c 1910: Late Meiji Japan

choi

Alex Q Arbuckle, c 1910: Late Meiji Japan. A serene framing of a country in rapid transformation.
http://mashable.com/2016/01/30/meiji-japan/#6OfCaUZwgkqZ

My comment:
(a) It is amazing that Japan in 1910 was backward compared with the West at the time.
(b) Mashable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashable
(a digital media website founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005 (and based in Manhattan) )

(c)
(i) Japanese English dictionary:
* sakoku 鎖国 【さこく】 (n,v): "(See 開国・) national isolation; exclusion of foreigners"
(ii) "the 1867 ascent of Prince Mutsuhito 睦仁 親王 to the Chrysanthemum Throne 皇位"

Emperor Meiji
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Meiji
(1852- 1867 (aged 59; suffered from diabetes and died of uremia); reign 1867 (aged 15) – 1912; table: Born  Mutsuhito; His personal name, which is not used in any formal or official context, was Mutsuhito 睦仁; mother was a concubine)

Yet the ja.wikipedia.org says his father (the sitting emperor) conferred the childhood name 幼名 祐宮 on his only son. (The father's birth or childhood name had been 煕宮. The father had six altogether with three different women, but only this son lived more than 2 years of age.)  In 1860 (aged 7), the son was established as heir apparent 儲君; and elevated as prince 親王 and conferred with the name 睦仁. (Meiji's mother was 典侍 (Chinese: 妃).)
(iii) Taishō  大正

(d) photo captions
(i) "Women winnow rice while a man pounds rice flour."

winnow (vt, vi): "to remove (as chaff) by a current of air"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/winnow
(ii) "A high-ranking courtesan in the Yoshiwara 吉原 [previously a marsh pronounced the same but the 'yoshi' was Hapanese pronunciation of 葦; 蘆] pleasure quarter 遊廓 of Tokyo poses with her attendants."
(iii) "Farmers pour rice through a wooden mechanical hopper."

hopper (n): "[from the shaking motion of hoppers used to feed grain into a mill]  a usually funnel-shaped receptacle for delivering material (as grain or coal); also :  any of various other receptacles for the temporary storage of material"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hopper




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c. 1910
Late Meiji Japan
A serene framing of a country in rapid transformation
by Alex Q. Arbuckle

Starting with a series of policies in 1633-39, Japan began a period of prolonged isolationism. Motivated in part by European traders’ attempts to convert the Japanese to Catholicism, the policy of Sakoku, literally meaning “closed country,” made it a capital crime for a foreigner to enter Japan or a Japanese to leave.

This lasted until the return of foreign trade in 1853, the 1867 ascent of Prince Mutsuhito to the Chrysanthemum Throne and the replacement of a feudal shogunate with an imperial government.

The new Emperor named this regime Meiji, meaning “enlightened rule.” In the half century between the Emperor's restoration in 1868 and death in 1912, Japan was radically transformed from an isolated, fractured backwater to a united industrial nation and major international player.

By the end of the Meiji period, Japan was positioning itself as a peer to and competitor with the wealthy nations of the West. Railroads and telegraph lines unified the country. Textiles, especially silk, became major industries. The government subsidized the recruitment of Western technological experts and sent thousands of students to Western schools.
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One of the new technologies brought back to Japan was photography.

In 1908, Herbert Geddes, a manager for Canadian import/export corporation G.R. Gregg and Company, was sent to work in Yokohama, a major hub of foreign trade.

While posted there, he made many photographs of the land and people, which were hand-colored and sold as fanciful postcards to foreign tourists.

Taken from a Western eye, the photos focus on traditional and “timeless” signifiers of Japanese culture, from carefully landscaped gardens to diligent craftsman and artisans. Less prominent are the newly adopted technological advances that were rapidly creating a new way of life for many Japanese as the Meiji era ended and the Taishō era began.