Obsessions

with the Sino-Japanese

Polarity in Japanese Literature
 Obsessions
with the Sino-Japanese
Polarity in Japanese Literature

Atsuko Sakaki

University of Hawai‘i Press

Honolulu
© 2006 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
11 10 09 08 07 06 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sakaki, Atsuko.
Obsessions with the Sino-Japanese polarity in Japanese literature / Atsuko Sakaki.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-2918-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8248-2918-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Japanese literature—Chinese in¶uences. 2. Japanese literature—History and
criticism. I. Title.
PL720.55.C6S35 2005
895.6'09—dc22
2005009469

A part of chapter 2 ¤rst appeared in “Japanese Perceptions of China: The Sinophilic

Fiction of Tanizaki Jun’ichirô,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59, no. 1 (June
1999): 187–218, and is reprinted here in modi¤ed form with the permission of the
editors.

A part of chapter 3 was originally published as “Sliding Doors: Women of Letters in

the Heterosocial Literary Field of Early Modern Japan,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal,
English Supplement 17 (December 1999): 3–38, and is reprinted here in modi¤ed
form with the permission of the editors.

A part of chapter 4 was originally published as “Kajin no kigû: The Meiji Political
Novel and the Boundaries of Literature,” Monumenta Nipponica 55, no. 1 (Spring
2000): 83–108, and is reprinted here in modi¤ed form with the permission of the
editors.

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free

paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.

Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press production staff

Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

 Contents

Acknowledgments • vii

Introduction
Scenes from within the Fold • 1
Chapter 1. Site Unseen
Imaginary Voyages to China and Back in
Classical Japanese Fiction and Theater • 18
Chapter 2. From the Edifying to the Edible
Chinese Fetishism and the China Fetish • 65
Chapter 3. Sliding Doors
Women and Chinese Literature in the
Heterosocial Literary Field • 103
Chapter 4. The Transgressive Canon?
Intellectuals on the Margins and the Fate of
the “Universal” Language • 143
Coda
Folding the Subject into the Object • 177

Notes • 191

Glossary • 229

Bibliography • 239

Index • 261

v
 Acknowledgments

The longest journey is the hardest to end.

This book is as uncannily autobiographical as any book can be. I wrote

the ¤rst chapter without revisiting China for the purpose; the second,
while grappling with the chasm between the textual and the physical/
material China; the third, while sliding doors were constantly being
opened or closed in front of or behind me; the fourth, while trying to
come to terms with gaps in my knowledge of the Chinese language that I
had not been able to overcome. The introduction was written with the
self-re¶ection of a comparativist, while the conclusion was written with
the anticipation of liberation from the stake of the Sino-Japanese polarity.
The completion of this project gives me an occasion to recall grate-
fully and fondly my teachers of Chinese: Mr. Matsuyama Yôichi, who ¤rst
introduced me to kanbun in junior high school; Mr. Katô Bin, who in se-
nior high school recited classical Chinese poetry with the “authentic”
modern Chinese pronunciation and let me write short stories inspired by
Li Bai and Cen Shen in place of essay assignments; Li Laoshi of Beijing
Yuyan Xueyuan, who as a visiting instructor at the University of Tokyo
taught me ¤rst-year Mandarin; Professor Takeda Akira of the University of
Tokyo, with whom I read zhiguai; Mr. Kô (Ch. Jiang), with whom I read
Shuihuzhuan at the University of Tokyo; and Dr. Jerry Schmidt of the Uni-
versity of British Columbia, with whom I read Su Shi and Huang Tingjian.
I am also grateful to the two anonymous readers of this work for
their support and constructive criticism. Pamela Kelley at the University
of Hawai‘i Press has been most conscientious, supportive, and profes-
sional since our ¤rst contact and has helped me complete the book to its
full potential. I am most grateful to the dedication and professional
guidance provided by Bojana Ristich, my copy editor. My managing edi-
tor, Cheri Dunn, has always been there for me, to pave the road to com-

vii
viii • Acknowledgments

pletion steadily and sensibly. My indexer, Baryon Tensor Posadas, has

proven to be un¶aggingly responsive to my demands, which were many
and urgent. My proofreader, Cynthia Lowe, has helped me in the home
stretch. I am fortunate to have been offered such high morale from the
entire production team.
Many people have contributed their thoughts, knowledge, expertise,
and votes of con¤dence. This book would not have been completed with-
out Andre Schmid, Andy Gordon, Carl Sesar, Daisy Ng, David McCann,
Edwin Cranston, Ellen Widmer, Emanuel Pastreich, Emi Shimokawa,
Emma Teng, Faye Kleeman, Hal Bolitho, Helen Hardacre, Hill Anderson,
Howard Hibbett, Ivo Smits, J.Thomas Rimer, James Cheng, Jay Rubin,
Joanna Handlin Smith, John Timothy Wixted, Joshua Mostow, Judith
Zeitlin, Karen Thornber, Kate Nakai, Larry Marceau, Leo Ou-fan Lee,
Linda Hutcheon, Mariel O’Neill-Karch, Matthew Fraleigh, Noriko Murai,
Norma Field, Ohki Yasushi, Patrick Hanan, Paul Rouzer, Rebecca Waese,
Rick Guisso, Robert Campbell, Robert Khan, Shang Wei, Shiamin Kwa,
Sonja Arnzen, Steve Owen, Thomas Hare, Thomas LaMarre, Thomas
Rohlich, Wiebke Denecke, William Johnston, Wilt Idema, and Yoshiko
Yokochi Samuel.
I bene¤ted tremendously from opportunities to present my ideas
and receive audience feedback, ¤rst and foremost from courses I have
taught at Harvard University (Japanese Literature 130) and the Univer-
sity of Toronto (East Asian Studies 235). I thank the following, who
have offered venues of intellectual exchange: the Midwest Association
of Japanese Literary Studies; at Harvard University, the Harvard Asian
and Asian-American Gender Studies Forum and the Chinese Cultural
Studies Workshop; the Ford Foundation Workshop on Visual and Mate-
rial Representations of Modern Japan; the Humanities Center; the De-
partment of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; and a workshop on
New Approaches to Early Japanese Textuality: Functions, Occasions
and Genres of Kanshibun; the Mans¤eld Freeman Center for East Asian
Studies and the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, Wes-
leyan University; the Association for Asian Studies; the Department of
East Asian Studies, University of Toronto; the New England Association
for Asian Studies; the Association of Japanese Literary Studies; the De-
partment of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chi-
cago; and the International Congress for Asian Scholars.
I gratefully acknowledge the following institutions, which granted
me funding support for this research: the Japan Foundation (Short-
 Acknowledgments • ix

Term Research Fellowship); the University of Toronto, Faculty of Arts

and Science (Dean’s Travel Fund and the Connaught Start-Up Fund);
Harvard University: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (the Cooke Fund,
the Clark Fund, and a Junior Faculty Research Assistant Grant); the
Edwin O. Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies (Reischauer Institute
Grant for Individual Research and Reischauer Institute Grant for Work-
shops); and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
(the Japan Fund). I am delighted to acknowledge the individual spon-
sors and staff members who facilitated the awarding of the respective
grants and to repay them for their help with the publication of this
book.
 Introduction
Scenes from within the Fold

Every perception is hallucinatory because perception has no object.

—Gilles Deleuze

This is the story of the changing but still vital collusion between
privilege and knowledge, possession and display, stereotyping and
realism, exhibition and the repression of history.
—Mieke Bal

This locality [of culture] is more around temporality than about

historicity....The focus on temporality resists the transparent linear
equivalence of event and idea that historicism proposes; it provides a
perspective on the disjunctive forms of representation that signify a
people, a nation, or a national culture....It is the mark of the
ambivalence of the nation as a narrative strategy—and an apparatus of
power—that it produces a continual slippage into analogous, even
metonymic, categories, like the people, minorities, or “cultural
difference” that continually overlap in the act of writing the nation.
—Homi Bhabha

n this study, I shall discuss several aspects of Japan’s literary negotia-

I tions with China that have been evident in texts from the tenth to the
twentieth centuries. I shall focus on how Japanese writers and readers
revised or in many cases even devised rhetoric to present “Chineseness”
and how this practice has helped form and transform the discursive self-
fashioning of the Japanese. In so doing, I hope to reveal that contrasts be-
tween China and Japan that had been tenaciously drawn out in Japanese
literature were contingent and yet haunting. That is, even though the ref-
erents that bear the names of China and Japan have been diverse and ever

1
2 • Introduction

changing, the desire to propose and/or authenticate the binary between

the two seems to be explicit and persistent. Rather than simply renounc-
ing the stability of the ethnic/national essence that Japan or China was
thought to embody, I examine the way that the dialectic formulation of
the subject-object dyad was validated. I do this within a framework in-
spired by the theories of Mieke Bal, among others. I argue that the China/
Japan polarity, manifested in a variety of contrastive images, persists
throughout the period with which I deal. The force behind these compar-
ative representations is the subject of this study.
This focus may appear to have much in common with what David
Pollack maps out in the introduction to his study of the Sino-Japanese
literary relationship, The Fracture of Meaning: Japan’s Synthesis of China
from the Eighth through the Eighteenth Centuries:

For the Japanese, what was “Japanese” had always to be considered in rela-
tion to what was thought to be “Chinese”—and I must stress from the outset
that I am not dealing here so much with the “objective” facts of cultural
in¶uence so much as with the history of its interpretation, with what was
“thought” to be. In other words, this study falls within the ¤eld of critical in-
terpretation, of the ways in which men have represented their cultures to
themselves. If I say that the notion of Japanese-ness was meaningful only as it
was considered against the background of the otherness of China, then, it is
clear that I am no longer speaking of “China” and “Japan” in the usual senses
of those words. Rather, I am considering them only as they existed in relation
to each other as the antithetical terms of a uniquely Japanese dialectic to
which the Japanese gave the name wakan, “Japanese/Chinese.”1

Whereas I acknowledge the imagined-ness of the “Japanese” and “Chi-

nese” dialectic that is apparent in the above quotation, I do not acknowl-
edge Pollack’s subsequent de¤nition of the essence of the dialectic as
“form (Chinese) versus content (Japanese).”2 Pollack’s efforts to unravel
the heterogeneity in Japanese culture during the period of the purported
isolation, while rightly intended, result in much too neat a polarization
of the perceived Chineseness and Japaneseness in the Japanese cultural
products he analyzes. By assigning the former to form and the latter to
content, Pollack seems to be entrapped in the nativist dichotomy of
“Japanese spirit, Chinese art” (wakon kansai), on the one hand, and the
structuralist binary (content versus form) on the other. I intend instead
to complicate the binary, while acknowledging its persistence, by at-
 Introduction • 3

tending to Japanese writers of the past who sought to advance and

showcase the rhetoricity and ¤gurativeness of Japanese written dis-
course. Some of them took China or Chineseness as their theme (i.e.,
“content”), while others engaged with Chinese discourse (“form”) to
the effect of blurring lingual boundaries. The ubiquitous dialectic had
many facets that cannot be reduced to a unitary and sustaining contrast
between form and content.
Many have criticized the arbitrariness, as well as the persistence, of
the wa/kan dialectics. Thomas LaMarre, a recent example, successfully
reveals the contingency of the dyad, demonstrating instead a “coordina-
tion” of “Japaneseness” and “Chineseness” that was not originally con-
trastive, let alone competitive.3 LaMarre’s argument becomes particularly
persuasive when it comes to an examination of the art of calligraphy,
which exempli¤es the materiality and technicality of the text. He points
out that the Japanese script (kana) and Chinese script (mana) were not
distinct from each other—as if the former represented orality/immediacy/
emotions and the latter, conceptuality/mediatedness/intellect—for two
reasons. First, characters in calligraphy were selected as much for graphic
effect as for representation of the text (its pronunciation and meaning)
and were coordinated with the quality of paper and placement of visual
design. Second, many mana were interspersed with kana not because they
represented concepts that were essential to the texts but often because
they stood for sounds and looked nicer than the corresponding kana.
Thus, the neat contrast drawn between kana and mana needs to be elimi-
nated because they are only two of the players in the game where many
other factors (tactile, visual) participate and also because they have differ-
ent functions from those ordinarily imagined. By locating both the Japa-
neseness (ordinarily thought to be manifested in kana) and Chineseness
(ordinarily so thought in mana) within the art/practice of calligraphy,
where the signi¤cance of materiality has been more obvious than in the
art/practice of literary composition, LaMarre effectively dismisses the pat
association between the Chinese exterior and the Japanese interior. Inas-
much as LaMarre’s work engages technical speci¤cs, his thesis inspires us
with a different model for the way in which Japanese and Chinese ele-
ments are identi¤ed, arranged, and associated with each other.
In the 1970s, Imai Yasuko traced the origins of the term wakon kansai
and revealed its contingency.4 In more recent years, Nakajima Wakako
titled an essay “Karafû ankoku jidai” (The Dark Ages for the Chinese
style), a play on “Kokufû ankoku jidai” (The Dark Ages for the Japanese
4 • Introduction

style), a catchphrase for the ninth-century heyday of kanshibun in Japan.

