To Yokohama

Conflicts with foreign powers

• The Richardson Incident, 1862 (Satsuma clan)

• Bombardment of Kagoshima, 1863 (Satsuma)

• Bombardment of Shimonoseki, 1864 (Choshu)

Meiji Restoration, 1868

Led by 4 anti-Tokugawa clans from SW

Each very anti-foreign, but strengthened by foreign influences

Restoration accomplished with little violence

Revere the EmperorExpel the Barbarian!

Sonnō Jōi!

Meiji Emperor

From Edo to Tokyo

Edo remained capital

But with - - -New ruling elite (SW samurai)New Imperial institutions (from 1872)Western presence

Meiji goals

• Preserve the state• Systematic (and selective) westernization• Ideological intensification of nationalism• Standardization of national lifealso• Westernization as popular (non-state)

trend

Slogans of the Age

• Rich Country, Strong Army! Fukkoku Kyohei

• Eastern morality, Western technology!

• Civilization and EnlightenmentBunmei Kaika

Fukuzawa Yukichi

Era of “Foreign Experts”• British railway engineers• British architects• German constitutional lawyers• French military advisors• American business people• Educators from all over

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)

Josiah Conder (1852-1920) –

• leading British architect of Meiji-era Tokyo• Rokumeikan• Iwasaki villa

• many other major public buildings

Rokumeikan

Conder

Iwasaki Family

• Iwasaki Yataro – born a poor samurai in Kochi

• Founded NYK shipping lines• Which became basis for Mitsubishi• Iwasaki became governor of Tokyo and

confidante of Meiji Emperor

Baron Iwasaki (1835-1885)

Zaibatsu

• The Iwasaki enterprises = Mitsubishi zaibatsu

• Typical pattern of Meiji entrepreneurship• Close ties to government and privatization

of government investments• Mitsui, Sumitomo, Shibusawa, Yasuda,

and many many more

Western fads

Spenser theBalloon Man in Ueno Park

Meiji Gyūnabe•Meiji period – introduction of beef eating

•One of the first “Western food booms”

•Gyūnabe – beef hot pot (sukiyaki) –became fashionable symbol of “Civilization and Enlightenment”

Meiji Gyūnabe“Anyone – warrior, farmer, craftsman, or merchant, young or old, male or female, clever or stupid, rich or poor – I repeat, anyone who does not eat beef is an unmitigated boor”

from Aguranabe (1871-72), by KanagakiRobun

First railYokohama

to Shimbashi, 1872

Shimbashi station

Meiji rail

Tsukiji Foreign Settlement

1872 – 1899 (til end of extraterritoriality)

Never very large population

Yokohama remained the major center of foreign presence until well into 20th century

Major political issue of extraterritoriality

Tsukiji foreign settlement

Western influence not dependent on numbers of foreigners at Tsukiji

Key institutions – hospitals, schools, universities founded in Tsukiji still remain important

Popular imagination of West regardless of numbers

Tsukiji Foreign Settlement

Tsukiji

The “real” last samurai

Saigo Takamori (1828-1877)–led samurai rebellion in Kyushu in 1876-77

Committed suicide when battle was lost

Posthumously pardoned in 1889

Meiji Westernization

• Technology• Government institutions• Military• Popular culture

– (beef bowls, haircuts, clothes, ball gowns, hot air balloons, squeaky shoes!)

New sense of subjectivity

Japanese vs. Western

(Japanese vs. Asian)

Imperial subjects

Abolition of class structures

From Edo to Tokyo – new sense of metropolitan possibility

Tropes of difference & distinctionEnduring aspect of Western hegemony in 19th

century

Difference/distinction/otherness – complex cultural phenomenon

Consumption as medium of expression

Distinctions

•Japan v. West v. “Orient”;

•Tokyo v. Japan;

•elite v. commoners

Western Japan craze

Gilbert & Sullivan’sThe Mikado

1885

Boston’s Japan craze

•Charles Longfellow

•William Sturgis Bigelow

•Edward Sylvester Morse

•Ernest Fenolloso

•Okakura Tenshin (The Book of Tea)

The Great Wave, by Christopher Benfey (2003)

Charles Longfellow and William Sturgis Bigelow,

old Bostonians and Japan hands

Okakura Tenshin• Okakura Tenshin (1863 - 1913)

• Born in Yokohama, started studying English at age 9

• Attended Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied with Ernest Fenollosa (from Boston)

• Worked closely with Fenollosa to catalogue and preserve Japanese art during the Meiji period

Okakura Tenshin

• Stressed the importance of preserving Japan’s artistic traditions

• Founded Tokyo National Museum of Art• 1890 founded Japan’s first art academy• 1904 came to Boston to head Oriental

division of MFA – good friend of Isabella Stuart Gardener, the grand patron of the arts of Boston

Okakura’s English language books

• The Ideals of the East (1903)• The Awakening of Japan (1904)• The Book of Tea (1906)

Wrote about the aesthetics of Japanese civilization to introduce them to the West, at the same time to urge his fellow Japanese to preserve their own cultural identity

The secretary of the Harvard class of 1871 wrote to William Sturgis Bigelow requesting some news, "or a story." Bigelow replied,

"Story? God bless you, I have none to tell, sir. Since '81 I have spent about seven years in Japan, when [sic] I saw a great many folks of high and low degree, got together some things of various sorts for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts...and learned a little about Eastern philosophy and religion. I have neither wife nor children, written no books, received no special honors and I belong only to the regular clubs and societies."