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Isabella L. Bird was one of the most famous British travelers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her destinations included Canada, the United States (the Rocky Mountains), Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Persia, Kurdistan, China, and Morocco. She is particularly known for her intrepidness and lively writing style.
Written in the form of letters to her sister, her account of her trip to Japan in 1878 is viewed as a classic of travel writing and a valuable account of little documented areas of Japan in that era. Rather than stay in the Tokyo region or travel south to Kyoto, the mecca of Japanese civilization, she chose to travel north through the most arduously mountainous areas and eventually visit the island of Hokkaido, where lived the indigenous Ainu. With the Ainu, Isabella took an ambiguous stance: she admired them tremendously on the one hand but could not, on the other, find it in her heart to remove them from the category of savages.
The Foreword, "Reading between the Lines," calls into question the accuracy of Isabella's observations of the Japanese and Ainu and casts doubt on the judgments she formed. Readers are urged to read the book actively, rather than passively, if they are not to be led astray by Isabella's biases and eccentricities.
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Forewrod
Reading between the Lines
Isabella L. Bird (1831-1904) was one of a number of renowned
Western women who traveled the world in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. With the spread of Western influence,
it became possible for women with the money, the time, and
the gumption to undertake such expeditions.
Isabella, a British subject, made her first trip was to Canada
and the United States in 1854 when in her mid-twenties; her
last to Morocco, when she was seventy. In 1878, at the age of
forty-six, she visited Japan for a period of seven months.
At the time of Isabella's arrival in Japan, ten years had
passed since the Tokugawa shogunate (the ruling military
regime) had fallen and been replaced by a constitutional monarchy,
bringing an end to over 250 years of almost total isolation
from the rest of the world. The new leaders were eager
to industrialize and modernize Japan in order to put it on an
equal footing with the West. Given recent British military involvement
in China (the second Opium War of 1856-60) and
in Japan (such as the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863),
not to mention American interest in Japan, Japanese leaders
were fearful that, without the development of industrial and
military power, Japan would fall prey to Western incursion.
With the official installation of the new government in
1868, prodigious efforts were made to bring Japan into the
modern world as quickly as possible. Foreign teachers and technicians
were hired and brought to Japan to lead the way in educating
young Japanese. Ports that had been closed to foreign
ships were now opened, and Yokohama, once a sleepy fishing
village, blossomed into a boisterous city overflowing with foreign
merchants and diplomats.
When Isabella arrived in 1878, a good many accounts of this
still little-known country had already been written by Western
travelers and correspondents. Most of them spoke highly of
the country's education, social organization, and basic hygiene.
For a backward nation, Japan was regarded as being at the head
of its class.
Almost all of the accounts of Japan up to that time were
written about the city of Tokyo or areas to the southwest of it
(including Osaka and Kyoto), which constituted the most prosperous
and advanced parts of the country. When Isabella heard
that the northern regions of the country (the Tohoku region
and the northernmost island of Hokkaido) were virtually unexplored
by Westerners, she decided immediately that that was
where she wished to go. The fact that Hokkaido was the home
of the aboriginal Ainu (referred to as "Aino" in the book), who
were said to be savages, further whetted her appetite.
From Tokyo to Hokkaido she went up the middle of the
mostly mountainous, least traveled part of the island of
Honshu -- sometimes by jinrikisha, most often on horse, once or
twice by cow, occasionally by boat, and frequently on foot.
This route was not suited to long trips; for that she should
have taken the Oshu highroad. Her choice consisted of nothing
more than a series of rough roads or paths connecting one
village to another. If Isabella was looking for hardship (and she
was), then she made the right decision.
This region -- the Tohoku region, which does not include her
side trip to Niigata on the Sea of Japan -- was, for the most part,
much less prosperous than the area from Tokyo southward because
of the long winters, the comparative lack of summer rain
for the cultivation of rice, and the unpredictable cold spells
that were the bane of farmers. The mountainous areas that
Isabella traversed were also without easy access to the seafood
available in coastal regions. Thus the most mountainous
stretches of Tohoku were much poorer than the areas described
by other Westerners then visiting Japan. This, too, was precisely
what Isabella was looking for -- something that would set her
trip to Japan apart from the rest.
