Chapter 4 The Tianjin Encounters

CHAPTER 4

The Tianjin Encounters

Th ree years of studies in Beijing went by quickly, and “Pan

Shuhua,” as I was known, had turned into someone completely indistinguishable

from a Chinese girl. Except for the days when I returned to Fengtian to visit my

parents, I had almost no contact with other Japanese. At the time, after his appointment as the mayor of Tianjin, my foster father Pan Yugui had already gone

to take up his assignment there.

One day, as Xiaodi, the youngest son of the Pan family, was cheerfully practicing the flower drums folk dance (Da-huagu) in the inner courtyard, Yinghua

ran to me holding up a name card. “Somebody called Aizawa is here to see you,”

she told me, and, with a soft voice, added, “Quite a handsome boy!” Aizawa was

one of the young intelligence agents who used to visit Father in Fengtian.

“So you are Yoshiko! You’ve certainly grown up!” Spoken Japanese was something I hadn’t heard for quite a while. Aizawa was the first Japanese to visit me at

the Pan family house, and he came at Father’s request. With Dong’niang’s permission, he and I went out to an upscale Chinese restaurant on Wangfujing Street.

It was my first time having a meal alone with a young man. Feeling awfully

tense on my first date, I became quite self-conscious over how other people nearby

might look upon us, and my ner vousness hardly allowed me to enjoy the fine food.

On the other hand, I was elated to be able to speak Japanese without constraint

after such a long time. As I kept rambling on, I suddenly realized that Aizawa was

not exactly interested in what I was saying. It turned out that Father wanted the

young man to make sure that I was safe in Beijing, a city then embroiled in fierce

anti-Japanese movements. After discussing the situation with Father, Aizawa himself came up with several options for my immediate future and wanted to know

how I felt about them.

First, he was concerned about my continued freeloading at Pan’s Beijing residence at a time when Tianjin had become the center of the family’s activities. Second,

as Father was traveling back and forth between Fengtian and Beijing for his work

at the Datong coal mines, he was making plans to settle down in Beijing eventually.

49

50

Chapter 4

And so one option for me was to board with a Japanese family until my family’s

own move to the city. Third, anti-Japanese demonstrations in Beijing had intensified. Under such conditions, it was extremely dangerous for me to assume a false

Chinese identity, go to a Chinese girls’ school, and live with a Chinese family.

And so the proposal was that I be transferred to a Japanese girls’ school and stop

living in the Pan household.

As Aizawa explained these options and asked for my response, he also seemed

to be probing, with an air of deliberate casualness, the conditions of the Pan

household and my school’s situation. He was a man with fine features, but the look

in his eyes always betrayed a sense of restless suspicion. On the other hand, perhaps he still looked upon me as little more than a willful child. Hoping to settle

the matter quickly, he wearily interrupted me, saying that his proposals were Father’s wishes and suggesting that I move promptly to somewhere safe.

Suppressing my exasperation, I offered a counterargument. “It is true that Uncle Pan is now in Tianjin for his new job, but his family is still in Beijing. Yuehua

has indeed graduated, but Yinghua and I are still going to school. I simply cannot

quit midway. If I did, all my previous hard work will come to nothing. And if Father and the rest of my family are going to move here eventually, it makes all the

more sense that I remain in Beijing. I will continue to stay with the Pan family.

Now I am Pan Shuhua and a Chinese girl!”

Chinese rolled off my tongue more smoothly than Japanese when the occasion called for a verbal altercation. A good speaker of Mandarin himself, Aizawa,

wearing a wry smile, gave a rebuttal in his brisk Chinese. But a Japanese military

type like him could hardly be expected to appreciate the unspeakable hardships

experienced by a Japanese teenager who was trying so hard to turn herself into a

Chinese girl. Linguistic proficiency alone, however impressive, could hardly qualify anyone to reach into the recesses of other people, more so for Japanese intelligence agents who had always been acting like bullies to the Chinese. Spurred on

by a sense of rebelliousness, I ended up arguing with Aizawa fervently. Later, I

did regret that I had made myself rather disagreeable, but it was also true that

I felt relieved for having said what I did.

“I’ll come again.” With this, Aizawa left, but he returned a few weeks later.

I could surmise the purpose of his visit and was not ner vous this time. With the

same unruffled composure, he delivered his sermon in a soft voice. Although we

picked a high-class restaurant for the occasion, the food there wasn’t at all inviting.

What Aizawa told me was the following: “As you know, a Sino-Japanese military

conflict took place at Lugouqiao and now war has been spreading throughout

China. Terrorism associated with anti-Japanese resistance has been growing,

and Pan has now become a constant target of attack. And when they find out that

a Japanese girl is living in his house, this in itself will be sufficient reason for them

The Tianjin Encounters

51

to burn it down.” He then asked, in a half-commanding tone, that I promptly

remove myself from the Xicheng District, where the Chinese lived, to take refuge

within the grounds of the Japanese Embassy in Dong’jiaomin’xiang, the area in

which foreign embassies were situated in the Dongcheng District.

“I have no desire after all the efforts I’ve made to go back to a Japanese lifestyle. I am well-disposed toward living like the Chinese. Take school as an example. You have no idea how much more free and enjoyable it is here compared to a

Japanese girls’ school,” I retorted.

“At this time of emergency, it is out of the question for you to continue to go

to a Chinese school. Japan and China are now at war! You are Japanese, aren’t you?”

