Travel Through Tastebuds and Fingertips in Edo Japan: a Study of Shinpan Gofunai Ryūkō Meibutsu Annai Sugoroku by Bianca
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Travel Through Tastebuds and Fingertips in Edo Japan: A Study of Shinpan gofunai ryūkō meibutsu annai sugoroku By Bianca Man Yan Chui Course: HIST 449, Honours Graduating Essay Instructor: Dr. Robert Brain A graduating thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in The Faculty of Arts History Department We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. Supervisor: Dr. Kelly Midori McCormick Committee Member: Dr. Robert Brain and Dr. Joshua S. Mostow University of British Columbia 5 May 2021 Chui 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Note to Readers ............................................................................................................................................................ 4 List of Figures and Tables ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction: Furidashi ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Significance and Historiography ............................................................................................................................ 10 Structure .................................................................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter One: On sugoroku and Shinpan meibutsu sugoroku ................................................................................ 16 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 16 On Sugoroku ........................................................................................................................................................... 17 Meibutsu and meisho .............................................................................................................................................. 19 Analysis of Shinpan gofunai ryūkō meibutsu annai sugoroku ............................................................................. 21 The Hierarchical Structure of Shinpan meibutsu sugoroku ................................................................................. 27 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................... 34 Chapter 2: Conceptual Travel as Game................................................................................................................... 36 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 36 The Dual Aspects of the Spatial Environment Created in a Game of Sugoroku ................................................. 36 Food in Edo ............................................................................................................................................................. 38 The Bottom Half of Shinpan meibutsu sugoroku: Food Items As Meibutsu ....................................................... 41 More Than Just Consumables: Sakura mochi in Front of Chōmeiji Temple and Sake from Toshimaya ......... 51 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3: Physical Travel as Advertisement ......................................................................................................... 63 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 63 Solidifying The Status of Restaurants As Meisho Through Advertisements ........................................................ 64 The Top Half of Shinpan meibutsu sugoroku: Gourmet Restaurants ................................................................. 69 More Than Just a Kaiseki Restaurant: Yaozen at Sanya ...................................................................................... 76 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................... 90 Conclusion: Agari ....................................................................................................................................................... 92 Appendixes .................................................................................................................................................................. 95 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................... 97 Chui 2 Acknowledgements It is perhaps befitting that this thesis is on aspirations of food and travel at a time where we cannot dine out or travel to different parts of the world. It has been a long journey writing this thesis. Although I wrote this largely in isolation, I am grateful for the support and kindness I received from countless individuals. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Kelly McCormick for her patience and gentle guidance throughout this journey. You have been supportive of my work since day one and I am thankful for your continuous words of encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr. Robert Brain and 2020–2021 Honours cohort for their comments and feedback on earlier drafts. Your presences at our weekly Monday meetings remind me that I am not alone in this journey. I would also like to thank Dr. Joshua S. Mostow for his time and unwavering support. Thank you for enduring my late-night emails about sources, questions, kuzushiji help and more. You have been an incredible mentor and I couldn’t be happier to continue learning from you in the next few years. Thank you to Dr. Christina Laffin, for her faith in my abilities and her constant reassurances. I am grateful that you have welcomed me into the summer kuzushiji study group with open arms, which this thesis would not be possible without this prior knowledge. A huge thank you to Japanese studies librarian Tomoko Kitayama Yen for her kindness and research help. You have been instrumental in tracking down image permissions with various Japanese institutions and I am ever so grateful. Thank you to the team from Interlibrary Loans at UBC Library for fulfilling my various requests for obscure Japanese articles. Thank you to Dr. Kate Swatek for her time and meticulous edits, which made this thesis better than it is. Thank you to Dr. Gaye Rowley from Waseda Library and Dr. Joshua Schlachet from the University of Arizona for their help. Furthermore, I would also like to thank my instructors this term for being understanding of my constant state of fatigue and being ever so forgiving at times when I slipped. Special thanks to Dr. Courtney Booker for encouraging me to apply to the Honours program and Dr. Tristan Grunow for inspiring further interest in Japan. I am grateful to the History Department for providing research funds. As a result, I was able to Chui 3 purchase and access books unavailable via Interlibrary Loans due to COVID restrictions. Thank you to countless institutions, including National Diet Library and Tokyo Metropolitan Library, for making their collection publicly accessible. I am also grateful to the Ad Museum Tokyo and Keio University Libraries for permitting me to use images from their collections. Thank you to my graduate senpais at Asian Studies, especially Rosaley, José and Yuewei, for their generosity and kindness. Thank you to all of my friends, including Germaine, Matt, Rachel, Alex, River, Xiaoyu, Michael, Richard, and Nicholas. Thank you to Hoshi Sensei and JAPN 322/323 cohort for their support and companionship. I am grateful for all of your friendship and support, especially in tolerating me talking about sugoroku non-stop. Special thanks to Melissa, Kelly and Shaoyuan for reading parts of this thesis in various stages and providing brutally honest comments. Thank you Josh and Patrick for entertaining my coding attempts with simple explanations and suggestions of what I can do with Python. Thank you to my life coach David for keeping me on track and being my best possible self. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for always believing in me. To Popo and Gonggong, who are understanding when I disappear and do not call for weeks. To my various family members, for nodding their heads and pretending to understand when someone asked about recent updates. My sister for understanding my self-imposed writing exiles, my dad for listening to my ideas and concerns, and finally my mother for supporting me in various ways, including providing me with an ample amount of food. I wouldn’t have finished this thesis (and endured long periods of isolation at home) without all your home-cooked food and various take-outs we get together. Again, I am truly grateful for all the people listed (and unlisted) here for helping me reached the end of this chapter. I look forward meeting and thanking people in person, when it is safe to do so. Perhaps