PMJS has published William Clarke and Wendy Cobcroft’s annotated translation of Ueda Akinari’s Tandai Shoshinroku, available as a free PDF and also as a book-on-demand from Lulu (and eventually Amazon). I leave the commentary on the value of scholarly networks, non-profit online publishing, and the finally-growing body Early Modern translations as an exercise for our readers, who don’t need me to tell them what they already know.

I’m using Ivan Morris’ translation of Saikaku’s The Life of an Amorous Woman and other Writings this semester¹, but one thing which is bugging me right off the bat is his habit of translating money into Pounds Sterling by converting the Tokugawa money to rice and then converting the rice to yen and the Yen to Pounds at the 1963 rate.² Needless to say, neither I nor my students have any intutitive sense how much £16.70 in 1963 is worth today, but that’s what he says one gold Ryo is. According to the first historical currency calculator I could find, that’s about US$335.24 now. But that’s assuming that the original gold-rice/rice-yen calculation is worth anything….

I’d much rather have had a discussion about relative purchasing power, but here’s my best (quick) guess:

A little more digging and I found How Much Is That? which covers a good swath of modern financial history with converters that are a bit more open about their indices. The What Were Japanese GDP, CPI, Wage, or Population Then? page is set up to produce “Annual Observations in Table and Graphical Format for years 1879 to Present” based on your inputs. Unfortunately, the data actually only goes back to 1952, except for the CPI.³ Still, plugging in the 1963 Yen values Morris uses and you get⁴

Tokugawa	1963 ¥	Current ¥	Current dollars5
1 gold ryo	16,350	67000	742
1 Ichibu-koban	4,087.5	17000	181
1 silver chogin	11717.5	47300	525
1 silver kamme	272,500	1,100,000	12,180
1 copper kanmon	4,087.5	17000	181
1 copper monsen6	4.1	17	.18

This is still not terribly satisfying, since it’s based on continuity in rice prices — and if I wanted to be really thorough, I’d convert the 1963 yen value back to rice, then convert rice to yen for current prices.

Then there’s specie value by weight, just for kicks. Using Morris’ weights:

Tokugawa Coin	weight in momme7	weight in grams	Current market value in dollars
1 gold ryo	4.8	18	512.45
1 Ichibu-koban	1.2	4.5	128.11
1 silver chogin	43	161.6	61.72
1 silver kamme	1000	3758	1435.37
1 copper kanmon	1000	3758	12.34
1 copper monsen	1	3.758	0.012345

As I said before, I much prefer a discussion of relative incomes and purchasing power. Fortunately, I just got the announcement of the new EMJ, including Constantine Vaporis, Samurai and the World of Goods: the Diaries of the Toyama Family of Hachinohe. So I have some fresh scholarship I can share along with the old.

1. Thanks, Alan!
2. Appendix II, “Money in Saikaku’s Time”
3. I’m very surprised: population and GDP data for those years isn’t exactly hard to find…. The Historical Statistics of Japan has some data going back to the late 19c and early 20c. Not the most interesting stuff, but at least some of the basics. The Bank of Japan statistics covers some of the early 20c in detail. HistoricalStatistics.org is a Swedish site with some interesting stuff on it, like the excel spreadsheet with population and GDP estimates for the whole world going back to year 1!
4. I’m going to use an approximation for current yen values, based on CPI and Real GDP per capita. Nominal GDP numbers seem very high….
5. Using the current 90/dollar
6. There’s an error in Morris’s table, I think: he indicates the yen value of the kanmon as being 100,000 times greater than the monsen instead of 1000 times. Since, according to Morris, the kanmon should be equivalent to the ichibu-koban, I have to assume that the monsen needs to be scaled up.
7. Morris pegs the momme at 58 troy grains, or 3.758 grams

Keene includes several extended reminiscences of Meiji published immediately after his death. Unfortunately, some are included in the original French (pp. 707 and 709). Many thanks to Nathanael Robinson, who generously and meticulously translated these from the 19c formal French. I’ve appended these to the chapter guide for future reference.

Ito Hirobumi:

Whatever might be the causes which helped Japan in its progress, and whatever part we might have had in its success over the years, all that is insignificant when compared with what the country needs from his majesty, the emperor. The imperial will has always been the light that guides the nation. Whatever could be the contributions of those, like myself, who are trying to help his enlightened government, it would have been impossible to obtain such remarkable results had it not been for his great, wise and progressive support that is always behind every new reform.

Suematsu Kencho:

His Majesty provides the steadiest attention to each area of the affairs of the state. Every day, from the early morning till the late hours, he works with his cabinet on public affairs. He knows what matters concern each department, above all that which affects the army and navy. . . . Sometimes he astonishes [us] with his knowledge of events among his people. He takes a keen interest in everything that happens in the major countries of the world, his only desire being to learn from other nations.

The comment of the French editorialist was astute:

The emperor was able, at certain times, to influence the policy of his ministers, because his ability to act and his intelligence were not in doubt. But his main work, which he achieved with remarkable wisdom, was to be the head of state, the living symbol of national life and the public interest . . . . The great kings are not those who, like Philip II, want to manage the affairs of state by themselves, but those who, having placed their trust in great ministers, support them with all the prestige of the monarchy.