Her point was, ¤rst, to renounce the dominant/conventional theory that
the primacy of indigenous Japanese literature (kokufû or wabun), had
been temporarily obscured by Chinese literature’s claim of canon, and,
second, to undermine the contrast itself between Japanese and Chinese
(karafû) literature. Hasegawa Michiko problematizes the pat contrast
between Chinese instrumentality (kara-zae) and Japanese spirituality
(yamato-gokoro) by swapping the idiomatic combinations of ethnicity
and essence in the title of her book, Karagokoro: Nihon seishin no gyaku-
setsu (The Chinese sensibility: The paradox of the Japanese spirit).
Stefan Tanaka has written on the modernity and constructedness of
Japanese views of China. Japan’s autonomy from China was established
in academic discourse as that of a modern nation-state that rewrote or in-
vented the perceptions of its past relationship with China.5 Naoki Sakai,
in his rigorous study of the implications of questioning the phonetic as-
pects of Chinese writing, suggests that the questioning process was ¤rst
set in motion in eighteenth-century scholarship in philosophy and phi-
lology. The convention of privileging the original sound of language, and
thus an imagined interiority and immediacy, which was ¤rst theorized by
scholars such as Ogyû Sorai, needed only to be politicized in the wake of
the modern nation-state of Japan.6 That brings us back to LaMarre’s above-
cited work, in which he—inspired by Benedict Anderson—invalidates
the premises of the national imagination, including linguistic homogene-
ity, in the modern enterprise of inventing early Japan.7 The ethnicization
of the Chinese language inevitably entails conscious and systematic dif-
ferentiation of Japanese from Chinese, which has led to the objecti¤ca-
tion of China in the name of scienti¤c research.

Structure and Methodology

Japanese literary writers/readers employed a number of metaphors for
China; against these—and almost exclusively against them, in the imag-
ined vacuum of other countries—all things Japanese had to be de¤ned
as representative of Japan. The following four such metaphors, which
quali¤ed China not as just another country, but also as the cultural
Other, seem particularly dominant, sustaining and thus deserving ex-
tended attention: the foreign and exotic (as opposed to the domestic and
indigenous); the intellectual, conceptual, and abstract (as opposed to
the sentimental, spontaneous, and material); the masculine (as opposed
 Introduction • 5

to the feminine); and the traditional and rigid (as opposed to the mod-
ern and variable). For this study I have selected topics that should per-
mit us to review the validity of such metaphors and to articulate the
mechanisms that promote them in order to produce speci¤c interpreta-
tions of the cultural identity of Japan. Thus, chapter 1 examines imagi-
nary portraits of China and the Chinese presented by Japanese
characters either traveling in China or hosting Chinese guests in genres
written in wabun—speci¤cally ¤ction and theater, which were less
codi¤ed by the Chinese lexicon and less informed by the empirical
knowledge of historical returnees from China, who composed primarily
in Chinese. Chapter 2 turns to the emergence of the Japanese attention
to the material aspects of Chinese culture, which used to be taken as
ideological and intellectual, and to the subsequent negotiations with the
codi¤ed material and materially informed and formed text, that under-
mine the simple binary between form and content. Chapter 3 explores
women Sinophiles who fashioned themselves and were received by their
colleagues according to Chinese (i.e., then universal and cultural) stan-
dards and then were scrutinized according to non-/anti-Chinese (i.e.,
nationalistic and essentializing) standards. Chapter 4 looks at the func-
tion of the Chinese canon in Japan in the wake of nationalism. I have se-
lected cases that best demonstrate the con¤gurations involving China
and Japan in Japanese rhetoric. Hence, this is neither a survey nor an in-
ventory in the sense of an extensive enumeration of facts that prove Chi-
nese elements in Japanese literature—an approach that has been taken
by many scholars, especially in Japan, and that has produced substantial
results. Instead, this is a showcase of outstanding examples that I hope
will offer readers formulae that they will be able to apply to other cases.
For several reasons I have not shaped this study as a succession of
chapters recounting what transpired during a given historical period.
One reason was to avoid duplication. One can ¤nd many books in Japa-
nese that chronologically list Chinese writers, Sinophiles, and books on
China and hypothesize or con¤rm Chinese sources for Japanese writ-
ers.8 While such painstaking and informative works help substantiate
my work, here I do not offer my version of this type of enterprise. An-
other and more compelling reason for my decision not to “survey the
¤eld” is that I wish to nuance chronology. Whereas periodization has
been viewed as contingent, chronology has been taken for granted as a
property of knowledge shared by the subjects, objects, and audience of
any historical analysis, as though it were tangible, coherent, and static.
6 • Introduction

Instead of the concept of chronology as an evenly paced and unidirec-

tional template for time—a transparent measure that goes unnoticed by
the participants in and observers of all events—I suggest that it is pli-
able, its pace, direction, and density subject to variance at any time.
While this work slowly shifts toward the contemporary, the move-
ment is neither entirely linear nor even paced, as each theme requires a
varied amount of time that may overlap with the time needed for an-
other issue. Even within chapters, selected texts are not placed at equal
distance from one another. Furthermore, the narrative present in which
I write does not form a static relationship with the moment of produc-
tion or reception of a given text, let alone all of the texts discussed here.
The way I am connected with one text that inspired another is informed
by my relationship with the latter, which is informed by my relationship
with the former. It is not only impossible to draw a straight line of
evenly spaced texts, but it is simply pointless to envision one. As Walter
Benjamin puts it,

Historicism contents itself with establishing a causal connection between

various moments in history. But no fact that is a cause is for that very reason
historical. It became historical posthumously, as it were, through events that
may be separated from it by thousands of years. A historian who takes this as
his point of departure stops telling the sequence of events like the beads of a
rosary. Instead, he grasps the constellation which his own era has formed
with a de¤nite earlier one.9

Linda Hutcheon also articulates the contingency of history writing by en-

capsulating a historian’s active involvement in the making of historical
“facts” out of “events”: “Events are con¤gured into facts by being related
to ‘conceptual matrices within which they have to be imbedded if they are
to count as facts.’...Historiography and ¤ction...constitute their objects
of attention; in other words, they decide which events will become facts.”10
I thus resist identifying the “past” as a uni¤ed entity distinct from the
“present.” I refrain from privileging contemporaneity over antiquity or
vice versa as though they were two distinct entities and critiquing re-
workings of earlier texts uniformly as the homogenization of a national
culture and construction of its continuity. Instead, I let engagements with
the past emerge at various historical points; these may all have occurred
in the “past” from where I stand, but each was in “the present” vis-à-vis its
own “past.” As Benjamin puts it, “History is the subject of a structure
 Introduction • 7

whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time ¤lled by the pres-
ence of the now [Jetztzeit].”11
I also illustrate the conditions under which the subject of cultural
analysis presents an object under investigation from the past and the ef-
fects of such an action. Chino Kaori, in her highly acclaimed essay on en-
gendering in Japanese art history, comments on the perceived neutrality
of the historian: “None can represent history ‘objectively.’ The scholar-
ship of art history does not exist in a vacuum or germ-free room that is
‘objective,’ ‘universal,’ and evenly distanced from every object of study.”12
Rather than purporting to observe and articulate chronology at a distance
and in the right perspective, as though it were an autonomous artifact, I
propose to look at chronology as something that we all sense and yet can-
not quite ¤gure out, as we are all caught up within it. This study is not
written from the height of the omniscient narrator but “from within the
fold.”

N EGOTIATION WITH A RCHIVAL F ALLACIES

Inasmuch as China was and still often is equated with the past,
whether simply as a forerunner that set a standard for the rest of East
Asia or as a representative of an abstract entity vaguely called “tradi-
tion,” I will have to discuss the newer (mostly Japanese) writers’ atten-
tion to the older (mostly Chinese) texts. Even so, my interest is more in
the vector (constituted by force and direction) of such approaches than
the respective locations of the origins and offspring. It is my aim to frame
the traces of the past as forces, or enactments of desire, rather than as ar-
chived facts. In Mieke Bal’s words,

Instead of “in¶uences,” the past is present in the present in the form of traces,
diffuse memories. The stake of the productive, ethically responsible, and polit-
ically effective baroque aesthetics, then, is cultural memory as an alternative to
traditional history. Memory is a function of subjectivity. Cultural memory is
collective yet subjective by de¤nition. This subjectivity is of crucial impor-
tance in this view, yet it does not lead to an individualist subjectivism.13

I also hope that my study will suf¤ciently show the presentness of the
reworking of the past. It goes without saying that what may be termed a
nostalgic gesture belongs to contemporaneity rather than antiquity, as it
reveals as much of the subject of the gesture as its object. Bal again has a
guiding remark on “conservation”: “The inevitable inscription of the
8 • Introduction

present in what is taken to be the conservation of the past as past is more

often than not obliterated.”14 I would like to save the work of the later
artists/critics from said obliteration.
In her articulation of “preposterous history,” Bal, in a position dis-
tinct from traditional iconographic art historians, distinguishes between
their practice of source studies and her theory of intertextuality. I validate
two of her three points in the study of literature as I envision and under-
take it. First, while in the former framework, the new artist “implicitly or
explicitly declares his allegiance and debt to [his] predecessor,” the latter
reverses “the passivity” and “consider[s] the work of the later artist as an
active intervention in the material handed down to him or her.”15 Second,
source studies more often than not avoid “interpreting the meaning of the
borrowed motif in their new contexts,” whereas intertextuality implies a
transmission of the sign’s meaning—not in the sense that the later artist
has to “endorse” it but that “he or she will have to deal with it.” In this
view, “the process of meaning-production over time (in both directions:
present/past and past/present)” is traced as an “open, dynamic process”
instead of “map[ping] the results of the process.”16 In deconstructionism,
“what the quoting subject does to its object” is emphasized, as “reaching
the alleged, underlying, earlier speech” is impossible. Bal cites Derrida
and paraphrases his argument that the quoted word “never returns
[where it was before it was quoted] without the burden of the excursion
through the quotation.”17 This view of the reworking of an earlier work in
a newer work has two advantages. First, it neutralizes the unidirectional
chronology that locates the “origin” and the “offspring” in static positions
and de¤nes the latter’s approach to the former only as regressive. It also
alerts us to the slippery hierarchy between the subject and the object
being constructed on the site of such reworkings.
The Japanese literary imagination tried to objectify China, the hege-
monic other; it was a conceptual attempt at toppling the political and
cultural hierarchy of power. I have found that postcolonialist theories
are not parallel to but chiasmatic with the paradox that Japan saw itself
in relation to China, simply because the Japanese were able to take re-
course to Japanese, a language that their cultural Other did not and
would not understand. Thus, Japanese perceptions of China did not en-
gage any response or reaction from China not because it was deprived of
power, but because it was deprived of access to the texts written in Japa-
nese. Even when the Japanese wrote in Chinese, their texts were rarely
distributed to Chinese readers. The overwhelming hierarchy of value in
 Introduction • 9

which China could afford not to know anything that Japan produced
worked in favor of Japan’s intent to comment on and devise China as it
saw convenient. Thus, the “descendants” were in control of the “ances-
tors,” as they should always be in ontological terms.