With Isabella as with all writers, her views are imbued with
her own likes and dislikes, her biases and prejudices, her philosophy
of life, and her background and upbringing. Therefore
it is legitimate to ask what kind of person Isabella was. It is
particularly important if we are to maintain any perspective as
readers, if we are to read actively rather than passively -- that is,
if we are going to read between the lines. With writers who are
contemporaries of the reader and who share a common culture,
it is much easier to spot the writer's biases. With a writer
from a different era or culture, it is much more difficult.
Isabella was born in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, in 1831 into
a well-to-do family -- a family which had sufficient independent
income to make do if necessary, and in which the mundane
tasks of everyday life were administered by servants. The family
also had highly placed relations, who proved useful to Isabella
in providing introductions to conveniently placed people in
the countries she visited; indeed, she took forty such letters
with her to Japan. Her father, who had been a barrister in
India, became a clergyman upon returning to England.
During Isabella's lifetime, women did not possess the right
to vote, and schools open to girls were not available (and
would remain so until she was past school age). Isabella was educated
by her mother and taught to observe nature by her father.
Her best writing is perhaps her description of natural
scenery. She had a younger sister, to whom the letters in this
book were directed, and to whom Isabella was apparently
deeply attached, although she declined to live with her after
their parents had passed away.
Isabella was a devout Christian, following in her father's
footsteps in that regard perhaps. Her father was so committed
to Sabbatarianism -- the doctrine that absolutely no work should
be done on the Sabbath -- that he came into conflict with his
parish and was twice forced to take up a new post. The second
time, when Isabella was in her teens, he resorted to legal means
to force local shops to close. As a result, he was stoned by his
own parishioners.
Isabella apparently felt the pressure of living in such a middle-
class environment, in which a woman's role was limited
and where everything came under the close watch of other
members of the same class. In fact, she seems to have suffered
from psychosomatic illnesses to the extent that many of her
trips were undertaken for health reasons at the suggestion of
doctors. Abroad, away from the constraints of her own culture,
Isabella was transformed from a frail creature into an intrepid
adventurer. She could do things in foreign climes that she
would never consider doing at home. It seems to be true that
people tend to let loose, for better or for worse, when freed
from the scrutiny of their peers or the confinements of the
subculture in which they grew up.
***
In the rest of this Foreword, we will look at several instances in
which Isabella has misled the reader, has misled herself, has
failed to come to the conclusions that her own observations
seem to call for, has not understood what she has seen, or has
committed a very poor judgment.
The question as to why Isabella should mislead the reader
or, in fact, mislead herself cannot be answered here; we can
only speculate. First, Isabella was not bilingual or bicultural;
that is, she had not gone through the experience, when young,
of living abroad and struggling with the complexities of a foreign
language, which experience, if she had had it, might have
made her mind more flexible and open to other ways of thinking.
By the time she had come to Japan, Isabella was forty-six
years old, and had long formed her views on life and what was
right and wrong. In fact, her views seem to have been so set
that often she virtually ignored reality in order to maintain
them. Further, as a journalist with a readership in mind, Isabella
may have occasionally succumbed to the temptation to
startle her audience, to remind them, by slight exaggeration, of
the absolute strangeness or outrageousness of her experiences.
Given the plausible rigidity of her ideas, the reader will not
be surprised to find in "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" that Isabella
has a tendency to be judgmental, sometimes with very little
basis for her opinions. As an early example of this tendency,
we may cite her trip to Canada and the United States undertaken
in her mid-twenties, as recorded in "The English Woman in
America" (John Murray, 1856). After spending a scant six weeks
in the home of Captain Swabey ("one of the most influential
inhabitants" of Prince Edward Island), she leaves with the following
very decided opinion of the community there.