Reporter for The Journal (G. de Banzemont)

Mutsu-hito was not only one of the most celebrated emperors of Japan, but also one of the greatest monarchs of the modern world. One need only recall the anguish that gripped the Japanese nation at the first news of the sovereign’s illness. Over several days, the tearful crowd marched, without concern for the torrid heat, under the windows of the imperial palace. On their knees, their foreheads covered in dust, in a common voice, they pleaded with the gods. And as soon as a dull lamp, illuminating the room of the deceased, announced that the monarch passed away in agony, there came the most violent explosion of sorrow that can be imagined.

Ito’s comment seems somewhat noncommittal — “support” and “guides” aren’t specific — but emphasizes the “progressive” modernizing elements of the regime.¹ Suematsu, on the other hand, who served as an ambassador and Home minister, is effusive and clear. The “astute” French editorialist presents what could well be a summary of Keene’s own views.² de Banzemont’s narrative is echoed, but not quite confirmed, by Japanese sources Keene cites, and seems a bit excessive.³

1. Keene, in footnotes, says that the date of this statement “is not clear” but doesn’t explicitly remind the reader that Ito’s been dead for three years.
2. That’s what “astute” means: agrees with me
3. At some point, when I have more time, I want to go back to Japanese newspapers of the time.

I’m not one of those Japan scholars who came to the field as a Japanophile¹ , and my preferred literary reading tends to speculative fiction, humorous verse and historical adventures. I’m almost certainly the wrong person to comment on Edward Seidensticker’s passing, but I’ll do until someone better comes along.

If you’ve studied Japanese history, literature, culture or society, the odds are extremely good that you’ve read something translated by Seidensticker. I’ve assigned his works before, particularly Kawabata’s Sound of the Mountain and the abridged Tale of Genji. I’ve read a lot of the other Kawabata and Tanizaki he translated, and it always seemed to me that he was a sympathetic and faithful translator, but a final judgement would have to come from people who know the original works and the process of literary translation more intimately than myself.

I have to admit that I’ve never read Seidensticker’s memoir, so I can’t tell you much more about his life, etc. I can say, though, that his work is one of the great foundation stones of my own career. Not that I drew on his scholarship or ever met the man, but his accessible translations were fodder for hundreds of thousands of students, and the interest they raised sustained the growth of Japanese Studies.²

1. nor as a Japanophobe. Just curious, really.
2. There’s an interesting argument to be had, perhaps, over whether cultural or economic factors are more important in area studies. I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other except to note that they promote very different kinds of scholarship and that we have usually had in Japanese studies a reasonably good balance.

Japan Focus has expanded its mission one more time, this time to include new literary translations! They’ve published a Jay Rubin translation of an Akutagawa Ryonosuke story, The Story of a Head That Fell Off (“Kubi ga ochita hanashi”), which they describe as an “anti-war satire” and put in the context of a large body of untranslated Akutagawa anti-war satires

“Shogun” (The General, 1924), a well-known portrait of a victorious general resembling Nogi Maresuke (1849-1912), the “hero” of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, is a bitter satire of a man responsible for the death of thousands. “The Story of a Head That Fell Off,” set against the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, is an intense cry against the absurdity of war that unfortunately remains as relevant in our barbaric twenty-first century as it was in Akutagawa’s day.
…
In one brief, startling piece on the political misuse of history, “Kin-shogun” (General Kim, 1922), he incorporated Korean legend into a tale concerning Hideyoshi’s 1598 invasion of Korea.

I admit that most of the Japanese literature I’ve read was translated; I only delve into untranslated literary texts very rarely, but I do try to pay attention to what’s said about literature in other contexts. I’m more than a little surprised that Akutagawa’s anti-war stance never came to my attention before, but perhaps the fact that Akutagawa died in 1927 kept him from becoming a victim of the changing political situation post-1931 and therefore kept his politics a bit under the radar. Also, satire, particularly historical satire, can be very tricky to translate, especially for a general readership which is unfamiliar with the issues, context or style. And literary studies often specifically exclude political history, focusing on aesthetic and “cultural” elements, textual things that avoid the questions of audience and less subtle intentions.

It’s also a bit disconcerting, because Akutagawa is one of the few early 20c authors with which our students have the slightest chance of being familiar, through the famous movie version — and linguistic appropriation of the title to mean a situation of varying accounts — of “Rashomon” (and “In a Grove”, which is actually the story with the varying perspectives).¹ It would be nice to have been better informed, and I wonder if my ignorance was common among my colleagues and readers, or if I just missed something obvious along the way.

The story’s pretty good, I’d say. It does have some of that familiar Akutagawa grotesquerie, which allows the characters to go a bit beyond normal polite conversation.

1. Yeah, I took a look at the Wikipedia article on Akutagawa. It focuses quite exclusively on his more literary endeavors and views, and mentions none of the stories discussed in this article.