The American Diary of a Japanese Girl: An Annotated Edition

Notes to the Text

Notes to the Text DEDICATION 1 Haruko, Empress of Japan (1850–1914), born Masako Ichijō, married Mutsuhito, the Emperor Meiji, in 1867, shortly before the upheavals of the Meiji Restoration transformed the imperial institution. In line with Japan’s efforts at modernization, Empress Haruko made public appearances with the emperor, took an active role in promoting women ’s education, and engaged in charity work. As she had no children, she officially adopted Yoshihito, the future Emperor Taishō, one of fifteen children the emperor fathered among his five ladies-in-waiting. BEFORE I SAILED Note: The first number of each entry indicates the page on which the word or pharase appears. 3 (23 September) Meriken Kenbutsu (メリケン見物): American sightseeing trip. The transliteration “Meriken” was a slangy alternative to the more accepted “beikoku no” or “Amerika no,” and survives today only in such quaint instances as Kobe’s Meriken Park. 3–5 (24 September) “Nono Sama” (のの様): a childish name for any sort of transcendent deity: the Buddha, the gods, the sun, the moon, etc. Mitsuho No Kuni (瑞穂の 國): usually “mizuho no kuni,” an archaic name for Japan meaning “land of abundant rice.” Konpira shrine: The main branch of the Shintō shrine popularly known as Konpira-san (金比羅さん) but officially known as Kotohira-gū (金刀比羅宮) is located on the island of Shikoku, but there are smaller Konpira shrines throughout Japan, including several in Tokyo; Morning Glory is probably referring to the famous one located at Toranomon, about one mile north of Shiba Park. The enshrined deity is said to be a protector of seafarers . Miss Morning Glory’s comment, “I didn’t exactly see how to address him, being ignorant what sort of god he was,” points to complex questions about the historical transformations of the shrine and its syncretic deity, identified at various periods with either Shintō or Buddhist practices and beliefs, according to the prevailing religious and political climate. Since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the Japanese government forcibly separated Shintō and Buddhist practice, the shrine deity Konpira Daigongen had been identified with the Shintō deity Okuninushi no Kami. For a detailed history, see Thal. Amerikey: Morning Glory’s word for America does not appear to be of Japanese origin. 4–6 (26 September) 4 yens: In 1900 four yen was equivalent to two dollars. By way of comparison, a copy of the moderately expensive American Diary of a Japanese Girl sold for $1.60. “Sara! sara! sara!” (さらさらさら): rustling or murmuring sound. The steamer “Belgic”: Noguchi used the name of the ship that had carried him across the Pacific in 1893, which he described in his autobiography as “an almost unimaginably small affair for a Pacific liner, being only three thousand tons” (SYN 25), though, in fact, the Belgic had a more respectable gross tonnage of 4,212 tons. Built in 1885 by Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line, she was already small by the early 1890s, when White Star Liners typically weighed in at six- to eight-thousand tons, and a mere toy compared to Harland and Wolff’s most famous production, the 1912 Titanic (the company always used names ending with -ic) which, at 46,328 tons, could have comfortably held ten Belgics. The 420-foot Belgic and its sister ship the Gaelic were chartered by the Oriental & Occidental Steamship Company, joining the Doric (1881) and Coptic (1883) on the company ’s Pacific service connecting San Francisco and Hong Kong with a stopover at Yokohama . Noguchi’s choice of the ship for Morning Glory’s passage was careless, however, because in 1899, the Belgic was no longer on the Pacific service and indeed, no longer existed , having been returned to Britain to be refurbished and resold the previous year; at the time of Morning Glory’s supposed passage, she was doing duty between New York and London for the Atlantic Transport Line under the name Mohawk. Morning Glory could have sailed on the Gaelic, which ran the Pacific route through 1904, or on the Coptic or Doric until 1906. 6–7 (29 September) my book of Longfellow refers to an edition of the works of the very popular nineteenth-century American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807– 82). Longfellow’s career began with Voices of the Night (1839), Ballads and Other Poems (1841), and Poems on Slavery (1842); in the late 1840s and 1850s, he published several long narrative poems, including the famous Evangeline and Song of Hiawatha, both of...