The oyatoi gaikokujin (Japanese Kyūjitai: 御雇ひ外國人, Shinjitai: お雇い外国人, "hired foreigners")—sometimes rendered o-yatoi gaikokujin in romaji, were foreign advisors hired by the Japanese government for their specialized knowledge to assist in the modernization of Japan at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji era. The total number is uncertain, but is estimated to have reached more than 3,000 (with thousands more in the private sector).
The goal in hiring the foreign advisors was to obtain transfers of technology. The foreign advisors were highly paid; in 1874, they numbered 520 men, during which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the annual budget. Despite the value they provided in the modernization of Japan, the Japanese government did not consider it prudent for them to settle in Japan permanently. After training Japanese replacements to take over their places, many found that their contracts (typically for three years) were not renewed.
Some foreign advisors supplemented their activities as government employees by undertaking Christian missionary activities.
The 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 sports. Until 1899, more than 800 hired foreign experts continued to be employed by the government, and many others were employed privately.
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Notable o-yatoi gaikokujin
Agriculture
Medical science
- Erwin von Bälz, physician
- Leopold Müller
- Johannes Ludwig Janson
- 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
- Otfried Nippold, jurist
- Heinrich Waentig, economist and jurist
- Ludwig Loenholm, jurist
- Georges Hilaire Bousquet
- Horatio Nelson Lay
Military
- Jules Brunet, French artillery officer.
- Léonce Verny, French constructor of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal.
- Klemens Wilhelm Jakob Meckel
- Jeremiah Richard Wasson
Natural science and mathematics
- William Edward Ayrton, British physicist
- Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist.
- Edward S. Morse, zoologist.
- Charles Otis Whitman, zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse.
- Heinrich Edmund Naumann, geologist
- 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
- Benjamin Smith Lyman
Engineering
- Wilhelm Boeckmann, architect
- William Brooks, agriculture
- Richard Henry Brunton - builder of lighthouses
- Josiah Conder [1] (in Japanese)[2] (in Japanese) pictures
- William Kinnimond Burton, engineering, architecture, photography
- Horace Capron, agriculture, road construction
- Henry Dyer
- Hermann Ende, architect
- George Arnold Escher
- John Milne, geologist
- Edmund Morel, railway engineer
- John Alexander Low Waddell, bridge engineer
- Thomas James Waters
Art and music
- Edoardo Chiossone
- Luther Whiting Mason, Western music
- Ernest Fenollosa, educator
- Franz Eckert, Western music[1],
- Rudolf Dittrich, Western music
Liberal arts, humanities and education
- Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist and Professor of Japanese, Tokyo Imperial University
- James Summers, English literature
- Antonio Fontanesi, painter
- Emil Hausknecht, pedagogue
- Lafcadio Hearn, Japanologist
- Viktor Holtz, educator
- Raphael von Koeber, philosopher and musician
- Vincenzo Ragusa, sculptor
- Ludwig Riess, historian.
Missionary activities
- William Elliot 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)
- 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
- Russian people in Japan
References
- ^ Eckert composed the harmony for Japan's national anthem, Kimi ga Yo
External links
- Dentsu Advertising Museum
- [3] (in Japanese)
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