From: fester@etorofu.island.COM ()
Subject: Old Japan
Originator: fester@etorofu
Organization: Island Graphics, Marin County, California
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 19:22:22 GMT

From time to time, I have recommended the book _Japanese Things: Being
Notes on Various Subject Connected with Japan_ by Basil Hall Chamberlain.
The book is published by Tuttle, and the version of the book I own was first
published around 1904, during the Russo-Japan war. Mr Chamberlain was at that
time a long-time resident (~30 years) of Japan, and a professor of Japanese at
the Imperial University of Tokyo. I find his observations to be interesting
and insightful, both for their perspective of Japan as it was (and sometimes
still is) and for his British/European view of things, ca 1900. 

I intend to reproduce portions of the book here from time to time. The book is 
divided into many small articles, and I will not reproduce any single article 
in its entirety. I believe this is allowed by the copyright; if not, someone
please correct me.

From the article entitled "Adoption":
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So completely has adoption become part and parcel of the national life that
Mr. Shigeno An-eki, the best Japanese authority on the subject, enumerates 
no less than ten different categories of adopted persons. Adoption is 
resorted to, not only to prevent the extinction of families and the consequent
neglect of the spirits of the departed, but also in order to regulate the size
of the families. Thus, a man with too many children hands over one or more of
them to some friend who has none. To adopt a person is also the simplest way to 
leave him money, it not being unusual in Japan to nominate strangers as one's
heirs. Formerly, too, it was sometimes a means of money-making, not to the
adopted, but to the adopter. "It was customary" - so writes the authority whom 
we quote below-"for the sons of the court-nobles, when they reached the age of
majority, to receive an income from the Government. It often happened that
when an officer had a son who was, say only two or three years old, he would
adopt a lad who was about fifteen (the age of majority), and then apply for a
grant of land and rice for him; after he had secured this, he would make his
own son the yo-shi [adopted son] of the newly adopted youth, and thus, when the
former came of age, the officer was entitled to apply for another grant of
land" - With this may be compared the plan often followed by business people at
the present day. A merchant adopts his head clerk, in order to give him a 
personal interest in the firm. The clerk then adopts his patron's son, with 
the understanding that he himself is to retire in the latter's favor when the 
latter shall be of a suitable age. If the clerk has a son, then perhaps that 
son shall be adopted by the patron's son.
...

Until quite recently the sole way in which a foreigner could be naturalised
was by getting a Japanese with a daughter to adopt him, and then marrying the
daughter. This may sound like a joke, but it is not. It is a sober, legal fact,
recognised as such by various judicial and consular authorities, and acted on 
in several well-authenticated instances. Indeed, it is still the easiest 
method to be pursued by those desirous of naturalising themselves
in this country.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike

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