The Merchant's Tale

by Simon Partner

  THE MERCHANT’S TALE

  Asia Perspectives

  Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

  Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture

  A series of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

  Carol Gluck, Editor

  Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, by Yoshimi Yoshiaki, trans. Suzanne O’Brien

  The World Turned Upside Down: Medieval Japanese Society, by Pierre François Souyri, trans. Käthe Roth

  Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan, by Donald Keene

  Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: The Story of a Woman, Sex, and Moral Values in Modern Japan, by William Johnston

  Lhasa: Streets with Memories, by Robert Barnett

  Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793–1841, by Donald Keene

  The Modern Murasaki: Writing by Women of Meiji Japan, ed. and trans. Rebecca L. Copeland and Melek Ortabasi

  So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers, by Donald Keene

  Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop, by Michael K. Bourdaghs

  The Winter Sun Shines In: A Life of Masaoka Shiki, by Donald Keene

  Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army, by Phyllis Birnbaum

  Imitation and Creativity in Japanese Arts: From Kishida Ryūsei to Miyazaki Hayao, by Michael Lucken, trans. Francesca Simkin

  The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku, by Donald Keene

  The Japanese and the War: Expectation, Perception, and the Shaping of Memory, by Michael Lucken, trans. Karen Grimwade

  SIMON PARTNER

  THE MERCHANT’S TALE

  YOKOHAMA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF JAPAN

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS        New York

  Columbia University Press

  Publishers Since 1893

  New York Chichester, West Sussex

  cup.columbia.edu

  Copyright © 2018 Columbia University Press

  All rights reserved

  E-ISBN 978-0-231-54446-7

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress

  ISBN 978-0-231-18292-8 (cloth)

  A Columbia University Press E-book.

  CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu.

  Cover image: Shinohara Family, March 1872. Studio photograph, Yokohama. Courtesy of Shinohara Yukio.

  Cover design: Chang Jae Lee

  To Shima

  CONTENTS

  List of Tables and Illustrations

  Notes on the Text

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1.  Out of Thin Air (1859–1860)

  2.  Years of Struggle (1860–1864)

  3.  Prosperity (1864–1866)

  4.  Transformation (1866–1873)

  Conclusion: The Power of a Place

  Tables

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

  Table 1. Exports and imports through Yokohama, 1859–1867

  Table 2. Estimates of Yokohama population, 1859–1870

  Table 3. Monetary values (in silver monme), 1859–1868

  Table 4. Relative monetary values, 1865

  Table 5. Weights

  Table 6. Volumes

  Table 7. Areas

  Figure 1.1. The route from Kōshū to Edo and Yokohama

  Figure 1.2. Keisai Eisen, Kōnosu, from the series Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō

  Figure 1.3. Map of Yokohama (ca. 1860)

  Figure 1.4. Foreigners shopping for lacquerware in Honchō Itchōme (ca. 1863)

  Figure 1.5. Utagawa Sadahide, Complete Picture of the Great Harbor of Yokohama (1859–1860)

  Figure 1.6. Utagawa Sadahide, Picture of Newly Opened Port of Yokohama in Kanagawa (1860)

  Figure 1.7. Picture of the American proprietor of number 33, Wenrīto (E. W. van Reed)

  Figure 2.1. Picture of the private room of the Chinese employees of a foreign merchant house in Yokohama

  Figure 2.2. Picture of drunken foreign sailors in Ō-dōri, Honchō Itchōme

  Figure 2.3. Scene of black people carrying fresh water

  Figure 2.4. Ochiai Yoshiiku, Five Nations: Merrymaking at the Gankirō Tea House (1860)

  Figure 3.1. Utagawa Yoshikazu, Foreign Circus in Yokohama (ca. 1864)

  Figure 3.2. Foreigners visiting a brothel in Miyozakichō

  Figure 3.3. Foreigners playing billiards

  Figure 3.4. Utagawa Sadahide, Banquet at a Foreign Mercantile House in Yokohama (1861)

