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Japan and the West in the XIXth century, ignorance and misrepresentations

“What do we know about Japan ?”. This question, the lead-in and the tittle of an unsigned novel published in 1852 in the British literary magazine Bentley’s Miscellany, whose Charles Dickens himself had been the editor between 1836 and 1838, could perfectly fit with the way British and American media – but also Western media in general – were depicting the archipelago at that time.

Quite influenced by Orientalism and Social Darwinism principles, which were, doubtlessly, significant thoughts through the second half of the nineteenth century to discuss the matters of non-Western races, the texts and images published were revealing that the West was strongly lacking reliable information about Japan. Was the situation exactly the same at the beginning of the twentieth century ? Not totally. As Japan’s long period of isolation came to an end, Western images of the country became less exclusively negative. However, while ignorance was gradually disappearing, another bias emerged, which was exoticism… Before the emergence of new fears at the beginning of the XXth century.

Orientalism and Social Darwinism

Let’s first write a few words about the state of Japan-Western relationships in the middle of the nineteenth century. We should keep in mind that it was quite hard for London and Edo, for instance, to communicate and to quickly exchange information, as the only way to connect the two countries was using ships : crossing between these two cities, most of the time, took at least two or three months. Furthermore, Japan was experiencing a period of isolation, called Sakoku (1638-1853). In fact, in the Edo period, the commerce with European countries had been limited to the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado since 1616, and the Dutch had become, by 1639, the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan : the British withdrew from their Hirado’s trading post in 1623 and the Portuguese, after being displaced from Nagasaki to the island of Dejima, were definitely excluded in 1636. Besides, despite the advanced relationships that Japan had developed with Portuguese concerning commerce, all members of the delegation which will come back in 1640 in order to negotiate new agreements will be killed. Similarly, in 1635, Japanese people were prevented from traveling abroad. The Edo period was also a time of numerous persecutions for Christians (1614, 1622…), the religion being prohibited in 1614. And even though Japan will finally authorize importation of Western books in 1720, it will not concern those related to Christianity.

Having reminded these historical marks, we should not infer a situation detrimental to Japan though, since the country experienced through Sakoku a long period of peace and order, as well as it developed complex social structures, economy and political standards. However, this is not what were asserting Orientalism theories which were supporting Commodore MatthewCalbraith Perry’s expedition to Japan, whose main goal was to force the country to open up. What is Orientalism ? Tittle of a controversial book published by Edward W. Said in 1978, it was emphasizing the fact that the “Eastern idea” had been largely intellectually constructed by Western countries, which were tackling Eastern questions with an almost scientific outlook : these “knowledges” about “the East”, in spite of their inaccuracy, were quite much related to political views and justified many interferences in Muslim countries and in Asia. In other words, Orientalism does not distinguish between knowledge and power, the first idea legitimizing the second. Another dominant ideology standing up for Perry’s military intervention was Social Darwinism, or the application of Charles Robert Darwin’s natural selection theory to the struggle of races. Karl Pearson, for instance, famous British statistician, was talking about “anthropological human races” and used eugenics to explain which race was the fittest to survive and dominate. His principles, which affected the political sphere, were giving to superior nations the right to deal with “inferior” races’ affairs.

Thus, the “national characteristics” of Japan were highlighted in order to justify the interference, which was rather considered by the West as a mission to bring civilization to this country (through the Victorian period, this idea of civilizing “inferior” races was predominant). Besides, the American New Monthly Magazine and Humorist was at the time depicting the Commodore’s squadron as “the means by which Americans proposed to themselves to bring Japan within the pale of humanity and international courtesy” (1)… However, even though Japanese people were looked on as barbaric people who were killing crews of foreign ships in danger docking in Japan, it seems that the Bakufu‘s policy towards foreigners aimed more at preventing them from having any contact with the population than at consistently killing them (in fact, it appears that the seamen were killed only if they did not want to leave the archipelago, as shown by the contrast between Ranald MacDonald’s case and the prisoners from the whaler Lagoda’s)… As we can easily figure out by reading a few articles and editorials which were published at the beginning of the 1850s in the English newspaper The Times, the largest and the most influential from this period – almost as influential as the government itself and quite independent from political parties (2), representing the new middle-class emerging from the industrial revolution- the opinion was mostly in favor of Perry’s expedition. The magazine Bentley’s Miscellany, besides, used the Times‘ articles in order to be ironic about the fact that British were mechanically following the US’ foreign policy.

After opening-up : a profusion of articles and books, an idealized Japan

After 1854 and the signature of the Kanagawa Treaty, also called the “America-Japan Treaty of Amity and Friendship” (followed by similar French, British and Russian treaties), which opened new ports (Hakodate, Shimoda) to the American and allowed them to have a permanent consul in Shimoda, Japan was forced to put a stop to its seclusion policy. Discovering a little more about the country’s culture and functioning, many Western works and articles will be published from this time, as well as many illustrations will become available through the newly popular illustrated newspapers, the “XIXth century’s television”, whose purpose was to be both informative and entertaining. In fact, until the second half of the nineteenth century, only three main books could be considered as “references” about Japan : The History of Japan (…), written by Engelbet Kaempfer (1727), Narrative of my captivity in Japan, during the years 1811, 1812 and 1813 (…), written by the Capitaine Golovnin (1816) and finally Manners and customs of the Japanese, in the nineteenth century (…), by Philipp Franz von Siebold (1841). Therefore, a novel such as “Our Phantom Ship : voyage to Japan”, episode of a travel series which was published in 1851 in the British monthly literary magazine Household Words (once again under the influence of Dickens and targeting the middle class), was obviously taking inspiration from one of these three books – in this case it was Siebold’s. The main goal of “Our Phantom Ship” series was to entertain people by taking them to various destinations, and the author had certainly never been to Japan.

