Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History

225 Pages·2003·11.64 MB·English

by  M. Willi Steele

ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVES IN
MODERN JAPANESE HISTORY
How did ordinary people experience Japan’s modern transformation? How do
studies of local politics help explain national events?
The dominant account of modern Japanese history focuses on the nation-
building that brought Japan into the modern world. After centuries of isolation,
American warships forced Japan to open its doors to the West and a group of
tough new leaders transformed the country into one of the great military and
economic powers of the world. But different perspectives need to be examined.
Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese Historyintroduces other actors, other places
and other dimensions of social and political activity in an attempt to construct a
broader and more complex account of modern Japanese history.
Focusing on the initial years of Japan’s modern transformation, from the
1850s to the 1890s, the book explores:
(cid:127) responses of commoners to the arrival of American warships in 1853
(cid:127) the growth of Japanese national identity
(cid:127) urban and rural responses to the fall of the old regime in 1868
(cid:127) established frameworks of historical narration – including American attempts
to understand Japan’s civil war.
(cid:127) local political activism leading up to the establishment of a parliamentary
system in 1890
M. William Steele, of the International Christian University, Tokyo, draws
upon a wealth of documents, including broadsheets, woodblock prints, political
cartoons and local campaign literature in an endeavor to find new and different
ways to examine the past. This book is an important resource for students of
Japanese history and culture while simultaneously appealing to all who have an
interest in history and history-writing.