  Figure 3.5. Charles Wirgman, The Storyteller (a Daily Scene) in Yokuhama (sic)

  Figure 3.6. Felice Beato, Betto (groom), tattooed à la mode (ca. 1863–1867)

  Figure 3.7. Shimooka Renjō, Woman with Pipe (ca. 1865–1875)

  Figure 4.1. Chūemon’s grave, Senryūji, Higashi-Aburakawa

  Figure 4.2. Shinohara family, March 1872

  NOTES ON THE TEXT

  Japanese family names are written before given names throughout this text, except in the cases of a few Japanese (such as Joseph Heco, who was a naturalized American citizen) who used the Western name order.

  In the 1860s, Japanese date conventions varied considerably from the Gregorian calendar. It was customary to measure years by era name, with new eras being declared periodically for a variety of reasons. The period covered by this book includes the Ansei era (1854–1859), the Man’en era (1860), the Bunkyū era (1861–1863), the Genji era (1864), the Keiō era (1865–1867), and the Meiji era (1868–1912). Moreover, although the Japanese used a twelve-month calendar, the Japanese months did not align with the Gregorian equivalents. In general, the Japanese calendar was about a month behind. Thus, for example, the twenty-first of the sixth month of the Ansei era was July 20, 1859, in the Gregorian calendar. In this book, I use the Gregorian calendar in principle, but in many cases for the sake of clarity I also provide the Japanese equivalent.

  Throughout this book, unless otherwise stated, “dollars” (or $) refers to Mexican silver dollars, the trade currency prevalent in nineteenth-century East Asia. I have tried, where possible, to give Western equivalents to Japanese monetary values as well as weights and measures. In the case of money, I give the Mexican dollar equivalent value in the year in which the event took place and not a twenty-first-century monetary equivalent.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This has been an extraordinarily pleasant and rewarding project, made all the more so by the many individuals, groups, and institutions that have helped and supported me along the way.

  In North Carolina, I benefited tremendously from the support and input of the Triangle Center for Japanese Studies community. I received a great deal of material support from Duke University’s Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), which financed several trips to Japan, as well as from Duke’s Global Asia Initiative. Thanks to Global Asia director Prasenjit Duara, and thanks always to APSI associate director Yan Li and her wonderful staff for all they do for our Asian studies community. My thanks also to Kris Troost, David Ambaras, Morgan Pitelka, Gennifer Weisenfeld, Meg McKean, Gunther Peck, and Jan Bardsley. Thanks also to Beth Berry, who was visiting at the National Humanities Center during a crucial period of my project’s gestation.

  I was fortunate to be invited to present my work as part of Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies Japan Forum series. My warm thanks to Ian Miller for the invitation and to Ian, David Howell, Bill Johnston, Franz
iska Seraphim, and the amazing graduate students of Harvard’s Japanese history program for all their thoughtful and helpful responses. Thanks also to Stacie Matsumoto for impeccable administrative support.

  In 2015–2016, I and my project moved to Heidelberg for a year with the research cluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context.” I was extremely fortunate to receive a Humboldt Research Award for my stay in Germany. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was a marvelous sponsor and went out of its way to connect me to a vibrant network of fellows and alumni, including memorable conferences in Bamberg and Berlin. Particular thanks to Jörn Leonhard and Christina Fleck. Thanks also to Carol Gluck, Andrew Gordon, and Sebastian Conrad for supporting my Humboldt application. At Heidelberg, my deepest thanks go to Harald Fuess for sponsoring my stay in Germany, applying to the Humboldt Foundation on my behalf, and sharing many discussion hours on topics related to the East Asian treaty ports. It was my good fortune that Harald is one of the world’s greatest experts on this subject, and his support and friendship were enormous contributors to my project. Among other things, during my stay Harald organized a global conference on the Meiji Restoration and co-organized with me an international workshop on the East Asian treaty ports. I presented my work at both events and benefited greatly from the input of a veritable pantheon of deeply informed scholars.

