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"Foreigners Who
Changed Japan" Series, Part 2 日本を変えた外国人 II
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No. 3
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Luis
Polycarp Frois could very well be called Japan's first foreign-born
historian, having come to the country in 1563 at the age of 27 and
staying for 31 years, 20 of which were spent on Kyushu. During these
years, he objectively and extensively chronicled 16th-century Japanese
life in some 140 letters and nearly 2,500 pages of history, which later
became a five-volume work called the Historia
de Japam
(History of Japan 1549-1593), and could be considered the very first
Western historiographer of Japan. Unbelievably, his work would not be
read by the greater world then as it was not published nor translated
into any other language until 1976. His other interesting work on
things Japanese, the Treaty on Contradictions, was not printed until
400 years later as well. Truly odd, but perhaps the victim of internal
affairs among the more elite Jesuit leadership in Japan, specifically
the Italian Alessandro Valignano, who had a too-critical view of what
Frois had written. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the period of
Frois' writings about Japan coincided with the great increase of
commerce and intellectual exchange during the Azuchi-Momoyama era. There had been other accounts written earlier about Japan, e.g. by Tomé Pires in 1513; Mendes Pinto in his journal, the Peregrinação (1614); and Jorge Alvares, who gave Francis Xavier descriptions of the Japanese land and people in 1548. But none of these reached the depth and volume that Frois had chronicled, nor did they have such close contact with the great leaders of that age, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Earlier writers had had great influence on helping to bring knowledge of Japan to the early Portuguese explorers of Asia who, as a result, gradually brought western culture to the Japanese. Later writings by Japanophiles Gaspar Vilela, Luis Almeida, and João Rodrigues had even more influence on making Japan known to the world, and the world known to Japan. Through these early contacts with the West, Japan's future would be changed in amazing ways. Frois spent his first year and a half in Hirado and nearby Takashima, learning the Japanese language and culture. Over the next four years, he was then sent to Kyoto, then to Sakai, then back to Kyoto, where he became the first Jesuit to reside there. Among the highlights of Frois' seven years in Kyoto were the high-level meetings with Nobunaga, talking with the leader about a variety of things both Japanese and European. Nobunaga was especially fond of Frois and very interested in all the new things brought over by the Portuguese, even wearing clothing that the nanbanjin would wear. In an official parade in Kyoto, Nobunaga sat on a velvet chair that the Jesuit missionary Valignano had given him, an immensely practical device never before seen in Japan. Frois even showed Nobunaga an alarm clock, but the latter did not wish to keep it as it would seem too difficult to regulate. Frois is said to have served as a sort of diplomat for Nobunaga, receiving letters from the ruler that allowed the Jesuit's religion to be promulgated in Kyoto and even a seminary to be built in Azuchi. Frois would ten years later meet with Hideyoshi and act as interpreter in a very important meeting with other Portuguese leaders, and be given a special tour of the new Osaka castle. As for religion, Frois and Nobunaga were both in agreement regarding Buddhism, viewing that religion with great disdain. The Nichiren bonze, Nichijo Shonin, had succeeded in having an Imperial Edict enacted in 1568 that ordered Frois be executed and his religion vanquished from Japan. Nobunaga, however, overruled the edict. Nobunaga would later carry out a massive destruction campaign against the temples and bonzes at Mt. Hiei in Kyoto. Incidentally, Frois was at his church only a block away from the place where Nobunaga burned to death on June 21, 1582, remarking, "this man, who made everyone tremble not only at the sound of his voice but even at the mention of his name, there did not remain even a small hair which was not reduced to dust and ashes." One of the interesting episodes with Nobunaga was when Frois visited Kyoto in 1581 along with Valignano, who had brought along a Mozambican teenager to present to Nobunaga. The Kyotoans had never seen a black person before and created quite a riot just to catch a glimpse of him. Nobunaga himself was so amazed that he had the young man stripped and bathed to actually determine whether his skin color was real! This African became Nobunaga's samurai attendant and was given the name Yasuke. Another famous individual Frois met was Sen-no-Rikyu, renowned master of the tea ceremony (wabi-cha, called suki by the Jesuits) and special advisor to Nobunaga, later ordered by Hideyoshi to commit suicide. It was through Sen-no-Rikyu that Frois was able to ask Nobunaga for religious freedom for the Jesuits. Frois would enjoy having tea with Nobunaga on different occasions, even showing Frois his "golden tearoom." Incidentally, the ceramics boom in the Arita and Imari areas of Kyushu could very well be related to the influx of European