Cultural Typhoon in Europe: Places and spaces of cultural production in East Asia

My project aims to deconstruct the phenomenon of “Japanese Contemporary Art” as a transnational process through which a national identity of Japan is constructed. With a discursive analysis of the reception of the contemporary artist Murakami Takashi and his theory of “Superflat Art” I want to show how images of Japan are created both in- and outside of Japan through various modes of production, reception and dissemination through the global system of contemporary art. Through this perspective, contemporary art becomes an interface for the oscillating momentum between the dichotomies of local and global, centre and periphery, particular and universal.
Art has played a crucial role in the formation of the Japanese national identity, especially during the formation of the Meiji-State as a means of modernization. Between Westernisation and Auto-Orientalism, the idea of what is the specific “Japanese” in Japanese art is constantly contested and these historic precedents are necessary for a context sensitive understanding of contemporary Japanese art. Contemporary Japanese art has become a soft power, where the “Japaneseness” of Japanese Contemporary Art is used strategically not only by artists and curators, but also academics and critics in- and outside of Japan. Murakami Takashi is considered to be the primary representative of Japanese contemporary art but his persona and artistic activities are discussed controversially, reigniting the discussion on “authentic” Japanese art.
With this assumption I want to analyse the work of Murakami and its reception by integrating the Japanese idea of bijutsu (Art) into the existing discourse on the supposed cultural uniqueness of Japan and reveal the underlying hegemony of the globalized art world and establish a theoretical framework to answer the question what it means to understand Japanese contemporary art. Through a post-colonial perspective the paradox situation of Japanese contemporary art both as colonizer and colonized reveals the subversive qualities of Japanese contemporary art that transcend purely aesthetic questions and touches socio-cultural and political questions of transnational processes of identity formation.

Institutional support and national recognition are necessary for the survival of vulnerable cultures, even though it narrowly defines minority membership and restricts their agency. Research on communities facing this conundrum enables a nuanced approach that goes beyond a simple binary. Indigenous to northern Japan, the Ainu were first forcibly assimilated, and thereafter perceived as bearers of endangered culture that require state support. Consequently, they are accused of leeching on state support and performing ‘inauthentic’ culture. Using ethnographic fieldwork, I follow two members of the Ainu community involved in performance groups: One who disavows all ties to state institutions to perform in underground cafes and another who works in an institution that supports Ainu cultural activities by day and assists with the former’s performances by night. I show how my interlocutors strategically navigate the dangerous traverse between state institutions and sub-cultural spaces. They are precariously located in the intersections of nation, state, the academia, Ainu and local communities, and entangled in issues over authenticity, knowledge production and indigenous rights. Movement between these spaces is dangerous but ironically, necessary for their survival. This paper addresses the larger issues of nation, state, race and the ongoing but unacknowledged everyday colonialism in Japan.

All actresses in the popular all-female Takarazuka Revue specialize in performing as male or female characters. Existing studies of the Revue have tended to focus on the appeal of the male role players (otokoyaku), often overlooking their female counterparts (musumeyaku) and the gendered relations between the actresses. By examining visual representation of both musumeyaku and otokoyaku this paper explores interactions between the actresses of opposite gender roles and discusses gender relations as seen in the Takarazuka Revue. By analysing stage posters for plays performed by Takarazuka between 1998 and 2015, the study found that while the otokoyaku were the most represented group and their positioning within space often replicated stereotypical ideas of masculinity persistent in the Japanese culture (i.e. men positioned as the central figure, above and in front of women, their gaze meeting that of the viewer), the musumeyaku were playing an active role in not only expressing the femininity of the characters they portrayed, but also actively engaging and emphasizing the polarity between the two gender roles. The results confirm the image of the Takarazuka Revue as otokoyaku-centric but suggest that the musumeyaku play just as important role in ensuring the successful performance of genders portrayed on stage.

The contemporary localist films in Taiwan highlight linguistic dissonance to portray, and simultaneously construct, a native Taiwan identity. The incorporation of indigenous languages in film is often branded as progressive and disruptive, and is part of the localist movement advocating independence. In this paper, I analyse two films, David Loman and Night Market Hero. They belong to the genre of low-brow comedies strategize and use linguistic dissonance to depict and valorise a Taiwan identity, which is commercially viable in a niche market. Although maybe negatively evaluated by outsiders, these comedies utilize emotionally saturated use of languages to foster a sense of indigenous community. I study how the specificities of languages in the films subvert and replace the fixed linguistic and political hierarchy dominated by the national language, Mandarin (Guoyu), and contribute to personal and national identity formation by way of filmic devices such as actors’ utterance and subtitles.

