Editing Lafcadio Hearn (section)

===Later life in Japan===
In 1890, Hearn went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly terminated. It was in Japan, however, that he found a home and his greatest inspiration. Through the good will of [[Basil Hall Chamberlain]], Hearn gained a teaching position during the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in [[Matsue, Shimane|Matsue]], a town in western Japan on the coast of the [[Sea of Japan]]. During his fifteen-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married [[Koizumi Setsuko]], the daughter of a local [[samurai]] family, with whom he had four children: Kazuo, Iwao, Kiyoshi, and Suzuko.<ref>Kazuo, Iwao, Kiyoshi, and Suzuko: Katharine Chubbuck, 'Hearn, (Patricio) Lafcadio Carlos (1850–1904)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004</ref> He became a [[Japanese citizen]], assuming the legal name Koizumi Yakumo in 1896 after accepting a teaching position in Tokyo; Koizumi is [[Mukoyōshi|his wife's surname]] and Yakumo is from ''yakumotatsu'', a poetic modifier word (''[[makurakotoba]]'') for [[Izumo Province]], which he translated<ref>In a September 1895 letter to Ellwood Hendrick.<!-- The date on the letter does not explicitly contradict our text, as Hearn says that as of September 1895 he is "waiting" to have his name legally changed. --></ref> as "the Place of the Issuing of Clouds". After having been Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and, later on, [[Herbert Spencer|Spencerian]], he became [[Japanese Buddhism|Buddhist]].<ref>Norman Foerster (1934), ''American Poetry and Prose'', Revised and Enlarged Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 1149.</ref>

During late 1891, Hearn obtained another teaching position in [[Kumamoto]], at the Fifth High Middle School (a predecessor of [[Kumamoto University]]), where he spent the next three years and completed his book ''[[Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (first series)|Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan]]'' (1894). In October 1894, he secured a journalism job with the English-language newspaper ''Kobe Chronicle'', and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching [[English literature]] at [[Tokyo Imperial University]], a job he had until 1903. In 1904, he was a lecturer at [[Waseda University]].

While in Japan, he encountered the art of [[ju-jutsu]] which made a deep impression upon him: "Hearn, who encountered judo in Japan at the end of the nineteenth century, contemplated its concepts with the awed tones of an explorer staring about him in an extraordinary and undiscovered land. "What Western brain could have elaborated this strange teaching, never to oppose force by force, but only direct and utilize the power of attack; to overthrow the enemy solely through his own strength, to vanquish him solely by his own efforts? Surely none! The Western mind appears to work in straight lines; the Oriental, in wonderful curves and circles."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Law|first1=Mark|title=The Pyjama Game: A Journey Into Judo|date=2007|publisher=Aurum Press Ltd|location=London|page=41|edition=2008|url=http://thepyjamagame.com/}}</ref> When he was teaching at the Fifth High Middle School, the headmaster was founder of Judo [[Kano Jigoro]].