Kristin Young
Lilla S. Perry, A Treasure Hunt in Japan
Genre
The easy way to classify A Treasure Hunt in Japan would be to term it “a travel diary” and leave it at that because it is very clearly a collection of dated entries about Lilla Perry’s time travelling in Japan. But is that all it means to be a travel diary? That certainly isn’t all that there is to this particular diary. It’s difficult to name any conventions for the genre of travel diaries because they depend largely on the time period, the place of travel, and the circumstances of travel. When searching for travel writing from the 1930s, the examples I came across were mostly published accounts of travels, more like memoirs. In attempting to narrow the search to diaries, I found that many existed only in handwritten format. There are of course, examples such as those of Juanita Harrison and Eslanda Goode Robeson excerpted in A Day at a Time , but they seem both very different from each other and very different from Lilla Perry’s. The only theme of topic I pick up from all of them is the description of daily events, but the thoughts and preoccupations that accompany these descriptions are worlds apart. One preoccupation of Lilla
Perry is the kindness of the Japanese people but also their strange customs and ways of life.
But the call came for the bath, and with apology and explanation about the whiskey at which she laughed heartily, I followed her to the bath. It was a large room, part platform, part cement basement over which the slatted platform drained. In one corner stood a huge barrel-like tub of hot, very hot, water. A faucet over a wash bowl at another corner had over its nozzle a long hollow bamboo pole. By turning this water on, and directing the bamboo pole into the wooden tub you could cool off the hot water sufficiently to be able to step into it.
But you must not step into it until you had thoroughly soaped and cleansed yourself on the slatted platform. There was an ordinary wash basin there to assist you in the process. Naked windows without drapes or shades extended on two sides of the room. When Miss Denton’s directions for the bath were concluded I pointed to these windows.
“But people can see in.”
“Oh no they can’t” she answered brusquely. “And what if they do?”
(1776-1777)

The descriptive language and use of the second person in this passage give the sense that Lilla is not only describing the way of bathing as a random curiosity. It sounds more like instructions for someone who may need to use such a bath in the future. In addition, the end of the passage hints at a cultural issue that she goes on to explain a bit and mentions several more times in the journal: nudity. She explains that Japanese people have less consciousness of the body than
Americans and that it is not unusual to see naked children and almost naked adults in many places. It is explanatory points like this that suggest a sort of guidebook genre to the text, especially in conjunction with a page of notes on a Japanese history she was reading on the ship and mentions of important historical figures throughout. But even with these educational points
(and the typescript version suggesting a plan to share with more people), it lacks important features of a guidebook. Lilla talks about going on a sightseeing trip in Tokyo and seeing all there is to be seen, but she doesn't say which parts were good and which parts weren’t worth it.
She eats at more than one Japanese restaurant but doesn’t suggest the best foods to try. So though
A Treasure Hunt in Japan does have distinct guidebook features, it doesn’t quite fit in the genre.
There is, however, a reference at the beginning of this passage that points to another genre. The “explanation about the whiskey” has to do with Lilla having just broken a bottle of whiskey on the floor of her room at Miss Denton’s house while trying to open her bag. This bottle of whiskey was part of a large gift basket received from a friend when boarding the ship to leave California that Lilla mentions having fit into her bag while sending most of the rest of the gifts home with her children. The foresight of mentioning putting the whiskey in her bag and the irrelevant, anecdotal style of such passages are much more suited to fiction than guidebooks, and the descriptiveness of the bathroom can fit either genre.

