Translating Fūryū, Reappropriating Chanoyu: Japan’s Nation-building, Imperialist Ambitions and Meiji Modernisation

This paper analyses fūryū – an aesthetic concept that characterises specific taste – and the practice of chanoyu (Japanese tea ceremony) to explore the reasons why certain aspects of Japan’s premodern arts and culture survived the modernisation process, whilst others did not. This paper explores the process of recodification and reinterpretation of premodern concepts and practices, such as fūryū and chanoyu, in modern Japan. This is achieved by analysing intellectual discourses and popular narratives on chanoyu and fūryū during the Meiji period (1868–1912). The paper posits that the dissolution of the association between chanoyu and fūryū can be attributed to the divergent transformations undergone by the social significance of chanoyu and the concept of fūryū within the context of the modernised Japanese empire. Chanoyu was reappropriated and canonised as Japanese tradition for the modern Japanese nation. The canonisation of chanoyu was accelerated by Japan’s growing imperial ambition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conversely, fūryū was translated as poetic and aesthetic awareness overshadowed by nostalgia that challenged Japanese modernity.