Demon Capital Shanghai : The Modern Experience of Japanese Intellectuals 9780983299110

Citation preview

Demon Capital Shanghai The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Translated by Joshua A. Fogel

Liu Jianhui

Demon Capital Shanghai The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Demon Capital Shanghai The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Liu Jianhui Translated by Joshua A. Fogel

Portland, Maine

Copyright ©2012 by MerwinAsia All rights reserved. Title in original language: Mato Shanhai: Nihon chishikijin no “kindai” taiken Publisher of original edition: Kōdansha No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, MerwinAsia, 59 West St., Unit 3W, Portland, ME 04102 USA Distributed by the University of Hawai’i Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2012930440 ISBN 978-0-9832991-0-3 (Paperback) ISBN 978-0-9832991-1-0 (Hardcover) Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Services—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39/48-1992

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Prologue The Two Shanghais . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Chapter 1 Samurai in Shanghai The Front Lines of Capitalism: Samurai Experience the West . . . . . . 21 The Shock Experienced by Takasugi Shinsaku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Chapter 2 Birth of an East Asian Information Network Shifts in the “Informationally Advanced Nations” . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Toward an East Asian Hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Chapter 3 Shanghai and the Opening of Japan The London Missionary Society Press, Site for the Dispatch of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 The “West” as Conveyed by Chinese Translations of Western Works . . 76 Two “Shanghai Men” Who Accelerated the Opening of Japan . . . . 103 Chapter 4 Meiji Men Stirred by Romance Demon Capital Born of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Tea Houses, Brothels, Opium Dens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Identity Unnerved: The Shanghai Experience of Japanese in the Meiji Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Chapter 5 Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital Tanizaki and Akutagawa: Tourism and the Taishō Writer . . . . . . . 136 Cultural Border-Crossers, from Inoue Kōbai to Muramatsu Shōfū . . 151 Chapter 6 The Modern City and the Shōwa Period Skyscrapers and the Modern Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Modernism Extinguished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Epilogue Japan as Seen from Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 About the Author and the Translator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Demon Capital Shanghai The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Preface

This story goes back my youth. It was the early 1970s and the Cultural Revolution had not yet come to an end. As a measure aimed at addressing the severe shortage of foodstuffs in China at the time, a rationing system like that used during the war with Japan was adopted. If you wanted to purchase ordinary, everyday items—to say nothing of durable consumer goods—one had to have a ration coupon for the item. It was extremely difficult to obtain such coupons, and depending on the case at hand it might take years to acquire one. One day my father, through some connection I was unaware of, got a ration coupon for a Yongjiu (“Everlasting”) bicycle. The Yongjiu bicycle was so famous at the time that every Chinese knew of it. The maker was, needless to say, the Shanghai Bicycle Manufacture Company. Obtaining a coupon for such a famous bike was a major event in our household. Quickly a family meeting was convened, and someone argued at great length about how the bike would be used. Of course, the first to be deprived of the right to make use of the bicycle was me, a mere elementary school student at the time. While all this was transpiring, the actual Yongjiu bicycle was delivered to our home. This was cause for a huge tumult. The number of people in the immediate vicinity who came to look at this famous bike was endless, and it went on for days. They all stared in wonderment, all mouths saying “made in Shanghai.” It was not that Shanghai was the only city in China, but more on the order of its being so far away from us, as if a foreign land beyond our reach. For a short time, because of this bicycle, I traveled to many local places and was the envy of my friends, and indeed I was quite proud of my connection to Shanghai. 1

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

My family lived in the city of Shenyang in China’s northeast. It was a key transportation point through which one had to pass if going from the northeast to the south. During the Cultural Revolution, urban youth in China upon graduating from high school were “sent down” (xiafang) to rural villages to steel themselves in body and spirit. Shanghai youth for the most part were sent down to the far northern corner of China, Heilongjiang Province. One time at the lunar New Year, they came through our city on a train heading toward their hometown of Shanghai. Each time they passed through, their behavior became a topic of conversation. Although a relatively small number of people, they occupied an entire train, and they had milk chocolate (also made in Shanghai) which always seemed to be in their mouths and which we could not have afforded every day. What surprised those of us living in such an out-of-the-way place most of all was that boys and girls were nonchalantly kissing in public. Of course, being only an elementary school pupil, I did not witness any of this behavior of the Shanghai youths with my own eyes. For me it was all rumors. After the Yongjiu bicycle incident, though, I was completely overcome by the power of Shanghai, and not only did I assume that these rumors were all completely true, but I took exception to the criticism of the people around me in the city about the kissing. Indeed, I quietly longed for Shanghai, the city in which such simple and wild “human beings” lived. As I think back on it now, all the people of Shenyang who were so antithetical to the behavior of the youngsters from Shanghai had undoubtedly replaced unconsciously the idea of the “West” and “modernity” with “Shanghai.” For example, whenever Shanghai or the people of Shanghai came up in conversation, we often used the figure of speech yang (foreign). Literally, yang meant “western style,” meaning a streetscape of western-style stores and shops or the western style of a person’s speech or adornment. Just as a “Shanghai brand” would always surpass any “domestic” product, the city and people of Shanghai were somehow always separate from China. Compared to “local” people, Shanghai people were perceived as closer to the West or to some foreign land. At least this sense was planted in my youthful mind. 2

Preface

I actually visited Shanghai for the first time in 1986. I had already spent three years as a student in Japan, and using the opportunity of returning home during summer vacation, I made this solo voyage of “returning from abroad” to finally travel to the “foreign terrain” on Chinese soil. I went by ship. I boarded the Jianzhen to make the short trip between Japan and China, following a well-trod route of many Japanese of the past, sailing up the Yangzi and Huangpu rivers until we reached a spot near the Bund. Probably because I had already seen so many tall buildings in Japan, I was not overly impressed by the sight of the Bund, which had so moved people visiting Shanghai by ship earlier. As soon as I disembarked and walked for a time in the city, though, I was stupefied by the extraordinary, distinctive atmosphere. Clearly alien to the traditional norm of the Chinese homeland in which I had been raised and far from the cramped order which I had experienced in Japan, I found here what might be called a kind of “modern chaos.” A huge map floated to the surface of my mind. On it was drawn East Asia with Shanghai at the center, with the Chinese homeland in which I had lived as a boy on one side and Japan in which I was then living on the other. Although not at all out of the ordinary, I sensed that this modern chaos of Shanghai was born of two “spaces”—the homeland and the foreign land of China—and at the time, I only knew Japan. This Shanghai “modernity” existed nowhere in the Chinese homeland, a phenomenon it shared with modern cities in Japan and other countries, but this “chaos” was clearly something that had emerged after the collapse of modern China’s own pattern. Amid this modern chaos was a highly seductive “freedom” to be found neither in the Chinese interior nor in the modern cities of other countries. As I think back on it now, what stopped me in my tracks at the time was the atmosphere of freedom engendered by this modern chaos. Beginning with this first trip to Shanghai in 1986, I have since visited the city on many occasions, sometimes from the Chinese interior and sometimes crossing from Japan. I have tried approaching it by different modes of transport: by train, by ship, and by airplane. Each time my impression differs slightly by virtue of the approach. 3

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Also, by relying on friends I can observe Shanghai from within, and that makes my perceptions of the city all the richer. The more these experiences mount, the more my sense of the city when I first alighted on Shanghai soil, far from requiring revising, is actually all the more enforced and confirmed. Even today that map centered on Shanghai born of my youthful sense of things continues to live on within my head. In this sense, then, this book was written on the basis of my youthful intuition and the knowledge acquired over nearly ten years of research on Shanghai. The decision to write this volume came in 1995. After listening to a talk I delivered, entitled “Mato taiken, bungaku ni okeru Nihonjin to Shanhai” (Experiences in the demon capital, the Japanese and Shanghai in literature), at a joint research seminar at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Mr. Tsujihara Noboru, an author and recipient of 1 the Akutagawa Prize who was a member of the seminar, said that the content of my report might make a book, and he provided me with the contacts gained from his own work. Thereafter, as I traveled back and forth between Japan and China like a migratory bird, I wrestled with the enormous mountain of materials on Shanghai. No matter how I worked at it, though, this mountain showed no sign whatsoever of diminishing. I have incurred a great debt during the writing of this book to the publishing department of the series “Kōdansha sensho” (Kodansha’s Selection). Due to my extremely slow writing, my initial contact person, Mr. Fujioka Keiji, and his replacement, Mr. Matsumoto Kazuhiko, ultimately moved to other departments and did not see this volume to completion. I owe them apologies. Responsibility then fell to Mr. Tokorozawa Jun, and on numerous occasions I had to ask him for extensions to deadlines. During this time, he both tightened and slackened the reins, leading me expertly to this conclusion. Without his warm encouragement and his knack for being able to prod me, this book would never have come to fruition. I offer him heartfelt thanks. April 2000 1. Translator’s note: Tsujihara Noboru won the coveted Akutagawa Prize in January 1990. It is awarded in January and July every year for works by young authors, usually for first major works. 4

Prologue

The Two Shanghais

City of Kidnapping “That guy was Shanghaied”—most non-Anglophone readers would have no idea what this sentence could possibly mean. In fact, this extraordinary English expression denotes someone seized and impressed into service as a low-level sailor. A look in any dictionary under “Shanghai” reveals that, in addition to its meaning a port city in China, it bears the additional slang meaning, when used as a verb, of other seamen getting someone drunk, taking him on board ship, abducting him, and coercing him into service as a sailor. There have been instances even in Japanese for this usage, such as the short story “Shanhai sareta otoko” (Shanghaied man, 1925), by Tani Jōji (1900– 35), an author active in the mid- to late 1920s. His story follows the dictionary definition of “Shanghai” as a verb precisely, with the tale of an abduction onto a foreign vessel in which the port of Kōbe plays a prominent role. Shanghai is the only city in the world whose name has been made into a verb, and this instance is probably the best depiction of the “demonic” element associated with Shanghai, once known as the “capital of demons.” This “demonic” nature of Shanghai was more radical, more extreme than in any other major city in the world: New York, London, Paris, or Tokyo. For the first half of the twentieth century, Shanghai acquired a number of other nicknames, among them “paradise of adventurers,” “pleasure capital,” and “Paris of the Orient.” As a site at which everyone’s dreams and ambitions could be

5

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai 1

realized, it was the most focused upon city in the world. Two Qualitatively Different Spaces

Now, as for the real Shanghai, where did the “demonic” quality that outdid every other city in the world originate? One could, of course, seek the answer to this question, for example, in its overcrowded time sensibility, recklessly speeding up Western modernization into the short 2 span of a mere 150 years. At least as important as this sense of time, if not more important, one needs to take into consideration Shanghai’s geopolitical distinctiveness as well as its congested sense of space. That said, the space that we have come now to refer to as Shanghai was, in fact, divided into two entirely heterogeneous spaces. One was the traditional site with a history of 700 years and centered on the old Shanghai county seat. The other was the modern space with a mere 150 years of history and centered on the foreign Concessions. At least until the wall surrounding the old county seat was removed in 1912, both spaces had extremely clear boundaries, with each managed as separate, coexisting administrative entities: the Shanghai Circuit and the Shanghai Municipal Council, respectively. In this sense, Shanghai modernity described a process of collision and fusion, between the Shanghai Circuit with the broad traditional cultural background of “Jiangnan” (literally, the region of China south of the Yangzi River) and the Shanghai Municipal Council, effectively a colony of the Western Powers. The extreme nature of its “demonic” quality may have been the product of mutual infringement or mutual penetration of these two contradictory, heterogeneous spaces. In concrete terms, the capitalist uniformity of the Concessions always faced a crisis of collapse by virtue of the advance en masse of traditional life and institutions of adult amusement, such as tea shops 1. Francis Lister Hawks Pott, A Short History of Shanghai, Being an Account of the Growth and Development of the International Settlement (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, Ltd., 1928), trans. Hijikata Teiichi and Hashimoto Hachio, Shanhai shi (History of Shanghai) (Tokyo: Seikatsusha, 1940). 2. Fujiwara Keiyō, Shanhai, shissō suru kindai toshi (Shanghai, modern city at full speed) (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1988). 6

Prologue

and courtesan houses. By the same token, in the traditional space of the Shanghai county seat, which developed over a network of various and sundry waterways, numerous thoroughfares cutting through various quarters of the city, which extended from the Concessions, continually overran the order of what had been dubbed the “beautiful riverside locale.” This incessant border crossing from both sides was the principal reason that Shanghai acquired a kind of “Creole” quality to its urban space. At the same time, this was seen as the major reason that afforded this city a “demonic” quality, outstripping all other large cities in the 3 world. A City without Nationalism As we shall see, because of its strongly “Creole” nature, Shanghai exerted a huge influence not only in the Chinese interior but in other countries in East Asia as well. As a kind of “Mecca” of Western capitalism located in this locale, for a long period of time Shanghai continually provided all manner of reports concerning modernity to the surrounding area. This modernity bore a kind of cosmopolitan visage from the start; not only did no centripetal nationalism whatsoever exist within it, but it held within it a destructive role vis-à-vis the “nation-state,” which is premised on an imagined community. In this sense, while rushing toward modernity, the city never fell into the trap of a specific nationalism. This quality of Shanghai was exceedingly rare internationally, and it would be well to refresh our memories of its variegated historical experience, seen as both pluses and minuses, as we look forward into the twenty-first century, the age of globalization. This in itself is an important reason to examine Shanghai as a historical lesson.

3. Works which treat Shanghai as a “Creole” urban space would include Takahashi Kōsuke and Furumaya Tadao, eds., Shanhai shi, kyodai toshi no keisei to hitobito no itonami (A history of Shanghai, the formation of a giant city and the businesses of its people) (Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 1995). 7

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

The Wall to Counter the “Japanese” Pirates For the above reasons, my aim in this volume will be to investigate Shanghai with its numerous visages and images, especially the various and sundry memories of Japanese with respect to the city. To make the analysis all the clearer, though possibly at the expense of offering wellknown facts, let me offer a brief overview of the meaning of Shanghai for Japanese through the ages, through its history and geography. As noted, when we speak of Shanghai today, in fact two distinctive Shanghais are meant. One is the Shanghai centered on the old county seat with over seven centuries of history, and one is the Shanghai centered on the Concessions, built abruptly by the Western Powers just a century and one-half ago. Although there were numerous changes, twists and turns in the “boundaries” between the two, they were run by entirely different administrations, at least until the Japanese military occupation came to an end in August 1945. The short name for Shanghai is Hu, a toponym that comes from the old name Hudu. Hu is fishing gear like a net made of bamboo, and du indicates the mouth of a river that pours out into the sea. Thus, Hudu seems to denote nets lined up at the mouth of the river to trap fish. One can see from this etymology that Shanghai was probably a genuine fishing town originally. The Longhua Temple in the western suburbs of contemporary Shanghai is thought to have been built in the distant Three Kingdoms era (220–65). The nearby Longhua Pagoda is also said to have been donated by Sun Quan (182–252) of the state of Wu at that same time. These facts would seem to indicate that our “fishing town” was a place with a long history. The first administrative unit was placed in Shanghai much later, during the Song dynasty (960–1279). In the third year of the Xianchun reign in the Southern Song (1267), a branch office of the shibosi (maritime trade commissioner), overseeing the inspection of goods and the collection of customs revenues, was established in Shanghai. Thus, eventually the Shanghai Defense Command was born. In the fourteenth year of the Zhiyuan reign of the Mongol dynasty (1277), it ceased being a branch office, and a full-fledged shibosi was 8

Prologue

placed in the city. Fifteen years later in 1292, the Shanghai Defense Command was elevated to Shanghai County, the smallest independent administrative district at the time. Shanghai was then reported to have 4 roughly 72,500 households. Elevated to county status, Shanghai did not for many years have a wall surrounding it, as other counties of the time often did. There are many reasons for this, but principal among them was the fact that “there was no fear of uprisings” locally, with social turbulence 5 apparently not the least worry. The peace that continued over this long stretch of time was suddenly broken in the middle of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) with the invasion of the wokou (Japanese, wakō) or “Japanese pirates.” According to the official Ming shi (Ming history), from the fourth through the sixth lunar months of the thirty-second year of the Jiajing reign (1553), wokou attacked Shanghai no less than five times. Not only were numerous people killed, but half the city itself was reduced to scorched earth. To defend against a return of these pirates, beginning in the ninth month of that year a wall encircling Shanghai was rapidly constructed, and within two months’ time the county seat was completed with a wall nine li (one li being slightly more than 600 meters) in circumference, roughly 17 meters high, and with six gates. This wall was, as noted, eventually pulled down in 1912, meaning that it protected Shanghai for some 360 years. The urban space encircled by this newly built wall did, in fact, exert an immense influence on the formation of Shanghai culture thereafter. Without straining the argument too much, one might say that Shanghai was effectively created by the wokou. Customs from the Sea Once the county seat had come into being, Shanghai already had developed fully as a local commercial city. In these years the cotton spinning business was concentrated in Shanghai, making it the center 4. Songjiang fu zhi (Songjiang prefectural gazetteer), Zhengde period, Ming dynasty. 5. Shanhai zhi (Shanghai gazetteer), Hongzhi reign, Ming dynasty. 9

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

of the cotton goods market nationwide. At the same time, with the rapid growth of the transportation business along the inland waterways of China, the volume of trade there reached several million taels per 6 annum. This prosperity suffered a temporary retrogression with the invasion of the Manchu armies, but nonetheless for more than a century this area known as the “mighty county in the southeast” grew ever more secure from the middle of the Ming period onward. One thing that brought about a more decisive leap forward for Shanghai, as a local city, was the “expand to the sea” (zhanhai) order issued by the Kangxi emperor of the Qing dynasty in 1684. Zheng Chenggong (also known as Koxinga, 1624–62) and his followers had long opposed the Qing from their base in Taiwan; in 1683 they surrendered, and the forces of resistance completely dissipated. The next year the Qing government issued the “expand to the sea” order, thus promptly abrogating the ban on sea travel that had been in place. And, the year after that (1685), it set up in Shanghai a Yangzi Customs Office to oversee domestic and foreign trade, and all at once launched an active foreign trade policy. The installation of this customs office completely transformed the position of Shanghai as a local city. That is, the only places at which a customs office had been created at that time were along the Chinese coastline, at the three cities of Guangzhou (Cantonese Customs Office), Xiamen (Fujian Customs Office), and Ningbo (Zhejiang Customs Office). From a national perspective, joining this group meant that Shanghai would become one of the pivots of foreign and domestic trade. Domestically, after the establishment of the Yangzi Customs Office, marine transport aboard sand ships (shachuan) was rapidly revived; and with respect to foreign affairs, the very year in which the Yangzi Customs Office was born witnessed thirteen trading vessels being sent to Japan. Thus, Shanghai acquired an image as the entryway along the southeastern seaboard. 6. Zhu Guodong and Wang Guozhang, eds., Shanhai shangye shi (History of commerce in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai caijing daxue chubanshe, 1999). 10

Prologue

At this time the Japanese called these sand ships, which sailed from Shanghai to Nagasaki, “Nanjing vessels,” and together with the Ningbo vessels that set sail from Zhapu, the two groups were known collectively in Japanese as kōsen (or kuchibune, ships from [Chinese] coastal [cities]). The active trade carried aboard sand ships, including kōsen, not only transformed Shanghai into an important port in East Asia, but at the same time brought unprecedented prosperity to its locale. In this connection, there were only ten roads in the county seat in the late Ming dynasty, and this number rose to over sixty by the beginning of the nineteenth century. On either side of these roads were numerous storefronts, among them reportedly as many as ten oldstyle banks (qianzhuang). For a time, trade with Japan was especially flourishing, something that can be seen as Japan’s contribution to the prosperity of Shanghai. The Birth of the Concessions In the northern suburbs of Shanghai, which now had over 500 years of history, another Shanghai (the Concessions) was born in 1845, two years after the opening of the port of Shanghai by virtue of the Treaty of Nanjing, following China’s defeat in the Opium War. In November 1845, the Shanghai daotai (circuit intendant, a high-level local official) of the time, Gong Mujiu (d. 1848), after repeated consultations with George Balfour (1809–94), the first British consul there, circulated the Land Regulations, which set a lease on land measuring roughly 0.56 square kilometers along the banks of the Huangpu River as the residential area for British merchants. The creation of a foreign residential area outside the walled city came originally at the request of the British. As we see from the provisions on “separate Chinese and Western residential areas” as stipulated in the Land Regulations, however, it was as well a kind of “isolation policy” on the part of the Chinese, aimed at restricting the range of movement of the foreigners. Following the establishment of the British Concession in 1848, first an American Concession and then the next year a French Concession were established, respectively, in a section of Hongkou (Hongkew) on the opposite shore of the Wusong River and 11

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

across Yangjingbang Creek, which was a boundary line to the south. The three Concessions built one after the next provided the archetype for Shanghai as a modern city. With separate Chinese and Western residences, the Concessions were to have a certain amount of autonomy while basically remaining under Chinese supervision. Within a decade of their establishment, this situation changed rapidly. One reason for this was the armed uprising of the Small Swords, a secret society, in September 1853; for one and one-half years the peasant army of the Small Swords occupied Shanghai, and a huge number of refugees escaped into the adjacent three Concessions. Given these unexpected events, the earlier principle of “separate Chinese and Western residential areas” rapidly fell by the wayside, and thereafter both the Chinese and Concessions sides perforce accepted the reality of “mixed Chinese and Western residence.” On the pretext that they were doing so in the face of the new circumstances, British Consul Rutherford Alcock (1809–97) in July 1854 negotiated with the American and French consuls and promulgated a “Revised Land Regulations,” a unilateral emendation of the earlier Land Regulations, which were presented to the Chinese as a fait accompli. This new set of Land Regulations included, among other things, recognition of a new boundary to the British Concession negotiated in 1848, tacit acceptance of Chinese residence within the Concessions, and the installation of a xunbu or “police force.” The more important items were the convening of an association of lessees, who comprised a city council with the three consuls, and the establishment of the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) as its executive organ. In particular, the latter took shape with the capacity to serve as a municipal government, and the Concessions were thus effectively separated from the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, thereafter becoming “autonomous.” The Formation of a Complete Administrative System When they initially acquired “autonomy,” the Concessions were, as previously, each divided geographically from the other two and centered 12

Prologue

on the British Concession around which new borders were formally recognized. Administratively, however, the three Concessions were united in the newly formed SMC. This structure would be maintained for roughly a decade over the course of the 1850s, but with the attack on Shanghai in 1862 by the Taiping rebels, further changes were in store. In preparation for repeated assaults by the Taiping forces and to fortify defenses for the entire Concessions area, from roughly the beginning of 1862 a merger of the British and American Concessions became a topic of discussion. Thereafter, the Chinese and Americans demarcated a border with the American Concession, which had been vague until then, and in September 1863 the British and American Concessions officially amalgamated under the auspices of the SMC, with its name changing to the “Foreign Settlement.” At approximately the same time as this merger came about, the French Concession gave up as hopeless the operation of their Concession under the unsatisfactory guidance of Britain. In May 1862 it announced unilateral secession from the unified administration, just a step ahead of the formal amalgamation of the British and American Concessions. The French then established the Public Security Bureau, their own municipal administrative organ. After the amalgamation the Foreign Settlement naturally found the area under its supervision significantly expanded and its administrative capacity greatly enhanced. While the realization of its autonomy moved ahead, the text that formed the basis for it in the earlier Land Regulations was extremely vague, and as a result there were numerous impediments to subsequent administrative operations. Waves of refugees in immense numbers had flowed into the Concessions as a result of the Taiping Rebellion. In September 1869 the Concessions authorities enacted a unilateral revision of the Land Regulations, and later they would issue a third set of these regulations. These new Land Regulations expanded the association of lessees into the Foreign Rate-payers Association, and it was given authority to deliberate over the Concessions’ budget, to elect an SMC Executive, and the like, and was thus afforded all the functions of a regular city 13

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

council. Next, the existing powers of the SMC were strengthened, and it shared the burden of these powers with each of its committees, effectively conferring on it all the functions befitting a city council. For example, it established the full array of institutions of an urban administration, such as the Office of Police Affairs, the Fire Fighting Stations, the Sanitation Office, the Education Office, and the Office of Financial Affairs, thus forming a complete administrative system. Toward an Independent State Prior to the promulgation of the third set of Land Regulations, the SMC issued in April of 1869 legal provisions concerning jurisdiction over Chinese living in the Concessions. According to these provisions, known as the “Provisional Rules for the Mixed Court,” trials involving Chinese residents in the Concessions would be handled by a subprefect (a judge), who was appointed by the Shanghai circuit intendant to the Mixed Court established in the Concessions. In cases in which the interested party was a foreigner or a Chinese employed by a foreigner, there would necessarily be deliberations with the consul or a juridical official recognized by the consul. In cases in which the accused bore complaints regarding the judicial decision, there was the possibility of appeal to both the Shanghai circuit intendant and the consular officials. Thus, with the promulgation of the two newer sets of Land Regulations, the Foreign Settlement launched itself toward being an “independent state” almost completely in the legal and administrative arenas, despite a few areas of uncertainty regarding the administration of justice. The structure of this independent state underwent a name change from “Foreign Settlement” to “International Settlement” accompanying waves of territorial expansion in the late nineteenth century and continuing right through until the first Shanghai Incident when the Japanese military attacked the city in 1932. Having refused to participate in the Foreign Settlement and establishing a Public Security Bureau as its own administrative organ in 1862, the French Concession not only continued to function in a manner organizationally similar to the SMC, but it also later promulgated the “Regulations on the Organization of the Public 14

Prologue

Security Bureau” in 1866, which were similar in content to the third set of Land Regulations of the Anglo-American Concession. The French also established a judicial mechanism identical to the Mixed Court. Thus, while in their actual operations they may have differed somewhat, the French Concession had effectively created an independent state similar to the Foreign Settlement. This independent state would on two occasions in the late nineteenth century expand its territory, but because it was geographically so close to the walled Chinese city, it contributed to the formation of modern Shanghai in a form different from that of the International Settlement. Mosaic City Thus, while they may have been called “Concessions,” in fact in actual content at least three dissimilar spaces coexisted there. The French Concession with its own administrative structure produced a scene rather different administratively from the joint British and American Concessions, because of the nature of its residents. To these three different “spaces” should be added the pre-existing walled city and beside it the traditional riverside locales. While Shanghai was truly a mosaic city, it took shape as an extremely irregular urban space rarely found anywhere in the world. Let me now briefly introduce the geography of this mosaic city of Shanghai, while touching on the distinctive features of its various spaces in the early twentieth century. First would be the central and western areas of the International Settlement—namely, the core of the four aforementioned spaces, the old British Concession. As already noted, this area was the first enclosure formed by the Concession as a foreign residential area. Two waterways interpose north–south: Suzhou Creek and Yangjingbang Creek (now East Yan’an Road); to the east is the starting point of the Bund (waitan), and to the west is a border near the former Jessfield Road (now Wanhangdu Road) with the Jing’an Temple. This space was defined in its overall basic structure by the Bund along the banks of the Huangpu River, the entryway into Shanghai, and the six parallel thoroughfares perpendicular to the Bund: Beijing, Nanjing, Jiujiang, Hankou, Fuzhou, and Guangdong 15

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

roads. The Racecourse, constituting a kind of “inner courtyard,” cannot be ignored as the largest urban site of relaxation. If one sees the Bund along which the consulates, banks, and commercial houses of various countries lined up as a space of politics and capital, then Nanjing Road with its department stores and all manner of shops was a space of commerce and consumption, and Fuzhou Road with its numerous tea shops, courtesan houses, and theaters was a radically different and specific space for amusement. Representing Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s were the “Big Four,” including the Sincere and Wing On department stores. While most of them were located along Nanjing Road, the Qingliange, representative of tea shops of the time, and the Huileli, where the courtesan houses were concentrated, faced onto Fuzhou Road. One Large Amusement Paradise The French Concession was located south of the former British Concession. With the walled Chinese city to its south and the British Concession to its north, it was composed of a long, narrow corridor traversing the space between them. In the 1910s this space grew dramatically, and its western edge above all else extended as far as Xujiahui in the distant suburbs. The earliest enclosure of what was the French Concession was its core, and on either side of its main street, Xiafei Road (now Huaihai Road), were countless shops. Thus, here too one frequently saw a commercial space. Though in no way contradicting such a feature, this space was one for extraordinary pleasure-seeking as well. All of which is to say that, being close to the walled Chinese city, this area was home to a concentration of three kinds of enterprises: “tea shops,” courtesan houses, and opium dens. In addition, calls began to be heard in the 1920s in the International Settlement for banning prostitution, opium, and gambling. Because these practices were legally protected in this area, though, amusement establishments of this sort were lined up next to one another until they effectively formed one large amusement paradise. In this connection, one should note that the Great World, the most 16

Prologue

representative institution of overall amusement in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s; the Xijia Duchang (popularly known as No. 181), the largest gambling house of the time; the Hai Alai field, known for its modernstyle gambling; and the Canidrome (Yiyuan baogouchang), the first dog racing track in East Asia, were all located in the French Concession. All of this together made this space exceedingly out of the ordinary. Adjacent to the French Concession was the traditional space centered on the walled Chinese city. At its core was the county yamen, administrative office of Shanghai county, the Chenghuangmiao at which one offered prayers to the local deity of Shanghai, and the Chinese-style Yu Garden. The atmosphere that these establishments evoked was, of course, completely different from that of the Concessions, and while chaotic, to be sure, the indigenous order was maintained as it long had been. At the traditional riverside, one step behind it, tranquil garden scenery distinctive to the Jiangnan area of China spread out before one’s eyes. The Attraction of Chaos Finally, the northernmost site of the four spaces was the northern and eastern sections of the International Settlement, the old American Concession. This area comprised a site including the extensive land from Suzhou Creek north along the Huangpu River. Although dubbed the American Concession, there were never many American residents living in it; rather, most of this land was occupied by the Japanese. Here the Hongkou neighborhood, popularly known as the Japanese Concession, played host to a convergence of Japanese establishments and shops aimed at Japanese clientele. At its height, over 100,000 Japanese are said to have lived here. Somewhat removed from the center of the Concessions, this space was sandwiched on either side by a factory area and never formed a lively commercial or consumption space as was found in the center of the Concessions. Rather, its liveliness was carried on by virtue of the entertainment establishments, such as a group of dance halls and movie theaters. The main figures who will emerge in later chapters of this volume—such as Yokomitsu Riichi (1898–1947), Kaneko Mitsuharu 17

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

(1895–1975), and Yoshiyuki Eisuke (1906–40)—often used this neighborhood to set their stories, and day after day they explored the area from Sichuan Road, the main thoroughfare of this area, to the center of the Concessions. We have now taken a quick look at the four spaces of Shanghai, but as we can see from their distinctive features, each of these four spaces had different senses of law and order. Accordingly, while they exhibited a phenomenal diversity of urban landscapes, the mutual interpenetration among them at the same time gave rise to border transgressions and fusions of differing cultures rarely found elsewhere, which in turn gave birth to an extraordinarily cosmopolitan “chaos.” This “chaos” itself was an attraction of Shanghai as a “demon capital” and also led to its broadmindedness as an international city. “Triggering Explosive” of the Modern State How in the world might the Japanese have looked upon this multifaceted Shanghai? What might Creole Shanghai have meant to Japan and the Japanese? Let me separate the response to such questions into late Edo and Meiji (together with post-Meiji) eras. The meaning of Shanghai for the Japanese changed completely with the Meiji Restoration. There was a major divide, for until then Shanghai played a variety of roles in Japan as a “state,” primarily, while afterward it continued to play roles, only now for the Japanese as “people.” In the late Edo period, Shanghai was extremely important in two general senses. First, the Concessions, created as semi-colonies, formed the front lines of capitalism in East Asia, and from there Western knowledge flooded into Japan en masse. Numerous Western works in Chinese translations prepared by missionaries not only conveyed Western learning but simultaneously offered certain views or images of the state which took the Western Powers as their models. Undoubtedly with the collapse of the shogunal form of government in the offing, this was crucial for many committed samurai who were keenly looking for new forms of the nation-state. Second, with the formation of these same Concessions, Shanghai became the closest entry to the West, and the Concessions themselves 18

Prologue

were regarded as “the West” at closest range. In the late Edo era, many samurai on their way to the West visited the city of Shanghai en route. They experienced “the West” there, and this experience with “civilization” for the first time truly stunned them. For these samurai who witnessed Concessions Shanghai, which was relentlessly oppressing walled-city Shanghai, the reality of the city provided a stark counterlesson of sorts; the tragic state of affairs there served to prompt their decision about modernity. And, thus, the transmission from Shanghai of Western knowledge as seen in the late Edo period, the shock of “civilization” received by samurai, and the function this experience played as a negative lesson produced by the semi-colonial reality—all of these were significant conditions spurring the awakening of Japan. They were as well indispensable elements in the launching of modern Japan. In this sense, mid–nineteenth-century Shanghai served as a kind of triggering mechanism for the modern state for China, of course, but for Japan just as well. It exerted no small influence on this new beginning for Japan. The Closest “Paradise” This role that Shanghai played for Japan began to fade rapidly in the Meiji period. Japan was at this point in time already championing its own “civilization and enlightenment” (bunmei kaika) movement and introducing modern institutions directly from the West. Thus, Shanghai lost any import it once had had as a “stopover point” in this process. A more fundamental reason for Shanghai’s lack of relevance, however, was rather that Shanghai modernity was now already an impediment and had ceased altogether to provide any sort of profitable element for Meiji Japan, as the latter moved forward toward a centripetal nationstate based on nationalism. This change was symbolized by the fact that Shanghai modernity had taken shape only in the settlements of the Western Powers, and it therefore possessed an identity altogether different from a nation-state. In point of fact, it was nearly a “destructive device” for the nationstate, which is premised on an imagined community. Its multifaceted quality, whether for good or ill, deviated from the category of a 19

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

modern state. This proved to be true both as seen from within China and as seen from within Japan. While Shanghai, then, provided a continuous stream of reports on the modern state to Japan in the late-Edo period, this role of Shanghai for Japan was completely reversed when the Meiji state came into being. One aspect of this role with which it was newly burdened was especially conspicuous, namely as a base for an expansionist Japan’s advancement onto the Asian mainland. Even more than this, transcending the nationalism of the Meiji state, Shanghai’s aspect as a new, completely free terrain, which belonged to no particular nation—neither China nor Japan nor, for that matter, the Western nations—began to function ever more powerfully. From obstructed Japan in which the restraints of the modern state were becoming ever firmer, Shanghai was an object on which to entrust fiction, a land on which to realize an adventurer’s dream. Politics and economics aside, then, from the 1870s on Shanghai was losing its appeal for Japan as a “state.” For many Japanese who dreamed of escaping from Japan, however, this chaotic city was, undoubtedly, the closest place of refuge, the closest “paradise.” From the Meiji period forward, numerous Japanese did indeed travel to Shanghai, but, aside from those in political and military circles pursuing the cause of Mainland expansion, what many sought on this land was a kind of modernity different from that at home in Japan. It effectively functioned as a device to relativize the realities of Japan. On the basis of the foregoing, I aim in this volume to trace the role played by Shanghai in the formation of modern Japan as a nationstate, confining my focus in the first half primarily to ties between late-Edo Japan and Shanghai. In the latter half of the book, I will examine the experiences of Japanese in Shanghai from the Meiji period forward and try to illuminate what vestiges Shanghai left in each of their individual intellectual histories. In this sense, while it is a study of Shanghai, this work is also a study of Japan and the Japanese, using Shanghai as its raw material.

20

Chapter 1

Samurai in Shanghai

The Front Lines of Capitalism: Samurai Experience in the “West” Beachhead In mid-nineteenth-century East Asia, a modern network emerged together with the growth of the Concessions as “modern nations,” encompassing trade, transportation, communication, and information—and it was all centered on Shanghai. While China was, of course, included within this network, so too was late Edo period Japan across the East China Sea. Once Shanghai had become the front lines of the advance of the Western Powers into East Asia and, at the same time, once China in a broader sense had been compelled to open her doors, Shanghai conceivably began to play the role of a beachhead leading to Japan. The Western Powers’ next objective was to have Japan “open its doors.” From the perspective of Japan, by contrast, Shanghai appeared to represent capitalist modernity itself. Although not alone, it was the most modern entry point into the West. In other words, at the very moment when Europe’s fixed shipping routes began either at Hong Kong or Shanghai, Japanese who contemplated going abroad would of necessity had to select one of these two cities to start from. Imperfect though it may have been, what they saw and heard there became their initial experience of modernity. Most Japanese travelers, when alighting on Shanghai or Hong Kong soil, the front lines of capitalism and the front lines of Western 21

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

colonialism, felt the West for the first time. Only afterward did they think of going to Europe, as if sailing upstream against the tide of the advance into East Asia of the Western Powers. In this sense, the “Western experience” they had in every place, beginning with Shanghai, was extremely important. It not only cast a shadow over their entire perception of the West, but seems to have influenced their understanding of China, Asia, and even Japan itself into the distant future. We shall omit Hong Kong from consideration here, but let us now take a look at the Shanghai experiences of the first Japanese travelers, the majority of whom were shogunal officials and samurai from various domains. Half the Travelers Come to Shanghai In the ten years following the official opening of the country in 1858 until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the Edo shogunate sent altogether seven delegations, large and small, to the West to cope with a battery of diplomatic issues. The first mission was dispatched to the United States in 1860 to ratify the U.S.–Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce. The embassy, led by Shinmi Masaoki (1822–69), sailed aboard the Kanrinmaru. The second, led by Takeuchi Yasunori (1807–67), was sent in 1862 to the more important states of Europe with the task of negotiating the postponement of opening the cities and ports of Edo, Osaka, Hyōgo (Kobe), and elsewhere. The third delegation was sent to France under the leadership of Ikeda Nagaoki (1837–79) in 1864 to negotiate diplomacy concerned with the closed harbor of Yokohama. The fourth embassy, led by Shibata Takenaka (1823–77) was sent to France and Great Britain in 1865; its primary business was preparation for construction of the Yokohama Ironworks. The fifth embassy, under Koide Hidemi (1833–68), traveled via Europe to Russia to negotiate a provisional border agreement between Japan and Russia. The sixth mission was not diplomatic in nature but was a group led by Ono Tomogorō (1817–98); it was sent to the United States in 1867 to purchase a battleship and weaponry. And the seventh and final embassy was dispatched the same year under the leadership of 22

Samurai in Shanghai

Tokugawa Akitake (1853–1910) to attend the Second Paris Exposition as representatives of Shogun Yoshinobu (1837–1913). In addition, on a number of occasions the shogunate and several powerful domains sent groups of overseas students to Western countries, the following six instances being the main ones. In 1862 the shogunate dispatched a group of nine young men—including Enomoto Takeaki (1836–1908), Akamatsu Noriyoshi (1841–1920), Tsuda Mamichi (1829–1903), and Nishi Amane (1829–97)—to Holland. The following year, 1863, Chōshū domain secretly sent five students—including Inoue Kaoru (1836–1915) and Itō Hirobumi (1840–1909)—to Great Britain. The third group, altogether nineteen young men in all, including Godai Tomoatsu (1835–85), Terashima Munenori (1832–93), and Mori Arinori (1847–89), was sent by Satsuma domain in 1865 to Great Britain with the cooperation of Thomas Glover (1838–1911). That same year a fourth group— six men all told, including Ichikawa Kanehide (Bunkichi, d. 1927) and Yamanouchi Sakuzaemon—was dispatched by the shogunate to Russia. A fifth group of fourteen men—including Nakamura Masanao (1832–91) and Kawaji Tarō (1844–1927)—left the following year, 1866, also sent by the shogunate, to Britain. And, finally, the sixth group actually did double service on the aforementioned embassy led by Tokugawa Akitake; namely, once the tasks of the delegation were completed, the remaining men transformed themselves into students by prearrangement and stayed on to study in France. Thus, in the final decade of the Edo period, a large number of shogunal and domainal officials traveled to nations in the West. The actual travels of the seven embassies and six additional groups of overseas students may be clearer from the charts below. As they indicate, aside from cases involving travel on battleships or merchant vessels directly to the foreign countries involved, as a matter of course the great majority of embassies and student groups traveled to the West via Hong Kong or Shanghai—and five times Shanghai was their destination.

23

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Embassies and Overseas Students Dispatched 1 to the West in the Late Edo Period Embassies Countries involved

United States

France, Britain, Holland, etc.

Year sent

Objectives

Principal members

Notes

1860

Exchange of ratification of U.S.–Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

Shinmi Masaoki, Ueno Tadayuki, Kimura Kaishū.

Traveled on the U.S. ship Powhatan; called at Hong Kong on return.

1862

Negotiate delay in opening cities and ports.

Takeuchi Yasunori, Fukuchi Gen’ichirō, Fukuzawa Yukichi.

Traveled on British battleship Odin: called at Hong Kong on both legs of trip.

France

1864

Negotiate closed harbor of Yokohama.

Ikeda Nagaoki, Tanabe Taichi, Sugiura Yuzuru.

Traveled on French battleship and mail ship; called at Shanghai on both legs of trip.

France, Britain

1865

Invite technicians for Yokohama Ironworks.

Shibata Takenaka, Fukuchi Gen’ichirō.

