Travel to Japan Tip | Planning your trip
Higuchi Ichiyo and the Japanese 5000 Yen note
As you might have known, new Japanese Yen notes were issued beginning on Nov 1, 2004.
The new bills are for 1000 Yen, 5000 Yen and 10000 Yen. All three are smaller than the former ones. The portrait printed on the new 10000 note is of Fukuzawa Yukichi, an educator who had a great influence on the Modernization of Japan. The portrait is the same as the former 10000 Yen.
The portrait for the new 1000 Yen is of Noguchi Hideo, a bacteriologist and physician. And the portrait of the new 5000 Yen is Higuchi Ichiyo, the first professional female writer in Japan.
I am personally so pleased that she was selected for the new note. Although she was born in a Samurai Family, she had to suffer from poverty, after her father died. She was a woman who had a Samurai spirit, she never relied on anybody, but she also struggled to support her family (her mother and her sister) all by herself.
As a writer, she had a real talent and wrote great works, but, unfortunately, died at the age of 24 due to pulmonary tuberculosis.
Higuchi had lived in Ryusen, near Minowa and there is a tiny museum called the Higuchi Ichiyo Memorial Museum At the museum, there is many of Ichiyo 's diary's exhibited and it touched my heart as I found out how much she suffered from money problems, but never quit writing, until her death.
Not only did she live a tragic life, her literary works are great. I like her artistic and poetic writing very much and was very moved when I read her most famous work called, Takekurabe.
Every time I see the 5000 Yen note I think of Ichiyo-san's life story.
Higuchi Ichiyou Memorial Museum
3-18-4 Ryusen Taito-ku Tokyo Japan
Admission: 130 Yen
Open: 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM (16:30)
Closed: Monday. (also Tuesday, if Monday falls on a National Holiday)
and at the end of the Year. ( Dec 29 - Jan 3)
A 10 minute walk from Minowa Subway Station (Hibiya Line)
Here is a map, sorry only in Japanese...
