For me, born and raised in the coal-mining town of Fushun,
Fengtian was the very metropolis I had dreamed about.
Indeed, I would go so far
as to say that this was not my sentiment alone, but one
shared at the time by all
those who lived in Manchuria, where Fengtian was both the
biggest city and its
political, economic, and cultural center. Needless to say,
even today, Shenyang is
the largest commercial and industrial city in Northeast
China (Dongbei); with a
population of 5.3 million, it is also the fourth largest
city in China after Shanghai,
Beijing, and Tianjin.1
It was not just a matter of size and scale. It was a
beautiful and cultured
city, proud of its long history and traditions. A sparrow in
Fushun might be
just an ordinary little bird, but in the green of Fengtian’s
Chiyoda Park, even
the feathers of a sparrow pecking on crumbs of food shone
with a lustrous
dark brown.
“Fengtian” was what the Japanese named the city during the
Manchurian occupation. As early as the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, it was
given the name
Shenyang. Nurhaci, the founding father of the Qing Dynasty,
established his capital there in 1625, and it remained the capital of the
Manchus until 1643, when it was
replaced by Beijing.2 Until the founding of the Republic of
China, military viceroys
(Chengjing jiangjun) were dispatched from Beijing after the
establishment of the
Fengtian Prefecture (Fengtian-fu), thus giving rise to the
name adopted by the
Japanese.3 During the Russo-Japanese War, it was the
decisive battleground for
the two opposing armies. Liutiao Lake, on the city’s
outskirts, was where the Japanese army set off a railroad explosion, igniting
the Manchurian Incident. Our
family’s move from Fushun to Fengtian coincided with the
opening chapter of
the sad history between Japan and China. But as a girl, I
knew nothing about all
that, absorbed as I was in my daydreams about the glamor of
city life. In that big,
colorful, international metropolis, everything I saw and
heard came as an exciting discovery, whether it derived from Chinese, Western,
or Japanese origins.
Fengtian was my castle of dreams.
15
16
Chapter 2
Even though its scale was not as large as Beijing’s
Forbidden City, the walled
city of Fengtian, whose old palace bore witness to the rise
and fall of the Qing
Dynasty, still quietly evoked a profound impression of the
past. The palace’s extensive grounds contained more than seventy structures
with an excess of three
hundred rooms; its gold-tiled roofs reflected beautifully in
the setting sun. This
was the Imperial residence of the founder of the Qing
Dynasty, Nurhaci, and then
Huang Taiji or Emperor Taizong. Spreading out in the
northwestern suburbs of
the city was a large lush park, the North Tomb (Beiling);
this is where Zhaoling,
the mausoleum of Huang Taiji and his Empress, was located.
On its roof rows of
sculpted soldiers had been standing guard, unchanged from
the old days since the
end of the Qing Dynasty. Passing through the main entrance
to the tomb one can
see parallel rows of quaint, stone-carved creatures watching
over the mausoleum,
a scene reminiscent of the approach leading to the Thirteen
Tombs of the Ming
Dynasty (Mingchao Shisan Ling).4
The city center contrasted sharply with these historical
sites. Siping Boulevard, a main thoroughfare in the Shenyang District in the
Chinese section of town,
had numerous high-class department stores and shops built in
Chinese or Western styles and was always bustling. The area between the
Shenyang District and
the Japanese quarters around the Yamato District had a
Western ambience about
it. Formerly an international commercial hub, it still had
diplomatic and trade missions from countries such as England, the United
States, Germany, and Italy and
felt like a European city. The Yamato District, on the other
hand, with its busy
streets such as Naniwa, Chiyoda, and Heian radiating out
from Fengtian Station
in every direction, was reminiscent of Japan. Here you would
find many typically
Japanese buildings, including traditional restaurants and
ryokans.
In any of Fengtian’s districts, magnificent Western-style
structures were a
common sight. Most of them, like the red-bricked Fengtian
Station and the city’s
Catholic Church, had been constructed by the Russians.
Fengtian’s chic Yamoto
Hotel, under Mantetsu’s direct management, was a
particularly attractive example of American Renaissance design. It seems to me
that the city’s richly cosmopolitan environment had a considerable impact on
the direction my future life
would take. Beyond its buildings and other scenic sights,
there was a prevailing
international atmosphere surrounding its city life and human
interactions.
Fengtian was home not only to various ethnic groups from
Asia. A large number of White Russians also came as exiles after Tsarist Russia
was transformed
into a communist country. Among Fengtian’s residents were
also Russians of Turkish descent, Armenians, and others. Together these groups
created a colorful racial
mosaic. Naturally, many languages were spoken in people’s
daily lives. I, of course,
used Japanese at school and with my family, but while
shopping, I almost always
spoke Chinese. As it turned out, I was able to use more
Chinese once my household
My Fengtian Years
17
began to include Chinese coinhabitants. Living under the
same roof with us was
the second wife of General Li Jichun, along with her
servants. General Li himself, a
good friend of Father’s, was our next-door neighbor. We
always called him “General,” though he was not on active duty. In the past, he
had been a warlord leader in
the area around Shandong Province and an important figure in
the military politics of Northeast China. Afterward, he became active in
business circles and at the
time of our move was the President of the Bank of Shenyang
in Fengtian.5
He had known Father since his younger days in Beijing.
Indeed, the two became such close and congenial friends that I heard they had
formally exchanged a
pledge of eternal friendship. Father was quite depressed
after his resignation as a
consultant to Fushun County, and it was General Li who was
good enough to invite him to come to Fengtian and to make a house adjacent to
his own available
for our family. Now Father’s new job title was Consultant to
the Datong coal mines
and Councilor to the coal-mine operations at Beijing
Mentougou. Based in Fengtian, he was ready to travel to various locations in
Manchuria should the need arise.
