Keokitch

Updated October 9, 2014

Keokitch, civil servant, later employee of the British Diplomatic Department, was listed as a resident of Hong Kong from 1846 to 1850. He worked for the Surveyor General's Office as Clerk (Chinese) between 1846 and 1848. He was employed by the Hong Kong Office of the British Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of Trade as a Chinese clerk in 1850.

Variant names: Keoketch. Keokitch was his given name; commoners in Japan had no [not permitted to have] surnames prior to 1870.

Keokitch, a Japanese, who resided in Macau in 1836 and had an encounter with New York born Sinologist Samuel Wells Williams. The following was what Williams wrote of Keokitch in his letter written home dated June 25, 1836.

There are three Japanese now staying at Mr. Gutzlaff's house who were brought from Columbia River via London, and are now supported at the expense of the English commission. One of them named Keokitch was sent on an errand to me to-day, and finding that he could talk broken English, I asked him as many questions as I could think up. He says that he comes from a small town about fifty miles (Chinese li, probably, a third of a mile each) from Jeddo [江戸, also known as Edo, or Yeddo, present day Tokyo]. The town is called Sriwasi, most likely a small seaport producing rice and exporting it to the capital. This man and his companions, forty in all, sailed from Sriwasi in a junk, expecting to reach the capital within five days, but they were blown out to sea and unable to return. The junk was not a large one and had a cargo of rice on board; according to his account they were tossed about the ocean for forty moons, and during that time all died but the three now here. They suffered much for want of water, moreover the scurvy prevailed so badly that, as he says, 'their limbs swelled like barrels.' It is almost incredable that with a compass they should have wandered about so long, but according to his account no sail was made nor was any attention paid to the steering. From the arrival of these men here, their secluded and unknown land received increased attention, which is not lessened from the disappointment caused by the sailing of the Peacock direct for the Sandwich Island yesterday; before the death of our envoy here there was some hope that she might carry these mariner home to Japan.

Selected Bibliography: Tarrent, William, The Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for the Year 1846, 1848, 1850, Hong Kong: China Mail, resp. 1846,1848 and 1850. Williams, Frederick Wells, The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams: Missionary, Diplomatist, Sinologue, London: G.P. Putnam's, 1889. Williams, Samuel Wells (Ed.), Chinese Repository, Vol. 17, January to December, 1848. Canton: 1848. 宮澤眞一, 19 世紀初期旅居澳門・廣東傳教士對日語的研究, 東亞漢學回顧與展望, pp.346-352.