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Hello everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review Books Podcast and in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in around and about the Asia Pacific region. The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork. A roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mount Fuji. And that's actually what Hokusai's famous woodprint is about. Mount Fuji volcano and Japan's tallest mountain. Andrew Burns. He tells the story of Mount Fuji from its Geographic origins as a violent volcano through its present day status as Japan's national symbol and a World Heritage site. In his latest book, Fuji Amounted in the Making for Prison University Press, Andrew is professor of history at Lewis and Clark College and the author of Modern Death, Politics and Social Change in Imperial Japan. So, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about Mount Fuji. You know, maybe it's best to start with the geological origins of this mountain. You know, what do we know about kind of how this volcano was first formed?
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C
All right, well, first, thanks for having me here today, Nicholas. I'm always happy to talk about all things Fuji, so I appreciate the opportunity. So to answer your question, the first thing to note is that Fuji is a stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano. Stratovolcanoes consist of alternating layers of hardened lava and tephra. And tephra is material ranging from ash particles to boulders that's ejected into the air during violent eruptions, like we saw in the US in 1980 when Mount St. Helens erupted. This type of volcano, that is a stratovolcano, typically forms at plate boundaries. Fuji sits at the junction of three tectonic plates, the Eurasian, Philippine, and North American plates. The fourth plate, the Pacific plate, at a slight remove. Stratovolcanoes like Fuji have gentle slopes toward the bottom, but steep slopes at higher elevations. This makes them different from gently sloping but massive shield volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii. The reason for this difference is that shield volcanoes are formed from successive, relatively gentle lava flows. While, as I said before, stratovolcanoes consist of alternating layers of lava and tephra ejected high into the air during violent eruptions. Now, Fuji is 3776 meters high, making it a particularly tall stratovolcano. And this makes it also the largest, or rather the tallest mountain in Japan. And the fact that it's not part of a mountain range means that it really sticks out and attracts attention. It's also important to note that Fuji is a relatively young volcano. Sorry. Volcanologists distinguish what's called New Fuji, the volcanic edifice or cone that we see today, from Old Fuji, an edifice with slightly different mineral ratios that's buried underneath. Old Fuji started growing about 100,000 years ago, and new Fuji started taking shape about 17,000 years ago and became especially active from 11,000 years ago. The last time Fuji erupted violently was in 1707, only a few centuries ago. And in fact, one of the things that intrigues me about Fuji as an historical subject is that it is a recently formed geological feature. That is, it grew up among humans. It wasn't a fixed geological feature that preceded them. It's thought that humans first came to Japan from the Korean peninsula about 38 to 40,000 years ago. New Fuji began taking shape around 17,000 years ago and became especially active around again, as I said earlier, 11,000 years ago. So it really made history together with humans. It wasn't a mere backdrop for a history determined exclusively by humans.
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B
Right, so then how much do we know about these kind of early human interactions with, with Mount Fuji, especially as it became active, like during, I mean, during, during human times when humans were around. Do we know anything about kind of these early human encounters with, with Fuji?
- [06:30]
C
Yeah, we do, from archaeological evidence which shows that humans have inhabited the region surrounding Fuji for almost 40,000 years. And we don't know, of course, what people that far back in time thought about Fuji, though we can be confident that they certainly would have had something to say about it. And yeah, so also, archaeologists have found these arrangements of stones that appear to be oriented towards Fuji. So perhaps Stone Age people constructed some sort of rituals or beliefs that incorporated the mountain. But it isn't until the 8th century that Fuji first appears in the written record. And from that point, the 8th century, then we get a glimpse and yeah, we are able to see how at least elites, literum elites, viewed Fuji.
- [07:26]
B
Right, and how do they view Fuji? I mean, I mean, as. As Fuji starts entering the written record in Japan. I mean, what are people at the time thinking about it and writing about it?
