Alexander von Siebold

Alexander von Siebold

By Yuka Shiratori

Introduction

Do you know about foreigners who worked for Japanese government in Meiji Japan? They are called foreign specialists in government employ (in Japanese, Oyatoi-gaikokujin). Alexander von Siebold is one of them and he worked as an interpreter. He studied Japanese so hard after he came to Japan, and he succeeded as a Japanese-English interpreter even though his mother language was German.

His life

Siebold was born in Leyden, Netherlands in 1846. He came to Japan for the first time when he was 12 years old. This opportunity was created by his father.

His father, Philip Franz von Siebold is famous for the “Narutaki-juku” [a medical school - Ed] and the Siebold incident, in which he tried to bring the map of Japan overseas, although it was illegal at that time. He was deported from Japan and he couldn't come to Japan for about 30 years.

When Alexander’s father became able to come to Japan, because the deportation was lifted, Alexander came to Japan with his father.

He studied Japanese so hard for about a year, and then he started to work as an interpreter when he was 15 years old. At that time, he was a student-interpreter and assisted British consul. He was not familiar with the job at first, but he kept making efforts to learn Japanese.

From 1870, he was sent to Europe and accomplished many achievements. The arrangement for Japan’s participation in the Vienna World Expo of 1873 was one of his great achievements. He had already been and experienced the 1867 World Fair in Paris. To add to this result, he also worked for Japanese students in London, and negotiated about the bill print.

He became official interpreter for the Ministry of Finance in 1875. From that time he translated the official documents and the laws which related to the Ministry of Finance. His job of supporting the Japanese politics had continued. For example, in 1881, to assist Inoue Kaoru, he went to Germany and negotiated with the German government over treaty revisions.

He contributed to Japanese politics and society for over 40 years, his work was recognized and he was awarded the order of the Sacred Treasure in 1910. There are six grades and he was awarded the 2nd class.

Discussion

I asked two questions at the discussion.

What do you think about his father’s decision (decided his son would be an interpreter)?

Most of members said that it was not bad for him because he finally succeeded as an interpreter. To think of the difficulty of getting good job, it was a valuable opportunity that should not be missed for him. One more reason is that he could chose his work or future, because his father passed away after leaving Alexander in Japan and went back to the country.

What do you think about foreigners who work for Japan (or Japanese people)?

Considering the reason to come Japan, we felt that most foreigners love Japan and had hoped to visit Japan.

Another viewpoint is that of Japanese people. Before Meiji era, Japan had no chance to learn from other countries, so foreigners who visited Japan were like teachers for Japanese at that time. They taught the foreign culture or customs, and these experiences were important and necessary for Japan.

Reflection

Alexander’s experiences of Japan were not intended but I think that working in Japan for Japanese government was good for him. As I mentioned in the discussion part, working for Japanese government was precious chance for him to learn about Japan, including the language.

I recognized that Japan learned many things from foreign countries and tried to adopt them into Japanese society. It is said that there is a less Japanese atmosphere these days rather than past Japanese society, but my opinion became slightly different from this. I think that Japan always tries to get new and useful information and tries to adjust it to Japan, and this also should be seen as one of Japanese merits.

After all, I noticed that I could ask the discussion questions that were related to his effort to learn foreign languages. Actually, he studied so hard to master the foreign language. I think Japanese is difficult but he roughly mastered it for only a year. It was such a surprising fact for me.


References

Kreiner, J. (1998) Tokugawa Japan at dusk Japan which was seen by Siebold and his sons


"Alexander von Siebold", (n.d.). In Wikipedia, retrieved on January 26th 2015 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Siebold


"Alexander von Siebold" (Japanese page), (n.d.). In Wikipedia Japan, retrieved on January 26th 2015 from
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%AB%E3%83%88