Bidirectional Cultural Colonialization

Abstract

Some people regard cultural colonialization as a real menace. Interestingly enough, our Japanese neighbors apparently do not have such worries. Japan is a hundred times more enthusiastic than China about absorbing foreign cultures, and should, by rights, be more entitled to beware of the danger of cultural colonialization. But strangely enough, although there have been such slogans as "Chinese learning and the Japanese national spirit" and "Western learning and the Japanese national spirit" (approximately equivalent to our "making foreign things serve China"), we have not seen the Japanese raise a hullabaloo about the matter. Is this perhaps because Japanese culture has long since experienced and become accustomed to colonialization? By comparison, several thousand years of tradition have made it difficult for the Chinese to shake off old habits, and our glorious history and the self-esteem this has generated prevents us from adapting to radical role changes. As Hu Shi once said, yesterday's glory has become today's impediment.