How Yokohama Chinatown BeganFrom a patch of farmland to Japan’s largest Chinatown

Yokohama Chinatown is famous for food today. But its story began somewhere that had nothing to do with cooking.

Only Chinatown’s streets run diagonally

Look at a map of the area and you’ll notice something odd. The surrounding streets form a neat grid, but Chinatown’s streets are turned about 45 degrees.

The reason lies in its past. Before the port opened, the area was farmland called Yokohama Shinden. Today’s Minamimon Silk Road, Kaikomichi and Choanmichi are said to be remnants of the paths between its rice fields. The field layout became the street layout, so the angle survived.

Good to know Chinatown’s diagonal streets are traces of the old paths between rice fields.

The first arrivals were not cooks

When Yokohama opened as a port in 1859, many Western merchants arrived. With them came Chinese who had worked for Western firms in Hong Kong, Guangdong and Shanghai. They spoke Western languages and could communicate with Japanese in writing using Chinese characters, so they brokered the silk and tea trade.

They were called compradors (baiben in Japanese) and played an essential role, negotiating contracts between Western merchants and Japanese traders. Most came from Guangdong.

They gradually settled in part of the former Yokohama Shinden next to the foreign settlement. By the early Meiji era the Chinese population reached about 1,000, and with the building of Kanteibyo and a Chinese association hall, a Chinese quarter took shape.

Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki compared

Japan’s “three great Chinatowns” are Yokohama, Kobe’s Nankinmachi and Nagasaki’s Shinchi. All are port towns, but each began differently.

Yokohama began in 1859 with Chinese from Western firms in Hong Kong, Guangdong and Shanghai who came as interpreters and brokers. One study suggests that the Kanteibyo temple, built in the settlement in the early Meiji era, drew Chinese residents to live together in this area.

Nagasaki’s Shinchi grew from trade with China that continued during Japan’s isolation in the Edo period, on land reclaimed for warehouses for Chinese ships. Kobe’s Nankinmachi developed as a shopping street west of the former foreign settlement.

They differ greatly in size: about 600 shops in Yokohama, just over 100 in Kobe, and about 40 in Nagasaki.

A food district from the late Meiji era

Chinese restaurants were not the main feature at first. In 1887 there were 10 Chinese restaurants, only fourth by type of business. Mantinro, a long-established restaurant still operating today, was founded in 1892.

When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, about a third of Yokohama’s Chinese returned to China.

Five years later, in 1899, the foreign settlement was abolished, and restrictions were placed on the jobs foreigners living outside it could hold. From around 1897 onward, the area gradually became a district of restaurants. A 1909 book introduced four, including Heichinro, as “famous Cantonese restaurants.”

Destroyed twice: earthquake and air raid

The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923 devastated the district, full of old brick buildings. Kanteibyo collapsed too. Many Chinese died, and survivors fled to Kobe, Osaka, Guangdong and Shanghai; According to the official Chinatown site, Yokohama’s Chinese population fell from 5,721 to 434 after the quake.

Then, in the 1945 Yokohama air raid, the district burned to the ground again. Yet because Chinatown had ingredients and cooking skills, soup kitchens and businesses in barracks started right after the war. The most common job among Chinese residents just after the war was cook. Kanteibyo was rebuilt in 1947 (the Yokohama Chinatown official site gives 1946).

1923Great Kanto Earthquake; the area is reduced to rubble and Kanteibyo collapses
1925Second Kanteibyo rebuilt
1945Air raid destroys the district and the second Kanteibyo
1947Third Kanteibyo completed

The day “Nankinmachi” became “Chukagai”

For a long time the area was called Nankinmachi.

The name changed with the first paifang gate, the original Zenrinmon, built in February 1955. The word “Chukagai” (Chinatown) written on it made the name stick.

Starting as farmland, home to brokers, then a town of cooks, surviving earthquake and war, it is now Japan’s largest Chinatown with more than 600 shops.

Next time you visit Before walking through Zenrinmon, compare the angle of the streets with those around it.

Sources

Yokohama Chinatown official site: Then and now, part 1 (Japanese)
Yokohama Chinatown official site: How it became a gourmet town (Japanese)
Yokohama Chinatown official site: Why are Chinatown’s streets diagonal? (with Yokohama Archives of History) (Japanese)
Yokohama Chinatown official site: Tailors, barbers and cooks (Japanese)
Yokohama Chinatown official site: Then and now, part 2 (Japanese)
Yokohama Official Visitors’ Guide: Chinatown as a labyrinth (Japanese)
Chen T. & Zhang Y., National Museum of Ethnology (Japanese)
Shacho Meikan: Mantinro (Japanese)
City of Yokohama: Kanteitan and Kanteibyo (Japanese)
Nippon Tabi Magazine: Yokohama Chinatown (Japanese)
Nippon Tabi Magazine: Japan’s three Chinatowns (Japanese)
Suehiro, T.: Formation of Yokohama Chinatown, University of Tsukuba (Japanese)

This article is an English edition of the Japanese original.