Introduction: What is Asia?

Abstract

This chapter reviews the origin of the word “Asia” and its multiple meanings. Then, it discusses the nature of Asian studies and points out the significance of this book.

The term “Asian studies” does not necessarily carry the same meaning across the world. To begin with, the meaning of the word “Asia” differs slightly from language to language and from place to place. Inevitably, the conclusions that can be drawn from research on Asia—a word that has different meanings in itself—will not be universal. Therefore, this initial chapter begins by reviewing the origin of the word “Asia” and its multiple meanings. Next, it discusses the nature of Asian studies, a field of endeavor founded on the premise of the ambiguity of the word “Asia” as a type of area studies. It concludes by emphasizing the fact that, when dealing with Asian studies, it is critically important to be aware of who is conducting research on what and for whom. In this respect, the findings in the field of Asian studies described in this book are highly distinctive.

1 The Changing Meanings and Ambiguity of Asia

What was the original meaning of the word “Asia”? The word originates from the ancient Greek word “Asia.” However, we can trace it even further back to the Akkadian (a Semitic language used in Mesopotamia until around the first century) word “asu,” which means “land of the rising sun.” In ancient Greece, the word “Asia” referred to the east, namely, from the western part of the Anatolian Peninsula to the east across the Aegean Sea, and this word was passed on to Latin and then to other European languages (Everett-Heath 2020).

In the book Etymologiae by Isidorus, a seventh-century scholar from Seville in the Iberian Peninsula, the so-called T and O map illustrating the structure of the world appears for the first time. In this book, one of the three landmasses that make up the world is named Asia and is located in the east. The other two landmasses are Europe and Africa. This T and O map, which appears in the literature of the Western European Christian world until the fifteenth century, is a conceptual representation of the world and is not based on actual knowledge. Asia is simply the land of the East. This is because the geographical knowledge of the people of the Western European Christian world at that time was limited to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea at best (Fig. 1).¹

Fig. 1

T and O map (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diagrammatic_T-O_world_map_-_12th_c.jpg)

In the world before the fifteenth century, there were several such regional perceptions of the world. For example, ancient China classed its neighbors by compass direction as the “Four Barbarians,” with China in the center. Japan, meanwhile, referred to itself as Honcho, surrounded by the lands of Shina (China) and Tenjiku (India), while in West Asia, people divided the world into the “Seven Climatic Zones.” Other regions must have had their own particular, albeit lesser known, worldviews, too. In other words, until the sixteenth century, the word “Asia” was merely a vague spatial concept in the European Christian world and was unknown to the rest of the world.

Later, however, when Western Europeans actually moved into various parts of the world and created world maps based on accurate geographic information, the various perceptions in different parts of the world were gradually disregarded, and world maps and place names of Western European origin were accepted and used in other places.

In the early seventeenth century, while in Beijing, the missionary Matteo Ricci created Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a map of all the countries of the world, which included much of the geographical knowledge and place names we use today. By this time, the word “Asia,” which had originally been a vague concept meaning “the eastern region,” had been transformed into a single geographical space (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, Kano Collection, Tohoku University Library (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kunyu_Wanguo_Quantu_(%E5%9D%A4%E8%Bhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kunyu_Wanguo_Quantu_(%E5%9D%A4%E8%BC%BF%E8%90%AC%E5%9C%8B%E5%85%A8%E5%9C%96).jpg#filelinks)

It should be noted, however, that even after the sixteenth century, several terms other than “Asia” were used to refer to the East as seen from Europe. “The Orient” (the land of the rising sun, the East) is one of them. The lands beyond the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa were collectively known as the “East Indies.” This category included the eastern coast of the African continent, the Indian subcontinent, the islands and continental areas of Southeast Asia, as well as mainland China and the Japanese archipelago. The coastal areas where ships arrived were certainly included in the East Indies, but it was not always clear how far inland the East Indies extended. Therefore, it can be said that among these terms, the only place name with a specific geographical range was “Asia.” Nevertheless, with the development of modern academic disciplines such as geography, place names originating from Europe became known to the people living in various parts of Asia, and they were gradually shared and used.

As a geographical name, Asia is the part of Eurasia east of the Ural Mountains, the Bosporus, and the Isthmus of Suez.² Needless to say, Europe is to the west. This is the result of dividing the huge landmass of Eurasia into two parts, according to the tradition followed since the creation of the T and O map. The peoples of Western Europe referred to the vast landmass to the east of Europe, their home region, as Asia. There was no sense of belonging to the same human group, and no common characteristics or customs existed among the people living in the region. Asia was only the “other” space remaining after removing Europe, the “self,” from this vast landmass.

As this shows, “Asia” is too large a space to be concretely explained as a single entity. Moreover, since the word was originally a concept, which later became a geographical term, there has always been ambiguity and arbitrariness attached to the word and its meaning. Therefore, for the purpose of academic analysis and explanations, such as explaining the characteristics of specific groups of people and cultures, or analyzing political and economic trends, the term “Asia” is often preceded by a direction, such as east, west, north, or south, which establishes a specific regional grouping.

However, even with the addition of an identifying term preceding the word “Asia,” ambiguity remains. For example, in English, “East Asia” is often used in reference to China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan, but it can also refer to the combined space of Southeast and Northeast Asia, that is, the entire eastern part of Asia. In addition, there are many theories on how to divide Central Asia and North Asia.

Therefore, without an additional identifying term preceding it, the word “Asia” is ambiguous. In the United Kingdom, “Asian People” refers almost exclusively to the people of South Asia, while China and Japan are often referred to as being from the “Far East.”³ Today, countries in Europe and North America rarely use “Asia” in reference to the Eastern Mediterranean region, the area that this term was originally supposed to indicate. Instead, it is part of a space known as the Middle East or the Near East. The Association for Asian Studies in North America does not include West Asia in its research. In Japan as well, such a perception seems to be gaining strength. The term “Asia” is often used to refer to the region from East to South Asia.⁴ In fact, even this book, where the title refers to a “Rising Asia,” does not cover West Asia. However, the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo, which played a major role in the publication of this book, has a research unit called the Department of West Asian Studies.

The people of Iran and Turkey, which are located in West Asia, often consider themselves to be from the Middle East, but traditionally, they have considered themselves to be from Asia, and as Asians, they feel a strong affinity with the people of Japan. Hence, the word “Asia,” which is supposed to be a geographical denomination, does not necessarily refer to the exact space indicated by that geographical name. This is the nature of research in the humanities, which deals with concepts including studies of “culture.” The term “Asia” has been used conveniently in various ways, especially when people living in Asia talk about something related to their own identity.⁵ This should be kept in mind when engaging in Asian studies, a field of study aiming to better understand and explain Asia.

2 New Asian Studies

Another point must not be forgotten when studying Asia or reading literature on Asia—in other words, when dealing with “Asian studies.” This is the need to be aware of whether the researcher or author is approaching the subject of Asia from outside or from within. In addition, the position of the recipients of the information sent by the researcher or author is also important. In other words, it is important to consider who is researching what and in what capacity, and to whom the information is being communicated.⁶

If we think of Asian studies as a type of area studies that flourished in the United States during the post-World War II period when the Cold War began, there is no way to approach Asia from within. This is because the original mission of area studies was to approach a certain region from the outside, specifically, from the United States, using social science methods to understand it in the context of the knowledge system and values of English in the United States, and to deliver the research results to readers in the United States. In essence, area studies at this time were policy studies, and they were the “study of others.”

These area studies influenced the Japanese academic world, and by the 1970s, the Japanese style of area studies, which uses multiple research fields and methods to understand an area comprehensively, was flourishing. In the case of Asian studies, this style is characterized by the fact that it attempts to reveal the characteristics of a country or region within Asia comprehensively by incorporating research methods from not only the humanities and social sciences but also the sciences, such as geology and agriculture. However, these area studies initially inherited the characteristics of American area studies as the “study of others.” This is because research results by Japanese researchers were published in Japanese, and research on Japan (itself), which is geographically located in Asia, was not included in the category of Asian studies. Asian studies in Japan during this period referred to the study of others by Japanese researchers for Japanese readers.⁷

Gradually, international exchanges between people flourished at the personal and academic levels, and the distinction between “self” and “other” in Asian studies became less clear. The reason for this is that researchers from the target country or region entered area studies as “other studies” in the United States, while local researchers, such as Japanese and Chinese researchers, increasingly presented their research in English. Moreover, in the case of Japan’s area studies, the idea of returning research results to the communities that are the subject of study is often emphasized, and presentations in the local language—for example, Indonesian for Indonesian studies and Vietnamese for Vietnamese studies—are encouraged. It can be said that Asian studies with a character that differs from the original Asian studies are now being developed internationally.⁸

Nevertheless, this does not mean that the setting of research targets, methods, and results are completely shared among researchers across national and linguistic differences. The question of whether to approach the region under study from the outside or the inside is one of the issues that still requires careful consideration. Depending on the perspective from which one approaches the subject and tries to understand it, its perception and characteristics may differ. Moreover, the way in which the subject is understood may also vary depending on the kind of self-awareness, knowledge, or common sense the person receiving the explanation from the researcher or author has.

In this respect, this book has some interesting characteristics. All the authors of this book are researchers based in Japan. Many of them have published articles in Japanese for readers who have acquired the Japanese system of knowledge. However, not all of them are of Japanese nationality. These scholars discuss and write the history and international relations of Asia, including Japan, in English. One of the characteristics of this book is that it does not clearly distinguish between “inside” and “outside,” or “self” and “other,” and tries to overcome these distinctions. However, the Japanese language has a system of knowledge, values, and common sense that are characteristic of it. Considering the fact that the book is written by a number of researchers who usually think and write in Japanese, the explanations of certain events may be quite different from those presented in similar books from English-speaking countries. Nevertheless, the value of this book lies therein, as the respective authors present just one of the various ways of looking at “Asia” through English, a language with a large readership.