短頸圓體的月琴於十九世紀初隨「清樂」（日本人稱傳自清代中國的音樂）東傳日本長崎，初流傳於日本的文人階層與中上家庭，是清樂中最流行的樂器。清樂連同漢詩、書畫等，是十九世紀日本社會中漢化的社會菁英的標記；然而日本文人們既然崇尚中國文人生活，為何不選擇中國文人的象徵樂器─琴，而選擇月琴？既然選擇了中國民間樂器的月琴，又如何賦予它新的角色與意義，以提昇其地位，合理化地成為一種「日本文人樂器」，並順理成章地鞏固了他們的社會地位？誠然，樂器被傳播到新地方時，其原有之社會與文化脈絡會加入了新環境的社會脈絡與認同。本文檢視十九世紀月琴東傳日本之受容情形，討論月琴的音色美與外型為何/如何轉變成日本文人（指清樂實踐者）的象徵樂器。固然，異國風是因素之一；然而，透過清樂樂譜刊本的題詩、插畫、序文與跋等之分析，筆者認為十九世紀月琴（及清樂）移植日本社會的過程中，實際上藉著挪用(appropriation)與合理化(legitimization)等過程，已建構了一個區別「我群」與「他者」的標識，並且將異國風、象徵、隱喻與認同等具現於月琴中，以達到一方面兼具時尚與異國風的地位象徵，另一方面再確認「日本性」的雙面效力。

Yueqin (J. gekkin, moon lute), a short-necked Chinese folk lute with a round-shaped resonator, was brought to Japan in the nineteenth century along with shingaku, a folk music genre from Southeastern coastal China. Since its arrival, the moon-lute had become popular among the Japanese literati and middle class families. Learning the moon-lute was seen to be as important as learning Chinese poems, calligraphy, painting, and Chinese culture, which were markers of a prestigious Sinicized middle-class. The moon-lute became an emblem of Japanese literati in the Meiji era. However, why did Japanese literati, the dominant group of shingaku practitioners, select the moon-lute rather than the qin, a Chinese literati instrument? Since they selected the moon-lute, a musical instrument originally for common people in China, how did they create and impose a new meaning on it to legitimatize it and in the meanwhile, affirm their status? When a musical instrument moves to a new land, the original social and cultural contexts it carries will mingle with new social contexts and identity. This paper examines the adaptation of the Chinese moon-lute in Japan. It discusses why and how the beauty and shape of the moon-lute was symbolically transformed into a new cultural metaphor for the literati. It is clear that exoticism might have had played an important role in the reception of the moon-lute as a new cultural ‘other’; nonetheless, by analyzing the prologues, poems, and paintings in various shingaku printed scores, I argue that the procedures of relocating the moon-lute and shingaku in nineteenth century Japan, including appropriation and legitimization, had constructed a new marker to differentiate ‘self’ from ‘other’, in which various perspectives, such as exoticism, metaphor, and identity, were embodied in the moon-lute in order to maintain a new status for the exotic ‘other’ and reconfirm the literati’s Japaneseness.