Andrew Cobbing – författare

The investigations undertaken in the pursuit of knowledge by the first overseas Japanese travellers during the 1860s and 70s have left a unique record of life in the then unknown west. Leaving behind a homeland culturally isolated for more than 200 years, these samurai travellers were especially fascinated by the extent of British political and commercial influence they observed during their travels, and therefore paid particularly close attention to the Victorian world and recorded all they saw in minute detail. Their diaries and ''travelogues'' comprise the single largest body of material on Victorian society to be recorded in any non-European language. This book examines the nature of these travellers'' experiences and their perceptions of Victorian Britain. A deeper understanding of this rich source material is important because, although entirely unknown to British readers, the documents reveal one of the most spectacular culture shocks ever recorded in World History. They are also important because the images of Victorian and other western societies that they portrayed to the Japanese reading public in the late nineteenth century still underpin Japanese understanding of the outside world more than a hundred years later.

The investigations undertaken in the pursuit of knowledge by the first overseas Japanese travellers during the 1860s and 70s have left a unique record of life in the then unknown west. Leaving behind a homeland culturally isolated for more than 200 years, these samurai travellers were especially fascinated by the extent of British political and commercial influence they observed during their travels, and therefore paid particularly close attention to the Victorian world and recorded all they saw in minute detail. Their diaries and ''travelogues'' comprise the single largest body of material on Victorian society to be recorded in any non-European language. This book examines the nature of these travellers'' experiences and their perceptions of Victorian Britain. A deeper understanding of this rich source material is important because, although entirely unknown to British readers, the documents reveal one of the most spectacular culture shocks ever recorded in World History. They are also important because the images of Victorian and other western societies that they portrayed to the Japanese reading public in the late nineteenth century still underpin Japanese understanding of the outside world more than a hundred years later.

In the spring of 1865, when Japan was in the grip of a major civil war, eighteen samurai and an interpreter risked their lives to embark secretly on a voyage to the unknown lands of the barbarian west. Their destination was Britain - at the hub of a vast empire. These were the Satsuma students, some of them still in their teens, all carrying orders from their domains to travel abroad. It was an extraordinary and daring expedition. Their experience of life in the west not only transformed their perception of the outside world, but through their diverse activities in later life, had a profound impact on commerce, education and culture in Meiji Japan. First published in 1974, Inuzuka Takaaki''s study is still the classic work on the Satsuma students'' revealing tale of discovery. In this translation by Andrew Cobbing, further details that have since emerged are also included to give a fresh portrayal, the first in English, of this singular episode in the opening of Japan.

In the spring of 1865, when Japan was in the grip of a major civil war, eighteen samurai and an interpreter risked their lives to embark secretly on a voyage to the unknown lands of the barbarian west. Their destination was Britain - at the hub of a vast empire. These were the Satsuma students, some of them still in their teens, all carrying orders from their domains to travel abroad. It was an extraordinary and daring expedition. Their experience of life in the west not only transformed their perception of the outside world, but through their diverse activities in later life, had a profound impact on commerce, education and culture in Meiji Japan. First published in 1974, Inuzuka Takaaki''s study is still the classic work on the Satsuma students'' revealing tale of discovery. In this translation by Andrew Cobbing, further details that have since emerged are also included to give a fresh portrayal, the first in English, of this singular episode in the opening of Japan.

In the spring of 1865, when Japan was in the grip of a major civil war, eighteen samurai and an interpreter risked their lives to embark secretly on a voyage to the unknown lands of the barbarian west. Their destination was Britain - at the hub of a vast empire. These were the Satsuma students, some of them still in their teens, all carrying orders from their domains to travel abroad. It was an extraordinary and daring expedition. Their experience of life in the west not only transformed their perception of the outside world, but through their diverse activities in later life, had a profound impact on commerce, education and culture in Meiji Japan. First published in 1974, Inuzuka Takaaki's study is still the classic work on the Satsuma students' revealing tale of discovery. In this translation by Andrew Cobbing, further details that have since emerged are also included to give a fresh portrayal, the first in English, of this singular episode in the opening of Japan.

In this first major study of the region in English, the author examines the key themes of Kyushu’s history from earliest times – the cultural interaction with the continental mainland, settlement, location and infrastructure as well as trade and commerce, – arguing that it was the principal stepping-stone in terms of Japan’s cultural, social and economic advance through history up to the present day. Although an integral part of Japan, Kyushu is culturally distinct in that its location on the East China Sea has exposed the region to an unusually high degree of influence from overseas. There was diplomatic exchange between this island and China, for example, even before the political entity of Japan came into existence. Kyushu, in fact, has been the setting for many of the major cultural encounters in Japan’s history, from the introduction of Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity to gunpowder, coffee and tea. The volume also includes a colour plate section containing 60 images which support the text and provide the reader/researcher with invaluable pictorial references to Kyushu’s history from earliest times to the present day.

In the early 1880s, Kawada Ryokichi, a young samurai training at a shipyard on Clydeside, near Glasgow, met and fell in love with a Glaswegian girl - a bookshop assistant - by the name of Jeanie Eadie, and took the many letters she wrote to him (together with a lock of her hair) back to Japan in 1884, where they remained undiscovered for almost a hundred years. Subsequently, Kawada was to have an extraordinary career at the heart of the building of the new Meiji Japan, but it was his period in Scotland which informed everything he later accomplished - from shipbuilding to agriculture, and, at the end of a long life, his conversion to Christianity. It may even have influenced his decision to become the first Japanese owner of a motor car in 1901. Through a detailed reconstruction of Kawada's life and career, the book provides a remarkable case study of a single life impacting on developments in the Meiji period, from the building of the new docks at Yokohama to the planting of seed potatoes in Yokohama. The biography also takes us through different epochs - from the roots of rebellion in the last years of the Tosa domain, to the early days of Mitsubishi, the world of shipbuilding in Glasgow, Yokohama docklands and, finally, the first decades of modern farming in Japan. Not least, of course, it contains the rare account of an East-West love story which unfolds through the eighty-nine letters Jeanie wrote to Ryokichi, all of which are transcribed and republished here.