Aizawa let out a sigh. “I suppose there is no other way to change your mind than

to ask your father to come to Beijing and give you a piece of his mind himself.”

The result of these conversations was that I continued my stay with the Pan

family. Yuehua had already graduated, but as for Yinghua and me, life remained

the same—we got up in our shared room, took a rickshaw to school, stopped by the

Baihai Park on our way back, and paid for our ice cream with the transportation

fare we bargained down.

Around that time, I had another Japanese visitor besides Aizawa. Like Aizawa,

Yamaga Tōru was a close acquaintance of Father’s in Fengtian. His long title on

his Japanese calling card read “Army Major for Area Pacification, China Section,

Press Division of the Northern China Army Command,” but he was more popularly known as “Wang Er’ye.”1 When he was a frequent visitor at Father’s in Fengtian, I was only a first-year student at the girls’ school. He was then an army captain,

but when he came to visit me in Beijing at the Pan residence, he had become a

major and was soon to be promoted to lieutenant colonel. When I met him later

at a nightclub in Shanghai, he had become a colonel. Whenever a soldier received

a promotion, his affi liation along with his responsibilities were always reassigned,

but in Yamaga’s case, he was always working at pacification initiatives with the

Press Division and headed the “Yamaga machine,” an agency responsible for information dissemination and propaganda in the culture, art, and publicity arenas. For this reason, he had many acquaintances among those involved in fi lm,

theater, and the popular arts. Leading a flamboyant lifestyle, he always had in his

company a beautiful Chinese actress.

I heard that Yamaga had been involved in the establishment of the Fengtian

Broadcasting Station during his years there, and for this reason, he was well aware

of how I had been scouted by Azuma Keizō, Chief of its Planning Section, to debut as Li Xianglan and perform “New Melodies from Manchuria.” Later, he was

involved in the establishment of the Manchurian Film Association (Man’ei), and,

with the initial stage of his work completed, he told me that he had just moved

the center of his operations to Beijing. His other calling card, printed in Chinese,

52

Chapter 4

read “Wang Jiaheng, General Manger of Wudebao News Agency, Beijing”; apparently that was the Chinese name he’d assumed.

Yamaga was also fluent in the Beijing dialect; in fact, that would be an impertinent way of putting it, as his Mandarin was by far more proficient than

mine. Like Aizawa, Yamaga also came at Father’s request to see how my life was

in Beijing, concerned as he was about the ferocity of anti-Japanese sentiments in

the city.

While both Aizawa and Yamaga wanted to sound out my intentions, they were

totally different in their manner of assessing a situation and craft ing a response.

They were both quick-witted men speaking good Chinese, and yet Aizawa’s shrewdness in the head had no effect whatsoever on his inner rigidity as a Japanese intelligence agent. In contrast, Yamaga knew well how to reach into delicate Chinese

sentiments; the Mandarin he spoke was nicely complemented by the Chinese

clothes he was wearing. Aizawa was in his twenties while Yamaga was in his forties, but I suppose their differences were not merely attributable to life experiences

but also to their capacity for compassion toward other people. It was true that they

were both kind enough to take me out by car and treat me to fine food on Wangfujing. Yet the restaurants Yamaga patronized were not formal, upscale places, but

mostly good, little-known spots favored by local Chinese food connoisseurs.

Additionally, Yamaga showed considerable understanding regarding my personal circumstances. “Now that you have become accustomed to the Chinese way

of life as Mr. Pan’s adoptive daughter,” he said, “it would be best to continue with

your existing lifestyle as long as the situation allows. It is true that Pan has become

a terrorist target, but my own investigation shows that his house is not marked for

firebomb attacks. On the other hand, why don’t you reconsider your thoughts

about becoming a politician’s secretary? I myself have no intention of dragging

you into my own business, but since you already have a good reputation with the

Fengtian Broadcasting Station, why not think about a career as a professional singer

with the Beijing Broadcasting Station?”

But I had no intention of becoming a professional singer. While I had received

singing lessons from Madame Podlesov in Fengtian and Madame Pedrov in Beijing, I was trained in classical music. To become a professional singer of popular

songs would require separate and proper training in that par ticu lar area.

Yamaga told me to contact him whenever I felt the need, and, availing myself of his kindness, I telephoned him on a number of occasions at the Wudebao

News Agency. My “need” on such occasions was generally a request for a loan.

With my advancement into the upper grades of my girls’ school came the need

for spending money. While I was allowed more freedom to go out of the house,

Dong’niang still did not allow any extra spending money beyond clearly accountable expenses such as my rickshaw fare and money for school stationery. She had

The Tianjin Encounters

53

strict rules about approving pocket money for my socializing and material needs

as a young girl. That explained my telephone calls to Yamaga, and, naturally, I reported such communications to Father.

The language I spoke when I asked for a loan was Chinese. I found it incredible

that I could make such a request with no hesitation at all in that language, while the

same would have been nearly impossible to utter in Japanese. The greeting among

ordinary Chinese, day or night, was “Have you taken your meal?” Among people

in business, it was “Have you made any money?” Osaka merchants would say the

same by way of exchanging greetings. For people to share an interest in each

other’s everyday affairs was a very natural way of thinking. In contrast with Japanese conversation, the word “money” came out very naturally in Chinese, allowing the Chinese to address facts of life without any accompanying feelings of

embarrassment or impropriety. In China, when speaking with a new acquaintance, it was certainly not considered ill-mannered to inquire, during the course

of a conversation, what monthly salary the other party was making. Indeed, the

amount would be revealed directly, in an unaffected response. In this way, I made

a number of requests of Yamaga for pocket money, and every time I did so, he would

take me to Wangfujing, treat me to a fine meal, and buy me the things I wanted.

