Based on a chapter originally published on October 22, 2015, this passage draws on an essay by Sekihei published in the monthly magazine Voice and argues that, for modern China, Japan served as “a mirror in which to gaze at its own image.”
Through Lu Xun’s portrayals in Diary of a Madman, The True Story of Ah Q, and Kong Yiji, the passage examines how cruelty, cowardice, and the structure of a society in which “man eats man” came to function as elements of Chinese self-recognition.
It further highlights the fact that the greatest modern Chinese enlightener and the greatest modern Chinese literary figure, both nurtured by Japan, consistently shed light on what they saw as the “bad national character” of the Chinese people.
The chapter presents Japan as the crucial “other” through which the Chinese deepened their self-understanding, and reflects on the deeper meaning underlying modern Chinese intellectual history and Japan–China relations.

2019-04-22
In other words, for China since the modern age, neighboring Japan was precisely “a mirror in which it could gaze upon its own image.”

This is a chapter originally published on October 22, 2015.
What follows is from the final installment of the major essay by Sekihei, introduced in the previous chapter, in this month’s issue of Voice, the excellent monthly magazine I have mentioned several times.
As I said in the previous chapter, I dedicate this to the members of the San Francisco city council.

Omitting the preceding text.

Then, turning his blade back, he thoroughly humiliates a young nun who has no power whatsoever to resist.
By doing so, he forgets the humiliation he himself has suffered and feels good.
And the “men from the wine shop” also enjoy the spectacle of Ah Q bullying the weak, and encourage it with laughter.
In such a setting, Ah Q, “praised for his exploit,” becomes all the more elated and applies himself even more eagerly to bullying the weak.
As a result, in exchange for the nun’s being “half in tears,” the villagers and Ah Q each tasted “nine parts” and “ten parts” satisfaction, and became delighted.
The scene of “man eating man,” seen in “Kong Yiji,” is being unfolded here as well.
What we are once again shown is the “pathetically cowardly” and “terrifyingly cruel” nature deeply rooted in the hearts of the villagers and Ah Q.

Who Was the “Important Other” Through Whom the Chinese Deepened Their Self-Recognition

It is especially worth noting that in “Kong Yiji” and “The True Story of Ah Q,” the possessors of a “cowardly and cruel human spirit” as depicted by Lu Xun were not thugs as “social deviants” or a portion of those in power, but ordinary laborers and villagers.
In other words, from Lu Xun’s point of view, it was not only a few special Chinese who were cowardly and cruel.
It was the very national character of the Chinese, lodged deep within the mental structure of the Chinese masses, that is, the Chinese people.
In that sense, the figure of “Ah Q” created by Lu Xun is truly a symbol of the Chinese national character.
A name containing an alphabet letter was, of course, impossible for a Chinese person of that time.
The greatest reason Lu Xun deliberately gave Ah Q such a name was, in short, that he wished to depict him not as one concrete individual, but rather as a symbolic being who single-handedly bore the Chinese national character.
In other words, that cowardly and cruel Ah Q is none other than the Chinese themselves, and the fictional name “Ah Q” is in effect another name for the Chinese.

Of the three works by Lu Xun discussed here, it is probably a shared understanding in Lu Xun studies in both Japan and China that “Diary of a Madman” and “The True Story of Ah Q” are especially his representative works.
Indeed, one might even say that this has become common knowledge in the world concerning “Lu Xun.”
Which means that many people recognize that what constituted the greatest work of Lu Xun, the writer who represents modern Chinese literature, and his greatest achievement, was precisely that he took the knife of insight to the constitution of Chinese society in which “man eats man,” and to the “cowardly and cruel” Chinese national character lurking behind it, and exposed them in broad daylight.

What follows is…
A continuation of the line,
“Both of these men discovered the national character of their own people in contrast with the ‘other’ that was the Japanese.”

And in fact, that is also the virtue of the Japanese, of most Japanese, as I myself have come to recognize in the twenty-eighth year of my life in Japan.
At any rate, the fact that the greatest modern Chinese enlightener nurtured by Japan and the greatest modern Chinese literary figure nurtured by Japan both shone a light on the “bad national character” of the Chinese carries a very deep meaning.
In other words, for China since the modern age, neighboring Japan was precisely “a mirror in which it could gaze upon its own image.”
To put it in slightly more philosophical terms, Japan was the “important other” through which the Chinese deepened their self-recognition.