The Blue-Eyed Storyteller: Henry Black and His Rakugo CareerHeinz Morioka and Miyoko Sasaki

Excerpt

The cooperation of foreigners in helping to build up a new Japan both before and after the Meiji Restoration is a well-known fact. In 1875, between five and six hundred European and American advisors occupied posts in government offices and Japanese business, and their total number up to 1890 probably reached three thousand. Most of these men were replaced, however, as soon as the Japanese authorities believed that their services were no longer required, and only a few stayed on in the country for the rest of their lives.

Among those who dedicated themselves to working in Japan was the Englishman John Reddie Black, 1827-1880, whose role in introducing modern journalism has been thoroughly investigated and documented. Black’s eldest son, Henry James, 1858-1923, also made a name for himself in a far different sphere, but his contribution to the remodeling of traditional rakugo m or public storytelling, has been studied only recently and remains as yet unevaluated. Unlike the case of his father, there exist few English-language materials about Henry, and much of the Japanese materials perished in air raids during the Pacific War. Memoirs of contemporary rakugo performers contain contradictory and often distorted comments and anecdotes about the first and only Western professional storyteller in Japan. In 1977 the Shogei Konwakai compiled a mimeographed bibliography in an attempt to reconstruct Henry Black’s career objectively, and the present study is based mainly on sources listed in that bibiography, supplemented by data discovered in contemporary newspapers and in literature on Meiji rakugo.