Memory, Trauma, Asia: Recall, Affect, and Orientalism in Contemporary Narratives 9781138505582, 9781315146669

Citation preview

Memory, Trauma, Asia

Contemporary Asia is a diverse and sweeping region throughout which traumatic legacies of colonialism persist as military regimes and dictatorships have produced untold human suffering. Countless losses of life have been caused by disease, revolution, civil war, and genocide from the distant past into the 21st century. A global pandemic, natural catastrophes, closed borders, and acute xenophobia render existing social and political tensions even more volatile today. As such, two critical imperatives of Memory, Trauma, Asia are to re-think established insights of memory and trauma theory and to enrich trauma studies with diverse Asian texts for critically analyzing literary and cultural representations of Asia and its global diasporas. This volume broadens the scope of memory and trauma studies by prompting and dialogically meditating on the following questions: Is memory always a reliable register of the past? Is trauma a concept that translates across cultures? Can pain and affect have global applicability and utility for literary and cultural analysis? Do the approaches and perspectives generated by literary and cultural texts hold purchase for social, political, and historical interventions in the 21st century? How are Asians subject to orientalist lenses that warrant foreclosure of empathy and humanity? How do inter-ethnic racism, inter-Asian classism, queerphobia, sexism, misogynoir, and systemic xenophobia continue to impact Asian people and culture? By critically meditating on whether existing concepts of memory and trauma accurately address the histories, present states, and futures of the non-Occidental world, this volume unites perspectives on both dominant and marginalized sites of the broader Asian continent. Contributors explore the complex and surprising intersections of literature, history, ethics, affect, and social justice across the region through its wide-ranging but comparative focus on geo-political sites across East, South, and Southeast Asia, and on Asian diasporas in Australia and the USA. This volume is thus the frst of its kind to argue for a comparative methodology in memory and trauma studies that centers Asia rather than pushing it to the periphery of the Occident. It will appeal to scholars, students, teachers, and readers interested in memory and trauma studies, comparative Asian studies, diaspora and postcolonial studies, global studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies in the 21st century.

Rahul K. Gairola, PhD (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) is The Krishna Somers Lecturer in English & Postcolonial Literature and a Fellow of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Greater Perth, Western Australia. He is the co-editor and author/co-author of fve books including South Asian Digital Humanities: Postcolonial Mediations across Technology's Cultural Canon (London: Routledge, 2020); Migration, Gender and Home Economics in Rural North India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2019); and Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belonging (London & New York: Rowman & Littlefeld International, 2016). He is also co-editor of special issues of Journal of Postcolonial Writing, South Asian Review, and Asiascape: Digital Asia, and previously taught at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India; The City University of New York, and Seattle University, USA. He is a lifetime member of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, UK. Sharanya Jayawickrama, PhD (University of Cambridge, UK) was Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong. She was previously Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Macau and Lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. She was moreover an adjunct lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and King’s College, University of London, UK. Her published essays include feld-shaping examinations of race, gender, and sexuality in Sri Lankan literature and culture. She passed away in September 2019.

Routledge Contemporary Asia Series 66. Confict in India and China’s Contested Borderlands A Comparative Study Kunal Mukherjee 67. Transcontinental Silk Road Strategies Comparing China, Japan and South Korea in Uzbekistan Timur Dadabev 68. Sino-Pakistani Relations Politics, Military and Regional Dynamics Filippo Boni 69. Circulation and Governance of Asian Medicine Edited by Céline Coderey and Laurent Pordié 70. Normalization of Violence Conceptual Analysis and Refections from Asia Edited by Irm Haleem 71. Minorities, Rights and the Law in Malaysia The Politico-Legal Mobilisation of Ethnic Minorities Thaatchaayini Kananatu 72. Hate Speech in Asia and Europe Beyond Hate and Fear Edited by Myungkoo Kang, Mari-Orange Rivé-Lasan, Wooja Kim and Philippa Hall 73. Climate Change Governance in Asia Edited by Kuei-Tien Chou, Koichi Hasegawa, Dowan Ku, and Shu-Fen Kao 74. Historical Narratives in East Asia of the 21st Century Overcoming the Politics of National Identity Edited by Hitoshi Tanaka 75. Memory, Trauma, Asia Recall, Affect, and Orientalism in Contemporary Narratives Edited by Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com /Routledge-Contemporary-Asia-Series/book-series/SE0794

Memory, Trauma, Asia

Recall, Affect, and Orientalism in Contemporary Narratives

Edited by Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama to be identifed as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-50558-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14666-9 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

List of contributors Foreword Acknowledgments 1 The “Asian Pandemic”: Re-Thinking Memory and Trauma in Cultural Narratives of Asia

ix xii xv

1

RAHUL K. GAIROLA AND SHARANYA JAYAWICKRAMA

PART I

Activating Memory as Personal Testimony

29

2 The Language of Trauma in Selected Short Stories by Gao Xingjian 31 MICHAEL KA-CHI CHEUK

3 Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within: Internment Trauma and Memory in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and John Okada’s No-No Boy

48

KERRY S. KUMABE

4 Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide by “telling the world”: Active Subjectivity and Collective Memory in Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father

69

NELLY MOK

5 Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists ZHU YING

88

viii

Contents

PART II

Traumascapes of Body and State 6 Bonds and Companionship: The Healing Effcacy of the Picture Books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

105 107

MICHELLE CHAN

7 Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma: Spectrality and Magic Realism in Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows

122

JOCELYN S. MARTIN

8 Engendering Islam: Religio-Cultural Violence and Trauma in Qaisra Shahraz’s The Holy Woman

138

ELHAM FATMA, RAHUL K. GAIROLA, AND RASHMI GAUR

9 Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan: Medoruma Shun’s “Army Messenger”

158

KYLE IKEDA

Index

175

Contributors

Michelle Chan received her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. She specializes in nineteenth-century children’s literature and fantasy. She also works on Asian children’s literature. She is developing her research in relation to the ecological approach to literature, the readership of children’s literature, picture books and so on. Elham Fatma is a doctoral candidate in English in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India (IITR). She researches the trauma of Kashmiri women in relation to class, space, place, race, and religion. She is primarily concerned with the intersections of Eurocentric trauma studies, memory, and migration in the context of South Asian fction, and has written on traditions, expectations, and exploitations concerning marriage and women in South Asia. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship at Davis & Elkins College, West Virginia, USA (2007– 2008). She received her M.A. from Aligarh Muslim University’s Department of English, which also awarded her two gold medals in English Literature. In addition to teaching in that department, she currently teaches at IITR. She recently co-authored, with Rahul K. Gairola, “Conjugal Homes: Marriage Culture in Contemporary Novels of the Pakistani Diaspora” in the Routledge Companion to Pakistani Anglophone Writing (London: Taylor & Francis, 2018). Rashmi Gaur, D.Phil (University of Allahabad, India) is Professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR), India, where she teaches courses in communication, culture, gender studies, and media studies (flm and literature). In her career spanning three decades, she has guided approximately 12 doctoral theses and has published four books, including The Poetic Strain in the Novels of Virginia Woolf (Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan Publishing, 1991) and Ananthamurthy’s Samskara (New Delhi: Prestige Publishers, 2006). She has widely delivered talks and attended conferences from which more than 90 research papers have appeared in signifcant national/international journals. She is currently researching and teaching gender studies, professional communication, and digital media studies and pedagogy, the latter of which she engages through her online course offerings through the

x

Contributors National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) run by the Government of India. She recently co-edited, with Dr. Om Prakash (Gautam Buddha University, Delhi, India), the “Language and Exclusion” special issue of the Journal of Exclusion Studies which features an interview with gender and postcolonial studies stalwart Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

Kyle Ikeda is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Vermont, USA. His research interest focuses on second-generation war survivor trauma fction from Okinawa and Japan. His publications include “Writing and Remembering the Battle of Okinawa: War Memory and Literature,” in the Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature (2016), and Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and the War Fiction of Medoruma Shun (2014). Michael Ka-chi Cheuk is Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at The Open University of Hong Kong. He completed a PhD on Gao Xingjian’s preNobel plays and censorship at SOAS University of London. He is now leading a Hong Kong Research Grant Council-funded project on Gao Xingjian’s post-Nobel works. Kerry S. Kumabe is a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where she earned her juris doctorate. She served as Senior Notes & Comments Editor on the California Law Review and Senior Articles Editor on the Asian American Law Journal. In addition to her law degree, she holds an M.Phil. in American Literature from the University of Cambridge, UK. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania, summa cum laude, with departmental honors. Jocelyn S. Martin is Assistant Professor in the English Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines, where she is also Managing Editor for Thomson-Reuter-indexed journal, Kritika Kultura. With a PhD in langues et lettres from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, she speaks fve languages. Member of the Advisory Board of the Memory Studies Association, Jocelyn researches on Memory, Trauma, Postcolonial, and Translation Studies, climate fction and Political Listening. She was recently Zumkehr Lecturer for the University of Ohio, USA. Nelly Mok is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of PaulValéry Montpellier 3, France and a member of the research unit Études Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone (Montpellier Studies of the EnglishSpeaking World). She is the author of a dissertation entitled “Writing Of or From the Margin in Twentieth-Century Autobiographical Narratives by Chinese American Women Writers.” (2011, the University of Bordeaux Montaigne) and of articles on Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, and Loung Ung. She co-edited a critical anthology on minority American life writing works, The Self as Other in Minority American Life Writing (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019) with Claudine Raynaud.

Contributors  xi Her research focuses on cultural identity, diaspora, transnationalism, trauma and memory in Asian American literature, more particularly in contemporary Chinese and Cambodian American life writing works. Zhu Ying is Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Translation at Macao Polytechnic Institute in Macao SAR, China. She earned her PhD from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and has twice been awarded a Research Fellowship by the JFK Institute for North American Studies at Free University in Berlin, Germany. With the publication of her academic monograph Fiction and the Incompleteness of History (2006), she has written on the Asian diaspora, world literature, and literary translation. Chantal Zabus is Professor of Comparative Postcolonial and Gender Studies at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord, France. She is the author of over a hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals and of books, such as The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of language in the African Europhone Novel (1991; French transl. 2018); Out in Africa: Same-Sex Desire in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Cultures (2014); Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women’s Experiential Texts and Human Contexts (2007; French transl. 2016) and The Future of Postcolonial Studies (2015). Zabus also serves as the Editorin-Chief of one of the first journals on postcolonial studies online, Postcolonial Text (www.postcolonial.org).

Foreword

In Memoriam: Sharanya Jayawickrama1 By Chantal Zabus

I am writing about Sharanya in uncertain times as the unruly Covid-19 pandemic is still looming large over our lives and some of us are “confned” while continuing to work online. While taking stock of new vocabulary like “social distancing,” some of us are taking advantage of the diminishing lack of human contact to tackle unfnished business and to be more refective. And this unprecedented crisis as well as the progressive opening up after lockdown that we are all experiencing in slow motion helps me reminisce about Sharanya, who prematurely passed away on September 9, 2019. Sharanya was devastatingly beautiful and kind. The picture you see above is of a radiant, vibrant young woman. In a picture she sent me on December 5, 2018, Sharanya no longer had her long hair although it was still jet-black. The last time I skyped with her, she was wearing a wig. I was still full of hope for her recovery

Foreword

xiii

when she and her family moved from Hong Kong, where they had been living since 2012, to Ireland, which was her husband Barry Crosbie’s home country. She received the best of care in an Oncology Center in Dublin, two hours from her new home; in her last email to me she was still hoping to recover “some quality of life.” Her father, Dr. Niyal Jayawickrama, reported that her health unfortunately had begun to deteriorate in August 2019: “My elder daughter Nishana (who lives in London) and I visited her in hospital in Dublin on September 7th, and was with her when she passed away, quite unexpectedly, on the 9th after being active and positive even on the last day of her life.” A memorial service was held in Rosslare, in County Wexford, her new home, and her cremation took place in Dublin on September 14, 2019. From what I gathered from another source, many mourners focked for the services from different parts of Ireland and from as far afeld as Hong Kong, the United States, and the UK. On behalf of Postcolonial Text, the quarterly journal for which I act as Editor-in-Chief, I passed on condolences to her husband, Barry Crosbie, and to their children, Kaishori and Alokhi, her sister Nishana, and her parents-in-law Derek and Sheila Crosbie. Our colleague, Prof. Ranjan Goonetilleke, has also passed on our deepest sympathies to her father. I was in Madagascar on a research feldtrip when I was hit by the news of Sharanya’s death. I was traveling alone and could not very well tell my hosts at the Maison Lovasoa in Antananarivo that the Associate Editor of Postcolonial Text had passed away. I, however, felt connected to the Postcolonial Text community, as most of us academics who are familiar with the running of a journal or simply with teamwork do. Sharanya and I were a Team; she was the good cop; I was the bad cop. And you needed that balance of both roles to keep the journal afoat. With her customarily quiet effciency, her erudition, her generosity, her kindness, she always went beyond the call of duty to help anguished authors and her peers on our frantic Team. Esther De Bruijn, in her former capacity as Layout Editor, Sharanya, and I would relish those shared moments of trepidation just before the fnish line, when we would “press the button” and a new issue would come out! After the phase of grief and bereavement, it then dawned on me that I had lost not only a precious cog in the at times not-so-intuitive PT system but also a friend. Sharanya had been with the journal since its inception in 2004 and had acted in various capacities until she was nominated Associate Editor in 2013. Sharanya-the-missing-cog was missing until recently in the sense that we occasionally mis-maneuvered but through trials and errors, we now have complete mastery of this daunting system. In the meantime, Esther became Managing Editor and Rachel Gregory Fox became Layout Editor and they helped me publish the second, much delayed issue of the 14th volume of Postcolonial Text in October 2019, a month after Sharanya’s death. Later, Alessandra Capperdoni, one of our Book Reviews Editors, agreed to become Assistant Editor and recently Souhir Zekri joined the Team as the new Layout Editor. The dismembered Team is now reconstituted but I still miss my friend, the one-who-would-always-give-a-second-chance friend. Sharanya would use humor

xiv

Foreword

to handle irritating matters, like authors forgetting to hit “Complete” and inadvertently stalling the automated process. When an author would inordinately complain, after we had tried so hard to accommodate their needs, Sharanya would say, “My eyes are rolling.” And even though we were about 6000 miles apart (me in Paris; her in Hong Kong), I could actually “see” her beautiful round eyes roll around in a circle, not in annoyance or impatience, but in detached amusement. Sharanya also gave her own husband a second chance when they frst met as PhD students in Cambridge – she was studying English literature and he was studying History. Here is the anecdote that Barry shared during his Eulogy: I remember the frst time I saw Sharanya in Darwin College in Cambridge. It was a Thursday night at a special weekly event they held there called ‘bops’ – I remember thinking that she was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. She had lovely long black hair, gorgeous brown skin that glowed like burning embers on a fre, and a smile that always beamed from ear to ear. After a couple of drinks, I summoned up the courage to approach her to say hi and, much to my amazement, she actually stayed and chatted to me for hours … You see back in 2000 I was a bit of a dork and in order to act cooler than I was I used to go out without my glasses on quite a lot – these were the days before I discovered contact lens. … I remember the second night I met Sharanya – a sort of ‘unoffcial date,’ we were supposed to meet again in the bar at Darwin College. And of course, me being very vain back then, turned up without my glasses on and I spent the whole night walking around blindly trying to fnd her without success. It was only the next morning when Sharanya phoned me quite annoyed that I realized that I had actually walked by her several times with, what she described as a mysterious blank expression on my face, and that she was only calling me because apparently I had been nice when we met the week before and that she was keen to give me a second chance. This anecdote encapsulates Sharanya’s essence and character. This anecdote also leaves me smiling and even chuckling, because that is how we both were – chuckling and laughing in cyberspace – and our laughters would echo down the labyrinthine pathways on the PT site and shake the august algorithms that ruled both of our lives in our relationship to Postcolonial Text. May our new Team be blessed with Sharanya’s contagious joy!

Note 1 This is a slightly revised version of “In Memoriam: Sharanya Jayawickrama” which I wrote as an Editorial for issue 15: 1 (2020) of Postcolonial Text.

Acknowledgments

The frst and foremost person whom I must acknowledge is Dr Sharanya Jayawickrama, a bright colleague and dear friend, whose untimely passing in September 2019 devastated a global community of friends, family, and colleagues. We met years ago as postgraduate English researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, where Dr Barry Crosbie, her husband, was also studying. Sharanya was as vibrant and generous then as until our last exchange in August 2019. She kindly nominated me in 2014 as an Article Editor for Postcolonial Text (PT ), where we shared a delightful working relationship, and graciously invited me to contribute to this book project soon after. I thus have many courtesies for which I thank Sharanya, as well as Barry and family. Each page of this volume cradles the gilded watermark of Sharanya’s wonted, scholarly brilliance. I received exceptional editorial and professional support while completing this volume. At Routledge Asia, Simon Bates has been a wonderful source of support and humor from start to completion of the project. ShengBin Tan and the production staff at Routledge Asia were also meticulous in their craft and delightful in their demeanor. I moreover thank Sharanya’s erstwhile colleagues, Dr Rebekah Bale, Dr Michelle Chan, and Dr Stephen Weninger for reading the frst chapter and offering astute and incisive revision counsel. In this vein, I also thank the English Department of Hong Kong Shue Yan University (HKSYU), the Head of Department Professor Wong Kin Yuen, and Deputy President Dr. Hu Faichung, for varying forms of support that they offered Sharanya as this book project evolved. I also thank Professor Chantal Zabus and our Editorial Team at Postcolonial Text as we remotely grieved and shared stories about Sharanya, who was the journal’s Associate Editor since its inception. This volume’s contributors have been exceptional team players who weathered the storm of Sharanya’s passing along with the global pandemic, and I salute them with the utmost respect and admiration. I moreover thank our erstwhile peers from Cambridge who, through our collective sadness, kindly encouraged me to complete this volume through talks and texts both short and long: Dr Kouki Harasaki, Kerry Kumabe, JD, Dr Mark Mathuray, Dr Bede Scott, and Dr Paul Vlitos. It also behooves me to thank my colleagues and students at Murdoch University and the Asia Research Center in Greater Perth, Western Australia. I must in particular recognize Aman Alagh, Paul Arthur, Sarah Courtis and family,

xvi Acknowledgments Jane Crier, Jason Dohle, Damian Fasulo, Tim Flanagan, Ellen Greenham, Lucy Johnston, Shannon Johnston, Simone Lazaroo, Romy Lawson, Susan Ledger, Terence Lee, Eeva Leinonen, Kateryna Longley, Vijay Mishra, David Moody, Leo Murray, Robert Myles, Lauren O’Mahony, Christian Mauri, Melissa Merchant, David Morrison, Grant O’Neil, Marnie Nolton, Jeremy Northcote, Michelle Picard, Michael Prince, Anja Reid, Shabnam Rathee, Jenny de Reuck, Anne Schwenkenbecher, Glen Stasiuk, Leonie Stickland, Anne Surma, Carol and Jim Warren, and Andrew Webster who, across disciplines and time constraints, supported me throughout the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. I also thank all of my dedicated colleagues in the ABLSS Offce of Research and Innovation. I also sincerely thank Her Excellency Dantu Charandasi, the Consul General of India of Western Australia and The Northern Territory, US Consul General (in Perth) David J. Gainer, and my local colleagues in the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN). It is an unintentional oversight if any name is missing herein for my academic friends in Greater Perth have been instrumental in kindly supporting me. I moreover thank my dear Perth/Fremantle friends including Jay Anderson, Gaye Axford, Ethan Chaffey, Aya Aznable-Duplock, Debbie Rawlings Barton, Reeti Brar, Ashley De Faria, Shaun Elder, Leslie Fisher, Kendall Flett, Judy Gilbert, Michael Griesser, Levi Harley, Fran Hayes, Harald and Karen Karlsson, Richard Lefroy, Garry Lewis, Aidan Magee, James Morrison, Rupert Mullins, Rashida Murphy, Tim Pollitt, Aditya Rahman, Tyler Ray, Dominic Ryan, Nathaniel Ryan, Valery Ryan, Dawn Smith, Tayler Jay Smith, Anne Starvaggi, Emily Sun, Mary Wolfa, Robert Wood, Michael Gerard Vallender, and Evelyn Wright. Our laughs, dialogues, dinners, and disagreements nourish my mind, heart, and soul. I also received wonderful support from Bina Fernandez and our intellectually provocative colleagues at the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), Alison Caddick and the Institute for Postcolonial Studies (IPCS), and other colleagues affliated with the University of Melbourne, Australia. I moreover sincerely thank Tully Barnett, Ethan Blue, Keith Feldman, Roanna Gonsalves, Patricia Gray, Dorothy Kim, Nadia Rhook, Rumina Sethi, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Tyne Sumner, Phillip Thurtle, and Heather Tinsman for kindly talking through various themes of this project with me over the past few years. In India, I thank my colleagues in comparative Asian Studies, namely those based at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad, Indore, Jammu, Kharagpur, Mumbai, and Roorkee; the University of Delhi; and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Finally, I thank my lovely family members who have carried me through the trauma and suffering that affict us all in the wake of birth and progression of life towards inevitable death. My loving mum Indira Bhojwani Gairola and siblings Sapna and Sounjay always lent their support and patience as I completed this project between family functions and gatherings, often during intense snowstorms, when I was home for the holidays. During every moment, the memory of my father warmed my spirits and heart. The same must be said of my family in New Delhi and Indore, India – namely Amitabh and Chetna Bhatt, and Arjun and Mohini Bhojwani. They all have supported me, even in hard times, with good cheer, excellent conversation, and intellectual challenge – as was also always the trademark of Sharanya.

1

The “Asian Pandemic” Re-Thinking Memory and Trauma in Cultural Narratives of Asia Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

In memory of Edward Said

Prelude: Embarking on Trauma Studies Today Perhaps now more than at any other time in the 21st century, contemporary global culture has become “saturated” (Luckhurst 2008, 2) with experiences and expressions of trauma, which literally means “wound” in Greek. Diverse global calamities including disease, climate change, restricted migration, and refugee deaths have punctuated the world’s entry into the new decade during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our current historical moment hauntingly resounds with yet unfolds in stark contrast to Judith Greenberg’s contention that “The trauma of September 11 broke a collective protective shield” (Greenberg 2003, 23). The historical shift from the global trauma of 9/11 to that of the corona virus pandemic of 2020 has profoundly complicated the very defnition of “trauma” with unimaginable historical complexities open to new scrutiny. Such interrogation globally expands into myriad conceptions of the private and collective body, historical periods marked by unprecedented phenomena, and geopolitical sites earlier imagined to be inaccessible without digital innovations in geographic information systems (like Google Earth, for example). This scope proliferates into ever more diverse experiences and contexts that invoke criminalized refugees (Atak and Simeon 2018, 1), displaced diasporas, perpetual war, and desperate migrant workers; it moreover exercises aggregate socio-economic impacts on the daily lives of regular people. In plain terms, trauma’s ubiquity likely renders it less and less of a knowable register of human experience. Questions of what precisely traumatic experience is, who can claim it, and what constitutes an expression of trauma arise from the “democratization” of trauma as a global category of inquiry. At the same time, despite the proliferation of experiences, identities, and contexts defned as “traumatic,” theoretical frameworks have largely retained a limited Euro-American focus. Much of this concentrated focus on the West arguably reverts to situated notions of the ideal subject from the Enlightenment period (Eyerman 2019, 97). In other words, West-centric frames of reference of “memory” and “trauma” mark and shape

2

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

identifable, even commonsensical, articulations of trauma from the outset, and to this day, these aggressively endure. Literary and cultural studies of trauma have gradually developed incisive approaches over the past few decades to analyze subjectivities and societies that emerge in the wake of global experiences of suffering. Yet we would opine that oft-unquestioned, and even unconscious, Euro-American bias continues to undergird these critical heuristics. We would moreover call into question the critical utility of defnitions, theories, and therapeutic modes that lie beyond the recognizable and validated “structures of feeling” (Williams 1977, 32) of which the West is routinely the privileged benefciaries. That is, “feeling” is often linked to geographies of privilege that allocate who and what can validly feel and if such emotions are even recognizable. It is precisely the denial of feeling that justifes networks of bigotry throughout social entities including the church, state, schools, immigration authority, security apparatus, and even cyberspace to normalize anti-Asian sentiment designed to catalyze internalized racism and interAsian conficts. This denial of humanity is routinely transferred by some Asians and Asian diasporas to Black communities, thus perpetuating white supremacy’s denial of humanity from one ethnic group to another rather than abolishing it. For example, in the current atmosphere of COVID-19 racialized hysteria, during a time in which African American/Black and Hispanic/Latino people have been disproportionately impacted by the virus, Chinese Americans and East Asians have borne the brunt of open racism and xenophobia in and beyond the United States. We would, for example, point to a soul-rattling fier that was discovered by Fern Kwok, who lives in the South Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, that rehearses some of the most reprehensible caricatures of people of Chinese descent which echoing the US President’s anti-Chinese jingoism. We note in the below fier that “unhygienic” Chinese subjects are “destroying [sic] Bay Ridge” by ostensibly assailing the material and ideological sites of “home” for “middle class homeowners” (read white fight of the bourgeoisie presented as exiled victims of Asian ghettoization) (Figure 1.1). As if the assault on the domestic comfort zone of bourgeois Brooklynites is not reprehensible enough, Chinese residents are moreover framed as the patrons and owners of businesses that tout “junk,” “prostitution,” and “dirty” eateries. Finally, “trashed” streets, “scavenging,” and “Corona virus spread” is attributed not simply to Chinese Americans, but to “Chinese immigration.” Perhaps the most ethnically insidious and historically ignorant aspect of this fier is its outlandish appeal to history: “The USA won World War II and The Cold War. Are we to succumb to these unhygienic people who spread this disease?” This statement ostensibly confates Japan as a primary aggressor of the Axis Powers with China, which was united with the Allies. We point to this fier as but one of many examples of how people from Asia have been targeted at this juncture in what appears to be anti-Chinese jingoism that alarmingly predicts danger to home, business, neighborhood, and community at the local levels. It is designed to stoke fears of the “yellow peril” and encourage social and physical exile and violence; it is intended to trigger fear and trauma in the hearts of those who look different, “Asian.”

The “Asian Pandemic” 3

Figure 1.1 Photo Courtesy of Fern Kwok

Like a latitudinal shadow, our critical observation in the age of COVID-19 casts major implications around the globe for the potential and timely urgency of trauma studies to inform and energize cultural and political debate in arenas of concern today. This urgency to re-think trauma studies increasingly recognizes life and death the world over, as well as the relationship between violence and power as an uneven and inequitable application of human rights and justice, the role of truth and reconciliation in post-confict societies, the status of refugees in transnational politics, and the impact and management of natural disasters. Indeed, a certain “history of colonial trauma” seems to be shared between decolonized Asian and African nations (Rasulov 2017, 222). However, even the hopeful union of Asian and African nations during and after the Asian-African

4

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955 could not suffciently shortstop the pain and suffering experienced by the people of newly independent nations. Perhaps this is because the promise of Bandung was betrayed by Western colonialism’s ongoing legacy of white supremacy despite ceding its territories. As noted by African postcolonial scholar Achille Mbembe, it is often the transgressive body, which we read as postcolonial and racialized, that is mired in “the context of extreme poverty, of the extreme racialization and of the omnipresence of death” that is frst to be targeted in the crosshairs of hurtful affect (2008). Mbembe’s observation that the transgressive body is the target of economical and racialized exposures to death and destruction is socially undergirded by a vast array of Orientalist (Said 1978) stereotypes stretching from centuries past into the present moment. We are now in an era in which such stereotypes complicate the very notion of “memory” through a blurring of reality and fction in the global crucible of “fake news.” Stereotypes of the Orient range from effete Asian males to lascivious concubines, from “yellow peril” to exotic other; from dusky savage to corner shop worker; from shady immigrant to loathed model minority. Our reading of Mbembe is supported by other critical readings and interpretations from the non-West that seek to render emotional agency to postcolonial others who are to this day racialized into the nexus of neoliberal capitalism as it has evolved over time. For example, Lucia Villares observes, It is not enough to simply blame colonial history or the pathology it has caused; one has to inquire into how this process takes place inside the construction of subjectivities and identities…For the excluded, trauma and pathology are a constant presence that cannot simply be erased from memory (2017). Bodies that are prone to trauma due to racialized histories of colonialism moreover experience layered forms of trauma in the context of disability. In developing a heuristic that examines the interface between disabled bodies and contemporary literary studies, for example, Ato Quayson writes, “Aesthetic nervousness is seen when the dominant protocols of representation within the literary text are short-circuited in relation to disability” (2007, 15). Here, Quayson compels us to acknowledge how disability circulates within literary texts as a means for disrupting normative character identifcations and hegemonic reading practices as routine business. We would moreover add that certain types of bodies in literary and cultural texts are prone to exposure to traumatic situations that normalize the conditions that produce such trauma while pathologizing the affected subject. The invidious link of Asia and contagion in the age of COVID-19, for example, is not the very orientalism of, say, the literary representations of Sax Rohmer or Oscar Wilde. This is true even in the context of “social distancing” in 2020, for as powerfully stated by Rodney McKenzie, Jr., “We’ve been socially distanced for decades. It’s called racism” (2020). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this particular type of racism has disproportionately targeted Asians, with Human

The “Asian Pandemic” 5 Rights Watch Advocacy Director John Sifton observing, “Racism and physical attacks on Asians and people of Asian descent have spread with the COVID-19 pandemic, and government leaders need to act decisively to address the trend” (Human Rights Watch, 2020). However, the global pandemic is hardly an exceptional instance of anti-Asian racism. The world over has experienced a range of anti-Asian sentiments ranging from the rise of “Yellow Peril” (die Gelbe Gefahr) ideology in Imperial Germany from 1870; the racially codifed Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in the USA; anti-Sikh exile from Bellingham, USA, in 1907; the Komagatu Maru incident of 1914 in Vancouver, Canada; Koreans under Japanese imperialism (1910–1945); and the Japanese Internment in the USA and Canada throughout the 1940s to name a few xenophobic instances of Asian trauma. We acknowledge these differing yet connecting framings, with respect to the aforementioned scholars, since they contribute theoretical shape and historical context, through shared experiences of colonialism, to our resolute responsibility of comparatively examining trauma in Asian cultural productions. Asia as such offers alternative testimonies to varying historical and material realities that have been systemically neglected by a feld of studies that could formidably expand by urgently re-centering Asia. Much is at stake if these Asian genealogies of recall and pain are not or have not been re-centered for they render Asians, in both literature and material life, as perpetually dehumanized subjects upon whose backs racism and xenophobia are systemically inscribed by Western discourses. We would argue that this would expose them to physical, emotional, institutional, and epistemic violence of epic proportions. This volume emerges from the conviction of the co-editors and contributors that Asian voices and experiences constitute a critical gap in trauma studies, as well as the closely related feld of memory studies, that critically interrogates both global history and human agency. Contemporary Asia is a region in which traumatic legacies of colonialism persist and military regimes and dictatorships have forcefully wrought untold human suffering that is punctuated by conspicuous silence in the feld of trauma studies. Countless lives have been lost due to revolution, civil war, and genocide, and natural catastrophes have rendered existing social and political tensions ever more volatile. More recently, global threats of disease have galvanized the fames of xenophobia while the rhetoric of citizenship and exclusion continue to tag Asians as “foreign,” “other,” “diseased,” “alien,” “offensive,” to the service of rapacious capitalism braided with xenophobic white supremacy. It moreover catalyzes inter-Asian racism that invidiously tags the “other”: the darker-skinned migrant worker in rapacious, capitalist centers of Hong Kong and Singapore, stranded migrant workers in northern India during the COVID-19 crisis, and the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. Thus, while white supremacy has often been a dominant aspect of both settler colonialist and cultural imperialist violence and we focus on it throughout this essay in a range of historical contexts, we fully acknowledge that white supremacy is not the sole functionary of bigotry. As a mutually constitutive discourse, white supremacist xenophobia is often, if not usually, stoked by the incendiary rhetoric of an immigrant invasion that will

6

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

result in job loss for privileged natives. These latter two discourses largely emerge from the histories and perpetuations of indentured servitude, slavery, child labor, traditional colonialism, the pseudoscience of eugenics, and the social Darwinism that fabricated intellectually and morally inferior subjects, from Africa to Asia, from geo-historical positionings. That is, in the dehumanizing projects of global capitalism over the centuries, in our context Asian fgures have routinely been framed as incapable of experiencing “civilized” feelings – even in and through the most liberal and proper mandates of Enlightenment morality that claimed to be driven by ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity. In other words, the morality of the Enlightenment was not equally distributed between all races. Rather, it hinged upon the notion of a noble savage fgure that might to a greater or lesser extent be “improved,” “rehabilitated,” “civilized,” “uplifted,” etc. We would thus critically ask whether “Asia” has been marginalized in trauma studies precisely because it was an invented concept predicated on an illegitimization of affect based on unequal power dynamics that were territorialized as such to economically exploit indigenous peoples of the Orient. In Jürgen Osterhammel’s words, “What is meant by ‘Asia’? It cannot be emphasized enough that ‘Asia,’ understood as an umbrella term, was and essentially still is a European idea” (Osterhammel 2018, 20). As such, we would extend this observation by adding that it follows that feeling and affect arguably also emerge from the heart of Europe – a heart that could be brutal in its race projects designed to justify confict, wars, xenophobia, and an ever-evolving repertoire of painful scenarios. Indeed, the production of confict and antagonism as a means of denying Western empathy is perhaps best illustrated by US President Donald Trump’s insistence on calling the COVID-19 disease a “Chinese virus” (Orbey 2020). Here we would seriously ask: when the world’s most populous country in Asia is globally cast as a “virus,” what room is left for occidental empathy or the undoing of racialized trauma? We would also here briefy mention the work of Karl Jackson, which explores the notion of “Asian contagion” as a malady of the world economy (2018). Yet such ways of speaking about and pathologizing Asians as creatures who are undeserving of empathy and inclusion, as articulated in the aforementioned, anti-Asian fier in Brooklyn, have a long history. In one account, Nayan Shah deftly observes that periodic public health investigations in the 19th century “produced a ‘knowledge’ of Chinese women and men’s seemingly unhygienic habits, the unsanitary conditions in which they lived, and the dangerous diseases they carried” (Shah 2001, 17–18). Such caricatures were echoed in political dogma like the “White Australia policy” that forbade Asian immigration to the continent between 1901 and 1973, as detailed in “The Exclusion of Asiatic Immigrants in Australia,” for fear of “the miserable mongrel springing from white and yellow” (2006). Such profuse stereotypes adhere today while portraying Asians as being devoid of emotions while simultaneously facilitating a foreclosure on Western empathy through intertwined discourses that include capitalist xenophobia and white supremacy. These many historical instances offer plenty of fodder for brown and yellow tears, so to speak but, as we have

The “Asian Pandemic” 7 thus far been demonstrating, the dearth of Asian trauma scholarship suggests otherwise.

Asian Peripheries of Memory and Trauma Studies It thus behooves us, in responsible and active response, to recognize a link between the foreclosure of empathy and simultaneous denial of legitimate emotions of Asian sentients who are scrutinized beneath the racialized, regulatory gaze of the West. Closely connected to the burgeoning feld of memory studies, trauma theory has evolved as an important theoretical tool to analyze literary and cultural forms that have emerged in the wake of catastrophic experiences of human suffering. Cathy Caruth, among the most infuential of trauma scholars, has powerfully formulated the poststructuralist theorization of trauma and argued that trauma theory can provide unique access to history rather than leading us into “political and ethical paralysis” (1996, 10). However, her work, most notably in Trauma: Explorations in Memory (1995), Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996), and Literature in the Ashes of History (2013), neglects to account for the catastrophic histories within non-Western contexts. It thus negates the potential of “trauma itself [to] provide the very link between cultures” (1995, 11). New work, like Eric Boynton and Peter Capretto’s co-edited Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory (2018) also largely marginalizes Asia in its very imagining of who can be afforded the humanistic right to pain and hurt. This lacuna in Caruth’s undeniably important work is representative of the limits and reductive tendencies of the feld in its current state. Building on the foundational work of Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Geoffrey Hartman, Dominick LaCapra, and others demonstrate how textualist approaches can reorient us through a critical shift away from dominant paradigms and classical models of trauma, memory, and healing that focus on the Holocaust as well as psychoanalytical approaches. More recent contributions have argued for a realignment of the feld in order to attune trauma theory to unheard suffering. In The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism (2013), for example, co-editors Gert Buelens, Samuel Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, collate perspectives from leading fgures in the feld who collectively argue for a globalizing of trauma studies. Michael Rothberg argues in the volume that new trauma studies must engage in “recalibrating inherited concepts” (xii) that provide “counter-forms that would maintain trauma as an object of inquiry” (xiii) while avoiding the “attempt to subsume all forms of violence, dislocation, and psychic pain under its categorical singularity” (xiii). Important contributions have been made in postcolonial studies, which is perhaps the most strategically poised feld to expand trauma studies with respect to Asia. For example, edited volumes by Dolores Herrero and Sonia Baelo-Allue titled The Splintered Glass: Facets of Trauma in the Post-Colony and Beyond (2011) and Abigail Ward’s Postcolonial Traumas: Memory, Narrative, Resistance (2015) both critically congregate essays that explore how individual traumas refect

8

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

collective ethnic and cultural traumas while recovering the specifcity of historical and social context, which they argue is of particular relevance in postcolonial trauma narratives. Stef Craps’ Postcolonial Witnessing: Trauma Out of Bounds (2012) foregrounds four key failings of classical trauma theory that each of these interventions strives to address. He frst argues that trauma theory marginalizes non-Western traumatic experience; secondly, trauma theory offers universal concepts of trauma and recovery that are determined by the history of Western modernity (which we would add emerges from Enlightenment ethos); thirdly, it advocates a literary modernist aesthetic as the most pertinent mode of bearing witness to trauma; and fnally, it ignores connections between Western and nonWestern traumas (Craps 2012, 3–7). Revitalizing theory while advancing a global reach of contemporary analysis, Craps’ text offers comparative readings of trauma in postcolonial narratives. For example, it includes the work of critically acclaimed Indian author Anita Desai, who routinely explores race, gender, and class in relation to the afterlife of colonialism. In Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide, Boreth Ly argues that “culturally specifc symptoms of trauma: broken body and spirit, pain, mourning, [and] melancholia. These traumatic symptoms of the Cambodian nation and its diaspora contribute signifcantly to the reclamation of national identity. They need to be reconfgured after an atrocity of such magnitude as genocide” (Ly 2020, 8). Katherine Isobel Baxter’s “Memory and Photography: Rethinking Postcolonial Trauma Studies” also focuses attention on visual representations of trauma by critically analyzing “photographers’ own trauma that results from their experience of witnessing” (Baxter 2011, 27). Baxter’s notion of trauma that is produced by being both witness to and target of distressing events offers yet another layer to how we can critically meditate on postcolonial Asia in the throes of civil unrest. While the above texts indeed offer excellent developments in the feld and strive to present a wider and more historically equitable interrogation of the capacity of trauma for understanding global memory and affect, they nonetheless fall short of including substantial or sustained Asian perspectives. However, the growing number of works focused on trauma and memory in historical Asian contexts provide further evidence of the need for a volume that is devoted to comparative literary and cultural analysis of trauma and memory specifcally in and of Asia. For example, Sharon A. Bong’s Trauma, Memory and Transformation: Southeast Asian Experiences (2004) provides multi-disciplinary interventions ranging across history, ethnography, and textual analysis presenting a timely focus on transformative action as a response to trauma in the region. Other notable titles that draw upon concepts of trauma and traumatic memory in the related discipline of cultural history include Wang Ban’s Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory and History in Modern China (2004) and Akiko Hashimoto’s The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan (2015). These are complementary texts to the present volume that refect the growth and recognition of this research focus on and in Asia.

The “Asian Pandemic” 9 While not offering the potential for cross-cultural analysis presented by the proposed volume, several notable monographs have focused on trauma in relation to cultural forms of specifc geopolitical sites and transgressive subjects in ways that signifcantly advance the study of trauma and memory in Asian contexts. These include Kyle Ikeda’s Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and War Fiction of Medoruma Shun (2013), and Ma Sheng-mei’s The Last Isle: Contemporary Film, Culture and Trauma in Global Taiwan (2015). These important studies further expand the contexts of memory, war, and visual culture in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. Informed by many of the valuable themes, theoretical and historical frameworks proposed and utilized in these preceding texts, the essays in our volume not only draw upon the approaches and objectives set out by the multiple authors but also signifcantly expand the referential and analytical scope of Asian authors, texts, and cultures to provide new historical and cultural specifcity to the feld. In this sense, our volume is unique in its scope and ambition with its comparative intra-regional and theoretical perspectives. As such, the insights of trauma theory for the analysis of literary and cultural representation in Asia and the enriching of trauma studies by the study of Asian literatures are two crucial yet largely untapped trajectories of scholarly research. Our volume thus contributes signifcantly to new directions in scholarship that seek to broaden the scope of trauma and memory studies by considering whether existing concepts of trauma and memory are viable in relation to the histories, present states, and futures of the non-Western world. This collection offers readers an opportunity to explore the complex and provocative intersections of literature, history, ethics, and a variety of other themes across the region through its wide-ranging yet closely comparative focus on geopolitical sites. The authors and topics range across East, South, and Southeast Asia and coalesce perspectives on both dominant and marginalized sites in China, Japan, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, and even Australia, the UK, and the USA. While we do not intend to suggest that trauma studies neatly maps onto area studies, we have consciously curated these essays to render scholarly agency to authors and readers who resist analogizing trauma studies with the West and its racial formations that underpin xenophobia and other social articulations of bigotry.

Mapping Memory and Trauma in South Asia’s Civil Strife Our investment in thinking about memory and trauma in Asia throughout this volume emerges from our own previous work in South Asian studies. The trauma in South Asia resonates with us through several intersecting matrices: religion, ethnicity, language, class, caste, gender, sexuality, regionalism, among others. We here recognize one of the bloodiest moments of collective trauma in South Asia’s history: the Partition of India sparked by the British Raj’s hasty exit from the subcontinent in August 1947 (which led to the 1971 creation of Bangladesh following a woeful civil war with Pakistan and ongoing confict in Kashmir). The Partition resulted in the largest migration of human populations in history with up to two million people murdered (Talbot and Singh 2009, 2) in the

10

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

bloodbath that hemorrhaged from confict between the independent Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. As Partition is still ongoing, mired in what Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar has dubbed “the long partition” that unsettles national closure (Zaminder 2010, 7), it is as if the traumatic memories rife throughout South Asia can never be laid to rest. Indeed, it appears that this trauma will be perpetually handed down through generations of South Asians, even through the oral recounting of elders to their younger progeny. This is perhaps why Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak insists that we must consciously break from “the past into the present as it necessarily bears on the future” (Spivak 1999, 206), by which she means that we must face traumatic pasts for ourselves in order to psychically break the power they hold over us. We believe that this process of conscious breaking from painful pasts of partition, pogroms, ethnic cleansings, sexual violence, civil war, etc. can be facilitated by radically inclusive developments in West-centric memory and trauma studies as they recalibrate their compasses to face Asia. Seminal 21st-century partition texts include Debali Mookerjea-Leonard’s Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence (2017), Baskar Sarkar’s Mourning the Nation: Indian Cinema in the Wake of Partition (2009), States of Trauma: Gender and Violence in South Asia edited by Piya Chatterjee, Manali Desai, and Parama Roy (2009), and Yasmin Khan’s The Great Partition (2008). To this end, we round out this section by elucidating our personal and sociopolitical stakes in the present volume by acknowledging our own work in the context of trauma and memory in relation to South Asia, namely at the interface of state-sponsored genocide, inter-ethno-religious confict, and gendered violence. Sharanya Jayawickrama’s work on trauma and identity in Sri Lanka comprises some of the most cogent scholarly meditations on how and why the postcolonial aftermath of the war-torn island warrants inclusion in this essay. She elegantly writes, One of the most compelling trajectories in recent scholarship on twentiethand twenty-frst-century literature can be charted at the intersection between postcolonial and trauma studies, in the conceptualization of colonialism as trauma and in the investigation of colonialism’s traumatic recurrence in postcolonial legacies of race, gender, class, and identity (Jayawickrama 2013, 105). For her, the trauma of British colonialism and the aftermath of empire are historically constitutive of today’s crises around race, class, gender, and identity in relation to the nation-state in the era of COVID-19. Jayawickrama’s incisive observation throws into question the very notion of memory as it blurs chronological linearity between the past, on the one hand, and the present on the other. It de-normalizes the very meaning of memory by demonstrating that our memories are often mediated, even formed, by the nation-state rather than we as individual, sentient subjects. In articulating why this project is crucial for meaningfully expanding the gamut of trauma studies in

The “Asian Pandemic” 11 her reading of Shobasakthi’s novel Gorilla (2013), she continues by underscoring the ethical implications of Sri Lanka’s violent history: Such work seeks to not only broaden the scope of contemporary trauma studies, which has tended to focus on predominantly Western voices, experiences, and texts, but also to consider whether existing concepts of trauma are useful for understanding history, society, identity, and representation in the postcolonial world…The reiteration of colonial trauma is borne out to particular effect in postcolonial confict zones where the structural violence of the postcolonial nation-state marks the formation and expression of experience and subjectivity and is manifested in intense and protracted social and political violence. In the Sri Lankan context, while widespread violence erupted after decolonization, the civil war has signifcant roots in colonial practices that shaped the reifcation of ethnic identities, including the linking of race and class to political representation and the politicization of language and religion (Jayawickrama 2013, 105–107) This observation raises the stakes for a non-West-centric formulation of trauma studies given that civil war, ethnic confict, genocide, and unresolved borders are unfortunate trademarks of postcolonial nation-states. Domestic violence, rooted in gender transgression and queer sexuality, follows state sanctioned violence, which facilitates the Sri Lankan Tamil woman poet to reclaim “spaces, rituals, rites” that have been denied to her in response to civil war (Jayawickrama 2010, 168). For example, in analyzing Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy, Jayawickrama carefully surveys the intersection of national identity, exclusion from the home/ land and queer adolescence. In doing so, she refuses to unlink the traumatic experiences of “coming out” in Selvadurai’s freshman novel while recognizing intergenerational bullying as a cruel trigger of trauma for the novel’s adolescent protagonist, Arjie. Jayawickrama critically observes in the queer novel’s geopolitical context of war-torn, 1980s Sri Lanka, Through the child’s perspective, notions of belonging and the experience of relationships of friendship and love become situated in the rapidly changing and increasingly violent space of communal and national history. The violence of everyday living under the powerful discourses that regulate both gender and ethnic norms initiates the careful negotiation of identity and the need for a new strategy of language (Jayawickrama 2005, 124). In drawing upon and extending Jayawickrama’s “need for a new strategy of language,” Rahul K. Gairola observes that this new language erupts through queer erotics that take place in the institutional space of the schoolhouse while narratively taking place in the fnal chapter of the novel (Gairola 2014, 478). Both sites,

12

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

the geographical and the literary, are vital to formations of a new identity lexicon for they occur against the backdrop of Arjie’s family’s escape from Sri Lanka to Canada as the violent Sinhalese persecution of Tamils in Colombo escalates. That is, the terrifed family’s fight from the anti-Tamil pogrom in Colombo to a new home in Toronto conjures transnational trauma rooted in “being Asian.” The transnational trauma of Asian diasporas has been a focus of Gairola’s research as it complicates Vijay Mishra’s astute contention that “the history of diaspora is a history of trauma...the history of diaspora is both a history of forgetting and the experience of that forgetting” (2007, 114). Gairola theorizes healing of queer diasporic trauma through the lens of “home” in Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belonging, in which he writes, “Homelanding” is an active process of culturally resisting and reappropriating exclusive domestic sites that consolidate essentialist social articulations of the homeland. The traditional “home” is thus doubly queered: On the one hand, hegemonic constructions of it are met with resistance; on the other hand, these practices produce new “homes” within which alternative modes of community and belonging fourish and reproduce (2016a, 17). As such, Gairola expands notions of Asian diasporic trauma by examining the counterpoints of resistance that they generate through what Meena Alexander calls “the shock of arrival” (1996, 152) to the West. Finally, Gairola examines how digital advertising that manipulates Partition trauma demonstrates that “the barriers removed between people are merely barriers removed between markets […] under the ruse of communal harmony now a quick fx for the pain of the past” (Gairola 2016b, 57). In critically meditating on unsettled borders and border conficts across South Asia, we would moreover recognize the terrible natural disasters that have painfully impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people working and residing in this part of Asia. These include the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal enclaves in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. Following this, Cyclone Sidr devastated Bangladesh in 2007, followed by the 2011 earthquake in Sikkim, India. In April and May 2015, intense earthquakes demolished parts of Kathmandu and lefts hundreds of thousands of people homeless. More recently, horrifc devastation was wrought upon Bangladesh and eastern India by Cyclone Amphan in May 2020. In all of these natural catastrophes that devastated South Asia, empathy, humanity, and fnancial assistance has arguably been less outpouring than when similar natural disasters afficted Western nations. Perhaps this is just a coincidence. But the historical patterns of the withdrawal of empathy mapped onto the historical patterns of racialization, domination, colonialist expropriation, and capitalist cruelty testify to a different picture of what the reasons may be.

The “Asian Pandemic” 13 The compass needle of history ostensibly indicts, rather, the very histories of dehumanization that enable and facilitate cruelties underwritten by silenced discourses of white supremacy and resource extraction. While the essays in our volume attest to the valuable widening of the scope of trauma studies, they counter the weakening of its signifcance as an analytical category by engaging with fundamental questions: is trauma a concept that can be translated across cultures? Can it have global applicability and utility for literary and cultural analysis? Do the approaches and perspectives generated by literary and cultural work hold purchase for social and political interventions? These questions are merely interrogative prompts that we hope and expect will galvanize new queries – even those that question this and the other essays in the volume. While such questions weave in and out of this volume, we have organized the volume into three key parts that emerge across varying literary, cultural, and geopolitical Asian contexts. The frst is our opening essay, which offers a timely, comparative view of trauma studies and work in Asian studies by superimposing one upon the other. Part I examines the interplay between memory and testimony as a means of experiencing trauma. We believe that this is crucial since trauma transcends time; indeed, memory is an intermittent function of time that always erupts into the present and thus secures trauma as a current event that circulates throughout the heart and mind. Part II focuses on trauma that emerges from memory and history through material cultural practices. We have consciously organized the volume around timely themes rather than countries for we wanted to avoid defaulting to the tokenizing logic of the nation-state whereby each chapter represents a different country; for us, memory and trauma transcend time and space. This is not to suggest that these topics are exhaustive or representative, but rather that we have invested signifcant intellectual, emotional, and psychological energy into these critical inquiries.

Part I: Activating Memory as Personal Testimony The frst part of the volume is titled Activating Memory as Personal Testimony and engages with the role of memory and testimony in relation to trauma in literary texts. The section begins with Michael Ka Chi Cheuk’s “The Language of Trauma in Gao Xingjian’s Selected Short Stories.” In it, Cheuk observes that the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) is referred to as shi nian haojie (Ten Years of Chaos) in the Chinese community and as a human tragedy on a grand scale by many Western observers (Macfarquhar 2006; Dikötter 2016). Due to the Cultural Revolution’s organic discourse and unpredictable changes, many of the perpetrators who initiated the purging ultimately became targets of self-purging. In 2000, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Gao Xingjian, himself a survivor of the Cultural Revolution. In its announcement, the Nobel Committee opted to highlight Gao’s most political works – Soul Mountain (1991), One Man’s Bible (1999), and the play Escape (1989) – all of which are based on two of the most scarring events in modern Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square Massacre (1989).

14

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

Yet, observes Cheuk, Gao vehemently rejects politics in his works, and upholds aesthetics as the highest priority in his portrayal of human realities. With reference to his largely understudied short stories, this essay argues that Gao’s aesthetic exploration of trauma avoids reducing the participants of the Cultural Revolution to binary pairs of victim/ perpetrator because his aesthetics focus on the participants’ subjectivity rather than specifc external events. Beginning with a critical review of studies of memory and recollection related to the Cultural Revolution, this essay then presents a comparative study of trauma theory and Gao’s artistic vision of meiyou zhuyi in order to explore the signifcance of his emphasis on memory and recollection of the Cultural Revolution as opposed to historical documentation and testimony. Of key importance here is Cathy Caruth’s understanding of survivor’s guilt as an “oscillation between a crisis of death and the correlative crisis of life” (7). This “oscillation” leads to self-blame and suicidal tendencies, among other self-deprecating symptoms, since Gao’s short stories concentrate on the subjectivity of the traumatized self. Chapter 3 features Kerry Kumabe’s “Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within: Internment Trauma and Memory in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and John Okada’s No-No Boy.” In her contribution, Kumabe argues that the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II served to neutralize the United States “enemy” abroad by controlling Japanese Americans at home: the national majority established itself negatively in relation to Japanese Americans as “alien” others. The rhetoric of World War II exclusion characterized “Japanese” in opposition to “American” along “racial strains,” forcing polarized notions of identity onto the minority Japanese Americans, dividing loyal from disloyal, alien from citizen. In her essay, Kumabe analyzes John Okada’s No-No Boy (1957), a novel about the residual effects of Japanese internment in the United States after World War II, and Joy Kogawa’s Obasan (1981), a novel about retrospective recollections of the Japanese evacuation in Canada and the life of memory in the present. Kumabe argues that both novels profoundly complicate any unifed representation of Japanese American internment experience. The contradictions within and between each artistic narrative encourage readers to defne their own meanings or closures, positioning Japanese Americans not as a unitary alien body inassimilable to the nation, but as citizens with whom to engage and understand. Internment surfaces as a theme in these texts, suggesting that the experience of internment symbolizes a continued shuttling between national exclusion and inclusion that shapes the formation of Japanese American identity. This lack of resolution in these internment texts, suggests Kumabe, suggests that the project of narrating Japanese Americans from national exclusion to inclusion still recurs in a discursive process. That is, for Kumabe, the internment experience in memory transcends time and space and continues even today as suggested by both novels’ lack of resolution, in the haunting form of internment memories and collective recounting. The third chapter in Part I is Nelly Mok’s “Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide by ‘Tell[ing] the World’: Active Subjectivity and Cultural Memory in Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father.” This essay focuses on Cambodian-born

The “Asian Pandemic” 15 American human rights activist Loung Ung’s childhood memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (2000), which is the frst of Ung’s three autobiographical narratives, and which narrates Ung’s childhood experience of the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime from 1975 to 1979. As both a childhood memoir and a testimonial autobiography, Ung’s memoir engages the generic hybridity that characterizes literary productions from frst and frstand-a-half generation Cambodian Americans, offering a manifold writing space where the self-uncovering/self-recovering quest of a Cambodian “I” relies on a private move – from victimhood to survival – and a public move, from silence to testimony. Mok’s essay investigates such double life writing by examining the modalities of Ung’s cathartic writing in the author’s quest for ontological signifcance in the face of a self-shattering past. However, due to traumatic socio-political and historical wounds that Ung’s life writing addresses, healing can only be achieved within the public sphere. Therefore, Mok’s analysis illuminates the therapeutic and political functions of Ung’s childhood memoir, which provides a cathartic space in which she can write herself and her deceased relatives out of dazed and coerced silence into survival while seeking international recognition of Khmer Rouge war crimes. The essay probes Ung’s personal negotiation of a “post-Democratic Kampuchean citizenship” (Schlund-Vials 46), putting forward the necessarily transcultural/transnational vector of Ung’s identity as a Cambodian American peace and human rights advocate, living and working in America but also regularly returning to Cambodia to help her people cope with the devastating effects of landmines. If Ung constructs what Yamada describes as “a socially active form of Americanness” (152), argues Mok, she perhaps more crucially contributes to Cambodian writers’ continuing (re)construction of Cambodian cultural memory. The fourth and fnal essay in Part I is Zhu Ying’s “To Forgive Yet Not Forget in Tan Twan Eng’s The Garden of Evening Mist,” and it argues that recent studies of trauma and memory in the Southeast Asian context have initiated new understandings and defnitions of trauma. Indeed, they have emphasized the transformative quality of traumatic memory of catastrophes, natural or man-made. Revisiting places of violence in the region shaped by the “ethics of memory” (Bell 19), scholars using a range of socio-political perspectives have focused on the “ethnographic, qualitative and textual methodologies of lived experiences of trauma by survivors of violence” (Bong 3). For Zhu, such analyses focus upon testimonies, interviews, media, and visual art, to explore transformative actions of reconciliation and peace. In this context, Tan Twan Eng’s acclaimed Man Asian Literary Prize-winning novel The Garden of Evening Mists examines the “traces” and “indexicality” of trauma as well as the “politics of memory” (Violi, 39, 38, 37) presented by current explorations of trauma in the region. Such endeavors to steer the study of traumatic memory away from geographical paralysis can be greatly enhanced by Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical perceptions of re-enactment and forgiveness in The Reality of the Historical Past (1984) and Memory, History, Forgetting. Zhu’s essay thus broadens studies of trauma and

16

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

memory through literary fction from a hermeneutic perspective rather than psychoanalytical or socio-political approaches. It focuses on the dialectics of remembering and forgetting in Tan’s novel through Ricoeur’s cogent analyses of the interconnectedness between history and fction, as well as the interdependence between memory and forgetting. As such, this essay is divided into four sections with the frst section introducing Tan’s novel. The second section examines, under the aegis of memory, the power of mnemonic recollection and cyclic “rememory.” Beneath the sign of history, the third section examines representations of history through “traces” of the past. The last section of Zhu’s essay evaluates mourning and “diffcult forgiveness” as a survival tactic of forgetting. The essays in this section cumulatively render a panorama of how memory as a non-hegemonic, yet at times unstable, historical register shapes the ways in which trauma is recognized and memorialized. As such, the section meditates on the innovative ways in which memory can serve as a modality of personal testimony. In dealing with memory and personal witness, this section focuses on the inner life of traumatized Asian psyches, mapping out the ways and means through which pain and affect refexively impact the inner self. This section thus offers readers a way to rethink expanding memory and trauma studies in and through an expansion of the personal as political and how we might one by one begin to recognize and validate internal pain of the heart and mind through the exclusive lens of cartographic difference that privileges the Occident above the so-called Orient. This cartographic difference in constructing an epistemology of the world is explored herein, in other words, through the territorilaization of Asian memory and testimony that can be consciously countered and resisted in the cultural texts examined in this section.

