Let me introduce myself. My name is Mayumi Miyake. I was born in Tadotsu-cho Nakatado-gun Kagawa-ken Japan on September 20,1979. I am a second year student at Kagawa Junior College. My major is Management and Information.
Especially Noted Products: raw and dried bonito, coral crafts, long-tailed cocks, Tosa native dogs and Tosa fighting dogs.
Especially Noted Cuisine: Sawachi-ryori and Katsuo no Tataki (bonito seared only on the surface)
Kochi, the largest city on the Pacific coast, is the capital of Kochi Prefecture, especially known for its marine products, forestry and grreenhouse culture of vegetables. The fishing ports dotted along the Pacific coast are usually busy with small boats that bring in bonito and mackerel from the warm current offshore, and sometimes with big boats that have made six- or seven-month voyages after tuna into the Indian Ocean, the Tasman Sea, even the Atlantic.
Men in this prefecture have long been known for a trait called igosso. When a man is called igosso, it means he is gallantly generous, obstinately independent, carefree and passionae in his usually unpredictable actions. Women of the same type are called hachikin.
Kochi was also a castle town. The approach to the castle gate is liveliest on Sundays as the 3-century-old Sunday Market is held there, the 1.2 km avenue lined with hundreds of stalls stocked with every kind of local product imaginable ― vegetables, fruits, flowers, trees, raw, dried or cooked fish, coral crafts, toys, knives, antiques, old clothes, china, earthenware, kittens, puppies, granny's pickles, cookies, candies, rice cakes, pancakes and sundry items.
◎ 5 minutes' walk from JR Kochi Station to the en-trance of Sunday Market.
Kochi-jo Castle came into being in 1588 when Chosokabe Motochika, who once subjugated the whole of Shikoku, built his castle here on top of the hill. In 1600 Yamanouchi Kazutoyo took over the castle, rebuilt it, and 16 generations of Lords Yamanouchi reigned until 1869 when the Province was officially returned to the Emperor Meiji.
The Otemon Main Gate built in 1603 still stands. The statue seen on entering the gate is that of Itagaki Taisuke 板垣退助, leader of Japan's popular right movement. The other buildings ― the highest donjon, turrets and gates ― also retain their original style, though they were rebuilt around the middle of the 18th century.
The donjion houses a museum exhibiting a large collection of mementoes of the Yamanouchi Family and historical assets of the province, with one wing dedicated to local people who in the 1860's became a driving force in overthrowing the Shogunate and restoring imperial rule.
Tosa was at the vanguard when Japan was at this critical turning point in her history. The 15th lord of Tosa Province, Yamanouchi Yodo for his part presented the Shogun a petition for the peaceful restoration of imperial rule. As the Shogun accepted it in 1867 a bloodless transference of the reins of government was tentatively achieved though its aftermath, the Boshin Civil War, was far from bloodless.
At the entrance hall of the museum, there are some exhibitions concerning two of the favorite sons of Tosa Province ― Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro.
One of the captions is quoted from the postscript to Vol.1 of Ryoma ga yuku, a biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma, written by a leading novelist of contemporary Japan, Shiba Ryotaro:
Sakamoto Ryoma 坂本竜馬 can rightly be called a miracle in the history of the Meiji Restoration. All the heroes who appeared in those days can be classified into categories. Only Ryoma cannot. He stood alone even among thousands of revolutionaries in that period. It was a miracle in itself, too, that Japan happenend to have this young man at that turning point in history. If the Unseen Hand had not been so timely, Japan might have had a different history.
Indeed, only a few Japanese have been abmired so much as Ryoma. He was the arche-typical igosso, who was born in 1835 in downtown Kochi as a son of a wealthy samurai ( goshi ).
At 19 he went up to Edo (Tokyo) to sharpen his swordsmanship. But in July of that year (1853), Edo and its vicinity were thrown into chaos: Commodore Perry of the United States arrived at Tokyo Bay, demanding the Tokugawa Shogun sign a treaty. Japan had maintained a natioal isolation policy for over two hundred years. The confusion that followed was unprecedented in the history of this country. Ryoma was simply a bewildered observer at that time.
In 1858 he returned to Kochi as an acknowledged swordsman. Then he met Kagawa Shoryo, an artist-scholar, who was already well-informed about foreign affairs through acquaintance with John Manjiro. Shoryo inspired Ryoma with a vision of modern Japan as a nation fortified against Western colnialism.
In 1862 he returned to Edo after disenfranchising himself of goshi status in his home province. Soon he came to know Katsu Kaishu, the Shogun's Commissioner of the Warship Department. Katsu was among the most knowledgeable of internal and external affairs at that time. Two years earlier he had been to America as the captain of the first Japanese boat to cross the Pacific, when the Shogun sent a delegation to Washington to conclude a treaty of friendship and commerce with the U.S.A. He was a man of foresight, too, curiously unselfish and detached from the Shogunate he served.
