In 2021, Ri Kotomi won the 165 Akutagawa Ryunosuke Award for her work "Island of Equinox Flowers." He became the second non-native Japanese writer to win the award, and it attracted much attention.
Born and raised in Taiwan, Li Jinfeng began studying Japanese on his own at the age of 15. She moved to Japan in 2013 and made her debut in 2017 when her first novel in Japanese, "Hitori mai" (Dance by herself), won a literary magazine's Best Newcomer Award. Since then, she has written in Japanese about people with diverse sexual identities and foreigners living in Japan, intertwined with aspects of the country, history, and culture, including The Polaris Pours Down Night (2020), in which a variety of people come and go in Shinjuku 2-chome.
李琴峰さんは先日、「だれもが文化でつながる国際会議」（2022年6月28日〜7月7日開催）の本会議「セッション2」に登壇、『ダイバーシティとの対話：多様な差異の包含・協働と文化関係の可能性』をテーマに講演を行いました。会議終了後、さらに李さんにインタビューを行い、「ダイバーシティ／多様性」について考えるヒントをうかがいました。ここでは、国際会議とインタビューで李琴峰さんが語られたことを再構成してお伝えします。
Human diversity is beyond our imagination.
At the international conference held on July 3, Mr. Li Jinfeng first raised the issue of "It's easy to talk about promoting diversity and diversity, but it's actually very difficult. But what can we do?" and began by saying, "We have to start by accepting the fact that human diversity is beyond our wildest dreams."
Li: People living in Japan are relatively familiar with Japanese culture, East Asian culture, and Western culture, but I don't think they have much of an idea of other cultures. Therefore, I think we must first assume that humans are not built to accept all differences and that we are ignorant.
For example, the wearing of veils such as the burqa and niqab by women in Islam is sometimes debated in the West as discrimination against women. In Africa, however, there are various peoples and regions where men whip women and the ritual of female circumcision is practiced. Human culture, traditions, and customs are diverse. Where should we draw the line between "culture" and "discrimination" in relation to the religion, traditions, and customs of a country or region?
And where is the line between diversity, disease, and crime? As you know, homosexuality was considered a mental illness only 30 or 40 years ago, and gender identity disorder about 10 years ago, but that is no longer the case. First of all, we need to know that the definitions and boundaries of what is a disease and what is not, what is a crime and what is not, are always different from time to time and from culture to culture. And the important thing is, who has the power to draw those boundaries, to decide what's criminal or not?
There is another difficulty. There is a movement called "political correctness," in which discriminatory terms are used as little as possible and are replaced with politically correct or neutral terms. That's right, but how far we have to go is a more difficult question than it sounds. Because the values of what is normal and what is not change with the times.
Looking back at the history of the feminist movement, the main actors in the promotion of rights have been middle-class white women, while blacks, sex workers, lesbians, transgender women, and others have not been visible. Now the concept of "intersectionality" has emerged, with the idea that there are different kinds of women, and that we need to look closely at their problems and differences.
In this way, there are always limits to the respect for diversity, the elimination of discrimination, and the restoration of rights. Our imagination is limited, and there is always an invisible cultural sphere, making it difficult to imagine the lives and customs of the people beyond that sphere.
What are we aiming for?
"Nevertheless, we must do our best to ensure that diversity is respected," Lee continues.
Lee: I think the most important thing is that more people can live with more choices than the current situation. It is impossible for all people to live with all options, but I think we can make efforts to achieve more and more than the current situation.
To do this, we need to develop the ability to imagine others. Discrimination often stems from not seeing the other person as a 'human being' like yourself. It is important to imagine that the other person is also a 'human being' who has sensitivity, knowledge, and can be hurt.
So how can we develop our imagination toward others? I think creative works play a big role in that. Because our lives are limited in space and time, we can imagine the lives of others, the suffering of others, and the troubles of others by touching creative works such as novels, movies, animations, and dramas.
The aim of respecting diversity is to create a society where everyone can live more freely. It is not a "0 or 100" or "zero-sum game." Merely talking about dialogue and promoting understanding is not enough. I believe that dialogue and promoting understanding with the aim of "changing awareness and systems" are important.
Art is effective for developing imagination to understand others
—You mentioned at the international conference that "We can't accept all differences, but we can aim for the better." Such stories develop in the novels you write, Lee-san. How do you make the stories?
Lee Experience and observation, after all. I think that turning my own experiences into other forms and observing the people around me and the world I see leads to the world of my work.
The other important thing is to value "discomfort." I think everyone feels something strange about other people, society, and the world at the drop of a hat.
In my case, when the time is right, it becomes a catalyst for a work. For example, in The Celebration of Life (2021), I think the novel reflects the sense of incongruity that we were born without consent.
