Jinrikisha Days in Japan

Jinrikisha Days in Japan

Jinrikisha Days in Japan presents Japan as a succession of vivid, theatrical-looking scenes observed by a foreign traveler, beginning with the approach by sea to Yokohama and extending through Yokohama, Tokio, nearby sacred and pleasure resorts, and Nikko. The narrator repeatedly contrasts Japanese cleanliness, courtesy, artistic sensibility, landscape gardening, festivals, and domestic order with conditions elsewhere in Asia and with what she considers Western coarseness or ugliness. Yokohama first appears through its bay, fishing boats, terraced hills, lights, sampans, and the distant presence of Fujiyama. Though the port itself seems mixed and insufficiently Oriental, its harbor, streets, shops, temples, tea-houses, gardens, and jinrikishas supply inexhaustible spectacle. The jinrikisha becomes the central vehicle of travel: its coolie runners, straw sandals, rain gear, calls, and strict road etiquette are closely described. The narrator explores the foreign Settlement and Bluff, Japanese commercial streets, bazaars, theatres, florists, Chinese quarter, Buddhist temple life, and the ease of foreign domestic and social existence. The work dwells on Japanese markets, silks, kimonos, money, the soroban, street food, entertainers, jugglers, women’s dress, children, servants, and the elaborate politeness of everyday life. It portrays foreign society in Yokohama and Tokio as comfortable but narrow, shaped by English habits, clubs, dinners, dances, fleets, tourists, servants, and social obligations. The surrounding country offers tea-houses, temples, flower gardens, beaches, fishing villages, and seasonal excursions. Kanagawa, Sugita, Kawawa, Minë, Yokosuka, Uraga, Kamakura, Katase, and Enoshima are visited for legends, views, sacred places, flowers, sweets, fishing life, great images, and coastal scenery. Tokio initially disappoints through foreign-style streets, but its moats, remnants of yashikis, temples, fairs, shops, theatres, parks, and flower festivals reveal a richer older city. Sanjiro, an exceptionally informed jinrikisha runner, guides visitors through Shiba, Uyéno, Asakusa, and other sites, explaining people, ceremonies, theatres, and local events. The narrative describes Tokugawa mortuary temples, Buddhist worship, art exhibitions, Hokusai’s reputation, popular amusements, holiday crowds, the Dolls’ Festival, the boys’ carp festival, schools, and river fêtes. It also recounts fire, earthquake, rain, shopping, and the practical fragility of wooden urban life. Seasonal flower worship forms a major theme. Plum, cherry, iris, peony, azalea, wistaria, lotus, chrysanthemum, and maple festivals organize the year and draw every class into excursions, tea drinking, poetry, picnics, and admiration of cultivated landscapes. The narrator especially emphasizes the decorum and collective joy of blossom gatherings, even where saké is freely consumed. Japanese hospitality is represented through elaborate club dinners, geisha and maiko performances, formal tea, eel feasts, and cha no yu. The tea ceremony is depicted as an exacting discipline of etiquette, posture, utensils, conversation, and inherited schools, requiring lifelong practice. The theatre receives extended attention: the older No drama is solemn, symbolic, aristocratic, masked, and highly stylized, while the modern stage favors realism, spectacle, historical legends, violence, elaborate costumes, male actors in female roles, long performances, tea-house arrangements, revolving stages, and intimate audience activity. The later portion turns to the Emperor, Empress, court, palace, peerage, and the changes brought by foreign manners and dress. The imperial family is presented as both ancient and modern: the Emperor and Empress appear at garden parties and state functions, while court life adopts European clothing, banquets, dancing, architecture, and etiquette at the cost of older visual splendor. The narrative also notes the Crown Prince, imperial residences, noble factions, and the transformation of former kugés, daimios, and samurai into a modern titled society. The text then follows a journey to Nikko, where travel by railway and jinrikisha leads through cryptomeria avenues, tea-houses, storms, inns, and the practical difficulties of Japanese lodging. Nikko is praised as a supreme sacred landscape of forests, bridges, temples, tombs, moss, water, legends, pilgrims, and Shogun memorials. The shrines of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu combine lavish carving, lacquer, Buddhist objects, Shinto alterations, and deep natural stillness. The account concludes mid-description of the kago, a basket conveyance whose cramped discomfort and dependence on small coolie bearers make it, for the foreign traveler, an acutely embarrassing mode of mountain travel.

By Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore · First published 1891 · Genre: Travel Literature, Travelogue, Nonfiction · 37 chapters · 117,626 words

First lines

All the Orient is a surprise to the Occidental. Everything is strange, with a certain unreality that makes one doubt half his sensations. To appreciate Japan one should come to it from the mainland of Asia. From Suez to Nagasaki the Asiatic sits dumb and contented in his dirt, rags, ignorance, and wretchedness. After the muddy rivers, dreary flats, and brown hills of China, after the desolate shores of Korea, with their unlovely and unwashed peoples, Japan is a dream of Paradise, beautiful from the first green island off the coast to the last picturesque hill-top. The houses seem toys, their inhabitants dolls, whose manner of life is clean, pretty, artistic, and distinctive.

Similar titles

Genres

Tags

travel literature · Japan · Meiji era · Japanese culture · travelogue · cultural observation · East Asia · nineteenth century · tourism · Tokyo · Kyoto · landscapes

What this Textopian page supports

Jinrikisha Days in Japan is listed on Textopian as a historical account by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, dated 1891 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

Contents

More by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore