It’s always strange to see which Westerners are famous in Japan yet unheard of in their own homelands. Aside from foreigner tarento who appear on TV shows, commercials, and magazines today, there are a lot of historical figures who are basically unknown in their home countries, even centuries after their deaths.
We’ve written before about the American man behind the Japanese phrase “Boys, be ambitious,” and the father of the Japanese word for hotchkiss “stapler,” but their contributions to Japan were pretty shallow. It’s definitely cool and interesting that these Westerners made contributions to the Japanese language that are still around today, but it’s not as if they really affected the culture or history.
One Westerner who made a major impact on Japanese history is not only pretty much completely unknown in his native land, but people will probably mistake him for a fast food clown. The man I’m talking about is, of course, Ranald MacDonald.
Before Ray Kroc began serving billions and billions worldwide, there was Ranald MacDonald. Blissfully unaware of how laughable his name would become in centuries to come, MacDonald was a significant figure in opening Japan to the world and bringing the English language to the country.
Lemme back up a bit. MacDonald was born in Tofugu’s home state of Oregon in the early 1800s during a time when Japan was more or less closed to outsiders. The mystique of the closed country mixed with MacDonald’s supposed Asian ancestry and encounters with Japanese castaways lead him to an intense interest in Japan.
Determined not to let a little thing like the Tokugawa shogunate stop him from visiting Japan, MacDonald eventually found his way over to Japan. Instead of trying to get into Japan through negotiations or official channels, MacDonald did the only logical thing: intentionally shipwreck himself.
Dramatic recreation of MacDonald’s landing
MacDonald joined up with a whaling ship sailing past Japan and more or less just hopped out on his own ship when he was close enough. He landed in Hokkaido and, after being taken in by the Japanese, found his way down to Nagasaki.
Back in the Edo Era, Nagasaki was the one city in Japan where foreigners were allowed, and usually only Dutch traders at that, so MacDonald was a rarity in a big way. Japanese officials, sensing the value of the English language, tasked MacDonald with teaching English to an elite few.
After several months of teaching English to samurai, MacDonald was shipped back to America, where he lived out his life more or less uneventfully. For the rest of his life, he had nothing but good things to say about Japan and, supposedly, his last words were Japanese.
In a lot of ways, MacDonald is the father of the English language in Japan. In a time when only the Dutch were permitted to have anything to do with Japan, English was more or less non-existent in Japan before MacDonald. He unwittingly started the long, beautiful tradition of English teachers coming to Japan and leaving after a year. Maybe they should rename JET?
MacDonald was an ALT before JET was JET
More importantly, MacDonald lay the foundation for the English speaking world to communicate with Japan. Some of MacDonald’s students were directly involved in the negotiations with Commodore Perry when he and his black ships landed on Japan a few years after MacDonald’s visit.
You could argue that MacDonald was the first of what would become many foreign advisors to help Japan through the Meiji Restoration, but unfortunately MacDonald rarely receives that recognition.
At the very least, MacDonald’s legacy isn’t completely tarnished by a fast food clown; at least, not in Japan. The McDonald corporation’s mascot is known as ドナルド マクドナルド, or “Donald McDonald” in Japan, leaving MacDonald’s name untainted.
But if I find out that there’s a Japanese historical figure named “Hamburgler,” I’m just going to give up on everything.
Wallpapers/GIFs
Here are some bonus wallpapers and animated GIFs (that’s “GIF” with a hard G) courtesy of our very talented illustrator, Aya!
Wallpaper (1280×800)
Wallpaper (2560×400)
