Self-promotion of a maverick travel-writer:
Suzuki Tsunenori’s southern Pacific travelogue (1892)
Ryota NishinoThe University of the South Pacific
鈴木経勲 (1853-1938)• Advocate of Japanese
advance to the South Seas in late 19C.
• Travel-writer (amongst other pursuits). 南洋探検実記 (1892)
• Reputation deteriorated from an ethnographer to a bluffer.
Travel-writing scholarship
• ‘Pseudos’ and multiple functions (Holland and Huggan, Youngs, Thompson).
• Self-presentation <> representing the other.
Self-presentation as …• A reporter
– Meeting Robert Wilcox in Hawai’i• A cultural interlocutor
– Catholicism; Linguistic abilities• A grass-roots ambassador
– School visit to promote Japan’s industrial advance.
– Striking rapport with ‘natives’ and ‘coolies’ in Fiji.
A kava ceremony,Pagopago,
Samoa
Loreto school, near Levuka
‘Kawasu’
