Yokohama Boomtown Curriculum, Lesson 05
What Did It Mean to Be “Western”?
Introduction
According to historian John Dower, author of the Yokohama Boomtown Essay, Yokohama at this time in history (1860s–1870s) was Japan’s first-hand showplace of Western civilization. Yokohama was synonymous with “Western” in the minds of the Japanese artists capturing life in the treaty-port city through their woodblock prints.
Because they could be mass-produced and disseminated cheaply and widely, Yokohama prints were one of the most—if not the most—powerful mediums for introducing Japanese people to what it meant to be “Western” and, by extension, a “modern” nation. The prints educated people within Yokohama, as well as those in further reaches of Japan, about the West.
How then would Japanese with first- or second-hand access to information about the West through Yokohama have defined “Western”? In concrete terms, what did it mean to be “Western”? The students’ task in this lesson is to define what “Western” meant to Japanese at this time, as reflected in data from the woodblock prints.
This lesson provides an alternate approach to developing content understandings similar to those targeted in Lesson Four, Creating a Guide to the “Foreigners.”
National History Standards
Objectives
At the conclusion of this activity, students will be better able to:
• Recognize the Yokohama prints as a primary source of information about the West for Japanese living at the time.
• Articulate a definition of what it meant to be “Western” to a particular group of people living at a particular time and place in history.
• Identify patterns across a large sampling of images.
• Categorize data to develop organizing themes.
Materials and Preparation
• Individual and small group access to computers and Internet
• Access to printer
• Teacher Background Notes
• Handout 05-A
• Lesson Five Mini-database.pdf
Time Required
Two class periods
Procedure
1. Introduce students to John Dower’s statement that, to the artists creating woodblock prints at the time, “Yokohama was essentially synonymous with ‘the West.’” You can highlight Dower’s statement in the Essay or simply read it to the class. If the class has done other lessons in the Yokohama Boomtown unit, ask them what kinds of things the woodblock prints conveyed about life in Yokohama and Western cultures and societies. Record some answers on the board for review.
2. If historian Dower’s thesis is true—that Yokohama equaled “Western” for many Japanese at this time—how then would a Japanese person with first- or second-hand access to information about the West through Yokohama have defined “Western” in concrete terms and examples? What did it mean to be “Western” from a Japanese perspective, using Yokohama as the source of information? Explain to the students that their task in this lesson is to define “Western” as Japanese at the time would have done, using the woodblock print data they have at their disposal in this unit.
Depending on the class, teachers may choose to conduct this as an open-ended activity, with students developing their own definitions of what it meant to be Western at this time. Alternatively, teachers may choose to work with a more structured assignment. If the former, go to steps #2 A-C; if the latter, go to steps #3 A-D (below).
2A. Students will create their own definitions of what it meant to be Western. Assign students to work alone or in pairs. Explain the assignment: students will use the woodblock prints of the West in Yokohama to answer the following question: what did it mean to be “Western” as perceived by Japanese in Yokohama at this time?
Students will use a mini-database of images from Yokohama Boomtown. Students will have access to 24 woodblock prints.
2B. Allow one to three class periods, and homework as necessary, for students to complete their research and analysis of the woodblocks. Students undertaking the project in this open-ended format should be able to conduct research independently. It may be helpful to explain a process for working through this activity, as follows:
• Each student will review all the images in the mini-database to begin to formulate a working definition of “Western” in the eyes of Japanese at this time.
• Students may benefit by viewing the images a second time, looking for categories that might help define or identify different aspects of Westernization. The titles of the woodblocks will give clues on possible categories.
• Students should devise an initial definition of what it meant to be “Western” based on the evidence in the woodblocks.
• As a final step, students should organize their information and the evidence in the woodblock prints to illustrate their definition of “Western” through Japanese eyes at this time. As in other activities in this unit, students will need to be selective, choosing the best evidence from all the images in the mini-database.
2C. To present their definitions and supporting evidence, have students take the roles of Japanese in Yokohama at the time, writing to someone living elsewhere in Japan. As an alternative, students might take the roles of Yokohama residents traveling to Kyoto, where they share information about Yokohama with people they meet. Presentations can be written or oral at the teacher’s discretion.
To conclude the lesson, complete step #4 below.
3. For a more structured alternative, organize students into groups and explain that each group will focus on one component of a definition of “Western” as seen through Yokohama woodblock prints.
3A. If students have already studied Japan during this period, teachers may choose to lead a class brainstorming session in order to come up with four or five components of “Western” that will guide the class definition. Students will draw upon their knowledge of the Tokugawa period and the weakening of that government in the 1850s and 60s, as well as Japan’s initial encounter with U.S. commodore Matthew Perry. Write the following on the board:
For Japan in the 1860s, Western equaled (=)
Have students brainstorm some responses. From these responses, identify four categories or components of “being Western” at this time.
As an alternative, teachers may assign the following four components, one component to each group:
Western = technology and science
Western = industry
Western = unique attitudes and ideologies
Western = specific ways of life (family, gender, social organization)
3B. Students will use a mini-database of images from Yokohama Boomtown. Students will have access to 24 woodblock prints.
3C. Distribute Handout 05-A to all students. Review instructions with the class. Each group should view the mini-database and choose four images that speak to that group’s category of Westernization. Each group’s task is then to use the information in those images to construct a written definition of that particular component of Westernization. Their definitions should answer the questions:
• What did it mean to be Western in terms of technology and science?
• In terms of industry?
• In terms of attitudes and ideologies that seemed characteristically Western?
• In terms of ways of life?
If students have access to printers, have each group print images of the four woodblocks they chose.
3D. Have groups report out, reading their definitions and showing the images on which their definitions are based. The written definitions and prints can be posted on the classroom wall. As an alternative to group reports, students may be given the individual homework assignment of writing a letter to a Japanese living outside Yokohama, explaining what it means to be “Western” based on their evidence and the definition their group constructed.
4. To conclude this lesson, ask students to consider some of the pitfalls and shortcomings of a definition of “Western” based solely on the evidence in this collection of woodblock prints. Explain that conclusions are only as sound as the evidence on which they are based and that historians must always question the evidence at their disposal.
Ask students to generate a list of questions they might ask about the evidence they had to work from. Students should be able to generate such questions as:
•
Who were the artists?
• Did they have a point of view they wanted to convey?
• What access to Westerners did they have?
• Did the government exercise any restraints on this art or its subject matter?
• Were there woodblock prints on other topics that were not included in the mini-database?
Ask students to comment on how the answers to such questions might change their research findings and thus their definitions of what it meant to be “Western.”
As a final debrief of this lesson, turn students’ attention to the process of writing historical narrative by asking them to consider holes or gaps in the evidence they had to work from. Through class discussion, consider some or all of the following questions:
• What kinds of data or information seem to be missing from this body of historical evidence (the mini-database)?
• Are there aspects of Western nations that are missing from the woodblock depictions?
• Did you find negative aspects of the West portrayed in the woodblocks you studied? If so, what? If not, why do you think negative portrayals are not included? (Students should recognize that for the most part the woodblock prints portrayed positive—even idealistic—images of the West. The art presented “Western” as a very positive condition.) Ask students to comment on why this may have been so.
Now ask students to consider the role of the author in this process. On the one hand, it is possible that the author may have chosen predominantly positive images to present. Constructing a historical narrative is a selective process. However, another possibility is that the author could find only positive images in the woodblocks he uncovered in his research. Ask students to comment on how these two explanations might affect the history that is written. Refer students to the “Internationalism” section of the Essay. Author John Dower writes:
… At the same time, it is also illuminating to note how much that was associated with the Westerners in Yokohama did not appear in these prints. Perry’s visits in 1853 and 1854, for example, had inspired a great range of graphic responses on the part of Japanese artists. “Portraits” of the Americans ranged from fairly realistic renderings to outright cartoons and caricatures that conformed to the old stereotypes of “hairy barbarians.” Despite the demonization of foreigners that was taking place throughout much of Japan in the 1860s, virtually none of this seeped into the Yokohama prints themselves.
This may have been commendable, but the obverse side of such generally flattering treatment was romanticization.…
How could students find out if other images, with different—and possibly more critical—data on what it meant to be Western are available for historians to use?
Lesson developed by Lynn Parisi.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2008 Visualizing Cultures