This book is the biography of Ranald MacDonald, who got snuck into
Japan in 1849 during its period of �isolation.� He was born to a
Scottish father and Chinook Indian daughter of Chief Comcomly, in what
is now Astoria, Oregon.
The book has all sorts of interesting connections between people. For
example Karl (Charles) Gutzlaff, a German missionary to China,
translated the Bible into Japanese with the help of three shipwrecked
Japanese sailors. Backtracking a bit, these three sailors landed on
the coast of the Pacific Northwest, where they were first found by
Makah Indians. Then they were turned over to the Hudson Bay Company
about 1833-1834. The sailors did try to return to Japan on the United
States ship MORRISON. But the ship was fired upon. So they could
not return home because Japan, with few exceptions, would not allow
its people to return home. I think these sailors found themselves in
Singapore where they met Karl Gutzlaff, and helped him translate the
Bible into Japanese. The quality of the translation was not that
good, since Gutzlaff was a scholar of Chinese, not Japanese. Plus
these fisherman were not highly educated.
Mr. MacDonald decided to go to sea to seek his fortune. It was a
sense of adventure which prompted him to try and sneak into Japan.
There may be a hint of missionary zeal as expressed in one of his
writings. He left the ship he was on, in small boat. His plan was to
capsize his boat and pretend to be a shipwrecked sailor. He brought
some books and supplies with him on the short voyage. He landed on
Rishirii Island, near the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido.
From Northern Japan, he was eventually transported to the city of
Nagasaki on Kyushu, the Southern most major island. There he spent
the remainder of his incarceration, until released in 1849. The
Japanese were eager to learn English. Up until roughly MacDonald�s
time, the only Western power the Japanese officially dealt with were
the Dutch. But Japan began to realize that the British were a force
to be reckoned with. One of their ships sailed into Nagasaki causing
a bit of a scare. Also the Dutch, in their annual report to the
Japanese told how the British defeated the Chinese in the Opium wars.
In addition, American sailors from whaling vessels began to wash up on
Japanese shores. Japan had begun to relax it�s isolation policy a
bit, by incarcerating and deporting people instead of executing them
outright. Sometimes when a ship needed supplies, the Japanese would
give them the supplies and send them on their way.
It was into this world the MacDonald found himself. While the
Japanese did not want outsiders to learn their language, they wanted
their interpreters to learn the languages of other nations. Mr.
MacDonald was an educated native English speaker. This was something
they lacked. They had interpreters who could speak Dutch. And they
even could even consult a Dutchman who knew English, but no native
speakers.
Mr. MacDonald taught the Japanese interpreters English. One of the
interpreters, a Mr. Moriyama, later served as one of the interpreters,
when Commodore Perry sailed into what is now modern day Tokyo Bay. I
think Mr. Schodt�s book shows that one person
can make a difference in the outcome or direction of history.
# posted by GuyTak @ 8:55 PM