N EGOTIATION WITH A NTHROPOLOGICAL F ALLACIES

Precisely because of the contemporaneity of quotation and historici-
zation, we should be careful not to claim the authenticity of our dis-
course over the past. Knowing is not a state in which one possesses facts
that are transmitted from the referent to the referee. Knowing instead is
a dynamic process that involves staging, framing, and displaying by the
subject of knowledge production.
Joan Scott cuts directly into the self-righteousness of the subject of
analysis who authenticates “experience” as autonomous from the poli-
tics surrounding the production of his/her text. She begins with a quota-
tion from Theresa de Lauretis: “Experience [de Lauretis writes] is the
process by which, for all social beings, subjectivity is constructed”:

The process that de Lauretis describes operates crucially through differentia-

tion; its effect is to constitute subjects as ¤xed and autonomous, and who are
considered reliable sources of a knowledge that comes from access to the real
by means of their experience. When talking about historians and other stu-
dents of the human sciences, it is important to note that this subject is both
the object of inquiry—the person one studies in the present or the past—and
the investigator him- or herself—the historian who produces knowledge of
the past based on “experience” in the archives or the anthropologist who
produces knowledge of other cultures based on “experience” as a participant
observer.18

Scott elaborates on her de¤nitions of subjectivity, agency, and discourse

as follows:

Subjects are constituted discursively, but there are con¶icts among discursive
systems, contradictions within any one of them, multiple meanings possible
for the concepts they deploy. And subjects have agency. They are not uni¤ed,
autonomous individuals exercising free will, but rather subjects whose agency
is created through situations and statuses conferred on them. Being a subject
means being “subject to de¤nite conditions of existence, conditions of endow-
ment of agents and conditions of exercise.” These conditions enable choices,
10 • Introduction

though they are not unlimited. Subjects are constituted discursively, experi-
ence is a linguistic event (it doesn’t happen outside established meanings), but
neither is it con¤ned to a ¤xed order of meaning. Since discourse is by de¤nition
shared, experience is collective as well as individual. Experience is a subject’s
history. Language is the site of history’s enactment. Historical explanation
cannot, therefore, separate the two.19

The subjectivity of engagement in a process has been foregrounded in

metacritical studies in anthropology, among other ¤elds. An increased
awareness of the narrative agency helps problematize authentication of
the content of stories. Telling the other’s story in the third person, for ex-
ample, neutralizes the position of the narrator and thus is authenticated
as scienti¤c, while the confessional mode of telling tends to be granted
“naturalness.” Mieke Bal, in her metacritical study of museums, exhibi-
tions, and anthropological discourse, cogently argues that “expository
writing” exposes the subject of writing as well as the object. One of the
theorists whom Bal engages is Karen J. Warren, who comments justly on
the use of “we,” employed by critics to uncritically assume a shared priv-
ileged status between the writer and reader of cultural analysis, distinct
from the object of analysis:

The pronoun appeals to a solidarity between the speaker, the “I” who is a
member of the group, and the other members. Thus it absorbs the position of
the “you.” The addressee is no longer the “you” whose task it is to con¤rm
the “I”’s subjectivity, but who might also take his or her distance from what
the “I” is saying. Instead the “you” becomes “one of us,” a member of the
group. The “I” no longer speaks to the “you” but in “you”’s name. The ad-
dressee loses the position from which he or she could criticize or disavow the
speaker’s utterance and is thereby manipulated into accepting the speech as
her own. That acceptance is not rational but subliminally emotional; moralis-
tic discourse works primarily through sentiment. The vague “we” is more
often than not semantically ¶eshed out with moral superiority. The discourse
of “we,” lacking a “you,” becomes binary, and the structure of “us” versus
“them” is in working order.20

It would be presumptuous of “anthropologists” to assert that they them-

selves are exempt from the objecti¤cation that is conducted upon the ob-
jects of analysis. This very writing should not be exempted from this
principle. I thus de¤ne my study not as a work of annotation, or “show-
 Introduction • 11

ing,” but as one of argumentation, or “telling.” I do not purport to esoter-

ically present a body of knowledge that has been safely restored and
retrieved as though I were a select mediator. I instead try to recon¤gure
information that has been known to many, in the hope of identifying sev-
eral apparatuses in operation that produce and promote some percep-
tions of China and repress others. The narrative presented below is not
monolithic, as it consists of several stories corresponding to the appara-
tuses that partly con¶ict with or are irrelevant to one another. Instead of
matching each chapter to a distinct historical period and proposing a
metanarrative overarching all the chapters, I resort to a network of sub-
jects that are de¤ned and act according to different variables, while I am
invariably concerned with an imagined dyad between China and Japan in
Japanese literature. Consider the chapters that follow to be “scenes” wit-
nessed from within the fold where I am also caught up.

N EGOTIATION WITH C OMPARATIVIST FALLACIES

This study is not meant to compare Japanese literature with Chinese
literature in order to uncover similarities and differences between the
two, although it traces many attempts at such bifurcation. Such a compari-
son would necessitate essentialism, presuming, on the one hand, a dis-
tinct and sustained essence of each “entity” to be compared with the
other, and, on the other hand, a contextual vacuum in which I would as-
sume a position transcending the respective conditions that informed
Japanese and Chinese literary theories and practices. The binary main-
tains a strong presence in this study, but it is not because I myself believe
in its validity; it is because the persistence and ubiquity of the binary as a
working hypothesis in Japanese literature is such that ignoring it would
only do injustice to the texts. It is not “polarity” itself that I maintain; it is
a sense of “twosomeness” in the texts themselves that needs to be ac-
knowledged. I am not contradicting myself; I am simply willing to nego-
tiate with the textual instances that contrast with my own beliefs.
Karen J. Warren has succinctly identi¤ed the problems of compara-
tive rhetoric. She elaborates on the vital effects of binarism, or what she
terms “value dualism and subsequent disjunctive argumentation,” as fol-
lows: “First, the multiple issues and positions, values and possibilities in-
volved in a debate are reduced to two groups (reduction). Second, these
are polarized into two opposites (polarization). Third, the opposites are
hierarchized into a positive and negative (hierarchization). None of these
three moves is ‘natural’ or inevitable, yet all three are so commonly
12 • Introduction

applied that they easily appear so.”21 Another problem of the pervasive
and yet arbitrary Sino-Japanese contrast is that it is placed in a contextual
vacuum. The perceived wa/kan contrasts are so pervasive that they more
or less exclude other players in the ¤eld such as Korea or Vietnam (to
name two of the most relevant examples in the Japanese literary imagina-
tion) from the network of cultural exchange.22 Furthermore, if there has
to be a contrast, it does not have to involve competition. Binary opposi-
tions are not givens; they are envisioned and proposed by agency. How-
ever, when one chooses to focus on a pairing and perceives a difference, it
tends to be de¤ned as a contrast, though it does not have to be. Instead of
envisioning China and Japan as two discernible and opposing entities, I
opt to imagine them as “two mobile positions,” as Mieke Bal puts it, in an
“entanglement”23—two processes of self-fashioning with or without con-
stantly varying degrees of consciousness of the imagined cultural other(s),
or, to put it differently, objecti¤cations (including a lack thereof) that, in
effect, invent self-consciousness and self-de¤nition.
Such positioning of the self and the other precedes the establishment
of identity on either side. Indeed, the desire to envision, evaluate, and re-
late (in both of the meanings of “relate” suggested by Ross Chambers—
“connect” and “narrate”)24 seems to me primary, while the substance of
the subject and object becomes secondary, constructed, and contingent.
The “essence” of the subject does not precede its “entanglement” with the
object but is only imagined from the operation of the contrasting act.
Gilles Deleuze notes the following regarding the historical Baroque, and
it is applicable to operations from any historical period: “The Baroque re-
fers not to an essence but rather to an operative function, to a trait. It end-
lessly produces folds....Yet the Baroque trait twists and turns its folds,
pushing them to in¤nity, fold over fold, one upon the other. The Baroque
fold unfurls all the way to in¤nity.”25 The subject of observation is always
already enfolded within the object, which presents itself invariably with
the subject within it. Or one might echo Emmanuel Levinas and state that
the Other, as opposed to the other, is not autonomous from the self, as al-
terity is supposed to be within the self.26 The contrast between China and
Japan should not be envisioned as a distance between two distinct entities
but rather as an entanglement from which the subject and object are con-
structed as identi¤able a priori.
Inspired by Bal’s model of “two mobile positions in an entanglement”
and drawing upon Gilles Deleuze as she does, I propose that Japan is like
a sensitive subject wrapped in a blanket; it can and does change the shape
 Introduction • 13

of the blanket, its temperature, smell, and shade. It is hard to determine

where the warmth and other sensual effects come from—whether from
“China,” the blanket, or “Japan,” the body. Though it may feel as though
the sensual effects are produced by the blanket and that these effects
de¤ne the blanket, in fact they are coproduced by the blanket and the
body—the object/subject. As the body tosses and turns, folds are made
and unmade in the blanket. While the blanket might be feeling the
warmth, sensing the smell, and seeing the color of the body (who
knows?), its inanimate state is taken for granted and is not questioned.
A valid question is why I do not deal with perceptions of Japan in
Chinese literature when I am inspired by Bal’s metaphor of “two mobile
positions in an entanglement.” I do not do so precisely because of Bal’s
warning in Double Exposures against the complacent assumptions of
neutral spectatorship; I resist the position of an omniscient and objec-
tive narrator of stories that both Japan and China have to tell about each
other. Instead, I con¤rm my location on the plane of Japan (which itself
is moving and changing), from where I look at “China” in its various
and varying manifestations. Since “Japan” views its relationship with
“China” while enclosed within “China,” rather than standing at a point
from which it commands an unrestricted and “perfect” view, its observa-
tions are not even, smooth, or structured so as to conform to one single
norm. I am mindful of the disparity of the themes of the four chapters
and the transactive nature of the Sino-Japanese knot.
Above I mentioned studies of the China-Japan binary, but I wish to
stress that this work does not aspire to become their descendant and
that there is no predecessor for what I am trying to achieve in this study.
I do not contest any speci¤c scholar’s past work so as to draw attention
to my work. Instead, I have listed a variety of possible approaches that I
could have taken and decided not to take owing to the limitations that I
illustrate. Contrasts are hypothetically made in order to de¤ne my work
against what it is not. Furthermore, while I have strived to stay away
from chronicling, archivalization, anthropologization, and comparison,
I need to deal with numerous and recurrent such attempts throughout
the Japanese literature that I tend to cover. There are constant references
to Chinese in¶uences, Chinese stereotypes, and comparative de¤nitions
of Japaneseness and Chineseness. Hence, the title “Obsessions with the
Sino-Japanese Polarity in Japanese Literature.” I suggest that it is not I
(Sakaki) who is responsible for archivalization, anthropologization, or
comparison. To differentiate myself from the speakers, narrators, and
14 • Introduction

authors that I discuss, I hope that it will be suf¤cient if I simply identify

the agents of such attempts. Since I quote frequently from the texts
under discussion and cite the exact locations of the quotations, I trust
that concerned readers will be able to see that I am no ventriloquist.

Overview of the Chapters

Chapter 1 examines how Japanese travelers in China and Chinese travel-
ers in Japan are portrayed, viewed by other characters, and in turn ob-
serve themselves and members of their respective host countries in
literary works by writers who did not themselves travel to China. We will
see how contrasts and comparisons are made on little factual ground, to
some epistemological effect, intended or otherwise, in texts such as Tosa
nikki (A Tosa Journal, 935); Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari (The tale of
Middle Councilor Hamamatsu, ca. 1060); Matsura no miya monogatari
(The tale of Matsura, 1201); Kokusen’ya gassen (The battles of Coxinga,
1715); and Honchô Suikoden (the Japanese version of Shuihu zhuan [The
water margin], 1773).27 The Sino-Japanese dyad, we will see, is at times
presented in hierarchical or confrontational terms to serve Japan’s claims
to cultural autonomy and at other times to highlight its resilience in and
adaptability to cultural transactions. The constructed contrast or alliance
is constantly modi¤ed as the Chinese reception of Japan, as imagined by
the Japanese authors, changes from sheer ignorance/indifference to an-
tagonism to competitiveness. What is almost intrinsically involved in this
bifurcation is the making and unmaking of the masculine/feminine dyad.
Since the above-mentioned works center on Japanese male protagonists
who encounter Chinese men and women, the last being potential roman-
tic objects, they challenge the conventional contrast between the Chinese
language as masculine and the Japanese language as feminine. Stories
allow a variety of con¤gurations of gender and ethnic elements as op-
posed to the stable dyad. When the theme of miscegenation in particular
is introduced, the validity of specifying the two ethnic poles is itself radi-
cally put into question. I will show textual evidence of the concern with
hybridity, even though the theme may appear to be typically contempo-
rary, addressed by modern theorists such as Homi Bhabha. While the
writers’ notions of boundaries between China and Japan are obviously
not informed by the modern ideology of nationalism or the modern disci-
pline of geography—and it is important to note the epistemological
difference—a distinction between the two countries, often (and aptly)
 Introduction • 15

