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Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun,
by Rhoda Blumberg, 1985
Four ships are approaching a foreign coast. They are not expected and not welcome. Especially since two of them appear to be breathing fire. More Europeans to bother the King of the Jolliginki? No, this is Commodore Perry of the U.S. Navy, coming to bother the Japanese. President Millard Fillmore has sent him to open Japan, which has been closed to foreign visitors since the year 1636. It is now 1853.
Hundreds of American whaling ships, like Melville's Pequod, are cruising the Pacific, and with some frequency one or another of them gets caught in a typhoon and wrecked on the coast of Japan. Surviving crew members wind up in Japanese jails. The first aim of Perry's mission is to put a stop to that. Second: Promote trade. Third: Get in ahead of the British, French, and Russians, all of whom are itching to open closed doors.
There are plenty of books about Perry in Japan, including Perry's own Narrative of the Expedition, various journals kept by his officers and men, and many accounts by 20th century historians. But Rhoda Blumberg has done something special, and has produced a really fine book for older children. For those whose taste runs to the exotic, an irresistible book. And it's all true.
Two things distinguish Ms. Blumberg's book from the many others. One is that she knows and tells both sides: how the Japanese looked to the Americans, but also how the Americans looked to the Japanese. This she does both in her text and in the illustrations, of which there are about 60.
In the text, for example, you get to sample the reports made to the shogun's government by a man named Manjiro, who knows more about Americans than anyone else in Japan. Reason: His fishing boat was wrecked in a typhoon when he was 14, and he was rescued by a homeward bound American whaler. He lived for 10 years in Fairhaven, Mass., and then in California, before he slipped back into Japan.
Manjiro has all sorts of things to tell the government, many of them not in the least related to Perry's ships or mission. For example, in America, Manjiro reports, "it is customary to read books in the toilet." It is also customary to have a dinky little wedding, followed by that extraordinary thing, a honeymoon: "For their wedding ceremony, the Americans merely make a proclamation to the gods, and become married, after which they usually go on a sightseeing trip to the mountains. They are lewd by nature, but otherwise well-behaved."
The illustrations are more interesting yet. About one-third of them are done by Americans, mostly by the two official artists who accompanied the expedition. Some are just stunning, like a painting of the augmented squadron that Perry brought for his second visit in 1854. Nine warships under full sail, a sight of heartrending beauty.
But it's the two-thirds by Japanese artists that give one to think. Many are sketches of Americans: of Perry himself, of Captain Joel Abbott of the U.S.S. Macedonian, of common sailors on shore leave. Without exception, we have long sharp noses and too much hair. We look fierce, barbaric. One reason this book is for big children and not small ones is that the Japanese portrait of Commodore Perry on page 23 could easily give a person nightmares. What might give a person a fit of laughter, on the other hand, is the illustrated chart that instructs Japanese men how to dress like Westerners. The Japanese artist didn't intend it as a joke; he is quite serious with his cravats and top hats and heraldically crossed black umbrellas.
But to think that our ancestors deliberately chose to dress like that, and that the silly 19th-century Japanese wanted to copy them, how could it fail to tickle a jeans-clad 12-year-old? Ms. Blumberg's second great strength is the richness of context she provides. It's remarkable. I have read a fair amount of Japanese history, and have spent time in Japan besides. I thought I knew most things about Perry's expedition and its context. I was wrong. To take just one example, the traffic across the Pacific in that remote era was far greater than I had realized. Consider the spring of 1854. While Perry and the nine ships he had brought for the second visit were still anchored in the northern port of Hakodate, what should come sailing in but one of those American whalers? The Eliza Mason, 21 months out of New Bedford. No fear of jail now, with the great guns of the Powhatan and the Macedonian trained on the port.
The whaling captain and his wife and young son are on shore in a flash. The wife, Abigail Jernegan, is the first Western woman to set foot in Japan in about 240 years. She happily spends the night on shore, and when she goes back to the Eliza Mason the next day, she is soon followed by a messenger carrying a beautifully wrapped package. Inside is something she forgot on shore: an ordinary pin.
Fifteen days after the squadron left, the first tourist ship arrived. It was actually a private yacht, the Lady Pierce, owned by a Connecticut millionaire named Silas Burrows. He had no idea that the Japanese had just signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, thus reopening the country to visitors. He had made his own arrangements for slipping through the closed door: He had brought another Japanese castaway along to be his excuse for stopping. A man of imagination, he had also had some special gold coins minted in San Francisco, to give as presents. He gave them out, all right, but very soon he got them back. Like official American coinage then and now, his special coins had the word "liberty" stamped on them. Liberty was not a thing the shogunal government altogether approved of. The coins were collected from the recipients and returned to Mr. Burrows.
American children are said to be notoriously weak in history and geography. Books like this seem to me to be an ideal strengthener. There is no dumbing down. There is just such richness of detail that the child is apt to forget all about TV, and go right on reading.
Oh, one last thing. Who said he would get kissed if only they'd sign the treaty? That was Commodore Perry, age 59. He has just been entertaining five Japanese commissioners and their retinues aboard the Powhatan. He has served a great deal of liquor. One of the commissioners is a bit drunk. As he leaves, "He hugged the Commodore so hard that Perry's new epaulettes were crushed. Perry did not mind the hug. ‘Oh,' he said to his officers, ‘if they will only sign the Treaty, he may kiss me.'"
Didn't know dignified commodores could joke like that, did you?
