In the middle of the century before last, Japan was -- as the West termed it -- finally opened up. The mysterious closed land now lay exposed. Having, as the Americans said, fallen asleep in the reign of Elizabeth I, it was shaken awake in the reign of Queen Victoria.
Among the many results was a consequent modernism. Japan, unable to lick the West, would join it. The restoration of the Emperor Meiji and the resulting decades named after him (1868-1912) were filled with the often piquant spectacle of Japan catching up.
At the same time that Meiji was modernizing, however, a very different Japan was being seen by at least some Americans. These were, in main, those easterners who were already sick of what Mark Twain had called the "Gilded Age" -- that carpet-bagging period that succeeded the American Civil War, one which assessed worth by wealth.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.