The Americanization process

‘The Japanese are really conservative and anything a little different is an indication of radicalism. They will have to get used to changes, because there will be many of them in the next few years. They will never go back to their old pre-war lives. If they cannot adjust themselves to changes, they are in for bitter disillusionment. I have hopes that they will, but the Americanization process will be slow. We can’t expect anything else, I suppose, under the circumstances. Ever since Orientals have been in the U.S. they have had a difficult time. Denied citizenship and economic opportunities, it is not surprising that they have withdrawn and hung onto what they have brought with them.’ This is Charles Kikuchi, son of Japanese immigrants, who kept a detailed diary during his incarceration, alongside tens of thousands of other Japanese in concentration camps during the Second World War. Kikuchi died 30 years ago today, but his diary lives on, as a key resource for understanding the ‘insidiousness of racialism in American history.’

Charles Kikuchi was born in 1916 in Vallejo, California, but was orphaned aged 8 and sent to live in a multiracial orphanage some 70 miles north of San Francisco. He worked at any number of unskilled jobs, and managed to graduate from San Francisco State College in 1939. That same year he published, anonymously, an autobiographical essay entitled A Young American with a Japanese Face, which later brought him some renown in his own community. He worked for the California State Employment Service, surveying occupations of Japanese immigrants; and he attended the School of Social Welfare, University of California, receiving a certificate in social work in 1942. He was recruited by sociologist Dorothy Swaine Thomas for the Japanese Evacuation and Relocation Study (JERS), as a result of which he began to keep a diary.

For about a year, Kikuchi was interned with his family at Tanforan (San Bruno, California) and Gila River (Rivers, Arizona) concentration camps, as part of the US policy to remove over 100,000 persons of Japanese birth or ancestry from the Pacific Coast. He completed sociological field surveys at both centres, and continued chronicling camp resident settlement after he and his sisters had been allowed to relocate to Chicago in 1943. Just before the bombing of Hiroshima, he was drafted into the army. After the war, in 1946, he married Yuriko Amemiya, a professional dancer, and the following year he received a master’s degree in social work from New York University. For more than two decades, thereafter, he followed a career as a psychiatric social worker in Veterans’ Administration Hospitals where he mostly counselled Africa American veterans of the Vietnam War. He died on 25 September 1988. Further biographical information can be found at the Densho Encyclopedia website.

Kikuchi proved to be a committed and careful diarist, amassing many volumes from early 1942 to mid-1945 - all of which are held by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCAL) - as well as for the rest of his life. Some pages from the war period diaries are, in fact, available to read online in their manuscript form. They are also available in print: in 1973, University of Illinois Press (UIP) published The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle from an American Concentration Camp as edited by John Modell. The diary chronicles the period before and during the time he and his family were forced to live at Tanforan (converted race track stalls), but not his later experiences at Gila River. Parts of the book can be read online at Googlebooks. UIP quotes a review in History: Review of New Books: ‘For anyone interested in the significance of ethnicity, the role of social marginality, and the insidiousness of racialism in American history, The Kikuchi Diary is indispensable reading.’

In his introduction, Modell says Kikuchi’s diary can profitably be read on at least three levels: ‘as an insider’s record of events in “America’s concentration camps,” as the daybook of a man who was no mere detached observer but for whom the camp experience was a psychic turning point, and as one strangely glowing example of the far wider phenomenon of ethnic ambivalence.’ 

Here are several extracts from his book.

9 December 1941
‘Berkeley. Holy Christ! San Francisco last night was like nothing I ever saw before and everybody was saying that the Japs are going to get it in the ass. I ran into Jimmy Hong up on Grant Avenue, and he says I’m not allowed to screw Chinese girls anymore. Angelo, too, he says, because he is a Wop. Jimmy was kidding; and he will give me some kind of a badge which says that I am a Chinese as he says some of the Japanese boys from U. C. got beat up. I didn’t hear anything about that. Kenny told me it was true when I got back, and he said that all of the students are going to be restricted to campus. A lot of them want to get the hell out of here and go home, but I don’t know what good that will do. I don’t know what good it will be to stay here.

Kenny has a friend, Shibs, who is full of wild stories. I don’t know where he gets them. He says Bill is spying for the Navy or the FBI. I don’t believe that; but I guess the FBI do have guys on the campus. They have picked up some suspicious Japanese already. I saw Alice and she is worried about Pop, because we live so close to Mare Island and she thinks that Jack should go over and tell the Mayor that Pop was in the U.S. Navy. I think Pop would praise Japan; but he is not going to blow up anything. It may be dangerous for him in the barber shop with all those Mare Island guys coming in. I told Alice to tell Mom to have Pop’s Navy discharge framed and put on the wall next to the barber license and take that Buddha statue the hell out of there. Alice says the Army should put me in charge of patriotism because I am suspicious of my own father. I did not mean it that way; but it is true, I don’t trust the Issei. If just one of them sabotaged something, what hell there would be to pay.

Mrs. Edwards seems very calm about the whole thing, I must say. She told me to study hard and become an officer in the Navy. What a laugh! The Navy would not even let me be a messboy. Jack says it’s going to be bad, and he wants to go East to study medicine; but he can’t walk out on the family like that.’

30 April 1942
‘Berkeley. Today is the day that we are going to get kicked out of Berkeley. It certainly is degrading. I am down here in the control station and I have nothing to do so I am jotting down these notes! The Army Lieutenant over there doesn’t want any of the photographers to take pictures of these miserable people waiting for the Greyhound bus because he thinks that the American public might get a sympathetic attitude towards them.

I’m supposed to see my family at Tanforan as Jack told me to give the same family number. I wonder how it is going to be living with them as I haven’t done this for years and years? I should have gone over to San Francisco and evacuated with them, but I had a last final to take. I understand that we are going to live in the horse stalls. I hope that the Army has the courtesy to remove the manure first.

This morning I went over to the bank to close my account and the bank teller whom I have never seen before solemnly shook my hand and he said, “Goodbye, have a nice time.” I wonder if that isn't the attitude of the American people? They don’t seem to be bitter against us, and I certainly don’t think I am any different from them. That General De Witt certainly gripes my ass because he has been listening to the Associated Farmers too much.

Oh, oh, there goes a “thing” in slacks and she is taking pictures of that old Issei lady with a baby. She says she is the official photographer, but I think she ought to leave these people alone. The Nisei around here don’t seem to be so sad. They look like they are going on a vacation. They are all gathered around the bulletin board to find out the exact date of their departure. “When are you leaving?” they are saying to one another. Some of those old Issei men must have gone on a binge last night because they smell like sake.

Mitch just came over to tell us that I was going on the last bus out of Berkeley with him. Oh, how lucky I am! The Red Cross lady just told me that she would send a truck after my baggage and she wants the phone number. I never had a phone in that dump on Haste Street.

I have a queer sensation and it doesn’t seem real. There are smiling faces all around me and there are long faces and gloomy faces too. All kinds of Japanese and Caucasian faces around this place. Soon they will be neurotic cases. Wang thinks that he has an empty feeling in his stomach and I told him to go get a hamburger upstairs because the Church people are handing out free food. I guess this is a major catastrophe so I guess we deserve some free concessions.

The Church people around here seem so nice and full of consideration saying, “Can we store your things?” “Do you need clothes?” “Sank you,” the Issei smile even now though they are leaving with hearts full of sorrow. But the Nisei around here seem pretty bold and their manners are brazen.
They are demanding service. I guess they are taking advantage of their college educations after all. “The Japs are leaving, hurrah, hurrah!” some little kids are yelling down the street but everybody ignores them. Well, I have to go up to the campus and get the results of my last exam and will barely be able to make it back here in time for the last bus. God, what a prospect to look forward to living among all those Japs!’

23 May 1942
‘Saturday. Last night after I came home I heard a number of gun shots. Alice says (unofficial) that three boys were shot while trying to escape over the fence, one of whom is in the hospital. The administration won’t take any moves to confirm or deny any of the stories so they continue to spread. This seems to be a shortsighted policy. There is no chance for the paper to bring such things out without being censored. They just won’t allow us to take a definite policy on aims, except possibly Americanization. They are so afraid of radicalism. If it is being a radical to push American ideals and war effort among the Japanese without fear of stepping on toes, then we are radicals. The Japanese are really conservative and anything a little different is an indication of radicalism. They will have to get used to changes, because there will be many of them in the next few years. They will never go back to their old pre-war lives. If they cannot adjust themselves to changes, they are in for bitter disillusionment. I have hopes that they will, but the Americanization process will be slow. We can’t expect anything else, I suppose, under the circumstances. Ever since Orientals have been in the U.S. they have had a difficult time. Denied citizenship and economic opportunities, it is not surprising that they have withdrawn and hung onto what they have brought with them. The cultural ties were stronger than the political ones. In a way it is a form of escapism.

