Why has Usagi not met with any of the people who arrived in Japan on the “black ships”?
(WWW Board August 2000) One of the obstacles I’ve come across is that foreigners were restricted to certain areas such as the port city of Yokohama and were very regulated. It was treason punishable by death for any unauthorized citizen to have even the slightest contact with a foreigner. (UY Vol 3, #37) As I mentioned in a previous letters column, foreigners were restricted to designated areas of a trade city, such as Nagasaki. It was an act of treason, punishable by death, for unauthorized persons to have any interaction with a gaijin. The samurai mystery novel, The Way of the Traitor by Laura Joh Rowland, deals with this very issue. (UY Vol 3, #30) Foreigners were restricted to certain cities such as Nagasaki. They were not allowed outside these areas without armed escorts, and even their movements within the cities were carefully regulated. It was treason for an ordinary Japanese citizen to have any interaction with “barbarians.” You can see the difficulty in plotting a story in wh
