A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (97 page)

46
The Confucianist Arai Hakuseki was one of a number of respected figures who openly expressed admiration for western science.

47
See Reischauer and Craig 79, pp116–7, for discussion of these various attempts. See also Beasley 89a for a fuller discussion of foreign visits in general.

48
Bolitho 89 discusses the famine and its consequences in detail, and also the foreign threat at the time.

49
Jansen 89, p309.

50
Bolitho 89, p126.

51
See his diary extract in Pineau 68, p92. Regarding the white flags (a matter which Perry preferred on reflection not to make mention of in his reports), see Jansen 00, p277.

52
See Steele 03, esp. Ch. 1, for discussion of the varied reactions among the public to the western presence.

53
The British merchant company Jardine Matheson, for example, had set up a base at Yokohama by the late 1850s. See Williams 72, pp85–8. Williams’ work is just one of a number of anthologies of accounts written by and about foreigners in Japan during the 1850s and 1860s (and in a rare few cases even earlier, before Perry), providing interesting outsider insights into a variety of aspects of life in Japan at that time. For another particularly interesting account see Black 1883/1968.

54
In theory the sh
gunate refused to accept responsibility for westerners’ safety outside designated areas, though in practice it swiftly executed any attackers. There were a number of attacks on foreigners by extreme nationalists, one of the most famous being the murder of the English businessman Charles
Richardson in 1862. Richardson was one of a party of four Britons (including one woman) attacked while riding in the hills behind Yokohama. Even official buildings were not immune from attack, with the British legation in Edo being attacked in 1861 and burned down in 1863.

55
One should avoid thinking it was necessarily a simple ‘black and white’ choice between supporting either the sh
gunate or the emperor. Many who supported the sh
gunate also had respect for the emperor. See Steele 03, p43.

56
The most outspoken supporter of the poison theory is Donald Calman, who states categorically that K
mei was assassinated. It seems the respected Japan expert Ernest Satow (1843–1929), who was actually in Japan at the time, was also of that opinion, as are a number of modern doctors. See Calman 92, pp90–3. By contrast, Conrad Totman discusses the poison theory but believes that, in terms of available evidence, smallpox was the cause of death. See Totman 80, p287, and his related note 41 on p521. Jansen (89, p353, and 00, p324) states without qualification that K
mei died of smallpox. Mayo (74, p158) remarks that his sudden death while recovering from smallpox was mysterious, but does not elaborate.

57
See Steele 03, p14.

Part Four: Building a Modern Nation

1
Jansen 89, p365, and Vlastos 89, p383.

2
The ‘
Ee ja nai ka
’ (‘Who cares?!’) phenomenon began with the imminent demise of the sh
gunate in late 1867 and continued for some two or three years. It clearly indicated a confused mixture of happiness and anxiety, excitement and disorientation, an affirmation of desire for personal freedom but at the same time a reluctance to take personal responsibility for change. Mass hysterical behaviour included dancing wildly in the streets, dressing extravagantly or throwing off clothes altogether, indulging in public orgies of sex and drink, giving away money and possessions, performing obscenities for the sake of it, entering people’s homes and taking things without permission, and generally abandoning all inhibitions and pretence to rational behaviour. The social psychologist Munesuke Mita (92, pp147–53) discusses the phenomenon in some detail, and some footage of a re-enactment is contained in the ‘Meiji Revolution’ section of the
Pacific Century
video series.

3
The clashes between sh
gunal supporters and pro-imperial restorationists are known as the Boshin War of 1868–69 (Boshin meaning ‘year of the dragon’).

4
It could be said that to some extent Enomoto had the support of America. Whereas Britain and France had promptly declared their support for the newly restored imperial regime, America, seeing the sh
gunate as more receptive to foreigners than the imperial regime and its Satsuma-Ch
sh
samurai backers, refrained from officially taking sides. This had the effect of giving Enomoto the status of a valid participant in a civil war, as opposed to a rebel (and very probably the recent civil war in America also had some bearing on this stance). It was not till early in 1869 that America, partly as a result of pressure from Britain, finally committed itself to the imperial cause. See Steele 03, Ch. 6, esp. pp106–9.