Yesterday while we were playing our little card game, the police came in and arrested 88 men for violating the State Gambling law! This puts an end to our games for a while and is an “out” for me. I don’t know where all of those single men get their money; they certainly have enough for those big card and dice games.’

21 June 1942
‘Lots of visitors as usual. Many of them probably came out of curiosity to look at us and the camp. Makes one feel like being either in a zoo or a prison. The person who owns the property across the highway in front of the main gate has opened up a very profitable enterprise. He has a 15 cent parking lot!’

18 August 1942
‘The movies were scheduled for eight o’clock and the place was not supposed to be open until 7:30, but the 1500 people were in line by 6:35. It extended all the way down past the postoffice in three columns. The shows are given every Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday night with 1500 people attending each showing. Only the first 7 or 800 to get in can see the picture very well. This week a lot of blankets were put up against the windows to darken the place and two loudspeakers have been installed on the girders crossing the large room.

The Issei are as bad as the kids when it comes to pushing and crowding in. They just come and plop down on any space that is even left slightly open. And they take their shoes off! Seeing a show is a form of self torture. One sits on the floor and the cushions do not eliminate the hardness of the boards. Soon your back gets tired and the feet cramped. You shuffle around to get an easier position and step on somebody’s hand. The owner of the hand turns around and gives you a dirty look. About half way through the picture, your neck gets awfully stiff from looking up at an angle. With people pressing in on you from both sides, you feel suffocated. And to add further torture the sound is not very clear. But in spite of all this, everyone that can walk to the grandstands comes for the show. This week Abbott and Costello in “Hold That Ghost” was playing. The audience really seemed to enjoy the picture, but I thought it was a bit corny. But why should I be an old wet blanket?

The film scheduled for next week was “Citizen Kane” but Yoshio K. told me that he had to cancel it upon the request of Mr. Thompson of the Rec. Department, who claimed that the picture would be too deep for 80% of the audience and he thought that comedies should be shown.’

Chief atom bomb adviser

‘We had news this morning of another successful atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki. These two heavy blows have fallen in quick succession upon the Japanese and there will be quite a little space before we intend to drop another. During that time I hope something may be done in negotiating a surrender.’ This is from the diary of Henry L. Stimson, born 150 years ago today, who was chief adviser on atomic matters to US Presidents during the Second World War. His extensive and detailed diaries provide a primary resource for historians of the period.  

Stimson was born on 21 September 1867 in New York City, the son of a prominent surgeon. His mother died when he was nine, after which was sent to boarding school, spending summers with his grandmother at her Catskills country house. He was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then at Yale College, graduating in 1888. He attended Harvard Law School before joining the Wall Street law firm of Root and Clark. In 1893, he married Mabel Wellington White, but they had no children. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and in 1910 he stood, unsuccessfully, for election as governor of New York. However, the following year, President William Howard Taft appointed him Secretary of War. He continued with a reorganisation of the army, begun by Elihu Root, until Taft was succeeded by President Woodrow Wilson.

Stimson served in the regular US Army in France as an artillery officer, reaching the rank of colonel. After the war, he continued military service in the Organized Reserve Corps, rising to the rank of brigadier general. President Calvin Coolidge sent him to Nicaragua to negotiate an end to the civil war there; and he was Governor-General of the Philippines from 1928 to 1929. Under President Herbert Hoover, he served as Secretary of State until 1933. Thereafter, out of office, he was a vocal supporter of strong opposition to Japanese aggression.

With the outbreak of World War II, Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought Republican Stimson, by this time 73 years old, into government as head of the War Department. In this role, he supervised the expansion and training of an expanded US army. He was also chief adviser to Roosevelt and then to President Harry S. Truman on atomic policy. Indeed, he advised Truman to use atomic bombs on Japanese cities of military importance, and later he justified the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on humanitarian grounds, arguing that use of the bomb accelerated the surrender of Japan and thus saved more lives than it cost. He left public service in 1945, and wrote an autobiography - On Active Service in Peace and War - published in 1948. He died in 1950. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, a New York Times obituary, Yale University, or History Net.

Stimson kept a diary from 1909 until his last day in public office in 1945. In 1948, he named Yale University Library as the depository for these diaries (as well as for his other papers). The 52 diary volumes - mostly dictated typescripts - arrived at Yale in 1956; each contains an average of about 180 pages. In 1971, the library’s Manuscripts and Archives department, with the permission of the Stimson Literary Trust, undertook to index the diaries and to (micro)film them for publication. According to Herman Kahn, Associate Librarian for Manuscripts and Archives at the time, ‘the Stimson diaries are probably the best known and most intensively studied single source in twentieth century United States history’.

A useful guide to the microfilm edition of the diaries can be found online at the website of the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies. It says: ‘Although the diaries are full of strongly expressed views on people, issues, and events, many statements are veiled or guarded, and revelations of the private man are few and inadvertent. As a political document, however, and as a political testament the diaries stand as a significant personal account of the career of an American statesman of the first rank.’ The diaries have not - as far as I know - ever been published in print form. However, some selected extracts can be found online, with Yale University Library’s authorisation, at Doug Long’s Hiroshima website. Long, himself, provides many notes and contextual remarks in square brackets and italics. Here are two extracts, as provided, and commented on, by Long - the second being from the day of the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki.

23 July 1945
‘At ten o’clock Secretary Byrnes called me up asking me as to the timing of the S-1 program. I told him the effect of the two cables [from Harrison] and that I would try to get further definite news. I dictated a cable to Harrison asking him to let us know immediately when the time [for the use of the a-bomb on Japan] was fixed.”

‘At ten-fifteen Ambassador [to Moscow W. Averell] Harriman arrived and he and [Assistant Sec. of War John] McCloy, Bundy, and I had a talk over the situation [relations with Russia], Harriman giving us the information of yesterday afternoon’s meetings. He commented on the increasing cheerfulness evidently caused by the news from us [about the atomic bomb], and confirmed the expanding demands being made by the Russians. They are throwing aside all their previous restraint as to being only a Continental power and not interested in any further acquisitions, and are now apparently seeking to branch in all directions.’

‘At eleven o’clock I went down to the ‘Little White House’ to try to see the President or Byrnes. I am finding myself crippled by not knowing what happens in the meetings [between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin] in the late afternoon and evening. This is particularly so now that the program for S-1 is tying in [with] what we are doing in all fields. When I got there I found Byrnes out, and I asked for the President who saw me at once. I told him that it would be much more convenient for me to form my program on the military side if I could drop in early every morning and talk with him or Byrnes of the events of the preceding day. He told me at once to come; that he would be glad to see me every morning and talk over these matters with me. I then told him of matters that came up in the conference with Mr. Harriman this morning which I just referred to, and told him that I had sent for further more definite information as to the time of operation [when the a-bomb would be ready for Japan] from Harrison. He told me that he had the warning message which we prepared on his desk [The Potsdam Proclamation surrender demand for Japan; see the July 2, 1945 Diary Entry in Stimson Diary, Part 6], and had accepted our most recent change in it, and that he proposed to shoot it out as soon as he heard the definite day of the operation [when the a-bomb would be ready for Japan]. We had a brief discussion about Stalin’s recent expansions and he confirmed what I have heard. But he told me that the United States was standing firm and he was apparently relying greatly upon the information as to S-1. He evidently thinks a good deal of the new claims of the Russians are bluff, and told me what he thought the real claims were confined to.’

