Society and the State in Interwar Japan (Nissan Institute Routledge Japanese Studies Series)

Society and the state in interwar Japan

THE NISSAN INSTITUTE/ROUTLEDGE JAPANESE STUDIES SERIES Editorial Board J.A.A.Stockwin, Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies, University of Oxford and Director, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies Teigo Yoshida, formerly Professor of the University of Tokyo, and now Professor, Obirin University, Tokyo Frank Langdon, Professor, Institute of International Relations, University of British Columbia, Canada Alan Rix, Professor of Japanese, The University of Queensland Junji Banno, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo Leonard Schoppa, University of Virginia Other titles in the series include: The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness, Peter Dale A History of Japanese Economic Thought, Tessa Morris-Suzuki The Establishment of the Japanese Constitutional System, Junji Banno, translated by J.A.A.Stockwin Education Reform in Japan, Leonard Schoppa Japanese Economic Development: Theory and Practice, Penelope Francks Ideology and Practice in Modern Japan, Roger Goodman and Kirsten Refsing Japan’s Early Parliaments 1890–1905, Andrew Fraser, R.H.P.Mason and Philip Mitchell Japan’s Foreign Aid Challenge, Alan Rix Japan: Beyond the End of History, David Williams Ceremony and Ritual in Japan: Religious Practices in an Industrialized Society, Jan van Bremen and D.P.Martinez Understanding Japanese Society: Second Edition, Joy Hendry Militarization and Demilitarization in Contemporary Japan, Glenn D.Hook Growing a Japanese Science City, James Dearing Democracy in Post-war Japan, Rikki Kersten Architecture and Authority in Japan, William H.Coaldrake Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography, Stephen S.Large The Dynamics of Japan’s Relations with Africa: South Africa, Tanzania and Nigeria, Kweku Ampiah Women’s Gidayu and the Japanese Theatre Tradition, A.Kimi Coaldrake Life in a Japanese Women’s College: Learning to be Ladylike, Brian J. McVeigh On the Margins of Japanese Society: Volunteer Work with the Urban Underclass, Carolyn S.Stevens The Right to Life in Japan, Noel Williams

Society and the state in interwar Japan

Edited by Elise K.Tipton

London and New York

First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Selection and editorial matter © 1997 Elise K.Tipton; individual chapters © 1997 the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Society and the state in interwar Japan/edited by Elise K.Tipton. p. cm.—(Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Japan—Social conditions—1912–1945. I. Tipton, Elise K. II. Series. HN723. S64 1997 306´.0952–dc21 96–40109 ISBN 0-203-08492-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-16154-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-15069-8 (Print Edition)

Dedicated to Ben, Lee and Christine

Contents

Series editor’s preface List of plates Notes on contributors Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Elise K.Tipton 2 Women primary school teachers and the state in interwar Japan Susan Newell

ix xi xiii xv 1

17

3 Birth control and the population problem Elise K.Tipton

42

4 Artists and the state: the image of China John Clark

63

5 Angry young men and the Japanese state: Nagano Prefecture, 1930–33 Sandra Wilson

100

6 Narratives of struggle: writing and the making of socialist women in Japan Vera Mackie

126

7 Corporate control and labouring lives: coalmining in interwar Japan Matthew Allen

146

8 Problems of assimilation: the Koreans Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton 9 The great dialect debate: the state and language policy in Okinawa Hugh Clarke

169

193

viii Contents 10 Epilogue Elise K.Tipton Bibliography Index

218 224 237

Series editor’s preface

Japan in the latter half of the 1990s is the dominant economic power of the Asia-Pacific, which in turn is the most dynamic economic region of the contemporary world. Japan’s dominance remains in place even though economic growth is sluggish, reform of the political system is needed but slow in coming and public alienation from the ruling Establishment has become uncomfortably high. Other parts of the region, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, have borrowed much from the Japanese model and exhibit economic dynamism of a high order, while China, despite its many problems, has moved decisively in the direction of economic growth. Japan, however, remains by far the largest economy in the area, and globally second only to that of the United States. In a world set free from the constraints of the Cold War, Japan seems set to become not only a major national, but also a truly regional power. To ignore Japan, play down her significance in world affairs, or indulge in facile stereotyping would be increasingly unwise. The Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series seeks to foster an informed and balanced, but not uncritical, understanding of Japan. One aim of the series is to show the depth and variety of Japanese institutions, practices and ideas. Another is, by using comparisons, to see what lessons, positive or negative, can be drawn for other countries. The tendency in commentary on Japan to resort to outdated, ill-informed or sensational stereotypes still remains extraordinarily strong, and needs to be combated. The interwar history of Japan has been much written about, and the focus of much of this writing is to attempt an explanation of the slide into militarism and war that took place during the 1930s. Understandably much of this literature concentrates on elite politics, on the salient role of the armed forces, and what is seen as the development of a totalitarian state by the early 1940s. The present work, however, seeks a different perspective. Sceptical of the ‘totalitarian’ paradigm in relation to the immediate prewar and wartime periods, the authors direct their focus onto society rather than the state. The discovery that they have made is that Japanese society in the interwar period, by contrast with the state-sponsored ideology of uniformity and submission to a higher national order, was diverse, often contradictory

x Series editor’s preface and difficult to manage. The eventual suppression of nearly all overt political opposition to the regime, should not, in the view of the authors, be allowed to obscure the fact that in their homes and workplaces many Japanese pursued their own diverse concerns in at least partial independence from an increasingly repressive and single-minded state. There may be lessons here also for our understanding of postwar Japan, where an ideology of a homogeneous society has often been at variance with the reality of a rich social diversity. J.A.A.Stockwin

Plates

Plates appear by kind permission of the copyright holders; plates 12a, 17, 18a, 19, 25, 27, 33 and 36 are taken from Nitenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Nitenshi, 15 volumes, Tokyo, Niten Shuppan, 1984; plate 1 from the Hiroshima, Itsukujima Shrine; plate 20 © Shogakkan, Tokyo. Plate 1 Yokoyama Taikan, Qu Yuan, 1898 Plate 11 Fukuda Shutaro, Gate of Chongqing, 1916 Plate 12a Komuro Suiun, Retired Academician, 1913 Plate 17 Kikuchi Keigetsu, In the Sun Among Southern Waves Plate 18a Zheng Jiongchang, Beauties, 1913 Plate 19 Hiroshima Koho, Woman in a Blue Dress, 1919 Plate 20 Fujishima Takeji, Oriental Style, 1924 Plate 25 Kanayama Heizo, Coal Carriers of Suzhou, 1932 Plate 27 Takeuchi Seiho, South China Landscape, 1926 Plate 33 Ikeda Eiichi, Hinomaru—The Japanese Flag, 1938 Plate 36 Kobayakawa Mochimaro (Shusei), The Ugly Captives’ Faces

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 99

Notes on contributors

Matthew Allen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of Undermining the Japanese Miracle: Work and Conflict in a Japanese Coalmining Community (1994). Young-Soo Chung is an Associate Lecturer at the Australia, where she teaches Japanese language and Arts thesis on Koreans in Japan, 1910–45. She is doctoral work on Koreans in Japan in the post-1945

University of Sydney, completed a Master of currently carrying out period.

John Clark is an Associate Professor in Japanese at the University of Sydney where he also teaches courses in Asian art history. He is the translator of Kuki Shuzo’s The Structure of ‘Iki’ (1997) and author of Modern Asian Art (1997). He has published widely on modern art in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as well as Japan, and since 1992 he has extended his interests in modernity to South and Southeast Asia. Hugh Clarke is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. A specialist in historical linguistics, he is the author of Colloquial Japanese and has published extensively on Okinawan language and literature. Vera Mackie is the author of Creating Socialist Women in Japan: Gender, Labour and Activism, 1900–1937 (1997) and is currently completing a history of feminism in modern Japan. She has taught Modern Japanese History and Women’s Studies at the Unviersity of Melbourne for several years, and has recently been appointed to the Foundation Chair of Japanese Studies at Curtin University in Western Australia. Susan Newell completed her Master of Philosophy Degree at the University of Sydney in 1992. Since then she has taught and researched Japanese history, politics and language at several universities. Currently she works as a researcher and project officer for the community sector in Sydney. Elise K.Tipton is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, Australia, where she teaches Japanese history. She is the author of The Japanese Police

xiv Notes on contributors State: The Tokko in Interwar Japan (1990). She is continuing her research on various aspects related to the history of the birth control movement. Sandra Wilson is a Senior Lecturer at Murdoch University, Western Australia, where she teaches Japanese history. She has completed a book manuscript on reactions to the Manchurian Incident, 1931–3 (unpublished), and is co-editor of The Russo-Japanese War in Cultural Perspective (forthcoming). Her research now focuses on the history of Japanese nationalism.

Acknowledgements

As often seems to be the case with edited group projects, this one has also taken what seems like an inordinately long time to find fruition. It began as a loosely connected group project among colleagues in the School of Asian Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, but gradually brought in scholars from other institutions as it seemed that our research would fill a real gap in the literature on modern Japanese history. I should like to thank our editor, Victoria Smith, at Routledge and her assistant, Mark Kavanagh, for their enthusiasm and support for the project at a time when the contributors were wondering if their efforts would indeed be worthwhile. The comments and suggestions of the referee for the proposed project were also helpful to the authors, particularly for pinpointing the issues and questions which in each case would be of most interest to both scholars and students. Boosted by this support, we hoped to be able to come together at a workshop to rework the drafts of our essays and to find common themes to link them together into a more coherent volume as a whole. This was made possible by a generous grant from the Japan Cultural Centre, Sydney (The Japan Foundation), whereby contributors from outside the Sydney area were able to come for two days in February 1996. The workshop proved to be useful and stimulating not only for revising individual essays, but for discovering that recurring themes were even more numerous than had been anticipated. The discussions reaffirmed the desire to focus on interrelations between society and the state to a much greater extent than most scholarship in the past has done, and to highlight and emphasise the diversity and complexity of both the state and society in the interwar period of Japanese history. Note: Japanese names are rendered in Japanese order, that is, surname first unless the author is writing in English and is following the Western name order. Macrons are utilised for long vowels except common place names such as Tokyo.

1

Introduction Elise K.Tipton

It’s a measure of the postwar concern with the strength of the prewar state that there is far less written, not only in this book but anywhere, about the social history of Japan in the period leading to the war…. The protagonist of prewar history still remains the state. Carol Gluck ‘Introduction’ to Showa: The Japan of Hirohito, 19921

During the late 1970s and 1980s a number of books appeared, bearing titles ‘the state and…’, giving force to Gluck’s statement that ‘the protagonist of prewar history still remains the state’. It is to shift the primary focus of attention from the state that ‘society’ has deliberately been placed before ‘state’ in the title of this book. And it was a desire to provide some depth and insights into the neglected social history of the prewar decades that inspired this collaborative effort. State-focused studies have highlighted the primacy of ‘high’ politics and the Second World War. This is especially so when the term ‘prewar’ has been used to refer to the 1920s as well as the 1930s, implying if not directly arguing that ‘everything that happened before the war is often seen as leading to it’.2 Shifting the focus to ‘society’ and the ‘social history’ of the ‘interwar’ period was not intended to dismiss the importance of state politics or the war. However, as will be seen in the following chapters, it has had the consequence of seeing that ‘ordinary’ Japanese often were not preoccupied with national, political matters. In particular, during the twenties the government’s pursuit of peaceful internationalism in foreign policy, cooperating with the major Western powers and the League of Nations, allowed the Japanese relative freedom to pursue their individual interests and to concentrate on domestic matters. Our concern for the lives and thinking of ordinary Japanese contributes to the relatively recently established field of social history in the historical discipline, and more specifically to the subfield of what has been dubbed ‘history from below’. Until the 1970s the main subject matter of history was elite politics, the main perspective and sources being the viewpoint of governments or ‘great’ individuals (overwhelmingly male) at the top or

2 Elise K.Tipton centre of society. Since then a number of historians have turned to exploring the past from the perspective of the non-greats, the phrase ‘history from below’ has become commonplace, and social history has become a respectable pursuit. Nevertheless, even in an early 1990s overview of this approach, Jim Sharpe noted that even today much of the history taught in Britain’s sixth forms and universities (and, one suspects, in similar institutions elsewhere) still regards the experience of the mass of the people in the past as either inaccessible or unimportant, or fails to regard it as an historical problem, or, at best, regards the common people as ‘one of the problems government has had to handle’.3 In the Japanese history field, Gary Allinson called on American historians in the early 1970s to write ‘a new social history’.4 He pointed to urbanisation, the ‘docility’ of industrial workers, the lack of a political opposition during the 1930s and local politics as unplumbed topics of research in modern Japanese history. Looking at historical work conducted on the decades of the 1920s and 1930s since then, notable contributions have been made to these subjects, especially on the history of Tokyo and labour relations,5 and one topic omitted by Allinson which has seen a modest flourishing of interest is women’s history.6 Nevertheless, teachers of university courses still have difficulties finding readings in English on the social developments of this period in Japanese history. The contributors in this book will fill some of these gaps in our knowledge, though by no means all, since the range of topics opened up by the history from below approach is infinitely vast. However, aside from seeking to fill the need for empirical studies on the social history of this period, the contributors have directed their attention to exploring the nexus between social and political history. In the past there have been tendencies to dichotomise between politics and society or to dichotomise between top-down and bottom-up approaches. State-society studies have generally been studies of state policies toward one or other social group, a top-down political perspective, while social history studies have concentrated on the specific social group, history from below, with little concern for questions raised and issues debated by traditional political historians.7 The contributors to this book have consciously attempted to avoid such dichotomising and to examine the areas of intersection and interaction between social groups, individuals and the state. In some ways, our findings revive the concept of Taisho Democracy, but it is Taisho Democracy in a broad rather than party-centred sense. In the narrow political sense, the term refers to the era of party-dominated cabinets whose beginning was heralded by the appointment of Hara Takashi (Kei) as prime minister in 1918. Although hardly one’s picture of a ‘commoner’, Hara is often referred to as the ‘first commoner prime minister’ because he was the first prime minister to be appointed from the elected lower house of

Introduction

3

the Diet and had always rejected aristocratic titles even when offered them. Rather than expanding on the significance of party governments in the development of democracy, the chapters in this book approach Taisho Democracy from the direction of social democracy. The late 1910s and 1920s was a time when numerous organisations emerged, representing new social groups which demanded more equal access to social and economic opportunities and to the benefits of industrialisation and modernisation. The social groups examined here, however, are not confined to disadvantaged ones such as workers and minorities, but also include elite and middle-class groups and organisations in both urban and rural areas. Among these varied groups and organisations we can see more importance placed on private autonomy, equal treatment and material aspects in their demands than in previous times, with the concerns of daily life coming to the fore in the public sphere. As evident in Susan Newell’s chapter, for example, middle-class women entered the teaching profession in increasingly large numbers after the First World War and formed their own associations which brought debates over their position in society to public attention. Married teachers called in particular for practical measures such as maternity leave to alleviate the difficulties of coordinating their roles as mothers and workers. To some extent they were successful, for a maternity leave law was introduced in 1922, but this did not resolve the ideological conflict between mother and worker roles. Contradictory feelings among both the women teachers and education officials remained even as women continued to be recruited as teachers throughout the interwar period until they made up approximately one-third of the total number of teachers in the early 1930s. As another example, the organisation of a birth control movement during the early 1920s was also connected to the changing role of women in early twentieth century Japanese society. Leaders of the movement advocated birth control as a means to improve the daily lives of women specifically and that of their families more generally. Having fewer children would both protect women’s health and increase the financial resources of their families as a whole so that they could enjoy a better lifestyle. Birth control was also advocated for other health-unrelated or material reasons as a way for women to have the time and energy to improve themselves for their own individual benefit. Such new social organisations of the late teens and twenties were able to conduct their activities publicly and to reach a wide audience through the growing mass media, but at the same time had to work within certain constraints established by government officials’ attitudes and policies. The contributors in this book seek to give prominence to this dialectical relationship between society and the state. The predominant picture of a repressive Japanese state has often implied that the Japanese people were victims without choice or benefit. Our findings do not discount repressive limits set by the state, or as Sheldon Garon pointed out regarding relations

4 Elise K.Tipton between women’s groups and the state,8 inequalities in the power relations between social groups and the state. Vera Mackie’s discussion of socialist women demonstrates the difficulties of women becoming political activists, much less socialist activists. However, the state did not always have to act alone to impose its goals and values. In the case of coalmining, Matthew Allen shows the coincidence of business interests and state goals so that overt state intervention was not required. In fact, the state deliberately stayed out of the picture to let mining companies do its work. It is notable that the police as well as other government agencies avoided contact with miners, giving companies a free hand with which to control their workers. Mining villages consequently developed into isolated, prison-like communities where workers often were subjected to violent treatment. However, relatively weak individuals and organisations did not always receive no benefit from cooperating with the state. For example, as Susan Newell shows, the state exploited women for economic reasons—they were cheaper than men and there was a shortage of teachers. During the 1920s male teachers turned away from teaching to an increasing number of alternative, better paying white collar jobs, and during the 1920s schools hired women because they could be paid less than men. At the same time middle-class women went into teaching because it not only promised a chance for personal fulfilment and intellectual development, but provided the highest pay and status of occupations open to women in the interwar period. Even with all its strains, teaching also allowed the most flexibility in working arrangements to enable married women to work. In short, the motives of women who went into teaching were mixed, and so were the power relations between individuals, groups and the state. Moreover, even the interests of members of marginalised groups in society, such as Okinawans and Koreans, and those of the state were not necessarily in opposition. Hugh Clarke’s chapter on the debate over language standardisation in Okinawa reveals Okinawans on the side of the state, pressing for standardisation rather than for preservation of the Okinawan dialect. Young-Soo Chung and Elise Tipton’s examination of Korean immigrants notes cooperation as well as resistance to the Japanese government’s assimilation efforts. Consequently, although most accounts have emphasised Koreans’ hostility to becoming Japanised, there were other motives in play as well, and we have tried to present a picture of greater diversity. Neither the state nor the social groups under study in the interwar period emerge as homogeneous or monolithic entities, and complexity and ambivalence often characterised state approaches and policies. For example, educational authorities’ debates over the recruitment of women as teachers displayed contradictions among ideological factors as well as between certain ideological and pragmatic considerations. An ideological contradiction emerged because officials’ ideal woman was a ‘good wife, wise mother’ whose sphere of activity was centred on the home, but the

Introduction

5

possession of qualities for a good wife and wise mother made desirable the hiring of women to teach small children. Further ambivalence resulted from the home-centred ideal clashing with the economic pressures on the government both to save money and to fill a teacher shortage. Ambivalence can also be seen in government attitudes toward the birth control movement which began during the early twenties. Because of its association with the socialist and women’s liberation movements, some officials, especially among the police, were hostile to it, but others cautiously accepted birth control as a means to solve the country’s population problems. A clear official policy opposed to birth control did not emerge until the late 1930s. The decades of the 1920s and 1930s therefore do not comprise a single ‘prewar’ period when the stage for the Second World War was set. I have already suggested that this book will give greater depth to the meaning of Taisho Democracy, and hence to developments of the 1920s. Although the contributors do not confine themselves exclusively to the years between the two world wars, perhaps the use of the term ‘interwar’ will direct more attention to the significance of the First World War for Japan. The twenties and thirties in Europe are called the interwar years, indicating the linkage between the two world wars in twentieth century European history. The First and Second World Wars are not as clearly linked in Japanese history and certainly the Second World War had a more profound effect on Japanese society and politics than the First World War. However, socially as well as intellectually and politically, the years following the First World War witnessed a proliferation of new ideas, practices and movements which give substance to the concept of Taisho Democracy. Not only did party governments replace oligarchic rule, but to name just a few, socialist and labour movements revived, the women’s movement entered a new stage,9 and a movement to eliminate discrimination against burakumin (former outcasts)10 was organised. Wilsonian democratic ideas proclaimed during the war and the Bolshevik Revolution had been important for stimulating these varied sociopolitical movements. Still other developments such as labour activism, the growth of a new white collar class in the cities and the beginnings of urban mass culture derived from the economic expansion which the war had aided. Such new ideas and practices did not develop uncontested, however. Social conservatives outside as well inside government actively voiced their objections, which gives the decade an atmosphere of tension and dynamism. Significantly, the 1930s also appear as years of social ferment, tension and conflict, as years when proponents of opposing policies and values sought even more vigorously to have their views predominate, rather than as the beginning of the ‘Fifteen Year War’ or the ‘Road to Pearl Harbor’. In the 1950s and 1960s many Western historians saw a great disjunction between the ‘liberal’ 1920s and the authoritarian 1930s. Highlighting changes in foreign policy, they viewed the 1930s as the ‘Road to Pearl Harbor’. Japanese historians, though from a very different ideological perspective,

6 Elise K.Tipton viewed the decade as a ‘dark valley’ in Japan’s history and part of the ‘Fifteen Year War’. Our studies reveal, however, that although the atmosphere became increasingly politicised and restrictive as the state attempted to prepare the nation for war, foreign policy and war goals did not yet override domestic concerns and the parameters of expression still allowed for some debate on political issues. In trying to pinpoint a decisive turning point when war considerations suppressed all incompatible interests, the contributors found that they kept pushing the date to a later point. Notably, the Manchurian Incident of 1931 does not emerge from these studies as an event symbolising a sharp discontinuity either in state policies or the concerns and activities of various social groups. It sparked a rush of nationalistic fervour, but although the organised radical left was definitively destroyed during the first half of the decade, prospects of imminent war did not yet result in a clear pronatalist policy, in forced assimilation measures for minorities, or in involuntary conscription of labour—three policies usually associated with the prewar and wartime regime. While the government intensified suppression of radical groups and ideas, it simultaneously encouraged or co-opted moderate alternatives. This is clear from Sandra Wilson’s study of rural youth associations after the Manchurian Incident as well as Chung and Tipton’s examination of government assimilation policies. These and other studies also show that from a grassroots point of view, support for aggressive foreign expansion was not as universal among ordinary Japanese as often assumed, nor did rising nationalist sentiments push aside the more individualistic concerns related to daily life that had characterised activities of social groups in the previous decade. Again, Wilson’s study of rural youth reveals this clearly, but this is also evident from Newell’s study of teachers and the continuing activities of birth control organisers in Tipton’s study. The outbreak of war with China in 1937 accelerated the trend toward suppression policies, but there was still room for expression until 1940 and even later. Hugh Clarke’s study of the dialect debate in Okinawa shows this most clearly. That a debate over preserving the Okinawan dialect as opposed to pursuing language standardisation should have occurred at all in 1940 is surprising. Still more surprising is the fact that it was prominent Japanese nationalists in the folk art (mingei) movement who supported preservation of the dialect as well as Okinawan cultural traditions. Similarly, Elise Tipton’s study of the birth control movement found that the American birth control leader, Margaret Sanger, was allowed to make a public visit to Japan in August 1937 (a month after the Marco Polo Bridge clash), and pronatalism only became official policy in 1940. The contributors in this book therefore are not primarily concerned with explaining the causes of the war, but they are interested in the degree to which the state shaped or intruded into the lives of ordinary Japanese and the degree to which behaviour and attitudes were politicised and standardised. The picture of Japanese society that emerges from these

Introduction

7

chapters contradicts both the ‘totalitarian’, or even the less pervasive ‘authoritarian’, image that still prevails of pre-1945 Japan and the homogeneous middle-class image of post-1945 Japan. ‘Diversity’, ‘contradiction’, and ‘multivalence’ seem to be more accurate descriptions of both the decades of the twenties and the thirties. METHODOLOGIES AND APPROACHES Having emphasised the diversity and complexity of society and the state in this period, it is appropriate that the contributors themselves approach the subject matter from a number of disciplines. Five are historians with specialisations in this period of Japanese history, but three carry out research in other academic disciplines: Matthew Allen in anthropology, John Clark in art history and Hugh Clarke in historical linguistics. Matthew Allen’s research is thus heavily based on extensive interviews with coal miners conducted during field work in Japan, John Clark’s relies on the analysis of visual materials and Hugh Clarke came upon the standardisation debate as a dialectician studying the Okinawan language. Their sources and methodologies therefore differ from those of traditional historians. Written sources provide the bulk of evidence examined by other contributors but they represent the variety of materials that social historians have come to utilise in their search to broaden our understanding of the past. These include popular magazines and newspapers as well as intellectual or academic journals, political manifestos as well as government publications, fiction as well as diaries and memoirs. In gathering together this group of scholars with training in differing methodologies, there was no attempt to prescribe a single theoretical approach or conceptualisation of history upon them. Some may see this as a problem in writing social history, more particularly history from below,11 but a multidisciplinary, multiperspective approach appeared, on the contrary, to be a positive asset for a collection of essays examining the broad topic of society and the state and dissimilar social groups ranging from establishment artists to groups on the social or political fringe. From the outset of the project, however, all the contributors focused on groups rather than individuals or institutions, or when discussing individuals, analysed them as members of a social group, however diverse that group turned out to be. In addition, the issues discussed in the previous section were suggested as possible linking themes, with particular attention given to the interaction between social groups and the state, to the intersection of social and political history and to continuities and discontinuities during the interwar period. These proved to be issues of common concern, indeed to an even greater extent than anticipated when the contributors gathered together to ‘workshop’ drafts of their chapters. In fact, the recurrence and overlapping of themes proved to be frequent enough to rule out any effort to divide the chapters into separate and

8 Elise K.Tipton discrete sections which might lead readers to compartmentalise the various social groups into isolated existences. The chapters are therefore arranged in only a rough sequential order, beginning with discussions of groups in the mainstream of Japanese society, and later of groups opposed to the mainstream or marginalised by the mainstream. The first group examined, women primary schoolteachers, was closely associated with the state and gained social prestige and status from that association. As Susan Newell clearly shows, however, both state authorities and the women themselves displayed ambivalence about women’s participation in the teaching profession. On the state’s side, discussions about ‘the woman problem’ began during the 1910s when educational authorities faced a teacher shortage and sought to fill the shortage by employing educated women of the middle classes. Such hiring practices could be justified because it was believed that, on the one hand, women possessed the nurturing qualities suitable for teaching young children and the particular skills for teaching girls, but on the other hand, these same womanly qualities precluded them from teaching older children and boys and from taking on positions with higher administrative responsibilities and of course higher salaries. While pragmatic economic factors therefore stimulated the employment of women as teachers and certain ideological rationalisations could be garnered for support, women’s participation in the paid workforce posed an ideological conflict with the ‘good wife, wise mother’ ideal which the government had been trying to impose through the education system since the late Meiji period. The entrance of married, middle-class women into the workforce created anxiety among government officials (and social commentators as well) about its impact on family life and the stability of the family unit which formed the foundation of both Japanese society and politics. On the women’s side, juggling their two roles in the home and workplace presented many practical difficulties familiar to working mothers even at the present time. Their male colleagues and educational authorities frequently criticised women teachers for their lack of commitment and poor scholarly development. And, although working hours and conditions in the schools permitted more flexibility than other occupations, women teachers often complained of stress and tiredness from having to wake up early and retire late because of their responsibility for childcare and housework outside of their teaching work hours. Mixed feelings among both the women teachers and their state employers were exacerbated with the rise of militarism and onslaught of war. The war created a shortage of male labour which increased both demand for the employment of women and prominence given to women’s reproductive role, developing the idea of ‘motherhood in the interest of the state’ (kokkateki bosei) along with the idea of the state-as-family. Emphasis on the role of women as mothers and the desire to increase women’s reproductive capacities delayed the full mobilisation of women’s labour compared to

Introduction

9

other countries involved in the war. The conflict of demands was never fully resolved, so that it was not until quite late in the war that the urgent need for their productive power created by the shortage of male labour overcame ideological considerations, and even then mobilisation fell short of establishing a compulsory labour system.12 The wartime government’s stress on motherhood and desire to expand the Japanese population did destroy the birth control movement which is examined by Elise Tipton in Chapter 3, but ambivalence again characterised government policies if we look at the interwar period. Out of controversial beginnings in the early 1920s, the movement had gained widely acknowledged popularity not only among ordinary Japanese, but also among a number of government officials by the early 1930s. Birth control was one of the new ideas and social practices from the West which deluged Japan in the years following the First World War, but its association with other Western concepts of women’s liberation and socialism antagonised conservatives both in and out of government. Although a movement was inaugurated by Baroness Ishimoto Shizue upon her return from a stay in the United States in 1920, it was the 1922 visit of Margaret Sanger, the leader of the American birth control movement, that triggered much popular interest and discussion of birth control. The government’s initial refusal to extend Sanger a visa sparked animated criticism from major newspapers and magazines as well as women’s groups. Moreover, this decision of immigration officials did not represent the view of all relevant government officials. A division of opinion among government officials and the lack of a clear population policy allowed the movement to grow without tight restrictions imposed by the state. Officials’ cautious toleration of birth control can be understood in view of their worries about Japan’s rapidly escalating population pressing on the food and land resources of the country. At the same time, however, police officials worried about its connection with new leftist and liberal political and social movements, military officials continued to equate a large population with national strength, and social conservatives feared that birth control would undermine the family and lead to promiscuity. Ambivalence led to inconsistent censorship measures which allowed discussion of the concept but sometimes deprived ordinary Japanese from gaining concrete knowledge about methods and devices. Despite such impediments, by the end of the 1920s the idea of birth control had achieved quite wide acceptance among the Japanese public and some government officials openly supported it. During the 1930s militarists and pronatalists gathered forces to oppose the movement, supported by the socially conservative medical profession. Considering the imminence of war after the take-over of Manchuria, civilian government officials also began to worry about census figures which showed the first declines in the birth rate. Nevertheless, birth control clinics continued to open throughout the country, though mainly in urban areas, birth control leaders continued to expand their organisational activities and

10 Elise K.Tipton attempts to pass a sterilisation law similar to the Nazi law of 1933 failed to pass the Diet. Consequently, it was only in the late 1930s that the government suppressed the birth control movement and in 1940 that the National Eugenics Law (Kokumin Yusei Ho) made pronatalism official policy. John Clark’s study of Western-style artists through the image of China in their paintings also reveals the relative freedom from state intervention that even state sponsored exhibition sites enjoyed until the late 1930s. From 1937 onward, however, the art world became subjected to increasingly severe repression, so that the state set tight limits on cultural expression as well as social practice during the war. Nevertheless, even in this study of mostly establishment artists we discover an unexpected dearth of war paintings in state-supported exhibition sites, namely the Bunten and its successors the Teiten and Shin-Bunten. The image of China in their paintings is Clark’s concern in his chapter. In view of Japan’s increasingly aggressive moves into China during the interwar period, this subject matter is obviously full of potential for exploring the relation between the state and the society of culture. What role did artists and their paintings play in mediating the state’s desired image of China and Japan’s relations with China? This image reached a wider society than the upper classes because the audience for these exhibitions was highly diverse. One might expect that artists exhibiting in officially approved salons would produce paintings with nationalistic overtones. However, prior to 1938 and even after the expansion into Manchuria in 1931, paintings supporting and promoting Japanese imperialism were rare in the official exhibitions. In part this reflects the autonomy which the Bunten-Teiten exhibitors enjoyed as an elite of recognised professionally trained artists. In part it reflects the artists’ more direct experiences with China. The late 1920s and 1930s make up a period when Japanese artists began to exhibit realistic depictions drawn from contemporary Chinese daily life. Many works which handled Chinese scenes as concrete visualisations of real landscapes appeared in the national salons. These more realistic depictions of China seem to have resulted from more numerous artists travelling to China. The new realism did not, however, extend to depiction of Japanese aggression in China, so while not rationalising Japanese imperialism, neither did the artists criticise it. After full-scale war with China broke out in 1937 it is unsurprising that antiwar paintings did not appear in public. A reorganisation of the exhibitions put them under the Ministry of Education, and beginning in 1939 surrealists and avant-garde artists suffered severe repression. At the same time, however, what is striking about the Shin Bunten exhibitions is the lack of predominance of war paintings. War paintings appeared in greater numbers in exhibitions organised for the army and navy by ostensibly independent organisations. Moreover, there is a notable absence of China and the Chinese enemy as full pictorial subjects. There are some

Introduction

11

paintings of battle scenes and of Japanese soldiers, but almost no characterisation of the concrete landscape or of the Chinese people either as ugly enemies or even defeated captives. Various interpretations may be made of this absence. Perhaps it represented a form of passive resistance to the government’s policies, but alternatively, it may have simply come from a desire to avoid facing the reality of Japanese aggression in China or as John Clark sees it, it may be evidence of the artists’ willing collusion with the state. In Sandra Wilson’s chapter, we move from examination of groups active mainly in urban areas to farmers in rural areas, but an equally complex picture of society-state relations emerges, particularly as it relates to support for the expansionist ventures of the military on the continent during the early 1930s. Most studies of this period have assumed or asserted political indifference or passivity, if not obedient support, by peasants for the military. Wilson challenges this picture, based on an analysis of newspapers produced by young men’s associations (seinendan) in Nagano prefecture during the early 1930s. From these sources we can see the profound impact of the depression on farming areas during the early 1930s and the strong antipathy among young villagers toward the existing economic structure and political system which had failed to solve the rural poverty causing suffering since the 1920s. The predominance of local problems in youths’ concerns explains the small amount of comment about Manchuria after the Japanese take-over, compared to discussions in the large urban publications. Those articles which did relate to Manchuria presented either only qualified approval of army actions or outright criticisms. By no means can they support either a picture of political apathy or submissiveness to government opinion. Police interference with the newspapers gradually increased during the early 1930s, but articles dissenting from official views continued to appear for some time after the Manchurian Incident. The government’s combination of severe repression of the left wing in the prefecture with encouragement of rival conservative views and organisations gradually eliminated or defused the discontent which had characterised the newspapers earlier. The government launched the rural rehabilitation movement in 1932 which drew heavily on agrarian notions of harmony and community, in opposition to ideas of class conflict and struggle. The government also encouraged the expansion of agricultural cooperatives and youth leagues associated with them. At the same time repression of leftist organisations stepped up, culminating in the ‘Red Teachers’ Incident’ of 1933 when many tenant union activists as well as teachers were arrested. These arrests demoralised the whole seinendan movement in the prefecture, and the left wing was virtually destroyed. Wilson concludes that these changes in the countryside did not make war with China inevitable, but did facilitate the repression of groups opposed to the government’s policies and ‘expanded structures through which others

12 Elise K.Tipton could be encouraged to identify with officially sanctioned views of the world’. Direct state intervention and repression become more significant factors as we move to social groups examined in the second half of the book. Even here, however, the relationship between the state and social groups is more dynamic than mere repression. Sandra Wilson’s case study has already illustrated the effect of government repression on the radical left in the countryside. In Vera Mackie’s chapter we see that Japanese women faced even more difficulties than men in becoming socialist activists. Legal limitations meant that women in the socialist movement had to imagine first new identities for themselves as political activists, and only then ways in which to link socialist and feminist theory and to mobilise women in oppositional political activity. Because of the restrictions on women’s participation in public meetings until the early 1920s, writing was an important medium for the dissemination of political ideas to women. However, the genre of writings placed certain constraints on the political messages conveyed. These aspects involved in creation of a new subjectivity for women as political activists are explored as Mackie analyses different types of texts: autobiography, political manifesto and fiction. Fukuda Hideko’s autobiography charted the struggle of an individual woman to become a political activist. Perhaps by no accident, it is the earliest of the struggles examined in this chapter, coming from the beginning of the twentieth century, when Japanese women aspiring to public action had no role models and therefore had to struggle individually before going on to awaken the political consciousness of other women. As also noted in Newell’s and Tipton’s chapters, by the 1920s discussions of the ‘woman question’ in the media had already aroused the consciousness of a large enough number of women to form a range of women’s organisations, including the socialist Sekirankai or Red Wave Society. The political manifesto examined here was written by Yamakawa Kikue, one of the major theorists of the socialist movement. It exposed the dual slavery of women, both at home and in the workplace, and exhorted women to participate for the first time in the May Day demonstrations of 1921. However, from Mackie’s analysis we can see the difficulties faced by Yamakawa and other socialist women in resolving conflicts between the goals of class struggle and the goals of feminism. Moreover, despite the calls for class consciousness, Yamakawa remained somewhat distanced from the concrete problems of workers. While Yamakawa tried to grasp the meaning of class struggle for women in abstract terms, Nakamoto Takako used the novel form to dramatise the actual struggle of a group of women workers. The shift in the plane of discussion from abstract to concrete reflects the rising level of organisation among workers, including women workers, during the decade of the 1920s. By the time her novel was serialised in a left wing women’s arts journal in

Introduction

13

1932, three major union federations, each with a women’s division, were active. Nakamoto’s fictionalised account narrated the transformation of women workers in ‘The Number Two Toyo Muslin Factory’ from atomised individuals into a group of militant organised workers who march on the factory office with demands for improvement in their conditions. While documenting this apparently successful awakening of class consciousness, the fact that the conclusion of the novel was never published due to the closure of the journal by police authorities, reminds us of the contracting limits of expression, especially for the left, during the early 1930s. Mackie shows us that at least one group of Japanese women had formed a sense of community as workers by the early 1930s, but were limited in what they could achieve because of the government’s animosity to their socialist goals. Direct state intervention in the form of mass arrests, censorship of publications and closure of organisations destroyed the radical left during the early 1930s. Simultaneously, as in the case of rural youth organisations, the government combined repression of radicals with encouragement of moderate worker organisations, such as company unions. Matthew Allen’s research reveals that in the coal industry such direct state intervention was not necessary in order to control workers. Because of the high priority it set on coal to maintain industrial development, especially after the expansion of industry during the First World War, and the close ties it had developed with major business interests since the Meiji period, the government left the coal companies alone to manage their own industrial relations. Companies isolated their workers in prison-like villages (tanju) and frequently employed violent methods to control them, legitimated with Confucian rhetoric and, as the country prepared for war, with appeals to loyalty to the emperor and working for the nation. From the memories of mine workers we obtain a vivid picture of the structure and patterns of daily life in the tanju. Ironically, the tanju created a sense of community and culture of its own that was to last even after coal lost its importance for national development and the industry was closed down in the postwar period. Forced to live together in such tight quarters and share water and bathing facilities, miners created close communications and bonds with each other, and in the 1930s and 1940s when food was scarce, worked collectively to feed everyone. Consequently, even after the mine closures of the 1950s and 1960s the majority continued to live in the tanju, accustomed to the lifestyle and fearful of the social and economic stigma facing them outside. Many of the coal miners were Koreans. After 1939 thousands were forcibly conscripted from the colony, but forced labour neither tells the whole story of Koreans in Japan before 1945 nor fully explains the lack of integration of Koreans into Japanese society. Young-Soo Chung and Elise Tipton trace the origins of the large Korean minority in Japan today and its on-going problems of discrimination to the late 1910s when large-scale migration of Koreans began. The prejudice behind this discriminatory

14 Elise K.Tipton treatment characterised government policies of assimilation as well as the attitudes of employers and landlords. Past studies have emphasised the assumptions of racial and cultural superiority which contradicted the stated goals of harmonisation and integration of Koreans and Japanese. Assimilation meant Japanisation, and as long as the Japanese assumed their inherent superiority, they could not accept Koreans to full citizenship in the empire. Koreans, on their part, rejected assimilation because it required destruction of Korean identity and the culture in which they took pride. Their rejection also derived from strong nationalistic sentiments which Japan’s harsh colonial rule had reinforced. Chung and Tipton do not disagree with these points as basic explanations of problems of Korean integration, but seek to highlight diversity among the Korean migrant population rather than stress its homogeneity. They also emphasise that certain characteristics of Korean immigrants reinforced existing prejudices among Japanese and inclined government officials to use assimilation as a means of political and social control. Some government social welfare officials expressed sympathy for the impoverished living conditions of most Korean immigrants, but Japanese landlords and employers often regarded Koreans’ poverty and lack of education as evidence of their inferiority. In addition, the government had no tolerance for student radicals and militant labour organisers, many of whom were active in the Communist Party and strident Korean independence advocates. Despite representing a minority of Korean immigrants, these activists attracted the attention of police authorities and heightened the government’s security concerns regarding Koreans in general. During the late 1930s the Kyowakai (Harmonisation Society) therefore became an agency for surveillance and monitoring of political tendencies as well as supervising labour conscripts and used assimilation activities to try to instil Korean loyalty to the empire. Not surprisingly, these efforts at compulsory assimilation largely failed with the thousands of forced labourers. However, they were more successful with the increasing number of Koreans who had established families with a view to residing permanently in Japan. These Koreans viewed themselves as Japanese and joined in the activities of the Kyowakai (Harmonisation Society), some taking leading roles. As in the case of rural youth and reformist labour groups, these Korean ‘moderates’ were singled out for praise and encouragement by the government. The ‘failure’ of assimilation is generally traced to Koreans’ hatred of their colonial masters, but this view, in overlooking the existence of such ‘Japanised’ Koreans, forms part of the national identity-making process among Koreans in the post-1945 period. One can say that hatred of the Japanese has made up the core of Korean nationalism, and that universal hatred among Koreans in Japan as well as in the colony has become a myth that supports Korean nationalism. As Chung and Tipton point out, however, some Koreans did cooperate willingly with Japanese government

Introduction

15

assimilation efforts, although their expectations of being fully accepted as Japanese often remained unfulfilled. The at least partial success of Japanisation policies among Koreans, ‘success’ from the Japanese state’s point of view, suggests that members of marginalised groups deal with their disadvantaged situations in varied ways. This conclusion is reinforced by Hugh Clarke’s analysis of a debate over language standardisation policy in Okinawa. The debate began in early 1940 during a visit to Okinawa by prominent members of the Folk Art Association (Mingei Kyokai), led by Yanagi Muneyoshi, and other private groups. Members of the tour triggered the debate when they expressed their opinion that prefectural government officials were carrying their campaign for use of standard Japanese too far. Specifically, they opposed the denigration of the Okinawan dialect and cultural traditions. As the debate spread beyond the local newspapers and extended through most of the year, Okinawans surprisingly appeared on the side of language standardisation or assimilation, arguing that it would promote the economic development of the prefecture and free Okinawans from the prejudice and discrimination that they faced in their dealings with other Japanese. Certain Japanese, notably Yanagi and his folk art group, appeared on the other side offering the interesting argument that preservation of the Okinawan dialect would not only give Okinawans a sense of pride in having their own culture, but also serve as a source for developing a pure standard Japanese because it was less polluted by Western loan words than the existing standard language. Clarke’s study therefore not only sheds light on the complex psychology of minority groups, but also on the complex nature of Japanese nationalism. Yanagi’s arguments for preservation of the traditions and dialects of remote regions such as Okinawa reveal that prominent and influential figures did not believe that a standard national language had yet been established even during this so-called period of ultranationalism when Japanese colonial governments were focusing on acquisition of Japanese language skills as a key indicator of successful assimilation. Yanagi’s preservation attempts may be seen as part of the cultural identity-making efforts of the folk art movement whereby inclusion of Okinawan language and culture contributed to creation of a long Japanese cultural tradition and to expansion of the boundaries of the Japanese nation-state, in this case to include the Ryukyu Islands. We should note, however, that Yanagi’s views went against the standardisation policies being promoted by the central government even though he was a well-known and respected nationalist. Hence, a distinction needs to be made between cultural nationalism and state nationalism. At the same time, we need to recognise that despite differences over policy, the state acknowledged Yanagi’s patriotic credentials and that is the reason that he was allowed to speak and publish his dissenting views in the midst of war. It seems less likely that such views could have been publicly expressed by Okinawans.

16 Elise K.Tipton Nevertheless, it is still surprising that a debate over language standardisation could have taken place at all at this time, especially in light of the government’s insistence on use of Japanese by Koreans. Accordingly, in addition to showing that different kinds of nationalism existed even during the war, the debate demonstrates that modern Japanese national identity is not a static concept, but rather that it has undergone interpretation and reinterpretation throughout the twentieth century. In view of this last general point, in the epilogue to the book I will suggest the relevance of our studies for understanding developments in the periods after the end of the war. NOTES 1 Carol Gluck and Stephen Graubard (eds), Showa: The Japan of Hirohito, New York and London, W.W.Norton, 1992, p. xvii. 2 Ibid., p. xlii. 3 Jim Sharpe, ‘History from Below’ in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991, p. 25. 4 Gary Allinson, ‘Modern Japan: A New Social History’, Historical Methods Newsletter, June 1973, pp. 100–10. 5 For example, writings by Edward Seidensticker, Henry deW.Smith, Sepp Linhart and Hidetoshi Kato on Tokyo and urban culture and by Andrew Gordon on labour relations. 6 Most notable is Gail Bernstein’s collection of essays, Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1991. 7 The seven essays on women between 1868 and 1945 in Bernstein’s volume, see note 6, provide an example of such dichotomising. While three deal primarily with state policies, the other four have little if any reference to political developments. This observation is by no means meant to detract from their scholarship or the overall worth of the volume as a whole, but to illustrate that state-society studies tend to take a top-down political perspective while social history studies tend to leave out the state. 8 Sheldon Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State: Contending Approaches to Political Integration, 1890–1945’, vol. 12, no. 1, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Winter 1993, pp. 5–41. 9 See Laurel Rasplica Rodd, ‘Yosano Akiko and the Taisho Debate over the “New Woman”’ in Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, pp. 175–98. 10 See Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, New York, Pantheon, 1982. 11 Sharpe, ‘History from Below’, pp. 26–7. 12 Thomas Havens, Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two, Lanham, University Press of America, 1986, originally published by Norton, 1978, pp. 106–13.

2

Women primary school teachers and the state in interwar Japan Susan Newell

Historical scholarship on interwar Japan has focused primarily on the repression of democratic influences and on the political and military elites in the 1930s. However, without an understanding of the complex interaction between the ordinary populace and the state in the preceding decades, it remains difficult to explain why so many elements in society developed supportive structures for the government or ‘failed’ to resist the repressive and authoritarian state of the late 1930s. Up until recently historical research neglected the role of women in this interaction.1 Why did so many women, especially those most poised to develop democratic channels in the interwar period, not challenge the authoritarian state of the late 1930s? Sheldon Garon, contrary to many scholars of the women’s movement in prewar Japan, suggests that the relationship between the state and women in particular was by no means simply a matter of repression, nor of consistent policy.2 The interaction between various women’s groups and the government also encompassed the needs of women themselves. However, as Garon has pointed out, it is nonetheless important to remember that this was not an interaction of equals.3 Throughout the interwar years and beyond, the economy remained firmly divided along gender lines, which mitigated against women influencing the political agenda. In addition, despite changes to the ideological basis of women’s subordination, the state continued in essence to support the concept of inequality between the sexes. The apparent contradiction between state ideals for women in general and the active participation of women teachers in professional society between the wars provides an ideal focus for the complex interaction between state and society in the interwar period. Both as women and as workers for the Education Ministry, women primary school teachers were in a unique position to be heavily influenced by the prewar political developments. Women teachers were recipients of state conceived ideals for women, as well as the primary disseminators of that same information. Governmental policy towards women in education did address the needs of women teachers, but within the confines of the state’s own interests. These confines, established in the Meiji period, limited the spheres of action for women teachers and directed them

18 Susan Newell increasingly into support for the state’s policies in education. At the same time, these policies provided women with the opportunity to participate in the economic and sociopolitical life of the nation. This chapter examines both the freedoms and constraints for women within teaching in several aspects. First, the development of official education policy towards women in education provides a background to the entrance of women into teaching. While the structure and content of women’s education remained predominantly centred around domestic priorities, government officials increasingly recognised the important role women could play in supporting national ideology. Second, these educational developments, together with economic changes, encouraged women to engage in teaching in increasing numbers. Despite some local opposition, by the 1920s government policy provided a measure of support and acceptance of women teachers. Third, this recognition of women as teachers was counterbalanced by the discriminatory terms of employment for women teachers, which limited their prestige and power within the profession and their ability to organise on their own terms. This had implications for relations between women teachers and the Education Ministry in the 1930s. Finally, this examination aims to cast some light on the issue of ‘collaboration’ between women and the authoritarian state in prewar and wartime Japan. DEVELOPMENT OF STATE POLICY TOWARDS WOMEN IN EDUCATION A single official policy towards women barely existed in the interwar period, and even when direct attention by the government to women’s roles increased in the 1920s, the responsibilities were divided among different ministries, though primarily the Education and Home Ministries. Despite this lack of a clearly formulated policy deriving from a somewhat ambiguous attitude towards women’s position in society, certain assumptions concerning gender roles had been consolidated during the late 1880s which formed the basis for the general treatment of women’s roles in society as distinct from those of men. First, several laws assigned negative prescriptions to women. An 1890 law, later backed up by the Public Peace Police Law in 1900, prohibited political activity, and the Meiji Civil Code of 1898 restricted women’s rights within the family. Women were given clear legal signals that they were in a subordinate position to men. Whilst some minor amendments were made concerning legal restrictions of women, such as an amendment to Article Five of the Public Peace Police Law in 1922, this structure remained virtually unchanged until after the Second World War. Second, although the new education system in the Meiji period provided education for girls at the compulsory primary level and developed the foundations for a higher education system for girls, in general girls’ education

Women primary school teachers and the state

19

was conceived as separate and inferior to boys’ education. A conservative reaction in the 1880s to the initial liberalism of the Meiji Restoration was mirrored in education by the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890. This likened the Meiji emperor to the family patriarch with all subjects his children and emphasised Confucian precepts of loyalty and filial piety. As Education Minister Mori Arinori worked to create the foundations for a strong state through the education system, he incorporated women into his plans by designating a secondary role for them in education as future mothers and wives. The comprehensive education codes established by him in 1886 provided for four years of primary school and an additional non-compulsory two years of higher primary school. By the end of the Meiji period compulsory education was operating with remarkable success. For girls this was particularly so. The huge gap between boys and girls attendance decreased from 64.3 per cent of boys and 30.5 per cent of girls in 1889 to 98.8 per cent and 97.5 per cent respectively by 1911.4 However, even at the compulsory level, many larger schools placed girls in separate classes, and from 1900 regulations stated that when there were enough girls to make up a separate class this was advisable. The subject matter also varied slightly for girls and boys, particularly in the two or three year higher primary school. The 1886 school regulations added sewing to the curriculum for girls at higher primary schools, which invariably made their school day longer than that of boys. In contrast, boys, particularly at higher primary, often studied more science, history, geography and exercise (frequently military drill).5 At the higher levels of schooling there was an even more marked discrepancy between the sexes. Boys who wished to continue beyond higher primary attended middle school, and girls attended special girls’ high schools. Whereas boys’ middle schools numbered ninety five with 30,871 students in 1895, only fifteen girls’ government high schools with 2,897 students existed.6 The provision of any type of middle level schooling for girls came largely from the private Christian schools set up in early Meiji times, such as the Ferris School for Girls established in 1871. Even by the end of the century private schools for girls outnumbered public schools, with Protestant girls’ schools alone numbering 63 in 1898 in contrast to the 26 government girls’ higher schools.7 Partly in response to the overwhelming Western influence through these schools, the Girls’ High School Law was produced in 1899, aiming for the establishment of a girls’ high school in every prefecture. It set the girls’ high school course at four years in length, one less than boys’ middle schools, which were presumed to be at a higher standard. By 1905 there were 100 girls’ higher schools and by 1910 they numbered 193. 8 This number nearly tripled between 1910 and 1920.9 The schools themselves varied by principal and region, but many were founded on the principles of the ryosai kenbo catchcry. This ryosai kenbo or ‘good wife, wise mother’ concept was a mixture of the pre-Meiji Confucian sexual division of duties and the Western-influenced portrayal of domestic woman, seen as the ideal

20 Susan Newell for girls from middle and upper-class families. It differed greatly from the Tokugawa samurai ideal in that it promoted women’s role in a positive light as educator of children in the home. It was also a term simple enough to be used according to the interpretation of various ideologues.10 In 1910 the division of girls’ high schools into practical domestic science schools and more academic schools revealed the growing concern by the Education Ministry with the domestic roles of women of all classes. NonChristian private schools for girls also began to flourish, some modelling themselves on the government girls’ high schools and promoting a nationalistic ideology. Other private schools for girls, such as Tsuda Umeko’s English College (Eigaku Juku) established in 1900, and Hani Motoko’s Freedom School (Jiyu Gakuen) in 1921, were attempts to experiment with new ideas of teaching and often provided girls with unusual and individualistic training for a more independent life. As far as university level education was concerned, the government refused to acknowledge the need for higher studies for girls. Normal schools for girls, while quite numerous, were considered to be virtually the equivalent of boys’ middle school. Higher normal schools, for the training of girls’ high school or normal school teachers, were perhaps comparable to university education, but these numbered only two, in Nara and Tokyo, in the period before the Second World War.11 In 1903 a law covering certain senmon gakko or specialist colleges allowed for schools to achieve tertiary status without becoming universities. For example, Japan Women’s University became a senmon gakko in 1904. In 1905, they constituted 81 per cent of the total number of tertiary education institutions, dropping to only 65 per cent by 1935. The overwhelming majority of these were private.12 Women did not have access as regular students to the imperial universities attended by men, nor were there any women’s colleges with the same status as men’s universities until after 1945. Thus, structurally the education system established in the Meiji period provided a measure of opportunity for girls, which in itself indicated a much increased interest on the part of the government in the useful role of women in society. Nonetheless it was by no means equal to the educational provisions for boys because of the continuing widespread belief that women were inherently earmarked for domestic roles. This structure underlies the construction of gender throughout the education system during the entire interwar period. At the same time, by the First World War some changes in the economic and political life of Japan had begun to have an effect on state attitudes toward women and women’s own perceptions of their role in society. In economic terms, women were playing a much more varied role in public life. While most women were still employed in the agricultural sector, a growing number of women worked in manufacturing and also in white collar jobs. Middle-class women were noticeable in such fujin shokugyo (women’s occupations) as sales and office work. In the professions, a small but noticeable group of women began to work in medicine and teaching.

Women primary school teachers and the state

21

This economic activity in new or previously male-dominated fields modified the social attitudes of many, and certain work became acceptable among the middle classes to a certain extent if it was proclaimed ‘suitable’. These changes were reflected in and precipitated by the increase in the numbers of girls pursuing higher education. As outlined, by the First World War a larger number of high schools and specialist colleges existed, catering to girls from a variety of backgrounds. These included training schools for typists, business studies, medicine and teaching, as well as the more traditional sewing schools. In this climate some feminists, education ideologues and education officials viewed ryosai kenbo ideology as anachronistic and called for a redefinition of women’s roles. Modifications of the old ideology were called for, even by the Education Ministry, although with varying emphasis.13 In tandem with these economic and educational changes, small groups of women actively pursued political involvement despite legal restrictions on overt political activity. Middle and upper-class women exerted pressure on politicians as early as the late nineteenth century through Christian Temperance Unions, organised into the massive Patriotic Society in 1901, and became even more active after the First World War. Women were also active in the burgeoning socialist and workers movements, participating in industrial strikes, the rice riots of 1918 and forming a women’s branch of the Yuaikai in 1919 and the socialist women’s Red Wave Society in 1921. The New Women’s Society, founded in 1919, managed to rescind one section of the restrictive Article Five of the Police Law. The Women’s Suffrage Association gained some support from the Diet and almost managed success with a women’s suffrage bill. In response to signs of unrest, the Education Ministry in the late Taisho period attempted to re-emphasise the restrictive ryosai kenbo view of women, while at the same time moved to a more concerted policy of integrating women into public life. Chino Yoichi describes the late Meiji government view of women as a mixture of Confucianism and nationalism, one which placed women in a subordinate position to men inside the family system, but which emphasised women’s sacrifice for the national good.14 This became particularly obvious after the First World War as the Japanese government moved to control riots and unrest at home and consolidate its position as a world power following the minor gains of the war on the international front. The Education Ministry moved to protect the family system through a review of education policy at the Special Education Conference in 1917–19. Instead of expanding the urgently needed women’s higher education, the committee re-established conservative views on girls’ education. In particular, this was revealed in the Sixth Article on women’s education which expressed the aim of women’s education in the following terms: Women’s education should fully realise the Imperial Will of the Rescript on Education. In particular, the idea of national polity (kokutai) should be

22 Susan Newell strengthened and a spirit which places importance on feminine virtues and constancy should be cultivated. Further, physical education should be encouraged, the character of diligence made to prosper, vanity admonished, extravagance restrained, and the main exertion should be aimed at attaining those elements appropriate to our family system.15 Hence the traditional virtues of samurai women and the importance of the family system were advocated not only for those middle and upper-class girls in the high schools, but for the general populace. The ultimate purpose of the emphasis on the family system was to promote a sense of national duty, which extended the old style ryosai kenbo idea into the public realm and raised it to a national level. The government even looked to Western countries for inspiration. Following the First World War several Japanese government officials had highlighted and appraised the position of women in Western countries during the war. Surveys on the role of women’s groups in Italy, Germany, England and France during the war confirmed the usefulness of patriotic women in wartime.16 The confirmation that women’s roles supported such powerful nations as Germany and England did much to strengthen the nationalist cause. From the early 1920s various ministries, especially the Home and Education Ministries, supported campaigns directed at enlisting women’s help in the economic and moral life of Japan.17 In 1920 the Home Ministry announced plans to encourage formation of local fujinkai or women’s organisations. The government slowly began to sponsor the political participation of women through various locally based national organisations. For example, through the Federation of Women’s Associations of Western Japan and through various Daily Life Improvement (Seikatsu Kaizen Undo) campaigns, it aimed among other things at improving the economic and moral life of family homes by placing responsibility for household rationalisation on the new breed of housewives. These were government supported organisations, but also existed due to the initiative of women genuinely interested in extending the participation of women to broader sections of society, including women’s suffrage. These large and influential organisations provided a means of playing a statecondoned civic role, unlike involvement in overtly political associations, and teachers in particular were interested in playing such an educational role for Japanese women. 18 However, whilst they were a potent political force, these organisations were not involved in a complete reappraisal of women’s roles. Rather, they provided for an extension of the domestic sphere into society, and their participation was tolerated as long as it operated within a sphere acceptable to the state and mainstream social attitudes. Although the official attitude towards women by the end of the 1920s still reiterated the fundamental duties of women toward a husband, children and parents-in-law, working for the national good also served as ideological legitimation for certain actions by women which contradicted a rigid

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interpretation of traditional values for women. Social action was tolerated, and in fact encouraged to some extent, if it supported the status quo. Thus the participation of women in the teaching profession was by no means in direct contradiction to the re-emphasis on ryosai kenbo in the 1920s. THE ENTRANCE OF WOMEN INTO THE TEACHING PROFESSION The early Meiji government recognised the special suitability of teaching for women and, as it was necessary to train large numbers of teachers to serve in the new education system established in 1872, decided to incorporate into the system a women’s normal school in Tokyo in 1874. This only provided for a few teachers in the early stages, but gradually normal schools in each prefecture had women’s departments.19 In these initial stages David Murray acted as an advisor from the United States, where women already formed a large proportion of the teaching force. 20 Arguments that women were naturally suited to teaching had swept the United States decades earlier, and while in Japan women were not previously perceived as educators so much as producers, women’s reproductive capacities associated them with small children.21 Under Mori Arinori, the normal school system was standardised in an attempt to reduce the numbers of unqualified teachers. Most teachers, women teachers in particular, continued to be untrained. In 1885, regular certified teachers numbered 28,756, assistant teachers 2,559, and pupilteachers a staggering 67,000 and over. However, licensing and training procedures were more regulated than before.22 Mori’s system provided for normal schools to be divided into higher and ordinary normal schools, with one higher normal school in Tokyo under direct Ministry of Education control. The rest were to be prefectural schools. The course to become a primary teacher at a lower primary school was of four years in duration, after which time the graduate would receive a local licence to teach which was valid for five years. Male graduates were bound to teach for ten years and women for five years. In return, the prefectures reimbursed students for all expenses. General licences to teach anywhere in Japan were gained after this period of time or were granted directly to graduates of higher normal schools. Non-graduates had to sit an exam of normal school standard set by the local authorities and had to be recommended by the local authorities. Local authorities were still able to appoint appropriate teachers without examination if they so needed. In addition, to become an assistant teacher one had only to be eighteen years of age if a woman and seventeen years of age if a man, healthy and ‘moral’, although one could not become a regular teacher until after at least a year’s service. In 1907 the normal schools were divided into two sections: the first was a four year course for higher elementary school graduates, and the second section was for higher girls’ school and middle school graduates. However, the structure of teacher training changed only marginally up until the Second World War.

24 Susan Newell In content, until the late 1880s women’s courses were similar to men’s courses, except for the fact that they substituted sewing and household studies for military drill. However, in 1889 and 1892 the content of the women’s normal school course was prescribed as separate and distinct from the men’s course, and in 1897 the establishment of separate normal schools for women was encouraged. Revisions of subject matter set the women’s course at three years, including home economics, sewing and more singing, less mathematics and gymnastics than for men and no agriculture, foreign languages, commerce and military drill as in the men’s normal course. As the higher primary school course specified certain subjects such as agriculture for boys, women normal school graduates literally lacked training for the higher grades of the primary school system. Men as well were not eligible to teach young girls the elements of home economics.23 The private lives of teacher trainees were regulated for both sexes. Most women students lived in dormitories where visitors and reading materials were censored, as both Takamure Itsue and Ichikawa Fusae describe in their autobiographies. By the dawning of the Taisho period in 1912 very little had changed in subject content, as is shown through Ichikawa Fusae’s account of life at the Okazaki Normal School.24 Mori’s vision of education was to create a militarily strong and united nation of subjects loyal to the emperor system. The position of teachers in this vision was of model citizens, but not elite leaders. They were essential instruments of the state as inculcators of state values. That teachers were seen as special organs of the state is evident in the placing of their political freedom outside that of ordinary citizens. The fourth article of the 1881 ‘Instructions For Elementary Teachers’ forbade teachers to participate in politics in any form. By virtue of their sex, women teachers were also limited by the Public Peace Police Law. The government was interested in improving the quality and supply of teachers in order to serve the national interest, and both women and men received some encouragement regarding training. However, the raising of normal school courses to a college level did not occur until 1943 when the courses were brought to the same length and status as university education. In reality, for most of the prewar period, primary school teachers were considered more as workers for the state than as trained professionals. This low status was directly tied to salaries and worker conditions, and hence affected the supply of teachers. However, it affected women and men in teaching differently. One major effect of low status was the lack of men willing to teach in primary schools, despite an increasing demand. This demand for primary school teachers escalated especially after 1907 when compulsory education was extended to six years.25 The lack of availability of suitable men continued throughout the interwar period because teachers’ salaries were not particularly good for men. The country primary school teacher was well known to be part of the poor elite.26 In particular, the high inflation following the First World

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War made teachers’ salaries seem pitiful to men. Many consequently left teaching to seek work in the more profitable world of business. Others protested at their conditions, even participating in the 1918 rice riots. A special bill was eventually passed in 1918 to alleviate the low salaries to some extent. Yet men still continued to leave teaching for other careers and the situation worsened in the Showa period.27 The low wages had accompanied a lowering of prestige of the whole profession, and whereas samurai had made up the bulk of normal school students in the early Meiji period, by the end of the First World War the majority came from commoner backgrounds.28 These conditions affected the application rates for men’s normal schools, which while still high in 1912, decreased significantly by 1919.29 In contrast to this, women were increasingly welcomed into the teaching profession, especially after the change in matriculation status in 1907. The primary reason for their attractiveness was the fact that they were cheaper to employ. The disparity between the wages of men and women was viewed as natural by most and unavoidable by many. An Imperial Education Association survey (Teikoku Kyoikukai, hereafter abbreviated to TKK) in 1916 found that women primary school teachers’ wages were on average seventy five per cent those of men, with the discrepancy larger at higher salary levels. 30 While wages rose by 1919, the discrepancy remained unchanged. More women than men occupied the levels with very low salaries, with as many as 1,657 women out of 57,595 receiving less than five yen a month.31 The TKK survey of school principals in 1916 listed ‘cheap to employ’ as a primary merit of women teachers, especially appealing when prefectural governments after the First World War were facing economic difficulties. By employing women on low salaries, schools could retain men on higher salaries. These sorts of arguments were expressed quite openly at the time. Besides the unequal pay system, other considerations favoured the employment of women. First, there was the need for a certain percentage of women teachers to teach girls’ classes. Women teachers often taught the girls-only classes and were needed to teach sewing classes for girls. Thus women’s ‘special qualities’ ensured that they composed at least a certain percentage of the teaching force. In addition, there was the whole question of the suitability of women as teachers of young children. In the 1916 TKK survey, 40 normal school principals and 71 primary school principals listed the following merits of women teachers: ‘attention to detail’, ‘carry out orders obediently’, ‘strong in affection’, ‘treat small children kindly’, and ‘suited to teaching manners, sewing, singing and dancing’.32 These merits were contradicted by the list of demerits, which were also firmly rooted in the idea of inherent womanly qualities. For example, although women were praised as full of love and kindness to children, at the same time they were criticised for their biased treatment of children. Similarly, the positive qualities of meticulousness and obedience were counterpoised by a perceived lack of creativity and academic initiative. Women were seen as

26 Susan Newell suitable because they were careful, obedient, naturally kind and loving and able to teach girls special subjects. Their position in the school was likened by the committee to their position in the family—as mothers. But this positive role did not protect women from criticisms of their ‘natural’ weaknesses. An examination of women’s motivations for becoming teachers also reveals the special situation of teaching as employment for women. In terms of financial rewards, the situation for women teachers contrasted with that of men teachers. Compared to other employment for women, teaching paid well, and this made it attractive to girls from lower and middle-class backgrounds. By mid-1917 the rise in prices and the demands of growing consumerism began to affect middle-class families, and it became increasingly necessary for middle-class daughters and wives to supplement the family income in order to maintain living standards.33 According to a 1922 Tokyo survey, wives and daughters were often the entire support for dependants.34 Teachers worked for a variety of reasons, but the primary reasons were to support the family, or extended family, and to maintain an expected lifestyle. 35 Teaching was the most profitable job for a woman among the new employment opportunities of industrialising Japan. Although there was a large difference between the highest and lowest of salaries, the average monthly salary of regular primary school teachers in 1922, including bonuses and seniority pay, was 72 yen 87 sen. According to one survey, this was the highest salary obtainable among women’s jobs. The next highest was nursing at 42 yen 128 sen a month.36 The good salary for regular teachers was supplemented by bonuses and yearly increases. Another attractive aspect of teaching for women was educational. Teaching presented the only cheap means to higher education after primary school. Girls’ high schools and private colleges did exist, but the tuition itself was by no means low and furthermore did not provide practical training. Teachers’ colleges provided free board and tuition in exchange for guaranteed work. Hence applicants for normal schools greatly exceeded the number of places available. The opportunity to study was a primary motive for many girls quite apart from the actual work of becoming a teacher. However, the conditions and nature of the work also drew women to teach in primary schools. Often teachers were lucky enough to procure positions close to their homes, schools offered pleasant surroundings and work hours, and in addition, teachers received a measure of prestige in the local area. If they were married, it was not as difficult as many jobs to coordinate childcare with teaching commitments. Importantly, teaching gave women a feeling of independence. The 1922 Tokyo survey revealed that the young women often were interested in contributing to society.37 Regarded as a ‘calling’, teaching was attractive for altruistic reasons and equated well with the tradition of self-sacrifice for Japanese women. Hence from both the employer’s and employee’s point of view, women made suitable teachers. The percentage of women primary school teachers in

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primary schools increased from the 1880s to 1908. By the end of the First World War it reached 27.6 per cent and rose to a peak of 33.3 per cent in 1926. The percentage then decreased slightly throughout the early 1930s, but did not drop below 31 per cent for the remainder of the prewar period.38 However, percentages differed greatly by region. Whilst in some regions women comprised far less than a third of the primary school teaching force, in others it exceeded this proportion.39 As the proportion of women primary school teachers increased, the presence of women became the focus of debate and interest in educational societies and the media. Commentators raised the question of limits to the numbers of women, throwing light on the tenuous position of women teachers throughout the period. In Western countries, which were used as comparisons in these debates, the percentage of women in primary school teaching was much higher.40 The comparatively low percentage of women teachers in Japan was an indication of a different stage of industrial development to a large extent, but also had some relation to the lack of acceptance of women in a traditionally male-dominated and prestigious profession.41 Whilst the reasons for the employment of women as outlined above served as justifications for many employers and educationalists, the position of women in teaching remained ambiguous throughout the interwar period. This was manifest in the terms of their employment which kept women in an inferior position in the schools. These structural inequalities supported conservative attitudes towards women in general both at the bureaucratic level and in the families of the women themselves. THE TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS Women teachers were from the very beginning of their involvement in the education system in a subordinate role in the primary schools, and this was evident not only in structural inequalities but also in criticism and discrimination levelled against them. Women teachers often felt that they had to endure discriminatory remarks from their colleagues and principals, and were particularly susceptible to allegations of scandals (fuki mondai) within the schools.42 In a more subtle sense as well, the debate and criticism of women’s position as teachers which took place in the Taisho period was a manifestation of their perceived threat to the teaching establishment. Discussions on the ‘issue of women teachers’ centred around establishing the appropriate proportions of women to men teachers in the schools, with an often unfavourable comparison with the West. Japan, it was argued, was different from the West and therefore should be protected from an unfortunate swamping of the teaching profession by women.43 In order to ascertain the feelings of principals on this matter, the good and bad qualities of women teachers were analysed extensively, an exercise not directed at male teachers. Kido Wakao noted the first such discussion by

28 Susan Newell a national organisation in 1907, conducted by the Greater Japan Education Society (Dai Nippon Kyoiku Kai), which was followed by newspaper and magazine articles.44 However, the issue was not treated extensively as a national debate until the TKK survey conducted in 1916. This survey and the discussion surrounding it led by the president of the society, Sawayanagi Masataro, dissected the qualities of women teachers in order to ascertain the ideal percentage of women in primary school teaching. Yet whilst the terms of this debate were dictated by men and shaped by their views of women’s ‘natural qualities’, Sawayanagi and many of those surveyed were not opposed to women teachers in primary schools. Rather, they wanted to control the numbers to the utmost benefit of national education, both spiritually and economically, and in fact supported an increase in the percentage of women teachers to fifty per cent.45 Women teachers were not only beneficial to the schools for financial reasons; they were also perceived as highly suitable for certain types of work inside the schools, although these proved to be the least qualified and lowest paid jobs. A disproportionate number of women taught the lower grades or girls-only classes. A survey of Tokyo normal school graduates in 1917 revealed that almost ninety per cent of the women were allocated to girls-only classes, although the majority of them stated that they desired to teach all grades of girls’ classes as well as lower grades of the mixed classes.46 In 1914, 96,776 men and 41,235 women taught lower primary classes, whilst 17,005 men and only 2,912 women taught classes at the higher primary level.47 This situation no doubt partly stemmed from less adequate training among women, but in addition from the perception of principals and the women themselves that women were more naturally suited to teaching small children and girls. The 1916 TKK survey showed that of forty normal school principals only one agreed that women should teach up to grade six, and only fifteen agreed they should teach up to grade four. Of the seventy primary school principals surveyed, none agreed to women teaching the grade five and six boys-only classes. Women were also viewed as unsuitable for grades three to six boys’ classes and even grades five and six of girls-only classes! Even Goto Seiko, a normal school teacher who wrote a book largely in sympathy with women teachers’ problems, envisaged a woman teacher’s role as akin to motherhood, stating that if ‘school were a family, then women teachers would all be housewives’ and thus should be responsible for combing the children’s hair and keeping the classroom neat.48 Women were also expected to serve tea to guests and cater for school receptions. One argument in support of this division of labour was that women were not qualified enough to teach the higher grades. Lack of training and qualifications plagued women more than men. By 1912, of 43,414 women teachers only 18,965 were regular teachers and 13,436 were temporary teachers. Thus 44.3 per cent of the women did not hold regular teaching certificates. By 1920 this had decreased only marginally to 36.3 per cent.49 Temporary teachers did not

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receive monthly increases and received much less pay than regular teachers. In this way local education expenses could be cut, but at the same time women teachers were criticised for their lack of scholarship.50 Inadequate qualifications among women teachers was in part the result of a continuing lack of tight controls on teacher certification, which continued to be undermined by the system of examination entrance and the low status of teacher training. For women there were fewer normal schools than for men, and in general fewer higher educational institutions. The content of women’s normal school education equipped women well for teaching sewing, domestic sciences and music, but underequipped them for those subjects necessary to teach boys at the higher grades. Besides this, it was more difficult for women than men to train themselves whilst teaching as they often had domestic responsibilities with which to contend. Married women teachers complained that they had little time to study, to keep up to date on educational methods or to prepare lessons at home.51 Under these circumstances promotion opportunities for women in teaching were extremely few. The first recorded case of a woman becoming a primary school principal was not until 1920, when Shimabara Tsuru became principal of a school in Miyazaki prefecture at the age of 24.52 Shimabara was followed by Yajima Toshi the following year in Kanagawa prefecture. In Tokyo it was not until 1931 that the first woman principal was appointed, Kiuchi Kyo of the Shimura primary school.53 While there existed several prominent principals and founders of private schools in the interwar period, for example Tsuda Umeko and Hani Motoko, in the state primary schools they were severely under-represented. These types of discriminatory treatment of women in teaching reveal clearly the limitations of women’s position in the workforce. Whereas the Education Ministry and individual schools sponsored women into teaching for various economic and ideological reasons, women were unable to advance beyond a certain point. The very nature of their sex thus gained them a hold in this semi-professional workforce, but also served to allow the employers to exploit their position within the profession. This two-sided coin is also clearly visible in the position of married women teachers at the time. The 1916 TKK survey revealed that the national average percentage of married women among women primary school teachers was 37 per cent. In some regions such as Kagoshima prefecture it was as low as 16 per cent, but in others such as Iwate prefecture it was as high as 49 per cent.54 According to a survey of Tokyo working women in 1924, as many as 60 per cent of women teachers were married.55 In addition, most of those married had children.56 The situation in the United States, Britain and Australia at the time was slightly different. In the United States women made up the majority of the primary school teaching force, yet by 1930 as few as 17.9 per cent of women teachers were married. Despite this low figure, marriage bars were enacted in various states during the 1920s and 1930s when there was

30 Susan Newell massive unemployment.57 In Britain as well, by the First World War married women constituted only 12 per cent of women primary school teachers. Nevertheless, with a glut of teachers after the war these women became the target of marriage bars by local education authorities. This situation continued until 1935, despite opposition by teachers’ unions.58 In Australia marriage bars were also enacted during the Depression in 1932.59 In contrast, in Japan a lack of availability of suitable male teachers in the 1920s continued to support the position of women in teaching. During the economic depression and unemployment of the early 1930s the percentage of women teachers as a whole did drop slightly, but throughout the period no legal marriage bars were instituted.60 This was not only for economic reasons, but also in part because of the importance placed on marriage and positive appraisal of married women teachers by principals and educationalists. Married women were perceived by some as invested with special qualities, distinct from those of single women. Consequently, in the 1916 TKK survey their merits and demerits were evaluated separately from those of single women. In fact, married women teachers, while heavily criticised for their inability to devote time to their work and their lack of punctuality, were also praised for their suitability to understand and teach small children. Maturity was equated with motherhood and consequently respected, at least in theory. In this survey, and Sawayanagi’s commentary, married women teachers were seen as superior in quality to single women, who were viewed as selfish and immature. Married women teachers themselves supported this argument. One woman wrote that after she had a child she ‘came to weep tears of love and sympathy for [her] pupils’ and when she thought of her single days she realised she was ‘colder than now and there was no real feeling of love towards the children’ as she felt after marriage.61 Others liked to emphasise the presence of married women teachers as a unique Japanese characteristic, as Japan placed such importance on the state of marriage.62 These sorts of ideological arguments supplemented the economic reasons for the employment of women beyond marriage, married women being a cheap and available supply of experienced labour. At the same time, married women suffered not only criticism in the workplace but also had to contend with feelings of guilt brought about by the practical difficulties of a dual workload.63 The responsibilities of married women, especially those with children, meant that they found it difficult to satisfy successfully the requirements of both the school and the family. This practical difficulty was revealed in published testimonies of women who on returning from school had to cook, clean, wash clothes and spend only a few minutes with their children or husband before falling asleep.64 The question of how to resolve married women teachers’ problems formed the basis of discussion at the National Women Primary School Teacher’s Meeting (Zenkoku Shogakko Jokyoin Kai or ZSJK) from its very first meeting in 1917, centring largely on the practical day to day difficulties of combining domestic responsibilities with a teaching load. In particular,

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women teachers expressed dissatisfaction with childcare arrangements. In Japan, as women increasingly worked in occupations outside the home and families moved to the city as nuclear units, more women were forced to look for alternative forms of childcare outside of the family unit. Public day care facilities were few and women still greatly relied on the extended family and neighbours. Alternatively, a Kyoto survey in 1920 revealed that many with children under six relied on maids or komori (childminders).65 The care of small babies who needed to be breast-fed aroused particular concern. Among women teachers the most popular form of feeding their infants was breast-feeding, despite the fact that it was often difficult to coordinate with work schedules.66 Women teachers lucky enough to live near work rushed home to breast-feed at lunch break. Some breast-fed their babies in the caretaker’s room, the babies were brought to the school by childminders. Others expressed milk before leaving in the morning. The provision of childcare and breast-feeding facilities were amongst those demands made by primary school teachers and discussed by educationalists, but with little success, for neither the Education Ministry nor individual schools took responsibility for childcare. Aside from calls for ‘more understanding’ from principals and from husbands,67 one means of resolving these problems of married teachers, as suggested by the TKK in 1917, was to institute a part-time system for married women. According to this proposal, married women teachers would work only part-time, with a reduction in pay, in order to coordinate both duties. Interestingly, the idea was rejected by women at several of the ZSJK meetings, the major reasons being that the system would make women teachers appear negligent and denigrate the vocation of teaching, a feeling strong among single women present. It was argued that it would also create a lack of continuity in classroom teachers. In support of the proposal, Sawayanagi presented the idea in a highly practical light. He compared the situation to the West, where, he said, women teachers retired on marriage even though the domestic duties of Western women were much less strenuous than those of Japanese women. He asked Japanese women teachers to reflect on whether or not it was asking too much to take on bravely both of these fulltime burdens.68 After much struggle and in a much reduced form, the proposal was finally accepted at the seventh meeting in 1927, only to be rejected by the Education Ministry. The problems of married women teachers consequently continued to be their own responsibility. The problem of maternity leave achieved slightly more success, as the Education Ministry instituted the first national maternity leave law for women teachers in 1922. This issue reflected the growing national concern with the elevation and protection of motherhood. Feminists such as Hiratsuka Raicho supported recognition of the sacred role of motherhood, and increasingly the state also interested itself in this aspect of private lives. Maternity leave for teachers had actually existed in several regions prior to 1922. Nagano prefecture had regulated maternity leave as early as 1908 and

32 Susan Newell Kyoto in 1921. In addition, maternity leave was a topic of debate at the 1919 International Labour Organisation conference in Washington to which Japan sent representatives. Partly as a consequence of such international pressure, maternity leave for teachers and also a limited provision for factory workers in 1926 was approved. The maternity leave law announced that without such measures, ‘not only would this be an obstacle to the good health of a mother’s body and fetus, and of babies, but directly and indirectly would have a bad effect on education’.69 The law established an eight week maternity leave system which entitled a teacher to take leave two weeks before birth and six weeks following. Despite the enormous significance of this law, the leave was not compulsory and there were no provisions for substitute teachers, making it ineffective. Schools were disinclined to spend extra money on teachers, and women teachers proved disinclined to inconvenience the school and their colleagues, who would have to take on an extra teaching load. A follow-up survey taken by the Education Ministry in 1924 revealed that of those women teachers who had experienced childbirth, the majority had taken less than the period stipulated, or none at all!70 At the fourth ZSJK meeting in 1924 a Kanagawa committee proposed that there should be teachers available to supplement the classes, but this never eventuated, due to lack of funds and the desire of women teachers not to be seen as shifting their duties onto fellow colleagues. The Education Ministry and the schools welcomed women into teaching, using arguments that women were specially suited to teaching due to their reproduction-related qualities. This operated to some extent in favour of married women teachers, who at least received maternity leave, but failed to provide completely for practical assistance. The attribution of special qualities supported relegation of women teachers in general to a secondary status. In this ambiguous situation women could find some ideological support as women, but little resolution to some of their problems as workers. ORGANISATION AND DEBATE AMONGST WOMEN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS The ambiguous interaction between women teachers as workers and the Education Ministry as employer was manifest in the nature of women teachers’ organisations from 1917. Following the First World War the first labour union, the Yuaikai was formed, with a women’s branch established in 1919. Socialist women also attempted to organise working women through the Red Wave Society. In addition, there was a plethora of professionally related study groups and associations which, whilst not actively exerting pressure on employers, nonetheless provided forums for discussion of workrelated problems. In the teaching profession there had existed since the Meiji period various education societies. However, the first teachers’ union, the Keimeikai, was not established until 1919. Shimonaka Yosaburo

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organised the union in the wake of continuing economic difficulties and low salaries of teachers. Although Shimonaka attempted to convince women teachers that their interests would be best represented by contributing to this union, women teachers preferred to join regional discussion groups for women teachers only. 71 These operated mainly under the auspices of women’s normal schools and were dominated by school principals and local education officials. Women primary school teachers, whilst being intellectuals among working women in Japan in the interwar period, were also instilled by virtue of their profession and by teacher training with feelings of responsibility towards society and of a sacred mission towards their work. This meant that when they did participate in organisations, they presented a quixotic blend of worker demands and expressions of responsibility as educators for the state. When the government finally turned to sponsoring women’s organisations in the 1920s, women teachers were its obvious choice as leaders of such organisations, and women teachers accepted easily this mantle of responsibility. The first national women primary school teachers’ meeting in 1917 was initiated by Sawayanagi Masataro, President of the TKK, an organisation of male educationalists closely affiliated with the Education Ministry. Sawayanagi became increasingly liberal in his later years, forming the experimental Seijo Primary School in 1917 and actively supporting women’s education. Yet he was also a long time high ranking bureaucrat of the Education Ministry and an employer of teachers himself.72 It was on his suggestion that a national forum of women teachers met at Tokyo Women’s Higher Normal School in 1917 in order to discuss the position of women teachers amongst themselves. However, as a semi-official forum, from the start it had limitations. The meeting was chaired by the TKK President, the opening ceremony included singing the national anthem and a reading of the Imperial Rescript on Education, and discussions started with a topic suggested by the Education Ministry and the TKK. At the same time it also provided an opportunity for women to discuss some important issues and formulate proposals. As many as 160 women from all over Japan participated in the first meeting, and after the organisation became permanent, as the National Women Primary School Teachers Alliance or Zenkoku Shogakko Rengo Jokyoinkai (ZSRJK) in 1924, these figures increased, reaching an all time high in 1939 of 1,400 members. 73 An alternative group centred around normal schools had also been formed in 1922, but it was the weaker of the two and was later absorbed into the ZSRJK.74 At the first meetings discussion focused on worker-related topics, such as maternity leave, a part-time system for married women and promotion, alongside educational topics such as education of girls. Over the 25 years of its existence, proposals covering equal pay, teacher training, promotion, maternity leave, retirement pay and other worker-related issues were made. However, of these proposals presented to the Education Ministry, only two

34 Susan Newell had concrete outcomes—the maternity leave proposal and a proposal to reduce differences between the curriculum of women’s and men’s normal schools. In general the organisation remained a discussion arena, but its national representation and connections to the educational establishment made it prestigious and a focus for women teachers. Prominent women teachers such as Ichikawa Fusae and Kiuchi Kyo became vice-chairs and participated in conferences and study tours of Manchuria, China and Hawaii. With such connections to the establishment, it is not surprising that it represented worker demands less than the Education Ministry’s own growing interest in the role of women as mothers and citizens of Japan. Women teachers’ regional groups and also feminist organisations voiced frustration with the organisation. They were dissatisfied with its undemocratic nature, especially with the close ties it maintained with the TKK and male educators. Oku Mumeo, co-founder of the New Women’s Society, criticised the association in 1927 in the following manner: Up until now the representatives at the meetings have not been elected; most of them have been nominated from above. Even with respect to the agenda, there has been none of that important consultation at the bottom; it has been randomly collected and discussed and there has been no one to take responsibility and put it into practice. This is impracticable theory. In order to have a sound organisation, to improve the status of women teachers and to gain their rights, women teachers must work as a united movement.75 In 1933 the leader of the women’s suffrage movement, Ichikawa Fusae, also criticised the ZSRJK’s male leadership, stating that it needed to have an elected chairperson from its own midst to give a true representation of women’s opinions.76 Ichikawa’s interest in the problems of women teachers reflected close ties between women teachers and other women’s organisations. As noted earlier, Ichikawa herself began a working life as a teacher. Women teachers were involved in the mainstream suffrage movement, but also in more radical leftist activities which brought them into conflict with police authorities, as in the Red Teachers Incident in Nagano prefecture in 1933. 77 Women teachers also made up a large proportion of the New Women’s Society.78 Following the second ZSJK meeting in 1920, the New Women’s Society held a special meeting open to all the women teachers present at the conference, and it was even attended by Sawayanagi. Several women teachers from Hiroshima organised for Hiratsuka Raicho to speak at a women’s normal school in Hiroshima Prefecture, and were active in establishing a Hiroshima branch of the New Women’s Society. This resulted in reprimand from the authorities, who claimed that these activities contravened prohibitions on political activity by teachers. The four women involved in the Society subsequently resigned from their teaching posts. This

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exemplifies the thwarted attempts by some women teachers to bring gender issues of wide significance into the realm of teaching. Thus whilst the national women teachers’ organisation was an important forum uniting local women teachers’ groups in debate, it operated in a cooperative manner with the Education Ministry rather than as a completely autonomous women’s group. The success of the maternity leave proposal, virtually the only success among all the resolutions concerning women teachers at the meetings, was a reflection of how the organisation’s demands were met within the state’s own definition of pressing women’s issues. CONCLUSION In the debates of the ZSRJK interest in the position of married women teachers as workers declined after the granting of maternity leave and instead turned to discussion of women teachers’ role in educating others about motherhood and domestic duties. In the 1930s, topics discussed at the meetings continued to cover such questions as promotions and pay, but particularly noticeable was the growth in proposals concerning teachers’ roles as educators of young girls, the teaching of the Rescript on Education and the ‘national essence’ (kokutai) and what to do in ‘times of emergency’ once the war had started. Instead of directing attention to the conditions of women teachers, the alliance became a forum for discussion of their role as promoters of national consciousness among students and society in general. Women teachers did not shy away from this role; on the contrary, attendance at the association soared. Moreover, whilst in theory the government attempted to keep middleclass women at home through an emphasis on the importance of motherhood, women continued to be essential producers for the prewar economy.79 In teaching, the percentage of women primary school teachers did drop slightly in the early 1930s, due to the depression and unemployment in the white-collar male population. However, with the onset of the war in 1937 the numbers of women in teaching began to rise again, soaring to 51.7 per cent in 1944.80 The special demands of war allowed for more and more women to flood teaching with no alarming discussion on limitations as had occurred in the Taisho period. Women were still accepted out of necessity, but as from the very beginning, working conditions continued to discriminate against them. In fact, with wartime pressures women teachers had to work even harder, without improvement in conditions. These same issues were reflected to some extent in the position of women in general as producers and reproducers in the late 1930s. The primary issue confronting Japanese women was increasingly presented by women’s organisations and the government as motherhood protection, an interest visible in the early debates over women teachers. This was expanded by the government into a concept of ‘motherhood-in-the-

36 Susan Newell interests-of-the-state’, which shifted the emphasis from father to mother as foundation of the household and support of the nation. Propaganda published by the Education Ministry exemplified this.81 Women were also called on to serve as mainstays of the nation through ‘giving birth and multiplying’ and to participate in government sponsored patriotic societies, unified into one Greater Japan Women’s Association in 1942. Thus, the earlier demands by women that motherhood be given the prestige it deserved by the state were partially realised during the 1930s. However, they were offset by further limitations on privacy and a lack of protection of women in general. Production demands continued to elicit women’s participation in the economy and a high proportion of married women continued to work without equal pay or adequate worker protection. Miyake writes that the ‘glorification of motherhood and the victimization of female factory workers were two sides of the same coin’.82 Indeed, this had similarly been the case for women teachers since the first debates some decades earlier. The end of the war and the postwar period brought changes for the role of women in society. Women gained the right to vote, high schools became coeducational, women were admitted to universities, and equal pay was asserted as a legal principle. Changing economic conditions also led to an accelerated breakdown of the traditional family and intensified the need for women to work. This could only encourage the continued presence of women in teaching. Women have made up close to half of primary school teachers since 1945,83 and 60 per cent of primary school teachers in 1990. 84 However, as with the interwar situation, ‘problems’ remain. Women teachers still tend to receive less pay than their male counterparts, childcare remains difficult to coordinate, and women teachers are mostly found in the less prestigious positions in the schools. A 1990 survey of Education Ministry teachers showed that only 2.7 per cent of primary school principals and 7.6 per cent of deputy principals were women. 85 Official government policy has also failed to eradicate ryosai kenbo from dictating the terms of women’s education.86 Women teachers have continued to be forced to operate within a very different set of social expectations from male teachers. Whilst the conditions of women teachers in interwar Japan mirrored the discrimination faced by all Japanese women, they at the same time reveal a situation of some benefit to the women themselves. By the First World War, teacher training, the economic situation and an evolving ideology supporting women in suitable employment combined to encourage women into a profession hitherto male-dominated. The notion of women as mothers and wives supported the role of women and married women in teaching to some extent. Women were able to participate in discussions and present demands to ameliorate these conditions. These were not, however, democratic channels and were limited by their association with their employers, the Education Ministry.

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By maintaining a sexual division of labour, directing the terms of debate throughout the 1920s, and providing women with the possibility of positively contributing to society within their own spheres, education officials and employers laid the foundations for garnering the support of women teachers in the 1930s. Women teachers for their part were constrained by the absence of economically and personally satisfactory alternatives, and by their own acceptance of the concept of separate spheres. They continued to work in an influential profession, but were limited in their ability to improve the position of all women teachers or women in general. This limitation was traded for a positive role in working for the same goals as those of the state, which by the late 1930s ironically included bidding farewell to their very own students who went to war. NOTES 1 Recent exceptions in English include Sheldon Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State: Contending Approaches to Political Integration, 1890–1945’, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Winter 1993, vol. 12:1, pp. 5–41; Yoshiko Miyake, ‘Doubling Expectations: Motherhood and Women’s Factory Work Under State Management in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s’ in Gail Lee Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1991. 2 Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State’. 3 Ibid., p. 39. 4 Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels, and Outcastes—The Underside of Modern Japan, New York, Pantheon Books, 1982, p. 272. Sharon H.Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, ‘The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women, 1890–1910’ in Bernstein (ed.) Recreating Japanese Women, p. 157, point out that by 1890 only slightly more than 30 per cent of the eligible girls were actually in school, although by 1910 the compliance rate had risen to 97.4 per cent. 5 Kaikoku Hyakunen Kinen Bunka Jigyokai (ed.), Meiji bunkashi, Tokyo, Genshobo, 1954, pp. 117–26. 6 Kaigo Tokiomi, Japanese Education: Its Past and Present, Tokyo, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, 1965, pp. 82–4. 7 Kokuritsu Kyoiku Kenkyujo (ed.), Nihon kindai kyoiku hyakunenshi, vol. 4, Tokyo, Kokuritsu Kyoiku Kenkyujo, 1973, p. 1103. 8 Kaigo, Japanese Education, p. 84. 9 Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State’, p. 16. The numbers nearly tripled to 151, 288 students. 10 Nolte and Hastings, ‘The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women’ in Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women. 11 A third Women’s Higher Normal School was established in Hiroshima in 1940. 12 Amano Ikuo, ‘Senmon gakko’ in The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, vol. 7, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1983, p. 62. 13 In an edition of Fujin koron in 1916, the Minister of Education Takada Sanae wrote, ‘I think that without argument the content of so-called kenbo ryosai must differ according to the times…. In order to advance the enlightenment of society and to plan the development of the nation’s future, there must occur year by year a rise in the standards of kenbo ryosai and an enrichment of its content.’ See Tachi Kaoru, ‘Ryosai kenbo’ in Joseigaku Kenkyukai (ed.), Onna no imexxji, Tokyo, Keiso Shobo, 1984, pp. 199–200.

38 Susan Newell 14 Chino Yoichi, Kindai Nihon fujin kyoikushi—taisei nai fujin dantai no keisei katei o chushin ni, Tokyo, Domesu, 1979, p. 104. 15 Miyahara Seiichi et al., Shiryo Nihon gendai kyoikushi, vol. 4, Tokyo, Sanseido, 1974, p. 201. See paragraph one from question eight of the conference report, 24 October 1918. 16 One report, entitled ‘Education Materials Relating to Our Times’, published by the Bureau of Popular Education, surveyed women’s groups as diverse as schoolgirls to suffragettes. The Ministry of Defence and Home Ministry also issued reports on the important role played by women during wartime in European nations. Chino, Kindai Nihon fujin kyoikushi, p. 174. 17 Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State’. 18 Teachers in general had long played an active role in local educational societies. See Chino, Kindai Nihon fujin kyoikushi, pp. 152–163 for a description of teacher involvement in local women’s groups during the late Meiji period. 19 By 1877 there were only 12 women’s normal schools out of a total of 103. See Miyazaki Hiroshi, The Development of Modern Education and Teacher’s Training in Japan, Tokyo, Monbusho, 1961, p. 20. 20 Redding Stancil Sugg, Motherteacher—The Feminization of American Education, Virginia, University Press of Virginia, 1978, p. 118. By 1900 women made up 97 per cent of primary school teachers in the US. 21 Kathleen S.Uno, ‘Women and Changes in the Household Division of Labor’ in Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, p. 18. Uno posits the idea that motherhood domestic duties were not as central to women’s roles as was their capacity for work in the Tokugawa period. Sharon H.Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, ‘The Meiji State’s Policy Towards Women’, p. 154 in the same collection, also point out that the ‘cult of productivity’ in Japan at the time was different from the Western ‘cult of domesticity’. 22 Monbusho, Outlines of Modern Education in Japan, Tokyo, Monbusho, 1893, p. 83. 23 Ibid., pp. 72–3 for a detailed picture of the three year women’s course at that time. 24 Ichikawa Fusae, Ichikawa Fusae jiden—senzenhen, Tokyo, Shinjuku Shobo, 1990, pp. 2–34; Takamure Itsue, ‘Hi no kuni no onna no nikki’, Takamure Itsue zenshu, vol. 10, Tokyo, Rironsha, 1965. 25 By 1911 some 98.2 per cent of children were attending compulsory primary school. Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, p. 272. 26 This is well illustrated in the novel by Tayama Katai, Country Teacher—a novel (translated by Kenneth Hensall), Honolulu, University of Hawaii, 1984. For other examples of the status of teaching, see Susan Newell, ‘The Emergence of Women Primary School Teachers in Taisho Japan’, MPhil thesis, University of Sydney, 1992. 27 Karasawa Tomitaro, Kyoshi no rekishi, Tokyo, Sobunsha, 1955, p. 155. 28 Herbert Passin, Society and Education in Japan, New York, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, 1965, p. 77. 29 Ichibangase Yasuko, ‘Taishoki no jokyoin mondai’ in Nihon Joshi Daigaku Joshi Kyoiku Kenkyujo (ed.), Taisho no joshi kyoiku, Tokyo, Nagamune Taizo, 1975, p. 333. 30 Honkai Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, Teikoku kyoiku, no. 409, 1 August 1916, p. 20. 31 Murakami Nobuhiko, Taishoki no shokugyo fujin, Tokyo, Domesu, 1983, p. 95. 32 Honkai Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, Teikoku kyoiku, no. 409, August 1916, p. 9. 33 Margit Nagy, ‘Middle-Class Working Women During the Interwar Years’ in Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, p. 204.

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34 Tokyoshi Shakaikyoku (ed.), Kindai fujin mondai meicho senshu zokuhen, vol. 7: Fujin jiritsu no michi, Tokyo, Nihon Tosho Senta, 1982, p. 90. The survey of major occupations for middle class women in Tokyo was carried out by the Tokyo Social Affairs Bureau in 1922. According to Nagy, ‘Middle-Class Working Women’, p. 202, the results were published under the title ‘Shokugyo fujin ni kansuru chosa’ in 1924, and then the same results were published again under the title ‘Fujin jiritsu no michi’ in 1925. 35 For two examples of women who worked for economic reasons, see ‘Saeko’, ‘Hakkyu no shogaku kyoshi ga fufu tomokasegi de 2000 en chochiku shita keiken’, Shufu no tomo, November 1919, pp. 28–30, and ‘Shizuko’, ‘Churyu kakei no iro iro—tomokasegi de geshu 37en no shogaku kyoshi’, Shufu no tomo, July 1917, pp. 80–2. 36 Ichibangase, ‘Taishoki no jokyoin mondai’, p. 334. The differences in pay by region and by job category were large. For example, a survey of Yokkaichi city in 1922 showed the highest monthly salary for a female teacher to be 105 yen and the lowest 24 yen. The highest and lowest for a factory worker was 53 yen and 17 yen respectively. Whether a proportion of women teachers surveyed were high school teachers or not was not indicated. See Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo, Nihon rodo nenkan, vol. 3, Tokyo, Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1922, p. 238. 37 Tokyoshi Shakaikyoku, ‘Fujin jiritsu no michi’, pp. 96–7. 38 Ichibangase, ‘Taishoki no jokyoin mondai’, p. 330 and Ichibangase, ‘Showa zenki no “jokyoin” mondai’ in Nihon Joshi Daigaku Kyoiku Kenkyujo (ed.), Showa zenki no joshi kyoiku, Tokyo, Nagamune Taizo, 1984, p. 153. 39 For example, Goto Seiko in 1916 wrote that ‘in recent years’ in Tokyo women primary school teachers numbered 1,227 compared to 3,394 men, almost exactly 30 per cent. But in Izu prefecture there were 3,250 women teachers to 4,355 men. Goto Seiko, Kindai fujin mondai meicho senshu zokuhen, vol. 4: Jokyoin no shinso oyobi sono honryo, Tokyo, Nihon Tosho Senta p. 32. In Nagano prefecture in 1922 there were 1,779 women primary school teachers out of a total of 6,350 teachers. Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo (ed.), Nihon rodo nenkan, vol. 3, p. 245. 40 Women made up approximately 70 per cent of teachers in the United Kingdom by the First World War (Carolyn Steedman, ‘The Mother Made Conscious—The Historical Development of a Primary School Pedagogy’, History Workshop, 1985, vol. 20, p. 158); 43 per cent of public primary school teachers in Australia in 1910 (Report of the Minister of Public Instruction, NSW, Sydney, Ministry of Public Instruction, 1910); and 97 per cent of primary school teachers in most cities in the United States in 1900 (Sugg, Motherteacher, p. 118). 41 Confucian tradition in Tokugawa Japan defined the realm of education clearly in male scholars’ hands, although there were some women teaching in the commoner schools or terakoya. 42 Such problems were cited as one of the demerits of women teachers in the TKK survey of school principals in 1916. One example of the severity of such judgement concerns Sato Motoko, an assistant teacher in 1925, who left a school seminar early with a group of male and female colleagues to walk along the beach nearby. Having walked until all hours of the morning, she returned to the school grounds at dawn to be ‘discovered’ by the principal’s wife. Whilst she was promptly fired, her fellow participant and husband-to-be was barely reprimanded, although he voluntarily left soon afterwards. The story was related to me by her granddaughter in 1991. 43 Honkai Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, pp. 13–14. 44 Kido Wakao, Fujin kyoshi no hyakunen, Tokyo, Meiji Toshokan Shinsho, 1968, p. 34.

40 Susan Newell 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65

Honkai Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, p. 7. Fukaya Masashi, Josei kyoshiron, Tokyo, Yuhikaku Shinsho, 1980, p. 139. Goto, Jokyoin no shinso oyobi sono honryo, p. 73. Ibid. Umihara Toru, Taisho kyoinshi no kenkyu, Kyoto, Minerubua Shobo, 1977, p. 213. Goto, Jokyoin no shinso oyobi sono honryo, p. 47; Honkai Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, pp. 9–10. ‘Saeko’, ‘Hakkyu no shogaku kyoshi’, pp. 29–30, provides an example of a typically busy day in the life of a married woman teacher. Kido, pp. 36–7. Kido also documents the likely existence of one or two women principals in the Meiji period. He does not give specific readings of the name Shimabara. Whilst she is not listed in standard biographical reference books, P.G.O’Neill, Japanese Names—A Comprehensive Index by Characters and Readings, New York and Tokyo, John Weatherhill, 1972 lists Shimabara only as the possible family name. Kiuchi became vice president of the women teacher’s organisation, Zenkoku Shogakko Rengo Jokyoin Kai in 1924. Honka Chosa Iin, ‘Jokyoin mondai ni kansuru chosa’, p. 19. Murakami, Taishoki no shokugyo fujin, p. 61. A 1920 Kyoto survey showed that 70.6 per cent of those married had children (Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo, p. 253.). The 1922 Tokyo survey showed that 67 per cent of married women teachers had children. (Nagy, ‘Middle-Class Working Women’, p. 206). Geraldine Clifford, ‘Daughters into Teachers—Educational and Demographic Influences on the Transformation of Teaching into “Women’s Work” in America’, History of Education Review, 1983, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 17. Alison M.Oram, ‘Serving Two Masters? The Introduction of a Marriage Bar in Teaching in the 1920s’ in London Feminist History Group (ed.), The Sexual Dynamics of History, London, Pluto Press, 1983, p. 134. In 1902, Sections 61 and 72 of the Queensland Regulation Act restricted married women, and later in 1932 the Married Women (Lecturers and Teachers) Act specifically forbade married women from teaching in NSW. Ichibangase, ‘Showa zenki’, pp. 152–68. Ito Kansui, ‘Danjo kyoshikan’, Kyoiku kenkyu, No. 181, August 1918. Ito discusses a collection of letters written to him by married women teachers, pp. 63–9. Umeyama Ichiro, ‘Shogakko jokyoin taikai no “yufu kyoin mondai” ni tsuite’, Fujo shinbun, 13 June 1926, p. 10. Osono Yuko, ‘Jokyoin taikai no rekishi—sono hikari to kage’ in Onnatachi no ima toukai, Jugoshi noto, Tokyo, JCA Shuppan, 1982. Osono writes, ‘if you were married you were called a teacher with a husband and you were scorned with the remark “somehow or other your results aren’t improving”. If you became pregnant, you hid it to the extent that you made yourself smaller, and worked up until the day of birth. Even if you were about to give birth you could not relax and take a break’, p. 155. ‘Saeko’, ‘Hakkyu no shogaku kyoshi’, pp. 29–30; Murakami, Taishoki no shokugyo fujin, pp. 304–5. Komori (childminders) and jochu or gejo (maids) it seems were widely used by married women teachers. A need for komori had arisen in the 1880s when women in the farming regions sought work in the textile factories, and local schools for childminders were established. However, the Meiji and Taisho governments failed to provide infant care for working women until public day care nurseries were established in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto between 1919–21,

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66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

41

and even so these remained few in number. Teachers continued to use family help, but according to one survey of Kyoto in 1920, a large proportion used komori or jochu. (Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo, vol. 4, 1923, pp. 253–5). This is supported by the story of ‘Saeko’, pp. 28–30, who employed a komori for her first two children, but due to the expense resorted to using her own children of 4 and 7 years to look after the third child. Fukaya, Josei kyoshiron p. 135. Roughly 63 per cent of married female normal school graduates from 1907 to 1909 breastfed their babies. See Arai Yoshiko, ‘Senzen ni okeru jokyoshi no chii kojo o meguru doko ni tsuite—zenkoku shogakko jokyoin taikai o chushin ni’, Kyoikugaku kenkyu, September 1982, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 35–7; Tokyofu Joshi Shihan Gakko Dosokai Kenkyubu, ‘Jokyoin mondai no kenkyu’, Teikoku kyoiku, August 1917, p. 72. Sawayanagi Masataro, ‘Yufu jokyoin no shufu to shite no ninmu’ from ‘Fujin bunka koenshu’, Lecture No. 4 in Nihon fujin mondai shiryo shusei, vol. 4, Tokyo, Domesu, 1977–8, pp. 571–8. ‘Sango sanzen no kyuyo ni kansuru Monbusho kunrei’ [Education Ministry Ordinance, No. 18, September 1922], Nihon fujin mondai shiryo shusei, vol. 3, p. 436. ‘Jokyoin sanzen sango ni okeru kyuyo ni kansuru chosa’ [Chief Secretary of Education Ministry School Health Department], Nihon fujin mondai shiryo shusei, vol. 3, p. 439. Umihara, Taisho kyoinshi, p. 233. Sawayanagi’s contribution to Japanese education is discussed by Mizuuchi Hiroshi in Ben C.Duke (ed.), Ten Great Educators of Modern Japan—A Japanese Perspective, Tokyo, Tokyo University Press, 1989. Osono, ‘Jokyoin taikai no rekishi’, p. 171. Umihara, Taisho kyoshi, p. 233. Umihara mentions that it is unclear which was the first national women teachers’ organisation. Murakami, Taishoki no shokugyo fujin, p. 107. Osono, ‘Jokyoin taikai no rekishi’, p. 165. Sandra Wilson in this collection mentions the Red Teachers Incident in February 1933 when 138 teachers, including women teachers, were arrested. Imanaka Yasuko, ‘Taisho burujoa fujin undo to fujin kyoshi—Shinfujin Kyokai Hiroshima shibu no setchi o megutte’, Rekishi hyoron, no. 217, September 1968, pp. 28–47. Miyake, ‘Doubling Expectations’, pp. 281–8. Ichibangase, ‘Showa zenki no “jokyoin” mondai’, p. 153. For example, The Cardinal Principles of the National Polity (Kokutai no hongi) 1937, The Truth of the Subject (Shinmin no michi) 1941, The Guidelines for Home Education (Senji kateikyoiku shido) 1942. Miyake, ‘Doubling Expectations’, p. 270. Elizabeth Knipe-Mouer, ‘Women in Teaching’ in Joyce Lebra et al. (eds) Women in Changing Japan, Boulder, Westview Press, 1976, p. 162. Asahi shinbun, 4 January 1991, p. 30. Ibid. Kathleen S.Uno, ‘The Death of “Good Wife, Wise Mother”?’ in Andrew Gordon (ed.), Postwar Japan as History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993.

3

Birth control and the population problem Elise K.Tipton

The slogan ‘ume yo fuyase yo’ (give birth and multiply) is familiar to all Japanese of the wartime generation. By contrast, abortion is the concept that most foreigners associate with contemporary Japan’s low birth rate. Both suggest the large role that the state has played in the lives of ordinary Japanese. Since the Second World War the government has officially supported family planning and birth control by contraception through its public health facilities.1 At the same time legalised abortion has undoubtedly facilitated, in large part, the remarkable decline in the birth rate since the 1950s. Abortion was effectively legalised in 1948 with passage of the Eugenics Protection Law (Yusei Hogo Ho). Initially it was permitted in order to protect the health or life of expectant mothers, but within two years revisions of the law also established financial and socioeconomic reasons as legitimate grounds for performance of abortion. The results of legalisation became quickly evident as the fertility rate dropped by fifty per cent in just ten years between 1947 and 1957.2 Abortion became one of the primary means of family planning since then for a variety of reasons, but largely due to the unavailability of more reliable methods of contraception than the highly promoted rhythm-condom combination.3 Heavy reliance on abortion in family planning is assumed to have its roots in the pre-1945 period, reaching back as far as the Tokugawa era (1600–1868). Western economic historians, such as Susan Hanley, Kozo Yamamura and Thomas Smith,4 have argued that Japanese families of the Tokugawa period used abortion and infanticide not only to limit the number of children, but to regulate spacing between them and the number and/or order of the sexes of their children. In particular, they have found that it was middle-level farming families as well as samurai who carried out such practices, leading to the conclusion that abortion and infanticide were methods of family planning rather than means of survival for poor families. Whether families resorted to abortion or infanticide out of desperate poverty or to improve their standard of living, pre-1945 governments since the Tokugawa shogunate are generally believed to have opposed it and actively promoted pronatalist policies which culminated with the ‘ume yo fuyase yo’ slogan during the Second World War.5 As far as the nineteenth

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century is concerned, this is generally true. Those families which carried out abortion or infanticide acted against the policies of the shogunate, which sought to increase the agricultural labour force and agricultural production upon which it depended for its revenues. With the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the new modernising, Westernising government went along with the notion that a large population gave evidence of the wealth and strength of a nation. Moreover, the Meiji elite viewed abortion and infanticide as barbaric customs of the feudal past which had to be eliminated in the drive toward ‘progress’, ‘civilisation’ and acceptance by the West. Consequently, abortion was prohibited by law in 1880 and remained a crime until 1948. Abortion and infanticide do indeed seem to have been practised throughout the twentieth century despite this prohibition. At the same time, however, other means of family limitation emerged during the early twentieth century. The 1920s saw the inauguration of a birth control movement advocating contraception rather than abortion which grew and developed even during the 1930s, at least until the beginning of the SinoJapanese War in 1937. The state, often represented by police officials, sometimes demonstrated hostility to the movement because it appeared to be associated with the women’s and socialist movements, which many conservatives saw as being inspired by ‘dangerous thoughts’. However, although the state posed some obstacles to the growth of the movement, its lack of a clear population policy allowed the movement to develop. Although government policy did not clearly and consistently oppose birth control and its proponents, during the 1920s at least birth control advocates faced other, perhaps equally difficult barriers to overcome which were shared by birth control leaders in other countries around the world. Aside from lingering beliefs which equated a large population with national strength, there were objections to birth control on moral grounds, such as fear of contraceptives leading to sexual promiscuity, or based on sociopolitical arguments derived from anxiety that it would undermine the sanctity of the family. The American birth control leader, Margaret Sanger, observed in her autobiography that opposition to birth control in Japan included ‘the same attacks and objections which had been agitated in America for the past ten years’.6 MARGARET SANGER AND THE BEGINNINGS OF A BIRTH CONTROL MOVEMENT IN JAPAN Such attacks and objections greeted Sanger when she made her historic visit to Japan in 1922, but they were not universal. In fact, the mixture of reactions to her visit reveals the climate of social, intellectual and political ferment that characterised the period between the two world wars. Officials’ reactions also reveal the absence of an unequivocally pronatalist population policy in the 1920s; absence of what might be called a population ‘policy’ at all.7 Sanger’s arrival in March created an impact which birth control

44 Elise K.Tipton pioneers, such as Ishimoto (later Kato) Shizue, likened to that of Commodore Matthew Perry’s Black Ships in 1853 which led to the ‘opening’ of Japan to Western contact. 8 At the time of Sanger’s visit American authorities still regarded her as a radical because of her leftist labour and socialist connections, including Bill Hayward of the anarchosyndicalist International Workers of the World, or ‘Wobblies’. Police had only recently raided a meeting of hers at New York’s Town Hall. This notoriety, if not direct FBI intervention, 9 accounts for the Japanese government’s initial refusal to grant Sanger a visa to enter Japan in order to conduct a lecture tour under the sponsorship of the liberal-left Kaizo publication group. Others invited by Kaizo at this time were Bertrand Russell, H.G.Wells and Albert Einstein.10 According to her autobiography, Sanger was denied the visa on the grounds that both her subject matter and herself as an individual were regarded as undesirable.11 Decision-making on her entry involved not only the Foreign Ministry, but the Home Ministry, as evidenced by Japanese newspaper accounts quoting the concerns of police officials over possible disturbance to public peace and order. One police official warned that ‘appropriate measures’ would be taken if she said anything contravening the law.12 The fact that birth control was considered a ‘dangerous thought’ suggests that it was being put in the same category as radical ideologies such as anarchism and communism. The proposal for the Law to Control Radical Social Movements (Kageki Shakai Undo Torishimari Ho) was at that very time being introduced to the Diet. Although jointly sponsored by the Home and Justice ministries, it actually represented Justice Ministry officials’ response to the nationwide Rice Riots of 1918 and the increasing influence of anarcho-syndicalism among industrial workers since the postwar economic recession and the Hara government’s rejection of a universal male suffrage bill. Discovery of an attempt to organise a communist party in 1921 had also prompted Justice Ministry leaders to seek new legislation supporting strong suppression of radical social movements. The bill failed due to harsh criticism inside the Diet for ambiguous wording and opposition outside the Diet from liberals, scholars and journalists.13 The proposal for new political control legislation failed at this time, but its introduction to the Diet highlights the fact that Sanger was entering Japan during a time of political and social turmoil and heightened concern among many government officials over burgeoning ‘social movements’ of various kinds. Not only were liberal and leftist ideologies making inroads among male students, intellectuals and workers, but they were affecting the attitudes and behaviour of women as well. Politically minded women’s organisations were emerging in the postwar period, notably the New Women’s Association (Shin Fujin Kyokai) inaugurated in 1920 and the Red Wave Society (Sekirankai) in 1921. The New Women’s Association pushed for women’s political rights, aiming initially at a revision of Article Five of the 1900 Public Peace Police Law (Chian Keisatsu Ho) which prohibited women’s

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attendance and participation in political meetings and organisations. In 1922 the campaign was partially successful, achieving abolition of the ban on female participation in political meetings, and various women’s groups then focused their attention on obtaining suffrage. The Red Wave Society was a more radical group, representing the first socialist women’s organisation in Japan.14 As exemplified by the debate over the proposed anti-radicals bill and the disagreements between the ministries sponsoring it as well as by the diversity of women’s groups in the early 1920s, consensus did not characterise the climate of opinion, and this was also evident in the handling of Sanger’s case. Immigration officials’ decision to refuse her a visa became but the first of a series of less than final decisions, vacillation which reflected differences of opinion among governmental authorities toward birth control and population issues in general. On the advice of a friendly Japanese official whom she met in the San Francisco consulate, Sanger boarded her ship as planned on the pretext of travelling to China, hoping to win the support of Japanese diplomats returning on the same ship from the Washington Conference. These included future Prime Minister Kato Komei (Takaaki) as well as Ambassador to the United States Shidehara Kijuro and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hanihara Masanao. Sanger successfully enlisted their help with what seems to be a characteristic but unexpected feminine charm as well as an ability to arouse and utilise media publicity for her cause.15 From the time of the ship’s stopover in Hawaii, Japanese journalists swarmed around her and assiduously followed and reported on the daily changing rumours regarding the government’s decision on her entry permit. Consequently, by the time she arrived in Yokohama harbour, Sanger and birth control were already hot news items, and she attracted more attention from reporters than the returning delegation of diplomats.16 Nevertheless, after arrival in port Sanger still had to wait before immigration officials finally allowed her to land, and most of her books on birth control were confiscated.17 It appears that she owed the change of attitude toward her entry not only to the good offices of two of the returning Japanese diplomats (the American consul offered no support despite a request from Sanger), but also to support from young officials within the Home Ministry itself, from officials in the Foreign Ministry and from public opinion as voiced through the news media.18 After landing it then required further negotiations with Tokyo Metropolitan Police Bureau officials to gain permission to lecture in public, but the interview with the chief of the police bureau revealed a division of opinions about birth control among police officials as well. He and many of his assistants had read an unauthorised translation of her book on birth control, and as a result some of them had been won over to her cause. Sanger and her Kaizo sponsors’ threat of an appeal to the Diet may also have been effective in finally obtaining permission to speak in public. Even then it was conditional on a promise that she did not speak on the subject of birth control in public lectures, so that she was obliged to change the topic of her

46 Elise K.Tipton Kaizo lecture to ‘War and Population’ with a focus on Germany and the Allies during the First World War.19 During the next month Sanger made thirteen public addresses and spoke to literally hundreds of private groups in the Tokyo and Yokohama area, including medical associations, business and industrial groups and numerous newspaper and magazine reporters as well as women’s groups. Organisers got around the prohibition on public lecturing on birth control by declaring meetings ‘private and by invitation only’, a ruse that police officers apparently accepted.20 She was particularly impressed by the reception she received at her talk to twenty-five eminent men at the Peers’ Club, contrasting their breadth of thought with ‘the unspeakable vulgarity and leering crudity with which the politicians of New York had greeted our attempts to bring the problem of birth control to the attention of the state legislature of Albany’. 21 Then in another case of about-face, police authorities first prohibited but later allowed her to conduct scheduled lectures in the Kyoto and Osaka area as well. There, however, her audiences were limited to medical practitioners only. The boost that Sanger’s visit gave to the infant birth control movement which had been started by Ishimoto approximately a year before is understandable in the context of a relatively free and open environment for publications which by the early 1920s had reached a stage of mass, commercial circulation. During much of the Meiji period newspapers had characteristically played the role of outlets for the expression of their editors’ opinions, often of a political or social nature. During the last decade of the period, however, they had begun to increase their sales and in response to the tastes of their wider audiences had broadened their coverage of topics. By the early 1920s Japan had three daily newspapers with a national circulation in addition to numerous other local newspapers, reporting on items of entertainment, sports and household affairs as well as political and social topics. Parallel to these developments in the newspaper industry was the proliferation of magazines of a popular variety.22 These included magazines, notably Shufu no tomo (The Housewife’s Friend) and Fujin kurabu (Women’s Club), targeted specifically at women of the emerging white-collar middle-class in the cities, which were to play an important role in disseminating information about birth control. Both newspapers and magazines undoubtedly played a large role in bringing birth control into the arena of public discourse and stimulating interest in the subject. News and editorial columns gave extensive coverage to Sanger’s entry problems, much of it critical of the government’s refusal of a visa. Though angry at the government’s ‘rude’ treatment of a ‘distinguished foreign guest’, Ishimoto later concluded that ‘if the government had deliberately tried to focus interest on birth control, it could not have done a better job…. Not all the comments were favourable—there was a lot of fierce criticism—but the main thing was to get birth control discussed as widely as possible’.23 How widely it was discussed is suggested

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by Ishimoto’s count of 81 of the 101 monthly magazines at the time which carried articles on birth control in March.24 Sanger also reported on the successful impact her visit was making in a letter to a close friend and birth control supporter: ‘it is very amazing the way interest in birth control has been aroused here through my coming. Every paper in the country carried headlines and front page stories and editorials on the subject for a full week’.25 Moreover, Sanger had won support not only from certain influential politicians and officials, but from ordinary Japanese. For example, several rickshaw men who welcomed her upon landing as representatives of the Rickshaw Men’s Union apologised for their government’s actions, saying ‘You do not mind, sometime Japanese Government he little autocratic [sic]’.26 Indeed, Margaret Sanger must have become a household word as Ishimoto has claimed, for she was one of the few foreign women whose name was familiar to Japanese even in remote farm villages a decade later.27 Articles on birth control continued to appear with regularity in mainstream publications, such as Shufu no tomo and the well-respected liberal journal Chuo koron, throughout the 1920s and first half of the 1930s. Labour organisations and socialists, especially in the Kansai region, also took up birth control as a weapon in their struggle for proletarian liberation.28 THE ‘POPULATION PROBLEM’ AND BIRTH CONTROL The government’s ambivalence to the new movement during the 1920s is understandable in view of population growth trends during the years following the First World War and a widespread interest in population throughout the world at that time. Although the birth rate had declined from a peak of 34.1 per thousand in 1911 to 31.6 in 1919, it suddenly leaped to 36.2 in 1920, dropped only slightly during the early 1920s and remained around 34 until the depression at the end of the 1920s.29 With the memory of the Rice Riots of 1918 still fresh and emigration to the United States closed off in 1924, popular as well as academic interest in the population increase became alarmist.30 Writing in 1931, Walter Crocker noted the preoccupation with the population problem: ‘if a traveller were asked to single out the first subject engaging public opinion in Japan today his answer would be the population problem. It has gripped the imagination and the thinking of the whole nation’.31 The Tanaka cabinet recognised population as a problem when it established a Commission for the Study of the Problems of Population and Food Supply in 1927, although still stressing the belief that a large population was a symbol of national strength.32 Foreigners took an interest as well. Sanger returned from her visit more than ever convinced of the need for birth control to solve Japan’s ‘overpopulation’ problems. 33 Her 1932 autobiography recorded her impression of a country with more children than she had seen anywhere else and a rapidly increasing surplus population ‘daily growing more pressing’ on the scanty resources of the country. ‘She [Japan] may increase her

48 Elise K.Tipton shipping and foreign trade, but without birth control she cannot keep pace with her growing population.’34 The New York Times editorialised on the subject in 1928, and American popular magazines wrote feature articles on Japan’s ‘mounting millions’.35 A writer on population problems designated Japan as the foremost ‘danger spot’ threatening world peace.36 Government authorities therefore did not prohibit discussion of the concept of birth control, but censorship did hamper dissemination of information on actual birth control methods through published writings. Based on obscenity laws, concrete references to contraceptive devices were sometimes excised by ‘X’s (fuseji), just as references to revolution (kakumei), class struggle or dictatorship of the proletariat were tantalisingly kept from readers’ eyes in leftist writings. For example, in Shufu no tomo articles by two women writing about their experiences with birth control, ‘X’s replaced the names of methods employed even though they proved to be failures: ‘We tried to use “XXX”’.37 However, whereas readers of leftist writings could often guess what words were being replaced, as Sandra Wilson has pointed out in her chapter on seinendan association papers, the readers of women’s magazines did not know in the case of birth control techniques. As in the United States where the Comstock Law prohibited sending information or devices for contraception through the mail, readers cried out for details about contraception methods.38 Pamphlets containing explicit details tended to be published and distributed privately and secretly. Yamamoto Senji, one of the main promoters of birth control among workers in the Kansai region, deliberately entitled his translation of Sanger’s pamphlet A Critique of Mrs Sanger’s Methods of Family Limitation [my emphasis], in order to avoid the interference of police censors. At other times he avoided censorship by distributing writings about birth control in the form of non-commercial publications for the purpose of scholarly research.39 Shufu no tomo editors avoided publication bans or fuseji by omitting mention of actual methods and devices in the body of articles, but in an addenda telling readers to write to the magazine’s offices for specific details.40 It is evident, however, that censorship was not always consistent, for in other articles pessaries, condoms, x-rays and other methods are mentioned by name.41 GETTING THE IDEA OF BIRTH CONTROL ACCEPTED Government restrictions therefore did in some respects hinder growth of the movement and practice of birth control during the 1920s, but as is evident from Ishimoto’s parenthetical remark noting some ‘fierce criticism’ of Sanger’s visit, opposition came from non-governmental quarters as well. An article by Ishimoto in the 1922 New Year issue of Shufu no tomo reveals the battle for acceptance faced by birth control advocates everywhere. It is clear that the very idea of birth control had not yet gained respectability in early 1920s Japan, for the article is devoted solely to justifying the concept of

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birth limitation.42 The time was not yet ripe for any discussion of methods or means of birth control. This is hardly surprising given that Margaret Sanger and British birth control leaders were still facing the same problem in their own countries.43 As indicated by the title of the article, Ishimoto argued for the ‘rational necessity’ of birth limitation, presenting it as the best, in fact the only solution to Japan’s population problems. Her emphasis on rationality reflected a popular trend throughout the world at the time of applying scientific rationalism to a variety of problems ranging from population to household management.44 After beginning with Malthusian predictions of problems from insufficient food supplies for Japan’s swelling population, Ishimoto dismissed emigration as a solution which was no longer feasible for international diplomatic reasons. By this she would have meant the success of the anti-Japanese lobby in the western United States in restricting immigration from Japan, beginning with Japan’s voluntary restriction of emigration after the Root-Katsura Agreement of 1907 and reaching a climax in 1923 with introduction of an immigration bill specifically excluding Japanese which passed Congress the following year. Ishimoto then went on to argue that birth limitation would not only solve these population problems but simultaneously provide a solution to women’s liberation, improve the quality of life for Japanese families and contribute to both national strength and world peace. This line of argument reveals Ishimoto’s fundamental feminist goals and humanitarian motivations which closely paralleled those of her mentor, Margaret Sanger. Although she had been raised in the sheltered environment of a wealthy ex-samurai family and married into an aristocratic household, her socialist-inspired husband had stimulated her humanist sympathies by exposing her to the sufferings of mine workers, especially the suffering of the mothers and children, when he worked as an engineer in the Miike coal mines on the island of Kyushu. In addition, he had virtually forced her to become an independent person, not only encouraging her to act as an equal to him in daily life, but enrolling her in secretarial and English classes in New York while he left to pursue his socialist and labour activities in Washington DC and Europe.45 Through his socialist friends, Ishimoto had met and become inspired by Margaret Sanger, then had begun a birth control movement upon her return to Japan in late 1920. The humanism and feminism aroused during those early experiences continued to characterise Ishimoto’s birth control activities and goals throughout her long career up to the present day.46 The 1922 Shufu no tomo article manifested these principles by putting forward the case for birth limitation as the means to improve family life and living conditions and to bring about women’s liberation. Citing statistics on family budgets, Ishimoto compared the greater proportion of income spent on food by large Japanese families than by small American families. Family income would increase from both reduced expenditure on children and from

50 Elise K.Tipton the paid work that mothers would now have time to engage in. Reducing the number of children would, she went on, leave a larger proportion of income for cultural and leisure activities, that is, for what was becoming a watchword of the day for urban middle-class families—‘bunka seikatsu’. The readers of Shufu no tomo were primarily housewives of the growing whitecollar class in the cities, and the magazine deliberately promoted modern ideas of household management. Consequently, such financial arguments by Ishimoto fit into the magazine’s editorial policies and would have appealed to its upwardly mobile audience. Moreover, more time and money gained by mothers with fewer children would provide opportunities for women to improve themselves for their own self-fulfilment. Here Ishimoto linked birth control with women’s liberation. The suggestion that women might engage in paid work outside the home supported the new trend of middle-class women entering the workforce during the Taisho period, for example as typists, café hostesses, department store clerks or primary school teachers, as discussed by Susan Newell in Chapter Two. Ishimoto herself had performed secretarial work for the head of the YWCA in Tokyo after returning from the United States and then had opened up a yarn shop where she held knitting classes in the hope that her students would be able to earn some income as well as knit garments for themselves and their families. In her 1922 article Ishimoto went further in an attempt to enlarge the public sphere of women’s activities by asserting that women should take a leadership role in bringing about the solution of the nation’s population problem. Japan’s population problem, she claimed, was a problem that could be resolved mainly by women because birth control was women’s concern. This suggests that while clearly woman-centred, Ishimoto’s feminist arguments for birth control did not include an attack on the family or motherhood, nor necessarily a rejection of the dominant ideal of ‘good wife, wise mother’ (ryosai kenbo) which the government had been propagating in the schools since the late Meiji period. She discussed birth control within the framework of the family, making no reference to it as an option for unmarried women. Within this family-oriented context Ishimoto observed that reducing family size would also redound to the benefit of the children who, she noted, were the future generation of the country.47 These arguments relating to improved rearing of children were reiterated in an article, written for the major daily newspaper Yomiuri shinbun, early the following month in anticipation of Sanger’s arrival. There she emphasised the impossibility of raising children well if one had five or six children, and in particular the impossibility of seeing that many children through higher levels of education, whereas if one had only two children, they might be able to go ‘as far as university’.48 The Shufu no tomo article extended the importance of birth control beyond the confines of the family and its benefits for women and children. It contained a relatively lengthy section linking birth control with world

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peace and improvements in the Japanese people which was undoubtedly designed to counter the belief that a large population was equated with national strength, a belief which lingered on from the nineteenth century and as Sanger noted, especially among the military. 49 It also reflected the popularity of internationalist, pacifist sentiments and eugenicist ideas that characterised the 1920s. Taisho Japan was by no means out of step with the times in these regards. Birth control promoters such as Ishimoto used these ‘world trends’ to advance their cause, naming names of famous individuals who supported birth limitation. 50 From European history Ishimoto cited examples of excess population leading to territorial expansion and war. Solution of population problems through birth limitation would therefore help to bring about world peace. She concluded that even if war should prove unavoidable, birth limitation would not weaken Japan’s national strength for it would create superior citizens. Along with eugenicists, she thought that the quality of a nation’s population was more important for its strength and power than its quantity. This, she observed, was evident in the recent world war when French soldiers had demonstrated superiority over English and German soldiers.51 France was known at this time as a country where birth control was widely practised, in contrast to England where Marie Stopes and Neo-Malthusian birth controllers were fighting for acceptance. Shufu no tomo editorial comments and references to numerous letters from readers eager to learn about birth control indicate that the idea of birth control found ready acceptance among Japanese women. By the late 1920s magazine articles focused on successful or unsuccessful experiences with birth control, no longer with the issue of whether or not to practise it. The Shufu no tomo articles by women mentioned earlier in regard to censorship are but two of numerous examples of this type. Interestingly, writers were not limited to women, showing the interest of men in the subject and their desire for preventing pregnancy as well.52 According to one report, Tokyo had 60–70 birth control clinics in 1930.53 The few writings on family planning in the pre-1945 period that exist note that the idea of birth control made considerable headway among the general public during the 1920s.54 As Ota Tenrei recalls in his history of birth control, public opinion no longer regarded birth control as a crime by the late 1920s,55 a shift in attitude also observed by newspaper and journal writers during the early 1930s.56 OBSTACLES TO BIRTH CONTROL PRACTICE Nevertheless, birth control by contraception failed to become widely practised before the war. According to the First National Opinion Survey on Family Planning carried out by the Mainichi Shinbun’s Population Problems Research Council in 1950, only nine per cent of all married couples began to practise contraception prior to the Sino-Japanese War and the percentage of graduates with a university education and above was only six per cent

52 Elise K.Tipton higher.57 Not surprisingly, the rate of contraceptive practice was lower in rural areas than in cities and highest in the six largest cities.58 These rates may have resulted from underreporting, as suggested by Ella Wiswell’s reports on village women in the 1930s who tended to say that other people might practise conception, but not they themselves.59 Nevertheless, we can still conclude that while the idea of birth control gained popular acceptance, its actual practice remained quite limited. These low rates of practice were not simply due to the formation of pronatalist government policies and repression during the 1930s, but also due to limitations of existing contraceptive methods and devices. Critics of birth control, particularly those in the medical profession, focused on these limitations which involved reliability, accessibility, safety and expense. Margaret Sanger’s and later Ishimoto’s birth control clinics recommended what was known as the Dutch cap, a spring-form pessary similar to the present diaphragm, along with a spermicide. While safe and highly reliable in terms of contraceptive success rate, the Dutch cap required an expert for proper fitting and instructions on insertion and removal as well as, of course, actual use at the time of intercourse. Japanese women were not much different from their Anglo-American counterparts of the time in their ignorance about the human reproductive system and their distasteful attitude toward touching their reproductive organs. This limited use of the Dutch cap to those with greater than average confidence and education as well as access to a clinic or a sympathetic medical practitioner. These factors led many women to try other methods which did not require reliance on a doctor.60 The problem of access would have been particularly difficult for rural women, who still made up the majority of women even during the 1930s. Ella Wiswell’s study reveals that village women possessed only a rudimentary knowledge about conception and perpetuated myths about birth much like the proverbial stork story in the United States. Wiswell’s maid informed her that children were told that they were born from a black string attached to the mother’s navel, which swells until it bursts and the baby pops out. Although the maid said that there was some sex education in the schools, a young married woman said that there was none. Moreover, despite the fact that they were uninhibited in joking about sex and frequently discussed birth control in conversations, most adult women in the village appeared reluctant to admit any practice of birth control. In general they denied its practice, only dropping hints that the reality might be otherwise.61 Men who brought up the subject usually did so in connection with relations with prostitutes rather than their wives. Their explanations of how geisha prevented pregnancy reveal an ignorance about conception similar to that of their wives: ‘they sit too much on cold, hard floors’; ‘they go to the toilet immediately after intercourse’; ‘drinking a lot of water helps’.62 Wiswell’s findings indicate that urban dwellers and educated people were more knowledgeable about birth control and had greater access to various

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contraceptive devices such as condoms. Certainly this is what the villagers in her study believed—birth control was a good idea, but it was something that city people did, not village people, or if village people did, it was only the teachers.63 Some knowledge of contraceptive technology seeped into the village via relatives in the city, as in the case of a daughter who sent some condoms to her parents, telling them to use them because ‘you have too many children’.64 Unfortunately, Wiswell found the school teachers in the village even more reluctant to talk about their imputed use of contraceptives than the farmers. Moreover, if the assistant of John Embree (Wiswell’s husband) was at all representative of more educated city people, then the extent of their knowledge is questionable as well. This higher school graduate in his late twenties ‘took in…as gospel’ the village men’s assurance that a woman could prevent pregnancy if only she got up to urinate when the man does—the womb opens up and the sperm spills out, they explained. When the Embrees observed that this must not be very effective judging from the number of children in the village, a man countered that it was because the women were too tired to get up.65 Lack of knowledge of the reproductive system cannot be entirely blamed on the education system or social attitudes, for the knowledge itself was still faulty until the mid-1920s. It was only during the course of the decade that an accurate theory of women’s ovulation cycle was devised, which then could be used as the basis for a more reliable method of periodic abstinence than had been practised in the past. A Japanese researcher named Ogino Kyusaku arrived at this theory about the same time as the Austrian scientist Herman Knaus. The Ogino-Knaus method (known as the Ogino method in Japan) was openly discussed and extensively detailed in Chuo koron as well as the more popular women’s magazines such as Shufu no tomo and Fujin sekai. The writers emphasised its complete safety, attempting to allay understandable fears of the real dangers presented by a number of medicines and appliances being peddled as contraceptives or abortifacients. They also recommended the method as easy and completely free of expense.66 The final argument presented by promoters of the periodic abstinence method was its reliability. From the vantage point of the present, however, we can imagine many instances of failure by this method. An alternative and equally safe method, condoms or sakku, was legally available and advertised in newspapers and magazines. In 1937 production of condoms reached seventy-two million. 67 However, while safe, they represented some expense, not inconsiderable for workers or farm families. Wiswell’s findings suggest only patchy availability in rural areas. The farmers in Suye seemed to know about condoms but disagreed as to the extent of their use in the village. While guessing that one family or another might be using them, none admitted to using them themselves.68 In cities one source mentions their availability in vending machines at a cost of 10 sen for a matchbox with two condoms, but notes that they were viewed as protection against venereal disease rather than as a preventive device against

54 Elise K.Tipton pregnancy.69 Although people tried using various medicines designed to prevent venereal disease 70 and used condoms as well in the hopes of avoiding conception, it is notable that articles discussing birth control in the women’s magazines generally did not recommend the sakku. Rather, a number of women writing of their unsuccessful experiences with birth control complained that their husbands disliked using condoms, and one male writer also noted that they were poorly made and uncomfortable.71 Another Japanese researcher, Ota Tenrei, pioneered an intrauterine device at this time which might have provided a more reliable alternative than the rhythm method or condoms, though not necessarily as safe. A new ordinance in 1930 prevented the Ota ring’s use and banned a number of other contraceptive devices deemed to be harmful. It may have foreshadowed the gathering of pronatalist forces in the mid-1930s and suggests that the critics of birth control exerted influence in governmental circles. However, interest in birth control persisted and discussion remained relatively free, as evidenced by the continuing appearance of articles on the subject in magazines. Moreover, in January 1931 Ishimoto, Dr Majima Kan and 100 others inaugurated the Birth Control League of Japan (Nihon Sanji Seigen Renmei). The following year thirteen women’s groups established an association to work for revision of the anti-abortion law, while at the same time favouring birth control through contraception, and a general meeting of women’s suffrage groups in 1933 included recognition of the right to limit childbirth among their announced goals. Birth control clinics continued to open, including Ishimoto’s in Tokyo as late as 1936, and authorities allowed Margaret Sanger to visit Japan to help dedicate Ishimoto’s clinic when it moved to a new location in August 1937. During this visit Sanger did not encounter difficulties in presenting her ideas on birth control from police intervention or harassment, a contrast to her 1922 experience. 72 Consequently, in addition to pronatalist pressure, the law may also have resulted from justifiable concerns about the dangers of certain devices being used for contraception or abortion, especially at a time of economic depression when families were trying to limit new births, as demonstrated by the declining birth rate. Safety remained a concern throughout the interwar period, so that even doctors such as Majima who actively promoted birth control warned women against dangerous medicines and criticised clinics which did not have a doctor associated with them.73 As mentioned at the beginning of this discussion about the limitations of existing contraceptive technology and techniques, doctors opposing birth control emphasised these dangers. As in the United States and England, the medical profession as a whole proved to be an obstacle to the success of the birth control movement during the 1930s. Despite the questionable safety and reliability of existing contraceptive methods and appliances, this appears to have often been as much an excuse for doctors’ criticism of birth control as a justifiable concern. Ota recounts that while he and a few doctors such as Majima supported birth control, the majority of the profession opposed it

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due to their conservative social attitudes. According to Ota, although use of contraceptives was not a crime, most doctors did not think that as doctors they should prevent pregnancy by surgical means and would only use medicinal methods in cases where a mother’s life or physical health was endangered, for example, by tuberculosis. Even in the case of tuberculosis a debate between ‘conservatives’ and ‘renovationists’ emerged over use of contraceptive medicines, 74 and when their use in other cases became a subject of discussion, the lines of contention became more clearly marked and the debate intensified. Whereas the conservatives continued to insist on use of contraceptive medicines only in cases where the mother’s life was in danger, the renovationists favoured their use when a future pregnancy or childbirth would be harmful to the mother’s health. In 1927 Ota wrote an article supporting for the first time in Japan prescription of contraceptive medicines for purely social reasons, but as he reported, the idea was simply ignored. Ota explained that his stance derived from an understanding of the difficulties encountered by poor women and families burdened by many children, adding that most doctors lacked such an understanding. According to Ota, the majority of the medical profession regarded doctors associated with birth control and contraception coldly and even called them frauds or quacks.75 Consequently, throughout the pre-1945 period lay persons such as Ishimoto rather than medical specialists were primarily responsible for the dissemination of birth control advice and instruction on techniques. This in turn developed into another source of criticism from the medical profession. With the debate between conservatives and renovationists heating up over contraceptive methods which should be carried out by doctors, the idea of birth control supervised by non-medical people was perceived as out of the question. In 1930 Dr Honda Misao launched the first detailed criticism along these lines by an obstetrician, at a conference for obstetrics and gynaecology held in Osaka. In his paper, later published in a medical journal, he noted the recent proliferation of what he referred to as ‘socalled’ birth control clinics. He argued for government legislation to ensure that there was a medical specialist attached to each clinic and that birth control for social purposes not be promoted by them. Honda followed this up with another article in the same journal enumerating the problems with various birth control methods being practised without medical advice or supervision. Ota acknowledged that there were in fact some questionable people running clinics and recommending methods aimed at abortion rather than contraception, but nevertheless attributed most doctors’ criticism more to their hostile social attitudes than to negative conclusions based on medical evidence.76 This situation parallels the history of birth control in the United States and Britain until the 1930s, where the fact that many birth control clinics were started and operated by non-medical people, such as Sanger and Stopes, remained grounds for criticism by the medical professions in those countries.