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C
Yeah, well, the first record that mentions Fuji is something called the Hitachi Fudoki, which is a gazetteer from the early 8th century. And what's interesting is in this gazetteer, Fuji is represented in very unflattering terms. The gazetteer tells the story of a kamiyah that is a deity called the parent Kami, who comes to Fuji looking for a place to rest for the night. And the Fujikami, that is the Fuji deity, turns this other deity away. The parent deity then curses the Fuji deity by saying that snow will fall on the mountain throughout the year and the extreme cold will keep people away and dissuade them from making offerings to the mountain afterward. In the story, the parent Kami travels to another mountain called Mount Tsukuba, which is far more hospitable to the parent kami. So this parent kami blesses the mountain, saying that people will hold festivals there and celebrate Mount Tsukuba. So it's kind of interesting here in the Very earliest mention of Fuji. It's kind of seen as cold and inhospitable right now. Later in the 8th century, Fuji appears in better terms, you could say more flattering terms, in Japan's first poetry anthology called the Manyoshu, or the collection of 10,000 leaves. There it appears in several poems as an awe inspiring and mysterious sacred mountain. Interestingly, it also appears in love poetry with its rising steam used as a metaphor for romantic longing. But what's important to keep in mind is that at this point, it wasn't seen as Japan's preeminent national symbol or as a national mountain in the way it is now. For example, Mount Tsukuba, which I mentioned just earlier, appears in about double the number of poems in the Manyoshu than Fuji does. Also, Fuji isn't mentioned at all in the 8th century Imperial myth histories. And by myth histories, I mean chronicles that include exploits from the distant age of the gods, as well as actual historical events.
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That were used to legitimize the rule of the Yamato dynasty, that is Japan's Imperial dynasty, which has continued in one form or another to today. It's hard to know why Fuji is excluded from these foundational texts, but it might just be a case of out of sight, out of mind. Since the Yamato court was located several hundred kilometers to the west of Fuji, and Fuji couldn't be seen from the imperial capital, our eyes are now trained to see Fuji as a symbol of Japan. But at least that wasn't the case for imperial chroniclers back in the 8th century.
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B
It's funny, you kind of noticed these kind of changing views of Fuji because it seems like at times it kind of flits between seeing Fuji as a. Well, as a violent mountain, I guess, by virtue of it being a volcano, to seeing if something has something kind of. Kind of more stable, more cosmic even. I mean, how are these views kind of flipping back and forth between how people are understanding Fuji?
- [10:59]
C
Yeah, so there's definitely a tension there. Fuji was a violent volcano, as you say, but from the start it was also viewed as a mountain that had existed in the distant past and would continue to exist into the future. So there's a poem again in the collection of 10,000 leaves, the poetry anthology I mentioned earlier, and in which Fuji is said to stand high and noble since the time when heaven and earth split apart, which places Fuji not in history, but before it. But Fuji, of course, was violently erupting into human history at multiple times. And so early ON in the 8th century, going into the 11th century, Fuji was imagined as this really violent, temperamental deity that needed to be appeased. And if it wasn't properly appeased, not only interestingly would it erupt, but it was thought to cause epidemics. So it was seen as a God of epidemics, not just as a volcano. Things started to change from the 12th century, when Fuji's volcanism settled down, at least for a chunk of time. And there was a chapel established on the summit of the mountain and a very famous temple at the base, which would develop into a pilgrimage site. And pilgrimage to Fuji really took off during Japan's Tokugawa period, which lasted from 1600 to 1868, during the rule of the Tokugawa Shoguns. The shoguno capital was located in Edo, now known as Tokyo, and Fuji could be seen from Edo on a clear day. And as Edo, the city, grew over time, so did worship groups that met monthly in people's homes and also sent members on pilgrimage to Fuji during the summer. And these groups learned from their leaders that Fuji was the center and origin of the cosmos and was said to be what they called the original father and mother of the world. And in fact, the mountain was imagined in bodily terms. There are caves, for example, at the base of the mountain, called tainai, or wombs. Pilgrims would enter them and drink or collect water seeping into the caves. That was compared to breast milk, in fact. And it was thought that pregnant women who drank Fuji water would have a safe childbirth and that the water had healing powers in general. So over the centuries, we've come a long way from Fuji as this violent, fearsome deity of eruptions and epidemics, to a parental deity who creates and nourishes and heals. And what's interesting is that even after there was another violent eruption in 1707, this idea of Fuji as a source of continuity in life just intensified. The eruption in 1707.
