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Memories of Times Past: The Legacy of Japan’s Treaty Ports

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Life in Treaty Port China and Japan

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Abstract

This chapter looks at the way the Japanese treaty ports have been accepted as part of the country’s modern history, in marked contrast with Chinese ambivalence. From their very beginning at the late 1850s, the treaty ports and foreign settlements were as much an object of curiosity as of hostility for the local population. By the time of the revised treaties 50 years later, the hostility had gone and the ports were on course to be sites to be preserved and cherished. Today, they form a thriving part of Japan’s tourist industry, with local governments anxious to preserve display and exploit what remains.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  2. 2.

    Most recently in Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power. Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2016.

  3. 3.

    This series and related volumes were published under the auspices of the Japan Society, London, from 1999 to 2016. Most were edited by Hugh Cortazzi, former British ambassador to Japan. I edited Vol. III.

  4. 4.

    The book was J.E. Hoare , Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests 1858–1899. Folkestone, Kent, 1994. The reviewer was F.G. Notehelfer in Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 50, no. 3 (Autumn 1955), pp. 403–406.

  5. 5.

    Elegantly examined in Marius B. Jensen, Japan and Its World: Two Centuries of Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, pp. 9–24.

  6. 6.

    Themes examined in works such as Ronald P. Toby. State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984; Derek Masserella. A World Elsewhere: Europe’s encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990; and Marius B. Jansen. China in the Tokugawa World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

  7. 7.

    Extraterritoriality, once a relatively specialised aspect of international law, has in recent years received more attention. See, for example, Pär Kristoffer Cassel. Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth Century Japan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; Douglas Clark. Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842–1943). Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 3 vols. 2015; and, specifically on Japan, Christopher Roberts. The British Courts and Extra–territoriality in Japan, 1859–1899. Leiden, The Netherlands: Global Oriental, 2014.

  8. 8.

    W.G. Beasley. Great Britain and the Opening of Japan. London: Luzac, 1951, remains a good account of the issues over the two types of treaty. See also the detailed examination of the first treaties in William McOmie, The Opening of Japan 1853–1855. Folkestone, England: Global Oriental, 2006. Curiously enough, exactly the same thing happened in the British case when the first treaty was negotiated with Korea in 1882. Admiral Willis’s treaty was replaced without ratification by one that allowed trade and residence on similar terms to those that prevailed in China and Japan. See J.E. Hoare , Embassies in the East. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999, pp. 171–172.

  9. 9.

    Hoare , Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements, pp. 6–7, and p. 195, note 26.

  10. 10.

    Rutherford Alcock , The Capital of the Tycoon: A Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence in Japan. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 2 vols., 1863, I, pp. 37–38.

  11. 11.

    Hoare , Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp. 24–25. One such family’s links began with the arrival of John Carey Hall as a student interpreter in the Japan Consular Service in 1868. See Hugo Read, ed., Consul in Japan: Oswald White’s Memoir: ‘All Ambition Spent’, Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2017.

  12. 12.

    Basil Hall Chamberlain and W.B. Mason, Handbook for Travellers in Japan. London: John Murray, 9th revised ed., 1913, p. 136.

  13. 13.

    Alcock , Capital of the Tycoon.

  14. 14.

    See the United Kingdom National Archives: Foreign Office records, FO 262/236, Exchange of letters between Russell Robertson, British Consul at Yokohama and the firm of Wilkies and Robison, who had complained about the conduct of the Yokohama Customs House, enclosed in Russell Robertson, Consul at Yokohama to F.O. Adams, Chargé d’Affaires Tokyo, no. 4, 9 January 1872. An interesting selection of court cases, based on contemporary newspaper reports, can be found at: http://www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/colonial_cases/less_developed/china_and_japan/ (accessed 26 May 2017).

  15. 15.

    Some of the attacks are listed in Hoare , Japan’s Treaty Ports, pp. 10–11. See also Alcock , Capital of the Tycoon, I, 240–241, 331–332 and 341; Eliza R. Scidmore. Jinrikisha Days in Japan. London Harper Brothers, revised ed., 1902, p. 28. Because of the fear of attack, many foreigners carried pistols, even if these were unlikely to be of much use in an attack from behind, the usual method of the Japanese: E.M. Satow , A Diplomat in Japan: An Inner History of the Japanese Reformation. London; Seeley Service, 1921, p. 47.

