Okura Kihachiro
Encyclopedia
Baron was an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
who built up the Ōkura-gumi and founded the giant Ōkura zaibatsu
Zaibatsu
is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed for control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period until the end of World War II.-Terminology:...
(literally financial cliques) and the Ōkura Shōgyō Gakkō which later became Tokyo Keizai University
Tokyo Keizai University
is a private university in Tokyo, Japan. It has campuses at the cities of Kokubunji and Musashimurayama. The predecessor of the school was founded in 1900, and it was chartered as a university in 1949.-External links:*...
in 1949.
In contrast to most of the zaibatsu, the Ōkura zaibatsu was founded by someone from the peasant class. Ōkura Kihachirō moved from what is now Niigata Prefecture
Niigata Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Honshū on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The capital is the city of Niigata. The name "Niigata" literally means "new lagoon".- History :...
on the north shore of Honshū
Honshu
is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...
to Edo
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...
and worked for three years before starting his own grocery store in 1857. After selling groceries for eight years, he became a weapons dealer during the turbulent years between the arrival of the Black Ships
Black Ships
The Black Ships was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.In 1543 Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki...
and the eventual overthrow in 1867 of the Tokugawa Shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
. He became one of the principal business investors of the original Imperial Hotel
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat...
completed in 1890.
Kihachiro's son, Kishichirō, is credited with introducing the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
into Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Kihachiro, who made a fortune in his lifetime and lived in Toranomon, was a collector of Oriental antiques
Antiques
An antique is an old collectible item. It is collected or desirable because of its age , beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features...
. In fear of valuable artworks
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
flowing out to other countries, he built Japan’s first private museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
, the Ōkura Shukokan, in 1917 by donating many cultural assets he had collected, the land, and the funds. The 5-story building stood on a property of about 10,000 square meters (2.5 acres), but it was damaged in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake
1923 Great Kanto earthquake
The struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 am JST on September 1, 1923. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes...
. The Ōkura Shukokan that now stands adjacent to the Hotel Ōkura was rebuilt in 1928; it was based on a design by Itō Chuta, who is known for his design for Tsukiji Honganji Temple, and is designated as a cultural asset of Japan. The museum houses 2,000 pieces of Oriental paintings and sculptures, including such national treasures as the wooden statue of Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra
Samantabhadra , is a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with Buddhist practice and meditation. Together with Shakyamuni Buddha and fellow bodhisattva Manjusri he forms the Shakyamuni trinity in Buddhism...
and 35,000 volumes of Chinese literature
Chinese literature
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
.
See also
- Ōkura Kishichirō
- Suematsu KenchōSuematsu KenchoViscount was a Japanese politician, intellectual and author, who lived in the Meiji and Taishō periods. Apart from his activity in the Japanese government, he also wrote several important works on Japan in English...
- Kikuchi DairokuKikuchi DairokuBaron was a mathematician, educator, and educational administrator in Meiji period Japan.-Kikuchi's life and career:Kikuchi was born in Edo , as the second son of Mitsukuri Shuhei...
- Inagaki ManjirōInagaki Manjirowas a Japanese diplomat and political theorist that was active during the Meiji period of Japan.- Early life :Inagaki was born in Nagasaki, as the son of a samurai of the Hirado Domain...
- Anglo-Japanese relationsAnglo-Japanese relationsThe history of the relationship between Britain and Japan began in 1600 with the arrival of William Adams on the shores of Kyūshū at Usuki in Ōita Prefecture...