Traveled on British mail ship via Shanghai.

Russia

1866

Provisional border agreement with Russia.

Koide Hidemi, Mitsukuri Shūhei.

Traveled on French mail ship via Marseilles.

United States

1867

Buy battleship, weapons.

Ono Tomogorō, Matsumoto Judayū.

France

1867

Attend 2nd Paris Expo.

Tokugawa Akitake, Sugiura Yuzuru, Shibusawa Eiichi.

Traveled on French mail ship via Shanghai.

1. This chart was prepared in consultation with Tomita Hitoshi, ed., Umi o koeta Nihon jinmei jiten (Biographical dictionary of Japanese who crossed the sea) (Tokyo: Nichigai asoshiētsu, 1985); Ishizuki Minoru, Kindai Nihon no kaigai ryūgaku shi (History of modern Japanese overseas study) (Tokyo: Mineruva shobō, 1972); and other works. 24

Samurai in Shanghai

Overseas Students Countries involved

Year sent

Objectives

Principal members

Notes

Holland

1862

Sent by shogunate.

Enomoto Takeaki, Akamatsu Noriyoshi, Nishi Amane.

Traveled on Dutch merchant vessel Calypso via Java.

Britain

1863

Sent by Chōshū domain.

Inoue Kaoru, Itō Hirobumi.

Traveled on British merchant vessel via Shanghai.

Britain

1865

Sent by Satsuma domain.

Godai Tomoatsu, Terashima Munenori, Mori Arinori.

Traveled on British merchant and mail ships via Hong Kong.

Russia

1865

Sent by shogunate.

Britain

1866

Sent by shogunate.

Nakamura Masanao, Kawaji Tarō.

Traveled on British mail ship via Shanghai.

France

1867

Sent by shogunate.

Tokugawa Akitake, Sugiura Yuzuru, Shibusawa Eiichi.

Traveled on French mail ship via Shanghai.

Ichikawa Kanehide, Traveled on Russian Yamamoto Sakuzaemon. battleship.

25

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

While this provides evidence for the place of Shanghai as the “entryway” to the West, even more significant is the fact that nearly half of the travelers at this time experienced Shanghai, and it was a shocking experience at that. Dinner, Piano, Photographs: Encountering Western Things What did these delegations and students actually experience in Shanghai, and what sort of shock did they feel? One of the members of the Ikeda embassy sent to France in 1864 was a shogunal official by the name of Sugiura Yuzuru (1835–77) who described the scene in Shanghai when his party went on land there in his Hōshi nikki (Diary 2 of a diplomatic mission) as follows: Morning, the sixth, we reached the mouth of the Yangzi River. The river is broad without end, its blue waves boundless. We came to the Wusong River at 3:00 (historical site at which Chen Huacheng died in battle [during the Opium War]). At 5:00 we reached Shanghai and dropped anchor. On the seventh we went on land and stayed at the British guesthouse . . . The guesthouse looked out on the river with extraordinary scenic beauty. At a glance over a great distance, one could detect the smoke from masts. We observed flags and banners fluttering in the breeze and became aware of the bustling commerce going on. I have heard that Westerners and travelers from the south eat together and enjoy chatting and getting to know one another, and I sense that they are truly communicating. The water of the river is quite deep, sufficient for great ships to come right up to the shore. Vessels that drop anchor number, I am told, some 500 in all.

Away from Japan for the first time, Sugiura appears to have been extremely impressed by the “bustling commerce” and the genuine communication between Chinese and Westerners in Shanghai, twenty years after the opening of its port. That said, the “British guesthouse” at which his party stayed was in fact the finest British-owned hotel in 2. In Sugiura Yuzuru zenshū (Collected works of Sugiura Yuzuru) (Tokyo: Sugiura Yuzuru zenshū kankōkai, 1978), vol. 1. 26

Samurai in Shanghai

Shanghai at the time. From the guest rooms of this two-storey structure facing the Bund, one had a panoramic view of the dynamic activities underway at the port of Shanghai. This was the Astor House—Licha fandian in Chinese, built in 1852 and presently known as the Pujiang fandian—and it was here that he and his colleagues would encounter all manner of “Western things.” For example, they enjoyed a full-course dinner with foods still unknown in Japan, listened to music performed on a yōkin as he dubbed the “piano,” and drank coffee after breakfast.

Astor House Hotel and Garden Bridge, Shanghai

Most intriguing of all to the entire group was the photography studio near the Astor House hotel. Not only did practically the entire group set out there to observe it in person, but photography itself appears to have had a captivating impact on them as a new tool of civilization. They would later take numerous photos as their trip continued on its way. 27

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Like subsequent delegations and student groups, they experienced the West for the first time in Shanghai. For example, when the Shibata delegation sent to France and Britain in 1865 called at Shanghai on its outward journey, despite only three days spent in port, it enjoyed a proper Western meal at the hotel, rode about the city in a horse-drawn carriage, and observed that Shanghai “is rather more lively a city than 3 Yokohama.” Similarly, the group of students sent by the shogunate to study in Britain in 1866 all went for a haircut soon after coming ashore in Shanghai, and cutting a fine figure made their way to a photo studio to have a commemorative photograph taken. Interest in the Roots of Western Culture Among the many and sundry manifestations of the “West” to be found in Shanghai, the Japanese samurai evinced most interest in certain modern institutions, such as a number of printing houses run by missionaries. Their publications had spread widely in various forms through Japan, and many of these Japanese visitors to Shanghai were already well acquainted with their facilities. The London Missionary Society Press (Mohai shuguan), which had earlier distributed large quantities of Chinese translations of Western writings, by the mid1860s had ceased publishing works printed by movable type. Possibly because the people who escorted the Japanese delegations and groups of overseas students were all British and French, they appear not to have had any opportunity to visit the American Presbyterian Mission Press (Mei-Hua shuguan) under the Presbyterian Church, which was then experiencing rapid growth. Even under these circumstances, however, members of the Shibata embassy to France managed to buy up works by missionaries Walter Medhurst (1796–1857) and James Legge (1815–97) published by these printing houses. They then sent these writings to the shogunate’s army office. Similarly, Shibusawa Eiichi (1840–1931), a participant in 3. Shibata Takenaka, “Futsu-Ei kō” (A trip to France and Great Britain), in Seiyō kenbunshū (Collection of travelogues of the West) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974). Yet, there were several members in this group who had already traveled to the West. 28

Samurai in Shanghai

the mission to France under Tokugawa Akitake, keenly observed these facilities while his party remained briefly in Shanghai: Here [i.e., Shanghai] French missionaries dressed up in the Chinese fashion opened a lecture hall to attract people to their religious message. Furthermore, to study Sinology, the Europeans have erected academies, in which all students are Europeans engaged in Asian studies. Their teachers use the origins of the religious faith of their countries as materials to work from and thus try to develop their religious ideals. The students pay their educational fees with 4 missionary funds.

The “lecture hall” opened by “French missionaries” was probably the former Catholic church of the Jesuits rebuilt in 1851 in Xujiahui in the western suburbs of Shanghai. When he noted that they study “Sinology” and have “academies” to spread “the religious faith of their countries,” he was undoubtedly referring to the Protestant institutions of the London Missionary Society Press and the American Presbyterian Mission Press. It is unclear to what extent Shibusawa understood at that time the difference between the two, but insofar as he did know something of their existence beforehand, standing before the real thing must have elicited a strong feeling in him. Later, in Hong Kong, the next port of call, Shibusawa paid a visit to the Anglo-Chinese School (Ying-Hua shuguan) where James Legge was serving as headmaster, and he praised the many “great works” of this school, which were to become famous in Japan as well by virtue of such texts as Xia’er guanjian (A string of gems from far and near), to be discussed below. Before this group, the delegation sent to Europe under Takeuchi Yasunori, which sailed directly from Japan to Hong Kong in 1862; the delegation to France under Ikeda Nagaoka, which sailed in 1864; and the student group sent by the shogunate to Britain in 1866 (Keiō 2), none of which ultimately had an opportunity to observe the London Missionary Society Press or the American Presbyterian Mission Press 4. Shibusawa Eiichi, “Kō-Sei nikki” (Diary of a trip to the West), in Ōtsuka Takematsu, ed. Shibusawa Eiichi tai-Futsu nikki (Shibusawa Eiichi’s diary of his time spent in France) (Tokyo: Nihon shiseki kyōkai, 1928). 29

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

in Shanghai, all paid a visit to the Anglo-Chinese school soon after arriving in Hong Kong. Each group communicated with Legge in 5 written form using literary Chinese. In addition, they learned from Wang Tao (1828–97), who had taken refuge in Hong Kong from Shanghai after his secret communications with the Taipings became public and who will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, the “general 6 contours” of the “[Anglo-Chinese] School since its erection.” They 7 saw a printing press that “printed 1,000 pages every day,” and were 8 highly impressed by these many activities rooted in Western culture. Inoue Kaoru’s Awakening A number of the Japanese who encountered the West in Shanghai quickly realized from this confrontation the futility of their earlier xenophobia (jōi, “expel the barbarians”). A case in point would be Tanaba Taichi (1831–1915), from the Ikeda mission to France, who was primarily responsible for negotiations over the port of Yokohama. Perhaps most typical in this regard were Inoue Kaoru and Itō Hirobumi, who surreptitiously slipped out of Japan in 1863. Upon leaving Japan, Itō sang: “This trip on which I bear the shame of heroism I do for the sake of my sacred land of Japan.” While indeed recognizing the “shame” (from contagion with the West) of this trip, Itō noted: “We are all looking out over the harbor [of Shanghai] from aboard ship. There is no end to the great profusion of battleships, steamships, and sail ships from many lands. On the shore stand magnificent Western buildings all lined up. We all took 5. See Takashima Yūkei, Ō-Sei kōki (Account of a trip to Western Europe). Translator’s note: This rare work is also known as Ō-Sei kikō (n.p.: Seikyūdō, 1867); copies of it are held in the Waseda University Library and the Tenri University Library. 6. Sahara Morizumi, Kōkai nichiroku (Diary of a trip overseas). 7. Kawaji Tarō, Eikō nichiroku (Diary of a trip to Britain). 8. Concerning the experiences of these embassies and student groups in Hong Kong, more details can be found in Matsuzawa Hiroaki, Kindai Nihon no keisei to Seiyō keiken (The formation of modern Japan and the experience of the West) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1993). Citations from a number of these travel diaries (often unpublished) are taken from this work. 30

Samurai in Shanghai 9

in this bustling spectacle and more.” By the time they had arrived in Shanghai, they had already begun to realize the need to reassess their perceptions of the outside world. For his part, Inoue, too, noted: “When we reached Shanghai and I saw the actual situation there . . . I was awakened suddenly from my past illusions.” He quickly dispensed with his “fallacious xenophobia” and began advocating a “direction 10 toward opening the nation.”

Tanabe Taichi

Chōshū students in Britain, 1863; Itō Hirobumi upper right, Inoue Kaoru lower left

As we see from all these cases, perhaps because the guides for the embassies and student groups at this time were Westerners from each of the countries concerned, what the Japanese visitors confronted in Shanghai and Hong Kong were always hotels, commercial houses, and print shops—all institutions of those countries themselves; thus, our 9. Junbokō tsuishōkai, ed., Itō Hirobumi den, jōkan (Biography of Itō Hirobumi, vol. 1) (Tokyo: Genseisha, 1943). 10. Inoue Kaoru kō denki hensankai, Seigai Inoue kō den, dai ikkan (Biography of Count Inoue Kaoru, vol. 1) (Tokyo: Naigai shoseki, 1933). 31

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

samurai all experienced “Western modernity” for the first time there in China and were duly astonished at the overpowering, “bustling spectacle.” This was to be the point of departure for a new perception of the West on their part, and a new point of departure for all subsequent words and deeds. In this sense, it is by no means an exaggeration to say that the awakening of Inoue and others in Shanghai symbolized an awakening itself for modern Japan in this regard.

The Shock Experienced by Takasugi Shinsaku Dispatching of Young Samurai Abroad The importance of Shanghai as an entryway to the West was not solely encompassed by its role as a stopover on the voyage to Europe, as we have seen above. Enormous concern and interest were directed at it from a host of directions in Japan, given Shanghai’s position as a base for all manner of Western operations with modern functions. Coming to Shanghai and assessing local conditions was, in a word, a kind of exploration of the “circumstances of the West.” News itself of this place as a “semi-colony” was utterly necessary for both the shogunate and anti-shogunal samurai who were searching along two paths: respectively, “opening the country” and “expelling the barbarians.” In this sense, then, about the same time as the embassies were dispatched to Europe and the United States, the shogunate and a number of domains sent delegations on four occasions specifically to Shanghai. The intelligence garnered at this site later played a great role in the tumult of the late Edo years. Let us now briefly take a look at certain of the details of these four delegations to Shanghai. The first of these missions dispatched to Shanghai, the largest in scale, was that of the Senzaimaru, a trading vessel sent by the shogunate. The shogunate hoped to have “foreign commercial ways” investigated and to understand conditions in Shanghai so as to conclude a commercial treaty with China. The Nagasaki Magistrate (bugyō) was charged with devising a plan that came to fruition in April 1862. Among the passengers on board were such men as Takasugi 32

Samurai in Shanghai

Shinsaku (1839–67), Nakamuda Kuranosuke (1837–1916), and Godai Tomoatsu (1835–85), all later active in the Meiji Restoration, and in this sense this experience did signify the role Shanghai played for Japan. The second delegation sent to Shanghai, following the Senzaimaru, was that of the Hakodate official vessel, Kenjunmaru. Upon receiving instructions from the Hakodate Magistrate, this voyage’s mandate, too, as it set sail in March 1864, was to investigate commercial conditions in Shanghai. With these initial plans, Hakodate bureaucrats made up the bulk of the passenger list. The group’s investigative report, the Kōho shi (Chronicle of the Huangpu River), remains extant, and one can verify in it their numerous experiences in Shanghai. As it turns out, they stayed at the same Astor House, and it was here that they hosted a banquet to which they invited “distinguished Dutchmen” (Oranda kokushi). The third group sent to Shanghai was on a much smaller scale, only three men. Chōshū domain, then in opposition to the shogunate, wanted to sell the Jinjutsumaru, a vessel owned by the domain, in Shanghai without the shogunate’s approval. After the sale, in return, they purchased a large quantity of Gewehr rifles, among other hardware. When the shogunate learned of this unauthorized trip abroad, it sent three officials to the scene to investigate, one of whom was Sugiura Yuzuru, who appeared in our discussion above. They were in Shanghai for a period of only ten days, April 20–30, 1865. The final group sent to Shanghai went aboard the Ganges, a steamship belonging to the Yokohama branch of the Jardine, Matheson and Co. (known in China as Yihe yanghang). Unlike the previous three voyages, this group was not sent by the shogunate but was independently dispatched by the two domains of Hamamatsu and Sakura with the objective of investigating conditions overseas. Among the members of the group that left port in February 1867 were Nagura Inato (or Nakura Anato) of Hamamatsu, who had been aboard the Senzaimaru, and Takahashi Sakunosuke, later known as Takahashi Yuichi (1828–94), who was to become a leading figure in Meiji-era Western-style painting. Unlike the previous three groups, this group 33

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

not only visited Shanghai but went on as far as Nanjing. Thus, unlike the first embassy sent to Europe, these groups aimed primarily at going to Shanghai. Compared with the embassies to Europe, these Shanghai travelers were not only able to investigate both Shanghais in greater depth, but they also seem to have been able to recognize better as well the structure of “pressure” existing between the two. Their responses after coming to this recognition, of course, differed one from the next. Some were more supportive of “Concessions” Shanghai, and some more supportive of the Chinese “walled city” of Shanghai. Soon after returning to Japan, Takasugi Shinsaku participated in the burning of the British Legation, while Godai Tomoatsu, at the time of Satsuma’s war with Britain War, attempted to prevent foolish anti-foreign policies in his domain to the point of being taken prisoner by the British army. Nagura, who spent his entire life working for Japanese solidarity with China, later worked for a time as an advisor to the Taiwan Governor-General’s office; his subsequent activities may be seen as adopting a subtle position between Takasugi and Godai. It might be a bit hasty to presume that the differences in their varying points of view are all attributable to their Shanghai experiences, as there were likely to have been other factors at work as well. When pressed to support one side over another, however, this Shanghai experience became an extremely important memory upon which to draw. Let us now take a closer look at the numerous discoveries made in Shanghai, largely with data drawn from the passengers aboard the Senzaimaru. “I Would Quietly Be Overjoyed” The total number of people aboard the Senzaimaru bound for Shanghai, including sailors, was fifty-one. They left Nagasaki on May 27, 1862 (Bunkyū 2/4/29), sailed for a week all told, and arrived in Shanghai on June 2 (5/5). No sooner had they set foot on Shanghai soil than the samurai, each with his own personal mission to accomplish, set out immediately on his appointed task and began to observe the front lines of the West from their many and sundry perspectives. 34

Samurai in Shanghai

At the time of their arrival, Shanghai had just then been surrounded by the peasant armies of the Taiping Rebellion, and the government forces and Taipings had joined in intense fighting in the outskirts of the city. Perhaps because of this, the first thing in which the samurai expressed interest upon coming on land was the scene of the hostilities between the two armies and the overall disposition of the government’s armed forces; in particular, they wanted to see what the British and French forces sent to aid the Qing government troops looked like. For example, on the third day following their arrival, Takasugi Shinsaku promptly wrote in his diary: “5/7 [June 4, 1862]. At dawn I heard the firing of small arms on land. Everyone said it was the sound of fighting between the Long-Haired Bandits [Taiping rebels] and the Chinese. I 11 think that, if these words are accurate, I would quietly be overjoyed.” This notion was not limited to Takasugi’s diary, and similar notes can be found in the diary accounts of other samurai during their sojourn in Shanghai. By the same token, we may see here both the professional interest of Japanese warriors and a real concern with modern warfare in which the armies of Britain and France were taking part. On the Scene Investigations While in Shanghai, the samurai appear to have been most consumed by meeting Westerners and amassing information from a variety of sources. On four occasions, Takasugi Shinsaki, together with Nakamuda Kuranosuke and Godai Tomoatsu, visited William Muirhead (1822– 1900, called in Chinese: Mu Weilian), who was also known in Japan. On two of these occasions he was not in. They inquired of him about the West and Shanghai and sought a number of Chinese translations of Western works, to be introduced in subsequent chapters. In addition, Nakamuda went twice to Dent & Co. in an effort to meet Otokichi (1818–67), a Japanese shipwreck victim who was working there, but unfortunately he was then on vacation in Singapore, and they ultimately were unable to meet with him while in the city. 11. Takasugi Shinsaki, “Shanhai enryū nichiroku” (Daily account while residing in Shanghai), in Takasugi Shinsaku zenshū (Collected writings of Takasugi Shinsaku) (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu ōraisha, 1974). 35

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

While they were attempting to meet with Westerners, the samurai had numerous contacts with Chinese as well. They paid calls on many occasions to book stalls on the street, and to the extent possible hunted down information and books concerned with the West and with conditions in China in its present war-torn state. Takasugi and Nagura, for example, proactively went out and met with a Chinese soldier on the scene and on several occasions visited a low-level official by the name of Chen Ruqin. By means of brush conversations, they exchanged views on the situation in “China and abroad” with Chen. Among the books they bought in Shanghai were such famed works as Dili quanzhi (Complete gazetteer of geography), Da Yingguo zhi (History of Great Britain), Lianbang zhilüe (Brief survey of the United States of America), and Shuxue qimeng (Introduction to mathematics). They also included the literary Chinese magazine Liuhe congtan (Stories from around the world), the newspaper Shanghai xinbao (Shanghai news), which was being published in the 1860s, and such works on diplomacy as Qingguo Yingguo tiaoyueshu (Text of the treaty between the Qing and Great Britain). As one further task, the Senzaimaru group while in Shanghai carried out a detailed investigation of the commercial and trade scene in the city. This was accomplished by the shogunal officials directly questioning the Shanghai circuit intendant and the various consulates, beginning with the Dutch, and thus acquiring details on the procedures and methods employed there. In addition, the samurai paid calls in person on commercial houses of various countries in the Concessions and carried out a form of on-site investigations. Godai, Nakamuda, and Takasugi, for example, visited Concession businesses over and over again, exhibiting considerable interest in modern business practices. Godai in particular, it was reported, had face-toface meetings with these businesses and succeeded in purchasing for $125,000 The George Grey, a German steamship whose selling price had been $300,000, on behalf of his domain of Satsuma, an event which shocked just about everyone in Japan.

36

Samurai in Shanghai

From Localism to Nationalism The Senzaimaru group remained in Shanghai for about two months. During that time, they made great strides in amassing information of the sort described above and in investigating conditions abroad. What the samurai gained possession of in these two months, however, was not at all solely intelligence about advanced Western civilization. Together with the putative “advanced” nature of the Concessions, they discovered as well the colonialism of the modern West in terms of the pressures it exerted on the “walled city” hidden in its background. The internal nature of the West was not something easily ascertainable, and precisely because of Shanghai as a semi-colony with its two “faces,” this internal nature was another quality of the modern West visible before them. The discovery of the dual meaning of the modern West may have been the most important accomplishment of their stay in Shanghai. It seems that this gave rise in these samurai to a major intellectual shift in consciousness. Takasugi, for example, soon after coming ashore in Shanghai, located between Westerners and Chinese a masterservant relationship. As he wrote in his diary: “Although the land of Shanghai may belong to China, in fact it is subservient to Britain and France. Three hundred ri from here lies Beijing, and there the spirit of China must surely exist. If what we have here were to be extended there, I would sorely regret it. I am reminded of what Lü Mengzheng [944–1011] said in remonstrating with Emperor Taizong of the Song dynasty [r. 976–97]: Not to extend afar what was near at hand. Isn’t it indeed just this way? Although we are Japanese, we must be concerned 12 by this and not become like China.” Of symbolic significance was the fact that, after returning to Japan, Takasugi established the Kiheitai (Irregular militia), an organization with the character of a “national army,” which broke down the statusbased system of the samurai military. From this period he probably was coming to the realization that, in response to the increasing pressure from the powerful modern West, Japan’s only path was to defend itself 12. Takasugi Shinsaki, “Shanhai enryū nichiroku.” 37

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

with all its national might and not to adopt the “disastrous policy” (fukutetsu, i.e., to follow in the footsteps of one’s predecessors’ failures) of China. From the regret—“Although we are Japanese, we must be concerned by this and not become like China”—a small sprout of recognition may be read. This small sprout blossomed and grew, giving rise eventually to a shift of consciousness among many Restoration-era samurai, beginning with Takasugi, from the localism of the domains to a nationalism of Japan. Indeed, not that much time passed before the concept of the modern nation-state had taken firm root among 13 them. The final opening, of course, transpired six years later with the Meiji Restoration. 13. The formation of the concept of the nation-state in Takasugi Shinsaku and others is discussed in detail in, for example, Matsumoto Ken’ichi, Kaikoku no katachi (Forms of opening the state) (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1994).

38

Chapter 2

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

Shifts in the “Informationally Advanced Nations” Reports on the Opium War We have thus far observed the variety of experiences and observations of samurai in Shanghai. They evinced an unusual interest in the Protestant missionary publishing houses and the Chinese-language translations of Western works produced by them. How is it that such printers existed in Shanghai at this time and that such books, the translations, were published? To answer this query, let us look momentarily at their arrival in Shanghai and trace the historical rise and fall from the seventeenth century of Chinese-language translations of Western texts published in China, the significance of these works for China and Japan, and the conditions surrounding their transmission to Japan in the post–Opium War era. These developments were extremely important when we consider the meaning that Shanghai possessed for Japan as a “nation.” The earliest report we have that conveyed to Japan news of the Opium War, the event which many consider to be the lifting of the 1 curtain on modernity in East Asia, reads in part: “An unconscionable act toward the British occurred in China. Soldiers were dispatched from Britain to China, and Britain certainly has troops at the ready at the Cape of Good Hope as well as in the territory it holds in India. Their plan is to take revenge on China.” Thus, because the British in 1. Nichi-Ran gakkai hōsei Rangaku kenkyūkai, comp., Oranda fūsetsugaki shūsei (Collection of Dutch reports) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1979), vol. 2. 39

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

China were treated in an “unconscionable” (muri hidō) way, Britain had decided to send troops to China. It of course had troops at home as well as those deployed on the American continent and in India; these would be mustered to take revenge on China. This report was transmitted to the Japanese authorities on July 27, 1840, by a Dutch trading vessel calling at Nagasaki on a regularly scheduled visit. The stunned shogunate immediately queried a Chinese ship captain similarly permitted to call at Nagasaki about this report and then had a more detailed report drawn up. Over the next three years, reports on this matter arrived intermittently from the Dutch and the Chinese. A sense of crisis surrounded the Japanese, though they were able to keep a sharp eye on this first “East–West” confrontation developing across the sea. Overseas News Shared at Every Level In the end, the above report conveying news of the Opium War was only a single case. Reports of this sort were dubbed “Oranda fūsetsugaki” (Dutch reports) and “Tō fūsetsugaki” (Chinese reports), and throughout most of the Edo period, Dutch and Chinese ships that sailed to Japan were obligated to file them with the authorities. The oldest one of these dates back to 1641 (Kan’ei 18), and although interrupted on occasion, they continued down to the late Edo years—1859 (Ansei 6) for the Dutch reports and 1862 (Bunkyū 2) for the Chinese reports. They form one of the greatest sources of information for Japan’s period of seclusion. Initially, these fūsetsugaki (reports) were treated as top secret documents, and only a select group within the shogunate, such as the rōjū (elders), was permitted to read them. In the process of translation and submission, however, copies circulated to powerful feudal lords, among others, in many domains. On the basis of these handwritten manuscripts, individual volumes were compiled. For example, for the early period covering the years 1644 (Shōhō 1) through 1717 (Kyōhō 2), a collection of “Tō fūsetsugaki” entitled Ka’i hentai (The transformation from civilized to barbarian [i.e., from the Ming to the Manchu dynasty]) was assembled by Hayashi Gahō (1618–80) and 40

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

Hayashi Hōkō (1644–1732); two other collections were concerned with reports on the Opium War, entitled Afuyō ibun (Reports on opium) assembled by Shionoya Tōin (1809–67) and Ahen shimatsu (The Opium [War] from beginning to end) assembled by Saitō Chikudō (1815–52). Both of the latter were distributed to a wide readership. Although not the only means of learning the news, these were the most influential routes by which the general readership became acquainted with news reports from overseas. Just limiting ourselves to information about China during the last years of the Edo period, reports collected in China by basically the same route—such as Eikoku shinpan jiryaku (Brief chronicle of the British invasion, submitted in 1844 by the Chinese ship’s captain Zhou Aiting) and Ihi hankyō bunkenroku (A record of observations concerning the invasion of the barbarians [editor and date unknown, probably reached Japan in the Kōka reign, 1844–48])—circulated widely in manuscript form. Together with the fūsetsugaki, they provided to Confucian scholars in virtually all domains detailed knowledge about the Opium War. Moreover, there were also works that arranged manuscripts such as the aforementioned and, “using high-sounding phrases taken from such military chronicles as the [Genpei] seisui ki (Account of the rise and fall of the Minamoto and Taira clans) and the Taihei ki (Chronicle of great peace) which have been handed down since antiquity in Japan 2 [kōkoku],” put together something of a satisfying piece of reading material. Fitting into this genre would be such works as Kaigai shinwa (New stories from overseas [by Mineta Fūkō, publ. 1849]), Kaigai shinwa shūi (Gleanings of the new stories from overseas [by Master Shusai, 1849]), Shin-Ei kinsei dan (Recent tales of China and England [by Hayano Kei, 1850]), and Unnan shinwa (New stories from Yunnan [by master of the Bunkōdō, 1854]), which used the Taiping Rebellion as its subject matter. All of these novelizations employed the written form of a military 2. Mineta Fūkō, “Kaigai shinwa reigen” (Introductory remarks to Kaigai shinwa), in Kaigai shinwa (New stories from overseas) (Edo: n.p., 1849). 41

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

chronicle that were easy to read, aided by plentiful use of illustrations and frontispiece artwork to attract the general populace as readers, or 3 what was dubbed “ignorant and uneducated men” (dōmō no shi). In these cases, exaggeration or misreading of the facts or, for that matter, compilations arranged with a distinct purpose in mind rendered the descriptions in these works dubious at every point; for example, there is the transformation of the wife of the British captain of an armed transport vessel, who had been taken captive by the Chinese, into a “female warrior” capable of “countless miraculous makeovers,” and in the end Great Britain is defeated by the Chinese. The fūsetsugaki, initially meant to be the shogunate’s classified intelligence, ultimately went through a series of changes and spread far and wide among the populace as overseas reports of a sort. From our contemporary sensibility, this distinctive method of spreading such information in the late Edo period may certainly have been unreliable and irregular in the extreme. Nonetheless, despite a profusion of misperceptions, we should not make light of the fact that in an important sense the various social strata, including a section of commoners, were able to share in this same overseas information. Over 10,000 Dutch Texts Now, news from overseas brought to Japan by merchant vessels from the Netherlands and China was never contained solely in the fūsetsugaki. Books as merchandise in trade were themselves exceptional sources of information. In fact, from the perspective of timeliness, they were probably superior to fūsetsugaki, making the imported books even more important in the sense that they brought from abroad more basic information. There were, however, a huge number of such works, such that I cannot possibly treat them in full here. I would like to focus on those works amid the imported volumes written in literary Chinese that conveyed data on the West, and investigate the issue further on that basis. First, though, for comparative purposes, let us take a brief look at the circumstances surrounding the importation to Japan of Dutch 3. Ibid. 42

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

works in the Edo period. Although, depending on time period, there might be a large difference in the quantity, Dutch works were continuously imported as trading merchandise over the course of the 260-plus years of the Edo period. While we might not be able to get a firm grasp of their exact numbers today, one thesis has it that such imported volumes exceed 10,000 in number. Either as items presented to the shogun or, by contrast, as volumes ordered by the shogunate, these works were imported to Japan via a host of different means. Among them, in contrast with the trade items for which the Dutch East India Company engaged in transactions known as motokata nimotsu (regular cargo), the greatest number of works imported were items known as waki nimotsu (side cargo), privately traded by the head of the Dutch Factory (trading post) at Nagasaki and by individual Dutchmen who worked there. The latter occupied well over half of the entire quantity of Dutch books imported to Japan. As for books presented to the shogun, it is fairly well known, for example, that the then head of the Dutch Factory, Hendrik Indyk, presented to Tokugawa Ietsuna (1641–80), the fourth shogun, a work on animals by John Johnston (Joannes Jonstonus, 1603–75) popularly known in Japan as Yonsutonsu dōbutsusho (A volume about animals by Jonstonus) when he visited the shogunate in Edo in 1663. Later, the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684–1751), noted this work and it became one cause behind his urging further study of things Dutch. The Boasts of Sugita Genpaku Among items ordered by the Japanese in the early Edo years, particularly worthy of note was the active importation of works of anatomy, surgery, and medicinal herbs by such men as Inoue Masashige (1583–1662), senior censor (ōmetsuki) under the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–51), and Inaba Masanori (1623–96), member of the council of elders under shogun Ietsuna. As time passed, we find on the Tsumini mokuroku (Listing of freight) for 1825 that the eleventh shogun Tokugawa Ienari (1773– 4 1841) acquired three dictionaries, including a German-Dutch one. 4. Katagiri Kazuo, Hirakareta sakoku: Nagasaki Dejima no hito, mono, jōhō (Open seclusion: People, things, information in Dejima, Nagasaki) (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1997). 43

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

The most extraordinary items ordered, to say the least, were both imported in Tenpō 15 (1844) and may have been influenced by the recent Opium War. One was Shūchin yasen hikkei (Pocketbook manual of field warfare) in six stringbound volumes ordered by the twelfth shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi (1793–1853), and the second was a military text, Kindai sen ni okeru ho-ki-hō sanpei no yōhei (Three uses of troops in modern warfare: infantry, cavalry, artillery), in four string-bound volumes ordered by shogunal council elder Mizuno Tadakuni (1794–1851). Because of the great number of imported Dutch books, the socalled waki nimotsu, it is difficult to determine precisely when many of them arrived in Japan, and we thus cannot easily reach conclusions about them in this regard. Nonetheless, the Dutch translation of Die anatomische Tabellen (1732; known in Japanese translation as Kaibō zufu) by Johann Adam Kulmus (1689–1745), a German anatomist, which was the basis upon which the famous Kaitai shinsho (New work on post-mortems, 1774) was prepared, seems to have reached Japan by this route. Furthermore, by revising and expanding Arai Hakuseki’s (1657–1725) Sairan igen (Varying words observed, 1713), Yamamura Saisuke (1770–1807) wrote the Teisei zōyaku Sairan igen (Varying words observed, revised and explained), the only world geography text available in Edo-period Japan. In the process of writing this work, Yamamura was said to have made use of Johann Hübner’s (1668–1731) Bankoku denshin kiji (Reports from around the world), which appears to have reached Japanese shores by the same route. In this connection, according to the Rangaku kotohajime (Primer on Dutch learning, 1815), its author Sugita Genpaku (1733–1817) proudly introduced the fact that from his late years he had been searching for and buying up Dutch works that came to Japan as “side cargo,” and over the course of a number of years, he was able to amass an impressive collection. His boasts may convey a sense of this aspect of the transmission of Dutch books at that time.

44

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

The Situation in the World as Conveyed by Chinese-Language Texts Setting aside for the moment things brought by émigrés, the history of the importation of Chinese-language texts in fact goes all the way back to the time of Shōtoku Taishi (573–621), who is said to have sent emissaries to China in part to purchase books. Temporally and quantitatively speaking, that earlier period could not compare in the least with the imported Dutch books. However, as concerns in particular the transmission of Chinese-language works conveying conditions in the West in the form of reports, the Edo period was remarkably curtailed and the numbers of volumes rather limited. For a long period of time beginning in the early Edo years, we find a series of works written in Chinese by Jesuit missionaries resident in China that continued to offer knowledge to Japan about the West. Representative among such works that introduced the geography, produce, and customs of many nations in the world were Matteo Ricci’s (Li Madou, 1552–1610) Kunyu wanguo quantu (Atlas of the nations of the world, 1602), Giulio Aleni’s (Ai Rulüe, 1582–1649) Zhifang waiji (Chronicles of foreign lands, 1623), and Ferdinand Verbiest’s (Nan Huiren, 1623–88) Kunyu tushuo (Illustrated map of the world, 1674), among others. Not only did works of this sort convey a wide variety of information about conditions in the world to a Japan that still lacked a systematic text on world geography, but they built part of the foundation for Dutch learning in Japan, which was developing gradually. For example, when he was composing what has been called a pioneer introductory work on conditions in the outside world, the Ka’i tsūshō kō (Examination of commercial relations with China and the barbarians, 1695), Nishkawa Joken (1648–1724) expanded and revised his work by reference to Aleni’s Zhifang waiji. Similarly, when Arai Hakuseki wrote the aforementioned Sairan igen, considered symbolic of the formation of Dutch learning in Japan, he is thought to have made use of Matteo Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu and Verbiest’s Kunyu tushuo as reference works. In this connection, although the 45

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

then current theory of a spherical Earth had already been transmitted to Japan, the concept underlying this knowledge was as yet not firmly or fully established. Indeed, the coinage of the term diqiu (Japanese, chikyū, “globe”) was to be found in Ricci’s Kunyu wanguo quantu. Reversal of Positions Although we can provide no definitive proof, on the whole many of the Chinese-language works by the Jesuits, while their numbers may not have been that immense, appear to have already entered Japan before the formation of the system of seclusion was in place. The Inspectorate of Books (Shomotsu aratameyaku) was created by the shogunate to crack down on the importation of banned Christian books in 1630 (Kan’ei 7). Despite the fact that the Zhifang waiji and as many as thirty-one other works by Matteo Ricci and others were clearly registered on the list of proscribed books, as noted earlier, we can easily surmise that Arai Hakuseki, among others, used them as references in his own subsequent writings. After roughly a century of severe interdiction on imports, Shogun Yoshimune in 1720 inaugurated a relaxation on the importation of general scientific writings unconnected directly to Christianity, and thereafter gradually a number of such works were transported to Japan legally and continually. Yet, ironically, as touched on above, at that time Dutch learning in Japan was increasingly rising to prominence. While Chinese translations of Western works were highly valued by men of importance, for some reasons they began to lose their distinctiveness. The knowledge and informational reports conveyed in them as well were completely overwhelmed by the wave of Dutch learning that was approaching its apex with each passing day. What brought about the decline of these Chinese-language works prepared by the Jesuits had less to do with the rise of Dutch learning and much more to do with the actual conditions within China that was exporting these books. As can be seen from the activities of Verbiest and the other Jesuits, during the first century that the seclusion structure was in place in Japan, in China the Jesuits were allowed freedom of movement, twists and turns notwithstanding, with a policy of an “open country” 46

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

effectively enacted. Yet, in 1724, almost exactly when Yoshimune relaxed the constraints on the importation to Japan of Chineselanguage translations of Western works, the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty, Yongzheng (r. 1723–35), having just acceded to the throne, suddenly abrogated this generous policy vis-à-vis the Jesuits set in place by his predecessor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722), a move precisely the opposite to that taken in Japan. With this religious prohibition, nearly 300 missionaries aside from a group of members of the Directorate of Astronomy (Qintianjian), who oversaw astronomy and the making of the calendar, were banished to Canton and Macao. Thus, the writing activities of the Jesuits effectively came to a stop. As a result of this sudden change of course, China’s position as the advanced nation in the delivery of information, which had continued for over a century, rapidly went into retreat, while Japan by contrast, having just launched a policy endorsing Dutch learning, began steadily to store up Western knowledge through its window at Nagasaki. The positions of Japan and China in terms of information and knowledge about conditions in the West underwent a stunning reversal at this juncture, and thereafter Japan assumed the superior position for about a century.

Toward an East Asian Hub The Flood of Missionaries The Opium War from 1840–1842 served as the impetus for China to recapture from Japan its position as the “informationally” advanced nation. China’s wretched defeat in the war, the first of many direct confrontations between Eastern and Western civilizations, not only led to the opening of the five ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai to commercial trade, but by virtue of the Wangxia Treaty (July 1844) between China and the United States and the Huangpu Treaty between China and France (October 1844), the long-term ban on Christian missionaries was lifted, even while the condition of limiting their activity to the port areas remained in place. 47

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

As a result, Catholic missionaries, such as the Jesuits who had worked in China in earlier centuries, as well as Protestant missionaries, such as the London Missionary Society with its bases of operations from before the war in Malacca and Singapore and vigilantly waiting to jump at the chance to proselytize in China, all together flooded into the five newly opened ports. There they actively commenced missionary activities accompanied by the repeated eruption of troubles. Their ultimate objective was proselytizing, and like their forebears two centuries earlier, they pointedly stressed the propagation of various kinds of knowledge related to the West. They also poured considerable energy into the establishment of medical clinics and educational institutions. We will introduce this topic in greater detail later, but because the Protestant missionaries in particular took as an article of faith the importance of the spread of books and “scientific missionary work,” they inherited the positive missionizing work of the Jesuits from earlier times more than the Catholics, who were their proper descendents and proceeded to produce great numbers of Western texts in Chinese translation. The central role in the recovery by China of the position of the foremost nation concerning information about the West was thus played by none other than the Protestant missionaries who now came to China to proselytize anew. The Haiguo tuzhi Outdoes Japanese Dutch Learning The results of missionary activity in pre–Opium War Malacca and Singapore and subsequently in the five opened ports of China were immediately apparent in the Haiguo tuzhi (Illustrated gazetteer of the maritime countries, 1842) of Wei Yuan (1794–1857). As Wei himself professed at the time he compiled this work, which subsequently had an unparalleled influence on Chinese and Japanese knowledge of the 5 West, “I use the Westerners to discuss the West.” Aside from a few arguments of his own and some Chinese historical writings on foreign 5. “Haiguo tuzhi yuanxu” (Preface to original edition of Haiguo tuzhi), in Haiguo tuzhi (Changsha: Yuelu shusha, 1998). 48

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

lands, over 70 percent of the content of this work was composed of direct quotations from books and journals written by earlier Jesuits or more recently arrived Protestant missionaries. For example, the Sizhou zhi (Chronicle of four continents), the original text upon which the Haiguo tuzhi was based, was drawn from An Encyclopaedia of Geography (Chinese, Shijie dili quanshu, 1834) by the Englishman Hugh Murray (1779–1846), from which Lin Zexu (1785–1850) had his interpreter Liang Jinde (1820–62) excerpt and translate. In addition, he made use of several dozen other works such as: Waiguo shilüe (Brief history of foreign lands) by Robert Morrison (Ma Lisun, 1782–1834), a pioneer Protestant missionary in China; Wanguo dili quanshu (Universal geography, 1838), Maoyi tongzhi (General account of trade, 1840), and Dongxiyang kao meiyue tongji zhuan (East–West examiner and monthly recorder, 1833–38) by Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (Guo Shilie, 1803–51), active in missionary work a bit later than Morrison; and Meilige heshengguo zhilüe (Brief account of the United States of America, 1838), its second edition entitled Yameilijia hezhongguo zhilüe (Brief account of the United States of America, 1861), and its third edition entitled Lianbang zhilüe (Brief account of the United States, 1862) by Elijah Coleman Bridgman (Bi Zhiwen, 1801–61). The above applies in the main to works cited in the first edition of the Haiguo tuzhi in fifty fascicles, although Wei Yuan later broadly expanded his work twice: to sixty fascicles in 1847, and to one hundred fascicles in 1852. He thus made energetic use of the new works written by missionaries active at Chinese sites following the opening of ports—such as the Dili beikao (Study of geography, 1847) by José Martinho Marques (Ma Jishi, 1810–67), the Diqiu tushuo (Illustrated discussion of the globe, 1848) by Richard Quarteman Way (Yi Lizhe, 1819–95), and the Ping’an tongshu (Peace almanac, 1850–53) by Divie Bethune McCartee (Mai Jiadi, 1820–1900). The Haiguo tuzhi gradually became not only the best sourcebook available in China at the time on conditions in the West, but even exceeded in certain realms the level of knowledge of Dutch learning in Japan.