- [14:02]
Was largely ignored by Fuji worship groups, even though it could be seen from Edo and was devastating. Also, I should note that as time passed, Fuji became a major feature of Japanese popular culture through woodblock prints, games, clothing, and other consumer items. And by the end of the Tokugawa period in 1868, had come to be seen as an emblem, or really the embodiment of the nation of Japan. After the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown in 1868, the new government, intent on transforming Japan into a modern nation state, took advantage of this fact to promote nationalism among the Japanese people, for example, by featuring Fuji as the pride of Japan in school books. For school. I'm sorry, for children so in essence, Fuji was cast as a part of Japan that stood for all of Japan. It was seen as this steady and unifying force that linked past to present through its cultural history and physical presence. So as religious ideas about Fuji evolved over time, and as Fuji came to be seen as this representative of a Japanese nation that was projected back in time, it really shed its image as this.
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Violent and temperamental being to become more this, I guess, benevolent and steady presence in the Japanese landscape.
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B
So we do have to talk about the 1707 Hoe eruption, which I didn't realize. You could see the crater from that eruption, kind of. It's like a big gouge at the side of the mountain.
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But this happens. And so what happens afterwards? I mean, how. There are a lot of records, well, some records at least, about.
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How the government tries to recover, how people try to recover, how, I guess disaster aid happens. I mean, what happens in the aftermath of this eruption?
- [16:04]
C
Well, what's fortunate for historians is we have a ton of records on this eruption and responses to it not only coming from above, but you could say from below, from villagers who wrote petitions to government officials for help. So first, the Hoe eruption, I should say, is named after the era in which it took place. That's why it's called the Hoe Eruption. And it was one of these explosive eruptions. You didn't have gentle, runny lava, you had tephra, volcanic material spewed high into the atmosphere and it traveled hundreds of kilometers. And nearby villages were buried in as much as 3 meters of debris, and up to 8 centimeters of ash was projected over 100 kilometers away. And the city of Edo actually saw a couple of centimeters of ash fall, but the city was largely spared. It wasn't that big a deal. And in contrast, this really wasn't the case for a huge area of the countryside downwind of the eruption, which buried agricultural fields and wreaked havoc on irrigation systems that took decades to repair. Now, at the time of the eruption, power was wielded on a national level by the Shogunate, that is the Shogun's government, which as I mentioned earlier, was based in the city of Edo. And the Shogunate oversaw foreign relations and implemented certain rules, like a ban on Christianity that had to be enforced throughout Japan. At the same time, most of the country consisted of semi autonomous domains ruled by daimyo or samurai lords. This power sharing arrangement remained largely intact for about two and a half centuries. But like any political system, it had its tensions and contradictions. Now, generally speaking, domains were supposed to run their own affairs, which included providing relief during famines. But the question is, what happens when a domain government doesn't have the resources to meet the needs of its subjects, or if a disaster affects multiple domains? And this is exactly what happened after the eruption in 1707. Now, the domain that suffered the largest impact, which is called the Odawara Domain, didn't have sufficient resources to help peasants, who repeatedly appealed to officials to provide emergency funds. And in response, the Shogun's government did something which was unprecedented, which was expropriate over half of this domain to take control of relief efforts directly. And the most important one was to reconstruct burst levees along a river that ran through a highly productive agricultural region. And it also took this extraordinary step of instituting attacks across all Japan to pay for those efforts. But even so, the relief offered by the Shogun's government was inadequate to keep many people from starving. So villages repeatedly petitioned officials in the years and decades following the eruption to provide more. And in doing this, they frequently invoked the virtue of benevolence or compassion. Because according to the Confucian worldview at the time, subjects were expected to obey their rulers, but rulers were expected in turn to care for their subjects. The Shogunate and domain governments repeatedly stressed Confucian teachings to legitimize their power. But invoking the ideal of benevolence was a way for Tokugawa period Japanese, I.e. commoners, to hold their lords to their ideological world. Oh, sorry, ideological word. If petitions didn't work, they would sometimes march to the domain castle or even threaten to go to Edo, which did happen in the weeks following the eruption. So responses to the eruption clearly reveal the challenges and contradictions of this political order in which the Shogun shared power with the daimyo of several hundred domains operating within an increasingly nationalized context. So this chapter I wrote about the whole eruption really focuses on using the aftermath of the eruption as a way to understand.
