[BRIEF NOTE] PEI in Japan, PEI in the World

[rfmcdonald]

Sally Cole's article "At home in Japan", up at the website of the Charlottetown Guardian, describes how Islanders at Expo 2005 experienced the glowing reception given to all things Prince Edward Island in Japan.

"It was wonderful to be around people who loved P.E.I. so much. It made me very, very proud to be an Islander," says Tara MacLean, a member of Shaye.

The award-winning East Coast group consisting of Kim Stockwood, Damhnait Doyle and MacLean gave nine performances during their two- week engagement at the Canadian pavilion in Nagoya.

This city quickly became the P.E.I. home away from home for Japanese visitors, many of whom had travelled to Canada's smallest province to follow in Island author L.M. Montgomery’s footsteps.

"It was so much fun. We learned to introduce our songs in Japanese," says MacLean, who grew up in Charlottetown.

And everywhere she went, that feeling of pride continued to grow.

When Duncan McIntosh and Kate Macdonald Butler, who is a granddaughter of Montgomery, showed a slide show about Prince Edward Island during a press conference, MacLean felt that her heart was going to burst.

"It was just so wonderful to be somewhere else in the world and discover that P.E.I.--the place where I come from--brings so much love and joy to so many people," she says.

McIntosh and Butler were there to announce a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Montgomery’s most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables, on Prince Edward Island in 2008.

In the process, they were swept away by Anne affectionados.

"It was an incredible experience. Everyone made us feel so welcome. It was wonderful," says McIntosh, a member of the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s international advisory board.

However, the greatest welcome was waiting for Jennifer Toulmin, who plays the red- haired orphan in the Charlottetown Festival's Anne of Green Gables. When she arrived later that week, everywhere she went, crowds of people lined up to get her autograph or have pictures taken with her.

"It was overwhelming . . . I felt like a celebrity. I was surrounded with gifts, kindness, favour and special treatment," says Toulmin during a telephone interview.

The immense popularity of Anne of Green Gables and all things relating to Lucy Maud Montgomery has been explored by, among others, Sonja Arntzen in her essay "Exchange? Canada and Japan's Anne of Green Gables." As with many pop-cultural phenomena, it started on a surprisingly small scale.

The exchange began on the eve of the Second World War when returning Canadian missionaries gave a copy of Anne of Green Gables to a former graduate of their mission school, Hanako Muraoka. With clouds of war on the horizon, they gave it to her as a token of their personal friendship and mutual respect. For Muraoka, it also became a tenous link with a country and culture she had come to love through person to person contact. Muraoka began translating the work during the war; such an act represented a faith in the eventual restoration of a peaceful relationship between Japan and the rest of the world including Canada. Her translation Akage no An "Red-haired Anne" was published in 1952 and was an instant best seller. It is still on the shelf of virtually every book store in Japan in this first translation version and many other abridged versions, including now, of course, cartoon editions. An animated cartoon has been produced on the story, and a whole section of a Canadian theme park in Hokkaido is dedicated to "Anne's land."

Arntzen goes on to suggest that three elements in particular of Anne of Green Gables--the abundant imagery of nature, Anne's "sincere heart," and her filial piety towards her adoptive parents the Cuthberts--might combine to ensure the novel's continuing success. Me, as a Prince Edward Islander, I find it ironic that a novel and an author so frequently misinterpreted as reactionary actually constitute the main mechanisms behind the globalization of the Island.