Part II: Traumascapes of Body and State Building on the previous chapters, Part II’s assemblage of contributions critically examines the intersection of body, state, and internal and external environments through what Maria Tumarkin calls “traumascapes.” For Tumarkin, traumascapes are not simply material locations of traumatic events, but are physical places constituted by experiences of particular events and their aftermath. These experiences include, but are not limited to, meaning-making, mourning, and remembering, be they private, shared, ritualized [sic], impromptu, one-off, ongoing, deliberate, involuntary, etc. (Tumarkin 2019, 5). Part II thus focuses on how discourses around trauma connect both the individual and the state; how environments register and process traumatic experience. The sixth chapter of our volume thus inaugurates Part II with Michelle Chan’s “The Great East Japan Earthquake and Children’s Picture Books.” For Chan, the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 triggered not only a devastating tsunami but also a nuclear crisis. Her chapter examines several children’s picture

The “Asian Pandemic” 17 books published in response to this catastrophic natural disaster and explores their socio-cultural potential as healing apparatuses. While some re-visualize the disaster through an eye-witness approach that presents an iconographic sequence of pre-disaster quotidian life, fight, and asylum, others deploy animal characters, a typical literary device in children’s literature, to distance readers from sensitive subjects such as human fatality. These works formulate the traumatic aftermath of the natural disaster in terms of affective states including abandonment, loneliness, desolation, impotence, and vulnerability. Yet, instead of denying negative emotions, they labor to generate hopefulness, even if such a sentiment is accompanied by inescapable melancholy. As such, Chan’s essay analyzes the picture books in relation to bibliotherapy – study of the therapeutic purposes and functions of reading. The essay argues that by illustrating traumatic experience, the picture books emphasize the collective nature of such experience, and thereby initiate recovery through refection on the connection among survivors, between survivors and the deceased, as well as between humans and nature. As such, the essay recalibrates the national context by means of reading experiences of the disaster and its aftermath, namely in the form of nuclear crisis. Jocelyn Martin’s “Tyrants, Typhoons and Trauma: Spectrality and MidMourning in Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows,” the seventh chapter in our volume and second in Part II, critically reads Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows (1983). This Martial Law era whodunit staged in the Philippines revolves around the crime investigation of Jack Henson, who discovers the corpse of Nenita Coogan in a mysterious cave which, in the same enigmatic fashion, has suddenly surfaced in Metro Manila. Rather than reading the subsequent specters in the novel as indications of pathological melancholia, Martin’s essay views them as instances of collective mid-mourning in which “historical losses are neither […] ‘properly’ mourned nor melancholically entombed […] but constantly reexamined and re-interpreted” (Craps 60). A second case of what appears to be an “ecological spectrality” can also be detected in the novel. Like the persistent corpses of babaylans (female priestesses), the cave itself seems to resurface despite earthquakes and landslides. Similarly, typhoons assume an exaggerated and ominous character that announces disaster. The leitmotif of the volcano is also frequently depicted by Joaquin. Such climatic references allude to the volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, storm surges, droughts, and typhoons that regularly besiege the 7,100 Philippine islands. The essay therefore urgently suggests that we consider climate disasters as objects of study in trauma studies. Additionally, the unusual landscape and active involvement of nature refect what Jeanne Delbaere calls “mythic realism.” A variant of magical realism, mythic realism borrows “magic” images from the physical environment itself. She adds that mythic realism is suitable for countries “from which indigenous cultures have largely vanished” (252). Like the novel, characterized by disappearances, i.e., abductions, of citizens and control of the press, the Marcos era has been described as a “true trauma” (Pantoja-Hidalgo 7). Incidentally, the outcome of the last national elections demonstrates a return of

18

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

“Marcosian spectres” due to the political rise of Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos. Despite Linda Hutcheon claiming that “the witnessing of the trauma of colonization is the central task of postcolonial literary studies,” in the case of the Philippines, working-through and mid-mourning remain questionable. Our volume’s penultimate chapter is titled “Engendering Islam: ReligioCultural Violence and Trauma in Qaisera Shahraz’s The Holy Woman” by Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola (volume co-editor), and Rashmi Gaur. In their contribution, the co-authors concede that silenced South Asian literary and cultural texts that engage with trauma, memory, and healing provide insights into the social and cultural history of the region through the customs and traditions prevalent there. Such texts force us to confront violence against women, like honor killings (Karo Kari), exchange marriages (vani), and forced marriages. One such traumatic experience occurs when young women from feudal families in the Sind province of Pakistan are “married” to the Quran since their families require them to devote their lives to the holy text and remain celibate. In her novel The Holy Woman (2001), Qaisera Shahraz offers insight into the lives of Muslim women of Sind and the gendered trauma they must endure when they are decreed to be Quran brides. This essay reads the Quran as a work of literature that contradicts this marriage practice, and one that moreover reconfgures the gendered labor attached to wifehood. As such, the co-authors argue that Shahraz protests the marriage of Muslim daughters to the Quran through female protagonist Zarri Bano, who vehemently resists serving as a gendered example of both culturally specifc honor and gendered violence. This contention is substantiated by close readings of verses from the Quran as a contradictory literary text which challenges, rather than reifes, the marriage of daughters to the Quran. In short, the essay demonstrates that the Quran is not in collusion with this practice instead argues that this tradition suppresses Muslim daughters in Sind by subjecting them to gendered labor formed by a feudal practice that presupposes neoliberal capitalism. Fatma, Gairola, and Gaur thus dispel myths that this tradition is aligned with religion, instead unmasking the fraught ties between an economic ethos wedded to Islamic patriarchy. In presenting a literary means of resistance to this practice in the character of Zarri, the co-authors argue that Shahraz’s novel challenges self-designed patriarchy, in the guise of Islam, through the narrative’s protagonist and envisions alternate subjectivities which arise from religiocultural trauma. Both Part II and our volume conclude with Kyle Ikeda’s “Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan: Medoruma Shun’s ‘Army Messenger.’” This essay focuses on second-generation war survivor fction by the Japanese writer from Okinawa, examining how his critically acclaimed novel In the Woods of Memory (2017) and short story “Army Messenger” contribute to an understanding of both direct and transgenerational war trauma. The essay analyzes how these stories represent effects of war trauma on survivors of the Battle of Okinawa and their offspring in relation to living in, or near, sites of war. While Shun’s narratives substantiate existing theories on transgenerational trauma and

The “Asian Pandemic” 19 second-generation trauma writing through a focus on children of war survivors, explorations of how memories are concealed, and grappling with the challenges of fragmented understandings of a pre-life atrocity, they moreover expand theoretical understandings of second-generation survivor knowledge and writing through the role of the environment, sites of war, and inhabited war-related locations in conjunction with local spiritual and religious beliefs. As Ikeda discusses elsewhere regarding geographic proximity, existing theories of trauma in relation to the second-generation do not elaborate on the effect of inhabiting sites of the past war, atrocities, or traumatic incidents (Ikeda 2013). Furthermore, how local religious and spiritual beliefs shape the interpretation of war events and memories have not been applied to Okinawa’s case. Delineating and detailing how war trauma in Okinawa is shaped by both survivor and secondgeneration survivor relationships with sites of war and local landscape, along with spiritual beliefs, is vital to a wider study of trauma through understanding those aspects of trauma that are culturally specifc and those that are more generalizable. Ikeda’s provocative, concluding essay illuminates Akiko Hashimoto’s contention, in the context of Japan’s defeat in World War II, that “The diffculty of coming to terms with national trauma is known to many national cultures that have been transformed by memories of catastrophic military failure” (Hashimoto 2015, 3). In short, Okinawan war trauma fction illuminates how constant exposure to traumatic memory triggers affect survivors through depictions of conscious and unconscious coping mechanisms that enfold religious and spiritual modalities of comprehending the world. The essays in Part II cumulatively offer a panorama of Asian traumascapes across body and state, excavating the ways in which state violence deploys racialization and other strategies of othering based on physical features to justify epistemic violence. When taken together with Part 1, our contributors offer a compelling kaleidoscope of cultural texts and divergent perspectives of memory and trauma in contemporary Asia. While we indeed recognize that our representative texts are by no means exhaustive, we offer concluding remarks in the fnal section with an empathetic eye to how solidarity with the Black Lives Matters and other anti-racist movements are necessary in recuperating empathy not just for Asians but also for our Black brothers and sisters. While we do not wish to confate anti-Asian and anti-Black racism and we indeed recognize the role of colorism as a reprehensible wedge between Black and Asian communities, we nonetheless historically register the threads of colonialism, indentured servitude, xenophobia, and legislative bigotry as compelling Black and Asian communities to forge alliances now more than ever before. This is especially true when members of our communities are blamed for globally spreading a lethal virus or falling victim to it and casually dying off.

Coda: Towards Scholarly Reparations of Asian Trauma In her gripping short story “The Asian Disease,” Simone Lazaroo juxtaposes the voices of two differently situated mothers in Australasia: Maureen Jones’

20

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

mother warns her lovelorn daughter, “’Jolly Asians bring nothing but disease. Your life will be a disaster if you marry one of them’” (Lazaroo 2008, 113). In contrast, the narrator’s Singaporean mother sullenly hopes, “‘One day, Asians will be rewarded for what they bring to this country’” (Lazaroo 2008, 117) following an assault on her husband by two Australian police offcers. This fctional snapshot of two differing viewpoints of mothers – one white Australian and the other non-white Asian – in a sense underscores the timely global urgency of our volume in the age of COVID-19 and the xenophobic racism that has engulfed the world in its wake. That both women are mothers underscores the hopes and fears of next generation Asians in West-centric countries. This in turn invokes the intergenerational trauma that Asians in Australia face that arguably echoes that postcolonial nation’s “Stolen Generation” of indigenous children across time, land, country, and the boundaries of humanity. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, trauma produced by violent exclusion from country, agency, and humanity is a recognizable common denominator across Asia, Australia, and Africa. Perhaps the most important anti-colonial thinker to critically meditate on trauma before it was branded “trauma studies” is the Martiniquais psychiatrist and scholar Frantz Fanon, who spent many years writing on this topic in relation to intergenerational trauma produced in the toxic crucible of racialized colonialism. In Black Skin, White Masks, he writes, A drama is enacted every day in colonized countries. How is one to explain, for example, that a Negro who has passed his baccalaureate and has gone to the Sorbonne to study to become a teacher of philosophy is already on guard before any confictual elements have coalesced round him? […] Very often the Negro who becomes abnormal has never had any relations with whites. Has some remote experience been repressed in his unconscious? Did the little black child see his father beaten or lynched by a white man? Has there been a real traumatism? To all of this we have to answer no [original emphasis]. (Fanon 2008, 112) Fanon emphatically defaults to “no” precisely because he recognizes the racist, xenophobic, and violent repertoire of images and narratives of darkness that have hounded black folk over the centuries. Although Fanon published the original edition of Black Skin, White Masks in 1952, just three years before the Afro-Asian Conference of 29 newly independent nations in Indonesia took place, the promise of Bandung remains a betrayed one. It is a betrayed promise, like that of newly freed slaves after Emancipation, because simultaneous independence of African and Asian colonies did not lead to better socio-economic conditions for independent nations. Indeed, 68 years later for example, Judith Butler writes in The Force of Nonviolence: The Ethical in the Political: In this world, as we know, lives are not equally valued; their claim against being injured or killed is not always registered. And one reason for this is

The “Asian Pandemic” 21 that their lives are not considered worthy of grief, or grievable. The reasons for this are many, and they include racism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, misogyny, and the systemic disregard for the poor and dispossessed. We live, in a daily way, with knowledge of nameless groups of people abandoned to death, on the borders of countries with closed borders, in the Mediterranean Sea, in countries where poverty and lack of access to food and health care has become overwhelming. (Butler 2020, 28) As Butler elegantly suggests above, it is much easier to treat – and of course racialize and disregard – other humans when their lives are not valid repositories of mourning and loss, especially in the neoliberal calculus of Empire’s aftermath. She elaborates on this in the context of COVID-19 by critically noting that public response to the pandemic has been to identify “vulnerable groups” wherein The vulnerable include Black and Brown communities deprived of adequate health care throughout their lifetimes and the history of this nation. The vulnerable also include poor people, migrants, incarcerated people, people with disabilities, trans and queer people who struggle to achieve rights to health care, and all those with prior illnesses and enduring medical conditions. The pandemic exposes the heightened vulnerability to the illness of all those for whom health care is neither accessible nor affordable. (Yancy, 2020) Butler’s position dovetails with our own, where we would stretch these biopolitical urgencies from the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Indian Ocean and beyond to the Pacifc. In the words of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “The word ‘Asia’ refects Europe’s eastward trajectory” (Spivak 2008, 209). We would thus insist that, as the Atlantic carried on its back millions of enslaved Africans to the West, these southeastern waterways that frame Asia have witnessed untold misery and suffering that can pressure our collective heart to stop dead. But we cannot allow a dead heart to exacerbate the West’s denied trauma of Bandung’s betrayal and embrace of xenophobic orientalism that surfaces in Lazaroo’s short story. Fiction as it may be, Lazaroo’s story is an imitation of life that should surely strike fear in the hearts of all of us who are violently estimated by the melatonin in our skins. Indeed, we cannot abide by the ways in which Asians have been targeted and attacked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, cast as “offensive” virus carriers who are undeserving of compassion, empathy, love, and humanity. Black and Asian lives indeed matter and must be lived and not simply endured in this context; we must always resist xenophobic and persistent narratives that Asians are the agents of exoticism, peril, and disease. We must instead epistemologically push back with a westward tide of scholarly solidarity that can catalyze different levels of healing throughout myriad communities. For we believe, like Sonya Andermahr, that although “trauma theory has undergone a transformation in the light of postcolonial critique, the challenge now is to

22

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

apply these insights to our practice” (Andermahr 2016, 4). We also believe that Asians must work harder to reduce and ultimately quell the kinds of trauma and pain that we routinely infict on other ethnic groups, namely Black communities around the world. As earlier suggested, Blacks and Asians share global histories of oppression and thus have the potential to challenge them together in various socio-political arenas, with scholarly forums being just one site of revolutionary potential for re-forging alliances across colorist and continental differences. We must also robustly critique the indoctrination of children into the repertoire of caricatures of Disney and other popular media that bank on racism of the Western imagination while pandering to a white, Western, parental gaze (Hamad 2019, 30–31). A profound demonstration of the kind of Black-Asian solidarity that we advocate appears in the June 2020 statement issued by the Board of Directors of the Association for Asian American Studies: Our fght against anti-Asian pandemic racism is rooted in a common struggle against White supremacy. The recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and George Floyd propel us to state, clearly and defnitively, that Black lives matter and that we must abolish the militarized police state in which anti-Black racism is embedded. (AAAS 2020) Another exemplary statement of solidarity to offset anti-Black trauma exacerbated by white supremacy was issued by Scott Kurashige, President of the American Studies Association, on June 7, 2020. Calling for unity between Black and Asian students, scholars, teachers, and social justice activists, Kurashige writes, Tony McDade. Breonna Taylor. Manuel Ellis. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd […] While we demand an end to the anti-Asian hate crimes caused by xenophobic scapegoating, we also know that a structural response to white supremacy in the United States must address its foundations in antiblackness and anti-Indigeneity (Kurashige, June 2020) These statements issued by prominent scholarly bodies signal how memory and trauma studies can be substantially enhanced by critically re-thinking how Black and Asian lives not only matter but are often divided and conquered by the toxic “model minority” stereotype. They moreover signal to Asian and area studies the ways in which comparative, transnational, and inter-ethnic heuristics can offset the ways in which Asians and Asian Americans perpetuate the dehumanization of peoples of African descent. These sentiments allow us to imagine the kind of empathetic, cross-ethnic, global trauma studies that contemporary Asian studies could urgently adopt and which we hope to model in this volume. Such an adopted position might in turn necessitate a shift in power from the (Western) metropolitan centers of academe to more localized sites of knowledge production

The “Asian Pandemic” 23 while simultaneously challenging implicit biases of area studies. This shift, we would forward, must refect upon a Black-Brown-Yellow alliance to meaningfully transform the very social, ideological, and institutional conditions that structure trauma for both those from the so-called Orient and/or people of color. We would conclude, in simple terms, this meaningful transformation must occur from warfare to welfare and from proft to people. While we would moreover here end by reminding readers that we wish to avoid inadvertently re-positioning postcolonial nationalisms by fetishizing area studies rooted in the Mercator projection, we nonetheless yearn to recuperate and amplify the voices that whisper of memory and trauma in “Asia.” We all are the architects of fate’s design, and that of our sisters and brothers the world over whose right to memory (history), pain (trauma) , and feelings (affect) have been violently snatched away by imperialistic capitalism tethered to white supremacy. Given that memory and trauma are very often experienced simultaneously and collectively, we endeavor to harness that psychic energy and convert it into solidarity and social activism in the cultural and literary public sphere. Only then can we impact the history of our current moment and the epistemic violence that characterizes it – not just for Asians but for all people of color. In what follows, we hope that readers will join our yearning for a conscious, communal production of comparative Asian trauma studies. While this journey will no doubt be a long and arduous one, we believe that the scholarly investment will be well worth the intellectual labor, and one that profoundly impacts our students, children, neighbors, and future generations in re-imaging memory, trauma, and “Asia.”

Works Cited Alexander, Meena. The Shock of Arrival: Refections on Postcolonial Experience. Boston: South End Press, 1996. Allan, Sheila. Diary of a Girl in Changi 1941–1945. Kangaroo Press, 1994. Andermahr, Sonya. “Decolonizing Trauma Studies: Trauma and Postcolonialism – Introduction.” In Decolonizing Trauma Studies: Trauma and Postcolonialism, edited by Sonya Andermahr, 1–7. Basel: MDPI, 2016. Association for Asian American Studies. Press release, June 2020. Atak, Idil, and James C. Simeon. “The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences.” In The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences. Montreal: McGill-Queens Press, 2018. Baxter, Katherine Isobel. “Memory and Photography: Rethinking Postcolonial Trauma Studies.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 47, no. 1 (2013): 18–29. Bell, Duncan. Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refections on the Relationship Between Past and Present. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Beverley, John. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Bong, Sharon A., ed. Trauma, Memory and Transformation: Southeast Asian Experiences. Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2004. Boynton, Eric, and Peter Capretto, eds. Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory. New York: Fordham University Press, 2018.

24

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

Buelens, Gert, Samuel Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, eds. The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism. Routledge, 2013. Butler, Judith. The Force of Nonviolence: The Ethical in the Political. London: Verso, 2020. Caruth, Cathy, ed. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. ———. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ———. Literature in the Ashes of History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. Craps, Stef. Postcolonial Witnessing: Trauma Out of Bounds. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Delbaere-Garant, Jeanne. “Psychic Realism, Mythic Realism, Grotesque Realism: Variations on Magic Realism in Contemporary English Literature.” In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Duke University Press, 1995. Dikötter, Frank. The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History 1962–1976. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. Eyerman, Ron. Memory, Trauma, and Identity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press, 2008. (First edition, 1986). Filipović, Zlata, and Melanie Challenger, eds. Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries, from World War I to Iraq. Penguin Books, 2006. Gairola, Rahul K. “Limp Wrists, Infammatory Punches: Violence, Masculinity, and Queer Sexuality in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy.” South Asian History and Culture 5, no. 4 (2014): 475–489. ———. Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belonging. London: Rowman & Littlefeld International, 2016. ———. “Migrations in Absentia: Multinational Digital Advertising and Manipulation of Partition Trauma.” In Revisiting India’s Partition: New Essays in Memory, Culture, and Politics, edited by Amritjit Singh, Nalini Iyer, and Rahul K. Gairola, 53–70. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. Gao, Xingjian. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. Translated by Mabel Lee. HarperCollins, 2004. ———. Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian. Translated by Gilbert C.F. Fong and Mabel Lee. Chinese University Press, 2005. Greenberg, Judith. “Wounded New York.” In Trauma at Home: After 9/11, edited by Judith Greenberg, 21–38. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Hamad, Ruby. White Tears, Brown Scars. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2019. Hashimoto, Akiko. The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan. Oxford University Press, 2015. Herrero, Dolores, and Sonia Baelo-Allue, eds. The Splintered Glass: Facets of Trauma in the Post-Colony and Beyond. Rodopi, 2011. Hioe, Joanna. “Loung Ung Interview.” Banana Writers, bananawriters.com/ loungunginterview. Accessed 9 November 2016. Human Rights Watch. Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide. May 12, 2020. www.hrw.org. Ikeda, Kyle. Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and War Fiction of Medoruma Shun. Routledge, 2013.

The “Asian Pandemic” 25 Jackson, Karl. Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis. London: Routledge, 2018. Jayawickrama, Sharanya. “At Home in the Nation? Negotiating Identity in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 40, no. 2 (2005): 123–139. ———. “‘No One Knows That I Have Magic/ In My Brain’: Jean Arasanayagam’s Writing and Re-Writing as Rites of Passage.” In Rites of Passage in Postcolonial Women’s Writing, edited by Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo and Gina Wisker, 167–183. Leiden: Brill/Rodopi, 2010. ———. “Violence and Suffering in Shobasakthi’s Gorilla: Confgurations of Trauma from the Postcolonial Peripheries.” Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies 2, no. 1–2 (2013): 105–122. Joaquin, Nick. Cave and Shadows. Manila: National Bookstore, 1983. Kurashige, Scott. ASA President’s on Black Lives Matter and the Rebellion of 2020. June 2020. https://www.theasa.net/about/news-events/announcements/asa-p residents-state ment-black-lives-matter-rebellion-2020. Lai, Thanhha. Inside Out and Back Again. HarperCollins, 2011. Lazaroo, Simone. “The Asian Disease.” In Growing Up Asian in Australia, edited by Alice Pung, 111–121. Melbourne: Black Ink, 2008. Lubkemann, Stephen C. Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War. University of Chicago Press, 2008. Luckhurst, Roger. The Trauma Question. Routledge, 2008. Ly, Boreth. Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020. Ma, Sheng-Mei. The Last Isle: Contemporary Film, Culture and Trauma in Global Taiwan. Rowman and Littlefeld, 2015. MacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao’s Last Revolution. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Mbembe, Achille. What is Postcolonial Thinking? https://www.eurozine.com/whatis-postcolonial-thinking/. McKenzie, Rodney Jr. “We’ve Been Socially Distanced for Decades. It’s Called Racism.” Blavity (April 16, 2020). https://blavity.com/weve-been-socially-d istanced-for-decades- its-called-racism?category1=opinion. Mishra, Vijay. Literature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary. London: Routledge, 2007. Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press, 2011. Orbey, Eren. “Trump’s ‘Chinese Virus’ and What’s at Stake in the Corona Virus’s Name.” New Yorker, March 25, 2020. Osterhammel, Jürgen. Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment’s Encounter with the East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina. A Gentle Subversion: Essays on Philippine Fiction in English. University of the Philippines Press, 1998. Porter, Roger J., and Howard R. Wolf. The Voice Within: Reading and Writing Autobiography. Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Pung, Alice. Her Father’s Daughter. Black Inc, 2011. Quayson, Ato. Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

26

Rahul K. Gairola and Sharanya Jayawickrama

Rasulov, Akbar. “Central Asia as an Object of Orientalist Narratives in the Age of Bandung.” In Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures, edited by Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri, and Vasuki Nesiah, 215– 231. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ricoeur, Paul. The Reality of the Historical Past. Marquette University Press, 1984. ———. Memory, History, Forgetting. Translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Rothberg, Michael. “Multidirectional Memory and the Implicated Subject: On Sebald and Kentridge.” In Performing Memory in the Arts and Popular Culture, edited by Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik, 39–58. Routledge, 2013. ———. “Preface: Beyond Tancred and Clorinda: Trauma Studies for Implicated Subjects.” In The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism, edited by Gert Buelens, Samuel Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, xi– xviii. Routledge, 2013. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. Salgado, Minoli. A Little Dust on the Eyes. Peepal Tree Press, 2014. Schacter, Daniel L. The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Houghton Miffin, 2002. Schlund-Vials, Cathy J. “Between Ruination and Reconciliation: Dragon Princesses, Cambodian American Heroines, and Loung Ung’s Lucky Child.” In Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine: Essays on Literature, Film, Myth and Media, edited by Lan Dong, 46–62. McFarland & Company, 2010. Shafak, Elif. The Gaze. Translated by Brendan Freely. Penguin Books, 2010. Shaffer, Teri. “Cambodian American Autobiography: Testimonial Discourse.” In Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature, edited by Zhou Xiaojing and Shamina Najmi, 152–154. University of Washington Press, 2005. Shah, Nayan. Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Shahraz, Qaisera. The Holy Woman. Alhamra, 2001. Shun, Medoruma. In the Woods of Memory. Stone Bridge Press, 2017. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. ———. Other Asias. London: Wiley Blackwell, 2008. Talbot, Ian, and Gurharpal Singh. The Partition of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Tan, Twan Eng. The Garden of Evening Mists. Weinstein Books, 2012. “The Exclusion of Asiatic Immigrants in Australia.” In Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, and Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner, 122–125. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Gale In Context: Biography. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2688400060/ GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=5554 53d6. Accessed 19 April 2020. Tumarkin, Maria. “Twenty Years of Thinking About Traumascapes.” Fabrications 29, no. 1 (2019): 4–20. Ung, Loung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. Harper, 2000. Vernon, Alex. Arms and the Self: War, the Military and Autobiographical Writing. Kent State University Press, 2005. Villares, Lucia. Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector Through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison. London: Routledge, 2017.

The “Asian Pandemic” 27 Wang, Ban. Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory and History in Modern China. Stanford University Press, 2004. Ward, Abigail. Postcolonial Traumas: Memory, Narrative, Resistance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University Press. 1977. Yancy, George. “Judith Butler: Mourning is a Political Act Amid the Pandemic and its Disparities.” Truthout, April 30, 2020. https://truthout.org/articles/judith-but ler-mourning-is-a- political-act-amid-the-pandemic-and-its-disparities/?eType=E mailBlastCon tent&eId=1f5d0cf8-61f9-41b0-a627-9e45fbeb4e2d. Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

Part I

Activating Memory as Personal Testimony

2

The Language of Trauma in Selected Short Stories by Gao Xingjian Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

Introduction In his essay “Author’s Preface to Without Isms” (1995), written approximately 30 years after his witnessing of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), or 12 years after his survival of the Chinese state’s “anti-spiritual pollution campaign” (1983), or eight years after his voluntary exile from mainland China to France (1987), Gao Xingjian proposes an artistic vision of being “without isms” as follows: To be without isms is not to be without opinions, points of view or thoughts. However, these opinions, points of view and thoughts do not require verifcation or a conclusion and do not constitute a system, but end as soon as they are voiced and they are voiced even if it is futile to voice them. Nonetheless, unless physically incapable of speech, to be alive in the world one inevitably speaks, therefore without isms is in fact simply speech without outcomes. (42) Gao’s defnition of being “without isms” can be understood in three parts: Firstly, “without isms” is an expression, and should not be mistaken for an ideology or -ism. Secondly, “without isms” does not require expression to be dictated by conclusive outcomes. Expression that is without isms is only for the sake of expression. Thirdly, since the expression of one’s opinions, points of view, or thoughts is an innate desire, expression that is without isms is not a unique or categorical way of expression, it is simply “speech without outcomes.” The above clarifcations on being “without isms” offer important insights into Gao Xingjian as an author, and especially his portrayal of trauma as a result of Chinese politics. In an autocratic society, where every aspect of life is state-controlled and therefore politicized, being without isms is easier said than done. In his Nobel Prize-winning, quasi-autobiographical novel One Man’s Bible (1999), Gao reveals how he had burnt all of his notes, manuscripts, diaries, and handcopied excerpts in order to protect himself from the political persecution of the Cultural Revolution Red Guards in the 1960s. In the same novel, Gao also shares his experience of being sent to the countryside for “re-education” during the

32

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

latter half of the Cultural Revolution. As part of the 1970s “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” movement, Gao became a farmer at the countryside of Anhui province. There Gao met his former wife, who would later accuse him of being an “anti-revolutionist” after reading his writings. During the 1980s New Era period, Gao had been a frequent target of the state’s attack on “spiritual pollution.” As a playwright of the Beijing People’s Theatre Group, Gao was regularly subjected to public-pressure campaigns and even bans for introducing Western modernist techniques into Chinese modern theatre. As a fction writer and literary critic, Gao also attracted much political pressure and criticism for subverting the state’s expectations of realism in literature. It is against such a biographical context that Gao’s artistic vision of being “without isms” is best appreciated: “To be without isms is the most rudimentary freedom for today’s individual. Without this modicum of freedom, can a person still be human? Before discussing this or that ideology people must frst be allowed to be without isms” (Author’s Preface to Without Isms, 50). Simply put, Gao Xingjian emphasizes that the precondition of being human, let alone a writer, is the freedom to be without subscription to any collective ideology. In this chapter, I further extend Gao’s view to his portrayal of one of the most devastating man-made disasters in modern history: the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In order to re-establish ruling order and credibility after what was known as the “Ten Years of Chaos,” the Chinese state’s interpretation and resolution of the Cultural Revolution prioritize national political and economic interests ahead of the people’s recovery from emotional and psychological damage. As such, the offcial discourse of the Cultural Revolution depends on collectivism. In contrast, Gao’s selected short stories, namely “The Temple” (1983) and “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (1986), establish spaces for individualistic introspections toward the Cultural Revolution trauma. Gao utilizes in these short stories a literary technique which he refers to as the “fow of language.” Such a narrative feature liberates Gao and his readers from the heavily politicized discourse surrounding the Cultural Revolution, and to shift their attention toward the exploration of the scarred subjectivity of Cultural Revolution survivors. Although these stories do not directly respond to the devastating yet ambiguous struggles of the Cultural Revolution, I contend that Gao’s writings offer detached yet substantial insights into the Cultural Revolution.

Victimhood and the Chinese Cultural Revolution The Chinese Cultural Revolution, despite being generally referred to as the “Ten Years of Chaos,” was in fact preceded by a much larger human disaster – at least in terms of death toll. The Great Famine (1959–1961), which accompanied the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), resulted in an estimated 40 million deaths. The Cultural Revolution paled in comparison, with around two million deaths.1 However, casualty fgures alone did not lead the Chinese community and Western observers to categorize this period as a human tragedy on a grand scale.2 The traumatic impact of the Cultural Revolution arose from the permanent destruction of

The Language of Trauma

33

social relationships, such as trust, love, and friendship, through the violent purging of anyone and anything suspected of sympathizing with the capitalist and bourgeois “old world.” The victims, who were dehumanized and villainized under the label “ox-ghosts and snake-demons,” included professors, artists, landowners, teachers, principals, and offcials. Nor did their parents, relatives, friends, and lovers escape. Books, scripts, and other cultural treasures, especially those related to Confucianism, were mercilessly destroyed. Although the Red Guard’s most extreme atrocities, such as beating victims to death and even cannibalism, lasted for less than two years, the public humiliations, the betrayals by loved ones, and the destruction of cultural artefacts continued until the end of the Cultural Revolution. One of the many prominent writers and intellectuals to face the Red Guard’s ruthless purges was Ba Jin, author of the modern Chinese literary classics Family (1931), Spring (1938), and Autumn (1940). He recollects one of his many experiences of being purged as follows: In 1966, I was performing laojiao [re-education through labor] duties in the kitchen of the Writers’ Association [Shanghai Offce]. A junior high school student kept whipping me, and eventually ordered me to take him to my home. I knew that my whole family would be in trouble if I obeyed. He kept on whipping, but I could not retaliate. I was only able to run for my life. The student did not know what my occupation was. But once he had heard I was a “villain,” he stopped treating me as a human being. He kept chasing after me, and I kept escaping. It was a hopeless struggle! (“On Humanitarianism” 23–24, translation my own) Ba Jin is regarded as one of China’s greatest modern writers and was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature before his death in 2005. During the Cultural Revolution, however, he had been “the target of a hundred purges,” undergoing so much public humiliation and criticism that he could barely remember the details (“On Dissecting Oneself” 131–133, translation my own). In “Writer’s Courage and Responsibilities” (1962), Ba Jin further recalls that the primary evidence adduced for his “counter-revolutionary” behavior was his delivery of a speech that reminded writers of the importance of critical thinking prior to the Cultural Revolution. It seems clear that Ba Jin was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. Yet in many of his post-Cultural Revolution essays, he complicates the idea of victimhood. In “On Dissecting Oneself,” he suggests that if he had been “liberated” and promoted to an infuential position at the height of the Cultural Revolution, he would also have committed “many idiotic things, maybe even evil acts” (131– 133, translation my own). Rather than blaming the Red Guards for his suffering, he chooses to frst “dissect himself” and inspect his personal shortcomings: How could anyone keep a cool head when all they could hear were chants and slogans such as “every sentence Chairman Mao speaks is true, and just

34

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk one of his sentences equals ten thousand of another person’s”? Who could have resisted that? Hindsight always comes too late. But I am fortunate to have rediscovered my long-lost sense of critical thinking” (“On Dissecting Oneself” 131–133, translation my own)

Ba Jin’s introspective account presents the Cultural Revolution less as a time of collective madness than as a sign of individual weakness. For Ba Jin, the loss of independent thinking was a key factor leading to the Cultural Revolution. He confesses that during those tumultuous times, his mindset was no different from anyone else’s, including that of the perpetrators of his abuse. Ba Jin the victim was also Ba Jin the perpetrator. As I shall elaborate in later sections, Ba Jin’s “auto-dissecting” approach to his personal guilt and responsibility contrasts starkly with the narrative of a collective Cultural Revolution experience promulgated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since Mao’s death in 1976. More importantly, Ba Jin’s emphasis on introspection paves way for Gao Xingjian’s portrayal of the Cultural Revolution trauma from the lens of individualistic and detached introspection or being without isms.

Cultural Revolution, Cultural Trauma As observed by Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, “the CCP was both instrumental in launching the Cultural Revolution and in bringing it to an end,” and as such, “we are confronted with a very complicated situation regarding the political elite in the PRC [People’s Republic of China]” (“Coping with the Cultural Revolution,” 7). After the death of Mao Zedong and the end of his Cultural Revolution, the new ruling regime of the Chinese Communist Party sought legitimacy and stability in their governance of a post-Mao and post-Cultural Revolution China. However, such legitimacy and stability depended on whether the new regime could reconcile the anger, hatred, anxieties, guilt, and revenge which pervaded the entire Chinese society after the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, power struggles among the political elites, pertaining to the resolution of the Cultural Revolution, further threatened to destabilize the new regime’s leadership. For example, it was initially concluded that the whole of China had fallen victim to the decade-long manipulation of the Gang of Four, which included Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing. However, the implications of victimization encouraged further identifcations of responsibility: the Red Guards may be the victims of the manipulation of the Gang of Four, but the Red Guards were also perpetrators of the violent struggle sessions against intellectuals like Ba Jin. Were the Red Guards and the intellectuals really victims of the same nature? At the same time, the intellectuals also refused to completely excuse themselves from taking part in the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Who, then, were the “real” perpetrators and victims? Both the Red Guards and the intellectuals, nevertheless, were integral parts of the leadership and political elites in the post-Cultural Revolution era. Any

The Language of Trauma

35

confict between them would threaten the stability and legitimacy of the Party’s rule (“Coping with the Cultural Revolution” 14–15). In order to put an end to the discussions, the CCP’s conclusive stance was that the Cultural Revolution is a “mistake”, a “catastrophe,” and a “turmoil,” all of which are the responsibility of Mao Zedong’s leadership (“Coping with the Cultural Revolution,” 11). It was under such political considerations that the CCP constructed the offcial discourse surrounding the Cultural Revolution. According to WeigelinSchwiedrzik, the CCP’s framing of the Cultural Revolution transitioned from “universal victimhood” to “universal complicity,” and fnally to “total negation” (“Coping with the Cultural Revolution”). While these three versions of the party-sanctioned narratives offered different interpretations and resolutions to the Cultural Revolution, they all shared one common political goal: to construct a totalizing and singular portrayal about the nation’s experience so as to “defne a memory frame which gives orientation to the public and makes clear what is right and what is wrong to think about the traumatic event” (“Coping with the Cultural Revolution,” 5). The political considerations I have discussed thus far reveal that the offcial narrative of Cultural Revolution prioritizes the collective traumatic experience over the individual traumatic experience. The nature of the party-sanctioned narrative can be categorized as “cultural trauma.” According to Jeffrey Alexander’s defnition of cultural trauma, “[t]rauma is not something naturally existing; it is something constructed by society” (“Towards a Theory of Cultural Trauma,” 2). What causes a traumatic response (i.e. an altered collective identity), within the framework of cultural trauma, is not an event itself but rather the social contestation that presents the event as traumatizing. Cultural trauma rejects the common-sense understanding of traumatic events in society as either wholly moral or wholly psychological, which fails to acknowledge the cultural contestation behind its formation (“Towards a Theory of Cultural Trauma,” 4). Instead, the emergence of cultural trauma relies on “cultural carriers – cultural specialists such as priests, politicians, intellectuals, journalists, moral entrepreneurs, and leaders of social movements” (Smelser 38). The key difference between psychological trauma and cultural trauma, therefore, lies in how the features of trauma are established and sustained: “The mechanisms associated with psychological trauma are the intrapsychic dynamics of defense, adaptation, coping, and working through; the mechanisms at the cultural level are mainly those of social agents and contending groups” (Smelser 39). In other words, the sociopolitical factors that shape cultural trauma should not be confused with the mechanisms of psychological trauma, although they are intimately linked. In her cultural trauma reading of the Cultural Revolution, WeigelinSchwiedrzik argues that the total silencing of social debate on the Cultural Revolution is a myth as “[t]he Cultural Revolution is everywhere, in flms, in novels and poems, but also in offcial and unoffcial accounts, in memoirs and in many articles published in conventional journals as well as on the internet” (“In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-Century Chinese History,” 1078). In contrast, several observers, such as Roderick Macfarquhar, have noted that the

36

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution was met with silence in China (“Q. and A.: Roderick MacFarquhar on the Cultural Revolution and China Today”). Tomas Plänkers also remarks that “the social silence in 2006 that accompanied the fortieth anniversary of the beginning and the thirtieth anniversary of the ending of the Cultural Revolution was shocking. Not a single public announcement or commemoration was staged in all of China” (41). A complete censorship or self-censorship with regards to the Cultural Revolution, given its extraordinary magnitude and the vast population of China, is impossible. Yet it is worth considering whether social contestation that allows for a diversity of opinions, is possible in an autocratic society like that of China. According to Neil Smelser’s account of the process of social contestation in cultural trauma, the process of establishing is a contested process, with different political groups divided with respect to whether a trauma occurred (historical contestation), how its meaning should be regarded (contestation over interpretation), and what kinds of feelings – pride, neutrality, rage, guilt – it should arouse (affective contestation). (38) Indeed, counternarratives regarding the cultural trauma of the Cultural Revolution have been and will continue to be produced by various cultural carriers in China. But any further studies of the Cultural Revolution as cultural trauma must acknowledge the limitations of social contestation of memory and trauma narratives in autocratic societies deprived of freedom of speech. Through the lens of cultural trauma, the modern Chinese writer is one of the major cultural carriers in the historical, interpretive, and affective contestations over the cultural trauma of the Cultural Revolution. For example, “scar literature,” an immensely popular sub-genre in the wake of the post-Cultural Revolution era, derived from the shock and disbelief of a complete negation of the Maoist regime and its socialist direction, and the embrace of state modernization and capitalism. Liu Xinhua’s “Scar” (1978) is a representative “scar literature” work. “Scar” offers much conveyance of love, death, regrets, loneliness, and alienation. Liu’s aim is to draw the reader into an emotional trough and effectively re-live, re-experience the defning features of the Cultural Revolution, and ultimately, become re-traumatized by the mutual purging and struggling between family members, students and teachers, and co-workers. Bonnie S. McDougall and Louie Kam note that in line with the Maoist-infuenced principles “practice is the sole criterion of truth” and “seek truth from facts,” scar works were often viewed as courageous attempts to expose problems in post-Cultural Revolution China (333). However, aside from facilitating readerly catharsis, the Chinese scar genre offers little insight into Cultural Revolution trauma. For Xu Bin, the popularity of scar literature was due to its effective negotiation between the perception of the masses toward the Cultural Revolution and the Chinese state’s political agenda (57).

The Language of Trauma

37

The reductionist portrayal of the perpetrators (Gang of Four) and the victims (persecuted offcials, intellectuals, and youths) in Liu Xinhua’s “Scar,” for example, met the CCP’s initial narrative of “universal victimhood.” If the cultural carrier is in fact a covert mouthpiece for the state, what is the purpose of writers as cultural carriers of the Cultural Revolution’s cultural trauma? Gao Xingjian’s artistic vision of being without isms appears to indirectly answer this question.

Gao Xingjian’s “Flow of Language” and Diversity in Cultural Trauma Narrative If being without isms is the freedom to speak without the need for “verifcation or a conclusion” (“Author’s Preface to Without Isms, 42), Gao Xingjian seems to have refused the role of the post-Cultural Revolution cultural carrier/intellectual. In One Man’s Bible, the second-person narrator’s observations on the construction of a collective memory of the Cultural Revolution is a manifesto for individual refection: During the Cultural Revolution, people were “rebelling” whereas before that people were “making revolution.” However, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, people avoided talking about rebelling, or simply forgot that part of history. Everyone has become a victim of that great catastrophe known as the Cultural Revolution and has forgotten that before disaster fell upon their own heads, they, too, were to some extent assailants. The history of the Cultural Revolution is thus being continually revised. It is best that you do not rewrite a history, but only look back upon your own experiences. (151) The notion of one’s “own experiences” requires further scrutiny. As Tam Kwokkan observes, traditional Chinese conceptions of the self emphasize “the subordination of the individual ‘small self’ to the nationalist ‘greater self’” (294). In China’s autocratic society, driven by Confucian ethics, the conception of an individual “small self,” “combined with the socialist emphasis on the collective self,” forms an “ideological basis for restricting the realization of the individual to his various roles under the supremacy of the state” (Tam 294). Accordingly, Gao’s individualistic refections on his “own experiences” are attempts to remove his writings from collectivism. But since such writings are published and circulated among the general readers, Gao’s individualistic refections are also contributing insights to the post-Cultural Revolution social collective too. In other words, one could argue that Gao occupies a marginal position between the individualistic writer and the cultural carrier for the Cultural Revolution cultural trauma. Ba Jin was Gao Xingjian’s mentor and one of the few reputable writers to support his publication of the controversial literary criticism, A Preliminary Exploration into the Art of Modern Fiction, in 1981.3 In his selected short stories, I fnd Gao building on his mentor’s notion of “dissecting the self” to confront his personal demons regarding the Cultural Revolution. Although Gao’s works

38

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

do not resolve the perplexing victim-perpetrator question, they serve as an openended model enabling other Cultural Revolution survivors to confront their own traumas and seek their own resolutions. In Gao’s short stories, I identify this model as “the language of trauma,” which is based on Gao’s narrative technique of “the fow of language.” According to Gao Xingjian, the modernist narrative technique of stream of consciousness is limited to a single narrative perspective on the subject’s inner experience. Gao seeks to offer a more comprehensive narration of one’s subjectivity by deploying different narrative points of view, so that “the character’s perception alters while maintaining the same subject” (“Literature and Metaphysics: On Soul Mountain,” 173, translation my own). In Gao’s novels One Man’s Bible and Soul Mountain (1990), the fow of language permeates the entire narrative structure, establishing a unique narrative style with pronouns alternating between chapters. In these novels, the fow of language not only enables introspection on the psychological trauma of the Cultural Revolution but also initiates reexamination of grand philosophical matters related to authorship, language, and historiography. In contrast, Gao Xingjian’s short stories, in which the fow of language occurs within paragraphs and passages, focus on observations of “trivial” aspects of postCultural Revolution life. As I shall demonstrate in the close reading of “The Temple” (1983) and “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (1986), such “trivial” details about life after the Cultural Revolution offer unexpected insights on how the psychological and physical damage caused by the Cultural Revolution continue to permeate Chinese society. As these short stories place the individualistic introspection of Cultural Revolution trauma ahead of the state’s political contestation, I argue they are useful social contestations to the cultural trauma of the Cultural Revolution.

From Root-Searching to Soul-Searching in “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” revolves around the narrator’s purchase of a fberglass fshing rod for his grandfather, who had previously used only homemade ones made from bamboo. Prior to residing in the city, most of the narrator’s childhood had been spent with his grandparents in the countryside. The fberglass fshing rod evokes the narrator to reminiscence about his grandfather. The narrator’s grandfather, in the countryside, wanted to catch as many fsh as possible. He therefore made long trips to the city to buy better-quality fshing hooks, and even knitted his own fshing nets. In contrast, fshermen in the city viewed fshing either as a relaxing activity offering respite from the hustle and bustle of city life, or as a competitive sport. This comparison of urban and rural lives makes the narrator homesick for the countryside. On the pretext of giving his grandfather a brand-new modern fshing rod, the narrator travels back to his childhood home to alleviate his homesickness. However, the narrator’s grandfather is already dead, although this information is withheld by the narrator

The Language of Trauma

39

until the last sentence of the story. As I shall elaborate in my close reading, Gao Xingjian uses the fow of language throughout “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” to present the narrator’s return to his hometown as a non-linear exploration of his post-Cultural Revolution self. The narrator’s internal probing begins even before he sets off for the countryside. Immediately after buying the fberglass fshing rod, he imagines the diffculties of storing it at home: But frst I must fnd a safe place to put the rod. If that young son of mine sees it, he’ll wreck it. Why did you have to buy that? It’s cramped enough in here already. Where will you put the thing? I hear my wife shouting at me. I put it above the toilet tank in the bathroom, the only place my son can’t reach, unless he climbs onto a stool. No matter what, I must go back to the village to get rid of this homesickness, which, once triggered, is impossible to shake. I hear a loud crash and think it’s my wife using the meat cleaver in the kitchen. You hear her yelling. Go and have a look! You then hear that son of mine crying in the bathroom and know that calamity has befallen the fshing rod. You’ve made up your mind. You’re taking the fshing rod back to your home. (69, italics in the original) The absence of speech marks in the narrator’s direct speech, a technique not uncommon among the modernist authors who inspire Gao Xingjian, such as James Joyce and Franz Kafka, makes the referent of the second-person pronoun ambiguous. The narrator’s descriptions suggest that the shouting comes from his wife, yet without the conventional quotation marks, (“Why did you have to buy that?”), the shouting could also be part of the narrator’s critique of his own poor judgement in bringing a fshing rod back to his humble abode. The question may even ventriloquize the reader, assuming that the reader is in the same position as the narrator. As such, the second-person pronoun presents multiple possibilities with the potential to shape the reader’s interpretation of the entire work. What is integral to Gao’s fow of language is that all of these possible interpretations occur simultaneously when the reader encounters the second-person pronoun sans speech marks. The fow of language not only forces readers to pay attention to Gao’s language but also evokes re-readings of the narratorial consciousness from external and internal perspectives (the narrator’s wife and the narrator, respectively), and from an in-between positionality (the reader). As stated earlier, one of the narrator’s primary objectives is to revisit the countryside to alleviate his homesickness. Ironically, the narrator discovers the part of the countryside in which he spent his childhood is no longer much different from his current residence in the city. In addition, all of the mental signposts associated with his old home have been covered up or altered: Later, I fnd an older man and ask him where the lake used to be. […] The lake? Which lake? The lake that was flled in. Oh, that lake, the lake that was

40

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk flled in is right here. He points with his foot. This used to be the lake. So we’re standing on the bottom. Was there once a stone bridge nearby? Can’t you see that there are asphalt roads everywhere? The stone bridges were all demolished and the new ones use reinforced concrete. You understand. You understand that what used to be no longer exists. It is futile to ask about a street and street number that used to exist, you will have to rely on your memory. (71)

When two young local girls laugh at the narrator’s accent, he realizes that even his linguistic roots have been wiped out: In our village, the word for grandfather is laoye. However, the word “I”, “me,” or “my” is wo, produced between the back palate and the throat, and sounds like e, which means “goose.” So wo laoye to a non-local sounds like “goose grandfather” (71). While the countryside girls appear to be pure and naïve, they are not welcoming of outsiders. Simply by opening his mouth, the narrator becomes a laughingstock, an outsider, in his own hometown. As observed by Hee Wai-siam, “Buying a Fishing Rod…” is a parody of the Chinese root-seeking literary genre, which gained prominence in the mid-1980s. The genre derived from the ideological and cultural void during the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Despite the vast infux of Western cultural thought due to the relaxation of cultural governance in the post-Mao era, Chinese people felt a disconnect between themselves and their cultural roots. This urgency of rediscovering an “authentic,” ancient Chinese cultural identity inspired works set in the countryside and featuring stereotypical portrayals of minority nationality culture as being primitive and innocent.4 The fow of language in “Buying a Fishing Rod…” offers an introspective twist to the root-seeking genre. The narration brings the reader into intimate contact with the psychological experience of discovering one’s rootlessness. In the absence of quotation marks, readers experience both the narrator’s dialogue with the elderly local and the narrator’s dialogue with himself. Readers can follow the internal thoughts and emotional processes that lead to the narrator’s conclusion that “you will have to rely on your memory.” At the same time, the fow of language also cultivates distance between reader, narrator, and characters. Readers are provided with a space in which to critically evaluate the notion of memory in the context of searching for one’s roots. The question of how to remember one’s roots becomes relevant instead. In “Buying a Fishing Rod…,” the narrator discovers on his root-seeking journey that his roots have long since disappeared. The end of the narrator’s traditional root-searching journey, however, marks the birth of his individualistic attempt at soul-searching. Rather than relying upon topographical references,

The Language of Trauma

41

the narrator re-imagines his roots based on his fondest childhood memories of his grandfather and grandmother. The narrator’s memory (or imagination) once again begins with his grandfather’s fshing, but then moves swiftly to the discovery of his grandfather in tears after a hunting trip. The narrator consoles his grandfather and tells him that he has brought him a new fshing rod. However, his grandfather’s response is not enthusiastic. Fragments of the narrator’s childhood sporadically appear: his grandmother’s cooking, his grandfather’s dog Xiaohei, hunting with his grandfather. Through his spiritual exploration, the narrator makes a breakthrough regarding the liberation of the mind: Grandfather, can you kick a soccer ball? It’s a soccer ball that’s kicking your Grandfather. Who are you talking with? You’re talking with yourself, the child you once were. That boy without clothes? A naked soul. Do you have a soul? I hope so. Otherwise, this world would be so lonely. Are you lonely? In this world, yes. What other world is there? That inner world of yours that others can’t see. Do you have an inner world? I hope so. It’s only there that you can really be yourself. (84–85, italics in the original) If Ba Jin describes his confrontation with personal trauma as a “dissecting of the self,” Gao Xingjian’s fow of language is a language of trauma that dissects the traumatized self at a distance. In an imagined dialogue between the narrator and a detached observer, this detached perspective is referred to as one’s “inner world.” The dialogue takes place in the narrator’s inner world: a place in which “you can really be yourself,” and which offers, as Gao puts it, the freedom to be individualistic and nonideological. Having located his inner world, the narrator is free to talk to himself without the restrictions of root-searching. After abandoning all expectations of what he will fnd in his childhood past, the narrator converts his root-searching journey into a longwinded and aimless wandering of the mind. Elements of the narrator’s childhood life, such as fshing, his childhood home, and his grandfather’s fshing rod, are described in the same breath as Diego Maradona’s legendary performance in the 1986 World Cup fnal between Argentina and West Germany, the narrator’s archaeological interest in the ancient kingdom of Loulan, and a mysterious female fgure5 who personifes the narrator’s fragmented self (82–88). “Buying a Fishing Rod…” makes barely any reference to the Cultural Revolution, or to politics of any kind. Yet the lone hint to the Cultural Revolution has profound implications. The narrator remembers that his grandfather’s

42

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

beloved shotgun was confscated during the period of book-burning (67), which alludes to Gao Xingjian’s own experience of burning his own writings during the Cultural Revolution. He feels sad about his grandfather’s loss and wants to buy him another shotgun, but this would require permission from the state. Instead, the narrator buys his grandfather a fshing rod, but no fshing will be possible, because the rivers and pond near his house have dried up. Nevertheless, it is revealed at the end of the story that the narrator’s grandfather had already passed away (88). Considering the above hints, both the title of the story and the narrator’s act of buying a fshing rod for his dead grandfather are intricately linked with the Cultural Revolution. The narrator’s decision to fnally disclose the death of his grandfather refects his ability to come to terms with trauma in his own way – through talking to himself in his inner world. The narrator’s autodidactic approach also reminds readers of the importance to be refexive when tackling their own Cultural Revolution trauma. Rather than relying upon the neat but reductionist discourse provided by the Chinese state, readers of “Buying a Fishing Rod…” are encouraged to focus on their experiences in individualistic and nonideological ways.

