Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum

26

1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida-ku, Tokyo 130-0015
TEL.+81-3-3626-9974(General Information)

Feb. 17 Fri. 2023 No.26
The Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum is scheduled to be closed for major renovations until 2025.

International Exchange Program

Internation Exchange Exhibition Opens in Paris
A Japanese Bestiary:
Living with Animals inEdo-Tokyo (18th – 19th century)
November 9, 2022 (Wednesday) –January 21, 2023 (Saturday)
One of the projects our museum is carrying out during its closure was holding A JapaneseBestiary: Living with Animals in Edo-Tokyo (18th – 19th century) in Paris, in partnership withThe Japan Cultural Institute in Paris (Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris).
The theme of this exhibition is the relationships between animals and the people of EdoTokyo. It explores, through 112 works from our collection in a broad range of genres — prints,lacquerware, textiles, toys — how humans and animals coexisted and the history of thoserelationships. This exhibition is the first to introduce works from our collection on a large scalein France. The theme of living withanimals is one that Parisians seemedto feel a close connection with as they
enjoyed the exhibition.
Our museum’s curators wrote theexplanations of the exhibits, whichwere published, with color plates, inthe exhibition catalogue (entirely inFrench).

International Exchange Program

Contemporary Famous Rabbits, Complete, ca. 1872–73

The exhibition in process.

The 2022 Japan-China-Korea International Symposium
on Museum and Exhibition Held in Seoul
about as the result of research exchanges between both museums. The Scenes
On September 5, 2022, the Japan-China-Korea International Symposium on
Around Sumida River exhibition introduced, through objects from our collection,
Museum was held at the Seoul Museum of History, in the Republic of Korea.
the lifestyles and culture in the Sumida River area in the early modern period.
Since 2002, our museum, the Capital Museum of China and the Shenyang Palace
The regard that the people of Edo had for the Sumida River was similar to theMuseum and the Seoul Museum of History have been taking turns holding annual
feelings of the people of Seoul about the Han River, which flows through theirsymposia. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted that series, but the symposia
city, so that it seemed very familiar to them. Our museum plans to continue
resumed this year, for the first time in three years. Unfortunately, the Capitalthese valuable activities, to make further progress on international exchanges
Museum participated remotely, and the Shenyang Palace Museum was absent. Our
between museums.
museum’s representatives, however, went to Seoul for the symposium and were able
to revive old relationships.
The theme of the symposium this year was “Urban
Museum and Future Strategy,” and each of the museums
made presentations on the measures they had taken whenconfronted with the pandemic and their planning for the roles
that they should play from now on. Those presentations were
followed by lively exchanges of views.
The Seoul Museum of History also held an international
exhibition organized with our museum, Scenes Around
Sumida River in Edo Tokyo, from September 7 to October
23. As in the featured exhibition 1784, Ordinary days inPanel discussion with remote participation
The Scenes Around Sumida River in Edo Tokyo international exchange
Seoul held at our museum in 2019, this exhibition came
exhibition
Provided by the Seoul Museum of History

On the Research Path

A Newspaper Event a Hundred Years Ago
Celebrating 10,000 Miles: The Railway Race
Text by Nitta Taro, Curator

Railway Race Sugoroku, 1925, Osaka Mainichi Newspaper

In 1924, the Osaka Mainichi Newspaper (Osaka News), predecessor of today’s
Mainichi Newspaper, and the Tokyo Nichi-nichi Newspaper (Tokyo News), which wasaffiliated with it, carried out a project in their pages, entitled “Celebrating 10,000
Miles: The Railway Race.” In connection with the railways in Japan having reachedthat monumental point in their development, the two newspapers each selected fivereporters and had them compete. The challenge was to set out from their defined
starting points, in Osaka and Tokyo, travel all the rails in the country in relay fashion,and see who could return to the starting point sooner.
Between the announcement of the race on August 2 and its start on August 20,
the newspapers reported on the process of deciding on the requirements for carrying
it out, in their pages. The Ministry of Railways supported the contest, and during that
period, three judges, including the Railway Minister, Sengoku Mitsugi, were chosen.
The Railway Bureau also created a diagram of the trains that the competitors would
take and advised them on routes. It further announced that it had arranged for eachstation’s staff to certify the competitors’ arrival, recording the date and time when eachgot on and off the train and applying a seal confirming that information.
Starting with the August 21 morning edition, the newspapers carried a seriesof articles by the reporters in the race. They not only reported on their pressing
competition, but also described the weather and natural features of each region they
visited and their famous places and products. Their readers shared an interest in takingpart and, to expand popular knowledge of the railways, a poll was also carried out
among the readers. The race ended with Osaka News the winner, arriving at its starting
point on September 28. Tokyo News made it about a day later in this forty-day battle.
Next, the 1925 New Year’s issue of the Osaka News carried the “Railway Race
Sugoroku Game Board” shown in the photograph. The sugoroku board, a game similar
to snakes and ladders, includes the features of places on all the railway lines in thecountry. The rules published with it stated that the player would roll the dice toproceed; when the player passed through a station, the judge would give the player acard with the station name on it. (Cards with the station names were printed below thegame board.) The rules were similar to regular sugoroku in that, for instance, if a player
landed on a major station, he or she had to miss a turn. The game successfully recreatedthe railway race, on paper.
The race and the board game were media events, events the mass media heldto generate a changing state of affairs in society. This competition held by the twonewspapers was followed by another media event in 1926, a newspaper poll of readers
to select “Japan’s New Eight Scenic Places,” which received nearly a hundred million
votes, more than the total population of Japan at the time.

Detail of the Railway Race Sugoroku