Illustration in the inner cover from:
Stutterheim, W. F., Pictoral history of civilization in Java. Translated by Mrs. A. C. de Winter Keen, The Java-Institute and G. Kolff & Co., Weltevreden, 1926
Original Copyright (incl. photographs) ©
The Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation
English translation and Introduction Copyright ©
M. Iguchi 1996, 2004
Printed by ITB Press
2004
Published by
ITB Press
Jl. Ganesha No. 10
Bandung 40132
Indonesia
ISBN 979-3507-25-x
Marquis Tokugawa in his thirties
in his laboratory
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FOREWORDS (by Mr. Yoshinobu Tokugawa) PREFACE (by the Translator) INTRODUCTION (by the Translator) About the Author, the Book and the Historical Background Bibliography Chronology of the East-Indies 1814-1942 Java map Sea-route from Kobe to Batavia PART ONE - A JOURNEY TO DJAKATRA 1929 Departure for Djakatra Shanghai Departing Shanghai Hong Kong The Voyage Singapore The Sea of Bangka Arriving at Java Study Tour to Krakatau People of the East-Indies The Opening Ceremony Djakatra Country Reception Visit to Buitenzorg Aeroplane The Congress Gala Party The Parade of Ducks High-altitude Botanical Garden at Tjibodas Noesa Kambangan The Town of Tjilatjap Jogja Mistakes Trip to Tosari Farewell Dinner Shark and Crocodile City Trip to Bali Courtesy Call at Solo Courtesy Call at Jogja PART TWO - A JOURNEY TO JAVA 1921 (EXTRACT) The Passenger Boat The Southern-Hemisphere Batavia The Care-free Village The Botanical Garden Hotel Belle View Episodes in Java From the Research Centre to Bandung Garoet The Train in Java Boroboedoer The Capital of Fantasy Prambanan The Story of Lala Djonggrang Pawnshop Taman Sari The Procession of Warriors Wayang Again to Batavia APPENDIX Supplementary album of contemporary images from other sources
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It is my pleasure that the old travelogue of Yoshichika, my grandfather, is to be brought to the attention of public in English, despite the fact that the original Japanese version has long been out of print.
It was in 1921 that Yoshichika went abroad for the very first time. He went first to Asia, primarily for a change of air for his health. He was a mature man of 34 years who had received a high education and had been brought up in Japan, where modernisation was proceeding rapidly through the Meiji and Taisho Eras. What he saw in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Java and the Straight Settlement, were the realities of colonies where the Western powers, viz. the British and the Dutch, had brought their advanced civilisations (not cultures), and where a few percent of whites were ruling the natives and immigrants, monopolising rights and interests. He admired the orderly city planning, the magnificent government offices, the beautiful houses, the fine museums, the great botanical gardens and the new universities which the suzerains had constructed with their sense of values in the chaotic environment. However, he did not avert his eyes from the clutter caused to the area. He was on the other hand much impressed by the temples of Boroboedoer and Prambanan, and thought over the rise and fall of the Javanese culture. He touched the heart and lives of the Malayan people in getting acquainted with the Sultan of Johor and spending the nights with native servants in shabby huts in jungle hunting for wild game.
In the same year, he also went to Europe with his wife. He stayed there for one year, touching the history and culture of real Europe. He learnt that the Europeans who formed the ruling class and the high society in the colonies were regarded at home as migrant workers, and that there were a number of poor white people who were struggling for their lives as farmers and labourers. He also found that the high-standard Occidental civilisation had been built on these people.
Yoshichika visited Java for the second time in 1929 when he was 42 years of age, as a member of the delegation to the Fourth Pacific Science Congress. He extended his trip to visit the Soesoehoenan’s palace at Solo as a guest at the wedding of the prince, and to also pay a courtesy call to the Sultan of Jogjakarta, playing the role of a ‘civilian diplomat’. Later, when the Great East-Asian War began in December 1941, these experiences enabled him to offer himself as a civilian advisor to the occupation army in Singapore and to protect the local people and the cultural institutions. For instance, he did not permit the military to destroy the statue of Stanford Raffles when they wanted to do so. He kept it safe and after the war it was returned to stand in its original place. He used to say, “A battle only takes a day or two, but a war requires several months or even years for it to be over.”
