FREQUENTLY ASKED TAISHOKOTO QUESTIONS

B.  What was Mr. Morita’s travel like before and after his trips?
Did he sell Min-teki or Yo-kin before his trip?

People who had gone abroad in the Meiji era were mainly emigrants and a few businessmen.  There were exceptions to the above categories.  There were people who traveled because they were rich or ambitious.  Mr. Morita must have met with these two conditions at the time.  Author Mr. Rikuro Hiyama wrote in his book, "Gakki Sangyo" (the music industry) in 1990 as follows. "He (Mr. Morita) might have gotten much profits by producing and selling a lot of Min-tekis (a kind of Chinese bamboo flute) and great ambitions to study foreign musical instruments, gain knowledge of music and being able to introduce an instrument and musical knowledge to Japan," thus realizing his dream. 

●3. "The diary of Ohsu prosperity" "Ohsu hanjyo-ki (in Japanese)"（named  provisionally）written around 1955 by Mr.Tokusaburo Hayakawa the owner of notions named "Daimon-ya" where it was on the Nioumon street wrote  interesting another opinion on it. "I lent some part of my shop space to two brothers  from around 22nd,23rd of Meiji(1889,1890 ) in around 30th of Meiji(1897) . The younger brother aged 18 or 19 years old at that time was good at performing "Min-teki". The elder brother opened his printing shop at Minami-Ohtu-cho in Nagoya after some years had passed, but I did not know where his younger brother had been at that time. After some years had passed, he changed his name to Goro Morita from Nisaburo Kawaguchi and put on sale the new simple musical instrument with steel strings named （#16.）"Yo-kin"with patent. He succeeded to sell enough to gain enough profits to gain much profits to go to London.  Goro Morita invented the taishokoto after he returned"

★The diary is for one’s private use. Therefore, we can not have any comment in this respect.

#16.Yo-kin

Here’s a question worth pondering.  Was  Morita-ya inn in existence at the time both brothers managed the printing shop at Daimon-ya?　A big fire broke out at the back of Ohsu-kannonn temple and 134 houses around it were burned  in 25th of Meiji (1892). There is a possibility that Morita-ya inn might have been burnt too.  We do not know the fact but Mr. Goro Morita was 18 years old at that time. If this thought is correct, they might have started the print shop business because his Morita-ya had burnt.

It has been told that Mr. Morita ◆１.had gone abroad supported by Japan’s Prime Minister for the purpose of studying Western music and musical instruments of other country. Then upon his return, be able to infuse his learning into the Japanese culture.　Ohsu town was not only the center of amusement but also the center of political movement in Nagoya and Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito often came to Nagoya at that time so that they might have had the opportunity to meet with each other.

There are many opinions regarding Mr. Morita’s travel dates.  No.1 is around 1897 (around 30th year of Meiji); No.2 is 1899 (32nd year of Meiji - as it is said that he went abroad at age 25); No. 3 is 1901 (34th year of Meiji); and No. 4 is 1906 (39th year of Meiji).  His length of stay overseas is said to be almost 2 or 3 years.

According to the diary of Mr.Hayakawa owner of Daimon-ya, we can not deny the opinion No.4 that is 1906(39th year of Meiji).　The reason why is that we could find  musical instrument calendar showing that "Yo-kin"（Mr.Goro Morita’s invention） was put on sale in 1900(33rd of Meiji) and about 6 years are enough to save money by selling Yo-kin and go abroad.　

It is said that he had gone to Europe via the United States. As steamer on North American line was more popular than South-east one to Europe at that time, we think it is right.  He might have seen many foreign musical instruments while traveling.

As our purpose is not to research and fix the date and year when he went abroad and came back to Japan we would only like to show you that there are a lot of opinions regarding his oversea travel.