Understanding Orientalism

The term Orient was framed by political forces that brought the orient into Western learning, Western Consciousness and Western empire. What does the term Orientalism actually mean?,many may wonder Orientalism is the study of the[ non-western ]eastern societies, cultures and even about mannerisms in the east. West’s colonial aspirations was fuelled by Orientalism. It is not a modern concept as it is around us as more than thousands years. Colonialism started to peep only when westerners started to have a look into Oriental philosophy, literature, art, architecture, language, culture,people and religion. The first Orientalists were 19th century scholars who translated the writings of the Orient and from then on Orientalist Scholars began their research in everything from literature to paintings, it became the object of study for the westerners. They began to see Asian men as weak and feminine but still dangerous for the white western women.

Orientalism was seen as a backward place and East was considered as a place irrationality.The west declared east -[Orient] as ignorant and dark,and they justified their actions by claiming that colonial expedition was needed to enlighten the east. These hungry westerners did not stop there but went on to claim oriental philosophy,art ,literature etc as their own and started to use it. Orientalism is synonymous with modern Chinese films, the Hindu religion,the Islamic culture and Japanese arts. East is referred as Orient whereas West is called Occident. West was seen as the dominant force and it referred to masculinity whereas the east was seen as a weak submissive force. Edward Said’s book Orientalism is one of the most important books for Post-colonial studies.Edward said questions the oriental thinking .

"My contention is that Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West, which elided the Orient’s difference with its weakness. . . . As a cultural apparatus Orientalism is all aggression, activity, judgment, will-to-truth, and knowledge" (Orientalism, p. 204).
Said also wrote:
"My whole point about this system is not that it is a misrepresentation of some Oriental essence — in which I do not for a moment believe — but that it operates as representations usually do, for a purpose, according to a tendency, in a specific historical, intellectual, and even economic setting" (p. 273).

Orientalism is seen as a seperate and passive force,which displays feminine penetrability and supine malleability, to put this in simple words it means that Orientalism is a weak force that can be easily controlled. For instance the contemporary image of China, India and Japan in the eyes of the west is different but they use eastern arts and architecture.M.Buttrerfly a play written by David Henry Hwang has a lot of oriental stereotypes and later it was made into a movie. Rene Gillard is a civil servant who works for French embassy in China falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera diva, Song Liling who is actually a man masquearding as a woman because in traditional Beijing opera females were banned from the stage. And then he later finds out that she is not a woman only in France. The streotyped image is present that Feminine east is weak whereas Masculine west is strong. Lots of assumptions can be made like Is Gillard a gay? What attracted him to Rene. East is seens always seen as a submissive element, West on the other hand was active and strong.