordination of Korea
along with Taiwan under Japan in the colonial era. It also disregards the current geopolitical
situations which have trapped Taiwan in a place between Korea and Japan, along with the two
superpowers of China and the US.
Therefore, I would like to highlight Huang’s assertion that “compared to Japan, the
Korean state has been more ambitious in advertising Korean cultural products abroad.” For
example, “the Korean government bought the rights of some popular dramas and distributed
them in many countries without charge, for the sake of future profits.”
49
This practice extends to
tourism as well: “Compared to Japan, Korea has more aggressively utilized the culture industry
to create spin-off effects on tourism.”
50
Much like the previously mentioned examples of the K-
pop music industry, the results seem clear that this strategy has paid off. In addition, Huang notes
the temporal shift between the introduction and popularity of Japanese dramas and other

48
Ibid., 8.
49
Ibid., 9.
50
Ibid., 14.
21

entertainment in the early 1990s, and the transition to Korean dramas in the early 2000s.
51
Here
is an interesting anecdote regarding this temporality:
Cheng Yi-hsun, a Taiwanese student studying in Seoul, won jobs with some
Taiwanese media covering Korean entertainment news. Her book You Can Learn Korean
If You Speak Japanese targeted fans of Korean popular culture. This book title may make
sense, but it is manipulative. The Japanese language has been popular in Taiwan, while
Korean remains unfamiliar to the public. Utilizing Taiwanese’s receptiveness to Japanese
is an expedient marketing tactic. Therefore, the notion that Korean wave resembles
Japan-mania has twofold meanings. First, Koreans emulate the cultural production of
Japan to boost their cultural exports. Second, the Taiwanese embrace the Korean wave
with Japan-mania in mind.
52

This fascinating and multilayered case shows how the established popular image of Japan in
Taiwan has been appropriated by a Taiwanese writer to propagate the sale of Korean cultural
products to other Taiwanese consumers in a show of double colonial mimicry. In this example,
Japan is the model for both Taiwanese and Koreans, yet a divergence occurs as Koreans
actualize a higher position in the hierarchy, while Taiwan remains subordinated. Consequently,
despite the added complexity of the rise of Korea, this example shows the continued superiority
of foreign (Japanese and Korean as Japanese) cultural goods in the Taiwanese domestic market.
To complicate the overall portrayal of Taiwan as passive receiver and Japan and Korea as
active cultural producers, I would like to bring attention to Taiwan’s economic growth and
production of cultural goods in the 1990s. While Japan’s bubble economy burst and plummeted
into the first of many “lost decades,” showing no signs of recovering the speed and vigor of its
post-war “miracle” boom, the Taiwanese government began implementing policies to promote
investment in mainland China and countries in Southeast Asia such as Thailand, the Philippines
and Malaysia.
53
These efforts coincided with the increased production and spread of Taiwanese
cultural goods such as pop music and TV dramas. For example, as part of the Taiwanese Mando-

51
Ibid., 8.
52
Ibid., 11.
53
Kuan-Hsing Chen, 19.
22

pop movement (sometimes referred to as the Taiwanese Wave) in the early 2000s, Taiwan-based
pop stars such as Jay Chou, Leehom Wang, and others spread their popularity throughout Asia,
even reaching Japan. The 2001 Taiwanese drama, Meteor Garden, which was based on the
popular Japanese manga Boys Over Flowers ( 花より男子), became well known as one of the
markers of success for Taiwan as one of the Four Asian Tigers. The overseas success and timing
of this drama can also be compared to South Korea’s 2002 hit soap opera, Winter Sonata. Kuan-
Hsing Chen credits Taiwan’s growth to its “subimperialist” southward advance, which under the
neocolonial capitalist structure of domination by the US and Japan, forced government-led
businesses in Taiwan to spread west and south, seeking access to cheap labor and available
markets. According to Chen, the impulse of the Taiwanese to mimic the Japanese expansionism
reflects the hierarchical stratification of neocolonial imperialism in modern day global
capitalism.
54

