Yokohama was also a magnet for performing artists, including actors, entertainers, acrobats, and circus performers. Visitors to Japan often commented on the traveling entertainers they encountered on street corners, squatting by the side of the highway, or in the precincts of temples and shrines. The acrobats were usually young children, “dressed in loose trousers and coat all in one garment” and sometimes wearing animal-head costumes. They performed to a drum or tambourine accompaniment, performing “the usual tumbling exploits of the circus, somersaults, etc.”77 Children also formed theatrical troupes. Francis Hall watched a performance by a children’s troupe, commenting that their acting “was remarkably excellent. That of one little fellow, six and a half years old, was so extraordinary that he would at home have occupied the head of a bill poster in red letters as the ‘infantile prodigy’ and taken rank at once with the little Batemans.”78
In addition to acrobatics, the extraordinary spinning-top performances foreigners witnessed also often drew comment, as did the “butterfly trick,” in which a performer kept origami paper butterflies in the air through the gentle waving of a fan, “now wheeling and dipping towards it, now tripping along its edge, then hovering over it, as we may see a butterfly do over a flower on a fine summer’s day, then in wantonness wheeling away, and again returning to alight, the wings quivering with nervous restlessness! One could have sworn it was a live creature.”79
Several larger troupes of professional acrobats passed through Yokohama during the mid-1860s, in response to the town’s rapid economic growth and its reputation as a door of opportunity. Unlike the street acrobats, who were generally recruited as orphaned children and who seldom rose above the class of beggar entertainers, the Hamaikari, Tetsuwari, Matsui, and Sumidagawa troupes had established a reputation as high-class performers over several generations. The troupes could muster as many as thirty members, and they performed in cities all over Japan.80
FIGURE 3.1 Utagawa Yoshikazu, Foreign Circus in Yokohama (ca. 1864). Chadbourne collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-10932
When in Yokohama, the Japanese troupes encountered several of their foreign counterparts, who were quickly integrating the Japanese treaty ports into their global performance circuits. Among the most colorful was Richard Risley, a celebrated acrobat who was said to possess “a combination of every anatomical beauty of which the human form is capable.”81 Not only a powerful and graceful athlete, he was also a crack shot, master equestrian, ace billiard player, and master of many other sports that required extraordinary physical strength, agility, or reflexes. Risley was also an imaginative entrepreneur with a flair for publicity. He arrived in Yokohama on a world tour with a small traveling circus, but he stayed to run a riding school, manage a tavern, import and sell Chinese ice during the hot summer months, and import a herd of cows from America to create Yokohama’s first dairy. As his friend the former theatrical performer and later newspaperman John Black wrote, “Had he been content to make [the dairy] his business, and stick steadily to it, he might long ere this have been a thoroughly independent man.”82 Risley’s entrepreneurial impulsiveness is typical of many Yokohama sojourners, driven by a restless urge to seek greener pastures or to move on from past failures. In Risley’s case, his restless entrepreneurialism led him, in 1866, to stake everything he had on an ambitious plan to take a troupe of Japanese performers on a grand tour of the United States and Europe.
CREATING “JAPAN”
The popular perceptions of Yokohama in Japan and the rest of the world were mediated by an outpouring of books, articles, prints, and exhibitions that circulated both within Japan and around the world. From the bookshops of Edo to the exhibition halls of London’s Crystal Palace, Yokohama—and, by extension, Japan itself—was on display. The vast majority of the Japan-related works being sold and displayed around the world originated in the commercial marketplace of Yokohama, where writers, artists, photographers, and craftsmen sought to feed the global imagination with works of exquisite craftsmanship, exotic and erotic description, and rich and colorful imagery. Collectively, these globally circulating representations had a profound influence on perceptions of Japan and its place in the world. Indeed, they helped create understandings of “Japan” that remain with us to this day.
