Chapter 9 The Spring of My Youth

The Nichigeki Incident, involving some one hundred thousand

hustling fans, has apparently been analyzed from various angles based on social

psychology, the contemporary history of Japanese society, and the like. Learned

experts have pointed out the following:

A. After the birth of the “Manchurian Empire,” the government’s continental policy makers promoted a successful propaganda campaign to encourage, above all, Japanese immigration to Manchuria and Mongolia by romanticizing the allure of the unknown wilderness.

B. Under the critical condition of imminent war between Japan and the

United States, stringent controls had been placed on public entertainment, beginning with the dance halls. The public was therefore desperately in need of entertainment that promised glitzy splendor and sweet

relief.

C. The date of the first performance coincided with the Kigensetsu. It was

natural that after celebrating at the Imperial Palace on a holiday, citizens

would flow into the busy downtown Ginza district, and Nichigeki was

situated right in the middle of that area.

Those overlapping circumstances were offered as explanations. To be sure,

all such analyses were made after the fact. What all the newspapers reported the

following day, on the other hand, was the controversy over whether it was “inexcusable” that this infortunate incident had occurred on the “auspicious” occasion

of Kigensetsu. Nichigeki’s next-door neighbor, the Asahi, a party that directly

suffered from its consequences, carried out a campaign for days decrying the

event. Because of that, the public’s criticism of the “incident” grew stronger with

the passage of time.

The Asahi’s coverage began with the introduction of an admonition delivered

with great oratorical passion from Nichigeki’s front balcony by Chief Kanazawa

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Chapter 9

from the Marunouchi Police, the unit responsible for crowd management on

that day:

Gentlemen! Our nation continues to dedicate our efforts unsparingly toward

the accomplishment of the New Order in East Asia. Our loyal and brave generals and soldiers are now fighting in the wilderness on the continent. And,

with such thoughts in mind, gentlemen, what a disgraceful scene have we

witnessed. . . .

In formal police garb with a saber by his side, Chief Kanazawa lectured for about

five minutes before concluding: “Now please disperse immediately before any restraining actions are taken by police officers. I wish you a rewarding Kigensetsu

celebration!”

The second day of my performance fell on February 12, a Wednesday. Even

though it was not a public holiday, a large number of fans had again been gathering since the morning, while those who did not manage to get into the theater

formed a consistent overflow in the area. The next day the Asahi ran a special feature article entitled “Interpreting the Madness of the Audience,” opining that “the

same incident can no longer be passed over simply as a street scene on a public

holiday.” The first thing it reported was a sermon by a certain Mr. Kita, Director

of the Division for National Livelihood (Kokumin Seikatsu Shidōbu) from the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai):1

I thought that the scene I saw was lamentable, an appalling sight. First, it was

the unruliness. There is nothing wrong with the working class, participating

as they normally do as productive members of society, to seek a day’s entertainment at the theater; after all it was a public holiday, a rare occasion. But if

only a fi xed number of fans could get in, was it really asking too much for the

rest of them to come back later? But they refused to give up and flung their

geta into the air. What did they think they were doing? The lack of discipline

among our nation’s people—now that’s a subject we must ponder together a

little more. . . . I urge our deep reflection over the fact that there were many

students amongst the crowd. In fact, I went to the scene last night, sought out

the students, and gave them a good piece of my mind. In a time like this, rather

than seeking entertainment, students should return home on a public holiday and use the rare occasion to read a book. I wish to say that they should

give more thought to the historical mission that has been bestowed upon them.

On the other hand, there were contrary opinions that recognized the psychology of the masses seeking entertainment and argued that the unfortunate circum-

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133

stances that had arisen did not justify the deprivation of healthy diversions. For

example, in the words of the writer Nogami Yaeko:2

In Italy and Germany, war was given whatever attention it deserved, but the

theaters and cinemas were witnessing even better days than during times of

peace. We must not take away entertainment regardless of whatever state of

emergency may have arisen. When you cut off one outlet, the people will look

for other smaller openings. With that in mind, our fans’ violent behavior apparently had complex reasons. One could feel a certain militancy and a ferociousness from the mayhem at the theater and the damage done to the vehicles. That was the manifestation of disgruntlement and discontent, or else an

expression resulting from group dynamics. Consequently, there was virtually

no self-control or demonstration of mutual consideration; the fans even allowed themselves to degenerate into shameless behavior. The Japanese who

returned home to escape from this war were saddened to fi nd that they were

treated more rudely in their own land than in any other enemy country. I suppose it is necessary to give special consideration to lessen the congestion around

the theater. It won’t work with just a wooden sign saying “Keep to the left”

or “Move strictly in only one line” without giving any further thought to

crowd control.

