38Talk:

Ger Tysk has been reporting on FB about her visit to Japan. There is a big musical production of the life of John Manjiro in Tokyo right now. John Manjiro was a shipwrecked fisherman who was rescued by a Massachusetts whaleship in 1841. He's quite the historical celebrity in Japan and also in the little town of Fairhaven across the bay from New Bedford. The house where he lived briefly has been converted into a small museum... it's just up the street from the lot where Joshua Slocum re-built the Spray before his solo circum-navigation over fifty years later.

This musical production is in direct competition with the musical "The Lion King" so it's big money and "family fun". Digging around the Internet and searching on the title "John Manjiro's Dream" in Japanese  ジョン万次郎の夢  got me to the theater's main page for this musical here. The links to the story, characters, image gallery, and history timeline are especially fun. And here's an entertaining video! Apparently this is a revival of a production which was first staged in Japan forty years ago.

-FER
PS: Ger has explained that they call him "John Manjiro" in Japan and the formal Japanese name "Nakahama Manjiro" is not common.
 

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