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Both the political and moral economy of Tokugawa Japan.
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B
So what happens to Fuji as we move into kind of.
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The post Meiji pre second World War time period? I mean, it seems like during this time, Fuji moves from being a symbol of just the region to being a symbol of of all of Japan. But kind of what's happening in terms of kind of discussions of Fuji kind of during this period.
- [20:54]
C
So the period being basically after the Tokugawa period, starting in the late 19th century? Yeah, yeah. So first thing I'll say is that Fuji had really come to be seen as a national symbol, you can say by the End of the Tokugawa period. So by the end, by the time you get to the 19th century, and this occurred through popular culture, largely also through worship of Fuji. So you had Fuji worship groups, and you also had Fuji depicted on clothing, on dishes, on combs. And these were objects sold all around Japan. So you could say Fuji really showed a kind of shared culture throughout all of Japan. What then happens after the meiji Restoration of 1868? This is the event in which the Tokugawa Shogun's government is overthrown and a new imperial government is put into place that's really focused on turning Japan into a modern nation state. What happens is then both ideologues outside of the government and government officials are focus on explicitly using Fuji to encourage nationalism, national identity. I mentioned just earlier, for example, if we look at school books for children, Fuji is constantly extolled as the pride of Japan, something that foreigners also admire.
- [22:29]
So schoolbooks, I think, are particularly revealing of this intentional effort. Yeah, to use Fuji to inculcate a national spirit. And of course, all along, it's still circulating through clothing and art and literature and so on. So by the time we get to World War II, I mean, Fuji is now thoroughly in place as this representative, not just the nation, but the expanding Japanese Empire right before the war and during World War II. What happens after the war is that suddenly Fuji is transformed into the symbol of peace. Now, Japan is supposed to be a peaceful nation. So Fuji as the embodiment of Japan, is now turned into this symbol of peace in general.
- [23:28]
But this doesn't mean that its power as a national icon.
- [23:35]
Was seen the same way by different people. And in fact, this power as a national icon lay in its capacity to mean different things to different people, much like the nation itself. So one thing I talk about in my book is this conflict, a political and legal battle over who owned the summit of Fuji, a Shinto shrine at the base of the mountain that worshiped it as a God or the state. And this conflict had its roots in local competition that dated back centuries. But it took on national significance after World War II because it was at that time that people were really actively revisiting. What does the nation mean as it's rebuilding after the devastation of the war. It became a flashpoint for debates over what sort of country Japan was and what kind of country would it become, especially in relation to religious institutions like this shrine at the base of Fuji that claimed it as a deity. And I should add here that Fuji's portrayal as a symbol of peace was complicated by the fact that A large portion of its lower skirt was and continues to be used for military training. In the early 20th century, the Imperial army established artillery ranges and training grounds and huge grasslands at the base of the mountain. And the US military took control of them after the war. Today they're mainly used by the Japanese military, but a US Marine base called Camp Fuji is still there. So we see this transformation of Fuji into this symbol of a peaceful Japan, while.
- [25:19]
Artillery is fired on its lower slopes.
- [25:23]
B
But you also note that there's a strange, what is it? Ecological consequence of the bases being there, which I thought was pretty interesting. You have to go to huge detail. But the fact that their people are being paid to maintain the grasslands has actually led to a certain level of sub ecological restoration.
