The o-yatoi gaikokujin or oyatoi gaikokujin (お雇い外国人 — hired foreigners, foreign employees) were foreign specialists, engineers, teachers, mercenaries and more, hired to assist in the modernization of Japan. They were summoned, at the end of the Bakufu and during the Meiji Era, reaching more than 3,000 in all (with thousands more in the private sector) as of 1868.

Their goal was to transfer technology and teach Japanese replacements to take over their places. Some, in addition to being government employees, were also missionaries. They were highly valued; in 1874 the oyatoi numbered 520, during which time their salaries came to ¥2.272 million, or 33.7 percent of the annual budget. Despite their value, they were not allowed to stay in Japan permanently, and many, finding the nation unwelcoming, chose to leave at the end of a one or two year contract.

The oyatoi system was officially terminated in 1899 when extraterritoriality came to an end in Japan. Nevertheless similar employment of foreigners persists in Japan, particularly within the national education system and professional baseball. Until 1899, more than 800 hired experts were employed by the government, and many others privately.

Notable o-yatoi gaikokujin

• William Griffis (1843–1928), American clergymen, author. Taught in Japan 1870–1874.
• Heinrich Edmund Naumann , geologist. Arrived in August 1875 at the age of 21. Teaching in the University of Tokyo, he became the first professor of geology in Japan. His achievements include, among others, the first tectonic map of the country. Fossa Magna Museum (in Japanese)
• Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist.
• Edward S. Morse, zoologist.
• Charles Otis Whitman , zoologist, successor of Edward S. Morse.
• Guido Verbeck
• Captain Francis Brinkley
• Gustave Emile Boissonade — Hosei University
• Herman Roesler
• Gottfried Wagener
• Henry Dyer
• Ernest Fenollosa, educator
• Sir James Alfred Ewing, Scottish physicist and engineer who founded Japanese seismology.
• Jules Brunet, French artillery officer.
• Léonce Verny, French constructor of the Yokosuka arsenal.
• Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist and Professor of Japanese, Tokyo Imperial University
• Lafcadio Hearn
• Raphael von Koeber
• Johannis de Rijke
• George Arnold Escher
• Thomas James Waters
• Josiah Conder in Japanese in Japanese pictures
• Edmund Morel
• William S. Clark — Sapporo Agricultural College (Hokkaidō University)
• Horace Wilson , U.S. missionary and teacher credited with introducing baseball to Japan.
• Erwin von Baeltz in Japanese
• Horace Capron
• Edwin Dun — Edwin Dun Memorial House japanese wikipedia Hokkaido Prefecture website
• William Brooks
• Edoardo Chiossone
• Luther Whiting Mason
• Klemens Wilhelm Jakob Meckel
• Charles Edouard Gabriel Leroux
• Oskar Kellner in Japanese
• John Milne
• Curt Netto
• Thomas Alexander
• John Alexander Low Waddell
• Ludwig S. Loenholm
• Johannes Ludwig Janson
• Leopold Mueller
• Charles Dickinson West
• William Edward Ayrton
• Henry Walton Grinnell

See also

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Foreign cemeteries in Japan
• Franco-Japanese relations
• JET Programme

External links

• Dentsu Advertising Museum
• in Japanese