From Positivity to Fragility in “The Temple” “The Temple” opens with its narrator stating that he and his wife Fangfang are on their honeymoon trip to Yuanen Temple and are “deliriously happy” (3). Yet within the frst two paragraphs of his account, the narrator mentions that he, his wife, and their families, have all endured “catastrophic years in this country […] and to some extent we still resented our generation’s fate” – presumably referring to the Cultural Revolution (4). Fragments of their traumatized past surface in his narrative, including their experiences as youths sent down to the countryside and their memories of the destruction of temples: It was in this manner that we fnally climbed to the top of the hill and arrived at the outer gate in front of the temple. Within the collapsed courtyard wall was a gutter with pure water from the pump running through. In what had been the courtyard, someone had planted a patch of vegetables, and next to that was a manure pit. We recalled the years we had spent shoveling manure with production units in the countryside. Those diffcult times had trickled away like water, leaving some sadness but sweet memories as well. And there was our love, too. In the glorious sunlight, no one could interfere with this secure love of ours. No one would be able to harm us again. (10–11) Although the narrator has the chance to elaborate on the horrors of the Cultural Revolution’s “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” movement, he instead represses his troubled memories, exhibiting a disturbing positivity. Throughout the story, the narrator manages to alleviate his negativity with

The Language of Trauma

43

reports of “delirious” happiness, composed of glorious sunlight, sweet memories, and unassailable love. Another example is the narrator’s emphasis on the meaning of the name “Yuanen Temple.” Despite acknowledging that the temple’s name is not important, he feels compelled to specify that its Chinese characters mean “‘perfect’ as in ‘perfect union,’ and ‘benevolence’ as in ‘benevolent love’” (4). In addition, the narrator unreservedly shares moments of affection for his wife Fangfang during the trip. Standing on the platform of a train station, the narrator remarks that he wanted “the conductors on the platform and the countless pairs of eyes on the other side of the train windows to look at us with envy” (6). The narrator draws his seemingly endless stream of positivity from two sources: His marriage to Fangfang and an undifferentiated group of friends whom he addresses as “all of you.” The physical presence of these friends, however, is unconfrmed. When the narrator describes his hike up to Yuanen Temple, neither Fangfang nor the narrator’s friends have any concrete voice in the narration: “Is it hurting your feet?” I asked Fangfang. “I like it,” you replied softly. On our honeymoon, even having sore feet was a happy sensation. All the misfortunes of the world seemed to fow away with the river water, and we returned for a moment to our youth. We frolicked in the water like mischievous children. As I steadied her with one hand, Fangfang leaped from rock to rock, and from time to time she hummed a song. Once across the river, we started to run up the hill, laughing and shouting. Then Fangfang cut her foot and I was very upset, but she comforted me, saying that it was all right, it would be nothing as soon as she put on her shoes. I said that it was my fault, but she replied that she’d do anything to make me happy, even let her feet get cut. All right, all right, I won’t go on about it. But because you are the friends we value most, who have shared our anxieties with us, we should also share our happiness with you. (10) The group of friends addressed here play the role of a silent audience listening passively to the narrator as he rambles on about his honeymoon. Yet no hard evidence is provided that the friends exist at all. The case of Fangfang is even more complex. All Fangfang’s responses during the honeymoon trip are presented by the narrator in reported speech. And although Fangfang appears to be present throughout the narrator’s recounting of the trip (“All right, all right, I won’t go on about it”), she never vocally intervenes or participates in the narrative. The reader is unsure whether Fangfang is infuencing the narrator non-linguistically or whether the narrator is merely imagining her presence and responses. If Fangfang is present all along, why does she not contribute to the narration? Critics have argued that Gao Xingjian’s depiction of females in his prose works is misogynistic (Kam 2001 and Rojas 2002), and “The Temple” indeed seems to be guilty of silencing the female voice. This accusation could also be extended

44

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

to the singularization of the Cultural Revolution trauma narrative, since the narrator appears to dominate the narrative of his post-Cultural Revolution life, not unlike the Chinese state. However, in light of Gao’s fow of language, Fangfang and the narrator’s group of friends can be read as fragmented representations of the positive side of the narrator’s scarred subjectivity. By omitting speech marks, Gao implies that the narrator is engaging in dialogue with himself from different points of view. Fangfang represents the narrator’s third-person perspective (“she”), and the group of friends represent the narrator’s second-person perspective (“you”). The reader learns about them only through the narrator’s characterization. Fangfang is introverted and maintains a low profle, in stark contrast with her overtly enthusiastic husband (the narrator). Although the friends remain unidentifed, they are likely also to be survivors of the Cultural Revolution, as the narrator repeatedly justifes the sharing of his story as giving back to his friends for their enduring support during the diffcult times. In short, the narrator is likely to be talking to himself all along from different points of view. During the latter half of his trip to Yuanen Temple, the narrator’s positivity gradually weakens. The narrator and Fangfang meet a scruffy-looking man who has brought along a little boy to hunt for grasshoppers near the Temple. With the discovery that the boy is not the man’s son, but his “paternal cousin’s,” the tone of the narration changes drastically, becoming somber. What were once viewed as the temple’s “glazed tiles sparkling in the sun” (9) are now merely “a broken tile at the edge of the eave [that] looked as if it were about to fall” (15); the mountain wind that once contributed to the peaceful atmosphere of the temple (11) now gives the narrator and Fangfang chills (15); even the perfect harmony between the narrator and Fangfang is disrupted by a minor confict over Fangfang’s insensitive question regarding the whereabouts of the man’s lover (15). The narrator’s hyper-positivity is replaced with fragility, a notion integral to Gao Xingjian’s artistic vision: “A writer is an ordinary person, perhaps he is more sensitive and people who are highly sensitive are often more frail. […] His voice is inevitably weak but it is precisely this voice of the individual that is more authentic” (“The Case for Literature”). The narrator no longer hides behind the rosy illusion of “delirious happiness” to protect himself from his traumatic past. Rather than repressing trauma, the narrator exposes and confronts it. This state of fragility drives the narrator’s experience of visiting Yuanen Temple. Moving beyond the literal meaning of the temple’s name, “perfect benevolence,” he explores instead its underlying attributes – “(perfect) union” and “(benevolent) love.” As Rebecca E. Karl notes, “not only was the Chinese Cultural Revolution a failure in its own terms, it was often a cruel and demoralizing movement that ruined the lives of many, took the lives of many, and permanently altered the trajectories of several generations” (119). The destruction of families (against union) and familial, romantic, and social relationships (against love) continues to affect those who survived it. Near the end of his autocommunicative sharing, the narrator seems to have lost his ability to translate negative thoughts and memories into positive ones. Through the process of talking to himself, the narrator experiences gradual internal changes and possibly growth regarding his reconciliation with the Cultural

The Language of Trauma

45

Revolution trauma. Upon seeing the man and the boy holding hands as they walk down the hill (16), the narrator’s escapism and pessimism are replaced with optimism: “Do you think the man caught grasshoppers for [the boy]?” Fangfang, do you remember asking me that? “Of course,” I said. “Of course.” “He caught fve of them!” you said cheekily. (16) The man and the boy represent the present and the future respectively of postCultural Revolution China. Despite the destruction of social relations during the decade of chaos, the narrator has faith that the present generation will lead a better life if they do not give up on familial love, trust, and care.

Conclusion With the Chinese Communist government’s gradual declassifcation of archives and key documents, critical understanding of the Cultural Revolution has come a long way (Dikötter xvi). The study of this period continues to grow, with thousands of articles and books already produced. Frank Dikötter’s 2016 study of the Cultural Revolution, for example, draws not only on hundreds of newly released offcial accounts, but also on the self-published autobiographies of ordinary people. What, then, is the role of literature in relation to the Cultural Revolution? In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, entitled “The Case for Literature” (2000), Gao Xingjian argues that literature does not document reality but rather explores subjectivity: This is not to say that literature is the same as a document. Actually there are few facts in documented testimonies and the reasons and motives behind incidents are often concealed. However, when literature deals with the truth the whole process from a person’s inner mind to the incident can be exposed without leaving anything out. This power is inherent in literature as long as the writer sets out to portray the true circumstances of human existence and is not just making up nonsense. (30) Gao highlights literature’s unique purpose of representing the inner self with sophistication. Instead of drawing from history, sociology, political science, or philosophy, the literary author looks rigorously within himself for insights based on his own experience of society. Gao’s fow of language, which I have deemed a “language of trauma” in the context of Cultural Revolution cultural trauma, prioritizes the individual over politics. By having the narrator’s expression constructed through an internal dialogue between the frst-person, second-person, and third-person pronouns, Gao acknowledges the heterogeneity of the Cultural Revolution trauma, and proceeds to an individualistic and effective healing.

46

Michael Ka-chi Cheuk

As the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution precipitated growing concern about a return of its revolutionary fever,6 I hope this study on Gao’s selected short stories can pave way for a more comprehensive examination of his body of work through the lens of trauma.

Notes 1 See Frank Dikötter’s interview in the Economist: http://www.economist.com/ news/china/21698701-china-still-denial-about-its-spiritual-holocaust-it-was -worst-times. 2 For the most recent accounts of the Cultural Revolution by Western scholars, see Roderick Macfarquhar’s Mao’s Last Revolution (2006) and Frank Dikötter’s The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History 1962–1976 (2016). 3 See Hong Kong Apple Daily http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/international/art /20051018/5318938. 4 For more insights about the self-orientalism of the root-seeking cultural movement in 1980s China, see Louisa Schein’s “Gender and Internal Orientalism in China,” Modern China, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), 69–98, and Lee Ou-fan Lee’s “On the Margins of the Chinese Discourse: Some Personal Thoughts on the Cultural Meaning of the Periphery,” Daedalus, Vol. 120, No. 2, The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today (Spring, 1991), 207–226. 5 The presence of a mysterious and unidentifed female fgure can also be found in Soul Mountain and the play The Other Shore (1986), which could potentially serve as an intriguing intertextual study. 6 See Willy Lam’s extensive survey of Xi Jinping’s rise to power and its alarming signs of authoritarian rule reminiscent of Mao Zedong. See also Lam’s “Xi Jinping uses ‘traditional culture’ to launch a new Cultural Revolution.” http:/ /www.asianews.it/news-en/asianews.it/notizie-it/Xi-Jinping-usa-la-%E2%80%9 Ccultura-tradizionale%E2%80%9D-per-lanciare-un-nuova-Rivoluzione-culturale36661.html.

Primary Source Gao, Xingjian. “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather.” In Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, Translated by Mabel Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. ———. “The Temple.” In Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, Translated by Mabel Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Bibliography Alexander, Jeffrey C. “Towards a Theory of Cultural Trauma.” In Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, edited by Jeffrey Alexander et al. Berkeley: University of California, 2004. Ba, Jin. “On Dissecting Oneself.” In Random Thoughts. Joint Publishing (HK), 1988. ———. “On Humanitarianism.” In Random Thoughts. Joint Publishing (HK), 1988. Dikötter, Frank. The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976. London: Bloomsbury, 2010. Gao, Xingjian. “The Other Shore [1986].” In Six Types of Gao Xingjian Theatre. Taipei: Dijiao, 1995. ———. “Literature and Metaphysics: On Soul Mountain.” In Without isms. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1996.

The Language of Trauma

47

———. One Man's Bible. Translated by Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2002. ———. “Author’s Preface to Without isms.” In Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian (Chinese English Bilingual Edition), Translated by Gilbert CF Fong and Mabel Lee. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. ———. “The Case for Literature.” In Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian (Chinese English Bilingual Edition). Translated by Gilbert CF Fong and Mabel Lee. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Hee, Wai Siam. “Gao Xingjian’s Early Theory and Practice of the Art of Fiction: A Focus on A Preliminary Examination of Modern Fictional Techniques.” Journal of National Taiwan Normal University 60, no. 2 (2015): 29–55. Kam, Louie. “Review: in Search of the Chinese Soul in the Mountains of the South.” China Journal 45 (2001): 145–149. Karl, Rebecca E. Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth – Century World. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. Lam, Willy. “Xi Jinping Uses ‘traditional Culture’ to Launch a New Cultural Revolution.” AsiaNews, February 11, 2016. Web. 09 October 2016. http:// www.asianews.it/news-en/Xi- Jinping-uses-traditional-culture-to-launch-a-new -Cultural-Revolution-36661.html. Liu, Xinhua. “Scar.” Wenhui Bao, August 11, 1978. MacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge: Belknap, 2006. McDougall, Bonnie S, and Kam Louie (eds). “The Reassertion of Modernity.” In The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. “No Luck with the Nobel Prize in Literature.” Hong Kong Apple Daily, October 18, 2005. Web. 9 Oct. 2016. Plänkers, Tomas. “China – A Traumatised Country? The Aftermath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) for the Individual and for Society.” In Psychoanalysis in China, edited by Sverre Varvin and David E Scharff. London: Karnac Books, 2014. “Q. and A.: Roderick MacFarquhar on the Cultural Revolution and China Today.” New York Times, May 3, 2016. Web. 9 Oct., 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/20 16/05/04/world/asia/china-cultural-revolution-macfarquhar.html. Rojas, Carlos. “Without [Femin]ism: Femininity as Axis of Alterity and Desire in Gao Xingjian’s One Man’s Bible.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 14, no. 2 (2002): 163–206. Smelser, Neil J. “Psychological Trauma and Cultural Trauma.” In Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, edited by Jeffrey Alexander et al. Berkley: University of California, 2004. Tam, Kwok-kan. “Language as Subjectivity in One Man's Bible.” In Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian, edited by Tam Kwok-kan, 293–310. HK: Chinese University Press, 2001. Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Susanne. “In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-Century Chinese History.” The China Quarterly, 188 (December 2006): 1070–1091. ———. “Coping with the Cultural Revolution: Contesting Interpretations.” Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History. Taipei, No. 61 (September 2008): 1–52. Xu, Bin. “Memory and Reconciliation in Post-Mao China, 1976–1982.” In Routledge Handbook of Memory and Reconciliation in East Asia, edited by Mikyoung Kim. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015.

3

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within Internment Trauma and Memory in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and John Okada’s No-No Boy Kerry S. Kumabe

Introduction On April 30, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the removal of “dangerous aliens”1 from “sensitive military areas,” in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.2 The War Relocation Authority (WRA) removed all persons of Japanese ancestry residing on the West Coast, including frst-generation immigrants (Issei), second-generation American-born citizens (Nisei), and Americanborn citizens educated in Japan (Kibei). All 110,000 West Coast Japanese Americans, 70,000 of them American citizens, were incarcerated by the WRA in “concentration camps.”3 A few months after their removal, the internees were issued a “loyalty questionnaire.” Twelve thousand draft-age male citizen internees declared themselves “disloyal,” answering “no, no” to two key loyalty questions. By September 1945, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war was over. Two weeks after “Victory over Japan” (V-J) Day, the exclusion orders were rescinded, and after three years of incarceration, all the internees were free to leave the camps.4 The internment of Japanese Americans during WW II served to neutralize the United States “enemy” abroad by controlling Japanese Americans at home: the national majority established itself negatively in relation to the Japanese Americans as “alien” others. America is a nation built on the unifying principles of inclusiveness and achieved rather than ascribed legitimacy, but racial exclusion contradicted this democratic ideology.5 In this chapter I analyze diasporic literature that emerged from Japanese internment in North America. I focus on how these “Japanese American” narrations shape, structure, and reform the national past. Even if historical narrative moves progressively toward a rational purpose, it can reveal a multiplicity of specifc, particular histories which may or may not unify to articulate a single meaning.6 The very contradictions within and between each narrative encourage readers to defne their own meanings or closures, positioning Japanese Americans not as a unitary alien body inassimilable to the nation, but as citizens with whom to engage and understand. Internment surfaces as a theme in these creative productions because the experience represents Japanese American continued exclusion from the nation. Internment forced Japanese Americans to construct “homelands” anew as the

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

49

state regulated their identities.7 As time progressed they created homelands from not a single “country” or “past,” but a series of countries or pasts in a continuous process of identity formation. Japanese American internment stories thus do not end in neat conclusions of “emigration” to “assimilation” or “conversion.” Unlike a closed narrative system, the open endings in the internment narratives suggest that the process of narrating Japanese Americans from exclusion to inclusion still continues.

Joy Kogawa’s Obasan Joy Kogawa’s Obasan (1981) is a novel about retrospective recollections of the Japanese Canadian evacuation. Obasan represents identity as discursive, open, and incomplete, refecting my assertion that the internment experience continues to shape North American Japanese identity formation. This work of fction creatively rethinks history and brings it into the present by engaging readers in the process of living while reformulating the past. These novels are driven by shifts in individual perception that blur historical fact with imagination in, what could be called, fctionalized autobiography. Moreover, Obasan depicts the process of remembrance as its central characters subjectively formulate and reformulate their WW II experiences, attempting to extract meaning from their pasts and realize their contradictory, complex formations of identity. It seeks fnally to reconcile themselves with family, community, and nation. Obasan depicts the Japanese Canadian evacuation, based partly on Joy Kogawa’s own experiences during WW II.8 In 1942, 20,000 Japanese Canadians, including 15,000 Canadian citizens or naturalized citizens, were evacuated and relocated to remote interior “ghost towns” like Slocan.9 They were forced to fnd self-supporting employment in local farms and businesses,10 and many were even redistributed to Alberta sugar beet farms to make up labor shortages.11 Full government restrictions on Japanese Canadians were not lifted until April 1, 1949.12 In Obasan, central character Naomi Nakane recalls her childhood in evacuation, which physically divided her family for nearly a decade. She struggles to reconcile herself with her family’s subsequent “forgetting” of the experience, and their “silencing” of this painful past. Critics such as King-Kok Cheung13 and Gayle Fujita Sato14 have argued that Kogawa uses silence in Obasan as a strategy to communicate the unspeakable. In my analysis, I focus on Kogawa’s uses of verbal and non-verbal communication to express, and suppress, the pain of past events as a strategy for survival. Kogawa’s characters create new forms of communication from their evacuation experiences, as they construct metaphors to draw meaning from the past, in a fuid process of identity formation. Disorder, discontinuity, and repression characterize narrator Naomi Nakane’s recollections of her childhood in WW II evacuation. Naomi remembers through the act of confessing to us but is goaded into continued articulation by her Aunt Emily who scolds her into confronting the past. Aunt Emily warns Naomi, “‘You have to remember . . . You are your history. If you cut any of it off you’re an amputee. Don’t deny the past. Remember everything.

50

Kerry S. Kumabe

If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene.’”15 Aunt Emily assumes that Naomi has the ability to remember “everything,” and that Naomi’s history will emerge simply when she gathers the will to recall it. In her comment, Aunt Emily connects “remember” with “cry it out” and opposes this with “denial,” suggesting that remembering necessarily involves the performative act of articulating. If Naomi does not confront the past, Aunt Emily warns that she will suffer “gangrene,” a mortifcation of self that will render her incomplete and divided. Naomi, in response, tells us that her recollections only further divide her, and she is unable to connect her disparate memories into a coherent metaphor for self identifcation. She says, “Aunt Emily, are you a surgeon cutting at my scalp . . . The memory drains down the sides of my face, but it isn’t enough, is it?”16 Naomi critiques the project of remembering and narrating the past by criticizing her Aunt Emily, a Nisei activist who dedicates her life to political discourse. Naomi tells us that Aunt Emily “toiled to tell of the lives of the Nisei in Canada in her own effort to make familiar, to make knowable, the treacherous yellow peril that lived in the minds of the racially prejudiced.”17 Aunt Emily “toils” to disassemble the political and cultural construct of the “yellow peril” through alternate representations of Japanese Canadian as vulnerable and victimized. Naomi’s representations of her traumatic evacuation and relocation experience are indirect, her pain subsumed deep in the narrative. The novel opens with Naomi walking the prairie with her Uncle Isamu, and she observes to us, Above and around us, unimaginably vast and unbroken by silhouette of tree or house or any hint of human handiwork, is the prairie sky. . . We sit forever, it seems, in infnite night while all around us the tall prairie grasses move and grow.18 Naomi’s descriptions of the prairie landscape initially seem to refer to freedom and exploration. Naomi almost describes herself and her uncle as pioneers breaking the “virgin land.”19 Close analysis of Naomi’s diction, however, suggests a contrary interpretation. She calls the prairie sky “unimaginably vast,” the night “infnite,” and she and her uncle sit “forever.” These terms are exaggeratedly expansive, as if Naomi’s relationship to time and space is uncertain and undefned, ungrounded in reality. She and her uncle are not intimately engaged with the land, or with the nation symbolized by the land, but are outside national space and time. Naomi adapts a combination of English and Japanese to speak with her other relatives, and observes that her communications between even her Canadianborn and Japanese-born aunts, Obasan and Emily, are very different: “One lives in sound, the other in stone. Obasan’s language remains deeply underground but Aunt Emily, BA, MA, is a word warrior.”20 Obasan communicates, like the other immigrant members of the Nakane family, as much through words as through indirection and gestures. Naomi asks herself, Who is it that teaches me that in the language of eyes a stare is an invasion and a reproach? Grandma Kato? Obasan? Uncle? Mother? Each one, raised

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

51

in Japan, speaks the same language; but Aunt Emily and Father, born and raised in Canada, are visually bilingual. I too learn the second language.21 Naomi’s mother tells her, for example, that “even a glance can be indiscreet” on the street, a direct stare as “unthinkable as nudity.”22 Inside the home, nudity is “completely thinkable” and Naomi freely bathes with her grandmother, screeches in the bathroom, and runs around the house.23 Between outside and inside, Naomi therefore learns often conficting codes of privacy, shame, modesty, and inhibition, and learns that she must adapt to become a cultural moderator. Naomi does not, however, easily negotiate the discrepancies of trauma between outside and inside, public and private. She tells us that, “outside, even in the backyard, there is an infnitely unpredictable, unknown, and often dangerous world.”24 Naomi symbolizes the tensions between the “dangerous world” of the “outside” and the safety of her family’s house “inside,” by her relationship with Old Man Gower, a white neighbor who sexually molests. Naomi learns that the security she enjoys inside her home makes her unprepared to defend herself against the outside predation of Mr. Gower. At home she is “not permitted to move, to dress, or to cry out,” and so when faced with Mr. Gower, Naomi does not know to resist his advances.25 Mr. Gower carries her into his bathroom and he tells her, “Run away little girl.”26 Naomi does not run. “‘Don’t tell your mother,’” he whispers into her ear, and Naomi does not tell her mother.27 Naomi’s abuse by Mr. Gower illustrates the terrifying consequences of misapprehending the differing codes of propriety between “outside” and “inside.” Mr. Gower’s molestation initiates for Naomi a dark and confused negotiation between “outside” and “inside,” foreshadowing the later dissonance evoked by her exclusion and evacuation during WW II. She tells us, “It is not an isolated incident. Over and over again, not just Old Man Gower.”28 Naomi confates the later traumas and paradoxes of evacuation with her sexual molestation, confessing that she harbors a morbid fascination with her abuser, “The secret is this: I go to seek Old Man Gower in his hideaway. I clamber unbidden onto his lap. His hands are frightening and pleasurable. In the center of my body is a rift.”29 The “rift” in Naomi’s body refers to the division of her loyalties: in sharing a secret with Mr. Gower which she does not divulge to her mother, she indirectly betrays her mother. The symbolism extends to Naomi’s relationship with her nation: in claiming loyalty to Canada she is forced to disavow any affnity toward her Japanese heritage. Naomi’s experience with Mr. Gower distorts the divisions between “outside” with “inside,” and she struggles to redefne her relationship between the two supposed binaries of “outside” and “inside.” Naomi has both a horror and a fascination of the unknown beyond her family and home, but she develops similar ambivalence toward the safe “inside.” Naomi’s mother, for example, represents unconditional love and acceptance for Naomi, but Naomi also begins to associate her mother with passivity and victimization. When Naomi’s mother speaks in Japanese, Naomi interprets her words for us:

52

Kerry S. Kumabe “It was not good, was it,” Mother says. “Yoku nakatta ne.” Three words. Good, negation of good in the past tense, agreement with statement. It is not a language that promotes hysteria. There is no blame or pity. I am not responsible.30

Naomi interprets a lack of agency in her mother’s speech, suggesting that her mother’s word order removes the subject and creates a passive voice.31 The Japanese Canadians, forced to relocate to the interior ghost town of Slocan, draw together in a distinct evacuation community. The public bathhouse, a place of “deep bone warmth and rest,” becomes the site in which community alliances form and frictions emerge. Naomi emphasizes the intimacy of the community by describing their bathing as “one fesh, one family, washing each other.”32 In the bathhouse, friends are no different from family members, and the community members literally wash each other’s backs. In this place of safety and comfort, however, bitter conficts intensify and Naomi describes the tension, “I have never felt the edges that I fnd here tonight.”33 As Naomi and her family leave the bathhouse, one girl fnally taunts her, “‘You’re sick. You’ve all got TB . . . You sleep on the foor!’”34 This place of safety reveals more starkly the fractures within the intimate “family” community. The bathhouse reveals the artifciality of the forced commonalities as well as the intensifed differences of the evacuation, consequences of the unifed identity forced onto the Japanese Canadians in grouping them together in camps. The evacuation caused suspicion, division, and distrust within the community as “insiders” like Naomi and her family quickly become “outsiders,” and these boundaries break and reform. Even within Naomi’s own family, the evacuation experience intensifes differences. Aunty Emily collects newspaper clippings about WW II which Naomi reads, years later, in narrating her past to us. Naomi quotes one article ironically, a report on the Japanese Canadian evacuees in Alberta where she and her family were relocated to work on a beet farm: The newspaper clipping has a photograph of one family, all smiles, standing around a pile of beets. The caption reads, “Grinning and Happy” . . . Find Jap Evacuees Best Beet Workers . . . Japanese evacuees worked 19,500 acres of beets . . . Generally speaking Japanese evacuees have developed into the most effcient beet workers, many of them being better than the transient workers who cared for beets in southern Alberta before Pearl Harbor . . .35 The “offcial” voice of the newspaper convinces even Aunt Emily, who did not evacuate to Alberta, and she labels the article under the heading, “Facts about Alberta.”36 Naomi challenges, Facts about evacuees in Alberta? The fact is I never got used to it and I cannot, I cannot bear the memory . . . “Grinning and happy” and all

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

53

smiles standing around a pile of beets? That is one telling. It’s not how it was.37 Naomi asserts that her individual experience contradicts the homogenizing rationalizations of the article. The article suppresses details by generalizing the evacuation under the broad title, “Jap Evacuees.” The proper telling, Naomi suggests, is not in simplifying diverse experience under the designation of “Jap Evacuees,” but in her individual narration of “how it was.”38 Naomi’s telling portrays the psychological and emotional trauma of the evacuation, sentiments conspicuously missing from the economic and social facts in the “offcial” version. Naomi’s narration of Alberta contrasts distinctly with Aunt Emily’s “facts” about Alberta, illustrating also the divergence of evacuee experiences even within the same family. Evacuation caused irreversible differences between family members, and the conficting pasts within the Nakane family elicits sometimes contradictory strategies of narrating and understanding the evacuation. Naomi’s brother Stephen, for example, removes himself from the evacuation experience by developing his own intimate vocabulary that mocks the JapaneseEnglish words of Uncle Isamu and Obasan, adapting their family’s pidgin English into his own language. Naomi says, “Some of the ripe pidgin English phrases we pick up are three-part inventions – part English, part Japanese, part Sasquatch. ‘Sonuva bitch’ becomes ‘sakana fsh,’ ‘sakana’ meaning ‘fsh’ in Japanese.”39 Stephen distances himself from the awkward foreignness of Uncle Isamu and Obasan’s speech by appropriating their mispronounced words. This results in his “three-part” invention that combines Japanese and English to create something newly and uniquely Canadian. Stephen’s pidgin language also uses long-developed “insider” information, so when Aunt Emily visits from Toronto she laughs, “‘Is that how you talk out here? . . . What a place,’”40 As Stephen transforms his pidgin language further, Naomi says, “Stephen called margarine ‘Alberta,’ since Uncle pronounced Alberta “aru bata,” which in our Japanese English means ‘the butter that there is.’”41 Stephen fnds a second use for his pidgin, using it to make fun of their painful evacuation experience, and his playful pun on “Alberta” and “butter” distances him from their past hardship. Stephen recalls their suffering in Alberta by incorporating the word into his vocabulary but dissociates its meaning. This linguistic transformation thus transposes Stephen’s memory of Alberta, and he creates a new language in survival that at once expresses and suppresses meaning. Naomi strives, through her narration of Obasan, to locate her past somewhere within the conficts between her individual experiences, the “offcial” statements of fact, her family’s expression or suppression of events, and her confused confations of childhood abuse and traumatic evacuation memories. She attempts to separate her recollections from these confusing, contradictory representations and connect her past to that of her family, community, and nation. Her process of remembering, however, remains incomplete. Her older family members attempt to insulate her from the truth of her mother’s death, emphasizing constructions of elder generation and younger generation as an excuse to protect Naomi from

54

Kerry S. Kumabe

the past, as if she were a child. Naomi overhears, for example, a conversation between her uncle, Aunt Emily, and Obasan: “Kodomo no tame.” That phrase again. “For the sake of the children.” Which children? Stephen and me? Stephen in particular, home for the summer after his time in Toronto, can hardly be called a child. . . “But they are not children. They should be told,” Aunt Emily whispers.42 Aunt Emily, Uncle Isamu, and Obasan hide the truth of her mother’s grotesque death in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The generational division they insist upon maintaining becomes ironic however, because keeping silence “for the sake of the children,” stunts Naomi’s emotional development. Naomi cannot continue her process of recollection without knowing the fate of her mother. The refusal, within the family, to communicate exacerbates Naomi’s internal “rift,” provoking her to address her mother, “Gentle Mother, we were lost together in our silences. Our wordlessness was our mutual destruction.” Only when Uncle Isamu dies, do Aunt Emily and Obasan fnally relent and tell Naomi of her mother’s death. Naomi fnds bitter peace by telling us in indirect symbolism that the “seed” fnally “fowers with speech,” and she can fnd in her life the “living word.”43 Naomi, fnally erasing some of the mystery obscuring her past, can begin connecting her memories to the present. Naomi’s process of self-reconciliation continues even as the novel ends. Now that her family fnally reveals their “untold tales,” Naomi returns to the coulee where she walked with her uncle in the beginning of the novel. At the coulee, she symbolically reconnects to her individual, family, and national past. As the sun begins to rise, Naomi feels a connection with the land that she did not feel at the beginning of the novel, and she no longer feels outside of the time and space of her nation. Naomi replaces the static stillness which characterized the coulee for her before, with movement and progression, “water and stone dancing.”44 As Naomi looks out at the prairie, she remembers her now deceased uncle’s words, “Up at the top of the slope I can see the spot where Uncle sat last month looking out over the landscape. ‘Umi no yo,’ he always said. ‘It’s like the sea.’”45 Naomi fnally experiences the “blossoming” of speech, as she smells the wildfowers, “If I hold my head a certain way, I can smell them from where I am.”46 The novel ends with Naomi looking out onto the coulee, smelling the wildfowers. This uneasy ending leaves her sitting alone, without returning to society or her family. Kogawa leaves us without conclusive closure, encouraging us to form our own metaphors from Naomi’s discursive memories. We must engage with the text, connect the pasts Naomi has presented us with, and extract our own meanings.

John Okada’s No-No Boy John Okada’s No-No Boy (1957), a novel about the residual effects of Japanese American internment after WWII, portrays the homecoming of Ichiro Yamada,

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

55

a young Nisei who answered “no, no” to questions 27 and 28 of the mandatory internee loyalty questionnaire, and was subsequently removed from camp and jailed. John Okada himself was a Nisei veteran who served in WW II,47 but he fgures his character Ichiro Yamada as an exile, excluded from the greater American community, as well as by the Japanese American community. Okada portrays stark divisions between Nisei and Issei in the hatred and disgust Ichiro feels for his parents, and this contrasts distinctly from the generational harmony presented by Kogawa. Ichiro, through pained internal monologues, struggles to reconcile the binaries of identity enforced by the loyalty questionnaire: Japanese and American, citizen and alien, loyal and disloyal, “no, no” and “yes, yes.” The novel traces Ichiro’s discursive subjective movements, and ends with Ichiro’s persisting indecision and confusion. Critics such as Gayle Sato have argued that Ichiro affrms “Japanese American” only in rejecting everything Japanese.48 In my analysis of No-No Boy, I suggest that Okada’s narrative presents additional complexities beyond the opposition of “Japanese” and “American.” Ichiro does negotiate between binaries of “Japanese American,” but he also vacillates between cultural essentialism and relativity, fuid identity and static identity. Ichiro returns to Seattle’s Japan town after two years in prison for being a “no, no boy,” but his physical freedom contrasts with his mental constraint. As he walks through Seattle he thinks ironically to himself, “I walk confdently through the night over a small span of concrete which is part of the sidewalks which are part of the city which is part of the state and the country and the nation that is America.”49 Ichiro knows, however, that this is not yet “America” for him. He feels like an alien in his hometown, “an intruder in a world to which he had no claim.”50 When Ichiro meets an old acquaintance, Eto, he realizes how deeply he has internalized his “no, no” answer, and feels his answer still imprisoning him even now: “The walls had closed in and were crushing all the unspoken words back down into his stomach.”51 Ichiro’s aimless physical mobility through the rest of the novel matches the discursive pattern of his thoughts. As Ichiro continually leaves from and returns to Japan town, his mind revisits the moment when he stood before the judge and “of his own free will” said “no” to the army because “there was no other choice for him.”52 Ichiro’s circular physical motion parallels his circular intellectual motion, as he suffers between the contradiction of “free will” and “no choice.” He remains constrained by his internal dilemma. Ichiro agonizes between “yes” and “no,” treading back and forth between selfimposed mental boundaries: the loyalty questionnaire gave only the appearance of choice because answering “no” meant a jail sentence, and in this situation there could hardly be an ethical right and wrong, but Ichiro still struggles to grasp this illogical conundrum. Ichiro cannot help thinking in terms of morality, despite the overdetermined nature of the loyalty questionnaire. He wonders if there was “a life-giving yes” and “an empty no” even as he realizes that now “It is done and there can be no excuse.”53 Ichiro’s dilemma lies in deciding not that “yes” was the categorical “right” answer, but in deciding that “yes” was the right answer for him when it is now too late. Ichiro feels he was “wrong,” because he submitted to external

56

Kerry S. Kumabe

infuences by answering “no.” He did it to “please” his mother, and also as a reaction against the racial exclusion he suffered because his “face is not white” and his “parents are Japanese of the country Japan which attacked America.”54 When Ichiro’s brother Taro joins the army, Ichiro says to himself, “the weakness which was mine made the same weakness in you the strength to turn your back on Ma and Pa and makes it so frighteningly urgent for you to get into uniform to prove that you are not a part of me.”55 Ichiro associates his “weakness” with Taro’s because they both react, in divergent ways, to external infuences. Ichiro admires the Nisei who knew their own minds when the time came: “kids like Bob who died brave deaths fghting for something which was bigger than Japan or America . . . When the time came, they knew what was right for them and they went.”56 Ichiro determines that these soldiers who answered “yes,” fought for their own independence and self-affrmation. Ichiro imagines that “yes” was really the right answer for him: . . . one is not born in America and raised in America and taught in America and one does not speak and swear and drink and smoke and play and fght and see and hear in America among Americans in American streets and houses without becoming American and loving it.57 Ichiro fears that, on the one hand, his “no” will make him lose all claim to the nation he loves. On the other hand, he observes that being an American is a “terribly incomplete thing if one’s face is not white,” and that perhaps he will never have a claim to the nation he loves. Ichiro, from his contradictory and conficting ruminations, must somehow fnd solace between the two and reclaim his self-determination. In his subsequent encounters with family and acquaintances, he assesses their attitudes toward “no” or “yes,” and these people act as models against which Ichiro compares himself. He revisits his decision again and again. If Ichiro feels as if “no” was the “wrong” answer for him because he submitted to external infuences rather than make his own decision, he identifes his mother, Mrs. Yamada, as the primary infuence in his “no no” answer. Mrs. Yamada is a cultural essentialist who defnes her self-identity by her Japanese nationality, so that when Ichiro rhetorically asks her about herself, he says, “Tell me, Mother, who are you? What is it to be Japanese?” assuming that Mrs. Yamada binds who she is with what she considers is Japanese.58 Ichiro describes his mother as, “Japanese who breathed the air of America and yet had never lifted a foot from the land that was Japan.”59 After the war, Mrs. Yamada’s loyalty to Japan becomes completely irrational: “‘Japan did not lose the war because Japan could not possibly lose.’”60 She decides, with circular logic, that Japan could not lose the war for no reason other than it is Japan. Ichiro resents his mother, not necessarily because she represents Japan to him, as critic Sato has suggested,61 but because she tries to impose a fxed identity onto Ichiro and keep him “completely Japanese.” It was a mistake to leave Japan and come to America and to have two sons and it was a mistake to think that you could keep us completely Japanese in

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

57

a country such as America. With me, you almost succeeded, or so it seemed. Sometimes I think it would have been better had you fully succeeded. You would have been happy and so might I have known a sense of completeness.62 Ichiro cannot make peace with his mother’s attempts at controlling his cultural identity. Mrs. Yamada tells Ichiro, “Yes, I will be dead when you go into the army of the Americans. I will be dead when you decide to go into the army of the Americans. I will be dead when you begin to cease to be Japanese.”63 Mrs. Yamada denies the possibility of Ichiro being both Japanese and American. Her repetitive statements emphasize new fatality with each sentence, and her use of “will” and “when” bestow immediate imminence to the events she describes: all evidence of her attempts to control Ichiro. She “will” be dead the moment Ichiro indicates any lessening of being Japanese. When his mother commits suicide, Ichiro feels “only disgust and irritation,” and goes so far as to say, “She is dead and I am not sorry. I feel a little bit freer, a bit more hopeful.”64 Ichiro feels as if, without his mother’s domination, he might choose a more fuid identity and therefore might fnd self-reconciliation. With his mother’s death, Ichiro hopes to progress out of the binaries which trap him. Okada suggests that Ichiro can fnd peace by understanding his past and quieting his mind. He can escape his ruminations when he fnds answers in his analyses of “no, no” and “yes, yes,” but he must discursively revisit the memories which imprison him before he can fnd intellectual relief. Ichiro thus searches for redemption through self-affrmation, but his self-affrmation depends also upon affrmation from external sources. Ichiro meets for example Mr. Carrick, a white engineer who accepts Ichiro regardless of his “no, no” boy past and his draft avoidance. In Mr. Carrick, Ichiro discerns, “the real nature of the country against which he had almost fully turned his back.”65 Ichiro fgures Mr. Carrick as representative of the “real nature” of America because he freely seeks friendships outside his racial group: “like for like meant classes and distinctions and hatred and prejudice and wars and misery, and that wasn’t what Mr. Carrick would want at all, and he was on the right track.”66 Mr. Carrick recognizes Ichiro as an American rather than as a Japanese, and Ichiro sees Mr. Carrick’s external affrmation as an alternative to the binary formulations of “Japanese” and “American” which confront Ichiro elsewhere.67 Mr. Carrick’s attitude of acceptance contrasts with Freddie, Ichiro’s friend and fellow “no no boy,” who reviles everything he can of both “Japanese” and “American.” Freddie, “blindly sought relief in total, hateful rejection of self and family and society.”68 Ichiro assesses Freddie not only by the absoluteness of his rejections, but also in Freddie’s refusal to engage in the self-analysis which so absorbs Ichiro. Ichiro seeks “partial release” in inner exploration, while Freddie externalizes his conficts in a frantic mania that he calls “just livin.’”69 Ichiro, through Freddie’s example, sees no hope for “redemption” in Freddie’s blind rejection of self and

58

Kerry S. Kumabe

society or in his blind rejection of self-comprehension. Indeed, Okada ends the novel with Freddie’s violent death, suggesting that Freddie’s demise results not only from his self-imposed exile from society, but also from his failure to selfanalyze. With Mr. Carrick and Freddie, Okada contrasts the “partial release” Ichiro seeks within himself with the external affrmation for which Ichiro also searches. Okada connects Ichiro’s conficts between internal redemption and external affrmation with Ichiro’s Nisei friend Kenji. Kenji, unlike Ichiro, is a decorated Nisei war hero with a medal, a car, a pension, and a war wound. Okada tells us that Ichiro and Kenji are, “two extremes, the Japanese who was more American than most Americans […] the other who was neither Japanese nor American.”70 Kenji and Ichiro, despite representing “two extremes,” fnd that they bear common internal conficts, and because of this they feel an intimacy with each other that they do not share with others. The other Nisei veterans despise Ichiro for being a “no no boy,” but Kenji fnds more commonality with Ichiro than he does with the other veterans. Eto, one Nisei veteran, spits on Ichiro and sneers, “‘Nono boy, huh? […] Rotten bastard. Shit on you.’”71 Bull, another Nisei veteran, tells Ichiro, “‘I wasn’t fghtin’ my friggin’ war for shits like you,’” as if as a soldier he embodies America, while Ichiro is “you” on the outside.72 Okada fgures Kenji, unlike Bull and Eto, as a noble soldier. Kenji is the quintessential valorous citizen, generous and accepting, but despite all of his heroism and bravery he seeks the same internal reconciliation and external redemption that Ichiro seeks. Kenji fought because “he was Japanese and, at the same time, had to prove to the world that he was not Japanese that the turmoil was in his soul and urged him to enlist.”73 When Kenji and the other Nisei veterans return to Seattle, he tells Ichiro that they are still not “frst-class citizens” and “are still trapped in unseen walls.”74 Kenji tries in vain to make sense of the past, “so that the pattern could be seen and studied and the answers deduced therefrom,” but he realizes with despair that “there was no answer because there was no pattern.”75 Kenji cannot reconcile “Japanese” and “American” in himself, because those around him impose identity upon him. Kenji’s subsequent internal crisis literally eats away at him: he approaches death as his amputated leg inexplicably rots.76 Both “no, no” boy and veteran suffer similarly, proving that they are not such extreme opposites. Kenji asks Ichiro, “‘I’ve got eleven inches to go and you’ve got ffty years, maybe sixty. Which would you rather have?’”77 Kenji gave a “life-giving yes” to the United States, and is supposedly more American than most Americans, but he knows that for him, “‘It wasn’t worth it.’”78 In the appearance of “free choice,” Kenji shows Ichiro that he gave the “right” choice for him, but America is still not his to possess. Ichiro thus continues his process of determining who is “Japanese” and who is “American,” negotiating between boundaries Kenji shows him to be unstable. Okada illustrates the shifts in boundaries by representing shifting defnitions of the derogatory term “Jap.” He suggests that those on the margins defer their perceived outsider status onto others by labeling them “Japs.” Ichiro is a “Jap” to the African Americans who pass through Seattle’s Japan town and taunt him,

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

59

“‘Jap-boy, To-ki-yo; Jap-boy, To-ki-yo.’”79 Ichiro is also a “Jap” to the other Nisei because he is a “no no” boy: “That’s a Jap, fellas,” . . . “Talks Jap, I bet.” “Say something,” egged the frst youth. “Say something in Jap. You oughta be good at that.” “Yeah, I wanta hear.” “Me too. Say no-no.”80 In this dialogue, the Nisei defne talking “Jap” as saying the English words “nono,” rather than actually speaking in Japanese. They reveal “Jap” as purely an American construction. Labeling Ichiro as an outsider, these Nisei by opposition they defne themselves as insiders. Ichiro, in turn, defnes himself against his parents, characterizing them as “Japs.” He tells his father, “‘I’ve ruined my life for you, for Ma . . . You’re a Jap.”81 By labeling his parents as “Japs,” Ichiro determines them as outsiders, while he makes himself an insider by comparison. Ichiro recognizes, however, that he cannot defne outsiders and insiders in so simple terms as “Japs” and “Americans.” He says, “And the young Japanese hates the not-so-young Japanese who is more Japanese than himself, and the not-so-young, in turn, hates the old Japanese who is all Japanese and, therefore, even more Japanese than he . . .”82 Ichiro realizes that Nisei use “Jap” to include themselves in the nation by excluding others as more or less Japanese. Kenji similarly tells Ichiro that Bull and Eto, “‘pick on you because they’re vulnerable. They think just because they went and packed a rife they’re different but they aren’t and they know it. They’re still Japs.’”83 The designation of “Jap,” just like the designations of “no, no” boy or veteran, Issei or Nisei, is just another metaphor employed to exclude some and include others. The uses of “Jap” shift and change with the unstable boundaries of outside and inside If Ichiro attempts to defne himself against the other characters he encounters, none of the identities he invokes remain constant. Even Ichiro’s relationship to his parents proves ambivalent, and he alternately feels abhorrence and sympathy for his mother and father, whom he derides as “Japs.” Ichiro recognizes that his mother’s fanaticism about Japan arises as a defensive response to the prejudice and exclusion she experiences in America.84 Okada refects Ichiro’s ambivalence toward his “Jap” parents through characterizations of language difference and similarity. Ichiro loathes his father’s “gently spoken Japanese,” and his father’s awkwardly spoken English: Taro is eighteen today. He came home at lunchtime, when he should be in school. Mama said: “Why are you home?” “It is my birthday,” he said. “Why are you home?” said Mama, “why are you not in school like you should be?”85 Mr. Yamada’s sentences are short, controlled, and precise and his stilted language displays little overt emotion. Ichiro, like his father, also narrates the highly

60

Kerry S. Kumabe

emotional scene of youngest son Taro leaving at 18 to serve in the army, but he betrays emotion much differently: Taro, my brother who is not my brother, you are no better than I. You are only more fortunate that the war years found you too young to carry a gun. You are fortunate like the thousands of others who, for various reasons of age and poor health and money and infuence, did not happen to be called to serve in the army, for their answers might have been the same as mine. And you are fortunate because the weakness which was mine made the same weakness in you the strength to turn your back on Ma and Pa and makes it so frighteningly urgent for you to get into uniform to prove that you are not a part of me.86 Ichiro’s profuse, agonized, internal monologues, flled with chaotic run-on sentences, contrast sharply with his father’s clipped phrasing. Despite these immediate differences, close analysis suggests that repetition characterizes both Ichiro and Mr. Yamada’s narrations. Ichiro repeats, “You are . . . fortunate,” so that although his sentences are longer than his father’s sentences, his word order is similar. Both Ichiro and his father employ repetition to revisit and redefne the same concepts, effectively reforming the situation they narrate. Ichiro and Mr. Yamada’s narrative similarities suggest that their identities are not defned in opposition, even though their generational differences are fraught with contempt and discord. Ichiro, through his discursive interior journeying, strives to rectify the binaries of “Japanese” and “American” to understand his past. Contradictions emerge the more Ichiro seeks to order his experiences, and Ichiro’s internal conficts persist. The “wholeness and belonging” Ichiro seeks remains elusive.87 Ichiro cannot locate “Japanese” or “American,” or determine outside from inside: They’re on the outside looking in . . . just like everybody else I’ve ever seen or known. Even Mr. Carrick. Why isn’t he in? Why is he on the outside squandering his goodness on outcasts like me? Maybe the answer is that there is no in. Maybe the whole damned country is pushing and shoving and screaming to get into someplace that doesn’t exist, because they don’t know that the outside could be the inside if only they would stop all this pushing and shoving and realize that. That makes sense. I’ve got the answer all fgured out . . . And then he thought . . . there was no more answer.88 The internal redemption Ichiro seeks remains dependent upon external affrmation, but because of the contradictions imposed upon him from outside, Ichiro cannot reconcile himself. He wishes to belong, Japanese or American, and says, I wish with all my heart that I were Japanese or that I were American. I am neither and I blame you and I blame myself and I blame the world which is made up of many countries which fght with each other.89

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

61

By the close of the novel, Ichiro remains an intruder in a world to which he has no claim. Ichiro once again walks alone through the streets of Seattle, and he asks himself, A glimmer of hope – was that it? […] He walked along, thinking, searching, thinking and probing, and, in the darkness of the alley of the community that was a tiny bit of America, he chased that faint and elusive insinuation of promise as it continued to take shape in mind and in heart.90 Ichiro returns to the streets, just as Obasan’s Naomi returns to the coulee, and he continues his process of ordering his past to connect himself with America. He has not yet escaped his mental imprisonment but carries on thinking and probing. The novel ends in the open-ended present and we leave Ichiro without defnitive resolution. We must engage with his constant formulations of identity and extract our own meaning from his uneven and inconclusive process.

Conclusion World War II intensifed American desires to retain the strength of national unity in defending against threats abroad. The United States controlled fears of enemy invasions from the outside, by controlling minority Japanese Americans on the inside. Japanese American internment, as a consequence, forced polarized notions of identity onto the minority Japanese Americans and highlighted gaps between American democratic principles of inclusion and racially motivated practices of exclusion. Internment reiterated the contradictions of the American nation: the desire to maintain unifying fctions of a shared origin and past, while continually incorporating new immigrant members into the nation. The cultural representations in this chapter, produced from the emotionally fraught Japanese American internment, reveal the ambivalences of America in representing the ambivalences of American history. They stand in opposition to historical narratives that risk over-simplifying history and ignoring the complexities of individual experiences within historical events. History is constantly being remade as the material conditions of the present infuence interpretations of the past, but progressive, linear narratives might fail to represent this discursive process. To undermine the authoritative voice of the historical narrative, an alternate notion of achronological time should be employed in narrative to represent the continual process of producing history. The diverse range of Japanese American internment narratives in this chapter illustrate that, even while maintaining chronological history, individuals extract their own patterns from the chaos of the past. Historical narrative in any form is a distinct, complex individual production. These narratives include multiple, conficting points of view or combine text with images, illustrating that history is in fact comprised of multiple individual histories. The reader must engage in partnership with these heterogeneous representations to understand these internment experiences.

62

Kerry S. Kumabe

Obasan and No-No Boy combine historical fact with shifting subjective reality to represent the continued process of reformulating and understanding the past. These novels illustrate that, as the material conditions of Japanese Americans and Canadians continued to change, evacuation and internment took on varying significance. Experiences in WW II continued to have a diverse impact upon the immigrant Issei, the American-born Nisei, the Japan-educated Kibei, the veterans and no-no boys, the children and adults, and the men and women. The central characters of Naomi in Obasan and Ichiro in No-No Boy engage in a continuous process of self-realization as they struggle to distinguish their individual pasts from the pasts of their families, communities, and nations. Ichiro and Naomi continue their project of comprehending at the close of the novels, as they cannot rectify history with present self-recognition. Joy Kogawa and John Okada suggest, through Naomi and Ichiro, that the whole self, as it lives symbolically complete in metaphor, is greater than the sum of its parts. The uneven endings of these novels engage us, as readers, to extract our own meaning from the processes in which Naomi and Ichiro struggle. The lack of resolution and full self-realization in Obasan’s Naomi and NoNo Boy’s Ichiro refects the similar lack of closure in the non-fctional accounts of internment. Internment symbolically placed Japanese Americans outside America, causing a confict of identity, legislating polarities between Japanese and American. Narrating the internment experience is, in a way, writing from outside the nation to inside the nation: joining Japanese with American to create Japanese American identity. There is a lack of resolution in the creative productions I analyze, ending without clear self-realization, suggesting that the process of forming a Japanese American identity is still a continuous, conficted process.

Notes 1 Paul Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformation of an Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996) 93. 2 Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993) 47. 3 Chester Tanaka, Go For Broke (Richmond: Go For Broke, Inc., 1982) 4, 389. 4 Jacobus tenBroek, Prejudice, War and the Constitution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 171. 5 Wernor Sollors. Beyond Ethnicity. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 5. 6 Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London: Routledge, 1990) 22. 7 Salman Rushie, “Imaginary Homelands,” Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–91. (London: Granta Books, 1992) 12. 8 Cynthia F. Wong, “Joy Kogawa,” Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000) 162. 9 Ken Adachi. The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians. (McClelland and Stewart, 1976) 234. 10 Adachi, 252. 11 Forrest Emmanual La Violette. The Canadian Japanese and World War II. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948) 72. 12 Adachi, 346.

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

63

13 King-Kok Cheung, Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) 154. 14 Gayle Fujita Sato, “Momotaro’s Exile: John Okada’s No-No Boy,” Reading the Literatures of Asian America, ed. Amy Ling (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). 15 Joy Kogawa, Obasan (Toronto: Penguin, 1983) 50. 16 Kogawa,194. 17 Kogawa, 40. 18 Kogawa, 3. 19 Kogawa, 2. 20 Kogawa, 32. 21 Kogawa, 47. 22 Kogawa, 47–48. 23 Kogawa, 48. 24 Kogawa, 58. 25 Kogawa, 64. 26 Kogawa, 64. 27 Kogawa, 64. 28 Kogawa, 61. 29 Kogawa, 65. 30 Kogawa, 160. 31 Kogawa, 160. 32 Kogawa, 163. 33 Kogawa, 163. 34 Kogawa, 165–166. 35 Kogawa, 193–194. 36 Kogawa, 193. 37 Kogawa, 194, 197. 38 Kogawa, 194. 39 Kogawa, 218. 40 Kogawa, 218. 41 Kogawa, 13. 42 Kogawa, 219. 43 Kogawa, 243. 44 Kogawa, 247. 45 Kogawa, 247. 46 Kogawa, 247. 47 Frank Chin, “Afterword,” No-No Boy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976) 256. 48 Sato, 239. 49 John Okada, No-No Boy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976) 34. 50 Okada, 1. 51 Okada, 3. 52 Okada, 1. 53 Okada, 241, 34. 54 Okada, 12, 54. 55 Okada, 81. 56 Okada, 31. 57 Okada, 16. 58 Okada, 104. 59 Okada, 11. 60 Okada, 24. 61 Sato, 245.

64 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Kerry S. Kumabe Okada, 186. Okada, 42. Okada, 185, 196. Okada, 154. Okada, 157. Okada, 51. Okada, 242. Okada, 242, 202. Okada, 73. Okada, 4. Okada, 247. Okada, 121. Okada, 104. Okada, 136. Apollo Amocho, “Resilient ImagiNations: No-No Boy, Obasan and the Limits of Minority Discourse,” Mosaic 3 (2000): 35. Okada, 61. Okada, 60. Okada, 5. Okada, 78. Okada, 115. Okada, 136. Okada, 163. Okada, 104. Okada, 6, 66. Okada, 81. Okada, 154. Okada, 160. Okada, 16. Okada, 251.

Bibliography Works Cited: Primary Sources Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. London: Penguin, 1997. Bell, Paul. “Paul Bell.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003. Egami, Hatsuye. “Wartime Diary.” In All Aboard, edited by Toshio Mori, et al. Spring, 1944. Furuya, Yasumitsu. “Yasumitsu ‘Yas’ Furuya.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003. Hill, Kimi Kodani. Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2000. Ishimaru, Kenzo. “Kenzo Ishimaru.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003.

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

65

Katayama, Hiro. “Our Younger Generation.” In All Aboard, edited by Toshio Mori et al. Spring, 1944. Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Toronto: Penguin, 1983. Mori, Toshio. “The Travelers.” In All Aboard. edited by Toshio Mori, et al. Spring, 1944. Ochi, Samao. “Samao Ochi.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003. Okada, John. No-No Boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976. Okubo, Mine. Citizen 13660. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1946. Sugihara, George. “Footprints in the Dust: Chronology.” In All Aboard, edited by Toshio Mori et al. Spring, 1944. Sumimoto, Masaru. “Masaru ‘Wacky’ Sumimoto.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003. Suyemoto, Toyo. “Mr. and Mrs. Issei.” In All Aboard, edited by Toshio Mori et al. Spring, 1944. Takaki, Ronald. From A Different Shore. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989. Tanaka, Chester. Go For Broke. Richmond: Go For Broke, Inc., 1982. Tani, Harry. “Year’s End.” In All Aboard, edited by Toshio Mori et al. Spring, 1944. Utsumi, Bob. “Bob Utsumi.” In Blossoms in the Desert: Topaz High School Class of 1945, edited by Darrell Hamamoto. San Francisco: Giant Horse Printing, 2003.

