O-yatoi gaikokujin
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The o-yatoi gaikokujin (Japanese: お雇い外国人 — hired foreigners, foreign employees) were foreign specialists, engineers, teachers, mercenaries and more, hired to assist in the modernization of Japan. They were summoned, at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji Era, reaching more than 3,000 in all (with thousands more in the private sector) as of 1868.
Their goal was to transfer technology and teach Japanese replacements to take over their places. Some, in addition to being government employees, were also missionaries. They were highly valued; in 1874 the oyatoi numbered 520, during which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the annual budget. Despite their value, they were not allowed to stay in Japan permanently, and many, finding the nation unwelcoming, chose to leave at the end of a one or two year contract.
The oyatoi system was officially terminated in 1899 when extraterritoriality came to an end in Japan. Nevertheless similar employment of foreigners persists in Japan, particularly within the national education system and professional baseball. Until 1899, more than 800 hired experts were employed by the government, and many others privately.
Notable o-yatoi gaikokujin
Agriculture
Medical Science
- Erwin von Bälz, physician [link] (in Japanese)
- Leopold Müller
- Johannes Ludwig Janson
- Oskar Kellner, [link] (in Japanese)
- Theodor Eduard Hoffmann
- Ferdinand Adalbert Junker von Langegg
Law, Administration and Economics
- Gustave Emile Boissonade — Hosei University
- Hermann Roesler, jurist and economist
- Georg Michaelis, jurist
- Ottmar von Mohl, master of ceremonies
- Albert Mosse, jurist
- Ottfried Nippold, jurist
- Heinrich Waentig, economist and jurist
- Ludwig Loenholm, jurist
Military
- Jules Brunet, French artillery officer.
- Léonce Verny, French constructor of the Yokosuka arsenal.
- Klemens Wilhelm Jakob Meckel
Natural Science and mathematics
- William Edward Ayrton, physicist (UK)
- Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist.
- Edward S. Morse, zoologist.
- Charles Otis Whitman, zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse.
- Heinrich Edmund Naumann, geologist. Arrived in August 1875 at the age of 21. Teaching in the University of Tokyo, he became the first professor of geology in Japan. His achievements include, among others, the first tectonic map of the country. [Fossa Magna Museum (in Japanese)]
- Curt Netto
- Gottfried Wagener
- Sir James Alfred Ewing, Scottish physicist and engineer who founded Japanese seismology.
- Cargill Gilston Knott, succeeding J.A. Ewing
- Oskar Löw
Engineering
- Hermann Ende, architect
- Wilhelm Boeckmann, architect
- Thomas James Waters
- Edmund Morel, railway engineer
- Josiah Conder [link] (in Japanese)
- Horace Capron, road construction
- William Brooks, agriculture
- Henry Dyer
- George Arnold Escher
- John Alexander Low Waddell, bridge engineer
- John Milne, geologist
Art and Music
- Edoardo Chiossone
- Luther Whiting Mason, Western music
- Ernest Fenollosa, educator
- Franz von Eckert, Western music
- Rudolf Dittrich, Western music
Liberal Arts, Humanities and Education
- Lafcadio Hearn
- Raphael von Koeber, philosopher and musician
- Viktor Holtz, educator
- Emil Hausknecht, pedagogue
- Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist and Professor of Japanese, Tokyo Imperial University
Missionaries
- William Griffis (1843–1928), American clergymen, author. Taught in Japan 1870–1874.
- Guido Verbeck
- Horace Wilson, U.S. missionary and teacher credited with introducing baseball to Japan.
Others
- Captain Francis Brinkley
- Johannis de Rijke
- William S. Clark — Sapporo Agricultural College (Hokkaidō University)
- Edwin Dun — Edwin Dun Memorial House [japanese wikipedia] [Hokkaido Prefecture website]
- Charles Edouard Gabriel Leroux
- Thomas Alexander
- Charles Dickinson West
- Henry Walton Grinnell
- William Gowland
See also
- Anglo-Japanese relations
- Foreign cemeteries in Japan
- Franco-Japanese relations
- German-Japanese relations
- JET Programme
- Russian people in Japan
External links
- [Dentsu Advertising Museum]
- [link] (in Japanese)
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