The house General Li provided for us was what you might call
his second residence. The living quarters of his second wife and her servants
occupied no more
than a small area within the large, three-story house, so
there was more than
enough room to accommodate two families. Living together
with the main
household, we paid no rent on the condition that we took
care of Mrs. Li and her
company as if they were members of our own family.
Our new residence was in Xiaoxibian Menwai, an area just
between the Yamato
and the Shenyang districts. I can still remember the exact
address: Number 111,
Shengxuan-li, Sanjing-lu, Waishangbudi, Xiaoxibian Menwai,
Fengtian City. As
our address revealed, our neighborhood was where the
foreigners lived, with their
commercial quarters and consulates from various countries.
As a whole, it had
very much the flair of an upper-class European residential
district, as though it
had been transplanted from somewhere in London or Paris.
Commuting, as it were, between his main and secondary
households, General Li would visit us twice a week and look in on his second
wife to see how she
was doing. Whenever he came by, he had a jolly time playing
mahjong, enjoying
wine served by his second wife, singing boisterously, or
discussing national and
international affairs. His style of living was typical of
those belonging to the dominant class at the time.
General Li wore an impressive Kaiser mustache that curved
sharply under
his nose in the shape of a handlebar; it was a truly
magnificent sight. A powerfully built man, almost six feet tall, he had a
chivalrous but unpretentious
disposition; with his ever-present radiant smile, there was
nothing domineering about him. He was also kind enough to take a liking to me
as if I were his
own daughter.
18
Chapter 2
His second wife, on the other hand, was a slender woman
standing less than
five feet. She was still at a young, tender age, and her
skin seemed almost translucent, like pure white porcelain. She had classical
features, with crescent-moon eyebrows and a waist as slim as a willow. She also
had bound feet, and the way she
moved about with tottering steps further accentuated her air
of childlike innocence.
Although foot-binding was practiced by the Chinese
aristocracy from the
time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties until the early
Republican period,
the custom had surely been banned by the time we lived with
her. And yet among
those belonging to aristocratic lineages or to the
land-owning classes, this appalling custom of binding children’s feet with silk
bandages to obstruct their natural
growth did not seem to have disappeared entirely. One time,
Mrs. Li invited me
privately into her bed chamber and showed me her uncovered
foot, bent into the
shape of a new moon. Compared to the size of her foot as a
whole, her bundled
toes appeared extraordinarily long. The arch of her inner
foot had been folded and
bent into a constricted shape. At the time, she was tenderly
massaging her foot
with both hands.
I heard that she was a Manchu woman by origin, but perhaps
due to her fine
family background, she spoke Mandarin Chinese beautifully
without any accent,
as if she were singing in the language. To thank me for
taking care of her in the
same household, she taught me the Beijing dialect. During my
years in Fushun, I
had been Father’s student of Mandarin Chinese at a Mantetsu
institute along with
many grown-ups; now, in Fengtian, I was given lessons in
Chinese from morning
to nightfall.
My greatest joy in those days came from movies and operas.
Even today, I can
still remember movies at the Shenyang Cinema and plays at
the Dongbei Grand Theater. Neither of them put on any Japanese productions;
instead, they showed mainly
Chinese films and staged performances from the repertoire of
Beijing opera.
One film I can never forget is the Chinese movie Legend of
the White Serpent
(Baishe-chuan), a story based on an old folktale; it was
also well known in Japan
from a famous 1958 Tōei production.6 After the war, I
appeared in the film Madame White Snake (Byakufujin no yōren), directed by
Toyoda Shirō with Ikebe
Ryō, Yachigusa Kaoru, and others. Coproduced with a Hong
Kong fi lm studio,7
it was based on the original Legend of the White Serpent
with a script adapted
by Hayashi Fusao. While preparing for my part in the fi lm,
I fondly recalled
those Fengtian days as we proceeded from historical research
to fi nessing my
character.
Of course, I also went to see Japanese fi lms and plays that
catered to Japanese
audiences, usually in the company of either Father or
Mother. Tairiku Gekijō,
Heian-za, Hōten-kan, Shintomi-za, Minami-za, Gin’ei Gekijō,
and, yes, I now remember the Chōshun-za after coming up with all those names of
theater houses.
My Fengtian Years
19
These recollections were inspired by a piece I read recently
by Awaya Noriko in
Manchuria: Past and Present (Manshū: Kinō Kyō, 1985).8 Back
in Fengtian, I heard
that Awaya often sang at the Chōshun-za to attract audiences
to its films, and one
time I went to see the “Awaya Noriko Show” with my parents.
Then, I met Awaya
herself quite by accident. By that time, she was already
renowned as “the queen of
blues,” and I, a thirteen-year-old who loved to sing, took
some lessons with her.
Needless to say, I was still an unknown schoolgirl.
As for Awaya’s reminiscences, let me quote from her essay
“Manchurian Blues”
(Manshū burūsu):
I had an unforgettable experience in this town [Fengtian].
One time, I found
myself in what you might call the city proper all by myself
. . . and lost my way
as I wandered into the Chinese section. Unable to find my
way out, I was loitering about not knowing what to do. It was at that time that
I fortuitously met
Ri Kōran—Yamaguchi Yoshiko—who happened to be living in the
neighborhood at the time. She was not well-known then, still a young girl. She
was good
enough to let me rest for a while at her house and send me
on my way by car.
Awaya’s recollections were mostly accurate. Losing her way
and unsure of what to
do, she was wandering in the area where my family lived in
Xiaoxibian Menwai,
and as I remember it, she saw our nameplate with the words
“Yamaguchi Fumio”
on it, realized that the household was Japanese, then went
through our gate and
rang our doorbell. Upon opening the door and noticing her
pale face, I asked her
what had happened, to which she promptly replied, “Ah,
you’re Japanese, just as I
thought! Oh, how lucky I am!” With a deep breath of relief,
she said, “Excuse me,
but can I use your lavatory?” and stepped into our house.
This was the incident
that drew us together.
According to custom in China, members from unrelated
families could enter into sworn kinship when their relationship began to
resemble that of blood
relatives; this custom gave rise to a very large number of
sworn brotherhoods and
parent-child vows. To seal the bond between our family and
General Li’s, he
and Father decided to enter into a pledge to recognize each
other’s children as
their own. Since this decision happened to coincide with the
Chinese Lunar New
Year, lanterns were put up to decorate the front of our
houses; spring couplets
(chunlian), freshly written with ink brush on red paper for
the occasion, were glued
on doorposts to bring good fortunes. The walls surrounding
the altar were transformed into an exhibition area for New Year pictures, or
nianhua, woodblockprints of auspicious creatures such as legendary phoenixes,
mythical unicorns, and
heavenly dragons, all in dazzling colors. From the outside,
we could hear firecrackers, gongs, and drums, along with melodies played on the
er’hu.
20
Chapter 2
Wearing a bright red Chinese dress and a comb with a flower
design in my
hair, I walked slowly up to General Li who sat right in
front of the altar. The General and his second wife, sitting next to him, were
likewise formally dressed for
the Lunar New Year. Kneeling, I put each of my arms into its
opposite sleeve and
buried my head in the space in between. Then, with my knees
on the ground, I
bowed three times with my head touching the floor. I then
drank from the cup
the General handed me in full view of other New Year’s
guests before returning
it to him.
With the conclusion of the ceremony, I became General Li Jichun’s
gan’gu’niang,
his adopted daughter, and he my gan’baba, foster father,
even though the ritual
did not result in my physical adoption by the Li family or
in a change of my nationality. It simply represented the creation of a strictly
nominal father-daughter
relationship that attested to our families’ long-lasting
friendship.
To commemorate our new relationship, my gan’baba gave his
gan’gu’niang a
new name, Li Xianglan, his surname “Li” coupled with his
elegant pseudonym
“Xianglan” [literally, “Fragrant Orchid.”] I might add that
the orchid was a celebrated flower grown mainly in Northeast China.
It was under these circumstances that my Chinese name, “Li
Xianglan,” came
into being. Perhaps only the Chinese people can appreciate
the name’s musicality
and the particular mood created by the configuration of the
two Chinese characters “Xiang” and “Lan.”
The following year, I became a singer using the stage name
Li Xianglan. This
was followed by my debut as an actress for the Manchuria
Film Association, or
Man’ei. It is not true, as suggested and circulated in some
quarters, that Li Xianglan was a name the Kwantung Army had deliberately
concocted in order to pass
off a Japanese woman as a Manchurian actress. It was the
name given to me at the
time of my adoption.
On a related subject, the research I did in preparation for
writing my autobiography revealed that General Li Jichun was an influential
figure in Shandong
Province and a pro-Japanese warlord who had actively
cooperated with Colonel
Doihara Kenji,9 head of the Fengtian intelligence apparatus,
in the establishment
of Manchukuo and in the Kwantung Army’s operations in
northern China. According to Furuya Tetsuo’s book Sino-Japanese War (Nicchū
sensō, 1985), Li attempted in 1931 to instigate a riot as a diversionary tactic
that would enable him
to bring Puyi, the former Qing Emperor, secretly out of
Tianjin. At the time, it
was reported that Li went to such lengths that even the
Japanese consul in Tianjin Kuwashima described him as a “scoundrel.” In 1933, Li
organized a “guerilla
force for national salvation” under the alias Ding Qiang to
assist the Kwantung
Army in its military operations in Rehe.10 Furthermore, he
was the organizer of a
security force from the army of the government of Hebei
Province, then a puppet
My Fengtian Years
21
of the Japanese government. As a reward for his various acts
of collaboration with
the Japanese, he was apparently appointed by the Kwantung
Army to be honorary President of Fengtian’s Shenyang Bank. After the war ended,
he was arrested
as a kingpin traitor (hanjian) from China’s Northeast and
subsequently executed
in accordance with the sentence he received at his trial.
By the time General Li invited Father to come to live in
Fengtian, from what
I could tell, he had already washed his hands of his
villainous warlord past and
was enjoying a rather easygoing lifestyle as a noted fi
nancier. To me, he was just
a genial old man living next door. Half a century later,
when I fi rst learned about
his past as a principal traitor of the Chinese people, I was
absolutely stunned.
I was supposed to transfer from Fushun Girls’ High School to
another girls’
school in Fengtian, but there was no vacancy at the time.
While I was waiting for
my turn, I was temporarily enrolled at the Fengtian Girls’
School for Commerce.
Because I was extraordinarily bad at subjects such as
mathematics, bookkeeping,
sewing, and the abacus, school life was no fun at all. As
usual, my aptitude was for
music, drawing, composition, and the Chinese language in
particular. Given that
I was learning Chinese from Mrs. Li from morning to night
while living under
the same roof with her, I felt that I was making steady
progress.
During my second year at the girls’ commercial school, all
students were given
a Chinese language test. As I mentioned earlier, the
qualifying examination separated the students into five different levels of
proficiency. Those placed into Special
Class and First Class were deemed qualified to become,
respectively, chief interpreters for the prime minister’s office and senior
interpreters at various government bureaucracies.
The result of the test was pasted on walls along the
hallway, but for some reason, I couldn’t find my name on it. I discovered later
that, due to my negligence,
I had forgotten to put down my own name on the test paper.
The student who had
submitted the test without her name turned out to have
received Second Class certification, the best result among all students in the
school. Father was overjoyed,
saying, “Well done! Well done!”
My Second-Class Chinese language standing encouraged Father
to take steps
toward realizing his long-held aspiration that his daughter
would eventually become a politician’s secretary. With that goal in mind, he
consulted General Li and
made arrangements for me to study in Beijing under the
guardianship of Pan Yugui, a politician and a mutual friend of theirs.11 “Ah!
You see, as the Japanese proverb goes, it’s better to send one’s darling child
off on a journey to learn about the
real world.”12
But his plan had to be postponed. My health had not been
particularly robust
since childhood, and at the time I was hospitalized for a
month with an infiltration of my lung. When I left the hospital, my doctor
ordered a six-month absence
22
Chapter 2
from school and quiet rest at home. During the recuperation
period, the person
who gave me consolation and encouragement was a young White
Russian girl of
Jewish extraction named Liuba Monosova Gurinets.
Liuba and I were the same age. Perhaps due to certain circumstances,
she was
two grades below me and was a fift h-year student at Chiyoda
Elementary, a school
attended by Japanese kids. Her family ran a confectionary on
Naniwa-dōri in front
of the train station. Her father baked the bread and the
cakes, while her mother
tended to the store. She also had an older brother who was
good at Chinese, and
her cousin Fira’s family was in the neighborhood as well.
Fengtian was where you’d
fi nd a large number of White Russian residents who had
migrated from areas
around Harbin. Besides Liuba and Fira, I also had other
Russian friends such as
Dzhul’etta and Nina, the latter a White Russian of Turkish
descent.
I first met Liuba in the autumn of my sixth year at Fushun
Elementary School.
I was traveling by train to Fengtian on an excursion,
happened to sit next to her,
and we fell into a conversation. She spoke fluent Japanese
and also a little Chinese.
I wasn’t able to speak Russian at the time, and so we talked
in Japanese and Chinese. With her chestnut hair streaming in the wind from the
train’s window, her
dark emerald eyes, and her strikingly fair skin, she had a
beauty reminiscent of
the blue-eyed doll from the title of a Japanese children’s
song. Yet the tiny lightbrown freckles speckling her cheeks lent a warm, charming
touch to what could
otherwise be a doll-like frostiness, and when she smiled,
she was incredibly attractive. She seemed to take a liking to me as well and
repeatedly stroked my head,
saying, “What makes your hair so black?” For more than two
and a half hours
until the train arrived in Fengtian, we were totally
immersed in conversation.
I can describe my meeting with Liuba only as an
extraordinary encounter of
fate. Superficially, it resulted in two young girls who
shared similar interests developing a fondness for each other, but the ensuing
drama convinced me that what
brought the two of us together represented nothing less than
divine intervention.
For my part at least, I was inspired at the time with the
feeling that that young
girl would become a dear future friend of mine. Years later,
when she recalled
our past, Liuba said that she shared the same feelings about
me. Needless to say,
when we first met on the train, neither of us knew our
destinies. Although we did
frequently exchange letters after the excursion ended, they
were just exchanges
written on fancy letter paper about extremely trivial
matters, delivered in pink
envelopes.
When Father announced his plans to move our family to
Fengtian, I was quite
saddened to leave my childhood friends Toshiko and Midori in
Fushun. But I was
fi lled with elated anticipation to see Liuba again. When I
sent her an excited letter to let her know my plans, she replied immediately
with equal enthusiasm. On
the day we arrived in Fengtian, I quietly slipped out of our
baggage-cluttered house
My Fengtian Years
23
and went to see Liuba’s Petrov Confectionary on Naniwa-dōri.
Thrilled at our reunion, we firmly shook hands and hugged each other.
Liuba’s father was different from what I had imagined of a
confectionary owner;
he was a tall man with a dignified countenance. Her mother
was a kind woman
who always wore a smile on her soft, round cheeks. Her
brother had the disposition of an accomplished young man and seemed to be the
sensitive type. Liuba’s
mother warmly welcomed her young guest from afar by
preparing hot lemon tea
from a steaming samovar on the stove. She also treated me to
her freshly made,
fluff y Russian-style meat buns, saying, “Th is is what we
call pirozhki.” Liuba
herself seemed to be enjoying them, and urged me on. As a
souvenir, they gave
me a bag filled with multicolored Russian jellies,
chocolates, marshmallows, and
nougat. This was how my friendship with Liuba began. She
called me “Yoshikochan,” and I returned her affection by calling her “Liubochka,”
in the Russian style
of endearments.
By then, I was largely cured of the infiltration of my lung,
and my doctor encouraged his weak patient to build up her health by practicing
breathing techniques.
Father knew that I had never been much of a sports
enthusiast and suggested that
I learn the art of yōkyoku, which he himself enjoyed
chanting with his friends.13
However, I never developed a fondness for such a form of
singing and dancing.
The person who came to my rescue was Liuba. “If you don’t
like yōkyoku, why not
learn to sing classical songs? They are no different when it
comes to breathing techniques. Our family knows a famous opera singer. Mother
knows her well and I’ll
ask her to make an introduction on your behalf. I know you
will do well in authentic classical music, if you just follow up by learning
Russian and English.” After Father agreed, however reluctantly, to the
proposal, I visited Madame Podlesov with Liuba in the hope of becoming her
pupil.
According to Liuba, she was an Italian whose father was a
professor at
Milan’s Academy of Music. After her marriage to a Russian
aristocrat, she became
a renowned opera singer in Russia during the Tsarist years,
as well as a worldclass dramatic soprano. I had heard that there were
coloratura and lyric sopranos.
At the time, I had no idea that the style of the coloratura
soprano, whose singing resembles a bird’s chirping and twittering, was to
define my future professional repertory.
Madame Podlesov was in her forties, a woman with a robust
build and a
stern face. She had an impressive presence, which in itself
was intimidating
enough. She immediately took me up to the second floor where
there was a grand
piano, and there, in the lesson room, she gave me a voice
test. After she sang DoMi-So-Do-So-Mi-Do as she hit the notes slowly on the
piano, she asked me to
vocalize them. As I was fidgeting at Madame’s own remarkable
performance and
felt unnerved by what I was ordered to do, she repeated what
she did and urged
24
Chapter 2
me to do the same. Completely petrified, I was unable to
come up with much of a
voice at all; the best I could do was no louder than the
virtually inaudible buzz of
a mosquito.
“Oh well, let’s try another chord!” Her words were a mixture
of Russian and
English, and while I could more or less understand what she
meant, her speech,
delivered with a brusque accent, struck me as haughty and
overbearing. I tried to
sing one more time, but I could very well tell that my voice
was stiff and trembling.
“All right, we can stop here,” Madame interrupted me, her
tone of voice betraying her shock at the level of my performance. She retreated
into a backroom,
taking only Liuba with her. After they emerged ten minutes
later, speaking in
Russian, she turned to me and said in English, “Well then, I
want you to come
starting from Saturday next week at two in the afternoon.”
Relieved that even my
terribly flawed performance still managed to earn Madame’s
approval, I began
taking lessons the following weeks and received strict
training on the fundamentals
of soprano singing.
Actually, however, I hadn’t passed that test. That was
something I learned more
than a decade later. At the end of the test, Madame had
called Liuba into the backroom and announced her refusal to have me as a
student, saying that I was beyond
hope. So it was true after all that I had no talent for
singing. And yet Liuba refused
to give up. The argument they had been having with each
other in Russian as they
came out of the back room was Liuba’s desperate attempt to
beg Madame to change
her mind. At the time, Madame had been outdone by Liuba’s
perseverance and
had finally agreed only with considerable reluctance. In any
case, had Liuba chosen not to implore on my behalf, I would not have been
scouted by the Fengtian
Broadcasting Company as a singer, nor would the fi lm
actress Li Xianglan have
been born.
Just as one might expect from a first-rate opera singer at
the time, Madame
was a strict teacher. Beginning from my first day, I was
scolded for having “bad
posture.” “Chin down, chest out, breathe deeply. Now breathe
hard from the pit
of your stomach!” Before each lesson, there were always
preliminary exercises to
prepare me for vocalization. First, I was to lean my back
tight against the wall and
remain completely still. Then, I had to put five or six
books on my head as I vocalized as instructed without compromising my posture.
If even one book tumbled
to the floor, I had to start over. Next, I lay flat on my
back with five or six books
on my diaphragm and practiced breathing not with my chest
but with my stomach. Once again, any fallen book would result in my having to
repeat the exercise.
This was how I began to acquire the vocalization technique
of using my midsection. The first textbook Madame assigned was Chorübungen, a
collection for choral singing from Germany,14 and as soon as we were finished
with it, I began
practicing representative songs from various different
countries. The first ones I
My Fengtian Years
25
learned were folk songs from Madame’s country, namely
“Krasnii Sarafan”15 and
the compositions of Glinka.16 Needless to say, the lyrics
were in Russian. The German compositions included Beethoven’s “Ich Liebe Dich,”
Schubert’s “Serenade,”
and others.
After three months of practice, I realized that I was making
some progress in
my own way. More smiles began to appear on Madame’s face.
Liuba was always
good enough to accompany me to my Saturday afternoon
classes. She could speak
English and German, to say nothing of Russian, and served as
our interpreter at
the beginning. In time, I was able to carry on a
conversation without Liuba’s interpretation. I am sure there are individual
differences among learners, but I think it
is natural and enjoyable to study a foreign language through
song lyrics.
Madame’s husband, an aristocrat in the days of Tsarist
Russia, was an exile
who came to Fengtian by way of Harbin. Apart from managing a
Western-style
lodging house in Kiso-chō, the family supported themselves
with Madame’s teaching classical music as a private tutor. They had a child
about eight years of age.
After my lesson ended on a Saturday afternoon, he would join
us in the living room
and receive treats of candies and tea from the samovar.
Madame would play the
piano, and her husband the balalaika, and together we would
sing Russian folk
songs in a chorus.
During my six-month absence from school, I seldom went
anywhere except
to Madame’s. Without fail, I attended my weekly lessons. The
enthusiasm with
which Madame taught me, along with my sense of accomplishment
and improving health, contributed to considerable progress, and one day, I was
asked to give
the opening performance at a forthcoming recital. Every
autumn, Madame had a
regular recital at the Yamato Hotel, which was one of the
features of the season’s
musical events in Fengtian. I was both excited by the
request and anxious at
the prospect.
Yamato Hotel, the present-day Liaoning Hotel, was situated
in the grand city
square (present-day Hongqi Square) at the intersection of
Fujimi-chō and Naniwadōri, which ran in a northeastern direction from the train
station. Directly managed by Mantetsu, it was Fengtian’s largest hotel and the
most prominent venue
for the city’s social events. The front portion of its grand
hall, called the canting,
was built as an elevated stage; it was here that musical
recitals and dance parties
were often held. Old chairs were arranged in rows on its
spacious mahogany floor,
while the surrounding furniture and ornaments were all
time-honored antiques.
The huge mirror built into the wall had a frame inlaid with
shells, reflecting the
light from splendid chandeliers. The audience consisted not
just of Japanese, but
also Chinese and Russian dignitaries from various circles in
Fengtian.17
“You are Japa nese, so wear a formal kimono,” Madame told
me, but I didn’t
have any such costume. I remember that during events like
the gala day for children
26
Chapter 2
in my Fushun years, I had my picture taken with Toshiko and
Midori wearing a
formal kimono. But at thirteen, what I had were either
school uniforms or Chinese
outfits—nothing for a formal occasion. After discussion with
Mother, a formal
kimono was delivered a day before the scheduled event. It
was a gorgeous purple,
with a design of white cranes, a dress so beautiful that I
felt enchanted gazing at
myself in the mirror. After the recital, I found out from
Mother that since we didn’t
have any Japanese friends in Fengtian at the time nor was
there a rental place for
kimono in town, Mother, after giving the matter much
thought, had gone to a pawn
shop and taken out the item on loan.
The first song I sang wearing my loaned kimono was “The Moon
over the Castle Ruins” (Kōjō no tsuki),18 chosen by Madame, who insisted that
my first piece
be a Japanese song. To me, that number represented all my
yearnings for my home
country, which I had not yet seen. Since that time, it has
meant as much to me as
the national anthem, and whenever I visited troops on the
battlefield or gave performances overseas, I routinely sang it first, with due
dignity.
“The Moon Over the Castle Ruins” was followed by Schubert’s
“Serenade,”
Beethoven’s “Ich Liebe Dich,” and Grieg’s “Solveigs Sang,”
all of which I had learned
and practiced repeatedly. Even though it was my first stage
performance, I was
surprisingly composed. But then I must have been a little
ner vous as well; I still
remember how I caught my foot on the end of Madame’s long
shawl.
Besides Russian folk songs, Madame also performed arias from
her favorite
repertoire of operas, including Carmen, Madame Butterfly, La
Tosca, and others.
Befitting her stature as a prima donna of the Italian opera,
she held a red rose in
her hand and wore a black dress and a very long black lace
shawl that extended
from head to heel. On that first performance night, as
applause thundered, I was
standing with Madame in the wings, and as she began to move
toward the stage,
I stepped inadvertently on the end of her shawl, tearing a
piece of the fine Frenchmade lace from below. For a second, she turned and
darted a fierce look at me.
And then with a rose in her left hand, she quickly assumed a
seductive pose and
started to sing her Carmen as if nothing had happened.
My first performance at the recital turned out to be the
catalyst for my recruitment by the Fengtian Broadcasting Station. One of Madame
Podlesov’s fans
who served as Chief of Planning there was in the audience.
While I was practicing Schubert the following Saturday afternoon, I had a
visitor. The Japanese gentleman introduced himself as Azuma Keizō from the
broadcasting station.
“You were good at the recital, and so was your singing of
Schubert just
now.” Turning stiff in my school uniform, I could only look
speechlessly at the
tip of my shoes. He then asked, “Would you like to try
singing for us at the radio station?”
My Fengtian Years
27
Surprised, I looked at Madame for help. Her usual stern
expressions had turned
this time into a beaming smile. Mr. Azuma went on to say
that he was planning
a new program and asked if I would participate in it.
Established in 1932 with the founding of Manchukuo, the
Fengtian Broadcasting Station had by then boosted the quality of its staff with
the addition of
such announcers as Morishige Hisaya,19 and now it was trying
to further attract
a general Chinese audience by creating a new singing program
called “New Melodies from Manchuria.” Azuma’s job was to look for singers to
work exclusively
for the program. By rearranging old Chinese folk tunes and
popular songs and by
seeking new ones among the public, Azuma’s venture sought to
identify the people’s songs (kokumin kayō) of Manchukuo and then replay them
repeatedly on the
air as part of a cultural movement to educate, publicize,
and promote the cause of
“Japanese-Manchurian Friendship” (Nichi-Man shinzen) and
“Cooperation and
Harmony among the Five Ethnic Races” (gozoku kyōwa).20 To be
selected, the singers had to be young Chinese girls capable of reading music
and speaking Mandarin,
the standard dialect. They also had to understand Japanese
as it was necessary
for them to coordinate activities with the station’s
Japanese staff. Despite Azuma’s
efforts, however, the search had failed to fi nd a Chinese
vocalist who could fi ll
the bill.
While he was at a loss as to what to do next, he chanced to
hear my performance at the Yamato Hotel. After learning from Madame that I
could also speak
Mandarin, he came up with the idea of inviting me to join
his enterprise. Madame
eagerly recommended that I seize this opportunity, and Liuba
was also strongly
in favor of such action.
I could not offer an immediate response until I had a chance
to discuss the
matter with my parents. Father had long been molding my
future career as a
politician’s interpreter or secretary by polishing my
language skills, and I, for my
part, had also vaguely entertained similar aspirations.
Despite Father’s reservations with Azuma’s offer, Mother was in favor of it,
though with one condition.
“Given Yoshiko’s love for singing, if she were to simply
sing on the air, I think it
would be okay,” she said. “Doing this would also be beneficial
for our nation.”
And if I did not need to appear on stage, I could still
study in Beijing and do my
broadcast recordings. Thereupon, a composer by the name of
Sakakibara initially
arranged a number of Chinese folk and popular songs into a
dozen or so “New
Melodies from Manchuria,” pieces deemed suitable to being
called “people’s
songs.” There was a large number of sorrowful Chinese
melodies (aige) such as
“The Sorrows of Wang Zhaojun” (Zhaojun-yuan) which were best
performed on
the er’hu. “Song of the Fishermen” (Yuguang-qu), my very
favorite, belongs to
that genre as well. It was the theme song from the fi lm
bearing the same name
28
Chapter 2
and directed by Cai Chusheng, with Wang Renmei in the
leading role; both the
film and the song were enormously popu lar at the time.21
Hurry, cast your nets and pull them in with all your might,
Bitter are our days awaiting our catch in the morning mist.
With no fish harvest and heavy taxes,
The ageless sufferings of fishermen!
The song condemned social corruption while voicing
resentment over the wretchedness of poverty, but at the time, I was not
thinking in any profound manner
about the relationship between the lyrics and the social
background. I simply liked
the sad melody and practiced singing it over and over again.
With the approach of the scheduled broadcast of “New
Melodies from
Manchuria,” Azuma came to our house to discuss what my
Chinese stage name
should be. While all the grown-ups were scratching their
heads, I said offhandedly, “I do have a Chinese name which our neighbor General
Li gave me, Li
Xianglan.” Father gave me a look of approval and explained
to Azuma the circumstances that gave birth to Li Xianglan as Li’s gan’gu’niang.
“Well then, let’s
use that name,” Azuma said. “We will simply announce the
song titles, the names
of the lyricists and composers, and say the singer is Li
Xianglan without going
into any personal details.” Such were the simple
circumstances under which my
stage name Li Xianglan was decided upon. At the time,
neither Father nor Azuma,
to say nothing of myself, had any idea how this stage name
would so radically
change my future life.
And so “New Melodies from Manchuria” were repeatedly
broadcasted on the
air. The following year, in accordance with Father’s plans,
I went to Beijing to study.
When I returned on vacations, I would record new songs for
the broadcasting station to use in the future, and for that reason, the program
was able to continue
for quite a while. Whenever I came back to Fengtian, I also
resumed my lessons
with Madame Podlesov. She introduced me to study under
another Russian singer,
Madame Pedrov, in Beijing, and so I was able to pursue my
musical education without interruption.
In 1931, the Manchurian Incident took place at the
instigation of Japan. In
1932, the state of Manchukuo was created by the Japa nese.
The following year
marked the debut of the singer Li Xianglan performing “New
Melodies from Manchuria” as part of Manchukuo’s national policy. I, Yamaguchi
Yoshiko, a Japanese,
was that Li Xianglan—a girl who knew nothing about the
world, but still a Chinese entity concocted at the hands of the Japanese, just
like Manchukuo. It pains
me whenever I think about it.
My Fengtian Years
29
Once the decision to continue my studies in Beijing was formalized,
I was
able to transfer to Yijiao Girls’ School, a first-rate
mission school in Beijing, as the
adopted daughter of Pan Yugui. While I studied Chinese and
general education
subjects there, I worked at home as Mr. Pan’s secretarial
intern. On the day we
decided on my departure for Beijing, I visited Liuba’s
bakery-scented house on
Naniwa-dōri. She and I had exchanged farewells many times
before, but still
we had endless things to say to each other.
As I approached her shop, I noticed that there was an
unusual commotion.
Japanese military police were coming and going past the back
door of her house,
rattling their sabers as they marched noisily in their
military boots. The house
entrance and windows were all boarded up with nails. Peeking
through a crack,
I saw that the inside of the house had been ravaged and left
in a complete mess.
Talking with the onlookers gathering in front of the shop
revealed nothing about
what had happened. Some said that all the family members had
apparently been
taken away by the military police; others said that by the
time the military police
raided the place, the house was already an empty shell. In
any case, Liuba and her
family had suddenly disappeared. Standing frozen on the
spot, I shouted “Liubochka! Liubochka!” and started to cry. The military police
looked at me suspiciously and drove me away from the scene just like a dog.
As I was researching the events of those years for this
book, I was fortunate
to be able to borrow from Mieno Yasushi, Vice President of
the Bank of Japan, a
list of names of students from Fengtian Elementary School,
the same school
Liuba attended. I learned that Mieno himself, a classmate of
the writer Abe
Kōbō’s, graduated from the same school in 1936. Going over
the list, I found Liuba’s name among those who had graduated a year before, in
1935, under the heading “Whereabouts Unknown.” Other graduates from the same
year included
such luminaries as Etō Shinkichi, President of Ajia
University, Hirayama Takeshi,
Chief of the Research Institute for the Prevention of
Cancer, and Fukuda Jun,
film director for Tōhō. It occurred to me that someone on
the list might be able to
tell me Liuba’s current situation. I started my inquiries by
sending a letter to
Ikari Miyako, the organizer of the class reunion committee
for 1935. The following is a summary of the information she sent me.
I made telephone inquiries with all knowledgeable parties,
only to be told that
you, as Liuba’s closest friend, should be the one who could
best tell what her
situation was. So it all ends up at where we started. But
for your reference, let
me tell you what fragmentary reminiscences they had about
Liuba.
In her elementary school days, Liuba was such an affable
girl that even
though she was a foreigner, she was able to play and make
friends with everyone
30
Chapter 2
in her class. She must be some two or three years older than
us. Everyone
including me remembered her as a good speaker of Japanese
and as a tall, thin
girl with a few freckles and a fair complexion. In those
days, we all had straight
haircuts, but Liuba alone wore her long, beautiful chestnut
hair in braids. The
predecessor to Chiyoda Elementary School was the elementary
school attached
to the College of Manchuria Education (currently the
University of Education).
The educational experiments conducted there gave it its own
character. I suppose for that reason, changes were made every year to the
composition of the
first through the sixth-grade classes, and while it was a
Japanese school, children of Russian and Turkish parentage were allowed to
enroll as well.
From the fourth-grade level, students taking calligraphy
lessons were
asked to change writing their names with the hiragana script
to using Chinese characters, and Liuba was delighted to have received a good
Chinese name
from her teacher. One other person I talked with remembered
a song Liuba
used to sing often:
There faraway in Mongolia,
Undulating above the clouds,
When even the frozen moon thaws,
When the grass sprouts on a spring day.
As sheep wander,
Still in daylight.
Of course when speaking of Liuba’s singing, I am sure you
would remember
it particularly well.
No one that I spoke to on the telephone had ever visited
Liuba at her house,
though almost all of us remembered how frequently Liuba
played with you.
Someone seemed to have remembered seeing Liuba’s parents at
her graduation, and so she must have graduated from Chiyoda Elementary. And
then one
day, the whole family suddenly disappeared from Fengtian,
and nobody knows
what happened to her afterwards. As graduates in the same
class, we too want
to know how she has been doing, and in conversations at our
class reunions,
we often thought that you might be the one to have such
information.
Knowing that Liuba had introduced a Russian opera singer to
you as your
voice instructor, we gathered that the two of you might well
be the best of
friends. If you had any updates about her, we in turn would
appreciate it if
you could let us know.
I also have in my possession a class photograph when we were
third-grade
students at the elementary school. I am enclosing it with
the letter in case it
may be of use to you in any way.
My Fengtian Years
31
The photograph shows Liuba’s face, which I had longed to
see. She was in the
middle column on the right facing the camera, a girl from a
foreign land standing taller than the rest. And indeed she alone braided her
hair. Her forehead, the
faint smile on her cheeks, her translucent skin. As I was
looking at her while remembering the past, I seemed to see her charming
freckles. That night, I slept holding her picture close.
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Notes to Chapter 2: My Fengtian Years
1. The city name “Fengtian” reverted to “Shenyang” after
Japan’s defeat in
1945. As a sub-provincial city, Shenyang’s population in
2010 was reported to be 8.1
million, or 18.5 percent of the entire province of Liaoning,
making it the ninth largest
among the fifteen sub-provincial class cities in China.
2. The first Qing Emperor Shunzhi moved the capital to
Beijing after the demise of the Ming Dynasty in 1644.
3. After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, a minister
of the interior and
other governors with such titles as the General of Liaoning
were given the responsibility of maintaining a garrison in Chengjing (the name
for present-day Shenyang).
310
Notes to Pages 16–20
After 1747, the name of the position was changed to the
General of Chengjing before the Fengtian area was administered by the Viceroy
of the Northeast Provinces
after 1907.
4. The Ming Tombs are situated fift y kilometers north of
Beijing, a site selected by the third Ming Emperor Yongle, who reigned from
1402 to 1424.
5. Li Jichun (1877– ?) joined the army at sixteen or
seventeen, became a military officer serving Yuan Shikai, and was promoted to
the rank of General in October
1922. While appointed in 1925 as the commander officer of
the Ninth Army by
Zhang Zongchang, his failed campaign against Li Jinglin led
to his flight to Beijing
and Tianjin. Shortly after the Manchurian Incident, Li
actively collaborated with the
Japanese general and master conspirator Doihara Kenji (see
Note 9 below) to promote the political autonomy of North China, including
launching military operations from his base inside Tianjin’s Japanese
Concession and assisting clandestine
Japanese efforts to move Puyi from Tianjin to Manchuria to
be crowned as puppet
emperor. After the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932, Li
was made Commanding
Officer of the “National Salvation Army” (Jiuguojun) and, in
January 1933, participated in Japanese military operations around the Great
Wall before becoming Head
of Political Affairs of the Joint North China’s People’s
Autonomous Military Government in May. However, the establishment of the East
Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Council in November 1935 convinced the Japanese
that Li had largely exhausted
his political usefulness. In 1936, he founded the Bank of
Shenyang and became its
president. He was executed in Tianjin as a hanjian after the
establishment of the
People’s Republic of China.
6. Presumably, the fi lm Yamaguchi saw as a child in
Fengtian was the 1926
production Baishe-chuan produced by Shanghai’s Tian’yi Film
Company with Hu
Die in the starring role.
7. The Shaw Brothers (1956).
8. Awaya Noriko (1907–1999), popular singer and “the queen
of Japanese blues,”
with such hits as “Wakare no burūsu” (discussed in chapter
7), “Ame no burūsu,”
and “Kimi wasureji no burūsu.” Yamaguchi’s reminiscences of
Awaya also appear
in chapter 7.
9. Doihara Kenji (1883–1948), a general in the Imperial Japa
nese Army and
one of the most notorious architects of Japa nese
conspiracies leading to the 1931
invasion and subsequent occupation of Manchuria. The
intrigues he engineered
and his wide-ranging activities as an intelligence officer
under the Kwantung
Army contributed to the effective collapse of sustained
Chinese resistance under
Japa nese rule. Reputed to be the mastermind of the
Manchurian drug trade and
the behind-the-scenes figure dominating underworld intrigues
in China, Doihara
was found guilty at the International Tribunal for the Far
East and was hanged in
December 1948.
10. A Japanese military campaign following its invasion of
Northeast China in
the early months of 1933. The now defunct province of Rehe
was subsequently annexed
to Manchukuo until Japan’s defeat in 1945.
Notes to Pages 21–36
311
11. After Nanjing became the official capital of the
Republic of China, in 1928,
the name “Beijing” was changed to “Beiping.” After Beiping
was occupied by Japanese forces from July 1937, the city’s name became Beijing
again. Beijing’s name was
again changed to Beiping with Japan’s surrender in August
1945, and remained thus
until September 1949, the eve of the establishment of the
People’s Republic of China,
which made Beijing its capital. According to Yamaguchi’s
chronology in Ri Kōran o
ikite: Watashi no rirekisho (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha,
2005), she went to the
city to study in May 1934, when its proper name was Beiping
rather than Beijing. To
avoid confusion, however, throughout this translation I
follow the original authors’
rendition of the city’s name instead of strictly following
its changing official designations in different periods from 1928 to 1949.
12. The Japanese saying is “kawaii ko ni wa tabi o saseyo.”
13. A popu lar form of chanting and singing based on nō
scripts.
14. Chorübungen der Münchener Musikschule, a work by the
composer and
conductor Franz Wüllner (1832–1902).
15. Popu larized in postwar Japan in the 1960s and early
1970s as “Akai Sarafan” by such singers as Katō Tokiko.
16. Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804–1857).
17. The hotel, established in 1927 and renamed Liaoning
Binguan, is still open
for business today. It is just east of Zhongshan Square, not
far from the new Shenyang
Station. Visitors and guests would still be impressed by the
classic elegance and atmosphere of the place as they enter into the hotel’s
grand hall on the fi rst floor.
18. Composed in 1901 by Taki Rentarō with lyrics by the poet
Doi Bansui.
19. Morishige Hisaya (1913–2009). After an early career as a
stage actor and an
announcer for the Fengtian Broadcasting Station, Morishige
subsequently appeared
in well over 150 fi lms and in a variety of television
programs. He was also well known
as the composer and lyricist for the popu lar “Sentimental
Journey in Shiretoko”
(Shiretoko-ryojō), a sweet melody that Katō Tokiko made into
one of her most recognizable signature pieces.
20. Two of the most propagated political slogans used by the
Japanese occupiers of Manchuria. The five ethnic races were the Han Chinese,
Manchus, Mongolians,
Japanese, and Koreans.
21. Released in 1934, the fi lm enjoyed unprecedented
popularity when it was
screened in Shanghai before winning an international award
at the Moscow Film Festival in 1935.
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