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Beyond Orientalism 217
crisscrossed the land and a fully modern commercial and industrial society
emerged. There was, of course, the language barrier, a result of “the punitory
miracle at Babel,” but the commercial necessities of globalization would take
care of the communication problem. 35
There was very little discussion of racial disabilities in the case of the Japa n-
ese. The pro cess of deracination through education, much talked about in theory,
was being successfully implemented by a culture that appreciated the
strategic importance of Western knowledge. For that reason, the Japa nese
embassy to the United States in 1872 was “one of the most remarkable occurrences
of the day.” Japa nese students were described as “among the quickest
and brightest in the world,” which helped to explain the rapidity of the nation’s
progress. Those students burned with “a zeal in study that has brought many
of them to the grave.” Americans expected that these students would carry
back with them not only their knowledge, but, of equal importance, “also liberal
notions concerning the relations between the government and the people.”
Japa nese success would in turn reverberate farther afield, particularly on the
mainland of Asia. If Western pressure alone could not force China to turn
around, a modernized Japan would be “the most efficient helper in breaking
down the Chinese exclusiveness and altering the decay of the Flowery Kingdom.”
And for all the talk linking Christianization and modernization, it was
undeniable that Japan was advancing without relying on Christianity. Despite
its indifference to Western religion, the hope remained that Christianity would
henceforth make rapid inroads, by piggybacking on Japan’s modernization
rather than leading it. 36
Could the best of the old be blended with the new to produce uniform
change for the better? Not everyone thought so. For Americans of romantic
disposition entranced by Japan’s beauty, the prospect of modernization evoked
an antistrophe of loss and melancholy. “We shall miss the old picturesqueness,”
said Noah Brooks, adding that “possibly Japan may seem to be less happy in
the new order of things.” He suspected, moreover, that much loss and sorrow
would result from “this pathetic spectacle of the rude awakening of a great nation.”
An essay on Japa nese theater considered it “an open question” whether
the people would be happier or wealthier. Appletons’, suggesting that westernization
would be traumatic to the Japa nese way of life, hoped that “this cup, at
least, may pass from them in their present universal passion for Western civilization.”
A few romantics were out- and- out pessimistic. The modernization of