visualized as the two shores of an ocean, had already been encoded in the
minds of the authors from the tenth through the eighteenth centuries.
The above-mentioned texts were already concerned with Chineseness
and Japaneseness even when they problematized them.
An increasing awareness of the diversity of Chinese culture on the
part of the Japanese forms a premise for chapter 2, which investigates
Japan’s objecti¤cation of the Chinese and their works of art from the eigh-
teenth century onward. The Japanese gaze—scholarly or consumerist—
is more noticeable when the focus of observation is not the literary canon,
which had been taken as synonymous with Chinese culture. We will see
how China, which had taught the Japanese how to fetishize objects of art,
was itself changed into the object of fetishist adoration. In turn our study
will illustrate both the changes and the persistent effects of the past in Ja-
pan’s self-de¤nition vis-à-vis China. With the introduction of a new ele-
ment, the “West,” into the entanglement, China became equated with the
historical past, making the Japanese connoisseurs’ position even more
ambiguous regarding the conservation of literary topoi and the develop-
ment of tourism. We will brie¶y examine the case of Aoki Masaru, a mod-
ern scholar of Chinese material culture who unveiled the slippery footing
of the Japanese observer of China. The irony of the subject-object rela-
tionship is most eloquently captured by Tanizaki Jun’ichirô’s work in the
early twentieth century; it actively involves the fetishization of the Chi-
nese female body as well as material goods. We will see that opportunities
to visit and travel in China, which were not available to the authors exam-
ined in chapter 1, called for a revision rather than a renunciation of rhe-
torical con¤gurations of Chineseness.
The intervention of gender as an inevitable factor in the formation
and transformation of the Sino-Japanese dyad, which occasionally sur-
faces in chapters 1 and 2, is the theme of chapter 3. The chapter reveals
how women Sinophiles were misrepresented or underrepresented in
modern Japanese literary scholarship and journalism in order to establish
a nativist and essentialist view of women’s literature in accordance with
nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and the male centrism of the time. I ¤rst
examine both contemporary and later receptions of three women of Chi-
nese letters—Murasaki Shikibu, Arakida Reijo, and Ema Saikô—who
were active in ¤ction, historical narrative, and Chinese verse respectively,
representing some of the ¤elds in which women were not necessarily ex-
pected to be competent. In contrast with their contemporary male Sino-
philes, who responded positively to their accomplishments, the nativist
16 • Introduction

and nationalist reception of their work shows how Chineseness became

engendered as masculine in the process of the formation of the literary
canon as indigenous, natural, and feminine. We will then see how Mori
Ôgai, a modern Sinophile, took advantage of the new equation of the femi-
nine with the indigenous and painted a picture of the “New Woman” by
drawing upon the legends of a Chinese intellectual woman. In the 1980s,
when the engendered China/Japan dyad was almost neutralized, quota-
tions from Chinese texts became instrumental to Kurahashi Yumiko, a
contemporary female novelist who resisted the literary establishment’s
bias against women writing eruditely and engaging foreign literatures. A
variety of factors surrounding female intellectuals and their positions vis-
à-vis Chinese literature reveals both the contingency and tenacity of the
Japanese association of Chineseness with masculinity.
While the dynamics of the Sino-Japanese dyad might have changed
over time, the Japanese reception of Chinese literature does not necessar-
ily rest upon the nostalgic glori¤cation of a thing of the past. In fact, some
Japanese took recourse to the Chinese literary tradition in order to resist
modern nationalism’s insistence upon the state’s monopoly of culture
and language. Chapter 4 focuses on early modern and modern Japanese
representations of male and female intellectuals who would have been
central in premodern cultural production and consumption but who
were marginalized because of their insistence on the value of the classical
Chinese canon and literary Chinese. The title of the chapter, “The Trans-
gressive Canon?” aims at a displacement of the common de¤nition of the
canon—namely, the textual corpus that conforms to and con¤rms the es-
tablishment’s doctrine. Once legitimized as such, the classical Chinese
canon was dismissed in modern Japan as irrelevant to changing reality
and as incommensurate with its mimetic representation, which was now
de¤ned as the mission of literature. However, the classical Chinese canon
was exploited, effectively in some cases, by those who resisted the nation-
alist discourse and transcended national boundaries, now (unlike in the
period covered in chapter 1) drawn by territorial consciousness. The
term “transgressive” in the chapter thus suggests resistance both to the
political institutional power that is normally thought to help form the
canon and to the dominant rhetoric of “one nation, one language” that
was behind canon formation in Meiji Japan. Shiba Shirô’s Kajin no kigû
and Nakamura Shin’ichirô’s Kumo no yukiki are representative works of
transnationalist intellectuals in the modern nation-state of Japan, both
within and outside the text, whose diasporic positions are best mani-
 Introduction • 17

fested (rather than checked) by their mastery and exhibition of the classi-
cal Chinese heritage. They reveal the awareness of literary composition as
a cultural, and thus transnational, practice rather than a transparent rep-
resentation of “the natural” in one’s mother tongue.
In place of a conclusion I offer a fast-paced coda to revisit the critical
points I made in chapters 1–4 and to relocate them in yet another possible
venue to test their validity—namely, in several pieces of Tanizaki
Jun’ichirô’s ¤ction that are better known than the short stories covered in
chapter 2 or, for that matter, than any other text I visit in this study. The
formulae showcased in the preceding chapters will shake the kaleido-
scope, if you will, and will paint a different picture of these familiar texts.
I expect the reader to realize that the functions of quotations from Chi-
nese sources have been largely ignored or inaccurately labeled as part of
Tanizaki’s appreciation of the quintessential Japanese literary and artistic
tradition. Instead of being noncodi¤ed references to things that happen
to ¤ll the backdrop of a story, Tanizaki’s choice and use of Chinese
sources prove to be strategic and ready to be theorized. The discovery of
the production of effects in those well-known texts should lead the reader
to review other examples with which he or she is familiar in order to re-
nounce the widely accepted assumptions based on the Sino-Japanese
dyad. The coda is thus intended as an invitation to a journey that each
reader can now take in his or her own direction with the map that I have
provided.
 CHAPTER 1

Site Unseen
Imaginary Voyages to China and Back
in Classical Japanese Fiction and Theater

To see is to have seen. . . . A seer has always already seen. Having seen
in advance he sees into the future. He sees the future tense out of the
perfect.
—Martin Heidegger

Literature becomes the truth, essence, or self-consciousness of all other

discourses precisely because unlike them, it knows that it does not
know what it is talking about.
—Terry Eagleton

n this chapter, I examine instances of the exoticization of China and

I Chinese ¤gures in ¤ction and theater written in wabun from the tenth
through the eighteenth centuries in order to identify reasons for
speci¤c tropes of Chineseness where knowledge of China in the empiri-
cal sense was largely inaccessible.1 This is not to say that Japan had no
contact with China; contrary to the conventional understanding, Japan
was hardly isolated from the continent. Although there was some politi-
cal isolation, Japan maintained diplomatic relations with Parhae (Ch.
Bohai; J. Bokkai; today part of northeastern China and northern Korea;
698–926) and Korea, and these yielded many poetic exchanges among
diplomats and their hosts in Japan. Drifters and refugees ¶owed in from
the continent, especially at times of unrest (e.g., at the beginning of the
Yuan [1271–1368] and Qing [1616–1912] dynasties).2 Japan pursued
mercantile relations, which were under the vigilance of the government
in the Muromachi and Tokugawa periods. And Zen (Ch. Chan) and
Ôbaku monks came from China, either invited by the Japanese govern-
ment or sent by the Chinese authorities; among them were Mugaku
Sogen (1226–1286) and Issan Ichinei (1247–1317) in the Song (960–

18
 Imaginary Voyages • 19

1279) and Yuan dynasties and Yinyuan (J. Ingen; 1592–1673) in the
Qing dynasty. Japanese visits to China, however, were limited to excep-
tional cases, such as those of selected Zen monks. Writings by travelers
and their hosts in Japan are mostly in the genre of classical Chinese po-
etry, the shared literary language.
The authors of ¤ctional travelogues whom I discuss in this chapter
were neither authorities in Chinese nor travelers in China. Their textual
and empirical resources being limited, they projected their own exotic
infatuations onto the thoughts of their ¤ctional Japanese sojourners,
who were allegedly more educated in Chinese and more equipped with
¤rsthand knowledge of China than they themselves. Instead of pointing
a ¤nger at the authors’ erroneous understandings of Chinese geography
and literature, as has been done in the past, I suggest identifying two
layers of speech, the authors’ and the characters’, and concentrating on
the latter so as to articulate the rhetorical con¤guration of China. Below
I will brie¶y consider the authors, in theoretical rather than in historical
terms, before moving on to the texts and the characters.
In considering authorial intent, we should account for the point of
imagined referentiality when there is no object to which to refer. Instead
of dismissing textual production in this period as fabrication, I suggest
that we see it as the purest form of rhetorical con¤guration of China, a
cognitive operation that may not be easily visible when overshadowed
by business or diplomatic relations that may stand as “real” in the em-
pirical sense.3 That anthropological writing, in which “truth” is claimed,
is rhetorical has long been noted. Take the following observation from
Stephen Greenblatt:

The sightings are important only in relation to what Columbus already

knows and what he can write about them on the basis of that knowledge. If
they fail in their promise, they will be demoted from the status of signs and
not noticed any longer. It was, after all, the known world that Columbus had
set out to discover, if by an unknown route: that was the point of reading
Marco Polo and Mandeville. As Todorov writes, Columbus “knows in ad-
vance what he will ¤nd; the concrete experience is there to illustrate a truth
already possessed, not to be interrogated according to preestablished rules in
order to seek the truth.”
The paradox of the meaningful—or perhaps we can simply say the full—
sign is that it is empty in the sense of hollow or transparent: a glass through
which Columbus looks to ¤nd what he expects to ¤nd, or, more accurately
20 • Chapter 1

perhaps, a foreign word he expects to construe and to incorporate into his

own language....The sign that Columbus cannot enfranchise, that is irreduc-
ibly strange or opaque, is en route to losing its status as a sign. For opacity
here can only signal an obstacle standing in the way of the desired access to
the known.4

What may appear to be ¤rsthand, scienti¤c, and authentic observation

thus has to be construed within the language that precedes the experi-
ence. It is then not the anthropological writing (e.g., travelogues written
by students and monks who actually visited China) that is transparent;
it is the fantastic writing that is transparent, in the sense that it relies
¤rst and foremost on language, the primary experience for the authors.
Thus, a study of quasi-travelogues should offer a most abstract theoreti-
cal model for studying other types of writing that retell the foreign.
The importation of Chinese classics and poetry had made the Japa-
nese reading public familiar with China in rhetorical terms. Kawase Ka-
zuma, one of the most pro¤cient and proli¤c scholars of Sino-Japanese
literature, says the following: “The creation of the so-called world of
dreams and fantasy in the last years of the Heian period, represented by
the author of Sarashina nikki, is inseparably tied with translation litera-
ture. An aspiration for the unseen, foreign land is an adoration for the
world of fantasies.”5 Perhaps unwittingly, Kawase in effect suggests that a
range of Sino-Japanese negotiations in translation and fantasy are framed
by the same rhetoricity. While a translation of Chinese literature may be
taken as a serious endeavor, aiming at accuracy and transparency, it is, like
fantasies are, yet another impossible enterprise of con¤guring the other.
Fantasies, on the other hand, are not generated out of nothing but out of a
repertoire of rhetorical con¤gurations made available by a variety of read-
ing practices, including translation. That the Japanese reading knowledge
of China varied from Chinese self-knowledge is not a matter of technical
error but a matter of course: not only did the Chinese not compose their
verse or prose so as to be understood by the Japanese, but the Japanese
also became Japanese only in their entanglement with the Chinese, who
represented the norm and thus stood at degree zero without requiring any
de¤nition. Japan located its own place by inventing a distance from China.
Kawase’s statement reminds us of another important though obvi-
ous point involving the readership of the ¤ctional travelogues in wabun.
We can safely eliminate the Chinese, the objecti¤ed, from the list of ex-
pected and actual readers of such travelogues. In these stories the “con-
 Imaginary Voyages • 21

