Category Archives: Japan

by Joel | 20 October 2025 · 7:32 am

Early Baseball in Hawaii

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 266-283, 338-343:

When young Zeni arrived in Honolulu in 1907, … baseball was already the most popular sport in the islands. For that matter, the game was played in Hawaii long before it was introduced to Japan or to most of the continental U.S. In 1849, Alexander Cartwright – the man recognized as the father of the modern game – moved to Honolulu after a failed attempt at life in California. Upon arrival he quickly became one of the Hawaii’s leading citizens by founding the first fire department, library, and baseball field. In 1852, he organized several teams and began to teach the game across the islands. In the mid-1880s, Japanese plantation laborers played baseball to escape the tedious work of the sugarcane fields. As the rivalries between the plantation camp and company teams grew, so did the competition….

The first Japanese American baseball team – the Excelsior – was founded in Hawaii in 1899 by the Rev. Takie Okumura. “I formed a baseball team, made up mostly of boys in my home,” Okumura said. “Being the only team among the Japanese, its competitors were Hawaiian, Portuguese and Chinese.” The Excelsiors were a successful baseball club and considered one of the pioneering Japanese baseball teams in Hawaii.’

Another early all-Japanese team in Hawaii was the Asahi (“Rising Sun”) club, organized by Gikaku “Steere” Noda. The Asahi started off as a group of teenagers honing their skills on the sandlots of Iwilei in 1905. Within a few years they were playing in multi-ethnic leagues competing against the All-Chinese, the Braves (all Portuguese) and the Wanderers (all Caucasians). The diversity of the leagues inspired Noda to say “that through the world of sports, we can promote goodwill and fellowship.” Zeni joined the Hawaiian Asahi ballclub club in 1915, and it appears that he gleaned Noda’s wisdom and applied it throughout his career on goodwill tours.

…

In January 1915, Honolulu witnessed the development of a formal league comprised of four and sometimes six teams, including a native team, a Japanese team, an American team, and an army team. Over time the league developed senior and junior leagues based on skill level. After touring Japan in 1915, the Hawaiian Asahi competed in the junior league in 1916. That same year, Zenimura joined the Asahi.

Between 1916 and 1919, Kenichi dedicated his playing time to two baseball teams, the semipro Hawaiian Asahi and the Mills High School ball club. Mills, which later changed its name to the Mid-Pacific Institute, was a perennial baseball powerhouse in the late 1910s. In his 1943 Gila River Courier interview, Zeni proudly shared that his Mills High school nine “played the Hilo All-Stars for Hawaii’s Inter-Island Championship after defeating prep and semi-pro clubs.”

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Filed under baseball, Hawai'i, Japan, migration

by Joel | 18 October 2025 · 8:30 am

Mariners Manager Don Wakamatsu

From Kenichi Zenimura, Japanese American Baseball Pioneer, by Bill Staples, Jr. (McFarland, 2011), Kindle Locations 37-53:

When Hall of Famer Frank Robinson was named the Cleveland Indians manager in 1975, he said that he wished Jackie Robinson was there with him to appreciate the significance of the moment. Jackie had died just three years before Frank became the first African American manager in MLB history.

In January 2009, I earned the distinction of becoming the first Asian American manager in MLB history when I was asked to lead the Seattle Mariners. [Ichiro joined the Mariners in 2001.] Unlike Frank Robinson, there was not one person who I wished could be with me to appreciate the moment – there were thousands.

I often talk about “those who came before me.” These people include my family, the thousands who were sent into internment camps during World War II, the men who served bravely in the 442nd, and the pioneers of the early Japanese American baseball leagues.

With the exception of my family, none of the others were with me physically when I joined the Mariners. They were with me in spirit though.

I am a fourth generation Japanese American, also known as a Yonsei. I was born in Hood River, Oregon, in 1963, and as a child I had no idea of what my family had endured during World War II. In actuality, they kept a lot of that from me. It wasn’t until college that I started to learn more about the past and that dark chapter of American history.

