The Merchant's Tale

by Simon Partner

  Commenting on the friendliness of the merchants, Hall nevertheless added that there was “an edict from Yedo prohibiting the Japanese to use the salutation “Ohio” [Good morning], except towards persons with whom they have business.”44 Indeed, in early July the Kanagawa commissioners had summoned village and township officials from throughout the treaty zone and given them a set of instructions on how to behave with the foreigners. Although salutations were not prohibited, the regulations did forbid Japanese from accepting any kind of gift or invitation from a foreigner, or from entering a foreigner’s house unless it was essential for trading purposes.45

  Contemporary Japanese guidebooks described the specializations of the different neighborhoods: Honchō Itchōme specialized in money changing, where “the clatter of the scales echoes throughout the district,” while in Nichōme (where Chūemon’s shop was located) “we come to the branch shop of the great Mitsui company.” The main product of Nichōme was lacquerware, though there were also many silk merchants, pottery sellers, and tea shops. In Gochōme were shops selling lovely art objects including lacquer, lavish paintings decorated with gold and silver, and lacquered porcelain.

  For the Japanese, the foreigners themselves were among the principal objects on display. They “come three and five at a time and walk around examining the wares of the merchants. In front of many of the shops are chairs placed for the foreigners to sit. Here they will sit with cigars in their mouths, and, striking a match, they will smoke them. The shop owners will bring piles of goods outside to show them. When the foreigner buys something, then the price is written down in a ledger, and the proprietor together with the foreigner must go to the customs house.”

  Because Honchō-dōri was wide, the foreigners liked to ride their horses there: “Husband and wife will ride together in a cart, and when they arrive at a place where they have business, he will pull on the reins and stop the horse, and they will do their shopping or whatever, and then get back in their cart and ride on … They will put down woolen rugs in the winter, while in the summer they use rush mats.”46

  Japanese observers were particularly struck by the accommodations the Yokohama merchants made to Western customs: “When it rains, the shops stand their tatami mats on their sides and put fresh straw on the floor. The foreigners walk inside in their boots, just as they do at home. And when the merchants of Honchō visit the foreigners in their houses, they, too, enter still wearing their straw sandals or wooden clogs.”47

  Japanese guidebooks also described the scenes around the customs house, where goods were unloaded and transactions took place:

  The pier to the east is where the foreigners unload their vessels. It is a busy scene. Japanese and foreigners are all mixed up, with carts endlessly hauling off mountains of goods piled here and there and taking them to the trading houses of the foreigners, under the stern gaze of the guards. If there is any disturbance caused by either Japanese or foreigner, no one will be allowed to proceed … The pier to the left is for the goods brought in by the Edo merchants. Tens of carts are coming and going from here, the cries of the drivers echoing from the skies.48

  FIGURE 1.4  Foreigners shopping for lacquerware in Honchō Itchōme (ca. 1863). Utagawa Sadahide, Yokohama kaikō kenbunshi (ca. 1863)

  Among the grandest of the Japanese shops was the Nakaiya, owned by Kuroiwa Jūbei and opened in September 1859. The massive shop of twenty thousand square feet was entirely roofed in copper, an extravagance that was said to have outraged the shogunal officials, who were dealing with a major financial crisis as they struggled to build a national defense against the foreign threat. Inside, the shop had an interior courtyard covered in netting, in which exotic birds flew freely. The shop also featured a glass-walled aquarium (glass was a novelty in Japan) and a floor-standing musical box.49

  Although both Japanese and foreign merchants strove to offer tempting products, they were handicapped by their limited knowledge of each other. At first, Japanese merchants were more interested in selling export products than in buying imported goods. Foreign merchants complained of weak demand and of the poverty of the Japanese merchants, who could not afford to buy more than small samples. Even if they had the resources, most Japanese did not see much need for the goods on display in the foreign merchant houses. On seeing the near-naked coolies running through the streets of Yokohama, one early visitor dryly remarked, “It does not seem that there will be any great demand for Manchester cotton goods.”50