Beyond the profusion of publications about Japan, Western viewpoints started to change since some of them were depicting a quite positive image of the country. Besides, when the Harris Treaty – also known as the “US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce” – was signed in the United States in 1858 (3), the American political magazine Harper’s Weekly (A Journal of Civilization) wrote about this first Japanese mission to America from a quite enthusiastic perspective. Nevertheless, it could not be denied that a certain mistrust and disdain remained as well : in fact, the terms of “untrustworthiness” and deceit” were often used to depict the Japanese (as well as the Chinese) and “insincerity” and “irresponsibility” of Japanese officials was regularly emphasized through the 1860s (4). Considering the increasing number of incidents which occurred between Japanese and foreigners in this decade, some writers such as the British Laurence Oliphant, which was Lord Elgin’s private secretary on his expedition to Japan (Lord Elgin was the negotiator of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce, or Treaty of Edo), changed their mind about Japan. Laurence Oliphant did so after its legation was attacked by xenophobic rônin through its second visit in 1861 : severely injured, he was sent on a ship to recover and never came back after… Thus, the rising critics against what Japanese people were calling the “unequal treaties” and the Shôgun himself, who was considered as being responsible for signing those without having consulted the Emperor, had serious consequences for Japan’s foreigners, and the idea of disenchantment as well as a regress could be observed in British and American media which were underlining again the uncivilized side of Japan (describing the Japanese political system, Oliphant was talking about “political tragedies”).

After the Meiji Restoration, however, Japan really wanted to show that the country had changed. In Western media, through books, articles or even photographic illustrations, a new image of Japan focusing on its rapid progresses and on the way it adopted parts of the Western culture emerged. Yet, since the 1850s, after Japan’s opening-up, a few Western writers had been highlighting Japan’s “singularity” and “uniqueness”, some of them even arousing people’s curiosity by depicting the “weirdness” of Japanese customs. After 1869, several authors simply considered that the “Westernization” of Japan was quite dangerous for this country that they were obviously idealizing. Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish writer better known under his Japanese name Yakumo Koizumi as he took this nationality, was one of them. Hearn, in fact, had always been looking for exoticism through his various travels – New Orleans, the West Indies, etc – and thus always wanted to provide his readers with a pleasant change of scenery by embellishing the truth. Since his dithyrambic portrays of Japan had a major influence on Western images of the country, he can be considered as being a little bit responsible for its caricatural representation in Western minds. In these exotic writings, there was this idea of romanticism, which was presenting the Japanese as emotional people, close to the nature, having also developed a singular moral through their two religions (Shintoism and Buddhism), the ethic of Confucianism and the spirit of the Bushido, code of the samurai. Nevertheless, even though these publications tended to give up Orientalism concepts, we realize that they were still often analyzing the differences between Japan and the West from a race prospect, using again Social Darwinism’s theme of the struggle of races…

New century, new fears

At the end of the nineteenth century, this “Japanese race” eventually preoccupied the West, having proved that it could get a really efficient social, economic and political system. Experiencing an economic depression, social protests and having lost confidence in their authority after the Boer war, the Anglo-Saxons started to fear the decline of their race. Charles Person, in 1893, argued that should Anglo-Saxon peoples fail to demonstrate their power, “Chinese, Hindus, Negroes (would) be likely to challenge the supremacy of Western civilization”. Similarly, Lafcadio Hearn was foreseeing a revenge of the Orient on West’s moral laxity. In 1898, we could even read in the American magazine Arena : “The peoples of Occident are face to face with a powerful Oriental competitor in the arts of war, diplomacy, industry and commerce” (5). The idea of “Yellow Peril” was born, and developed through British and American media, Japan probably representing the most serious Asian danger for Western countries. And the Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895) as well as the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) were not to change this worrying image. After Japan defeated Russia, a commentator simply wrote : “Europe is baffled by the excellent students it had not expected to form. We must not be surprised if from now on we must take account of these yellow people whom we have roused from slumber and coerced out of isolation.” (6).

Thus, it is undeniable that Western images of Japan in British and American media have changed many times throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. These changes were not linear and some images could coexist at the same time.

Whereas Japan has been looked down by the West until the end of the century (even through its period of modernization as Western countries were curious to know whether such a race could become “civilized” or not), Orientalism was not, when the twentieth century started, as present in British and American media as it used to be fifty years before. Yet, both the image of a “rising yellow peril” and the image of a “peculiar and exotic Japan” kept dealing with the framework of races struggle and natural selection found in Social Darwinism.

In fact, in spite of Japan’s opening-up and the abundance of writings and illustrations published at that time, could we really assert that Western images of Japan became more accurate ?

NOTES

1) Phil Hammond (dir.), Cultural Difference, media memories : Anglo-American images of Japan, London : Cassel, 1997, 229 p.

2) About The Times‘ influence, Abraham Lincoln even stated in 1861 : “I don’t know anything which has more power, except perhaps the Mississippi”.

3) Following the Kanagawa Treaty, the Harris Treaty made possible the establishment of foreign concessions and the extraterritoriality for foreigners, as well as it implemented minimal import taxes for foreign goods.

4) Phil Hammond (dir.), Cultural Difference, media memories : Anglo-American images of Japan, Op. Cit.

5) Phil Hammond (dir.), Cultural Difference, media memories : Anglo-American images of Japan, Op. Cit.

6) Jean-Pierre Lehmann, The Image of Japan from feudal isolation to World power, 1850-1905, London : Allen & Unwin, 1978, 208 p.

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