Perry In Japan

Behind the Banquet: The American Pressure upon Japan During the Negotiation [Scroll 8]

Mari Fujimoto, The University of Tokyo (Spring 2009)

[A gastronomical production]

When there is a power relationship between two parties, they are often illustrated in contrast. When a certain thing needs to be emphasized, it is often compared with another event that has an opposite element, in order to let the features stand out. This drawing of a banquet, held by the Japanese government to receive the Americans, is a good example. At first sight, it looks like a friendly and peaceful banquet with both Japanese and Americans sharing a pleasant time. However, a close and careful observation clearly reveals that the look of the Japanese and the Americans is drawn in contrast. The Japanese governors are all stiff, in contrast to the Americans enjoying the feast. Also, there is another room at the back of the picture, which shows a scene distinctive from the banquet. In the room, one American is showing a document. This must be a document related with the treaty to open Japan for diplomacy and trade, since that was what the two countries were negotiating at the time. But the Japanese in the same room do not look so happy about the document, which makes the scene tense, contrary to the banquet scene. By contrasting the nervous looking Japanese and the lively Americans, and by comparing two contrasting scenes of the banquet and the negotiation, this drawing implies that Japan was under a strong American pressure to open the country.

The banquet was held in the Treaty House at Yokohama in order to celebrate the successful selection of a site for negotiation. After arriving in Uraga in 1853, Perry visited Japan for the second time in early February of 1854, and talked many times with the Japanese government to choose a site for negotiation where both countries could agree. It took a long time until Japan could set up the official Treaty House because Perry kept refusing to start the negotiation at Uraga, where the Japanese government had initially intended. Uraga was far from Edo and Perry wanted to go closer to the city, and he actually did, by approaching the black ship to Yokohama, just where he could see Edo (Tamarin 1986, 119). Finally, the Japanese government backed down, and on March 8th the negotiation started in Yokohama and the first Japanese-American conference, coupled with the banquet was held. When the conference begun after the banquet, Americans handed the draft of the treaty to the Japanese. This was surprising and unexpected to the Japanese. Since the two countries had not discussed the concrete contents of the treaty at all, the emergence of the draft seemed abrupt to them (Kato 1988, 127).

The picture includes two separate rooms, which actually indicate two different scenes from March 8th. The room in the foreground shows the seemingly friendly scene of the banquet, and the room in the background shows the tense negotiating scene of Americans thrusting the draft of the treaty to the Japanese. The style of putting different scenes in one frame was often used in traditional Japanese paintings. For example, the paintings of Heian-period subtly divided the scenes by clouds. In this drawing, the purple curtains hanging down from the ceiling are functioning in the same way. They divide the two rooms, and make them into different scenes.

The Japanese and the Americans are drawn in comparison in their looks. In the friendly banquet scene in the foreground, the Americans seated in a row eating Japanese food are drawn very comically in detail. There is a person holding chopsticks separately in both hands, and a person using a fork and a knife. They fully express their feelings on their faces, and each of them faces different ways. They are moving freely. There are even two Americans outside the Treaty House building who can be seen from the open-air part on the left side of the screen, raising their hand. From these lively descriptions of the Americans, the banquet has a friendly atmosphere. On the other hand, however, the Japanese are all drawn with expressionless faces throughout the picture. Unlike the Americans, they are all crowded in the right side of the room, and some of them are even half out of the screen. They look restrained and not moving much. This difference of the two sides shows the Americans' confidence of superiority over the Japanese.

Closer observation betrays our expectation of existence of the friendliness. In fact, the Americans and the Japanese are all by themselves in the banquet scene. No direct conversations or eye contacts are made. This contradicts the friendly impression of the scene. In the negotiation scene in the background, this non-friendliness becomes clearer and the two sides are even confronting each other. There are five Americans on the left, five Japanese seated on the right, and two Japanese standing in the middle. One American is showing the draft of the treaty. Again, the Japanese governors have stiff, gloomy expressions. One of them is even wiping his sweating forehead by his hand. This shows the confusion and anxiety of the Japanese side, which was cautious about the treaty. Considering Perry had hinted that the rejection of the treaty might trigger a war, the Japanese must have been under a great pressure (Kato 1988, 122).

Compared to the banquet scene in the foreground, the negotiation scene in the background is drawn relatively small. The former is opened to outside and has a bright impression of sunlight, but the latter has the door shut and has a closed impression. The apparently friendly, bright, and large-scale scene in the foreground enhances the sense of tension in the negotiation scene, and the disquieting atmosphere of the back room. I believe that the artist understood the tense mood at the time, and through these two scenes, he wanted to emphasize the American pressure in the small-scale negotiating scene.

The painter was clearly aware of the power gap between the two countries. By contrasting the Japanese to the Americans, and juxtaposing the two rooms-- the seemingly friendly banquet scene and the tense negotiation scene, what the Japanese painter really wanted to draw was the American pressure put upon Japan during the negotiation. The Japanese government was under great pressure to accept the Americans' demand to open the country because it felt threatened by America's power. Behind the scene of a "friendly" banquet, there was an unequal relationship, as is clearly illustrated by the lively Americans and the nervous Japanese.

References

Kato, Yuzo. Kurofune Ihen -Perry no Chousen- [Black Ship Revolution: Perry's Challenge]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1988.
Tamarin, Alfred H. Japan and The United States: Early Encounters, 1791-1860. Translated by Hamaya, Masaki. Tokyo: Kobundo, 1986.
Yokohama-shi Sakoku kara Kaikoku heno Hibi [The City of Yokohama, The Days of Opening the Country], http://www.city.yokohama.jp/me/kyoiku/library/perry/menu.html, 11 July, 2009.