  16. 16.

    For examples of the photographs , see Terry Bennett, Photography in Japan 1853–1912. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2006, pp. 20, 62, 67, 107. For the Illustrated London News and Japan, see Terry Bennett, comp. Japan and the Illustrated London News; Complete Record of Reported Events 1853–1899. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2006.

  17. 17.

    When I made this point in my 1994 book, Professor F.G. Notehelfer challenged it, noting that a number of foreign residents could speak and a few even read Japanese; see Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 50, no. 3 (Autumn 1955), pp. 403–406. However, all the evidence I have seen points in the opposite direction. A few people did master the language, but most did not, relying, as Satow , who did know it, put it: “the foreigners who could speak Japanese might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet all knew a little. [while] A sort of bastard language had been invented for the use of trade”—see Satow , Diplomat in Japan, p. 23. This situation continued into the twentieth century.

  18. 18.

    The trajectory from Western through Japanese to Chinese photographers can be followed in great detail in Terry Bennett, History of Photography in China. London: Quaritch, 3 vols. 2009, 2010, 2013. See also Mio Wakita, “Sites of ‘Disconnectedness’: The Port City of Yokohama, Souvenir Photography, and Its Audience” in Transcultural Studies no. 2 (2013), at: http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/issue/view/1369 (accessed 28 May 2017).

  19. 19.

    See “Ukiyo-e. ‘Images of the Floating World’” in Louis Frédéric. Japan: An Encyclopedia. Trans. Käthe Roth. Cambridge Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 1101–1102.

  20. 20.

    Hosono Masanobu. Nagasaki Prints and Early Copperplates. Trans. and adapted by Lloyd R. Craighill. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978, especially pp. 32–57.

  21. 21.

    My real introduction to the rich world of the Japanese prints came in Tokyo in 1966, when I bought a copy of Tamba Tsuneo. Nishiki ni miru Meiji tenno to Meiji jidai (“The Meiji emperor and the Meiji period as seen in colour prints”), Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1966, and later discovered the same author’s collection Yokohama ukiyo-e/Reflections on the culture of Yokohama in the days of the port opening, Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1962. Temba’s images are small, and a much better perspective as well as a good cross-section of prints can be found in Ann Yonemura , Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth Century Japan. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1990. There are many other collections.

  22. 22.

    The Illustrated London News is as good a way as any to track the development.

  23. 23.

    Mrs Hugh Fraser, A Diplomat’s Wife in Japan. London: Hutchinson, 2 vols. 1899, I, 199. The best recent account of treaty revision is Michael Auslin, Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the culture of Japanese Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.

  24. 24.

    John Carey Hall was, according to the ambassador, blind, deaf and stubborn. For very different versions of the story, see Mike Galbraith, “Cricket in Late Edo and Meiji Japan”, in Hugh Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits (Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2015), Vol. IX, pp. 135–147, and J. E. Hoare , “John Carey Hall 1844–1921”, in Cortazzi, ed. Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits Folkestone, Kent: Renaissance Books, 2016, Vol. X, pp. 278–291.

  25. 25.

    Murata Seiji, Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi (The 30-Year History of Kobe Open Port), Kobe: Kobe kaiko sanjunenshi kinenkai, 2 vols. 1898. Reprinted in a facsimile edition, Kobe: Chugai Publishers, 1966.

  26. 26.

    Yokohama-shi, The city of Yokohama, past and present. Yokohama: Yokohama Publishing Office. 1908.

  27. 27.