Hong Kong is a fast changing and transient city where the need for heritage conservation has only recently been fully acknowledged. Conservation projects in Hong Kong have often been criticized for their narrow understanding of heritage and top-down approach. Cultural heritage is an ambiguous concept. It is a major aspect of everyday life rooted in space and time as well as an attribute of identity and sense of place which have no clearly defined boundaries. In 2007, the Government launched the Revitalisation Scheme, a public-private partnership. Its mission was to preserve the local culture, enhance public participation and create job opportunities by proposing government-owned buildings for adaptive reuse to non-profit organisations. Mei Ho House was integrated in the first batch of the scheme and transformed into a youth hostel with an exhibition detailing the life in the post-war public housing estates before opening to the public in 2013. Exploring how the different stakeholders - the state, the association and the local community - benefit from the project through the lenses of visual (re)presentation, tourism and volunteerism may lead us to a better understanding of the relation between cultural heritage and sustainability.

Following the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, the state-founded Dōjunkai (同潤会) built wooden dwellings in the affected areas and later modern ferroconcrete apartment houses in Tokyo and Yokohama. Other projects included the care and retraining of victims of the disaster who suffered from permanent physical disabilities, slum clearances and the erection of detached houses for workers and employees. The activities in the last years of the foundation’s existence stood under strong influence from the militarization of Japan caused by the outbreak of the war with China.
In 2013, with the Uenoshita Apartment complex being torn down, the Dōjunkai disappeared from the Tokyo cityscape. On the other hand, the current year marks the 10th anniversary of the Omotesandō Hills commercial and residential complex and proclaimed spiritual successor to the Aoyama Apartment house. I interpret these two events as an invitation to re-evaluate my previous research on the topic presented as a master’s thesis in 2006, to revisit the former locations of the Dōjunkai and to examine how these pioneer projects of public housing are remembered today.

In Taiwan, the “Japanophilia” phenomenon burgeoned since the late 1990s. Although the attention to this phenomenon seemed to be substituted by the prevalence of Korean popular culture in recent years, Japanophilia materialized in the localization of “Japaneseness” in Taiwanese’s daily lives. In this paper, I aim to explore the significance of “Japaneseness” within the Taiwanese social context by examining how the Japanophilia culture has been embodied in both public landscapes and private spaces of Japanophiles’ lifestyles. Using the research findings of fieldwork conducted in two representative consumption areas for Japanophiles and the life stories of eleven Japanophiles, the following implications will be discussed. First, materials or symbols of “Japaneseness” rooted deeply in both public and private areas and illustrates that Japanophilia culture continues to make up a significant aspect of Taiwanese social and cultural context. Second, Japanophiles’ narratives and the “Japaneseness” gaze reflect “Japaneseness” as the synonymous symbol of desirable modernity. Third, the appropriation, consumption and possession of “Japaneseness” reflect a reversal of roles between Taiwan and Japan, through the conquering of “Japaneseness” in Taiwan’s post-colonial and modernization social context.

When the poetry group ARECHI proclaimed in 1951 that “the present is a waste land“, they set the tone for an idiomatic struggle for the meaning of space in post-war Japanese poetry. The call for the deconstruction of history, ideologies and poetics marked a thematic shift into spaces of artistic escapism and the dissolution of established forums of pre-war poetry, while in the meantime, faced with censorship and discrimination, atomic bomb victims fought dearly for a space to comment on their experiences.
Paradigmatic shifts in poetry production more recently saw the rise of alternative spaces of writing, strengthened by mass media and the digitalization of literature. The literary reactions to the “Fukushima” catastrophe unveiled the ever-changing and adapting spaces of poetry production in Japan. Twitter-poetry, new magazines and the Poetry Slam movement thus form an integral part of Japanese poetry today.
This lecture aims in the combination of micro and macro-level case studies to give an overview of literary production in Postwar Japanese Poetry, focusing on select events, actors and trends that can be viewed as a catalyst in the development of new spaces of writing and the literary concept of “space”, while also taking current developments into account.

For thirty-five years, RWTH Aachen University has conducted workshops in the traditional Japanese artisanship of sakan, a type of Japanese plasterwork. A talented Japanese plaster worker, or sakan shokunin, from the younger generation has served as the instructor and taught workshop participants how to make traditional Japanese walls using German materials. This year, in addition to the sakan shokunin, a Japanese thatcher, or kayabuki shokunin, came to the workshops and made a new roof using European materials.
Now, we are delighted to be able to present two documentaries of the workshops which ran from the 19th through the 28th of July 2016: the first shows how Japanese walls were built by the sakan shokunin and the workshop participants, and the second illustrates how a roof was built by the kayabuki shokunin and workshop participants. The documentary not only explains the procedures involved in making traditional Japanese houses, but it also shows how craftspeople utilize traditional materials in Germany where the climate is different from that of Japan. The documentary enables viewers to understand how craftspeople interpret traditional Japanese architecture in Germany.

Shinjuku in the late 1960s was the centre of Japan’s youth culture, home of Japanese avant-garde and counter-culture and arena of political agitation and violent conflicts. Situated at the heart of Shinjuku was the Art Theatre Shinjuku Bunka, the flagship of the Art Theatre Guild (ATG), the experimental laboratory of Japanese cinema. One of the pivotal showcases for Shinjuku’s brimming counter-culture, the Shinjuku Bunka was also one of the crucial catalysts for the avant-garde and underground culture of Shinjuku. By examining the Underground Theatre Scorpio, established in the basement of the Art Theatre Shinjuku Bunka, the paper will explore the intersection of cultural, social and political changes in late 1960s Japan.

At the forefront of East Asia’s integration into the family of nations in the middle of the 19th century were the so-called Treaty Ports. These ports, located on the coasts of China and Japan where foreign communities established themselves, became the primary zones of interaction between Asia and the West, overseeing a growing exchange of commodities, ideas, and ever-evolving mutual perceptions. In this paper, I examine the formation of images of backwardness and progress through the lens of the so-called Treaty Port Press. The image of the "Other" and the perception of their status compared to "Us" played an important role not only in the self-image of the Western Treaty Port community, but also in the dissemination of information about East Asia in the West. An analysis of Treaty Port journalistic output, primarily focusing on the North China Herald and the Japan Weekly Mail, suggests that a clear dichotomy of "backward China - progressive Japan" began to emerge as early as the 1860s, and that this image quickly solidified in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration.

Most recent approaches to censorship base their theoretical framework on the works of Foucault, Bourdieu or Luhman. Using different terms, their concepts centre around the question, who is allowed to enter the restricted space of public discourse – who may speak in public, on what topic and with what legitimation?
Fuseji are, at first glance, rather focused on details and do not immediately prevent an author from speaking entirely. Which is one reason why authorities were dissatisfied with their application. Abel goes as far as to compare fuseji with stylistic devices like metaphors, because both enable the publication of texts that contain controversial ideas or tabooed images (cf. Abel 2012). However, in contrast to stylistic devices fuseji do not hide censorship and therefore work against a main function of censorship. As Karatani explained, the censoring of censorship is the fundamental objective of censorship (cf. Karatani 1996).
Considering that editors openly showed the influence and restrictions of censorship while still publishing texts containing taboo topics, are fuseji, then, censorship at all? To answer this question, I will use the censorship concept of Stephan Buchloh (cf. Buchloh 2003) to illustrate the position of fuseji in relation to other forms of censorship. This concept has been established with the aim to enable analyses of acts of censorship in various historical periods, countries and media.
Based on this, I will show that fuseji, while having specific characteristics, can be placed in a general, abstract concept of censorship and therefore can neither be compared to stylistic devices on the same level, nor can they be seen as a unique Japanese form of censorship.
On the other hand, I will argue that fuseji had a subversive function as well, as they enabled authors to circumvent discourse control to smuggle controversial ideas into the public discourse under very noses of censors, and I will discuss the ambiguous role editors played in this process.

When culture is regarded as the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular group of people or society, architecture may be one of the spaces and places where cultural production occurs. However, in what way is the relationship between architectural characteristics and the culture of a locality understood? And, if there is a culture of locality, are these geographically and chronologically universal? This study considers the Byzantine Empire (395–1453), which governed the eastern Mediterranean coast, and the church architecture of that era because of the strong regional characteristics (locality) present in the architecture. Byzantine architecture, which includes the architecture of churches, is usually studied in terms of building planning. In contrast, this study approaches Byzantine architecture from the perspective of spaces and places where cultural production occurs and reconsiders the three-dimensional characteristics of Byzantine architecture. Using the research information obtained from my onsite survey, this paper examines the concepts of locality and of Byzantine churches as space. The church buildings create a complex of spaces simply composed of walls, ceilings and floors. These diverse spaces illustrate construction methods and how local materials are used.

