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

Edmund Morel

Edmund Morel

By Takahiro Sakaguchi

Edmund Morel was the memorable British man in Japan. In 1840 he was born in London. He studied applied chemistry and became the civil engineer taught by Mr. Clerk who was the master of the civil engineer. In 1870, he was invited by Japanese government to establish the railway in Japan. He was famous as the first foreign engineer in Japan. In that time only Ookuma Shigenobu and Ito Hirobumi supported his work, but his effort for making the railway impressed Japanese engineers. Also, he invited Japanese engineers to his house to teach them how to construct the railway. Unfortunately, he fell sick and died while the railway was not complete. In 1872, the railroad between Yokohama to Shinagawa was opened. This was Japan’s first railway. After using the train, Japan developed innovatively and speedily. Nowadays, more than 80% of Japanese people use train in a day.

My three discussion questions were “How would you feel if you saw the train for the first time? ”, “What country would you want to go if you had the knowledge of train engineer? ” and “What would you think if there was no train in Japan?”. First question was easily answered - that it makes us surprised and excited - because my classmates think it was the innovation of Japanese society and economy. For the second question, most classmates thought Asian countries because they thought Asian countries had not developed and there were no trains when Morel came to Japan. For the third question they answered that it might be hard to commute to KUIS [our university – Ed] and it would take a lot of time to arrive somewhere we wanted to go.

I feel that through the presentation and discussion it can be understood that history is connected to our current life. If Edmund hadn't come to Japan, Japan would not have been developed like the comfortable life. Unfortunately, some presentations were a little bit hard to understand. The person who has the presentation needs to take care of the classmates and how to understand it for every classmate equally. It makes the discussion better. Also, making discussion question is sometimes difficult for me because other students didn’t understand discussion question even I made a nice discussion question. It made me frustrated.

Finally, Morel made Japan develop more speedily and innovatively by making the railway. Time is changing, skill also is changing.

Reference

Edmund Morel, Yokohama Association for International communications and Exchanges, 1999, regards from http://www.city.yokohama.jp/me/yoke/theyoke/no.91/morel.html