by Margi Preus
After I had set up the equipment and placed the chairs, I decided I would try to focus my camera and make sure all was ready before the ambassadors got settled.
Many of those present were high-ranking officials who were kept busy on a tour led by officers of our navy. I could hardly ask them to sit while I fiddled with the camera. But standing slightly off to the side was a young man of low rank, wearing simple clothing and, unlike most of the others, with no swords at his side.
“Excuse me,” I said. “You, er, sit? Focus camera?” I tried to indicate the task before me by gesturing at the camera.
“Yes, of course,” the young man replied, in quite good English.
“I apologize,” I said, and gestured to the chair where I wished the man to sit. “I didn’t realize you spoke English so well.”
“No, no!” the young man protested. “My English not well at all!”
“Your English is excellent!” said I, tossing the cloth over my head.
As I twisted the brass knob, the young man’s face came into focus, and with it a kind of funny feeling. There was something so familiar . . . something about the expression, the level gaze, a kind of fearlessness that I remembered . . . Oh, but I was probably just imagining it.
I pulled my head out from under the cloth and squinted across the distance between us. “Are you an interpreter for the delegation?” I asked.
The young man bobbed his head in a bow of acknowledgment. “A poor one, I am sorry.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m sure I make a better sitting model for focus a camera.” He paused. “I didn’t say that correctly.”
“Close enough. I know what you meant.” I sat down and patted my pockets, looking for a match.
“May I offer you a light?” the interpreter asked, whereupon he reached into his sleeve and procured a box of matches, one of which he struck into flame. But my eye had caught the design on the box: three red stars in a row. Coincidence? I wondered. Well, the delegation had been in America for quite some time already and could have picked up any number of matchboxes. And anyway, there were many American items available in Japan by this time.
I glanced at the delegates. They hadn’t yet finished their tour, and so I thought to offer my model a beverage. “Would you care for something cold to drink?” I asked him.
“Thank you,” the Japanese man said.
“Cider? Or sarsaparilla?”
The man looked a little pained—like he either didn’t know or didn’t like either one.
An idea came to me.“We’ll flip a coin,” I said. I reached into my pocket and took out the Japanese coin I always carried—I guess I have always thought of it as a good-luck charm. I sent the coin spiraling into the air, caught it as it fell, and slapped it on the back of my hand, then showed the coin, still resting there, to the young interpreter.
He looked from the coin to my face, then reached into his sleeve and pulled out a button, and held it out to show me.
Then I knew: This was the same person I had met twice in Japan, with whom I had shared such an adventure.
“Yoshi?” I asked.
“Mr. Jack!” Yoshi said, bowing deeply.
I bowed, and we shook hands, both of us grinning like kids.
“This is a most amazing coincidence!” I exclaimed.
“Most remarkable!” Yoshi agreed.
I retrieved two bottles of sarsaparilla—never mind how the coin toss turned out—removed the caps, handed one to Yoshi, and sat down next to him.
“Friend of mine is experimenting with putting this stuff in bottles,” I told him. “Ever tried it?”
Yoshi shook his head and looked at the bottle suspiciously.
“Well,” I said. “Give it a try. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to drink it.”
I tipped the bottle to my lips and gulped.
Yoshi followed suit, sipping hesitantly.
“How have you found America?” I asked him.
“It is a thing to make you dizzy,” Yoshi said. “I don’t know how to say.”
“Dizzying,” I said.
“Yes,” said Yoshi. “People are very kind. There are many banquets and parades in our honor. I get the sense that Americans welcome us as an . . . entertainment. Like a music show or party. A diversion to take their minds away from something else. What is it Americans try so hard not to think about?”
“You are very perceptive,” I said.
“Perceptive?”
“It means you see something most others would not.”
“But I do not see,” Yoshi said. “That is why I ask.”
“You are probably right. People don’t want to think about the trouble brewing,” I said. “Trouble between slaveholding states and free states. There is talk that slaveholding states will secede from the United States.”
“And make their own country?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What will happen then?”
I shook my head. “Some say there will be war.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Yoshi said.
“There is trouble in your country, too, we have heard,” I told him. “News has just arrived here by pony express from San Francisco about events in Japan.”
“Oh?” Yoshi said. “What has happened?”
“We have heard through Ambassador Harris that there has been turmoil in Japan since you’ve been away. Violence.”
“Please tell me.”
I lowered my voice and said, “A high-level councillor of the government, Lord I or Lord Ee or something like that.”
“Lord Ii?” Yoshi whispered. He pronounced it Ee-ay.
“That’s right.” I glanced over my shoulder. “He was murdered! Cut down by a group of assassins in the street—in the middle of a snowstorm! Apparently the anti-foreign movement is gaining momentum. ‘Repel the Barbarians, Revere the Emperor!’ That’s their rallying cry.”
I glanced at Yoshi, who looked as stricken as that time he knew he’d have to cross the log over the river.
“Apparently they pledge to kill the Westerners and any of their own countrymen who associate with them,” I told him. “Even those who study English or use American-made items.”
Yoshi nodded numbly. I could see he was pondering what this meant for their delegation when they returned home.