The way Lilla describes the people she meets and sees is also rather novelistic: “I want to describe my extraordinary hostess a little more fully…I write my friends that she is one hundred and twenty-five at least, but she rides triumphantly over the limitations of age, with tremendous energy still abundant. Hearing bothers her, but it does not take away her courage for giving a dinner party almost every night of her life” (1779); “The man on the short seat directly opposite me was fully clothed in Japanese garb when he entered the train. But we are seated on the sunny side of the car, and the heat bothers him. He has taken off first one, then another, and then another kimono, folded them up carefully on the seat beside him, and sits garbed now in what looks like American BVD’s” (1818). The first quotation exhibits a trait that I find frequently in celebrated fiction writers: giving a clear sense of a character through descriptions that tell you very little clear fact about them. The second quotation provides a vivid and amusing scene by elaborating on something that could have been summarized more concisely. In these ways, her style of writing conforms much more to the standards of fiction than one may expect from a travel diary. But the next important question is of what genre of fiction she’s adhering to.
Of one of her trips to Nara she writes:
We played around the shops and along the little lake until ten o’clock. I had just about given up hope of finding any of my particular kind of plunder, prints, fine old lacquers, inro, netsuke, when in a shop on the main street filled with large bronze and brass objects I took out a little netsuke from my purse, purchased the first night in Yokohama, showed it to the shopkeeper, and though I knew he wouldn’t understand me, asked if he had any of them. There was a search way at the back of the shop and presently he brought out several boxes full for my inspection. Each piece was separately wrapped, and they were the first netsuke that I have seen in Japan that look old…I had my mind set on one more visit to my netsuke shop. We went back to it, and I was shown even finer ones. (1788-
1789)
The diction, particularly, of this passage suggests innocent adventure: “played around,”
“plunder,” “large bronze and brass objects,” “search,” “several boxes full.” It is very much an

image of children playing pirates or treasure hunters, on a quest for something, encountering exotic idols and chests of treasure. Inrō (carved boxes for carrying small items) and netsuke
(miniature carvings/sculptures, attached to a cord) add to the image of exotic and somewhat tribal or aboriginal or sacred and ancient discovery. Even the city of Nara, where theoretically wild but practically domesticated deer roam freely and are fed by people, seems a sort of untamed, mythical setting.
Lilla writes so much about purposefully looking for and also stumbling upon the types of artworks she’s hoping to find that an adventure story becomes an essential genre classification for her diary, though more in terminology and attitude than content. The way she speaks about searching for art is what makes this prevalent. She even uses the term “clues” at one point to refer to the string of recommendations that led her to a certain shop. I really shouldn't be surprised, though, to find that such a genre is so apparent in a work titled A Treasure Hunt in
Japan
. I assume that Lilla’s realization of this genre’s presence is what prompted the change in title from simply “MY SUMMER IN JAPAN.”
A genre that I haven’t yet touched on is the scrapbook, which this text clearly is at many points. Lilla pasted in photos of people she met, photos of her with them, photos of buildings she saw, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and handouts, all with captions to explain the scraps.
There’s even a long description and membership pictures of the International Mustache Club, the
“Honouraly Secretary” of which was the master of an inn she stayed at. Making of scrapbooks, both in recent years and for many years past, generally suggests keeping something for personal use to remember good times and people. This conflicts with making a typescript copy of the diary, which suggests a desire to share it with others.

Considering genre in this manuscript seems, at some points, to confuse me more than help me understand it. What was Lilla’s goal in writing this journal? Typing it up and fleshing out the quick notes she had jotted down on many days suggests that she wanted it to be presentable. But for whom? I can’t imagine that she would try to publish it because it is very unclear what type of person it is aimed at. She even mentions more than once that the things she spent time looking at and found interesting wouldn’t hold other people’s attention; that she was glad to have come alone so she could see what she wanted to see. There is such a mix of genres that I can’t see her having had anything in mind other than keeping a diary for her own sake. I feel that in trying to discuss the genre of this manuscript, I end up trying to force motives on its writer. I feel that I’m suggesting that one needs an ulterior motive to write a diary. I continually come to the conclusion that this is just a personal journal by a woman who has a very particular writing style, likely influenced by reading novels. The problem that keeps coming up with this conclusion is that this is at least a second draft, which implies an audience, since a first draft should suffice for her own sentimental reasons. But what if she just wanted to flesh out her short notes, and typing the whole thing seemed more convenient than adding in pages of explanation?
What if she just wanted to make it presentable for family and friends (especially those who were also art collectors)?
I imagine that her motives were something of that sort, but coming to such a tentative conclusion about the question isn’t a great achievement of studying genre. The one way in which studying the genre of A Treasure Hunt in Japan has definitely made reading the text easier for me is to make it clearer what I find appealing about it. I like the novelistic descriptions of people that tell us about them in interesting, roundabout ways. I like the tone of adventure and

excitement given to art shopping that I would not naturally find in the subject. I like the pictures and scraps that tell us “these people were real; these things happened.”