Tannaker Buhicrosan

Tannaker Buhicrosan
Drawing of Buhicrosan, 1885 (Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News)
Born	Frederik Eduard Marie Martinus Blekman (1839-02-25)25 February 1839 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died	10 August 1894(1894-08-10) (aged 55) Lewisham, London, United Kingdom
Occupation(s)	Translator, Circus Owner
Known for	Japanese Village, Knightsbridge
Spouse	Ruth Otake Buhicrosan ​ ​ (m. 1879)​

Tannaker Buhicrosan (タナカー・ブヒクロサン) (25 February 1839 – 10 August 1894), christened Frederik Eduard Marie Martinus Blekman, and also known as Furederikku Burekkuman, was a Dutch translator, international businessman and promoter best known for operating the Japanese Village exhibition erected in Knightsbridge from 1885 to 1887.

Early years

Buhicrosan was born in Amsterdam on 25 February 1839, the son of Susanna Catharina née van der Hulst (born 1814) and Eduard Matthijs Nicolaas Blekman (born 1815). Travelling first via Australia and New Zealand, Blekman arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1859, living among the foreign community in Nagasaki. Still known as Blekman at the time, he was hired first by the British Legation as a Dutch translator in 1861 for the Shimonoseki area and later to represent the French in talks with the second Japanese Ambassadorial European dispatch in 1864–1866, as Dutch was the language the Japanese used to negotiate treaties with Westerners at this time. However, he caused financial strife between the French and Shogunal authorities by inflating the asking price for French warships to divert the excess payment to his trading company and was dismissed as their intermediary Dutch interpreter.

With a warrant out for his arrest in Japan he fled to San Francisco and began anew, putting together his first entertainment troupe in 1867, eventually going on tour. By 1871 he was in Britain as the "Professional Manager of a Japanese Troupe", lodging at Luton in Bedfordshire with and nine other Japanese people. Capitalising on the craze for "all things Japan", he primarily focused on promoting his "Japanese Entertainment" performances (popularised by the San Francisco Japanese community), taking the moniker Tannaker Buhicrosan (perhaps part of Japanese Expat pidgin.) Buhicrosan began to sell "Japanese products" such as umbrellas and began to demonstrate real Japanese craftsmen and their works in the show in mock-up traditional "Old Japan" style houses (a popular 19th century infantile notion of Japan) with food stalls and another "Japanese" temple attached. In 1874 Buhicrosan moved to London. In 1878 he appeared in court in Southampton in Hampshire, charged with obtaining money under false pretences, but was acquitted. In 1879 he married a British-Japanese woman, Ruth Otake Buhicrosan (1851–1914), settling in Hither Lane, Lewisham, London, where they had 10 children. After performances of his Japanese Troupe, Buhicrosan often gave Japanese objects to each person who attended. He sometimes offered his entertainments to workhouses free of charge, and he was known to contribute money to disaster appeals such as the Tay Bridge disaster. He stated that the goal of the Village was to raise money for a mission, led by his Japanese Christian wife, Otkesan, to help women in Japan.

Japanese Village, Knightsbridge

Japanese Village in Knightsbridge, 1886

In premises in Milton Street, Finsbury, in December 1883 Buhicrosan 'set up The Japanese Native Village Exhibition and Trading Company Limited with a number of associates, including Cornelius B. Pare, a Japan and China merchant in the city, Ambrose Austin, a concert agent, and John Miles, a Wardour Street printer. ... Buhicrosan was to receive a salary of at least £1,000' from his new trading venture. Buhicrosan in January 1885 opened the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge, London, at Humphreys' Hall, attracting great success with 250,000 visitors in the first months, the popularity of which was boosted by Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera hit, The Mikado, which opened in March 1885. The wood and paper village burned down in May, causing surrounding property damage and killing a Japanese wood carver. The troupe had already been engaged to appear at the 1885 International Hygiene Exhibition in Berlin's Exhibition Park. In December 1885 the village reopened in London with 'several streets of shops ... two temples and various free-standing idols, and a pool spanned by a rustic bridge'. The village employed over 100 people, such as Japanese craftsmen, performers and artisans in London. The novelty had worn off on the public by 1887, and the village was closed in June.

Last years and death

Earlier in 1887, Buhicrosan had given up his stake in the village, but he ran other Japanese villages and troupes around England until 1890. He died in 1894 in Lewisham.