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The Namazu, also called the Onamazu, is a creature in Japanese mythology and folktales. The Namazu is a gigantic catfish said to cause earthquakes and tremors. Living in the mud under the Japanese isles, the Namazu is guarded by the protector god Kashima, who restrains the catfish using the <i>kaname-ishi</i> rock. Whenever Kashima lets his guard down, Namazu thrashes about and causes violent earthquakes.<br/><br/> The Namazu rose to new fame and popularity after the Ansei great earthquakes that happened near Edo in 1855. This lead to the Namazu being worshipped as a god of world rectification (<i>yonaoshi daimyojin</i>), sent by the gods to correct some of the imbalances in the world.<br/><br/> Catfish woodblock prints known as <i>namazu-e</i> became their own popular genre within days of the earthquake. They were usually unsigned and often depicted scenes of a namazu or many namazu atoning for their deeds. They were quickly squashed by the Tokugawa Shogunate, the prints censored and destroyed, with only a handful surviving to this day.
Utagawa Yoshitaki ( April 13, 1841 – June 28, 1899), also known as Ichiyosai Yoshitaki, was a designer of ukiyo-e style Japanese woodblock prints. He was active in both Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka and was also a painter and newspaper illustrator.<br/><br/> Yoshitaki was a student of Utagawa Yoshiume (1819–1879). He became the most prolific designer of woodblock prints in Osaka from the 1860s to the 1880s, producing more than 1,200 different prints, almost all of kabuki actors.
Born in Orange County, North Carolina, July 14, 1853, Marion Alonzo Cheek graduated in medicine from medical school before being recruited by the Presbyterian missionary Daniel McGilvary to work with the protestant mission in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, in 1874.<br/><br/> Cheek's relationship with McGilvary and the mission soon turned sour, but Cheek - who was more interested in making money and enjoying the good life - soon set himself up as a businessman in the local lumber business and established a succesful medical practice. He resigned from the Presbyterian Mission in 1886, but despite - perhaps because of - establishing a personal harem of around 20 northern Thai women - he incurred increasingly serious debts, becoming bankrupt in 1893.<br/><br/> He became ill with malaria and dysentry in 1895 and took ship for Hong Kong and treatment in June of that year, but he died of an abcess of the liver while still in Thai waters off Si Chang Island, July 4, 1895.
He was the son of Anna Leonowens of Anna and the King of Siam fame and Thomas Leon Owens, a civilian clerk, whom she married in India in 1849. He was born at Lynton near Port Gregory in Western Australia and went to Siam (now Thailand) with his mother in 1862.<br/><br/> He was raised in the Siamese royal palace and was schooled by his mother alongside the royal children until he returned to Europe to complete his education. In 1881, at the age of 27, he returned to Siam and was granted a commission of Captain in the Royal Cavalry by King Chulalongkorn.<br/><br/> Leonowens in 1884 left the military and entered the teak trade. He went on in 1905 to found the Louis Thomas Leonowens Company which became Louis T. Leonowens Ltd, an international trading company. This company remains a leading exporter of Malayan hardwoods and an importer of building materials and general merchandise.<br/><br/> Leonowens became less involved in the operations of the company after 1906 and left Siam for the last time in 1913. Leonowens died in 1919 during the global influenza pandemic. He is buried, with his second wife, in Brompton Cemetery, London.
Seoul is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of more than 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the developed world. The Seoul Capital Area, which includes the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province, is the world's second largest metropolitan area with over 25.6 million people, home to over half of South Koreans along with 632,000 international residents.<br/><br/>During the Korean War, Seoul changed hands between the Chinese-backed North Korean forces and the UN-backed South Korean forces several times, leaving the city heavily damaged after the war. One estimate of the extensive damage states that after the war, at least 191,000 buildings, 55,000 houses, and 1,000 factories lay in ruins. In addition, a flood of refugees had entered Seoul during the war, swelling the population of Seoul and its metropolitan area to an estimated 2.5 million, more than half of them homeless.
T. Enami (Enami Nobukuni, 1859 – 1929) was the trade name of a celebrated Meiji period photographer. The T. of his trade name is thought to have stood for Toshi, though he never spelled it out on any personal or business document.<br/><br/> Born in Edo (now Tokyo) during the Bakumatsu era, Enami was first a student of, and then an assistant to the well known photographer and collotypist, Ogawa Kazumasa. Enami relocated to Yokohama, and opened a studio on Benten-dōri (Benten Street) in 1892. Just a few doors away from him was the studio of the already well known Tamamura Kozaburō. He and Enami would work together on at least three related projects over the years.<br/><br/> Enami became quietly unique as the only photographer of that period known to work in all popular formats, including the production of large-format photographs compiled into what are commonly called "Yokohama Albums". Enami went on to become Japan's most prolific photographer of small-format images such as the stereoview and glass lantern-slides. The best of these were delicately hand-tinted.