Remembering Masayoshi Matsukata in an American University Classroom
About 15 years ago, I was taking a Japanese History class at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The professor's name was Paul Reagan.
Although he was primarily a faculty member at Villanova University, he also taught several classes a week at Temple. He had a strangely multi-dimensional background: he studied at UPenn and Cambridge, had experience studying abroad at Keio, and had even worked at Morgan Stanley in Japan.
During class, he said this many times.
My friend is a descendant of Masayoshi Matsukata.
For some reason, I remember that story vividly.
■ The Existence of Masayoshi Matsukata
Masayoshi Matsukata was from the Satsuma Domain. He was one of the Genro who served as both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. As Minister of Finance, he carried out fiscal reconstruction, founded the Bank of Japan, and introduced the gold standard. If Aritomo Yamagata was the one who turned modern Japan into one of the world's leading 'military states' at record speed, then Matsukata was the person who connected Japan to the 'economic states' that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the West. Moreover, he owned large tracts of land in Azabu and Mita, Tokyo.
■ Memories of Azabu-Juban
Several years later, I had returned to Japan. One spring night, I was suffering from acute gastroenteritis. The only place open late in the Azabu-Juban area was 'Kusuri no Jonan'. When I bought medicine there, I chatted with the pharmacist (likely the owner). The topic of where we were from came up, and I said:
'I'm from Kagoshima.'
Then the owner said:
'There are many people from Kagoshima around here.'
At that moment, I remembered Masayoshi Matsukata.
■ Mita and Satsuma
Keio University is located in Mita, Minato Ward. I intend to post about this another time, but
wasn't Keio a 'reskilling device' for samurai?
is something I think about all the time.
After the Meiji Restoration, Satsuma samurai who lost their jobs went to Tokyo. They leveraged the connections of the Satsuma clique overflowing in the Meiji government to attempt reskilling. They learned about Yukichi Fukuzawa's school. They studied at Keio. They became bureaucrats and businessmen. They lived in Azabu and Mita.
And then,Satsuma samurai mannerisms spread nationwide after the Meiji era as "Tokyo culture." Even though, in all likelihood, they were originally Satsuma (Kagoshima) culture.
The roots are in Satsuma.
That is my hypothesis.
■ Returning to the Temple classroom
In a Philadelphia classroom, Professor Reagan, who has walked the path of the East Coast elite, is talking about his Japanese friend (a descendant of Matsukata). I, a native of Kagoshima, am listening to that story. Before I knew it, I had connected Satsuma, the Meiji Restoration, Kagoshima, Azabu, Keio, the American East Coast, Philadelphia, finance, and national design into a single line.
■ This is not simply a story about local pride
I am not the type to memorize historical dates.I always look at the structure of things.Yamagata, who created the Japanese military; Matsukata, who created Japan's national finances; Keio, which turned samurai into salarymen; the American professor who speaks about it from the outside on the East Coast; and now, myself, managing a business in the provinces.
■ Why can't I forget this story?
Perhaps I have always been thinking about,
“What did the designers of the nation leave behind, and what were they unable to standardize?”
that question.
Matsukata institutionalized finance. Yamagata institutionalized the military. But those institutions later gave rise to runaway actions. That is a story about the nation, and it is also a story about companies. The story of Matsukata I heard in the Temple classroom was not merely an anecdote. I think it was the circuit of my life, that is, the one that connects the local of Kagoshima and the global of the American East Coast in a single line.
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