Secondary Sources Adachi, Ken. The Enemy That Never Was: A History of the Japanese Canadians. Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. Amocho, Apollo O. “Resilient ImagiNations: No-No Boy, Obasan and the Limits of Minority Discourse.” Mosaic 33 (2000): 1–35. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1999. Bhabha, Homi “Introduction: Narrating the Nation.” In Nation and Narration, edited byHomi Bhabha. London: Routledge, 1990. ———. “DissemiNation.” In Nation and Narration, edited by Homi Bhabha. London: Routledge, 1990. Bosworth, Allan R. America’s Concentration Camps. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1967. Burgard, Timothy Anglin. “Introduction.” In Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata’s Art of the Internment, edited by Kimi Kodani Hill. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2000. Cheung, King-Kok. Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Chin, Frank. “Afterword.” No-No Boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976. Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Fender, Stephen. Sea Changes: British Emigration & American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hall, Stuart. “New Ethnicities.” In Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality, edited by Linda Martin Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta. Cambridge: Blackwell, 2003.

66

Kerry S. Kumabe

Hosokawa, Bill. Nisei: The Quiet Americans. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1969. Kitano, Harry H.L. Japanese Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969. La Violette, Forrest Emmanual. The Canadian Japanese and World War II. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948. Lowe, Lisa. Immigrant Acts. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. Manzione, Joseph. I Am Looking to the North for My Life 1876–1881. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991. Nash, Phil Tajitsu. “Mine Okubo: Celebrating Art.” December 15, 2000 http:// www.asianweek.com/2000_12_15/news7_washj.html. Olney, James. Metaphors of Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Renan, Ernest. “What is a Nation?” In Nation and Narration, edited by Homi Bhabha. London: Routledge, 1990. Rushdie, Salman. “Imaginary Homelands.” In Imaginary Homelands: Essays in Criticism 1981–91. London: Granta Books, 1992. Sato, Gayle. “Momotaro’s Exile: John Okada’s No-No Boy.” In Reading the Literatures of Asian America, edited by Amy Ling. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Spickard, Paul. Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformation of an Ethnic Group. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. Sollors, Wernor. Beyond Ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. tenBroek, Jacobus. Prejudice, War and the Constitution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Tsuda, Moritake. Ideals of Japanese Painting. Tokyo: Sanseido Co., 1940. Wong, Cynthia F. “Joy Kogawa.” In Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London: Routledge, 1990.

Additional Works Consulted Primary Sources Bulosan, Carlos. America is in the Heart. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973. Chan, Jeffery Paul, Frank Chin, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong, eds. The Big Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Penguin: New York, 1991. Chin, Frank. Donald Duk. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1991. Chin, Frank, Jeffrey Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, eds. Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian-American Writers. Washington: Howard University Press, 1974. Eaton, Edith (Sui Sin Far). Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings. Edited by Amy Ling and Annette White-Parks. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Eaton, Winnifred (Onoto Watanna). A Half Caste and Other Writings. Edited by Linda Trinh Moser and Elizabeth Rooney. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. ———. Miss Nume of Japan. Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1899.

Exorcising the Yellow Perils Within

67

Hagedorn, Jessica, and Elaine Kim, eds. Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian-American Fiction. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003. Kadohata, Cynthia. The Floating World. London: Minerva, 1990. Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior. South Yarmouth: Curley, 1978. Lee, Rachel. The Americas of Asian American Literature: Gendered Fictions of Nation and Transnation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Mori, Toshio. Yokohama, California. Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1985, c1949. ———. The Chauvanist and Other Stories. Los Angelos: Asian American Studies Center, University of California, 1979. Rohmer, Sax. The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu. London: Cassel, 1913. Wand, David Hsin-Fu, ed. Asian-American Heritage: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry. New York: Washington Square Press, 1974. Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Yamashita, Karen Tei. Through the Arc of the Rainforest. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1990.

Secondary Sources Ammons, Elizabeth. Conficting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn of the Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Ammons, Elizabeth, and Annette White-Parks, eds. Tricksterism in Turn of the Century American Literature. Hanover: University Press of England, 1994. Chang, Gordon H., ed. Asian Americans and Politics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001. Cheung, King-Kok, and Stan Yogi. Asian-American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1988. Clegg, Jenny. Fu Manchu and the ‘Yellow Peril’: The Making of a Racist Myth. Stokeon-Trent: Trentham Books, 1994. Cole, Jean Lee. The Literary Voices of Winnifred Eaton: Redefning Ethnicity and Authenticity. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Eng, David L. Racial Castration. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. Grice, Helena. Negotiating Identities: An Introduction to Asian-American Women’s Writing. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. ———. Beginning Ethnic American Literature. Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2001. Hsu, Kai Yu. Asian-American Authors. New York: Houghton Miffin College, 1972. Kain, Geoffrey. Ideas of Home: Literature of Asian Migration. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997. Kim, Elaine. Asian-American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. King, Desmond. Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Lim, Shirley Geok-lin, and Amy Ling. Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Ling, Amy. Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990.

68

Kerry S. Kumabe

Minter, David. A Cultural History of the American Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Noble-Brewer, Edith. “The Craze for the Oriental.” New Idea Woman’s Magazine 9 (1903): 81–82. Okihiro, Gary et al. ed. Refections on Shattered Windows. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1988. ———. Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture. Seatle: University of Washington Press, 1994. Rudinger de Rodyenko, S.P. “Chinese Characters in American Fiction.” Bookman 58 (November 1923): 255–259. de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America, vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1945. White-Parks, Annette. Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia. “Stakes of Textual Border Crossing.” American Literature Studies: A Methodological Reader 7 (2003): 349. ———. Reading Asian-American Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia, and Stephen H. Sumida. A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2001. Wu, William F. The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American Fiction, 1850–1940. Hamden: Archon Books, 1982.

4

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide by “telling the world” Active Subjectivity and Collective Memory in Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father Nelly Mok

Introduction First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers published in 2000, is the frst of the three autobiographical narratives written by Cambodian American writer and peace activist Loung Ung. While After They Killed Our Father: A Refugee From the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind released in 2005,1 and Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness published in 2012, focus on Ung’s and her family’s lives after the Killing Fields era, in post-Democratic Kampuchean Cambodia and in America, First They Killed My Father narrates Ung’s childhood experience of the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. As both a childhood memoir and a testimonial narrative of personal, familial, and communal trauma, First They Killed My Father exceeds the strict boundaries of autobiography while falling within the “autobiographical mode” (Gilmore 10), in the wake of the majority of literary productions from frst and “one-and-a-half” generation2 Cambodian Americans, who have seen in the genre of life writing a beftting means of telling about their traumatic experience, mostly since the 1980s,3 as Cambodian refugees started arriving in the United States right before or soon after the fall of Democratic Kampuchea in 1979. Ung’s memoir offers a manifold writing space wherein the trauma-shattered Cambodian “I” can make sense of its fragmented, inchoate past through narrativization and where its self-uncovering/self-recovering quest relies both on a private move, from victimhood to survival, and a public move, from silence to testimony. Still, if speaking out – another act of survival4 – that is, naming, bearing witness to the abuse, and having it recognized by others, is essential in the survivor’s healing process, remembering what was endured, what has been overcome, what was lost, and what has resisted chaos, time, and distance proves equally vital. Therefore, this chapter examines the therapeutic, evidentiary, and commemorative functions of Ung’s testimonial memoir. It will probe the ways Ung’s self-writing contributes to her own and her community’s catharsis as it engages the boundary between accuracy and truthfulness traditionally underlying testimonial writing, and hints at the Cambodian American subject’s complex national and cultural affliations.

70

Nelly Mok

Representing the Traumatic Past, Telling a Story of Survival How can one who survived traumatic events and experiences tell and write about one’s past? How can a survivor ever manage to convey what fundamentally eschews language and yet incessantly presses for being let out? In The Limits of Autobiography (2001), her essential refection on “the self-representation of trauma,” Leigh Gilmore stresses the survivor’s extremely arduous task of speaking out, of sharing with others what confounds utterance. Refecting on the ability of the autobiographical genre to rightfully represent trauma, Gilmore points out its limits while at the same time shedding light on its creative productiveness: far from letting autobiography’s generic constraints inhibit their self-representation of trauma, the writers whose works Gilmore focuses on decidedly “swerv[e] from the center of autobiography toward its outer limits” (14), exploring the outskirts of the genre, where their traumatic experience can take up residence. Still, even as those writers “move away from recognizably autobiographical forms,” Gilmore observes, “they engage autobiography’s central questions” (7). At stake in their choice to test the limits of the genre, is their problematic and polemical crossing of the frontier between truth and “lies” which the autobiographer, as “both unique and representative,” is traditionally challenged to respect (Gilmore 5–8). In the Author’s Note to First They Killed My Father, Ung hints at her paradoxical status as the writer of a childhood memoir and a testimony of the Cambodian genocide, assigning a representative value to her personal, self-representational story and claiming herself as the spokesperson for Cambodian survivors of the Khmer Rouge: “This is a story of survival: my own and my family’s. Though these events constitute my experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians” (10). Nevertheless, rather than letting her trauma narrative be constrained and/or partly negated within the potentially silencing narrow opposition between truth and lies, Ung – like the authors studied by Gilmore – commits herself to privileging personal, subjective truthfulness over historical accuracy, as will be highlighted throughout this chapter. Ung departs from one of the pivotal limits of autobiography precisely in the passages where she imagines the circumstances of her parents’ and her sisters’ deaths. Her systematic use of italics in those passages clearly signals her choice to cross the threshold between autobiography and fction to the reader, and somehow exonerates her, by bracketing the fctionalized passages off, from the potential charge of fabrications unbeknown to the reader. Such passages unmistakably play a crucial role in Ung’s healing process, wording the trauma of sudden and inexplicable loss and helping her to grieve her loved ones more properly by rehumanizing their deaths. If the italics act as a convention meant to notify the reader about the temporary intrusions of fction into Ung’s autobiography, they function as visual/typographical reminders of the black holes which her relatives’ Khmer Rouge-induced

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 71 disappearances have dug in her memory of the years under the Khmer Rouge.5 However, at the same time the italics make the loved ones’ absences manifest: they literally – or rather, visually – delineate a space wherein Ung can precisely attempt to fll those holes up by imagining the answers she was brutally and irremediably denied under the Khmer Rouge. As Khatharya Um notes, [d]isappearances and mass graves are especially signifcant in a Buddhist country because they deprive surviving relatives of the ability to perform the necessary rituals to ensure the transmigration of the soul […] engender[ing] a psychical sense of ‘being stuck’ not only for the soul of the departed but for the survivors as well. (qtd. in Troeung, 208) Crucial to Ung’s grieving and healing process is therefore the possibility for her to “reimagin[e] wholeness,” in Jacqui Alexander’s words (qtd. in Troeung, 14), as illustrated by her fctionalized passages which stand out as potent sites for wholeness wherein the bodies and souls of the deceased can be imaginatively recovered. The therapeutic value of such passages lies in the fact that they give Ung’s adult self the grieving space she lacked as a child, allowing her to feel and word what was then numbed and repressed by shock and survival instinct: desperate hope for any circumstance that might have alleviated her kin’s fear, as she pictures her father being “blindfolded” by a soldier and thankfully “spared from having to see the executions of many others” (132), as well as painful awareness of their dying alone. Yet, though each passage is told from the imagined perspective of the deceased one, thereby highlighting the victim’s loneliness in the face of impending death, it allows Ung to stand by her relatives’ side as they live their last moments: “In my mind’s eye, I see Keav breathing deeply and trying to fll the void in her heart” (118); “My spirit cries and hovers down over [Pa]. My spirit wraps invisible arms around him, making him cry even more” (132). Imagining her sister’s and her father’s deaths from their perspectives enables Ung to re-humanize their deaths, to restore the materiality and uniqueness of their bodies, voices, and perspectives – thanks to her imagination and to her memories of them – against the anonymizing circumstances of their disappearances. Only then can she start mourning them and hope to come to terms with their irremediable absence: “‘Pa,’ I whisper, ‘I have to let you go now. I cannot be here and live.’ Tears wash across my body as I fy away, leaving Pa there by himself” (132). What these passages strikingly share is their focus on the powerful bonds and the invulnerable love that cement the Ung family despite the Khmer Rouge’s relentless attacks on familial ties – the Angkar, the one all-powerful Khmer Rouge party, being imposed as Cambodians’ only family in Democratic Kampuchea – and beyond death: “[Pa] focuses his mind on us, bringing up our faces one by one. He wants our faces to be the last things he sees as he leaves the earth” (132).

72

Nelly Mok

Imagining her mother and her baby sister’s last moments before their execution, Ung articulates her mother’s yearned-for reunion with her beloved husband: Biting her lips, she thinks of Pa and wonders if he was this afraid when they took him away […] Parts of her will always believe he is alive somewhere. It has been almost two years and still she misses him every minute of the waking hour […] Maybe she would be with him again soon. (193) The passage culminates in a poignant gesture of maternal love as Ung pictures her mother “hug[ging] Geak tight to her chest, as if trying to push her baby back into her belly to spare her from the pain”(193), the fantasized mother-sister regression to prenatal symbiosis both countering the separation of death and releasing the text’s healing, enabling power. Ung’s shift in perspectives in these passages points to the productiveness and the healing value of self-representational stories of trauma told from the margins of autobiography: by swerving from an autobiographical account toward a plural, familial auto/biographical story,6 Ung creates a narrative space wherein her family can become whole again. The potential for wholeness, which those passages evidently carry by allowing Ung’s fantasized reunion with her dead loved ones, is what Dori Laub identifes as testimony’s potential for repossession in his essay “Truth and Testimony” (74). Ung’s testimonial narrative is indeed an act of repossession, whereby she can acknowledge and pay homage to the familial ties, the fundamental human bonds that stood up to the Khmer Rouge’s determination to annihilate – kamtech in Khmer – any trace of pre-Democratic Kampuchea society. Ung’s childhood memoir offers a self-recovering space where the worst experiences of loss can be countered with the enduring memory of the lost ones’ indeprivable love: “I know what it feels like to be loved. Pa loved me and believed in me. […] I do possess the one thing I need to make something of myself one day: I have everything my Pa gave me” (217, my emphasis). If autobiography provides victims of trauma with the vital narrative space within which they can attempt to make sense of their chaotic, fragmented past and (re)shape it so as to make it sharable and accessible to their readers, the subgenre of the survivor narrative stands for a particularly self-/empowering means of representing the victim’s – and his/her community’s – traumatic past: not only does it “giv[e] witness” to the survivor’s journey out of catastrophe, but it also and most importantly “hold[s] abusers rather than victims accountable” (Rose 4306). It is no wonder then that the “survivor motif,” which characterizes Vietnamese American “refugee literature,”7 as identifed by Teri Shaffer Yamada, similarly underpins most Cambodian American self-writing narratives of the genocide. As Susan Rose states, “th[is] act of naming and narrating seizes the story from the violator” (Rose 4306). Rose’s defnition of the genre actually articulates what fuels the healing process of survivors of the Cambodian genocide, for whom telling about the past necessitates recovering trust in words which the Khmer Rouge deprived of any liberating and exculpating purpose. Indeed,

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 73 “writing one’s autobiography” – a Khmer Rouge phrase that means confessing one’s “crimes” against the Angkar, and naming potential enemies and traitors of the regime – was the only way for the arrested and tortured victims to be fnally put out of their misery. Hence, only by re-appropriating the autobiographical act, namely by ridding it of its self-accusing and libeling function in order to reassign it its self-revealing power, can survivors relate their experiences under the Khmer Rouge. Examining the cathartic process underlying Holocaust literature, Régine Waintrater insists on the structuring role of the survivor’s “personal motif,” the “credo” which is to be recurrently featured through edifying episodes as the narrative unfolds and which formulates the “moral” underpinning the survivor’s parable. Because of its explanatory value, such “mythical construction” proves foundational to the survivor’s self-restoring quest which can thereby rely on his/ her symbolical origins, the essential, timeless core of his/her own self which has invariably stood up to the assaults of historical contingencies (122–125). Therefore, by narrativizing her experience of the genocide as a survivor story and expecting her readers to receive it as such (“This is a story of survival,” she announces in the Author’s Note), Ung hopes to write herself out of the dazed, terror-stricken senselessness of the past (Waintrater 22), toward coherence and wholeness. Ung’s choice of the childhood memoir to tell her story points to the dialectic nature of the act of recollecting for it offers a space where “[her] child self [can be given] back her voice,” as the writer herself explains (“Loung Ung Interview”), so that she is able to word, tell her experience of the years under the Khmer Rouge, and share it, not only with the readers but also with her adult self. The childhood memoir allows the abused child self and the adult self to become more aware of each other, giving the survivor the opportunity to “reweave the fabric of [his/her] being” (Rose 4082), thereby making recovery possible. As psychologist Elizabeth Waites points out, inherent to an individual’s self-recovering, self-integrating healing process is “the development and experience of autobiographical memory, a sense of personal continuity and consistency over historical time” which underpins the individual’s sense of inner cohesiveness and sustains his/her exchanges with others (qtd. in Rose 4126). In light of Waites’s observations, the autobiography of childhood appears to provide a building site for the writer’s autobiographical memory, offering a writing space wherein the “narration of the ‘then’ [can be] organized and nuanced by the reality of the ‘now’” (Davis 11). Indeed, within her memoir, the painful, self-shattering events of Ung’s past can be processed and ultimately ascribed ontological signifcance; her psychological and emotional growth as a survivor can be properly narrativized in light of her present adult subjectivity. Although her 14-year-old sister Keav is actually the frst one to be killed by the dreadful living conditions in Democratic Kampuchea, the father’s execution four months later stands as the frst Khmer Rouge direct attack on the family’s structure, as the book title First They Killed My Father suggests. When her father is taken away by soldiers, Ung commits herself to nurturing the destructive,

74

Nelly Mok

murderous, yet pain-numbing, even revitalizing feelings of hatred and rage toward the Angkar’s number one leader, Pol Pot, thereby ensuring her survival: “I hate him for destroying my family. My hate is so strong it feels alive”(134). Such unrelenting hatred and rage, Ung quickly learns, prove to be her main assets in the violence-dominated world of the Khmer Rouge: “I have no time to be weak” (164); “I cannot allow this weakness to control me, or let it seep into my spirit. If this happens I know I will die because the weak do not survive in Kampuchea” (169). By pointing to the pivotal role of her child self’s hatred for the Khmer Rouge in her survival, Ung sheds light both on the cathartic and on the self-transformative, or rather self-disclosing, potential of autobiography. Within her writing space, Ung can forgive her child self’s shameful anger and hatred by endowing these emotions with ontological signifcance as illustrated in one scene, where Ung narrates her nine-year-old self’s successful escape from a Vietnamese soldier’s rape attempt, again emphasizing how her ferce will to live and her visceral hatred for her persecutors – be they Khmer or Vietnamese – gave her the strength to break away from her aggressor’s hold: “Help! Monster! Somebody help me! Monster!” I yell as tears stream down my face and snot drips from my nose to my mouth. Dark, thunderous, powerful hatred rises in me as I scream and call him names. With a surge of anger, I twist and snap my left leg out of his grip. “I hate you!” I yell into his bewildered face as my leg crashes into his chest. His face winces in pain. He gasps for breath and lets go of my other leg. “Die! Die!” Screaming at the top of my lungs, I kick him in the groin with all my hatred. He doubles over and falls to the ground, screaming like an injured animal. My legs push me up and I run as fast as I can without stopping. (214–215) As the passage stages Ung’s destructive feelings as essential life buoys to her orphaned, vulnerable child self, it puts forward the role of life writing and more particularly of childhood memoir in the survivor’s development of “a sense of empathy with that self-as-other,” that child self of hers whom her adult self is ultimately willing to embrace as an integral part of her complex, evolving, multidimensional identity (Rose 4184). In an interview, Ung points to the writing of that particular scene as a turning point in her journey out of victimhood: When I was writing that scene, there was a moment after I fnished it, I thought, ‘I didn’t escape a rape, I fought my way out of a rape!’ That is very much the seed of my power. To go from being a victim to a fghter, a survivor! (Ung 2012) Ung’s comments confrm the vital role of narrativization, more particularly in the form of “enabling stories” (Vickroy 8) like survivor narratives, in the victim’s

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 75 healing process: narrativization gives the victim access to, as Jennifer Freyd argues, an “episodic interpretation and integration of previously disjointed sensory and affective memories” (qtd. in Vickroy 9). As Laub claims, for the victim to be able to fnd his/her way out of a traumatic daze, he/she must engage “in a process of constructing a narrative, reconstructing a history and essentially, of re-externalizing the event” (qtd. in Rose 4026). Correspondingly, narrating this scene enables Ung to extract that particular event from the simmering, selfgnawing, shapeless darkness of her traumatic past, hold it against the light of her adult perception and see its symbolical force, its ontological resonance at last. By narrativizing the traumatic event as another exemplar of her raging will to survive, Ung writes herself into empowering subjectivity and “recover[s] a sense of self and agency” (Vickroy 8): “[T]hat changed my focus. That changed who I am. I am a fghter” (Schnall). Echoing Waintrater’s defnition of the testimonial act as a dialogue that survivors engage in both with their own wounded selves and with the world (216– 217), Ung’s childhood memoir exemplifes the dual dynamics of testimonial life writing, which Yamada similarly describes as an inward and outward process, giving way not only to “therapeutic self-disclosure” but also to “political action” (153).

Claiming Justice and Action, Constructing a Transnational, Active Selfhood In her epilogue, Ung formulates her telos as a survivor of the Cambodian genocide: As I tell people about genocide, I get the opportunity to redeem myself. I’ve had the chance to do something that’s worth my being alive. It’s empowering; it feels right. The more I tell people, the less the nightmares haunt me. The more people listen to me, the less I hate. (277) Writing about her experience of the genocide and working as a peace activist undoubtedly offer Ung the opportunity to make amends for the shameful feelings and deeds that ensured her survival: “I do it all because I stole rice from my family and from a dying old woman,” Ung muses in an interview, emphasizing the expiatory function of life writing (Tuon 110). However, perhaps more importantly, by telling her audience what the Khmer Rouge did to her and to Cambodian people and how they damaged the country both physically and psychically, Ung can atone for the sin of surviving the loss of her parents, siblings, and friends. In other words, speaking for “those […] who can no longer speak for themselves,” to quote Sophal Leng Stagg, another Cambodian American autobiographer (qtd. in Yamada 152), bearing witness to the Cambodian genocide and giving a social and political meaning to her own survival is the only way for Ung to come to terms with her survivor’s guilt.

76

Nelly Mok

Ung’s testimonial narrative partakes in Cambodian artists’ project of substituting truth for the self-accusing confessions that prisoners in S21 – a former high school transformed into a center for interrogation and torture by the Khmer Rouge – fabricated under duress in order to provide their persecutors with names of CIA-related spies and traitors. Essential to Cambodian life writers’ reappropriation of the autobiographical act is their commitment to truthfulness, which requires both the rehabilitation of their own, inner truth through the therapeutic process of life writing, and of historical truth through the evidentiary act of bearing witness to the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Put differently, parallel to the writer’s cathartic move from victimhood to survival, as underscored by Ung herself, what also prompts the Cambodian autobiographical act is, in Yamada’s words, the author’s move “from the abject, silenced position of victim to the active status of plaintiff” (154), the latter having at his/her command what the former fundamentally lacks, namely “the means to prove” the wounds and losses incurred, as Jean-François Lyotard observes in Le Différend (qtd. in Yamada 152). Ung’s testimonial narrative, “born out of [her] need to tell the world about the Cambodian genocide,” as attested to by the author in an interview (Ung 7), follows on from Cambodian survivor Pin Yathay’s appeal to international concern for his people’s plight and Western action against Pol Pot’s regime in 1978, one year after his escape from Democratic Kampuchea. The subsequent lack of juridical response from Western countries evidently accounts for Cambodian writers’ continuing act of bearing witness to the Khmer Rouge’s crimes against humanity. Since the United Nations recognized the Khmer Rouge as the offcial representative of Cambodia over the Vietnamese occupation years, the prosecution of the Khmer Rouge leaders was not envisaged until 1991. Yet, even in 2000, the year when Ung’s narrative was published, the prospect of an international genocide tribunal was still hampered by the heated negotiations between Prime Minister Hun Sen and the UN Secretary General Kof Annan. Hun Sen’s strategic prioritization of Cambodia’s economic plight over the Khmer Rouge prosecution reveals the reluctance of the Cambodian government and of some of its ex-Khmer Rouge members to unearth the nation’s traumatic past.8 As Cathy Schlund-Vials argues throughout her article “Cambodian American Memory Work,” the leaders’ plea for Cambodians’ forgetfulness and forgiveness fall within state-sanctioned amnesic frames which threaten to deprive the country of a sense of closure. Ung’s “need to tell the world” about the genocide (Lulu in the Sky, “About the Author,” 7) thus points to the pivotal role of her American and international readership: as Schlund-Vials notes in her enlightening reading of First They Killed My Father, the evidentiary purpose of Ung’s testimonial childhood memoir endows the reader with the informed position of a “juridical spectator” and “a de facto jury member” (War, Genocide, and Justice, 2426) before whom the author-as-frsthand-witness is to denounce her persecutors’ deeds and whom she is to convince of the necessity for action. Commenting on her use of the present tense to tell her story, Ung acknowledges her wish to reduce the spatial-temporal distance between the readers and her childhood experience of the genocide: “I wanted them to be there,” Ung explains, suggesting the present tense is meant

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 77 to symbolically subpoena her readers to vouch for her substantial contribution to Cambodian survivors’ claims for justice (Brouwer). In a similar vein, her choice of structuring her narrative chronologically, as highlighted by the dates mentioned in the chapter titles, is clearly meant to provide the reader-witness with chronological markers and to endow the text with an evidentiary function. Nevertheless, although Ung’s memoir was generally acclaimed in the United States and overseas,9 some Cambodian American reviewers, like Sody Lay in a 2001 essay, scathingly criticized Ung’s work for its historical inaccuracies. Lay accused her of misrepresenting the Cambodian experience of the Khmer Rouge regime and of undermining the credibility of other Cambodian accounts by overlooking testimonials’ standard of absolute veridicality. However, while Lay’s response to Ung’s text rightly insists on the historical and juridical responsibility of the autobiographer writing about mass trauma, it should not question Ung’s full commitment to truthfulness. For want of absolute factual veracity, First They Killed My Father testifes to the writer’s pledge to convey her personal experience and “emotional truth” (Tuon 108) of Cambodia’s history and to her signifcant contribution to Cambodian American autobiographers’ act of bearing witness to the atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. If the author’s choice of telling her story through her young self’s perspective partakes in her cathartic narrativization of the traumatic past, it is clearly strategic as it concurrently serves her social and political purposes by highlighting the continual exposure of Ung’s child self to the physically and psychologically violent reality imposed by the Khmer Rouge, hence arousing the readers’ shock and outrage. Ung’s use of the child perspective frst and foremost allows her to forcefully convey the excruciating physical pain inficted by the Khmer Rouge regime on Cambodians, mostly through starvation, highlighting the pathos of Ung’s reality as a little girl starving under the Khmer Rouge, in particularly heartrending passages. Such passages – like the one in which she depicts her child self’s strategy to make her daily diet of miserably thin and clear rice gruel last as long as possible – are clearly meant to remind the readers that one of the greatest tortures inficted by the Khmer Rouge on Cambodians was that of hunger, caused by the ever-reducing portions of food which were served to the population. In the same way as the use of the child perspective serves Ung’s political intent, the presence of the adult voice occasionally discloses the sociopolitical backdrop which Ung’s child self is, predictably, neither cognizant of nor interested in. Thus, as essential as its therapeutic function, is the didactic purpose of the autobiographical writing space where the adult writer is fnally given the answers she was deprived of as a little girl and where the readers are allowed to share the political knowledge of which the adult writer has, according to Conrad William Watson, “become the repository” (54). The adult writer’s political knowledge allows her not only to inform the reader of Democratic Kampuchea’s sociopolitical tenets and structure, but also to hint at the role of America’s realpolitik and geopolitical versatility in Cambodia’s civil war and in the subsequent Khmer Rouge invasion of the country. Recalling her father’s explanation of Cambodia’s political history to her older brothers soon after the family’s forced departure from Phnom

78

Nelly Mok

Penh, she mentions the American B-52 bombing of Eastern Cambodia and Laos authorized by Richard Nixon in March 1969, during the Vietnam War, thereby hinting at the United States’ role in the Khmer Rouge takeover. The juridical dimension of the testimonial writing space is obvious in the chapter entitled “The Execution,” which gives an extremely graphic account of the public execution of a Khmer Rouge prisoner released by Vietnamese soldiers to vengeful villagers in 1979, an event which nine-year-old Ung willingly attends until the very end and which the readers are correspondingly required to witness fully. The scene duly takes on the look of a makeshift tribunal, hence serving as what Schlund-Vials calls “an imagined space of justice” (War, Genocide, and Justice, 523–540) from where an ethical and a legal prosecution of Cambodia’s persecutors can be demanded. Ung’s claim for justice and reparation expands into the activist writer’s plea for her readers’ humanitarian action, namely for their commitment toward social change and human betterment: “I write because I want my readers to take action,” Ung insists in an interview, adding that “peace is an action” (“Loung Ung Interview”). Drawing on a Cambodian proverb, “You cannot claim heaven as your own if you are just going to sit under it,” the activist writer encourages her readers to commit themselves to securing and strengthening human bonds, which the Khmer Rouge intended to eradicate and which the world’s virtual inaction over Cambodia’s genocidal years potently damaged. Through the very act of testimonial and awareness-raising writing, Ung constructs what Yamada describes as “a socially active form of Americanness,” writing herself as a “politically or socially active subject-citizen” (155). Such a subjectivizing gesture of transformation or conversion – of herself into an activist writer and of her readers into potential fellow peace activists – expands beyond English language and American borders, “deploy[ing]” America’s domestic ideology of freedom, justice, and peace “transnationally to advocate for universal human rights” (Yamada 160). As an active member of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) and the National Spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World (CLFW) since 1997,10 Ung lives and works in America but also regularly returns to Cambodia where half of her family lives and where she helps her country cope with the devastating effects of landmines. Therefore, her life signals the necessarily transnational and transcultural dimensions of Cambodian American identity, as evoked in the fnal scene of the epilogue of First They Killed My Father. Narrating her frst return to Cambodia as an adult after living in the United States for 15 years, she recalls the distance between her and her kin, worded by a cousin’s comment on her dark traveling outft: “I looked like the Khmer Rouge” (278). If Ung’s narrative ends on a hopeful note, describing her older sister Chou’s warm welcome despite the geographical and cultural distance that has set them apart for more than a decade, it suggests that Ung’s “fantasies of instant connection” with her relatives in Cambodia (278) are bound to be challenged by her diasporic experience and subjectivity. However utopian “instant connection” with those she was forced to leave behind may look to the Cambodian American writer, post-genocidal affliation

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 79 to Cambodia is still possible through commemorative writing. As “a daughter of Cambodia,” Ung undertakes to memorialize prerevolutionary Cambodia, bearing witness to the resistance and resilience of its cultural foundations. The fact that First They Killed My Father was frst published in the United States in 2000, the year of the 25th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, stresses Ung’s commemorative purpose and engagement in Cambodian survivors’ memory work.

Memorializing the Genocidal Rupture Considering Holocaust survivors, Cathy Caruth acknowledges their unbreakable bond to the deceased (57–181), whose death is somehow felt as the price to pay for their survival and must consequently be assigned meaning. Therefore, Ung’s narrative clearly takes on a commemorative function through its written and visual portrayal of the lost family members. The eight-page black-and-white photo album displayed in the 2009 Mainstream Publishing edition of First They Killed My Father is equally divided between preDemocratic Kampuchea and post-Democratic Kampuchea family pictures and thereby points to the rupture which the Khmer Rouge regime inficted on family life and structure. However, while the frst set of pictures – similar to an ancestor worship altar – shows the happy, carefree faces of those who disappeared under the Khmer Rouge, the next set of photographs – opening on the only reminder of the genocidal years, showing Loung, her brother Meng, and her sister-in-law Eang upon their arrival at the Lam Sing refugee camp in Thailand – attests to the Ungs’ resilience and successful reconstruction of the family structure through marriage and childbearing. More importantly, those photographs suggest the lasting impact of the Ungs’ genocidal experience on the next generations, acting as “sites for […] intergenerational memory” which “contain […] the work of postmemory”11 (Schlund-Vials, War, Genocide, and Justice, 2633), and their equally essential contribution to the family’s and the Cambodian community’s memory work. Such a memorializing project is meant to resist the Khmer Rouge’s order to deny familial affliations since it honors the very foundations the Khmer Rouge relentlessly attacked. Similarly, the 1975 Ung family chart, which precedes the Author’s Note, signals the commemorative purpose of Ung’s memoir, as it provides both an overview of the family structure right before the Khmer Rouge takeover and points to the devastating impact of the genocide on the Ungs, by naming the deceased. Ung’s commemorative writing also includes ethnographic passages describing and explaining Cambodian customs and mores. Indeed, while they provide the non-Cambodian reader with the native informant’s cultural knowledge, they offer a memorializing site wherein pre-Democratic Kampuchean traditions can be recollected, reclaimed, and passed on to the post-genocide generations. Yet, some Cambodian reviewers’ scathing responses to Ung’s ethnographic descriptions and the ensuing controversy over Ung’s cultural authenticity and legitimate claim to representativeness shed light on the paradoxes inherent in (re)

80

Nelly Mok

constructing Cambodian collective memory.12 What is at stake is the Cambodian community’s sense of cultural and national cohesiveness that is to stem from the necessarily conficted process of (re)shaping, (re)interpreting, and ultimately agreeing upon a collective past every Cambodian can identify with. In a 2001 review essay, Sody Lay, the Executive Director of the Khmer Institute Web site, blamed Ung for allowing historical and cultural inaccuracies in her text for the sake of “sensationalization and over-dramatization of the Killing Fields experience” (qtd. in Tuon, 107). Cambodian American reviewers’ criticism mostly targeted Ung’s idealized and/or fantasized depiction of prelapsarian Cambodia through her memories of two sites – Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat – that are emblematic of Cambodian identity and culture, as well as her exoticized and ethnically biased – Chinese – descriptions of Cambodian meals and celebration rituals. In an online review, Sody Lay, Soneath Hor, and Grantham Quinn reproached Ung for silencing the troubled 1970s sociopolitical context – characterized by rampant poverty and the corruption of Lon Nol’s government – that had been conducive to the Khmer Rouge takeover, in her portrayal of Phnom Penh a few days before the advent of Democratic Kampuchea, because of her family’s privileged position in Cambodian society and her father’s political affliation as one of Lon Nol’s high-ranking offcials (Tuon 112). Other reviewers also contested her trip to Angkor Wat with her father, arguing the area was exposed to the ongoing civil war in the early 1970s, and pointed to her miscalculation of Cambodia’s Angkorian period (Tuon 107). As Bunkong Tuon argues in his keen discussion of the Lay-Ung controversy, what brings Ung and her detractors into opposition is their differing approach to cultural identity and legitimacy: while the latter advocates “historical accuracy” as the sine qua non condition for the writer’s self-proclamation as a “daughter of Cambodia” whose “story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians” (10), Ung’s claim to cultural affliation and representativeness is her commitment to “emotional truth.” In her response to Lay’s criticism, she highlights her choice to prioritize faithfulness to her necessarily “shallow, misleading, overly dramatic, and larger than life” child perspective over absolute factual veracity: “For me to correct, fx, add research, historical references, and other adult knowledge to the misinformation in my book meant that I had to step out of the child’s shoes to do so. I didn’t want to do that” (qtd. in Tuon 114). At stake in the debate, Tuon observes, is the concept of culture: Lay and his followers envisage Cambodian culture as a monolithic sphere (108) that rightful representatives have the responsibility to preserve from any distortion when informing a non-Cambodian audience as well as Cambodia’s young generations. Yet, Ung’s choice of the child perspective to recount her genocidal experience falls within a heterogeneous and essentially subjective approach to culture (Tuon 109), which sheds light on the modalities of her personal contribution to the (re)construction of Cambodian collective memory. In his discussion with French historian Denis Peschanski, neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik foregrounds the role of the “convergence principle” (“principe de convergence”) underpinning what Peschanski calls the process of “memory

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 81 narrativization” (“mise en récit mémorielle”) whereby an individual memory turns into a social/collective memory, therefore becoming a “sharable” (“partageable”) constituent of a group’s history (Peschanski 36). Highlighting the essential interdependence between individual representations of the past and collective narratives or myths about the past, Cyrulnik brings to light the transformations that personal memories undergo within the blurry, malleable area surrounding “the spyglass” (“la lorgnette”) of “hypermemory” (“hypermémoire”) or traumatic memory, which remains characteristically dazed,13 that is, fxed on traumatic events (Peschanski 14–15). Such transformations attest to the vitality of memory (Peschanski 34–35) and occur to make individual memories “converge” with collective – familial, social, cultural – narratives of the past (Peschanski 31, 39). In light of Cyrulnik’s observations, Ung’s idealized description of Phnom Penh before the Khmer Rouge takeover – while it does refect her naïve, politically unaware, and historically inaccurate child gaze on the city and Cambodian society, as Lay and Ung herself contend (Tuon 112, 114) – takes on a collective value. Though it might misrepresent the complexities of Cambodian society by silencing its complex economic and political ills, it evidently provides a narrative space for communal mourning. What is mourned and commemorated through Ung’s nostalgic portrayal of the capital’s hustle and bustle, before it was evacuated overnight, is the Cambodian people’s characteristic joie de vivre. The child perspective is particularly useful in that regard, as its typical sensory perceptual facet14 serves to highlight this cultural trait. The frst chapter, entitled “Phnom Penh April 1975,” opens with a richly sensorial depiction of the awakening city: Already at 6 a.m. people in Phnom Penh are rushing and bumping into each other on dusty, narrow side streets. Waiters and waitresses in black-andwhite uniforms swing open shop doors as the aroma of noodle soup greets waiting customers. Street vendors push food carts piled with steamed dumplings, smoked beef teriyaki sticks, and roasted peanuts along the sidewalks and begin to set up for another day of business. Children in colorful T-shirts and shorts kick soccer balls on pavements with their bare feet, ignoring the grunts and screams of the food cart owners. The wide boulevards sing with the buzz of motorcycle engines, squeaky bicycles, and, for those wealthy enough to afford them, small cars. (11) As Ung longingly portrays the Phnom Penh she used to know as a young child – a lively city saturated with noise, activity, colors, and smells, promising the curious, hungry child the joy of myriad favors – the reader cannot help contrasting the ebullient capital with the ghost city it was soon turned into by the Khmer Rouge. The specter of the capital’s impending downfall – foretold by the date of the chapter title “April 1975” – looms over the child narrator’s ease and enjoyment within this familiar environment: “I am used to the traffc and the noise” (11); “the city always seems to be one big traffc jam. […] Sitting on [Ma’s] lap I bounce and laugh as the [cyclo] driver pedals through the congested city streets”

82

Nelly Mok

(12). Then, as she recounts her child self’s daily enjoyment of the many tempting street food carts, Ung points to her constant craving for food as the iconic sign of Cambodians’ relationship to food: “Though my stomach is full, I still crave salty snack food […] Cambodians eat constantly, and everything is there to be savoured if you have money in your pocket” (12). Still, again, lurking in that particular memory is the starvation that she is to suffer from and that is to kill millions of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge. Ung’s choice of the child perspective necessarily implies a specifc memory selection process: what her sensory-focused child narrator will recollect and what she will forget or will not be cognizant of shape her representation of Cambodians’ collective past. However, by memorializing what was lost and taken away, even eradicated by the Khmer Rouge – colors, food, spontaneity, life – Ung narrates personal memories that cohere with the Cambodian people’s experience of irremediable loss and rupture, offering a space where Cambodia’s prerevolutionary era can be mourned. Similarly, the value of Ung’s memory of her visit to Angkor Wat, if not historical, is evidently emotional – it conjures up the special bond she shared with her father – and mostly commemorative, since it points to the ancient Khmer Empire’s faith in its god-blessed invulnerability (Ponchaud 123, 151), which wars and the fall of Angkor in the 15th century shook and which the Khmer Rouge regime irremediably shattered. In one passage, Ung’s evocation of the architectural wonders of the temple and the hearty welcome she felt from the gods – “I […] yelled, ‘Chump leap sursdei, dthaipda!’ (‘Hello gods!’) Then wrapped my arms around Pa’s leg when the gods answered me: ‘Dthaipda! Dthaipda! Dhtaipda!’” (88) – contrasts with the sense of (divine but also inter/national) desertion she starts to experience soon after the Khmer Rouge takeover: “I wonder where the gods go now that their homes have been destroyed” (89). Cyrulnik observes that one can remember things one did not actually experience without lying, for personal memories are always the products of un/conscious “reconstructions” from memory material, most often unbeknown to the holder of such memories (Peschanski 30). Therefore, for a person’s memory to grow out of a traumatic daze, “[historical] inaccuracies and fabrications” – the objects of Lay’s concern as regards Ung’s story (qtd. in Tuon, 110) – need to occur. Since culture is not monolithic but heterogeneous and ever-changing, collective memory is necessarily shaped and processed through the individuals’ experiences of and relationships with the “other” – the group they belong to, the collective representations and myths validated by their peers, historical documents, and so forth (Peschanski34–35). As stressed by Amritjit Singh et al, “[w]e ‘remember’ not only things that have actually happened to us personally, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, we ‘remember’ events, language, actions, attitudes, and values that are aspects of our membership in groups” (Singh et al. 17). Indeed, through her commemorative depictions of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s present-day capital, and of Angkor Wat, the nation’s most treasured vestige of the Khmer Empire’s capital city and power (from 802 CE to the 15th century), Ung acknowledges her community’s common experience of immeasurable loss and ruptured identity by paying homage to what is no more.

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 83 Thereby – and despite the inaccuracies and fabrications spotted in her narrative by her detractors – she reasserts her cultural and emotional affliations to her people, claiming herself as a true and legitimate “daughter of Cambodia.” As Jeffrey Olick contends, memory should not be treated as a measurable phenomenon but rather as a “sensitizing concept.” As memory is “a process and not a thing, […] something – or rather many things – we do, not something or many things we have,” its many representations should not be validated or dismissed solely on the basis of “accuracy” or “authenticity” (qtd. in Resende and Budryte, 325). Acknowledging that collective memory will “tak[e] many forms and serv[e] many purposes, ranging from conscious recall to unrefected reemergence, from nostalgic longing for what is lost to polemical use of the past to reshape the present” (qtd. in Davis, “Mediating Historical Memory in Asian/ American Family Memoirs,” 504), Mieke Bal comprehends collective memory as an ongoing process spurred by various – sometimes conficting – personal and collective intentions, and which therefore yields multifarious representations of the past. Correspondingly, Ung’s memories of prerevolutionary Cambodia refect her attempt to reconcile both her private and intimate, and her public and familial/communal healing gestures, which necessarily challenges Lay’s and other Cambodian reviewers’ sterile demand for strict historical accuracy and cultural authenticity. What the Lay-Ung controversy nevertheless brings to light is the essential cultural dialogue that needs to take place within the Cambodian community, through the production of Cambodian testimonial and auto/biographical texts. As these narratives, in Marita Sturken’s words, “are told outside offcial historical discourse,” acting as “counter-memories to history” (qtd. in Davis, “Mediating Historical Memory in Asian/American Family Memoirs,” 507), they play an integral part in the (re)construction of collective memory, offering diverse representations of the communal past, acknowledging a collective cultural location emerging from individuals’ subjective experiences. Still, for such a dialogue to prove fruitful, such texts should not be approached as fxed or unchanging material but rather as evolving memory supports that take shape through the very act of reading itself. In her valuable study of Asian North American autobiographies, Rocío Davis foregrounds the pivotal role readers play in collective memory through their reception of the texts, advocating Gillian Whitlock’s “connected reading” as the prerequisite for the “enactment of historicized subjectivity.” Drawing on Whitlock’s concept, she invites readers to take a dialogic and participative approach to the texts produced within a group or a community so that they engage in a process of “supplementation rather than completion, for complexity rather than closure, for the making of truth rather than its revelation” (qtd. in Davis, Begin Here, 29). Such a reading strategy should help the readers of Ung’s memoir to see how “its emotional truth complements the historical facts produced in other texts” (Tuon 108). All in all, although the Lay-Ung controversy points to the Cambodian community’s rigidity with respect to issues of cultural representativeness – which is accounted for by the context of unresolved justice still affecting Cambodia and the lack of

84

Nelly Mok

straightforward historical evidence against the Khmer Rouge – it reveals the vitality of Cambodian collective memory. By commemorating and attesting to the survival of traditions and rites that were targeted by the destructive Khmer Rouge ideology, First They Killed My Father contributes to the creation of a “post-Democratic Kampuchean citizenship” which claims the genocidal rupture as an integral part of itself (Schlund-Vials War, Genocide, and Justice). As a peace and human rights advocate, Ung draws her readers’ attention to the indelible scars of the Khmer Rouge regime, sensitizing the international community to the devastating damage caused by landmines in her native country. Consequently, as the title of her memoir suggests, what defnes Cambodian post-genocidal identity is the act of “remembering” not only the genocide, but also what used to exist before the Khmer Rouge and what has survived the Killing Fields era, as well as “[national and international] amnesiac policy, time passages, [and] geopolitical distance” (Schlund-Vials, War, Genocide, and Justice, 2699), so that the irremediable rupture inficted by the Khmer Rouge regime never fades into denial and oblivion.

Conclusion First They Killed My Father brings to light the dual life-writing impetus spurring frst and one-and-a-half generation Cambodian American testimonial autobiographies, of which Haing Ngor,15 Dith Pran,16 Someth May,17 Chanrithy Him18 are, like Loung Ung, the most notable representatives. Through her survivor childhood memoir, Ung performs both a cathartic and a sociopolitical gesture, engaging in a self-disclosing, self-empowering, and co-transformative process whereby she can heal, write herself into survival and transnational activism by bearing witness to the Cambodian genocide, claim juridical action, and encourage her readers’ commitment to peace. In Ung’s words, writing her memoir enables her to “keep a foot in the world as [she is] going [deep] inside [her] heart” (Schnall). Most importantly, Ung’s testimonial narrative exemplifes Cambodian writers’ necessary commitment to the (re)construction of Cambodian collective memory as it provides a personal and familial recollective space where both the national and historical rupture of the genocide and the foundations of Cambodian cultural identity can be memorialized.

Notes 1 The book was published in the United States under the title Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind. 2 The term “1.5 generation” describes immigrants who arrived in the United States as children or teenagers. It was coined by Cuban American sociologist Ruben Rumbault in the 1960s to refer to Cuban American immigrant youths. 3 In a 2005 essay, Teri Shaffer Yamada noted that since the 1980s, there had been more than a dozen autobiographies written by Cambodians and published in English. At least seven of them were authored by Cambodians settled in America (147).

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 85 4 “In speaking out, the victim-survivor […] can come to appreciate and experiment with both the resistance and the accommodation that was part of her survival strategy” (Rose 4320). 5 Disappearances were all too frequent in Democratic Kampuchea as they were meant to cleanse the population of its potentially recalcitrant elements under conditions scrupulously kept mysterious to the population to prevent any uprising. Many Cambodians watched their family members being led away by soldiers for obscure reasons, knowing they would never see them again. Yet most did not even have a chance to see their loved ones before their departure. 6 In After They Killed Our Father, Ung further explores the limits of autobiography, writing a relational auto/biography and a family memoir with the help of her older sister Chou and her other siblings. 7 Renny Christopher identifes this generic category in his 1992 essay “Blue Dragon, White Tiger: The Bicultural Stance of Vietnamese American Literature.” (Yamada 146). 8 For an extensive historical chronology of the Khmer Rouge trial, see: http:// www.cambodiatribunal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/history_composit echronology_2016_english.pdf. 9 First They Killed My Father was translated into several languages, including Khmer and French, serialized by two Khmer daily newspapers, and broadcast on the Cambodian radio. 10 For more information on Ung’s activism, see: http://www.loungung.com/. 11 Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” “characterizes the experience of those who grew up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation, [and] shaped by traumatic events that can be neither understood nor recreated.” (22) 12 In his seminal work The Social Frameworks of Memory, published in 1925, French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs coins the term “collective memory,” naming the essentially interactive process through which societal remembrances are (re) constructed: individual’s memories necessarily take shape within a defnite collective sociocultural context – that is, the spatial, religious, economic, political, and historical structures on which their society was built – so that his/her “personal” act of remembering inevitably occurs within collective “frameworks” that both determine and corroborate his/her memories of events and experiences. Although Halbwachs distinguishes “individual memory” from “social” or “collective memory,” he insists on their fundamental interaction: while an individual’s personal memory or, in Halbwachs’s words, “autobiographical memory” will integrate only aspects of common remembrances that will single out his/her unique life and personality, the “group memory” or “historical memory” relies on “impersonal remembrances of interest to the group” which the individual, as a group member, is also able “[to help] evoke and maintain” for the sake of communal cohesiveness (Halbwachs The Collective Memory 50). In Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, published in 1992, German Egyptologist Jan Assmann expands on Halbwachs’s “collective memory” by identifying the two interrelated types of memory which the (re)construction of collective memory mostly relies on, namely “communicative memory” and “cultural memory”: if “communicative memory” refers to a society’s more recent past – spanning 40 to 80 years only – a living past which is prone to alterations as it is passed on from generations to generations, “cultural memory” rather concerns a society’s ancient, founding past, and more specifcally refers to the objectifed forms of a society’s cultural identity, the various media such as images, texts, monuments, and rites, through which traditions are perpetuated.

86

Nelly Mok

13 Exploring the role of testimonial writing in the healing journey of genocide survivors, Waintrater evokes the danger of remaining in a post-traumatic state of “stupor” (“sidération,” in French) for victims of genocides. 14 In Speaking the Past, Alicia Otano analyzes the use of child perspective in the Asian American Bildungsroman, pointing out the child focalizer’s typical use of his/her sensory range (15). 15 Ngor, Haing. A Cambodian Odyssey. Macmillan, 1987. 16 Pran, Dith, and Kim DePaul. Editors. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. Yale University Press, 1997. 17 May, Someth. Cambodian Witness: The Autobiography of Someth May. Random House, 1986. 18 Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. Norton, 2000.

Bibliography Assmann, Jan. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization (1992) [Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Brouwer, Andy. An Exclusive Interview with Loung Ung. www.andybrouwer.co.uk, http://andybrouwer.co.uk/lung.html. Accessed 4 November 2016. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Kindle ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Davis, Rocío G. Begin Here: Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. ———. “Mediating Historical Memory in Asian/American Family Memoirs: K. Connie Kang’s Home Was the Land of Morning Calm and Duong Van Mai Elliott’s The Sacred Willow.” Biography 30, no. 4 (2007): 491–511. Print. Gilmore, Leigh. The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Halbwachs, Maurice. Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire [The social frameworks of memory]. Paris: Albin Michel, 1994. ———. The Collective Memory [La Mémoire collective]. New York: Harper and Row, 1980. Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Laub, Dori. “Truth and Testimony: The Process and the Struggle.” Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, 61–75. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Print. “Loung Ung Interview”. Banana Writers. http://www.bananawriters.com/loungu nginterview. Accessed 4 November 2016. Otano, Alicia. Speaking the Past: Child Perspective in the Asian American Bildungsroman. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2004. Peschanski, Denis. Boris Cyrulnik, entretien avec Denis Peschanski. Mémoire et traumatisme: l’individu et la fabrique des grands récits [Denis Peschanski’s interview with Boris Cyrulnik. Memory and trauma: the individual and the making of myths]. Bry-sur-Marne: INA Éditions, 2012. Ponchaud, François. Brève histoire du Cambodge. Kindle ed. [A short history of Cambodia]. Paris: Magellan &Cie, 2014. Resende, Erica, and Dovile Budryte. Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates. Kindle ed. Routledge, 2014.

Healing from the Khmer Rouge Genocide 87 Rose, Susan. “Naming and Claiming: The Integration of Traumatic Experience and the Reconstruction of Self in Survivors’ Stories of Sexual Abuse.” Trauma and Life Stories: International Perspectives, edited by Kim Lacy Rogers, Selma Leydesdorff, and Graham Dawson. Kindle ed. Routledge, 1999, kindle location 3963–4418. Schlund-Vials, Cathy J. “Cambodian American Memory Work: Justice and the Cambodian Syndrome.” Positions 20, no. 3 (2012): 805–830. Print. ———. War, Genocide, and Justice: Cambodian American Memory Work. Kindle ed. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Schnall, Marianne. “Conversation with Loung Ung.” Feminist.com, http:// www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/interviews/loungung.html. Accessed 4 November 2016. Singh, Amritjit, Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., and Robert E. Hogan, eds. Memory, Narrative, and Identity: New Essays in Ethnic American Literatures. Lebanon: Northeastern University Press, 1994. Troeung, Y Dang. “Witnessing Cambodia’s Disappeared.” University of Toronto Quarterly 82, no. 2 (2013): 150–167. Print. Tuon, Bunkong. “Inaccuracy and Testimonial Literature: The Case of Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.” MELUS 38, no. 3 (2013): 107–125. Print. Ung, Loung. Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness. New York: Harper Perennial, 2012. ———. “The Inspiration for Lulu in the Sky.” Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness, 7–11. New York: Harper Perennial, 2012. Print. ———. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. 2000. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2009. ———. Lucky Child: A Refugee from the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind. 2005. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2008. Vickroy, Laurie. Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002. Waintrater, Régine. Sortir du genocide: témoigner pour réapprendre à vivre [Surviving genocide: bearing witness to learn how to live again]. Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2003. Watson, Conrad William. Of Self and Injustice: Autobiography and Repression in Indonesia. Leiden: Kitlv Press, 2006. Yamada, Teri Shaffer. “Cambodian American Autobiography: Testimonial Discourse.” Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature, edited by Zhou Xiaojing and Samina Najmi, 144–167. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Print.

5

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists Zhu Ying

Introduction Situated in the jungle-clad central highlands of Malaya amidst political strife shortly after the end of World War II, The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), by the Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng, opens with the enthrallingly enigmatic recollection of a retired Supreme Court judge: “On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the emperor of Japan. Not many people would have known of him before the war, but I did” (Tan, 1). Like a fairy tale, The Garden of Evening Mists goes on to reveal the richness of a hidden “hoard of memories”: of legends, secrets, mysteries, an unspoken past, an encompassing hatred, and an unexpected love (Tan, 1). Judge Teoh Yun Ling, “only the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court” (Tan, 5), is in her early sixties when the novel begins. She has requested an early retirement after serving for 14 years on the bench, to the surprise and disappointment of the Chief Justice Abdullah Mansor, whose ceremonial speech uncovers an important part of Yun Ling’s past – “she was a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp when she was nineteen” (Tan, 5). The second daughter born to a prosperous Straits Chinese family in Penang, Yun Ling has never told anyone about her three years as a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW). Indeed, she tries every day to forget about it, but admits that “the memories still found their way in” (Tan, 5), through a sound, a word, a smell or the simple routine of putting on a glove with two missing fngers. Yun Ling grieves the loss not only of her two fngers, but also of her older sister Yun Hong, who was imprisoned with her but, like the camp’s other POWs, did not survive. Yun Ling is the sole survivor of the camp, but during their internment Yun Hong’s love of Japanese gardens kept them alive. In the camp, Yung Hong’s memories and the sisters’ discussion of the smallest details of the gardens they had visited in Kyoto had given them a refuge inside their minds. After the war, the young Yun Ling travels to Yugiri, the eponymous “garden of evening mists” in the highlands of Malaya, to request a former gardener to the Japanese Emperor, Nakamura Aritomo, to build a garden to honor her sister’s memory. Her request is rejected. Instead, Yun Ling, unwillingly, becomes Aritomo’s apprentice until “the monsoon” (for about six or seven months), as creating a Japanese garden for Yun Hong is “something she had to do,” something she “owed” her sister (Tan, 78, 43).

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

89

Ultimately, however, Yun Ling does not create the Japanese garden solely for her sister; her apprenticeship evolves into companionship and love between master and student. Yun Ling’s time in Yugiri, frst as Aritomo’s apprentice in the art of gardening, then as his lover, and fnally as an embodiment of the art of shakkei (borrowed scenery) (Tan, 10), sets her free from her traumatic memories of the internment camp and the loss of her loved ones. However, Yun Ling’s freedom is not achieved just by the commemorative labor of learning to design a Japanese garden in memory of her sister. She must also liberate herself from her hatred of everything Japanese (except Japanese gardening) by narrating the unspeakable trauma that she, her sister, and their fellow prisoners experienced in the Japanese camp. In Yugiri, a 28-year old Yun Ling recollects and tells Aritomo about her time in the camp; in the same garden many years later, the seasoned “Cloud Forest” (Yun Ling’s name in English) (Tan, 46) decides to set down her most important memories in writing after being diagnosed with “[p]rimary progressive aphasia” (Tan, 117), which will cause the loss of her ability to read and write, and in a year or so the loss “perhaps even [of her] memories” (Tan, 22). Coaxed by an old friend, Frederik Pretorius, to “write down the things [she does] not want to forget” (Tan, 27), Yun Ling starts to draw out recollections from “the chamber of her memory” and realizes that she does not want to lose certain fragments of her life (Tan, 25). She decides to “dance to the music of words, for one more time,” which will truly feel like “writing one of [her] judgments” (Tan, 27, 22). Yet, writing a life may be less like writing a legal judgment than Yun Ling has imagined. The short poem by the late French philosopher Paul Ricoeur offers some insight: “Under history, memory and forgetting./ Under memory and forgetting, life./ But writing a life is another story./ Incompletion.” Succinct and harmonious, this poem with which Ricoeur ends his infuential work Memory, History, Forgetting (2004), suggests the interrelatedness of history and memory, the interdependence of remembering and forgetting, and the interconnectedness of life-writing and story-writing. More importantly, the fnal word of the poem, “incompletion,” accentuates the fragmentary and unfnished nature of memory, narrative, history, and indeed life itself. Signifcantly, in Tan’s novel about personal and collective memory and history, Yugiri itself symbolizes a critical awareness of incompletion. The individuals connected with the garden also feel this incompletion, as refected in the two missing fngers on Yun Ling’s left hand, Magnus Pretorius’s lost right eye, and the absence/death of Yun Hong. In addition, the awareness of incompletion, which is often associated with the concept of “emptiness” in the novel (Tan, 311), is eventually transformed into the enigmatic disappearance/loss of Aritomo, and epiphanically transcended by a “blank rectangle” in the full tattoo on Yun Ling’s back (Tan, 320). Not a void, or a blank, or an emptiness, the awareness of incompletion calls for an ongoing journey to “determine what is real” (Tan, 25) by reinterpreting and representing the historical past, re-envisioning the world, and orienting oneself within it. Tan’s novel, with its sustained treatment of the concept of “incompletion” in relation to memory, narrative, and history, resonates strongly with recent work

90

Zhu Ying

that argues that trauma, memory, and transformation are “contested realities” in the Southeast Asian context (Bong, 4). Edited by Sharon A. Bong, Trauma, Memory and Transformation (2014), examines “the resistance and resilience of survivors evidenced through testimonies, interviews, media texts and art,” and studies how trauma is defned and memory is embedded in time and space (Bong, 3).While literary fction is not the primary concern of Bong’s study, the novel’s unearthing of the traces of a traumatic past and in the diffcult acts of recollection and commemoration experienced by its characters, as well as in their move away from silence and paralysis toward resistance, resilience, and transformation, demonstrates how fction provides a mirror to the complex and manifold efforts of survivors of violence in Southeast Asia to achieve a livable present and a potentially healing future. The unique contribution made by this multidisciplinary volume to the study of trauma and memory in the Southeast Asian context lies in its provision of new interpretations and defnitions of trauma and its emphasis on the transformative quality of traumatic memories of catastrophe, whether natural or man-made. Revisiting places of violence in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, with an emphasis on the “ethics of memory” (Bell, 19), Bong’s contributors focus on “ethnographic, qualitative and textual methodologies of the lived experiences of trauma by survivors of violence” to generate transformative actions of reconciliation and peace (Bong, 3). The volume argues that trauma helps to shape and re-enact personal and collective memories, which can be reimagined as or transformed into forms of resistance and even ways of healing. Departing from the overemphasis on pathological and empirical aspects of traumatic memories as debilitating and destructive often found in classical trauma studies, Bong’s volume focuses on the transformative action of traumatic memories, including healing and forgiveness (Bong, 5). Forgiveness or the diffculty of forgiveness is perhaps the most important aspect of Ricouer’s philosophical analyses of memory, history, and forgetting. Therefore, tying Bong’s focus on trauma in the Southeast Asian context to Ricoeur’s hermeneutic perceptions in order to study Tan’s historical novel enables this chapter to bring new and insightful perspectives arising from an under-researched area into dialogue with infuential modern philosophy in a valuable conceptual partnership. It enables a reading of Asian fction that dissolves rigid notions of national identities and pasts that may otherwise limit fresh interpretations. Reading through Ricoeur provides an alternative to more familiar socio-geopolitical and post-colonial readings of Southeast Asian historical novels.1 While both of Tan’s novels – The Garden of Evening Mists, as well as his debut novel, The Gift of Rain (2007) – revisit two of the most traumatic periods of Malaysian history – the Japanese occupation of Malaya during World War II and 12 years of the Malayan Emergency – both novels also decisively foreground the interconnectedness of global stories and histories. The lives and relationships of the main characters of his novels are profoundly affected and shaped by the global historical events of their time. As the composition of Yugiri borrows “from the earth, the sky and everything around it” (Tan, 143), similarly, Tan’s novels are composed through

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

91

the world’s various languages, globalized cultures, and histories. Like the characters he portrays, Tan himself is signifcantly shaped by his multicultural and multilingual background: he is a Malaysian writer who holds a frst-dan ranking in aikido as well as a law degree, divides his time between Kuala Lumpur and Cape Town, and switches naturally between Malay, English, Chinese, and Afrikaans. Drawing upon a diverse cache of theoretical perspectives in order to examine the art of forgiving but not forgetting, refects the composition of human experience and meaning in the face of trauma mapped out in Tan’s novel. This chapter begins its analysis of The Garden of Evening Mists by initially focusing on the ways in which Tan explores the relationship between incompletion and mnemonic recollection. Subsequently, the chapter draws upon Ricoeur’s insightful perspective on re-enactment in the dichotomy of memory and forgetting, through which personal and collective memories and losses are re-enacted and remembered in the present. Reading the novel through Ricoeur also enables the traces of history to come to light, manifested in various forms as discreet but commemorative reminders of the pain and violence of a historical past. Finally, building upon the analysis of incompletion, recollection, re-enactment, and historical traces, the chapter examines the volatile yet interdependent relationship between self and other, victim and perpetrator and the notion of diffcult forgiveness.

Incompletion and Mnemonic Recollection In The Garden of Evening Mists, Yun Ling tries not to think about her three years in the Japanese internment camp as she goes about her daily life, and she usually succeeds. Yet, “occasionally the memories still found their way in, through a sound I heard, a word someone uttered, or a smell I caught in the street” (Tan, 5). Yun Ling knows that she cannot bury her memories; they may be triggered by a word or a phrase, a painting or a picture. An encounter at the Selangor Club with a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, whom she has not seen in 11 or 12 years, triggers Yun Ling’s recollection of her sister’s dream “of building her own Japanese garden” (Tan, 41). Magnus, whose name echoes that of Albertus Magnus, the 13th-century Catholic saint and Aristotelian philosopher, is a surrogate father fgure in the novel who adopts an Aristotelian view on life, and advises Yun Ling to build a garden for her sister. The suggestion “make it a memorial for her” sounds ridiculous to Yun Ling. Having worked as a researcher for the War Crimes Tribunal since the end of the war, she even feels somewhat insulted by Magnus’ offer to ask his neighbor, the Japanese “emperor’s gardener,” to design a garden for her sister (Tan, 41). Three weeks after their meeting, however, Yun Ling fnds herself writing a letter to Magnus to ask him to arrange a meeting for her with the Japanese gardener. She arrives at Magnus’ Majuba Tea Estate during a tense time when the war between the British colonial government and the Malayan Communist Party embroiled the country in violence and terror. Filling Magnus in on her life shortly after the war while taking a stroll outside Majuba House, Yun Ling catches sight of a pair of identical marble statues on the lawn.

92

Zhu Ying

Magnus tells her that they represent Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory, and her unnamed twin sister, the goddess of Forgetting. Noting that the statues are “not completely identical,” as Mnemosyne’s features are more refned, Yun Ling suggests that Mnemosyne is the older sister, as “memory must exist before there’s forgetting” (Tan, 36). Yun Ling’s answer implicitly links Yun Hong, considered the more beautiful sister, with Mnemosyne, and herself with Forgetting. Although Yun Ling was three years younger, the sisters had been very close; perhaps even as close as twins. As an epigraph to his novel, Tan quotes from Richard Holmes’ A Meander Through Memory and Forgetting: There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death. Resonating with Yun Ling’s and Magnus’ discussion of the two marble statues, Tan’s epigraph asserts the duality and paradoxical nature of memory and forgetting in life. Yun Ling is the sister-goddess of Forgetting, symbolized by her progressive brain aphasia in later life, who must travel into the deep caverns of her mind to seek Yun Hong, her twin sister of Memory, toward whom all her memories tend. To learn who she is, to “feel complete once more,” Yun Ling must go back in her memory to mine the past and release that part of her still “trapped […][and] buried alive with Yun Hong” in the camp (Tan, 268). Indeed, The Garden of Evening Mists, which is dedicated to the author’s sister, tells a compelling story of sisterhood scarred by a brutal war, of a surviving sister’s guilt and efforts to return to her lost sister “to free her spirit from where she had been immured” (Tan, 265). Yet the camp’s location is unknown. Yun Ling, the sole survivor, was blind-folded when taken into and out of the camp and knows only that it was deep in the jungle. Although it is physically impossible for Yun Ling to return to the camp to free her sister’s (and her own) spirit, her “rememory,” to use Toni Morrison’s powerful conceptualization of the workings of traumatic memory, is the site at which Aristotelian “mnēmē” converges with “anamnesis,” and allows her to actively travel back in her mind (and in time) to recollect and recall, afforded “temporal distance” by her physical and psychological engagement in a Japanese garden in the jungle-fringed mountains (Ricoeur, 17, 18).2 For Tan’s reluctant narrator, Yun Ling, the journey from camp to garden and the task of addressing wounds in words is physically and emotionally draining. The horror Yun Ling endured through the Japanese occupation of Malaya has turned her into a ghost of a person with “no shadow beneath her feet,” seeming to have no secrets or hidden memories (268). Yet, her meeting with Aritomo to ask him to create a garden for her sister releases painful memories. The fact that Aritomo is Japanese arouses hatred in Yun Ling. However, Aritomo refuses to design “a garden in[the] memory” of a sister who “lies in an unmarked grave”;

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

93

Yun Ling is instead given the chance to learn to design the garden herself as an apprentice to Aritomo (Tan, 49). Seeing Yun Hong’s painting hanging in Aritomo’s study also reminds Yun Ling of her sister’s absence, and the fact that she is “living the life that should have been [her] sister’s” (Tan, 85). Yun Ling, the “wrong” sister, who is uninterested in garden design, goes on to learn the “Art of Setting Stones” and the principles of shakkei (borrowed scenery) (Tan, 86, 110). Aritomo details four ways of achieving shakkei: “enshaku distant borrowing – took in the mountains and the hills; rinshaku used the features from a neighbor’s property; fushaku took from the terrain; and gyoshaku brought in the clouds, the wind and the rain.” His creation of Yugiri borrows from the contours of the Cameron Highlands, the landscape of Magnus’ tea plantation, the fora and fauna of the rainforest, and other blessings of nature to fashion “a paradise in the afterlife” on Earth through “mono no aware, the sensitivity to the sublime” (Tan, 139, 80). However, Yun Ling initially dismisses shakkei as “nothing more than a form of deception” (Tan, 139) and insists that Aritomo’s “memories are a form of shakkei,” making his life in Malaya feel “less empty” or less incomplete. Yun Ling’s present life in Yugiri and her memories are also a form of shakkei – “borrowing from [her] sister’s dreams, searching for what [she has] lost” (Tan, 143). In this sense, the principles of garden design are inevitably applied to life. As Yun Ling gradually comprehends and appreciates these principles, she is fnally able to reorder and re-pattern her life – past, present, and future. Yun Ling gains a full understanding of the events of her internment with the help of four people – Yun Hong (fushaku), Magnus Pretorius (rinshaku), Yoshikawa Tatsuji (a Japanese historian) (enshaku), and Aritomo (gyoshaku) – who may be respectively identifed with the four ways of implementing shakkei and also by accumulating knowledge of four cultures: Chinese, Malay, English, and Japanese. While Magnus’ and Tatsuji’s contribution to Yun Ling’s shakkei are discussed in the next section, the signifcance of Aritomo’s request that Yun Ling tell him about her imprisonment should be noted here. It’s not a mere coincidence that Yun Ling’s telling of her war experience to Aritomo would be connected with clouds: her name Yun Ling means “Cloud Forest” and gyoshaku makes use of clouds. In the small garden in the Temple of Clouds, to the sound of nuns’ (formerly Juganianfu, or comfort women) chanting, Yun Ling begins to tell Aritomo “what happened to [her] […] in the camp” (Tan, 242). Yun Ling recalls and recounts the daily suffering of the Japanese prisoners: hunger, disease, beatings, deaths, and, in particular, “an injury inficted on [her] body” – the loss of her two fngers (Tan, 3). The more beautiful Yun Hong is forced to become one of the Juganianfu, whereas the plainer Yun Ling quickly fnds other ways to survive: learning Japanese, working in the kitchen, interpreting for the other prisoners, and using her sister’s knowledge of Japanese gardens to get closer to Tominaga Noburu, who in the end helps Yun Ling to escape. However, Yun Ling tells Aritomo only what she wants to remember. The greater and crueler truth comes later, when Aritomo probes deeper into what she really did in the camp. Answering that she

94

Zhu Ying

did “whatever was required for [her] to live,” Yun Ling admits that she worked for the Japanese: I gave information to Fumio. I told him who was planning to escape. I told him who was constructing a radio, where it was hidden. I still received my share of beatings, but I got better rations. I got medicines. Yun Hong found out. She begged me to stop. I refused. […] I left Yun Hong there (Tan, 284) In the camp, she was neither Yun Ling nor Cloud Forest, but Kumomori; her Japanese name allowed her to pretend that the things she did – especially working for the Japanese – were done by someone else. Perhaps this is why Yun Ling wants to forget her past, has never recovered from the experience of being a prisoner, and cannot let go of her hatred of and anger toward the Japanese – because they had turned her into a different person, a stranger to herself. Yun Ling had buried Kumomori deeply in her mind and in her memory, yet to deny the existence of Kumomori is to erase a part of herself; without acknowledging Kumomori, Yun Ling is an incomplete person. In his depiction of the intricacy between history, memory, and forgetting, Ricoeur identifes “the polarity between forgetting through effacement and forgetting kept in reserve” (503). This allows an understanding of “incompletion” as being manifest in the inexhaustibility of history, and the selectiveness of remembering.

Re-Enactment and the Resources of the Past: The Judge and the Historian [I]t is only by means of the unending rectifcation of our confgurations that we form the idea of the past as an inexhaustible resource. (Ricoeur, 1984) In the frst chapter of the novel, on the last day of Judge Teoh’s service in the Supreme Court of the newly independent Malaysia in the late 1980s, she receives a letter from a historian, Professor Yoshikawa Tatsuji confrming the date and time of their meeting in Yugiri. The two have never previously met. Although Judge Teoh’s “reputation for refusing to talk to any [Japanese] is well known,” she agrees to meet Tatsuji due to his outspoken opposition to efforts to “change history textbooks, to remove any reference to the crimes” by Japanese troops. He tells “everyone that [they] cannot deny [their] past” (Tan, 18, 19). In constructing accounts of the past, Ricoeur states that “the respective roles of historian and judge, characterized by their aims of truth and justice, invite them to occupy the position of a third party” taking “a vow of impartiality” (Ricoeur, 314). The historian and the judge have respective viewpoints of investigation toward historical knowledge, toward truth and justice. While

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

95

their professional identities may hold out the possibility of such an ideal of impartiality in the search for truth and justice, Yun Ling later discovers that she has more in common with Tatsuji than she wishes to admit. Yun Ling permits Tatsuji to work on Aritomo’s ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) in Yugiri for his book on Aritomo’s life and artwork after leaving Japan, and she ultimately benefts greatly from Tatsuji’s research on Aritomo and Japan’s military tactics in Malaya during the occupation. Her increased knowledge of the country’s past and the truths emerging about Aritomo make it diffcult for her to make an impartial judgment. Ricoeur suggests that “the vow of impartiality must be considered in light of the impossibility of an absolute third party” (Ricoeur, 314). Neither the historian nor the judge can be an absolute third party when their own lives are being tested. Driven by his own concerns and desires, historian Tatsuji’s interest in Aritomo’s woodblock paintings leads him to Yun Ling, and at the end of the novel to view Yun Ling’s full-back tattoo. As a judge, Yun Ling’s written pronouncements for the Supreme Court are well-respected and engaging, “known for their clarity and elegant turns of phrase” (Tan, 5). When Frederik, Magnus Pretorius’s nephew, advises Yun Ling to write down her most important memories as if she were writing one of her judgments, Yun Ling expects to readily draw out and set down her recollections, believing that she will fnd the words she requires, which are nothing more than the tools she has used all her life, and that the process will not be very different from writing a judgment. This belief is soon revealed to be too absolute. She fnds that “the words have refused to come,” and at some moments, “remembering what happened, [she is] unable to continue writing.” What troubles her “more than anything” are “the instances when I cannot recall with certainty what has taken place. I have spent most of my life trying to forget, and now all I want is to remember” (Tan, 294). In The Reality of the Historical Past, Ricoeur argues that R.G. Collingwood’s “history as a re-enactment of past experience” is the result of “the documentary character of historical thought” and “the work of the imagination in the interpretation of documentary data” (Ricoeur, 6). In other words, the re-enactment of the past is only possible through the joint effort of physical evidence and constructive imagination. Yun Ling’s remembering and thus her writing of her past is never a complete re-presence of the past in the present time, it will always be a reenactment, an incomplete version of the past through facts and fction. Fiction, with its core fctio coming from facere, provides a different image of the world and reality. Ricoeur contends that fction reveals its ability to remake the world and “transform or transfgure reality only when it is inserted into something as a labour, ... when it is work” (Valdés, 129). In Yun Ling’s recalling and recording of her life, she has exposed a more devastating horror of the Japanese Occupation that challenges the accepted history. For Nancy K. Miller, to record means literally to call to mind, to call up from the heart. At the same time, record means to set down in writing, to make offcial. What

96

Zhu Ying resides in the province of the heart is also what is exhibited in the public space of the world. (qtd. in Smith, 198)

As Yun Ling starts to write her life, The Garden of Evening Mists becomes her memoir. Yet, she directs attention not only to her own life but also “the lives and actions of others” (Smith, 198) and implements the “double act of recalling and recording” her life and the lives of others (Smith, 198). As such, this type of memoir challenges the boundaries of the public and the private. The dissolving of the boundaries between the public and the private becomes manifest not simply through Yun Ling’s articulation of her memories in words but physically on her body. Yun Ling’s fnal undressing of her full-body tattoo before “an impartial benevolent spectator” (Ricoeur, 315), namely, the male eyes/gaze of Frederik and Tatsuji, is undoubtedly a re-enactment in the present of her undressing for Aritomo frst as a subject of his horimono art and thereafter as his companion. The undressing can only be possible when Yun Ling treats both Frederik an old friend and Tatsuji a stranger as equals. Therefore, the private exposes itself in the public; the personal becomes impersonal. Justice, thus the idea of impartiality, is fulflled through the idea of equality, “that everyone’s life matters, and no one is more important than anyone else” (Ricoeur, 315). The Garden of Evening Mists is Yun Ling’s memoir as much as it is Frederik’s and Tatsuji’s. Interestingly but purposefully, both Frederik and Tatsuji, are Yun Ling the memoirist’s coaxers and coercers. Frederik is the one who told Yun Ling to write down her memories before she would lose them all; Tatsuji through his research on Aritomo provokes Yun Ling to recall her dealings with anything or anyone Japanese. In turn, Yun Ling’s remembrance of the past triggers Frederik and Tatsuji to refect on their own lives. In a way they all embody traces of the past, remote or recent.

The Traces of History Three key fgures in the novel – Yun Ling, Magnus, and Tatsuji – critically mirror each other: each has been deeply damaged by the horror and violence of war. Similarly, during their separate journeys toward healing, they have all been helped by Aritomo – neighbor and old friend of Magnus, master and lover of Yun Ling, and research subject for Tatsuji. Tatsuji has never met Aritomo in person; Magnus frst met him in Tokyo in 1931 (Tan, 179), and Yun Ling frst heard his name from her sister in 1939, when she was 17, yet frst met him over a decade later in 1951. Touching all their lives, Aritomo represents a time capsule combining the distant past, the recent past, and the present. If “[h]istory […] aspires to be a science of traces” (Ricoeur, 13), Aritomo can be seen as history’s most valuable embodiment of such traces. He is more than the emperor’s niwashi (gardener) skilled in shakkei (borrowed scenery). He is also a master of kyudo (archery) and ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), and a horimono (tattoo) artist. Being master of all these arts, Aritomo is the reality of a historical past in the present.

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

97

His teaching of gardening and archery to Yun Ling and his painting/tattooing on Yun Ling’s body can be read as constant re-enactments and remembrance of historical traces. Ricoeur distinguishes the three major uses of the word “trace” as follows: “trace written on a material support; affection-impression ‘in the soul’; corporeal, cerebral, cortical imprint” (Ricoeur, 15). Clearly, Ricoeur understands the word “trace” in three senses: documentary or archival, emotional or spiritual, and bodily or neuro-scientifc. The frst and third uses of “trace” emphasize the external marks of history, whereas the second – “an affection-impression in the soul” – focuses more on emotional perceptions of history. Etymologically, “trauma” originates from the Greek word meaning “wound,” and “trace” from Latin tractus meaning “to draw” or “a drawing.” Therefore, violent and painful drawings/traces cause trauma, and trauma in turn can be embedded in traces. This is especially true in The Garden of Evening Mists: not only gardening, in which the art of setting stones on soil can be painful and intrusive, but also horimono, the art of painting on skin, is penetrating and individualized. History, as a science of traces, is merging past with present. The following discussion centers on the frst and third types of trace, which have the physicality or external representation of history in common. Historian Tatsuji has gathered evidence for his research on Aritomo’s art. He sends Yun Ling a letter with a thin wooden stick enclosed in the envelope. This wooden stick is not a chopstick for children, as Judge Teoh’s secretary jokes, but “the handle of a tattooing needle before tattooists switched to electric needles” (Tan, 19). Later, Tatsuji’s certainty that Aritomo is a horoshi (tattoo artist) is backed up by the discovery that his friend has a tattoo created by Aritomo. This corporeal aspect of the “trace” will be returned to later in this section, but attention must be given here to Ricoeur’s frst notion of “trace” as “written on a material support.” One such “material support” is the landscape of the Malayan highlands which is inscribed with traces of the characters’ pasts, in other environs, diverse cultures, and spanning different historical periods. Magnus fought in the Boer War and was enslaved as a POW on a tea feld. The name of his tea estate, “Majuba,” is a clear reference to “the battle where the Brits were soundly thrashed in the Boer War” (Tan, 150). Majuba House is a Cape Dutch House, with the Vierkleur, the Transvaal fag, fying on the roof and strelitzias growing by the windows. These are traces of Magnus’s past life and memories of the homeland he left in the spring of 1905 before settling in Malaya for 46 years. Similarly, the space Aritomo inhabits is a trace of the past, as Lady Templer tells Aritomo upon completing her tour of Yugiri: “[i]f I don’t know better I would have sworn we were somewhere in Japan” (Tan, 196). Even Yugiri, the name of the garden, is a character from the 17th-century Japanese classic The Tale of Genji. Yugiri was “the frstborn son of Prince Genji,” who somehow reminds Aritomo of his own frstborn son, who died at birth (Tan, 195). Although Aritomo cannot protect Yugiri from public curiosity as visitors are drawn by an ancient waterwheel – a gift from Emperor

98

Zhu Ying

Hirohito nor conceal it from interested hikers, it is at the same time a private garden in which he re-patterns and recovers from his memories of a lost home: his father’s teachings on gardening, his work in the palace garden, the deaths of his wife and son, and his dispute with the Empress’ cousin Tominaga Noburu (whom Yun Ling meets in the internment camp) over gardening, which eventually led him to travel to and settle down in Malaya. Both Yugiri and Aritomo attract public attention and inquiry, especially with the reissuing of Aritomo’s English translation of Sakuteiki, the oldest collection of writings on Japanese gardening. Yet, the historian Tatsuji becomes interested in Aritomo not because of gardening but because of his teacher, friend, and lover, Colonel Teruzen, who has a tattoo done by Aritomo. The tattoo can be seen as refecting Ricoeur’s third conception of the word “trace,” a corporeal imprint. Indeed, corporeal traces can be explored in relation to the four “marked” fgures in the novel. Tatsuji decides to write about Aritomo in memory of Teruzen, noting that “there is nothing authoritative written on [Aritomo’s] artworks, or his life after he left Japan”; this decision brings him to Yugiri and Yun Ling (Tan, 19). Tatsuji recollects his own part in the war as one of the million young suicide pilots (called “Cherry Blossoms”) from the Imperial Naval Academy to fy to the airbase in the Kampong Penyu region on the southeast coast of Malaya (Tan, 211). Tatsuji learns from Teruzen about Aritomo’s woodblock prints and gardens in Japan. On the upper-left corner of Teruzen’s back, Aritomo tattooed a “pair of herons chasing each other in a circle” – Teruzen’s family crest, which was also painted on the fuselage of his plane, built by Tatsuji’s father, in which Teruzen died on his suicidal fight replacing Tatsuji (Tan, 211). After Teruzen’s death, while searching for other horimono created by Aritomo, Tatsuji commissions his own tattoo around the upper part of his left arm: “Inside a feld of gray clouds, two white cranes pursue each other in a loop, almost catching one another” (Tan, 108). Marked with their shared corporeal trace, Tatsuji decides to live out Teruzen’s dream of building a house in the Kampong Penyu region once the book on Aritomo is fnished. Tatsuji searches in vain for more of Aritomo’s tattoos in Japan, unaware that Aritomo has produced two more horimono in Malaya: a small one on his neighbor Magnus and a large one on his apprentice Yun Ling. During Aritomo’s frst visit to Majuba in 1939, Magnus asked him to create a tattoo on his chest, above his heart: “It was a beautifully rendered eye, the blue of the iris nearly matching Magnus’s own. It was set against a rectangle of colors that […] represented the Transvaal fag” (Tan, 181). Like Majuba House, Magnus’ tattoo is a trace of his personal past. It somewhat lessens his “feeling of incompleteness” after losing his right eye in the Boer War, although this feeling will “never go away” (Tan, 182). Unlike Majuba House, which is being redesigned by his nephew Frederik, Magnus’ tattoo remains in its original form. A tattoo is a trace incised in “[t]he palest ink” that will “outlast the memory of men,” as Yun Ling notes (Tan, 109). As Tatsuji and Magnus expose their tattoos to Yun Ling, they lay bare their

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

99

private memories, their personal histories, and the collective histories of their countries. Yun Ling, the viewer and reader of Tatsuji’s and Magnus’ tattoos and their lives, will in turn be viewed, and her written life and personal history read and judged. She, too, is marked. With the corporeal trace of history incised on her back and through her present writing/rememorying of her past, Yun Ling eventually learns to forgive, to come to terms with her past and thus to reach toward a healing in the future. Reading traces of history through Ricoeur’s understanding of the three major uses of the word “trace,” the above discussion navigates through present representations of trace. In so doing, trace has become more than just a static imprint from the historical past but an infnite source of imagination and interpretation. The physical and external existences of trace “pass from the imprint in wax to the portrait, from graphic arts to language arts” (Ricoeur, 11), in this view, trace connects history, memory, and writing. The most convincing example of such a trace is hidden and embodied on Yun Ling’s back, which will be discussed in the next section in relation to the notions of un-forgetting, healing, and forgiving.

Un-Forgetting and Diffcult Forgiveness If forgiveness is diffcult to give and to receive, it is just as diffcult to conceive of. (Ricoeur, 2004) Yun Ling is a marked person in many senses of the word. She was both physically and psychologically injured during her imprisonment in the Japanese slave-labor camp. Later, it is within the landscape of traces represented by Yugiri that she is able to transform the impact of both her physical and psychological wounds. Ultimately, Aritomo’s best and fnal work of art is not Yugiri, which will be neglected once Aritomo has disappeared into the jungle, but the tattoo on Yun Ling’s back in which the most important memories of Yun Ling and Aritomo will last forever. Drawing on Ricoeur’s conception of “forgetting” and “forgiveness,” this section focuses on Aritomo’s exterior incision of “unforgettable” traces as enabling Yun Ling’s interior journey toward forgiveness of others for the events of her own and the country’s past and ultimately of herself. Ricoeur designates forgetting and forgiveness as distinct problematics: “for forgetting, the problematic of memory and faithfulness to the past; for forgiveness, guilt and reconciliation with the past” (Ricoeur, 412). In an effort to fulfll her promise to her sister, Yun Ling immerses herself in her work as a research assistant for the War Crimes Tribunal, but tells nobody of her real reason for working there. Aritomo does not believe that her work is “all about justice,” undertaken simply to “ensure those who were responsible were punished.” Yun Ling admits that taking the job was “the only way that [she] would be allowed to examine the court documents and offcial records” for information about the camp to “fnd where

100

Zhu Ying

[her] sister was buried” (Tan, 49). To fnd out where her sister is buried to free her spirit is one of three promises made to Yun Hong, which she is unable to keep. Having never built the garden they had envisioned together, the only promise she has kept is that she would escape from the camp if she had the chance. Writing down things that happened a long time ago that she does not want to forget and questioning the accuracy of her memory gives Yun Ling some kind of control over the world around her, however short-lived it is. Yet, the novel suggests that her practice of narrative may not ultimately be the most signifcant mode of memory and healing. As a form of inscription and a mode of un-forgetting, the horimono (tattoo) on Yun Ling’s back is replete with memories: “a gray heron. A temple emerges from the clouds. Exquisite drawings of fowers and trees seen only in the forest of the equator” (Tan, 319). For the sake of argument, remembering tends to lean on the active and selective choice of memory, whereas un-forgetting asserts the passivity and irreversibility of the experience, and the Ricoeurian notion of forgetting through effacement and forgetting kept in reserve. This clarifcation, however, is at most ambiguous and controversial. Viewed and read by Tatsuji and Frederik, Yun Ling’s back takes them into a garden containing both recognizable and unfamiliar designs: Majuba House, the prison camp, a meteor shower, the legend of Hou Yi, an archer shooting, the sun on the Japanese fag, and, most importantly, a blank rectangle. Frederik assumes that the tattooist had not fnished his work, but Tatsuji explains that “[a] horimono must have an empty area inside it”; a horoshi (tattoo artist) will “always leave a section of the horimono empty as a symbol that it is never fnished, never perfect” (Tan, 320, 311). Art mirrors life, Aritomo understood the art of horimono essentially as an art of incompletion, and so is life. As mentioned in the previous section, incompletion, a very Ricoeurian word, is manifested physically and hermeneutically throughout the novel as Yun Ling’s missing fngers, Magnus’ lost eye, the death of Yun Hong, the disappearance of Aritomo, among others. When Tatsuji tells Yun Ling about his research on the principles of shakkei which govern Yugiri’s layout, Aritomo’s woodblock print, and Yun Ling’s tattoo, he reveals that he has sketched a map that she can use to fnd Yun Hong’s place of burial. During his two weeks in Yugiri, Tatsuji also tells Yun Ling tales about Aritomo. The most shocking revelation is that Aritomo had worked as a spy sent by the Japanese Emperor to fnd the best hiding place for Japan’s war plunder. But Yun Ling no longer wishes to search for the camp. She tells Frederik that “Yun Hong has been dead for over forty years, locating where she was buried will not ease my guilt or undo what has been done” (Tan, 326). With the same clarity, Yun Ling also realizes that Aritomo set down his thoughts and his teachings before he left: “he had recorded them in his garden, and he had painted them on [her] body” (Tan, 331). She decides to restore Yugiri to its former glory in honor of her sister, to open it to the public when ready, and to put up a plaque commemorating Yun Hong’s life near the Pavilion of Heaven, named after her sister’s favorite poem by the English poet Percy Shelley. Yugiri will also be a living memory of what Aritomo has made; his woodblock prints will be on permanent exhibition in the garden. Yun Ling makes the diffcult yet

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

101

correct decision that the horimono “has to be destroyed” after her death for the garden to continue to exist. With equal diffculty, Yun Ling accepts that her sister will be remembered as she herself gradually forgets and is forgotten. She does not have to worry about forgetting her sister’s face, and in her dream her sister is neither angry nor sad; she is simply a memory. Most importantly, in seeing Yun Hong’s face in her mind’s eye, Yun Ling is able to face her actions in the past and her guilt at abandoning her sister in the camp. To make peace with herself, to forgive herself, Yun Ling must restore and transform Yugiri as a layered site of private and collective memories. At the same time, she no longer has to worry about being unable to remember everything; as Aritomo has told her, the garden will remember it for her. Like Toni Morrison’s “rememory” which is noun and verb, singular and plural, personal and collective, cyclical and non-linear, the garden is also a combination of opposites: Malay and Japanese, individual and historical, cultivator and cultivated, master and student, victim and perpetrator. Healing, individually or collectively, must happen in the garden which is not only portrayed as a time-space continuum but also a corporal body, most likely a female body, symbolized by the re-enactments in the present of a historical past as well as by the re-birth from the female body. Because of Japan’s colonial history during WW II, the concept of un-forgetting and diffcult forgiveness in the Southeast Asian context is tied to the power of history-writing, between Japan and most Asian nations, in this case, Malaysia. Tan revealed in an interview that he has always been interested in writing about Malaysian history during WW II because he often found that his contemporaries had chosen to forget this particular time period, effectively confessing to both personal and national amnesia, because history was either too painful or a source of shame. “Dealing with the horrors of the Japanese Occupation and the violence of the Malayan Emergency was at times emotionally draining” (Hong, “An Interview with Tan Twan Eng”). But Tan feels it is the writer’s responsibility to feel and to convey those emotions to the readers. At the end of the novel, Yun Ling is at peace with her memories; she has come to terms with her past by telling herstory and the histories of people associated with Yugiri. Phonetically, Yun Ling and Yugiri even sound similar. Yun Ling (“Cloud Forest”) is now the nurtured and nurturing garden, and her wish to return Yugiri to its former glory symbolically represents her movement toward healing and recovery. Accordingly, the physical embodiment of the garden in the horimono on her back does not need to exist. It may be diffcult to imagine that Yun Ling could truly forgive the Japanese for what was done to her and what Japan inficted on her country during World War II. Yet, Yun Ling must learn to forgive herself during her healing and transform her traumatic role as victim/collaborator/mourner into that of speaker/ writer/builder. As the sole survivor of the Japanese POW camp, Yun Ling is the victim of the Japanese military brutality, and the mourner of her lost sister and her fellow POWs, as she speaks and writes her memories down, readers have discovered that the reason that she has survived is because she collaborated with and worked for the Japanese soldiers in the camp. Ironically, being Aritomo’s student of gardening, Yun Ling’s wartime collaboration in order

102

Zhu Ying

to survive is re-enacted daily in the form of her learning from a Japanese master to heal the trauma of being the sole survivor. Healing here takes the form of building and rebuilding the garden and thus herself. The role played by Aritomo in this process should not be trivialized. The Japanese gardener is the novel’s quasiperpetrator, often seen giving pain, physical or metaphorical: he commands Yun Ling to move heavy stones in the garden, he needles a full-body tattoo onto Yun Ling’s back, and simply by being Japanese, he reminds Yun Ling of all the pain she endured in the Japanese slave-labor camp. Nevertheless, Yun Ling’s healing is furthered by not only representing it in writing, enabling her to forgive if not forget, but also with the presence and companionship of Aritomo. Indeed, the key relationship at the heart of The Garden of Evening Mists urges examination of the relationship between victims and perpetrators in the transformation and reconstruction of traumatic memory in the Southeast Asian context and beyond. Thus, the dynamics of un-forgetting, referring to Ricoeur’s understanding of forgetting through effacement and forgetting kept in reserve, renders forgiving diffcult and divine. At the end of the novel, readers fnd a peaceful and wise Yun Ling acknowledging her multiple roles in history, be it victim or collaborator.

Conclusion By examining traumatic memories and histories as represented in the Malaysian historical novel, this chapter is both informed by and contributes to the three leading tropes in the title of Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting. Personal and collective memories and losses of trauma are re-enacted and remembered in the present within the symbiotic relations between memory and forgetting. Since traces manifested in varied forms are discreet but commemorative reminders of the pain and violence of a historical past, the chapter has also examined the volatile and interdependent relationship between self and other, victim and perpetrator as well as the transformative powers between un-forgetting and forgiving. Therefore, reading Tan Twan Eng’s The Garden of the Evening Mist with reference to Ricoeur’s hermeneutic expositions on memory, history, and forgetting, the chapter attempts to explore different ways of understanding Southeast Asian historical fction of trauma and memory beyond psychoanalytical and pathological as well as socio-geopolitical and post-colonial readings.

Notes 1 For example, historical fction by Madeleine Thien: Dogs at the Perimeter (2011), and by Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer (2015) and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016) among others. 2 “Rememory,” a noun and a verb, is Toni Morrison’s coinage and unique contribution to the English language. As Sethe understands and puts it, rememory is a historical experience transcending the boundaries of time and place, a hideous picture of past horror, and a traumatic site at which history repeats itself and is reenacted. Sethe tries to avoid rememory, but in vain, because it is easily provoked by trivial reminders.

Forgiving but Not Forgetting in The Garden of Evening Mists

103

Bibliography Andremahr, Sonya, and Silvia Pellicer-Ortín, eds. Trauma Narratives and Herstory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Bell, Duncan. Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refections on the Relationship Between Past and Present. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Bong, Sharon A., ed. Trauma, Memory and Transformation: Southeast Asian Experiences. Selangor, Malaysia: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2004. Browning, Dominique. “Making Arrangements.” NewYorkTimes.com. Web. August 13, 2012. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experiences: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Eng, Tan Twan. The Gift of Rain. New York: Weinstein Books, 2008. —. The Garden of Evening Mists. New York: Weinstein Books, 2012. Eyerman, Ron, Jeffrey C. Alexander, and Elizabeth Butler Breese, eds. Narrating Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering. London: Paradigm Publications, 2011. Hong, Terry. “An Interview with Tan Twan Eng.” Bookslut.com. Web. September 2012. Lea, Richard. “Tan Twan Eng Wins Man Asian Prize.” TheGuardian.com. Web. March 14, 2013. “Malaysian Author Tan Twan Eng Wins Walter Scott Prize.” BBC.com. Web. June 14, 2013. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: A Plume Book, 1988. Ricoeur, Paul. The Reality of the Historical Past. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1984. —. Memory, History, Forgetting. Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2004. “Reader’s Guide: The Garden of Evening Mists.” TherapieManBookerPrize.com. Web. April 14, 2016. See, Carolyn. “The Garden of Evening Mists Tan Twan Eng.” WashingtonPost.com . Web. October 5, 2012. Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. “Tan Twan Eng.” WeinsteinBooks.com. Web. April 14, 2016. Tonkin, Boyd. “The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng.” Independent.co .uk. Web. April 28, 2012. Valdés, Mario J., (ed.). A Ricoeur Reader: Refection and Imagination. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. Violi, Patrizia. “Trauma Site Museums and Politics of Memory: Tuol Sleng, Villa Grimaldi and the Bologna Ustica Museum.” Theory, Culture & Society 29, no. 1 (2012): 36–75.

Part II

Traumascapes of Body and State

6

Bonds and Companionship The Healing Effcacy of the Picture Books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Michelle Chan

After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, a group of volunteers organizes a picture book delivery project for the victims in the affected areas. They have received requests from people in refuges that they would like to reclaim a “sense of hope and future that they can get through reading” and “read and see the real face of the world” (71–72). Kimiko Matsui (2012), who is one of the volunteers in this delivery service, writes: Children’s books are not only effective for helping children cope with trauma, the gentle words that a child understands also ease the raw feelings of adult. I hope the books we sent to North Japan provide a means for the people of the earthquake stricken region to dream and believe in a better world. (74) Matsui’s comment highlights three notions: the potency of children’s books in one’s struggle against trauma, the inclusion of adults in readership, and the optimism embodied in the reading materials. All these raise the question of how children’s books help alleviate the pain of young and adult readers and redeem a belief in future. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake is one of the most severe natural disasters that Japan has experienced in centuries. The main quake and its series of aftershocks triggered tsunamis and subsequently led to a nuclear crisis in Fukushima. It caused irrevocable destructions ranging from a massive loss of lives to the traumatic memory on individuals and the nation. A number of children’s books expressing grief and bereavement were published in response to the catastrophe. These publications make an attempt to encapsulate and reconceptualize the disaster without losing authenticity while trying to portray it in a less nightmarish manner. This chapter will examine a few selected picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and demonstrate how picture books address the earthquake, the tsunami, and their aftermaths. These works recall the traumatic experience such as the ruination of places and the loss of the beloved, while at the same time, they endeavor to relieve the pain by visualizing and discussing the hardship from multiple perspectives. These books accentuate the fact that the disaster is undergone collectively by both children and adults. Since all are suffering from distress

108

Michelle Chan

and senses of abandonment, the collaborative efforts between them are required for acknowledging their vulnerability, growing resilience, and ultimately, recovering from the traumatic experience. One signifcant aftermath of catastrophe is the sudden rupture of life, which creates an existential crisis in the survivors. Gumpert (2012) explains that fundamentally, catastrophe is an accident that is strong enough to be “a suspension of temporality itself” (xvi). Catastrophe is a “rupture in the ordinary scheme of things […] an irruption, an eruption, a disruption” or even an “interruption” (xvi). It does not disrupt only the usual routine of daily life, but also what humanity has been laying its foundation on. This situation causes a suspension of values and a collapse of beliefs. Its abruptness is often beyond “the realm of human apprehension and control” (xvi). This means that humans are unable to comprehend the reason for the massive destruction as well as being utterly impotent and passive to catastrophe. Gumpert is trying to argue that, catastrophe itself seems “to happen for no determinable reason that, by the very same token, they seem to point to a reason, one beyond our fathoming.” Catastrophe is a “sign of transcendent,” which “belongs to a genre of the revelatory” (xvi). On the surface, catastrophe may appear to be chaotic and occur without reason or pattern, but it can be a revelatory agent for a new understanding of specifc issues. Before this happens, nonetheless, it is necessary to tackle the emotional disturbance of the affected. The disruption can be unbearably profound and overwhelming that the general public is so emotionally disturbed that they are incapable of making sense of the situation, not to mention that they have to fgure out the essence of catastrophe. While humans are building their sense of security through their experience and knowledge, the loss of what they rely on give rise to their existential crisis. For the children, particularly, natural disasters “carry with them a profound and ongoing threat to children’s sense of the world as a safe place” (Golding, 283). Certainly, science can explain the cause and impact of natural disasters, but rather than a rational analysis, catastrophic impacts may have already exhausted the society and the individuals. Herman explains that in catastrophe, humans suffer from a loss of bonds (1997). The breaching of connections happens not only in the way that the natural disasters take away the life of one’s family, friends, and the beloved but also in depriving survivors of a sense of security, which has been founded on these stable relationships: Traumatic events call into question basic human relationships. They breach the attachments of family, friendship, love, and community. They shatter the construction of the self that is formed and sustained in relation to others. They undermine the belief systems that give meaning to human experience. They violate the victim’s faith in a natural or divine order and cast the victim into a state of existential crisis. (51) Yoko Imoto’s Kaze No Denwa (かぜのでんわ), for example, addresses feelings of abandonment, distress, and impotence by using some anthropomorphic

Bonds and Companionship 109 animal characters to assume the roles of survivors. All these animals are attempting to talk to the deceased ones through a phone, despite the fact that it is not connected to any other devices. A raccoon who is personifying a child calls his brother and asks when his brother will return. He feels like he is being left by his brother abruptly and unreasonably. A rabbit, who takes up the role of a mother, asks about the well-being of her deceased child. She misses the playfulness of her child, and she wishes her child to come home and for things to be as they used to be. Regardless of if she is trying to deny the horrid truth, her wishes only evidence that she is not prepared to be separated from her child. These calls mention nothing about the crashed home or the falling infrastructure but only the reminiscence of the deceased. Compared to other forms of destruction, the loss of “basic human relationships” surely devastates the survivors the most. Likewise, Eri Nakada’s Kiseki No Ippon Matsu (奇跡の一本松 大津波をのりこえて) illustrates a similar sense of abandonment felt by a whole community. Inspired by an actual event, this picture book delineates a story of a pine tree, which survives the tsunami and becomes the only one out of the 70 thousand pines that still stands along the coastline of Rikuzentakata city in Iwate. This tree represents hope and vitality, yet, the whiteness around the tree also externalizes visually its loneliness resulting from the missing companionship. The void is so strong and dominating that it flls up more space on the page than the tree. Some other survivors, including an aged schoolteacher whose students are missing, a gardener wishing to comfort the abandoned tree, and many other victims, gather around this tree and lament for their loss. While the pines are planted by the ancestors to protect Iwate, the missing of trees denotes the deprivation of the security which has been built for years. With an illustration which shows a character placing his hand on the pine, Nakada lays out the solitude shared by all these individuals. On top of the shattered relationships and sense of security, frustration escalates when the characters see little hope and prospects in the near future. Natural disasters destroy a man’s belief in “the continuity of life,” “the order of nature,” and “the transcendent order of the divine” (Herman, 51–52) drastically in a very short time span. Such subversion of one’s assumption on natural order arouses an existential crisis. In Imoto’s Kaze No Denwa, a cat asks God, or any form of deity, how life and death should be understood in such extreme conditions. The perplexity of this character refects how one is disturbed by the violation of what they believe is “normality.” At the same time, this exemplifes how the survived ones have to cope with a conficting mindset. Rationally, they understand the inevitability of natural disaster, yet emotionally, they fail to handle the affiction. It is perhaps like what Manifold argues that the trauma of natural disaster contrasts “sharply with [one’s] emerging senses of justice” ( 23). They lose an ideological foundation to regulate their lives. Natural disaster violates the victim’s idea of justice when signifcant losses do occur on the innocent and virtues do not make any changes to the devastating result. Minoru Kamata’s and Yoshifumi Hasegawa’s Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu (ほうれんそうは　ないています) addresses the anguish over the unfairness

110

Michelle Chan

through the voice of personifed animals and vegetables in Fukushima. Here, the characters are looking forward to making full use of their lives by providing humans some nutrition. However, because of the nuclear accident, these products are contaminated and no longer edible. Spinach, for example, resents bitterly since he loses his purpose of living. Its future is ruined unexpectedly. It even wonders if it has to blame itself for its predicament. Kamata and Hasegawa delineate the accounts of a number of agricultural products, encapsulating the extensive scale of destruction on both humans and nature. These characters project the plights of those who reside in the stricken area, who have to endure not only the devastation the earthquake caused but also the growing estrangement from the public. Although progress is being made in the reconstruction of the affected areas, some areas remain too dangerous for human residence. Many survivors have been staying in temporary housing for years and are still struggling in the post-disaster era. These picture books outline the distress of the victims honestly. They are not attempting to varnish the truth nor conceal the affictions but conveying a strong message that misery and confusion are ubiquitous in all affected parties. Sorrow is found in individuals and the whole community. Neither justice nor karma can explain the catastrophe. These picture books make a clear stance in acknowledging human’s vulnerability and emotional disturbances when they discuss resilience and recovery. Children’s stories are secured media for exploring traumatic experience since they “provide opportunities for reliving painful or frightening experiences with the safe limits of their cover” (Golding, 3). A picture book can be a reconceptualization of the traumatic experience and readers are placed at a “safe” distance from the pain. It is essential to understand that such effcacy of picture books and related studies are still relatively new in the discipline. Even if there are more varieties in children’s book in recent years, many adults still wonder if some topics, such as death, war, violence, natural disaster, and so on are too “dangerous” or too “upsetting” for young readers. There is only a limited number of children’s books that tackle controversial topics, not to mention that outside of these publications, there are even less handling natural disasters. Golding provides an overview of children’s literature of healing as well as suggesting some ideas on how picture books can possibly assist recovery. Manifold also identifes certain key characteristics of this kind of picture book. Some studies concerning trauma and war can also be found. Yet, relevant criticisms are still scarce. Besides, while Japan may have more publications related to earthquakes, America has more concerning fooding. The location of publication does confne the picture books of natural disasters since they are more or less designed to discuss hazards with references to specifc geographical location and cultural practice. It is highly possible that the views and resolutions advocated are not applicable universally, and no wonder that the studies of this area are heavily restrained. Nonetheless, when there is an increasing number of natural disasters globally, these picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake are valuable sources for outlining certain features that are needed for developing children’s literature of trauma and healing.

Bonds and Companionship 111 It is as Golding states, picture books open doors which “lead into a secure sense of a strong self in reliable relationship, a capacity to use imagination to work through diffcult situations, and a self that can cope positively and creatively with the challenges children face as they develop” (2). Such argument on imagination is explored by Manifold with more details: “art images draw on feelings, abstract memories, and metaphoric associations whereas narratives spark the reader’s imagination to weave explanation and meaning” (20). In other words, imagination can “work through diffcult situation” by offering “explanation and meaning,” indicating that the imagination used in decoding picture books is capable of rationalizing atrocities for the victim. Reading a picture book itself requires an extensive usage of imagination since “picturebooks composed of pictures and words whose intimate interaction creates layers of meaning, open to different interpretation” (Arizpe 2002, 22). It is an activity that involves a dynamic interplay between visual and textual languages, which are independent but also interdependent in narration. Nikolajeva and Scott argue that even if words and images can “fll each other’s gaps, wholly or partially” (2), neither of them are competent enough to complete the entire narration without the imagination of the readers, who are responsible for flling in the gaps with “their previous knowledge, experience, and expectations” (2). A picture book is like a “miniature ecosystem,” which runs by “the interdependence or interanimation of word and image” (Lewis, 48). Readers take up the leading role of determining the signifcance of codes as well as fguring out the model of collaboration. This also means that picture books are intrinsically equipped with some room for free interpretation. In this case, it can be presumed that when readers are introduced to a picture book of natural disaster, they will have to re-visit and re-interpret their view through imagination, and subsequently, liberate themselves from their personal views to other possible perspectives and alternatives. Manifold states that “picture books that provide soothing visuals and rhythmic beats combined with reordering mythic motifs may be helpful in calming children’s fears of devastation” (23). The collaboration between the “rhythmic fashion,” the layout, and some elements such as “meter, metaphor, and other meaning making process,” are capable of bringing readers the “harmony with the world” (21). Such an idea of “harmony” can refer to the internal peace of a person, the harmony in the community, and the reunion between humanity and nature. Manifold does not elaborate on how these features of picture books can pacify readers but reading picture books itself requires a constant modifcation of one’s mindset so as to construct a “coherent” plot. By doing so, they need to employ their intertextual knowledge in “constructing explanatory narratives” (Arizpe 2001, 116) or a “schema for interpretation” (117). Since these picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake are contextualizing real-life experience, the understanding of the emotional distress in these books will lead to individualized explanations and meanings of the crisis. Before forming a complete interpretation, readers have to employ the intertextual context acquired by their social experience and interpersonal encounters. In other words, when readers are moderating their interpretations of the codes and constructing a coherent

112

Michelle Chan

reading, they make use of the knowledge that reminds them of the other parties in their social community. This is an advantageous feature for the picture books of natural disaster because these books concern mainly the completeness and strength of relationships. In the process of reading, it is inevitable that the intertextuality of picture books will forge a subtle connection between readers and the others. At the end of 2011, “絆” (kizuna), which means “bonds,” was elected by the Japanese as the word of the year. This conveys a powerful message that even though the nation has suffered from atrocities, the bonds between all parties are still strong. Many of the picture books related to the 2011 Great Japan Earthquake concern, notably, the collectiveness of the experience. As demonstrated by the selected picture books, those who suffer from frustration, anger, and abandonment can recover when companionship, whether in physical or spiritual forms, is being introduced or readers are reminded of it. Some of these picture books make use of children protagonists to encourage the identifcation between the real children with the fctional ones. Mari Mitsuoka’s and Shouzou Yamamoto’s Tanpopo Anohi Wono Wasurenaide (タンポポ あの日を忘れないで) and Kazu Sashida’s and Hideo Itou’s Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe! (つなみ てんでんこ はしれ、上へ！), for example, re-visualize the disaster chiefy from the perspective of young characters. Both begin the plot with an average school day, and no signs of imminent upheavals are detected. When the earthquake starts, the young characters fee from their schools with their peers and teachers. After the earthquake, the leading role in Mitsuoka’s and Yamamoto’s picture book, Mai and her friend, Saki, are told to wait for rescue in their classroom. The protagonist in Shashida’s and Itou’s work takes care of the kindergarten students and follows the instruction of the secondary school students. All students run to a hill and spend their night together in a gymnasium. The young characters of these two works hold hands, hug, and pad each other’s shoulders, showing that they do recognize their vulnerability and they offer peer support to each other. Golding argues that, while children are dealing with the traumatic experience of natural disaster, they “often need extra time and support from parents, including reassurance, an honest acknowledgement of their feelings, and permission to cling” (283). Here, the bond between the young protagonists, however, accentuates not the guidance of adults. No particular adult character stands out as being the leader of the evacuation. In these two picture books, the young are capable enough to take care of themselves. Even if picture books are conventionally printed for young readers, these picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake underline the fact that all members of the community undergo the catastrophe collectively. Sashida’s and Itou’s Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe! manifests the “vastness” of the disaster through an eye-witness account, presented along with several bird’s-eye views and long shots. “Eye-witness” account, as explained by Paula Connolly (2012), is “more closely approximate the vastness of disaster” while picture books reveal “the emotional landscape of potential trauma amid the devastating effects” (3–4). These accounts are “narratives of pain,” “expression of fear, confusion, and loss” (4).

Bonds and Companionship 113 Sashida and Itou use undulating lines and dark, intense colors to illustrate the fear and tension of the fight. This scene set in the middle of this story takes up a four-page spread. The extensive scale of such illustration displays the massiveness of the escape and the imminence of danger. Long shots are used several times to highlight the fight of the entire social community. It is impossible to identify the evacuated adult and children from the crowd. The image reinforces that all victims belong to the same wholeness. In this sense, Sashida and Itou are stating that the trauma of the earthquake and tsunami, as also presented by the irregularities and asymmetries in this scene, haunts not just individuals but the whole community. Thence, rather than solely focusing on individuals, resilience and recovery should be cultivated along with all the other members. Herman (1997) writes: The core experiences of psychological trauma are disempowerment and disconnection from others. Recovery, therefore, is based upon the empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new connections. Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. (133) Despite the fact that Herman focuses her discussion on the trauma of war and domestic violence, the ideas of empowering the survivors and forming new connections are nonetheless applicable to the victims of the natural disasters: “in the immediate aftermath of the trauma, rebuilding of some minimal form of trust is the primary task” (Herman, 61). The bond between the survivors, no matter whether they are children or adults, is an immediate source of mental support. In Mari’s and Shouzou’s Tanpopo Anohi Wo Wasurenaide, children are terrifed during the earthquake and the tsunami, yet, they regain their laughter and play games when they are in the sanctuary. These children build new friendship in a diffcult time, and they share the same memory and commemorate the casualties together. In Sashida’s and Itou’ Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe!, an old lady says that she may have given up her life if she had not seen how the children were running for their lives. A fsherman also expresses that he may have drowned if he has not seen the note which states that his family had already evacuated. Here, the convention of adult’s guidance and children’s reliance is reversed, showing explicitly that all ages are suffering and undergoing the same trauma. No one is coping with the pain alone. The ending of Sashida’s and Itou’s work accentuates the strength of the bond between the survivors. The last few pages show a spread on which ropes are tied with their invocations written on bright and bold color papers. These pages contrast sharply with the pages of the escape, on which the evacuees are running uphill in a mass. The illustrator presents the powerfulness of the sharing invocations by printing such a scene on a four-page spread, the same number of pages used in the evacuation scene. This implies that these wishes are strong enough to counteract the atrocity. It evinces optimism, the collectiveness and particularly, the collaborative power of the survivors.

