Interview with Fred Schodt

Politically, just how difficult was it to communicate with Japan during MacDonald's time due to the nation's strict policy of isolation?

As you note, Japan had a policy of seclusion from the outside world that lasted over two centuries. Other than a few Dutchmen and Chinese in Nagasaki, no foreigners were allowed into Japan, and no Japanese were allowed out. There was thus no way for ordinary Americans to go to Japan in 1848, when Ranald MacDonald embarked on his adventure. In a sense, his efforts would be like one of us today trying to go to the moon, without any connections to NASA. There were no airplanes, and no regularly scheduled ships. For all MacDonald and his contemporaries knew, they might have their heads lopped off if caught on Japanese soil (and in fact that is what most of them believed). And in terms of communication with the Japanese, one of the biggest problems in 1848 was that there were no Japanese who had a good command of English. Nor were there any Americans who had a good command of Japanese.

What were the dangers of making an unauthorized trip to Japan in the 19th Century?

Japanese policy fluctuated greatly during its nearly 250 years of isolation. There were instances of foreigners being executed. For a very long period, the law said that all foreign visitors had to be immediately attacked and driven off.

By the time MacDonald arrived, the policy had actually been relaxed, but most people outside of Japan did not know that. The official policy then was for all foreigners to be arrested, sent to the southern port of Nagasaki, interrogated, and then kept in jail until an annual Dutch trading ship could take them to Batavia (today's Jakarta, Indonesia).

MacDonald took it upon himself to be a transcriber and glossarist of Japanese terms and phrases while incarcerated. What were his motivations for doing so? Even though it was relatively illegal?

One interesting thing about MacDonald is that of the various motives he hinted at for his adventure, one was to become an interpreter. He apparently thought that he could act as a go-between, and perhaps make his fame and fortune by helping the Japanese communicate with the outside world when they would inevitably have to end their isolation.

What was the impact of Ranald MacDonald's adventuring as he returned to the west?

MacDonald's timing was all wrong. If he had come back to North America immediately upon being deported from Japan (in 1849), and published his memoirs, he might have become rich and famous. As it was, he chose to stay in Asia, and to go to the gold fields in Australia, not returning to North American until around 1853. By that time Commodore Perry had left for Japan with a naval fleet to end Japan's isolation, and the media was focused on him; shortly thereafter the market was flooded with books on Japan by other people. Later, the Civil War erupted in the United States, and people were no longer interested in Japan, at least until the war ended. MacDonald's memoir, or his semi-autobiography, was not published until 1923, nearly thirty years after his death.

As a biographer, how do you decide on what to emphasize and what to include, or conversely, what to leave out?

It's a tough decision. I probably tend to put too much material in! For me, though, the important thing is that the information helps explain his adventure and his motivation. Therefore, I didn't put much in about his stay in Australia, since that didn't have much to do with Japan. Also, little is known about that period, anyway.