{Inter} Cultural Japan

The Motomachi shopping street sits at the foot of the Yamate Bluff in Yokohama, from late Edo the preferred place of residence for foreigners.

In 1867 this area was designated as the Yamate Foreign Settlement which, high above the town, afforded a good view of the port and cool winds in summer. Public buildings and private homes in various Western styles were built by Japanese carpenters.

Unfortunately, most of that exotic foreign life was destroyed by the Kanto earthquake of 1923 after which the foreigners settled elsewhere, but there are still churches and universities founded by the early missionaries as reminders of history. The best memorial is of course the Foreigners Cemetery on the hillside of the Bluff.

[Yamate Museum. Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Just one private house remains, built in 1909 by a Japanese carpenter for a wealthy Japanese family, the Sonodas (who apparently used it as a second home next to the Japanese house in which they lived).

This is now the Yamate Museum. It is a narrow house, now standing in a large garden shared with the Jubankan restaurant, on the opposite side of the road from the Foreign Cemetery.

The display inside shows such period pieces as the first organ built in Japan, cartoons about expat life from the magazine Punch by Charles Wirgman; crystal glass; 19th c. Western furniture made in Japan; an ashtray with an image of Perry; a Western tile from the Gerard Tile factory; and on the 2nd floor, an extensive display about the Foreign Cemetery and its inhabitants.

The various items form an excellent reminiscence of the life of Westerners in Meiji Japan, vividly demonstrating the ‘splendid isolation’ of those British merchants and American missionaries on the Bluff.

Tel. 045-622-1188
Hrs. 11:00 - 16:00, no holidays
Access: 15 min. walk from Sakuragi-cho Station on JR, Tokyu Toyoko and City Subway lines. Jubanken restaurant and beer garden next door, opposite is the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery (10:00-17:00, Cl Mon).