‘After lunch and a short rest I received Generals Marshall and Arnold, and had in McCloy and Bundy at the conference. The President had told me at a meeting in the morning that he was very anxious to know whether Marshall felt that we needed the Russians in the war or whether we could get along without them, and that was one of the subjects we talked over. [Until now Truman had said getting Russia into the war against Japan was what he came to Potsdam for; see Truman’s July 18, 20, and 22 letters to his wife Bess in The Truman Diary]. Of course Marshall could not answer directly or explicitly. We had desired the Russians to come into the war originally for the sake of holding up in Manchuria the Japanese Manchurian Army [so that Japan could not move them to the Japanese mainland to fight U.S. troops in an invasion]. That now was being accomplished as the Russians have amassed their forces on that border, Marshall said, and were poised, and the Japanese were moving up positions in their Army. But he pointed out that even if we went ahead in the war without the Russians, and compelled the Japanese to surrender to our terms, that would not prevent the Russians from marching into Manchuria anyhow and striking, thus permitting them to get virtually what they wanted in the surrender terms. Marshall told us during our conference that he thought thus far in the military conference they had handled only the British problems and that these are practically all settled now and probably would be tied up and finished tomorrow. He suggested that it might be a good thing, something which would call the Russians to a decision one way or the other, if the President would say to Stalin tomorrow that ‘inasmuch as the British have finished and are going home, I suppose I might as well let the American Chiefs of Staff go away also’ that might bring the Russians to make known what their position was and what they were going to do, and of course that indicated that Marshall felt as I felt sure he would that now with our new weapon we would not need the assistance of the Russians to conquer Japan.’

‘There was further talk about the war in the Pacific in the conference. Apparently they have been finding it very hard to get along with [Commanding General of the U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific Douglas] MacArthur, and Marshall has been spending most of his time in conferences in smoothing down the Navy.’

‘I talked to Marshall about the preparation of S-1 and he gave us a bad picture of the rainy season weather in Japan at this time and said that one thing that might militate against our attack was the low ceiling and heavy clouds, although there were breaks and good days in between.’

‘In the evening I received a telegram from Harrison giving me the exact dates as far as possible when they expected to have S-1 ready, and I answered it with a further question as to further future dates of the possibility of accumulation of supplies.” [Harrison’s telegram informed Stimson that regarding use of the a-bomb on Japan, there was “some chance August 1 to 3, good chance August 4 to 5 and barring unexpected relapse almost certain before August 10.’ (U.S. Dept. of State, “Foreign Relations of the U.S., The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945”, vol. 2, pg. 1374.)].

9 August 1945
‘When I reached the office this morning I found that the affirmative news for the press conference was so light that Surles thought we had better call the conference off and simply have me make a direct statement on the effect of the success of the atomic bomb on the future size of the Army. It seems as if everybody in the country was getting impatient to get his or her particular soldier out of the Army and to upset the carefully arranged system of points for retirement which we had arranged with the approval of the Army itself. The success of the first atomic bomb and the news of the Russians’ entry into the war which came yesterday [Russia declared war on Japan on Aug. 8] has rather doubled this crusade. Every industry wishes to get its particular quota of men back and nearly all citizens join in demanding somebody to dig coal for the coming winter. The effect on the morale of the Army is very ticklish... I could see in my recent trip to Europe [in July to the Potsdam Conference] what a difficult task at best it will be to keep in existence a contented army of occupation and, if mingled with the inevitable difficulties there is a sense of grievance against the unfairness of the government [in releasing soldiers from the Army], the situation may become bad. Consequently the paper that we drew last night and continued today was a ticklish one. The bomb and the entrance of the Russians into the war will certainly have an effect on hastening the victory. But just how much that effect is on how long and how many men we will have to keep to accomplish that victory, it is impossible yet to determine. There is a great tendency in the press and among other critics to think that the Army leaders have no feeling for these things and are simply determined to keep a big army in existence because they like it, and therefore it is ticklish to run head on into this feeling with direct counter criticism. Therefore we tried to draft a paper which would make the people feel that we appreciated their views as well as ours...’

[A copy of Stimson’s above mentioned statement can be found at Press release on the a-bombing and demobilization].

‘The press conference thus being off at ten o’clock, I went over to the White House to meet the President who had called a hearing on whether or not we should put out a scientists’ statement as to the making of the atomic bomb. It was a very difficult question for the President and he handled it with great courage and skill. We had given him all the support that we could in the care with which the statement was drawn so as not to give away any secret which would really help a rival to build on our foundations. But the subject was so vast and the scientists’ report was so voluminous that it was impossible for a layman like the President or Byrnes or myself to determine this question and we had to rely upon the opinions of our scientific advisers. I had been through with a preliminary meeting last week in which I sounded out the British scientists as well as our own, and today the President listened to Dr. [Vannevar] Bush, Dr. Conant [Manhattan Project advisors], General Groves, and George Harrison, while Byrnes and I also sat in. After he had heard them all, with great promptness and decision he decided to act on the recommendation of the scientists that the statement [the Smyth Report] should be published at once.’

‘After that meeting was over I conferred with Byrnes in an adjoining room. I had asked for this meeting for the purpose of showing him the paper that I had received from Crossman drawn by deForest Van Slyck and the letter and article which I had received from Stanley Washburn. These papers each in their way advocated strongly and intelligently a sympathetic handling of the Japanese in negotiating a surrender [an interesting point from Stimson - to end the war, some degree of negotiation would be necessary]. The difficult thing is to get negotiators together and I urged very strongly on Byrnes that he should make it as easy as possible for the Japanese.’

‘We had news this morning of another successful atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki. These two heavy blows have fallen in quick succession upon the Japanese and there will be quite a little space before we intend to drop another. During that time I hope something may be done in negotiating a surrender. I have done the best I could to promote that in my talks with the President and with Byrnes and I think they are both in full sympathy with the aim.’

‘Tomorrow we [Stimson and his wife] hope to get off for a long rest to Highhold and St. Hubert’s.’ [St. Hubert’s was a club in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state where Stimson sometimes went to relax. But Stimson’s departure would be delayed; just as he was about to leave on Aug. 10, the first Japanese offer to surrender arrived.].

A giant of Japanese literature

Natsume Soseki, one of the greatest and most important novelists of modern Japan, died a century ago today - events celebrating this anniversary in Japan are ongoing, not least the unveiling of a Soseki android! By contrast he is little known in the West, although he did, in fact, spend two years in the UK, and, on returning to Japan, became a leading scholar in English literature. Two diaries he kept while in London were put on display recently as part of an exhibition of his life and works. However, there are no published editions of his 12 diaries, and only occasional references to them in various biographies.

So seki was born in the Edo region of Japan (now Tokyo) in 1867, but his parents, with five older children already, gave him up for adoption to a childless couple. That couple looked after him until they divorced, when Soseki was 9, and he was returned to his parents. His mother died a few years later. In 1884, he entered Tokyo Imperial University with the intention of studying to become architecture, but, encouraged by his friend Masaoka Shiki, he became increasingly interested in literature, switching to the English literature department in 1890. On graduating, he continued to study but also teaching part time. In 1895, he left Tokyo to teach in Ehime and then in Kumamoto. In 1896, he married Kyoko, who gave birth to their first daughter in 1899; they would have five more but one would die very young.

From 1900 to 1902, Soseki lived in London - one of the first government-sponsored scholars to be sent abroad - attending lectures at University College (UCL) and doing research that would lead later to his Japanese monographs (Theory of Literature in 1907, and Literary Criticism in 1909). From 1903 to 1907, he was back in Tokyo, teaching at the university; however, he was also writing poetry and literary sketches for magazines, and producing his first novels, such as I am a Cat, Little Master (Botchan), and Grass Pillow. His literary reputation grew rapidly, and by 1907 he was able to give up teaching and become a professional novelist.

The Embassy of Japan in London has this assessment of why Soseki is important in Japan today: ‘Many of the novels of Soseki analyse the human psychology in depth, such as jealousy and love, or loneliness and friendship, so they are applicable even today. At the same time, the very clear style of his prose is now considered the standard for the modern Japanese language. In addition, he pointed out the need for the Japanese people to establish a sense of “individualism”, while at the same time being critical of the tendency toward the superficial “Westernisation” (meaning modernisation) of Japanese society. Such assertions and criticisms are still considered relevant for Japanese society and its people today.’

In 1909, Soseki travelled to Manchuria and Korea. The following year he was hospitalised for the first time with stomach problems, but continued writing, completing one or two more works (such as Kokoro, Grass on the Wayside) each year until his death - on 9 December 1916. According to The Japan Times, events to celebrate this 100th anniversary have been ongoing in Japan throughout 1916 (a university has even unveiled a Soseki android!), and will continue in 2017 with celebrations for the 150th anniversary of his birth. Indeed, The Japan Times begins a long article on Soseki as follows: ‘Fascination twinned with veneration of Soseki is exceptionally high in Japan. The Asahi newspaper has been serializing installments of his novels on a daily basis for several years, while a new Soseki museum is scheduled to open next year in the Tokyo district of Shinjuku, where the writer once lived. On television, meanwhile, a drama series titled “Soseki’s Wife” has attempted to show the revered author from his spouse’s perspective. By a considerable margin, Soseki is the most analyzed Japanese author in modern literature. Hundreds upon hundreds of books have been written about him and thousands upon thousands of academic papers published.’