  FIGURE 1.5  Utagawa Sadahide, Complete Picture of the Great Harbor of Yokohama (1859–1860). Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Gift of Ambassador and Mrs. William Leonhart, S1998.52a-c

  Among the first foreign residents was William Keswick, a young Scotsman with the China-based trading firm of Jardine, Matheson. Keswick, twenty-five years old, was a junior member of the firm, but he was well connected. He was a great-nephew of company founder William Jardine and a grandson of William Jardine’s sister and heir, Jean Johnstone. Keswick’s father was a member of the company, and Keswick himself would become a partner in Jardine’s in 1862 while still in his twenties and managing partner in 1874 (his descendants run the company to this day). An observer described the Keswick of 1859 as “still a young gentleman, with thin, reddish sideburns, a somewhat effeminate appearance, and lisping voice; yet a true diplomat who said all that he had to say with an ice-cold, deadened courtesy.”51 In a letter dated July 21, 1859, Keswick wrote that business in the port was desultory. “There are now a fair number of Japanese merchants (shopkeepers) in the settlement, but they have as yet bought little or nothing, with the exception of a few trinkets from the Dutchmen. They have for sale isinglass, some of the better descriptions of seaweed, mushrooms etc. and raw silk, and silk piece goods.”52

  For a while at least, townsmen, foreigners, and villagers all lived side by side. Francis Hall described the still-remaining farming and fishing community of Yokohama as “a large village of brown cottages among which wind paths three to five feet broad … These streets and walks are very serpentine and bordered with evergreen hedges and bamboo polings all through the town … nothing could be more rural.” Hall adds that the farmers of Yokohama were “very civil, inviting us into their houses, and set before us tea and hot sake.” However, “I heard repeatedly the salutati]on of ‘tojin,’ and once ‘tojin baka,’ ‘foreign or China fool.’ ”53

  Not all the foreigners took up residence in Yokohama. The U.S. envoy Townsend Harris was so indignant at the creation of Yokohama (rather than using Kanagawa, as stipulated by the treaty) that he is said to have sworn never to set foot in the place.54 Harris did his best to encourage Americans to take up residence with him in Kanagawa, even though there was virtually no accommodation for them. Although the merchants generally ignored him in favor of the comfort and convenience of Yokohama, a few missionaries—who wanted to be closer to the Japanese population—followed his advice. James Hepburn, with the American Presbyterian Mission, arrived on October 17, 1859, and, like all the other foreigners who chose to live in Kanagawa, he took up residence in a Buddhist temple. Such was the shortage of available housing that every single temple in Kanagawa had been rented out to the foreigners. “The people seem to take it very quietly indeed rather pleased, I should judge them—& the priests.”55 The rent for the temple was sixteen dollars a month, including the priest’s residence. Hepburn and his wife remodeled the former into “a very comfortable dwelling house … containing some eight rooms, large & small.” They sublet the priest’s residence to another group of missionaries, from the Dutch Reformed Church. Since they brought very little with them from China, Hepburn had his furniture made by local craftsmen: “All they need is a model, their workmanship is good and they can make everything we want.” He had, however, brought a Western-style heating stove from Shanghai, “and find it now indispensable.”56

