> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Straight Road in a Crooked City: Ōkubo-machi, Tokyo - URL: https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-okubo-machi-eng/ - Published: 2026-11-10T09:55:56.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-10T12:11:03.000Z - Description: Discover the hidden history of Tokyo’s Ōkubo-machi on a slow historical walk, exploring the legacy of Tokugawa musketeers, sacred shrine legends, and the transformation from feudal garrison to modern multicultural streets. - Author: Lawrence - Tags: Ōkubo-machi, Tokyo [Tokyo Historical Travel Stories: Castles, Old Towns & LegendsExplore Tokyo through historical travel stories and guides. Discover castles, old towns, rivers and local legends across the country.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/Gemini_Generated_Image_gpc0phgpc0phgpc0---Edited-2a37341e-d8d0-49c8-a953-e2cac9bdb533.png)Historical Travel StoriesLawrence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/Gemini_Generated_Image_6yc0s16yc0s16yc0-0f6e34e6-4aac-4006-b62b-7b3bb015d747.png)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-dong-jing/) > This is a historical travel story and walking guide to Ōkubo-machi, a former town in Tokyo, Japan. Through five historical layers—from samurai musketeer garrisons and azalea gardens to railway expansion and modern multicultural communities—it explores hidden shrines, old street grids, and everyday street life to show how feudal military posts evolved into one of Tokyo’s most vibrant neighborhoods. 🗺️ Welcome to Historical Travel Stories. Forget superficial sightseeing itineraries; we offer in-depth geo-historical explorations grounded in official records (verified via a four-tier research process) and complemented by short videos. Every day, we reveal a hidden urban gem—a secret spot unknown even to the locals—completely free of charge. 💡 Join a community of discerning travelers. Simply enter your email to instantly unlock audio guides and one-day itineraries, and carry our exclusive historical walking maps with you on your journey. *How a guard-post for a hundred musketeers became the front door for everyone else* Walk west along Ōkubo-dōri and the road does something no old [Tokyo](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-dong-jing/) street is meant to do: it carries on in a straight line. Everything around it is dog-legs and shrugs, lanes that still bend around streams buried a century ago. This one was laid out with a ruler, four hundred years back, by men who wanted to see anyone coming. Today it sells Korean barbecue and the groceries of a dozen other countries, and nobody at the far end asks where you are from. The gates are long gone. The road is not. The place once had a name of its own: [Ōkubo-machi (大久保町)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-okubo-machi/), a town of about 34,000 people that existed from 1912 until Tokyo swallowed it in 1932\. Even then the name was slightly adrift. Today’s Ōkubo Station and Shin-Ōkubo Station both stand in a district called Hyakunin-chō, “Hundred-Men Town”, not in Ōkubo proper. To see why, you have to start with the hundred. [🎧 Listen to an exclusive conversational audio guide: To cater to travelers of different linguistic backgrounds, Lawrence has recorded in-depth audio tours—available on Spotify or Apple Podcast in ENGLISH✅. We invite you to listen and read along as you step back into history. Subscribe to unlock access ☘️](#/portal/signup/free) ## ## I. The Hundred An English reader has a head start with that word. In England a *hundred* was once a division of the shire, an old Anglo-Saxon measure of land and men, and a faint ghost of it survives in the Chiltern Hundreds, which still hang about Parliament as a technicality. In Edo, the hundred was simpler and blunter: a company of one hundred matchlock men. The district council’s local history booklet tells it this way. A lord named Naitō Kiyonari put the case to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Ieyasu granted the land at Ōkubo to the company. The shrine that grew up among their houses gives its own version: the gun companies first camped across Yotsuya, Ōkubo, Suwa and Totsuka as Ieyasu entered Edo, and in 1633 the camp hardened into a settlement. These were not heroes. They were low-ranking retainers of the shogunate, and their work was standing about in the right places. They guarded the Ōte Sanmon, the great gate of Edo Castle, and walked beside the shogun when he went to pray at the temples of Kan’ei-ji and Zōjō-ji. The guardhouse where a hundred of them took turns at the watch, the Hyakunin-bansho, still stands in the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace. 0:00 /1:10 1× The Sniper Shrine That Sells Out Concerts If you have ever watched a Yeoman Warder lock up the Tower of London in the nightly Ceremony of the Keys, you already