1. Introduction
Thank you for your kind introduction.
It gives me great pleasure to come to New Bedford to speak to you all. I am honored that I am invited as one of the speakers today at this symposium.
This is my third time to visit this lovely port town and its whaling museum.
Every time I look over the harbor here, I think of the day when Manjiro and Captain Whitfield disembarked the John Howland on a sunny day in May of 1843 after two years on their voyage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And think of all those Japanese people who came over to this country since then. Each of them landed the shores of the United States full of expectations and curiosity and, understandably, with some anxiety.
Today, I would like to talk briefly about Fukuzawa Yukichi and his experiences in the United States.
I would like to do so for a few reasons.
First, Fukuzawa was a shipmate with John Manjiro on board the Kanrinmaru on their way to San Francisco in 1860. In San Francisco, they went to a local bookstore together and bought two copies of Webster’s English Dictionary, probably the first such copies of a dictionary that the Japanese brought back from the United States. It therefore seems fitting to talk about Fukuzawa at this symposium commemorating John Manjiro.
Second, Fukuzawa was probably the first Japanese who systematically introduced American civilization to Japan. There were other Japanese, like Manjiro and Joseph Hiko, two of the most prominent castaways, who described what they saw in America to their fellow Japanese before Fukuzawa. But, Fukuzawa was the first person to comprehensively and systematically introduce western civilization, both of the United States and Europe, to the Japanese general public.
Third, like Alexis de Tocqueville the author of Democracy in America, Fukuzawa was a keen observer who discerned the basic values underlying modern society in the West, such as individual liberty, democracy and rule of law. And Fukuzawa tried to adopt these principles into Japanese society in his own way.
And fourth, and not the least, Fukuzawa is the founder of Keio Gijuku, my alma mater, where I will resume teaching next spring. Keio continues to treasure the Fukuzawa spirit. I myself find Fukuzawa to be a fascinating Japanese individual who came to this country when young and who learned a great deal from that experience.
2. Fukuzawa decides to go to the United States
Fukuzawa was a Samurai. He was born in 1835 in Osaka as a son of a lower class Samurai belonging to a small lordship in Kyushu, called Nakatsu Han.
Fukuzawa was keenly aware of the caste system that existed in the Samurai society. One was given title and job according to one’s inherited social status. His father, a scholar of Chinese classics, could not be promoted in the system despite his great talents and skills. Fukuzawa later stated that he had pledged revenge against the feudal system that prevented his father from fully exercising his talents.
Perhaps because of this stifling atmosphere in his hometown, he went to Nagasaki to study Dutch in 1853, the same year Commodore Perry came to the Yedo Bay for the first time. He then went to Osaka to continue his study of medicine and science in Dutch and became a scholar of note. However, when he visited the newly opened port of Yokohama in 1859, he was shocked to learn that no foreigner working there spoke Dutch. Instead everyone spoke English.
Devastated, Fukuzawa nevertheless courageously decided to switch to the study of the English language.
It was in this context that Fukuzawa decided to visit the United States and Europe within a matter of seven years between 1860 and 1867 to learn more about western civilization and the English language. He described his experiences in America and Europe in detail in his autobiography.
3. Fukuzawa’s first trip to the USA
Fukuzawa visited America twice. In 1860, on board the Japanese naval vessel, the Kanrinmaru, he went to San Francisco as a member of the Shogun government’s first diplomatic mission to the United States. He joined the mission by volunteering to be a servant to the then Japanese navy secretary, Kimura.
Fukuzawa was 25 years old when he arrived in America. Everything he saw was new and fascinating.
He was surprised at the cubes of ice in glasses of water in the middle of the summer, at the popping sound of a cork pulled out of a Champaign bottle, at the men and women hopping around in pairs doing a thing called dancing, and at the husband serving meals at a dinner party while the wife entertained the guests.
In his autobiography, he describes that he wanted to smoke a Japanese pipe called Kiseru at a reception, but could not find an ashtray nearby.
“I pulled out of my sleeve a piece of paper, and put ashes in it. I squeezed it hard so that it is completely extinguished, and put it back in my sleeve. After a while, I noticed that a smoke came out of my sleeve. The ashes were not completely extinguished, and it lit the paper causing smoke to come out of my sleeve.”
When dictating his autobiography, some forty years later, Fukuzawa laughed at how nervous and how overwhelmed he was by everything in America on this first trip to San Francisco.
Of all the things he saw and heard in America, Fukuzawa was particularly impressed with democracy, how it works and why it works.
One day, Fukuzawa asked somebody where the descendants of George Washington were. The person asked responded, “I do not know but I have heard a woman related to President Washington is married to so and so.”
Fukuzawa was deeply impressed, as he assumed that the President of the United States was more or less like the Japanese Shogun.
The position of Shogun is hereditary. So everyone in Japan knows the descendants of the first Shogun. Here in America, however, people choose the President by voting. Once his term is up, he is gone.
Fukuzawa in fact knew that. But he had to realize that people do, in actuality, practice democracy through election and think nothing of it. This is true democracy, he thought.
