The South Seas on Display in Japan: Yosano Tekkan's Nan'yōkan and South Seas Discourse of the Early Twentieth Century

Ombrello, Mark (2016). "The South Seas on Display in Japan: Yosano Tekkan's Nan'yōkan and South Seas Discourse of the Early Twentieth Century". Pacific Asia Inquiry. 7 (1): 26–42. ISSN 2377-0929.

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Abstract: The South Seas continues to serve as a space that operates in both real and imagined contexts in modes of cultural production that encompass a wide spectrum of engagement that can affirm what it means to be a member of modern society. As with the Tokyo Exhibition of 1914, processes associated with identity formation can be realized in the modern tourist industry. Like Yosano’s protagonist, people travel to Pacific locales to access an “authentic” South Seas. Access can likewise be experienced vicariously through mediums that utilize traditional tropes associated with the Pacific and Pacific peoples. And while South Seas islanders have and always will be real people living in real contexts, Japanese conceptualizations of them and their environs remain largely regulated by a culturally constructed composite of the South Seas that began as early as ancient times but took on substantial significance in the modern era. Tracking discourses of representation and display such as Yosano Tekkan”s Nan’yōkan, can nudge the observer to reevaluate Japanese conceptualizations of the South Seas and acknowledge the various lenses by which such conceptualizations have been mediated.