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Victorian Japan Awed Elizabeth Bisland And Nellie Bly

Victorian Japan awed Elizabeth Bisland in early December of 1889. It was her first port on her westward course to beat Nellie Bly around the world in less than eighty days. Like many people in the late 19th century, she was swept up in the cultural phenomena of Japonisme, an obsession with Japanese arts and culture from the moment her ship approached land.

Heading on an eastward course, Nellie Bly wouldn’t reach until early January of 1890. She was also impressed by Victorian Japan, although her observations were filtered through the pragmatic lens of a news reporter.

Japan Opened Her Sliding Doors To Western Visitors

Like many countries, Japan underwent massive upheaval during the 19th-century. In 1853, the American Navy commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its ports. Japan began its transition from centuries of conservative, isolationist policies of the Shōgun-dominated Edo Period to rapid modernization of the Meiji Restoration.

Heartland Japan writes:

“Known as bunmei kaika (“civilization and enlightenment”), western culture was widely promoted. From intellectual trends to clothing and architecture, trends were adopted to promote and strengthen Japan’s science, technology, iron and steel manufacturing, shipbuilding, and coal mining industries.” (Keijiro Sawano/Heartland Japan)

Victorian Japan built its first railroad in 1872. By 1880, telegraph lines linked the country’s major cities. Private businesses grew with government financial support, and the development of a European-style banking system in 1882.

“By the end of the 19th century, Japan had become a full-fledged modern industrialized nation, on par with western powers.” (Keijiro Sawano/Heartland Japan)

Artistic Styles Flowed Between East And West

During the 1880s foreigners flocked to Japan, bringing their culture, clothing and cameras. People viewed Japan as serenely beautiful paradise of genteel people with pristine etiquette.

“Many Westerners felt that they would encounter a “Golden Land” in Japan that was free of many of the negatives that they viewed as afflicting the materialistic, corrupt West during the “Gilded Age.” (Asian Studies)

Collectors vied for Japanese sculptures, prints, textiles, paintings and objects of all types. The Asian Art Museum writes that Japanese aesthetics influenced architecture, landscaping, performing arts, clothing and visual arts.

Among the many artists who embraced Japanese aesthetics and subject matter were Vincent van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha.

Influence Also Flowed From Western Artists to Japanese

Known as Yōga the Western influenced style usually portrayed Japanese subjects, locations and themes, but adapted Western materials techniques.

“Young artists and ukiyo-e veterans alike eagerly turned to novel Western media like oil and watercolor and techniques like perspective and chiaroscuro. Many studied under the foreign artists who beat a path to Japan once its ports were opened for trade.”(ArtScape)

Impressionist painters of Victorian Japan adapted al fresco lighting, dappled sunshine, bright colors, and fast brush strokes. Among the most successful were Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924), Asai Chū  (1856-1907 )and Takahashi Yuichi (1826-1894).

Dueling Travelogues: Elizabeth Bisland vs. Nellie Bly

Both women wrote copiously throughout the months they circled the globe. Bly’s book, Around the World In Seventy-Two Days, was published in 1890, just months after the race. Bisland’s, A Flying Trip Around The World, was published the next year in 1891.

Bly’s sold well, while Bisland’s did not. Perhaps it was because the publicity flurry had dissipated by the time her book hit the market. Or was it the difference between Bisland’s poetic prose and Bly’s Newsy Narratives?

Both New York-based writers enjoyed Japan, Elizabeth Bisland was euphoric while Nellie Bly remained charmed but sometimes critical.

Following are excerpts from the chapters that on their time spend in Victorian Japan.

Elizabeth Bisland Waxed Poetic

Bisland’s ocean liner, the White Star steamship Oceanic, of the Occidental and Oriental line sailed from San Francisco at three o’clock on Thursday afternoon of November 21, 1889. Sixteen days later it approached the coast of Japan.

“At last there comes a day when one rises in the morning and the sailors, pointing to the horizon, say, “That is Japan,” and one cries with cheerful excitement, “Yes! yes!” (A Flying Trip Around the World, p.52)

Bisland admits that she sees nothing but ocean until land finally appears on the horizon on the morning of December 8, 1889.

