March 17, 1860,
the Japanese Embassy ar-
rives to San Francisco. The
ship that brought these nice
fellows here was the U.S.S
Powhatan. There was a ru-
mor around that America
forced the Japanese to open
trade with us. This doesn't
seem very American of us,
but is a possibility that this
was the reason why they
would open their doors to
our foreign country. If none
you folks knew, the Japa-
nese closed its doors to the
outside world and only
traded with them Dutch and
Chinese. The Powhatan
wasn't the first boat from the
Japanese that came to our
San Francisco, it was an-
other boat called the Kanrin
Maru. The Powhatan came
twelve days later.
When
these good people came to
our San Francisco, we all
saw it. They wore dresses I
think, which might seem
weird. This could possibly
their thing, men in Japan
wear dresses. This tells all
of us that the Japanese are
different but we should re-
spect them all, because we
are America, our proud and
free country. And this is a
really big mark in history of
America; we will be able to
trade with the Japanese
now! Another ally to our
country! We give them our
goods and they give us their
goods. We learn their way
of life and we learn their
way of life. Some people
say that these Japanese are
savages and they call them
"dog - eaters". We shouldn't
say such insults to them; I
bet they are civil just like all
of us.
Arrival Of The Japanese Embassy
Feb 23 rd, 1860
New York times!!! By Jimmy Lin
Page 1
Some people have very differ-
ent opinions if Japanese should trade
with America. Jimmy here thinks that
Japanese are diseases. He said, “We
know that the Japanese were pretty
strong during that time, but still, the
Americans threaten the Japanese to
open their doors and trade with the
other countries. This shows how weak
they are to be threatened so easily. We
don’t know who they are, what they do,
what they think of us, and how come
they closed their doors on us. We know
nothing of them.”
Albert on the other hand says,
“I think America and Japanese should
trade. This will help us gain money
easier because we have another country
to trade with. I have never seen the
Japanese’s goods and having their
goods here in America; we might be
able to learn something from them and
help improve our society. We might
even learn some of their ways of life
and we can use it for our lives. If they
could live their lives closed out to other
countries, we might be able to learn
how they did it.”
Sandy also having the same opinion
said, “The American and Japanese should open
up trade because Japanese have good quality
items for daily life use. Japanese have very good
ideas in saving water, money, and items. Japa-
nese people’s houses are very clean and recycle
a lot, if we open trade with them, we might be
able to learn from them. If American open trade
with Japan we can be able to earn much more
money.” Currently a lot of people think that
opening trade with the Japanese is a good idea, it
is an obvious advantage for America to trade
with the Japanese, because we will opened up to
a whole new view that no one else have seen.
Page 3 Volume 1, Issue 1
Should America trade with Japan?
Page 3