5

A NEW LIFE IN JAPAN

When I was thirteen I started to attend Atomi Girls School. I was a gentle, one might even say frail, princess.

—KAWASHIMA YOSHIKO

Once she became a celebrity, Kawashima Yoshiko avoided going into details in public about her life with Naniwa. Instead she was coy in her descriptions, getting her points across through innuendo. In her twenties, Yoshiko reviewed her youth for the Japanese women’s magazine Fujin kōron, emphasizing her confused state after she was suddenly removed from her home in China and passed along to Kawashima Naniwa in Japan. She keeps it brief, but, again, her pathetic state is clear. “They took away my Chinese clothes and dressed me in a Japanese crepe robe and long vest. My hair was cut into a short Japanese style with bangs in front. … In those days the Japanese called Chinese ‘Chinks’ … and so I didn’t have anyone to play with. But now when I look back on myself—though I know it’s strange of me to say such a thing—I don’t think that I was a hateful person.”

Naniwa always maintained that Yoshiko’s adjustment to Japan had gone smoothly. He liked to boast about how he had taken in a Chinese princess, whose father, a Manchu prince of the fallen Qing dynasty, had been his intimate friend, a blood brother really, with whom he had shared a fondness so deep that they had overcome differences of nationality, custom, language. He had aided this royal prince for much of his life, stood by his side in good fortune and painful exile.

Naniwa of course wanted to present himself as a benefactor, a builder of bridges between China and Japan. The adoption of Yoshiko fit nicely into this, for he could claim yet another act of magnanimity in leaving Prince Su with one less child to support; he would also be helping Yoshiko, who—in accordance with the belief that grew within him as he aged—would be blessed with the chance to grow up in clean and enlightened Japan rather than dirty, sleazy China. Over the years, Naniwa took in many more of Prince Su’s children on a temporary basis, and in true colonialist’s style, he bragged of his concern for their futures, how he enrolled them in Japanese schools and advised the boys in their choice of professions.

Prince Su’s descendants, who eventually became involved in financial disputes with Naniwa and his heirs, have other explanations for Naniwa’s willingness to take their family members into his home. They point out that Naniwa lived like a rich man in Japan though he did not have a job or income of his own, and depended upon the money he received from Prince Su for raising these children, as well as other funds that came his way because of his connection to the family. “Naniwa was loose about women and money,” one commentator notes.

Yoshiko’s distress under Naniwa’s care emerged gradually, though looking back from the perspective of today, her pain seems inevitable. But today of course is not yesterday, when even royal children, and especially women, were expected to remain stoical in the face of any manner of personal catastrophe. Emotional collapse, violence, shredding a rival’s clothing—these were not the stuff of behavioral primers of the time. But when such incidents reached the public eye, the newspapers strove to accommodate a curious public, especially when the person involved was a former Qing princess living in Japan. Throughout Yoshiko’s life, her dramas received extensive coverage.

After her arrival, Yoshiko found herself under the supervision of Naniwa’s wife, Fuku, whose mental health had worsened because of her husband’s infidelities, his hot temper, and frequent absences. Fuku had been married off to Naniwa after one of his adventures in China, and though her parents had been put off by his ill-mannered behavior and had at first balked at the match, they eventually agreed to let their daughter marry this man they had sized up as frugal and serious, as well as rude and sixteen years her senior.

After their marriage Naniwa and Fuku had lived together in Beijing, enjoying the special privileges accorded those with close ties to the ruling dynasty. When the Qing dynasty fell, Naniwa still was occupied for a while in his schemes to bring about the dynasty’s return, but for Fuku, the good times ended when they were ordered back to Tokyo. Her life with Naniwa became intolerable, and the neighbors still remember her mental problems; she left proof of her ferocious unhappiness when she scratched her face out of the official photographs taken while she was in China.