56 Elise K.Tipton These criticisms from doctors suggest that internal divisions became another source of weakness in the birth control movement during the 1930s. In addition to the majority of doctors being unsympathetic to the movement, those supportive of it also came to disagree over whether or not to recommend clinics staffed by non-medical people.77 Differences in ideology were more important in the split between organisations which had been established within the proletarian movement and those run by ‘bourgeois’ activists such as Ishimoto and Majima. These differences had existed already during the 1920s, but during the 1930s the proletarian birth control association openly attacked its bourgeois rivals by name. It rejected Ishimoto’s argument for birth control as a means of solving the country’s population and food problems and condemned Majima as a ‘fake’. 78 It warned workers not to be deceived by these ‘cat’s paws of the capitalists’.79 ‘UME YO FUYASE YO’ As the proletarian movement succumbed to government suppression, pronatalist opposition became a more serious and effective organised force opposing the birth control movement during the mid-1930s, but it still did not completely succeed until the war with China led to formation of an explicit government population policy banning contraceptives and epitomised by the slogan, ‘ume yo fuyase yo’. Following the passage of a eugenics sterilisation law in Nazi Germany in 1933, Japanese eugenicists led by Nagai Hisomu (Sen) formed a movement to promote passage of a similar law in Japan. Proposals for such a law were introduced in the Diet in 1934, 1935 and 1937. 80 Although they failed to win approval, government officials’ definition of the population problem was shifting from overpopulation to depopulation as census reports showed birth rates declining81 and as concerns changed from high unemployment to providing soldiers for imminent war and colonists for Japan’s expanding territories. From late 1937 police measures against birth control activists tightened. Ishimoto, for example, experienced arrest and detention for two weeks in December 1937 in the round-up of Popular Front Movement leaders. 82 Police forced the closure of her Tokyo clinic in January 1938 and confiscated all confidential records of clients. Ota Tenrei also was arrested twice and compelled to curtail all birth control activities until the end of the war.83 In 1938 Mrs F.Robertson Jones, President of the American Birth Control League, visited Japan, but she found that all information on contraception and distribution of birth control materials were prohibited.84 In 1940 the Diet passed the National Eugenics Law (Kokumin Yusei Ho), and the following year the Cabinet issued an Outline for Establishment of a Population Policy (Jinko Seisaku Kakuritsu Yoko).85 Government policy now officially aimed at increasing both the quality and quantity of the Japanese population. Like the Nazi law, the National Eugenics Law embodied racial eugenics goals by providing for sterilisation of those with hereditary

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physical and mental diseases, but unlike the Nazi law, made this sterilisation voluntary rather than compulsory. Among measures to increase the population, the government banned all contraceptives. Declining annual production figures for condoms from 1937–45 reflect the anti-birth control policy (see table 3.1 below). Table 3.1 Annual production of condoms (in millions)

Source: Irene Taeuber and Marshall Balfour MD, The Control of Fertility in Japan’ in Milbank Memorial Fund, Approaches to Problems of High Fertility in Agrarian Societies, New York, Milbank Memorial Fund, 1952, p. 113. Taeuber and Balfour do not give an original source for these figures.

In order to increase the number of births, government policy worked toward lowering the average age of marriage by three years within the next decade and established a mediation system for family disputes which would hopefully preserve existing marriages.86 Exhorting women to ‘give birth and multiply’, the government also aimed at an average of five children for all married couples within ten years and tried to achieve this goal by inaugurating incentives such as medals and other prizes to couples with numerous children and mobilising women’s magazines to encourage motherly self-consciousness in their readers.87 Although the pronatalist policy produced some beneficial results such as establishing a health system for pregnant women and children and directing efforts to lowering infant and child mortality rates, it put an end to the birth control movement until after the war. CONCLUSION With defeat and occupation the Japanese Empire vanished, resulting in the return of millions of colonial settlers as well as demobilised soldiers from overseas. The living conditions to which they returned were harsh, for the closing line of Allied encirclement had cut off imports many months before the surrender, and the bombing raids had left most medium and large cities devastated. Postwar Japan faced an ‘overpopulation’ problem again, this time in economic conditions even worse than those of the 1920s. In 1947 Ishimoto and other prewar birth controllers proposed legislation to legalise contraceptives and abortion as the number of illegal abortions spiralled along with the birth rate. This failed to win Diet approval, but in 1948 the

58 Elise K.Tipton Pharmaceutical Affairs Law ended the ban on the sale of contraceptive drugs and another proposal legalising abortion which was supported by the medical profession passed the Diet. This was the Eugenics Protection Law (Yusei Hogo Ho), which with subsequent revisions widening the legitimate reasons for abortions to include economic ones, is still in force today. Doctors’ support was no doubt partly generated by concern for the dangers accompanying the escalation in number of illegal abortions, but as Coleman and others have suggested, this support also emerged when the profession gained control over performance of legal abortions. Moreover, the substantial financial remuneration subsequently resulting from licensing abortion practitioners has since lessened medical support for introduction and promotion of other means of preventing and ending unwanted pregnancies, in particular legalisation of oral contraceptives.88 On the one hand, the prewar birth control movement may take credit for making the idea of birth control acceptable to ordinary Japanese people. The positive response of women’s groups exhibited in their support of the right to limit births, the obvious eagerness of readers of popular women’s magazines to obtain information about actual contraceptive methods and devices, and the proliferation of birth control clinics throughout the country during the 1920s and early 1930s are evidence of the acceptance of a smallfamily ideal during the interwar period. Consequently, when a governmentsponsored programme promoting contraception in public health clinics was launched in the mid-1950s many couples immediately began to use contraceptive methods (primarily condoms and the rhythm method), and the number of abortions as well as births declined rapidly from then on. On the other hand, the large role played by the wartime government as well as that of the medical profession in the virtual disappearance of the birth control movement by the end of the 1930s has continued to be evident in the postwar history of the family planning movement. The conservative social attitudes of both government officials and medical practitioners, which still support marriage and motherhood as the ideal role for women, have resulted in birth control activities being largely confined until recently to its promotion among married women, associating birth control with the protection of women and children’s health rather than with feminist principles such as the right of women to control their own bodies. Family planning in becoming respectable and officially sanctioned therefore also became less oriented to the women’s liberation and socialist goals which inspired the pioneers of birth control in the early part of the century. NOTES 1 For an excellent study of postwar family planning, see Samuel Coleman, Family Planning in Japanese Society, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983. 2 Shidzue Kato, A Fight for Women’s Happiness, Tokyo, Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning, 1984, p. 106. On the continuing

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3

4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

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decline in the birth rate since the 1950s, see Miho Ogino, ‘Japanese Women and the Decline of the Birth Rate’, Reproductive Health Matters, May 1993, no. 1, pp. 78–84. See Coleman, Family Planning. The Health and Welfare Ministry recorded 386,807 abortions in 1993, but many more go unreported. According to a 1994 survey in the Asahi shinbun, condoms are the preferred method of contraception for 78 per cent of Japanese couples, who use one fifth of the world’s total production. See also Robert Garran, ‘Japan lifts ban on the pill’, The Australian, 20 Sept. 1995, p. 11; Ben Hills, ‘Japan swallows the bitter Pill after a 35-year struggle’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Sept. 1995, p. 15. For a history of abortion laws and practice especially since 1945, see Tama Yasuko, ‘Chuzetsu no shakaishi’ in Ueno Chizuko, et al. (eds), Henbosuru kazoku, vol. 1: Kazoku no shakaishi, Tokyo, Iwanami, 1991, pp. 199–228 and her revised version, ‘The Logic of Abortion: Japanese Debates on the Legitimacy of Abortion as Seen in Post-World War II Newspapers’, U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 1994, no. 7, pp. 3–30. See Susan Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial Japan, 1600–1868, Princeton, Princeton University, 1978; Thomas Smith, Nakahara, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1977. Even William LaFleur’s recent and intriguing study of the relation between abortion and Buddhist beliefs describes government population policies as being uniformly pronatalist for the entire period from Meiji to 1945. William LaFleur, Liquid Life, Abortion and Buddhism in Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 120–1. Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, London, Faber and Faber, 1932, p. 238. This is, in fact, how a history of the Ministry of Health and Welfare describes government policy. Koseisho Gojunenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Koseisho gojunenshi, Tokyo, Zaidan Hojin Kosei Mondai Kenkyukai, 1988, p. 120. Ishimoto, Shidzue, Facing Two Ways, New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1935, p. 226; Kato, Fight, p. 52. Also, Yasuda Tokutaro, ‘Birth control in Japan,’ Contemporary Japan, 1933, vol. 2, p. 473. Ellen Chesler suggests the possibility of FBI intervention. Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor, Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1992, p. 246. Seki Chuka, et al., Zasshi Kaizo no yonjunen, Tokyo, Kowado, 1977, pp. 69–74. Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, Elmsford, N.Y., Maxwell Reprint Co., 1970, originally 1938, p. 317. Asahi shinbun, 14 Feb. 1922, p. 5. See also an article in the 17 Feb. issue, p. 5. Elise K.Tipton, The Japanese Police State: the Tokko in Interwar Japan, Sydney and Honolulu, Allen and Unwin and University of Hawaii Press, 1990, p. 20; Richard Mitchell, Thought Control in Prewar Japan, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1976, pp. 45–50. For more discussion of socialist women, see Vera Mackie’s chapter in this book. Chesler, Woman of Valor, p. 246. Sanger, My Fight, p. 231. Newspapers reported on all these developments, e.g. Osaka Asahi, 2 Mar. 1922, reprinted in Shinbun shuroku Taisho shi (hereafter SSTS), vol. 10, Tokyo, Taisho Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha, 1978, p. 108. Asahi shinbun, 23 Feb. 1922, p. 5. Sanger, Autobiography, pp. 321, 325. Kato, Fight, p. 55. Sanger, My Fight, p. 238.

60 Elise K.Tipton 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46

47

Kido Mataichi (ed.), Gendai jaanarizumu, vol. 1: Rekishi, Tokyo, Jiji Tsushinsha, 1974. Kato, Fight, p. 52. Ibid., p. 55; same figure in Sanger, Fight, p. 238. Letter quoted in Chesler, Woman, p. 246. Chesler, Woman of Valor, p. 246. Quoted in Sanger, My Fight, p. 231. Robert J.Smith and Ella Lury Wiswell, The Women of Suye Mura, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 90. See Ota Tenrei, Nihon sanji chosetsu hyakunenshi, Tokyo, Shuppan Kagaku Sogo Kenkyujo, 1976, pp. 146–56; Yasuda, ‘Birth Control in Japan,’ p. 474. Ryoichi Ishii, Population Pressure and Economic Life in Japan, London, P.S. King and Son, 1937, p. 43. It did not decline to the 1919 level until 1933. Irene Taeuber, The Population of Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1958, p. 232. Ishii, Population Pressure, pp. 43–4; Taeuber, Population, p. 365. Walter R.Crocker, The Japanese Population Problem, The Coming Crisis, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1931, p. 52. Koseisho Gojunenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Koseisho gojunenshi, p. 121; Taeuber, Population, p. 366. Sanger, My Fight, p. 237. Ibid., p. 237. Ishii, Population Pressure, p. 44. W.S.Thompson quoted in Ishii, Population Pressure, p. 44. Ueda Hanako, ‘Saigo ni eranda hoho de chosetsu shita keiken’, Shufu no tomo, June 1928, vol. 12, p. 115; Aoki Choko, ‘Ikudo mo shippai shita keiken to chosetsu no keiken’, Shufu no tomo, June 1928, vol. 12, p. 118. Woman reporter, ‘Sanji chosetsu ni seiko no fujin o tou,’ Shufu no tomo, May 1927, vol. 11, no. 5, p. 67. Ota, Sanji chosetsu, p. 154; Sasaki Toshiji and Otagiri Akinori (eds), Yamamoto Senji zenshu, vol. 3, Tokyo, Chobunsha, 1979, pp. 296–9. For example, Woman reporter, ‘Seiko no fujin o tou’, pp. 67–72; Ohara Kayo, ‘Jibun de ninshin chosetsu ho o hakken suru made no tsuma no kushin’, Shufu no tomo, June 1929, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 197–200. An article on the Dutch pessary, which was accompanied by an advertisement, is just one example. ‘Orandashiki no ninshin chosetsu ho’, Shufu no tomo, Aug. 1932, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 322–3. Sanger recalled that questions asked at her welcome reception focused on the moral aspect of contraception. The most frequent question was ‘would not birth control corrupt the morals of the young?’, Sanger, Fight, p. 234. As Audrey Leathard states in the introduction to her book, ‘contraception was not a subject for discussion in polite, pre-1921, society’. Audrey Leathard, The Fight for Family Planning, London, Macmillan Press, 1980, p. xvii. See also, Peter Fryer, The Birth Controllers, London, Secker and Warburg, 1965; James Reed, From Private Vice to Public Virtue, New York, Basic Books, 1978; June Rose, Marie Stopes and the Sexual Revolution, London, Faber and Faber, 1992. Minami Hiroshi, Taisho bunka, 1905–1927, Tokyo, Keiso Shobo, 1988, p. 162. Ishimoto, Facing; Kato Shidzue, Fight, pp. 37–9. For a biographical account of Ishimoto/Kato, see Helen Hopper, A New Woman of Japan: A Political Biography of Kato Shidzue, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1996. On her links with Sanger, see Elise K.Tipton, ‘Ishimoto Shizue: The Margaret Sanger of Japan’, Women’s History Review, forthcoming. Ishimoto Shizue, ‘Sanji seigen no goriteki hitsuyo,’ Shufu no tomo, 1 Jan. 1922, p. 16.

Birth control and the population problem 48 49

50

51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

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Yomiuri shinbun, 6 Feb. 1922, reprinted in SSTS, v. 10, p. 52. Sanger, My Fight, p. 225. Civilian supporters of expansion also opposed birth control because the nation needed soldiers. For example, Tokutomi Iichiro, ‘Jinko mondai to ryosai kenboshugi no kyoyo’, Shufu no tomo, Apr. 1924, pp. 4–11. Foreign trends remained important to the Japanese in the later 1920s and 1930s. For example, in 1925 a Shufu no tomo reporter observed the general acceptance of small families in the United States and France and the establishment of birth control clinics by the Dutch government. The same article noted the benefits of birth control for the nation, based on the view that wars resulted from overpopulation. See ‘Sanji chosetsu o jikkotashi fujin no keiken’, Shufu no tomo, Jan. 1925, p. 68. In 1930 Takano Rokuro argued that the population statistics of ‘enlightened foreign countries’ such as England showed that birth control was being practised, and the English were ‘the healthiest people in the world’. See Takano Rokuro, ‘Sanji seigen no hanashi’, Fujin saron, Mar. 1930, pp. 12–14. Both private and government population problems research institutes published numerous articles and translations of foreign population studies throughout the late 1930s and even early 1940s. See the journals, Jinko mondai and Jinko mondai kenkyu. Ishimoto, ‘Sanji seigen’, pp. 17–18. For example, Akakuni Koichi, ‘Sanji chosetsu ni seikotashi otto no keiken’, Shufu no tomo, July 1927, pp. 116–19. Ishii, Population Pressure, p. 239. For example, Muramatsu Minoru, ‘Family Planning in Japan—An Historical Overview’ in Muramatsu Minoru and Katagiri Tamayoshi (eds), Basic Readings in Population and Family Planning in Japan, Tokyo, Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning, 1981 revised edn, p. 2. Ota Tenrei, Sanji chosetsu, p. 175. For example, Yasuda, ‘Birth Control’, pp. 473, 478. Okazaki Yoichi, ‘Changes in Fertility Behavior in Postwar Japan’ in Muramatsu and Katagiri (eds), Basic Readings, p. 37. Okazaki Yoichi, ‘Demographic Transition in Japan’ in Muramatsu and Katagiri (eds), Basic Readings, pp. 16–27. Smith and Wiswell, Women, pp. 85–90. For example, Aoki Choko of Okayama. Aoki, ‘Chosetsu no keiken’, p. 117. Smith and Wiswell, Women, pp. 85–90. Ibid., pp. 89–90. Ibid., pp 87–8, 90. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid., p. 89. Ando Kuwakuichi, ‘Ninshinbi to funinshinbi no atarashii hakken’, Shufu no tomo, Apr. 1933, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 222–9. Irene Taeuber and Marshall Balfour MD, ‘The Control of Fertility in Japan’ in Milbank Memorial Fund, Approaches to Problems of High Fertility in Agrarian Societies, New York, Milbank Memorial Fund, 1952, p. 113. Smith and Wiswell, Women, p. 88. Minami Hiroshi (ed.), Kindai shomin seikatsu shi, vol. 10, Tokyo, San’ichi Shobo, 1994, p. 453. The socialist birth control advocate, Yamamoto Senji, warned readers of his journal about the ineffectiveness of these remedies. Yamamoto Senji, ‘Sanji chosetsu monto’, Sanji chosetsu hyoron, no. 4, reprinted in Yamamoto Senji zenshu, vol. 3, Tokyo, Chobunsha, 1979, pp. 252–3. In issue no. 7 he told readers that condoms were reliable if they did not have any cracks.

62 Elise K.Tipton 71

72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

For example, Kitamura Keiko, ‘Hinin kara shinkei suijaku ni natta shippai no kokuhaku’, and Shiono Michiko, ‘Hinin ho de fujinbyo ni natta shippai no keiken’, Shufu no tomo, Oct. 1930, vol. 14, no. 10, pp. 282–4; Shigeta Mitsugi, ‘Hantoji o umaseta chichioya no kohaku’, Shufu no tomo, Sept. 1935, vol. 19, no. 9, p. 264. Chesler, Woman of Valor, pp. 366–7; Helen Hopper, ‘Shidzue Ishimoto and Margaret Sanger in Japan, August 1937,’ in Phoebe, An Interdisciplinary Journal of Feminist Scholarship, Theory and Aesthetics, Feb. 1989, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 35– 50. Okamoto Hiro and Majima Kan, ‘Ninshin chosetsu no shijo sodankai’, Shufu no tomo, Mar. 1930, vol. 14, no. 3, p. 200; Majima Kan, ‘Nihon ni okeru sanji seigen no genjo’, Fujin saron, Apr. 1930, pp. 6–7. Ota refers to cases of tekiosho (diseases where medicines are efficacious). What medicines were prescribed is not explained. Ota Tenrei, Sanji chosetsu, p. 272. Ibid., pp. 272–7. Ibid., pp. 274–7. Ibid., p. 333. Ibid., pp. 334–7. Musansha sanji seigen to wa nani ka, Puro BC Rifuretto no. 1, Musansha Sanji Seigen Domei, 1932, p. 3. Koseisho Gojunenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Koseisho, p. 213. Taeuber, Population, p. 59. See her diary of this period. Kato Shizue, Saiai no hito Kanju e, Tokyo, Shinyosha, 1988. Ota, Sanji chosetsu, p. 353. Amano Fumiko, ‘Family Planning Movement in Japan’, Contemporary Japan, vol. 23, no. 10–12, 1955, p. 754. Koseisho Gojunenshi Henshu Iinkai, Koseisho, pp. 416–19; Sogo Joseishi Kenkyukai (ed.), Nihon josei no rekishi—set, ai, kazoku, Tokyo, Kadokawa Shoten, 1992, p. 215. Nagahara Kazuko and Yoneda Sayoko, Onna no Showashi, Tokyo, Yuhikaku, 1986, pp. 90, 116. Ibid., pp. 107–8, 117. Coleman, Family Planning, p. 38. In September 1995 an advisory committee recommended approval of the pill for contraceptive purposes, after six years of trials and intensive lobbying by nine pharmaceutical companies. (Garran, ‘Japan lifts ban on the pill’, p. 11; Hills, ‘Japan swallows the bitter Pill’, p. 15.) However, in May 1996 the Health and Welfare Ministry again rejected licensing.

4

Artists and the state The image of China John Clark

The subject of this chapter is the relation between state policies and institutions from late Meiji to 1945, and the representation of China as a subject in Japanese painting. Most of the original paper, on which this chapter is based, was originally written in Japanese,1 yet its subject matter in the fiftieth anniversary of the defeat in the Second World War had still to find systematic discussion by Japanese art historians. This indicates a zone of social taboo as much as methodological aversion with which the subject matter must be associated. For artists as varied as Yokoyama Taikan (plate 1*) or Kanayama Heizo (plate 25*), China appears to be frequently imagined through the forms of art discourse in both ‘Western-style’ and ‘Japanese-style’ painting since the late Meiji period. What does not appear very often in this painting is what Japan as a state and Japanese citizens as its military or civilian agents were doing with China in the contemporary world. For them ‘China’ was another place. This gap calls up many fundamental questions about the relation between Japanese painting and historical experience,2 and about the role of paintings in mediating the state’s desired image of that history. This chapter will bring into focus the kind of visual materials which might elsewhere be written texts and subject to ideological analysis. I do not think the visual images shown in paintings or the psychological images which underlie them are a representation of ideological structures themselves, but they are a particularly important site by which such structures are mediated to the wider society. If there is a process of thought by which China is made ‘other’, this may only be revealed in painting by incidental discrepancies between the image shown and the contemporary realities of Japan’s relation to China. Splendid, august mountains or beautiful, prosperous villages may appear in paintings at the very moment Japan is preparing to conquer them. So little has been discussed about this material that I see my task here as primarily to point to the paintings and map some of the distribution of image types within them. The paintings in question were largely produced from 1907 for, a relatively new institution in Japanese artistic life, the official fine art salons. They were produced by graduates from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts

64 John Clark which had been founded in 1889 initially to teach only ‘Japanese-style’ painting, but had acquired an oil painting department in 1896 under a French-trained painter Kuroda Seiki. Thus the paintings were produced as part of an institutional discourse which had initially been in the service of the state but which had by 1907 become highly specialised in a modern disciplinary sense, and whose exhibition institutions and indeed stylistic themes and subject matters were relatively autonomous of direct state intervention. The painters were also part of a new cadre of a professionally trained elite who had a socially recognised competence to speak about their disciplines because of that training. The paintings were exhibited at the adjudicated national salon and very soon after that there sprang up a wide range of small artist groups, some of which like the Nikakai (Second Section Society) from 1914 initially had an avant-garde function. But these quickly became so institutionalised, with juries, prizes, and stages of admission like the government salon, that they in effect constituted an art establishment in waiting. So far as it can be reconstructed, their audience was highly diverse: from high officials of the state, through to the new professionally educated technical and managerial elite, to more casually interested amateurs. Two things need to be kept broadly in mind about this wide audience. First, universal primary education had been implemented in Japan in the early 1870s and by the late 1890s in many parts of Japan schools had above ninety per cent attendance. Thus the government salon and other exhibitions whilst for an elite audience, in large part, took place in a context of very high literacy where cultural activity was valued, certainly this was the case in the cities. Second, the national salons were prestigious because they represented a new kind of public activity but also a privileging of art activity in a society which had previously had an implicit and customary distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ arts, and tended to see most painting as decorative. Thus painting, in particular ‘Western-style’ painting, was seen as the bearer of a new, explicitly fine arts practice and this specialised discourse was reinforced by the immense popularity for amateur painting especially the ‘Western-style’ watercolour disseminated by the magazine Mizu-e (Water Colour) after 1905. Thus the painting we shall examine was produced and exhibited at an important site of a prestigious new activity, but one which had a circle of reception beyond the upper elite, and which was also disseminated widely beyond professionally trained artists. Within this changing institutional and social context, several periods in subject matter can be distinguished.

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I. 1894–1914 Late Meiji to initial Taisho, the era when art expression frequently carried nationalistic overtones and before the formal structure of the art world became firm. The years 1913–14 also mark the time when some artists of a post-Meiji formation returned from Europe and when a number of exhibitions and groups were formed which one might call avant-garde. II. 1907–1925/26 This period overlaps the previous period and begins with the first Bunten, or national art exhibition, organised in the beginning by the Ministry of Education from 1907, which greatly increased the chances of submission for public exhibition by establishment artists. There was also an increasing range of short-lived avant-garde artists’ groups as well as much longer-lived organisations with regular annual exhibitions and a membership system, who regarded themselves as unofficial. The period saw the onset of a mass cultural life in the main cities, and the development and propagation of a range of autonomous art theories and styles. The terminus is about the time when works by Japanese artists who had crossed over to the continent came to be submitted to Bunten’s successor, Teiten, the Imperial Art Academy Exhibitions. The year 1926 was also importantly the first year of the Showa reign period under the new emperor Hirohito (who had been Regent since 1921) and the year after the Peace Preservation Law was passed that was to be the device used in an increasingly polarised political world to suppress dissent. III. 1925/26–1937 From the accession of Hirohito until the outbreak of full-scale war in North China, this period also saw the rise and suppression of proletarian art and the introduction and increasing prevalence of surrealism as antiestablishment formalist practice. Japanese painters of Chinese subjects linked these to a Japanese seasonal feeling and, with the exception of one or two portraits of officers or views of sentries on guard, there are surprisingly few paintings which propagandised Japanese militarist expansion at the official exhibitions. IV. 1937–1945 The outbreak of war in China also coincided with domestic reorganisation of the official exhibition which was brought back under the Ministry of Education as Shin-Bunten from 1937. It is at this exhibition that paintings on war subjects began to be noticeable. However, one should not fail to point out that despite the fact that war paintings continued to be exhibited

66 John Clark until the Special Wartime Exhibition (Senji Tokubetsu Bunten) in 1944, war paintings in no way predominated among the number of works exhibited. War paintings were more prominent at specific fine art exhibitions organised by the army and navy under nominally independent support organisations. These groups also organised the sending of artists to the front, particularly during the China campaign of 1937–9 and during the offensive in Southeast Asia in 1941.3 Fauvist anti-mainstream and some avant-garde surrealist paintings were exhibited outside Shin-Bunten up until the formal amalgamation of all art organisations into a single body in 1943, whose president was Yokoyama Taikan. Whilst I do not analyse the avant-garde in detail, I will briefly discuss at the end the surrealist Ai Mitsu (1907–46) who had for a long time been interested in China and who died there from war-related illnesses. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH The approach employed here will largely be based on visual analysis of certain reproduced works.4 Because we do not have all that many written records in which Japanese artists indicate what their image is of China, despite their frequent comments on Chinese art, the modern observer has to reconstruct this image or world view from the styles and contents of their works. For this purpose works will be confined to paintings, including oil paintings and some prints, but not restricted to media thought traditional in China and Japan such as brush and ink on paper. By the mid-1920s oil painting was as large if not more important an art practice in Japan as that of traditional media.5 Through analysis it should be possible to establish various ideal types for such images of China. To do this one must avoid the erroneous approach where the viewer regards pictorial phenomena as simply the painter’s reflection of intellectual and social phenomena without reference to their constitution as visual images. Moreover, if only in this context, the fact that the viewer is not constrained by the verbal image of China in texts (as in literature or politicians’ essays, for example) allows us to constitute the proper method for a future comparison of the visual and the verbal images of China. All the image painters knew about China was ‘compounded’ from their received cultural knowledge of China which in Japan had a long and complex history in both literary and visual discourse. This was articulated by their existential or historical experience of the China of their own day. The visual image which they produced could refer to both present history and the past by using an image from the past to comment on a current political situation at home or abroad, or it could use a reference to current historical events via the simple representation of a scene from Chinese landscape or customs. In the latter case one sometimes feels, as with Takeuchi Seiho’s 1920 sketches, that the image of China is used subversively or at least in resistance, as not being

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what the militarists required about China. For into the cultural discourse of images intrudes the needs of the state or factions struggling for control over it, for an ideological view about China which relates to their various positions of control over China. The historical relation of Japanese dominance in parts of China during the 1920s and war with most of it in the late 1930s is treated by painters as more of the unseen context in which their work unfolds. One could see this context as producing the tension along a continuum from aggrandising images of national strength to resistant images of idealised landscape or Chinese customs, but the problem of whether or not painters identified through their visualisations with this or that particular cognitive mapping of China will not resolve with clarity what such a hypothetical continuum might suggest. This is partly due to the complexity of the historical field of Japan-China relations, and partly to the problematics of the pictorial discourse, as we shall see. The intellectual materials to be employed here are limited. To begin with, in the history of modern Japanese painting hardly any methods have yet been developed which go beyond the stylistic and technical distinction between nihonga, Japanese painting since Meiji understood as using traditional media, and yoga, ‘Western’ painting understood as academy realism in oil painting and prints.6 One may broadly distinguish between twin tendencies towards Idealism7 and Realism8 in paintings which adopt Chinese subjects and both tendencies are discernible across nihonga and yoga. Furthermore, if we look at this problem from the angle of the ‘Orientalism’ debate which has become fashionable in Europe and North America, we may interpret expressions based on a yearning for motifs of alien lands as ultimately displaying false consciousness under a regime of imperialist domination. The coincidence of such a yearning with military and political domination was precisely the case in Japan’s relation with China, from the Chinese defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, through the gradual encroachments in Manchuria from the 1910s to 1930s, to the final outbreak of what the Chinese call the Eight Years’ War of Resistance against Japan in 1937. However, one problem of such an ‘Orientalism’ approach is that, to the extent we take such an equivalence between false consciousness and domination as unavoidable we will have completely ignored that the representation of such yearnings is also one of a learning process towards the alien person or land, even if it is likely to be one of misperception. I tend to regard such misperception as to be more often due to a censoring out from perception of the experience of the learning process itself, than to be necessarily due to the power position of the perceiver, as would be the ‘Orientalism’ hypothesis. Such a censoring out is structured by the way ‘foreign bodies’ are handled within a culture, long before it comes into contact with an actual foreign culture. In the present case, the image we see of China in Japanese painting moves from an idea of the China it had long been

68 John Clark domestically in Japanese minds before 1894, to that of an actual China externally in the world. That world was to be structured in 1938–45 by a Japanese military force which the image of China in Japanese minds ignored. The treatment of paintings as intellectual materials is also problematic. I have seen a number of the originals of works which treat Chinese subjects but most are now only available through reproductions. Even if a certain level of visual analysis is possible through these, it will not of course be an analysis based on appreciation of the paintings themselves. Moreover, the reproductions are limited9 and materials which explain the consciousness of the artists in the choice of subjects and the circumstances of their representation are inadequate, although there are in a few cases artist statements about certain works or groups of works (plate 21).10 If paintings on the one hand present problems for analysis, the nonpictorial history in which they are emplaced presents even more. Japanese relations with late imperial Qing China led to the war of 1894–5 where Japan’s gains in Shandong were retrenched by the European Tripartite Intervention. After the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, Japan made its aggressive Twenty-One Demands of 1915 which provoked the Chinese student revolt called the ‘May 4th Movement’.11 Various further encroachments in China followed, including near war in the Shanghai Incident of 1932. The Manchurian Incident in 1931 culminated as the last extension of rights over railways and mining, which Japan had held since 1905, in the establishment of a Japanese puppet state called Manchukuo. In 1937 the full-scale Japanese invasion of North China brought on the tragedy of all-out war. These simple chronological markings are merely the indices for enormously complex changes in Japan’s political, cultural and economic history. One could read these events and shifts into the paintings of the time. However, I intend rather to read out from the paintings to the images of China they evoke, and to the special social group which their producers, the artists, constituted. Let us take one overall problem of those images first. The noun ‘China’ in Japanese clearly does not just indicate a geographical place. This is to some extent signified by the variations in the Japanese words used at different times to denote it: To, Kara, Chugoku, Chuka, Shina. ‘China’ is where many of the formal high cultural styles in Japan originate from, yet it is that place whose geographical presence is both independent of, but not distant from Japan. If I may summarise a long debate,12 ‘China’ is a kind of cultural presence within Japan which is proximate to, or overlaps, another cultural presence which occupies a given geographical zone outside Japan. This proximate or overlapping distribution is both a phenomenon of geography and of language in its representing function as a vehicle for consciousness. Not only is that other cultural presence autonomous, it would seem to be closer to the ‘essential Chinese’ culture than what had been the source of another kind of cultural presence within Japan. When we come in particular to the later nineteenth century, a period when the political unit—

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the Qing dynasty imperial government—which controlled the geographical existence of ‘China’ was defeated by Japanese forces, the conflict between the positions of Japan and China towards the cultural presence which was ‘China’ to both societies, now had to take up the mask of a political power struggle. Instead of the struggle being a question of which modern state was the most faithful successor to ‘China’, the question of which had the most appropriate cultural authority in response to the aggression of ‘Western’ imperial powers became not simply one of cultural creativity, but of practical armed might. That is, through its armed might to dominate geographical China, Japan secured the authority to contain ‘China’ culturally.13 Domination in the world preceded domination in the mind, but a mind that was prepared. The artists who produced these images were the product of the late Meiji art system. This system was composed of three planes. First there was a reception culture or audience which was composed of elite patrons of nihonga, a very powerful group within the new elite who saw academy oil painting as a style-marker for their own modernity, and a broad popular visual culture where etchings and lithographs had begun to replace wood blocks and which enjoyed illustrated novels and geographical texts from European sources. The second plane was a series of mediation sites. Apart from the newspapers which gradually changed popular visual consciousness, there were extensive fine art exhibitions at national and provincial expositions, which after suffering a ten year antipathy in the 1880s, readmitted ‘Western’-style painting to public exhibitions from the 1890s. There was also the Meiji Fine Art Society and a range of artist-studio affiliations which blossomed into the official and quasi-official exhibitions from 1907. Also important at the level of mediation were the training institutions for artists which had seen a brief Technical Art School in operation from 1876 to 1883, and a Professor of Western-style Painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts continuously after 1896. The third plane was that of the producers, the artists. These were a diverse group ranging from former aristocrats who acquired knowledge of oil painting after training in Europe, to quasi-professional painters from the old lower samurai, to atelier craftsmen-artists who produced prints. Some of the latter were the lineal descendants of plebeian ukiyo-e artists from the Edo period. By around 1900 artists were much more identifiable as a functional, role-specialised group, either having been trained at an art school or having gone through some formal training in a teaching studio or a workshop. In a sense, whether their work was in the domain of nihonga or yoga they constituted a cadre of specialised visual technicians producing images for a highly variegated series of audiences. To anticipate discussion later which is largely focused on yoga, we observe here that the nihonga artists of the late Meiji period developed Chinese folklore, literary and admonitory subjects as their own (plate 1*).

70 John Clark Stylistically these subjects were shown as a kind of heroic or idealised figure, and from the outset focused on a pictorial quality which was nonChinese. The figure paintings of Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958) and Hishida Shunso (1874–1911) in particular are unimaginable without their having been aware of Western academic history paintings through reproductions. On occasion, as in Taikan’s use of the figure of the third century BC Chinese poet Qu Yuan in the first exhibition of the Nihon Bijutsu-in (Japan Art Academy) on its foundation in 1898, a moral figure from China’s past could be used as a kind of isolated leader-hero in ‘Western’ manner to symbolise conflict and a moral position in the Japanese context. In this case Taikan was against the artistic bankruptcy of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts which he had left when Okakura Tenshin resigned, and was also adopting a position in an art world debate about history painting.14 When looked at technically, even if the spatial composition of overlapping flat planes on the picture plane is based in various traditional devices of Chinese and Japanese painting, such figures in their work have a deliberately mimetic visual presence (plate 2), being depicted by means of the gradations and surface areas of colours which in an un-Chinese manner do not depend on outlines and linear drawing and hardly use any ink. That is, the works of Taikan and Shunso which we take as representing the Nihon Bijutsu-in mannerism, especially around 1900 after establishing the technique called the blurred and indistinct manner (morotai), not only declare their separation from the pre-established nihonga of the middle Meiji period in the late 1880s, but they also declare their parting from Chinese painting even as they use Chinese subjects.15 In other words, these artists had attempted to win the authority to create a new art which was Toyo or ‘Oriental’, for the Nihon Bijutsu-in. There was, however, another attitude possible towards the styles and techniques handed on from China. This was the intoxication in playing with pictorial language which was very easily enjoyed by modern people, and which may be seen in the works of Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924). It was produced between the ink, with its sensation of nijimi or zonal absorption,16 and the lines, which had been engendered by profound painterly investigation (plate 3). Even if Tessai tried to revive previous tradition, he was not obsessed by such forms and manifested an aesthetic taste based on two so-called classical lineages. His inclination was neither to negate nor to transcend either Japanese or Chinese painting. Neither was Tessai dominated by the sources of their respective subject matters. He deployed his pictorial forms selectively as objects bearing certain cultural references for his viewers. Of course as seen in nanga, Southern ‘literati’ painting, as it would continue after the Meiji period in the 1920s, the multiplicity of Tessai’s late work had carried with it the twin dangers of a clichéd eclecticism and an uninspired and stubborn atavism.

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PERIOD I: 1894–1914 While Periods II and III form the main focus in this essay, they cannot be really grasped without examining particular developments in yoga during Period I. In the late Meiji period the new realist oil painters as well as nihonga artists found in China new subjects which could be applied in their work. The war between Japan and Qing China finally broke out in 1894, and it was then that the oil painter Asai Chu (1857–1907) stated, On this occasion which occurs only rarely, [I] shall depict the real situation in the army and shall paint what words do not well attain, so as to compensate for the deficiences in historical records for later times.17 That is, he would depict more faithfully than words the subject of the war carried out in China by the Japanese army in applying the new technical capabilities of realism in a real situation. After returning to Japan in 1895 he published his Jusei gako (War Sketches), and painted his Search after the Battle of Port Arthur (plate 4). This painting shows a scene where Japanese soldiers are carrying out a search beyond the body of a dead Chinese. The image of China can only be interpreted as a China over which Japan is superior, and by implication is a China exposed to a Japanese visual capability appropriate to the times which could grasp the real situation there. The image of China thus undergoes propagandistic reinforcement from its visual representation. Asai Chu represents the group of new realist artists on military assignment whose works began to record the landscape and genre scenes of Manchuria and North China (plate 5). However, with these several exceptions the development of genre scenes and landscapes actually seen in China awaited more extensive travel by Japanese artists on the mainland in the 1920s. Consequently, we must look at other more typical works projecting a kind of late Meiji nationalism such as that of Harada Naojiro (1863–99). This indicated a kind of Zeitgeist manifested in painting (plate 6) where a female Bodhisattva of Compassion (J: Kannon, Ch: Kuanyin, Sanskrit: Avalokitesvara) is shown riding on a dragon. This work is central to understanding Meiji art and in some ways is an iconic formulation of Japan’s future relation with the outside world and with China in particular. It thus bears discussion in detail. Among many other Japanese and European pictorial antecedents, the direct link was to a literary motif in ‘Mignon’s Song’, a poem by Goethe from his The Dramatic Theories of Wilhelm Meister which had appeared in a collection of translated poems for which Harada had been responsible for the illustrations. These had appeared a year before the painting was done in August 1889.18 The work was exhibited first at the Third Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai (Domestic Exposition for the Promotion of Manufactures) from April to July 1890, at which Harada was a judge. It was given to Gokoku-ji in Tokyo in 1891.19

72 John Clark In debates at the time where treatment of Buddhist subjects in oil painting was most unusual, the face of the Kannon was criticised as obscene because it was too human. The work was subject to a debate provoked by a speech at The Meiji Fine Art Society by Toyama Masakazu later in the same year who was concerned about the size of the picture, and the realistic use of oil painting for portrayal of a Buddhist figure. Toyama was corrected by Harada’s friend Mori Ogai who was conversant with German art writing.20 Harada’s later 1895 painting Susano no Mikoto Slaying the Serpent also uses a dragon figure, but rather than Buddhist themes incorporates Japanese nativist mythology with an ancient prince slaying a hydra-headed monster. This later work is quite clearly based on Harada’s reaction to the Japanese war with Qing China, although it may be also linked in his imagination with Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen which Harada surely knew from his student days in Munich.21 Perhaps one may also offer a speculative political interpretation. Significantly, the Kannon moves from left to right across the picture plane, which aligns it geographically with the Westward location of Korea, China and the Asian continental landmass from Japan. One can interpret it as representing the soul of Yamato adjusting to the state of the world in the double-image of a Bodhisattva Kannon (salvation, compassion and enlightened intelligence) which crosses the oceans on a dragon-back (force, realism and adjustment to the world) to liberate the ‘other shore’. Surely a possible semantic background to this painting lies in a variation of the subject matter in the early thirteenth century Scroll of the Founders of the Kegon Sect (plate 7), in which the Korean monk Gisho, who is crossing to China—in the same direction as the Harada painting—to receive the doctrines of the Avatamska Sect or Kegonshu, finds his vessel is suddenly borne across the ocean on the back of a dragon. In the tale the dragon was the transmogrification of his Korean princess admirer who had flung herself into the sea after his departure.22 In my interpretation it is now of course Japan which returns to the world with its Buddhist spirituality and revitalised strength. The implication could simply stop there, but surely we must at least speculate whether this image also implies Japan will liberate the continent.23 Here an image of the continent or of China itself is fixed, actually as a tendency to overturn the meaning of the Kegon sect’s foundation myth—it is now not Korea/Japan which will receive, but Asia— and further to express its contents in the form of an idealised beauty typical of European and specifically late nineteenth century German nationalmythological painting. Significantly, from the late 1930s into the early 1940s the same kind of mix between idealised, mythological beauty and force is visible in the subject depicted in several nihonga works of warrior figures and wrathful deities. The representation of Chinese and of China in more popular prints which propagandised the war of 1894–5, appeared on the one hand to be viciously racist in its depiction of Chinese cowardice, laziness and corruption,24 in antithesis to the noble, diligent and brave Japanese troops. Although these

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prints appeared in Japan as war reportage almost none of the artists actually went to China, and they relied on reports or some drawings supplied by the military authorities and newspapers. On the other hand, some Chinese were admired by the projection of Japanese values into the meaning of their deeds. The suicide of Tei Joshu (Ding Ruchang), an admiral of the Qing navy defeated by the Japanese, was shown as he drank poison after acknowledging defeat (plate 8). That Ding Ruchang committed suicide in what would have been seen by contemporary Japanese as an old-worldly and graceful Chinese official residence and wearing elegant and exotic silk robes (actually Ding’s suicide was at Shimonoseki in Japan, where the surrender was negotiated) meant that a way of dying was selected which was proper to the Japanese, one whose idealisation was no doubt facilitated by a superior Japanese military might more fitted to late nineteenth century international politics.25 For Meiji Japan, China, Korea and Manchuria were places where not only Chinese died in battle. Many prints of the war between Japan and Qing China portray as heroic the death in battle of Japanese soldiers. In addition to the woodblock print reportage, there are works by realist oil painters which depict this inevitable death. Some show the bloody duty of the soldier rather than the hero (plate 9), but such an un-idealised China, present only as ground to die on, does not necessarily show even a mimetic reality.26 Mitsutani Kunishiro (1874–1936) painted Death of Lt. Hayashi in Battle in 1898, but it was not the work of an artist on war assignment, but of an artist working in Japan from a photograph. That is, the artist who had not crossed to the continent only saw China as a place where one must fulfil a soldier’s duty. In fact such painting was a precursor of that work done in the late 1930s and especially during the Pacific War which depicted actual war fighting, reconstructed from front-line visits by the artist and from photojournalism. As a tangible link between late Meiji portrayals of war fighting, with China being present merely as a site for Japanese action and the absent culturally unlocated sites of war fighting in the jungle during the 1940s, it is significant that another work by Mitsutani on the theme of the war between Japan and Qing China, Conversation in Battle, 1906, would be re-exhibited in the 1930 Exhibition of War Art (Senso Bijutsu Tenrankai).27 PERIOD II: 1907–1925/6 In Period I there were three constituents to the Japanese pictorial image of China: a source for moral figures in admonitory painting which bear traces of antiquity and authority selected almost entirely by whim of the artist’s empathy; a technical discourse which was to be variously pushed aside or transformed by will; and a rather blank space for Japanese aggressive military action. Fortunately at the beginning of Period Two there was a change in the last tendency.

74 John Clark This may be seen in the ‘Pictorial Record of China’ (plates 10, 11*) published in 1916 by Fukuda Shutaro (Bisen, 1875–1963), with prefaces by the theorist of nihonga Okakura Tenshin and by the China scholar Naito Konan.28 Fukuda had been a pupil of Kubota Beisen (1852–1906), one of the few print artists to go to China in the Sino-Japanese War, and Fukuda himself crossed to the continent in 1909 to study Chinese painting. Fukuda made pictorial records of landscapes from many regions and did genre scenes in the realistic manner of the eighteenth-century Japanese Shijo school. Despite the fact that one gets almost no taste of Chinese painting from his sketches, he really saw the Chinese as human beings who existed in a particular geographical region, and quite clearly assimilated Chinese subjects to the traditional pictorial technique of Japanese genre painting. This manner hints at the approach adopted by the Kyoto nihonga painter and inheritor of Shijo styles, Takeuchi Seiho (1864–1942), who was to visit China in 1920 and 1921 (plate 27*). Even if these images of China became fixed in Japanese painting as motifs, the formalisation which would give a pattern to these images of China needed time to develop and an exhibition site where they could undergo a regularised response with an audience. This site was provided by Bunten and later quasi-official salons. Beyond Bunten was the antimainstream Second Section Society (Nikakai, from 1914), and a variety of more-or-less Fauvist groups as well as nihonga groups such as the Japan Art Academy (Nihon Bijutsu-in), run by Yokoyama Taikan and other followers of Okakura, or Kyoto groups such as the National Painting Creation Society (Kokuga Sosaku-kai).29 However, it was at Bunten and Teiten that we see a much more developed codification, if only an implicit one, for public and official visualisations of China. From their catalogues30 for the period 1907– 44, one can find broadly four types of painting which treat Chinese subjects, particularly in Period II as defined here. To begin with, the first type is of an idealised landscape which is particularly prominent among works of the nanga lineage, or Japanese paintings in a manner derived from Chinese ‘Southern’ or literati painting. There are works steeped in what by the late Meiji period had been more-orless codified as ‘classical’ nanga which Komuro Suiun (1874–1945) sent to Bunten in 1913 and 1914. His case is important because he first went to China in 1922 (plate 12a*), so the earlier works were not done from having seen an actual landscape in China, and may be seen as simply exercises of his painting skill (plate 12c). Even with works done after his visits abroad, he hardly seemed to go beyond subjects which were intoxicated with the references of nanga painting history, with the exception of several rather realistic Japanese landscape paintings (plate 12b). A variation of this first type is in the work of Terazaki Kogyo (1866– 1919) who was quite different from Komuro and had already crossed to the continent on military assignment during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, and also went to China many times after 1910. One may of course see a

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‘Western realist’ tendency in his works (plate 13a), but when he handled Chinese landscape subjects in detail the visual image was mediated by his knowledge of Chinese painting history. It seemed difficult for him to avoid a foible which one could call paying homage to the great masters of Chinese painting like Dong Yuan, Mi Fei, and Huang Gongwang (plate 13b). Such mediation of Chinese painting history before actual landscape subjects may also be found among the works of Japanese artists resident in Taiwan (plate 14a),31 an art historical phenomena which speaks of the weight of preexistent styles which had long passed-on idealised notions of Chinese painting to Japanese (plate 14b). A second type of image is that which shows the luxuriant plenty of the tropics in ways which indicate an exoticised yearning. This was already clear in a 1911 work of Saigo Kogetsu (1873–1912) which shows a Taiwanese landscape (plate 15), but it almost goes without saying that the typical case is the 1914 scroll by Imamura Shiko (1880–1916) called Tropical Countries (plate 16). Imamura had travelled to India but only went ashore for around two weeks when he ultimately got there. 32 Tropical Countries was based on his brief visual experiences in India and on his way home. Such a yearning for luxuriant plenty may also be seen in quite a few works exhibited at Bunten and other contemporary exhibitions during Period II. For example, Kikuchi Keigetsu (1879–1955) submitted his In the Sun Among Southern Waves (plate 17*) to Teiten in 1928,33 in which is depicted a southern landscape which unfolds in tranquillity behind a ‘Japanese’ mother and daughter. The third type of image can be called an interest in the erotic which expresses a new kind of emotional appeal. That is, a type of painting which belongs to the tradition of Japanese paintings of beautiful women, bijinga, but one where the outer garments are changed to Chinese clothes, or where the figure depicted is actually a Chinese woman. This tendency may perhaps have begun at the Seventh Bunten in 1913 when Zheng Jiongchang (dates unknown) exhibited his Hotei, or Beauties (plate 18a*), and this was also the first time someone described in the Bunten catalogue as Shinajin or Chinese, exhibited such a work. Thereafter quite a few Japanese artists painted works for the official exhibitions of beauties in the manner of alien countries (plate 18b).34 An early example was Fragrance by Fujishima Takeji (1867–1943) which used a Japanese model in Chinese dress at the Ninth Bunten in 1915. The tendency seems to have begun in earnest at the First Teiten in 1919 with Woman in a Blue Dress35 (plate 19*) by Hiroshima Koho (1889–1951). The most famous examples in this mode were Fujishima’s Oriental Style (plate 20*) of 1924, which Fujishima explained as follows: it would be an adequate explanation of the motif if one were to say I was brought to it by the oriental profiles of the renaissance period. With a command of Western materials I am trying to paint something distanced from the smack of things Western.36

76 John Clark Even thus, Fujishima’s work would be unimaginable without the painting of Titian. The other work was Yasui Sotaro’s Jin Rong (plate 21) of 1934. Yasui stated of this work that, She was a beauty of strong character to whom Chinese dress was well suited called Odagiri Mineko…She was the model in the novel The Night Before (Sono Zenya), by my friend Cho Yokiro.37 These works indicate the continuity into Period III of an image which exoticised Chinese women or rendered Japanese women exotic and alluring by portraying them in Chinese clothes and surroundings. They correspond to a Japanese kind of Japonaiserie, but with Chinese subjects. These two works do not follow through pictorially with the Chinese ambience of their models or their situating references but take as their subject the ‘Oriental Beauty’ idealised by Japanese, or the slenderness of women dressed in foreign clothes to show up the beauty of Japanese women. This type of exoticising was found in the eighteenth century ukiyo-e prints and paintings of famous teahouse girls and courtesans and even continued into the Meiji popular lithographs of the 1880s of aristocratic ladies in Western dress. In this sense the works using Chinese models or clothes in Periods II and III were merely continuing in a fine art practice the more popular use of female images to denote a period and provide fantasy images for public spectacle. There is also the hint of a representation in public of the private fantasy of access to Chinese mystique on the part of the largely elite audience for Bunten and Teiten. But, given their prior history in Japanese visual discourse, it would be difficult to argue that these China-related images involved a specific rhetoric of power over Chinese cultural essences, or an ideological preparation for later military domination, as the simplistic application of an Orientalism approach might. They appear more like a historically adventitious redeployment of a existing art discourse with new image types. One may contrast these largely male Japanese fantasies of Chinese women with work by a Taiwanese woman painter working in the Japanese nihonga manner. Chen Jin (b.1907) was a woman artist from a rich Taiwanese family, most of whose education was Japanese. Her Make-up (plate 22) submitted to the 1936 Kaizo Teiten expresses the graceful beauty of a Chinese woman with the mood for a new figure painting which had been built up by Takeuchi Seiho and his woman pupil Uemura Shoen (1875–1949). It clearly displays the pictorial possibilities of this kind of subject with a delicate touch for the elegant lifestyle in the handling of the interior decoration. That is, Chen Jin’s painting the ‘figure’ does not just respond to the necessities of compositional position and provision of ambience via scene-setting or cultural props as in Fujishima Takeji and Yasui Sotaro, it appears as a living ‘person’ with customs and a culture. It is the domain of a visual embodiment, not the site for a play of fantasy. The fourth type of image is an inclination towards identifying with the Chinese masses who cry out for humanitarian sympathy, and would seem

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to a certain extent to overlap admonitory subjects taken from Chinese folklore and literature from Period I. Japanese artists submitted the latter at every official exhibition so far as one can see from existing catalogues, as if using Chinese figures from the past as a commentary of the past with a hint of critiques of the present was the dominant use for Chinese images in Japanese visual culture, apart from noble or intriguing landscapes. Despite the fact that this type may be taken as having extended the ‘Oriental Mood’ of the Nihon Bijutsu-in from late Meiji, one may ask why this yearning should have continued for a ‘classical China’ in both oil painting and nihonga, a China which was certainly not a contemporary one. For works which showed a certain Chinese court life (plate 23), I cannot but make the interpretation that there was a longing for a splendid ideal of daily life which could not then be realised or re-realised. There is also a large amount of painting from around 1900–10 which treated the Japanese eighth century Nara court in analogous manner, and one may infer that the appearance of such subject matter was simply an inflection of pictorial discourse when better acquaintance had become possible for more artists with European history painting, and particularly the reconstruction of a European golden medieval time through the PreRaphaelites. In the 1910s and 1920s Chinese court life scenes were ceaselessly submitted to the official exhibitions, and whilst this subject matter grasped China in a form which was both twisted and unrealistic, it would appear to have been due to a long-held pictorial fascination with China and not to have been solely manifested just so that the ‘Orient’ praised by Japanese chauvinists, beginning with Okakura Tenshin from the early 1900s, could be visually mapped to assist conceptual domination of ‘China’. The tendency is also seen in the oil painting of Nakamura Fusetsu (1866–1943) whose paintings frequently took Chinese folklore and literary topics as their subject (plate 24a). If one examines in detail the works Nakamura sent to the official exhibitions (plate 24b), we can see a transition from the ideal to the real, and ultimately a sympathy with the distressing daily life of the ‘ordinary Chinese’ appeared (plate 24c). PERIOD III: 1925/6–1937 Thus in the 1930s in Period III when depictions drawn from daily life in China more frequently appeared as a subject of Japanese painting at official salons and more broadly in exhibitions (plate 25*), the work of familiarising the viewers and of preparing the styles for its visualisation had already been accomplished. Chinese could appear in painting not as the figures of an ideal but as people actually alive. The unrealistic mood of the idealists had changed into a realistic mood somewhat tinged with romanticist sympathy. As mentioned above, painters on military assignment in the wars between Japan and Qing China and Russia had crossed to Korea, to Manchuria and to Northern China. A typical early work in Period II was Snow on Inns in

78 John Clark the Outskirts of Tielin (plate 26) by Hashimoto Kansetsu (1883–1945) which he had sent to the Second Bunten in 1908, yet whilst this work clearly depicted the customs and landscape of the place, it merely assimilated the spectacle to an amalgam of conventions drawn from the Shijo, Ukiyo-e and ‘Western’ realist schools. But for a work which depicted a Chinese landscape and selected a pictorial style appropriate to that subject—without simply going through a straightforward mediation of one or other of the available styles—one waits for the ‘South China Landscape’ sent by Takeuchi Seiho to the Seventh Teiten in 1926. Takeuchi had visited China in 1921. Thereafter many works which handled Chinese scenes as real landscapes were sent to the official exhibitions. However, when examined in detail, these works have titles such as ‘Spring at XXXX’ added, such as one might observe in Japanese paintings of seasonal themes (shiki-e) or famous places (meisho-e). Probably artists who were jaded by what were in the art world to a certain extent clichéd conceptions of Japanese seasonal or famous place paintings, simply changed the location of such themes to Korea, Manchuria, or China. Thus whilst the place depicted could become more concretely Chinese, the image of China involved was paradoxically more abstract, it just being one of the shifting penumbra of sites ‘over there’ for the projection of existent Japanese pictorial subjects. After the North China Incident of 1937, and particularly the Japanese successes in lightning campaigns through Shanghai, Nanjing and the Central East many more Japanese painters seem to have journeyed in China, and it was then that Chinese-like landscape became predominantly realistic. However, this realism did not extend to depiction about what Japanese forces did in China. The Nanjing (Nanking) Massacre remained unrepresented in Japanese painting although there existed censored army photographs, and the only visualisation of the Japanese army there, so far as I am aware, is the 1940 painting by Kanokogi Takeshiro (1874–1941) of the Japanese Victory March-Past38 in front of the Central Museum in Nanjing (now the Nanjing Museum of History). Yet all things considered—the pressure of Japanese military expansion into Manchuria, the repression of the left and proletarian art by 1934— before 1938 paintings which propagandised Japanese imperialism were not so prominent in the official exhibition salons.39 There was a rare painting at the Fifteenth Teiten in 1934 which via its propagandistic formulation rationalised the domination of Manchuria (plate 28). In the same year a painting (plate 28) was submitted to Teiten which was to become typical of Period IV paintings: portraits of an officer outlined against a ship, the sky or some military emplacement. The subject of a soldier at the front line was first exhibited at the Fourteenth Teiten of 1934, but such subjects remained few during Period III.

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PERIOD IV: 1937–1945 What was fundamentally painting of war themes would await the ShinBunten of 1938, that is in Period IV. This lateness was probably not caused by the retarded incursion of Japanese imperialism into North China which came in 1937 and 1938 but might have come much earlier in 1932. The advent of such painting was probably held back by the fact that Japanese painters had crossed to the continent and China and had really been attracted by the customs, people, and landscape of the place itself, rather than some idealised image of it that they may have brought with them. They may not thus have been able to aestheticise Japanese military might. Certainly Umehara Ryusaburo (1888–1986), who made many visits to Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, left no painting which could be considered as privileging Japanese rule. He really applied his own inimitable techniques and styles to Chinese subjects (plate 31), and went on to a new development in his own work through paintings of people as naturally belonging to a place and through the colourings of his landscape (plate 32). Umehara, who made six visits to Beijing in all before 1943, left some statements from which we can get a glimpse of his image of China. My life in Beijing was very fulfilled. I could see the Forbidden City and Chang’an Street before my eyes from the hotel window. Because the morning scene was beautiful I would wait from early on for it to get light, when I would go outside to sketch. At lunch time I would eat Beijing cuisine, and in the afternoon would call a girl to sketch her. When it was evening I would walk around the antique dealers, and at night go and see a play. I think I was in the highest spirits I have been in my life up to now.40 These are not the statements of someone rationalising Japanese rule. One may suppose Beijing was a place where he had as a mature artist a similar experience of pictorial motifs in an Asian but non-Japanese situation to that which he had already known as a young art student in Paris before 1913, and even earlier as an adolescent in Kyoto. Possibly Umehara did not choose to comment on the facts of Japanese occupation because this, for him, may have been simply the way of the world, and this historical amnesia about the facts of Japan’s relation with modern China since 1895, as well as his apparently deliberate blindness to contemporary events was more broadly typical of the political world to whose art establishment he had already been recruited in the reorganisation of Shin-Bunten in 1937. Umehara was also that Japanese artist most stylistically close to modern Chinese fauvism through the Taiwanese artist Guo Bochuan who was in Beijing in the 1940s, and whom Umehara had known from his visits to Taiwan. Umehara had also exhibited in Shanghai in the first Chinese National Fine Art Exhibition in 1929 and thus his work was fairly widely known on the mainland in the 1930s.41

80 John Clark In addition to the continuation of a projection of Japanese values and subjects, albeit with a modernist and innovative technique that we see in Umehara, one may see three types of work among the many war paintings which appeared after 1938 in Period IV. These were largely done by members of the Shiseisakuha Kyokai (New Production Association), a group of younger artists returned largely from Paris who painted in a variety of new objectivist manners. They were under the patronage of Fujita Tsuguharu, who later formally joined the group, and they produced the first new type of war painting in which appears the spectacle of bloody battle where the pain of fighting cannot be aestheticised or where it is shown as a bitter duty (plate 33*). This type became especially common in the Army and Navy Painting Societies’ exhibitions during the Pacific War. In 1943 and 1944 these exhibitions included horrendous representations of hand-to-hand combat by Sato Kei (1906–78) and Fujita Tsuguharu (Léonard) which vied for their technical mastery with the European representations they knew well of, such as The Disasters of War (1810) by Goya, The Raft of the Medusa (1819) of Géricault, the Massacre at Chios (1824) by Delacroix, or The Barricade (1848) by Meissonier. In the world of combat which followed from these European masters, not only is there no image of China, there is almost no characterisation given to the enemy. Perhaps this was the only visualisation possible of war fighting, as if the battle and the loss of Japanese lives—let alone those of the enemy—was taking place in the mind, and hardly in a world with a culture or a history and the people who lived there, all different from Japanese. In the second type appear subjects which treat soldiers as going off to the battlefield but at a place distant from actual fighting, or which treat soldiers’ recuperation after fighting (plate 34). China itself is often by implication named as a battlefield but is hardly given concrete visual specification. An exception is Suzhou, which had attracted most Japanese painters who had crossed to China since before the First World War, and did appear as the specific subject in a work at the Third Shin-Bunten in 1939. The third type of work among war paintings are those which show the enemy. It would seem in Shin-Bunten works at least, that Chinese soldiers or civilians do not appear on the picture plane as captives. Perhaps Japanese feelings of racial superiority were manifested by the absence of Chinese as full pictorial subjects in war paintings. The reason for their absence, despite the millions of dead among the Chinese, involves the structure of racial stereotypes in Japanese perceptions where the Chinese had been racially despised since 1895. The extent of cruel treatment of the race and its civilisation to which the Japanese were supposedly closest, from whom the Japanese had drawn many of their own cultural forms and on whose behalf Imperial Japanese forces were supposed to be fighting to liberate them from Western imperialism was not shown in Japanese painting during the eight years of their slaughter. The view that this war was one for peace and liberation was held at the time by Yokoyama Taikan, as shown in 1938

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during an address to the visiting Hitler Jugend: ‘At the present moment the brave subjects of our benevolent Emperor are engaged in a holy war for the establishment of peace in the Orient’.42 This view was still held in 1994 by the Japanese Minister of Justice Nagano Shigeto, who said of the Pacific War that, It is a mistake to call that war a war of aggression. It is wrong to say it was carried out with the purpose of aggression. It was seriously considered from colonial liberation and the liberation of the [Great East Asian] Co-Prosperity Sphere. [The Minister also considered the Nanjing Massacre to have been trumped up, since as a young officer he had gone there immediately after it was supposed to have taken place].43 In contrast to the absence of Chinese from war paintings in the 1940s, there were a few works which depicted Europeans and Americans in an ugly manner. One can only suppose that, unlike the contemporary Chinese over whom a feeling of racial superiority had long been established since 1895, these ‘Westerners’ were not merely rivals in a power struggle in the world, they were opponents from whom could be won a feeling of racial superiority in the mind (plate 36*). After 1938 the art world was gradually subject to further severe repression by the authorities who, having eliminated communists from the art world or forced their conversion (tenko) by 1934, went seeking surrealists. In early 1941, nearly a year before the Pacific War broke out, they arrested the surrealists Fukuzawa Ichiro and Takiguchi Shuzo.44 Antiwar paintings not only did not appear in public, but also there is hardly any evidence of their being painted.45 For some artists the case was more like that of Ai Mitsu where an artist who was originally interested in the avantgarde, gradually moved closer to the surrealists and showed Japan or himself in self-portraits as the sacrificial victim of war. One could also see references in his Landscape with Eye of 1938 to Song landscape painting as having produced a visual domain of unspeakable horror for a Chinese motif. Among the avant-garde, Ai Mitsu had been closest to China, where he had already travelled on three occasions prior to being conscripted in 1944. He has also left sketches of Chinese landscapes. One should not think that by the sixth year of war even a surrealist like Ai Mitsu had any illusions about self-sacrifice. As he wrote to his wife in 1943, I’ve now got this bright self-confidence. I want to paint before mighty nature. I feel I want to fling myself stark-naked straight at nature, firmly and soundly, so as not to be obsessed by the modern disease of nervosity.46 Ai Mitsu’s last works are replete with premonition of loss. It is almost as if the bloody image of China which lurked in his own painting foretokened his own dissolution in death from disease in war in Shanghai in 1946.

82 John Clark CONCLUSION It will have become clear that from the 1920s to 1930s during Period II there was a change in pictorial subjects from an idealised image of China, to subjects drawn from actual Chinese landscapes and customs. In this transition we can glimpse the demand of the Japanese art world for new subjects, and also see how strong was the latent attraction of the geographical region of China for Japanese artists. Perhaps the 1920s was that period when a centuries-old nostalgia for a distant but culturally superior China in Japanese culture and specifically in its painting discourse could be mapped onto actual Chinese subjects and scenes. One suspects here too was the transfer of a false view of historical painting towards a position of simplistic moral approval rather than that which had been held in Europe of historically evaluative appraisal via comparison with ‘classical’ models. This may have been due to the way this type of art had been assimilated from European academy practice in the late Meiji period. In the late 1880s and 1890s across both nihonga and yoga, history painting had begun as a type of mythological condensation of current events or situations, or as depictions of past events as an allegory for the present. But when history painting was exercised for the first time around actual historical subjects in the descriptive scheme for the Commemorative Picture Gallery to the Emperor Meiji after 1925, it was already imbricated in a self-legitimating state ideology where history painting had lost its distance from the events depicted in order to comment on them morally. Thus it could not be expected from the side of pictorial discourse that Japanese painting in the 1920s would adopt an historically evaluative position towards the Japanese relation to China. Moreover, one kind of pictorial subject is lacking among those mentioned above. This is work which via representation of Chinese subjects criticises Japanese actions in China or which denounced Japanese imperialism. In addition to the occlusion of the discourse of history painting, a more efficient reason for this was that the left wing artists were almost completely suppressed by the disbandment of the Proletarian Art Association in 1934. One would not expect paintings which opposed the elite’s Zeitgeist to appear at Teiten and Shin-Bunten, which were among the cultural organs of the Japanese establishment. It must also be admitted that there was an implicit resistance as art discourse to representing war-related themes at government salons, due to the quasi-autonomy of art practice which had been claimed since late Meiji. In addition, the representative figures among the Japanese war artists, particular those around Fujita Tsuguharu and Koiso Ryohei (b.1903), were actually those artists with the strongest links to the European, and especially the Parisian, art world rather than artists from Period III. They were associated with that conflation of mid-1920s école de Paris decorativism and a sort of brute realism called by its German name, Neue Sachlichkeit, or

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roughly ‘new objectivity’. Prominent war artists were precisely these objectivist artists who did not apparently show much interest in China before 1938 when the call of national duty came, although Fujita did leave travel sketches from a visit to Beijing in 1934.47 Perhaps the experience of other earlier artists who in Periods II and III had taken up Chinese subjects and in some cases had done paintings in China was itself incompatible with the conditions for being a blind ultranationalist. There may be a slight tendency to depict an image which pretended to the reality of China in Period III, and interestingly, the wartime oeuvre of the academic artist Kanayama Heizo who painted ‘Coal Carriers of Suzhou’ in 1931–2 (plate 25*) is almost entirely of landscapes and shows no inclination to war-fighting painting done by the younger artists like Fujita. But the discourse of history painting was closed off by its assimilation to permitted representations of scenes which dignified the successes of the Meiji state. It was left no scope to be critical of such state images, and in all of the historical events concerning China depicted in the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery, the Chinese lost to the Japanese. Furthermore, the scope for a critical difference from establishment views by the political left was removed by the suppression of proletarianism, or its co-option into a new quasi-fascist Gleichschaltung in the art world. Formal radicalism got tied up in surrealism and was under increasing pressure to conform socially. Most critically, the cooperation was never in doubt of those new objectivist painters who became prominent around 1934–6. Their technique might most easily have been turned against depicting those images the state required because their style was one which harshly penetrated the realities of the world. But there was no Japanese Beckmann. Instead, these objectivist artists willingly colluded with the state as producers of war reportage painting. This meant that in Period IV the space for active resistance in Japanese pictorial discourse was blocked by the objectivist war artists or the repressions of the political police. However passively resistant some other Japanese artists may have been by their emphasis on subjects already sanctioned by pictorial discourse, most of them could hardly turn their eyes towards the real face of Japan’s aggression in China, so painful to the sight. APPENDIX: LIST OF PLATES DISCUSSED IN THE TEXT * Indicates plates reproduced here. All photographs except 1*, 11* and 20* are taken from Nitenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Nitenshi, 15 volumes, Tokyo, Niten Shuppan, 1984. 1* Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958), Qu Yuan, 1898, colour on silk, 132.7× 288.7 cm, Hiroshima, Itsukujima Shrine. 2 Hishida Shunso (1874–1911), The Parting of Su and Li, 1901, colour on silk, framed, 159×97.5 cm, Private Collection.

84 John Clark 3 Tomioka Tessai (1836–1924), Mountain Cottage in a Storm, ca. 1912, ink and light colours on paper, 124.8×58.7 cm. 4 Asai Chu (1857–1907), Search after the Battle for Port Arthur, 1895, oil on canvas, 121.4×84.5 cm, Tokyo National Museum. 5 Kuroda Seiki (1866–1924), Within Jinzhou, pencil on paper, 12× 18.3 cm. 6 Harada Naojiro (1863–1899), Bodhisattva Kannon on Dragonback, 1893, oil on canvas, Tokyo, Gokokuji. 7 Attributed to Jonin (ca. 1200–1250), Kegonshu Soshi Emaki (Kegon Engi Emaki) (Illustrated Scroll of Founders of the Kegon Sect), ca. 1229–32, colour on paper, in six scrolls, each 31.6×31.8 cm high, Kyoto, Kozanji. 8 Mizuno Toshikata (1866–1908), Suicide of Tei Josho (Ding Ruchang), 1895, woodblock print, see Konishi, note 21, ibid. 9 Mitsutani Kunishiro (1874–1936), Death of Lt. Hayashi in Battle, 1898. 10 Fukuda Shutaro (Bisen 1875–1963), Duststorm, 1916, note 24 ibid. 11* Fukuda Shutaro, Gate of Chongqing, 1916, note 24 ibid. 12a*Komuro Suiun (1874–1945), Retired Academician, 1913, 7th Bunten, nihonga. 12b Komuro Suiun, Komagaoka, 1914, 8th Bunten, nihonga. 12c Komuro Suiun, Boats to the South, Horses to the North, 1921, 3rd Teiten, nihonga. 13a Terazaki Kogyo (1866–1919), A Summer Day, Evening on the Great Wall, Morning on the Yangzi (Changjiang), 1910, 4th Bunten, nihonga. 13b Terazaki Kogyo, Eight Subjects from Mt. Baima, 1917, 11th Bunten, nihonga. 14a Japanese artists resident in Taiwan: Kinoshita Seigai, View of Mt. Xinggao, 1920s, ink on paper, see Xie Lifa, note 26 ibid., p. 93. 14b Japanese artists resident in Taiwan: Gohara Koto (1884–1965), Landscape, 1928, ink on paper, see Xie Lifa, note 26 ibid., p. 97. 15 Saigo Kogetsu (1873–1912), View of Taiwan, ca. 1911, colours on silk, 41.5×117.5 cm, Private Collection. 16 Imamura Shiko (1880–1916), Scroll of Tropical Countries, 1914, two scrolls on silk, 45.9×958, 45.9×967.2 cm, Tokyo National Museum. 17* Kikuchi Keigetsu (1879–1955), In the Sun Among Southern Waves, colours on silk (?), 73×117 cm, see note 28. 18a*Zheng Jiongchang, Beauties, 1913, 7th Bunten, nihonga. (Technically this name could also be that of a Korean.) 18b Takamura Masao, The ‘Chinese’ Fan, 1928, 7th Teiten, oil painting. 19* Hiroshima Koho (1889–1951), Woman in a Blue Dress, 1919, 1st Teiten, nihonga. 20* Fujishima Takeji (1867–1943), Oriental Style, 1924, oil painting, from Genshoku Gendai Nihon no Bijutsu, vol. 5, published by Shogakkan, Tokyo.

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21 Yasui Sotaro (1888–1955), Jin Rong, 1934, oil painting. 22 Chen Jin (b.1907), Make-up, 1936, Kaizo Teiten, nihonga. 23 Nishiyama Suisho (1879–1958), Moon Viewing Palace, 1907, 1st Bunten, nihonga. 24a Nakamura Fusetsu (1866–1943), Well by the Katsura Tree, 1926, 7th Teiten, oil painting. 24b Nakamura Fusetsu, Lu Sheng’s Dream, 1929, 10th Teiten, oil painting. (He borrowed the pillow of a Daoist and in a dream saw his whole life pass before him, in a metaphor for the insignificant transience of life.) 24c Nakamura Fusetsu, Li Bo Drunk, 1932, 13th Teiten, oil painting. 25* Kanayama Heizo (1883–1964), Coal Carriers of Suzhou, 1932, 13th Teiten, oil painting. 26 Hashimoto Kansetsu (1883–1945), Snow on Inns in the Outskirts of Tielin, 1908, 2nd Bunten, nihonga. 27* Takeuchi Seiho (1864–1942), South China Landscape, 1926, 7th Bunten, nihonga. 28 Oki Toyohira, Newly Emergent Manchuria, 1934, 15th Teiten, nihonga. 29 Hasegawa Roka (1887–1967), Captain Suetsugu at the Bridge, 1934, 15th Teiten, nihonga. 30 Kobayakawa Shusei, On Guard, 1933, 14th Teiten, nihonga. 31 Umehara Ryusaburo, Chinese Girl with a Tulip, 1942, oil on paper, 73.1 ×40.1 cm. 32 Umehara Ryusaburo, Chang’an Street, 1940, oil and tempera on paper, 72.7×90.9 cm. 33* Ikeda Eiichi, Hinomaru—The Japanese Flag, 1938, 2nd oil painting. 34 Koiso Ryohei (b.1903), To the Maiden’s Pass, 1941, oil painting. Shin-Bunten. 35 Kobayakawa Bashiro, Southern Bank of the Suzhou River, 1939, 3rd Shin-Bunten, oil painting. 36* Kobayakawa Mochimaro (Shusei), The Ugly Captives’ Faces, Senji Tokubetsuten, nihonga. 37 Ai Mitsu (1907–1946), Self Portrait in a White Shirt, 1944, oil painting, 79×47 cm. 38 Ai Mitsu, Landscape in Northeast China, 1943 (?), ink on paper. NOTES 1 This paper is a much-revised and extended English version of the previously unpublished original in Japanese given at the 1987 British Association of Japanese Studies Conference, Cambridge, United Kingdom. The fuller Japanese version which contains many collated materials on the Japanese artists who went to China excluded here for reasons of space is in Nichibunken Kiyo, 1996, no. 15. My thanks go to Koko Clark for help with that Japanese original. Since then my thought has moved in a more semiotic direction, but I have mostly here retained the approach of the original.

86 John Clark 2 See my essay ‘La situation japonaise’ in the catalogue Face à L’Histoire, Paris, Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 1996. 3 On Japanese war art from 1877 to 1945, which sometimes treats Chinese subject matter, see John Clark, ‘The Art of Modern Japan’s Three Wars’, Bulletin of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia, August 1991, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 38–44. 4 Since it will be useful to cite many more works than it is feasible to illustrate, works merely cited are shown thus (plate 2), and works illustrated are shown thus (plate 1*). 5 For a critical discussion see John Clark, ‘On Two Books by Edward W.Said’, Bicitra Seni, 1995, no. 2 [from Pusat Seni, Universiti Sains, Pinang]. For a recent Saidian excursion into Japan’s ‘East’ see Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Past into History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994. 6 Actually, the latter should really be indicated by Nihon no Seiyoga, or Japanese ‘Western’-style painting, but the distinction has been elided in Japanese for reasons there is no room to elaborate here. 7 ‘Idealism’ does not question the expression of reality. It centres painting on preexisting ideals or the pictorial expressions which represent them, and is an attitude on the part of artist and viewer which visually pursues the meanings implicit in those ideals. 8 ‘Realism’ in painting tries as far as possible to reproduce faithfully what a given period and culture specifies as read. In the history of painting ‘realism’ experimentally pursues reality through the visual sense in order to break through pre-existing forms, many of which have cultural or political connotations. See Linda Nochlin, Realism, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971, 1983. 9 These are chiefly: Nitenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Nitenshi, 15 volumes, Tokyo, Niten Shuppan, 1984; [Various authors], Gendai Nihon bijutsu zenshu, 18 volumes, Tokyo, Shueisha, 1973; [Various authors], Nihon no meiga, 10 volumes, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1971. For the art historical background in English see John Clark, ‘Modernity in Japanese Painting’, Art History, June 1986, vol. 9, no. 2; G.Bolas, J.Rimer, S.Takashina, D.McCallum, Paris in Japan, St. Louis, Washington University, 1987. 10 See for example the statement by Yasui Sotaro about his 1934 Portrait of Jin Rong, referred to in note 32 below. 11 Some China scholars at the time such as Naito Konan thought the students should be punished, others such as Yoshino Sakuzo thought their protest could not be so lightly ignored. Even in 1919 there were entrepreneurs who favoured withdrawal from Manchuria. But the general agenda for policy was set by military perceptions around maintaining Japanese rule in Korea where a heroic revolt had been mercilessly suppressed, let it not be forgotten, only one month earlier, and had been witnessed by the Professor of Beijing University Chen Duxiu who in 1921 was a founder of the Chinese Communist Party. See Usui Katsumi, ‘Chugoku kakumei to tai Chugoku seisaku’ in Iwanami koza, Nihon rekishi, vol. 19, Kindai 6, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1976. 12 For a working out of the cultural role of ‘China’ in Japanese cultural discourse see David Pollack, The Fracture of Meaning, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985. 13 On this authority which no one (outside the then Japanese ideological continuum) should have over ‘China’, Tsuda Sokichi, brilliantly and courageously indicated in his book Shina shiso to Nihon, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, first published in the cruel year of 1938, the fact ‘that one posits the Orient in the sense of containing both Japan and “China”, and that one then preserves the Oriental culture, or tries to form one, is perhaps inconceivable in their dreams [of Chinese and Indians]’, ibid., p. 199, my abridgement. 14 See Nihon no meiga, vol. 7, p. 111.

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On the stylistic conflicts in nihonga in the early 1900s see Nihon Bijutsu-In, Bunten Kuto, Shiga, Shiga Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 1992. That is, while Tessai more or less complies with the linear depiction of Nanga styles, he wraps this stylistic core in the skin of luxuriant Japanese decorativism by transitions in the relative intensity of his ink tones, sumi no bokashi, and by bringing out on paper the different rates of dispersion and absorption of ink concentrations and light ink, nijimi wo dasu. While he does not take up Tessai, Yashiro Yukio’s ‘Nijimi no Kankaku’ in Suibokuga, Tokyo, Iwanami, 1969, well describes the variant possibilities of this aesthetic. Gendai Nihon bijutsu zenshu, vol. 16, p. 110. See Miwa Hideo and Nakae Akira, ‘Harada Naojiro to Rekishiga’, Part I in Bijutsu kenkyu, 1987, no. 337, p. 85. See Miwa Hideo (ed.), ‘Harada Naojiro Kankei Nenpu’, Meiji Bijutsu kenkyu gakkai, Dai 12 kai Kenkyuhokoku, January 1986. For the relation between Ogai and Harada see Hijikata Teiichi zenshu, vol. 6: Kindai Nihon no gakaron, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 1976. The debates are reviewed in Nakamura Giichi, Zoku Nihon kindai bijutsu ronsoshi, Tokyo, Kinryudo, 1982, Chapter II, and the original texts are found in Aoki Shigeru and Sakai Tadayasu (eds), Nihon kindai shiso taikei, 17, Bijutsu, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1989. Some details of Harada’s student life in München can be found in Richard Bowring, Mori Ogai and the Modernization of Japanese Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 14–15, 56–7. See Miwa and Nakae, ‘Harada Naojiro’, p. 77; Miwa Hideo, ‘Study for “Susano no Mikoto Slaying the Serpent” by Harada Naojiro’, Bijutsu kenkyu, 1986, no. 334. Later paintings which equate forceful deity figures with national essence include Maeda Seison’s Ashura 1940, exhibited at the Exhibition to Commemorate 2,600 Years of Imperial Rule. Ashura was the Indian God of War, and Seison apparently thought of the expansion of the War in China into the Pacific War in terms of the thirteenth century Mongol invasion of Japan. See Nihon no meiga, vol. 15, p. 109. On this scroll see Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu, 8: Emakimono, Tokyo, Shogakkan, 1968, pp. 147, 157–8. I think the interpretation would be of ‘Japan’ receiving the ‘West’ if the movement was in the opposite direction. I was employed by a private collector in 1989 to translate a large number of texts on such prints by Kobayashi Kiyochika. In them the visual representation of Chinese as inferior is paralleled by a language of pun and innuendo which manifests a vituperatively racist contempt. On the prints of the Sino-Japanese War see Donald Keene, Konishi Shiro, Impressions of the Front, Philadelphia Museum, 1983; Konishi Shiro, Nishiki-e Bakumatsu Meiji no rekishi, vol. 11, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1977; Donald Keene, ‘The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 and Its Cultural Effects in Japan’ in Donald Shively (ed.), Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1971. In Hishida Shunso’s, Widow and Orphan, 1895, his graduation work at Tokyo School of Fine Art, the artist depicts war loss by showing a widow in some nonspecific past from Japan’s civil wars who looks at her absent and presumably dead husband’s armour as she comforts her baby. China is not even allowed a presence in history, let alone as a geographically and historically constructed place. See the text by Asahi Akishi in the catalogue, Ai Mitsu, Matsumoto Shunsuke soshite sengo bijutsu no shuppatsu, Tokyo, Tokyo-to Bijutsukan, 1977. See Zhuang Bohe, ‘Huangfeng yu Xiantan’, Xiongshi meishu, 1977, no. 7.

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30 31

32

33 34

35

36 37

38 39

This had originally been a nihonga group on foundation in 1918 but admitted oil painters from 1925, and remained largely an oil painting group after nihonga painters subsequently withdrew. See Kyoto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan (ed.), Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai Tenrankai Gashu, Kyoto, Kyoto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 1993. See the Buntenshi volumes in Nitenshi Henshu Iinkai (ed.), Nitenshi. See Xie Lifa, Rijushidai Taiwan Meishu Yundongshi, Taibei, Yishujia Congkan, 1976; Ishikawa Kinicihiro, Taibei, Taibei Fine Arts Museum, 1986; John Clark, ‘Taiwanese Painting under the Japanese Occupation’, Journal of Oriental Studies, 1987, vol. 25, no. 1; Taiwan Zaoqi Xiyang Meishu Huiguzhan, Taibei, Taibei Fine Arts Museum, 1990; China Modernity and Art, Proceedings, Taibei, Taibei Fine Arts Museum, 1991; Ishikawa Kinichiro, Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefectural Fine Arts Museum, 1992; Taiwan Meishu Quanji, Taibei, Yishujia Chuban, 1992, of which Yen Chuan-ying edited the first volume on Cheng Chengbo; Yen Chuan-ying (Yan Juanying), ‘The Art Movement in the 1930s in Taiwan’ in John Clark (ed.), Modernity in Asian Art, Sydney, Wild Peony Press, 1993; Yen Chuan-ying (Yan Juanying), ‘Diantangzhong de Meishu: Taiwan zaochi xiandai meishu yu wenhua qimeng’, Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan Lishiyuyan Yanjiusuo Jikan, June 1993, no. 64, pt. 2. Gendai Nihon Bijutsu Zenshu, vol. 3, p. 89, states that ‘…it was rather out of the ordinary for him to make the trip, and it is said that he slipped himself onto a freighter but that when he arrived in India he was not allowed to go ashore because of a hitch with his passport’. Recent examination of the dates on his travel sketches, however, indicates he had been in India for about ten to fourteen days and did travel up the Ganges for a while. Personal communication from Okabe Masayuki, February 1996. The title given this painting in Nitenshi has the furigana for Haiha Teruma, a place in the Ryukyu Islands, according to Showa senzenki no Nihongaten, 1926– 1945, Mito, Ibaragi Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 1992, p. 120. One also sees quite a few Korean women, or persons wearing Korean dress, in the Bunten section of Nitenshi. For example there is a work titled ‘Playing the koto’ by Kin Ito which was shown at the Seventh Teiten in 1926. This artist’s name is probably Korean. Hiroshima Koho’s work was defaced by a mentally unstable person and the way the painting was restored is described in an article of October 1921 in Chuo Bijutsu. The article is reprinted in the volume of Buntenshi which includes the First Teiten catalogue. See also Miekenritsu Bijutsukan (ed.), 1910-nendai, Hikari kagayaku inochi no nagare, Tsu, Mie Kenritsu Bijutsukan Kyoryokukai, 1995, pp. 3–38. Gendai Nihon bijutsu zenshu, vol. 7, p. 86, gives Fujishima’s explanation of this work. According to Gendai Nihon bijutsu zenshu, vol. 10. p. 99, quoting recollections published in Bungei shunju in April 1951. Odagiri Mineko was the daughter of the President of the Bank of Japan Odagiri Manjunosuke, who learnt painting from Yamashita Shintaro and was in great demand as a model for painters of the Second Section Society (Nikakai). She later went to live in Manchuria. See Yoga no doran—Showa 10Nen, Teiten kaizoto Yogadan -Nihon, Kankoku, Taiwan, Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, 1992, p. 105. I presume this work is among those returned by the United States to Japan in 1973 and kept by the National Museum of Modern Art at Takebashi, Tokyo. For an illustration see ‘Taiheiyo Sensomeigashu’, Mainichi gurafu, 3 Nov. 1967. For a review of nihonga during the 1930s and 1940s which also summarises the administrative rearrangement of the art world see Showa Senzenki no Nihongaten, 1926–1945, Mito, Ibaragi Prefectural Museum of Modern Art,

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46 47

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1992. An excellent, bilingual catalogue about yoga on the same problems is Yoga no doran. The statements come from Umehara’s foreword to his Gashu Beijing, Tokyo, Kyuryudo, 1973. See Gendai Nihon bijutsu zenshu, vol. 12, p. 85; Nihon no meiga, vol. 18, p. 107. See ‘Guo Bochuan zhuanji’, Xiongshi meishu, April 1980. Yokoyama Taikan, ‘The Spirit of Japanese Art’, Cultural Nippon, November 1938, vol. 3, p. 51, being the English translation of a speech given to the Hitler Jugend in Japan on 27 September 1938. For a recent survey of war art which studiously avoids such issues and manages to feature Kobayakawa Mochimaro without reprinting his easily available The Ugly Captives’ Faces (plate 36*), here, see Geijutsu Shincho, August 1995. The mutuality of racial hostility in the Second World War is brought out through propaganda analyses in John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, New York, Pantheon Books, 1986. According to the report on an interview in Mainichi shinbun of 4 May 1994. On repression of the surrealists and avant-garde before 1945 see my essays ‘Surrealism in Japan’ in M.Lloyd, T.Gott, C.Chapman, Surrealism: Revolution by Night, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1993, and ‘The Japanese Avantgarde before 1945’ in Alexandra Monroe, Japanese Avant-garde Art of the Postwar and Contemporary Eras, New York, Alfred Knopf and The Guggenheim Museum, 1994. There is plenty of evidence of inner emigration as a tactic of resistance and some reports that even Fujita Tsuguharu was distinctly ambivalent about the claims of Japanese successes. In September 1940 Fujita was asked to do a painting on the theme of the 1939 Nomonhan incident, by General Ogisu, who had then been transferred to the reserves. This became Fight on the Banks of the Haruha River, dated 1941. The Japanese had been roundly defeated by Soviet forces in the battle and General Ogisu wished for a painting to be made in prayer for the repose of the souls of his vanquished soldiers. Prior to publication of the painting in the magazine Atorie, a journalist visited Fujita and on being invited to stay behind after journalists and others had left, reputedly saw another much grimmer version which showed corpses and buzzing flies. Nothing is known of what became of this second painting. See Tanaka Hisao, Nihon no senso kaiga, Tokyo, Perikansha, 1985, pp. 151–2, for this anecdote. Nihon no meiga, vol. 4, p. 90. Some of these 1934 sketches were seen by the author when exhibited at the retrospective for Fujita at the Musée de Montmartre, Paris, May-June 1987.

Plate 1 Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958), Qu Yuan, 1898, colour on silk, 132.7× 288.7 cm, Hiroshima, Itsukujima Shrine

Plate 11

Fukuda Shutaro, Gate of Chongqing, 1916

Plate 12a nihonga

Komuro Suiun (1874–1945), Retired Academician, 1913, 7th Bunten,

Plate 17 Kikuchi Keigetsu (1879–1955), In the Sun Among Southern Waves, colours on silk (?), 73×117cm

Plate 18a Zheng Jiongchang, Beauties, 1913, 7th Bunten, nihonga. (Technically this name could also be that of a Korean.)

Plate 19 Hiroshima Koho (1889–1951), Woman in a Blue Dress, 1919, 1st Teiten, nihonga

Plate 20 Fujishima Takeji (1867–1943), Oriental Style, 1924, oil painting by permission of Shogakkan, Tokyo

Plate 25 Kanayama Heizo (1883–1964), Coal Carriers of Suzhou, 1932, 13th Teiten, oil painting

Plate 27 nihonga

Takeuchi Seiho (1864–1942), South China Landscape, 1926, 7th Bunten,

Plate 33 painting

Ikeda Eiichi, Hinomaru—The Japanese Flag, 1938, 2nd oil

Plate 36 Kobayakawa Mochimaro (Shusei), The Ugly Captives’ Faces, Senji Tokubetsuten, nihonga

5

Angry young men and the Japanese state Nagano Prefecture, 1930–33 Sandra Wilson

It has often been supposed that Japan’s villages, home to about half the population in the 1930s, hold some of the keys to understanding the events that led to war against China and the Anglo-American powers. Some writers have argued that high tenancy rates and oppression by landlords produced a potent discontent which led to support for militarist solutions; some that landlord dominance and a collectivist ethic at least discouraged opposition to militarism; some that the army’s institutional links with the countryside were so strong that farmers almost automatically obeyed the military.1 The theme that most English-language studies and many Japanese analyses share is that of peasant passivity. Farmers did not so much do things as have things done to and for them. For Beardsley, Hall and Ward, prewar rural areas were ‘essentially apolitical’, with farmers playing no positive or sustained role in political decision-making, preferring to leave such matters to their superiors. For Barrington Moore, peasants ‘provide[d] a large body of obedient recruits for the army and constituted in civil life a huge apolitical (i.e., conservative) and submissive mass that had a crucial effect on Japanese politics’.2 Richard Smethurst has presented two very different views of Japanese farmers. In his earlier work they are characterised as an ‘obedient rural following’ for the army, which by the late 1920s had been able to build in the villages ‘a support that never faltered’. By contrast, in his later book, farmers are ‘positive actors’ who are seemingly almost always in control of their own destiny. That which absorbs them, however, is not politics but economics: the farmer is an ‘economic animal’, in Smethurst’s words. Thus tenant farmers do challenge their landlords, but not out of any political or social consciousness: rather, ‘on the basis of careful calculations of profit and loss’. They pursue rent reduction and other means of economic gain but are seemingly indifferent to any noneconomic considerations. They may not be politically passive, in other words, but they are apparently politically neutral except where political activity can be immediately connected to economic gain.3 According to these analyses, then, farmers might have been important to the political, social and military developments of the 1930s, but if they were it was in their role as puppets of the government and army: not even in the

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construction of ‘fascism’ are they allowed an active role. Furthermore, the scene had been set well before the 1930s. Traditional patterns of deference, or the army’s long-standing status in the countryside, or some other preexisting factor were the central determinant of rural attitudes to the events of the 1930s and beyond. This chapter examines a body of material which challenges this picture of the countryside in the 1930s. Focusing on the years 1930–33 in Nagano prefecture, it will argue that that period was one of considerable ambivalence and fluidity, in some villages at least; also that political activity, broadly defined, was occurring and dissent was being voiced; and that rural support for overseas expansion was neither automatic nor taken for granted by the army itself. Further, in contrast to the image of the static village presented by many writers, it will be shown that the events of the early 1930s were themselves crucial in shaping the relationship between villages and the Japanese state. It will also become clear from this case study that while the state in the early 1930s was undeniably an increasingly repressive one, it was not exclusively concerned with repression, but in addition expended much energy on providing channels for political and social activity that would further its own aims and at the same time weaken the appeal of radical ideologies. The analysis here centres on newspapers produced by local young men’s associations (seinendan), particularly those of the villages of Bessho, Izumida and Kamishina, all in Chiisagata-gun and all now part of Ueda City. It is particularly concerned with responses to an event seen by many historians as crucial in the history of ‘Japanese fascism’ or at least in the construction of an increasingly authoritarian state: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931. It is well known that, in general terms, the Manchurian Incident was greeted with great enthusiasm by the Japanese public.4 Two things are especially striking about reaction in the young men’s association newspapers from Nagano prefecture: first, the small amount of comment about Manchuria in those papers compared to the large urban dailies and monthlies and other mainstream publications; and second, the lack of a strong pro-government stance in those articles which did appear. Some articles on Manchuria are lukewarm or ambivalent, or present only qualified approval of government and army policy. Some, however, are openly, unmistakably and stridently critical of Japanese policy. Not only do such articles invite some modification of standard views both of public responses to Japanese military conquest and of the efficiency or thoroughness of the censorship system; they also disturb the picture of docile and apolitical villagers blindly following wherever the authorities might lead. On the other hand, not all village opinion was critical of Japan’s overseas expansion by any means; the young men’s association newspapers present stark evidence of the critical strains and tensions in the villages over this and other matters in the early 1930s. Apart from the question of overseas expansion, the clash

102 Sandra Wilson between opposing views of how the rural crisis was to be solved is in particular, plain to see. Thus the seinendan newspapers both in the 1920s and the early 1930s exhibit considerable diversity of opinion. This chapter will show that broadly, two political tendencies coexisted and for the most part competed with each other. One of those tendencies produced the trenchant left wing criticism mentioned above. The other emphasised cooperation and the values to be found in official versions of agrarianism (nohonshugi), which has been defined by Dore and Ouchi as the romantic idealization of the rural way of life and of the organic harmony of the village community, uniting high and low, young and old, rich and poor in one large family which shares its joys and its sorrows, its achievements and its tribulations, etc. etc.5 Such a view of the world naturally refused to acknowledge class tensions in the village. The circumstances of the early 1930s brought the clash between these competing views of the world out into the open, and also provided opportunities for government to intervene. By the end of 1933, notions of the village as an indivisible collective had worn out among rural youth, and the organised left wing was all but destroyed. This victory on the part of the ‘agrarianist’ view, it will be argued here, came about not only because notions of community solidarity had long been powerful in the countryside, but also because government authorities clearly recognised that that tendency could be appropriated and encouraged in order to crush the competing, class-based view of the world. YOUNG MEN’S ASSOCIATIONS IN NAGANO PREFECTURE Young people’s associations of various kinds had existed in villages throughout Japan since long before the Meiji Restoration.6 However, the 1890s are usually identified as the beginning of the modern seinendan movement. In that decade, young men’s groups, functioning as more or less autonomous bodies, often ran night schools and organised other educational activities. Around the time of the Russo-Japanese War, however, the state began to take a stronger interest in the young men’s associations. The Home Ministry and the Education Ministry, then the army, showed a particular awareness of the potential influence of the associations and a willingness to use them for patriotic purposes. State intervention naturally eroded the independent character of the young men’s groups. From this period onwards, village heads normally functioned as the heads of the seinendan, and primary school principals as the deputy heads. Landlords, police, priests and teachers were also involved in running the groups. The focus of the young men’s associations changed from the dissemination of knowledge and the improvement of agricultural

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practices to the ‘correction of morals’. The army was one major promoter of these changes, and Smethurst has shown in some detail how the army in general and Tanaka Giichi in particular worked to influence the associations. Thus, the image of the young men’s associations is of conservative, patriotic groups acting as the arm of government policy in the countryside: groups which were some of the major channels through which the ‘emperor system’ (tennosei) was established in rural areas.7 The historian Kano Masanao, however, has argued in his study of ‘Taisho democracy’ that the government’s attempt to induce conformity and obedience among young people in the villages in the 1920s was not entirely successful. While acknowledging that there were many pressures within the villages which encouraged young people to accept and promote state ideology, Kano also argues that the continuing emphasis within the seinendan on the need to find solutions to the practical problems confronting villagers in everyday life meant they did not invariably conform with government policy.8 Others have argued that the depression which followed the First World War, and a perception that the Diet was not taking farmers’ problems seriously, had by the early 1920s spurred many youth groups on to greater autonomy from government officials.9 This was especially the case in Nagano prefecture, an area which had long been active in all types of social movements. In the Taisho period, movements advocating universal male suffrage or a reduction in military spending sprang up in Nagano as elsewhere in the countryside; farmers’ unions were particularly active from the late 1920s; and during the depression Nagano led the radical nationwide movement for lower electricity charges. Less radical movements also found many adherents in Nagano: it became a model prefecture in the context of the government’s rural rehabilitation movement (keizai kosei undo), launched in 1932, and again later in the movement to send emigrants to Manchuria.10 The existence in Nagano prefecture of a large middle class of farmers, and their dependence on silk-raising, are probably the most basic explanations for the high degree of political activity of all kinds in that region. By the 1920s, middle-class farmers throughout Japan were more educated than ever before,11 and Nagano prefecture in particular was known for its commitment to education. The fact that in mountainous Nagano prefecture middle-class farmers raised silk as their major occupation made them immediately vulnerable to the depression of the early 1930s, when silk prices fell drastically. By this time, thanks to the various social movements of the Taisho period, a number of Nagano farmers were experienced in political activity as well as being relatively well educated; and in some areas young people specifically, as will be seen below, had already established local newspapers for the expression of village opinion. Nagano suffered from the depression more severely than any other prefecture, and all classes and groups of farmers reacted visibly to the depression. However, in the seinendan and in the social movements of the early 1930s, as well as those

104 Sandra Wilson of the 1920s, it was middle-class farmers and their children who were most politically active. Young men’s associations in Nagano prefecture exhibited a strongly independent character. In 1917, for example, seventy-two per cent of seinendan in the prefecture were led not automatically by village heads but by someone selected from among the association’s members. Nationally, only thirty-six per cent of seinendan heads were selected in this way. From about 1924 onwards, the prefectural federation of local seinendan showed increasing independence and a predilection for radical activity, with the result that it began to clash with the prefectural government authorities. During the depression, it agitated strongly for the lowering of electricity charges, which were a particularly onerous burden in silk regions like Nagano prefecture which used a large amount of electricity in raising silkworms and manufacturing thread.12 Many young men’s groups in Nagano prefecture established local newspapers during the late Taisho period, using funds based on members’ subscriptions and grants from the village. This in itself must be seen as a mark of political consciousness in a broad sense, especially as it appears that seinendan elsewhere did not produce such publications. The Bessho Young Men’s Association produced a monthly newspaper between 1926 and 1940, though not all issues did in fact appear, seemingly because of financial pressures. Izumida’s association produced a newspaper between 1924 and 1940. Other villages in the area did likewise: for example, Kamishina’s paper appeared between 1924 and 1940, Nishi-shioda’s from 1923, and Kawabe’s from 1925 until economic pressures forced a suspension of publication in 1930.13 The Kamishina paper was delivered free to every village household, and was also sent to serving soldiers and other village members away from home. Information on distribution in other villages is not available, but it seems likely that a similar practice was followed. Certainly, one soldier in Manchuria was receiving his copy from Izumida in mid-1933.14 Given the high level of bureaucratisation of the young men’s associations and their resolutely local character, it is perhaps inevitable that these Nagano papers contain much that conforms with official policy. Thus there are reminders that young men must register for military service by a certain date, that children must register for school, and that taxes of a particular type are due. There are also articles by village heads and other officials, and features with titles like The Development of the Concept of the National Polity’.15 Nevertheless, as Kano has pointed out, the newspapers were not actually edited by village officials; they were produced within each village, rather than being imposed from outside; and they maintained their firm emphasis on practical, everyday matters with comparatively little of the more literary material that was common in other periodicals. So it was still possible for the seinendan newspapers to reflect the opinions of ordinary villagers.16 The

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diversity of opinion which is in fact present in the newspapers reinforces the impression that they did reflect a range of village opinion, rather than merely acting as a vehicle for a few local ‘journalists’, or as a mouth-piece for official points of view. Any single newspaper contained elements of various philosophies and ideas, rather than one clear line of argument as might be expected in a publication more subject to control from above. Thus, opinions which apparently conflict often appear side-by-side in the same issue.17 During the early 1930s this diversity of opinion clearly distinguishes the Nagano papers from other publications, which for the most part presented standard pro-government viewpoints. In particular, there is a striking contrast between the seinendan papers and the most widely read national publication aimed at the countryside: Ie no hikari (Light of the Home), which was produced by the agricultural cooperative movement.18 As will be seen below, Ie no hikari took an unvaryingly patriotic stance during the Manchurian crisis. The difference between it and the seinendan papers is largely explained by the fact that the latter were not centrally controlled: they are ‘bottom-up’ sources rather than ‘top-down’ sources, and they did not receive the same attention from the army and other sections of the government as Ie no hikari did. Ie no hikari, substantially controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, functioned as a major channel between rural areas and the government and army. In general, it presented views which accorded well with official versions of agrarianism. The Nagano papers certainly did not escape official attention, and they were censored on occasion. However, they were not often used as a vehicle for official propaganda in the early 1930s. As such, they reflect more clearly the concerns of local farmers. The young men’s association newspapers seem gradually to have lost their official tone during the 1920s, under the influence of the increasingly acute rural economic crisis.19 Rural areas throughout Japan suffered from recession during the 1920s; but Nagano prefecture, as the classic silk-raising and silk thread manufacturing region, suffered particularly severely as silk prices fell after 1929. Eighty per cent of Nagano prefecture’s farming households raised silkworms in 1930, and in 1929 the silk thread industry accounted for seventy-four per cent of industrial production. A middle level farmer who produced 100 kan or 375kg of cocoons per year would have earned 1,000 yen in 1925 but only 200 yen in 1930.20 The population of the village of Izumida, for example, consisted of 547 households or 2,680 people according to the 1930 census.21 In ‘this village for which sericulture is the life-blood,’ 320 households were raising silkworms in 1932, at an average of about sixty kan per household annually, and it was reported that in most of those households income from other sources was very small.22 Silkworm raising was also an important source of income in Bessho village, though as a hot springs resort Bessho was theoretically able to derive additional income from tourists: in early 1933 it

106 Sandra Wilson was reported that the ratio of people running businesses (mainly inns) to ‘pure farmers’ was seven to three.23 Nationally, the fall in prices for agricultural products had been much bigger and more long-term than the fall in prices for manufactured goods, which meant that the purchasing power of farmers was reduced. Thus, it became expensive to keep silkworms at all, leading one writer in Izumida to complain sarcastically: The silkworms of the old days ate only mulberry leaves, but the silkworms of today have strong teeth and eat houses and land as well. If they build you a house, that’s good, but they eat and then leave without paying the bill…. 24 Finding solutions to the poverty and suffering of villagers was the major concern of the seinendan newspapers in the 1920s and early 1930s. At first, the importance of local efforts—to improve silkworm-raising techniques, to promote frugality in the village—was stressed. However, after the ‘financial panic’ of 1927 and then the depression of 1929 onwards, it became apparent to many that there could be no local solutions to the national rural crisis. Recognition of this, Kano argues, was the major stimulus in the radicalisation of rural youth.25 By this stage, far from faithfully reflecting bureaucratic views, the young men’s association newspapers had become leaders of village opinion.26 As one writer from Izumida claimed in 1931, the local association’s paper was the only forum in which individuals apart from village officials could express their views and aspirations.27 One of the fundamental elements present in the young men’s association newspapers by this point was one shared with broad sections of the Japanese public: a deep disgust with the economic structure and political process that had failed to produce solutions to the economic crisis, and an accompanying disillusionment with capitalism and with parliamentary politics itself. After only one election held under the law establishing universal male suffrage, villagers were already disillusioned: the 1928 election had ‘begun and ended’ in ‘ugliness, ignorance and lack of understanding’, according to one writer on the eve of the 1930 election.28 That writer went on to urge his readers to use their votes this time in a careful and enlightened manner, revealing a residual faith that the system could be ‘cleaned up’, and also that it could be used to benefit farmers. Others, however, were using the seinendan newspapers to call for a fundamental transformation of society, writing articles along clearly left wing lines and using standard Marxist vocabulary. Words like ‘proletariat’, ‘bourgeoisie’ and ‘imperialism’ often appeared; words like ‘revolution’ were sometimes deleted and replaced by crosses or circles (fuseji) before publication in order to avoid censorship, but in many cases readers would easily have recognised what had been deleted. Given the restrictions under which the mainstream press was operating at the time, the Nagano seinendan papers in the early 1930s were probably producing left wing

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critiques to a degree which was unusual outside of avowedly communist publications, which were themselves subject to severe repression. The Nagano papers were of course subject to the usual regulations governing the censorship of periodicals. 29 The Kamishina paper, it is recorded, paid a deposit of 250 yen to the Home Ministry in February 1925, with the publication of its fourth issue. The paper was then permitted to print articles dealing with current affairs. In addition, each issue was submitted to the Special Higher Police (Tokko) censors for approval.30 From time to time, specific issues were banned. Kamishina jiho was banned or had portions deleted about six times between 1930 and 1932, including once for ‘vehement wording criticising imperialist policy’ (June 1931), once for ‘instigating revolution’ (November 1931) and once for ‘instigating mass action’ (September 1932).31 Nevertheless, Marxist and other anti-government critiques continued to appear as the depression deepened. In Izumida in September 1930, one writer reacted cynically to the Hamaguchi government’s announcement that labour and rural relief would begin the following year: did the politicians think it was all right for farmers not to eat until then? It was hypocritical, he pointed out, to present rural relief through public works as a measure aimed solely at the benefit of villagers. Building roads and bridges would make it easier for the bourgeoisie to drive their cars through rural areas, and improvements in irrigation benefited businessmen and industrialists through increases in rural productivity. In Bessho in 1930, readers were told that capitalism was crumbling and that a ‘second world [revolution]’ might be coming; that the depression in Japan was the inevitable result of the collapse of capitalism; that ‘workers’ and peasants’ Russia’ knew nothing of the depression.32 In the same newspapers, however, other writers held that social transformation was not to be effected by any of the existing political parties, including the socialist parties. Socialism, they argued, had reached a stalemate just as capitalism had. The new society had to be a classless society, for only in a classless society could the villages prosper.33 Such views doubtless drew on notions that had deep roots in the villages—notions emphasising unity, solidarity and common interest rather than class conflict and radical change. Distrust of capitalism and of political parties was easily linked with antiurban feeling. Hostility to the towns and cities in turn helps to explain why some young villagers were not attracted to socialist parties, which were associated with the urban working class and with ‘foreign’ ideology. The seinendan papers often called instead for unity in the villages. According to one 1930 article, for example, since there were no big landowners in Izumida, no ‘farmers’ movement’ would be effective unless the whole village were included.34 Even those articles which did insist on seeing the world in class terms sometimes stopped short of acknowledging the tensions which existed within the village: in such arguments, the oppressors were the

108 Sandra Wilson capitalists and zaibatsu of the cities, while villages were implicitly peopled only by proletarians. Thus, only unity and solidarity would produce a bright future for the village.35 One strand, then, in the ideology which emerges in the seinendan papers emphasised cooperation and village unity. This was not wholly incompatible with militant activity. For example, community harmony, according to Ann Waswo, remained an ideal even for tenant farmers involved in union activity.36 However, the impulse towards rebellion was defused for some in the young men’s associations, in spite of the fact that during the 1920s the associations had built up a logic that was at least relatively independent of village officials and national authorities. Disgust with an ineffective and ‘selfish’ political process was turned inwards towards support for the government’s rural rehabilitation movement, which emphasised ‘agrarianist’ values. The tension between this response to the conditions of the early 1930s and the continuing emphasis in other quarters on radical transformation was one vital factor behind the papers’ attitudes to the Manchurian crisis of 1931–3. THE SEINENDAN NEWSPAPERS AND THE MANCHURIAN INCIDENT In comparison with the mainstream urban press and with Ie no hikari, there was a striking lack of patriotic fervour in the treatment by the young men’s association newspapers of the Manchurian Incident and subsequent events. Ie no hikari contained numerous reports of civilian groups preparing relief packages to send to the front and of local campaigns to raise funds to buy aeroplanes for the army. ‘Glorious stories’ (bidan) from the front appeared frequently, as did articles written by military officers. The term ‘Manchuria, the lifeline of Japan’ was almost ubiquitous. The statement that Japan must protect its ‘legitimate rights and interests’ in Manchuria also appeared often. Chinese soldiers, and sometimes the Chinese people in general, were insulted. Manchuria as a panacea for all of Japan’s ills was stressed: in particular, there was an emphasis on Manchuria as a source of food and as an outlet for surplus Japanese population. Accordingly, Ie no hikari was a strong advocate during 1932 of schemes to promote emigration to Manchuria.37 The young men’s association papers in Nagano prefecture emphasised none of these things. Most basically, the number of articles about Manchuria was far less. In Kamishina’s newspaper, for example, there was almost no reference to Manchuria in the first three months after the Kwantung Army’s action of September 1931. The term ‘protection of our legitimate rights and interests’ did appear in the Nagano papers, but much less often than in Ie no hikari or the large urban papers. The term ‘lifeline’ was almost absent. There were occasional letters from soldiers and one or two settlers in Manchuria, but no ‘glorious stories’ or reports of patriotic campaigns, and

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the seinendan papers rarely advocated or even discussed emigration in this period. Bessho jiho at the very least failed to support the army’s action in Manchuria. No issues of the paper were published in October, November or December of 1931, so the first reference to the Manchurian Incident appeared in January 1932. The paper’s short report on the Incident was highly ambiguous and difficult to interpret; but it can certainly be said that it contained none of the standard and otherwise ubiquitous set phrases about Chinese depredations, Japanese rights and Japan’s need to act in selfdefence. One jingoistic article by a military officer appeared two months later, but in the same issue, the Marxist critic Inomata Tsunao, who had been one of the founders of the original Japan Communist Party, contributed an article in which he referred clearly to Manchuria as a ‘semi-colony’ of Japan.38 The Kamishina newspaper more openly attacked the Kwantung Army’s actions. In January 1932 the lead article, signed by the village head, was rather cool in its treatment of the Manchurian Incident, though it did not directly contradict the government line.39 Four months later, readers were asked in a signed article addressed ‘To Our Brothers and Sisters in the Village’: Manchuria is now Japan’s possession, but has your life changed? Has it become any easier? Have you been able to pay back any of the capital you have borrowed? Have your sisters been able to make one kimono, or your brothers go to a cafe to listen to jazz? I know the answer: it is a resounding ‘No!’. The writer added that Manchuria would not produce one sen of profit.40 The next issue of Kamishina jiho was banned by the censors, quite possibly because of its treatment of the attempted coup d’état of 15 May 1932. It is Izumida’s newspaper, however, which most clearly reveals the turmoil and confusion within the young men’s association in Nagano prefecture in the early 1930s. This confusion pre-dated but was also greatly exacerbated by the Manchurian Incident. Nishida Yoshiaki’s study shows that the national movement for lower electricity charges, which began in 1928 and was led by Nagano prefecture, had caused splits over tactics in the seinendan movement to the extent that cleavages between ‘left’ and ‘right’ were already evident before the invasion of Manchuria. The movement, during which thousands of disputes between electric light producers and consumers took place, brought some gains to consumers but generally ended in compromise with the electricity firms. Serious tension was generated between those who wanted disputes settled quickly and those who wanted to fight on.41 The dispute over electricity charges, like earlier protests of the 1920s, shows clearly that Nagano villagers were prepared to take radical action over domestic matters: foreign policy was not the only contentious area. It also shows, however, that village opinion on such vital issues was by no means united.

110 Sandra Wilson One writer in Izumida’s paper in November 1931 frankly alluded to the political role of the paper and the tensions which surrounded it by this time. The gulf between those who saw society in class terms and those who did not was ‘greater than the distance between the mountain and the river’, he wrote. He claimed that the issue which decided young people’s attitude to the paper was the amount of its left wing content.42 If such divisions could be exposed by the movement for lower electricity charges, how could they be avoided when ‘national interest’ appeared to be at stake, as in the Manchurian crisis? In December 1931, Izumida jiho published a summary of opinions expressed in the young men’s association study group on two subjects: the dispute over electricity charges and the issue of Manchuria. Opinion was divided on the latter question. Some argued that Japan had nowhere to seek resources other than Manchuria and Mongolia; that even if Japan moved from capitalism to socialism it would still need resources; that Manchuria and Mongolia were indeed the empire’s lifeline. If foreign countries were to seize Manchuria’s resources, Japan would need to buy goods at high prices, so it was imperative that Japan hold fast to its rights and interests there. As one speaker said, problems of overpopulation, discrimination against Japanese rights and interests in China and the threat of an economic boycott by Western nations had seemed insoluble, ‘but fortunately there is at least Manchuria. At this point we must offer the only life we have to His Majesty the Emperor and join the struggle (funto suru).’43 A few protested that the people should seek happiness within Japan, without going to Manchuria; or that the propertyless masses would derive no benefit at all from Manchuria, which would bring profit only to the big capitalists. The retort to this, however, was that this was not the time to speak of capitalism and socialism. Sixteen months later, a seinendan member reported on the prefectural level conference (kenkyu taikai) held in March 1933. His article was entitled ‘Why has the young men’s association reached a stalemate? And what should young people’s goals be from now on?’ The association, he acknowledged, was confronted with grave difficulties, including repression by the authorities. His detailed summary of opinions also revealed a strong sense of powerlessness and frustration among seinendan members, as well as continuing deep divisions among them.44 One delegate from Matsumoto maintained that, though the association in the past had taken a leading role in the left wing struggle, it was now time for young people to devise an autonomous association which ‘fits in with society’ (shakai to itchisuru). Another Matsumoto delegate compared the prefectural federation of young men’s associations with a shop displaying a splendid sign that nevertheless no one entered. He suggested that at this point young people might be better off supporting the agricultural cooperatives instead. The meeting’s chairman, on the other hand, insisted that even though the prefectural federation was facing dissolution, young people should press on

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with autonomous activity, with the goal of building a just society: that is, he called for continued radical activity. It was reported that the meeting had to be closed because a fierce argument broke out between the chairman and one of the Matsumoto delegates. Later, the chairman and at least three others made speeches calling for the overthrow of capitalism. One of them then presented himself at Fukushima police station for arrest, though he was allowed to return to the conference after an initial investigation. THE IMPACT OF THE DEPRESSION The seinendan newspapers and their reaction to the Manchurian crisis reveal some important things about rural Japan in the early 1930s. Perhaps the most significant is simply the primacy of the depression over all other issues, including the invasion of Manchuria. At a time when Ie no hikari and the mainstream press were producing a flood of material on Manchuria, the young men’s association newspapers showed little interest—because the villages were, as before, preoccupied with the depression. As Kano has remarked, the seinendan papers viewed all issues ‘through the lens of village life’.45 The depression was simply more important to most villagers than the invasion of Manchuria. Perhaps it was different in Tohoku, home of a large number of the soldiers who went to Manchuria; Tohoku was particularly active in sending relief packages to the front. 46 In Nagano, however, the issue of Manchuria seems to have been much less immediate. And even in Tohoku, reaction to the Manchurian Incident was more a matter of personal concern for the soldiers than political or ideological support for the army. Doubtless villagers throughout Japan would have felt the impact of the fighting much more acutely had its scale been greater, but in September 1932 only eight young men from Izumida were serving in either Manchuria or Korea, and by November of the following year, only five were serving in the army anywhere, including Japan.47 The total number of Japanese soldiers who were killed in Manchuria or died of their wounds between September 1931 and May 1932 was only 482.48 It would not be until the late 1930s that villages would be forced by repeated funerals to face the reality of war. It is true that Nagano prefecture was affected by the depression to an unusual degree. Evidence from elsewhere, however, also suggests a preoccupation among farmers with the depression. Nishiyama Koichi, a farmer and diarist from Niigata prefecture, was certainly not unaware of the Manchurian Incident. He went to a lecture and a film about it, and was moved by the sight of soldiers departing from the port of Niigata in March 1932. However, references in his diary to the Manchurian Incident are few; he is much more concerned with borrowing money, settling debts and generally managing the family finances.49 Nishiyama’s concerns were shared by many throughout Japan. In terms of rural activism, 1932 was above all the year of the petition movement.

112 Sandra Wilson Between June and August, about 700 petitions were presented to the Diet by groups of farmers and rural activists, in an unprecedented appeal for rural relief. According to some estimates, the total number of signatures exceeded 140,000.50 One report claimed that in a single petition, submitted in August, there were more than 100,000 signatures from Nagano, Niigata, Ibaragi and Kochi prefectures and Hokkaido.51 The authorities tried to stem the tide of delegates: in August, for example, 300 farmers from sixty Yamanashi prefecture villages waiting for a train to take them from Kofu to Tokyo to present petitions were stopped by the police.52 Despite such efforts, rural relief became one of the most prominent political issues of 1932. This high level of rural activism clearly indicates that surviving the depression was dominating village thinking. Nevertheless, it can be said that even the hardships of the depression were not enough to make farmers interested in Manchuria. This is best indicated in the lack of enthusiasm for the emigration schemes that the army was promoting from 1932 onwards. Eventually, Nagano prefecture did produce 30,000 emigrants to Manchuria—fifteen per cent of the total number, and more than any other prefecture.53 Between 1931 and 1933, however, Nagano villagers showed little evidence of any desire to go, and without the strong official connections that Ie no hikari had, the young men’s association newspapers had little incentive to publish discussions of emigration. One contributor to the Izumida paper did argue strongly in favour of emigration, making the standard assertion that Manchuria and Mongolia would become Japan’s ‘new paradise’.54 Another writer, however, took issue with him, declaring that Manchuria simply provided new opportunities for competition among greedy capitalists. Manchuria would be no paradise for ordinary Japanese people: The only role allotted to us over there is to spend our blood and sweat in toil. Dreams of success without that hardship should be left to people like party politicians and the zaibatsu.’55 One young man from Izumida did go to Manchuria in October 1932 as part of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs’ first group of 450 or so ‘armed emigrants’; another went independently in 1933 to seek work in Manchuria.56 THE SURVIVAL OF DISSENT More broadly, the Nagano evidence confirms that public dissent survived the Manchurian Incident, despite claims by some writers that it did not.57 In the face of considerable discouragement, some of the young men’s association newspapers continued to print radical criticism of the political system, alongside pro-government and apolitical material. The seinendan papers were not only subject to the usual censorship system, but were also vulnerable to local pressure. In particular, the village subsidy of the association, on which publication partly depended, could be and at times was withdrawn. Bessho’s young men’s association lost its

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subsidy in March 1931 because of financial pressure on the village; but in 1930, Kamishina’s association had been threatened with the loss of its subsidy after publication of an article about a school strike that expressed views contrary to those of the village authorities. 58 The first editor of Bessho’s paper, Nishijima Koichi, noted in 1930 that he had been criticised during his four years as editor for the paper’s leftist stance.59 From time to time, the young men’s associations were criticised for endangering village harmony by taking a particularly radical stance and since this was a powerful accusation, it would sometimes cause the association to back away from its previous position. At prefectural level, the seinendan federation complained in 1930 of pressure from the authorities in relation to the associations’ research and political activities, protesting that freedom of speech had been curbed, meetings restricted and many other obstacles placed in the way to prevent the seinendan from giving proper guidance to young people.60 Such criticism of the leaders of the seinendan and of their newspapers, and that which followed over the next few years, indicate that left wing views, while alive and well at a much later stage than many writers allow, did not succeed in dominating village opinion. After all, the seinendan papers also contained more conservative views; many villagers presumably read Ie no hikari as well as the young men’s association paper and it is likely that in some cases leaders of the seinendan were more radical than rank-and-file members. It is striking, however, that village subsidies for the newspapers on the whole were not withdrawn: Kamishina jiho, for example, did not in fact lose its subsidy as threatened in March 1930. This tolerance on the part of the village authorities indicates at least that at the local level there was no consensus against the right of the young men’s associations to publish radical as well as conservative views, even during the depression when the temptation to economise by withdrawing the subsidy must have been extreme. Local men of influence, the core of the petition movement,61 were certainly threatened by the rise of left wing ideologies, but the fact that village authorities did not usually withdraw the papers’ subsidies probably indicates that many in the villages were sympathetic to radical views at a time of intense economic pain. However, police interference with the seinendan papers increased in 1931, partly because of the associations’ involvement in the movement for lower electricity charges. After the Manchurian Incident, pressure on the prefectural federation of the seinendan increased greatly, and the prefectural authorities withdrew their subsidy to the federation in late 1931. At the same time, the prefectural authorities wrote to the heads of the town and village associations, criticising the federation’s political activities: in other words, trying to drive a wedge between the local and the prefectural levels of the association.62 Despite this negative environment, the young men’s association newspaper in Izumida in early 1933 still published an article which referred

114 Sandra Wilson not, in the standard phrase, to Japan’s 2,000 years of unbroken imperial rule but to ‘more than 2,000 years of reactionary capitalism’, and called upon the ‘truly brave’ to rely on their own efforts not, as usual, through frugality and cooperation but by rushing to the battle lines in the class war. Such fiery pieces were decreasing in number but they were still there. In November 1932 the view was still being powerfully expressed within the executive of the prefectural federation that nationalism and the mission of young people alike consisted in overthrowing capitalism, and that the federation must resist the temptation to submit to the prefectural authorities simply in order to regain its financial subsidy.63 The Nagano material thus challenges the usual view of the nature of the young men’s associations themselves. They have commonly been seen as part of the vanguard of fascism or at least as vital agents in the building of support for the military. As will be shown below, the capacity of the young men’s associations to preserve an independent voice was indeed greatly weakened during the early 1930s. From the Nagano evidence, however, it is not a matter of organisations of young people already committed to the priorities of the army redoubling their efforts, as Smethurst’s 1974 analysis implies; rather, the events of the early 1930s themselves had a profound effect on organisations which in some cases had previously shown considerable independence and spirit. It may be countered that Nagano is a clearly aberrant example, since it was notorious for radical political activity. Smethurst, after all, allows for the ‘few areas of the nation’ in which radical activity ‘prevented the army and the reservist association from dominating certain branches’ of the young men’s association.64 It is a difficult charge to refute absolutely, given the paucity of direct evidence. However, there are indications from various quarters that the countryside in general was not as docile as the authorities might have liked. First, there is anecdotal evidence from outside Nagano prefecture. In the village of Ochiai, in Nakakoma-gun, Yamanashi prefecture, the local young men’s association caused trouble by denouncing the patriotic movement to donate money for the war effort in Manchuria. The campaign for donations encountered difficulties more generally too: at a meeting of town and village leaders in Shida-gun, Miyagi prefecture, fund-raising plans were shelved in December 1931 because of the financial burdens under which villagers were already suffering; throughout Yamanashi prefecture, the reservist association and government authorities experienced considerable difficulty in collecting money. 65 For people in areas like these, as in Nagano, surviving the depression was taking precedence over donating to military causes. Second and more substantially, the army was actively seeking to build rural support in the first half of the 1930s, indicating that it was not itself convinced that it had the loyalty of all villagers. The Army Minister toured distressed areas during the famine of 1934, promising relief money. The army investigated and publicised village health standards and diets, and

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started its own public works schemes to provide rural employment. In a well known pamphlet published in 1934, it emphasised rural distress as Japan’s greatest weakness.66 Ronald Dore, Awaya Kentaro and Thomas Havens all reject the thesis that the army was motivated by humanitarian concern for the peasants, and Havens also refutes the common assertion that army concern for the countryside stemmed from an over-representation of rural men within the army.67 Allowing for the probability that it was partly motivated by a genuine concern about the consequences of the poor health of recruits, these efforts still leave the impression that the army was not completely confident of rural support in this period. Awaya concludes that the army’s real motive in paying attention to the countryside was antirevolutionary: it sought to forestall the danger that people might come to see the increase in military budgets as the basic cause of continuing poverty.68 An examination of Ie no hikari also leads to the conclusion that the military did not take rural support for granted. Why did the magazine, which was aimed specifically at rural areas, carry so many ‘beautiful stories’ of heroism, sacrifice and ‘Japanese spirit’? The possibility must be considered that it was because public patriotism and loyalty did not exist to an extent satisfactory to the authorities. Neither, if obedience to the military could be assumed, should it have been necessary to publish articles reminding potential rural recruits, especially during the depression, that good pay, good food and job security were to be had by joining the army or navy. More broadly, why was it necessary for Japanese military propagandists early in 1932 to invent and widely publicise the story of the ‘three human bombs’, Japanese soldiers in Shanghai who allegedly went bravely and deliberately to their deaths in order to break through an enemy position? Third, it may be that the radicalism of farmers’ movements in this period has been underestimated. According to a recent analysis, it was farmers’ movements, rather than urban labour movements, which preserved a strong left wing core in the late 1920s and early 1930s, even if their influence over the broader society was waning. While the labour movement moved further and further to the right, dropping its left wing elements as it did so, the left remained dominant within the farmers’ movement. The movement as a whole was certainly muzzled, and subject to ideological splits, but disputes between tenants and landlords continued and even increased after the depression; successful proletarian candidates in local elections in 1925, 1929 and 1933 were elected by rural rather than urban voters; and in other ways, many rural activists continued to take a left wing stance.69 This analysis presents fascinating evidence to suggest that the Nagano material indicates more than an aberrant set of circumstances. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EARLY 1930s The Nagano prefecture young men’s association newspapers do testify to the continued existence of dissent in the villages, but they also provide clear

116 Sandra Wilson evidence of the crucial changes which were occurring in the countryside in the early 1930s. In short, left wing activism specifically and independent political expression in general were fatally damaged in this period by four main agents: the depression, the Manchurian Incident, government repression and the emergence and encouragement of rival, conservative perspectives on the local and national situation. The depression itself did appear to place everyone in the same quandary: thus it was harder to argue that class interest was paramount. It gave rise to the petition movement, an anti-depression tactic which emphasised the common plight of whole villages, prefectures and regions. Individual contributors to the young men’s association newspapers might argue that the petition movement was a tool by which the bourgeoisie took care of its own class interest, that it was a reactionary movement which did nothing to liberate the proletariat;70 but the villages of Chiisagata-gun participated all the same. Indeed, in Nishida’s view, the petition movement was consciously promoted by the prefectural level Heads of Towns and Villages’ Association (chosonchokai) as a means of forestalling class struggle.71 More generally, a preoccupation with Japan’s internal problems eventually led even those formerly attracted to socialism towards cooperation with the state. This was shown clearly in the December 1931 report of opinions expressed at a seinendan study group, mentioned above. Thus the participant who worried that foreign countries might gain control of Manchurian resources if Japan were not careful agreed that capitalism was inherently evil, but concluded that in Manchuria perhaps it could work to the benefit of the Japanese people. His view was succinctly summarised in the statement that ‘if our nation (minzoku) dies, we have nothing’. According to another participant, the internal contradictions of capitalism within the Western powers were causing those countries to covet Manchuria—a view for which there was very little evidence, in reality. A struggle would inevitably arise for control of Manchurian resources, he believed, but young people had to be aware that Manchuria was Japan’s lifeline and make up their minds accordingly.72 Thus the Manchurian crisis too increased this consciousness of the state or nation at the expense of class or generation. This occurred not only because Japan seemed at times to be under siege by the Western powers and the League of Nations, but also because the Manchurian venture presented a succession of occasions on which the village, in whole or in part, joined in an activity which might loosely be termed nationalist. Such activities may have been less frequent in Chiisagata-gun than elsewhere in Japan, but they did take place. At least two or three times during 1932 and 1933 the young men’s association or the reservists’ association in Izumida organised the sending of letters and parcels to local men in Manchuria. Once there was a lecture by an army major who had returned from the front, and in September 1933 another military officer gave a lecture at the local primary school to commemorate the second anniversary of the Manchurian Incident.

