Travel Guides, Travelers and Guides: Meiji Period Globetrotters and the Visualization of Japan
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JAITS 1 Travel Guides, Travelers and Guides: Meiji Period Globetrotters and the Visualization of Japan Gregory L. ROHE (Aichi Gakuin University) Abstract With the opening of Japan during the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, travelers poured into the country, eager to experience for themselves a culture that had previously been, until only recently, entirely closed to them. The end of Japanese exclusion also corresponded with the beginning of large-scale international tourism. The “gloBetrotting” international traveler became a feature of Meiji Japan, and while these travelers were Being introduced to Japan By native Japanese guides, some of them produced first-person narratives of their experiences here which subsequently served as guides for readers back home. These narratives were illustrated with images that helped to create a visual culture that dominated Western impressions of Japan. The following is a partial transcript of the keynote address given at the Japan Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies’ 15th annual conference held on SeptemBer 13th 2014, which looked at English-language guidebooks for foreign travelers to Japan during the Meiji Period. The visual record illustrating other travel narratives – from circumnavigators like cyclist Thomas Stevens and rival journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, to photojournalist Herbert G. Ponting, and children’s fiction author Edward Greey – was also considered. Introduction Today, I’d like us to consider a particular set of visual images: those that can be found in the travel narratives of foreign travelers who came to Japan during the Meiji Period. The reason I’m interested in these travelogues is because, in an age before the lavishly illustrated travel guides that we know today, they functioned as guides to readers around the world, helping readers visualize Japan, and helping them form a distinctive image of Japan, one that was, for the most part, picturesque and peaceful, safe and tranquil, traditional and unchanging, and finally, gracefully feminine. While this image wasn’t a false one, it wasn't entirely full either, overlooking as it did other aspects that also characterized Meiji Japan, namely its breathtakingly speedy modernization, industrialization and militarization. ROHE Gregory L. , “Travel guides, travelers and guides: Meiji period globetrotters and the visualization of Japan,” Interpreting and Translation Studies, No.15, 2015. Pages 75-90. ©by the Japan Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies 75 15 2015 As with any journey we will meet some fascinating travelers along the way: a small, sickly woman with hidden reserves of strength; another woman in love with cherry Blossoms; two ladies racing each other around the world, and another circumnavigator making his journey in a particularly unusual sort of way; finally, we’ll meet a photographer about to embark on one of the most spectacular failures of the early 20th century. Through their visual record, perhaps it is possiBle to see Japan as they saw it, or rather as they wanted us to see it. Guidebooks Thomas Cook's first guided tour in 1841 began what I think we can call the age of large-scale commercial travel. By the 1880s, it was in full swing, and a traveler interested in foreign travel could choose from a numBer of different travel guides, some focusing on particular destinations, and others providing more general advice. Thomas Knox’s How to Travel definitely fell into the second category, offering “hints, advice and suggestions to travelers by land and sea all over the globe.” Although Knox meant to give general advice, his book turned out to be both wide-ranging and remarkably specific. It had chapters on “Traveling with Camels and Elephants,” “Traveling with Reindeer and Dogs,” and, particularly pertinent to Japan, “Traveling with Man-power – Palankeens, Jinirikishas, and Sedan Chairs.” He even had a helpful chapter titled “Traveling Without Money – Round the World for $50.” (Knox, 1881). This can only be matched By Robert Luce’s tips, in his 1897 book Going Abroad? Some Advice, on how to rent an apartment in Paris for $180 a year. For much of the Meiji Period, the sine qua non of travel in Japan, for English speakers at least, was Murray’s Handbook. The John Murray publishing house dominated English-language travel literature throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. Beginning in 1891, the handbooks were co-authored By the noted Japan specialist, Basil Hall ChamBerlain. As we can see from the pages introducing Atsuta Shrine and Nagoya, the handbooks were text-heavy, somewhat daunting perhaps to a 21st century gloBetrotter accustomed to travel guides with luscious, glossy illustrations – illustrations so enticing that they might leave the unsuspecting traveler somewhat underwhelmed when standing in front of the real thing. 76 2 Travel Guides, Travelers and Guides Undoubtedly more visually interesting than the Handbook’s main text were the advertisements in Back. Here we can find advertisements for goods and services that were meant to appeal to foreign tourists in Japan. Hotels, for example: The Grand Hotel in Yokohama, of course, destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and then reborn as the Hotel New Grand in 1927 and still going strong today; Hakone’s Fujiya Hotel and the Nikko Hotel; and of course The Kanaya Hotel in Nikko. (ChamBerlain, 1894) There are hints for possible souvenirs, like photographs or photographic albums. The well-known photographer Ogawa Kazumasa gets an impressive two-page spread, perhaps Because it was his company that printed the Handbook. Meidi-ya, a grocery store that was one of the few places where Japanese could buy imported foodstuffs, or where a homesick foreigner might be able to pick up some comfort from home. Here it’s advertising a variety of goods, including libations from the Japan Brewery Company, also known as The Kirin Beer. The print is a Bit small; in its prominent advertisement on the inside of the Back cover, however, Kirin uses a somewhat larger print for its name as it introduces “the Purest Beer Sold in Japan,” which is “recommended by the whole medical faculty as a light and wholesome Beverage.” For anyone skeptical about that statement, “Medical Testimonials and Chemical Analysis (can be) forwarded on application.” Kirin no longer solicits customers to inquire about that information in their advertisements today. The success of beer in Japan today might not have been predicted after its initial reception, when it was called “bitter horse-piss wine.” Another advertisement for an organization called the Kihin-Kwai or Society for Facilitating Foreign Travel in Japan states that numBer one on their list of principal functions is: “to exercise superintendence over guides.” This seems to suggest that a demand had Been expressed, perhaps by travelers themselves, for the supervision of guides and that the Kihin-Kwai was satisfying that demand. Another advertisement is for the Kaiyusha Licensed Guides Association, which assures travelers that their guides are “competent, trustworthy… and responsible.” At the top of the list of licensed guides in Yokohama is a T. Ito. Research by Prof. Kanasaka Kiyonori at Kyoto University suggests that this is Ito 77 3 15 2015 Tsurukichi, a well-respected translator, interpreter and guide in his day. Early in Ito’s career he played a prominent role in this Book, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikk and Isé by Isabella Bird. Isabella Bird Two words that often come up when reading about Isabella Bird are intrepid and indomitable. These are not two words, however, that one might associate with her when simply looking at her. She was rather short and plump; actually, she was rather unassuming. She was born in Scotland in 1831, and throughout her life she was bothered by health problems. When she was 19 she had spinal surgery, which, in the age before anesthetic, must have Been fairly ghastly. At one point she complained of suffering from neuralgia, pain in my bones, prickly pins and needles in my limbs, excruciating nervousness, exhaustion, sore throat, swelling of the glands Behind each ear and stupidity. The usual remedy for these ailments is not to travel around the world. But that's exactly what she did. When her doctor recommended that she go abroad, perhaps expecting that she would go relax at a spa on the continent, Isabella Bird set out, and Became one of the most intrepid and indomitable travelers of the 19th century. The moment she set foot on the first steamer that would carry her abroad, she set her life in a pendulum swing that would alternate between frailty and fortitude. At home, where she was bound by the gender restrictions and expectations that encumBered most Victorian women, she was frail, sickly and the list of her ailments seemed to go on and on; but when she was on a boat heading for parts unknown, she usually started to perk up. An obituary put it more succinctly, calling her "an invalid at home; a Samson abroad." She turned her travels into books. She published over fifteen of them. They became some of the best selling travel literature in history, making her a celebrity at home. Her lectures drew audiences numBering in the thousands, a fact that the Royal Geographical Society couldn't overlook when considering to take her on as memBer. The move was remarkably controversial, though. Naysayers couldn't countenance the possibility of allowing a woman -- a woman! -- into the hallowed halls of the society. She was finally made a memBer in 1892, the first woman ever to be accepted as a memBer. The naysayers had their way after she died, however, and another woman would not be accepted into the Royal Geographical Society until 20 years later, in a new century.