49

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

A “Fine Book” In 1851 (Kaei 4) the sixty-fascicle second edition of the Haiguo tuzhi was transported to Japan by a Chinese trading vessel, and shortly thereafter the arrival of Commodore Perry and his ships surely exerted a huge impact, but the fact that in the intervening few years there were over twenty reprintings and translations of the text produced in Japan was certainly no coincidence. The “reports” recorded in this work include statements about coastal defense represented by the phrase “using the technical strengths of the barbarians as a model to 6 control the barbarians” and assuredly exerted a shock to Japanese at the time. At the same time, it greatly quenched their intellectual thirst, which had grown dissatisfied with Dutch learning alone. Recognizing all of these circumstances together, while reading the Haiguo tuzhi for the first time in 1854 (Ansei 1), Yoshida Shōin (1830–59) repeatedly 7 referred to it almost instinctively as a “fine book.” Needless to say, Shōin would later write that “as a way to prepare against the enemy lands of the barbarians, they need to attack the 8 barbarians.” That is, he meant a foreign policy that would exploit the contradiction among the Western Powers as a means of controlling the enemy countries, and he seemed to write critically of Wei Yuan’s naïve argument, as if it was ignorant of basic principles: it “sees the 9 advantages” of the powers “but not their principles.” On the whole, though, he offered a genuinely positive evaluation of the Haiguo tuzhi, 10 and he noted actually “rereading” it several times while in prison. 6. “Chouhai pian, yishou shang” (On coastal defense, discussion of protection, part 1), in Haiguo tuzhi. 7. In a letter to his elder brother Sugi Umetarō (1829–1910), twenty-second day, eleventh lunar month, 1854, in Noyama goku bunkō (Manuscripts from Noyama Prison), in Yoshida Shōin zenshū (Collected writings of Yoshida Shōin) (Tokyo: Daiwa shobō, 1976), vol. 2. 8. See footnote 7. 9. Yoshida Shōin, “Kōin Rondon hyōban ki o yomu” (Reading an account of the evaluation of London in the kōin year [1854],” in Noyama goku bunkō, in Yoshida Shōin zenshū, vol. 2. 10. “Noyama goku dokusho ki” (Notes on books read in Noyama Prison), in Yoshida Shōin zenshū, vol. 7. 50

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

“Comrade Overseas” Following on Shōin’s evaluation of the Haiguo tuzhi, let us take a look at the thoughts his teacher, Sakuma Zōzan (1811–64). Although the actual date is not specified, Zōzan appears to have been deeply impressed by his reading of the Haiguo tuzhi at roughly the same time as Shōin. Putting aside its introduction to conditions in the West, though, he could not agree, it would appear, with Wei’s defense strategy of “zhuan shou nei he”: namely, “it would be better to defend the mouth of inland waterways than the seas beyond [borders], and it would be better to protect inland waterways than the mouth of those 11 waterways.” Rather, he advocated active coastal defense that would enable the Chinese “to inflict a death sentence on the raiders while 12 remaining on the open seas.” Concerning Wei’s “Essay on Guns” introduced in the Haiguo tuzhi, 13 Zōzan rejected it as “careless and unfounded” (sorō mukei). He deeply sympathized with Wei who, he adjudged, had not personally engaged in any practical engagement in the “study of gunnery.” While offering an assortment of stark opinions of this sort, Zōzan never completely repudiated the work of Wei Yuan. He read Wei’s Shengwu ji (Military history of the Qing dynasty, 1842), and the views described therein not only “coincided” (angō) with his own previously held positions, but he was inspired to raise these issues in precisely the same year as 14 Wei and thus recognized in Wei a true “comrade from overseas.” The Shengwu ji is a work that brings together a history of the wars fought, both domestic and foreign, by the Qing dynasty. Although transported to Japan initially in 1844 (Kōka 1), Zōzan found especially interesting within it fascicles 11–14 on “Notes on Military Affairs,” which discussed political affairs at the time. He took up Wei’s argument that by translating “barbarian books and barbarian 11. See footnote 7. 12. Seiken roku (Reflections on my errors), in Zōzan zenshū (Collected writings of [Sakuma] Zōzan) (Nagano: Shinano mainichi shinbun kaibushiki gaisha, 1934), vol. 1. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 51

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

histories” and “mastering barbarian affairs,” we can “restrain the 15 foreign barbarians.” And he proudly emphasized a convergence of 16 the two men’s viewpoints: “His views tallied with mine.” Thus, Shōin’s and, above all, Zōzan’s evaluations of Wei Yuan were in the end two-edged swords. Zōzan’s dual assessments seem to shed some light on the level of Dutch learning at that time and on the value of the Haiguo tuzhi as fresh “information.” That is to say, the “reports” conveyed by works such as the Haiguo tuzhi, aside from a portion concerning the Opium War, were in fact almost all from early Protestant missionaries; and, a number of exceptions notwithstanding, the fact that these works enormously enhanced knowledge gained by Dutch learning is undeniable. Given these facts, as Shōin put it, “Wei 17 Yuan’s book has made a big impact in our country.” By the same token, though, the “information” was put together over a short period of time from a variety of places, and constituted a not so systematically organized jumble. The knowledge still incompletely digested by the author and especially the discussion elicited by this recognition were seen, in the eyes of men such as Sakuma Zōzan, long 18 armed with Dutch learning, as “careless” and “erroneous” (byūmō). Perhaps this was inevitable. The Haiguo tuzhi with these perceived flaws gradually began to lose its appeal later with the rise of Western works in Chinese-language translation. In the 1860s its historical mission came to a close, though we shall return to this issue again later. An Odd Link We have thus far looked primarily at works by Wei Yuan, but writings by Chinese intellectuals concerned with conditions in the West that were composed after the Opium War were also transported on a number of occasions to Japan and spread widely there. The more important ones among such works would include the following: Chen Lunjiong 15. “Wushi yuji, zhanggu kaozheng” (Notes on military affairs, investigation of historical tales), in Shengwu ji, fascicle 12. 16. Seiken roku, see note 13. 17. See footnote 10. 18. Seiken roku, see note 13. 52

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

(fl. 1730), Haiguo wenjian lu (Record of things seen and heard among the maritime countries; first published in 1730, reprinted 1823); Chen Fengheng (1778–1848), Yingjili jilüe (Brief notes on Great Britain, 1841); Wang Wentai, Hongmaofan Yingjili kaolüe (A study of Britain of the red-haired barbarians, 1842); and Xu Jiyu (1795–1873), Yinghuan zhi lüe (Brief survey of the maritime circuit, 1848). The first of these works, Chen Lunjiong’s Haiguo wenjian lu, was a travel narrative written initially by the author in the first half of the eighteenth century, and thus as “information” per se it was, to be sure, already old. Because of the impact of the Opium War, however, it was brought to Japan in 1844, the same year as was the aforementioned Shengwu ji, and it was subsequently read closely by Yoshida Shōin, among others. Chen Fengheng’s Yingjili jilüe was composed on the basis of such works as Wei Yuan’s own Yingjili xiaoji (Short account of Great Britain, 1840), the latter of which became a sourcebook for his Haiguo tuzhi. It was reprinted with Japanese reading punctuation in Japan in 1853, the very year of Perry’s initial arrival and shortly before the Haiguo tuzhi was reprinted. Although we do not know details of the process by which the third work, Hongmaofan Yingjili kaolüe, was composed, it was excerpted in Tazan no ishi (Food for thought), believed to have been compiled in the Kaei reign period (1848–54), and thus it was probably transported to Japan and reprinted there about the same time as Chen Fengheng’s work. Compared with the relatively early period in which these three works were conveyed to Japan, for some reason the final one, Xu Jiyu’s Yinghuan zhi lüe, came to Japan only in 1859 (Ansei 6). From the perspective of its content, soon after its publication we find that the 100-fascicle edition of the Haiguo tuzhi cited it in over thirty places. There is thus the possibility that it came to Japan after having already been extensively used by the Haiguo tuzhi. When compiling his work, Xu Jiyu not only made extensive use of Bridgman’s Lianbang zhilüe, but he is also said to have sought the assistance of Rutherford Alcock (1809–97), then serving as British consul in Fuzhou, and James C. Hepburn (1815–1911), then working in Xiamen (Amoy) as a doctor. 53

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

For these reasons, the Yinghuan zhi lüe was an extraordinary document for its day, a guide to overseas information with numerous live news sources. By the same token, the two men with whom Xu Jiyu had contact would themselves, oddly enough, have a connection to Japan. The Japanese-punctuated edition of his work was reprinted in the year after the original arrived in Japan, and it circulated widely in the late Edo years. Even into the Meiji years, a translated edition of the text by Hirai Tadashi was published under the title Zokkai eiri eikan shiryaku (Brief history of the maritime circuit, explained and 19 illustrated), and its influence remained on a par with the Haiguo tuzhi. Monopoly Policy for Trade with Japan The importation of Chinese-language reports conveying information on overseas conditions, including the “Tō fūsetsugaki,” was entirely the result of Chinese trading vessels traveling to Japan each year. This was the informational transmission route established on the basis of the traditional trading system, and the Chinese and Dutch trading vessels served as a kind of lifeline invisibly supporting Japan during the era of the so-called exclusion system. Now that we have examined the shock brought by works such as the Haiguo tuzhi, we need to take a look at the ships that conveyed such reports to Japan. This is an extremely important task, not only to confirm the traditional transmission route, but in considering as well the new informational network that developed thereafter. The coming of Chinese vessels (Tōsen) to Japan during the Edo period considerably waxed and waned depending on the time period. These fluctuations were the result primarily of changes in domestic Chinese conditions and Japanese trading policies. Looking at the entire Edo period as a whole, during the first half, roughly the seventeenth century, the Qing dynasty severely restricted foreign trade to inflict a blow on, for example, the Zheng family which opposed it, and thus it enacted the “move the border edict” (qianjie ling) in 1661, which forced residents along the Chinese coast to resettle inland. After the 19. (Tokyo: Yamanaka Ichibei, 1874). 54

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

Zhengs surrendered, the court issued the “expand to the sea edict” (zhanhai ling) in 1684 and encouraged people to advance overseas. These changing circumstances caused sharp dislocations in the number of vessels that came to port in Japan, but on average there were always several dozen Chinese ships traveling to Japan annually. In the latter half of the Edo period, roughly from the start of the eighteenth century, the Japanese issued a number of trade restriction edicts known as the New Shōtoku Laws to stop the outflow of gold, silver, copper, and other precious metals. With the issuance of the new laws in 1715, the number of Chinese vessels allowed to port was limited to thirty annually, and in 1742 it was further reduced to ten per year. The Japanese trade restrictions were particularly concerned with trade in copper, and not only did they reduce the number of Chinese ships coming to port but this policy actually had an influence on the ports of departure as well. Undergirding all this was the fact that Sino-Japanese trade during the Edo period was fundamentally trade in copper, with the Qing needing Japanese copper above all else for use in minting coins. However, when the New Shōtoku Laws added restrictions on trade in copper, Chinese at the time had no choice but to adopt a new countermeasure. In concrete terms, this was a policy of discontinuing the method of copper regulation by privately contracted merchants by which Japanese copper could be imported reliably. A monopoly on all trade with Japan was assigned to one official merchant family and twelve licensed merchant families (eshang). As it turned out, the mercantile bases for these official and licensed merchants—their huiguan or Landsmannschaften—were set up in the port city of Zhapu. Thus, the ports of disembarkation for vessels involved in trade with Japan heretofore—Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shanghai, and elsewhere— were gradually whittled down to the single port of Zhapu. Zhapu was a port located in the present-day city of Pinghu, Zhejiang Province. It was the base port for Zhe Customs in the Qing dynasty’s system of four customs sites (established in 1685, these included Ao Customs in Guangzhou, Min Customs in Xiamen, Zhe Customs in Ningbo, and Jiang Customs in Shanghai). Thereafter, trading ships 55

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

coming to port at Zhapu were known in Japan as “Ningbo vessels,” and together with the “Nanjing vessels” coming from Shanghai and the region around the mouth of the Yangzi River were together dubbed kuchibune (meaning ships arriving from coastal Chinese cities). The appellation kuchibune differentiated these ships from the nakaokubune, most of which vessels came originally from Guangdong and Fujian, and okubune, vessels from Vietnam, Siam, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Given conditions in the copper trade, though, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the kuchibune came to dominate the great majority of trade with Japan, and ships departing from the port of Zhapu ultimately monopolized it completely. Thus, the kuchibune coming to port from Zhapu were the traditional means for the transmission of information between China and Japan, the issue we have been addressing, and the most important route of conveyance for bringing foreign news to Japan throughout the Edo period. According to two magisterial works by the late Professor Ōba Osamu (1927–2002), Edo jidai Tōsen mochiwatarisho no kenkyū (A study of books transported [to Japan] aboard Chinese vessels in the 20 Edo period) and Kanseki yunyū no bunka shi (A cultural history of 21 the importation of Chinese texts [to Japan]), the ships that brought “Chinese texts” (Kanseki) to Japan were only the Nanjing vessels and the Ningbo vessels, insofar as we can determine this from the extant historical materials known as the Tōban kamotsu chō (Registers of Chinese and barbarian cargo). There are many conceivable reasons for this, but as Professor Ōba took pains to point out, the two provinces—Jiangsu and Zhejiang— from which these vessels set sail were from the early Qing dynasty the core of publishing in China. He also noted that just when the need for Chinese texts in Japan was on the rise, the kuchibune trading system took firm shape. Supported by an importation route with such positive conditions, a long string of Chinese texts conveying information from 20. (Suita: Kansai daigaku shuppanbu, 1967). 21. (Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 1997). Author’s note: Concerning the coming of Chinese vessels to Japan and the importation of Chinese texts, I have learned a great deal from these and other writings by Professor Ōba. 56

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

overseas, first and foremost being the Haiguo tuzhi, were continually transported by ship to Japan throughout the Edo era. A New Information Network for Japan The traditional route by which information was transmitted to Japan for over 200 years began rapidly to come apart in the mid-1850s. One reason for this decline was the stunning spread throughout South China of the Taiping Rebellion, which exploded in Guangxi Province in 1851. In particular, two years later in 1853 the Taipings occupied the city of Nanjing, and as a result the official and licensed merchant houses that monopolized the copper trade “together with their families 22 all collapsed and were like floating duckweed.” Another reason has to do with the fact that just at this point in time Shanghai, in its tenth year as an open port, was developing advantageous geographical conditions, surpassing Guangzhou and Zhapu, hitherto the ports for foreign trade, and gradually rising to prominence as the largest harbor in East Asia. The new information network for Japan centering around Shanghai was suddenly beginning to take shape. The former reason is fully evident and requires no further comment, but because the latter is an extremely important issue when we consider the subsequent development of the transmission of information, let me delve into it in a bit more detail. Toward the Second Major Port in Asia As we noted earlier, China’s foreign trade in the Qing period, especially the latter half, was generally speaking divided between the West (at Guangzhou, Ao Customs) and Japan (at Zhapu, Zhe Customs). Shanghai was, by contrast, the pivot of regional domestic trade, while its level of foreign trade remained quite low. Because it was located at the mouth of the Yangzi River, which flowed into the Chinese hinterland and was situated next to the Jiangnan Delta, rich in produce from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, when the 22. Yamawaki Teijirō, Nagasaki no Tōjin bōeki (Chinese trade in Nagasaki) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1964). 57

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

port of Shanghai was opened in 1843 by the Treaty of Nanjing, in just ten years it outstripped Guangzhou in its level of foreign trade. It also sprang into second place, after Jakarta, as a trading port in Southeast 23 Asia. In addition to obvious geographic reasons, it was also true that from the latter half of the 1840s Guangdong and Guangxi witnessed the repeated rising of armed secret societies, and the atmosphere of the Guangzhou area became increasingly dangerous. Such factors notwithstanding, the growth in the volume of imports and exports through Shanghai was truly astounding. The Opening of Regular Shipping Lanes It was not only a matter of trade. Indeed, it was during this period that Shanghai gradually became the pivot for transportation within East Asia. For example, first, the British firm Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O) opened a regular route between Shanghai and Hong Kong in 1850, and thereby extended its London–Hong Kong network to Shanghai. Next, the French firm Services Maritimes des Messageries Impériales established a regular lane between Saigon and Shanghai in 1861 and between Marseilles and Shanghai in 1863, thereby directly connecting Shanghai with Southeast Asia and with the European continent. A short while later, the American firm Pacific Mail Steamship Co. opened a sea lane in 1867 between San Francisco and Hong Kong, which included Yokohama and Shanghai among its ports of call. How was Japan tied into this? At about the same time as Japan opened its ports in 1859, the P&O commissioned first the Shanghai– Nagasaki route; then in 1864 it opened a regular lane between Shanghai and Yokohama. Services Maritimes opened a regular lane in 1865 between Shanghai and Yokohama and thus tied in with the link between Shanghai and Marseilles. When Pacific Mail opened its San Francisco–Hong Kong lane in 1867, it set up a branch line between Yokohama and Shanghai. 23. Mao Boke, ed., Shanghai gang shi, gujindai bufen (History of the port of Shanghai, premodern and modern sections) (Beijing: Renmin jiaotong chubanshe, 1990). 58

Birth of an East Asian Information Network

A Port with 3,500 Ships Coming and Going It was not, of course, only mail ships with commissioned sea lanes that operated around Shanghai. Many warships and merchant vessels of the Western Powers were also active at this time in the East Asian hub centered on Shanghai. In the case of battleships, Perry’s famous squadron arrived in Japan via Shanghai in 1853, and the following year the flotilla commanded by Admiral James Stirling (1791–1865), having arrived in pursuit of a Russian squadron, similarly set out from Shanghai. As for merchant vessels, Shanghai had by the early 1850s already established itself as the second busiest trading port for Southeast Asia, and with the subsequent intrusion of foreign ships becoming ever more intense, the number of ships calling in the single year of 1857 neared 1,000. From the late 1850s, with the opening of Japan and given other domestic and foreign circumstances, the number of ships calling at port continued to rise steadily, so that in 1866 it neared a 24 total of 3,500. When one compares these figures to the number of foreign merchant vessels that called at Nagasaki when the port opened in 1859, there were but ninety ships that came there in the ten-month 25 period beginning in March 1860. That number reached a total of 26 295 for the entire calendar year of 1869. Considering how soon this was after the opening of the port, these are by no means low numbers, but in fact most vessels were British and American, exporting coal. They were transporting their merchandise procured cheaply in Japan to Shanghai where many of the steamships docked, and there they 27 would sell it at a high price as fuel. 24. Yamamoto Hirofumi, Nagasaki kikiyaku nikki: bakumatsu no jōhō sensō (Diary of a Nagasaki listening official: Information wars in the late Edo period) (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1999). 25. Ibid. 26. Matsutake Hideo, Bakumatsu no Nagasaki kō jōsei (Conditions at the port of Nagasaki in the late Edo period) (Tokyo: Kusano shobō, 1992). 27. W. J. C. Huyssen van Kattendyke, Nagasaki kaigun denshūjo no hibi (Days at the naval training center in Nagasaki), trans. Mizuta Nobutoshi (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1964). 59

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Thus, from the latter half of the 1850s through the first half of the 1860s, a transportation and communications network took shape surrounding Shanghai. This became possible for the first time by virtue of the numerous visits of merchant ships—in the main, mail ships, battleships, and steamships. Later, in the 1870s, when a submarine telegraph cable between Nagasaki and Europe was laid with a stopover point in Shanghai, its function as a transportation hub became that much firmer. The news transmitted by dint of this new network far exceeded what had heretofore been brought to Japan by the kuchibune. Not only in quantity but in quality as well, an immense change had transpired. As concerned the history of Sino-Japanese cultural interactions, the centrality of Zhapu with its now two-century history came to an end, and the era of Shanghai had at last arrived.

60

Chapter 3

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

The London Missionary Society Press, Site for the Dispatch of Information The Base of Protestant Activities In the 1850s not only trade and transportation but an “informational network” was organized with Shanghai at the center of operations. An examination of the movements of Protestant missionaries, the most important transmitters of information concerning the West from before the Opium War, will make this amply clear. In the interest of spreading the Gospel at the time, the missionaries who were scattered about the five opened ports after the Opium War increasingly gathered in Shanghai and began to make this site, central as it was to networks of trade and transportation, their base of operations. The first missionaries to enter Shanghai were William Medhurst (Mai Dusi, 1796–1857) and William Lockhart (Luo Weilin, 1811– 96) of the London Missionary Society. The two men moved there in 1843, shortly after the opening of the port, from their respective bases—Medhurst from Guangzhou and Lockhart from Dinghai (Zhoushan)—and thus brought to this new terrain the printing operations of the London Missionary Society originally in Batavia and Dr. Lockhart’s clinic in Dinghai. These two institutions were named, respectively, the Mohai shuguan (London Missionary Society Press) and the Renji yiguan (Chinese Hospital); as we shall see later, the Tian’antang, church for the London Missionary Society, was subsequently added. These three organizations would later expand 61

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

greatly at a site known as Maijiaquan, a name linked to Medhurst’s Chinese name, presently located near Shandong Road. It was to become a great hub of activity not only for the London Missionary Society but for all Protestant sects in Shanghai. Medhurst was, in effect, the successor to Robert Morrison who had pioneered Protestant evangelizing in the Nanyang area. After Morrison’s death, Medhurst played a central role in the missionary work of the London Missionary Society in China. Accordingly, his move to Shanghai was of momentous import. One might go so far as to say that this event marked Shanghai’s becoming the new center of Protestant missionary work in China. Extraordinary Levels of Activity In actual fact, the London Missionary Society Press under Medhurst’s direction held sway over the world of Christian publishing over the next fifteen or more years. Nearly 150,000 copies of a Chinese-language 1 translation of the Bible and some 171 missionary tracts and scientific texts in Chinese were distributed to the public. In addition, thirty missionaries, drawn one after the next to Medhurst personally or to 2 the London Missionary Society Press, took up residence in Shanghai. In the course of their proselytizing work, many of these missionaries introduced large quantities of knowledge from the West, either in works they themselves wrote or by translating works by Western scholars. Let us move now to some of the more important of these works by discipline. In the field of astronomy and geography, William Muirhead wrote his Dili quanzhi (Complete gazetteer of geography) over the period 1853–54. It described modern Western geography and explained in detailed and yet simple terms not only human geography but natural geography as well. Richard Quarteman Way (Yi Lizhe, 1819–95, based in Ningbo) did a broad revision of the Diqiu tushuo 1. Ruan Renze and Gao Zhennong, eds., Shanghai zongjiao shi (History of religion in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992). 2. Zhang Zhongli, ed., Dongnan yanhai dushi yu Zhongguo jindaihua (Cities along the southeast coast and the modernization of China) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1996). 62

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

(Illustrated description of the globe) in 1856 and strove to explain the theories of a spherical Earth and a heliocentric solar system, still not fully accepted by Chinese intellectuals, and to introduce the differing national conditions pertaining to various countries of the world. Although not the author’s own work, Alexander Wylie (Weilieyali, 1815–87) translated in 1859 Outlines of Astronomy (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1859), a famous work by John F. W. Herschel (Houshile Yuehan, 1792–1871), former head of the Royal Astronomical Society, under the title Tan tian. He explained in this book the flow of modern Western astronomical theory from Copernicus to Kepler and on to Newton, as well as the most recent scientific research in this branch of science. In the field of historical studies, Muirhead again prepared a Chinese translation of The History of England by Thomas Milner, entitled Da Yingguo zhi, in which he traced by dynasties the 2,000-year history of England, “that land at the height of prosperity . . . and the glory 3 of whose church and state crowns those to the east and west.” In the process he offered clear information, which had hitherto not been available in works such as the Haiguo tuzhi, about the British political system—with concise explanations of the two houses of Parliament (Balimen yihui), the upper House of Lords (Laoerdeshi) and the lower House of Commons (Gaomenshi), the limited electoral system (tuixuan), and the leading role played by the lower house. Also, in 1861 as an enlarged edition of his own Meilige heshengguo zhilüe (Brief account of the United States of America, 1838), mentioned in an earlier chapter, Elijah Bridgman (1801–61) wrote Lianbang zhilüe (Brief account of the United States). He began with a history of the independence of the newly arisen United States, and then systematically introduced the nation’s politics, economics, education, religions, and the concrete state of affairs in each state. In the fields of mathematics and physics, Wylie first wrote in 1853 the Shuxue qimeng (Introduction to mathematics), which explained 3. “Hanwen xuwen” (Introduction to the Chinese edition), in Da Yingguo zhi (Shanghai: Mohai shuguan, 1856). 63

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

the rudiments of this field of knowledge in the West. In addition, he translated in 1857 the latter half of Euclid’s Geometry—Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) had only translated the first half—as Xu jihe yuanben (Elements of geometry, continued), and thus completed the translation of this famous work from ancient Greece after a hiatus of 250 years from Ricci’s time. The following year, 1858, he published Zhongxue qianshuo (A simple theory of dynamics). This was an effort to explain for the first time in Chinese the science of Western physics centering on dynamics. The next year he translated Elements of Algebra (originally published in 1837) by the British mathematician Augustus De Morgan (Di Mogan, 1806–71) as Daishuxue (Algebra), and Elements of Analytical Geometry and Differential and Integral Calculus (1850) by the American mathematician Elias Loomis (Luo Mishi, 1811–89) as Dai wei ji shiji. In the latter work, in particular, he not only introduced modern Western mathematical knowledge, but also simultaneously coined numerous new mathematical terms, such as xishu (coefficient), hanshu (function), bianshu (variable), weifen (differential calculus), and jifen (integral calculus), among others. In other fields as well, Protestant missionaries produced Chinese translations of Western works in numbers almost too many to count. For example, in medicine, these titles appeared: Quanti xinlun (A new essay on the entire body), first published in Guangzhou in 1851, reprinted by the Mohai shuguan in 1855; Xiyi lüelun (Outlines of Western medicine), published by the Renji yiguan, 1857; Fuying xinshuo (A new theory of childbirth and infant care), Renji yiguan, 1858; and Neike xinshuo (A new theory of internal medicine), Renji yiguan, 1858, by Benjamin Hobson (Hexin, 1816–73), who took over the job of supervising the Renji yiguan after Lockhart. And in the fields of natural history and biology there were published Bowu xinbian (A new essay on scientific knowledge), first published in Guangzhou in 1855, reprinted by the Mohai shuguan that same year by Hobson; and Zhiwuxue (Botany), Mohai shuguan, 1859, by Alexander Williamson 4 (Wei Lianchen, 1829–90). 4. Translator’s note: The original, An Introduction to Botany (London: Longman, 64

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

With their extraordinary level of activity, by the latter half of the 1850s Shanghai rapidly developed as the main transmission site for information from the West, forming an immense informational network centered entirely on itself. Production Base for Information How is it that Muirhead, Wylie, and the other missionaries all of a sudden in the 1850s began to publish with such concentrated effort these Chinese translations of Western works? And, with the exception of Medhurst, how were these men who had not lived in China for such a long period of time able to produce translations in literary Chinese of Western works of science with such a high level of abstraction? In the light of these recognized activities, most everyone will surely be entertaining such doubts. To answer these questions, we need to examine a bit more closely the actual site that enabled the production of information: the concrete daily activities of the missionaries, the environment surrounding them, and, most important, the Mohai shuguan. As we noted earlier, the Mohai shuguan was established when Medhurst moved to Shanghai in 1843 and brought with him the publishing facilities of the London Missionary Society from Batavia. It was located for roughly the first two years on the first floor of Medhurst’s rented home outside the Eastern Gate of the walled Chinese city of Shanghai. In 1846 it moved to a detached, two-storey home newly built outside the Northern Gate of the walled city. Adjacent to the Mohai shuguan, also newly constructed, were Medhurst’s own home and the Renji yiguan. Later still the Tian’antang church was built. The aforementioned “Maijiaquan” referred to the enclosure within which these institutions were concentrated. At first when the Mohai shuguan was established, it had only one manual printing press and only one set of metal type which was missing numerous characters. There was also only one young Chinese Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman) by John Lindley (1799–1865), was published in 1832. 65

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

pressman, and he had to prepare every piece of work while checking the type available on hand. This made it an extremely cumbersome process. To deal with the printing of many copies of the Bible the next year, 1847, a twin-cylinder printing press was sent from the home office of the London Missionary Society, and prior to this Alexander Wylie, a specialist in printing, was dispatched to Shanghai. The Mohai shuguan had begun in 1844, shortly after it was founded, to print missionary pamphlets, but the heightened activities in their operations seem only to have become possible with the arrival of new machinery and specialized staff. It is worth noting in this connection that the twin-cylinder printing press could, it was claimed, print several tens of thousands of pages in a single day. Using Bovine Power Wang Tao (1828–97), who later worked as a Chinese-language assistant for the missionaries there, recounted in the following manner the general features of the Mohai shuguan in the latter half of the 1840s: The Westerner Medhurst is now in charge of the Mohai shuguan, and they print books there with movable type machines. He said they had a new invention, and I made a point of going to take a look at it. A bamboo fence with floral support and a bed of chrysanthemums and orchids encircle [the building], altogether a thoroughly rural elegance. Upon entering one sees it is replete with light blue shelves, a resplendent sight. Medhurst has two daughters, the older named Mary and the younger named Ellen [?]. All came out to greet me . . . I was later taken in to see the printing of books. An ox pulls the machine on a wooden floor and the gears move at a great speed. They claim that several thousand sheets can be printed in a single day. It moves with truly stunning speed. The study has glass windows that emit an emerald glow throughout [the room]. Bookshelves arranged east to west are filled with dictionaries neatly lined up.

66

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Like Medhurst, they all—William C. Milne [Mei Weicha, 1815– 63], Lockhart, Muirhead, and Joseph Edkins [Ai Yuese, 1823– 5 1905]—know how to read and speak Chinese.

The use of an ox to power the movement of a printing press must have been an extraordinary event for Chinese of the day. In another essay, Wang Tao offered details about a completely unfamiliar machine imported from the West: The Westerners have set up a number of printing facilities, although the best known is the Mohai [shuguan]. They have a metal printing press there, some ten feet long and three feet wide. It has two heavy gears on either side, and two people on each side execute the printing in coordination. An ox is used to turn the gears, pushing them in and out. Above hang two large hollow shafts connected to a belt below that feeds paper into the machine [i.e., the press]. With each revolution the paper is printed on both sides. [The process] is both exceedingly simple and rapid. In a single day over 40,000 sheets can be printed. The typography is done with lead cast type, and the ink is a refined mixture of gelatin and soot oil. Inkpots sit on either side of the press, and when the metal cylinder is rotated, it conveys ink to a flat plate. To the side ink cylinders are lined up at discreet spaces, and the ink is applied to the flat surface and conveyed to the character types. In this manner, the characters appear naturally without shadowing. Because the ink is applied evenly, the characters are sharp, making this far superior to traditional Chinese printing. Although the power of an ox is needed to move the printing press, the use of an 6 ox replaces the use of steam [to power the press]. 5. Wang Tao, Manyou suilu (Random notes on leisurely travel) (1887; Changsha: Hunan remin chubanshe, 1982; Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2007). 6. Wang Tao, Yingruan zazhi (Miscellaneous notes from the marshes) (1875; Taibei: Huawen shuju, 1969; Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 1988; Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989). 67

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

An American by the name of Richard March Hoe III (1812–86) invented the steam-powered rotary printing press in 1843 (patented in 1847). The Mohai shuguan was said to have introduced its cylinder printing press in the autumn of 1847, making the possibility scant that it was a Hoe-type machine. Nonetheless, it was doubtless the rotary press of a generation preceding Hoe’s and would have been considerably advanced technology for its time. The outstanding capacity of this rotary press was put to work printing Bibles and other materials, and over the course of the 1850s, it was the mainstay supporting the Mohai shuguan. The First Chinese Translations of the Bible To understand the Mohai shuguan at its initial stage, we looked at the rotary printing press that was its effective “trademark”; the ultimate purpose of introducing such a machine was to print the newly translated Bible. To that end we need to take a further look at this site of Chinese-language translations of the Bible, the press’s most important undertaking. As a missionary in China, the first Protestant to translate the Bible into Chinese was Robert Morrison. Arriving in China in 1807, Morrison worked almost entirely by himself before completing a translation of the New Testament in 1813. In cooperation with William Milne, who was later sent to China by the same London Missionary Society, he completed a translation of the Old Testament in 1819. The two books were published together in 1824 as Shentian shengshu (also known as Shengshu quanshu). This was the first Chineselanguage translation of the Bible produced in China. There were numerous problems, however, in Morrison’s translation, making the 7 text extremely difficult for Chinese readers to comprehend. Given these difficulties, such later arrivals to China as Medhurst, Gützlaff, and Bridgman worked together to revise Morrison’s translation. They first jointly published in 1837 a translation of the 7. Yoshida Tora, Chūgoku Purotesutanto dendō shi kenkyū (Studies in the history of Protestant evangelizing in China) (Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 1997). Author’s note: I have gained a great deal of information about Protestant missionaries and their work in China from this work. 68

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

New Testament under the title Xin yizhao shu; and Gützlaff alone in 1838 brought out a revised translation of the Old Testament as Jiu yizhao shengshu. This marked the completion of the first revised edition of the Shentian shengshu. Gützlaff later evinced dissatisfaction with this revision, and in 1840 he published his revision of the Xin yizhao shu under the title Jiushizhu Yesu xin yizhao shu (New Testament of Jesus the Savior). Is it Shen or Shangdi? The Bible translated without the participation of educated native speakers was, to be sure, not terribly popular. Thus, in 1843 representatives of the London Missionary Society and various other Protestant sects gathered in Hong Kong to confer on subsequent revision work. They organized a new Translation Committee with Medhurst as its head and decided to bring out a definitive edition of the Bible in Chinese. The Translation Committee was composed of five men, including Medhurst and Charles Milne, son of the aforementioned William Milne. From roughly June 1847 they gathered at the Medhurst residence in Shanghai and “practically every day from 10:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.” with the assistance of Chinese they set to work translating the Bible for a definitive edition, “polishing every single character and 8 phrase.” Working together in this manner, they finished their Chinese translation of the New Testament (Xinyue quanshu) in 1850 (published 1852) and of the Old Testament (Jiuyue quanshu) in 1853 (published 1855). In the course of their translation work, a controversy arose between Medhurst and the British missionaries and Bridgman and the American missionaries over the proper translation into Chinese for “God.” The former argued for Shangdi, while the latter preferred Shen because, 8. Paul Cohen, Zai chuantong yu xiandaixing zhi jian: Wang Tao yu wan-Qing geming (Between tradition and modernity: Wang Tao and revolution in the late Qing), trans. Lei Yi and Luo Jianqiu (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1994). This is a translation of Cohen’s Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang Tao and Reform in Late Ch’ ing China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974). 69

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

they argued, Shangdi was linked to a temporal, mundane image. In the end they did not compromise, but printed one edition (by the British and Foreign Bible Society) with God translated as Shangdi and another edition (by the American Bible Society) with God translated Shen. And, the fact that “God” was later rendered kami in Japanese in the early Meiji period was due to the influence of this American translation. This translation of the Bible that the Translation Committee completed enjoyed an excellent reputation. In particular, the New Testament had undergone eleven reprintings by 1859 and was said to be still in use through the 1920s. Behind this success story stood one man hidden from view who had offered distinguished service, Wang Tao, whose name has now been mentioned several times. His addition to the translation staff transformed the work on the Bible completely. The translation now became a refined work later deemed a 9 “fine literary Bible.” The Rōnin Cultivated Talents (xiucai) of the Mohai shuguan Born in Fuli, Jiangsu Province, in 1828, Wang Tao was an extraordinarily talented intellectual—from his youth his writing was said to have a “wonderful spirit” (qiqi). At age seventeen he passed the first level of the civil service examinations at the prefectural level and became a xiucai (or shengyuan, government student), but he failed the next step, the provincial examinations, and thus the route into government service as an official was effectively severed for him. When his father died in 1849, Wang took over as head of his family of six and moved to Shanghai to support them. He lived on the grounds of the Mohai shuguan and worked as Medhurst’s Chinese-language assistant for the next thirteen years. As noted earlier, soon after joining the Mohai shuguan, Wang assisted in the translation of the Bible then being undertaken by the Translation Committee. Concretely, this meant that he corrected the translated text of the missionaries, adding distinctly Chinese rhetorical 9. Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity. 70

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

flourishes to the prose. The work was extremely easy and enjoyable for him. This was, though, the very first time the missionaries had employed an educated Chinese assistant, and they came to deeply appreciate Wang extraordinary talent so much that they later came to rely on him to correct their translations of hymns as well. Having reached such a high level of trust, once the Bible translation was completed, he went on in 1853 to work with Edkins on a translation known as Gezhi xixue tigang (Outlines of scientific Western learning), and from 1857 he worked together with Wylie on the editing of a journal entitled Liuhe congtan (Stories from around the world), as well as completing the aforementioned Zhongxue qianshuo. Wang Tao’s contributions to the Mohai shuguan, however, did not stop here. Later, at his introduction, a number of Chinese intellectuals, such as the mathematician Li Shanlan (1810–82) in 1852 and the literary scholar Jiang Dunfu (1808–67) the following year, joined the staff of the Mohai shuguan and began doing the same kind of 10 translation assistance as he had been engaged in. The aforementioned translations by Wylie of Xu jihe yuanben, Daishuxue, Dai wei ji shiji, and Tan tian, as well as that of Williamson of Zhiwuxue, were all done collaboratively with Li Shanlan. And, Muirhead’s Da Yingguo zhi was completed together with Jiang Dunfu. The activities of these three Chinese men became a model by which over a dozen Chinese collaborators—including Guan Sifu (fl. 1830–70), an authority in the field of medicine, and Zhang Fuxi (d. 1862), who had training in astronomy—subsequently worked for the Mohai shuguan for 11 varying periods of time. In addition, not only did Guan Sifu assist in the Chinese translation on Xiyi lüelun, Fuying xinshuo, and Neike xinshuo, all by Hobson, but he also offered his help in editing Meilige heshengguo zhilüe (Lianbang zhilüe) by Elijah Bridgman, who was not connected to the London Missionary Society. Like Wang Tao, these men had all achieved the xiucai degree, but 10. Zhang Zhiqun, Wang Tao nianpu (Chronological biography of Wang Tao) (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994). 11. Wang Jiarong, Shangwu yinshuguan shi ji qita (A history and other matters concerning the Commercial Press) (Beijing: Zhongguo shuji chubanshe, 1998). 71

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

had failed at the next level of the examinations, thus affording them an existence not unlike the rōnin (masterless samurai) in Japan. With their entrance into the government bureaucracy effectively shut off, the Mohai shuguan may not have been the most appropriate mode of employment, even with its high level of compensation, but it was by no means a poor alternative. It was just when they arrived at the Mohai shuguan that the latter had completed the Chinese translation of the Bible, and the missionaries had an abundance of time on their hands to allocate to translating works on conditions in the West and scientific writings. Precisely because these two circumstances came together so nicely, a “mass production” of Chinese translations of Western works became possible. The historical background to the sudden increase of such Chinese translations by missionaries in the 1850s was rooted in this convergence. Impetus to an Enlightenment Group 12

One extant piece describes the Mohai shuguan at its peak. The author was Guo Songtao (1818–91) who would later work at the Chinese Mission in England. At this time he was serving under Zeng Guofan (1811–72, who was just then suppressing the Taiping rebels). Guo was involved in collecting taxes, such as on salt, to help finance the military. This may have been the reason he initially came to Shanghai. I later visited the Mohai shuguan. A man there named Medhurst is a Western missionary who calls himself Old Man Mohai (Mohai laoren). The front half of his residence is a chapel, and the rear half is composed of guest rooms lined with numerous books. Two globes have been placed by the windows on the east and west, one on each side; the one on the right is a celestial globe and the one on the left is an earthly globe. Medhurst works extremely hard at his writing. His works are being edited by Li Renshu (Li Shanlan) of Haiyan and 12. The citation that follows cames from Guo Songtao riji (The diary of Guo Songtao) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1981), entry for the fifteenth day of the third lunar month of Xianfeng 6 (1856). 72

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Wang Lanqing (Wang Tao) of Suzhou. Li is a man of extraordinary erudition who claims to have been studying mathematics for a long time. Wang is a man of generosity and considerable refinement. He located for me a work entitled Shuxue qimeng by [Alexander] Wylie. This fellow Wylie is a man of average features who has acquired considerable specialty in mathematics. There is also a fellow named [Joseph] Edkins, a man of exceptional knowledge, who has been placed in charge by Medhurst of all their books. They also gave me several volumes of Xia’er guanzhen (Rarities from near and far). There are a number of essays in the first half [of each volume of this work] about science, and thereafter each volume is filled with excerpts drawn from domestic and foreign events—they call it a newspaper (xinwenzhi) . . . Wang [Tao] lives there with his family. An elegant couplet . . . hangs in his room. When I asked him about his work, he said he spends two or three hours each day in the library, correcting the grammatical errors in their [the Westerners’] writings. He edits the texts to make them sound appropriately Chinese.

One story has it that Guo Songtao’s Shanghai experiences and, in particular, his visit to the Mohai shuguan provided the initial impetus to his subsequent concern about conditions in the West and his becoming a member of the enlightened officialdom that led the early Westernization 13 movement. While this may only be one author’s estimation, it certainly rings true. The Mohai shuguan at this time had a certain “impact” on a segment of the Chinese intellectual class, for it functioned as a window introducing the West to Chinese society. We may have glimmered something of this from the quotation cited earlier, but let us now look more closely at Wang Tao’s diary from this time, which offers a detailed 14 picture of the goings-on at the Mohai shuguan. 13. Zeng Yongling, Guo Songtai dazhuan: Zhongguo Qingdai diyiwei zhuwai gongshi (A major biography of Guo Songtao, China’s first minister resident abroad under the Qing) (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1989). 14. Fang Xing and Tang Zhijun, eds., Wang Tao riji (Diary of Wang Tao) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987). 73

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Operation of a Steam Engine Reading through Wang Tao’s diary, among the numerous accounts of his meetings with men of letters, especially striking is that oftrepeated note that he and others associated with the Mohai shuguan frequently presented “Western writings” (actually, Chinese translations of Western works) to Chinese intellectuals. The recipients were not just his friends, but included such important officials as Wu Jianzhang (1791–1866), the daotai (circuit intendant, a high-level local post) of Shanghai. As he notes in an entry for December 25, 1858: “At the wishes of the missionaries, several copies of ‘Hobson’s medical texts’ were sent to Japan.” Because, of course, proselytizing was the primary motivation, these were not necessarily purely “enlightenment” activities. Nonetheless, the role of the Mohai shuguan as a transmitter of information emerges clearly here. The second most frequent topic of entries after the donation of books concerns the numerous visitors from many locales who came to the Mohai shuguan to observe its printing machinery and facilities. Among them were such figures as Xu Youren (1800–60), later to rise to the position of governor of Jiangsu Province, and Zhang Sigui (1816–88), vice-minister to the first Chinese Mission in Japan. One can clearly see that the Mohai shuguan’s influence had extended to Chinese intellectuals of some import. Among the diary entries concerned with observation of the facilities, it was the missionaries’ actual operation of the steam-powered printing press that elicited the most interest among Chinese. For example, Wang’s diary for January 27, 1860 reads: “We watched Wylie operate the steam engine. Water boils, steam rises, and [the machine] rotates with great speed.” Similar entries later appear on any number of occasions, indicating that the Mohai shuguan held demonstrations for Chinese visitors on a regular basis. Wang also notes in his diary that he was personally studying photography (zhaoyingfa) and that he had tried to take pictures at the home of a friend. Many different “everyday” customs of Westerners can be found in Wang’s diary, such as his sampling of beef, the wedding of a friend carried out according to “barbarian rites” (Chinese yili, “Western74

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

style”), a violin performance by a Western woman, and the like. These entries all add flavor to the general scene surrounding the Mohai shuguan at the time. Wang did not, of course, unilaterally accept everything he saw, for we find entries in which he recounts arguing with Wylie and others, criticizing the “great errors of Western government,” and advocating the “ways of high antiquity” in China. This all affords us a complex perspective on perceptions of the West among such Chinese intellectuals as Wang Tao at this time. A Living Window In the nearly twenty-year period between the end of the First Opium War and the conclusion of the Arrow War (the Second Opium War), the Mohai shuguan, through the activities of its missionaries and their extraordinarily talented rōnin assistants, was not only a transmitter of information on the West through the publication of Chinese-language translations of Western works, but it functioned in a large way as well as a living window on the West. Its primary purpose of proselytizing notwithstanding, the Mohai shuguan in China, which at the time had no state-run agency for the dissemination of Western learning, was similar in many ways to the Yōgakusho (Institute for Western Learning) established in 1855 by the Edo shogunate in Japan. The Interpreters’ College (Tongwenguan) in Beijing, the Broader Translation Bureau (Guang fangyanguan), and the Translation Department of the Jiangnan Arsenal (Jiangnan zhizaiju fanyibu)— comparable to the Yōgakusho—were all set up in China only in the 1860s, some twenty years after the Mohai shuguan. As we shall describe in a subsequent section, the influence of the Mohai shuguan was not restricted to China itself but extended to Japan, conferring countless blessings of “information” upon the Japanese of the late Edo period. Due to differences of opinion among missionaries concerning proselytizing and translation work, in the 1860s the activities of the 15 Mohai shuguan went into a rapid decline. In November 1860, Wylie, the man responsible for the printing press and the central figure 15. Shen Guowei, ed., “Rikugō sōdan” no gakusaiteki kenkyū (Interdisciplinary study of the Liuhe congtan, 1857–58) (Tokyo: Hakuteisha, 1999). 75

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

in the translation of Western works into China, returned to Britain for vacation. Thereafter, the great majority of its printing operations fell to the Mei-Hua shuguan, the publishing wing of the American Presbyterian Church, which had recently moved from Ningbo to Shanghai—in its Ningbo days, it was known as the Huahua Shengjing shufang, founded in Macao in 1844. Soon thereafter, the printing apparatus itself was sold to the Zilin yanghang, which was then making preparations to publish Shanghai xinbao (Shanghai newspaper). Thus, the golden era of the Mohai shuguan came to an end.

The “West” as Conveyed by Chinese Translations of Western Works Frequent Travel between China and Japan The Chinese translations of Western works published by the Mohai shuguan and similar institutions were intended in the first instance to open a way into China for proselytizing with the aim of enlightening Chinese intellectuals and prompting the opening of China. As we have seen thus far, such works were able to penetrate Chinese society to a certain limited extent and did cause a small shock. Unfortunately, however, more than half a century would pass before the content of these books was fully accepted and assimilated in China. There are many reasons for this, such as the continued presence of Sinocentrism militating strongly against the acceptance of anything from outside China and the restraints on elite intellectuals by virtue of the examination system. While explaining this phenomenon would be extremely interesting, it takes us too far afield. Here, we shall rather examine the process by which from the mid1850s these works came flooding into Japan along the “transportation” network we have been describing, their role in “enlightening” Japanese intellectuals, and the acceleration they fostered in the opening of Japan. When investigating the transmission to Japan of Chinese translations of Western works in the late Edo period, the first problem we confront is the actual route by which books traveled there and the kinds and 76

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

numbers of texts that made the voyage. If they were imported by Chinese traders, as they had been in the past, there would be lists connected to the tasks of importation assigned to the Nagasaki kaisho (Nagasaki Office), such as the Seirai shomoku (List of imported books), Shoseki motochō (Register of writings), and Rakusatsu chō (Register of successful bids). In a sense, then, our task would be extremely simple. Following the arrival of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1853 and 1854, however, other routes opened up, and with the opening of Japan in 1858 by virtue of the Ansei Treaty, a kind of free-trading system emerged. All manner of vessels, including mail ships, repeatedly traveled between China and Japan, making it all but impossible to specify which books, which routes, and what quantities. We can, though, categorize the routes into one of three sorts: cargo brought on Western battleships, importation by Chinese or Japanese merchants, and works carried by missionaries coming to Japan. Let us now take a look at each of these three routes in turn. Journals Brought Aboard Perry’s Fleet The cargo of Western books brought on gunboats takes us back to the arrival in Japan of Perry’s fleet itself. Calling in the Ryukyu Islands in January 1854 en route to Japan the second time, someone in Perry’s flotilla brought along two volumes of the same Chinese-language journal Xia’er guanzhen (Rarities from near and far) that, as we noted earlier, were presented to Guo Songtao (1818–91) at the Mohai shuguan. These two volumes were handed over to someone in the Ryukyus. Xia’er guanzhen was a monthly magazine published from September 1853 by Medhurst who was himself in Shanghai. As Guo Songtao had noted, the first half of each issue of the magazine generally centered around articles introducing Western civilization, such as science features, while the latter half was occupied largely by news from home and abroad. We cannot say for certain who it was who brought the two issues of Xia’er guanzhen to the Ryukyus, but the only two people who could read literary Chinese aboard Perry’s fleet were S. Wells Williams (Wei Sanwei, 1812–84), the interpreter, and Luo Sen. It would make sense to assume that it was one of them. 77

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Williams was a missionary of the American Congregational Church who came to China in 1833. He initially worked in Guangzhou, overseeing the mission press operations. Luo Sen was a literatus living in Hong Kong. At Williams’s invitation he joined Perry’s fleet and later played an important role as interpreter at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa. The two volumes of Xia’er guanzhen were later transported from the Ryukyus to Satsuma domain and later still seem to have spread widely in manuscript form among influential scholars throughout the country. For example—although perhaps not limited to these two volumes—in Ansei 5 (1858), Iwase Tadanari (1818–61), the administrator for foreign affairs (gaikoku bugyō), possessed a copy of Xia’er guanzhen, and before this both Katsu Kaishū (1823–99) and Yoshida Shōin (1830–59) had 16 written letters to friends indicating that they had read it. The case of the Xai’er guanzhen texts is, to be sure, an exceptional one, for in general one cannot ascertain the route of books and magazines brought on battleships. To the extent that I have been able to delve into the matter, the only comparable mention of such is in Katsu Kaishū’s Kaikoku kigen (The origins of opening the country). In a certain sense, these circumstances apply as well to importation by Chinese and Japanese merchants. That is, once the system of free trade came into being, the former structure for the investigation of imported volumes that had long been in place at the Nagasaki Hall effectively ceased operation, making it extremely difficult now to assess what works were transported along this route. From about 1858, foreign merchant houses from Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere set up shop in Nagasaki with increasing frequency, and numerous Chinese merchants came to Japan now as employees of these commercial houses. In competition with the official shogunal merchants, these newcomers 17 vigorously fostered both legal and illegal trading activities, and 16. Masuda Wataru, Seigaku tōzen to Chūgoku jijō, “zassho” sakki (The eastern movement of Western learning, notes on “various books”) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1979). English translation by Joshua A. Fogel, China and Japan: Mutual Representations in the Modern Era (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000). 17. Yamawaki Teijirō, Nagasaki no Tōjin bōeki (The China trade in Nagasaki) (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1964). 78

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

for Nagasaki at this time it was Shanghai that represented the most important trading partner. Taking these factors into account, it would be reasonable to expect that a number of Chinese-language translations of Western works, much in demand, would have been imported by Chinese merchants, known at the time as “unlicensed Chinese [merchants]” (moguri Tōjin). For example—though this is not definitive proof—from 1858 to 1859, a doctor in Dutch medicine resident in Edo, Miyake Gonsai (1817–68), translated in succession three works mentioned above by Benjamin Hobson, Xiyi lüelun, Fuying xinshuo, and Neike xinshuo, and it appears that he “clandestinely purchased books, 18 medicine, and the like” from Shanghai via the Nagasaki route. “Sold over One Thousand Copies” Compared to these two transport routes for books, those brought by missionaries coming to Japan are much easier to ascertain. In most instances, we have extant records in such forms as letters to friends or diaries, and in certain cases we even have concrete data on the numbers of volumes. For example, after the opening of Japan, the first American Congregationalist missionary to come to Nagasaki from Shanghai, a man named J. Liggins (Lin Yuehan), stated proudly in a letter to a friend that he had “sold over one thousand copies” of such “Chineselanguage works” as Muirhead’s Dili quanzhi and Da Yingguo zhi, Bridgman’s Lianbang zhilüe, Hobson’s Xiyi lüelun and Bowu xinpian, and Williamson’s Zhiwuxue to “members of elite Japanese society.” James Hepburn (1815–1911), who first came to Japan in 1859 and worked proselytizing in Kanagawa on behalf of the Presbyterian church, noted in a letter to a friend, dated April 7, 1860, that he had already sold “some 250 copies” of Richard Quarteman Way’s “Diqiu 19 tushuo.” He pointed out further that this book was turning out to be highly popular among the Japan. 18. Yoshida Tora, Chūgoku Purotesutanto dendō shi kenkyū. 19. Takaya Michio, trans. and ed., Hebon shokan shū (Collection of Hepburn’s letters) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1959).

79

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

The Anxiety of the Buddhists Although in general it was the above routes by which Chineselanguage translations of Western works made their way to Japan, once we have recognized this fact, we need to assess the routes they traveled as they spread within Japan. In considering the issue of what impact these works had in Japan, how they circulated in Japan may be more important than how they made their way there. Unlike their transmission to Japan, in many instances we are unable to detail the circulation of Chinese-language translations of Western works within Japan in the late Edo period. And, needless to say, we have no clear statistics on the numbers of books involved or the overall picture of their circulation. As we have seen in the above cases, we only have data on a handful of texts that circulated, but these records do enable us to glimpse something of the situation at the time. In 1863, Higuchi Ryūon (b. 1800), a teacher at the Kōzan’in (a temple in the Ōtani branch of New Pure Land Buddhism), indicated his sense of anxiety from the Buddhist perspective of the “secretive circulation” (mikkō) of countless Chinese-language translations of Western works in one of his lectures entitled “Hekija gohō saku” (Plan to attack the heterodox and defend the faith): Over the past two or three years, a great number of works—with such titles as Wanguo gangjian lu (Chronological narrative of the countries of the world), Diqiu [shuo]lüe, Dili [quan]zhi, and Tan tian—have secretively circulated [into and around Japan]. In addition, many of these have been officially reprinted [by the shogunate]. While not explicitly aimed at explaining Christianity, they are [indeed] all Christian [writings] in spite of the interdiction [in place in Japan] against that religion. Furthermore, a single issue of [the newspaper] Zhongwai xinbao (Chinese and foreign gazette [published in Ningbo from 1858]) as well as “news reports” (fūsetsugaki) on countries overseas sell several hundred copies here 20 and there each year. 20. In Tokiwa Daijō, ed., Meiji Bukkyō zenshū, vol. 8: Gohō hen (Collected writings of Meiji Buddhism, vol. 8: On defending the faith) (Tokyo: Shun’yōdō, 1935). 80

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Similarly, in 1867 another teacher in the Ōtani branch of New Pure Land Buddhism, Togashi Mokue, looked back at the massive incursion of Western works in Chinese translation following the opening of Japan and was profoundly saddened by the “dangers” they had brought to Japan. In a lecture entitled “Naigai niyū roku” (Account of two sorrows at home and abroad), he noted: “Over the past two or three years, I have personally witnessed one hundred or more of such Christian writings. The voluminous spread of this heterodox religion throughout our land is terribly sad. While lifting the strict ban in place for over 200 years may have been inevitable, the fact is that so soon 21 after it has been lifted, serious dangers to our land are before us.” Additionally, in 1865, for example, the figure has been noted of “ninety-six items overall” of “books of the heterodox religion” (jakyō shorui) that came to Japan; this number was not restricted to Western 22 secular works in Chinese but included as well religious tracts. In his own work in literary Chinese, Yokohama hanjō ki (Record of prosperity at Yokohama), Yanagawa Shunsan (1832–70), who served for a time as head of the Kaiseijo (Institute of Western Learning), mentioned twenty-three works that were transported to Japan in the late Edo period. Far from a full listing, though, this figure cannot be taken at face value. In any event, insofar as I have been able to determine from the extant materials, it seems clear that, individual items apart, over 80 percent of Western works in Chinese printed in Shanghai circulated widely in Japan, either in manuscript form or as Japanese reprints. The rate of propagation in Japan considerably outstripped that of 23 inland China. 21. Togashi Mokue, “Naigai niyū roku,” in Meiji Bukkyō zenshū, vol. 8: Gohō hen, ed. Tokiwa Daijō. 22. Un’ei Kōyō, “Gohō sōron” (General statement on defending the faith), in Meiji Bukkyō zenshū, vol. 8: Gohō hen, ed. Tokiwa Daijō. 23. On the spread of these Chinese language translations of Western works within China, see Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjin yu wan-Qing shehui (The Eastern flow of Western learning and late-Qing society) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1994). 81

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Missionary Translations into Chinese and Reprintings in Late-Edo-Period Japan Books (author, publisher, year of publication)

Reprinter; publisher; year of publication

Shuxue qimeng (Introduction to mathematics) (A. Wylie, Mohai shuguan, 1853)

Shogunal army publishers; Ansei period

Hanghai jinzhen (Navigational needle) (Daniel Jerome Macgowan [1815–93], Ningbo Huahua Shengjing shufang, 1853)

Okadaya; Edo; 1857

Dili quanzhi (Complete gazetteer of geography) (W. Muirhead, Mohai shuguan, 1853–54)

Shionoya Tōin (1809–67), punctuator; Sōkairō; 1858–59

Xia’er guanzhen (Rarities from near and far) (W. Medhurst, Xianggang Ying-Hua shuyuan, 1853)

Manuscript

Quanti xinlun (A new essay on the entire body) (B. Hobson, Mohai shuguan reprint, 1855)

Fushimi Ochi, publisher; 1857

Bowu xinbian (A new essay on scientific knowledge) (B. Hobson, Mohai shuguan reprint, 1855)

Kaiseijo, punctuator (official edition); Rōsōkan (Edo); Bunkyū period

Diqiu shuolüe (Illustrated discussion of the globe) (R. Way, Ningbo Huahua Shengjing shufang, 1856)

Mitsukuri Genpo (1799–1863); Rōsōkan (Edo); 1860

Da Yingguo zhi (History of Great Britain) (W. Muirhead, Mohai shuguan, 1856)

Aoki Shūhitsu (1803–63), punctuator; Nagato Onchisha; 1861

Zhihuan qimeng (Elementary lessons in the circle of knowledge) (James Legge, Xianggang Ying-Hua shuyuan, 1856)

Yanagawa Shunsan, Kaibutsusha (Edo); 1862

Xianggang chuantou huojia zhi (News on prices for ship captains in Hong Kong) (Japanese edition: Honkon shinbun [Hong Kong News], Daily Press, 1857)

Kaiseijo (official edition); Bunkyū period

Xiyi lüelun (Outlines of Western medicine) (B. Hobson, Renji yiguan, 1857)

Miyake Gonsai; Rōsōkan (Edo); 1858

Liuhe congtan (Stories from around the world) (A. Wylie, Mohai shuguan, 1857)

Bansho shirabesho (Office of barbarian books, official edition); Rōsōkan (Edo); 1860–62 82

printer;

Nishodō,

punctuator;

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Books (author, publisher, year of publication)

Reprinter; publisher; year of publication

Zhongxue qianshuo (A simple theory of dynamics) (A. Wylie, Mohai shuguan, 1858)

Mr. Arai of Yodoin, punctuator; Mr. Kimura of Yodoyō, reprinter; 1860

Neike xinshuo (A new theory of internal medicine) (B. Hobson, Renji yiguan, 1858)

Miyake Gonsai; Rōsōkan (Edo); 1859

Fuying xinshuo (A new theory of childbirth and infant care) (B. Hobson, Renji yiguan, 1858)

Miyake Gonsai; Rōsōkan (Edo); 1859

Zhongwai xinbao (Chinese and foreign gazette) (D. J. Macgowan, Ningbo Huahua Shengjing shufang, 1854)

Bansho shirabesho (Office of barbarian books, official edition); Rōsōkan (Edo); 1860

Daishuxue (Algebra) (A. Wylie, Mohai shuguan, 1859)

Tsukamoto Akitake (1833–85, Suruga), proofreader; Shūgakujo (Shizuoka); 1872

Tan tian (Outlines of astronomy) (A. Wylie, Mohai shuguan, 1859)

Fukuda Izumi, punctuator; Kawachiya (Osaka); 1861

Zhiwuxue (Botany) (A. Williamson, Mohai shuguan, 1859)

Kimura Kahei; 1867

Lianbang zhilüe (Brief account of the United States) (E. Bridgman, 1861)

Mitsukuri Genpo (1799–1863); Rōsōkan (Edo); 1864

Zhongwai zazhi (Miscellany from home and abroad) (D. J. Macgowan, Shanghai, 1864)

Kaiseijo, punctuator (official edition); Rōsōkan (Edo); 1864

Wanguo gongfa (Elements of international law) (W. A. P. Martin [1827–1916], Chongshiguan [Beijing], 1864)

Kaiseijo, punctuator and reprinter (official edition); Rōsōkan (Edo), publisher; 1865

Gewu rumen (Introduction to science) (W. A. P. Martin, Tongwenguan [Beijing], 1868)

Motoyama Zenkichi, Meishinkan; 1869

punctuator;

N.B.: Table based on various sources including Kirisutokyō shigakkai (Research group on the history of Christianity), comp., Nihon Kirisutikyō shi kankei Wa-Kan sho mokuroku (Listing of Japanese and Chinese books concerning the history of Christianity in Japan) (Tokyo: Bunkōdō shoten, 1954). 83

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

“Textbooks” for Domainal Schools Given the high rate at which these Chinese-language editions of Western works circulated in Japan, let us take a look at how they were used in domainal schools throughout Japan. Reprintings of such works as Dili quanzhi, Diqiu shuolüe, Da Yingguo zhi, and Lianbang zhilüe in the early Meiji years were said to have been used as textbooks in many domainal schools in such places as Kanazawa, Fukui, Izushi, Tanabe, 24 Kōbe, Yodo, Nobeoka, Takeo, and Isewatarai. Most popular among all such works were Dili quanzhi and Zhihuan qimeng (Elementary lessons in the circle of knowledge) by James Legge (Liyage, 1815–97) (Xianggang Ying-Hua shuyuan, 1856), each of which was adopted in over five schools. Perhaps what we are seeing here is the temporary phenomenon of a transitional period between Edo-era Dutch Learning to Meiji-era Western Learning. The roles these works played in the transitional 1850s and 1860s, however, most certainly cannot be denied. It did not simply fill in the space between these two movements, but made it possible at the same time for this transformation to take place. And the impact exerted by these Chinese translations of Western works was immense in scope. .

Expectation of Informational Controls We have expended a fair amount of space delineating a “Shanghai network” and the spread of Chinese translations of Western works in Japan on its basis. From the perspective of the history of cultural interactions, this is of considerable importance. Yet, for our initial theme of the relationship between Shanghai and the opening of Japan, this is not a sufficient explanation. We have only dealt thus far with preliminaries, but have yet to answer the ultimate question directly of what impact this “information from Shanghai” exerted on Japan. To 24. Kaikoku hyakunen kinen bunka jigyōkai, Sakoku jidai Nihonjin no kaigai chishiki, sekai chiri, Seiyō shi ni kansuru bunken kaidai (Overseas knowledge of the Japanese during the era of seclusion: Explication of documents concerning world geography and Western history) (Tokyo: Kangensha, 1953). 84

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

understand just what “Shanghai” meant in late Edo Japan, we need to examine a bit more closely the information contained in the cargo, especially the content of such Chinese-language periodicals as Liuhe congtan. All but completely unknown today, there were series of articles translated from other journalistic sources in the late Edo era known as “Bunkyū shinbun” (newspapers of the Bunkyū era, 1861–64). They excerpted articles from a number of newspapers written in European languages, such as Javasche Courant, organ of the governor-general’s office of the Dutch East India Company. They then translated them more or less in the order in which they appeared. Specifically, this meant three newspapers—Kanpan Batabiya shinbun (Batavia news, official printing, second lunar month, Bunkyū 2 [1862]), Kanpan kaigai shinbun (Overseas news, official printing, eighth lunar month, Bunkyū 2), and Kanpan kaigai shinbun besshū (Overseas news, separate edition, official printing, eighth lunar month, Bunkyū 2)— and five Chinese-language journals—Kaji kanchin (Xia’er guanzhen [official reprint]), Kanpan rokugō sōdan (Liuhe congtan, official printing), Kanpan chūgai shinpō (Zhongwai xinbao, official printing), Kanpan Honkon shinbun (Xianggang xinwen, official printing), and Kanpan chūgai zasshi (Zhongwai zazhi, official printing). As their titles indicate—namely, the term kanpan (official printing)—these eight newspapers and journals were all translated and/or reprinted by the shogunate’s Office of Barbarian Books or its successor institutions, the Yōsho shirabesho (Office of Western books) and the Kaiseijo, and published by the bookstore Rōsōkan in Edo. It was clearly the shogunate’s aim in the Bunkyū years to suddenly begin publishing translated newspapers and journals. Because the submission of the Dutch and Chinese fūsetsugaki ceased following the opening of Japan in the Ansei period, a need for an alternate source of information emerged. In addition, by selecting and deleting from the European-language press and Chinese-language journals, both Christian and those of various other strains, and by publishing the “Bunkyū newspapers” with the official imprimatur (kanpan), the government was trying, it appears, to control information to a certain extent. 85

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

In this latter regard, the shogunate was certainly successful. Yet, by publishing the “Bunkyū newspapers,” it was far more important that overseas sources of fresh news—until then still few in number—spread quickly. Not only would these supplement information transmitted in the books hitherto translated, but they influenced various subsequent trends in late Edo society in that they provided content that was just that much more real. The Impact of the West as Seen in Four Chinese-Language Periodicals Three European-language newspapers fall outside the scope of this book, and I shall not treat them here, but I would like to consider the contents of four of the Chinese-language periodicals, leaving aside the Xia’er guanzhen, which circulated entirely in manuscript. Though only four periodicals, the Kanpan rokugō sōdan in fifteen fascicles, the Kanpan chūgai shinpō in twelve fascicles, the Kanpan Honkon shinbun in two fascicles, and the Kanpan chūgai zasshi in seven fascicles, taken together represent a sizable body of material. I shall discuss this material under the following headings: astronomy and geography, democratic governance, Western culture, and the produce of various foreign lands. Emphasizing the Theory of a Spherical Earth: Information on Astronomy and Geography Perhaps because of the traditional Chinese emphasis on astronomy and calendrical science, an exceptionally large number of articles concerned with astronomy and geography appeared together with introductions to these subjects in these Chinese-language periodicals. In general, they are found at the beginning or near the beginning of individual issues. For example, we find this editorial practice in all fifteen volumes of Liuhe congtan, as well as in the first four of the seven volumes of Zhongwai zazhi. The missionaries stressed the theory of a spherical Earth and a heliocentric solar system, and on occasion they introduced the theories of Copernicus (1473–1543), Galileo (1564–1642), and Newton (1642–1727). Let us take a look, by way of example, at an essay by Muirhead that appeared in the first issue of Liuhe congtan: 86

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Astronomers tell us that the land on which we reside is one of a number of planets. These planets all circle the sun, and thus we say that the planets are subsidiary to the sun. The distances separating the planets from the sun are not the same. Some are greater or smaller, closer or further away, and the times they take to make a revolution [around the sun] are not all the same. They are round in shape and neither admit nor give off light. They move from West to East in an elliptical orbit . . . The Earth is a planet, separated from the sun by 27,550,000 li and requiring 365 days, 2 [old] hours [=120 minutes], 7 ke [=105 minutes, at 15 minutes per ke], 3 minutes, and 49 seconds. One revolution [of the Earth on its axis] takes 11 [old] hours, 7 ke, 11 minutes, 4 seconds. Adding 3 minutes, 56 seconds, it comes to 12 hours which constitutes either 25 one day or one night.

This sort of information is now, of course, known to everyone. In China of the 1850s, however, this understanding of the universe was still relatively unknown and sufficient to shock most people. Heliocentric theory had been introduced to China as early as the era of Matteo Ricci, but it remained knowledge solely for specialists and never penetrated the consciousness of ordinary intellectuals. For example, when Guo Songtao visited Hangzhou in 1856, he reported hearing for the first time that “the sun does not move but the Earth 26 does” which led him to respond with “great doubts.” He did not appear to comprehend the theory at first glance. If someone such as Guo, a successful examination candidate, held such a view, the understanding of heliocentric theory by ordinary scholars at that time can easily be imagined. Missionaries doggedly advocated both the theory of a spherical Earth and a heliocentric solar system not just to introduce the advanced theories and knowledge of the West and as a means of enlightening Chinese scholars, but they also seem to have had another objective. If they were successful in convincing the Chinese that the Earth was 25. Liuhe congtan, fascicle 1, in Nihon shoki shinbun zenshū (Collected early newspaper in Japan), ed. Kitane Yutaka (Tokyo: Perikan sha, 1986). 26. Guo Songtao riji (Diary of Guo Songtao), entry for January 25, 1856. 87

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

spherical, then there could be no center (= China) on its surface, and they would thus be implanting among the Chinese as a whole the concept that all nations in the world were equal (geographically). The same motivation appears to have underlain Medhurst’s purposeful placement of a globe in his guestroom. We see here fleetingly the strenuous efforts of the missionaries to break down Sinocentrism. And they seem to have been successful in this regard, for by the latter half of the 1850s we find that the word tianxia, long the term representing a Chinese view of the world, was replaced by the more neutral, more balanced terms: yinghuan (world), wanguo (all nations), and diqiu (globe). Although only a small beginning, nonetheless Sinocentric consciousness was being relativized. “Study Astronomy” How were the theories of a spherical Earth and a heliocentric solar system, conveyed in such periodicals as Liuhe congtan, responded to in Japan where earlier on the theory of a revolving Earth had filtered in by virtue of the accumulation of Dutch Learning? Although thus more attuned, to be sure, than were the Chinese, the impact on the Japanese appears to have been no less forceful. Aside from the monks and practitioners who believe and study Buddhism, nowadays the Confucians and Shintoists have turned their backs on our ancient ways and are unaware of the harm they are doing to our practices. Whenever they open their mouths, all they talk about are the five continents of the Earth. Over thirty years ago, I saw people selling maps of the globe in the markets of Edo. Although I frowned then, nowadays such maps have flooded the streets. There is a man from a domain in the West who has studied astronomy. When he returned to his home domain, he sought a scholar of the True Pure Land sect, and raucously argued in support of the spherical Earth while denouncing the world of Buddhism. This scholar [i.e., the latter one] knew only religion and had no knowledge of other matters. He was deeply embarrassed and said

88

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

not a word. It is appalling that similarly perplexing things may happen to our adherents in many places. A great calamity has arisen for our Buddhist tradition with these theories of astronomy and geography, which pose a mighty foe for our uninitiated scholars. Ever since the commencement of trade with foreign states, such works as Diqiu shuolüe, Dili quanzhi, and Tan tian have flowed [into Japan]. We must all now study and get 27 to know them well.

These words of Higuchi Ryūon were written in 1863. While he did not explicitly mention the journal title Liuhe congtan, he clearly conveyed a genuine vista, albeit a negative one, on the rapid spread of Chinese translations of Western works (including, of course, those cited) and on the recent influx of Western astronomical and geographical knowledge based on them. One may detect as well that the reception of this knowledge was much more rapid in Japan, with its basis in Dutch Learning, than in China. In connection with astronomy and geography, news of the Suez and Panama Canals, then under construction, was carried in a string of Chinese-language serials. Zhongwai xinbao, in particular, enthusiastically followed the progress in the building of the Suez Canal, indicating that it was an item of international interest at the time. Because these were monthly magazines, not books, they conveyed the most current news. While it is hard to determine the extent to which this information was understood, not only did they provide vivid proof that the Earth was a sphere, but the dream of traveling around the world by ship acquired a sense of possibility. News Reports of the American Presidential Election Campaign: Democracy as Reported in Chinese Periodicals Works such as Wei Yuan’s (1794–1857) Haiguo tuzhi (Illustrated gazetteer of the maritime countries), Muirhead’s Da Yingguo zhi, and Bridgman’s Lianbang zhilüe had already introduced to a certain extent 27. “Kyūsaku bun” (Emergency measures), in Meiji Bukkyō zenshū, vol. 8: Gohō hen, ed. Tokiwa Daijō. 89

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

political conditions in the West. These were all primarily explanations of political institutions and rarely went beyond clarifying a handful of concepts. In this sense, these Chinese-language journals not only offered insight into how these concepts worked in practice, but as was the nature of a journal, they frequently conveyed the detailed operations of such institutions and a sense of democratic governance in action. For example, Liuhe congtan published its inaugural issue in 1857, the year after an American election in which three candidates vigorously debated the issue of the continuation of slavery. The periodical covered this topic from its first issue; it also described the election in detail including candidate James Buchanan’s (1791–1868) promise to build a transcontinental railroad. While simplified, it nonetheless followed the popular electoral process for the presidency. As the following citation indicates, this string of “reports” concluded with a summary of the outgoing president’s state of the union address and conveyed a realistic sense of the actual operations of government in a presidential system. President Buchanan (Bujianan) of the United States has recently been elected by the people, as of November 6, bingchen year [1856]. The gentlemen in Congress have convened. Outgoing President [Franklin] Pierce (Biersi [1804–69]) finished his term of four years, left political office forthwith, and shall return to his hometown. Following past customary practice, he appeared before Congress and addressed the assembled men about national affairs in great detail. In a word, he spoke on behalf of having a strong, united land and mentioned the election of the gentlemen [in Congress]. He also spoke about taxes. As of May 29, 1856, tax revenues for the previous year had been collected to the sum of $76,918,141. Together with the surplus from 1855, it totaled $92,250,117 . . . On the whole, expenditures for the past five years have roughly averaged $48,000,000, and for the next five years this amount should be sufficient. Customs revenues for the past year amounted to $64,000,000, and new laws were needed to insure that they do not exceed $50,000,000. This past year [the United States] faced great difficulty sending soldiers to fight against red 90

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

men [Indians] in the Washington and Oregon territories, and that fighting continues. He was now hopeful that [U.S.] troops would be able to return to civilian life, bring calm to the populace, and enjoy peace together . . . He also said that the United States enjoyed friendly ties with foreign powers, a peace treaty had recently been concluded at the British capital [London] with the expectation of harmoniousness on both sides, and Central America was now 28 quiet . . . Pierce spoke in detail, and these were his main points.

This was, of course, prior to Abraham Lincoln’s (1809–65) famous phrase, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” which would be enunciated six years later and set off a flood of emotion throughout the world. The very fact that the president would report to each and every citizen on the financial matters, domestic governance, and diplomatic affairs in this way certainly was an expression of the basic spirit of democracy, “government for the people.” Thus, the reportage in the Chinese-language periodical must have been revelatory to people at the time. Liuhe congtan, the serial that reported these events, began to circulate widely in Japan around the time of the arrival of the delegation across the Pacific Ocean to America aboard the Kanrinmaru in 1860. It is fascinating to contemplate the fact that samurai in Japan may have read of such things in these periodicals. An Eventuality Impossible to Comprehend The year 1857 was but one year after the eruption of the Arrow incident in China. In the process of diplomatic negotiations in the aftermath of this affair which arose from a minor clash, Sino-British opposition intensified until the two countries entered into a state of war, the Second Opium War, by year’s end. The Chinese-language periodicals covered the two nations’ movement until war broke out, and because the editors were themselves caught up in the events, they followed it with greater assiduity than they did the American presidential election. In virtually every issue, there was something about debates in the British Parliament about whether or not to declare war. 28. Liuhe congtan, fascicle 3. 91

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

The Formosa postal ship reached Shanghai on the twelfth. What follows is the news they brought. Because of the incident in Guangzhou [i.e., Qing officials boarded the Arrow, which they suspected of smuggling, and made arrests], the British convened in Parliament to discuss the matter. Everyone in the bureaucracy and aristocracy is concerned about this important matter, and public opinion surely is as well. At present, though, they are divided between those who favor war and those who favor peace. The British prime minister has called for war; members of the upper house have supported him by a majority of twenty-six votes, while members of the lower house by a majority of sixteen do not want war and have called for peace. The prime minister’s intentions have been set, and he does not wish to cede his post and leave [government]. He is about to submit the issue to the populace at large. In the latter part of March, he rebuked the gentlemen of the lower house and dispersed them back to their home constituencies [to stand for election]. They will hash out with the people the propriety of peace or war in the Guangdong matter. The people may wish to elect new members of Parliament and reconvene to discuss the matter in May. The major commercial interests in London and elsewhere are assembling there to discuss the matter as well, as they do not agree with the lower house. Some of them have submitted a document to the prime minister, urging him to send an emissary to China to conclude a new treaty and take up residence in the Chinese capital to insure that there will be no prohibition on commerce or trade at the ports along the river routes, nor on the coming and going of commercial vessels. Surveying all of this, it is expected that the newly elected gentlemen shall come to agree with the prime minister when they 29 reconvene.

This news then conveyed the story that commencement of the Second Opium War was becoming increasingly certain. While this report was itself shocking, to be sure, at the same time the process leading up to the start of war, as reported here, may have had an even greater impact on people at the time. The fact that the decision 29. Liuhe congtan, fascicle 5. 92

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

whether or not to launch a war in which the nation’s fate hung in the balance belonged neither to the sovereign nor to the prime minister alone but was reached through compromise with the people must have been an eventuality nearly impossible to comprehend for Chinese and Japanese in the 1850s. In this sense, the reportage in the Chinese-language periodicals functioned like a commentary on the Western parliamentary system, which was only then beginning to be recognized. The genuine quality of their content helped immensely in explaining the operations of a democratic government with which readers were still unfamiliar. There were as well many and sundry other reports concerned with the operations of political institutions—such as diplomatic negotiations between Western nations or the British taxation and health-care systems—and they offered an image of the Western capitalist state from a variety of different perspectives. Criticism of Polygamy: Western Culture and Its Fundamental Spirit Western works in Chinese translation, seen as early as portions of the Haiguo tuzhi, primarily explained the national conditions of states around the world. These works introduced those people’s customs, although in many cases merely describing their distinctiveness, while the cultural conditions in the West linked to the modern nation-states were sharply downplayed. The cultural underpinnings of Western culture were thus effectively ignored. Not only, therefore, did the Chinese-language periodicals much more actively introduce Western conditions in a more abstract, conceptual manner, but at the same time they stressed in a series of articles superior aspects of the value system underlying that culture. Heaven gives birth to both males and females, each one entirely different from the next. There are some families with many boys and some with many girls. Overall, their numbers are roughly equal. Perhaps this was heaven’s intention in the creation of humanity. One female was allocated to each male, and thus there came about a natural combination. In China there is the practice 93

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

of purchasing concubines. In extreme cases, one man may even have several concubines. Less well known is the fact that some men have no wives as a result. How does this differ from stealing another man’s wife and raping another man’s wife ? . . . I have heard it said that people from Jinhua [in Zhejiang Province] not only take many wives and concubines, but they have a practice of drowning [unwanted baby] girls, which has brought an imbalance with more boys than girls. Hence, roughly 30 percent of men [there] have no wife. Without a wife, they find themselves in and out of criminal custody. Soon they are engaged in the commission of evil deeds and crimes. The local parlance describes 30 this as: a wanderer becomes a hoodlum, youtou guanggun.

The foregoing appeared in an article entitled “Fufu lun” (On husbands and wives) carried in Zhongwai xinbao (no. 3). The author was severely critical of the evil practice of polygamy. He was most certainly foregrounding the value system, born of the more “rational” spirit of modern Europe, associated with Christian monogamy. In this sense, the critique of polygamy was a breach, and the author’s aim from the very start was to promote the modern “rational” spirit. The Emphasis on Humanitarianism I am unsure just how conscious of all this the missionary-authors were, but there were indeed numerous articles espousing this modern “spirit.” These articles thus produced a somewhat different view of the West that corrected the earlier biased introductions to Western political institutions, as the following shows; At the time of the bloody fighting between the powerful nations of Europe and Russia [i.e., the Crimean War, 1853–1856], there was a woman from a wealthy family in Great Britain named [Florence] Nightingale [1820–1910]. She herself traveled to the army’s front lines, caring for the wounded and healing the sick. She worked hard of her own volition to cure them. Many of the sick and wounded improved daily and greatly enjoyed the benefits 30. Zhongwai xinbao, no. 3, in Nihon shoki shinbun zenshū. 94

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

accorded them. When the war came to an end, she returned home. The British all commended her. Money was collected from them to repay her. As she had no need for the money herself, she established a charitable institution [i.e., a hospital], gathered together a group of women, and worked to cure the ill. Soon they began keeping accounts and raised £176,156. One-fifth of this 31 money was donated by soldiers.