As the head of the Owari-Tokugawa Family, he gave support to the Ainu people in Hokkaido, where the former people of his clan had emigrated to cultivate the wild land. He observed their religion and participated in their bear-sacrificing ritual. His view to people was always horizontal. He certainly paid respect to emperors and kings but he never flattered. He never looked down upon the native people, in Malaya or Java or Hokkaido. Without regard to the differences in social status, he associated with them with a warm heart and light humour. Perhaps he was unconscious of this.
In establishing “The Tokugawa Art Museum”, he said he did not understand art, but had built it to preserve what other people had valued. He said he had built “The Tokugawa Institute for Biological Research” and “The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry” for experts to use the facilities and to conduct research, as he himself was not good at research work.
Yoshichika was given numerous names such as The Last Lord and The Tiger-Hunting Lord, but none of them can match up his character. I would call him “a patron of culture”.
I should express my thanks, on behalf of the author, to Dr. Iguchi and his friends who have made great efforts to translate this book.
May 2004,
Yoshinobu Tokugawa,
President, The Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation
The English translation of this Marquis Yoshichika Tokugawa’s travelogue was conceived, and undertaken, eight years ago for presenting its copy as a souvenir to the participants in the “International Workshop on Green Polymers” held in Bandung/Bogor - November 1996. It was printed under the title of “Travels around Java in 1920s” as a non-commercial book from The Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation, and reprinted twice in 1997 and 2000.
The translator received strong encouragement from his friends in Europe as well as Indonesia and Japan who were reminded of and impressed by the facts that such a fine essay had been written by a Japanese author in 1920s, and that such a big scientific event as the Fourth Pacific Science Congress was held at that time in Java, as Prof. Shinzo Koujiya, Kyoto, Japan, confessed that he had been absorbed in the book for three days, leaving aside everything else. Prof. Piet J. Lemstra, Eindhoven, Netherlands, has been introducing the old event as well as the book in many scientific conferences as if to do so were his duty. The late Prof. Manfred Gordon, Cambridge, England had told the translator to study the book more and to seek the possibility to publish a revised manuscript in the future.
The last eight years had brought the translator to some favourable environments. He had the fortune to receive a fellowship that allowed him to live in Java in 1999-2002 for a second time, although the designated research subject was nothing to do with history or literature, but natural polymers. He had the advantage to call at some places where the original author had visited a long time ago, and one time, he was given the honour to accompany Mr. Yoshinobu Tokugawa, a grandson of the author, who visited Java to trace his grandfather’s footsteps. It was quite astonishing to the translator that the whole volumes of the “Proceedings of The Fourth Pacific Science Congress - Java 1929” and other congress materials, as well as the proceedings of the previous meeting in Tokyo (1926), were preserved in the library just behind his laboratory in Bogor (former Buitenzorg) in immaculate condition. He had also acquired many new friends that included experts of history and botany.
In the same short period, the internet had greatly advanced. It has given not only a facility for a non-professional to be able to access to the sources of knowledge of different disciplines, from his study room, without visiting libraries of various locations, but also the convenience to see the lists of antique and new books available from bookstores of all over the world, and send an order, even from remote Java. Also, e-mailing has made it much easier than before to communicate with experts, of any distance, and ask their help.
This English translation includes two travelogues, “A Journey to Java” and “A Journey to Djakatra”. The first article was a part of a book, entitled “On Hunting in the Jungle of Malaya” and published in 1925, in which the author described his first experience in south-east Asia in 1921. The second report was written in 1929 when the author visited Java for one month to attend the congress mentioned above, and travelled around other parts of south-east Asia. It was published at that time in a Japanese newspaper as a series of articles along with another essay, “Game in Malaya”. These travelogues were combined and republished as “Journeys to Djakatra” in June, 1931 from Kyodo-kenkyu-sha, Nagoya, and reprinted in 1943 from Jujiya-Shoten, Tokyo, and published again in 1960 as a paperback by Chuo-Koron Publishing Co., Tokyo. In this English version, the order of the two travelogues written in 1920 and 1929 has been reversed as the latter was a more comprehensive description of Java.
