The East/West dichotomy in Contemporary Japanese Literature: An exploration into a Globalised Postmodern Japan as a site for World Literature.

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‘The East/West dichotomy in Contemporary Japanese Literature: An exploration into
a Globalised Postmodern Japan as a site for World Literature.’
English Research Dissertation
Lauren Shute

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CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Chapter One World Literature & Globalisation in Japan 5
Introduction 5
Japan’s Modern Literary History & The East/West Dichotomy 6
The Globalised spread of Contemporary Japanese Literature 12
Chapter Two Western Translation Politics & The Postmodern 17
Introduction 17
Limitations of Western translation politics 18
Defining Postmodernism 23
Murakami’s Postmodern Disturbed Reality 25
Yoshimoto’s Fragmented Postmodernism 27
Chapter Three Evolving Japanese Stereotypes 29
Introduction 29
A Contemporary History of Western Stereotypes of Japan 30
Yoshimoto’s Modern Shōjo Girl 31
Haruki Murakami’s Sōshoku-kei Danshi 36
Conclusion 39
Bibliography 41

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INTRODUCTION
Dan Rebellato argues that globalisation is specifically an economic phenomenon, that
started as capitalism but now has extended its reach across the world.1
Subsequently,
globalisation is a concept that involves conflicts between ‘different ways of life’, in a
world that is increasingly linked by commerce and communication. 2
Japan’s rapid cultural globalisation and commercialisation after the Second World
War, established a new era of consumption, economic development and new literary
traditions throughout Japan. Contemporary Japanese novelists Banana Yoshimoto and
Haruki Murakami have responded to this new era in Japanese history by creating
postmodern fictional works that archetypally narrate a young character’s encounters
with love, loss and modern consumerism. This dissertation will explore to what extent
Kitchen by Yoshimoto and Jay Rubin’s translation of Norwegian Wood by Murakami,
have fused various Western literary influences with traditional Japanese literary tropes
to generate fictional works that judiciously respond to Japan’s changing economic and
cultural landscape in an age of globalisation.
Recognising the cultural and economic impact that globalisation has had on popular
Japanese culture and literature; I will emphasise how Kitchen and Norwegian Wood
reject notions of traditional Japanese literature, by combining Western and traditional
Japanese literary tropes to stage an in-depth look into how young people in
metropolitan Japan respond to an era of modern cultural and economic globalisation. I
1
Dan Rebellato, Theatre and Globalisation, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) p.10
2
Theatre and Globalisation, p.5

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will approach this through an in-depth analysis of Japanese literary contexts and will
investigate the spatial complications that arise from the politics of translation and the
restrictive interpretations of world literature. I will consider to what extent Murakami
and Yoshimoto’s novels employ ideas of the Western category of postmodernism.
Documenting how this highlights Japan’s changing literary scene, in the wake of
Japan’s modern economic and cultural globalisation. Furthermore, I will observe how
stereotypes of Japanese characters have changed and evolved to reject traditional
Japanese attitudes in the wake of a new modern era. Ultimately, this dissertation will
use the above concepts to suggest that Murakami and Yoshimoto’s work, uses a
mixture of Western and traditional Japanese literary values of to examine, condemn
and grapple with Japan’s evolving capitalist system.

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CHAPTER ONE:
WORLD LITERATURE & GLOABLISATION IN JAPAN
INTRODUCTION
In his book What is World Literature?, David Damrosh argues that world literature is
not a set of ‘canon texts’ but a mode of reading: ‘a form of detached engagement with
worlds beyond our own place and time.’3
Contemporary Japanese novelists Banana
Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami’s works have circulated into the wider realm of
world literature, as both authors works have been considerably translated and sold
outside of their native Japan. Yoshimoto’s Kitchen had sold over four million copies
and was readily available in English by 1990, having only been published in Japan
two years previously and Murakami’s Norwegian Wood has been translated into
English twice with each translation differing in syntax choice.45
Kitchen and
Norwegian Wood’s considerable translations have led to an extensive global access to
their work, allowing a wide global readership to form detached relationships with
Japanese texts that are conceived outside of their own cultures and potentially their
own time. This chapter will investigate why Kitchen and Norwegian Wood both use
Japanese and Western literary tropes and why their novels have been such a huge
commercial success throughout East Asia and the Western World. I will do this by
examining Japan’s literary history and investigating how globalisation has resulted in
works of literature travelling globally.
3
David Damrosh, What is World Literature? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) p.281.
4
John Whittier Treat, ‘Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject’, The
Journal of Japanese Studies, 19 (1993), 353-387 (pp.356-7).
5
Bradley Winterton, ‘Exploring the Map of One’s Inner Existence,’ The Taipei Times Online (January
2001) <http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2001/01/07/68847> [Accessed 3rd April
2019].

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JAPAN’S MODERN LITERARY HISTORY & THE EAST/WEST DICHTOMY
Throughout much of Japan’s comprehensive literary history, Japanese texts have
predominantly been crafted under Chinese literary influence, as a result of the strong
cultural hegemonic hold that China occupied over Japan for centuries. In her essay on
World Literature and East Asian Literature, Red Chan explains that historically,
‘narratives of Japan have been nurtured or enriched by Chinese literary norms’ as
‘Chinese literature acted as a blueprint for Japanese literature.’ 6
Furthermore, Chan
clarifies that the traditional Japanese education primarily revolved around studies
concerning classical Chinese literature and the Confucian school of thought, both of
which significantly shaped the spiritual and moral making of Japan.7
Following the
collapse of China’s cultural command over Japan, Chan believes that Japanese
literature changed considerably to favour Western influences, as she states,
‘modernisation and westernisation exposed Japan into new cultural imaginations from
the later nineteenth century on and Anglo-European influences prevailed, leading
modern literatures in East Asia to subsequently developed a more dichotomised
East/West, traditional/modern path.’8
Moreover, Chan elucidates that the outcome of
the two World Wars of the twentieth century aligned most of East Asia towards
American culture.9
Thus, culminating in the production of novels such as Kitchen and
Norwegian Wood, which imbue traditional Japanese literary tropes as well as
6
Red Chan, ‘World Literature and East Asian Literature’ in The Routledge Companion to World
Literature, e.d by Theo D’haen, David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) 464-475
(pp.469-70).
7
World Literature and East Asian Literature, p.470.
8
9

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responding to modern Japan’s American influence by blending Western practices into
their work.
An example of this East/West assimilation can be seen through Norwegian Wood’s
protagonist Watanabe, who lives in a nationalistic student accommodation that
religiously begins each day with ‘the solemn raising of the flag’, to the Japanese
national anthem.10
Rather than involve himself in any of the acts of Japanese
patriotism that occurs at his university, Watanabe bides his time listening to The
Beatles and reading books by American novelists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Moreover, later in the novel, a girl is seen ‘painting huge characters on a sign with
something about American imperialism invading Asia’ on Watanabe’s campus.11
Watanabe notes that this is a ‘usual midday university scene’ but does not expresses
any desire to get involved with the movement. Watanabe’s indifference to the
American imperialism and Japanese nationalism that he is surrounded by, leaves him
to feel segregated and as though he is the only one there who is not ‘truly part of the
scene.’12
Watanabe’s disinterest in Japanese culture and contemporary political disputes,
closely imitates Murakami’s own experiences as a young adult in the 1960s/70s.
Jiwoon Baik characterises Murakami as a ‘Sixties Kid’, someone who graduated from
college in the 1970s and remembers this decade as a transition period from the poor
post-war days to the affluent days where young adults had money and listened to
American Pop songs. 13
Watanabe is correspondingly a reflection of a ‘sixties kid’,
10
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood, trans. by Jay Rubin (New York: Vintage Publishing, 2000) p.15.
11
Norwegian Wood, p.96.
12
13
Jiwoon Baik, ‘Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,
11 (2010), 64-72 (p.67).

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which is shown through his independent financial capability. In spite of the fact that
Watanabe is a student with only a part-time job to rely on for income, he is still able
live alone in Tokyo, spend money on hotel rooms and frequent bars. Megumi Yama
concludes that Murakami’s desire to rebel against his parents’ traditional upbringing,
led to his rejection of traditional Japanese culture that is so scrupulously derivative in
Watanabe. Yama states that Murakami, having grown up in Kobe, ‘was easily able to
access Western culture in the form of literature, movies and music’, all of which
‘deeply influenced him.’14
Moreover, Murakami has indicated in interviews that
growing up he ‘wanted to escape Japanese culture’ as he found it ‘boring and too
sticky.’15
Murakami’s numerous references to American popular culture in Norwegian Wood,
consequently, subvert the emblematic Japanese literary stereotype. As American
consumer culture established itself in the 1970s in Japan, Watanabe and Murakami
would have both found themselves surrounded by new American popular culture as
young adults. Japan’s expeditious globalisation ensured that people could easily
access American popular culture, the popularity of which began to overshadow
traditional Japanese cultural practices. In response to this influx of Americanised
culture, characters like Watanabe depict how young Japanese adults began fostering
relationships with American novels and music, in exchange for the rebuke of their
own native culture. Edwin O. Reischauer, a prominent American scholar of Japanese
culture, emphasised the importance of Western modernisation, arguing that any
differences between the West and Japan should be ‘reduced through the adoption of
14
Megumi Yama, ‘Haruki Murakami: Modern-Myth Maker beyond Culture’ Jung Journal, 10 (2016) 87-
95 (p.88).
15
Haruki Murakami quoted in Haruki Murakami: Modern-Myth Maker beyond Culture, p.88.

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Western ways on the part of Japan.’16
Reischauer’s cavalier and orientalist ideology
that Japan should adopt Western ways of modernisation, Others Japan and postulates
it as an inferior nation as he believes Western culture to be superior to that of the East.
Reischauer’s attitude’s combined with Watanabe’s easy access to Western culture,
rationalises why young Japanese adults became so engaged with Western books and
music. As ignorant popular opinions, such as those from Reischauer, conceivably led
the Japanese to feel as though their culture was inferior. Thus, encouraging young
Japanese adults to seek what they had been led to believe was a more ‘superior’
culture than their own, in the form of American popular novels and music.
Corresponding to Norwegian Wood, Kitchen also establishes an East/West dichotomy,
as Yoshimoto oscillates between using traditional Japanese and contemporary
Western expressions in her writing. In Kitchen, Mikage, the novels protagonist, is
contending with grief after her grandmother’s death. Mikage recounts that during the
pinnacle of her grief, she was ‘steeped in a sadness so great’ that she could ‘barely
cry’ and ‘wrapped in a blanket’ she slept like ‘Linus.’17
The ‘Linus’ that Yoshimoto
refers to, is a character from the American comic strip Peanuts. Even though Peanuts
is an American publication originally written in English, in the 1980s in Japan it was
palpably relatively popular and familiar enough for Yoshimoto to make the refence
under the assumption that readers would comprehend her comparison. Whilst plentiful
references to Western characters and celebrities are made in Kitchen, Yoshimoto
equitably mentions various Japanese expressions and cultural icons such as the
Japanese artist Momoko Sakuchi. Moreover, Mikage refers to the older people that
accompany her on her work trip as ‘sensei’, a traditional Japanese term that honours
16
Edwin O. Reischauer, in Chikako Nihei’s ‘Thinking outside the Chinese Box: David Mitchell and
Murakami Haruki’s subversion of stereotypes about Japan’, New Voices, 3 (2009) 86-103 (P.87).
17
Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen, trans. by Meghan Backus (London: Faber & Faber, 1993) pp.3-4.

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and designates respect to someone older than you.18
Yoshimoto’s unification of
Western and Japanese expressions, illustrates that Mikage lives in an time where
although Western popular culture was abundant, conventional Japanese terminology
was still very much customary.
Regardless of Yoshimoto’s commitment to entwine both Japanese and American
popular culture into Kitchen, her novel has been harshly scrutinised for its
incorporation of American culture. Michael Gibney explains that critics have argued
that Kitchen is ‘too far removed from traditional Japanese literary values’ and that
Yoshimoto ‘focuses on the international and cosmopolitan to the detriment of
providing something uniquely Japanese.’19
Nicole Gaouette even goes as far to
remark that Yoshimoto’s characters are too ‘full of foreign influences’ making them
‘somehow un-Japanese.’20
Conclusively, critics of Yoshimoto’s work claim that the
influx of American culture in Japan has diluted the occupancy of traditional Japanese
cultural tropes in literature. Speaking about her own experiences of growing up in
Japan in the 1980s, Yoshimoto remarks that her generation was ‘raised on manga and
TV’ and cites this as the reasoning that she and others of her generation ‘understand
only those things that go fast.’21
Hence, the Japan that Mikage lives and operates in
during the late 1980’s, essentially emulates the exact rapidly globalised Japan that
Yoshimoto grew up in.
18
Kitchen, p.87.
19
Michael Gibney, Traditional Tropes and Familial Incest in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, from The
Selected works of Michael Gibney (Stockton, CA: University of the Pacific, 2005) p.2.
20
Nicole Gaouette quoted in Traditional Tropes and Familial Incest in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen,
p.2.
21
Banana Yoshimoto quoted in Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic
Subject, p.359.

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Accordingly, it could thus be contended that the characters that Yoshimoto portrays
are not ‘un-Japanese’. As due to the globalisation of Japan, Mikage is in fact an
authentic analogy of the country’s increasingly Westernised state. As a young adult,
Mikage has inevitably become enamoured and influenced by Western culture, as she
finds herself encompassed and surrounded by it. Mikage’s character cannot therefore
be criticised as un-Japanese, as American culture has permeated Japanese culture,
reconstructing it. Thus, forming a new understanding of what defines Japanese culture
as it has now become more influenced by its Western counterparts than traditionally
its East. Ultimately, as Chan clarifies, ‘works by Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki
Murakami are testimony to the cross-cultural, East-West inbreeding of artistic
fascinations, caused by the rise in globalisation and spread of world literature.’22
Norwegian Wood and Kitchen both portray the evolving lifestyles and interests of
Japan’s young adults, in the wake of its considerable globalisation following the
Second World War. Yoshimoto and Murakami achieve this by mimicking their own
young experiences and pledging testimony to the new East-West dichotomy that has
transformed Japanese Literature, as a result of the infiltration of American popular
culture.
22
World Literature and East Asian Literature, p.472