However in recent years, Taiwan as well has since hit a roadblock in economic growth
and expansion. Despite the success of its era of high speed growth, Taiwan now has been unable
to push forward its political independence agenda amidst the rising tide that is the economic and
political powerhouse of mainland China. President Xi Jinping has expanded the power and
influence of the mainland over Hong Kong and the western provinces Xinjiang and Tibet, and
has pushed for nationalistic claims of jurisdiction into the surrounding territories in the South
China Sea, which is seen as a threat by some in the region. Additionally, in shipping its factories
over to the mainland for cheaper labor in the 90s, the development of Taiwan’s capitalist
economy has now forced it into an inextricable dependence upon the mainland for manufacturing
as well as its massive markets. Caught in between this increasing economic dependence on

54
Ibid., 18.
23

China and the growing distaste for reunification due to a new generation of Taiwanese
nationalism, the stage is set for escapist narratives in entertainment and leisure industries which
avoid addressing this stagnant, no-win situation.
Since the 1980s, the debate over the Taiwanese independence and consciousness in
relation to China and Japan developed several angles, including contemporary writer Sung Tse-
lai’s historical-materialist perspective on the socioeconomic conditions of Taiwan under
Japanese colonial rule.
55
Although this has been disregarded by Ching as “crude” and
“determining,”
56
it holds a certain pragmatic sensibility which is relevant to layman perspectives
which are easily molded and shaped by the current political and economic circumstances. And as
earlier stated Chen’s recuperation of historical materialism within a geocolonial context
57

provides a framework with which to understand the current imagination of national reputations
as intricately tied to the tourism industries and the cultural products that they sponsor.
Mamadame in particular, with its tourist industry sponsorships from both Taiwan and
Japan, presents such a vision. In its warmth and lighthearted goodwill, Mamadame presents the
Taiwan-Japan relationship as romanticized and safe, drawing away from highly politicized and
more recent traumatic experiences with mainland China. This shows how Japan and Taiwan’s
friendly relationship today is a somewhat twisted legacy of how both the brutality of the KMT
and the rise of the PRC obfuscates the memory of Japan’s imperial dominance and exploitation
over Taiwan. This film presents Taiwan as a welcoming, nonthreatening and romantic getaway
to construct a cultural imagination of a warm relationship between countries as represented by
the intercultural Taiwanese and Japanese couple, while intentionally ignoring the historical
colonial relations between the two nations. Overall, both Japan and Taiwan have reached a

55
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 70.
56
Ibid., 67.
57
Kuan-Hsing Chen, 1.
24

certain place which allows for an uneasy and rather superficial sense of equality in the East
Asian and international order, partially explained by the Pan-Asianist concept of “coevalness”
and has further been solidified in the early twenty-first century with geopolitical economic
circumstances.

Discussion of film: Mom Thinks I’m Crazy to Marry a Japanese Guy (Mamadame)
To begin, Mamadame’s lack of mainstream exposure in the Japanese market compared to
the Taiwanese market (I saw billboard ads for the film in Ximending, a major shopping district
in Taipei the month the film was released) ended in a much higher grossing result in Taiwanese
box offices than in Japan. According to the Taiwan Film Institute, Mamadame showed for 3
months, running from June until September 2017, and selling a total of 45,217 tickets for
$10,627,068 NTD or about $364,700 USD,
58
a respectable amount for an independent film
showing in Taiwan. This shows the imbalance not only of Japan’s lack of interest in international
narratives but also Taiwan’s willingness to consume Japanese goods.
However, with Japanese members heavily involved in this co-production, including a
Japanese director (relative newcomer Akihisa Yachida) and production company (Tokyo-based
Duckbill Entertainment), Mamadame can be seen as a somewhat naïve attempt to overcome
Japanese disinterest by implementing social media savvy elements and aspects of romance and
tourism. It attempts to do this by appealing to the escapism of overseas travel using Japan’s
implicit role of superiority to stroke the egos of would-be travelers to Taiwan, which presents a
safe and unpolitical destination compared to mainland China and Korea. As a romance-travel
film, its design may appeal to a certain sector of Japanese working women with the disposable

