Abstract:
Japanese sinologists’ concern and study of Chang’an, the capital of Tang Dynasty, revived the post-war Japanese remote memory of the times of its missions to imperial China. The promotion of historical novels and mass media further deepened Chang’an as a possible spiritual homeland of the Japanese people. Yasushi Inoue as a forerunner of post-war Japanese historical novels of Chinese subject-matters involved prominently or obscurely Chang’an in his works, but offered only an misty and cold description of Chang'an space. His novel The Ocean to Cross, for example, showed obvious traces of “just travelling by” Chang’an. A reductive reverse inference based on the original documents Yasushi Inoue drew upon in his writing finds that his preference of subject-matters of Western Region and understanding of the direction of post-war Japanese literature spared his no time to draw a clear picture of Chang’an.