understand something about the Hundred: a lifetime of gate duty, a ritual that outlasts the threat it was invented for. That comparison is mine, not the sources’. But it fits. The town was designed as a defence. Three narrow east-west roads, each with a wooden gate at its mouth; the middle one, three *ken* wide, about 5.4 metres, is today’s Ōkubo-dōri. The ruler-straight line between Meiji-dōri and Kotaki-bashi-dōri is what the barracks left behind. The point of the layout was to make it hard for strangers to wander in. Then comes the legend. According to Kaichū Inari Shrine, one of the officers was troubled by his shooting. He dreamed that the fox-deity Inari handed him a sacred charm. Next morning he prayed at the shrine, went to the practice ground, and hit every target. His fellows heard of it, begged for charms of their own, and, so the shrine says, they too hit every target. *Kaichū*, “all hit”, became the shrine’s name. The shrine gives no year for the dream, and I found no document to support it, so it stands here as the shrine’s own tradition and nothing more. I will offer a guess, which the sources do not: a company of marksmen who lived out two centuries of peace may have wanted, more than most, a guarantee that their aim was true. Today the shrine is a place of pilgrimage for people hoping to win tickets to concerts and shows. Every two years it also revives the gun-company parade, with matchlock firing; 2023 was the thirty-first. Four hundred years ago men prayed to hit the target. Now people pray to win the ballot. The word is the same. Only the target has moved. **Holographic Sensory Cue:** In a parade year, the volley of the matchlocks: one flat boom, then the smell of gunpowder drifting across the street. **Resonance Node:** Kaichū Inari Shrine, Hyakunin-chō 1-chōme, and the straight line of Ōkubo-dōri running west from its gate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/11/1-5.jpg) ## II. The Azalea and the Railway The men of the Hundred were poor, and the poor garden. Tradition says that from the Hōreki era (1751–63) the musketeers of Ōkubo grew azaleas behind their houses and sold them to Edo to make ends meet. By the Tenpō era (1830–43) the gardens were famous enough for the guidebooks. “Ōkubo azalea” was never one variety; it means azaleas grown at Ōkubo, chiefly the Kirishima type. After the Restoration the stipends stopped and the gardens went to seed. In 1873 the governor of Tokyo urged a revival, and from 1883 cooperative gardens appeared; at their height there were seven, with something like ten thousand plants. In 1895 the railway arrived, and Ōkubo Station opened. Four years later Emperor Meiji came to see the flowers and left a poem that is still carved on a monument at the shrine’s entrance. According to the district council’s notes, the first word of that poem refers to the iron rails that had just been laid. The road was open, the railway ran, and people were going to Ōkubo to look at azaleas. I will leave the poem to the stone. It is a very English story, and it has an English ancestor. In 1844 Wordsworth put his name to a sonnet against the railway that was threatening to push into the Lake District, and the argument has been running in English literature ever since: the railway that lets the public see the beauty is also the railway that eats the beauty. The English ran spring excursions by train to see daffodils; Tokyo ran special trains to see Ōkubo’s azaleas. In both places the same line brought in the crowds and took the land. 0:00 /1:22 1× The Samurai Flowers Erased By Trains The same railway needed ground, and the gardeners were now paying rent. By 1915 a man from Tatebayashi in Gunma, Sugimoto Yashiro, had bought the Ōkubo azaleas and given them to Tsutsujigaoka Park in his home town. Others went to Hibiya Park, and to the garden of an inn at Hakone. Another account puts the sale to Hibiya Park as early as 1903, when it opened; the two accounts probably describe two stages of one scattering. Okubo lost its flowers. But the old varieties survived at Tatebayashi, and in 2005 Shinjuku ward took cuttings from them. In 2008 the azaleas came home. Three local primary schools still carry the flower on their badges, and since 2012 azaleas have been planted along the Seibu line’s tracks. The railway that took the flowers away now has them back at its edge. **Holographic Sensory Cue:** Mid-April to early May: Kirishima azaleas in red clumps along the trackside, blooming against the grey of the embankment. **Resonance Node:** The poem monument at the entrance of Kaichū Inari Shrine, and the azalea planting beside the Seibu line. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/11/2-3.jpg) ## III. A Wedding That May Not Have Happened Here the story turns into a problem of evidence. Umeya Shōkichi was born in Nagasaki and set up a photographic studio in British Hong Kong. According to Nagasaki City’s account, he met Sun Yat-sen in 1895 and afterwards backed the Chinese revolution with his own money. Sun, meanwhile, was already a name in London: in 1896 he had been held inside the Chinese Legation in Portland Place, and the news that a Chinese revolutionary was imprisoned in the middle of London made the English newspapers. Umeya’s side of the friendship was less public. He founded the film company M. Pathé in 1906 and is named as one of the founders of what became Nikkatsu. Shinjuku’s own lecture notice says he lived in Hyakunin-chō; Japanese Wikipedia adds that his house there had a film studio on its grounds; an amateur historian’s blog puts the studio near Ōkubo Station and dates it to 1909–13\. These are different weights of evidence, and none of them should be mistaken for the others. The story is about a wedding. Nagasaki City says that in 1915 Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling were married in Tokyo and that the reception was held at Umeya’s house, with fifty or sixty guests, including the statesman Inukai Tsuyoshi and the activist Miyazaki Tōten. A report from the Tokyo National Museum credits Umeya’s wife Toku with bringing the couple together. 0:00 /1:17 1× The Spy File That Erased A Wedding Then a researcher transcribes a police report dated 28 October 1915\. According to his transcription, it records only that Sun and Soong visited Umeya’s house, at 350 Hyakunin-chō (the old lot number), on the previous day and left that day. There is no banquet in it, and no guest list. He wonders whether the “wedding reception” is a kindly mis-memory. That is a transcription of a primary record, and I have not seen the original, so I cannot say who is right. Both things may be true. The party may have been held elsewhere, and the police may have followed only as far as the gate. Or the reception may have been a modest tea that later retellings enlarged. L. P. Hartley wrote that the past is a foreign country, and this is a case of two maps of the same country that do not agree on where the border runs. Kazuo Ishiguro built a whole fiction from the gap between what happened and what is remembered; here the gap is a street address. Nagasaki City’s own text adds a shadow. Some Japanese politicians supported Sun while also using the revolution as a tool of Japan’s China policy, whereas Umeya gave without asking for anything back. **Holographic Sensory Cue:** None. I have deliberately not supplied the sound of that evening, because no source supplies it. **Resonance Node:** The area around Ōkubo Station. The exact site of Umeya’s house is still unverified; check with the Shinjuku Historical Museum before you go. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/11/3-5.jpg) ## IV. Two Men and One Chair In 1902 Lafcadio Hearn, known in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo, moved to Nishi-Ōkubo. One magazine says the move was because building work had started around his old house, a claim I would treat with care. Hearn is, strictly speaking, an English-language writer: born on Lefkada, at that time a British-protected Ionian island, to an Irish army surgeon, raised in Dublin and shaped by the Anglophone press of Cincinnati and New Orleans before he landed in Japan. When Tokyo Imperial University wanted someone to teach English literature, it hired him. The year after his move, he left the university. The man who took his place was Natsume Sōseki. Sōseki had spent 1900–1902 in London, in lodgings in Clapham, wretchedly poor and by his own account miserable among the English, a dog thrown in with wolves. He came home in January 1903 and was given Hearn’s lectureship in English literature. The two men, one English-language writer who had fled into Japan and one Japanese scholar sent to England, effectively changed places in the same two years, one in Clapham, one in Ōkubo. In 1904 Hearn joined Waseda University and published *Kwaidan*. On 26 September he died at home in Ōkubo of heart failure, and was buried at Zōshigaya. That same year, in a Cambridge college, M. R. James brought out *Ghost Stories of an Antiquary*, and the two books sit oddly well together: the English ghost story and the Japanese one, both produced by a man who found the dead more companionable than the living. *Kwaidan* retells Japanese tales; it is not Ōkubo folklore, and this should be said clearly. Okubo then was a quiet suburb. Japanese Wikipedia records writers living around it, including Kunikida Doppo, and says that in Sōseki’s *Sanshirō* the home of a character modelled on the physicist Terada Torahiko was placed in Hyakunin-chō. It is only a Wikipedia claim and wants confirming, but it suggests a neighbourhood of desks, lamps and men in studies, not far from one another. 