This project showcases student project work from Japan and the World, a modern Japanese history course offered at Kanda University of International Studies. It focuses on important themes and individuals from the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-26) periods, when Japan was beginning to open to the world after centuries of government-enforced isolation.

All submissions are researched, whether in English or Japanese, and references provided. Comments responding to and exploring ideas, suggesting connections or further reading, are most welcome. As entries are written by non-native English speakers, please refrain from non-constructive comments about language use.

Blog editor/ course designer: Caroline Hutchinson

Monday, 4 August 2014

James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn
By Yuta Onodera

Life of Hepburn

"Anata wa kore wo yomemasuka?" Today, we always use this kind of typing in our daily lives, and this way of describing Japanese is understandable for both Japanese learners and non-Japanese learners. As for Japanese typing, this type of typing is always used to type Japanese words and sentences. However, who invented this useful and effective way of describing Japanese language? Some people might have heard his name: “James Curtis Hepburn”.

James Curtis Hepburn was born in 1815. After he earned a master’s degree, he became a physician. When he came to Japan as a medical missionary, he opened a clinic in Kanagawa. In addition to his clinic, he founded the Hepburn School. Also, he compiled a Japanese-English dictionary while he was in Japan. In the third edition, he adopted a new system of Romanization of Japanese language, which is widely known as “Hepburn Romanization”. However, how did he collect Japanese words and complete his dictionaries? Weren't there any difficulties collecting Japanese words and describing phonological information of Japanese?

In fact, Hepburn had knowledge of kanji because he had been in China for some years before coming to Japan, and it seemed that it was relatively easy for him to learn Japanese language because Chinese and Japanese have some common points between their languages. However, he mentioned that he had a lot of difficulties learning Japanese because that language was much different from Chinese. Thus, Hepburn collected Japanese words from Japanese people, classified those words, studied grammatical rules, idioms, etc. and finally he summed up over 20,000 entry words with Hepburn Romanization system.


Summary of Discussion

We discussed three points of Hepburn’s accomplishments:
  1. Why did he found Hepburn School? 
  2. What was the motivation for him to compile Japanese-English dictionary? and 
  3. What are the positive and negative points of Hepburn Romanization? 
For the first topic of discussion, ”Why did Hepburn found Hepburn School?”, I got some interesting responses and opinions. One of them was that Hepburn wanted not only to cure injured people in Japan, but also to give knowledge of the way to cure people. Also, some people stated that Hepburn founded the school since he wanted to collect Japanese words because the school made it easy to do that.

The second discussion was about “What was the motivation for him to compile Japanese-English dictionary”. One of the members in my group mentioned that he wanted to spread Japanese language to foreign countries because the person assumed that there were few Japanese-English dictionaries so it seemed difficult to learn Japanese things. Another opinion was that Hepburn compiled the dictionary for himself to learn Japanese. Since he had a lot of difficulties learning Japanese language, he studied Japanese hard. As a consequence, he accidentally completed the dictionary.

The last discussion topic was “What are the positive and negative points of Hepburn Romanization?” This topic was controversial. According to our discussion, there are some positive points of Hepburn Romanization, but interestingly more negative points are mentioned. One of the positive points is that Hepburn Romanization makes it easier for Japanese learners to learn Japanese language because they can learn its pronunciation by looking at Romanization. Furthermore, it also makes it easier for Japanese people to learn other languages that use Romanization because Japanese people who know this system can understand the pronunciation of their mother tongue, and they can adopt it when they learn different languages.

However, as I mentioned above, it seemed that there are more negative points of Hepburn Romanization. One of them is this system made Japanese people learn Romanization in addition to hiragana, katakana, and kanji. This made Japanese language very complicated. What I thought interesting was that this Hepburn Romanization would generate different sounds, depending on people who read. That is, if people whose mother tongue is English see the sound “/ch/”, they would pronounce it as a fricative sound as in China or Chin. However, if those whose mother tongue is Chinese see it, then they would pronounce it as an aspirate sound (strong /ch/). This phenomenon is caused by speakers’ native languages. Thus it seems impossible that Hepburn Romanization can adapt to all human languages.


Reflection on person and project

Through this project, I learned a number of things, about Hepburn, Japan at that time, the origin of Japanese-English dictionary, lessons that we can learn from Hepburn, and so forth. Before taking this class, I wasn't interested in history so much, honestly. However, once I started to study about Japanese history, I found that our current life is based on what our ancestors did in the past. The reason why people in Japan succeeded in developing Japan and Japan became one of the most developed countries came from the history of Japan. They learned everything including good and bad from the past, and they tried to follow good points, and tried to improve or never repeat bad things.

Talking about Hepburn, he gave massive knowledge to Japanese people. Not only did he give medical knowledge, but also the Japanese-English dictionary which enables us to study foreign languages easily than the past. Some surprising things are that these seemingly recent inventions or events happened 200 years ago. I stereotypically feel that the life at that time was not so stable to live comfortably, so people couldn't afford to spend much of their time studying. Hence I believe that those who contributed to Japan, such as Hepburn whom I researched, really contributed and that we have to appreciate their works. I’m sure that things in this world are continuing to be improved and made more sophisticated. Namely, we contemporary people have to inherit our ancestors’ works and make them more sophisticated. I believe that we live in more comfortable and wealthier world than the past era, so we can inherit and improve their works if there are some points that we can do. Furthermore, what we can learn from Hepburn is that it is more important to do anything for others without reward. Hepburn treated people for free, even if he did some surgery, he didn't get any money from people. Meiji Gakuin University, which is established by Hepburn, had a lesson “Do for others”. We also should follow his lesson.

The project this time was composed of a short presentation and discussion. Because I have to spare time for discussion, I didn't make long presentation, but rather, I made three discussion questions so that the audience or participants can join the discussion and talk a lot. Since I didn't prepare for long presentation, I needed less time for practicing presentation than last time, but instead, I used more time for gathering information about the person for whom I made presentation so that I can answer any questions or doubts that the listeners had. During my presentation, I thought that I need more slides of my presentation to tell more details so that audience can get knowledge of him and join the discussion more smoothly. In contrast to my thought, every member in my group joined the discussion very actively. Sometimes after one member in my group told her opinion, one of other members asked her about what she said. This way of discussion was good and valuable. Before discussion, I was worried that this discussion would be one-way communication, like I asked questions, one member answered, and then finished. However, this two-way communication made the discussion more controversial. I have to thank them for making the discussion like that.

There are some good points and bad points in my project. One of the good points was I prepared for questions that audience would have. Although they didn't have questions, I used that knowledge and started to talk in order to not make quiet or silent atmosphere during discussion. I heard that this utterance gave them additional knowledge of the person, which made them easy to join the discussion. This is a good point but also it implies that this is a bad point. “The additional information made it easy for them to join the discussion” meant that they didn't get enough information from my presentation, I should have included more information in my presentation. Also, some people feel that my English was fluent, while others feel too fast. Presentation is not for me, but for listeners, so I should have spoken a little bit slower so that every listener of my presentation could understand what I said. Through this project, I got much knowledge of my focus person, confidence in presentation skills, delivering discussion, and so on. All of these achievements are thanks to my teacher Caroline and my peers. I would like to say “thank you” to them. Thank you.


Reference

Meiji Gakuin University. (n.d.). James Curtis Hepburn. Retrieved from
http://www.mg150th-whoswho.jp/atc01.html

Meiji Gakuin University. (2014). The Birthplace of James Curtis Hepburn. Retrieved from
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/guide/history_en.html

Michio, T. (n.d.). James Curtis Hepburn. Retrieved from
http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/h/hepburn-james-curtis.php

Sunday, 3 August 2014

Georges Ferdinand Bigot

Georges Ferdinand Bigot
By Yui Yamamoto

Life of my focus person

Most Japanese people have seen before the picture called “gyou fu no ri (漁夫の利)”. It is one of Bigot’s masterpieces which shows the complicated international situation among Japan, China, Russia and Korea. It is drawn by a famous French cartoonist, Georges Bigot. Bigot was born and raised in Paris and learned at École des Beaux-Arts. After he started working as an illustrator, he was interested in “Japonisme” and decided to come to Japan in 1882. He learned Japanese and lived in Japanese community and frequented red-light districts (yukaku gayoi) to know more about Japan.

Although Bigot is generally known for cartoons in Japan, there are plenty of genre paintings which showed daily life and social conditions faithfully at Meiji period. For example, in a drawing of voting, there are many Japanese men in Western clothes who have Western hairstyles or mustaches. It showed that only high-class men had voting rights and participated in political events. The most significant point of this picture is a man who is wearing Kimono and has a Japanese topknot. His style is really rare in that situation, as can be seen from other men. A cartoon magazine produced and released by Bigot, called “TÔBAÉ”, was published for foreign residents in 1887. It was organized his critics such as the Japanese government. At present, those works are really important historical materials.


Summary of discussion

Q1. What do you think / how do you feel about his drawings?

Q2. Imagine if you were Bigot, what would you draw about present Japan?

Initially, listeners were impressed by the works especially cartoons for the first question. They had same opinions as mine that the pictures explained as they are. I thought that they have already known his works so it was easy to think. Although the second question was a little bit tricky for them, we could share some ideas at the end of the discussion. Most of them talked about Japanese problems such as Fukushima problems, the relationships between Japan and the U.S. and so on. On the other hand, only few ideas about our present daily lives were shared. I thought that it was not easy for us to see ourselves as others see us.


Reflection on person and project

Through this project, I learned that Bigot had really critical eyes. At first, I did not know that he drew various works as well as cartoons. For example, there are “Japanese” who he admired in his genre pictures. Also, they showed real daily lives in Meiji period. Therefore, I realized again how he saw Japan clearly, calmly and carefully. I am surprised that we are in the same situation of his works. In fact, there are plenty of types of media and they are playing a major role in the sharing of information. However, the government is still strict about them even though Japanese people want to know the truth. I think the picture shows us that it is significant to have various “eyes” on your mind.


References

Shimizu, Isao. 2001. Bigot ga mita Nihonjin. Tokyo: Kodansha

Shimizu, Isao. 2006. Bigot ga mita Meiji Nppon. Tokyo: Kodansha

James Murdoch

James Murdoch
By Saki Kurihara

Presentation

James Murdoch was born in Scotland, Aberdeen city in 1856. He grew up in a poor general store’s family. He studied a lot and he entered Aberdeen University. After graduation, he went to Oxford University, University of Göttingen, University of Paris and the college of Wooster. When he was 24 years old, he took a post as Greek professor at Aberdeen University at this young age. In 1882 he got offer from Grammar school in Australia and then he seized the chance and went to Australia.

He became aware of the concept of socialism while staying in Australia. Eventually, he quit his job and he threw himself into the world of journalism.

At that time in Australia, left-wing workers insisted to wash out the Chinese immigrants. He tried to find out what is happening to the Chinese immigrants so he got on a ship as a low-grade passenger with the immigrants.

“From Australia and Japan” is his book which was written based on his experience in the ship. In the book, he found out that left-wing Australian workers treated Chinese immigrants badly. He wrote about their evildoing and grief of the Chinese.

After finishing investigative action, he made a brief visit to Japan to meet his friend. However during his trip to Japan he was absolutely charmed by Japanese people, culture and atmosphere so he decided to be an English teacher in Japan.

In 1889 he taught at Tokyo Daiichi Koutou Chugakou (now Tokyo University) and he met Soseki Natsume there. Soseki was struck by James Murdoch and he wrote book about him. In this book, Soseki said he sometimes visited Murdoch’s home so it seems that they were in a good relationship.

One day, Murdoch suddenly handed his resignation because he heard that his friend planned to create new ideal communism country in Paraguay. He got there immediately and helped his friend to realize the new country but it failed. He came back to England with a sore heart.

At that time, Japanese people were engaged in creating modernized country with Westerners’ cynical smile but they endured Westerners and made efforts. Murdoch heard that and he started studying about Japan to find a new way how to make a country.

In 1894 he visited Japan and worked as a teacher again. In 1904 he got married to Japanese woman, Takeko, and moved to Kagoshima prefecture.

He concentrated on studying about Japan and finally, he completed writing three books, “A History of Japan”. These books are on the subject of Japanese history from 1543 (When the Lusitanian came to Japan with guns) to 1868 (End of the Tokugawa Shogunate).

Moreover, he wrote many books about Japan in his life and he introduced Japan abroad. For instance, “47 Ronin” is one of the famous books introducing Japanese Bushi [warriors, or samurai - Ed]. The book’s sources were provided by Shigeno Yasutsugu. He is the first Japanese historian who analyzed the incident. In the book, James Murdoch analyzes the Tokugawa society.

His books are read by many foreign people even now. Probably, there are academic theses analyzing Tokugawa society using his books.

In 1917 he moved to Sydney and promoted exchanges between Japan and Australia. He died in Australia in 1921, planning a trip to Kagoshima..


Discussion

①If you were James Murdoch, how would you promote exchanges between Japan and Australia or other countries?

One student said that they would try to spread European information in Japan or take pictures about Japan. Another student said “When I go back to my country, I would bring something Japanese and introduce Japanese culture or become Japanese teacher”.

②If you were Murdoch, what subject could you teach for foreign students in other country?

Many students said they could teach English.


Reflection

Throughout Caroline’s class, I realized that I don’t know foreign people who contributed to Japan a lot.

In this presentation, I picked James Murdoch and researched about his life and achievement. He devoted most of his life to introducing Japan and promoting exchanges between Japan and overseas. Thanks to him and his books, Japan was known by many foreign people and they thought positively about Japan at that time. Even now, his books are read by many people so I think he is still an influence on many people all over the world.

He played a significant role and I think we should study about foreign people who contributed to Japan a lot like James Murdoch.


References

Blog “Seisouan”
http://sea.ap.teacup.com/seiasouan/31.html

James Murdoch
http://www.dhs.kyutech.ac.jp/~ruxton/James_Murdoch.htm

The 47 Rônin are Introduced to the World
http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/chushinguranew/retelling/Murdoch.htm

Soseki Natsume “Murdoch’s Japanese History”
http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000148/files/2375_13562.html

Ernest Fenollosa

Ernest Fenollosa
By Aoi Hirata

Introduction

Do you think what Japanese culture is? When you introduce Japan to foreigners, what do you show them? Perhaps, we think of the historical arts as one of important parts of culture. However, about 150 years ago, a movement to destroy so many of those arts was started by Meiji government because Japan thought their culture was inferior to western one and followed them to renew Japan. During this movement, called Haibutsu-kishaku, one American whose name was Ernest Fenollosa dedicated his life to rescuing Japanese arts.


Personal history

Fenollosa was born in USA, and he was a very smart person. He graduated from Harvard University and his major was political economy there. Since that time, he had interest in art, and then entered an art school in Boston. In 1878, after he graduated from there, he came to Japan to teach economy and philosophy at Tokyo University. Then he was attracted by Japanese arts a lot; however, Japan had been active in haibutsu-kishaku movement which was belief that increased respects for God instead of destroy Buddhism during his staying. He worked on activities to protect art from such a violent movement. As example, he rescued some pictures by famous Japanese artists and sent them to Boston museum. Still, some people today criticize this action, saying that he just contributed to his wallet because he could actually get a lot of money from it.


Discussion

Then, I asked my group members two questions “Do you think such Japanese art should be in Japan?” and “Do you agree with him or not?” To the first question, one student answered that it depends on the reputation of pictures because if they can attract foreigners, it will affect Japanese popularity too. Otherwise if they would not be valued in other countries, they should be in Japan today. On the other hand, there was an opinion that arts should be in Japanese museum. We have learned Japanese history with pictures since we were in elementary school, but it is difficult to see some of them because Japan does not have them. In her opinion, they should be in Japan for Japanese to see. Next, about the second question, most people agreed with his work for Japanese arts. One of my classmates felt that even though he got money, those pictures exist today. We should notice how precious that truth is.


Reflection

From this discussion, I think Fenollosa did well in total. I feel sorry that Japanese could not save our culture and be proud of it because I think culture is built by history of all people's lives. In that confusion of history, various eyes from abroad let people realize later what was Japan and what great things we had. Without Fenollosa, we could not have learned some important piece of Japanese history. Therefore, we needed him.


References

Wikipedia. Ernest Fenollosa. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Fenollosa

近影. Bungei-Jankie paradice Retrieved from http://kajipon.sakura.ne.jp/kt/haka-topic36.html

Hannah Riddell

Hannah Riddell
By Shota Inoue

Life of Riddell

Hannah Riddell was a British woman who devoted her life to caring for patients of leprosy in Japan. When she was younger, she and her mother established private school, because they need money. The school sometimes succeeded, but in 1889 it went into bankruptcy. Then, her next job was as superintendent for the YMCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). In 1890, she was selected as missionary to Japan. At the same time, she heard about Japan from her friend. She got good impression of Japan. Therefore, she decided to go to Japan.

In 1891, she saw the leper at the Honmyoji temple in Kumatmoto. When she saw the leper begging for mercy (like “help me”), she made up her mind to devote her life to their care. She decided to establish Kaishun hospital. Then, she did donation work. But Japanese didn't know about her. She behaved like upper class and attended upper class party. She was also supported by British, in and 1895 Kaishun hospital was complete. Next she set the policy, but she was not doctor. She didn't know about leprosy and way of cure. At that time nobody also knew about that. She thought that the best way of cure for leprosy was sexual abstinence and to quarantine these patients in Kaishun hospital. Because she didn't like sexual relations, and her idea is that men and women didn't get along with each other.

In 1918 she established institute (lab) of leprosy in Kaishun hospital, thanks to a lot of donations. Plenty of famous persons donated to this hospital, because Riddell made efforts for helping leper. She gathered scholars and doctors to search and look for a remedy. She was sometimes greedy, but lepers had good impression of her, because although many people despised lepers, she interacted with them with a smile. After her death, the effort was continued by niece “Ada Hannah Wright”.

Summary of discussion

My questions were “If you were healthy person in this time, would you help the leper?” and “What do you think was the best kind of cure?”

My discussion member’s idea is to help them. It stands to reason that people should help them, because we are people. If you help the leper, you might be ignored by other healthy person. Most people are influenced by others but some people have a strong heart.

We don’t know about leprosy and medical science. Maybe we would try to do donation work and encourage to them. We would also establish medical facility. And then, we spread that the leprosy is safe.

The discussion is important for me, because member’s views were different from mine. I can soak up other information.



Reflection

I think Riddell was great person, because in this time most of people ignored and despised lepers, but she devoted her life to caring for them. Then, nobody knew whether this flu infected other people or not. In addition, Japan is not her hometown, but she helped them. Thanks to her efforts, all of Japanese minds was becoming better for medical treatment. Therefore, Japanese government attached importance to the medical treatment and supported medical facilities. Now Japan has good medical technologies.


References
“Hannah Riddell” Wikipedia, accessed July, 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Riddell

“Hannah Riddell by Jingo Tamotsu”, accessed July, 2014
http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/jp/riddell1937/text.html

William Kinnimond Burton

William Kinnimond Burton
By Akari Soneta

Summary about my focus person

Today, we, Japanese can get clean and safe water from taps, and Japan is proud of their high quality water system. We may think it is natural thing but let’s think about the past time. Until the Meiji period, Japan’s water system was in bad condition and Japan was suffered from several serious diseases, especially cholera. This is a disease that can lead to rapid dehydration and electrolyte imbalance and death in some cases. So, Meiji government decided to invite a sanitary engineer, William Kinnimond Burton from Scotland. He worked at Tokyo Imperial University as an unofficial professor to teach sanitary engineering and developed some superior engineers. Also, he had an important role in health office at Department of the Interior to build a base of Japan’s water system. These bases are the origin of today’s public health engineering or environment engineering. We can say that he is a great person who made Japan’s water system.

Furthermore, Burton had another achievement. He was active as a photographer. His grandfather was a famous photographer in his hometown. Because of his grandfather’s hobby, Burton also had a detailed knowledge of photography. So, he used his knowledge and his skills to take photos of Japan’s various scenes. He took the photos of beautiful views such as scenes of Hakone or Mt. Fuji, Japanese costumes or daily life of Meiji period. Not only did he take pictures of these usual things, but also many photos of times when Japan was attacked by some disasters. For example, in 1891, the great earthquake called Noubi-Jishin (濃尾地震) occurred in Gifu prefecture. This disaster was really massive, and it destroyed many buildings that were built in Meiji period, so Japanese government set up the institution to research the situation after earthquake struck. Burton joined the institution and left a lot of photos.


Summary about my discussion

I prepared some discussion questions, and they were “Do you think he had done great work for Japan? Which part?”, “What kind of historical photos would you like to see?” and “If you could go to Meiji period, what kind of photos would you take?” In the first discussion question, “Do you think he had done great work for Japan? Which part?” we all agreed he had contributed to Japan a lot. The reason is he made the base of Japan’s water system and brought clean and safe water to Japan. Then, for the second question, “What kind of historical photos would you like to see?” one of us answered they want to see the photo of lower-class daily life because they would like to see another aspect of Japan. In the final question, “If you could go to Meiji period, what kind of photo would you take?” a member said that she would want to take a photo of the countryside's situation because she has seen only the scenes of developed and modernized Japan.


Reflection

When I look back on my presentation, I have some reflections. First, I didn't prepare some detailed slides, so it was little hard for my audiences to understand deeply. Also, I needed to learn more about Burton. When the audience asked me some questions about him, I couldn't say the right answers because my preparation was not enough. Finally, I didn't make so much eye contact because I’m shy. But, when I give a presentation, it is important thing to attract my audiences and to check the audiences’ understanding. So, having these reflections, I noticed that I should have more detailed slides to give more clear information for my audiences and I need to research more about my focus person to answer the questions from other students. Also, I have to make eye contact with my audiences. I hope I will be able to make presentation better with these reflections.


Reference

Japan Association of Drainage Environment (2006,1,1). The activity related with W.K. Burton. http://www.jca.apc.org/jade/barton/ba150.htm

Wikipedia(2014,5,13). William Kinnimond Burton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kinnimond_Burton

Jearr MarieMahieu (2004). The great earthquake in Japan. http://www.npobook.join-us.jp/report.vol_31/index.html

James Murdoch

James Murdoch
By Shiori Haba

Do you know that Natsume Soseki, considered Japan's greatest modern writer, studied English? Yes, he learned English at university. Who was the teacher? The answer of this attractive question was in Australia. His name is James Murdoch.

In 1986, James Murdoch was born in Stonehaven in Scotland. He went to Aberdeen University to study. In 1881, he moved to Australia and lived here from this time to 1889. When he lived in Australia, he became a journalist and wrote about the class of Australian laborers. In 1889, he was invited to Japan and began to teach English and European history in high school. He married Okada Takeko when he taught in a commercial high school (now Hitotsubashi University). In 1917, he went back to Australia and he became an adviser of policy to Japan. Then he could visit Japan many times.

Murdoch had several faces. One was as a teacher and another face was as a journalist. He was also an adviser of policy to Japan. When he came to Japan, he taught at high school and one of his students was Natsume Soseki. At same time, he published some books. One of his books was “Ayame-san” which was the romance story. He also published books about history of Europe, Australia and Japan, but his way of writing was sometimes not good for people to read because his style of writing was unpleasant and sometimes there were strange comical parts. In addition, he became an adviser of policy to Japan, so he could come to Japan every year to get the information about Japanese people and how foreign policy was changed. Therefore, he was a mediator between Australia and Japan.


We had the discussion and I could get some interesting opinions. We talked about two topics. First one was “If you would work for foreign policy, how would you like to help Japan become close friends with the foreign countries?” There were two main opinions. First of all, student A and student B wanted to try to understand foreign culture and introduce Japanese culture for foreign people. In addition, they wanted to learn not only foreign culture but also Japanese culture to introduce about it. Secondly, student C wanted to try to have Japanese people and foreign people get to know each other. For example, they wanted to organize some events and give the chance to exchange their cultures and get to know each other more than before. I think all ideas are fantastic for making friends with foreign countries. The most interesting point is that they want to learn Japanese culture. I agree with this because in order to understand culture of foreign countries, we have to know our culture more.

The second topic was that “If you could show off Japanese strong points for foreign countries, which point would you like to introduce?” There were three opinions. The first one was that they want to introduce about Japanese traditional and modern culture such as temples in Kyoto and high technology in Tokyo. Secondly, student B wanted to show Japanese characteristics such as being kind to other people. The last one was about four seasons. Japan has spring, summer, autumn and winter, so it is tasteful. I like these opinions because they look at the good points and they are pride of Japanese culture and characteristic. I think it is important to know and find good points our country to know other countries. Therefore, we need to know ourselves more than before if we would like to understand foreign countries.


Through this project, I could learn the connection between Japan and foreign countries especially Australia by researching about James Murdoch. We learned about some travelers to Japan in Meiji and Taisho period, but I could learn and understand Japan though these foreign people. I think that researching foreign people who are related to Japan and looking at Japan through their eyes is a better way to know more about Japan. We thought about this in the discussion and I got various opinions. I would like to consider these opinions when I research the history of Japan and foreign countries. I’m interested in the history of the connection between Japan and foreign countries, so I would like to continue to learn it.


References

James Murdoch (2014) Wikipedia Retrieved July 3, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch_(Scottish_journalist)

Australian Dictionary of Biography Murdoch, James (1986) D.C.S Sissons Retrieved July 3, 2014 from http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murdoch-james-7690

我輩は日豪パイオニアある (2010) 考えRoo Retrieved July 4, 2014 from
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murdoch-james-7690