Yoshiko in Japanese clothes    Courtesy Hokari Kashio

“Once Fuku was back in Japan,” Naniwa’s highly partisan biographer writes, in the bland tone he adopts for this woman’s emotional collapse,

the tensions she had been feeling quickly eased. She was extremely tired and took to her bed. Her fatigue fed upon her terrible sluggishness and attacked her without pause. … She also lacked any understanding of her husband’s work and sometimes was very cold to him. Kawashima was very busy working for his independence movements and often would return home late. For days, he might be away from home. As his time away increased, his wife’s criticisms multiplied, and she’d confront him with her complaints. … Wearied by his endeavors, bumping up against complex problems, Kawashima finally would start shouting, though he did not really mean it. There was no peace, and an increasingly fierce storm raged through their lives.

Although Yoshiko tended to skip over her early days in Japan, we can get some idea about how she was first received in Naniwa’s home from the accounts of her niece Renko, who was six years younger. Renko was brought to Naniwa’s home from China some years later and also became the focus of Fuku’s attention. Renko paints a portrait of a mother figure whose personal misery fueled zealous cleanliness. As soon as Renko walked into Naniwa’s house, Fuku took her to task for making a mess. “What are you doing? Your footprints are making marks on the tatami. Take off your socks and clean up those footprints.” Fuku managed to collect herself enough to bring out a decent dinner—“You must be hungry after your long trip. Be sure to eat a lot”—but soon enough, she was back to irritation when she insisted that Renko, exhausted after her long trip, help with the dishes. “Cleaning up after a meal is a woman’s job,” Fuku announced. What followed was a detailed lesson in putting items away in just the right place. “Look at the way you’ve piled these things up! It’s all wrong. Teacups and plates must be stacked separately. Otherwise they will fall over. You don’t even know that?”

If Fuku was a trial to the children in the house, then Naniwa presented them with other problems as the years passed. He had left for China for the first time in 1886, with dreams of fomenting those great changes in China, establishing a new regime in the Northeast and thereby bringing great benefit to his homeland. He had been the trusted secret liaison between the Japanese government and Manchu royalists seeking to return to power. Over the years, these and other endeavors decisively and publicly failed. Once at the forefront of the “independence” movement in Manchuria and Mongolia, he was gradually tossed aside by Japanese officials, who no longer relied on the services of amateurs like him. It has been speculated that Naniwa “lost his balance” after his failed attempts to set up a Japanese-backed regime in Manchuria and Mongolia.

Naniwa also eventually lost his hearing, and deafness made him even more ill-tempered and dependent upon others. Harada Tomohiko, a young relative, offers this portrait of Naniwa in retirement:

In those days, right-wing hotheads set the tone in Kawashima’s house. … Weirdos and strange China rōnin connected to [the ultranationalist group] Gen’yōsha infested the place. The live-in students and the rest saw themselves as heroic types in training for great deeds. The world of these hotheads seemed idiotic to me, but from their point of view I was just some heretic.

In addition, this relative could not find much good to say about his private moments with Naniwa:

I used to get emergency telegrams from Naniwa to come and help him with something. In those days only inns or businesses or rich people had phones. Even if people lived close to each other, forty or fifty minutes away, they’d send a telegram when they wanted something.

“Now what?” I’d ask myself and go over.

You couldn’t say it was anything very important. He’d ask me to prepare a batch of ink for him or straighten out the calligraphy paper. When Naniwa was in a cheerful mood, he could be a really good old guy. He’d narrow his eyes, let out with a good laugh, and tell some stories. He didn’t really have many interesting stories, and mostly he gave little lectures. As I said before, he couldn’t hear, and so I’d have to write down my answers or anything else I wanted to say. It was a real pain.

While I was writing, he would warn me about various things: “Today’s Tokyo Imperial University is a den of socialists—a place where lots of germs all get together. Don’t you dare associate with them.”

“Yes, yes,” I’d say, looking at him meekly.

“And don’t drink any liquor. Your father used to be an interesting person, but alcohol ruined him. Don’t fall into the same trap.”

Naniwa didn’t like to drink liquor. After a few drinks his face would become bright red.