{"id":1990,"date":"2019-02-21T11:05:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T17:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/?p=1990"},"modified":"2019-03-14T14:49:17","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T19:49:17","slug":"pair-scribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/2019\/02\/21\/pair-scribe\/","title":{"rendered":"2\/19 Taipei and Kyoto"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CHU T\u2019ien-hsin, \u201cThe Old Capital\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><strong>p.135 the bridge at Shijo where he had first met \u201cChieko\u2019s Naeko\u201d or \u201cNaeko\u2019s Chieko\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>lovers who seemed to never leave<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>You told your daughter that southern China was just like that. When had you ever been in southern China?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The main theme of this book is the idea that \u201cYou\u201d as the main character is trying to relive the old life. There were several places where \u201cYou\u201d mentioned her memories of these old places, for example, \u201cA price that had remained the same for years\u201d, \u201cYou deeply missed the seats, so few that there was usually a long line\u201d. The big picture was that \u201cYour\u201d home Taiwan was experiencing huge changes and \u201cYou\u201d cannot go back to many old places again because they have been different. However, these scenes in Japan seemed to be the same from your old memory. The author is making a comparison between these two places.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Summer (past) vs. Winter (present)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hideo by himself vs. Lovers (couples)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hideo vs. Narrator<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bwt.com.tw\/eWeb\/GO\/L_GO_Type.asp?iMGRUP_CD=HGH051701\">Southern China<\/a>\u00a0vs. Taipei vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/kyoto-autumn-autumnal-leaves-2429487\/\">Japan<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>p.141 Maruyama Park<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Yuanshan \u2013 you<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Maruyama \u2013 daughter<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These several paragraphs are somewhat similar to the previous ones. Even though the author did not mention as many old memories, she still used a very gentle and little sad tone to describe the view \u201cYou\u201d had been to.\u00a0 She is using these views as the images of old lives. They are as beautiful and memorable as your teenager. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maruyama Park (daughter) vs. Yuanshan Park (narrator)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>p.179 The parents I have now love me very much. I don\u2019t have any desire to look for my real mother and father.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>why would you be willing to sit at the Seir\u014d-ji for a whole afternoon doing nothing, while you couldn\u2019t wait to flee the Temple of Benevolence, which you had to walk by every day?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These paragraphs are again, talking about the old memories of \u201cYou\u201d. It started with the story of the little room \u201cA\u201d rent outside college and how you used it as your dating place. When \u201cYou\u201d walked across it ten years later, it had changed tremendously. Another ten years passing by and the house was pulled down. The author was using this story to describe how things all get ugly and painful as people growing up. Old time cannot be restored ever again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Parent vs. Biological Parent<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kyoto vs. Taipei<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chieko vs. Naeko<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A (Past, means forgot about Taipei ) vs. Narrator (Japan)<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CHUA and YAMAMOTO, \u201cReview &#8211; The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe Old Capital\u201d was published in 1962, which was an elegiac meditation on the cultural heritage of Kyoto and it was one of the works that earned the Nobel Prize in Literature. The English version of \u201cThe Old Capital\u201d has several omissions and questionable translations. For example, the translator ignores the original&#8217;s mention that the protagonist has &#8220;reached a marriageable age.&#8221; \u00a0The main character, Chieko, who was a paradigm of ancient Kyoto, was living in Kyoto, which had been Japan&#8217;s capital before Tokyo. And she raised by a kimono wholesaler after her parents abandoned her when she was a baby. At Kyoto\u2019s Gion Festival, she meets the mountain girl Naeko, who reveals that they are twins. Chieko represented the past identity, and her twin sister, Nieko, who represented the future identity. Meanwhile, the young weaver Hideo starts falling for both of the sisters. <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Old Captial (Kyoto) \u2014\u2014 Chieko \u2014\u2014 Past identity<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">New Captial (Tokyo)\u2014\u2014 Twin Sister \u2014\u2014 Future identity<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lingchei CHEN, \u201cMapping Identity in a Postcolonial City\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan was colonized by Japan from 1895-1945 and with the exodus of Guomingdang nationalists of 1949 added a mixed cultural closure to the Taiwan society. Heavy on its development of capitalism after the 60s, Taiwan experienced its time under Western influences. It was discussed in the article that Taiwan was subject to three major influences from outside forces, American and its western customs, Japan, and Mainland China. With the forceful cultural invasion from different social forces, Taiwan generations that are born in the past two century experienced a certain degree of historical discontinuity and cultural displacement that caused a long struggle of identity confusion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the article stated, Zhu constantly struck in the cultural hybridity between her past and present, so the identity as a Chinese mainlander and Taiwanese\u2019s offspring. Zhu used the binaries between Kyoto and Tokyo, Chieko and Nieko, and A and the narrator herself to show the intertwined dual cultures that created her. In her Old Capital, we see Zhu\u2019s efforts in trying to create a coherent culture, through the narrator. Her concern of building a coherent culture and escaping from the burden of colonization rooted from the lack of a coherent and continuous historical heritage that herself experienced from the colonization and the different cultural forces. Zhu essentially tried to build an imagined past connecting to the present by presenting Kyoto, her symbol of history and antiquity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The article also spent time discussing the political atmosphere in Taiwan, including the introduction of Li Denghui who was the very first chairman of Taiwan who was actually born in Taiwan and the DDP. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Zhu\u2019s Old Capital, while expressing a degree of nostalgia that is resulted from the displacement that the narrator was experiencing, it also showed much criticism against Taiwan. For instance, when talking about Southern China and the similar bridge the narrator saw in Kyoto, the story mentioned how Taiwan\u2019s river was always filthy and full of human wastes. This refers to the rapid destruction of Taipei\u2019s natural environment by both the KMT government and native Taiwanese politicians.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHU T\u2019ien-hsin, \u201cThe Old Capital\u201d p.135 the bridge at Shijo where he had first met \u201cChieko\u2019s Naeko\u201d or \u201cNaeko\u2019s Chieko\u201d lovers who seemed to never leave You told your daughter that southern China was just like that. When had you ever been in southern China? The main theme of this book is the idea that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pair-scribes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2254,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions\/2254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/mtoc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}