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Courtesy of Yoshiko Nakano Tokyo University of Science Prof. Yoshiko Nakano, left, and Georgina Challen, a staff member of the University of Hong Kong, hold their book “Meiji Graves in Happy Valley” in Hong Kong in December.
By Shiomi Kadoya / Japan News Staff Writer
2:00 JST, January 31, 2025
A Japanese academic, who was based in Hong Kong for 25 years, and her British former colleague recently published a book investigating the lives of Japanese who were buried in a cemetery in the then British colony during Japan’s Meiji era (1868-1912). Through the project, the authors rediscovered the unique ties between Japan and the multicultural city that connected East and West during Japan’s dramatic period of opening up and modernization.
“Hong Kong was very important for Japan at the time, as it was the nearest ‘Europe,’” said Tokyo University of Science Prof. Yoshiko Nakano, who was a faculty member of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Japanese Studies until June 2022. Nakano authored the book “Meiji Graves in Happy Valley” with Georgina Challen, a staff member of the University of Hong Kong. The book, written in English, was published by Hong Kong University Press in late November.
As Japan was transforming itself into a modern nation in the Meiji era after ending its 200 years of national isolation during the Edo period (1603-1867), many Japanese traveled to Europe to study and work, and their vessels typically stopped over in Hong Kong, a westernized city in Asia. The size of the Japanese community there grew rapidly, from just 86 recorded residents in 1880 to 1,099 by 1911, according to the book.
There are graves of about 470 Japanese in the Hong Kong Cemetery, located in Hong Kong Island’s Happy Valley district, and over 80% of the people resting there died in the Meiji era. The oldest western cemetery in Hong Kong was founded in 1845, three years after the island was formally ceded to Britain.
Photo by Miyuki Kume Four graves of Japanese company executives and others stand in the Hong Kong Cemetery
Nakano started investigating the stories of such individuals in 2018 upon the request of the Hongkong Japanese Club, a nonprofit private membership club for the Japanese community in Hong Kong, to preserve the history of the de facto Japanese Cemetery within the Hong Kong Cemetery. Later, Nakano collaborated with Challen to publish a book on the topic after conducting broader research together into wide-ranging documents left in Chinese, Japanese, English and French.
“What we found was a ‘community of two halves,’” Nakano said. “Despite Japan emerging as a modern country, there were two completely separate Japanese communities in Hong Kong: Japan’s top elites and the women in the very bottom of the social hierarchy.”
The elites were the senior representatives of shipping and trading companies, as well as the diplomats posted to the Japanese consulate that opened in 1873. On the other hand, there was a sizable community of prostitutes, called karayuki-san, brought to Hong Kong from poor islands, mainly in Kyushu. When they died in Hong Kong, some of them were buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery, which had previously been known as the Protestant Cemetery.
Investigating from the names on the tombstones, the book records personal stories of select early residents and travelers who died in Hong Kong. One of the oldest on the record of burial is a 22-year-old second lieutenant, Onsaku Yukawa, who tragically died of illness in Hong Kong in 1878 on his way back to Japan after receiving training in France. The other is a 30-year-old prostitute named Saki Kiya from Nagasaki, who apparently threw herself into the sea in 1884 after being unable to return home for her father’s death.
“Many hidden stories came to light as we investigated,” Nakano said. While there were many official records for the male merchants and company representatives who worked under pressure to contribute to Japan’s modernization, very few records were left about the many women who died there. “It showed the stark differences of their statuses in the society,” she said.
Responding via email, Challen, who has been living in Hong Kong for over 30 years, said, “Trying to imagine what life in Hong Kong was like for these early Japanese residents was a very moving experience.”
Nakano started her career in Hong Kong in 1997, three months before its handover from the United Kingdom to China on July 1. She saw the city’s transformation, as it grew as an international financial center, then went through pro-democratic movements in the 2010s, and the imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong by the Chinese government in 2020, diminishing the freedom of expression once enjoyed in the city under China’s “one country, two systems” policy.
Yet Nakano remains hopeful for the future of Hong Kong, where nearly 23,000 Japanese lived as of 2023. “I still think that a city as multicultural as Hong Kong is rare and unique in the world,” she said. “I hope Hong Kong continues to be a place where people with unique talents, transcending different cultures, can flourish.”