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THE GLOABLISED SPREAD OF CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE LITERATURE
Globalisation is about the increasing of global wealth, the lifting of
people and nations out of poverty… the spread of such liberal
values as feminism, democracy or human rights. For some,
globalisation is almost inevitably negative: it represents the loss or
destruction of cultural difference.23
- Eric Hayot
The large global access to Kitchen and Norwegian Wood has been made possible
through the universal escalation of globalisation, resulting in cultures becoming
increasingly homogenised. Edward Said speaks of a world that has ‘changed so
drastically’, that it now allows ‘for a new geographical consciousness’. 24
Consequently, culminating in a world that is receptive to literature that originates
from outside its quintessential cultural boundaries. Said goes on to suggest that
through a long process of ‘imaginative geography’, parts of the world were cornered
off by Western scholars as the ‘Orient’, by Western political and economic powers. 25
In contemporary Japan, these Western powers have mitigated since the end of
America’s occupation following The Second World War. Will Solcombe elucidates
that ‘although the importance of the American occupation of Japan can be over-
emphasised, it nevertheless indicates a point of rupture in Japanese culture and
society, a point at which Japanese literature became occupied by (and with) Western
culture.’26
Subsequently, Japan’s rapid globalisation following this occupation and
successive mitigation, has positioned Japan on a similar cultural and economic
kinship to the West. In turn, Japan’s literature has become more inclusive and familiar
23
Eric Hayot, ‘World Literature and Globalisation’, in The Routledge Companion to World Literature,
e.d by Theo D’haen, David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) 223-231 (p.224)
24
Edward W. Said, The Worldliness of World Literature, in The Routledge Companion to World
Literature, e.d by Theo D’haen, David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) (P.119)
25
The Worldliness of World Literature, p.120
26
Will Solcombe, ‘Haruki Murakami and the Ethics of Translation’, Comparative Literature and
Culture, 6 (2004), pp.4-5

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to people worldwide, as the infiltration of Western popular entertainment and
universal ideologies has led to its acculturation of globalised culture.
Globalisation establishes an environment in which different communities are able to
easily access each other. Therefore, fostering solidarity between them, as exposure to
the various identities of the human existence allows for a profound understanding of
the communities we exist alongside. Kitchen acculturates this globalised ideology by
openly advocating the significance of liberal views, through Yoshimoto’s treatment of
the transgender community. In Kitchen, Mikage forms a very close bond with Eriko, a
transgender woman who she lives with for some time. Throughout Kitchen, Mikage’s
relationship with Eriko naturalises Eriko’s subversive gender identity, as her
transgender identity is never questioned by Mikage– it is simply accepted as the norm.
Mikage even refers to Eriko’s transition to becoming a woman as an ‘amazing life
story’, seeing it as an act of beauty rather than controversy.27
In Japan, transgender people have only been able to change their gender on legal
documents since 2002. Conversely, those seeking to do so may only change their sex
on legal documents if they undergo sterilisation and satisfy other prejudiced criteria.28
Thus, Kitchen’s liberal offering of gender fluidity as a societal standard, embraces the
positive philosophies that globalisation promotes. By exposing her vast readership to
a transgender character and radically subverting the way that gender identity is
viewed worldwide, Yoshimoto challenges ‘acceptable’ social norms of the late 1980s.
Despite Yoshimoto’s celebration of Eriko’s transgender identity, Yoshimoto is clear
27
Kitchen, p.14.
28
James Griffiths & Yoko Wakatsuki, ‘Trans people must still be sterilised before changing gender in
Japan after top court upholds ruling,’ CNN online, (January 2019)
<https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/25/asia/japan-supreme-court-trans-intl/index.html> [Accessed
Tuesday 9th April 2019].

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in clarifying that there are still troubling attitudes regarding societies reception of
people who identify as transgender, as Eriko is later murdered in the novel.
Yoshimoto brings focus to social inequalities to the forefront of her literature on an
inclusive level, as her novels have broadly dispersed around the globe. Therefore,
humanities awareness to social prejudices that certain communities face, has increased
through the access of world literature made possible through globalisation.
Conversely, in Norwegian Wood, it is Watanabe’s ideology-less temperament that
makes Murakami’s novel so accessible to global readers. During Watanabe’s student
years, various student strikes occur on his university campus, resulting in the
university calling in ‘the riot police.’29
Watanabe sheds light on his opinions regarding
the strikes, stating that ‘he couldn’t have cared less’ and when the strike ended he ‘felt
nothing.’30
Not only does Murakami present Watanabe as a character who is very
apathetic towards university politics, he deliberately doesn’t offer any explanation as
to why the students are striking. By not enlightening readers to the agenda of the
strike, the strike is not presented in an explicitly Japanese context. Thus, the strike that
Murakami briefly discusses is nothing more than an action, as Murakami’s lack of
contextual explanation for the strike renders it ideology-less and universally
understandable.
By removing any cultural or political Japanese considerations that may have initiated
the strike, Murakami illustrates Hayot’s argument that globalisation leads to the loss
of cultural difference. The loss of which has endorsed Japanese literature to travel
globally and become a commercial success, as it is more understandable and
29
30

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applicable to a wider scope of readers. Fujii Shōzō states that the spread of Norwegian
Wood made its way to each city of East Asia because of ‘the change in human
relationships through high economic growth and over-urbanisation.’31
He theorises
that the rise in globalisation, ‘turned the East Asian public away from orthodox
literature styles that dealt with national history and reality’ and in turn ‘nihility and
coolness penetrated through the cracks.’32
Shōzō’s belief that the public, in particular
the East Asian public, have turned from away orthodox literature styles rationalises
why Murakami’s novels have been so prosperous outside of Japan. Throughout
Norwegian Wood, Watanabe doesn’t show any enthusiasm towards Japanese history
or politics, neither of which are conversed in the novel. Furthermore, he moderately
skims over the university strikes in discussion, without delving into a conversation
about the Japanese education system or the motive for the strikes. Baik believes that
when globalisation took hold over most of the world, a rupture of sensitivity occurred
in which: ‘the main ideologies of literature in each country dissolved; what occupied
the vacuum were the stateless and ideology-less novels of Haruki Murakami.’33
Therefore, postulating that the ubiquity of Murakami’s novels situates them into the
category of globalised world literature, a category that is not concerned with
individual states or ideologies.
Conclusively, Yoshimoto and Murakami both appeal to an international range of
readers, as the subject matters and thoughts that they deliberate in their novels are not
explicitly pertinent to Japanese culture. This is presented through Yoshimoto’s
commitment to the promotion of transgender rights, an internationally recognised
form of imperative activism. Moreover, it is also exhibited through Murakami’s
31
Fujii Shōzō quoted in Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia, p.65.
32
Fujii Shōzō quoted in Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia, p.65.
33
Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia, p.65.

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oversight for wholly Japanese politics or topics, giving his novel a unanimous quality.
As Hoyt considered earlier, globalisation leads to an erasure of cultural difference,
which in turn consents international readers of Kitchen and Norwegian Wood to
understand the themes being conferred.