58
“ 每月票房公告”Taiwan Film Institute, accessed May 7, 2018. http://www.tfi.org.tw/about-publicinfo04.asp.
25

incomes to spend on traveling (a phenomenon commonly known as “joshi-tabi” (女子旅)).
59

The members of this demographic have the potential to be interested in both traveling for leisure
and enjoying an idealistic love story. Since the 1990s, Japan’s social circumstances indicate
declining marriages and birthrates and increasing divorce, yet the appeal of a stable and loving
relationship remains.
60
Therefore, one appeal of this film lies in the escape from these harsh
realities to a relaxing fantasy.
There is also an appeal made towards Japan’s “herbivore men.” On the back cover of the
DVD, the lead male Mogi is billed as an “okute danshi” (奥手男子), another contemporary term
for a late-bloomer or a male who is slow on romance. As described by a Japanese blogger, the
film is “a must-see for herbivore guys all over Japan” (“ もうね、全国の草食系男子必見。”)
61

This type of man represents a popular counterexample to the more established, conventionally
hyper-sexualized Japanese masculinity, embodied by the so-called “carnivore men” ( 肉食系男
子). Consequently, in the narrative of Mamadame, having a rather passive male character attain
his love interest without much effort or skill may be targeting this demographic of male viewer.
This also conveniently works well to dispel any threatening aura from a male-gendered Japanese
presence towards possibly sensitive Taiwanese audiences. As earlier noted, a “carnivore” type
male character would contradict the peaceful appearance aimed for by this male/Japanese-
female/Taiwanese transnational pairing, a gendered pairing with obvious colonial precedents.
As mentioned before, Iwabuchi’s concept of coevalness can be identified in the
representations of Japan and Taiwan in Mamadame. I would argue that the Japanese-Taiwanese

59
Katlene O. Cacho. “Attracting the Joshi Tabi a trend in travel.” SunStar Phillipines. Mar 11, 2016.
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/62704/Attracting-the-Joshi-Tabi-a-trend-in-travel.
60
“Marriage in Japan: I Don’t,” The Economist, Sep 1, 2016. https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21706321-
most-japanese-want-be-married-are-finding-it-hard-i-dont.
61
たっけ(@takeee814), “ 【映画撮影可能な試写会】5/27 日公開「ママは日本へ嫁に行っちゃダメだと言う
けれど」に行ってきた!” たっけのメモ, May 2, 2017. http://now.takke.tokyo/entry/mamadame-sishakai/.
26

relationship in the film is indeed portrayed with more of a sense of temporal and developmental
equality as opposed to Japan’s outright dominance, yet I would like keep in mind the
superficiality of this “equality.” This is shown by the gap in marketing and publicity, as well as
overall success of the film in Taiwan over Japan. Another in-text example is the linguistic
dominance of Japanese, shown by the main couple primarily communicating in Japanese.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Japan is no longer depicted as the most cutting-edge, advanced
idealized society. There is also a sense of nostalgic affection for Taiwan, despite the depiction of
Taiwan as fully technologically developed as Japan in its modern-day conveniences and urban
infrastructure. This spatial-temporal relationship I will explore in scenes from Mamadame.
The film begins in Japan as the March 11
th
earthquake of 2011 strikes Tōhoku. Mogi, the
leading male character, is stranded at Utsunomiya station in Tochigi, which is not far from the
epicenter of the earthquake. Mogi’s co-worker asks if he can stay over, but Mogi shrugs him off
like a minor inconvenience, seemingly not too concerned about the gravity of the situation. He
then comes back to his house to find his father, uninjured, taking care of goldfish and broken
glass. Mogi checks on his room, in which his belongings have been scattered by the earthquake,
but everything is otherwise intact. No one is shown hurt or injured. And although Mogi scrolls
casually through some scenes of the destruction on Facebook, this mediated imaging creates a
sense of distance from the disaster which shows the lack of concern felt by those in areas
unaffected, even within Japan. This oddly compounds the surprise felt by the warmth and
urgency of concern felt by those outside of Japan, particularly Yi-han (the main female
protagonist) in Taiwan. Rather than focusing on a victimization of individual people, the scenery
is shaken but otherwise normal. The portrayal of the disaster in this way serves multiple purposes.
The first is to acknowledge and ground the narrative in real-life events to make the characters
27

