Article Title: 【今こそ知りたい幕末明治】若津港異聞 女優・李香蘭について
English Title: Strange Tales of Wakatsu
Port –
Actress Ri Kouran
Link: https://www.sankei.com/region/news/180629/rgn1806290029-n1.html
(Note-Sankei is one of the big national newspapers in Japan)
Translation of
Interesting Parts of Article (i.e. section marked in yellow below) -
(First couple lines of article
are a rehash of YY’s life…no new information is introduced.)
Father Fumio was born in 1889
and registered in the family records located in Saga Prefecture, Kishima
County, Kitagata Town (modern day Takeo City).
At age 17, Fumio crossed over to China.
Mother Ai was born in 1894 in
Wakatsu, Fukuoka Prefecture. From the
time of the end of the Shogunate-Edo period, Wakatsu was a port town that had a
busy trade relationship with Nagasaki.
Ai’s father was *Kinjiro Ishibashi who ran a cargo shipping business.
Within the Chikugo region, the
last name Ishibashi is quite common especially in the Fukuoka prefectural
cities of Kurume and Okawa. An example
of another Ishibashi family is the one that founded the Bridgestone (Tires)
Corporation.
Regarding Kinjiro, there are
documents from the early days of Wakatsu that show his name. In 1890, there was a publication showing the
names of famous businessman of the region.
Within this, there was a page that showed Kinjiro operating a steamboat cargo
shipping company called “Sengoya”. On
the next page, it showed his older brother Sakutaro operating a similar steamboat
cargo shipping company called “Takanoya”.
Both brothers thus made their living in the Wakatsu cargo shipping
business.
The origin of their business
names can be inferred as follows. The
name of Sakutaro’s “Takanoya” business came from the fact that his hometown was
located in Kurume City’s Takanoya District.
For Kinjiro’s “Sengoya” business name, he took it from the fact that he
previously ran a navigation business on the Chikugo River (Note: “Sen”
came from the word Suisen for navigation and “Go” is from the
river name Chikugo. Lastly, “Ya”
means business)
Things changed drastically in
1909 due to the opening of the Okawa railroad tracks that had recently been
constructed to connect to Wakatsu Port.
The impact to the cargo shipping business that had started in the
previous Edo period was quite strong.
For Kinjiro, it became difficult
for him to run his shipping business (i.e. he could not compete with rail
shipping) and so he relocated his family to Korea in order to seek out new
opportunities. Later, with the support
of family members, he moved to Fushun, Manchuria as per the research performed
by Kwansei Gakuin (University) Professor Tadao Nishimura.
In the 1908 publication of Okawa
entrepreneurs, there is mention of “Takanoya” cargo shipping business, but
there is no mention of “Sengoya”.
When
she ran for public office, YY visited Wakatsu and greeted her Ishibashi
relatives.
Professor
Nishimura said that before her passing, YY made the following remark regarding
her physical appearance in an interview: “Four generations ago, French genes
were mixed into my family”.
Assuming
YY’s remark is true, we wonder what kind of relationship her family had with
France. This is something that we hope
Professor Nishimura will reveal one day.
YY
became a major actress thanks to the linguistic talents passed on from her
father and the physical beauty passed on from her mother.
Without
the development and later decline of cargo shipping at Wakatsu Port, there may
never had been a big star such as Ri Kouran.
This is one of the strange consequences of history.
Notes by blog reader:
·
Wakatsu Port is known today as Okawa City.
·
Okawa City is coincidentally also the hometown of
composer Masao Koga who wrote YY’s wartime songs
·
Per Britanica, Dutch techniques of wood-working was introduced in
mid-19th century to the Okawa area.
Could this French ancestor had been a carpenter connected with the Dutch
that were based in Dejima in
nearby Nagasaki?
·
Per
the comments made by Takahashi (YY’s friend) in the NHK documentary, the
ancestor was either French or Belgian (i.e. not Dutch). But other foreigners were severely restricted
in entering Japan prior to Commander Perry arriving in Jpn in 1853.
·
Not
much is available on internet about the research of Professor Nishimura, a specialist in Modern
Chinese literature but it was written that he has analyzed YY’s movie “Bansei
Ryuho” (1943 film "Eternity") extensively.
Sankei
Article
筑後川下流の若津港は、江戸時代後期から明治にかけて繁栄を極め、わが国の物流ルートの変化に伴い衰退していった。最近、この若津港の歴史に花を添える事実が出現した。国際派女優として波瀾（はらん）万丈の生涯を送った「李香蘭」、日本名「山口淑子」との縁である。
李香蘭は大正９年２月１２日、父・山口文雄と母アイ（旧姓石橋）の間に、中国大陸東北部の奉天北煙台で生を受けた。
父が南満州鉄道（満鉄）で中国語の教師をしていたこともあり、彼女は日本語と中国語に堪能であった。「中国人スター李香蘭」として昭和１３年、満州映画協会からデビューした。端麗な容姿から、人気は急上昇した。
終戦後帰国してからも、国際派女優としての名声は続いた。参議院議員へも転身した。
その伝説の女優は、筑後川流域と、どんな縁があったのだろうか。
父の文雄は明治２２年生まれで、本籍は佐賀県杵島郡北方町（現武雄市）だった。１７歳で中国に渡る。
一方、母のアイは明治２７年、若津で生まれた。若津港は江戸期、幕末維新期より、長崎との交易は非常に頻繁であり、父の石橋近次郎は廻船（かいせん）業を営んでいた。
ちなみに筑後地区の「石橋姓」は、福岡県の久留米市と大川市に多い。有名なのは、ブリヂストンを創業した石橋家であろう。
近次郎に関しては、若津時代の資料が残る。明治２３年刊の「筑肥有名家独案内」（国立国会図書館蔵）である。右ページに「汽船廻漕（かいそう）業先後屋・石橋近次郎」、左ページに「汽船廻漕業高野屋・石橋作太郎」とある。作太郎と近次郎兄弟は若津にて廻船業を生業としていた。
資料に残る兄弟の屋号から論考すると、作太郎「高野屋」の由来は久留米・高野地区の出身であることを示したのであろう。また、近次郎「先後屋」の由来は、筑後川で船の「水先案内人」も生業としたからでなかろうか。
ところが明治４２年に三潴（みづま）軌道、大正元年の大川鉄道と、若津港に鉄路が開設された。この物流ルートの変化が、江戸から続く大物流拠点の廻船業者にも変化を強いた。
近次郎は家業が立ち行かなくなり、新天地を求め、朝鮮半島に一家で移住した。その後、親戚（しんせき）を頼り満州撫順へ移る。この経緯は、関西学院大学の西村正男教授に、ご教示いただいた。
明治４１年頃の「大川町実業家案内」の詳細一覧表には、「高野屋回漕店」の記載はあるが「先後屋」はないのである。
李香蘭、山口淑子は参議院選挙全国区に出馬する際、ここ若津の地を訪れた。石橋家ほか、親類縁者へあいさつ回りをしている。
日本人ばなれした容貌について、本人が晩年「４代前の系譜にフランス人の血が混じっている」とインタビューに答えたと、西村氏よりご指摘があった。
本人の話が真実であるならば、フランスとどんな関わりがあったのだろうか。関学の西村氏の研究で新事実が出てくることを期待してやまない。
女優・李香蘭は父から教わったであろう語学力と、母譲りの美貌でスターの座をつかんだ。
繁栄と衰亡。若津港の変遷がなければ、大女優は生まれなかったかもしれない。歴史の不思議がある。
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