These influential representations were, in turn, a part of a wave of change that was by now sweeping into Japan through its opened ports and, within a few years, was to transform livelihoods as well as patterns of daily life throughout Japan, and even to influence global economic and cultural trends. Much of the rest of this book is an attempt to address these transformations and to assess the role of Yokohama, and even of individual actors like Chūemon, in the processes of change.
Japanese artists responded to the popular fascination with Japan’s exotic new international port of Yokohama with an outpouring of woodblock prints, maps, guidebooks, and broadsheets. During the 1860s, as many two hundred and fifty thousand colorful woodblock prints illustrating scenes of Yokohama life were produced and sold in markets throughout Japan.83 Whether he was aware of it or not, Chūemon was an actor in a very public performance.
The artists and writers portraying Yokohama to the Japanese public were not much interested in politics, nor in the controversies swirling around the decision to open the ports. They were entertainers, and they saw a market for scenes of daily life that played up the glamour and prosperity of this exotic place that was both a part of Japan and yet “would make one think oneself in the port at Washington in America, or London in England.”84 According to Yokohama Tales: Flower of the Port (Yokohama kidan: Minato no hana), “Since trade has been permitted in our sacred country, all sorts of goods have been exchanged, both bought and sold, and for both purchases and sales the amount has been like nothing seen before in this country, with transactions amounting to ten, twenty, or even fifty thousand ryō per day; indeed there is no limit to the amount … The town is truly blessed to have achieved such prosperity before even five years have passed.”85
In many cases, the Yokohama portrayed in the lavish and colorful prints was pure fantasy. Some artists never even visited Yokohama, drawing instead on existing printed sources such as imported foreign magazines or Japanese prints of life in the Dutch trading enclave in Nagasaki. And even in cases where the artists were physically present in Yokohama, their work often mixed actual observation with extrapolation and fantasy. Woodbock prints and illustrated books from the early 1860s invariably portrayed beautiful and glamorous foreign women in the streets of Yokohama, even though the actual number of European and American women in the town could be counted on one hand. By an even greater stretch of the imagination, Yokohama prints often showed foreign women, including those who appear to be the wives of merchants, consorting happily with Japanese courtesans from the brothel quarter, even playing games with them or accompanying them in musical duets. The result was an image of life in the port that Chūemon surely would not have recognized, even though he must have approved of the glamorous and prosperous image of the town that the prints and books conveyed.86
At least ten illustrated guidebooks to Yokohama were published during the 1860s—generally describing themselves as virtual guides for those unable to visit the town in person. Unusual Stories of the Five Nations in Yokohama (Chinji gokakoku Yokohama hanashi), for example, was written “for women and children of distant provinces” and used “simple children’s words while setting down my account of the actual things I have witnessed.”87 The typical format of the guidebooks was to take the reader on a “walking tour” of the town, visiting and describing the different neighborhoods along the way, with lavish details about the strange and exotic lives of the foreigners—Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Africans, Javanese, and others. Flower of the Port starts with a ferry ride out into the bay. From here,
the view from the water is truly incomparable. To the west, Mount Fuji is in full view. To the right are the mountains of Chichibu, Sagami, and
Kōshū. To the left is Mount Amagi at Hakone. Nearby, Kamakura and Kanazawa are within arm’s reach; and to the east, Mount Kanō and Mount Nokogiri in Bōsō are clearly visible. Right in front of one’s eyes are the fishermen at work, and one can see the famous views of Kanagawa … To the west, there is a fine view of the foreign ships flying their blue, yellow, and red flags. Seeing the foreign houses in the distance one would not believe oneself in Japan.88
FIGURE 3.2 Foreigners visiting a brothel in Miyozakichō are surprised by the beauty of the interior and the elegance of the courtesan. Kikuen Rōjin, Yokohama kidan: Minato no hana (Kinkōdō Zō, ca. 1864)
Japanese representations of Yokohama, whether in books or prints, tended to dwell on the same themes again and again: exotic sights and sounds; glamour and prosperity; intriguing customs; awe-inspiring technologies; and alluring foreign women, of whom it was said “one might well think they were angels descended from the heavens.”89 The guides typically included lavish descriptions of the Miyozaki brothel quarter, where “the lanterns coming and going at the main gate are more frequent than fireflies. The cherry trees in the main street are so bright that they do battle with the courtesans … Morning or night, you can find Japanese and foreigners mixed together as they explore its delights. The courtesans in the street are gorgeously dressed, combining foreign and Japanese clothes as they please … If one can disport oneself even once in this quarter, one’s spirit will soar to the heavens, and one will forget to return to one’s home.”90
The guidebooks dwelled at length on aspects of Yokohama life that Chūemon and his family may have quickly become used to but that most Japanese would have found both strange and fascinating: the daily routines of foreigners (“They get up at 5:30 and immediately enter the bath. The water is lukewarm, like water left to warm up in the sun. Moreover, there are some people who insist on bathing only in cold water, summer and winter”); foreign clothes (“They are always of black wool, which has an excellent texture, like that of leather. When it comes to the neatness of their appearance, they do not differ from the Japanese at all”); foreign houses (“They are built of cut stones, and the windows are of glass … When it gets dark, the covers are removed from the glass lamps, and the brightness is such that even a single hair is clearly visible”); foreign games such as billiards (“The strangeness of this practice is really a matter for surprise … They will bet one hundred, five hundred, or even one thousand dollars on the result”);91 the foreigners’ love for their pets (“If by chance a dog should go missing, I believe the owner would search for it like a parent for his lost child, parting the undergrowth and calling its name”);92 and the foreigners’ penchant for “walking throughout the city even when they have no business to transact. This is something that is unknown among our people.”93
The guidebooks’ authors were also fascinated by Western technology: steamships, clocks and watches, and photography in particular. The steamship, for example, “is powered by a wheel, and it will proceed even if there is no wind at all … It is hard to describe the perfection of its construction.”94 Pocket watches were fascinating not only for their elaborate construction (“The inner workings are very complicated: I could neither draw a picture of them nor adequately describe them in words”) but also for their usefulness in daily life. “[The foreigners] will not be separated from them even for a short time … because of their convenience in daily life. For example, if you were to make an appointment for a meeting at a particular time on the next day, when that time comes around, you can be sure of coming home on time to await your guest. Your guest in turn will consult his watch and will be sure to be on time for the appointment.”95 As for photography, it “transfers through [a] mirror the exact and detailed shape—right down to the colors—of people, or places, or landscapes.” Imagine if, using this technology, “you could give a command to a painter while you were living and have an exact likeness made of yourself, which you could turn into a hanging scroll that you could pass down to your descendants—how close you would seem to them!”96
FIGURE 3.3 Foreigners playing billiards. Utagawa Sadahide, Yokohama kaikō kenbunshi (ca. 1863)
Although these representations deliberately played up the exotic and unusual aspects of life in Yokohama, they also had the effect of familiarizing Japanese readers and viewers with foreign lifestyles, foreign technologies, and foreign values. The commentary in the guidebooks was not always admiring. The author of Flower of the Port, for example, found that “the Westerners are without exception interested only in the study of the sciences. As for the pleasure that we Japanese take in elegance, taste, or beauty, I have as yet seen none of this.”97 While maintaining an overall tone of humorous observation, the guides made some sharp comments on many of the foreigners’ habits, from the jealousy of their women (“ten times more so than Japanese women”),98 to their permitting dogs inside their houses (“In the old days, there was a similar custom among the people of Ezo [Hokkaido], but now there is no such thing.”),99 to their practice of gruesome trades such as butchering: “All sorts of animals are being herded and beaten, screaming tremendously. There is a sound of iron chains rattling, and the lament of the birds penetrates the ear. Truly, this is what the birds’ hell must be like.”100 Another favorite topic was the drunken sailors who were a daily sight in the port.
FIGURE 3.4 Utagawa Sadahide, Banquet at a Foreign Mercantile House in Yokohama (1861). Chadbourne collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-9989
But even as they observed customs that would have seemed distasteful to many Japanese, the guidebooks seldom passed direct judgment. Meat eating, for example, “has been their everyday food since they were children so they do not dislike the custom.”101 There was so much that was novel about the foreign lifestyles on display in Yokohama, one has the sense that the authors preferred to suspend judgment even about habits that would be horrifying or disgusting to the average Japanese.
Indeed, even as they employed traditional techniques of glamorizing and exoticizing foreigners, the authors were conveying to their readers a radically different way of looking at the world that required the suspension of many preconceived ideas. For example, in a discussion of race one can see both criticism of the institution of slavery and at the same time a qualified acceptance of Western ideas of racial hierarchy:
There are also many foreigners called blacks [kuronbō]. These people were born in Arabia, and the skin of both men and women is extremely black. One might compare them to a crow: they are black to the tips of their toes. They are by nature stupid, and their actions are close to those of animals. Previously, the Westerners treated them just like cows or horses, buying and selling them and using them as their slaves. Eventually, some of the more intelligent ones became extremely angry, saying, ‘We are people of the world just like everyone else. Why, then, should we be bought and sold like cows and horses? We should be hired for a proper wage.’ After that, they became servants in the normal fashion.102
One can sense here a probing of the conflicting views about race that were circulating in international society—the American Civil War was still raging at the time—and also perhaps an underlying insecurity about Japan’s own place in that hierarchy. It was important for Japanese commentators to clearly distance themselves from races that were considered “by nature stupid” while at the same time refusing to condone a system of racial hierarchy that might in turn consign the Japanese to a lower rung on the perceived hierarchical ladder.
In addition to representations of foreign lifestyles and technology portrayed in the printed media, Yokohama was also a physical display case for foreign goods, lifestyles, ideas, and institutions. Imported textiles, machinery, and even steamships were prominently for sale in the harbor and the warehouses of the foreign merchants. Japanese buyers could bargain for silk-spinning equipment, cameras, beer and champagne, rifles (prohibited by treaty but a major trade item nonetheless), kerosene, sugar, medical implements, livestock, br
icks and glass, and a host of other imported goods. Visitors to Yokohama also had the opportunity to observe Western institutions—such as hospitals, law courts, and military parades—firsthand.
As a merchant in Yokohama’s international marketplace, Chūemon was an agent in the introduction of Western technologies and lifestyles into Japan, even though in his private life and political outlook he remained rather conservative. Chūemon was a middle-aged villager, a product of the Tokugawa political and social environment. There is no reason to think that he admired Western values, embraced foreign lifestyles, or shared the apparent admiration of the guidebook authors for the habits and technologies of the foreigners’ daily lives. In the letters, his main concern is not to promote new ways of living but to emphasize the enormous commercial opportunity represented by the Yokohama market. Nevertheless, Chūemon occasionally discussed the prospects for selling imported Western products in his home province of Kōshū, and he and Naotarō actually tested the market in a variety of imported goods—apparently with little success (these ventures are taken up in chapter 4).103 Chūemon was also interested in Western machinery, discussing with some excitement the arrival of a shipment of cotton-spinning machines in Yokohama. He also discussed the possibility of purchasing rice-hulling machines capable of processing one thousand bales of rice per day, concluding, however, that they were inappropriate for Kōshū farmers, most of whom had no more than two acres of rice fields per family.104 Chūemon does not discuss the ways in which these foreign lifestyles and technologies affected his daily life, but he must surely have felt their influence. He certainly became familiar with foreign textiles and clothing: not only did he try selling them in Kōshū but, as we will see, he also eventually tried his hand at setting up his own Western-style tailor shop in Yokohama.
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