“And we say that your countrymen are barbarians,” Yoshi said. “But people in your country don’t murder their leaders. Can you imagine someone killing your president?”
“No,” I said.
“Has it ever happened?”
“No, and I hope it will never happen,” I answered. “But it seems we are both looking at troubled times for our countries.”
“Indeed,” Yoshi agreed. Then he cleared his throat and went on. “But, however, I am happy to meet you again. I have always wanted to thank you for what you did for me in the forest long ago. You saved my life!”
“And you saved mine!” I said.
Tears came to the young interpreter’s eyes, and I pulled out a handkerchief and gave it to him. “You don’t want to have bleary eyes for the photograph, do you?”
“Oh, I won’t be in photograph,” he said. “Only officials. I am only humble servant.”
“To me, my friend,” I said, “you are as noble as a samurai.”
Yoshi smiled a little and tipped his head, acknowledging the compliment.
We sat there for some moments more, and although you may be thinking that this odd coincidence—two people from across the world finding each other again this way—that this is what I meant when I said a curious thing happened, that is actually not quite what I meant.
As we sat there, chatting amiably, it felt to me as if we were old friends. Even more than friends—brothers. This is strange, don’t you think? To have found a brother in such a faraway place? But perhaps we are not so terribly distant after all.
The first official Japanese delegation to America. (Matthew Brady)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
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br /> One of our sailors charmed with the Robinson Crusoe like life of the Island has deserted. He has not been heard from for several days, and some think he has fallen from one of the cliffs and got killed. If not, hunger must soon drive him to seek the ship again. He was a likely lad, and we regret his making a fool of himself.
—from Lieutenant George Henry Preble’s diary
Although a sailor did briefly desert as indicated in the above diary entry, there’s no indication that a cabin boy named Jack jumped ship while the Black Ships were anchored off Kanagawa (in present-day Yokohama). In fact, Jack’s and Yoshi’s adventures are largely fictional. The historical events they live through and many of the people they encounter, however, are very real.
THE REAL EVENTS
On July 8, 1853, four black American steamships appeared in Edo Bay (Edo is the present-day Tokyo). This was in spite of the shogun’s edict forbidding foreigners to enter Japanese waters or to set foot on Japanese soil. The Americans entered with bold confidence in ships that could move without sails, puffed out black smoke, and bristled with cannon and other modern weaponry.
The affront threw Japan into an uproar. Preparations were made for war, edicts were issued, and requests were sent to the Americans to move their ships. But the Americans, under the command of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, refused to budge, insisting instead on delivering a letter from the president of the United States to the mikado, which is what they called the emperor. The Americans didn’t realize they would be dealing with the shogun and the ruling body, called the Bakufu, and not with the emperor.
Commodore Matthew Perry. (Matthew Brady)
Perry promised to return one year later with the intent of signing a treaty to open some Japanese ports to American interests. Merchant steamships wanted coal; whalers wanted a place to resupply; and the United States wanted to be the first to set up a trading partnership with the country.
Japan, known to its own people as Nippon, had been living in isolation for the previous 250 years. After expelling Portuguese and Spanish missionaries from Japan in 1610, the shogun continued to isolate the country, only allowing a handful of Dutch merchants to continue trade with Japan by confining them to the small, man-made island of Dejima.
During this period, Japan lived in peace and had little interest in opening to Western powers, which it perceived as bullying and warlike, with a conquering mentality. There was basis for this belief: While Japan was quietly refining arts such as woodblock printing, flower arrangement, poetry, drama, textiles, and cuisine, the Western world had been extremely busy killing and conquering one another. During this same 250-year period in the West, the number of wars that took place are too long to list here, but they include just about any combination of countries you can imagine. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars were just a few of the many conflicts that raged during this time.
Naturally, all this warring resulted in advances in military technology and weaponry—advances from which Japan did not benefit. Having lived for so long in isolation, the Japanese knew very little about the outside world. All foreigners were considered barbarians, and stories abounded regarding their strangeness. It was believed that the foreigners could see in the dark, couldn’t bend their legs, and stank from eating flesh (which was probably true, actually). Prints of the day showed barbarians with holes in their chests, or with only one eye, or with arms that dragged on the ground.
The Americans had equally misguided opinions about the Japanese. Perry himself considered them “a weak and barbarous people,” and opinions among others varied from thinking them “the most polite people on the face of the earth” to no more than “savages, liars, a pack of fools.” (Quotations throughout the author’s note have been taken from the sources that are marked with asterisks in the bibliography, which starts on this page.)
Only seven months after he left Japan, Perry returned, this time with eight ships, and demanded that a treaty be signed. Completed on March 31, 1854, the Treaty of Kanagawa granted the Americans two trading ports, Shimoda and Hakodate.
Debates raged throughout Japan about the best way to move forward. Was it better to rid the country of the foreigners now, or to learn from them and then kick them out? Was it time to rid the country of the shogun and reinstate the emperor as the supreme ruler? Or was there another, different way to rule the country?
Many of the characters in this story are based on the real people who carried on these debates.