To me, he was, then, also a knight in shining armor.

In those days, as it is now, Wangfujing was Beijing’s liveliest area, essentially

the equivalent of the Ginza in Tokyo. But in my days, the place was not as crowded,

and the area was a fashionable and modern promenade. From the Ming to the Qing

dynasties, members of the aristocracy had many of their houses built in this neighborhood, along with their residential wells.2 For one continuous kilometer, part

of Wangfujing Street, from the side of Beijing Hotel on East Chang’anmen Boulevard north toward Donghuamen, was beautifully lined with acacia. On both sides

of the street were high-end establishments selling Western goods, Western fashion, along with restaurants and tea houses. Stores such as Japan’s Matsuya Emporium were also among them.

Situated in the northeastern part of Wangfujing was the famous Dong’an Market (present-day Dongfeng Market). It originated as a small open-air market peddling miscellaneous products before turning into a boisterous marketplace with

businesses ranging from first-class shops to wonton stalls. Now it had restaurants,

and a great variety of shops selling antiques, books, shoes, dry goods, copper

ware, eyeglasses, personal seals, and stationery. There, you would also find dentists, bone doctors, fortune-tellers, photo studios, and barber shops, along with

snack bars, billiard halls, and theaters. . . . Even opium dens proudly advertized

their business with explicit signs.

Inside the market was an intricate labyrinth reminiscent of a casbah in an

African harbor town. One would surely get lost if venturing into the place alone.

54

Chapter 4

There was a wide open space in the interior of the market where one could see

performances of magic and acrobatics shows.

The place where Yamaga often took me was called Dong’laishun, a restaurant

facing the Jin’yu Hutong at the northern side of Dong’an Market away from Wangfujin Street. An Islamic eatery specializing in mutton dishes, it had a green sign

and lanterns hanging at the entrance, served scrumptious food at low cost, and

was always crowded. Customers who stepped into the place were instantaneously

greeted with a thunderous “Welcome!” Inside, conversations in the local dialect

flew off in every direction with deafening vivacity. Its most famous dish, among

other favorites, was shua’yangrou, a kind of mutton shabu-shabu, for me the number one pick in Beijing cuisine even though Peking duck was better known to the

Japanese.3 The thinly sliced mutton used in the cooking came from soft, high-grade,

nonfat meat produced in Zhangjia’kou. A mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, pepper,

and sesame paste served as the main sauce, to which one could add one’s own choice

from over a dozen different kinds of condiments, including scallions and cilantro. The thin meat slices were nimbly put into the boiling pot of soup before they

were quickly consumed with the seasoning sauce, along with other items such as

Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, bean-starch vermicelli, and noodles. The basic idea

is the same as the Japanese shabu-shabu; in fact, the shua’yangrou was none other

than the original inspiration for the Japanese dish.

At first, I was totally unaware of the fact that Yamaga was the first love of Kawashima Yoshiko, the beautiful daughter of Prince Su from the Qing Dynasty,

and a woman known for her penchant for menswear.4 During the time in Fengtian when Yamaga was a frequent visitor to our house, neither Father nor Mother

told me anything about it. Come to think of it, there was nothing for them to tell,

as I was no more than a little ten-year-old girl. The first time I met Kawashima

Yoshiko was in the year 1937, around the same time Yamaga came to visit me at

the Pan residence. After that, I met her a number of times, and she received me

fondly. But I knew nothing about her past relationship with Yamaga, and befriended

them as two separate individuals without making a connection. In time, when

the respective relationships between the three parties became known, Kawashima

for a time misread my friendship with Yamaga before developing her misunderstanding into an emotional issue. But all that happened in a different time and

place. Perhaps there is no par ticu lar need for me to attempt any clarification

here. Suffice it to say that Yamaga was twenty-three years my senior, and for me,

he was like an affectionate uncle figure from my childhood throughout our

relationship.

I remember that the first time I met Kawashima Yoshiko was at a party held

at the Dongxinglou (The House of the Rising East), a Chinese restaurant she managed on Matsushima Street in Tianjin’s Japanese Concession. After Pan Yugui be-

The Tianjin Encounters

55

came the mayor of Tianjin, Dong’niang moved in with him into their official residence, while Xi’niang, Yuehua, Yinghua, and I continued to live in Pan’s Beijing

house. The only time I went to visit the Pans in Tianjin at their official residence

was during my summer vacation.

Tianjin was the largest city near to Beijing. Facing the Tang’gu Harbor, it was

an important center for diplomatic and military affairs. There were no foreign

concessions in Beijing—the city’s Dong’jiaomin’xiang effectively served that

function—but Tianjin had its special zone, and the major European countries,

along with the United States and Japan, had carved out their own concessions,

creating a world completely detached from the general Chinese society around

them. Walking within the foreign concessions had the illusion of a leisurely stroll

in the streets of Europe. The interior areas where the Chinese lived, however, had

degenerated into slums just as they had in other Chinese cities. Tianjin’s Baihe, or

White, River, contrary to its name, was a dark, muddy waterway with a constant

load of dog and cat carcasses, and sometimes a human corpse.

