Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Sinica Leidensia
Edited by
Barend J. ter Haar
Maghiel van Crevel
In co-operation with
P.K. Bol, W.L. Idema, D.R. Knechtges,
E.S. Rawski, H.T. Zurndorfer
VOLUME 91
Performing “Nation”
Gender Politics in Literature, Theater, and the
Visual Arts of China and Japan, 1880-1940
Edited by
Doris Croissant
Catherine Vance Yeh
Joshua S. Mostow
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
On the cover: KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Mei Lan Fang, about 1924, color on silk, 40.8 × 33.3 cm;
Collection of Kachuan Seiko Museum, Kyoto. Courtesy of Mr. Masayoshi Kainosho.
Performing ‘‘nation’’ : gender politics in literature, theater, and the visual arts of China and
Japan, 1880-1940 / edited by Doris Croissant, Catherine Vance Yeh, Joshua S. Mostow.
p. cm. — (Sinica leidensia ; 91)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17019-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Arts, Chinese—19th century. 2. Arts, Chinese—20th century. 3. Arts, Japanese—19th
century. 4. Arts, Japanese—20th century. 5. Femininity in art. 6. Masculinity in art.
I. Croissant, Doris. II. Yeh, Catherine Vance. III. Mostow, Joshua S., 1957-
NX583.A1P47 2008
700.951’09034—dc22
2008027835
ISSN: 0169-9563
ISBN: 978 90 04 17019 3
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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Fees are subject to change.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Color Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
part one
ENGENDERING THE NATION-STATE
part two
WOMAN AS LITERARY METAPHOR
part three
PERFORMING ARTS AND GENDER ROLE-PLAYING
part four
ART, SEXUALITY, AND NATIONAL EROTICS
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
contents vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many of the essays in this volume were first presented at the inter-
national conference entitled “New Gender Constructs in Literature, the
Visual and the Performing Arts of Modern China and Japan,” held 27-30
October 2004 in Heidelberg, Germany. This collection of multidis-
ciplinary studies presents a rare attempt to correlate the conjunctions
of nation building, gender, and representation in late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century China and Japan. Focusing on gender forma-
tion, the essays explore the changing constructs of masculinities and
femininities in China and Japan from the Early Modern up to the
1930s. Most focus on the dynamism that links the remodeling of
traditional arts and media to the political and cultural power rela-
tions between China, Japan, and the Western world.
The original conference was sponsored by the Internationales Wis-
senschaftsforum der Universität Heidelberg and the Foundation Uni-
versität Heidelberg, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German
Research Foundation), the Japan Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-
kuo Foundation. We thank these institutions for their generous sup-
port. Special thanks are owed to the patient collaboration of the
contributors to this volume, and the commitment and skilled services
of the staff of Brill, particular its executive editor, Patricia Radder.
viii contents
list of figures ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 10. 7. Kuroda Seiki, Chi Kan JÙ (Wisdom, impression, sentiment), 1897;
180.6 × 99.8 cm; in Nihon bijutsukan (Tokyo: ShÙgakukan 1997),
p. 905. ...................................................................................... 325
Figure 10.8. Nezumiya Denkichi, “living doll” (iki-ningyÙ) of a peasant
woman, 150 × 54 × 34 cm, late 19th century, Smithsonian
Institution; in Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, ed.,
Iki-ningyÙ to Matsumoto KisaburÙ (Contemporary Art Museum,
Kumamoto and ˆsaka History Museum, 2004), p. 65. .......... 328
Figure 10.9. Wilhelm Heine (1827-1885), “Ein öffentliches Badehaus in
Simoda [sic],” in Wilhelm Heine: Reise um die Erde nach Japan:
an Bord der Expeditions-Escadre unter Commodore M. C. Perry in den
Jahren 1853, 1854 und 1855, unternommen im Auftrage der Regierung
der Vereinigten Staaten; mit fünf vom Verfasser nach der Natur aufge-
nommenen Ansichten in Tondruck, ausgeführt in Holzschnitt von Eduard
Kretzschmar, vol. 2, (Leipzig: H. Costenoble 1856), p. 34. ......... 330
Figure 10.10. Yorozu TetsugorÙ (1885-1927), Higasa no rafu (Female nude
with sun parasol), 1913, oil on canvas, 80.5 × 53 cm. Museum
of Modern Art Kanagawa. ...................................................... 332
Figure 10.11. KainoshÙ Tadaoto (1894-1978), Rafu, 1925; colors on silk, 65
× 38.6 cm; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. .... 335
Figure 10.12. Inoue Mokuda and Kataoka ToshirÙ, Akadama Port Wine
Poster (1922), HB process offset print, 82 × 58 cm; courtesy of
Suntory Ltd. A color plate of this illustration can be found in
the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. ........................................... 336
Figure 10.13. “Tengu tabako” Poster, Iwaya shÙkai, 1900; multi-colour
lithography, 56.6 × 43.5 cm; in Egakareta Meiji Nippon, vol. 1, p.
235. A color plate of this illustration can be found in the color
section on pp. xvii-xxxii. .......................................................... 340
Figure 10.14. Takashimaya’s poster promoting the exposition Kimono no ˆsaka
1929, deploying the original nihonga painting by Kitano Tsune-
tomi, Fujin, 1929; colors on silk, 105.8 × 78.5 cm; courtesy of
Takashimaya Historical Museum. A color plate of this illustra-
tion can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. .......... 343
Figure 11.1. Fujishima Takeji, TÙyÙ-buri (In the Oriental Manner), 1923. ......... 350
Figure 11.2. Copy after Pisanello’s Portrait of Ginevra d’Este. ......................... 351
Figure 11.3. Fujishima at his atelier. ............................................................. 352
Figure 11.4. Fujishima Takeji, HÙkei (Profile of a Woman Holding an Orchid),
1926. A color plate of this illustration can be found in the
color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. ................................................. 353
Figure 11.5. Fujishima Takeji, a sketch from the catalogue Fujishima Takeji-
ten, p. 212. ................................................................................. 356
Figure 11.6. Fujishima Takeji, a sketch from the catalogue Fujishima Takeji-
ten, p. 213. ................................................................................. 357
Figure 11.7. Fujishima Takeji, An Amazon, 1923. ......................................... 358
Figure 11.8. Kishida Ryåsei, Portrait of my Sister, Teruko, in Chinese Dress,
1921. ........................................................................................ 359
Figure 11.9. Mizushima Niou, book illustration from The Mermaid’s Lament,
1919. ........................................................................................ 361
Figure 11.10. Mizushima Niou, book illustration from The Mermaid’s Lament,
1919. ........................................................................................ 362
xiv list of figures
Figure 11.11. Kobayashi Mango, In Front of a Silver Screen, 1925. ................... 363
Figure 11.12. Cover picture of Josei, July 1927. ............................................. 364
Figure 11.13. Cover picture of Josei, December 1927. .................................. 365
Figure 11.14. Cover picture, Shinseinen, July 1928. ......................................... 366
Figure 11.15. Mizushima Niou, book illustration, A Beautiful, New Chinese
Woman, September 1924. ......................................................... 368
Figure 11.16. Shu HokushÙ, book illustration, On Chinese Clothes, 1928. ........ 369
Figure 11.17. Moga in Chinese Dress as Seen Aboard a Train in China, Fujo-kai,
January 1929. ........................................................................... 370
Figure 11.18. Kakiuchi Seiyo, At the Crossing, 1930. A color plate of this
illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. 371
Figure 11.19. Yasui SÙtarÙ, Portrait of Chin-Jung, 1934. .................................. 375
Figure 11.20. Portrait of Mr. Tamamushi. .......................................................... 376
Figure 11.21. Miyamoto SaburÙ, Women in Three Fashion Styles, 1935. A color
plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on
pp. xvii-xxxii. ............................................................................ 378
Figure 11.22. Okada Saburousuke, Portrait of a Lady, 1936. ........................... 379
Figure 11.23. Tsuchida Bakusen, Flat Bed, 1933. A color plate of this illus-
tration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. ..... 380
Figure 12.1. Utagawa Kunisada, Tasogare on the veranda, Inaka Genji Nise
Murasaki, vol. 5a (1840). Reproduced from Shin Nihon koten
bungaku taikei 88 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995), p. 156. .... 388
Figure 12.2. Kuki ShåzÙ, The Structure of Iki, from Hiroshi Nara, ed., The
Structure of Detachment, p. 32. .................................................... 391
Figure 12.3. Hayashi Yoshikazu and Richard Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-goyomi,
Teihon Ukiyo-e Shunga Meisaku Shåsei 12 (Tokyo: Kawade 394-
ShobÙ Shinsha, 1996), pp. 44-45. ............................................ 395
Figure 12.4. Kunisada, “The Competitive Type” (tate-hiki sÙ) from the series
A Contemporary Thirty-Two Types (TÙsei sanjåni sÙ), dated 1822-
1823. Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, Philipp Franz
von Siebold Collection. A color plate of this illustration can
be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii. ........................ 400
Figure 12.5. Yanagawa Shigenobu, Shunshoku Ume-goyomi (1833) Take
ChÙkichi. Reproduced from Nihon koten bungaku taikei, vol.
64 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1962), p. 43. ................................ 402
Figure 12.6. Kunisada, Shunshoku Hatsune no Ume, 1842. From Chris Uhlen-
beck and Margarita Winkel, Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual
Imagery of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005),
p. 194, plate 74b. ...................................................................... 404
Figure 12.7. Kuniyoshi, Edo Murasaki Yoshiwara Genji, from Yasuda Yoshiaki,
Edo o Yomu 3: Kuniyoshi (Tokyo: Futami ShobÙ, 1996), pp. 12-
13. ............................................................................................ 405
Figure 12.8. Kunisada, Azuma-buri, from Yasuda Yoshitaka, Makura-e no Onna,
MitsuzÙ no meisaku ehon 3 (Tokyo: Futami ShobÙ, 1989),
pp. 52-53. ................................................................................. 406
Figure 12.9. Kuniyoshi, Hana-goyomi, Hayashi and Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-
goyomi, pp. 28-29. ...................................................................... 407
list of figures xv
INTRODUCTION
1
Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 3.
2
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. (London, New York: Verso 2003
[1983]), pp. 3-5.
introduction 3
3
The impact of psychoanalysis and medicine on measures taken against prostitu-
tion and homosexuality has been investigated by Sabine Frühstück, Die Politik der
Sexualwissenschaft. Zur Produktion und Popularisierung sexologischen Wissens in Japan 1908-
1941 (Wien: Beiträge zur Japanologie, Band 34, 1997) and Gregory Pflugfelder, Car-
tographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999). Literary studies were path-breaking in focusing
on the formation of twentieth-century women’s literature and concepts of femininity
and masculinity in modern vernacular fiction. See Paul Gordon Schalow and Janet
A. Walker, eds., The Woman’s Hand: Gender and Theory on Japanese Women’s Writing
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Research on canon formation in classical literature is highlighted by a collection
of articles edited by Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, Inventing the Classics: Modernity,
National Identity and Japanese Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
In visual culture, one of the first scholars to question the methodology of main-
stream art history in Japan was the late Chino Kaori. Her impact on Western schol-
arship is documented in a collection of essays on Japanese visual culture, edited by
Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson, Marybeth Graybill, Gender and Power in the Japa-
nese Visual Field (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). Jennifer Robertson,
Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998) and Ayako Kano, Acting like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater,
Gender and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2001) have demonstrated how the pre-
modern exclusion of female actors from the stage was to condition the reception of
Western performing arts.
4
For examples in Chinese studies, Marilyn B. Young, ed., Women in China (1973);
Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke, ed., Women in Chinese Society (1975); later with
Rubie S. Watson and Patricia B. Ebrey, ed., Marriage and Inequality in China (1994);
Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, ed., Space of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational
China (1999).
introduction 5
5
Barbara N. Ramusack and Sharon Sievers, eds. Women in Asia: Restoring Women
to History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 157 ff.
6
Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern
Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983).
7
Major contributions include, for example, Tani Barlow, ed., Gender Politics in
Modern China: Writing and Feminism (Durham and London: Duke University Press,
1993) and Christina K. Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, and Tyrene White, eds., Engen-
dering China: Women, Culture and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2005).
8
Li Xiaojiang, Xingbie yu Zhongguo [Gender and China] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian,
1994), pp. 2-8.
6 introduction
reflected in the lives of women and the master text of historical dis-
course, the new approaches have begun to question the ways that
ideas about femininity and masculinity were reconfigured as well as
re-created in different phases of Chinese history.9
While the essays in this volume deal with various media of cultural
representation, they all analyze the dawn of gender consciousness
and its impact on national and cultural identity-formation in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century East Asia. By bringing
together both Chinese and Japanese studies from various disciplines,
this volume hopes to engage in the first critical assessment of the
issues of gendered nation/gendered society within the two countries
as well as of the ways in which their relationship with each other
was articulated during a period of radical internal and external
change between the late nineteenth century and the 1930s. The
volume aims to bring forth a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary
comparison of the impact the Western notions of masculinity and
femininity had on China and Japan in their effort toward moder-
nization.
Focusing on the “female question,” the essays address the follow-
ing issues: How did the media react to the contradictory role of
women in China and Japan? And how did nationalism enter, and
become central, to the gender policy of art and public media? What
were the dynamics of the cultural process of model selection, and of
its gradual adjustment to the new world order and power structures
in Japan and in China? Still more important, how did the arts and
the media feed into the shaping of the subject and the self-identity
of artists and intellectuals in modernizing Asia? Did literature and
visual culture in twentieth-century China and Japan give voice to
the liberation of women, or did they support the agenda of the mas-
culine power holders in the course of national identity building?
While women occupied in China what Rey Chow called “the locus
of social change,” how did visual and verbal media interfere with
the new social role of women in the modern nation-state? 10 In what
way did the interaction between the West and Japan, the West and
China, and finally between Japan and China, stimulate the emer-
9
With Wang Zheng and Christina Gilmartin’s studies reshaping the literature on
this topic.
10
Rey Chow, Woman and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading between West and
East (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. 39.
introduction 7
gence of the new or modern definition of gender? What was the role
that media such as painting, illustration, literature and theater played
in creating a pattern of change that later became the new master-
narrative for social conformity? How did the visual and performing
arts relate to literary media in transporting the same messages
through different coding processes? While feminist gender studies
take male domination over women for granted, they disagree on the
effects of gender representation on female identity-building.11 Should
we, with Tani Barlow, assume that nationalism came in tandem with
eugenicist body politics that implanted figures and modes of knowl-
edge into the self-image of the modern woman?12 Or, did print indus-
try and mass media in the Japan of the 1920s and 1930s, as Barbara
Sato argues, foster gender consciousness and female emancipation
in the feminist sense of the word?13 How, finally, was modernity
understood through the prism of gender and sexuality?14
Part One deals with the way female gender roles were reconceptual-
ized and redrafted at the turn of the century in China and Japan.
As John Fitzgerald points out, the “modern ethic of equality” was
not so much directed against “inequality” as against the much older
Confucian notion of social hierarchy. The ethic of equality between
men and women simply rendered “inequality” visible. Yet, by using
new constructs of gender relations premised on love, sympathy, and
patriotism, Chinese society managed to override the traditional elite
understanding of social hierarchy without ever naming it. The chal-
lenge posed by Western culture and its Japanese translation imposed
on China not only a national crisis but also a crisis of cultural identity
that could not but end in revolution.
11
Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda, ed., Japanese Women: New
Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future (New York: The Feminist Press,
1995).
12
See Tani Barlow, The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2004) on the interference of eugenics, nationalism and female lib-
eration.
13
Barbara Sato, The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar
Japan (Durham: Duke University Pres, 2003). See Miriam Silverberg, “The Modern
Girl as Militant,” in Gail Lee Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 239-266.
14
Note that none of the essays in Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer,
Patricia Yaeger eds., Nationalism & Sexualities (New York & London: Routledge, 1992)
refers to China or Japan.
8 introduction
ning and faithless females who had lost all sense of the grand passions
their forbears had for their patrons. Their depiction, McMahon
argues, reflects the disavowed realization that women had made the
first step in modernization and that they had permanently succeeded
in stealing from men the power of the ancient patriarchal order.
Tomi Suzuki analyzes the gender politics and the discourse of the
history of modern Japanese literature, the core of which was con-
structed in the late 1900s under the influence of Japanese Naturalist
discourse. Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 the
so-called Japanese Naturalist writers and critics gained a hegemonic
literary position, supported by the authority of the newly institution-
alized genbun-itchi standard of written language. It was also in the first
quarter of the 1900s that fin-de-siècle European modernism with its
subversion of established textual and sexual norms began to inspire
Japanese writers. Realism and modernism developed almost simul-
taneously and the discourse on modern Japanese literature—which
actively contributed to the representations of national identity—as-
similated, from the beginning of the twentieth century, the discourse
of literary modernism which in Europe emerged as a counter-dis-
course to bourgeois industrial modernity, taking a feminine position
in opposition to bourgeois “masculinity.” Literary vernacular lan-
guage was regarded as either masculinizing women or feminizing
men.
The decisive split between Japanese and Chinese literature
occurred, as Joshua Mostow has pointed out, in the late 1920s, when
in Japan and China alike the dispute about the artist’s involvement
with reality and his responsibility for creating “pure literature”
through reproducing “truth” came to a head.15 In fact, this dispute
was a recycling of the controversy between realism-idealism that
preoccupied art criticism in Meiji Japan. After 1912, in Japan, this
dichotomy resulted in the divorce of art from politics for the sake of
the “beautiful nation,” a counter-modernist scheme that enhanced
nationalistic self-assurance and imperialist expansion. In China, the
modernist agenda manifested itself in a contrary manner, with the
argument made in 1918 that only the Western notion of self-expres-
15
See Joshua S. Mostow, “Modern Literature in East Asia: An Overview,” in
Joshua S. Mostow, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 15.
10 introduction
16
Jing Tsu, “Perversions of Masculinity: The Masochistic Male Subject in Yu
Dafu, Guo Moruo, and Freud,” positions 8/2 (2000); Christopher T. Keaveney, The
Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature: The Creation Society’s Reinvention of the Japanese
Shishosetsu (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
17
Cf. Li Chao, Shanghai youhua shi [A history of oil painting in Shanghai] (Shang-
hai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1995), pp. 48-49; 95-96; Julia F. Andrews
and Kuiyi Shen, eds., A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-
Century China (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1998), pp. 172-180,
178-179.
introduction 11
tion for the modern nation-state, while Japan was beginning to grow
into a colonial and imperial power, especially after winning the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894-1895, and the Russo-Japanese War of
1904-1905. Kano’s paper seeks to elucidate how the first generation
of actresses in modern Japan embodied these changes, often in para-
doxical and contradictory ways.
Catherine Yeh explores the rise of the female impersonator (dan)
Mei Lanfang in Peking opera. Yeh argues that Mei Lanfang became,
domestically and internationally, the symbol of Republican China.
In the context of the appeals for a strengthening of the manly and
martial spirit among the Chinese, the rise of the dan to national
stardom appears to be a startling contradiction. The rise of the dan
in the early twentieth century came at a moment when China’s
traditional elite was very much shaken; a profound political trans-
formation was taking place in China’s relationship to the outside
world, entering a new phase with powerful countries such as Japan
and Russia openly expressing territorial ambitions toward it. The
identity of the country was in flux on all fronts. While the new elites
attempted to evoke a new spirit for the country with concepts largely
borrowed from Western and Japanese nationalisms, Peking opera,
with its traditionally close connections to the court and society,
became a powerful player in the public arena, articulating another
image of the nation. Yeh’s study traces the complex process in which,
with the help of Japan, the dan rose to this role, in particular through
the literati’s transference of their once exclusive and private senti-
ments for the dan onto the new public forum of the newspaper. She
shows that the built-in ambiguity of the dan character (played exclu-
sively by male actors until the 1920s) lends itself to the interpretation
that during the 1910s and 1920s the strong male public figure had
lost its credibility and moral stature due to the lost wars, the fall of
the dynasty, and the ensuing military strong-man politics. In other
words, the ideal nation as the ideal female became part of a com-
mercial feature in the market place, with the female impersonator
as its ultimate glorification.
Part Four deals with gender representation in diverse genres of
Japan’s high culture. It is significant that commercially produced
mass media like posters, photography, and film, adapted traditional
subjects to the realism of the new Western representational technolo-
gies, whereas politically and culturally restorative “high art” put the
12 introduction
part one
John Fitzgerald
1. Introduction
1
Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
2
The assumption that liberty and equality are competing values has been force-
fully challenged by Etienne Balibar and more recently by Ronald Dworkin in Sover-
eign Virtue. Etienne Balibar, “Droits de l’homme et droits de citoyen: La dialectique
moderne de l’egalité et de la liberté,” Actuel Marx, 8 (1990). On Balibar see Alex
Callinicos, Equality (Cambridge: Polity 2000), pp. 22-24.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 21
3
Tani Barlow, “Politics and Protocols of Funu: (Un)Making National Woman,”
in Christina K Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel and Tyrene White, eds., En-
gendering China: Women, Culture and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1994), pp. 339-359; also Li Xiaojiang, “Economic Reform and the Awakening
of Chinese Women’s Collective Consciousness,” ibid., pp. 360-382.
4
Charles Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture, vol.14, no.1
(2004): 91-124.
5
Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), Intro-
duction; See also Callinicos, Equality.
22 john fitzgerald
6
Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries”; Joseph A. Camilleri, “Regional Human
Rights Dialogue in Asia Pacific: Prospects and Proposals,” Pacifica Review, 10.3 (Oc-
tober 1998): 167-185, esp. pp. 170-172.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 23
7
Camilleri “Regional Human Rights Dialogue,” pp. 170-172.
24 john fitzgerald
8
The term “perfect equality” derives from Emmerich de Vattel, The law of na-
tions, or, Principles of the law of nature, applied to the conduct and affairs of nations and sovereigns:
From the French of Monsieur de Vattel [1758]. Joseph Chitty ed., with additional notes by
Edward D. Ingraham (Philadelphia: T.W. Johnson and Co, 1883), clause eight:
“Nature has established a perfect equality of rights between independent nations.”
For the application of this principle at the Qing court, see James L. Hevia, “Making
China ‘Perfectly Equal’,” Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1990):
379-400.
9
Dong Wang, China’s Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History (Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books, 2005).
10
Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: Hurst, 1992).
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 25
11
See David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002).
12
Pamela Kyle Crossley, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial
Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 343.
13
Li Enhan, Zeng Jize de waijiao (Taipei: Institute of Modern History); B.L. Put-
nam Weale (Lennox Simpson), The Re-shaping of the Far East (London: Macmillan,
1905), vol. 1, p. 64.
26 john fitzgerald
14
Marquis Tseng, “China, the Sleep and the Awakening,” The Chinese Recorder and
Missionary Journal, 18.4 (April 1887): 146-153. Richard Horowitz kindly brought this
article to my attention. The piece first appeared in the Asiatic Quarterly Review in
January 1887, and was republished in the London and China News before appearing in
The Chinese Recorder in April. It was also read widely in the USA; The New York Times,
18 February 1887. Also Arthur W. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period
(1644-1912) (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1943),
pp. 746-47.
15
Melbourne Argus, 30 May 1887. Not everyone welcomed the visit. See E.M.
Andrews, Australia and China: The Ambiguous Relationship (Melbourne: Melbourne Uni-
versity Press, 1985), p. 15. In March 1891, at the first National Convention of Aus-
tralian colonists, Sir Henry Parkes announced in his position as President of the
Convention that “the Chinese nation and other Asiatic nations—especially the Chi-
nese—are awakening to all the power which their immense population gives them in
the art of war, in the art of acquisition,” ibid., p. 20.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 27
16
Chinese Imperial Commissioners to the Governor, Oriental Hotel, Melbourne,
13 June 1887. P.87/1869. Enclosure.
17
To the Honorable the Representatives of the Australasian Colonies, meeting
in Conference upon the Chinese Question in Sydney, June, 1888. Petition presented
by Quong Tart and others.
18
Andrews, Australia and China, pp. 24 ff; Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race,
Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1998), pp. 212-16. On Chinese responses to Britain’s attempts to follow the Angell
Treaty see Correspondence to Zongli Yamen from Li Hongzhang, Minister in
charge of China’s coastal provinces of Liaoning, Hebei and Shandong, requesting
28 john fitzgerald
negotiations on reduction of the tonnage allowance for ships carrying Chinese going
to Australia (seventh day of seventh month of Guangxu 14 [1889]). First National
Archives, Beijing.
19
Article translated by Tongwen Publishing House on Australia’s Harsh Treat-
ment of Chinese (twenty-seventh day of eighth month of Guangxu 14 [1889]). First
National Archives, Beijing; Report to Zongli Yamen from Chinese Merchants Lei
Dehong et al., regarding exorbitant taxes imposed on Chinese in Australia (first day
of seventh month of Guangxu 14 [1889]). First National Archives, Beijing; Corre-
spondence from Kuang Qizhao to the Zongli Yamen Regarding the Report by Chi-
nese Merchants of Harsh Treatment in Australia (nineteenth day of eighth month of
Guangxu 14 [1889]). First National Archives, Beijing.
20
Hungdah Chiu, “The Development of Chinese International Law Terms and
the Problem of their Translation into English,” in Jerome Alan Cohen, ed., Contem-
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 29
porary Chinese Law: Research Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1970).
21
The term gongfa was selected for “international law” in the first published trans-
lation of the subject in the mid-nineteenth century. Henry Wheatons’ Elements of In-
ternational Law was translated by WAP Martin and published in 1864 under the title
Wanguo gongfa (Public law of the myriad states). The precedent held until the early
twentieth century. Theodore Wooley’s Introduction to the Study of International Law, for
example, was translated as Gongfa bianlan [General law outline] in 1877. The term
was displaced by a Japanese neologism guojifa from around 1907. Chiu, “The Devel-
opment of Chinese International Law Terms,” pp. 140, 143, 146.
22
Zhang Jianhua, “Ershi shiji zhongguo dui bupingdeng tiaoyue gainian de qi-
shi” [Origins of the concept of the Unequal Treaties in twentieth-century China],
paper presented to the Joint Conference of the History Department of Peking Uni-
versity and the Historical Society for Twentieth Century China, Peking University,
15-17 June 2001, in Niu Daoyong, ed., Ershi shiji de zhongguo [Twentieth century
China] (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chuban she, 2003).
30 john fitzgerald
23
Hu Hanmin, “Paiwai yu guojifa” [Anti-foreignism and international law], pub-
lished serially in Minbao [People’s journal], nos. 4, 6-10 & 13 (1906).
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 31
24
[Wang] Jingwei, “Bo geming keyi zhao guafen shuo” [Refuting the claim that
revolution will lead to partition], Minbao, no. 6 (1906).
25
Zhang Jianhua “Ershi shiji zhongguo.”
32 john fitzgerald
ing citizens, social classes, and men and women. Around the time of
the 1898 reforms at court Tang and a number of Hunanese friends
founded the Society for the Study of Public Law (gongfa xuehui) in
Changsha. In announcing the Society’s foundation, Tang acclaimed
the efforts of Japanese officials in reclaiming national sovereignty for
Japan. Unlike China, Tang recorded, “over the last few years each
of the Great Powers has revised its treaty [with Japan], to convert it
to a statute of equality (pingdeng).”26 In the same year Tang and his
group specifically addressed the problem of human categories (ren-
deng) in one of the earliest writings on categorical equality, an
extended essay entitled “Egalitarianism” (Pingdengshuo).
The essay began with an explicit reference to the problem of clas-
sification in egalitarian and hierarchical ethics: “Egalitarianism
means to establish equality in accordance with heaven’s endowed
categories.”27 The question at issue was not equality itself but rather
what, precisely, nature intended to be equal by virtue of the primor-
dial categories inscribed in nature itself. Nature offered no ground
for the existing set of hierarchical classifications, the essay continued.
Only in the Confucian canon were mechanisms contrived to classify
people as “gentleman and minister, father and son, husband and
wife, elder brother and younger brother, official and people, scholar
and artisan, merchant and farmer, wealthy and poor, honorable and
mean, superior and inferior.” These relational classifications were
falsely based on analogies with the natural world for although heaven
had established hierarchies in nature it did not bestow hierarchical
classifications or hierarchical relations on human society. Confucian
hierarchies were a corruption of the original and natural human
condition occasioned by greed and vanity. The single category
endorsed by nature was the universal category of “people” (ren). The
human species was an irreducible classification.28
26
“Gongfa xuehui xu” [Preface to Society for the Study of Public Law], Xiangbao,
no. 43 (nd). See also Li Yumin and Li Bin, “Wuxu shiqi weixinpai dui pingdeng
tiaoyue de renshi” [Recognition of the Unequal Treaties among the reform faction
in 1898], Hunan shifan daxue shehuikexue xuebao [Journal of the School of Social Sci-
ences of Hunan Normal University], no. 2 (1999).
27
Shan hua pi jia you, [Tang Caichang], “Pingdeng shuo” [Egalitarianism], Xi-
angbao [Hunan journal], no. 58 (nd): 229; no. 59 (nd): 233; no. 60 (nd, c. 1898): 237.
Emphasis added.
28
“Pingdeng shuo,” Xiangbao, no. 58: 229.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 33
29
On the conservative reaction to egalitarian claims see Peter G. Zarrow, “Fear
and Loathing: Anti-Egalitarianism in the Late Qing,” paper presented to panel on
Equality and Its Discontents in Late Qing China, AAS Annual Meeting, San Fran-
cisco, April 2006.
30
“Pingdeng Shuo,” Xiangbao, no. 59 (nd): 233-234.
31
“Pingdeng Shuo,” Xiangbao, no. 59 (nd): 233-234.
34 john fitzgerald
losophy (Datongshu) that would have been familiar to any scholar pre-
paring to sit the imperial examinations. Kang merged the Confucian
principle of human-heartedness (ren) with a Buddhist ideal of undif-
ferentiated compassion and a Mohist concept of universal love (jianai;
boai) to promote the ideal of universal equality.32 In a similar work
on the merits of the Confucian principle of human-heartedness (ren),
Tan Sitong fused the Confucian Book of Rites (Liji) with Edward Bel-
lamy’s Looking Backward into a utopian vision of a world without
classifications, “no boundaries, wars, suspicion, jealousy, power-
struggles, or distinction between the self and others; then equality
would finally emerge.”33 Kang and Tan pushed the limits of classical
learning by reconfiguring key concepts of the Confucian canon, strip-
ping them of their hierarchical implications, and re-presenting them
as evidence for the new theory of equality.
The theory of equality began to take root outside Confucian dis-
course around the turn of the century, sometimes in unexpected
places. In mid-1901, Tang Caichang’s brother Tang Caizhi was
invited to Australia to edit Liang Qichao’s party newspaper in Syd-
ney, the Tung Wah Times (Donghua shibao). Earlier in the same year,
Liang himself presented a series of weekly lectures in the upstairs
reading rooms of the Tung Wah Times building in downtown Sydney
on the problems presented by Confucian forms of hierarchy under
the empire, and on the need to recast person-to-person relations and
China’s system of territorial government on the new principle of
equality. The talks were later published in Japan under the title
“Tracing the Source of China’s Weakness” (Zhongguo jiruo suyuanlun).34
These published lectures are among the earliest of modern writings
on the egalitarian episteme that refuse to defer to canonical Chinese
works in philosophy and religion. Liang selected instead the Taiping
32
On Kang Youwei’s early essays on this theme, see Hao Chang, Chinese Intel-
lectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890-1911 (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1987), pp. 29-30, 46-48.
33
Tan Sitong, An Exposition of Benevolence: The Jen-Hsüeh of Tan Ssu-t’ung. Chan Sin-
wai, trans. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984), pp. 215-216; also Edward
Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1967
[1888]).
34
Liang Qichao, “Zhongguo jiruo suyuanlun” [Tracing the source of China’s
weakness], in Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi wenji [Collected essays from the Ice-Drinkers’
Studio] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1928 [1900]), vol. 2. An imminent publi-
cation on the theme of the lectures is noted in the Sydney Tungwah News (Donghua
shibao) on 13 March 1901.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 35
35
Tungwah News, 16 January 1901.
36 john fitzgerald
36
Liang “Zhongguo jiruo suyuanlun,” pp. 16-17.
37
At this time Liang does not appear to have noted (or registered) the systematic
humiliation and bullying of indigenous Australians. After returning to Japan, how-
ever, he launched a scathing attack on “White Australia” for humiliating people of
Chinese descent. See John Fitzgerald, “The Slave Who Would be Equal: The Sig-
nificance of Liang Qichao’s Australian Writings,” in K.L. So, John Fitzgerald,
Huang Jianli and James K. Chin, eds., Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order:
Festschrift in Honour of Professor Wang Gungwu (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2003), pp. 353-373, esp. pp. 370-373.
38
Liang, “Zhongguo jiruo suyuanlun,” pp. 17-22.
39
Fitzgerald, “The Slave Who Would be Equal.”
40
Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1990) and Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1991).
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 37
and younger brother, or parent and child, nor were there any cat-
egorical identities of ethnicity or gender. Every person was “identi-
fied by number.”41 For socialists, on the other hand, the relational
classifications of the Confucian hierarchy made way for larger hori-
zontal categories of class, nation, and gender in the belief that if
equality was to be the ruling principle of the age then these were
the categories to which it should apply
41
Cited in Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, p. 68. Cai’s story New Year’s
Dream (1904) appeared twenty years before Zamyatin’s better known novel, We, in
which all characters are identified by number. Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, translated by
Bernard Guerney (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972 [1924]).
38 john fitzgerald
42
The term “hierarchical complementarity” is borrowed from Taylor, “Modern
Social Imaginaries.”
43
Naoki Sakai, “From Relational Identity to Specific Identity: Reflections on the
Nationalist Ethics of Fukuzawa Yukichi,” in Sechin Y.S. Chien and John Fitzgerald,
eds., The Dignity of Nations: Equality, Competition and Honor in East Asian Nationalism,
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006). On the general principles at work
see Craig Calhoun, Nationalism (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1997); also
Craig Calhoun, Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA and Oxford:
Blackwells, 1994), pp. 9-37, 304-336.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 39
44
On faith and doctrine in Confucian thought, see Tu Wei-ming, Humanity and
Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1978).
On egalitarian Confucianism see Kang Youwei, Datong Shu [One world philosophy]
(Shanghai: np, 1935) and Kang Youwei, Ta T’ung Shu: The One-World Philosophy of
K’ang Yu-wei, Laurence G. Thompson, trans. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958); Tan
Sitong, An Exposition of Benevolence.
45
Cited in R. Keith Schoppa, The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 271-273. Compare the Revolutionary
Alliance manifesto of 1895: “The good fortune of civilization is to be shared equally
by all the people of the nation.” Cited in ibid., pp. 278-279
40 john fitzgerald
46
Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 183.
47
Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, “Axes of Gender: Divisions of Labor and
Spatial Separation,” in Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds., Gender in Motion:
Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (Rowman and
Littlefield, 2005), Introduction.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 41
mons the absent specter of those who do not labor at all, a social
elite whose station in life places them above working men and
women. Inequalities of class or caste can in this way render “men”
and “women” equal at a defined status level. In China, the status
associated with education preserved distinctions of rank and status
among literati themselves to the point where initial attempts to
expand the scale of political participation reinforced the status of the
gentleman and gentlewoman.
In English history, something along these lines is implied in the
popular anthem of the fourteenth-century peasant revolt that began
“When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”
In China, however, the equivalence of men and women conveyed
in the epithet “men delve and women spin” implied little about the
equivalence of commoners and gentlemen. The closing question of
the English rhyme, who was then the gentleman, is missing from the
Chinese saying. We should not read too much into this distinction
as one was associated with a peasant revolt and the other with notions
of Confucian domesticity. Nevertheless modern English and Chinese
egalitarians had recourse to different mythical repertoires in which
to ground their claims for gender equality, and the language in which
they framed their claims differed accordingly.
Both historicized their claims. Adam and Eve were cited by Watt
Tyler’s peasants in the fourteenth century, and again by Oliver
Cromwell’s Ironsides in the seventeenth century, because Adam and
Eve were thought to have labored together at the original moment
in history when human belief and custom took god-given forms not
yet corrupted through greed and envy into the code of the gentle-
man. Similar implications were drawn in late-nineteetnth-century
China by radical thinkers who historicized their own society in rela-
tion to a primeval state of equality. To return to Egalitarianism: “There
was no human world (ren shijie) in those days, nor were people clas-
sified into different kinds. But as the days passed and the world grew
more opulent, people flourished along with their possessions. At this
point they divided themselves into classes . . . and were then classi-
fied according to their status (fen), strength (zheng), and the differences
that divided them.” Among the nominated differences of “status”
and “strength” were fathers, scholars, wives, and daughters. 48
48
“Pingdeng shuo,” Xiangbao, no. 58 (nd): 229.
42 john fitzgerald
49
Philip A Kuhn, Origins of the Modern Chinese State (Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 2002), pp. 27-28
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 43
One notion from original modernity that was readily translated into
the Chinese idiom was the notion that the unfolding of history
reflected the workings of efficient causation (a clash of interests)
rather than an ideal harmonization of meanings between the secular
and sacred worlds.51 In retrospect, nothing more clearly marks twen-
tieth-century China’s rupture with its imperial past than the perme-
ation of the idea that categorical identities work through representative
politics to secure categorical interests, and that they drive historical
development in the process. Less obviously, perhaps, the idea of
categorical interests helped to transform the social imaginary from
one based on hierarchical complementarity to a modern imaginary
based on equal relations, in which categorical interests vied for
supremacy through the struggles undertaken by their representa-
tives.52
50
Rebecca E. Karl, “’Slavery,’ Citizenship and Gender in Late Qing China’s
Global Context,” in Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898
Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in late Qing China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Asia Center), pp. 212-244, esp. pp. 238-239.
51
Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries.”
52
According to one reading of equality, the equal consideration of “interests” is
the only plausible rendering of the claim that “all people are equal.” In light of over-
whelming evidence that people are not equally endowed by nature, culture, or in-
heritance, the claim that people are equal would be merely formulaic if people could
not lay claim to be treated equally by other people or by those in authority. Hard-
headed egalitarians who find egalitarian rhetoric and ritual empty of content argue
that equality is far more than formulaic when it extends to equal consideration of
peoples’ different interests. Stanley I. Benn, “Egalitarianism and the Equal Consider-
ation of Interests,” in Louis P. Pojman, and Robert Westmoreland, eds., Equality:
44 john fitzgerald
Selected Readings (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997), pp. 112-
119.
53
Cited in Hevia, “Making China ‘Perfectly Equal,’” p. 388.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 45
54
Kenneth Pomeranz, “Ritual Imitation and Political Identity in North China:
The Late Imperial Legacy and the Chinese National State Revisited,” Twentieth Cen-
tury China, 23.1 (November 1997): 1-30, esp. p. 8.
46 john fitzgerald
55
Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” p. 104. Taylor draws on Albert
Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Tri-
umph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
56
Mao Zedong, “Let Us Transform the Consciousness of the Masses,” in Stuart
R. Schram, ed., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, revised and enlarged edition
(Harmondwsorth: Penguin, 1969), p. 318.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 47
57
Tani E. Barlow, The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism (Durham and Lon-
don: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 57-59.
48 john fitzgerald
58
Martin W. Huang, Literati and Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the
Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1995); Haiyan
Lee, “Love or Lust? The Sentimental Self in Honglou meng,” Chinese Literature: Essays,
Articles, Reviews, no. 19 (December 1997); Reddy, The Invisible Code, p. 3.
59
Lee Haiyan, “Sympathy, Hypocrisy, and the Trauma of Chineseness,” Modern
Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 16, no. 2 (Fall 2004).
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 49
literature, she remarks, was “to make Chinese feel for and identify
with one another as co-nationals by replacing kinship and locality-
based identities with universal, sentiment-based identities.”60 Young
people who awoke to their equality, autonomy, and freedom were
represented in the new literature as isolated from kin and locality
and pining for a soul-mate who could share their feelings. Love
meant never having to say you were lonely. Thus stories of unre-
quited love intensified representations of anomie while stories of
romantic love dispelled them. The role of romance in this mission
was to highlight ruptures in the inherited order of feeling, brought
on by severing ties of kin and locality, in order to demonstrate the
healing powers of love and sympathy, and finally to police the bound-
aries of affection around categorical identities of nation, class, and
gender.
The convergence of category, interest, sentiment and representa-
tion in the social imaginary of modern China had far-reaching con-
sequences for the gendering of art and life. As we have noted, the
material interests of a category are rarely reckoned equivalent to its
unmediated desires. But an exception may be made when a category
is, by dint of nature, capable of distancing its rational self from its
passions sufficiently to calculate its “objective needs.” This is not the
case with women. In the literature and art of the Republican era
women regularly fail the test of rationality.
A number of historians have noted the disparity between a repub-
lican conviction that women were entitled to recognition of their
personhood (renge) and the widespread observation that actual women
rarely displayed the independence of character indicated by person-
hood.61 Bryna Goodman goes further to argue that the figure of the
“modern woman,” on close interrogation, was found incapable of
exercising the faculty of reason. In popular literature of the 1920s,
modern women were portrayed as far too interested in “gold, dia-
monds, and other luxuries” to merit recognition as true equals of
60
Lee, “Sympathy, Hypocrisy, and the Trauma of Chineseness,” p. 2.
61
See for example Wendy Larson, Women and Writing in Modern China (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998); Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral
and Textual Historiest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Barlow, The
Question of Women in Chinese Feminism.
50 john fitzgerald
7. Concluding Remarks
62
Bryna Goodman, “The Vocational Woman and the Elusiveness of ‘Person-
hood’ in Early Republican China,” in Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds.,
Gender in Motion.
63
Zha Mengci, “Nuzi jiaoyu de quexian” [Defects in women’s education], Zhong-
hua xinbao, 16 September 1922. Cited in Bryna Goodman, “The Vocational Woman
and the Elusiveness of ‘Personhood.’” See also Bryna Goodman, “Unvirtuous Ex-
changes: Women and the Corruptions of the Shanghai Stock Market in the Early
Republican Era,” in Mechtild Leutner and Nicola Spakowski, eds., Women in China:
The Republican Period in Historical Perspective. Berliner China-Studien, no. 44 (2005).
Bryna Goodman, “The New Woman Commits Suicide: Gender, Cultural Memory
and the New Republic,” Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 64, no. 1 (February 2005). An-
other role for women in literature and art has been to illustrate the tragic outcomes
of the venal pursuit of self-interest on the part of men. See Goodman, “The New
Woman Commits Suicide.”
64
Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992), pp. 3-10.
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 51
65
Greenfeld, Nationalism, p. 488. See also Craig Calhoun, Critical Social Theory
(Cambridge, MA, and Oxford: Blackwells, 1995), and Social Theory and the Politics of
Identity.
66
David Der-wei Wang, Fin de Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities in Late Qing Fic-
tion 1849-1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
52 john fitzgerald
67
Tani Barlow observes that by the 1980s the term funu had degenerated into a
dated ideological strategy of Maoist state discourse. Although its pedigree reached
back before the founding of the Communist Party to the liberation politics of the
May Fourth period, the deployment of funu into the post-Mao era signified continu-
ing Communist Party colonization of the reformist and revolutionary legacies of the
women’s movement. By the late 1980s women seeking to contest the Party’s hold
over their lives often eschewed the term funu in characterizing their positions and
opted instead for nuxing (female) or nuren (woman as social science category). See
Barlow, “Politics and Protocols of Funu.”
68
Craig Calhoun, “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity,” esp. p. 26; Har-
rison White, Identity and Control (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
69
Among the sources consulted for Tani Barlow’s study, Li Xiaojiang has written
that women’s liberation can no longer be attained by pursuing “equality” between
men and women. In People’s China, Li argues, gender equality implies “assimilation
equality, modernity, and gender in chinese nationalism 53
into an originally male world” with the result that women “make an effort to use
male standards (so called society standards) to judge themselves.” The pursuit of
equality in this assimilatory sense leads to unequal outcomes in the allocation of time
and the distribution of labor. In so far as the equitable distribution of time and labor
remains an important goal for actual women the ideal of equality has not been aban-
doned. Nevertheless the official code of equality is eschewed because it institutional-
izes inequalities that impact on the lives of actual women. The official code of
equality is also thought to retards the wider women’s struggle for freedom and au-
tonomy. Li Xiaojiang, “Economic Reform and the Awakening of Chinese Women’s
Collective Consciousness,” pp. 377-378.
70
Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, esp. Chapter 4.
71
Mechtilde Leutner, “Women’s, Gender, and Mainstream Studies on Republi-
can China: Problems in Theory and Research,” in Mechtilde Leutner and Nicola
Spakowski, eds., Women in China, pp. 57-85, 67.
54 john fitzgerald
72
Leutner, p. 69.
73
Mao Zedong, “Zhongguo renmin zhanqilaile” [The Chinese people have
stood up], in Mao Zedong xuanji [Selected works of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Renmin
chubanshe, 1977), vol. 5, pp. 3-7.
74
On “recognition,” see G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. A.V. Miller, trans.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 104-119 (IV: 166-196) and Charles Taylor,
Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
representing meiji japan 55
Melanie Trede
1
I am grateful to Gakushåin University (2003) and Kajima bijutsu zaidan (2005)
for financial support for this project and I thank the following individuals for their
encouragement and valuable suggestions: Kobayashi Tadashi and Nakamachi
Keiko; Doris Croissant, Ikeda Shinobu, Joshua Mostow, Jaqueline Berndt and other
members of the “Gender Symposium” in Heidelberg (October 2004); Timon
Screech, Toshio Watanabe, John Carpenter and the audience at a lecture I delivered
in April 2005 on the topic for the Japan Research Centre Seminar Series, School of
Oriental and African Studies, London University.
2
Among them is Joan B. Landes, Visualizing the Nation: Gender, Representation, and
Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
2001). A comprehensive digest of images and discussion of them is included in
Monika Flacke, ed., Mythen der Nationen: Ein Europäisches Panorama (Berlin: Deutsches
Historisches Museum, 1998). This exhibition catalogue explores the visual tools em-
ployed by seventeen European nations and the United States in constructing a
national, unified past. East Asian and other nations’ visual self-representations as
well as gender questions remain unaddressed in this catalogue.
56 melanie trede
3
Gérard Genette, Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degree (Paris: Éditions du Seuil,
1982).
representing meiji japan 57
4
On Chiossone’s role within the Print Bureau, see ˆkurashÙ Insatsukyoku, ed.,
ˆkurashÙ insatsukyoku hyakunenshi [One hundred years of the Finance Ministry’s Print
Bureau] (Tokyo: Insatsukyoku chÙyÙkai, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 461-469. For more com-
prehensive studies on Chiossone, see Meiji Bijutsu Gakkai, ed., KiyossÙne kenkyå: oyatoi
gaikokujin [Studies on Chiossone: A foreign employee] (Tokyo: ChåÙ kÙron bijutsu
shuppan, 1999).