influence and interest in Sen-no-Rikyu's tea ceremony. So important was this ceremony that the Jesuit missionaries created special reception rooms in their homes for this purpose, and Japanese would engrave teacups with European symbols, including the cross. "Imari porcelain" would later become a prime export to Europe and the Middle East via Nagasaki. Perhaps the most important of events recorded by Frois was the journey of four Japanese samurai teenagers to Europe in 1582. Called the Tensho Embassy, it was initiated by Valignano and sent by very important daimyo in southern Japan. These youth were probably the first Japanese group to ever visit Europe. Their travels lasted eight years (only two of which were actually spent in Europe) during which they visited famous places and met important people such as King Phillip II of Spain and the popes of Rome. The young men brought back to Japan many different items, including books, musical instruments, a modern atlas and a globe, no doubt having a great impact on Japanese scholars, and especially Hideyoshi. Frois wrote that Hideyoshi enjoyed the classical music played by these young men on the harpsichord, harp, violin and lute so much that he asked them to repeat their performance three times! Valignano had wanted these young scholars and their attendants to learn printing techniques in Europe, which they did, and brought back with them the greatest and most important piece of equipment in their cargo, the printing press, the first the Japanese had ever seen. They had also brought kanji and kana metal dies to use in the press, and the first print shop was set up in Kazusa in Shimabara. Through this amazing invention, the Japanese were introduced to the first Japanese-Portuguese language books, namely João Rodrigues' book of grammar and later a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, called "a masterpiece of its kind." The grammar book alone was remarkable in that it recorded the actual phonetic spelling of Japanese vocabulary, helping us to know how Japanese words were pronounced in the 16th and 17th centuries. Rodrigues, incidentally, became the chief translator for Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, but was later replaced by the Englishman, William Adams. There were many other European ideas that affected Japanese culture. Perhaps the greatest was education, as a number of schools and colleges were built by the Portuguese. One estimate has it that there were some 12,000 pupils at these schools in western Japan who were being taught about western civilization and thought. With all the foreign teachers in the schools as well as Portuguese merchants and missionaries in the country, it is no wonder that so many foreign words became a part of the Japanese language – one researcher said they had imported around 4,000 words, though many later became obsolete. Conversely, the Portuguese adopted Japanese words into their vocabulary which are still in use today. Another idea was city-building – construction design and techniques that were utilized in building schools, hospitals and churches for the Europeans, seen especially in the city of Nagasaki. Prior to Nagasaki, ports in Kagoshima, Oita, Hirado (a famous whaling and pirate port), Yokoseura (where Frois first arrived in Japan, in north Saikai, becoming the model city upon which Nagasaki was based) and Fukuda had been used by trading ships. Fukuda was where the daimyo, Omura Sumitada, had recommended the Jesuits locate after Yokoseura had been destroyed (due to the bitterness of the Hirado daimyo over loss of trade profits). However, the port was not in a safe location. Frois writes about how a priest, Belchior de Figueiredo, searched for another harbor by sounding various inlets. He soon found that Nagasaki, just to the east of Fukuda, was an ideal spot for ships to enter for trade. The Jesuits gradually populated the area and a city was built, soon becoming very prosperous and the only international port for all of Japan. After a crack-down on Jesuit activity, an isolation area for them was built and was called Dejima, populated entirely by Portuguese. When they were ordered out of the country in 1639, the Dutch from Hirado took over and became the sole trading link with Europe for over 200 years. Since Frois' works were translated, his descriptions of various cities, castles and gardens throughout Japan have excited the interest of quite a number of Japanese researchers seeking more information about how exactly these sites were constructed. Even today these descriptions have created quite an interest in learning about the past. In the visitor's center in Gifu, there was a 3-D model of Nobunaga's palace, based wholly upon Frois' description of that building. Castle-building was also influenced by Europeans, probably through the many question-and-answer sessions the daimyo and great military leaders had with the foreigners. Not only was Frois greatly impressed with Nobunaga's Azuchi and Gifu Castles, he was equally amazed by the hundreds of thousands of workers involved in building the grand walls surrounding Hideyoshi's Osaka Castle. Some of the stones were so huge that it required over 200,000 men to carry them! Frois was also astonished at how clean the palaces and large houses were in Osaka. Though Frois did not interact with Hideyoshi much, he did refer to him as the second "great unifier of Japan." Trade with Europe brought in many other new things to Japan:
SOURCES: The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English-Language Edition of Striking Contrasts in the Customs of Europe and Japan by Luis Frois, S.J. by Danford, Gill and Reff (2014) Luis Frois: First Western Accounts of Japans Gardens, Cities and Landscapes by Cristina Castel-Branco and Guida Carvalho (2020) They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640 by Michael Cooper (1965) Luis Frois History in 12 Volumes (2000) ル イス・フロイス日本史 の検索結果 Text ©2022 Wes Injerd
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No. 4
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No. 5
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Philipp Franz
von Siebold was born in Wurzburg, Germany, on Feb. 17, 1796. He was
chief physician at Dejima, Nagasaki, from 1823 to 1829, and later
became adviser to the Dutch Trading Society from 1859 to 1861. Though Chinese medicine had been known in Japan for hundreds of years, and the work of German and Dutch doctors such as his predecessors Thunberg and Kaempfer in the 18th and 19th centuries, Siebold is best known as the German who brought Western science and medicine to Japan. He was 29 years old when he arrived in Dejima on August 11, 1823, appointed to be the official physician for the Dutch East India Company. This office also included the job of scientist, or in the case of Siebold, botanist, which allowed him to do a very large amount of research, basically learning as much as he could about Japan. Next to Kaempfer, Siebold stands as the most voluminous writer of things Japanese, especially in regards to things natural. It has been remarked that Perry would have had Siebold's works added to his library were they not so exorbitantly priced! There is perhaps no other 19th-century writer on things Japanese that has been so widely quoted as Siebold -- even more so, no other foreign personality in Japan has had so many books written about him, "882 western and 740 Japanese titles" (per Philipp Franz von Siebold and His Era: Prerequisites, Developments, Consequences and Perspectives (2000), p95). Once becoming the official physician in Dejima, his reputation grew immensely and dozens of doctors from all over Japan came to him for advice, especially regarding surgical methods, in which Siebold excelled above his predecessors. He was allowed to even treat patients outside of Dejima, but the number grew so large that a house was built for him in an area called Narutaki, where later he established a medical school. One of Siebold's most-promising students was a man by the name of Choei Takano. After graduation, Takano stayed in Nagasaki to help Siebold translate Japanese medical books into Dutch, and then later translate Dutch books into Japanese, which was of immense benefit to many. Perhaps Siebold's most important medical advancement in Japan was the introduction of the vaccine, resulting in numerous Japanese being inoculated against smallpox around the year 1823. Though he was an expert in his field, he could not relate his knowledge to the Japanese without the help of Japanese interpreters. Much of his success was no doubt due to these interpreters who were able to bridge the gap, not only in conveying what Siebold had to teach, but in explaining what the Japanese themselves desired to teach him about their land, culture, language, politics, and lifestyle. Through this exchange, Siebold could write authoritatively about Japan and her people. Unfortunately, much of what he had intended to send to Europe as museum pieces of his studies was confiscated during the "Siebold Incident" of 1828. However, when he left Japan the second time, he brought with him an immense number of items, including his own personal library of over 3,400 volumes, which are all now at the Leiden University Library in the Netherlands. Around 1823 Siebold met and "married" a 16-year-old geisha (aka "Oranda-yuki") named Sonogi. Her real name was Taki Kusumoto (called Otakusa by Siebold), and she became the first practicing woman physician in Japan, even serving the Meiji Empress in 1882. The Siebolds had a daughter named Ine Kusumoto (born 1827), who became the first woman doctor in Japan educated in Western medicine. In 1826, Siebold joined the official Dutch journey to Edo to pay homage to the Tokugawa shogun, Ienari. Siebold was able to not only meet the shogun, but also some very important Japanese scientists, including the shogun's physician, Hoken Katsuragawa, and astronomer, Kageyasu Takahashi. Interestingly, William Griffis in his 1895 book about Townsend Harris, wrote concerning Siebold, "In 1826 P. F. von Siebold accompanied the Dutch to Yedo, where, after his companions left, he remained until January 18, 1830, most of the time in prison." Siebold stayed in Japan until October 22, 1829, when he was expelled for attempting to smuggle out maps of Japan, including very detailed survey maps produced by the reknowned Tadataka Ino (see this western Japan portion of the map). While back in Europe, Siebold worked on his collections as well as his famous works: Nippon, Fauna Japonica, Bibliotheca Japonica, and Flora Japonica. In 1845, he built a villa with a greenhouse and named it, "Nippon." After