Student Life and Hakozaki
The work that went into this short piece, co-written and researched with Itoh Kaori, was part of my work as a member of the Kyushu University Centenary History research project from 2015 to 2016.
We were interested in the history that brought the residents of Hakozaki, formerly a fishing village on the outskirts of Hakata, into contact with the students of Kyushu Imperial University on its founding in 1911. Many Kyudai students lived in lodgings in Hakozaki, and the economy and culture of the neighbourhood changed as a consequence.
With the imminent closing of Kyushu University’s Hakozaki campus in 2018, our work took on a somewhat bittersweet quality, as we wondered what the future of the neighbourhood would look like without Kyudai students as part of it. We spent time doing oral history interviews, reading old student newspapers and magazines, and looking at maps like this one, tracking the changing spaces and places of Hakozaki as a “student town.”
The piece was published as a column in the edited volume Hakata Bay and Hakozaki in Asia, edited by the Kyushu Historical Society and published by Bensei Shuppan in 2018.
“Along the shores of Hakata Bay, port towns once served as centers of international trade linking Japan with other countries throughout the ancient and medieval periods. In the early modern era, the area became home to merchant ships active across Japan, and in modern times it developed as an academic center with the establishment of Kyushu Imperial University. Throughout the years, the Hakata Bay region, where people, goods, and information have continually circulated, has changed its character in response to each historical period.
Focusing on Hakozaki, a place with multiple and overlapping roles - as a religious center, port town, fishing village, post-station, and university town -this study examines the historical development and distinctive features of Hakata Bay and its coastal areas as a point of connection between Japan and Asia.”
