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| Alexander von Siebold |
Alexander George Gustav von Siebold was a German who worked as an interpreter of British legation in Japan and a foreign advisor (Oyatoigaikokujin) of Japanese Meiji government. He was born in Leiden Netherland; his father worked in Netherland but consequently took banishment order, and moved to Japan with him.
When he was 14, he could not speak either Japanese or English well. However, he made an effort to learn English and mastered it within only one year. When he was 15, he became a student interpreter of British legation in Japan. Student interpreter is a system which trains interpreters who deal with Asian countries, introduced by British.
He also studied harder, and one year later he had become a student interpreter, passed the national administered exam and became a translator. As a translator, he dealt with three languages, Germany, English and Japanese. He was very trusted by influential people from some countries so he was involved in a lot of events such as the Namamugi incident, the negotiation of opening a port in Hyogo in the Shimonoseki War, and navigating Shomu Tokugawa to the Paris expo.
In 1870, he resigned as a British legation officer and became a foreign advisor (oyatoi-gaikokujin) of the Meiji government. He started to support growth of Japan. As a foreign advisor, he supported Japanese travelers life in Britain, requested Vienna to participate in the expo, and concluded the treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the UK and Japan (Nichi-Ei Tsusho Kokai Joyaku).
Discussions
In our group's discussion, we talked about how members felt about his life. My group members were amazed by his eager attitude for language studies and negotiation. Obviously, there were not enough materials because technologies were still not developed, so he had to study without convenient things. How did he study effectively under that situation? And what was important for his foreign language acquisition? One interesting opinion was taking interaction with native speakers. The immersion made him to take communication in Japanese many times. Perhaps, it supported his effective learning. And in other opinion, high motivation by him was also important; when he was youth, he learned Japanese as important issue to make his future. So he could maintain his motivation. These opinions were right on the mark.
My opinions
I have learned that Siebold studied harder and made an effort to do a lot of important things for building the current Japanese country. I’m not sure whether he liked Japan or not, but he had been living in Japan for over 50 years, so I guessed that may be not too bad for working place. Through the group discussion, I totally agreed with my group members. Although the environment given for him is more difficult than nowadays, He proved that he could master languages and get the job even in such situation. This fact really encouraged our studying motivations as foreign language learners. From my point of view, Japan is still not well-developed for living with people from foreign countries. He made some bases for language studies, so we might have to study harder and contribute to supporting foreign travelers instead of saying thanks to him.
References
The web page Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Siebold
Link image : http://pds.exblog.jp/pds/1/201305/27/48/b0181748_18331211.jpg
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