relatable and not overly glamorous or above the level of normal consumers. Next, this avoids
showing intense suffering which maintains a lighthearted mood so that viewers do not feel guilty
about enjoying the escapist fantasy that follows. This allows and encourages hesitant characters
and thus viewers to enter into a new world (Japan for Taiwanese and Taiwan for Japanese) that is
not too different (exotic but not too scary) and thus arrive at an entertaining and satisfactory
resolution.
The representations of Yi-han as the positive, supporting, energetic Taiwanese and Mogi
as the quietly surprised and self-serving but grateful Japanese are shallowly grouped as a
monolithic nationality. These roles are never challenged throughout the film, but rather
reinforced as representative of their respective nationalities. The initial interaction between the
two main characters is shown by Yi-han’s facebook post, “You can do it/ Good luck, Japan!” ( 日
本加油!!), and Mogi’s response, “Thank you, Taiwan” ( ありがとう台湾!!). In terms of the
success of Japan’s soft power influence over Taiwan, the outpouring of donations from Taiwan
to Japan after the 3/11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami put it among the highest donating
nations.
62
And although written in their respective native languages, the rest of the film continues
with their interactions, including their phone calls, texts and face-to-face conversations,
predominantly in Japanese, a linguistic dominance which contradicts claims of having moved
past the established hierarchy of Japan over Taiwan.
One could argue that this just happens to be the way that they communicate, since they
have to pick a mutually intelligible language. Indeed, the character of Yi-han is described as a
longtime Japanophile, majoring in Japanese in college, which explains her fluency in Japanese.

62
“Taiwan gives most in world to Japan.” Taipei Times. Apr 16, 2011.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/04/16/2003500900.
“Intricate bonds behind Taiwan aid.” The Japan Times. May 21, 2011.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/05/21/national/intricate-bonds-behind-taiwan-aid/#.WykveKdKjIU.

28

However, what is immediately recognizable in Mamadame’s linguistic dynamic is its
perpetuation and replay of a colonial hierarchy in which the Taiwanese subjects display their
desire to accommodate the Japanese. In addition, because of the established and widespread
popularity of Japanese culture in Taiwan, the character of Yi-han is a more common and
therefore potentially relatable character than a Japanese character obsessed with Taiwan. The
assumption of Japanese as the lingua franca should be seen as not a random occurrence but rather
the expression of the inherent and persistent hierarchy which has a deep-seated colonial history.
In fact, the precedent of using Japanese as a lingua franca has roots in the former colonies of the
Japanese empire. Kate McDonald explains that the widespread success of the Japanese national
language movement in the colonial era delivered some “uncanny” results, “the appearance of
Japanese-speaking indigenous people and, moreover, polite Japanese-speaking indigenous
people struck Ishikawa [a Japanese traveler] as strange and unsettling.”
63
In addition, Korean
students with a mastery of the national language ( 国語) shamed Japanese who had accents
identifying them as different and outside the metropole, also highlighting the contestable nature
of the standardization of any language.
64

In the film, the languages spoken in Yi-han’s household include both Mandarin and
Taiwanese, with her mother and relatives speaking in a combination of both, and with Yi-han
primarily responding in Mandarin. These provide a familiar atmosphere to Taiwanese viewers,
and possibly an exotic yet not overbearing appeal to Japanese viewers. However, most
importantly, the language used between the main couple, Yi-han and Mogi, is almost entirely in
Japanese. This assumption of the lingua franca and tipping of the linguistic balance towards

63
McDonald, 139.
64
Ibid., 141.
29

Japanese also has an effect on the film’s plot and message. As pointed out by Han Cheung of the
Taipei Times;
Interestingly, both concepts featured in the movie title (the idea of marrying a
Japanese and the tyrant mother who opposes the decision) don’t make too much of a
difference in the film. The cultural barriers part is minimized by the fact that [Yi-han] is
proficient in Mogi’s language as a Japanese major in college and a self-professed lover of
all things Japanese. One could see it as a missed opportunity to explore cultural
differences between Taiwan and Japan — but hey, you have to stick with the script if it’s
a true story.