Before leaving San Francisco, Fukuzawa took a photo with a local American girl. According to his autobiography:
“This is a daughter of a photo shop owner. I remember she was 15 years old. I had been to the photo shop, but on one rainy day, I went back again. I was alone and found her standing. I said, let’s take a photo together. And she said OK. Being an American girl, she did not mind it at all. So we took the photo together.”
In this photo, Fukuzawa in a casual kimono is seated while the girl is standing by the side. They are close to each other. 40 years later, he showed this photo to the interviewer. He must have kept it as a treasure.
In it, Fukuzawa looks straight into the camera. Here is an image of a young and intelligent Japanese man permanently preserved in this photo confronting America with all his might 150 years ago.
4. Fukuzawa’s second trip to the USA
In 1867, he went to Washington, D.C. as a member of another diplomatic mission to purchase a war ship from the U.S. government.
This time, he took regular passenger ships to cross the Pacific, down to Panama and up to New York. He crossed the Panamanian ithmoth by train.
In his “Invitation to Traveling to the West”, probably the first Japanese travel guidebook Fukuzawa published after returning to Japan, he described the life on board an American passenger ship.
Describing in detail the menus of breakfast, lunch and dinner on board, he suggested that the Japanese passengers not used to western food may wish to bring with them Japanese pickles, soy source and other things to survive a long journey. We still do.
He also described the western style restroom on board. “There is a round hole at an elevated position. One sits over this hole. If one is not used to this, one may do it in a Japanese way and may smear it. Foreigners will laugh at this, causing a great embarrassment. Be careful.”
Fukuzawa also emphasized in this book that American and European people are essentially no different from the Japanese and described passengers on board an ocean liner:
“There are a wide variety of passengers on an ocean liner. A family, a husband and a wife, an old man, children. A person who drinks spirits and sings loud, a person who sips tea and engages in a debate with a fellow passenger. Some read, others play cards. One claims his hometown is the best in the world, one gets upset by losing a chess game. Some laugh, others cry, some are disliked, others are teased. This is exactly like on board a Japanese passenger ship.”
Incidentally, Fukuzawa also described in his autobiography various Japanese passengers on board a boat that he took through the Inland Sea when he was young:
“There were a lot of passengers to go to Osaka on board this vessel, for it was March, a tour season. A spoiled son of a rich merchant. An old man with baldhead. A geisha from Osaka. A prostitute from Shimonoseki. A monk, a farmer, and all other kinds of human beings. In a crowded ship, they all drank, gambled, shouted loud at insignificant things, and joked around.”
Fukuzawa may have reminisced about this voyage through the Inland Sea when he took the SS Colorado to San Francisco. Fukuzawa had a unique ability to objectively observe people, regardless of whether they were Japanese, American or European.
Fukuzawa had many interesting encounters during his second trip to America.
He met with President Andrew Johnson at the White House while staying in Washington, D.C. At that time, anybody could visit the President at the White House on a certain day of the week without appointment.
It is not clear whether Fukuzawa was aware of the political turmoil involving the President and the Congress.
Washington was a small town at the time, and one day Fukuzawa bumped into the President while the latter was taking a walk.
Fukuzawa also met with Secretary of State Seward, and General Ulysses Grant. In addition, he visited the Naval Academy in Annapolis.
Also while in Washington, he received a visitor from Lexington, Virginia. This was Captain John M. Brook, a professor at the Virginia Military Academy.
Captain Brook was one of about ten Americans who joined Kanrinmaru’s voyage to San Francisco in 1860. They were shipwrecked off the coast of Uraga and boarded the Kanrinmaru to return to the United States.
In exchange, they were asked by the navy leadership to help the Japanese officers and sailors safely to navigate the ship across the Pacific. The Japanese crew was unhappy initially about letting them come aboard and interfere with their navigation.
However, when Captain Brook and his fellow sailors ably assisted the Japanese in negotiating rough weather on the seas, they gained the respect of the Japanese samurais. Thus a friendship was born between the Japanese and American seamen.
Before Captain Brook left San Francisco for the East Coast, Navy secretary Kimura thanked him for his help, opened a box full of gold coins that he brought from Japan and urged Brook to take as many as possible. Brook declined this offer, stating that he was happy enough to have brought the Japanese to the United States and to have introduced them to his fellow Americans.
Captain Brook joined the Confederate Navy during the War between the States as a navy engineer. With the end of the war, he retired to Lexington, Virginia teaching at the VMI.
Probably longing to be back at sea, he came to Washington to meet with Fukuzawa and asked that he be retained as the captain of the warship that the Japanese mission bought from the U.S. government, sail it to Japan and teach the Japanese how to build a modern navy.
This did not materialize, for the Tokugawa government soon collapsed. Had this happened, Captain Brook could have become the father of the Japanese navy.
Incidentally, the name of the warship that the mission bought from U.S. government was the Stonewall Jackson.
5. What did Fukuzawa learn from America
Upon return from the United States, Fukuzawa described America and American democracy in many of his books for the general public.
There is no question that Fukuzawa had very favorable views of America and its democracy.
