Japan in the Mind's Eye of Two Mexican Travelers (1874, 1900)

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes [1] In 1716 Halley presented before the Royal Society of London A New Method for Determining the Parallax of the Sun, or Its Distance from Earth. Halley's method was put into practice for the first time in 1761 and 1769 by astronomers from various countries without optimal results (Moreno Corral 1986 Moreno Corral, M. A. 1986. Odisea 1874 o el primer viaje internacional de científicos mexicanos, México: Secretaría de Educación Pública / Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Google Scholar], p. 11). [2] The commission's members were Francisco Jiménez, second astronomer, Manuel Fernández, topographer and calculator, Agustín Barroso, calculator and photographer, and Francisco Bulnes, chronicler and calculator. The trip took place between September of 1874 and November of 1875. [3] Atsuko Tanabe places the arrival of Tablada Tanabe, A. 1981. El japonismo de José Juan Tablada, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. [Google Scholar] in Yokohama around 10 June and his departure in October 1900 (1981, p. 45). In 1919 Tablada's Tablada, J. J. 1919. En el país del sol, New York and London: D. Appleton & Co.. [Google Scholar] columns were compiled in a book entitled En el país del sol. In the RM the columns appeared under the titles and dates listed in the reference section. [4] The phrase comes from the title of the book La imaginación técnica: sueños modernos de la cultura argentina in which Beatriz Sarlo (1992 Sarlo, B. 1992. La imaginación técnica: sueños modernos de la cultura argentina, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nueva Visión. [Google Scholar]) explores the literary uses of the scientific word, in a moment of democratization of diverse fields of knowledge. [5] The first edition was published in France. A second edition appeared in Switzerland in 1780 and a third in Germany in 1782 in eight volumes. For the present work the following were consulted: a compendium translated into English by F. Fischer (1964 Fischer, F. 1964. “Translator's Note”. In A Voyage to the Indian Seas, Edited by: Gentil, Le. Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild. pp. xix–xxi [Google Scholar]) concerning the stay in the Philippines, and vol. 1 of the Swiss edition in French. [6] It is striking that Jules Verne Verne, J. 1873. Le Tour du monde in quatre-vingts jours, Paris: Bibliothéque d'éducation et de récréation. [Google Scholar] published Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours in 1873, one year before the Mexican astronomical voyage. [7] See his book Sobre el hemisferio norte once mil leguas. Impresiones de viaje a Cuba, los Estados Unidos, el Japón, China, Conchinchina, Egipto y Europa, published in 1875. [8] Díaz Covarrubias (1875 Díaz Covarrubias, F. 1875. Observaciones del tránsito de Venus hechas en el Japón por la Comisión Astronómica Mexicana, Paris: E.D. Schmitz. [Google Scholar]) also published a technical report, Observaciones del tránsito de Venus hechas en el Japón por la Comisión Astronómica Mexicana, which was one of the first known internationally. [9] Loti traveled to Japan in 1885 and later in 1900. These stays inspired Japoneries d'automne (1889) [translated into Spanish as El Japón 1910], Madame Chrysantème (1888), and La troisième jeunesse de Madame Prune (1905). [10] For the present work, the Spanish translation was consulted. [11] In Tablada's Tablada, J. J. 1900g. Un entierro en el japón. Revista Moderna, 3(21): 333–336. [Google Scholar] words: ‘un criado nipón, risueño y reverencioso, entra a mi cuarto y me entrega una carta. A la luz del día que declinaba descifro el mensaje: El Conde Kuroda, presidente del Consejo privado del Emperador, había muerto, y Mr. L., un distinguido amigo mío cuya posición le daba acceso a todas las ceremonias de la Corte, me invitaba graciosamente a las honras fúnebres’ (1900g, p. 333). It is interesting to note that ‘L’ is the initial of Tablada and his colleagues' patron at the RM in Mexico, Jesús Luján, who supposedly financed the trip but obviously would not have been in Japan. [12] According to Charles Hale, after 1870, liberalism became a myth through the reconciliation of diverse political factions and the subordination of the individual to the interests of the conservative state (Hale 1986 Hale, C. A. 1986. “Political and Social Ideas in Latin America, 1870–1930”. In The Cambridge History of Latin America, Edited by: Bethell, L. vol. 4, 367–441. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 368–369). [13] In his memoirs, Valenzuela indicates: ‘Un día me desayuné con la noticia de que Don Jesús Luján mandaba a José Juan Tablada al Japón, por cuenta del mismo periódico. Aunque Ruelas opinaba que no había pasado de San Francisco, California’ (Valenzuela 2001 Valenzuela, J. E. 2001. Mis recuerdos. Manojo de rimas, México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. [Google Scholar], p. 70). [14] It is worth noting that in 1914, Tablada Tablada, J. J. 1914. Hiroshigué: el pintor de la nieve y de la lluvia [sic] de la noche y de la luna, México: Monografías Japonesas. [Google Scholar] published a book on this painter entitled Hiroshigué: el pintor de la nieve y de la lluvia [sic] de la noche y de la luna. [15] Julio Ramos, following the lead of Ángel Rama, relates the modernist interior to the socioeconomic changes brought about by modernization (Ramos 1989 Ramos, J. 1989. Desencuentros de la modernidad en América Latina: Literatura y política en el siglo XIX, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. [Google Scholar], p. 117). [16] The concept of the ideal female lover appear in several columns: 1900b, p. 203; 1900c, p. 261; 1900e, p. 290; 1900f, p. 315, and 1901a, p. 29

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