The effects of language on the social and cultural imagination of hierarchy and identity are not to
be underestimated. For example, an early text conversation between the two cartoon avatars, Yi-
han’s is shown saying, “I’m envious of/longing for the lifestyle in Japan” ( 日本の生活に憧れ
る), while Mogi’s replies, “Really? Taiwan looks fun too” ( そう？台湾も楽しそうだな). This
longing for Japan is echoed unequally from the Japan side, which is a longing that is not looking
up to Taiwan but rather looking down. This asymmetry again is not a singular and isolated case,
and can be contextualized within in the historical roots of colonial relations and Japan’s
economic superiority and high-tech modernization repeatedly before Taiwan.
Expanding upon this, Mogi’s daily life in Japan is represented with boring office work,
which despite being portrayed as neither glamorous nor enviable, still shows a subtle temporal
and developmental difference with Taiwan. In a scene where Mogi is drinking with his friends, it
seems they are bored with their lives and wish to travel to some exotic and energizing place.
Mogi’s friends on a Facebook video are shown planning an overseas trip, and Mogi is saddled
with booking the tickets (noticeably from Japanese travel agency HIS, a sponsor of the film) and
after coming into contact with Yi-han, switches their plan from Thailand to Taiwan. The
portrayal of these tropical get-away locations compared to Japan’s tired, urban infrastructure
casts an implicit yet undeniably temporal view towards Taiwan (and indeed toward Thailand as
30

well) as developmentally behind Japan. This exposes the stereotypes of Japanese that think of
their former colony as a primitive place.
In the colonial era, “tourism and the places it sold were an argument about the global
social and geopolitical order.”
65
Yet this remains strikingly relevant as "the binary opposition
between an advanced Japan and an underdeveloped Taiwan"
66
continues to be discussed today.
A recent article on Nippon.com, a news site produced by the Nippon Communications
Foundation, noted a controversy over the representation of Taiwanese culture and identity in the
Japanese travel and lifestyle magazine, Brutus.
67
What Hikari Sumiki calls “misplaced nostalgia”
and “complex affection for Japan” contextualizes the issue amidst the larger colonial historical
background of Taiwan and Japan. The binary of “civilized” vs. “uncivilized” transitions into one
of “modernized” vs “backwards” as the cover of the magazine seems to showcase the less
developed areas in Tainan, instead of the shiny new buildings in Taipei, much to the chagrin of
certain Taiwanese. Others have lashed back, claiming that the nativist Taiwanese lifestyle is
nothing to be ashamed of. Yet this debate over self-representation and the identity of Taiwan in
comparison to Japan goes unaddressed in films such as Mamadame, which presents a vibrant and
homogenized Taiwanese identity for easily packaged marketing needs. However, beyond merely
perpetuating binaries, my goal here is to show that the choices of Taiwanese self-representation
and preferred cultural association with Japan over mainland China are indeed layered with
colonial precedents, which include various benefits of modernization, economic development,
and cultural prestige, and that this warm relationship could just have easily been reversed (like
that of Korea and Japan’s today) if not for the geopolitical contingencies of the postwar era.