The implications of my heritage first struck me when a government check arrived in the mail in the late 1980s. It was my father’s share of reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s. My dad was born in the Tule Lake camp in California, just south of the Oregon border. I didn’t quite understand what the check was for. All I remember was my dad’s reaction: “it was all too little, too late.”‘

Over the years, my curiosity about my heritage has grown. From a friendship with baseball historian Kerry Yo Nakagawa I learned in great detail about Japanese Americans and baseball in the internment camps. I imagined the game I loved played behind coils of barbed wire and realized just how little I knew about my past.

Since then, I have discovered that the internment camp chapter is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Japanese American baseball history. There is so much more underneath. For example, few people know that
• in 1897 the first person of Japanese ancestry attempted to play in the majors;
• the first Japanese American baseball team was organized in 1903;
• a major league “color-line” drawn against Japanese players was publicly acknowledged in 1905;
• the first Japanese American baseball league was founded in 1910; and
• between 1922 and 1931, Nisei and Negro League teams did more to export the American game to Japan than their major league counterparts.

All proof that there is still so much of the fascinating Japanese American baseball history that has yet to be told.

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Filed under baseball, Japan, language, migration, nationalism, U.S.

by Joel | 9 October 2025 · 8:16 am

Jägers vs. Russians, August 1916

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Alexander Pfeifer and Philipp Cross (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 162-163:

10.8.1916 Early at sunrise, we had a view from the ridge on all sides that I have rarely seen so beautiful — one mountain range behind the other, and one summit next to the other.

Just as we arrived at Height 1478, there was fierce rifle and machine-gun fire ahead of us. The Russians attacked our positions but were repelled. We camped on the opposite slope of 1478, but the Russians must have noticed us because they graced us with several shells and shrapnel. Oberjäger Schmelz received a shrapnel shot in the upper leg as a result. We are lying in the warm sunshine all morning and at noon.

We are supposed to take back two heights; the eastern foothills of Point 1385 that the Austrians have recently lost — Captain Conrad leads the storm battalion made from Austrians and our 1st and 3rd Companies. I lead the 3rd Company, and Seemann leads the 1st. While taking advantage of the very difficult and partly densely overgrown terrain, I move into a deep gorge with my company in the afternoon where we line ourselves up for the assault as our very meagre artillery fires. It is a miracle that the Russians didn’t see us, as we would have fared very badly otherwise. We were thus only shot at slightly when we were already in the gorge. I likewise give the order to attack as soon as we see that the 1st Company is advancing to the right of us. Lingelbach starts with the first wave of the assault, and then Kramer. Both of them swarm out. I still stay back with the reserve platoon for the time being.

The ascent is incredibly high, steep, and troublesome with dense undergrowth and brittle trees everywhere. There is soon raging gunfire. Our artillery now shoots very well, and seven of our machine guns uninterruptedly pound the opposing foxholes. The Russians respond, and it is such an infernal racket that you can barely understand the person next to you. 15 minutes after our firing lines have advanced, I can’t stand it anymore down below and order my reserve platoon to follow me. There is suddenly loud screaming halfway up. Jägers shout “Over Here!”, and Russian voices yell in confusion. To the left of me, I unclearly see a large number of Russians through the bushes with jägers among them. I think that this is a flanking attack and even get the pistol ready to fire. I then see that the Russians have no weapons — they were the first captives.

I now continue ahead in all hastiness and arrive fully exhausted with my reserves at the 1200-metre-high ridge, which has been in our possession for 15 minutes. The 1st Company have also captured their height, and so have the Austrians to the left of us. My company has taken almost 320 prisoners. Some of the Russians defended themselves from our attack, but they surrendered without resistance for the most part. A large number had fled. Within the company, I have one dead, two heavily wounded and four lightly; incredibly minor casualties in relation to the Russian superiority and their brilliant position. Such a splendid success would have been impossible if there were only 50 Englishmen up here. The height was taken at 7 o’clock in the evening. There was then a lot of work — transporting the wounded and the prisoners, expanding the position to the other side, reorganising the company, pitching tents, setting up guards, providing food and so forth.