Florence Nightingale is well known for having laid the foundations for the Red Cross. Introducing her here was a way of introducing modern European “humanitarianism,” and thus promoting the modern spirit to which she gave bodily form. This article was extremely brief and the deeper meaning it wished to convey may not have been completely understood by readers. At a time, however, when the perception of Westerners as ignorant of “justice” (yi) and only interested in “profit” (li) was rampant, such an image of Florence Nightingale was highly effective counterpropaganda. It demonstrated that Westerners were not simply brutal colonizers, but also “humanitarians” who cared for others. Other topics covered in these periodicals included the debate in the British Parliament over Jewish suffrage (Liuhe congtan, fascicle 10); the establishment of a bootblack company for indigent youngsters and the welfare situation in London to help them gain autonomy (Liuhe congtan, fascicle 13); the practice of honoring women among the Anglo-Saxon people (Zhongwai zazhi, no. 4); and the collection of donations for British workers in the spinning industry who had lost their jobs in large numbers because of the American Civil War (Zhongwai zazhi, no. 5). The list of such topics is virtually endless, and as a result of these numerous introductions gradually the true value of Western culture came to be recognized. Reports were also carried about the actual cultural institutions in Western countries—such as the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the London Music Hall, and zoos—but most of these were covered in just a few words. For people with no existing concept of them, their reality would have been difficult to grasp. 31. Liuhe congtan, fascicle 9. 95

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Reports of the London Exhibition: Industry and Trade in the West The first half of the nineteenth century was the era of the Industrial Revolution, first in Britain and then in the other countries of Europe. In these years the capitalist mode of production advanced substantially, and with it urbanization proceeded rapidly and a free trading system began to take shape. Although early history and geography texts did mention various directions industry was taking in Europe, they did so sparingly, giving little sense of the conditions of industrialization. By comparison, the Chinese-language periodicals that first emerged in the 1850s were monthly, and by their very nature as such reported compellingly from the start about the results of the industrial and transportation revolutions, information which for the most part had not as yet reached East Asia. Take, for example, the steam engine, arguably the symbol of the revolution in power. Following the aforementioned performances in the Mohai shuguan, in order now to spread news widely of the “advantages to be gained in using such an extraordinary machine,” they carried an extensive explanation of its basic principles in Zhongwai zazhi (no. 5) and conveyed in great detail the “intricate and minute rules of operation” of the steam engine. In the area of transportation as well, numerous reports appeared on such themes as railway construction at sites around the globe (just then at the end of the era of the railway craze), the opening of new sea lanes with the emergence on the scene of steamships, and the opening of electrical communication between countries by virtue of such events as the laying of the underwater trans-Atlantic cable between the United States and Great Britain. The vitality of these pieces closely resembles that seen in magazine articles and covers in our time. Amid these numerous industrial reports, perhaps most impressive were articles concerned with the Second London Exhibition of 1862. The shogunate sent a delegation to observe, and no doubt many people at the time were concerned and read articles about it. Let me cite one article about it from one of these periodicals:

96

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

In Xianfeng 1 [1851] Great Britain built an immense glass structure supported by steel and wood. They have set up there for all to see wonderful and well-crafted objects from countries around the world, as well as antiques and finely made objects of everyday use, large and small. Everyone leaves there overawed. Later, in Xianfeng 11 [1862], another structure was built even larger than the earlier one. It was completed in the second [lunar] month of this year. On the first three days of the fourth month, high officials from around the country and men of considered reputations gathered, and delegations sent from overseas attended the opening. The most unusual of all were the emissaries sent by the Japanese emperor . . . The visitors pass through in methodical and orderly fashion. They observe the items on exhibit that have been assembled from the home country [Great Britain] and other lands. Those items have been divided into three overall sections: the first for the materials from which the items are constructed; the second for the tools used to build the items; and the third for finished items themselves . . . On the whole everyone would find the items to be well made and beneficial. Visitors all sigh that these are items beyond 32 comparison.

This piece is too long to cite in full, but indeed the items on display that had been divided into three sections were further divided under thirty-six rubrics, such as “items unearthed,” “medicines,” and “foodstuffs,” with simple descriptions attached to each of them. Among the displays were such things as “instruments to construct a train” and “electrical wiring for telegraphy”—namely, things made with the leading edge of technology at the time. Although the simple explanations may not have been clearly understood, they offered visitors a glimpse of the advanced industry in the West at that time. Altogether roughly 29,000 enterprises from around the world participated in the Second London Exhibition, displaying the results 32. Zhongwai zazhi, no. 1, in Nihon shoki shinbun zenshū, vol. 2. 97

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

of industrialization in the countries of the West far more than at the First London Exhibition (1851) or the Paris Exposition (1855). We noted earlier a delegation sent by the Japanese emperor. This group was none other than the European embassy led by Takeuchi Yasunori (1807–67), administrator for foreign affairs, which arrived in London the day before the London Exhibition opened. They received a formidable welcome and caused quite a sensation at the exhibition itself with their exotic topknots and formal divided skirts. Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) served as interpreter for the delegation, and he observed the exhibition from precisely the opposite line of vision of those scrutinizing the Japanese, evincing considerable concern for the apparent success of the exhibition: “Some 40,000–50,000 people view the exhibition each day. The kings, princes, aristocrats, and wealthy 33 merchants from the various European countries have all visited.” The Impact of “Civilization’s Conveniences” The London Exhibition was conveyed in missionary periodicals as a showcase of the achievements sustained since the Industrial Revolution. There were many other pieces as well introducing the prosperity in the West brought about by industrialization, and each of these articles, confirming from various perspectives, formed a kind of demonstration displaying the great power of the capitalism. For example, one article in Zhongwai zazhi raised the issue of the extraordinary urbanization of London in the 1850s with its sharp increase in population: London is not only an enormous place, but it has as well residences and especially large factories. Everyone knows that it is a rich and booming city. With the coming and going of merchants and their clients, the city continues to grow ever more prosperous. People from every country come there. It measures some forty li in length and twenty li in breadth, and its avenues are several times wider than those in Chinese cities, and this facilitates the movement of horse-drawn carriages . . . 33. Fukuzawa Yukichi, “Seikō ki” (Chronicle of a trip to the West), in Fukuzawa Yukichi zenshū (Collected works of Fukuzawa Yukichi) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1962), vol. 19. 98

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

From 1857, London had 305,933 residences—not counting empty houses—for a registered population of roughly 3,000,000 . . . The number of ships in London in 1855 was 750. On average, British vessels call at ports here some 20,000 times annually, and this figure does not include those sailing on to other countries. Business thus thrives exceptionally well here. Exported produce amounts to roughly 77,898,000 taels of silver per annum, and customs receipts come to roughly 40,000,000 taels. These goods flow to many places—China, India, south, and north—every country . . . London has great banking houses employing over 800 clerks whose salaries amount to some 600,000 taels. It also has an immense post office (xinju), which in the single year of 1855 processed 45,000,000 pieces of mail. In 1857 there were 464 newspapers . . . Things that are made in London are highly crafted and well made. It thus produces the best bells and clocks in the world, and its carriages are as well. Although the city is forty li across in length, it has trains moving things back and 34 forth. Its time has come.

I have cited this passage at some length, as a guide to London at the time, to convey the detailed image it offered. The many and sundry numbers provided evidence of Britain’s advanced industry—“the world’s factory” in the language of the day—and the size of its scope undoubtedly stunned readers of this Chinese periodical. In addition, the banks, post office, newspapers, “bells and clocks,” carriages, trains, and the like— civilization’s conveniences in the nineteenth century—emerged on these pages and must have transformed the past image of the city, much as had the impact of other articles on “conditions in the West.” Hidden Motive Under the four headings outlined above, clearly these periodicals conveyed a wealth of information about the West and exerted a great 34. “Yingguo cheng shuo: Lundun” (On the capital of Great Britain: London), Zhongwai zazhi, no.1. 99

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

impact by virtue of that information. I doubt I am alone in this, but I believe that there was a shared motive hidden in these periodicals— and whether the missionaries were aware of it or not is beside the point. By “motive” I mean that the missionaries hoped to get Chinese readers to relativize the Chinese world order and have them accept the new modern state system on the model of the West. Issue Two Geography Biography of a Foreigner (the Kaiser) Summary of Sino-British Commerce (history of Sino-British trade in the late Ming and early Qing) Summary of Recent Events in the West • British prime minister pays a visit to the textile city of Manchester and offers words of encouragement to laborers there • Birth of a new electrical company to lay an undersea cable between Great Britain and the United States • The Russian Tsar orders the establishment of a new company to construct a railway network throughout the nation • Australia announces its gold yield and exports • Greece’s minister of civil affairs issues a statement on the political state of affairs and reports on parliamentary elections, the law, finances, and the contemporary state of education • Update on the presidential election in the United States: Buchanan in the lead and he commits to a transcontinental railway • Canada completes “2,480 li” railroad; holds celebratory parade in Montreal Recent Events in India (British army stationed in India to join the British-Iran war) Recent Events in eastern Guangdong (urgent report on the fighting between British and Chinese forces in Guangzhou) 100

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

Miscellaneous Reports: • Introduction to the Contents of Muirhead’s Da Yingguo zhi • Summary of interactions)

Edkins’s

Zhong-Xi

tongshu

(Sino-Western

• Introduction to the Efficacy of a New -Style Calculator Invented by the French Scientist [Francis Xavier] Thomas de Colmar [1785–1870] While these articles may appear at first glance to be a random listing, a close look at their content reveals that the bulk of them concern the modern nation and its proper form of government, reported on from a host of different perspectives. A Missionary Version of An Encouragement of Learning If reports of this sort were now to appear in the newspaper virtually every day, we would hardly find it in the least unusual. However, for Chinese and Japanese intellectuals of that time, who from experience only knew the traditional Chinese world order and the feudal system of the Tokugawa shogunate, this was all stunning information directly linked to the formation of new views of the state and government. One can easily imagine that reports of this sort in virtually every issue of the missionary periodicals might have functioned to help form a model for a kind of modern nation-state. The missionaries consistently encouraged study of the “experience” of Western modernization: The strength and prosperity of a nation reside in the people, the strength and prosperity of the people reside in their minds, and the strength and prosperity of their minds reside in the investigation of things and the plumbing of principle . . . In our view, the knowledge of the Chinese people is no less than that of the West. Yet, their industry is mediocre and their incapacity to produce anything of surpassing value stems from not daring to use their minds. Their leaders have not encouraged them to acquire scientific knowledge. It was the same a century ago in the West: people only read the books of the ancients and dared not use their 101

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

minds to investigate things. They thus had none of the modern conveniences we now have. Over the past one hundred years, people have used their minds scientifically, and through testing they have come up with principles and laws. Farmers have used their minds in the production of agricultural tools, and artisans have used their minds to build tools as well. Thus, with every passing day, people have grown in knowledge, their implements have become ever more sophisticated, and today they are at the cutting edge. The more knowledge they acquire, the deeper this knowledge becomes. New principles emerge with every passing month, and they are printed in the newspapers and circulate in this manner. Knowledge increases daily and has no limitations. Yet mediocre men still expend their useful thoughts buried in the useless eightlegged essays [of the examination system]. Those with a modicum of will know how to compose poetry and ancient-style prose. They boast of their talent, but offer nothing to enhance their empty words. Should they one day choose carefully, use their minds to investigate things thoroughly, adopt the known principles from the West and follow their lead, and thereby grow ever more refined, their learning will develop steadily and they will prosper. The nation will become richer, the army stronger, and prosperity 35 will be considerable.

The expression “investigation of things and plumbing of principle” (gewu qiongli) meant science or scientific knowledge. Thus, this article may be read primarily as an encouragement to engage in science. Probably out of concern for the Chinese authorities, it limited its discussion to “investigating things thoroughly” and sought to encourage many of the “known principles from the West.” The missionaries knew better than anyone that “investigating things thoroughly” by itself would never be sufficient for a nation to realize wealth and prosperity. In this sense, the “investigation of things and plumbing of principle” was merely a breach in the wall. From their perspective, the institutions that 35. “Gewu qiongli lun” (On investigating things and plumbing principle), Liuhe congtan, no. 6. 102

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

forged scientific thinking and the “spirit” behind them were key here. Following on this article, the missionaries strongly encouraged state support for scientific research and a patent system as in the West, as well as the introduction of newspapers. These concerns would indicate that the missionaries’ ardor went beyond simple scientific knowledge. Thus, this article with its “reports” on a series of modern nationstates was a vehicle for the missionaries to transmit their “hidden motive.” This might be seen as a kind of missionary version of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Gakumon no susume (An encouragement to learning, 1872). The missionary periodicals were just as advanced and in no way inferior to Fukuzawa’s later work in late Edo-period Japan.

Two “Shanghai Men” Who Accelerated the Opening of Japan A Model of Modern Capitalism Thus far we have examined the “Shanghai informational network” by looking primarily at the Chinese-language translations by missionaries of Western writings and in particular at a string of journals they produced. This informational network which contributed greatly to the opening of Japan, however, was not formed by the circulation of these writings alone. In fact, the movements of a number of people contributed mightily to the establishment of the Shanghai informational network, despite the fact that these movements did not flow as far as the spread of books. These people were composed of a number of castaways with a variety of experiences in the West, who by virtue of typhoons found themselves blown off course to the United States, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, among other places, and adventurous Westerners who, anxiously awaiting the opening of Japan, swiftly moved the base of their operations from Shanghai when the port of Nagasaki opened its doors. An example from the former group would be “Nippon Otokichi” (1819–67) who is best known from the incident surrounding the ship Morrison, and of the latter group an example would be Thomas Glover (1838–1911), widely known from his residence in Nagasaki, 103

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

the “Glover Mansion.” In a certain sense, as respective incarnations of the real “West,” by remaining in Shanghai (Otokichi) and by setting sail for Nagasaki (Glover), each man stimulated the opening of Japan and contributed to launching its modernization. The former undertook to act as a mediator between Japan and the West when he served as an interpreter aboard a warship visiting Japan, and the latter served as a model of modern capitalism in Japan by virtue of his actions. Their individual efforts worked in tandem with the spread of books to support an informational and trading network centered on Shanghai. Permanent “Castaway” Let me now introduce the ties between these two quasi-Shangainese and Japan. At about the same time as the aforementioned Chineselanguage translations of Western works were coming aboard ship to Japan in the transportation network surrounding Shanghai, a solitary Japanese was working in the capacity of a company clerk for the major British commercial establishment Dent and Company (Chinese, Baoshun yanghang) along the Bund, less than a kilometer from the Mohai shuguan, the site of those works’ transmission. He was generally known as “Nippon Otokichi” (Otokichi of Japan). As one of those persons involved in the incident concerning the Morrison, he later came to the attention of the shogunate. Bearing the destiny of a lifelong castaway, he did not immediately choose to return to Japan, but transforming himself into a man of the “West” he kept a close watch on Japan, which was soon to open, and he stood on the front lines of negotiations to that effect. In an important sense, nothing more realistically symbolized the bond between Japan and the Shanghai informational network of the time than Otokichi. His activities following his castaway experiences at sea and especially after moving to Shanghai gave explicit physical form to a story of the opening of Japan. The Hōjunmaru, a small cargo vessel out of Owari domain carrying a crew of seventeen men including Otokichi, ran into a storm near Enshū and was set adrift at sea in December 1832. They remained 104

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

castaways for “fourteen months,” until landing on the West Coast of the United States sometime around February 1834. Only Otokichi, the youngest of the seventeen, and his two brothers, Iwakichi and Kyūkichi, survived the ordeal. They were initially captured by locals for a time but were luckily rescued by the Hudson Bay Company, and were then transported by a company ship to London, England. In December 1835, three years after their castaway experience had begun, they were escorted to Macao, the only route possible at the time for them to return home. In Macao the three of them were cared for by Karl Gützlaff who, while working as a missionary, was simultaneously serving as a Chineselanguage interpreter for the British superintendent of trade. Otokichi taught him Japanese and helped with a Japanese translation of the New Testament, while waiting in vain for an opportunity to return home. During these years, another group of four Japanese from Kyushu— Harada Shōzō, Jusaburō, Kumatarō, and Rikimatsu—having been castaways to the island of Luzon in the Philippines about eighteen months earlier, was escorted to Macao aboard a Spanish vessel in March 1837. The entire group unexpectedly met Otokichi and his brothers there at Gützlaff’s home. The incident involving the Morrison ran as follows. On the pretext of repatriating these seven castaways who had come together in Macao, and with a view toward trying to open negotiations with Japan, the American merchant vessel Morrison sailed first to Uraga Bay and then to Kagoshima and in both instances was shelled in July 1837 by the shogunate under the Order to Repel Alien Ships. Ultimately, it had no choice but to abandon any hope for negotiations. Having failed to return home, with great reluctance the seven Japanese returned to Macao and, as permanent “castaways” in an alien land, each of them perforce sought ways to make a living. The Seven Men’s Subsequent Fates Of the seven Japanese now compelled to support themselves in Macao, Iwakichi and Kyūkichi from Owari domain remained with Gützlaff and continued their work helping with the Japanese translation of the 105

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

New Testament. With Gützlaff’s help, these two men later worked for the British superintendent of trade as interpreters. After the Opium War broke out, they worked with him for a time in occupied Zhoushan. Iwakichi apparently met an untimely death in 1852, while Kyūkichi was still alive in Fuzhou in 1863, though we have no hard evidence for either of these pieces of information. Three of the four men from Kyushu, including Shōzō, were hired by S. Wells Williams, one of those involved in the Morrison incident and who later came to Japan as a Japanese interpreter at the time of Perry’s arrival. As noted earlier, Williams was at this time editing the Chinese Repository (Chinese, Zhongguo congbao), and he had taken over operations for running the printing of materials for American missionaries abroad. They undoubtedly volunteered to help him with the acquisition of the Japanese language. Of these three men, though, Kumatarō and Jusaburō seem to have died at a fairly early stage, while Shōzō alone worked independently as a tailor (shitateya). In Hong Kong he would later live healthily helping other Japanese shipwreck victims make their way back home. We know only that he lived at least through 1855. The last remaining Japanese were the youngest, Otokichi of Owari and Rikimatsu of Kyushu. After traveling to the United States for a short period of time, Otokichi returned to China in the early 1840s. Together with the advance into China of Dent and Company, which he probably entered at about this time, he took up residence in this “new terrain” from about 1844. Either Rikimatsu also traveled to the United States for a short while, or after studying at a school in Macao with Williams’s help, he joined Williams on a trip to America in 1845. Later, he left Williams’s care and was working for a newspaper or print shop in Hong Kong in 1855. Guide Unfortunately, no primary materials have been unearthed to date that directly record Otokichi’s activities after moving to Shanghai. It is thus nearly impossible to gain knowledge of his concrete activities in Shanghai. Happily, though, he does appear on several occasions as 106

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

an interpreter in the important negotiations between Great Britain and the Japanese shogunate, and from this indirect source we gain a glimpse of his subsequent life. He first visited Japan after the Morrison incident on May 29, 1849, when he served as an interpreter aboard the Mariner, a British warship that visited Japan with the aim of surveying Edo Bay and Shimoda Bay. On this occasion, he claimed he was a Chinese bearing the name Lin Aduo. In response to a question from an official in Uraga, he said he was a Chinese from Shanghai presently in the employ of the British. Until the Mariner left Japan on June 7, however, he was tenaciously prevented from coming on land by the shogunal authorities. As nothing resembling negotiations between the two sides could take place, no record of anything substantive or out of the ordinary concerning interpreter Otokichi remains. In this brief period of interaction, though, he seems to have been sensitive throughout to his mediating role between the Western Powers and Japan. Frequently, his words indicate that he saw his position as somehow trying to vindicate himself as a “guide.” Paradoxically, these words and deeds indicate his unique position and importance in a string of “interactions” of this “Japanese man” who came from Shanghai. “Denigrating View of Japan” Otokichi again visited Nagasaki with Britain’s Far Eastern fleet in September 1854. The arrival of the Far Eastern fleet under the command of Admiral James Stirling (1791–1865) was aimed at observing the movement of the vessels under Admiral Yevfimy Vasilyevich Putyatin (1808–83) of Russia, against whose country his Great Britain was fighting in the Crimean War (1853–56). Admiral Stirling was also seeking Japan’s neutrality in the war. Due to a misunderstanding on the part of the shogunate, though, negotiations soon ensued over commerce and opening the country with the ultimate conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty. Standing between the two sides throughout and undertaking his mediating role was Otokichi who had been hired from his base in Shanghai. On this occasion, though, he revealed his origins as Japanese, 107

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

and with an extremely self-conscious attitude as an interpreter, he is said to have behaved until the very end as a member of the British side. For example, to a question from a shogunal official, he replied that he was the “son of Moemon of the back alleys of Nagoya in Owari”; for a time after the Morrison incident, he added, he had traveled around to many places in the United States, but he had now been working for a “British commercial concern” in China for ten years. When offered the opportunity to return to Japan, he is said to have resolutely rejected the proposal, saying: “My wife and children are living in Shanghai, 36 and I feel it is better to be protected under the British flag.” Such a firm attitude on Otokichi’s part belied a strong distrust of the Japanese side and gives the impression that “while he may be a Japanese, he’s working for foreigners” with his “denigrating view of Japan,” as Japanese records of the time have it. However, changing abruptly from his earlier stance, Otokichi countered such a “reputation” and remained composed throughout, offering not a single word of justification for his role as a “guide.” Requiting a Favor Otokichi’s self-confident position was based on an international sensibility gained through working for the previous decade for a British commercial firm. By the same token, he seems to have been starting to discern his own role clearly in the “informational network” surrounding Shanghai. Although employed for a period of time, perhaps in his heart of hearts was born, one way or another, the recognition that he would bring his homeland Japan into the network created by the West. In this sense, the firm words and deeds exhibited by Otokichi as he continued to behave as an underling of sorts to Westerners acquired for him an existential value within the modern network formed in East Asia. He was at the forefront of it, a pioneer who had left Japan. And, because he refused to return home and lived abroad throughout his career, he 36. See Haruna Akira, Nippon Otokichi hyōryūki (An account of the castaway Otokichi of Japan) (Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1979). Author’s note: I have additionally learned a great deal about Otokichi’s activities in China from a series of other studies by Haruna. 108

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

was perforce a “castaway” who was nonetheless consciously “requiting a favor” to his homeland. This awareness can be seen as well in Rikimatsu, his acquaintance who lived in Hong Kong and who similarly worked as an interpreter for the British raiding fleet commanded by Admiral Charles Elliott (1801–75) as well as to Admiral Stirling’s fleet during the exchange of instruments of ratification of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty. Rikimatsu traveled to Japan twice—to Hakone and Nagasaki—and demonstrated the self-confidence based on a certain willfulness as we have seen with Otokichi. Pursuing “Far Eastern Trade” in Shanghai: Thomas Glover While Otokichi worked as a company clerk for Dent and Company and retained his desire to see Japan opened, there was another, largescale British commercial enterprise located along the same Shanghai Bund: Jardine, Matheson and Co. (Chinese, Yihe yanghang). A young Scotsman there, working in roughly the same capacity at Otokichi, was then engaged in company affairs. This was none other than Thomas Glover whose name, as a weapons merchant, would later become well known in Japan. After leaving his home in Scotland with the aim of launching out overseas, Glover was only about twenty years of age when he arrived on East Asian soil in May or June 1858. He initially began work for Jardine, Matheson and Co., a trading firm boasting the largest scale of the entire commercial sector at the time there, and there he acquired the rudiments of Far Eastern trade. Jardine, Matheson and Co. was originally established by two Scottish merchants, William Jardine (1784–1843) and James Matheson (1796–1878) in Guangzhou in 1832. At first it was primarily engaged in trading opium and tea between India and China. After the Opium War, Jardine, Matheson and Co. decided to place its base of operations in Hong Kong, but before it was determined whether Shanghai would be opening its port, they quickly moved to open a branch there and continued trading in commercial products as before. Slowly but surely, they moved into ship-building, textiles, transportation, and insurance, with production in the circulation and service sectors. For a time 109

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

they were even known as the “king of companies,” and throughout the nineteenth century remained prototypical of British capitalism in Shanghai and thus in China. Glover worked for two years at the Shanghai branch of Jardine, Matheson in the standard, daily business of a large commercial enterprise, primarily in copying correspondence and composing freight certificates. From the subsequent expansion of the business, though, he does not seem simply to have amassed experience in these years involved in the general trading business of the company, but in fact it would seem that he was mastering the essence of the company’s management directions and the “spirit of enterprise.” Toward a New Market Unfortunately, no records remain extant, so far as we know, that reveal Glover’s actual activities while he was living in Shanghai. There can, however, be little doubt that he amply displayed the temperament of a “Far Eastern trading merchant” from this time and that he acquired an estimable reputation within the company for his work. Had that not been the case, it is unlikely that Jardine, Matheson would have sent him, a lad of only twenty-one years of age in 1859, as the company’s Nagasaki agent (initially, assistant agent) to pioneer the new market of Japan. Glover carried with him to Japan his Shanghai background in many senses. For example, in 1861 after establishing his independence as a trader he received a large loan from the Shanghai branch of Jardine, Matheson over a long period of time. Also, his dealings with the shogunate and various domains in weaponry and the importation of warships were carried out either through the Shanghai branch of Jardine, Matheson or with other companies located in Shanghai. Although he had established his base of operations in Japan, Glover never forgot the stage from which he had launched his career in Shanghai. In his fifth year in Japan, 1864, he established a Shanghai branch of his own company, known as Jialuohua yanghang (Glover and Co.). Through this branch he began the Union Steam Navigation Company, now contesting the Russell Steam Navigation Company, 110

Shanghai and the Opening of Japan

which at the time had a virtual monopoly on Yangzi River trade routes. Why he may have used the “cover” of Shanghai for all these ventures was not only because of his Far Eastern trading methods of importing gunboats and weaponry. He also proffered loans to Satsuma domain, served as an agent for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, managed real estate, took part in insurance ventures, kept dogs, and participated in the opening of the Takashima coal mines. All of these endeavors—that is, the various companies through which he worked in Shanghai—afford the impression of being “copies” or “miniatures” of the Shanghai branch of Jardine, Matheson, which stood at the top of the list. The memory of his Shanghai years was thus profound for Glover. He pressed Nagasaki—and thus Japan—to join the Far Eastern trading network that had taken shape around Shanghai in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and his vigorous engagement in business undertakings offered a model of a single company involved in the activities of the Kaientai [a private navy and trading company] founded by Sakamoto Ryōma (1836–67). In these ways, he influenced the fate of Japan in the late Edo period. Considering that he imported a great deal of weapons to the two domains of Satsuma and Chōshū through Shanghai, the activities of this man who arrived in Japan as a young merchant who had amassed his business experience in Shanghai, constitute an event in and of themselves in the late Edo years.

111

Chapter 4

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

Demon Capital Born of Modernity Disintegration of an Image Thus far we have considered the relationship between Shanghai and Japan in the late Edo period. Generally speaking, this has involved what role Shanghai played in the formation of modern Japan as a nation-state. While Shanghai continued to convey reports to late-Edo Japan on the various modern nation-states, once the Meiji state came into existence, the very meaning of Shanghai underwent a complete transformation. For Meiji Japan, having set its sites on directly importing from the West all manner of modern institutions and building a nationstate centered around the emperor, not only did Shanghai’s role as a “transmission point” cease to exist, but it actually became an object to be avoided by virtue of the countless associations it conjured up. Individuals, however, who felt the sharp constraints of the state, were greatly drawn to this place precisely because it seemed to belong to no country and completely transcend a specific nationalism. Seen from the perspective of an increasingly closed off Japan in which the controls of the modern state were becoming ever stricter, Shanghai at this time was destined to become the stuff of fiction and a site for the realization of an adventurer’s dream. In this sense, aside from the areas of politics and economics, from the 1870s onward, Shanghai was no longer that important for Japan as a “state,” but for the many Japanese who dreamed of “escaping from Japan,” this chaotic city was by far the closest refuge, as well as the closest “paradise.” 112

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

Over the course of the remaining chapters of this book, I shall be considering the meaning of Shanghai for modern Japan, especially for modern Japanese. First, though, to grasp a genuine sense of Shanghai in the latter half of the nineteenth century, let us take a quick look at the process by which this “modern city” came into being. Separate Chinese and Western Residential Districts As noted earlier, to the north of the walled city of Shanghai with its more than 500 years of history to this point, there was born another (Concession) “Shanghai” in 1845, the third year following the opening of the city as a consequence of the Treaty of Nanjing. In November of that year, after two years of negotiations with the first British consul in the city, George Balfour (1809–94), the Shanghai daotai (circuit intendant, a high-level local post) by the name of Gong Mujiu (d. 1848) announced the (first set of) “Land Regulations,” which fixed a lease on land roughly 0.56 square kilometers along the banks of the Huangpu River to be the residential area for British merchants. Establishing a residential space outside the walled city was, of course, in accord with the demands of the British, but in actuality there was as well an “isolation policy” on the part of the Chinese, and the “separation of Chinese and Western residential districts” stipulated in the “Land Regulations” clearly reflected this. Following the pattern of the establishment of the British Concession in 1848, first the American Concession and the next year the French Concession were established along a corridor on the opposite shore of Yangjingbang Creek, which formed a southern demarcation with the Hongkou region across the Wusong River. These three Concessions were effectively the model for Shanghai as a modern city. The principle of separate Chinese and Western residential areas accorded to each a certain amount of autonomy, while these Concessions, which remained in effect under Chinese jurisdiction over the course of the following decade, rapidly underwent a transformation. The impetus to such was an armed insurrection that erupted in September 1853 of a secret organization known as the Small Sword Society; for one and one-half years this peasant army 113

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

occupied the walled city of Shanghai, and as a result a great number of refugees came pouring into the neighboring Concessions. In the unexpected fighting that ensued, the basic principle of “separate Chinese and Western residential areas” dissipated with little or no resistance, and thereafter both the Chinese and Concession sides perforce accepted the reality of “mixed Chinese and Western residence.” Claiming that it was in response to this new state of affairs, the British consul at the time, Rutherford Alcock (1809–97), promulgated in July 1854 what was later to be called the “Revised Land Regulations,” a unilateral revision of the earlier “Land Regulations,” which were presented to the Chinese for ex post facto acceptance after receiving the approval of the American and the French consuls. This new set of Land Regulations included expansion of the Concessions to roughly three times their former size, tacit acceptance of Chinese residence within the Concessions, and the establishment of a police force, among other things. Most important among these was the convening of an association of “lessees,” effectively forming a city council for the three consuls, and the establishment of the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) as its executive organ. In particular, by giving the latter genuine capacity to function as a municipal government, its creation meant that the Concessions were effectively separated from the jurisdiction of the Chinese government. I say “effectively” because concerning revisions to the regulations, we find: “The three consuls and the daotai will after consultation report to the three consuls and the Liang-Guang governor-general and then carry this out upon ratification.” Thus, to an extent the Chinese officials were able to validate management of the Concessions, but beyond that Chinese sovereignty was completely ignored. Military to Finance Because the text of the Revised Land Regulations (second set), which afforded independent administrative powers to the SMC was rather simple, a number of points remained vague. There was scarcely any explanation appended concerning the basis of such “powers,” and obstacles arose later in issues of management. In addition, there was 114

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

another huge influx of refugees into the Concessions in the early 1860s as a consequence of the Taiping Rebellion, and the Concession authorities carried out another revision of the Land Regulations in September 1869 that were promulgated as the Third Set. These new Land Regulations expanded the association of lessees into the Foreign Rate-payers Association, and it was given authority, among other powers, to deliberate over the Concessions’ budget and to elect an SMC board of directors, thus affording it all the functions of a city council. At the same time, the franchise in this instance expanded from a small group of lessees to rate-payers of “five hundred taels or more in assessed value on industrial land in their possession” or “five hundred taels or more in rental income per annum” on housing. Next, the existing powers of the SMC were strengthened, and the burden of these powers was shared with each of its committees, effectively giving it all the functions befitting a city council. It established the full array of institutions befitting an urban administration, such as the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, Office of Police Affairs, Fire Fighting Stations, Sanitation Office, Education Office, and Office of Financial Affairs, thus forming a complete administrative system in the Concessions. Of these organizations, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps was a brigade originally organized in response to attacks on the city by the Small Swords and the Taipings, basically a military institution. Inverted Relations Together with the announcement of the third set of Land Regulations, the SMC authorities in fact drafted yet another set of regulations. These were judicial provisions concerning jurisdiction over Chinese living in the Concessions, officially announced in April 1869 as the “Provisional Rules for the Mixed Court.” According to these Rules for the Mixed Court, trials concerning Chinese residents in the Concessions were to be handled by a subprefect (tongzhi, a “judge”), named to the Mixed Court in the Concessions by the Shanghai circuit intendant. In instances in which the interested party was a foreigner or a Chinese employed by a foreigner, there would necessarily be deliberations with 115

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

the consul or a juridical official recognized by the consul. Should the accused have complaints regarding the court’s decision, it was possible to appeal to both the Shanghai circuit intendant and the consular officials. Superficially, then, this system preserved Chinese sovereignty in deliberations, but when it came to actual decisions, the relationship was essentially inverted. Ultimately, the lion’s share of discretionary power for judicial decisions was held by the consuls. There was thus still a small issue in the realm of the administration of justice, although the tripartite division of legislative, administrative, and judicial powers—a hallmark of the modern state—basically were fully formed institutionally. However, Concession Shanghai as a “modern state” had come into being by completely ignoring Chinese dominion over its own terrain, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that the third set of Land Regulations was never formally ratified by the Qing government. From the perspective of international law, though, this may not have even been necessary. Two Faces of the City Of this last fact, we need to be conscious and even critical. Yet, by the same token, this part of Shanghai’s terrain existed as such with a certain “autonomy,” not as the colony in East Asia of a specific state. It was a city with the qualities of a semi-modern state. And, it continued to exert a major influence not just on China but, for a certain period of time, on Japan and Korea as well. In the latter half of the 1860s such modern institutions as the tripartite division of powers took root, and the other Shanghai (the walled, Chinese city) with over 500 years of history ceded its primary role in the city in short order to the Concessions—as the saying went at the time, “the sun rises on the Concessions and sets on the Southern [walled] city.” In the end, the latter functioned no more than as an accessory. Thereafter, when one speaks of “Shanghai,” in most cases the “new” and “old” as well as “modern” and “traditional” cities alternated simultaneously in view. This strange mixture centered on the former in these two pairs, though, and had a decisive impact on people’s thinking about this terrain for some years to come. 116

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

Modernity Began at the Bund We have thus far been considering Shanghai as a “modern city” primarily in light of political institutions. Around the same time as these modern political systems with their semi-colonial qualities were put into effect, however, Shanghai began to greet the arrival of the “modern” in numerous other areas as well. The formation of a transportation network based on the growth of the shipping industry, which we demonstrated in an earlier chapter, gave rise in the early 1860s to a large-scale investment boom, and in no time at all it fell into a panic—for better or worse, we see here the emergence of a modern finance establishment. These developments were reflected in the rush to build a string of military and private industries—first and foremost being the Jiangnan Arsenal—advanced by the reformist group of Li Hongzhang (1823–1901) and others in the early Westernization movement (yangwu yundong). In the process, the level of achievement in laying the foundation and infrastructure of Shanghai as a city was stunning. Already by the mid-1870s it began to take on the appearance of a majestic, modern city. Let us now follow some of the contemporaneous records as clues to the flourishing of Shanghai at this point in time. The formation of modern Shanghai began with the oft-mentioned Bund, the strip of land along the Huangpu River. Originally derived from Hindi, “bund” meant an embankment. But, in the process by which colonial management by the British penetrated various places in East Asia, from the middle of the nineteenth century, it came in particular to 1 denote “the special residential waterfront space by the harbor.” Considering the central position played by transportation at the time, the Bund became a kind of axis for harbor cities, and from there all management operations developed. In this, Shanghai was no exception, of course, for according to the first set of Land Regulations exchanged between the British consul and the Shanghai daotai in 1845, the initial maintenance operations of the Concessions were to 1. Fujiwara Keiyō, Shanhai, shissō suru kindai toshi (Shanghai, modern city at full speed) (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1988). 117

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

begin from repairs along the main road of the Bund, known at first as Yanpu dalu (literally, “along the river avenue”), which had originally been the road to which ships were towed into harbor. Perpendicular to the Bund running north–south ran Chupu dalu (literally, “leaving the river avenue”), a collective name for what are now four parallel streets: Beijing Road, Nanjing Road, Jiujiang Road, and Hankou Road. Along these streets east and west went up construction that formed the prototype for the future Shanghai. Some thirty years later in the late 1870s, the British Consulate was located at the far northern point of the Bund and the French Consulate to the south, and lined up along it were eighteen commercial houses and assorted other establishments, including Jardine, Matheson and Co. (known in Chinese as Yihe yanghang), the Pacific and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (Da-Ying lunchuan gongsi), the Oriental Banking Corporation (Liru yinhang), Russell & Co. (Qichang yanghang), the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corporation (Huifeng 2 yinhang), and Banque de France (Falanxi yinhang), among others. Increasingly, the famed majestic appearance of modern Shanghai was emerging. Not just commercial establishments, but in front of them along the banks of the river was a promenade for strolling, and close to the British Consulate at the far northern end was a park constructed in 1868 to straddle the promenade. Later, dogs and Chinese were not permitted entry to what would become the world famous Public Garden. The Bund thus represented Shanghai “modernity” and took shape as the foundation point of all manner of capitalist industrial activity, including trade and finance. If we may allow for the Bund to be seen as the front gate to Concession Shanghai, the Shanghai Racecourse, nestled in a residential space that developed later, corresponded to the “backyard.” The Racecourse, initially built in 1850, also functioned as a park, and its space opposite the Bund was designed as a site for 2. Ge Yuanxu, Hu You zaji (Stray notes on a visit to Shanghai) (Shanghai rpt.: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989). 118

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

pleasure. Contrasting relations between “production” and “pleasure” seem to have been repeated in the open harbors of other Asian colonies with basically the same structure. This fact throws into relief the nature of Shanghai as a modern city from yet another perspective. Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s Main Street To get a glimpse of the prosperity of Shanghai in this period, there is one other site, aside from the Bund, deserving attention: Nanjing Road which ran from the Bund to the Racecourse. When the Concessions were initially established, Nanjing Road was an unnamed village pathway, only some 500 meters in length. Then, when the Racecourse was first completed in 1850, the road leading to it was known as Park Lane (Paike lu, or Huayuan lu).

Nanjing Road, ca. 1900

When the Racecourse moved to the west in 1854, Park Lane was extended somewhat, the road’s surface was widened to six meters, and pavement was laid with shards of bricks. The Racecourse was moved a second time in 1862, and Park Lane was extended further west, and 119

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

granite pavement replaced the first bricks used on the road’s surface. Following an ordinance issued by the SMC three years later, all major thoroughfares in the city were officially given names, and thus Park Lane was henceforth called Nanjing Road.

Shanghai Racecourse

From about the time that the construction on the second extension was completed, Nanjing Road came to occupy its position within the Concessions as the main east-west thoroughfare. According to the Hu you zaji (Miscellaneous notes on a sojourn to Shanghai, 1876) by Ge Yuanxu, there were eight major commercial establishments along Nanjing Road in 1876, among them: Laodeji Pharmacy, Fuli Company, Gongdao Company, Taixing Company, and Zhaofeng yanghang (H. Fogg & Co.). Also, Ge added, there were numerous silk shops and plain cotton fabric shops lined up along the street. Inasmuch as virtually all of the shops assembled on Nanjing Road were open for sales, to say nothing of numerous mercantile ventures located among them, the atmosphere of consumption was naturally different from the Bund, along which imposing trading houses and banks were lined. The air of bustling prosperity created by all of these shops also differed somewhat from the atmosphere of the Bund.