65
McDonald, 5.
66
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 28.
67
Hikari Sumiki. “Japanese Magazine Cover Sparks Media Storm in Taiwan,” Nippon.com. Oct 17, 2017.
http://www.nippon.com/en/column/g00425/.
31

The tactic of targeting consumers using tourist locations in films is blatantly obvious in
Mamadame, a strategy which contemporary film and tourist industries throughout Asia have
actively collaborated towards, as noted by Youngmin Choe.
68
As Shuling Huang aptly puts it,
travel is portrayed in film as a “pilgrimage to the dream world.”
69
In the film, Mogi and his
friends travel to Taiwan and their initial, colloquial reactions upon arriving at the Taoyuan
international airport are: “Looks just like Japan!” ( 変わんないね!), and “You’re right!” (そうだ
ね!) Although this is never addressed in the film, this reaction of Japanese men comparing Taipei
to their own country seems to display an uncanny fulfillment of colonial-era goals from the
Japanese empire to develop their colony of Taiwan, with themselves as the civilizing model. The
arrival scene takes viewers from the airport through Taipei’s clean and efficient MRT system in
a documentary-like style, as if to welcome Japanese viewers to join in the adventure. These on-
location scenes in the film blur the fantasy and reality of tourism with the intentions of inspiring
viewers themselves to travel and contribute to the tourism industry.
Mogi and Yi-han’s first in-person meeting showcases the meat of the touristy fun. The
Japanese are enthralled by rustic Taiwanese foods and architecture in Jiufen. Jiufen is famous in
Japan as the location that inspired the famous Studio Ghibli animation film by Hayao Miyazaki,
Spirited Away. The Japanese men experiencing the local tastes and sights of Taiwan, to the
enjoyment of their acting guide, Yi-han, is reminiscent of the nostalgia tourism and celebration
of local flavors during the colonial era described by McDonald. Yet to bring us into the twenty-
first century, the montage is stuffed with selfie shots and videos with their smartphones,
imparting the youthful, media-savvy image which characterizes the entire film. In another visit to
Taiwan, Mogi this time visits Yi-han on his own, passing by the ANA section of the airport

68
Choe, 7.
69
Huang, 13.
32

(another product placement). Yi-han and Mogi proceed to the beautiful tropical beaches of
Fulong,
70
and other scenes are shown of the couple exploring well-known metropolitan areas of
Taipei on motorcycle. Later, Yi-han escapes to Japan and embarks on another montage
showcasing the best-known Japanese tourist destinations such as feeding deer at Nara, getting
fortunes read at Asakusa’s Sensō-ji, eating takoyaki in Osaka, Hiroshima’s Itsukushima Shrine,
etc. In other words, these are selected vacation experiences that viewers are encouraged to take
part in, and this marketing strategy mirrors those employed in other films and TV dramas.
71
This
serves as support for a projected and artificial equivalence, showcasing locations for the benefit
of both countries’ tourist industries.
Visually, the scene in front of a convenience store may be the most powerful scene in the
film. As a major plot point in the narrative, the audience follows the budding romance between
the characters as they overcome a hurdle and thereafter move toward a resolution. The scene
clips back and forth between Yi-han purchasing an international calling card in a Taiwanese
Family Mart (a Japanese chain) and Mogi answering her call in a Japanese convenience store
(surprisingly not also Family Mart, but nonetheless comparable) showing the equivalency of
urban lifestyles and the connection through modern technology. Just as the theme song begins
playing, the camera cuts become more rapid and urgent, pushing the characters closer together
until Mogi confirms that he will visit Yi-han in Taiwan soon. This narrative structure, along with
the urban, technological conveniences, supports Iwabuchi's observation of “an emerging sense of
coevalness, the perception of a historical synchronicity between Japan and Taiwan.”
72
By cutting
back and forth between Yi-han in Taiwan and Mogi in Japan, both on the phone in front of