There is more than one way to express "incongruity," and I happened to pick a novel. Other methods may be acceptable. Music, paintings, movies. I can't do that, and I love words, and I write novels because literature is the most comfortable form.
─ The Island of Higanbana Blossoms is set on a fictional island where two languages are spoken: Nihongo and Jogo. A girl from outside the island speaks Hinomoto, a mixture of three languages. Have you noticed anything interesting or expressive about language?
Lee's "Island of Blossoms" is a work of linguistic experiment. It's like what would happen if Japanese and Chinese were fused into a single Creole language.
Unlike movies, literature doesn't make sound, but language is basically spoken language first, followed by writing. If we can create Japanese and Chinese creoles, we will probably be able to create sounds that cannot be represented by Japanese characters alone. Novels are limited to expressing themselves only within the framework of characters, so I experimented within that framework.
So even if you can only read Japanese, even if you don't understand 100% of it, you will be able to sort of understand it. If you can somehow understand the meaning by looking at the kanji, that's fine.
I translated this novel into Chinese myself, but it was really difficult. If it were a normal translation and publication, it would have taken some time, but I was told to hurry up because I won the Akutagawa Prize, so I managed it in a year.
─ In this book, the ruler of the island (Noro) is a woman, and men cannot be Noro. Is it a reversal of perspective?
Lee: I don't think it's just a matter of turning the tables. In science fiction, there are novels about "female chauvinism," in which the position is reversed, but I want to do something different from that. In The Island of Higanbana Blooms, life on the island has become better than in the past thanks to lessons learned from history, but there are still people who suffer from exclusion. So what do we do? I think there's a never-ending question in the novel that.
—What does it take to achieve diversity?
Lee Many readers often tell me that they sympathize with me. Empathy is important, but I don't think it's enough. Humans empathize with people who are close to them. If you put all your value on empathy, you end up mass-producing content that resonates with the majority. Then, you are talking about the violence of numbers. In addition, it does not reach the goal of diversity = exposure to others different from oneself. If we place all our value on empathy for the representations that are close to us, we will end up with the mass production of existing values.
It is also the power of empathy that creates the divide between victims and perpetrators. I feel empathy because I'm close to this side, like the other side is the enemy. The "sense" of empathy, or sensitivity, is not enough, but the "ri" of understanding, or reason and knowledge, are necessary. We have to reason about what the problem is in the first place. When we move emotionally, we inevitably split into this side and that side. So I think we need to go one step beyond empathy and imagine and understand different things.
In a democratic country, there is a social system in which majority voting tends to have power, so there is a negative effect of excluding minority voices. So I think we need to listen more carefully to the minority.
For example, taking foreigners as an example, there are many foreigners around you who support Japan, such as convenience store workers and technical interns. I think we need to do something about the situation where people are really close to us, but they are hardly visible, or they don't appear in art or literature. This is true not only for foreigners but also for LGBT people. There must be someone among my friends and acquaintances, but it is frustrating that this is not visible and does not lead to social change. For me, literature and art are fun, of course, but I think there is an artistic mission in them.
Audience: Yuri Shirasaka Composition: Editorial Department
Profile
Li Kotomi
Bilingual writer and translator. Born in Taiwan in 1989. He came to Japan in 2013. In 17, he won the Outstanding Novel of the 60 Gunzo Newcomer Literature Award for his first novel "Hitori mai" (Hitori mai) (Kodansha) written in his second language, Japanese. In 19, he was nominated for the Akutagawa Award and the Noma Literary Newcomer Award for his novel "Itsutsu kazoereba wa crescent moon" (Count five, it's a crescent moon) (Bungeishunju). In 21, he won the 71 Art Encouragement Newcomer Award for his novel "Polaris ga furai yori" (Polaris pours down on the night) (Chikuma Shobo). In the same year, he won the 165 Akutagawa Ryunosuke Award for his novel "Higanbana ga Saku Shima" (Island where Higanbana bloom) (Bungei Shunju). His other books are "Seigetsuya" (Starry Night) (Shueisha) and "Sei no Owai" (Celebrating Life) (Asahi Shimbun Publishing). In August, he published a collection of essays titled "While Separating a Transparent Membrane" (published by Hayakawa Shobo). "Polaris gathers down at night" (Chikuma bunko) and "Hitori mai" (solo dance) (Kobunsha) are now available in paperback. He has also translated his own novels into Chinese and published them in Taiwan, and translated novels by Taiwanese authors into Japanese. In July, he published a novel by Taiwanese writer Lee Ping-yao translated into Japanese.
https://www.likotomi.com/
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