114

Michelle Chan

Other than printing books exclusively for child readers, in this case of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, some picture books target ostensibly adult readers. The genre has long been embracing a sense of “childlikeness,” and this is precisely the quality aspired to by adult readers, especially during such a diffcult time. Adult readership is no longer novel in the studies of children’s literature. Scholarly researches understand that the “single address” in children’s literature is theoretical. Adult readers are always present in the discipline. They take up the role of the publishers, who defne and categorize the text; they also take up the role of parents and teachers, who select the texts for young readers. Barbara Wall introduces terms like “single address,” “double address,” and “dual addresses” while Peter Hunt calls the address “polyphonic.” Haus-Heino Ewers divides the discipline into “monosemic multiply addressed children’s literature” and “bisemic multiply address children’s literature.” Nodelman even suggests that the characteristic of “childlikeness” itself in children’s literature reveals the hidden adults in the readership: Picture books are clearly recognizable as children’s books simply because they do speak to us of childlike qualities, of youthful simplicity and youthful exuberance; yet paradoxically, they do so in terms that imply a vast sophistication in regard to both visual and verbal codes. (Nodelman 1988, 21) Picture books are full of “childlike qualities” that are recognizable to adult readers, and they also embody a vast number of visual and verbal codes that it is essential for readers to have the “general knowledge and experience of life, of literature, and of visual art” (Nodelman 1988, 101) before they decipher the codes. Nodelman argues that such “childlike qualities” recall the childlikeness and innocence of the adult authors. Children’s literature is indeed a “literature of nostalgia” (2008, 192). In this way, “childlikeness” is a deliberate artifact created based on the understanding of “non-childlikeness.” The diffculties in the adult world, subsequently, strengthen the “innocence” in children’s books. In the picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, adults are in need of childlikeness, a reminder of “innocence,” so as to console themselves from traumatic experiences. As Katherine Smith (2005) observes, adults tend to imagine children as an innocent subject, “who are fgured almost iconographically as the ultimate victims of trauma, those who require above all else adult protection guidance” (116). When children are the marginalized or the vulnerable fgures in society, adults equip themselves with a responsibility to protect the children. It is an act of assuring the prosperity of the future. Perhaps children are generally being seen as a weaker party; however, as aforementioned, the children in these books show courage and wisdom. They are calm and determined. Thus, instead of keeping the children safe, adults focus on redeeming “innocence” in these picture books. Additionally, “innocent” children are also confgured as “the survivor of trauma,” who are capable of offering “adults spiritual advices in how to triumph

Bonds and Companionship 115 over pain through simple, honest, essential values like love, trust, hope, and perseverance” (116). Even if picture books have to minimize the historical intricacies of the disasters, “these experimental narrative privilege evidence of child reader’s survival ability as well as identifcation with a suffering protagonist, a process that would bring us back to the idea that adults long for both vulnerability and strength, victimization and recovery” (Smith, 118). Thereby, the clear storyline and undisguised characterization accentuate the sharing of vulnerability between adults and children. The survival of characters brings a sense of hope and cultivates the recovery of adult readers. Like Herman, Smith’s criticism focuses mainly on the trauma of warfare and holocaust, yet the projection of these feelings generated from traumatic experiences is presumably working in a similar manner with the ones from natural disasters. Therefore, though some of these picture books are using child protagonists, their survival is an inspirational role model for adult readers. Additionally, instead of making use of the story of the fctive child characters, adult characters are included in these picture books to strengthen the identifcation of adult readers. In Imoto’s Kaze No Denwa, for instance, four out of fve characters are adults, who respectively play the role of a mother, a widower, a questioner, and the guard of the telephone. The adult characters share the same grief with the only child character. They express their mourning as vehement as the young one. The fox, who assumes the role as a widower, resents how his wife leaves him and their children abruptly. He starts the conversation by reprehending the departure of his wife, but soon his rage turns into gratitude for what she has been doing for the family. This scene refects a complex emotional response of the victim upon the sudden ruination of his matrimony. Adult characters can also be found in Tan Hakata’s Himawari No Oka (ひまわりのおか), which is an epistolary composed by a group of bereaved mothers. The book records the reminiscence and the wishes of the parents to their deceased children, who pass away in the tsunami. Mikiko Asanuma and Ken Kuroi’s Hanamizuki No Michi (ハナミズキのみち) is recited by a deceased child, whose purpose of narration is to comfort her survived parents. Hisanori Yoshida’s and Eto Mori’s Kibou No Bokujou (希望の牧場) unfolds a story of a cattleman, who continues to work in a radiatively active region since he believes that it is his duty to take care of his livestock. All these aforementioned picture books display a great deal of childlikeness in pictorial manifestation and fantastical elements in the plot. Nonetheless, the stories are clearly related more to an adult’s life, role, and job than a child’s. In addition to the interconnection between children and adults and also the bond in the social community, the reconnection between the survived and the dead also relieves the pain of the victims. Imoto’s Kaze No Denwa is capable of making a connection to all victims. They share the same loneliness and the desire of reconnecting to the deceased. Imoto’s Kaze No Denwa fnishes with the ringing of the phone. When the guard of the phone picks up the call, the snow stops and the stars glitter, a metaphorical shift from distress to prospect. The other side of the phone answers with plenty of “Thank yous,” as if the deceased are

116

Michelle Chan

expressing their gratitude for the calls. The gratitude can also be relevant to the good old times that the living and the deceased have spent. The story fnishes when the guard shouts to the sky that the grief and wishes of the survived are transmitted successfully at last. The replies symbolize a restoration of the reconnection between the living and the dead, and at the same time, assuring that the bond between them is still secured. According to Connolly, while “using animal stories to describe natural disasters” could provide “a means for identifcation,” they could also be “simultaneously removing the focus from human tragedy,” stating that anthropomorphism could distance readers from direct addresses to bereavement. (2012, 2) Connolly argues that “animal stories that narrow the scope of the disaster by synthesizing its effect on one or two animals often traverse the geographical and situational boundaries of their respective natural catastrophes to speak to universal emotions” (2012, 2–3). The deliberate inclusion of “universal emotion” removes precise identifcation, and thereby, distances the readers intentionally from a conscious reminder of their agony. The death of the beloved is a tragic yet inevitable incision of human relationships. These answers in Kaze No Denwa, thence, alleviate the pain of the mourning. They pacify the living ones by implying that they are departed in peace, and thus, providing the best possible comfort to the survivors and moderate the acute pain of these sudden deaths. Nakada’s Kiseki No Ippon Matsu focuses on the historical root of the trees and proposes a reconnection with ancestors. The survived and personifed pine recalls the endeavor of previous generations by tracing its past to the Edo period. A businessman, Mokunosuke Kanno plants the pines because he believes that the trees can prevent the erosion of sea breeze and keep the fertility of the soil. Fifty years later, another offcial, Shinuemon Matsuzaka, repeats the practice. Visually, Nakada illustrates the scenes from the past, showing how different parties are trying to plant pines for defense and prosperity. These plantings refect the hope of the ancestors, who wish their acts will keep their descendants away from catastrophe. The recollections manifest the sharing invocations and the companionship of a few generations. The missing of the pines indicates the impotence in the face of the natural forces and also a waste of the endeavor of the ancestors. Nonetheless, one pine survives miraculously. This tree preserves the bond with the past, even if it becomes relatively feeble. Still, its survival reminds of the fact that their ancestors have also experienced the same devastation caused by natural disasters. Yet, they are able to thrive in the face of extremity. Thence, the tree revitalizes the affected and reminds the ubiquity of catastrophic events in history. The victims can also recover and rebuild their hometown as their ancestors have done. Some writers refuse to fantasize about the remnant of the disaster or soothe the poignancy through anthropomorphism. Instead, they confgure the reconnection between the survivors and the deceased by illustrating their return in the form of soul or incarnation. Usa’s Boku Wa Umininatta ( ぼくは海になつた) narrates the return of a dog, Chobi, to his owner. At frst, the dog is confused because his owner cannot see it; yet, readers will fnd out that the reason for such invisibility

Bonds and Companionship 117 is that the dog is dead. Chobi accompanies his owner to walk around the stricken area, during which its owner identifes the body of her mother. Here, the living one and the deceased one are still mutually dependent. When the survivors are mourning for their loss, the deceased is also trying their best to go back to the Earth, even if it reappears only in the form of a soul. Neither of the two characters intend to abandon each other. The visualization of the reunion of Chobi and his owner evidences the strength of bonds, which can persist and restore under challenging circumstances. Despite the fact that the deceased ones are no longer visible for the survivors, the two parties are still spiritually tagging along. In both Mikiko Asanuma and Ken Kuroi’s Hanamizuki No Michi and Tan Tanaka’s Himawari No Oka, for example, the deceased children are incarnated as fowers. Asanuma and Kuroi spend the frst half of the story recalling the quotidian life before the earthquake, and then they spend the latter half on the narration of the deceased child. With the purpose of consoling her bereaved parents, the child asks them to plant dogwoods, her favorite fowers, along the road. The narrator is hoping that her parents will imagine and believe in her companionship whenever they see the fowers. Her spirit will stay on the fowers so that when the next disaster comes, she will guide the evacuees to a safe location. The blooming dogwoods recall the past of the child as well as symbolizing the incarnation of the child at present. This new form of bond requires not obliterating the death of the child but helps foster the resilience in the face of the tragedy while proposing a new fashion of companionship. Different from the child narration in Hanamizuki No Michi, Tan Hakata’s Himawari No Oka (ひまわりのおか) is given by bereaved parents. It is based on a real event of the students attending Ookawa primary school. More than 70 per cent of the students and teachers are engulfed in the disaster. The book delineates how the parents commemorate their children by planting sunfowers near the school. A mother recalls how her children are looking forward to their graduation, while one recalls how her child takes care of her family. Each mother picks one or two stories of their children that vividly present the kindness and the beauty of each child, laying out to the readers that these children are all precious to their family and the nation. Some tell these parents that the sunfowers are dehydrated since the land has been soaked with seawater before, but the mothers reply that they will water them as long as the fowers need it. Even if some tell them that excessive watering will drown the roots, they are pampering the fowers as if they are doing so on their deceased children. The parents are much comforted and contented when they witness the growth of these sunfowers. It is apparent that they project their parenthood on the fowers, which, in their view, are incarnated with the souls of their children. To be sure, the parents do not deny the fact, but they feel like they reconnect with their children spiritually through the sunfowers. Incidentally, considering that this book presents the letters written by the mothers along with the images of the children, it can also be served as a medium that reunites the mothers and the children. Hanamizuki No Michi and Himawari No Oka concern how humans are seeking comfort in nature rather than holding grudges against it. It is encouraged

118

Michelle Chan

to see nature as hope and a continuation of life rather than a destroyer. At the beginning of Sashida and Itou’s Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe!, the grandfather of the protagonist comments on the beauty of the sea. Yet, the old man has warned the protagonist that he has to run for his life if a tsunami comes. The same discussion happens again at the end of the book. The protagonist laments on the loss of his fat, and he asks if the old man is afraid of the sea. Even though the tsunami is horrifc, as the grandfather explains, it is part of the natural cycle. Humanity has long taken advantage of the sea but has forgotten the power of nature. Nonetheless, the relationship between human and nature is not about one being more superior to the other. The grandfather ends his comment with a remark that everything is possible as long as humans live. The conversations here give readers a sense of optimism, suggesting that instead of staying hostile to the environment, humans should re-examine their role on Earth or even look for the intrinsic connection between human and nature. It is vital that survivors reconcile with nature by acknowledging that disasters are part of the natural cycle. It is still possible, as suggested by the grandfather, that man will fnd a way to co-exist with nature in peace. The contemplation and refection on the relationship between human and nature may echo what Gumpert has argued about the “revelatory” characteristic of catastrophe. New understandings and thoughts can be generated after a catastrophe. These picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake remain silent to the possible “new” understandings. They are not obliged to provide a manual for recovery, and to be sure, it would be too simplistic just to lay out the solutions to settle the traumatic experience. If this happened, these books would be underestimating the impact of trauma. It would be disrespectful to the deceased and an overlooking of the affictions of the survived. As it appears, instead of “solving” the trauma, these books question the dualistic relationship between nature and humans while initiating an exploration of the possible remedy for the affected. Along with the “optimism” embodied and the refection on humans and nature, a sense of melancholy is paradoxically and consistently reminded. The earthquake and the tsunami trigger the ongoing radioactive releases in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Picture books such as Minoru Kamata’s and Yoshifumi Hasegawa’s Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu and Hisanori Toshida’s and Eto Mori’s Kibou No Bokujou illustrate the unsolved nuclear problem in the post-disaster era. Kamata and Hasegawa contrast the life of the personifed vegetables and animals in the affected area by having a brightly colored page followed by an image colored with dark monochrome. The vivid pages illustrate the invocations of the characters, and the following pages display how nuclear pollutants contaminate these fgures. The alternating manifestations of vibrancy and lethargy manifest noticeable disparity before and after the nuclear accident. Additionally, the authors make use of the short span of page-turning to show the suddenness of calamity. Such juxtaposition of the forecast before and after the catastrophe effectively exhibits the sudden loss of hope and the devastation of various parties. In the end, these characters state that they do not have any more tears to

Bonds and Companionship 119 shed, showing that they are too exhausted from their affictions and impotence. The authors also illustrate the power of radiation with a black and white double spread, on which all objects are only outlined. The horror of radiation is evinced profoundly by its invisibility, intangibility, and unavoidability. The minimalistic design only highlights that the disaster is impacting the life of the residents thoroughly. Life is ruined ceaselessly in these affected areas. Toshida’s and Mori’s work, instead of personifying characters, is based on a true story of a cattleman, who stays in the stricken area of radiation and takes care of his livestock. The book is mainly colored with an earthy tone, projecting the distressing state of the remnants. Other human characters, which are voiced only in the text, ask the cattleman to leave. Nonetheless, he insists that it is his duty to look after the place. His loneliness is highlighted when no communication between him and the other human are visualized. Before the radiation, children are playing around, and farmers are working in the feld. Those pages are painted with bright colors and chiefy in green, showing a strong sense of vitality. However, on the following pages, the leakage of radiation scares off all humans. Though the layout is very similar to the previous page, the absence of human characters creates a noticeable hollowness. The story illustrates the troubles of the abandoned animals in the stricken areas. Even if this cattleman, or perhaps some others, take care of the remaining animals, most of them are being left without food and support, not to mention the physical danger that these parties are exposed to on a daily basis. Regarding the future of those affected, both Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu and Kibou No Bokujou portray a strong sense of devastation in the last few pages. In Kamata and Hasegawa’s work, two farmers, who turn their back to the reader, are colored with dark gray. They stare at the feld, in which the agricultural products are all contaminated. They can do nothing to rectify the current situation. Their impotence shows how vulnerable humans can be when they face disasters. Mori, in a similar fashion, draws the back of the cattleman and his herd with a snowing background, displaying the bareness of the region in conjunction with the solitude of the character. These two picture books present clearly the seclusion of those residing in these areas and the alienation that befalls on the victims. In spite of the fact that these characters have survived the earthquake and the tsunamis, their lives are not thriving in all ways. Different from other aforementioned picture books, Hasegawa’s and Mori’s works focus more on the hardship in the post-disaster era. While melancholy and solitude persist, these picture books are not impeding the recovery of the survived. Instead, they encourage readers to foster their resilience and cultivate their recovery by accommodating themselves with these atrocities. Like the invocations upheld in Sashida’s and Itou’s work and the reminiscence of the bereaved mothers in Hakata’s work, these picture books are not trying to uphold a happy ending senselessly. They suggest a practical optimism for all the affected. To survive is not about obliterating the past but living with it. While staying optimistic is preferred, the mindset of the survivors should also have to be prepared for the lingering effects of the disaster.

120

Michelle Chan

These picture books admit the fact that earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis are “unavoidable,” and both children and adult survivors will have to cope with the traumatic experience. Rather than simply recalling the past, these picture books advocate the essentiality of companionship, the critical stimulus for one’s recovery from trauma. In order to alleviate the painful experience, they examine the connections between survivors, reconnections with the deceased, and the incarnation of souls. It is apparent that these books are written or illustrated neither for edifcation nor entertainment. They stress neither the horrifc nor haunting nature of trauma. While picture books, or even children’s literature, concerning trauma and disasters are still scarce, the picture books of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake demonstrate how picture books can respond to natural disaster and how they can impact readers. Even if recalling traumatic experience may provoke unpleasant memory, these books propose a contemplation and re-examination of bonds, refection on the interrelations between humanity and nature, and reassessment of the roles of humans in the natural order. While they admit humans’ vulnerability, they also ask them to learn to live with the powerful nature in peace. These publications are not burying the history and upholding a blind exhilaration to prosperity; instead, they advocate practical optimism, which recognizes the aftermaths of the disasters while growing resilience with the past and preserving a faith for the present and future.

Primary Resources Asanuma, M., and K. Kuroi. Hanamizuki No Michi. Tokyo: Kin no Hoshisha, 2015. Hakata, T., and M. Matsunari. Himawari No Oka (7th ed.). Japan: Iwasaki Shoten, 2014. Imoto, Y. Kaze No Denwa (7th ed.). Tokyo: Kin no Hoshisha, 2014. Kamata, M., and Y. Hasegawa. Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu. Japan: Poplar, 2014. Mitsuoka, M., and S. Yamamoto. Tanpopo Anohi Wo Wasurenaide (2nd ed.). Japan: Bunken Shuppan, 2012. Mori, E., and H. Yoshida. Kibou No Bokujou (3rd ed.). Japan: Iwasaki Shoten, 2015. Nakada, E. Kiseki No Ippon Matsu (12th ed.). Japan: Chou Bun Sha, 2014. Sashida, K., and H. Itou. Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe! (6th ed.). Japan: Poplar, 2014. Usa. Boku Wa Umininatta (4th ed.). Japan: Kumon Shuppan, 2015.

Secondary Resources Arizpe, E. “Letting the Story Out’: Visual Encounters with Anthony Browne’s The Tunnel.” Reading: Literacy and Language 35, no. 3 (2001): 115–119. Arizpe, E., and S. Morag. Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts. London/New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2002. Connolly, P.T. “Surviving from the Storm: Trauma and Recovery in Children’s Book about Natural Disaster.” Bookbird 50, no. 1 (2012): 1–9. Ewers, H. Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research: Literary and Sociological Approaches. (W.H. McCann, Trans). New York: Routledge, 2009.

Bonds and Companionship 121 Golding, J. Healing Stories: Picture Books for the Big & Small Changes in a Child’s Life. London: M. Evans, 2006. Gumpert, M. The End of Meaning: Studies in Catastrophe. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (2nd ed.). New York: BasicBooks, 1997. Hunt, P. “Defning Children’s Literature.” In Only Connect: Readings on Children’s Literature (3rd ed.), edited by S. Egoff, G.Stubbs, R. Ashley, and Sutton, W., 2–17. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Lewis, D. Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text. New York: Routledge, 2001. Manifold, M.C. “The Healing Picture Book: An Aesthetic of Sorrow.” Teacher Librarian 34, no. 3 (2007): 20–26. Matsui, K. “Cheering Ourselves through Children’s Book: Bookbird Helps QuakeHit North Japan.” Bookbird 50, no. 1 (2012): 70–74. Nikolajeva, M., and Scott, C. How Picturebooks Work. New York: Routledge, 2006. Nodelman, P. Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988. Nodelman, P. The Hidden Adult: Defning Children’s Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Smith, K.C. “Forum: Trauma and Children’s Literature.” Children’s Literature 33, no. 1 (2005): 115–119, 303. Wall, B. The Narrator's Voice: The Dilemma of Children's Fiction. New York: Palgrave, 1991.

7

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma Spectrality and Magic Realism in Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows Jocelyn S. Martin

Current developments in Trauma Studies can be described as undergoing a postcolonial turn. Beyond the initial Yale group led by Cathy Caruth that highlights the Holocaust as the main paradigmatic event of trauma theory with melancholia and aporia as outcomes, several scholars have since proposed other models. For example, writers such as Judith Herman or Dominick LaCapra suggest a therapeutic rather than an aporetic tendency in trauma theory,1 while other postcolonial-inspired critics, such as Sonya Andermahr, Lucy Bond, Stef Craps, and Catherine Gilbert,2 discuss compelling collaborations between Postcolonial Studies and Trauma/Memory Studies. A postcolonial turn usually also indicates a non-Eurocentric turn. For example, scholars like Jeffrey Alexander have since asked if the Holocaust is “Western” (83). Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga, in their volume entitled Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel (2012), emphasize at least four African views on trauma: the pre-eminence of colonialism/apartheid; the value of resistance; the importance of the sacred in the process of healing or coming-to-terms; and the need to turn to Black intellectuals, such as W.E.B. DuBois, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon. Indeed, as a psychiatrist, Fanon explored trauma3 long before the emergence of Trauma Studies. Turning attention to the decolonized setting of the Philippines contributes to this postcolonial shift.4 In this chapter, I discuss the novel Cave and Shadows (1983) by Philippine national artist Nick Joaquin. Born on September 15, 1917 into a privileged home wherein Spanish was spoken, Joaquin nevertheless lived under the American colonial era that used education as a tool for colonization.5 The centennial of Joaquin’s birth last 2017 marks an appropriate time to revisit the work6 of this “Spanish-favoured English”-speaking Filipino writer. Various initiatives, including the new Penguin Classics publication of a part of his oeuvre, testify to the renewed recognition of the author. Cave and Shadows revolves around a crime investigation: Jack Henson discovers the body of Nenita Coogan in a cave that has mysteriously surfaced amid the city of Manila. Not only does his investigation reveal the reappearance of other corpses, with Nenita coming only after a series of “female priestesses” over the course of many centuries, but also the return of an ancient form of nature epitomized by the cave. In the midst of such exceptional events, government

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 123 protesters question the ban on access to the cavern. The ruling party, represented by the Manzano clan, eventually faces internal disagreement. The youngest heir, André, a contemporary of Nenita, in confict with his elders, bolts out of the house, only to die in a storm in the vicinity of the cave. Confused and discouraged by two deaths and many unresolved mysteries, Jack Henson returns to his island without fully understanding these mysterious events. Although other scholars, such as Josen Masangkay Diaz (2015), approach Cave and Shadows in terms of identity politics, I am interested in what I suggest are the spectral fgures that question historical justice and that embody both remembering and forgetting. Specifcally, I examine not only the specters of colonization but also the unsettled past of the infamous Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. As such, this chapter frst provides a theoretical discussion of spectrality and its correlation with trauma and belatedness. It also studies the difference between mourning and mid-mourning, the latter understood as a way of ethically re-assessing historical losses. Second, it proposes two readings of the revenant, Nenita Coogan. In the third part, which analyses manifestations of ecological spectrality, I interrogate new ways of thinking about trauma in “disaster cultures.” Consequently, in the fourth part, I investigate the compatibility of Magic Realism and postcolonial trauma in decolonized societies. Finally, the chapter considers the spectrality of the Marcos Regime and the inclusion of dictatorial eras as legitimate areas of investigation in Trauma Studies. All these elements support my argument that, in Cave and Shadows, spectral fgures – corporal or climatic – allow an interrogation of historical trauma through haunting and mid-mourning. Unlike most trauma paradigms based on Western events, I consider other possible traumatic models, such as colonization, climate disasters, and dictatorship. I also propose Magic Realism as an alternative to postmodern aesthetics. Coined by Franz Roh in 1925 and later appropriated by Alejo Carpentier as lo real maravilloso (Delbaere-Garant, “Magic Realism,” 76), Magic Realism is a mode “suggesting that ordinary life may also be the scene of the extraordinary [so that] what seems most strange turns out to be secretly familiar” (Mikics 372). Because it reacts against “traditional realism, thereby creating a ‘fracture in the real’” (Maufort and Bellarsi 17), Magic Realism is “visibly operative in cultures situated at the fringes of mainstream literary traditions” (Slemon 408). Thus, Magic Realism allows for postcolonial resistance and inclusiveness of the peripheries.

Spectrality as Ethical Examination of Historical Loss The ghost or revenant, among others, is frequently used as a device to show Nachträglichkeit or belatedness in trauma fction. Unlike shock, belatedness is considered an essential characteristic of trauma because “in its most general defnition [it] describes an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which the response to the event occurs in the often delayed, uncontrolled repetitive appearance of hallucinations and other intrusive phenomena” (Caruth 12, emphasis mine). Like Nachträglichkeit, the specter returns long after the

124

Jocelyn S. Martin

traumatic event and like belatedness, the specter brings back an unsettled, often traumatic past. Penetrating the present, the “revenant always returns with a plea or demand for witness” (Luckhurst 95). This cry of an unhonored past is certainly applicable in decolonized settings. Taking her cue from David Punter, Cristina Sandru argues that the very bodies of the postcolonials are inhabited by the History they cannot escape, by the memory of their pasts […] haunted by the vanished voice which […] will resurface and try to break through again and again, in a permanent re-visitation of the site of trauma. (25) A case in point is Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which is described by Roger Luckhurst as “paradigmatic trauma fction” (90). Beloved recounts the horrors of the African slave trade and the Middle Passage, reminding humanity of the 60 million and more who perished in the seas. Mainly due to the presence (among others) of a baby ghost, Beloved shows how specters “are signals of atrocities, marking sites of untold violence, a traumatic past whose traces remain to attest to a lack of testimony” (Luckhurst 93). Just as a haunting indicates the “blockage of story” in order to convey “a hurt that has not been honoured by a memorialising narrative” (Luckhurst 93), similarly, trauma fction usually favors non-linear postmodern narratives that convey disjointed time. Anne Whitehead argues that “if trauma is at all susceptible to narrative formulation, then it requires a literary form,” for example, a circular and aporetic narrative, “which departs from conventional linear sequence” (6). Nevertheless, I agree with Kali Tal who warns against “reducing a traumatic event to a set of standardized narratives” (6), thus limiting trauma fction to those that conform to such aesthetics. While Nick Joaquin’s novel uses narrative non-linearity and the Nachträglich device of the specter, I argue that it also highlights the compatibility of Magic Realism with the articulation of a traumatic past. Composed of nine chapters, the novel juxtaposes Jack Henson’s present and the colonial past. The alternation between past and present, associated with the presence of revenants, radically unsettles chronology and the complacency of stability. Additionally, the recurring corpses and caves can be interpreted as postcolonial historical losses that need to be acknowledged. Therefore, the appearance of specters can be read as indications of melancholia: as a lack of mourning of the past or as repressed memories that still haunt the present. In his essay, “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), Sigmund Freud contends that melancholia requires “that all libido […] be withdrawn from its attachment to [an] object” (243). In other words, the mourning person must eventually accept reality, otherwise, melancholia is maintained. However, “when the work of mourning is completed the ego becomes free and uninhibited again” (Freud 244). Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torök clarify how melancholia is like “grief that cannot be expressed [thus building] a secret vault within the subject” (8). However, “crypts only remained sealed for so long; they begin to leak phantoms”

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 125 (Luckhurst 96). As a result, some departed “are destined to haunt: the dead who have been shamed during their lifetime or those who took unspeakable secrets to the grave” (Abraham 287). On the one hand, Nenita Coogan’s “corpse” in Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows can easily exemplify melancholia and belatedness. Although this reading may be legitimate, on the other hand, I also speculate on a second interpretation of the embodied “specter.” Instead of indicating pathological melancholia, the revenant can be construed as a representative of collective mid-mourning in which “historical losses are neither […] ‘properly’ mourned nor melancholically entombed […] but constantly re-examined and re-interpreted” (Craps 60). To clarify the difference between mourning and midmourning, let us return briefy to Freud’s psychoanalytic session which seeks, in the words of Sam Durrant (2004), to distinguish between “involuntary” repetition and an active process of working-through, between melancholia and mourning. And not merely to distinguish one from the other but also to transform the one into the other by assigning the process of repetition an end. The psychoanalytic session thus attempts both to initiate and to limit the work of mourning. (10, emphasis mine) Jacques Derrida (2003) uses the term “mid-mourning” or “démi-deuil” to describe an ethical attitude that enables one to not forget those who have died. Derrida suggests that [m]elancholia is supposed to be the failure and pathology of this mourning. But if I must (this is ethics itself) carry the other in myself in order to be faithful to that other, to respect its singular alterity, a certain melancholia must still protest against normal mourning. (74) According to Geoffrey Bennington, this “certain” melancholia is no longer seen as a pathological condition, [but] rather as a kind of ethics of death, whereby the other’s loss is not lost in the interests of the self, as in the case in “normal” mourning, but is in a certain sense maintained as loss, and therefore mourned in a process that is structurally non-teleological and always incomplete. (Bennington, xi–xii) Derrida thus proposes a distinction between “normal” mourning and “mid” mourning: “while ‘normal’ mourning gets over it [,] démi-deuil, […] is a kind of structural state of […] surviving with a ‘slash-scar’” (Bennington xi–xii). Therefore, in the words of Bennington, mid-mourning is “not really opposed to mourning […] but, affrmatively and even militantly, the only possible mourning” (Bennington xii, emphasis in original). Moreover, according to Durrant, such

126

Jocelyn S. Martin

an idea opens up “an aesthetics – or ethics – of incompletion” (114). Hence, by incorporating history into their narratives as a spectral presence rather than attempting to recover it as a fully narratable subject, authors force their readers to refect critically on the nature of their own engagement with history and alterity (Durrant 114). Durrant differentiates between individual and collective mourning. While individual mourning tends toward a “symbolic closure,” “for the collective, as Derrida argues, the possibility of a just future lies in our ability to live in remembrance of the victims of injustice” (9). In other words, mid-mourning carries a commitment in which not forgetting “seems precisely to be a way of looking to the future, a way of ensuring that history does not repeat itself” (Durrant 9). Such an understanding of mourning can be useful for decolonized societies that are “confronted with the impossible task of fnding a mode of writing that would not immediately transform formlessness into form, a mode of writing that can bear witness to its own incapacity to recover a history” (Durrant 6). Therefore, the concept of mid-mourning applies to postcolonial realities. To summarize, melancholia and the repressed express pathology, while démideuil no longer does. Instead, it is closer to mourning while, at the same time, the ethical remembrance of the dead is willed and maintained. This “remembrance” is not just a commemoration, but a carrying of the lives of those who lived before in the hearts of those who live today, so that the thoughts of the dead are pursued by the living. Whether symptomatic or supportive of trauma, both Nachträglichkeit and démi-deuil require a mode of writing that can narrate the unnarratable. In Cave and Shadows, the fgures of the living/dead and nature perform this act of justice, this act of mid-mourning.

The Living/Dead and Eco-Specters In Joaquin’s work, the frst case of spectrality involves the discovery of Coogan’s corpse. Finding Nenita’s perfumed virgin body on a stone altar on a Sunday suddenly revives past legends of forgotten babaylans or healer-priestesses in the Philippines who dwelt in the cave during the pre-Hispanic era, from the 16th to the 18th centuries. For instance, according to the novel, a Flemish physician in 1571 recorded the presence of a Lady of the Stonehill (43), while another woman, called the Hermana (101; 176), reportedly died in the odor of sanctity in the early 1700s. Others like Princess Kandarapa in the 17th century (171) and Doña Jeronima in the 18th century (176) seemed to have followed suit. In this tradition, Nenita Coogan appears to be the latest occurrence of sleeping fgures lying in the cave. Her “apparition” sends a warning that other bodies might come – and indeed will, through André – unless the pain of the colonial past is honored. In Culture and History (1988), Joaquin explains the roles of these Hermanas who arose from the Spanish regime and, at the same time, became fgures of opposition. The fact that the list includes only women who are a mix of nobility, woman warriors, and religious fgures “returning” from the early Spanish era, indicates an unfnished articulation of Philippine postcolonial history. As

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 127 Abraham argues, “what haunts are not the dead, but the gaps left in us by the secrets of others” (287). In other words, the buried secrets of one generation can be found in another, underscoring the transgenerational haunting from century to century. Functioning as a revenant of past rebels, mystics and warriors, Nenita returns with the vengeance of the repressed. However, Joaquin’s description of the “body” does not seem to indicate a corpse: “How did the body look?” asked Jack. “Believe me, Mr. Henson – as if merely sleeping. […] The arms lay alongside and the feet together. And all of it completely peaceful, relaxed. The fesh was soft, almost warm. […] When the guard and I approached, we noticed it was her body that smelled sweet. The smell came from her […]” (8–9) That her return is embodied as a sleeping – possibly still living – woman blurs the distinction between living and dying. As previously mentioned, by incorporating history as a spectral presence rather than a fully narratable subject, like the silent Nenita, readers are forced to ethically consider their historical responsibility. If the girl is indeed just sleeping and, therefore, alive, she can remember and “carry the other in [herself]” (Derrida 74). In other words, she can mid-mourn. Furthermore, Nenita is a different type of babaylan: she is half-American and fair-skinned, a hybrid. Despite her white skin and foreign background, her death aligns her with the other brown-skinned, indigenous Filipina legends of the past; she is thus “worthy” of becoming a priestess. On the one hand, through her hybridity, she refects colonial history by combining the double culture in her. On the other hand, because of her assimilation with past babaylans, she calls for non-forgetfulness: to remember that those who died “paid for” what society enjoys today and for promises of the future. In other words, she engages with postcolonial history, negotiating between past and present, between remembering and forgetting, and between life and death. Signifcantly, like the persistent babaylans, the cave itself seems to resurface despite and because of natural phenomena. In the novel, earthquakes, landslides, typhoons, and volcanic eruptions either allude to or take on a specifc “role” as revenant. Thus, what appears to be an “ecological spectrality,” or what Sharae Deckard calls “green spectres” (286), can also be observed. First, earthquakes function as ”accomplices” of the ghostly revenants. For instance, it is worth noting how an earthquake causes the cave to resurface, recall, and re-present the past: The quake that shook Manila in August 1970 wrought invaluable damage on Barrio Bato. […] But a prize fnd resulted. […] The crumbling away of the masonry revealed the original back and, in the middle of it, the cave, with its stairway cut in the stone. All this had lain hidden for two and a half centuries behind the almost vertical wall of the embankment. […] The revelation excited public curiosity […] the cave had been “sealed” with an embankment

128

Jocelyn S. Martin since early Spanish times. […] By then all rumour of a lost cave on their riverbank had become for the villagers more myth than ancestral memory, a tradition that faded as it became uncertain. […] It took the earthquake’s revelation to revive in the memories of the old certain conficting traditions about the barrio’s lost cave (Joaquin 41–43, emphasis mine)

The signifcance of August and its link with Martial Law is discussed later in the chapter. However, at this point, it is worth foregrounding how memory has been repressed: “all this had lain hidden for two and a half centuries,” “the cave had been sealed.” Hence, oblivion has settled in the consciousness of the people: the past has become a myth, no longer a reality. Although the name of the barrio or village that surrounds the cave has been changed to Terraplén de la Reina, it has failed to dislodge the old one that holds the secrets of many generations, again emphasizing the transmissibility of trauma. Similarly, in the novel, typhoons and landslides take on an exaggerated ominous character with descriptions that are however closer to reality than fction in the Philippine context: The rain swept by wind seemed to be not falling but fowing, as though a sea tided in the air. Roof and wall were hit sideways; billboards fell, slapped down. Horizontal, the waters rammed against tree and post, being not so much downpour as tidal wave. The city was to be imagined as chambers under the sea, rocked by turbulence above on the surface. Submarine dusk was plunged into inkier gloom when the power failed. In the black-out, traffc waded or stalled in wheel-deep foods; houses were unroofed and shacks washed away; riverbank squatters, engulfed, had to be snatched by amphibians. A chilled city damply groped for supper candles, or made do with the lightning. It was now almost nine o-clock and the rain’s violence had not slacked since it began. (211) This violent storm, which may uncannily remind present Filipino collective consciousness of the Haiyan storm surge disaster of 2013, eventually kills the last Manzano heir, André. Jack tries to save him but nature overpowers them: And then Jack heard a new sound that was no phrase in the storm’s vocabulary – a sound as of something ripped, then going on tearing. In the same moment he felt the ground under him give, sliding away swiftly but not as fast as the stones that came falling […] he was in rushing water, still holding André by a wrist […] “André!” he screamed in horror as he felt the boy rushed away. […] [O]f those fung into the river, only one drowned: André Manzano. […] [A]s he ran in [the cave], the landslide had started […] sealing with rubble what was now a new entrance. When dug out, the boy lay naked near the sill of the inner cave. (Joaquin 214–215, emphasis in original)

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 129 Just as the earthquake allows the cave to resurface, typhoons and landslides also reopen the cave. In the novel, nature chooses what to destroy and what to rebuild, as if it had a mind of its own. Consequently, André, a young advocate of the cave, is aligned with the inhabitants of the cave. The shift to André as an embodied ghost is signifcant: as he is a Manzano, heir to a political dynasty, his “sleep” can be construed as a warning to the future state of the nation. Like Nenita who serves as a bridge, André can represent the importance of the dialogue between past and present, between nature and the city, and between climate change and political reform. That he dies at the height of both a real storm and a political demonstration underscores the links between climate disasters and the socio-political sphere, that is, between natural calamities and political responsibility. Indeed, recent studies in Environmental Humanities investigate the links between climate disasters and the histories of colonialism and between ecological research and globalization. For instance, Naomi Klein’s concept of “disaster capitalism” (2008) or Rob Nixon’s analysis of “slow violence” (2011) discuss such concerns. Kamau Brathwaite further links the effects of colonialism to what he calls “world quake” (2002). In addition, Elizabeth De Loughrey (2013) argues that US nuclear testing in the Pacifc Islands and radiation research both contributed to the emergence of ecology as an academic feld (16). In Cave and Shadows, aside from the death of André, Joaquin uses the volcano to allude to political disasters. On one occasion, Chedeng Manzano observes marching activists carrying a papier-mâché volcano. When she tells Jack that she has learned to live with such demonstrations, Jack retorts: “that you’ve learned to live with a volcano doesn’t prove it’s not there” (Joaquin 51). This example not only connects a natural phenomenon with a political rally, it also foreshadows a symbolic eruption within the Manzano household. Revealingly, the growing political unrest during the Marcos regime was popularly referred to as the First Quarter Storm. These waves of demonstrations, which culminated in gradually increasing violent protests, were not only described in climatic terms, they actually paved the way for Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law. Moreover, Diaz refers to the pounding Manila heat described in the novel as attesting “to the urgency of this political and historical moment when established rules are broken, when tensions explode, and when previously separated factions come head-to-head in eruptive ways” (11). This oppressive heat is illustrated alongside the description of August as a “violent month”: With the rains come a change of mood and a difference in hotness. If you felt broiled in March, you feel broiled in August. The seething month has nothing of the stillness, the candor, of summer. Its heat waves are in constant stir, building up to a ft. Danger looms if the air is unclear, like a smoke. This thickens and darkens until, overheated, it explodes – into a thunderstorm, a cloudburst, a typhoon. […] The alternation between heat wave and hurricane accounts for the myth of August as a violent month. (2)

130

Jocelyn S. Martin

The novel collates climatic and political disasters to highlight the need to consider both in the same frame. Elsewhere in the novel, Ginoong Ina, one of the babaylans of the cave, claims that “irreverence towards nature is fast making the country unliveable. The mountains are deforested, the soil languishes, river and sea stink, the very air is poisoned” (148–149). According to Diaz, Ginoong Ina “aligns this irreverence toward nature with nationalism as a religion” – once again, in the context of Martial law – “and thus explains that the developmental modes of Philippine national politics are making the country unliveable” (23). Serial colonizations and unstable political situations only complicate a climate disaster-prone country like the Philippines, which can create a “culture of disaster” according to Greg Bankhoff (2003). With volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, storm surges, droughts, and 20 annual typhoons that regularly threaten the 7,100 Philippine islands, one may ask if “recovery” is the right term to use for a country troubled by political abuse and long-term injustice and poverty (Carrigan 130). De Loughrey, Didur, and Carrigan propose that there is still an “uncritical tendency toward ‘superpower parochialism’ [Nixon] in the framing of environmental concerns that often refects the perceptions and preoccupations of the privileged and the Global North” (6). Indeed, as part of Trauma Studies’ postcolonial turn, and Memory Studies’ eco-critical turn, climate disasters in the Global South should be continuously encouraged as objects of study. Such considerations may broaden Trauma Studies’ vision of bringing cultures together.7 Similar to trauma fction, which enables the narration of the unnarratable, climate fction allows effaced lands to be reimagined. Unlike legal literature, for example, trauma and climate disaster fctions both use creative ways of portraying loss and absence by allowing the inexpressible to be communicated. Akin to both forms of fction, as a mode in which “writers could express their faith in imagination in the face of oppression” (Delbaere-Garant, “Magic Realism,” 75), Magic Realism can be an appropriate mode for postcolonial trauma.

Magic Realism as Expression of Postcolonial Trauma As previously mentioned, Magic Realism is a literary mode that suggests that “ordinary life may also be the scene of the extraordinary [so that] what seems most strange turns out to be secretly familiar” (Mikics 372). The unusual landscape and the active involvement of nature in the novel are reminiscent of what Jeanne Delbaere-Garant classifes as mythic realism, a variant of magic realism. Suitable for countries “from which indigenous cultures have largely vanished” – appropriate for spectrality – “mythic realism borrows ‘magic’ images from the physical environment itself” (Delbaere-Garant, “Psychic Realism,” 252). Indeed, the repeated resurgence of the cave inhabited by mystical hermanas and the landslides and storms that “choose” to restructure the river and landscape in the middle of a city, testify to both the attempt of indigenous cultures to

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 131 be honored and the energetic participation of nature that acts according to its own will. In Cave and Shadows, the physical location and structure of the ancient cave situated next to an urban metropolis mark not only a stark opposition between the center and the margin, but also a blurring of boundaries. The cavern itself is composed of an outer cave and an inner one. The outer cave overlooks a river with a modern road above. Via an arch in the outer cave, one enters an inner lobe located under a barrio, or district. Near the barrio, a new modern subdivision of a series of expensive houses is under construction (Joaquin 5). Hence, the overall structure is similar to concentric circles of communities converging toward the cave, a landscape from the outside to the inside. The central point of this geographical description is the cave, precisely the inner cave. However, by describing the landscape in such a way and placing the cave, particularly the inner cave, in the center, Joaquin blurs the very concept of a “center” because the new modern houses under construction become peripheral. Because of its capacity to reform or deform the landscape of the city, by decentralizing it, the cave not only exhibits mythic realism, but also acts as the agent energizing the peripheries. Additionally, Magic Realism is used to show how “modern and ancient, scientifc and magical world-views coexist” (Sandru 148). In Joaquin’s work, folklore exists alongside classical allegory. The title of the novel, Cave and Shadows, is an obvious allusion to Plato’s Image of the Cave in Book VII of his Republic. For Plato, the world inside the cave represents the physical world of appearances, while the real world exists outside the cave where the sun shines. Joaquin juxtaposes this piece of classical Western tradition with the babaylan fgure who sparks a new interest toward the cave, thus provoking an outward-inward movement contrary to Plato’s allegory. Similar to the landscape that blurs the center and the periphery, visions overlap, classical allegory coexists with folk tradition, and Western and indigenous elements meet. As postcolonial trauma seeks a mode of writing that accommodates non-Cartesian ways of expression, Magic Realism fulflls the task. Again the deconstructionist and postmodernist legacies of trauma fction privilege aporetic structures and non-linear narratives. On the contrary, as my reading of Cave and Shadows suggests, Magic Realism may be introduced as a critical alternative to articulate trauma narratives. At this point, let me draw from Jenni Adam’s work, Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature, Troping the Traumatic Real (2011), in which she defends the compatibility of Magic Realism with the ethical demands necessary to examine Holocaust novels. According to Adams, several aspects of Magic Realism can negotiate “the ethical, epistemological and representational complexities surrounding Holocaust interpretation” (173). First, Magic Realism can mediate between realist and antirealist approaches to represent a “third time,” similar to postmodern techniques mimicking the effects of PTSD via aporetic and non-linearity. Second, according to Adams, because of its dialogic dynamic, Magic Realism has an ethical potential, similar to

132

Jocelyn S. Martin

postmodernism’s claim to ethics. However, unlike postmodern techniques that usually favor non-therapeutic endings, Magic Realism offers what Adams calls “consolatory escape,” which works well with postcolonial theory’s drive toward resistance and liberation. As the “energy of the margins,” to borrow DelbaereGarant’s term, which fractures and interrogates the real, Magic Realism is compatible with the emancipatory objectives of postcolonial theory. Although both modes or techniques come from different historical backgrounds – Magic Realism from the 1920s and its Latin American appropriation by Alejo Carpentier, which emphasizes its “ex-centricism” (Maufort 17) and postmodernism from the 1950s, which highlights post-War disillusionment – they both fulfll aesthetic and ethical demands appropriate to trauma narratives. However, what distinguishes Magic Realism from postmodernism is its emancipatory energy particularly inclusive of decolonized societies, the peripheries, and the Global South. As such, as my analysis of Cave and Shadows demonstrates, the compatibility of trauma narratives and Magic Realism deserves further research. In Joaquin’s novel, exemplary forms of Magic Realism, the living/dead and the cave, indicate resistance toward a center.

Martial Law Dictatorship as Contemporary Philippine Trauma The cave also exists in tension with the Alejandría, the house of the Manzano clan that was built in the 1930s. Named after Alexander the Great, the villa represents the place where people had “gathered, waited, plotted, met, fed, and lodged” (Joaquin 60), symbolizing the seat of the ruling classes from generation to generation. Nevertheless, at the height of political unrest, supporters choose to rally around the cave rather than the Alejandría. In the end, even the symbols of the house, such as the fountain and the statue of Alexander the Great, crumble (Joaquin 239). As the cave resurfaces, the house disintegrates. Furthermore, the all-female ”lineage” of the cave contrasts with the all-male succession protected in the mansion. Don Andong Manzano had a distinguished career in politics with Manuel Quezon.8 In contrast, his son, Alex, who followed his father’s political path as a senator, fnds himself constantly troubled by activists until even his own son, André, the youngest Manzano heir, perishes with the activists, thus frustrating a socio-political dynasty. As the cave pursues its new “recruits,” Nenita and André, the Manzanos lose their only heir. At the height of the brooding typhoon, in the chapter entitled “Darkness in August,” the senator takes his own life and Don Andong retires, spending his last days in penance, both consequences of the death of the heir. The conficts caused by the opposition between the cave and the Alejandría, between old and young generations within the estate, and between the center and the periphery can be interpreted as the site of unsettled Philippine colonial history. Again, Magic Realism as a mode of writing allows a focus “on the problem of history” in which “people in postcolonial cultures engage in a special

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 133 dialogue with history” (Slemon 414). However, Cave and Shadows leaves readers uncertain as to the realization of this dialog with history. During a debate in the Alejandría, the elder Manzano seems to confrm this interpretation when he describes Philippine colonial history in the following terms: Yes, there’s a lot of hating to do […] until you may feel that to love your country you have to hate everything else. But given our history, maybe we have to have all this hate out frst before we can begin to love […] [it is] a colony within a colony […] a Chinese colony in trade, a Spanish colony in culture, a Washington colony in politics, a Hollywood colony in fashion, an English colony in language, a Roman colony in religion – and so forth. Even Bombay and Tokyo and Arabia had some way colonized us. (Joaquin 65–66) Don Andong’s expression “colony within a colony” echoes not only the conficting circles of Joaquin’s landscape in which the center and the periphery collide, but also the unsettled dialogs between native folklore and Greek/Western culture and between the cave-ancestral past and the estate-modern present. The Alejandría and the cave not only refect the turnovers and transitions of Philippine colonial history, as discussed above, but also the political turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s. Regarding the nature of these political conficts, given when Joaquin wrote the novel (1983), and inferring from Joaquin’s clear reference to “August” (in Manila) throughout the novel (“the myth of August as a violent month,” 2 and “Darkness in August,” 229), one can suggest the author’s allusion to the declaration of Martial Law in August 1972 and the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in August 1983.9 Furthermore, the Plaza Miranda bombing in Manila in August 1971, among other events, paved the way for the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. Characterized by disappearances, i.e., abductions, of citizens (Casper 9–10) and control of the press, the Marcos era is often described as a “true trauma” (Pantoja-Hidalgo 7; Montiel). Aquino’s assassination eventually led to what was known as the (almost) “Bloodless Revolution of 1986,” which resulted in the exile of the Marcoses to Hawaii. In short, the parallelism with the political tenor at that time coincides with the interpretations of the external and internal conficts symbolized by the cave-Alejandría tension and the internal Manzano discord within the estate. The sad return of Jack Henson to his island may challenge the collective midmourning (or lack thereof) of the Filipinos. Jack’s attempt to start another relationship with Monica, heiress of the Manzanos, can be interpreted as a desire to maintain the ruling classes: “he felt himself being carried away from all the monuments of the past. But why should they be past and why should he be carried away if he chose not to be? Not all the monuments had vanished” (Joaquin 271, emphasis in original). But Monica, jealous of Chedeng, refuses. A lonely man, Jack fies back to his island in Davao. The reference to “monuments” instead of the cave, for example, seems to confrm that Jack prefers the stability of the status

134

Jocelyn S. Martin

quo rather than the interrogation of history initiated by Nenita and André. The novel shows that spectral presences are precisely what enable, rather than disable, the work of mourning (cf. Durrant 19). Yet, although there are agents of society, such as Nenita, who can assume this ethical role of remembering the victims of the past to prevent future historical trauma, other members are content with the status quo, foregoing courageous historical dialog. Incidentally, the outcome of the 2016 Philippine national elections showed a return of “Marcosian spectres.” The political rise of Rodrigo Duterte, self-proclaimed Hitler adherent,10 and Bongbong Marcos, son of the former dictator, won the Presidency and almost secured the Vice-Presidency, respectively. That another Marcos almost made a comeback after only 30 years since the ousting of the dictator indicates a forgetting of the thousands of victims of Martial Law who were killed, tortured, and illegally imprisoned, without mentioning the billions of pesos plundered by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Although Linda Hutcheon contends that “the witnessing of the trauma of colonization” – and of dictatorship, another form of colonization – “is the central task of postcolonial literary studies” (19), in the case of the Philippines, mid-mourning remains questionable.

Conclusion This chapter attempted to argue that there are alternative ways of regarding the content and form of Trauma Studies. While the more recognized trauma paradigms are culled from the Holocaust or 9/11 experiences, which are arguably more Western, this analysis of Nick Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows introduces other models, such as colonization, dictatorial regimes, and climate disasters. Unlike one-time trigger events, these examples subsist in societies for longer periods of time. As such, one needs to understand trauma not through psychoanalysis alone but simultaneous postcolonial and eco-critical readings. Consequently, the ideas of mid-mourning and the environmental humanities have, for example, complemented the trauma reading of Joaquin’s novel. While mid-mourning allows one to assess trauma within historical dialogue, which, due to the advent of “Marcosian spectres,” seems questionable; reading trauma with the environmental humanities permits one to interrogate the notion of recovery and resilience in “cultures of disaster” that experience serial climate calamities. Such considerations, consequently, enable a refection on the aesthetic form of trauma narratives. Situations typical of the Global South – decolonization, impunity, climate disasters, precarity – (should) impel modes and forms that include such variables. Hence, in addition to postmodernist aesthetics, Magical Realism, a mode that has always been “ex-centric,” can be used as a more postcolonialfriendly approach with its potential for ethical representation and inclusivity of the margins. In this way, Trauma Studies can go beyond its initial deconstruction-based comfort zone toward a discipline that fulflls its ambition to ethically bridge cultures.

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 135

Notes 1 See Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery and Dominick LaCapra’s Writing History, Writing Trauma. 2 I refer to Sonya Andermahr’s edited special issue on “Decolonizing Trauma Studies” in Humanities (2016); Stef Craps and Lucy Bond’s Trauma (2019); and Catherine Gilbert’s From Surviving to Living (2018). 3 See Black Skin, White Masks. 4 In the last decade, several studies on Asia and trauma have appeared. Here are some examples from the last fve years: Choi, Suhi. The Right to Mourn: Trauma, Empathy and Korean War Memorials. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019; Hashimoto, Akiko. The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015; Kai Khiun, Liew. Transnational Memory and Popular Culture in East and Southeast Asia: Amnesia, Nostalgia and Heritage. London Rowman and Littlefeld, 2016; Ly, Boreth, Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019; Ma, Sheng-mei. The Last Isle: Contemporary Film, Culture and Trauma in Global Taiwan. London: Rowman and Littlefeld, 2015; Stahl, David C. Social Trauma, Narrative Memory, and Recovery in Japanese Literature. N.Y.: Routledge, 2019. 5 In July 1901, US forces aboard the ship Thomas sailed from San Francisco with six hundred teachers – a veritable second army of occupation – which helped shape the “miseducation” of Filipinos (Constantino 179). 6 At 17 years old, Joaquin started his writing career when one of his poems was published in the local newspaper (Mojares 1996). After that, he started signing using the pen name “Quijano de Manila” or “Manila Old Timer” (Obituary, Sun Star Manila, April 30, 2004). Unlike his fellow writers who were mostly university graduates, Joaquin was a two-time drop-out: frst, from a Dominican seminary and, second, from a high school in Manila (Lanot 1999). However, he was a voracious reader, which later led him to become a prolifc writer of short stories, biographies, essays, plays, and two novels, among which Prose and Poems, The Woman Who Had Two Navels, La Naval de Manila and Other Essays, Tropical Gothic, Reportage on Crime: Thirteen Horror Happenings that Hit the Headlines, A Question of Heroes: Essays in Criticism on Ten Key Figures of Philippine History, Almanac for Manileños, The Aquinos of Tarlac: An Essay on History as Three Generations, Cave and Shadows, Discourses of the Devil’s Advocate and Other Controversies, Collected Verse, ‘The Way We Were’, Culture and History: Occasional Notes on the Process of Philippine Becoming and May Langit Din Ang Mahirap: The Life Story of Alfredo Siojo Lim. His play, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three Scenes, was premiered on stage in 1955. Nick Joaquin received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award in 1961 and was proclaimed National Artist for Literature in 1976. (Lanot 1999). 7 In her seminal work, Trauma Explorations in Memory, Cathy Caruth declares that “trauma itself may provide the very link between cultures” (11). 8 President of the Philippines from 1935 to 1943 during the American occupation (Zaide 72–73). 9 See also 29 of Leonard Casper’s The Opposing Thumb; 28–29 of Rofel G. Brion’s “English Lessons: Towards the Aesthetics of the Contemporary Filipino Novel in English” and 79–90 of Shirley Geok-Lin’s “Reconstructions of Filipino Identity: Nick Joaquin’s Fictions.” 10 See, for example, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/30/asia/duterte-hitler-c omparison/.