When their trade and commerce shall have been extended, and
when a more suitable plan has been adopted for the support of
religion; when large portions of waste land have been brought
under cultivation, and local resources have been farther developed,
people will be too much occupied with their own affairs to
busy themselves, as now, either with the affairs of others, or with
the puerile politics of so small a community; and then the island
will deserve the title which has been bestowed on it, "The
Garden of British America." (Chapter III)
Turning now to "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," we will begin with
a minor incident that occurs early in the book (p. 23), concerning
the physical appearance of Tsurukichi Ito (referred to simply
as Ito in the book). When Isabella is interviewing Ito for
the job of guide/interpreter, she writes, "He is the most stupid-looking
Japanese that I have seen, but, from a rapid, furtive
glance in his eyes now and then, I think that the stolidity is
partly assumed." Later in the book (p. 90) she again refers to
Ito's appearance, saying, "... ugly as I think him, he has a large
share of personal vanity." Given that Isabella is not a fan of
the Japanese face ("the ugly Japanese face," p. 90), we might
with reason expect Ito to be quite a grotesquerie.
datas/11.html?c=16). He does not appear to fit her description,
even allowing for the subjectivity involved in such
matters.
Further in regard to Ito, we find an example of Isabella's inclination
to come to conclusions that belie her own observations.
On page 185 she describes Ito's qualities as an individual
and guide/interpreter. Here are some of the good things she
has to say about him:
He is never late, never dawdles, never goes out in the evening
except on errands for me, never touches sake, is never disobedient,
never requires to be told the same thing twice, is always
within hearing, has a good deal of tact as to what he repeats,
and all with an undisguised view to his own interest. He sends
most of his wages to his mother, who is a widow -- "It's the custom
of the country" -- and seems to spend the remainder on sweetmeats,
tobacco, and the luxury of frequent shampooing.
This seems to have the makings of a good character reference,
but Isabella apparently thinks differently since she has
prefaced this description by saying, "He has no moral sense, according
to our notions." Near the end of this enumeration of
Ito's virtues and vices -- which is largely laudatory -- Isabella again
comes to a conclusion that seems to contradict her own observations.
She writes, "The habits of many of the Yokohama foreigners
have helped to obliterate any distinctions between right
and wrong, if he [Ito] ever made any."
One of Isabella's complaints about Ito is that he is a believer
in the Shinto religion, and she feels that this belief has
not served him well. When she is speaking of Ito's "lie" (concerning
which, you will note, she never asks for Ito's side of
the story), she says that "except for this original lie, I have no
fault to find with him, and his Shinto creed has not taught
him any better" (p. 245). Isabella is mistaken in thinking that
any morality that Ito possesses originated in Shintoism. In fact,
though Shinto may arguably form the bedrock of the Japanese
psyche, it is certainly Confucianism and Buddhism that form
the basis for its ethical standards. Thus, in faulting Shinto for
any perceived defects in Ito's morality, Isabella is barking up
the wrong tree.
Another basic misconception on Isabella's part concerns
again the nature of the Shinto religion. On page 101 she remarks,
"Nominally, he [Ito] is a Shintoist, which means nothing."
This was apparently in reference to the fact that Ito had
just spoken of "our Buddha," even though he was not a Buddhist.
Further, on page 285 she describes the occasion on
which Ainu ask if she would like to pray at a shrine dedicated
to the Japanese hero Yoshitsune, who was venerated for his legendary
kindnesses to the Ainu. Isabella declines the offer, saying
that, after she explained to them that she "could only
worship my own God, the Lord of Earth and Heaven, of the
dead and of the living, they were too courteous to press their
request." To her disgust, however, Ito accepts: "As to Ito, it did
not signify to him whether or not he added another god to his
already crowded Pantheon, and he `worshipped,' i.e. bowed
down, most willingly before the great hero of his own, the conquering
race."
The pivotal point is that Shinto is a polytheistic religion,
perhaps with a touch of animism, not a monotheistic belief
like Christianity. Therefore, it does not detract from Ito's credentials
as a Shintoist if he gives credence to Buddha and
Yoshitsune. Held up to the yardstick of Christianity, or any
other monotheistic religion, Ito would be found sorely lacking,
and Isabella thus finds him.
