VOICES

of
EARLY MODERN JAPAN
I ,

Contetnporary Accounts
of Daily Life during
the Age of the Shoguns

CONSTANTINE NOMIKOS VAPORIS

-0
WESTVIEW
PRESS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
, .., ..~ '""
 EIGN RELATIONS
PART 4 : FOR

ASK YOURSELF fthe audience granted

. hat was the purpose o .?
1. From the Japanese pherspbect1v~~ :o you think the Japanese derived from t~~
the Dutchmen? W at ene f the second audience? Why were
What in particular was the p~rp~~; o
. "behind screens and lattices . ducted such that it was
1adies .1 cedures were con . th
2. Why do you thinkhcere~oHmaJ'~~d the other J~panese officials beh~vebmh. de Sizing Up the Foreign Threat:
difficult to see the s ogun. o d d' e whv did he remam e m
shogun's presence? D urmg
. the secon au ienc ' "'-
.
Aizawa Seishisai's Shinron (New Theses, 1825)
the screens?

TOPICS TO CONSIDER . shave displayed their

d · different countne I
◊ Consider how politica~ lea ers_m ther world leaders such as Elizabeth
power. Would an audience with: Great (1672-1725) of Russia been the
(1533-1603) of England or Peter t e
same? f INTRODUCTION
The intrusion of foreign vessels in Japanese waters in the early nineteenth century
Further Information 1· E lbertKaempfer'sEncounterwith
. d The FurthestGoa • nge greatly alarmed Japanese intellectuals. The Mito samurai AIZAWASEISHISAI(1782-
Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice, e . L'b 1995. . 1863) was one of them. After crew members of an English whaling vessel came
Tokuaawa]apan.Sandgate: Japan 1Traryl,t1·onand annotation by Anmck M. Do-
0 ll , .fjapan rans a ashore on the coast of Aizawa's Mito in 1824, he was sent by his lord, Tokugawa
Doeff, Hendrik. Reco ectionsOJ. . • • fford Publishing, 2003. . Narinaga, to interview the men. Disbelieving their explanation for coming to Japan
eff. Victoria, British Columb!a. Tra , Toku awa Culture Observed,Edited, tran~;.
(whaling), which was communicated in gestures, he was convinced that they had ag-
Kaempfer, Engelbert. Kaempfer:Japand B ~ley Honolulu: University of Hawa11
lated and annotated by Beatrice Bo art- a1 . gressive designs on his country. In response to this latest intrusion of a foreign vessel
' 99 h T7 l 1 (1785-1811). in Japanese waters, in 1825 the shogunate adopted a hard-line policy and issued in-
Press, 19 . . C ondenceorIsaacTitsing : v o ume structions to the daimyo to fire on and repel "without hesitation" any Western ships.
. k d The Private orresp v . 1990
Lequm, Fran , e · . . for Japanese Studies, · This order is often referred to in English as the "Don't Think Twice" edict. Soon
. Netherlands Association
Amster dam. afterward, Aizawa took brush to paper to write a long memorial (opinion paper) to
his lord, Narinaga's brother and successor Nariaki, on how to deal with the threat
posed by the West, a portion of which is excerpted below.

KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ

1. The foreign ships that were appearing in Japanese waters with greater fre-
quency were doing so in defiance of the shogunate's exclusion policy (see
Chapter 17), which dated to the 1630s. Seeking to avoid conflict, however,
the government only put the policy into practice once, firing on the unarmed
American merchant ship Morrisonin 1837.
2. Aizawa speaks of an unbroken imperial line, but in fact from 1336 to 1392 the
imperial court was split, divided into contending northern and southern
courts. The emperor of the southern court renounced his claim to the throne
to end the division in 1392.

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 Chapter 21: Sizing Up the Foreign Threat
PART 4: FOREIGN RELATIONS
Whenever they seek to take over a country, they employ the same
DOCUMENT 1 method. By trading with that nation, they learn about its geography and
defenses. If these be weak, they dispatch troops to invade the nation; if
Excerpt from Aizawa strong, they propagate Christianity to subvert it from within ....
Seishisai's Shinron (New Theses, 1825) ... Russia has expanded tremendously of late. It utilized Christianity
· the source of the to seduce the Ezo tribes into submission and to capture island after island
. h the sun emerges. It is [to our north]. Now Russia has turned its predatory eyes onJapan proper.
Our Divine Realm is_~ ere ife and order. Our Emperors, desce~-
rimordial vital force sustammg all l h reeded to the Imperial The English also appear at frequent intervals, furtively trying to beguile
p G dd Amaterasu, ave a"' . our commoners and peoples in outlying areas.
dents of the Sun o ess, . h and every generation, a
Throne m eac r Di-
. - - . f: ct that will never, change. Ou SOURCE: Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, Anti-Foreignismand WesternLearningin Early
--- , umque a h h d and
vine Realm rightly constitutes t e ea - ModernJapan: The New Theses of 1825 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Divine Realm:Refersto Japan. Press, 1985), 149-150, 200-201, 204.
lders of the world and controls al~ 1:a
Ezotribes:The Ainu people living in sh o U h r Divme
. It is only proper t at ou
northern Honshu and Hokkaido islands. t10ns. . · e and
Realm illuminates the entire umvers .
's sphere of moral suas10n AFTERMATH
that our dyna Sty .
h 1 thsome Western barbarians, un-
Ai..,~awa'smemorial was written in 1825 and circulated widely in manuscript form
knows no bounds. But ~e:ently t eeloC:er extremities of the world, have
mindful of their base position as th h F Seas trampling other nations from the 1840s. It was published in woodblock form only in the 1850s. Although he
. d ntly across t e our ' al d . sought to reform Japan to strengthen it and the Tokugawa shogunate, increasing
been scurrying impu e . h to challenge our ex te posi-
th y are audacious enoug numbers of young, radical samurai in the 1850s-1860s drew different lessons: they
underfoot. N ow e f · olence is this? read in it an indictment of the Tokugawa and a call to overthrow the shogunate.
tion in the world. What manner o ms
t is round in Aizawa passed away in 1863, however, before that was realized.
hr mid the heavenly fiirmamen ,
(Gloss: The eart ies a h' . t as nature dictates. Thus,
h dges All t mgs ex1s
d
shape, a~ as no e. . to of the world. Though not a ve~ ASK YOURSELF
Our Divme Realm is at the hp F Quarters because its Imperial
· i ns over t e our · 1. What is the nature of the Western threat that the Japanese perceived? What
large country, it reg . h The Western barbarians
1 d nast1c c ange. did Japanese see as the reason for the strength of the West?
Line has never mown y d £ f the universe. This is why they
represent the thighs, legs, an eet ho d" t ces involved. Moreover, 2. What kind of organistic view of the world does Aizawa describe? (That is,
. different to t e is an h how does he describe the world in terms of the body-what countries form
sail hither and yon, m . . 1 t d at the rear end of t e
h 11America is oca e . what parts of the body?)
the country t ey ca .d d . competent. All of this is as
world, so its inhabitants are stup1 an m 3. According to Aizawa, which country or countries did Japanese fear the most?
Why?
IiI nature dictates.)
. .n the moral laws of na- 4. How does Aizawa describe the role of the imperial institution in Japanese life?
. These barbarians court ultimate ruin by ign~ri g How do you think the leaders in the Tokugawa shogunate might have felt
. t the lowliness of their status. ' . had they come into possession of his text? (Hint: Aizawa's book was circu-
ture and refusing to accep . h' lf to assist Heaven s normative
G t Hero bestirs imse . lated only in manuscript-handwritten-form when he first wrote it.)
... Un 1ess a rea h i1 meat-eating barbarians ....
processes, all creation will fall prey tot e w y,
TOPICS AND ACTIVITIES TO CONSIDER
T h e B arbarians' Nature
the Western barbarians have
h dred years now . • ◊ Using the "Japanese Historical Maps" website listed below, examine several
For close to t h ree un h bl to enlarge their territories
. h Why are t ey a e . Japanese world maps from around the time that Aizawa wrote. (Once you Ii
rampaged on th e h ig seas. Ch . . ·ty i·s the sole key to their sue-
. d · ?
and fulfill their every esire .... 1" .
ristiam .
barely worth discussmg. But its
. have activated one of the browsers listed on the main page, you can find these i
I
maps by typing "world map" in the search block and then by scrolling down
cess. It is a truly ev~ and base re i;~~n~ell-contrived; they can easily de- ,I

main doctrines are simple t? g:asp and reading the captions, which are in English, to find maps dated from the
. stupi·d commoners with it ....
ceive
Ii
121
120
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PART 4: FOREIGN RELATIONS

early nineteenth century.) Naturally the writing on the maps themselves is

Japanese, but from the visual clues available, how accurate a worldview would
you say the Japanese had at the time?
◊ Using the essays and images presented in the "Black Ships & Samurai" web-
site below, consider the manner in which the Japanese and Americans per-
ceived each other at the time of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in
Japan, twenty-eight years after Aizawa wrote Shinron.How would you de-
scribe their views of the Other?

Further Information
Chang, Richard T. From Prejudiceto Tolerance.A Study of theJapaneseImage of the
V
West 1826-1864. Tokyo: Sophia University, 1970.
Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi. Anti-Foreignismand WesternLearningin Early Modernja-
pan: The New Thesesof 1825. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
I

Websites
"Black Ships & Samurai." MIT Visualizing Cultures, http:/ /ocw.mit.edu/ans7870
SOCIAL AND
/21f/21£ 027/black_ships_and_samurai/ index.html.
"Japanese Historical Maps." East Asian Library, Uiiiversity of California, Berkeley, ECONOMIC LIFE
http:/ /www.davidrumsey.com/japan/.

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