0:00 /1:13 1× The Immigrant Who Saved Japanese Ghosts Today the site of Hearn’s death is marked by a memorial stone at the gate of Ōkubo Elementary School. According to Shinjuku ward, a society of Hearn’s admirers set it up in 1950, a hundred years after his birth. A short walk away is the Koizumi Yakumo Memorial Park, opened in 1993: white Greek columns and a tile picture of Lefkada, because the ward and the island became friendship cities in 1989. If he walked here now he would probably not recognise much. That is my guess, not a record. **Holographic Sensory Cue:** The stone at the school gate; the shadow of white columns on a path in a Tokyo park. **Resonance Node:** The memorial stone outside Ōkubo Elementary School, and the Koizumi Yakumo Memorial Park, both in Ōkubo 1-chōme. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/11/4-5.jpg) ## V. After the Fire In the last months of the war Ōkubo burned. One journalist reports that around ninety per cent of the area was destroyed and only some residents came back; Shinjuku ward’s official history confirms that most of the ward was burned out between May and August 1945\. The exact date of Ōkubo’s raid I still need to check. Afterwards the place filled up with demobilised soldiers and with people from elsewhere. Older residents interviewed in one account recall huts near Ōkubo Station put up by Koreans and Taiwanese who traded in the Shinjuku black markets. In 1950 the Lotte confectionery company moved its factory and head office to Hyakunin-chō. A popular company history says that Lotte’s founder, Shin Kyuk-ho, once sold cut-up American chewing gum from the stations at Takadanobaba and Shin-Ōkubo when he was a student at Waseda. English children of that decade had a phrase for the same American gift, “Got any gum, chum?”, shouted at passing GIs. It is a pleasing parallel, but the source is a compiled history, and should be handled gently. 0:00 /1:28 1× The Fortress Rebuilt By Outsiders Whether Lotte created Korea Town is disputed. One Korean community figure says the idea is only a popular explanation; Japanese Wikipedia says the factory attracted Koreans looking for work. I decline to settle it for them. The factory closed in 2013 and was pulled down in 2017\. Older residents remember the street smelling of sweet gum. The 1983 plan to bring a hundred thousand foreign students to Japan then brought in the language schools. By 2023, foreigners made up more than 30 per cent of residents in some districts around the two stations. Anyone who knows an English high street, Brick Lane, Southall or New Malden, will recognise the pattern: a modest street, a dozen cuisines, and the quiet fact that it is the only place in the city where a lot of people feel at home. On 26 January 2001 on the platform at Shin-Ōkubo, a Korean language-school student named Lee Su-hyun and a photographer named Seki Shirō jumped onto the tracks to save a man who had fallen. All three died. Lee’s parents used the condolence money to set up a scholarship for Asian students in Japan; since 2002 the Japan Foundation has run a youth exchange programme in his name, and each 26 January people still visit the station. According to Forbes Japan, his mother did not sue over the station’s safety equipment. That claim needs careful sourcing before anyone leans on it. The Good Samaritan, in the English tradition, crosses the road; here he went down onto the rails. There have been other noises on this street, too. Around 2013 there were demonstrations in Shin-Ōkubo directed against Koreans, and in 2016 Japan passed its first law against hate speech. I give this a single sentence here, and the facts will need confirming from neutral sources such as NHK and the Ministry of Justice before publication. **Holographic Sensory Cue:** A smell that can no longer be smelled: the sweetness of gum from a factory that is gone. And each 26 January, flowers on the platform. **Resonance Node:** The north end of the platform and the station approach at Shin-Ōkubo (Hyakunin-chō 1-chōme). The exact position of the commemorative plaque still needs checking. The Koma Museum, on the district’s tourist map, is another candidate; I have not investigated it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/2026/11/5-5.jpg) ## Epilogue: The Gate Ōkubo began as a gate. Narrow roads, wooden barriers, a straight line down which you could see anyone coming. The people who lived inside it were posted there, and the people who came afterwards were mostly pushed to the edge of something: musketeers growing azaleas to pay the rent, a teacher eased out of his university, a revolutionary in exile, the burned-out and the migrant student. Each of them made something at the edge, azaleas, ghost stories, films, chewing gum, a street called Korea Town, and the centre came along and claimed it as its own: a ward flower, a national author, a charm that everyone wants. That synthesis is mine, not any single source’s. The memory of the place is not kept in monuments. It is kept in small things that can be carried: an azalea cutting taken to Tatebayashi and brought home, a stone beside a school gate, a charm, a platform. The road is as straight as ever. The gates are gone. Nobody asks at the end of it who you are. ## Sign up to unlock: One day Ititenary, conversational broadcasting ... Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time. ## Accessing the Physical Node - **Kaichū Inari Shrine:** Hyakunin-chō 1-chōme, a few minutes’ walk from JR Shin-Ōkubo Station. The shrine office is open roughly 9:00 to 17:00; check the official site first. The gun-company parade is held in odd-numbered years in September; confirm the next date. - **Azaleas:** at their best from mid-April to early May. - **Koizumi Yakumo Memorial Park and the memorial stone:** Ōkubo 1-chōme, about five minutes’ walk from Higashi-Shinjuku Station on the Toei Ōedo Line. The park is open 8:00 to 18:00 from April to September and 8:00 to 17:00 from October to March. The stone is at the school gate; view it from outside the school and respect the children. - **Shin-Ōkubo Station:** a public place, so please visit quietly. The 26 January commemoration may not be open to the public. - **Still to confirm:** the site of Umeya’s house and the location of the commemorative plaque at Shin-Ōkubo. ### 🇺🇸 US Reader Resources Recommended for US travelers: **Expedia**, **Booking.com**, and **Viator**. ### 🇬🇧 UK Reader Essentials Ad: Trusted for UK travelers: **Tripadvisor**, **GetYourGuide**, and **Saily**. ### 🗺️ Prepara tu viaje Plataformas recomendadas: **Civitatis**, **Booking.com** y **Holafly**. ### 🗺️ Préparez votre voyage Mes outils préférés : **GetYourGuide**, **Booking.com** et **Saily**. ### 🗺️ 旅行の準備に役立つツール 【PR】おすすめのツール：**Klook**, **Booking.com**, **Ubigi**. ### 🇭🇰 香港讀者專屬工具 推介使用：**Klook**, **Agoda** 和 **Airalo**。 ### 🇹🇼 台灣讀者推薦工具 【揭露】在地首選：**KKday**, **Agoda** 和 **Ubigi**。 ### 🗺️ Travel Essentials I use **Booking.com** and **GetYourGuide** for my global adventures. --- ## 💡Q&A ## Core Historical & Geospatial Q&A **Q1 | How is the historical origin of Ōkubo-machi connected to the Tokugawa Shogunate's military defense system in Tokyo? (The Historical Roots of Hyakunincho and the Iga-gumi Teppō Hyakunin-tai)** **Ans:** The naming and spatial layout of Ōkubo-machi and neighboring Hyakunin-chō originate from the early Edo period's military defense strategy. Following the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Iga-gumi Teppō Hyakunin-tai (matchlock gun squad of 100 guards) under Naitō Kiyonari was stationed on the western outskirts of Ōkubo Village to guard the western approaches to Edo Castle. Off duty, these samurai cultivated azaleas (tsutsuji) as a secondary income, transforming Ōkubo into Edo's premier flower-viewing destination. Following administrative shifts through Minami-Toshima and Toyotama districts, the area was formally incorporated as Ōkubo-machi in 1912 before merging into Tokyo City's Yodobashi Ward in 1932. **Q2 | What major urban transformations shifted Ōkubo from an Edo-period azalea sanctuary to a dense suburban district? (Kōbu Railway Construction and the Decline of Azalea Cultivation)** **Ans:** While Ōkubo flourished during the Edo period as a scenic floral retreat for townspeople, Meiji-era urbanization and infrastructure expansion radically altered its land use. The construction of the Kōbu Railway (now the JR Chūō Line) and rapid residential expansion disrupted local horticulture. Around 1903 (Meiji 36), local growers transferred vast quantities of Ōkubo's iconic azaleas to Hibiya Park and other public spaces. Subsequently, Ōkubo transitioned rapidly into a high-density suburban residential and commercial district, becoming fully integrated into Tokyo's expanding urban grid by the 1930s. **Q3 | How did Ōkubo evolve from a feudal samurai guard village into modern Shin-Ōkubo's multicultural enclave? (Demographic Shifts and Cultural Memory in Tokyo's Urban History)** **Ans:** Historically rooted in a hybrid landscape of Edo-period samurai encampments and agricultural hamlets, the area around modern Shin-Ōkubo Station transformed during the late 20th century into Tokyo's most prominent international and multicultural hub. Beginning in the 1980s, an influx of foreign workers and students—followed by the expansion of Korean commercial enterprises, Asian grocery markets, halal food shops, and diverse religious centers—redefined the local spatial culture. This evolution reflects Tokyo's broader historic shift from a feudal military garrison to a modern globalized urban community. --- > Want to follow the historical routes I’ve selected right from your phone as you walk? Click to join the exclusive Google map of historical tours titled "Historical Travel Stories"—import it to Google Maps on your phone with a single tap and let it guide you as you visit each historical site in person. [【Historical Travel Stories】World