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Member’s NewsAdvisor Shibusawa Masahide’s Pilgrimage to the Temple ofConfucius in Qufu on May 10–11, 2014
De-min Tao
Mr. Shibusawa Masahide 澁澤雅英 (b. 1925) , President of Shibusawa
Eiichi Memorial Foundation and an advisor to the Society, led a delegation tovisit Qufu 曲阜, Shandong Province, on May 10–11, 2014. The delegation
was joined by Mr. Satō Takayoshi 佐藤孝義 (President of the MRAFoundation, Japan) and Mr. Moriya Atsushi 守屋淳 (writer, Japan), who
accompanied Mr. Shibusawa from Tokyo to Shanghai to visit the Memorial
Hall of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and by Dr. Kimura Masato 木村昌人 (Director of theResearch Department, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation), Dr. JanetHunter (Professor of Economic History, London School of Economics andPolitical Science, United Kingdom), Dr. Melissa Williams (Professor ofMr. Shibusawa’s delegation started the trip from Shanghai Station on the morning ofMay 10. They had a pleasant dialogue with students of Qufu Normal University inthe evening.

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Political Science, University of Toronto, Canada), Dr. Kim Myungsoo 金明洙(Professor of Keimyung University, South Korea), and Dr. Ming Xu 明旭(Postdoctoral Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies,Peking University), who had just presented the panel discussion “Differing
Notions of Economy and Morality” at the Six Annual Meeting of the Society
held at Fudan University. Finally, De-min Tao 陶徳民 organized the delegation’s visit to Qufu and attendance at the forum “Confucian Entrepreneurs” at
Peking University.
The trip had special meaning for Mr. Shibusawa because he fulfilled thedream of his great-grandfather Shibusawa Eiichi (1840–1931) 澁澤榮一 to go
on a pilgrimage to the Temple of Confucius 孔子廟 in Qufu. Eiichi was

Shibusawa Eiichi (third from left in the second row) and members of his delegation on the Chiyō-maru 地洋丸 during the voyage to Shanghai in early May 1914.

The May 6, 1914 report by the Reuters Tokyo in Shanghai’s Shen Bao.
(Tian Tong, ed., 1914 Seze Rongyi Zhongguo Xing. Wuhan, China: CCNU Press, 2013)

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involved in the founding of some 500 enterprises and economic organizations
and about 600 organizations for social welfare, education, and international
exchange. During his lifetime he strongly believed in the role of individualinitiatives and promoted private-sector economic diplomacy. In 1867 hevisited France and other European countries as a member of Tokugawa
Akitake’s delegation to the Universal Exposition in Paris. In 1909 he visited
the United States as the head of the Honorary Commercial Commissioners ofJapan. And in 1914, at age of seventy-five, he visited China as an advisor of
the newly established Chū-Nichi Jitsugyō Kaisha (Sino-Japanese Corporation)
to promote business partnerships between Japan and China, and to go on apilgrimage to the Temple of Confucius in Qufu, since he had read theConfucian Analects since age of seven and came increasingly to believe in “theharmony of morality and the economy” in his later years. He expressed thisidea in the title of his book Rongo to soroban 論語と算盤 (The Analects andthe Abacus) in 1916, with some hints from Mishima Chūshū 三島中洲 (1830–1919), an open-minded Confucian scholar who founded the Nishō gakusha inTokyo and maintained a friendship of thirty years with him by then.
Eiichi started his trip on May 2, 1914, and continued traveling for abouta month. He arrived in Tianjin on May 28 after visiting Shanghai, Hangzhou,Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Beijing. Unfortunately, he got ill there and had
to give up the plan of going southward to visit the Temple of Confucius inQufu. After returning back to Japan, he paid homage to Confucius in otherways. He commissioned scholars to compile A Chronology of the Analects ofConfucius and to translate the Analects into Japanese. He even personallycopied the book and had it printed and distributed among his relatives andclose friends. He also made a collection of the Analects and asked Shionoya
On 塩谷温 (1878–1962), a professor of Chinese literature at Tokyo University
who had studied in China before, to go to Qufu to dedicate several rare
editions of the Analects at the Temple of Confucius and to recite his address
祭文 to Confucius at the Dachengdian 大成殿 (Hall of Great Achievements).
On May 10, Mr. Shibusawa and his delegation took the high-speed-rail
train from Shanghai to Qufu, where they first paid a visit to the Confucius
Museum instead of the Temple of Confucius owing to the heavy rain. Afterdinner with President Fu Yongju 傅永聚, Dean Cheng Jichun 成積春, andProfessor Chen Dong 陳東 of Qufu Normal University, members of the delegation had a pleasant and informative dialogue with students from theuniversity’s School of the Humanities.
On the morning of the following day, the rain diminished, but the wind
was unexpectedly so strong and cold that the delegation members had to buy
single-use raincoats when they reached the gate of the Temple of Confucius.
And to avoid falling, Mr. Shibusawa, who was 89 years old then, decided to122

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rent a wheelchair. After a great deal of effort, the group finally reached theDachengdian and took a commemorative photograph there. Mr. Shibusawa
put money in the offertory box, and the visit was successfully concluded. The
bad weather was unable to stop him from visiting the temple at Confucius’s
birthplace on behalf of his great-grandfather.
On the way back to the gate, both rain and wind ceased. The group felt
much relaxed and enjoyed looking at the old shrines, bells, and trees in thespacious temple before taking the high-speed-rail train northward to Beijing.

In the commemorative picture after dinner, from the left:
front row: Dr. Ming, Mr. Sato, President Fu, Mr. Shibusawa, Dr. Hunter, Dr. Kim.
back row: Mr. Moriya, Prof. Chen, Dean Cheng, Dr. Kimura, Dr. Tao, Dr. Williams.