he married Helene, the following year his son, Alexander, was born, the first of five children. Siebold continued to have a desire of returning to Japan, which he missed greatly. He was especially interested in the Perry expedition to Japan of 1852-1853: "That it will be successful by peaceful means I doubt very much. If I could only inspire Commodore Perry, he would triumph." Siebold requested that he join the expedition, that he alone had "a plan to open the Japanese Empire to the world." Perry, however, denied the request due to Siebold's "banished person" status in Japan. Siebold was so irritated at being rejected that he wrote a pamphlet that basically thanked the Russians for opening up Japan! There was some suspicion that Siebold wanted the Russian fleet, which sailed into Nagasaki a month after Perry's ships had entered Edo, to take the credit for opening up Japan to the world. Of special note in Siebold's request was the desire that America "not trouble herself about the present religion and politics of Japan," i.e. do not excite distrust in Japan by sending over missionaries. The Russians were not, incidentally, warned by Siebold to avoid the mention of Christianity to the Japanese. None of the objections Siebold had said the Japanese would use to stall negotiations ever came true. Very interestingly, Perry suspected Siebold of being a Russian spy! Siebold's dream did come true and he was allowed back to Japan in 1859 (accompanied by his son, Alexander) as an adviser to the Dutch Trading Society in Nagasaki. However, he was made to leave again in 1862, having attempted to become an international political adviser to the Bakumatsu leaders of Japan in Edo (Tokyo). Tenacious and stubborn as he was, Siebold then asked the Dutch government to send him to Japan, then the Russian, and finally the French. All requests were denied. During his time in Japan, though, he was able to reunite with his Japanese wife, Taki, and daughter, Ine, and even meet Ine's 7-year-old girl, Taka. Before he left Japan in 1862 for the last time, he gave his house and garden in Narutaki to Ine. Due to the influence of Siebold's work, German medical education, and hence German terminology, has remained the basis of medical literature in Japan, up to the mid-20th century. Japan also followed the German system of schooling children, and even the army and how it was organized. Botany was especially indebted to Siebold's labors, having brought tea seeds to Batavia, Java, and many other plants to the Netherlands and from there to Europe. In all, Siebold had collected some 14,000 Japanese botanical and 7,000 zoological specimens. Siebold died in Munich on Oct. 18, 1866, at the age of 70. At the time, he was working on forming a French-Japanese trading company that would give him the opportunity to once again return to Japan, to the land and the people that had meant so much to him.
LINKS: Siebold Museum (Wurzburg, Germany) Japan Museum SieboldHuis (Leiden, the Netherlands) Siebold Museum (Nagasaki) SOURCES: Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793-1841 by Keene (2006) Philipp Franz von Siebold and His Era: Prerequisites, Developments, Consequences and Perspectives (2000) The Remarkable P. F. B. Von Siebold: His Life In Europe and Japan by Compton and Thijsse (2013) Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron under Perry Vol2 (1856) |
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No. 6
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NOTE: Was Ranald
the first English teacher in Japan? It would seem that
the English, e.g. William
Adams, John Saris, and Richard Cocks, who were in Hirado, would
have been used in some capacity to teach the English language to the
Japanese, but nothing concrete has been written in that regard. It
would, therefore, be fair to say that Ranald was the first "full-time
English instructor," his sole existence in Japan during his short stay
being taken up with educating those few key Japanese interpreters in
proper English usage, who in turn would be influential in the
modernization of Japan. Ranald MacDonald was born in 1824 in what was once the British Territory of Northwest America, in a city now known as Astoria, Oregon. His father was from Scotland and was serving as chief trader in the British Hudson's Bay Company in that area over which it had a trade monopoly. Ranald's mother was a Chinook Indian, "Princess Sunday," the daughter of a famous tribal chief -- for which Ranald would be labeled as a "half breed," the son of a "squaw man." Yet it was this very background that brought him to think about his roots, and the connection with three shipwrecked Japanese about whom he would later hear about, and perhaps even meet, and influence him to embark on his amazing journey to the land of Japan. Ranald had probably learned much about various countries, including Japan, and perhaps had heard stories about Kaempfer and Siebold and Golovnin, or even actually read what they had written about Japan and its culture. Though Ranald had traveled to many countries in the world, one thing is for certain -- no other country had such an impact on his life as the empire of Japan. The three Japanese who were shipwrecked along the coast of Washington State in May 1834 have created quite a stir of imagination in the minds of many who have studied about MacDonald. Their names were Otokichi, Iwakichi, and Kyukichi, and they are known for their travels around the world after their time in the Northwest, being among the first Japanese to visit London. Other than their meeting with the "Father of Oregon," John McLoughlin, at Fort Vancouver (in now Washington State), one of the most interesting activities in which they were involved was helping the German missionary in Macau, Dr. Gutzlaff, translate portions of the Holy Bible into Japanese. They did not actually meet the then 10-year-old Ranald and talk with him about Japan, or, as some have thought, plant in his mind the eventual desire to visit that country, for Ranald had already left Fort Vancouver by the time the young Japanese boys arrived. No doubt, though, Ranald had heard about them. He later wrote that he believed Japan was the "land of his ancestors," perhaps due to his time in Japan and his resemblance to her people. What definitely influenced Ranald were stories from sailors who had actually been on ships that had attempted to open up Japan. Some were even allowed on shore, but were soon made to return to their ships, without incident. Ranald had heard these stories while he was in Hawaii (Lahaina, Maui), having gone there in 1846 to look for a whaling ship bound for the Japanese islands. There were also stories about shipwrecked Japanese who had come to Hawaii that Ranald had read or heard about -- all of this exciting in him the desire to travel to Japan. He was so resolved in learning more about the Japanese and instruct them on the ways of Americans that he embarked on an incredible journey to the land of the rising sun. That one driving desire of his -- to become "an instructor on history, geography, commerce, and modern art, and the Bible," and to be employed by the Japanese "as a teacher" -- actually did come to pass. Great was his wish to learn the Japanese language and serve as an interpreter when the country finally opened up to the world, and to help the Japanese become a modern country. At the age of 24, Ranald first arrived on the island of Yagishiri on the western shores of Hokkaido on June 27, 1848, then a few days later arrived on Rishiri Island on July 2 where he was "rescued" by a group of Ainu, the very first people he was to meet in Japan. From day one, he started learning to communicate with the Japanese leaders on the island, writing down a vocabulary list to help him learn the language. After spending a short time there, he was sent to Soya (near Wakkanai), and then on to Matsumae (west of Hakodate). Finally he was sent down to Nagasaki, the only district were foreigners were alllowed to live, arriving on Oct. 11, 1848. It could very well be said that his coming stirred the hearts of many, for there was a great need for English-speakers who could be used to help Japanese interpreters speak in the English tongue. Ranald was kept in a sort of prison while in Nagasaki but was treated very well there, probably because of his importance to the Japanese interpreters as a native speaker of English. Another reason perhaps was him being part Chinook, his facial features aiding him in receiving less harsh treatment by his Japanese captors as would a Caucasian. In fact, when he arrived in Matsumae, the governor exclaimed upon meeting him, "Ah, Nipponjin!" -- "Oh, a Japanese!" Ranald was in Nagasaki for only six months, during which time he was utilized as an English instructor. A total of 14 students learned from him, one of whom was Einosuke Moriyama, who became the chief interpreter during negotiations with the Perry expedition in 1854, as well as for the first American consul to Japan, Townsend Harris. Moriyama's expertise was further utilized during Japan's first official mission to Europe. Others among Ranald's students also helped influence the future of Japan on the international scene. Ranald said of Moriyama: "He was, by far, the most intelligent person I met in Japan." Ranald, in fact, felt highly of all his students, for they were "very quick and receptive... extraordinary... some of them phenomenal," all because "their heart was in the work." On a memorial plaque on Rishiri Island are these words (translated into English): "Those of his students who mastered English conversation were subsequently able to contribute to the diplomatic negotiations that took place between Japan and the world powers of the day, and thus to save Japan from the threat of destruction." Moriyama soon became Ranald's favorite pupil, no doubt because he showed the most zeal in learning the English language. Granted, Moriyama had been used as interpreter earlier during the visit in 1845 by the Manhattan, in 1846 with the survivors of the Lawrence, and in 1848 with the Lagoda crew. However, his hard work learning the English language paid off as he was able to take part in talks with American, British and Russian military representatives, and, most importantly, was able to go with the first Japanese mission to Europe in 1862. He became probably the most sought-out interpreter of English in all of Japan. The influence Ranald had on the Japanese in Nagasaki was not limited to English instruction, for in all the interrogations he underwent, he was able to relate much information regarding the Western world, e.g. geography, whaling and his own country. The