Japan-Nantucket (Rashomon): Episode 2 - A Hard Nut to Crack

After the collapse of whaling and the discovery of gold in California, Nantucket mariners fled the island for their next opportunity. Many would eventually end up in Japan. In this episode, we find out what was going on in Japan prior to the arrival of islanders.

This is a production of the Nantucket Atheneum. It is hosted and edited by Janet Forest. It was researched, fact checked and co-hosted by Reference Library Associate Jim Borzilleri. Special thanks to the Berkshire Athenaeum for the use of their whisper booth and Shire Video for production support.

SHOW NOTES
If something piqued your interest and it isn’t in the Show Notes, please email info@nantucketatheneum.org and include “Podcast Question” in the subject header.

• Key texts consulted for this episode include:
  • “A modern history of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present (3rd ed.)” by A. Andrew Gordon. (2014, Oxford University Press.) 
  • Japan: The Story of A Nation (4th ed.), by E. O. Reischauer. . (1989, McGraw-Hill) . [somewhat dated]

Both are available from the Nantucket Atheneum via the Commonwealth Catalog 

• A more visual resource is the “MIT Visualizing Cultures” website . It includes several modules on Tokugawa and Meiji Japan, utilizing a mix of graphic and text display.
  
  
• Those with a basic understanding of the Meiji Era should enjoy the “Meiji at 150 Podcast” series created at the University of British Columbia in 2017-2018
  
  
• If you watched the recent adaptation of James Clavel’s “Shogun”: 
  • The consolidation of power under the Shogunate and the closing off of Japan to outsiders occurred in the early 1600’s, bringing an end to the centuries of  war and chaos depicted in most Samurai movies.
  • The events discussed in this podcast begin roughly 250 years after “Shogun”, (i.e. starting around 1850). For perspective, that’s about as far as we are today from the Boston Tea Party.
• Most Westerners perceived Japan as having three significant hierarchical social classes: Nobility, Samurai, and “Commoners”. Aside from the imposition of Western concepts, what was sometimes overlooked was that “Commoners” had its own hierarchy.
  • “Peasants” were the most esteemed, followed by skilled artisans. Merchants, considered non-productive, were placed near the bottom.
  • Social hierarchy didn’t always reflect economic reality. Many peasants (i.e. farmers), in both the West and Japan could be quite prosperous and influential in their community.
  • Ironically, the stability imposed by the Shogunate not only facilitated peasant wealth, it enabled the rise of densely populated cities. Merchant and artisan “townsmen”, low in the social order, also ascended to the top of the economic order.
  • This new wealth was increasingly detached from the traditional agricultural economy and the taxation that supported the Noble and Samurai classes. The resulting social tensions came to a head when Perry’s ships visited Edo (now Tokyo) in 1853).
• The concept of the “Great Divergence” remains controversial. What is agreed is that many 19th Century Westerners perceived Japan as “backward” in at least their technology, and that remarkable strides were made (as we shall see in later episodes), to close the gap in just a few decades.

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