Forgotten Souls: A Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery

Chapter 27: Other Nationalities: The Japanese and Russians Buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery

Chapter 27 Other Nationalities: The Japanese and Russians Buried in the Hong Kong Cemetery Japanese Graves It may come as a surprise that the number of Japanese graves in the Hong Kong Cemetery is approximately 465, compared to the Chinese graves which number about 197. The Japanese have a long history in Hong Kong. As early as 1845, Japanese were recorded living there, mostly the survivors of shipwrecks. Japanese sailors were not able to return to Japan due to the Sakoku policy adopted by the Tokugawa shoguns. It was feared that returnees would contaminate Japanese society with un-Japanese ideas and beliefs such as Christianity and foment dissension if allowed back into the country. Adonia Rickomartz was one such sailor whose curious story lies behind the simple granite headstone commemorating two young Japanese/German infants, Maria Lucy Rickomartz [9/11/2], who died aged two and a half years, and Lucy, aged ten months. The date of their death is difficult to read on the faded stone but seems to be May 1850. The father, Adonia, as he was christened, was one of a group of Japanese sailors who had been rescued from a shipwreck and brought to Macau, where they were converted to Christianity by the missionaries, William Wells and George Tradescant Lay. In exchange for lessons in religion and English, the sailors taught the missionaries to speak Japanese. 1 These lessons stood Wells in good stead when he accompanied Commodore Matthew Perry as interpreter on his famous expedition to open up Japan to American trade. The missionaries had hoped the sailors would spread the gospel back in Japan, but in 1836 failed in an attempt to repatriate them. Back again in Macau, Adonia became the servant of Rev. Karl Gutzlaff, took him to Hong Kong, and taught him how to work as a compositor, producing the Christian tracts that Gutzlaff used to distribute through his Chinese Union. In Hong Kong, the missionary introduced Adonia to a German lady called Rickomartz in want of a husband. On marriage Lim_txt.indd 522 28/12/2010 4:17 PM Other Nationalities 523 Adonia took his wife’s name. By 1859 they had had four children, two of whom died young and are buried in the cemetry. After the death of Gutzlaff, Adonia went to work as compositor for the Friend of China. In 1858, Mrs. Rickomartz teamed up with a Mrs. Jurgens from Hamburg to open a millinery and haberdashery establishment on Queen’s Road. Sadly, in the following year a fire destroyed their business and after auctioning off the fire-damaged stock, Mrs. Rickomartz departed to set up a haberdashery business in Shanghai leaving her husband and children behind. She died there in June 1860, followed in September by Adonia, aged thirty-seven. The surviving orphans, Eliza and Louisa, entered the newly founded Diocesan Orphanage where they were baptized in 1868, Louisa becoming a teacher there at the age of eighteen. In the early 1860s, at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, contacts between Japan and the outside world became more frequent. Missions and delegates sent overseas by the Japanese government always called at the port of Hong Kong. Records on early Japanese deaths here are inconclusive, though at least one Japanese official report on Hong Kong, Honkon Jijo (香港事 情), published in 1917 by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, recorded that earlier Japanese nationals were buried in the Chinese cemetery at Mount Davis. From 27.2. The inscription on the headstone commemorating Maria Lucy and Lucy Rickomartz. 27.1. The headstone commemorating the infant daughters of Adonia Rickomartz, Maria Lucy (d. 5.22.1830) and Lucy (d. 23.11.1848). Lim_txt.indd 523 28/12/2010 4:17 PM Forgotten Souls 524 the 1880s onwards, the Japanese formed a respected minority group. The number buried in comparison to the number of Chinese in the Cemetery suggests that it was easier for the Japanese to get permission for burial there. This may indicate that they were accorded a higher status by the British authorities, or that their total number in the colony being fewer, they never posed the threat of overwhelming the Cemetery. Two hundred and twenty-seven of the Japanese graves are inscribed with information such as names and ages, in line with Japanese tradition. Some even give the person’s home address in Japan. Sixty-two graves were erected by various charitable and religious organizations, including four that were...