Shopping — for the diverse range of goods labelled “crafts,” “curios,” “arts,” or “souvenirs” — was one of the highlights of a trip to Japan (cf. Guth 2004). Kyoto, in particular, was acclaimed for the variety and style of its shops, and the quality of its merchandise; and shopping, for many travellers, may well have had more immediate appeal than sightseeing around the city’s acclaimed shrines and temples. 

Kyoto’s attraction as a place to buy “curios” rested partly on its location outside the treaty ports. Authentic art objects, it was argued, were available there at reasonable prices, unlike the antique shops of Yokohama or Kobe, where goods were either overpriced or produced specifically for the tourist trade (see quote below). 

Also, in contrast to Tokyo and Osaka, Kyoto continued to be associated with “traditional” practices of craftsmanship, rather than industrial production — not only were objects produced individually in Kyoto, by “craftsmen” in “workshops,” rather than en masse in factories, but tourists could visit these places of production, providing a second level of authentication through their own presence and eyewitness. 

Finally, Kyoto’s historical role as the seat of the imperial court, which made it home to many of the oldest businesses manufacturing and purveying luxury goods and art objects in Japan, added a further layer of authenticity to the goods tourists found on sale there. 

In practice, however, the reality was more complex, with many of the businesses popular among foreign tourists actively adopting new techniques of production, design, and sales in response to new consumer tastes and the expanded global markets in which tourists themselves played a significant role.   

Tourist complaints about shopping

While many travellers were effusive in their reviews, shopping was also a locus for complaints about the touristification of Kyoto and exploitation by guides, shop owners, and producers. 

Notwithstanding the comparatively good reputation of the city among some commentators, tourist shoppers seem to have been as at risk in Kyoto as anywhere. Arai Gyōji (新井尭爾, 1931, 266–267), the first director of the Board of Tourist Industry, reported on complaints made to the Kyoto police about price fixing in 1931. And, in contrast to the experience described above, haggling appears to have been usual practice in Kyoto as much as Tokyo and Yokohama (though perhaps, by the 1930s, tourists are beginning to approach it as a sign of Kyoto’s lack of “commercialization” and the preservation of older customs there, as the quotation below suggests). 

A few travellers’ critiques were aimed at a different target, however. A.M. Thompson, for example, in his 1911 travelogue Japan for a Week (Britain for Ever), invokes exploited craftsmen in Kyoto’s famous workshops as evidence of the “seamy side” of the city.

Where to shop in Kyoto

In the early days of inbound tourism, sellers would come to grand hotels like the Miyako to display their wares to individual buyers (cf. Fukunaga 2018). Differently, the Miyako and Kyoto Hotel both established on-site shops to display and sell souvenirs to guests. Into the 1930s, the Miyako was also offering guests the opportunity to fire their own Raku ware pottery on site. As a "precious remembrance," it was possible to fix "one's impression upon the days of traveling [or depict] a caricature painting by oneself" on the object (Miyako Hotel, Season's Greetings, n.d.).

For many foreign visitors, however, one of the key attractions of shopping in the city was strolling from shop to shop, seeing the items “in situ,” and interacting with producers and sellers directly. Shopping, to the extent it was performed in what was seen as a traditional Japanese fashion, thus functioned as a valuable cultural experience. 

The directories given here suggest the kinds of purchases that were most common among with tourists throughout this period — bronzes, cloisonné and damascene ware, prints, silks, fans, bamboo goods, lacquer ware, dolls, pottery and porcelain — and the most popular shops. 

But, as well as “curios” and the like, these lists also reveal a different set of goods that were being marketed to visitors: imported food and drink at Meidi-ya, foreign-language books at Maruzen, stationery at Daikokuya, tailored shirts at Y. Masuda’s and Yon Kee, medicines at U. Oda’s pharmacy, and eye glasses at Tomeikan. 

Such objects did not readily function as a symbol of “distinguish[ed] experience” (Stewart 1992, 135) — the tourist trip as a one-off, unrepeatable event distinct from normal life; and were not, therefore, commonly categorized as souvenirs or described in travelogues.