5
Hibata Sekko, Nihon yåbin kitte shiron [Historical studies of Japanese postage
stamps] (Tokyo: Nihon yåken kurabu, 1930), p. 109. I am grateful to Tanabe Ryå-
ta, curator of the Postage Stamp Museum (Kitte no hakubutsukan) in Tokyo, for
providing xeroxes of this rare book.
6
The catalogue of the Banknote and Postage Stamp Museum states that the
portrait “appeared more Western than Japanese.” See Fukunaga Yoshio, ed., Zuroku:
Osatsu to kitte no hakubutsukan: Catalogue of the Banknote & Postage Stamp Museum (Tokyo:
ˆkurashÙ insatsukyoku kinenkan, 1996), p. 19.
58
melanie trede
Figure 2.1. One-yen banknote, designed and engraved by Edoardo Chiossone (1833-1898), 7.7 × 13.1 cm, 1881; Banknote
and Postage Stamp Museum, Tokyo.
representing meiji japan 59
Figure 2.2. One-yen, five-yen and ten-yen banknotes, designed and engraved by
Edoardo Chiossone (1833-1898), 1881, 1882, and 1883, respectively; Banknote and
Postage Stamp Museum, Tokyo.
60 melanie trede
Figure 2.3. Detail of ten-yen banknote, designed and engraved by Edoardo Chios-
sone (1833-1898), 9.3 × 15.9 cm, 1883; Banknote and Postage Stamp Museum,
Tokyo. A color plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on pp.
xvii-xxxii.
representing meiji japan 61
7
Nihon kahei zukan [Illustrated catalogue of Japanese banknotes] (Tokyo: TÙyÙ
Keizai shinpÙsha, 1981), p. 280; Fukunaga, Stamp Museum Catalogue, p. 19.
8
The paper reported the frequent incidence of counterfeit one-yen Jingå notes
(mentioned on 7 January 1882, 29 March 1882, 25 June 1884, 8 July 1884, and 28
December 1889).
9
For a reproduction of the bond, see Fukunaga, Stamp Museum Catalogue, p. 67.
10
For more on ˆyama’s work—including his engagement at the American Bank
Note Company between 1891 and 1900, where he engraved portraits of American
presidents and female allegories such as Columbia, as well as his introduction of an
American style of engraving to Japan—see Uemura Takashi, Nihon shihei no Ùban
chÙkokusha tachi [Banknote engravers of Japan: E. Chiossone, S. Oyama, K. Kato]
(Tokyo: Insatsu chÙyÙkai foundation, 2001), pp. 17-35.
11
Hibata, Kitte shiron, pp. 108-109.
62 melanie trede
12
Teishin Hakubutsukan (Communications Museum), ed., Genshoku Nihon yåbin
kitte zukan [Picture book of Japanese postage stamps] (Tokyo: Daiichi hÙki shuppan
kabushiki kaisha, 1965), pp. 28-31.
13
Hibata records the changes and the respective evidence. The decorative frame
was also altered based on the combination of a modern geometric design and a rub-
bing from a Japanese mirror kept at the Sumida Hachiman shrine in Wakayama
prefecture (Hibata, Kitte shiron, pp. 212-215). Reproductions of both stamps are
included in Fukunaga, Stamp Museum Catalogue, pp. 46, 48. My thanks to Tanabe
Ryåta for generously sharing his vast knowledge of postage-stamp design and for
providing the opportunity to study originals of these now extremely precious
stamps.
14
Apart from banknotes and stamps, Jingå also disappeared from the doll indus-
try, as testified to by catalogues of the famous Tokyo doll store Yoshitoku. While the
TaikÙsaku Gosekkuhin katarogu [Catalogue of objects by TaikÙ for the May Festival] of
the 1930s and early 1940s regularly featured a great variety of Jingå dolls, paintings
and prints, these disappeared after 1945. According to the heir of this family busi-
ness, Kobayashi Sumie, the demand for Jingå dolls declined drastically after the war
and it was thought inappropriate that the store should have them on offer. My
thanks to Ms. Kobayashi and the curator of the Yoshitoku collection, Mr. Hayashi,
for sharing valuable information with me. Although the reasons for this development
are unclear, veneration of Empress Jingå and her son ˆjin (alias Hachiman) as dei-
ties of war doubtless lies at the heart of this shift in their reception after Japanese
defeat in the Pacific War.
representing meiji japan 63
15
For a reproduction of the note and a general discussion of women on bank-
notes, see Virginia H. Hewitt, ed., Beauty and the Banknote: Images of Women on Paper
Money, exhibition catalogue (London: British Museum, 1994), p. 53, fig. 72. I thank
Helen Wang, curator for East Asian money in the Department of Coins and Medals
at the British Museum, for her observations regarding my project and for a copy of
the Hewitt catalogue.
16
Kinder was invited to Japan in 1870 and served as head of the Mint (ZÙhei-
kyoku) between 1871 and 1875, after which he returned to England.
17
See ˆkurashÙ hyakunenshi, vol. 2, pp. 60-61.
64 melanie trede
18
See Wakakuwa Midori, KÙgÙ no shÙzÙ: ShÙken kÙtaigÙ no hyÙshÙ to josei no kokuminka
[Portraits of the empress: Representations of Empress ShÙken and the nationaliza-
tion of women] (Tokyo: Chikuma shobÙ, 2001), pp. 382-383, 390.
19
For a good collection of a variety of adaptations in different print media, see
ˆke no shÙzÙ: Meiji kÙshitsu arubamu no hajimari [Portraits of the imperial family: The
beginning of the Meiji imperial household album] (Yokohama: Kanagawa kenritsu
rekishi hakubutsukan, 2001).
20
The hanging scroll measures 98.2 × 45.8 cm. I am indebted to Birgit Mayr for
mentioning this scroll to me and I thank Margarete Pavaloi for permission to study
the work. A note accompanying the scroll states that the painting was given to a Ger-
man envoy as a prize won in a shooting contest at a party of the imperial household.
See Birgit Mayr and Sasaki Toshikazu, eds., Japanische Holzschnitte und Bücher im Mu-
seum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt am Main und im Völkerkundemuseum der von Portheim-
Stiftung Heidelberg, Bestandskatalog japanischer Kulturgüter in Deutschland 2:
Furankufuruto kÙgei bijutsukan, Fon Porutohaimu kikin Haideruberuku minzoku hakubutsukan
shozÙ ukiyoe hanga, wahon hen, Zaidoku Nihon bunkazai sÙgÙ mokuroku 2 (Tokyo:
Kokusho kankÙkai, 2004), nos. 111, 190.
Similar but abbreviated genealogies of the ruling emperor are reproduced in Ega-
kareta Meiji Nippon: Sekihanga “ritogurafu” no jidai/Kenkyåhen: The Age of Lithograph in Japan,
Research Volume (Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 2002), pp. 89-93.
21
If Jingå had been included, she should have appeared between the fourteenth
and fifteenth tennÙ in the second row beneath Amaterasu’s image, to the left of Chåai
who wears armor, and to the right of ˆjin who is portrayed holding a shaku scepter.
representing meiji japan 65
Figure 2.4. Portraits of all Emperors and Ancestral Deities of Great Japan (DaiNihon jinkÙ mankÙ
goshÙkei), hanging scroll, lithograph, 98.2 × 45.8 cm, 1890s, Völkerkundemuseum
der von Portheim-Stiftung, Heidelberg (call no. 37674-045), and Inge Klinger.
66 melanie trede
22
The relevant passages in the Nihon shoki are translated in W.G. Aston, Nihongi:
Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (Rutland & Tokyo: Tuttle, 1972
[1896]), pp. 224-253; the reference to Jingå in the JinnÙ shÙtÙki is translated in Paul
Varley, A Chronicle of the Gods and Sovereigns: JinnÙ shÙtÙki of Kitabatake Chikafusa (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 101-103. Chikafusa mentions in this
passage that “Jingå administered the country as regent [sesshÙ]” (p. 102) but lists her
as “Empress Jingå, fifteenth reign” (p. 101) following Chåai (the fourteenth reign)
and preceding ˆjin (sixteenth reign) (p. 103).
23
A copy dating to 1864 is kept at Waseda University Library, among other
places. See Tsukamoto Akira, “Jingå kÙgÙ densetsu to kinsei Nihon no ChÙsenkan:
The Role of Empress Jingu Myth in constructing Edo-era perceptions of Korea,”
Shirin 79:6 (November, 1996): 27.
Jingå’s popularity in the early twentieth century resulted in the (unsuccessful)
movement to reinsert her in the official lineage of emperors as the fifteenth genera-
tion. See an article in the Yomiuri newspaper on 30 May 1924, “Jingå kÙgÙ o dai
15dai on-rekidai ni kuwae” [Adding Empress Jingå as the fifteenth emperor to his-
tory].
24
Jingå’s reign is subsumed in the biography of Emperor Chåai, the fourteenth
generation of human emperors, in the Dai-Nihonshi, vol. 3, published in KÙshaku Toku-
gawake zÙhan Dai-Nihonshi [History of Great Japan according to the version in the
collection of Marquis Tokugawa] (Tokyo, 1928), pp. 31-36.
representing meiji japan 67
In what follows, I will summarize the main plot of the Jingå narrative
and briefly review the transmission of the text and the reception of
Jingå imagery. This textual and visual history offers the necessary
background for an understanding of both the revolutionary charac-
ter of the imagined Jingå portraits of the 1880s and the popular
reception of this unusual depiction.
The most widely used version of the Jingå narrative is part of the
Hachiman myth, the Hachiman gudÙkun, which dates back to the
beginning of the fourteenth century.25 The GudÙkun was most prob-
ably composed by priests of the Iwashimizu Hachimangå shrine as
a foundation narrative for their religious center. The Iwashimizu
Hachimangå is located south of Kyoto and was at the time the most
important shrine for Hachiman rituals performed by the imperial
household. The overt proto-nationalist flavor of the GudÙkun must be
evaluated against its historical backdrop so as to explain the colorful
adaptation of the comparatively tame version of the Jingå narrative
in both the Kojiki (dated 712) and the Nihon shoki.26 The two attempted
invasions of the Mongols in 1274 and 1281 constituted the first
attacks by a foreign military force on Japanese soil and were shocking
experiences that had a number of political and cultural consequences.
Hachiman was considered the foremost guardian deity protecting
against the invaders, an interpretation that put the hitherto elite
Hachiman worship on a broader, more popular basis in terms of
both social and regional distribution. As a result, numerous Hachi-
man shrines were constructed across the Japanese archipelago and
new narratives and imagery appeared, thus leading to wide reception
of the GudÙkun. In this text, Empress Jingå is not only referred to as
the fifteenth emperor of Japan but she is also understood within a
25
Two versions of the Hachiman gudÙkun are published in Jisha engi, Nihon shisÙ
taikei 20 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1982), pp. 169-273. The widely known version A
is thought to date to the reign of Emperor Hanazono (r. 1308-1318), the less circu-
lated version B predates version A slightly (presumably 1301-1304); see Jisha engi,
p. 207.
26
The Jingå passage included in the Kojiki is translated in Donald L. Philippi
(Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), pp. 262-271; for the Nihon shoki account,
see footnote 22.
68 melanie trede
27
The respective text passages in the GudÙkun are on pp. 170 and 172 in Jisha
engi.
28
The GudÙkun turns Emperor Chåai’s weak character, as described in both the
Kojiki and Nihon shoki, into that of a brave warrior with superhuman qualities. This
change, like many others, served to further vilify the Korean people and increase
popular respect for emperors as well as arguing for the martial disposition of his and
Jingå’s son ˆjin (see below).
29
The scrolls are part of a large Hachiman painting production and are repro-
duced in Emakimonoshå: Konda sÙbyÙ engi, Jingå KÙgÙ engi [Sets of illuminated hand-
representing meiji japan 69
scrolls: “The Karmic Origins of the Konda Imperial Tomb,” and “The Karmic
Origins of Empress Jingå”] (Habikino-shi: Habikinoshi-shi bunkazaihen bessatsu,
1991). The title, which is included in the handscroll proper, was chosen in 1443,
probably so as to distinguish this work from a second set of scrolls offered to the
same shrine on the same day in 1433 and entitled Konda sÙbyÙ engi emaki. Two other
sets of scrolls also donated on the same day in 1433 have some of the very same
iconography as the Jingå kÙgÙ engi but are entitled Hachiman engi emaki. For a transla-
tion of the colophon and a discussion of the political and aesthetic implications of
these handscrolls, see Melanie Trede, “Appell an den Kriegsgott: Ikonographische
Innovationen im Dienst politischer Rivalität,” in Frank R. Pfetsch, ed., Konflikt,
Heidelberger Jahrbücher (2004): 255-277.
30
Emakimonoshå, p. 156. The translations of this and the following passage are
mine. A fully annotated translation of the Jingå narrative as related in the scrolls is
forthcoming in my monograph, The Political Manipulation of Myths in Japanese Pictorial
Narratives (working title). The equivalent passage in the Hachiman gudÙkun can be found
in Jisha engi, p. 174.
70
melanie trede
Figure 2.5. Jingå kÙgÙ engi emaki, handscroll, Detail of scroll 2, ink and colors on paper, height 35.4 cm; 1433; Konda
Hachiman Shrine, Habikino-shi.
representing meiji japan 71
31
There are also examples of male warriors, such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune of
the twelfth century, who are depicted with an unusually white complexion to empha-
size their youth and social status.
32
The Sanja takusen ryakushÙ [A brief summary of the oracles of the three shrines],
attributed to Matsumoto Kiyofusa, and written in Kyoto in 1650 (but not printed
prior to 1657), expands on the notion of ˆjin’s predestination as deity of war. In a
translation by Brian Bocking it reads:
At this time, the empress Jingå was pregnant with the imperial prince. Taking
hold of a volume of a war-book (This is as referred to in Sanryaku by our contemporary
Lord ˆseki) at a time when the fighting was furious, the empress burned the book
and devoured the ashes, crying out “the imperial prince is in my womb; he will
imbibe and understand this book. Though I may be weak and ineffective, the
prince will surely be in good health.” The battle lasted three years, but very
gradually victory was achieved....It is said that because the empress had con-
sumed the ashes of the war-book early on while the baby was in her womb, he
could read this volume as soon as he was born.
Brian Bocking, The Oracles of the Three Shrines: Windows on Japanese Religion (Richmond:
Curzon, 2001), p. 61.
33
On early Hachiman worship, see Martin Repp, “Hachiman—Protecting kami
of the Japanese Nation,” in Klaus Antoni, et al., eds., Religion and National Identity in
72 melanie trede
Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, which survive only as a copied scroll dating to 1483
(Bunmei 15). See Nakano, “The Development of Images,” p. 68.
Miya Tsugio surmised, however, that the origin of Hachiman engi handscrolls
date to after 1221, which is three hundred years after construction of the Hakozaki
Hachiman Shrine (in 921) as mentioned in the narrative. See Miya, “Hachiman
Daibosatsu goengi to Hachiman engi, ge” [“The Karmic origins of the great Bodhi-
sattva Hachiman” and “Karmic origins of Hachiman, part 3”], Bijutsu kenkyå
336 (August 1986): 63. It is questionable, though, whether the text of the scrolls
should be interpreted as making accurate use of the historical facts, as Miya sug-
gests.
Two sets of fourteenth-century hanging scrolls are in the possession of the Tama-
taregå and the Shikaumi Jinja shrines in Northern Kyushu. Kikutake Jun’ichi,
“Kyåshå no engi-e” [Paintings of miraculous origins of temples in Kyushu], BukkyÙ
geijutsu (July 1970): 57-80.
Hachiman engi handscrolls are too abundant to list, but a select number of them
are mentioned in a series of articles by Miya, “Hachiman engi,” Parts 1, 2, 3, Bijutsu
kenkyå 333 (September 1985): 149-158; 335 (March 1986): 15-23; and 336 (August
1986): 57-67.
38
The Kansei Reforms included a prohibition against depicting current events.
As a result, historical narratives boomed in popular prints and books. On the impli-
cations of the cultural politics and print production following the Kansei reforms, see
Sarah Thompson and Harry Harootunian, Undercurrents in the Floating World: Censor-
ship and Japanese Prints (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1991), pp. 56-72.
Jingå also lived on in the cultural consciousness of the first half of the twentieth
century. Watsuji TetsurÙ (1889-1960), professor of ethics in Kyoto recalls being
raised with the Jingå narrative and even remembers her inscription on the Korean
rock. See his Nihon rinri shisÙshi [History of Japanese ethics] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1952), as quoted in Tsukamoto, “Jingå kÙgÙ densetsu,” p. 32.
74 melanie trede
ysis of the texts and images immediately preceding the Jingå portraits
in the 1870s and 1880s will allow us to test the reception of Jingå
during the early Meiji era and to judge the novelty of Chiossone’s
work.
Jingå as Goddess
39
See Christine Guth Kanda, ShinzÙ: Hachiman Imagery and its Development (Cam-
bridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 51-
56.
40
For example, the Sangoku meishÙ zue [Illustrated guidebook to famous sites of the
three states] vol. 30, printed in 1843, describes Empress Jingå, Emperor ˆjin, and
his consort Tamayorihime as the main deities of the Hachiman Nittagå in Satsuma
domain (modern Kagoshima Prefecture). The quote is reproduced in Nihon meisho
fåzoku zue 15, Kyåshå no maki, ed. Asakura Haruhiko (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten,
1983), p. 470.
41
For a comprehensive account of the Gion festival, see Gion Matsuri Hensan
Iinkai and Gion Matsuri Yamaboko RengÙkai, eds., Gion matsuri (Tokyo: Chikuma
ShobÙ, 1976). The history of the funeboko is related on pp. 83-84. On the role of Jingå
as part of the funeboko and other floats in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century painting,
see Kamei Wakana, HyÙshÙ toshite no bijutsu, gensetsu toshite no bijutsushi: Muromachi shÙgun
Ashikaga Yoshiharu to Tosa Mitsumochi no kaiga [Art as representation, art history as
discourse: The Muromachi Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiharu and Tosa Mitsumochi’s
paintings] (Tokyo: Perikansha, 2003), pp. 233-235.
42
See the URL http://www.city.kyoto.jp/shimogyo/yamaboko/06fune.html
(accessed on 26 November 2007).
representing meiji japan 75
Figure 2.6. Jingå figure in the Funeboko float, Gion Festival, Kyoto, diverse media,
1616; photograph by the author.
76 melanie trede
mask and large garment worn over her armor evoke associations
with Noh theater. Cloth belts wrapped around her body refer to her
pregnant condition;43 at the end of the festival, they are cut into
pieces and distributed to pregnant women. This custom indicates
popular reverence of Jingå as a guardian deity of safe childbirth.
According to one source, ever since the Tokugawa period, this figure
was also worshiped by the imperial household on the occasion of a
child’s birth.44 In this photograph, the Jingå figure is shown in a
display prior to the Gion festival, replete with offerings on an altar-
like arrangement and a chrysanthemum-crested white curtain to
emphasize her deified status.
A large number of votive tablets with depictions of Jingå as a
pregnant woman refer to her as a deity associated with safe childbirth
or as a patron of midwives. Although early examples are rare due
to the nature of the wooden material and its exposure to weather,
the inscription on one votive tablet tells of the birth of a son in
December of the year of the snake (1905).45
The Kyoto-based Katsurame maidens (and prostitutes) also chose
Jingå as their guardian deity and issued paper charms.46 They some-
times wrote their name Katsura-me, using the characters for “Vic-
43
Until recently, the so-called Iwata obi or Iwata haramaki (obi)-belt ጤ↰⣻Ꮞ
(Ꮺ) was employed as a method to protect a baby in the womb from the fifth month
of gestation onward. This custom is associated with Jingå’s precaution for safe deliv-
ery before her invasion of Korea; see osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/gion/tour/fune.htm (ac-
cessed on 8 December 2007).
44
See http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/gion/tour/fune.htm as well as http://
mirahouse.dyndns.org/~mira/kyoto/gion/funa/funa.html (both accessed on 9 De-
cember 2007). The latter website mentions that the Jingå figure was transported to
the imperial palace upon the birth of the Meiji Emperor.
45
For a reproduction of this votive tablet dedicated to the Uga Shrine in Fukuo-
ka City, see Fukuoka-shi kyÙiku iinkai, ed., Fukuoka-shi no ema [Votive tablets of Fu-
kuoka City] (Fukuoka: Fukuoka-shi kyÙiku iinkai, 1997), vol. I, p. 130. The rendering
of the face is exactly the same in another votive picture from 1923 depicting Jingå in
a bust portrait and including an inscription referring to a wish by a 24-year-old
woman (see Fukuoka-shi no ema, vol. II, p. 35).
46
See Wakita Haruko, “The Formation of the Ie and Medieval Myth: The
ShintÙshå, NÙ Theater, and Picture Scrolls of Temple Origins,” in Haruko Wakita,
Anne Bouchy and Ueno Chizuko, eds., Gender and Japanese History (Osaka: Osaka
University Press, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 53-85, especially pp. 70-76; see also Tsukamoto,
“Jingå kÙgÙ densetsu,” pp. 1-33. Tsukamoto remarks that the Katsurame charms
begin to spread from the mid-eighteenth century onward, but this date only signifies
that the local governmental offices (machi bugyÙsho) officially accepted them; their ex-
istence is in fact much older.
representing meiji japan 77
From around the eighteenth century until the end of World War II,
Jingå was most frequently represented in armor within the frame-
work of a type of divine warrior family. This sacred trinity was a
regular part of the annual Boys’ Festival decorations, celebrated on
the fifth day of the fifth month. Dolls show Jingå in warrior apparel
with her advisor Minister Takeuchi no Sukune cradling her infant,
the future emperor ˆjin (Figure 2.8). In this mid-nineteenth century
gosekku arrangement owned by a Kyoto family, both Jingå and
Takeuchi soar above an assortment of martial accoutrements. Jingå
wears tall, golden headgear (eboshi) and luxurious armor topped by
a wide-cut, embroidered garment. She holds a bow in her left hand
47
The earliest appearance of Jingå in a book title is the set of handscrolls from
1433, mentioned above. The first use of Jingå in the title of a kabuki play dates to
1695 (Genroku 8). To the best of my knowledge this play, Jingå kÙgÙ, recorded in the
Kabuki Chronology (Kabuki nenpyÙ), is not extant. See Hotei Kokusho sÙmokuroku, Complete
List of Japanese Books, revised and expanded edition (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1990),
vol. 4, p. 651.
78
melanie trede
Figure 2.7. Sankan taiji zue, double-spread designed by Katsushika Taito (fl. 1810-1853), woodblock-printed book, 1844; National Diet
Library, Tokyo.
representing meiji japan 79
Figure 2.8. Decoration for the Boys’ Festival, mid-nineteenth century, diverse mate-
rials, size of the Jingå figure: 41.9 × 20.8 × 19.3 cm (height including the eboshi hat:
50.0 cm), originally belonging to the Irie Family.
and the five long arrows on her back are arranged so as to emphasize
her central position.
Paintings of the same iconography on silk, such as those by an
early nineteenth-century revivalist of the Japanese style, Ukita Ikkei
(1795-1859) (Figure 2.9), were produced for the same occasion on
behalf of wealthy households, while prints of the same iconography
were readily available for popular consumption. Jingå’s martial
apparel is central to this iconography, but it varies according to the
needs of the consumers. The large empty spaces on top of the Ikkei
80 melanie trede
Figure 2.9. Ukita Ikkei (1795-1859), Empress Jingå, Takeuchi no Sukune and Prince ˆjin,
diptych of hanging scrolls, each 98.5 × 34.6 cm, ink and color on silk; Tochigi Pre-
fectural Museum.
representing meiji japan 81
Jingå as Warrior
48
I am grateful to Honda Satoshi from the Tochigi Prefectural Museum for per-
mission to study and photograph the scrolls.
49
See Richard W. Anderson, “Jingå KÙgÙ Ema in Southwestern Japan: Reflec-
tions and Anticipations of the Seikanron Debate in the Late Tokugawa and Early
Meiji Period,” Asian Folklore Studies 61 (2002): 247-270.
50
For a reproduction of this votive tablet, see Fukuoka-shi no ema, vol. 1, p. 29 and
vol. 3, p. 19.
82 melanie trede
Figure 2.10. Katsukawa Shuntei (1770-1820), Empress Jingå, series: Buyå sanban tsuzuki
[Three examples of martial bravery]; 1820; signed: ShÙkÙsai Katsukyåko Shuntei ga;
poetry club seal: Taikogawa; surimono print, shikishiban (21.8 × 18.9 cm); photo-
graph courtesy of Joan Mirviss (owner: Barbara Bowman).
representing meiji japan 83
Another iconography uses the Jingå imagery to cast her in the role
of virtuous wife and mother. An example is a tanzaku print included
in the series “Eight Views of Virtuous Women” (Kenjo hakkei) designed
by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) circa 1843 (Figure 2.11). This
series parodies the iconography of the “Eight Views of Xiao and
Xiang,” a Chinese painting subject incorporated into the Japanese
canon in the Muromachi period (1392-1573). The Jingå print is
entitled Tsukushi kiban (“Returning Sails off Tsukushi”), an allusion
to the original Enpo kiban (“Returning Sails off Distant Shores”). Jingå
surveys the homecoming of the Japanese fleet after her victory on
the Korean peninsula and immediately preceding the birth of ˆjin
in Tsukushi. Although she wears swords, along with a bow and a
quiver of arrows, her martial outfit is scaled down in favor of wide-
cut and colorfully embroidered garments (including the imperial
motif of phoenixes) reminiscent of Noh costumes. The inscription
51
The translation is by John Carpenter. Katanoue Koreneba is a nom de plume
of NaitÙ KyåzÙ (or KuzÙ), a Taikogawa poet from Yoshihama in Mikawa province,
active in the Fukagawa district of Edo. The second poem is by Washutei Nomiyasu
(literally, Japanese Wine is Easy to Drink), probably the same person as Sakenoya
Nomiyasu (or Sakanoya), which is another name of HÙrai Sanjin, who was the pro-
prietor of a sake shop. The poem refers to the worship of Empress Jingå at shrines
on New Years Day:
chihayaburu At the dawn of spring
kami no yashiro e As the warbler chants,
hatsu haru no We make a pilgrimage
ehÙ mairi ya To the sacred shrine
uguisu no koe Of the mighty deities.
My thanks to John Carpenter for the information regarding the poets’ various
names. Published in Joan Mirviss and John Carpenter, Bunka Bunsei no shugyoku no
surimono: Jewels of Japanese Printmaking—Surimono of the Bunka-Bunsei Era 1804-1830
(Tokyo: ˆta kinen bijutsukan, 2000), pp. 154-155.
84 melanie trede
Figure 2.11. Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), Empress Jingå Watching the Victorious
Return of her Fleet from Korea, from the series: Kenjo hakkei [Eight views of virtuous
women], ca. 1843, chå tanzaku (ca. 38 × 13 cm), signed: Ichiyåsai Kuniyoshi ga,
publisher: Ihaya SensaburÙ, censor seal: Tanaka (Tanaka HeijirÙ), Merlin Dailey
Collection.
representing meiji japan 85
52
For a reproduction of another copy of this print, and two other prints of the
series, see Robert Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi, 1797-1861
(Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 1998), pp. 117-118.
53
This is, in fact, the very first image of a woman on a Japanese banknote, and
neither Murasaki Shikibu on a 2000-yen note (issued in 2000) nor Higuchi IchiyÙ
(1872-1896) on the 5000-yen note (issued in 2004), as is often assumed. The Na-
tional Bank (Kokuritsu GinkÙ) was founded in 1872 but incorporated 153 private char-
tered banks, which, however, used the same form and design of banknotes. See
ˆkurashÙ insatsukyoku hyakunenshi, vol. 1, pp. 198-202; and the URL http://www.imes.
boj.or.jp/cm/english_htmls/history_19.htm (accessed on 22 November 2007). Each
design of the first five banknotes issued in August 1873 was valid through 1899 (see
Nihon kahei zukan, p. 318), when the designs of the National Bank were ultimately
suspended in favor of motifs desired by the exclusive issuing authority of the Bank of
Japan (Nihon GinkÙ), which was founded in 1882. The Jingå banknote of 1873 thus
continued to be circulated when Chiossone’s design of the early 1880s was issued.
86
melanie trede
Figure 2.12. Ten-yen Japanese National Banknote (old style), 8 × 19 cm, 1873; Bank of Japan, Currency Museum, Tokyo. A color plate
of this illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
representing meiji japan 87
54
The trade representative in North America at the time, Nakajima Nobuyuki
(1846-1899), was ordered to oversee the production of these banknotes (see ˆkurashÙ
hyakunenshi, vol. 1, pp. 202-203). However, according to Ohnuki Mari from the Insti-
tute for Monetary and Economic Studies of the Bank of Japan, and Matsumura Ki-
yoko, curator at the Banknote & Postage Stamp Museum, no further information on
the designers and decision-making process of the early banknotes is available, be-
cause most of the documents of the Bank of Japan were consumed in fire during the
Great KantÙ Earthquake of 1923 or during the bombing of Tokyo in 1945.
55
National emblems framing the main picture on either side, such as the eagle
on the right, were replaced for the Japanese Jingå banknote by the latest coin design
of 1871 by Kano Natsuo. The dragon on the right was to represent the Japanese
emperor, while the chrysanthemum and paulownia on the left verso of the coin as
well as the sun and moon on the banners symbolize both the emperor and Japan in
general. See Keiko Mashino, “Meiji shoki kahei no zuzÙ wo meguru shomondai:
Various Problems Concerning the Iconography of Early Meiji Coins,” Bijutsushi 145
(October 1998): 32-45. As Mashino Keiko points out in this article, these national
emblems also served to create trust in the newly introduced paper notes, for the
otherwise inexpensive material of paper owes its credibility entirely to the imagery
and name of the issuing authority printed on its surface (Mashino, Meiji shoki kahei,
p. 32); though no portraits were ever depicted on Meiji-period coins.
56
The banknote was engraved by Frederick Girsch. On the front-left Benjamin
Franklin is shown drawing electricity from the sky by flying a kite, and the front-right
is decorated with Liberty on an eagle. This banknote was issued in various states of
the U.S. I am grateful to Catherine Eagleton, curator at the Coins Department of
the British Museum, who kindly provided this information.
57
For examples see Flacke, Mythen der Nationen.
88
melanie trede
Figure 2.13. Ten-dollar United States banknote, 8 × 19 cm, 1864; Bank of Japan, Currency Museum, Tokyo.
representing meiji japan 89
woman warrior, and one of the main reasons for this choice may
have been that in Japanese historiography Empress Jingå was seen
as the sole successful conqueror of foreign lands—thus indicating the
Meiji government’s aspiration to imitate Western colonialism. 58
Images and written accounts of female warriors in other cultures
served similar ends. France’s Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was one such
heroine. The central painting of the 1843 triptych The Life of Joan of
Arc by the German painter Hermann Anton Stilke (1803-1860) de-
picts a battling patriot who leads France to glorious victory over
England at the end of the Hundred Years War,59 and this too may
have been a model for the 1873 Jingå banknote. Like the French
national heroine, Jingå was conceived as a woman who dressed as
a male warrior to reinstate her country’s pride through victory
against the allegedly hostile Korean kingdoms. The reception of Joan
of Arc in Japan at this time is exemplified by an early women’s rights
activist, Fukuda Hideko (1865-1927), who was referred to as “Japan’s
Joan of Arc” because in 1886 she had attempted—together with
like-minded members of the Liberal Party (JiyåtÙ)—to set up a reform
government in exile—in of all places Korea. Fukuda was imprisoned
as a result.60
58
Accordingly, the passage preceding the depiction of Jingå’s victory in the 1433
handscroll states, “It was always possible to achieve a victory in battles against for-
eign countries, but it is unheard of that anyone except the empress should have
managed to subjugate and receive a pledge from an enemy country” (Emakimonoshå,
pp. 87-88).
Other images on banknotes issued in 1873 are similarly politically laden. They
include the prehistoric deity Susanoo; the victorious battle against the Mongol invad-
ers of 1274 and 1281; Nitta Yoshisada (1301-1338) and Kojima Takanori (fl. early
fourteenth century), both loyal warriors of the imperial revivalist Emperor Go-Dai-
go; and landmarks of the new capital in Tokyo, namely, the castle and Nihonbashi
Bridge.
59
The painting (oil on canvas, 135 × 146 cm) is located in the National Hermit-
age, St Petersburg. The collection of essays edited by Hedwig Röckelein, Charlotte
Scholl-Glass and Maria E. Müller, Jeanne d’Arc oder Wie Geschichte eine Figur konstruiert
(Freiburg: Herder, 1996), deconstructs the myth-making surrounding Joan of Arc’s
persona. Calling her “Jeanne d’Arc” (Joan of Arc) associates her with an Amazon
fighter, while referring to her as “La Pucelle” (The Maid) focuses on her service to
France and her victimization (Röckelein, Jeanne d’Arc, p. 10).
60
Newspapers picked up the comparison with Joan of Arc from a work on Fu-
kuda’s life after her release from prison, and the phrase was repeated in a number of
later accounts. See Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Con-
sciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), p. 49.
90 melanie trede
61
A translation of this ballad is in Hans H. Frankel, The Flowering Plum and the
Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1976), pp. 68-72.
62
For details on the reception of the Mulan story, see Susan Mann, “Myths of
Asian Womanhood,” The Journal of Asian Studies 59:4 (November 2000), pp. 846-847.
Mulan was heralded as a “central figure in the revolutionary visions of young Chi-
nese women during the early twentieth century”—termed the “Mulan complex” by
Christina Gilmartin. The quote is in Mann, “Myths of Asian Womanhood,” p. 854.
See also Christina Kelly Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women,
Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995). In one version of the “Hundred Beauties” of famous women in Chinese
history, dated 1908, Mulan becomes, as Susan Mann aptly puts it, “an emblem of
the new female citizen and a reproach to her contemporary counterparts who have
neglected their duty to the country.” Interviews with Chinese women remembering
Mulan as a role model during their youth in the 1920s are recorded in Wang Zheng,
Women in Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1999), pp. 147, 225 ff.
63
More on this debate in Donald Calman, The Nature and Origins of Japanese Impe-
rialism: A Reinterpretation of the Great Crisis of 1873 (London: Routledge, 1992).
representing meiji japan 91
64
The official title on the bonds was Dai-Nihon teikoku seifu kigyÙ kÙsai [Public bonds
to enhance the establishment of industries by the imperial government of Great
Japan]. See Fukunaga, Stamp Museum Catalogue, p. 67.
65
ˆkuma Shigenobu in a letter to the Minister of the Right, Iwakura Tomomi
(1825-1883), which is dated 13 April 1877; see KiyossÙne kenkyå, p. 55.
66
See ˆkurashÙ hyakunenshi, vol. 2, p. 61.
67
Wakakuwa, KÙgÙ no shÙzÙ, p. 386.
92 melanie trede
68
The slogan fukoku kyÙhei— “a wealthy nation and a strong army”—derives from
the Chinese legalist slogan fuguo qiangbing, which according to Léon Vandermeersch
might have been coined by Shang Yang (d. 338 BCE) but was not universally ac-
cepted until the end of the Warring States period (c. 403-221 BCE). See Léon Van-
dermeersch, La formation du légisme: Recherche sur la constitution d’une philosophie politique
caracteréristique de la Chine ancienne (Paris: École Française d’Extreme-Orient, 1965),
p. 74, fn. 2.
69
For an illustration of this banknote, see Heinz Fengler, Geschichte der deutschen
Notenbank vor Einführung der Mark-Währung. Papiergeld der altdeutschen Staaten (Regenstauf:
Gietl-Verlag, 1992), p. 37; for more on female allegories on banknotes, see Hewitt,
Beauty and the Banknote, pp. 12-27.
94 melanie trede
70
School textbooks issued by the Ministry of Education started to appear on a
national level after compulsory education was introduced in 1872.
representing meiji japan
Figure 2.15. Bulletin of National History (Kokushi kiyÙ), detail with a depiction of the victorious Jingå receiving
tributes from the Korean Kings, woodblock-printed book, 1885; Waseda University Library, Tokyo.
95
96 melanie trede
Figure 2.16. Newly edited History Textbook for Primary Schools (Shinsen shÙgaku rekishi),
detail with Jingå, warships and a map of Korea, woodblock-printed book, 1887;
Waseda University Library, Tokyo.
representing meiji japan 97
71
Chiba Kei, “KanÙ HÙgai Hibo Kannon o yomu” [Reading KanÙ HÙgai’s Hibo
Kannon], in Ikeda Shinobu, ed., Kenryoku to shikaku hyÙshÙ III [Power and visual repre-
sentation III] (Chiba daigaku daigakuin shakai bunka kagaku kenkyåka, 2003),
pp. 48-65, especially pp. 56-57.
72
Tsuboi SenjirÙ, “Joshi ni tsugeru fumi” [A letter addressed to women], in
Minkan zasshi 9; quoted in Chiba, “KanÙ HÙgai,” p. 57.
73
This article was published in the journal Jiyå no akari [The lantern of freedom],
vol. 4. See Chiba, “KanÙ HÙgai,” p. 55.
74
Okinaga Tarashihime is an alternative name for Jingå.
75
Quoted in Chiba, “KanÙ HÙgai,” p. 57.
98 melanie trede
76
I am grateful to Wolfgang Schamoni for this reference.
77
Tomi Suzuki, “Gender and Genre: Modern Literary Histories and Women’s
Diary Literature,” in Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, eds., Inventing the Classics:
Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2000), pp. 74-75, 79.
78
Suzuki, “Gender and Genre,” p. 75.
representing meiji japan 99
79
Fujioka SakutarÙ, Kokubungaku zenshi: HeianchÙ hen I [Comprehensive history of
the national literature: The Heian period 1], TÙyÙ bunko vol. 198 (Tokyo: Heibon-
sha, 1971 [1905]), pp. 3-9, particularly p. 8.
80
Mikami Sanji and Takatsu KuwasaburÙ, Nihon bungakushi [The history of Japa-
nese literature] (Tokyo: KinkÙdÙ, 1890); see Thomas Keirstead, “The Gendering
and Re-gendering of Medieval Japan,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, English Supplement
9 (1995): 77-92, particularly 78-82; and Suzuki, “Gender and Genre,” pp. 74-79.
81
Doris Croissant, “Das Geheimnis des Hibo Kannon,” Asiatische Studien XLIV,
2, (1990): 349-378. See also the essay by Doris Croissant in this volume.
100 melanie trede
nent beard and a more feminine pose, while the child has lost its
male genitalia. As art historian Chiba Kei and others have argued,
the second painting was understood in retrospect—that is, after the
death of HÙgai—as depicting a mother and child. This reading
resulted in the painting’s title of hibo (Mother of Mercy), despite the
still visible beard and the traditionally ambiguous gender of bodhi-
sattvas.82 Chiba interprets the painting in a number of ways, among
them as an illustration of the parent (i.e. father and mother)-child
relationship of the Meiji emperor to his people. Chiba quotes a gov-
ernment statement of 1869 referring to the emperor as the new
political leader: “The Emperor is Japan’s father and mother [Nihonkoku
no fubo ni mashimaseba].”83 Similarly, Jingå was clearly featured as a
woman in Chiossone’s portraits; but as acutely present as the “female”
Jingå narrative was in the public memory, her male qualities were
integral to the appraisal of her historic character.
At the same time, we may interpret Jingå’s banknote image, in
Wakakuwa Midori’s words, as a personification of the “mother of
the nation.” As such, Jingå denotes a precedent and model for the
Meiji Empress ShÙken.84 The Meiji government followed Western
models to help foster the entirely new concept of a visibly monoga-
mous emperor with one empress as his wife.85
The banknotes of the early 1880s anticipate the first photograph
of Empress ShÙken in Western dress. A photo taken by Maruki RiyÙ
(1850-1923), Suzuki Shin’ichi II (1855/1859-1912), and Chiossone
in 1889 (Figure 2.17)—which also marks the year of the constitution’s
proclamation—resulted in multiple copies in various media including
newspaper reproductions and lithographs like the hanging scroll in
Fig. 2.4. Despite the obvious differences inherent in a full-length
portrait, Empress ShÙken resembles Jingå in a number of ways: the
monochrome background, her regal and poised expression with a
82
Chiba, “KanÙ HÙgai,” p. 49; and Chiba Kei (translated by Ignacio Adriasola),
“Deconstructing Kano Hogai’s Hibo Kannon (“Kannon, Mother of Mercy”),” English
abstract of a talk delivered at the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on
Women, at Ewha Women’s University, Seoul, Korea, 22 June 2005. The English
version is unpublished.
83
Shigeki TÙyama, commentator, TennÙ to kazoku [The emperor and aristocracy],
Nihon kindai shisÙ taikei, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1988), p. 28, as quoted in
Chiba, “Deconstructing Kano Hogai,” p. 3.
84
See Wakakuwa, KÙgÙ no shÙzÙ, pp. 379-401.
85
Historically, emperors would be surrounded by a number of consorts.
representing meiji japan 101
slight turning of her body to the left, and the low décolleté with the
three-tiered necklace. Even the mix of Western and Japanese decora-
tions in the room—a rose in a vase, tablecloths and carpets on the
one hand, and Japanese handscrolls and a makie-lacquer box on the
other— resonate with the western frame design and medallion for-
mat of Jingå’s portrait and the Japanese emblems of the imperial
household, such as the paulownia.
Jingå was also a perfect surrogate for ShÙken in that the Meiji
empress was unable to produce an heir, instead offering herself up
in service to the new Japanese nation-state.86 Jingå, in a similar way,
held back the delivery of her baby boy for the sake of a victory
against the Korean kingdoms and the greater glory of the Japanese
imperial household. The depiction of Jingå without her son ˆjin is
therefore a significant choice of iconography for the banknotes of
the early Meiji years. Both empresses are featured as hybrid Western-
Japanese mothers of the nation and model women.
Conclusion
86
I am indebted to Ikeda Shinobu for her suggestion to read Jingå’s image in this
context.
87
Thus, for instance, the neologism bijutsu (fine arts) was created as a translation
of the two divergent German terms, “Kunstgewerbe” (arts and crafts) and “Schöne
Künste” (fine arts); see SatÙ DÙshin, “Nihon bijutsu” tanjÙ: Kindai Nihon no “kotoba” to
senryaku [The birth of Japanese art: “terminologies” and strategies in modern Japan],
KÙdansha sensho mechie 92 (Tokyo: KÙdansha, 1996), pp. 34-41.
representing meiji japan 103
of one, five and ten-yen notes bearing Jingå designs were not used
on a daily basis but only in larger monetary transactions.88 The same
applies to the Jingå stamp design of 1908. The affluent international
community residing in Japanese cities at the time was certainly one
of the main consumer groups of these notes, and their familiarity
with Western banknote designs may have been another reason to
feature a Western-style portrait on the new paper money.
But let us take a final look at the types of traditional Jingå imagery
employed in the official visual strategies of Meiji Japan. The initial
1873 version (Figure 2.12) shows Jingå as a belligerent war heroine
and emblematic of a Japanese imperial past that entertained colonial
ambitions. The composition not only echoes a banknote design cel-
ebrating the glorious European explorations of the Americas but
refers more generally to the political aims of a modern nation-state.
In contrast to earlier depictions on handscrolls and votive tablets,
the 1873 design derives from the new concept of a politically involved
imperial household. This notion informs the visible and more
dynamic figure of Jingå about to lead her nation into a pivotal battle.
By contrast, earlier depictions of Jingå’s forces attacking the Korean
warriors—such as those on large votive tablets—typically represent
Jingå as an imperial supreme commander hidden away in her ship’s
royal cabin while her army and deities are taking the active role of
combat warriors. Different from these earlier depictions, in which
she is shown as a general dressed as a man, the banknote presents
her as a Western Amazon replete with Western hairdo and long
white clothing—much like Joan of Arc. Jingå’s ambiguous gender in
the medieval narrative gives way to a clear pictorial definition of her
femininity.
As much as earlier depictions of Jingå focus on her status as an
indigenous deity—and sculptural icons of Jingå continued to be wor-
shiped at shrines—her image was controlled by a narrative that
defined her character within the context of advisors such as Minister
Takeuchi and her personal network of accompanying male deities
(Sumiyoshi, KÙra, and most prominently her son ˆjin, alias Hachi-
man). By contrast, the 1878 bonds (Figure 2.14) show her as an
88
In 1881, 10 kg. of rice cost 82 sen (100 sen = 1 yen), and 3.3 square meters of
land in the Ginza district of Tokyo cost 20 yen. See Uemura Takashi, Shihei shÙzÙ no
rekishi [The history of portraits on paper money], Tokyo bijutsu sensho 59 (Tokyo:
Tokyo bijutsu, 1989), p. 88.
104 melanie trede
89
See the memorandum by the head of the Print Bureau, quoted above in fn.
17.
90
See Suzuki, “Gender and Genre,” pp. 74, 78.
the culturally contested student body 105
Joan Judge
1
James Legge, trans., “The Nei Tse: The Pattern of the Family,” in Li Chi Book
of Rites: An Encyclopedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religious Creeds, and Social Institutions,
106 joan judge
ed. Chu’u Chai and Winberg Chai (New York: University Books, 1967), vol. 2,
pp. 478-479.
2
Missionaries had set up schools for girls and women in China from 1844 but
the first school established by Chinese was founded in 1898.
3
On these developments, see Benjamin A. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Ex-
aminations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000),
pp. 596-625.
the culturally contested student body 107
4
The late imperial regime of feminine virtue to which I will refer several times in
this paper is not a formal, legally-backed regime, but a normative one based on so-
cially and historically generated principles of proper feminine conduct. I develop this
concept more fully in The Precious Raft of History: The Past, the West, and the Woman
Question in China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).
5
“Guangxu sanshisan nianfen Xuebu diyici jiaoyu tongji tubiao,” in Zhongguo
jindai xuezhi shiliao [Historical materials on the modern Chinese educational system],
Jiaoyu kexue congshu [Compendium of sources on education], ed. Zhu Youhuan
(Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1983-1986), [hereafter XZSL], 2:2,
pp. 649-650. The provinces with the most schools were Zhili (121), Jiangsu (72), Si-
chuan (70), and Zhejiang (32).
6
Ye Haowu, “Aiguo nüxuexiao lunli jiaoxi Ye Haowu jun jiangyi” [Lecture de-
livered by Patriotic Girl’s School ethics teacher Ye Haowu, Jingzhong ribao (21 April
1904), reprinted in XZSL, 2: 2, p. 625.