    “Japan’s postcard history”, at http://photojpn.org/PPC/gui/intro.html (accessed 29 May 2017), has a brief account. For collections of postcards, see: http://www.oldtokyo.com/ (accessed 12 March 2017) and http://www.oldphotosjapan.com/ (accessed 30 May 2017). Books on postcards include Brian Burke–Gaffney. Nagasaki: A History in Picture Postcards/Hana no Nagasaki arubumu Nagasaki hyakunene hizo engaki. Nagasaki: Nagasaki Bunkensha, 2005. There are many others. A major collection of postcards is the “A Neil Pedlar Collection” in the Yokohama Archives of History , which uses them frequently in publications: http://www.kaikou.city.yokohama.jp/en/reading-room.html

  28. 28.

    See Eric C. Han, Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama 1894–1972. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 2014. On food, including Chinese food, see Katarzyna J., Cwiertka, “Eating the World: Restaurant Culture in Early Twentieth Century Japan”, European Journal of East Asian Studies Vol. 2, no. 1 (March 2003), pp. 89–116 and her Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity. London: Reaktion Books, 2006.

  29. 29.

    http://www.yokohamajapan.com/things-to-do/jacks-tower/ (accessed 30 May 2017).

  30. 30.

    A brief account can be found at: http://travel.at-nagasaki.jp/en/what-to-see/11/ (accessed 1 June 2017). A recent biography of Thomas Glover is Alexander McKay, Scottish Samurai: Thomas Blake Glover 1838–1911. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1993. Oura Cathedral, now a minor basilica, was the first foreign building to be designated a National Treasure, in 1933. It is likely to be nominated as a World Heritage Site by the Japanese government in 2018. “Nagasaki’s Oura Church among Christian sites eyed for UNESCO Heritage listing”, Japan Times, 25 July 2016.

  31. 31.

    Yokohama henshushitsu, eds. Yokohamashi–shi (“History of Yokohama City”). Yokohama: Yokohamashei, 5 vols. 1958.

  32. 32.

    A good-on-line guidebook to Kobe’s museum is downloadable as a PDF—see: www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institution/museum/pdf/kcm_e_guide.pdf (accessed 26 December 2017).

  33. 33.

    See the online brochure at: http://www.kaikou.city.yokohama.jp/en/

  34. 34.

    Its online brochure is much fuller than most: http://www.japanvisitor.com/japan-city-guides/yamate (accessed 1 June 2017).

  35. 35.

    John Ryall, “The Namamugi Incident” Acumen: The Magazine of the British chamber of Commerce in Japan, August 2012, at https://bccjacumen.com (accessed 10 July 2017). A print of the incident exists—see: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=15365001&objectid=783270 (accessed 10 July 2017).

  36. 36.

    A good account is available at: http://www.kyu-eikoku-ryoujikan.com/english/ (accessed 1 June 2017).

  37. 37.

    “British Embassy/s Meiji Era villa reopens in Tochigi”, Japan Times 30 June 2016.

  38. 38.

    Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, “Introduction” in Bickers and Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, pp. 10–11.

  39. 39.

    Albert Feuerwerker, “Japanese Imperialism in China: A Commentary” in Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie, eds. The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 431–438.

  40. 40.

    An interesting analysis can be found in Yoshida Mitsukuni, Tanaka Ikko, and Sesoko Tsune, eds., The Hybrid Culture: What Happened When East and West Met. Hiroshima, Japan: Mazda, 1984.

  41. 41.

    Finn, Dallas , Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan. New York: Wetherill, 1995.

  42. 42.

    J.E. Hoare , “Treaty Ports and Treaty Revision. Delusions of Grandeur?” in The Revision of Japan’s Early Commercial Treaties. London: LSE STICERD Discussion No. IS/99?377, 1999, pp. 15–24.

  43. 43.

    The development of the museum in Meiji Japan is examined in Noriko Aso, Public Properties: Museums in Imperial Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.

  44. 44.

    See Robert Bickers , Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination. London: Allen Lane, 2017, Chap. 12.

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  1. Department of Languages and Culture, SOAS University of London, London, UK

    J. E. Hoare

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  1. National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Donna Brunero

  2. The University of Hull, Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom

    Stephanie Villalta Puig

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Hoare, J.E. (2018). Memories of Times Past: The Legacy of Japan’s Treaty Ports. In: Brunero, D., Villalta Puig, S. (eds) Life in Treaty Port China and Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7368-7_11

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