Our men are shooting a pig. There are also potatoes and kohlrabi (German turnips) up here.

I slept the night in the tent because the Ruthenian wooden huts stink too much and are likely full of vermin.

The Russians were armed with Japanese rifles.

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Filed under Austria, Germany, Japan, military, Russia, Ukraine, war

by Joel | 14 September 2025 · 3:38 am

Polish Language Exhibit in Osaka

Culture.Pl announces EXPO 2025 in Osaka: Interactive Exhibition about the Polish Language… the World’s First Using AI, running October 3-23.

Following the international success of ‘Quarks, Elephants & Pierogi: Poland in 100 Words’ – an unconventional book about the Polish language – a remarkable exhibition based on its pages will soon arrive back in Japan. The seventh edition of the exhibition will open on 3 October 2025 at Knowledge Capital in central Osaka, this time utilising the potential of artificial intelligence for the first time.

Thanks to a collaboration between the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Knowledge Capital Association, and Atsuhiko Yasuda (XOOMS co. ltd.), the exhibition will be enhanced with an AI module that enables visitors to engage in dialogue with artificial intelligence inspired by the book’s content. This innovation, made possible by close Polish-Japanese collaboration, allows visitors to experience ‘The Amazing Land of Quarks, Elephants & Pierogi’ – previously shown at EXPO 2020 in Dubai, London, and Basel – in an entirely new way. The project is part of Po!landポ！ランド, a series of events organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and funded by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. It is part of the cultural programme accompanying Poland’s participation in the World Expo 2025, coordinated by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency.

…
Since its 2018 premiere, the bestselling ‘Quarks, Elephants & Pierogi: Poland in 100 Words’ has won praise from readers and media outlets around the world. Designed for an international audience, the book presents 100 words that best capture Polish culture, history and everyday life in an original, accessible and humorous way.

The texts, written by Mikołaj Gliński, Matthew Davies and Adam Żuławski, are full of witty observations, linguistic curiosities and cultural references, while its distinctive visual style was created by painter and illustrator Magda Burdzyńska.

The exhibition ‘The Amazing Land of Quarks, Elephants & Pierogi’ continues the success of the book, creating a fascinating, multidimensional story about the Polish language. The exposition combines illustrations inspired by the publication with various artistic forms – from embroidery, textiles and sculptures, to neon lights and video animations – all accompanied by an original sound installation.

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Filed under art, Japan, language, literature, Poland

by Joel | 7 September 2025 · 1:02 am

From Most Prisoners In Hawaiʻi’s WWII Internment Camp Were Korean, by Kirsten Downey (Honolulu: Civil Beat, 5 September 2025). While hundreds of Japanese-Americans were the first held at Honouliuli, many more Koreans followed:

The Honouliuli internment camp in central O’ahu is best known in Hawaiʻi as the place some 400 Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

But new research is bringing to light the fact that Koreans were the largest single population group there.

In fact, there were seven times as many Koreans held there as Japanese Americans. Of the 4,000 people held, about 2,700 were Korean, captured elsewhere and brought to Hawaiʻi, and about 400 were Japanese Americans who had been living and working in Hawaiʻi when the war broke out.

The Koreans were prisoners of war who fell into American hands as U.S. forces made their way across Oceania fighting Japanese imperial forces, who had seized lands all across the Pacific, including in China, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), Guam, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Most of the Koreans were in fact doubly prisoners: The Japanese, who had invaded and conquered Korea in the early 1900s, had conscripted many of them against their will. Dragooned by the Japanese, they then ended up American prisoners when the Japanese garrisons fell.

The little-known fact that Koreans made up the lion’s share of residents at the internment camp is becoming the focus of new academic scrutiny and discussion.

