Isabella Bird, that sharp-eyed, tart-tongued early traveler to Japan, opined that Yokohama had irregularity without picturesqueness, looked harmoniously dull and "does not improve on further acquaintance."
One of the reasons for her criticism was that the city was raw, new and Western. It had been an ordinary fishing village until 1859 when the shogunate decided upon it as an ideal place to trade with foreigners -- far off the Tokaido, a natural enclave where their presence would not be too apparent.
But while Isabella and many another tourist wanted to get into the real Japan, something they thought Yokohama was not, the Japanese themselves flocked down to this new foreign settlement to get their first glimpse of the future, many staying to help create it.
Author Junichiro Tanizaki would later describe its "special atmosphere." Along the slope from the Bluff to Motomachi were shops for foreigners. "Florists, tailors, milliners, bakers, cafes. . . . whatever decorates the windows -- flowers, cakes, cloth -- is a riot of loud Western color." And along with it, special Western smells: "The odor of cigars, the aroma of chocolate, the fragrance of flowers, the scent of perfume -- the strongest were the cigars and the chocolate."
Nonetheless, another writer, Jiro Osaragi, once remarked that during his boyhood in Yokohama he had never seen a foreigner. Originally confined to an enclave, foreigners usually stayed within their own settlement, while outside it the city was growing at a rapid rate. Still, it was a perceived foreigness that for many gave Yokohama its special flavor.
The architectural use of foreign red brick, for example, was seen as very Yokohama-like. Yukio Mishima described warehouses in the rain as "shedding a vivid cinnabar," and Ryotaro Shiba, writing of the same shade, noted that "it would be difficult to mix on the palette." implying a purely Japanese palette.
There were other foreign attractions as well. The first professional performance of "Hamlet" was given in Yokohama, as was the first rendering of Oscar Wilde's "Salome," inspiring Ryunosuke Akutagawa to find the "lithe body" of actress F. Hunter Watts in the lead exuding "a dark passion." And Tanizaki first suffered the domineering beauty of Gloria Swanson when he went to see a Cecil B. DeMille film in an early Yokohama motion picture theater.
Indeed, historical Yokohama so exudes picturesque detail that Bird's condemnation may be disregarded and the remaining delights of the place explored, a copy of this book in hand. The author tells us that his "historical guide" is neither a guidebook nor a history. Rather, it is a hybrid of the two genres, and its purpose is to enrich a visit by setting places and sights in their historical contexts. It lets you know, writes Burritt Sabin, "what you missed."
You missed much, for the city has had very decided ups and downs. Old Yokohama vanished in the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and the rebuilt city was turned into a wasteland by American incendiary bombs in 1945. The present Yokohama is thus only some 50 years old and is, perhaps, more deserving of Bird's original judgement in some respects.
The first part of Sabin's entertaining and enlightening account shows you those places where Old Yokohama still, despite everything, survives. The second part of the book is a short history of the city, beginning with the black ships and continuing through World War II and the subsequent peace treaty.
And a bit beyond. Yokohama saw over 90 percent of its port facilities requisitioned for 20 years after the war. This "twice-risen phoenix" could not implement a blueprint for its reconstruction so long as it had no control of its center. That is why, says the author, "Nagoya, another war-ravaged city, boasts 100 meter-wide boulevards and Yokohama doesn't."
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