For a time, one got the impression that the Nichigeki Incident had been used

for lectures on national morality under a state of emergency. At Tokyo Imperial

University, Watanuki Tetsuo, a professor of social psychology, asked his students

in their final examination to write about the affair. Miyazawa Kiichi, then a thirdyear law student and currently the Minister of Finance, answered “It was a truly

gratifying incident that accurately demonstrates the public’s psychology in its quest

for freedom”—a response that apparently earned him the best grade.3

With the Asahi taking the lead, the mass media became more aggressive in

its information gathering. Thereupon, Tōhō and Man’ei formed a united front in

laying out serious preventive measures. During my performance, Kodama never

let me out of his sight from morning until nightfall to keep me away from news

reporters. But such efforts were not entirely foolproof. The Miyako Shimbun (currently Tokyo Shimbun), a paper strong on the arts and entertainment news, reported in a small human interest story that Li Xianglan was merely my stage name

and that I was a native of Saga Prefecture, not someone from Manchuria. This

was what it said:

Since it became known that the Man’ei star Li Xianglan, who had caused quite

a fuss before a certain theater, has not received her proper entertainer’s

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permit, all concerned parties were called to the police station and reprimanded. After a letter of apology was written, they fi nally forwarded their

application for the permit through the Omote-machi Police Station. Through

this procedure and quite by accident, it became known that Li Xianglan was

not a Manchukuo native but simply a stage name; her real name is Yamaguchi Toshiko, a twenty-two-year-old born in February 1920. Beijing was her

birthplace, but her legal address on the family registry was in Kishima in

Saga Prefecture. The official in charge was surprised too by this finding, saying, “Ah, that’s why her Japanese is so good!”

Both Tōhō and Man’ei were greatly shocked by the news, as was I. Although

the report was wrong about “Toshiko” and “Beijing,” the paper would only become more inquisitive if we asked for a correction. I had had more or less the same

experience when I traveled from Nagasaki to Shanghai the year before for the location shooting of China Nights. One has to state one’s real name and nationality

on one’s passport. Seeing this, the Fukuoka Nichinichi Shimbun wrote an exposé

saying “Li Xianglan is a Japanese born in China!”

At the time, Tōhō and Man’ei made a deal with the paper by supplying advertising sources in exchange for its agreement not to repeat or to carry more detailed reports in the news. That’s why the information never reached Tokyo. This

time, it was also a local paper, but one from the capital nonetheless. On top of that,

the paper had an acknowledged reputation for its reports on arts and entertainment events, making its influence impossible to ignore. The next day, a gag entitled “Getting to the Bottom” appeared in its comic column, “The Lying Club,”

mocking my stage name:

Li Xianglan: “Oh, Japanese is such a difficult language!”

Yamaguchi Toshiko: “Really? I think yours is as good as mine!”

Eventually, Tōhō and Man’ei came to the decision that they would agree to

Miyako Shimbun’s request for an interview and have Li Xianglan speak to the

paper about the “truth.” It was their assessment that rather than having the Asahi

noisily declare throughout every corner of the country that my professed nationality was a lie, this action would keep the “damage” to the minimum. My story’s

version was as follows:

I just by chance use the name Li Xianglan; I have been misunderstood for having purposefully concealed the fact that I am Japanese until this time. I could

not have imagined the harsh criticism I have caused due to the fans’ congestion before the theater. And then a lot of other things have happened. During

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135

the week, it seemed as if all the things that happened to me during my lifetime all came crashing down at once.

I don’t think that the Asahi or other nationally circulating papers chased

after and reported that exclusive story. Contrary to the current trend, it was not a

common practice for the mass media at that time to report with great fanfare matters related to an actress’ private life. There weren’t any newspapers devoted to

sports and entertainment then, and even the newspaper’s entertainment column

was very tiny. More importantly, the newspapers themselves had been cutting down

on their pages to fall in line with the current political situation. Meanwhile, the

government’s control of the media was growing tighter.

The fact that I was not Chinese but a trueborn Japanese was known to those

who were in the loop, as it were, but that knowledge didn’t seem to have spread

throughout the country. Subsequently, when I performed in cities outside

Tokyo—in fact in Tokyo as well—there were still many who thought that Li

Xianglan was Chinese.

*

*

*

Shortly after my Nichigeki performance, I received a fan letter. Until then, I had

never received anything like that; there had been postcards or short messages, but

not an extended letter. Perhaps my fans thought that I couldn’t read Japanese. What

I received was a five-page letter of beautiful prose composed in splendid Japanese.

When I recall the letter today, I was reminded of how touched I was when I first

read it.

It began with: “You must have been much distressed by the unanticipated commotion in which you were entangled. For this, please allow me to express my sympathy.” It continued, “And yet the worth of a human being cannot be measured

by the uproar society generates or by the fame one acquires; it is not the same as

what appears on the surface.” I wonder if that was not meant as a cautionary remark to temper any puffed-up conceit I might have felt for being the recipient of

such explosive popularity. From his message, the writer appeared to be someone

who knew me.

He introduced himself as “a university student who attended the photo shooting

for Song of the White Orchid purposefully atop Mantetsu Building.” And then there

were these comforting words: “In a newspaper interview, you explained that you use

the name Li Xianglan by chance. But you are not the one at fault, you are just being exploited by our national policy.” Then there was the following: “Do take good

care of yourself. In a time like this, the individual’s worth is taken lightly like a

plaything. Th is makes it all the more important that one not lose sight of oneself

lest she becomes nothing more than the pawn of the nation and the circumstances

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of the time. You have a light shining in your heart. I trust you will always cherish

it.” This was how it ended. He signed his name as “Matsuoka Ken’ichirō, University Student.”

I was grateful and happy that a complete stranger would earnestly give such

warm advice to a mere actress. Moved by how different this was from an ordinary fan letter, I showed it to my “guard,” Kodama, and quickly wrote a reply.

I learned a little later that Matsuoka was a student in the Law Faculty of

Tokyo Imperial University and the eldest son of Foreign Minister Matsuoka

Yōsuke, who had signed the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany, and Italy

the year before in 1940. At the time I met Ken’ichirō, the Foreign Minister was

traveling in Europe to negotiate with Stalin on the conclusion of a neutrality pact

between Japan and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, his very son was the one who

criticized “the nation” and the “circumstances of the time” and asked that “the self”

be cherished.

In February 1986, after many years had passed, I met Mr. Matsuoka and

found that he bore an indistinguishable resemblance to his father. He was born

in Washington, D.C., where his father was working as a secretary in the Japanese

Embassy. Six years my senior, he went to Ecole de l’Etoile du Matin4 through

secondary school, followed by Tokyo Higher School and then the law faculty at

the Imperial University.

“I don’t remember that I wrote about a light shining in your heart,” he said

with a wry smile. “But if I did, it must have been the time after the photo shooting when Mr. Isshiki accompanied you on a visit to my house in Sendagaya. I looked

into your eyes and thought so at the time. Your eyes were particularly impressive,

and I was struck by your unaffected innocence. Well, I suppose it was also due to

the fact that you were still a gullible girl not yet accustomed to things in Japan.”

I have no memory of having visited the Matsuoka residence; for me, our first

meeting took place after I received his fan letter. He continued, “I also saw your

Nichigeki performance and watched you sing with all your heart. But then there

were reports portraying you as the chief culprit for such pandemonium, along with

all sorts of praise and blame thrown so unrelentingly in your direction. I found

myself feeling sorry for you. I believe I wrote the letter as a result of my compassion for you and my sense of indignation at society. At the time, I was an anarchist sympathizer. And so when you were dragged out before curious eyes to perform in fi lms and on stage as a Chinese woman, all in the name of national policy

about Japanese-Manchurian friendship, I thought of you as a pitiable girl, someone at the mercy of frothy waves of popularity.”

I was surprised to learn that while Matsuoka Yōsuke was described as a fervent nationalist, his son was an anarchist sympathizer. The French language with

which the young man was familiar since his days at Ecole de l’Etoile du Matin

The Spring of My Youth

137

appeared to have planted liberal thinking in him through his years in higher school

and at the university. To be sure, I couldn’t understand his abstruse thoughts at

the time even though I listened attentively to what he said; I only privately wished

that I could continue to cherish our friendship.

He also told me the following: “It was true that my father was Manchuria’s

colonial administrator in his role as Mantetsu’s president. It was also true that,

as a politician, he was in favor of the Axis Powers and advanced Japan’s national

policy by signing the Tripartite Pact. On the other hand, there was considerable

public misunderstanding about what my father’s thinking was and what he was

trying to do.” He spoke with calm composure, just as he did when he was young,

and yet it was a style that I found agreeably persuasive.

He continued, “And that was my father. On the other hand, during my student days, I was fond of books and music, crazy about photography, and generally entertaining thoughts a far cry from matters of national policy. Specifically,

I believed that such establishments as nation, government, and laws were evil to

human well-being. But in the real world, one cannot do without government and

laws, and the evil they bring is probably a necessary evil. In any case, I thought

that anarchism alone was the ultimate ideology for mankind. I felt both pity for

you and anger when I saw how you had been exploited by the state and the government. But I must say that I was also influenced by the fi lm Le Bonheur with

Charles Boyer in the starring role.”

Again, at that point, he had a wry smile on his face. “In that film, the anarchist played by Boyer threw a rock at an actress then at the height of her popularity as a warning call to her. That’s the beginning of their love story which ends in

tragedy. I pretended that Li Xianglan from the Nichigeki Incident was the popular actress Gaby Morlay, and I suppose I myself was playing the role of Charles

Boyer!”5

Matsuoka Ken’ichirō graduated from the university in 1941 and joined the

Dōmei News Agency (the predecessor to present-day Jiji Press and Kyodo News).6

While still in its employment, he was recruited into the navy and went to a school

for accounting with the goal of becoming an accounting officer. With the advent

of the Pacific War, he was immediately sent on December 18 to the Saigon Headquarters in Indochina (present-day Vietnam). At the end of 1942, he returned to

Japan before working at the navy’s aviation factory in Chiba Prefecture’s Kisarazu.

At the end of 1943, he was sent to the Navy Ministry in Tokyo to work in the Press

Division.

Of course, we met only when both of us were in Tokyo. I was traveling back

and forth frequently to the Chinese continent, and even when I was in Japan, I

was constantly busy rushing from place to place, thus making it difficult for us to

see each other. As a result, we often exchanged letters.

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In those days, I was often surrounded by fans wherever I went, and it was quite

impossible for us to find a place to have a date as ordinary people did. Yet our walks

at night within the grounds of the Aoyama Cemetery, at a time when the cherry

blossom season was nearing its end, left a deep impression on me.

We often went to Akasaka’s Hyōtei for our meals. As a rule, the room we took

was always at the very far end of the restaurant. After Matsuoka made a telephone

call to the head waitress, O-toki, beforehand, she would act, in her cleverly judicious way, to keep us away from curious eyes. On many occasions, we were joined

by Mr. Matsushiro or Mr. Itō, both close friends of Matsuoka’s. Matsuoka would

talk about the navy, and I about the scenes at my location and my new fi lms.

After our meal, we would leave from the back door one at a time. Sometimes, we

would go to my apartment, and when that happened, Ms. Atsumi and I would

prepare the food with great care.

Once Matsuoka came into the reception room, he would act with an air of

familiarity by putting a record on a hand-operated gramophone. It was always

Beethoven’s violin concerto. With the famous music in the background, the topics for our conversation remained focused on stories about the navy and my fi lm

locations.

And such were our dates, nothing more than trifl ing affairs, but we did have

to strain to camouflage our rendezvous.

