https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7506-3474
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ABSTRACT
The Tōkaidō Road was the legendary highway constructed during the Edo period (1603–1868) in Japan connecting Edo, the home of the shogun, to Kyoto, the home of the emperor. Along the route were 53 post-stations (shuku) or towns catering to all manner of travellers from the daimyō (lords) and their great processions to pilgrims and later, lay travellers. Publication of period guidebooks, fictional journeys and the woodblock prints of artists like Hiroshige inspired increasing numbers of travellers who looked forward to adventures along the Tōkaidō Road. The heritage of the Tōkaidō Road today remains in the forms of signposts, markers, check points and preserved Edo towns visited by contemporary tourists. This paper examines historical travel along the Tōkaidō through Edo-era literature and art in the context of roads, mobility and imageries of place. Site visits to the preserved post-station of Seki and the reconstructed checkpoint at Hakone explore contemporary heritage tourism offering a nostalgic look back in time to Edo, Japan. Looking forward from the past through historic travel and looking back from the present via heritage tourism reveals the timelessness and popularity of the Tōkaidō Road.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Jilly Traganou, The Tōkaidō Road: Traveling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan. (London: Routledge, 2004).
2 Nicole Fabricand-Person. ‘The Tōkaidō Road: Journeys through Japanese Books and Prints in the Collections of Princeton University’. Princeton University Library Chronicle 73, no. 1 (2011): 68.
3 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 68.
4 Adeline Masquelier. ‘Road Mythographies: Space, Mobility, and the Historical Imagination in Postcolonial Niger’. American Ethnologist 29, no. 4 (2002): 829–56.
5 David A. Butz and Nancy E. Cook. ‘Accessibility interrupted: the Shimshal road, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan’. The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 55, no. 3 (2011): 354–64.
6 Dimitris Dalakoglou and Penny Harvey. ‘Roads and Anthropology: Ethnographic Perspectives on Space, Time and (Im)mobility’. Mobilities 7, no. 4 (2012): 459–65.
7 Ibid. 460.
8 Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox. ‘The Enchantments of Infrastructure’. Mobilities 7, no. 4 (2012): 521–36.
9 Dalakoglou and Harvey, ‘Roads and anthropology’, 460.
10 Lutz Kaelber. ‘Paradigms of Travel: From Medieval Pilgrimage to the Postmodern Virtual Tour’, in Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, ed. D. Olsen and D. Timothy (London: Routledge, 2006), 49–63.
11 Susan E. Alcock, John Bodel, and Richard JA Talbert, ‘Introduction’, in Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-modern World. ed. S. Alcock, J. Bodel and R. Talbert (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 1–11.
12 John K. Walton, ‘Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict’, in The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies ed. T. Jamal and M. Robinson (London: SAGE, 2009), 115–129.
13 N. Mat Nayan, D. S. Jones, S. Ahmad, and M. K. Khamis. ‘Exploring the Built-Environment: Heritage Trails, Values and Perceptions’, in IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 881, no. 1, p. 012009. IOP Publishing, 2021; Stephen W Boyd. ‘Heritage Trails and Tourism’. Journal of Heritage Tourism 12, no. 5 (2017): 417–22; Nicola MacLeod. ‘The Role of Trails in the Creation of Tourist Space’. Journal of Heritage Tourism 12, no. 5 (2017): 423–30; Dallen J. Timothy and Stephen W. Boyd. Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2015).
14 Craig T Palmer, Benjamin Wolff, and Chris Cassidy. ‘Cultural Heritage Tourism Along the Viking Trail: An Analysis of Tourist Brochures for Attractions on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland’. Newfoundland Studies 23, no. 2 (2008): 215–30.
15 Atsuko Hashimoto and David J. Telfer. ‘10. Culinary Trails’, in Heritage Cuisines: Traditions, Identities and Tourism, ed. D. Timothy (London: Routledge, 2016), 132–147.
16 Mimi Sheller and John Urry. ‘The New Mobilities Paradigm’, Environment and Planning A 38, no. 2 (2006): 207–26; John Urry. Mobilities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).
17 Xueji Wang, Jia Xie, and Jiuxia Sun. ‘Travellers’ Meaning-Making of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway: From Space of Flows to Place’. Tourism Geographies 25, no. 1 (2023): 26.
18 Urry, ‘Mobilities’, 34.
19 Misela Mavrič and John Urry, ‘Tourism Studies and the New Mobilities Paradigm’, in The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies ed. T. Jamal and M. Robinson (London: SAGE, 2009), 645–657.
20 Wang, Xie, and Sun. ‘Sichuan-Tibet Highway’, 27.
21 K. Hanam, M. Sheller, and J. Urry. ‘Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings, Mobilities’. Mobilities 7, no. 1 (2006): 1–22.
22 John A. Jakle. The Visual Elements of Landscapes (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987).
23 Mavrič and Urry, ‘New Mobilities Paradigm’, 645.
24 Ibid, 645. See also John A. Jakle, and K. Sculle. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1999) for further discussion on the use of historical travel images.