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CHAPTER TWO:
THE POLITICS OF WESTERN TRANSLATION STRATEGY &
POSTMODERNISM
INTRODUCTION
David Damrosh maintains the idea that a literary work never leaves its place of origin
but simply has ‘two foci: one in the host country and one in the original country.’34
Therefore, suggesting that the flow of information is constantly moving and
transporting ideas and concepts in two different cultures, through the power of
translation.35
In this chapter, I will be addressing how important cultural factors are
missed during translation, as some Japanese phrases and expressions cannot be
adequately translated into English. Moreover, I will be looking at the authors choice
of syntax as well as investigating why the translators chose to deploy some of the
phrases that they used. Furthermore, I will be investigating how Globalisation dictates
what can be translated into English and how it imposes specific methods of how to
translate Japanese texts into English. Additionally, I will be investigating several
definitions of postmodernism and considering why Murakami and Yoshimoto’s
novels are categorised as postmodern texts.
34
What is World Literature?, p.324.
35
What is World Literature?, p.324.

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LIMITATIONS OF WESTERN TRANSLATION POLITICS
Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak, offers the theory of ‘politics of translation’, in which
gender, racial and cultural politics are ‘implicit within a translated work.’ 36
Furthermore, she claims that a translation ‘is a process where a text shifts from the
ideological frame of its author to the ideological frame of the translator.’37
Owing to
globalisation, profit has become the main incentive to choose which Japanese texts are
selected to be translated into English. Japanese texts that appeal to a Western audience
are inevitably more likely to be translated, as they will produce the most profit in the
Western literature market. Moreover, this profitable incentive also governs what
elements of Japanese culture are deemed Western enough to not be cut during the
translation process. Edward Fowler claims that ‘most American publishing houses do
not have staff that can read Japanese in the original’, therefore, publishing houses rely
on academics to translate Japanese novels into English.38
The academics that are
chosen to translate Japanese texts, must then ‘mediate publishers relationships to
Japanese fiction.’ 39
Consequently, academics must translate Japanese novels in a way
that adheres to the cultural guidelines, that are set by American publishing houses. As
Japanese literature has become a commodity, publishers thus implore violent Western
strategies of translation to cut elements of Japanese culture from the texts that are
deemed ‘too foreign’ and ultimately not ‘sellable.’ These violent translation
36
Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak quoted in Will Solcombe’s, Haruki Murakami and the Ethics of
Translation, Published in Comparative Literature and Culture by Purdue University Press, Vol.6,
Issue.2, Article 6 (2004) p.2.
37
Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak quoted Haruki Murakami and the Ethics of Translation, p.2.
38
Edward Fowler quoted in Contemporary Japanese Fiction & ‘Middlebrow’ Translation Strategies:
The Case of Banana Yoshimoto’s ‘Kitchen’ p.34.
39
Edward Fowler quoted in Contemporary Japanese Fiction & ‘Middlebrow’ Translation Strategies:

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techniques alter works like Kitchen and Norwegian Wood, into simplistic Western
versions of their original texts. Spivak elucidates that the given culture of the chosen
language that the book is to be translated into, will be amalgamated into the
translation and fundamentally manifest within the book itself. Works like Kitchen and
Norwegian Wood, will therefore be adapted to fit more of an acceptable Western
cultural makeup, erasing Japanese cultural tropes in the process.
During the process of translating Japanese texts into the English language, valuable
cultural concepts are erased, in order to make texts more legible and straightforward
for Western readers. For instance, Megan Backus’ 1993 translation of Kitchen,
occasionally modifies Japanese phrases and transforms them into entirely different
expressions. In Backus’ Kitchen, when Mikage first meets Yuichi, Mikage becomes
overwhelmed with emotion and exclaims that she thinks she hears ‘a spirit’ calling her
name.40
Jamie Harker discloses that in the original Japanese version of Kitchen,
Mikage has this sensation as Yuichi calls Mikage by her first name, rather than her
family name. Conversely, in Backus’ English translation of Kitchen, Yuichi doesn’t
address Mikage by her first or family name. Backus’ removal of Yuichi calling
Mikage by her first name is particularly pertinent, as address forms in Japan often
represent someone’s position in society.41
Furthermore, in Japan, it is uncommon for
two people meeting for the first time to call each other by their first name and not
their family name. Customarily, people only start referring to others by their first
name after they form a close relationship. As Yuichi and Mikage are meeting for the
first time in this scene, in the Japanese version of the text, Yuichi’s unconventional
40
Kitchen, p.6.
41
Norie Mogi, ‘Japanese Ways of Addressing People’, Investigationes Linguisticae, 8 (2002) 14-22
(p.1).

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addressing of Mikage by her first name is deliberate and explains why Mikage is so
stunned. Harker goes on to note that in Backus’ translation of Kitchen, ‘this cultural
specificity is smoothed over’ and thus disregarded. 42
Backus’ elimination of the significance of formal addressing in Japanese culture is
intentional, as it is a Japanese cultural mannerism that does not straightforwardly
translate into English. If Backus had included this cultural trope in her translation of
Kitchen, most English-speaking readers would not have understood the significance of
this action and it would have required an explanation. This erasure of the name
calling, demonstrates the translator’s intentions of appealing to Western cultures
outside of Japan and working towards Lawrence Venuti’s trope of the violence of
translation. Venuti argues that Western translation is violent, as it ‘reconstitutes the
foreign text in accordance with the values, beliefs and representations that pre-exist it
in the target language.’ 43
In turn, Western translation makes foreign cultures appear
simple, recognisable and distinct by creating ‘ideology-stamped identities.’ 44
Venuti’s violence of translation theory is evident in Kitchen, as Backus has chosen to
only translate Japanese terms that are also prevalent in Western culture. By
Westernising Kitchen through its selective translation, the novel becomes more
readable to a Western audience, reconstituting the text. Consequently, according to
Venuti, Kitchen becomes ‘consumable’ and thus a ‘commodity on the book market.’ 45
42
Jamie Harker, “Contemporary Japanese Fiction & ‘Middlebrow’ Translation Strategies: The Case of
Banana Yoshimoto’s ‘Kitchen”, The Translator, 5 (1999) 27-44 (p.38).
43
Contemporary Japanese Fiction & ‘Middlebrow’ Translation Strategies: The Case of Banana
Yoshimoto’s ‘Kitchen’ p.28.
44
Lawrence Venuti quoted in Contemporary Japanese Fiction & ‘Middlebrow’ Translation Strategies:
45

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In Norwegian Wood, Murakami’s use of katakana words in the original Japanese
version of the novel, signifies a Western possession of Japanese culture and language.
Katakana is a Japanese syllabary system, used to primarily represent borrowed words
outside of the Chinese and Japanese languages.46
Jim Gleeson clarifies that the ‘use of
katakana in Japanese parallels the use of italics in English’ and is ‘often used to write
foreign words that contain sounds not found in Japanese.’47
Hence, Murakami uses
the katakana syllabary system in Norwegian Wood to depict foreign words, often
which are references to Western culture such as ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘Julia’ - songs by
The Beatles.48
Lukas Skowroneck stipulates that in the original Japanese version of
Norwegian Wood, Murakami’s use of Katakana prose is ‘foreign to the Japanese
reader.’49
Thus, indicating that to the Japanese reader, Norwegian Wood appears
heavily Westernised and alien, as an infrequent syllabary system is used to represent
words from an unfamiliar culture. Furthermore, in the original Japanese version of
Norwegian Wood, Murakami repeatedly Americanises Japanese words. According to
Will Solcombe, Murakami does this through phrases such as ‘sore wa warukunai’
meaning ‘not bad’ and ‘yareyare’ meaning ‘just great’, idioms that would not be
habitually spoken in Japanese. 50
Murakami’s use of katakana words and the Americanisation of Japanese phrases
assimilate Western culture candidly into the Japanese language. Murakami’s
46
Jim Gleeson, Writing Japanese Katakana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook
(Clarendon: VT, Tuttle Publishing, 2005) p.3.
47
Writing Japanese Katakana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook, p.3.
48
49
Lukas Skowroneck, ‘Haruki Murakami in the West: Comparing the English, Dutch, German and
Swedish translations of Norwegian Wood’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Utrecht University, 2017)
p.43.
50
Haruki Murakami and the Ethics of Translation, p.5.