Importing popular culture from Korean Wave, provincial satellites in China have been broadcasting adapted reality television shows in order to lower production cost and improve programme quality. The translated and indigenized versions from Korean to Chinese have manifested a strong sense of locality, screening local issues and everyday living which reaffirm the characteristics of Chinese-ness. In the rise of economic status in the globe, the media representation also reflects modern nation building and the making of modern subjects. Particularly under globalization, industrialization and urbanization, Chinese self-identification displayed in popular culture reflects its comprehension of the Asian world. This paper aims to deploy the correspondence between the middle-class gaze and the contemporary China state’s perspective. By examining TV shows that include foreign celebrities’ participation as well as the shooting of the rural area, I would like to discuss China’s intended role to play in the modern world. First, I will explore the regional class division within different China’s provinces, how the portrayal of countryside and working class make a connection with mass audiences, but as well objectify the grass-root for consumption purpose. And then I will move onto make sense of the projection of China in media and its position in Asia. Studying China’s interaction with periphery culture and nations on screen, I will delineate the promulgation nationalistic sentiment and justification of cultural tradition through popular culture, and its agenda to stand out from other Asian countries. From both national and international paradigms, I would argue that the bourgeois gaze determines quite a lot in the making of modern subjectivity and national identity.

The Sōgetsu art movement (Sōgetsu geijutsu undo 草月芸術運動) turned out to be one of the key happenings in the wide palette of Japanese avant-garde art in the early 60s of the 20th century. With its start in the year of 1958, it for almost decade and a half provided a rich experimental and innovative space for Japanese art.
Its common venue Sōgetsu Art Center, after which the movement received its name, provided a creative atmosphere most suitable for the next generation of Japanese art produced by a number of internationally known artists: the director of the Center/film director Hiroshi Teshigahara, playwright Kōbō Abe, musicians Tōru Takemitsu, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Yūji Takahashi, cartoonist Yōji Kuri, graphic designers Kōhei Sugiura, Kiyoshi Awazu, and dramatist Shūji Terayama, among others.
The research and archiving of the phenomenon of the movement and its common venue started at the beginning of the 21st century and got its online resource and a participatory platform only in the year of 2013.
This article will try to illustrate how we can look on and define today's place and space of the Sōgetsu art movement. Taking into consideration especially the ways of archiving and (re)production of some of the main works which were born out of the movement. How are those places and spaces in conflict with the main concept of the movement in the 60s, among which the experimental spirit and the cross-disciplinary cooperation were among two leading ideas? And how could those places and spaces be seen in the relation to the nowadays inevitable aspect of consumption?

Before the Internet the bulk of information about other cultures was obtained through printed media. The recipient of this did not have many opportunities to double-check the facts when the culture in question was far away, like Japan, for example. This offered fertile ground for the exoticization of the source culture.
This presentation will show how the image of Japan was constructed in Slovenia through indirect translations of literature from the 1960’s until 2005, when direct translations from Japanese began to be published. The fact that these earlier translations were indirect, and based on English or German renderings of the original texts, makes them even more interesting. In addition to translations, the representation of a source culture can also be observed through the study of so-called paratexts. These are, according to Gerard Genette, all the texts and other materials that appear around the main text in a printed volume: front and back covers, forewords, illustrations, footnotes, commentaries, blurbs, and so on.
I will thus compare a set of indirect translations with those directly translated from Japanese, which started to be published after 2005. In this way I will examine how current strategies of representation differ from those used in previous decades.

Looking only at the surface, not at depth… This may be a characteristic and a problem of tourism. In Japanese tourism, on which a lot of travel guides or travel flyers depend, the image of Vienna has been described often with the catch phrase “Music-Metropolitan” for a long time. But what point of view is this image based on? What kind of phenomenon does it focus on? What do they look at and look over, when they built such image? In this presentation from cultural historical view, I would like to debate especially the topos of Vienna as the place where music was cultivated, although most of Japanese travel materials do not take care of it.

