An Asahi Shimbun reporter showed 127 postcards/pictures to Yamaguchi in her home between 2007 and 2008. Below are about one half of these, for the other half click here.
She made voice-comments on many of them which he made recordings of and which, unfortunately, I could not include herein below. However, what you see are the actual numbered pictures and the Google translish comments. As I have already commented, a golden opportunity was lost because none of the below images are from Yoshiko's private collection of pictures and memorabilia from her past. Instead, the below photos are mainly generic (being mostly only postcards). Yoshiko's comments on them often reveal interesting details not shown in her memoirs.
She made voice-comments on many of them which he made recordings of and which, unfortunately, I could not include herein below. However, what you see are the actual numbered pictures and the Google translish comments. As I have already commented, a golden opportunity was lost because none of the below images are from Yoshiko's private collection of pictures and memorabilia from her past. Instead, the below photos are mainly generic (being mostly only postcards). Yoshiko's comments on them often reveal interesting details not shown in her memoirs.
Yoshiko and Asahi reporter discuss Naniwa Dori street (above left) please click this link:
to hear Yoshiko discussing the above shrine, please click the link below:
Next picture below, The lobby of the Mukden Yamato Hotel, 1933
Meeting Lyuba-chan and becoming Li Xianglan. In Yoshiko's own words:
"Ah, so nostalgic... This lobby is at the top of the stairs at the hotel entrance. At the top of the stairs in the back center of the picture is the large dining hall and stage. In 1933, when this photo was taken, I held my first recital in this hall with Madame Podolesov, who was my singing teacher at the time. I recognize the furniture in the photo.
The person who introduced me to Professor Podlesov was a Russian girl named Lyuba (whose real name was Lyuba Monosofah Greenets), who I was close to at the time. She has now passed away.
When I was in my first or second year of girls' school, I had chest problems and had to miss school. At that time, my mother said to me, "They say singing is good for your chest. Yoshiko, you should learn to sing. I hear there's a good teacher here." When I asked her who, she said, "She's someone who taught at the Opera House, a dramatic soprano teacher."
I was a bit scared, but Luba encouraged me, saying it was for my health, and took me to the teacher. After waiting for a while, the teacher arrived. She was a stocky lady - she's a dramatic soprano in court opera, so she's quite large. She sat down in front of the piano, banged on the keys, and said, "Okay, try singing."
The teacher was already big, but at that moment, he seemed even bigger. I was so scared that I couldn't speak. I tried to say "Do Mi So Do So Mi Do" in a mosquito-like voice, but I just couldn't make a sound... So the teacher said "OK," and Luba went upstairs with the teacher, and this time she didn't come back for a long time.
I was wondering what was going on, and apparently the teacher told Luba, "She's no good. There's no hope." So Luba persisted, saying, "Don't say that. She's sick, and singing will cure her." That little Luba... I thought they were making a big fuss, and I waited downstairs, when Luba came downstairs and said, "Starting next week, I'll be teaching her twice a week."
That was the beginning of my journey as an actress under the name Li Xianglan. Without that exchange with Luba, I wouldn't be who I am today. It's really strange how connections work.
A lot happened between me and Liuba-chan after that. She was the daughter of a bakery on Naniwa-dori in Mukden (now Shenyang), and we got to know each other when we happened to be sitting next to each other on a school trip or something when we were still in Fushun. She attended Mukden's Chiyoda Elementary School and spoke fluent Japanese. Apparently she was a classmate of Eto Shinkichi, who was the president of Asia University, at Mukden Chiyoda Elementary School. Eto-san later said, "That's interesting. There was a tall girl named Liuba who was very talkative, and was that Liuba-chan?"
I became good friends with Luba and we often visited each other. In her bakery, there was a Russian samovar for brewing tea. I remember that we often had piroshki. They were really tasty piroshki with eggs inside, and I had never eaten such tasty piroshki before. I looked forward to them, and often visited her. I have a photo of Luba with her mom and dad.
One day, I was sent to study in Beijing. My father told me to go to Beijing. I went to Liuba's house to say goodbye, but there were military police standing in front of the house. The shop window where the sweets are usually displayed was smashed, and the broken glass was scattered on the chocolates. It was a very sad and scary atmosphere. I called out, "Liuba! Liuba!" but there was no one there. Because I was still young, the military police chased me away without questioning me, and I never heard anything about Liuba's whereabouts again.
From then on, my destiny and Luba's destiny changed too. It was after this incident that I became an actress called Li Xianglan. I was singing, and through a strange twist of events, I became an actress, and then I made a movie in China. A lot happened, but in the end, in Shanghai, just after the defeat, I was called a "traitor."
The main reason was that, despite being Chinese, I entertained the military. And also, I mentioned "China" in my song. For these reasons, I was accused of being a traitor to the Chinese, and was under house arrest in Shanghai before the repatriation. At that time, it was Luba who helped me.
We met again just before that, in Shanghai, just before Japan lost the war. I was giving a recital at the Shanghai Grand Guangming Theater, a large theater that still stands today.
Since I had just written the song "Night Fragrance," I held a concert titled "Night Fragrance Rhapsody." It was sold out for three days and three nights. That day, we had a huge success with encores and encores, and all the Chinese actors who performed brought flowers to my dressing room. There was also an actress called Zhou Xuan, who is famous for songs such as "How Many Days Will You Return?", and she came too, and the atmosphere became very lively, when someone called out, "Yoshiko-chan!" in a loud voice.
I wondered, "I call myself Li Xianglan, but who could she be in Japanese?" and it turned out to be Luba. She said, "I'm here with my mom and dad." She invited me, saying, "Come over to my house tonight! Come over to my house," so I turned down various parties and went to Luba's. When I stepped inside her house, I saw a picture of Stalin and a red flag. Ah, at the time, I thought Luba was white, but the reason she suddenly disappeared and was being chased by the military police was because she was actually red. Luba then said, "I'm a Bolshevik."
So maybe she was just a "disguise" when we were in Fengtian. But if I hadn't met her in Fengtian, I wouldn't be who I am now, and I probably wouldn't have survived. When I was under house arrest in Shanghai and there was talk of me being sentenced to death on suspicion of traitorous conduct, Liuba went to my house in Beijing and brought me a copy of my family register. Even now, my sister still reminisces and says, "A beautiful woman named Liuba came to visit our mother, calling her 'Auntie,' and flew back with a copy of my family register, saying, 'Yoshiko is having a hard time.'"
Because I had that family register, I was spared the death penalty. The local newspapers had written that I, Yoshiko Kawashima, and Tokyo Rose were the "Three Great Cultural Traitors" and would be executed. I was saved from that situation. I was saved by Luba. It felt like Luba was steering my destiny.
On the other hand, Kawashima Yoshiko was executed because she could not prove that she had been adopted by a Japanese person. She was always considered the 14th princess of the 10th Qing Dynasty royal family, Prince Su, and even though she claimed to have become "Kawashima Yoshiko," the adopted daughter of a Japanese man, Kawashima Naniwa, she was unable to prove it. Her fate was completely opposite to mine. The difference was a single piece of paper, a certified copy of her family register. Kawashima was shot to death in Beijing... Although there were times when I was caught in the crossfire, Kawashima loved me dearly. The two people I was involved with in life-or-death situations were Liuba-chan and Kawashima Yoshiko. Picture 17 of 127 below:
to hear the above recording, please click this link:
to hear the above recording regarding "the arrogant Japanese", click below link:
to hear above above recording of Yoshiko describing learning Mandarin, click link below:
to hear Yoshiko herself and the reporter discussing the above photo, click this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ijnWfTYbI&t=12s
Below is the bridge which featured so prominently in the film "China Nights" of 1939. The story that Yoshiko recounts is one of a Korean comfort-woman who happened to be a spectator to the movie-scene where Yoshiko picks paper-flowers off a tree while singing the theme song. The Korean lady is able to actually meet Yoshiko much later in life when Yoshiko was with the Asian Women's Fund. Note Yoshiko's final comment: "I think the Japanese have done something really sinful in China".
copy of above text:
Maple Bridge in front of Hanshan Temple outside the city, Suzhou, 1939
I performed a love scene with Kazuo Hasegawa.
The Hanshan Temple in Suzhou has become a famous song. In 1940, the film "Chinese Night" was shot here, and I believe the love scene with Kazuo Hasegawa was shot under this bridge.
During the filming, there was a line in the lyrics of the song that went, "The white blossoms of peach trees...". However, the trees beside the bridge were dead and had no flowers. The film crew made flowers out of tissue paper and stuck them on the branches. From a distance, it looked like flowers were blooming.
After the war, I attended a United Nations conference in New York. The theme of the conference was the issue of comfort women. One of the speakers was a former comfort woman named Kim Sang-hee. She was from a small town north of Pyongyang, and one day when she was about 15 years old, she was walking around in her Korean best clothes when a Japanese policeman called out to her and took her to a nearby school. There were a lot of girls around at the school, all 16-17 years old. They were all put on a train and taken to Dalian, and then they boarded a ship to Shanghai. They were told that they would be asked to wash bandages with blood from soldiers when they arrived in Shanghai, but that was a lie, and they were made into comfort women when they arrived. Kim was made to entertain soldiers near Suzhou. There were a lot of unpleasant people around, but there was a kind military doctor who one day said, "There's a filming of Li Xianglan in Suzhou today, so I'll take you to see it," and brought her to the scene.
Kim was invited by a second generation Korean in New York to give her testimony, and she told me, "When you sang on location, the tree was dead, so you made flowers out of white tissue paper and attached them to the branches, right?" So I realized that she was definitely there. She said, "I was watching you sing with the soldiers."
I was shocked. We were about the same age, one of us had been sold and forced to become comfort women, and I was a singing star. Is fate something that can change a person's life to this extent?
I became friends with Mr. Kim and he used to come to our house, but he passed away recently. I heard a lot about his life. I think the Japanese military did really terrible things in China. 55 / 127
The below picture shows the famous Hanshan Temple near Fengqiao, site of a famous Tang Dynasty poem called 枫桥夜泊 "Fēng Qiáo Yè Bó" or "Maple Bridge Night Park" by Tang poet Zhāng Jì.
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For the other half of 127 images, click here.
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