Posted on: Friday, March 11, 2005
11TH ANNUAL HONOLULU FESTIVAL
Japanese castaway shaped history
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Honolulu Festival is all about celebrating the crossing of cultures between Japan and Hawai'i, and a man who proved that friendship can triumph over international barriers isat the center of the celebration this year.
"It's not governments, but it's about friends helping each other to make the world a better place for everyone," said Dwight Damon.
Damon is known locally as a film historian, but in this weekend's festivities he will figure more as a descendant of the Rev. Samuel C. Damon, the "seaman's chaplain" back when Honolulu was a whaling town and John Manjiro's longtime friend.
The reverend, writing in the Honolulu journal called The Friend, was the first to chronicle the venturing of these castaways into the Western world.
• Hawai'i Convention Center: music, dance, exhibits. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. tomorrow and 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Sunday • Saturday, Room 310: John Manjiro Seminar and "The Castaway," 10 a.m.-1 p.m. • Saturday, Hiroba Stage: Genoa Keawe, 1:15 p.m.; Descendance Aboriginal Dance Company, 3:25 p.m. • Sunday, Hiroba Stage: Maunalua, 1:10 p.m. • Ala Moana Center: Music and dance, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday • Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center: Music and dance, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. tomorrow and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday • Grand Parade on Kalakaua Avenue, 4:30-8 p.m. Sunday Damon and Robert Whitfield, a descendant of the Howland's Capt. William Whitfield, will be on the panel to discuss the documentary, "The Castaway," which will make its world premiere at the free seminar.
The castaways ended up in Honolulu in 1841, and then Manjiro went with Whitfield to Fairhaven.
Though illiterate in Japanese, the youth mastered both spoken and written English, Damon said.
The epic tale of Manjiro's life, which swept him out on more whaling voyages and even a gold-rush expedition, finally returns him through Honolulu in 1850.
Two of the other three survivors agreed to chance a return to Japan, where officials were leery of allowing their wayward sons to return home.
The men were helped, Damon said, by his ancestor's published pleas for necessary provisions, and by a letter written on their behalf by the U.S. consul in Honolulu, Elisha Allen.
Officials were especially suspicious of the Westernized Manjiro. Nevertheless, Damon said, he worked behind the scenes to smooth the path for the historic accord struck by U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry, ushering in diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan.
Manjiro continued his travels, reuniting with his rescuer and patron, Capt. Whitfield.
By the time of his death in 1898 at age 71, he was celebrated at home and abroad, a long way from the poor fisherman he was when he first left Japan, said Sam Mokaida, one of the exhibit's organizers.
"He died happily ever after," Mokaida said with a smile.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
Actually, it's the memory of a 19th-century man, famous especially in Japan as the first Japanese to set foot on U.S. soil. John Manjiro and his connections to men in Hawai'i and America helped end Japan's long isolation and open it to the West.
Etching by A.T. Agate, believed to be of Manjiro.
Manjiro, one of five men from Japan whose fishing boat was wrecked and who were rescued by the American whaling ship John Howland, is the subject of an exhibit, a documentary and a seminar tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 310 at the Hawai'i Convention Center. (For more on Honolulu Festival events, see the TGIF section.)
11TH ANNUAL HONOLULU FESTIVAL