There is some further information about Soseki at Wikipedia, The New World Encyclopedia or Encyclopaedia Britannica. Some translations of his works can be found at Internet Archive (Botchan, for example), and a 1957 translation of Kokoro can be read at ibiblio.

There appear to be twelve extant volumes of diaries kept by Soseki (see this librarians 1978 workshop report), and held by the Natsume Soseki Collection at Tohoku University Library. As far as I can tell, these have not been published in Japanese, and certainly not in translation. Donald Keene, writing in Rethinking Japan Vol 1: Literature, Visual Arts & Linguistics (Routledge, 2014), says he finds the diaries of Natsume Soseki ‘especially disagreeable’, but without further explanation.

In late 2013, UCL Library Services and Tohoku University Library held a collaborative exhibition in London - Natsume Sōseki, the Greatest Novelist in Modern Japan - to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of UK-Japan Academic Interaction. Some artefacts from this were then put on display by the Embassy of Japan in early 2014. Both exhibitions included the two diaries written in London - named as Diary of Drifting across the Sea and Diary from England in 1901. According to the Embassy of Japan: ‘These diaries are extremely important academic source materials, not only because they describe his student life but also because they contain a number of his unique thoughts on the difference between the Japanese and British societies from his own viewpoint of  civilisation theory.’

A brochure to accompany the UCL exhibition is freely available online, and contains photographs of the diaries, as well as translated quotes from each, as follows.

12 September 1900
‘When waking from a dream, I am far away from my familiar mountains. The vast and limitless ocean surrounds me.’

28 October 1900
‘Left Paris for London. There was a hard and bitter wind on board. I arrived at London in the evening.’

23 January 1901 [Queen Victoria had died the previous day]
‘Flags are hoisted at half-mast. All the town is in mourning. I, a foreign subject, also wear a black-necktie to show my respectful sympathy. “The new century has opened rather inauspiciously,” said the shopman off whom I bought a pair of black gloves this morning.’

Otherwise, various biographies of Soseki make occasional reference to his diaries.

The following two extracts are taken from Reflections in a Glass Door: memory and melancholy in the personal writings of Natsume Sōseki by Marvin Marcus (University of Hawaii Press, 2009).

18 July 1909
‘Oppressive heat. Daughters running all over the house, totally naked. Not a normal thing to do, the heat notwithstanding. The master of the house goes about writing his fiction, surrounded by barbarians.’

8 December 1911
‘This morning, my wife accuses me of being totally antisocial. “People come over for Hinakos wake, and you tell them not to bother, that they should just go home. Well, when I die, be sure not to plan any wake for me.” “But in that case the mice will come out in the middle of the night and gnaw at the tip of your nose.” “Fine with me - the pain would bring me back to life!” ’

And the following extract is taken from Chaos and Order in the Works of Natsume Soseki by Angela Yiu (University of Hawaii Press, 1998)

1911
‘I carried my manuscript with me as notes. My stomach has been troubling me since yesterday, but since this is the last of the lectures, I took some medication and tried to hold out. My lecture was followed by Honda Setsudos “The Fundamental Problems in Finance and Economics” and Ishibashi Hakuyo’s “The Revision of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.” The series ended at twenty past eleven. (There were four thousand seven hundred or eight hundred people in the audience, including fifty women. Since it was so packed, admission was restricted three times, and after seven o’clock no one else was allowed in the hall.) Staying in the Shiunro, despite not having eaten anything, I vomited blood.’ [Subsequently, Soseki was hospitalised again]

The king of Hawaii in Japan

King Kalakaua, the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was born 180 years ago today. He was a colourful character who tried to re-introduce some of the old customs, but he was also forward-looking, negotiating trade deals with the US. In the middle of his reign, he took a nine month fact-finding trip around the world, visiting many countries, and, while in Japan, kept a diary. It was a 100 years or so before this was discovered, and written about in the Hawaiian Journal of History.

David Laʻamea Kamanakapuʻu Mahinulani Nalōiaʻehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua was born on the Hawaiian island of Oahu on 16 November 1836, the second surviving son of the High Chief Caesar Kaluaiku Kapaʻakea and high chiefess Analea Keohokalole. By Hawaiian custom, the infant was adopted by the chiefess Haaheo Kaniu, who took him to the court of King Kamehameha III on the island of Maui. When Kalakaua was four, he returned to Oahu to begin his education at the Royal School.

Kalakaua studied law from the age of 16, but never completed his studies because of his military duties and being appointed to various government positions - in the Department of the Interior and as Postmaster General. In late 1863, he married Kapiʻolani. Although it was a low-key ceremony, he was criticised for holding it during the mourning period for King Kamehameha IV.

When Kamehameha V died in 1872 without having designated an heir, Kalakaua fought an election held to determine his successor but lost to Prince William Charles Lunalilo. Two years later Lunalilo also died without naming a successor. Kalakaua then won the subsequent election against Queen Emma, Kamehameha IV’s widow. However, when supporters of the queen rioted, King Kalakaua asked for the help of US and British troops then in harbour.

Later that year, Kalakaua toured the country’s islands, and then he travelled to the US to finalise a reciprocity treaty. This removed the tariff on some Hawaiian products, particularly sugar, which led to a period of prosperity. Kalakaua tried to restore the ancient Hawaiian social order and helped revive traditional customs, such as hula. He also built himself a luxurious home, the Iolani Palace (now said to be the only royal residence anywhere in the United States).

In 1881, Kalakaua embarked on an innovative fact-finding trip around the world, keen to see how other countries were ruled and how they dealt with immigration, and so as to improve Hawaii’s foreign relations. During his nine month absence, his sister and heir, Princess Liliʻuokalani, ruled as regent. He visited San Francisco, then Japan and China, Burma, India, Egypt and several European countries. By the mid-1880s, however, he was facing growing political unrest from some monarchists wanting to replace Kalakaua with his sister, and from many others wanting to end the monarchy and join with the United States.

In 1887, a group called the Hawaiian League assembled an armed force strong enough to demand the king sign a new constitution (the so-called Bayonet Constitution). This severely restricted his powers, and effectively put an end to the monarchy. He died a few years later, in 1991, while on a visit to the US. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Hawaii History, Hawaii for Visitors, and The Samurai Archives.

There is no evidence that Kalakaua was a diarist by nature, but during his voyage around the world, he did keep a diary for a short time while in Japan. This was discovered in the 1970s by Masaji Marumoto, a lawyer and community leader in Hawaii, in the Bishop Museum library, Honolulu. And, on the basis of the diary, he wrote a paper for the Hawaiian Journal of History (Volume 10, 1976) entitled Vignette of Early Hawaii-Japan Relations: Highlights of King Kalakaua’s Sojourn in Japan on His Trip around the World as Recorded in His Personal Diary. This is freely available on the University of Hawaii community website, and contains several extracts from the diary. Also freely available - at Internet Archive - is Around the World with a King, published in 1904, which contains an account of the entire trip as written by William N. Armstrong, Kalakaua’s Attorney General and companion on the journey.

According to Marumoto, the diary covers the first 48 pages of a notebook containing 100 letter-size pages, and, at the time of his discovery, had not been mentioned or referred to in any existing histories of Hawaii. Apparently, he says, it lay in the archives of the museum for many years unnoticed and unread. Marumoto explains that in Kalakaua’s diary he ‘described in detail his meetings with Emperor Mutsuhito and the Empress at officially scheduled functions; the numerous courtesies extended to him by Prince Higashifushimi Yoshiaki and other members of the Emperor’s reception committee; the military parade given in his honor; and the visits to the printing office, arsenal, paper factory, naval academy, civil engineering school, and other places of interest.’

Marumoto also observes: ‘In a sense, Kalakaua’s diary is a tourist’s diary. However, it is more than that. In it Kalakaua emerges as an educated man with catholic knowledge of human affairs, a monarch thoroughly versed in royal etiquette and comfortably at home with his peer, and a man deeply affected by kindnesses extended to him.’ He concludes his paper with this: ‘The events which are recorded in Kalakaua’s diary did not bring about any result of lasting consequence. They merely added some romantic touch, and thus provided a fascinating and intriguing vignette, to early Hawaii-Japan relations.’ Here are several extracts from Kalakaua’s diary as found in Marmot’s paper.