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incorporation of Western language therefore makes the novel less complicated to be
translated into English, as there are fewer Japanese expressions and phrases to
contend with. If the original version of Norwegian Wood contained more Japanese-
specific expressions, they would have most likely been erased during translation,
mirroring the culture cuts that Kitchen encountered. Moreover, Norwegian Wood may
not have been chosen to be translated into English in fear of it appearing ‘too foreign’
to Western readers, if it contained too many ‘exotic’ expressions. Chikako Nihei adds
that Murakami’s stories are ‘exoticised to a degree by his English-speaking audience’
and are ‘appreciated for their presentation of Japanese culture in an easily digestible
format.’51
This easily-digestible format that Nihei proposes, assures Western readers
that people in Japan are responsive to the same pastimes as them, validating
Norwegian Wood as a ‘suitable’ novel. Moreover, Harker elucidates that Japanese
novels which frequently include Western expressions ‘encourages an identification
with the narrator’ as ‘themes about how to live seem universal.’52
In conclusion, globalisation has led to the promotion of violent Western translation
politics, as books like Kitchen and Norwegian Wood have chosen to be translated into
English in order to become commodities for the western reader. As specific Japanese
novels are being translated with the intention of making profit, their cultural integrity
is destroyed in a bid to make the works Western friendly. Kitchen’s successful
commodification on the Western book market, has been made achievable through the
publisher’s selective translation strategy. Backus’ translation of Kitchen provides
Western readers with some notions of the ‘Oriental’ but nonetheless, meticulously
51
Thinking outside the Chinese Box: David Mitchell and Murakami Haruki’s subversion of stereotypes
about Japan, p.94.
52

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ensures that diverging cultural expressions are erased. Whilst integral cultural
references are erased in Kitchen, they don’t appear in Murakami’s Norwegian Wood
in the first place. Therefore, Kitchen’s removal of anything ‘too Japanese’ and
Norwegian Wood’s lack of anything too Japanese, guarantees that an
American/Western readership will be interested in the novels, rendering them
profitable.
DEFINING POSTMODERNISM
Hans Bertens argues that ‘the concept of postmodernism has steadfastly eluded
consensus right from the beginning’, as there are multiple different ways to categorise
and interpret the movement.53
Berten’s goes on to explain that in most academic
circles, there are two major lines of argument relating to postmodern literature. The
first line of argument, sees the development of postmodernism as a ‘literary reflection
of the complex social and cultural perspectives that began to dominate Western
cultures post-war.’54
The second line of argument, argues that postmodernism is a
literary development that was a ‘reaction to the literary realism of the 1950s and
against the modernism of the inter-war period.’55
Moreover, some critics see
postmodernism as a point of a sharp decline in political awareness and social
responsibility’ whilst other see it as the ‘exact opposite.’56
53
Hans Bertens, ‘World Literature and Postmodernism’ in The Routledge Companion to World
Literature, e.d by Theo D’haen, David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) 204-212
(p.204).
54
World Literature and Postmodernism, p.204
55
World Literature and Postmodernism, p.204.
56

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In order to define and analyse postmodernism works, it is vital to consider the aspects
of modernism, the literary movement preceding postmodernism. According to
Bertens, Modernism can be characterised by the following literary traits: ‘works that
are deep-seated with uncertainty and characterised by boundaries between gender,
social class and sexuality.’57
On the other hand, postmodernism has been defined as a
movement that marks the new age of a liberal era. It does this by emulating a literary
movement that has ‘freed itself from the shackles of a misogynistic, racist and
repressive modernity.’58
Furthermore, postmodernism largely ‘ignores formal
experimentalism’ is full of ‘self-reflection’, ‘disturbs the illusion of reality’ and
frequently has multiple endings. 59
Postmodern literature may be so hard to outline as critics like Fredric Jameson,
believe that mostly all contemporary literature is postmodern, as postmodernism is the
‘cultural logic of late capitalism.’ 60
As postmodernism is the logical literary
movement in a late capitalist world, it is also the logical movement in the globalised
world, as the two concepts go hand in hand. Postmodernism’s suitability to depict
fiction during a time of globalisation, is evident through its commitment to ignore
formal experimentalism and move away from repressive modernity. As I have argued
thus far in this dissertation, Western culture since The Second World War began to
infiltrate Japan, resulting in an East/West cultural dichotomy. As postmodern
literature began to dominate Western cultures post-war, it is inevitable that
contemporary Japanese literature would be written in a postmodern style. Regarding
the works of Kitchen and Norwegian Wood, I will be arguing that they both employ
57
World Literature and Postmodernism, pp.205-6.
58
59
60
Fredric Jameson quoted in World Literature and Postmodernism, p.206.

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elements from both lines of arguments concerning postmodernism. I will also be
discussing why postmodernism is a suitable literary style for both novels, as
postmodernism helps to texture globalisation into the works.
MURAKAMI’S DISTURBED POSTMODERN REALITY
In Norwegian Wood, Murakami fuses postmodern elements into the text by disturbing
the illusion of reality for several characters. After receiving a letter about Naoko’s
declining mental health, Watanabe alienates himself from society by staying in his
bedroom alone for several days. During this period Watanabe observes that his body
‘felt enveloped in some kind of membrane, cutting off any direct contact between me
and the outside world.’61
Subsequently, after Naoko’s death, Watanabe travels by
himself but cannot recall where he has been or remember ‘any sense of order’ in
which he travelled. 62
Despite Watanabe not knowing how long he has been travelling
for or where he has been, he is aware that he is living in a disturbed version of reality,
as towards the end of his travels he remarks that he had to ‘go back to the real
world.’63
Fuminobu Murakami believes that it is Murakami’s characters disturbed
illusion of reality, that places Norwegian Wood within the postmodern world.
Fuminobu states that Norwegian Wood’s protagonists, ‘distance themselves from
extreme rationalization, emotionality, totalization and individualization, favouring
instead detachment.’64
61
Norwegian Wood, p.295
62
63
64
Fuminobu Murakami, ‘Murakami Haruki’s Postmodern World’, Japan Forum, 14 (2002) 127-141
(p.129).