70
This location is identified in the Behind the Scenes documentary in the Mamadame DVD.
71
For another prominent example, see Banjong Pisanthanakun’s film, Hello Stranger.
72
Iwabuchi, 158.
33

almost identical convenience stores, the audience is fed a visual projection that Japan and
Taiwan are not so different after all.
Finally, the two major conflicts in the narrative of the film are the appearance of Yi-han’s
ex-boyfriend, and her nosy, controlling mother who is worried about Yi-han moving far away.
On her birthday, Yi-han’s mother surprises her by orchestrating a visit from her ex-boyfriend,
who wants to get back together with Yi-han. Yi-han, exasperated, posts about her ex-boyfriend
on Facebook, but Mogi misinterprets this as an indication that she is getting back together with
her ex. These are problems of a long-distance relationship and jumping to conclusions based on
social media, which could happen between people of the same cultural background and therefore
is not a problem of the difference in their nationalities. The sense that the hurdle to overcome in
their relationship is one merely of long-distance makes the idea of an international relationship
less daunting and more accessible to the average viewer. Also, pinning the mother’s distress for
her daughter moving “far away,” conveniently makes it so that Japanese do not feel offended that
her daughter is “crazy for marrying a Japanese guy” like the title implies. The emotional ending
of the film, along with the misunderstanding with the ex-boyfriend, conveniently avoid any
potential political triggers and render Japanese-Taiwanese cultural differences irrelevant to the
couple’s conflict.
In my view, the ultimate purpose of this lack of actual conflict is to produce an image of
harmonious relations between the Japanese and Taiwanese nations, and in effect to ignore
implicit cultural hierarchies between Japan and Taiwan which might decrease the chance of
economic integration, namely related to tourism. The tactic used in contemporary film by
commercial sponsors to promote national harmony between Japan and Taiwan follows similar
principles to the “colonial boosters advocating ‘harmony’ through the promotion of a multiethnic
34

spatial imaginary of Japan.”
73
However, instead of direct economic exploitation led by the
colonial authorities for the purposes of national glory, the funding of Mamadame was spread out
amongst private companies with arguably less grand ideals. As an independent film, produced by
the recently established Duckbill Entertainment (2010), the remaining funding was provided by
various Japanese and Taiwanese sponsors such as Xperia, All Nippon Airways, Acer and Taipei
Navi. One of the sponsors, the Japanese travel agency HIS, was notably involved in responding
with gratitude to Taiwan’s donations to the 3/11 disaster. Although it is difficult to generalize the
specific motives of this wide variety of international sources of funding, it is undeniable that
most should benefit from a positive image of warm Taiwan-Japan relations.
In a contrasting example to Mamadame, the 2008 film Cape No. 7 by Taiwanese director
Wei Te-sheng presents a bittersweet nostalgic feeling towards the colonial memory with Japan,
and by extension explores the complex question of Taiwanese self-identification and
representation. Through a mixture of nostalgia, tragedy, postponement and ambiguous hope for
reconciliation, Cape No. 7 shows a complex historical and emotional reckoning with various
romantic and generational relationships between Japanese and Taiwanese. The themes of Cape
No. 7 successfully feed the Taiwanese fantasy of actually being remembered by the Japanese and
cared about by Japanese characters in romantic relationships, while also addressing feelings of
resentment over having been forgotten and abandoned. Set in Taiwan, the narrative follows two
romantic relationships: one from the colonial era of a male Japanese teacher and female
Taiwanese student, and a gender-reversed contemporary relationship between a female Japanese
model and a male Taiwanese musician. The film is interspersed with voiceover readings of the
Japanese teacher’s undelivered love letters, which in the present-day are discovered by the
Taiwanese musician and eventually delivered to the now eighty-year-old female student. The

73
McDonald, 151.
35

contemporary gender-reversal, along with the final reconciliation of the colonial relationship,
seems to project a sense of idealized progression and rebalancing of power. This narrative
proved incredibly popular at Taiwanese box office, as well as across Asia, winning several
awards internationally. In Japan, however, the film remains widely unknown, despite having
Japanese actress Chie Tanaka cast in a major role, featuring Japanese pop singer Kōsuke Atari,
as well as showcasing many lines spoken in Japanese from several different characters. This
demonstrates yet again the persistent international hierarchy, and a longing from the Taiwanese
side to be recognized by Japan. Unfortunately, this is unreciprocated by the Japanese as
evidenced by the unpopularity of the film in Japan, which holds a similar result as Mamadame. It
is not difficult to see how the narrative of Cape No. 7 disrupts Japan’s peaceful, isolated,
amnesiac postwar image which has relinquished any colonial memory as colonizer under
scrutiny of the United States.

