摘要：This article investigates the visual representation of foreigners in the Japanese popular
art of ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) during the Edo Period. Foreigners found their
niche in the Japanese folk cosmology even during the period of “national seclusion”
(1639–1853), typically through the stereotype of tōjin (Tang Chinese). The popular
imagery of tōjin, with its distinctive characteristics—nonsensical, superhuman or
subhuman beings with distinctive outfits and behavior—formed a general category of
foreigner that included both Westerners and non-Westerners, and served as travesties
of human beings. Tōjin stresses inclusiveness, an inter-national combination of elements
that enhances Otherness. Moreover, the tōjin being inter-national means that
with their nationalities and national identities taken away, they are also stateless; in
this way traits specific to different groups of Others were made interchangeable, or
homogenized, in imagery. This visual discourse served as a valuable, unique way for
the nonelite to organize or categorize the Japanese Self vis-à-vis foreigners.
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