4 March 1881
‘We arrived in Yokohama at 8 a.m. March 4th 1881. Having had a passage of 24 days from San Francisco weather heavy most of the way. . . . The harbor was studded with vessels of different nationalities War and Merchant vessels. . . . Those having saluting batteries fired 21 guns each Japanese Russian and French. Two Japanese Officers in uniform boarded the Oceanica waited for the arrival of the Admiral. Then came Mr. R. W. Irwin Acting Hawaiian Consul General with Mr. D. W. Stevens Secretary to the American Legation immediately followed. . . . After breakfast Mr. Irwin announced the arrival of Commissioners from the Emperor to receive us and after the presentation of the members consisting of Junii Hachisuka Ex Daimio, Mr. Ishabashi Secretary Foreign Department Vice Governor Isogi of Kanagawa and Admiral Natamuta of the Imp. Jap. Navy we left the ship amid the hearty cheers of the Officers Passengers and Crew of the ‘Oceanica’. The Admiral’s launch conveying us to the Admiralty Office Landing, where we were met by other Deputations sent by the Emperor to receive us. . . . On landing, a Detachment of soldiers and marines paid the usual honors, the Marine Band playing the Kamehameha Hymn or Hawaiian National Anthem. After a short detention of an hour in receiving the presentations of the Naval Officers of the Japanese fleet in the harbor, we drove to the Emperor’s Marine Resident Junii Hachisuka escorting us in the first carriage and the others of the party following in the second and third carriages.

At 11 1/2 a.m. His Imperial Highness Prince Higashifushiminomiya arrived, welcoming us in the name of the Emperor as his guest. Arrangements was [sic] then made for our reception by the Emperor of Japan to take place the next day Saturday the 5th.’

7 March 1881
‘Early at 9 1/2 H. I. H. escorted us to the Arsenal. General Oyama Gan General Murata were presented and with them we were lead to the various departments. Guns of the most improved patterns were orderly placed on racks in tiers from the ground to the Sealing as well as the upper second story. We went through the machinery, gun & cartridge Rooms and small gun factories, where they were making a new gun of their own invention. The piece was somewhat similar to the Hotchkiss American small arm and the test of the Arm showed great precision with low trajectory. . . . The breech lock is simple containing but 5 pieces to the whole mechanism.’

13 March 1881
‘The Prince received us in the front entrance of the Building and conducted us to a side room on the left or East Room on the second story. On a small table was placed a floral cushing of white jassimin flowers and the word ALOHA inscribed in the center in large letters made of the Red Cherry blossom. When this rare and precious token of friendship met my eyes, a thrill of gratefulness penetrated my whole frame and only restrained the emotion by the faint exclamation how beautiful.

Within the door, H. I. H. Princess Higashifushiminomiya advanced to welcome us and led me to a sofa near the fire, bade me to sit, she seating herself on my left. Trays of warm tea and cordials were placed before us and through the medium of the interpretation of Mrs. Uyeno the conversation alluding to the inclemency of the weather and other topics, she arose to allow Princess Fushiminomiya and Princess Kitashirakawa to be presented. When Luncheon was announced she arose and offering myself lead her to the table. . . . I sat on Princess left and Prince Fushiminomiya opposite.

When the Roast were brought in His Imperial Highness Prince Higashi arose and proposed my health in a most cordial manner. In arising to reply I was so choked with emotion that I hardly could speak, but in a broken sentence thanked him for his kindness.’

The earliest literary diary

It is one thousand and seventy years since the death of  Ki no Tsurayuki, a nobleman and poet renowned for his erudition and skills in Chinese and Japanese. He is acknowledged as the author of The Tosa Diary, which is considered the oldest literary diary in existence - predating English diaries by half a millennium!

Tsurayuki was a son of Ki no Mochiyuki, and grew up to become a poet of waka, short poems composed in Japanese. In 905, under the order of Emperor Daigo, he was one of four poets selected to compile an imperial anthology of waka poetry (Kokin Wakashū). His preface to the anthology is credited with being the first formal description of Japanese poetry. After holding a few offices in Kyoto, he became the provincial governor of Tosa province from 930 until 935. Later, he lived in Suo province. He died - according to Wikipedia’s entry - on 30 June 945.

Apart from his contribution to the imperial anthology, Tsurayuki is also considered a literary figure of some historical importance because of the Tosa Nikki - which, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, is the earliest example of a literary diary. (The first English diaries date from the 16th century.) Although, apparently by a woman, and published anonymously, Tsurayuki is acknowledge as being its author. It was first translated into English by William N. Porter in 1912 and published by Henry Frowde as The Tosa Diary. Some pages of a more recent edition, published by Turtle Publishing (Boston) in 1981, is available to preview at Googlebooks.

The narrator of The Tosa Diary states at the outset: ‘It is generally a man who writes what is called a Diary, but now a woman will see what she can do.’ Porter explains in his introduction that this opening sentence means the diary is to be written in ‘the women’s language’. i.e. phonetic characters only, without the use of ideographs; and, in order to be consistent, the author writes as if he was a woman, and mentions himself only in the third person, using different names, such as ‘a certain personage’, ‘the seafarer’ etc. The diary tells of a journey by boat (being rowed) to the then capital Kyoto; although only 200 miles, it took 55 days. (At night, those travelling would camp on shore, and remain there if the weather for the day looked threatening.)

28 January 955 [first entry in published book]
‘One year on the twenty-first day of the twelfth month ‘a certain personage’ left home at the Hour of the Dog, which was the beginning of this modest record. He had just completed the usual period of four or five years as Governor of a Province; everything had been wound up, documents etc. had been handed over, and now he was about to go down to the place of embarkation; for he was about to travel on shipboard. All sorts of people, both friends and strangers, came to see him off, including many who had served him faithfully during the past years, and who sorrowed at the thought of losing him that day. There was endless bustle and confusion; and so with one thing and another the night drew on.’

6 February 955 New Year’s Day
‘Still they remained at the same place. The byakusan had been placed for safe-keeping during the night in the ship’s cabin; but the wind which is usual at this time of year got up and blew it all into the sea. They had nothing left to drink, no potatoes, no seaweed and no rice-cakes; the neighbourhood could supply nothing of this kind, and so their wants could not be satisfied. They could no nothing more than suck the head of a trout. What must the trout have thought of everybody sucking it in turn! That day he could think of nothing but the Capital, and talk of nothing but the straw rope stretched across the Gates of the Imperial Palace, the mullet heads and the holly.’ [These foods etc. are all to do with the then customs of New Year.]

18 February 955
‘The rain was gently falling at daybreak, but it soon stopped, and then the men and women together went down to a suitable place in the vicinity and had a hot bath. Looking out over the sea, he composed this verse:
Overhead the clouds
Look to me like rippling waves;
Were the fishers here,
Which is sea, and which is sky?
I would ask, and they’d reply
Well, as it was after the tenth day, the moon was particularly beautiful. All these days, since first he set foot aboard ship, he had never worn his handsome bright scarlet costume, because he feared to offend the God of the Sea; yet . . .’

25 February 955
‘Just as yesterday the boat could not start. All the people were sighing most dolefully, for their hearts were sad at wasting so many days. How many did they amount to already? Twenty? Thirty? It would make my fingers ache to count them. At night he could not sleep and was in a melancholy mood. The rising moon, twenty days old, came up out of the midst of the sea, for there were no mountain-tops (for it to rise from).’

28 February 955
‘The sun shone forth from the clouds, and, as there was said to be danger of pirates during the voyage, he prayed for protection to the Shinto and Buddhist gods.’

22 March 955
‘This day the carriage arrived. Owing to the dirt on board he removed from the boat to the house of a friend.’

23 March 955
‘That evening as he went up to the Capital, he saw in the shops at Yamasaki the little boxes painted with pictures and the rice-cakes twisted into the shape of conch shells, just the same as ever; and he wondered if the hearts of shopkeepers also were the same. [. . .] Planning to arrive at the Capital by night, he did not hasten. The moon had risen, and he crossed the Katsura River in bright moonlight. [. . .] He recited this also:
Once Katsura’s Stream
Seemed to me as far away
As the clouds of heaven
Now, while crossing, I perceive
It has wet my dipping sleeve.

And again he composed this:
Well I know my heart
And the River Katsura
Never were alike:
Yet in depth my heart would seem
Not unlike the flowing stream.

These too many verses are due to his excessive pleasure at reaching the Capital.’