Conclusions
The projected coevalness seen in these films along with the partnering of national tourism
can thus be placed into a larger framework of geocolonial historical materialism. The imbalance
in consumption of Japanese goods by Taiwanese, and lack of interest in Taiwan from the
Japanese very much has to do with the legacy of imperial hierarchy which has never fully been
resolved, confronted, or reckoned with. In the same way, Americana has been romanticized in
Japan as part of a cultural hierarchy based upon past military domination as well as global
prestige, with Japanese goods not being a top priority of the average American consumer (except
for those associated with particular subcultures such as otaku, weeaboos, etc.).
36

There is a motivation on the part of certain Taiwanese (for example Yi-han, now Mrs.
Mogi, of the real-life couple from Mamadame) to prove themselves just as advanced, just as cute,
just as modern as Japanese precisely in a temporal sense. This is shown in the film with the
tourism montages, the Family Mart and urban conveniences, the daily life and tech savviness of
young characters. Yet trying to portray themselves as caught up to the Japanese standard has
existed since colonial times, as seen in debates on modernity and Taiwanese identity and place in
the world. Ultimately this is at most a projected sense of coevalness which belies the inherent
and persistent cultural hierarchy between them, as shown by my explanation of the assumed
lingua franca of Japanese, desperation of Taiwanese to showcase their own modernization, and
lack of interest from Japan both in the characters in the film and the lack of box office success
(audiences in Japan). Even films such as Cape No. 7, which seek to more deeply explore the
Taiwan-Japan colonial relationship, nevertheless also lie within and have been unable to
challenge the cultural hierarchy which allows the Japanese privileged ignorance.
As is the trend in recent Japanese empire studies, both Ching and McDonald argue
against Japan being an imperial “anomaly” as both Western and Japanese scholars have
historically made the case. Ching acknowledges that “locality and specificity is undoubtedly
important,” however he asserts that Japan should be viewed within “the generality of global
capitalist colonialism”
74
and not outside of it. The significance of this claim lies in the danger of
considering Japan as somehow “special” and “unique,” which encourages isolationism, nativism,
ignorance, and at its worst, nationalistic chauvinism. This ultimately prevents the understanding
of colonialism and imperialism as a global phenomenon that has spread across varying societies,
resulting in the complex, unequal, strife-ridden world we live in today.

74
Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 20.
37

In fact, there are many other examples of former colonizers as tourists to their former
colonies such as the British to India and the Dutch to Indonesia, as well as situations with
continued territorial occupation such as the US territories Guam and Puerto Rico. These
analogous examples suggest that the phenomenon of former empires and colonies turning to
tourism to redefine their economic and cultural relationship is certainly not something limited to
Japan and Taiwan. However, the particularity of their situation renders it especially gridlocked,
with Taiwan trapped between the rising, nationalistic and economic powerhouse of mainland
PRC and the self-centered and detached ex-colonizer, Japan. This continues to trouble the
identity and future of Taiwan and its position in the world while reaffirming the sense of
superiority in Japan despite its shrinking economy, population, and international prestige. Thus it
can be seen that the life of tourism between Taiwan and Japan has a long colonial history which
continues to inform their contemporary cultural imaginations and economic integration.

38

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ong, Megan Kai Yen (author)

Core Title Projected coevalness and post-colonial tourism: the persistence of cultural hierarchy in contemporary Japanese-Taiwanese film

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Area Studies

Publication Date 08/07/2018

Defense Date 08/06/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag contemporary film,cultural hierarchy,decolonization,East Asia,geocolonial historical materialism,Globalization,Japan,Japan-Taiwan,modernity,nation-branding,nation-building,OAI-PMH Harvest,popular culture,postcolonial studies,postcolonialism,privileged ignorance,Taiwan,Taiwan-Japan,tourism

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Advisor Yasar, Kerim (committee chair), Bernards, Brian (committee member), Uchiyama, Benjamin (committee member)

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