- [25:44]
C
Yeah, it's a really fascinating story and it just shows the complexity of these entanglements between or among humans and non humans that I feature throughout the book. And I think this is a really clear instance of how complex these relationships can be. So these grasslands are grasslands by virtue of the fact that for centuries people living around them burned them in order to keep them from turning into forests, because otherwise they would just turn into forest. So they were doing this for centuries. They were also mowing them to keep them as grasslands. And in fact, burning them in the spring is good because it encourages new fresh growth.
- [26:28]
So the fact that there were grasslands there to start with made the region attractive to the Japanese Imperial military at the very end of the 19th century, going to the early 20th century. And there were these bargains struck with these locals who treated these lands, by the way, as common lands. They were not privately owned by individuals, but were used in common according to certain fixed rules. So the Imperial army comes in and basically makes these deals to use these grasslands. And the grasslands, by the way, why did people want them? Well, the grass could be used first and foremost to provide fodder for horses. That was the most important thing. But the grass could also be used as thatch for roofs. Also, the grasslands produced herbs that could be used for medicine and cooking. So it had. The grasslands had all these different purposes. What happens after World War II is of course, the Japanese countryside is transformed by artificial fertilizers, by machinery.
- [27:38]
By all sorts of other modern agricultural innovations. And who needed grass anymore, basically, right? So you had tractors, you didn't have horses pulling plows anymore. So you didn't need fodder for horses. You didn't really need thatch for roofs, you had tiled roofs. So around Japan, in fact, in the late 20th century, a lot of grasslands that have been maintained for centuries as grasslands have disappeared, whether into forests or golf courses or what have you. But the ones at Fuji have been maintained precisely because after World War II, the Japanese military, like the pre war military, struck deals with locals. But in these post war deals, they actually provide cash, Right. To local communities which can be used for public works projects. And in order to keep the money coming from the government, the locals need to maintain these common land grasslands, Right, as grasslands. Because that's the terrain the military wants to train in. Yeah. So in other words, if there weren't these deals with the military, it's quite likely that the grasslands at Fuji, like elsewhere in Japan, would just disappear. And if that were to happen. This is getting to what your point was earlier. If that were to happen, organisms that live in the grasslands would vanish too. Right. So, for example, in the grasslands of Fuji, there are some butterflies, butterfly species that are critically endangered throughout Japan. Why do they survive at Fuji? Precisely because military training creates an incentive among locals to keep burning the grassland. So it's this really kind of unexpected, right, connection between butterflies and bombs that the butterflies, in this kind of strange way, owe their continued existence to the military training. And I don't want to say, by the way, I don't want to say, on balance, right. Using landscape for military purposes is ecologically great or something desirable. I just wanted to point out that the militarization of landscape isn't all bad for all species and there are these ironies involved. Right. So I don't want to say that. Oh, yes, on balance, it's better, right. To militarize a landscape.
- [30:16]
B
Of course, of course. It's just a funny outcome of this. But let's talk about. But it's actually good stuff to talk about kind of Fuji as an economic region as it gets slotted into the Japanese and the global economy. I mean, what sort of. I mean, I mean, what. What sort of commodities are kind of. And goods ended up being created kind of in this. In this region. And there were some environmental consequences of that too.
- [30:45]
C
Absolutely. So historically, the Fuji region's been known for producing silk, tea and paper. There were other items as well, but these are the big three. And the production of all of them depended and continue to depend on the steady supply of water that originates with the snow and rain that falls on the mountain and makes its way down the layers of lava and tephra and comes out as springs and small rivers and lakes at the base of the mountain. Now, I should say that the silk industry today is really A shadow of its former self because of global competition, there's not that much silk being produced at Fuji anymore, but it was a huge industry in the 18th and 19th and even early 20th centuries. In my book, I focus, I'd say in particular on the paper industry, which is concentrated between Fuji and Suruga Bay, just to the south. And this paper industry developed from the late Tokugawa period over time, and I focus especially on this to show how Fuji was globalized not only through its representations, like, for example, through.
