Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

64 INTERMINGLING OF CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITYand is often explained as meaning ka for “song,” bu for“dance” and ki for “skill.” Its original meaning of “bent,”with its attendant connotations of wild, outlandish andeccentric, is all but forgotten.Globalization as bogeymanAs for the bogeyman known as globalization, Sen hasmade various spirited defenses of globalization insistingthat while “globalization has been instrumental inshaping the world… by a persistent movement ofgoods, people, techniques and ideas it has shaped thehistory of the world” (Sen 2005).One has only to look at masks and gigaku dance in Japanto be able to trace its origins to China. The Buddhistphilosophies underpinning noh came to Japan fromIndia via China and Korea. The wayang kulit of Javaowes its heritage to the stories of the epic Mahabharataof India and the philosophy of the nine Wali or Sufisaints, as well as local stories and animistic beliefs. Thenature of art and culture in both Indonesia and Japanhas been essentially syncretic despite various attemptsthroughout history to “close the doors” or controlforeign influences.It is a misdiagnosis to claim that the globalization ofideas and practices has to be resisted because it entailssome dreaded Westernization 5 . The peril of this claim isthat it incites parochial tendencies, ignores history andcan lead dangerously to ethnic pride and a false sense ofan immutable identity.Given the global interactions throughout historyit can also cause non-Western societies to shootthemselves in the foot—even in their preciouscultural foot (Sen 2005).However, the wholesale rejection of global influencesfrom either East or West is neither possible nor necessary.For culture to be vibrant and alive, it has to meet thechallenges of modernization. Protected and nurtured ina hermetically sealed environment, it loses its purposeand will die.Identity as choiceThe artist’s understanding of culture, I would argue, isultimately syncretic, universalist, humanist, pluralistand evolving. The contemporary artist seeks to preserveby changing and in so doing preserves not form butmetaphysics, with all its subversions intact.The nationalist stance, in contrast, is conservative,frequently concerned with notions of unified identityand the authentic. It is concerned with preserving courtand classical traditions, seeing those traditions as morerepresentative of state culture.This creates notions of a cultural hierarchy in whichcertain art forms are regarded as more worthy. The folkarts, more robust in accreting modernity, are regardedas vulgar and low art, not representative of nationalcultural values and, therefore, national identity. Theseare notions I would hotly contest.Those who advocate the need to “salvage” traditions,who often use the discourse of the “vanishing,” do notsee their desire to “recover” or “discover” their identityas a choice. They do not see tradition as somethingchangeable and alive. Rather “increasingly such nostalgicyearnings often lead to a sense of noblesse oblige on thepart of the speaker, who feels the obligation to revive orrenew the imagined glory of the past” (Pattita 2002).This view that a person’s identity is something s/hedetects rather than one s/he determines lies at the heartof the ongoing historical struggle. Some claim thatidentity is a matter of discovery, others that identityis a matter of choice. The globalist may well be moreinclined to believe in identity as choice, feeling that shehas a choice about her beliefs, associations and attitudesand that she must take responsibility for what is chosen.The nationalist hopes that by burrowing deeper withinhis own cultural context he will discover his more“authentic self.” This is a deeply troublesome concept .MetapatternsIt is clear from examining Miyazawa’s popular film thatthere are metapatterns that exist which make traditionalcultures still resonant. Theater director Tadashi Suzukibelieves that, while only a limited number of peoplewatch noh theater, it continues to have some realityin Japan because the past is closer to the modernJapanese to whom, as a people, the vast disruptionsbrought about by secularization have come relativelyrecently [sic in the Meiji era]. He feels that Japan iscloser to the model of a communal society than a highlyindividualistic one. Therefore, Japanese audiences havesome ability to sense the beauty and significance thatnoh possesses that point to the transcendent. The factthat otherworldly and supernatural stories are readilybelieved suggests that certain implicit ties exist to theseolder ways of thinking. Noh is a historical form but theunderlying pattern of thinking behind it and the beliefsystem that governs it still exist.Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows