The public is invited to the following lecture. A 1,000 yen donation from non-members would be appreciated, but is not required.
Place: Seisen University, 3-16-21 Higashi Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-8642 (Gotanda Station, Yamanote Line).
The November meeting is back at the usual time of 6:30, but at a new venue. Seisen University is a ten-minute walk from Gotanda station. Take the street leading to Sony Headquarters (follow the Yamanote Line in the direction of Osaki) till you come a a sign on the left pointing to Seisen (it is by the Kuchina dentist's office but not always clearly visible). Turn left and continue until you come to the university on your left. To reach the lecture hall, go round the right-hand side of the main building (Conder Building/ Honkan) until you come to 1-go-kan. The route will be signposted. If you prefer to take a taxi, it is a 660-yen ride to "Seisen Joshi Daigaku".
Patrick Carey studied at Cambridge University, where he read Modern Languages (French and Italian) for Part I of his B.A. and Social Anthropology for Part II. After teaching languages in a variety of schools in London, he came to Japan in 1980 to join the staff of International Language Center (ILC). He is now an Associate Professor of Reitaku University, teaching English in the International School of Economics and Business Administration.
In his paper he will compare the way in which a number of foreigners and one Japanese artist have recorded their travels on the Tokaido over the three hundred years from 1691 to 1990. The Tokaido was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 as the main link between the military government in Edo and the emperor's court in Kyoto. To facilitate travel, 53 post-towns or stages were officially decreed along its route. In 1691 Engelbert Kaempfer made the first of his two journeys along the Tokaido; he described them in great detail in his History of Japan, recently re-published in Professor Beatrice Bodart-Bailey's fine new translation. Hiroshige's 1832 journey will be illustrated with slides of some of his woodblock prints from "The 53 Stages of the Tokaido", published in 1833. Like Kaempfer, Hiroshige is interested in landscape, townscape and the local people, and like Kaempfer he has a sense of humour.
There were few journeys made by foreigners during the 20th century. Carey himself first heard about the Tokaido during an orientation week in Japan in 1980, and the chance discovery years later in a Jimbocho bookshop of a book that included a map of the route reawoke his early enthusiasm for the idea of walking the 53 stages from Tokyo to Kyoto. In spite of hearing that the old road no longer existed, apart from a famous stretch at Hakone, he decided to set out and try to relate the modern landscape to the scenes that Hiroshige had depicted. In his paper he will recount some of the events of this journey and describe the present-day appearance of selected scenes from Hiroshige's prints, also comparing his experience with that of his predecessors, where appropriate.
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 9", November 2000, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.
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