tact zone” (to use Mary Louise Pratt’s term) was mostly set in the land
that was conventionally deemed the originator of cultural values and
was thus superior, but the site of textual production and distribution
was Japan.6 The language of distribution was not that of the cultural
center, but that of the cultural periphery, thus drawing an entirely dif-
ferent picture from that of colonial and postcolonial literature coming
from the former European colonies. These ¤ctional travelogues are un-
like the anthropological literature in the age of imperialism, which was
written in the language of the “civilized,” who assumed that the per-
ceived “primitives” that they studied would not be among their readers.
Nor are they like postcolonial literature written in the colonizer’s lan-
guage by the colonized. That they were written in Japanese in effect de-
nied the Chinese access to the texts. Japanese was of limited currency
simply because it was not much needed, if at all, rather than being re-
stricted for the use of only the privileged or being too dif¤cult for the
Chinese to learn. Few if any Chinese would deign to read Japanese
travel fantasies; the Japanese authors knew that and took advantage of
the virtual absence of a counterresponse from their object of study.
At the character layer of the texts, the gaze that dominates is not that
of a colonizer, a connoisseur, or an ethnographer from the center of cul-
tural hegemony—as is the case with colonial literature of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries—but that of a very select visitor from the cultural
periphery.7 This visitor has to submit to the judgment of the Chinese
elite, who determine whether or not he meets cultural and social stan-
dards and is civil enough for their company. Praise for the individual who
quali¤es for honorary citizen status is often extended to his home country
owing to the rarity of visitors from Japan. The alien nonetheless exoti-
cizes and objecti¤es those he believes are superior. He has been granted a
rare opportunity and is thus motivated and obligated to observe the cul-
tural Other in order to repay his community of origin for the privilege
that has been bestowed upon him. In his attempts to portray China, the
traveler inevitably begins to de¤ne Japaneseness as well as Chineseness.
Attempts to de¤ne given attributes as typically Japanese predate the
Japanese search for a cultural identity in the age of nationalism, as I will
show by detailed commentaries on the texts. Characters in ¤ction and
theater frequently made statements such as, “This is how the Japanese do
this, unlike the Chinese,” prior to the advent of nationalism. Whereas na-
tional territories were not delineated as they are in modern geography,
the boundaries between the two “countries” were clearly drawn. I am not
22 • Chapter 1

suggesting that there were essential entities that were distinct from each
other as “Japan” and “China” (in fact I am opposed to that understand-
ing), but I will reveal that, inconsistencies and inaccuracies notwith-
standing, there was an obsession with contrasting what was Japanese
from what was Chinese. My goal here is not to authenticate the theory
that Japan and China were contrastive, but to reveal the persistence of the
theory despite its ¶aws.
From the tenth to the eighteenth centuries, China remained the
Other as Japan produced its many faces, corresponding to the faces of Japa-
neseness. Japan’s relative political isolation helped accelerate the ob-
jecti¤cation of China as the symbolic Other. Tropes for China and the
Chinese were elaborated, and the symbolic codes to manipulate the for-
eign were re¤ned. Below we will see some examples of this compositional
practice; they are consistent with the issues at stake, but they vary from
one another in the way they negotiate with these issues. Inconsistencies,
¶uctuations in the intensity of engagement, and ambiguous implications
do not mean a lack of negotiations but simply suggest the complexity,
magnitude, and persistence of both confusion and a will to sort it out. The
“fold” has not been even, consistent, or homogeneous, as it should not be.

Waves from Coast to Coast

A ¤ctional memoir of a journey taken by a governor of Tosa and his
company as he returns to the capital, Tosa nikki8 plays with binary op-
positions: male and female; Chinese and Japanese languages; public and
private. While these pairs of oppositions may appear to simply parallel
one another, it has been suggested that a closer look at the text reveals
subtle transitions and in¶ections in subjectivity and diction that compli-
cate the pat binary contrasts.9 The alleged author, Ki no Tsurayuki (ca.
868–ca. 945), is known to have written a kanajo, the Japanese preface to
Kokin wakashû (Anthology of Japanese poems old and new, 905);10 in
this preface he compares the functions of Chinese poetry (shi) and Japa-
nese poetry (yamato uta), drawing upon ancient Chinese poetics such as
those mapped out in Maoshi daxu (Great preface to the classics of po-
etry, sixth century BC). Scholars have recently revised if not refuted one
longstanding interpretation of Tsurayuki’s agenda—that is, that he tried
to defend the position of Japanese poetry compared to Chinese poetry.
John Timothy Wixted suggests that there may not be anything uniquely
Japanese about the thesis Tsurayuki presented, while Thomas LaMarre
 Imaginary Voyages • 23

argues that Tsurayuki aimed at coordination rather than hierarchization

(as has often been interpreted) of the two poetic practices.11 It is true
that nothing in Tsurayuki’s text goes beyond a defense of Japanese po-
etry according to Chinese poetics, nor does he suggest an outright rejec-
tion of the “Chinese in¶uences” over the “indigenous.” Nevertheless,
the obvious fact that a comparison with Chinese poetry was called for in
defense of Japanese poetry, while such a comparative operation did not
take place in any manifesto of Chinese poetry (if ever it was felt needed),
reveals the contingency of the binary between Chinese and Japanese po-
etic theory and practice. The awareness of the binary was felt only by the
Japanese and not reciprocated by the Chinese.
The uneven entanglement manifests itself most prominently in a
reference to Abe no Nakamaro (698–770), a Japanese student-turned-
of¤cer who visited Tang China during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong
(685–762; r. 712–756), who kept him in China beyond his expected
stay out of excessive favor. In the following passage, the speaker (an at-
tendant of the governor who is set to leave for the capital) talks to the
local residents who are seeing him off about the time when Nakamaro
was about to return to Japan:

The twentieth night’s moon rose. With no mountain rim around, it came out
of the sea instead. Indeed, it must have been something like this that a man
called Abe no Nakamaro saw long ago. When he was to return to Japan from
the China [Morokoshi] that he had visited, the Chinese people [kano kuni
hito] gave a farewell party and composed Chinese poems [kashiko no karauta]
at the port of departure. They must yet have been to be satis¤ed, as they stayed
until the twentieth night’s moon rose. The moon did come out of the sea. See-
ing that, Nakamaro remarked: “This is a kind of a poem that deities in mythical
times and human beings of all ranks compose on occasions like this, delighted
or saddened, in my country [waga kuni].” And the poem read:

Aounabara / furisake mireba /

Kasuga naru / Mikasa no yama ni / ideshi tsuki kamo

(As I gaze over / the blue expanse of the ocean / I ¤nd the moon—
the moon that rose over Mount Mikasa / in Kasuga!)

Though he thought the Chinese would not understand the concept, he wrote
down the outline in Chinese characters and had the person who knew
24 • Chapter 1

Japanese [koko no kotoba] mediate the essence of the poem, and they seem to
have understood the meaning and appreciated the poem beyond expectation.
Though the languages are different in China and Japan [kono kuni], the moon-
light is the same, so human emotions must be the same. Imagining how things
must have been in the past, a certain person composed a poem as follows:

Miyako nite / yamanoha ni mishi / tsuki naredo

nami yori ide te / nami ni koso ire

(In the capital / I saw the moon / above the mountain ridge;
here it rises from waves / and sets into waves).12

While the speaker’s slightly patronizing tone indicates the cultural hier-
archy between the capital and the countryside within Japan, this version
of Nakamaro’s story attempts to reverse the hierarchy between China and
Japan. Nakamaro, as portrayed here, speaks with the con¤dence of know-
ing more than his Chinese listeners, instructing them in the value of Japa-
nese poetry (waka), which they have not been trained to appreciate, let
alone compose. In this version of the story, China is characterized as cul-
turally poorer than Japan, lacking the art of waka composition. The Chi-
nese, who are monolingual, are regarded as lacking the versatility of the
Japanese, who are bilingual. This neutralization of the hierarchy between
the cultural center and the periphery is recon¤rmed when the contrast
between the miyako (capital) and hina (rural areas; speci¤cally Tosa) is
superimposed on the contrast between kono kuni (this country) or koko
(here; in this case, Japan) and kano kuni (that country) or kashiko (there;
i.e., China) as the departure point and destination of travel.
This is not to say that the speaker suggests Japan is superior to China;
rather, he states that the Chinese and Japanese hold the same ideals, just
as they both appreciate the moon. It is not as though Japan were the coun-
try from which the moon rises; the moon rises “from the sea,” the neutral
zone between the two distant shores. Still, given that China could afford
to be monolingual while Japan could not, the proposed universality of
Japanese poetry is a trace of the Japanese desire to move from the status of
inferior to equal. Thus, the elevation of Japanese poetry is obvious in
terms of the trajectory of the movement rather than in the position that it
aspires to occupy.
The suggestion in this text that Abe no Nakamaro composed both
Japanese poetry (waka) and Chinese poetry (kanshi), to which Chinese
 Imaginary Voyages • 25

poets responded with shi, tends to be ignored. Nakamaro was instated

into the community of Chinese literati precisely because of his mastery
of the Chinese language and his ability to compose in it. Far from being
respected for his advocacy of the value of Japanese poetry, as is sug-
gested in Tosa nikki, Nakamaro was a cosmopolitan intellectual who
transcended national boundaries. His departure for Japan occasioned
the composition of a farewell poem by Wang Wei (699–759), and his re-
ported death in a shipwreck was elegized by Li Bai (701–762), a fact reg-
istered in both China and Japan and showing that Nakamaro’s status
was high enough to draw the attention of China’s most prominent poets.
Moreover, Wenyuan yinghua (Flowers of distinction in the garden of lit-
erature, 987), an imperially commissioned anthology of Chinese poetry
from the Liang (502–557) through the Tang (618–907) dynasties, has a
poem by Nakamaro in Chinese.13 The piece, a ¤ve-character, eight-line
regulated poem, expresses the speaker’s profuse gratitude for the Chi-
nese emperor’s favors and adds a small mention of his parents in Japan,
which is only appropriate, given that the poem was composed in Chi-
nese and in China.
We now turn to a Chinese-language text produced in Japan, Gôdan-
shô (early twelfth century), a collection of episodes about historical Japa-
nese ¤gures recounted by Ôe no Masafusa (1041–1111).14 It too does not
portray Nakamaro as a waka advocate but as a culturally Sini¤ed individ-
ual entrapped in the rivalry between the Chinese and Japanese. In this
version, instead of failing to return to Japan because of a shipwreck (as is
documented in the sources noted), Nakamaro was imprisoned in a tower
in China and starved to death. Kibi no Makibi (695?–775), visiting China
as ambassador (as documented in history), meets with the same treat-
ment by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese are ashamed because Ma-
kibi demonstrates a superior mastery of Chinese literature and art, so
much so that they decide not to let him return to Japan and instead lock
him up in the same tower so that he will die of starvation. The ghost of
Nakamaro exerts his supernatural powers to tell Makibi that the Chinese
plan to test him with Chinese texts and helps him ¶y to the site at which
Chinese scholars discuss Wenxuan (Literary collection, sixth century), a
book that, Gôdanshô tells us, was not yet known to the Japanese, so that
he can prepare for the test.15 Makibi manages to pass the test, so he is fur-
ther challenged with Buddhist texts and games of chess. He surmounts
these challenges one way or another, once with the help of Sumiyoshi, the
god of the military and of Japanese poetry whose defense of the Japanese
26 • Chapter 1

recurs in Japanese literary history, as we will see below in this chapter.