The translation is based on the text of the paperback edition but reference was made to the earlier versions written in the orthodox Japanese. The photographs inserted by the author have been reproduced from the 1931 edition and more photographs discovered just recently in The Tokugawa Reimeikai Library has been added. Chinese origin idioms frequently used by the author have been held deliberately in the form of word-to-word-translations as long as their meanings were assumed to be comprehensible by readers with no Japanese or Chinese background (e.g., ‘shoulders bump and shafts of carts crash’ symbolising the bustle of a town). For the spelling of regional words, the traditional Dutch-system was adopted as it had been familiar to the author, although the spelling method was changed later in 1970s to coordinate with Malaysian Malay (e.g., Soerabaja → Surabaya, Tjipanas → Cipanas, Djakarta → Jakarta, etc.). For some local words, notes were added in the footnotes with notations, c.; Chinese, j.; Japanese and m.; Malay or present Indonesian. Various notes given in the foot-notes were based on the study by the translator.
The introduction, “The author, the book and the historical background”, is given by the translator in the hope that it will be helpful to readers, whether or not readers’ views are different. The Tokugawa’s travelogues themselves were written according to the orthodox manner without relying upon pictures and illustrations, but more pictures chosen from old books were collected in the appendix, “Supplementary album of contemporary images from other sources”, to illustrate some scenes more vividly.
For this publication, the translator expresses his sincere gratitude to Mr. Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the 21st head of Owari-Tokugawa Family and the President of The Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation, who has kindly spared much time and given him unlimited favour ever since the project was first proposed in 1966, saying his grandfather would be pleased to see it from heaven. In addition to the professors mentioned earlier, the translator owes much to many of his friends. At the time of original work, Dr. Toin Ketelaars, then visiting scientist from the Netherlands to the author’s laboratory in Japan had kindly read a draft and given advice, viz., on Dutch words; Ir. (Mrs.) Wang Sing Niang, MSc, Bandung, had helped with Chinese reading; Ir. Arief Budhiono, Bogor, had given a check on Indonesian words; and so on. For the translator’s recent studies, Raden Ajoe Dra. Ekowati Sundari, a historian in Jakarta, has given not only much knowledge about the history and the society of Java but also assistance to find books and documents. Dr. E. Edwards McKinnon, another historian in Bandung, has volunteered to read the manuscript and given not only linguistic checks but also advice as to supplemental knowledge and as to better English expressions. Mr. Yoshitaka Tokugawa, a great-grandson of the author has kindly sorted out old pictures from his great-grandfather’s private album and his wife, Mrs. Yumiyo Tokugawa, has kindly taken the trouble to do a thorough check on the final manuscript and to brush up the English. Needless to say, however, the translator is fully responsible for the English wording and the correctness of facts included in the introduction and footnotes. He must also thank Prof. Ir. Amrinsyah Nasution, Chief Editor, ITB Press, who saw the value of the manuscript and kindly made all necessary arrangements for publishing it from the prestigious publisher.
In spite of the help received from his friends, the translator has to admit that it was a challenge to him to translate a literary work on foreign country of old days, not a scientific article familiar to him, to a non-mother-tongue language, even though he had some advantage in reading the original Japanese text. He would sincerely appreciate any comments and criticisms returned from readers.
May 2004
M. Iguchi, Translator
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The Translator:
Masatoshi Iguchi was born in 1938 in Japan. As a polymer scientist, he spent most of his time in a laboratory under the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. He lived abroad in UK (1969-71), the Netherlands (1995) and Indonesia (1990-92 and 1999-2002).
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