Deep History Itinerary & Spatial Investigation Map - Google My MapsThis map indexes our boots-on-the-ground historical investigations. Click on any pin to uncover forgotten urban legends, spatial power structures, and deep cultural memory. Unlock full investigations and bilingual audio podcasts by subscribing for free at: lawrencetravelstories.com![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/favicon-001-ce622d4a-0169-425f-8dd3-c7b6c13f1030.ico)Google My Maps![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/thumbnail-28c048bb-074b-48a4-8f0a-531e451c6300.jpg)](https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1JE02pBiyLWkOk-bn7mBh2FgUVE8-dIE&usp=sharing&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) --- #### 📖Reference and Further reading📖 ****First layer – Main sources of literature and institutions:** - [Shinjuku City: About Shinjuku (history, azalea)](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/kanko/file02%5F00002.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Ōkubo District Council booklet: Tsutsuji no Sato Ōkubo, vol. 2 (2017)](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/content/000220207.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Ōkubo District Council leaflet: Azalea walking map (2025)](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/content/000462059.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Shinjuku City: Hyakunin-gumi parade report (2023)](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/whatsnew/pub/2023/0925-01.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Kōhō Shinjuku, 25 Dec 2025: Koizumi Yakumo and Shinjuku](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/content/000444237.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Shinjuku City: Koizumi Yakumo Memorial Park](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/seikatsu/midori01%5F002040.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Shinjuku City: lecture on Umeya Shōkichi (notice)](https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/event/bunka01%5F001188.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Edo-Tokyo Museum archive: 1931 survey of Ōkubo-machi](https://www.edohakuarchives.jp/detail-182804.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [NDL: 1920 map of Ōkubo-machi](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/books/R100000002-I000000564296?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Japan Foundation: Lee Su-hyun programme (2026)](https://www.jpf.go.jp/j/about/press/2025/dl/2025-057.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com),[ (2016)](https://www.jpf.go.jp/j/about/press/2015/dl/2015-050.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Nagasaki City: Sun Yat-sen and Umeya (1)](https://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/nagazine/hakken1109/index3.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com),[ (2)](https://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/nagazine/hakken/hakken1408/index.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com),[ (3)](https://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/nagazine/hakken1109/index.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Nagasaki Prefecture: Umeya Shōkichi](https://www.pref.nagasaki.jp/shared/uploads/2025/03/1742898215.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Shimonoseki City: Lee Su-hyun](https://www.city.shimonoseki.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/61351.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Lotte corporate history](https://www.lotte.co.jp/corporate/sustainability/pdf/sus2019%5F02.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum](https://www.hearn-museum-matsue.jp/english.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tokyo National Museum exhibition report on Sun and Umeya](https://www.museum.or.jp/report/47?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ****The second layer – secondary academic materials:** - [Springer chapter on Hearn](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-9853-9%5F11?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Japan Times on Hearn](https://japantimes.co.jp/life/2004/09/26/general/disillusioned-bard-of-a-bygone-japan?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Bunshun: Murohashi, Shin-Ōkubo (excerpt)](https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/43106?page=2&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Bunshun: foreign residents in Shin-Ōkubo](https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/63800?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Toyo Keizai: Ōkubo and Shin-Ōkubo stations](https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/673357?display=b&ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Forbes Japan: Lee Su-hyun's mother](https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/35391?