Whereas the implicit rivalry in Gôdanshô between the Chinese and Japa-
nese may resonate with the Nakamaro episode in Tosa nikki, the fact that
none of the texts used for Makibi’s tests are indigenously Japanese tells us
that it was not an issue whether or not Nakamaro was able to exhibit his
mastery of the Japanese arts, let alone defend the value of Japanese poetry
vis-à-vis Chinese poetry.
Another episode in Gôdanshô functions as an even more explicit an-
tithesis to the portrayal of Nakamaro as an advocate of waka. Recounted
in the format of a dialogue between a master and his disciple, the episode
quotes the waka by Nakamaro that we noted above and then questions
the propriety of Nakamaro’s composing in Japanese, as there may have
been “a taboo” that one must not compose waka while in China.16 The epi-
sode does not cite any regulation against the practice, but the very fact
that it struck mid-Heian Japanese Sinophiles (including the author of
Gôdanshô and its prospective readers) as odd for Nakamaro to compose a
waka reveals their understanding of this Japanese historical ¤gure: he was
the embodiment of pro¤ciency in Chinese literature rather than an advo-
cate of the ethnolingual.17
One condition that notably persists in these anecdotes surrounding
Abe no Nakamaro (among other Japanese historical literati who were
known to the Chinese either in reality or in the Japanese literary imagi-
nation) is the fact that the site of an encounter, whether materialized or
not, is often a shore—either in China or in Japan. This suggests that na-
tional boundaries were envisioned as coastlines rather than as a com-
plete delineation of territories—understandably so, as these stories were
written before the time of cartography. As LaMarre argues, drawing
upon Benedict Anderson, the concept of territoriality is historically
modern.18 The title words of Hamamatsu and Matsura in the texts to be
discussed below also denote points of departure/arrival. This cognition
of spatiality allows individuals of dual loyalty to rede¤ne their identities
as they embark or disembark from a ship—as happens repeatedly in the
texts discussed below.19

A Beautiful Stranger
In the wabun ¤ction and theater pieces under discussion here, a new-
comer from Japan is put to initial “tests” of his adaptability to the society
of the Chinese elite, though the tests are not as excruciating as were the
 Imaginary Voyages • 27

ones in the Gôdanshô episode about Kibi no Makibi. The visitor must
meet Chinese expectations in poetic composition, musical performance,
and physical appearance in order to be welcomed into the circle of the
privileged. The protagonists in such classical Japanese works excel in
the arts and are exceedingly handsome, and thus they pass the tests with
¶ying colors. The hero of Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari (hereafter
Hamamatsu) is no exception.20 His reception in China is most enthusias-
tic, possibly recalling the way Abe no Nakamaro might have been re-
ceived in reality (rather than the way he was received in the episode we
saw). Once having passed the “tests” with his extraordinary individual
merits, he makes the hearts throb of Chinese men and women alike. In
this way, he differs radically from his literary successor, the lieutenant
in Matsura no miya monogatari, who, as we will see below, disturbs the
peace of the Chinese rather than fascinating them.
“Hamamatsu” (which also appears in the tale’s alternative title, Mitsu
no Hamamatsu), is a poetic word literally meaning “pines on the shore,”
and, with the pun of matsu also meaning “to wait,” it implies both a Japa-
nese beach as a stage of Sino-Japanese travels and longings felt by those
who are left there, if not those who have left from there.21 The title thus
suggests that this story is about a Japanese man who visits China and is
missed by his loved ones in Japan. Despite the connotations, however, the
focus of the story, at least in the currently available version (which is
missing its ¤rst book), appears to be more on the protagonist’s relation-
ships with people in China, which affect him deeply, even after his return
to his native land. This is partly because the protagonist’s associates in
China are not exclusively Chinese but are partly of Japanese ancestry, and
partly because lingual boundaries are often crossed and recrossed. The
Sino-Japanese contrasts are thus not as articulately staged as in Tosa nikki
and are instead complicated with themes of miscegenation, transnational
reincarnation, and the shared practice of composition and reception of
literature in Chinese.
The protagonist, the Middle Councilor, decides to travel to China out
of ¤lial piety in order to ¤nd the reincarnation of his deceased father, who
is now an imperial prince of China. Though the Middle Councilor thus
does not formally represent Japan as government-sent students and dip-
lomats did, he nonetheless goes through a similar appraisal once in China
and is deemed distinguished in three areas: the composition of wen (high
literary prose), musical performance, and physical (speci¤cally facial) ap-
pearance, which the Chinese emperor considers more handsome than
28 • Chapter 1

that of the legendary Chinese beau, Hakukan (commonly annotated as a

misromanization of Pan Yue ẘጪ [247–300], whose standard Japanese
reading is “Han Gaku”) of Kôyô (likewise a mistranscription of Heyang,
which should be read in Japanese as “Kayô,” ᴡ㓁 or, in an even more do-
mesticated reading, “Kaya”). If correctly cited, the analogy with the liter-
ary topos and icon foreshadows the location of the Middle Councilor’s
encounter with his reincarnated father and the prince’s mother, Kôyô
Ken no Kisai (Consort in the District of Heyang) and the possibility that
the story will develop into romance.
These “errors” in transcribing Chinese proper nouns are usually at-
tributed to the alleged author’s (or any of the copiers’) shaky knowledge of
the language; the alleged author, Sugawara no Takasue no musume
(Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue, 1008–?), is a sixth-generation off-
spring of Sugawara no Michizane (845–903), a paragon of Sinophilia ac-
complished in poetry, learning, and bureaucracy, as dictated by the
Chinese. The Sugawaras were a family of scholars (monjôdô), one of three
families from which university professors of Chinese poetry, prose, and
history were normally appointed by the imperial government from the late
Heian period on. The author’s family history and upbringing are con¶ict-
ing factors that we need to consider in order to determine her pro¤ciency
in Chinese. Not only was she deprived of opportunities to study Chinese
institutionally because she was a woman, but she was also brought up
partly in the countryside (in Hitachi, where she lived with her father, who
was governor), where resources to study Chinese informally may have
been limited.22 Since much of her life remains unknown beyond the con-
tents of her memoir, Sarashina nikki (Memoir of an aging woman, mid-
eleventh century) and since the attribution of authorship of Hamamatsu to
her remains hypothetical, if quite likely, I suggest that we interpret the
“errors” in terms of their effects on the audience rather than the results of
authorial de¤ciencies.23 The “mispronounced” names could also attest to
attempts to reproduce the foreignness, which had been erased in the pro-
cess of domesticating the words’ readings. Once incorporated into the
Japanese vocabulary, “Han Gaku” and “Kayô”/“Kaya” ceased to sound as
exotic as they used to. To refer to Pan Yue as “Haku Kan” or to Heyang as
“Kôyô” would restore the exotic sounds of the proper nouns, especially
for the ears of an audience less pro¤cient in Chinese. Authenticity might
have been lost, but it was still projected and perceived.
Indeed, Kayô or Heyang was so familiar to the Japanese readers of
Chinese poetry that they bestowed the name on the Japanese place of
 Imaginary Voyages • 29

Yamazaki (in present-day Otokuni-gun, Kyoto), considering it equivalent

to Kayô as a place of interest.24 Bunka shûrei shû (Anthology of poetry of
distinction, 818), an imperially commissioned three-volume anthology of
kanshi, has a sequence called “Kayô jûei” (Ten poems on Kayô/Heyang),
consisting of poems composed by Emperor Saga (786–842; r. 809–823)
at and about Yamazaki Imperial Villa (Yamazaki Rikyû), which was also
called Kayô Kyû (Heyang Palace).25 The palace was a site of many kanshi
and waka compositions and was visited by Ariwara no Narihira (825–
880), among other men of letters of the day. While Narihira is known to
have been inadequate in Chinese learning, many of his contemporary
waka poets were also pro¤cient in kanshi composition, as their poems in
this anthology attest.26 Given that Hamamatsu was intended for readers
who may or may not have been pro¤cient in kanshibun, the place name,
if rightly spelled, must have evoked for them Yamazaki rather than Hey-
ang, thus in effect making them feel as though a place name had been
exported from Japan to China. “Kayô” or “Kaya” is thus not simply the
historical place name in China, but also an example of the “fold”—once
again to use Gilles Deleuze’s terminology—with the Japanese reinven-
tion of the place enclosed in the word as an anticipation of the audi-
ence’s response. The unorthodox romanization of the place name,
however, gives yet another twist to the fold as the spelling reexoticizes
and defamiliarizes the name for the audience.
Another “fold” in which Japanese subjectivity and Chinese objectivity
are lost and found only in an entanglement with each other is the Middle
Councilor’s observation of Chinese women’s recitation of fumi, or Chinese
texts. He says: “I wonder if Chinese women do not compose Japanese
poems (uta) as men do; the women recite from literature in Chinese when
they see blossoms.”27 While this interior monologue may immediately pro-
pose a gender/language, competence/function dichotomy (men-bilingual-
poets versus women-monolingual [native language only]-readers), a closer
look at the texts recited by the Chinese women redirects our attention.
Young ladies-in-waiting who serve the Heyang consort recite a phrase,
“Ransei-en no arashino” (the storm in the garden of fragrant orchids),
which is excerpted from a poem composed by Kan Sanbon, the Sini¤ed
pen name of Sugawara no Fumitoki (also called Funtoki; 899–981), a
Japanese poet and courtier. Two lines of the same poem, including the
quoted phrase (“After the storm in the garden of fragrant orchids crushed
the purple ¶owers, the moon shone on these [¶owers: chrysanthemums]
among the frost in the Immortals’ Palace”), are collected only in Japanese
30 • Chapter 1

sources such as Wakan rôeishû (ca. 1012) and Gôdanshô.28 In reality it was
not expected that Chinese women would be familiar with this text, or for
that matter any texts written by Japanese authors, even in Chinese. Indeed,
there are no kanshi/shi in Hamamatsu other than those collected in anthol-
ogies edited in Japan (including those originally composed by Chinese
poets). This “misrepresentation” might in effect showcase a “counter-
importation” of Chinese composition practice mastered by the Japanese.
That this may simply be a re¶ection of wishful thinking on the part of the
author is beside the point in our context. The point is that Chinese ¤gures
observed by the Japanese are already accustomed to Chinese poems au-
thored by the Japanese, who had previously acquired the Chinese lan-
guage. This is an exemplary case of the “fold” in Deleuzean terms.
Yet another example of neutralizing the evaluative dichotomy be-
tween the Japanese and Chinese materializes as Hamamatsu’s Chinese
characters are described as able to compose waka. While this is in part to
cater to an audience less competent in Chinese and in part to compensate
for the alleged author’s lack of reading knowledge in Chinese, it also con-
tributes to a uniquely hypothetical platform on which the Chinese and
Japanese can communicate with each other in a language/literary practice
other than the then universal Chinese. The earliest example of waka com-
position in Hamamatsu appears right after the above-mentioned recita-
tion of a Japanese-composed shi line. The Middle Councilor wonders
whether or not Chinese women compose poems as men do. With that
question in mind, he challenges the Heyang consort to see if she can com-
pose an impromptu waka in response to one he composes. His poem says
something to the effect that his homesickness is assuaged by kono hana,
or “this ¶ower,” which is an allusion to a chrysanthemum, the ¶ower that
he submits to the consort with his poem. The allusion was made famous
by lines from a poem by Yuan Zhen (779–831), collected in Wakan
rôeishû, which singled out the chrysanthemum as the last ¶ower remain-
ing in bloom until the end of autumn.29 The consort then responds by of-
fering both a fan to accept the ¶ower (a gesture that strikes the Middle
Councilor as Japanese) and a waka that answers his question.30 This scene
offers another example of the fold, suggesting that Japanese is also a uni-
versal language, and it renounces the Tosa nikki thesis that the monolin-
gual and Japanese-illiterate Chinese are culturally more limited than the
bilingual and Chinese-pro¤cient Japanese.
Such intricacies of the entanglement in translingual practice are
eclipsed on the textual surface by ostentatious Sino-Japanese contrasts in
 Imaginary Voyages • 31

which the two cultures are portrayed as essentially contrastive entities.

The character who exhibits Chineseness most evidently is the minister’s
¤fth daughter, who falls for the Middle Councilor. She is not alone in
wishing for a relationship with him; the Japanese man’s distinction,
which, as noted, has even impressed the emperor, makes him popular
among members of the nobility who have eligible daughters. High-ranking
courtiers wish to marry their daughters to him “even though he is a tem-
porary resident from another country” (takoku no karisome no hito nari-
tomo).31 The reincarnated father of the Middle Councilor is concerned
that any bonding may result in keeping him in China, despite his respon-
sibilities back home, and counsels him against becoming involved with
Chinese women. The Minister, however, tries to coax him into marrying
his ¤fth daughter and treats him to an extravagant feast. Perplexed, the
Middle Councilor questions the Minister’s third son, who tells him out-
right that his sister is lovesick for him and has said that a glimpse of the
Middle Councilor would cure her of the ailment. The Middle Councilor is
appalled by the direct mode of speech and compares this lack of reserve
with Japanese manners and customs, which are characterized by euphe-
mism. He tries to let the daughter down gently, and in the process he ob-
serves that unlike Japanese women, she is not shy about exposing her
¤gure beyond the screen and that she speaks only in Chinese. Unfavor-
able comparisons are made with the Heyang consort, whose remarkable
qualities are de¤ned as Japanese, as we saw brie¶y and will see in more
detail below. He tries to stay on the ¤fth daughter’s good side, giving her
his ¶ute and sending her letters, partly in consideration of her father’s in-
famous temper. The failure to make a match is taken surprisingly lightly
by the Chinese side: the daughter feels better after seeing the handsome
Japanese man, and the Minister is thankful to him for helping improve his
daughter’s health. Throughout, the tone employed to portray the Chinese
characters in the Minister’s family is amicable and yet comedic, with little
reverence for the candor of the Chinese. The contrasts made between
Japanese and Chinese customs also seem to suggest a reversal of the cul-
tural hierarchy: in contrast to the established ladder of value, Japan is
viewed as civilized, elaborate, and complex and China as unsophisti-
cated, rough, and simple.
That the protagonist’s father is reincarnated as a Chinese child is also
a microcosmic metaphor of the Japanese mastery of the Chinese arts (a
mastery embodied by the Middle Councilor), placing Japan on a par
with China, if not implying that Japan has become superior. Ancestors,
32 • Chapter 1