Part of the Treaty of Kanagawa.
THE REAL PEOPLE
Note: Japanese names are here recorded in Japanese fashion—surname first.
NAKAHAMA MANJIRO (1827–98). Manjiro was fourteen years old when he and his four fishing companions were blown away from the coast of Japan by a storm. After being shipwrecked on an island far from Japan, they were rescued by an American whaling ship. Manjiro and the captain of that ship, William Whitfield, became such good friends that Whitfield took Manjiro back to America with him to live as his son. An excellent student, Manjiro studied English, mathematics, and modern methods of navigation, unknown in Japan at the time. He also became a first-rate sailor and learned much about ships and the sea. After several years of adventure, during which he sailed on whalers and took part in the California gold rush, he made his way back to Japan with two of his previous companions. They were promptly arrested and held in a kind of house arrest for two years.
Undated portrait of Nakahama Manjiro, cira 1877. (artist unknown)
Many of the things about America that Manjiro tells Yoshi, the men from the bath, or the Bakufu’s officials are nearly direct quotes of what he told his interrogators and the shogun’s advisers. During the summer of 1852, he told his story to Kawada Shoryo, who recorded it in a book titled Hyoson kiryaku (later translated into English as Drifting Toward the Southeast; see this page). Manjiro introduced many American ideas and concepts to Japan, including the country’s motto, “E pluribus unum.”
Shortly after Manjiro’s release, Commodore Perry arrived with his fleet, and Manjiro was summoned to Edo to advise the shogun. He also became the official curator of Commodore Perry’s gifts, being probably the only person in Japan who could name and interpret them! Not everyone trusted him, however, believing he might have been a spy for the Americans, and he was never allowed to have direct contact with members of the expedition. His counsel, however, likely influenced the shogun and the Bakufu to open Japan peacefully to the West.
Manjiro was given samurai status and allowed to carry the daisho, but when he was first given the two swords, he bundled them in a towel to carry them home. He was also known (later in life) to give away his restaurant leftovers to beggars.
During his lifetime, Manjiro taught English to young samurai, translated Nathaniel Bowditch’s New American Practical Navigator into Japanese, and oversaw the building and sailing of a whaling ship, among many other accomplishments. In 1860, he accompanied the first official Japanese delegation as far as San Francisco, serving as an interpreter for the eleven U.S. Navy crewmen who were aboard the Kanrin Maru. Manjiro and the American crew are credited with successfully bringing the ship through storms and heavy seas.
History does not indicate that he ever hired an “apprentice bodyguard” or that he had a young friend like Yoshi. Although it is believed that attempts may have been made on his life, the one described in this story is entirely fictional.
You can read more about Manjiro’s early life in my book Heart of a Samurai.
SHISHI, OR LOYALISTS. The “soba shop samurai” in this story are fictional characters, but they are based on young idealists of the time who became known as “shishi,” or loyalists—loyal to the emperor, desirous of overthrowing the shogun. Over time, many of these young, generally lower-rank samurai, sometimes ronin (meaning masterless, so sort of a freelance samurai), were responsible for the transformation of Japan’s government. These passionate young men met in tea and sake houses to discuss the future of their c
ountry.
SAKAMOTO RYOMA (1836–67) was only sixteen years old when Perry’s steamships arrived in Japanese waters. He was a promising swordsman and a student at Chiba Dojo in Edo when he and his classmates were assigned military duty following Perry’s first landing. Like many of his countrymen, he shared the impression that war was imminent. “I think there will be a war soon,” he wrote to his father in October 1853. “If it comes to that, you can be sure I will cut off a foreign head before coming home.”
At first staunchly antiforeign, Sakamoto joined others who believed in assassinating foreigners, as well as Japanese who seemed to be sympathetic to them. He targeted Katsu Rintaro (also known as Katsu Kaishu), a high-ranking official in the Tokugawa shogunate, who was a supporter of modernization and Westernization. Sakamoto entered Katsu’s home with the intention of killing him, but Katsu talked him out of it, explaining his plan to strengthen Japan’s defenses and military. After their conversation, Sakamoto became Katsu’s protégé; together they helped modernize the Japanese navy.
Sakamoto Ryoma was also the creator of an eight-point plan that served as the basis of the new Japanese government. He came to support the idea of modernizing and was inspired by the example of the United States, where “all men are created equal.” His style reflected his sensibilities, and he was often seen wearing Western-style shoes with traditional samurai clothing. He proved to be such a skillful negotiator among warring factions in the country that he is known as the “Benjamin Franklin of Japan.”
He was murdered on his birthday in 1867, at the age of thirty-one, in Kyoto.
YOSHIDA SHOIN (1830–59) emerged as a leading spokesman of the shishi movement. He studied with idealists such as Sakuma Zozan and Aizawa Seishisai (this page). Intensely antiforeign, Yoshida wrote extensively about the danger of allowing Westerners into the country. Among many other things, he said, “It is clear that the Americans’ intentions are harmful to the Land of the Gods [Japan]. . . . The words of the American envoy have caused the Land of the Gods to be dishonored.”