Preface to the Web Edition
The English translation of Marquis Yoshichika Tokugawa’s Journeys to Java was published from ITB Press (Bandung Institute of Technology Press) in May 2004, shortly after my retirement, totally revising an earlier manuscript that had been printed under the name of Travels around Java in 1920s and delivered to the participants of the First and the Second International Workshop on Green Polymers, organised by The Indonesian Polymer Association and held in Bandung-Bogor in 1996 and 2000, respectively. The book was also retranslated into Indonesian by my young colleagues and published as Perdjalanan moenoedjoe Djawa from the same press in 2006.
 Private book 1996, 2000 Enlarge |
 English Edition 2004 Enlarge |
 Indonesian Edition 2006 Enlarge |
Those who obtained the copy appreciated this translation, saying that they
learnt the fact that such an enjoyable travelogue had existed and that they
were touched by the personality of the author. It was rather unfortunate
that the distribution channel of the academic press was limited within
Indonesia, so that the book was not much read world-wide. In fact, I was
recently dumbed by learning that some misunderstanding was there about the
purpose of the Marquis Tokugawa’s journeys to Java in
the review of my new
book, Java Essay, in The Jakarta Post: “Toshi [Masatoshi Iguchi] describes
the Marquis as ‘an enlightened liberal Japanese aristocrat who was educated
as a biologist and historian’. It's possible he may also have been spying on
Dutch military capabilities, as did other pre-war Japanese visitors, though
Toshi thinks this most unlikely.”
The environment surrounding the publishing world has drastically changed
during the last decade. POD (print-on-demand) and electronic-publications
were among choices for the republishing of the book but Mr. Yoshitaka
Tokugawa, the present head of the Owari-Tokugawa Family, told me to put the
contents in my own website would be the best. Thus, the manuscript of the
ITB Press Edition has been reformatted into the html format.
Sorrowful news that has to be added was the premature demise of Mr.
Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the former head of the Owari-Tokugawa Family, in 2005 at
the age of seventy-one, who had encouraged and supported me to work on his
grandfather’s book. Another occurrence that was quite stunning was the
discovery of old 16 mm cine-films in the corner of the storehouse of The
Tokugawa Art Museum in 2010. They belonged to Marquis Yoshichika and
included three reels that had filmed various scenes written in his JOURNEYS
TO DJAKATRA. The existence of such films was unknown for more than fifty
years even to the late Mr. Yoshinobu Tokugawa as he never mentioned. The
films of immense value as movie record of the old day Dutch East Indies will
be opened to public in future.
July 2015,
Masatoshi Iguchi