Japanese

Emiko SUNAGA (Project Research Fellow)

　Do you ever just feel like going on a journey?

　In the past, while packing and preparing for departure, I would think to myself, “Another research trip to Pakistan… spending endless hours in transit… keeping an eye on my valuables… hoping my interview appointments don’t get messed up again…” and so on. However, there were also times when I wanted to travel but could not. After experiencing many such moments, I began to miss the dreary waiting halls of airports and the bustle of the marketplace. When such an urge to travel hits me, I tend to look at travel guides and imagine what a trip to an old or new place would be like.

　The Chikyu no Arukikata (Globe-Trotter Travel Guide Book) series is probably the best-known travel guide available in Japanese. Looking overseas, the most famous titles include Footprint from the UK, Lonely Planet founded in Australia, and Michelin from France. I have warm memories of guidebooks, walking around a city guided by the notes from the guidebooks found at backpacker guesthouses, and receiving used guidebooks from tourists about to head home.

　People have been leaving records of their travels since ancient times. The names of Ibn Battuta and INO Tadataka come to mind. Travelogues and expeditionary accounts have a lot of useful travel information, not to mention the fact that such literary genre have been popular with people of all generations. However, it is important to note that much of the information in travelogues relies on the author’s personal experiences. Guidebooks differ from travelogues in the sense that they are devoid of writer’s subjectivity and instead try to provide as much information as possible. The prototype of travel information guidebooks such as Chikyu no Arukikata and Rurubu (OMOTENASHI Travel Guide), which are popular in Japan today, can be traced back to the German Baedeker and British Murray guidebooks published at the beginning of the 19th century.

　One of the earliest guidebooks on India was Handbook for Travellers in India (1859) published by Murray, a publishing house founded in 1836. The book is packed with detailed information and maps in English, mainly for Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai). It is quite practical, including a pre-departure guide, overland and sea routes, local history and attractions, travel budgets, train routes, and a vocabulary section in the local language. In subsequent editions, the area covered was expanded. For example, around 1900, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) were included, so a new edition, A Handbook for Travellers in India and Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon, was released in 1949. Although published with many pages, Murray’s guidebooks differed from individual travelogues in that they were compact enough to be carried around and that they were revised every few years. It is interesting to read them to get a glimpse of India as seen by the British in the 19th century.

　There are more than 30 Murray guidebooks in the University of Tokyo Library’s collection, with destinations such as:

– Russia, Poland, Finland (1868)
– Rome (1871)
– Paris (1872)
– Sweden (1877)
– Norway (1880)
– Japan (1884)
– Constantinople (1893)
– Egypt (1900)
– India, Burma, Ceylon (1901)

 

　Murray’s guidebook series also has an entry on Japan (A handbook for Travellers in Central and Northern Japan). The 1884 edition, which can be conveniently found in the library here, was translated in full as Meiji nihon ryoko annai [Meiji Japan Travel Guide] (in 3 volumes, 1996, Heibonsha). Ernest Mason Satow, a British diplomat and Japan connoisseur, generously included information on geography, culture, history, and art of the country.

　Why not open a guidebook and take a journey through time and space?

 

References:

Ohashi, S., Hashimoto, K., Endo, H., Kanda, K., (Eds.). (2014). Guidebook for Tourism Studies. Nakanishiya Shuppan. (In Japanese)
Shirasaka, S., Inagaki T., Ozawa, K., Koga, M., Yamashita, S. (2019). Encyclopedia of Tourism. Asakura Shoten. (In Japanese)

March 21, 2024