Japan and Britain After 1859: Creating Cultural Bridges

26 The price of seclusionIt is worth taking a closer look at Japan’s involvement in 1893 with theChicago World’s Columbian Exposition. As has been noted Japan was thefirst to respond to the invitation, and it eventually invested more than¥630,000. This was one of the largest sums spent by any foreign country insetting up its exhibits. Japan, moreover, seems to have been given one of thechoicest locations on the fairground. Japanese workers were sent from Japanto build the Ho-o-den Palace. The building, designed by a Japanese architect,was decorated by members of the Tokyo Art Academy. Gozo Takeno,the Japanese minister to Washington, explained that his country was enthusiasticabout participating in the Exposition because of Japan’s interest infurthering commercial ties with the United States as well as proving that‘Japan is a country worthy of full fellowship in the family of nations.’ 31It was astonishing that the Japanese, newly venturing into the worldoutside Japan, should have responded so positively to the great publicityengine of industrialisation, the Great Exhibition. By so doing they createdan unusual but effective cultural bridge. Any Japanese artefacts that were forsale were eagerly snapped up by enthusiastic buyers. What in retrospect isintriguing is the way in which the Japanese government made involvementwith the great exhibitions part of official government policy.The grand finale, the exhibition that involved the Japanese more than anywhich had gone before and the culmination of her pro-exhibition policy, wasthe Japan British Exhibition held in London in 1910. This very expensiveexhibition is discussed in Part IV.Figure 2.2 Street of shops at Japan British Exhibition, London, 1910