Psychic Trauma

“The colonized subject realizes that he can never attain the

whiteness he has been taught to desire.”

- Franz Fanon

            I find it highly interesting that, as far as I can tell from being in class, Asian theater does not show any psychic trauma from the West. Psychic trauma happens when an outside force, a colonial power or some other power, comes in and makes the “lower” power want something. Psychic trauma was common during the high point of colonialism in the world. People would begin to believe that despite how much money or power they had the only way they could be truly worth something is if they were white. Well, it is obvious that it is impossible to change your natural heritage; no matter what you do you will always have the same blood running through your veins. So, the psychic trauma came from the inability to get what the “higher” power says that the colonized peoples should want, what they ended up wanting. Instead they become as western as possible, with their ways of dress, their homes, and their mode of transportation, all to try and make up for the fact that they are not white. Now, the trauma is not always as traumatic as it may seem. Still, it can change a country.

            When the ports were opened in Japan by Commodore Perry this shock of needing to be Westernized, to be modernized, hit once more. Men wore suits and women wore dresses, moving away from the traditional sense of Japanese garb they once wore. Their houses changed, their lifestyle, and the things they ate all changed to become Western and modern. Yet, one thing that seemed to remain unchanged was Japanese theater. Yes, they adapted some Western plays into Kabuki, and new theater forms developed out of Western influence. Still, Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku theaters all seem to be untouched. It seems that, despite all outside influences, the Japanese decided not to give up part of the heart of their culture. As far as I can tell they saw no reason to change everything drastically. They allowed new forms to be made, but refused to change what they knew was good, what they new was purely theirs.