Decolonizing Japanese literary access: How kanji literacy reproduces exclusion and what’s lost in translation
Original framing: “Cracking the code of Japanese literature one kanji at a time” — The Japan Times
Kanji’s role in Japanese society has shifted dramatically across eras: during the Edo period (1603–1868), literacy was restricted to the samurai class, who used *kanbun* (classical Chinese) to exclude commoners. The Meiji Restoration (1868) expanded literacy but standardized kanji to unify a fractured nation-state, erasing regional scripts like *kana* variants. Post-WWII, the *jōyō kanji* system was introduced to modernize education, but it also served to marginalize rural dialects and indigenous languages. This history reveals kanji as a tool of both exclusion and assimilation, not just a neutral linguistic system. Understanding this requires examining how kanji’s political functions have persisted even as its educational role has changed.
The kanji system is not merely a linguistic tool but a *structural artifact* of Japan’s historical struggles with unity, exclusion, and modernity.
Its current role as a gatekeeper to literary culture reflects deeper tensions: between feudal hierarchies and democratic ideals, between national homogenization and regional diversity, and between global soft power ambitions and domestic marginalization. The solution lies not in simplifying kanji but in *recontextualizing* it—acknowledging its colonial and classist legacies while expanding its definition to include indigenous scripts, oral traditions, and digital innovations. This requires dismantling the myth of kanji as a universal standard and instead treating literacy as a *negotiated space*, where marginalized voices—from Ainu storytellers to migrant workers—shape its future. The trickster here is time itself: the same system that once unified a fractured empire could, with intentional design, become a bridge rather than a barrier.