Ryoma offered himself as Katsu's assistant and learned under him Western navigation and studies including political science, philosophy and law.
Katsu also introduced Ryoma to his colleagues and friends. Some of them were politically influential. The latter turned out to be instrumental when Ryoma began to carry out his revolutionary plans.
First he started a trading corporation with some of the former students of the Navy Training Institute, established by Katsu in 1864 but closed the next year when it was suspected of being "a ben of radicals" and Katsu was dismissed.
Now Ryoma knew ships were his passion and that the future of Japan was on the sea ― in trading. To begin with, Ryoma approached the Satsuma Clan for a schooner, setting up a corporation in Nagasaki with the Satsuma Clan as a malor shareholder. this was Japan's first joint stock company.
His second plan was to include the Choshu Clan as another shareholder. Satsuma and Choshu had been hostile to each other, but if united, they could be a formidable power to overthrow the Shogunate, which was now turning to a European colonialst to subjugate Choshu first and then other revolutionry clans.
Ryoma, with his trading company uniting them, made Satsuma and Choshu into allies. From a merchant marine, the company thus developed into the first de facto modern navy in Japan.
His next idea was to have someone bring forward a motion to the Shogun for the Restoration of Imperial Rule. Ryoma brought his Eight-Point Plan to Goto Shojiro, Chief Secretary of Lord Yamanouchi Yodo in Tosa, his home province. Goto felt it could be acceptable not only to the Emperor but also to the Tokugawa family if not the Shogunate itself.
In fact, his Plan, slightly revised by Goto, did prove to be acceptable to all sides including Lord Yamanouchi who agreed to present the motion in his own name. On October 15, 1866, the Shogun Yoshinobu adopted it to avoid a great deal of further bloodshed.
That very night Ryoma planned how to organize a provisional government for the new era to come. The next day he produced a list of cabinet personnel. Both were agreed upon by all concerned.
At first they were surprised not to see the name of Ryoma himself on the list. Wasn't he the leader of this revolution? When asked why, Ryoma simply answered, "I am not interested in working in an office. I think I'll go back to sea ― the seas of the world."
Yet he stayed busy guiding the Meiji Restoration and planning the new government. But a month later, on November 15, on his 33rd birthday, Ryoma was assassinated in Kyoto.
Before his untimely death, however, Ryoma seemed to have done everything he thoght he had to. The administrative policy he had prepared was willingly adopted by the new government.
The Five-Point Imperial Oath delivered by Emperor Meiji in 1868, in effect the first constitution of modern Japan, was derived from the Eight-Point Plan Ryoma had made two years before.
Here comes another igosso, Itagaki Taisuke 板垣退助 (1837-1919). During the Boshin Civil War, Itagaki led his Tosa le-gion to subjugate the pro-Shogunate clan of Aizu (Fukushima Pref.).
During the battle he keenly felt the necessity for the equality of people, when he saw only the privileged class of warriors upholding the Aizu cause in that test of loyalty. The other classes, who had long been left in the cold, simply fled. Itagaki said to himself, "It's only natural; only where there are rights is there duty."
A few years later when Itagaki retired from the cabinet in Tokyo, he started working to implement the First Article of the Imperial Charter Oath delivered by Emperor Meiji ― "Deliberative assemblies shall be established on an extensive scale, and all measures of government shall be decided by public opinion."
In 1873, he and other members of the Aikoku Koto Party ― the first political association of the Meiji era ― presented a resolution to the government, requesting the establishment of a perliamentary government, but without success. He returned to Kochi and established the Risshi-sha society to propagate democratic principles, a pioneer among poltcal societies emerging at that time.
By 1881 the national movement for democratic rights had reached its zenith and finally obtained the government's pledge to inaugurate National Assembly in 1890.
But when the first Deliberative Council was finally assembled and the Liberal Party was reorganized, it had alreaby lost its original spirit. To the frustration of Itagaki, it was difficult for liberalism, especially in poltics, to take root in Japan.
Yet kochi is regarded as the birthplace of Japan's Movement for Democratic Rights. It was also in this prefecture, in the town of Kamimachi in 1880, that women first acquired suffrage, 65 years earlier than women in the rest of the country, who attained it in 1945 only after World War Ⅱ.
There is the Memorial Museum of this Movement for Democratic Right, Jiyuminken Kinenkan 自由民権記念館, on the Sambashi-dori near the ferry port. Open daily except Monday and days after national holi-days.
Admission: \300 (Students: \100)