Glimpses Of Old Japan 1861 1866 1908

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... himself of the casket and the sweet princess who had given it to him. Forgetful of her injunctions, he suddenly lifted the lid, upon which, its contents issued forth in the form of a purple vapor and floated away through the air in the direction of the island. The casket had contained an elixir which gave to its owner perpetual youth, and as soon as it passed out of his possession Urashima was instantaneously transformed Into a greyheaded, decrepit old man, and finding the tomb of his parents, he there ended his days. Moral: the good boy of Urashima, even in the palace of the seagods, forgot not his old parents and his duty to them. Now we are nearing the place where the Richardson tragedy occurred. Just at the commencement of this avenue of trees, last month, on a Sunday, four or five Englishmen and one lady started from Yokohama for a pleasure-ride; and although they had been requested by government officials not to ride on the Tokaido that day as a prince would be passing from Yedo to his southern province with his retinue of servants, they disregarded alike law of God and the wishes of the government, and came over to this road. As they met the cortege, instead of drawing off to one side to let them pass, they dashed into the midst of them, which in the eyes of Japanese was a direct insult, and immediately swords were drawn; one man, Richardson, wet falling from his horse, was slashed in many places, others escaped with slight wounds, while the lady having her hat cut from her head and a slash on her arm. It produced intense excitement at the time and frightened us in Kanagawa, not a little. Doctor Hepburn was called at once to the wounded men, but Richardson had died soon after the encounter. We have not been on the Tokaido since...

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This abridgement of the unique journal of Francis Hall, America's leading business pioneer in nineteenth-century Japan, offers a remarkable view of the period leading to the Meiji Restoration. An upstate New York book dealer, Hall went to Japan in 1859 to collect material for a book on the country and to serve as correspondent for Horace Greely's New York Tribune. Seeing the opportunities for commerce in Yokohama, he helped found Walsh, Hall, and Co., an institution that became one of the most important American trading houses in Japan. Hall was a shrewd businessman, but also a perceptive recorder of life around him. Privately preserved for more than a hundred years, this document shows Hall to have been an astute observer and story-teller as well as an influential opinion-maker in the United States during the crucial decade of the American Civil War and the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. While contemporary American and British diplomatic accounts have focused on the official record, Hall reveals the private side of life in the treaty port. The publication of his journal, now in abridged form for the student and general reader, furnishes us with an insightful and sensitive portrayal of Japan on the eve of modernity.

In April 1859, at age fifty, Shinohara Chūemon left his old life behind. Chūemon, a well-off farmer in his home village, departed for the new port city of Yokohama, where he remained for the next fourteen years. There, as a merchant trading with foreigners in the aftermath of Japan’s 1853 “opening” to the West, he witnessed the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, the civil war that followed, and the Meiji Restoration’s reforms. The Merchant’s Tale looks through Chūemon’s eyes at the upheavals of this period. In a narrative history rich in colorful detail, Simon Partner uses the story of an ordinary merchant farmer and its Yokohama setting as a vantage point onto sweeping social transformation and its unwitting agents. Chūemon, like most newcomers to Yokohama, came in search of economic opportunity. His story sheds light on vital issues in Japan’s modern history, including the legacies of the Meiji Restoration; the East Asian treaty port system; and the importance of everyday life—food, clothing, medicine, and hygiene—for national identity. Centered on an individual, The Merchant’s Tale is also the story of a place. Created under pressure from aggressive foreign powers, Yokohama was the scene of gunboat diplomacy, a connection to global markets, the birthplace of new lifestyles, and the beachhead of Japan’s modernization. Partner’s history of a vibrant meeting place humanizes the story of Japan’s revolutionary 1860s and their profound consequences for Japanese society and culture.

The present volume curates papers presented at an international conference organized at OUCIP to engage with the oceanic turn in different fields of knowledge embracing Social Sciences, Humanities and, Physical Sciences to project the Indian Ocean as the new frontier of research across various disciplines. The papers are divided into four sections: The Oceanic Reach has papers reflecting on the received knowledge regarding the historical role and reach of the Indian Ocean and providing new insights in the evolving dynamics of the region. The section on Literature and Culture has essays reflecting the different trajectories within Humanities and Cultural Studies through which Indian Ocean has stimulated the imagination of scholars, intellectuals, diasporic writers, and culture historians. The section on Roots and Routes includes accounts of the historical, cultural, religious, trade and diasporic linkages across oceanic communities inhabiting the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. The final section on Power Games includes papers that deal with the increasing interests of various international powers in the Indian Ocean region particularly in the context of the shift from the Asian land mass to the enormous presence of the Indian Ocean, and the economic, political and strategic significance that it has for the entire region. Taken together these contributions offer both an opportunity and a challenge for interested scholars to engage with Indian Ocean as a new frontier of knowledge with enormous potential for research and exploration. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

To what extent can music be employed to shape one culture's understanding of another? In the American imagination, Japan has represented the "most alien" nation for over 150 years. This perceived difference has inspired fantasies--of both desire and repulsion--through which Japanese culture has profoundly impacted the arts and industry of the U.S. While the influence of Japan on American and European painting, architecture, design, theater, and literature has been celebrated in numerous books and exhibitions, the role of music has been virtually ignored until now. W. Anthony Sheppard's Extreme Exoticism offers a detailed documentation and wide-ranging investigation of music's role in shaping American perceptions of the Japanese, the influence of Japanese music on American composers, and the place of Japanese Americans in American musical life. Presenting numerous American encounters with and representations of Japanese music and Japan, this book reveals how music functions in exotic representation across a variety of genres and media, and how Japanese music has at various times served as a sign of modernist experimentation, a sounding board for defining American music, and a tool for reshaping conceptions of race and gender. From the Tin Pan Alley songs of the Russo-Japanese war period to Weezer's Pinkerton album, music has continued to inscribe Japan as the land of extreme exoticism.