Travel Guides, Travelers and Guides

Meiji Period Globetrotters and the Visualization of Japan

抄録

With the opening of Japan during the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods, travelers poured into the country, eager to experience for themselves a culture that had previously been, until only recently, entirely closed to them. The end of Japanese exclusion also corresponded with the beginning of large-scale international tourism. The “globetrotting” international traveler became a feature of Meiji Japan, and while these travelers were being introduced to Japan by native Japanese guides, some of them produced first-person narratives of their experiences here which subsequently served as guides for readers back home. These narratives were illustrated with images that helped to create a visual culture that dominated Western impressions of Japan. The following is a partial transcript of the keynote address given at the Japan Association for Interpreting and Translation Studies’ 15th annual conference held on September 13th 2014, which looked at English-language guidebooks for foreign travelers to Japan during the Meiji Period. The visual record illustrating other travel narratives – from circumnavigators like cyclist Thomas Stevens and rival journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, to photojournalist Herbert G. Ponting, and children’s fiction author Edward Greey – was also considered.