This picture is an Ainu leader shot in 1903. Ainu people are a group of people who lives in currently named Hokkaido Island. They are colonized by Japan in the late 19th century. During that time, Japan uses new infrastructure to attract the Ainu people, uses education to change Ainu children’s thoughts, uses former Samurai as immigrants to occupy the Ainu people’s land, and force them to become a citizen of Japan. This history is rarely mentioned in history books in my country, but it improved my understanding of the later policy Japan imposed on its colony like Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan. And when we compare the cultural background differences between the Ainu people and other colony Japan used to occupy, such information clearly explains why the policy issued for later colonies is based on a completely wrong assumption and indirectly caused the failure of Japan’s colonization plan.
First, if we want to know the cultural background difference between Manchurian, Korean, and Ainu people we have to provide information about Ainu people since this word might be the most unfamiliar among the three groups: Ainu people are conservationism, they try to maintain the balance between human and nature and they believe that the nature is the common land for all. We surprisingly find that these tendencies perfectly fit with the characteristics of a few other ethnicities (like native Americans) that show vulnerability towards colonization: not being exposed to modern technology, and emphasis on a spiritual connection with nature. etc. From this point of view, Japan is a lucky country, but at the same time, it is the unluckiest country. The kindness of the Ainu people makes Japan easily occupy Hokkaido, gradually remove the traces of Ainu culture, and assimilate the Ainu people, these provided confidence to Japan government about future colonization, but the kindness of the Ainu people makes Japan falls into a trap that they think assimilation will always be such an easy work.
After understanding what causes the easy colonization in Hokkaido, we can start to analyze what makes later colonies like Manchu, Korea, and Taiwan harder to use the same tactics. From the novel Manchu Girl, we can have a general understanding of Japan’s colonial policy after successfully assimilating the Ainu people. The core concept of colonization does not change much. They still try to use culture to covertly invade other countries: they mobilized women to change national issues into emotional issues, and after this concept was accepted, they use more covert education to change people’s thoughts. This policy should work, at least in their mind. But they neglect the fact that Ainu people are different compared to Manchurians, Korean, and Taiwanese. Although geologically Ainu people are closer to Japan’s mainland, the cultural difference between the two ethnicities are huge, Manchurian, Korean, and Taiwanese are more distant from Japan’s mainland, but their cultural backgrounds are closer. We can see the assimilation of the Ainu people as an extensive culture shock in the Ainu community, Ainu people have no idea about how to react to Japanese people since they are completely unfamiliar, their feelings were more like a mixture of curiosity and fear. But Manchurian people do not experience similar incidents, Japan has long history influenced by Chinese culture, and there aren’t any novelty for Chinese people. Also, although industrialization was not started in China, similar technology was introduced in this country, so there are no obvious technology gaps. These disenchantments make Manchurians easily reveal the fact that such action is still an invasion. And also, the mobilization of women is not practical. Compared to Hokkaido and Ainu people, Manchu and Manchurian are way larger, even compared to the whole of Japan. The way of mobilizing Japanese women is inefficient since the total number of Japanese families who have willing to live in another country is limited. So the total number of people who get affected is limited. One more severe mistake of this assimilation plan is that they did not make people who get affected and affectionate by Japanese culture become revered and accepted, we can see the Manchu Girl divorced from the masses. This means the only person this Japanese family affected is the girl they adopted. The mass population of China and the ineffectiveness of the policy makes it could never succeed.
From the above analysis, we find that for Japan, encounter Ainu people at first was lucky since Japan gained wealth and land easily at the start of colonization process, but it is unlucky that the same policy will not be successful for other colonies and leads to the fail of Japan’s colonization process. It clearly shows that most events and policy in history that seems not reasonable for later people is that they neglect context of such policy, which is important for history analysis.
Work cited:
Society, M. H. (n.d.). Missouri History Museum: Missouri Historical Society. The Missouri Historical Society is … Missouri Historical Society and was founded in 1866. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://images.mohistory.org/images/N28678_0001/original.jpg
Koizumi, K. (2012, March 28). Manchu Girl. De Gruyter. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780804781596-017/html?lang=en
Komori Yoichi, Michele M. Mason and Helen J.S. Lee, Rule in the Name of Protection: The Japanese State, the Ainu and the Vocabulary of Colonialism. The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 8, №2, February 25, 2013.
