The Honorable Visitors by Donald Richie (ICG Muse)

Japan - the Land of the Rising Sun. A country that remained closed and isolated for over two-hundred years. It was a policy mandated by the bakufu under the Tokugawa Shogunate and was termed sakoku which literally translates to “closed country”. The only people allowed in were some Portuguese Jesuit missionaries and Dutch traders at designated ports. One of the main reasons for this extreme policy was “an effort by the Japanese government, the Tokugawa shogunate, to legitimize and strengthen its authority.” 

It wasn’t until Commodore Perry with his Black Ships forced the government to open their borders that slowly Japan would see an increase in foreign visitors. In Honorable Visitors, Donald Richie has compiled a book of Japan’s earliest and most prominent visitors including such luminaries as Isabella Bird, Ulysses S. Grant, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Charlie Chaplin, and Truman Capote to name a few. 

Richie’s criteria for inclusion in this book was “determined by the fact of the writing.” He chose people in which “some image of Japan emerged (whether the writer liked the place or not), one that reflected thought and consideration, one that defined not only the country, but also the writer.”

Isabella Bird visited Japan in 1878 when she was forty-seven years old. She was already an acclaimed travel writer having written books about her travels through the Sandwich Islands and living as a woman in the Rocky Mountains. In the early days after Japan opened its borders, visitors were recommended to see popular tourist sites such as Nikko, Hakone, Kyoto, and Kamakura where a fair amount of English was spoken. Bird was not interested in just seeing the famous sites, she was looking for “authenticity”. She was one of the first people to travel to the far north and to Hokkaido where she met the Ainu people. The notes from her journey became her masterpiece of travel writing - Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. 

In contrast to Bird, Pierre Loti, a French native who became popular for his books upon finding love exotic places, could be described as the “bad tourist”. From his writings, it doesn’t appear that he came to Japan to experience it or learn about it. His main goal was to find another woman to add to his list of conquests and to buy as many trinkets as he could for a cheap price. It’s unfortunate that there are still “bad tourists” in this day and age who only come to Japan to look for a playmate they think is demure and subservient to them. 

Each story is unique in the way each writer views Japan. I believe everybody has their own ideas of what they expect when visiting a foreign country. Sometimes those expectations are met, sometimes what’s expected and what you experience can change your way of thinking. Richie’s choice of writers gives the reader an impression of what Japan was like, either good or bad, from the eyes of its earliest visitors. I believe we can learn from the early adventurers in how one should conduct themselves abroad and to be open to all kinds of new experiences. This book certainly makes me want to explore my adopted home country of Japan even more. ~Ernie Hoyt