Negotiating the nation: public diplomacy and the publication of English-language tourist guidebooks of Japan in the Meiji period (1868–1912)

Abstract

Tourist guidebooks are powerful instruments of public diplomacy: as supposedly ‘impersonal’ descriptions, intended for ‘average’ readers, they can be used to subtly promote careful national narratives, and to draw the attention of foreign publics to a country’s soft power. This article analyses, in this light, the English-language tourist guidebooks of Japan published by the Society called Kihinkai (Welcome Society, 1893–1912), the earliest Japanese organization for the promotion of inbound tourism. It relates them to the popular handbooks of Japan published by the British House of Murray, which were adopted as their model. Murray’s handbooks ‘created’ Japan as an international tourist destination for a majority of English-speaking travellers, responding to common travel tropes and expectations about the country. The Kihinkai’s guidebooks engaged with them in the form of ‘autoethnographic’ texts, adopting their style and language, as a way to partake in their established reputation of authoritativeness. At the same time, they carefully reframed their narrative of Japan, in a way that was coherent with the Kihinkai’s general ‘diplomatic’ strategy – born of the background of its founders and supporters, and of the coming together of private and public sector interests.

Keywords:

• travel
• tourism
• tourist guidebooks
• public diplomacy
• soft power
• Kihinkai
• John Murray
• colonial picturesque
• Meiji Japan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Professor Erica Baffelli for her valuable suggestions on an earlier draft of this article, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

1 The Kihinkai did translate some of its guidebooks in French, but English was dominant, also in light of the fact that, as Leheny (2003, 55) reports, a good percentage of ‘Western’ visitors to Japan at the time travelled from Britain and the US. British settlers had also been pioneers in the study of Japan (Koyama 2011): both Satow and Chamberlain, authors of different editions of Murray’s handbook, were affiliated with the Asiatic Society of Japan (founded in Yokohama in 1872), a leading authority in Japanese Studies.

2 They appeared in 1894, 1899, 1901, 1903, 1907 and 1913.

3 Later published independently by Maruya: Tomita 1893.

4 The protests were both on creative and economic grounds. See Akai (2009, 158).

5 I will focus in the article mainly on this seventh edition of the Handbook, as it was the one directly referenced by the Kihinkai in its longer guidebooks, published since 1905.

6 See Buzard (1993, 1–2) on the common opposition between ‘tourist’ and ‘traveller’.

7 Globetrotters’ travel reports and the way they convey this ambivalence are discussed in depth in Best (2021, 45–46).

8 For an in-depth analysis of the background and activities of the members of the Society, see: Shirahata (1985a, 1985b, 1996); Shiga (2000); Nakamura (2006); Furuya, Nose, and Ōta (2009); and Satō (2019).

9 First as Welcome Folio Containing Map of Japan, in 1899 and 1901, and then as The Latest Map of Japan, for Travellers, in 1901, 1905, 1906, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, and 1913. All the pamphlets were in English, except for the fourth and eight editions, which were bilingual (French and English). A French version, titled Nouvelle carte du Japon à l'usage des voyageurs. 5.éd., was also published in 1905.

10 With one edition in 1906, two different editions in 1907, and then again one in 1909 and 1910. A French edition was also published in 1907 as Notes utiles et itinéraires pour voyager au Japon.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 794595.

Notes on contributors

Sonia Favi

Sonia Favi is a tenure track researcher at the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin. Her current research focuses on travel related sources and travel encounters within Japan and between Japan and Europe. She recently completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie project on these themes at the University of Manchester. E-mail: [email protected]