-1- Re-Viewing the Taiwanese Views of Japan Written in Japanese for the Japanese Audience: An Exercise in the “Postimperial” critique Ichiro Numazaki (Tohoku University) Introduction This paper attempts to “re-view” a particular version of the Taiwanese Views of Japan from what I would like to call a “postimperial” standpoint or “postimperialism.” By “postimperial” I mean a position comparable and complementary to “postcolonial.” It is my belief that intellectuals of the former imperial powers ought to develop their own postimperial perspectives cognizant and reflexive of the imperial past and its legacies if they are to meet the challenges posed by the postcolonial critics. It is my impression, however, that postcolonial critiques are merely “consumed” in the West and also in Japan without such self-critical reflection. I, a Japanese national by birth, am inseparably tied to Imperial Japan. My mother tongue is “standard” Japanese developed as a national language of the burgeoning empire, which was imposed not only on ethnic Japanese but also on the Ainu, the Okinawans, and later on the Taiwanese, the Koreans, and the Pacific Islanders. I am a graduate of an ex-imperial university and I now teach there. Nine imperial universities were established and two of them were in Seoul (then Keijo) and Taipei (then Taihoku). National Taiwan University officially recognizes Taihoku Imperial University as its predecessor 1 . I was first reminded of the imperial nature of my mother tongue and my alma mater when I visited Taiwan for dissertation research in 1986. I met many Taiwanese of my parents’ generation who spoke “genuine” Japanese, perhaps more “genuine” then mine. They sounded polite, elegant and spoke free of recent foreign loan words. When I told them that I was a graduate of Tohoku University, 1 See Gallery of NTU History website, http://www.museums.ntu.edu.tw/museums_history.jsp.