Japan's Melon Bread Origin and Nationality in Meiji Japan

Photo credit [CC BY 2.0] to Hideto KOBAYASHI

There's a great article in The Armenian Mirror-Spectator about the origins of the "Melon-pan" (メロンパン {meron-pan}), sometimes called a "Sunrise" (サンライズ {sunraizu}) in some parts of the nation, that is:

• ubiquitous in Japan
• found in every single convenience store, bakery, and anywhere serving edibles for a train commute in Japan.

Ōkura

Sagoyan

Introduced to Japan during the Meiji era by a talented Armenian  baker, イワン・サゴヤン {Iwan SAGOYAN} (Hovhannes "Ivan" Ghevenian Sagoyan), who was discovered by Baron Kihachirō Ōkura (大倉喜八郎 {ŌKURA Kihachirō}) while working at the New Hotel Harbin in Manchuria, China. Poached from China, the baker invented the original versions of the famous candy bread while working at the Imperial Hotel (帝国ホテル {Teikoku Hoteru}), basing it on the French galette (ガレット {garetto}) pastry bread using Russian techniques for fusion of Vienna/German & French breads.

The article does mention something about Japanese nationality which while not outright misinformation, can be easily misunderstood:

Sagoyan married Tsuruko (Tsuru) Sagoyan (1888-1962), neé Miakozawa [sic] (都沢つる {MIYAKOZAWA Tsuru}), and had three daughters. They did not have Japanese citizenship, as according to [Meiji] Japanese law, children born to Japanese and foreigners could not be Japanese citizens.

While it is true that in this particular case, Sagoyan's children probably could not have acquired Japanese citizenship by birth under the Meiji Constitution's Nationality Laws, there are many examples of foreigner immigrants to Japan under the Meiji Constitution whose children became Japanese Subjects ("citizens" in non absolute monarchy terminology).

The Meiji era allowed foreigners to become Japanese, but like much of the world at the time, Japanese law was patriarchal. In the case of … children born to Japanese and foreigners could not be Japanese citizens, this was true only if the father is non-Japanese.

If the male is Japanese and married to a foreigner, OR the originally non-Japanese male acquires Japanese nationality (either through naturalization or being adopted into a Japanese family register), then the children will be born with Japanese subject status. Additionally, foreign women could become Japanese by marrying a Japanese man ("jus matrimonii"), and a Japanese woman could lose Japanese nationality by marrying a non-Japanese man!

Japanese nationality law didn't become fully compliant with United Nations' (CEDAW) until 1985, at which time the law was re-written to allow inheritance of Japanese nationality at birth from either the father or the mother.

"The man who's the root of
Japanese Hotel Bread"

Sadly, during World War 2, similar to naturalized Japanese subject Jessie "Rita" Cowan's story, Ivan's children were discriminated against by Japanese children based on their appearances — being called names like 「鬼畜米英」 {"Kichiku-beiei"} ("American/British Devil/Savages") — even though by nationality they were considered to be Soviet which was not considered to be an enemy state: they had a neutrality pact with the Empire of Japan until the very last days of the war. The discrimination forced the family to flee and seek refuge in 軽井沢 {Karuizawa} in 長野県 {Nagano-ken} (Nagano Prefecture). The discrimination continued for a bit from the Allied forces after Japan surrendered, as the American military's GHQ which occupied Japan at the time associated the family with the enemy Soviet Union — ironically because they did not have Japanese nationality.

Much like Nicholas Zappetti and other trailblazers that made non-Japanese food popular in Japan, his name lives on in Japan in the form of a chain bakery that bears his name: Artisan Boulanger Monsieur Ivan (ムッシュイワン). And even today, it teaches the young how to make bread, just as how Ivan Sagoyan taught the next generation of Japanese bakers.