We didn’t have many opportunities to be together, but as the years passed by,

there were times when I did have some vague expectation that he might ask me

to marry him. Whenever I entertained such thoughts, however, I had a change of

mind, realizing that our positions and social standings were different and that when

all was said and done, our love would come to a dead-end. I think that Matsuoka

himself didn’t know what to do, even though he had apparently been questioned

by one of his friends about his intentions. Th is was what he said: “You know,

Mr. Itō, my good friend from Yamaguchi Prefecture who was with Manchukuo’s

Foreign Ministry. He encouraged me to marry Li Xianglan. He was well-known

as quite a veteran playboy, a ‘soft y.’ But when it came to life, he was pretty serious.

This happened when we returned from your apartment at Nogizaka. He grabbed

me by the collar and asked me what I really thought about you; quite an interrogation he gave me. He demanded that I quickly come to a decision and brush aside

thoughts about my father and family, saying my anarchist beliefs should allow me

to be oblivious to the mundane world.”

While serving in the second Konoe cabinet, Foreign Minister Matsuoka

clashed with the Prime Minister over diplomatic relations with the United States.

After leaving the government in July 1941, his chronic tuberculosis worsened, and

he was put under medical care. Meanwhile, Ken’ichirō changed jobs with dazzling speed, from working at the navy accounting school and the Saigon head-

The Spring of My Youth

139

quarters to the navy aviation factory in Kisarazu and then at the Navy Ministry

itself. As Japan’s defeat became increasingly imminent, I thought it was no time to

contemplate marriage.

While I did have a nebulous wish that he would propose to me, he showed

no sign that he was about to do so. Making matters worse, there were ample

indications that he might be thinking of marrying another woman. Although

I didn’t show my feelings outwardly, I was quite distraught as a result of my

jealousy toward my invisible competitor. He might have rattled away about my

innocence and my shining qualities, but at times I suspected that he might in

fact have looked upon me with contempt, thinking that I was no more than just

an actress.

While he did ask young women from well-thought-of families to visit his

Sendagaya residence, he never once offered the same invitation to me. A friend of

mine, an up-and-coming writer, bragged that she had been invited the day before

as a dinner guest to the Matsuoka residence and that they spoke all alone before the

fireplace in his reception room before his departure to Saigon. After I heard the

story, I could only shed tears of mortification.

Matsuoka appeared to have taken part in multiple marriage meetings, and

he would sometimes say how perplexed he was at the experience. While I would

respond with, “Oh, is that so?” and a laugh, I was feeling miserable for not knowing what his true feelings were. He had a wonderful smile, but the more cheerful

his smile, the more heartbroken I felt. In Japan, I had no one to talk with when it

came to such a private subject, and on the night when I told Yukiko all about it in

her house in Xinjing, I started to cry to my heart’s content.

I remember that the first time I was invited to Matsuoka’s Sendagaya residence

was after the war, in 1948 or thereabouts. It was the fi rst time I was introduced to

his mother and sister. Due to the air raids in May 1945, the vicinity had been reduced to ruins; the only structure left on the grounds of the residence was a large

mud-walled storehouse. That was what the whole family called home.

For a time after the war, Matsuoka Yōsuke, who had left the government after his clash with Prime Minister Konoe, was recuperating from tuberculosis in

the Shinshū area. When the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces issued a

warrant for his arrest in November, he returned to his Sendagaya home, where he

was under the care of Ken’ichirō and his secretary Hasegawa Shin’ichi. On December 6, when the order came to put former Prime Minister Konoe along with eight

others into Ōmori Camp, Konoe responded by committing suicide. Matsuoka, on

the other hand, said, “I will not commit suicide. Suicide is a cowardly act. I will

appear in court and testify that Japan’s diplomacy which I conducted was not

wrong.” The ensuing story was that Ken’ichirō, who couldn’t bear to watch the

arrest and execution of his sick father by the Americans, secretly handed him

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some potassium cyanide, only to have it rejected by his father, who said he had

no use for such a thing.

Meanwhile, the self-justifications in the “Konoe Notes” left behind by the thendeceased Prime Minister began to take on a life of their own. In opposing Konoe’s “pacifism,” Foreign Minister Matsuoka was being labeled a supporter of “an

ideology of aggression.” Lying on his sickbed inside the warehouse, Yōsuke asked

Ken’ichirō to come to his side to take notes while he dictated in English his “Clarifications to the Konoe Notes.” When the task was finished toward the end of January 1946, an American army doctor came ostensibly to take the former Foreign

Minister to a hospital to be treated, but that was just an excuse to prevent him

from committing suicide. Matsuoka was subsequently held at the Sugamo Prison

even though he was still a sick man.

In May, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East began. When asked

how he would plead as a Class-A defendant, Matsuoka Yōsuke answered “not

guilty” with such a force hardly imaginable from a very sick patient that he surprised the whole court. That was his last public pronouncement.

On May 10, his condition deteriorated, leading to his hospitalization in a

U.S. army hospital. In June, a communication arrived requesting that the patient be taken away from the U.S. military. Ken’ichirō implored his friends,

successfully, to allow his father to be hospitalized in Tokyo University’s Sakaguchi Internal Medicine Unit. On the 27th, Matsuoka Yōsuke died at the age of

sixty-six.

Ken’ichirō brought his father’s body back to his Sendagaya home. [Franklin]

Warren, Yōsuke’s American defense counsel, cried as he held on to the body, saying, “You are not guilty.” Basing his argument on “Clarifications to the Konoe

Notes,” Warren set out to prove that the Foreign Minister had not participated in

the decision to commence the Pacific War. After Matsuoka’s death, he worked very

diligently to influence the General Headquarters (GHQ) to delete the former’s name

from the indictment, but such efforts were not recognized by the International

Military Tribunal for the Far East.7

Under GHQ’s orders, the Dōmei News Agency for which Ken’ichirō worked

was split into Jiji Press and Kyodo News. Former Dōmei employees generally chose

to work in one or the other establishment, but Ken’ichirō decided to join Sun

Picture News, newly founded by his senior colleague Okamura Niichi, the former

president of Tokyo Times, and others. When I met him after the war, he was already taking charge of the company.

Juggling our schedules, we met again two or three times; by then, we no longer had to worry about attracting curious attention. One time, all of a sudden, he

said something to the effect that to overcome the tempestuousness of life from

then on, he would need to have a companion such as me. I was happy when he

The Spring of My Youth

141

said that. But even though I had been longing to hear such words for eight years,

my mind was surprisingly unflustered. I still held dear the first letter he sent and

his pictures, and I continued to respect him the same way as before. But having

just been repatriated to Japan after escaping a death sentence, I was not quite the

same person I had been in the past. If he had spoken those words before the war

ended, I probably would have accepted without hesitation. But at the time, I myself had to worry about the turbulent waves heading my way.

I decided that I would begin a new chapter in my life as an actress. In addition, after my parents and my siblings were repatriated from Beijing, the responsibility of caring for this big family also fell on my shoulders. This was exactly the

time when Matsuoka hinted about his proposal. The time had come for me to decide whether I wanted marriage or career.

I picked career.

For his part, Matsuoka left Sun Picture News to work in the world of television. After serving for a long time as Vice President of Asahi Television, in 1985

he became the President of Japan Cable Television and is currently working actively on the cutting edge of the media world.

*

*

*

Another person important during the bloom of my youth was Nichigeki’s Kodama

Eisui. I had long been hoping to have more information about him, and hearing

in 1986 about the existence of the Takara-kai, a gathering of former Nichigeki employees and old boys from Tōhō, was an extraordinary piece of good fortune. In

particular, I was able to learn much from three men—Satō Masami, Saitō Ichirō,

and Sugano Toshio—all close drinking friends of Kodama’s, who told me virtually everything I’d never known before about Kodama.

He was the eldest son from a wealthy family in Miyazaki Prefecture. In 1939,

no sooner had he graduated from Hōsei University’s Faculty of Literature than

he was conscripted to fight at Nomonhan on the Manchurian-Mongolian border.

Narrowly escaping death, he survived the war as the year came to an end.

He was interested in drama when he was at the university, and for that reason he joined Nichigeki (Tōhō) in 1940, thanks to an introduction from an acquaintance. Everyone could tell that he was tall, handsome, and dark-complexioned,

a manly Kyushu product with a frank disposition. His penchant toward reticence

and the vague nihilistic air about him were probably the result of his experiences

in the Nomonhan Incident.

According to his colleague Satō Masami, he was an army sergeant at the time,

defending a grassy knoll as the squad leader in a storming party. Under attack

from Soviet tanks, he lost all his men. He himself was injured, lost consciousness, and was rescued by an army corpsman. He didn’t talk to me much about

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the battlefield, but I did remember him mumbling about having died once before

and how a real war was hell.

The Nomonhan Incident occurred between May and mid-September of 1939,

when the Japanese and Soviet armies clashed in a regional war over border conflicts in Nomonhan on the Hulunbuir Plain.8 The Japanese army, which had proudly

won the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, was thoroughly crushed; the

Twenty-Third Division of the Kwantung Army and Manchukuo forces were overwhelmed by the modernized tank attacks from the joint Soviet and Outer Mongolian forces. A cease-fire was signed on September 15 after a complete disaster for

the Japanese. Casualties, including persons unaccounted for, were numbered at

17,405.9 According to the Soviet Union’s history of the Second World War, 19,000

Japanese soldiers died and 26,000 suffered injuries. The combined casualties for

the Soviets were reportedly 9,800.10

To cover up the Japanese army’s miserable fiasco, some survivors of the Nomonhan Incident were shipped to the southern front, and the soldiers who did

return to Japan were asked to observe strict secrecy. But stories of the wretched

conditions of the war still traveled from person to person. Kodama was amongst

those who had seen its hell.

Nichigeki’s heavy drinking buddies—Kodama and Satō included—would begin their after-work hours in twos and threes, first at Yūrakuchō’s New Tokyo in

front of the theater. While Nichigeki’s cylindrical-shaped white hall no longer exists, New Tokyo still stands on the opposite side of the street; its beer garden on

the roof is now a famous place of interest in the Ginza District in the summer.

The group also included the judo expert and comic chat artist Ishiguro Keishichi

and the baritone singer Maki Tsugundo,11 and they apparently had a jolly time

together every day. When the group showed their faces, the waitresses at New Tokyo knew exactly what to do: each guest would receive a bill with only the words

“one large draft beer,” but was allowed to drink as much as he pleased. If sake happened to be the drink of the day, the slip would say “First Class Kikumasamune.

Exactly one-gō,”12 and again they were allowed to drink to their heart’s content.

Satō wondered whether the special ser vice was the result of the waitresses taking

an active interest in Kodama. Saitō offered another theory, saying that the women

often received Nichigeki tickets as presents from them. Thereupon, Sugano reminisced that they could often drink on credit at Kamehachi, the sushi house next

door. “Even though it was war time, those were the good old days!”

The Nichigeki office had a small staff, led by Mikami Ryōzō, the manager, with

six others working in the arts and the general affairs sections. It had a long narrow room crammed with seven chairs for them to sit in a tight row. According to

Saitō’s recollections, whenever I came to visit, Mikami would rise from his chair

next to the door and invite everybody else to tea. I later learned that it was his

The Spring of My Youth

143

clever way of leaving Kodama and me alone in the room, although at the time I

was hardly aware of this arrangement.

Given Kodama’s masculine appeal, women must have been falling all over

him; I thought he must have had a lover or two. But Satō denied it with a serious

look on his face. “It was true that he was popular among women. But he was the

bashful type, and far from being a playboy, he tended to avoid them because of

shyness. In any case, he had a very good sense of discretion. For instance, he would

always come to work ten minutes early with a ‘Good morning!’ no matter how

terrible his hangover was. With women, his behavior was strictly honorable, and

there was never any romantic gossip about him.”

At the time, there was in Shibaura a machiai called “The Peony,” a favorite

lovers’ hangout among those connected with Nichigeki. One of the pretty geishas

there happened to have fallen head over heels in love with Kodama. With the

help of Satō and others, she managed to get Kodama as drunk as a lord. The story

I heard was that the next morning, instead of being able to seize the occasion to

care for Kodama while having her way with him, she found that he had performed a disappearing act from under his futon, leaving her stamping her feet in

frustration.

With Kodama, I felt that I could comfortably talk about any subject. He was

the kind of man who, after an absence of as long as six months, would still greet

you with the same nonchalant air as though you had just said goodbye to him the

day before. On a postcard he sent to my Beijing home were the words: “Whenever

I see you, I worry that you might get hurt if I don’t protect you. I will gladly be

your security guard whenever you need me.” Availing myself of his kindness,

I always paid him a visit at Nichigeki whenever I was working in Japan—that was

my “date” with him. Sometimes, he would visit me in Nogizaka’s Imperial Apartments, which I shared with my attendant Atsumi Masako. One time, during

Father’s business visit to Tokyo after a long absence, I was unfortunately involved

in a location shooting in Shanghai. During the whole week, Kodama was kind

enough to volunteer to be Father’s guide, taking meticulous care of him and showing him famous sites such as the Yasukuni Shrine, the Ginza, and Asakusa.

“Now here’s a good man, someone even other men could love,” Father said

the same thing as Koga Masao. “And so what are your feelings about him?” I answered that he was a very nice person, and that I liked him very much. That was

the extent of my feelings for Kodama at the time. In fact, I told him about my tormented first love for Matsuoka, and I also showed him the letter I had received

from Saigon. What I did must have made him uncomfortable. Meanwhile, I did

not have the luxury to speculate what Kodama himself might have felt about me.

One night, Kodama happened to drop by my Nogizaka apartment. He was

quite drunk, and his tall body wobbled from side to side. When I asked him what

144

Chapter 9

had happened, he promptly came to attention, made a salute with his right hand,

and said in a soldierly tone, “Kodama Eisui will be getting married.” When I offered my congratulations, he said, “Of all people, I must have your blessings. That’s

the reason I came.” Somehow, I had the feeling that he was not his normal self.

In a jolly mood, he told me, “I myself have always wanted to have a great marriage, but I will follow my parents’ orders. That’s the sadness of being the oldest

son. As the marriage proposal has been agreed upon, I was toasting to myself just

before I came!” Masako took out a beer we kept for a special occasion, and the three

of us again raised our glasses. His face unusually aglow with excitement, Kodama

left a barely consumed cigarette resting on the ashtray and busily began lighting

up another. Before we knew it, he quickly stubbed that one and hurriedly picked

out yet another from the pack. Masako and I could only look at each other as this

was going on. Since it was getting late, we had Kodama stay in a room next to ours.

The next morning, he enjoyed a bowl of miso soup with wheat-gluten tidbits, although he looked dejected, probably from a hangover.

Two or three days later, his letter came:

I dislike making excuses for myself, but this time alone, I’ll offer my reasons.

My apologies for having embarrassed myself the other night. I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ll be going to the Philippines as a member of the army’s news crew.

By the way, about the marriage proposal I talked to you about, I have rejected

it. It is self-deception after all to marry someone without love, someone whom

I have seen only in a photograph. It would also be an act of disrespect for the

other party. On the day I returned home after you served me the delicious miso

soup, I spent the whole night thinking about the matter. I decided to write to

my father in Miyazaki to tell him that I will reject the proposal. It is a wicked

custom to have the oldest son chained to the feudalistic system we call the family. A marriage without love can even be called a sin. It was shameful of me as

a man to have to go back on my word, but besides my father, I have only you

to tell the story. I, Kodama Eisui, have been working as a “security officer” since

the Nichigeki Incident. This time, on orders from the state, I will defend my

country by going to the Philippines. My state of mind now reflects that of the

sakimori border guards during the time of Man’yōshū: “From this day on, without looking back, I set out to be a humble shield for my emperor.”13 If I manage to return to Japan safely, I wish to protect you again. Before my departure, I thought to send you a few words of farewell.

One dark night a few days later, Kodama came to see me during the blackout. We faced each other in a moonlit room. “I’ll send you letters from the Philippines.” Suddenly, I found it hard to part with him, and proceeded to take him all

The Spring of My Youth

145

the way to the vicinity of Roppongi. “I think you should go back now,” he said.

But the moon was very beautiful that night, and I wanted to take him to whatever place he wanted to go. Kodama lived in an apartment near the Soviet Embassy in Mamiana.14 “I haven’t yet arranged my books on my bookshelves,” he said.

“Please take whatever you wish to read.”

I helped him organize the books in his apartment and took away about twenty

of them for memory’s sake. He tied up ten each in a bundle with straw rope, spread

their weight evenly on his shoulders, and took me back home. We walked in silence in the blackout hours to and from Mamiana to Nogizaka; there was hardly

another soul on the streets.

Feeling tired as I walked, I staggered and was about to fall. Kodama quickly

supported me with his hands. That was only the second time I held his hand; the

first was during our “escape” from the theater. His big, warm hands seemed to

have folded me around him. Somehow, we both felt a little romantic and continued

walking while holding hands. Suddenly, a policeman leaped out from his police

box and yelled, “Hey, you! What do you two think you’re doing, a man and a

woman walking hand in hand in this time of emergency!”

The next day, I was again caught, this time by the railway security police inside Tokyo Station, where I had gone all by myself to see Kodama off. Saying that

Japan was at war, the authorities did not allow those who came to see people off

to enter the grounds of a train station. But I had managed stealthily to sneak onto

the platform of the Tōkaidō Line. That was where I was caught and questioned. I

begged the policeman to let me see a close friend off before his departure to the

front, and the policeman was good enough to turn away, lean against the other side

of the pillar, and pretend not to see what I was doing.

The train for Shimonoseki started to move. Bending his head so that it wouldn’t

bump against the roof of the train compartment, Kodama held a purple cloth bag

with his military sword in his left hand.

In the early summer of 1945, a letter came to me care of the main office of

Shanghai’s Huaying Films. It came from Kodama and was mailed from Manila.

Japan’s defeat looked imminent, and correspondence with the south was about to

be broken off. Manila had been taken back by the United States, and everybody

said that it was a miracle that the letter reached me. But the postmark showed that

it had been mailed in October the year before, and the envelope was all wrinkled

and dirty as a result of having been sent to and returned from various locations.

Kodama wrote:

Here, the most popu lar figure is President Laurel,15 and the second most popu lar is Li Xianglan. Wouldn’t you consider coming to the Philippines while

you’re enjoying such popularity? I offer to be your security guard again. I was

146

Chapter 9

very happy to learn about your fine reputation in such a faraway place. You

must come, and I’ll make the arrangements.

Enclosed with the letter was a photograph showing him with a safari-look in a

jeep. Suddenly, the thought of going to Manila came to my mind. But with the

conditions of the war, that was far from a practical proposition; Manila had already fallen into American hands.

After my postwar repatriation to Japan, I attempted to get as much information about Kodama as I could from various sources, but all my efforts were in vain.

And then, a magazine scheduled a conversation between me and the writer Kon

Hidemi16 in connection with the fi lm The Shining Day of My Life (Waga shōgai no

kagayakeru hi) directed by Yoshimura Kōzaburō.17 I had met Kon before in Beijing along with Kume Masao. Later in Xinjing, we also had a meal together with

Director Amakasu.

In the middle of our conversation, brought on by some cue, Kon suddenly

said, “You know Kodama Eisui, don’t you? He saved the lives of many of us Japanese, you know. Quite a man, a good guy. I went to Manila in 1944, and Kodama

at the news crew helped me out a lot. After he heard somewhere that I was acquainted with Li Xianglan, he came to visit me at my lodging with some whisky

and beer. And every night, we’d talk about Li Xianglan as we had our drinks . . .”

Keeping his promise that “I shall return,” General MacArthur landed in

January 1945 at Lingayen Gulf on the island of Luzon as the Supreme Allied Commander of the South West Pacific Area and began his march on the capital. In

central Manila on the edge of Roxas Boulevard is the historical Manila Hotel.

Across the street from the hotel is the Rizal Park where one can fi nd Intramuros, a fortification built by the Spaniards. That area is referred to as Manila’s “Old

Walled City.”

At the time of the Japanese defense of Manila, Intramuros was their last stronghold. On February 3, 1945, the American forces began their assault. Rear Admiral Iwabuchi, Commander of the Naval Special Base Force, refused the army’s

recommendation to withdraw and barricaded his naval brigade inside Intramuros. On February 26, Iwabuchi committed suicide. By the beginning of March,

all his naval defense forces had perished. Kodama seemed to be working with

those men at the time. When I received his letter in Shanghai, Kodama had been

dead for several months already.18

It was in October of 1944 when General Yamashita Tomoyuki arrived in Manila as Commander of Luzon’s Fourteenth Area Army. Astonished to learn that

there were still Japanese residents in the city as the American forces made their

approach, he was reportedly infuriated that they still had not been asked to leave.

He immediately gave orders that all Japanese civilians within Manila evacuate at

The Spring of My Youth

147

once. Kodama and others were given the responsibility to secure their retreat, and

when it became clear that virtually all of them had done so, Kon asked Kodama

to return to Japan with him. Kodama responded that he would organize a group

of storm troops and stay until the bitter end to share his fate with Rear Admiral

Iwabuchi. Despite Kon’s tenacious urging, Kodama stubbornly stuck to his position like a Kyushu man, saying, “I will fight to the end in Manila, and if I survive,

I will return.” He then took off a small locket hanging on his chest and showed it to

Kon.

With his eyes closed, Kon reminisced about the scene at the time. “For a really tough guy like Kodama, I was quite surprised that he should wear such a thing

as a locket next to his skin. But let me tell you, inside the locket was your photograph. He was wearing a rising-sun headband and the locket on his chest as he

stormed his enemies through the burning streets of Manila!”

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Chapter 9: The Spring of My Youth

1. A heavily government-sanctioned “para-fascist” organization created in

October 1940 under the second Konoe Fumimaro cabinet to promote the administration’s “New Order” movement and to centralize Japan’s war time efforts by merging political parties and mobilizing the domestic population. By June 1942, it absorbed

under its wings such broadly based organizations as the Great Nippon Patriotic Industry Association, the Great Nippon Women’s Association, and various neighborhood associations.

2. Nogami Yaeko (1885–1985), one of the most prominent writers of modern

Japan whose career spanned from the late Meiji period into the postwar decades.

Socially and politically engaging, with an imagination often informed by a bold, liberal sensibility, her major works included Machiko (1928–1930), Watashi no Chūgoku

ryokō (1959), and Hideyoshi to Rikyū (1962–1963). Particularly notable was her ambitious Meiro (six vols., 1936–1956), a massive work reimagining the intellectual and

spiritual vicissitudes of Japan’s war time years and a work that the renowned fi lm director Yamamoto Satsuo aspired to turn into a fi lm before his death in 1983.

3. Miyazawa Kiichi (1919–2007), Finance Minister in the Takeshita Noboru

cabinet in 1987, went on to serve as Prime Minister in 1991–1993 and again as Finance

Minister in 1998–2001 under the Obuchi Keizō and Mori Yoshirō administrations.

4. The Japanese name for the school is Gyōsei.

5. Directed in 1934 by Marcel L’Herbier (of L’Argent [1929] fame) and screened

in Japan under the name Karisome no kōfuku (A Transient Happiness). Charles Boyer

plays Philippe Lutcher, an anarchist artist, while Gaby Morlay takes the lead female

role as the popu lar music hall star and actress Clara Stuart.

6. Their Japa nese names are Jiji Tsūshinsha and Kyōdō Tsūshinsha, respectively.

7. For an appraisal of Matsuoka Yōsuke’s diplomatic career in English, see

David J. Lu’s Agony of Choice: Matsuoka Yōsuke and the Rise and Fall of the Japanese

Empire, 1880–1946 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002). For a contrasting evaluation, see Frederick R. Dickinson’s review of Lu’s book in Journal of Japanese Studies

30, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 167–171.

8. The original text identifies Nomonhan as currently in the County of New

Barag Left Banner in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China.

9. The original text gives its source as “Kantōgun I” from Bōeichō Senshishitsu.

10. For studies on the Nomonhan Incident in English, see Alvin D. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), and

Edward J. Drea, Nomonhan: Japan-Soviet Tactical Combat 1939 (Fort Leavenworth,

Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1981).

11. The original text identifies Maki as being active in Europe in the early

Shōwa period and as the founder of the Maki Operatic Troupe upon his return

to Japan.

324

Notes to Pages 142–150

12. Kikumasamune is a famous sake brand; indeed, a popu lar commercial

song was called “Yappari ore wa Kikumasamune!” (Kikumasamune is my kind of

sake!), composed and with lyrics by the memorable Nakamura Haichidai–Ei Rokusuke duo. One gō is about 0.18 liter. A mid-size bottle today usually contains 4 gō.

13. In A Warbler’s Song in the Dusk: The Life and Work of Ōtomo Yakamochi

718–785 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), Paula Doe’s translation of the

same poem reads: “From today on, Without a look back, I go to be the emperor’s damn

shield” (p. 218). For brief summaries of the controversy over the translation of shiko

no mitate, an expression used in the poem, see Doe, Warbler’s Song, p. 218, and Emiko

Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization

of Aesthetics in Japanese History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 353,

n. 24. For a study on the subject, see Tesaki Masao, Shiko no mitate kō: Man’yō sakamori uta no kōsatsu (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2005).

14. In Azabu in Tokyo’s Minato Ward. The place name, meaning “the raccoon hole,” presumably alluded to the many raccoon dogs that lived in the area in

the past.

15. The original carries a note identifying him as the father of Vice President

Laurel under the Aquino administration.

16. Kon Hidemi (1903–1984), novelist, critic, translator of Gide, Professor of French

literature at Meiji University from 1933, and widely known for his wit and erudition.

Conscripted into the army’s Press Division, he was first sent to the Philippines in 1941

and again in 1944 to report on the war situation on the island of Leyte, a duty that led

to his fl ight into the mountains of the Philippines with the withdrawing Japa nese

troops. His reminiscences of that experience, Sanchū hōrō (Tokyo: Hibiya Shuppansha, 1949), is regarded as his representative work and a masterpiece in Japanese war

literature.

17. Yoshimura Kōzaburō (1911–2000) established his reputation with such Shōchiku

productions as Danryū (1939) before making fi lms for the Modern Film Association

he established in 1950 with Shindō Kaneto. Among his more well-known postwar works

are Mori no Ishimatsu (1949), Ashizuri-misaki (1954), Kokoro no sanmyaku (1966),

and Ranru no hata (1974).

18. For a detailed description of the fighting, see Thomas M. Huber’s online

and undated article “The Battle of Manila,” at http://battleofmanila .org /pages/01

_huber.htm.