108 joan judge
The ancient lijiao teachings that Yao and other radical reformers
so harshly vilified were revered by late-Qing officials. The Education
Board (Xuebu) legitimized its historic decision to authorize formal
female schooling in 1907 by invoking age-old texts and precedents.7
In the preamble to the normal school regulations published on
March 8, 1907, the Board explained that the government had been
reluctant to sanction formal women’s education despite mounting
social pressure and the mushrooming of privately founded girls’
schools throughout the country. It was not until trusted authorities
had uncovered ancient textual and institutional evidence that sup-
ported the initiative that public female schooling was finally approved.8
All documents on women’s education drafted both before and after
the 1907 memorials similarly appealed to ancient principles. They
proclaimed that female education had to maintain the age-old
emphasis on women’s virtue, and uphold the proper ritual distinc-
tions between female and male, inner (nei) and outer (wai), China
and the outside world.
7
On March 8 of that year, the Xuebu (Board of Education) published regula-
tions for elementary and normal schools for girls and women. These included the
“Xuebu zouding nüzi xiaoxue tang zhangcheng,” Education Board Memorial on
regulations for women’s elementary schools, and the “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan
xuetang zhangcheng zhe” [Education Board Memorial on regulations for women’s
normal schools]. For the regulations themselves, see “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan
xuetang zhangcheng zhe” [The Ministry of Education’s memorial on the enactment
of regulations for women’s normal schools], DaQing Guangxu xinfaling, dishisance, [New
laws under Emperor Guangxu of the Great Qing Dynasty, vol. 13, 1907 3.8: pp. 35-
40], reprinted in XZSL: 2, p. 668. On developments in female education at this time,
see Liao Xiuzhen, “Qingmo nüxue zai xuezhi shang de yanjin ji nüzi xiaoxue jiaoyu
de fazhan, 1897-1911” [Late Qing women’s education in the context of the evolu-
tion of the educational system and the development of women’s elementary educa-
tion, 1897-1911], in Zhongguo funü shilun wenji [Historical essays on Chinese women’s
history], ed. Li Yu-ning, (Taipei, 1992), 2: pp. 224-227. On the importance of the
regulations of 1907, see Taga AkigorÙ, comp., Kindai Chågoku kyÙiku-shi shiryÙ, Shinmat-
su-hen [Historical materials for modern Chinese education- late Qing] (Tokyo, 1972),
p. 73.
8
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 666. This search for ancient Chinese prece-
dents was a classic move on the part of late-Qing intellectuals confronted with the
problem of cultural authority in the face of new Western knowledge. For a discussion
of this discourse on “the Chinese sources of Western knowledge” (Xixue Zhongyuan),
see Quan Hansheng, “Qingmo de ‘Xixue yuanchu Zhongguo’ shuo” [The late-Qing
discourse on ‘Western learning originating in China’], Lingnan xuebao 4:2 (1935): 57-
102. This question of Chinese origins was usually made with reference to science but
was also homologous with other fields.
the culturally contested student body 109
9
Zhang Zhidong had been a moderate voice for educational reform from the
late 1890s. In 1898 he published his famous Quanxue pian [A plea for learning].
Zhang Zhidong and Zhang Boxi had both played instrumental roles in the disman-
tling of the civil service examination system, a process that was completed in 1905.
Their memorial on early training schools for girls was part of a larger proposal for a
new school system that would replace the previous examination-oriented system. For
Zhang Zhidong’s role in dismantling the examination system, see Elman, pp. 590-
591.
10
Rongqing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, “Zouding mengyangyuan zhangcheng
ji jiating jiaoyu fa zhangcheng” [Memorial on regulations for kindergartens and for
methods of household education], (13 January 1904), reprinted in XZYB, p. 396.
11
“Xuebu zouding nüzi xiaoxue,” p. 658; “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” pp. 668,
666.
110 joan judge
12
“Xuebu zouding nüzi xiaoxue,” p. 658; “Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” pp. 667-
668.
13
Cong Xiaoping, “Localizing the Global, Nationalizing the Local: The Role of
Teacher’s Schools in Making China Modern, 1897-1937” (unpublished Ph.D. diss.,
University of California, Los Angeles, 2001), p. 90. One of the new initiatives in the
1904 school reform proposal was the establishment of kindergartens for young boys.
Zhang, Zhang, and Rongqing included women in their proposal only insofar as they
could serve as teachers or baomu for these preschool ages boys. Kindergarten educa-
tion was a new addition of the 1904 system.
14
On the halls see Angela Ki Che Leung, “To Chasten Society: The Develop-
ment of Widow Homes in the Qing, 1773-1911,” Late Imperial China 14:2 (December
1993): 1-32. The 1904 memorial also proposed using orphanages (yuyingtang) to the
same purpose.
15
Rongqing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, pp. 396-397.
the culturally contested student body 111
Some chaste widow homes did become primary care training cen-
ters both before and after the 1904 memorial’s publication. 16 Zhang,
Zhang, and Rongqing’s proposals were not implemented on a broad
scale, however, as the government could no longer ignore public
pressure to establish a formalized system of women’s education that
went well beyond what the 1904 document proposed.17
Officials who initiated these calls for a more formalized system,
nonetheless upheld Zhang, Zhang, and Rongqing’s insistence on the
maintenance of gender separation in women’s education. In 1906,
Liu Xun, an official in the Board of Public Works (Gongbu), submit-
ted a memorial urging the court to publish official school regulations
that would enforce the separation of the sexes. These regulations
would clearly stipulate that only women could serve as instructors,
deans, and administrators in the new schools. If for some reason it
was necessary to employ a man, his duties would have to be strictly
circumscribed.18 The next year, the Education Board echoed Liu’s
proposal in specifying that all positions of authority in the newly
approved government schools had to be filled by women.19
In addition to insisting on the maintenance of gender separation,
Liu Xin, Zhang Zhidong and other defenders of the regime of virtue
explicitly addressed the need to uphold the division between the
inner and outer spheres. The 1904 memorial advocated restricting
female education to the home in order to avoid the risks involved in
allowing young girls to walk freely on the streets.20 While the authors
of the 1907 normal school regulations implicitly sanctioned the pres-
ence of young women in public by allowing the establishment of
16
Zhang Zhidong himself established a Jingjie xuetang (School for revering chas-
tity) in Wuchang in 1904 with Japanese women serving as invited instructors and
some 100 chaste widows as students. Zhang chose to establish the widow home rath-
er than attach a woman’s school to the existing Youzhi yuan (kindergarten) in Wu-
chang. Zhang Zhidong, “Zha xuewuchu ban jingjie yuying xuetang” [Document
concerning the establishment of schools in halls for revering chastity and orphanages
by Committees of Educational Affairs], in Zhang Wenxiang gong quanji, Gongdu, juan
25.
17
Even the Minister of the Education Board memorialized the central govern-
ment on the issue of women’s schools. Cong, pp. 117-126, on the Minister’s memo-
rial, pp. 118-119.
18
“Gongbu zhushi Liu Xun xuewu yaoduan zhe” [Manager of Affairs of the
Ministry of Public Works, Liu Xun, on important educational matters], Nanyang guan-
bao [Nanyang official gazette]: 54 (1906), reprinted in XZSL 2:2, p. 588.
19
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 673.
20
Rong Qing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, pp. 393-396.
112 joan judge
21
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 668.
22
Rongqing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, p. 396.
23
“Gongbu,” p. 587.
24
“Gongbu,” p. 587.
25
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 666.
the culturally contested student body 113
26
Rong Qing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, pp. 393-396.
27
“Gongbu,” pp. 587-588.
28
Rongqing, Zhang Boxi, Zhang Zhidong, p. 396.
29
On the ban, see “Zicha Nüxue changge” [Investigation of “School songs for
girls”], STSB (28 April 28 1907). For other newspaper reports on this incident, see
also, Paul Bailey, “‘Unharnessed Fillies’: Discourse on the ‘Modern’ Female Student
in Early Twentieth Century China,” in Voices Amid Silence (III): Women and the Culture
[sic] in Modern China (1600-1950), ed. Lo Jiu-jiung and Lu Miaw-fen (Taipei: Institute
114 joan judge
of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2003), p. 342. Most new-style textbooks extant
today did contain some discussion of free marriage, suggesting that these government
bans were less than effective.
30
Out of twenty-four to twenty-eight hours of class time at the lower elementary
level, and thirty-four hours at the normal school level, only two hours were devoted
to ethics courses. “Xuebu zouding nüzi xiaoxue,” pp. 661-665; “Xuebu zouding nüzi
shifan,” pp. 671-672.
the culturally contested student body 115
31
“Maochong nüxuesheng zhi huangdan” [The ridiculous practice of pretending
to be female students], Tuhua ribao (hereafter THRB) 27 (11 September 1909):
1-319.
32
“Chang]chong nüxuesheng zhi huangdan” [The nonsense of assuming the
identity of female students], THRB #27 (11 September 1909). Other comments on
this phenomenon include “Shanghai maiyin fu zhi chongshu” [An increase in the
number of women selling sex in Shanghai], THRB #34 (18 September 1909).
33
“Nü xuejie zhi guai xianzhuang” [A strange phenomena involving female stu-
dents], Shibao (21 November 1910).
116 joan judge
Figure 3.1. “Maochong nüxuesheng zhi huangkan” [The ridiculous practice of pre-
tending to be female students], THRB 27 (11 September 11 1909).
34
“Wuben nüxuexiao dierci gailiang guize” [Second set of reformed regulations
for the Wuben Women’s School], Zhili jiaoyu zazhi 1:17, pp. 35-49, reprinted in XZSL
2:2, p. 593. For examples of early articles calling for the regulation of female stu-
dents’ dress, see “Qing ding nü xuesheng fuzhi” [Petition to regulate female students
clothing], “Nü jie xinwen,” Beijing nübao (9 August 1906); “Nü xuesheng ying you jun
fuzhi” [Student clothing must be regulated], Shibao (18 August 1906). See also Qiu
Liu. “Mofan zhi nü xuesheng” [The model female student], Shibao (13 December
the culturally contested student body 117
1910), who claimed the model student dressed simply in home-made clothing with-
out make-up or jewelry; “Nü xueshi” [Female students], Shibao (18 August 1910).
35
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 674.
36
“Lun Shanghai nü xuesheng zhi zhuangshu” [The dress of Shanghai female
students], Funü shibao, 11 (20 October 1913): 12-13.
37
Shenbao (25 January 1913), cited in Bailey, “Unharnassed Fillies,” 16. The lim-
inal status of the student/prostitute imbued the category of the nüxuesheng with an
aura of eroticism that became the subject of pornographic fiction. Licentious works
that featured female students were repeatedly banned by the Ministry of Education
through the second decade of the twentieth century. Bailey, “Unharnassed Fillies,”
p. 16. The allegedly subversive nature of the women’s school took on more political
overtones by the 1920s when women’s schools often served as Communist Party
bases. Annping Chin writes that there is mounting evidence of such connections; see
her Four Sisters of Hofei, a history (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore:
Scribner, 2002), pp. 103-104. The Chinese Communist Party was ultimately found-
ed in a girls’ school in Shanghai.
118 joan judge
38
“Shijin nüxue” [Notice to ban women’s schools], Shuntian shibao (11 June
1903).
39
“Shuchang yu xuetang zhi guanxi” [The relationship between schools and
brothels], THRB #130 (23 December 1909).
40
“Qing ding nü xuesheng fuzhi” [Petition to regulate female students clothing],
“Nü jie xinwen,” Beijing nübao (9 August 1906).
41
See for example, “Kan women nüzi bei renjia chixiao” [See how our women
are ridiculed], Dagong bao (27 June 1912), cited in Bailey, “Unharnassed Fillies,”
p. 352.
42
Beijing ribao (11 August 1910), cited in Weikun Cheng, “Going Public Through
Education: Female Reformers and Girls’ Schools in Late Qing Beijing,” Late Imperial
China 21: 1 (June 2000): 128.
43
“Datong shijie zhi nanü,” THRB #66 (20 October 1909).
44
“Xuebu zouding nüzi shifan,” p. 674.
the culturally contested student body 119
Figure 3.2. “Shuchang yu xuetang zhi guanxi” [The relationship between schools
and brothels], THRB 130 (23 December 23 1909).
120 joan judge
Figure 3.3. “Datong shijie zhi nannü” [Males and females in a world of great unity],
THRB 66 (20 October 20 1909).
45
“Xuebu zou zunni nüxue fuse zhangcheng zhai” [Memorial from the Educa-
tion Board respectfully proposing regulations for dress in schools for girls and wom-
en], Shibao (26 January 1910).
the culturally contested student body 121
public reveal, this effort to formalize the students’ dress also went
unheeded.
The dynastic officials and cultural critics who attempted to regu-
late the too-foreign, too-masculine, and too-loose demeanor of female
students, sought to reinforce what they considered to be increasingly
compromised principles of gender differentiation. At the same time,
those like Ye Haowu introduced earlier in this essay, who were most
committed to the assimilation of wenming ideas, established a new
language of differentiation between a potently new present and a
moribund past. Just as repeated invocation of ancient history on the
part of the regime’s defenders masked their engagement with wenming
values, however, so the violent repudiation of past teachings on the
part of the regime’s challengers’ concealed a continued indebtedness
to those teachings.
Promoters of the new female education rhetorically dismissed the
authority of earlier female didactic texts based on lijiao, but continued
to uphold the importance of ethics as the foundation of women’s
education, for example. While they explicitly endorsed a young
woman’s right to a public education and dismissed the harshest criti-
cisms of female students as anti-wenming propaganda, they too
expressed concerns that the nü xuesheng posed a threat to the Chinese
social order.
In 1910 two men active in the new education as teachers and
textbook authors, Zhuang Yu and Jiang Weiqiao, complained that
female students were too quickly abandoning established social mores
and family practices (jiushi jiating fengxi). Zhuang and Jiang did not
explicitly call for the containment of the behavior of educated young
women within the sphere of ancient ritual practice but within the
new categories of “good wives and wise mothers” (liangqi xianmu) and
“mothers of citizens” (guomin zhi mu).46 While the scope of feminine
virtue was broadened under these new rubrics to encompass not only
the familial but the social, national, and even global contexts, it
continued to be grounded in lijiao. These allegedly new feminine
categories ultimately reinforced the most basic principle of Chinese
gender ideology: a woman’s purpose in life was to serve. Even those
who proclaimed the increasing irrelevance of the regime of feminine
46
Zhuang Yu and Jiang Weiqiao, “Zhi Nanyang Quanye hui yanjiu hui shu”
[Letter to the Research Association of the Nanyang Association for the Promotion of
Vocations], Shibao (5 August 1910).
122 joan judge
47
Rongqing, Zhang Boxi, and Zhang Zhidong, pp. 393-396.
48
This was according to Hattori Unokichi who was well placed in Chinese offi-
cial circles and a friend of Shimoda’s. Abe Hiroshi, Chågoku no kindai kyÙiku to Meiji
the culturally contested student body 123
before the encounter could take place, she had expressed the
wish that Shimoda establish a girls’ school in the Summer Palace
outside of Beijing. The Empress Dowager’s own belated decision to
sanction female education had also been influenced by Shimoda’s
success as an educator.49
What was most attractive to Chinese officials and reformers about
Shimoda’s teachings was their dual emphasis on ancient ethical prin-
ciples and new knowledge. For several generations, members of Shi-
moda’s family had been scholars of Chinese learning (kangaku) and
she herself had been trained in the Chinese classics and histories.50
She was devoted to both preserving Chinese learning and importing
the new knowledge necessary to strengthen the nations of East Asia
vis-à-vis the West, the same balance the Chinese authorities implic-
itly sought in their 1907 normal school regulations. According to one
commentator, Shimoda understood the importance of simultaneously
promoting women’s education and preserving fundamental feminine
principles including “filiality to in-laws, harmonious relations with
sisters-in-law, maritial compatibility, and maternal instruction.” He
explained that while Shimoda had written a respected text on the
“new education” for women, Domestic Science, she continued to empha-
size the importance of harmony, love, benevolence, and good-
ness.51
The support of these various Chinese authorities made it possible
for Shimoda to play the single most important role in educating
Chinese female overseas students in Japan from the year 1901. Both
the conceptual and the physical context for study at her Practical
Nihon [Modern Chinese education and Meiji Japan] (Tokyo: Fukumura shuppan,
1990), p. 102.
49
Hattori Unokichi recorded these details about the Empress Dowager’s interest
in Shimoda. It was Hattori’s private hope that the two women would meet, and he
even encouraged his wife Shigeko to learn Chinese so that she could serve as transla-
tor at the prospective meeting of the two “heroic women.” Ko Shimoda kÙchÙ sensei
denki hensanjo, ed., Shimoda Utako sensei den [Biography of Professor Shimoda Utako],
(Tokyo: Ko Shimoda kÙchÙ sensei denki hensanjo, 1943), pp. 415-416. See also Abe,
Chågoku, p. 102.
50
“Huazu nüxuexiao xuejian Xitian Gezi lun xing Zhongguo nüxue shi” [The
dean of the school for female nobles, Shimoda Utako, discusses the matter of pro-
moting education in China], trans. Zhang Yingxu, transcr. Yang Du, Hunan youxue
yibian [Hunan overseas studies translations] 1 (12 November 1901), p. 9 [37].
51
“Lun nüxue yi zhuzhong deyu” [Women’s education should emphasize ethical
education], Dongfang zazhi 3:6 (1906): 119.
124 joan judge
52
Ko Shimoda, pp. 399-400.
53
“Xuebu shenzhong nüsheng youxue” [The Education Board is cautious about
female overseas study], Jiaoyu zazhi 2:8 (13 September 1910): 64.
54
Madame Jin in the novel Niehai hua was the quintessential example of a woman
who refused to leave China even in the company of her husband. On her refusal to
travel abroad, see Sun Shiyue, Zhongguo jindai nüzi liuxue shi [The history of overseas
the culturally contested student body 125
study by Chinese women] ( Beijing: Zhongguo heping chuban she, 1995), pp. 27-28;
Hu Ying, Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1898-1918 (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 36.
55
For a detailed discussion of these developments, see Judge, “Between Nei and-
Wai: Chinese Female Students in Japan in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Gender
in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China, ed.
Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Ox-
ford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), pp. 121-143; “Beyond Nation-
alism: Gender and the Chinese Student Experience in Japan in the Early 20th
Century,” in Wusheng zhi sheng: Jindai Zhongguo de Funü yu Guojia [Voices Amid Silence
[I]: Women and the Culture in Modern China [1600-1950]], ed. Lo Chui-jung (Tai-
pei: Institute for Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2003), pp. 359-393.
56
Wang Lian, “Tongxiang hui jishi: Hubei zhi bu” [Record of native place as-
sociation meeting, section on Hubei], Hubei xuesheng jie 2 (27 February 1903): 114-
115.
126 joan judge
how integrated she had become into the broader community of over-
seas students.57
As Wang Lian’s speech honoring her male colleagues suggested,
men and women shared certain physical spaces in Tokyo, a reality
that contributed to the further transformation of gender relations
among this privileged group of Chinese women and men in the early
twentieth century. Female and male students freely interacted in
public spaces that were meeting grounds for the increasingly radical-
ized overseas community. One of the most common of these physical
sites was the Chinese Overseas Student Hall (Zhongguo liuxuesheng
huiguan). This two-story building founded in the Kanda section of
Tokyo in 1902 had a bank, bookstore, auditorium, and reception
hall on the first floor, and classrooms where Japanese language was
taught on the second floor.58 The revolutionary icon Qiu Jin (1875-
1907) had attended Japanese classes, joined weekend discussion ses-
sions, and frequently given lectures at the hall.59 Political meetings
attended by both men and women members of the overseas com-
munity, such as one organized in April 1903 to coordinate resistance
to the Russian advance in Manchuria, were also held there.60 Meet-
ings of women’s organizations were frequently held in this space as
well. The Association of Chinese Women Students in Japan (Zhong-
guo liu Ri nü xuesheng hui) first met at the Student Hall on 23
September 23 1906.61 So did the 70 to 100 females who attended
the first meeting of the Study Society of Chinese Female Overseas
Students in Japan (Zhongguo liu Ri nüxue hui) on 5 March 5
1911.62
Other shared public spaces included the Kinkikan where Sun
Zhongshan had given lectures and where the initial meeting of over
57
Wang Lian, p. 115.
58
On the huiguan, see SanetÙ Keishå, Chågokujin Nihon ryågaku-shi zÙho [A history
of Chinese students in Japan, enlarged edition], (Tokyo: Kuroshio shuppan, 1970),
pp. 195-203.
59
In the monthly journal she founded, the Baihua bao [Vernacular journal], Qiu
reported on debating sessions regularly held at the building on Sundays. Liu Mei
Ching, Forerunners of Chinese Feminism in Japan: Students Fighting for Freedom in Japan,
(Leiden: Doctoral Dissertation, 1988), pp. 291, 295.
60
Zhou Yichuan, Chågokujin josei Nihon ryågaku shi kenkyå [Research on Chinese
female overseas students in Japan] (Tokyo: Kokusho kankÙkai, 2001), p. 67.
61
Ishii YÙko, “Shingai kakumeiki no ryå-Nichi joshi gakusei” [Female overseas
students in Japan in the era of the 1911 Revolution], Shiron 36 (1983): 44.
62
Zhou Yichuan, p. 88.
the culturally contested student body 127
63
SanetÙ, pp. 164, 166; Zhou Yichuan, p. 66.
64
Liu Mei Ching, pp. 291, 295. Qiu’s essay “Jinggao Zhongguo erwanwan nü
tongbao” [Advice for the two hundred million women of China] was reprinted in
Qiu Jin xianlie wenji [The writings of the national martyr Qiu Jin] (Taipei: Dangshi
weiyuan hui, 1982), pp. 133-135.
65
SanetÙ, p. 473.
66
In 1909, for example, one of the peak years for female overseas study in Japan,
out of over 55 students at the Jissen school, 30 or so lived in the dormitory while 25
lived with family members. Ko Shimoda, p. 406.
67
Abe Hiroshi, p. 100.
128 joan judge
68
Sakaki’s comments on this subject were understandably cryptic and other
sources of the period were, unfortunately, silent on this subject. Sakaki Mitsuko,
“Sakaki Mitsuko-shi dan” [A conversation with Ms. Sakaki Mitsuko], Jissen joshi
daigaku toshokan, Shimoda Utako kankei shiryÙ [Jissen Women’s University Library
materials related to Shimoda Utako, filed by number], file # 3001-1 (26 August
1968).
69
ˆsato HirÙaki, “Nihonjin no mita Shå Kin: Shå Kin shijitsu no jakkan no sai-
kentÙ” [Japanese views of Qiu Jin: A re-examination of a number of historical facts
concerning Qiu Jin], Chågoku kenkyå geppÙ 453 (November 1985): 15-16.
70
Zhou Yichuan, p. 62.
71
He Xiangning, “Wo de huiyi” [My reminiscences], in Xinhai geming huiyi lu
[Memoirs of the 1911 Revolution], vol. 1 ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang
huiyi quanguo weiyuan hui, Wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuan hui (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao
chubanshe, 1981), p. 14.
72
He Xiangning, “Wo de huiyi,” pp. 15-20; “When I Learned How to Cook,” in
Li Yu-ning, ed., Chinese Women Through Chinese Eyes (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe,
1992), pp. 135-143.
the culturally contested student body 129
Many of the students who have been the main focus of this chapter
became teachers and school founders in the final years of the Qing
dynasty and the early years of the Republic. In this concluding sec-
tion we will briefly examine the experiences of and perceptions of
these women who most fully embraced the unprecedented opportu-
nities opened up by the new education. These teachers, who became
models for Chinese women, presaged an historic shift in women’s
lives. Lu Lihua (1900-97), who was a school principal herself,
described the dramatic difference in the lives of women born in the
first years of the twentieth century as she was, versus those born just
five years earlier in the last years of the nineteenth. It was the oppor-
tunity to attend new-style girls’ schools, learn from new instructors/
models, and become professional teachers themselves, she main-
tained, which marked this crucial difference.73
Although the many new schools for Chinese women in the early
twentieth century—private and public, in China and abroad—varied
in their ideological orientation, all prepared women for a new future.
All served as the potential training ground and site of employment
for young women who would enter the field of teaching, the most
broadly sanctioned and widely practiced female profession in the
early twentieth century. 74 An education, thus, not only signified
access to new bodies of knowledge but to a new mode of life exem-
plified by the Japanese teachers Chinese overseas students observed
in Tokyo and by the Western educators young Chinese women read
about in new-style journals.
The new Chinese teachers trained in this period were among
China’s first independent career women. They enjoyed both personal
and financial autonomy as social, and no longer exclusively familial,
beings. Economically independent, they were released from the con-
straints of the thrice following (sancong) which defined the female
life-cycle in terms of successive stages of reliance on father, husband,
73
Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 165.
74
A number of vocations were tentatively opening up to women at this time, in-
cluding sericulture, medicine, publishing, but teaching was the most important
among them. Wang Zheng, p. 130.
130 joan judge
75
Lu Yin, Lu Yin zizhuan [Autobiography of Lu Yin] (Shanghai: Diyi chubanshe,
1934). Cited in Cong, p. 382.
76
Wang Zheng, pp. 153-154.
77
Wang Zheng, pp. 259-286.
78
Cong, p. 222.
the culturally contested student body 131
In making the single life a viable alternative for women not com-
mitted to having children, careers in teaching also facilitated new
kinds of feminine romantic and erotic autonomy. Lu Lihua had two
brief marriages and a number of informal relationships. While her
romantic life was subject to humiliating social scrutiny, her teaching
career was never seriously impeded.79
More challenging to social norms than the alleged promiscuous-
ness of independent career women like Li was female same-sex love.
At the turn of the twentieth century, this phenomenon was exclu-
sively linked to the milieu of women’s schools which allegedly fos-
tered intimate relationships between female students, between female
students and teachers, or between female teachers. Discussions which
linked these “unorthodox” erotic practices to girls’ schooling revealed
broader anxieties about the threat women’s education posed to the
existing economic and reproductive order.
The first article to address the subject of female same-sex love
appeared in The Women’s Eastern Times (Funü shibao) in June of 1911.
Written by a certain Shan Zai and entitled “Same-sex Love Among
Women” (Funü tongxing zhi aiqing), the article presented female homo-
eroticism as abhorrent and foreshadowed a much more extensive
discussion of the relationship between education and same-sex love
less than a decade later.80 Shan Zai considered both nature and
nurture to be causes of female same-sex relations. He claimed that
some women were not physically attracted to men, others lacked
opportunities to meet men, and still others were merely perversely
curious about women. He then traced the history of female same-sex
love from ancient Greece and Rome through the medieval period,
and discussed its emergence in European and “barbarian” lands.
The context Shan Zai was most urgently concerned with, however,
was the contemporary Chinese female overseas student community
in Japan. He asserted that female same-sex love had become a press-
ing concern there and offered a number of tentative solutions to this
“problem.” These included abolishing dormitories for female stu-
dents, keeping close friends in separate rooms, and educating young
79
Wang Zheng, pp. 183-184.
80
Shan Zai, “Funü tongxing zhi aiqing” [Same-sex love among women], Funü
shibao 7 (June 1911): 36-38. Tze-lan Sang discusses this article and a number of the
later articles in The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 99-126.
132 joan judge
part two
Keith McMahon
1
On this topic, I have been especially inspired by the scholarship of Catherine
Yeh and Paola Zamperini; see Yeh, “The Life-style of Four Wenren in Late Qing
Shanghai,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57.2 (1997): 419-470; “Reinventing
Ritual: Late Qing Handbooks for Proper Customer Behavior in Shanghai Courtesan
Houses,” in Late Imperial China 19.2 (1998): 1-63; and Shanghai Love: Courtesans, Intel-
lectuals and Entertainment Culture, 1850-1910 (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2006), see also Zamperini, Lost Bodies: Prostitution and Masculinity in Late Qing Fiction
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming).
136 keith mcmahon
2
See, for example, Hu Ying, “Re-Configuring Nei/Wai: Writing the Woman
Traveler in the Late Qing,” in Late Imperial China 18.1 (1997): 72-99; Tales of Transla-
tion: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918 (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2000); and Joan Judge, “Blended Wish Images: Chinese and Western Exem-
plary Women at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” in Nan Nü: Men, Women, and
Gender in China 6.1 (2004): 102-135.
3
For detailed discussion of the sequels, see McMahon, “Eliminating Traumatic
Antinomies,” in Martin Huang, Snakes’ Legs: Sequels, Continuations, Rewritings, and Chi-
nese Fiction (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), pp. 98-115.
love martyrs and love cheaters 137
that, if it weren’t for polygyny at the will of the women, then this
genteel man would turn into a worthless wastrel.
My point in bringing up Dream of the Red Chamber is to read late-
Qing lovers as versions of that novel’s central characters, Jia Baoyu
and Lin Daiyu, and in doing so to see them as taking part in a
romantic imaginary that juggles between the polygynous fantasy, on
the one hand, and the fantasy of just two lovers, on the other. The
polygynist’s fantasy takes ultimate form in the sequels just mentioned
in which polygyny becomes something the women want and manage.
The fantasy of two lovers, which is what Dream of the Red Chamber is
mainly about but not its sequels, presents the model of what I call
sublime passion. In the fantasy of two lovers, love in order to be true
cannot succeed. The closest it can come to success is a state that qing
scenarios since the late Ming repeatedly project, which features a
sense of equality and exchangeability between men and women. But
equality and exchangeability are ephemeral, as is the very sense of
self. Love is defined as a sublime state of union that is possible only
when two lovers miss the perfect moment. The qing scenario features
an inherent evanescence and reversibility of boundaries of status and
gender. Examples include the scenes in numerous novels in which
men and women gather to write poetry and in which seating
arrangements and appellations take no account of normal status
markers. The man is distinctly lesser in moral and spiritual stature
than the woman, in spite of his greater social privilege. In effect, the
man must become feminine in order to achieve a state of being that
the woman is more easily capable of achieving. That state of being
refers to a kind of magic transformation whereby the subject poten-
tially arrives at a point of radical disconnectedness and therefore
radical potential. The transformation is especially significant in times
of personal and social crisis, hence its enhanced literary dramatiza-
tion at the two times of the decadence and fall of the Ming and the
decadence and disintegration of the Qing.
The remarkable woman is the ideal subject in such situations. She
is the ultimate figure of qing subjectivity. She appears in both her
own writings and those of male writers throughout the Ming and
Qing to the very end of the dynasty. In general, these female voices
stage what amounts to a separate chorus which at its loudest shouts
with a voice that shakes the entire cosmos. A prime mythic figure of
this woman in late-Qing China is, interestingly enough, the cosmic
138 keith mcmahon
4
For further discussion of this point, see McMahon, “Cultural Destiny and Po-
lygynous Love in Zou Tao’s Shanghai Dust,” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and
Reviews 27 (2005): 117-135.
140 keith mcmahon
5
There are many ways of recording these perceptions, but see in particular the
poetry of Wei Yuan and Zhang Weiping (1780-1859) cited in Guo Yanli, Zhongguo
jindai wenxue fazhanshi (Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 125, 161.
Also in Guo Yanli, see references to Lu Song (1791-1860), pp. 214-216, Lu Yitong
(1804-1863), p. 218, and Bei Qingqiao (1810-1863), pp. 225-227.
6
See Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth
Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), an excellent study of the idea that
“China became thinkable as specifically national at the same time as, and only when,
China became consciously worldly” (p.151), that is, at the turn of the nineteenth
century.
7
Such a framing also has to do with the “incipient understanding of how impe-
rialism worked to ideologically create its object.” See Rebecca Karl, Staging the World,
p. 13 and 152.
8
Such a leveling effect demonstrates, in Terry Cochran’s words, that the “ethos
of modernity was born of a clash with the other”; see Cochran, Twilight of the Literary:
Figures of Thought in the Age of Print (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001),
p. 135. These points derive from Cochran’s discussion of Kant and his “world idea
as the conceptual framework of modernity.” Cochran refers to Kant’s creation of
“the modern science of man as an autonomous agent . . . derived from the idea of an
abstract human without local limitations” (pp. 169 and 20).
love martyrs and love cheaters 141
9
For a discussion of stealing the man from traditional patriarchy, see McMahon,
“Fleecing the Male Customer in Shanghai Brothels of the1890s,” in Late Imperial
China 23.2 (2002): 1-32.
142 keith mcmahon
ple, the story of the woman who marries a client but refuses to return
with him to his patriarchal home in the provinces, or the woman
who, bored with being the man’s concubine in the provinces,
absconds with his money and jewelry to return to a life of prostitu-
tion in Shanghai. The disharmony between patron and prostitute
has to do with the man’s resentment of the heartless woman and
with the woman’s scorn for the man who thinks he can control
her.
From the prospect of the late Qing looking forward, what do these
characters turn into in later times? What forms will sexual agency
and pleasure take? What are the steps that men and women will take
in Republican China to imagine and actually try to live out egalitar-
ian relationships? At this point, the received formulas are the polygy-
nous fantasy and the affair of the mutually suspicious patron and
prostitute. There is also the affair of the love martyrs, that is, the
lovers who must by definition always miss the perfect moment. They
are already “equal,” so to speak, though not yet in the sense defined
by the new egalitarianism. They cannot “yet” bring their love into
reality. The relationship between the savvy prostitute and the brothel
fool is also a kind of egalitarianism, but it is a scorned and degraded
form of equality. The prostitute cannot shed the aura of baseness,
however dominant and powerful she becomes as an icon of modernity
and transition. Her assertion of sexual freedom and ability to choose
her sexual and romantic partners is more the sign of the man’s defeat
than of the woman’s liberation. A popular late-Qing novel like Nine-
times Cuckold (Jiuwei gui, 1906-1910) counters the savvy prostitute by
inventing a modern Chinese man who sees through her wily ways
and re-asserts his ability to tame all promiscuous women. In his eyes,
the Chinese man proves his status as a modern international man
by his ability to tame the Shanghai prostitute. In short, the chief
questions to pose for the periods that follow are: In what forms will
the insistence on the primacy of polygynous pleasure persist after the
end of the Qing? With the erotic tradition known until then dis-
missed, and with the institution of polygamy and concubinage on its
way to being dismantled, what will become of the profound connec-
tion between polygamy, prostitution, and the structure of sexuality
in general? Or will that connection, as I suggest for future consider-
ation, be overlooked and underplayed, and with what cost?
gender and formation of the modern literary field 143
Tomi Suzuki
1
(Place of publication in the footnotes is Tokyo, unless otherwise noted.) The
broader notion of literature as the humanities was reflected in the academic divisions
introduced when Tokyo University was established in 1877 (divisions of law, science,
medicine, and humanities). The division of the humanities (bungakubu) consisted of
two departments: 1) the department of history, philosophy, and political science (shi-
gaku, tetsugaku, oyobi seijigaku), and 2) the department of wakan bungaku, or Japanese and
Chinese studies. The humanities were re-divided in 1881 into three departments: 1)
philosophy (tetsugaku), 2) political science and economics (seijigaku oyobi rizaigaku), and
3) Chinese and Japanese studies (wakan bungaku). In 1885, the department of political
science and economics was moved to the division of law and political science, and
the department of Chinese and Japanese studies was split into the department of
Japanese studies (wabun gakka) and the department of Chinese studies (kanbun gakka).
In 1886 Tokyo University became the Imperial University with five colleges: the
college of law, the college of medicine, the college of science, the college of engineer-
ing, and the college of humanities—the college of the humanities consisting of de-
partments of philosophy, Japanese studies (wabun gakka), Chinese studies (kanbun
gakka), and linguistics/philology (hakugen gakka). In 1887, departments of history, Eng-
lish literature, and German literature were newly created and added; in 1888, Japa-
nese history, which had been taught in the departments of Japanese and Chinese
studies, was offered as a course in the department of history, and in 1889 the depart-
ment of national history (kokushi gakka) was newly created. At the same time, the de-
partment of Japanese studies was renamed kokubun gakka, or the department of
144 tomi suzuki
notions of literature coexisted until the late 1900s, when, after the
end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the narrower notion of
literature as literary art rapidly assumed an autonomous cultural
status—with the novel as its central genre—differentiating itself from
the earlier, broader notion of literature as humanities. It was at this
time that the so-called Japanese Naturalist writers and critics gained
a hegemonic literary position, supported by the authority of the
newly standardized and institutionalized genbun-itchi (unification of
spoken and written languages) modern colloquial written language,
which constituted the ideological foundation for the modern national
language. It was also in the mid-1900s that fin-de-siècle European
early modernism—with its emphasis on anti-utilitarian aestheticism
and subversion of established textual and sexual norms—began to
inspire Japanese writers. Indeed, realism and modernism developed
almost simultaneously in Japan, and the discourse of modern Japa-
nese literature—which actively contributed to representations of new
gender and social relations—assimilated, from the beginning of the
twentieth century, the discourse of literary modernism, which in
Europe emerged as a counter-discourse to bourgeois industrial
modernity, often taking a “feminine” position in opposition to
bourgeois masculinity. As I will show, the formation of the modern
field of literature was deeply related to changing conceptions of
gender, which worked as a powerful organizing metaphor in
constructing the discourse on literature, literary language, and
national identity in modern Japan.
The intricate interrelationship between the discursive formation
of modern Japanese literature and the formation of new gender con-
ceptions had long-range implications for the formation of linguistic
and cultural identity. As a starting point, I will introduce a short
passage from Tanizaki Jun’ichirÙ (1886-1965)’s essay “On the Defects
2
Tanizaki Jun’ichirÙ, Tanizaki Jun’ichirÙ zenshå, vol. 20 (ChåÙ kÙronsha, 1982),
p. 210. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. A very similar passage ap-
pears in Tanizaki’s BunshÙ dokuhon, in Tanizaki Jun’ichirÙ zenshå, vol. 21, p. 237.
146 tomi suzuki
3
Mishima Yukio, Ketteiban Mishima Yukio zenshå, vol. 31 (ShinchÙsha, 2003),
pp. 19-20.
4
Mishima, Zenshå, vol. 31, p. 63.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 147
first encouraged women to write novels from the late 1880s but that
later rendered most of the emergent and expanding body of women
writers invisible in the late 1900s, when the modern field of litera-
ture, particularly novel writing, was established as a respectable cul-
tural field and when the prototypical narrative of modern Japanese
literary history as we now know it was constructed.
The Modern Novel and Women: The Essence of the Novel and
The Women’s Journal
5
While the reform of gender relations and the status of women were one of the
central concerns of the new nation builders from the early 1870s as seen in the de-
bates developed in the progressive journal Meiroku zasshi (1874-1875), renewed atten-
tion was given to the reform of the status of women from the mid-1880s, as
exemplified by Fukuzawa Yukichi’s series of sustained discussions on women and
male-female relations, such as “On Japanese Women” (Nihon fujin ron, 1885) and “On
Male-Female Relationships” (Danjo-kÙsai ron, 1886). The status of women was widely
regarded as a marker of the “level of civilization” (this is what Sharon Sievers calls
one of “the favored patriarchal myths of the nineteenth century West: that the status
of women was an important measure of any society’s progress towards civilization.”
Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan, Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1983).
148 tomi suzuki
6
Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ, ShÙsetsu shinzui, in Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ shå, Nihon kindai bungaku
taikei 3 (Kadokawa shoten, 1974), pp. 83-84.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 149
7
ShÙsetsu shinzui, pp. 69-70. ShÙyÙ’s central view of the “most advanced” form of
the novel is embodied in his key term, the “artistic novel,” which is defined as the
“realistic novel,” and which is contrasted with the “less advanced” kind of “didactic
novel,” to which, ShÙyÙ claims, most of the best Japanese fiction since that of Ta-
kizawa (Kyokutei) Bakin belongs.
8
ShÙsetsu shinzui, pp. 74, 87.
9
ShÙsetsu shinzui, pp. 86-88.
150 tomi suzuki
10
Based on the notion of belles-lettres in Shåji oyobi kabun (1879), Kikuchi Dai-
roku’s translation of “Rhetoric and Belles-Letters,” in William and Robert Cham-
bers, eds., Information for the People (Edinburgh: Chambers, 1848, 1849), ShÙyÙ
explains that “sublimity, beauty, pathos, and ludicrousness—these are essential ele-
ments of belles-letters (kabun), particularly indispensable for the language of the nov-
el” (ShÙsetsu shinzui, p. 102).
11
ShÙsetsu shinzui, the “Buntairon” [On styles] section, pp. 101-129.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 151
12
ShÙyÙ’s prescription for an updated combination style was to use more of the
colloquial style than found in Takizawa Bakin’s high-toned yomihon, which was being
commonly used in Meiji political fiction and translated fiction, and more kango than
found in the more colloquial kusazÙshi-style of late Edo low-brow vernacular ninjÙbon
and kokkeibon, which, ShÙyÙ explains, did not use much kango because they were
meant for “women and children.” It is curious, however, that ShÙyÙ equates gabun
with wabun when his notion of gazoku-setchå style in fact is continuous with Bakin’s
notion of gazoku-setchå (high-low mixed style)—which derived from the discourse of
Ming- and Qing-period vernacular fiction—in which gabun included both wabun-
based and kanbun-based high styles.
13
Jogaku zasshi was founded in July 1885 with KondÙ KenzÙ as a chief editor, but
with the sudden death of KondÙ in May 1886 Iwamoto Yoshiharu became the sole
editor until the magazine’s end in 1904. For earlier studies on Jogaku zasshi and early
Meiji women writers, see Wada ShigejirÙ, Meiji zenki joryå sakuhin ron (ˆfåsha, 1989);
Seki Reiko, Kataru onnatachi no jidai: IchiyÙ to Meiji josei hyÙgen (Shin’yÙsha, 1997); Hi-
rata Yumi, Josei hyÙgen no meijishi: IchiyÙ izen (Iwanami shoten, 1999); and Rebecca
Copeland’s pioneering English-language book, Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Ja-
pan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000). My discussion of Iwamoto’s views
of the novel and women pays new attention to his shifting views of the novel within
the 1880s-1900 discursive context.
152 tomi suzuki
14
Iwamoto Yoshiharu, “Onna wa hitotsu no gigei arubeki koto,” Jogaku zasshi,
Issue 12 (January 15, 1886). The reprints of the entire Jogaku zasshi issues were pub-
lished in 1966-1967 by Rinsen Shoten.
15
The essay was published in three installments in Issues 27 (June 25, 1886), 29
(July 15, 1886), and 32 (August 15, 1886).
16
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 32 (August 15, 1886): 23.
17
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 32 (August 15, 1886): 23.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 153
18
Jogaku zasshi, Issues 79 (October 8, 1887) and 80 (October 15, 1887). In this
essay, he cites a Western critic referred to as “Wilson” for saying “Shakespeare de-
picted mostly men’s feelings; it was none other than a woman novelist, George Eliot,
who successfully penetrated women’s bodies and expressed the complex innermost
feelings and thoughts of women, which tend to turn inward and are hard to see from
outside” (Issue 80, p. 182).
19
He notes the restricting newspaper regulations that currently prevented wom-
en from being the chief editors or publishers of newspapers and journals, but at this
point expresses a pragmatic hope for changing such regulations and laws step by
step. It is noteworthy that Iwamoto indeed appointed Shimizu Toyoko (Shikin) as a
chief editor of Jogaku zasshi in 1890, even when laws of gender inequality had been
decisively tightened by the newly established constitution, election law, and the laws
that prevented women from attending any political groups or gatherings.
20
Jogaku zasshi, Issues 82 (October 29, 1887), 83 (November 5, 1887), and 84
(November 12, 1887).
154 tomi suzuki
cannot help expressing his dissatisfaction with the fact that the char-
acters of such “genuine novels” as Manners and Lives of Contemporary
Students “only depict petty students who indulge in carnal pleasures.” 21
In an earlier essay written in 1885 called “The Position of Women”
(Fujin no chii, August-September 1885), Iwamoto pointed to three
stages of civilization: the first stage was the barbarous time of lust;
the second stage was the half-civilized time of foolish passion; the
third stage was the civilized time of love, of spiritual companionship
between man and woman.22 In principle, Iwamoto recognized the
value of the realistic novel, but he was increasingly ambivalent about
the actual examples of new fiction, which appeared to him to occupy
the second stage of foolish passion if not the first stage of barbarous
lust.
Iwamoto’s sense of dissatisfaction further intensified in 1889. In
an essay called “Ideals of Writing” (BunshÙjÙ no risÙ, March 1889) he
expresses his strong dissatisfaction with the “obscenity” and “frivo-
lous nature” of recent fiction such as Saganoya Omuro’s “Rotten
Eggs” (Kusare tamago, 1889), which depicts the slovenly sexual rela-
tionships between a female teacher at a Christian school and two
young men. The woman represents both sexual allure and fear of
the female teacher as a new literary figure and femme fatale. Iwa-
moto urges women to reject and protest against such immoral writ-
ings and urges them to make an effort to produce compassionate,
upright texts. Iwamoto states that “the true Beauty is a reflection of
moral ideals” and emphasizes the moral power and influence of
women.23 Iwamoto further develops this point in the next issue of
Jogaku zasshi in an essay called “The True Nature of Women Novel-
ists” (Joryå shÙsetsuka no honshoku, March 1889). Noting that the popu-
larity of the novel after such remarkable works as Yano Ryåkei’s
Commendable Anecdotes on Creating a Nation (Keikoku bidan, 1883-84) and
Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ’s Manner and Lives of Contemporary Students, has
recently produced many second-rate, frivolous novelists, Iwamoto
sees a similar tendency in the women’s novels that followed Nakajima
ShÙen (1863-1901)’s Crossroads of Good and Evil (Zen’aku no chimata,
21
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 84 (November 12, 1887): 61-62.
22
Jogaku zasshi, Issues 2 (August 10, 1885), 3 (August 25, 1885), 5 (September 25,
1885).
23
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 152 (March 9, 1889): 4-5.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 155
24
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 153 (March 16, 1889): 4-5.
25
Rebecca Copeland’s Lost Leaves points to Iwamoto’s gendered, double stan-
dards with regard to the novel and women, emphasizing the patriarchal regulation
and confinement of women’s writing. “This confining of the woman writer as an
author of gentle emotions, coupled with the injunction not to ‘lose sight of the ideal,’
meant that women could safely write only about a bland, unsatisfied kind of love, a
vague—thought certainly not sexual—kind of yearning” (Lost Leaves, pp. 42-43).
156 tomi suzuki
26
Jogaku zasshi, Issues 154 (March 23, 1889) and 177 (August 31, 1889).
27
For “Bungaku kyokusui ronsÙ,” see Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self: Fictions of
Japanese Modernity (Standford: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 25-26, 195. Jo-
gaku zasshi actually published multiple, different and sometimes dissonant, views on
the contemporary novels. In the fall of 1889, when the Saikaku revival had become
noticeable with the publication of KÙda Rohan’s novel Buddha of Art (Fåryåbutsu), a
short essay favorably introduced recent works by Saganoya Omuro, Yamada BimyÙ,
Ozaki KÙyÙ, and Rohan, and recommended women writers and those aspiring fu-
ture writers to study both Western literature and the Genroku literature (Issue 184,
October 26, 1889). In early 1890, another essay satirically commented on the cur-
rent literary fashion and pejoratively mentioned such trends as “Genbun-itchi sickness”
gender and formation of the modern literary field 157
and “Genroku sickness” as well as “Translation-style sickness” (Issue 204, March 15,
1890).
28
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 205 (March 22, 1890): 13-14.
29
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 206 (March 29, 1890): 14.
158 tomi suzuki
30
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 207 (April 5, 1890): 14-15.
31
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 241 (November 29, 1890): 8.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 159
32
For English translations of selected works by Kishida (Nakajima) Toshiko, Shi-
mizu Shikin, Miyake Kaho, and other Meiji women writers, see The Modern Murasaki:
Writing by Women of Meiji Japan, eds. Rebecca Copeland and Melek Ortabasi (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
33
The exchanges between Kimura and Koganei are reprinted in Yamamoto
Masahide, Kindai buntai keisei shiryÙ shåsei: hassei-hen (ˆfåsha, 1978), pp. 518-524.
160 tomi suzuki
create such distinctions since men and women are naturally different.
Toshiko, who published the first novel by a Meiji woman writer,
Crossroads of Good and Evil (1887),34 skillfully attempts, with a sense of
wit and irony, to refute and sooth those who are threatened by the
idea of the equality of the sexes and the visible rise of women’s
education. Toshiko argues that writing in deliberately difficult
Chinese characters will not make the writing manly and using gentle
diction will not make the writing feminine. Instead, writers need to
learn how to express and communicate their ideas freely in
writing.35
In fact, with the spread of education during the 1880s, kanbun and
kangaku (the study of Chinese writings) had become an important
pillar of primary and secondary education and also part of an edu-
cated woman’s curriculum. Kanbun was the basis of literacy and a
central part of language education (for both reading and writing)
until the mid-1890s, when the 1894 revised curriculum for the sec-
ondary school eliminated mandatory composition in kanbun for the
first time and emphasized the “harmony” of kokugo (defined in the
1886 curriculum as “writing mixed with Chinese characters” or Sino-
Japanese mixed style) and kanbun, with kokugo as primary and kanbun
as subsidiary.36 The impact of kanbun education is apparent not only
in Nakajima Toshiko’s (ShÙen) powerful kanbun-esque essays (Toshiko
in her teens tutored the Meiji empress on Mencius) but also in the
critical writings of a younger generation of women such as Shimizu
Toyoko (Shikin) and Kimura Akebono. Koganei Kimiko, noted for
her elegant mixed-style translations, translated fiction and poetry not
only from English but from classical and Ming-Qing Chinese litera-
ture; and many women writers, including Koganei Kimiko, Waka-
matsu Shizuko, and Higuchi IchiyÙ, favored Bakin’s heroic fiction,
which was written in high-toned Sino-Japanese mixed style, when
they were young.
34
Crossroads of Good and Evil was her adaptation of Bulwer-Lytton’s Eugene Aram.
She also wrote an autobiographical novel in the form of political fiction called Splen-
did Flowers in the Valley (Sankan no meika, 1889).
35
Nakajima Toshiko, “Jogakusei ni daisu,” Jogaku zasshi, Issue 216 (June 7, 1890).
Reprinted in Kishida [Nakajima] Toshiko hyÙronshå (Fuji shuppan, 1985), pp. 146-147.
36
See Tasaka Fumio, Meiji jidai no kokugoka kyÙiku (TÙyÙkan shuppansha, 1969)
and Inoue Toshio, Kokugo kyÙikushi shiryÙ 2: KyÙkasho-shi (TÙkyÙ hÙrei shuppan,
1981).
gender and formation of the modern literary field 161
From the late 1880s, however, there was also renewed interest in
wabun as part of the movement to reform writing in order to create
updated mixed styles, particularly for new poetry and prose. As we
have seen, ShÙyÙ promoted an updated, more colloquial mixed style
for the realistic and artistic novel, and the first modern histories of
Japanese national literature, Nihon bungakushi and Kokubungakushi,
published in 1890, designated phonetic wabun as the basis of the
national language, and emphasized, following the evolutionist literary
history of Hyppolyte Taine, the historical development and evolution
of the national language, which they saw as incorporating both kan-
bun and newly encountered Western-derived linguistic elements.37
Following Taine’s History of English Literature (1864, English transla-
tion, 1872), these histories of Japanese national literature also
described Japanese national literature and national character as
“elegant and graceful” (yåbi) (in contradistinction to “grand and
heroic” Chinese literature and “precise, detailed, and exhaustive”
Western literature), apparently due to their view of phonetic wabun
as the basis of the Japanese national language as well as to their
characterization of “pure literature” (junbungaku).38 This position was
shared by the influential shinkokubun (new national writing) movement
to promote the creation of an updated wabun-based mixed style as a
new literary language, a movement initiated by the kokubungaku
scholar and poet Ochiai Naobumi (1861-1903) in 1890 and soon
supported by Mori ˆgai (1862-1922) and others. After his return
37
In 1890, the first modern literary histories as well as the earliest modern an-
thologies of classical Japanese literature were published by the first university gradu-
ates in kokubungaku (studies of national literature): Ueda Kazutoshi’s (1867-1937)
Kokubungaku [National literature, 1890, an anthology of late Edo and early-Meiji
works with a short preface; Haga Yaichi (1867-1927) and Tachibana SenzaburÙ’s
(1867-1901) Kokubungaku tokuhon [Japanese literature reader, 1890], a short anthology
of Japanese literature from Kakinomoto no Hitomaro to Takizawa Bakin, with a
concise literary history from ancient times through the Meiji period; Nihon bungaku
zensho [Complete works of Japanese literature, 1890-1892], a twenty-four-volume
collection of classical and medieval literature compiled by Ochiai Naobumi (1861-
1903), Hagino Yoshiyuki (1860-1924), and Konakamura (Ikebe) Yoshikata (1864-
1923); and Mikami Sanji (1865-1939) and Takatsu KuwasaburÙ’s (1864-1921)
two-volume Nihon bungakushi [History of Japanese literature, 1890], the first full-
length literary history of Japan, with abundant excerpts from ancient to late-Edo
texts.
38
On the gender implications in the construction of Japanese national literature,
see Tomi Suzuki, “Gender and Genre: Modern Literary Histories and Women’s
Diary Literature,” in Inventing the Classics, pp. 75-80.
162 tomi suzuki
39
Mozume argued in 1900 that genbun-itchi in the strict sense is possible only in
conversational writing (kaiwabun) and that it is actually unsuited to expository writing
(kirokubun), the essence of which should be conciseness and precision. Yamamoto
Masahide, Kindai buntai hassei no shiteki kenkyå (Iwanami shoten, 1965), pp. 290-96.
40
The linguist Ueda Kazutoshi, chief architect of the national language policy,
returned from a four-year research stay (1890–1894) in Germany (where he had
witnessed the promotion of a standardized national language by the Deutscher
Sprachverein) and gave a lecture, “Kokugo to kokka to” [National language and our
nation, 1894], in which he referred to the “national language” (kokugo) as the “spiri-
tual blood binding the nation’s people together.” In “HyÙjungo ni tsukite” [On a
Standard language, 1895], Ueda argued that the establishment of a “standard spo-
ken language” (hyÙjungo)—in contradistinction to regional dialects—was the foremost
gender and formation of the modern literary field 163
was not between the genbun-itchi style and the traditional, classical or
kanbun styles. Instead, they worked in new amalgamated styles that
were highly variegated, and which included kango, new translation
styles, and various colloquial styles.
While Iwamoto became disillusioned by the new realistic novels,
his belief in women as having the potential to be more genuine artists
increased after 1890. In an essay entitled “Great Women Poets”
(Keishå daishijin, March 1890), Iwamoto stated that at the time of
literature’s greatest decline, the only hope is the appearance of great
women poets. In his view women, who know by intuition rather than
by cognition, and who synthesize rather than analyze, are born
poets.42 In an essay entitled “Talented Women in the Literary World”
(Bunkai no keishå, September 1896), published a year after the end of
the Sino-Japanese War, Iwamoto expressed his concerns for people
marginalized by rapid industrialization. As demonstrated by Mrs.
Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it is women who can reveal
and address social injustice, particularly with regard to the suffering
of women.43 In 1899, Iwamoto praised the late Higuchi IchiyÙ (who
died in 1896) as the woman writer who had reached the highest level
of literature, stating that she was even greater than KÙda Rohan
(1867-1947) and Ozaki KÙyÙ (1868-1903), whom he considered the
two most prominent contemporary male novelists, a widely held view
at the time. Iwamoto celebrates the truthfulness and sincerity of
IchiyÙ’s writings and in particular her depiction of the real emotions
of various types of women, all of which he attributes to IchiyÙ’s
unique talent as well as to her being a woman writer.44
In 1895, following the Sino-Japanese War, new influential journals
emerged, such as Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature, 1895-1920) and
TaiyÙ (The Sun, 1895-1928). In December 1895 a new literary journal,
Bungei kurabu (Literary Club, established by the large and influential
publishing company Hakubunkan, which also started the influential
general-interest journal TaiyÙ in the same year), published a special
issue called “Novels by Talented Women Writers” (Keishå shÙsetsu),
with works by eleven contemporary women novelists and several
waka poems in the “new style waka” (shintai-ka). The issue was a great
42
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 203 (March 8, 1890): 3-7.
43
Jogaku zasshi, Issue 426 (September 25, 1896):1-2.
44
“IchiyÙ joshi o tsuikaisu,” Jogaku zasshi, Issue 496 (September 25, 1899): 1-4,
gender and formation of the modern literary field 165
45
“ShÙsetsuka to shite no josei,” Teikoku bungaku, vol. 2, no. 2 (1896): 213-214.
46
Bungakukai started initially as a literary division of Jogaku zasshi and also incor-
porated Jogakusei (the chief editor of which was Hoshino Tenchi). For the relationship
among the three magazines, see Michael Brownstein, “Jogaku Zasshi and the Found-
ing of Bungakukai,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 35, no. 3 (1980): 319-336.
166 tomi suzuki
the early 1900s that TÙson and others shifted their primary genre
to the novel as the best and ultimate literary form).
Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, however,
the novel rapidly acquired a more respectable cultural position. It
was at this time that the so-called Japanese Naturalist writers and
critics assumed a hegemonic position through newly established
literary journals such as ShinchÙ (established in 1904), Waseda Bungaku
(Second Series started in 1906 with Shimamura HÙgetsu as its cen-
tral figure),47 and BunshÙ sekai (established in 1906 with Tayama Katai
as its chief editor). These journals widely enforced the value and
authority of the newly institutionalized genbun-itchi language. Follow-
ing the death of Ozaki KÙyÙ (1868-1903), the leader of the Kenyåsha
(The Society of Friends of the Inkstone) and the most popular and
influential fiction writer in the 1890s and early 1900s, Tayama Katai
(1871-1930) published “Rokotsunaru byÙsha” (Unadorned descrip-
tion) in the influential general-interest magazine TaiyÙ, in which he
named KÙyÙ, Rohan, ShÙyÙ, and ˆgai as “past great giants” and
attacked the “contemporary advocates of artificial literary technique”
(ima no gikÙronsha) as “slaves of literary style.” Katai criticized earlier
Meiji literature as “powdered, ornate writings” or “gilt-plated litera-
ture” (mekki bungaku) and proudly placed the new inclination toward
“unadorned, bold description” in contemporary Japanese writing
alongside the new trend in Western literature (as exemplified by
“fin-de-siècle revolutionaries” such as Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy,
Emile Zola, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Gerhart
Hauptmann, and Hermann Sudermann). According to Katai, these
Western writers “destroyed the gilded literature” of not only classi-
cism but also of Romanticism by being “outspoken,” “truthful,” and
“natural.”48
From 1906 to 1907, critics and novelists such as Shimamura
HÙgetsu (1871-1918), Tayama Katai, Shimazaki TÙson, Iwano
HÙmei (1873-1920), SÙma Gyofå (1883-1950), Hasegawa Tenkei
(1876-1940), Katagami Tengen (1884-1928), and Masamune
HakuchÙ (1879-1962) emphasized their “sincerity” as well as their
47
The first Waseda Bungaku, which was established by Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ in 1891,
ended in 1898, and the Second Series Waseda Bungaku began in 1906 (continued
until 1927) with Shimamura HÙgetsu as its central figure.
48
Tayama Katai, “Rokotsunaru byÙsha,” in Kindai hyÙron shå I, Nihon kindai
bungaku taikei, vol. 57 (Kadokawa shoten, 1972), pp. 198-203.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 167
49
Hasegawa Tenkei, “Genmetsu jidai no geijutsu” [Art in the age of disillusion-
ment], TaiyÙ (October 1906), Katagami Tengen, “Heibon shåakunaru jujitsu no
kachi” [The value of ordinary and ugly facts], Shinsei (April 1907), Shimamura
HÙgetsu, “Ima no bundan to shin-shizenshugi” [Today’s literary world and Neo-
Naturalism], Waseda bungaku (June 1907), “Futon gappyÙ” [Joint review of Katai’s
Futon], Waseda bungaku (October 1907), SÙma Gyofå, “BungeijÙ shukaku ryÙtai no
yåkai” [The fusion of subject and object in literature], Waseda bungaku (October
1907), Shimamura HÙgetsu, “BungeijÙ no shizenshugi” [Naturalism in literature],
Waseda bungaku (January 1908), Shimamura HÙgetsu, “Shizenshugi no kachi” [The
value of naturalism], Waseda bungaku (May 1908). All in Kindai bungaku hyÙron taikei,
vol. 3 (Kadokawa shoten, 1972).
168 tomi suzuki
50
Shimamura HÙgetsu, “BungeijÙ no shizenshugi,” in Kindai bungaku hyÙron taikei,
vol. 3, pp. 101-102, 111-117.
51
See Tayama Katai’s series of questionnaires and reports regarding the written
styles in BunshÙ sekai, such as “ShÙrai no joshi no bunshÙ ni tsukite,” BunshÙ sekai,
vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1906); “Genbun-itchi ni tsukite,” BunshÙ sekai, vol. 1, no. 3 (May
1906); “Genbun-itchi igai no bunshÙ o manabu yÙ ari ya,” BunshÙ sekai, vol. 3, no. 15
(November 1908).
gender and formation of the modern literary field 169
31), and Kitamura TÙkoku (died in 1894 at the age of 26), were
lionized and made into “past giants,” who paved the way to the
autonomous field of modern literature, and whose mantle was now
transferred to the Japanese Naturalists. The only woman writer
included among the “past giants” of modern Japanese literature was
Higuchi IchiyÙ, who was transfigured into the token embodiment of
an “old” (furui) Japanese women’s literary tradition dating from the
time of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei ShÙnagon.52
It is noteworthy that Yosano Akiko’s (1878-1941) Shin’yaku Genji
monogatari (New Translation of The Tale of Genji, 1912-1913), the first
complete modern colloquial translation of The Tale of Genji, appeared
in this literary and cultural context.53 Akiko had established herself
as a celebrated tanka poet and the “queen” of the MyÙjÙ group, and
her tanka collection Midaregami (Tangled Hair, 1901) had had a decisive
impact on the aesthetic direction and popularity of the literary maga-
zine MyÙjÙ (1900–1908). But in the late 1900s, both the tanka genre
and the gabun-based mixed style were placed in a secondary position
by the rise of the colloquial-style novel, which had become the cen-
tral literary genre of the new age. Beginning in 1906, Akiko, like
many of her MyÙjÙ male colleagues, started to write essays and short
stories in the new colloquial style, but it was her modern translation
of The Tale of Genji that allowed her to fully explore the new fictional
form and language with confidence and authority. In the postface
to her translation, she notes that she attempted to “best transpose
the spirit of the original into the contemporary language through a
free translation.” With the newly constructed division between the
“modern” and “classical” languages, Akiko took on a privileged liter-
52
For the changing receptions of Higuchi IchiyÙ, see Seki Reiko, Ane no chikara:
Higuchi IchiyÙ (Chikuma shobÙ, 1993), pp. 209-10, 245-248; IchiyÙ igo no josei hyÙgen
(Kanrin shobÙ, 2003), pp. 8-12, 48. For the media construction of the images of liter-
ary authors, see Nakayama Akihiko, “Shi no rekishi-monogatari,” Bungaku, vol. 5,
no. 3 (Summer 1994): 16-29.
53
Murasaki Shikibu, Shin’yaku Genji monogatari, trans. Yosano Akiko (Kanao
Bun’endÙ, 1912-1913). For Akiko and the Genji in the larger Meiji literary context,
see G.G. Rowley, Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan, 2000), and Seki, IchiyÙ igo no josei hyÙgen. See also
Shinma Shin’ichi, “Yosano Akiko to Genji monogatari,” in Kodai bungaku ronsÙ, vol. 6,
Genji monogatari to sono eikyÙ (Musashino shoin, 1978). After completing the colloquial
translation and rewriting of the Genji, Akiko serialized her only long, autobiographi-
cal novel, entitled Akarumi e [To light], in The Tokyo Asahi Newspaper from June to
September of 1913.
170 tomi suzuki
54
See, for e.g., Takada Mizuho, “Kindai bungaku to joryå,” in Nihon joryå bun-
gakushi, ed. Yoshida Seiichi (Yåbun shoin, 1969).
55
This is clearly represented in the revised and expanded edition of Meiji bun-
gakushi (1909) by Iwaki JuntarÙ, who extensively changed his literary historical nar-
rative from the first edition published in 1906. This first book-length full literary
history of Meiji literature was published as part of Meiji rekishi zenshå, compiled by the
authoritative professors of Tokyo Imperial University: Inoue TetsujirÙ, Tsuboi Ku-
mazÙ, and Haga Yaichi. Iwaki’s Meiji bungakushi (the revised edition), which was a
long seller (reprinted in 1927 and again in 1948), basically adopts the same literary
historical narrative as that outlined by Naturalist critics such as Shimamura HÙget-
su.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 171
56
See, for example, Uchida Roan’s retrospect “The Advancement of the Social
Status of Literary Writers in the Past Twenty-five Years” (Nijågonenkan no bunjin no
shakaiteki chii no shinpo), published in the magazine TaiyÙ in June, 1912.
57
For the formation of the modern male homosocial literary field in Japan, see
Iida Yåko, Karera no monogatari (Nagoya daigaku shuppan, 1998). In 1898, after a
decade of debate in which a “liberal” civil code had been rejected because of the
threat it seemed to pose to “traditional Japanese concepts of loyalty and filial piety,”
a new code was announced, one that strengthened the concept of the ie (house/fam-
ily) and tied it to a patriarchal emperor-system. Resurrecting the ie, the Meiji civil
code made the authority of the patriarch absolute. The stipulation that all property
would be inherited by the oldest son not only did away with the diversity of custom
practiced since Tokugawa; it made it virtually impossible for women to be thought
of as anything but commodities in a continuing patriarchal, patrilineal market. In
1899, the government issued an “Ordinance on the Women’s Higher-School” (KÙtÙ
jogakkÙ rei), which emphasized that the goal of women’s education was to create
“good wives, wise mothers” (Sharon Sievers, Flowers in Salt, pp. 110-113). Women,
integrally linked to the family and then to the nation, comprised a group. In 1898
only 1-2% of girls went beyond elementary school; readers of women’s magazines
were mainly upper-class schoolgirls, though later in the 1920s the shift is to the low-
er- and middle-class, and older women. “The foundation for the extraordinary
growth of women’s magazines in the early twentieth century was nothing less than
the expanded education given to upper-class women in the Meiji period” (Barbara
Sato, The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, Duke
University Press, 2003, pp. 80-81). For translations of some male critics’ views of
“women’s writings” (from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twen-
tieth century), see Woman Critiqued: Translated Essays on Japanese Women’s Writing, ed.
Rebecca Copeland (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006).
58
See Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self.
172 tomi suzuki
Western novel, it was claimed that the modern Japanese novel (and
the Japanese self in Japanese society) is best represented by the
“I-novel,” the quintessential national form rooted in a long indigenous
tradition that presented the author’s lived, personal experiences most
directly. The notion of the “I-novel” was always a value-laden
concept and the binary contrast with the “Western novel” was used
either to celebrate a unique Japanese tradition (in the mid-1920 and
in the 1960s) or to condemn Japan’s “immature” or “deformed”
modernity (claimed in the postwar period, particularly in the 1950s).
In the former case, the category “I-novel” usually excluded women
writers. From the 1910s and 1920s, a number of emerging women
writers wrote autobiographical, confessional novels, but their works
were not referred to as “I-novels” in a positive sense but categorized
as “women’s literature” (joryå bungaku), a journalistic category that
was established in the 1920s with the vast expansion of women as
readers and writers. The term “women’s literature” was used to refer,
often disparagingly, to the “popular or mass literature” written by
women for women readers.59 Takami Jun (1907-1965), considered
to be one of the foremost writers of “pure literature,” mentioned in
the 1960s that “women can never write a true I-novel.”60 On the
other hand, when the notion of the “I-novel” was used negatively,
as an emblem of Japan’s “immature” or “false” modernity, it was
often associated with the “feminine” Japanese literary tradition that
originated in Heian women’s writings—in the KagerÙ Diary in par-
ticular.61
The persistent ways by which both the notions of Japanese Natu-
ralism in the late 1900s and the I-novel in the mid-1920s and in the
1960s excluded women writers, however, paradoxically reveal the
undeniable presence of women as readers and writers in these
periods. A number of new literary journals were established from
the late 1900s to the early 1910s: Subaru (January 1909-December
1913), Mita bungaku (May 1910-), and Shirakaba (April 1910-August
59
For the emergence of the concept of “women’s literature” in the 1920s, see
Joan Ericson, “The Origins of the Concept of ‘Women’s Literature,’” in The Woman’s
Hand, eds. Paul Gordon Schalow and Janet A. Walker (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 1996), pp. 74-115.
60
“ShishÙsetsu no honshitsu to mondaiten,” Kokubungaku kaishaku to kanshÙ, De-
cember 1962.
61
See Tomi Suzuki, “Gender and Genre,” pp. 87-91.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 173
62
Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1995), p. 106. See also Andreas Huyssen, “Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’s
Other,” in After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 45–62.
63
For related issues on Tanizaki and modernism, see Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the
Self, chapter 7 and Epilogue, and “Modernism and Gender: Tanizaki’s Theories of
Japanese Language,” Asiatica Venetiana 5 (2000): 157–175.
gender and formation of the modern literary field 177
Tze-lan D. Sang
2
Paradoxically enough, however, this particular story about Ai Xia also points
up the discrepancy between image and reality—the popular conception of the Mod-
ern Girl did not always jibe with the qualities of actual Modern Girls. Ai Xia’s liter-
ary endeavors highlighted the fact that in addition to certain conspicuous traits that
the Modern Girls may have shared in common, there were also qualities that one
would not normally associate with the Modern Girls that were nonetheless present
in some real-life Modern Girls. Nevertheless, the public, titillated by audacious sexu-
ality and flagrant materialism, was quick to seize on such traits as the Modern Girl’s
defining features and was unprepared to admit the likelihood of diversity among the
Modern Girls. The Modern Girl, in other words, may have been a much maligned
figure, her multifaceted identity frequently reduced to a one-dimensional stereotype
in the public imagination.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 181
Miriam Silverberg in her pioneering work on the Japanese Modern Girl has ar-
gued that the mogas were none other than professional, working women, who were
misrepresented by the mass media in a superficial and decadent light to mitigate the
ideological threat that they posed to the social order; see Silverberg, “The Modern
Girl as Militant,” in Gail Lee Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 239-266. With reference to
1930s China, although I doubt that the Modern Girls and the professional women
were two completely overlapping categories, I would nonetheless note significant
cases where certain professional women were covered by the media as decadent
Modern Girls mainly because of their unconventional sexuality, while the other side
of their identities as accomplished professional women was marginalized in the me-
dia uproar. The media’s fixation on the movie actresses Ai Xia’s and Ruan Lingyu’s
sexual relationships before and after their suicides in 1934 and 1935 are cases in
point. For related discussion, see Chou, Biaoyan Zhongguo, pp. 71-85, 102-112; Kris-
tine Harris, “The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal and Spectacle in 1935
Shanghai,” in Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Na-
tionhood, Gender (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), pp. 277-302.
3
Xu Xiacun, “Modern Girl,” in Yan Jiayan ed., Xin ganjuepai xiaoshuo xuan [A
selection of New Sensationalist fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985),
pp. 30-35. Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in
China, 1930-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 198.
4
The Chinese translations for “Modern Girl” were based on the transliteration
of “modern” as “modeng.”
182 tze-lan d. sang
5
Barbara Sato, The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar
Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 57-59.
6
Earlier and concurrent Chinese terms for designating a new type of woman
include “new-style woman” (xinshi funü), “new woman” (xin nüzi, xin funü, xin nüxing),
and “modern woman” (jindai nüzi, jindai nüxing, xiandai nüxing, shidai nuzi, shidai guni-
ang).
7
Precisely what constituted “the public” in the late Qing is a thorny issue. Here
I primarily mean the reading public constituted by literate people who read locally
and nationally circulated newspapers, novels, textbooks, and so forth. On the making
of the new woman in China in the two decades leading up to May Fourth (and be-
fore the term xin nüxing, or “New Woman,” achieved currency), especially on the
domestication of the images of Western women in the process, see Hu Ying, Tales of
Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918 (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 2000). See also Joan Judge, “Blended Wish Images: Chinese and Western
Exemplary Women at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Nan Nü 6, no. 1 (2004):
102-135; and “Meng Mu Meets the Modern: Female Exemplars in Late-Qing Text-
books for Girls and Women,” Jindai Zhongguo funü shi yanjiu (2000): 133-177.
8
The May Fourth New Woman demanded education and the freedom of love,
aspired to enter the professions, and participated in patriotic movements. See Amy
Dooling, Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-Century China (New York: Palgrave,
2005); Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 183
9
Louise Edwards, “Policing the Modern Woman in Republican China,” Modern
China 26, no. 2 (2000): 123. I take Edwards’s point to be that the use of the modern
woman became pervasive in Chinese advertising in the 1920s and 1930s, not that it
originated in this period. Examining advertising calendar posters, Ellen Johnston
Laing has dated the first uses of the modern woman in Chinese advertising to 1914;
see Laing, Selling Happiness: Calendar Posters and Visual Culture in Early-Twentieth-Century
Shanghai (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), pp. 102-104.
10
On the use of the modern woman in Chinese advertising, see Laing, Selling
Happiness; Carlton Benson, “Consumers Are Also Soldiers: Subversive Songs from
Nanjing Road during the New Life Movement,” in Sherman Cochran, Inventing Nan-
jing Road: Commercial Culture in Shanghai, 1900-1945 (Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cor-
nell University, 1999), pp. 91-132; Sherman Cochran, “Transnational Origins of
Advertising in Early Twentieth-Century China,” in Cochran, ed., Inventing Nanjing
Road, pp. 41-44; Leo Lee, Shanghai Modern, pp. 77-80; Tani E. Barlow, “Buying In:
Advertising and the Sexy Modern Girl Icon in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s,” in
Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M.
Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G. Poiger, Madeleine Yue Dong, Tani E. Barlow),
ed., The Modern Girl Around the World (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming).
11
I borrow the phrase “commodification of the everyday” from Barbara Sato’s
work on the women and consumerism (The New Japanese Woman, pp. 13-18). Taking
Shanghai as his focus, Leo Lee also emphasizes the significance of the everyday in
his understanding of urban modernity (Shanghai Modern, p. 74).
12
Catherine Yeh has recently made a strong case that the high-class courtesans
in the Foreign Settlements in Shanghai, China’s first metropolis with a modern in-
frastructure, in the latter half of the nineteenth century managed to turn themselves
(with the help of a flourishing entertainment press) into highly-prized emblems of
modernity, through their trendsetting, extravagant fashion, conspicuous consump-
tion of foreign goods, public social interactions, and identities as the city’s first work-
ing women; the public attention showered on them in the entertainment press
overshadowed even reformist intellectuals’ modernizing agendas; see Catherine
Vance Yeh, Shanghai Love: Courtesans, Intellectuals, and Entertainment Culture, 1850-1910
184 tze-lan d. sang
(Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2006). Although her findings
tantalizingly point us in the direction of considering the late-Qing Shanghai courte-
san as a precursor of the Modern Girl, Yeh also makes it amply clear that precisely
because courtesans were not expected to be just like any other women, they were
given exceptional license as interpreters of the new. In other words, the threat that
their novel and outrageous public manners may have posed to the existing gender
structure was psychologically lessened to a tolerable degree for the public (Yeh,
Shanghai Love, pp. 32-33). In this respect, I find the situation with the 1930s Modern
Girl quite different, in that a significant number of social commentators and govern-
ment officials expressed, with a rare keenness, their wish to restrain or police the
Modern Girl’s conduct, suggesting that they feared the Modern Girl’s persona was
contagious, her influence among the general population too far-reaching if un-
checked.
13
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and bombed Shanghai in January 1932.
On the development of modern material culture as well as literary culture in Shang-
hai, see Lee, Shanghai Modern. On vernacular modernity, using film culture as a pri-
mary example, see Zhang Zhen, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema,
1896-1937 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005). On the mod-
ernizing of commercial practices, see Cochran, ed., Inventing Nanjing Road.
14
Looking at literature, especially the modernist fiction by Shanghai’s New Sen-
sationalist writers of the 1930s, Leo Lee and Shu-mei Shih have identified the Mod-
ern Girl as a femme fatale figure that symbolized both the enticements and the perils
of the modern metropolis; see Lee, Shanghai Modern; Shih, The Lure of the Modern: Writ-
ing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917-1838 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2001). In visual culture, Madeleine Yue Dong finds that the Modern Girl was
caricatured as an object of both desire and fear in cartoons created by modernist
artists such as Ye Qianyu and Guo Jianying in magazines including Shanghai Sketch,
Times Cartoon, The Young Companion, and Women’s Pictorial, depicted as having the pow-
er to either “emasculate or confirm modern masculinity”; Dong, “Who is Afraid of
the Chinese Modern Girl?” in Modern Girl Around the World Research Group, ed.,
The Modern Girl Around the World (forthcoming). On the Modern Girl in Chinese non-
leftist as well as leftist cinema, see Zhang, An Amorous History, pp. 254-267.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 185
15
See Barlow, Laing, and Lee.
16
Film scholars, most importantly Yingjin Zhang, examining films and film crit-
icism, have found that the Modern Girl, like the New Woman, was subjected to
discursive policing by leftist male cultural producers, whose paternalistic desire to
shape the modern woman to fit the mold of the ideal revolutionary subject ironically
showed a pattern of co-optation not far removed from the coercions of traditional
patriarchy; see Yingjin Zhang, “Engendering Chinese Filmic Discourse of the 1930s:
Configurations of Modern Women in Shanghai in Three Silent Films,” positions 2,
no. 3 (Winter 1994): 603-628.
17
Yen Hsiao-pei, “Body Politics, Modernity and National Salvation: The Mod-
ern Girl and the New Life Movement,” Asian Studies Review 29, no. 2 (June 2005):
165-186, especially p. 165. Yen argues that it was not until the New Life movement
in early 1934 that the Modern Girl identity became consolidated. An extreme ex-
ample of the backlash against the Modern Girls was the public vandalism performed
by the “Smashing Modernity Gang” (Yen, p. 173).
18
For example, the Modern Girl Around the World Research Group claims, “In
contrast to the ‘New Woman’ who, in many contexts was her predecessor or con-
temporary, the Modern Girl was less often identified with directly advocating social
and political reform than with ostentatiously refashioning her appearance and refin-
ing her body;” see Modern Girl Around the World Research Group: Tani E. Bar-
low, Madeleine Yue Dong, Uta G. Poiger, Priti Ramamurthy, Lynn M. Thomas and
Alys Eve Weinbaum, “The Modern Girl around the World: A Research Agenda and
Preliminary Finings,” Gender and History 17, no. 2 (August 2005): 249. However, this
186 tze-lan d. sang
seems to me a pre-drawn conclusion given the commercial nature of the sources that
the group focuses on in the article, which are overwhelmingly advertisements for
consumer products (especially cosmetics and toiletries). For an attempt to schemati-
cally draw a clear distinction between the New Woman and the Modern Girl in the
Chinese context as symbolizing two conflicting sides of modernity, with the former
connoting nationalism and revolutionary spirit and the latter sexuality, cosmopoli-
tanism and decadence, see Sarah E. Stevens, “Figuring Modernity: The New Wom-
an and the Modern Girl in Republican China,” NWSA Journal 15.3 (2003): 82-103.
Although I think Stevens is perceptive when she states that the terms “New Woman”
and “Modern Girl” connoted different “archetypes,” I am rather of the opinion that
there was no absolute separation between the two categories and that they bled into
each other quite a bit. The term “New Woman,” in its broadest sense as the new-
style woman or modern woman, encompassed the “Modern Girl” as a subcategory.
Moreover, the New Woman, who in the May Fourth era represented individualism
and iconoclastic defiance against an oppressive tradition, was by the late 1920s and
early 1930s often perceived as romantic, impulsive, sensual and self-occupied—in
other words, fallen far short of the requirement for a truly revolutionary subject. In
this perception she was little different from the much criticized Modern Girl; see the
depiction of the New Woman writer Wei Ming in the film New Woman (directed by
Cai Chu-sheng, 1935); see also Rachel Hui-chi Hsu (Xu Huiqi), “Nala” zai Zhongguo:
Xin nüxing xingxiang de suzao ji qi yanbian (1900s-1930s) [“Nora” in China: The con-
struction of the new woman image and its evolution, 1900s-1930s] (Taipei: Guoli
Zhengzhi daxue lishixuexi, 2003), pp. 262-272. It should also be noted that the term
“Modern Girl,” though most frequently associated with urban consumption and the
leisure class, was also occasionally used to refer to educated women with career am-
bitions and social awareness. For instance, some 1930s critics commented on Ding
Ling as a writer who was herself immersed in the life of a Modern Girl and had a
deep understanding of the emotional, spiritual and economic turmoil experienced by
some Modern Girls in China’s capitalistic cities; see Fang Ying, “Ding Ling lun,” in
Yuan Liangjun ed., Ding Ling yanjiu ziliao [Research material on Ding Ling] (Tianjin:
Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1982), pp. 237-245. See also the 1930s media discussion
on restoring a positive valence or correct meaning to the term modeng (modern) men-
tioned in Hsu, Nala zai Zhongguo, pp. 275-276.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 187
19
Modern Girl Around the World Research Group, “The Modern Girl Around
the World: A Research Agenda and Preliminary Findings,” 245, 246.
20
Barlow, “Buying In.”
21
In addition to taking seriously the role of male intellectuals (as well as artists,
advertisers, etc.) in the creation and monitoring of the modern woman’s image, as
Louise Edwards and others have done, I believe the role of modern women them-
selves in fashioning their own public image deserves to be reckoned with. For worth-
while attempts in this direction, see Wang, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment; Dooling,
Women’s Literary Feminism; Chou, Biaoyan Zhongguo; Lingzhen Wang, Personal Matters:
Women’s Autobiographical Practice in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 2004); Yen, “Body Politics.”
188 tze-lan d. sang
from the vantage point of the ordinary ranks of urban society instead
of the vantage point of the economic, cultural and political elites (i.e.,
the leisure class, the new professional middle class, political leaders,
modernist writers and artists, leftist intellectuals, etc.)? To begin to
crack these problems, I find looking at popular fiction, that is, com-
mercial, entertainment fiction written in a trite semi-traditional for-
mat, whose first publication is often through serialization in
newspapers and magazines, instructive. If, as Barlow claims, the sexy
Shanghai Modern Girl icon placed in scenes of daily tasks in corpo-
rate advertising “signified everyday life in the most advanced sector,”
and that this icon, through its inviting eroticism, drew the viewer in
to fantasize the pleasure of using expensive industrial commodities,
thus effecting his or her imaginary identification (not to mention
ideological interpellation) as a modern bourgeois subject, then how
do we account for the fact that Chinese popular fiction of the same
era was not satisfied with constructing simple eroticized and pleasur-
able scenes involving the Modern Girl, choosing to compound them,
instead, with stories about the elusiveness of the Modern Girl ideal
and the difficulty of becoming the Modern Girl? Indeed, how do we
explain the curious occurrence of stories about wannabe Modern
Girls and their failure in popular fiction? Does the contrast between
advertising and commercial fiction merely reflect the difference in
complexity between simple line drawings and long, heteroglossic
novels? Or is commercial fiction giving us a rare non-elite view of
the Modern Girl, a view from the vantage point of the lower-middle
rungs of urban society, outside the leisure class and the new profes-
sional middle class? Is it possible that commercial entertainment fic-
tion, unlike advertising, did not automatically endorse urban
consumer culture after all but rather harbored a stern criticism of
China’s developing capitalist economy and social order in the inter-
war years?
22
For readings of these films, see Zhang, “Engendering Chinese Filmic Dis-
course;” Zhang, An Amorous History, pp. 262-267. Three Modern Women is scripted by
Tian Han, in whose plays the Modern Girl appears frequently as the vamp opposite
innocent, unspoiled “folk women”; see Liang Luo, The Theatrics of Revolution: Tian Han
(1898-1968) and the Cultural Politics of Performance in Modern China (unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Harvard University, 2006), pp. 178-202.
23
The main protagonist Wei Ming’s extravagance and pleasure-seeking qualities
are as central to the film as her status as an educated woman. She is no stranger to
dancing in dance halls as a form of entertainment; at one point she invites her love
interest to go dancing with her, an invitation he rejects as hedonistic. She uses cos-
metics. She also owns more fancy clothes than she can wear, which late in the film
she tries to pawn to come up with the money to cure her sick daughter. When Dr.
Wang, an unwelcome suitor, presents her with a large diamond ring to propose mar-
riage, she is momentarily enticed by the ring before rejecting it on the grounds that
she prefers freedom to the bondage of marriage.
190 tze-lan d. sang
24
See Wendy Larson, Women and Writing in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1998); Jin Feng, The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction
(West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2004); Dooling, Women’s Literary Feminism,
especially chapters 2-3. On educated, middle-class women’s suicides outside litera-
ture, especially the press’s presentation of them, see Bryna Goodman, “The New
Woman Commits Suicide: The Press, Cultural Memory, and the New Republic,”
Journal of Asian Studies 64, no. 1 (February 2005): 67-101, and “Appealing to the Pub-
lic: Newspaper Presentation and Adjudication of Emotion,” Twentieth-Century China
31, no. 2 (April 2006): 32-69.
25
Amy Dooling perceptively points out that the male leftist writer Mao Dun ap-
propriated the New Woman as a literary subject from the pioneering fiction by
women writers Lu Yin and Bing Xin (Women’s Literary Feminism, pp. 72-73).
26
On popular fiction writers’ common use of opposite types of women to repre-
sent the dilemma between tradition and modernity, see E. Perry Link, Jr., Mandarin
Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981), 37, 208.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 191
tity, in short, tells a side of the Modern Girl story rarely told by elite
sources.
Popular novels that contain this plot—the lower-class urban girl’s
struggle to gain a modern identity—are many. Pioneering in this
regard are the social romantic novels by Zhang Henshui (1895-1967),
one of the most prolific and popular Chinese writers of the twentieth
century. Between the late 1920s and the outbreak of China’s War
of Resistance against Japan in 1937, Zhang wrote, among other
things, about a dozen novels with strong romantic themes set in
complex social tableaux. In some of these novels, an enormous
amount of political and social news, including urban myths and leg-
ends, is loosely interwoven with the protagonist’s love relationships,
the social and romantic narrative strands remaining clearly distin-
guishable from each other. Others are more tightly constructed
around the protagonist’s romantic relationships, which, however, are
shown to be embedded in and constrained by the larger social envi-
ronment.27 This second class of novels, which are tightly constructed
around a small number of characters, draw especially memorable
portraits of poor urban young women who aspire to participate in
the modern way of life symbolized by the Modern Girl.
The city that takes center stage in the majority of these novels is
Beijing (its name was officially changed by the Nationalist govern-
ment to Beiping in 1928), which comes alive in Zhang’s depictions
as a city rife with violent new class formations. Since the collapse of
the Qing Empire in 1911, the fortunes of the former Manchu aris-
tocracy have rapidly declined, whereas tens of thousands of lower-
class Manchu families, who previously relied on the Manchu
government’s stipends, are now stipendless, without proper profes-
27
Here I agree with the critic Zhao Xiaoxuan’s observation that Zhang’s social
romantic novels largely fall into two categories. The first she calls chuancha daliang
shehui yiwen de yanqing xiaoshuo, or novels that interweave lots of social news with love
stories. The second she calls yi shehui wei changjing de yanqing xiaoshuo, or romantic nov-
els with social backdrops. Zhao further notes that, besides social romantic novels,
novels in other genres by Zhang such as martial arts novels and war novels usually
also contain significant romantic plots. Zhang apparently understood love to be one
of a few narrative elements of universal appeal to readers; see Zhao Xiaoxuan, Zhang
Henshui xiaoshuo xinlun [A study on Zhang Henshui’s novels] (Taipei: Taiwan xuesh-
eng shuju, 2002), p. 90, p. 66, p. 64. On the blurring of boundaries between news
and fiction in Zhang’s earlier novels, see Eileen Chow, Spectacular Novelties: “News”
Culture, Zhang Henshui, and Practices of Spectatorship in Republican China (unpublished
Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2000), chapter 2.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 193
28
Zhou Xiufeng, the protagonist of Heaven and Earth, mentions early in the novel
that he has studied in the United States; however, later in the novel, he is explicitly
194 tze-lan d. sang
described as having returned from England instead of America; see Zhang Henshui,
Tianshang renjian (Taiyuan: Beiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1993), p. 8, p. 235. The contra-
dictory information is probably a result of Zhang losing track of the biography that
he intended for this character.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 195
29
The novel’s serialization in The Beijing Morning Newspaper (Beijing chenbao) in 1928
stopped before the denouement.
196 tze-lan d. sang
of the reach of poor urban women, who may live in daily physical
proximity to the Westernized elite but cannot close the social gap
without an unexpected lift from the elite. Zhang toys with this para-
dox of the modern urban condition, pitting the everyday intimacy
among disparate social groups manifest in the close interactions
among them necessitated by the divisions of labor and by wayward
human desire against the new elite’s need to constantly maintain
class distinctions and reinforce its own hegemonic status.
An especially harrowing variation on the motif of the lower-class
urban girl’s precarious pursuit of a modern identity is the scenario
in which she is actively hailed by the city’s changing economy and
moral milieu only to find herself inserted into one of the new eroti-
cized female positions that the transforming economy has reserved
for women from disadvantaged backgrounds. Such is the story in
Zhang’s novel The Palace of Art (Yishu zhi gong, 1935-1937), in which
an aging acrobat’s daughter has to find a way to support herself and
her father after his sudden physical collapse during a street perfor-
mance. Because of her lack of education, she is unable to find any
profitable employment in the city until two female neighbors recruit
her to become a nude model like themselves for art classes in a
Western-style art academy. She decides to take the job but dares not
reveal the fact to her father or other neighbors. Whenever she strips
her clothes to pose in front of the art students and teachers, she has
to muster every bit of her courage to suppress her shame. She would
like to believe that modeling is an honorable, modern form of
employment and that she is sacrificing herself for the lofty goal of
creating art, because the income is simply too good to turn down.
However, she soon realizes the disturbing fact that some of the male
teachers and students, who ogle her full curves and white flesh, are
fighting one another over her, and would do anything in their power
to turn her into a simple object for visual and other pleasures. What
makes a bad situation worse is that her father, upon finding out what
her new service job in the school actually entails, considers her exhib-
iting of her body in front of groups of men even worse than what a
prostitute of the lowest class does, and furiously denounces her,
threatening to kill her. Feeling isolated and helpless, she acquiesces
to a slick art student’s scheme and becomes his mistress in the hope
of marriage. However, she is soon abandoned, discovers that her
father has moved away from their old neighborhood out of shame
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 197
30
On the controversy over the introduction of the nude as an artistic subject and
the use of nude models in China’s Westernized art academies in the 1920s, see Mi-
chael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1996), pp. 44-46.
31
The majority of Wang’s novels were serialized in Qingdao newspapers be-
tween 1938 and early 1945 and issued in book form in 1948.
198 tze-lan d. sang
32
Tze-lan D. Sang, “Wang Dulu’s jingwei nüxing chengzhang xiaoshuo” [The
female Bildungsroman in Wang Dulu’s Beijing-flavored fiction], in Chen Pingyuan
and Wang Der-wei, eds., Beijing: Dushi xiangxiang yu wenhua jiyi [Beijing: Urban imag-
ination and cultural memory] (Beijing: Beijing University, 2005), pp. 209-233; Tze-
lan D. Sang, “Women’s Work and Boundary Transgression in Wang Dulu’s Popular
Novels,” in Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds., Gender in Motion: Divisions of
Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers, 2005), pp. 287-308.
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 199
Conclusion
33
In this regard, I disagree with Zhao Xiaoxuan’s characterization of the major-
ity of women occupying center stage in Zhang Henshui’s fiction—actresses, prosti-
tutes, singers and storytellers, dance troupe members, and models—as “women of
the old society” (Zhao, Zhang Henshui xiaoshuo pinglun). I argue that, in fact, Zhang
makes it clear that many of these women are the products of modernization and as-
sume a modern veneer in the eyes of the people around them.
200 tze-lan d. sang
eties about new class formations that may have been articulated for
many an ordinary reader of the early twentieth century, and because,
during the historical process of modernization, failed Modern Girls
may have far outnumbered the successful ones, the Modern Girl
having been a provocative ideational and iconographic construct in
intellectual discourse and the mass media before becoming a wide-
spread social reality. The failed Modern Girl’s failure, as hinted by
both Zhang and Wang, is attributable at least in part to the self-
adjusting modalities of patriarchy. They intimate that the Modern
Girl is constantly an unfinished and/or undone project in a world
of evolving gender subordination. Furthermore, both authors insist
that the Modern Girl is not just a new gender but also a new class
category, an identity so thoroughly defined by socioeconomic privi-
lege that it constantly provokes fantasy and mimicry but is virtually
impossible to inhabit for those with lesser means. Although recent
scholarship has suggested that the Modern Girl look was widely cop-
ied across class lines in the 1930s and threatened to slash class
distinctions,34 the popular novels from the period emphasized that
the process of becoming the Modern Girl involved more than just
the imitation of the Modern Girl look. It required no less than the
reinvention of one’s familial and social networks.
Although the popular novels’ heart-rending endings may impart
a profound pessimism and appear to foreclose the possibility of social
change, yet, ultimately, any sympathy that such tragic tales of abject
modern subjects may have incited in the reader would have hinged
on a shared acceptance of equal opportunity and equal access—
which overcomes existing gender and class differences—as intrinsi-
cally just. The stories’ pathos and affective power—their entertainment
value, in other words—depended on the reader’s willing adoption
of the stories’ premise that some girls born into urban squalor may
be just as intelligent and beautiful as most bourgeois Modern Girls,
but that their social circumstances fail to do justice to their innate
potential and sterling personal qualities. This assumption, which dis-
tinguishes the essence of the human being from her place in the
social grid represents in itself a modern, revolutionary value, which
is a key foundation for the arguments for social equality, social jus-
34
Dong, “Who is Afraid of the Chinese Modern Girl?”
failed modern girls in early-20th-century china 201
tice, and democracy.35 In this sense, the popular plot of the failed
Modern Girl is far from conservative; it carried, in fact, a radical
message in its sentimental design.
That such sentimental pulp fiction whose paramount purpose was
entertainment carried such a radical message may not be so surpris-
ing after all if we could only open ourselves to the possibility that
capitalist popular culture, instead of being an opiate for the masses,
is a site of struggle full of contradictions. Popular culture bears the
mark of both the dominant ideology but also the everyday guerrilla
tactics that the people use to evade and to resist it, as John Fiske has
argued.36 The sign of popular resistance in the Chinese popular plot
of the failed Modern Girl becomes all the more tangible when we
compare it with elite writers’ representations of the wannabe Modern
Girl from the same era. Ding Ling, whose early creative work revolved
around the troubles of the middle-class modern woman, is the best
case in point. Her 1928 collection of short fiction, In the Darkness (Zai
hei’an zhong), consists of three stories about the middle-class modern
woman’s emotional and professional predicaments and a fourth about
a country lass’s envy for the middle-class modern woman. Titled
“The Lass Amao” (Amao guniang), this last story is one of a very limited
number of pieces of “new literature” to touch on the lower-class
woman’s wistful identification with and emulation of the bourgeois
modern woman. The story’s uniqueness notwithstanding, Amao’s
envy is focused predominantly on the outer trappings of the bourgeois
modern woman, and she remains ignorant throughout of many bour-
geois modern women’s intellectual pursuits, vocational ambitions,
and frustrations. When a celestial-like modern woman residing in a
Western-style villa near Amao’s shabby house dies of consumption,
it fills Amao with an inexplicable sense of futility. Death, the great
leveller, forces upon Amao the realization that even the happiness
of the bourgeois modern woman is transient and immaterial, so she
quietly languishes and dies herself. The message that comes to the
35
See the chapter by John Fitzgerald in the present volume.
36
John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 19-21.
Fiske’s theory of popular culture is mainly made with reference to popular culture in
English-speaking industrial societies. However, my case study of early-twentieth-
century Chinese popular novels has convinced me of its relevance here. On the ev-
eryday guerilla tactics of the weak, see Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
202 tze-lan d. sang
part three
Introduction
Figure 7.1. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in Pavilion of the Royal Monument (Yu
bei ting); from Mei Shaowu, ed., Mei Lanfang ([Pictorial album] Mei Lanfang) (Beijing:
Beijing chubanshe, 1997).
politics, art, and eroticism 207
What were the social forces behind the reshaping of the public image
of the dan from that of a male prostitute to that of national star? The
rise of the female impersonator to a leading position in the hierarchy
of Peking opera came to contemporaries as a shock, and led some
to believe that the order of the world had truly become unstuck.1
The derogatory term use for the dan was renyao, or “demon in human
guise,” a colloquial slur for transvestites. Since its beginning in the
eighteenth century, Peking opera had been dominated and led by
actors playing the laosheng or “senior male” roles. Patronized by the
Qing emperors and the nobility, these laosheng were at the center of
artistic and political power in the world of entertainment. The female
impersonators were traditionally trained and treated as male cour-
tesans in establishments called xianggong tangzi.2 Few of them made it
in their profession past their youth as plenty of younger good-looking
apprentices were waiting in the wings to replace them. Their reputa-
tion for being “call-boys” and sexual playthings of rich and powerful
1
Zhang Cixi, “Mei mu zhi bin” [The funeral of Mei [Lanfang’s] grandmother],
from his “Yan guilai yi suibi,” in Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao [His-
torical materials on Peking theaters [and actors] in the Qing period] (Beijing: Zhong-
guo xiju chubanshe, 1988), p. 1235.
2
After the official discontinuation and banning of courtesan entertainment for
officials by the Qing, the link with boy actors as sexual and entertainment partners
of elite men took on institutional similarities to that of the courtesan entertain-
ments. The boys were referred to as xiaochang, or xianggong, and the entertainment
establishments in which they lived, which began during the Ming, were called siyu or
xianggong tangzi. These establishments functioned in the same way as courtesan
houses. The boys would be called to attend dinner parties, to sit by their clients, pour
wine and sing a little if they could. These establishments were located on known
streets in the capital and the sexual nature of their business was understood. This is
not to reduce this lifestyle and entertainment to a “meat market” relationship. Deep
passion, love and attachments were formed, with some being legendary and well
documented. The siyu as an establishment was abolished in the first year of the Re-
public in 1912 pursuant to a petition from actors who felt that these establishments
were not proper for the new times and their new dignity as citizens and artists.
208 catherine vance yeh
3
Wu Cuncun, Ming Qing shehui xing’ai fengqi [Erotic practices in Ming and Qing
society] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2000), pp. 179-197.
politics, art, and eroticism 209
4
In other poems he talks about three dan actors as being heavenly beauties, nam-
ing Jia Biyun, Mei Lanfang and Zhu Youfen. See his “Ku’an shang ju shi” (Ku’an’s
[= Yi Shunting] poem of appreciating the Chrysanthemums [= actors]), in Zhang
Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao [Historical materials on Peking theaters [and
actors] in the Qing period] (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988), p. 761.
5
Yi Shunding, “Wangu chou qu: wei gelang Mei Lanfang zuo” [The song of
eternal lamentation: written for singer-boy Mei Lanfang], in Zhang, ed., Qingdai
Yandu liyuan shiliao, pp. 744-745.
210 catherine vance yeh
6
Yi Shunding, “Mei hun ge” [The song of Mei’s soul], p. 749.
7
For discussion on late-Qing theatre reform and the social position of actors, see
A Ying, Wan Qing xiaoshuo shi [The history of late Qing fiction] (Beijing: Remin
wenxue chubanshe, 1980); Wan Qing wenxue congchao: Xiaoshuo xiqu yanjiu juaÖ [A com-
pendium of late-Qing literature: fiction and drama] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1960).
politics, art, and eroticism 211
since the collapse of the Qing court, which had been the arbiter of
taste in its patronage of the laosheng, the literati now occupied this
vacant center, and through the medium of the newspaper pushed
their cultural taste and preference in the public realm. The self-
confidence of the literati during these first years of the Republic was
very much dependent on their ability to be active in the public
sphere, and on the moral authority of their persona as being the
defenders of the public interest.
This move of patronage culture from the private to the public
realm implies that the new-style republican literati are now offering
the public what was once the symbol of their own class privilege.
They do this in exchange for an ever larger share of influence in the
emerging new society, and assign themselves the grand role of the
new cultural authority endowed with even greater power to dictate
and formulate public aesthetic taste.
In this spirit, Yi goes one step further and defines the dan as “the
national flower” (guohua).8 In his “Song with Accompaniment on the
National Flower” (Guohua xing), Yi offers a new conceptual horizon:
the power vested in the dan, in this case in Mei Lanfang’s beauty/
eroticism, which has the capacity to transcend set boundaries and
built-in limitations and evoke passion on a national scale, makes him
the rightful candidate to be the “flower of the Republic.” The flower
thus stands for beauty, sexual allure, and the power to inspire love
and passion nationwide.
Through the choice of the dan as “the national flower,” men of
letters like Yi Shunding created one of the first original emblems for
the new Republic. The private callboy is now elevated to the position
of “National Flower” or that of the “lover” of the public and the
nation. The power of this symbol and star, Yi said, could infuse the
nation with new energy. At a time when the nation was lagging in
spirit, this flower could function as an inspiration.9
A “flower” of national significance, however, continuously needed
an admirer, a protector and a promoter. In this emblem the literati
had nicely carved out a role for themselves: as the representative of
the people, the duty of articulating admiration and securing protec-
8
Yi Shunding, “Guohua xing” [Poem on the National Flower], in Zhang, ed.,
Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, p. 749.
9
Zhang, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, p. 749.
212 catherine vance yeh
tion and promotion fell squarely on their shoulders. Much like the
traditional dan, the “national flower” is shown to be continuously
dependent on literati promotion.
There is no doubt about the power of press and the literati’s pro-
motion of the dan in this new public sphere. All the literati promotion
of the dan notwithstanding, the public, for its part, was under no
pressure to go along and do its part at the box office. But it did, and
this cries out for an explanation.
As an artistic figure, the dan fulfilled various functions. In the dan,
that is, a man intentionally and artfully impersonating a woman,
society appeared to have found its ideal outlet for a variety of con-
flicting feelings. He became a platform to express the new ideal for
the national state of China; the anxiety about its weakness; the fear
of its possible demise; the pride of its moral quality; the belief in its
cultural sophistication; and the hope of its capability of representing
China’s cultural essence. In short, in the dan society not only defined
its anxiety regarding the present but also its hopes for the future.
The sexual appeal was there as well. In this state of physiological
uncertainty, at least for part of the audience the line between the
aesthetic and the sexual appeal blurred. When we look at the art of
the female impersonator preserved in photographs and film record-
ings, this appeal becomes nearly tangible. But even here, the sexual
appeal was not something inherited from traditional Peking opera.
In fact, the dan about whom early Republican audiences were so
crazy is a newly developed role, later known as the huashan. It was
created by merging three different types of dan: the “flower dan”
(huadan), or sexy female, who is strongly associated with salaciousness
and overt sexuality; the “dark dress” dan (qingyi), an upright female
of moral integrity; and the “sword and horse dan” (dao ma dan), the
martial female, who joins combat scenes in warlike outfits. Through
this merger, a new type was cast, and the patronage groups for the
young and upcoming dan actors wrote plays that suited this character
as well as the times. The result was a much fuller female persona
with a complex psychological profile and the capacity of being a
model of moral integrity, with a strong martial spirit, capable of
defending herself and, if need be, her country, while being at the
same time sexy, playful and lovable. All the major dan actors includ-
ing Mei Lanfang became nationally known through acting in this
role. With this role, the dan was able to represent the image of the
ideal woman, and to stand for society’s self-image: powerless in the
face of disorder, chaos and corrupt powers, she alone remains stead-
fast in her moral commitment, rallies her spirits through self-reliance,
214 catherine vance yeh
actors in the past, Mei Lanfang’s grandfather had been one of them.
He had even been the head of the Sixi opera troupe. But the actors
who were given considerable prestige and power by the court were
the laosheng, with Cheng Changgeng being the most famous. It took
the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the dissolution of the old order of
things, the introduction of Western notions regarding the possible
functions and the ensuing necessary social position of the theater, to
give the dan the chance to alter their long-held subordinate position
within the hierarchy of Peking opera.
The rise of the dan, however, was not a purely internal Chinese
affair. Like the enhancement of the social standing of the theater
altogether, the artistic direction the art of the dan took was in fact in
many respects a strongly international process. The image of the dan
was shaped by international taste. The power to arbitrate taste and
formulate aesthetic values even in China itself had shifted its center
during the early decades of the twentieth century, and had settled
beyond the boundaries of China; it was now in the “West”—with
Japan as the most authoritative arbiter.
The rise of the dan was in large part the result of literati/politicians
of the young Republic demonstrating their power to reset public
taste, while fundamentally the choice was an expression of their
ambivalence and insecurity regarding their own position in the new
political order. In this they found allies in some of their Japanese
counterparts, although these pursued a different agenda. The first
case in point is the role played by the Japanese-owned newspaper
Shuntian shibao. On 22 September 1917, this paper launched an unu-
sual event for a big daily, a competition among Peking opera sing-
ers.10 The event effectively “staged” the symbolic “transfer of power”
from the laosheng to the dan. There would be winners in three catego-
ries: the King of Opera World, “Jujie dawang”; the Best Singer
among Female Performers, “Kunling diyi”; and the Best Singer
10
The Shuntian shibao was founded in 1901 by Nakashima Saneo and Kamei
Michiyoshi. It was edited by Hirayama Takekiyo and published in Peking. It was
closed in 1930.
216 catherine vance yeh
among Boy Actors, “Tongling diyi.”11 By the end of the month two
candidates remained for the category of the “King of the Opera
World”: the laosheng Yang Xiaolou and the dan Mei Lanfang.
For the newspapers, reports on actors or the controversy between
the different dan “factions” was by the late 1910s not just a question
of news, they were part of their marketing. To create “events” around
top actors was one of the strategies used by newspapers to engage
their readers. By the late teens, in the middle of political upheavals
and the rise of warlords throughout Northern China, it appears that
the Shuntian shibao believed it was time not only to pay attention to
the dan, but to put him on the throne. This was a strange act. As
China was struggling with her sovereignty and identity, this newspaper
presented a female impersonator as the nation’s highest achievement
in the performing arts.
For the whole month of October, the paper was full of reports
and news about actors, theater performances past and present, and
the daily tally of the votes. During the last stretch of the competition
for the King of the Opera World, Mei had been trailing Yang, but
in a dramatic and not undisputed finish Mei moved into first place
during the last two days with an unbelievable 232,865 votes for him
cast on the last day alone. In the end a dan singer, Mei Lanfang,
then aged 24, had won the title of the “King of Opera World.” With
this event, the Shuntian shibao had created its sensation, and had also
made itself some enemies. For some, the thought of having a dan
actor represent the entire art of Peking opera was too shocking. 12
But for the paper, it was a great success, with the circulation steeply
rising during the last days of the competition and readers, who prob-
ably up to that time had never read an issue of the Shuntian shibao,
becoming interested. At the same time, the “voters” had had a chance
to express their most intimate feelings by voting for a man artfully
impersonating an upright and “soft” female.
11
Voting was to begin on October 2, and to end on October 31. The method of
voting was to buy a copy of the paper, cut out the printed “vote card,” fill in the
name of the voter’s choice, and send it to the office of the paper. The competition
was to coincide with the celebration of the publication of the 5,000th issue of the
paper.
12
For a study on this event see Yeh, “From Male ‘Flower’ to National Star: Cho-
reographing Mei Lanfang’s Rise to Stardom,” in Erika Fischer-Lichte, Christian
Horn, Sandra Umathum, Matthias Warstat, eds., Performativität und Ereignis (Tübin-
gen and Basel: A. Francke Publishers, 2003), pp. 259-276.
politics, art, and eroticism 217
13
Feng was a graduate of the Japanese military academy; see Zhang Guogan,
“Beiyang junfa de qiyuan” [The origin and rise of the Beiyang warlords] in Beiyang
junfa ziliao xuanji [Selected sources on Beiyang warlords] (Zhongguo shehui kexue
chubanshe, 1981), vol. 1, p. 41.
14
There are many historical references to their decade-long love relationship.
Bao Tianxiao based a novel on their story, The Story of the Lingering Fragrance (Liu fang
ji, 1924). The relationship is also depicted by Zhang Henshui in his novel Private Re-
cords (Siren ji), first serialized in Shijie ribao between 1933-1935.
218 catherine vance yeh
would be accepted. At the same time, the paper was taking a high
risk. Its willingness as a foreign-owned paper to do so, to take the
lead in the making of public opinion by openly advocating a change
of hierarchy within Peking opera demonstrates much self-confidence,
if not arrogance. The vote seems not to have gone down well with
many Chinese theater-goers. Some openly declared that the vote
only demonstrated that Mei Lanfang was a Japanese “King of the
Opera World” and all this had nothing to do with Peking opera. 15
With this tainted association, Mei Lanfang never dared to use the
title; even the commercial presses found its use troublesome.
The Shuntian shibao election was neither the first nor the last sign
of Japan’s interest in matter of the dan. In 1919, Mei Lanfang received
and accepted his first invitation to go abroad from Japan. The invita-
tion was extended to him by ˆkura to perform at the most Western
and best-equipped theater in Tokyo—the Imperial Theater, or
Teikoku GekijÙ—where ˆkura was head of the board of directors.16
Mei and his troupe arrived on April 25, and he gave his first per-
formance on May 1, four days prior to the big opening rally of the
May Fourth movement in China. This was a student movement
protesting the handing over of the German colony in Shandong to
Japan in the Treaty of Versailles, a transfer that had been secretly
negotiated by the Powers. This movement quickly evolved into a
nation-wide boycott against Japanese goods. Hostile feelings against
Japan ran high in China as well as among the Chinese students
studying in Japan. In the midst of this turmoil and with many advis-
ing Mei Lanfang to cancel his visit, Mei Lanfang and with him,
Peking opera, made a first visit abroad.
While some work has been done on Mei Lanfang’s later visit to
the United States, his visit to Japan has been very much neglected.
One of the reasons is certainly the question of timing. Mei’s visit
coincided with what was seen as one of the greatest humiliations in
modern Chinese history. An actor in the female role performing on
15
See Catherine Yeh, “A Public Love affair or a Nasty Game?—The Chinese
Tabloid Newspaper and the Rise of the Opera Singer as Star,” European Journal of
Asian Studies, no. 3: 13-51.
16
ItÙ Nobuhiko, “1919-nen to 1924-nen no Bai RanhÙ raiNichi kÙen ni tsuite”
[About Mei Lanfang’s 1919 and 1924 performances in Japan] in Nakajima Satoshi
sensei koki ki’nen jigyÙkai ki’nen ronshå henshå iinkai, ed., Nakajima Satoshi sensei koki
ki’nen ronshå [Essays for the Seventieth Birthday of Professor Nakajima Satoshi]
(ChÙfu: Nakajima Satoshi sensei koki ki’nen jigyÙkai, 1981), pp. 669-698.
politics, art, and eroticism 219
17
Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Women in Modern Japan: Theatre, Gender, and Nationalism
(New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 19.
220 catherine vance yeh
18
Urs Matthias Zachmann, China’s role in the process of Japan’s cultural self-identifica-
tion, 1895-1904 (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Heidelberg University. 2005), chap-
ter 4, “The Hundred Days Reform.”
19
Ayako Kano, p. 25.
politics, art, and eroticism 221
Figure 7.2. Cartoon, Tokyo Puck, 1 September 1910; reprinted by Ryåkei Shoten,
Tokyo, 1996.
222 catherine vance yeh
Korean people.”20 As the cartoon, itself like the title of the journal
clearly emulating foreign models, illustrates, the notion of the gen-
dered nation was not unfamiliar to the Japanese public. It offers a
glimpse of the complexity of the cultural imagination of Japanese
society and the possible process by which the image of China or
more precisely the image of cultural China might be constructed
through Mei’s performances. One might say that subliminally it
involved the issue of Chinese national sovereignty. If China is not a
modern, muscular, nation but a man only able to play a woman,
does it deserve and can it be entrusted with running its own show?
With these issues and questions in mind, we will now turn to the
event itself in order to analyze what Mei Lanfang, Qi Rushan and
their Japanese hosts wanted the Japanese audiences to see, and what
these audiences in fact saw.
Preparations for Mei’s reception in Japan were done with meticu-
lous care. The aim was to create public interest, formulate public
opinion, and build up momentum prior to Mei’s arrival. The strategy
on the part of Mei’s Japanese host in preparing Mei’s visit translated
into (1) creating the image of the dan actor as a star through the
publication of countless photographs of him in theatrical poses and
costume; (2) newspaper articles introducing him and Peking opera;
(3) translation and publication of the text and story-line of all the
program pieces Mei planned to perform in Japan; (4) massive adver-
tisements; and, finally, (5) personal endorsement by well-known lit-
erati as well as mighty and powerful patrons in both countries.
(Figures 7.3 and 7.4). This was mainly carried out through various
publications. Among those published before Mei’s arrival, one stands
out through its representation of the conceptual framework in which
Mei Lanfang should be understood. Entitled Chinese Theater and Mei
Lanfang (Shinageki to Bai LanhÙ), the book contains: calligraphy dedi-
cated to Mei by celebrity supporters to mark this historical occa-
sion—an indication of elite cultural standing; a great number of
photographs of Mei in stage costume—emphasizing the visual quality
of his art (Figures 7.5 and 7.6); a biography of Mei—implying social
status; a short history of Peking opera including the different stock
roles—connoting respectability and cultural standing in China; an
20
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (Armont, NY:
Sharpe, 1998), illus. after p. 78.
politics, art, and eroticism
223
Figure 7.3. Calligraphy dedicated to Mei Lanfang by Feng Gengguang (Youwei) on the occasion of the publication
of Murata UkÙ’s edited volume Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei Lanfang] (Tokyo: Genbunsha,
1919).
224
catherine vance yeh
Figure 7.4. Calligraphy dedicated to Mei Lanfang by ˆkura KihachirÙ on the occasion of the publication
of Murata UkÙ’s edited volume Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei Lanfang] (Tokyo:
Genbunsha, 1919).
politics, art, and eroticism 225
Figure 7.5. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Guifei
zui jiu); from Murata UkÙ, Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei Lanfang]
(Tokyo: Genbunsha, 1919).
226 catherine vance yeh
Figure 7.6. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in Rainbow Pass (Ni hong guan); from
Murata UkÙ, Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei Lanfang] (Tokyo:
Genbunsha, 1919).
politics, art, and eroticism 227
21
Murata UkÙ, Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei Lanfang] (Tokyo:
Genbunsha, 1919).
228 catherine vance yeh
Figure 7.7. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in The Heavenly Maid Showering
Flowers (Tian nü san hua); from Murata UkÙ, Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater
and Mei Lanfang] (Tokyo: Genbunsha, 1919).
politics, art, and eroticism 229
This answers in part the obvious yet so far elusive question, why
the dan? The problem of Peking opera being represented by the dan,
who until recently had been largely confined to secondary and sup-
porting roles, seems to have been eclipsed by the fact of Mei’s invita-
tion to Japan. There never was an outcry in the Chinese or the
Japanese press. The shift was taken for granted. Why was this? This
lack of objections has to do with the fact that the roles Mei preformed
in Japan were not those traditionally associated with the dan, but he
impersonated with the huashan a new kind of female persona, a “new
woman” (xin nüxing), though in a manner utterly different from the
New Woman of the May Fourth generation. Mei Lanfang was the
first to carve out the image of this new female. By the 1910s, new
pieces written for this type included “The Heavenly Maid Showering
Flowers,” “Chang’e flying to the moon,” and “Daiyu buries the fallen
petals.” All of these had been chosen by the Japanese organizers for
their audiences.
What the Japanese audience did not see, however, is equally reveal-
ing. From the prepared program brought to Japan by Mei Lanfang’s
group, the Japanese hosts eliminated all the martial pieces, including
signature pieces of Mei Lanfang, such as “Mulan, the Disguised War-
rior Maiden” (Mulan congjun), and the rebellious female figures fighting
against oppression by despotic rulers, such as “[The precious sword
named] Yuzhou feng” (Yuzhou feng).22 (Figures 7.8 and 7.9) Without
exception, all the pieces chosen by the Japanese emphasized sensual-
ity and beauty. The option in the Peking opera of having a martial
male on stage heroically confronting foreign invaders had been elimi-
nated from the outset through the emphasis on the dan. The Japanese
selection also eliminated the option of a woman on stage fighting for
her country. The result seems to have offered a profile of China that
suited the mood of Japanese society at the time. Mei Lanfang’s artful
beauties offered a stark contrast both to a violent China on the streets
of Beijing and the shamefully weak Chinese state.
To sum up, the program organized by Mei’s Japanese hosts high-
lighted in the role of the dan (1) aesthetic beauty through dance,
movement, and facial expression aided by fabulous costumes; (2) a
new type of well-rounded female persona in the huashan role with a
22
In contrast, both pieces were chosen by the Soviet authorities when Mei Lan-
fang visited the Soviet Union in 1935.
232 catherine vance yeh
Figure 7.8. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden
(Mulan congjun); from Murata UkÙ, Shinageki to Bai RanhÙ [Chinese theater and Mei
Lanfang] (Tokyo: Genbunsha, 1919).
politics, art, and eroticism 233
Figure 7.9. Photograph. Mei Lanfang performing in [The precious sword named]
Yuzhou feng (Yuzhou feng); from A. C. Scott, Mei Lan-Fang: The Life and Times of a
Peking Actor (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1959).
234 catherine vance yeh
23
Liaozi, “Duiyu Mei Lanfang fu Riben de ganxiang” [Thoughts on Mei Lan-
fang going to Japan], Chenbao (24 April 1919): 7.
politics, art, and eroticism 235
24
Liu dong yi xuesheng, “Jinggao Mei Lanfang bin yiban yiyuan” [Advice given
to Mei Lanfang and other actors with due respect], Shuntian shibao (27 February
1919): 3.
25
Konggu shanren, “Meihua xiaoxi” [News of ‘Plum blossoms (= Mei the flow-
er)’), Chenbao, 4 May 1919.
236 catherine vance yeh
In this setting, Chinese culture going abroad with the female per-
sona as its highest representative took on its own meaning. The
absence of criticism in the Chinese press signalled acceptance of this
visit. As an envoy of culture, the new female image represented by
Mei with her beauty, vitality, and moral fortitude qualified him more
and was more convincing than the politicians’ strong warrior pose,
which had lost credibility for many Chinese. In the image of a man
playing a woman to perfection, Chinese society seemed to have
found an accurate image of its own weakness and potential strength
at this time.
Figure 7.10. KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Mei Lan Fang, about 1924, color on silk, 40.8 ×
33.3 cm; from Kyoto kokuritsu kindai bijutsukan, ed., KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten [KainoshÙ
Tadaoto Exhibition] (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1997), p. 43.
The Chinese public’s enthrallment with the dan actors can be read
as another, if implicit, dialogue with the political situation of the
country. It talks back to an official elite discourse set to promote a
male gendering of the Chinese nation and state as the proper path
to promote national strengthening. These efforts are visible at many
levels, from the promotion of a new, more martial national dress for
men by the first Republican government under Sun Yat-sen, to dis-
cussions about the goals of the school curriculum, from grand pro-
posals and appeals to re-educate the citizens in martial spirit so as
to provide a basis for a strong international posture of the state, to
advertisements for pills for mothers to secure the birth of healthy
boys and the famous “Pink Pills for Pale People.” One might suggest
that the social preference for the upright dan figure indicates a sober
view about the usefulness of Chinese male posturing. At the same
time, Mei Lanfang himself was well aware of the limits his role of
the “upright female” imposed on his real-life persona. When Japan
actually occupied a part of China where Mei lived, he grew a beard
to make it politely impossible to perform for the invaders.
240 catherine vance yeh
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 241
Ayako Kano
1
For a discussion of these female actors (onna yakusha) such as Ichikawa Kume-
hachi (ca. 1846-1913) who had been privately performing and teaching kabuki, see
Maki Isaka Morinaga, “Women Onnagata in the Porous Labyrinth of Femininity,”
U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 30-31 (2006): 105-131.
2
For a discussion of how definitions of literature and definitions of womanhood
intersected in modern Japan, see Tomi Suzuki’s article in this volume.
242 ayako kano
that were seen as deriving from their biological nature, but also made
possible the kind of feminism that we know today.3
This kind of double-edged nature of the rise of the actress is also
observable in Chinese history, where women training as actresses in
the early twentieth century “acquired a certain degree of freedom
outside their homes” but also faced “increasing exploitation and
alienation from the domestic realm.”4 A similar situation existed in
Restoration period England, where the replacement of the boy actors
of the Renaissance theater by actresses simultaneously allowed
women a voice on the public stage and heightened voyeurism of the
female body.5
What makes the Japanese case a little more complicated than
those of seventeenth-century England and early twentieth-century
China is the fact that the introduction of actresses occurred as part
of the process of modern nation-building and empire-building, a
process in which Japan was emulating the West and also beginning
to impose its values on the rest of the East. Japan became an impe-
rial power in the context of Western imperialism, and this process is
imbricated with the development of modern Japanese theater.
For example, one can see the process of formation of the Japanese
nation-state and the Japanese empire under the gaze of Western eyes,
as mirrored in the theater reform movement of early Meiji: The
Theater Reform Society (Engeki KairyÙkai), established in 1886
advanced several goals to showcase Japan to the West, including
eliminating what it saw as the old-fashioned and embarrassing prac-
tice of using male actors impersonating female roles (onnagata). One
could also say that the beginning of the modern Japanese theater
coincided with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, when the styl-
ized portrayal of battle in the traditional kabuki theater was deemed
irrelevant, and the realism of actual fistfights and fireworks, brought
3
For a more detailed discussion, see Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Modern
Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
4
Weikun Cheng, “The Use of ‘Public’ Women: Commercialized Performance,
Nation-Building, and Actresses’ Strategies in Early Twentieth-Century Beijing,”
Women & International Development Working Paper #275 (East Lansing: Michi-
gan State University, 2002). The quotes are from page 1. For further discussion of
modern theater in China, see Catherine Yeh’s article in this volume.
5
Elizabeth Howe, The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660-1700 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 243
6
For further discussion of the connection between modern theater and imperial-
ism, see Ayako Kano, “Japanese Theater and Imperialism: Romance and Resis-
tance,” in U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, English version, no. 12 (1997): 17-47.
7
For a discussion of Japanese visual artists orientalizing Chinese women, see
Ikeda Shinobu’s article in this volume.
8
With the exception of actress Mizutani Yaeko, discussed later, shinpa continued
to be dominated by men. Yet many of the memorable roles performed in shinpa were
those of women, such as heroines of plays based on novels by Izumi KyÙka
(1873-1939)
244 ayako kano
(SeitÙ), and thus actresses and the roles of “new women” performed
by them came to be identified with the beginnings of the feminist
movement in Japan.
The two actresses, Kawakami Sadayakko and Matsui Sumako,
can be seen as representing two different stages in the process in
which modern Japan, modern Japanese theater, and modern Japa-
nese actresses were shaped simultaneously, and helped shape each
other. The rivalry between the two actresses, and the victory of Mat-
sui Sumako over Kawakami Sadayakko, signifies the gradual taking
over of a new regime of gender and theatrical performance. In this
paper I will focus briefly on three instances of this rivalry. The first
instance is a well-known gem called Alt Heidelberg. Both Sadayakko
and Sumako performed this play, though under different titles, and
under very different circumstances. Their performances were, to my
knowledge, never directly compared with each other, but the contrast
is suggestive of the larger process transforming Japanese theater and
society. The second instance is the competing performances of Oscar
Wilde’s Salomé. The third instance is of Maurice Maeterlinck’s Monna
Vanna.
2. Alt Heidelberg
9
The play is itself an adaptation of Meyer-Förster’s novel Karl Heinrich, published
in 1899. In the United States the play is known through its adaptation as a musical,
titled The Student Prince, with music by Sigmund Romberg. It was also made into a
film, titled The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg, directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 245
10
The play has not been published, and is located in manuscript form in the
Kawakami Archives at Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Memorial Theater Muse-
um.
246 ayako kano
Figure 8.1. The Kawakami troupe in Alt Heidelberg a.k.a. New Nation’s King from Engei
gahÙ (November 1910). Shizuma KojirÙ as the prince, Kawakami OtojirÙ as the
professor, Kawakami Sumiko (OtojirÙ’s niece) as the waitress.
tation but in a straight translation of the play.11 This time, there was
little if any interest from the government censors, and the critical
consensus on the play was that it was a sentimental melodrama, not
really worthy of the attention of the modern theater, but staged for
the sake of easy financial gain. Far from being seen as politically
dangerous, it was seen as too innocuous.
The playwright Akita Ujaku was particularly trenchant, attacking
the fact that neither the hero nor the heroine seems at all self-con-
scious or critical about their respective social environments and the
class difference that separates them. The prince kisses the waitress
because he has been released from the confines of the court and now
lusts after women; she loves him because she is flattered that a prince
would pay attention to her. “The kind of sentimentalism expressed
in this play has not even reached the level of self-awareness of
romance found in conventional kabuki plays” Akita scoffed.12 The
11
She later reprised the role 31 December 1916 to 10 January 1917.
12
Akita Ujaku, “Tsubouchi hakase no tame ni kanashimu: ‘Aruto Haideru-
beruhi’ ni tsuki” [Feeling sad for Dr. Tsubouchi: On Alt Heidelberg], Engei gahÙ (March
1913): 151-161. The quote is from page 156.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 247
critic Kiyomi RokurÙ, who agreed that this was indeed a sentimental
play of little literary merit, nonetheless praised Matsui Sumako’s
portrayal of the heroine. “Sentimentalism is shared more deeply by
women than by men. Even for Sumako, this is the case. That is
probably why the scene of parting, where she breaks down crying
and is barely able to speak, expressed a true sense of pathos that we
could certainly not see in female roles when performed by men.”
Sumako was famous for performing the roles of strong and liberated
women, but the critic noted that “even when portraying a conven-
tional feminine woman, Sumako is indeed quite skillful.”13
In the photographs we have of her performance, Sumako was
dressed in a Western outfit, with her arms exposed, often raised high
to carry multiple steins of beer (Figure 8.2). Throughout her career,
Sumako would be praised for the physical sensuality of her presence
on stage, and this play seems to have been no exception.
What we see in the change from one to the other is a process of
the formation of modern theater and modern gender: from a free-
wheeling adaptation to a straight translation that values the original;14
from a play that thematizes Japan’s emerging and ambivalent role
as an imperial power to a play that takes it for granted that Japanese
actors can embody German characters; from a play in which romance
is downplayed because it threatens the colonial hierarchy to one in
which romance is so central that it is derided because of it; 15 from a
performance in which the Japanese woman acts like a geisha to one
13
Kiyomi RokurÙ, “Omoide’ o mite” [On seeing Remembrances], Engei gahÙ (March
1913): 126-132. The quotes are from page 132).
14
Valuing the original in the form of a straight translation is a new idea, pre-
ceded by free-wheeling adaptation in the tradition of mitate of the Edo period. For a
discussion of Meiji era adaptations, see J. Scott Miller, Adaptations of Western Literature
in Meiji Japan (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
15
Romance, of course, is a tricky term. My argument here is that romance in
Korean King/New Nation’s King threatens the colonial hierarchy, but it is also true that
Kawakami OtojirÙ wanted to create a homosocial theater that minimized hetero-
sexual romance. Heterosexual romance in that sense would be associated with the
old kabuki theater as well as with Western theater, both of which he was trying to
repudiate in his quest to create a Japanese “straight” theater. See Acting Like a Woman
in Modern Japan, 57-84. In Sumako’s case, romance is accepted as central to the shin-
geki, more explicitly modeled on European theater. Here, romance as an expression
of personal freedom is contrasted with opposing forces such as family and social
norms. The critics of Alt Heidelberg have the kind of ideal play in mind that would
portray the romance between the prince and the waitress as a declaration of freedom
from the constraints of social class.
248 ayako kano
Figure 8.2. Matsui Sumako in Alt Heidelberg a.k.a. Remembrances from Peony Brush,
between pp. 88-89.
in which she acts like a German waitress, and in which she is per-
versely praised for being able to play such a feminine role.
3. Salomé
In later years, the rivalry between the older Sadayakko and the
younger Sumako became more explicit. Salomé provides the best
example. The play by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was first introduced
to Japan in 1907, and eventually became extremely popular on stage.
It was presented to the public by various actresses in no fewer than
twenty-seven separate productions between the premiere in 1913
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 249
and the end of the TaishÙ era a dozen years later.16 The 1914 Salomé
performance by the two actresses marks a moment in Japanese his-
tory when the alignment between gender, sex, sexuality, and perfor-
mance registered a recognizable shift.
One of the most significant scenes in Salomé is the dance scene in
which the heroine, a typical femme fatale, performs what amounts
to a striptease, pulling off layers of veils one by one, in order to
seduce her father-in-law and get him to give her the head of John
the Baptist, or Jokanaan in the play.17 Because of the nature of this
scene, Salomé is a play that would be difficult indeed for an onnagata,
the traditional male actor impersonating female roles in kabuki, to
perform. The whole point of the play, it seems, is to strip down the
woman to her bare essence, or as close to it as the censors allow.18
Therefore, we could say that the title role of Salomé epitomized the
new definition of womanhood as rooted in the physical body. It was
in performing Salomé that Matsui Sumako decisively triumphed over
Kawakami Sadayakko, and signaled the beginning of a new era for
women and performance in Japan.
Comparing the two performances, critic Osanai Kaoru wrote that
Kawakami Sadayakko’s Salomé “revealed her age”: “her flesh was
too desiccated; her blood was too dry,” lacking the all-important
element of sensuality. In contrast, “Matsui Sumako’s Salomé was
quite voluptuous in body, though rather superficial and impoverished
in spirit.”19 Kawakami Sadayakko’s dancing was criticized by Osanai
Kaoru as looking too Japanese, due to her training in Japanese dance
and the lack of heft to her hips. This is another indication that kabuki-
style gestures could not convey the overt sensuality required for the
role. Matsui Sumako’s dance, on the other hand, was choreographed
by Giovanni Vittorio Rosi, an Italian director, and emphasized her
well-endowed body. Honma Hisao praised her “extremely able por-
trayal of the egoistic, aggressive, and selfish aspects of the woman
16
Imura Kimie, Sarome no hen’yÙ: hon’yaku, butai [Salomé’s transformations: Trans-
lations and performances] (Tokyo: Shinshokan, 1990).
17
For a discussion of the femme fatale in TaishÙ painting, see Doris Croissant’s
chapter in this volume.
18
For a discussion of the nude in the paintings and posters of modern Japan, see
Jaqueline Berndt’s chapter in this volume.
19
Osanai Kaoru, “HongÙza no ‘Sarome’” [HonogÙza theater’s Salomé], Engei
gahÙ (June 1915): 148-163. The quotes are from page 155 and 150 respectively.
250 ayako kano
20
Honma Hisao, “Sendai Hagi to Sarome” [Sendai Hagi and Salomé], Engei gahÙ
(January 1914): 50-54. The quote is from page 53.
21
Honma Hisao, quoted in ˆzasa Yoshio, Nihon gendai engeki shi [History of con-
temporary Japanese theater] (Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 1985) 1: 144.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 251
Figure 8.3. Kawakami Sadayakko in Salomé, with Inoue Masao as Jokanaan, courtesy
of Waseda University’s Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ Memorial Theater Museum.
22
Quoted in Imura, pp. 146-147. Mizutani Yaeko (1905-1979) was probably the
most important actress of the generation following Kawakami Sadayakko and Mat-
sui Sumako. She was a performer in both in shinpa and shingeki, and also made ap-
pearances in film. Her acting combined the shingeki actor’s analytical understanding
of scripts with a shinpa actor’s glamorous stylization appealing to broad audiences.
She made her debut in the inaugural performance of the Geijutsuza theater led by
Matsui Sumako’s and Shimamura HÙgetsu in 1913, and later became the signature
star, touring widely until it disbanded in 1945 due to the war. She also appeared in
shinpa productions and contributed to the genre’s revival of the late 1920s. She joined
onnagata Hanayagi ShÙtaro (1894-1965) in his shinpa troupe in 1949, and after
Hanayagi’s death, was considered the most important shinpa performer, though even
her immense popularity could not stem the genre’s postwar decline. Her daughter
Yoshie (1939-) inherited the name Mizutani Yaeko in 1995, a procedure common in
kabuki but unprecedented in shinpa or shingeki.
252 ayako kano
Figure 8.4. Matsui Sumako in Salomé, with KatÙ Seiichi as Jokanaan, courtesy of
Waseda University’s Tsubouchi ShÙyÙ Memorial Theater Museum.
23
Imura, p. 96.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 253
24
For a fuller discussion of the performance of Salomé, see Ayako Kano, “Visual-
ity and Gender in Modern Japanese Theater: Looking at Salome,” in Japan Forum,
special issue on modern Japanese visual culture, vol. 11, no. 1 (1999): 43-55.
25
This is the photo that was initially chosen by my publishers for use on the
cover of Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan.
254 ayako kano
4. Monna Vanna
26
Miyako shinbun 5 October 1906; Yomiuri shinbun, 9 February 1906; rpt. in Shi-
rakawa Nobuo, ed. Kawakami OtojirÙ, Sadayakko: shinbun ni miru jinbutsu zÙ [Kawakami
OtojiÙ, Sadayakko: Their personalities as seen in newspapers] (Tokyo: YåshÙdÙ,
1985) 440 and 441 respectively.
27
Sadoya Shigenobu, HÙgetsu Shimamura TakitarÙ ron [A Study of Shimamura
HÙgetsu] (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin, 1980), pp. 436-438.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 255
28
Haino ShÙhei, “Sumako ni kansuru taiwa,” Engei gahÙ (June 1915): 28-32.
29
See Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan, pp. 128-135.
256 ayako kano
Figure 8.6. Matsui Sumako in Monna Vanna from Peony Brush, between pp. 128-129.
Figure 8.7. Matsui Sumako in A Doll House from Engei gahÙ (October 1911). Matsui
Sumako as Nora, Doi Shunsho as her husband Helmer. In the insert on the upper
right, she is dressed in a manteau, ready to leave the house.
gender, theater, and nationalism in modern japan 257
Figure 8.8. Matsui Sumako as Magda in Heimat, dressed in manteau from Peony Brush,
between pp. 34-35.
Figure 8.9. Matsui Sumako as a “new woman” dressed in manteau from Peony Brush
between pp. 224-225.
with the soul of Monna Vanna, not her body, and they will spend
the night exchanging poetic passages back and forth.
The second time she shows the wound, however, is more compli-
cated. For various reasons, Monna Vanna ends up telling her husband
everything that has happened, and he becomes incensed. Prinzivalle
is captured, and is about to be put to death. Monna Vanna realizes
that there is only one way to save her lover: She tells her husband
that she was lying before, that Prinzivalle did try to rape her, that
they fought all night, and that this wound is the evidence of her
resistance. With this as her reason, she is able to convince her hus-
band that she alone should be the one to torture Prinzivalle; she thus
obtains the key to the dungeon, and thus she and Prinzivalle are able
escape together.
So the wound signifies in the first instance the dangers surrounding
Monna Vanna and her vulnerability, and in the second instance,
that vulnerability is turned around into a weapon to achieve her
desired goal. In this sense, too, the photo crystallizes the double-edged
nature of the rise of actresses: it is Monna Vanna’s victory and her
vulnerability, as well as the victory and the vulnerability of actresses
in general, that could be said to be symbolized in this
photograph.30
The years following the rivalry of Kawakami Sadayakko and Matsui
Sumako saw women take on a variety of roles on stage and off. The
all-female Takarazuka theatre was founded in 1913 by entrepreneur
Kobayashi IchizÙ (1873-1957) to attract families to his hot-spring
resort, and had become by the 1930s a full-fledged troupe known
for French-style revues.31 The 1920s and 1930s in Japan saw other
30
This is why I chose this photograph to be on the cover of Acting Like a Woman in
Modern Japan.
31
It seems, from the evidence Jennifer Robertson presents, that Takarazuka as
we know it today was shaped in the 1930s, rather than in the decades immediately
following its founding in 1913. The 1930s were when the content of the shows
changed from children’s stories and folktales to musical dramas and revues; when
the word “girl” (shÙjo) was dropped from the troupe name to signify this shift to more
adult-oriented entertainment; when the first official fan club was created; and when
sexologists blamed the female impersonator of male roles (otokoyaku) for provoking
the increased incidence of lesbian practices. One might argue then that while the
1930s could be said to be characterized by androgynous ambivalence, the earlier
decades of the twentieth century were characterized more by an establishing and
policing of a strict gender dichotomy. Such a dichotomy was manifested sometimes
by anxiety over androgyny, but equally often by expressions strongly grounded in a
260 ayako kano
venues emerge, like Casino Folies (1929) and Moulin Rouge (1931),
capitalizing on the sexual appeal of the “modern girl.”32 Meanwhile,
serious actresses, especially those in shingeki troupes, worked diligently
to establish their professional credentials: Tamura Akiko (1905-1983),
Yamamoto Yasue (1906-1993), and Sugimura Haruko (1909-1997)
were among them. While some actresses distinguished themselves in
proletarian theater, Okada Yoshiko (1902-1992) created a sensation
in 1938 by emigrating with a lover to Soviet Russia. Many actresses
also began appearing in cinema and television. After World War II,
a new generation of remarkable stage actresses like Shiraishi Kayoko
(1941-) and Ri Reisen (1942-) emerged from the underground and
small theater movements in the 1960s and 1970s, although charis-
matic, even authoritarian, male directors dominated the genre. The
portrayal of women during this time tended to focus on the darker
side, such as sexually exploited women and mad women. The 1980s
and 1990s saw the emergence of many female playwrights like Kisar-
agi Koharu (1956-2000), Kishida Rio (1950-2003), and Nagai Ai
(1951-), and the staging of female characters created by female play-
wrights and female performers was no longer an extraordinary occur-
rence. Some women like Kisaragi and Watanabe Eriko (1955-) led
their own theater troupes, and reflecting the rise in awareness about
women’s issues in theater, the first Conference for Asian Women
and Theater was held in Tokyo and Kyoto in 1992.
But in the first decades of the twentieth century, all of this was
yet to take place. Acting like a woman in the context of modernizing
Japan and its theater meant several contradictory things at once. It
meant entering a sphere of activity previously dominated by men
and thus widening the scope of acceptable behavior for women, but
it also meant becoming part of a discourse that defined femininity
as something grounded in the physical body. It meant the possibility
of acting out roles that embodied feminist ideals, but it also meant
having to accept the risk of being objectified and sexually exploited.
It meant being at the vanguard of introducing Western dramas and
part four
Doris Croissant
1
Ellen P. Conant, ed., Nihonga. Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-
1968 (St. Louis: The St. Louis Art Museum 1995); Victoria Weston, Japanese Painting
and National Identity: Okakura Tenshin and his Circle, (Ann Arbor: The Center for Japa-
nese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2004).
2
Sharon H. Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, “The Meiji State’s Policy Toward
Women, 1890-1945,” in Gail Lee Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-
1945 (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1991), pp. 151-174
266 doris croissant
3
See the chapter by Melanie Trede in this volume.