  Commenting on the quality of life in Kanagawa, Hepburn wrote that he and his wife had “ple
nty to eat, such as fish, fowls, eggs, sweet potatoes, string-beans, turnips, radishes, rice of the best quality—carrots. We occasionally get a piece of fresh beef, mutton & veal from some kind Captain or our very kind Consul, and oysters too of excellent quality and large size from the market … milk and butter we have not.” Margaret Ballagh, one of the Dutch Reformed missionaries who lived in the same compound, wrote that the vegetable seller would make the rounds, carrying (in November) “spinach, but not very tender; turnips, squashes and potatoes—both Irish and sweet,” as well as chestnuts, walnuts, persimmons, oranges and grapes. “I select what I want and pay him with a few copper coins strung on a straw rope, and after thanking me by a low bow, making a deep inspiration at the same time, and passing the money up to his head and touching his forehead with it, he throws the string into his baskets, takes them up on each end of a pole and placing the pole across his shoulder, he trots off to another house.” She bought fish in the same way and was able to send to Yokohama for “passable” beef. “We get a little pork occasionally, but the mutton is too expensive for us missionaries to look at.” They made their own bread, grinding a mixture of local and imported flour using a stone pestle.57

  The reason for the high prices and difficulty in obtaining meat products was the general absence of animal husbandry or butchering in Japan. Large animals like cattle and swine were expensive to rear, and butchering them was offensive to Japanese religious and cultural taboos against contact with death and blood (the main exceptions were mountain villages, some of which subsisted in part on wild game, and outcast communities that were designated to perform “unclean” tasks such as butchering). In Yokohama, meat such as beef and pork was supplied by visiting ships and a few enterprising foreigners who set up slaughterhouses and butchering facilities on the edge of the foreign settlement.

  The Hepburns paid their two servants eight bu each per month, equivalent at the time to four dollars. Noting the relative economy of his household, Hepburn pointed out that “all other persons here, have either Chinese cooks & washermen, or English,” and that “in Nagasaki two merchants send their clothes over to Shanghai to be laundered.” Nevertheless, “we have found the price of marketing thus far higher than we expected, quite as high as it was at Amoy. I think we are imposed upon, and charged exorbitant prices … We pay as much for fish as we did in New York. Fruits are cheap.” Most items of daily consumption were obtainable locally, but “they have no woolen goods that we have yet seen, and no tailors. We are much worse off in this respect than they are in China.” Moreover, as one of the few foreign families living in Kanagawa proper, the Hepburns felt “certain that we are under constant surveillance, and all our movements and doings are reported to the rulers.”58

  Several visitors to Yokohama commented on one of its most notable features: its very visible brothel district. When the port opened in July, this was still in its temporary quarters in a residential block at the edge of the foreign quarter (later to reopen as the Yokohama Hotel). The prostitutes were moved to the new licensed quarter when it finally opened in November 1859. The district was given the name Miyozakichō. At the time of its opening, it consisted of six brothels occupying three semidetached residential buildings, as well as teahouses, geisha houses, and retail shops.59 The Gankirō was the largest and grandest of the brothels. It was owned by Sakichi, the primary developer of the quarter. Sakichi was officially appointed the nanushi, or “headman,” of the district, and he moved into a newly constructed district office adjacent to the brothels. From this office, he supervised the running of the quarter and took care of discipline and order among the residents.

  The licensed quarter, as Francis Hall described it at the end of 1859, was “a small town of itself, and its buildings cover many acres in extent.” The entrance was “through a massive gate just within which is a police station and ample police.” The Gankirō was “a hundred and twenty five feet long by sixty broad, two stories in height. The lower story was divided into offices, reception rooms, and some bedrooms. Occupying a large quadrangle in the center was an artificial lake crossed by an elaborately furnished bridge … A wing connected with this lower story was set apart for Chinamen especially.” On the ground floor was a “large apartment or sort of common living room, where twelve or fifteen girls were seated about on the mats, talking, smoking, painting their cheeks, whitening their necks, dressing their hair, and similar toilet devotions.” At the entrance was a notice stating that “all noisy persons would be ejected.” Another notice, in English and Dutch, listed the prices charged by the house. On the second floor was “a broad gallery around an open space looking upon the lake below. This gallery was divided into bedrooms of good size, fitted up with clean mats and handsome silk covered mattresses and comfortables … One large room was for a refreshment room and was fitted up with table, chairs, and lounges. The walls, and particularly the ceiling, were handsomely, though rather gorgeously, papered. There were seats in the same room for musicians.”60

