Throwing Off Asia – Lesson 08
The Birthday of the “New” Japan
Handout 08-B
The Birthday of the “New” Japan
In 1896, the year after the Sino-Japanese War, a distinguished Western observer of Japan, Lafcadio Hearn, wrote the following:
“The real birthday of the new Japan … began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, Japan has neither fears nor doubts.
Perhaps the future danger is just in this immense self-confidence.”
—Lafcadio Hearn, Kokoro, 1896*
Examine the woodblock prints available to you in Throwing Off Asia (or the Throwing off Asia section of the Image Database). Select one woodblock print that you think best illustrates the message in Lafcadio Hearn’s quote about the birth of a new Japan.
Through a written essay or a poster with text boxes, explain how this image captures:
A:
The transformation of Japan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War.
B:
Possibilities for Japan’s future as it headed into the 20th century.
_____________________________________________________
*Quoted from Hearn’s book Kokoro by Shumpei Okamoto in Impressions of the Front: Woodcuts of the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2008 Visualizing Cultures