136

Jocelyn S. Martin

Works Cited Abraham, Nicolas. “Notes on the Phantom: A Complement to Freud’s Metapsychology.” Trans. N. Rand. Critical Inquiry 13 (1975): 287–292. Abraham, Nicolas, and Maria Torök. “Introjecion – Incorporation: Mourning or Melancholia.” In Psychoanalysis in France, edited by Serge Lebovici and Daniel Widlöcher, 3–16. New York: International Universities Press, 1980. Adams, Jenni. Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature Troping the Traumatic Real. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Alexander, Jeffrey. The Meanings of Social Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Bankhoff, Greg. Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazards in the Philippines. London: Routledge, 2003. Bennington, Geoffrey. Not Half No End: Militantly Melancholic Essays in Memory of Jacques Derrida. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Brathwaite, Kamau. MR. New York: Savacou North, 2002. Brown, Laura S. “Not Outside the Range: One Feminist Perspective on Psychic Trauma.” In Trauma Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, 100–112. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Carrigan, Anthony. “Towards a Postcolonial Disaster Studies.” In Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities, edited by Elizabeth Deloughry, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan, 117–139. New York: Routledge, 2015. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Casper, Leonard. The Opposing Thumb: Decoding Literature of the Marcos Regime. Quezon City: Giraffe Books, 1995. Constantino, Renato. “Our Captive Minds.” In The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays, edited by Renato Constantino, 66–80. Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1966. Craps, Stef. Postcolonial Witnessing: Trauma Out of Bounds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. De Loughrey, Elizabeth. “The Myth of Isolates: Ecosystem Ecologies in the Nuclear Pacifc.” Cultural Geographies 20, no. 2 (2013): 167–194. De Loughrey, Elizabeth, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan, eds. Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities. New York: Routledge, 2015. Deckard, Sharae. “Ghost Mountains and Stone Maidens: Ecological Imperialism, Compound Catastrophe, and the Post-Soviet Ecogothic.” In Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities, edited by Elizabeth Deloughry, Jill Didur and Anthony Carrigan, 286–306. New York: Routledge, 2015. Delbaere-Garant, Jeanne. “Magic Realism: The Energy of the Margins.” In Postmodern Fiction in Canada, edited by Theo D’haen and Hans Bertens, 75– 104. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992. Delbaere-Garant, Jeanne. “Psychic Realism, Mythic Realism, Grotesque Realism: Variations on Magic Realism in Contemporary English Literature.” In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, 249–263. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Derrida, Jacques. Béliers, le Dialogue Interrompu entre Deux Infnis, le Poème. Paris: Galilée, 2003. Diaz, Josen Masangkay. ““We Were Surplus, Too”: Nick Joaquin and the Impossibilities of Filipino Historical Becoming.” Kritika Kultura 24 (2015): 4–34.

Tyrants, Typhoons, and Trauma 137 Durrant, Sam. Postcolonial Narrative and the Work of Mourning. New York: State University of New York Press, 2004. Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914–1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 237–258. London: Hogarth Press, 1917. Hutcheon, Linda. “Rethinking the National Model.” In Rethinking Literary History: A Dialogue on Theory, edited by Linda Hutcheon and Mario J. Valdès, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Joaquin, Nick. Cave and Shadows. Manila: National Bookstore, 1983. Joaquin, Nick. Culture and History: Occasional Notes on the Process of Philippine Becoming. Manila: Solar Publication, 1988. Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Picador, 2008. LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Lanot, Marra P.L. The Trouble with Nick & Other Profles. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999. Luckhurst, Roger. The Trauma Question. New York: Routledge, 2008. Maufort, Marc. “Forging an “Aboriginal Realism”: First Nations Playwriting in Australia and Canada.” In Siting the Other, edited by Marc Maufort and Franca Bellarsi, 7–22. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2001. Mengel, Ewald, and Michela Borzaga, eds. Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel: Essays. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012. Mikics, David. “Derek Walcott and Alejo Carpentier: Nature, History, and the Caribbean Writer.” In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, 371–404. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Mojares, Resil. “Biography of Nick Joaquin.” In Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. 1996. Available at www .rmaf.org.ph. Montiel, Cristina Jayme. “Multilayered Trauma During Democratic Transition: A Woman’s First-Person Narrative.” Journal of Peace Psychology 21, no. 2 (2015): 197–211. Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Massachusetts: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2011. Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina. A Gentle Subversion: Essays on Philippine Fiction in English. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1998. Sandru, Cristina. “A Poetics of the Liminal: Magic Realism and Its Horizons of Escape.” In American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, edited by Sever Trifu, 145–164. Romania: Lucian Blaga University Press, 2004. Slemon, Stephen. “Magic Realism as Postcolonial Discourse.” In Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, 414. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. Tal, Kali. Worlds of Hurt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Whitehead, Anne. Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. Zaide, Gregorio. World History (In an Asian Setting). Quezon City: Rex Printing Company, 1986.

8

Engendering Islam Religio-Cultural Violence and Trauma in Qaisra Shahraz’s The Holy Woman Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

The Trauma of Islam In this chapter, we examine the historical and theoretical narrative vectors of Qaisra Shahraz’s novel The Holy Woman (2001), which interrogates the nexus of caste, gender, economics, and violence underlying the practice of a Muslim woman marrying the Quran. The novel is a signifcant example of trauma fction as it highlights how, in patriarchal family structures and feudal customs of Islamic society, women are compelled to comply with those who enforce their subordination. In every society, a matrix of ideologically delineated conventions, the spectrum of beliefs and religious orientations impose pervasive and “intersectional trends” (Crenshaw 1991, 1245) of thought. These confer autonomous and distinctive status on any given society. Although the plot is set in contemporary times, the novel ironically represents the afterlife of feudal thought and praxis. Set in the Sind Province of Pakistan, Shahraz’s novel reveals the exploits and vulnerabilities of women because of their gender, degrees of resistance, and stoic resignation to moral and emotional calamities. Shahraz exposes the ethical and religious tensions inherent in their situations as well as the psychological need of victims to have their trauma recognized by others. This is perhaps because “trauma is transmissible: it leaks between mental and physical symptoms, between patients and their listeners or viewers who are commonly moved to forms of overwhelming sympathy” (Luckhurst 2008, 3). Violence against women is often justifed in the name of tradition, culture, and religion to systematically disempower them. Patriarchal culture and religious traditions have meticulously created and maintained a system of norms and values to uphold their power over women and sacrifce them to preserve their “honor.” The Holy Woman explores how the institutionalized practice of Haq Bakhshish is deployed to protect established social hierarchies. In its literal sense, Haq Bakhshish is the custom of marrying a woman to the Quran, thereby making her Shahzadi Ibadat, meaning “a princess of worship” in Urdu. To support our premise that Haq Bakhshish symbolizes the victim’s suppression, our chapter discusses Judith Herman’s infuential theorization of psychological trauma in relation to victim’s disempowerment and dissociation. We also engage with various theoretical arguments, including Nausheen Ishaque’s notion of “ritualized

Engendering Islam 139 violence” (2017), where the chemistry of tradition and religion legitimize the ritualization of violence and Laura S. Brown and Maria Roots’ “insidious traumata” (1995) that signifes how distressing experiences do not lie “outside the range of human experience” (101) but rather are very much part of everyday life. These theoretical frameworks elucidate the vicarious trauma of those related to the victim. Although our chapter does not discuss in detail the alliance of feminism and Marxism, we explore how aspects of gendered ideology and political and patriarchal interpretations of Islam invoke R.W. Connell’s (2009) concepts of “hegemonic masculinity” and “patriarchal dividend” suggesting how some men derive economic benefts by exploiting women (as well as men). In sum, we read The Holy Woman as a tale of a feudal and fundamentalist parochial society with negligible exposure to liberal education that maintains uncompromising belief in conventional gender hierarchies. The array of beliefs, ceremonies, and rituals described in the novel consolidate a highly prescriptive closed identity. In such a society, a woman has little agency and can only garner value and respect in familial roles, eliminating any question of sexual autonomy. In our reading of the novel, Shahraz challenges the social practice of marrying Muslim daughters to the Quran through her protagonist Zarri Bano, whose suffering is profoundly visceral. Zarri is forced by her family to marry the Quran as part of the traditional patriarchal practice of avoiding property distribution outside the family as a consequence of the marriage of daughters. The Holy Woman depicts the trauma of Muslim women in ways not envisioned in current trauma theory. Zarri Bano’s anomalous marriage to the Quran and her subsequent strict observation of the precepts of being a Quran bride sculpt her personal experience of female oppression. Her sacrifce for family honor and obedience to gender discrimination and patriarchal norms differ from other women’s experiences described as traumatic by Western writers and trauma theorists. For instance, Judith Herman’s theorization of trauma, including its symptoms and recovery, aligns with experiences of incest, battering, rape, and domestic, racial, and ethnic violence experienced by women in Pan-American culture. In contrast, as we demonstrate herein, The Holy Woman portrays a traumatic experience forged by patriarchal perceptions of power, ownership, and honor within a religious context that leaves the victim disempowered while exposing her marginalized position in society. We also suggest that heterosexuality operates as a tool of dominance over women as Islamic code renders greater social power to men within its diktats. Also, in the same society certain varied abstractions and aspects are inordinately valued. For example, some religious communities in South Asia place inordinate and sentimental importance on the caste system. The supremacy, authoritarianism, and fetishism espoused by elites of the upper caste exacerbates prejudice against people of the same religion, often, ironically, to the detriment of those of the same caste. The upper caste and its concomitant lineage, practice, and “honor” are inextricably intertwined in the Muslim communities of Pakistan’s rural Sind province wherein Shahraz’s novel is placed. In the context of a hegemonic understanding of marriage, gender, identity, and

140

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

the caste system, it should be noted that “under Pakistani law the Haq Bakshish tradition is punishable by a seven-year prison sentence, but no one dares report such cases” (lastampa.it, 2013). The practice is still followed by some segments of Sindi society. In the remainder of this chapter, we frst provide background information on how the author engages with the subject of her novel. This context sutures Shahraz’s real-life stakes to the fctional landscape of her heroine while demonstrating how the secular and mundane can shape the creative axes of fction. Second, we offer a close reading of the narrative to explore traumatic experiences of Muslim women in such religious communities.

Holy Women: From Author to Protagonist As we demonstrate, the novel refects Shahraz’s ideologies, imparting resistance between the fctive realm of the novel and the lived experiences of material life. For example, Shahraz, a Pakistan-born British national, explains in an interview how she learned of the tradition of Haq Bakhshish while watching a BBC documentary and subsequently decided to write a novel on it. She recalls: I knew nothing about this Un-Islamic tradition – it is practically unheard of, even in Pakistan – and now it has been stopped by the government. I was deeply disconcerted and horrifed as a woman to learn about this custom. It was that very evening, nearly 18 years ago, that I decided to write about this issue and the “Holy Woman,” Zarri Bano, my chief protagonist, came alive in my head and heart. (Siddiqui, 2014, 218) Although Shahraz expresses her shock and dismay with the practice, she does not mock or indict Islam. Instead, she maintains reverence and admiration for the religion while viewing the practice as a capitalistic formulation of patriarchy that deploys the Quran to justify selfsh motives. For Laura S Brown, “the defnition of [a] traumatic event within which the person has experienced something distressful lies outside the range of human experience, often means ‘male human experience’ or at least, an experience common to both women and men” (1995, 100–101). We would suggest that Haq Bakhshish necessitates a situated experience in Muslim women’s lives that is specifc to Pakistan. Furthermore, it is a practice that is neither supported by the Quran nor the hadiths (the words of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions). In Shahraz’s novel, the representation of Islamic social stratifcation mirrors the trauma of class relations that are parsed upon the landscape of contemporary Sind. She observes that “this is a world of inequality and male domination, where patriarchal tyranny strictly controls people’s lives, and yet results in tight-knit relationships between men and women” (Siddiqui, 2014, 223). As such, The Holy Woman presents insight into how socio-cultural facets of Islam are inevitably shaped by class and gender relations.

Engendering Islam 141 The innate purposiveness of Haq Bakhshish in the novel emphasizes how culture elevates certain acts as sacrosanct customs within communities. Ironically, the repression of Muslim women in this context results in close-knit heterosexual relationships that are strongly conditioned by culturally prescribed codes and arbitrary values that do not always distribute equality among partners. The novel is marked throughout by religious transgressions, life-changing decisions, and the melodramatic behavior of many characters. It is a saga fraught with conficting family values, the objectifcation of a woman, and her feelings of betrayal, denial, and forlornness. Shahraz’s Zarri is the eponymous “holy woman,” the heroine of the novel, blessed with beauty and brains in equal measure. She is the prodigal daughter of Habib Khan, a feudal lord, and his wife Shahzada, from the city of Tanda Adam in Sind, Pakistan. The apple of her grandfather’s eye, she is also the primary target of her father’s obsessive affection as he favors her over his other two children and thus keeps her close to his heart like a precious asset. Habib also has a fxation with his family property, and he is highly obsessed with prestige and honor associated with his high status in the community. Despite affection between the patriarchs and Zarri, she embodies the ways, in Ernest Gellner’s (1991) words, that “civil society has been atomized or fragmented in both the Marxist and Islamic systems, though in completely different ways” (1). Indeed, this fragmentation in the economic and religious systems that subjectify Zarri catalyzes her fragmented and gendered self-perception. The common characteristic shared by local feudal lords is the requisition of their capital. Habib too does not want to part with his property. Indeed, feudal patriarchy is based on the organization and reassignment of property and its ownership by women in any form is considered inappropriate since this grants power, and empowered and independent women are often disliked by conservative patriarchs. Following the tragic death of his only son, Habib’s property will be bequeathed to his daughters. Yet, in the highly conventional society of The Holy Woman, the property bequeathed to daughters will be controlled by their husbands. Habib’s staunch patriarchal beliefs entrenched in material interest rebel against this possibility, which could strengthen the position of his sons-in-law in his own family. His belief that only his son can inherit his property is also shared by his family and clan with a similar resoluteness. This aggressive stance of patriarchs, their obstinacy in going to any extent to safeguard their wealth, renders them oblivious of their duties and their daughters’ rights; such is the case with Zarri. To her it is blasphemous to think beyond clichés comprising of family honor, daughters’ obedience, and their compliance to family power structures in which decisions are made. Similarly, when Habib and his father are willing to sacrifce a daughter’s happiness to retain land in the family, they follow a tradition that imparts the absolute right to a parent over their progeny’s decisions. Moreover, when Zarri accepts it with total surrender, she demonstrates a culturally propagated understanding of daughterly obedience, which is also demonstrative of inequitable fscal

142

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

structures codifed in a skewed balance of gender binaries. However, this image of Zarri is fairly antithetical to what Shahraz introduces readers to at the beginning of the novels to readers – Zarri is an educated and strong-willed girl who wants to open a publishing house. She has spent her childhood and early youth in an opulent and affectionate atmosphere. The protagonist’s beauty and intelligence stir desire in the hearts of her various suitors, whom she rejects with an air of arrogance inherited in an attenuated form from her patrilineal side, which Shahraz describes as such: It had almost become routine, turning suitors away. It wasn’t only Zarri Bano who rejected the men who came to see her and ask for her hand; her father too, was every bit as fastidious. Somehow, none of the callers ever seemed to measure up to his very intelligent and very beautiful eldest. He always ended up by declaring arrogantly: “The man has to be the best.” When Zarri Bano declined, Habib secretly applauded and was grateful for her decision. (12) Men of rank and wealth hold no sway over Zarri. All this changes for Zarri when she meets Sikander, whose strikingly different attitude toward her kindles her emotions. A friend of her brother, Sikander belongs to a wealthy urban family. Despite the intense gaze he fxes upon her during a chance encounter at a mela (village fair), he feigns total indifference to her when sitting at her villa in the presence of their respective families. His indifference is merely a mask to maintain his cultural male pride. According to the cultural inculcation of femininity expected of Muslim women for marriage, a prospective suitor must initiate the relationship, which also restrains Zarri from realizing her feelings for this handsome yet conceited man. Therefore, the erotic ambivalence and the identifcation of her desire produce initial denial. Shahraz writes: Zarri Bano allowed her gaze to pass over everybody, catching their eyes individually smiling. Coming further into the room, she sat down next to her mother, on a sofa opposite Sikander and his father. Now she willed him to look up, piqued that he had not met her gaze, but had been more concerned with his stupid biscuit than with her! (13–14) She didn’t know where the impulse came from but it was totally in character, in her case, to go against normal etiquette. She decided to address him personally, so that he would have to turn to her and look up. She wasn’t going to be ignored by this arrogant, handsome stranger who had stolen into her peaceful world and had dared to violate her earlier with his gaze – suitor or otherwise. (14)

Engendering Islam 143 According to Abu-Bakar Ali (2012), Sikander’s romantic and sexual indifference to Zarri is linked to his caste and class status: Sikander is very much of the Nouveau riche class of people from the urban dystopia of Karachi, with his wealth being the product of capitalist endeavor and not feudal acquisition. Sikander and his family are diametrically opposed to feudalized patriarchy and landed gentry in almost every way (190) While Zarri’s mother, sister, and brother champion the match, her father calls into question Sikander’s suitability as the future husband of his beloved daughter. He implacably claims: That conceited bastard was more concerned with biscuits than giving my daughter the respect and attention she deserves. He barely glanced at my Zarri Bano, Shahzada! Men have been falling in love with my daughter since she was a teenager, whereas he could not even be bothered to look at her properly. That I fnd very offensive. (Shahraz 2013, p.17) Zarri’s acceptance of a marriage proposal from Sikander is contingent on her father’s approval. Habib’s animosity toward Sikander is a byproduct of his feudal class consciousness mired in “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell 2009), which undoubtedly involves not only the subjugation of women, but simultaneously “disowns those men who treat women as equals. When men treat women as equals, hegemonic masculinity perceives it as a threat to man’s dominant societal role” (Arie, 2016). For Habib, Zarri’s conspicuous affection toward Sikander despite being inferior in power and status than her father is infuriating and insulting. Moreover, Sikander’s open abhorrence toward Zarri’s marriage to the Quran and Habib’s decision is a blow to his embodiment of hegemonic masculinity “that is culturally linked to authority and rationality, as key themes in the legitimation of patriarchy” (Connell 2005, 90). Yet, despite his propensity for conventions of the feudal system, Habib’s liberal thinking allows Zarri to pursue higher education at Karachi University. Habib appreciates his daughter’s progressive views of establishing a publishing company, and joins her in rejecting her suitors much to the chagrin of his God-fearing and humble wife, Shahzada. In contrast to Habib, Shahzada admonishes her husband’s supercilious proclamations that he will only “let her marry a man of the highest pedigree from a land-owning family and that, with a good name and social standing” (Shahraz 2013, 12). Later, her fury towards her husband’s decision to make their daughter Shahzadi Ibadat is overtly manifested in emotional and physical distancing from her husband. Zarri’s nascent romance with Sikander is disrupted by the accidental death of Jafar, the male scion of the family, which leaves everyone emotionally devastated. At this diffcult juncture, the eponymous “Holy Woman” is ceremoniously institutionalized when the family patriarchs invoke the rural Sindhi

144

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

tradition. Habib forcibly weds her to the Quran, strongly instigated by his own father Siraj Din, despite the vehement protestations of Sikander and other members of her family. Although Zarri pleads, “I want to be a normal woman, Father, and live a normal life! I want to get married” (Shahraz 2013, 90), an impervious Habib crushes her desire to marry Sikander. Moreover, he degrades her wish to marry by insinuating that what she really craves is a man’s sexual presence in her life, implying that she has lacks agency beyond desire. Jafar’s untimely death rattles Zarri’s emotional life, and is further magnifed by a revelation of the harsh and unaccommodating man Zarri’s father is after the tragedy – a man who rejects Sikander and has strong patriarchal convictions in Haq Bakhshish. Zarri is completely perplexed by her father’s metamorphosis from a doting father to an uncompromising patriarch who forces his own daughter to embrace a life of celibacy and religious devotion despite her temperament. Moreover, the simultaneous feeling of losing Sikander forever aggravates her distress and haunts her. Zarri is insulted, emotionally crushed, and deeply traumatized by shame and grief. Amidst this internal eruption of violent emotions, she agrees to become Shahzadi Ibadat. Since the acceptance of sexual desire in girls is still sacrilegious, a taboo in conventional societies, like the one depicted in the novel, occurs because “the patriarchal order pervasive in a society prohibits women precisely to engage openly with the forms of emotion, attachment and pleasure that patriarchal society ironically itself produces” (Connell 2005, 85). Zarri’s consciousness cannot yet counter such mockery with a sustained fght. Having no tools to combat the guilt and shame of such an accusation nor to stife the sexual desire that is socially prohibited, she discovers abject surrender to be her only solace. The honor-shame complex is a cultural construct distinct from modernity. In Islamic society, its role in shaping female gender roles and in controlling women’s life choices is as signifcant as it is in internalizing self-worth. The honor-shame complex in Asian Muslim societies is a gendered phenomenon that is often deployed as a patriarchal weapon to control women and their sexuality. It often justifes violence against women, especially while securing submission from defant daughters who refuse to marry their parents’ choice. As a practice strongly infected by the honor-shame complex, Haq Bakhshish not only subordinates Muslim women by imposing celibacy but also results in the denial of their rights/claims to family property. In other words, it usurps their economic rights. After the death of the male heir, in her capacity as the eldest daughter of the family, Zarri cannot abrogate the responsibilities that tradition confers upon her. Complying with her father’s intractable obsession with his forefathers’ property, Zarri gives in to his anguish over the bequeathal: Well, that I have no son, who is going to be my heir, Shahzada? To whom I am going to bequeath all this land? I am not going to hand it over to some stranger who just happens to marry my daughter. (Shahraz 2013, 68)

Engendering Islam 145 Circumscribed by tradition and the consequential apathy engulfng her individuality, Zarri enshrouds herself in a black cloak that symbolizes the bleak presentiment of her thwarted longings and the loss of her dreams and their realization. She almost becomes compulsive in wearing it all the time since “the core experiences of psychological trauma are disempowerment and disconnection from others” (Herman 1997, 56). This is how Zarri builds distance with others and in return distresses herself in isolation. While commenting on the signifcance of the veil, Dawn Chatty (2020) argues that: A study of the Koran and Hadith show that there is no specifc injunction indicating that women should be veiled or secluded from participation in public life. However, unwritten traditions do indicate that Mohammed asked his wives to wear face veils to set them apart, to indicate their special status, and to provide them with some social and psychological distance from the throngs that regularly congregated at his homes. (128) For many Muslim women today, wearing a black burqa or veil is representative of opting for modesty. It can also symbolize the appropriation of women in the name of culture, religion, and ethnicity. However, Anjum Alvi (2013) argues that: The popular public discourse generally sees this as a violation of women’s rights and individual freedom and its wearer as either suppressed by the male gender in the name of religion or as engaged in fundamentalism and radical thinking, subverting Western values. The media associate the concomitants of economical poverty and corrupted institutions, such as lack of education, dependence on men, control of female sexuality, and violence, with Islam – just as many Muslims associate Western values of individual freedom and self-realization with moral decadence, the casting of women as sexual objects, and the breaking of families. (177) Islam presents the burqa as a garment which women choose to wear to protect their bodies from unwanted glances, threats, or sexual advances. Similarly, Zarri’s initial choice of becoming a virtual recluse clad in a black burqa is a concerted attempt to escape her trauma and avoid the world. Although the burqa may block the male gaze on the female body, Zarri adopts the practice of wearing it in order to constrain her spirited mind and encase her emotions and longings. In addition, it refects a defensive coping strategy to shield herself from the vulnerability of her situation and her self-antagonism, which is symptomatic of the initial phase of adaptation after the traumatic incident. Indeed, she proclaims that “this is not an ordinary veil or burqa, but a symbol of my role” (Shahraz 2013,193).

146

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

Thus, wearing the burqa becomes an extension of her fragmented identity as a Quran Bride in contrast to other women who are entitled to conjugal rights. Zarri strategically reappropriates the black burqa, transforming it from a veil over her femininity into an emotional shield that now quells her feminine desires and emotional longings. Moreover, it enables her to put aside worldly temptations and concentrate on her status intertwined with the honor of being a Shahzadi Ibadat. In sum, Zarri donning the burqa symbolizes her identity, rank, and class, as well as her kinship status. In general understanding, the wearing of a burqa implies veneration within the customary honor-shame complex for Muslims. It also signals sexual modesty that holds great value in the politics of marriage that is also embedded within the complex of honor-shame. However, the politics of marriage focus on the right to control the sexuality and reproductive capacities of young women specifcally by men from feudal families of Pakistan owing to their trenchant ideology.

The Quran and Gendered Islam in The Holy Woman In Pakistan, on the other hand, the degree of festivity exhibited during wedding celebrations symbolizes the social stature of the families involved. Likewise, during Zarri’s quasi-wedding, the veiling ceremony that transforms her into a Shahzadi Ibadat is celebrated with great zeal and excitement. Habib faunts his wealth and offers his daughter the fnest trousseau that any daughter of a feudal family in the region has ever owned. Her quasi-wedding unfolds with theatrical renderings, including for example a folk music performance, as the venue bustles with guests oblivious to the physical and psychological ramifcations for Zarri, who must endure Habib’s constant reminders of the code of etiquette that her role demands. This, in turn, amplifes Zarri’s feeling of apprehension with her marriage to the Quran. She envisions her future, shrouded in despair like Sakina, a well-respected Shahzadi Ibadat in her area, who implausibly denies it. Zarri bemoans her own destiny and cannot withhold her sublime terror: I have been stripped of my identity and a stranger is taking my place. I am, at this moment in time, wrestling with the death and mourning of one woman, while preparing in fear for the birth and rise of another. I don’t want Zarri Bano to die! But I cannot keep her alive. (Shahraz 2013160) Zarri’s conversion to a Shahzadi Ibadat is not only a communal rejection of her desire to experience married life with Sikander, but also a bitter reminder of the sordid pessimism embodied by Sakina. Zarri is bolted by the shackles of her Sindi culture that abhors women’s expressions of desires and their agency in making decisions. Reading the Quran as a secondary text can reveal how the ceremony of making Zarri a Shahzadi Ibadat is at odds with Islamic teachings. For example, a

Engendering Islam 147 key verse ties marriage to procreation: “O people! Fear your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and created from it its mate, and propagated from them many men and women” (The Quran, Al-Nisa, verse 1, 27). Men and women bound by the marriage covenant are expected to offer happiness and contentment to each other. In line with the veneration associated with matrimony and progeny, the Quran presents an entreaty to believers: “Our Lord, grant us delight in our spouses and our children, and make us a good example for the righteous” (The Quran, Al Furqan, verse 74, 136). Moreover, Islam deems those men righteous whose behavior is exemplary toward their family members. Although a practicing Muslim, Habib Khan’s behavior is in stark contrast to this hadith. Indifferent to both Shahzada’s pleas and protestations and Zarri’s sentiments, he proves to be the archetype of patriarchal tyranny in his dual role as husband and father when he exercises undue authority over his wife and daughter. In contrast, Zarri has an empathic recognition for her mother’s vicarious trauma “as the dialectic of trauma operates not only in the victim, but also in her close relationships. It results in the formation of intense, unstable relationships that fuctuate between extremes” (Herman 1997, 56). Understanding the depth of her daughter’s despair, Shahzada harshly reprimands her husband and experiences empathic unsettlement that “involves a kind of virtual experience through which one puts oneself in the other person’s position while recognizing the difference of that position and hence not taking the other’s place” (LaCapra 2014, 78). Shahzada’s haplessness in seeing her daughter suffer not only triggers a response infused with maternal affection, but also forces Ruby to accept that she has lost her sister to her faith. The trauma of Zarri Bano is linked to other women since both daughters and their mother share traumatic bonds. Laura S. Brown’s (1996) notion of “insidious trauma” is worth mentioning here as it concerns “the traumatogenic effects of oppression that are not necessarily overtly violent or threatening to bodily wellbeing at the given moment but that do violence to the soul and spirit” (107). Zarri recognizes her mother’s dilemma and resigns herself to her prescribed role. It is this empathic recognition that allows Zarri to acquit her mother and sister of culpability, telling them: “don’t look so sad, I absolve you of any guilt. I know you can’t help me” (Shahraz 2013, 88). She accepts their helplessness and understands their subdued egos as viscerally oppressed by patriarchal materialism. Yet, despite her subjugation, Shahzada devises strategies that resist the gendered power and control of men. She chastises her husband for being unjust to their daughter and unobservant of the Islamic precept that says a female child is a blessing. As Harris Zafar (2015) argues, “by commanding his followers to ‘be mindful of your duty and act equitably between your children,’ the Prophet Muhammad made it clear that preference cannot be given to one child over another or a son over a daughter” ( 26). However, Shahzada is ultimately unable to help her daughter. Her attempts to mount an effective protest against her husband fail when he threatens

148

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

to divorce her. Nevertheless, although Habib critically constrains Zarri as a Shahzadi Ibadat, he paradoxically holds liberal views on travel. Shahraz sensitively portrays the conficting emotions of a loving father and an obstinate feudal lord. As a father, his behavior toward Zarri is open, allowing her to study in a different city and supporting her desire to open the publishing house. However, as a feudal lord, his obsession with keeping his property in the family blinds him to the injustice to which he subjects his daughter. Again, it is the liberal father in him that opens new signifcant avenues for Zarri to seek knowledge, despite her gendered circumstances. Thus, her intellectual quest refects the Quran’s prescription for education and knowledge for all Muslims without discrimination: “Read in the name of your Lord who created, created man from a clinging form. Read! Your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by means of the pen; taught man what he did not know” (The Quran, Surah Alaq, verse 1–5, 238). These verses encourage humankind to seek knowledge and delve into critical thinking. The emphasis on acquiring knowledge goes beyond any statement or action denying girls “the right to education” (Onaid, 2014). Furthermore, the Prophet Mohammad repeatedly emphasizes the importance of acquiring knowledge to the extent that “One hadı¯th (in al-Bukhari’s collection) reminds believers that seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim man and woman” (Halstead 2004, 520–521). Shahraz’s novel explores a contradictory situation in which Zarri, a young woman with a formal university education, still surrenders to the traumatizing practice of Haq Bakhshish that victimizes Muslim women. If the educated and resourceful heroine of Shahraz’s novel fails to resist her coercion into the practice and cannot challenge it, then the conditions of less-educated holy women will likely be far worse. Indeed, the continuance of the practice among some Muslim families in Sind is symptomatic of a collective inability to access proper education and Quranic knowledge in the community. Our reading of the novel foregrounds the axiomatic ways in which Haq Bakhshish integrates patriarchy and demonstrates the clear violation of women’s economic, political, and socio-religious rights. Moreover, this collaboration functions as a shaft pinion for the political apparatus of patriarchy, which works in tandem with religion to curtail women’s agency in Sindi society. A critical way in which Zarri experiences the degradation of women’s agency is through the practice and ideology of sexual abstinence, which, it is important to note, Islam does not condone. In Islam, “the discouraging of celibacy is not confned to men; even women have been discouraged from remaining single. Imam Jafar Sadiq said the prophet has forbidden the women to become ascetic and to prevent themselves from husbands” (Rizvi 2013, n.p). The hadith unequivocally repudiates celibacy due to its assumed deleterious effects on a person’s psychosexual well-being. As a philosophical text, the Quran clearly advocates the marriage of both sexes: “And of His signs are that He created for you mates from among yourselves, so that you may fnd tranquility in them; and He planted love and compassion between you. In these are the signs for people who refect” (The Quran, Ar-Rum, Verse 21, 153).

Engendering Islam 149 Through The Holy Woman, the hyper-fetishization of gender in religious practices contradictory to the Quran is an extreme form of commodity fetishism. While, deploying Aijaz Ahmad’s (1995) appraisal that those who subscribe to the theory of organizing “their [Muslim men’s] own lives around the fetishism of commodities bequeathed to them by advanced capital […] are also the ones most vociferous in propagating a discourse of authenticity and cultural differentialism in the name of Islam” (12). Ahmad’s analysis highlights that Muslim patriarchs invest in Haq Bakhshish because they fetishize women as commodities, while claiming to uphold the tenets of the Quran. However, in Islam and other religions, doctrine attempts to make practices simple through rituals and to clarify obligations that are pertinent to most aspects of life. Yet, as our reading of The Holy Woman suggests, doctrine and the exposure of patriarchal interpretation of it, also offers criticism of the systemic violation of women’s rights and the exploitation of women through marriage and celebratory rituals. Shahraz’s narrative suggests that Zarri’s veiling ceremony and its concomitant ceremonies are antithetical to gender equality. Put plainly, rites do not equate to rights. Indeed, Shahraz critiques the exercise of undue biopower over disenfranchised sections of society and foregrounds the necessity to protect Muslim women from the patriarchal violence prevalent in socio-cultural discourses.

Gender, Islam, and the Equity of Property Distribution As a religious discourse, Islam arguably promotes gender equality in marriage and its materialistic rituals, namely dowry. In Islam, it is not obligatory for a bride’s parents to give a dowry. However, it is mandatory for a bride to receive a dower or mehr from her husband. Flavia Agnes (1996) claims that: according to the Maliki School of Islamic law, a marriage without the stipulation of mehr is invalid. According to the Hanaf school, the marriage is valid but if no mehr is stipulated or if the amount stipulated is very low, the woman is entitled to a proper mehr, mehr-el-mis. (2832) Based on the economic status of the groom and the bride, its amount is established through the mutual understanding of the respective families. The Quran suggests that mehr is a bride’s right and the amount of mehr should be fxed according to the bride’s wishes with the aim of providing fnancial security to her (The Quran, Al-Nisa, Verse 4, 27). The rules of inheritance in Islamic jurisprudence validate the rights of daughters: “men receive a share of what their parents and relatives leave, and women receive a share of what their parents and relatives leave; be it little or much – a legal share” (The Quran, Al-Nisa, Verse 7, p. 27). As this verse demonstrates, a Muslim woman’s share is guaranteed from the family estate. However, this property share varies under different family circumstances: for example, depending on the status of a woman as daughter, wife, or widow, with offspring or childless.

150

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

Although we cannot hereon launch into a detailed analysis of these circumstances, we emphasize women’s claim to parental property under Islamic dictum. Depriving Muslim women their due share of ancestral property leads to lifetime discrimination and devaluation. Subsequently, in relation to The Holy Woman, it is worth discussing how women are subject to abuse in the name of religion, tradition, and culture, such that all of them are generalized as the same. In addition, based on Md. Mahmudul Hasan’s thesis (2005) on the orientalization of gender, Nausheen Ishaque (2017) critiques: The tendency of characterizing the women from the East as backward, domesticized, tradition-bound, ignorant and poor. Such caricaturing was long ago initiated by the West and is now kept in continuum by both the Western and Eastern Writers. This homogenization and essentialization of the women of postcolonial nations are what one may regard as part of the orientalization of gender project. (2) We would add that despite the tense clash of identity politics that surface when different ideologies interact, the spread of liberalism and socialism is generally interpreted as antithetical to Islam. At the same time, some Islamic thinkers perceive capitalism “as imposing an unjust economic and political order on the world” (Amin 1991, 82). Against orientalist stereotypes, this perspective mediates an irrational commodifcation of Muslim brides and the conjugal trauma and violence that they experience, as patriarchal manifestations of power which buttress inequalities in gender relations, especially in terms of property rights. Conversely, in consonance with feminism, Marxism emphatically argues that patriarchy virtually dominates capitalist society, and through the continued male domination of capitalist, economic, and social life, women’s roles, contributions, and rights never receive due recognition. In general, it is found that even within the household women assume numerous jobs. Their home to them is more a place to work than to take rest. Their duties comprise childbearing and domestic labor, as well as giving emotional support to their husbands, which ironically weakens their own positions but strengthens patriarchal power in the family and, by extension, to society. Muslim women do suffer huge losses in property rights, as in the case of Zarri, where the Quran is brought as a substitute of a man or husband by male members of the family in order to withhold Zarri’s share of her father’s property. Moreover, this state of gender inequality is achieved not only through application of brute force and intimidation, but through processes of cultural ascendancy, persuasion, and expectations from women. This is conducted such that an entire existing social arrangement of marrying a woman to the Quran is framed as natural and inevitable and as following Islam and the Quran. A key dilemma is that Muslim women and their status in Islam are becoming contentious with time and this is diffcult for us to deny. So, is it actually religion, or a system of values and

Engendering Islam 151 traditions, oppresses them or multiple social realities that appropriate Quranic teachings in contradistinction to lived realities of Muslim women. However, in Inside the Gender Jihad, Amina Wadud (2008), an American scholar of Islam known for her progressive exegesis of the Quran, explains the importance of the Quran in these words: The text is silent. It needs interpretation and has always historically and currently been subjected to interpretation. We make it speak for us by asking of it. If we are narrow, we will get a narrow response or answer. If we are open, it will open us to even greater possibilities. Contexts make particular interpretations dominant and others inadequate. (197–198) Zarri’s initial indignation due to her education and her mother’s angry remonstrance and defance of Shahzadi Ibadat show paradigmatic shifts in Muslim women’s attitudes. These shifts range from simply accepting the traditions thrust upon them to fghting against them. As Rukhsana Manzoor (2006) contends, “[t]hese women are challenging the male-dominated social and political system. But still, it is not easy for women to raise their voice. This battle against feudalism, tribalism, and fundamentalism is linked with the fght against the rotten system of capitalism” ( 7). The suppression of women in the name of culture, honor, and class consciousness is arguably why people have fossilized monolithic images of Pakistani women trapped in an atavistic cycle of despair and injustice in the rigid confnes of a conservative dystopia. In Shahraz’s novel, Habib, motivated to maintain the status quo through feudal privileges, resurrects an ancient family tradition, uncompromisingly implying that Haq Bakhshish is rooted in economic gains over any other kinship determinants. The novel satirizes feudal and aristocratic patrons for their customized ways of forcing women into subjugation. As Zarri strives to establish an identity as a scholar of Islamic studies, she works ardently for the solidarity of Muslim women. While traveling throughout Pakistan, she educates women on their rights and duties. She aspires to establish a college for girls, and the return on the invested capital will contribute to her ancestral property. However, Zarri’s contribution to the capital of her family would likely beneft others more. The death of her grandfather means that the property will automatically pass onto her nephew Haris as the heir. As such, the outcome of her act is questionable. As Gayle Rubin (1975) persuasively argues, “women are a reserve labor force for capitalism, that women’s generally lower wages provide an extra surplus to a capitalist employer, that women serve the ends of capitalist consumerism in their role as administrators of family consumption, and so forth” (160). The gendered dynamics of materialism illustrated by Shahraz are in confict with Muslim women’s rights to self-defnition and autonomy. Zarri’s life is sacrifced upon the altar of honor by the men of her family. As their conservative political dispensation resists change, their culturally conditioned conservatism

152

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

rests on a false premise of male ontological control. This subjects her to patriarchal authority and hegemony, as “kinship and marriage are always part of total social systems, and are always tied into economic and political arrangements” (Rubin 1975, 207). In the guise of Shahzadi Ibadat, her identity, body, and sexuality are oppressed and used as commodities to barter for the family’s interest, which is the attainment of social eminence through the means of her singular religious prominence, devotion, and erudition in Islamic studies. Thus, whenever Zarri contemplates her condition, she experiences alienation: she surrenders to the feudal system in return for establishing an identity as a scholar of Islam and over time fnds herself contributing to the patriarchal dividend that promises advantages to men. Whether done openly or not, this dividend favors males, masculine ideals, and their reasoning. While Muslim women do not have such advantages in their lives, they remain subjugated with reference to malefemale social relations, rights, and statuses. According to Connell (2009), the “patriarchal dividend” implies a surplus of resources made available to men “as a group for maintaining an unequal gender order. Money income is not the only kind of beneft. Others are authority, respect, service, safety, housing, access to institutional power, emotional support, and control over one’s own life” (142). Zarri dwells in circumstances that invest in her a somber and reifed image of the chaste and acquiescent woman who serves as the carrier of family honor at the cost of her repressed being. Fariha Chaudhri (2013) considers Zarri’s state of affairs with disgust that she expresses in trenchant words: Zari Bano has to remain non-sexual in order to become the legitimate heiress of her family property. This association of the non-sexual and desexualized woman as the legitimate heiress of the family land seems to suggest that two sites capable of reproduction cannot co-exist. In other words, if Zari Bano decides to get married and produce children she would not be in a position to possess her father’s land that is also capable of reproduction. Therefore the only possibility lies in rendering one barren, so that the possession of the other may be legitimized. (108–109) This arrangement is not only immoral, but also calls to attention how this particular feudal custom tortures Muslim women through an absurd and injudicious decision on female sexuality and the body. Thus, Zarri’s marriage loses its value when compared to her forefathers’ wealth. Also, as an idiom of the political language of patriarchal discourse with respect to Haq Bakhshish, Zarri’s sexuality becomes a commodity. When she clings to celibacy it deprives her of marriage with the man of her dreams, which torments and stresses her. Still, she contributes to the wealth of her father and grandfather, who at her expense remain privileged and stable in terms of money and status. Moreover, being Shahzadi Ibadat, Zarri greatly satisfes her father and grandfather’s masculine pride while modeling

Engendering Islam 153 beauty in burqa, piety, honor in responsibility, self-control, social respect, and the overall ideal image of a Muslim woman in Sindi society. Zarri’s sexuality, on the other hand, is a fetish given the disproportionate intrinsic value of respect and honor associated with her status as Shahzadi Ibadat in the community. She suffers physical, psychological, emotional, and fnancial losses that, once again, confict with Islamic teachings. As Khan and Kumar note: The Islamic economic system is not based on price as the method of distribution of goods, but rather, how to distribute benefts to all citizens. With the basic needs satisfed, everyone can live a happier life because people are allowed to search for the livelihood that suits them best and makes them the happiest. (Khan and Kumar 2011,: 4) Zarri’s sexuality is incessantly yoked to the directives of her elders. After spending fve years as Shahzadi Ibadat, Zarri must bring her sexuality out of its latent state. With the passage of time, Habib is plagued by guilt as he witnesses Ruby happily married to Zarri’s beau Sikander; while Zarri still languishes in despair, he confdes to Shahzada “I have to beg for Zarri Bano’s forgiveness and to free her from the oath never to marry” (Shahraz 2013, 324). Therefore, in order to ease his compunction and make amends for the injustice done to Zarri, he seeks forgiveness from Zarri and requests her to release herself from her oath of celibacy and to marry any suitable man before going on a holy pilgrimage to Mecca. But, if Habib is apologetic, Zarri’s response is markedly indifferent. She admits, “Marriage, however, has no relevance in my life now, Father. I am truly happy with things as they are. […] There is no man I want to marry.” She quashed the inner whisper: “There was one a long time ago – but you prevented me from marrying him.” (Shahraz 2013, 328) When Habib travels to Mecca to perform Haj with the entire family, he and Ruby are caught in a throng of pilgrims circumambulating around the Kaaba, and amidst the chaos of stampede they are crushed to death. After Ruby’s untimely demise, her mother and grandfather insist that Zarri should marry Sikander and act as a surrogate mother to Haris. After much reluctance and recrimination, Zarri agrees to marry her former suitor and future lover to safeguard her nephew. Earlier forbidden by her father, this union is now legitimated as it promotes the interests of the patriarchal line. As a holy woman or as a heteronormative wife, Zarri is forced to accede to the pressures imposed upon her and surrender control of her sexual agency. However, having come to terms with her traumatic past, she now faces the new challenge of creating a future with Sikander. Both encounter issues but Zarri experiences barriers

154

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

to emotional intimacy. Bob Schuchts’ (2020) emphasis on the importance of emotional connection between husband and wife very well reverberates in Zarri and Sikander’s marital arrangement: Regrettably, many married couples struggle when it comes to sustaining high levels of emotional intimacy. Unhealed emotional wounds and resentments (from past and present hurts) create barriers that make it diffcult to trust and be vulnerable with each other. Some couples endure years of marriage like this, with little or no emotional connection to nourish them. Others taste emotional connection occasionally but fnd it hard to sustain over time. After fruitless attempts, some settle for a comfortable distance and resign themselves to a mediocre existence. (53) For Zarri, building sexual intimacy with Sikander requires her to go the extra mile of devoting immense psychic energy to their relationship by breaking her own psychological resistance to sex. Thus, for a long time after the wedding, Sikander is denied intimacy, but cognizant of her dilemma, he empathetically gives her time to develop erotic feelings for him as they rebuild their lives together without the previous emotional fervor and happiness.

Conclusion: In the Name of Love We conclude with the words of Abu-Bakar Ali (2012) on the resolution of the novel. He writes that “[t]he nuclear family is reformed then, but is also pervaded by an unease and anxiety, as the reader is left to imagine the consummation of a romance that may never occur” ( 192). As custodian of culturally infected tradition, Siraj Din feels guilty about enforcing a corrosive and pristine system of selfstyled laws. He is mortifed by his actions, particularly because of the losses he endures in terms of relationships such as the emotional distancing of Shahzada and Zarri and the death of Habib and Ruby. Therefore, The Holy Woman emphasizes that the commandment of equity is socially, culturally, and religiously vital; Shahraz deliberately gives a “happy ending” to the novel by reconciling Zarri and Sikander after years of pining. But this is not the fate of most Quran brides. Caught in the atavistic cycle, many become apathetic, disappear from public consciousness, or suffer mental illnesses. The Holy Woman gives readers a glimpse into the life and mind of an educated woman whose challenge to being married to the Quran is tantamount to challenging Islamic patriarchy. Yet, our chapter also illustrates how various verses of the Quran dispel myths that this patriarchal practice of marrying daughters to the Quran has any intrinsic relation to Islamic precepts. This contradistinction draws attention to the fact that some acts of cruelty perpetrated by militant Muslim groups, clans, and nations contradict Islam, especially when followers fulfll selfsh desires by committing atrocities in the name of religion, power relations, caste, and gender. Thus, pertinent to Haq Bakhshish’s existence, one can deduce that its practice lacks any “natural” link to Islam and

Engendering Islam 155 the Quranic teachings. Still, in the narrative, Haq Bakhshish comes across as a binding religious practice within a given social context that cannot be challenged by anyone, particularly women. The religious veneer masks manipulative moves of the male members of the family; by marrying their daughters or sisters to the Quran they retain their share in the family property. The coating of religion and tradition conceals the hideous face of patriarchal oppression and allows Sindi menfolk to act in contradistinction to Islamic jurisprudence on marriage and property rights, further strengthening the stringency of social control systems. Islam, however, grants due rights of choosing life partners and condemns marriage that is forced upon man and woman against their will, especially those that perpetrate the victimization of women. Such views on partnership demonstrate the empathy that the Quran holds for women. Indeed, Asghar Ali Engineer (2008) discusses the effect of the Quran on women’s experiences and rights and argues that marriage conditions of Muslim women in Pre-Islamic society were far harsher. He writes, “the theologians maintain that women enjoyed no rights whatsoever and were treated no better than a commodity. Not only were they enslaved, but they could also be inherited as a possession. The Holy Qur’an prohibited this practice” (23). Thus, by strengthening the marriage rights of women, the Quran dictates that a Muslim woman has rights to contract marriage with free consent. In this sense, the Quran can be read as a critical text that seeks to distribute equitable capital between Muslim men and women beyond a perpetual cycle of portrayals in which “Muslims are uniformly represented as evil, violent, and, above all, eminently killable” (Said 1981, xxvii). At the same time, it explicitly admonishes men who prevent women from exercising their rights: “O you who believe! It is not permitted for you to inherit women against their will. And do not coerce them in order to take away some of what you had given them” (The Quran, Al-Nisa, Verse 19, 28). Thus, Islam categorically advocates women’s choices in marriage and encourages their opinions while disapproving of men’s treatment of women as personal property. The Quran can thus be read as a collection of principles on how to lead a life that does not intrinsically provoke or promote violence, terrorism, or injustice upon our brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, Islam is routinely misinterpreted as perpetuating violence and intolerance when it centripetally pivots upon a universal humanity that takes especial care to protect Muslim women from the skewed material and social inequities imposed by Muslim patriarchs. Indeed, as is the case in contemporary novels of the Pakistani diaspora that feature marriage culture, “These narratives of shared borders enfold both the laurels and lapses of diasporic culture, thus serving as empathising [sic] counterpoints to the Islamaphobic stereotypes” (Gairola and Fatma 2019, 236) like those that British-Pakistani writer Qaisra Shahraz attempts to refute. As such, The Holy Woman contests a self-designed patriarchy in the guise of Islam through protagonist Zarri Bano. In addition, at the end of the novel, the traumatic awakening to reform her life breaks the vicious legacy of male control over women’s bodies and minds through Habib’s realization, before his death, of the injustice done to Zarri. By giving Zarri time and space to recover from the suffering when

156

Elham Fatma, Rahul K. Gairola, and Rashmi Gaur

one man (her father) forced her to leave another man (her lover) for honor, shame, tradition, and wealth, Shahraz renders for us a happy ending that wrests privilege away from both Muslim patriarchy and capitalist materialism.

Bibliography Agnes, F. “Economic Rights of Women in Islamic Law.” Economic and Political Weekly 31, no. 41/42 (1996): 2832–2838. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/4404686 [Accessed 21 Apr. 2017]. Ahmad, A. “The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality.” Race & Class 36, no. 3 (1995): 1–20. Ali, A. Agency and Its Discontents: Nationalism and Gender in the Work of Pakistani Women Writers, 1947–2005. London: King’s College, 2012. Alvi, A. “Concealment and Revealment.” Current Anthropology 54, no. 2 (2013): 177–199. Amin. T. “Epilogue.” In Nationalism and Internationalism in Liberalism, Marxism and Islam. Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1991. Arie, P. (2016). “Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity – Purushu Arie.” Purushu Arie. Available at: https://purushu.com/2016/02/hegemonic -masculinity-and-emphasized-femininity.html [Accessed 25 Aug. 2018]. Brown, L. “Not Outside the Range: One Feminist Perspective on Psychic Trauma.” In Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by C. Caruth, 100–112. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Chatty, D. “The Burqa Face Cover: An Aspect of Dress in Southeastern Arabia.” In Languages of Dress in the Middle East, edited by B. Ingham and N. Tapper, 127–148. New York: Curzon, 2020. Available at: https://books.google.co.in/ books?isbn=1136803173 [Accessed 3 Mar. 2018]. Chaudhry, F. Hiding and Seeking Identity: The Female Figure in the Novels of Pakistani Female Writers in English: A Feminist Approach. PhD. The University of Huddersfeld, 2013. Connell, R. Masculinities. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, 2005. Connell, R. Gender in World Perspectives. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Crenshaw, K. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–1299. Engineer, A. The Rights of Women in Islam. [eBook] New Delhi: Sterling, 2008, 23– 47. Available at: https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=8120739337 [Accessed 25 Apr. 2017]. Gairola, Rahul K., and Elham Fatma. “Conjugal Homes: Marriage Culture in Contemporary Novels of the Pakistani Diaspora.” In The Routledge Companion to Pakistani Anglophone Writing, edited by A. Kanwal and S. Aslam, 236–247. London: Routledge, 2019. Geller, E. “Islam and Marxism: Some Comparisons.” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944– 67), no. 1 (1991): 1–6. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=Islam+and+Marxism%3A+ Some+Comparisons & [Accessed 13 October 2016]. Halstead, M. “An Islamic Concept of Education.” Comparative Education 40, no. 4 (2004): 517–529. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006042000284 510 [Accessed 21 Apr. 2017].

Engendering Islam 157 Herman, J.L. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Ishaque, N. “Violence Ritualized: The Chemistry of Tradition and Religion in Qaisra Shahraz’s The Holy Woman.” SAGE Open (2017): 1–8. Available at: http://jou rnals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017701527 [Accessed 12 March 2018]. Khan, M.A., and Kumar, R. Islamic Financial System. Islamabad: Iqra University, 2011. LaCapra, D. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. lastampa.it. “The Life of Slavery of Pakistani Women Who Are Forced to ‘Marry’ the Quran.” La Stampa. [online] 2013. Available at: https://www.lastampa.it/vatica n-insider/en/2013/07/30/news/the-life-of-slavery-of-pakistani-women-who -are-forced-to-marry-the-quran-1.36078750 [Accessed 7 Mar. 2017]. Luckhurst, R. “Trauma, Absence, Loss.” In The Trauma Question, 43–87. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008. Manzoor, R. “Pakistan: Women Facing Slavery, Discrimination, and Exploitation – Socialists Fight Women’s Oppression Worldwide | Socialist Alternative.” [online], Socialistalternative.org, 2006. Available at: https://www.socialistalternative.or g/2006/03/02/pakistan-women-facing-slavery-discrimination-and-exploita tion-socialists-fght-women%C2%92s-oppression-worldwide/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2018]. Onaid, F. “The Importance of Girls’ Education in Islam.” In Facts about the Muslims & the Religion of Islam WHY-ISLAM. 2014. Available at: https://www.whyislam .org/social-ties-2/the-importance-of-girls-education-in-islam/ [Accessed 29 Sep. 2017]. Rizvi, S. “Importance of Marriage in Islam.” Al-Islam.org, 2013. Available at: https ://www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-handbook-syed-athar-husayn-sh-rizvi/im portance-marriage-islam [Accessed 13 Apr. 2017]. Rubin, G. “The Traffc in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” In Toward Anthropology of Women, edited by R. Reiter, 157–210. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. Said, Edward. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Random House, 1981. Schuchts, B. “Heart to Heart: Emotional Intimacy.” In Be Devoted: Restoring Friendship, Passion, and Communion in Your Marriage, 49–64. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2020. Shahraz, Q. The Holy Woman. New York: Arcadia Books, 2013. Siddiqui, M. “An Interview with Qaisra Shahraz.” ASIATIC 8, no. 1 (2014): 215– 227. Available at: http://journals.iium.edu.my/asiatic/index.php/AJELL/art icle/viewFile/466/437 [Accessed 11 October 2016]. The Quran: English Translation Clear, Pure, Easy to Read Modern English. Translated from Arabic by Talal Itani. Dallas, Beirut: Clear Quran. Wadud, A. “Qur’an, Gender, and Interpretative Possibilities.” In Inside the Gender Jihad, 187–216. Oxford: One world, 2008. Zafar, H. “Educating Our Children.” The Review of Religions: Eradicating Extremism 110, no. 1 (2015): 25–29.

9

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan Medoruma Shun’s “Army Messenger” Kyle Ikeda

This chapter focuses on the second-generation war survivor fction of Medoruma Shun, a writer from Okinawa Prefecture in Japan, and examines how his short story “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) contributes to the understanding of both direct and transgenerational war trauma. I analyze how the story represents the effects of war violence on survivors of the Battle of Okinawa and their offspring in relation to living in, or in close proximity to, sites of the war past. “Army Messenger” shares characteristics with transgenerational trauma and second-generation Holocaust trauma writing through its focus on children of war survivors, the concealing of war memories, and the exploration of how pre-life atrocity can affect the subconscious mind. The story also expands theoretical understandings of second-generation survivor knowledge and writing by revealing the role of landscapes, sites of war, and inhabited war-related locations in the mediation of transgenerational trauma. While scholars have productively utilized existing theories of trauma to interpret writing about Japanese war experiences as acts of coming to terms with trauma and accordingly have elucidated the psychological reasons for silence, repression, and avoidance of traumatic war memories,1 little has been done in regard to examining the role of the physical environment, landscape, and urban structures in the transgenerational transmission of war trauma and memory in Japanese literature. As I have discussed elsewhere regarding geographic proximity to sites of atrocity, existing theories of trauma in relation to children of survivors do not elaborate on the effect of inhabiting sites of the war past, atrocities, or traumatic incidents.2 Delineating and detailing the ways in which war trauma in Okinawa is shaped by both survivor and second-generation survivor relationships with sites of war and local landscape is important to the generalized study of trauma through its contribution to understanding which aspects of trauma are culturally specifc and which are more generalizable. Okinawan war trauma fction can illuminate how constant exposure to memory triggers that constitute trauma sites affect survivors through depictions of conscious and unconscious war-related responses, actions, and behavior. My analysis focuses on the transgenerational aspects of war trauma that “Army Messenger” engages through the story’s use of the ghost of an army messenger from the Battle of Okinawa that haunts the two focal characters,

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 159 Kinjō and Tomori. The story substantiates existing theories on trauma, particularly related to transgenerational collective atrocity and second-generation Holocaust trauma such as Marianne Hirsch’s notion of postmemory and Gabriele Schwab’s articulation of hauntings. Additionally, Medoruma’s story, and by extension Okinawan war trauma fction, reveals how hauntings are also deeply connected to and mediated by places and sites of the traumatic past, many of which have been left unmarked and un-commemorated. The impact of geographic proximity to and living within sites of trauma portrayed in “Army Messenger” reveal the limitations of dominant theories of trauma that primarily focus on the internal psyche of displaced survivors and the importance of narrative for working through trauma. In contrast to a therapeutic narrative of trauma healing, “Army Messenger,” as a (post)colonial text, presents the dilemma of consolatory mourning of war loss within Okinawa’s ongoing condition as a veritable joint colony of the United States and Japan. The traumatic reenactments in “Army Messenger” constituting the story’s hauntings serve more as indicators of the irreconcilability of the war past to contemporary Okinawa’s political situation, than as breakthroughs in the process of working through unresolved trauma.

