![]() Cherry blossom trees by the Japanese Lantern are in bloom, Monday, April 2, 2018, along the tidal basin in Washington. While Washington’s annual in-person celebration of Japanese history and culture may be on hold, there’s a few timeless pieces of Japan - the cherry trees and Tokugawa Iemitsu’s lantern among them - that stand as silent but enduring symbols of unity between countries that were once enemies. I don’t think they’d want to just destroy it.” "It survived until 1954 (the year the pair was split up and the Tidal Basin lantern was sent to Washington). “It’s survived the many episodes where these stone and bronze lanterns were damaged or destroyed, or sold to foreign countries,” she said. lantern’s twin, though perhaps not well displayed or labeled, is still around. Yoko Nishimura, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Gettysburg College, who has traced the trails of many of these feudal-era Japanese lanterns, said she feels confident that the D.C. ![]() However, Ueno Park’s lantern collection contains no matching lantern or even any mention of one. Much of the published literature on the lanterns claims that the twin stands there to this day. It originally was part of a two-lantern set installed as part of Tokugawa Iemitsu’s funeral ceremonies at his family’s shrine in what today is Ueno Park in Tokyo. (National Park Service) There’s a twin lantern out there The lantern was given, by the governor of Tokyo, to the people of the United States, and was dedicated on March 30, 1954. The Stone Lantern near the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC in an undated photograph. Using diplomacy - but backed with a flotilla of state-of-the-art warships - Perry convinced the Japanese to reopen trade and end the policy.Ī century later, the Japanese commemorated this event by sending this lantern to the United States. This s akoku policy stayed in place for over 200 years, until an American naval commander, Commodore Matthew Perry, dropped anchor at Yokohama in 1853. The strict, brutally enforced policy of total isolation slammed the door on foreign trade, foreign religion and foreigners, who faced summary execution if they remained in Japan. A grandson of clan patriarch and dynasty founder Tokugawa Ieyasu, Iemitsu is mainly remembered for the Sakoku Edict of 1635. The lantern was originally carved to commemorate Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shōgun of the mighty Tokugawa clan, which unified feudal Japan under its stern rule for nearly 270 years. The lantern was created in the middle of the 17th century for the funeral ceremony of Tokugawa Iemitsu, a Japanese shōgun, one of the iron-fisted military leaders who ruled the Japanese islands in the centuries before the 1868 Meiji Restoration elevated the emperor from a ceremonial titleholder to actual power.Īlmost every square inch of the sculpture tells a story. (National Park Service) The stone tells a very old story So there was a tremendous sense of gratitude from the Japanese people and they supported us.” Tatsuko Iguchi, daughter of Japanese Ambassador Sadao Iguchi, lights the Stone Lantern near the Tidal Basin March 30, 1954. were extremely grateful to the United States for how we helped them after, that we were not an abusive victor. State Department and longtime president of the Japan-America Society of Washington D.C. “It was an act of appreciation,” said John Malott, former Director of Japanese Affairs at the U.S. The Japanese government originally planned to send the lantern in the 1920s, but the idea was shelved as relations between the two countries chilled and eventually led to war.Īfter the wartime enemies became postwar allies, the lantern finally arrived, in March of 1954.
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