  Heidelberg contains an extraordinary community of Asian studies scholars, and I was fortunate to receive helpful feedback from many of them. Particular thanks to Melanie Trede, Monica Juneja, and Barbara Mittler. Monica and Melanie were enormously helpful and supportive as I took some tentative steps into the world of visual studies. Together, they arranged for me to present my work both at the research cluster and at the Heidelberger Kunstverein (my thanks also to Kunstverein director Susanne Weiss for making that possible). Barbara invited me to participate (together with Lee Ju-Ling of Tokyo University) in a special session devoted to the body in nineteenth-century East Asia, where I was able to develop my thoughts on changing bodies in the Yokohama treaty port. Special thanks also to my office mate, Steve Ivings, who was always ready with helpful feedback and congenial company; Christina Pietsch for first-class administrative support; Joachim Kurtz; Martin Krämer; Anna Andreeva; Shupin Lang; Mio Wakita; and Pablo Blitstein.

  While in Europe, I was also invited to present in a number of other locations, all of which were helpful to me as I developed my project. My thanks to Martin Dusinberre and the participants in the Geschichtskontor workshop at the University of Zurich; Dominic Sachsenmeier at the University of Göttingen; Wolfram Manzenreiter at the University of Vienna; and Rotem Kowner at the University of Haifa.

  In Japan, special thanks to Shinohara Yukio. Thanks also to the staff at the Yamanashi Kenritsu Hakubutsukan and the Yokohama Kaikō Shiryōkan, with a particular thank-you to Hirano Masahiro. Thanks also to Kanehyō Masaki for many years of friendship and for sharing his deep knowledge of Yokohama.

  Thanks also to Dani Botsman, Carson Holloway, Kären Wigen, Mark Ravina, Mark Metzler, and Rob Hellyer. Thanks to Emily Partner for efficient scanning services, and special thanks to Fabian Drixler, who spent too much of his valuable time helping me sort through contextual and grammatical problems in my archival sources.

  Throughout the book I have made liberal use of diary entries by Francis Hall, an American merchant who lived in Yokohama from 1859 to 1866. I am most grateful to Fred Notehelfer for editing this extraordinary resource and making it available to the public.

  As the book moved into the publication stage, I benefited from several informed and helpful readings (including by three anonymous outside readers) and feedback from the editorial staff of Columbia University Press. Particular thanks to Jennifer Crewe, who took the project on and shepherded it through its many stages; Ross Yelsey; and Jonathan Fiedler. Thanks also to Reed Malcolm, who is always ready with helpful and impartial advice. A special thank-you to Gabriel Gordon-Hall, who read the entire manuscript during the revision stage and gave invaluable feedback. And thanks always to Carol Gluck, who was there at day one and has helped me at every stage of my career in Japanese studies.

  Finally, deep thanks to Shima Enomoto for unwavering support of my career and much practical assistance with translation and interpretation of difficult texts.

  INTRODUCTION

  In April 1859, a Japanese farmer traveled to the shogunal capital, Edo (now Tokyo), to seek permission to begin a new life. Shinohara Chūemon (1809–1891) was fifty years old. He shared the hereditary headman’s position in his village. He had a large and comfortable home, a wife and at least six living children, a dense network of lifelong friends, and deep business ties with fellow villagers from his own and surrounding communities. He was, in other words, established and privileged in his village environment. By contrast, the new life he sought for himself was a giant leap into the unknown. Chūemon left his village of Higashi-Aburakawa in what is now Yamanashi prefecture (three to five days’ walk from Edo) in order to apply to the shogunal authorities for a building lot in the brand-new international port town of Yokohama, scheduled to open in July, as well as for a license to trade with the foreigners who were expected to take up residence there. Once granted permission, he would have to build his business from scratch, in a town that did not yet exist, in premises that he would have to construct, to trade with a group of people who were not yet present, whose language and customs were unknown, and whose arrival in Japan was the subject of violent controversy. Why take such a chance on an uncertain and precarious future?

