Nakahama ManjirÅ
Nakahama Manjiro, also Nakanohama Manjiro, John Manjiro and John Mung (Japanese中 滨 万 次郎; born January 27, 1827 in Nakanohama ( part of today's Tosashimizu ); † November 12, 1898 ) was a Japanese translator and official during the Edo period ( Bakumatsu ) and the Meiji Restoration.
Life
Born the son of a fisherman, he went to his father's profession. He and four other fishermen were devious in 1841 by a typhoon to a deserted island. After half a year he was rescued by an American whaler and taken to the USA where he learned English, mathematics, navigation, and surveying. He worked as a whaler and as a gold prospector in California. These new experiences and knowledge have been due to the seclusion of Japan and the resulting restricted dissemination of Western knowledge and language very useful for him.
In 1850 he returned to the kingdom of Hawaii and the Ryukyu Islands back to Japan in 1851 and reached Kagoshima in Satsuma. He was also interviewed by daimyo Shimazu Nariakira, who was very interested in the west. 1852 returned to his native Tosa fief, he was raised in the lower samurai status and chose the family name Nakahama after his home village of.
In 1853 he was appointed at the instigation Abe Masahiro's a Bakufu officials. In this use, he translated books on navigation and documents related to foreign embassies. He wrote a work on English conversation and taught navigation at the launched by the shogunate Naval Academy. It was the year in which the American Commodore Matthew Perry visited on the orders of U.S. President Millard Fillmore with his fleet of 4 ships Japan and the country forced " to open ", which caused far-reaching political changes in Japan.
1860 Nakahama traveled aboard the Kanrin Maru as a member of the Japanese delegation to the United States.
Later he managed the whaling to the Bonin Islands and taught English in Satsuma and Tosa. After the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, he became a professor of English at Kaisei Gakko Tōkyō, the forerunner of the University of Tokyo.
In 1870 he accompanied Ōyama Iwao on a trip to Europe, which had the purpose to gain from the course of the Franco-German War new insights.
His son Nakahama Toichiro was a noted physician.
Reception
The on October 28, 1989 by Tsutomu Seki discovered asteroid ( 4841 ) Manjiro was named after Nakahama.