In his text book on countries around the world, called Sekai Kunizukushi or Countries of the World, he described the American revolution in the old Japanese poetic form:
In the Year 5 of Anei
Representatives of the thirteen states
48 samurais jointly signed a letter
A letter of declaration to the world
Blaming the many crimes of the English King
Establishing themselves as the United States of America
With meager weapons and supplies
Thousands of British troops crossed the ocean
Waves of the soldiers came to attack America
Like a savage tiger or a flying dragon,
But the Americans stood firm, fearless, like iron or rock
Determined to be loyal to the new nation
Lives were to be lost,
But Freedom was to be gained
Rather than living with injustice
They will die for the country
And Ready to die for seven long years
Fighting and defending for Months after months
To register knowledge, courage and loyalty for a thousand years
A river of blood bleeding,
A pile of bones building
The hardship of Fighting 72 battles
Is forgotten completely when the final victory came
And they celebrated an armistice with England
By concluding a treaty
Firmly committed to government
With the polity but without a king
Republic, Republic, Republic
It was as though an orator of the Tale of Heike narrated the story of the great battles of ancient Japan.
He was most likely the first Japanese to translate both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States from English to Japanese.
Given the highly technical nature of these documents, his translations are remarkably accurate. Nevertheless, he made some mistakes in translations. He failed to translate the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments, including the provisions about due process of law and the right to receive trial by jury. Perhaps these ideas were so alien to Fukuzawa that he did not know how to translate them into Japanese.
In his book entitled, The Situation in the West, which contains these translations, he stated that “compared to French democracy, which is only nominal, American democracy is a real one where representatives of people regularly meet with the true public spirit, to preside over matters of national interest. It has been close to 100 years since the establishment of the United States, but no law of the land has ever been violated.”
It is said that approximately 250,000 copies of this book were sold in Japan. The Japanese general public was thus exposed to the American democratic ideas from the early Meiji Period.
Fukuzawa’s book Encouragement for Learning begins with the statement that the Heaven does not create any man above man or below man.
Many believe that this was his way of rephrasing Thomas Jefferson’s famous passage in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
In the same book, Fukuzawa continued to say that although men are created equal, there are wise men and stupid men, rich men and poor men, noble men and vulgar men. The difference is whether one studies or not. Those who study hard and learn become rich and famous, but those who do not remain poor and ordinary, again echoing the notion of equality of opportunity.
6. Fukuzawa’s optimism for the future
Fukuzawa was optimistic about the future of the bilateral relationship between Japan and the United States.
Later in his life, in 1885, he wrote an essay in which he stated “An American congressman John Uesugi Kenshin writes a letter to a Japanese diet member Takeda Shingen asking how he is doing.”
This seems to show that Fukuzawa was optimistic about the future of the bilateral relationship. For he believed that even a Japanese person could eventually become a member of the American congress. America is a free country where parent’s social status does not matter. It is all up to individual efforts and talents. One, if talented, can even engage in political activities. Japanese people could emmigrate to the United States and try their luck there. That is what Fukuzawa envisioned.
Fukuzawa predicted what was to become reality some 70 years later. He did not foresee, however, the discrimination against the Japanese Americans and the war between the two countries in the interim.
Fukuzawa was also optimistic regarding Japanese democracy. The Japanese Diet did not convene until 1890. He predicted correctly that democracy in Japan would eventually thrive. He did not foresee, however, that democracy would suffer a great loss in the 1930s and 40s.
In fact, Fukuzawa sent all four of his sons to study abroad. Three of them went to study in the United States and one to England. When he established a University as a new addition to Keio Gijuku in 1890, he invited professors from Harvard, including John Wigmore, who would later become a famous scholar in the United States on the law of evidence.
Fukuzawa was in many ways the first Japanese to advocate individual liberty and freedom.
Probably the most famous concept of Fukuzawa, which later became a school motto of Keio, is “Independence and Self Respect”.
This concept seems to have been derived from Fukuzawa’s strong belief that unless an individual has freedom to think and develop himself, a true democracy and an independent and robust nation would not be possible.
And for a nationalist such as Fukuzawa, to build a nation strong enough to both maintain independence from and compete with western powers was an urgent and essential matter.
He concluded that creating an independent-minded, free-spirited and self-respected citizenry was the best hope for that outcome. This was the basis of his educational philosophy. Fukuzawa’s emphasis on individual liberty and equality is remarkable in view of the fact that he stated this only a few years after the end of the Japanese feudal system.
And I see American influence on Fukuzawa’s way of thinking. And Fukuzawa’s thinking had an enormous impact on the young nation of Meiji early on. In fact, the early Meiji was a remarkably free-spirited time and place.
Unfortunately, Fukuzawa’s liberalism would lose weight as time passed. Japan veered to a more traditional and eventually a more collective society. The result was the military control of the 1930’s and catastrophic war all across Asia and the Pacific.
However, I do believe that Fukuzawa’s belief in the independent-minded individual as the basis of a robust democracy has survived the turbulent times of the past and continue to permeate Japanese society as one strong element of political principles.
Fukuzawa’s influence is still being felt today. And like Fukuzawa, we still continue to learn and debate the pros and cons of American democracy.
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