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It was reported that more than 300 people attended his lecture, which was sponsored by the reservists’ association and the village office, and covered events in Manchuria, international developments and Japan’s relations with the Western powers since withdrawal from the League of Nations. After the lecture, representatives of each family which had a member currently in military service, together with a representative of the family of Ishii Uichi, the young man who had gone to Manchuria as an ‘armed emigrant’, were invited to a banquet at which the lieutenant-colonel spoke once more.73 All members of the women’s association of one hamlet were reported to have visited the local shrine every day during one week to pray for their hamlet’s soldiers at the front. Returning soldiers were also formally welcomed home: again, a banquet for the families was held on one occasion.74 A soldier returning from military service outside the village would be met at Ueda Station by seinendan members from his hamlet. In all probability this practice had been followed before the Manchurian crisis; now, presumably, a few of them had more exciting things to tell. Seeing soldiers off, according to one very patriotic writer, was in itself the occasion for an exhibition of village unity and transcended selfish interest.75 The effect of such occasions was acknowledged by one Miyagi prefecture official in a speech at a military memorial service in December 1931. Every time soldiers depart to replace those killed in battle or wounded or sick, he said, the spirits of the people who see them off are elevated—the second time more than the first, the third time more than the second.76 In a small way, such effects were probably also felt in the villages of Nagano prefecture. Government repression had always been a factor to be reckoned with for the Nagano prefecture young men’s associations and for any radical activists or writers. Police and government pressure on the seinendan increased as a result of the movement for lower electricity charges and the Manchurian Incident, as noted above. The local and prefectural young men’s associations were certainly conscious of this. It was reported in November 1931, for instance, that the district level (gun) federation of seinendan in Chiisagata had met with a lawyer to study the laws relating to the banning of publications. The writer of this article commented that the meeting probably reflected an intention to make seinendan publications more rather than less radical.77 Government repression of progressive movements in Nagano prefecture culminated in the ‘Red Teachers’ Incident’ of February 1933, in which 138 of the prefecture’s teachers were arrested, along with many tenant union activists. Investigations continued until mid-June, by which time over 600 people had been arrested. The intention, it seems, was to eradicate the whole of the organised left wing in Nagano prefecture. In one village, Urasato, thirteen people were arrested and the local farmers’ union disbanded as a result. 78 The arrests were catastrophic for the prefecture’s progressive movements. Afterwards, the district-level and prefectural-level young men’s

118 Sandra Wilson associations, which had proclaimed their opposition to the invasion of Manchuria, went into retreat. The prefectural conference mentioned above, during which fierce arguments broke out among delegates and some members advocated a switch of allegiance to the agricultural cooperative movement, took place after these arrests. Obviously, the arrests of so many activists weakened and demoralised the whole seinendan movement in Nagano prefecture. The authorities were also successful in virtually destroying the left wing in that prefecture. Meanwhile, the government had developed other strategies to win the allegiance of the nation’s farmers. The most important were the launching in September 1932 of the rural rehabilitation movement (keizai kosei undo), the government’s major policy for countering the depression; and, as part of this movement, the encouragement of the agricultural cooperatives, including their youth leagues. Both initiatives drew heavily on ‘agrarianist’ notions of community, harmony and cooperation and thus were hostile to any leftist activity or philosophy. Some scholars also believe that through the rural rehabilitation movement, the very people or class of people who had formerly been anti-government activists were drawn in to deep involvement with and loyalty to the state during the 1930s and through the war period.79 The rural rehabilitation movement aimed to rationalise and improve village life by providing financial aid for specific projects being carried out in selected ‘model villages’. Each year for five years (1932–6), a thousand villages were chosen to receive public money to consolidate debts, assist handicraft industries, extend more loans through agricultural cooperatives and provide technical aid to farmers. Surveys and budgeting at a village level were at the heart of the movement. By such means, as Kase Kazutoshi has pointed out, the government sought to heighten the sense among all villagers that all classes in the village were beset by the same difficulties and to provide a common activity within the village through which farmers could work to improve their standard of living without resort to radical activity.80 Despite the seeming emphasis on practical solutions, rhetoric was a dominant element of the rural rehabilitation movement. The rhetoric reveals a clear aim to defuse class conflict and strengthen existing ‘agrarianist’ tendencies: it relied heavily on such slogans as ‘mutual cooperation’, ‘selfhelp’, ‘unity of the village’. Also, according to Mori Takemaro, the bureaucrats directing the rural rehabilitation movement deliberately aimed to nurture farm operators rather than landowners as the key to rural recovery. In this way, a class of farmers who had previously had many grievances against the government ‘rose to the status of petty bosses’ and simultaneously were ‘caught in the net of bureaucratic control’.81 Thus was radicalism further defused. Agricultural cooperatives (sangyo kumiai) were not new in the 1930s, but there was now a concerted effort to expand their scope and numbers in the

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context of the rural rehabilitation movement. Marketing and credit activities continued to be encouraged; new activities were to include the purchase of essential goods and the joint use of machinery, tools and livestock.82 Since cooperatives were amongst the most concrete aspects of rural rehabilitation, and had the potential to tackle one of the most endemic rural problems, that of debt, they were particularly appealing to struggling villagers during the depression. More specifically, and in direct competition with the seinendan, the cooperatives began to launch youth leagues of their own. In 1930, the Nagano prefecture Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Youth Leagues (sangyo kumiai seinen renmei) had been formed. Branches were also established in towns and villages. According to Nishida Yoshiaki, the firm aim at prefectural level was to use this youth group to counter the influence of the existing young men’s associations. By the end of 1935, 250 of the new organisations had been established in Nagano prefecture, with a total membership of 30,000. Within a few years the new organisation was a powerful body with representation in a majority of the prefecture’s towns and villages.83 As one means of expanding the agricultural cooperative youth leagues, there was a campaign to increase the distribution of Ie no hikari, the organ of the cooperatives. In 1931, circulation figures reached 12,000.84 Not long afterwards, it was a national bestseller, and by 1935 it reached a million readers per month as a result of the intense effort put in to increasing its circulation. In some cases—for example, Urasato village in Chiisagata-gun—the new organisation was highly reactionary. In others—for example, Nishi-shioda— it was not especially so: Nishi-shioda’s new youth league, formed in October 1933, did not directly confront the seinendan. 85 In essence, however, all the youth leagues sought to present themselves as comprehensive organisations promoting harmony among all classes of the village, even if in reality they best represented the interests of middle-class or upper-class peasants.86 Thus they appealed to the ‘agrarianist’ strand in the seinendan, while at the same time their very existence was inimical to the continuation of radical activity within the young men’s associations. Certainly, the Nagano prefecture young men’s associations themselves were conscious of the new organisations as a threat. Several speakers at the prefectural conference in March 1933, just after the ‘Red Teachers’ Incident’, criticised the agricultural cooperative movement as a capitalist strategy to facilitate exploitation of the masses, noting that recently the movement had been trying to encroach on the young men’s associations. Other speakers, however, praised the cooperatives. When the meeting was called upon to make a statement on the cooperative movement, fear of reprisals by the authorities prompted members to decline to do so. 87 Presumably, this indicates that most delegates opposed the cooperative movement.

120 Sandra Wilson The conviction that the youth leagues were a threat to the seinendan was well founded: the new leagues grew while the older associations, operating in an even more repressive environment after the ‘Red Teachers’ Incident’, stagnated. CONCLUSION: VILLAGERS AND POLITICS IN PREWAR JAPAN It is clear that farmers were not ‘passive’ in the early 1930s. Their actions and statements may often have been ambiguous or contradictory, but they did not wait for others to make their decisions for them. There were farmers who protested vigorously against government policy and exploitation by city people and landlords; farmers who engaged in landlord-tenant disputes, especially in Tohoku;88 farmers who used the young men’s associations as a platform from which to denounce capitalism and lack of free speech; and others who voted for proletarian candidates in local elections. During 1932, many were involved in the petition movement, which can hardly be construed as passivity even if the movement did not threaten the foundations of the existing order. Even agrarianism did not necessarily represent resignation and lack of action. As Ann Waswo has pointed out, middling farmers espousing agrarianism were in fact seeking to improve their political, economic and social status, and thus represented at least a potential threat to the state, even if the state proved adept at defusing that threat.89 Radical agrarianism was one strand in the 15 May 1932 Incident and thus helped to bring down the last party cabinet in prewar Japan. According to Stephen Vlastos, the philosophy of the Aikyokai, an ‘agrarianist’ organisation founded in Ibaragi prefecture in 1929 by Tachibana Kozaburo, was clearly iconoclastic rather than conservative. Aikyokai members were uninterested in promoting obedience and submission to authority; instead, they bitterly denounced the plight of farmers and their oppression by the state.90 It is equally clear that, in the negotiation of the relationship between the state and rural society in Japan, the early 1930s were critical. Japan overall was a different place in 1933 compared to 1930, and the same is true of the countryside specifically. Far from being a static environment in which ‘traditional’ institutions and attitudes held unquestioning sway, the countryside was the site of contest and of dynamic change in these years. For the rural left in particular it was a critical period. The need for village unity was the common ground among the young men’s associations, Ie no hikari, the agricultural cooperative youth leagues and other rural organisations, and was successfully exploited by local and national authorities at the expense of philosophies which stressed class interest. The depression and the Manchurian Incident both served to discourage political dissent throughout Japan, and in the countryside to strengthen the existing emphases on notions compatible with official versions of agrarianism. Simultaneously, increased government repression

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removed a number of activists from the villages, especially in Nagano prefecture where they had been particularly prominent; and government strategies to defuse discontent were put in place. The early 1930s did not make full-scale war with China or war with the Anglo-American powers inevitable. However, the events of this period and responses to them did contribute to the making of a more authoritarian state, both by facilitating the further repression of those elements opposed to such a state, and by reinforcing and expanding structures through which others could be encouraged to identify with officially sanctioned views of the world. NOTES 1 I would like to thank Professor Nishida Yoshiaki for his comments on an early draft of this paper, and for his help in identifying the sources on which it is based. I have also benefited from the comments of Professor Peter Duus as discussant for the panel, ‘The Rural Crisis and Fascism in Pre-War Japan’, at the 46th Annual Meeting of the (US) Association for Asian Studies, Boston, March 1994. 2 Richard K.Beardsley, John W.Hall and Robert E.Ward, Village Japan, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1959, pp. 399, 428; Barrington Moore Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Harmondsworth, Penguin University Books, 1966, p. 308. 3 Richard J.Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1974, xiv, p. 184; Richard J.Smethurst, Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870–1940, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 34, 229. 4 For the attitude to the Manchurian crisis of the mainstream urban press, see Hando Kazutoshi, ‘Asahi shinbun to Manshu jihen’, Shokun!, November 1985, pp. 46–60; Ikei Masaru, ‘1930 nendai no masumedia—Manshu jihen e no taio o chushin to shite’, in Miwa Kimitada (ed.), Saiko. Taiheiyo senso zenya—Nihon no 1930nendairon to shite Tokyo, Soseiki, 1981, pp. 178–84; Eguchi Keiichi, ‘Manshu jihen to daishinbun’, Shiso, no. 583, January 1973, pp. 98–113; Kakegawa Tomiko, ‘Masumedia tosei to taibei roncho’ in Hosoya Chihiro et al. (eds), Nichibei kankeishi, vol. 4: Masumedia to chishikijin, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1972, pp. 5–12; Tsutomu David Yamamoto, ‘The Japanese Press and Japanese Foreign Policy 1927–1933’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1981. 5 Ronald P.Dore and Ouchi Tsutomu, ‘Rural Origins of Japanese Fascism’ in James William Morley (ed.), Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1971, p. 191. Stephen Vlastos, in a study of the Aikyokai in Ibaragi Prefecture, has recently made an important distinction between official versions of Showa agrarianism and those which animated the grass-roots activists of the Aikyokai. It is the former versions to which I am referring here. See Stephen Vlastos, ‘Was Showa Agrarianism Fascist? Nohonshugi viewed from the Bottom Up’, paper presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the (US) Association for Asian Studies, Boston, March 1994.

122 Sandra Wilson 6 Comments on the history of the seinendan are based on Kano Masanao, Taisho demokurashii no teiryu, Tokyo, NHK Books, 1973, pp. 29–32. See also Smethurst, Social Basis, pp. 25–33. 7 Apart from Smethurst, see, for example, Awaya Kentaro, ‘Fasshoka to minshu ishiki’ in Eguchi Keiichi (ed.), Taikei Nihon gendaishi, vol. 1: Nihon fashizumu no keisei, Tokyo, Nihon Hyoronsha, 1978, pp. 268–73. 8 Kano, Taisho demokurashii, pp. 100–1. 9 Ann Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society, 1900–1950’ in Peter Duus (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6: The Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 591–2. Waswo is here drawing on Suzuki Masayuki, ‘Taishoki nomin seiji shiso no ichi sokumen—jo’, Nihonshi kenkyu, January 1977, no. 173. See also Yui Masaomi, ‘Gunbu to kokumin togo’ in Tokyo Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo (ed.), Fashizumuki no kokka to shakai, vol. 1: Showa kyoko, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1978, pp. 149–95. 10 This paragraph and the next are based on Nishida Yoshiaki, Showa kyoko no noson shakai undo: yosanchi ni okeru tenkai to kiketsu, Tokyo, Ochanomizu Shobo, 1978, pp. 11, 378, 457. 11 On the impact of education see Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, pp. 559–62. 12 Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 11. 13 ‘Atogaki’ in Bessho Jiho Fukkan Kankokai (ed.), Bessho jiho shukusatsuban, 1980 (hereafter BJ); ‘Atogaki’, in Izumida Jiho Fukkoku Iinkai (ed.), Izumida jiho shukusatsuban, Ueda-shi, 1980 (hereafter IJ); ‘Kanko no kotoba’ in Kamishina-mura Shi Kankokai (ed.), Kamishina jiho shukusatsuban, Ueda-shi, 1978 (hereafter KJ); ‘Kanko no kotoba’ in Kawabe Jiho Fukkoku Kankokai (ed.), Kawabe jiho shukusatsuban, Nagano-shi, 1979. For Nishi-shioda see Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 384. 14 ‘Kanko no kotoba’ in KJ; letter from Ishisaka Ichiro, IJ, July 1933, p. 1. 15 ‘Kokutai kannen no hattatsu’, BJ, 5 parts, February, March, May, June, July 1930. 16 Kano, Taisho demokurashii, pp. 100–1. 17 Kano makes this point for the Taisho period in Ibid., p. 107. 18 On Ie no hikari, see Adachi Ikutsune, ‘Jiriki kosei undoka no Ie no hikari’, Shikan gendaishi, May 1973, no. 2, pp. 105–14; Itagaki Kuniko, Showa senzen, senchuki no noson seikatsu: zasshi Ie no hikari ni miru, Tokyo, Mitsumine Shobo, 1992; Ie no Hikari Kyokai, Ie no hikari no shijunen, Tokyo, 1968. 19 Kano, Taisho demokurashii, p. 101. 20 Kobayashi Koji, Manshu imin no mura: Shinshu Yasuoka-mura no Showashi, Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo, 1977, pp. 18, 25. 21 IJ, November 1930, p. 1. 22 ‘Jikkyoku ni shosuru seinen gikai no taido’, IJ, August 1930, p. 1; Ishii Kumajiro, ‘Keizai iinkai kaisai ni tsuite’, IJ, August 1932, p. 1. 23 Ichi sonmin, ‘Hashutsujo bucho no shokken wa?’, BJ, March 1932, p. 3. 24 S, ‘Sate kotoshi no mokuhyo wa?’, IJ, April 1933, p. 3. 25 Kano, Taisho demokurashii, pp. 123, 126–31. 26 Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 384. 27 ‘Jiho no honshitsu to shimei o ronzu’, IJ, October 1931, p. 1. 28 BJ, February 1930, p. 4. 29 See Gregory J.Kasza, The State and the Mass Media in Japan 1918–1945, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1988, Part 1; Richard H.Mitchell, Censorship in Imperial Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983, esp. Chs 5 and 6. 30 ‘Kanko no kotoba’ in KJ.

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33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55 56

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Ibid.; Odagiri Hidetaka and Fukuoka Ikichi (eds), Showa shoseki/shinbunlzasshi hakkin nenpyo (part 1), Tokyo, Meiji Bunken, 1965, pp. 207, 248, 395. MT, ‘Shisen o aegi chi ni naku nomin no sakebi: Noson o sukuu ni wa mazu kaikyu no ninshiki kara’, IJ, September 1930, p. 2; ‘Puro no me ni’ (unsigned), BJ, June 1930, p. 1; ‘Nomin seikatsu ni kansuru zadankai’, BJ, August 1930, p. 1; ‘Jihyo ni arazaru jihyo’, BJ, July 1930, p. 1. The characters for ‘revolution’ have been replaced by crosses (fuseji) to avoid offending the censor. It is clear from the context that the missing word is ‘revolution’; other sources also confirm that this was one of the words most frequently replaced by fuseji. See, for example, Hatanaka Shigeo, Showa shuppan dan’atsu shoshi, Tokyo, Tosho Shinbunsha, 1965, pp. 177–80. See Kano, Taisho demokurashii, pp. 128–33. Kishi Yoshitami, ‘Tsuchi o nigire’, IJ, May 1930, p. 1. A good example is Kishi Takeshi, ‘Seikatsunan to nomin’, IJ, January 1930, p. 2. Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, p. 586. For an analysis of Ie no hikari during the Manchurian crisis, see Sandra Wilson, ‘Popular Japanese Responses to the Manchurian Crisis of 1931–33’, D. Phil. Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989, Ch. 5. ‘Jiho’, BJ, January 1932, p. 3. This section of the article ends with the unconvincing claim that there is no further space to discuss the Manchurian Incident. Tanaka Shosa, ‘Genzai no Nippon’, BJ, March 1932, p. 4; ‘Nihon shihonshugi no gendai oyobi zento’, BJ, March 1932, pp. 4–5. Anti-Marxist comment also appeared: see, for example, the article by Hasebe Ken, editor of the Hokushin mainichi shinbun: ‘Naiyu gaikan no Nippon’, BJ, March 1933, p. 1. Kurashima Naoichiro, ‘Nento no shokan’, KJ, January 1932, p. 1. Kaura (Koura) Hatsumi, ‘Noson no kyodai e’, KJ, May 1932, p. 1. Nishida, Showa kyoko, pp. 403–35. IK, ‘Jiho to seinen no shiko’, IJ, November 1931, p. 1. ‘Kakushu no mondai ni taishi seinen wa sotchoku ni sakebu’, IJ, December 1931, p. 1. Akabane, ‘Naze seinendan wa yukizumatta ka? Soshite kongo no seinen no mokuhyo wa: Kenrensei kenkyu taikai ni shusseki shite’, IJ, April 1933, p. 3. Kano, Taisho demokurashii, p. 107. See Fujii Tadatoshi, Kokubo fujinkai, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1985, Ch. 1. IJ, September 1932, p. 2 and November 1933, p. 1. ‘544 Japanese Soldiers are Killed in Shanghai’, Trans-Pacific, 19 May 1932, p. 5. Nishida Yoshiaki and Kubo Yasuo (eds), Nishiyama Koichi nikki 1925–1950 nen: Niigata-ken ichi kosakuno no kiroku, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991, esp. pp. 255–79. See Kerry Smith, ‘A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Relief Policy’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1994. ‘Farmers’ Demands Reveal Discontent’, Trans-Pacific, 1 September 1932, p. 14. Fourteen representatives from Chiisagata-gun went to Tokyo to present various petitions. They included representatives from Izumida, Bessho and Kawabe. See IJ, July 1932, p. 3. ‘Police Try to Keep Farmers at Home’, Trans-Pacific, 1 September 1932, p. 12. Kobayashi, Manshu imin no mura, p. 17. Matsui Masao, ‘Akeyuku Manmo’, IJ, March 1932, p. 1; Matsui Masao, ‘Iju netsu o aoru’, IJ, May 1932, p. 3. ‘Utsuriyuku jidai no so: takanaru fassho koshinkyoku’, IJ, September 1932, p. 4. The departure of the first, Ishii Uichi, is recorded in IJ, October 1932, p. 3. On ‘armed emigrants’, see my article, ‘The “New Paradise”: Japanese Emigration to Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s’, International History Review, May 1995, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 249–86. Letters from Ishii appear in IJ, February 1933, p. 3;

124 Sandra Wilson

57

58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

May 1933, p. 1; December 1933, p. 3. See letter from the independent emigrant, Muraoka Shintoku, in IJ, September 1933, p. 3 and October 1933, p. 1. An article from the village office advocating emigration to Brazil appears in IJ, March 1933, p. 2 and a notice about recruitment of settlers for Hokkaido in July 1933, p. 3. See, for example, Shinobu Seizaburo, ‘From Party Politics to Military Dictatorship,’ Developing Economies, December 1967, vol. 4, p. 684: ‘For the duration of the fifteen years of war [1931–45] the Japanese people had been entirely deprived of freedom’. BJ, March 1931, p. 1; KJ, October 1932, p. 1. Bessho’s association continued to publish the paper without the subsidy, though some issues failed to appear and others were shortened to save resources. BJ, January 1930, p. 2. See IJ, September 1930, p. 2. Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 747. Ibid., pp. 449–50. Yamada Kohei, ‘Sajo manpitsu’, IJ, February 1933, p. 3; see A, ‘Daisankai kenrensei shusai kanbu koshukai ni shusseki shite (1)’, IJ, December 1932, p. 1. Nishi-shioda jiho, on the other hand, ceased to publish left wing material after the Manchurian Incident, though criticism of government policy on the depression and other issues continued until 1933. See Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 656. Smethurst, Social Basis, p. 36. Fujii, Kokubo fujinkai, pp. 20–3. R.P.Dore, Land Reform in Japan, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 95. Ibid., p. 94; Awaya, ‘Fasshoka’, pp. 286–7; Thomas R.H.Havens, Farm and Nation in Modern Japan: Agrarian Nationalism, 1870–1940, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974, pp. 308–13. Awaya, ‘Fasshoka’, pp. 286–7. Nishida Yoshiaki, ‘Senzen Nihon ni okeru rodo undo, nomin undo no seishitsu’ in Tokyo Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo (ed.), Gendai Nihon shakai, vol. 4: rekishiteki zentei, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991, pp. 263–313. Yamada Morio, ‘Musan nomin wa doko e yuku’, IJ, September 1932, p. 3. Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 747. ‘Kakushu no mondai ni taishi seinen wa sotchoku ni sakebu’, IJ, December 1931. p. 1. IJ, September 1932, p. 1; December 1932, p. 1; August 1933, p. 3; November 1932. p. 1; October 1933, p. 3. IJ, December 1932, p. 3; October 1932, p. 1. Matsui Masao, ‘Iju netsu o aoru’, IJ, May 1932, p. 4. Kimura Tadashi, ‘Dai nikai ireisai ni okeru saibun’, 18 December 1931, in Kimura Tadashi Sensei Koenshu Soncho junen Kankokai (ed. and publ.), Kimura Tadashi sensei koenshu Soncho junen, Sendai, 1937, pp. 166–8. IK, ‘Jiho to seinen no shiko’, IJ, November 1931, p. 1. Komatsu Mitsuo (ed.), Nippon seishin no hatsuyoshi, Nippon shinbun junen kinen; Tokyo, Nippon Shinbunsha, 1934, pp. 141–2; Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 452; Kobayashi, Manshu imin no mura, p. 37. See, for example, Kobayashi, Manshu imin no mura, pp. 36–8; Nishida, Showa kyoko, pp. 460–1. Mori Takemaro, cited in Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, p. 602, implies the same thing. Kase Kazutoshi, ‘Ryo taisenkanki ni okeru nogyo seisaku to nosongawa no taio’ in Rekishigaku Kenkyukai (ed.), Higashi Ajia sekai no saihen to minshu ishiki: 1983nen Rekishigaku kenkyu bessatsu tokushu, nukizuri, Tokyo, Aoki Shoten, 1983, p. 155. See also Kerry Smith, ‘A Time of Crisis’; Havens, Farm and

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82 83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90

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Nation, pp. 149–52; Dore, Land Reform, pp. 98ff; Kobayashi, Manshu imin no mura, pp. 28–41. Mori Takemaro, ‘Nihon fashizumu no keisei to noson keizai kosei undo’, Rekishigaku kenkyu, 1971 special supplement, pp. 135–52, cited in Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, pp. 599–602. The quotations are from Waswo rather than Mori. See Shiro Morita, The Development of Agricultural Co-operative Associations in Japan, Tokyo, Japan FAO Association, 1960, esp. Ch. 1; Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, pp. 598–9. Nishida, Showa kyoko, pp. 453–4. Ibid., p. 453. For Urasato see Kobayashi, Manshu imin no mura, pp. 36–8. For Nishi-shioda see Nishida, Showa kyoko, pp. 454–5. Nishida, Showa kyoko, p. 455; Dore, Land Reform, p. 104. Akabane, ‘Naze seinendan wa yukizumatta ka?’, IJ, April 1933, p. 3. See Ann Waswo, ‘The Origins of Tenant Unrest’ in Bernard S.Silberman and H.D.Harootunian (eds), Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taisho Democracy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974, pp. 374–97; also Ann Waswo, Japanese Landlords: The Decline of a Rural Elite, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1977. Waswo, ‘The Transformation of Rural Society’, pp. 589–90. Vlastos, ‘Was Showa Agrarianism Fascist?’

6

Narratives of struggle Writing and the making of socialist women in Japan Vera Mackie

Women who participated in the socialist movement in early twentieth century Japan were engaged in a threefold process. One task involved the theorisation of the links between socialism and feminism in the context of industrialisation and a political and social system which constituted new groupings on the basis of class and gender. Socialist women also attempted to create organisational structures which could mobilise women effectively in order to address their demands to representatives of capital and the state, in the context of state policies which circumscribed public political activities by women. Finally, socialist women were engaged in a process of forging new identities: their writings were part of the process of imagining new identities for women as workers and as activists. The writings analysed in this chapter come from the years 1904 to 1932, under the political system created through the Meiji Constitution and Civil Code. In the years from 1868 to 1898, Japan had created all of the machinery of a modern nation-state—a constitution, a new legal code, capitalist industry and a modern army and navy. Under this system, the family formed a crucial link in the chain of loyalty from subject to emperor. The most conservative form of samurai-style patriarchal family based on primo-geniture was privileged in the Civil Code of 1898, dressed up in an ideology of ‘good wives and wise mothers’ which idealised women’s contribution to the family.1 Patriarchal authority in the family was linked to imperial authority in the nation-state: the father was responsible for the loyalty of all family members to the state, while the emperor was constructed as national patriarch. While intellectuals discussed ‘good wives and wise mothers’, women comprised at least 60 per cent of the industrial labour force until well into the twentieth century, and other women were engaged in agricultural, domestic or sexual labour. The major export industries—silk, and later cotton—were dependent on the labour of young women from rural areas. Given the numbers of women engaged in factory labour under extreme exploitation, it is hardly surprising that some women rebelled. Labour disputes were recorded as early as the 1880s, in the textile mills which had been established in the 1870s.2

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Both the elite of the new society and their opponents seized on the theories of social Darwinism, liberalism and natural rights theory in order to justify a variety of political positions and decisions. The liberal movement of the 1870s and 1880s provided fertile soil for the germination of both socialist and feminist ideas, as people came to see themselves in new ways—as kokumin (citizens/subjects of the nation), but also in groupings based on class and gender. European socialist works were eagerly read and discussed, interpreted and translated into the Japanese context.3 The first socialist groups were established in the late 1890s, and their members would become leaders in the socialist, anarchist and labour movements of the twentieth century. Women participated in both liberal and socialist organisations, but also came to see themselves as a group with common interests determined by their gender. Several women participated in the liberal movement of the late nineteenth century, travelling round the country on lecture tours, forming women’s groups in local areas, or even, in the case of Kusunose Kita in 1878, demanding voting rights in local assemblies. However, restrictions on women’s political activities under the Public Peace Police Law of 1900 made such public activities more difficult in the twentieth century. The journal Seito provided women with a forum for the exploration of the contradictions of feminine identity between 1911 and 1916, and many women connected with this group went on to engage in various kinds of feminist activism, from suffragism to demands for legislative change to address the specifics of women’s situation. While some of these women engaged with the state in demands for legislation specifically directed at women, socialist women struggled to come to terms with the relationship between class politics and feminist politics.4 Women were active in socialist organisations from the 1900s. They brought a socialist perspective to the woman question through such organisations as the Commoners’ Society (Heiminsha), 5 and through separate groups and journals directed at socialist women. The first of the major labour organisations, the Yuaikai (Friendly Society), was established in 1912, and several union federations were active in the 1920s. In these years, socialist women tried to reach working women through the women’s departments of unions and the women’s leagues affiliated with the left wing political parties which were established after the enactment of universal manhood suffrage in 1925. In Japan, however, there was a distinctive relationship between women and the socialist parties, necessitated by state regulation of women’s political activities. Because Article Five of the Public Peace Police Law (Chian Keisatsu Ho) prevented women from becoming full members of political parties, all of the left wing parties had separate women’s leagues. While this meant that, in practice, the women’s leagues were often subject to the factionalism of the ‘malestream’ parties and union federations, they also gave women a forum for the discussion of issues specific to women.

128 Vera Mackie Given the restrictions on women’s participation in public meetings, writing was an important medium for the dissemination of political ideas to women, 6 although their writing was also subject to monitoring and censorship by the state. It is difficult to follow the progress of socialist and feminist thought through the political repression of the 1930s, but we can say that there was an active tradition of socialist activity by women until the fourth decade of this century. The writings I will be discussing in this chapter come from the participants in some of the organisations mentioned above. In this chapter, I will explore the role of writing in constructing political identities for women involved in the socialist movement. Each of the writings I examine in this chapter is involved in constructing the narrative of a particular kind of political struggle, whether this be an individual struggle, the class struggle or the more concrete struggle of workers involved in a specific strike or campaign.7 I will introduce this discussion with some comments on one socialist woman’s autobiography, before considering the writings of other socialist women. The next section will focus on a manifesto produced by Yamakawa Kikue for the participation of women in an early May Day demonstration. Finally I will consider a fictionalised account of women workers’ engagement with union politics, Nakamoto Takako’s ‘Number Two Tokyo Muslin Factory’. Each of these writings can tell us something about women as political actors in early twentieth century Japan. I see these texts as attempting to create a new subjectivity for women, which could include political activism, using the constraints and possibilities of particular generic forms. FUKUDA HIDEKO’S STRUGGLE In 1904, Fukuda Hideko8 published her autobiography Warawa no hanseigai (My Life so Far).9 Fukuda had been involved in the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement (Jiyu Minken Undo)—the movement for parliamentary democracy in the nineteenth century, which had provided the context for the initial development of socialist and feminist ideas. She had also been involved in the Osaka Incident in the 1880s—a plan to send arms to Korea for the cause of Korean independence.10 Fukuda was imprisoned on this charge but released on the occasion of the 1889 amnesty on the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution. By the time Fukuda wrote her autobiography in 1904, she had come into contact with the Commoners’ Society, an early socialist organisation. Later, she was to edit an important socialist women’s newspaper Sekai fujin (Women of the World).11 Thus, it is possible to use Fukuda’s account of her life to trace aspects of the early development of a feminist consciousness in Meiji Japan, to consider the connections and disjunctions between liberalism, socialism and feminism in the Japanese context and to see this text as an important attempt by a woman to write herself as a political agent.

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Fukuda, like other socialists of the early decades of the twentieth century, would also try her hand at fiction. Her novel Warawa no omoide (My Memories) appeared in 1905. In the novel, the story of an activist with some similarities to Fukuda herself is overlaid with a conventional romantic plot structure and all contradictions are resolved in a marriage which neatly sidesteps the contradictions between the patriarchal family system and modern notions of romantic love and companionate marriage. 12 The autobiography, however, is a much more open-ended text, engaging in complex ways with the contradictory position of the woman activist. Warawa no hanseigai has been described as ‘the first woman’s autobiography’ in modern Japan.13 Although there is room for discussion about the definition of autobiography in early twentieth century Japan, we can take the point that this was considered to be an important and distinctive text in the Japan of 1904.14 While it is possible to search for precursors of this autobiography within the Japanese and the European traditions, it may be more fruitful to place Fukuda’s autobiography in the context of other genres of socialist writing. For example, the publications of the Commoners’ Society regularly included statements by socialists on their awakening to socialist ideals, under the generic title ‘How I Became a Socialist’. 15 Fukuda’s autobiography may be seen as an extended answer to this question. After an introduction which explains her reasons for writing this text, the narrative opens with an account of Fukuda as an exemplary student. However, it soon becomes apparent that her girlhood was marked by an intense ambivalence about the conventions of femininity, a recurrent theme in her text. Although she was praised by parents and educational authorities for her academic ability, other young people scorned her because of her tomboyishness, as until her late teens she wore her hair short and dressed in masculine style. In her retelling of her classmates’ taunting, Fukuda presents the ambivalence of the young woman who found scholarship more important than the conventions of femininity, but also relates her eventual submission to the disciplines of tea ceremony and flower arranging prescribed by her mother.16 However, despite her ironic distance from the young tomboy, the conundrum of gender identity is a recurrent theme in this text. Fukuda attempts to come to terms with the experience of a sexed body and to reconcile the contradictory identities of ‘woman’ and ‘political activist’. For any activist in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan, there was the problem of the lack of suitable models for political activity— particularly oppositional political activity. This was true for both male and female activists. The most vivid image of a political activist was the shishi— samurai who had overthrown the military government of the shoguns and engineered the restoration of the authority of the emperor in the 1860s. Although male activists could identify with the bravery and resolution of the shishi, the connection with samurai values and the Restoration of imperial

130 Vera Mackie authority meant that the shishi was an ambivalent symbol for male socialist activists.17 This was even more true for a woman activist of the time. Fukuda’s description of her own political activity and interests certainly makes use of the implicitly masculine language of bravery, resolution, and determination, but her identification with the shishi can never be complete. She refers to her younger self as a jo-shishi or female shishi, At that time, I and others explained my actions on the grounds that I was a female patriot—like the shishi of the Restoration.18 She also justifies her actions on patriotic grounds, Even I, a woman, would never as long as I lived, give up the idea that I was acting for the country, and it was this one idea which guided me.19 She explains that, although the issue which prompted her political activity was the issue of Korean independence, her feelings of injustice also focused on the lack of political rights for the majority of Japanese people, and the inequalities between men and women in Japanese society.20 Fukuda eventually, however, distances herself from an identification with masculine models of political activity, and even asserts women’s moral superiority over men who betray their ideals in various ways. Her comrades, for example, frequented brothels in the midst of a political crisis, and this is one of the incidents which prompted her own disillusion with the liberal movement.21 Fukuda is, nevertheless, still conscious of the tension involved in being a woman, but also trying to be politically active. She constantly refers to the fact that she is a woman, Even I, a woman, swore that I would not give up until I had found a way of getting rid of such bad government and evil laws [emphasis added]. 22 At other times it is the supposed weakness of the female body she refers to, Even though I may have a weak body, when it conies to patriotic fervour, I am second to no man [emphasis added]. 23 This invocation of the weakness of the female body is more than a conventional rhetorical flourish, for her account of her political development is also punctuated by accounts of physical developments: the late onset of menstruation, and the physical manifestations of her first pregnancy.24 The account of her physical maturation is followed by a discussion of the qualities of her ‘ideal husband’. According to the structure of her autobiographical text, physical maturation prefigures an interest in romantic matters. This does not, however, eclipse her political ideals. She had thought that her ideal husband should be ‘a great man, with a distinguished reputation’, 25 and had first become interested in her fiancé Kobayashi because of shared political ideals.26 In her account of ‘becoming a mother’,27 however, it is the physical manifestations of her condition that she initially

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dwells on, before recounting the difficulties of her common-law relationship with her lover Oi Kentaro. Relationships with several men are discussed in the pages of Warawa no hanseigai—her fiancé Kobayashi Kusuo, her first lover Oi Kentaro and her husband Fukuda Tomosaku. However, much of the emotional intensity of the autobiography is reserved for Fukuda’s female friends. Her friendship with another young woman, Tomii Otora,28 when she first comes to Tokyo, and her relationship with another woman prisoner after the Osaka Incident are described in some detail, and there are also some significant encounters with women from other classes. Fukuda, despite her professed belief in socialism, could not immediately transcend the class differences between women which seemed ‘natural’ to her and other elite women. While Fukuda feels solidarity with women from a similar class background, in relationships with women of other classes she is presented as the benevolent provider of charity, knowledge, or educational assistance. A description of an encounter with a female beggar is an opportunity to display Fukuda’s benevolence and sensibility, but the female beggar also serves as an image which can express Fukuda’s own feelings of loneliness and pathos, when she is left alone in an inn while her male comrades visit tea houses. In her relationship with the beggar woman the barriers between women of different classes are preserved. An inn keeper’s comments on the suitability of contacts between the respectable lady and the beggar woman are presented without comment or disclaimer: The landlady stopped me and said, ‘Was it you who gave some money to a beggar woman?’ When I nodded, she said, ‘A moment ago the woman with a child on her back came here with tears in her eyes, saying that a woman guest had thrown some money to her and she had come to thank her. She asked me for your name. I didn’t think it was wise to let a beggar have your name, so I told her I would convey her message to you, and sent her off…. ‘Only later—like a scene from a novel—would I again meet this beggar woman where I least expected to.29 The ensuing reunion, which occurs in prison in Osaka, is indeed novelistic in Fukuda’s handling of the coincidence and in her description of the pathos of the beggar woman’s situation. 30 Such scenes reflect the careful construction of her text, whereby episodes are juxtaposed for maximum dramatic effect rather than following a simple temporal sequence. The text closes with a plan to educate women for self-sufficiency. The relationship between education, work, and women’s independence is a theme which recurs throughout Fukuda’s autobiography, as several other commentators have noted.31 For Fukuda herself, work primarily meant intellectual labour as a teacher, writer, and editor. While arguing for women’s economic independence through productive labour, she speaks from the position of a relatively privileged intellectual. In her plans for

132 Vera Mackie teaching women self-sufficiency, she generally focuses on manual labour such as sewing or handicrafts, noting that, while there has been an expansion in education for women, existing forms of women’s education generally fail to contribute to women’s self-sufficiency. However, while arguing for a change in the economic determinants of relationships between men and women, her view of women’s work is shaped by dominant constructions of class and gender in Meiji Japan. Her proposal is to teach women to produce embroidered silk handkerchiefs for export.32 Thus, Warawa no hanseigai portrays one woman’s ambivalence about accepted notions of gender identity, and this ambivalence about femininity shaped her vision of possible forms of political activity. Although she takes an oppositional stance in identifying herself as a socialist, her understandings of political strategies are shaped by existing constructions of gender and class. At this stage there is no clear espousal of a socialist philosophy. Rather, the language of socialist rhetoric becomes apparent. In addition to complaints about the repressive power of the Meiji state, she now sees capitalists and imperialists as her enemies. Fukuda vows to ‘oppose the monopoly of capital’33 and says that she ‘abhors the words of the imperialists who are bent on their own self interest and personal gain’.34 In 1904, socialist thought was still in its earliest days in Japan, and socialist women had not yet articulated a clear philosophy. Some of the issues of concern to socialist women were to be addressed in a variety of genres of writing by socialist women. But the problem of how to be a woman and a political activist at the same time was to be addressed in various ways over the next three decades. Fukuda came to political maturity at a time when discussion of liberalism was flourishing in Japanese society, and the development of capitalist relations was accompanied by the development of modern notions of individualism. Although the Meiji state failed to embrace liberal ideas in any real sense, the discourses on liberalism and individualism were meaningful to the intellectuals of early twentieth century Japan, and these ideas were reflected in the development of new genres of fiction, autobiography and political writings. Autobiography is a genre which has been linked with modern notions of individualism in the European context, and it is perhaps unsurprising that we should see the development of this genre in Meiji Japan. A similar conjunction between modernity and the development of the autobiographical genre has been noted in other national contexts.35 Fukuda’s autobiography vividly dramatises Simone de Beauvoir’s insight that one is not born a woman, but ‘becomes’ a woman. For Fukuda, ‘becoming a woman’ was a constant struggle with expectations of feminine gender identity.36 Fukuda also, however, aspired to the identity of ‘activist’, seen to be incompatible with femininity. Her autobiography may be seen as an attempt to resolve the tension between becoming a woman and aspiring to a modern notion of selfhood which could include participation in public political activity.37 Despite her expressed commitment to socialist ideals, the

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writing of this autobiography may be seen as a liberal gesture—displaying an implicit faith in individualism. This may seem inappropriate for a professed socialist, but in fact reflects the tenor of socialism in Japan in the first decade of the twentieth century. The liberal roots of the early socialist views of the woman question became apparent in the first public campaign by socialist women. Fukuda Hideko and her colleagues from the Commoners’ Society carried out a campaign for the repeal of those articles of the Public Peace Police Law which prevented women from engaging in public political activity. Liberal demands were matched by liberal political strategies, as these women wrote essays in socialist publications, lobbied politicians, collected signatures and presented petitions to the Diet.38 At this stage, there was little sense of the potential for conflict between the ideals of socialism and the ideals of feminism, in accord with the broadly humanist emphasis of Japanese socialists in the 1900s. Other writings of socialist women would also grapple with questions of gender identity, and would attempt to address the issue of class consciousness with varying degrees of success. What is implicit in these writings is the search for a ‘speaking position’ from which to articulate an identity as woman and as activist. According to the dominant discourses on women in Meiji Japan, women were positioned as imperial subjects, as wives and as mothers. Women as imperial subjects were seen as being subject to father, husband and emperor. Although they were prevented from public political participation, the sphere of the family was explicitly politicised and women could support state aims through reproductive labour, domestic labour and patriotic activities. Although the imagery of ‘good wives and wise mothers’ could be used to contain women’s public activities, many women attempted to use the speaking position of ‘mother’ to gain a political voice. As ‘mothers’ they carried out charitable activities, spoke out against the sexual double standard and spoke out against militarism. However, this was an ambiguous stance to take, as the imagery of motherhood could also be co-opted for nationalist and militarist ends.39 However, the reality for most women was that they were engaged in various kinds of labour—domestic labour, agricultural labour, factory labour or sexual labour. Was it, then, possible for women to speak as ‘workers’? In the next two sections of this chapter I will discuss the disjunction between being a ‘woman’ and being a ‘worker’, and the gendered construction of work and class consciousness, as found in the writings of two other socialist women. The tensions generated by the disjunctions between the positions of ‘woman’ and ‘worker’ led many women to political activism, which returns us to the underlying problematic of this Chapter. How was it possible for a woman to write from the position of political activist?

134 Vera Mackie YAMAKAWA KIKUE AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE By the 1920s, socialists were active in a range of union organisations, and were preparing for the creation of proletarian political parties. From 1920, Japanese socialists celebrated May Day in public marches. At the second May Day march in 1921 socialist women participated for the first time, and this was one of the first activities of the socialist women’s group, the Sekirankai or Red Wave Society.40 The socialists carried out their activities in parallel with the liberal feminists of the New Women’s Association (Shin Fujin Kyokai) who continued to argue for women’s rights to participate in political discussions and political activities. Eventually, Article Five of the Public Peace Police Law was modified in 1922, although Japanese women did not achieve voting rights until after the Second World War.41 In preparation for May Day 1921, the Sekirankai Manifesto was composed by Yamakawa Kikue, one of the major theorists of the socialist movement.42 The manifesto, which exhorted women to participate in May Day and join the socialist movement, was distributed as a leaflet.43 This was seventeen years after the publication of the autobiography of the pioneer socialist woman Fukuda Hideko, and demonstrates a willingness to consider the relevance of the class struggle to women. In the Sekirankai manifesto Yamakawa Kikue employs the language of class struggle and invokes the memory of the Russian Revolution which had occurred just a few years before: May Day is the day for the proletarians, for workers who are oppressed. For centuries and centuries, women and workers have endured together a history of oppression and ignorance. But the dawn is approaching. The morning gong that was struck in Russia signals the first step in the victory that will minute by minute banish the darkness of capitalism from the face of the earth. Sisters, listen to the power of women that is embodied in the sound of the gong. Let us exert the utmost of our strength and, together with our brothers, strike the gong that will signal the liberation of the proletariat of Japan. Women who have been awakened, join the May Day march!44 In other contexts, Yamakawa wrote articles on the theoretical issues involved in applying socialism to the situation of women in Japanese society. The Sekirankai Manifesto, however, is an exhortation to action, designed to inspire ‘awakened women’ to march with their sisters and comrades. The Sekirankai is a women’s organisation that plans to participate in the enterprise to destroy the capitalist society and build a socialist society. The capitalist society turns us into slaves at home and oppresses us as wage slaves outside the home. This is a society which has driven many of our sisters into prostitution, and for the sake of its own aggressive ambitions has taken away our beloved fathers, lovers, children and

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brothers—a society which for the sake of its own greedy profiteers, greets the proletariat of other countries with artillery and slaughter…45 The manifesto also, however, implies particular understandings of the relationship between individual and state, and the possibilities for political transformation. The stated enemy is ‘capitalist society’ (shihonshugi shakai), rather than individual males, patriarchy, individual capitalists, or the state as an autonomous entity. Exploitation under capitalist society is seen in gendered terms. Women are not only ‘wage slaves’, but are also exploited as ‘slaves at home’. In addition, exploitation takes on a corporeal dimension, as women are forced into prostitution, while men are forced into military service. However, it is also possible to argue that feminist struggle has here been assimilated into the class struggle, with ‘women and workers’ united in a common struggle: The Sekirankai declares all-out war on this cruel, shameless society. Women who wish to be liberated, join the Sekirankai. Socialism offers the only way to save humankind from the oppressions and abuses of capitalism. Sisters, who love justice and humanity, join the socialist movement!46 Similarly, the evocation of class consciousness may be seen as being somewhat ritualistic. It is hard to escape the feeling that Yamakawa’s belief in class consciousness is a matter of faith, rather than a keenly felt identity with the needs of male and female workers. As in Fukuda’s writings, there is a sense of distance from the concrete struggles of working people.47 While the logic of Fukuda’s text was that of liberal individualism (despite her protestations of faith in socialism), the logic of Yamakawa’s manifesto is that of class struggle. Women are addressed as a unified group and exhorted to action as a group: militant action alongside their male comrades. The women who participated in this demonstration also shared with their male comrades the experience of repression. Several of the women were arrested and charged with distributing an unauthorised publication. Yamakawa was aware of possible conflicts between the goals of the class struggle and the goals of feminism, and devoted much of her energy to the theorisation of the relationship between socialism and the ‘woman question’. From 1918, she engaged in the well-documented ‘motherhood protection debate’ which was so important in delineating the differences between liberal, socialist and maternalist feminist views of the relationship between individual, family and state.48 In the 1920s, she argued for the creation of a women’s division in the left wing Hyogikai union federation, and argued for policies to address ‘women’s special needs’, as workers who were also responsible for reproductive labour.49 By the late 1920s, women workers were involved in disputes where they demanded better working conditions, freedom from the oppressive dormitory system,

136 Vera Mackie enactment of the prohibition of night work for women and paid maternity leave and menstruation leave. Participation in political struggles by women, however, necessitated a fundamental shift in subjectivity, and writings by and about women in the labour movement were explicitly and implicitly engaged in facilitating this shift in subjectivity. Some writers turned to fictional genres of writing, but focused on questions close to the lives of women workers, and close to the aspirations of potential activists. Initially, such writings simply documented exploitation and oppression, for recognising oppression was a necessary precursor to political action. Other writings, however, documented the hurdles which had to be overcome by aspiring activists: venturing into public space to sell publications, distribute pamphlets or spread posters; giving a speech for the first time; dealing with police surveillance, arrest or imprisonment; or confronting management through meetings, picketing and strikes. Let us now turn to the narrative of a more specific struggle: Nakamoto Takako’s fictionalised account of the working lives of women at a Tokyo textile mill. Where Yamakawa Kikue had addressed the meaning of the class struggle for women in rather abstract terms, Nakamoto documented the meanings of engaging in the class struggle for individual women. By the time Nakamoto was writing, there were three major union federations which each supported an affiliated political party. Each union had a women’s division and each political party had an affiliated women’s league. The factional splits between these organisations form a backdrop for the struggles of the women workers.50 NAKAMOTO TAKAKO AND THE WORKING WOMEN’S STRUGGLE Nakamoto Takako was closely connected with the labour movement and later with the underground communist movement, through her supportive activities as ‘sympathiser’ to Party members. From 1929 she lived and worked in the Kameido region of Tokyo, close to the Labour Women’s Night School (Rodo Jojuku) run by Orimoto [Tatewaki] Sadayo.51 Nakamoto was arrested in 1930, just before the infamous Toyo Muslin strike, which culminated in the ‘street war’ between workers and hired gangs.52 Her story ‘The Number Two Tokyo Muslin Factory’, which was serialised in the left wing women’s arts journal Nyonin geijutsu from January to June 1932,53 portrays the changing consciousness of a group of women workers in a factory in the Kameido region of Tokyo, their developing militancy guided by a labour organiser.54 The first sections of the story document the exploitative conditions suffered by the women workers, commencing with a detailed account of the working day of the factory women, including the inadequate meals, victimisation by supervisors, and the compulsory ‘education’ session at

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night, where the workers are fed propaganda about the benevolence of the company. Although the activities of a group of women workers are described, most of the events of this day are mediated through the consciousness of one worker, who has difficulty getting through the day due to illness, and will subsequently be sent home to die.55 The next day dawns and the narrator takes us round each section of the factory, describing each monotonous job, and the division of labour between male and female factory operatives. The omniscient narrator has access to the subjectivity of each woman worker, and through a series of vignettes, issues of health and safety,56 sexual harassment,57 and exploitative working conditions are dramatised. The next day is Sunday and some workers are able to rest for part of the day. Nakamoto now describes the fearful conditions of the night shift, where the factory girls are frightened that some dreadful creature will appear from the shadows, while on rainy nights the sound of the rain competes with the howling of the machines.58 Part Two introduces a new dormitory supervisor, Ushiyama Chie, and the factory women’s developing relationship with this most unusual woman, who turns out to be a labour organiser. Ushiyama and the factory girls exchange life stories. Ushiyama, a graduate of a girls’ high school and college, tells how she remembered the kindness of some factory workers when she was younger. Although she initially became a teacher on graduation, she decided to work for the factory women when the dormitory opposite her school burnt down and one of the factory girls died. She was, however, sacked from her previous job in Osaka when she was caught reading Marxist literature. She then moved to Tokyo.59 Gradually the women come to trust Ushiyama, and she explains how the union may help them with demands to improve their working conditions.60 Nakamoto traces the process whereby a group of atomised individuals come to see themselves as a group with common interests which can form the basis for group action. A scene where the women workers attend a secret meeting with male workers demonstrates that solidarity between male and female workers must be imagined and achieved, rather than arising naturally out of a common experience of exploitation. The protagonist of this section, Katsu, makes sense of her fascination with the charismatic male union leader Toda through the analogy of her sisterly feelings towards her own brother: Why did this man’s voice strike at her heart in such a way? Katsu repeated Toda’s words to herself. ‘Hey, sisters, is everything all right?’, he had called out. He had called us sisters. This unknown man. Brother. Worker. Katsu thought of her own brother who worked in a timber yard in Fukagawa. How wonderful—brothers and sisters! When did we become brothers and sisters with these other workers?61

138 Vera Mackie In this text Nakamoto is quite self-conscious about the politics of writing and artistic production. The women workers’ dissatisfactions take on a new meaning when they are recounted in the union newspaper.62 In Part Four the women apparently learn about the theories and factions of the left wing movement, but this section is heavily censored.63 Eventually, after some false starts they resolve to take action. The following scene traces the shift in their subjectivity: We often complain privately. And we think seriously about getting our conditions improved. However, we crumple when we have to come forward, because we have had no experience of disputes until now. We just whispered in the shadows. If we don’t solve our situation, who will do it for us? It’s no use waiting on the person next to you. When has anyone else ever done the slightest little thing to help us? No one has!’ The women were silent, deep in thought. Outside, the sky suddenly cleared, and a warm shaft of light came through a gap in the paper blinds. Ushiyama broke the silence…. 64 These scenes demonstrate that class consciousness does not develop naturally from the experience of being a worker, but must be achieved through discussion and action. Nakamoto also portrays the factory women attending a play performed by a proletarian theatre group, which contributes to their developing political consciousness.65 In Part Six, once again heavily censored, the women attend a union meeting and voice their dissatisfactions aloud, no longer whispering in the shadows.66 Women from each section of the factory stated their own complaints and dissatisfactions and heard the others, and in this way gained courage. A feeling of resistance welled up in their bellies, and they clearly understood their connectedness with each other. Their eyes had been opened to a wider field of vision.67 Eventually a group of women march on the factory office, and demand improvement in their conditions. The novel was never completed, so we never see a portrayal of the strike activity which would be the culmination of the women’s growing militancy. However, the novel does portray the process whereby the women are transformed from atomised, frightened individuals to a group of women who recognise their interests as women of the working-class. It would be easy to romanticise Nakamoto’s unfinished novel, to argue that the incompleteness of the text reflects the process of the women activists’ shifting subjectivity and consciousness, a process which can never be completed. However, the reason for the non-completion of Nakamoto’s novel was the closure of the left-wing women’s arts journal. The author

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wrote her novel in between periods of imprisonment, resulting from charges related to her support for the underground communist movement, and periods of confinement in a mental hospital. Thus, while such committed writers and their publications did provide a space for contesting accepted representations of women, they also came up against the limits of acceptable public discourse in the increasingly militarised society of 1930s Japan. CONCLUSION For Fukuda Hideko, Yamakawa Kikue, and Nakamoto Takako, writing was part of the process of forging ‘new political identities’ for women, ‘a space for struggle and contestation about reality itself’,68 in texts shaped by the generic constraints and possibilities of particular types of political writing.69 Fukuda Hideko had used the genre of autobiography to dramatise the struggle of one woman to become a political activist. The genre of autobiography was appropriate for the narration of this individual struggle, but less effective in discussion of theoretical issues or in portraying group struggle. Yamakawa Kikue used the manifesto to focus on the meaning of the class struggle for women, and to foster feelings of solidarity with other working women and men. Nakamoto Takako’s novel uses the fictional genre to dramatise the changing subjectivities of a group of women workers, the device of the omniscient narrator allowing her access to the transformation from individual feelings of helplessness to a recognition of shared oppression and exploitation which formed the basis for a gendered form of class consciousness. This consciousness was seen to be necessary for participation in union activity. While Yamakawa’s manifesto had addressed an already constituted group of ‘awakened women’, Nakamoto traced the process of awakening. Where Fukuda Hideko’s autobiography had traced the awakening of one woman to political consciousness, Nakamoto narrated the process whereby a group of atomised individuals came to see themselves as a group with common interests which formed the basis for shared political action. The extended narrative of the serialised novel plotted the steps in their awakening consciousness, but was less effective in the presentation of theoretical issues, which tended to slow the momentum of the narrative. Each of the texts analysed in this chapter contributed to the formation of a new subjectivity for women, which could include political activism. Each text exploited the possibilities of a particular literary genre and some attempted to go beyond the limitations of the genre. Fukuda’s autobiography not only brought together the private world of personal relationships with the public world of political activism, but included specifically female experiences of embodiment. Nakamoto Takako’s serialised novel focused on the forging of a group identity rather than the individualised subjectivity which was often the focus of the novelistic genre.

140 Vera Mackie From the 1900s to the 1930s, the process of creating a movement of women who saw themselves as ‘socialist women’ involved theorisation of the meaning of socialism for women and the relationship between socialism and feminism, the formation of political organisations which could mobilise these women, and the imagination of new identities and new possibilities for political action. Writers and activists were interested in forging a form of class consciousness which could unite men and women, working-class and intelligentsia, in a common struggle against capital and state. The autobiography of Fukuda Hideko, Yamakawa Kikue’s Sekirankai Manifesto, and Nakamoto Takako’s serialised novel each contributed to the process of imagining women in new ways. In their lives these women tested the limits of acceptable behaviour in imperial Japan, while their writings provided new ways of imagining the possibilities for women’s activism. NOTES 1 Takamure Itsue, Josei no rekishi, vol. 2, Tokyo, Kodansha Bunko, 1972, pp. 79– 83. 2 For discussion of these early disputes, see E.P.Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 50–8, pp. 112–20. 3 On socialism in Japan before the Second World War, see: George Totten, The Social Democratic Movement in Prewar Japan, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1966 and John Crump, The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan, London, Croom Helm, 1983. Studies of the labour movement include: Stephen S.Large, The Rise of Labour in Japan: The Yuaikai 1912–1919, Tokyo, Sophia University Press, 1972; Stephen S.Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981; Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labour Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry 1853–1955, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1985; Andrew Gordon, Labour and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan, Berkeley, University of California, 1991; Sheldon Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987; Hyman Kublin, Asian Revolutionary: The Life of Sen Katayama, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1964; F.G.Notehelfer, Kotoku Shusui: Portrait of A Japanese Radical, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971; Gail Lee Bernstein, Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime 1879–1946, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1978; George Beckmann and Okubo Genji, The Japanese Communist Party 1922–1945, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1969; Germaine Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Prewar Japan, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1986. 4 On the beginnings of feminist thought in Japan, see Sharon L.Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1983, passim; Vera Mackie, ‘Feminist Politics in Japan’, New Left Review, Jan.-Feb. 1988, no. 167, pp. 53–76; Vera Mackie, ‘Feminist Critiques of Modern Japanese Politics’ in Monica Threlfall (ed.), Mapping the Women’s Movement: Feminist Politics and Social Transformation in the North, London, Verso, 1996, pp. 260–6. 5 On the participation of women in the Heiminsha, see: Suzuki Yuko (ed.), Shiryo: Heiminsha no onnatachi, Tokyo, Fuji Shuppan, 1986; Nishikawa Fumiko,

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Heiminsha no onna: Nishikawa Fumiko jiden, Tokyo, Aoyama-kan, 1984, edited by Amano Shigeru, pp. 56–75; Murata Shizuko, Fukuda Hideko, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1959, pp. 100–07; Oki Motoko, ‘Meiji shakaishugi undo to josei’, in Joseishi Sogo Kenkyukai (eds), Nihon josei shi, vol. 4: Kindai, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1990, pp. 115–48; Sievers, Flowers in Salt, pp. 114–38; Vera Mackie, Creating Socialist Women in Japan: Gender, Labour and Activism, 1900–1937, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Chapter 3. On the importance of writing in imagining new possibilities for women activists in another national context, see, for example, Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz (eds), Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930–1940, New York, The Feminist Press, 1987. The phrase ‘narratives of struggle’ comes from an article by bell hooks, ‘Narratives of Struggle’ in Philomena Mariani (ed.), Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing, Seattle, Bay Press, 1991, pp. 53–61. Her family name before her marriage to Fukuda Tomosaku was Kageyama, and she was known by this name at the time of the Osaka Incident, but because she published her autobiography under the name of Fukuda Hideko, and used this name for the rest of her life, I will use this name to refer to her below. For biographical details of Fukuda’s life, see: Murata, Fukuda Hideko; Itoya Toshio, Josei kaiho no senkushatachi, Tokyo, Shimizu Shoin, 1975; Sievers, Flowers in Salt, Chapters 3 and 6; Sharlie Conroy Ushioda, ‘Women and War in Meiji Japan: The Case Of Fukuda Hideko, Peace and Change, Fall 1977, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 9–12; Sharlie Conroy Ushioda, ‘Fukuda Hideko and the Women’s World of Meiji Japan’ in Hilary Conroy, et al. (eds), Japan in Transition: Thought and Action in the Meiji Era, Cranbury, New Jersey, Associated University Presses, 1984, pp. 276–93; Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chs 1 and 2. I will be referring to the following edition of Fukuda’s autobiography: Fukuda Hideko, Warawa no hanseigai, Tokyo: Iwanami Bunko, 1958. Translations are my own unless stated otherwise. On the Osaka Incident, see Marius Jansen, ‘Oi Kentaro: Radicalism and Chauvinism’, Far Eastern Quarterly, May 1952, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 305–16. Sekai fujin appeared from 1907 to 1909. Fukuda Hideko, Warawa no omoide, Tokyo, 1905 reprinted in Odagiri Susumu (ed.), Meiji bungaku shu, vol. 84: Meiji shakaishugi bungaku shu 2, Tokyo, Chikuma Shobo, 1965; also discussed in Ushioda, ‘Women and War in Meiji Japan’, pp. 9–12; Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapter 3. See Mikiso Hane, Reflections on the Way to the Gallows, Berkeley, University of California, 1988, p. 29. Other feminist activists refer to reading Fukuda’s autobiography. See Nishikawa Fumiko, Heiminsha no onna, p. 184. Fukuda’s autobiography was obviously popular as it ran to several editions. A publisher’s advertisement in Sekai fujin in 1907 notes that the book is already in its fifth reprinting, and describes the book in the following terms: ‘The heroic woman Kageyama Hideko, who participated in the famous Osaka Incident with Oi Kentaro and others, is the author of this book. How did she become renowned in her youth as a literary woman in her home town? How did she come to be involved in the Osaka treason trial? How did she spend her three years in prison? How did she part from her lover and come to know her husband? What kind of life did she lead as a wife in extreme poverty, as a loving mother in grief, and as a widow with many regrets? This book describes the vicissitudes and changes, the complications and entanglements of this great tragedy.’ Sekai fujin, no. 3, p. 8 (Facsimile edition, Tokyo, Ryukei Shosha, p. 74). Several of these statements from the weekly Heimin shinbun are collected in Odagiri (ed.), Meiji shakaishugi, pp. 389–92. For some later statements by

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women in the journal Chokugen, see Suzuki Yuko (ed.), Shiryo: Heiminsha, p. 72–4; Nishikawa, Heiminsha no onna, pp. 209–10. Such statements were also found in British socialist writing, and the genre can perhaps be traced back to the tradition of narratives of religious conversion. See Stephen Yeo, ‘A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883–1896’, History Workshop, Autumn, 1977, no. 4, pp. 11–12; Carolyn Steedman, ‘Women’s Biography and Autobiography: Forms of History and Histories of Form’ in Helen Carr (ed.), From My Guy to Sci-Fi: Genre and Women’s Writing in the Postmodern World, London, Pandora, 1989, p. 108. Fukuda, Warawa no hanseigai, p. 14. This is not to suggest that Fukuda’s mother simply pressured her to conform. Fukuda’s mother was a respected teacher and scholar in her own right, and was largely responsible for Fukuda’s education—the means by which Fukuda was able to gain a measure of independence. For a discussion of anarchist Kotoku Shusui’s identification with the shishi ideal, see F.G.Notehelfer, Kotoku Shusui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 27–30. Fukuda, Warawa no hanseigai, p. 20. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 21–4. See Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 26. Discussed in more detail in Vera Mackie, ‘“In A Woman’s Body”: Gender and Activism in Meiji Japan’, in Freda Freiberg and Vera Mackie (eds), ReOrienting the Body, forthcoming. Fukuda, Warawa no hanseigai, p. 52. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., pp. 74–8. For biographical details of Tomii, another woman who had been inspired by the example of liberal feminist Kishida Toshiko, see Sievers, Flowers in Salt, p. 36. Hane, Reflections on the Way to the Gallows, p. 39. Fukuda, Warawa no hanseigai, pp. 37–40. Ushioda, ‘Fukuda Hideko and the Women’s World’; Sievers, Flowers in Salt, Chapter 6. Fukuda, Warawa no hanseigai, pp. 94–5. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., p. 20. Rey Chow, Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between East and West, Minnesota, University of Minnesota, 1991, pp. 92–3; Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for Indian Pasts?’, Representations, 1992, vol. 37, pp. 161–85. See Valerie Walkerdine’s discussion of the ‘struggle to become [a] subject’. Valerie Walkerdine, ‘Video Replay: Families, Films and Fantasy’ in Victor Burgin et al. (eds), Formations of Fantasy, London, Methuen, 1986, p. 194; cited in Sidonie Smith, Subjectivity, Identity and the Body: Women’s Autobiographical Practices in the Twentieth Century, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993, p. 4. Sidonie Smith, in A Poetics of Women’s Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1987, discusses the relationship between autobiography and liberal individualism, and the contradictions involved in women’s writing of autobiography and aspiring to the ideals of liberal individualism.

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For accounts of this campaign, see: Kodama Katsuko, ‘Heiminsha no fujintachi ni yoru Chian Keisatsu Ho kaisei seigan undo ni tsuite’, Rekishi hyoron, 1977, no. 323; Kodama Katsuko, Fujin sanseiken undo shoshi, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1981, pp. 29–34; Suzuki, Shiryo: Heiminsha, pp. 14–16; Miki Sukako, ‘Meiji no fujin zasshi o tadoru’, pp. 86–90; Sievers, Flowers in Salt, pp. 122– 34; Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapter 3. Relevant documents are reproduced in: Ichikawa Fusae (ed.), Nihon fujin mondai shiryo shusei, vol. 2, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1977, pp. 131–220; relevant documents from the socialist press are reproduced in Suzuki, Shiryo: Heiminsha, pp. 291–303. See Vera Mackie, ‘Motherhood and Pacifism in Japan: 1900–1937’, Hecate, 1988, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 28–49. For the development of the Sekirankai, see Ezashi Akiko, Sameyo onnatachi, Tokyo, Otsuki Shoten, 1980, and statements by Sekirankai members in Watanabe Etsuji and Suzuki Yuko (eds), Tatakai ni ikite, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1980; Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Ch. 5. While some commentators attribute this modification to the success of campaigns by the ‘new women’, others emphasise the ways in which government agencies sought to mobilise women more effectively in support of state aims. See Sheldon Garon, ‘Women’s Groups and the Japanese State: Contending Approaches to Political Integration, 1890–1945’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 1993, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 5–41. For a discussion of Yamakawa Kikue’s life and work, see Jennifer Shapcott, ‘The Red Chrysanthemum: Yamakawa Kikue and the Socialist Women’s Movement in Pre-war Japan’, Papers on Far Eastern History, March 1987, no. 35, pp. 1–30. See Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapter 5, for further details. ‘Fujin ni gekisu’, held in Ohara Social Research Institute, reproduced in Ezashi, Sameyo onnatachi, pp. 23–4; Kondo Magara, Watashi no kaiso, vol. 2, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1981, pp. 58–9; translation in Shapcott, ‘The Red Chrysanthemum’, p. 13. Note the use of the metaphor of ‘the dawn’ of socialism, a convention from European socialist writing which was also regularly employed in the Japanese context. Such metaphors are discussed in more detail in Vera Mackie, Imagining Liberation: Feminism and Socialism in Early Twentieth Century Japan, Working Papers in Women’s Studies, Feminist Cultural Studies Series, no. 1, Sydney, University of Western Sydney: Nepean, 1995. Shapcott, ‘The Red Chrysanthemum’, p. 13. Ibid., p. 13. Yamakawa’s ambivalent attitude to working women is apparent in an earlier article, Yamakawa Kikue, ‘Rodo fujin no genzai to sono shorai’, Nihon hyoron, February 1919, reprinted in Yamakawa’s book, Onna no tachiba kara, under the title ‘Rodo kaikyu no shimai e’. This version is reproduced in Suzuki Yuko (ed.), Josei: Hangyaku to kakumei to teiko to, Tokyo, Shakai Hyoronsha, 1990, pp. 54–9; discussed in more detail in Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapter 5. This debate is surveyed in: Maruoka Hideko, Fujin shiso keisei shi noto, vol. 1, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1975, pp. 105–27; Kouchi Nobuko, ‘“Bosei hogo ronso” no Rekishiteki igi: “ronso” kara “undo” e no tsunagari’, Rekishi Hyoron, November 1966, no. 195, pp. 28–41; Kouchi Nobuko, ‘Kaidai’ in Kouchi Nobuko (ed.), Shiryo: Bosei hogo ronso, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1984, pp. 289–320; Sakurai Kinue, Bosei hogo undoshi, pp. 48–52; Kanatani Chieko, ‘Ima bosei hogo ronso o toinaoshi: Yosano Akiko kara manabu mono’, Onna to otoko no joseiron, no. 7, 1991, pp. 28–45; Diana Bethel, ‘Visions of a Humane Society: Feminist Thought in Taisho Japan’, Feminist International, 1980, no. 2, ; Vera Mackie, ‘Motherhood and Pacifism in Japan, 1900–1937’,

144 Vera Mackie

49 50

51

52

53

54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63

Hecate, 1988, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 37–8; Barbara Molony, ‘Equality versus Difference: The Japanese Debate Over Motherhood Protection, 1915–1950’ in Janet Hunter (ed.), Japanese Women Working, London, Routledge, 1993, pp. 122–9. On this debate, see Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapter 5. On the factions of the left wing labour organisations and proletarian parties, see Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics, passim; on the women’s divisions and women’s leagues, see Mackie, Creating Socialist Women, Chapters 5 and 6. Nakamoto would eventually commit tenko (renunciation of communism), but returned to left wing circles at the end of the Second World War. For biographical details of Nakamoto, see: Nakamoto Takako, Waga sei wa kuno ni yakarete, Tokyo, Shiraishi Shobo, 1973; Ogata Akiko, Nyonin geijutsu no hitobito, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1981, pp. 133–48; Yukiko Tanaka (ed.), To Live and To Write: Japanese Women Writers 1913–1938, Seattle, Seal Press, 1987, pp. 129–34. On the Toyo Muslin strike, see: Suzuki Yuko, Joko to rodo sogi, Tokyo, Renga Shobo, 1989, passim; Gordon, Labour and Imperial Democracy, pp. 243–5. On representations of this strike, in the context of Nakamoto’s story, see Vera Mackie, ‘Women, Work and Resistance in Japan: The Depression Years’, paper presented at the Women and Labour Conference, Macquarie University, September 1995. On Nyonin geijutsu, see: Ogata, Nyonin geijutsu no hitobito; Ogata Akiko, Nyonin geijutsu no sekai, Tokyo, Domesu Shuppan, 1980; ‘Nyonin geijutsu ni kiku hataraku onnatachi no koe’, Jugoshi noto, 1978, no. 2, pp. 52–6; Miriam Silverberg, ‘The Modern Girl as Militant’, in Gail Lee Bernstein (ed.), Recreating Japanese Women, Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 250–5. In a previous edition of Nyonin geijutsu, the serialised novel is advertised as ‘Yomosu Daini Kojo’. Yomosu is the usual abbreviation for the Toyo Muslin factory. The novel itself, however, appears under the title ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’ and I have taken this to be the abbreviation for Tokyo Muslin Factory. Other writers have not been so scrupulous in distinguishing the two, admittedly confusing, names, as Andrew Gordon has pointed out. Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy. Yukiko Tanaka mistakenly refers to the story as ‘No 4 Toyo Muslin Factory’. For commentary on the novel, see Ogata, Nyonin geijutsu no sekai, p. 177–81. Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 1, Nyonin geijutsu, Jan. 1932, pp. 129–44, 154. Ibid., pp. 160–3. Ibid., pp. 154–60. Ibid., p. 145. Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 2, Nyonin geijutsu, February 1932, pp. 105–07. Apparently this character was modelled on someone Nakamoto had met in Kameido. Ogata, Nyonin geijutsu no hitobito, p. 146. Nakamoto, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 2, pp. 110–11. Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 3, Nyonin Geijutsu, March 1932, p. 134. The passage uses the word ‘kyodai’ which may refer to both brothers and sisters, but I have translated this as ‘brother’ or ‘brother and sister’ depending on the context. Ibid. pp. 137–41. Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 4, Nyonin geijutsu, April 1932, pp. 131–57. On the use of fuseji (crosses which replaced unacceptable words in censored publications), see chapters by Tipton and Wilson in this volume.