4
See John Stevenson, Yoshitoshi’s Women. The Wooblock-print Series Fåzoku SanjånisÙ
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, revised edition, 1995), p. 6.
5
For an overview of bijinga, see Hamanaka Shinji, “Bijinga no tanjÙ, soshite
gen’ei” [The birth and origin of bijinga], in Yamatane Bijutsukan, ed., The birth of
Bijinga (Bijinga no tanjÙ) (Tokyo: Yamatane Museum of Art, 1997), pp. 6-19 and p. 63;
Helen Merritt, Nanako Yamada, eds., Woodblock Kuchi-e Prints: Reflections of Meiji Cul-
ture (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), pp. 125-132.
6
Tsuruta Migiwa, “Bunten to bijinga” [Bunten and bijinga], in Yamatane Bijut-
sukan, ed., The Birth of Bijinga, pp. 160-168; see also Asahi Shinbun-sha ed., Kindai
Nihon gaka ga egaita rekishi to roman no josei-bi ten [Feminine beauty in history and ro-
mances as painted by modern Nihonga artists] (1989); and Nakamura Giichi, “Bijutsu
ni okeru sei to kenryoku—ratai-ga ronsÙ” [Power and sexuality in art—the dispute
on nude painting], in Nakamura Giichi, Nihon kindai bijutsu ronsÙ-shi [The history of
the dispute surrounding modern Japanese art] (Tokyo: KyåryådÙ Library, 1981),
pp. 57-93. See also the essay by Jaqueline Berndt in this volume.
gender play in modern japanese painting 267
genres such as literature.7 Yet, the visual arts have so far rarely been
investigated with respect to gender categories such as femininity and
masculinity and their impact on the Nihonga and yÙga configurations
of womanhood. Gender ambiguity is a factor to be reckoned with
in the field of pictorial symbolism when analyzing the visible and
invisible strategies of creating Nihonga “high art.”
The Western philosophy of “high art” enabled the appropriation
of a symbolic meaning of womanhood and the allegories of the spiri-
tual and physical principles of love as symbolized by the Madonna
and Venus. Curtailed by the anti-pornography campaign of govern-
mental censorship, and faced with Victorian sexual double-standards,
to Nihonga painters the virgin/whore dichotomy amounted to another
touchstone for creating indigenous symbols of femininity.
My chapter approaches the issue of gender by examining allegori-
cal representations of womanhood in outstanding Nihonga works of
the Meiji and TaishÙ eras. In Section One and Two I contend that
Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Mercy, provided into the 1920s a para-
digm of the “third gender,” offering an escape from the boundaries
of gender difference. While KanÙ HÙgai (1828-1888), the canonized
pioneer of New Nihonga, created Merciful Kannon (Hibo Kannon) in 1888
as a masculine manifestation of motherhood, Nude Woman (Rafu),
submitted in 1920 by Murakami Kagaku (1888-1939) to the Associa-
tion for the Creation of National Painting (Kokuga sÙsaku kyÙkai),
represents an allegory of the “eternal woman” in the guise of the
“third gender” of Kannon. The last two sections of my essay will
explore the work of KainoshÙ Tadaoto (1894-1978), a guest member
of the Kokuga Society and a paragon of Nihonga decadent painting.
Starting in 1918 with Yokogushi and inspired by his amateur training
as an onnagata performer, KainoshÙ extended Nihonga painting of
women towards the ambiguous eroticism of the Westernized femme
fatale and prostitute. It is my contention that in response to Buddhist
concepts of transgender, Western theories of sexual perversion, and
fin-de-siècle decadence, the notion of the “third gender” entered the
7
Donald Roden, “TaishÙ Culture and the Problem of Gender Ambivalence,” in
J. Thomas Rimer, ed., Culture and Identity. Japanese Intellectuals during the Interwar Years
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 37-55; Jennifer Robertson, Takara-
zuka, Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1998); and Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
268 doris croissant
8
SatÙ DÙshin, Meiji kokka to kindai bijutsu. Bi no seiji-gaku [The Meiji state and
modern art. The Politics of beauty] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1999), p. 300;
Martin Collcutt, “The Image of Kannon as Compassionate Mother in Meiji Art and
Culture,” in Ellen P. Conant, ed., Challenging Past and Present. The Metamorphosis of
Japanese Art in the Nineteenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006),
pp. 197-224.
9
Okakura KakuzÙ “KanÙ HÙgai,” published in Kokka, 2, November 1889; also
in Okakura Tenshin shå, Meiji Bungaku Zenshå 38 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobÙ, 1968),
pp. 300-311.
gender play in modern japanese painting 269
Figure 9.1. KanÙ HÙgai, Compassionate Kannon (Hibo Kannon), 1888; mounted painting,
ink and colors on silk, 211.8- 85.4 cm; Museum of the Tokyo National University
of Fine Arts. A color plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on
pp. xvii-xxxii.
270 doris croissant
10
Cf. Collcutt, p. 209, note 24
11
Okakura Kakuzo, The Ideals of the East (Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1941 [1903]),
p. 192.
gender play in modern japanese painting 271
1883 (Freer Gallery) and 1888. They show numerous naked or partly
veiled female figures reminiscent of winged angels as well as of Bud-
dhist heavenly maidens (tenjÙ). These hybrid creatures look down on
clouds and waves that sometimes enclose a globe or moon. Detailed
studies of heads and faces worked without doubt to give Hibo Kannon
a more feminine expression, emulating Western prototypes12 (Figure
9.2). Shioya Jun points to the notable similarity between Madonna
images and the devotional look typical not only of HÙgai’s Merciful
Kannon, but also of Meiji “beauties” in general.13
Yet, HÙgai not only discarded his sketches of female celestials, but
surprisingly also dismissed the female prototypes among the thirty-
three manifestations of Kannon as described in Lotus Sutra.14 Martin
Collcutt rightly observes that indigenous icons, such as Hariti (Kishi-
mojin, Kariteimo), or so-called “Maria-Kannon” figures, secretly
worshiped and transmitted by “hidden Christians” from the seven-
teenth century onward, would have yielded ideal indigenous models
of the mother-and-child motif.15 What, then, was HÙgai’s concept of
“maternal compassion”?
Recent studies regard the gender ambiguity of Hibo Kannon as a
prerequisite of the painting’s political symbolism. Pointing to the
socialization of women in Meiji Japan, Wakakuwa Midori maintains
that HÙgai conceived of Hibo Kannon as a protective deity and an
allegory of the reproductive and educational mission of women in
Imperial Japan.16 Chiba Kei has conversely argued that the painting
12
Kyoto National Museum, ed., Kano Hogai. The Pioneer of Modern Japanese Painting.
In Commemoration of the Centenary of his Death (Kyoto: Shinbunsha, 1989), fig. 142; Mi-
zunoue Masaru, “Hibo Kannon no shita-e” [The sketches for Hibo Kannon], Sansai,
no. 254, 2 (1970): 32-41. Honda KinkichirÙ (1850-1921) exploited the winged angel
in his representation of the heavenly maiden Hagoromo, dated 1890 (Conant, Challeng-
ing Past, plate 5, cf. figure 7, p. 216).
13
Shioya Jun, “Madonna no manazashi—Meiji no bijinga wo meguru ikkosatsu”
[The Gaze of Madonna—An aspect of Meiji bijinga], in Yamatane Bijutsukan, The
Birth of Bijinga, p.151.
14
The art historian Umezawa Seiichi noted in 1919 that Hibo Kannon has no
prototype among the numerous manifestations of Bodhisattva Avalokiteávara. Ume-
zawa Sei’ichi, HÙgai to GahÙ (Tokyo: Junsho bijutsusha, 1919), p. 224.
15
Collcutt, p. 218. Interestingly, in the 1860s the pioneer of yÙga and photogra-
phy, Shima Kakoku (1827-1870), designed a Madonna-and-Child image in Japanese
dress. See Shioya, “Madonna no manazashi,” figs.1-2.
16
Wakakuwa Midori, KÙgÙ no shÙzÙ: ShÙken KÙtaigÙ no kyÙshÙ to josei no kokuminka
[Portraits of the empress: Representations of Empress Shoken and the nationaliza-
tion of women] (Tokyo: Chikuma shobÙ, 2001), p. 416.
272 doris croissant
Figure 9.2. KanÙ HÙgai, Sketches and drawings for Hibo Kannon, 1884-1888; hand
scroll, (detail), ink and color on paper, 37.5 × 507.2; Museum of the Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts.
gender play in modern japanese painting 273
17
Chiba Kei, “KanÙ HÙgai Hibo Kannon o yomu” [Reading Kano HÙgai’s Hibo
Kannon], in Ikeda Shinobu, ed., Kenryoku to shikaku hyÙsho III [Power and visual repre-
sentation III] (Chiba: Chiba daigaku daigakuin shakai bunka kagaku kenkyåka,
2003), pp. 48-65, especially pp. 56-57. Cf. SatÙ DÙshin, “Shudai no sentaku II: Kan-
non KyÙsai” [Choice of motifs II: Kannon by KyÙsai], Journal of KyÙsai Study, vol. 8,
no. 74 (July 2003): 8-14 (my thanks go to Melanie Trede who drew my attention to
the articles cited above).
18
Kumamoto KenjirÙ, Kindai Nihon bijutsu no kenkyå [Studies on modern Japanese
art] (Tokyo: TÙkyÙ kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyåjo, 1964), p. 463; Kyoto National Mu-
seum, ed., Kano Hogai (1989), pl. 141.
19
See Doris Croissant, “In Quest of the Real: Portrayal and Photography in
Japanese Painting Theory,” in Conant, ed., Challenging Past and Present, pp. 153-176;
Doris Croissant, “Das Geheimnis des Hibo Kannon,” in Asiatische Studien/Études Asia-
tiques XLIV, 2 (1990): 349-378.
274 doris croissant
20
On the Freer Kannon, see Collcutt, p. 198, pp. 209 ff.
21
Ernest Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art. An Outline History of East Asi-
atic Design. 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.; revised edition 1963 [1912]),
vol. 1, pp. 132 ff.
22
Croissant, “Das Geheimnis,” p. 352; see Collcutt, p. 213, on the Freer GyÙran
Kannon. GyÙran Kannon used to be depicted as a beautiful woman, but never as
Avalokiteávara holding a fish basket and floating on clouds. As one of the canonical
thirty-three manifestations of Kannon (sanjåsan-tai Kannon) she is pictured riding on a
large fish. See Kokusho kankÙkai,ed., ButsuzÙ zui [Iconographical dictionary of Bud-
dhist figures, First edition 1690] (Tokyo: KÙyÙsha, 1972), p. 48.
23
Barbara E. Reed, “The Gender Symbolism of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva,” in Jose
Ignacio Cabezon, ed., Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992), pp. 159-180. Yu Chun-fang, “Guanyin: The Chinese Transfor-
mation of Avalokiteávara,” in Marsha Weidner, ed., Latter Days of the Law: Images of
Chinese Buddhism 850-1850 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994), pp. 151-
181.
gender play in modern japanese painting 275
being the Eguchi theme and its adaptation in popular art.24 The
equation of Kannon with courtesans lasted into Meiji literature as
proven by Natsume SÙseki’s famous novel Botchan (1906), in which
he features a beautiful prostitute who bears the nickname “Kannon.”
One might speculate, then, that HÙgai equipped his Hibo Kannon with
a moustache in order to exclude any association with the female
manifestation of GyÙran Kannon and its connection with prosti-
tutes.
When seen in the context of Nihonga historicism, in form and con-
tent Merciful Kannon complied with HÙgai’s efforts at reconstructing
the style and meaning of the lost art of such famous Chinese masters
as Wu Daozhi. As an image that reflects Meiji gender politics, on
the other hand, the work underscores patriarchal domination over
the nation’s offspring in guise of Buddhist iconographic conventions.
In as much as Merciful Kannon attributes the mystery of childbirth to
a male “mother,” it challenges the basic facts of biological mother-
hood, and thus represents an Anti-Madonna, or even, as Chiba Kei
puts it, a “phallic mother” and a symbol of the castration anxiety
induced by the rise in the empowerment of women.25
Among later Nihonga painters, the gender puzzle of Merciful Kannon
yielded a fascination with the transgender symbolism of GyÙran Kan-
non, the Buddhist epitome of the holy whore. Shimomura Kanzan
(1873-1930), a pupil of HÙgai and member of the Tokyo-based Japa-
nese Art Academy (Nihon bijutsuin), founded in 1898 by Okakura,
conceived several versions of GyÙran Kannon. The first one, created
in 1910, is an allusion to the famous Daitokuji triptych Crane, Kannon
and Monkey by the Zen painter Muqi (active late 13th c.), showing in
place of Kannon an Indian beauty with a basket walking to the fish
market.26 In 1928 Kanzan created one more version of GyÙran Kan-
non, presenting the legendary Tang maiden in the guise of Mona
24
Timothy Clark, “Prostitute as Bodhisattva: The Eguchi Theme in Ukiyoe,”
Impressions 22 (2000): 37-53.
25
Chiba Kei, “SensÙ to Hibo Kannon,” Image & Gender, vol. 6, 3 (2006): 20.
26
Yokohama bijutsukan, ed., Taikan to Kanzan ten [Exhibition of Taikan and Kan-
zan] (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1990), figs. 25/78, cf. 81. The hanging scrolls
Crane, Kannon and Monkey (late 13th century), attributed to Mu Qi, are preserved in
Daitokuji Temple, Kyoto.
276 doris croissant
Lisa.27 At this stage, as we will see below, the Gioconda’s smile was
broadly understood not only as indicating erotic seduction, but also
as a signifier of the androgynous charms of the “third sex.”
27
Hosono Masanobu, Shimomura Kanzan. Kindai no bijutsu 9 (Tokyo: ShibundÙ,
1982), fig. 98.
28
On the Kokuga Society see National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo et al.,
eds., KyÙto no Nihonga 1910-1930. TaishÙ no kokoro, kakushin to sÙzÙ [Nihonga: the Kyoto
School 1910-1930] (1986); Conant, Transcending the Past, pp. 106-107; John Donald
Szostak, The “The Kokuga SÙsaku KyÙkai” and KyÙto Nihonga Reform in the Meiji, TaishÙ and
Early Showa Years (1900-1928) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wash-
ington, 2005), p. 225.
29
Quoted from Szostak, p. 620; see also pp. 248 ff. KyÙto Kokuritsu kindai bi-
jutsukan/TÙkyÙ kokuritsu kindai bijutsukan, eds., Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai Retrospective
(1993), pp. 160-161. The Society’s statement of purpose (riyåsho) was signed on 16
January 1918 by Ono ChikkyÙ, Tsuchida Bakusen, Murakami Kagaku, Nonogase
Banka and Sakakibara ShihÙ; the same painters, but including Takeuchi SeihÙ and
Nakai SÙtarÙ, signed the manifesto (sengensho) promulgated on 20 January 20 1918
(see Szostak, pp. 248 ff.).
gender play in modern japanese painting 277
leau paintings, these works were possibly meant to decorate the recep-
tion rooms of Western-style houses.30
The Kokuga painter Murakami Kagaku chose Italian Renaissance
painting and religious themes as his model, but still adhered to the
lumping together of Buddhist and Western ideals of womanhood.
His Nude Woman (Rafu), submitted in 1920 to the third Kokuga exhi-
bition, depicts a slightly veiled, half-naked Indian woman adorned
with necklaces and earrings, sitting on a well close to a tray with
lotus flowers31 (Figure 9.3). In his essay “The Eternal woman,” writ-
ten in 1920, Murakami commented on the allegorical meaning of
his Nude Woman:
In all human beings, whether they like it or not, there is a longing for
beauty. I believe that this is what the Eternal Woman (kuon no josei)
symbolizes. But neither normal women nor men can attain our ideal
of a perfectly virtuous woman. I think the reason is that this ideal
transcends sexuality and resides only in what is called the “third sex”
(chåsei). Assuming that we take Kannon as the perfect incorporation of
the good and the beauty that embodies all human ideals and longings
in his physical appearance, then we may be right to consider the “third
sex” as something also essential to the Eternal Woman.
He goes on to explain:
At this point the fundamental difference between the Western world
and Asia comes to the fore. European thought from Greece to Helle-
nism and Hebraism stresses the rarely-surmounted antagonism between
body and spirit that corresponds to the usually unending battle between
soul and flesh. Yet in Asia, and especially in India, such a binary did not
exist. There, I believe, body and spirit were unified and harmonized.
What was considered flesh was at the same time spirit. While in Europe
culture developed in opposition to nature, Indian culture developed out
of nature. While in Europe humanity is conceived as the other of na-
ture, in India men and nature are commonly understood to be one.
The year before last, when I undertook to paint Nude Woman as an
aspect of the Eternal Woman which is the beginning and end of hu-
man’s eternal longing (although being aware of my poor talent and
numerous shortcomings), I simultaneously wished to express the purity
of Kannon and Kanzeon Bosatsu through the woman’s eyes as well as
30
See Jordan Sand, “The Cultured Life as Contested Space. Dwelling and Dis-
course in the 1920s,” in Elise K. Tipton and John Clark, eds., Being Modern in Japan:
Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,
2000), pp. 99-118.
31
See Szostak, pp. 337-340 on the reception of Nude Woman and a caricature by
Okamoto Ippei (1920).
278 doris croissant
Figure 9.3. Murakami Kagaku, Nude Woman (Rafu), 1920; mounted painting, color
on silk, 163.6 × 109.1 cm; Yamatane Museum. A color plate of this illustration can
be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
gender play in modern japanese painting 279
through her swelling breasts. What I wanted to visualize was the beauty
of the Eternal Woman that lies in flesh as well as in spirit, in hair as
much as in the mouth, in arms as well as in feet, a beauty that encom-
passes all the so-called virtues in harmony.32
With his first—and to my knowledge, only—painting of a naked
woman, Murakami seemingly complied with the market-oriented
strategy of Kokuga artists who had explored erotic subject such as
geisha and prostitutes since the society’s first exhibition in 1918. Yet,
Murakami’s concept of an Asian Venus took inspiration from Japa-
nese Buddhist art and Ajanta murals. What remained certainly not
unnoticed by the educated public was the painting’s source in Indian
Buddhist art: while reminiscent of the voluptuous body of a female
yakshini, Nude Woman emulates the gesture of a Bodhisattva holding
a lotus flower—a sign of enlightenment and purity well known from
the famous fresco with Avalokiteávara (Padmapani) in Ajanta Cave
1 (Figure 9.4).
In his notes written between 1919 and 1939, Murakami expanded
repeatedly on the relation between religion and art, claiming that he
practiced painting like a “prayer in the closet” (misshitsu no inori). 33
His early articles echo the debate about the Platonic dichotomy
between the carnal and spiritual aspects of Eros—among TaishÙ
intellectuals apparently an issue that fuelled speculation about the
distinction between male and female sexual desire. In a note written
in 1919, Murakami described his infatuation with the gilded statue
of ShÙ-Kannon, created in 1226 by Jokei II and still extant in Kurama-
dera north of Kyoto.34
If I were to keep this statue in my home, I would adore it from morn-
ing to evening. This figure possesses a completely feminine shape.
Every inch of it makes me think of the body of Venus (although there
are different types of it), and the red color gives an impression as if
real blood was running through the body, encased in a beautiful skin.
The half-closed eyes (hosoku hiraku me) look as if they knew everything
about human fate from beginning to end. I believe that his love (ai) is
32
Murakami Kagaku, “Kuon no josei “[The Eternal Woman], in Murakami
Kagaku, Garon [On painting] (Tokyo: ChåÙ kÙron bijutsu shuppan. 1972),
pp. 51-52.
33
Murakami Kagaku, Garon, p. 27.
34
Reproduced in Akiyama, Terukazu et al. eds., Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu, vol. 9
(Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1967-1980), pl. 81.
280 doris croissant
35
Murakami Kagaku, “ButsuzÙ zakkan” [Random thoughts on Buddhist figures]
(1919), in Murakami, Garon, p.15.
36
Leo Bersani, The Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1986), p. 179; Walter Pater, “She is older than the rocks among which
she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and has been a diver in
deep seas . . . Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy,
the symbol of the modern idea.” From The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, 4th ed.
(London, 1893), quoted in Denis Donoghue, The Practice of Reading, (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 41.
37
Stefan Tanaka, “Imaging History: Inscribing Belief in the Nation,” The Journal
of Asian Studies 53, 1 (February, 1994): 25.
38
See Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-male sexuality in Japanese
Discourse, 1600-1950 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 193.
282 doris croissant
Between 1918 and 1920, the Kokuga Society used the broad effec-
tiveness of Tokyo and Kansai department stores to test the con-
sumer’s willingness to buy a surrogate modernism of “pure art,”
manufactured in Japan’s old political centre, Kyoto. Images of pros-
titutes, in particular, underlined the “modernity” of Kyoto Nihonga.
In December 1918, the Kokuga Society organized its first exhibition
39
Edward Carpenter, Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk. A Study in Social Evolu-
tion (London: George Allen& Co., 1914 [1907], Kessinger Publisher’s reprint),
pp. 137-160.
40
Habuto Eiji and Sawada JunjirÙ, Hentai seiyokuron (Tokyo: Shun’yÙdÙ, 1915);
Sawada Jun’jirÙ, Shinpi naru dÙseiai [The Mystery of homosexual love], 2 vols. (Tokyo:
TenkadÙ shobÙ, 1920); quoted in Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire, p. 253.
41
Gregory M. Pflugfelder, “ ‘S’ is for Sister: Schoolgirl Intimacy and ‘Same-Sex-
Love’ in Early Twentieth-Century Japan,” in Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno,
eds., Gendering Modern Japanese History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2005), p. 168
gender play in modern japanese painting 283
42
Kyoto kokuritsu kindai bijutsukan, ed., KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten [KainoshÙ Tadaoto
Exhibition] (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1997), p. 129; Chiba shiritsu bijutsu-
kan, ed., KainoshÙ Tadaoto to TaishÙ-ki no gaka-tachi. [KainoshÙ Tadaoto and Painters
of the TaishÙ era] (Toyko: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1999), p. 117; Tanaka Hisao,
“KainoshÙ Tadaoto kaikoten ni kanren shite” [On the memorial exhibition of Kai-
noshÙ Tadaoto], Sansai, no. 346 (1976): 17-20; cited in Szostak, pp. 304-307.
43
On Scarface Otomi (Kirare Otomi, also called Wakaba no Ume Ukina no Yokogushi or
Musume Gonomi Ukina no Yokogushi), see Samuel. L. Leiter, New Kabuki Encyclopedia
(Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1997), p. 714. For a translation of Kirare Otomi, see
James R. Brandon and Samuel L. Leiter, Kabuki Plays on Stage, vol. 3: Darkness and
Desire, 1804-1864 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), pp. 320-356.
284 doris croissant
Figure 9.5. KainoshÙ Tadaoto (1894-1977), Yokogushi, 1918, mounted painting, color
on silk, 164.5 × 71.4 cm; Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of Modern Art. A color
plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
gender play in modern japanese painting 285
Figure 9.6. KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Yokogushi, circa 1916 (?), mounted painting, colors on
silk, 195.0 × 84.0 cm; Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art.
286 doris croissant
money, and moreover, kills her greedy husband, Yasu, so that her
former lover is able to redeem his heirloom sword.44
Several shibai-e triptychs, printed about 1864, depict the climactic
murder scene by staging it in a graveyard with Yosa at the left and
Otomi brandishing a kitchen knife at “Bat” Yasu at the right. On a
print by Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900), we see Otomi character-
ized as a Fukagawa courtesan, with a chic boxwood comb worn
aslant the side of her head and a checkered black-and-white haori-
jacket thrown over her shoulders (Figure 9.7).
Two decades after the first performance of Scarface Otomi, the
depravity of the “evil woman” was no longer symbolized through
her criminal acts such as blackmailing, robbery, and murder, but
was put on a level with pornographic offences against public morals.
This change can be seen in a hanging scroll by Kobayashi Eitaku
(1843-1890), datable to around 188545 (Figure 9.8). The scroll’s subject
is simply given as A Woman in a DanjurÙ Robe, but the boxwood comb
and bath-robe imprinted with the crest of the actor Ichikawa DanjurÙ
suggest a certain affinity to the kabuki heroine Otomi. Posing as a
“beauty after her bath“ (yu-agari bijin), the figure exposes her private
parts in an overt manner.46 While actor prints foreground the nar-
rative context with Otomi as a furious murderess, Eitaku generalizes
the connection between kabuki and prostitution. Eitaku was one of
the few Nihonga painters who sought to exploit the nude for didactic
purposes, shortly before the anti-pornography campaign of 1889
prohibited painters from depicting naked woman. 47 The TaishÙ-
period painter KainoshÙ Tadaoto, on the other hand, presented
44
On “poison women” in Meiji narratives, see Christine Marran, “’Poison wom-
an’: Takahashi Oden and the Spectacle of Female Deviancy in early Meiji,” US-
Japan Women’s Journal (English supplement) 9, (1995): 93-110; Hirata Yumi, “The
Story of the Woman, the Woman of the Story: Takahashi Oden and the Discourse
of the ‘Poison Woman,’” in Wakita Haruko, Anne Bouchy, and Ueno Chizuko, eds.,
Gender and Japanese History (Osaka: Osaka University Press, 1999), vol. 2, pp. 221-
252.
45
Otsu City Museum of History, ed., Unexplored Avenues of Japanese Painting: The
Hakutakuan Collection. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), pl. 80, pp. 182-
183.
46
The design of a sickle (kama), a circle (wa), and the hiragana character nu painted
on the mounting read “kamawanu,”, translatable as “I don’t care” The pattern is
said to have been invented by Ichikawa DanjurÙ VII (1791-1859), though its relation
to the painting is not clear. See Leiter, New Kabuki Encyclopedia, p. 265.
47
See the chapter by Jaqueline Berndt in this volume.
gender play in modern japanese painting 287
Figure 9.7. Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900), Scarface Otomi, 1864, woodblock print;
Waseda University.
48
KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten, (1997), p. 25 When KainoshÙ restored the painting in the
1920s, he replaced the actor-portrait with a large cartouche with a calligraphic in-
scription that certified that the work had been displayed at the first Kokuga exhibi-
tion of 1918.
288 doris croissant
Figure 9.8. Kobayashi Eitaku (1843-1890), Woman in DanjurÙ Robe, circa 1885, hang-
ing scroll, colors on silk, 106.0 × 41.5 cm; Hakutakuan Collection, Seattle.
gender play in modern japanese painting 289
49
KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), p. 24.
50
See KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), pp. 128-129, for references to KainoshÙ’s rath-
er contradictory recollections of the genesis of Yokogushi. The play Kirare Otomi with
Sawamura Gennosuke’s IV (1859-1936) in the role of Otomi was staged in July in
Kyoto prior to the Minamiza production running from 31 August to 15 September
1915. Since KainoshÙ’s sister-in-law died in Tokyo on 26 August 26 1915, it is un-
likely that he would have visited the kabuki performance during mourning. See
Leiter, New Kabuki Encyclopedia, p. 558.
290 doris croissant
51
Kushigata Shunsen Museum of Art, ed., Natori Shunsen: Kushigata chÙritsu Shusen
Bijutsukan shozÙ Natori Shunsen sakuhin mokuroku (Kushigata: Yamanashi nichi-nichi
shinbunsha, 2002), p. 19.
52
See footnote 74.
53
Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman, pp. 1-14; see also Dina Lowy, “Nora and the
‘New Woman’: Visions of Gender and Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Ja-
pan”, U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, no. 26 (2004): 75-97.
54
See Yamatane bijutsukan, The Birth of Bijinga, fig. 57. Christine Guth noted
that in Meiji tourist photography the image of happily laughing geishas and prosti-
tutes coined the cliché of female hospitality. Christine M.E. Guth, Longfellow’s Tattoos:
Tourism, Collecting, And Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), pp. 82-
83.
55
Yamatane bijutsukan, The Birth of Bijinga, figs. 57, pp. 115-118. Teramoto Mi-
nako, ed., Bijin no tsukurikata: Sekihan kara hajimaru kÙkoku posuta [Making beauty: early
Japanese lithographic posters] (Tokyo: Insatsu hakubutsukan, 2007), figs. 14-19.
gender play in modern japanese painting 291
Figure 9.9. Natori Shunsen (1886-1960), Onoe Baiko as Otomi, 1917, woodblock
print.
292 doris croissant
Figure 9.11. Leonardo da Vinci (1479-1528), Portrait of Mona Lisa, 1503-1506, oil on
wood, 77.0 × 53 cm; Musées du Louvre, Paris.
294 doris croissant
56
See the chapter by Jaqueline Berndt in this volume, Figure 10.12.
57
Shirakaba, vol. 5/11 (1914), following p. 208.
58
While Woman of Shimabara represents the motherly type of courtesan, about
1921 KainoshÙ elaborated a grimacing, demonic type of Edo courtesans. (KainoshÙ
Tadaoto ten, (1997), pp. 34-37).
59
Sigmund Freud published Die Frau und das Unterbewusste in 1910. For an English
translation, see Sigmund Freud, Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, Art &
Literature, Penguin Freud Library, 14 (Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985). On
the presumption that creativity is rooted in the experience of early childhood, Freud
identified St. Anne with Leonardo’s step-mother. Growing up under the wings of his
“phallic mother,” Leonardo is supposed of having developed an at least latent homo-
erotic orientation.
gender play in modern japanese painting 295
Figure 9.13. Leonardo da Vinci (1479-1528), St. Anne, Madonna, and Child, 1508-1513,
oil on canvas, Musées du Louvre, Paris.
gender play in modern japanese painting 297
60
See Jeffrey Matthew Angles, Writing the love of boys: representations of male-male
desire in the literature of Murayama Kaita and Edogawa Ranpo (unpublished Ph.D. dis-
sertation, Ohio State University, 2004); http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc
_num=osu1071535574.
61
Murayama Kaita, “BishÙnen Saraino no kubi,” translated in Angles,
pp. 315-317.
62
Angles, p. 35.
63
In the early 1920s a patron of KainoshÙ, a resident of Kobe, instructed Kain-
oshÙ and his long-time partner, the painter Sakakibara ShikÙ (1895-1969) (a young-
er brother of the Kokuga founding member Sakakibara ShihÙ), in the way of
nanshoku. See Shimada Yasuhiro, in KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), p. 12).
64
Leiter, New Kabuki Encyclopedia, p. 500.
298 doris croissant
65
Maki Morinaga, “The Gender of Onnagata as the Imitating Imitated: Its Histo-
ricity, Performativity, and Involvement in the Circulation of Femininity,” positions:
east asia cultures critique, volume 10, number 2 (Fall 2002): 263.
66
See Morimura Yasumasa, Self-portrait as Art History (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha,
1998).
67
Doris Croissant, ”Icons of Feminity. Japanese National Painting and the Para-
dox of Modernism,” in Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill,
eds., Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press, 2003), pp. 119-139.
68
Szostak, pp. 405 ff.
69
Kokuga Sosaku Kyokai Retrospective, plates 57 and 58; KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997),
p. 48 and p. 115. The venue of the 5th Kokuga exhibition, March 7 to 21, was an
exhibition hall in Ueno Park, Tokyo.
gender play in modern japanese painting 299
Figure 9.14. KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Woman with balloon (ChÙchÙ), 1926 (destroyed).
300 doris croissant
Figure 9.15. KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Nude (Rafu), mounted painting, 1926, colors on silk,
132.0 × 51.5 cm; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
gender play in modern japanese painting 301
70
Shimada Yasuhiro, in KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), p. 13; Szostak, pp. 454 ff.
71
KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), p. 132
72
Shimada Yasuhiro, in KainoshÙ Tadaoto ten (1997), p. 166. In the 1940s Kain-
oshÙ switched from painting to kabuki theatre and cinema, assisting the film director
Mizoguchi Kenji as art consultant. After 1957 he worked on a comeback as paint-
er.
73
Seki Chiyo, Uemura Shoen. Nihon no Bijutsu 12 (Tokyo: ShibundÙ, 1982), p. 73;
quotation from Uemura Shoen, “Seibi shÙ” (1943); cf. Morioka Michiyo, Changing
Images of women: TaishÙ period paintings by Uemura Shoen (1875-1940), Ito Shoha
(1877-1968), and Kajiwara Hisako (1896-1988) (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University
of Washington, 1990).
74
Quoted by Hamanaka Shinji, ”Bijinga: the portrayal of beauties in modern Japan,” in
Hotei Publishing-Abe Publishing, The Female Image: 20th century prints of Japanese beau-
ties (Leiden:, 2000), p.15; cf. Inoue Mariko, Transformation of Female Image in the paint-
ings of Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972) and Kobayashi Kokei (1883-1957) (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1989).
302 doris croissant
Figure 9.16. KainoshÙ Tadaoto, Singing Geisha Girl (Kagi), 1926, detail of 6 panel
screen, 178.5 × 248.8 cm, colors on silk; private collection.
gender play in modern japanese painting 303
America from the 1920s until the present, even among Western con-
noisseurs the Shin-Hanga prints of “beautiful women” (bijin) are held
to constitute “a palliative to the ugliness of the modern world“ and
to the threat of female sexual liberation, as epitomized by the modan-
g§ru (moga).75
In fact, contemporary visitors to Kokuten exhibitions, such as the
yÙga painter Kishida Ryåsei (1891-1929), did not classify Kansai
painting of women as bijinga, but as a sort of a misunderstood appro-
priation of fin-de-siècle decadence. In 1921 Kishida denounced the
“decadent” products of Nihonga painters from Kyoto and Osaka that
flooded the art scene as “sick and sweetish images of prostitutes,
maiko, and cats”.76 Warning against conflating pornography with the
objectives of “true” decadent art, Kishida noted that Kansai Nihonga
painters were far from measuring up to Western artists such as
Beardsley and Klimt.77 Yet, in 1927 a somewhat appreciative voice
ventured a comparison between literature and art, calling KainoshÙ
“the Tanizaki Jun’ichirÙ” of painting.”78 This author might have
sensed a genuine affinity between Yokogushi and literary exemplars of
75
Kendall H. Brown, TaishÙ Chic (Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts and
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), p. 23. Cf. Amy Reigle Newland,
“The appreciation of shin hanga in the West: the interwar years, 1915-1940”, in Hotei
Publishing-Abe Publishing, The Female Image, pp. 24-30. Significantly, the publisher
Watanabe ShÙzaburÙ did not only employ bijinga specialists such as ItÙ Shinsui
(1898-1972), a disciple of Kaburagi Kiyokata, but also the yÙga student Hashiguchi
GoyÙ (1881-1921), who in 1915 produced the first shin-hanga of a naked Japanese
woman. See The Female Image, plates 12, 15-16, 20, 21-22, 33, 37, 41, and 60.
76
Kishida referred to works by Kansai painters, in particular the woman painter
Shima Seien (1893-1970), denouncing the “women like ghosts” (obake no yÙ na onna)
recently on display in the Kokuten and Teiten exhibitions. Kishida Ryåsei zenshå (To-
kyo: Iwanami shoten, 1979), vol. 2, p. 324. Exhibiting with the Kokuga Society as
guests were the Osaka painter Kitano Tsunetomi (1880-1947) and the KyÙto painter
Okamoto ShinsÙ (1894-1933). In the 1920s they were classified as non-conformists
for taking prostitutes as models. Kanzaki, Ken’ichi, KyÙto ni okeru Nihonga-shi [History
of KyÙto Nihonga] (KyÙto: Seiban insatsu-sha, 1929), p. 223.
77
Kishida Ryåsei, “Dekadansu no kÙsatsu” [A Note on decadence] (1921), Kishi-
da Ryåsei zenshå, vol.3, p.160; idem., “Bijutsu jÙ no fujin“ [Women in art], Kishida
Ryåsei zenshå, vol.3, pp. 192-209. Kishida regarded Mona Lisa as the most beautiful
woman in the world. He endowed numerous portraits of his little daughter Reiko
with the enigmatic smile of La Gioconda.
78
Anonymous article in Bi no kuni (1927); quoted in Shimada Yasuhiro, ”TaishÙ-
ki geijutsu shisÙ no naka no Bakusen “ [Bakusen and thoughts about art in the
TaishÙ era], in TÙkyÙ kokuritsu kindai bijitsukan, ed., Tsuchida Bakusen ten [Tsuchida
Bakusen: A Retrospective] (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1997), pp. 25-31, with
an English abstract, pp. 32-39.
gender play in modern japanese painting 305
Conclusion
79
See Tomi Suzuki, Narrating the Self. Fictions of Japanese Modernity (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1996), pp. 151 ff. on Tanizaki’s Chijin no Ai (A Fool’s love), se-
rialized in 1924. Paul McCarthy argues that the antithesis between the Madonna
and the harlot is a basic schema of the novels of Tanizaki JunichirÙ, but lacks the
dichotomist radicalism of 19th century Western literature. Paul McCarthy, ”The
Madonna and the Harlot: Images of Women in Tanizaki,” Japanese Journal of Religious
Studies 9/2-3, (June-September 1982): 235-255.
80
Marc Driscoll, “Seeds and (Nest) Eggs of Empire: Sexology Manuals/Manual
Sexology,” in Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno, eds., Gendering Modern Japanese
History, p. 197. Ma Yuxing, “Cross-Dressing and Culture in Modern Japan,” Japan
Studies Review, volume 6 (2002): 21-45. Literary examples of cross-dressing are Abe
JirÙ’s hero SantarÙ who claims identity with the onnagata Segawa KikujirÙ, and the
story “Onnagata” by Mishima Yukio. See Stephen W. Kohl, “Abe JirÙ no nikki (The
diary of SantarÙ),” in Thomas J. Rimer, ed., Culture and Identity: Japanese Intellectuals
during the Interwar Years, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 7-21;
Mishima Yukio, “Onnagata” (1966), translated by Donald Keene, in Stephen D.
Miller, ed., Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. (San Francisco: Gay
Sunshine Press, 1996), pp. 172-189.
306 doris croissant
in the visual field, too, gender ambivalence did not indicate a cate-
gory crisis, but, on the contrary, lent itself to function as an outlet
for lost possibilities of artistic self-expression.81 If we seriously con-
sider the fact that Japanese society faced the trauma of compulsory
heterosexuality during the early Meiji era, and linking that to the
tidal wave of sexual perversion theory that swept through the TaishÙ
art world, one might draw the conclusion that gender ambivalence
was in fact a catalyst that converted artistic self-expression into
national representation. In the particular ideological conjuncture of
Nihonga modernism, elite male practitioners strategically defended
masculine hegemony against the construct of the bijin, and thus sub-
jected the nightmare of the “modern girl” to sexual perversion the-
ory. As the “third gender” was brought into the debate about gender
and sexuality, homosexual sublimation provided the intellectual
counterpart to the women-oriented ideal of the romantic bijin. It is
in the market-oriented trans-cultural masquerade of Nihonga modern-
ism that we see this phenomenon most clearly.
81
Majorie Garber argues that gender blending offers a third sex or third term as
a possibility to subvert or at least unveil a failure of definitional distinction of social
categories. After World War II cross-dressing indicates a “category crisis” induced
by compulsory male-female gender division and functioned universally as a critique
of the dichotomy of Asian and Euro-American culture, high and low art, bourgeois
straight and underground gay art. Majorie Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and
Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1997 [1992]), pp. 9.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 307
Jaqueline Berndt
Introduction
Figure 10.1. Kuroda Seiki, ChÙshÙ (Morning toilet), 1893 (destroyed in June 1945),
178.5 × 98 cm.
310 jaqueline berndt
1. Invisible Nationality
1
Regarding the first see Philip Charrier, “Nojima YasuzÙ’s Primitivist Eye:
‘Nude’ and ‘Natural’ in Early Japanese Art Photography,” Japanese Studies, vol. 26,
no. 1 (May 2006): 47-68; for the latter see Shimokawa KÙshi, Nihon ero shashinshi,
(Tokyo: Seikyåsha, 1997).
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 311
2
Alison Smith, “Moral Responses to the Victorian Nude,” in Onodera Reiko
and The Mainichi Newspapers/Cultural Projects Dept., eds., The Victorian Nude: Mo-
rality and Art in 19th-century Britain (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2003), p. 226.
3
See Ueno KenzÙ, “Hakubakai to rataiga,” Kindai gasetsu. Meiji bijutsugaku ken-
kyåshi, no. 5 (March 1997): 22. As distinct from this equation of the nude (ratai) with
fine art (geijutsu), Miya Elise Mizuta Lippit claims: “Yet, because in Meiji Japan the
nude was seen in contrast to images of Japanese women, the nude was thought to
signify not ‘Art’ but nature” (Lippit, Miya Elise Mizuta, Figures of Beauty: Aesthetics and
the Beautiful Woman in Meiji Japan, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Proquest Information and
Learning, 2002 (Ph.D. Thesis, Yale University, 2001) p.11, footnote no. 16). This is
convincing within the context of her dissertation although partly misleading insofar
as “Art” is not exclusively defined as a modern institution, which is the case in my
essay.
4
Smith, “Moral Response,” p. 227.
5
Suiyokuzu (28 × 28.5 cm.). See Kinoshita Naoyuki, “Unmei no sÙseiji—shashin
to yÙga,” Geijutsu shinchÙ (March 1994): 31-39.
312 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.2. Fujishima Takeji (1867-1943), Nihon ni okeru geijutsu no mirai, in MyÙjÙ, no.
11, February 1901.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 313
6
(178.5 × 98 cm.). Purchased by Sumitomo Kichizaemon, the painting become
part of the Sumitomo family’s collection together with which it fell victim to the
bombardment of Tokyo on 5 June 1945 and the destruction of the Suma villa.
7
See Tan’o Yasunori, “‘ChÙshÙ’ shåikÙ,” Waseda daigaku daigakuin bungaku ken-
kyåka kiyÙ, vol. 42, no. 3 (1997): 149-163.
8
Takumi Hideo, “ChÙshÙ ratai mondai to sono zengo,” in Takashina Shåji, ed.,
Zenshå: Bijutsu no naka no rafu, vol. 12: Nihon no rafu (Tokyo: Shåeisha, 1981), p. 122.
314 jaqueline berndt
9
Bryson, Norman, “Westernizing Bodies: Women, Art, and Power in Meiji YÙga”
in: Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson, Norman and Maribeth Graybill, eds., Gender
and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003),
p. 108. See also Kojima Kaoru, “Kuroda Seiki ni miru rataiga no juyÙ to sono
eikyÙ,” Jissen joshi daigaku bigaku bijutsushigaku kiyÙ, no. 14 (1999): 43-60.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 315
10
Takashina Shåji, “Atarashii bi no hakken—Nihon no rafu, ” in Takashina,
ed., Nihon no rafu, p. 14; and Ueno, “Hakubakai,” p. 28.
316 jaqueline berndt
11
For example, Kagesato TetsurÙ, “Jinbutsu sekiraga kara rataiga e,” in Taka-
shina Shåji, ed., Nihon bijutsu zenshå, vol. 22: Kindai no bijutsu II: YÙga to nihonga (Tokyo:
KÙdansha, 1992), p. 179; Takumi, “ChÙshÙ ratai mondai,” p. 124.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 317
Figure 10.3. Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806): Bathing Beauty (Nyåyoku bijin zu), 1799;
98.5 × 48.3 cm. Museum of Art, Atami.
318 jaqueline berndt
which was not only a social, but also an aesthetic phenomenon. That
said, one should nonetheless consider the possibility of coming across
ambiguities here, too; after all, Kuroda was familiar with two cultures
and, thus, two ways of seeing.
Before returning to this in the following section, I shall touch upon
the third aspect of the rather invisible nationality of early Japanese
nude paintings, that is, the issue of where nudes were encountered
and how these sites were regulated. To come straight to the point,
pictures of naked women, particularly of such a physical presence
like the one in Morning Toilet, were not to be shown in public, even
if they depicted “exotic foreigners.” This fact can be deduced from
Georges Bigot’s (1860-1927) famous caricature of “La femme nue
de M. Kuroda” (1895; Figure 10.4). It depicts people in front of
Morning Toilet at the Kyoto venue: some stand gaping open-mouthed
in astonishment, and a girl even covers her eyes as if they hurt while
gathering up her kimono and uninhibitedly exposing her legs. Morn-
ing Toilet did not create much of a stir when exhibited at the exhibi-
tion of the Meiji Art Society (Meiji bijutsu kyÙkai) in Tokyo the previous
year, but in Kyoto it caused a scandal precisely because people who
were not familiar with the new concept of fine art recalled traditional
erotic pictures of beauties after the bath and, consequently, catego-
rized it as a part of daily life (or even pornography). What collided
between Kuroda’s nude and the exhibition visitors were two ways
of seeing, one that aimed at modernization by westernization, and
another one that rested upon conventional expectations. Vacillating
between European academism and Japanese popular pragmatism,
Morning Toilet distressed the public.
Fernand Ganesco, in whose book Bigot’s illustration first appeared,
disputed Kuroda’s capability to skillfully depict a European woman:
“... le monstre créé par M. Kuroda, dessiné sans habilité, peint avec
une lourdeur et une gaucherie extrêmes, a la prétention d’être une
femme européenne nue”12 (“the monster created by M. Kuroda—
designed without ability, painted with extreme clumsiness and awk-
wardness—has the pretension of being a naked European woman”).
An opponent to the new kind of Japaneseness, the one closely tied
to westernization, he preferred the nakedness on Japanese streets to
12
Fernand Ganesco, Shocking au Japon: de l’evolution de l’art dans l’empire du soleil le-
vant, dessins de Georges Bigot, (1895, place of publication not indicated), p. 32.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 319
13
Kagesato, “Jinbutsu sekiraga,” p. 174.
14
Still in 1924, Rodin’s Kiss at the 3rd Exhibition of Contemporary French Art (Dai-san-
kai furansu gendai bijutsu tenrankai) was put in an extra room together with other art
works; see: Kokumin bijutsu (Special issue: Ratai sakuhin tokubetsushitsu mondai), vol. 1,
no. 7 (July, 1924).
15
Published in the supplement to the magazine Kokumin no tomo, issue no. 37.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 321
Figure 10.5. Watanabe Seitei (1851-1918), title illustration for Lady Butterfly (KochÙ)
by Yamada BimyÙ, wood-cut print, 1889; in Kokumin no tomo, supplement to no. 37,
January 1889.