The Diary Junction

Bright in the sun

Matsuo Bashō, the great Japanese master of haiku poetry, died 320 years ago today. In his late 30s, having grown tired of fame, he started on a series of journeys, by foot, through his country. While travelling, he wrote about his experiences in poetical form, and then edited and published his writings. The most famous of his books - which is sometimes referred to as a travel diary or journal - is Oku no Hosomichi, or The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Bashō was born in Ueno, in Iga Province, near Kyoto, in 1644, the son of a low-ranking samurai. He worked for a local lord who, like him, was interested in poetry. By 1664, Bashō’s poems were being published. When his master died, he abandoned his status as a serving warrior and moved to Edo (now Tokyo) where he became recognised as a master of haiku, and attracted many followers. Bashō reacted to his fame, and turned to Zen meditation for solace. He is known to have lived much of his life in a series of huts, and to have made several long journeys on foot. He died on 28 November 1694 according some web sources. For a little further information in English see Wikipedia, National Geographic, or The Poetry Foundation.

While on his travels, Bashō kept a kind of diary, usually in poem form, about his experiences, and then, on returning to Edo, he edited and published these writings. The most famous of these books, sometimes called travel diaries, is Oku no Hosomichi, or The Narrow Road to the Deep North (or Interior), written near the end of his life following his 1689-1691 trip to the northerly interior region known as Oku. More details on this work can be found at Wikipedia, along with some extracts. It was translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa and published by Penguin Classics in 1966 as The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (see Googlebooks or Amazon). The Narrow Road to the Deep North can be accessed freely online at this website.

Here is an extract from the introduction, and two extracts from the work itself (the latter being the last in the book).

‘In the imagination of the people at least, the North was largely an unexplored territory, and it represented for Bashō all the mystery there was in the universe. In other words, the Narrow Road to the Deep North was life itself for Bashō, and he travelled through it as anyone would travel through the short span of his life here - seeking a vision of eternity in the things that are, by their own very nature, destined to perish.’

‘On the first day of April, I climbed Mount Nikko to do homage to the holiest of the shrines upon it. This mountain used to be called Nikko. When the high priest Kukai built a temple upon it, however, he changed the name to Nikko, which means the bright beams of the sun. Kukai must have had the power to see a thousand years into the future, for the mountain is now the seat of the most sacred of all shrines, and its benevolent power prevails throughout the land, embracing the entire people, like the bright beams of the sun. To say more about the shrine would be to violate its holiness.
It was with awe
That I beheld
Fresh leaves, green leaves,
Bright in the sun.
[. . .]
After climbing two hundred yards or so from the shrine, I came to a waterfall, which came pouring out of a hollow in the ridge and tumbled down into the dark green pool below in a huge leap of several hundred feet. The rocks of the waterfall were so carved out that we could see it from behind, though hidden ourselves in a craggy cave. Hence its nickname, See-from-behind.
Silent while in a cave
I watched a waterfall
For the first of
The summer observances.’

‘September the sixth, however, I left for the Ise Shrine, though the fatigue of the long journey was still with me, for I wanted to see the dedication of a new shrine there. As I stepped into a boat, I wrote:
As firmly cemented clam-shells
Fall apart in autumn
So I must take to the road again
Farewell, my friends.’

Finally, it is worth noting that for some of the time during his trip through Oku, Bashō was accompanied by his disciple, Kawai Sora, who kept a conventional journal. According to Wikipedia, the presence of the diary had been known about in the past, but was re-discovered and published by Yasusaburo Yamamoto in 1943; and then, in 1978, it was designated an Important Cultural Properties of Japan. Unlike Bashō’s diary, Sora Nikki (Sora Diary) does not include emotional language, but focuses on dates and places, thus providing an essential companion for those studying Bashō life and works.

The Diary Junction

Lafcadio Hearn in Japan

‘Then came the tug-of-war. A magnificent tug-of-war, too, one hundred students at one end of a rope, and another hundred at the other. But the most wonderful spectacles of the day were the dumb-bell exercises. Six thousand boys and girls, massed in ranks about five hundred deep.’ This is Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-born Anglo-Irish writer, who died 110 years ago today, writing in a diary he kept while working as a teacher in Japan. Indeed, having emigrated from the US, he became very well-known for writing many books about Japan. Even in his diary entries, he seems fascinated by the traditions and culture of the Japanese people, and in the Oriental minds of his young pupils.

Hearn was born on the island of Lefkada (after which he was named), Greece, in 1850, the son of an Anglo-Irish surgeon-major in the British army and a Greek mother. His parents had a troubled relationship, which soon led to divorce. Neither parent was interested in Lafcadio, and he was brought up by another disinterested relative in Dublin. Nevertheless, he received a decent education, partly in France, partly in Durham, until his guardians went bankrupt. Aged 16, he suffered an injury to his left eye which left him partially blind and shy about his appearance.

In 1869, when his guardians had recovered some financial stability, they paid for Hearn to travel to the US, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to stay with relatives. However, these relatives gave him little assistance, and, for a while, he took menial jobs to survive. With a talent for writing, he gained a reporter’s job on the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer in 1872, and soon developed a reputation for his journalistic audacity and for sensational articles about murders. In 1874, he and a friend set up a weekly journal of culture and satire, Ye Giglampz. That same year he married Alethea (Mattie) Foley, an African-American woman, but the marriage violated Ohio law, and, in response to religious lobbying, he was fired from his job. He went to work for the rival newspaper The Cincinnati Commercial.

Tired of the city, and divorced from Foley, Hearn moved to New Orleans in 1877, where he lived for a decade, writing for, and editing city newspapers. He wrote many articles for national magazines (such as Harper’s Weekly), and books about the city, and is credited with helping create the popular reputation of New Orleans as a place with a distinct culture more akin to that of Europe and the Caribbean than to the rest of North America. He also translated French authors into English.

In 1887, Hearn accepted an invitation from Harper’s to become a West Indies correspondent, and he lived in Martinique for two years. After that, though, he decided to go to Japan. Upon his arrival in Yokohama in the spring of 1890, he was befriended by Basil Hall Chamberlain of Tokyo Imperial University, and officials at the Ministry of Education. At their encouragement, he moved to Matsue, to teach English at Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School. There he moved in distinguished circles, and later married Setsu Koizumi, the daughter of a local samurai family. He had the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo.

Hearn stayed over a year in Matsue, moving on to another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyushu, for a further three years. In 1894, he secured a journalism position with the English-language Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo (Imperial) University, a post he held until 1903, and at Waseda University. He died on 26 September 1904, having written and published many books on Japan - a full bibliography can be found on Steve Tussel’s Lafcadio Hearn site. Further biographical information on Hearn can be found at Wikipedia, the magazine Humanities, The Japan Times or The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

Among his many different kinds of books, Hearn left behind a couple of diaries, neither covering more than a short period: one written in Florida in 1887, and the other written just after taking up his first teaching post in Japan. Both these are freely available at Internet Archive. The first published was From the Diary of an English Teacher included in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (Volume II) published by Houghton Mifflin and Company (Boston and New York) in 1894. Later the diary was re-published in other Lafcadio Hearn volumes, such as Diaries and Letters, in English and Japanese, translated and annotated by R. Tanabe. Posthumously, in 1911, Houghton Mifflin published Hearn’s Leaves from the Diary of an Impressionist, which includes a diary called Floridian Reveries.

Here are several extracts from Hearn’s Japanese diary.

15 October 1890
‘To-day I witnessed the annual athletic contests of all the schools in Shimane Ken. These games were celebrated in the broad castle grounds of Ninomaru. Yesterday a circular race-track had been staked off, hurdles erected for leaping, thousands of wooden seats prepared for invited or privileged spectators, and a grand lodge built for the Governor, all before sunset. The place looked like a vast circus, with its tiers of plank seats rising one above the other, and the Governor’s lodge magnificent with wreaths and flags. School children from all the villages and towns within twenty-five miles had arrived in surprising multitude. Nearly six thousand boys and girls were entered to take part in the contests. Their parents and relatives and teachers made an imposing assembly upon the benches and within the gates. And on the ramparts over-looking the huge enclosure a much larger crowd had gathered, representing perhaps one third of the population of the city.

The signal to begin or to end a contest was a pistol-shot. Four different kinds of games were performed in different parts of the grounds at the same time, as there was room enough for an army; and prizes were awarded for the winners of each contest by the hand of the Governor himself.

There were races between the best runners in each class of the different schools; and the best runner of all proved to be Sakane, of our own fifth class, who came in first by nearly forty yards without seeming even to make an effort. He is our champion athlete, and as good as he is strong, so that it made me very happy to see him with his arm full of prize books. He won also a fencing contest decided by the breaking of a little earthenware saucer tied to the left arm of each combatant. And he also won a leaping match between our older boys.