The image of the aesthetics of East Asian fashion, known from western media, generally termed “Japanese style”, focuses mainly on women’s taste and chic. The western literature treats little on the subject of Japanese men in the context of their approach to self-aesthetics or fashion. The issues discussed in the paper concentrate around the image of nowadays Japanese men, as one of the author’s research purposes is to efface lack of balance between the considerations concerning women’s style, widely discussed in the literature, contrary to the style-image of men. The paper discusses issues focused on the ambiguous subject of sōshoku danshi. The author endeavours to outline the figure of a Japanese man, a resident of a metropolis, his attitude and motivation to self-aesthetics and fashion. The starting point for the discussion about a new model is the sararīman model and the most common male fashion-styles appearing in the Japanese urban space. The sōshoku danshi model is investigated through three intertwining benchmarks, commented in the context of socio-cultural changes, i.e.: ambiguous entourage straight from fashion shows (“elite” space), an image popularized by fashion magazines (press release space) and finally the space of urban street fashion.  

This research paper sought to address firstly, the reproduction of heteronormativity within yaoi manga, a genre of male homoerotica with a predominant female readership. Through content analysis, sexual difference between the masculinized ‘seme’ and the feminized ‘uke’ was found to be framed through character’s dialogues, character design and most often, during scenes of sexual intercourse.
Secondly, through interviews with heterosexual male readers of yaoi manga - a subculture known as fudanshi, this research aimed to understand the consumption processes of yaoi manga among fudanshi. I argued that sexual arousal experienced is a bodily transgression that ruptures the heteronormative discourse, of which my participants negotiated or negated through various strategies to reinstate their heterosexuality/masculinity.
Fudanshiwho experience sexual arousal while consuming yaoi manga legitimized their consumption through mockery, making use of the gender ambiguity of characters and their perceived femininity to reinstate their hetero-masculinity, and lastly, negated the homosexual themes in such manga by framing their consumption as part of a ‘courage test’.

This paper examines the space in which concepts of “indigenous/Indigenous culture” were moulded and transacted through changing ways of visual production in colonial Taiwan, 1930s. As the evolving of photographic technique in early-twentieth-century Japan began to shape a visual medium with increasing significance within the arena of nationalizing mass culture, for Japan occupied Taiwan, the medium of photography served as the embodiment of Japan’s cultural advancement in “modern” science. While photographic media played a fundamental role in constructing a “colonial visual culture” that places the island with its Indigenous people into the category of “primitive Other,” with the rising popularity of photographic production among local communities, by the 1930s, the practice began to acquire different functions and meanings in the hands and eyes of local practitioners. Focusing on the story of photographer Peng, Rui-lin, the first Taiwanese graduate from Tokyo Photography School and producer of the first gold lacquer photography made in Taiwan, this paper argues that, by 1938, as a growing group of local professional photographers contributed to the “discovery” of local ways of seeing, photography became a crucial means of visual production that not only made visible the ways in which ideas for culture were visualized, but also the emerging “self-image” of a “local” Taiwan.

Being autonomous is the new wave of Philippine Studies, however it has been both a unifying and divisive project. The paper interrogates the institutional memories of selected local studies centres in Pampanga, Cebu and Mindanao. Guided by Grounded Theory, the researcher has been able to draw some common and unique characteristics. What is common among the Center for Kapampangan Studies (CKS), Cebuano Studies Center (CSC) and the Mindanawon Initiatives for Cultural Dialogue (MICD) is both the research and library/archives. On the other hand, what separates one from the other is its unique characteristics. Holy Angel University’s CKS has a Kapampangan Art Museum while the University of San Carlos’ CSC has a conduit office which coordinates its Diploma/Certificate courses on Heritage Studies/ Cebuano Language and Literature. In addition, Ateneo de Davao University’s MICD serves as a neutral space for differing and contesting sides of interest groups in Mindanao. Locating CKS, CSC and MICD in the spectrum of Philippine Studies, it is in-between the national and the local. From its beginnings with Jose Rizal (1889) and Isabelo de los Reyes (1887) until the proliferation of Area Studies during the early 20th century and the indigenization movement in the 1960s, Autonomous Philippine Studies is the emergent field in the 21st century.

Nowadays the written text has come to inhabit not only the private space of an individual, but also the common space, both real- world and virtual one. Growing importance of new ways of indirect communication, caused people around the globe to become more dependent on the written word. The Internet supplies its user with bigger and more diversified audience, not always being able to read needless to say understand the displayed words. That poses a question: How can one facilitate semantic value present in the form, the very body of the text? What could be the new lingua franca of the Internets?
The aim of this paper is to investigate the paradigm shift in indirect communication patterns, from verbal to visual, based on e-moji, Japanese “picture letters” phenomenon.
The author will confront the examples of historical (entertainment, education, an aid for illiterate) and modern purpose of using e-moji, namely transmission of non- verbal meaning, such as emotions, within the written text. Originally created on paper, presently the creative process of their cultural production takes place in the virtual space. Although an invention of pre- digital, era, the author believes, that e-moji has evolved from site specific, national, to a global phenomenon.

Universities not only provide individuals more opportunities for the future but also serve as a transition to society. Moreover, experiences at universities may influence and shape individuals’ identities. Previous studies indicate that queer youth have higher chance of experiencing discrimination and bullying at schools which may lead to negative impact on their health and well-being. However, very few studies have been done in a university context.
This project aims to present an understanding on queer individuals and campus environment of universities in Japan through the lens of queer clubs. Based on surveys with various respondents, this study hopes to elucidate the role that queer clubs play in universities as well as connections between queer clubs and surrounding factors. We aim to point out problems that take place in Japanese universities regarding queer issues and how queer clubs cope with these matters. In addition, drawing on some successful and failed cases of the queer clubs, we hope to justify the reasons behind the success and failure and come up with approaches on creating a safer and more inclusive space for queer university students.

Children need secrets. They also need time in order to occupy space and claim it their own. While creating space of their own works fairly well in rural environments, urban areas that are dominated by a dense conglomeration of adults, their consumption and their transport space pose some more complications for children to transform into space of their own. Even more complicated are places of mass education, including boarding schools. Originally adult-centred, Lefebvre’s work about how social space is used finally, receives increasing attention in childhood studies, shifting the focus to space as an important aspect in understanding children’s lives. At the same time, the notion of space gets a digital twist, and children’s space can be found increasingly in their mobile phones or the internet.
In this presentation I explore what digital space for children means, embedded in the theory of Lefebvre’s production of space. The focus lies on the necessity for children to have secrets and space of their own. Adult forces against this claim to secrecy – not privacy – make use of educational institutions and the domination of spatial infrastructure in the internet and beyond, including surveillance. How can children possibly live their secrets and what is the drive of adults to prevent them from it?
Based on fieldwork in rural China about how children use space, websites created for children, and the global history of shrinking space and accelerating time, this presentation proposes to offer a glimpse into children’s hiding zones in China and explains why and how children should be left alone there.

In 2015 Fuji TV announced the terebi dorama „Transit Girls“, that supposedly was the first TV series in Japan to centre on a lesbian relationship. In the same year, the widely popular terebi dorama “Gisou no fufu” showing a gay male main character also aired on Fuji TV.
The new visibility of queer lives accomplished by the introduction of stories centred on lesbian/gay or bisexual characters is however, not unilaterally perceived as a positive trend in queer communities. On the one hand, it may help some individuals identifying as LGBT*IQ*A or questioning their gender and/or sexuality to see queer characters entering mainstream media. On the other side, where few representations of non-heteronormative relationships or characters are accessible, those stand in danger of reinforcing stereotypes and biases against LGBT*IQ*A identified people. Also, certain representations of queer topics may even be likely to stabilize norms of gender and sexuality.
In my presentation I will ask, whether the new images of non-heteronormative relationships can meet the demands of sexual minorities to see themselves represented in the mainstream media.
What is new about the LGBT*I*Q*A characters in recent (2010-2016) examples in Japanese TV- series in comparison to earlier representations of queer characters and stories with a queer subtext?

More than in other countries, movie theatres in Japan in the first decennia were built mainly in the big cities, not in the countryside, also due to the high costs of the live performers. Many movie theatres were former Kabuki stages that were adapted to fit the big screen. The present paper gives two examples of movie theatres in the countryside, one in Fukushima north of Tokyo, the other in Tokushima on Shikoku.

Japanese tea culture is strongly associated with cha no yu (Japanese tea ceremony). Like in other East-Asian countries, tea in Japan is both an everyday beverage and a symbol for hospitality. Cha no yu forms one culture which unifies many other phenomena of Japanese traditional culture, such as calligraphy, gardening or architecture. Tea drinking is connected to a cultural identity of the country, but cha no yu also has a long history with nationalism. Further, it is highly institutionalized by the iemoto-system (a hierarchical system for a school of tea with a Grand Master).
The question I want to address in my talk is in which form or forms is Japanese tea culture represented in Vienna. I want to focus on an analysis of the institutions which act as providers of Japanese tea culture in Vienna. These are mainly tea houses and the representatives of the schools of tea. What is offered in the tea houses? Who are the consumers? How and where is tea ceremony enacted? What image of Japanese culture is created? I also want to examine if it is made to fit Austrian consumer tastes or quite the opposite, if it is made even more "exotic" on purpose.