ALTERNATIVE
NARRATIVES IN
MODERN JAPANESE
HISTORY
M. William Steele
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2003 M. William Steele
Typeset in Baskerville by Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0–415–30570–5
CONTENTS
List of figures and tables vi
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
1 Goemon’s new world view 4
2 The Japanese discovery of Japan 19
3 The village elite in the Restoration drama 32
4 Everyday politics in Restoration period Japan 44
5 Edo in 1868 61
6 The United States and Japan’s civil war 88
7 The emperor’s new food 110
8 Political localism in Meiji Japan 133
9 1890: Peripheral visions 157
Notes 176
Bibliography 198
Index 208
LIST OF FIGURES, GRAPHS
AND TABLES
Figures
1.1 A picture of a steamship 7
1.2a Illustrated countries and peoples of the world 8
1.2b Japan at the center of the world, detail 9
1.3 Countries of the world 10
1.4 American steam locomotive 11
1.5 A comparison of strengths 12
1.6 Perry as a Buddhist devil 13
1.7 A display of Japan’s farting power 14
1.8 Hiring a foreign servant 15
1.9 Dialogue between the catfish and the American 16
2.1 Picture of prosperous Yokohama, detail 21
2.2 A foreign trading house in Yokohama, detail 23
2.3 Parade of foreigners in Yokohama, detail 24
2.4 A complete illustration of the flags and peoples of all
countries, detail 25
2.5 French woman and child 26
2.6 Sumo wrestler tossing a foreigner 29
2.7 Sugoroku of islands of the world, detail 30
3.1 Filial piety keeps one on the right path 43
5.1 Treating difficult diseases 64
5.2 The Toba battle of farts 66
5.3 The people wood be shocked 73
5.4 Children playing with water guns 74
5.5 Enjoying the Shamisen, detail 75
5.6 Children’s battle on stilts 75
5.7 The people express their gratitude as they receive the imperial wine 84
5.8 Tradespeople offer their prayers to Prince Sh™toku 86
7.1 Banquet aboard the Powhatan 113
7.2 The banquet at Yokohama 115
7.3 On the proper use of knives and forks 126
7.4 Table seating arrangement for imperial banquet, 22 September 1874 129
vi
7.5 Enlightenment versus retrogression 130
8.1 Seating arrangement in the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly 146
9.1 Police ordering a political meeting to be closed 161
9.2 Campaign advertisement for Shioda Okuz™ 171
Graphs and tables
5.1 Purchasing power of 100 moncopper coins, 1853–1868 63
8.1 1880 proposed expenses and revisions 143
8.2 2 September 1889 by-election results 151
9.1 Voter turnout in the 1890 national election, Tochigi prefecture
and nationwide 168
9.2 Election results in Tochigi prefecture 168
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been a long time in the making. Over the past twenty some
years I have been teaching Japanese history at the International Christian
University in Japan. This has given me a unique opportunity to “play” in local
archives and explore substreams of modern Japanese history. My Ph.D. disser-
tation concerned Katsu KaishH and the side of the losers at the time of the
Meiji Restoration. Since then I have continued to sympathize with the plight of
the underdog, the disadvantaged, and the forgotten. In the 1980s I worked on
several little-known Meiji period politicians and their attempts to improve
conditions at the local level, sometimes in concert with, but often in disregard
for national political processes. I was fortunate to discover that the untapped
archive of Yoshino Taiz™, a local politician active in the Tama region, was only
a ten-minute bike ride from my house in Mitaka. Later I became interested in
the response of urban and rural commoners to the traumatic events that
rocked Japan in the 1850s and 1860s. More recently I have been working on
nineteenth-century American understandings of the Meiji Restoration, the
introduction of Western food into the Japanese diet, and environmental
history. Some of my friends call me an academic butterfly, and to that charge I
plead guilty, but in all my work I have attempted to challenge the ways histo-
rians have viewed the Japanese experience between 1850 and 1890, the period
in which Japan confronted threats from the West and undertook a complete
domestic reformation. The ruling class and the center receive enough atten-
tion. The essays in this book highlight the perspectives of commoners and of
various localities in offering alternative narratives of modern Japanese history.
Now, the hard part. There are too many people to thank for all the help and
support I have received over the years. Let me begin my recognizing the
constant encouragement I have received from my senior colleagues at ICU,
Professors Takeda (Ch™) Kiyoko, Minamoto Ry™en, and Matsuzawa Hiroaki.
All are extraordinary scholars with impressive (and growing) lists of books to
their credit – and all of them have asked me so often when my book is coming
out that I have felt compelled to take action. My other colleagues in the
Department of History at ICU have also been a great source of inspiration:
Kojima Yasunori, Ken Robinson, Nasu Kei, Takazawa Norie, Kikuchi
viii
Hideaki, Uozumi Masayoshi, Kasai Minoru, and Koizumi Takeshi. I have to
single out Yasu Kojima for his friendship and willingness to share his expertise
in all matters relating to Japanese history.
And then there is a long (and undoubtedly incomplete) list of friends and
teachers to whom I am indebted for endless supplies of good advice and good
humor. I list them in alphabetical order, but they are all special people: Banno
Junji, Jim Baxter, Delmer Brown (who got me interested in local history), Phil
Brown, John Caiger, Martin Collcutt, Al Craig (my mentor), Mark Elvin, Steve
Ericson, Rob Eskildsen, Andrew Fraser, Shel Garon, Andy Gordon, Jeff Hanes,
Harry Harootunian (my undergraduate thesis advisor), David Howell, Jim
Huffman, Akira Iriye (my first sensei), Iwashita Tetsunori, Kawanishi Hidemichi,
Kitahara Itoko, Kumakura Isao, Mike Lewis, John Maher, Shaun Malarney,
Robert Marshall, Richard Mason, Jim McClain, Hiroko McDermott, Joe
McDermott, Masuda Toshimi, Matsuda Koichir™, Minami Kazuo, Mitani
Hiroshi, Miyata Kenji, Kate Nakai, Omachi Masami, Brian Platt, David
Rackham, Patricia Sippel (my most severe critic), Henry Smith, Takayama
Yoshiki, Tanaka Akira, Ron Toby, Connie Totman, Anne Walthall, Neil Waters,
Karen Wigen, and Sam Yamashita. Anne and Neil deserve special mention for
their willingness to include me in their own adventures with people and events in
the peripheries. They have been great friends, and Anne’s careful reading of the
book in manuscript form has improved it considerably. Thank you all.
I would also like to recognize the help I have received from the staff
members of several institutions, the International Christian University Library,
the Yuasa Memorial Museum, the Institute of Asian Cultural Studies at ICU,
the Historiographical Institute at the University of Tokyo, the National
Museum of Japanese History and Ethnography in Sakura, the Archives of the
Imperial Household, the Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Kurofune-kan in Kashiwazaki, the Yokohama Archives of History,
the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History, the Kobe City
Museum, The Asai Collection of woodblock prints in Osaka, the National
Museum of Ethnography, the Tochigi Prefectural Museum in Utsunomiya, the
Liberty and People’s Rights Museum in Machida, the Kojima Archives in
Machida, and the Yoshino Family Archives in Mitaka. I must also thank the
support I received in the form of generous research grants from the Ray-Kay
Foundation, the Aji no Moto Food Culture Center.
I wish to thank my father, Marion William Steele, Jr. and mother, Barbara
Polnaszek. I dedicate this book to them and to Trish and to our children:
Katherine, Matthew, Julia, and Andrew. Without the love and support of my
family, I would be but a clashing cymbal.
Most of the chapters of this book have been previously published, especially
in Asian Cultural Studies, the journal of the Institute of Asian Cultural Studies at
the International Christian University. In 1998, Perikansha put out a collection
of my articles in Japanese under the title M™hitotsu no kindai, including versions
of six of the chapters that make up Alternative Narratives. Other articles were
ix