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The detachment that Fuminobu discusses, prevents the main characters in Norwegian
Wood from finding healthy love. He goes on to explain that ‘while modernists are
oriented towards progress, evolution and love’, ‘postmodernists discard these in
favour of a calm utopia.’ Thus, due to his postmodern qualities, Watanabe rejects
notions of evolution and instead exists within a fictional world. This would further
suggest that as Watanabe is a postmodern character and as he is detached from reality,
he is unable to feel or receive love. However, Watanabe represents a unique figure of
the postmodernist, as he is still ingrained with some qualities that are correlate with
the traditional modernist. Ueno Chizuko believes that Watanabe has ‘unconsciously
transformed himself into the postmodernist’, but nonetheless through his love of
Midori is ‘drawn towards the empathetic love of the modernists.’65
In turn, Watanabe’s mix of postmodern and modernist tendencies leave him without a
place in the world. Fuminobu claims that once Watanabe ‘acts on that empathetic
love, he loses his place in modern society because of his postmodern
characteristics.’66
Therefore, proposing that modernist and postmodernist characters
cannot harmoniously co-exist with each other in the same world, as they are too
divergent. Ultimately, Watanabe’s synthesis of a postmodern personality with
modernist tendencies, reflects how globalisation was promptly assimilating into Japan
during the 1960s. Like modernism, Japanese society and culture could not continue to
exist in the same way that it did before globalisation. Due to a change in economics,
beliefs and ideals, Japanese literature had to adopt a postmodern to accurately
represent a modern Japanese society. Postmodernism within Norwegian Wood thus
65
Ueno Chizuko quoted in Murakami Haruki’s Postmodern World, p.136.
66
Ueno Chizuko quoted in Murakami Haruki’s Postmodern World, p.136.

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represents the shift in Japanese culture, from an era of individuality to an era of
homogenised globalisation.
YOSHIMOTO’S POSTMODERN FRAGMENTATION
In Kitchen, Yoshimoto displays an ambiguous concept of time, in which time moves
at a rapid pace as unexplained time jumps are frequent in the novel. In the novel,
chapter two opens with the line, ‘Eriko died late in the autumn’, not only are we
shocked to hear of Eriko’s sudden death, we are also made aware that for some time
Mikage has been living alone and has moved out of the Tanabe’s apartment.67
However, Yoshimoto offers no explanation of when Mikage moved out, neither how
long she has been living alone at the beginning of the second chapter. Hans-Thies
Lehmann states that various elements of postmodern literature, such as plot and
themes, are ‘fragmented and dispersed throughout the entire work.68
Accordingly, as
Kitchen’s time-frame is often disjointed, the novel is posited as a postmodern work,
that is not only influenced by Yoshimoto’s commercial surroundings, but rejects
modernism. The disjointed time-frame in Kitchen doesn’t just position it as a
postmodern work, but also disturbs the readers own notion of reality as they cannot
clearly comprehend where the novel is situated within the time-frame given.
On the denunciation of modernism, John Whittier Treat believes that the novel rejects
modernism to such a degree that it ‘prepares consciousness for the prospect of social
change’, which can be seen not only through Yoshimoto’s progressive depictions of
67
Kitchen, p.45
68
Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. by Karen Jürs-Munby (Abingdon, Routledge:
2006) p.88

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LGBTQ characters, but her representation of modern life in a globalised Japanese
setting. As globalisation brings large social changes with it, the postmodern qualities
of Kitchen accordingly help structure the globalised world that Mikage is living in.
Whittier Treat goes on to state that to the majority of postmodern critics, Kitchen
appears as ‘an unconditional capitulation to the forces of commercialisation so often
cited as the nefarious agent behind the production of popular culture, a charge familiar
in the West.’ 69
Therefore, Whittier Treat argues that Kitchen is unable to resist the
forces of globalisation that have crept into Japanese culture. Kitchen’s postmodern
ambiguous time-frame and rejection of the conservative social boundaries of
modernism show how Japanese culture and society is adapting to the new age of
globalisation. By adopting a postmodern framework and rejecting outdated modernist
styles, Kitchen depicts contemporary Japan as a nation of increasing
commercialisation and liberal social change.
69
Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject, pp.359-60.

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CHAPTER THREE:
EVOLVING JAPANESE STEREOTYPES
INTRODUCTION
Yoshimoto’s Kitchen and Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, both imbue stereotypes
often found in contemporary Japanese literature. In the case of Kitchen, Yoshimoto
depicts Mikage in the outline of the shōjo girl, a stereotypical young Japanese woman
usually found in manga. On the other hand, in Norwegian Wood, Murakami presents
Watanabe as a reflection of the Sōshoku-kei Danshi or ‘herbivore man.’
This chapter will investigate how Orientalist ideals have shaped the West’s view of
contemporary Japanese society. I will be using Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism,
to document how Western cultures have frequently dehumanised Japanese cultures to
posit them as inferior. Moreover, this chapter will consider why Yoshimoto and
Murakami chose to use the stereotypes of the shōjo and the sōshoku-kei danshi in
particular, to explore what this implies about the contemporary societies that they
were writing in. I will also be analysing how popular Japanese stereotypes changed
after The Second World War and consider the factors that led to these alterations.
A CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF WESTERN STEREOTYPES OF JAPAN
Edward Said pioneered the theory of Orientalism in 1978, to observe the West’s
condescending and inferior views of the East. In his theory of Orientalism, Mahmood
Mamdani believes that Said’s analysis suggests that the West views the societies of
the East as ‘static and underdeveloped’, in comparison to Western society which is

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‘developed, rational, flexible and superior’. 70
Moreover, Said advocates that when
cultures use the categories of ‘Oriental and Western’, the two groups become
‘polarised.’71
This brands the ‘Oriental more Oriental’ and the ‘Western more
Western’, thus ‘limiting the human encounters between different cultures, traditions
and societies.’72
As part of the historical ‘Orient’, Japan has always been uniquely typecast by the
West, in comparison to The Middle East, India, China and the rest of the nations that
define the Western concept of the ‘Orient’. Japan has been exclusively typecast
because their own empire was never formally colonised by Western forces and it
established its own imperialism throughout much of East Asia.73
In light of this,
Chikako Nihei contends that the West often interprets Japan in one of two ways, ‘they
either emphasise Japan’s feminine quality and its elegance or stress the inherently
violent nature of its society.’74
The latter of which of is highly ironic, considering the
West’s own extensive history of violent colonisation. Moreover, as globalisation
accelerated in Japan after The Second World War, Japan’s economy soared. Japan’s
surging economy and promotion of advanced technological goods, led the West to
view Japan as a competitor in the market, as opposed to an inferior nation to be
colonised by Western ideals.75
70
Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terrorism
(New York, NY: Pantheon, 2004) p.32.
71
Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1978) p.53.
72
Orientalism, p.54.
73
Mark R. Peattie, ‘Chapter 5 – The Japanese Colonial Empire 1895-1945’ in The Cambridge History of
Japan Vol. 6, ed. By Peter Duus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) p.217
74
about Japan, p.87.
75
Kōichi Iwabuchi, ‘Complete Exoticism: Japan and its other’, The Australian Journal of Media &
Culture, 8 (1994) 49-82 (p.61).

