Soda Kaichi (曽田 嘉伊智, October 20, 1867 – March 28, 1962) was a Japanese Protestant missionary and social worker.

[3][4] He and his wife are the only Japanese people to be buried in Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery, now in Seoul, South Korea.

[1] At age 20, he moved to Nagasaki and worked as a coal miner and then elementary school teacher.

[5] He also visited Hong Kong and China; during his travels he reportedly met and was inspired by Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.[1][2][5] Soda professed to being a heavy drinker around this time.

[1][2][5] He reportedly befriended prominent Korean activists at the YMCA, including the future President of South Korea Syngman Rhee.

[3][1][2] Soda petitioned their release to the Governor-General of Chōsen Terauchi Masatake and the Japanese court in Korea.

[2] During the 1919 March First Movement protests, he provided medical aid to and advocated for the release of Korean protestors.

[2] Soda's sympathetic leanings to Korea invited scrutiny from other Japanese people, who reportedly viewed him as a traitor.

[6] He and his wife received poor treatment from Japanese authorities; he was once arrested because a child in the orphanage had participated in the Korean independence movement.

Please use this money on the orphans.In 1943, Soda was invited to a Japanese church in Wonsan, Kankyōnan-dō (South Hamgyong Province).

[2] In October 1947, Soda led the Japanese community in Wonsan to Seoul and began arranging for their return to Japan.

[2][1][7] Han, who was then running the Youngnak Borinwon orphanage, served as Soda's guarantor for the trip.

They managed to secure a plane for him; on May 6, 1961, Soda returned via Gimpo Airport to Korea,[7] where he would spend the rest of his life.

[4] South Korean leader Park Chung Hee and Japanese Foreign Minister Zentarō Kosaka sent flowers to the ceremony.

[5] Soda is remembered fondly in South Korea, and is often called "father to Korean orphans".

[1][5][9] On April 28, 1962,[7] he became the first Japanese person to be awarded the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit.