First Contact in the First Drawing: The Beginning of an Unstable Period [Scroll 1]
Shiho Suzuki, The University of Tokyo (Spring 2009)
![[First Contact]](https://library.brown.edu/jpegs/1232120902937500.jpg)
People feel fear when they face unknown events because they are not able to predict subsequent events based on their past experiences. The first panel of the scroll "First contact" shows not only the fear felt by the Japanese, but also that of the Americans, who met the Japanese for the first time. The two men represent anxiety of the artist who lived in the tempestuous period of Japan.
In the drawing, quiet and open scenery is seen. A boat is floating in a peaceful-looking sea with a serene view. There is a clear shape of a blue mountain in the background, and there is also a blunt cliff on the left-hand side of the drawing. There are two men on the boat. One on the left is likely to be a Japanese fisherman, judging from his appearance, and the other looks like an American naval officer. They seem to be not friendly, in contrast to the tranquil scenery that surround them. This is not a real incident because there is no description about this in Perry's report.1 I believe the reason why this drawing was painted is to express the artist's anxiety.
It is clear from the posture of the Japanese fisherman that he is scared. He bends his knees towards the American, as if to beg for his life. The Japanese seems to think that if he tries to escape, he will be killed. He is unlikely a samurai. Therefore, he is not allowed to have a weapon such as swords by the law of those days. The only thing he can do is to ask the American to save his life. If he had a sword, he could threaten the American with it. The attitude of the Japanese shows the action of the person who is threatened by an unknown person without any weapon and is unable to escape.
It is also possible to see that the American naval officer feels fear. The American points his gun at the Japanese and points outside of the boat, as if the American wants the Japanese to get out of the boat. He seems to fear the unknown person just as the Japanese. A person who does not feel fear is unlikely to resort to this kind of force because he or she does not need to do so. Instead, he or she may try to negotiate peacefully. When a person feels fear, however, he or she often tries to remove the cause of the fear by threatening or attacking it. For example, a person may point a gun at a stranger met in an unknown and mysterious empty street because he or she feels there is danger to his or her life. In this drawing, the American stands a bit far from the Japanese. This distance between the two also indicates that the American feels fear. He is scared, so he cannot approach the Japanese. The attitude of the American shows the action of an armed person who meets unknown human beings.
The artist expressed his anxiety about Japan in this drawing. This drawing expresses the epitome of the "first contact" with an unknown person. The Japanese sees the American without anything to protect himself, and the American finds the Japanese first with a gun. The actions of these two men symbolize a fight-or-flight response, which is "generally regarded as the prototypic human response to stress" (Taylor et al., 2000).2 Both the Japanese and the American feel fear, and this fear represents the artist's anxiety.
Given that this drawing seems to represent the artist's anxiety, I believe the following things can be said. The first contact is always the beginning of something new. In this case, it was the opening of Japan. The artist is referring to the unstable relationship between Japan and America during the negotiation through the entire scroll. The artist may have been anxious about Japan of the future because Japan of those days was very unstable. The "first contact," which shows a strong sense of fear, is a testament to that unstableness, which is the theme of this scroll.
References
- America Kaigun [U.S. Navy] ed. Perry teitoku Nippon enseiki [Commodore Perry's record of expedition to Japan]. Trans. by Ōba, Ayako. Tokyo Hõseidaigakusyuppankyoku (1953).
- Shelley E. Taylor, Laura Cousino Klein, Brian P. Lewis, Tara L. Gruenewald, Regan A. R. Gurung, and John A. Updegraf. Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight, Psychological Review , 107, 411-429 (2000).