reason for Ranald's extensive knowledge was that he loved reading books, and he had even brought a number of them with him in his travel chest. To him the most important book he had brought was the Holy Bible. When he arrived in Matsumae, the Japanese noticed the reverence he had toward the Bible, which Ranald explained to them as being "the book of my worship." So they made a kind of alcove shelf where Ranald could keep his sacred book, not unlike how the Japanese keep various important items on tokonoma shelves (tokowaki) in their homes. The same thing happened once again in Nagasaki after he had arrived there, where his keepers had noticed how important the Book was to him and therefore made a shelf as "a place of honor" for his Bible -- Ranald later remarked that the Japanese said he "had made a God of it." On April 17, 1849, the USS Preble arrived in Nagasaki with its mission to pick up stranded American sailors, thanks to having received word from crewman of the Lagoda via Joseph Levyssohn, the Dutch trade superintendent (factor) in charge on Dejima. Not only were these Lagoda seamen rescued, but Ranald was sought out by the captain and included. Ranald left Japan on the Preble on April 27, 1849, and arrived in Hong Kong on May 22. The story of the USS Preble and Ranald would soon be heard around the world, with great interest shown by the US Government, resulting in Commodore Matthew Perry in Nov. 1852 setting out on his expedition to the land of Japan and arriving there in July 1853. Perry then left and returned once again in March 1854... and Japan would be changed forever. Ranald himself related that he was possibly “the instigator of Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan.” What is certain is that those students to whom he had taught not only the English language but various customs and cultural helps to expressing themselves in that language, went on to help spread their knowledge and skills in cities across Japan -- one of the stimuli to the modernization of Japan. Ranald MacDonald died on August 5, 1894, at the age of 70, in northeastern Washington State where he was visiting his niece. He had been working on having his story published, a story which was not entirely unknown at the time, but which was overshadowed by a multitude of other stories by those who had been able to visit the new Japan. His roots were British, Canadian, Chinook and American, but what made his life of special importance was his connection to Japan and how he felt about the Japanese. Among Ranald's last writings were these remarks: "It is long, nearly half a century—since my adventure here sketched: Yet even now, after the vicissitudes, varied and wearing, of my life, I have never ceased to feel most kindly and ever grateful to my fellow men of Japan for their really generous treatment of me. In that long journey and voyage from the extreme North to the extreme South—fully a thousand miles—of their country; throughout my whole sojourn of ten months in the strange land, never did I receive a harsh word, or even an unfriendly look. Among all classes, a gentle kindness to the fancied cast-away—the stranger most strange—pervaded their general regard and treatment of me. From the time I landed on the beach of Tomassey in the Straits of La Perouse, when Inoes took me gently by the wrist, one on each side, to assist me to the dwelling of their employer, while others put sandals to my feet, to the time of my joining the United States Sloop of War 'Preble,' it was ever the same uniform kindness. Truly I liked them in that congenial sympathy which, left to itself—unmarred by antagonism of race, creed, or worldly selfishness—makes us all, of Adam’s race 'wondrous kin.' "...after having, in my wanderings, girded—I may say—the Globe itself, and come across peoples many, civilized and uncivilized, there are none to whom I feel more kindly—more grateful—than my old hosts of Japan; none whom I esteem more highly. "...they are truly a wonder among the nations; commanding, in their present position, the respect and admiration of the world." It is no wonder, then, that on a memorial plaque (above banner photo) on Rishiri Island are engraved the words, "Ranald enjoys the honor of being the first formal teacher of English and indirectly a father of modernizing Japan." SOURCES: Native American in the Land of the Shogun Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan by Frederik L. Schodt (2003) Ranald MacDonald -- The Narrative of his Life (1923) Memorials in Astoria (Oregon), Rishiri Island, Nagasaki, and Toroda (Washington) Text ©2023 Wes Injerd
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No. 7
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Christ the Hope of Japanby
This Spirit of Jesus is the soul of the liberalizing forces of Japan.
The transforming power of Christianity has already had much to do in
bringing about the social changes that are so readily noted by those
who have followed the history of Japan during the past fifty years. To
tell of even a few of the changes in the civilization of Japan since
1870 is to picture again the England of the 12th Century. Then there
was not a chimney in the land; no windows; no chairs, no public
hospital, no lighted streets at night; there were beggars by the
thousands, gamblers and social outcasts by myriads. |