Foreigners Who Loved Japan by Makoto Naito and Ken Naito (Kodansha)

I am a foreigner who loves Japan. I’ve made it my adopted home for the last thirty years and plan to live here until my days are over. So when I came across a book titled Foreigners Who Loved Japan, I knew I had to read it. I was under the assumption that I would be familiar with all the individuals whose stories are told. Imagine my surprise when I knew less than half of the twenty foreign nationals featured. 

The twenty individuals featured in this book not only loved Japan but they also contributed to the country in some way. Japan has a long history of being a “closed” country and every Japanese student learns who the first foreigner was that was granted access to the country and also given permission to spread his message of Christianity.

The first person to be featured is Portuguese Jesuit priest Francisco Xavier. He reached the shores of Kagoshima in present day Kyushu in 1549. He was taken to see Shimazu Takahisa, lord of Kagoshima. When Xavier showed Takahisa a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus, “Takahisa was struck by its holy aura and fell to his knee in a display of reverence”. Takahisa would give permission to Xavier to build a church and spread the Gospel of God. Xavier is still honored as the man who brought the Christian God to the country. 

Luis Frois was another Christian missionary and was also one of the first of the Portuguese Jesuit priests to come to Japan. He is known for writing reports about Japan and penned the book The History of Japan in 1585. He would gain the trust of one of Japan’s most famous bushi (samurai warriors), Oda Nobunaga. A man known for being one of the unifiers of Japan at the end of the Sengoku or Warring States era.

It wasn’t just Portuguese Jesuit priests who fell in love with what was still a mysterious country. Englishman William Adams joined a Dutch trading fleet traveling to the Far East but there was trouble at sea and after drifting in the ocean, they reached the shores at Usuki in Bungo which is now present-day Oita Prefecture. Adams would become an advisor to Japan’s first Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Novelist James Clavell’s main protagonist in Shogun, William Blackthorne is based on William Adams who would later take a Japanese wife and also take the name Miura Anjin. He would also teach the Japanese to be better shipbuilders.

One of the most popular foreigners who really loved Japan and that almost every Japanese citizen knows is Lafcadio Hearn who is also known as Koizumi Yakumo. He wrote a number of books and essays on Japan. He is mostly responsible for introducing Japanese horror to English speaking readers with his book Kaidan, also known as Kwaidan. 

Other prominent foreigners who loved Japan that are featured in this book are Phiipp Franz von Siebold who taught the latest medical techniques to the Japanese, American James Curtis Hepburn who created the Hepburn system of romanization of the Japanese language, Henry James Black, Japan’s first foreign performer who took the stage name Kairakutei. 

Not all of the featured foreigners remained in Japan but their contributions to Japanese society remains. Their stories and why they came to Japan and fell in love with it will also make you want to visit this country and to see firsthand what they experienced. 

I’m making a minor contribution to the Japanese by teaching Japanese students English at an English Conversation School. Perhaps one day I will also be featured in a book such as this. One can only hope. ~Ernie Hoyt