120

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

Sharing Civilization and Enlightenment From the 1860s through the 1870s, as the modern space of Nanjing Road and the Bund was taking shape, other urban enterprises in Concessions Shanghai developed considerably. For example, in 1864 the first gas company in the Concessions—the Shanghai Gas Co. Ltd. (Da-Ying zilaihuo fang)—was established. The following year gas lights were lit along Nanjing Road, and gas was first supplied to a number of residents of the area. Similarly, construction for clean water was carried out in 1875, and for a time there was water delivery by cart. With the formation in 1881 of the Shanghai Water Co., Ltd. (Shanghai zilaishui gongsi), though, the Concessions switched to regular delivery by water pipes. During these same years, a postal service (Gongbu shuxinguan) and a fire brigade (Huozhengju) were established in 1865 and 1867, respectively. In 1876 tracks were laid for a rail line between Shanghai and Wusong, although a year later the Qing government abandoned the project. In the 1880s, as the delivery of electricity by the Shanghai Electric Company (Shanghai dianguang gongsi) and telephone service provided by the Great Northern Telegraph Company (Dabei dianbao gongsi) commenced, Shanghai was gradually entering the era of “civilization and enlightenment.” Comparing the introduction of these public facilities to the case of Japan, we find postal service among Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto began in 1871, and rail service between Shinbashi [in Tokyo] and Yokohama in 1872; Yokohama illuminated Japan’s first electric lights in 1872, and in 1878 electric lighting was supplied by the Central Electric Company (Denshin chūōkyoku). The first public telephone line (between Tokyo and Atami) was opened for use in 1889; and modern waterworks became accessible in Tokyo in 1899. These transpired all more or less in the same era as in Shanghai, from which we may infer that both began to share the conveniences of “civilization and enlightenment” at roughly the same point in time. The fact that both places possessed such conveniences provides an important piece of background information beckoning Japanese to Shanghai from the Meiji years forward. 121

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Teahouses, Brothels, Opium Dens The Emergence of a “Demonic” Quality to the City The scenery at the Bund, which produced to excess the splendid modernity of Shanghai as we have seen, was by the same token often called a “false front.” In other words, this modernity was a superficial adornment to Shanghai; the confused reality of “mixed residence” that developed behind it meant that the latter was the real core of Shanghai. And, indeed, what would give Shanghai its “demonic” quality later was none other than the “Creole” internal space of the city. As we shall see later, the nickname of “demon capital” was given to Shanghai by a mediocre Japanese writer in the 1920s. This term expressed well the complexity of faces that the space of Shanghai gave to the outside world, and it was cited by numerous authors until it became a hackneyed phrase. The image it evoked became lodged in the minds of men and women—particularly, Japanese—connected to the city. On further reflection, though, Shanghai did not first acquire this “demonic” moniker in the twentieth century, but its origins go back to the 1870s. The particular spaces that gave expression to Shanghai as a “demon capital” in the 1870s were, as they would be fifty years hence, a string of entertainment establishments: teahouses, brothels, and opium dens. At first glance, one might assume that these institutions would be inimical to the initial sprouts of modernity at this time, but in fact they were the offspring of “civilization and enlightenment.” In other words, aside from opium dens, the new arrival on the scene, teahouses and brothels (or courtesan establishments), which were originally confined to the walled city, had been omitted from the traditional design of the city. They then acquired a new lease on life once they penetrated the modern system of the Concessions. By contrast, aside from the entertainment space in which all manner of people in the Concessions looked continuously for novelties, the population was scarcely able to find a breach through which to surmount the borders of their traditional order. 122

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

The intersection of the two parts of Shanghai, in this sense, was the background that made the city what it was. And herein lies the reason for creating its “demonic capital” nature. Let us move now briefly to describe the history of the various entertainment spaces that formed the axis of this intersection. Music Halls, Opium, Courtesans The appearance of teahouses in China goes far back to the Song dynasty (960–1279). The teahouse was literally a place where one went to drink tea, but for a long period of time, it was used as well as a place for merchants to engage in negotiations or as a place for the general urban populace to relax within the city. Many of these were small in size, and aside from a possible side dish, there were no other refreshments but tea offered. Before the port of Shanghai was opened, most of these teahouses were concentrated by the landing known as the Xiaodong Gate along the Huangpu River. Later, they could be found as well for a time in the vicinity of the Temple to the City Deity (Chenghuangmiao) in the center of the walled city. From roughly the 1870s, traditional Chinese eating and drinking establishments began to make their way into the new terrain of the Concessions, together with the rapid growth of the population there. Ge Yuanxu lists, by way of example, the names of at least seven teahouses in his Hu you zaji: Yidongtian, Lishuitai, Songfengge, Baoshanyuan, Yihuchun, Weiyuan, and Guifangge. Unlike establishments that had existed from earlier on, these had clearly (given their names) been created as spots for various sorts of entertainment, in addition to their functions as sites for business chats and relaxation. Another example would be the Yipinxiang teahouse that existed in 3 the 1880s. Inside it boasted a billiard parlor and lawn bowling facilities. Furthermore, later on, the Number One Pavilion of the Youlangyuan (Lofty Palace) opened a three-storey, Western establishment that could accommodate 1,000 people on Fuzhou Road. The first floor was a billiard 3. Huang Shiquan, Songnan meng yinglu (Account of dream images from Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989). 123

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

parlor, and the second a teahouse. From the second floor up, all the walls were made of glass, engendering an extraordinarily modern atmosphere. The most famous teahouse in Shanghai in the latter half of the nineteenth century was the Qinglian’ge (Pavilion of Young Lotuses). Originally known as the Huazhonghui (Assemblage of Many Flowers), it was featured in the illustrated newspaper Dianshizhai huabao in 1884: “At the Huazhonghui, one sips tea and ranks the dazzling 4 beauties.” And, thereafter, this establishment’s name became much more widely known. This teahouse would later relocate, changing its name to Qinglian’ge, and at that point a music hall was installed on its first storey where opium service was provided in addition to tea. Prostitutes in great numbers would always congregate here looking for customers who had come for entertainment and opium. As Muramatsu Shōfū (1899–1961) would later describe it: “Perhaps as many as several thousand people would be coming and going at the 5 same time on the capacious second storey.” Thus, a teahouse whose original function was quite simple and was small in scale, continually acquired for itself all manner of services, as it advanced into the semi-colonial space of the Concessions, growing like a snowball until it formed an immense “demonic” site altogether different from what it had been. Similar cases to this phenomenon transpired in Shanghai in profuse quantity. 100,000 Prostitutes Of the three sorts of establishments we have been considering, we now turn to houses of prostitution, beginning with a brief history of their development in the city of Shanghai. While there were differences depending on the time period at which one looks, the Qing dynasty, having considered the lesson of the now defunct Ming dynasty with its “wild sexuality,” adopted a basic policy of “stifling prostitution.” This did not of course necessarily mean that prostitution ceased to exist in China at the time. Particularly in the south, far from the imperial court, so-called private prostitution thrived in secret with a kind of semi-tacit 4. Dianshizhai huabao (Guangzhou rpt.: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1983). 5. Muramatsu Shōfū, Mato (Demon capital) (Tokyo: Konishi shoten, 1924). 124

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

consent. In the case of Shanghai County, for example, there were hardly any brothels in the walled city during the first half of the nineteenth century, with only a few we can identify near the wharf outside the Eastern Gate and near the Qing garrison at the Western Gate. These private prostitutes later began to penetrate the walled city, but their customers still tended to be wealthy businessmen and influential military men. Needless to say, they remained well outside the reach of ordinary residents and scholars. With the emergence of the Concessions neighboring the walled city, however, prostitutes transformed their traditional guise. There were two reasons for this change. First, with the Taiping Rebellion and especially its occupation of the city of Nanjing, a large number of prostitutes found refuge in Shanghai. There they found that they had lost the freedom to pick and choose their clientele to make a living. Second, about the same time, the authorities in the British and French Concessions ignored the Qing government’s ban on prostitution and established a public brothel system within the areas under their respective jurisdictions. Thereafter, as the population of Shanghai rose sharply, so too did the number of prostitutes in the city. In the decade of the 1930s when that number reached its zenith, there were reportedly some 100,000 prostitutes, including private ones, in Shanghai. The population of Shanghai at the time was roughly 3,600,000, with women accounting for about 1,500,000. Thus, roughly one in every fifteen women in Shanghai was a prostitute, the highest ratio of any large city at the time. Overall, there were seventeen ranks of prostitutes in Shanghai based on the class and ethnicity of the customers they sought. These rankings bore such names as: shuyu (storytellers), changsan (long three), yao er (one two), huayanjian (flower-smoke rooms), yeji (pheasants), and 6 the like. Among them, the shuyu and yao er held a somewhat higher status, while huayanjian and yeji were at a comparatively lower level. In particular, the yeji were like streetwalkers, their numbers being the 6. Translator’s note: Translations of these terms follows: Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 42, 43, 47, 49; and Christian Henriot, Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai: A Social History, 1849–1949, trans. Nöel Castelino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 23–25, 80–81, 83. 125

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

greatest among local prostitutes. One would find many of them out on a Shanghai night. At all events, the flourishing of prostitution and the brothels to which they belonged only became possible with the advent of the modern system of public prostitution in the Concessions. In the unusual development of this system of public prostitution surrounding them, we see the intersection and fusion of the two Shanghais we have been chronicling to this point. They were most concentrated in the French Concession, the middle region between these two Shanghais. Opium Dens as a Social Site Finally, let us turn our attention to the opium establishment. These were the sites at which opium was smoked, known popularly as opium dens. After the First Opium War in 1840, the amount of opium imported to China on an annual basis rose steadily in a semi-tolerated state of affairs, although it was basically being smuggled into China by both Chinese and foreign merchants. From the time of the Second Opium War of 1860s, however, the opium trade was recognized as legal, and it was sold as “Western medicine” (yangyao) unconditionally by anyone who could pay the import duties. As a consequence of legalizing opium, the number of opium dens, which had been few until then, increased rapidly, and by the 1870s there were some 1,700 opium shops, large and small, lining the streets of Shanghai. In early twentieth-century Shanghai, there were more opium shops than rice shops, and opium dens as a place to partake of the drug far exceeded the number of bars. At its peak, the number of opium users rose to 100,000, and there were addicts all along the roadsides of the city. The expression “opium den” for some reason makes one think of things dark and seamy, as in “dens” of iniquity, but in fact this was not necessarily the case. The aforementioned Hu you zaji by Ge Yuanxu states: “Opium establishments in Shanghai outstrip anywhere else in the realm. The shops are elegant and clean, their teacups and saucers exquisitely made. The Mianyunge (Pavilion of Sleepy Clouds) is the most extraordinary in this regard . . . Frequently the tables and chairs within are made of redwood, with stone inlay on the surface. If one 126

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

pays out one or two hundred water beetles [money], one will greet friends there and enjoy oneself greatly.” Like teahouses, we see that opium dens were also often used as sites for social intercourse. The Emergence of New Sights of Scenic Beauty Roughly from the 1870s the culture of the three sorts of establishments we have been examining—teahouses, brothels, and opium dens— blossomed in the modern space of the Concessions of Shanghai. There was as well a mutual penetration among the three of them, a phenomenon which in fact flourished. For example, a teahouse might also serve opium, and an opium parlor might also provide the services of a brothel. These intersections worked to enliven the prosperity of all three. With the development of these three cultures, the urban scene in late-nineteenth-century Shanghai changed dramatically. One proof for this is that the famous sights of the city were suddenly transformed at this time. Traditionally, the “Eight Points of Shanghai Scenery” (Hucheng bajing) were given as: Haitian xuri (Rising sun over the sea sky), Huangpu qiutao (Autumn waves on the Huangpu River), Longhua wanzhong (Late bell at Longhua [Temple]), Wusong yanyu (Cloudy rain on the Wusong River), Shiliang yeyue (Nighttime moon over stone bridges), Yedu cangmang (Vast expanse of the evening crossing), Fenglou yuantiao (Distant gaze at the Phoenix Pavilion), and Jiangnie yueji (Clear moon at the river’s edge). To these eight were now added the Hubei shijing (Ten scenes from northern Shanghai), all modern sights from the Concessions: Guiyuan guanju (Theater viewing from the Gui Garden), Xinlou xuanzhuan (Select delicacies at the New Pavilion), Yunge changyan (Opium smoking at the Cloudy Pavilion), Zuile yinjiu (Inebriated enjoyment imbibing wine), Songfeng pincha (Fine tea amid the wind through pine trees), Guixing fangmei (Visiting sites of beauty amid the aroma of the cinnamon tree), Cengtai tingshu (Listening to stories told on a platform), Feiche yongli (Encompassing beauty of a speeding vehicle), Yeshi randeng (Oil lamps on the streets at night), and Putan buyue (Walking in the moonlight by the riverside). It was precisely in this time period that Shanghai was reborn. 127

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Among the ten new scenes of Shanghai, Yunge changyan referred to an opium den; Songfeng pincha referred to a teahouse; and Guixing fangmei referred to a brothel. Feiche yongli was a metaphor for a rickshaw, Yeshi randeng referred to street lighting, and Putan buyue was pointing to the scenery along the Bund.

Identity Unnerved: The Shanghai Experience of Japanese in the Meiji Era Adventures on the Mainland for Japanese Leaving Home in the “Meiji Era” At the beginning of the preceding chapter, I noted that throughout the late Edo period Shanghai provided Japan with a continuous conduit for all manner of “modern” information, but when the Meiji state came into being Shanghai found its status completely reversed. In more concrete terms, with the success of the Meiji Restoration, the modern state was already taking shape in Japan, and the modern experience of Shanghai thus lost most of its meaning. That said, as Japan aimed at a centralized nation-state with the emperor at its pinnacle, Shanghai with its confused “Creole” nature was actually seen as a “dangerous,” even “harmful,” entity. The difference between Japan, which was ceaselessly seeking a uniform cultural space, and Shanghai, which had two distinct cultural spaces in competition, toppled the relationship between the two, and this made it possible for many Japanese escaping such a uniform space to emigrate to Shanghai. Aside from a number of military men and others sent by political institutions or businesses, we are referring to Meiji Japanese who, whether they were aware of it or not, had left or dropped out of Japanese society in search of a big adventure. No sooner did they touch soil in Shanghai, than they had their identity as Japanese abruptly restored. While escaping the confines of a uniform Meiji Japan, in the end many of them cooperated with the military, one of the driving forces of the Meiji era. These facts, though, by no means should be taken to mean that Shanghai played no role in their activities. Indeed, 128

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

their experiences, split between Meiji Japan and Shanghai seem to have rendered their Shanghai experience that much more poignant. Whether or not they suffered any such mental conflict, Japanese visitors to Shanghai had to make such a choice. Which of the two competing spaces, “Concessions” Shanghai or “walled Shanghai,” would they support? In many instances, it was not that the two were incompatible, but whatever slight inclination one might harbor internally could decisively determine one’s approach to a given “Shanghai,” and even change one’s Shanghai experience in certain instances. Let me now offer a few concrete examples of the Shanghai experiences of Japanese in the Meiji era. Kishida Ginkō: Investing One’s Dreams on the Mainland Aside from Foreign Office employees or businessmen resident in Shanghai, the one Japanese in the Meiji period who most frequently visited Shanghai was undoubtedly Kishida Ginkō (1833–1905). Over the course of some eight trips there, he opened a variety of businesses centered on Shanghai. Kishida was, in the sense we intend here, the pioneer of the “great adventurer on the Mainland.” To follow his movements clearly, let us enumerate in chronological order his eight trips to China: 1. September 1866–May 1867, to print Hepburn’s Wa-Ei gorin shūsei (Japanese-English dictionary) at the Mei-Hua shuguan, the publishing wing of the American Presbyterian Church. 2. February–March 1868, to purchase a steamship. 3. January–July 1880, to open a branch of the apothecary Rakuzendō. 4. From March 1882, to market his pocket-sized books for use in studying for the civil service examinations. 5. November 1883–December 1884, to open a branch of the apothecary in Suzhou. 6. From June 1885, to plan to import umbrellas to China. 129

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

7. From February 1886, to plan for an exhibition at the Shanghai Exposition. 8. Spring 1888–1889, to set up the Gyokuran Ginsha cultural institution. The name Kishida Ginkō probably does not conjure up for many people much of an image of the sort of man he was. Perhaps he is more familiar to readers nowadays as the father of the well-known painter Kishida Ryūsei (1891–1929). In the late Edo period, however, Kishida Ginkō was an extremely important figure. Together with Hamada Hikozō (Joseph Heco, 1837–97), who returned to Japan from the United States in 1864 after being shipwrecked, he founded Japan’s first newspaper, Shinbunshi. He also opened the first regular shipping lanes between Yokohama and Tokyo. In addition, he launched all manner of enterprises in China during the Meiji era. For example, he contributed greatly to the Nis-Shin bōeki kenkyūjo (Institute for Sino-Japanese trade) and the Tō-A dōbunkai (East Asian common culture association), two major base points for Japanese activities in China at the time and not limited to planning for exchanges with Japanese intellectuals. As can be seen in the listing of his eight trips to China, there was a stunning reversal of the positions of Japan and Shanghai at the time of the Meiji Restoration. His first and second trips had the respective objectives of printing Hepburn’s Japanese-English dictionary and purchasing a steamship, and he naturally introduced things “modern” from that most advanced site of “Shanghai.” While he was concerned with his own work, we catch glimpses here and there of “Japan” in the background. From the third trip, though, his aims were completely reversed. Now, he was largely importing to Shanghai or to China the extraordinary new products of Japan. In particular, plans for the “Shanghai Exposition” on the seventh trip were filled with aspirations. Remembering how the Chinese-language journals brought by ship from Shanghai had conveyed to Japan the scene at the London Exposition and the Paris Exposition, one can distinctly see how rapidly the transformation in Shanghai’s role took place. 130

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

Identity Unnerved Looking at Kishida’s activities from the perspective of the choice raised earlier, which Shanghai, Concessions or walled, to support in approaching the city, he both called for solidarity with Asia and, at the same time, clearly opted for the Concessions, the Shanghai of modern capitalism. His tracks as a “modern man” were truly in constant motion. The following impression is conveyed in a dispatch he sent from Shanghai on his fifth trip and which appeared in Chōya shinbun (October 25, 1884): The Japanese in Shanghai are indeed a strange lot, not unreasonably pointed at and laughed at by Chinese and Westerners. Aside from employees at the consulate and one or two businessmen, none of them wear Western attire, just short cotton garments, tied up at the waistband; on their closely cropped hair like a Buddhist monk, they wear hats made of straw, and on their bare feet they wear geta, as they walk creakily and unsteadily about the Hongkou area. Even seen in the best of lights, we Japanese are extremely embarrassing. The Portuguese and Indians are better outfitted than we are in their clothing and better looking in their physique.

This article indicates that Kishida was critical of Japanese who, although separated from Japan, had not abandoned Japanese attire. Kishida’s identity was itself being shaken. Thus, while on the one hand witheringly critical of the “false émigrés,” by the same token he felt embarrassed by them, as if his own departure from Japan was unsuccessful, a position that left him split in two. Perhaps we are a bit too severe in pointing to this unnerved quality in Kishida, but one could have such experiences only in a “Creole” space like that of Shanghai. The “Great Enterprise” of Asian Solidarity Over the course of the second decade of the Meiji period, 1877–87, Kishida followed his dream and gradually expanded his enterprises in China. Two other Japanese with rather different orientations sought their own romances based in Shanghai. One was Sone Toshitora (1847–1910), a captain in the Japanese navy, and the other was Oka Senjin (Rokumon, 1832–1913), a scholar of Chinese learning. 131

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Originally from Yonezawa domain, Sone studied English in Edo in the last years of the Tokugawa period, and in 1871 he entered the navy. In 1874 he was ordered to Shanghai where he served for over a year, purchasing military supplies, and from this time forward, be it for military intelligence or for acquiring military stores, he made another six trips to China, the longest being a nearly two-year stint again in Shanghai. As a military man, what were his dreams in Shanghai? Unfortunately, from his two volumes of travel writings about China that remain extant—Kita Shina kikō (Travelogue of North China) and Shinkoku manyūki (Chronicle of travels in China)—little can be ascertained in 7 this regard. We can make an educated conjecture about the content of his dreams, however, for around this time Sone was active in founding the Shin-A sha (Rouse Asia Society), which aimed at nurturing proAsian patriots, and in the establishment of the Kō-A kai (Rise Asia Society), which aimed at Asian solidarity. In this connection, in 1886 he wrote a memorial to Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909) in which he noted the current reality of “the weak are the meat for the strong to eat” due to the strength of the Western Powers and, to resist this, he explained his determination to commit suicide on behalf of the cause of the “great enterprise” of solidarity with Asia, especially China. He appears to have been moved by the oppression of walled Shanghai to Concessions Shanghai which he witnessed in the city, but this remains a conjecture. Yet, he was a vanguard troop in such “Mainland operations,” and his Shanghai experiences over many years were processed through this mental framework of seeking some sort of solidarity or linkage with the Mainland. Opium and Examinations: Oka Senjin’s Critique of China Although he took a stance somewhat different from that of Sone Toshitora, Oka Senjin similarly forged a strong determination to “rouse Asia” through his experiences in China, particularly Shanghai. Originally from Sendai domain, Oka studied as a young man at the 7. Kita Shina kikō (n.p., 1875 trip); Shinakoku manyūki (Sekibunsha, 1983). 132

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

famed Shōheikō in Edo. After the Meiji Restoration, he was employed for a short period of time at the Institute of Historical Compilation (Shūshikan), but he worked primarily at his own private academy. Some years earlier he had gotten to know Wang Tao when the latter visited Japan [in 1879]. In the middle of 1884 he traveled to Shanghai with the goal of visiting Wang. He was, however, abruptly bewildered by Shanghai’s distorted “prosperity.” Deceived by the opium craze in Shanghai, Wang Tao had practically become an addict himself. Stunned by this reality, Oka would later criticize this poison of opium together with the civil service examination system, which he also characterized as a poison of Chinese intellectuals. The two he saw as the roots of evil in China. In the travel account he wrote of this trip to China, Kankō kiyū (Travel report), Oka based himself in Shanghai, traveling as far north as Beijing and as far south as Guangdong. In it he waxed eloquent in criticism of numerous Chinese figures, including Li Hongzhang, over the “poisons of opium and the six classics,” and in his plan to “revive Asia which would stimulate the vital spirit of the world.” As a critic outside the realms of power in Japan, Oka was spurred to this realization by the chaos he witnessed in China, particularly Shanghai. Might he have been mistaken in this? Having visited China only once, he clearly may have been coming to a kind of “self-realization.” The Intersection of Adoration and Disdain The same year in which Oka visited Shanghai, 1884, another Japanese activist out of power also traveled to Shanghai. This was Ozaki Yukio (1858–1954) who would later serve as mayor of Tokyo. At the time Ozaki was a reporter for Yūbin hōchi shinbun, who was sent as a correspondent to cover the Sino-French War, which broke out that year. Carrying out his mission, he began filing a series of reports shortly after arriving in Shanghai with such titles as “Shanghai news flash” or “Special communiqué.” Perhaps because the war scene had yet to develop, he had an excess of time on his hands, and concurrent with his war reports, he began filing a daily account of his observations of Shanghai, entitled “Yū-Shin kiryaku” (Short account of a trip to China). 133

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

This record offered the most detail on Shanghai since the time of Kishida Ginkō. While neither Sone nor Oka left any detailed information about Shanghai, Ozaki’s account is extremely valuable as a source conveying the whole scene that was Shanghai at the time. While Kishida’s account, Wuson nikki (Diary along the Wusong [River]) was never published as a separate volume, “Yū-Shin kiryaku,” which was carried serially in the newspaper, was the only Japanese guide to Shanghai for the first half of the Meiji era. It was published together with Shanghai fancheng ji (Account of the prosperity of Shanghai), a reprint edition of Ge Yuanxu’s Hu you zaji. “Yū-Shin Kiryaku” would seem to have exerted a major influence on Japanese perceptions of Shanghai at the time. The Shanghai conveyed in Ozaki’s work had the two faces we have recognized thus far. While uncritically lauding the lively hustle-bustle of the Concessions, he was disdainfully critical of the “coarseness” of the walled Chinese city as beneath contempt. Let me quote from each assessment. There is a wooden bridge by a branch of the Huangpu River. It is called the Big Bridge. At its western end, there is a park along the Huangpu known as Yuanming Park . . . From the Big Bridge for four miles to the “Point,” both sides have been planted with willow trees. There is a major, level avenue unlike our Tōkaidō or Nakasendō with their concave and convex bumps. There are, however, no other roads in other big cities to match it, and it lasts only these four miles. It was constructed on land rented from the circuit intendant particularly to be used for people to stroll along . . . Every evening, an orchestra from Manila is invited to play in the park, and a major roadway was built for promenading in the outskirts. All of this reminds one clearly how beneficial western businesses have been to China. Only six or seven feet past the gate into the walled city, the roadways are cramped and narrow. Stones large and small are piled up and, while completely concealed by dirt, filthy things are strewn everywhere along the stone streets. If you neglect to pay attention even momentarily, there is the danger of your clothes becoming 134

Meiji Men Stirred by Romance

dirty in no time. On either side of the street are the signs of shops lined up. Like our apothecaries, many of these shops are tiny and crammed into tight spots. The stench is unmistakable, and passersby have to cover their noses. If you walk a bit further along, there is a bridge with a small moat. The moat is filthy, the bridge narrow— 8 our townsfolk will never have seen anything like it in their lives.

Nowhere else is this contrast made so starkly. The hierarchical relationship between Concessions and walled Shanghai is rooted here in the cleanliness and breadth of the former, and the power relations sanctioning such a situation were the “western businesses” and the “circuit intendant.” As an observer at the time, Ozaki placed himself at the crossroads in a position of adoration for the former (Concessions Shanghai) and disdain for the latter (walled Shanghai). Of course, the position of Japanese as “new residents” in the Concessions may be seen here. We may recognize here a continuity of the hard-line position Ozaki would later take against China at the time of the first SinoJapanese War and the liberal position he would take at the time of the first constitutional protection movement in Japan. 8. Ozaki Gakudō, Ozaki Gakudō zenshū (Collected works of Ozaki Gakudō), vol. 3 (Toyko: Kōronsha, 1955).

135

Chapter 5

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital Tanizaki and Akutagawa: Tourism and the Taishō Writer The Emergence of “Interest” In the previous chapter, we witnessed Japanese who invested all manner of “dreams” in the extraordinary prosperity of Shanghai in the latter half of the nineteenth century and in the chaos that prosperity brought about. Although their statuses and professions in Japan were entirely different from their objectives in going to Shanghai, in an effort to attain a kind of “self-realization” that could not be achieved at home, they looked to take advantage of this chaos through their activities on this new terrain. As noted in the case of Kishida Ginkō, when faced with the choice between the Concessions and the walled city, they lined up with the former and, following the logic of this choice, ceaselessly criticized all manner of faults and abuses represented by the latter. In this stance, even Oka Senjin, who called for solidarity with China and always fervently promoted the significance of “rousing Asia” to the people he met, was no exception. At this point in time, these men—including the youngest mentioned earlier, Ozaki Yukio—had acquired a nearly flawless, basic Kanbun education, and not only did they scarcely evince any interest in the walled Chinese city, nor in the riverside scenes of the Jiangnan area behind it, in which this education would have had meaning, but they actually repudiated it. This proclivity was clearly a result of the reality of the walled city itself, but their mental construction of it, being the dramatically 136

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

transformed “modern men” that they were, exercised an important influence on them. In the latter half of the Meiji era, however, small changes were emerging in Japanese views of the walled city and the views of the scenic river behind it. As before, this terrain was used as a site of “self-realization,” and there was no end of people seeking another “modernity” there. More than this, though, they began to elicit an interest in the hitherto ignored walled city and especially in the traditional scenic river views that developed behind it. A small number began to appear who actually expressed a kind of nostalgia for the authentic China. As background to the emergence of this phenomenon, the Japanese had already gone through thirty years as a modern nation and had a certain flexibility as “modern” men of Meiji Japan, itself now one of the powers. Also important as background here is the fact that from 1888, in the renovation of urban Tokyo, the traditional urban scenery of Tokyo was rapidly destroyed. In particular, industrial factories—printing, metalworking, and miscellaneous goods, among other manufactures—and large-scale textile mills went up in the Kōtō district east of the Sumida River. Already on either side of the Sumida, the “Edo spirit” had all but completely vanished. One group of those who came to Shanghai seems to have been searching for a “vision” of the Sumida River of the past in the suburban river scenery of walled Shanghai that had preserved its traditional vistas. As someone with concerns in both places, let us move now to take a look at the father of Nagai Kafū (1879–1959), Nagai Kyūichirō (Kagen, 1852–1913). Kyūichirō and the Enjoyment of River Vistas Born in Owari domain, Kyūichirō studied in the United States in the early Meiji era, and then became a Meiji government official, for a time working as head of accounts in the Ministry of Education. In 1897, after twenty years serving as a bureaucrat, through the good offices of Itō Hirobumi, among others, Kyūichirō was invited to become Shanghai branch manager of NYK Lines. Many reasons are, of course, possible for why he was given such a posting, but one which certainly played a 137

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

major role was the fact that he was a full-fledged poet in Chinese and a disciple of the famous Chinese studies scholar of the late Edo period, Washizu Kidō (1825–82). We noted earlier that composing Chinese poetry was a means of interacting with Chinese bureaucrats and intellectuals in Shanghai at the time, and interaction of this sort was especially needed in the development of industry. This was all the more so in the case of foreign office officials. Take, for example, the case of Odagiri Masunosuke (1868–1934), who worked in the Shanghai consulate at about the same time as Kyūichirō was there and was a fine composer of Chinese poetry, author of the poetry collection, Gintai ikō (Gintai’s posthumous works). While working in Shanghai, Kyūichirō had frequent contacts with Chinese and Japanese poets and expanded his circle of friends. Despite having spent all told four years in Shanghai, Kyūichirō unfortunately left no detailed documents chronicling his activities in the city. After his death, his son Kafū edited his father’s Chinese poetry into ten string-bound volumes entitled Raiseikaku shū (Collection from the Raisei Pavilion, published 1913), and from this work we can catch a glimpse of his Shanghai experiences. At that time, Kyūichirō always presented two “faces” in Shanghai. One was as the vanguard of Japanese capitalist expansion overseas in the Meiji era, branch manager of NYK Lines. The other was as a poet in Chinese who enjoyed the traditional river vistas of the Jiangnan region (south of the Yangzi delta) while flirting with courtesans. We can see something of the former in the following verse from a Chinese poem by him. Walls of a Tower in Shanghai

The shadow of the bridge extends high above the water at Hongkou, The sound of flutes arises far off, smoke over Pudong, Raising a cup, I smile, the universe is so small, Anchored by the gate are ships from Russia, England, and America.

138

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

This poem sings of the scenery that emerges in one’s line of vision from the building that housed the offices of NYK Lines facing the Bund directly. One can read through it Japan’s national might, as it began to line up with Russia, Great Britain, and the United States, and Kyūichirō’s leisure as a “modern man” supporting this, which enabled him to undertake the following activities: [My friend] Shihō greeted me and Fukyū [Odagiri] with an invitation to go poling on a pleasure boat and enjoy Huqiu. We planned to meet first at the courtesan house of Chen Ruiqing, and then we composed the following work: We chose a site of scenic beauty in a forest and a spring to go for a short trip. We are all look forward to it and together board a small boat of magnolia. We bid you farewell, our emotions deeper than the water. Girls from Wu come aboard as we head toward Huqiu.

A pleasure boat or huafang was traditionally used for sightseeing in China. It was outfitted with all manner of decorations, and was hired especially to hold a banquet at which courtesans would be engaged. As can be seen in this poem, Kyūichirō was patterning his behavior after that of a traditional literatus, and while bringing “girls” from “Wu” (Suzhou) on board the huafang, he and his friends sailed toward Huqiu (in Suzhou), Shanghai’s “backyard.” That he selected what was not a modern route to Huqiu but opted for a traditional waterway bore a meaning that the approach to Shanghai of a Japanese in this era may already have undergone a change; in addition to being a place to live out a dream, it was also taking shape as a new site for “enjoyment” or “amusement.” In this connection, Nagai Kafū as a young man in September 1897 entered the Chinese walled city of Shanghai with scarcely any resistance, unlike Ozaki Yukio at an earlier time, and enjoyed the “throng” (zattō) of 1 people there. Furthermore, twenty-one years after either Nagai, father 1. See his Shanhai kikō (Shanghai travel account) (1898). 139

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

or son, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965) took advantage of the newly developing tourist industry and made a trip to Shanghai in 1918. He too rode on a huafang and sought to experience a trip through the Jiangnan region, including Shanghai, via the traditional waterways. Before turning to Tanizaki’s Jiangnan experience, I need first to look briefly to the formation of modern Sino-Japanese tourism that made his trip at this time possible. For it was this tourism that was closely tied to changes in the experiences of Japanese in Shanghai as well as in other Chinese cities. China and the Formation of Japanese Tourism In the past, when people have discussed the development of tourism in Japan, they often note the roles played by the Kihinkai or Welcome Society (founded in 1893) and the organization that succeeded it, the Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB), as well as the Japan National Railways (Kokutetsu). There is, however, one more “leading player” forgotten here. As spoils for victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, Japanese secured from Russia all interest in the South Manchurian Railway (SMR). It was none other than the first president of the SMR, Gotō Shinpei (1857–1929), who in May 1908 for the first time launched negotiations over transporting goods and people between Japan and a foreign nation (Russia). He attended the fifth international conference on transportation via Siberia, convened in Brussels in July 1910, and he hoped that the SMR, together with Kokutetsu, would establish contact and transport links to Europe. Thus, in November of the following year, after two years’ work, construction on the bridge over the Yalu River on China’s side was completed. By linking the SMR and the Korean Railways, the older railway traversing the Korean peninsula, for the first time an international transport connection emerged between Europe and Japan via the Korea-Manchuria route. In March 1912, just five months after this international transport connection by way of Korea and Manchuria became possible, the aforementioned Japan Tourist Bureau was established with a joint investment (centered in the Ministry of Railways) by NYK Lines, Toyo Kisen K. K., and the SMR, among others. One year later, tickets 140

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

were put on sale by JTB at the sixth international conference on transportation (London, 1911) “from Shinbashi to London,” which was a round-the-world excursion ticket via the SMR and an eastern 2 hemisphere excursion ticket to take effect with its own establishment. To Korea! To Manchuria! To China! Just at the time of its founding, JTB was receiving the aftereffects of a boom in round-the-world trips that Europe had been experiencing since the latter half of the nineteenth century, and JTB was offering its services to foreign tourists coming to Japan. Perhaps in response to news of these tourists, JTB attached great importance from the start to linking up with the outside world, especially through “Manchuria– Korea” and China. Such a direction at the outset of Japanese tourism, as represented by the SMR and JTB, continued unchanged in the main, as the number of Japanese tourists rose sharply in the latter half of the Taishō period, and with the formation of the Japanese Travel Culture Association (Nihon ryokō bunka kyōkai) in 1924, a cultural movement and organization that set as its goal the elevation of the culture of travel in Japan. For example, at the time of its founding, the Japanese Travel Culture Association inaugurated an organ, Tabi (Travel), specializing in questions of travel. In the first issue, while explaining the founding principles, one of the aims of their activities was listed as “introducing the popular feelings and customs of Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, China, and elsewhere,” as well as those of Japan (naichi). There was also in this inaugural issue an advertisement for the SMR that included such unadulterated propaganda as: Travel season is coming, To Korea! To Manchuria! To China! 2. Harada Katsumasa, Mantetsu (The South Manchurian Railway) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1981). 141

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

As the foregoing indicates, “Korea–Manchuria” and China were captured in a uniform fashion in a form not at all inferior to that of Japan. Coming down a bit further in time, the writer Tani Jōji (1900–35), whom we touched on in the introduction to this work, after visiting Manchuria, especially Harbin, and completing a sightseeing tour in 1928, boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway for Europe. Two years later, Hayashi Fumiko (1903–51), an up-and-coming woman writer, out of concerns about the SMR, “walked” from Dalian to Harbin and then as 3 far as Shanghai. The following year, right in the midst that year, 1931, of the confusion of another incident, she traveled through Manchuria and headed toward Europe on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Services for such individual travelers as Tani Jōji and Hayashi Fumiko, however, were but one part of the work of Japanese tourism in Manchuria and China. At least as important, if not far more so, group trips by Japanese middle school and high school students, what we now would call field trips, were undertaken in large numbers. Field trips to “Manchuria-Korea-China” by middle school and high school students formally began from 1906. That year, for the first time, a group of middle-school students selected on a nationwide basis, jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of the Army, was divided into five groups, and a “joint trip to Manchuria of middleschool pupils” was carried out to the battlefields of the victorious Japanese in the recent Russo-Japanese War. Later, in imitation of this model, battlefield trips (senjō ryokō) spread rapidly throughout the 4 country. The boom in these student field trips to Manchuria, Korea, and China reached its apex in the early Shōwa period (1926–89). Around this time, ordinary adults too began group travel to “Manchuria, Korea, and China” in a form captured by these school field trips. For example, founded before JTB and boasting the largest scale of any private concern of its kind at the time, the Japan Travel Club (Nihon 3. See her Santō ryokō ki (Third-class travelogue, 1933). 4. Kubo Naoyuki, Manshū no tanjō: Nichi-Bei masatsu no hajimari (The birth of Manchuria, the beginning of Japanese-American friction) (Tokyo: Maruzen raiburarii, 1996). 142

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

ryokōkai, later Kabushiki gaisha Nihon ryokō) first sponsored a group tour around Korea and Manchuria in 1927. Thereafter, it continued at roughly a pace of once each year through midway into World War II. We should note that, behind the rising popularity of these individual writers, student field trips, and group trips of the general public to Manchuria, Korea, and China, were the ongoing activities of travel companies like JTB. One further thing we should not forget is the development of transportation among Japan, Korea, and China in these years. Space limitations preclude describing this issue in detail, but I would like to introduce the vessels that sailed to Shanghai at the time. Already from the Meiji period, the Shanghai sea lane of NYK Lines was fixed along Yokohama-Shanghai and Kōbe-Shanghai connections. In 1923 a third route, Nagasaki-Shanghai, was established, and the high-speed passenger liners—with the advent of the Shanhaimaru and the Nagasakimaru—between these two cities, traveling at the top speed of 21 knots, linked Japan and China in just 26 hours. This speed and availability exerted an immeasurable influence on Japanese experiences on the Mainland. Many writers whom we shall examine below now boarded these vessels and set sail for Shanghai to sightsee on this new terrain for shorter or longer periods of time. The Formation of Chinese Tourism Although developing a bit later than Japanese tourism, China gradually became prepared in this period to receive travelers. In the realm of transportation, the Jing-Han (Beijing-Wuhan) Railway, China’s main north–south line, had opened for use as early as 1906, and the HuNing Railway linking Shanghai with Nanjing was completed in 1908. Later, both the Jing-Feng Railway (between Beijing and Shenyang), connecting the capital with the Northeast, and the Jin-Pu Railway, between Tianjin and Nanjing, were opened for service in 1911. In the area of accommodations, Western chain hotels as well as, of course, Chinese- and Japanese-style inns were opened in profusion throughout the country. In the case of Shanghai, there was the Astor House Hotel and the Palace Hotel (Chinese, Huizhong fandian), which were frequented by Japanese visitors, and the Yipinxiang Hotel, 143

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

which, in response to a dramatic rise in customers, was remodeled from about 1910 several times and eventually rebuilt. As for travel agencies, in the early twentieth century the three biggest travel companies in the world—Thomas Cook (Chinese, Tongjilong), Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (Chinese, Tiedao woche gongsi), and Express (Chinese, Yuntong)—had all established branches in the Concessions and were doing business there. JTB set up branches and business offices in such cities as Dalian, Qingdao, and Shanghai in response to the need for customers from overseas, including Japan, while pouring energy into developing tourist sites in many places. Stimulated by these foreign travel agencies, China’s own travel companies were eventually born in 1923 with homegrown capital, socalled “national capital.” Learning from American transport companies, the first such agency was established within the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (Shanghai shangye zhuxu yinhang), starting as a travel department subsidiary of the bank. In 1924 it organized a group trip to Hangzhou, and in 1925 a “cherry blossom viewing” (guanying) trip to Japan. Having acquired an excellent reputation from its clients, in 1927 it became independent of the bank and reemerged with the name China Travel Service (Zhongguo lüxingshe). With the establishment of this new company, the president of this Shanghai bank and a founder of China Travel Service, Chen Guangfu (K. P. Chen, 1880–1976), laid down six guiding points: “Enhance national prestige, serve customers, publicize sights of scenic beauty, improve lodgings and surroundings, work hard at freight transport, [and] promote culture.” In a number of regards these are thoroughly consistent with the initial principles of the Kihinkai or JTB. Interestingly, both Japan and China shared a sensibility that they were “late-developing countries” in the area of tourism. When the China Travel Service took its first step forward, it launched publication of China’s first magazine devoted to travel, Lüxing zazhi (Travel magazine). What unfolded in this serial was a movement to “Discover China,” much like the selection of new “scenic spots” implemented in Japan in the early Shōwa era. Thus, for example, special issues on China’s major cities were published, such 144

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

as Hangzhou (issue 3.7) and Shanghai (4.1). Articles were carried in it introducing sights previously difficult to reach, such as Huangshan (3.1), Lake Dongting (3.6), and the Forbidden City in Beijing (3.2, 3.4). And, it worked to “enhance national prestige” and “publicize sights of scenic beauty.” The development of the “Discover China” movement of China Travel Service played a major role in the national consciousness of the Chinese people and in reviving their lost self-respect. This task, however, was carried out within the institution of tourism. While a certain nationalism was unsurprisingly incidental to the discovery and rediscovery of “scenic spots,” by transforming classic sights into new scenic spots and, by contrast, creating new discourses around “genuine objects,” Chinese powers of imagination were unfortunately restrained by this “institution” of tourism to a considerable extent. With tourism thus institutionalized in both Japan and China, how did the Japanese writers, who visited China, Tanizaki and Akutagawa, respond? “I Should Build a House Here”—Tanizaki’s Shanghai As we have seen with the school trips and similar undertakings, the clearest manifestation of the formation of tourism as an institution would surely be the regulated routes taken on individual trips. Japanese travelers to China and the Korean peninsula were no exception to this, and generally from the middle of the Taishō era a standard visit to the Mainland was gradually becoming fixed. For example, on the basis of its older, five-volume guide to East Asia (in English), the Ministry of Railways revised the sections on Manchuria, Korea, and China and published Chōsen Manshū Shina annai (Guidebook to Korea, Manchuria, and China) in a Japaneselanguage edition in September 1919. According to this most “authoritative” guidebook issued by the government, “Japan-China excursion tickets” were sold by the Ministry of Railways at the time, and “two [predetermined] routes” were designated for these excursion tickets: (1) using the sea lane from Shimonoseki to Pusan, the ordered route was from Pusan up the Korean peninsula, then to Seoul, Fengtian, Beijing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Hankou (Wuhan), Shanghai, 145

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Hangzhou, Nagasaki, and Kōbe; and (2) en route from Tianjin, through Jinan and Nanjing, then to Shanghai. It was not only the course of travel, but a mandatory itinerary indicated by the guidebook for a roughly two-month “excursion” with all the sights to be seen predetermined. In addition to the Ministry of Railways’ guide, many private travel guides to the Mainland were published later, but their itineraries amounted to no more than variations on the set courses we have seen thus far. Taking advantage of this renewed organization of Mainland travel, one of the earliest to travel to China was the aforementioned Tanizaki Jun’ichirō. In October 1918, with the Ministry of Railways’ guidebook in hand, he traveled alone through the Korean peninsula to various places in China over a roughly two-month period. The route he followed was precisely the first one we noted from the Ministry’s guide, making his itinerary the “excursion” it had laid out. Thus, Tanizaki’s voyage was exactly as prescribed by tourism as an institution. As we shall see later, though, he ingeniously penetrated this and “discovered” his own sights on the Mainland. The most lasting impressions left on Tanizaki from this trip to China appear to have been urban areas in China’s south: Nanjing, Suzhou, and Shanghai. After returning to Japan, he quickly wrote up accounts of his visit to Nanjing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, which conveyed the emotional impact they had had on him. Unfortunately, he wrote nothing about our subject at hand, Shanghai. These travel writings, though, were thoroughly imbued with his thoughts about Shanghai, and considering them in no way digresses from the main topic at hand. Also, according to his Shanhai 5 kenbunroku (Travelogue of Shanghai), which he wrote during his second trip to Shanghai in 1926, he had already come to like the city: “I was thinking that I should build a house here.” After his first trip to China, Tanizaki altogether wrote fourteen pieces of fiction, travelogue, and drama concerned with China. Five of these pieces drew directly on his experiences in China, and he chronicled in detail among them various and sundry behaviors and “discoveries.” 5. In Bungei shunjū (May 1926). 146

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

While availing himself of the already established system of tourism, along the way Tanizaki made use of traditional riverine routes and continued to approach the Jiangnan area of China as a series of scenic riverside locations. For example, he traveled along the Yangzi River from Wuhan first to Jiujiang, and there with a friend he set out on an excursion to Lake Gantang outside the city. While enjoying this ancient sight of beauty there, he discovered the “elegant” scenery 6 harmonizing nature and mankind. His fixation on “waterways” emerged again in the next city visited, Nanjing. According to his “Shinwai no yoru” (Night at the Qinhuai 7 [Canal]), he went by pleasure boat during the daytime all around the city, and then at nighttime hired a rickshaw and began an “expedition” to courtesan houses along the Qinhuai Canal. Sighing that this was not the best season to travel by pleasure boat in the nighttime, he noted regretfully: “I was unable to heartily taste the mood of the south, which I had gone to such pains to enjoy.” Perhaps trying to recoup his losses, Tanizaki visited one brothel after another in an attempt, somehow or other, to experience the “mood” of Chinese literati of the past. After Nanjing, he proceeded to Suzhou, and there, too, he confessed: “The colors of autumn at Mount Tianping are nothing 8 special. Rather, my goal was the scenery along the route of the Canal.” His approach to riverside locales by pleasure boat continued as before; his spirits were greatly roused by what he experienced at Hangzhou. Although he left no travel accounts of Hangzhou, he did write two works of fiction about it. These two stories can only be classified as strange tales in which Tanizaki’s extraordinary “discoveries” took on a thoroughly fantastic and mysterious form. For example, in his short story “Seiko no tsuki” (The moon at West 9 Lake), the protagonist, “I,” is described as he finds a sickly, beautiful young Chinese woman on a train car bound for Hangzhou from Shanghai, later observing her delicate fingers and feet persistently, 6. “Rozan nikki” (Lushan diary), Chūō kōron (September 1921). 7. In Chūgai (February 1919). 8. “Soshū kikō” (Suzhou travelogue), Chūō kōron (February 1919). 9. In Kaizō (June 1919). 147

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

and then sulking in his own dream. Something of this sort must have had a back story that precedes it. The protagonist who, after arriving in Hangzhou, is staying in the same hotel as the young woman hires a pleasure boat the next day and goes out for a nighttime trip on West Lake. What “I” discovers unexpectedly in the water’s wondrous surface, which does not distinguish the “world of air” from the “world of water,” is the drowned corpse of this very young woman. Later, we come to learn that she chose this death because of her suffering from tuberculosis. Her dead body at this time, though, revealed no such thing, but rather shone with an exceptional beauty like something sacred “very clear white . . . glisteningly alive.” 10 In another Tanizaki story, “Birōdo no yume” (Velvet dream), the beauty of a woman’s body in water is pursued thoroughly, although with a different technique. This work develops as a tale following the pleasure-seeking and decadent life of a wealthy Chinese by the name of Wen Xiuqing. After one reading, though, one quickly sees that his real motif is a fixation on the relationship between water and the female body. The body of the woman in this story is not only made to swim virtually every day in the garden pool of Wen Xiuqing’s home, but the pond is outfitted from the bottom with glass sides as a means of gazing within it and, upon her death caused by poisoning, a pagoda is set up on the side of the pond. Eventually the body flows out of the pond and “floats quietly onto the waters of West Lake.” She ultimately becomes the goddess of the moon—described like the world inhabited by Chang’e, the goddess of Chinese folklore who stole the elixir of life and fled to the moon with it. Thus, while Tanizaki did not directly confront Shanghai as a modern city, using the innovative approach of the pleasure boat, he discovered the expansive space of Jiangnan to serve as his background, and as a means for this top-flight author he was able to express its “essence” as riverside scenes. The discovery of the wondrous space of Jiangnan in this way was not only rich in imaginative power for him later on, but greatly spurred Japan’s imagination about Shanghai in the sense that Shanghai could initially form only one part of this 10. In Ōsaka asahi shinbun, November 1919. 148

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

riverside scenery. Without Tanizaki, there would be no way to discuss the “Shanghai experiences” of other Japanese. “A Second-rate West”: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s Rejection of Shanghai While availing himself of the same tourist institutions as Tanizaki, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) took a completely opposite course. In March 1921 Akutagawa was sent to Shanghai as an overseas investigator for the Ōsaka mainichi shinbun (Osaka Daily News) With Shanghai as his point of departure, he spent four months traveling to many places in China. After returning home, he wrote up a number of travelogues which followed the order of the cities he visited. He put these together as Shina yūki (Travels in China), and it was published in 1925 by Kaizōsha. Akutagawa spent about one and one-half months in Shanghai, but the first three weeks he suffered from pleurisy and was in a hospital, unable to go anywhere. After being released, he began moving with great energy, visiting numerous people and places. During this time, he was an astute, intelligent observer who took in many aspects of Shanghai with acuity. The following two examples may convey this point: This café was far more low-class than the Parisien. Next to a pinkish wall sat a Chinese boy with his hair parted down the middle, banging away on a huge piano. In the middle of the café three or four British sailors were dancing suggestively with heavily made-up women. Finally, near the glass door entranceway, an old Chinese woman selling roses watched the dancing after she had been told I didn’t need any [roses]. I felt as if I were looking at a newspaper with illustrations. The title of the illustration would undoubtedly be “Shanghai” . . . Now let’s get back to that Chinese man. There he was leisurely pissing into the lake. Nothing seemed to faze him in the least— Chen Shufan could raise his rebellious banner in the wind, the popularity of vernacular poetry could die down, or the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance could come up again—nothing. Judging from his serene manner and facial expression, this is the 149

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

only possible conclusion I could draw. The Chinese style pavilion that rose in the cloudy sky, the lake covered by a sickly green, and the arc formed by the single stream of urine as it poured into the lake at an angle—this is more than a scene of melancholy. At the 11 same time, it was a bitter symbol of this grand old country.

More than anything, this is a typical Akutagawa sketch. All manner of characteristics of Shanghai as a semi-colony and behind it a certain nihilism in which China is beyond help are vividly thrown into relief. Unfortunately, though, Akutagawa did not continue in this vein of observation in an effort to dig down into the facts. Bewildered by the “confusion” of semi-colonial Shanghai, he harshly judged “the kind of obscene, cruel, greedy [contemporary] China that you find in fiction” against the “China of poetry and essays” that he had dreamt of. As a result he regarded Shanghai as a “second-rate” West, and he expressed his sharp revulsion with “modernity.” This rejection of Shanghai ultimately hindered genuine conversation with the Chinese political figures he met, Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) and Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938). Never reviving his feeling for the place, he went off afterward to visit Beijing which he actually much enjoyed. Having left Shanghai on his way north, Akutagawa sailed on a pleasure boat, among other things, all along the way, and made a point of using the waterways to enjoy the Jiangnan region as sites of riverside beauty. Aside from a few exceptions, such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, Akutagawa readily and stunningly rejected all such sites. For example, he saw West Lake at Hangzhou, which had stirred up such a collection of illusions for Tanizaki, as simply a “muddy pond.” And, he dispensed with the Qinhuai Canal at Nanjing as an “ordinary ditch.” He out and out condemned Lake Dongting as “other than summertime, merely a single stream running through a muddy field.” He thus never found fantasy in the “waterways” of Jiangnan as did Tanizaki, nor did he abstract the “beauty” of decadence from it as would 11. “Shanhai yūki,” in Shina yūki (Tokyo: Kaizōsha, 1925). Translator’s note: There is a complete English translation of Shina yūki by Joshua A. Fogel and Kiyoko Morita, in Japanese Travelogues of China in the 1920s: The Accounts of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, ed. Joshua A. Fogel, special issue of Chinese Studies in History 30.4 (Summer 1997); the passages cited here appear on pp. 14, 17. 150

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

Kaneko Mitsuharu, as we shall see. He recognized the “realities” of these scenic riverside locations as befit an author of fiction, but Akutagawa discovered a thoroughly different type of woman from Tanizaki. For example, in a novella written in his last years, entitled “Konan 12 no ōgi” (The folding fan of Hunan), the setting is Hunan Province, birthplace of many Chinese revolutionaries. Two courtesans, who both loved the leader of a rebel group who has just been executed, are described. One of them starts to tremble at the death of this man, though she holds herself together enduring the news. The other woman, in recognition of her love, proceeds coolly to eat a biscuit that has been soaked in the blood of the man’s severed head. This “small incident,” as the narrator notes at the start of this story, “indicates the dignity of the people of Hunan, rich in passionate feelings,” and then he (the narrator) makes a point of refusing a biscuit. One cannot help but think that the local color of this “indefatigably strong will” of Hunan as represented by this female protagonist is portrayed here in contrast to the “fast and loose” semi-colonial chaos that Akutagawa had observed here and there in Shanghai. In the final analysis, be it in the “West” or “China,” Akutagawa was ultimately looking for some sort of authenticity, and some sort of fusion could only be seen as sorely out of place. In this sense, what he admired in Hunan and Beijing was rooted in its indigenous quality or authenticity, and by contrast what he was critical of in Shanghai was marked by his rejection of the non-homogenous space of modernity. This was always the determinant for him.

Cultural Border-Crossers, from Inoue Kōbai to Muramatsu Shōfū “Five Great Pastimes”: Inoue Kōbai Examines Shanghai Among Japanese writers who fashioned themselves “China experts” (Shinatsū), Inoue Kōbai (Susumu, 1881–1950) paid attention to Shanghai customs and practices from early on and introduced this information to Japan over a long stretch of time. Even today we are 12. In Chūō kōron (January 1926).

151

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

still not completely certain of his precise birth and death dates, but in the 1920s and 1930s he was for a time the darling of journalists. According to one theory, he spent his time through the early Taishō era in Shanghai, living a profligate’s life and losing management of a 13 restaurant as well. Although it is unknown how he made a living in his initial years in Shanghai, in 1918 he began publishing his own personal periodical, 14 Shina fūzoku (Chinese customs), with support from some forty Chinese and Japanese personages of note, including Sahara Tokusuke (1874– 1932, editor of Shanhai shūhō [Shanghai weekly]), Yu Gumin (editor of Shanghai Shenzhou ribao [Shanghai China daily]), Ouyang Yuqian (1887–1962, playwright), Zhang Chunfan (d. 1935, novelist), Ishii Hakutei (1882–1958, Western-style painter), and Kinoshita Mokutarō (1885–1945, poet), among others. Using this platform, over the next three years Kōbai energetically introduced what he dubbed “China’s five great pastimes: eating (chi), drinking (he), prostitutes (piao), gambling (du), and theater (xi).” At this stage he was just beginning to show a bit of himself as a journalist. The following is a piece from one essay in Shina fūzoku which concerned new customs in Shanghai. It was titled: 15 “Jo gakusei tsuri” (Fishing for female students). Lovely female students with fashionable chrysoberyl glasses—this is a song of fishing for female students. It is an extremely novel occupation. They’re depraved male students, a flying column of beauty hunters, a gang of young hoods. One way or another, they approach female students. For example, at an athletic meet or an exhibition, at every possible opportunity they always show up as family members of 13. Mitsuishi Zenkichi, “Gotō Asatarō to Inoue Kōbai” (Gotō Asatarō and Inoue Kōbai), in Kindai Nihon to Chūgoku (Modern Japan and China), ed. Takeuchi Yoshimi and Hashikawa Bunzō (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1974), vol. 2. 14. Translator’s note: The terms fūzoku carries a host of nuances, from customs and practices to public morals to outright sexual behavior. Inasmuch as the last of these was much on Inoue Kōbai’s mind much of the time, it has been difficult to translate as such. 15. Inoue Kōbai, Shina fūzoku (Shanghai: Nihondō shoten, 1921–22), 3 vols. 152

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

female students. They watch for when classes are dismissed around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. on weekdays, and loiter about the main gate of women’s schools. They then tail the young female student that they have their eye on. They sing in a low voice the “girl student song.” The notes are taken from an athletic meet ditty: “Fresh, green grass, the field is level . . . ” The music of the athletic meet comes from a Japanese [student victory chant]: “Anaureshi, yorokobashi” (Ah, happy and joyous [are we]).

Of these “five great pastimes,” Kōbai had an overwhelming predilection for piao, or sexual culture. He translated Zhang Chunfan’s Jiu wei gui (Nine-tailed turtle), the most popular, prurient novel at the time, and when he put the issues of his magazine Shina fūzoku together into a three-volume work, also titled Shina fūzoku, he did not forget to include this translation under the title “Hyōkai shinan” (Guide to the world of prostitutes). He later translated Jin ping mei (Plum in the golden vase), the most famous of sexually explicit works in Chinese literary history, but his translation was apparently banned from sale within Japan. While he had come with an irrepressibly debauched side to him, the flourishing demimonde of Shanghai at the time may have exerted an influence on him. Lu Xun’s Discomfort Some time after 1921, Kōbai slipped out of Shanghai, taking up residence thereafter in Nanjing and Suzhou. He noted that in Nanjing “my studies of Chinese customs may have helped me somewhat.” For a time he was living together with a widow by the name of Bi Bimei from Suzhou and her children, but because she was an opium addict and he began using the drug as well, he saw no choice but to leave her. Works by him that chronicled his activities in Nanjing and Suzhou would include Shina ni hitaru hito (A man immersed in China; Shanghai: Nihondō shoten, 1924) and Sake, ahen, maajan (Alcohol, opium, mahjong; Tokyo: Banrikaku shobō, 1930). These works would lead one to believe that he spent all of his time vigorously investigating the “customs” of the city. 153

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

In the 1930s, however, Kōbai underwent a sudden and major transformation from the person we have seen thus far. Returning to make Shanghai his base once again, he translated the complete writings of Lu Xun (1881–1936), the “father” of the new Chinese literature. He also published a report entitled “Shanhai Ran’isha no tero jiken” (Terrorist incidents of the Blue Shirts Society in Shanghai), which exposed the dictatorial regime under Chiang Kai-shek (1887– 16 1975). As one might expect, Lu Xun himself was greatly surprised at the translation of his collected oeuvres. “I was stunned that Mr. Inoue Kōbai had translated my works,” he noted with clear discomfort. “He and I have traveled different paths, but now that it has been translated, 17 there is nothing to be done.” Behind this “regret” on Lu Xun’s part was a concealed bias toward Kōbai as a “journalist of customs.” If, however, we may see the leftwing literary movement that Lu Xun led as one “intellectual customary practice” of the 1930s, then there is no particular reason to criticize Kōbai. Perhaps from the latter’s perspective, leftwing literature was, just like the White Terror, a “customary practice” of the new era. In other words, it was not Kōbai but the “temporal customs” in Shanghai surrounding him that were changing greatly. “Emotion Difficult to Describe”—Muramatsu Shōfū After reading Akutagawa’s Shina yūki which belittled Shanghai as a “barbarian city” and actually belittled himself for becoming intrigued by Shanghai, Muramatsu Shōfū (1889–1961) crossed the sea to pay a visit. Eventually recognized in the literary world for such works as Danwa baibai gyōsha (Conversation traders), he was full of expectations to catch a glimpse of this “bizarre world” and so traveled to this “strange city” in 1923. On this first visit, he stayed there roughly two and one-half months. During that time he “experienced many things” and enjoyed Shanghai, a “modern” (modan) city dubbed by him a “demon capital” (mato). The record he kept of these many and sundry experiences at this time became his most famous work, Mato (Tokyo: 16. In Kaizō (August 1933). 17. Letter to Masuda Wataru (1903–77), dated November 7, 1932. 154

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

Konishi shoten, 1924), even among Shanghainese themselves. It was the dark side of the demon capital of Shanghai, its decadence, that Muramatsu described realistically in great detail. Take, for example, the following image conveyed when he visited the teahouse Qinglian’ge located in Shanghai’s largest pleasure quarter, Fourth Avenue (Si malu): One evening I entered this teahouse together with a friend. As is always the case, there was a crowd going up and down the stairs. Just as I was thinking of taking the stairs, my friend and I were suddenly grabbed by a chicken [a prostitute]. Perhaps as many as several thousand guests were accommodated on the expansive second floor with its pillars here and there. Some people were seated at tables drinking tea, some were looking down at the traffic below while holding onto the balustrade, and some were walking around making small talk. A large number of chickens were moving about left and right in confusion. Some were following customers around, some were flirting and having fun, and some were seated at tables chatting and drinking tea. Cigarette smoke swirled around and densely clouded the shining electric lights. I was in a daze before this congestion and uproar, but when we eventually looked at the chicken who had seized us, my friend thought she was very young with big, circular eyes on a round face, while I felt she was a young girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, delicate like a celluloid doll. Neither of us thought her beautiful. My friend spoke to her in Shanghai dialect and tried to get rid of her, but she was very hard to get away from.

At this stage, Shōfū was still “dazed” by Shanghai’s distinctive “congestion” and “uproar.” With the passage of time, though, he gradually became addicted to a “disorderly, disunited state of affairs,” to “chaotic, indescribable places.” The following is an instance he found stimulating: Standing among them, I called out in great delight. I was drowning in all manner of a fiendish life, dazzled by all the splendor, bleary from all the dissipation, and having lost my soul to self-indulgence. 155

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

I was happy, stunned, and sad, struck by emotions somehow difficult to describe. Why was that the case? I don’t know now. Yet, what was fascinating to me was the free life of a human being. It’s not that such places have no traditions, but all promises are revoked. Everyone does as he or she wishes. Only the emotion of doing as one pleases squirms about in a lively and blunt fashion.

Perhaps in an effort to realize this conviction, Shōfū soon began living with a Japanese woman by the name of Akagi Yoshiko, who was working as a teacher of social dancing. A woman who appears in the pages of his work Mato with the name “Y-ko” is depicted as originally having worked as a substitute teacher in elementary schools in Japan, but then came to the demon capital 18 with a certain longing regarding Shanghai. When she makes Shōfū’s acquaintance, it is with the patronage of a middleman. There were at this time numerous Japanese “modern girls” who had gone broke and come to Shanghai, and Akagi may have been one of the many such modern girls who made the voyage. Although she later returned with Shōfū to Japan, she soon moved to another man’s home, and before long had drifted back to China, this time to Qingdao. Debauchery in the Demon Capital Among the many activities in which Shōfū engaged while living in Shanghai, one is particularly worthy of note. This involves his contacts with young writers in China’s new literary scene. He carried a letter of introduction from Satō Haruo (1892–1964) to Tian Han (1898–1966), and when he went to visit Tian Han he got to know members of the Creation Society. These included, in addition to Tian Han, three men who had only just returned to China from Japan: Guo Moruo (1892– 1978), Yu Dafu (1896–1945), and Cheng Fangwu (1897–1984). His interactions with Chinese writers was especially important for Chinese literary history in light of the fact that Tanizaki and Akutagawa had earlier both wanted to have such contacts but had been unable to do 18. Muramatsu Ei, Iro kigen: onna, onna, mata onna, Muramatsu Shōfū no shōgai (Sexual temperament: Women, women, and more women, the career of Muramatsu Shōfū) (Tokyo: Saiko shobō, 1989). 156

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

so. These pleasant, friendly interactions between Chinese and Japanese men of letters were later continued by Tanizaki (during a subsequent trip to Shanghai), Satō Haruo, and Kaneko Mitsuharu (1895–1975). Shōfū returned to Shanghai in 1925. The event was his undertaking the management of performances at the Imperial Theater of the Beijing opera Lu mudan (Green peony). Later, however, the manager on the Chinese side, a man by the name of Zhu Qisui, embezzled the advances on the actors’ pay, and Shōfū was forced to travel back and forth between China and Japan to pay back the money involved. Ultimately, Zhu Qisui was apprehended, but the stolen money was never returned. As a result of all this, Shōfū forged a close bond with the city of Shanghai. He wrote a number of accounts of his experiences—such as Shanhai (Tokyo: Sōjinsha, 1927); Shina mandan (Chats about China; Tokyo: Sōjinsha shobō, 1928), and Shin Shina hōmon ki (Account of a trip through the new China; Tokyo: Sōjinsha shobō, 1929)—all prima facie evidence testifying to his life of “debauchery in the demon capital.” Confessor of a Decadent Shanghai: Kaneko Mitsuharu Even today, Shanghai with its plaster and bricks, its red-tiled roofs, spreading as far as the eye can see, is a city of no interest whatsoever. A jumble of motley customs, the trash of the world, a meeting place for vagrants to settle, wretchedly bewitching, attracting all eyes, it continues like a dried up red scab. The stone pavement of the city with the pain of the scab, the blood, soft and flabby with pus, is smeared with coal cinders and red rust; its surface filthy with feces and fresh phlegm baking in the setting sun, rapped by a long rain; the brutishness and bitterness of all living things penetrates people’s bodies all the more, taking its toll on men’s minds.

After WW II, the poet Kaneko Mitsuharu who visited Shanghai a 19 number of times wrote the above lines in his Dokurohai (Skull cup). Even broken shards of the “modern” city of Shanghai cannot be seen here. The poet’s vision is literally captivated by the “ground” of the city. Furthermore, he captures it altogether with a sense of touch. A number 19. (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1971). 157

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

of people have introduced us realistically to Shanghai, the demon capital, but it is rare to find someone who resorts to such sensuousness. Thus, the reality described here provides one aspect of this demon capital, wriggling unmistakably beneath the immense “scab” of “modernity.” Known to be a vagabond poet, Kaneko visited Shanghai altogether three times in the latter half of the 1920s. The first time was in April 1925, but this occasion was purely for enjoyment’s sake, and he spent about a month there with his wife Michiyo. The second trip was two years later in March 1927. He was asked to visit by Kunikida Torao (1902–70), who was in a quandary as to how to make use of a sizable amount of money acquired by his father, the writer Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908), in royalties for one-yen books. The aim of this trip, then, was to guide young Torao and his wife around. On this occasion, he spent roughly three months in China. At the time Yokomitsu Riichi (1898–1947) visited Shanghai by chance, and the two men took walks together and quickly warmed to one other as if they had been old friends. When he returned to Japan, however, he discovered that his wife, Michiyo, had fallen in love with the anarchist Hijikata Teiichi (1904–80), and Kaneko was thrown into utter confusion. The third trip was an effort to repair his marital relations, then on the verge of collapse, by taking Michiyo to Europe, a long trip which began with a stop in Shanghai. It was December 1928. This stay in the city lasted about five months, and he struggled hard to support their living expenses and to earn the fare for the voyage to Europe. He wrote and sold in mimeographed form the erotic novel Enpon ginzajaku (Ginza sparrow, a pornographic tale). It was a one-man show in which he described “one hundred scenes from the famed sights of Shanghai in their breadth and depth.” A Distinctive Stench One thing Kaneko discovered and got wind of in Shanghai was a distinctively decadent aspect of the city. In his mid-twenties Kaneko had conceptually mastered decadence from his first overseas trip. A poem he composed in this earlier era expressed and sang of this emotion that is probably best termed “decadence.” The decadence that he found in 158

Taishō Writers Who Indulged in the Demon Capital

Shanghai, though, was slightly different from the earlier sensibility. This was now something at less of a conceptual and more of a physical level. In the evening waves above my head, the phantom of a black, broken down sailing ship continues. Oh, Shanghai giving off its harmful dust sinks deeply into the waves! Vagrants from the foot of the numerous beds of this hospital of great aversion, from the Garden Bridge, from the bridge planks rattling with the leg irons of the coolies . . . look down on the approach of the muskmelon rinds and the filthy waters full of phlegm. Prostitutes with yellow goose bumps bite on bits of bread. A rickshaw coolie’s copper coins rolling over rocks while gambling. . . . To Shanghu! A group of junks dancing in sad ardor. The scorching odor of metal trays for opium pipes stinks all along Fourth Avenue. Small genitalia the size of an ear rotten. Ringing gongs and piercing cries can be heard from the French Concession. All of China in smoke from the vapors of the Jini Yutuan [restaurant]. Ah, but a heavy, one-wheeled rickshaw coolie calls out “Ei, ei, hotsu, hotsu,” When will this clamor through the streets die down? Every cry from birth to death can be found there. 20

All returning to the great Yangzi River.

What enabled Kaneko to discover the decadence of Shanghai was his advanced sense of smell as a poet. The distinctive “stench” of 20. Kaneko Mitsuharu, Fuka shizimu (The shark submerges), in Kaneko Mitsuharu zenshū (Collected works of Kaneko Mitsuharu) (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1927), vol. 1. 159

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Shanghai, which he detected with this acute olfactory sense, brought him great delight. He took it in and would not release it. The body odor of the city got stronger. This stench was pounded together with sex and the uncertainty of life and death, the odor of ambition squandered, drunken people ruined and always apparently seething with anguish. Unawares, a white root from my body takes hold and pushes its way between the paving stones into the desolate spirit of the land, and secretly I sense my body 21 gradually being unable to move.

For this poet on the verge of “Shanghai grotesque,” decadent Shanghai, described in Dokurohai as a “great place to live comfortably,” is revived together with its “body odor” in a work by him written forty years after his visit to the city. As we saw in the poetic citations above from Fuka shizimu (The shark submerges), what most sharply stimulated the poet’s sense of smell at the time was, for whatever reason, the “filthy waters” flowing here and there in the city. Kaneko had expressed conceptually a variety of images of water from earlier on, and in his confronting the “filthy waters” of Shanghai he would later discard completely this idea of a variety of images and begin to pursue it largely through the senses. As he expressed it in his stories, “Awa” (Bubbles; Bungaku hyōron, June 1935), “Same” (Shark; Bungei, September 1935), and “Senmenki” (Wash basin; Jinmin bunko, October 1937), among others, this distinctly privileged image was regularly used by our poet for Shanghai, for China, and indeed for practically all of Asia over a long period of time. In this sense, Kaneko was altogether different from Tanizaki. Kaneko discovered a Shanghai via waterways filled to the brim with “filthy water” and, as it were, after the wondrous “scenic riverine sights” had collapsed. And, he played “the beautiful melodies which 22 penetrated into nothingness.” Perhaps this was the happiest meeting between the decadent poet and decadent Shanghai. 21. Kaneko, Dokurohai (see above). 22. Kaneko, “Koto Nankin (ichi)” (Nanjing, the ancient capital, part 1), Tanka zasshi (October 1926). 160

Chapter 6

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

Skyscrapers and the Modern Girl The Age of the “Modern” and the “Masses” The establishment of modern tourism brought about the phenomenon of Japanese writers coming to Shanghai. This was only one compelling reason, for soon thereafter it was Shanghai itself that lured them one after the next to pay a visit. After World War I, Shanghai looked on passively at the world economic depression centered in Europe, rapidly developing its light industry and trade, and it became a major urban center on a par with New York, London, and Paris. Shanghai’s own accumulation from the latter half of the nineteenth century as a semicolonial city formed its foundation, but the immense investment of American and Japanese capital from the war years and the stunning rise of native capital both played major roles. The dramatic increase of new domestic and foreign capital spurred further the modernization of a city already developing, transforming the appearance of the city in the wink of an eye. We are, in a word, speaking of the coming to Shanghai of the age of the “modern” and of the “masses.” The Appearance of Great Skyscrapers and Modern Girls The emergence of Shanghai, the “modern city” (modeng dushi), began, generally speaking, in the 1920s. The row of neo-classical and art deco style buildings lined up on the Bund—the old Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (now the Shanghai Municipal Government), Sassoon House (now the northern building of the Peace Hotel), and Broadway 161

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

Mansions (now Shanghai daxia), among others—all symbols of modern Shanghai, were built in this period. The group of skyscrapers along Nanjing Road symbolizing the prosperity of greater Shanghai began to emerge in outline form generally in the 1920s. Not only tall structures, but the entertainment establishments–– such as the Great World and New World, famous for their performances of all sorts of “erotic and grotesque nonsense,” the greyhound racetrack (extremely rare in East Asia) as a place to gamble, the Canidrome (Yiyuan baogouchang, now the Culture Plaza) with its Hai Alai field, and the Auditorium (Zhongyang yundongchang, now the Luwan Gymnasium)––were all essentially constructed from the latter half of the 1920s into the 1930s. In addition, at its peak some three hundred shops, beginning with the “Big Four” department stores—Sincere, Wing On, Sun Sun, and Dah Sun—and the Paramount Ballroom (Bailemen wuting), all of which played a huge role in establishing a modern commercial space along Nanjing Road, were thriving at this time; and the dance halls, large and small, symbolizing nocturnal entertainment emerged at roughly the same time period. As for civic life in the Shanghai of this era, trends particularly for women saw the rising popularity of Western fashions in dress. Also women wore the fashion of the qipao, which was influenced by Western styles and known as the “China dress,” and involved wearing the hair in bangs. Although bangs were for a time banned by the authorities as insidious to proper morals, under the Guomindang government bangs shot to enormous popularity as symbolic of female egotism. It was in fact female students, increasing in numbers during these years, who led these trends, not to be outdone by the “wild chickens,” those women of the night in Shanghai. The appearance of “modern girls” in large numbers was formed by means of a kind of competition between these two groups. The nature of Shanghai at the time was deeply reflected in the glamorous qipao which one often sees nowadays. Based originally in the ethnic clothing of Manchu women, the contemporary qipao was actually invented in Shanghai of the early 1920s. With a high collar and exposing nothing of the breast, it offered traditional dignity to 162

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

Chinese women, and, by contrast, with its slit up the side of the dress it did expose flesh as far as the thigh, a nod to the Western notion of looking “smart” and appealing to women’s sense of “liberation.” Thus, the unequal “directions” in which the qipao went between upper and lower halves of the body embodied the two sides, Chinese and Western, of Shanghai and was a fusion considered locally to be high class. Frequent Strikes On the other side of the coin, the period from the 1920s into the 1930s was an era in which Shanghai played host to the dramatic rise to prominence of the “masses.” Already during the years of World War I, a large number of workers flowed into the city from the neighboring countryside, but after the war this trend was spurred on even more. This was to be expected, and statistics demonstrate that in the fifteenyear period from 1914 through 1928 inclusive, the number of new factories opened in Shanghai reached 1,229, a rapid industrialization necessitating an extraordinary amount of labor power. As a result, during the decade of the 1920s, the population of Shanghai rose by nearly 1,000,000. For 1930 it is recorded as 3,145,000. Among the over 3,000,000 people, factory and transportation laborers accounted for roughly one-third. They grew to be the largest urban force supporting, from society’s base, a modern city undergoing continuous expansion. Their self-assertion, a crying out of long and hard endurance against oppression to a cruel extent from many areas of society— namely, a labor movement—was to strike, the most radical means at their disposal. Such strikes throughout the 1920s erupted virtually every year, injecting a new “modernity” into the urban space of semi-colonial Shanghai. When these strikes brought ideology and nationalism together, their modernity contained a certain radical edge, and the May Thirtieth (1925) Incident, for example, is proof positive that these labor actions continued to grow in size. Thus, during the thirteen-year period from 1919, shortly after the conclusion of World War I, until 1932 when the first Shanghai Incident erupted, Shanghai, while embracing many “dark aspects,” 163

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai 1

went through a period of “extraordinary prosperity” as a modern city. All of the many “modern” phenomena that materialized in this period of time could be found in any modern city in the world for the same period, for the same temporal features of “modernity” existed in New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Shanghai was thoroughly different from these other cities, however, in that, because of its semi-colonial nature, even though it shared “modernity,” it had certain radical, garish, and, indeed, dark sides to it. Even compared with Tokyo, another modern East Asian city with which it was similar in many ways, Shanghai’s semi-colonial quality stood out sharply. In the 1920s Japanese writers continued to visit Shanghai, and in many cases it was in pursuit of this radical “modernity” with its seamy, dark aspects.

Modernism Extinguished The City as Protagonist: Yokomitsu Riichi’s Shanhai In April 1928 Yokomitsu Riichi (1898–1947) traveled to Shanghai. He later recalled the incentive for this trip in an essay entitled “Seianji no hibun” (The inscription at Jing’an Temple): The person who told me to go see Shanghai was Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. In the year he died [1927], he said: “You have to see 2 Shanghai.” So, the next year I traveled there.

Why would Akutagawa, who so hated Shanghai, have encouraged Yokomitsu to visit Shanghai? This is rather difficult to understand. On reflection, however, because Akutagawa had grasped the distinctiveness of Shanghai so acutely, he must have understood full well the attraction of Shanghai as a modern city and put his personal likes and dislikes aside. Indeed, precisely because he understood Shanghai so well, he felt he had no choice but to speak ill of it. Perhaps, it is only natural that he had an eye on Yokomitsu, the standard-bearer of the New 1. Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow), My China Years: A Memoir (New York: Morrow, 1984). 2. Kaizō (October 1937). 164

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

Sensualists, encouraging him to visit Shanghai. Yokomitsu remained in Shanghai for precisely a month, during which time, as we noted earlier, he walked around the city (especially the Hongkou area where the resident Japanese population was concentrated), requested materials from his old friend Imataka Keitarō (an employee of the Tō-A Kōgyō Company), and seriously collected data about Shanghai. After returning to Japan, he spent about half a year preparing his novel Shanhai (Shanghai), which in November 1928 began to appear in the magazine Kaizō. A variety of characters centering on the protagonist Sanki emerge in this work. The novel is set up in such a way as if each of them is apportioned to and representative of one of the many aspects of the city. Thus, for example, Kōya is an agent of semi-colonial capitalism, Osugi represents the dark side of the city’s practices, Miyako the behavior of the urban elite, Takashige of Japanese capital and power, Fang Qiulan of the Chinese labor movement and revolutionary power, Yamaguchi of East Asian decadence and pan-Asianism, and the Russian prostitute Olga of refugees and the cosmopolitanism of brothels. Sanki is the one that links them all. By deepening his relationship with each of them separately, the plot unfolds whereby each of the many aspects of city life is thrown into relief through each one’s representative. In this sense, the novel takes shape by having Sanki wander from place to place among the characters of the story, and thus the city of Shanghai as a whole becomes the real protagonist more than any individual character. Movements of the Protruding Mob There are many possible reasons for why Yokomitsu chose as the temporal background for his novel not the actual period that he visited the city but specifically three years earlier at the time of the May Thirtieth Incident of 1925. By making the May Thirtieth Incident the subject matter, he proved more effective at describing the movements of the Shanghai mob. One is perforce led to believe this because of the many and distinctive portrayals of the masses in Shanhai. Not only does the mob protrude into scenes, but it is depicted as if acting in concert with 165

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

the movement of capital and the flow of the river at symbolic levels. The river rose up and flowed backward at high tide. The bows of motorboats, their lights out, swarmed up in a wave. Their rudders lined up. A mountain of cargo thrown off. The black legs of a wharf fettered in chains. A signal indicating calm winds rose over a weather station tower. The steeple above the customs house rose like smoke amid the evening fog. Coolies on barrels piled up at the breakwater, becoming drenched. At the mercy of a phlegmatic 3 wave, a torn black sail bent over and moving along slowly. Copper coins flowed from the coast to the hinterland. Silver coins began disappearing from the port. Brokers’ carriages ran back and forth between Japanese and British banks. The gold market soared in response to copper and silver. Sanki’s pen began to tire at converting to British pounds. At the recommendation of Takashige, he’d secured a position in the Sales Department of Asian Cotton Company. The Portuguese typist at his side was preparing a report concerning the Manchester markets. The American cotton market was up according to a note on the bulletin board. The Liverpool cotton market was being supported by Bombay futures. The smaller markets of Kutchakhandi and Tejimandi were in turn supporting the Bombay market. Sanki’s principal responsibility in the Sales Department was to observe the fluctuations in these two 4 smaller Indian cotton markets. The agitated mob was reflected completely upside down in the window glass. It was like the ocean bed from which no sky could be seen. Numerous heads were beneath shoulders and shoulders beneath feet. A bizarre, hanging canopy about to collapse, they rocked back and forth like so much seaweed. Sanki continued 3. Yokomitsu Riichi, Shanhai, Chapter 1, in Teihon Yokomitsu Riichi zenshū (Collected works of Yokomitsu Riichi, definitive edition) (Tokyo: Kawade shobō, 1981), vol. 3. Translator’s note: Although I have not followed it, there is a translation of Shanhai (which I did consult) by Dennis Washburn: Shanghai: A Novel by Yokomitsu Riichi (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2001). This citation comes from p. 3. 4. Shanhai, Chapter 19. Translation, p. 77. 166

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

searching in the swaying mob hanging over him for Fang Qiulan’s face . . . The rivers formed by the surging crowd flooded by in front of him. The mob rising like spray amid two rivers clashed. Banners fell down upon the surging crowd. Pieces of cloth from the banners, caught among the mob’s feet, were as if sucked up into the buildings . . . He fell. Qiulan’s feet running. Kicking out at the human flesh swooping down on him, he jumped up, and then crashed right into the butt of a gun. Plunging back into the surging 5 mob gushing by, he again flowed on with the human wave.

As noted earlier, the main players in Shanghai of the 1920s were capital and the masses. In consideration of this, while describing the modern city we can understand why Yokomitsu enthusiastically had to portray the gold and silk markets, as well as the masses in demonstrations. This was not simply “symbolic exchange” at the level of words, but his discovery of the true relationship between the two— his Shanghai experience—may be thought of as the most important yield of the novel Shanhai. Yoshiyuki Eisuke Views the Bourgeois City On the topic of capital, there was one more Japanese writer who closely observed financial capital in Shanghai and the luxuries to which it gave rise: Yoshiyuki Eisuke (1906–40). He once expressed his concerns about Shanghai in the following manner: In sum, I strongly sense about China in many regards a political component that has the air of a kind of bourgeois nation. China, now falling under the control of the financial capital of various countries of the world, has emerged from amid the fertilizer of a flower garden. Such is my present understanding of contemporary China.

Unlike typical statements by Eisuke, when one now reads his string of essays about Shanghai published in the early 1930s, it becomes quite clear what he was trying to articulate. In these lines, Eisuke throws 5. Shanhai, Chapter 34. Translation, pp. 149–50. 167

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

into relief with an abundance of sensitivity and grandiose expressions the luxurious reality of the bourgeois city and its strong political flavor. For a variety of reasons, Eisuke and his work have recently undergone a reevaluation, but there remain a number of points unexplained amid his extraordinary activities in the 1920s and 1930s. For example, although he visited Shanghai in April 1931, it is still unclear if he made any other visits before or after. Relying solely on a chronology, he seems to have come once or twice between March 1930 and April 1931, but this cannot be substantiated. The mystery of this personal history, though, cast no shadows at all on his “insight” into Shanghai. To that extent what he had to say was magnificent and tinged with genuine vividness. Let us now take a look at several examples taken from his Atarashiki Shanhai no puraiveeto (Private life in the new Shanghai), a collection of many of his reports from the city. It is not sometime in the far distant future that Shanghai will become the New York of the Far East. For example, as a threedimensional line of the skyscrapers along the Bund takes shape and the vast number of cars overflows the gray surface of the ground, . . . looking down from the aluminum windows of the skyscrapers a magnificent capitalist city splits into two strata. I am able to recognize these two scenes below: the compact pavement and the cream of bourgeois science incessantly flowing. Night begins to envelop the city, and heavily made-up women come to every street corner of it. At the scraping sound of the elevator cables, residents of the buildings feel the physiology of these large women who have made the city their haunt. 6

Concrete, steel, glass, and the lure of short skirts.