Japanese Literary Trauma Narratives, World War II, and Okinawan Literature Prior to David Stahl’s recent work on trauma and dissociation in Japanese literature and flm, scholarship on Japanese literature utilizing the psychoanalytic approach to trauma has tended to focus on frst-generation trauma survivors of the Asia–Pacifc War.3 While there is no shortage of Japanese literary works dealing with traumatized characters from a variety of eras, David Stahl observes that the use of the psychoanalytic approach to study Japanese literature has been rare (Stahl 2017, 1). Additionally, the studies of Japanese literature that utilize psychoanalytic trauma/PTSD theory that Stahl identifes are almost entirely about war trauma narratives related to the Asia–Pacifc War largely written by or about frst-generation war survivors. These studies have productively analyzed how trauma has manifested in many of the characters as well as writers concerning Japan’s Asia–Pacifc War experience. Within Japanese literature about the Asia–Pacifc War, Okinawan literary representations have been distinct from Japanese depictions due to the nature in which Okinawa experienced the War through the Battle of Okinawa and its relationships with Japan and the United States. Okinawa experienced the only largescale land battle to occur on sovereign Japanese soil with a large civilian presence, has had a complicated and ongoing colonial relationship with Japan, and continues to endure a large-scale American military presence. As Gavan McCormick has observed, “Okinawa became, and remains, to today a joint US-Japanese colony in all but name” (McCormack 2016). Okinawan war narratives are different from war narratives by mainland Japanese writers in their focus on civilian accounts, and on how the legacy of the war lingers in the very topography of Okinawa,

160

Kyle Ikeda

often in relation to the US bases and ongoing legacies of colonization and military occupation (Ikeda 2016, 186–190).

Okinawan War Literature, Medoruma Shun, and “Army Messenger” Medoruma Shun is an important award-winning contemporary writer of Japanese fction and a leading social critic from Okinawa who has been writing innovative and imaginative stories since the early 1980s. His short story “Taiwan Woman: Record of a Fish Shoal” (Gyogunki, 1983; trans. 2016) was awarded the Ryukyu Shimpō Short Story Prize, and “Walking the Street Named Peace Boulevard” (Heiwa dōri to nazukerareta machi o aruite, 1986) won the New Okinawa Literature Prize. Medoruma received national and international attention when he won Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize and Kyushu Arts Festival Literary Prize for his short story “Droplets” (Suiteki, 1997; trans. 2000). Shortly afterward in 2000, he received the Kawabata Yasunari literary prize and the Kiyama Shōhei literary prize for his short story “Mabuigumi (Spirit Stuffng)” (Mabuigumi, 1998; trans. 2007). Both “Droplets” and “Mabuigumi (Spirit Stuffng)” deal with repressed memories of the Battle of Okinawa from 50 years earlier. Through his critical essays and online blog, he continues to engage serious and ongoing social problems regarding Okinawa’s relationship with Japan and the United States. Additionally, he has been an active protestor of the construction of a new offshore military base near his hometown of Nakijin, making the news after being arrested for entering a restricted area in his canoe in 2016. His writing about the lasting aftereffects of the Battle of Okinawa on civilian survivors in the decades following the war have continued to receive critical praise and been the focus of scholarly analysis. The exclusive focus on adult second-generation characters in “Army Messenger” differs from Medoruma’s other war-related stories published to date. Unlike “Droplets” and “Mabuigumi (Spirit Stuffng)” in which the focal characters are exclusively war survivors, all of the focal characters in “Army Messenger” are second-generation war survivors. “Walking the Street Named Peace Boulevard” and “The Wind Sound” (Fūon 1985–1986, trans. 2009) both focalize part of their stories through second- and third-generation war survivor characters, but the majority of both stories are focalized through war survivors; the later-generation characters are young children lacking knowledge and a conscious awareness of the Battle of Okinawa. While stories such as “Tree of Butterfies” (Gunchō no ki 2000, trans. 2016) and Medoruma’s novel In the Woods of Memory (Me no oku no mori 2009, trans. 2017) contain second- or later-generation adult focal characters, war-survivor focal characters play a crucial role in each work, with In the Woods of Memory primarily dominated by warsurvivor focal characters. Within Medoruma’s body of fction writing to date, in terms of theme and character focalization, “Army Messenger” most clearly focuses on second-generation war survivor experiences and transgenerational trauma.

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 161

Story Summary: “Army Messenger” Medoruma Shun’s short story “Army Messenger,” which frst appeared in the literary magazine Shōsetsu Torippā (Novel Tripper) in 2004, is about three sightings of a ghost from the Battle of Okinawa that take place in the city of Koza decades after the war ended: the frst in 1970 right after the Koza riots, the second in December 1995 a few months after the 1995 rape incident in Okinawa, and the third in January/February 1996. All three sightings are of a headless army messenger from the Battle of Okinawa, identifed by his tattered soldier’s uniform. “Army Messenger” opens with the story of the second sighting in 1995, describing how Kinjō, a cram schoolteacher in his mid-thirties encounters the headless army soldier. While Kinjō is jogging through the streets of Koza, a car full of young American servicemen draws close to him, and the car occupants indicate through gestures that they are looking for a hostess bar or place to pick up women. Kinjō grows angry and irritated considering that only a few months earlier three American servicemen kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old Okinawan girl, causing a large public outcry and huge protest rally in Okinawa. Although he tries to ignore the Americans, they corner him with their car and spit on him, leading Kinjō to kick the car door. When the driver tries to get out, Kinjō slams the door on the American’s arm, causing the serviceman to cry out, as well as enraging all the other Americans in the car who immediately get out and come after Kinjō. Fleeing in desperation, Kinjō despairs that he was in no condition to outrun the younger, ftter Americans. Just as he was about to collapse from exhaustion, a fgure hiding in the shadows grabs him, motioning for him to be silent and still, and saving him from being caught by the Americans. After the Americans give up looking for him, Kinjō fnally takes a better look at the fgure who saved him and notices it is about the size of a young teen and is wearing a tattered Japanese military uniform from the war. Most noticeably, it is missing its head. Spooked, Kinjō runs back to his apartment. A month later in January 1996 at his favorite bar, Kinjō recounts his encounter with the headless soldier, and is told by the bar master, Tomori, that it is an army messenger from the Battle of Okinawa. Tomori pulls a mounted photograph of the 1970 Koza riots from the wall and points out a headless fgure that appears to be wearing an old Japanese Army uniform. Kinjō confrms that the headless soldier he met is the same one found in the photograph. According to Tomori, the army messenger is apparently still looking for the Japanese army base to deliver his message. Before Kinjō leaves, Tomori asks where in Koza he encountered the army soldier. After the customers leave the bar, the story shifts to Tomori as the narrative focus, revealing that the photograph of the Koza riots was taken by his father. When Tomori was still in elementary school, the Koza riots had broken out and his father who was an amateur photographer, had gone out to take pictures. One evening after the riots, when he was developing his photos, Tomori’s father noticed the fgure of the headless army messenger in one of the photographs. He was sure it was Iju, a childhood friend who had been mobilized to be an

162

Kyle Ikeda

army messenger along with Tomori’s father during the Battle of Okinawa as part of the Blood and Iron Corps. During the war, Tomori’s father had found Iju’s headless corpse on the battlefeld in Koza while on one of his missions to deliver a message. He had been unable to retrieve the body due to heavy shelling and gunfre, however, and never found Iju’s body after the war had ended. Upon seeing Iju in his photo, Tomori’s father began going out to the streets of Koza with his camera, desperately searching for Iju, taking photos all through the night. This obsessive behavior that continued for about six years negatively affected Tomori’s father’s health, his relationship with his family, and his ability to keep his job. Tomori’s mother had to fnd extra work to make up for her husband’s lost income, and Tomori’s school life deteriorated affecting his grades and how he was treated by teachers and classmates. The only thing that saved the family was Tomori’s father’s unexplained and sudden selling of his camera and the cessation of his nighttime excursions, and a resulting focus on working at the family-run izakaya (tavern). Tomori settled down as well, helped out with the izakaya during high school, and eventually took over once his father passed away at the age of 60. Tomori renovated the izakaya tavern turning it into a cocktail bar which eventually garnered a good reputation and moderate levels of success. He married his high school sweetheart, and they had a daughter. But tragedy struck when his young daughter was killed by a motorcyclist, causing his wife to return to her parents’ home. Alone, Tomori listlessly ran his cocktail bar, letting it deteriorate. When Tomori returns to his apartment after hearing Kinjō’s story about the headless army soldier, he listens to a phone message from his wife who has been living apart from him for over two years, inquiring whether he has signed and submitted the divorce papers yet. He decides to sign and submit the papers immediately. Tomori goes out to a convenience store to purchase glue to seal the envelope that has the divorce papers in it and while there also buys a disposable camera, beer, and whiskey. After depositing the sealed envelope with the signed papers into a mailbox, Tomori goes to the area where Kinjō claimed he encountered the headless army messenger and starts taking photos of the area with the disposable camera. After taking several photos without any sighting of the soldier, Tomori realizes how irrational he is acting and stops. Dejected, he heads back toward his apartment when he sees the fgure of a small girl running off in the distance and is certain it is his deceased daughter Izumi. Hoping to catch a glimpse of her again, he starts taking photos of everything, his hand shaking uncontrollably. In the midst of taking the photos Tomori feels he fnally understands how his father must have felt trying to capture Iju with his camera. He then stops taking photos and walks over to the nearby park, the place he last took his daughter before she was killed. Looking out over Koza city from the observation platform at the top of the hill in the park, Tomori is overcome with grief at the sight of his former home where he once lived with his wife and daughter. After he starts to feel the effects of the whiskey he fnished off, Tomori attempts to hang himself from a tree branch with his belt. But before he completely loses consciousness, someone

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 163 lifts him up, and lowers him from the branch. Tomori recognizes it as the army messenger, in the tattered army clothes from the Battle of Okinawa. Tomori attempts to crawl after the army messenger as it runs off but is unable to catch sight of it again. In despair, fghting back his tears, Tomori smashes the camera against the railing and throws the flm out from the observation platform.

“Army Messenger” and Trauma Theories Medoruma’s depiction of how the Battle of Okinawa has affected frst- and second-generation war survivor characters in “Army Messenger” substantiates elements of the existing body of trauma theory regarding frst- and secondgeneration trauma. The frst-generation war survivor, Tomori’s father, displays elements of traumatic dissociation, repression, and reenactment of his war experience related to the violent death of his friend Iju. For the second-generation war-survivor characters Kinjō and Tomori, their encounters with the ghost of the headless army messenger exemplify Marianne Hirsch’s notions of affliative postmemory, for the character Kinjō, and familial postmemory for the character Tomori.4 Both Kinjō and Tomori’s sightings correspond to Gabriele Schwab’s articulation of hauntings as manifestations of unresolved trauma of the previous generation (Schwab 2010). Tomori’s father’s shift from being a reliable and stable family man to a neglectful tavern owner and husband obsessed with trying to fnd the ghost of Iju corresponds with psychoanalysis and trauma theory elaborations on how the mind responds to a traumatic experience via dissociation, repression, and reenactment.5 Before Tomori’s father noticed the headless army messenger in the photograph, he was described as very honest and upright, avoiding alcohol and gambling, and indulging only in benign hobbies like bonsai, fshing, and photography. His shift, however, after seeing Iju’s image, to repeated and increasingly dangerous excursions into the night streets of Koza that adversely affects both his personal and professional lives, suggests that the initial stability was enabled by some level of dissociation and repression of his war experiences on the battlefeld. In order to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the horror, pain, and guilt of Iju’s violent death, Tomori’s father has managed to avoid thinking about it. Additionally, his failure to see Iju’s ghost when he took the photograph that captured it, suggests the relegation of Iju to his subconscious. Once Iju has been brought to his conscious mind via the photograph, Tomori’s father begins re-enacting his initial search for Iju during the war and his excursion into the night of the Koza riots. These repeated reenactments indicate trauma that has yet to be, or is in the process of, being worked through. “Army Messenger” also deals with second-generation trauma, portraying how war trauma can affect the children of war survivors and other members of a community born after the war. Second-generation Holocaust survivor Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” refers to the knowledge, imaginings, and understandings that the children of survivors of a collective atrocity have concerning the traumatic experience of their parents. Unlike memories of a lived

164

Kyle Ikeda

experience, “postmemory” is primarily mediated through images, stories, attitudes, and other expressions, while also informed by the intimate understanding of how the atrocity has psychologically affected one’s parents (Hirsch 1997, 22). Hirsch later makes a further distinction between postmemory that is familial, or absorbed through an intimate family connection, and that which is affliative, or acquired by people whose parents did not directly experience the atrocity in question (Hirsch 2008). In “Army Messenger,” Kinjō’s sighting of the headless army messenger is an example of affliative postmemory, while Tomori’s sighting corresponds to familial postmemory. Kinjō’s affliative knowledge of the Battle of Okinawa has made him aware that the land he lives on was a battle feld in which many lives were lost, but he has no conscious family connections to the area and has no knowledge of Iju. While his subconscious mind may have registered the image of the headless army messenger from the photograph displayed in the cocktail bar, he had no knowledge of Iju’s story. Tomori’s encounter with the headless army messenger, in contrast, holds more meaning for him due to his knowledge of his father’s war experience, and Tomori’s own witnessing of how his father was affected by Iju’s death. While both forms of postmemory are flled with unanswered questions and uncertainty, Tomori’s familial connection invests Iju’s ghost with more intense emotional resonance and meaning for him. Ghosts within “Army Messenger” can be explained through theories about transgenerational trauma. Gabriele Schwab, for example, interprets “haunting” and ghosts as forms of the subconscious remnant of trauma from a previous generation: Traumatic historical legacies may be transmitted individually via unconscious fantasies of parents and grandparents as well as collectively through the cultural unconscious. Psychoanalysts have theorized such transmission as a form of psychic haunting, arguing that both children of victims and children of perpetrators unwittingly live the ghostly legacies and secrets of their parents and the parental generation. (Schwab 2010, 77) The ghostly hauntings of Koza that manifest as the headless army messenger in Medoruma’s story are directly connected to the war experience of the previous generation. Although Tomori and Kinjō never lived through the Battle of Okinawa, Tomori would have been exposed to the unconscious trauma of his parents, and both would have absorbed psychic remnants of trauma via the collective cultural unconscious. Tomori’s rebellious middle-school and high-school years, which correspond to his father’s period of obsession and neglect, can be interpreted as a response to his father’s traumatic reenactments and repressed experiences. Although Kinjō appears to have no direct connection to a former Blood and Iron Corps student soldier, his Okinawan name and familiarity with the Koza area indicate that he is likely Okinawan, and would have grown up not only hearing stories about the Battle of Okinawa and student soldiers on a regular basis, but would have sensed the psychological anxiety connected to the

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 165 unspeakable horrors of the war. As second-generation Holocaust survivor Eva Hoffman observes, children of survivors of atrocity can sense, even on a subliminal level, the psychic pain of their parent’s traumatic experiences (Hoffman 2004, 60). Within the context of growing up in Okinawa and living near the site of the army messenger’s decapitation, the ghostly sighting of the army messenger by the generation born after the war suggests some form of transmitted trauma among those both with and without parental, or direct familial, connections to the war.

Haunted Landscapes and Transgenerational Trauma in “Army Messenger” “Army Messenger” not only substantiates existing theories of trauma, but also challenges and extends contemporary understandings of them. Medoruma’s story reveals the importance of landscape and sites of atrocity for trauma and transgenerational hauntings, aspects of trauma that have been largely overlooked within Schwab’s theorization of haunting legacies which does not consider the role of place. Spectrality studies scholars such as Maria del Pilar Blanco and Esther Peeren, meanwhile, regard phantoms and ghosts as rooted in particular places, although not necessarily as manifestations of unresolved transgenerational trauma (Blanco and Peeren 2010, xvii). The ghostly presence in “Army Messenger” inhabits a particular location, demonstrating spectrality studies’ understanding and awareness that ghosts are deeply connected to places. Combining Schwab’s notion of ghostly hauntings as transgenerational trauma with Blanco and Peeren’s understanding of the intimate connection between hauntings and place, the following analysis seeks to tease out the role of landscape and place in relation to transgenerational trauma. I argue that the landscape in “Army Messenger” contains visible markers of the ongoing military domination of Okinawa by the United States as well as constitutes the hidden sites of wartime atrocity and violent death. Furthermore, “Army Messenger” expands understandings of transgenerational trauma’s connection to the landscape by depicting how hauntings are intimately connected to and conditioned by ongoing and unresolved legacies of the Battle of Okinawa and Okinawa’s neocolonial relationships with the United States and Japan. As I will demonstrate, in the story the various structures and buildings on the streets of Koza which refect the city’s base-town economy, not only physically manifest the conditions of US military occupation, but also magnify feelings of anxiety and awaken subconscious fears connected to sites of past atrocities in the wake of contemporary acts of violence. Finally, I argue, “Army Messenger” challenges a therapeutic reading of traumatic hauntings in Okinawa by suggesting the dilemma of reconciling a violent loss within the conditions of neocolonial and military occupation and oppression. For Okinawan war survivors, living in the very sites of war atrocity, death, and mass violence of war constitutes the material as well as psychic sites of the traumatic past. For the children of survivors and generations born after the war, growing up in and near the sites of incidents of atrocity and violent death involves witnessing how the landscape mediates trauma for the survivor generation. Accordingly,

166

Kyle Ikeda

such witnessing cultivates second-generation sensitivity to the affective meanings inscribed within sites of atrocity and the traumatic landscape, conditioning what I have called geographically proximate postmemory (Ikeda 2012). This stands in contrast to Marianne Hirsch’s articulation of postmemory, which is primarily based on second-generation Holocaust survivor experiences of exile and dislocation. Hirsch’s parents, as well as an overwhelming majority of Holocaust survivors, left the locations where the Holocaust occurred, relocating to the United States or Israel. Accordingly, the role the landscape and sites of the traumatic past play in relation to traumatic memories were not directly felt or witnessed by the children of Holocaust survivors during their formative years of childhood if their parents had relocated to distant lands and foreign countries. As Michelle Balaev, a critic of dominant models of trauma theory, has asserted, the nearly ubiquitous application of Holocaust trauma theory in the analysis of other forms of trauma has resulted in an excessive emphasis on the “talking cure” at the expense of examining the role of the landscape for the process of working through trauma (Balaev 2012, 28–29). Schwab’s prescribed solution for “ghostly hauntings” follows in the vein of the “talking cure,” invoking the breaking of silence: Only a process of breaking traumatic silence and revealing a buried secret can help to exorcise its ghostly alien presence from the inner world. Such a process entails one’s taking responsibility for one’s actions, working through guilt and shame, and mourning unbearable loss. (Schwab 2010, 80) Schwab’s notion of hauntings not only focuses on the importance of breaking silence, it also locates the phantom in the psyche, the “inner world” of those who have received the cryptic traumas of the previous generation. Schwab’s focus on the inner world and the centrality of breaking silence, however, does not take into consideration the impact of sites of trauma and traumatic landscape on survivors of atrocity and their children. The actual sites, locations, and physical spaces in which acts of atrocity and violence occurred, the very places where trauma originated, although briefy mentioned, are under-examined in Schwab’s analysis of transgenerational hauntings.6 Within scholarship in spectrality studies, however, hauntings and ghosts have been understood as deeply connected to places. As Ruth Heholt discusses in the introduction to Haunted Landscapes, “[g]hosts do not merely belong to the past; they are current, present entities that exist, or at least manifest (in whatever manner), somewhere” (Heholt 2016, 5; emphasis in the original). Whereas Schwab locates such phantoms solely in the psyche, Blanco and Peeren argue for understanding ghosts “in spatial terms, as a physical occupation of everyday sites that emphasizes the materiality of the ghost and defnes its agency as grounded in a particular locale –in a disturbance of space as much as of time” (Blanco and Peeren 2010, xvii). Adding these insights and assertions by Blanco, Peeren, and Heholt regarding the importance of place in relation to hauntings, specters, and ghosts to Schwab’s articulation of hauntings as unresolved inherited trauma that

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 167 does not discuss place, I propose to examine the role of the landscape, sites, and specifc locations within “Army Messenger” in relation to hauntings as the manifestations of unresolved trauma from the previous generation.

Okinawan Transgenerational War Trauma as Haunted Legacy within Haunted Landscapes “Army Messenger” demonstrates that the Okinawan landscape and sites of past violence mediate memory and trauma such that “hauntings” can be tied to specifc places in the external world, not just the inner world of the psyche. As I have argued elsewhere, Okinawan war memory is contextualized and situated within and in close proximity to sites of the traumatic past, the very battlefelds and killing grounds where civilians and soldiers lost their lives (Ikeda 2012). It is no coincidence that the streets of Koza in which the army messenger is sighted by Kinjō and Tomori, and where its photograph is taken by Tomori’s father, also happens to be the same area where Iju was killed when his head was blown off by shrapnel. Covered by pavement and concrete which hide the pre-war felds and hills of the Koza area, Koza City of 1970 pre-reversion Okinawa has changed the topography of the traumatic past, hiding the scars and sites of war death and violence. Removed from conscious and visible sight, the landscape of the war has been rendered invisible; yet, as a particular place, war survivors know and remember the violence and atrocities that occurred there. Like the buried and subconscious memories of Iju, the traumatic memories of the war lurk beneath the conscious mind and newly paved streets of Koza, waiting to unexpectedly surface and reappear. “Army Messenger” shows how the contemporary landscape and surface structures can also mediate traumatic memories, potentially triggering productive pain and nudging trauma survivors toward engagement. After Tomori sees the image of his daughter feeing into the night, he is initially motivated to search even more earnestly for her, taking pictures frantically as he points his camera in all directions. This is soon followed by a realization of where he is, the very playground where he last saw his daughter alive. He also looks out over the city from the lookout platform and locates his former house where he used to live happily with his wife and child. The sadness and pain that overcome him jolt him out of his seemingly numb state of melancholy, and he falls into such despair as to try and commit suicide. This is when he encounters the headless army messenger, an encounter which somehow gives him strength enough to continue on for the moment. Here, the landscape and sites of trauma instigate moments of mourning, the necessary pain needed to process the traumatic past, pulling Tomori out of his repressed state of melancholy and emotional numbness. Medoruma’s story also reveals how the landscape contextualizes past trauma within ongoing forms of military and neocolonial oppression that constitute the legacy of the Battle of Okinawa. Contemporary social conditions and contexts as well as unresolved historical legacies can magnify feelings of anxiety and subconscious fears in relation to sites of past atrocity and violence. Not only is Koza

168

Kyle Ikeda

the area where Iju lost his life, and where Tomori’s father found and lost Iju’s remains, consequently linking the army messenger’s spirit to the land, but Koza is also Okinawa’s largest base town with a long history of bars and brothels that serviced American soldiers. The frst sighting of the army messenger phantom is not only signifcant in terms of place, but also in relation to time, at a particularly tense and anxiety-ridden moment, when suppressed anger and frustration at the crimes and abuse at the hands of US soldiers boiled over into the Koza riots of 1970. Angered at two consecutive traffc accidents caused by Americans on the same night at a time when Okinawans had little to no recourse for justice or the ability to press charges, hundreds of Okinawans took to the streets of Koza throwing bricks at and fipping over and burning American-owned cars and vehicles. The appearance of Iju’s ghost during the riot, an eruption of pent-up anger, suggests the surfacing of Tomori’s father’s own repressed mourning over his friend’s death as well as a reminder of how the military occupation of Okinawa at the time was an unresolved legacy of the Battle of Okinawa. Subsequently, Kinjō’s sighting of the headless army messenger on the streets of Koza in December of 1995 not only taps into the city’s history and ongoing status as a base town but is also signifcant in terms of time and social context. Not only did the Koza riots occur in the month of December 25 years earlier, but December 1995 is a few months after the 1995 rape incident in Okinawa. In response to the rape of an elementary schoolgirl by three American servicemen in Okinawa on September 4, 1995, the largest anti-American demonstration since the 1960s took place in Okinawa in October, with estimates of 50,000 to 85,000 people in attendance. Kinjō’s anger toward and defance of the American soldiers which leads him to kick the side of their car, attempt to run away, and eventually encounter the headless army messenger, occurs within the context of a generalized heightened anger and frustration toward the US military in Okinawa. In this regard, the depiction of Kinjō’s encounter with the headless army messenger in 1995 after the rape incident and protests suggest parallels to the Koza Riot in 1970 in different periods of Okinawan history when constrained anger and frustration with the American military occupying forces in Okinawa reached their limits. While old sites of battles and the war in the Koza area have been paved over by new streets and various buildings, Okinawa’s post-war history as occupied military territory persists more visibly. “Army Messenger” portrays how the markings of past and potential violence that accompanies close proximity to a large US military base are embedded in the buildings and physical structures of Koza. While Kinjō is jogging the evening streets of the city, he observes to himself how the older structures hint at the pre-reversion era when the neighborhood was a lively entertainment district for American soldiers with specially designated drinking places. Additionally, looking at the apartment buildings of his neighborhood which is further away from the entertainment district, his eye takes note of the grated window coverings, regarding them as less for the prevention of a robbery than as protection against American soldiers. Even the name of the street he is running on, “Park Avenue,” indicates it was selected by or for Americans since

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 169 it is written with the Japanese syllabary used for foreign words, katakana. The buildings, streets, and traces of the past embedded in structures reveal the signifcance of Koza’s history as a contact zone between US soldiers and Okinawan civilians, particularly as a base town and site of past and ongoing violence and sexual relations between American soldiers and Okinawan women. Tomori’s encounter with the headless army messenger after seeing the phantom of his deceased daughter suggests compounded transgenerational trauma. Tomori appears to have inherited his father’s unresolved trauma, re-enacting his father’s obsessive search for the phantom of Iju on the streets of Koza. Tomori’s eventual encounter with Iju’s ghost corresponds with Schwab’s theorization of the phantom as the unresolved trauma of the previous generation, in other words the manifestation of transgenerational trauma. At the same time, however, Tomori is caught in his own personal trauma of losing his young daughter Izumi, closing down emotionally as his family and personal life deteriorate. Unable to recover emotionally, Tomori’s wife moves out of their house about a year after their daughter’s death, and Tomori later moves out as well after sending his mother to live with his younger sister’s family. Living alone, however, only makes things worse as Tomori drinks more and more beer at night, grows further estranged from his wife, and sleeps in all day past noon or until early evening barely in time to open his bar. While hearing the story of Kinjō’s encounter with the headless army messenger motivates him to go out at night with a camera to try and capture the phantom on flm, he ends up catching sight of Izumi’s feeing fgure. By connecting Tomori’s own trauma to that of his father’s, “Army Messenger” suggests the possibility of compounded transgenerational trauma and raises questions about the psychological aftereffects of unresolved trauma on the children of war survivors.

The Incommensurability of Therapeutic Recovery In contrast to a psychoanalytical reading of postcolonial mourning as a path to recovery from colonial trauma,7 “Army Messenger” suggests the incommensurability of therapeutic recovery for Tomori and his father, and by extension other Okinawans, within the ongoing state of military and neocolonial oppression that structures Okinawa’s political relationship with the United States and Japan. Neither Tomori nor his father are depicted in the story as frmly on the path to recovery, with Tomori’s father more resigned and exhausted than healed, and Tomori more shaken by the encounter with Iju’s ghost than reinvigorated. These encounters with ghosts from the traumatic past serve less to facilitate a therapeutic form of postcolonial mourning and more to disrupt what Durrant describes as “the therapeutic culture of postcolonial modernity” (Durrant 2014, 95). The sighting of Iju’s ghost derails Tomori’s father from his roles as supportive husband, caring father, and productive business owner, while Tomori’s sighting of his daughter Izumi plunges him into emotional pain so great he attempts suicide. In both cases, returning to the more socially productive roles as responsible family man and fnancial provider within the neocolonial logic and economic

170

Kyle Ikeda

dependency that structures Koza and Okinawa’s relationship with the United States and Japan appear irreconcilable with the continuing violence and injustices enabled by the same conditions of military occupation and colonial domination. Life within the structures of Okinawa’s neocolonial relationship with Japan and the United States appears to be incommensurable with a socially, emotionally, and economically productive life, contemporary markers of recovery, and healing from traumatic pain. In the case of Tomori’s father, social and economic productivity as a business owner and stability as provider for his family entails accepting and performing his role as a businessman dependent on the patronage of US soldiers and service personnel who, during the postwar pre-reversion period, were often not held accountable for crimes or transgressions against local Okinawans. In order to provide for his wife, son, and family in general, he must passively accept his role within the cultural and economic logic of late capitalism and neocolonial military occupation that constitutes Okinawa’s position within the US-Japan relationship. By pointing to this conundrum via the Koza riots, Medoruma’s story prompts readers to consider how “healthy” such a recovery to productivity would be, if the conditions of life in post-war Okinawa involve serving US servicemen, ultimately sustaining Okinawa’s subordinate status as “hosts” to a military occupier that continues to have disproportionate power and rights over the local Okinawan population. Iju’s appearance during the Koza riots suggests the irreconcilability of enduring the exploitative and oppressive nature of the United States’ military occupation of Okinawa, especially if Iju’s death signifes the very sacrifce paid to resist and prevent such a reality. Far from enabling therapeutic recovery or healing, the appearances of the ghost of Iju attest to the incommensurability of a “healthy” life in Okinawa within the neocolonial logics of late capitalism and military occupation. Finally, the text raises questions about associative traumas and the traumas of the present in relation to hauntings. What effect has the unresolved trauma of Tomori’s father had on Tomori’s own ability to deal with the tragedy of losing his daughter? The intervention of Iju’s ghost suggests that even in his immense pain, Tomori’s release should not be via death but rather through living with the psychic pain of losing his daughter and divorce from his wife. It forces true mourning of his loss, closing off the escape that death would supposedly provide, while pulling him out of his numbed state of dissociated melancholy. For Tomori, returning to the position of a productive cocktail bar owner and supportive husband involves the hurdle of overcoming his personal loss and reintegrating himself into the contradictions of Koza’s base town economy, informed by the realization or reminder of the immense loss of life taken by the Battle of Okinawa as signifed by Iju. While the encounter with Iju generates such a realization for Tomori, for the reader of “Army Messenger” it serves as a reminder that contemporary problems and tragedies do not supersede those of the past, and that the trauma of the war continues to be connected to losses of the present. Even if only on the level of affective understanding and sympathy, “Army Messenger” seems to be suggesting connections and continuities between historical and personal trauma while highlighting the unresolved legacies of the war

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 171 and Okinawa’s ongoing state of military and political domination by the United States and Japan.

Conclusion As a transgenerational Okinawan war narrative, “Army Messenger” corroborates existing theories of frst- and second-generation trauma, and also extends and expands possible readings of transgenerational trauma effects in relation to living in sites of wartime and ongoing violence. Medoruma’s story shows how the indirectness of experience, the silence of the frst generation of war survivors, and the unresolved nature of repressed trauma manifest as ghosts and phantoms from the war. Through the story, Medoruma highlights varying relationships to traumatic experiences, depicting not only the raw pain of the war-survivor generation and how that trauma is passed on within the family, but also the residue of traumatic affect that seeps into the collective subconscious of the larger Okinawan community. Additionally, the text demonstrates that traumatic events occur in specifc places and that memories of traumatic violence can become embedded in the landscape and sites of war death. “Army Messenger” articulates how traumatic memories and transgenerational hauntings reside not only in the psyche of individuals, but also in the ground, sites, and physical structures constituting the living spaces and landscape of Okinawa. “Army Messenger” connects the haunting legacies of the war past to the present conditions of Okinawa’s military and colonial subordination to Japan and the United States. The story’s setting in the streets of Okinawa’s largest base town that services the United States’ largest airbase in Asia serves to link the war past with Okinawa’s postwar status as the military outpost and staging area for the United States’ various wars in East and Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, not to mention Koza’s history as the sex and entertainment center for US military personnel stationed nearby. Because “Army Messenger” takes place in Okinawa City/Koza, the site of the Koza riots of 1970, and is set near the 25th anniversary of the riot as well as a few months after the 1995 rape incident, the story additionally underscores moments of social unrest and local Okinawan outbursts of anger. Descriptions of the buildings and streets of Koza which refect the dangers of living in close proximity to a US military base further contextualize the ghostly sightings at the center of the story within Okinawa’s neocolonial situation. Indicative of how traumatic war memories and events are connected to the present social conditions in Okinawa, “Army Messenger” reveals how landscapes mediate memories and how psychological anxiety can be aggravated by physical structures that have been shaped by Okinawa’s neocolonial relationship with Japan and the United States. Although “Army Messenger” demonstrates how interaction with the landscape and sites of the traumatic past can serve to make visible and conscious repressed memories and transgenerational traces of trauma, this visibility and consciousness does not lend itself to a therapeutic outcome of working through or recovering from trauma. While cognition of a previously repressed

172

Kyle Ikeda

experience lodged in the subconscious may serve as an initial step toward working through an individual trauma, within Okinawa’s neocolonial situation as a virtual military colony of the United States and Japan, such moments make evident, rather, the incommensurability of healing and recovery under such conditions. Within Okinawa, for some, the path to recovery from trauma is irreconcilable with the conditions of neocolonial domination by the United States and Japan. The story demonstrates that the ghosts of the past and phantoms of unresolved trauma residing in the Okinawan landscape can serve to consciously connect the war past to Okinawa’s current neocolonial condition, making evident how the conditions of traumatic violence persist and continue to make Okinawans particularly vulnerable to further incidents of military brutality and sexual aggression.

Notes 1 See for example David C. Stahl (2017) for a discussion of the psychoanalytic approach to Japanese literature and the David C. Stahl and Mark B. Williams (2010) edited collection of essays dealing with the war in Japanese literature and flm. 2 See Ikeda (2012 and 2014). 3 David Stahl’s Trauma, Dissociation and Re-Enactment in Japanese Literature and Film (2017) and Social Trauma, Narrative Memory, and Recovery in Japanese Literature and Film (2020) includes extensive analysis of non-war-related trauma in Japanese literature and flm. 4 For Hirsch’s elaboration of familial and affliative postmemory, see Hirsch (2008). 5 For example, see Dominick LaCapra (2001) especially pages 88–89, and Bessel A. van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart (1995). 6 Schwab briefy mentions a story heard from her mother mentioning specifc places such as “Right down the street” (Schwab 2010, 43) but does not focus on the spacial aspects of growing up in Germany. Additionally in chapter three, Schwab acknowledges not knowing about the connection to the places in her town to the Jewish community before the Holocaust, with feelings of a haunting emerging after growing up (Schwab 2010, 90–91). Schwab’s lack of awareness might also be attributed to differences between the psychological legacy of being the descendant of perpetrators of the Holocaust and that of the victims. 7 For a critique of the ubiquity of interpreting postcolonial mourning as a way to therapeutic recovery, see Durrant (2014).

Bibliography Balaev, Michelle. The Nature of Trauma in American Novels. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012. Blanco, Maria del Pilar Blanco and Peeren, Esther, eds. Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture. New York: Continuum, 2010. ———. The Spectralities Reader: Ghosts and Haunting in Contemporary Cultural Theory. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Durrant, Samuel. “Undoing Sovereignty: Towards a Theory of Critical Mourning.” In The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism,

Transgenerational Hauntings in the Landscape of Okinawa, Japan 173 edited by Gert Buelens, Samuel Durrant, and Robert Eaglestone, 91–109. London: Routledge, 2014. Heholt, Ruth. “Introduction: Unstable Landscapes: Affect, Representation and a Multiplicity of Hauntings.” In Haunted Landscapes: Super-Nature and the Environment, edited by Ruth Hehold and Niamh Downing, 1–20. London: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2016. Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. ———. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today 29, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 103–128. Hoffman, Eva, After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. Ikeda, Kyle. “Geographically-Proximate Postmemory: Sites of War and the Enabling of Vicarious Narration in Medoruma Shun’s Fiction.” IJOS: International Journal of Okinawan Studies 3, no. 2 (2012): 37–59. ———. Okinawan War Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and the War Fiction of Medoruma Shun. New York: Routledge, 2014. ———. “Writing and Remembering the Battle of Okinawa: War Memory and Literature.” In Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature, edited by Leith Douglas Morton and Rachael Hutchinson, 184–197. New York: Routledge, 2016. LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. McCormack, Gavan. “Japan’s Problematic Prefecture – Okinawa and the US-Japan Relationship.” The Asia-Pacifc Journal: Japan Focus, September 1, 2016. http:// apjjf.org/2016/17/McCormack.html. Medoruma, Shun. Suiteki. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1997. ———. “Mabuigumi.” Shōsetsu torippā Summer (1998): 54–66. ———. “Droplets.” In Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, trans. Michael Molasky, edited by Michael Molasky and Steve Rabson, 255–285. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. ———. “Gunchō no ki.” Shōsetsu torippā Summer (2000): 112–131. ———. “Denreihei.” Gunzō 59, no. 10 (October 2004): 44–60. ———. Okinawa ‘sengo’ zero nen. Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai, 2005. ———. “Mabuigumi” (Spirit Stuffng). Trans. Kyle Ikeda. Fiction International 40 (2007): 64–89. ———. “The Wind Sound” (Fūon, 1985–1986). Trans. Kyoko Selden and Alisa Freedman. Review of Japanese Culture and Society 21 (2009): 137–172. ———. “Mabuigumi.” Trans. Kyle Ikeda. MĀNOA: Living Spirit: Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa 23, no. 1 (2011): 112–134. ———. “Taiwan Woman: Record of a Fish Shoal.” (Gyogunki, 1983). Trans. Shi-Lin Loh. In Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Davinder L. Bhowmik and Steve Rabson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016. ———. “Tree of Butterfies.” (Gunchō no ki, 2000). Trans. Amy Mizuno. In Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Davinder L. Bhowmik and Steve Rabson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016. ———. In the Woods of Memory. Trans Takuma Sminkey. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2017. Schwab, Gabriele. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

174

Kyle Ikeda

Stahl, David C. Trauma, Dissociation and Re-Enactment in Japanese Literature and Film. New York: Routledge, 2017. ———. Social Trauma, Narrative Memory, and Recovery in Japanese Literature and Film. New York: Routledge, 2020. Stahl, David C., and Mark B. Williams, eds. Imag(in)Ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film. Leiden: Brill, 2010. van der Kolk, Bessel A., and Onno van der Hart. “The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma.” In Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, 158–182. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Index

2011 Great East Japan Earthquake 107, picture books 111–112 Abraham, Nicolas 124, 127 absence of speech marks, Gao Xingjian 39, 44 Abu-Bakar Ali 143, 154 Adams, Jenni 131–132 adult characters, children’s books 115 adult readership, children’s books 114–115 affliative postmemory 163–164 Agnes, Flavia 149 Ahmad, Aijaz 149 Alexander, Jacqui 71 Alexander, Jeffrey 35, 122 Alvi, Anjum 145 Andong, Don 133 animals, children’s books 108–109, 116 Annan, Kof 76 anti-Asian racism 5 anti-Chinese jingoism 2 “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 158–159, 171–172; haunted landscapes 165–167; hauntings 170; incommensurability of therapeutic recovery 169–171; summary 161–163; transgenerational trauma 165–169; trauma theories 163–165 Asanuma, Mikiko 115, 117 Asia, defned 6, 21 Asian contagion 6 Asian diasporic trauma 12 Association for Asian American Studies 22 autobiographical memory 85n12 autobiographies, representing trauma 70

Ba, Jin 33–34, 37, 41 babaylans 126–127, 131 Baelo-Allue, Sonia 7 Bal, Mieke 83 Ban, Wang 8 Bangladesh 9 Bankhoff, Greg 130 Baster, Katherine Isobel 8 Battle of Okinawa 159–160 belatedness 123–124 Beloved (Morrison) 124 Bennington, Geoffrey 125 Bhabha, Homi 61 Black-Asian solidarity 22 Blanco, Maria del Pilar 166 Boku Wa Uminiatta (Usa) 116–117 bonds (kizuna) 112 Bong, Sharon A. 8 Borzaga, Michela 122 Boynton, E. 7 British colonialism 10 Brown, Laura S. 140, 147 Buelens, G. 7 burqas, The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 145 Butler, Judith 20–21 “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (Gao) 38–42 Cambodia, culture, 80 capitalism 150–151 Capretto, P. 7 Carpentier, Alejo 123, 132 Caruth, Cathy 7, 79 catastrophe 108 Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 122–123; living/dead and ecospecters 126–130; Magic Realism 131; martial law dictatorship

176

Index

132–134; melancholia 125–126; natural disasters 128–129; political disasters 129–130 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 34–35 celibacy, Islam 148 censorship, of Cultural Revolution 36 Chatterjee, Piya 10 Chaudhri, Fariha 152 Cheung, King-Kok 49 child perspective, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Ung 2000) 77, 82 childlikeness 114 children’s books 107; adult characters 115; adult readership 114–115; animals 116; Boku Wa Uminiatta (Usa) 116–117; deceased 115–117; Hanamizuki No michi (Asanuma and Kuroi) 115, 117; Himawari No Oka (Tan) 117; Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu (Kamata and Hasegawa) 109–110, 118; Kaze No Denwa (Imoto) 108–109, 116; Kibou No Bokujou (Yoshida and Mori) 115, 118; Kiseki No Ippon Matsu (Nakada) 109, 116; optimism 118; reconnecting 115–116; Tanpopo Anohi Wono Wasurenaide (Mitsuoka and Yamamoto) 112–113; Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe! 112–113, 118 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 34–35 Chinese Cultural Revolution 32–37 Chinese virus 6 collective memory 82–83, 85n12 collective mourning 126 Collingwood, R.G. 95 colonial history 4 colonialism 3–5 communicative memory 85n12 connected reading 83 Connell, R.W. 139, 152 Connolly, Paula 112, 116 consolatory escape 131–132 contemporary Philippine trauma, martial law dictatorship 132–134 convergence principle 80–81 COVID-19 2–5; vulnerable groups 21 Craps, Stef 8 critical thinking 33–34 cultural memory 85n12 cultural trauma: Chinese Cultural Revolution 34–37; defned 35

culture, Cambodia 80 Culture and History (Joaquin 1988) 126 Cyrulnik, Boris 80–82 Davis, Rocío 83 De Loughrey, Elizabeth 129 death, The Great Famine (1959-1961) 32 deceased, children’s books 115–117 Deckard, Sharae 127 Delbaere-Garant, Jeanne 130 Derrida, Jacques 125 Desai, Anita 8 Desai, Manali 10 Diaz, Josen Masangkay 129–130 diffcult forgiveness, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 99–102 Dikötter, Frank 45 disaster capitalism 129 domestic violence 11 Durrant, Samuel 7, 125–126 Duterte, Rodrigo 134 Eaglestone, R. 7 eco-specters, Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 126–130 ethics of memory 90 “The Exclusion of Asiatic Immigrants in Australia” 6 eye-witness accounts 112 familial, postmemory 164 Fanon, Frantz 20 feeling 2 Felman, Shoshana 7 First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Ung 2000) 69, 73–74; claiming justice and action 75–79; memorializing genocidal rupture 79–84 fow of language 32, 38; “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (Gao) 38–42 forgetting, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 99–102 forgiveness 90; diffcult forgiveness, The Garden of the Evening Mists (Tan) 99–102 fragility, “The Temple” (Gao) 44–45 Freud, Sigmund 124 Freyd, Jennifer 75

Index Gairola, Rahul K. 11–12 Gang of Four 34 Gao, Xingjian 32, 37; “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” 38–42; fow of language 38; Nobel Prize speech 45; stream of consciousness 38; “The Temple” 42–45; without isms, 31–32 The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 88–89; diffcult forgiveness 99–102; history 96–99; incompletion 91–94; material support 97; mnemonic recollection 91–94; re-enactment 94–96; unforgetting 99–102 Gellner, E. 141 gender inequality, Islam 150–154 gendered Islam, The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 146–155 genocide, memorialising (First They Killed My Father) 79–84 geographically proximate postmemory 166 ghosts, “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 164–165 The Gift of Rain (Tan 2007) 90 Gilmore, Leigh 70 Golding, J. 110–112 The Great Famine (1959-1961) 32 Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) 32 green spectres 127 Greenberg, Judith 1 group memory 85n12 Gumpert, M. 108 Hakata, Tan, Himawari No Oka 115, 117 Halbwachs, Maurice 85n12 Hanamizuki No michi (Asanuma and Kuroi) 115, 117, 120 Haq Bakhshish 138, 140, 144–145, 148–149 harmony 111 Hartman, Geoffrey 7 Hasegawa, Yoshifumi 109–110, 118–119 Hashimoto, Akiko 8 haunted landscapes, “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 165–169 haunting 126–127, 166; “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 170 Haus-Heino Ewers 114 healing value of self-representational stories 72

177

Hee Wai-siam 40 hegemonic masculinity 139; The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 143 Heholt, Ruth 166 Herman, Judith 108, 113, 139 hermanas 126, 130 Herrero, Dolores 7 Himawari No Oka (Hakata) 115, 117 Hirsch, Marianne 163, 166 historical loss, spectrality 123–126 historical memory 85n12 history, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 96–99 Holmes, Richard 92 Holocaust 122 Holocaust survivors 79; landscape 166 The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 138–144; burqas 145–146; gender inequality 149–154; gendered Islam 146–149; Haq Bakhshish 138, 140, 144–145, 148–149; mothers/ daughters 147; Quran 146–149; sexuality 153–154; Shahzadi Ibadat 145–147 honor-shame complex, The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 144 Hor, Soneath 80 horimono (tattoo), The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 96–8, 100–101 Hourensou Wa Naiteimasu (Kamata and Hasegawa) 109–110, 118 human disaster, The Great Famine (1959-1961) 32 Hun, Sen 76 Hutcheon, Linda 134 Ikeda, Kyle 9 imagination, picture books 111 Imoto, Yoko, Kaze No Denwa 108–109, 115–116 In the Woods of Memory (Medoruma 2017) 159–160 incommensurability of therapeutic recovery, “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 169–171 incompletion, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 89–94 individual memory 85n12 individual mourning 126 individual refection 37 innocence, children’s books 114 intellectuals 34

178

Index

inter-Asian racism 5 interconnectedness 90 internment of Japanese Americans 48–49; No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 54–61 internment of Japanese Canadians, Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54 Ishaque, Nausheen 150 Islam 140, 155; burqas 145; celibacy 148; gender 149–155; gender inequality 150; Haq Bakhshish 140–141, 149; parental property 150; property 150–154 Issei (frst-generation immigrants) 48, 61 italics, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Ung 2000) 70–71 Itou, Hideo 112–113, 118 Jackson, Karl 6 Japanese Americans 48; No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 54–61 Japanese Canadian evacuation, Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54 Japanese internment 48; No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 54–61; Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54 Japs, No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 59 Jayawickrama, Sharanya 10–11 Jiang Qing 34 Joaquin, Nick: Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 122–123, 126–130; Culture and History (Joaquin 1988) 126 justice, Cambodia 75–79 Kam, Loui 36 Kamata, Minoru 109–110, 118 Karl, Rebecca E. 44 Kaze No Denwa (Imoto) 108–109, 115, 116 Khan, Yasmin 10 Khmer Rouge, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Ung 2000) 69, 73–84 Kibou No Bokujou (Yoshida and Mori) 115, 118 Kiseki No Ippon Matsu (Nakada) 109, 116 kizuna (bonds) 112 Klein, Naomi 129 Kogawa, Joy 62; Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54

Koza riots of 1970, Okinawa, Japan 168 Kurashige, Scott 22 Kuroi, Ken 115, 117 Kwok, Fern 2–3 Kwokkan, Tam 37 LaCapra, Dominick 7 landscape, haunted landscapes see haunted landscapes language of trauma 38 Laub, Dori 72, 75 Lay, Sody 77, 80, 82 Lay-Ung controversy 82–83 Limits of Autobiography (Gilmore 2001) 70 literature, scare 36–37 Liu Xinhua 36 living/dead, Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 126–130 loyalty questionaire, No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 54–61 Luckhurst, Roger 124 Ly, Boreth 8 Lyotard, Jean-François 76 Ma, Sheng-mei 9 Macfarquhar, Roderick 35–36 Magic Realism 123–124, 130–132 Malaysian novels, The Garden of Evening Mists see The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) Manifold, M.C. 111 Manzoor, Rukhsana 151 Marcos, Bongbong 134 martial law dictatorship, contemporary Philippine trauma 132–134 material support, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 97 Matsui, Kimiko 107 Mbembe, Achille 4 McCormick, Gavan 159 McDougall, Bonnie S. 36 McKenzie, Jr., Rodney 4 Medoruma, Shun 160; “Army Messenger” see “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) mehr (dower) 149 melancholia 124–126 memorializing genocidal rupture, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Ung 2000) 79–84 memory, sensitizing concept 83

Index memory narrativization 80–81 memory studies 7 Mengel, Ewald 122 mid-mourning 125–126 Mitsuoka, Mari 112–113 mnemonic recollection, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 91–94 Mnemosyne 92 model minority 22 Mohammad 148 Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali 10 Mori, Eto 115, 118–119 Morrison, Toni 92, 124 mothers/daughters, The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 147 mourning 126 mythic realism 130–132 Nachträglichkeit 123–124 Nakada, Eri 116; Kiseki No Ippon Matsu 109 narrativization 74–75; memory narrativization 80–81 natural disasters 108–109; 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake 107; Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 128–129; picture books see picture books; South Asia 12 Nikolajeva, M. 111 Nisei (second-generation American-born citizens) 48, 62 Nixon, Rob 129 Nodelman, P. 114 No-No Boy (Okada 1957) 54–61 Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54 Okada, John, No-No Boy (1957) 54–62 Okinawa, Japan 159: “Army Messenger” see “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004); transgenerational trauma 167–169 Okinawan war literature 160 Olick, Jeffrey 83 “On Dissecting Oneself” (Ba) 33–34 One Man’s Bible (Gao 1999) 31–32, 37 optimism, children’s books 118 Osterhammel, Jürgen 6 parental property, Islam 150 Partition of India 9–10 patriarchal dividend 139, 152 patriarchy 150 Peeren, Esther 166

179

Peschanski, Denis 80 Philippine trauma, martial law dictatorship 132–134 picture books 110–112 see also children’s books Plänkers, Tomas 36 political disasters, Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 129–130 positivity, “The Temple” (Gao) 42–44 postcolonial modernity 169–171 postcolonial studies 7–8 postcolonial turn 122, 130 postmemory 164; geographically proximate postmemory 166 Preliminary Exploration into the Art of Modern Fiction (Gao 1981) 37 property, Islam 150–154 psychological trauma 35 Quran 155; The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 146–149 Quayson, Ato 4 queer diasporic trauma 11–12 queer sexuality, Sri Lanka 11 Quinn, Grantham 80 racism 2–5; inter-Asian racism 5 reconnecting, children’s books 115–116 reconstructions 82–83 Red Guards 32, 34 re-enactment, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 94–96 re-externalizing 75 remembrance, Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49–54 rememory 92 representing trauma, telling stories of survival 70–75 repressed memory, Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 128 revenants 123–124; Cave and Shadows (Joaquin 1983) 127 Ricoeur, Paul 89–91, 94, 95; forgetting and forgiveness 99; trace 97 Roh, Franz 123 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 48 root-seeking journeys, “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (Gao) 38–42 Rose, Susan 72 Rothberg, Michael 7 Roy, Parama 10 Rubin, Gayle 151

180

Index

Sandru, Cristina 124 Sarkar, Baskar 10 Sashida, Kazu 112–113, 118 Sato, Gayle Fujita 49, 55 “Scar” (Liu 1978) 36–37 scar literature 36–37 Schlund-Vials, Cathy 76, 78 Schuchts, Bob 154 Schwab, Gabriele 164, 166 Scott, C. 111 second-generation trauma, “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 163–164 self-representational stories, healing value 72 sexuality, The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 153–154 Shah, Nayan 6 Shahraz, Qaisra 140, 155; The Holy Woman see The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) Shahzadi Ibadat 138, 152; The Holy Woman (Shahraz 2001) 145–147 shakkei (borrowed scenery) 93 Sifton, J. 5 silence, Obasan (Kogawa 1981) 49 Singh, Amritjit 82 slow violence 129 small self 37 Smelser, N. 36 Smith, Katherine 114–115 social contestation 36 soul-searching, “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (Gao) 40–41 spectrality 123–126; “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 165 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 10, 21 Sri Lanka 10–12 Stagg, Sophal Leng 75 Stahl, David 159 stereotypes 4; model minority 22 stream of consciousness 38 Sturken, Marita 83 survivor motif 72 Tal, Kali 124 Tan, Twan Eng 91; The Garden of Evening Mists see The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 88–89; incompletion, Garden of Evening Mists 91–94 Tanaka, Tan 117

Tanpopo Anohi Wono Wasurenaide (Mitsuoka and Yamamoto) 112–113 telling stories of survival 70–75 “The Temple” (Gao) 42–45 “Ten Years of Chaos” 32 Torök, Maria 124 Toshida, Hisanori 118–119 traces of history, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 96–99 transgenerational trauma, “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 165–169 transgressive body 4 transnational active selfhood, Loung Ung 75–79 trauma studies 7 trauma theory 7, 9; “Army Messenger” (Denreihei 2004) 163–165 traumascapes 16 Trump, Donald 6 Tsunami Tendenko Hashire Uehe! (Sashida and Itou) 112–113, 118 Tumarkin, Maria 16 Tuon, Bunkong 80 Um, Khatharya 71 unforgetting, The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan 2012) 99–102 Ung, Loung 69; First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers 73–84; telling stories of survival 70–75 Ung family 79 United States, Japanese internment 48 universal emotion 116 universal victimhood 37 Usa (Boka wa Umininatta) 116 vegetables, children’s books 110 victimhood, Chinese Cultural Revolution 32–34 Villares, Lucia 4 vulnerable groups, COVID-19 21 Wadud, Amina 151 Waintrater, Rágine 73 Waites, Elizabeth 73 Wall, Barbara 114 War Relocation Authority (WRA) 48 Watson, Conrad William 77 Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Susanne 34–35 “White Australia policy” 6

Index white supremacist xenophobia 5–6 Whitehead, Anne 124 Whitlock, Gillian 83 wholeness 71–72 without isms 31–32 world quake 129 WRA (War Relocation Authority) 48 “writing one’s autobiography,” Khmer Rouge 73

181

Xu, Bin 36 Yamada, Teri Shaffer 72, 75, 76, 78 Yamamoto, Shouzou 112–113 Yathay, Pin 76 “Yellow Peril” 5 Yoshida, Hisanori 115 Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali 10