Cirrus@Austlit

'A minor character in the Australian film Japanese Story (Sue Brooks 2003) ruminates on the ambivalence of many Australians towards Japanese people:

In the war we thought you blokes were coming after us - we had stuff stashed away up in the hills, evacuation plans, people tying knives to the end of broomsticks - ridiculous really... Now you blokes own the place. There was a time there when nobody would buy anything made in Japan. Wife, she'd go into the shop and turn the thing over and if it said made in Japan she put it back on the shelf - she wouldn't buy it. Still don't, I guess. Only country to have a trading surplus with you lot. Funny life, isn't it? (DVD transcript)

'These observations signal various perceptions of Australia -Japan relations for Anglo-Celtic Australians, and the monologue suggests how these can be articulated in Australian cinema. This chapter offers an overview of historical and contemporary relations between Australia and Japan as a framework for analyzing the diasporic cultures represented in two early millennial Australian films, Japanese Story and Bondi Tsunami (Rachael Lucas 2004). These depict Japanese visitors to Australia, however the approach (as well as the style) is significantly different in the two films, one concentrating on middle-class Euro-Australian cultural contact and the other on youthful transnational surf culture. In contrast to each other, the films raise issues about the practices deployed to represent Australian perspectives on Japanese culture.' (Introduction)