James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn

by Sayuri Hama

Introduction

Hepburn is famous for Romaji [romanization; a way to write Japanese in the Latin alphabet - Ed] in Japan, but do you really believe that Romaji was invented by Hepburn? In fact, it is not true. I’m going to write about that later.

Background

Hepburn was born in America. His father was a lawyer, and his mother believed in Christianity. Thanks to smart parents, he was good at studying. He entered a college at 16 years old. He majored in medical and learned the Bible, which made him be interested in Christianity. After graduation from the college, he married Kurara who was Christian. Hepburn spent most his life in other countries to propagate Christianity with his wife.

Life in China for 5 years

Hepburn and his wife moved to China in spite of his parents’ objections. In China, they had many difficulties. At first, they faced a handicap in language. What is worse, Kurara had a miscarriage and next baby died soon after the birth. In addition, Hepburn and Kurara suffered from Malaria. They had to go back to America for treatment. Then Hepburn started a medical office and succeeded in it. He got a good reputation; however, he decided to leave America again to Japan for propagation.

Life in Japan for 33 years

Hepburn and Kurara arrived at Kanagawa prefecture. It took about 6 months to come to Japan. What surprised Hepburn at first was Japanese appearance. Men had a sword and a topknot. According to his diary, Japanese people were full of curiosity about foreign culture because Japan was closed for a long time. He tried to propagate Christianity but there was a serious problem. Christianity was illegal at the time. He once gave up doing that and opened a medical office. He learned Japanese through the work. His hospital became the most famous one in Kanto area. He got reputation also in Japan, but he wasn't satisfied with that because his purpose was propagation of Christianity. 

He decided to study Japanese but there was no dictionary in Japan at the time so he started to make a dictionary. Hepburn started to prepare a dictionary. He mastered vocabularies, grammar, and idioms. But there were other problem. Japan didn't have the technology to print millions of words or make suitable paper. So Hepburn asked Chinese factory to do that. Finally he completed making dictionary 7 years after he came to Japan. He built a church and the members reached 200, so after all he achieved his goal to propagate Christianity.

Romaji

Japanese people think that Romaji was invented by Hepburn. Actually Romaji was made by Portuguese long before Hepburn used it for the first time in dictionary. He was just the person who put it into practice.


Reference

Anonymous, (n.d.). Kanagawa no ijin, nihon no ijin [A great man in Kanagawa and Japan]. Retrieved January 20, 2015 from http://www.hebon.sonanda.net/

James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn

By Ayako Hirose

When you use a computer, how do you type Japanese? Most of the people utilize combination of alphabets to show Japanese letters. The creator of this system, Hepburn Romanization, is James Curtis Hepburn. Hepburn contributed to Japanese development not only as a creator of the Romanization system, but also as a doctor, educator, missionary, and an editor of Japanese English dictionaries.

Hepburn was born in Pennsylvania in 1815, and he learned medical science and became a physician. On the other hand, as he aspired to mission, he moved to Japan as a medical missionary in 1859.

He opened a small clinic in Yokohama for free because he wanted to help Japanese people while Tokugawa shogunate had prevented him to open it. At first, Japanese people had guarded against foreigners, but his tender attitude toward Japanese neighbors and developed Western medical techniques was attractive, so the clinic became crowded. Overall, he treated more than 10,000 patients in Japan.

He taught his knowledge to Japanese students with his wife. As Japanese people started realizing the importance of foreign language and studies, the shogunate offered Hepburn to teach it, and sent nine students. He taught Western medical science, and his wife, who used to be a teacher in New York, covered English education. Later, he established Hebon-juku which is a precursor of Meiji Gakuin University. And another teacher at Hebon-juku founded Ferris Jogakuin. It means Hepburn was concerned with foundation of two famous schools in Japan.

In addition, he worked as a missionary by translating the Bible. It was hard task because Christianity was prohibited by the shogunate in those days. Hepburn and other missionaries worried how to diffuse doctrine of Christianity, and they decided to translate the bible. They started the work in 1872. At first, they referred to Chinese Bible, so Hepburn’s experience in China and Chinese knowledge was useful. They published some books from 1875 to 1880.

Hepburn spoke Japanese fluently, but other American people could not. Usually American and Japanese needed Chinese interpreter who understand both English and Japanese. Therefore, he published Japanese English dictionary to learn Japanese in 1867. His dictionary was the first Japanese English dictionary.

However, Hepburn spent difficult time because those two languages have totally different letters. Then, he created Hepburn Romanization. Thanks to this system, Japanese characters can be written in alphabet.


As Hepburn worked in many fields, he influenced Japan in some ways. So I asked group members what was the most remarkable thing by Hepburn. Each of them had different interests. Hepburn dealt with Japanese people for free. One member seemed to be impressed by his kindness. And one person is interested in translation, so she thought his translation work was great. Others thought that Hepburn was a great educator because he was related to two Universities. Through this discussion, I was surprised because I could listen to various answers. I personally think that Hepburn Romanization was his greatest job because we use the system even today, so I had guessed that most of people would also think so. Actually, they pointed out other things and no one answered that Romanization is the best. I learned that evaluation sometimes differs quite a lot depending on the person.


Before I searched Hepburn, I had only known that “Hebon created Hepburn Romanization”. I did not even know that Hebon is kind of his nickname, and his real name was Hepburn, and I also had never heard that he actually came to Japan as a missionary. It was surprising that one person mastered such broad areas of knowledge, and brought many results. Though he was a missionary, some of his achievements had no relation to Christianity. Through listening to other presentation, I knew that like Hepburn, many missionaries came to Japan and worked on medical treatment, education and other studies. The number of Christians did not increase so much in Japan; however, their efforts enriched Japanese country and all the people living in Japan.


References

“James Curtis Hepburn” Wikipedia, retrieved 2014, December 12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Curtis_Hepburn

Mochiduki, Y. (1987). ヘボンの生涯と日本語. Tokyo: Toyo Insatsu Kabushikigaisya.

Takaya, M. (1961). ヘボン. Tokyo: Nihon Rekishi Gakkai.

Ernest Fenollosa

Ernest Fenollosa

By Yumi Okumura

Do you know the person who protected Japanese art? It was Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, an American philosopher and eastern art historian. In Meiji period, he came to Japan as an oyatoi gaikokujin [Editor's note: a hired foreign expert], and then he was fascinated with Japanese art. However, soon he was shocked that people didn’t treat Japanese art works as important things, so he tried to protect Japanese art. In his life, he visited Japan four times. In this essay, I will talk about three things; how Fenollosa loved Japanese art, how he affected people, and how he tried to protect Japanese art.

At first, I’ll introduce that Fenollosa really liked Japanese art. After he came to Japan, he was interested in Japanese art like an image of Buddha and Ukiyoe, so he started traveling old temples in all parts of the country. Also, he began collecting and studying old art works. Finally, he could collect about 20,000 Japanese art works, and now these are kept in Boston art museum. He wanted to know Japanese art and culture, so he learned Noh plays (能楽) and stayed at a teahouse. In addition, he became a pupil of Minoru Umewaka and decided to convert from Christianity to Buddhism. The more he knew about Japan, the more he loved Japanese art.

Next, I’ll talk that what effect Fenollosa had on people. At that time, Japanese people thought western art was superior to Japanese one. Then Fenollosa made a speech and changed people’s thinking. This speech was printed and handed out to all parts of Japan by new government. Fenollosa influenced many people, but especially, he really affected one person, Hōgai Kano. When Fenollosa went to the first contest of Japanese paintings, he was moved by a painting which Hōgai Kano painted. Though Hōgai refused to meet Fenollosa, Fenollosa went to Hōgai’s house every day and finally Hōgai met him. After Fenollosa could meet Hōgai, he supported Hōgai’s living and promised to buy all paintings which Hōgai drew, and gave advice about adding new style of painting. Later, Hōgai Kano became a pioneer of modern Japanese paintings.

Lastly, I’ll show how Fenollosa protected Japanese art. When he came to Japan, there was anti Buddhist movement(廃仏毀釈). People tended to break images of Buddha, temples and shrines. Fenollosa was shocked by that, so he asked Ministry of Education to create an art investigation committee. He searched more than about 450 art works and about sixty shrines and temples. Based on this investigation, the Ancient Temples and Shrines Protection Law was issued. Also, it triggered the idea of the National treasure. This notion, national treasure, was Fenollosa's. Now in Japan, there are 217 buildings and 871 art works and these are protected so that they are not lost.

In conclusion, Fenollosa found the worth of Japanese art works earlier than Japanese people at that time. Some people say that in collecting them, he drained important art works overseas. However, these still remain without being broken because Fenollosa collected them. If he had done nothing, these art works may not exist now, so Fenollosa was a benefactor of Japanese art.

References

“Ernest Fenollosa”(2013)-Wikipedia. Retrieved 2013.1.23. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8D%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A7%E3%83%8E%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B5

“National treasue”(2013)-Wikipedia. Retrieved 2013.1.23. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%9D

日本の恩人 フェノロサ-Retrieved 2013.1.23. http://kajipon.sakura.ne.jp/kt/haka-topic36.html

James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn

By Kohei Ishizuka

James Curtis Hepburn was born in America in 1815. He was a missionary and also medical scientist. He was influential with Japanese people because he did lots of good things in Japan, such as making hospital, cram school, Meiji Gakuin and Japanese-English dictionary. He died when he was 96 years old. In that time, that age was really old. I think he was a doctor so he could live long years.

Before he came to Japan, he went to two universities in America. In 1828 he entered Priceton University. In that university he learned about pedagogy. When he was a child, he was interested in pedagogy. However, while he was attending that university he became interested in medical science so after he graduated that university he went to another university to learn medical science in 1832. He graduated that university in 1838. After that he had a dream. It was to tell about Christianity to foreign countries. He decided to go to foreign country. Before he went there, he met Clara, the woman who was to be his wife. She was also Christian and had the same dream. In 1840 he married her. After he got married he decided to go to China.

In 1843, James and Clara went to China to tell Christianity but at that time, there was Opium war in China so they got disease because of that. They decided to go back to America. Actually they got their child in there. However their child was dead before their child was born because of the war.

In 1846, James went back to America and started hospital in New York. There were so many people who immigrated there and many sick people, so many people went to his hospital. James graduated university which was for learning medical science so he was a good doctor there. In 1858, he decided to go to Japan with Clara because of Nichibei Shukoutsushou Jyouyaku.

In 1859 James and Clara arrived in Yokohama in Japan. At first he started hospital like in New York, but he couldn’t speak Japanese so it was difficult to see sick people. However he had a good skill about medical science. After few months so many people went to his hospital. In one day he saw 100 sick people in his hospital. At same time he and Clara started a cram school because they wanted to spread Christianity, but Bible was all written in English so he decided to translate to Japanese. At first he made Japanese-English dictionary which is to learn English for Japanese people, but Japanese people couldn’t read English. He made Romaji [Editor's note: Japanese uses a pictorial alphabet. Romaji are a way of writing Japanese phonetically in Latin characters] in 1866, and because of that Japanese people could more easily read English. In 1880 he translated old testament from English to Japanese. He also made university which is Meiji Gakuin in 1887. In 1892 he and his wife went back to America because his wife got disease. In 1911 he died in America.

If there was no dictionary and not so many information about country which I have never been to, I wouldn’t go there and I may not have the idea of creating a dictionary so I really respect him.

Reference list

http://meijigakuin.ac.jp/guide.history.html

http://meijigakuin.ac.jp/guide.history_en.html