(Todd S. Munson) (PDF

East Asian History NUMBER 24 . DECEMBER 2002 Institute of Advanced Studies Australian National University Editor Geremie R. Barme Associate Editor Helen Lo Editorial Board Mark Elvin (Convenor) John Clark Andrew Fraser Helen Hardacre Colin Jeffcott W.]. F. Jenner Lo Hui-min .j Gavan McCormack David Marr Tessa Morris-Suzuki Michael Underdown Design and Production Helen Lo Business Manager Marion Weeks Printed by Goanna Print, Fyshwick, ACT This is the twenty-fourth issue of East Asian History, printed August 2003, in the series previously entitled Papers on Fa r Eastern History. This externally refereed journal is published twice a year Contributions to The Editor, East Asian History Division of Pacific and Asian History Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Phone +61 26125 3140 Fax +61 26125 5525 email [email protected] Subscription Enquiries to Subscriptions, East Asian History, at the above address, or to [email protected] Annual Subscription Australia A$50 (including GST) Overseas US$45 (GST free) (for two issues) ISSN 1036-6008 iii .Jt CONTENTS 1 Birds and the Hand of Power: a Political Geography of Avian Life in the Gansu Corridor, Ninth to Tenth Centuries Lewis Mayo 67 A Tempestuous Tea-Port: Socio-Political Commentary in Yokahama-e, 1859-62 Todd S. Munson 93 Taiwan's Search for National History: a Trend in Historiography Q. Edward Wang 117 Rai San'yo's Philosophy of History and the Ideal of Imperial Restoration BarryD. Steben iv Cover calligraphy Yan Zhenqing �Ji:��n, Tang calligrapher and statesman Cover illustration Avian signature from the time of Cao Yanlu liE!J�- see p.52 CS.24741,reproduced by permission of the British Library) A TEMPESTUOUS TEA-PORT: SOCIO-POLITICAL COMMMENTARY IN YOKOHAMA-E, 1859-62 � Todd S. Munson From 1859 to the early 1860s woodblock prints that took the recently-opened For their suggestions and advice in the port of Yokohama .� as their subject-later categorized by art historians preparation of this essay, the author would as 'Yokohama pictures' (Yokohama-e.i��)-were best sellers, introducing like to thank M. William Steele, Dror Wahrman, Jeffery Wasserstrom, and the two a generation of Japanese to foreign customs and successfully stalling the anonymous readers who reviewed this eventual decline of the woodblock medium. This essay will focus on the manuscript for East Asian History. works of the two most prolific Yokohama-e artists, Sadahide �* (1807- c.1878) and Yoshikazu 7J jl (? - ?).l Along with their contemporaries, Isigned to most of his works was 'Gountei Sadahide and Yoshikazu purported to render accurately the customs, clothes, Sadahide', he is also often referred to as and eating habits of Yokohama's exotic new residents, namely, the Americans Hashimoto Sadahide, as well as Utagawa Sadahide and Hashimoto Gyokuransai and Europeans who came to Japan in order to tap into the coveted Japanese (among others). For simplicity's sake I will market, along with their Chinese and Black servants. refer to him as 'Sadahide' throughout this No present-day observer of the prints would dispute the failure to have essay. Yoshikazu's common name was met this objective: a cursory view of the pictures reveals gross inaccuracies Jirokichi *l1!B-a.He often signed his works 'Ichikawa Yoshikazu' -J 1171� -using the with regard to subject matter, while studied observations have shown that pen-name of 'Ichikawa'-although he also some subjects were simply copied from other sources. However, academic used the surname Utagawa, as he was a interpretations have tended to adopt the deeply contradictory position that disciple of Utagawa Kuniyoshi llftJlIOO71. Yokohama-e provide a realistic 'window' onto treaty port life, despite the fact For simplicity's sake I will refer to him by his that many of the scenes depicted in the prints are clearly fanciful. Some most common name. scholars have demonstrated the unoriginality of the prints by identifying their 2 There are two readily accessible studies of Yo kohama-e in English and, as such, they plagiarized sources, and yet nonetheless have gone on to describe (often in have assumed the position of standard the same discussion) how such prints reflected actual conditions in Yokohama reference works: Julie Meech-Pekarik, The in the early 1860s.2 In order to resolve such contradictions it may be a more world oj Meijiprint: impressions oj a new civilization (New York: Weatherhill, 1986), and Anne Yonemura, Yokohama: printsJrom 1 Japanese names prior to the Meiji Period, IUtagawa lifKJII ; among his many 'pen-names' nineteenth-centuryJa pan (Washington, DC : especially those of artists and writers, can be (go%) were Gyokuransai 3S.Jii�, Gountei Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Instit quite confusing. Sadahide's real name was li��,and Sadahide, the latter given to him ution Press, 1990). The Japanese scholar Hashimoto Kanejiro m*�*l1!B(or Kane by his teacher, Kunisada OO� (the third most closely associated