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Nihei states that the contemporary stereotypes that the West associates with Japan,
link Japan with ‘high-tech imagery’ that ‘centres on its technological and economical
success.’76
David Morley and Kevin Robins define this phenomenon as ‘techno-
Orientalism’, and state that ‘the technological and futurological imagination has come
to be centred here; the abstract and universalizing force of modernization has passed
from Europe to America to Japan’.77 Although contemporary Japan’s economy
closely reflects that of Europe and America, Nihei regards that techno-Orientalism
‘relegates Japan once again into a subaltern position’. 78 As it dehumanises Japanese
civilisation by associating Japanese culture with images of ‘robots and videogames’
which ‘make Japanese people appear as lacking in emotion.’ 79 Therefore, the way
that the West considers Japan has changed to reflect Japan’s successful economy and
technological authority. However, whilst the West’s stereotypes of Japanese culture
may have undergone reconstruction, the predominant stereotypes are nonetheless
dehumanising. Nevertheless, positioning Japan as an inferior nation, as modern
stereotypes liken Japanese society to ‘robots’ to validate the success of their economy.
YOSHIMOTO’S MODERN SHŌJO GIRL
Whilst Western stereotypes of Japanese culture have dominated Japanese characters
in Western Literature, Japan’s individual range of stereotypes regarding its own
76
about Japan, p.88.
77
David Morley and Kevin Robins, ‘Techno-Orientalism: Futures, Foreigners and Phobias’, New
Formations, 16 (1992) (P.141).
78
about Japan, P.89.
79
about Japan, P.89.

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culture have historically lent themselves to popular Japanese Literature. Much like the
Western stereotypes of Japan, Japanese stereotypes have undergone major
transformations in the wake of contemporary Japan’s globalisation. In Kitchen,
Yoshimoto parallels Mikage to a Japanese shōjo girl, to expose the infiltration of
Western influences into Japanese culture through globalisation. The shōjo girl derives
from shōjo manga, a sub-genre of manga that follows a variety of narrative styles,
from historical drama to science fiction, and often focuses on romantic relationships
or emotions. Predominantly marketed towards a teenage female audience, Lucy Fraser
and Masafumi Monden state that, ‘Radiating youthful, innocent, and often ethereal
femininity, the Japanese figure of the shōjo is nebulous and complex.’80
The term
shōjo is usually translated into English simply as ‘girl’, however Fraser and Monden
argue that the term is ‘not such a straightforward designation; it is most often
employed to capture imaginings of girls and girlhood in text and image.’ 81
The
schoolgirls featured in shōjo manga often promote qualities of consumerism, nostalgia
and innocence. For instance, Mikage, like a typical shōjo girl, exhibits nostalgic
tendencies through the novel. These nostalgic recollections are often focused around
the loss of her grandmother, as Mikage reflects: ‘We would spend a little time
together before bed, sometimes drinking coffee, sometimes green tea, eating cake and
watching TV.’82
Moreover, shōjo girls frequently engage in unconventional
relationships and subvert patriarchal orders and gender roles. 83
Whilst Mikage is
80
Lucy Fraser & Masafumi Monden, ‘The Maiden Switch: New Possibilities for Understanding
Japanese Shōjo Manga (Girls’ Comics)’, Asian Studies Review, 41 (2017) 544-61 (p.544).
81
The Maiden Switch: New Possibilities for Understanding Japanese Shōjo Manga (Girls’ Comics)
p.544.
82
Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen, trans. Meghan Backus (London: Faber & Faber, 1997) p.20.
83
The Maiden Switch: New Possibilities for Understanding Japanese Shōjo Manga (Girls’ Comics)
p.547.

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older than most shōjo girls, she is nonetheless a young woman caught up in a world of
commercial consumerism.
The consumeristic shōjo influences that Yoshimoto weaves throughout Mikage’s
character in Kitchen, are undoubtedly a product of her Japanese upbringing at a time
of rapid globalisation. In Kitchen, similarly to those of Yoshimoto’s generation,
Mikage often stays home alone in the Tanabe’s apartment watching popular
programmes on television, ‘I still went to my part-time job, but after that I would
clean the house, watch TV, bake cakes: I lived like a housewife.’84
Moreover, the
commercial products that Mikage interacts with in Kitchen, are predominantly
American. For example, Mikage marvels at the ‘Silverstone frying pan’ in Yuichi’s
kitchen and compares a conversation she overhears to the American sitcom
‘Bewitched.’ 85
John Haffner, Tomas Casas I Klett and Jean-Pierre Lehmann state
that during the 1980s, whilst the American economy was slumping, Japanese
companies found themselves ‘buying prime American assets’, owing to the abrupt
jump in the value of the Yen in juxtaposition to the United States Dollar.86
Leading to
the abundance of new shops, branded advertising, Western fast-food chains and a rise
of American goods in modern Japan.
According to John Whittier Treat, a result of Japan’s prospering commercial
landscape, the modern shōjo girl became ‘rearticulated as a definitive feature of
Japanese late-model, consumer capitalism.’87
Prior to epitomising young girls that
reside in a consumer capitalist Japan, the original concept of the shōjo girl formed
84
Kitchen, p.22.
85
Kitchen, pp.9-31.
86
John Haffner, Tomas Casas I Klett & Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Japan’s Open Future: An Agenda for
Global Citizenship (London: Anthem Press, 2009) p.204.
87
Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject, p.362.

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during Japan’s Meiji period. During the Meiji period, Japan espoused a constitution
and ‘began a programme of modernisation and westernisation’, leading to an
industrial revolution. 88
Whittier Treat suggests that this ‘rapid economic change
produced a social utility for adolescents’, obliging young girls to become ‘trained in
labour’ and ‘put to domestic work.’89
Consequently, the original shōjo girl,
represented a heavily feminised adolescent who was expected to work substandard
domestic jobs. This form of the Japanese shōjo, experienced the beginning of the
Westernised consumerism that was slowly making its way into Japan during the early
20th
century. However, after the explosion of Western culture and the rapid expansion
of Japan’s economy after The Second World War, the shōjo was forced to reinvent
itself to reflect contemporary young women living in an economically advanced
Japan.
Although Mikage shares many features with the modern shōjo girl, it is her role as a
consumer in the novel that highlights how Japanese stereotypes have altered as a
result of globalisation. Consumption is a pivotal motif in Kitchen, shown
predominantly through the excess of food that Mikage cooks and Yuichi and Eriko’s
unnecessary buying of electrical goods. An avid cook, whenever Mikage makes food
she always makes it in vast amounts and goes through a long laborious process to
cook it;
It took me two hours to make dinner…we began to eat the extravagant
dinner I had prepared. Salad, pie, stew, croquettes, deep fried tofu,
steamed greens, bean thread with chicken (each with their various
sauces), Chicken Kiev, sweet-and-sour pork, Chinese steamed
dumplings’90
88
The Encyclopaedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, ed. Kenneth E. Hendrickson III et al
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014) p.483.
89
Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: Shojo Culture and the Nostalgic Subject, p.362.
90
Kitchen, p.62.

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Mikage’s excessive food consumption equates her to the reinvented figure of the
Japanese shōjo, who exhibits many Westernised tendencies mostly revolving around
consumption. Moreover, many of the food products that Mikage buys and consumes
are international, reflecting Japan’s extensive trade links. Saskia Sassen believes that
globalisation can often be defined as a ‘spatially dispersed complex duality in which
economic activity is globally integrated.’ 91
Sassen suggests that globally, nations are
becoming increasingly homogenised through the linking of economic activity. This
homogenisation has inexorably led to various cultures accessing the same
technological goods, entertainment and food. Therefore, owing to the global
integration of economic activity, Mikage is able to access foods from around the
world and outside of her native Japan: with Chicken Kiev’s from the Russian Empire
and dumplings from China. This increase in international food trade had been made
possible in Japan in the 1980s due to its growing economy and international links as
denoted by Sassen. Moreover, not only does Mikage have access to prepare and cook
this extravagant amount of food for her and Yuichi, the duo also appears to eat it all:
‘we ate it all…until we couldn’t face another bite.’92
Yuichi and Mikage’s
consumption of such an excessive dinner not only shows their likeness to the modern
shōjo, but also their gluttonous tendencies demonstrating their wealth and access to
choose between a wide variety of foods outside of the traditional Japanese cuisine.
91
Saskia Sassen “Overview” in The Global City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) p.3.
92
Kitchen, p.62.

