The Eight Photos By John Thomson s Illustrations Of China...

Jiangnan Yao Prof. Franziska Seraphim TA: Lia Atanat HIST1006 Feb. 16th, 2016 The eight photos I chose were arranged in a particular order. The first four were selected from the Globetrotter’s Japan while the other four photographs were chosen from John Thomson’s Illustrations of China and Its People: A Series of Two Hundred Photographs. Moreover, the photos on the left side depicted the traditional Asian people and places, in contrast with those on the right side, which seemed to be more â€Å"modern† due to some western elements presented in the pictures. These eight photos well represented the themes that are recurring in the three albums: Asians in traditional dress doing menial labor without the presence of technology,†¦show more content†¦The two scenes were beautiful in a natural, traditional and exotic way, which was different from Yokohama’s beauty of modernity in picture 2 and 4. Yokohama was one of the seven treaty ports opened by the Kanagawa Treaty in 1854 and Harris Treaty in 1858. Under the i ntimidation of America’s steam-and-coal warships, Japan had no choice but ended its â€Å"close-country policy† and gave the U.S., later also Britain, the Netherlands, Russia, and France, the access to the seven treaty ports. After a decade, when the â€Å"globetrotter† tourists visited Japan and pressed the camera shutter, we can see how those treaty ports, especially Yokohama, were influenced by the West. Picture 2 depicted a main street of Yokohama. On the left side of the street was a printing office while on the right side of the street, there was a Cigar store. Cigar was clearly not a native product of Japan, but something introduced from the West. Another noteworthy detail was that the shop signs of the two stores were both written in English instead of Japanese. Picture 4 was a portrait of a railway station. Train was a symbol of technology development and signified Japan was stepping outside of the Biological Old Regime and start to use steam and fuel a s the source of energy. In addition, in the middle of the picture stood a lampstand. It indicated the use of electricity, and gave viewer a