“…a delicate gray cloud grows up along the edge of the water and slowly a vast cone- like cumulus, a lofty rosy cloud, takes shape and form, gathers clearness of outline, deep- ens its hue of pink and pearl, melts softly into the gray beneath, soars sharply into the blue above, and reveals—Fujiyama . . . the divine mountain! (p. 52)

“… we had come unto Fan-land . . . to the Islands of Porcelain … …to Shikishima – the Country of Chrysanthemums. The place across whose sky the storks always fly by day, and the ravens by night-where cherry – branches with pink- and-white blossoms grow out of nothing at all to decorate the foreground… (A Flying Trip Around the World, p. 54)

Bisland acknowledges the vast differences between America and that of Victorian Japan.

“And I who had come to it from the country of common-sense, of steam- ploughs and newspaper enterprise, bowed my head reverently in the portal of this great Temple of the World, and fell upon my knees, awed by its mysterious age and My heart within me was stirred, and I was led to great recklessness in the use of capital letters. vastness. There lies here, by the gates of the East, a land, as we discovered, stranger and more wonderful even than we had dreamed… the green hills of fairyland!” (A Flying Trip Around the World, p. 55)

The “queerest craft” met them. They were the bay-light-winged junks with gray and russet sails. On land, Jinrikishas carried Bisland and her fellow passengers to their hotel.

“Tonsured doll-babies in flowered gowns, such as one buys at home in the Oriental shops, are walking about here alive, and flying queer-shaped kites, with a sort of calm unconscious elfishness befitting dwellers in fairyland. Two little Japanese ladies with pink cheeks, and black hair clasped with jade pins, toddle by on wooden pattens that clack pleasantly on the pavement. Their kimonos are of gay crape, and their sashes tied behind like bright-tinted wings. Every one-even the funny little gendarme who stands outside of his sentry-box like a toy soldier-gives us back smile for smile. (A Flying Trip Around the World, p. 63)

In addition to the beauty she saw everywhere, Bisland was impressed by the cleanliness and joy of Victorian Japan.

“Everything, everywhere, is radiantly clean, dainty, and inviting. All the folk, too, are gay and voluble. The children play about unchidden; and one might imagine it, if not corrected, some Festival of Lanterns, the place is so joyous, bright-tinted, and fantastic under the smiling, benignant moon. . . .( A Flying Trip Around the World, p. 67)

Bisland was not as enamored by old-school Japanese rulers.

“The daimio hastens with his attendants to meet him. It is the great shogun himself, stern of mien, and with fierce, orgulous brows; a very impressive figure, notwithstanding he wears black velvet trousers a yard and a half too long for him, and is accompanied by a train- bearer who skips about and disposes this superfluous length in graceful folds when ever his master comes to a standstill…. He is the embodiment of the sterner side of the Japanese character- the aristocrat- ic spirit that kept alive a proud feudalism.” (A Flying Trip Around the World, p.70)

Bisland closes her chapter on Japan with a glowing assessment of the character of the “commoners” who populated Victorian Japan.

“They are brave with the headlong courage of the child who is ignorant of the meaning of danger, and in matters of honor they have youth’s reckless passionate exaltation. They are unfailingly sweet-tempered and courteous. Their artistic conscientiousness ascends into the realm of morality. They are frugal and temperate; they detest all ugliness, dirt, and squalor; they are unique; they are delightful-they are Japanese!” (A Flying Trip Around the World, p. 67)

Read The Complete Text Here.

Nellie Bly Wrote Newsy Narratives

The people and culture of Victorian Japan impressed Nellie Bly. That said, she was still a reporter for the New York World, always looking under the tidy surface for a darker story. She tells it like she sees it, even if her assessments are in some passages a sign of her times –judgmental, narrow-minded and bigoted.

Keep in mind this is the same woman who went undercover in Blackwell’s insane asylum to change deplorable conditions of its patients.

Nellie Bly left Hong Kong on the afternoon of December 28, 1889 aboard the RMS Oceanic. Her ship reached Yokohama on January 5, 1890. The Following Excerpts are from Chapter XV of her Book: One Hundred and Twenty Hours In Japan.

After seeing Hong Kong with its wharfs “crowded with dirty boats manned by still dirtier people, and its streets packed with a filthy crowd”, she found Yokohama to have “a cleaned up Sunday appearance.”

She found the Jinricksha drivers of Victorian Japan a “gratifying improvement” on those she saw from Ceylon to China.

