Conflicting Discourses on Colonial Assimilation: A Palauan Cultural Tour to Japan, 1915

Iitaka, Shingo (09-2011). "Conflicting Discourses on Colonial Assimilation: A Palauan Cultural Tour to Japan, 1915" (PDF). Pacific Asia Inquiry. 2 (1): 85–102. ISSN 2377-0929.

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Abstract: This paper examines a colonial discourse on assimilation of Micronesians to Japan during the era of Japanese administration of Micronesia, 1914-45. Official, scholarly, and native oral narratives about Micronesians' participation in the tours to the main islands of Japan (cultural tour: naichi- kankō), are discussed, with the focus on a Palauan chief, who relocated his village along a straight road called Ginzadōri after participating in the tour conducted in 1915. While the agency of Palauans was devalued in the representations by the administrators and some scholars, it is recovered in the Palauans' oral histories, which express great admiration for the accomplishment of the chief who constructed the Ginza Road. Ultimately, how to represent the Ginza Road story depends on how one evaluates the relationship between colonialism, modernization, and modernity. Keywords: Japanese administration, Palau, cultural tour, agency, modernity From the end of the nineteenth century, Micronesia north of the equator, apart from Guam, experienced successive colonial regimes under Germany, Japan and United States. Germany exercised sovereignty over the islands after the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Japanese Navy took the area in 1914, and the South Seas Government (Nan'yō-chō: 南洋庁) was established in Koror, Palau in 1922. Micronesia under the Japanese administration, called Nan'yō Guntō (南洋群島), consisted of six districts: Saipan, Yap, Palau, Truk (former name of Chuuk), Ponape (former name of Pohnpei), and Jaluit. Japanese rule endured until the Pacific War, when US Forces occupied the islands. In contrast with the Germans or Americans, the Japanese made strenuous efforts to develop the economy of Micronesia and encouraged immigration from the home islands. In the middle of the 1930s, Japanese immigrants outnumbered the local population. Although more than 65 years have passed since the end of Japanese rule in Micronesia, researchers working in the region still encounter the legacies of Japanese administration. There are a number of older people who were educated in Japanese and continue to speak it fluently today. In the nation-building era, half Japanese and half Micronesian with Japanese family names were prominent in the political scene. War remains are still left in battle fields. War memorials have been built by Japanese veterans and ex-immigrants, who have revisited the islands regularly for memorial services. Japanese visitors are often shocked to encounter the deep imprint of colonialism by their own country, if they expect to find "otherness" in the paradise.