|
Gai-Jin (novel)
''Gai-Jin'' (Japanese for "foreigner") is a 1993 novel by James Clavell, chronologically the third book in his ''Asian Saga'', although it was the last to be published. Taking place about 20 years after the events of '' Tai-Pan'', it chronicles the adventures of Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, in Japan. The story delves deeply into the political situation in Japan and the hostility Westerners faced there, and is loosely based on the Namamugi Incident and the subsequent Anglo-Satsuma War. Plot summary The story opens with a fictional rendition of the Namamugi Incident. On September 14, 1862, Phillip Tyrer, John Canterbury, Angelique Richaud, and Malcolm Struan are riding on the Tōkaidō, when they are attacked by Shorin Anato and Ori Ryoma, both Satsuma samurai and ''rōnin'' shishi in the '' sonnō jōi'' movement, cells of revolutionary xenophobic idealists. Canterbury is killed, Malcolm seriously wounded, and Tyrer receives a minor arm injury; on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaijin
is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese citizens in Japan, specifically being applied to foreigners of non-Japanese ethnicity and those from the Japanese diaspora who are not Japanese citizens. The word is composed of two kanji: and . Similarly composed words that refer to foreign things include and . Though the term can be applied to all foreigners of non-Japanese citizenship and ethnicity, some non-Japanese East Asians may have specific terminology used instead. Some feel the word has come to have a negative or pejorative connotation, while other observers maintain it is neutral. is a more neutral and somewhat more formal term widely used in the Japanese government and in media. ''Gaijin'' does not specifically mean a foreigner that is also a white person; instead, the term ''hakujin'' (白人 'white person') can be considered as a type of foreigner, and ''kokujin'' (黒人 'black person') would be the black equivalent. Etymology and history The word ''gaijin' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shishi (organization)
, sometimes known as , were a group of Japanese political activists of the late Edo period. While it is usually applied to the samurai primarily from the southwestern clans of Satsuma, Chōshū, and Tosa, the term ''shishi'' is also used by some with reference to supporters of the shogunate, such as the '' Shinsengumi''. There were many different varieties of ''shishi''. Some, such as the assassins Kawakami Gensai, Nakamura Hanjirō, Okada Izō, and Tanaka Shinbei, opted for a more violent approach in asserting their views. Kawakami Gensai, in particular, is recalled as the assassin of Sakuma Shōzan, a renowned pro-Western thinker of the time. Several assaults on westerners in Japan have been attributed to the ''shishi'' and associated '' rōnin'' warriors. In a 2013 article, these assassins have been called "early terrorists" () since they opted to spread terror among the foreigners. Other more radical ''shishi'', such as Miyabe Teizō, plotted large-scale attacks wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Swire & Sons Limited
Swire Group ( zh, t=太古集團) is a highly diversified global conglomerate with its parent company being John Swire & Sons Limited that holds controlling stakes in a range of businesses trading in the UK, USA, Australia, Papua New Guinea, East and West Africa, and across Southeast Asia. The Group's businesses are arranged into groups: property, aviation, beverages and food chain, marine services, and trading and industrial. Its core businesses are mainly focused on Asia, with its key operations in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. Within Asia, Swire's activities come under the group's publicly quoted arm, Swire Pacific Limited, which is the largest shareholder in two Hong Kong listed companies: Swire Properties and Cathay Pacific. Taikoo () is the Chinese name of Swire. It serves as the brand name for businesses such as Taikoo Sugar, Taikoo Li and Taikoo Shing. History The Swire Group's privately owned parent company is London-based ''John Swire & Sons Limited''. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Samuel Swire
John Samuel Swire (24 December 1825 – 1 December 1898) was a British businessman. He grew his family business, the Swire Group, and expanded the cotton and sugar trade with China. He established the Taikoo Sugar Refinery in Hong Kong and The China Navigation Company on the Yangtze river. He was the instigator and founding chairman of the China and Japan Conference (later known as the Far Eastern Freight Conference). This shipping cartel existed from 1879 to 2008 and was a major component of the shipping industry from the Far East to Europe. Early life John Samuel Swire was born on 24 December 1825 in Liverpool, England.Swire, John Samuel alled the Senior(1825–1898), merchant and shipowner in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' His father, John Swire, was the founder of the Swire Group. His mother was Maria Louisa Roose. He had a younger brother, William Hudson Swire, born in 1830. They inherited the family business when their father died in 1847, when Swire was twe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Blake Glover
Thomas Blake Glover (6 June 1838 – 16 December 1911) was an Anglo-Scottish merchant in Bakumatsu and Meiji-period Japan. Early life (1838–1858) Thomas Blake Glover was born at 15 Commerce Street, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland on 6 June 1838, the fifth of eight children, to Thomas Berry Glover (1806-1878), a coastguard officer from Vauxhall, London and Mary Findlay (1807-1887) from the parish of Fordyce, Banffshire. Thomas Blake Glover spent the first six years of his life in Fraserburgh, which was fast expanding as a fishing and trading port. In 1844, the family moved first to coastguard stations at Grimsby, then Collieston in Aberdeenshire, then finally to the Bridge of Don, by Aberdeen, Thomas senior having by this time been promoted to Chief Coastguard Officer. Young Thomas was educated first at the recently opened parish school in Fraserburgh, then in primary schools in Grimsby, Collieston, and finally at the Chanonry School in Old Aberdeen. Upo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Keswick