Korean Prisoners Identified

Last year, researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi’s Center for Oral History began a new collaboration with the National Park Service to collect accounts from the Korean or Korean American descendants of people who were detained at the camp or who worked there to incorporate this new information into current understanding and historical interpretation.

This work builds on the scholarship of Duk Hee Lee Murabayashi, president of the Korean Immigration Research Institute in Hawaiʻi, and Professor Yong-ho Ch’oe, who taught Korean history at the University of Hawaiʻi and was the author of a book about Korean immigration to Hawaiʻi called “From the Land of Hibiscus: Koreans in Hawai‘i, 1903–1950.” Ch’oe died last year.

Murabayashi has identified the 2,700 Koreans held at Honouliuli, providing their names and home locations, which is helping people identify their deceased relatives.

…

‘A Complete Shock’

The fact that so many Koreans were present in the camp during World War II has come as a surprise even to the Korean community.

“Until a few months ago, I certainly did not know about Koreans who, during World War II, ended up as prisoners of war right here in Hawaiʻi at Honouliuli Internment Camp,” said David Suh, president of the United Korean Association of Hawaiʻi, at a recent talk hosted by the park.

“It came to me as a complete shock,” said Edward Shultz, former director of the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi and the immediate past president of the Korean American Foundation.

…

As the war progressed and American forces began advancing on Japanese-controlled strongholds, they took a number of Koreans into custody as prisoners of war, bringing them to the internment camp at Honouliuli. According to the National Park Service, hundreds arrived after each battle in the Pacific, including from Guam, Peleliu, Tinian and Palau, sometimes intermingled with Japanese prisoners.

Following the 1944 battle in Saipan, the NPS reported, about 350 Koreans arrived, all noncombatants, many with bullet and slash wounds. The bullet wounds came from the American troops, but the Koreans also appeared to have been victims of sword attacks by Japanese, suggesting they suffered systematic abuse.

Relations between the Koreans and the Japanese Americans at the camp became at times so strained that they had to be kept separate from each other, said Professor Alan Rosenfeld, the associate vice president of academic programs and policy at the University of Hawaiʻi, who has spent years studying Honouliuli.

“There are archival incidents of Koreans and Japanese fighting,” said Mary Kunmi Yu Danico, director of the University of Hawaiʻi’s Center for Oral History, who is leading the project to gather oral histories of the descendants of people who lived or worked at the camp.

…

Word began to seep out in Hawaiʻi that Koreans were there, probably because the American military hired some local Korean Americans to serve as translators and guards at the camp.

The first published report that Koreans were living at Honouliuli came in the pages of the Methodist Church bulletin in 1944, according to Murayabushi [Murabayashi!]. Church leaders had apparently been told that many Korean men in their 20s and 30s were being held there, and that they were bored and lonely. The first notice about their existence came when the church asked if anyone had spare musical instruments they would be willing to donate so the men could entertain themselves.

Later, church leaders began organizing an outreach to them, delivering Christmas gifts and arranging to loan them books.

That means there may be people living in Hawaiʻi today who recall those years and those interactions. Murayabushi [Murabayashi!], Danico and Ogura are asking people to come forward to share those memories.

For an earlier blogpost about Korean POWs in WW2, see Koreans, Taiwanese, and Okinawans Among Japanese POWs. See also Origins of Korean POWs in Hawaii, excerpted from an article by the late Yong-ho Ch’oe, mentioned above. Prof. Ch’oe was a fine scholar and a kind gentleman.

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Filed under Hawai'i, Japan, Korea, labor, language, migration, military, nationalism, U.S., war

by Joel | 3 August 2025 · 6:11 am

Poles in Japan vs. Russia, 1904

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 526-528:

In 1904 war broke out between Russia and Japan. As odd as it may seem, the clash with its tiny Asian neighbor proved troublesome for the Russians. The war effort led to problems at home and provided new opportunities, and new challenges, for the Poles of the Russian Empire.

