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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kaidou wo Yuku Vol.39 NewYork.
In the previous article, we discussed the Iki/Tsushima road.In this issue, we describe our trip to New York City, USA. This trip was centered on Manhattan Island. Ryotaro Shiba and his party took a cab to Inwood Hills on the northern tip of Manhattan Island, then visited the American Indian Museum (the name “Indian” is no longer used, but “Native American,” but the museum name seems to have remained the same) and Central Park, After that, in the Brooklyn area, I visited the Brooklyn Bridge, the project of Roebling and his son, who built the Brooklyn Bridge, as described in “Travel and History of Awa and Awaji Island on the Highway. After discussing American mechanical civilization with photographer Margaret Parke White, we will visit Prospect Park and Williams Park, where we will discuss America and the Jews, and Greenwood Cemetery, where we will visit the grave of Townsend Harris, U.S. Minister to Japan at the end of the Edo period.
Afterwards, the group will attend the retirement ceremony of Professor Donald Keene, a master of Japanese studies at Columbia University, where Japanese studies is flourishing, and reflect on the life of Professor Ryusaku Tsunoda, the founder of Japanese studies at the university. Finally, the group visits Coney Island and Brighton Beach to reflect on human thought and identity.
New York City is the largest city in the United States and a center of great influence on world politics, economics, culture, fashion, and entertainment. The Chinese characters applied to the city are string city, string about city, etc.
New York City faces the Atlantic Ocean in the northeastern United States and is home to the massive Port of New York. The city is divided into five boroughs (Barrow and Borough): Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.
New York was founded by the Dutch in 1624 as a trading post, and the settlement was called New Amsterdam until 1664, when the English began to take over and named the city “New York” after King James II of England (Duke of York and Albany) The city was named after King James II of England (Duke of York and Albany).
In the 19th century, New York was greatly transformed by immigration and development. In particular, as described in “Irish Road Trip (2): Ireland” there was a large influx of Irish immigrants, and after the Civil War (1861-1865), there was a large influx of African Americans who were liberated from the South. By 1916, New York City had the largest number of African urban immigrants in North America.
New York City is located in the southeastern part of New York State, about halfway between Washington D.C. and Boston, Massachusetts, at about the same latitude as Aomori City in Japan, Beijing in China, Ankara in Turkey, and Madrid in Spain, as described in “Nanban-no Michi (2): Spain and Portugal on the Road to the South“. New York City is located on the Hudson River.
New York City is located at the mouth of the Hudson River, which flows into a natural harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, contributing to New York’s development as a trading city. Most of New York City is located on three islands, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island, which makes the land area small and causes a high population density.
This trip was focused on Manhattan Island in New York City.
Manhattan Island is bounded on the west by the Hudson River, on the east by the East and Harlem Rivers, on the north by the Spuyten Diville River (and the Harlem River Canal), and on the south by Upper New York Bay. The island is approximately 4 km wide and 20 km long, and its shape is elongated in a roughly north-south direction.
Manhattan Island consists of a single piece of bedrock, and the basement rock that makes up most of the island is a crystalline mica schist called Manhattan Schist. This rock is strong, and its metamorphic constituents are believed to have been formed during the formation of the Pangaea continent. The surface of downtown and midtown is rich in this rock, which is why these areas are lined with skyscrapers. There are also outcrops of Manhattan schist in Central Park, of which Rat Rock is an example.
Ryotaro Shiba and his group will first head to Inwood Hill Park, an area of Manhattan where nature remains outside of Central Park.
This area was inhabited by the indigenous Lenape people until the 17th century, and includes “The Circle,” a sacred place for prayer and meditation, “Indian Cave,” a rocky place they used for camping, and “Shorakkopoch Rock,” where the Dutch are said to have purchased Manhattan Island from the natives in 1626.
From Inwood Hill Park, we will travel south to visit Central Park in the center of Manhattan Island.
Central Park was artificially landscaped in the 1850s and 1860s to become an urban park with eight lakes and ponds, several tree belts, lawns, meadows and small grassy areas, 21 children’s playgrounds, and 6.1 miles (9.8 km) of roads, all artificially created by intercepting streams.
From there, the group will travel further south to visit the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects the southern tip of Manhattan Island to the Brooklyn neighborhood.
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the U.S. and the first in the world to be built with steel wires. 14 years in the making, it was completed in 1883 and designed and built by German immigrants Roebling and his son.
The Brooklyn Bridge is divided into two levels, the upper level of which people and bicycles can still walk across today. The lower level is a three-lane roadway on each side. The bridge, combined with its Gothic design, has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City, and people can often be seen running on the bridge during holidays.
Next, the group will cross the Brooklyn Bridge to Greenwood Cemetery to visit Townsend Harris’ cemetery.
Townsend Harris became the first American representative to Japan in July 1856.
His mission was to sign a treaty of commerce with Japan, but the Tokugawa Shogunate, which was reluctant to sign a treaty, instructed Harris to stay in Shimoda and negotiate with the Shimoda magistrate, who wanted him to leave for Edo. Harris was forced to open a consulate-general at Gyokusenji Temple, which was provided by the Tokugawa Shogunate, but the following year he was allowed to leave for Edo, and the Zempukuji Temple in Azabu became the U.S. legation.
After long negotiations, Harris was able to sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Japan in 1858. Although Japan did not have a Western-style legal system at that time and had to recognize extraterritoriality, Harris did not make any other provisions that would be disadvantageous to Japan, and he wrote in his diary that the Japanese were “the best people east of the Cape of Good Hope,” and he had a favorable impression of Japan.
In a letter to the British Minister, Harris wrote, “It is impossible to ask the Japanese government to take immediate action, and I wish to leave in history the fact that the invasion that occurred with the arrival of Christian civilization did not occur in Japan,” and he called for a deep understanding of Japan and a sincere response that would resolve the issue through discussion. Harris’ attitude was not lost on the Japanese.
Harris’ attitude was recognized by the Japanese, and when Harris returned to Japan in 1862, the Shogunate sent a letter to Secretary of State Seward requesting that he remain in Japan. Harris’s tomb in Greenwood, Brooklyn, states that the treaty he concluded “gave satisfaction not only to the American people but also to the Japanese people.
The group will then return to Manhattan Island and head to Columbia University on Broadway to attend Donald Keene’s retirement ceremony, one of the goals of the trip.
Donald Keene became one of the world’s leading scholars of Japanese culture. In 1928, the Institute of Japanese Studies was founded by Ryusaku Tsunoda, and after his education at the institute, Donald Keene taught at Columbia University for many years, where he nurtured many scholars of Japanese studies. Donald Keene was educated at the Institute and taught at Columbia University for many years, where he trained many Japanese scholars.
In the 1950s, D. T. Suzuki, who is mentioned in “Meditation, Enlightenment, and Problem Solving” stayed at Columbia University for a long period of time, teaching and researching Zen philosophy, and the university became an important center for Oriental thought in the United States.
In the next article, we will discuss the Dutch travelogue.
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