William Keswick (15 April 1834 – 9 March 1912) was a British Conservative politician and businessman, patriarch of the Keswick family, an influential shipping family in Hong Kong associated with Jardine Matheson Holdings. Biography Keswick was born in 1834 in Dumfriesshire in the Scottish Lowlands. His grandmother, Jean Jardine Johnstone, was an older sister of Dr. William Jardine, co-founder of Jardine Matheson. His father Thomas Keswick, from Dumfriesshire had married Jardine's niece and daughter of Jean, Margaret Johnstone, and entered the Jardine business. The company operated as merchant traders and had a major influence in the First and Second Opium Wars although the company stopped this trading in 1870 to pursue a broad range of trades including shipping, railways, textiles and property development. William arrived in China and Hong Kong in 1855, the first of six generations of the Keswick family to be associated with Jardines. He established a Jardine Matheson offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jardine Matheson Holdings
Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong–based, Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and Bermuda Stock Exchange. The majority of its business interests are in Asia, and its subsidiaries include Jardine Pacific, Jardine Motors Group, Jardine Motors, Hongkong Land, Jardine Strategic Holdings, DFI Retail Group, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited, Jardine Cycle & Carriage and Astra International. It set up the Jardine Scholarship in 1982 and Mindset, a mental health-focused charity, in 2002. Jardines was one of the original Hong Kong trading houses or Hong (business), Hongs that date back to Imperial China. 58 percent of the company's profits were earned in China in 2019. The company is controlled by the Keswick family, who are descendants of co-founder William Jardine's ol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bombardment Of Kagoshima
The Bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the , was a military engagement fought between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Britain and the Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima from 15 to 17 August 1863. The British were attempting to extract compensation and legal justice from ''daimyo'' Shimazu Tadayoshi (2nd), Shimazu Tadayoshi for the 1862 Namamugi incident. The engagement began when a Royal Navy fleet commanded by Sir Augustus Leopold Kuper was fired on from Satsuma Coastal artillery, coastal batteries near Kagoshima. The British retaliated by bombarding the city, but were unable to gain a conclusive victory and retreated two days later. The Satsuma declared victory and, after negotiations, fulfilled some British demands regarding the Namamugi incident. Background On 14 September 1862, a confrontation occurred in Japan between a British merchant, Charles Lennox Richardson, and the entourage of Shimazu Hisamitsu, father and regent of Satsuma ''daimyo'' Shimazu Tadayos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tai-pan
A taipan (,Andrew J. Moody, "Transmission Languages and Source Languages of Chinese Borrowings in English", ''American Speech'', Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 414–415. literally "top class"汉英词典 — ''A Chinese-English Dictionary'' 1988 新华书店北京发行所发行 (Beijing Xinhua Bookshop).), sometimes spelled tai-pan, is a foreign-born senior business executive or entrepreneur operating in mainland China or Hong Kong. The term Taipan also refers to the mixed political and business oligarch families in Philippines who control the politics and own the various businesses. History In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, taipans were foreign-born businessmen who headed large hong trading houses such as Jardine, Matheson & Co., Swire and Dent & Co., amongst others. The first recorded use of the term in English is in the ''Canton Register'' of 28October 1834.''Oxford English Dictionary'' (2nd edn, 1989). Historical variant spellings include ''taep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shōgun (novel)
''Shōgun'' is a 1975 historical novel by author James Clavell that chronicles the end of Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568–1600) and the dawn of the Edo period (1603–1868). Loosely based on actual events and figures, ''Shōgun'' narrates how European interests and internal conflicts within Japan brought about the Shogunate restoration. By 1980 six million copies of ''Shōgun'' had been sold worldwide. The novel has been adapted into two TV series (in 1980 and 2024), a stage production ('' Shōgun: The Musical''), a board game, and three video games. Though its historical setting is the earliest, it is the third of six published books in Clavell's broader ''Asian Saga'' series. Premise For nearly 30 years, Japan had been fractured by dynastic clashes and was without a Shogun (central ruler). Japan was also interfered with militarily and politically by Catholic Portugal in concert with the Roman Papacy and its Jesuits stationed in Japan and elsewhere in North East Asi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shogunate
, officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamakura period and Sengoku period when the shoguns themselves were figureheads, with real power in the hands of the of the Hōjō clan and of the Hosokawa clan. In addition, Taira no Kiyomori and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were leaders of the warrior class who did not hold the position of shogun, the highest office of the warrior class, yet gained the positions of and , the highest offices of the aristocratic class. As such, they ran their governments as its de facto rulers. The office of shogun was in practice hereditary, although over the course of the history of Japan several different clans held the position. The title was originally held by military commanders during the Heian period in the eighth and ninth centuries. When Minamoto no Yor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally to the Emperor of Japan, emperor and the ''kuge'' (an aristocratic class). In the term, means 'large', and stands for , meaning 'private land'. From the ''shugo'' of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku period to the daimyo of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history. The backgrounds of daimyo also varied considerably; while some daimyo clans, notably the Mōri clan, Mōri, Shimazu clan, Shimazu and Hosokawa clan, Hosokawa, were cadet branches of the Imperial family or were descended from the ''kuge'', other daimyo were promoted from the ranks of the samurai, notably during the Edo period. Daimyo often hired samurai to guard their land, and paid them in land or food, as relatively few could afford to pay them i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
