Talk:Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860)

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An entry from Japanese Embassy to the United States (1860) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 15 April 2007.

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[edit] Tags

There is very little in the way of references or anything other than original research and copy-pasting. Jmlk17 00:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguities and more

I’ve tagged, among others, the following paragraph for its vagueness:

The Kanrin reached San Francisco directly, but the embassy on board the Powhatan made a stopover in Hawaii. The delegation stayed in the city[vague] for a month, during which time Fukuzawa had himself photographed with an American girl (one of the most famous photographs in Japanese history), and also found[vague] a Webster's Dictionary, from which[vague] he began to seriously study English.

I suspect the author had intended to write:

The Kanrin reached San Francisco directly, but the embassy on board the Powhatan made a stopover in Hawaii. When the delegation got to San Francisco on XXXXX (state when!), it stayed for a month; during this time, Fukuzawa had himself photographed with an American girl, a photo that has become one of the most famous in Japanese history. The photo was discovered in Fukuzawa’s Webster's Dictionary, from which he began to study English.

I hope the original author will get back to us with details so we can iron out the ambiguous spots and get rid of them and some of the other problems. For example, we have this statement: “The bakufu also sent a Japanese warship, the Kanrin Maru, to accompany the mission, clearly wanting to make a point to the world that Japan had mastered Western navigation techniques and ship technologies.” First, the “clearly” has to go, since it is not obvious that this is what the bakufu wanted; if someone has said that this is what the bakufu wanted, then say so and cite your source; but don’t tell us that it’s “clear.” Maybe it is to you, but don’t assume it is to everyone else in the world. Second, where does the notion come from that “Japan had mastered Western navigation techniques and ship technologies”? I can accept the idea that the Japanese authorities of the day wanted to demonstrate that “hey, we can does this too y’know,” but saying that “Japan” had mastered some much technology and so many techniques of the West at that time is untenable; it also ignores any possibility that Japan may have had plenty of similar techniques of its own already!

Further, who was “Admiral Kimura Yoshitake” and why was it significant that Fukuzawa Yukichi had offered his services to him? Are readers supposed to pull this out of thin air, or what? Also, the article’s shift mid-way through to an anecdote about Fukuzawa. Why this focus on Fukuzawa? It seems out of place here, because it is not obvious how this ties in with the delegation and its work.

Finally, under the subhead “Significance,” we learn nothing of the delegation’s significance, but rather get a story about Japanese Pacific crossings. What did the delegation do while in the U.S.? Where did they visit, and what did they achieve? What did they bring back to Japan (besides a gold watch for the Shogun), and what did they leave behind in the US? Under such a subheading in an article about this delegation, we can expect this sort of information; the bit about the Pacific crossings is incidental at best.

Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 04:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

Is it really necessary for the "original author" to fix the problems you've found? Is there any such thing as an original author on Wikipedia? Patrick Schwemmer 05:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for catching my typos. This article was, up till today, pretty much the work of one author: PHG. It looks to me like this is someone who’s been around and done a lot of contributing (check out the user pages), so perhaps s/he should have first crack at fixing the problems or filling in the holes—or are you suggesting that I should copy edit by second-guessing?. The ambiguities and holes are also typical of Japanese writers, so this might be a translation. Jim_Lockhart 06:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jim. Please go ahead with editing and correcting with references and sources if possible. This is only a newly created article after all. Hopefully, a lot can still be added and fine tuned. Best regards PHG 06:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi PHG. Thanks for your reply. If I have time in the near future, I'll do some work on this; but it would really help if you could supply some of the info I ask for above and in the tags. I can probably find the date of arrival in SF and will insert that myself. Thanks, Jim_Lockhart 06:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)