biological or cultural, have become intellectually inferior to or incompat-

ible with their descendants. Though the prince is superior in rank and is
also portrayed as bright and thoughtful for his age, such a judgment is
made by the Middle Councilor, the grown-up and well-educated observer.
Genealogy is thus inverted; the cultural descendant (Japan) is equipped
with the wisdom and judgment that comes with age. Precocious as the
prince/father may be—as is evident in his discretion in keeping secret his
previous life and in the composure with which he reveals the truth to his
mother in this life—he cannot develop any further meaningful relation-
ship with the Middle Councilor.
The focus of the story thus shifts to the prince’s mother, the consort
of Heyang District. The theme of Sino-Japanese relations is developed
further as the consort admits to the Middle Councilor that she is half
Japanese; she was born to a member of the Chinese royalty visiting Japan
on a diplomatic mission and a daughter of a Japanese minister exiled in
Tsukushi.32 The consort is portrayed ¤rst as pleasing to the eye despite her
Chinese coif and clothes, which make other Chinese women too formal
and magni¤cent to be personable, and then, after the revelation of her hy-
bridity, as outstandingly Japanese.33 She is feminine (taoyaka), person-
able (natsukashi), forgiving (yawaraka), and enticing (namameki)34—
characteristics that are accounted for by her upbringing: she was raised
by her Japanese mother until she traveled back to China with her father at
the age of ¤ve.
The emperor’s favoring of the consort predictably elicits the jeal-
ousy of the other consorts—so much so that the consort retreats from
the imperial palace and into the Heyang District. The emperor’s devo-
tion to the Heyang consort is said to “almost compare to the old instance
of Yang Guifei” (Yôkihi to iu mukashi no tameshi hiki ide nu bekari
keru o).35 This is an almost verbatim repetition of a phrase in the “Kiri-
tsubo” chapter of Lady Murasaki’s Genji monogatari (Yôkihi no tameshi
mo hiki ide tsu beku nari yuku ni), in which courtiers express their con-
cern with the Kiritsubo consort’s monopoly of the emperor’s love by
comparing her with Yang Guifei, who distracted Emperor Xuanzong
from his duties as a ruler, to disastrous effect.36 Thus, textually, the He-
yang consort is more closely associated with the Kiritsubo consort in
Genji than with the original Chinese archetype. This is another instance
of the counterimportation of a Chinese literary model domesticated in
Japanese literary practice: while it seems only consistent with and
con¤ned within a Chinese domestic literary imagination for Chinese
 Imaginary Voyages • 33

courtiers to compare the Heyang consort to Yang Guifei on the diegetic

level, the comparison in effect invites the Japanese reader to identify the
allusion speci¤cally as the one in Genji monogatari, where the almost
precise phrasing of the analogy with Yang Guifei originates. The Chi-
nese characters share a rhetorical expression that was (re)made within
Japanese literary practice and counterimported.
In fact the Heyang consort’s fortunes seem less closely akin to those
of Yang Guifei than to those of Lingyuan Qie (Concubine at the Imperial
Grave) or Shangyang Baifaren (Gray-Haired Lady in Shangyang Palace),
two consorts who were assigned to parts of the imperial properties that
were not visited by the emperor.37 The Heyang consort’s story, however,
differs from that of the two deserted concubines, as she does not spend
the rest of her postwithdrawal life in sheer isolation. The emperor pays
frequent visits to her and to the prince that she has taken with her; the
Middle Councilor sees these visits as a display of freedom not allowed
Japanese royalty. What is more reminiscent of Japanese romance—suf¤ce
it to cite as an example Ise monogatari, which narrates Narihira’s adulter-
ous and blasphemous transgressions involving an imperial consort-to-be
and a great priestess of the Ise Shrine—and is undoubtedly of greater im-
portance in this story is that the consort becomes involved with the Middle
Councilor. Though Ise monogatari is often thought to be a quintessen-
tially Japanese classic that de¤ned aesthetic sensibility for the works to
come,38 its negotiations with Chinese texts such as Benshi shi (Tales of
poems, 886) and You xian ku (Excursion to the Immortals’ Cave, end sev-
enth century?; attributed to Zhang Wencheng [ca. 660–ca. 740]) are well
known.39 The last is particularly relevant in our context, as it tells of a
male traveler’s ¶eeting affair with two mysterious women. Thus, we
might say that the Ise-reminiscent affair in Hamamatsu presents another
example of the counterimportation of Japanese renditions of Chinese
texts, though the link is much more subtly suggested.
The double enclosure of Chinese and Japanese cultural products is
appropriate as the pretext for the Middle Councilor’s affair with the
mysterious Chinese woman, later identi¤ed as the Heyang consort in-
cognito. First, the beautiful setting of San’in (Ch. Shan’yin) reminds the
Middle Councilor of Wang Ziyou (?–388?) who is said to have lived in a
place of the same name and enjoyed looking at the moon. According to
legend, Wang took a boat to visit a friend so as to share with him the
pleasure of moon viewing while the moon’s beauty (and his interest)
lasted, but he left, without meeting his friend, when daylight came. The
34 • Chapter 1

legend epitomizes the prioritization of aesthetics over socialization.40

The reference is another example of domesticated Chinese sources
being brought back again to China, as the story is known to waka and
wabun readers in Japan through the venue of Kara monogatari (Tales of
China, twelfth–thirteenth centuries), an anthology of twenty-seven anec-
dotes whose partial function is to educate Japanese readers who are less
competent in Chinese about Chinese legendary ¤gures who are com-
monly the subjects of poems.41
The Middle Councilor then recollects a similar occasion with his ¤rst
love, Ôigimi, and her father back in Japan. The nostalgic longing for the
lover at home, as well as the native land, leads to his fatal attraction to an
unidenti¤ed woman who “looks nothing short of like a woman of his own
country” (waga yo no hito ni tsuyu bakari tagau tokoro naku) in that she
is feminine (taoyakani), personable (natsukashiku), and enticing (nama-
meki)42—the same epithets previously used to describe the consort. Since
the woman is indeed the consort, the choice of attributes is only natural.
The point here is that while Japaneseness and Chineseness are identi¤ed
as contrastive qualities, they can be evoked in an individual who, as is the
case here, may happen to be understood as Chinese. The nationality of the
subject does not predetermine his or her characteristics in cultural terms;
cultural attributes go beyond national identities.
The Middle Councilor’s attachment to this unidenti¤ed woman
makes it dif¤cult for him to set out for Japan as initially planned. Concur-
rently, the Heyang consort suddenly leaves her remote palace and hides
in a place called Shokuzan with her father, a retired minister. Her unac-
counted for action is owing to her pregnancy, a result of her clandestine
affair with the Middle Councilor. She plans to give birth to the baby in se-
cret before she returns to court. The emperor invites the Middle Coun-
cilor on the seventh night of the seventh month—the night of the yearly
tryst of star-crossed lovers in East Asian tradition—to join him in poetic
composition and musical performance to disperse the emperor’s loneli-
ness now that his favorite mistress is gone—a sentiment that is well un-
derstood by the Japanese man who wishes he could see the mysterious
“Chinese” woman again. Little does he know that the two men are in fact
missing the same woman. This fact, which only the narrator and reader
know, is ironically illustrated when the two men compose waka, drawing
upon oft-quoted lines from Bai Juyi’s (772–846) “Changhenge” (The
song of lasting sorrow): “In the sky let us be a pair of birds ¶ying together
with each other’s wings parallel / On earth let us be a pair of boughs en-
 Imaginary Voyages • 35

twining each other.”43 From the emperor’s viewpoint, the association of

Yang Guifei with the Heyang consort is obviously appropriate because
separation is involved in both cases. The analogy also echoes the earlier
quotation of Yang Guifei.44 Here the Middle Councilor as the immediate
audience for the emperor’s poem is not unlike the wizard in the Bai Juyi
song: he is a third party sympathetic with the lover longing for the de-
parted soul. When the Middle Councilor composes his own poem, how-
ever, his role in the allusion to the legendary romance shifts from
observer to protagonist. Even though his poem is to be understood by his
audience (the emperor) as a vicarious composition, representing the em-
peror’s position, the reader knows the Middle Councilor’s own emotions
inspired the poem. His association of the mysterious woman with Yang
Guifei is also appropriate; he feels as though the poignancy of his separa-
tion from his lover is comparable to Xuanzong’s dismay that he is sepa-
rated from his favorite concubine by death. Without knowledge of the
true situation, however, the Middle Councilor is only echoing the em-
peror’s analogy between the Heyang consort and Yang Guifei.
Indeed, the parallel between Yang Guifei and the Heyang consort
sheds light on the latter’s past and future. It is predicted that she will be
reborn in Japan as the child of her Japanese half-sister. According to Japa-
nese popular legends, Yang Guifei was the reincarnation of a Japanese
deity and then reincarnated again after her death in China as yet another
Japanese deity. Thus the suggested hybridity of Yang Guifei matches the
biographical background and fortune of the consort.
The ambiguous identity of the consort is masked, however, by the
emperor during a farewell party for the Middle Councilor on Middle Au-
tumn Night, the Fifteenth Night of the Eighth Month. The Heyang con-
sort has been recalled to the palace after having delivered a son. The
emperor regrets that the Middle Councilor has not seen anything remark-
able while in China and that he will have nothing to say in praise of China
to his fellow countrymen in Japan. Then the emperor conceives the idea
that the Heyang consort’s skills in playing the kin (Ch. qin) would do
honor to China if presented to the foreign guest. Thus, the arrangement is
made but on one condition: the consort must not reveal her identity. The
emperor is concerned that it may be considered inappropriate in the for-
eign country that the imperial consort entertained the foreign guest. Thus,
the consort plays the kin in the guise of a low-ranking lady-in-waiting. The
emperor is satis¤ed with the consort’s performance and the success of the
masquerade, while he does not know that he has unwittingly presented
36 • Chapter 1

the Middle Councilor’s lover as herself; had the emperor presented her as
the consort, then the Middle Councilor would have simply con¤rmed a
remarkable resemblance between the two women. The Middle Councilor,
who does not know that the woman with whom he had an affair is the
consort, is shocked to see the woman he loves miraculously before his
eyes. While he is struck with her resemblance to the consort in terms of
both physical appearance and performance style, he cannot see the two as
identical simply because the woman playing the kin is presented as a ser-
vant, and he would not expect the consort herself to perform in his honor.
The consort is the only one who knows that she is playing the role of a
low-ranking woman for both of the men but for quite different effects: to
conceal her true identity from the Middle Councilor upon the emperor’s
command and to reveal her false identity to him.
The guest of honor, emotionally moved, accompanies the consort on
the biwa (Ch. pipa), which highly impresses the emperor. His words of
praise—“The Middle Councilor must be the best and unparalleled man in
Japan; the consort, incomparably beautiful in my country”45—implies
much more than he is aware: the Middle Councilor, as the best Japanese
man, and the Heyang consort, as the best Chinese woman, are paired to-
gether. The emperor fails to recognize the consort’s dual identity, in terms
of both ethnicity (half Chinese, half Japanese) and relationships (involved
with both of the men). He displays her as an emblem of the best of Chinese
culture while viewing the Middle Councilor as her Japanese counterpart.
Ironically, the emperor’s attempt to match the Japanese guest’s distinction
with the pride of China is hollow in intention and effect, despite the bril-
liantly successful performance. The Middle Councilor and Heyang con-
sort had an affair that was triggered by the consort’s Japanese qualities,
which are ignored, if not denied, by the emperor. Furthermore, the em-
peror’s phrase, “as though seeing the sun and the moon parallel to each
other” (tsukihi no hikari o narabete min kokochi shite),46 betrays his in-
tent, as it echoes Fujitsubo and Genji’s parallel brilliance as described in
the “Kiritsubo” chapter of Genji monogatari.47 The allusion functions both
to con¤rm the adultery between the two characters and to signal another
instance of the neutralization of the China-Japan dichotomy: in the reso-
nance of the Fujitsubo-Genji pairing, the consort becomes Japanese.
As the part of the story set in China nears its close, another bonding
of the Middle Councilor with China is introduced so as to tighten the
linkage among chapters. He is given new reasons to long for China even
after accomplishing his initial goal of reuniting with his father. A female
 Imaginary Voyages • 37

relative of the consort ¤nally reveals to the Middle Councilor the iden-
tity of the hitherto unidenti¤ed woman, as well as her secret delivery of
the illegitimate son. While slightly annoyed by her lack of discretion, a
trait he considers distinctly Chinese (“waga yo no hito naraba ima ni
nari te kaku arawashi ide zara mashi o”: a Japanese would not reveal that
at this point),48 the Middle Councilor reasons that his resolve to visit
China (despite the fact that he had to desert his lover and his mother) is
owing to Buddhist retribution from a previous life and is manifested in
the birth of a son in China. He decides to take the son to Japan with him,
just as the Heyang consort’s father decided to take his daughter with
him from Japan when he returned to China. The theme of a parent’s sepa-
ration from a child, a fate that the consort’s mother had to endure, is
now to be repeated. In such an application of Buddhist karmic reincar-
nation, retribution and bonding between parent and child, the distance
between China and Japan is paralleled with the distance between this
life and the previous one and with the distance among generations. The
axis of temporality is superimposed onto that of spatiality, as is often the
case with Japan’s positioning of China, except that in this case China is
not necessarily cast in the older/ancestral role. Hierarchy by age is re-
versible, and precisely because of that, bonding and separation repeat
themselves, oscillating between the poles of China and Japan.
The minister’s ¤fth daughter, who earlier functioned only to illus-
trate foreignness with her forwardness and incompetence in Japanese, re-
appears now to demonstrate her compositional skills in Japanese poetry
as well as musical skills in playing the biwa. She responds to the Middle
Councilor’s waka with another waka. The Middle Councilor’s waka is a
parody of Abe no Nakamaro’s:

