I’ve also had a taste of this sort of criticism. Some readers of my first translation, The Back I Want to Kick (Keritai senaka) by WATAYA Risa, have told me they feel the tone is too “youthful” and “Americanized.” The author herself was seventeen when she won the Akutagawa for that work, and here I must admit that I was also that age when I undertook the translation. It’s youthful because the author and I were youthful, but it’s American because I am American.

This is the classic conflict between domestication and foreignization, between bringing the text closer to the target language while potentially losing some features of the source text and, on the other hand, translating in a way that “signals the differences of that text” but which may alienate target-language readers. I feel professionally obliged to name-check Lawrence Venuti here, but I don’t want to get too into theory in this essay, precisely because it is a very theoretical topic that I want to make personal.

Because this is personal, in the way that all language choices are personal. Something Emmerich said at the masterclass stuck with me: “You only have choices.” And these choices are always meaningful, because words mean something to us – not just to anyone engaged in creative writing, but to all people who use language. The words we use with our families, the words we use with our lovers, to describe our dreams, or the meal we ate last night, or how bad our day at work was – they all mean something deeply personal, imbued as they are with all the experiences we’ve ever associated with those words.  Every book we’ve read, every conversation we’ve had, and every time we’ve struggled to express ourselves to others helps form our personal language, our idiolect. The way we use language is inseparable from our lives.

This means language use is also political, particularly when it comes to a language with as many global varieties as English. And especially in the case of translation into English, language use is also about economics. David Bellos notes in Is That a Fish in Your Ear? that the “target audience of most English-language publishing houses, for most of the books they put out, is indeterminately large, and includes American, Australian, Indian, Canadian and South African readers – each large grouping feeling most at home in significantly different varieties of the spoken and written tongue.” The economic pressure of needing to produce a text which can be read – and sold – in as many countries as possible leads to eschewing the usage of regional differences in translations. Bellos describes how this makes many translations, in their attempt to be natural to as many speakers as possible, subtly unnatural in a way that the original works and works originally written in English aren’t:

The language of translations-in-English is therefore not a representation of a language spoken or written anywhere at all. Because its principal feature is to be without regional features it’s hard to see from outside – and that’s precisely the point of this sophisticated stylistic trick. ‘Tranglish’ is [...] smooth and invisible, and it has some important advantages. Detached with skill and craft by professional language doctors from any regional variety of the tongue, it is easier to translate than anything actually written in ‘English’ by a novelist from, say, Queensland, Ireland, Wessex or Wales. But as it is already translated [...], any remaining strangeness in the prose, in the ears of a speaker of any of the myriad varieties of English the world over, is automatically construed as a trace of the foreign tongue, not of the translator’s identity. The ‘translator’s invisibility’, eloquently denounced by Lawrence Venuti as a symptom of the anti-intellectual, anti-foreign bias of Britain and America, is also the unintended result of the unbounded nature of the English language itself. (196-7)

It is because English is used in so many places that we are criticized for using regional features in translations; it is because we are sensitive users of language with command of multiple languages and registers that we become translators, but it is because we are translating that we cannot use some of those resources. Well, I say fuck that.

—-

It may be difficult to tell from my writing, but I am not actually a native speaker of standard American English.

My mother tongue is Appalachian English - to my ears, the sweetest and most painful sounds on earth. It is sweet, of course, because it means home, the people and the landscape that I love, the food I grew up with, the music that reflects my ancestry; it is painful because it means years of suppressing the way I speak and think, the prejudice that leads me and others to hide it, exile of a kind, and the history of poverty and neglect that are wrapped up, inseparably, with that concept of home. And because they are made up of idiolects, this is what dialects are: not simply a catalog of the grammatical features and words that set it apart from the standard variety, but also all of the experiences of the people who speak them: our shared history, politics, culture (traditional, popular, whatever), etc.

I learned standard American English in school and college, sometimes happily and sometimes painfully. Anyone who loves language can identify with the joy of learning a beautiful word or one that helps you better communicate your intentions. But I think speakers of denigrated dialects, as mine is, experience a unique pain, because this learning often comes about due to overwhelming cultural and economic pressure to conform linguistically and requires a tacit acknowledgment that we are, in some way, lacking. The linguistic choices we make can symbolize rejection of our origins, for social or economic advancement. And with all that dialect represents in our hearts, this is a rejection of ourselves.

I learned these lessons a second time when I moved to England four years ago. I never thought I’d adjust to my new linguistic environment, but as I’ve been writing this essay I’ve had to catch myself: “catalogue,” “symbolise,” etc. It’s been many months now since I received an email at work reminding me not to use American English in my writing, and the American-British style guide next to my desk has grown dusty from disuse. I take some grim pride in the fact that I can try on someone else’s dialect convincingly enough to “pass.” But I take no pleasure when people “compliment” me by saying, “Really, you’re American? Well, you’re very good – you can hardly tell, you know.” Because I’ve heard that before, only it was: “Really, you’re from Kentucky? Well, you can hardly tell, you know.” And every time it reminds me that once again, the words I use, even those learned painfully, are not good enough. So I find myself, in daily speech, making an active choice to eschew any “difference,” whether American or British. I have become a fluent speaker of Globish, that self-effacing, artificial language which has no country and boasts no native speakers.

And like Globish, some days I hear myself and I think, I’m from nowhere.

But I’m not. Nobody is. Not authors, not readers, and not translators.

—-

To embrace our linguistic backgrounds fully would mean creating our own radical practice of translation, rejecting invisibility in favor of difference and creating a world in which all of our words can potentially be used. In order to give people without access to the original my own very subjective reading of a text, I have to accept all the linguistic (and non-linguistic) experiences that have brought me to that reading. The very act of translation places translators in the text, indelibly. What do translators have to lose from putting even more of ourselves and our experiences into our translations?

Well, we might get more bad reviews like Emmerich has. But what do we have to gain from putting ourselves higher in the mix? We’ll be able to use the full range of our linguistic talents, our experiences, and our keen observation skills – in short, all the things that make us translators. We’ll be able to be more honest with ourselves and the world about the process of translation, how we filter a text through ourselves. This makes us vulnerable, yes, but it also can be used as a tactic to transform readers’ conceptions of translators and what we do. Because it’s not just about the text, or the author’s intention. It’s also about us, our hearts, and the real world.

William Maxwell Bickerton, September 1924.
Property of the National Library of New Zealand.

At Wednesday’s Tsuda lecture at SOAS, Professor Norma Field, in discussing the Japanese proletarian cultural movement in connection with the Fukushima catastrophe, noted that the first English translator of Kobayashi Takiji was also the first (perhaps only?) Westerner detained and tortured by the secret police. This, though only a passing mention, was like translator-crack to me.

And what is a translator, really, but a nerd with great research skills?

First: in April 1934 we find our subject in Hansard, the parliamentary record — Mr. William Maxwell Bickerton.

Mr. JOHN WILMOT asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that Mr. William Maxwell Bickerton, an English master resident in Tokio and a British subject, was arrested and imprisoned in Tokio on 13th March, was refused permission to communicate with the British Consul until 23rd March, and that, although no charge has been made against him, he still remains in gaol; if he has any information as to the reason for which Mr. Bickerton has been imprisoned; what steps are being taken to see that he is either released or brought to trial and, in the latter event, what arrangements are being made for his defence; and will he state what rights, by treaty or otherwise, as to communication with the British Consul are enjoyed by British subjects in Japan in the event of arrest by the Japanese authorities?

Sir J. Simon, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, replies:

Yes, Sir; I am aware of the circumstances relating to Mr. Bickerton’s arrest. According to the statement of the Japanese authorities, he is suspected of an offence in connection with alleged Communist activities.

Wilmot’s reply makes the unease of the situation clear:

While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, may I ask him if he is aware that this gentleman, who has resided in Japan for some years, and is a highly respected English master at the University, has been informed unofficially that his offence is that of harbouring dangerous thoughts; and whether, in the circumstances, the position of British nationals in Japan is not one to which His Majesty’s Government should give serious consideration?

No reply is given.

Let’s turn to this excerpt from Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume 4, edited by Hugh Cortazzi:

[William Empson] knew a 32-year-old New Zealander, William Maxwell Bickerton, who had been teaching in Tokyo since 1924. Max Bickerton had a reputation as a translator into English of Japanese proletarian novels such as The Cannery Boat, by Kobayashi Takiji. On 13 March 1934, he was taken into police custody — where he was ill-treated or allegedly beaten — and charged with promoting Communist interests. At a preliminary examination held in the Tokyo District Court on 30 April, evidence was given that on four separate occasions since September 1933 he had made financial contributions to the Japan Communist Party; he was charged under the Amendment made by Imperial Ordinance in 1928 to the Law relating to the Preservation of Peace and Order, and remanded for public trial. Mr Bickerton was ‘well aware,’ it was officially written, ‘that the Japanese Communist Party was a secret organization which aimed, as the Japan branch of the Comintern, at the transformation, by revolutionary means, of the national constitution of this country …’ But the British Consul in Tokyo managed to get him released on bail.

And from the Singleton Argus (May 23, 1934):

Tokio, Monday.–The police revealed to-day that since last year 736 persons, including 134 women, have been accused or suspected of Communist activities or sympathies, of which 53 have so far been indicted. All were Japanese, except a New Zealander, Mr Bickerton. The police charge against Mr Bickerton is that he contributed 500 yen to Japanese Communists, and assisted in the interchange of literature between British and Japanese Communists.

Prior to departing in April last year on leave of absence from two Government high schools where he taught, Mr Bickerton offered to contribute 300 yen from his travelling expense money to a Communist friend, who, however, was subsequently arrested. Mr Bickerton proceeded to Moscow, and then had several months in London, where he obtained and sent Japanese Communists 60 copies of various European Communist magazines. He also translated and gave British Communists articles published by the Japanese “Red Flag.”

Returning to Japan in September he paid 100 yen to a Communist named Matsumoto, who secretly interviewed him on the beach near Mr Bickerton’s residence. Thereafter he contributed 100 yen monthly from October to January through various intermediaries. At Matsumoto’s suggestion, Mr Bickerton in October applied for membership to the Japanese Communist Party, but while debating whether they would admit foreigners, the organisation’s leaders were arrested.

Mr Bickerton was himself arrested on March 13 and indicted on April 6. He is still out on bail of 200 yen. The date of his trial has not yet been fixed.

Police state that the Communists are in stringent financial difficulties, and that Mr Bickerton’s contributions assisted them considerably.

Who was this Matsumoto? He and Bickerton are mentioned in An Instance of Treason: Ozaki Hotsumi and the Sorge Spy Ring by Chalmers A. Johnson:

The troubles of Matsumoto Shin’ichi (1901-1947), Ozaki’s friend from the time they were students together at Ichikô, also occupied Ozaki throughout much of 1939. After leaving college Matsumoto had become an ardent Communist sympathizer; he was first arrested in 1931 for having contributed to the Noulens Defense Committee fund. In 1933 he was working closely with the Japanese Communist Party’s Information Section, and he associated with the well-known Party leaders Noro Eitarô (killed by the police in 1934), Kazahaya Yosoji, and Miyamoto Kenji (both of whom later became members of the JCP’s Central Committee). Matsumoto was arrested a second time for violating the Peace Preservation Law on February 16, 1934, and his arrest led to the unusual prosecution of William Maxwell Bickerton, the first foreigner arrested under the Peace Preservation Law. Matsumoto was in jail for nearly two years, until November 16, 1935[.]

But then we have a remarkable historical document – Bickerton’s own account from the Manchester Guardian, July 1934, of his time in Japanese custody, which I will reproduce in full:

The inhuman treatment in the police cells, while of course not aimed specifically at me, nevertheless is calculated to break the spirit of any prisoner. I was confined in a cell measuring 12 feet by 5 1/2, in which there were never less than nine, and sometimes as many as fourteen, other prisoners. Among my cell mates were three insane persons at different times, all of them raving. During the twenty-four days of my confinement I was never allowed to have a bath. Prisoners must sit with their legs crossed all day. No exercise is allowed. I was given three meals per day, consisting in all cases of bread and jam with cold milk, for which I paid 10 sen. The brutality of the jailers is beyond imagination. I was not beaten by them, but the almost daily sight of other prisoners being stripped and beaten with sticks till their backs were a row of weals or kicked till they could not stand up– and all for very minor infringements of discipline — was hard to bear.

In prison, conditions as I experienced them were very different, and I have no complaints to make, except, of course, to say that the food is not suitable for Europeans. The jailers were all decent to me, and the one especially in charge of me, Io, could not have been more kind.

In the preliminary hearing of my case, Judge Tokuda afforded me every kindness, and I have no complaints to make — except to say that when I told him how the police had beaten me he displayed not the slightest interest.

The police examination was conducted by two plain-clothes police officers named Ogasawara and Suga. It took place at police headquarters.

During the second day’s examination (on March 14) Ogasawara remarked that I had probably heard tales of police torture from my Left-wing friends but that I would see for myself they were untrue as I would never be forced to say anything. The next morning the chief of the Foreign Section of the Police Headquarters came into the room and said, ‘I hear that you want to see the Consul or a lawyer.’ I answered, ‘Yes.’ He then stated that until I had answered all their questions I could not see either the Consul or a lawyer. If there were any points of law I wanted to be made clear, he would always be glad to explain them. In any case, he concluded, he had already spoken about my case to the Consul.

The fourth examination was on Monday, March 19. It began about 11 a.m. At about 6 p.m. Ogasawara said that if I would admit giving the money to Matsumoto, we could then go on to investigate my motive for giving it. He went on talking for about half an hour; I let him talk. Suddenly he said, ‘Now what was your motive?’ I realized the trap and said vehemently, ‘As I never gave the money, how can I have had a motive?’ He exchanged incredulous glances with Suga and said, ‘Half an hour ago you admitted giving it. We both saw you nod your head. How could we be discussing motives otherwise?’

When finally they saw that I maintained my denial, they went on to another point and worked out with me how I spent my monthly salary of 565 yen. After writing down all items, there was still a surplus of about two hundred yen, which I did not know how I spent. Ogasawara wrote down the figures 200 yen on paper, telling me to stare at them until I remembered. For some minutes I stared at the figures in silence in spite of their demands for an answer. Then Suga lost his temper and stamped on my toes. When I winced, he said, ‘Oh! So you are a human being after all; you can feel pain. Then answer.’ My continued silence caused him to start kicking me on the leg, smacking my face and punching me on the ear. finally, turning to Ogasawara, he said, ‘It’s no use being gentle with this beast (chikusho),’ and going out of the room soon returned with a baseball bat. ‘It’s six years since I used this. I’m a bit out of practice,’ he smiled. He made me sit up straight on the chair, asked the question once more, and when I did not answer gave me a crack across both legs above the knee with the bat. The question was repeated again and again, each time with a blow on the legs or thigh. Suga continued to hit me half-heartedly for some time, until finally they finished up the day’s examination at about 8:30 p.m.

The first part of the next examination was plain sailing, being a statement of family circumstances, ideas, growth of interest in the Japanese revolutionary movement, the publication of a volume of my translations of Japanese proletarian stories by Martin Lawrence, and so forth. At about 5 p.m. the assistant chief gave instructions to carry right on till he came back from dinner.

About 9 p.m., Suga discovered, among papers seized from my house, a translation, from Sekki (the Red Flag), in my handwriting, of the confession of an agent-provocateur. ‘Is this tsushin?’ asked Ogasawara. Not realizing for the moment how strong the word ‘tsushin‘ (a report, especially one sent by a correspondent) was, I answered, ‘Yes.’ He wrote that down, and then followed a storm of questions. ‘Whom did I send these reports to?’ … ‘What papers were they published in?’ … ‘Did I get paid for the work?’ … ‘How many times had I sent these reports since September… twenty, fifteen, ten nine, eight, seven, six?’ I was so tired and weak I could hardly speak. I begged them to stop the examination for that night, but they repeated their threats of keeping me all night… of giving me some ‘massage’… of calling in stronger me.

At last I answered at random, ‘Six times,’ and he gave me a pencil to write down details of each ‘report’. I said I could not remember the details, so Suga kicked me, smacked my face, punched me many times to help my memory, so he said. When the beating left me only more sullen, Ogasawara said he would promise to stop the examination for the night if I would just give the address of the person I sent the reports to in England. I gave an address, which he wrote down, and then I stood up to go home. ‘Oh, no, not yet. I only said I would not press that point any more to-night. Now we go on to another point.’ This was the only time during the whole examination that I felt absolutely desperate.

Then they began pressing me as to who had given me Sekki. About this time the assistant chief, in kimono, came back. They reported satisfactory progress. He gave them permission to finish up for the night when I had answered who had given me the paper. He said to me, ‘Come on, don’t waste time, anything will do as long as it’s an answer. Where did you get Sekki from? Man, woman, boy, girl, dog, cat; picked up in the street?’ Like a hypnotized person I answered, ‘Man.’ … ‘A Japanese man?’ … ‘Yes.’ … ‘His name?’ … ‘I can’t tell.’ … ‘All right, write that down; that will do for to-night.’

He then came over to me and half affectionately, half-threateningly, curled his arm around my neck saying, ‘You are a decent chap in many ways. I wonder when you’ll say the name. It was Matsumoto, wasn’t it?’ I did not answer, and he continued, ‘I’m afraid these methods alone won’t get it out of you. We’ll have to get someone to give you some of this,’ and playfully he pretended to throttle me, uttering a strange sound of ‘Gurr, gurr’ each time he jerked his arm. Then he took some paper from his kimono sleeve and kindly wiped my greasy face, as he said to the others, ‘We’ll have to get that other fellow (aitsu) to string him up from the roof and give him something, and then perhaps he’ll talk.’

The next day there was no examination, but on Thursday, March 22, when I was brought to headquarters, I told Ogasawara that I wanted to retract what I had said at the last examination, as my brain had been so confused that I had let myself be persuaded into saying anything. He answered that I could not do that. A proof that my brain was not confused, he said, was that on that night I still denied the important things. However, he allowed me to retract certain statements.

On Friday, March 23, after the British consul had seen me, Suga looked extremely uncomfortable. He said I was the most selfish person he had ever known, always considering myself, never considering them and talking a lot of rubbish to the Consul. But the atmosphere was noticeably changed. About 3 p.m. the assistant chief sent in three dishes of mitsumame (beans and jelly) for us, and before 5 p.m. he said we could stop the examination for that day.

About noon on March 24 the examination was resumed by Ogasawara and Suga. The former said to me, ‘To-day is Saturday, so we shall just clear up one point, and then you can have a shave and go back to your Kojimachi home’ (the police station). The point to be cleared up was who had given me Sekki. I said I could never tell because that would be betraying a friend. At 3:30 p.m. we were still at the same point, but the examination was transferred to the chief’s spacious room, as he had gone home. They said they were both tired and wanted to get home to their families, but it was obvious that the assistant chief had told them they must get an answer first. I could think of no more arguments to justify my refusal, so the atmosphere soon became tense. Suga went out of the room and came back with a bamboo fencing stick (shinai). Ogasawara locked the door and pulled down the blinds. Suga started whacking me with the stick across both legs above the knees. ‘From whom did you get them?’ The question was repeated without any variations by both of them so many times that I thought something would snap in my mind. When Suga spoke they made me turn my head to the right to face him when I answered, and when Ogasawara spoke I had to face him. Each time they asked the question Suga beat me. He raised the stick above his head and brought it down with force. He always brought the stick down in the same place, and I could not help wincing. During one lull I said to Ogasawara, ‘You said in front of the Consul yesterday that you never hit me, but what are you doing now?’ But he gave no answer. As the blows were renewed my voice gave out, and I just sat silent. Finally at 5:15 p.m. by the clock in the room, Suga sat down almost in a state of collapse. He shouted almost incoherently, ‘It’s no good, it’s no good. I can’t get anything out of this brute.’ At 5:30 p.m. supper came. They ate theirs in a separate room from me. Then apparently they rang up the assistant chief and got permission to go home, and I arrived back at the Kojimachi police station about 7 p.m. The next day both my legs were sore and bruised.

On Tuesday, March 27, I was brought face to face with a witness named Toshi Otsu. She said she knew me, but I denied knowing her. As the assistant chief led her out of the room, he gave me two ringing smacks across the face. I do not wish to exaggerate, but, really, a little later when I was left alone with Ogasawara and Suga, they were both almost in a frenzy of rage. All the old threats and abuse were hurled at me again. Suga almost danced on my toes. He got his baseball bat and just hammered me on the right leg and thigh. He got me by the hair and banged my head again and again against a cupboard. They shouted again and again, ‘You do know her; you do know her,’ as Suga beat me. The pain in the leg was intense as he kept hitting in the same place as he had hit me on the Saturday, but I remained silent. Finally he threw himself on a chair exhausted and said, ‘He’s too much for me, the beast.’

A message came that the chief wanted to see me. He put before me two alternatives: if I admitted everything, probably I could get off with deportation; if I admitted nothing, I should have to be indicted and spend at least a year in prison awaiting trial, during which time I would not be permitted to communicate with anyone. I asked for the day to consider my decision.

Next morning I determined to make a special effort to see the Consul. The right leg was swollen, but I tried not to limp, so that they would not suspect how bad it was. Ogasawara said the chief was waiting for my answer. I parried by saying that I wanted to see the Consul first as my answer might vary after I had consulted him. This was not allowed, so I answered that I admitted nothing.

Shortly afterwards the chief came into the room and said that he was not refusing to let me see the Consul but that he wanted first to know my reason for wanting to see him. I put forward various ones, all of which were deemed inadequate. I realized that they were not going to let me see him in my present state, so when he said, ‘Is there no other reason?’ I answered, ‘Yes, there is. I wanted to ask him also whether according to Japanese law the police have the right to use force in their examination.’ The assistant chief, Ogasawara, and Suga were all present. Their faces wore the same expression of indignation as when I brought up the same subject in front of the Consul. They all wanted to speak at once.

The chief said that he could answer my question without my asking the Consul. He explained that force (boryoku) should not be used but that men were not gods and police officers were men. When the prisoner was extremely obstinate and refused to admit obvious known facts, the detectives naturally became tired and might on occasion lose their tempers. If such things had happened to me, I was partly responsible.

Several times during the chief’s explanation of the law Ogasawara interrupted with the caution: ‘Remember, the chief is not admitting you were beaten; he is only giving a hypothetical case.’ ‘I quite realize that,’ I answered.

When I finally met the Consul at the court, it was exactly two weeks after the last beating, and the bruises had gone.

Again, let’s turn back to Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume 4, for the rest of the story:

Empson became involved, working to smuggle Bickerton out of the country. According to Ronald Bottrall, he took away Bickerton’s clothes and provided him with an entirely different outfit, complete with dark glasses and a false moustache. Then he booked a passage for Bickerton, obviously in an assumed name, on a foreign freighter. As the pair approached the gangway, a member of the Secret Police appeared — only to present Bickerton with all of his old clothes cleaned and pressed. That final detail might not be so farcical if the Tokyo authorities simply preferred to turn a blind eye rather than risk an international incident. In any event, Bickerton certainly jumped bail and left Japan on the Empress of India on 8 June, bound for Victoria and Vancouver. There is no suggestion that Empson alone arranged for Bickerton to get out of the country by subterfuge. In fact, we cannot even know if he was placed under suspicion for aiding and abetting the escape, or even questioned about it. But there is evidence to indicate that he certainly knew they had an eye on him by then.

(Empson himself was expelled from Japan in 1934 for his homosexuality; the rest of the entry on him is very interesting indeed, and actually, all of the book looks fascinating – mainly tales of English teachers carousing, but at a far enough remove that it seems charming…)

The detail about the member of the Secret Police giving him back his old clothes isn’t one I’ve found in contemporary accounts, which have their own charming details, such as this one from the Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA) from July 17, 1934:

London, July 7.–Mr. Bickerton to-day described his escape while on bail. He said that only one non-Japanese ship fortnightly went direct from Japanese waters. He considered stealing aboard the Empress of Japan the night before her departure and hiding in a lifeboat, but he actually walked openly up the first-class gangway wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a suit in which the police had not previously seen him. Mr Bickerton held a stray paper streamer, waved to imaginary farewellers among the crowd on the wharf and then pretended to doze on a deck chair until outside the territorial limit, when he informed the purser that he was a stowaway with sufficient money to pay his fare.

In 1935, another, quite rousing account from Bickerton on his time in custody appeared as part of a larger, very interesting article about the Communist movement in Japan as he experienced it:

Up to the time of my own arrest I had little or no knowledge of the morale of the Japanese communists. Imprisonment among them gave me an inside knowledge of their calibre which would otherwise have been unattainable. Therefore I count my imprisonment as one of the most important experiences of my life. In the police cells, where I was detained, about forty per cent of the prisoners were communists. These political prisoners were mixed indiscriminately with petty thieves, dope pedlers, confidence men, and rogues and vagabonds generally. I observed that always the communist prisoners had great personal prestige, and no matter how young they were the ordinary prisoners did not dare to bully them, but rather hung on their lips anxious to hear something of this new philosophy which kept its holders cheerful even in surroundings of filth and degradation. The invisible but none the less strong discipline existing among the communists I was soon to experience. On the second morning at wash-time, feeling disgusted with the lack of soap, toothbrush, etc., I gave myself only a perfunctory toilet, and went back to mope in the cell. One communist, aged twenty-one, in the same cell came over to me disapprovingly, and said: ‘You’ll never last out if you behave like that. You should wet your towel like we do, and then come back to the cell, and have a thorough rub-down all over; and while the jailer is busy supervising the others you get the chance to do a few physical exercises as well.’ I took the hint, and certainly found that this procedure enabled me to endure prison conditions much better. The communists are the only ones who thus discipline themselves.

Again when ordinary prisoners are beaten by the jailers for alleged infringements of discipline, they grovel and whine, begging for mercy. The communists on the other hand endure all such punishment with contempt. It so happened that most of the communists in our group of cells had already finished their police examination, and were therefore having a respite from torture and third degree methods. ‘The first month is the worst: if you stick that you are all right,’ they impressed on me. Thus every morning when I was called out for examination the communists in the different cells (including seven women) would creep up to the bars and whisper as I passed: ‘Doshi, gambare!’ (‘Comrade, carry on,’ is perhaps the nearest translation; but this Japanese nil desperandum has become a flaming inspiration, the watchword of the Communist Party in Japan). As I returned at night from the ordeal, I felt the eyes of all the communists were upon me; and even if I was very late those in my cell would still be awake and awaiting my report. …

At the beginning of my examination I was amazed to find that the police were trying to convert me–a foreigner. In a way I can take it as a compliment that they thought me worth saving. Had I been a business man they would have simply deported me forthwith. But my position in the oldest and best of Government high schools, and the popularity (if I may be pardoned for saying so) which I enjoyed with the five thousand students who had been under my tuition during my ten years’ service, made me specially worth converting. Already the Japanese have a team of American and English ‘propagandists’. But as in the Salvation Army, the greater sinner you have been, the better saint you become. Therefore, from the start it was made clear to me that I could have anything I wanted if I would cross over. But the snag is that they judge the sincerity of one’s conversion by one test–the betrayal of others.

Bickerton appears again in Hansard in February 1935. It is important, I feel, to note here that John Simon, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from November 1931 to June 1935, was a controversial figure who is most remembered today as one of the “Guilty Men” called out for their appeasement policies toward Germany, Italy and Japan. Indeed, Simon in particular was criticized repeatedly for his appeasement of Japan through his failure to condemn the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (for which he was, apparently, congratulated by the Japanese emissary). Simon’s pre-war behavior was seen as so toxic that Clement Attlee bluntly refused to appoint him to the British delegation at Nuremburg.

On that note, consider the following exchange:

MR. WILMOT asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement regarding the compensation to be paid to Mr. William Maxwell Bickerton in respect to his ill-treatment by the Japanese Government; and whether any assurances have been given that British subjects will not be so treated in Japan in future?

Sir J. SIMON
I have considered the reply by the Japanese Government to the representations made by His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo. The reply contains satisfactory assurances regarding the future treatment of British subjects arrested in Japan. There is, unfortunately, a conflict of fact between the Japanese Government and Mr. Bickerton as to the latter’s allegation of ill-treatment and I do not consider that in the circumstances a claim for compensation could be usefully made.

MR. WILMOT
While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his reply and for the trouble which he has taken in this matter, may I ask him whether he feels that nothing more can be done, having regard to the fact that this British subject was arrested, thrown into prison for no other crime than that of harbouring dangerous thoughts, and that there is little doubt that he suffered much indignity and some ill-treatment?

SIR J. SIMON
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is well advised in putting these matters of detail, but, if he puts them, of course, I must answer them. In the first place, to be quite fair to everybody, it is not the case that this gentleman was merely arrested on the ground suggested. He was arrested on a charge of a breach of the Japanese law. Whether it was right or wrong, I have not the least idea, but no one can complain because he was arrested. As regards his treatment, that, of course, is a different matter. Unfortunately, as I have said, there is a difference as to the facts, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will see what a difficult thing it would be, therefore, to carry the claim for compensation further.

MR. WILMOT
Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the fact that this British subject was arrested, detained, and, after a long period, released—

MR. SPEAKER
This matter cannot be discussed at Question Time.

If one’s sincerity is to be judged by one’s betrayal of others, Imperial Japan had a very good friend indeed in John Simon. And the Communist Party of Japan suddenly found itself with a very good PR man in the west. These accounts of the torture practiced by the secret police were likely among the first in English and are, as far as I’m aware, the only ones written by a Westerner who experienced it first hand. His courage as a translator and as a human being are worthy of remembrance.

Update (3/16/2013): I’ve added a few more accounts above and I’ve applied to the National Archives to receive a digitized copy of Bickerton’s file.

Update 2 (3/16/2013): Now I’m very eager to see Bickerton’s file. I’ve managed to dig more up — he appears briefly in a biography of Margaret Mead as a “homosexual friend” in Paris in 1926.

Then he appears, suddenly, three times in Barbara Anslow’s diary. Anslow was an internee at Stanley Prison, Hong Kong, as was, it appears, Bickerton:

4 Mar 1945: Very disappointing news – early this a.m. the Japs woke us up calling for Max Bickerton, and men went off re parcels.

27 July 1945: Outside roll call, followed by a general address outside Block 2, where Married Q. people and Blocks A1, A2 and A3 assembled. … Lieut. Kadowaki, looking like a member of the foreign legion with khaki flaps attached to his little cap with 1 star on, Mr Max Bickerton (our interpreter) and Mr Gimson stood on tables – Kadowaki had a table to himself. Kadowaki gave some explosive words in Japanese which Bickerton translated in a low voice to Mr Gimson, who relayed message to us.

17 Sep 1945: Couldn’t eat much (not feeling well). F. Gimson, B. Bickford, Mrs. Hardie, Mr & Mrs R. Minnitt, Max Bickerton & others left by plane for UK. Tony Cole and Jim Johnson sailed on ‘Vindex’ to Australia. Hope it’s our turn next. Went to Bank to draw $200 – so glad it was there (and had been all during internment).

In 1946, he was back in China, in Shanghai. From Friend of China – The Myth of Rewi Alley by Anne-Marie Brady:

Former CIC [Chinese Industrial Cooperatives] worker Max Bickerton, who took up a job teaching English at Peking University, was asked to leave China because of his homosexual activities. Yet a few other foreign gay men were allowed to stay on, perhaps because they were more discreet than Bickerton. But all this was yet to come. In 1949, in remote Gansu, no one could be certain how the Communist policies would affect their lives. None the less, just before liberation, Alley called a meeting of men who were gay at Shandan, mostly Europeans, and told them to be a  little more circumspect because, he said, the Red Army was very puritanical about sex. (p. 45)

Alley’s sexual preferences were known by many of those who worked with him in the co-operatives, though it was seldom discussed openly. Max Bickerton, a fellow New Zealander working in CIC’s Shanghai office, who was himself a homosexual of ‘the more outrageous sort,’ joked to Courtney Archer in 1946: “Think of Rewi Alley out there in the Gobi Desert with 300 boys!” (p. 49)

A little bit more about his life in Shanghai and Beijing from Foreigners and Foreign Institutions in Republican China, edited by Anne-Marie Brady and Douglas Brown:

Max Bickerton, who had worked for the CIC and in 1949 took up a job teaching English at Peking University, was asked to leave China because of his homosexual activities. Yet a few other foreign gay men were allowed to stay on, perhaps because they were more discreet than Bickerton. According to Peter Townsend, who worked with him in the 1940s, Bickerton was very blatant about his sexual preferences; he would go out in the evenings dressed up in lipstick and makeup. Bickerton boasted to his co-worker Mavis Yan about his sexual exploits: “I had a wonderful night last night with a laundry man.”

And in 1949 he turns up in Beijing in this account of the life of his friend Empson, William Empson, Volume II : Against the Christians by John Haffenden:

Max Bickerton, the New Zealand Communist whom Empson had last seen in Tokyo in 1933, turned up in Peking at this time and jumped at the offer of a teaching post at Peita. (The homosexual Bickerton grew very close to Hetta over the months in Peking, and, in a sort of way, he came to love her, though he was rather given to nagging her. Three years later, when the Communists threw him out of his job at the university and out of his room on the campus, only Hetta among the foreign community stepped in to house and feed him. Later, in England, he became her tenant in London and would remain in the house until his death.)

And a little more on this corner of England where he ended his days:

Studio House in Hampstead… was a dishevelled and disheartening place to come home to. The house was still being used as a camping ground by a variety of lodgers including A.G. (Dinah) Stock, the author and anarchist, and John Wright (who had established in Studio House, under the auspices of the Hampstead Artists’ Council, a workshop and studio for the puppet theatre that would become world-famous when it was removed in 1961 to the Little Angel Theatre in Islington), as well as others including Pat Miles, Barry Carmen, and Max Bickerton (who had started a private English language school drawing pupils from among the families of foreign embassies).

“Hey, have any of you guys actually read this book?”
“Yeah, like back in college. I seem to remember her complaining about men and her job a lot?”
“Fuck it, give it the chick lit treatment. #YOLO.”

So the obvious question for this blog to consider is: how are modern female Japanese authors treated in translation? What stereotypes are represented on covers created for Western markets? I’m going to take a half-serious look at two favorites here, Wataya Risa and Kawakami Hiromi.

Wataya Risa (綿矢りさ):

Keritai Senaka (‘The Back I Want to Kick’ 『蹴りたい背中』)

In order: original, Italian, German, and French.
Translators: Antonietta Pastore, Andreas Regelsberger, Patrick Honnoré.

The Italian and German covers here are remarkable. It’s a long step from the awkward, skinned-knee drawing on the cover of the original to a schoolgirl bent over and giving the reader a saucy look as she sips from a water faucet. My Italian isn’t so good, but the translated title is, roughly, Only with the Eyes. All this makes me curious about how exactly the book was marketed in Italy or, more precisely, who it was marketed toward. Some buyers must’ve been incredibly disappointed, to say the least.

The German edition is a mess. According to Wataya, the translator, Andreas Regelsberger, is unhappy with the publisher for choosing a manga illustration for the cover, as it doesn’t fit the content and unnecessarily limits the book’s potential readership. The translated title is Behind Your Paper Doors, which doesn’t have anything to do with the book but does work with the manga and cherry blossoms to conjure a very specifically Japanese and feminine image. The overall effect here is young adult literature, quite possibly a ‘light novel’, which Keritai Senaka is definitely not.

Bonus image of the cover of the French translation of Install (『インストール』), because it really kind of sucks:

I know, right?

Kawakami Hiromi (川上弘美):

Sensei no kaban (‘The Teacher’s Briefcase’『センセイの鞄』)

In order: original, US English, French, German, Spanish (Castellano)
Translators: Allison Markin Powell, Elisabeth Suetsugu, Ursula Gräfe & Kimiko Nakayama-Ziegler, Marina Bornas Montaña

When I first saw the US edition I hated it, because it’s quite dull and non-specifically Asian-y in a way that doesn’t make my skin crawl but exactly make me want to read it either. But compared to the French and German covers, it’s restrained and artful. Dear France, let’s telegraph the book’s origin a little harder because I don’t think you went far enough. You’ve got the sake flask and cup, the chopsticks, and the tray.  Couldn’t fit in a girl in a kimono serving it? Put some neon on it?

In fairness to Germany, the hardback cover looked exactly like the Spanish cover, which I like very much. But let’s be real: the German paperback cover is terrible. How disappointed would you be as a reader, thinking you’re getting some dramatic, old-timey geisha story, and instead you get a really awesome but completely different book about the relationship between a woman and her former teacher? Who do I call to report the publisher for misrepresentation of goods? I actually feel like I’ll be nauseated if I look at this any longer. It’s time to move on.

Manazuru (‘Manazuru’ 『真鶴』)

In order: original, US English, French, German, Polish
Translators: Michael Emmerich, Elisabeth Suetsugu, Ursula Gräfe & Kimiko Nakayama-Ziegler, Barbara Słomka

All in all, a good crop. The English and French covers are pretty similar, unsurprisingly. ‘Woman by the sea’ was always going to be an easy and popular choice for Manazuru. And the Polish cover is SO EXCELLENT. I want a poster of that! All three manage to draw you in and give a hint of the content of the book.

But again, Germany, it’s a little hard for me to not hate you right now. Every other publisher was like, oh, Manazuru, that’s the name of the place, cool. But you’ve got to be different. It was retitled It’s Warmer by the Sea: A Love Story, for some reason (as with Sensei no kaban, above, which became The Sky is Blue, the Earth is White: A Love Story in both German and Spanish). And then, despite having a decent hardback cover from the ‘woman by the sea’ genre, you decide again to go hard on the paperback edition. Nice colors and all, but this reliance on old stereotypes of Japanese femininity is not probably not helping you sell books, if they wind up looking as offensively bland as this.

Conclusions:

• Germany, quit underestimating both the books you publish and the people who want to read them.
• France, I’ve got my eye on you. Watch your step.
• Poland, I like you. I don’t care if people say I shouldn’t have included you as a Western country. Keep doing what you’re doing, baby. Have you considered sending some book designers to Germany to school them as a gesture of goodwill?

Originally performed by Yamaguchi Yoshiko (aka Li Xianglan or Ri Kouran) in the 1941 film Suzhou Nights (蘇州の夜), the song “Suzhou Nocturne”, though beautiful, has an inescapably nasty history. Yamaguchi, born in China to Japanese parents, became a star of Manchukuo Film Association ‘national policy film’ productions – not strictly propaganda films but nevertheless carrying distinctly political elements, usually promoting in some way the idea of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Suzhou Nights is no exception. The film depicts a romance between a Japanese doctor (Sano Shuuji), intent on fulfilling his ‘service to the Empire’, and the head of an orphanage (Yamaguchi) with anti-Japanese sentiments. He eventually dives into the river to save a child from her orphanage, proving to her that he is earnest (and implicitly, that the Japanese imperial mission is). As they fall in love, their conversations take a tediously politically-charged turn: “We have so much to be thankful to the Japanese for… to the doctors and to the soldiers.” “Oh, that’s all right. It’s enough if you understand our true intentions.”

It became a popular song, despite apparently overwhelming public sentiment against the film. “Suzhou Nocturne” was also performed by Bai Hong in 1944 in Mandarin.

Following the end of the war, Yamaguchi was put on trial as a traitor to China, facing the death penalty, until it was revealed she was a Japanese citizen. “Suzhou Nocturne” was consequently banned, not so much for its content but for the historical context and the ideology of the film, and it remained so until at least 1999, according to Kyodo news agency. But it remains a well-known song in Japan to this day, with modern renditions from singers such as Nikaido Kazumi and ASKA from pop duo Chage and Aska.

蘇州夜曲 Soshuu yakyoku (Suzhou Nocturne)
Music: Hattori Ryōichi
Lyrics: Saijo Yaso

C             Dm                          Em                   Am
kimi ga mi mune ni          dakarete kiku wa
君がみ胸に                           抱かれて聞くは

Dm              Am                    Dm         G
yume no funa uta            tori no uta
夢の船歌                              鳥の歌

F              C                                                         Am
mizu no Soshuu no         hanachiru haru o
水の蘇州の                          花散る春を

F                                              C             Dm         Em    G
oshimu ka                           yanagi ga susuri naku
惜しむか                                柳がすすり泣く

C             Dm                         Em                   Am
hana o ukabete                 nagareru mizu no
花を浮かべて                        流れる水の

Dm              Am                    Dm         G
asu no yukue wa              shirane domo
明日の行方は                      知らねども

F              C                                                Am
koyoi utsushita                 futari no sugata
こよい映した                          ふたりのすがた

F                                              C   Dm   Em    G
kiete kureru na                 itsu made mo
消えてくれるな                     いつまでも

C             Dm                         Em                   Am
kami ni kazarou ka          kuchizuke shiyou ka
髪に飾ろうか                         くちづけしようか

Dm              Am                    Dm                 G
kimi ga taorishi                 momo no hana
君が手折りし                         桃の花

F              C                                                      Am
namida gumu you na         oboro no tsuki ni
涙ぐむような                              おぼろの月に

F                                              C Dm Em    G
kane ga narimasu             kan zan ji
鐘が鳴ります                        寒山寺

Translation:

Cradled to your chest, I can hear
the song of the ship from my dreams, the song of the birds
Will you long for spring with its scattered blossoms
in watery Suzhou? The willow weeps

Though we know not where the flower
floating in the flowing water will head tomorrow,
our reflection tonight will never, ever disappear

Shall I put it in my hair? Shall I press it to my lips?
The peach blossom you broke off to give to me
In the moonlight, hazy as though with tears
the bell rings at Kanzanji

『乱調文学大辞典』
(Ranchou bungaku daijiten)

by TSUTSUI Yasutaka (筒井康隆)
published 1986 by Kadokawa Shoten

A

avant-garde 【avɑ̃ɡaʁd】- an old-fashioned artistic movement.

B

Bell Tolls, For Whom the – It tolls for Little Jimmy Brown, of course.

Beckett, Samuel – French playwright. Apparently waiting for someone called Gotō to come?

D

deadline 【ˈdedlɑi̯n】 – For monthly magazines, ten days before publication. Weekly magazines, one day before. Newspapers, one hour before. Illustrations are usually done first.

E

Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich – creator of the monster Potemkin. Referred to as one of the three greatest scientists, along with Einstein and Frankenstein.

I

irony 【ˈaɪ.rə.ni】- Long ago in England lived a poet named George Gordon Iyron. This poet was ignorant, and so he made use of various words incorrectly. And ignorant readers, not realizing this was a mistake, praised it as splendid mockery or as sarcasm. This is whence the word ‘irony’ came to be. In modern times, as well, when something is full of splendid mockery or sarcasm, it is largely by mistake due to the author’s ignorance.

L

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – Like the Japanese translator of this novel, Ito Sei, I want to fight against the forces of the old order, but the most I can do is smoke weed.

M

Miyazawa, Kenji – Not defeated by reviewers
Not defeated by the old masters
Not defeated by editors nor by my bar tab
Really having quite a nerve
Fettered with money
Never losing temper
Always sneering
Every day four cups of whiskey
Herring roe and some rice to eat
If there is a dead author to the east,
Going to the funeral and shit-talking the deceased
If some guy has lost it to the west,
Rushing over to mock them
If there is a prize winner to the south,
Going and saying there’s no need to be afraid
If some guy has broken his leg skiing to the north,
Doing the same to match him
Where there are earthquakes, finding them funny
Where there are fires, going to watch them burn
Everybody saying “let sleeping dogs lie” about me
Without being busy
Or being idle
If I become such an author,
I will have finally matured.

N

Nabokov, Vladimir 【vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr nɐˈbokəf】 – Author of Lolita, although he was 55 at the time. Old masters of Japan, rouse yourselves!

nouvelle vague 【nuvɛl ˈvag】 – a new form of ambiguity discovered by the French.

P

Pen Club – a social club for pens.

pen name – a pen’s name. Examples: Phnom Penh, bull pen, lumpen.

Peter Pan – a children’s novel about a love triangle (Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinker Bell).

S

Stranger, The – novel by the French author Albert Camus. A kind of crime novel, but not enough of a masterwork to bring the author fame. A total bomb, actually. Killing a man because the sun was too bright is not only too weak as a motive for murder, but there is also absolutely no foreshadowing of it. The trial scene lacks impact. Parts with little connection to the section at hand are grandiloquent, boring one slightly. However, more than any other reason, it may be called a complete failure as it does not present a single new trick or idea for a murder.

T

Tale of the Heike, The – The angry shouts of the geisha of Gion
Echo the greed of all things.
The color of the bleached white cotton face
Reveals the truth that one’s genitals are bound to wither.
He who is rich is not so for long,
Like a cat made to hit out.
He who can get it up finally cannot,
To be no more than a melted candle.

Tsutsui, Yasutaka – (Zool.) Mammalia animalocus. Technical name slapstickus paradoxus. Belonging to the SF species of the novelist genus, he is content underground in the Aoyama neighborhood, building his nest.

tranquilizer 【ˈtræŋkwəˌlaɪzɚ】 – another drug kept close at hand by novelists. Has made it difficult to tell in the end whether it was the drug or the author writing; as with racehorses, drug testing of authors is becoming standard.

『二科狂想行進曲』
(Nishina kyousou koushinkyoku)

TERADA Torahiko (寺田寅彦)
November 1928 in Reizan bijutsu 『霊山美術』

1.

from Going Backwards
『逆行』(Gyakkou)
[旧字/新字]

現代若き女性気質集
(Gendai wakaki josei kishitsu shû)

OKAMOTO Kanoko (岡本かの子)

(Note: This piece doesn’t seem to have been published during Okamoto’s lifetime (1886 – 1939) , but the mores that Okamoto refers to are clearly those of the so-called ‘modern girl’ [modan garu or moga] of the 1920s. Modern girls were urban, independent, largely working-class, generally apolitical, free with money and sex, and highly visible with their Western hair and clothes. For a short introduction, you could do worse than this. For a far deeper discussion, Miriam Silverberg’s Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times covers modern girls in depth.) 

–

This is a depiction of the spirit of young women now, a satire, a general sketch, a paradox. There are merits and demerits to their ways. Please take it in this spirit, dear reader.

•  When you look, she’s not there at all anymore. She wanted to test something. She wanted to test herself: her own market value. 
• “Oh, romance and all that is just so stupid I can’t handle it,” she says. “But I couldn’t do without love.”
• She thinks anything that isn’t speedy has nothing going for it. So when she’s bored, at least she can watch the cars out in the road.
• “Marriage? Hmm. I could only marry a man who would let me have my own way, or else a strong man who would require total obedience.”
• If she found a job where she could eat chocolate in her spare time, how wonderful work would be!
• She takes care not to wrinkle even a darned sock when putting it on.
• “Calligraphy, flower arranging, the koto, dancing—it’s these kind of things that actually give me the sense of ‘modernity’, and I’ve thought about learning how to do them, but, well, when I try…”
• “Quit blushing at whatever I say!”
• She hates men who fawn over women, and she hates power-crazy men who look down on women, too. 
• She has no interest in anything she makes herself, be it clothes or friends.
• “When I open my wallet and find I don’t have even one mon, I just laugh like, oh, how amusing. But the problem is I do this even if I already knew. Perhaps it’s because I’m so young.” 
• “Some people say their goodbyes and bow and then just stand around talking some more. We’d never do that kind of thing.”
• “The only time I get a little weepy is when I’m hungry and I have to wait a while for the train home.”
• She’s thought ahead about next year, but after that, who knows. If she thinks about it, her head starts to hurt, so she doesn’t. 
• If she doesn’t happen to have any laundry to do, she takes no pleasure from being immersed in hot water. 
• “Why do I have such a worry-free disposition? If I had a few more worries, I’d be able to cultivate the habit of putting on a record or slipping out the back door.”
• She has no sympathy for plants like peonies or cherry trees that lose their blossoms quickly. It’s flowers like the zinnia or strawflower that have blossoms that cling on even after they wither that bring tears to her eyes. 
• Only when she’s watching rugby does she get the appeal of men. 
• She likes children if they’re a little ugly.
• “I hate people who are too clever, so I’m practicing being a little stupider.”
• If she has money, she ends up spending it on a ride in a one-yen taxi with her friends. 
• She can deal with most anything. Except she really can’t deal with stupid people.
• Being struck dumb by jazz or movies – she finds these general interests to be too common. She continually, habitually thinks: “Maybe there’s nothing interesting at all.”  
• “I’d like to go to Paris one time in my life so much I think I’ll just die.”
• Fresh strawberries with cream, a bright parasol, the beginning of summer is such fun. 
• Even if she goes off hiking, when she returns she just has to go to the Ginza or nothing will do.
• She doesn’t even think about becoming famous. She thinks it’s all so empty. She’d much rather have it all right now.
• She gets down from time to time, you know. The mood of an airport when all planes are grounded, when the aeroplane of her hopes hits economic turbulence. But without exercising enough reason she blames it on someone else and feels better after a good round at her favorite sport.  
• When we’re out with friends we cause a ruckus using so many men’s expressions. But when we go home, we’re like different people altogether—we become ‘good daughters’. But to us there’s nothing inconsistent about it, it’s just part of our mystery. 
• “People say they want to be confronted with something that will make them feel something real just once in their lives… well, we really are doing it, aren’t we!” 
• “I think all these fads are so boring, but you know, when you try them they’re not all that bad, either.”
• “First of all, there’s no harm in not being cheerful–”
• “If I set my mind to it, I’d have no trouble being a nude model. Let’s go eat.”
• “Telling us to speak our minds clearly, it’s just impossible. I still want to have a lot of experiences, and then make my mind up!”
• Her smile is so practiced that it looks completely natural. But she doesn’t know how to have a belly laugh.

Books:

Adanami Shobo (徒波書房) – 30 Brewer Street, Soho
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
Hours: Open until 8pm.
A small but excellent used bookstore, easily overlooked due to the fact it masquerades as a dry cleaner. Mainly paperbacks, but also has a large collection of hardbacks, manga tankobon, children’s books, and magazines. Staff are friendly and helpful. CDs and DVDs for sale, as well as video rental. Karaoke rooms in the back with special rates during the daytime. Famous visitors include Miyavi and Utada Hikaru, seriously. Update (Dec 29, 2012): Safe for the foreseeable future.

JP Books – basement of Mitsukoshi, 14-20 Regent Street
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
Hours: M-Sa 10:00-18:30, Su 10:30-16:30
Tel: 020 7839 4839
New books only. Very handy ordering service available for nearly any book, magazine subscriptions also available. 10% off all paperbacks on Mondays, 10% off all manga on Tuesdays. 10% discount available on all educational materials for teachers or students upon showing proof (student ID, etc). Some Japanese knick-knacks (maneki neko, hanafuda cards). Staff are friendly, patient, and deal with non-native speakers very professionally.

Japan Centre Bookshop – within Japan Centre, 14-16 Regent St
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
Hours: M-Sa 10:00-19:00
Tel: 020 3405 1150
Mainly (expensive) magazines, English-language cookbooks, manga artbooks, and textbooks. A mere shadow of its former self. Older magazines are sold discounted in bundles of two or three.

Other:

Rice Wine Shop – 82 Brewer Street, Soho
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
Hours: M-Sa 10:00-22:00, Su 12:00-21:00
Tel: 020 7439 3705
Why do I like Rice Wine Shop? Well, it’s in Soho, it’s open late, and it usually has lots of flavors of chuhai in the cooler by the door. It’s tiny, it’s crowded, it has a lot of rice wine. Snacks are cheap. What more do you want?

Asakusa – 265 Eversholt Street, NW1 1BA
Tube: Mornington Crescent
Hours: M-F 18:00-23:30, Sa 18:00-23:00
Tel: 020 7388 8533
Food’s brilliant and brilliantly priced at this slightly ramshackle izakaya. Make a reservation or be disappointed. It’s not the prettiest, but are you paying for slick design or for food?

Koya – 49 Frith Street, W1D 4SG
Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Hours: 12:00-15:00 (lunch daily), M-Sa 17:30-22:30, Su 17:30-22:00
Tel: 020 7434 4463
Apparently the best bowl of noodles you can get in London. They’re kneaded by foot by the staff or something. I can’t say for myself because I hesitate to spend nearly £10 on a bowl of ramen, but if you’re into that kind of thing…

Ramen Ryo – 84 Brewer Street, Soho
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
Tel: 020 7287 1318
Cheap and cheerful, as British people like to say. Decent and cheap ramen, curries, set meals, etc. Used to have a manga magazine and newspaper collection as well as a blaring TV to make you feel right at home, but the new management seem to be aiming for a more sophisticated feel, which is a shame.
UPDATE (March 11, 2012): Is no longer cheap and cheerful. Now called Ittenbari. Queues out the door and rather pricy. Sigh. http://www.ittenbari.co.uk/

Mixb – www.mixb.jp
Website specializing in classified ads for the Japanese community in London. Furniture, flats, jobs, clothes, books, even people desperately trying to sell packets of tissues ‘made in Japan’… if you’re tired of Mixb, then you’re tired of life.

Centre People – www.centrepeople.com
Job advertising service run by Japan Centre. Are you a logistics expert who is happy to commute to Slough? They may have a job for you. Are you anyone else? They probably won’t have a job for you.

戦争と婦人作家
(Sensou to fujin sakka)

MIYAMOTO Yuriko (宮本 百合子)
May 1948　

Until this point, Japan has always been engaged in a world war. Under the feudal, absolute education of the Imperial system, the people have uncritically been resigned to war as an “inevitable disaster.”

And this has brought us to the present collapse. Was there no opposition to war in Japan? As readers of Odagiri Hideo’s “Study of Anti-war Literature” will know, there has always been a humanitarian spirit of opposition to war. The political power of the Imperial system has in recent years quelled such literature under the Peace Preservation Act, branding it the work of unpatriotic people. People from other countries are surprised that Japanese women did not create a systematic opposition to such a brutal war. They misunderstand and think that Japanese people are even that cruel. However, these people must understand that the tragedy of Japan is that in our feudal society, expressions of love or of hatred were not permitted to be socialized. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the poet Ōtsuka Kasuoko wrote “One Hundred Prayers” and Yosano Akiko wrote the poem “Thou Shalt Not Die“, both becoming famous for their opposition to the brutality of war. But anti-war works like those by these two representative women have been suppressed from the histories of Japanese literature—not even one paragraph published. When Yosano Akiko’s poem was published, Ōmachi Keigetsu declared her an unpatriotic person and greatly criticized the issue of Myōjō (明星, Bright Star) in which it appeared.

In the past decades, what kind of opposition have Japanese women writers been involved in? Looking back at works which have motifs opposing aggressive wars, there are exceptionally few—other than Yoshiya Nobuko and Hayashi Fumiko, the sad truth we find is that the majority of women writers actually lent their support to the war. But it would be a mistake to say that all of them glorified aggressive wars from the bottom of their hearts. When the controls over journalism became stricter and publication was not being allowed for those who were not military-approved writers, relying on the income from the publications of the bourgeois publishers each person who made her existence as a “famous female writer,” in order to preserve her existence outside of journalism and so that her name would not be forgotten by readers, inserted glorious scenes into her works. In short, in order to continue to protect their economic independence as women who had a complete lack of stability, though they must have felt doubts, they succumbed to a fascist way of survival.

From the way that the abilities of the women in this serious culture were put into use—and when one thinks about the feeble basis for women’s economic independence—the interests of the female writers’ and all of the working women of Japan can be understood as part of the same circumstances. Just as I have come to see that there was no real difference as Japanese people between the circumstances of these female writers and the girls working in cotton mills, female writers surely understand what fascism is, what an aggressive war is, and how when one country’s happiness is crushed underfoot for the sake of another country’s interests, there is blood all over every single thing that has been crushed.