1Preface
UCHIDA Keiichi*

It has been seven years since we first proposed the academic frameworkof “cultural interaction studies,” and five years have passed since welaunched the Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia.
The term, “cultural interaction (studies)” has come to be widely used
recently in Japan and, in particular, overseas; conferences prefixed with theterm are now held frequently. This indicates that the objective of the framework that we have been advocating has begun gradually penetrating theacademic world. Yet it is a fact that when asked the fundamental question of“what exactly are cultural interaction studies?” we still have no definitive
answer except for the basic understanding indicated below:
Research in cultural interaction originally meant—in the case of the historyof Sino-Japanese interaction, for example—that the premise was a national
research paradigm based on the unit of two countries. In the realms and fieldsof research, knowledge has been accumulated in individual narratives in theacademic fields of language, philosophy, ethnic groups, religion, literature, orhistory; a methodology for the overall grasp of cultural interaction has beenlacking. In contrast, the cultural interaction studies framework that we have
put forward transcends nation states, ethnic groups, and even individual
academic fields. Our model imagines East Asia as a defined entity with acomplex cultural configuration. While focusing on the formation, transmission, contact, and change in cultures, cultural interaction studies is a newacademic discipline that attempts to elucidate from a multi-perspective, integrated point of view the total state of cultural interaction.
One methodology we adopted for the establishment of this academic model
was the “periphery approach.” In this case, “periphery” refers not only to theregional concept but to the fact that there exists in academic and spatial fields
a relationship between the periphery and center. Even in my own area ofresearch, Chinese language studies, such a relationship can exist. Moreover,the “periphery” and “center” do not have a fixed relationship; it should be
noted that a flexible relationship exists between the two concepts. Sometimes
an entity can be considered the center and at other times, as the periphery.
The relationship between periphery and center can also be mutually under	  * Vice President, Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia, Kansai University

2Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol. 5 2014

stood as one between the individual and the general or between the uniqueand the universal. It is necessary to take a dialectal view of this relationshipas “that and this,” rather than “that or this.”Either way, this grand experiment has only just begun; in the future wemust establish it as an academic model with concrete results through theprocess of regular debate and discussion.
Today scholarly research is becoming increasingly specialized. It should
be pointed out that if we cavil over insignificant phenomena, the result will
be an inability to hold far-reaching discussions of the whole. Even in terms ofChinese grammar, there is detailed research on extremely discreet
phenomena, which doubtless constitutes progress in scholarship. On the otherhand, with this approach it becomes impossible to construct a grammaticaltheory that encompasses the language as a whole. To begin with, the concrete
definitions of sentences 文 (wen), subjects 主 語 (zhuyu), and predicates 述 語(shuyu) are not explained, yet there are many corpora of itemized instances of
the two uses of le/liao 了, definitions of the progressive zai 在, when de/di 的is or isn’t necessary, or the differences between complements and serial verb
modifiers (of course, elucidation of such individual items is also necessary).
Yet the most fundamental question of the definition of language is overlooked. A view of language, or to put it on a larger scale, a world view, islacking. Can we really call this progress or advancement in scholarship?
Furthermore, recently the methodologies of “interdisciplinarity” or“de-territorialization” have become something of a fad. These methodologies
are actually quite commonsense approaches, but here, too, we should aim not
to make too much of interdisciplinarity. We shouldn’t forget that this is a
fixed “interdisciplinarity” built on “specializations” and that interdisciplinarity and de-territorialization that lack a basis in specialization are untenable.
This is the fifth English-language journal published by the Society for
Cultural Interaction in East Asia. It contains five articles, one book review,and two pieces introducing new research. We are certain that the journal will
greatly contribute to the academic world. The sixth annual meeting of theSociety for Cultural Interaction in East Asia will be held at Fudan University,
Shanghai. One-hundred participants are expected to attend. As they say,“perseverance is strength.” We hope the Society continues to grow in thefuture.