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As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States
In 1860 the empire of Japan sent 170 officials—samurai and bureaucrats, inspectors and spies, half a dozen teenagers and one Confucian physician—to tour the United States, the first such visit to America and the first trip anywhere abroad in two hundred years. Politics and curiosity, on both sides, mixed to create an amazing journey. Using the travelers' own journals of the trip and American accounts of the group's progress, historian and critic Masao Miyoshi relates the fascinating tale of entrenched assumptions, startling impressions, and bewildering conclusions.
Miyoshi finds in this unique encounter an entertaining adventure story of discovery and a paradigm of the attitudes and judgments that have ever since shaped American and Japanese perceptions of one another. This revealing account of "otherness" is still relevant today as we strive to understand peoples whom we think of as foreign—and therefore strangely other than we.
"Masao Miyoshi's masterful account is, by turns, alarming and hilarious as two cultures meet at the court of President James Buchanan. Their mutual incomprehension is, alas, still relevant as inscrutable East fails to make sense of mysterious West, and vice versa."—Gore Vidal
"Miyoshi has given a marvelous and revealing account of a dramatic case of confrontation of cultures and civilizations. It yields much insight into our own society, as seen from a sharply different perspective, and into the culture of the viewers as well-insights well worth pondering today."—Noam Chomsky
"As We Saw Them is a pioneering work in the relationship between cultures. With extraordinary tact and brilliance Miyoshi in effect reconstructs the mind of Japan at that time, a pregnant moment of self-examination and emergence. For contemporary readers As We Saw Them is an invaluable work of insight and interpretation."—Edward Said
Masao Miyoshi was Hajime Mori Professor of Japanese, English, and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Off Center: Power and Culture Relations between Japan and the United States.
Miyoshi finds in this unique encounter an entertaining adventure story of discovery and a paradigm of the attitudes and judgments that have ever since shaped American and Japanese perceptions of one another. This revealing account of "otherness" is still relevant today as we strive to understand peoples whom we think of as foreign—and therefore strangely other than we.
"Masao Miyoshi's masterful account is, by turns, alarming and hilarious as two cultures meet at the court of President James Buchanan. Their mutual incomprehension is, alas, still relevant as inscrutable East fails to make sense of mysterious West, and vice versa."—Gore Vidal
"Miyoshi has given a marvelous and revealing account of a dramatic case of confrontation of cultures and civilizations. It yields much insight into our own society, as seen from a sharply different perspective, and into the culture of the viewers as well-insights well worth pondering today."—Noam Chomsky
"As We Saw Them is a pioneering work in the relationship between cultures. With extraordinary tact and brilliance Miyoshi in effect reconstructs the mind of Japan at that time, a pregnant moment of self-examination and emergence. For contemporary readers As We Saw Them is an invaluable work of insight and interpretation."—Edward Said
Masao Miyoshi was Hajime Mori Professor of Japanese, English, and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Off Center: Power and Culture Relations between Japan and the United States.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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March 14, 2023
This book is a history of the first Japanese mission to the United States. In 1860, Japan had been isolated from the outside world for almost 250 years and was only relearning how to engage with foreign affairs after being forcibly reopened by the United States. One of the first stages in establishing international relations was the signing of the first treaty, for which purpose Japan deemed it important to send a large embassy to demonstrate their commitment and sincerity. This embassy traveled to the United States and back having completed its task. Numerous accounts were written, but cautiously given that the shogun still maintained a strict and sometimes deadly censorship on any material it found destabilizing for the good morals of society. This first encounter with the West on its own turf is a fascinating moment. Japan was to develop a severe inferiority complex and radically reshape society over the next thirty years, so the story of this first encounter needs no justification as to its importance.