“Clad in neat navy-blue garments, their little pudgy legs encased in unwrinkled tights, the upper half of their bodies in short jackets with wide flowing sleeves; their clean, good-natured faces, peeping from beneath comical mushroom-shaped hats; their blue-black, wiry locks cropped just above the nape of the neck, they offered a striking contrast to the jinricksha men of other countries.”

Bly found their outfits laughable. No doubt, they felt the same way about her strange plaid coat and cap. But her snarky style sold books just as it sold newspaper articles in America.

“Their legs are small and their trousers are skin tight. The upper garment, with its great wide sleeves, is as loose as the lower is tight. When they finish their “get up” by placing their dish-pan shaped hat upon their heads…Stick two straws in one end of a potato, a mushroom in the other, set it up on the straws and you have a Japanese in outline.

She also found their flat wooden-based sandals (geta) amusing.

“Talk about French heels! …They make the people look exactly as if they were on stilts. These queer shoes are fastened to the foot by a single strap running between toes number one and two, the wearer when walking necessarily maintaining a sliding instead of an up and down movement, in order to keep the shoe on.”

While she enjoyed the performing arts in Japan, she and her fellow travelers were not pleased with some of the customs they were asked to respect.

“…we were asked to take off our shoes before entering, a proceeding rather disliked by some of the party, who refused absolutely to do as requested. We effected a compromise, however, by putting cloth slippers over our shoes…We sat upon the floor, for chairs there are none in Japan, but the exquisite matting is padded until it is as soft as velvet. It was laughable to see us trying to sit down…We were about as graceful as an elephant dancing.”

Bly visited Kamakura to see the famed 50-foot tall bronze god, the image of Buddha, familiarly called Diabutsu.

“…the circumference of the thumb is over three feet. I had my photograph taken sitting on its thumb with two friends, one of whom offered $50,000 for the god.”

Bly writes that the people in Tokyo “are trying to “ape” the style of the Europeans.”

“The Japanese are very progressive people. They cling to their religion and their modes of life, which in many ways are superior to ours, but they readily adopt any trade or habit that is an improvement upon their own. Finding the European male attire more serviceable than their native dress for some trades they promptly adopted it. The women tested the European dress, and finding it barbarously uncomfortable and inartistic went back to their exquisite kimonos…”

She noted that only a few decades before her visit, Japan had not yet been modernized.

“They knew nothing of railroads, or streetcars, or engines, or electric lighting. They were too clever though to waste their wits in efforts to rediscover inventions known to other nations…Straightway they sent to other countries for men who understood the secret of such things, and at fabulous prices and under contracts of three, five and occasionally ten years duration, brought them to their land.” 

Bly references the blossoming technology of handheld cameras for tourists, mostly from the Kodak company. She writes that not taking her camera was the only regret of her trip.

It seems plausible that Bly was hoping to become part of Kodak’s campaign as a result of her trip around the world.

“On every ship and at every port I met others–and envied them–with Kodaks. They could photograph everything that pleased them; the light in those lands is excellent, and many were the pleasant mementos of their acquaintances and themselves they carried home on their plates. I met a German who was spending two years going around the world and he carried two Kodaks, a large and a small size, and his collection of photographs was the most interesting I ever saw. At the different ports he had professional photographers develop his plates.”

Just a few years later in 1893, Kodak came out with a handheld camera designed for people on the go, like Bisland and Bly.(More on Kodak Girls here.)

Victorian Japan captured Bly’s imagination and respect,  just as it had with Bisland.

“If I loved and married, I would say to my mate: “Come, I know where Eden is,” and like Edwin Arnold, desert the land of my birth for Japan, the land of love–beauty–poetry–cleanliness…Japan is beautiful.”

Despite some criticisms of Victorian Japan, Bly closes her chapter with praise.

“I found nothing but what delighted the finer senses while in Japan.”

Read How Elizabeth Bisland and Nellie Bly raced through New Year’s Eve of 1889 into the year 1890. Here

How The Bisland-Bly Race Enticed New Readers Here

How some readers believed Bisland could beat Bly Here

How Nellie Bly made her connection to Jules Vern a reality Here

How some people believed Joseph Pulitzer broke rules to make Bly win Here

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Victorian Secrets From Footnotes In History
Know The Past To Invent The Future

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