But many hundreds of other winners there were too, and many hundreds of prizes were given away. There were races in which the runners were tied together in pairs, the left leg of one to the right leg of the other. There were equally funny races, the winning of which depended on the runner’s ability not only to run, but to crawl, to climb, to vault, and to jump alternately. There were races also for the little girls, pretty as butterflies they seemed in their sky-blue hakama and many-coloured robes, races in which the contestants had each to pick up as they ran three balls of three different colours out of a number scattered over the turf. Besides this, the little girls had what is called a flag-race, and a contest with battledores and shuttlecocks.

Then came the tug-of-war. A magnificent tug-of-war, too, one hundred students at one end of a rope, and another hundred at the other. But the most wonderful spectacles of the day were the dumb-bell exercises. Six thousand boys and girls, massed in ranks about five hundred deep; six thousand pairs of arms rising and falling exactly together; six thousand pairs of sandalled feet advancing or retreating together, at the signal of the masters of gymnastics, directing all from the tops of various little wooden towers; six thousand voices chanting at once the “one, two, three,” of the dumb-bell drill: “Ichi, ni, - san, shi, - go roku, - shichi, hachi.”

Last came the curious game called “Taking the Castle.” Two models of Japanese towers, about fifteen feet high, made with paper stretched over a framework of bamboo, were set up, one at each end of the field. Inside the castles an inflammable liquid had been placed in open vessels, so that if the vessels were overturned the whole fabric would take fire. The boys, divided into two parties, bombarded the castles with wooden balls, which passed easily through the paper walls; and in a short time both models were making a glorious blaze. Of course the party whose castle was the first to blaze lost the game.

The games began at eight o’clock in the morning, and at five in the evening came to an end. Then at a signal fully ten thousand voices pealed out the superb national anthem “Kimi ga yo,” and concluded it with three cheers for their Imperial Majesties, the Emperor and Empress of Japan.

The Japanese do not shout or roar as we do when we cheer. They chant. Each long cry is like the opening tone of an immense musical chorus: A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!’

3 November 1890
‘To-day is the birthday of His Majesty the Emperor. It is a public holiday throughout Japan; and there will be no teaching this morning. But at eight o’clock all the students and instructors enter the great assembly hall of the Jinjo Chugakko to honour the anniversary of His Majesty’s august birth.

On the platform of the assembly hall a table, covered with dark silk, has been placed and upon this table the portraits of Their Imperial Majesties, the Emperor and the Empress of Japan, stand side by side upright, framed in gold. The alcove above the platform has been decorated with flags and wreaths.

Presently the Governor enters, looking like a French general in his gold-embroidered uniform of office, and followed by the Mayor of the city, the Chief Military Officer, the Chief of Police, and all the officials of the provincial government. These take their places in silence to left and right of the platform. Then the school organ suddenly rolls out the slow, solemn, beautiful national anthem; and all present chant those ancient syllables, made sacred by the reverential love of a century of generations [. . .]

The anthem ceases. The Governor advances with a slow dignified step from the right side of the apartment to the centre of the open space before the platform and the portraits of Their Majesties, turns his face to them, and bows profoundly. Then he takes three steps forward toward the platform, and halts, and bows again. Then he takes three more steps forward, and bows still more profoundly. Then he retires, walking backward six steps, and bows once more. Then he returns to his place.

After this the teachers, by parties of six, perform the same beautiful ceremony. When all have saluted the portrait of His Imperial Majesty, the Governor ascends the platform and makes a few eloquent remarks to the students about their duty to their Emperor, to their country, and to their teachers. Then the anthem is sung again; and all disperse to amuse themselves for the rest of the day.’

4 April 1891
‘The Students of the third, fourth, and fifth year classes write for me once a week brief English compositions upon easy themes which I select for them. As a rule the themes are Japanese. Considering the immense difficulty of the English language to Japanese students, the ability of some of my boys to express their thoughts in it is astonishing. Their compositions have also another interest for me as revelations, not of individual character, but of national sentiment, or of aggregate sentiment of some sort or other. What seems to me most surprising in the compositions of the average Japanese student is that they have no personal cachet at all. Even the handwriting of twenty English compositions will be found to have a curious family resemblance; and striking exceptions are too few to affect the rule. Here is one of the best compositions on my table, by a student at the head of his class. Only a few idiomatic errors have been corrected:

“THE MOON”

“The Moon appears melancholy to those who are sad, and joyous to those who are happy. The Moon makes memories of home come to those who travel, and creates home-sickness. So when the Emperor Godaigo, having been banished to Oki by the traitor Hojo, beheld the moonlight upon the seashore, he cried out, ‘The Moon is heartless!’

The sight of the Moon makes an immeasurable feeling in our hearts when we look up at it through the clear air of a beauteous night.

Our hearts ought to be pure and calm like the light of the Moon.

Poets often compare the Moon to a Japanese mirror and indeed its shape is the same when it is full.

The refined man amuses himself with the Moon. He seeks some house looking out upon water, to watch the Moon, and to make verses about it.

The best places from which to see the Moon are Tsukigashi, and the mountain Obasute.

The light of the Moon shines alike upon foul and pure, upon high and low. That beautiful Lamp is neither yours nor mine, but everybody’s.

When we look at the Moon we should remember that its waxing and its waning are the signs of the truth that the culmination of all things is likewise the beginning of their decline.”

Any person totally unfamiliar with Japanese educational methods might presume that the foregoing composition shows some original power of thought and imagination. But this is not the case. I found the same thoughts and comparisons in thirty other compositions upon the same subject. Indeed, the compositions of any number of middle-school students upon the same subject are certain to be very much alike in idea and sentiment - though they are none the less charming for that. As a rule the Japanese student shows little originality in the line of imagination. His imagination was made for him long centuries ago - partly in China, partly in his native land. From his childhood he is trained to see and to feel Nature exactly in the manner of those wondrous artists who, with a few swift brush-strokes, fling down upon a sheet of paper the colour-sensation of a chilly dawn, a fervid noon, an autumn evening.

Through all his boyhood he is taught to commit to memory the most beautiful thoughts and comparisons to be found in his ancient native literature. Every boy has thus learned that the vision of Fuji against the blue resembles a white half-opened fan, hanging inverted in the sky. Every boy knows that cherry-trees in full blossom look as if the most delicate of flushed summer clouds were caught in their branches. Every boy knows the comparison between the falling of certain leaves on snow and the casting down of texts upon a sheet of white paper with a brush. Every boy and girl knows the verses comparing the print of cat’s-feet on snow to plum-flowers, and that comparing the impression of bokkuri on snow to the Japanese character for the number “two,” These were thoughts of old, old poets; and it would be very hard to invent prettier ones. Artistic power in composition is chiefly shown by the correct memorising and clever combination of these old thoughts.

And the students have been equally well trained to discover a moral in almost everything, animate or inanimate.’

My father’s death

‘Today is my last chance to chase flies away from his sleeping body. Thus the day ended. From the basin of water by his pillow, all I could do was wet his lips without hope.’ This is Kobayashi Issa, the great Japanese haiku poet, writing in a diary about the death of his father in 1801. And today - the 250th anniversary of his birth - is a good one to remember him.

Issa was born in a farmhouse on 15 June 1763 in Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture, 120 miles or so northwest of Tokyo). His mother died when he was three, and he was brought up by his grandmother until she too died. His father remarried, and had another child, causing strained relations between Issa and the rest of the family. Aged only 14 he was sent to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to work. In time, he studied haiku, and travelled through Japan. By 1790, he had already established a reputation as a poet with several publications.

Issa’s father died in 1801, and he entered a bitter legal struggle with his step-brother over the inheritance which took more than a decade to resolve. In the early 1810s, he returned to his native village, married a young woman, named Kiku, and rose to a position of regional eminence as a poet. His wife and his young children all died young, and he married twice more before dying himself in 1827. He is said to have written 20,000 haiku (many of them on insects and small creatures), as well as other literary works. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Haiku Guy, or the Kobayashi Issa Museum website.

One of Issa’s most enduring works is a diary describing the last days of his father’s life, Chichi no Shuen Nikki, published in English as Last Days of Issa’s Father (which has its own Wikipedia entry). It was written on the back of sheets of Saitancho, or New Year’s memorandum paper, and was passed down by generations of the descendants of Kubota Shunko, one of Issa’s disciples. It is held today by Issakan, a museum dedicated to Issa in Takayama-mura, Nagano Prefecture.