with Yokohama-e is Yokota YOichilfiB3i:F-. He, too, is lOVER �); the surname he adopted as an artist was Toyokuni = �.OO).Although the name he 67 68 TODD S. MUNSON /reluctant to discuss the prints from the fruitful endeavor, therefore, to examine Yokohama-e from another standpoint introduced above; although he perspective-to wit, what if the inaccuracies were the product of wilful acknowledges that the artists sought to intent? Such a perspective renders possible analysis in terms of social and "interpret the gap between fiction and reality," he does not tell us how or why political commentary, rather then forcing the prints to serve as paradoxical other than to suggest that print makers 'windows' on to nineteenth-century treaty port life. "sought not to disappoint their audience." In order to avoid the latter position, I will essay a study of the Yokohama See Kanagawa Kenritsu Rekishi Hakubutsu e from a more contextual angle: first, by looking at the prints with an eye kan, ed., Yo kohama ukiyoe 10 sora tobu eshi Gountei Sadahide [Yokohama ukiyo-e and toward what was happening in Edo rIp and other areas outside of the the high-flying artist, Gountei Sadahidel settlement where they would have been sold; and second, by comparing (Kanagawa: Kanagawa Kenritsu Rekishi them with other prints from the period that have had been labelled 'satirical' Hakubutsukan, 1997), p.1S. (jushi maJ1ilJ) by scholars. Seen in such a light Yokohama prints reveal that while nineteenth-century Japanese may have been passive reactionaries in the arena of foreign diplomacy, as regards foreign culturalrelations it was another matter altogether. Yokohama-e had as their purpose not just to inform and entertain, but to provide pointed social commentary as well. Historical Context In the mid-nineteenth century,Japan was not a friendly place for visitors. For a Japanese to go abroad was an offense punishable (though not often punished) by death, and domestic travel was in principle heavily restricted for mostJapanese-to say nothing of barbarians from beyond the archipelago. In fact, for over two hundred years all officialforeign contact was restricted to the Chinese, Koreans, and Dutch, the last of whom were forced to reside on a man-made island just off of the coast of Nagasaki *Iffit.Japan's 'closed country' (sakoku �IE) policy met its match in the 1850s, however, as the country was pulled into the burgeoning global economy by European nations eager to find new markets for their excess industrial manufactures. In compliance with the stipulations of the United States-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce (Nichi-bei shuko tsushojoyaku B *{�t.lf �iffj��)signed in 1858, five so-called 'open ports' and two 'open cities' were designated in which foreigners could reside and do business. Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Russia quickly followed with their own treaty demands, which were expeditiously granted; since news of the outcome of the Opium War in China had reached Japan's shores, the ruling Tokugawa �JI[ house knew full well that the foreigners meant business. The 'age of unequal treaties' had begun. In July of 1859 the firstof these 'treaty ports' was opened in Yokohama, a small fishingvillage approximately seventeen miles from Edo (now Tokyo). Although Edo was not yet the capital, it was nonetheless the political center of Japan, the home of the shogun and his officials. In fact, Yokohama was not the area originally selected for 'opening': Kanagawa :flfl*J[!,a post-town on the Tokaido *M�, the major highway to Edo, was the site named in the 1858 treaty. Foot and palanquin traffic on that road was quite heavy, A TEMPESTUOUS TEA-PORT 69 however, and often comprised official traffic to and from Edo; over 250 3 The number of daimyo varied during the feudal lords (daimyo *.16)and their attendants traveled to and from their Tokugawa period; in 1853, the year Commo home domains in a system intended by the Tokugawa government to keep dore Perry opened Japan to trade, the number was 265. them in check. 3 Japanese officialsconsequently ordered the construction of 4 These numbers, it must be stressed, are an alternative settlement across the bay in Yokohama, one that would, it was estimations, and additionally they do not hoped, draw merchants away from Kanagawa. Storehouses, roads, and a reflect the large number of non-Western customs-house were quickly built, and a native population of merchants was foreigners living in Yokohama, most notably brought in (with the urging of the government, in the case of Mitsui and other the Chinese community. Ishizuka Hiromichi states that the number of foreign residents in large firms)to set up shop. The new location also had the unforeseen benefit 1860 "did not exceed forty-four"; see Ishizuka of deep-water anchorages, which allowed for cargo to be offloaded far Hiromichi, "Yokohama kyoryuchi zo no keisei: closer to the shore.

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