From such metaphysical issues, we might now take a look at
what inaccuracies Isabella has committed in simpler matters, of
which I offer two instances. On page 111 she writes, "Much of
the food of the peasantry is raw or half-raw salt fish, and vegetables
rendered indigestible by being coarsely pickled." As we
now know, with the proliferation of Japanese cuisine and the
popularity of sushi and sashimi, raw fish is not a hardship
food but a luxury.
On this same level, Isabella writes on page 186 that Ito "despises
the uneducated, as he can read and write both the syllabaries."
The Japanese language is written with Chinese
characters (kanji) and two syllabaries (kana). The syllabaries are
comparable to the English alphabet in the ease with which they
can be learned, except that they are, in fact, somewhat easier.
The kanji are what causes the difficulty in reading and writing
Japanese, and unless you have learned them, you cannot be
considered literate. I am sure that Ito would be shocked to hear
that Isabella characterized him as knowing only the syllabaries,
not kanji, too.
What might be considered Isabella's greatest inaccuracy in
the book is not, in fact, an inaccuracy but what some might
consider a failure of character. It involves the Ainu and Isabella's
overall favorable impression of their character and
physical appearance. On page 255 she writes, "They were very
kind, and so courteous, after a new fashion, that I quite forgot
that I was alone among savages." And immediately after that:
"The adult man was not a pure Aino. His dark hair was not
very thick, and both it and his beard had an occasional auburn
gleam. I think I never saw a face more completely beautiful in
features and expression, with a lofty, sad, far-off, gentle, intellectual
look, rather that of Sir Nöel Paton's `Christ' than of a
savage. His manner was most graceful, and he spoke both Aino
and Japanese in the low musical tone which I find is a characteristic
of Aino speech." On page 271, she writes, "For three
days they have kept up their graceful and kindly hospitality,
going on with their ordinary life and occupations, and, though
I have lived among them in this room by day and night, there
has been nothing which in any way could offend the most fastidious
sense of delicacy."
One of the disagreeable experiences she had among the
Ainu she describes as follows (p. 272): "They said they would
leave me to eat and rest, and all retired but the chief's mother, a weird, witch-like woman of eighty, with shocks of yellowwhite
hair, and a stern suspiciousness in her wrinkled face. I
have come to feel as if she had the evil eye, as she sits there
watching, watching always ... She alone is suspicious of strangers,
and she thinks that my visit bodes no good to her tribe."
As if to confirm the old woman's suspicions, Isabella's final
judgment of the Ainu is as follows (p. 320): "They are charming
in many ways, but make one sad, too, by their stupidity,
apathy, and hopelessness, and all the sadder that their numbers
appear to be again increasing; and as their physique is very
fine, there does not appear to be a prospect of the race dying
out at present."
Ironically, in one of her final assessments of the Japanese
people, Isabella makes use of the Ainu as a foil to serve up an
appalling characterization of the Japanese (p. 288): "After the
yellow skins, the stiff horse hair, the feeble eyelids, the elongated
eyes, the sloping eyebrows, the flat noses, the sunken
chests, the Mongolian features, the puny physique, the shaky
walk of the men, the restricted totter of the women, and the
general impression of degeneracy conveyed by the appearance
of the Japanese, the Ainos make a very singular impression." It
is sad that, in the end, Isabella reveals that she looks upon the
Japanese not as individuals but as stereotypical beings that can
be summed up in a few, well-chosen, defamatory words.
In conclusion, "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" is in many ways a
delightful book, largely owing to Isabella's sprightly prose.
However, the reader must read actively if he or she is to read
intelligently. Thus read, the book reveals as much about Isabella
and the society from which she emerged as it does about
Japan.
***
This book is based on the 1911 John Murray edition, which is
an abridgment of the original work published in 1880 by the
same publisher. For those who read Japanese, the Japanese publisher Yushodo has translated the missing sections from the
original edition ("Bado Nihon kiko," 2002). Those wishing to
learn more about Isabella Bird and her life will enjoy "Amazing
Traveler: Isabella Bird" (Evelyn Kaye, Blue Penguin Publications,
1994) and "Isabella Bird and 'A Woman's Right to Do What She
Can Do Well'" (Olive Checkland, Scottish Cultural Press, 1996).
Roger Speares
2006
