How Western Music Came to Japan

Extract

To begin this article, I ought to give a picture of the condition of Japanese Society a century ago, when European culture was first introduced into Japan.

Until a century ago Japan had been ruled by Shogun Tokugawa, an administrator of the feudal age, under whose policy of isolation we had no possibility of assimilating either European or Oriental civilisation. In the year 1867 a civil war against the Shogun brought to an end the feudal system in Japan. The revolutionary army, which was supporting the Emperor, established a new government and opened up the country to foreign commerce. To make up for the backwardness caused by three centuries of isolation, they took an extreme course and europeanised the country in a very short time. Not only did they send a great number of young scholars to Europe to be trained there, but they also invited European advisors into government and many other important posts. Eagerly the upper classes set about changing the ancient customs of their country: they took a special pride in wearing European dress and discarding all signs of traditional Japanese life. In fact, very soon Japanese aristocrats vied with each other to appear at the soirées of the European Diplomatic Corps in the most fashionable European dress, dancing to European music minuets and waltzes instead of traditional Japanese dances and Japanese music, and speaking French. Soon the progressive middle classes tried to imitate this zest for europeanisation. They wore kimonos with European shoes and bowler hats, smoked big cigars, and sang ‘Home Sweet Home’ in English in the street.