Unfortunately for posterity the Japanese delegation was chosen almost explicitly for its lack of imagination and curiosity. The enthusiastic proponents of the embassy (including the man who proposed it) lost out in the endemic factional infighting of the shogun’s court. Specifically, their enthusiasm to learn about foreign ways (even for the purpose of countering them) was viewed with immense suspicion. Several would be dead within years. It’s not just the shogun’s court that was like this: the imperial court was even worse, oblivious to the nature of politics after centuries at the periphery, they valued their high culture and viewed all others with contempt. While the shogun recognized that blunt political reality required opening Japan, imperial courtiers wanted it to stay closed and all foreigners expelled or killed to boot. This was pretty close to the view in the street, inasmuch as such a thing existed. Sonno joi (Revere the emperor, expel the barbarian) was a popular rallying cry among samurai and commoners alike.
All this turmoil in itself is interesting, although as it’s not the focus of the book we’re only given the cliffnotes version (Marius Jensen’s The Making of Modern Japan is an excellent guide). The end result though is that none of the leaders of the embassy really had any interest in going or intention of seeking out new knowledge once there. The embassy came, had a tightly regulated train ride across America, refused nearly all invitations, and generally tried to preserve as tight a bubble of Japaneseness as possible. Their sole real goal was maintaining the dignity of Japan, which it has to be admitted they achieved very successfully. Which places us in the curious position where the best and most inquisitive accounts came from junior members of the embassy. Even these were limited. The embassy staff (all 170 of them!) were kept on a tight leash and required written permission to leave their hotel. Even when they left they were always required to have supervision. If by some reason they managed to get out, and some clearly did as they visited brothels (but only to get some sleep!), none of them know any English so their access to any outside information was limited. The few on staff who could speak English (or more often Dutch) were most closely watched of all and declined to write up their own accounts, as almost everyone else seems to, out of an entirely justified fear that they would be punished for having too much foreign influence. Some were punished anyway. Xenophobia: it’s not just a one-way street.
Given all the pressure on the embassy to avoid all engagement with foreign ways, it’s remarkable how much they brought away. The junior members in particular found that enthusiasm to experience new things which is so central to opening minds. Probably the most sympathetic voice in the book is the ragings of a junior embassyman (recorded in his diary under the note “Not to be seen by anyone”) furious at the restrictions placed on him. More surprisingly for me is the fact that I kind of fell in love with Muragaki, the vice ambassador and absolute snob. I have this clear and undignified vision of him (he has an expressive photograph) with his head tilted all the way back so he can manage to look down his nose at absolutely anything. No custom can be observed, no meeting described, no gift received, without snide observations about its inferior and meaningless nature. Often wrapped up with a platitude about how they can be forgiven for not knowing better because it was done in friendship. Because being polite is, after all, his job. But what’s charming to me is how every time he gets too overwhelmed he explodes into (bad) poetry (waka). Like the following:
Not very good, but clearly brimming with emotion bursting from the chest of a man who just cannot bear it. He didn’t after all have any real desire to be there. Whenever things get too much he detaches himself from reality this way, often leading to somewhat more honest commentary after since he has relieved part of his distress. It’s a keen psychological insight and one I can sympathize with.
Cultural misunderstandings can be quite funny! And he tells it well. Mostly these were on Japanese side of course as Americans were more accustomed to dealing with different customs and ways of thinking. Like the ambassadors’ dilemma of proper protocol. Samurai were accustomed to a rigid social structure which they would no more think of violating than they would of breathing underwater. Aloofness is the proper manner of a samurai, and how they treat people beyond this is dependent entirely on their rank. But how does one rank the president of a company (a title shared by the leader of the United States) in comparison to daimyo or samurai leaders? How about governors? Or mayors? The inflexibility of the social structure is established well enough that we can feel the pain and confusion that comes from contact with such an anarchic status-free society. Nowhere can this be seen better than with their meeting with President Buchanan. Consul Harris had forced a series of concessions from the Japanese with regards to his meeting the shogun, recognizing the importance of establishing himself as being of high status so that he would be listened to. The Japanese noted exactly what privileges he had been accorded and were determined to extract the same concessions for their own meeting with the president: no taking off their sandals, bowing no more than three times, exiting the carriage at the gate of the palace, etc. You can imagine how confused they were when this was all accepted without dispute.
The book itself is divided into four parts. Three of them cover the embassy itself while one briefly covers their lives afterwards. The three on the embassy are divided up not chronologically but by increasing levels of analysis and psychology. The first is fairly obvious: a basic description of what happened on the trip. The second is about what facts they acquired while there. The third is a more theoretical one trying to break down how they thought – what the limitations and differences were. Many of the psychological observations (such as that described above) are profound. Some seem a little out of date. I don’t think most modern readers will have to be persuaded to abandon ideas of inscrutable Orientals when looking at the Japanese and many will already have been introduced to Japanese ways of thinking through anime and manga. Truthfully, I imagine most aspects of Tokugawa social structure feel as alien to a Japanese audience as an English one. Maybe part of this is his dislike of “all cultures… made undistinguishable by the ingratiating blight of technology and consumer culture.”
This is a good book. It manages to squeeze a lot of insight out of the observations of a number of decidedly unimaginative and uninterested people. The book does occasionally drift towards speculation, but it seems mostly justified in doing so. The structure means that it can be a little repetitive. Probably the worst thing I can say about it though is that I wish it had covered the second embassy, which had more inquisitive people in charge and was much more involved in seeking out information of value. The slow awakening of Japan to the outside world is fascinating, and one thing that is quite clear from this book is that this embassy didn’t really do that. It was a strange mix of old traditions, necessary compromises, and deep reluctance. That latter in particular is deeply unfortunate, but this book mines what can be gathered from the embassy and puts it to good use. This is about as clear an account as you can expect of it.
Unfortunately for posterity the Japanese delegation was chosen almost explicitly for its lack of imagination and curiosity. The enthusiastic proponents of the embassy (including the man who proposed it) lost out in the endemic factional infighting of the shogun’s court. Specifically, their enthusiasm to learn about foreign ways (even for the purpose of countering them) was viewed with immense suspicion. Several would be dead within years. It’s not just the shogun’s court that was like this: the imperial court was even worse, oblivious to the nature of politics after centuries at the periphery, they valued their high culture and viewed all others with contempt. While the shogun recognized that blunt political reality required opening Japan, imperial courtiers wanted it to stay closed and all foreigners expelled or killed to boot. This was pretty close to the view in the street, inasmuch as such a thing existed. Sonno joi (Revere the emperor, expel the barbarian) was a popular rallying cry among samurai and commoners alike.
All this turmoil in itself is interesting, although as it’s not the focus of the book we’re only given the cliffnotes version (Marius Jensen’s The Making of Modern Japan is an excellent guide). The end result though is that none of the leaders of the embassy really had any interest in going or intention of seeking out new knowledge once there. The embassy came, had a tightly regulated train ride across America, refused nearly all invitations, and generally tried to preserve as tight a bubble of Japaneseness as possible. Their sole real goal was maintaining the dignity of Japan, which it has to be admitted they achieved very successfully. Which places us in the curious position where the best and most inquisitive accounts came from junior members of the embassy. Even these were limited. The embassy staff (all 170 of them!) were kept on a tight leash and required written permission to leave their hotel. Even when they left they were always required to have supervision. If by some reason they managed to get out, and some clearly did as they visited brothels (but only to get some sleep!), none of them know any English so their access to any outside information was limited. The few on staff who could speak English (or more often Dutch) were most closely watched of all and declined to write up their own accounts, as almost everyone else seems to, out of an entirely justified fear that they would be punished for having too much foreign influence. Some were punished anyway. Xenophobia: it’s not just a one-way street.
Given all the pressure on the embassy to avoid all engagement with foreign ways, it’s remarkable how much they brought away. The junior members in particular found that enthusiasm to experience new things which is so central to opening minds. Probably the most sympathetic voice in the book is the ragings of a junior embassyman (recorded in his diary under the note “Not to be seen by anyone”) furious at the restrictions placed on him. More surprisingly for me is the fact that I kind of fell in love with Muragaki, the vice ambassador and absolute snob. I have this clear and undignified vision of him (he has an expressive photograph) with his head tilted all the way back so he can manage to look down his nose at absolutely anything. No custom can be observed, no meeting described, no gift received, without snide observations about its inferior and meaningless nature. Often wrapped up with a platitude about how they can be forgiven for not knowing better because it was done in friendship. Because being polite is, after all, his job. But what’s charming to me is how every time he gets too overwhelmed he explodes into (bad) poetry (waka). Like the following:
All is strange
_ _ _ Appearance and language
_ _ _ _ _ I must be in a dream-land.
Not very good, but clearly brimming with emotion bursting from the chest of a man who just cannot bear it. He didn’t after all have any real desire to be there. Whenever things get too much he detaches himself from reality this way, often leading to somewhat more honest commentary after since he has relieved part of his distress. It’s a keen psychological insight and one I can sympathize with.
Cultural misunderstandings can be quite funny! And he tells it well. Mostly these were on Japanese side of course as Americans were more accustomed to dealing with different customs and ways of thinking. Like the ambassadors’ dilemma of proper protocol. Samurai were accustomed to a rigid social structure which they would no more think of violating than they would of breathing underwater. Aloofness is the proper manner of a samurai, and how they treat people beyond this is dependent entirely on their rank. But how does one rank the president of a company (a title shared by the leader of the United States) in comparison to daimyo or samurai leaders? How about governors? Or mayors? The inflexibility of the social structure is established well enough that we can feel the pain and confusion that comes from contact with such an anarchic status-free society. Nowhere can this be seen better than with their meeting with President Buchanan. Consul Harris had forced a series of concessions from the Japanese with regards to his meeting the shogun, recognizing the importance of establishing himself as being of high status so that he would be listened to. The Japanese noted exactly what privileges he had been accorded and were determined to extract the same concessions for their own meeting with the president: no taking off their sandals, bowing no more than three times, exiting the carriage at the gate of the palace, etc. You can imagine how confused they were when this was all accepted without dispute.
The book itself is divided into four parts. Three of them cover the embassy itself while one briefly covers their lives afterwards. The three on the embassy are divided up not chronologically but by increasing levels of analysis and psychology. The first is fairly obvious: a basic description of what happened on the trip. The second is about what facts they acquired while there. The third is a more theoretical one trying to break down how they thought – what the limitations and differences were. Many of the psychological observations (such as that described above) are profound. Some seem a little out of date. I don’t think most modern readers will have to be persuaded to abandon ideas of inscrutable Orientals when looking at the Japanese and many will already have been introduced to Japanese ways of thinking through anime and manga. Truthfully, I imagine most aspects of Tokugawa social structure feel as alien to a Japanese audience as an English one. Maybe part of this is his dislike of “all cultures… made undistinguishable by the ingratiating blight of technology and consumer culture.”
This is a good book. It manages to squeeze a lot of insight out of the observations of a number of decidedly unimaginative and uninterested people. The book does occasionally drift towards speculation, but it seems mostly justified in doing so. The structure means that it can be a little repetitive. Probably the worst thing I can say about it though is that I wish it had covered the second embassy, which had more inquisitive people in charge and was much more involved in seeking out information of value. The slow awakening of Japan to the outside world is fascinating, and one thing that is quite clear from this book is that this embassy didn’t really do that. It was a strange mix of old traditions, necessary compromises, and deep reluctance. That latter in particular is deeply unfortunate, but this book mines what can be gathered from the embassy and puts it to good use. This is about as clear an account as you can expect of it.
November 12, 2013
this is a really important book for anyone studying Japanese history!
"...The West embodied everything that Japan was not and should be. The West was wealthy and powerful; Japan should be wealthy and powerful. As soon as possible. But how?"
As We Saw Them specifically focuses on the first USA embassy to Japan in 1860 as well as Japan's first embassy to the USA. other smaller portions of the book are spent on the Meiji reformation and later embassies to Japan.
what I liked best about this gold mine was the journal entries given by members of the Japanese embassy to the United States as well as members of Western embassies to Japan. there is a ton of in depth information comparing the way each culture saw each other from religious to linguistic standpoints. the section regarding specifics within the Meiji reformation is also useful but yet not as indepth as the reformation inside Japan was not the focus of this book.
some sections of this book can get a little complicated because the author quickly jumps from important person to important person and maybe it's just me, but Japanese names all seem too similar to me. I was constantly having to slow down to take note of all the Japanese political figures flying by me.
make sure to read the Notes section in the back of the book! no paucity of information there!
"...The West embodied everything that Japan was not and should be. The West was wealthy and powerful; Japan should be wealthy and powerful. As soon as possible. But how?"
As We Saw Them specifically focuses on the first USA embassy to Japan in 1860 as well as Japan's first embassy to the USA. other smaller portions of the book are spent on the Meiji reformation and later embassies to Japan.
what I liked best about this gold mine was the journal entries given by members of the Japanese embassy to the United States as well as members of Western embassies to Japan. there is a ton of in depth information comparing the way each culture saw each other from religious to linguistic standpoints. the section regarding specifics within the Meiji reformation is also useful but yet not as indepth as the reformation inside Japan was not the focus of this book.
some sections of this book can get a little complicated because the author quickly jumps from important person to important person and maybe it's just me, but Japanese names all seem too similar to me. I was constantly having to slow down to take note of all the Japanese political figures flying by me.
make sure to read the Notes section in the back of the book! no paucity of information there!
June 3, 2018
I was expecting this book to mostly be a historical recounting of the 1860 embassy to the US, but instead it was also an analysis of the people who participated and the way they engaged and interpreted their experiences. I like a good history, but I enjoyed this even more for its multi-faceted look at the event.
February 29, 2024
This is a fantastic book and an academic masterpiece. It was written in 1979 and discusses a trip of the first Japanese Ambassadors to the United States. The author uses the travelogues and journals of the Ambassadors to help explain Japan’s relationship to the “West” and to inform on Japanese culture. This is a must read for anyone interested in Japanese or World culture/politics.
4 stars because the first 50 pages are a little
4 stars because the first 50 pages are a little
May 2, 2018
Anthropology, literary criticism, history, race theory -- a genius work of what I guess you could call "political anthropology".
It's easy to miss just how extraordinary this book is: Miyoshi is dissecting the contexted perceptions of two largely un and mis-comprehending peoples in their first interactions with each other. There's a popular genre of science fiction "first contact" -- think of Ted Chiang's "Arrival". Well, this is the real thing: the interaction between two civilizations with profoundly different ideas about, well, just about everything.
Thanks to Miyoshi, we can see deeply into the Japanese emissaries' thought-- he uses all kinds of tools: psychology, politics, literary theory, to analyse just how these men processed their encounter with what was for them an alien civilization.
For a book this erudite, it's surprisingly fun and filled with esoteric lacunae in footnotes. Sometimes a work with this kind of scholarship can be dry-- but this is both a work of great learning and fun to read, a great achievement.
Should be read by anyone with even a passing interest in Japanese history. And should be read by anyone interested in what it means to meet an alien civilization. How do we interpret gestures and customs of other very different people when all we've got to go on is our own knowledge of our own society, and prejudices about others?
It's easy to miss just how extraordinary this book is: Miyoshi is dissecting the contexted perceptions of two largely un and mis-comprehending peoples in their first interactions with each other. There's a popular genre of science fiction "first contact" -- think of Ted Chiang's "Arrival". Well, this is the real thing: the interaction between two civilizations with profoundly different ideas about, well, just about everything.
Thanks to Miyoshi, we can see deeply into the Japanese emissaries' thought-- he uses all kinds of tools: psychology, politics, literary theory, to analyse just how these men processed their encounter with what was for them an alien civilization.
For a book this erudite, it's surprisingly fun and filled with esoteric lacunae in footnotes. Sometimes a work with this kind of scholarship can be dry-- but this is both a work of great learning and fun to read, a great achievement.
Should be read by anyone with even a passing interest in Japanese history. And should be read by anyone interested in what it means to meet an alien civilization. How do we interpret gestures and customs of other very different people when all we've got to go on is our own knowledge of our own society, and prejudices about others?
August 16, 2022
Short, but detailed because it has a very narrow scope: the first Japanese embassy to the United States in 1860.
Japan had been isolated for a long time, so I was hoping for a good outsider's perspective of the USA from outsiders. Unfortunately, Japan was so self-absorbed that they had very few interesting things to say. They couldn't understand democracy. They understood slavery. They didn't like the relatively free role of women in the US.