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Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 5, Nyonin geijutsu, May 1932, p. 137. The use of the metaphor of light to portray the shift of subjectivity in this passage is discussed in more detail in Mackie, Imagining Liberation. Nakamoto, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 5, pp. 138–42. Other works of the proletarian arts movement portrayed women engaging in such activities as pamphleteering and strikes. Kubokawa [Sata] Ineko, ‘Biramaki’. See also: Kubokawa [Sata] Ineko, ‘Kanbu joko no namida’, Kaizo, January 1931; ‘Shokanbu’, Bungei shunju, August 1931, ‘Kito’, Chuo koron, October 1931, ‘Kyosei kikoku’, Chuo koron, October 1931; cited in Silverberg, ‘The Modern Girl as Militant’. Kubokawa [Sata] Ineko, ‘Kanojora no kaiwa’, Senki, July 1928, pp. 100–7. Nakamoto Takako, ‘Tomosu Daini Kojo’, part 6, Nyonin geijutsu, June 1932, pp. 134–45. Ibid., pp. 137–8. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, ‘Cartographies of Struggle’ in Chandra Talpade Mohanty, et al. (eds), Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1991, p. 34. See Carr (ed.), From My Guy to Sci-Fi; Anne Cranny-Francis, ‘The Strategy of Utopia: A Study of Ideology and Conflict in William Morris’s News From Nowhere’ in Terry Threadgold, et al. (eds), Language, Semiotics, Ideology, Sydney, Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, 1986, pp. 75–91; Anne Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990, pp. 15–22; Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1981; Barbara Harlow, Resistance Literature, New York, Methuen, 1987.

7

Corporate control and labouring lives Coalmining in interwar Japan Matthew Allen

This chapter examines conditions in the coalmining villages that became an essential part of Japan’s industrialisation in the interwar period. It is my thesis that, as advanced in some of the other chapters in this volume,1 the state was of less direct importance in controlling elements of the population than has been acknowledged by many historians. However, there is little doubt that the economic priority allocated by the state to the coalmining industry saw the interests of the state and capital converge. The state, representing military and industrial interests, required a guaranteed and economical supply of coal. The coal industry, for its part, wanted to supply the coal at a reasonable price. In order to restrain coal prices, producers sought to reduce production costs, generally through imposing tight labour controls and keeping wages low. Effectively, coalmine management was able to deal with its labour force with whatever means it saw fit. The state was involved in two ways: inasmuch as it condoned the removal of the coalfields from the public agenda, thereby legitimating the coal industry’s means of controlling, coercing and cajoling the labour force to be productive; and in its support of the coalmining companies through setting the pricing and demand structure for coal. My intention, then, is to examine the conditions in which the coalminers lived and worked, and to emphasise not the direct involvement of the state, but rather its absence in matters that would, in other circumstances, have come under the general rubric of social control agencies. That the industry was so productive throughout the interwar period is indeed testimony to the success of the methods employed by the companies, without the strictures of state-led bureaucracies to confound them. In particular, the system of accommodation/incarceration is noteworthy, and I hope to draw out the at times rather nebulous links between labour controls in interwar Japanese coalmines, the panoptic experience described by Foucault, and postwar labour control mechanisms. Since the mid-1980s a considerable body of literature has emerged in English which discusses the roles of the state and labour in Japan’s interwar history. Sheldon Garon has emphasised the role of the bureaucracy in implementing, and sometimes initiating policy that directly influenced

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labour, and labour’s reciprocal ongoing influence on the bureaucrats. 2 Stephen Large has examined the emergence of labour unions in the period, focusing on the Japan General Federation of Labour, its shifting political allegiances and philosophies and the relationships between labour and the state.3 Andrew Gordon’s work on labour in heavy industry in the interwar period addresses the ambivalence of the relations within labour unions, between labour and the state and the bureaucracy’s actions. 4 These perspectives all have in common the investigation of the role of the state in affairs that concerned the emergence of labour consciousness. I hope to show that whereas these accounts are sophisticated, sometimes well-informed and focused, in some industries the impact of labour organisations was of far less importance than would appear to be the case in the studies mentioned above. In the coal industry, although militant episodes took place immediately following the First World War, these activities were short-lived and dealt with punitively by the state and companies. They were probably a reflection of the emerging consciousness of the working classes in a period when employers were faced with hard decisions about personnel in the face of declining markets and prices for commodities.5 In line with other industries, the large coal companies acknowledged the need for labour to be organised and established company unions to forestall the emergence of independent trade-like unions. These unions effectively rubber stamped management directives and subsequently were poorly supported by the workforce. However, although there were a number of rationales employed to legitimate management activities, by far the most insidious and far-reaching within the coal industry was the system of housing, with its attendant physical controls. In theory providing incentives to maintain their workforce, the housing also provided a means of dominating workers and their families by having them under near constant surveillance. Unlike the factory management in Gordon’s account, coalmine management was under no illusions about how to control their labour. The account that follows examines the circumstances of life within a coalmining community in the interwar period. It is intentionally asynchronous, and apart from the initial contextualisation, makes assumptions about the perceived maintenance of values within the Chikuho coal industry over time, especially with respect to management-labour relations.6 It also relies heavily on informant accounts of their reminiscences from the period, collected fifty years later. Reliance on these accounts creates some obvious difficulties. For example, people tend to idealise their past, often for the benefit of the listener. This creates empirical difficulties. They also rely on anecdotal and at times apocryphal moral stories to provide meaningful contexts for their own stories. This can obscure their intentions. There are political considerations to recognise as well. Current political agendas of welfare, poverty and the state colour views of the past, perceived in hindsight. Yet bearing in mind these limitations, the stories told by people who experienced history (who were history) provide us with an intuitive

148 Matthew Allen depth of understanding not apparent in mainstream political historical accounts. This account then is an account of those who are largely invisible in the interwar histories of Japan. The Chikuho mining communities rarely were represented by organised labour organisations, nor were they represented by political parties. Yet in many cases they were employed by zaibatsu concerns, about whom much has been written, and laboured in an industry of primary importance to the Japanese national economy. The system of controls used to maintain order within the labour force was pervasive and largely undocumented. It is my intention to highlight the system in the following account. By the late 1930s Taiwan and Korea were incorporated into Greater Japan, and the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere was being articulated more clearly both privately and publicly. Manchukuo was also under effective control, and Japan’s gains in territorial holdings and its clear imperialist agenda had made it a powerful imperialist nation in its own right. Rapid industrialisation had contributed to making this state of affairs possible, and fuelling the process of industrialisation was coal. Coal was one of the few natural resources that Japan had in abundance, and was fundamental to the steam-led industrialisation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moreover, almost all electricity in Japan was generated with coal-fired burners until the 1950s. The strategic advantage of coal was clear for militarists and politicians alike. But as industrial demand for coal increased (by 1929 the Japanese market accounted for more than a third of Asia’s total coal consumption), it was apparent that Japanese coalmines were not able to meet the voracious requirements of industry and the military. So, although in the late nineteenth century and early 1900s Japan exported coal, by 1929, even though the nation was producing 34 million tons of coal a year, it became a net importer of that commodity. By the mid-1930s, three of the major Japanese producers had established coalmines in Manchuria and were employing Chinese forced labourers and Japanese technicians in them.7 In response to severe competition from Manchuria, a number of smaller coalmining companies were bankrupted. Of those companies that survived, many did so by introducing a series of draconian reforms within their mines with the intention of kerbing the peripatetic nature of the workers and increasing production output at lower cost. These included extending the licence of providing housing for the workforce by incarcerating miners and families in geographically and socially isolated environments, preventing union activities, increasing surveillance of extramural activities, controlling miners’ finances and their religious activities, and imposing esoteric codes of behaviour and work ethics, legitimated through violent sanctions often performed by men employed as labour overseers (romu kakari). Some of the more influential smaller companies were able to get a quota of imported Korean labourers to fill labour force gaps created by wartime demands on

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their labour.8 In these mines restrictions imposed on Korean miners were generally even more severe than those imposed on Japanese miners as described above.9 THE PANOPTICON AS A CONTROL STRUCTURE? Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (1977), described the concept of Bentham’s panopticon as follows: [The] enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which an uninterrupted word of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead—all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism.10 Although he is describing means by which French authorities attempted to combat an outbreak of the plague in a village at the end of the seventeenth century, he could be describing conditions in the coalmining villages of Chikuho in north Kyushu in the 1930s. The architectural value of the panopticon was that it was able to provide those in power with constant and unvarying surveillance of those under their control. This was to perform, in Bentham’s original schemata, a number of potential functions: as naturalist, as headmaster/mistress and as corporate boss: It makes it possible to draw up differences: among patients, to observe the symptoms of each individual, without the proximity of beds, the circulation of miasmas, the effects of contagion confusing the clinical tables; among schoolchildren, it makes it possible to observe performances…, to map attitudes, to assess characters, to draw up rigorous classifications …, and to distinguish ‘laziness and stubbornness’ from ‘incurable imbecility’; among workers, it makes it possible to note the aptitudes of each worker, compare the time he takes to perform a task, and if they are paid by the day, to calculate their wages.11 Foucault goes on to say that the major effect of the panopticon is ‘to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’.12 Using this structure as a metaphor, it could be argued that small mine owners incorporated the principles of the panopticon in incarcerating, controlling and intimidating workers. The structure of the tanju (coal villages) with centralised control, surveillance and insider consciousness, reinforced in miners the political powerlessness of their position and the concept of control by management over their lives. Unlike those in Bentham’s panopticon, however, the system did not

150 Matthew Allen automatically assure an ordered running of affairs; rather, violence was used selectively to reinforce and legitimate claims of management to power in the running of the company. It was also used to repress class and union consciousness, especially following the arrival of Korean forced labourers. Korean and other forced labourers were easily accommodated in the Kyushu coalmines because the mines were already controlled in a panopticon-like way; a way which precluded the development of class-based consciousness and a strong labour union. In fact, prisoner labour had been introduced into the mines in Kyushu by 1873, and was to continue for more than 60 years.13 The structures necessary to control prisoner labour were both represented and constructed in the layout of the company housing structure of both the large and medium-sized mines. CORPORATE TYPES AND STRUCTURE Following the First World War the coal industry rode a wave of public support; the emperor occasionally would visit the industrious miners at work, top graduates of imperial universities competed for jobs in the industry as engineers and managers, and farmers and labourers in the cities sought work in the industry as news of the relatively high wages, the cheap accommodation and job security offered by the large companies spread. Coalmining villages, many established in the Meiji period, consolidated throughout the north of Kyushu, most particularly in Kita Kyushu itself, and Fukuoka, Saga and Kumamoto prefectures. The villages generated their own cultures and characters, many being amalgams of different regional workingclass values. In Chikuho, which accounted for more than half of Japan’s total coal output in the prewar years, a three tiered coal industry structure was in operation. At the top of the hierarchy were the zaibatsu (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda) and the major (non-zaibatsu) coal companies (Furukawa, Nippon Kogyo, Meiji, Aso and Kaijima amongst others). The mines owned and operated by these companies typically employed more than 1,000 people. Collectively they produced more than sixty per cent of Chikuho’s coal and were governed by relatively tight safety standards. They were capital rich, and although Japanese coal was often found in nearinaccessible sites, the investment in mining technology reduced the danger from cave-in and methane gas explosion. Around these mines the company owned and run tanju sprang up, and with them thriving service-based industries. Working conditions in these mines were regarded as the best; the safety, wages, working environment, technology and housing were all of a relatively high standard. Next in the hierarchy were the small-medium sized mines, employing from 100 to 900 people. These mines ranged from the violent, so-called asseiyama (pressure mines) to well managed and profitable operations, where subsidiary companies produced coal for large companies as

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subcontractors. The safety record of these mines was often poor because they were seldom well-financed and found priorities other than the safety of the labour force. In many cases speculative investment meant that mine owners would attempt to extract what coal they could at as low a capital cost as possible. Hence, in these mines the romu kakari were employed, often from local yakuza gangs, to ensure that the miners worked to expected levels of production. At the bottom of the hierarchy lay the so-called tanuki-bori, the badger holes, typically mined by burakumin, escaped Korean miners, and Japanese miners unable to obtain work in the ‘better’ mines. These mines were dangerous, often condemned digs, whose access to the coal seams were so narrow that miners were forced to work on their knees and backs to dig out the coal. They were often run by husband and wife teams, the wife hauling the coal dug by the husband out of the shaft on a sura (sledge). The quality of the coal was poor and the presence of methane gas made this work a desperate gamble. There was no investment in mine safety. The miners who worked in these highly volatile environments did so with the knowledge that they had been abandoned by the mining companies precisely because they were too dangerous. For the purpose of this discussion, I will focus on mines from the two upper strata, with the intention of examining the means of surveillance and control used by the companies. That the companies were able to use a laissez-faire approach to labour control is of some interest to the general theme of this book—the state’s involvement in interwar Japan. In this case its non-intervention in areas of human and labour control that would presumably come under the jurisdiction of legal agencies at the very least reveals the overlapping approval of state and large corporations. In fact the cooperation between these agencies was such that many quasi-legal functions were performed by members of the company, from local policing activities through to magistrates who were former corporate employees. While the companies continued to be productive the state was prepared to relinquish its own control over geographically separate locations: the coalmines and the villages. Moreover, as far as the state was concerned, the toughness of the miners and the prospect of policing townships of up to three thousand mining households was less than enticing. Police boxes existed in the coalfields, but they were ‘mainly to reinforce the yakuza armies in controlling [us] miners’.14 As a result of the state’s neglect, the literal lawlessness of these towns and villages led to them being referred to as ‘Japan’s Texas’15 by locals and outsiders alike. LIFE IN THE MINES We weren’t really treated like humans. After all, no one thought that we were [human]. We were thought of more as trainable animals, and treated like that. (Okushima Hiroyuki, interview, 1987)

152 Matthew Allen Look, everyone had it bad. Not just the Koreans. Everyone. And if you look at how they remember us, the Japanese miners. Well, they don’t, do they? But they put up a bloody statue to the Koreans. (Ono Kaneko, interview, 1988) The truth is…there is a surface story and a deep story to everything you hear. Some say [about Mitsui] ‘aah, what a great place to work in,’ but that’s just propaganda. The truth is that the companies never cared how they made money. They bullied the workers to make profits. There were all sorts of accidents where lots of men died. Lots of men had a hard time of it in the mines; people strung up as examples to their fellow workers if they didn’t pay their debts, or make their quota. (Okushima Masao, interview, 1988)

These perceptions, collected between 1987 and 1989, form part of a consciousness that pervades the former coalmining region some twenty-five years after the industry shut down. Feelings of alienation, of being thought of as subhuman, to the extent that coalminers were perceived by mainstream communities as being on a social par with burakumin,16 and perceptions of themselves as both victims and as a special group are recurring themes in the collected reminiscences of those who worked the coalmines in the 1920s and 1930s. In attempting to reconstruct some of the contexts and circumstances in which the coalminers lived and worked, a more complex picture of the success of the surveillance and control methods instituted by the company, and tacitly supported by the state, emerges. Structure of the tanju In his book, Akai botayama no hi (The Fire of the Red Slag Heaps), Shinfuji discusses the structure and operation of the tanju, relying on the work of Yamamoto Sakube. The following description was of the mining system of the 1930s: Within the naya seido (barn-like system of miners’ housing) at the large companies, there is a man appointed head of the tanju. He is known as the toryo. He is responsible for the miners who live in his tanju. He also enforces the rules of the company, deciding which miner is to live in which accommodation. The unmarried miners were to live in the (dormitory-like) shokuba and 10 to 20 per cent of each miner’s salary would be deducted for rental, regardless of the hours they worked…. The toryo was responsible for collecting the rent deductions from the miners, but he also added his own stipend, as payment for going to the trouble of collecting the money…. Taking such large sums of money from the miners for such miserable housing was like clipping their wings.17 The toryo had working under him his own appointed group of kumi-cho (section heads), and they appointed people to work for them in maintaining order among the population of the tanju. The names of each miner and his family were recorded in the company register, and the names, ages and sex

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of each household member were entered in a separate ledger of residence. Moreover, miners who had committed any breach of etiquette, broken company rules, were late to work, or had socialist sympathies had special codes written next to their names to identify trouble. These people were usually rehoused in between households which could be trusted to report to the kumi-cho any untoward goings on. The tanju usually were built of mud adobe, wood and tin, and were based on the naya seido, or barn system. They were long houses which typically accommodated between eight and sixteen families in one or two rooms of approximately six tatami (close to nine square metres) each. There were communal toilets, baths and wells. The tanju were heated by coal-fired hibachi over which the cooking was done. In some of the more modern accommodations, primitive kitchens were built with concrete sinks. Overcrowding was the norm and residents of one of the smaller tanju referred to the number of shoes in the genkan (entrance hall) as the measure of the number of people living in each house. The average miner had only one pair of jikatabi (two-toed work boots) and the other residents usually also had only one pair of shoes. Some households had eight to ten pairs of shoes in the genkan. The tanju at Mitsui Ita in Tagawa was typical of the larger mines’ housing. It accommodated more than 1,000 households in the naya seido and had been built in the early 1920s. The streets were laid out in a grid around the pit top, the boundaries of the tanju clearly marked by two metre high wire fencing. Houses faced each other in groups of sixteen across the dirt roadways. The thirty-two facing houses comprised one kumi, and from each kumi one kumi-cho (head of the kumi) was appointed by the toryo (communal leader). The kumi-cho was responsible for the welfare of the kumi, and kumi met usually once a month to discuss communal business, the cleaning of the houses, potential improvements to the accommodation, demographic changes and so on. At the end of every fourth row of houses was a toilet block and a communal well where the women would gather water and discuss the day’s events and rumours. This informal gathering of women, where information was exchanged was known as the idobatakaigi (conference at the well). 18 This was a vital part of life in the tanju. Through these exchanges, women were able to discuss the happenings within the mines, news of big events, and other items of some consequence to their isolated lifestyles. The walls of the tanju were very thin, and it was possible to hear clearly one’s neighbour’s conversations and activities. In fact, much of the humour of the coal face was based on the goings on of other miners in private. Comments such as ‘got your leg over last night again, eh? The whole kumi was kept up by your activities’ were common according to some of the older miners.19 There was certainly a lack of privacy. Even the doors to the houses had no locks. Not only were activities kept under close supervision

154 Matthew Allen at work and through the structure of the tanju, but also miners were kept under casual (and often cynical) surveillance by their peers. It is argued by Shinfuji, that not only was surveillance possible at all times through the appointment of heads of each of the kumi, the groups of houses which combined to make up the ku, but also the poor salary and the means by which it was paid—in company tokens redeemable only at company stores—maintained the system of control and restraint. Caught in a web of debt to koriya (literally high interest lenders—that is, pawn-brokers/ moneylenders), dependence on the company and a preoccupation with alcohol and gambling, the miners were controlled by various agents simultaneously. The structure of the tanju was always central to the maintenance of power. By knowing where the workers/debtors were at any time, respective agencies were able to invoke punitive sanctions as they saw fit, without any fear of redress from the world outside the tanju. For example, workers who were disinclined to work (because of illness, feigned or otherwise) were hounded by the romu from their homes and driven to work ‘like cattle’, according to one source.20 Miners at one of the large Mitsui mines in Tagawa, which had a reputation for equity with respect to employment conditions, were branded with the word ‘namakemono’ (slacker) across their buttocks if they were repeatedly late for work. In other, less humane mines, miners were beaten by romu if late, and there are cases recorded where the beatings inflicted were so severe that the miners were unable to walk; yet they were dragged to the coalface by the labour overseers.21 Absenteeism, long a problem for coalmines around the world, was not such a problem for companies using the tanju system of company housing, although enforcement of discipline was problematic enough. Labouring lives Notwithstanding the poverty of their living conditions and the difficulty of their work, or perhaps because of these conditions which in turn created conditions conducive to the construction of clear adversarial relations, coalminers developed close ties of friendship and of strong groupassociation. Yet, simultaneously, the adversarial part of their relationship was not confined to their relations with the romu kakari, it extended to conflict among the miners themselves. Although, on the one hand, it was common for mining families to pool resources in order to produce a reasonable meal, it was equally common for two miners to get drunk and attempt to kill each other over a petty squabble. Not only fighting with their labour overseers, they were fighting among themselves. Ironically, but perhaps not unexpectedly, in the early 1990s the most commonly remembered sentiment of the coalmining era of the 1930s was community spirit (tsukiai), particularly among male informants. Although it is probable that these sentiments are idealised, there is also little doubt that

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community spirit was a powerful tie for those who chose (or were forced) to remain in the tanju. Yet many miners and/or their families left the coalfields as soon as they were able to find a way out. For those who remained, there was much solace in knowing that there were others in a similar condition to oneself,22 and that one would not have to carry the burden of poverty alone. But for many women in the coalmines, this is exactly what transpired, often through no agency of their own. Husbands running away from families, children and husbands being conscripted or transferred and death in the high accident environment of the 1930s coalmines all contributed to a high proportion of single parent families living within the coalfields. Labouring at the workplace and in the home, long the burden of working women, was especially onerous in the case of women in the Chikuho mines. The following is from a woman who laboured in the Kita Kyushu pits for fifteen years, and describes her daily routine: Like most working women, I had two full-time jobs. I worked in the pits and came home and worked in the house. Most nights I would get three or sometimes four hours of sleep. I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and made breakfast for the family—there were six children—and cooked the rice, if there was any, to make onigiri for lunch. Then I cleaned the house, hung out the futon, did the washing and left for work at 5:00 a.m. Most days we would work until 8:00 p.m., and although I usually really wanted a bath, I’d do the shopping, come home, cook the evening meal, clean the house again, and if I still had the energy, go to the baths (they were open 24 hours). I would fall into bed around midnight. We had one day off working a month, and sometimes public holidays. (Nomi Hanako, interview, 1988) There is no doubt that for women in particular life in the mining communities was difficult, especially following the conscription of many men into the military. Women were required to work at the pitface, doing jobs that until the male labour shortage eventuated were the province of males alone. With many males away, women were often the sole providers for large families in the coalfields, their desperate need for money and goods and services tying them to their work in tangible and ineluctable ways. However, for men in the coalfields, life was quite different. Protected by an aura of moral, male superiority, reinforced by the state-supported gender stratification ideology, and exempt from household responsibility, men became extremely corporeal in their non-working hours. Stories of drunken revelries, gambling, fighting and rumblings of revolt were almost without exception attributed to the men of the communities. There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the coalmining towns of Chikuho were both dangerous and unpredictable places, especially after payday.23 Yet despite the limited resources and time they had, the mining community was generally mutually respectful and friendships based on long-

156 Matthew Allen term residence were common. The mining community, like others in similarly disempowered positions, developed a strong sense of irony at their status, desperate to alter their circumstances and simultaneously wedded to it through a series of dependencies and institutionally-generated controls. A common greeting in the 1930s between miners who had not seen each other for some time was ‘Ome no kake, nan banme kana’ (What number is the wife you’re on now?). This referred to the phenomenon of miners escaping from their circumstances and leaving their wives to become ‘tanbo’ (tanko mibojin—widows of the coalmines). Like coalminers everywhere, and like many disadvantaged economic groups in Japan in the interwar years, the miners’ working conditions were extreme. Their position at the base of society was in stark contrast to the position of management in the industry, who enjoyed a privileged and comfortable existence based on the labour of the miners. This dichotomy was a source of constant irritation for many miners, even at the larger companies, and reflects the ideas expressed by Large concerning ‘relative deprivation’.24 Why, they wanted to know, were they treated so poorly; as ‘pack animals’, as one Mitsui official in 1918 described them?25 As mentioned earlier, the coalminers were seen as a natural resource, a means to extract profit from the earth. Their humanity was not really an item for discussion, as long as they continued to be productive. One labour overseer, who worked for the large Mitsui operation in Tagawa, said that they had to guard the coalminers closely because they ‘couldn’t be trusted’.26 This was in relation to the piecework system that was in operation at most mines. Miners were required to meet shift demand quotas. That is, each miner on each shift had to be responsible for that shift reaching its quota of coal production. If the shift did not reach the quota (a figure that changed constantly) then they would work until they reached it, or have their pay deducted in lieu. Alternatively, they could be beaten as an example to other miners for being slack.27 In the smaller mines it was common for physical sanctions to be invoked when quotas were not reached but it was also common for workers to be beaten on suspicion of sedition or sabotage. Because of the companies’ need for labour to be low-cost and efficient, it was necessary in management’s view, to apply strong sanctions in order to meet the production requirements of the state at a cost they could afford. The work itself was both arduous and dangerous. The small to medium sized mines in particular were cramped and in many cases had roofs that were less than 1.4 metres in height,28 making digging and transporting coal very difficult. The situation was exacerbated by the depth of the coal deposits and the high concentration of methane gas in many of the digs. In many of these smaller mines the accident rates in the 1930s were horrific, mines’ structural integrity allowed to deteriorate as management attempted to reduce costs in construction and safety expenditure. Cave-ins, gas explosions and fire were constant hazards that were largely accepted by the

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miners as part of their lives. The sound of the accident siren was common in Chikuho in the interwar years, as families and friends of trapped, gassed, or burnt miners gathered at the pit to participate in or watch the excavation process. The smaller mines continued to coerce their workers to work harder, while attempting to retain the labour they had. Yet they were faced with the problem of military conscription of their Japanese workers. Although coal was a priority industry under the military governments of the 1930s, workers were eventually conscripted and a replacement workforce was required. The shortfall of workers was initially met with surplus Korean labour, and then with Chinese labour when Koreans were sent to the front as part of the recruitment of colonials in the Japanese army.29 When not enough foreign labourers could be supplied, pragmatic mine owners started to recruit women in large numbers to work on the coal face. All types of coal companies instituted this practice as the demands by industry for increased production continued through the decade. Women in the mines Although women had worked in the mines from the time that coal mining began in Japan, the scale of their participation had never been as high as in the 1930s.30 No longer only dragging the sura, or sledges, with the coal from the pits to the surface, they were sorting, cleaning, and in increasingly common occurrences, digging the coal at the face. The transformation of women in the mines from being a coal service based workforce to becoming a primary labour force marked a considerable change in companies’ labour policy. In some mines there were more women on each shift than men. By the end of the decade many of the men who were left were those who were too old to go to war or who had coalmine-related injuries or illnesses, such as loss of limbs, Black Lung and emphysema. The women consistently outperformed the men on the shifts in one medium sized mine in North Kyushu throughout the period 1935–45,31 and it is likely that this type of performance was not exceptional. The introduction of women into the workforce created numerous headaches for company management. The expansion of the women’s baths was necessary, as was separating the men from the women in underground situations. Tension which flowed from liaisons between men and women miners became a serious problem in several mines. Moreover, sexual harassment was common within the mines, and women had to be tough to cope with the constant pressure from men. One woman who worked in a mine owned by the Ueda group said that after she had been harassed many times, she finally lost her patience and hit the men responsible with whatever tool she was holding. This resulted in the hospitalisation of one man in 1938, and in her being beaten by a group of men after work one evening.32

158 Matthew Allen However, although different problems were created for management by the large-scale introduction of women’s labour into the mines, the panopticonlike arrangement still held firm. Women, like the men, were housed in the same meticulously controlled environment, their payment made in the same company tokens, their working and leisure hours closely monitored. Work was regulated in most mines along piecework lines, and women miners typically worked ten to twelve hour shifts to make their targets. One woman, who worked in the mines at Furukawa in the 1930s told of how she would take the youngest of her children to the mine with her while she worked, as it needed to be breastfed, and there was no time off for maternity leave. In fact, she actually gave premature birth to that child in the mines.33 Specific physical conditions notwithstanding, the women were treated in much the same manner as the men, and they performed in a similar manner at work. In the home, however, most women were mothers as well, and would spend their evenings doing housework, making dinner and the next day’s lunches, mending clothes and looking after the children. If there were couples labouring, the male seldom would work in the domestic environment, but most women miners supported families on a single income. Their financial dependence on the largesse of the company ensured limited resistance to harsh working or living conditions, and when resistance did spontaneously occur women were dealt with sometimes more harshly than men. One woman talked of being raped by a group of romu kakari after an altercation over wages.34 Moreover, because they were temporary or transferred staff, they were not able to receive the same wages as the full-time staff, the male miners. It is clear that conditions in the coalmines were harsh for many miners and their families in the 1930s, a situation which had improved only marginally by the end of the Second World War. The development of the panopticon-like environment provided mine management with means to control rigorously most aspects of miners’ lives. Wages paid in company tokens, as opposed to yen, allowed miners to purchase only from company stores, and reinforced their dependence on the company. The isolation of the coal villages set them aside from mainstream society, and produced within the communities the emergence of a form of esoteric, and by comparison with mainstream society, eclectic culture. The culture rested on the values of existentialism and survival. That is, the dictates of a violent, repressive and isolated society, controlled by company agents brought about the recognition among miners and their families of the need to survive in the face of a known, but destructive hegemony. Moreover, the perpetuation of the structures within which the miners lived and worked reinforced their isolation from ‘mainstream’ community values, and led to the maintenance of an ideology that emphasised day-to-day survival. In light of the more recent work on labour relations in interwar Japan, it is pertinent to consider why miners who were dissatisfied with their circumstances did not take advantage of the emerging labour movement to redress some of their grievances. After all, Garon has discussed the

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development of the labour movement, and the reciprocal involvement of the bureaucratic state in directing labour policy, and labour in influencing the bureaucratic state. Large, in concurring with this formulation, suggests that ‘by adhering rigidly to a reform-oriented socialist formula of working for progressive change from within the established order rather than mounting a revolutionary attack against it, the Sodomei played a significant role in setting the political pace for the labour movement as a whole’. 35 The Chikuho miners, isolated from access to current labour trends, were removed from the ‘established order’ referred to by Large. From the outset confined to the periphery of society and politics, they had little opportunity to alter their living and working conditions through employing advances made from within the labour movement. We have seen that life in the mines was harsh, and the repressive political and vocational apparatus employed by companies to prevent expressions of frustration effective. How then were individuals able to express their dissatisfaction with ‘the established order’? It is at this juncture that James Scott’s work on peasant resistance to the established order becomes a useful tool for comparative purposes. I would like to examine whether the ‘weapons of the weak’ were used by miners to assert themselves in an environment that was closely monitored and controlled. Resistance and counter-resistance Most forms of…struggle stop well short of outright collective defiance. Here I have in mind the ordinary weapons of relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so on…. They require little or no coordination or planning; they make use of implicit understandings and informal networks; they often represent a form of individual self-help; they typically avoid any direct, symbolic confrontation with authority.36 I think it is worth considering the applicability of these types of resistance to the coalminers’ case; that is, how miners reacted to hostile labour-capital relations, and how the Chikuho companies worked to counter these types of resistance. In identifying how resistance was articulated and how companies worked to undermine it, it becomes apparent that overt resistance rarely surfaced and that the structure of control dealt with it very quickly. Resistance to the values encouraged by mine owners and their agents was both widespread and subtle. In the interwar political environment, with a repressive state apparatus appearing as a constituted form of control, and restricted in their contact with the world outside the coalmining villages, life appeared to the coalminers to be as constrained outside as it was within the tanju. Yet the ideological basis for these impressions was reinforced by a state that had much to gain from attempting to reinforce the ideology of deference to the state and of obedience from its citizens. These values were

160 Matthew Allen exaggerated within coalmining communities, and the rhetoric of state loyalty, often expressed through the agency of the company and by implication the state, precluded for many a chance for a life outside the industry. Given the physical sanctions imposed upon workers who were not prepared, or able, to perform, the option of a life where they would be refugees from ‘justice’ was only to be grasped at by desperate people. It is both noteworthy and telling that many miners either attempted to escape, or were successful in escaping from their conditions of employment. For those miners who remained within the confines of the tanju the types of resistance they could participate in were restricted, and more often than not, symbolic rather than practical. The forms of resistance that Scott describes in the opening quote were, by and large, unable to be articulated in the environment of the mining villages. Arson and sabotage, as in most coalmines both within and outside Japan, were precluded by the thorough searches of workers as they made their way to the pit-head. These searches, meticulously carried out, were to ensure that miners carried no matches, tobacco or flammable materials.37 Given the volatile conditions in which the miners worked, brought about by the high risk of methane gas leaks, this was a practical means of reducing the danger of a gas explosion, amongst other reasons. Within the tanju, also, the close surveillance to which the miners were subjected, combined with the strong consciousness of protecting their own (albeit vicarious) property prevented many incidences of attempted arson. Foot-dragging, feigned ignorance and dissimulation, as we have already seen, were also preventable through the introduction of the piecework system. This system monitored closely the activities of the miners and their work output. Although there is little doubt that the piecework quotas set in many mines were extremely tough for miners to attain, the pressure to conform was powerful, especially in lieu of the punitive sanctions that were imposed on miners who were unable to meet them. This system also worked to preclude instances of false compliance. Workers’ compliance was measured in terms of output alone; this was an unambiguous measure that was enforceable within the company framework of imposed controls and sanctions. Pilfering was common, but not within the mines. Any pilfering that was carried out was done from the slag heaps, as families would send their children out to search through the chaff for coal they could burn in their own hibachi.38 The most common forms of resistance, then, were in respect to desertion and slander. On the surface, or ‘on-stage’ to use the terminology applied by Scott, acquiescence was the norm. Nevertheless a clear dialectical relationship existed between how the miners reacted to a harsh living and working regime ‘on-stage’ and how they reacted ‘off-stage’. The terminology used by Scott referred to agrarian or peasant societies in Malaysia, and in particular to the peasant workers’ responses to elite pressures. Yet, in Japanese societies, even those removed from the regular

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constraints of ‘civility’, there existed norms of behaviour that appear constant. Of these values, the concepts of honne (back stage behaviour, literally ‘true intention’) and tatemae (front stage behaviour, literally ‘standing forward’) are of some concern to the present discussion. These values, institutionalised over time,39 provide some material from which to extrapolate relations of power within mining communities in Kyushu in the interwar years. In terms of tatemae few workers were prepared, either collectively or individually, to challenge the legitimacy of management to control their lives in the manner they saw fit. Those who did so were usually dealt with harshly and summarily. Incidents of miners who rebelled against the status quo being lynched,40 physically abused or summarily and publicly executed were informally, but frequently documented. 41 The disincentives for rebellious behaviour were so powerfully reinforced that, like peasants described by Scott, the miners appeared to accept their ‘situation as a normal, even justifiable part of the social order’. 42 Nevertheless, undermining (excuse the pun) the tatemae were rebellious undercurrents, wry humour and plans of escape from what many perceived as entrapment. This honne was manifest in many ways, not least through the conversation and gossip of workers down the pit, in the baths and at ‘play’.43 Moreover, in the bars and brothels, miners often took their dissatisfaction and frustration out on those whom they could control with ease (women), and on those who would provide some challenge, in particular fellow miners. Perhaps not surprisingly, domestic violence incidents were common, and many women suffered from providing the catalyst for an explosion of frustration from male miners.44 The capacity of the mining companies to act as agents of capital, and by implication the state, severely compromised miners and their families. Utilising forms of violence as sanctions for behaviour that was seen as counterproductive, and encompassing the miners within a constrained and carefully scrutinised environment, the companies were able to reduce instances of resistance throughout the interwar period although the work that was demanded of the miners reached extreme dimensions. CONCLUSION Like those incarcerated within Bentham’s panopticon, outlined in the opening quote, so too the miners were stricken with the stigma of the plague-ridden. Their illness was their occupation. They were regarded as peripheral to society at large, literally ‘outlawed’45 (their esoteric culture was a powerful signifier of this insider consciousness), their efforts to produce energy ignored by polite society, although mainstream society’s own standard of living was to some extent dependent on the miners’ labour. Conditions in which they lived and worked were both officially and unofficially ignored. Their lifestyle, perceived to be carousing, violent,

162 Matthew Allen drunken and gambling centred, was at odds with the Japan that the state was attempting to create. However, the structures that governed their labour were not atypical of industrial relations before the Second World War. From the start of the Meiji era attempts to industrialise in Japan had been centred on creating a malleable, inexpensive and skilled labour force with which to power imported and adapted technology. Female peasant labour, although unskilled, was seen by capital to be both plentiful and cheap. 46 In response to poor conditions in the countryside, many young women were attracted to the cities to work in the textile mills. These women were housed in dormitories, where they were fed, clothed, trained and observed. They were virtual prisoners who received poor wages as payment for their services. In practice the conditions experienced by many young women in the late nineteenth century in Japanese textile mills were as primitive and harsh as in any newly industrialising nation.47 The parallels between the conditions of the late nineteenth century textile mills and the coalmines of the 1930s are apparent. By centralising authority, and controlling the lifestyles and ideology of one’s workers, management was able to cultivate in the workforce the ideology of a parent-child relationship existing within the company. As children the workers were to obey their parents, and those who broke the rules would be punished by the group leader/romu kakari acting as representative/s of the parent/boss/toryo. The isolation of the workers in company-owned and run housing, while providing workers with shelter and community, also provided opportunity for management to dictate the terms of employment. As we have seen, these were not necessarily very charitable. The panopticon-like structure of the tanju reached its apogee in the late 1930s and into the 1940s, when large numbers of forced labourers were inducted into the mines. Captured Chinese, American, Australian, British, Dutch and other soldiers were put to work on the coal faces of the larger Kyushu mines, along with an increasing number of Koreans.48 It is telling that at the Mitsui Miike mine in Omuta, no added security provisions were deemed necessary, apart from the erection of barbed wire around the mine head. The company was confident that its experience with prisoners, Koreans and even left wing Japanese miners would be adequate in maintaining security after the Europeans arrived. The confidence of management was justified; there were no recorded escapes from Miike during the war.49 The system of controls that enabled coalmining companies to keep strict discipline among a potentially hostile labour force was not exclusive to the coal fields, but the ease with which it was applied and the reasons for its application have implications for contemporary Japanese labour relations. By providing employment and housing, employers were able to conform to ostensible Confucian values, yet still maintain surveillance and extracurricular control over the workers. The imposition of violent sanctions in the mines, and in other industries, should also be seen in this context; that

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is management felt it was within their rights as providers of employment and housing to demand from workers loyalty and diligence at work. Those who did not perform to expectations (they were easily identifiable) were to be disciplined, much as a child would be disciplined for being recalcitrant. The violence was historically and culturally legitimated, and although members of mainstream society no doubt would have been surprised at the excesses of the coalfields, the nature of the work, the importance of coal to the national effort and the types of people who performed the work justified strong controls. Over time the tanju became a form of control in itself, the consciousness of being under surveillance at all times a pervasive constant in people’s perceptions of their existence. Foucault uncannily provides a broader, comparative context in which to envisage this means of control, once more referring to Bentham’s panopticon. In each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power. It does this in several ways: because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised. Because it is possible to intervene at any moment and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed…it gives ‘power of mind over mind’. The panoptic schema makes any apparatus of power more intense; it assures its economy (in material, in personnel, in times); it assures its efficacity by its preventative character, its continuous functioning and its automatic mechanisms. It is a way of obtaining from power…‘a great and new instrument of government; its great excellence consists in the great strength it is capable of giving to any institution it may be thought proper to apply it to.’ (Bentham, 66)50 The application of the system of control, one that bears more than a passing semblance to the definition above, generated an overwhelmingly existentialist philosophy, especially among men. Given that existence was tenuous in the mines, this was not a surprising reaction. However, the tanju society reinforced among the miners and their families their feelings of community; they were able to hear what the family next door were doing at any time of the night; their communications were established in the usual pit-top baths and in the idobatakaigi (conference at the wells); the circumstances of their accommodation and pay were such that when food was scarce, as it was during the 1930s, the miners and their families would collect enough food from the kumi to provide a meal for all. Yet, frustration about their existence, the tight regimen of controls and their working conditions led to many finding solace in alcohol, and violence often erupted between miners who, while on the one hand developing strong community consciousness, on the other found themselves in conflict with each other, often over petty issues. The internalisation of the culture of violence

164 Matthew Allen reflected one of the means by which the companies controlled their workforce. It is hardly surprising that along with the ideal of community spirit, existentialism, self-interest and domestic violence became features of the mining communities. Yet, as we have seen, the tanju also managed to become a selfperpetuating culture of constraint and control. Conscious of their disempowerment with respect to the company, and unable to articulate their grievances publicly, miners turned their frustrations inwards. The system of surveillance and control was powerful enough to prevent the emergence of public discord most of the time. In cases where disloyalty occurred, management often reinforced the punitive nature of their control, emphasising the futility of attempts to alter the status quo. As the miners were under surveillance, so too management was able to manipulate them to observe publicly and en masse the humiliation of any dissident. By reducing the opportunities to develop opposition-based group consciousness, and by focusing on fracturing any potential antipathetic solidarity, management was able to deter self-interested attempts at escape by appealing to self-interest in surviving the difficult conditions of work/residence. It is also worth noting that only small numbers of labour overseers were necessary to maintain order. The authority generated by violently reinforcing the system of control led to the acceptance of the status quo among most miners, and the acquiescence displayed by the miners (or the normalisation of externally imposed work and life ethics), reduced the need for large numbers of romu kakari. Typically these numbers ranged from two per cent of the company employees to about eight per cent.51 The implications of the system of labour control used by the coal companies are clear when one examines (selectively) postwar Japanese labour relations. In his book, Japan in the Passing Lane,52 Kamata Satoshi describes the conditions of employment for seasonal production line workers at Toyota’s Toyoda plant in the 1970s. A highly critical book, he describes in detail the repressive system of dormitory accommodation, the close supervision of production line activities, the surveillance of extracurricular activities, and the parochialism of the company. Dissent at the workplace was dealt with by publicly humiliating the offender. The similarities with conditions experienced by the coalminers of Kyushu are immediately apparent to the most casual observer. In the 1990s former coalminers still exist in the old tanju. They are dependent on government largesse for income, and on the generosity of the company for allowing them to remain in the housing. Whereas they possess the technological trappings of 1990s society—televisions, stereos, cars and video players are the norm in most tanju—the people of the tanju are still isolated from mainstream society. They are still regarded as marginal people at best. Cars with the number plates of the coalfields are refused admission to car parks in Fukuoka.53 People in ‘decent’ society still tell their children not to mix with the children of the tanju. Education standards are poor;54 the

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crime rate is high;55 unemployment is in some places twenty times the national average;56 and welfare dependence is endemic. The inference of the relations between coal companies and the state are made clear in the post-coalmining period. Rather than accepting their part in the monopolisation of industry within the coalfields, and supplying miners with retraining, or work in other related companies, many coalmining companies have looked to the state to support the unemployed and redundant coalminers. That the state has taken on the responsibility for housing, welfare and education of the miners, albeit in a limited fashion, and has removed the coalmining companies from formal responsibility for their roles in destroying the environment is indeed revealing of the relations between these agencies. How much of the current circumstances can be explained by the development of the tanju and its panopticon-like control? This is highly debatable. However, it is quite clear that the process of control—akin to panopticism?—worked to reinforce within miners their dependence on companies for not only their livelihoods, but also their living conditions. The powerlessness that was engendered within the miners was manifested in the period following the rationalisation of the coal industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the unions battled to save the industry, government had determined that oil was a more economical and viable source of energy than domestically produced coal, and was resolute that the industry must be rationalised. The resultant mine closures left many thousands of miners unemployed and with little hope of skills retraining. The vast majority stayed on in the tanju for two main reasons—cost and community: first, because the government provided large amounts of compensation to the coal companies, rents in the tanju were able to be kept very low; second, people had become used to the lifestyle of the tanju and were not prepared to venture too far afield because of the fear of social and economic stigma. This conservative attitude has created problems for the state in areas where unemployment and crime rates are high. The maintenance of the isolated and impoverished coal villages, often surrounded by towns and cities, has become something of an embarrassment to local government as it attempts to attract industry to the former coal regions, and has resulted in the rebuilding of many tanju. Unfortunately, the authorities have often erected five storey concrete slums to replace the old one storey slums. By the 1990s the people of the coal mines were being replaced by other urban poor in the new concrete tanju, still run by the ku-cho with his (civilianised) army of kumi-cho, although the boundaries of the kumi are now vertical, rather than horizontal. The new people are equally constrained by the power of writing (their names are entered in the tanju register of families) and are unlikely to exceed the social and economic expectations of the families they replace, given the poor educational and vocational facilities available. The legacy of the tanju system of control is present in the sense of powerlessness and apathy apparent among the remaining coalminers in

166 Matthew Allen Kyushu. Confined for most of their working lives within a centralised and highly rigorous structure, many developed agoraphobia when faced with the prospect of leaving their slums. Paraphrasing Steven Lukes,57 one could say that the most insidious use of power is that which maintains control even when the powerful have fallen. The power of the companies’ control over the miners was such that even thirty years after coalmining ceased in Chikuho, the coalminers were disinclined to move from the locality in which they had been confined, conditioned and controlled. NOTES 1 See Chapters 5, 9 and 3 in this volume. 2 Sheldon Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987. 3 Stephen Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981. 4 Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853–1955, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985. 5 See Gordon for an account of the rapidly expanding labour movement’s activities in the immediate post-World War I period. Ibid., pp. 110–19. 6 Although Gordon has gone to great lengths to isolate periods of change in respect to labour relations, these changes were not reflected in the coalmines of Chikuho. With the establishment of company housing and the introduction of the romu kakari (labour offices) in the early 1920s, miners and their families experienced a type of control that would remain for more than fifty years. Ueno Eishin, Hanashi no koguchi and Naraku no seiun, Tokyo, Keishobo, 1985; Shinfuji Toyo, Akai botayama no hi: Chikuho: Miike no hitobito, Tokyo, Sanshodo, 1987; Idegawa Hanako, interview, 1988. 7 Yada Toshifumi, Sekitan gyokai, Tokyo, Kyoikusha, 1977, p. 241. 8 Koreans had come to Japan since the 1910s to work in the coalmines as part of the drive to ‘assimilate’ Korean citizens of the Empire into the Japanese labour force. Many of the workers were inducted into the coalmining labour force through unscrupulous labour recruiters promising substantial rewards for these ‘Japanese nationals’ far superior to the wages they would receive in Korea. For further information on this topic, see Chapter 8 in this volume. 9 At this juncture it is probably worth noting that all the large mines eventually resorted to using women’s labour in the pits when the wartime demands on men and coal increased. 10 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, London, Penguin, 1977, p. 197. 11 Bentham, quoted in ibid., p. 203. 12 Ibid., p. 201. 13 Richard Samuels, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1987, p. 70. 14 Takazaki Yoshifume, Sektan chiiki no hokokusho, Kurate Machi, unpublished private papers, 1961. 15 This was a common epithet related by informants to refer to the lawlessness, the violence and the frontier-like atmosphere of the region, an image that was maintained through the 1980s and 1990s.

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The burakumin were emancipated formally in 1871, but discrimination against them continued in many forms, most commonly in respect of employment, education and marriage. Their position in relation to Japanese society remained marginalised regardless of the legislative precedents imposed by the regulations of 1871 (or for that matter the post-World War II constitution). Shinfuji, Akai botayama, p. 22. These were not serviced by sewerage of course. Sasaki, Inoue, interviews 1987, 1989. Shinfuji, Akai botayama, p. 22. See Matthew Allen, Undermining the Japanese Miracle: Work and Conflict in a Japanese Coalmining Community, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Nomi Hanako, interview, 1987. See Idegawa Hanako, interview, 1988, for example; Takazaki Yoshifume, Sekitan chiiki no hokokusho, Kurate Machi, private papers, 1961; the works of Ueno Eishin. Large, Organized Workers, pp. 8–9. Michael Lewis, Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990. Sato Eisaku, interview, 1987. Ibid. Nagasue, Jujiyu, 1973. See Ramon Myers and Mark Peattie (eds), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, Princeton University Press, 1984, for a wider coverage of Japan’s colonial experience. Ueno, Hanashi. Taisho company kakari cho records, 1948. Nomi, interview, 1987. Takayama, interview, 1987. Nomi, interview, 1987. Large, Organized Workers, p. 5. James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985, p. xvi. Kurata Satoshi (labour union leader at Kyo no Ue mine), interview, 1988. The hibachi was a coal-fired stove used for cooking. Idegawa Hanako, interview, 1988. Nakane Chie in Japanese Society, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970, reinforces the historical precedence of these terms and the applicability of them in maintaining distance and hierarchy in social relations. See Allen, Undermining, p. 115 for descriptions of the lynchings. Information about these incidents was obtained from interviews with miners and with former yakuza enforcers who worked for some of the smaller mines. Scott, Weapons, p. 39. I use the word ‘play’ as a direct translation of the Japanese term asobi commonly used to refer to extramural activities such as rest, relaxation, drinking, gambling etc. Nomi, interview, 1987; Idegawa, interviews, 1987, 1988; Takashima, interview, 1988; Sasaki, interviews, 1987–8; Onishi, interview, 1987. That is, living in an environment that was outside the mandates of formal state involvement. See for example, E.Patricia Tsurumi’s account of Meiji textile women workers in Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.

168 Matthew Allen 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

See for example, the accounts of women workers in the 1960s in Korea by George E.Ogle, South Korea: Dissent Within the Economic Miracle, London, Zed Books, 1990. For a detailed account of prisoners of war working in the coalmines of Chikuho see Hayashi Eida, Chikuho furyoki, Tokyo, Shodansha, 1987. Miike Rodo Kumiai, Miike Rodo Kumiai toso sanjunen kinenkan, Miike, 1990, p. 25. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 206. Onishi Keisuke, Gisei no to, Tagawa, personal papers, 1975, introduction. Kamata Satoshi, Japan in the Passing Lane: An Insider’s Account of Life in a Japanese Auto Factory, London, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984. Onishi, interview, 1989; Sasaki, interview, 1988. Otomo Zeminaru, Chikuho: Kyusantanchiiki, Chikuho ni okeru shakai fukushi chosa sho, Nishinomiya, Nippon Fukushi Daigaku, 1987, pp. 8–20. Ibid., p. 23. Fukuoka City Welfare Office, Kotoshi no tokei, 1990, p. 12. Stephen Lukes, Power: A Radical View, London, Macmillan Press, 1974.

8

Problems of assimilation The Koreans Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton

Discrimination against the large Korean minority in Japan has become well known outside Japan during recent years and partly as a result of this foreign exposure, is also becoming more widely acknowledged in Japan itself. The horrendous experiences of Korean ‘comfort’ women and forced labourers during the Second World War1 have also come to national and international attention. Going back further into history, discriminatory patterns can be traced back at least to the beginnings of Korean colonisation in the early part of this century. In some views it may go back even further to the Tokugawa period when attitudes of Japanese superiority based on beliefs in Japan as a unique country with a divine emperor were fostered by nascent nationalists.2 Recent studies of Japanese colonialism have pointed out that although colonial policy-makers were committed to assimilation from the beginning, assimilation policies were bound to have superficial results at only the material rather than spiritual level precisely because of these beliefs in Japanese racial uniqueness and superiority. No matter how often the slogan of ‘naisen ittai’ (harmonisation of Japan and Korea) was pronounced as a goal by Japanese authorities, the ambivalence towards Koreans and Korean culture underlying the assimilation policy made its achievement impossible.3 As Michael Weiner emphasises, ‘a central motif of Japanese imperialism’ was ‘the notion that Korean and other Asian peoples were somehow inferior’. 4 Consequently, while assimilation policies demanded the total renunciation of Korean identity, there was no promise of social or political equality. Such inherent contradictions also frustrated the success of assimilation efforts directed toward the Koreans who immigrated both voluntarily and involuntarily to Japan in the pre-1945 period. On the Korean side, explanations of the failure of Japanese government assimilation policies often point to Koreans’ resistance to becoming Japanised. This was born from hatred of their harsh colonial masters and from nationalist aspirations engendered during the late nineteenth century struggles against both Western and Japanese imperialism, but based on pride in a civilisation much older than that of their military conquerors. Japanese assimilation policies, by requiring destruction of such pride in Korean

170 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton culture, created hostility and fierce resentment among Koreans. In this sense, beliefs in Korean superiority clashed head on with beliefs in Japanese superiority, again precluding harmonious ‘integration of Japan and Korea’ (naisen yuwa).5 Consequently, both the nationalistic rejection of assimilation by Koreans and the contradictory nature of Japanese assimilation policy must be highlighted to explain the lack of integration of Koreans into Japanese society during the interwar period and the source of Korean problems in Japan today. At the same time, there needs to be more attention paid to the structural qualities and behaviour patterns of the Korean immigrant population which reinforced the prejudices of both ordinary Japanese people and government officials alike. They also influenced authorities to view assimilation instrumentally as a means of political and social control rather than as a genuine goal of colonialism. In addition, examination of the composition of the Korean immigrant population and their motives for immigration reveals a degree of diversity which has been underplayed because of the emphasis on Korean nationalism and hostility to Japan.6 Similarly, the self-interested nature of Japanese colonial policy throughout Japan’s occupation of Korea, which resulted in brutal measures during the Second World War, must be emphasised, but it has led to a tendency to treat the Japanese state as a monolithic entity and to gloss over as insignificant or ineffective variations in policy during the interwar period. Moreover, although policies toward Koreans in Japan generally paralleled developments in colonial policy as a whole, some distinctions can be made between treatment of Koreans in Japan and those in Korea. EBBS AND FLOWS IN KOREAN IMMIGRATION TO JAPAN Beginning with immigration policy, the Japanese government does not seem to have had a well planned or consistent policy towards Koreans throughout the interwar period. Rather, it tightened or loosened restrictions in response to changing economic and political conditions. Pressure to loosen restrictions generally came from Japanese business interests seeking to fill labour shortages or to control wage levels by employing cheaper Korean workers. The industrial expansion created during the First World War stimulated the first wave of increased immigration, which was accelerated by the deteriorating condition of small Korean farmers brought about by the colonial government’s land policies.7 Consequently, whereas there were only 2,527 Koreans in Japan in 1911, by the end of the war there was a ten-fold increase to 22,262.8 The factor which pushed Koreans out of Korea at that time was a land survey carried out from May 1910 to November 1918. This survey was the central policy in the colonial restructuring of the Korean economy aimed at making the colony a source of profit and particularly of foodstuffs for the mother country. Although ostensibly conducted in order to establish the

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ownership of land and to rearrange the tax system, in actuality it resulted in concentration of ownership by Korean feudal landlords, Japanese landlords and Japanese land companies. By 1918, 3.3 per cent of farmers owned 50.4 per cent of cultivated land, and approximately 80 per cent of farmers were tenants in some respect.9 Burdened with heavy rents (50 per cent of yields), taxes, and charges for seeds and fertiliser, many farmers went into bankruptcy and could not keep their tenancy. Since modern industries which could absorb this surplus labour were as yet largely undeveloped in Korea, many sought to migrate to Japan as well as Manchuria and Siberia. During the 1920s a ‘Grow More Rice’ (sanmai zoshoku) campaign contributed to further erosion of living conditions and an increase in the number of landless farmers. Rice production increased, but rice exports to Japan expanded at an even greater rate, leaving less for Koreans’ own consumption. The number of Koreans who fled to Manchuria was greater than those who sought better conditions in Japan, but by 1934 when the campaign ended, the number of Koreans in Japan had risen to 537,695.10 Political considerations sometimes altered Japanese immigration regulations to stem the tide of Koreans temporarily during the 1920s. Immediately after the First of March Movement demanding independence erupted on the peninsula in 1919, the Government-General of Korea adopted a restrictive policy towards Koreans wanting to go to Japan, requiring them to apply to the police for permission to emigrate. However, within three years the restrictions were abolished. Other attempts at restricting the flow of Koreans to Japan followed the massacres of Koreans in the wake of the Kanto earthquake in 1923 and in 1925 resulted from complaints that Koreans were taking jobs from Japanese. Koreans desiring to go to Japan then needed to provide proof of a job in Japan and possession of a certain minimum of assets. Nevertheless, despite such stiffened regulations governing applications for immigration, the number of Koreans in Japan grew to 148,503 in 1926. 11 The invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo led to promulgation of the ‘Policy to Deal with Korean Emigration’ (Chosenjin Iju Taisaku Yomoku) in 1934. This aimed at stopping emigration to Japan and diverting it to Manchuria, or in the case of Koreans in the south, to northern Korea. Despite this policy, by the outbreak of the Second World War the number of Koreans in Japan still stood at more than 960,000.12 Aside from the push factor of economic deprivation discussed above, the main reason for the continuing large and rapid increase of the Korean immigrant population despite periodic restrictive measures was the demand for cheaper labour by Japanese companies. Images of the ‘good life’ in Japan encouraged Koreans to migrate despite Japanese government efforts to halt the flow. The Settsu Spinning Company in Osaka was the first to send recruiters to Korea seeking labourers in 1911, and more companies followed suit to fill the labour shortage created by increased demands for Japanese exports during the First World War.13 During the 1920s when the Japanese

172 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton economic situation changed from boom to recession and stagnation, Japanese companies again sought Korean workers, this time as a cheaper form of labour. Their demand for cheap and abundant Korean labour led to the abolition of restrictions on the entry of Koreans into Japan in December 1922 and to the establishment of a shipping line between Osaka and Cheju island. According to a 1928 survey of Korean householders in Tokyo, the majority reported extreme poverty and livelihood difficulties as the main reasons for their emigration to Japan, but 16.8 per cent had come to Japan through recruitment. Another survey conducted in 1934 produced similar results.14 Although the reality often fell short of expectations, recruiters’ promises of good wages and working conditions continued to draw thousands of Koreans to Japan. As Michael Weiner has pointed out, racist attitudes of Japanese employers, who regarded Koreans as belonging to a lower cultural and genetic order than Japanese, worked to make Koreans appear to be more suited to the strenuous, unskilled jobs for which the employers sought workers. Not only were Korean immigrants willing to work for a low wage, but their alleged lack of ambition and natural inferiority were seen by some Japanese employers as insurance against their becoming competitive with Japanese workers for skilled jobs. 15 Demand therefore was greatest in industries requiring unskilled workers. While manufacturing firms in spinning, glass and machine production in Osaka, Kyoto, and the prefectures of Hyogo, Aichi and Wakayama employed Koreans, mining and construction came to depend greatly on Korean workers. Virtually all mine workers in Hokkaido in the early 1920s were Koreans, and many Koreans were involved in building projects such as the Diet building in Tokyo and road and railway construction both in the capital and provinces. In all cases, Korean workers’ wages were lower than those of their Japanese counterparts. NATIONALISM AND RADICALISM AMONG KOREAN STUDENTS Given the economic conditions in both Japan and Korea which stimulated the high level of immigration it is not surprising that the majority of Korean immigrants were workers, but students made up another element in the Korean community whose impact on Japanese government policy was disproportionate to their numbers. During the early years of immigration around the time of annexation in 1910, students had comprised the majority of Koreans in Japan, but by the end of the 1920s they numbered only 8,433 compared to approximately 190,000 Korean workers. 16 Despite their relatively small numbers, however, they attracted the attention of Japanese authorities because of their political activism. Before Korea became a Japanese protectorate in 1905, the Korean students who went to Japan did so with the purpose of learning from Japan in order to further the modernisation of their own country. As Korea came under increasing

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Japanese control and finally annexation, students’ attitudes grew hostile and nationalistic. Two incidents reflect the changing attitudes toward Japan. The first occurred in 1907 when the Waseda University Debating Society held a mock Diet where it was suggested that the King of Korea should be ranked no higher than the Japanese nobility when he visited Japan. The head of the Greater Korea Association of Students demanded a public apology from the university vice chancellor for this insult to the Korean King. Although the vice chancellor did express regrets for any injury that may have been caused to Korean-Japanese friendship, because no apology appeared in the newspapers, the Korean students withdrew from the school in protest.17 Another incident occurred in the same year during the Chrysanthemum Festival in Tokyo. Angry Korean students attacked a display which they regarded as offensive because it depicted a Korean delegation prostrating themselves before the Shogun Tokugawa Ienobu.18 At the same time, it was during this period of growing opposition to extension of Japanese power over the peninsula that the number of Koreans enrolled in Japanese schools in Japan increased rapidly. Recognising the change in attitudes, the Government-General of Korea tried to restrict Korean students from going to study in Japan. Consequently, in 1915, of 582 Korean students in Japan, only 48 were supported by the Government-General.19 The remainder were self-financed, meaning that they also were not dependent on the government. Most of them clustered in universities in Tokyo, and many made the Korean YMCA their meeting place. Authorities came to regard the Korean YMCA as a nursery for antiJapanese activists,20 although the Fraternal Association of Korean Students in Tokyo (Tokyo Chosen Ryugakusei Gakuyukai or Gakuyukai for short) was in fact the most politically active, and all Korean students in Tokyo were obliged to be members according to a common silent agreement.21 In 1914 the Gakuyukai began publishing a bi-monthly magazine, Light of Study (Hak Chi Kwang), and sending copies for distribution in Korea. Due to its antiJapanese content, however, only twenty-nine issues passed the inspection of publication censors during the years up to 1930.22 The Japanese government responded to these activities with intensified surveillance of Korean students. In July 1916 the Home Ministry issued several instructions to prefectural governors in an effort to organise the surveillance of suspected Korean subversives. Surveillance included recording of details about suspects’ social status, occupations, addresses, names of family members, special identifying features as well as observation of meetings which suspects attended and organisations to which they belonged. In addition, police collected samples of writings and other publications, photographs and handwriting specimens. Copies of all dossiers were sent to both the Police Affairs Bureau in Tokyo and to the Government-General in Korea.23

174 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton The Russian Revolution and the popularity of Wilsonian democratic ideas and the principle of the self-determination of nations profoundly influenced Korean students. Korean students organised movements against Japanese rule, believing that their demands for national self-determination and independence were part of a general world movement which would achieve independence for Korea. They learned that Koreans in the United States had decided to send a petition to President Wilson calling for Korea’s independence and to dispatch a representative to the Paris Peace Conference. When the US took the position that the principle of national selfdetermination did not apply to Korea, Koreans in Shanghai sent their own representative to Paris to place the issue of Korean independence before the conference participants. Stimulated and encouraged by these efforts, Korean students in Japan held meetings and decided to present a Declaration of Independence to the Japanese cabinet, the Diet and all foreign embassies. Arrests and dispersal of meetings by the police pushed the students into secrecy, but they sent individuals to Korea and Shanghai to report on their activities and to coordinate with independence leaders there.24 On 8 February 1919, the students sent the Declaration of Independence and a Petition for the Calling of a National Congress as planned and held a mass meeting at the Korean YMCA in Tokyo. Despite the fact that the police had stepped up surveillance of Korean students since 1916, the demonstration took them by surprise. Police officers rushed to the meeting, ordered its dispersal and arrested twenty-seven students. In Osaka a similar meeting was planned, but aborted by the arrest of twenty-three students. 25 Subsequently, over a hundred students returned to Korea to participate in the First of March Movement. Most Korean student organisations in Japan suspended activities with the events of February-March 1919 when colonial authorities brutally suppressed the independence movement on the peninsula, but by the end of the year many resurfaced. The Korean YMCA and Gakuyukai again sponsored lectures and debates at which students reaffirmed their determination to achieve Korean independence. Moreover, every year on the anniversary of the First of March Movement, Korean students in Japan organised meetings and demonstrations to commemorate it, which the police just as regularly intervened to disperse. In addition to this continued activism for Korean independence, the increased influence of anarchism and communism among Korean students led to stronger police repression. After the failure of independence movements in 1919, the students felt betrayed by the Western powers and many turned to more radical ideologies. Numerous Korean students participated in communist groups such as Sakai Toshihiko’s Cosmos Club, Takatsu Masamichi’s Gyominkai (the Dawn People’s Society) and the Jiyu Renmei (Freedom League). In 1922 others established the anarchist Black Friends Society (Kokuyukai) and the communist North Star Society (Hokuseikai).