  While much of this book is devoted to exploring Chūemon’s motives and experiences, the simple answer is opportunity. In the opening of the new port, Chūemon saw a unique opportunity to create wealth and prosperity for himself and indeed for his entire community. In the years that followed, thousands of others, Japanese and foreign, privileged and marginal, men and women, merchants, artisans, artists, and tradesmen, poured into Yokohama in search of that same opportunity, swelling the population of the town from a few hundred in 1859 to more than thirty thousand by the mid-1860s. This book is a portrait of Chūemon and his experiences in Yokohama; of others who, like him, came to Yokohama in search of opportunity; and of the city of Yokohama itself during this first turbulent and dramatic decade.

  With its window onto Japan’s intriguing and hitherto inaccessible heartland, its silk merchants and curio shops, its exotic foreign settlement, and its glamorous entertainment district, Yokohama was a magnet for Japanese and foreigner alike from the moment it opened for trade on July 1, 1859. During the course of the following decade, the town experienced unprecedented economic and population growth. It became one of Japan’s premier destinations for domestic tourism. It was a center for the study and acquisition of new technologies, new lifestyles, new knowledge of art, science, politics, and commerce, and new ways of understanding the world. And it became a byword for exoticism, glamour, and prosperity. But it was also a lightning rod for domestic opposition to the shogunate’s foreign policy. It was a favorite target of radical antiforeign idealists. It was the scene of dramatic murders. It was the location of tense showdowns between the shogunal authorities and the foreign community (on at least one occasion, more than half the population fled in the expectation of a massacre). And it was a classic site of gunboat diplomacy, crowded at times with aggressive foreign warships and military garrisons.

  Yokohama also played an important, and little-studied, role in the broader social, political, and economic transformations of the 1860s and beyond. The decade was a period of extraordinary transition in Japan’s dramatic modern history. It witnessed the agonizing struggle of the Tokugawa shogunate to deal with threats at home and abroad; the revolution and civil war that finally overthrew the shogunal regime; the consolidation of power in the hands of a new, untested government of young reformers from outsider clans; and the initiation of what was to be a massive program of reform, industrialization, and technological transformation that over the following decades was to launch
Japan into the ranks of the world’s great military and imperialist powers. What was the relationship between Japan’s first and largest port under the new regime of treaty-based commerce and the vast transformations of Japan in the 1860s and beyond?

  My first aim in this book is to tell a story. I have always been fascinated by the narratives of ordinary people’s lives and by their relationship to the great events that are the usual stuff of history books. In Shinohara Chūemon as he embarked on his adventure in the new and contentious port of Yokohama at the turn of what would prove to be a revolutionary decade, I felt I had found a worthy protagonist. But as I explored Chūemon’s life and experiences and the wider story of his community, I came to understand just how transformative the new treaty port of Yokohama had been in the lives of ordinary people in Japan and even globally. Moreover, the catalyst of those transformations was not (for the most part at least) the weighty policy decisions of elite actors but the vibrant commercial culture of the treaty port itself.

  Much of the impact of Yokohama can be tied to Japan’s sudden and disruptive connection to global markets. In the Kantō region and beyond, the production of silk, cotton, and tea grew rapidly in response to foreign demand, bringing new wealth to merchants in both Yokohama and the rural hinterland, as well as to the small-scale farmers who produced the raw materials for these products. On the other hand the price rises, commodity shortages, supply-chain disruptions, and political upheavals caused in whole or in part by the activities of the new port resulted also in widespread suffering as villagers and townsmen were mobilized and taxed to support military campaigns, impoverished by runaway inflation, or sidelined by rapid shifts in demand. The second half of the 1860s saw an unprecedented increase in protests in both towns and villages as impoverished and debt-ridden farmers and artisans resorted to time-honored traditions of “smashing” (uchikowashi) as an outlet for their feelings of helplessness.