Abstract

This paper is about vision, but also about the eye as a significant anatomical feature, and with the eye asa sign of Asianness. The Asian eye has long been fetishised as the mark of Oriental otherness. Wheninvestigating the specificity of the relationship between Japan and the West, this preoccupation with theeye opens up an interesting intersection of themes and significances. The organ of sight becomes asymbol for the motifs of sight and observation which saturate interaction between East and West,representing central issues of power, threat, appropriation and otherness