THE OPENING OF JAPAN

Much of Japan's early culture, including art, language, Buddhism and Confucianism was derived from China and, over the years, has become Japanese. Then, during a period of civil wars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a feudal system, much like that of medieval Europe, developed. But Europe showed little interest in this far away country. It wasn't until the middle of the sixteenth century when, in 1542, a Portuguese mariner, Fernando Mendez Pinto was wrecked there and brought back such glowing reports of the country that Portugal established a trading mission at Nagasaki. Soon Dutch merchants and European missionaries followed and the whole western world began to pay attention.

However, by the 1630s, Christianity and other 'corrupt' foreign ideas had so alarmed the powers that be, that The Exclusion Decrees were published, closing off Japan from the rest of the world. Almost all foreign trade was brought to an end. Some eighty foreigners left on Portuguese ships from Nagasaki, but Japanese were killed for trying to go with them. Only the Dutch, held as 'voluntary prisoners' on Desjhima, an island in Nagasaki harbor, endured insults and restraints in order to send two or three trading ships a year. Chinese junks were also allowed to enter the harbor. (The Dutch were allowed because they were Protestants; it was the activities of Catholic Jesuits which had contributed to the decision to exclude all westerners.) Dutch merchants could travel in Japan only under escort, and both the Dutch and Chinese had to keep the government informed on what was happening in the outside world. Once again, most of the outside world ignored Japan.

After about one hundred years, the restrictions were relaxed slightly and maps, books on medicine and the beginnings of technology were imported. During the Napoleonic wars, a British ship visited Nagasaki, seized hostages, and held them as ransom for needed stores. The Russians set up fishing and hunting posts on the northern islands. Trade and naval activity with China increased. Nevertheless there was increasing pressure for the opening of Japan to western shipping. For example, about 1850, some one hundred twenty-one American whalers were lying in the harbors of Hawai'i, the closest open ports to the important fishing waters off Japan.

Washington announced to the world that a naval force, under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858), would be sent to Japan with the purpose of negotiating a trade agreement. In 1853 Perry reached Uraga at the opening of Edo Bay. (Edo was the former name of Tokyo.) He brought a letter from the American President, Franklin Pierce, suggesting agreements on commerce, treatment of shipwrecked sailors, and provisioning of ships. Perry added his own letter in which he expressed his hope that the government would respond favorably to the President; he would return in a year, with a larger force, for the answer.

In 1854 he did return, with eight ships, and an agreement was reached which opened the ports of Shimoda and Kanagawa. Soon the Western world became fascinated with all things Japanese. Commodore Perry had opened to view a society and culture which had been hidden for hundreds of years. Soon exhibitions of Japanese art opened throughout the United States and Europe and japonisme became the rage as chinoiserie had been a century before. Japanese motifs such as bridges, fans, cranes, butterflies, and bamboo were incorporated into Western art and furnishings. Literature also responded to the influx of new themes. Poets such as Whitman, Longfellow and Yeats incorporated Japanese images into their works. Stories set in Japanese locales were written including, in 1885, The Mikado of Gilbert and Sullivan.

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