The individuals in the embassy were mostly boring characters, with a couple exceptions. "Tommy," the "ladies' man," was fun to read about. And the most important was Yukichi Fukuzawa who would become the foremost Japanese expert on the West, shaping everyone's views on the West. He was far ahead of his time on feminism, but unfortunately admired the West to the point of looking down on the Chinese and Koreans as uncivilized barbarians that needed to be dominated.
Some background on the end of the Tokugawa period is helpful (if you have encountered the word "bakufu" before, you're fine; if not, you might need to use another resource like Wikipedia to help you get grounded at first). For those that know the period, this is a nice story. It's more about the Japanese though. Don't expect many insights into antebellum America.
Japan had been isolated for a long time, so I was hoping for a good outsider's perspective of the USA from outsiders. Unfortunately, Japan was so self-absorbed that they had very few interesting things to say. They couldn't understand democracy. They understood slavery. They didn't like the relatively free role of women in the US.
The individuals in the embassy were mostly boring characters, with a couple exceptions. "Tommy," the "ladies' man," was fun to read about. And the most important was Yukichi Fukuzawa who would become the foremost Japanese expert on the West, shaping everyone's views on the West. He was far ahead of his time on feminism, but unfortunately admired the West to the point of looking down on the Chinese and Koreans as uncivilized barbarians that needed to be dominated.
Some background on the end of the Tokugawa period is helpful (if you have encountered the word "bakufu" before, you're fine; if not, you might need to use another resource like Wikipedia to help you get grounded at first). For those that know the period, this is a nice story. It's more about the Japanese though. Don't expect many insights into antebellum America.
November 9, 2025
This was both an interesting, and also sad read. Because on the one hand, it's wild seeing a nation research ways to speedrun becoming a self-defending world power, and interacting with cultures that feel like other worlds.
On the other hand, you also get a close look at the cultural and racist influences that would help create the Japanese empire of the early 20th century.
I think the most interesting takeaway from this book, is the way in which abuser-enabler dynamics appear at the level of cultures. This idea of "oh, if I become like this powerful person, or if I comply with them, I'll be protected, unlike [--insert marginalized scapegoat group--]". Even though things rarely work out that way in a stable fashion.
On the other hand, you also get a close look at the cultural and racist influences that would help create the Japanese empire of the early 20th century.
I think the most interesting takeaway from this book, is the way in which abuser-enabler dynamics appear at the level of cultures. This idea of "oh, if I become like this powerful person, or if I comply with them, I'll be protected, unlike [--insert marginalized scapegoat group--]". Even though things rarely work out that way in a stable fashion.
August 6, 2020
A really interesting book that manages to really explain and unpack the contrasting thoughts, feelings and lives of the Americans and Japanese in the mid-19th century. Likewise, the book is a really good length so you are not overwhelmed with information. The one thing I would say is it’s not an incredibly readable history book, it’s more of an academic study, with extensive quotations and analysis. So if your looking for a history book that tells a story this isn’t the book for you. However, if your looking for a detailed explanation and understanding of Japanese culture vs American culture this is the perfect book for you.
March 3, 2023
It was fine, you should probably read this with more study of Japanese history though, and the translation is not the best.
September 13, 2016
Some of it was interesting, but I found the middle rather dry. It does read very academically, like a thesis project almost. I do appreciate the amount of research and references, even if I didn't look into them.
It is an interesting look at the history of the time, though, and I most enjoyed the last chapter, on the "what happened after". It was most informative on providing more info on the Meiji Restoration and how that came about. I think this book would be essential reading for anyone studying that very specific time.
The two stars are because it was informative but I wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone.
It is an interesting look at the history of the time, though, and I most enjoyed the last chapter, on the "what happened after". It was most informative on providing more info on the Meiji Restoration and how that came about. I think this book would be essential reading for anyone studying that very specific time.
The two stars are because it was informative but I wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone.
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October 4, 2015a highly readable account of the first Japanese mission to the west. It offers an interesting reversal of the typical narrative of Westerners observing inscrutable "Orientals." (1860)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews