1921 (Taisho 10) Saturday, December 3 Yoji Suhara, the future president of Mitsubishi Pencil, was born in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo. My father was Saburo Suhara, a factory manager at Yamato Pencil (later Mitsubishi Pencil). The pencil industry in Japan started in the early Meiji period. Two people exhibited pencils made in Japan at the First National Industrial Exhibition in 1877 (Meiji 10). One is Uhachiro Koike from Tokyo and the other is Gengo Hiwatari from Sendai. Sendai has a remarkable story. In 1855, a black ship arrived at Ishinomaki Port in the Sendai Domain with 15 people on board, including US Navy serviceman John M Brook. They gave him pencils,...

1921 (Taisho 10) Tuesday, November 29 Nanyo Kohatsu Co., Ltd. was established on Saipan Island, a mandated territory of Japan. The central figure was a businessman, Matsue Haruji. Matsue was 45 years old at that time. Haruji Matsue was born on January 15, 1876 as the second son of Hisahira Matsue, a former police officer of the Aizu Clan in Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture. His older brother, who is four years older than him, is the chief of the Tokushima POW camp (later a major general of the Army), known as the main character of the movie “Balto no Rakuen”. In 1895, Haruji Matsue graduated from the former Aizu Junior...

1921 (Taisho 10) Thursday, September 29 Masatoshi Okochi was nominated as the new president of RIKEN. Recommended by the president of the University of Tokyo, Kenjiro YAMAKAWA. RIKEN developed rapidly under Okochi, and the commercialization of the research results occurred one after another. 76 enterprises rose to form RIKEN group, and it grew to a part of new Zaibatsu or new Financial clique. He was also not indicted for designating Class A war criminals after the war. 1952 (Showa 27) died at the age of 73. Actress Momoko KAWACHI is the grandson of Masatoshi OKOCHI, chairman of Riken Group. Her real name was Momoko OKOCHI. 1932: She was born as...

1921 (Taisho 10) On Wednesday, July 27, the death of Isaka Naomoto, a wealthy merchant in Noshiro, Akita Prefecture, Japan. He was 60 years old. Isaka was born in 1860, the first year of the Manen era, as a child of a feudal retainer of Mito. His childhood name was Ryotaro. At that time, I entered Jikou-sha where the talented of Mito Domain studied, and I studied Mitogaku which developed in my hometown Mito. Mitogaku is a philosophy that is based on Confucianism, but also eclectic between Kokugaku (the study of Japanese classical literature) and Shinto, and later became the driving force of the Sonno Joi movement. In 1881 (Meiji...

On Monday, June 6, 1921(Taisho 10), Teppei Soma, a famous wealthy merchant in Hokkaido, passed away. He was 88 years old. He was born in 1833 (Tenpo 4). He was born in Araihama, Kanbara-gun, Echigo Province (currently Tainai City). Teppei was born as the second son of Kumajiro Soma, who owned a wooden Japanese boat and ran a boat transport business. In 1861, at the age of 28, he moved to Hakodate, Hokkaido, where he was employed by Shunzo Iwafuneya, a native of the same town who was already doing business in Hakodate, and distinguished himself by serving as a live-in servant. 3 years later, in 1864, Teppei SOMA became...

1921 (Taisho 10) On Tuesday, May 31, Senkichiro Hayakawa became president of South Manchuria Railways Company, the so-called Mantetsu. Former president Ryutaro Nomura and vice president Seiichi Nakanishi resigned to take responsibility for the Mantetsu bribery scandal that shook the political world, and Prime Minister Takashi Hara took the initiative in selecting a successor, who was entrusted to Hayakawa, vice president of Mitsui Gomei Kaisha. Hayakawa was a financial magnate at the time and the first civilian to serve as president of Mantetsu. Joji Matsumoto, the company’s executive vice president, also joined the company. Matsumoto is known for making the Matsumoto draft for the constitution of Japan after World War...

On Saturday, May 28, 1921 (Taisho 10), a sericulture expert Masukichi ICHINOSEdied at the age of 55. In 1898 (Meiji 31), Ichinose, a sericulture expert in Ichikawamisato Town, Yamanashi Prefecture, discovered a mulberry sapling that was resistant to harmful insects and had a high yield, making it ideal for sericulture. From mulberry seedlings of the variety name “Nezumi gaeshi” purchased from mulberry seedling traders in Oshimura, Ichise discovered three seedlings of good quality different from the usual Nezumi gaeshi, bred in its own mulberry field and distributed to the neighborhood. In 1916, it won first prize at the (Taisho 5) competition and expanded nationwide as “Ichinose-Kuwa”. These seedlings contributed to...

1921 (Taisho 10) Tuesday, May 24 Hanshin Electric Railway began to expropriate land for the Hoden Line (The current Hanshin Nanba Line). Under the name of Tokikazu Ikematsu, governor of Osaka Prefecture, an advertisement for land expropriation was announced in the official gazette. The targeted land is the “Oaza Dekijima, Kawakita-mura, Nishinari-gun, Osaka” near the mouth of the local river, Kanzaki River, and is currently in the vicinity of Dekijima Station on the Hanshin Namba Line. At that time, a large-scale railway expansion was also carried out in Osaka by the active policy of the Seiyukai. The Hoden Line opened 3 years later in 1924 (Taisho 13). The Hanshin Koshien...

1921 (Taisho 10) Thursday, May 5 HSBC building construction begins in the Shanghai Joint Concession. The ceremony began at noon and was attended by 600 people including HSBC President George Edkins and Hong Kong Governor Edward Stubbs. The building is still popular as a tourist attraction in Shanghai. The author of this blog was stationed in Shanghai during his time at Mitsui & Co., and often visited Wainan. The former HSBC Shanghai Branch Building is one of the most solemn and impressive buildings in the world. In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party occupied Shanghai, but surprisingly, HSBC continued to operate in Shanghai until 1955. However, it was finally transferred to...

1921 (Taisho 10) Monday, May 2 China’s Jing-Sui railway opened. Gui-Sui station (now Hohhot Station) opened, and Beijing – Zhangjiakou – Datong – along with 653.6 km of Gui-Sui were connected by railway. In January 1923, 2 years later, the line will extend another 165 km from Gui-Sui to the terminal point of Baotou, and a loan of 3 million yen from Japan was used to construct this section. Before the New Shikoku Loan Program, which was established by the open door policy of the United States, Japan adopted the form of loans from Toa Kogyo, a private company. However, this loan has developed into an intense diplomatic problem. This...