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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 21 Yokohama sampo.
In the previous article, I described the Geibi no Michi. This time, I will discuss the Yokohama Walk.
Strolling in Yokohama and the History of Kannai and Yokohama Port
This time, we will be traveling to Yokohama City in Kanagawa Prefecture. Yokohama is a huge city with a population of 3.7 million, and for the purpose of this Kaido Yuku no Yuku trip, the “Kannai” area, which was considered the Yokohama district at the end of the Edo period, will be the area of this trip.
The original Yokohama Port is said to be a sand spit. A spit is a long, narrow sand and gravel province that juts out into the sea from the tip of a cape or peninsula, and its tip generally curves toward the inner bay. A spit is formed by the action of waves carried by sand and gravel from rivers and carried mainly by coastal currents.
The Port of Yokohama opened in 1859 (Ansei 6). This is more than 10 years before the opening of Kobe Port in 1868, which was mentioned in the previous “Kobe Walk,” and while Kobe opened in the Meiji period, Yokohama opened during the period of upheaval at the end of the Edo period, which makes the history and origin of the port very different.
When Yokohama opened its port, Yokohama itself was a lonely place with only a handful of fishing villages on the aforementioned spit. The location of the spit, in terms of current place names, is the core of Yokohama City, including Yamashita Bridge to Yamashita Park Avenue, The Hotel Yokohama, Kenmin Hall, Trade Center, Silk Center, and Kanagawa Prefectural Government Office.
The opening of the port of Yokohama was due to the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States (represented by Harris) and the Shogunate (1858), and in terms of the treaty, the port was opened not at Yokohama but at Kanagawa (near the current JR Higashi-Kanagawa station (one stop from Yokohama toward Tokyo)). This was originally proposed to be in Shinagawa, but the port was negotiated to be in Kanagawa because it was too close to Edo, and since the Tokaido Highway ran through Kanagawa-juku, the port was moved to the spit of Yokohama, which was off the highway, with the reason that it would ensure the safety of foreign residents. It is said that the location was decided by using advanced techniques.
Since the official residence was supposed to be located in Kanagawa, the administrative office of the Kanagawa Magistrate was opened in the Kanagawa Inn, so the diplomatic mission was located in Kanagawa, while the customs office and foreign residents’ quarters were located in Yokohama’s spit, creating an inconvenient bifurcation of the city. In response to the requests of the envoys, the shogunate decided to make Shinjuku Village, which was adjacent to the Kanagawa Inn, a residential area, and ordered all 160 households in the village to vacate their homes. However, the residents of Shinjuku Village opposed the move, and the matter was left unresolved.
The road connecting Kanagawa-juku to Yokohama was called “Yokohama-do,” and it entered the Yokohama area via the Yoshida Bridge over the Yoshida River, and the seaward side from the Yoshida Bridge was called “Kannai,” a regional name with a unique connotation.
The walk around Yokohama begins at the Yoshida Bridge site. The Yoshida Bridge site is located on the outskirts of the current Kannai Station. In other words, Kannai Station is located on the boundary of the aforementioned Kannai area.
The road from Kannai to the Old Settlement in Yokohama is what is called “Bashamichi” in this town. Isabella Burt,(There is a book called “Travels in the Interior of Japan” and also a recent manga called “Bird of Wonderland“).a great 19th century traveler and excellent writer, described Yokohama as a “narrow but well-paved street, with well-made sidewalks, curbs, and gutters.
Past the boulevards lined with gas lamps and foreign stores, …” and “Yokohama was an advanced city for Japan at that time,” he wrote. The streets were narrow but well paved, with well-made sidewalks with curbs and gutters.
Ryotaro Shiba and his team went along the Bashamichi Road, past the Coast Guard Headquarters, a place built by the former shogunate, to the birthplace of the lighthouse, located about 200 meters from Sakuragicho Station. At the time, there were not even bricks to build a lighthouse, and since they started by making bricks, it took a long time before the lighthouse was actually completed, and it was not completed until it was clearly indicated.
Construction of Yokohama’s Shinko Wharf began in 1952 and was finally completed in 1914 after a period of construction blanks due to financial difficulties. It was located near the current red-brick warehouses, and at the time when Ryotaro Shiba and others visited the area, it was a lonely and unpopular place. Today, Yokohama’s seaside area is a bustling place with many buildings and fashionable tourist spots, but according to a native Hamakko, it was a lonely place when he was a child. For a long time after the war, the entire port of Yokohama was seized by the U.S. military, and the current splendor of the city has only recently been realized.
There is a foreigner’s cemetery on the hill of Yamanote in Yokohama. According to statistics from the Meiji era (1868-1912), there were 2,500 foreigners living in Japan, of which 1,224 were British, and 625 were British Gods living in Yokohama, making it one of the most international cities in Japan.
The story is also told of a cannon from the old shogunate that was found in the mountain. This is one of the four cannons prepared by Shozan Sakuma, who served as a military advisor to Perry when he was pressing for the opening of Japan to the outside world, and is still on display near Yamashita Park.
At the end of his trip, Ryotaro Shiba describes the hotel where he stayed. At the time, it was called The Hotel Yokohama, which is now the Hotel Monterey Yokohama. It is famous as a classic hotel that retains the interior decor of the good old days, but like the hotel in Kobe, it is currently under renovation and will reopen for business in 2024.
In the next article, I will discuss the Akita Walk.
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