- [32:03]
Photos or woodblock prints, but also through its entanglement in international commodities networks. So in the book, I note that paper produced at the foot of Fuji won prizes at international competitions in the early 20th century, and that as time passed, the paper mills turned from using forests on and around Fuji to. To importing wood chips from abroad. And getting to your question about ecological impacts, it's important to note that the industry produced effluent that was dumped into Suruga Bay, and the pollution got so bad that it was actually featured in a Godzilla film in the early 1970s. Yeah. Called Godzilla versus Hedera. And Hedera comes from the Japanese word for sludge or hedoro. And hedoro grows from the sludge in Suruga Bay produced by the paper industry.
- [32:56]
B
Yeah.
- [32:57]
C
And it also feeds on the smoke released from factories onshore. And of course, in the end, Godzilla defeats Hira. But the end of the movie makes it really clear that another monster could appear if humans don't clean up their act. And I should add that the paper industry has taken lots of measures since then, since the 70s, to reduce pollution, but the bay is still heavily contaminated. And another ecological problem is that so much groundwater has been used to supply these paper mills that the water table has fallen significantly. And there's concern about the salinization of the water supply south of Fuji.
- [33:40]
B
Fuji is now obviously like a. Like a big national symbol of Japan. It's very marketable. It became a World heritage site in 2013. And what does kind of the discussion around that designation tell us about contemporary conceptions of Fuji?
- [33:58]
C
Yeah, well, I'd say, first off, in many cases, a World Heritage designation lifts a site from obscurity. There could be something designated World Heritage Site no one really knew about. And now suddenly people think, wow, I guess I should visit there, right? Fuji's different in that it was already world famous when it was designated. And as I note in the book, making Fuji a World Heritage Site was kind of like conferring a doctorate on a scholar who'd already enjoyed a Long and illustrious career.
- [34:29]
Anyway, the idea to get Fuji inscribed, that's the language he's inscribed as a World Heritage Site, originated among local organizations that wanted to designate it a Natural World Heritage Site. And there were these environmental groups involved in this process, thinking that if we work on getting Fuji designated an actual herbicide, this would call attention to certain problems, environmental issues surrounding the mountain that could be addressed. And here I. By the way, I should mention, since I just said Natural World Heritage Site, that there are three kinds of World Heritage Sites, natural, cultural and mixed. Mixed would include both significant natural features and cultural ones. And of course, in the book I complicate this very division between natural and cultural. How do you take a mountain like Fuji and separate the two, which have been so intertwined for millennia? In any case, locals figured it would make sense to make Fuji a Natural World Heritage Site, since it is a mountain after all. But this was rejected, interestingly by a government committee which argued that there are plenty of stratovolcanoes in the world like Fuji, so its so called natural qualities didn't make it unique enough to become a Natural World Heritage Site. And the campaign failed essentially. But then another one started that involved prominent business people and politicians, including the former Prime Minister Nakasone, to make Fuji a Cultural World Heritage Site. And this succeeded in 2013. But in designating the mountain a Cultural World Heritage Site, promoters of making Fuji into World Heritage Site really downplayed anything that could interfere with this overall message, that the relationship between the Japanese people and Fuji represents a harmonious relationship between Japanese and nature more broadly. So if you go, for example, to the official Fujisan World Heritage Site webpage, you'll see that while Fuji is acknowledged to be a volcano, the devastating impacts of its eruptions are ignored. So are conflicts like the one over who owns the summit. The militarization of the grasslands goes completely unmentioned. And what we get instead is this simplified picture that obscures Fuji's complex history as a site of competition and conflict and destruction. And I wrote my book to really unveil this often obscured history and to get people to think more deeply about the ways in which they imagine and relate to the non human world, right? Often in ways that we just take for granted and don't really think about.
- [37:28]
B
I might want to end in asking about kind of Fuji's place in global culture, not just Japanese culture. And the recent story that comes to mind is there was that fight over that Lawson convenience store that has a perfect view of Mount Fuji. And they put up barriers because tourists were getting in the way. And it's all linked to the whole over tourism in Japan discussion, of which this like really great view of Mount Fuji became like part of. And so, I mean, I know the book focuses more on kind of, you know, Fuji's how Fuji is seen in Japan in Japanese history. But kind of how do you see Fuji kind of being seen in. In global culture, whether the more kind of business flavored aspect of over tourism or culture in terms of artwork and all that stuff.
- [38:18]
C
Yeah. Well, Fuji is a remarkable mountain in that it is so famous. Yeah.
- [38:24]
I could show you a photo of Mount Everest. Yeah. And odds are pretty high, I would guess. Well, maybe not the case for you, but in many cases, many people, people look at it and have no idea what it actually is. They know Mount Everest, Mount Everest is really famous. But I'd say most people wouldn't be able to just recognize it on site. If I showed you a photo or a piece of art representing Fuji, that's a different story. People often think that's Fuji, which is really remarkable that this Fuji has this global recognition, this global status. And this really started happening in the 19th century, especially through. Through the popularity of woodblock prints by people. Hokusai, right. And Hiroshige 1 is particularly famous. It's a global icon in and of itself. What people call the great wave. You see this big monstrous wave and there's Fuji, right. As this stable point on the horizon, as this monstrous wave is looming above. So from the 19th century, with this fascination with Japanese woodblock prints, I'd say that's where Fuji really starts to take hold in the global imagination. And when you look at memoirs of people visiting Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries, it's remarkable how often they'll comment on seeing Fuji. So Fuji just becomes not only for Japanese, but for foreigners, the ultimate representation of Japan. Right.
- [40:08]
And then Japanese see that, of course. And that enhances all the more the sense within Japan that our famous mountain represents the best of Japan. So it's a two way street, isn't it?
- [40:23]
B
Right.
- [40:24]
C
Or a dialectic that foreign admiration from Fuji fuels Japanese admiration from Fuji, which produces more representations of Fuji, which get absorbed abroad. And so you see how the cycle keeps going to the point now that Fuji is just everywhere, isn't it?
- [40:44]
Just to give one example, there's a restaurant in Corvallis, Oregon, a Japanese restaurant not far from here. And right on the sign, there's Fuji, right? It's a Japanese restaurant, there's Fuji. And really what this sign is.
- [41:04]
I guess assuming if A sign can assume, or at least the people who made the sign made the sign. They're assuming that people looking at it will see Fuji and instantly recognize, okay, this is an icon of Japan. This represents the fact that this is a Japanese restaurant. So Fuji really has been nationalized in a way that's been taken up around the world. And as I mentioned earlier, though, it's not just that Fuji gets globalized through its representations, but all along as it's being extolled as this beautiful wonder of nature and symbol of Japan. All along, it's also being commodified mainly because of its water in the form of tea and paper and silk and other products.
- [41:47]
B
So I think that's a great place to end our conversation with Andrew Bernstein, author of A Mountain in the Making. Andrew, I have two final questions for you, which are where can people find your work? Not just this book, but all of your work, and what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [42:05]
C
For my next project? I'm still thinking about it. Frankly, my whole life has been about Fuji for so many years that it's taking time to think about where to go next. But I do think that my work on land use around Fuji, that is the commodification of.
- [42:27]
Fuji's water in the form of tea and paper and so forth. And also looking at the militarization of the common lands has really sparked an interest to look at other places around Japan to understand the transformations that have occurred to the Japanese countryside in the 19th and 20th centuries. So looking more at how the use of common lands has changed, looking at how fertilizers, pesticides.
- [43:04]
New forms of mechanization have transformed the way people work with with the land. So that's where I'm headed. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do with that. But yeah, my next book will deal with this transformation or modernization of the Japanese countryside in general.
- [43:25]
B
So you can follow me Nicholas Gordon on Twitter Ick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R T U n. You go to asiaviewbooks.com to my other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter ookReviews Asia. That's reviews plural. And you can find many of our author reviews at the New Books Network and NewBooksNetwork.com we are on all our favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Rate us recommend us share us with your friends Support generating those running in around and about Asia. Next week join us for interview with Joseph Turigian author of the party's interests come first, but before then. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [44:02]
C
Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here.