How to Reach Japan by Subway: America’s Fascination with Japanese Culture, 1945–1965

293 Pages·2018·5.03 MB·English

by  Meghan Warner Mettler

How to Reach Japan by Subway
studies in pacific worlds
Series Editors
Rainer F. Buschmann
Katrina Gulliver
Editorial Board
Gregory Cushman
John Gascoigne
Andrea Geiger
Noriko Kawamura
Judith Schachter
H O W T O
R E A C H
J A PA N B Y
S U B WAY
America’s Fascination with
Japanese Culture, 1945– 1965
meghan warner mettler
university of nebraska press | lincoln and london
© 2018 by the Board of Regents of
the University of Nebraska
Portions of this book originally appeared as
“Gimcracks, Dollar Blouses, and Transistors: American
Reactions to Imported Japanese Products, 1945– 1964”
in Pacific Historical Review 79, no. 2 (2010): 202– 30.
“Buddhism Now and Zen” by Felicia
Lamport originally appeared in Scrap Irony
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961).
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017041405
Set in Sabon Next by Mikala R Kolander.
Designed by N. Putens.
For Peter

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ............................. ix
Acknowledgments ............................. xi
Introduction ...................................1
1. Humble Leaders of the Free World:
Historical Context of the Shibui Aesthetic ..........19
2. Samurai at the Sure Seaters: 1950s “Highbrow”
Japanese Movies in the United States .............. 45
3. Friendship through Flowers:
Americans’ Appreciation of Ikebana and Bonsai .....69
4. How to Be American with Shibui Things:
Japanese Aesthetics in the American Home .........99
5. Satori in America: Intellectuals and Artists
Discover Zen Buddhism ....................... 131
6. Zen Goes “Boom”: The Popularity of Zen
Buddhism, Both Beat and Square ................ 157
7. Japan for the Rest of Us: Non- Shibui Japanese
Imports in the Postwar Era ......................181
Conclusion ..................................207
Notes .......................................217
Bibliography .................................247
Index .......................................263
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Japanese American evacuation from West
Coast, April 1942 ...............................38
2. Still from the film Rashomon, 1950 ................. 51
3. Ikenobo arrangement ...........................72
4. Example of Saga Goryū moribana kōseitai
(hidarigatte) style ..............................73
5. Map of Ikebana International chapters in the
United States in 1962 ...........................77
6. Example of jiyuka freestyle arrangement ...........85
7. Example of bonsai .............................89
8. A typical sho- in style interior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102