Famous in Japan

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Lafcadio Hearn in 1889 Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, who went by Lafcadio, was born in 1850 on the Greek island of Lefkada, his namesake. The second of three sons, his Irish father Charles Bush Hearn was a surgeon in the British army and his Grecian/Maltese mother was Rosa Antonia Cassimati. At the age of 6 he was brought to Ireland and his parents eventually divorced and his father remarried. Hearn and his brother were sent to live with separate rela

By Solara Patel-Elliott, Intern Spring 2026 The Yuki Onna (Yuki-onna (ゆき女), depicted by artist Sawaki Suushi in Hyakkai-Zukan (百怪図巻) (1773) Of the more than one thousand types of yōkai (妖怪) present in Japanese folklore, there is one transcendent being whose tale is particularly fitting in the cold winter months. Yuki Onna (雪女) is one of the most well-known yōkai, depicted in legends across various regions of Japan and common in Japanese media, literature, and film. Japanese y

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Masako Shirasu in 1952 Of the many people who have had an enormous impact on Japanese arts and culture, author and fine art collector Masako Shirasu stands out as a distinguished figure. Born Masako Kabayama in Tokyo in 1910, she hailed from a prosperous family: her grandfathers were admirals in the Imperial Japanese Navy and her father was a lawyer. As her family was well-off, she started taking lessons in Noh theatre at the age of 4. It is oft

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Nintendo's first headquarters in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 As the creator of major franchises like Donkey Kong, Mario, Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, to name a few, one may think Nintendo is a company founded in the 1980s, when it was actually started by Fusajiro Yamauchi in the 1880s. The eldest son of Sosuke Fukui, Yamauchi was born in November 1859 in Kyoto, Japan, but was adopted at the age of 5 by Yushichi Yamauchi. In Japan, these types of adopt

By Danielle Cochran, Volunteer Manjiro Nakahama, image from "The Presentation of a Samurai Sword" at Millicent Library (1918) A fateful shipwreck is what drastically changed Manjiro Nakahama’s trajectory in life: from a young boy fishing to support his family, to having a pivotal role in the opening of Japan to the rest of the world. In 1827, Nakahama, also referred to as John Manjiro and John Mung, was born to his father Etsusuke, a fisherman, and his mother Shio. However, h