Lot 135: Where Chinatown’s History Keeps ReturningA hospital, a theater, a consulate, and now a park

Yamashita-cho Park in Chinatown occupies what was Lot 135 of the foreign settlement. It was the first land leased by Chinese residents, and later the site of a theater and the Qing consulate.

Lot numbers from the port’s opening

Yamashita-cho still uses nearly the same lot numbers as when the port opened. The settlement ran from Lot 1 at the British pier (today’s Osanbashi) to near Motomachi crossing, and lots 111 to 192, the diagonal block, are today’s Chinatown. Yamashita-cho Park, at 135-1, was Lot 135.

The first land leased by Chinese residents

In 1862 the area that is now Chinatown had been laid out but had few buildings. The first lease recorded there, in January 1863, was 480 tsubo at Lot 135 taken by Tongji Hospital, run by the Chinese association to give relief and treatment to the poor.

The Kaihoro theater

Around 1868, the Kaihoro, a theater with a restaurant, opened at Lot 135, before the Gaiety Theatre at Lot 68 (1870). It staged Chinese opera with star actors from China, Japanese acrobatics and Western shows, and was loved by Chinese, Western and Japanese audiences alike. It even appears in ukiyo-e prints of Yokohama’s sights.

The Qing consulate and the earthquake

The Kaihoro closed around 1878, and in 1883 the Qing consulate moved to Lot 135. Until the 1911 revolution it was the Qing consulate-general, then that of the Republic of China, representing Chinese residents of the Yokohama, Tsukiji and Hakodate settlements.

The building collapsed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923. The consulate returned in 1925 but moved again seven years later, and the lot’s later use through the war years is unclear.

Lot 135 becomes a park

In 1960 Lot 135 became Yamashita-cho Park, a children’s park. When it was redeveloped in 2000, an arbor named Kaihotei was built in memory of the Kaihoro.