The hostilities provided impetus for the Poles (always on the lookout for opportunity in the international arena) to plot. Both Piłsudski and Dmowski made their way to Tokyo, independently of each other, and each with a different agenda. Piłsudski offered the Japanese Polish military services; his men would fight the Russians on their home front, thus helping Japan win the war. Dmowski came to warn the Japanese against taking up Piłsudski’s offer; he expected that the war might compel the Russians to make concessions to the Poles. While the double visit might have been seen as a comedy of errors (the two men actually met while in Tokyo, discussed their respective views, and respectfully chose to differ), the fact that the bemused Japanese were willing to hear each side suggests the Poles were being treated as if they were genuine players in the international realm, and not subjects of Russia. And, although they declined to use the Poles to fight, the Japanese general staff did provide Piłsudski with some money and war materièl in the hopes he might gather intelligence for them.

The Revolution of 1904–1907

In the meantime the Russo-Japanese War continued, increasingly showing the weakness of the eventual loser, Russia. This weakness had repercussions for the Poles of the empire. The diplomatic efforts of Piłsudski and Dmowski notwithstanding, the events of 1904 and beyond would be more noteworthy for the upheaval and bloodshed they engendered. In the fall of that year, a working-class demonstration broke out in Warsaw’s Grzymułtowski Square in which Piłsudski’s PPS fighters (some sixty strong) defended the crowds against the Russian police and mounted Cossacks. A number of participants were injured, while over four hundred were arrested and six lost their lives—as did one Russian policeman. This was the first armed clash between Poles and Russians since 1863….

Back in the Polish lands, strikes in places such as Warsaw and Łódź raised the specter of revolution; martial law was declared. Poles were becoming radicalized, especially the Polish workers, many of whom lost their jobs as a result of the economic decline brought on by the war.

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Filed under Japan, labor, nationalism, Poland, Russia, war

by Joel | 27 June 2025 · 6:01 am

How Ryukyu Became Less Japanese

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 400-403:

Migration was the driving force in early Ryukyuan history. The initial king of the first Shō dynasty, Shō Shishō, may have been a first-generation immigrant to Okinawa. Moving ahead to the early seventeenth century, Yamazaki Nikyū [Morizō, 山崎二休守三, not “Nikyūshuzan”!], Kian Nyūdō, and Sōmi Nyūdō were examples of first-generation Japanese immigrants to Ryukyu who served Shō Nei….

Were language barriers significant in the Ryukyu islands or between Ryukyu and Kyushu? Probably, although these barriers are difficult to map from documentary sources. Moreover, sociolinguistic circumstances were probably significant. For example, the two Ryukyuan envoys to Satsuma in 1575 could make themselves understood only with difficulty and therefore had to use interpreters to facilitate negotiations. Those interpreters were sailors. Recall the difficulty that Chinese-employed interpreters experienced during the 1590s distinguishing between Ryukyuan and Japanese sailors on cultural grounds, including language (see chapter 13). It suggests that, at least among seafarers, sharp cultural differences between Japanese and Ryukyuans had yet to emerge. Based on the limited evidence appearing in these pages, there may have been few sharp cultural dividing lines between the Ryukyu islands and maritime regions of Kyushu, even as late as circa 1600. Government officials in Naha and Kagoshima may not have been able to converse freely in 1550, but sailors in the region and Buddhist priests probably would have experienced fewer difficulties. Insofar as cultural barriers remained relatively small across the region through the sixteenth century, the circulation of people must have played a key role.

Closed-off Ryukyu

We know that a significant cultural divide existed between “Ryukyu,” however defined, and Japan circa 1900. If my hypothesis that this divide was present but relatively minor around 1600 is correct, then how did a significant cultural divide develop over the relatively short span of approximately three centuries? Stated differently, what accelerated the rate of cultural change in Ryukyu? There were probably three major contributing factors. The most important was the cessation of the flow of people. During the early seventeenth century, Ryukyu became part of the Shimazu territories, and the practical effect of this change was for it to be closed off from the rest of Japan. The diverse wajin community or communities in the Naha area faded into the broader society. Satsuma prohibited Japanese from traveling to or residing in Ryukyu except for one Satsuma official and his small staff, who kept a low profile, and occasional ship crews from Satsuma, whose range of motion on shore was restricted. At approximately the same time that Satsuma severely restricted the flow of people into and out of Ryukyu, the bakufu was doing the same thing with respect to Japan as a whole. The boundaries of Japan and of Ryukyu became clearer than they had ever been before, and also distinct from each other.

Cultural Policies

Another contributor to the acceleration of cultural divergence were active de-Japanification policies. Satsuma initiated these policies, but Ryukyuan officials carried them out with vigor because they were connected to the very survival of the kingdom. After the failure of bakufu attempts to forge a diplomatic relationship with China in 1615, Satsuma began to fashion Ryukyu into an ostensibly independent country that could serve as a conduit to China. Maintaining the China connection became essential to the continued survival of the Shuri royal court and its officials. In this context, Kumemura, which had been languishing for a century or so, became a magnet for talent throughout the capital area during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Knowledge of Chinese high culture gradually improved among the Ryukyuan elites, some of whom took Chinese names and relocated to Kumemura. The modern notion that Ryukyu was culturally Chinese stems from these early modern circumstances.

Specific de-Japanification policies were intended, not as attempts deeply to transform people’s cultural identity, but to ensure a plausible non-Japanese appearance for Ryukyu in Chinese eyes. Regulations forbade Ryukyuans to appear as Japanese with respect to names, clothing, hairstyle, and language. Similarly, Ryukyuan ships no longer received a -maru name. After the 1620s, Shuri went to great lengths to mask any ties with Japan when Chinese investiture envoys were in Okinawa or when Okinawans were in China. When a disabled Ryukyuan ship drifted toward the Shāndōng coast in 1673, for example, its crew threw all Japanese items overboard. In Miyako, an overseer from Shuri arrived in 1629, in part to ensure that no Japanese language, songs, clothing, names, or other ties to Yamato would be evident when there was even a remote a possibility of any Miyako resident encountering Chinese (for example, when investiture embassies were at sea).

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Filed under China, economics, education, Japan, language, migration, nationalism

by Joel | 25 June 2025 · 3:53 pm

Why Satsuma Invaded Ryukyus in 1609

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 358-360:

The war of 1609 had several causes, but the overwhelmingly important one was Ryukyu’s refusal to serve as an intermediary between the Tokugawa bakufu and the Ming court. At this point, we have sufficient information to understand the basic reason for what might otherwise seem like an irrational policy. Shō Nei’s bending to pressure from Shimazu and Hideyoshi probably prompted an armed revolt in 1592. The Chinese decisions to hold the investiture ceremonies in Fujian and, later, to send a military official might well have been justifiable as wartime expedients. However, from the standpoint of the Ryukyuan court—Shō Nei, his supporters, and his enemies—such measures appeared to be a reprimand for Shō Nei’s having supported Hideyoshi’s invasion. The year 1593 was a turning point. After that, Shō Nei became determined never again to appear as an agent of any Japanese polity.

The massive Ming resistance to Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea also played a psychological role. From a Ryukyuan perspective, it appeared that the Ming court would go to war for its tributary states. As we will see, leading Ryukyuan officials apparently became convinced that China would back Ryukyu in a military conflict, that Ryukyu was too geographically dispersed and remote for Shimazu successfully to launch an invasion, and that Ryukyu’s deity, Benzaiten, would protect the kingdom.

THE REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION AFTER 1598

Control of piracy was an issue of much concern during the late sixteenth century. Hideyoshi, Shimazu, and the council that succeeded Hideyoshi in 1598 issued prohibitions against piracy and demanded active cooperation by Ryukyu in this endeavor. Moreover, very soon after Hideyoshi’s death, Shimazu and other powerful lords in Japan sought to establish trade relations with Ming China. Shimazu may have come close to succeeding. The domain enlisted the Bōnotsu merchant Torihara Sōan to head an expedition to repatriate captured Ming general Máo Guókē. According to Satsuma’s account, Torihara traveled all the way to Beijing in 1600, and the Chinese court promised to send two ships to Satsuma each year. In 1601, the ships sailed, but pirates attacked and destroyed them in the vicinity of Iōjima in the Satsunan islands. Key details concerning these events are not clear.

For our purposes, the main point is that after Hideyoshi’s death leaders of Japan vigorously pursued paths to reestablish good relations with China, and the Shimazu lords understood the importance of this opportunity. Ryukyu’s location made it an integral part of the process. From the standpoint of Shimazu or Tokugawa Ieyasu, the ideal option was that Ryukyu actively cooperate in suppressing piracy and restoring Sino-Japanese trade. The less desirable option was to use coercive force in an attempt to compel such cooperation. Ryukyu’s continued resistance to Satsuma and bakufu entreaties to assist in restoring relations with Ming China eventually tipped the scales in favor of military action.

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Filed under China, economics, Japan, Korea, military, nationalism, piracy, war

by Joel | 23 June 2025 · 11:47 am

Buddhism in the Ryukyus

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 326-328:

Ryukyu’s temples were either Shingon or Rinzai Zen. Until approximately the sixteenth century, all or most of their abbots and priests came from Japan. During Shō Shin’s reign, native Ryukyuan priests became increasingly common, although the leadership posts in large temples typically remained in the hands of priests from Japan. As part of their training, Ryukyuan priests often resided in Japan. Therefore, Buddhist temples constituted an important network linking Ryukyu with Japan. Geographically, the most important of these priest-mediated connections to locations in Japan were Kagoshima, Suō Province in western Honshu (the domain of the Ōuchi), and especially the Kyoto Gozan temples.

Buddhist priests served as Ryukyu’s diplomats to powers in Japan, and they typically drafted and transmitted diplomatic correspondence. Because well-trained Buddhist priests could write classical Chinese, they were also in a position to facilitate trade and diplomacy with China. When in 1525 Ryukyu intervened to reduce tensions between Japan and China, priests served as the envoys. During the sixteenth century, priests performed many of the functions that resident Chinese had performed in the previous century. Recall that the population of Kumemura declined significantly during the sixteenth century.

Priests with diplomatic experience sometimes served as foreign-policy or general political advisers. For example, it is likely that the Ryukyuan Rinzai priest Kakuō (dates unknown) of Tenkaiji served as a political adviser to Shō Sei circa the 1530s. We have seen that the Satsuma Rinzai priest Nanpo Bunshi was an influential political adviser and diplomat during the years leading up to the 1609 war. When that war broke out, the king called on the Ryukyuan priest Kikuin (d. 1620) to serve as lead negotiator, in part because he had lived in Satsuma and was on good terms with Bunshi and several leaders of the invading force. Trusted by both Satsuma and the king, Kikuin served as Ryukyu’s prime minster (kokusō) until 1616.

Buddhist temples functioned as academic centers that could provide knowledge and know-how to Ryukyuan rulers. Priests were involved in culture, scholarship, and essential functions of state. Their activities included inscribing Shō Taikyū’s bells, creating the Omoro sōshi by writing down the songs, inscribing many of the monuments of Shō Shin and his successors, and drafting letters from the king to send to powers in Japan. During the sixteenth century, Buddhist priests served as tutors to elite Ryukyuans, Kaiin being the outstanding example (chapter 8). Moreover, we have seen that Enkakuji played a role in the education of the sons of elite families in Amami-Ōshima, and it likely functioned similarly vis-à-vis other islands.

Although Buddhism, Chinese thought, and native religion often occupied separate textual, rhetorical, and ritual realms, Shō Shin and his successors combined all three into a potent synthesis to enhance royal authority and defend the state. Some priests undoubtedly pursued Buddhist enlightenment through their own study and practice. Nevertheless, Buddhism in Ryukyu functioned mainly as a public state institution, not as a private spiritual path.

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by Joel | 21 June 2025 · 4:49 pm

Ryukyu Seacraft

From Maritime Ryukyu, 1050–1650, by Gregory Smits (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), Kindle pp. 288-291:

During period two [1450-1520s], Ryukyu continued to obtain vessels from China. However, instead of receiving used military vessels for free, Ryukyu bore the costs of vessel construction and subsequent repairs. Ship size did not change, an indirect indication of the continuing vigor of the tribute trade. During this period and the previous one, each ship received a single-character name such as “vigor,” “wisdom,” “courage,” or “longevity” at the shipyard when built. After arriving in Ryukyu, the ship received a Japanese name ending in -maru. Probably from around the late fifteenth century onward, ships also received a Ryukyuan name ending in -tomi. These names of ships are found in the Omoro, and vessels appearing in the songs would usually have had alternative Chinese and Japanese names.

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During this period [1520s-ca. 1570], the Ryukyuan fleet continued to consist of relatively small ships, possibly even smaller than before. The question is whether Ryukyu continued to purchase ships from China or whether it built its own. The first ship of the designation “small ships of [our?] country” (honkoku shōsen) appears in documents in 1541, and ships with this description, as well as other terms with “small” in them, were common from 1549 onward. Okamoto and Tomiyama Kazuyuki regard these ships as having been made in China. However, it is likely that they were civilian merchant ships. Tomiyama points out that in 1555 Shō Sei asked to purchase such a ship from the Ming court with the express proviso that “it need not be large.” By contrast, Mamoru Akamine states that during Shō Sei’s reign (1527–1555), “the shipbuilding industry shifted to Ryukyu itself and Ryukyuan-built hulls came to be used in the tribute trade.” Recall from chapter 3 that Ikuta Shigeru also regarded the smaller ships built after 1548 as Ryukyuan-made vessels.

We cannot be absolutely certain where ships were made during this period or precisely when the first Okinawan-made ship (other than vessels of a relatively simple dugout design) was built. Nevertheless, Okamoto and Tomiyama present good evidence that the 1540s or 1550s marked a transition from smaller military ships to somewhat smaller Chinese-made merchant ships as the mainstay of Ryukyu’s fleet. It is likely that the first Okinawan-made ships used in trade and diplomacy were built in the 1570s, during the reign of Shō Ei (r. 1573–1586). In documents, these ships are called “local ships” (tsuchibune), “small ships,” and possibly by other terms.

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As we have seen, Omoro songs often mention ships. One describes the ship of an elite lord (aji) as having a cloth sail and the ship of a low official as having a sail made from matting. The details of local boat and ship manufacturing in the Ryukyu islands are unclear in most cases. However, extrapolating backward from the early modern era and piecing together other information such as the omoro mentioned here, it is almost certain that early Ryukyuans manufactured boats and small ships (known by sabani and other terms). These were dug out from large trees to form canoe-like hulls that could be rowed or sailed. Tying four of these hulls together and placing boards across the top created a henzabune, which during the early modern era were sometimes used to transport liquor (awamori) to Amami-Ōshima and return with as many as eight head of cattle. It is almost certain that Ryukyuans manufactured a variety of dugout vessels for use in local and island-to-island transport between Okinawa, Amami-Ōshima, and other northern Ryukyu islands.

Did Ryukyuans manufacture ships more complex than dugout vessels before the 1570s? A shipbuilding tradition in Uruka in Miyako began in approximately the early fifteenth century and continued into the early modern era. These Uruka ships (Uruka-miuni) were built mainly in the Japanese manner by attaching two layers of planks to a keel, with the mast located in the middle of the ship and capable of being lowered during severe weather. Uruka ships conducted trade and transported tribute shipments across the Kerama gap to Okinawa, and Inamura Kenpu regards them as part of the wakō legacy in Sakishima. There is some evidence that mariners from Miyako were able to sail as far as Southeast Asia during the fourteenth century.