Foreign cemeteries in Japan
The foreign cemeteries (gaijin bochi) in Japan are chiefly located in Tokyo and at the former treaty ports of Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, and Hakodate.
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Tokyo
The Tokyo foreign cemetery is a section of the Aoyama Reien municipal cemetery in Aoyama, Tokyo. It is currently (2005) under threat from the city's bureaucracy which is planning to make a park on the site and has posted Kanpo notices in front of endangered graves for which fees have not been paid by families of the deceased. These notices expire at the end of September 2005 - after which the graves may be removed and reburied elsewhere.
According to the cemetery’s rules, if a plot’s 590 yen per square metre annual fee is unpaid for five years, a notice goes up and the plot will be razed one year later. 78 plots in Aoyama Reien were flagged on October 1, 2004 and many of them are in the foreign section. They are therefore at risk of removal after September 30, 2005.
These are the graves of expatriates from the Meiji era, men and women who promoted Western ideas and practices in Japan—doctors, educators, missionaries, and artists. Many of them were o-yatoi gaikokujin.
Famous non-Japanese buried at Aoyama Reien include the British minister plenipotentiary Hugh Fraser who died in the post in 1894, Captain Francis Brinkley, Guido Verbeck, Henry Spencer Palmer, Edoardo Chiossone, Joseph Heco, Edwin Dun, Mary True and several others.
The Foreign Section Trust [1] has recently been formed to campaign to preserve the foreign part of the cemetery.
Nagasaki
The Sakamoto international cemetery in Nagasaki includes the grave of the Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover.
Tales of the Nagasaki International cemeteries [2].
Kobe
The Kobe cemetery is on Mount Futatabi in a pleasant woodland location and has the graves of many long-term residents.
Yokohama
The Yokohama cemetery includes among many others the grave of Charles Lennox Richardson, murdered in the Namamugi Incident in September 1862.
On the weekends of the Spring, Summer and Fall (from noon to 4:00 p.m.), the cemetery is opened up to the public in lieu of a small donation to help with the upkeep of the premises. Visitors will get a small pamphlet showing graves of interest, and they can also view the museum at the site.
Hakodate
The Hakodate cemetery includes the grave of a mariner from the fleet of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry.
See also
- o-yatoi gaikokujin
- Heads of the United Kingdom Mission in Japan
- Anglo-Japanese relations
- Franco-Japanese relations
External Links
- The Foreign Section Trust - formed in 2005 to preserve the foreign section of Aoyama cemetery in Tokyo.
- Tales of the Nagasaki International Cemeteries