322 jaqueline berndt
kind to visit Europe and, at the Paris World Exposition in 1878, was
even awarded a silver medal.16 For BimyÙ—a rather provocative
author who wrote in vernacular Japanese—Watanabe depicted the
scene in which the heroine, a court-lady named Butterfly, appears
in front of her rescuer—almost performing a contraposto—after a
futile effort to follow her emperor in death by drowning. Often
regarded as the first full nude in modern Japanese-style painting
(nihonga),17 one should note that, in contrast to Kuroda’s oil paintings,
this picture entered the public realm as a reproduction. Generally
more focused on an aura of refinement than on strong bones, that
is, bodies, it took Japanese-style painting about two decades longer
than its western-style counterpart to deploy the nude.18 In part, this
can be put down to the fact that the very precedents which academic
nudes require in order to legitimate themselves historically could
only be obtained from European art. Thus, in the early 20th century,
the establishment of a nihonga nude had to put up with suggesting
the “westernization” of a genre that was initially supposed to dedi-
cate itself to what escaped modernization-as-westernization.
Similar to the above-mentioned example from literature, the dis-
tribution of art journals was occasionally prohibited due to “objec-
tionable” pictures. In 1897, the ban hit Bijutsu hyÙron (no. 2) because
it contained a reproduction of Kuroda’s nude triptych Chi Kan JÙ (on
which I will focus in the following section). In 1900, issue no. 8 of
MyÙjÙ was confiscated because of two drawings by IchijÙ Narumi
(1876-1900) who had adapted photographs of French nude sculp-
16
Eiraku TÙru, “Nihonga ni okeru ratai hyÙgen,” in The National Museum of
Art, Osaka, ed., Rataiga 100-nen no ayumi/Modern Nude Paintings 1880-1980 (exh. cat.),
(1983), p. 96.
17
In regard to modern Japanese-style painting, it should be taken into consider-
ation that already in 1842, Watanabe Seitei’s teacher Kikuchi YÙsai (1788-1878) had
painted En’ya Takasada tsuma shutsuyoku zu (En’ya Takasada’s wife after the bath,
114.4 × 47.8 cm, colors on silk), a nude which is often categorized as a historical
painting due to its subject matter. This work is counted among Japan’s “modern”
art; see, for example, its creator’s appearance in Kindai nihon bijutsu jiten (1989), p. 117.
However, it was not only painted before the concept of nihonga (as traditionalist mod-
ern Japanese painting) emerged, but it probably also escaped broader public atten-
tion until Watanabe Seitei painted his version of the same motif in 1881/1882. The
reception process of Kikuchi’s work in the late 19th century still needs to be ex-
plored.
18
The earliest examples are Tsuchida Bakusen Ama (Abalone Divers, 1913) and
Kobayashi Kokei Ideyu (Hot Spring, 1918). See the essay by Doris Croissant in this
volume.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 323
tures. However, the actual thorn in the flesh of the authorities were
nude lithographs, especially those of beauties after bathing (yuagari
bijin), which around 1890 gained popularity as novelty souvenirs and
lucrative commodities (Figure 10.6). Called “fake western pictures”
(nisemono yÙga) for their then-spectacular realism otherwise only known
from oil paintings or photos,19 they did not hide their purpose—the
pleasure of looking at female bodies—nor did they aspire to the
heights of “fine art” or the “national,” although the chance to look
at recognizably Japanese women was without doubt part of the
pleasure.
In 1935, the Yearbook of Japanese Art (Nihon bijutsu nenkan) found the
“Japanization of oil painting” accomplished and praised its crystal-
lization in those nudes which expressed a specifically Japanese beauty
in a specifically Japanese style.20 Since that time, Kuroda’s triptych
Chi Kan JÙ (Wisdom Impression Sentiment, 1897; Figure 10.7) has been
regarded retrospectively as a landmark pointing the way to that very
“Japanization.”21 It was the first nude in modern Japanese oil paint-
ing that both deployed a Japanese model and was painted as well as
exhibited in Japan. Kuroda created the first version in 1897 and
displayed it at the second Hakubakai exhibition the same year; he
finished the reworked version in 1899 and presented it at the World
Exposition in Paris 1900.
The title, as well as the women, however, are mysterious. Kuroda
himself left unexplained whether he was referring to the European
motif of the three Graces, to Christian triptychs, or to Buddhist trini-
ties (sanzon). Art historians suggest that the women embody Wisdom
19
Egakareta Meiji Nippon ten jikkÙ iinkai, ed., Egakareta Meiji Nippon—Sekihanga
[ritogurafu] no jidai, (vol. 1: exh. cat.; vol. 2: kenkyåhen/scholarly essays) (KÙbe shiritsu
hakubutsukan and Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga bijutsukan, 2002), p. 119; Iwa-
kiri Shin’ichirÙ, “Ukiyoe hanga toshite no sekihanga—sekihan gakue to nishiki-e no
hikaku kenkyå,” in the same volume, p. 20. I am very grateful to Doris Croissant for
pointing out this publication to me.
20
Tanaka TatsurÙ, “TaishÙ, ShÙwa zenki no yÙga to ratai hyÙgen,” in The Na-
tional Museum of Art, Osaka, ed.), Rataiga 100-nen, p. 95.
21
ˆta SamurÙ, “Jåkyå seiki no ratai bijutsu,” in ˆta SamurÙ, ed., Sekai ratai bi-
jutsu zenshå, vol. 5 (19-seiki) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1931), p. 14; Tanaka Atsushi, Nihon
no bijutsu 8: Meiji no yÙga. Kuroda Seiki to Hakubakai (Tokyo: ShibundÙ, 1995), p. 63.
324 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.6. Machida ShinjirÙ, Rafu, ca. 1890, two-color lithograph; in Egakareta Meiji
Nippon ten jikkÙ iinkai, ed., Egakareta Meiji Nippon—Sekihanga (ritogurafu) no jidai, vol. 1,
KÙbe shiritsu hakubutsukan and Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga bijutsukan (2002),
p. 169.
Figure 10.7. Kuroda Seiki, Chi Kan JÙ (Wisdom, impression, sentiment), 1897; 180.6 × 99.8 cm; in Nihon bijutsukan (Tokyo:
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 325
Impression Sentiment from the right to the left.22 Partly because of its
abstract title, which allegorizes the naked bodies into bearers of con-
cepts, (and which was only used for exhibitions in Japan), the paint-
ing does not leave a particularly Japanese impression, although its
stylized golden ground interferes interestingly with the suggested
plasticity of the women’s bodies. The first viewers in 1897 took these
bodies as real and, thus, Japanese; one even expressed his sympathy
for Lady Sentiment on the left, who is using her right hand instead
of the conventional fig leaf—after all, it would only be a natural
sentiment for a women to cover herself up when exposed at a venue
visited by hundreds of people every day.23 This relates to the issue
of distinguishing between “nude” and “naked” which I have already
mentioned in regard to Bigot’s caricature; below, I shall rather focus
on these women’s seemingly western physical proportions.
The women’s Caucasian-looking body shape can be traced back
to Kuroda’s late discovery of his home country. After ten years in
France, he encountered Japan in an exoticizing and idealizing way.
Still seeing things through “French” eyes and eager to distance him-
self from native graphics and genre paintings, he “latinized” the
stature of his Japanese model. According to the critic Kimura
ShÙhachi, Japanese women at the time were simply inappropriate
for nude paintings anyway, with their short stocky legs, their cat’s
backs, and huge heads.24 Similarly perpetuating a view formed five
decades earlier,25 in 1965 art historian Nishida Masaaki still consid-
ered undressed Japanese women of the 19th century as simply
unsightly: “… their heads leaned forward because of the heavy tra-
ditional hair-knot, the breast was flattened by means of the obi belt,
22
See for example Teshigawara Jun, Rataiga no reimei (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shin-
bunsha, 1986).
23
Kuraya Mika, “‘Kunst’ durch Grenzen: Der Maler Kuroda Seiki und die Akt-
bilddebatte,” in Steffi Richter, ed., JAPAN Lesebuch III: intelli (Tübingen: konkurs-
buchverlag Claudia Gehrke, 1998), pp. 62, 64. She quotes from the confiscated issue
no. 2 of Bijutsu hyÙron (November 1897, GahÙsha) which published a fictitious panel
discussion, partly about the 2nd Hakubakai exhibition where Chi Kan JÙ had its pre-
mière (pp. 20-35).
24
Kimura ShÙhachi, “Meiji igo no fåzoku to tai’i,” in Gendai no me, no. 15, Feb-
ruary (1956): 2.
25
Stratz—drawing upon Bälz—summarizes the flaws of Japanese bodies as fol-
lows: “1. the head is too big, 2. the legs are too short, 3. the hips are too slim.” C.H.
Stratz, Die Körperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner (Stuttgart: Verlag Ferdinand
Enke, 1904), p. 61.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 327
26
Nishida Masaaki, “Nihonjin no jintai to rataiga,” in Gendai no me, no. 126
(Tokushå: rataiga) (May 1965): 6.
27
See for example the astonishing sketches by Maruyama ˆkyo, Jinbutsu seisha
sÙhon (Exact depictions of human bodies), 2 scrolls, 31.4 × 992 cm and 31. 4 × 1079
cm, ink on Japanese paper with light coloration, ca. 1770.
28
According to Kinoshita Naoyuki, “Iki-ningyÙ no misemono to tenrankai ni
tsuite,” in Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, ed., Iki-ningyÙ to Matsumoto
KisaburÙ (exh. cat.), (Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto and Osaka History
Museum, 2004), pp. 104-108. The photographs in the catalogue as well as Kinoshi-
ta’s explanations suggest that most of these figures invited laughter.
328 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.8. Nezumiya Denkichi, “living doll” (iki-ningyÙ) of a peasant woman, 150 × 54
× 34 cm, late 19th century, Smithsonian Institution; in Contemporary Art Museum,
Kumamoto, ed., Iki-ningyÙ to Matsumoto KisaburÙ (Contemporary Art Museum,
Kumamoto and ˆsaka History Museum, 2004), p. 65.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 329
29
Ueno, “Hakubakai,” p. 17.
30
Tokyo National Museum et.al., eds., Seiki no saiten: Bankoku hakurankai no bijutsu/
Arts of East and West from World Expositions 1855-1900: Paris, Vienna and Chicago (exh.
cat.) (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 2004), p. 229.
330
jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.9. Wilhelm Heine (1827-1885), “Ein öffentliches Badehaus in Simoda [sic],” in Wilhelm Heine: Reise um
die Erde nach Japan: an Bord der Expeditions-Escadre unter Commodore M. C. Perry in den Jahren 1853, 1854 und 1855,
unternommen im Auftrage der Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten; mit fünf vom Verfasser nach der Natur aufgenommenen Ansichten in
Tondruck, ausgeführt in Holzschnitt von Eduard Kretzschmar, vol. 2, (Leipzig: H. Costenoble 1856), p. 34.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 331
31
This also implies social status, as Charrier’s article on Nojima suggests (“Prim-
itivist Eye,” p. 50): whereas Kuroda’s idealized women seem classless, Yorozu’s seem
to be of lower origin.
32
See Mizusawa Tsutomu, “The Artists Start to Dance. The Changing Image of
the Body in Art of the TaishÙ Period,” in Elise K. Tipton and John Clark, eds., Being
Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s (Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press, 2000), pp. 14-24.
33
In Atorie (Special Issue: YÙga ni okeru nihonteki keikÙ), no. 3 & 4, 1935, according
to Asano TÙru, “Nihonteki abura-e no keisei,” in Takashina Shåji, ed., Nihon bijutsu
zenshå, vol. 23: Kindai no bijutsu III: modanizumu to dentÙ (Tokyo: KÙdansha, 1992), p.
152.
34
Still today, the achievement of a truly “Japanese” oil painting is tied to the
“Japanese” bodies in paintings by Maeda Kanji (1896-1930) and Koide Narashige
(1887-1931) around 1930, for example by TÙkyÙ geijutsu daigaku daigaku bijutsu-
kan et. al., eds., SaikÙ: kindai nihon no kaiga—biishiki no keisei to tenkai (Remaking Mod-
ernism in Japan 1900-2000: exh. cat.) (TÙkyÙ geijutsu daigaku bijutsukan, TÙkyÙ-to
gendai bijutsukan, Saison gendai bijutsukan, 2004), p. 107.
332 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.10. Yorozu TetsugorÙ (1885-1927), Higasa no rafu (Female nude with sun
parasol), 1913, oil on canvas, 80.5 × 53 cm. Museum of Modern Art Kanagawa.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 333
35
ˆta SamurÙ, ed., Sekai ratai bijutsu zenshå, supervised by Okada SaburÙsuke und
Fujishima Takeji, 6 vols (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1931).
36
Painting in the anthology Shinju (Pearls), 1931. Kawabata entered Kuroda’s
Hakubakai Institute (Hakubakai kenkyåsho) in 1904; in 1907, one of his oil-paintings
was chosen for the 1st Salon of the Ministry of Culture (Bunten).
37
Doris Croissant, “Icons of Femininity: Japanese National Painting and the
Paradox of Modernity,” in Mostow et. al., eds., Gender and Power, p. 137. See also
Doris Croissant’s essay in this volume.
334 jaqueline berndt
3. Advertizing Nationally
38
As demonstrated above, for Japanese painters around 1900, “beauty” was
characterized by a prioritizing of the visual (that is, the look) over the haptic (that is,
the touch), in other words, a certain distance which allowed getting close to ideals.
39
Fujita Tsuguharu’s (1886-1968) nudes put also emphasis on the depicted wom-
en’s skin and, at the same time, on the Japanized way of their rendering (the praised
“milk-white” resulting from a specific combination of traditional and European col-
oring); they are even admired for their equation of translucent female skin and the
tactility of the painted surface (see Kuraya Mika, “Slashing the Skin: Two Motifs of
Tsuguharu Léonard Foujita,” in Ozaki Masaaki, Kuraya Mika et.al., eds., TanjÙ
120nen Fujita Tsuguharu ten/Léonard Fujita (exh. cat.) (Tokyo: The National Museum of
Modern Art, Tokyo 2006), Engl. supplement, pp. 6-10. However, they differ from
KainoshÙ’s nudes not only in regard to explicit eroticism, but also insofar as they
require symbolic operations in order to approach the skin’s haptic quality, for ex-
ample, a detour via other pictorial motifs such as cats and clothes.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 335
Figure 10.11. KainoshÙ Tadaoto (1894-1978), Rafu, 1925; colors on silk, 65 × 38.6 cm;
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
336 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.12. Inoue Mokuda and Kataoka ToshirÙ, Akadama Port Wine Poster (1922),
HB process offset print, 82 × 58 cm; courtesy of Suntory Ltd. A color plate of this
illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 337
40
See James Fraser, Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast, Japanese Modern. Graph-
ic Design Between the Wars (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996).
41
Whether she actually wears a dark evening dress—as is stated by Uekawa
Yoshimi (“Great People of Osaka: Shinjiro Torii, the Founder of SUNTORY—
Single-minded devotion to producing liquor”, http://www.ibo.or.jp/e/2004_2/01_
4/1_4.html; last access 2006/03/31), remains unclear. Concerning the photogra-
pher, there are no records of an individual, only of the Kawaguchi Photo Studio.
42
Stratz, Köperformen, pp. 48-51.
338 jaqueline berndt
43
After the so-called Madrid Treaty, which was signed in 1973, Suntory changed
the name to Akadama Sweet Wine in order to meet the requirements of distinguish-
ing its product from authentic sorts of port.
44
Clark, John, “Indices of Modernity. Changes in Popular Reprographic Repre-
sentation,” in Elise K. Tipton and John Clark, John, eds., Being Modern in Japan:
Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,
2000), p. 30.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 339
with the English loanword “poster,” they did not really function as
such until around 1920. Adorning the walls of traditional guesthouses,
barber shops, public baths, retail shops and, especially important,
the waiting rooms of the National Railway stations, these pictures
stayed with their viewers for a while: like calendars, they were usually
seen repeatedly and slowly. After all, they were carefully crafted
lithographs with more pictorial details to discover than later simpli-
fied and therefore eye-catching designs. Well-known in this regard
are the posters for the Mitsukoshi department store created after
1907 by artists like Hashiguchi GoyÙ (1880-1921) or Okada SaburÙ-
suke (1869-1939). Yet, since their ladies did not get undressed, another
and even earlier example shall be highlighted here: the poster for
Tengu Cigarettes (Tengu tabako, 1900; Figure 10.13).
Like the Akadama Port Wine, cigarettes of the Tengu brand were
a domestic product made from Japanese material, in this case tobacco.
Their supplier was the Iwaya ShÙkai company in Tokyo which had
been in the business since 1884. When facing strong competition by
the Murai Brothers from Kyoto, who relied on imports from America,
Iwaya developed a marketing campaign around the traditional tengu
goblin; a whole range of cigarette sorts emerged under this name,
and attractive posters were commissioned, too.45 The example here
exhibits a naked, dark-haired lady who neither looks clearly Caucasian
nor Asian. This seemingly westernized Japanese beauty is accompa-
nied by a rather small tengu who hangs on the upper-left corner of
her mirror. Apart from being regarded as native, the goblin has two
characteristics: a long nose and a red face (in tune with the latter,
many Iwaya ShÙkai shops were given a red interior design). In this
poster, the tengu’s nose does not necessarily have to be related to
phallic empowerment through smoking; it points to the pleasant smell
of cigarettes from local tobacco as well since the tengu is, after all,
known for his extraordinary olfactory abilities. His red face again
suggests a reference to both Japanese ogres (oni), and westerners, who
were widely known as “red-faces” and “long-noses.” In addition, the
tengu invades a canonical European painting, taking the place of cupid
from Peter Paul Rubens’ Venus at a Mirror (ca. 1615). In the poster,
45
Sugita Shinju, “Sekihanga ni okeru shÙgyÙ bijutsu no hatten,” in Egakareta
Meiji Nippon-ten jikkÙ iinkai, ed., Egakareta Meiji Nippon—Sekihanga [ritogurafu] no jidai,
vol. 2 (KÙbe shiritsu hakubutsukan and Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga bijutsukan,
2002), pp. 65-67.
340 jaqueline berndt
Figure 10.13. “Tengu tabako” Poster, Iwaya shÙkai, 1900; multi-colour lithography,
56.6 × 43.5 cm; in Egakareta Meiji Nippon, vol. 1, p. 235. A color plate of this illustration
can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 341
the tengu is so riveted by Venus’ beauty that he lets the cigarettes slip
out of his hand. Her gaze, however, addresses the viewer.
The Akadama Port Wine Poster presents a similar lady, yet, in a way
quite different from its predecessor. First, it is situated beyond the
realm of fine art, that is, outside of its spaces, without representational
reference to a certain canon and—unlike the early Mitsukoshi post-
ers—without claims to being a painting. In contrast, the Tengu Tobacco
Poster calls upon “art” to stand in metonymously for “Europe” and
accordingly gives the woman’s body a Caucasian shape. Second, the
Akadama Port Wine Poster does not elevate a local product through
westernization, but Japanizes a European drink, one of those “objects
brought by foreign progress and now made Japanese by advertise-
ment.”46
In the early 20th century, women’s bodies, dressed or undressed,
served mainly two purposes in advertizing: luxury goods, and art
exhibitions (which, as mentioned in passing, raises the question
whether art and its symbol, the nude, were accepted in the 1920s
mainly as one of a number of luxury goods). Outside the context of
fine art, women’s bodies were deployed even for products they had
not the slightest logical relation to, just because they ensured adult
attention. Among the things they promoted were soap and medicine,
but also cigarettes and alcohol, the latter being commodities that
symbolize the basic principles of capitalist consumerism as they stir
desire (and, occasionally, cause addiction). Investing these things with
sweetness, seduction, social status, pureness and even timelessness,
the represented women—whether traditional beauties (bijin) or Euro-
pean angels—alluded to the academic nude. In modern Japan, they
resembled nude paintings furthermore with respect to their function-
ing as mediators between the familiar and the new. What Norman
Bryson asserts about early Japanese nude paintings seems to apply
to posters, too: “By possessing what Western men desired, they [Japa-
nese men] could enter into the orbit of the West through iden-
tification….”47
However, in the Akadama Port Wine Poster, the “orbit of the West”
can be entered by means of a half-naked Japanese woman who opens
her mouth quite lasciviously, shows her teeth in a not very “Japanese”
46
Clark, “Indices of Modernity,” p. 39
47
Bryson, “Westernizing Bodies,” p. 98.
342 jaqueline berndt
48
Tokyo Station Gallery et.al., eds., Kitano Tsunetomi-ten (exh. cat.) (Tokyo Station
Gallery, Ishikawa kenritsu bijutsukan, Shiga kenritsu kindai bijutsukan, 2003).
49
The poem reads, Kakuwashiki kindai no uta no omokage o yosoi sen to meibÙ no tame (“I
shall put on the likeness of a fragrant modern poem, to appear bright”).
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 343
Figure 10.14. Takashimaya’s poster promoting the exposition Kimono no ˆsaka 1929,
deploying the original nihonga painting by Kitano Tsunetomi, Fujin, 1929; colors on
silk, 105.8 × 78.5 cm; courtesy of Takashimaya Historical Museum. A color plate of
this illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
344 jaqueline berndt
Concluding Remarks
50
Only after the Great KantÙ Earthquake in 1923 did Torii, the maker of Aka-
dama Port Wine, expand to the Japanese capital.
the female nude in japanese oil painting and posters 345
Ikeda Shinobu
During the 1920s and the 1930s, many Japanese artists painted por-
traits of Japanese women wearing what was popularly known at the
time as “shinafuku” (“Chinese dress”).1 This chapter focuses on how
different artists handled their subject matter and on what this treat-
ment says about the relationship between gender, modernism, and
imperialism in Japan during the interwar period. More specifically,
this paper examines the issue of how China was portrayed as “the
Other” by way of an elaborate, hybrid figure of women in the visual
and literary culture of Japan during this time. As an object of visual
representation, the female figure functioned as the “Other” that
helped male artists to construct their own subjectivity. The gaze of
the modern masculine subject was projected onto the colonial and
sexual “Other.” In other words, the image of China as “the Other”
was often conflated with the image of a “Japanese woman in Chinese
dress.”
Japan was a growing empire during the 1920s and the 1930s, and
Sino-Japanese relations at the time were largely dictated by Japan’s
1
(Place of publication in the footnotes is Tokyo, unless otherwise noted.)
The term “shinafuku,” meaning the dress of China, was the name by which this
fashion was known in Japan at the time. The term is used here only in so far as to
state the historical fact, although the term “Chinese dress” is also used in the sense
of being a representative dress of modern China. In recent years, researches have
been focusing on issues such as the relation between the rise of ethno-national senti-
ment and the modernization/Westernization of costume in modern China, and its
connection with pervasive commercialism; see, for example, Dorothy Ko, “Jazzing
into Modernity: High Heels, Platforms, and Lotus Shoes,” in Valerie Steele and
John S. Major, eds., China Chic: East Meets West (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996), pp. 141-153; Ellen Johnston Laing, “Visual Evidence for the Evolution of
‘Politically Correct’ Dress for Women in Early Twentieth Century Shanghai” (Le-
iden: Brill, 2003), pp. 70-114. It may be surmised that the desire to both oppose as
well as assimilate West European culture evident in various styles was coupled with
power relations within Asia. There is a need for more inter-disciplinary research in
this area.
348 ikeda shinobu
imperialistic ambitions. Japan saw the chaos following the fall of the
Qing dynasty in 1911 as a prime opportunity to increase its influence
in China. In 1915, during the First World War, Japan seized the
port city of Qingdao in eastern China, and put unreasonable demands
on the Chinese government the following year. This met with fierce
resistance from the Chinese side. From the 1930s to the end of the
Second World War, the Japanese invasion of China became increas-
ingly aggressive. In 1931, Japan colonized northeastern China and
established the puppet-state Manchukuo in 1932. During the Pacific
War, Japan justified its military aggression in continental Asia under
the garb of the ideology of “The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere,” stating that it intended to liberate continental Asia from
the shackles of Western subjugation and colonialism.
In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the 1920s and the 1930s
have been characterized as an era of great artistic freedom and inno-
vation in Japan and hitherto scholarship has emphasized the art of
this period as being of an unconventional, autonomous, and rather
revolutionary, avant-garde character. Many artists and writers
searched for novel subject matter and often took fancy to the image
of the “Other,” be it woman, colonial subjects, or the proletariat.
Some also experimented with what may be called a “cross-fertiliza-
tion” of new styles and methods of expression, studying various art-
forms of Japan, Europe, and China. Many scholars continue to
interpret this peculiar “cross-fertilization” of art across geographical
space and time as a cross-border “fusion” representing the quintes-
sential characteristics of art of the period under the rubric of what
is termed as “Japanese modernism.”
But the representation of “the Other” by Japanese males as evident
in the portrayal of “women in Chinese dress” during this period was
not so simple. China, as a rather difficult, colonial “Other,” alternated
with the image of yet another “Other,” namely “woman,” serving
as an object of control for the Japanese male. Thus the subject of a
woman in Chinese dress, portrayed as being both appealing and
seductive, functioned as a male-centered construct driving another
project of Japanese imperialism. It is in the process of the construc-
tion of a national identity of “Imperial Japan” as a possible bulwark
against the West that the subject of a “woman in Chinese dress” was
elaborated.
Many Japanese journalists, novelists, and intellectuals who traveled
to China wrote about Chinese women of different social classes.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 349
2
Both the photograph of the copy, “Copy after Pisanello’s Portrait of Ginevra
d’Este,” and that of Fujishima in his atelier, are reprinted in the catalogue Fujishima
350 ikeda shinobu
Figure 11.1. Fujishima Takeji, TÙyÙ-buri (In the Oriental Manner), 1923.
Takeji-ten, brought out on the eve of his retrospective exhibition, Bridgestone Muse-
um of Art, April 2002.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 351
3
“Critical Review of the Exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (Part
II): Western Painting (Concluding Part),” Tokyo Nichi-nichi shinbun, October 17,
1924.
4
Fujishima Takeji-ten (Bridgestone Museum of Art, April 2002), p. 101. Fujishima,
in his own words, declares this painting as “being a sort of epoch-making departure”;
the section discussing this painting is entitled “The Profile of a Woman: An Intersec-
tion of East and West.”
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 353
Figure 11.4. Fujishima Takeji, HÙkei (Profile of a Woman Holding an Orchid), 1926. A
color plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
5
Fujishima notes, “In those days, I often used to collect Chinese dresses and they
numbered some fifty to sixty pieces. But, even if I managed the material, the diffi-
culty was that there was nothing beautiful in the profile of Japanese woman’s face…
My desire to paint surged on obtaining an adequate model, not because the motive
lay in painting a “Shina-woman” at all costs. I wanted to create an archetypal Orien-
tal beauty using a Japanese woman. It would be an ample explanation for the reason
behind the work, if one is to say that Occidental profiles characteristic of the Renais-
sance led me to painting it. I am attempting to move away from the stereotype Oc-
cidental effect, but by exploiting the ways and means of Western painting. I am least
354 ikeda shinobu
concerned with the mores or model-types of the day. Modern painting does not re-
quire any such clear-cut evidence. But, at the same time, I have been all along stress-
ing the need for the recovery of ideas, like “the Orient” or “the Occident” (“Tracing
My Footprints,” Geijutsu no espuri [ChåÙ kÙron bijutsu shuppan, 1982], pp. 218-219;
first appeared in Bijutsu shinron, April-May, 1930).
6
“A Glimpse at Western Painting in the Exhibition of the Imperial Academy of
Fine Arts,” ChåÙ bijutsu, vol. 10, no. 11 (November 1924): 45.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 355
of qipao as a school uniform for girls in urban areas. But during this
period, its design changed under the influence of European-style
clothing. And by late 1920s, the overall size, including sleeves,
became shorter, while the upper front and waist area were tailored
to closely fit the body. By the 1930s, it became fashionable to sport
a very tall collar. According to the fashion historian Daimaru
Hiroshi, there was a drastic transformation of women’s wear in China
in the early twentieth century. He argues that the very definition
of “Chinese dress” was becoming somewhat ambiguous due to such
metamorphoses.7
Returning to Fujishima’s TÙyÙ-buri, which was painted in the mid-
1920s, one realizes that he chose to depict his subject wearing not a
modern, re-invented qipao, but rather the archaic, elaborate costume
worn during the Qing dynasty. In other words, although Fujishima
drapes his subject in a costume that is anachronistic, one that recalls
China’s lost dynastic past, he intentionally negates any reference to
the traditional image of female beauty in China, despite certainly
being knowledgeable about it.
Among his sketches are found drawings of a Han beauty (Figure
11.5) and another of a Manchu beauty (Figure 11.6). Both demon-
strate the painter’s familiarity with the traditional image of female
beauty in the Qing dynasty. However, by employing the formal image
of women from Italian Renaissance art, on the one hand, while
clothing the female Japanese subject in archaic qipao costume epito-
mizing a by-gone China, on the other, Fujishima consciously com-
posed TÙyÙ-buri in order to help the contemporary viewer recognize
a distinctive rift between these respective elements and the tradition
of classical painting representative of the West. “China,” as repre-
7
“Japanese Views of Chinese Dress During the Interwar Period,” Fåzoku, Nihon
fåzoku-shi gakkai, vol. 27, no. 3, (September 1988): 58-83; Daimaru’s research deals
with the changes and improvisations that took place with regard to Chinese dress
during the period from 1930-1940 in China and brings to light the process by which
the attitudes of the Japanese towards the Chinese took shape. However, it falls short
of accounting for the relation between discourse content and changing historical
circumstances, the social status of the speakers, the readership of media by which
their views disseminated, etc. He concludes by reading the fears and desires felt by
Japanese males towards the political self-assertion of Chinese women, their advance
into society, and the westernization of urban culture. But there is ample evidence for
the same conclusion to be arrived at with regard to the views of city-based literati,
culturati and artists associated with Japan’s modernism of the earlier period span-
ning the later half of the 1920s to the mid-1930s.
356 ikeda shinobu
Figure 11.5. Fujishima Takeji, a sketch from the catalogue Fujishima Takeji-ten, p. 212.
8
“Tracing My Footprints,” p. 219.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 357
Figure 11.6. Fujishima Takeji, a sketch from the catalogue Fujishima Takeji-ten, p. 213.
9
“Tracing My Footprints,” p. 219.
358 ikeda shinobu
Figure 11.8. Kishida Ryåsei, Portrait of my Sister, Teruko, in Chinese Dress, 1921.
10
Nijusseiki nihon bijutsu hakken II: 1920 nendai (Mie Prefectural Art Museum,
1996).
360 ikeda shinobu
11
Fukui Akiko, ed., MÙdo no Japonizumu, 1996.
12
“The Formation of Japanese Identity as Seen in the Image of a Woman in
Chinese Dress,” Bulletin of the Faculty of Letters, Jissen Women’s Educational Institute,
no. 44 (March 2002).
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 361
Figure 11.9. Mizushima Niou, book illustration from The Mermaid’s Lament, 1919.
Figure 11.10. Mizushima Niou, book illustration from The Mermaid’s Lament, 1919.
her sexual appeal. In the December 1927 issue, a female figure with
a short bob haircut appears in a qipao-like coat with red high-heel
shoes (Figure 11.13). This magazine targeted a readership consisting
mainly urban middle-class women. These cover pictures created a
fanciful image of Chinese dresses as a kind of ideal fashion statement,
rather than representing the actual Chinese dresses that Japanese
women were wearing at that time.
Such images of Chinese dress also appeared in magazines with
different readerships. For example, the cover picture of the July 1928
issue of Shinseinen (Figure 11.14), which was popular among young
Japanese men, shows a Chinese woman playing the erhu.
364 ikeda shinobu
13
“Japanese Views of Chinese Dress During the Interwar Period,” p. 59; GotÙ
AsatarÙ, Shina-minzoku no tenbÙ (ToyamabÙ, 1936).
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 365
other hand, for being short and dirty-looking, and Westerners, par-
ticularly Americans, on the other, for being an inferior race with an
appearance that was beast-like. He was enamored of modern Chinese
women, and described them in the following terms:
Some of them have meticulously permed bangs, and others wear glasses,
a delicate wristwatch, or carry a slender, yellow—perhaps plastic—cane.
Most such women also smoke. Their jackets and coats are, of course,
short. The patterns on the fabric of their clothes and their hairstyles
are eccentric. “Is she a courtesan?” I asked my travel companion, Mr.
M. And he replied, “No, she is a new kind of woman in China.” From
that time on, I encountered many such ‘New Women’ in China. Unlike
the ‘New Women’ of Japan, the New Women in China do not wear
odd-looking Western-style dresses.14
It is interesting that Mizushima first mistook the New Woman for a
courtesan due to her striking appearance, one that he obviously found
14
Fujin gahÙ (September 1924): 91-93.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 367
15
TÙa kenkyå-kÙza series publication, no. 24 (TÙa Kenkyå-kai, 1928).
16
Media discourse carried success stories of women in China in the fields of edu-
cation, political activism and other professional occupations, the tenor of which
showed a strong tendency to demean the advances made by Japanese women and
point to their late awakening. The artistic careers of notable Chinese women active
in Japan, like artist Guan Zilan and dancer Zhou Qiulan, too, made headlines and
were projected as beauty model-types.
368 ikeda shinobu
Figure 11.15. Mizushima Niou, book illustration, A Beautiful, New Chinese Woman,
September 1924.
17
In 1927, Kon WajirÙ published the results of a comparative study on the male-
female ratio of wearing Western-style clothes in public places. In 1925, 67% of men
wore Western clothes versus 1% among women on Ginza Street. But the figure for
women rose to 16%, as against that of 61% for men, by 1928 in the case of a sample
taken in front of the Mitsukoshi’s at Nihonbashi. Further, in the case of the relative
proportion of appearance in visual culture, Western-style costumes appeared in 22
entries of works displayed at the Fourteenth Exhibition of the Association of Artists,
Nikakai, as against 13 for Japanese-style and 2 for Chinese-style costumes (“A Statis-
tical Survey of Folk Images of Women,” Tokyo Nichi-nichi Shinbun, 11 September
1927).
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 369
Figure 11.17. Moga in Chinese Dress as Seen Aboard a Train in China, Fujo-kai, January
1929.
style dress. Daimaru has pointed out that the Japanese interest in
modern Chinese dress was informed by the Westernization of cloth-
ing that was taking place in China at that time.18 Adoption of modern
Chinese dress, against that of the West, was hence regarded as a way
of modernizing, and “Westernizing,” the clothing practice in Japan
itself. However, as Daimaru remarks, it should not be forgotten that
18
Cf. Daimaru Hiroshi’s research (note 6).
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 371
Figure 11.18. Kakiuchi Seiyo, At the Crossing, 1930. A color plate of this illustration
can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
372 ikeda shinobu
ness that he is Japanese after all. The novel is set in 1925, when a
series of major strikes were held against Japan and Japanese factory
owners in Shanghai. There is a scene in the novel where the main
character, Sanki, walks around the city in the midst of violent protests.
He wears Chinese clothes in order to disguise himself as a Chinese,
but realizes that even if he wished to shed his Japanese identity, the
external environment would not allow him to do so. It forces him
only to reaffirm the Japanese/masculine identity of his body and
soul—despite the “skin,” the masquerade, of Chinese dress. At another
point in the novel, he concludes that “a Japanese person in Shanghai
can only live as a beggar or as a prostitute if one does not accept
the homeland.” Many men left Japan for China in order to escape
the homeland, yet often ended up realizing that they could not shed
the identity of their homeland while make a living in China. It is
interesting to note in Yokomitsu’s novel that the act of wearing Chi-
nese dress, paradoxically collapses only to reiterate the protagonist’s
original identity of being Japanese and male.19
Clothed in Chinese dress, women in Yokomitsu’s Shanghai (as well
as in other similar novels) are portrayed as being hybrid, decadent
figures without boundaries, serving as objects of seductive negotiation
for males. The image of these woman, that is encoded in both writ-
ten and visual representation, alternates with that of China itself as
“the Other.” This is a site where the masculinity-driven ambition of
both modernism and imperialism expands and engages with its object,
“the Other,” reaching out only to subsume it—be it “Woman” or
in this case “China.” Worn by the female, Chinese dress, symbolizing
a passage in the encounter with “the Other,” does not serve to subvert
the self-identity of the narrator or viewer (male/imperial Japan), but
instead, precisely makes possible control and dominion over the object
(Woman/China) by integrating and appropriating the narrative sub-
ject. Japanese writers and intellectuals who sought an escape from
the shackles of norms and customs of their own country projected
“China” by superimposing it on a woman whose identity is portrayed
as not being confined to the boundaries of any one single ethnic or
national community. Such a representation takes the form of an
image of the body of a woman, infused with a hybridity that invali-
dates and collapses the very concept of boundary. It is amply evident
19
Shanghai (KÙdansha, 1991), pp. 199-203.
374 ikeda shinobu
20
“Review of Nikakai (Part III),” Tokyo mainichi shinbun, September 10, 1934.
21
In Yasui’s reminiscences “Portraits Painted by Myself” (Bungei shunjå, April
1951), he refers to his model, Odagiri Mineko, as being a pretty woman of strong
disposition and whom the Chinese dress suited very well. Odagiri, on the other hand,
in her reminiscences carried in “My Memories of Mr. Yasui,” published in 1962,
recollects various episodes with Yasui and Fujishima during her days at Harbin. She
also became the role-model of the tragic heroine in Chinese dress in Nagayo
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 375
YoshirÙ’s serial novel Sono yoru, though the depiction of the heroine has little to do
with Odagiri’s own life.
378
ikeda shinobu
Figure 11.21. Miyamoto SaburÙ, Women in Three Fashion Styles, 1935. A color plate of this illustration can be found in
the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 379
Figure 11.23. Tsuchida Bakusen, Flat Bed, 1933. A color plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on
pp. xvii-xxxii.
the allure of women clothed in chinese dress 381
22
Ikeda Shinobu, “Representation of Women in China Dress: Imperial Male
Intellectuals and the Construction of Identity in Wartime Japan,” presented at the
symposium War and Representation/Art after the 20th Century, organized by the research
project committee headed by Nagata Ken’ichi, School of Humanities & Social
Sciences, Chiba University, Tokyo National Museum Heisei-kan Auditorium, 4-5
March 2006.
382 ikeda shinobu
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 383
Joshua S. Mostow
Kuki ShåzÙ (1888-1941) is best known for his 1930 “Iki” no KÙzÙ, or
The Structure of “Iki.” This work is, after the writings of Motoori Nori-
naga (1730-1801) and his championing of mono no aware (the “capacity
to be moved deeply by things”),1 a foundational text in Japanese
key-word essentialism, which is in turn a major strategy of Japanese
exceptionalism (nihonjin ron). Kuki claimed that the true essence of
Japanese ethnicity was to be found in the concept of “iki,” or “bor-
dello chic,” a kind of fashion and style that developed in the
unlicensed prostitution district of Fukagawa in the city of Edo (mod-
ern-day Tokyo) in the Bunka and Bunsei eras, that is, 1804-1829.
Kuki was the son of Baron Kuki Ryåichi (1850-1931), the Japa-
nese Minister in the United States (chåbei kÙshi) in the 1880s, and the
first director of the Imperial Museum. He was also the bureaucrat
responsible for, among other things, overseeing the Japanese pavilion
at the 1900 Exposition universelle de Paris, for which the first modern
history of Japanese art was produced. ShåzÙ himself identified
Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913, best-known for The Book of Tea) as his
“spiritual father” and indeed there have long been suggestions that
Okakura was his biological father as well. In any event, Kuki ShåzÙ’s
presentation of the concept of iki can be seen as continuing in the
course set by Okakura in the latter’s use of Hegelian philosophy to
construct the concept of an Asian world-spirit (Geist) in contrast to
that of the West, one that was seen to have achieved its fullest mani-
festation in Japan.
In 1921 Kuki left for Europe and spent the next eight years study-
ing philosophy in Germany and France. In France he met Henri
Bergson and was tutored by Jean-Paul Sartre. In Germany, he stud-
ied the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and the
1
Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford:
University Press, 1987), p. 31.
384 joshua s. mostow
2
Hiroshi Nara, The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki ShåzÙ, with a
translation of Iki no kÙzÙ (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), p. 9
3
Michael F. Marra, Kuki ShåzÙ: A Philosopher’s Poetry and Poetics (Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawai’i Press, 2004), p. 9.
4
Such a stance is not unique to Kuki, as can be seen in the following by the his-
torian of Edo-period culture, Nishiyama Matsunosuke: “Iki seems to be a specifically
Japanese form of aesthetic consciousness. Pinpointing where or how a person em-
bodies the quality of iki may be difficult, but its presence is felt by every Japanese.
The aesthetic of iki is, in this sense, the common property of the Japanese people.”
Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600-1868, trans. Gerald Groemer
(Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), p. 53.
5
Marra, Kuki ShåzÙ, p. 29.
6
Leslie Pincus, Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki ShåzÙ and the Rise of Na-
tional Aesthetics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 41.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 385
Leslie Pincus notes that “ . . . Kuki’s preference for late Edo culture
has impressed many a reader as eccentric, if not perverse.”7 A more
typical choice might have been the Heian period (795-1185), which
is usually referred to as Japan’s “classical” era. Indeed, we should
take a moment to consider just how revolutionary Kuki was in locat-
ing the source of his national aesthetics in the late Edo “Ka-sei-ki,”
that is, the Bunka and Bunsei eras. It is not simply a matter of period,
or historical location. What Kuki is in fact doing is turning a half-
century-long discourse on its head. This was the discourse around
the treatment of women in Japan.
The supposedly comparatively barbarous treatment of Japanese
women by Japanese men, including the popularity of prostitution
and concubinage, was one of the principal yardsticks by which the
Western powers claimed that Japan fell short of “civilization,” a fail-
ing which justified the unequal treaties the Western powers had
foisted on Japan. And from the beginning of the Meiji period until
1930, there was hardly a Japanese thinker who did not—at least at
face-value—take this condemnation as legitimate (in a way analogous
to Chinese thinkers declaring footbinding the “national shame”).
Even Okakura Tenshin, perhaps the strongest advocate of Japanese
cultural equality with the European nations, admitted the superiority
of the status of western women, albeit not without an element of
irony. I quote from The Awakening of Japan: “The Western attitude of
profound respect toward the gentler sex exhibits a beautiful phase
7
Pincus, p. 103.
386 joshua s. mostow
8
Okakura Kakuzo, The Awakening of Japan (New York: The Century Company,
1904), p. 224.
9
Okakura, p. 245.
10
Okakura, p. 246.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 387
11
Gretchen Jones, Whip Appeal: The Aesthetics of Masochism in Modern Japanese Nar-
rative (forthcoming), p. 372; the translation is by Jones.
388
joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.1. Utagawa Kunisada, Tasogare on the veranda, Inaka Genji Nise Murasaki, vol. 5a (1840).
Reproduced from Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei 88 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995), p. 156.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 389
12
See Andrew Lawrence Markus, The Willow in Autumn: Ryåtei Tankehiko,
1783-1842 (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University,
1992).
13
Ann Yonemura, Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints in the Anne van Biema Collection
(Washington, D.C.: The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2002),
p. 310.
390 joshua s. mostow
14
Recent scholarly debate in Japan has established that this juxtaposition of high
and low should more properly be called “yatsushi,” rather than “mitate.” I continue
to use the latter term, however, as more familiar to non-Japanese readers. See Asano
Shågo, “Fåryå no zÙkei, nazoraeru sÙsaku: ‘mitate’ to ‘yatsushi’ to sono shuhen,” in
SatÙ Yasuhiro, ed., KÙza Nihon bijutsushi 3: zuzÙ no imi (Tokyo: TÙkyÙ daigaku shup-
pan-kai, 2005), pp. 205-236, and in English, Timothy T. Clark, “Mitate-e: Some
Thoughts, and a Summary of Recent Writings,” Impressions no. 19 (1997).
15
Andrew Markus, “Prostitutes and Prosperity in the Works of Terakado Sei-
ken,” in Sumie Jones, ed., Imaging/Reading Eros, Proceedings from the Conference, Sexuality
and Edo Culture, 1750-1850, Indiana University, Bloomington, August 17-20, 1995 (The
East Asian Center, Indiana University, 1996), p. 37.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 391
Figure 12.2. Kuki ShåzÙ, The Structure of Iki, from Hiroshi Nara, ed., The Structure of
Detachment, p. 32.
16
Robert Campbell, “Poems on the Way to Yoshiwara,” in Jones, Imaging/Read-
ing Eros.
17
See J. Thomas Rimer, “Literary Stances: The Structure of Iki,” in Nara, Detach-
ment.
392 joshua s. mostow
18
Jane Juffer, At Home with Pornography: Women, Sex, and Everyday Life (New York:
New York University Press, 1998).
19
In fact, Leslie Pincus claims that The Structure of ‘Iki’ was not widely read in its
day, and that its elevation to the status of a classic only happened in the 1960s with
the rise of nihonjin ron. Nishiyama’s writing on iki from 1930, quoted above, would
seem to be counter-evidence. On the shunga boom, see the Introduction in Joshua S.
Mostow, Norman Bryson, and Maribeth Graybill, eds., Gender and Power in the Japa-
nese Visual Field (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003).
20
Donald Roden, “TaishÙ Culture and the Problem of Gender Ambivalence,”
in J. Thomas Rimer, ed., Culture and Identity: Japanese Intellectuals During the Inter-War
Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 46.
21
Roden, p. 40.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 393
22
Hayashi Yoshikazu and Richard Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-goyomi, Teihon Ukiyo-e
Shunga Meisaku Shåsei 12 (Tokyo: Kawade ShobÙ Shinsha, 1996), pp. 44-45.
23
Compare Nishiyama: “Iki may be quite easily grasped experientially, but ver-
balizing this experience is difficult. . . verbal descriptions cannot fully convey a cul-
ture of feeling. . . “ (p. 53).
24
This hetero-normative definition appears in all three versions, though simpler
terms are used in preference to “intentional.”
Iki no honshitsu: “Mazu ‘iki’ wa sei-teki kankei o yosÙ suru ishiki-genshÙ de i-sei ni tai
suru isshu no kobi mata wa bitai de aru” (I: 93).
ShisÙ version: “Mazu ‘iki’ no dai’ichi no chÙkyÙ wa i-sei ni tai suru ‘bitai’ de aru”
(Betsu: 57).
All quotations of Kuki’s writing are from Kuki ShåzÙ zenshå, 12 vols. (Tokyo: Iwa-
nami Shoten, 1980-1982).
394 joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.3. Hayashi Yoshikazu and Richard Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-goyomi, Teihon Ukiyo-e
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 395
Shunga Meisaku Shåsei 12 (Tokyo: Kawade ShobÙ Shinsha, 1996), pp. 44-45.
396 joshua s. mostow
25
See Tsuneo Watanabe and Jun’ichi Iwata, The Love of the Samurai: a thousand
years of Japanese homosexuality (London: GMP Publishers Ltd., 1989).
26
Gregory M. Plugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Dis-
course, 1600-1950 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 314-315; see
also Jeffrey M. Angles, Writing the Love of Boys: Representations of Male-Male Desire in the
Literature of Murayama Kaita and Edogawa Ranpo (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The
Ohio State University, 2003).
27
Donald Roden, Schooldays in Imperial Japan: A Study in the Culture of a Student Elite
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 141.
28
Roden, Schooldays, p. 142.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 397
disgust. Yet Iwamoto’s love for Kuki remained unchanged until his
death, and Kuki for his part speaks of Iwamoto with heartfelt esteem,
relating that he was taught a yearning for philosophy by him.29
What Kuki’s adult reaction was to the homo-eroticism that seems to
have surrounded him in his youth is difficult to say—the British poet
Robert Graves, for example, became militantly heterosexual after
his public school experiences (Good-Bye to All That). But what is evi-
dent is that the issue of homo-eroticism could not have been unknown
to Kuki. This makes it even more surprising that he should go out
of his way to falsify the historical record, and limit bitai to the het-
erosexual realm.30
“The second feature of iki is ‘spirit’ (iki), in other words, ‘pride’ (ikiji)”
(‘iki’ no dai-ni no chÙhyÙ wa ‘iki’ sunawachi ‘ikiji’ de aru). The first exam-
ple that Kuki gives is the firefighters of Edo, and other male images.
But it soon becomes clear that for Kuki it is the Fukagawa geisha
who are the embodiment of iki.
Fukagawa was a long-running unlicensed quarter, contrasting with
the official “bad area,” Yoshiwara. Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton
explains: “Cheaper pleasure quarters such as Fukagawa and Kiba
that catered to laborers existed in Edo before the end of the seven-
teenth century. By 1780, however, seven unlicensed areas developed
in Fukagawa alone. Iki, with a strong element of sexual allure in both
its coarse and its refined forms, could be appreciated by a broad
29
John Clark, trans., Reflections on Japanese Taste: The Structure of Iki by Kuki ShåzÙ
(Sydney: Power Publications, 1997), pp. 18-19. Pincus describes Iwamoto, the
school’s German language teacher, as “an eccentric character much revered by his
students despite a reputation for failing entire German language classes . . . Accord-
ing to the memoirs of Watsuji and others, Iwamoto’s punishments were strict, his
favoritism blatant, his teaching methods unconventional” (p. 33). See Nakano Ha-
jime, “Kuki ShåzÙ,” in Genron wa Nihon o ugokasu, vol. 2 (Tokyo: KÙdansha,
1985-1985).
30
Another possible explanation would be Japanese laws against homosexuality at
the time, but in fact, as noted above, Iwata Juni’ichi was publishing his HonchÙ nan-
shoku-kÙ between 1930-33. Regardless, it would have been perfectly possible for Kuki
to discuss bitai without specifying it as “hetero-sexual,” and so leave the homosexual
possibility implicit or simply ignored, rather than explicitly denied.
398 joshua s. mostow
31
Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, The Women of the Pleasure Quarter: Japanese Painting
and Prints of the Floating World (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1995), pp. 43-44.
32
Swinton, p. 42.
33
Translation Nara, p. 36; emphasis in the original. Note that the motif of yuagari
bijin (half-nude in bathrobe) became assimilated to Meiji/TaishÙ painting. See Figure
9.8 in the chapter by Croissant and the reproduction of Utamaro’s print of a naked
woman entering the bathtub (Figure 10.3) in Berndt’s essay in this volume.
34
Nara, Detachment, pp. 111-112.
35
Kuki mentions Kunisada only once, and in what appears to be a derogatory
fashion:
“Furthermore, given this linear relationship, we can also conceive of a situation
in which iki moves back toward amami ‘sweet’. Here the ikiji ‘pride and honor’ and
the akirame ‘resignation’ components of iki are lost and, as a result, only the sugary
sweetness remains, like that in the personality of an ordinary, pleasant person. The
women of Kunisada from Kiyonaga and Utamaro came into existence in this way
[sic]” (trans. Nara, p. 31). For much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Kunisada and Kuniyoshi were characterized as “decadents” who works represented
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 399
a decline from the peaks of Utamaro and Hokusai. Kuki was perhaps responding to
this prejudice.
On the other hand, he clearly approves of Kiyonaga: “Expression pertaining to
the entire body can symbolize iki by means of a physical movement, namely, relax-
ing the body slightly. This mode of expression is captured with astonishing sen-
sitivity in prints of all kinds by Torii Kiyonaga” (trans. Nara, p. 35; emphasis in the
original).
36
Sebastian Izzard, Kunisada’s World (New York: Japan Society, 1993), p. 83.
400 joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.4. Kunisada, “The Competitive Type” (tate-hiki sÙ) from the series A Contem-
porary Thirty-Two Types (TÙsei sanjåni sÙ), dated 1822-1823. Rijksmuseum voor Volken-
kunde, Leiden, Philipp Franz von Siebold Collection. A color plate of this illustration
can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 401
this impressive picture with her sidelocks jutting out grandly to the left
and right, based on the “wild goose” (karigane) crest on a part of her
collar, we are led to imagine that she might be a prostitute posing as
a female Robin Hood (onna-date), who has been likened (mi-tateta) to the
“knight of the town” (otoko-date) “Karigane Bunshichi.” Karigane Bun-
shichi was a “knight of the town” who appeared in such plays as the
puppet-play “Knights of the Town Five Wild Geese” (Otoko-date Itsutsu
Karigane) and the kabuki play “In Stock Soga Wild Geese-Dyed” (Shi-ire
Soga Karegane-zome), and had an influence on the later play “White
Waves Five Men” (Shiranami Gonin Otoko).37
This last, famous play, still performed today, is best known for its
section called “Benten the Thief.” In Samuel Leiter’s description:
Posing as the daughter of a NikaidÙ clan samurai and her attendant,
Benten, accompanied by NangÙ, allows himself to be discovered shop-
lifting at the Hamamatsuya, a textile shop, where the girl presumably
is shopping for a trousseau. Benten is injured by a clerk, who strikes
him on the forehead and creates a scar. NangÙ demands 100 ryÙ in
recompense. The powerful samurai Tamashima IttÙ just happens to
be present and sees through Benten’s female disguise. Benten and
NangÙ confess, and each delivers a famous speech announcing his true
name. . . the seated Benten thrusts his arm out. . . When he open his
kimono to reveal a man’s body covered with beautiful tattoos, the scene
takes on an erotic (or homoerotic) quality associated with late Edo
kabuki.38
In other words, Kunisada’s figure suggests something of a female
“tough,” and such female “gallants”—usually the leaders of a group
of men who rescued the poor and innocent from violence—were a
staple of the sentimental fiction, or ninjÙbon, of Tamenaga Shunsui,
whose most famous work, Shunshoku Ume-goyomi, is the single most
cited Edo-period text in Kuki’s Structure of “Iki.” Ume-goyomi was illus-
trated by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1832) in the last year of his
life. His pictures of O-chÙ/ChÙkichi, one of the two main female
characters in this tale, show how masculine a look was affected by
some of the young women of Fukagawa (Figure 12.5). The behavior
of women in Fukagawa is depicted in Kunisada’s Shunshoku Hatsune
no Ume of 1842, which shows a yoseba, or gathering place for profes-
37
[Suzuki JåzÙ], Kunisada~bijin-ga o chåshin ni~ (Tokyo: SeikadÙ Bunko, 1996),
p. 114.
38
Samuel L. Leiter, New Kabuki Encyclopedia, A Revised Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten
(Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1997), p. 17.
402 joshua s. mostow
39
Chris Uhlenbeck and Margarita Winkel, Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery
of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005), p. 194, plate 74b.
40
Yasuda Yoshiaki, Edo o Yomu 3: Kuniyoshi (Tokyo: Futami ShobÙ, 1996),
pp. 12-13.
41
Yasuda Yoshiaki, Makura-e no Onna, MitsuzÙ no Meisaku Ehon 3 (Tokyo: Fu-
tami ShobÙ, 1989), pp. 52-53.
42
Hayashi and Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-goyomi, pp. 28-29.
404
joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.6. Kunisada, Shunshoku Hatsune no Ume, 1842. From Chris Uhlenbeck and Margarita Winkel, Japanese
Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005), p. 194, plate 74b.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’
Figure 12.7. Kuniyoshi, Edo Murasaki Yoshiwara Genji, from Yasuda Yoshiaki, Edo o Yomu 3: Kuniyoshi (Tokyo: Futami
405
Figure 12.8. Kunisada, Azuma-buri, from Yasuda Yoshitaka, Makura-e no Onna, MitsuzÙ no meisaku ehon 3
(Tokyo: Futami ShobÙ, 1989), pp. 52-53.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’
407
Figure 12.9. Kuniyoshi, Hana-goyomi, Hayashi and Lane, Kuniyoshi: Hana-goyomi, pp. 28-29.
408 joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.10 left. Kunisada, ShunjÙ Gidan Mizu-age-chÙ, O-Haru and Mizukichi. Edo
meisaku enpon (Tokyo: Gakken, 1996). A color plate of this illustration can be found
in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 409
Figure 12.11 left. Kunisada, ShunjÙ Gidan Mizu-age-chÙ, ChÙkichi pouring sake.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 411
43
For a further analysis of this image, see Uhlenbeck and Winkel, p. 207.
44
Yoshizaki Junji, Edo Shunga Sei’ai Makura-e Kenkyå (Tokyo: Kosumikku Int§-
nashonaru, 2004), p. 159.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’
413
Figure 12.13. Kuniyoshi, Edo Murasaki Yoshiwara Genji, Kabuki dressing-room. From Chris Uhlenbeck and Margarita
Winkel, Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005), p. 207, plate
80b.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’
Figure 12.14. Kunisada, Hoshi-tsuki Yo-iri no Shirabe, from Yoshizaki Junji, Edo shunga: sei’ai makura-e kenkyå (Tokyo:
415
sont-elles traitées! On se trouve ainsi avoir pratiqué, depuis plusieurs siècles, la théo-
rie de l’art pour l’art, cette théorie de l’idéalisme absolu dans l’art.45
[Things that are shameful and repugnant from a moral point of view
are sometimes the subject of prints from the Tokugawa period (1600-
1850). With what pure and serene ardor are they treated! We find that
we have thus been practicing, for several centuries, the theory of art-for-
art’s sake, that theory of absolute idealism in art.46]
What Kuki is doing is yet another form of mitate, comparing the
TaishÙ and Ka-sei eras. Yet this comparison is repressed, and its
fundamental sexual ambiguity replaced by hyper-normative gender
distinctions. In other words, we must suspect that Kuki was attracted
to the Ka-sei era precisely because it was a time of intense gender
ambiguity that matched his own experience of the European 1920s
and Japanese TaishÙ era. Yet the similarity of these two periods did
not lead him to embrace his era and its “Modern Girl” (moga). In
Pincus’s words:
. . . how could Kuki have noted the social and political implications
of the carnal cast of Edo culture when he was in flight from realities
of the same order in his own time? For this early ShÙwa thinker, cul-
ture had come to mean the denial of the social sphere, not its expres-
sion.47
On one hand, then, Kuki seized upon a period in “early modern”
Japan that had many parallels to his own day. On the other hand,
he actually obscures the gender and sexual ambiguities of the Ka-sei
era, by ignoring its homosexual practices and the overt cross-dressing
practices of the haori geisha. What is he up to?
There is little doubt that Kuki was a cultural elitist who was greatly
troubled by and in flight from the burgeoning popular culture of the
1920s. In an essay written in French, Kuki commences thus:
Jusque 1868, l’anneé de la révolution, nous avions quatre castes: les chevaliers, les
cultivateurs, les artisans, les marchands. Notre idéal moral était “la voie des cheva-
liers” se constituant, avant tout, en vaillance, en noblesse de l’âme et en générosité.
Les marchands, le dernière des castes, subirent un mépris excessif. Pour en donner un
exemple dans la litérature, Turayuki, poète et critique du Xe siècle, en parlant des vers
45
Zenshå I: 278.
46
Translation, with modifications, from Doris Croissant, “Icons of Femininity:
Japanese National Painting and the Paradox of Modernity,” in Mostow et al., eds.,
Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, p. 135.
47
Pincus, p. 129.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 417
composé de jolis mots qui ne correspondent pas à la matière, les compara à un march-
and habillé de beaux vêtements. Ce mépris des marchands et du commerce est sans
doute injuste, à tous les points de vue. Pourtant j’ose féliciter, à tout prendre, cet ordre
des castes que nous avions jadis, puisqu’il a servi à former, nettement, l’idéal de notre
pays. Maintenant qu’il n’existe plus, l’idéal moral le survit. Aussi nous sommes
nourris et nous avons grandi dans une atmosphere, loin des comptoirs, loin des bou-
tiques.48
[Until 1868, the year of the revolution, we had four castes: the knights,
the farmers, the artisans, the merchants. Our moral ideal was “the way
of the knights” which consisted of, above all else, valor, nobility of spir-
it, and generosity. The last of the castes, the merchants, suffered exces-
sive contempt. To give one example from literature, Tsurayuki, poet
and critic of the tenth century, while speaking of verses composed of
pretty words that do not correspond to the theme, compares them to a
merchant clothed in beautiful garments. This contempt for merchants
and commerce is without a doubt unjust, from any point of view. Nev-
ertheless, I dare celebrate, in the main, this order of castes that we had
in the past, since it served to form, clearly, the ideals of our country.
And while it no longer exists, the moral ideal survives. Thus we have
been nurtured and raised in an atmosphere far from counting-houses
and shops.49]
Michael Marra, in discussing another section of this short essay (he
does not make reference to the paragraph above) claims that “Kuki’s
reaction. . . was not simply a hypocritical rhetorical outburst by a
privileged member of Japan’s high society,”50 but this is precisely
what it in fact was. Not only was it elitist, but it was also misogynis-
tic, since TaishÙ popular culture was fueled by and directed at the
largely female consumer of the new emerging middle- and lower-
middle classes.
Like Kafå and Tanizaki, Kuki went running back to the Edo
period. But in another curious contradiction, he immersed himself
not in the warrior-code of bushido as he suggested in the paragraph
just quoted, but rather precisely in a form of low popular culture
directed specifically at women, the sentimental fiction of ninjÙ-bon.
And yet, he did not, as far as we know, engage in the kind of self-
denigrating behavior that we see with Kafå in the company of the
48
Zenshå I: 249.
49
It should be noted that Kuki’s reference to Tsurayuki is completely anachro-
nistic since warriors were completely looked down upon by the aristocracy of the
Heian period.
50
Marra, Kuki ShåzÙ, p. 28.
418 joshua s. mostow
very lowest class of prostitutes, nor did he give voice to the kind of
male masochism that is such a strong motif in Tanizaki’s work.
Nonetheless, Kuki turned to the Edo-period genre of ninjÙ-bon, which
celebrated the passionate love of the Fukagawa geisha and other
professional women, the passion that gave them their allure and their
pluck, that is, their iki.51
In the final note to The Structure of ‘Iki’, Kuki explores all the hom-
onyms of the word iki: “The etymology of the word iki must be
elucidated ontologically along with its relationship to such words as
iki ‘life, living’ iki ‘breath, breathing’, iki ‘going’, and iki ‘pride
and honor.’”52 Here again, Kuki represses the obvious, since iki also
means jouissance. And in the shunga of Kunisada and Kuniyoshi we
see a virtual celebration of the joissance of the women, as we saw in
Kunisada’s Hana-goyomi (Figure 12.3), or again in his Mizu-age-chÙ
(Figure 12.15), where a man is manipulating a woman to ecstacy. 53
This image now suggests a second reading, no longer exclusively
focused on the woman but including the man, a metaphor now for
Kuki’s very project: the objective, philosophical male and the ecstatic
woman, together asserting the uniqueness of Japanese “lived experi-
ence” (Erlebenis), as described and depicted by a Japanese male. Such
a metaphor—analogous to the tantric Buddhist concept of the Womb
and Diamond Mandala, or the Tibetan yab-yum representations of a
male bodhisattva in union with his d§kinÊ—would not be foreign to
Kuki, who makes constant reference to Buddhist philosophy and
non-dualism in his writings.
Yet, rather than seeing the surrounding text as insisting on the
incommensurability of experience to discourse, I think it encouraged
Kuki in his ethno-centric linguistic exercise. Kuki starts his entire
discussion in ‘Iki’ no KÙzÙ with an insistence on the co-extensive
51
And while there are forceful males in these tales—the samurai who appear at
the end, deus ex machina, and engineer a happy ending for all the protagonists—the
male lead is an iro-otoko, or playboy, who has “ ‘neither money nor strength’. . . and
simply waits for others to meet his needs. He is always physically weak, except in
sexual prowess. Another word to describe him, himo (hanger-on), indicates a fellow
whose lovers support and coddle him.” Alan S. Woodhull, Romantic Edo Fiction: A
Study of the Ninjobon and Complete Translation of “Shunshoku Umegoyomi” (Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1978), p. 30.
52
Nara, Detachment, p. 91.
53
UdÙ Yoshihiko, ed., (Edo Meisaku Ehon) ShunjÙ Gidan Mizu-age-chÙ (Tokyo: Gak-
ken, 1996), 7-chÙ ura, 8-chÙ omote. See also Amano Ukihashi, and Kuniyoshi’s Yoshiwara
Genji and Azuma-buri.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 419
54
Nara, Detachment, p. 14.
55
Peter Steiner, ed., The Prague School: Selected Writings, 1929-1946 (Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press, 1982), p. 47.
56
“Introduction à l’étude de l’interjection,” Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure I (Geneva,
1941).
57
Nishiyama, basing his definition on both the work of Kuki and AsÙ Isoji, gives
the three elements of iki as bitai, hari, and akanuke. “Hari was a sharp, straightforward,
coolly gallant manner that resisted all compromise, conciliation, and undue social
adroitness or tact.” “The quality of akanuke demanded an unpretentious air, a thor-
ough familiarity with all aspects of life, and an unconcerned, unassuming character”
(p. 54). As can be seen, akirame plays no role in this definition.
58
Nara, Detachment, p. 19.
420 joshua s. mostow
Figure 12.15 left. Kunisada, ShunjÙ Gidan Mizu-age-chÙ, O-Kimi and Kinosuke. A color
plate of this illustration can be found in the color section on pp. xvii-xxxii.
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 421
59
It should go without saying that I am not discussing here actual, real Fukagawa
prostitutes, but rather the representation of them in verbal and visual texts. Indeed,
Cecilia Segawa Seigle claims that courtesans in general both avoided shunga and
were trained to resist climaxing. See her “The Decorousness of the Yoshiwara—A
Rejection of Shunga,” in Uhlenbeck and Winkel, eds., Japanese Erotic Fantasies,
pp. 35-48.
60
Nara, Detachment, p. 19.
61
In fact, Nishiyama suggests that “iki was the aesthetic consciousness typified by
courtesans (yåjo) and female geisha; the model of tså, by contrast, was found among
pleasure seekers who actively fostered the development of iki—that is, the men who
frequented the pleasure districts” (p. 60).
utagawa shunga, kuki’s ‘chic’ 423
62
See Lawrence Rogers, “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not: Shinjå and ShikidÙ
ˆkagami,” Monumenta Nipponica 49, no. 1 (Spring 1994); and Joshua S. Mostow, “The
Gender of Wakashu and the Grammar of Desire,” in Mostow, Bryson, and Graybill,
Gender and Power.
63
In Kuki’s French translation:
En allant par mer
Mon corps dans l’eau,
En allant par monts
Mon coprs sous les herbes,
Laisse-moi mourir
A cÙté du roi! (KSZ I: 252)
A more accurate rendition is:
If we go to sea, corpses in a watery grave,
If we go to the mountains, grass-twined corpses,
We will die near our great lord,
We will not die peacefully. (An alternate last line is: We will not look back.)
“Umi yukaba,” as printed in Nihon gunkashå: Umi yukaba/ mizuku kabane/ Yama yukaba/
kusa musu kabane/ ˆgimi no he ni koso shiname/ nodo ni wa shinaji. The Man’yÙshå poem
ends with a different final line: kaerimi wa seji, “we will not look back.” See Sharalyn
Orbaugh, Japanese Fiction of the Allied Occupation: Vision, Embodiment, Identity (Brill, 2007),
p. 229.
424 joshua s. mostow
64
Pincus, Kuki ShåzÙ, pp. 221-228.
65
Joshua S. Mostow, “Nihon no Bijutsushi Gensetsu to ‘Miyabi,’” [Art historical dis-
course in Japan and “courtliness”], in Tokyo kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyåjo, eds., Ka-
taru genzai katarareru kako: Nihon no bijutsushi 100-nen [The Present that Tells, The Past
that is Told of: 100 Years of Art History in Japan] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999),
pp. 232-239.
contributors 425
CONTRIBUTORS
Joan Judge is most recently the author of The Precious Raft of History:
The Past, the West, and the Woman Question in China (Stanford University
Press, 2008) and of a number of articles on women in turn-of-the-
twentieth-century China. She is an Associate Professor in the Divi-
sion of Humanities and the School of Women’s Studies at York
University, Toronto, Canada.
426 contributors
Melanie Trede has been professor for the histories of Japanese art at
the University of Heidelberg since 2004, and has taught at Columbia
contributors 427
University and the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. She is the author of
Image, Text and Audience: The Taishokan Narrative in Visual Representations
of the Early Modern Period in Japan (2003) and is currently completing
a book project entitled Interventions in the Political Iconography of Pictorial
Narratives. Research interests and publications include the fields of
pictorial narratives, gender and art histories, art historiography and
terminology, collecting histories, and the “lives of Japanese paint-
ings.”
INDEX
24, New Culture Movement, 48, 51, ual doctrine on feminine virtue (yimei
52; radical nationalist movement, 12; zhi lijiao), 109-110; slogan: “men delve
Republic, 44, 105, 113, 117, 120, 129, and women spin” (nan geng nu zhi), 40,
130, 142, 199, 205, 208, 215, 217, 41; social hierarchy, 7, 32, 37; social
236, 237; resistance against Japan, mores and family practices (jiushi jiating
372; “republican motherhood”, 132; fengxi), 121
republican reform, 220; revolution, Contemporary Thirty-Two Types, A (TÙsei san-
46, 205, 220 jåni sÙ), 399, 400
Chinese dress (shinafuku), 347-381 Courier, The (Fumi-zukai), 162
Chinese learning: classics, 109; in Japan, courtesans: in China, 183; in Edo (tayå),
(kangaku), 123; literati, 41, 42; social 294; yåjo, 422, n. 61; in Paris, 384,
classes and categories (deng, rending ), 422
32, 37; ways, ancient, (guli), 118 Creation of Man, 268
Chinese literature: heroic and grand (yåsÙ Cromwell, Oliver, 41
gÙitsu), 176; Ming, 136, 160; Ming cross-dressing: demon in human guise
vernacular fiction, 15; modern , 48, (renyao), 207, 235; female students, 118;
184-202; New Literature (Xin wenyi), 181; haori geisha, 416; see also “dan” and
New Sensationalists, Shanghai’s, 191; “onnagata” on performative cross-
popular fiction (tongsu xiaoshuo), 190; dressing
Qing, 135-142; sentimental, 47; Sino- Crossroads of Good and Evil (Zen’aku no chi-
Japanese writing style (kanbun), 160- mata), 154, 160
162, 164, 168 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang
Chiossone, Edoardo, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, long), 197
74, 91, 92, 100, 101
ChÙchÙ, see “Woman with Balloon”
D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 166, 174
ChÙsen Ù, see “Korean King”
Dadaism, 175
ChÙshÙ, see “Morning Toilet”
Daimaru Hiroshi, 354, 364, 370
Chow, Rey, 6
ChÙya shinbun, 156 Dai Nihonshi, see “History of Great Ja-
Christianity, Missionaries (China), 106, pan”
n. 2; monogamous marriage, 386; Exhibition of Contemporary French Art,
hidden Christians, 271 see “Exhibitions”
Chronicle of the Gods and Sovereigns, A, (JinnÙ Daiyu buries the fallen petals (Daiyu sang hua),
shÙtoki), 66 227, 231
Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times Daiyu sang hua, see “Daiyu buries the fallen
(Nihon shoki), 64-68, 91 petals”
Chåai emperor, 66, 68, 85, 97 d§kinÊ, 418
Cixi, Empress Dowager, 44, 112, 122, dan (female impersonator), see ”Peking
123 opera”
Commendable Anecdotes on Creating a Nation Dancing Girl (Maihime), 162
(Keikoku bidan), 154, 156 DanjurÙ pattern, 289
Communism, China: leaders, 372; Party, Darwinism, social, 148
46, 52, n. 67, 117, n. 37; revolution, 45 Datongshu, see “One World Philosophy”
Comprehensive History of the National Literature, Daudet, Alphonse, 174
98 Dazai Osamu, 175
concubinage, China, 135, Japan, 385 Debate over the Rise or Decline of
Confucianism: Book of Rites (Liji), 34, Literature (bungaku kyokusui ronsÙ), see
105,106; canon, 32, 34, 38, 39, 51; “Japanese literature”
ritual teachings (lijia), 106-108, 114, deity’s body (goshintai), 74
121, 132; condemnation of licentious- della Francesca, Piero, 349, 352
ness, 149; education system, 35; filial Demon on the solitary isle (KotÙ no Oni), 396
piety, 90; gender hierarchies, 159; rit- DeSoto, Hernando, 87
432 index
Theory of deviant psychology, The, (Hentai Eternal Woman (kuon no josei), 277, 279,
shinri), 392 281, 305
Diet, Japanese parliament, 158 Exhibitions in Japan: Exhibition of the
Ding Ling, 201, 202 Association of Artists, Nikakai, 368,
Doll House, A, (drama), 243, 255, 256, n. 17; Exhibition of Contemporary French
290 Art (Dai-sankai furansu gendai bijutsu ten-
Domestic regulations (Nei ze) in Liji, 105, rankai), 320, n. 14; Hakubakai exhibi-
106 tion, 322, 326, n. 23; Kokuten exhibi-
Donghua shibao, see “Tung Wah Times” tions, 304; Annual Exhibition of the
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 166, 174 Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, 349,
DoyÙkai (Saturday Club), 127 356; National Industrial Fair, 320; Na-
Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng), tional Industrial Fair in KyÙto, 313;
136-138 Salon of the Ministry of Culture,
Drifting Clouds (Ukigumo), 153, 162 (Bunten), 266, 333, n. 36; Takashimaya
Drunken Beauty Guifei, The (Guifei zui jiu), exhibition”Osaka in Kimono” (Kimono
(Peking Opera), 225 no ˆsaka), 342, 343
Duanfang, Governor-General, 112 Exhibitions in Europe: Paris World Ex-
Dumas, Alexandre, père, 419 position (Exposition universelle de Paris,
Dworkin, Ronald, 20, 53 1900), 322, 323, 383
with, 286; plays, 246, 283, 286-290, kimono: 91, 159, 245, 266, 289, 294, 318,
401, 412, 422 327, 369; sashes, 252, seams, 327
Kaburagi Kiyokata, 301, 304, n. 75 Kimura Akebono (Eiko), 157, 159, 160,
Kaempfer, Engelbert, 72, n. 34 168
kagema, see “Kabuki theater” Kimura ShÙhachi, 326
KagerÙ Diary, The, 152, 172, 175 kindergarten (Youzhi yuan), 111, n. 16;
KainoshÙ Tadaoto, 237, 238, 267, 282- education, 110, n. 13
305, 334, 284, 285, 292, 295, 299, King of Opera World (Jujie dawang),
300, 302, 335 215-218
Kajin no kigå, see “Chance Meeting with King Wen, 109
Beautiful Women” Kirare Otomi, see “Scarface Otomi”
Kakiuchi Seiyo, 369, 371 Kirare Yosa, 283
Kamei KatsuichirÙ, 175 kisaeng, see “Korean courtesans”
Kang Youwei, 33-35, 39 Kisaragi Koharu, 260
Kangakai, see “Society for the Apprecia- Kishida Rio, 260
tion of Painting” Kishida Ryåsei, 304, 358, 359, 361
Kannon, see “Bodhisattva” Kishida Teruko, 358
Kano HÙgai, 99, 100, n. 82, 267-273, Kishida Toshiko, 97, 159, n. 32
269, 272, 275, 305 Kishimojin, see “Hariti”
Kano Ayako, 219, 220 Kitabatake Chikafusa; 66
Kansei, period 81; Reforms, 73 Kitada Usurai, 168
Kant, Immanuel, 140, n. 8 Kitagawa Utamaro, 316, 317, 393, 398
Karcevskij, Sergej, 419 Kitamura TÙkoku, 156, 165, 169
Karl, Rebecca, 42 , 140, n. 6 kitanai-e, see “filthy picture”
Kaseigaku, see “Domestic Science” Kitano Tsunetomi, 294, 304, n. 76, 342,
Katagami Tengen, 166 343
Katanoue Korenaba, 81, 83, n. 51 Kiyomi RokurÙ, 247
Kataoka ToshirÙ, 336, 337 Klimt, Gustav, 304
KatÙ Seiichi, 252 Kobayashi Eitaku, 286, 288
Katsukawa Shuntei, 81, 82 Kobayashi IchizÙ, 259
Katsurame maidens, 76 Kobayashi Kokei, 322, n. 18
Katsushika Hokusai, 333, 399, n. 35 Kobayashi Mango, 361, 362, 363
Katsushika Taito, 77, 78 KÙbun Academy, 125, 127
Katsu-ura, see “Victorious Inlet” KochÙ, see “Lady Butterfly”
Kawabata Ryåshi, 333 KÙda Rohan, 156, n. 27, 164, 166
Kawabata Yasunari, 175 Koganei Kimiko, 157, 158, 159, 160
Kawakami Mokuami, 283 Koide Narashige, 331, n. 34
Kawakami OtojirÙ, 243-245, 246 Kojiki, see “Record of Ancient Matters”
Kawakami Sadayakko, 243-245, 248, Kojima Kikuo, 374, 377
249, 250, 251, 254, 259, 261 Kojima Takanori, 89, n. 58
Kawakami Sumiko, 245, 246 Kokka, 268
Kawakami troupe, 243-246, 254 Kokuga Society, see “Association for the
Keikoku bidan, see “Commendable Anecdotes on Creation of National Paintingi”
Creating a Nation” Kokuga sÙsaku kyÙkai, see “Association for
Kenyåsha, see “Society of Friends of the the Creation of National Painting”
Inkstone, The” Kokumin no tomo, 156, 157, 165
Kharakan, Lev, 205 Kokumin shinbun, 156
Ki no Tsurayuki, 417 Kokuritsu GinkÙ, see “National Bank”
kibyÙshi, vernacular forms of, 390 Kokushi kiyÙ, see “Bulletin of National
Kikuchi YÙsai, 322, n. 17, 333 History”
Kimono no ˆsaka, (“Osaka in Kimono”), Kokuten exhibitions, see “Exhibitions”
see “Exhibitions” Korea: courtesans (kisaeng), 377; Japan’s
index 437
Malangfu, (Jap. MerÙfu), 274 Meiji empress ShÙken, 98, 100, 101, 102
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 174 Meiroku zasshi, 147, n. 5
Man of Genius (L’uomo di genio in rapporto alla MeishÙ empress, 386
psichiatria), 174 Mencius, 33, 160
Man’yÙshå, 423, n. 63 Mendelssohn, Felix, 165
Manchu: aristocracy, 192; bannerman, 25; Merciful Kannon, see Hibo Kannon
Chinese, non-, 354; costume, 349, 354, Merezhkovsky, Dmitry174
358, 359, 362; dynasty, 354; empire, Mermaid’s Lament, The, 360-362
140; government, 31; government’s Meyer-Förster, Wilhelm, 244
stipends, 192; high official, 109; lower Michelangelo, 268
class families, 192 Mikami Sanji, 99, 161, n. 37
Manchukuo: establishment of, 381; pup- Minbao, see “People’s journal”
pet-state, 348 Ming dynasty, 136; fall of the, 137; late,
Manchuria: 217; Japan’s invasion of, 184; 137, 141
Russian advance in, 126, 127 Mingxing film company, 179
Mandala, Womb and Diamond, 418 Mingxing yuekan, see “Star Monthly, The”
Manners and Lives of Contemporary Students Minkan zasshi, see “Journal of the people”
(TÙsei shosei katagi), 153, 154 Mirror of Marriage (Imo to se kagami), 153
Manteau (manto), 255-258 Mirror of Womanhood, A (Fujo no kagami),
Manual of Style (BunshÙ dokuhon), 145 157
Mao Dun, 190 Mirviss, Joan, 82
Mao Zedong, 46, 54 misemono, see “temple fairs”
Marquis Tseng, 25, 26, 29, 30 Mishima Yukio, 145, 146, 173, 305, n. 80
Marra, Michael, 384, 417
Mita bungaku, 172
marriage, fee (China), 113, 114
mitate, (parodic juxtaposition), 247, n. 14,
martial bravery (bu), 98
390, 416
Maruki RiyÙ, 100, 101
Maruyama ˆkyo, 270, 327, n. 27 Mito School, historians, 66
Masamune HakuchÙ, 166, 167 Mitsukoshi department store: 290, 339,
Masaoka Shiki, 168 368, n. 17; posters, 341
master-slave relationship, 35, 36 Miyake Kaho, 155, 159, n. 32, 163
Matsui Sumako, 243, 244, 247-252, 248, Miyako no hana, 157
252, 254-259, 256, 257, 258, 261, Miyako shinbun, 229
290 Miyamoto SaburÙ, 377, 378
Matsushima Emiko, 337 Mizoguchi Kenji, 301, n. 72
Maupassant,de, Guy, 174 Mizushima Niou, 359-360, 361-362, 365,
May Fourth: era 130; generation of, 231; 366, 368
(New Culture) Movement, 31, 47, 51, Mizutani Yaeko, 243, n. 8, 250
52, n. 67, 195, 218; New Culture era, Modern Girl: 10, 13, 14, 179-202, 349,
182 358, 367, 379; bourgeois, 189, 190,
Mei Lanfang: 11, 205-239, 206, 225, 226, 200; capitalism, 187; Chinese trans-
228, 232, 233, Chinese female ideal, lations of, 181, 182, n. 7; global phe-
205; Chinese Theater and Mei lanfang nomenon, 186; icon, Shanghai, 188;
(Shinageki to Bai LanhÙ), 222; as dan modan g§ru (moga), 181, 182, 304, 305,
actor, 209-213 349, 367, 416
Mei Shaowu, 206 modern woman, 49
Meiji Art Society (Meiji bijutsu kyÙkai), Modern Woman, A (Xiandai yi nüxing), 180
318 moga, see “Modern Girl”
Meiji bijutsu kyÙkai, see “Meiji Art Socie- Moga in Chinese Dress as Seen Abaord a Train
ty” in China, Fujo-kai, 370
Meiji emperor: 63, 64, 66, 98, 100, 104, Mohism, 34
273; parent-child relationship of, 100; Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), 275-276, 281,
visit to exhibition in Kyoto, 320 293, 297
index 439
Mona Lisa, Portrait of, 289, 290, 293, 297, National Industrial Fair, see “Exhibi-
304, n. 77 tions”
Mongol invasions of Japan, 67 National Painting (kokuga), see “Asso-
Monna Vanna, 244, 254-259 ciation for the Creation of National
mono no aware, (capacity to be moved deep- Painting”
ly), 383 nationalism, China, 6, 11, 19-54, 140;
More, Hannah, 152 Japan, 38, 83, 332-334
Mori ˆgai, 157, 161, 162, 166 Natori Shunsen, 290, 291
Mori Ritsuko, 243 Natsume SÙseki, 275
Morimura Yasumasa, 298 Naturalism: European literature, 167;
Morning Toilet (ChÙshÙ), 308, 309, 313-316, 174; Japanese literature, 9, 167, 170,
318, 320, 333 172, 173, 174; Japanese Naturalists,
Moronobu, see “Hishikawa Moronobu” 144, 148, 166-170, 174
Moroto Michio, 396 Nei ze, see “Domestic regulations”
Mother of Captain Michitsuna, 152 New Culture Movement, China, 48, 51,
mother-and-child motif, 271 52
Motoda Nagazane, 63 New Life Movement, 185
Motoori Norinaga, 383 New Literature, see “Chinese literature”
Moulin Rouge, 260 New Literature (Xin wenyi), 181
Mozume Takami, 162, New Nation’s King (Shin koku Ù), 245, 246,
mu, see “female tutors” 247, n. 15
Mulan congjun, see “Mulan, the Disguised New Woman (Xin nüxing), 189, 231
Warrior Maiden” New Woman: China, 14, 182, n. 6, 268,
Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden 366; Japan, 3, 255, 258, 366
(Mulan congjun), 231, 232, Disney New Youth (Xin qingnian), 195
movie, 90 Nezumiya Denkichi, 328
Muqi, 275 Ni hong guan, see “Rainbow Pass”
Murai Brothers, 339 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 167, 174
Murakami Kagaku, 267, 276-283, 305 Nihon bijutsuin, see “Japanese Art Acad-
Murasaki Shikibu, 85, n. 53, 97, 152, emy”
169 Nihon bungaku zensho, see “Complete works
Murata UkÙ, 223-228, 232 of Japanese literature”
Murayama Kaita, 297 Nihon bungakushi, see “History of Japanese
MyÙjÙ magazine, 169, 311, 322, 384 literature”
Nihon shoki, see “Chronicles of Japan from
Nagai Ai, 260 Ancient Times”
Nagai Kafå, 387, 389, 417, 422 Nihonga, see “painting”
Nakai SÙtarÙ, 276 Nihonga-yÙga divide, 266
Nakajima ShÙen, 154 Nihongi, see “Chronicles of Japan from the
Nakajima Toshiko (ShÙen), 159, 160 Earliest Times”
Nakamura Butsuan, 391 Nihonjin- ron, see ”Japanese Imperialism”
Nakamura-za theater, 283 Ninetimes Cuckold (Jiuwei gui), 142
Nakano Hajime, 396 ninjÙbon, see “sentimental fiction, Edo-
nanga, see “Chinese Southern School of period”
painting” Nise Murasaki Inaka Genji, 387, 388; popu-
Naomi (Chijin no ai), 305 larity of, 389
National Art School, see “Tokyo School Nishida Masaaki, 326
of Fine Arts” Nishiyama Matsunosuke, 384, n. 4, 419,
National Bank (Kokuritsu GinkÙ, Japan), n. 57, 422, n. 61; on iki, 392, 393,
85-88 n. 23
national bonds (Japanese), 91 Nitobe InazÙ, 386
national flower (guohua), 211, 212 Nitta Yoshisada, 89, n. 58
440 index
Singer among Boy Actors (tongling diyi), Rainbow Pass (Ni hong guan), 226
215-216; Best Singer among Female Ranger, Terence, 55
Performers, (kunling diyi), 215 Rapid Descent of Amida (Haya-raigÙ),
People’s Armies (minjun), 44 270
People’s journal (Minbao), 30, 31 rationalism, 49, 174, 176
People’s Republic of China, 46, 47 realism, see “Japanese literature”
Pillow Book, The, 152 realistic novel (mosha shÙsetsu), 148
Pincus, Leslie, 384, 385, 392, n. 19, 397, Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), 67, 68
n. 29, 416, 423, 424, n. 64 Records of Rites (Li ji), 105, 106
Pingdengshuo, see “Egalitarianism” refined culture (bun), 98
Pisanello, 349, 351 Reforms, TenpÙ, 389
pleasure quarters (China), 105 Remembrances (Omoide), 245, 248
Plum Blossom in the Golden Vase, The (Jin ping Renaissance, 242, 276; Italian painting,
mei), 149 277, 349, 350, 355
Pomeranz, Kenneth, 45 RengÙkai, 74, n. 41
Portraits, see “painting, Western-style:” Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 298
Position of Women, The (Fujin no chii), 154 renyao (transvestite), 235
Post-Impressionism, 276 resignation (akirame), 419, 422, 423
Powell, William H., 87 Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmeng hui),
primary care givers (baomu), 110, 110, n. 13 128
primary schools (Japanese), 93 Ricketts, Charles, 250
Prince ShÙtoku, 66 ritual doctrine on feminine virtue, see
Profile of a Woman holding an Orchid (HÙkei), “Confucianism”
349, 353 ritual teachings (lijiao), see “Confucian-
Progress (wenming): 106, 107, 112; 174; ism”
ideology of, 176; propaganda, anti-, Roden, Donald, 266, 267, n. 7, 392, 396
121; ideas, 121; state-building agen- Rodin, Auguste, 320, n. 14
das, 132; values, 118, 121; Progressive Rokumeikan period, 147
Press (Wenming shuju), 113 Romanticism, 166, 167; Japan, 165, Ro-
Prostitutes: 76, 279; China, 115-117, 135- mantic literature, 146
142 , 372; Japan; 385, 418, 422, 424; Rongqing, 109-111, 113
male, 301; Shanghai, 105, 141, 142 Rosi, Giovanni Vittorio, 249
pure art (junshin naru geijutsu), 276, 282 Rotten Eggs (Kusare tamago), 154
pure literature (junbungaku), see “Japanese Roupu tuan, see “Carnal Prayer Mat”
literature” Rubens, Peter Paul, 339
Russo-Japanese War, 3, 9, 11, 61, 94, 144,
Qi Rushan, 217, 222, 229, 236 166, 168, 170, 174, 177, 241, 244
Qin Pu, 198, 199 ryÙsai kenbo, see “good wife, wise mother”
Qing dynasty: army, 139; belle, 360; court, Ryåtei Tanehiko, 387, 389, 403
23, 27, 29; collapse of, 5, 192, 211;
documents, 113; dynasty, 42, 215, 348, Safuran, 282
354, 355; decadence and disintegration Saganoya Omuro, 154
of, 137; late-, 47, 51, 105, 115, 122, Sakai Naoki, 38
135-142, 208; educational authorities, Sakaki Mitoko, 127, 128
112; emperors, 207; government, 107, Sakakibara ShihÙ, 276, 297, n. 63
139; officials, 106; costumes, 360 sakayaki, see “shaving of the pate”
Qingdao, seized by Japan, 348 Salomé, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253,
Qipao dress, 354, 355, 361-363, 377 253, n. 24, 255
Qiu Jin, 126-128 Salon de Beaux Arts, 313
Queen Victoria, 62, 63, 91 Salon of the Ministry of Culture, (Bunten),
Quong Tart, 27 see “Exhibitions”
samurai: 386; government (bakufu), 386;
442 index
Wealthy nation and strong army (fukoku Yamada BimyÙ, 156, n. 27, 320, 321,
kyÙhei), 93 322
Weininger, Otto, 174 Yamamoto Yasue, 260
wenming, see “progress” Yamanaka, art dealer, 274
Western Paradise, 270 Yanagawa Shigenobu, 401, 402
Westernization, 368, 370 Yang Xiaolou, 212, 216
Wilde, Oscar, 174, 244, 248 Yano Ryåkei, 154, 156
Winkel, Margarita, 404, 414 Yasuda YojårÙ, 175
Wisdom Impression Sentiment (Chi Kan JÙ), Yasui SÙtarÙ, 374, 375,
322, 323, 325, 326, 329, 333, 338, Ye Haowu, 107, 109, 121
342 Yi Shunding, 208-212
Wo hu cang long, see “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Yishu zhi gong, see “Palace of Art, The”
Dragon” yÙga, see “painting, Western style”
Woman from Yen-chou, 274 Yokogushi, 267, 283-290, 284, 285, 292,
Woman in a DanjurÙ Robe, A, 286, 288 294, 304, 305
Woman of Shimabara, A (Shimabara no onna), Yokohama photographs, 308
294, 295 Yokomitsu Riichi, 175, 372, 373
Woman with Balloon (ChÙchÙ), 298, 299 Yomiuri newspaper (Yomiuri shinbun), 61,
Woman’s World (Fujo-kai), 367 66, n. 23, 157, 159
Women in Three Fashion Modes, 377, 378 Yorozu TetsugorÙ, 331, 332
Women’s Bureau of the Chinese Yosano Akiko, 169, 342
Nationalist Party, 46 Yoshiwara: prostitutes, 297; “bad area”,
Women’s Eastern Times, The (Funü shibao), 397; pleasure quarter, 390; Nakamura
131 Butsuan’s history of early, 391
Women’s education: 105-132, Education Yu bei ting, see “Pavilion of the Royal
Board, 113-115, 120, 124; education Monument”
in the family (jiating jiaoyu), 110; Prac- Yu Qiong, 27
tical Women’s School, Tokyo (Jissen yuagari bijin, see “Beautiful women”
jogakkÙ), 123-124, 127, 128 yåjo, see “courtesan”
Women’s Federation (fulian), 47 yuna, see “bath-house girls”
Women’s Journal, The (Jogaku zasshi), 98, 147, Yuzhou feng, ([The precious sword named]
148, 150, 151, 154, 156-159, 165, Yuzhou feng), 231, 233
Women’s Rights Movement, Japan, 97-98
Working Women’s Congress of the Com- Zai hei’an zhong, see “In the Darkness”
munist Jiangxi Soviet, 46 zaibatsu, see “financial conglomerate”
world-spirit (Weltgeist), see “Asian world Zen’aku no chimata, see “Crossroads of Good
spirit” and Evil”
Wu Daozhi, 274, 275 Zeng Guofan, 25, 29
Zeng Jize, 25, 29
Xiangbao, see “Hunan journal” Zhang Boxi, 109-111
Xin nüxing, see “New Woman” Zhang Henshui, 192-197, 199, 200, 217
Xin qingnian, see “New Youth” Zhang Jianhua, 29
Xin wenyi, see “New Literature” Zhang Zhidong, 109-113
Xu Xiacun, 181 Zhongguo liu Ri nü xuesheng hui, see
Xue Fucheng, 29 “Association of Chinese Women
Yab-yum, see “Boshisattva” Students in Japan”
Yabu no uguisu, see “Warbler in the Grove” Zhou Xiufeng, 193, 194, 195
Yaezakura, see “Eightfold Cherry Blossom, Zhuang Yu, 121
The” Zola, Émile, 166, 167, 174
yakshini, 279 Zongli Yamen, 26, 28
446 index
SINICA LEIDENSIA
41. McLaren, A.E. Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables. 1998.
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43. Haar, B.J. ter. Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads. Creating an Identity. 1998.
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44. Zurndorfer, H.T. Chinese Women in the Imperial Past. New Perspectives. 1999.
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45. Pohl, K.H. Chinese Thought in a Global Context. A Dialogue Between Chinese and
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