Illustration by Olena Pushkarova
This is an essay where Asumi Kato reflects on her experience from her upbringing in rural Japan to her studies in Edinburgh through her trip to Florence and the painting Primavera, posing questions on epistemological, cultural and economic privilege and marginalisation in global society.
“Look, that’s the one.”
I surged forward, in a crowded gallery, with my eyes locked on the vivid, yet nuanced colours of pink, red and white on the black background.
“Hm… I’ve probably seen this before … Eh, maybe not.”
In contrast with the lack of excitement of my friend from Europe, the moment for me was transformative in a quiet way.
Nearly a year ago, I visited Italy for the first time in my life. I travelled to Florence and was fortunate enough to see the painting Primavera by Sandro Botticelli in person. This experience inevitably evoked reflection because this artwork symbolises my journey as a critical thinker from Japan.
Until moving abroad in my late teens, I grew up like a typical Japanese kid in the countryside without much contact with the part of the world I now live in. When I did have contact though, I was absolutely fascinated. I clearly remember the yellow page I saw in a history class in Year 8. After sections of ancient and medieval Japan, that yellow page began “world”—mostly Western—history. Looking at the page, I gasped. The colours, the composition and the clothes all looked unfamiliar and flashy. It was the painting Primavera, alongside the description of the Renaissance and the beginning of modernity.
This heightened feeling was consistent whenever I learned about the West. It just magnetised me. Whether it was Renaissance art or Enlightenment philosophy, I often loved learning about the West over Japan.
This phenomenon now seems much more complex than mere curiosity. Reflecting upon it, I can hypothesise that my fascination might have been shaped by my upbringing in Japan as a modernised non-Western country.
As I explored in my previous article for this magazine, Japan invested in rapid modernisation in the late 19th century due to the risk of colonisation by the West. It was like “catching up with” or imitating Western powers, politically, economically and culturally. Japan was quite skillful in that. Today, this far eastern country is considered part of the global North, one of the world’s advanced economies and democracies. As a child, by learning this history, it was clear to me that Japan “evolved” from being ancient, medieval, to Westernised modern. It feels like I was implicitly taught that the West and the modern are inherently better; hence, the “goal” for every society.
At 18, however, I had to realise the fundamental shortcoming of this idea through environmentalism. From the books in a niche section of a local bookshop, I learned alternative economic theories for sustainability proposed by leading scholars, such as Giorgos Kallis and Jason Hickel. Their voices felt radical and surprising back then, as they linked current environmental crises and global inequality to modern social systems, such as capitalism and colonial legacy. When I fully understood their arguments, however, my foundational belief needed to collapse—Modernity is far from the most sophisticated, “best” form of social organisation. It was absolutely sensational to me. At the same time, I gained another perspective on the thrill I had got from learning about the West: The enchantment towards the Renaissance art might not just have been an aesthetic attraction but also an internalised, blind admiration for Euro-America.
It is not only individual but structural. I used to read a lot of biographies of historical figures in library hours at school, from Coco Chanel to Elizabeth I, which gave me the same dazzling feeling as Primavera did. When I tell this to a British person, they think the child-me was quirky because, well, not many British elementary school kids would willingly read about Murasaki Shikibu, for example. But I remember it was definitely not uncommon for kids in my school to read these “global” biographies. Although I cannot frame Japan as a marginalised country, the coloniality of this discrepancy seems obvious. For us, learning about Euro-America has been indispensable, not a quirk, to navigate global society since the 19th century. This mentality seems to have persisted. It seems to be why we have a large stock of biographies of Western historical figures as much as those of Japanese ones at school libraries, why we learn Renaissance from early on, and why I was nudged to eagerly learn about them.
Now, I live in that once-spellbinding cultural sphere—Art also reminds me of that. Seeing Primavera in Florence, I had to recognise that I had crossed the border. I was once an outsider: When I only knew Japan, the painting was only available through a photo on the Internet or in a textbook. Today, I might be an insider. The trip to Italy from Scotland, where I’m based, was not necessarily extraordinary, as it was without a long journey or so much of a language barrier. Though the piece was as beautiful as always, I was calm, not necessarily bewitched like my 13-year-old self. Intellectually, too, I’m a student in political ecology and social anthropology, academic disciplines that interrogate modernity. I read, discuss, and write academic texts in English. This relatively easy access to original paintings from the Renaissance and Western intellectual world is something most people from my hometown might never get.
Within only several years, I’ve changed a lot. Maybe a little too much. I was once mesmerised by how unfamiliar, beautiful and “good” Western things are, but now, I exist in a liminal space where I can be both an insider and an outsider and critically engage with the legacies of Western modernity without idolising. The Primavera painting seems to symbolise my journey. It is ironic that I realised all that after gaining a privilege. If I was stuck in Japan or didn’t get the opportunity to study in the West, I wouldn’t have known any of it.
That’s one of the reasons why I want to keep learning and writing. Everyone has their own position in global society, which I believe “the ethical” depends on, yet I still don’t know what is the most ethical for a person like me who stands between privilege and marginalisation. I don’t want to pretend that I’ve figured out my positionality and how I should relate to my old and new worlds, as well as the overarching structure that determines them. Nonetheless, I reject both giving up the pursuit of being ethical because of my current privilege and a simplistic understanding of ethics without reflexivity. In short, I’m committed to being a thinker. I want to be gentle to my mesmerised 13-year-old self, though, because everything about me as a thinker started with that gasp for Primavera.
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