Re-visiting the slogan "Asia for Asians" and the "Look East" policy: a study of Malay short stories

Japan has a great influence on the South-East Asian countries from the Second World War to this day. The aim of this essay is to study and compare the short stories in modern Malay literature which discuss about the Japanese. This study is based on the thematic approach in the field of comparative literature. Thematic approach compares the short stories based on a subject-matter and in this study the subjectmatter is the images of the Japanese in two different contexts, Japan under the slogan "Asia for Asians" and under the policy called "Look East Policy." The study discovers that during the Japanese occupation in Malaya in the Second World War, short stories produced tells about the Japanese cruelty toward the people. Nevertheless there are also short stories which explicate the Japanese as the hero for saving Asians from Western colonialism. Then when the "Look East" Policy was implemented in the 1980s, in which the Japanese became a model of the Malaysian economic development, there are short stories discuss about the Japanese as an economic model to follow especially in seeking higher education in the field of science and technology. However, the image of the ruthless Japanese army during the war is still haunting some of the authors as explicated in the short stories studied