25 Ibid.
26 Peter Frank Peters. Time, Innovation and Mobilities: Travel in Technological Cultures (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 1.
27 Laura Nenzi. Excursions in Identity: Travel and the Intersection of Place, Gender, and Status in Edo Japan. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008), 1.
28 Ibid.
29 John Urry, The Tourist Gaze 3.0. (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. 2011).
30 Stijn Reijnders, Abby Waysdorf, Leonieke Bolderman, and Nicky Van Es. ‘Introduction: Locating Imagination in Popular Culture: Place, Tourism, and Belonging’, in Locating Imagination in Popular Culture, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 1–16.
31 Henri Lefebvre. The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell. 1991).
32 John Overton and Warwick E. Murray. ‘Fictive Place’. Progress in Human Geography 40, no. 6 (2016): 787.
33 David Crouch, Lars Aronsson, and Lage Wahlström. ‘Tourist Encounters’. Tourist Studies 1, no. 3 (2001): 253–70.
34 Noel B. Salazar, and Nelson Graburn. ‘Introduction: Toward an Anthropology of Tourism Imaginaries’, in Tourism Imaginaries: Anthropological Approaches ed. N. Salazar and N. Graburn (Oxford: Berghahn. 2014), 1–28.
35 David Lowenthal. The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015), 55.
36 Reijnders et al. ‘Imagination in Popular Culture’, 1.
37 Xiaobo Su. ‘The Imagination of Place and Tourism Consumption: A Case Study of Lijiang Ancient Town, China’. Tourism Geographies 12, no. 3 (2010): 412–34.
38 Atsuko Hashimoto, David J. Telfer, and Kyoko Telfer. ‘Eurocentric Cultural Theme Parks in Japan: Domestic Tourists’ Perspectives on Place Branding’. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change (2023): 1–20.
39 David Harvey. ‘The Sociological and Geographical Imaginations’. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 18 (2005): 211–55; George Hughes. ‘Tourism and the Geographical Imagination’. Leisure Studies 11, no. 1 (1992): 31–42.
40 Stephen Wearing, Deborah Stevenson, and Tamara Young. Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller (London: SAGE Publications, 2009).
41 Salazar and Graburn, ‘Anthropology of Tourism Imaginaries’,
42 Diana T. Kudaibergenova. ‘My Silk Road to You”: Re-imagining Routes, Roads, and Geography in Contemporary art of “Central Asia." Journal of Eurasian Studies 8, no. 1 (2017): 31–43.
43 Wang, Xie, and Sun. ‘Sichuan-Tibet highway’, 24.
44 Mohan Li, Richard Sharpley, and Sean Gammon. ‘Towards an Understanding of Chinese Tourist Photography: Evidence from the UK’. Current Issues in Tourism 22, no. 5 (2019): 505–21; Erica Wilson, Kerrie Stimpson, David Lloyd, and William E. Boyd. ‘Promoting Gondwana: Presentation of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area in Tourist Brochures’. Journal of Heritage Tourism 6, no. 4 (2011): 297–308; Peter M. Burns. ‘Six Postcards from Arabia: A Visual Discourse of Colonial Travels in the Orient’. Tourist Studies 4, no. 3 (2004): 255–75; Wayne Martin Mellinger. ‘Toward a Critical Analysis of Tourism Representations’. Annals of Tourism Research 21, no. 4 (1994): 756–79.
45 María del Mar del Pozo Andrés and Sjaak Braster. ‘The Visual Turn in the History of Education: Origins, Methodologies, and Examples’. Handbook of Historical Studies in Education: Debates, Tensions, and Directions (2020): 893–908.
46 Albert M. Craig. The Heritage of Japanese Civilization (Upper Saddle River: Pearson College Division, 2003.) See also Conrad Totman. Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 64–71.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 David L. Howell. Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-century Japan (Berkley: University of California Press, 2005), 3.
51 Craig, ‘Japanese Civilization’, 68.
52 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo,’ 77.
53 Ibid.
54 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey Through Books’, 64–7.
55 Robert B. Hall. ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’. Geographical Review 27, no. 3 (1937): 353–77.
56 Ibid. 361.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid. 362.
60 Fabricand-Pearson. ‘Journey through Books’.
61 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 146.
62 Hall, ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’.
63 Ibid.
64 Constantine N. Vaporis. ‘Post-stations and Assisting Villages. Corvée Labor and Peasant Contention’. Monumenta Nipponica 41, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 377–414.
65 Hall, ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’.
66 Constantine N. Vaporis. Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 163. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1994).
67 Hall, ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’.
68 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’.
69 Arai Sekisho Shiryōkan. “Shukuba to meibutsu (Post Towns and Specialities).” Kosai City. https://www.city.kosai.shizuoka.jp/material/files/group/34/19518752.pdf
70 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 18.
71 Ibid.
72 Hall, ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’.
73 Constantine N. Vaporis, ‘Linking the Realm: the Gokaidō Highway Network in Early Modern Japan (1603–1868)’, in Highways, Byways, and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World ed. S. Alcock, J. Bodel and R. Talbert (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 90–105.
