The o-yatoi gaikokujin (Japanese Kyūjitai: 御雇ひ外國人, Shinjitai: お雇い外国人, "hired foreigners") were foreign advisors hired by the Japanese government for their specialized knowledge to assist in the modernization of Japan at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji Era. The total number is uncertain, but is estimated to have reached more than 3,000 (with thousands more in the private sector).
The goal in hiring the foreign advisors was to obtain transfer of technology. The foreign advisors were highly paid; in 1874, they numbered 520 men, during which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the annual budget. Despite the value they provided in the modernization of Japan, the Japanese government did not consider it prudent for them to settle in Japan permanently. After training Japanese replacements to take over their places, many found that their contracts (typically for three years) were not renewed.
Some foreign advisors supplemented their activities as government employees by undertaking Christian missionary activities.
The system was officially terminated in 1899 when extraterritoriality came to an end in Japan. Nevertheless similar employment of foreigners persists in Japan, particularly within the national education system and professional baseball. Until 1899, more than 800 hired foreign experts continued to be employed by the government, and many others were employed privately.
Notable o-yatoi gaikokujin
Agriculture
Medical Science
Law, Administration and Economics
Military
Natural Science and mathematics
- William Edward Ayrton, British physicist
- Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist.
- Edward S. Morse, zoologist.
- Charles Otis Whitman, zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse.
- Heinrich Edmund Naumann, geologist. Arrived in August 1875 at the age of 21. Teaching in the University of Tokyo, he became the first professor of geology in Japan. His achievements include, among others, the first tectonic map of the country. Fossa Magna Museum (in Japanese)
- Curt Netto
- Gottfried Wagener
- Sir James Alfred Ewing, Scottish physicist and engineer who founded Japanese seismology.
- Cargill Gilston Knott, succeeding J.A. Ewing
- Oskar Löw
- Benjamin Smith Lyman
Engineering
Art and Music
Liberal Arts, Humanities and Education
Missionaries
Others
See also
External links
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