Word: shimoda
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Commodore Perry got his foot in, but it was Townsend Harris who opened the door of Japan wide enough to let the traders in. Who Townsend Harris was, few U. S. citizens know. But he is a hero in Japan; his two residences-the consulate at Shimoda and the legation at Tokyo are preserved as shrines. The first U. S. Consul General to Japan, Townsend Harris in 1858 negotiated the first effective commercial treaty between the U. S. and Japan-a feat which historians have ranked with the world's leading diplomatic successes...
...himself. The Japanese distinctly did not want him around, Commodore Perry notwithstanding. They asked him to go home on the ship he came on. When he refused, they set a cheeky guard around his miserable house, prohibited his traveling more than seven miles from the dismal fishing village of Shimoda, gave him diseased chickens to eat, picked on his Chinese servants while refusing to let Japanese work for him, evaded, stalled, levied a staggering rate of exchange. Their diplomatic technique was to say yes and do nothing. Harris' technique was stubbornness, honesty, hospitality. It was four years before...