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During the 1920s ideological differences could be seen among radical students, but although anarchists emphasised terrorist activities and communists the organisation of workers, both sought the goal of Korean independence. In 1925 executive members of the Gakuyukai, the Tokyo Korean Youth League, and the January Society as well as the Federation of Labour of Koreans in Japan claimed that ‘although Koreans in Tokyo have different ideologies and opinions, we share the same hope of the restoration of our country and liberation of our people’.26 These students and workers tried to form a coalition among themselves, excluding anti-independence and pro-Japanese bodies, to develop a ‘united struggle’ by engaging in various protest activities, including demonstrations and marches on the commemoration days of incidents such as the First of March Movement and the Great Kanto Earthquake. Japanese police officials recognised this commonality of purpose despite differences in methods and ideologies, observing in reports that whenever there was a Korean national issue, all groups supported it, usually without questioning whether or not it contradicted their ideological principles. Officials concluded that Koreans regarded their differing ideological activities as subordinate to their nationalist goal.27 During the 1930s, however, ideological differences undermined the unity of Korean students. This resulted from the Communist International’s insistence upon the principle of ‘one nation, one party’ and in turn, amalgamation of Korean student organisations with Japanese ones. While communist-oriented students supported this amalgamation, others with a greater commitment to Korean nationalist goals opposed it. This conflict eventually led to the dissolution of the Gakuyukai in 1931, and this type of tension between those concerned primarily with social revolution in Japan and those more concerned with Korean independence was similarly characteristic of strains within the Japanese Communist Party between Japanese leaders and Korean party members.28 Internal division therefore weakened the student movement, but in addition, the combination of radical ideologies with anti-colonial goals had brought the force of the suppressive police apparatus down upon these groups since the promulgation of the Peace Preservation Law in 1925. This law made it a crime to form an association aimed at destruction of the kokutai (national polity) or renunciation of the private property system and initially at least was supposed to be directed at suppressing anarchism and communism. At the same time the political police, known as the Tokko (Special Higher Police), had expanded and included a section which specialised in control of Koreans.29 The number of Koreans arrested as Peace Preservation Law violators rose steadily during the early 1930s. Most of these were students in the Tokyo area.30 After war with China began in 1937, police suppression intensified, targeting the few alumni associations which had until that time managed to operate legally. During the war Korean students were blamed for encouraging Korean workers to commit acts of

176 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton industrial sabotage as well as other anti-war activities, and made up the majority of Koreans arrested for violations of the Peace Preservation Law.31 THE KOREAN WORKERS AS AN UNDERCLASS The Peace Preservation Law and heightened police repression during the late 1920s affected the growing number of Korean workers as well as students. The attraction of communism and anarchism among students focused their attention on the workers and on attempts to draw the workers into their fight against the Japanese government. Moreover, since most Korean students had to support themselves by work as newspaper boys, peddlers or day labourers, they came into contact with Korean labourers in their daily lives. As early as 1920 students in Tokyo had formed the Friendly Association of Self-Supporting Korean Students (Chosen Kugakusei Doyukai) in order to develop ties with Korean workers. As indicated by the name, the main purpose of this organisation was to enhance mutual friendship, to support improvements in educational facilities and to promote savings. However, the police regarded even relatively non-political organisations such as this as potentially subversive and kept Korean worker groups under vigorous surveillance even before introduction of the Peace Preservation Law. Police concern became greater with the emergence of a labour union movement among Korean workers, beginning with the formation of the Tokyo League of Korean Labour (Tokyo Chosen Rodo Domeikai) in 1923. It was organised by well-known labour activists, Kim Chong-Bom and Paek Mu. In the previous year Kim and Paek had investigated the brutal murder of many Korean workers attempting to escape terrible working conditions at the construction site of the Shinano River hydroelectric power station in Niigata prefecture. The Tokyo League was followed in 1924 by organisation of a communist-influenced Osaka League of Korean Labour (Osaka Chosen Rodo Domeikai), which immediately sought to ally itself with the Japan Labour Federation (Nihon Rodo Sodomei). A journal of the Japan Communist Party declared that the unification of Japanese and Korean workers through the ideology of class struggle was one of the most important aspects of the League’s policy. Without it, the Korean workingclass would never be able to realise its ultimate purpose of liberation.32 In February 1925 another organisation advocating a coalition with the Japan Labour Federation was established. This was the Labour Federation of Koreans in Japan (Zai Nippon Chosen Rodo Sodomei). It played a key role in advancing the unification of Korean workers in Japan as well as in attempting to achieve protection of Korean workers’ benefits and freedom and elimination of discrimination. The Federation initially had 11 affiliated groups and 800 members which grew to 25 groups with more than 9,900 members by 1926.33 In 1928 it had 23,530 members but, as in the case of student groups, because the sixth meeting of the Communist International

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adopted the policy of ‘one communist party in one country’, the Federation decided to dissolve its organisation in order to unite with the National Conference of Japanese Trade Unions (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Zenkoku Kyogikai).34 Hereafter, even greater efforts were made to integrate Korean labour organisations into Japanese ones, and Korean activists played important roles in the Japan Communist Party. The Korean labour movement emphasised elimination of discriminatory treatment and agitation for improved working conditions, but its nationalist demands for Korean independence in addition to its communist ideological influences provoked great police concern. The declaration of the second conference of the Federation of Labour of Koreans in Japan in 1926 stated that Korean labourers in Japan experienced the misery of Japanese conquest as Koreans. This was judged to be ‘disquieting’ by the authorities, and the conference was suspended with several members being arrested by police. In the third conference of the Federation of Labour of Koreans in Japan in 1927 leaders proclaimed that Korean labourers were treated differently from their Japanese counterparts, that they suffered from discrimination and illtreatment. They also declared that national as well as class consciousness would combine to ‘maintain more bravely the struggle against imperialism’.35 Korean workers joined May Day rallies where banners not only proclaimed proletarian unity and demands for fairer working conditions but also the goal of Korean national liberation. Korean labour organisations maintained close relations with nationalist movements in Korea and made contributions to their activities. Many leaders, such as Kim Yak-Su, returned to Korea to establish anti-Japanese organisations or to participate in Korean independence movements. As evident in general rallies, Korean labour organisations in Japan emphasised more nationalistic and political issues than Japanese labour organisations which limited their aims to more economic matters. For these reasons, Korean worker organisations became subjected to police repression disproportionate to their success in winning members. Throughout the 1920s the number of Korean workers organised into trade unions remained small compared to the total Korean worker population. Even the close to 10,000 membership of the Labour Federation of Koreans in Japan in 1926 represented less than ten per cent of the total Korean labour force. This lack of success in organising workers remained true for unionisation of Japanese workers as well, but Korean labour union activists faced difficulties in the very nature of Korean workers themselves, aside from harassment by governmental authorities. It should be recalled that Japanese companies recruited Korean workers because they were cheaper than Japanese workers. Companies in the textile and mining industries were the most active recruiters, but firms in glass manufacturing and machinery also sought workers from Korea. According to a survey conducted in 1928, 25.95 per cent of Korean labourers were factory workers. 36 However, the majority of Koreans were employed as unskilled labourers.

178 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton Korean workers found themselves at the bottom of the labour market, with wages which were always lower than those of their Japanese counterparts. In 1923 the average wage for a Korean worker in Osaka was 1.54 yen per day while a Japanese worker averaged 2.02 yen.37 Given these discriminatory wages, most Koreans led extremely impoverished lives. According to a report issued by the Osaka City Social Affairs Bureau in 1924, Koreans lived on the outskirts of the city, most in lodgings provided by the factory or in Korean boarding houses. As was characteristic of Korean migrant populations throughout Japan, the vast majority of them were male. 38 The average number of people living in one house was estimated to be more than seventeen and often more than two people had to share one tatami mat.39 The authors of this report were shocked at the poor diets of the Koreans, concluding that ‘with their diet, it is impossible to ingest the nutrition necessary for survival. They live on rice, salt and vegetables.’40 The report also noted that Koreans did not care for their clothing and minimised their living expenses as much as possible in order to save money or to send money to relatives in Korea. The investigation found that despite their meagre wages, 78 per cent of construction workers, 86 per cent of factory workers and even 30 per cent of day labourers either saved money or sent it back to Korea.41 These findings indicate that most Korean immigrants to Japan expected to stay in Japan for only a limited time and hence had little interest in participating in unions or other activities aimed at long term improvement of conditions. Other reports by the Osaka and Kobe city governments expand our view of the housing difficulties faced by Korean immigrants. Between January and September of 1929 alone there arose 1,610 disputes over housing involving Koreans.42 On the one hand, Japanese house owners were reluctant to lease their houses to Koreans, claiming that Koreans were often in arrears with the rent, did not maintain the conditions of the house and often shared a house with too many other Koreans. On the other hand, Korean tenants complained that Japanese owners did not treat Korean and Japanese tenants equally, charging a higher rent to Koreans than to Japanese.43 The Osaka report recommended that the solution to Korean housing problems lay in preventing further immigration and in improving the farming and employment situation in Korea in order to eliminate the reasons for their emigration.44 This was based on the finding that over 90 per cent of Korean immigrant households and over 80 per cent of single Koreans had been farmers before arriving in Japan. 45 Other official reports made similar recommendations. While these obviously were not taken up in colonial policy, it shows that Japanese officials other than the police took an interest in Korean immigrants, recognising not only the discrimination that Koreans faced and the deprivations in their lives, but also the conditions in Korea which were driving them to emigrate to Japan.

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ASSIMILATION POLICIES During the relatively liberal years following the First World War and continuing into the mid-1920s, the height of ‘Taisho democracy’, some influential Japanese outside of the government also recognised the discriminatory treatment received by Koreans in both Korea and Japan and the hollowness of Japanese government claims that Japanese and Koreans belonged to the same nation. For example, Yoshino Sakuzo, proponent of minponshugi (literally, people-as-the-base-ism), observed that ‘Koreans are treated like stepchildren in this Imperial Japan. If Koreans are ruled under such a situation, they cannot hold the same ideas towards Japan as the Japanese.’46 He was therefore not taken by surprise by the First of March Movement and in fact predicted that such a ground swell in favour of independence would occur. There were limits to Yoshino’s sympathy for Koreans in that he supported political autonomy for Korea rather than full independence. Nevertheless, he did argue that the ideal policy towards Korea should respect Koreans’ racial independence.47 In this respect Yoshino departed from the view which underlay the assimilation policy towards Koreans in Japan which was supported by social welfare and police officials alike. From the time of annexation in 1910 the Japanese government had assumed an attitude of ‘enlightening’ the Korean people as civilised ruler of an inferior native people. Until 1923 it supported semi-official bodies which promoted the social welfare and education of Korean immigrants. These agencies provided access to public housing, aid in finding jobs and establishment of night schools for teaching the Japanese language. Other welfare activities included supervision of government-built housing for Korean workers in places such as Tokyo and management of a cafeteria. According to a Police Bureau report in 1920, there were nine bodies concerned with Korean affairs, most of them located in Tokyo and formed by private Japanese individuals.48 In Kobe the city government set up night schools which were attended by Koreans of all ages from five to thirty-five, but mostly workers. It is surprising that in addition to teaching Japanese language and general education subjects such as mathematics, the curriculum included English, kanbun (Classical Chinese writing) and Korean. This retention of Korean language, that is, the lack of insistence on using only Japanese, differs from the language policy that was to be adopted during the late 1930s. The rationale for teaching Korean was that Koreans would then be able to keep abreast of developments in their colonial homeland and realise that Korea was part of Japan.49 Kobe authorities therefore did not allow teaching of Korean language in order to support retention of a Korean identity, but may have inadvertently done so. These social welfare measures were specifically provided for Koreans whom the police categorised as ‘moderates’, those who did not actively protest against the government and might easily be Japanised.50 By ‘guiding

180 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton and enlightening’ Koreans, the government hoped to prevent Koreans from becoming involved in national liberation movements. In 1921, for example, Koreans led by Pak Chun-Gum organised the Mutual Friendship Association (Soaikai). Pak had immigrated to Japan with entrepreneurial ambitions, become a foreman for Korean workers, and engaged in various activities to help other Koreans before this. Later, after the Kanto earthquake he also organised relief activities to aid Korean victims. Recognising his conciliatory role, the Government-General of Korea and Home Ministry officials who had formerly worked in the colony supported Pak and the Soaikai. 51 However, in addition to developing activities to promote assimilation, this association intervened in Korean labour disputes and tried to obstruct the establishment of anti-Japanese organisations.52 Meanwhile, Koreans regarded as subversive came under increasingly close surveillance and harsh suppression during the course of the 1920s.53 Assimilation efforts were never abandoned even as repression of radicals became systematic suppression. On the contrary, they were stepped up. After the massacre of Koreans following the Kanto earthquake, the government decided to intensify attempts to assimilate Koreans. The massacres had attracted foreigners’ attention to the situation of Koreans in Japan, and the Japanese government feared criticism from the West as well as outrage from Koreans in Korea. Government efforts at first centred on the large Korean community in the Osaka area. With financial support from the Government-General of Korea and the Osaka prefectural government, the Osaka Japan-Korea Cooperation Association (Osaka-fu Naisen Kyowakai) was formed in 1924. Its avowed purpose was to ‘support and guide Koreans who live in Osaka and promote the stability of their livelihood and the advancement of their characters in order to bring fruitful results for the harmonisation of Japan and Korea’.54 It operated several projects such as job introductions, the establishment of educational facilities, organisation of meetings and gatherings and promotion of frugality and savings. Although ostensibly established as a cooperative body between the local government and the public, the official nature of the association was obvious from the background of its executive members, all local government officials such as the head of the Department of Home Affairs, the chief of the Social Affairs Section, the Chief of Police and the head of the Tokko Section. Furthermore, trustees were chosen from among chiefs of police stations, and the chief of the Home Affairs Bureau of the Government-General of Korea became the association’s adviser. 55 Among its various activities, the honouring of Koreans chosen as good examples for the Korean community also indicates the use of cooperative Koreans to assist the assimilating function of the organisation. The establishment of two more ‘Japan-Korea Cooperation’ associations (kyowakai) in Kanagawa and Hyogo prefectures followed in 1925, but an essay contest run by the Kanagawa association reveals the obstacles to achievement of real ‘harmonisation’. The Kanagawa-ken Naisen Kyowakai

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invited school students to enter an essay contest with the theme of ‘the harmonisation of Japan and Korea’ and published a collection of the essays. These essays reveal the common understanding among Japanese that ‘harmonisation of Japan and Korea’ meant ‘to teach Japanese education and the Japanese lifestyle to the low level Koreans in order to pull them up to Japanese standards’.56 More specifically, it meant ‘to enforce the use of the Japanese language, the changing of Korean names to Japanese names, the adoption of Japanese clothes and mixed marriages of Japanese and Koreans in order to assimilate Koreans into Japan’.57 Students viewed these changes as necessary because Koreans were also Japanese and subjects of the emperor and considered that assimilation would ‘create perfect solidarity with Asia’. 58 Japanese school students as well as government officials therefore equated ‘harmonisation of Japan and Korea’ with the obliteration of Korean identity, but regarded this as a means of elevating Koreans up to the Japanese standard of culture and civilisation and consequently, of benefit to the Koreans. Official reports occasionally expressed some sympathy and understanding of the disadvantages faced by Koreans in Japan, but still revealed an underlying attitude of cultural superiority. For example, an Osaka City report on the problems of Korean workers described Korean workers as ‘generally docile’ and orderly people who were trying to get used to Japanese customs. It recognised their difficulties because ‘more than half of the Koreans living in Osaka Prefecture do not understand Japanese at all’ and their rural, agricultural backgrounds did not give them the skills or experience of working and living in an urban environment. However, the report concluded that ‘therefore the necessity of assimilation and guidance for Koreans should be recognised widely’.59 Even more frequent than such sympathetic, though condescending views of Koreans, were complaints about the character and behaviour of Korean workers. Unlike in the above mentioned Osaka City report, Korean labourers were more likely to be regarded as prone to ‘indulging in violent behaviour’ and criticised for squandering their wages on drink and gambling. They were generally described as inefficient, indolent and irresponsible towards both their work and their workmates, and it was believed that Koreans lacked a sense of loyalty towards their employers. Although officials also saw these faults in Japanese workers, they found Korean workers worse in comparison.60 The fact that these faults were often presented as inherent characteristics of all Koreans suggests an assumption of racial as well as cultural inferiority. The actual conditions and behaviour of Korean workers contradict certain aspects of these official depictions and at the same time may explain others, though not the underlying preconceptions and assumptions. In particular, the comment that Koreans squandered their wages on drink and gambling contradicted the finding that 60 per cent of Korean workers sent money to Korea and the earlier mentioned figures related to savings among various

182 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton types of Korean workers.61 Criticisms of inefficiency and laziness would appear to be contradicted by the fact that many cotton mills welcomed Korean workers and that one iron factory in Osaka was reported to employ only Korean workers. If Korean workers really were as irresponsible as attributed, this would presumably have offset the advantages of their cheapness. At the same time, lack of loyalty to employers may be explained by Korean workers’ regarding themselves as temporary workers in Japan, although this became less the case after the depression of the 1930s when Koreans were unlikely to have a place to return to in Korea. Japanese companies’ treatment of Korean workers as a reserve labour force which could be used or discarded depending on management’s labour needs certainly did not work to ensure their loyalty. This attitude toward Korean labour was particularly evident during the 1930s. When the onset of the depression led many enterprises to cut the number of their workers, Korean workers were more adversely affected than Japanese workers. The unemployment rate of Korean workers was approximately three times greater than that of Japanese workers. In Osaka, the unemployment rate of Korean workers reached eighteen per cent in October 1930, and one out of five unemployed workers was Korean.62 According to the Osaka Mainichi Newspaper, when the financial depression hit, 70 per cent of workers had employers who ran away, and hence could not get any compensation. On the fifth of this month, a stevedore of Minato Ward, Kang Tae-Cho committed suicide because of unemployment. Every day tragic things are happening in Korean living quarters.63 With economic recovery beginning in 1932 after expansion into Manchuria and changes in monetary policy, the demand for labour came to exceed the number of new workers available, and Koreans were seen as ‘necessary and indispensable labour’ who ‘had great significance as an important labour resource when Japanese workers were mobilised for the war’.64 While these efforts to mobilise Korean labour increased with the preparations and then outbreak of war, so also did the government’s acceleration of assimilation policies. In 1933 the Home Ministry Social Affairs Bureau began to investigate the situation of Koreans in Japan and the following year joined with high level officials in the Police Bureau, Economic Development Bureau and the Government-General of Korea to discuss assimilation policies. The meetings concluded that the government should educate Koreans in Japan with assimilation policies as the base, try to improve their living conditions and make them pursue their duties as the emperor’s subjects. Meanwhile the government should enlighten Japanese to deepen their understanding of Koreans, promote mutual friendships between Japanese and Koreans and lead Koreans to assimilate themselves into Japanese society of their own accord.65

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Beginning in Osaka in 1935, the government began to organise kyowakai nationwide. By 1937, thirty had been established by local governments.66 Two years later a central organisation (the Chuo Kyowakai) was formed. This not only aggressively promoted assimilation, but also sought to control ‘dangerous thoughts’ among Koreans and to establish a system for mobilising Koreans in the war effort.67 Giving the Kyowakai these multiple responsibilities indicates the view of assimilation as an instrument for achieving the political and economic goals of the government as they related to Koreans. The Kyowakai worked closely with the police, who kept Koreans under observation in all aspects of their lives. Branch offices of the association were established within each police jurisdiction, and offices were actually situated within police stations.68 Furthermore, the chief of police in each district became the head of the branch office of the Kyowakai, and Tokko officers from the Korean section became executive members. Koreans fluent in Japanese were chosen to act as assistants to these Japanese executive members, and it was they and the police officers who carried out almost all of the actual day to day work of the association.69 In Hyogo prefecture for example, the Kyowakai in 1940 had 42 branch offices, employing altogether 205 Tokko officers and 770 Korean assistants called ‘shidoin’ (leader). All Kyowakai activities were overseen by these shidoin. They met almost every month and discussed the organisation and management of these activities. Meetings were held in police stations, and each time they began with an obeisance in the direction of the Imperial Palace, a silent tribute and singing of the national anthem three times.70 The recollections of a Korean woman in Hiroshima provide an example of Koreans who cooperated in Kyowakai activities and an indication of the increasing number of Koreans who were making Japan their permanent home.71 They also provide a contrast to the many stories of mistreatment and poor living and working conditions suffered by Korean immigrants. The woman recalled that as a child at school in Korea she had felt that she had ‘become Japanese’, and later as a young woman she had ‘yearned for Japan’, for ‘at that time the Japanese were gods’. Consequently, when a Korean man returned from Japan for a meeting with her as a prospective husband (an omiai), she agreed. Upon arriving in Japan in 1937, she discovered that many Koreans were not living ‘the good life’ as rumour had had it, but her situation happily proved different because her husband worked as a subcontractor for Mitsubishi, which was utilising Korean labour. As she told interviewers recently, ‘We were able to eat white rice. We had cash too. I was quite happy I’d come to Japan. He [her husband] bought me my first Western dress a week after we arrived.’72 Her husband was ‘one of the leaders of the Kyowakai’, which she interestingly described as ‘a Korean people’s group’ rather than a government organisation. Her enthusiasm for integrating into Japanese life extended to asking her husband to obtain permission to form a Korean

184 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton Women’s Kyowakai. Authorities not only gave the permission, but ‘all the big shots from the city’ attended the opening of the new association, and she became its head. The group became busy with volunteer work and also civildefence and air-defence training.73 Considering these experiences and her sense of being Japanese up until the end of the war, it was to come as a shock after the war to be denied compensation as a victim of the atomic bombing because she was a Korean ‘foreigner’.74 Increasing participation rates in mainstream politics are another indication of the growth of a more permanent Korean population. Koreans in Japan were able to run for the Diet and vote in local and national elections if they met the same requirements for eligibility as Japanese. The 1925 universal manhood suffrage law had enfranchised Korean males over the age of 25 who lived in Japan, subject to residential restrictions and exclusion of recipients of public or private relief. These restrictions and the necessity of writing the names of candidates on the ballot in Japanese excluded many Koreans from voting eligibility. Nevertheless, a 1936 government study of ten districts found 41,829 Koreans eligible to vote, and between 1929 and 1939 as many as 187 Koreans ran for public office and 53 of these were successful.75 Among the successful candidates, Pak Chun-Gum, the founder of the Soaikai, won a seat in the Diet. Most Koreans ran for office in districts with large Korean populations and addressed Korean social problems in their campaigns, but they also tried to win Japanese votes by speaking about harmony between Koreans and Japanese. Although the 1936 survey also found that only a third of eligible Koreans actually cast their votes, approximately ten per cent fewer than the participation rate of Japanese,76 by 1942 the Korean voting rate was similar to that of Japanese. This correlates with the increasing number of Koreans who were establishing families and long-term residence in Japan. At the same time, when Koreans from Korea were included in the national mobilisation of workers for war industries beginning in 1938, security concerns rose about this huge influx of more temporary workers. The police was able to keep track of them because they were required to become members of the Kyowakai. Upon arrival in Japan the workers were issued a membership card without which they could not obtain a job and would be treated as if they were illegal immigrants or later, as escapees from forced labour conditions.77 The Kyowakai then sent them to special training centres which taught them Japanese language and ethics for three months before deploying them for work. In 1942 this period of training was extended to six months because the productivity of industries had dropped as the recruitment of Koreans reached a mass scale and became less and less voluntary. Emphasis, however, was now placed on spiritual development of the Korean workers as imperial subjects of Japan, more precisely on instilling absolute obedience to commands, rather than on practical job training. This paralleled the general trend in colonial policy toward ‘imperialisation’ of

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colonial peoples that had begun with outbreak of the China war.78 A new Kyowakai oath initiated at the First National Conference of Kyowa Projects in December 1940 highlights this intensified orientation to the throne and emphasis on duties and obligations to the Japanese state: • We resolve to become loyal Japanese subjects in obedience to the Imperial will of impartiality. • We resolve to devote ourselves to our occupations in accordance with the principles of the fulfillment of the duties of the Imperial subjects. • We resolve to reform and infuse our livelihood in accordance with the fundamental principle of naichi doka (assimilation).79 Given the lack of industrial work experience and Japanese linguistic skills of the Koreans, this type of training did not help to raise industrial productivity. This suggests that the government placed a higher priority on political control goals than on economic ones as the war waged on. The heightened attention to spiritual aspects is also evident in a shift in the more specifically assimilationist measures pursued by the Kyowakai in 1942. Prior to 1942 assimilation policy focused primarily on external aspects of Korean life in Japan. In particular, officials criticised Korean women for continuing to wear traditional Korean clothes. Korean males seldom wore Korean clothes because of their work environment and discrimination, but Korean women preferred the comfort of Korean clothes over Japanese clothes. Ignoring such considerations, some police officers even spilled ink on those who wore Korean clothes, and Aichi Prefecture issued a ‘three year plan for Japanese clothes’.80 In 1939 Koreans were ordered to change their names to Japanese ones, which provoked many protests including suicide protests.81 The order went against the still strongly held value of filial piety, institutionalised in the practice of keeping a book of the family tree (choppo) which was handed down from one generation to another. Koreans were also encouraged to donate money to the Kyowakai and to save money in government accounts to support the war. In this, the Kyowakai was not totally unsuccessful. On one occasion 530,000 yen was collected in a national campaign and an aircraft named ‘Kyowa’ presented to the army and navy.82 As another example, the Kyowakai’s bulletin of November 1939 reported that in Aichi prefecture Kim Ki-Do and another ten Koreans won official commendation as good models for other Koreans. It said: Since the Incident, patriotism amongst Koreans in Aichi prefecture is extremely strong and has produced many anecdotes of praiseworthy acts such as labour service, donation of money and consolation of wounded soldiers by Koreans. On the seventh of July, the second commemorative day of the Incident [the Marco Polo Bridge Incident], Kim Ki-Do and another ten Koreans were honoured by the head of the Egawa branch

186 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton office of Kyowakai. Mr. Kim thanked the benevolence of His Majesty the emperor and the Imperial Army deeply for his peaceful life. He has been taking ten Koreans who live in his vicinity together to monthly donation [to the Kyowakai] since last September. The amount donated reached 68 yen and 20 sen by the 7th of September this year. Although these Koreans are not wealthy (nine of them are construction labourers and the other two engage in piecework making socks at home), they plan to continue making donations until the end of the war. They are truly worth honouring as a good example for others [other Koreans].83 The association made reports on the number of Koreans who saved money and on the amounts saved. Companies kept the passbooks of Korean forced labourers, who were not allowed to withdraw money themselves. Other Koreans living in Japan were able to withdraw their money, although it was discouraged and in some Kyowakai the association leaders kept members’ passbooks. These differences in responses and treatment in financial matters suggest that perhaps a distinction should be made between the Koreans who had migrated to Japan voluntarily and those more or less forcibly recruited as workers during the war years. What remained one of the chief obstacles to integration was lack of Japanese language skills among Koreans. This was despite the increased emphasis on use of Japanese in the accelerated Japanisation efforts of the 1930s. In fact, use of Japanese was regarded as the most important indicator of ‘successful’ assimilation by government officials, which, as elaborated upon by Hugh Clarke, reveals the significance of language in the creation of Japanese national and cultural identity. The Kyowakai prohibited Koreans from speaking Korean not only in public, as in meetings, but also in private. It published Japanese textbooks and brochures and organised numerous Japanese classes and courses for Koreans. 84 Korean children in Japan attended Japanese schools since there were no separate schools for Koreans as there were for Koreans in Korea. Nevertheless, a Bank of Korea survey in 1941 found that thirty-four per cent of Koreans in Japan did not understand Japanese at all.85 Although this may reflect the large number of recent immigrants, including forced labourers, to Japan, it also indicates that similar efforts to teach Japanese in schools in Korea had been relatively unsuccessful too.86 In 1942 when the government decided to initiate conscription of Koreans into the army from 1944, assimilation efforts to Japanese Koreans internally as well as externally became essential to ensure that Koreans would not turn their arms against Japanese. As stated earlier, there was a shift in emphasis to spiritual aspects in training programmes as well as in assimilation measures in general. Koreans had to install Shinto altars in their homes and make visits to Shinto shrines organised by the Kyowakai, where they helped with cleaning, and facing in the direction of the Imperial Palace, prayed for the emperor and a Japanese victory.87 The Kyowakai also prepared a family registration of

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Koreans and began to train Korean youths in Japan in anticipation of the conscription plan. The underlying official attitude of suspicion toward Korean loyalty continued, however, so that Koreans remained objects of surveillance and control. Consequently, when in 1942 the Kyowakai decided to appoint leaders of the association from among Koreans, the Home Ministry Police Affairs Bureau overturned the decision because ‘work done by leaders is closely related to police work, and therefore, it is necessary to choose leaders from among Japanese in order to maintain police secrecy’.88 The Kyowakai also cooperated with police in searches for Korean forced labourers who absconded from their work places.89 The last year of the war saw not only continued rhetoric to accelerate ‘harmony’ between Japan and Korea, but also the first official advocacy of ‘improved treatment of Koreans’. In addition to Koreans becoming eligible for membership in the Diet, restrictions on Koreans upon entering Japan were to be abolished and means for Koreans in Japan to transfer their family registrations to Japanese family registration were to be established. The government also stated the aims of educating Japanese to recognise clearly the assimilation policy, of improving treatment of Koreans by the police and of improving working conditions for Koreans. The Kyowakai became an enlarged Koseikai (Live Together Association) to implement these policies. These steps seem to have been a response not only to the generally deteriorating conditions in the face of inevitable defeat, but more specifically to a desire to keep Korean workers in Japan. Recruitment quotas for labourers had never been reached, despite the resort to methods of forced recruitment, and thousands returned to Korea or escaped from their work situations each year. Between March and May 1945 alone 22,466 Koreans returned to the peninsula, and more than 23,000 escaped from their work places between January and March.90 Korean workers were also reported to have little motivation to work. 91 Little wonder given the stark living conditions, strenuous and dangerous work, and often discriminatory and brutal treatment meted out to Korean workers. Many personal accounts of both Japanese and Korean workers in the coal mines detail these conditions and the prejudice encountered by Koreans from both fellow workers and supervisors. At the same time there are other stories of friendship and mutual help between Japanese and Koreans, notably cases of Japanese peasants and burakumin aiding escape attempts by Korean workers.92 After the war ended, more than 1,300,000 Koreans were repatriated to Korea.93 The large number of Koreans returning to Korea reflects the fact that first of all, before the war most Koreans in Japan viewed themselves as temporary migrants. Both pushed and pulled from Korea to Japan, most continued to regard Korea as their home and since they did not expect to remain in Japan permanently had little incentive to integrate themselves into Japanese society. Second, as the war progressed many Koreans had been forced to emigrate. It is estimated that 667,000 Koreans were forcibly conscripted for labour in Japan.94 Third, the large number of returnees after

188 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton the war reflects the inhospitable environment which Koreans entered when they immigrated to Japan. The brutal living and working conditions in the mines are described vividly in Matthew Allen’s chapter. In addition, even those Koreans who immigrated voluntarily and were not confined to prisonlike work places usually lived in poverty and faced prejudice and discrimination in their daily lives. Gregory Henderson has noted that the Japanese who emigrated to Korea were impoverished farmers whose economic, social and cultural status was lower than that of the indigenous Koreans. These characteristics of inferiority, coupled with their aggressive manners, fuelled Koreans’ dislike and resentment toward their Japanese rulers as well as contributed to development of competitive attitudes.95 The same might apply to the poor Korean farmers who emigrated to Japan. Lack of work skills, education and Japanese linguistic skills only reinforced the existing prejudices of Japanese, and Koreans’ ghettoisation by choice as well as necessity provided little opportunity for development of relationships between individual Koreans and Japanese which might have dispelled negative stereotypes. Even those Japanese social welfare officials who expressed concern about Koreans’ living conditions did so from a condescending perspective. Given the assumption of cultural and racial superiority, the policies of assimilation were bound to fail even without the spread of wartime conditions during the 1930s. Moreover, the persistent demands for Korean independence among activist students and workers, though a minority of Koreans and far from united themselves in other ways, heightened the policing concerns of Japanese officials and made assimilation all the more important for purposes of political and social control. A 1946 survey suggests that the majority of Koreans wanted to return to Korea, yet 646,943 Koreans remained in Japan after the war,96 and many who returned to Korea then came back to Japan. The mixed motivations of these people serve as a reminder that Korean immigrants to Japan were not a homogeneous group. Some remained in Japan because of uncertainty regarding conditions on the peninsula. Others remained because of restrictions on assets that they could take with them. While representing a minority, still others stayed in Japan for more positive reasons. This would include those who had worked with the Kyowakai and those who had established families in Japan, a group which had become more numerous by the end of the 1930s. These Koreans felt themselves to be Japanese and regarded Japan as their home even while Korea remained their homeland. However, they as well as Koreans who remained in Japan for more pragmatic reasons, would eventually be categorised as ‘aliens’ in Japan and face the legal as well as social discrimination accompanying that status.97 For Koreans in Japan, whether ‘assimilated’ or not, the liberation of their homeland did nothing to eliminate the social prejudice and discriminatory treatment that had become characteristic of the interwar years, and on top of the persistence of such attitudes, their problems became compounded by their new alien legal status.

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NOTES 1 For descriptions of living and working conditions of Korean coalminers, see Chapter 7. 2 Scholars in the School of National Learning (Kokugaku) lay the groundwork for the arousal of national consciousness by rejecting Chinese influence and asserting the superiority of Japanese culture. On Kokugaku see H.D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988. 3 Mark Peattie, ‘The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945’ in Peter Duus (ed.), Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6: Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 239–44; Mark Peattie, ‘Introduction’ in Ramon Myers and Mark Peattie (eds), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 40–2. Richard Mitchell’s early study of the Korean minority in Japan also pointed out these barriers to assimilation on the Japanese side. Richard Mitchell, The Korean Minority in Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1967, pp. 91, 98. 4 Michael Weiner, Race and Migration in Imperial Japan, London and New York, Routledge, 1994, pp. 21–4. 5 On the roots of a Korea-centred world view as it developed in Japanese-Korean diplomatic relations, see Etsuko Kang, ‘Diplomacy and Ideology in JapaneseKorean Relations from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century’, PhD dissertation, University of Sydney, 1996. 6 Although dealing with nationalist developments in Korea rather than Japan, a notable exception is Michael Robinson’s book on the early 1920s when Japanese colonial policy in Korea moderated to an extent in response to the First of March Movement. Robinson convincingly shows that the Korean nationalist movement split into radicals and moderates; in other words, that Korean nationalism should not be treated as a homogenous concept. Michael Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920–1925, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1988. 7 Yamabe Kentaro, Nihon tochika no Chosen, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1971, pp. 32–7. 8 Kang Jae-Om, Nihon ni yoru Chosen shihai no yonjunen, Osaka, Osaka Shoten, 1983, pp. 55–6 9 Ibid. 10 Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Shakai undo no jokyo (1934)’ in Pak Kyong-Sik (comp.), Zainichi Chosenjin kankei shiryo shusei, vol. 3, Tokyo, San’ichi Shobo, 1975–6, p. 33. 11 Naimusho Keihokyoku Hoanka, ‘Taisho 15nenchu ni okeru zairyu Chosenjin no jokyo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 200. 12 Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Shakai undo no jokyo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 3, p. 33. 13 Kang Jae-Om and Kim Dong-Hun, Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin rekishi to tenbo, Tokyo, Rodo Keizaisha, 1989, p. 22. 14 Tokyofu Shakaika, ‘Zaikyo Chosenjin rodosha no genjo (1929)’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 2, p. 959 and Ibid. (1936) in vol. 3, pp. 997–8. 15 Weiner, Race and Migration, p. 48. For more details on Korean immigration from 1920–3, see Weiner’s The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1989. 16 Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Chosenjin gaikyo 3’ and ‘Zairyu Chosenjin no jokyo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, pp. 62, 204. 17 Kamigaito Kenichi, Nihon ryugaku to kakumei undo, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982, pp. 139–40.

190 Young-Soo Chung and Elise K.Tipton 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48

Ibid., p. 140. Watanabe Shinzaburo, ‘Chosen ryugakusei no genjo’ in Toyo jiho, 199 (Apr. 1915), pp. 54–5. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Chosenjin gaikyo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 87. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp 23–5. Pak Kyong-Sik, Zainichi Chosenjin undoshi, Tokyo, San’ichi Shobo, 1979, p. 87. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., p. 126. Naimusho Keihokyoku Hoanka, ‘Taisho 15nenchu ni okeru zairyu Chosenjin no jokyo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1. p. 204. Weiner, Race and Migration, pp. 184–5. See Elise K.Tipton, The Japanese Police State: The Tokko in Interwar Japan, Sydney and Honolulu, Allen and Unwin and The University of Hawaii Press, 1990, pp. 21–5. Weiner, Race and Migration, p. 185. Ibid., pp. 186, 202. Zenei, January 1923, cited in Pak, Undoshi, p. 123. Naimusho Keihokyoku Hoanka, ‘Taisho 15nenchu ni okeru zairyu Chosenjin’, p. 217. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Zairyu Chosenjin undo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 2, p. 254. Pak, Undoshi, pp. 168–9. Nagoya Chiho Shokugyo Jimukyoku, ‘Chosenjin rodosha ni kansuru chosa’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 690. Osakashi Shakai Chosaka, ‘Chosenjin rodosha mondai’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 376. For figures on the age and sex distribution of Koreans in Japan between 1920 and 1940, see George De Vos and Chang-soo Lee, ‘The Colonial Experience, 1910–1945’ in Chang-soo Lee and George De Vos (eds), Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981, Table 4 on p. 39. Osakashi Shakaibu Chosaka, ‘Chosenjin rodosha mondai’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, p. 381. Ibid., p. 378. Ibid., p. 386. Osakashi Shakaibu Chosaka, ‘Honshi ni okeru Chosenjin jutaku mondai’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 2, p. 1195. Kobe Shiyakusho Shakaika, ‘Zaishin hanto minzoku no genjo’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 667. Osakashi Shakai Chosaka, ‘Chosenjin jutaku mondai’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, p. 1198. Tokyofu Shakaika, ‘Saikyo Chosenjin rodosha no genjo (1936)’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 3. p. 1023. Iwamura Toshio, Zainichi Chosenjin to Nihon rodosha kaikyu, Tokyo, Azekura Shobo, 1987, p. 57. Mark Peattie, ‘Japanese Attitudes Toward Colonialism, 1895–1945’ in Myers and Peattie (eds), The Japanese Colonial Empire 1895–1945, pp. 105–06. Yanagi Muneyoshi was another influential critic of Japanese policies in Korea. See Chapter 9 in this volume. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Chosenjin kinkyo gaikyo’ in Pak, Shiryo Shusei, vol. 1, p. 125.

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Kobe Shiyakusho Shakaika, ‘Hanto minzoku no genjo’, in Pak, Shiryo shusei, pp. 676–9. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Chosenjin naichi toko hoka 4ko ni taisuru jimu toriatsukai kata renraku ni kansuru ken irai tsucho,’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 32. De Vos and Lee, ‘Colonial Experience’, p. 48. Higuchi Yuichi, Kyowakai, Tokyo, Shakai Hyoronsha, 1986, p. 12. This distinction between moderates and radicals and corresponding differential treatment also characterised the handling of dissenters in Korea. Peattie, ‘Introduction’, p. 42. Chosen Sotokufu, ‘Hanshin-Keihin chiho no Chosenjin rodosha’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 424. Pak Kyong-Sik, Tennosei kokka to zainichi Chosenjin, Tokyo, Shakai Hyoronsha, 1976, p. 152. Ibid., p. 153. Ibid. Ibid. Osakashi Shakaibu Chosaka, ‘Chosenjin rodosha mondai’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, pp. 378, 394, 395. Chosen Sotokufu, ‘Hanshin-Keihin chiho no Chosenjin rodosha’, in Pak, Shiryo shusei, pp. 411–12, 415; Chuo Sokugyo Shokai Jimukyoku, ‘Tokyo fuka zairyu Chosenjin rodosha ni kansuru chosa’, in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 440. Keisho Nando Keisatsubu, ‘Naichi dekasegi Senjin rodosha jotai chosa’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 1, p. 575. Iwamura, Nihonjin rodosha kaikyu, p. 163. Osaka Mainichi Shinbun, 14 May 1930. Osaka Naisen Yuwa Jigyo Chosakai, ‘Zaiju Chosenjin mondai to sono taisaku’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 3, p. 915. Pak, Tennosei, pp. 157–8. Ibid., p. 181. Ibid. A chart of the organisational structure of the Kyowakai can be found in Weiner, Race and Migration, p. 162. Higuchi, Kyowakai, p. 115. Ibid., pp. 116–19. Statistics showing an increasing number of children between 1920 and 1940 and a quite even balance between males and females in the 0–4 year age group in 1940 indicate the establishment of permanent families among Korean immigrants. See De Vos and Lee, ‘Colonial Experience’, p. 39. Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History, New York, The New Press, 1992, p. 388. Ibid. Ibid., p. 389. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Zairyu Chosenjin undo’(1936), in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 3, pp. 561–2. Ibid., pp. 560–1; Mitchell, Korean Minority, p. 95. The requirement of a membership card may not have been thoroughly enforced, however, for in 1942 the police checked 643,416 Korean workers and found 68,468 without the required card. Mitchell, Korean Minority, p. 82. Although technically a forced labour recruitment policy was only in effect between September 1944 and March 1945, there are many examples of individual abduction or ‘manhunt’ raids on Korean villages from as early as 1938. See for example, Cook and Cook, Japan at War, pp. 193–4; Chosenjin Kyosei Renko Shinso Chosakan, Kyosei renko sareta Chosenjin no shogen, Tokyo, Akashi

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78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

Shoten, 1990, p. 86. On the prison-like conditions in the mines where the majority of Korean forced labourers worked, see Chapter 7 in this volume as well as the preceding sources. Peattie, ‘Introduction’, p. 41. Chuo Kyowakai, ‘Kyowa jigyo’ vol. 3, No. 1 (January, 1941) in Pak Kyong-Sik (ed.), Chosen mondai shiryo gyosho, vol. 4: Zainichi Chosenjin tosei soshiki ‘Kyowakai’ kikanshi, Tokyo, San’ichi Shobo, 1982, p. 309. Ibid., pp. 319–23. Pak Kyong-Sik, Nihon teikokushugi no Chosen shihai, Tokyo, Aoki Shoten, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 62–3. Higuchi, Kyowakai, p. 135. Chuo Kyowakai, ‘Kyowa jigyo iho’ No. 3, November 1939 in Pak, Shiryo gyosho, vol. 4, p. 73. Higuchi, Kyowakai, p. 160. Chosen Ginko Keijo Sosaiseki Chosaka, ‘Naichi, Shina kakuchi no hantojin no katsudo ni kansuru chosa’ in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 4, p. 1306. Since the earliest years of colonisation, the primary emphasis in Korean education policy had been on instruction of the Japanese language as well as ‘moral training’ at the primary level. By 1936 less than five per cent of Koreans could speak Japanese ‘with little difficulty’ and a comparable percentage ‘with proficiency’. In October 1937 Governor-General Minami Jiro ordered the exclusive use of Japanese for all Korean students both in an out of school, but in 1943 only 22.15 per cent of Koreans were conversant in Japanese. See Table 2 in Wonmo Dong, ‘Assimilation and Social Mobilization in Korea’ in Andrew Nahm (ed.), Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule, Western Michigan University, Center for Korean Studies, 1973, p. 159. Higuchi, Kyowakai, p. 132. Pak, Tennosei, pp. 216–18. Ibid., p. 235. Naimusho Keihokyoku, ‘Zairyu Chosenjin undo no jokyo’ in Tokko Geppo, 1945 (manuscript) in Pak, Shiryo shusei, vol. 5, p. 508. Ibid., pp. 508–9. For examples, see Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, New York, Pantheon, 1982, pp. 236–42. Kang Jae-Om, ‘Zainichi Chosenjin no 65-nen’, Sanzenri, vol. 8 (1976), p. 27. Ibid. Gregory Henderson, ‘Japan’s Chosen’ in Andrew Nahm (ed.), Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule, pp. 264–5. Kang, ‘65-nen’, p. 27 On developments during the Occupation period, see Mitchell, Korean Minority, Ch. 8.

9

The great dialect debate The state and language policy in Okinawa Hugh Clarke

It is a curious irony that social control can be enforced through subtle, almost imperceptible, psychological pressure and that the call for conformity often finds its loudest voice in the ranks of the oppressed. The conflict between assimilation to a central ideal on the one hand, and the promotion of local culture on the other, is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in the dialect debate (hogen ronso) which raged in Okinawa for most of 1940. It is true that there had been a strong standard-language policy in place all over Japan since the last decade of the nineteenth century. The Ministry of Education expended considerable effort in trying to correct regional accents, particularly in the Tohoku area. Dialect surveys and research were conducted in order to assist in the teaching of standard Japanese. Nowhere, however, was the enforcement of language policy as vehemently pursued as it was in Okinawa. The pressure to conform came from external political pressure on the one hand and, on the other hand, from the aspirations of the Okinawans themselves for economic and social advancement. In January 1940 Yanagi Muneyoshi led a delegation of members of the Mingei Kyokai (Folk Art Association) on a fact-finding mission to Okinawa. It was the association’s second visit to the prefecture, following its exciting ‘discovery’ of Okinawa in March of the previous year. Yanagi Muneyoshi (often referred to as Soetsu) was already well known throughout the country for his views on the importance of traditional arts and crafts to the survival of Japan’s identity in the face of increased Westernisation, mechanisation and mass production. The Folk Art Association which he founded in 1934 had grown out of his membership of the humanist literary group Shirakaba (White Birch), centred around a small group of minor aristocrats including Arishima Takeo, Shiga Naoya, Mushanokoji Saneatsu and the English potter Bernard Leach. It saw in the naive crafts of unnamed artisans both the embodiment of the human spirit and an aesthetic of the highest order. Yanagi advocated a return to a simpler, less materialistic existence based on cooperation and mutual respect. He was, in a sense, a nationalist seeking to forge a Japanese identity from the diversity of regional cultures which could be found within the Japanese empire.

194 Hugh Clarke While his call for a more ascetic lifestyle and cooperation in creating a new Japanese identity had struck a sympathetic chord among the Japanese political leadership, Yanagi had frequently clashed with authorities over his criticism of Japanese excesses in Korea. He had been a tireless campaigner for the need to recognise the contribution of Korean art and culture. For a time at least, he succeeded in saving the Kwang Hwa Mun gate in Seoul which had been earmarked for demolition to make way for the construction of the colonial administration headquarters.1 Yanagi had been a strong critic of the prevailing assimilation policies of the central government. He also believed that modernisation had robbed major Japanese cities like Tokyo and Osaka of their traditional culture and humanity as their populations were becoming enslaved to machine production. The purpose of this trip to Okinawa was to alert the inhabitants of Japan’s urban centre to the dangers they were facing and to make them aware of the richness and diversity of Okinawan culture. As we shall see, the visit triggered a debate which had greater consequences for the Okinawans themselves. The arguments for and against continue to reverberate today. THE SYMPOSIUM There were twenty-six in Yanagi’s party which left Kobe on 31 December 1939 on board the Osaka Steamship Company’s vessel Kohoku Maru bound for Naha, capital of Okinawa prefecture. The group included prominent members of the Mingei Kyokai (Folk Art Association), Yanagi Muneyoshi himself, the potters, Hamada Shoji, Funaki Michitada and Sakuma Fujitaro, the woodblock-print maker, Munakata Shiko and the lacquerware craftsman, Suzuki Shigeo. In addition, there were the medical doctor and critic Shikiba Ryuzaburo, the Buddhist priest Asano Choryo and Tanaka Toshio, editor of the association’s publication, Mingei monthly. This group of nine members of the Folk Art Association was considerably outnumbered by seventeen other members of the party who can be divided into four broad subgroups comprising representatives from the tourist industry, media, art galleries and the general public. The media contingent included three photographers and two cinematographers. Clearly the group was involved in a major promotion of Okinawa as a tourist destination and supplier of folk art to the markets of Tokyo and Osaka. The incident which sparked the controversy occurred on 7 January 1940 at a symposium jointly sponsored by the Okinawa Tourist Association (Okinawa Kanko Kyokai) and the Local History Association (Kyodo Kyokai). In the course of his presentation a member of Yanagi’s party criticised the severity with which the prefectural educational authorities appeared to be pursuing their campaign for the promotion of standard Japanese. This view was also supported by Yanagi who felt the standard language campaign had been pursued with unnecessary vigour and severity, ‘to the point where it could possibly lead to the denigration of that pure Okinawan language which is the product of the Okinawan lifestyle

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itself’ and that it represented a ‘fundamental error in the prefectural government’s philosophy in regard to the language problem’.2 This comment brought a counter-argument from some of the locals present to the effect that any attempt to preserve the unique features of Okinawan culture would ‘hinder the cultural advancement of Okinawa’. Others questioned the motives of Yanagi and his followers with the accusation, ‘your telling us to preserve our unique culture is merely because as travellers you enjoy having your curiosity satisfied and your senses indulged’. This claim Yanagi dismissed as ‘a pitiful loss of self-awareness’.3 These arguments highlight the tensions between the official assimilation policy of the state on the one hand and, on the other, Yanagi’s belief in the need to create a true Japanese identity incorporating regional traditions into the country’s nationalist ideology. Yanagi’s championing of regional culture, which derives in part from the universalist humanitarianism of the Shirakaba school, must also be seen in the context of a nativist rationale underpinning the national polity. It is somewhat surprising that many of the Okinawans themselves were willing to advocate cultural suicide in exchange for economic advancement and liberation from prejudice. Below, we examine the historical, psychological and economic factors which influenced Okinawan thinking on the issue. THE MINGEI REPORT Yanagi Muneyoshi reported the incident in the March 1940 issue of the journal Mingei (Folk Art), though it is clear that the written account draws heavily on the notes taken by the doctor and critic Shikiba Takasaburo.4 On the afternoon of 7 January, ‘after experiencing the scenery, architecture, crafts, theatre, music, cuisine and customs of Okinawa’, Yanagi’s party attended a public symposium in the Naha City Public Hall. We are told the meeting was well attended by people from all walks of life. The Folk Art Association members present included Yanagi, Hamada, Shikiba, representatives of the tourist industry Minazawa and Inoue, Tanaka the editor of Mingei and eight others. The Okinawan side was represented by Shimabukuro, director of the library, Shikiya, middle school principal and president of the Local History Association, Head of the Police Department Yamauchi, Maekawa, local manager of the shipping line, and Matayoshi, president of the Ryukyu shinpo newspaper. The proceedings, chaired by Shimabukuro, began with a short address by Shikiya, after which Yanagi was given the floor. He said how delighted he was to be making his third trip to Okinawa, gave an outline of the work of the Folk Art Association, then moved on to tourism, the main topic of the day. He spoke of the unexploited tourist potential of Okinawa, explaining how this wonderful area should be made available for the world to enjoy. He then introduced Minazawa of the International Travel Bureau who was to give the main address. In his remarks Minazawa addressed the three broad

196 Hugh Clarke categories of development, preservation and prohibition. In the area of development, he pointed to the lack of paved roads suitable for cars and the dearth of adequate hotel accommodation. At the same time, he impressed upon his audience the need to preserve Okinawan traditions, ‘not least the architecture which sparkles in its traditional beauty’. As an aside to his discussion of the beauty of Okinawan scenery, Minazawa happened to comment on the unsightly posters so conspicuously advertising the prefectural government’s standard language promotion campaign. Bearing slogans such as ‘itsumo hakihaki hyojungo’ (always clearly in standard Japanese) and ‘ikka sorotte hyojungo’ (all the family using standard Japanese), they struck Minazawa as evidence of over-zealousness in the promotion of standard Japanese, leading him to comment, ‘the movement for the popularisation of the standard language is all very well, but one wonders whether perhaps it has not gone a little too far’. Moving on then to things he would like to see prohibited, Minazawa cited the concrete fence around Shuri castle and the torii gate at Manzamo.5 Minazawa was followed by Inoue of the Japan Tourist Bureau, who went on in a similar vein about the need to promote Okinawa more vigorously and to expand the shipping service to attract foreign tourists. He concluded with a call for the establishment of tourist resorts and the provision of transport facilities. At this point Dr Shikiba spoke. After expressing his surprise and delight at the beauty of Okinawan graves, he declared his opposition to the widely held view that they should be destroyed. While he felt that perhaps there might be an argument in favour of restricting the building of new graves, he claimed the removal of existing graves ‘would cause great injury to the spiritual lives of the Okinawan people’. At this point Shikiba too, turned the discussion to the promotion of standard Japanese. More to make his point about the importance of traditional Okinawan graves than to add fuel to the fire kindled a few minutes before by Minazawa, Shikiba mentioned the difficulty of eliminating a language which has permeated a culture over such a long period of time. He spoke of the need to preserve ‘the archaic Okinawan dialects which are the most beautiful in Japan’ and, while recognising the need for the dissemination of standard Japanese, was opposed to ‘any movement which sought to achieve this by scorning the local language or seeking to abolish it’.6 Amid the heightened air of confrontation between the visitors and the local audience, Yamauchi, Head of the Police Department, stood to respond from the standpoint of one representing the prefecture. He explained that the standard language movement was a major policy initiative which the prefecture was determined to pursue even more thoroughly. He went on to say, special conditions prevailing in Okinawa make the situation here different from the case of dialects in other prefectures. The dissemination of the

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standard language is also a matter of immediate and vital concern for prefectural administration. It is intolerable to have tourists who find fleeting enjoyment in hearing the local dialects tell us that we must preserve them.7 He went on to give his views on the construction of traditional Okinawan graves, which he saw as a pernicious practice encouraging profligate expenditure and a threat to public health. He argued strongly for the need to regulate the proliferation of graves in the light of the housing problem occasioned by the scarcity of land in Okinawa. In conclusion he again made the point that the prefecture had decided on a thorough programme of standard language education which could not be abandoned whatever visitors from outside the prefecture might think. Yamauchi, himself a senior bureaucrat from outside the prefecture, was expressing widely held views about Okinawan difference and the belief that special measures were required to deal with the prefecture. As the debate progressed in the local press and later in major newspapers in Osaka and Tokyo, it became fraught with prejudice and misconception on the one side and defensiveness and feelings of inferiority on the other. Yanagi replied that the standard language movement was causing harm by engendering a sense of inferiority among the local people. He praised the Okinawans for their ability to speak standard Japanese, much better he claimed, than those from northern Honshu. He asserted the importance of Okinawan and reiterated the Folk Art Association’s relentless determination to oppose any attempt by the prefecture to weaken the local language. Yanagi was very unhappy with the accusation that they were merely temporary tourists making these claims for their own interest or entertainment. On the contrary, he argued, they had not come to these conclusions on the spur of the moment, but had weighed the problem ‘in the benefit of longer experience, knowledge and reflection’. There were several more exchanges between Yamauchi and Yanagi in this vein. Other members of Yanagi’s party spoke in support of their leader and at one stage, we are told, an Okinawan gentleman stood up and voiced his support for Yanagi’s view only to be rebuked by Yamauchi with the words, ‘what are you doing saying that kind of thing!’8 To change the subject and relieve the tension, Dr Shikiba, spoke out at this point on public health issues. He criticised the lack of adequate psychiatric care and called for a prohibition on the custom of going barefooted, claiming that even the wearing of straw sandals would help prevent local diseases. Not unpredictably, Yamauchi agreed wholeheartedly with this suggestion, saying that he had been surprised that none of the party had raised these questions earlier. After a short comment from Hamada to the effect that he supported a prohibition on the construction of new tombs, the debate again turned to discussion of standard language education with neither side giving an inch although it was growing dark outside. At

198 Hugh Clarke this point the chairman again changed the topic and there was an exchange of criticism and opinion ranging over a number of topics before the meeting was brought to a close. In his final remarks Shikiya observed that even the differences of opinion had arisen on both sides through a love of Okinawa and that he hoped that the debate would continue and the best course of action be chosen for the future of Okinawa. I have dealt with the symposium of 7 January 1940 in some detail to situate the dialect debate into the broader framework of attitudes to Okinawa. The account also conveys the slightly arrogant, condescending manner of some of Yanagi’s party, reflecting the inevitable elitism of urban intellectuals. There is no evidence to suggest that Yanagi and his followers deliberately set out to provoke a confrontation over the issue of language education, which was never intended to be a major theme of Minazawa’s address. It is ironic that his casual comments on this topic were to lead to such a vehement debate. No doubt the unexpected reaction was the result of sensitivities over dialect and standard language which had been seething for some time just under the surface of Okinawan society. THE REACTION On 8 January, the morning after the seminar, the three major newspapers in Naha, the Ryukyu shinpo, the Okinawa Asahi shinbun and the Okinawa Nippo all carried front page stories reporting the seminar. However, the coverage focused almost exclusively on the problem of standard language education, indicating the depth of feeling on this issue and the repercussions the prefectural language policy must have been having on the general populace. The first critic to appear in print in the 10 January edition of the Okinawa Asahi shinbun was one Yoshida Tsugunobu in an article entitled ‘Pet Prefecture’ (aigan-ken). Later Yanagi was able to discover that Yoshida was an Okinawan-born official in charge of social education in the prefecture’s Department of Educational Affairs. Although he was writing as an individual his views clearly reflect the official policy of his department. As late as 1940 many bureaucrats and school principals working in Okinawa had come from other parts of Japan, but it is significant to note here that Yanagi’s major critics were the Okinawans themselves. Yoshida accused the Mingei group of making the prefecture the object of their idle curiosity and adopting the attitude, ‘we have come all this way to see this so we insist you preserve anything unusual or interesting’. He goes on to write, Curiosity is one thing, but even worse there are some who think of the prefecture as merely an ornamental plant or a pet animal. I am fed up with hearing only people of this ilk always indiscriminately broadcasting their praises of Okinawa.9

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Yanagi attacked this lack of sensitivity and the hypocrisy of trying to attract tourists by promoting the exotic nature of Okinawa while at the same time resenting any outside comment on local matters. He claimed that this kind of attitude among Okinawan intellectuals was in fact impeding progress. There is no place where outsiders are more feted on their arrival, yet more coolly treated after a prolonged stay than Okinawa. Could it be that perhaps Okinawan intellectuals are particularly fickle? From our observation we get the feeling that Okinawan opinion leaders display unnecessary panic in their constant protestations over Okinawa’s cultural backwardness. They are trying to catch up with the centre by casting off all local culture as fast as they can. Consequently, they have lost all direct consciousness of their own native traditions. How can we really say that this is the correct attitude for genuine culture building?10 On 11 January the incident took an unexpected turn which prolonged the debate and extended the arena to Tokyo and Osaka. On that morning, the prefectural government’s Department of Educational Affairs (Gakumu-bu) took the unusual step of releasing a statement simultaneously in the three main newspapers in Naha. Framed in the rhetoric of nationalist propaganda, the statement called for the citizens of Okinawa to work together in this the 2,600th year of imperial rule to ensure the success of the prefecture’s standard language promotion policy. While deploring the confusion caused by ‘unjust’ comment in the local press, it dismissed criticism of the policy as ‘either exaggerated statements of outsiders or arguments based on false logic which are not worthy of our attention’. While not specifically referring to Yanagi by name, the statement called into question the ‘peculiar point of view’ of ‘a certain influential expert on folk art’ which holds that promotion of the standard language will lead to the loss of traditional beauty and culture and will hinder the formation of the standard Japanese of the future. ‘Such views’, the statement declared, ‘should not be adopted by anyone who desires progress and development for this prefecture’. The statement concluded with a declaration of the government’s determination, ‘to achieve its initial objectives in this great spiritual movement encompassing the entire prefecture in the 2,600th year of the Imperial reign’.11 It is difficult to understand why the authorities reacted so strongly to the original press coverage of the incident. Yanagi himself seems to have been astonished by the response of the prefectural government. Statements made later by the prefectural governor and other major contributors to the debate suggest that the central authorities felt uneasy about the degree of Okinawan support for the war against China and that they were acting quickly to stem any sign of resistance. Suspicion and mistrust were principal components in the mainland Japanese view of their Okinawan compatriots.12 Whatever the government’s motive, the official statement merely drew more public attention to the problem of standard language education and elicited a response from Yanagi which kindled further debate in the Okinawan press.

200 Hugh Clarke In addition to the statement from the Department of Educational Affairs, press coverage on 11 January included editorial comment and letters from readers. Although most of the comment was critical of the position taken by Yanagi and his followers, an editorial column in the Ryukyu shinpo came out in support of the view that dialect and regional culture should be valued. The Okinawa Asahi shinbun, in contrast, echoed the militaristic mood of the times in claiming that the prime objectives of the standard language promotion movement were ‘the clarification of the national polity (kokutai no meicho) and the raising of consciousness of the fatherland (sokoku ishiki no koyo)’.13 From this point, the focus of the debate began to polarise around the political positions of the three main newspapers in Naha, with the Ryukyu shinpo supporting conservation, while the Okinawa Nippo and the Okinawa Asahi shinbun threw their combined weight behind the case for assimilation. On 12 January an article written by the critic Yamada Seiko appeared under the headline, ‘The standard language question—errors in observation’. It went beyond discussion of language to criticise what Yamada saw as errors of interpretation of Okinawan culture by the members of the Folk Art Association. He took as an example the fact that Okinawan manufacturers were moving away from the handmade tie-dyed textiles (kasuri), so praised by the members of the Folk Art Association, to establish a new industry based on the mass production of mechanised looms and chemical dyes. Yamada made the point that traditional textile manufacture was not cost effective and condemned Okinawan women workers to long hours of labour and drudgery which could be better performed by machines. Alongside the argument, imposed from outside the prefecture through the central government, that standard language education would help forge national unity, there was also a strong argument generated from within that standard language education would promote the economic development of the prefecture and free Okinawans from the prejudice and discrimination they faced in their dealings with other Japanese. The feelings of inferiority which often take root in the minds of victims of prejudice, come through clearly in a letter, carried in the 13 January edition of the Okinawa Nippo, from a woman reader, Ogimi Umeko. It is addressed, somewhat sarcastically, ‘O-erai katagata e’ (‘to the VIPs’). Indeed, Okinawa does not have anything in which it excels over other prefectures. Take, for example, the traditional women’s dress which you praise so highly. I wonder if you would have the courage to put us on display at the international exposition in the United States as an example of what Japanese women are like.14 Yanagi was quick to point out in his article in Mingei that, in fact, several examples of Okinawan dress had been exhibited through the Society for the Promotion of Culture in the United States and in Germany and had drawn high praise from international audiences. Nevertheless, traditional Okinawan

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dress, like Korean dress for Koreans, was seen by many as a remnant of an alien culture and an obstacle to assimilation, in much the same way as Okinawan dialect, religion and burial customs were. Ogimi’s letter clearly shows that this widely-held assessment of Okinawan culture was not confined to those who lived outside the prefecture. On 14 January Yanagi’s letter, ‘In Reply to the Department of Educational Affairs’ was carried in the three Naha newspapers. He began by making the point that he would not have bothered responding to the emotional outburst of an individual reader like Yoshida Tsugunobu, but now that he had been attacked in a formal statement by a government department he felt obliged to reply in his own defence. Having ascertained that Yoshida was in fact a senior bureaucrat in the Department of Educational Affairs, Yanagi also directed a few barbs in his direction. He began his open letter with the claim that the debate over standard language had been ‘an unexpected bonus giving this trip to Okinawa added significance’. Then he went on to make the obvious point that he had never questioned the importance of standard language education—that he was merely warning that excessive implementation of the policy might lead to a denigration of local dialects and a weakening of local traditions. He pointed out the importance of the Okinawan dialects as sources of pure Japanese which might enrich the standard language of the future. His notions of the beauty and integrity of hand-crafted objects embodying the nobility of the human spirit had been extended to include language. Yanagi strongly felt that the Japanese language of the centre was becoming polluted with extraneous loan words from western languages and the huge legacy of borrowing from Chinese. Only by enriching the language with words from remote dialects like those of Okinawa and the Tohoku area of northern Japan could a pure standard Japanese be achieved. He writes: the standard language itself has not been clearly established. It contains various impure elements and lacks unity. The establishment of correct standard Japanese is itself a very important question. I think that in this regard it is Okinawan which is most likely to contribute towards the purification of the standard language.15 He went on to explain that it is only through an awareness of the worth of their own culture that Okinawans would be able to take their place confidently as equals in Japanese society as a whole. It is shameful for Okinawans living in Okinawa not to be able to speak Okinawan. They should speak both dialect and standard language so they have a special advantage not shared by people of places like Tokyo.16 Yanagi summed up his solution for the advancement of the people of Okinawa in the following two basic principles:

202 Hugh Clarke 1 That people from other prefectures respect the existence of Okinawa. To this end it is necessary to introduce Okinawa appropriately as a place of very high cultural value. 2 For the Okinawans themselves to feel confidence in their own culture. This spiritual advancement, more than anything else, is important for the future of Okinawa. The unwarranted sense of inferiority which has prevailed must be abandoned at once.17 Yanagi’s reply seems to have had a very positive effect on many readers. A letter to the editor printed in the Okinawa Asahi shinbun on 16 January warned that many school teachers were beginning to take heed of Yanagi’s views and that this was having an adverse effect on the standard language promotion movement. The writer of the letter suggested that a conference of the Department of Educational Affairs and primary and middle school principals and teachers be called at once to clarify the prefectural government’s position on the teaching of standard Japanese. The same edition of the Okinawa Asahi shinbun also carried a rejoinder to Yanagi’s letter from Yoshida Tsugunobu, who this time clearly acknowledged his connections with the prefectural government. In contrast to the emotional personal attack against Yanagi which characterised his earlier correspondence, Yoshida spelled out the disadvantages faced by Okinawans who do not have an adequate command of standard Japanese. It is impossible to estimate how much the people of Okinawa are disadvantaged both materially and spiritually, and consequently just how much their prosperity is being hampered, through their inability to speak standard Japanese adequately. This fact along with other differences in life style have plunged the Okinawans into a state of abject misery. Aren’t these people aware that in the south seas Okinawans are called ‘Japanese kanakas’ and that in places like Osaka and Taiwan they are being subjected to the misery of discrimination?18 On 17 January the Okinawa Asahi shinbun carried a second article by Yamada Seiko detailing what he saw as two flaws in Yanagi’s argument: first his failure to recognise that the promotion of standard Japanese arose ‘from the practical need for it in the daily lives of the Okinawan people’ and second that the movement was not based on the belief that Okinawan is a primitive language. A counter view detailing the excesses of the standard language promotion movement was serialised in an article entitled, ‘On dialect and standard language’ (Hogen to hyojungo ni tsuite) over 19 and 20 January in the Okinawa Nippo. Signed simply K.I., the article explained the practice of punishing children found using dialect at school by hanging a small wooden plaque, known as a dialect card (hogen fuda), around their necks. Children who had received the card would incur penalty points to be deducted from school marks at the end of the year and would be compelled to carry the

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dialect card until they could pass it on to the next unfortunate classmate they could catch using dialect. K.I. also mentions how school age children often felt ashamed of their parents who attended school meetings wearing traditional Okinawan dress. Yanagi and the four or five members of the Folk Art Association who had remained behind in Okinawa, attended what they thought was to be a informal farewell dinner party on 18 January. The purpose of the gathering was to ensure Yanagi and his group that despite the harsh treatment they had received at the hands of the press and some fanatical supporters of the standard language promotion movement, their presence in Okinawa and their support for Okinawan culture had been greatly appreciated. Yanagi and his friends were surprised and moved to see that the party was attended by fifty or sixty people from the top echelons of Okinawan society, all of whom made a point of coming to thank him personally for his support. A special performance of Yaeyama folk songs and dance had been arranged for the party and as the night progressed and the traditional Ryukyuan cuisine and awamori rice brandy began to mellow the moods of the gathered guests, each in turn sang and danced as a token of his appreciation to the members of the Folk Art Association. Yanagi was moved to write in the March 1940 edition of Mingei monthly, The party had turned out to be an occasion we would never forget. Somehow I felt that I had been able to come in touch with the true essence of the Okinawan spirit. And we felt that we owed it to these people too, to strengthen our resolve to do whatever we could for Okinawa.19 It is clear from Yanagi’s description of this event that there was an ambivalence of attitudes among the Okinawans themselves. While there was general support for the official campaign to promote the standard language, there were also many who appreciated Yanagi’s concern for the preservation of their traditional culture.20 At the end of January the debate was taken up among the Okinawan community in Tokyo. Perhaps the most surprising reaction was that of Baron Ie Chosuke, a descendant of the Ryukyuan aristocracy. Tanaka Toshio, editor of the Mingei, described him as ‘being of precisely the same opinion as that expressed by Mr Yoshida in his “Pet Prefecture” article’. It is perhaps not surprising that Ie, resident in Tokyo and firmly part of the ruling class, should so readily espouse the current militarist rhetoric in the following way: In this the 2,600th year of imperial reign, when Japan should be girding itself to lead East Asia, it must be said, that it is entirely natural that our southern lifeline, Okinawa should begin to address the longneglected issue of reform of customs, including the abolition of the local dialect.21

204 Hugh Clarke He continued, For various historical reasons there has been a tendency for some time to think of Okinawa as some kind of separate kingdom. This is a very dangerous and unprofitable way of thinking. In that respect, while I was delighted to see kumi-odori (traditional Ryukyuan dance drama) performed here in the imperial capital, I was also fearful that it may once again fuel this pernicious kingdom mentality.22 Ifa Fuyu, the well-known scholar of Ryukyuan history and language then living in Tokyo contributed an article to the Okinawa Nippo on 30 January, appealing for caution and understanding in the implementation of the prefecture’s standard language policy. He made the point that the recent introduction of regular radio broadcasts would result in dramatic improvements in the standard of Japanese in Okinawa. Ifa had long held that assimilation to Japanese culture was the road to greatest happiness and prosperity for Okinawa.23 He felt that inevitably the local dialects would be replaced by standard language. While he saw no need to hasten the process, neither did he advocate trying to preserve the dialects. The debate continued in the press until the end of April when it finally seemed about to die down. Then, towards the end of May the critic Sugiyama Heisuke, who had visited Okinawa on his way back from a trip to Taiwan, wrote an article in the Tokyo Asahi shinbun to the effect that the Okinawan prefectural authorities had been correct in suppressing the local dialects in order to enforce decisively the spread of standard Japanese. Yanagi replied in the same newspaper condemning the practice of punishing school children with the ‘dialect card’ (hogen fuda) and questioning why it was only Okinawa where this was used. Yanagi made the point that most Okinawans spoke standard Japanese well and with far less local accent than the people of northern Japan. Sugiyama countered with the argument that one of the causes of discrimination against Okinawans which produced feelings of inferiority in their dealings with other Japanese, was that Okinawans spoke Japanese with a Chinese accent. Yanagi answered this assertion by stating his conviction that an inferiority complex could not be eliminated by promoting standard language through the use of the punitive dialect card system. He argued that only when Okinawans came to appreciate the true value of their traditions and have ‘the spiritual awareness that their culture clearly falls within the lineage of Japanese culture’, would they assume their rightful place in Japanese society. Towards the end of June, despite the protestations of Yanagi and the members of his Mingei group, the Okinawan prefectural authorities defiantly issued a second declaration. This time the notice appeared in not only the three local newspapers but because the debate had been taken up so vigorously in the mainland (naichi) press, the authorities decided also to place the statement in the regional editions of the Osaka Mainichi shinbun and the Osaka Asahi shinbun.

