COMMUNICATIONS

I am LIU Yang, and I have just taken up a post here at Nichibunken as a Specially Appointed Assistant Professor.

My research examines the seas of East Asia from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and follows people compelled to move across borders due to war or maritime activities. During the age of the wakō pirates and the Imjin War ( known in Japan as the Bunroku and Keichō campaigns*), many Chinese and Koreans were brought to Japan. Drawing on personal records left by the captives themselves, I explore how they lived in unfamiliar environments, learned new languages, and rebuilt social relationships in foreign lands.

I was born in China, studied in Japan, and did further research in the UK. Whenever my life, language, and research environment have changed, I have time and again had the experience of interrogating my place of belonging. My personal experience of movement connect in turn with my interests in the movement of people, and in people located at the margins.

Nichibunken does not confine Japanese culture to a single frame; it is a place where it becomes possible to think in terms of connections between regions and perspectives. It is my hope that I can use my research and contacts here to link my specialist knowledge to society, and to share with as many people as possible the breadth and fascination that is integral to work in the humanities.

The sea constitutes a barrier, but is also a place across which people traverse. I will be delighted if I can contribute to Nichibunken’s research and communication activities by lending an ear to people who have crossed the seas. I look forward to working with you all!

The site of the temple (present-day Matsubara jinja, Kagoshima city) where Cai Jingrong, abducted by wakō pirates, lived between 1562 and 1564. (Photo by the author)

*These conflicts are known by different names according to research and regional contexts. In Japan, they are typically known as the Bunroku and Keichō campaigns. In my research, I deploy the term Imjin War, which is favored in recent research that re-appraises these conflicts as international events that influenced Macao and Manila, which require analysis at an East Asian scale. Readers interested in this issue should consult the following essay:
Kawanishi Yūya. “‘Bunroku Keichō no eki’ koshō no saikentō.” Kankoku Chōsen Bunka Kenkyū 21 (2022), pp. 63–89.