Arguably, Donald Richie's "The Honorable Visitors," a series of profiles of foreigners who lived or put in significant time here, is the standard against which most writings on expatriates in Japan are measured. Richie's essayist's concision, the attention to language that differentiates literature from reportage, may be missing from "Foreigners Who Loved Japan," but what we do get is a great deal of fact and often engaging detail on the lives and achievements of the subjects selected for this collection.
Extensive biographies have already been written about some of these subjects. Other figures are hardly known in the West: the self-appointed missionary William Merrell Vories (1880-1964), who was known, when the spirit moved him, to cruise around Lake Biwa on a motorboat, pulling into harbor to spread the Christian message to anyone who would listen; and Wenceslau de Moraes (1854-1929), a Portuguese diplomat with a profound love of Japanese women, good literature and alcohol. Others, like Karl Juchheim (d. 1945), a German who combined a successful confectionery business in Japan with donations to the Nazi party are, perhaps, best forgotten.
It's interesting to learn who among the 20 historic figures here are still familiar to Japanese people, and for what reasons. Many, like the architect Josiah Conder (1852-1920), are far better known in Japan than their country of origin. James Curtis Hepburn (1815-1911), despite being a renowned ophthalmologist and educator, is best known for the Hepburn system of romanization; William Smith Clark, whose sojourn here in 1876-1877 lasted less than a year, is still inexplicably revered in Japan for uttering to his students the parting words, "Boys, be ambitious!" Another figure little known outside Japan is Scotsman Henry Faulds (1843-1930), a Braille specialist who stumbled upon a method for identifying criminals through fingerprinting.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.