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The present debate is neither a mere coincidence nor a matter based on the will of a few bureaucrats, but the earnest desire of the people of this prefecture cherished over many years, which under the stimulus of these crucial times has taken the form of a passionate movement of the people of Okinawa.24 The open letter claimed that Yanagi had misrepresented the views of the Department of Educational Affairs. Prefectural authorities denied that they were striving to eliminate Okinawan dialects and claimed that they had been pursuing the standard language policy in a sensitive and relaxed manner which would cause no anguish to impressionable young minds.25 The letter refuted Yanagi’s claim that the dialect card punishment was being strongly enforced as a matter of official policy. It said that of the 300 primary and lower secondary schools in the prefecture, the Department of Educational Affairs knew of only two primary schools, one in Naha and the other in Kunigami, where the dialect card sanction had been used. Even there, it claimed, the practice was a temporary measure adopted entirely on the initiative of the schools themselves. The letter then went on to accuse Yanagi of changing his position from that of being ‘absolutely opposed to the standard language to one of merely questioning the methods to be employed in standard language education’. Yanagi took this accusation as a personal attack on his own integrity. He determined to take positive measures to clear his name while in turn attacking the attitude of the prefectural Department of Educational Affairs which he said was ‘founded on a spirit of colonial control and gave the impression that Okinawan culture was inferior to that of other prefectures’.26 In the July issue of the magazine Shincho, Sugiyama reiterated his view that the Okinawan prefectural authorities were entirely correct in their policy of seeking to suppress the local dialects in order to ensure a thorough dissemination of standard Japanese. He wrote: I am very sorry to admit it, but I set out with a vague attraction for the romance of the Ryukyus in much the same way as westerners come to Japan to see Mt. Fujiyama or the cherry blossoms. But when I actually arrived, the first impression to strike me was, just as I had previously heard, that of the poverty of the place.27 On 24 July Yanagi, Tanaka Toshio and the cameraman Sakamoto Manshichi again visited Okinawa to collect material for an exhibition of Ryukyuan crafts to be held at the Mingeikan in Tokyo to celebrate 2,600 years of imperial rule. Yanagi took the opportunity of this second visit to seek a personal explanation and an apology from the head of the Department of Educational Affairs. When his attempts to arrange a meeting proved fruitless, he decided to take his complaint directly to the prefectural governor, Fuchigami Fusataro. Yanagi meet Fuchigami on 2 August 1940 for a frank hour-long exchange of opinions, but Yanagi did not get the apology

206 Hugh Clarke he sought. Quite the contrary, it soon became clear that the Department of Educational Affairs had been expressly instructed by the governor himself not to enter into further debate with Yanagi. It also emerged that not only was the prefecture determined to pursue its policy of promotion of the standard language, but that its ultimate aim was the destruction of local dialects. Fuchigami echoed the official government view that Okinawa should be treated differently from other prefectures and gave the impression that he was heading a semi-colonial administration in Okinawa. If we are to believe Tanaka’s account of events, the governor told Yanagi, You must not consider conditions here in the same way you would with other prefectures. Remember at the time of the Sino-Japanese war of 1894 there were people here who sought to ally themselves with China.28 The debate continued for most of 1940 in both Okinawa and Tokyo. After the initial exchanges in January in the pages of the three main newspapers in Naha, it was the Folk Art Association itself which kept the issue alive through the March edition of Mingei monthly—an issue devoted to the question of standard language education in Okinawa. Understandably, the articles in Mingei tended to support Yanagi’s position. This was certainly true of the papers on the subject by the Okinawan historian, Higashionna Kanjun, the folklorist Yanagita Kunio and the scholar of English literature, Jugaku Fumiaki. The poet Hagiwara Sakutaro came to the crux of the problem, defining it as a clash between politics and culture which defied resolution. He likened the attitude shown by some Okinawans to the reaction Japanese as a whole had to foreigners who urged them to retain their distinctive architecture and quaint customs. He wrote, ‘We take these wellmeaning suggestions as unwarranted interference deflecting us from our task of developing the New Japan’; then went on to say, The reason the Japanese in general look down on their own national culture and earnestly strive to Europeanise it, is because in Japan today every aspect of culture is subordinated to the West. The Japanese call themselves ‘sekai no inakamono’ (the world’s country bumpkins). As the country is subordinate to the city, it is only natural that people from rural areas should idealise the city and imitate its language and customs. Probably the Ryukyuan attitude of denigrating their own culture and worshipping the culture of the Centre can be considered to be the same as that held by most Japanese vis à vis Western culture.29 This cynical response from Hagiwara, who had himself in his younger days been an avid admirer of Western culture and a devotee of modernism, reflects the ambivalent attitudes city-dwellers had for the countryside, fluctuating from condescension and disdain to romantic sentimentality. The view of the countryside as a repository of pure Japanese traditions was not one confined to intellectuals like Hagiwara and Yanagi. Thanks primarily to the work of Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese folklore studies, the

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romanticised image of rural life had became widespread. His painstaking collection, collation and analysis of folk tales and other oral literature from all over the country alerted the new class of urban workers, themselves not far or long removed from their peasant origins, to the contribution which the eternal wisdom of the provinces had made in the forging of the national spirit. Orikuchi Shinobu’s work on festivals and Honda Yasuji’s research into regional performing arts also helped provide the intellectual rationale for the nativist ideology underlying Japanese nationalism.30 We may wonder why, in a period of strict wartime controls, such a divisive issue as the dialect debate was given such a public airing. The answer lies, I think, in the fact that both Yanagi’s views and those of the prefectural authorities reflect an underlying ambivalence within the broad ambit of Japanese nationalism.31 There were the overwhelming pressures towards conformity on the one hand and the need to forge a national unity through the recognition of regional diversity on the other. Yanagi’s humanist defence of Okinawan dialects received a degree of support from intellectuals outside Okinawa and, to a lesser extent, from among the Okinawans themselves, but the overwhelming force of argument seems to have come down in favour of the prefecture’s policy of vigorous promotion of the standard language. The reasons for this can be divided into the two broad categories of external political pressure of the state on the one hand and the internal desire of the Okinawans themselves for economic and social advancement. Let us consider each in a little more detail. PRESSURE FROM ABOVE The Okinawan educational authorities’ zealousness in promoting standard language education can be seen as a culmination of forty years of imperialist education and the assimilation policy of the central government. Despite the eventual incorporation of Okinawa as a Japanese prefecture in 1879, the Meiji government had adopted the kyukan onzon (tolerance of the old customs) policy of retaining the structures of government which had prevailed under the Ryukyuan kingdom during the period of domination by Satsuma32 As a result of this policy, Okinawa did not emerge into the modern world until the beginning of the twentieth century. The late 1880s had been a time of strong nationalist sentiment in Japan. The Meiji Constitution of 1889 had consolidated emperor-centred government and the Imperial Rescript of Education of 1890 had set the course for a unified education in the emerging standard language. Under the prevailing policy, however, the new education had been slow to take root in Okinawa. Only after China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 when the last vestiges of Okinawan aspirations for amalgamation with China had been dispersed, did prefectural authorities turn their minds to the need to educate Okinawans in standard Japanese. This was seen as a necessary first step to incorporating Okinawans into the Japanese population. It would also lead to

208 Hugh Clarke more efficient local administration and make it easier to take Okinawan recruits into the army or send them to join communities of Japanese emigrants abroad. Universal, centralised education based on the Imperial Rescript of Education was the cornerstone of Japanese assimilation policy. It was, however, not the only measure taken to ensure that Okinawa was absorbed into the national polity. There was a deliberate attempt to eradicate traditional Okinawan religion by incorporating sacred precincts into State Shinto and proclaiming their orthodoxy with the addition of torii gates. Yuta, the traditional Okinawan spirit mediums, were at first discouraged and later, from about 1938 onwards, actively pursued with a bounty offered by the Tokko (Special Higher Police), as they were seen as a potential threat to national security.33 The general attitude of the central government towards Okinawa was that it was a special case which required different treatment from other parts of Japan. The Okinawan historian Higa Shuncho sees the overzealous implementation of the standard language movement as an example of the general prejudice towards Okinawans which extended to all aspects of Okinawan culture. He claims that there was a deliberate attempt by the prefectural education authorities to enforce through the schools and young men’s associations the complete abolition of traditional Ryukyuan customs and that in this ‘it was exactly the same as the imperialisation movement being pursued in Korea and Taiwan’.34 It was no accident that renewed emphasis on standard language education in Okinawa coincided with major changes in educational policy in Japan’s colonial territories. In Korea, in particular, the promotion of the Japanese language, the coercion compelling Koreans to take Japanese names and the attempted Japanisation of aspects of Korean culture were aimed at uniting the empire through the General Mobilisation Law of 1938. In March 1938 there was a major revision of the Chosen Education Act, which sought to bring education in the colony in line with that of the home islands and achieve the three main principles of, ‘clarification of the national polity’ (kokutai no meicho), ‘unity of Chosen and the home islands’ (naisen ittai) and ‘training of imperial subjects’ (kokoku shinmin no rensei). At about the same time concerted efforts were made to promote the use of the Japanese language in Korea. While this policy resulted in a considerable rise in the numbers of Koreans who could understand Japanese,35 official coercion for the use of Japanese does not seem to have become widespread until later.36 Perhaps the most flagrant infringement of the basic human rights of Koreans and a source of great resentment to this day, was the decision, taken by the Governor-General Minami Jiro in November 1939, to compel Koreans to adopt Japanese names. Ostensibly to improve family and inheritance law in Korea, the real motive behind this move was, as had been the case earlier in Okinawa, to facilitate the mobilisation of labour and military conscription. In Taiwan, where imperialist education seems to have

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achieved greater success and encountered less resistance, secondary school education was conducted entirely in Japanese.37 PRESSURES FROM WITHIN The major internal impetus for support for the standard language promotion movement came from the Okinawan desire for economic advancement and the psychological need for freedom from prejudice and discrimination. The dialect debate is reminiscent of a similar exchange of views which took place in the press in 1910 as a result of a vehement attack on contemporary Okinawan society and culture by a group of visiting journalists.38 The difference on that occasion, however, was that Okinawans of the day had been quick to take umbrage at the prejudiced view of Okinawa that the journalists portrayed in their articles in the mainstream Japanese press. At the time, there was the added feeling of betrayal as the group of journalists had been warmly welcomed and feted in the belief that their balanced reporting of the true situation would lead to greater understanding of Okinawan society, promotion of tourism to the area and an alleviation of the prejudice Okinawans suffered at the hands of their countrymen elsewhere in Japan. The journalists had been shown around by no less a figure than the prefecture’s most celebrated intellectual and scholar Dr Ifa Fuyu himself.39 Yet the picture they painted of Okinawan society was one in which the former nobility of the Ryukyuan kingdom, now members of the aristocracy of New Japan, frittered away their government pensions in brothels and bars while their womenfolk toiled to eke out a meagre living from the unproductive limestone soils or spent long hours at their looms to produce the Ryukyu kasuri cloth which had been a prized commodity in Japan for three hundred years. They attacked the extravagance and lack of hygiene of traditional Okinawan graves40 with the cynical comment that an Okinawan saw no contradiction in spending ten times as much on his family vault as he would on his own house. Even when the newspaper articles were not explicitly critical, the focus was always on the differences between the Okinawans and other Japanese, emphasising the same distinctions in dress, customs and language (which ‘is neither Japanese, Chinese nor Korean’) which were central to the dialect debate of 1940. It is interesting to speculate why the attitude of a large majority of Okinawan intellectuals had changed so dramatically in the thirty years which intervened before the visit of Yanagi and his colleagues in the Mingei movement. While we cannot discount the strong coercive force of imperialist education and assimilation policies, neither can we ignore the desire of the Okinawans themselves to rise above poverty and discrimination as a major driving force toward conformity. The desire for modernisation of the Okinawan economy and amelioration of living standards was perhaps the overriding factor behind general support for the standard language promotion movement. Prejudice against

210 Hugh Clarke Okinawans was exacerbated by the economic backwardness of the prefecture, which many Japanese attributed more to the slovenly nature of the Okinawans than to the fact that too many people were trying to eke out a living from too little land, and very poor land at that. Many argued that Yanagi and his followers, who had not had to endure the hardships of life in Okinawa in the 1920s, had an idealised, romantic image of Okinawa which did not reflect the harsh realities of life in the prefecture. It must be said too, that Yanagi had offered no solution to the economic hardships the prefecture was facing. By way of contrast, it is interesting to note here that Ifa Fuyu, despite a short article giving qualified support to Yanagi, remained relatively aloof from the debate. It is clear from his writings elsewhere that he was a pragmatist who saw assimilation as the most promising solution to Okinawa’s difficulties. Having alluded above to the severity of economic conditions in Okinawa in the 1920s, it is appropriate here to say a little about the severe depression known locally as sotetsu jigoku, ‘cycad hell’. Having fallen behind the rest of Japan in economic development because of the Meiji government’s laissez-faire policy, Okinawa sought to make up lost ground by introducing sugar as a cash crop. Despite some early promise, growth in the sugar industry was retarded by excessive taxes. High taxation was not new to the Okinawans who had been mercilessly taxed under the Ryukyuan kingdom and Satsuma, but even under the rule of the Meiji government they continued to pay higher taxes than other Japanese despite the lower productivity of the prefecture. Around the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), a special emergency tax was levied to support the war effort, in addition to national taxes, a sugar consumption tax and an alcoholic beverages tax. The need to pay higher taxes in turn necessitated greater reliance on cash crops and this spiralled into a very dangerous situation in which the livelihood of farming families was placed at the mercy of fluctuations in the sugar market. Many farmers converted rice paddies to cane fields and land which had once produced sweet potatoes, the principal subsistence staple crop, was brought into sugar production. For a little over a decade from after the Russo-Japanese War until the end of the First World War, while the price of sugar remained relatively high and stable, Okinawan farmers were able to eke out a modest living. With the collapse of sugar prices after the First World War, however, there was a rapid deterioration in the economic position of small and medium-sized farms. Many of these were run by tenant farmers suffering the burden of high rents and the need to pay sugar agents to sell their crops. As a result, there was a dramatic fall in household incomes in Okinawa between 1919 and 1927, and long before the great world depression had begun to bite deep into the lives of most Japanese, Okinawa was facing an economic disaster of frightening proportions. The over-reliance on cash crops meant that when the world sugar price plummeted, farmers could no longer meet their commitments and buy food as well. Many households literally faced starvation and were

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forced to eat the starch leeched from the cycad palms which grow wild over most of the country. This was a very hazardous solution as, in addition to being unpalatable and lacking in nutrition, the cycad contains toxins which could, and did, prove fatal if not properly washed out. Not only marginal farmers, but many middle-sized landholders too were forced to sell their children to save them from starvation. There was a lively debate in the press and government assemblies both inside and outside the prefecture over how to save Okinawa from its economic crisis. Some proposed increased overseas emigration and resettlement on undeveloped land in Yaeyama in the south of the prefecture as possible solutions. Others held that what was needed was ‘a revolution in people’s minds’ with a concomitant emphasis on education, including promotion of the standard language. Although emigration was encouraged as one solution to the prefecture’s economic ills, successful integration into expatriate Japanese communities abroad required a good command of standard Japanese. Okinawans expressing their views on the dialect debate frequently cited embarrassment over their inability to communicate with emigrants from other parts of Japan as a strong argument in favour of the standard language promotion movement. Although the governmentsponsored emigration programme had begun in 1885, it was not until 1899 that the first group of twenty-six emigrants left Okinawa for Hawaii. Large scale emigration from Okinawa began in 1904 and increased rapidly reaching a peak in 1906 when 4,670 left, mainly for north and south America. Emigration continued until 1941 and as late as 1938, the last prewar year for which reliable figures are available, 3,893 emigrated from Okinawa. According to Japanese Foreign Ministry figures of prewar emigration, of a total of 655,661 emigrants, 72,227 or 11 per cent were from Okinawa. Given that Okinawans constitute well under one per cent of the Japanese population, their over-representation in emigration statistics is testimony to the difficulty of life in the over-populated, under-resourced island prefecture.41 Fuchigami Fusataro, 42 the twenty-fourth governor of Okinawa and a major proponent in the dialect debate, had sent Okinawans in 1939 as Manmo Kaitaku Imin43 (emigrant settlers to Manchuria and Mongolia), this was two years later than emigrants from elsewhere in Japan. The idea of the emigration programme was to fulfil the military purpose of providing support for the Gwandong army on the one hand and, on the other, to relieve political and financial pressures on Japanese farmers impoverished by the depression. This had been part of a plan introduced in 1936 by the Hirota Koki cabinet to resettle one million households over a 20 year period. The depressed economic conditions in Okinawa, which had led to increased emigration to other parts of Japan and abroad, forced Okinawans to confront prejudice and discrimination outside their home prefecture. These contacts also made them keenly conscious of the fact that the

212 Hugh Clarke Okinawans were culturally and linguistically different. It is little wonder that many, seized by the strong psychological desire to be like other Japanese, sought to rid themselves of their stigmatised local dialect which was the greatest impediment to assimilation. PREJUDICE AGAINST OKINAWANS Clearly an important underlying cause of the Okinawan dialect debate was the widespread discrimination against Okinawans and the concomitant inferiority complex this engendered in the victims of prejudice. As we have seen in the jounalists’ reports of 1910, Okinawans were widely regarded as being fundamentally different from the Japanese of the home islands (naichi). They were seen as primitive, lazy, untrustworthy, shiftless and generally beyond the pale of civilised Japanese society.44 Modern Okinawan literature abounds in references to the discrimination faced by Okinawans in their dealings with their compatriots outside their island prefecture. Feelings of inferiority and fear of humiliation frequently led Okinawans living in large mainland cities like Tokyo and Osaka to conceal their origins. This was particularly prevalent during the severe economic depression of the 1920s when tens of thousands of Okinawans sought work on the mainland. The rapid downturn in the Okinawan economy began several years before the Showa depression started to bite deeply into the lives of Japanese elsewhere in the nation, but employment opportunities on the mainland were becoming restricted from about the time many emigrant workers from Okinawa began to flood into Osaka and Tokyo in search of work. Many who had sacrificed everything to make the journey to the mainland were discouraged by signs set up at factories and construction sites employing day labourers proclaiming, ‘Koreans and Ryukyuans need not apply’ (Chosenjin to ryukyujin wa okotowari). Those lucky enough to find employment had to endure taunts of ‘rikijin’ and other derisory remarks.45 Despite the prejudice they encountered, young Okinawans in Tokyo and Osaka organised themselves into groups to fight against the irrational attitudes of those around them and to campaign positively for better employment prospects and living conditions for emigrant workers from Okinawa. These organisations became powerful lobby groups which, at times, acted as censors of literature they regarded as prejudicial to their interests. A celebrated illustration of this point can be found in an incident in 1926 when the Okinawa Seinen Domei (Okinawa Youth League) confronted the author Hirotsu Kazuro over the publication in the March edition of Chuo koron of a short story under the title of ‘Samayoeru Ryukyujin’ (Ryukyuan drifters). The story relates in the first person the experience of the author, Hirotsu, with two irresponsible, yet somehow endearing Ryukyuans he encounters. Although these rogues take advantage of Hirotsu’s generosity, exploit his hospitality and behave in a generally

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untrustworthy manner, Hirotsu sympathises with them after hearing their stories of the harsh economic conditions in Okinawa, the long history of exploitation the people suffered under the rule of Satsuma and, even now, the prejudice they continue to endure from other Japanese. He concludes, ‘it is little wonder, then, that the Ryukyuans behave a little irresponsibly when they are in the home islands’.46 While the Okinawan Youth League admitted the undeniable literary qualities of the story and acknowledged Hirotsu’s sympathetic attitude and laudable intent, they felt that his portrayal might reinforce prevailing stereotypes and exacerbate discrimination against Okinawan workers. Hirotsu, quick to see the truth of the Okinawan argument, agreed to publish a public apology in the next edition of Chuokoron and to erase ‘Ryukyuan Drifters’ from his list of publications. This scenario was repeated in 1932 when the first instalment of a serialised novel entitled ‘Horobiyuku Ryukyu-onna no shuki’ (Diary of a vanishing Ryukyuan woman) by the Okinawan woman writer Kushi Fusako. The story, which was to have been serialised over several editions of the magazine, attracted such an outcry that it was withdrawn the following month and a public apology was made by the publisher. The plot concerns a young Ryukyuan girl who sets out to look for work and adventure in the capital. She seeks the assistance of an uncle who has managed to establish himself in Tokyo, but is shocked and ashamed to discover that he has been hiding his Okinawan origins in order to get on in the world. The girl’s attitude is seen as entirely laudatory, but the treatment of prejudice against Okinawans and the self-deprecating response of the uncle were considered offensive by Okinawans living in Tokyo, who responded by organising a vigorous protest movement. The gist of the opposition was that the work in exposing a shameful facet of the Okinawan character was likely to exacerbate discrimination against Okinawans. The Tokyo Okinawan Students’ Association demanded a written explanation from the author which appeared with her own impressions of the incident in the next edition of the magazine. But this explanation, far from being an apology, tended to reopen the debate by hinting that one should not be cowered in the face of prejudice and should live one’s life with a positive attitude without making concessions to the discrimination of others.47 CONCLUSION In Okinawa, as elsewhere in Japan, 1940 was a year of great national celebration commemorating 2,600 years of uninterrupted imperial rule since the legendary first emperor Jinmu ascended the throne at Kashihara palace in 660 BC. Yanagi himself organised a special exhibition of Ryukyuan crafts at his Mingeikan (Folk Art Museum) in Tokyo to celebrate the occasion. In July a Hokoku Jinja (Shrine to protect the nation) was constructed in Naha and Governor Fuchigami sent his first contingent of farmer-settlers to Manchuria.

214 Hugh Clarke While the debate over the relative merits and demerits of dialect and standard language continued in the press, the Japanisation and militarisation of Okinawa continued apace. Prince Konoe Fumimaro returned to form his second cabinet in July 1940. In September he signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy and in October he abolished political parties to form the Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Rule Assistance Association) of which he became president. The new organisation aimed to cement national unity for the war effort against China by uniting all political parties and government bodies into a single government structure along the lines of the Nazi ‘one country, one party’ model.48 Prefectural Governor Fuchigami lost little time in establishing the Taisei Yokusankai Okinawa Shibu (Okinawa branch of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association) in December 1940 and set about dismantling government structures. In the same month the Ryukyu shinpo, which had supported Yanagi’s stance, joined the Okinawa Nippo and the Okinawa Asahi shinbun, which had opposed him, to form a single newspaper, the Okinawa Shinpo, under the ikken isshi (one newspaper per prefecture) policy. Further debate on the language policy, or anything else for that matter, was stifled under strict media controls.49 The debate over the abolition of traditional Ryukyuan dress also became largely irrelevant when the kokumin fuku (dress for Japanese subjects) was introduced in November 1940.50 Ironically, Yanagi’s philosophy of cultural nationalism, closely reflected in the work of others like Yanagita Kunio, became an important component of the thought of the Taisei Yokusankai and was official government policy before the year was out. This new cultural policy with an emphasis on the provinces can be seen as closely connected with the strategy of stimulating farming villages to foster increased food production. At the same time, the need for all the emperor’s subjects to be able to communicate in standard Japanese became a more pressing concern with the rapid escalation of military involvement in China and the standard language education movement was pursued with even greater intensity. The debate over the use of dialect and standard language in Japan was not simply a matter of authoritarian control from the centre. The choice between progress and tradition, between pragmatism and emotion, is never easy. Compelling arguments can be made on either side. Many Okinawans supported assimilation just as some intellectuals from outside the prefecture advocated the preservation of Okinawan language and customs. Yanagi was not successful in slowing the pace or modifying the ferocity of the Department of Educational Affairs’ campaign for promotion of standard Japanese. On the other hand, neither were the prefectural authorities able to stamp out local dialects and traditions. No doubt Yanagi’s passionate defence of Okinawan culture encouraged many Okinawans, even those who strongly supported the standard language promotion movement, to take pride in their own traditions, confident in the thought that the Japanese national identity embraced every regional variation.

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NOTES 1 W.Steele, ‘Nationalism and Cultural Pluralism in Modern Japan: Soetsu Yanagi and the Mingei Movement’ in J.Maher and G.Macdonald, Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language, London, Kegan Paul, 1995, pp. 27–48. For a discussion of Yanagi’s views on mingei and nationalism. 2 Tanikawa Ken’ichi, Waga Okinawa—hogen ronso, Tokyo, Mokujisha, 1970, p. 3. This volume is a collection of the main writings pertaining to the dialect debate. 3 Ibid., p. 4. 4 Ibid., p. 5. 5 The construction of torii at the entrances to traditional Okinawan utaki (sacred groves) was an assimilationist strategy to incorporate the local beliefs into state Shinto. For other examples of ‘the manipulation of imperial symbolism’, see G.H.Kerr, Okinawa—The History of an Island People, Tokyo, Tuttle, 1958, p. 452. 6 Tanikawa, Waga Okinawa, p. 8. 7 Ibid., p. 9. 8 Ibid., p. 10. 9 Ibid., p. 12. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 14. 12 The reality was that, on the whole, the Okinawans were far more enthusiastic in their support of the national polity and the war effort than most other Japanese. There is frequent reference in military histories to the loyalty of the Okinawans, particularly in the battle of Okinawa. Okihara Yutaka, Okinawa no kyoiku, Tokyo, Daiichi Hoki, 1972, p. 37. 13 Tanikawa, Waga Okinawa, p. 15. 14 Ibid., p. 18. 15 Ibid., p. 21. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 22. 18 Ibid., p. 23. 19 Ibid., p. 29. 20 Kerr’s account emphasises the coercion of the central government and prefectural authorities and vociferous local resistance, but the facts indicate that the standard language movement enjoyed wide support among Okinawans. Kerr, Okinawa, p. 457. 21 Tanikawa, Waga Okinawa, p. 30. 22 Ibid. 23 Kano Masanao, Okinawa no fuchi—Ifa Fuyu to sono jidai, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1993, p. 272. 24 Ryukyu Seifu, Okinawa ken-shi, vol. 2, Tokyo, Gannando, 1970, p. 609. 25 For an account of the principles underlying the prefecture’s language policy, see Hokama Shuzen, Okinawa no gengoshi, Tokyo, Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1971, pp. 86–7. 26 Ibid. 27 Tanikawa, Waga Okinawa, p. 131. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 63. 30 This ambivalence towards the rural hinterland is common to all nation states. See William Kelly, ‘Regional Japan: The Price of Prosperity and the Benefits of Dependency’ in C.Gluck and Stephen Graubard, Showa: the Japan of Hirohito, New York, W.W.Norton and Company, 1992, pp. 222–3.

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32

33 34 35

36

37

38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

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See M.Umegaki, ‘Epilogue: National Identity, National Past, National Isms’ in J.White et al. (eds), The Ambivalence of Nationalism: Japan between East and West, New York, University Press of America, 1990, pp. 251–63, pp. 255–6 for a discussion of modernisation and nativist elements in Japanese nationalism. Any semblance of Ryukyuan independence was quelled by the Satsuma invasion of 1609 after which the Shimazu family kept a very tight rein on government and economic affairs in the kingdom. Despite Satsuma’s involvement, the Ryukyuan court continued to maintain ceremonial and trade links with Qing China. There were 350 arrests of yuta in 1938 alone. Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku (ed.), Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 3, Naha, Okinawa Taimususha, 1983, p. 780. Higa Shuncho, Okinawa, Iwanami Shinsho, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1963, p. 30. It is estimated that in 1940, 15.57 per cent of the Korean population understood Japanese, compared with 12.38 per cent in 1938, 6.91 per cent in 1928 and 4.08 per cent in 1923. Pak Kyung-sik, Nihon teikokushugi no Chosen shihai, Tokyo, Aoki Shoten, 1973, pp. 61, 342. The movement for dissemination of the standard language (kokugo fukyu undo) introduced in 1943 established Japanese language schools all over Korea and enforced the use of Japanese through sanctions ranging from fines for school children who spoke Korean in class to dismissal for the use of Korean in the workplace. Ibid. Tsurumi claims Japanese imperialist education met with greater success in Taiwan because the islanders lacked the passionate national identity which existed in Korea. E.P.Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 172–6. On 14 May 1910 a group of journalists from the Kansai area and Kyushu arrived in Okinawa on a sight-seeing trip sponsored by the Osaka Shosengaisha (Osaka Shipping Company). Ota Masahide, Okinawa no minshu ishiki, Tokyo, Shinsensha, 1976, p. 264. Ibid., p. 266. Frequent references to Okinawan graves stem from the traditional burial practice of allowing the corpse to decompose naturally in the vault before retrieving and washing the bones for storage in earthernware urns. However, as a result of Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War almost all the Okinawan emigrants in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia and colonists in Manchuria, Gwangdong, Korea, Taiwan, Karafuto (Sakhalin) and Micronesia were forcibly repatriated to Okinawa. Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku (ed.), Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 1, p. 237. Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku (ed.), Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 3, p. 372. Ibid., p. 546. A belief in ethnic difference is a prerequisite in the formation of prejudice. See H.Clarke, ‘Japonesia, the Black Current and the Origins of the Japanese’, Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, vol. 17, 1985, p. 11. Higa Shuncho, Okinawa, Iwanami Shinsho, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1963, p. 20. Nakahodo Masanori, Hirotsu Kazuro—Samayoeru Ryukyujin, Tokyo, Dojidaisha, 1994, p. 38. The original title of ‘hidden grief’ was changed by the editor. The author, Kushi Fusako, had herself moved from her home in Shuri to Tokyo after graduating from high school. Oshiro Tatsuhiro, ‘Horobiyuku ryukyu-onna no shuki’ in Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 3 Naha, Okinawa Taimushusha, 1983, p. 482. Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku, Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 2, p. 655.

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Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku, Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 1, p. 538. This was a khaki (kokubo shoku—colour of national defence) military style uniform stipulated as the daily dress of males. This unprepossessing garb was accompanied by a military style cap kokuminbo and gaiters. Dai Hyakkajiten Kanko Jimukyoku, Okinawa dai hyakkajiten, vol. 2, p. 113.

10 Epilogue Elise K.Tipton

The new trends and social forces of the period following the First World War represent the origins of phenomena that we often associate with postwar Japan—an urban middle-class society, mass media and a mass culture, consumerism, a women’s movement, a low birth rate and minority problems. These aspects of present-day Japan have been attributed to the Americanisation of the Occupation period or to the more recent affluence accompanying the ‘economic miracle’ of the 1960s, but as can be seen from the studies in this book, they had their beginnings in the 1920s and 1930s. This is not to say that there have been no major changes in Japanese society since the end of the Second World War. Perhaps most striking is the changed role of farmers in the postwar period. Reminiscent of tenant farmer disputes and rural youths’ concerns in the 1920s and early 1930s, dissident farmers’ movements were very active in 1946–7, agitating on issues relating to economic welfare and in some cases for land reform. However, such activity declined significantly after 1947, and by the late 1960s and early 1970s farmers had become a conservative rather than a progressive political force. Land reform satisfied demands for secure tenure and a stable livelihood. In addition, however, by the late 1960s farming had become an increasingly less significant part of farmers’ household income. Accordingly, farmers had little reason to complain about the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, on the contrary, every reason to support it and its plans to extend the Shinkansen, build expressways and otherwise increase the value of their land and improve local infrastructure.1 Other social groups which have been examined in this book present a mixed picture of economic and/or social advancement. Women’s legal position improved greatly with the new Constitution of 1947, but the limitations on their access to the opportunities and choices enjoyed by men, and the ambivalence and contradictions regarding their role in Japanese society that had characterised the interwar period, continued to be evident in the postwar decades. We can see this in areas studied by contributors to this book: namely, education, family planning and political activism.

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In education, the interwar trend of an increasing number of women in the primary school teaching force continued during the postwar years. Women came to constitute approximately half of primary school teachers. Nevertheless, they remained a minority among high school teachers and school administrators. These limitations on promotion to higher status, higher responsibility and higher paying positions are a not unsurprising consequence of the continuation of prewar characteristics of girls’ education, exemplified by the requirement of home economics for girls only in high school until 1994. No longer barred from higher education, the majority of girls do go on to tertiary schooling, but most attend two-year women’s colleges rather than the elite four-year universities. Social expectations and company hiring practices, as well as government policies that continue to see women’s role as primarily that of wife and mother, underlie these patterns in female education and workforce participation. Developments in birth control and family planning similarly reflect the persistence of the ryosai kenbo ideal, though transformed into that of the professional shufu or housewife. The government’s support for birth control in the late 1940s and 1950s, including contraception and legalised abortion, might on first impression appear to represent a victory for women’s rights advocates. However, it represents more problematically from the viewpoint of feminists a mere convergence of the government’s demographic interests in population control with the aims of birth control leaders. Such a convergence had occurred, though less closely, in the 1920s when government worries about population control had allowed some room for discussion of birth control ideas. Government officials were worried about political and social problems that might be caused by overpopulation— strikes, unemployment, strain on the country’s food and land resources. Birth control leaders at that time were also concerned about problems caused by a large population, but their motivations were more humanitarian—the poverty of agricultural and industrial workers’ families, women’s and children’s health and women’s liberation. In the postwar period the difference in motivations has again been evident in the lack of government support for making available a wider choice of birth control methods, particularly its continued resistance to licensing of the oral contraceptive pill. Especially since the late 1970s, government officials and Liberal Democratic Party politicians have become more concerned about the continual decline of the birth rate, paralleled by the rapid aging of the population, which will create financial problems for the government. 2 Government officials’ lack of interest in family planning reflects the fundamental demographic concerns of the government and a lack of interest in women’s reproductive rights and in women’s issues in general. Public social attitudes, though at least partly shaped by official policies and practices, have also played a role in limiting birth control choices. Many women have internalised the government’s transformed ryosai kenbo ideal. This is reflected in the relative lack of interest in family planning and

220 Elise K.Tipton reproductive rights among leaders and organisations of the women’s movement itself up to the present. Moreover, women’s sexuality remains a somewhat taboo subject. Since the international conference on women in Cairo in 1994, ‘reproductive rights’ has been talked about more frequently among women activists, but according to Ashino Yuriko, Deputy Executive Director of the Family Planning Federation of Japan, it is ‘still a word’. No organisation has yet been established to work specifically for reproductive rights as in the United States, for example.3 Given the strength of motherhood and home-centred role expectations, political activism by women has remained limited. Women received the vote and right to full political participation after the end of the war. In the 1946 general election thirty-nine women, including birth control pioneer Ishimoto (now Kato) Shizue, were elected to the Diet. That high number has never been repeated up to the present. The ‘madonna’ phenomenon of a number of successful women candidates in the Upper House election of 1989 proved temporary, and the proportion of women parliamentarians remains minuscule—under three per cent in the more powerful Lower House of Representatives, only a little more in the House of Councillors. 4 Consequently, the difficulties for women of becoming political activists, as discussed in Chapter 6, are still evident today. More clearly marginalised groups likewise have faced an uphill battle for inclusion and equality with the mainstream. Problems of discrimination against Koreans began in the 1920s and 1930s and continue into the present even as assimilation of generations of Koreans born in Japan has proceeded. In terms of language, assimilation has been ‘successful’—second and third generation Koreans are often unable to speak Korean. Nevertheless, continued discrimination due to the fundamental contradiction of unacceptance as Japanese that underlay prewar assimilation policies became compounded by the alien legal status assigned to Koreans in the late 1940s and 1950s. Not only has discrimination been due to deeply held racial and cultural prejudice, but their legal status has deprived Koreans of rights and privileges accorded to Japanese, including welfare benefits and employment opportunities. As a result, education levels are lower, crime rates higher and unemployment rates higher in Korean communities than Japanese ones. Gradual progress toward ending discrimination has depended on the vagaries of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. Okinawans have not had to deal with the consequences of an alien legal status, yet the economic difficulties which led Okinawans to support language standardisation in the 1940 debate continued to plague the prefecture in the postwar period. Even at the present time, Okinawa has the lowest per capita income in Japan. The recent case of the abduction and rape of a twelve year old Okinawan girl by three American soldiers not only has led to re-evaluation of US-Japanese security arrangements, namely US bases in Japan, but has also provoked the airing of Okinawan feelings of anger and injustice at their unequal treatment by the ‘mainland’ government.

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However, again, reactions have been mixed since some Okinawan landlords have benefited from lease of their lands to the US military. A recent increase in the exposure of Okinawan culture to the ‘mainland’ reveals how marginalised the prefecture has remained in the post-1945 years. It was only in 1995, after twenty-four years of existence, that the music and performing arts festival, the Ryukyu Festival, was held for the first time in the main islands, in Osaka. The 1996 event was expanded and moved to Tokyo. But the move came reportedly ‘in recognition of the capital’s enthusiasm for “world” music’, as though Okinawan culture were something foreign and exotic to Japanese. At the same time the existence of the festival and the success of several distinctly Okinawan music groups since the 1980s indicate that Okinawan language and culture did not disappear despite the assimilation efforts of the central government.5 The fate of coalminers in the post-1945 period perhaps presents the least positive picture—one which, however, can be understood from the conditions of control described by Matthew Allen. We can see even more clearly the internalisation of feelings of inferiority in combination with feelings of anger and hostility towards mainstream Japanese that was evident among minorities such as Koreans and Okinawans. As Allen showed, the oppressive and isolated conditions of coalmining villages contributed to the development of a community culture which kept inhabitants confined as well as providing bonds of friendship and sources of mutual aid and cooperation. When the coal industry was closed down in the 1950s, due to the central government’s decision on industrial policies for the national economy, many coalminers decided to stay in the company villages despite their poverty, because they had been too long isolated from mainstream society and feared the stigma they would encounter outside. The difficulties faced by the Korean and Okinawan minorities are the consequence of national and cultural identity-making efforts which reached a peak in the late 1930s and 1940s and surged again in the 1970s and 1980s. Efforts to create a sense of Japanese uniqueness have blurred the distinction between race and culture. To be a complete possessor of Japanese culture, one needs to be born Japanese.6 This therefore precludes Koreans and Okinawans from real Japaneseness. In addition, the emphasis on homogeneity in the creation of Japanese cultural nationalism has meant that the social problems faced by Korean and Okinawan minorities, and also by the now obsolete coalminers, are not Japanese problems. They have therefore tended to be ignored. Similarly, the existence of the Ainu as a minority was not even recognised until the late 1980s, in response to a United Nations campaign for aid to indigenous peoples. As in the case of the Ainu, recognition of minority problems and the stimulus to solve them has often come from foreign pressures. This kind of blindness to social realities has been paralleled by selective memory regarding Japan’s wartime history, particularly in Asia. On several occasions Japanese politicians have provoked national and international

222 Elise K.Tipton criticism for their justification of Japan’s motives and behaviour during the Second World War. Furthermore, the absence of China and the Chinese from wartime paintings, which John Clark noted, has continued to characterise the world of art history in the post-1945 period. His chapter deals with a subject which art historians in Japan have assiduously avoided in the past fifty years. This epilogue has so far highlighted a number of continuing social problems and dilemmas present in Japanese society today which had their roots in the interwar period. The concern of the state for ‘social problems’, or alternatively, deliberate avoidance of their acknowledgement and therefore of a necessity to do something to solve them has also continued. While less obviously intrusive in social life than in the 1930s or even the 1920s, the attitudes and policies of government bureaucrats and politicians still play an important role in helping or hindering achievement of the goals of various social groups, be they middle-class women, poor workers, or members of a minority group. At the same time, a discovery on my latest visit to Japan should be a reminder that politics and social problems did not necessarily monopolise the attention and energies of Japanese in the early twentieth century Pursuing further research on the birth control movement, I followed up a friend’s remark that there might be a commemorative statue of Abe Isoo at Waseda University. Abe was not only a professor at that university who promoted birth control, but also a Social Democratic Party leader who was elected in 1928 to the Diet in the first general election under the universal male suffrage law. I found the statue. It had been erected because Abe had been the first head of the baseball department at the university. The discovery revealed not only that Abe is remembered as the ‘father of Waseda baseball’ rather than as a notable social and political leader or scholar, but also that this social progressive and political activist had devoted more than an average amount of time and energy to a ‘leisure’ activity. We have not included a chapter on this side of interwar Japanese social life, but it remains a topic that begs for further research. However, while not a specific focus of this book, we can see glimmerings of the consumer and leisure activities we usually associate with postwar Japanese society. Why did middle-class women go into teaching? For many it was to achieve or maintain a ‘modern’, Westernised lifestyle that was being portrayed and purveyed in the mass circulation magazines and newspapers. Why did birth control appeal to the urban middle-class housewives who read Shufu no tomo and Fujin kurabu? There were other reasons as well, but one important motivation was to have more disposable income for a ‘cultural life’ (bunka seikatsu).7 And as a final example, why did Yanagi and his group tour Okinawa in 1940? To see the possibilities for developing tourism. Even in the midst of war, then, the foreign policy priorities of the state were not everything. So it was with the rest of life. The state’s concern with ‘high’ politics did not

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preclude intense and even obsessive concern with ‘low’ life and social ‘problems’ as well. Concern, however, did not always mean control, as we have shown. Historians need to regain that holistic perspective, to mingle the high with the low and to clarify their interconnections. We hope to have contributed to that larger project. NOTES 1

2 3 4 5 6 7

Nishida Yoshiaki, ‘The Rise and Decline of the Farmers’ Movement and Transformation of the Rural Community in Postwar Japan’, Occasional Paper in Labor Problem [sic] and Social Policy, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Sept. 1994, pp. 30–6. Kato Shizue, Hyakusai no kofukuron, Tokyo, Daiwa Shobo, 1996, p. 178; Miho Ogino, ‘Japanese Women and the Decline of the Birth Rate’, Reproductive Health Matters, May 1993, no. 1, pp. 78–84. Interview with Ashino Yuriko, Tokyo, May 1996. Ibid. ‘nenes, shang shang typhoon and rinkan band—ryukyu festival in tokyo’, City Life News, June 1996, vol. 10, pp. 4–5. Yoshino, Kosaku, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan, London, Routledge, 1992, Ch. 2. This theme of modernity is taken up in Sheldon Garon’s thoughtful article, ‘Rethinking Modernization and Modernity in Japanese History: A Focus on State-Society Relations’, vol. 53, no. 2, Journal of Asian Studies, May 1994, pp. 346–66.

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Index

Abe Isoo 222 abortion 42–3, 54, 58; anti-abortiongroups 54 agrarianism (nohonshugi) 102, 105, 108, 118, 206, 207; definition 102; of Aikyokai and Tachibana Kozaburo 120; in 15 May 1932 Incident 120 agricultural cooperatives 11, 105, 118– 19; youth leagues 119, 120 Ai Mitsu 66, 81 Allen, Matthew 4, 7, 13 Allinson, Gary 2 anarchism 44; among Koreans 174–6 Arishima Takeo 193 army 80, 100, 101, 102–3, 105, 114, 208 Asai Chu 71 Asano Choryo 194 assimilation 193; government policies 4, 6, 15, 169–70, 194, 208; of Koreans (see Koreans); of Okinawans 204, 207, 208, 209, 214; slogans 169, 170; and state Shinto 186, 208 avant-garde 65, 66, 81; Nikakai 64, 74 Awaya Kentaro 115 bijinga (pictures of beautiful women) 75 birth control 42–62; arguments supporting 48–51; in Britain 49, 51, 54, 55; clinics 9, 51, 52, 54, 56; discussion of 9, 45–8, 52, 54; government policies toward 5, 9, 48; and medical profession 9, 54–5, 58; movement 3, 6, 9–10, 46, 49, 54, 56, 58; objections to 43, 48–9; obstacles to practice of 51–6; organisations 47, 54, 56; popular views of 9, 48, 51, 58; and population problems 5, 49; practice of 51–2, 58; in the postwar period 219–20; in rural areas 47,

52–3; and socialism 5, 43, 58; techniques 42, 48, 52–4; in the United States 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55 birth rate 9, 42, 47, 57, 218, 219 Bolshevik Revolution 5 ‘bunka seikatsu’ 50, 222 Bunten-Teiten-Shin-Bunten 10, 65, 66, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 82; Special Wartime Exhibition 66 burakumin 5, 151, 152, 187 censorship: of Korean publications 173; of left-wing publications 13, 128, 138; of literature 212; related to birth control 9, 48; of rural youth association newspapers 105, 106–7, 113–14, 117 Chen Jin 76 China: image of in paintings 10–11, 63–99; war with 6, 10, 43, 65, 67, 199, 214 Chino Yoichi 21 Cho Yokiro 76 Christian Temperance Unions 21 Chung, Young-Soo 4, 6, 13 Chuo koron 47, 53, 212 Civil Code of 1898 18, 126 Clark, John 7, 10, 11 Clarke, Hugh 4, 6, 7, 14–15, 186 coalmining 146, 148, 150, 221; companies and the state 4, 13, 146, 165; company types 150–1; forms of resistance among coalminers in 159–61; in Manchuria 148; villages (see tanju); working conditions in 156–8 colonialism: ‘Grow More Rice’ campaign 171; Japanese 169, 194, 205, 208; land survey in Korea 170–1

238 Index Commoners’ Society (Heiminsha) 127, 128, 129, 133 communism 44, 136; Japanese Communist Party 14, 44, 136, 175, 177; and Koreans 14, 174–5, 176, 177 Confucianism 19, 21 Daily Life Improvement Movement 22 depression 35, 113, 212; impact in rural areas 11, 103, 111–12, 114; and the petition movement 116 dialect debate (hogen ronso) 6, 14–15, 193–223; see also language standardisation Diet 3, 44, 45, 21, 57, 103, 133, 220; Korean candidates for 184, 187; petition movement to 112 Dong Yuan 75 Dore, Ronald 102, 115 dress: kokumin fuku 214; traditional Korean 185; traditional Okinawan 200, 203, 209 education: boys’ 18–19; girls’ 18–22; Imperial Education Association 25, 33; ‘imperialist’ 207, 208, 209; in Korea 186, 208; of Koreans in Japan 179, 180, 186; private 19–20; senmon gakko (technical schools) 20; Special Education Conference (1917– 19) 21; standard language 198, 199– 203, 205–6, 211; in Taiwan 209; see also Imperial Rescript on Education; language standardisation; normal schools Education Ministry 8, 10, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 31, 33, 35, 65, 102, 193 Einstein, Albert 44 Embree, John 53 eugenics 51, 56 Eugenics Protection Law (Yusei Hogo Ho) 42, 58 European Tripartite Intervention 68 fauvism 66, 74; Chinese 79 Ferris School for Girls 19 First of March Movement (1919) 174, 175, 179 First World War 5, 9, 21, 22, 25, 30, 32, 46, 103, 147, 150, 170, 179, 210, 218 folk art (mingei) movement 6, 15, 209; Folk Art Association 193, 194, 195, 197, 200, 203, 204; Mingei 195,

200, 203, 206; Mingeikan 205, 213; see also Yanagi Muneyoshi forced labour 6, 13, 14, 148, 150, 169, 184, 186, 187 Foreign Ministry 44, 45 Foucault, Michel 149 Freedom and Popular Rights Movement 128 Fuchigami Fusataro 205, 211, 213, 214 Fujin kurabu (Women’s Club) 46, 222 Fujin sekai (Women’s World) 53 fujin shokugyo (women’s occupations) 20 Fujishima Takeji 75, 96 Fujita Tsuguharu 80, 82–3 Fukuda Hideko 12, 128–33, 134, 135, 139, 140; editor of Sekai fujin 128; as a female shishi 130; relationships with men 131; relationships with women 131 Fukuda Shutaro 74 Funaki Michitada 194 Gakuyukai (Tokyo Chosen Ryugakusei) 173, 174, 175 Garon, Sheldon 3, 17, 146–7 Gluck, Carol 1 ‘good wife, wise mother’ (ryosai kenbo) 4–5, 8, 19, 21–30, 36, 50, 126, 133, 219 Gordon, Andrew 147 Goto Seiko 28 Government-General of Korea 171, 173, 180, 182 Greater Japan Education Society 28 Hagiwara Sakutaro 206, 207 Hamada Shoji 194 Hani Motoko 20, 29 Hanihara Masanao 45 Hanley, Susan 42 Hara Takashi (Kei) 2, 44 Harada Naojiro 71–2 Hashimoto Kansetsu 78 Havens, Thomas 115 Hayward, Bill 44 Higa Shuncho 208 Hiratsuka Raicho 32, 34 Hirohito 65 Hiroshima 34 Hiroshima Koho 75, 95 Hirota Koki 211 Hirotsu Kazuro 212 Hishida Shunso 70

Index ‘history from below’ 1, 2, 7 history painting 82–3 Home Ministry 18, 22, 44, 45, 102, 107, 173, 180, 182 Honda Misao 55 Honda Yasuji 207 Huang Gongwang 75 Ichikawa Fusae 24, 34 Ie Chosuke 203 Ie no hikari 105, 108, 112, 113, 115, 119, 120; controlled by government 105 Ifa Fuyu 204, 209, 210 Ikeda Eiichi 99 Imamura Shiko 75 Imperial Rescript on Education 19, 21–2, 33, 35, 207, 208 imperialism 10–11, 169 individualism 6, 132 International Labour Organisation 32 International Workers of the World (Wobblies) 44 Ishimoto (Kato) Shizue (Shidzue) 9, 44, 46, 47, 54, 55, 56, 57, 220; arguments supporting birth control 49–51; and Margaret Sanger 49 Japan Women’s University 20 ‘Japanese-style’ painting (nihonga) 63, 64, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76 Japanisation see assimilation Japonaiserie 76 Jugaku Fumiaki 206 Justice Ministry 44 Kaizo 44, 45, 46 Kanayama Heizo 63, 83, 97 Kano Masanao 103, 104, 106, 111 Kanokogi Takeshiro 78 Kanto earthquake 175, 180 Kase Kazutoshi 118 Kato Komei (Takaaki) 45 Kato Shizue (Shidzue) see Ishimoto Shizue Keimeikai 33 Kido Wakao 28 Kikuchi Keigetsu 75, 93 Kim Chong-bom 176 Kim Yak-su 177 Kiuchi Kyo 29, 34 Kobayakawa Mochimaro (Shusei) 99 kokutai 22, 35, 175; ‘clarification of’ 200, 208

239

Komura Suiun 74, 92 Konoe Fumimaro 214 Korean YMCA 173, 174 Koreans (in Japan) 4, 169–92; assimilation policies 13–14, 169–70, 179–88; coalminers 13, 148, 150, 152, 172, 187; in Communist Party 14, 174–5, 176, 177; discrimination against 13, 169, 172, 177, 179, 188, 220; forced labour 13, 14, 169, 184, 186, 187; immigration to Japan 170–2; Japanese attitudes toward 181–2, 188; labour organisations 14, 175, 176–7, 178; lack of social integration 13–14, 220; legal status of 188, 220; living conditions 14, 178; political participation of 184; recruitment by Japanese companies 171–2, 177; resistance to assimilation 169–70; students 14, 172–6; under surveillance 14, 173, 176, 180, 187 Kubota Beisen 74 Kuroda Seiki 64 Kushi Fusako 213 Kyowakai (Harmonisation Society) 14, 180–1, 183–8; and police 183 labour unions 135, 136, 147, 148; Japan General Federation of Labour (Nihon Rodo Sodomei) 147, 176; Labour Federation of Koreans in Japan (Zai Nippon Chosen Rodo Sodomei) 175, 176–7; National Conference of Japanese Trade Unions (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Zenkoku Kyogikai) 177 language standardisation 4, 6, 14–15, 193–233; related to Koreans 179, 186, 208; related to Okinawans 194, 196–7, 203, 207; use of dialect card for 202, 204, 205 Large, Steven 147 Leach, Bernard 193 League of Nations 1, 116, 117 Mackie, Vera 4, 12 Majima Kan 54, 56 Malthusianism, Neo-Malthusianism 49, 51 Manchukuo 68, 148 Manchuria 34, 67, 73, 77, 78, 108–9; emigration to 103, 108, 112, 171, 211, 213

240 Index Manchurian Incident (1931) 6, 10, 68, 101; response of rural youth to 11, 100–25; response in Tohoku to 111 mass culture 5, 65, 218 mass media 3, 45, 46–7, 194, 198, 209, 214, 218; young men’s association newspapers 100–25; see also Naha May Day 12, 128, 134, 177 May 4th Movement 68 Meiji Constitution 126, 128 Meiji Fine Art Society 69, 72 meisho-e (paintings of famous places) 78 Mi Fei 75 middle-class 3, 46, 218; image of Japan 7; farmers 42, 103–4, 105, 119; life style 50; women 3, 4, 8, 21, 26; see also white collar class Miike 49 Minami Jiro 208 mingei movement see folk art movement minorities see Koreans; Okinawans Mitsutani Kunishiro 73 Miyake, Yoshiko 36 Moore, Barrington 100 Mori Arinori 19, 23 Mori Ogai 72 Mori Takamaro 118 morotai (blurred manner) 70 ‘motherhood in the interest of the state’ (kokkateki bosei) 8, 36 movement for lower electricity charges 103, 104, 109, 110, 113, 117 Munakata Shiko 194 Murray, David 23 Mushanokoji Saneatsu 193

214, 221; and folk art movement 15, 195; Korean 14, 169–70, 173–7, 188; in paintings 10, 65, 71 Nazism 9, 56, 214; visit of Hitler Jugend 81 New Women’s Association (Shin Fujin Kyokai) 21, 34, 44, 134 Newell, Susan 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 Nihon Bijutsu-in (Japan Art Academy) 70, 74, 77; Toyo art 70 Nishida Yoshiaki 109, 116, 119 normal schools 20, 23–5, 34; Okazaki Normal School 24 Nyonin geijutsu 136; closed down 138

Nagai Hisomu (Sen) 56 Nagano Prefecture 32, 34, 100–25; high degree of political activity in 103–4; impact of depression in 103, 105–6, 111–12; importance of silk-raising in 103, 105–6 Naha 195, 198, 205, 213; newspapers in 195, 198, 200, 214 Naito Konan 74 Nakamoto Takako 12, 128, 136–9, 140 Nakamura Fusetsu 77 nanga (southern ‘literati’ painting) 70, 74 National Eugenics Law (Kokumin Yusei Ho) 10, 56 National Painting Creation Society (Kokuga Sosaku-kai) 74 nationalism 6, 15, 21, 207; cultural 15,

Paek Mu 176 Pak Chun-gum 198, 184 panopticon 149–50, 158, 161, 163, 165 Patriotic Society 21 Peace Preservation Law (Chian Iji Ho, 1925) 65, 175–6 petition movement 112, 116, 120 Pharmaceutical Affairs Law 58 police 43, 44, 45, 54, 107, 113, 117, 173, 175, 180, 183, 187, 195, 196, 208; see also censorship and repression Popular Front Movement 56 population policies 5, 9, 42–3, 56–7 population problems 9, 57; Commission for the Study of the Problems of Population and Food Supply 47;

Odagiri Minako 76 Ogino Kyusaku 53; Ogino-Knaus method 53 Okakura Tenshin 70, 74, 77 Okinawa 4, 6; Department of Educational Affairs 198, 199, 205, 214; poverty in 205, 209–12, 220; tourism to 194, 195, 196, 209, 222 Okinawans 4; attitudes of in dialect debate 15, 203, 209–12; discrimination against 15, 195, 197, 200, 202, 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 221; emigration of 208, 211; feelings of inferiority 197, 200, 204, 212 Oku Mumeo 34 Orientalism 67 Orikuchi Shinobu 207 Orimoto (Tatewaki) Sadayo 136 Ota Tenrei 51, 54, 55, 56

Index government policies related to 5; interest in 47–8 poverty: of coalminers 164–5, 166; of Koreans 178, 188; in Okinawa 209; in rural areas 11, 105–6, 111–12, 113–15; see also depression proletarian art 65, 78; repression of 78, 82 pronatalism 6, 9–10, 52, 54, 56–7; ‘ume yo fuyase yo’ 42, 56–7 Public Peace Police Law (Chian Keisatsu Ho) 18, 21, 24, 44, 127, 133 Qing dynasty 68, 69 Red Teachers Incident (1933) 11, 34, 117–18, 119 Red Wave Society (Sekirankai) 12, 21, 32, 44, 45, 134, 135 repression 3, 6, 17; of art world 10, 81, 82, 83; of Koreans 172–6, 177, 180; Law to Control Radical Social Movements (Kageki Shakai Undo Torishimari Ho) 44; of left 11, 13, 56, 78, 83; related to birth control 9–10, 56; in rural areas 11, 117; see also censorship; Peace Preservation Law; police Rice Riots (1918) 25, 44, 47 romu kakari (overseers) 151, 154, 158, 164 Root-Katsura Agreement (1907) 49 rural rehabilitation movement 11, 103, 118 rural youth associations (seinendan) 6, 11, 48, 100–25; social backgrounds of members 103–4; independent character of 104–5 Russell, Bertrand 44 ryosai kenbo see ‘good wife, wise mother’ Ryukyus: aristocracy 203; crafts 205; dance 204; drifters 212; Kingdom 207, 209, 210; romance of the 205; see also Okinawa Saigo Kogetsu 75 Sakuma Fujitaro 194 Sanger, Margaret 6, 9, 48, 54, 55;1922 visit to Japan 43–7; and Ishimoto Shizue 49 Satsuma 207, 210, 213 Sawayanagi Masataro 28, 30, 31, 34; founder of Seijo Primary School 33

241

Second World War 5–6, 18, 42, 63, 158 seinendan see rural youth associations Seito 127 Shanghai Incident (1932) 68 Sharpe, Jim 2 Shidehara Kijuro 45 Shiga Naoya 193 Shikiba Ryuzaburo 194 Shikiba Takasaburo 195 shiki-e (paintings of seasonal themes) 78 Shirakaba (White Birch) 193 Shufu no tomo (The Housewife’s Friend) 46, 47, 48, 49–50, 51, 53, 222 Smethurst, Richard 100, 103, 114 Smith, Thomas 42 Soaikai (Mutual Friendship Association) 180, 184 socialism 9; and birth control 5, 43; and feminism 12, 126, 128, 132, 135, 140 (see also women socialists); movement 5, 127; and rural youth 106–11, 115 sterilisation laws: in Germany 9, 56; in Japan 9–10, 56; see also National Eugenics Law Stopes, Marie 51, 55 suffrage: Koreans’ 184; universal male 44, 103, 127, 184; women’s 21, 34 Sugiyama Heisuke 204 surrealism 65, 66, 83; repression of 81; see also Ai Mitsu Suzuki Shigeo 194 Taisho Democracy 2, 3, 5, 103, 179 Takamura Itsue 24 Takeuchi Seiho 66, 74, 76, 78, 98 Tanaka Toshio 194, 203, 205 tanju (coalmining villages) 4, 13, 146– 68, 150, 160; culture 13, 158, 163–6, 221; daily life 154–8; structure of 152–4; as system of control 162–4, 165–6; see also panopticon teachers: comparisons with foreign countries 29–30; forbidden to participate in politics 24, 35; male 4, 24–5; organisations 25, 28, 32–5; qualifications 23, 28–9; salaries 24– 6; shortage of 5, 8, 24–5, 30; status 24–5; training see normal schools; women see women teachers; working conditions of 4, 8; see also education; Red Teachers Incident Tei Joshu (Ding Ruchang) 73

242 Index tennosei 103 Terazaki Kogyo 74 Tipton, Elise 4, 6, 9, 12, 13 Tokyo, history of 2 Tokyo School of Fine Arts 63, 69, 70 Tomioka Tessai 70 Toyama Masakazu 72 Toyo Muslin Factory 136–9; see also Nakamoto Takako Tsuda Umeko 20, 29 Twenty-One Demands 68 Uemura Shoen 76 ukiyo-e 69, 76, 78 Umehara Ryusaburo 79–80; exhibited in Chinese National Fine Art Exhibition 79; and Guo Bochuan 79 urbanisation 2 Vlastos, Steven 120 war paintings 65–6, 79–83; absence of China in 10–11, 80–1, 222; in Army and Navy Painting Societies’ exhibitions 80; and European influences 80, 82; Exhibition of War Art 73; by members of Shiseisakuha Kyokai (New Production Association) 80; and representative artists 80, 82–3, 99; see also Fujita Tsuguharu Waswo, Ann 108, 120 Weiner, Michael 169, 172 Wells, H.G. 44 ‘Western-style’ painting (yoga) 63, 64, 67, 69, 71; Buddhist subjects in 71– 2; disseminated by Mizu-e 64 white collar class 5, 35, 46, 50; see also middle-class Wilson, Sandra 6, 11, 48 Wilsonian democracy 5, 173–4 Wiswell, Ella 52–3 ‘the woman problem’ 8, 12; see also women women: coalminers 157–9; groups and organisations 4, 21, 22, 32–5, 36, 127, 134 (see also New Women’s Society; Red Wave Society; Women’s Suffrage Association); history of 2; ideal of 4, 17 (see also ‘good wife, wise mother’); middle-class 3, 4, 8, 21, 26, 50,

222; as mothers 3, 8, 35–6, 57, 133; political participation of 12, 18, 21, 22, 36, 44–5, 127–8, 220; rights in the family 18; role of 3, 8, 12, 18, 21–2, 35–6; workers 3, 8, 12, 133, 135, 136–9, 200; working conditions of 4; see also ‘the woman problem’; women’s liberation; women teachers; women socialists women socialists 12, 21, 126–45; see also Red Wave Society, Fukuda Hideko, Nakamoto Takako, Yamakawa Kikue women teachers 3, 4, 5, 17–41; attitudes toward work 8; discrimination against 18, 27–9, 35–6; discussions of their role 28, 35–6; government attitudes toward 8, 25–6; government hiring practices 8, 25; married 8, 29–32, 33; maternity leave 31–2, 33– 4, 35; National Women Primary School Teachers Alliance (Zenkoku Shogakko Rengo Jokyoinkai) 33–5; organisations 32–5; percentages 27, 29–30, 35, 36, 219; in the postwar period 218–19; reasons for teaching 25–6; unequal pay system 25, 34 women’s liberation: and birth control 49–50, 58; movement 5, 9 Women’s Suffrage Association 21 workers 44; see also coalmining; Koreans; tanju; teachers; women Yajima Toshi 29 yakuza 151 Yamada Seiko 200, 202 Yamakawa Kikue 12, 128, 134–6, 139, 140 Yamamoto Senji 48 Yamamura, Kozo 42 Yanagi Muneyoshi 15, 193–207 passim, 209, 213–14 Yanagita Kunio 206, 207, 214 Yasui Sotaro 76 Yokoyama Taikan 63, 66, 70, 74, 80 Yoshida Tsugunobu 198, 202 Yoshino Sakuzo 179 Yuaikai 21, 32, 127 zaibatsu 150 Zheng Jiongchang 75, 94