74 Hall, ‘Tokaido: Road and Region’.
75 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 76.
76 Constantine N. Vaporis. ‘Lordly Pageantry: The Daimyo Procession and Political Authority’. Japan Review (2005): 4.
77 Ibid.
78 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
79 Vaporis, ‘Lordly Pageantry,’ 2.
80 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
81 Ibid.
82 Vaporis, ‘Lordly Pageantry’, 10.
83 Vaporis, ‘Linking the Realm’.
84 Constantine N. Vaporis. ‘To Edo and Back: Alternate Attendance and Japanese Culture in the Early Modern Period’. Journal of Japanese Studies 23, no. 1 (1997): 25–67.
85 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 77.
86 Vaporis, ‘Linking the Realm’.
87 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in Identity’, 2.
88 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
89 Yokohama National Highway Office, “Tōkaidō to shukuba no Shisetsu,” Tōkaidō eno sasoi (Invitation to the Tōkaidō). https://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/yokohama/tokaido/02_tokaido/03_sisetu/08index.htm
90 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
91 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in identity’; Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’; Vaporis, ‘Linking the realm’; Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through books.’
92 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in Identity’ ,121.
93 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’, 71–9.
94 Edward Putzar. ‘Chikusai Monogatari: A Partial Translation’. Monumenta Nipponica 16, no. 1/2 (1960): 161–195.
95 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’, 71–9.
96 Ibid.
97 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in Identity’.
98 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’.
99 The entirely of the Shank’s Mare book was read both in Japanese and an English translation by Thomas Satchell.
100 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’.
101 Jippensha Ikku. Shanks’ Mare translated by Thomas Satchell. Originally published 1802-22 (Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1960 reprinted by Hong Kong: Tuttle Publishing, 2001).
102 Ibid.
103 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in Identity’.
104 Vaporis, ‘Linking the Realm’, 104.
105 Carol Crawshaw and John Urry. ‘Tourism and the Photographic Eye’, in Touring Cultures ed. Chris Rojek and John Urry (London: Routledge, 1997), 176–195.
106 Ukiyo-e (artwork of floating world) can be in any form of artwork, however, usually a painter (e-shi) painted a picture, sent it to the carver (horishi) for making woodblock prints for mass production. Hiroshige’s 53 stations are woodblock prints.
107 Department of Asian Art. ‘Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style’, in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, posted on October 2003). http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ukiy/hd_ukiy.htm
108 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’, 80.
109 Ibid.
110 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
111 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’, 80.
112 Ibid.
113 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 164.
114 Ibid, 164.
115 Kafū, Nagai, ‘Ukiyo-e Landscapes and Edo Scenic Places (1914)’. Translated by Kyoko Selden, and Alisa Freedman. Review of Japanese Culture and Society 24 (2012): 210–32.
116 Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. https://www.fujibi.or.jp/our-collection/profile-of-works.html?work_id=4355.
117 Gillian Rose, Visual methodologies (London: SAGE, 2022).
118 Ikku. Shank’s Mare
119 Iimori-onna or Meshimori-onna, possible rice servers or unlicenced prostitutes linked to the specific hotel.
120 Nenzi, ‘Excursions in identity’, 140.
121 Fabricand-Person, ‘Journey through Books’, 87.
122 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 6.
123 Wang, Xie, and Sun. ‘Sichuan-Tibet Highway’.
124 Seki-juku. Tōkaidō gojūsantugi nouchi Seki-juku Irasuto An’naizu, (Kameyama: Tourism Division Kameyama City, n.d.)
125 Ikku. Shank’s Mare.
126 Makoto Ni'ide, ‘Post Towns, Living Reminders of the Past’. Japan Quarterly 40 (1993): 184–91.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid.
129 Hakone Sekisho. The Stage is Set to Bring the Edo Period Back to Life: Hakone Sekisho (Hakone: Hakone Sekisho, n.d.).
130 Ibid.
131 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’.
132 Ni’ide, ‘Post towns’, 188.
133 Traganou, ‘The Road in Edo’, 214.
134 Zoe Ward, Mitsui Announces Plans for US$10-Billion ‘Greater Nihonbashi Redevelopment. Japan Property Central, article posted September 02, 2019. https://japanpropertycentral.com/2019/09/mitsui-announces-plans-for-us10-billion-greater-nihonbashi-redevelopment/
135 Yaniv Poria, Richard Butler, and David Airey. ‘Links between Tourists, Heritage and Reasons for Visiting Heritage Sites’. Journal of Travel Research, 43 no. August (2004): 19–28.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
David J. Telfer
David J. Telfer is Professor in the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies at Brock University, Canada. His areas of research include the relationship between development theory and tourism, tourism planning, heritage tourism, and Green Tourism in rural Japan.
Atsuko Hashimoto
Atsuko Hashimoto is Professor in the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies at Brock University, Canada. Her areas of research include Green Tourism in rural Japan, socio-cultural issues in tourism, culinary tourism, heritage tourism, and social justice in tourism.