In addition, a new batch of wild chickens born with the influx of modern customs emerge in profusion at the rooftop garden on the Wing On Department Store as well as the gardens of the Sincere and Sun Sun department stores all on Great Road and entice men fond of novelty with their erotic, Westernized, seductive powers. 6. “Shanhai, erochisshu kunsuto” (Shanghai, erotic art), in Atarashiki Shanhai puraiveeto (Tokyo: Senshinsha, 1932). 168

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

The department stores have already closed, and coming from the side streets into and out of the hotels and gardens, where they purchase admission and elevator tickets, in the elevator going up to the rooftop garden, girls with their hair in permanent waves disheveled, at various places on the rooftop gardens as far as the Tianyun Building there are stages and movie screens and gambling rooms and tea rooms all set up. Uproarious Chinese music and the sound of silver bells ringing with each spin of the gambling apparatus and violent weapons from the fights on stage and Chinese songs like the rustling of clothes of singing geisha and the commotion caused by all the spectators . . . 7

And women covered with cosmetics pulling men by their sleeves.

From “Other” to “Paradise of the Kingly Way” The energy of Shanghai that Eisuke so vividly described, however, was destroyed for a period of time about a year after his visit to the city. The so-called first Shanghai Incident of 1932, caused by the Japanese military, saw a section of the city, the Zhabei region including Hongkou where most Japanese lived, turned into a battlefield. Eisuke touched briefly on the fighting in his writing about Shanghai, but the man who raised the issue front and center and turned it into a piece of writing was Naoki Sanjūgo (1891–1934) in his Nihon no senketsu, Shanhai hen 8 (Japan’s trembling, Shanghai). However, the Shanghai we have been depicting has completely disappeared in this work, replaced only by the emotions and nationalism of haughty Japanese. It was not simply a variety of statements about Shanghai by a Japanese writer that made this Shanghai disappear. In a certain sense, the meaning of Shanghai for Japanese of the past, indeed the meaning of “Shanghai” discursively, disappeared because of the war. During the fighting, the eastern and northern districts of the Concessions— namely, the American Concession—was used as a “military base” by the Japanese army to attack the Chinese army, and thus the former 7. “Shanhai hyaku paasento ryōki” (Shanghai, hunting for the 100 percent bizarre), in Atarashiki Shanhai puraiveeto (Tokyo: Senshinsha, 1932). 8. (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1932). 169

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

“neutrality” of the Concessions in the end lost its independent stance as it began to be pressured by the might of the “great Japanese empire.” For example, an identity shock emerged between “Japanese” overseas and those who had “seceded” from Japan (expatriates) who, like Kishida Ginkō earlier, constituted a fair number among the resident population of the city, as almost all—with a number of exceptions—inclined toward Japan during the war years. One aspect attesting to this change was that after the war began the duties of the Concession police in the eastern and northern districts were largely superseded by the Japanese naval landing party. Once full-scale war erupted between China and Japan from 1937, things deteriorated further. Roughly from November 1937, the Concessions authorities began to clamp down, under pressure from the Japanese military, on all anti-Japanese publications. Ultimately from 1939 a branch office of the Japanese military police was set up in the Concessions, and all anti-Japanese activities of any kind were banned. Without the outbreak of the Pacific War following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Joint Concessions was completed seized by the Japanese military, and in every region in Shanghai, including the French Concession, which had preserved an “independent” appearance to this point, implementation of the “household registration” and the “neighborhood association system” was begun. By this time, the Shanghai we have been discussing had completely disappeared, replaced by the single enclosure of “the paradise of the kingly way.” In these years, Shanghai as a city continued to maintain its brisk activity as before through the investment of capital from the Chinese hinterland away from Japan and the war. Statistics indicate that, in fact, it enjoyed unprecedented prosperity until just before the start of the Pacific War. Although this was of economic significance to Japan and many Japanese, the spiritual sense in which it had functioned until then as an “other” was largely gone. Shanghai as a site that relativized naichi (domestic) Japan, a role it had continuously played for over half a century from the Meiji era, from the time that it became involved in the expanding naichi, was 170

The Modern City and the Shōwa Period

no longer a subject for “romance,” and while it was a place yearned for, it was transformed into a thoroughly realistic site in which to get rich quickly. In contast to modern expatriates from Japan, the great majority of Japanese were followers. In the end their existence in the city turned Shanghai into one of Japan’s many overseas territories. In this connection the number of Japanese in Shanghai during the war is said to have reached as many as 100,000, but it remains highly doubtful the extent to which past relations between the two could be rebuilt. Aside from a few exceptions, “Shanghai” remarkably faded from the conscious world of the Japanese.

171

Epilogue

Japan as Seen from Shanghai

“Longed for Shanghai” The ship sets sail from here. It’s an enjoyable trip over the sea, To Shanghai which I’ve seen in dreams. Courageously we cross the South China Sea. The street-vendor’s flute crying in the evening fog, The flying albatross weeping. A red lamp quivers invitingly. Shanghai! Longed for Shanghai. We’re going to the Mainland, a rose-colored dawn, The white sail of youth ascends, Verdant willow on the Yangzi River. Great Road and Fourth Avenue blossom like flowers at night. A red lamp quivers invitingly. Shanghai! Longed for Shanghai. We sailors earn our living on stormy seas, Singing a little tune as we cross the China Sea under moonlight. The flying fish in the sea, migratory birds, The roaring, stormy sea makes our hearts dance. The dreamlike harbor is close now. A red lamp quivers invitingly. Shanghai! Longed for Shanghai.

172

Epilogue

This piece, entitled “Shanhai kōro” (Sea route to Shanghai), was composed in 1938 by Saijō Yaso (1892–1970), a poet of the Shōwa 1 period (1926–89) and well-known composer of popular songs. In fact, in the Shōwa period, numerous songs, over twenty in all, were composed in Japan with Shanghai as the theme. Examples would include the following: “Shanhai kouta” (Ballad of Shanghai; lyrics by Kadota Ruika and music by Satsuki Sei), a song from the play, Shanhai yawa (Shanghai evening chat) of 1927, starring Kajiwara Kajō, at the Ichiza Theater; “Saraba Shanhai” (Farewell Shanghai; lyrics by Shigure Otowa [1899–1980] and music by Koga Masao [1904–78], 1932), theme song to the movie Shanhai produced by the Nikatsu Corporation; “Shanhai miyage” (Shanghai souvenir; music by Hattori Ryōichi [1907–93], 1938), based on lyrics by Saijō Yaso; “Shina no yoru” (China nights; music by Takeoka Nobuyuki and lyrics by Saijō Yaso, 1938); “Shanhai dayori” (News from Shanghai; music by Mikai Minoru [1901–61] and lyrics by Satō Sōnosuke [1890–1942], 1938); “Shanhai no machikado de” (On a Shanghai street corner; music by Yamada Eiichi [1906–95] and lyrics by Satō Sōnosuke, 1938); “Shanhai kaeri no Riru” (Lil returned to Shanghai; lyrics by Tōjō Jusaburō [1920–2003] and music by Tokuchi Masanobu [1916–98], 2 1951), a major postwar hit. Aside from those decidedly war-related items, what is repeatedly intoned in these songs is, as we see in the song cited above, “Shanghai.” The longing felt for Shanghai is sung of in such lyrics as: “Rira no 3 hanachiru” (The lilacs have all fallen and scattered), “Yume no 4 Shibaro” (Fourth Avenue in my dreams), “Tsuki mo etoranze” (The 1. Lyrics by Saijō Yaso and music by Takeoka Nobuyuki (1907–85), “Shanhai kōro” (1938). 2. Translator’s note: Thanks to those who have posted them on Youtube, these songs can be heard, often in the original recordings or in scenes from movies in which they were performed. 3. Satō Sōnosuke, lyrics, and Yamada Eiichi, music, “Shanhai no machikado de” (1938). 4. From “Yogiri no burūzu” (Night fog blues), words by Shimada Keiya, music by Ōkubo Tokujirō, theme song to the Matsutake movie, Jigoku no kao (Face of hell, 1947). 173

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai 5

moon is a stranger, too), and “Tanoshi uta no machi” (City of happy 6 songs), among others. The dark side of Shanghai that we have thus far seen was neatly swept away, and lovely tales of sadness and joy between men and women were told and retold. Shanghai “invited” them like a “red lamp” swaying. There was, of course, a kind of manipulation going on here to create songs of this sort, but this manipulation also gave expression to the truth about the Japanese “mindset” vis-à-vis Shanghai. The Two “Faces” of the West In the roughly one hundred years from the middle of the nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth, Japanese indeed continued to entertain a sense of longing for Shanghai. What this entailed changed over time, and many were the dreams that were made of it. Thus, through the Meiji Restoration, Japan and the Japanese were largely attracted to the “modern” aspect of Shanghai. After the Meiji Restoration, however, they appear to have been lured by its “antimodern” aspect. This division is ultimately, of course, for convenience sake in clarifying my argument; in fact, a “longing” for or “lure” toward the city existed in both eras. In the confusion brought about by the 7 intersection between the two, many people’s “blood became excited.” While treating the changes that transpired over time, I have used the great transformation borne of the Meiji Restoration in the relationship between Shanghai and Japan and the Japanese who were always trying to locate their new dreams on this soil. To make this process clearer, let me now review the argument thus far. In his historical novel Ryōma ga yuku ([Sakamoto] Ryōma is coming), Shiba Ryōtarō (1923–96) conjectured about the mindset of Sakamoto Ryōma (1836–67) when he had first traveled to Nagasaki: “The clouds of Tosa appeared from Mount Ishizuchi, but the clouds 5. From “Shanhai burūzu” (Shanghai blues), words by Kitamura Yūzō, music by Ōkubo Tokujirō (1939). 6. From “Shanhai yofune” (Shanghai night boat), words by Saijō Yaso, music by Hattori Ryōichi (1941). 7. From “Yogiri no burūzu,” cited above. 174

Epilogue

of Nagasaki came flowing from the distant East China Sea.” The East China Sea in this instance included Shanghai on its other shore, and Sakamoto Ryōma tried to locate the future of Japan there. It is hard to say how true such a statement may be, but the episode as described by Shiba has a highly symbolic meaning. That is, the Shanghai at which Ryōma gazed at the time across the sea embodied a “modernity,” albeit incomplete, from Japan’s distant perspective. With over twenty years of management by the Western Powers, it was as well a semiforced phenomenon centered in the Concessions. To a certain extent, capitalism had already permeated the city, and by hook or by crook a modern urban space was in the process of being forged. As we touched on in the first chapter, from two years earlier Takasugi Shinsaku and numerous other Japanese samurai, all deeply concerned about the same “future,” had already experienced modernity in a variety of forms at the same time that they had come to investigate it in Shanghai. Not only did they “evince surprise at the prosperous spectacle” attained by Western civilization, but they also clearly recognized this within the structure of Concessions Shanghai that was oppressing walled Shanghai. Neither of these two faces of the “West” that emerged so close at hand could be looked on nonchalantly by Japanese warriors who eventually began to focus their gaze on the outside world. By the same token, semi-modern Shanghai continually extended its tentacles to geographically nearby Japan as it intersected with the concerns about it raised by these warriors. In concrete terms, this would mean that, although a great deal of information about the West was transmitted to Japan, the knowledge conveyed in the many Western works translated into Chinese by missionaries not only opened the eyes of Japanese to “Western civilization,” but also offered a perspective on or an image of the nation modeled on the various Western Powers. In this sense, as noted in Chapters 2 and 3, the very existence of Shanghai at the time served as a triggering device for “modernity” in Japan and influenced in no small way its new jumping off as a “state.”

175

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

The Dream of Escaping Japan Now, the role played by Shanghai for Japan began to change rapidly once we enter the Meiji period. Once Japan itself began to champion the cause of “civilization and enlightenment” and to introduce modern institutions directly from the West, Shanghai as a “stopover point” effectively ceased to have meaning. There was, though, a more basic reason for this. For Meiji Japan, which was promoting a cohesive “nation-state” based upon nationalism, semi-colonial Shanghai “modernity,” which utterly lacked a national identity, indeed posed a kind of “threat” and ceased completely to serve as the “front lines” of Western civilization and hence to be an object worthy of respect, as it had been in the past. While Shanghai continued to convey to Japan in the late Edo period all manner of information about the modern nation-state, its significance for Japan changed completely with the formation of the Meiji state. Shanghai now transcended the nationalism of the modern nation in a sense; it belonged to no particular nation—not China, not Japan, and not the nations of the West. It was completely “free” and new terrain, though burdened with this altogether new role. Seen from the more “closed off” Japan where the leadership of the modern state was gradually becoming stronger, it became an object in which romance was invested, a land suitable for the realization of one’s dreams of adventure. Although Shanghai from the 1870s ceased to exert much formal influence on Japan as a state, for many Japanese who dreamed of escaping from Japan this chaotic, modern city was undeniably the closest site of refuge as well as the closest “paradise.” From the Meiji period forward, then, numerous Japanese traveled to Shanghai, but aside from a small group sent publicly to advance onto the Mainland, what most visitors sought on this soil was a form of modernity unlike that of their homeland. Indeed, it essentially functioned as an instrument to relativize the far more uniform Japan.

176

Epilogue

From Adventure to Modernity In this way, then, Japanese from the Meiji era forward, who were oriented toward denying Japanese-style modernity or trying to escape from it, were attracted to the “anti-modernity” or “anti–nation-state” that Shanghai constituted. Yet, as a general classification, Shanghai was used in each era to fulfill differences in romance, taste, and modernity. In various settings, these three items, of course, overlapped, and one cannot necessarily delineate sharply among them. The dreams that Japanese located in this place, though, did change subtly as Shanghai developed in stages as a city. In the Meiji period, for example, as sites at which the same “civilization and enlightenment” was evolving, a variety of ties between Shanghai and Japan developed. Shanghai, though, was increasingly becoming the object from which Japanese might set out on an adventure on the Mainland. As we noted in Chapter 4, in almost parallel fashion both Japan and Shanghai were pursuing Western modernity. The directions in which the two advanced, however, were altogether different: the former firmly a nation-state, and the latter with the vague identity of a city with mixed Chinese and foreign residence. Thus, many Meiji Japanese who sought escape held fast to numerous dreams that they could never realize at home and pursued them in the new terrain of the Chinese Mainland, in particular the international city of Shanghai. According to statistics compiled by the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai, there were 4,973 Japanese living in the city as of February 1906 (Meiji 39)—by no means a high number. Looking at their professions, though, from employees of the great banking houses to courtesans in the teahouses, many different sorts of people had taken up residence in the city. Many of them—as suggested by the case of Kishida Ginkō—had come to this “free” terrain to make a name for themselves. Their success stories served to beckon newer adventurers to make the trip. In the Taishō era, in addition to these groups of adventurers, a new group of visitors appeared who sought the enjoyment of urban life in 177

D emon C ap i t al S hang hai

chaotic Shanghai. Behind all this, when the modern city of Shanghai, which came into existence in the latter half of the nineteenth century, entered this era, an increasingly thriving environment unfolded with the investment of domestic and foreign capital and increased population. And, the preeminent pleasure quarters of the entire world emerged there. In addition, roughly from the latter half of the Meiji period, with the development of the new institution of tourism in both China and Japan came a brief era of comfortable travel between the two. The establishment of tourism made travel possible not for one’s livelihood as in the past, but for the enjoyment of travel itself. It also made Shanghai that much “closer” for Japanese writers and other intellectuals. In this connection, then, in the Taishō era various instances of “decadence” in Shanghai, as we saw in Chapter 5, suddenly appeared. While the “adventurers” and “decadents” ceaselessly made their way to Shanghai, in the Shōwa era we find Japanese fascinated by the “modern” space that now suddenly emerged there, trying to turn this new imaginative energy developing for them in Shanghai into a source of nutrients for themselves. A “modern” space in Japan—first and foremost in Tokyo— flourished at about the same time. Shanghai, however, as we have noted several times, possessed a certain radicalness, a certain garishness, as well as a dark side, to its modernity due to its “Creole” nature and to the mass and bustling labor movement that had developed so rapidly there. One found there a rare kind of “modernity,” and one could bring this back to Japan as a source of “nourishment,” as was the case for a number of Japanese writers, such as Yokomitsu Riichi, whom we examined in Chapter 6. Shanghai as “Other” Thus, in the century from the 1840s through the 1930s, Shanghai played many different roles for Japan and the Japanese. Although these roles were complex and cannot easily be summarized, in a word one might say that it served as an immense, external “other,” continually relativizing Japan as a state and Japanese as individuals. Because of this 178

Epilogue

immense “other” just across the sea, Japan greeted “modernity” earlier, and individual Japanese who crossed the sea could experience a richer way of life. Needless to say, there may have been many other spaces that served as “others” over the course of this century for Japan. Yet, seen from the length of the period under discussion and from the scale of those who made the voyage, Shanghai holds a surpassing place. Although it may be a stretch, the clarity of the relationship between Shanghai and Japan constitutes an important key toward understanding modern Japan. Thus, tracing the Shanghai experiences of individuals and locating the changes in the mindset of modern Japanese are utterly essential tasks. For a long period now Shanghai has been described by many people, but for all the above reasons the depictions continue. To be sure, many more stories must be told.

179

Index (Note: Bold page numbers = illustration; bolded italic page numbers = chart)

A

battlefield trips, 152 battleships, 59 Bible, 68–70 Big Four, 16, 162 books, 84 Chinese importation of, 56 Chinese-language, 45–46 Chinese translations of, 76 Dutch, 42–44 about geography, 49 about history, 63 by missionaries, 62–65 titles of, 82–83 Western, 76, 79–91 book stalls, 36 boundaries, 12 Bridgman, Elijah, 71, 89 Britain books about, 63 and China, 91–93 industry in, 99 and Japanese students, 23, 25 military of, 39–40 British and Foreign Bible Society, 70 British Concession, 11, 15. see also Concessions British Consulate, 118 British Legation, 34

administration of Concessions, 12–15 of Shanghai, 6, 17 Akutagawa Prize, 4 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 149–51, 154, 164 Alcock, Rutherford, 12, 53, 114 Aleni, Giulio (Ai Rulüe), 45 American Bible Society, 70 American Concession, 11, 15, 169–70 American Presbyterian Mission Press, 28, 29, 76, 129 amusement. see entertainment Anglo-Chinese School, 29 Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty, 107, 109 Ansei Treaty, 77 Arai Hakuseki, 45–46 army. see military Arrow War, 75 Assemblage of Many Flowers, 124 Astor House Hotel, 27 astronomy, 62, 86–89

B Bailemen wuting, 162 Balfour, George, 11, 113 banks, 144, 161 181

Index Broadway Mansions, 161–62 brothels. see prostitution Buchanan, James, 90 Buddhism, 80–81, 88–89 bugyō, 32 Bund, 3, 15–16, 117–19, 161–62 Bunkyū newspapers, 85–86 bunmei kaika movement, 19 businesses, 36, 129–31, 162, 168–69. see also commerce; trade

C capitalism, 6–7, 18, 96, 131, 165–68, 175 castaways, 103–106 Catholic church, 29 missionaries, 48 chaos, 3, 17 Chen Fengheng, 53 Cheng Fangwu, 156 Chen Guangfu, 144 Chen Lunjiong, 52–53 Chen Ruqin, 36 China experts, 151 China Travel Service, 144–45 Chinese army, 169 reports, 40, 54 tourism, 143–45 Chinese-language translations, 39 Chinese-Western relations, 37 Chōsen Manshū Shina annai, 145 Chōshū domain, 23, 33 Christian books, 46 missionaries (see missionaries) values, 93–94

civil service examination system, 133 coastal defense, 51 colony Shanghai as, 150, 164 commerce, 9–11, 118, 129–31, 162 Compagnie Internationale des WagonsLits, 144 Concessions, 6–7, 175 administration of, 12–15 American, 11, 15, 169–70 autonomy of, 116 British, 11, 15 businesses in, 36 and capitalism, 131 courts in, 115–16 creation of, 11–12, 113 description of, 134–35 and entertainment establishments, 122, 127 expansion of, 114 French, 11, 14–17 government of, 114–15 and Japan, 18–19 Japanese, 17 and military, 169–70 and prostitution, 125–26 and travel agencies, 144 copper, 55, 56 cotton spinning, 9–10 courtesan houses, 16 courtesans, 139, 151 courts, 115–16 Creation Society, 156 Crimean War, 107 Cultural Revolution, 1–2 customs offices, 10, 55

182

Index

D Dabei dianbao gongsi, 121 Dah Sun, 162 Da Yingguo zhi, 89 Da-Ying zilaihuo fang, 121 decadence, 155–59 delegations, 32–38 Dent & Co., 35, 109 department stores, 162, 168–69 Diary along the Wusong, 134 Dili quanzhi, 84 diplomatic travel, 22–25 dog racing, 17 Dokurohai, 157 domainal schools, 84 Dutch learning, 42–47, 50, 52, 84, 88–89 reports, 39–42 Dutch East India Company, 43 Dutch Factory, 43

E East Asian common culture association, 130 information network, 39–60 Edo era books in, 42–44, 82–83 Shanghai in, 18 trade during, 55 travel in, 23 Edo shogunate, 22 Embassies, 24–25 England, 63. see also Britain; London Enpon ginzajaku, 158 entertainment establishments, 16–17, 122–28 eshang, 55

Europe, 141 expatriates, 170, 171 Express, 144

F fashion, 162 fiction, 153, 165 finance, 117, 167 fire brigade, 121 foreign policy, 50 residential area, 11 Foreign Rate-Payers Association, 13–14, 115 Foreign Settlement, 13–15. see also Concessions France, 25 French military, 35 missionaries, 29 French Concession, 11, 14–17 French Consulate, 118 Fuka shizimu, 160 Fukuzawa Yukichi, 98 fūsetsugaki, 39–42 Fuzhou Road, 16

G Ganges, 33 Garden Bridge, 27 gas company, 121 geography books about, 44, 45, 49, 62 and Chinese-language periodicals, 86–88 learning about, 89 of Shanghai, 6, 12–13, 15–17, 117–18

183

Index Ge Yuanxu, 134 Glover, Thomas, 103–104, 109–111 Glover and Co., 110 Godai Tomoatsu, 33–35 Gongbu shuxinguan, 121 Gong Mujiu, 11, 113 government of Concessions, 114 democratic, 90–91 Guomindang, 162 Great Northern Telegraph Company, 121 Great World, 16–17 Guangzhou, 10, 57 Guan Sifu, 71 Guomindang government, 162 Guo Moruo, 156 Guo Songtao, 72–73, 77, 87 Gützlaff, Karl, 105–106

H Haiguo tuzhi, 48–53, 57, 89 Haiguo wenjian lu, 53 Hakodate Magistrate, 33 Hamada Hikozō, 130 Hamamatsu domain, 33 Hayashi Fumiko, 142 Heco, Joseph, 130 heliocentric theory, 87 Hepburn, James C., 53, 79 Higuchi Ryūon, 80, 88–89 history books about, 63 of military, 51 of Shanghai, 6–20 Holland, 25 Hong Kong, 29

Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, 161 Hongkou neighborhood, 17 Hongmaofan Yingjili kaolüe, 53 hotels, 27, 143 Hu, 8 huafang, 139 Huahua Shengjing shufang, 76 Huangpu Treaty, 47 Huazhonghui, 124 humanitarianism, 94–95 Hu-Ning Railway, 143 Huozhengju, 121

I Ikeda Nagaoki, 22, 29 Imataka Keitarō, 165 importation of books, 42–44 weapons, 111 industrialization, 163 Industrial Revolution, 96, 98 Indyk, Hendrik, 43 information control of, 85 network, 39–60 Inoue Kaoru, 30–32, 31 Inoue Kōbai, 151–54 Inspectorate of Books, 46 Institute for Sino-Japanese trade, 130 Institute of Historical Compilation, 133 International Settlement, 14, 15, 17. see also Concessions interpreters, 106, 107 Ishii Hakutei, 152 Itō Hirobumi, 30, 31, 132

184

Index

J Japan and astronomy, 88–89 and London Missionary Society Press, 75 military of, 128, 131–32, 169, 170 missionaries in, 79 opening of, 22 and public utilities, 121 and Shanghai, 8, 85 and tourism, 140–45 and Western books, 76 Japanese Concession, 17 Japanese Travel Culture Association, 141 Japan National Railways, 140 Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB), 140 Japan Travel Club, 142–43 Jardine, Matheson and Co., 33, 109– 110, 118 Jardine, William, 109 Jesuit missionaries, 45–47 Jialuohua yanghang, 110 Jiang Dunfu, 71 Jiangnan, 6, 150 Jiangnan Arsenal, 117 Jing-Feng Railway, 143 Jing-Han (Beijing-Wuhan) Railway, 153 Jinjutsumaru, 33 Jin ping mei, 153 Jin-Pu Railway, 143 Jiu wei gui, 153 jōi, 30 journals, 77–78, 85, 95

K Kabushiki gaisha Nihon ryokō, 143 Kaiseijo, 85

Kaneko Mitsuharu, 17–18, 157–60 Kangxi, 47 Kankō kiyū, 133 Kanpan chūgai shinpō, 86 Kanpan chūgai zasshi, 86 Kanpan Honkon shinbun, 86 Kanpan rokugō sōdan, 86 Kanrinmaru, 91 Kenjunmaru, 33 kidnapping, 5 Kihinkai, 140, 144 Kinoshita Mokutarō, 152 Kishida Ginkō, 129–30, 134, 136, 170 Kishida Ryūsei, 130 Kō-A kai, 132 Koide Hidemi, 22 Kokutetsu, 140 Korean Railways, 140 kōsen (kuchibune) 11, 56 Koxinga, 10 Kunikida Doppo, 158 Kunikida Torao, 158

L labor movement, 163 Land Regulations, 11–14, 113 Legge, James, 28, 29, 30 Lianbang zhilüe, 89 Licha fandian, 27 Liggins, J., 79 Li Hongzhang, 117, 133 Li Madou, 45–46, 87 Lin Yuehan, 79 Li Renshu, 72 Li Shanlan, 71, 72 Liuhe congtan, 36, 85, 89, 90 Lockhart, William, 61 185

Index Lofty Palace, 123–24 London, 98–99 London Missionary Society, 48, 61–75 London Missionary Society Press, 28, 29, 61, 65–68 books by, 82–83 impact of, 73 and industrialization, 96 and non-religious books, 62 and Wang Tao, 70–72 and Western learning, 75 Longhua Pagoda, 8 Longhua Temple, 8 Luo Sen, 77–78 Luo Weilin, 61 Lu Xun, 153–54

M Macao, 105 magazines, 36, 144–45 Mai Dusi, 61 Maijiaquan, 62, 65 Malacca, 48 masses, 165–67 mathematics, 63–64 Matheson, James Mato, 154–56 May Thirtieth (1925) Incident, 163, 165 Medhurst, Walter, 28, 61, 62, 69 medicine, 64 Mei-Hua shuguan, 28–29, 76, 129 Meiji era, 112 and nationalism, 176 and Shanghai, 18–20, 128–31 Meiji Restoration, 22, 174 merchant vessels, 59 Mianyunge, 126

military British, 39–40 Chinese, 169 chronicle, 41–42 history, 51–52 Japanese, 35, 128, 131–32, 169, 170 samurai, 37 in Shanghai, 115 texts, 44 Milne, William, 68 Ming dynasty, 9, 124 missionaries. see also London Missionary Society ban on, 47 books by, 45, 62–65 Catholic, 48 and Chinese language, 66 freedom of, 46–47 French, 29 in Japan, 79 and learning, 101–103 motives of, 100 Protestant, 48, 61 and publications, 28, 39 translations by, 82–83 writing by, 52 Mixed Court, 14 modernity, 2–3, 177 modernization, 6, 161 Mohai shuguan. see London Missionary Society Press monopoly policy, 54 Morrison, 105 Morrison, Robert, 62, 68 movies, 173 Muirhead, William, 35, 62, 63, 89 municipal government, 114 186

Index Muramatsu Shōfū, 154–57 music, 173 music hall, 124 Mu Weilian, 35, 62, 63, 89

Number One Pavilion of the Youlangyuan, 123–25 NYK Lines, 137–38, 140

N

Ōba Osamu, 56 Odagiri Masunosuke, 138 Office of Barbarian Books, 85 Office of Western Books, 85 Oka Senjin, 131–33, 136 okubune, 56 Ono Tomogorō, 22 opium criticism of, 133 dens, 16, 122–28 Japanese users of, 153 legalizing of, 126 and teahouses, 124 Opium War, 11, 39–42, 47, 126. Oranda fūsetsugaki, 40 Ōsaka mainichi shinbun, 149 Ouyang Yuqian, 152 Ozaki Yukio, 133–36, 139

Nagai Kafū, 137, 139 Nagai Kyūichirō (Kagen), 137–39 Nagasaki, 43, 59, 78 Nagasaki Magistrate, 32 Nagura Inato (Anato), 33, 34 Nakamuda Kuranosuke, 33, 35 nakaokubune, 56 Nan Huiren, 45 Nanjing Road, 16, 119, 119–20, 162 Nanjing vessels, 11, 56 Naoki Sanjūgo, 169 nationalism, 7, 19–20, 38, 169, 176 nation-state, 38n13, 176 news of Opium War, 39–42 overseas, 40–42 New Sensualists, 164–65 New Shōtoku Laws, 55 newspapers, 85 Chinese, 36 Japanese, 130, 133–34, 149, 152 Shanghai, 152 nicknames, 5 Nightingale, Florence, 94–95 Nihon no senketsu, Shanhai hen, 169 Nihon ryokō bunka kyōkai, 141 Nihon ryokōkai, 142–43 Ningbo, 10 Ningbo vessels, 56 Nippon Otokichi, 35, 103–109 Nis-Shin bōeki kenkyūjo, 130

O

P Pacific Mail Steamship Co., 58 Paramount Ballroom, 162 Park Lane, 119–20 parliamentary system, 92–93 Pavilion of Sleepy Clouds, 126–27 Pavilion of Young Lotuses, 124 Peace Hotel, 161 Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., 58 periodicals. see also journals; newspapers Chinese-language, 86–103 contents of, 100–103 Perry, Matthew C., 50, 59, 77 187

Index photography, 27 physics, 63–64 piao, 153 Pierce, Franklin, 90–91 pirates, 9 plays, 173 pleasure boats, 139, 148, 150 quarter, 155 poetry, 138, 159, 172 population in the 1920s, 163 of Japanese in Shanghai, 177 ports, 10–11, 47–48, 55–57 postal service, 121 press, 65–68 printing, 28, 65–68. see also American Presbyterian Mission Press; London Missionary Society Press prostitution, 122–28, 153, 155, 168–69 Provisional Rules for the Mixed Court, 14, 115 Public Garden, 118 Public Security Bureau, 13 publishers, 82–83 Pujiang fandian, 27 Putyatin, Yevfimy Vasilyevich, 107

Q qianjie ling, 54 Qing dynasty, 54, 57, 124–25 Qinglian’ge, 124, 155 qipao, 162–63

R racecourse, 118–20, 120 railways, 140–43 Red Cross, 95

refugees, 13, 114–15 religious prohibition, 47 Renji yiguan, 61 residential areas, 11, 113 Revised Land Regulations, 12, 114 Ricci, Matteo, 45, 46, 87 Rikamatsu, 109 Rise Asia Society, 132 Rokumon, 131 rōnin, 72 Rouse Asia Society, 132 routes, 143–45 Russell Steam Navigation Company, 110–111 Russia, 22, 25, 140 Russo-Japanese War, 142

S Sahara Tokusuke, 152 Saijō Yaso, 173 Sakamoto Ryōma, 174–75 Sake, ahen, maajan, 153 Sakuma Zōzan, 51–52 Sakura domain, 33 samurai consciousness of, 37 and Shanghai, 18–19, 21–38 travel of, 32–38 sand ships, 10–11 Sanki, 165 Sassoon House, 161 Satō Haruo, 156, 157 Satsuma domain, 23, 34, 36, 78 Second London Exhibition of 1862, 96–98 Second Opium War, 75, 91–93, 126 Second Paris Exposition, 23 semi-colony, 150

188

Index Senzaimaru, 32, 34–38 Services Maritimes des Messageries Impériales, 58 sexual culture, 153. see also prostitution shachuan, 10–11 Shanghai in 1860s, 26 administration of, 6, 17 author’s connection to, 1–4 and capitalism, 6–7 Chinese section of, 116 definition of, 5 description of, 149–50 in Edo era, 18–20 geography of, 12–13, 117–18 history of, 6 information network, 103 infrastructure of, 117 Japanese view of, 18, 128–31 in Meiji era, 18–20 and Meiji Japan, 112 and modernity, 2–3, 117 newspaper of, 36 nicknames for, 5 in nineteenth century, 113, 127–28 as “other,” 178–79 poets in, 138 as port, 59 Racecourse, 118–20 scenery of, 127–28 and Senzaimaru delegation, 37 walled, 134–37 and the West, 2 and westernization, 6–7 and western knowledge, 18–19 Shanghai Circuit, 6–7 Shanghai Commercial and Savings

Bank, 144 Shanghai daxia, 162 Shanghai Defense Command, 8–9 Shanghai dianguang gongsi, 121 Shanghai Electric Company, 121 Shanghai Gas Co. Ltd., 121 Shanghai grotesque, 160 Shanghai Incident, 14, 169 Shanghai Municipal Council, 6–7, 12, 114–15 Shanghai Municipal Government, 161 Shanghai Racecourse, 120 Shanghai shangye zhuxu yinhang, 144 Shanghai Volunteer Corps, 115 Shanghai Water Co., Ltd, 121 Shanghai xinbao, 36 Shanghai zilaishui gongsi, 121 Shanhai, 164–67 Shanhai kenbunroku, 146, 157 Shanhai kōro, 173 Shengwu ji, 51 Shiba Ryōtarō, 174 Shibata delegation, 28 Shibata Takenaka, 22, 28n3 Shibusawa Eiichi, 28–29 Shina fūzoku, 152 Shina mandan, 157 Shina ni hitaru hito, 153 Shin-A sha, 132 Shinatsū, 151 Shina yūki, 154 Shinbunshi, 130 Shinmi Masaoki, 22 Shin Shina hōmon ki, 157 shipping, 21, 58, 117, 130 ships, 10–11, 54, 59, 143 shogunate, 32, 33 189

Index Shogun Yoshinobu, 23 Shomotsu aratameyaku, 46 Shōtoku Taishi, 45 Shōwa period, 173, 178 Shūshikan, 133 Si malu (Fourth Avenue), 155 Sincere, 162 Singapore, 48 Sinocentrism, 76 Sino-French War, 133 skycrapers, 162, 168 Small Swords, 12, 113–14 SMC, 6–7, 12, 114–15 SMR, 140 Sone Toshitora, 131–32 Song dynasty, 8 songs, 173–74 Southeast Asia, 58 South Manchurian Railway, 140 steam engine, 74, 96 Stirling, James, 59, 107, 109 stores, 120 strikes, 163 students, 23, 24–25, 31 Sugita Genpaku, 43, 44 Sugiura Yuzuru, 26 Sun Sun, 162

T Taiping Rebellion, 13, 35, 41, 57, 115, 125 Taishō era, 152, 177–78 Takahashi Sakunosuke, 33 Takahashi Yuichi, 33 Takasugi Shinsaku, 32–35, 37–38, 175 Takeuchi Yasunori, 22, 29, 98 Tanaba Taichi, 30, 31

Tani Jōji, 5, 142 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, 140, 146–49, 157, 160 taxes, 90 teahouses, 16, 122–28 in Concessions, 123–24 description of, 155 history of, 123 technology, 97, 99 telephone service, 121 textbooks, 84 Thomas Cook, 144 Tian’antang, 61 Tian Han, 156 Tiedao woche gongsi, 144 Tō-A dōbunkai, 130 Tō fūsetsugaki, 40, 54 Togashi Mokue, 81 Tokugawa Akitake, 23, 29 Tokugawa Iemitsu, 43 Tokugawa Ietsuna, 43 Tokugawa Yoshimune, 43, 46, 47 Tokyo, 137 Tongjilong, 144 Tōsen, 54 tourism, 140–45, 161, 178 Toyo Kisen K.K., 140 trade, 9–11, 36, 54–57, 78, 109–111 trains, 140–43 Translation Committee, 69, 70 translations of Bible, 68–70 of Western texts, 39 translators, 82–83 transportation, 117 Trans-Siberian Railway, 142 travel, 76–77, 141–46 190

Index travelogues, 149–50 Treaty of Kanagawa, 78 Treaty of Nanjing, 11, 58, 113 Tsujihara Noboru, 4

U Union Steam Navigation Company, 110–111 United States, 63, 90–91. see also American Concession U.S.-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 22 utilities, 121

V Verbiest, Ferdinand, 45

W waitan, 3, 15–16, 117–19 wakō, 9 walled Shanghai, 9, 134–37 Wang Tao, 66–67, 70–75, 133 Wang Wentai, 53 Wangxia Treaty, 47 war, 51, 133, 142, 170. see also Opium War; Second Opium War Washizu Kidō, 138 waterways, 7, 15, 147, 150–52, 160 Way, Richard Quarteman, 62–63 weapons, 111 Wei Sanwei, 77 Wei Yuan, 48–53, 89 Welcome Society, 140 West delegations to, 22, 32–38 Western astronomy, 87–89 books, 79–91 culture, 95

customs, 74–75 knowledge, 18 learning, 75, 84 texts, 39 Westerners and Chinese, 37 westernization, 6, 117 Williams, S. Wells, 77, 106 Wing On, 162 wokou, 9 workers, 163 Wu Jianzhang, 74 Wuson nikki, 134 Wylie, Alexander, 63–66

X xenophobia, 30 Xia’er guanzhen, 77–78 xiafang, 2 Xiamen, 10 Xijia Duchang (No. 181), 17 xiucai, 70–72 Xu Jiyu, 53 Xu Youren, 74

Y yamen, 17 Yanagawa Shunsan, 81 Yang (foreign, Western), 2 yangwu yundong, 117 Yangzi Customs Office, 10 Yihe yanghang, 33, 109–110, 118 Yi Lizhe, 62–63 Yinghuan zhi lüe, 53 Ying-Hua shuguan, 29 Yingjili jilüe, 53 Yingjili xiaoji, 53 Yipinxiang teahouse, 123 191

Index Yokohama, 58 Yokohama Ironworks, 22 Yokomitsu Riichi, 17, 158, 164–67 Yongzheng, 47 Yoshida Shōin, 50, 52 Yoshimune, 43, 46–47 Yoshinobu, 23 Yoshiyuki Eisuke, 18, 167–69 Yōsho shirabesho, 85 Yūbin hōchi shinbun, 133 Yu Dafu, 156 Yu Gumin, 152 Yuntong, 144

Z Zeng Guofan, 72 Zhang Binglin, 150 Zhang Chunfan, 152, 153 Zhang Fuxi, 71 Zhang Sigui, 74 zhanhai, 10 zhanhai ling, 55 Zhapu, 55, 57 Zheng Chenggong, 10 Zheng Xiaoxu, 150 Zhihuan qimeng, 84 Zhu Qisui, 157 Zilin yanghang, 76 Zokkai eiri eikan shiryaku, 54

192

About the Author Liu Jianhui (b. 1961) was trained in Japanese and comparative literature at Liaoning and Kōbe Universities. He has taught at Beijing University and now is an associate professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Literature (Nichibunken) in Kyoto.

About the Translator Joshua A. Fogel is Canada Research Chair and Professor, York University. Trained at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, he specializes in the history of relations between China and Japan and, more generally, the history of relations among the major states of East Asia. He has taught at Harvard and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

193

Demon Capital Shanghai The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals

Liu Jianhui “Shanghai’s eventful treaty-port era has been the subject of so many popular and scholarly publications that it is hard to imagine coming across a new book that has a genuinely fresh approach to the place. What a wonderful surprise, then, to read an advance copy of Demon Capital, which begins with Liu Jianhui reminiscing about the fascination the storied city held for him during his north China boyhood and then moves into a insightful exploration of the fantasies the metropolis inspired among Japanese intellectuals decades before that. I have only one complaint about this publication, which is now the latest in a long line of graceful translations from Japanese into English by Joshua Fogel: that I didn’t have it at hand to draw from and quote when I was writing my own book about Shanghai!”



­ Jeffrey Wasserstrom, — University of California, Irvine

Even before the Japanese first ventured abroad in the modern era, they came to understand that Shanghai was the closest and easiest way to learn about the wider world. They sent a series of missions abroad, most to Europe and several to Shanghai specifically. Virtually all of the European voyages called at Shanghai coming and going. Liu Jianhui shows what the Japanese saw in Shanghai and how they interacted with the Chinese. Liu also explains how Shanghai went from being a place onto which Japanese projected their hopes to a place deemed the center of modernity and ultimately to the height of decadence (not necessarily a bad thing for many of them). It came to be dubbed the “demon capital,” and countless Japanese authors (from Meiji through WW II) set their fiction in it. Moviemakers, songwriters, and poets also saw fit to use Shanghai as a core theme. In sum, the modern development of Japan is effectively unthinkable without the intermediary role played by Shanghai. This is a whole new approach to this topic.

Cover and Book Design: Lucian Burg, LuDesign Studios ISBN-978-0-9832991-0-3

I S B N 978-0-9832991-0-3

MerwinAsia

www.merwinasia.com 9

780983 299103

An Independent Publisher of Distinctive Books on East Asia