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MURAKAMI’S SŌSHOKU-KEI DANSHI
In Norwegian Wood, Murakami relates the protagonist Watanabe to a new type of
Japanese man called the sōshoku-kei danshi, literally meaning ‘herbivorous man’ or
‘grass-eating man’ in English. 93
The sōshoku-kei danshi represents the contemporary
Japanese man, who generally: ‘resists traditional standards of masculinity, are less
ambitious in their workplace, are willing to save money and are more likely to share an
interest in fashion than to pursue sex.’ 94
Chikako Nihei has argued that the Western
media have celebrated this emergence of the ‘new Japanese man’ that focuses on their
‘rejection of traditional gender roles.’ 95
Perhaps explaining why Norwegian Wood has
been such a success on the Western book market. Moreover, Nihei goes on to elucidate
that ‘the herbivores differences from the older generation have been regarded as a sign
of their ignorance of traditional Japanese values’, particularly through their
‘unwillingness to hold ambitious dreams.’96
In Norwegian Wood, alike the sōshoku-kei danshi, Watanabe often clarifies that he is
not interested in pursuing any hobbies inside or outside of university. When
Watanabe’s roommate, Stormtrooper, asks him if he enjoys reading plays, as
Watanabe studies drama, he replies ‘not especially’.97
After Watanabe notes
Stormtroopers confusion over his apathy, he responds ‘I could have picked
anything…I just happened to pick Drama that’s all.’98
Toru’s indifference for his
93
Chikako Nihei, ‘Resistance and Negotiation: “Herbivorous Men” and Murakami Haruki’s Gender and
Political Ambiguity’, Asian Studies Review, 37 (2013) 62-79 (P.62).
94
Resistance and Negotiation: “Herbivorous Men” and Murakami Haruki’s Gender and Political
Ambiguity, p.63
95
Ambiguity, p.63
96
Ambiguity, p.63
97
98

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degree and his general life, reflects the changing nature of the stereotypical modern
Japanese man. Nihei explains that immediately after the Second World War, the
stereotype of the ideal Japanese man was known as the kigyō senshi, or ‘corporate
warrior.’99
This stereotype was a construction of the ideal values of Japanese
masculinity and is ‘closely associated with national economic growth in Japan.’100
The kigyō senshi, was the ‘urban, white-collar, middle-class salaryman’ who drove
Japan’s industrial development and was ‘instrumental in positioning the nation in a
global context.’ 101
Therefore, the sōshoku-kei danshi heavily departs from the ideal
Japanese man of the late 1940s and 1950s in Japan. Whilst the kigyō senshi were
responsible for helping to build the Japanese economy after the Second World War,
Watanabe’s generation of the sōshoku-kei danshi are the consumers of this booming
economy. As a consumer of this booming economy, Watanabe can reap the benefits
of Japan’s financial stability without having to ambitiously engage or contributing
towards it.
Furthermore, Watanabe’s reluctance and lack of passion to engage with society,
reflects the counter-cultural movement of the late 1960s, during which Murakami
himself would have been a student at university. The counter-cultural movement of
the 1960s, was a cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the
Western World and promoted an anti-establishment attitude, ultimately going against
the orthodox ideals that were present in most of the Western World.102
As the
sōshoku-kei danshi, Watanabe’s lethargic attitudes turn against the traditional
99
Ambiguity, p.64
100
Ambiguity, P.64
101
Ambiguity, P.64
102
Terry H Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) p.51.

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Japanese cultural ideals of masculinity and instead favour the Western counter-
cultural movement. Additionally, by going against toxic cultural ideals of masculinity,
Watanabe imbues the liberal ideals of globalisation argued by Eric Hayot. Therefore,
the liberal ideals promoted by globalisation have rehabilitated the Japanese stereotype
of the contemporary man. Whilst in the 1950s, the ideal contemporary man was
committed to financial success to boost his masculinity, the new stereotype of the
contemporary man has radically abandoned this ideal. As the sōshoku-kei danshi that
Watanabe imbues, rejects traditional notions of masculinity by challenging societies
gender norms.
Although the sōshoku-kei danshi imbues some of the positive ideals that globalisation
endorses by rejecting gender norms, it also reflects the abolishing of cultural
difference. As Nihei earlier suggested, the generation of the kigyō senshi has
criticised that of the sōshoku-kei danshi for rejecting the traditional Japanese values
that they built. The traits that the typical Japanese man were once expected to imbue,
have now been eradicated. Conversely, what now stands in its place is the sōshoku-kei
danshi, a contemporary Japanese man who is a reflection of the Western ideals of
globalisation. This man is passive and resistant, he does not care for earning lots of
money or propelling his status in society. Therefore, owing to globalisation the
characteristic contemporary stereotype of the Japanese has been transformed into the
homogenous Western man, who struggles to find his place in such an economically
advanced world.
Conclusively, Yoshimoto’s deployment of the shōjo girl in Kitchen demonstrates the
rapid globalisation that hit Japan during the 1980s. Originally a cultural trope to
present a young feminised woman that lives and works in an industrial japan, the role

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of the shōjo has transformed to that of the young female consumer in a Japan
overhaled by Western influences. Therefore, the modern shōjo that Yoshimoto imbues
into Mikage is a metaphor for the Western influences that have permeated and altered
Japanese culture owing to globalisation. Similarly, in Norwegian Wood, the apathy
that Murakami instils within Watanabe as a reflection of the sōshoku-kei danshi,
documents the changing nature of Japanese culture during the 1960s. Whilst the
contemporary man in Japan during the 1950s was typecast by his white-collar job and
commitment to boosting the economy of Japan, the new contemporary man reflects a
homogenised Western man caught up in a world of consumerism. Overall, stereotypes
in Japanese Literature have radically changed as a result of globalisation. The
emblematic stereotypes commonly found in Japanese literature now depict young
adults who living in a globalised Japan, place importance on liberal values and
consumerism above all else.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and Kitchen by Banana
Yoshimoto both infuse a combination of Japanese and Westernised cultural tropes that
imitate Japan’s complex relationship with globalisation. This has been primarily
shown through Japanese literature’s contemporary East/West dichotomy, that formed
as a result of the abolishment of China’s cultural hegemonic hold over Japan. This has
been shown through: Yoshimoto and Murakami’s reinvention of the shōjo girl and the
sōshoku-kei danshi as a symbols of consumption, Western translation politics that
erase anything deemed ‘too Japanese’ or ‘exotic’ in Japanese literature and the rise of
the postmodern literary style as symbol of capitalism.

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40
This change in contemporary Japanese literature is primarily a result of globalisation,
which has led to the influx of American goods and Western culture into Japan,
modifying Japanese attitudes and culture. In turn, this modification has led to a
reinvention of Japanese stereotypes and furthermore has departed from modernist
literary ideals. Ultimately, the style, form and content of Kitchen and Norwegian
Wood are representations of the impact that globalisation has had on contemporary
Japanese culture and therefore its literature.

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41
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