A Ball in Edo

“A bit too gilded, too bedizened, these innumerable Japanese gentlemen, ministers, admirals, officers, or officials in evening dress… And their tailcoats, already so unfashionable to us – how remarkably they wore them!  Their shoulders were, clearly, simply not made for this sort of attire; it is impossible to say exactly how, but I found in all of them, always, strong resemblance to monkeys… and the women!  Eligible young women on the benches, or mothers ranged like tapestries along the walls, all more or less amazing to examine in detail.  What was it in them that just didn’t work… they were somehow strange.”[1]

“All in all, a gay and charming evening, that the Japanese offered us with much good grace… I say to myself that these people are truly marvelous imitators, and such an affair seems to me one of the most interesting achievements of this people, who are unrivaled in feats of dexterity.”[2]

These are two excerpts from Frenchman Pierre Loti’s short story “A Ball in Edo,” taken from a translation done in 2001.  The story recounts Loti’s experience of the emperor’s birthday ball in the Rokumeikan in 1886, and it presents in writing a Westerner’s impression of Western-style dancing in Japan.

The two excerpts I have chosen for this page illustrate Loti’s general impression of dancing in the Rokumeikan.  In short, his position can be described as patronizing.  On the one hand, he repeatedly compares the Japanese officials to monkeys and calls both the non-Western attendants and the building itself ugly.  On the other hand, he is constantly surprised when he finds that some of the Japanese women he meets are charming, and the highest compliment he can offer when he finds that he has actually enjoyed the ball is that the Japanese are “marvelous imitators.”[3]  At the end of the story, he writes that it has amused him to record the event, and that he hopes that his story will “amuse the Japanese themselves, when several years have passed, to find described here this stage of their evolution.”[4]

Loti’s view on dancing in the Rokumeikan is emblematic of a patronizing view that some Westerners had of Japan at the time.  Small faults in presentation might result in a Japanese official being likened to a monkey; successes might yield a compliment, but only a backhanded compliment about the Japanese being “marvelous imitators” at best (indeed, such views are common among certain groups to this day).  Given such views, one might question how much the Rokumeikan actually helped Japan in its quest to build stronger relations with Western diplomats.  Loti’s account raises such questions about Westerners’ views on Western-style dancing in Japan and the Rokumeikan, but it also helps build our understanding of the effects that the Rokumeikan and the activities associated with it had on the relationship between Japan and the West during this era.