  When the quarter officially opened, according to Rodolphe Lindau, “all the foreigners—the consuls among the very first—received a little package containing a porcelain cup, a paper fan and a strip of blue cloth … The fan pictured a bird’s eye view of the establishment, and on the cloth appeared in English the statement, ‘This place is designed for the pleasures of foreigners’ … There was a great party at the Gankiro that lasted all night.”61

  The port town of Yokohama was established under treaties that were closely modeled on those that governed foreign concession areas in China such as Shanghai, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Ningbo, and Xiamen. Many features of Yokohama would have been instantly recognizable to a habitué of the Chinese ports—for example, the substantial customs house that greeted inbound visitors, the large numbers of laborers and boatmen waiting at the docks, the hongs (foreign-merchant houses) with their godowns (warehouses), the waterfront bund with its emphasis on the needs and pleasures of the foreign community, and the enormous contrast between the spacious layout and (as foreigners started to build) Western-style buildings of the foreign settlement and the relatively crowded conditions of the “native quarter.” Like the Chinese treaty ports, there were significant areas in which the Japanese government relinquished control, creating a semicolonial space within the foreign settlement. This semicolonial environment was most apparent in the system of extraterritoriality, which put foreign residents beyond the reach of Japanese law and empowered them to introduce their own systems of policing and control.62 But it was also embodied in the built space of Yokohama, which gave foreigners immense spatial privilege and which was created entirely to serve their needs and desires.

  Nevertheless, there were significant differences between Yokohama and the major Chinese treaty ports (though there was also considerable variation among the latter). Unlike the foreign concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports, Yokohama was planned and laid out entirely by the Japanese government, which retained a much higher degree of control over the urban environment of Yokohama than did the local governments in the Chinese ports. In Yokohama, for example, although there were several attempts to form an independent municipal council, the foreign community never succeeded in taking full control of its municipal affairs. In spite of widespread dissatisfaction and complaints by the foreign community, the shogunal government did a better job than the foreigners themselves of supplying essential services such as street maintenance, infrastructure improvements, drainage, and trash removal. Nor did the foreign community have the authority to mandate wholesale urban-planning initiatives such as harbor construction or the laying out of street plans (although the Japanese government did consult closely with the foreigners on such matters). Yokohama was indeed a planned city developed expressly for foreign residence; but the original planning was done entirely by Japanese administrators. Moreover, although the British, French, and Americans created their own police forces, augmented at times by military patrols, the Japanese retained overall control over security, in both t
he foreign settlement and the wider community. And in spite of initial plans to the contrary, the foreign settlement was never divided into national concessions under the control of competing foreign governments.

  Thus, while the international concession in Shanghai became a haven for dissidents, Japanese subjects almost never had the opportunity to shelter from Japanese authority under the umbrella of extraterritorial privilege. The only exceptions were a tiny group of “overseas Japanese” (mostly castaways who had been educated in the United States, in some cases acquiring American citizenship) and a few servants and trading-house employees who were able to obtain a measure of informal protection when they got on the wrong side of the Japanese authorities. In fact, Japanese subjecthood was even more strictly enforced in Yokohama than in the residents’ provincial places of origin: because of the unstable security situation as well the government’s desire to control trade as much as possible, Japanese residents had to submit to strict systems of identification, registration, and monitoring.63

  And although it was limited by the free-trade provisions of the treaty, the Japanese government was also able to assert greater control over the parameters of trade than its Chinese counterpart. For example, the import of opium was prohibited, as was the export of rice and other staples. The Japanese retained control over their customs house and the import duties it brought in. Travel within Japan by foreigners was prohibited, and trading could take place only within the treaty ports. A variety of bans on interactions between Japanese and foreigners also remained in effect, including the prohibition of overseas travel by Japanese (this was increasingly flouted, however) and the strict ban on Japanese practicing Christianity.