Jung Yeon Kim
Asia in the world II
9AM TA: Jingge Li
Japanese Transformer
When Japan opened the door for foreign countries after 200 years of living as ‘a closed country’, Japan transformed politically, religiously, and culturally. The western countries urgently started to trade with Japan and were once again amazed to see a new side of Asia. Japan’s active interaction with western countries naturally brought an exchange of cultures. In a picture “ Comic One Hundred Turns of the Rosary”, the artist Kyosai depicts a culturally, politically, and religiously unsettled Japan as in the process of accepting foreign custom.
Particularly, a huge octopus in the middle of the picture catches an attention. Unlike other octopus, this octopus has five tentacles instead of eight. Those five tentacles represent the five nations that started to trade around 1860s. Japan’s open relationship with those foreign countries begins under the irrisistable pressure of the United States. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry demanded Japan to open relations with America. Recently U.S had a victory over Mexico in a war. 1 Frightened by power of U.S, Japanese government, Bakufu, Signed up for treaty of Kanagawa. Few years later, the first U.S consul general, Townsend Harris, came to Japan and succeded in signing Harris Treaty. After this treaty, Japan was opened to an influx of foreigners and foreign influence. Harris Treaty called for exchange of diplomatic representatives and the opening of five ports to unimpeded trade.1 The American citizens were granted a right of enjoying ‘extraterritorial privileges’- meaning they are not subject to Japanese law and they can only be tried in court under the law of their own nations.1 The treaty also provided a low fixed scale of duties on imports. By 1866, for almost all foreign items, the duties had become fixed at five percent.1 The Harris treaty contained a provision whereby allowing Japanese to buy warships, ammunitions of war, and arms of all kind so that foreign countries could make a profit.1 With successful deals for foreigners in Harris Treaty, Other countries urged to interact with Japan under the similar treaty. Those countries were Netherlands, Russia, England and France. Japanese called these four countries with the United States as “People of Five Nations”.1 Those five tentacles of Octopus in a picture represent five nations that started trading with Japan around 1860s.
Originally, Japanese widely believed two main religions - Shinto and Buddhism. Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion and it means “ the way of gods”. 3 Shinto has been practiced by about eighty-three percentage of population. Buddhism is a religion that was firstly arrived in Japan in sixth century and became prevalent.3 The Buddhist statues and temples were built in places over the country. And a very large number of people identified themselves as Buddhists. Before Harris treaty, Christianity propagated from foreign missionaries was prohibited severely. The persecution of Christianity continued. However, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Christianity entered Japan. Although Harris could not persuade the Bakufu to rescind on its prohibition on teaching or practice of Christianity among Japanese, the treaty succeeded on allowing the foreigners to practice their own religion in the areas open to them for residence.1 The treaty broke the first ground of Christianity in Japan. Thus, around this time, Christianity intruded in Japanese religious custom for the first time. In a picture, it depicts Japanese praising a gigantic Buddhist rosary by a tiresome repetition from hand to hand. It shows how Japan was still deeply rooted into the Buddhism.
Actually, Harris treaty brought some horrible consequences. The unequal treaties inflamed patriotic Samurais already smoldering with anger over abandonment of the once sacrosanct seclusion policy. When these treaties actually came into effect beginning in mid 1858, unimagined kind of chaos was waiting on the door. Firstly, traditional domestic markets and distribution routes were disrupted. It brought economic disasters to a lot of people.1 Secondly, Unemployment rate rose. The domestic rate rose very high, the inflation occurred, and the disasterous harvest brought the famine.1 Thirdly, the foreigners brought a disease, Chlolera, with them. So hundreds of thousands of Japanese died.1 Forthly, foreigners did not behave as exemplary good will ambassador. For example, Earliest foreign residents brought small horses or ponies with them, as well as firearms, and quickly turn one of the town in Japan into “ A fabulous wild west type of town”.1 Japan was a country where a virtue of decorum was valued and only samurai elites were permitted to ride horses. In this unstable circumstances, people exploded. Peasant uprising and urban riots frequently occurred in 1860s. Some of dissident Samurai terrorists , known as Shishi, emerged to challenge Bakufu officers and murder foreigners.1 Shishi flourished in the decade and Japan turned into a bloodybath. The fire, various figures of factors, unsettled feeling, and confusion in the picture depicts the hardship of Japanese to deal with foreigners. The Buddhist rosary and the Samurai elite on the horse show that Japanese are still rooted into their culture.
Also, Japan was politically frustrated. While riots and bloody murders occurred in Japan, Bakufu was caught between domestic opponents and foreigners. Domestic opponents in country challenged Bakufu for failing to keep out the barbarians and foreigners challenged Bakufu for failing to protect them from those domestic rebels.1 Bakufu was in a more difficult position when foreign powers demanded to publicly execute those Samurai terrorists.1 This complicated Japanese political situation was satirized by using a method of the bizarre triptych in a picture.
Going through religiously, politically, and socially unsettled situation, Japan went through a trial. However, after few more years, Japan became increasingly modernized along American lines of development. Japan was called as ‘Great Britain of Asia’.2 In the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, American officers welcomed the Japanese with open arms.2 Because Japan was on the verge of leaping moral and industrial progress, foreign countries could not look down on Japan.
Undoubtedly, a picture of “Comic One Hundred Turns of Rosary’ depicts a political, religious, and social situation in Japan around 1860’s very well. A cultural exchange with Netherland, Russia, England, France and America influenced Japanese custom greatly. Socially, Japanese had hart time dealing with foreigners and accepting their different cultures. Religiously, Christianity entered into Japan partially while the Buddhism was deeply rooted in country. Politically, Japanese government had to deal between anti-foreign domestic opponents and foreigners. These situations are illustrated all in this one picture lively.
Notes
1. "Yokohama Boomtown : Foreigners in Treaty-port Japan, 1859-1872." Intute. Web. 20 Feb. 2012.
2. Robert Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876– 1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 2, 46.
3. <http://www.intute.ac.uk/cgibin/fullrecord.pl?handle=20071127-155520>.
"Religion in Japan." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan>.