For a detailed analysis of the text, and several good extracts (including the one below) see The Death of Kobayashi Yagobei by Scot Hislop, National University of Singapore, in Early Modern Japan. Several extracts can also be found in the anthology Early Modern Japanese Literature, edited by Haruo Shirane, and partially viewable at Googlebooks.

The twentieth day, fifth month
‘Father’s fever continued to worsen. In the morning he ate just a bowl of gruel. Around noon his face became pale. Eyes half closed, his mouth moved as if he were trying to say something. With each breath phlegm rattled around as though it were attacking his life and so he became weaker and weaker. As the sun streaming through the window approached the hour of the sheep, father could no longer make out the faces of people. The situation was hopeless. I would have gladly traded my life for his if I could but once more see him alive, strong, and eating. It was so desperate that even the most famous doctors in the world such Kiba and Hen Jaku would not have had the skill to save him. Without the intervention of the gods there was nothing left but to invoke Amida.

Today is my last chance to chase flies away from his sleeping body.

Thus the day ended. From the basin of water by his pillow, all I could do was wet his lips without hope.

The moon of the twentieth night shone through the window. The neighbors had quieted down and gone to sleep. At about the time that the cock should start to crow, the sound of father’s breathing died down and the phlegm that rose from his heart sometimes blocked his throat. Even if I could not save his life, I should have at least liked to have cleared the phlegm. But since I am not as great a doctor as Ka Da, I have no extraordinary skill as a healer. There was nothing left to do but wait, with deep sadness and pain, for the hour of my father’s death. The gods did not take pity on us and as the dawn began to break, just after the hour of the rabbit, father stopped breathing and seemed as if he were asleep.

We surrounded the corpse. I prayed that this was but a dream from which I would soon awake. Be it dream or reality, it felt as though I were left without a candle in the darkness and that nothing remained in the world to rely on.

Beckoned by the wind, the fickle flowers of spring scatter. In this world of ceaseless change the autumn moon often hides behind clouds. Moreover, those who are born must certainly die and those who meet must assuredly part. It is the way of the world. It is the road that all must travel once. But not knowing whether my father would travel it today or tomorrow was foolish. Even though evening after evening I nursed my father in earnest, it all came to naught in an instant. Those who had been fighting with my father until yesterday surrounded the corpse and began to wail. The voices of those chanting the name of Amida were hoarse. Now they realized that the duties of those who grow old together and share the same grave had not been fulfilled.’

Kaempfer’s Japan

Today marks 360 years since the birth of the German doctor and naturalist, Engelbert Kaempfer. His fame rests on two books, both largely about Japan, where he stayed for two years during a period when the country was very much closed to foreigners. The British Library holds some of Kaempfer’s diaries, and one of his published books - History of Japan - contains several narratives for journeys which Kaempfer must have based on his diaries.

Kaempfer was born on 16 September 1651 at Lemgo, Germany, a small town in Westphalia, belonging to the Count of Lippe. His father was vicar of the Nicolai Cathedral at Lemgo. After studying medicine and natural sciences, he received his PhD in Poland, then travelled from there to Prussia, and to Sweden. In 1683, he became secretary to the Royal Swedish Ambassador Extraordinary on a special mission to Persia, where he stayed until 1685. He then spent three further years alone in the country, before sailing to Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia).

In 1690 Kaempfer joined the Dutch East India Company as a physician, and he then journeyed to Japan, where the company had a trading post on the island of Deshima, near Nagasaki in southwest Japan. This was unique at the time, since the country was all but closed to foreigners (and had been for nearly a century) with only the Dutch allowed limited access: confined to the island, they were granted just one trading mission a year to Edo (present day Tokyo). Despite the restrictions, Kaempfer stayed for two years, learning much about Japan and the Japanese from a young man appointed as his assistant.

Kaempfer returned to Amsterdam in October 1693, and soon after was awarded a medical degree at the University of Leiden. Back in Lemgo, Count de Lippe appointed him his personal physician. In 1700, Kaempfer married and he had three children, all of whom died in their infancy. Kaempfer himself died in 1716. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, the Soy Info Center, The Japan Times, and Encyclopædia Iranica.

Kaempfer is largely remembered today for two books he authored: Amoenitatum Exoticarum (Exotic Novelties) published in 1712, with descriptions of flora such as the soy bean, camelia and Ginkgo; and History of Japan, which was first published in an English translation (from the original manuscripts) in 1727. The latter work (which can be downloaded from Internet Archive) also contains biographical information about Kaempfer, and narrative accounts of his travels. The British Library acquired many of Kaempfer’s papers - including diaries - as part of the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane, a founder of the British Museum, who had purchased Kaempfer’s literary estate from his nephew in the 1720s.

As far as I know the diaries have not been published, but the travel narratives in History of Japan must have been based originally on diary material. David van Ooijen, a lute player, has some information about Klaempfer, another lute player, on his website, including a few diary-based extracts. These come from a new (1999) translation of History of Japan by Beatrice M Bodart-Bailey called Kaempfer’s Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed.

‘An incredible number of people daily use the highways of Japan’s provinces, indeed, at certain times of the year they are as crowded as the streets of a populous European city. I have personally witnessed this on the Tōkaidō, described earlier, apparently the most important of the seven highways, having travelled this road four times. The reason for these crowds is partly the large population of the various provinces and partly that the Japanese travel more than other people. Here I will introduce the most memorable groups of travellers one meets daily on these roads.’

‘When on pilgrimage to Ise - which takes place throughout the year but especially in spring - people have to use a stretch of this great road, regardless of what province they come. So it is crowded with such travellers during the said seasons as people of both sexes, old and young, rich and poor, embark on this meritorious journey and act of devotion, attempting to the best of their ability to make their way on foot. […] There are also a number of slippery customers who pretend that they are on this pilgrimage, and as long as they are doing well spend most of the year on the road begging.’

‘Here and there one finds so-called junrei, that is, those who visit the thirty-three most important Kannon temples throughout the country. They drift around in twos or threes and at each house sing a pitiful Kannon tine; occasionally they also play a fiddle or zither not unlike the vagrants in Germany, but they do not approach travellers for alms.’

Matinée Poétique writer

The diaries of the late writer Takehiko Fukunaga have just been released to the media for the first time, according to Japanese newspapers. The diaries, which date from the 1940s, are said to give an insight into his delicate way of depicting human pain and suffering. 

Not translated into English, and not well known in Europe, there is very little information about Fukunaga on English-language websites. A listing in Japan Encyclopedia, partly available on Googlebooks, says ‘she’ - even though he was a man! - was born in Fukuoka in 1918. He translated some of Jean-Paul Sartre’s works, and wrote a critique of Paul Gauguin for which he won an award.

A little more information is available from a website called DeadMansBrain which says Fukunaga was fond of French poets such as Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Lautréamont, but was especially influenced by Baudelaire. With Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Shuichi Kato and others, he formed a literary coterie called Matinée Poétique. And while striving to introduce European literary trends, he wrote experimental novels such as Fudo (Climate) and Meifu (The Nether World). He also wrote detective novels under the pen name Reitaro Kada. In 1972 he won the Japan Literature Grand Prize, for Shi no shima (Death Island). He died in 1979.

The Mainichi Daily News has now reported that three of Fukunaga diaries - written between 1945 and 1947 - have been released to the media for the first time. It claims that they shed light on the roots of his style of writing, one that ‘delicately depicts the pain and the suffering of humans’. The diaries were found by a researcher 10 years ago, but their release was opposed by Yamashita Sumi, Fukunaga’s ex-wife (also known as the poet Akiko Harajo). It is several years, however, since Sumi’s death, and their son, Natsuki Ikezawa, also a poet, has decided to make the documents public; and extracts are being published in Shincho literary magazine.

In his journals, The Mainichi Daily News says, Fukunaga writes about his love for his wife and newborn son, expresses enthusiasm for launching a new literary journal in collaboration with Kato, and describes the chaos of postwar Japan. In other parts of the diaries, though, he writes about the difficulties with his wife and his suffering from tuberculosis. According to literary critic Akimasa Kanno, it is these difficulties that must have allowed him to dig deep into the concepts of love, loneliness and death - the central theme of his literature. ‘The diaries are very important materials,’ he added.

The Mainichi Daily News quotes only a couple of very short extracts: ‘It’s already been 50 days since Natsuki was born. His innocent smiles hold me back’; and ‘I fear my disease. I’m worried about Sumiko, and think about the past and the future.’