Abstract

“Having immigrated from Japan to the United States in my 20s with limited English proficiency and little money, I quickly learned to play up to my youthful femininity and my FOB-Japaneseness. From 1997 to 1999, I worked as a kimono-donning waitress at a high-end Japanese restaurant in Dallas, TX, alongside my fellow waitresses immigrated from Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, male Japanese sushi chefs on H1-B visa, and male kitchen staff from Mexico. As I look back on this multi- cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic space, covered with Orientalistic décor and filled with earnest desire to be validated by the “real American” customers, this was the beginning of my long and winding road to becoming a scholar of Japan Studies.

In this talk, I would like to share my thoughts on “transnational/global perspective” to Japan Studies. This will begin with the questions of what “transnational/global perspective” means to me and whether Japan Studies indeed hopes to bring it to the field. This will be followed by discussing some of the challenges I experience as a researcher of gender and sexuality in premodern Japan as well as instructor of Japanese literature and culture courses in the United States, which are connected to what makes it difficult for Japan Studies to acquire transnational/global perspective. I will then talk about “interculture,” as opposed to the binary of “localization vs. foreignization,” in the global commercial and artistic spheres. Without assuming a simple cause-and-effect trajectory, I will explain why “interculture” will likely contribute to bringing more transnational/global perspective to Japan Studies in the near future.”