![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Leo-Stein.jpeg\" "\\"Leo")
<\/a>Leo Stein in a rakish pose<\/p><\/div>\n
Just for fun while in Kyoto, I decided to do a Google search for \u201cLeo Stein Japanese prints,\u201d as I knew that Leo had an interest in this type of art. \u00a0These prints had come to the attention of Westerners as they were used to wrap Japanese porcelain which became very popular following the opening of the country in the 1860’s. \u00a0This art form also influenced the subject matter and composition of the Post-impressionists’ paintings.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Japanese print circa 1895. Is it a rose?<\/p><\/div>\n
To my surprise (why am I still surprised at what turns up on the Internet \u2013 must be the fact I haven\u2019t graduated to texting and tweeting and am still an old-school e mail writer!) an item appeared that is in the Stein collection at Yale \u2013 a note Leo wrote to Gertrude from Kyoto in December, 1895, giving her his address written in Japanese!<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The note home to sis!<\/p><\/div>\n
I asked our guide to translate the address: \u00a0he rented from a family named Sugimoto in a part of Kyoto called Uenomachi. (When I checked one of the Stein biographies I have at home, Brenda Wineapple\u2019s Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein<\/strong> (G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons, 1996), \u00a0I found <\/strong>that she devotes a number of pages to Leo\u2019s trip, so I\u2019ll fill in some of the details of the adventure from her book. She, for example, mentions that\u00a0 in addition to renting the seven room house, they acquired furniture and hired an interpreter, cook,\u00a0 and rickshaw driver. More on the geisha, later.)<\/p>\n Kyoto in the 1890's<\/p><\/div>\n Whether Gertrude had someone translate Leo\u2019s Kyoto address for her or wrote him a letter using the Japanese script, I don\u2019t know. \u00a0Anyway I\u2019d think that it would have taken weeks for a letter to arrive in Japan from the U.S. in the late 19th<\/sup> century, so any news of home that she may have wanted to convey probably didn\u2019t arrive until Leo had boarded his ship for his next port-of-call.<\/p>\n Japan was the first stop on Leo\u2019s trip which had begun on a steamer from San Francisco. He was twenty-three, two years older than Gertrude, and with his younger cousin Fred they were among the twenty first-class passengers on the ship, the remainder being mostly missionaries. Below deck was filled primarily by Japanese and Chinese.\u00a0 In Hawaii, Leo met\u00a0 another American, Hutchins Hapgood, who would later become a well-known New York City journalist and was the \u00a0founder of the Provincetown Players. Hapgood joined them on their trip to Japan and Leo and Fred went on to Singapore, China, Ceylon and Egypt with European stops in Italy, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. An exhausted Leo met Gertrude in Antwerp at the end of the trip.<\/p>\n River view of Kyoto 1890's. We stayed in one of these houses which have been restored.<\/p><\/div>\n What prompted Leo to undertake such a \u00a0Grande Tour isn\u2019t clear. He had become somewhat frustrated with his studies at Harvard and didn’t have what we’d today call a clear “career path,” \u00a0but I\u2019m sure traveling that far by ship even in 1895 must have been quite rigorous and tiring.<\/p>\n Leo suffered from digestive problems most of his life and I can\u2019t even imagine what he would have eaten in Japan, China or Egypt unless a bowl of plain rice was satisfactory for him three times a day. Leo did write to Gertrude that they had accustomed themselves to sitting on the floor and also sleeping on mats in Japan, but \u201cwe draw the line at\u00a0 \u2018chow\u2019 \u201c, though they ate lots of mandarin oranges and drank the local beer.<\/p>\n And now to the geisha\u2026<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>