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Higuchi, hate speech law (conference abstract)](https://jss-sociology.org/research/90/file/550.pdf?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ****Third layer – Supplementary information:** - [Kaichū Inari Shrine: history](https://www.kaichuinari-jinja.or.jp/about.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Rurubu on the shrine](https://rurubu.jp/andmore/article/24809?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tabi-mag on the Hyakunin-bansho and shrine](https://tabi-mag.jp/tk0245/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Wakaraku on Iga-gumi](https://intojapanwaraku.com/culture/276455/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Wikipedia: 百人町](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BE%E4%BA%BA%E7%94%BA?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Wikipedia: 大久保町 (東京府)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E4%B9%85%E4%BF%9D%E7%94%BA%5F%28%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E5%BA%9C%29?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Wikipedia: 大久保 (新宿区)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E4%B9%85%E4%BF%9D%5F%28%E6%96%B0%E5%AE%BF%E5%8C%BA%29?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Wikipedia: 梅屋庄吉](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A2%85%E5%B1%8B%E5%BA%84%E5%90%89?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Weblio: Ōkubo-machi](https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%A4%A7%E4%B9%85%E4%BF%9D%E7%94%BA+%28%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E5%BA%9C%29?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Historical Administrative Boundaries dataset: Ōkubo-machi](https://geoshape.ex.nii.ac.jp/city/resource/13B0080008.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Tokyo Kurenaidan: police-record transcription](http://www.tokyo-kurenaidan.com/sun-yat-sen-tokyo6.htm?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Blog: Ōkubo Hyakunin-chō studio](https://ameblo.jp/sandal-nyaago/entry-12604003209.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Gentosha GO: Shin-Ōkubo history](https://gentosha-go.com/articles/-/28219?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Shūkan Josei Prime: Hearn's Ōkubo](https://www.jprime.jp/articles/print/40909?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [The Shashi: Lotte history](https://the-shashi.com/tse/lotte/chapter-1/?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Akahata (JCP): 2013 demonstrations](https://www.jcp.or.jp/akahata/aik13/2013-05-20/2013052015%5F01%5F1.html?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) - [Chinanews (1914 date, flagged)](https://www.chinanews.com/gn/news/2008/05-06/1240374.shtml?ref=lawrencetravelstories.com) ### --- [Captivated by this history? Enter your email now to instantly unlock a one-day walking itinerary personally researched by Lawrence. ☘️](#/portal/signup/free) --- 💡 Where is your next destination? [Tokyo Historical Travel Stories: Castles, Old Towns & LegendsExplore Tokyo through historical travel stories and guides. Discover castles, old towns, rivers and local legends across the country.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/Gemini_Generated_Image_gpc0phgpc0phgpc0---Edited-30a29d0e-23ba-4673-ac0c-17e74f682f75.png)Historical Travel StoriesLawrence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/Gemini_Generated_Image_6yc0s16yc0s16yc0-210994fd-5bb8-40db-9d5c-f8a9d709c260.png)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/tokyo-dong-jing/) [Japan Historical Travel Stories: Castles, Old Towns & LegendsExplore Japan through historical travel stories and guides. Discover castles, old towns, rivers and local legends across the country.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/Gemini_Generated_Image_gpc0phgpc0phgpc0---Edited-8f2e0c22-abab-43ec-82dd-253d4bac1166.png)Historical Travel StoriesLawrence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1493976040374-85c8e12f0c0e-f8add3e4-31aa-4eb9-9b3a-951937329226.jpg)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/japanri-ben/) [Where to Go: Historical Travel in Japan, Hong Kong & TaiwanDiscover where to go for historical travel. Explore stories and guides from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, more destinations like the UK and Korea coming soon.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/icon/Gemini_Generated_Image_gpc0phgpc0phgpc0---Edited-63a47c07-a971-441d-8f7d-03a8535cca55.png)Historical Travel StoriesLawrence![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/5d/f65d15e6-b5c3-4e06-9142-bd894389f4bd/content/images/thumbnail/LOGO-WITHOUT-BACKGROUND-1-bd5fc80b-649e-4568-acec-04c3cf596fe9.png)](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/where-to-go-xiang-qu-na-li/) --- *©* [*Historical Travel Stories*](https://www.lawrencetravelstories.com/)