In October 1985, I watched a play at Nihonbashi’s Mitsukoshi Theater in Tokyo called The Sea of Unfulfillment (Mihatenu umi). It was a dramatization by its

director, Enomoto Shigetami, of Watanabe Ryūsaku’s The Untold Record of Kawashima Yoshiko’s True Life and Its Mysteries (Hiroku: Kawashima Yoshiko sono

shōgai no shinsō to nazo, 1972). The leading role was given to Matsu Akira, originally from the Takarazuka Troupe, while Kawashima’s adoptive father, Kawashima

Naniwa, was played by Nishida Shōichi. Meguro Yūki’s role of Koigata Atsuo, a

Manchurian horse bandit, was probably a fictional creation, but I realized immediately that Antaku Yūichi, played by Ikui Takeo, was in fact Major Tanaka Takayoshi, Kawashima Yoshiko’s lover, the officer from the Office of the General Staff

stationed in Shanghai, and the main conspirator in the Shanghai Incident.5 Additionally, Ayana Noboru, played by Nishikino Akira, was instantaneously recognizable as Yamaga Tōru.

The story depicts the dramatic vicissitudes of Kawashima Yoshiko, from her

beginnings as a daughter of Prince Su from the Qing Imperial family, her adoption by a Japanese man named Kawashima Naniwa, her various activities on the

Chinese continent in her adult life, until her departure from the scene by execution. The part that attracted me the most was scene two of act two where the guests

of Dongxinglou appeared. While the stage setting of Dongxinglou was different

from what I remembered of the place, watching the gorgeous banquets helped evoke

images of the many parties I attended there.

Dongxinglou was a large, formal Chinese restaurant, dominated by indigenous architectural and design motifs. While spending a summer vacation at the

mayor’s residence, I was taken by Father, who happened to be visiting the area, to

a party at Dongxinglou. When we arrived, the restaurant’s spacious interior was

56

Chapter 4

ablaze in gorgeous colors. In the middle courtyard, a circle of young, high-society

Chinese women adorned in an array of colorful dresses were having a good time

chatting and laughing among themselves. Particularly eye-catching in the midst

of this crowd was a white, slender face with a smile exuding flowing elegance. The

person was not particularly tall, but the long, black Chinese qipao, designed for

men, concealed a well-proportioned form and produced a sensual beauty evocative of an oyama.6 The soft, short hair, parted more generously on one side, was

just slightly slicked. The full lips combined with the expression in the eyes, changing in sync with the line of vision, together gave off a mischievous charm.

“That’s Kawashima Yoshiko!” “Commander Jin Bihui!” “Madame Dongzhen!”

“Princess Xianyu!”—I could hear whispers of this sort from the crowd. And so

this was Aisin Gioro Xianyu, alias Dongzhen, the fourteenth daughter of Shanqi,

the tenth-generation Prince Su from the Qing Imperial family; she was also Commander of the Rehe Pacification Army, and came with the Japa nese name Kawashima Yoshiko.

While male actors sometimes perform female roles in Beijing Opera, in a manner similar to Kabuki plays, there is no operatic tradition in China in which females take on male roles as they do in Japan’s Takarazuka shows or Shōchiku plays.

While I didn’t quite understand the implications of a woman dressing in a man’s

clothes, I did appreciate the extraordinary charm surrounding her alluring beauty.

I looked at her as if I were observing a live doll. Kawashima appeared to be a young

boy, while in fact at the time she was already over thirty years of age.

After introducing himself, Father introduced me to her. With a slight frown

playing around her eyebrows, she surveyed me in my Chinese dress from head to

toe and then murmured in Chinese, “Ah, so you are Japanese!” Responding in Chinese, I told her that I was a student at Beijing’s Yijiao School where only Chinese

girls attended, that I had never been to Japan even though I was Japanese, and that

for that reason I was not quite familiar with the conditions in Japan. That was

how our rambling conversation went.

Quietly listening to what I had to say in Chinese, Kawashima then surprised

me by replying in Japanese, this time assuming a male role, “Yoshiko? What a coincidence! I’ve got the same name. Glad to make your acquaintance. People called

me ‘Yoko-chan’ when I was small, and that’s what I’ll call you. You, on the other

hand, will call me ‘Onii-chan’ [dear brother].”

While having a conversation with someone, Kawashima would first make eye

contact with her partner, then tilt her head to draw her left cheek closer to listen.

I learned later that this charming gesture was a compensation for a deafness in

her right ear caused by an injury suffered while fighting guerilla forces.

As a result of this close bond that developed between “Yoko-chan” and “Oniichan” at that party, I was often called upon to be Kawashima’s guest at various

The Tianjin Encounters

57

gatherings. She would ask her aide, Ms. Liu, to telephone me, making up all kinds

of excuses for an outing, such as the visit of a Beijing opera star or a famous er’hu

performer or the coming of a heroic figure from the Japanese army.

At first, Dong’niang was generous enough to allow our interactions. After all,

it was my summer vacation, and the invitations had come personally from an “Imperial Princess.” Even in the eyes of Pan Yugui and his wife, the daughter of Qing

Dynasty’s Prince Su was a highbred woman of noble blood. Moreover, as Commander Jin Bihui, Kawashima was officially branded “the Orient’s Joan of Arc”

by Lieutenant General Tada Hayao, the powerful chief military advisor to Manchukuo.7 With that, she had earned their total trust.

For me, this was a time when I was transforming from a young girl into a

young woman, a time when I was beginning to develop an interest in the world of

grown-ups. I was also getting bored with having nothing else to do but study and

with wearing nothing more elegant than the same blue cotton school uniform. I

was then seventeen, and those alluring summer days, when I could dance away

in beautiful Chinese dresses, allowed me a breath of freedom from my prosaic life

in Beijing. Kawashima Yoshiko gave me the opportunity to feel emancipated from

the regimented routines at home and at school, although what really surrounded

her was an air of perverse degradation and self-abandoning decadence.

Kawashima appeared in her military attire only when she attended parties

and formal gatherings as Commander Jin Bihui. Ordinarily, her outfit was a black

satin qipao and a round black satin hat. Even in her men’s clothes, there was always a trace of color on her cheeks. Since the skin color on her face and arms was

so pale that it appeared morbid, she would always apply minimal makeup on her

eyebrows and lips. She always surrounded herself with what could well be called

her own palace guard of fifteen or sixteen young girls, and her secretary, Chizuko,

was there to cater to all her everyday needs. Among the young guards, the apparent leader was one Ms. Liu who deserved to be described as a woman of absolutely

unparalleled beauty. And of course the queen of the group was Kawashima herself. Since she was always wearing men’s clothes, perhaps a more appropriate title

would be that of prince.

She led a life in which the order of the day and night was turned completely

upside down. She would arise like an apparition at around two in the afternoon

from her mosquito-netted bedroom on the upper story of her house and have

a light breakfast at around three or four. From then on, friends in twos and threes

would gather at her place, or else Kawashima herself would order Ms. Liu to

summon them by telephone. Mealtime for the entire group was after ten at night,

after which came party time. By then, more of her hangers-on would show up,

along with actors and musicians from the Beijing opera. People drank, sang,

danced, acted, performed acrobatics and magic, played mahjong, and gambled at

58

Chapter 4

cards. Such goings-on only became increasingly rambunctious with every passing hour of the night. Just as one thought one had seen all, there was an exodus

of partygoers to nightclubs, dance halls, billiard parlors, and cabarets. . . . And

when fatigue finally took over as the night turned into the first light of day, it

was time for a night snack. It was not until around seven in the morning, when

the streets started to come alive, that the revelers began to disperse like retreating apparitions.

Most of the time, I would leave the crowd before they called it a day, but apparently other girls would stay on for as long as a week. Perhaps one could describe their behavior as a way of living for the moment, of turning their backs on

reality when times were getting rough. I came to realize later that Kawashima’s

lifestyle involved nothing more than abandoning herself to debauchery at a time

when she could no longer enjoy the prestige of Commander Jin Bihui. No longer

was she the object of any rapt curiosity as “the Mata Hari of the Orient,” nor was

she able to maintain her prior position on the high pedestal as “the Joan of Arc of

the Orient.” Nobody at the time was prepared to treat her seriously, not the Japanese army, not the Manchukuo military, not the private right-wing Japanese groups

that had their eye on the Chinese continent. It was said that at one time she had

some three to six thousand followers, but the number had dwindled to less than

a hundred. Even among the remaining ones, any knowledge that they had worked

under Jin Bihui would lead to their banishment from their own villages, thereby

forcing Kawashima to scramble for a means to provide for their livelihood. It was

for this reason that she implored Lieutenant General Tada to allow her to take up

the management of Dongxinglou. Despite all that, she still made a false show of

power by spreading the word that Dongxinglou was the hideout in Tianjin for her

Pacification Army.

I came a number of times to Kawashima’s wild parties during those summer

nights, but once I had satisfied my fleeting sense of curiosity, I began to feel disgusted by them. It was exactly at that time that Pan Yugui gave me a thorough

scolding. At the beginning, Lieutenant General Tada, an influential figure within

the Japanese military, had acted on behalf of Kawashima, and for that reason Pan

was prepared to accord ample respect to her on every occasion. But once he saw

through the empty lies and exhibitionism upon which Kawashima’s whole existence depended, he had her behavior thoroughly investigated. To his surprise, he

found through his secret investigators that his own adoptive daughter Shuhua was,

of all things, herself a frequent visitor to Kawashima’s establishment, and after

scolding Dong’niang for her supervisory negligence, he sternly demanded that I

return to Beijing.

The summer had ended, and in Beijing I faced the unchanging reality of unrelenting anti-Japanese demonstrations and gatherings. While I was engrossed in

The Tianjin Encounters

59

my pleasurable diversions during the summer, my friends and classmates had been

working with total devotion for the resistance movement.

Pan Yugui was not the only person who gave me a piece of his mind. Yamaga

also unequivocally warned me immediately after my return to Beijing that I must

not have any more interactions with “that woman.” He seemed convinced that I

was already aware of his past relationship with her, but in fact at the time I had

no such knowledge. In any case, I heard shortly afterwards from Father, Pan, and

others the story of the tragic fate of this Imperial Princess. I learned about her

first love with Second Lieutenant Yamaga Tōru, the standard-bearer of the Matsumoto Regiment, her falling out of love, her failed suicide, the sexual advances

from her adoptive father, and her descent into total despair. There was the story

about her desire to revive the Qing Dynasty, her failed marriage to the Mongolian prince Ganjuurjab,8 her flight to Shanghai, subsequent cohabitation with the

spy operative Major Tanaka Takayoshi, and their role as conspirators in the Shanghai Incident. I also learned about her part in guarding Emperor Puyi’s wife during her getaway,9 in the expedition to Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, as well as her

ascent to chief officer to the court of the Manchurian Empire. She then became

associated with Tada Hayao, chief military advisor to Manchukuo, before she assumed the position as Commander of the Manchurian Pacification Force under

the name Jin Bihui and participated in the expedition to Rehe. And then there

were stories about her chronic and worsening inflammation of the spine caused

by her external injuries, along with her indulgence in narcotics, her subsequent

insulation from the Japanese army and the Manchukuo military, and then her seclusion inside Dongxinglou and so on.

“I hope you have not received any par ticular favors or assistance from that

woman,” Yamaga said with a worried look on his face. “In any case, it’s best not

to maintain any relationship with her in order to avoid her poisonous sting.” Come

to think of it, I did receive from Kawashima two beautiful pink Chinese dresses

with French-made silk lace. One time, Kawashima asked me to wear one of her

Chinese dresses, and because it fitted me perfectly, she gave it to me as a present,

along with another with a contrasting design. I was not particularly tall, but I realized at that time that Kawashima and I were practically the same not just in height

but also in size and style. Those two dresses were all that I received from her.

Since that summer, I have never been to Tianjin again. Kawashima, on the

other hand, had houses in both Tianjin and Beijing and often traveled between

them. Meanwhile, I heard rumors that she had made false accusations against a

famous opera actor at a Beijing nightclub, and that she would secretly inform

on anyone she didn’t like to her lieutenant-colonel lover in the Japa nese military

police.

After that, I met Kawashima twice in Beijing.

60

Chapter 4

One time, I went with my younger sister, Etsuko, to the Zhenguang, a large

cinema in the Dongcheng district. We took seats at the very back of the box that

was set aside for honored guests and located at the front of the screen. Right

before the movie began, Kawashima, in her usual men’s clothes, made her entrance

with a little monkey on her shoulder and proceeded to sit in the very middle of

the box. The two soldiers who had ushered her in gave a salute and left. Kawashima

took time to survey her surroundings before settling down with her legs

crossed. Hoping not to be seen, Etsuko and I cringed and covered our faces with

the program.

During a movie screening, cinemas in China instituted a tea-time interval

for their guests. When the time came, the whole cinema was instantaneously lit

up. Instinctively, Etsuko and I shrank our shoulders. Right at that moment, Kawashima suddenly jumped to her feet and roared in Chinese, “What total garbage

this damn movie is!” When the soldiers ran quickly back to attend to her, Kawashima put her little monkey on her shoulder, turned her back to the audience,

and left the cinema with them. I later heard that those two soldiers were not actually her personal guards from the Pacification Force, but house servants whom

she dressed in military uniform before dragging them along with her in public.

I met Kawashima the second time in Beijing when I was walking along Wangfujing Street. A Ford came swift ly from behind me and stopped. I heard Kawashima’s voice calling out, “Yoko-chan!”

“Oh no,” I thought, but trying not to show how disconcerted I felt, I replied,

“It has been a long time!”

“Come into the car,” she said. “Let’s eat at my place. I have invited two or three

other people, and they are a good, congenial bunch!”

That same little monkey was sitting quietly on her shoulder. She still had short

hair, was wearing a stylish male-qipao, and sitting cross-legged in the backseat of

her vehicle.

For a second, I didn’t know what to do. The warnings from Pan and Yamaga

did flash across my mind, but I could hardly allow myself to reveal my disinclination to accept her invitation. Moreover, there was a swelling sense somewhere

inside me that I really missed her. And so I got into the car as I was told.

Kawashima’s house was situated at the Jiutiao Hutong in Dongcheng’s

Dong’sipai’lou. Although it was not as grand as the Pan residence, it was still large

enough to have two or three courtyards, complete with a sentry guard standing

at the entrance. The meal was served around a big round table with a few other

guests. Then something extraordinary and unforgettable happened. In the middle of her meal, Kawashima all of a sudden lifted the hem of her qipao, took out a

syringe from a drawer next to her, and nimbly injected a white liquid into her exposed thigh.

The Tianjin Encounters

61

“Well, you know, I can’t drink any water as I am doing this.”

Those words she uttered strangely still ring in my ears to this day. Later, when

I met her again in Japan, she injected herself in the same way. One of her brothers

was an opium addict, and for that reason, she never got hooked on that par ticular drug, but I heard rumors that she was drugging herself with narcotics. One

theory was that she was using fuscamin to suppress the chronic pain in her back,

but her youngest sister, Aisin Gioro Xianqi, testified in Born as an Imperial Qing

Princess (Shinchō no ōjo ni umarete, 1986) that her sister was “injecting herself

with nothing but morphine.”

Two months before my graduation from Yijiao Girls’ School, the school building was dynamited and demolished by an unknown party. With the situation getting increasingly unstable, it was unclear when the school could be rebuilt or when

I could return to continue with my studies. To be more precise, for those who

had officially been scheduled to graduate, there would be no formal graduation

ceremony.

While pondering my future course of action after graduation, I took a recreational trip one day with my classmate Wen Guihua to Wanshou Hill in the Summer Palace (Yihe yuan) in the suburbs of Beijing.10 I hadn’t been there for quite

some time, and this outing was also meant to cheer up Guihua in the aftermath

of her lover’s departure from Beijing. The Summer Palace was a place we had often gone together. A day trip there plus a boat ride would always bring back our

good spirits.

Walking a short distance in the northwesterly direction from Beijing’s Xizhimenwai along a beautiful elm-lined street, one would come face to face with a gate

tower and the entrance to the Summer Palace, called the Dong’gongmen, or Gate

to the Eastern Palace. During the Jin period, the emperor’s temporary palace was

built on the site of the Wanshou Hill, which stood at a height of about a hundred

meters, its picturesque reflection shimmering on the surface of the artificial Kunming Lake at its foothills. The Summer Palace was the name given to the large

garden compound consisting of an ensemble of temples and other structures dotting the mountain and lake areas. During the late Qing period, when plagued by

disturbances such as the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Dowager Cixi spent an enormous amount of money to reconstruct the garden into a summer palace retreat,

thereby creating what the garden is today. With the Wanshou Hill as its background,

the artisans created a brilliant spectacle in which nature was blended with an

array of artificial structures, including temple quarters, pagodas, high towers,

massive bridges, temple gates, pavilions, and covered corridors along the lakeshore.

Walking to the other end of the Seventeen-Arch Bridge across the brimming,

azure waters of Kunming Lake, we decided to take a boat ride from Nanhu Island.

Guihua and I had a mutual friend on that lake, whom we had not told anyone else

62

Chapter 4

about, an old, scrawny boatman with the appearance of an otherworldly hermit.

With his silvery hair rolled up in a bun at the back of his head, he was still vibrant

and energetic, but he told us that he was already close to ninety years old. We also

heard that he had once served as an attendant to the Express Dowager. In the

slow boat navigated by this old man who seemed to have transcended our mundane world, we crossed Kunming Lake diagonally and arrived at the shore near the

garden’s Paiyun’menlou.

While steering the boat, the old man always told us stories about his past. Although he spoke standard Mandarin, he often used old expressions I didn’t understand. This time, while the old man spoke, Guihua, with her eyes on the water, seemed to be deep in thought, while I, on the other hand, had no idea what

I should do to comfort her now that her lover was no longer in Beijing. The Second

Sino-Japanese War was becoming more ferocious, and increasingly my feelings

about the conflict were threatening to tear my whole body apart. Having no idea

what I would do after graduation, I was seized with an indescribable sense of anxiety about the future.

Yet the beautiful Summer Palace brought us soothing comfort that day as it

had done in the past. As the boat approached the lake shore, the large sun was

setting behind the joint peaks of the Western Hills, generating a kaleidoscopic mosaic of yellow, green, and red rays against the temples and pagodas, the long walkways and the gate towers.

You may ask why I remember so vividly that day trip I had with Guihua in

Wanshou Hill, and the answer is that that very day was intimately connected with

my own new beginning. In the main hall of a Buddhist temple, Guihua must have

prayed that she and her lover could soon be reunited. I put my hands together and

prayed that the war would soon come to an end and that I would be enlightened

with regard to how to live my life after my graduation from the girls’ school.

When I returned home, Yamaga had been waiting for me, along with one Yamanashi Minoru from the Manchurian Film Association. As always, Yamaga took

us to Wangfujing’s Dong’laishun Restaurant at the Jin’yu Hutong by the side of

Dong’an Market. For some reason, Yamaga spoke Japanese with Yamanashi, but

with me he spoke Chinese. It appeared that Yamanashi had no knowledge that

I was Japanese and thought of me as just a new Chinese singer called Pan Shuhua

with the stage name of Li Xianglan.

After introducing Yamanashi to me, Yamaga summarized the purpose of their

visit. A year earlier, during the summer of 1937, the Manchurian Film Association (Manshū Eiga Kyōkai, or Man’ei for short) was established in Xinjing11 (presentday Changchun) with equal financial support from Manchukuo and the South

Manchurian Railway Company. Its aim was to produce and distribute films made

by the Manchurians (actually, by the Japanese) and for the Manchurians as part

The Tianjin Encounters

63

of a cultural policy to promote Japan’s political objectives in the name of “Cooperation and Harmony among the Five Races” and “Japanese-Manchurian Friendship.” In this way, Man’ei’s goal was to promote Japan’s national policy, and they

wanted me to assist in that enterprise.

After its establishment, Man’ei had made a few dramatic fi lms, and the new

one they were planning was a kind of musical in which the female lead would sing

in more than a few scenes. But the Chinese actress slated to play the leading role

could not sing at all. All the other actors were recruited just the year before, and

all of them, regardless of sex, were total beginners in the business of fi lmmaking.

No actress in this group could sing, and dubbing was out of the question.

Just as the Man’ei people were scratching their heads over this situation, its

production manager, Makino Mitsuo, heard by chance broadcasts from Xinjing

Broadcasting Station of me singing “New Melodies from Manchuria.” Yamaga

grinned as he finished explaining to me in Chinese what had happened so far.

Makino then went to the Japanese military’s Press Division and asked for its

assistance in recruiting Li Xianglan to do the singing for the sake of Japan’s national policy. Yamaga then went on to explain to me what happened, this time

speaking nonchalantly in Japanese so that Yamanashi could understand what was

going on.

“I told him that Li Xianglan is the oldest daughter of my old acquaintance,

Yamaguchi Fumio. Thereupon, Makino-san implored me, with hands clasped, to

offer him assistance. Well, how about it, Yoshiko-chan? We are not asking you to

appear in a film, just to do a recording of its songs. Can we ask for you to cooperate with Japan’s national policy this time?”

After Yamaga finished, Yamanashi said, “Oh, so you are Japanese!” while staring at my face. “Then, this makes all the more sense. I hope you’ll help us.”

Having performed “New Melodies from Manchuria” for the Fengtian Broadcasting Station, I didn’t realize that my singing could be heard all over Manchuria through the waves of the Xinjing Broadcasting Station until I heard it from

Yamanashi, and I thought it wouldn’t matter much if all they were asking was just

for me to sing. While I had second thoughts about Yamaga’s prior suggestion that

I become a singer for the Beijing Station, I had nothing against singing itself.

“It would just be a few songs!” Yamanashi urged me on enthusiastically. Meanwhile, I thought that it might not be a bad idea for me to go and see this new city

of Xinjing. As I would be passing through Fengtian, I could see Mother and my

sisters on my way back. I could also see Madame Podlesov, tell her how I had been

doing, and receive more lessons from her. Additionally, I would also see General

Li and his second wife and show them how my Mandarin had improved. As I was

thinking about those things, Yamaga seemed to see through my mind and said

casually, “Well, why don’t you give it a try?” Without thinking, I nodded my head.

64

Chapter 4

My first trip to Beijing when I was fourteen had been a terrifying experience.

Riding in the same hard-seat compartment this time, I was neither fearful for my

safety nor apprehensive that my money would be taken away as the train passed

through Sanhaiguan. At Xinjing Station, I was utterly surprised to find that a large

number of people had come to greet a singer whose role involved merely dubbing.

Yamanashi then introduced me to Production Manager Makino who would oversee the project. “Glad you’ve come! Making a film’s a lot of fun. Nothin’ to worry,

and just leave everything to me!”

What he spoke in his loud voice was clearly Japanese, but there were phrases

I didn’t quite understand, making me a bit worried that I might have forgotten

my mother tongue. Of course, he was speaking the Kansai dialect. While I was

aware of the dialectal differences of Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai, I learned

then for the first time that there were various dialects in Japanese as well.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Notes to Pages 51–59

Chapter 4: The Tianjin Encounters

1. Meaning something like “Good Old Mr. Wang the Second.”

2. One of the oldest neighborhoods in the capital dating back to the Yuan

Dynasty, “Wangfujing” literally means “a well inside a prince’s residence” and has become one of the most famous and fashionable shopping streets in Beijing’s Dongcheng

district. Apparently, the discovery of a well—another theory says two wells—containing

sweet water, a site still remembered at a designated spot in the area, gave rise to the

street’s name in the Qing Dynasty. For a brief history and pictures of the area, see

Yan and Coco, Beijing guangjie, pp. 168–171.

3. Dong’laishun’s history can be traced back to as early as 1903, when Ding

Deshan, a Muslim, first peddled noodles with mutton, congee, and a delicacy called

qiegao in a small establishment at the east side of Dong’an Market. His increasingly

popu lar shop was named Dong’laishun in 1906. Its signature dish, shua’yangrou,

was already very famous around the city in the 1930s and 1940s, even though the fall

of Beijing into Japanese hands in 1937 didn’t help its business. Its guests over the

years have included Deng Xiaoping, Wan Li, Henry Kissigner, and Tanaka Kak Kakuei.

For a brief introduction and pictures of the restaurant, see Yan and Coco, Beijing

guangjie, p. 146.

4. On Kawashima Yoshiko, or Aisin Gioro Xianyu, her original Manchu

name, or Jin Bihui, her name in Chinese, see the following narrative and chapter 10,

“The Two Yoshikos.”

5. Also known as the January 28th Incident. The Japanese military instigated

a war between the Republic of China and Japan in Shanghai from January 28 to

March 3, 1932, after anti-Japanese sentiments of Shanghai’s citizens manifested

themselves in street demonstrations and calls for boycotting Japanese goods. Shanghai

was bombed from the air on January 28th, and three thousand Japanese troops initially attacked the city’s various targets before meeting resistance from the Chinese

19th Route Army. In early March, both the 19th Route Army and the 5th Army withdrew from Shanghai in the face of heavy Japanese bombardments. The Shanghai

Ceasefire Agreement was signed on March 5th, allowing Japanese military presence

in the city. The event served as a prelude to Japan’s invasion and occupation of Shanghai five years later. See Donald A. Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of

1932 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).

6. A male actor playing female roles in Kabuki plays, also known as onnagata.

7. Tada Hayao (1882–1948) served in that role from 1932 to 1934. After his arrest at the end of the war by the Allied forces for alleged war crimes as a Class-A war

criminal, Tada died in prison in December 1948.

8. Ganjuurjab (1903–1968?), whose Chinese and Japa nese names were Han

Shaoyue and Kawashima Takayoshi, respectively, was the second son of Inner

Mongolian Army General Jengjuurjab, leader of the Mongolian-Manchurian Independence Movement. His marriage with Kawashima Yoshiko lasted from 1927

to 1929.

Notes to Pages 59–77

315

9. From Tianjin to Dalian in 1931 in the aftermath of the Manchurian Incident.

10. Wanshou Hill, the Mountain of Longevity at the Summer Palace, is one of

the most celebrated Chinese garden landscapes.

11. The Japanese rendering of Xinjing, the capital of Manchukuo, is “Shinkyō.”