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Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. As Japan was transforming itself into a modern nation in the Meiji era after ending its years of national isolation during the Edo period , many Japanese traveled to Europe to study and work, and their vessels typically stopped over in Hong Kong, a westernized city in Asia. The size of the Japanese community there grew rapidly, from just 86 recorded residents in to 1, by , according to the book.
The oldest western cemetery in Hong Kong was founded in , three years after the island was formally ceded to Britain. Nakano started investigating the stories of such individuals in upon the request of the Hongkong Japanese Club, a nonprofit private membership club for the Japanese community in Hong Kong, to preserve the history of the de facto Japanese Cemetery within the Hong Kong Cemetery.
Later, Nakano collaborated with Challen to publish a book on the topic after conducting broader research together into wide-ranging documents left in Chinese, Japanese, English and French. The elites were the senior representatives of shipping and trading companies, as well as the diplomats posted to the Japanese consulate that opened in On the other hand, there was a sizable community of prostitutes, called karayuki-san, brought to Hong Kong from poor islands, mainly in Kyushu.
When they died in Hong Kong, some of them were buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery, which had previously been known as the Protestant Cemetery. Investigating from the names on the tombstones, the book records personal stories of select early residents and travelers who died in Hong Kong.
