A large statue honoring Tei Junsoku, a Confucian scholar around the turn of the eighteenth century in the Ryukyu Kingdom Era, stands in the court of the former Nago City Hall. He was once the Nago-wekata, the chief of Nago.

Tei Junsoku, son of diplomat Taiso, was born on October 28, 1663 in Mawashi Village, then on the outskirts of Naha. He learned Confucian studies from scholar Tei Koryo of Kume Village where a special community of Chinese lived. Junsoku became chief of Kohagura Hamlet near Naha when he was just fifteen years old. From the age of twenty, he went four times to Foochow in China for advanced civil studies and to gain knowledge as other ambitious Okinawan people did. From his travels between 1683 and 1698, he brought back several valuable books on the prevailing Chinese sciences and Confucian philosophy. Among them were the Shinan Kogi, which described the weather and astronomy for sailors, and the Rikuyu Engi, a book of morality written in Chinese.

The Rikuyu Engi was later introduced to the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, which avidly applied its teaching to guide Japanese social behavior. After its translation into Japanese, it was read by many people.

Another of Junsokus contributions was to establish the first school in Okinawan history, the Meirindo, to teach Confucianism and Chinese poetry. He had to overcome opposition by minister Sai On, another great Ryukyuan leader, to open the school, as Junsoku believed that education was the foundation for politics.

Tei Junsoku later went on to become a minister of the royal court and eventually was transferred to chief of Nago in 1728. He was well-known as a famous Confucian scholar in the Japanese academic community during the Edo Period of Japan.