{"id":2002,"date":"2012-05-29T20:51:11","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T11:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-05-29\/2002"},"modified":"2012-05-29T20:51:11","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T11:51:11","slug":"this-japan-guidebook-should-prove-useful-assuming-nothing-has-changed-in-the-last-111-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-05-29\/2002","title":{"rendered":"This Japan Guidebook Should Prove Useful (assuming nothing has changed in the last 111&frac12; years)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<div class='resize_warning' id='arw2002'>\n<b>NOTE<\/b>: Images with an <img class='raw' width='19' height='18' src='\/i\/s\/red_zoomup.gif'\/> icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n<table style='border: solid 1px #333; padding: 1em; margin: 10px auto 10px 35px' width='76%'><tr valign='baseline'><td><span\nclass='qo'>&#8220;<\/span><\/td><td><span style='font-size:115%'>\n\nTake the railway wherever available. <span class='nobr'>On those<\/span> plans which no railway yet\ntraverses, take <span class='nobr'>a jinrikisha<\/span>\n<span class='n2002'>(rickshaw)<\/span>.\nAvoid the native <i>basha<\/i> (carriage), if\nyou have either nerves to shatter or bones to shake; and be chary of\nburdening yourself with <span class='nobr'>a horse<\/span> and saddle of your own in the interior, as\nall sorts of troubles are apt to arise with regard to shoeing, run-away\ngrooms (<i>bett\u014d<\/i>)\n\n<span class='n2002'>(stableman)<\/span>, etc. Such, in <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> words, is our advice, founded on\nlong personal experience.\n<\/span><span class='qc'>&#8221;<\/span><\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td colspan='2' align='right'>\n&mdash; from &#8220;Means of Locomotion&#8221;, <u><i>Murray's Hand-Book, Japan<\/i><\/u>, 1901\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n span.n2002 { color: #444 }\n<\/style>\n\n<p style='margin-top: 60px'>My folks just sent me the most wonderful Japan travel guide,\n&#8220;<i>Murray's Hand-Book, Japan<\/i>&#8221;, published\n<span class='nobr'>December 24th, 1900,<\/span> and\noffered for sale as of <span class='nobr'>January 1, 1901.<\/span> It's <span class='nobr'>a printed<\/span>-in-Japan sixth edition of what, as far as <span class='nobr'>I can<\/span>\ntell, started out as the printed-in-London &#8220;<a\nhref='http:\/\/books.google.co.jp\/books?id=-p-okp4uwEgC'><span class='nobr'>A Handbook<\/span> for\nTravelers in Central & Northern Japan<\/a>&#8221;, circa 1881 (available as <span class='nobr'>a PDF<\/span> via that\nlink from Google). Some of the introduction prose is identical, so if my\nsixth edition is not descended from it, at least some of its material\nis.<\/p>\n\n<p>I'm happy to have the later sixth edition because, according to\n&#8220;Treaty Limits&#8221; on page <i>xiii<\/i> of the first edition, which\ntalks about where foreigners are allowed to go in Japan, it's noted that\nKyoto is off limits:<\/p>\n\n<table style='margin: 10px auto 10px 35px' width='76%'><tr valign='baseline'><td><span\nclass='qo'>&#8220;<\/span><\/td><td><span style='font-size:115%'>\n\nKi\u00f4to... which city is not to be approached nearer than 10 <i>ri<\/i>\n<span class='n2002'>(25 miles)<\/span>\n\n<\/span><span class='qc'>&#8221;<\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n<p>However, in the cloth-bound sixth-edition <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> from 20 years later,\nthere's plenty about Kyoto and its temples and shrines and palaces and\nattractions that <span class='nobr'>I look<\/span> forward to diving into. The book's 600 pages covers\n&#8220;the whole empire from Yezo to Formosa&#8221;, and then there's an additional\n100-page section of advertisements.<\/p>\n\n<p>It all looks much more modern than my image of &#8220;1900 Japan&#8221;, especially the advertisements. <span class='nobr'>The facing<\/span> page of the inside back cover is an advertisement for Kirin Beer,\n&#8220;the purest beer sold in Japan&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n<p>There's even a smattering of phone numbers. Page 72 of the advertising\nsection is an advertisement for <span class='nobr'>a new<\/span> hotel in Kyoto opened by an &#8220;N.\nNishimura&#8221;, what is now <a\nhref='http:\/\/ja.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%82%B9%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3%E9%83%BD%E3%83%9B%E3%83%86%E3%83%AB%E4%BA%AC%E9%83%BD'>the\nWestin Miyako<\/a>. <span class='nobr'>The ad gives<\/span> its telephone number as &#8220;421&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n<p>Yet, even though the first power generator in Japan had been in\noperation for <span class='nobr'>a dozen<\/span> years right across the street from that hotel (the\noriginal generator building making an appearance on my blog in <a\nhref='\/blog\/2011-12-07\/1899#102930'>this post<\/a> from\nlast December), I've so far found no mention in the book of that new,\nexciting convenience for the modern man: electrical lighting.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I'm happy to have the later sixth edition because, according to \"Treaty Limits\" on page xiii of the first edition, which talks about where foreigners are allowed to go in Japan, it's noted that Kyoto is off limits:<\/p> \" Ki\u00f4to... which city is not to be approached nearer than 10 ri (25 miles) \" <p>However, in the cloth-bound sixth-edition I have from 20 years later, there's plenty about Kyoto and its temples and shrines and palaces and attractions that I look forward to diving into. The book's 600 pages covers \"the whole empire from Yezo to Formosa\", and then there's [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}