Hinomoto no / yama yori iden / tsuki mitemo /

mazuzo koyoi wa / koishikaru beki

(I shall longingly remember this evening

when I see the moon rise over the hills in Japan)

While Nakamaro’s waka is about the homesickness he feels when seeing

the moon, which he once saw rising from the tip of Mount Mikasa in Ja-
pan, the Middle Councilor’s is a poem predicting that even when he is
back in Japan and sees the moon rise above Japanese mountains, he will
be fondly reminded of the ¤fth daughter and the evening they spent
38 • Chapter 1

together watching the moon rise in China.49 One waka is simply nostal-
gic, recalling the past, while the other is hypothetically and prospectively
nostalgic, imagining how the speaker might feel about the present mo-
ment, which will be a part of the past in the future. In spatial terms, the
earlier poem is again simply nostalgic—the poet misses his home when
he is far from there—while the newer poem reverses the direction of nos-
talgia by hypothesizing a longing for a foreign land when the poet has re-
turned to his place of origin. Thus, the Middle Councilor’s parody of the
Nakamaro poem effectively renounces the order of value between the
homeland (Japan) and the foreign land (China), as well as the chronologi-
cal order that puts the past and the future at opposite poles.
Upon returning to Japan, the Middle Councilor takes great pains to
hide his son from the public eye and searches clandestinely for the consort’s
mother, who now lives in the mountains of Yoshino, to give her a keepsake
(letter box) with which he has been entrusted. The discretion and reserve
that he exercises are the very qualities he did not ¤nd in his Chinese ac-
quaintances. Ironically, despite his Japaneseness, he feels isolated from the
Japanese and attached to his lover in China. He shares secrets with his Chi-
nese lover and keeps them from his Japanese friends. His homecoming
does not release him from the tensions of being in a foreign country but
charges him with new duties that he must assume for the sake of his foreign
friends. The location of his loyalty and belonging is thus ambiguous.
The Middle Councilor’s ¤rst meeting with the Japanese emperor
upon his return illustrates his new status in the court as a result of his
journey. The emperor is particularly impressed by the councilor’s aston-
ishing and divine appearance (asamashiu kono yo no mono narazu).50
While the emperor is overwhelmed with joy to see the Middle Councilor,
whose exceptional talents were missed at court, the returnee is brimming
with mixed emotions: gratitude for the emperor’s favor, a longing for
home he felt while in China and that he now remembers, and a longing
for China, as a musical performance in the emperor’s presence reminds
him of the occasion when he ¤rst heard the consort play the biwa. In the
subsequent exchange of waka between the emperor and the Middle
Councilor, the latter’s “multifolded” mind comes across to the reader, in
contrast with the emperor’s straightforward appreciation of the reunion
with the returnee, which is evident in the emperor’s poem:

Wakare te wa / kumoi no tsuki mo / kumori tsutsu /

ka bakari sume ru / kage mo mi zari ki
 Imaginary Voyages • 39

(Since you left, even the moon in the sky tended to be clouded
I did not see such a luminous moonlight [as tonight])

The emperor uses the moon as a metaphor for the Middle Councilor, stat-
ing that the moon, which was clouded during his absence from Japan, is
now brilliant. In reply, the courtier composes an allusive variation on the
famous Abe no Nakamaro poem:

Furusato no / katamizokashi to /
Amanohara / furisake tsuki o / mishi zo kanashiki

(It makes me sad to remember that I looked in the sky at the moon,
thinking it was a keepsake of my native land)51

The precedent, Nakamaro’s poem of homesickness, is reworked into a

poem of longing for the foreign land, from which one used to long for
one’s homeland. While it was sad to remember the homeland (and the
lover there) while viewing the bright moon in China, it is even sadder to
remember the occasion now at home, as the councilor has a woman in
China for whom he longs. Nostalgia becomes twofold and the vector of
longing bidirectional. The old/new and the familiar/foreign are no
longer stably stationed characteristics but instead vacillate between the
poles of China and Japan. The only constant is transposition and isola-
tion from the place where one feels one belongs at a given moment. In-
deed, the Middle Councilor does not belong anywhere any longer: in
China he has left behind his father’s reincarnation and his son’s mother;
in Japan, he has been reunited with his ¤rst lover, who gave birth to his
daughter, but is yet to meet with his son’s grandmother and half-sister,
who is destined to give birth to the consort’s reincarnation. He is thus
inescapably entrapped in the entanglement involving both China and
Japan. The prediction that the consort will be reborn Japanese does not
resolve the entanglement but rather sustains and develops it.
Many Japanese are anxious to obtain from the Middle Councilor in-
formation about the foreign land that they are not allowed to visit. His
relative value in society has increased tremendously because of his ex-
ceptional experience, and others are ready to translate it into public
property. For them, the Middle Councilor’s status is further enhanced
by his physical appearance: an exotic fragrance and magni¤cent attire
brought from China.52 The Middle Councilor tries to maintain a dif¤cult
40 • Chapter 1

balance between protecting his privacy and satisfying his audience with
details, so he talks about what is really on his mind (the consort’s dis-
tinction) by saying that he is impressed with the distinguished women
of China; the audience is more than willing to listen.53 He sticks to the
story the Chinese emperor devised about the kin performer at the fare-
well party and occasionally takes recourse to talking about the ¤fth
daughter of the minister instead of the Heyang consort. While he would
never expose the consort’s correspondence to the public, the Middle
Councilor does not mind showing letters from the ¤fth daughter. Her
talent in both Chinese and Japanese poetic composition—an inconsis-
tency in her character that we noted above and that remains unac-
counted for—offers a convenient topic for conversation.54 In contrast,
his relationship with the consort remains a deeply hidden secret and as
such causes unbearable agony and longing. The Japanese courtiers sense
the councilor’s higher esteem for the kin performer; however, instead of
suspecting a serious relationship with her, one of them concludes that
the Middle Councilor’s love for his Japanese lover must have been sin-
cere because he would not otherwise have deserted such a distinguished
woman. Just as he did not have anyone in whom to con¤de his affection
for his Japanese lover while he was in China, the Middle Councilor has
to suppress his wish to “¶y back to China as a bird” in the company of
his Japanese acquaintances.55 The courtiers’ interest in Chinese women
comes only from their reading knowledge of legendary beauties, includ-
ing Yang Guifei, Wang Zhaojun, Li Furen, and Shangyang Baifaren.56 The
Middle Councilor af¤rms his countrymen’s lustful interest in Chinese
women by describing the incomparable beauty of the kin performer, em-
phasizing the contrast between “magni¤cent” (uruwashi), an attribute
he assigns to Yang Guifei and Wang Zhaojun, and “personable” (natsu-
kashi), a quality that best describes the kin performer/consort.57 It is evi-
dent here that the Middle Councilor values the hybridity embodied by
the consort, while the others harbor exotic fantasies about Chinese
women. We shall see that the cultural hierarchy is con¤rmed in the next
subject of study and then challenged in works that follow.

When an Alien Invades

While often compared with Hamamatsu for the shared theme of a Japa-
nese nobleman in China and the romantic relationships he has there,
Matsura no miya monogatari (hereafter Matsura) reveals quite another
 Imaginary Voyages • 41

set of issues surrounding the Sino-Japanese entanglement.58 For one

thing, all the characters strongly and constantly feel the political strains
in China that eventually lead to war. The tense and competitive environ-
ment affects the Japanese visitor’s actions; he is mindful of how the Chi-
nese court views his personality, his political function, and his loyalty.
As an alien, he is under tighter scrutiny than a native and needs to act
with the utmost discretion in order to protect himself from accusations
of espionage. These restrictions consequently circumscribe his range as
a romantic hero.
Occasional touches of jingoism, in which China’s disorder is con-
trasted with Japan’s justice and stability, need to be carefully assessed ac-
cording to both the time in which the story is set (the eighth century) and
the time in which the text was written (the thirteenth century). In the
former period Japan was in the midst of building a new state, but the latter
period was a time of trial for the imperial oligarchy, as the ¤rst military
government had just been installed. Many disturbances, riots, and rebel-
lions are known to have occurred in the Nara period (710–794). The civil
wars between the Taira and Minamoto clans (each claiming that an impe-
rial family member authorized their legitimacy) and between the abdi-
cated Go Toba emperor and the Kamakura shogunate impelled Fujiwara
no Teika (1162–1241), the alleged author of Matsura, to issue a famous
statement in his kanbun diary, Meigetsuki (Diary of the bright moon,
1180–1235): “Kôki seijû waga koto ni arazu” (Warfare is not my busi-
ness).59 While it is true that Song China suffered from the successful and
sustained invasions of northern nomads around the same time and the
government was forced to move south in 1127, it is mere ¤ction to portray
Japan as a paci¤ed state. Whatever the authorial intent may have been, the
positive portrait of Japan in contrast to the negative one of China and the
disparities between the story and the real circumstances in Japan suggest
that constructing the binary opposition was a prioritized agenda.
Unlike the Middle Councilor, who leaves Japan for China on a per-
sonal quest, the protagonist, a lesser lieutenant who is the son of a min-
ister and a royal princess, is chosen by the government to visit China as
deputy ambassador, as would have been possible in the Nara period.
While he demonstrates outstanding accomplishments in learning and
the arts (as the Middle Councilor does and as would any hero of classi-
cal Japanese romance for that matter), these are ¤rst and foremost con-
sidered essentials for a successful bureaucrat rather than simply proofs
of personal distinction. This con¤rms the Japanese acceptance of the
42 • Chapter 1

Chinese civil service system, and it foreshadows the more overtly politi-
cal nature of the story and the hierarchical relationship between China
(origin/model) and Japan (offspring/copy).
The romantic dimension of the tale is also informed by its hierarchical
value judgments. Like the Middle Councilor, who leaves a lover behind in
the native country, the Lesser Lieutenant has an object of affection (Prin-
cess Kannabi) whom he has clandestinely adored and is reluctant to leave
behind. Her name is the same as a place name in Nara that is often referred
to in ancient songs, so it contributes more to the creation of an archaic am-
bience than to illustrating the attributes of the loved one; Princess Kan-
nabi is of even less signi¤cance than was the Middle Councilor’s ¤rst love
(Ôigimi) in Hamamatsu. She is ignored during the hero’s stay in China and
remains completely off his mind even after his return to Japan. Unlike in
Hamamatsu, where China and Japan hold different yet equal value, the
cultural superiority of China is made obvious in Matsura.
The Lesser Lieutenant’s parents are also not happy about his assign-
ment. In order to best cope with the separation from their only son, his
mother has a palace built on the shore nearest to the continent—Matsura
(hence the title)—so that she can wave to him from there. Matsura
(meaning the “pine shore”), in northern Kyûshû, is known from ancient
songs in which women wave to loved ones who have left them to go to
China. As in Hamamatsu, this literary topos helps paint the liminal space
where Japan ends and China begins.
The Chinese emperor likes the Lesser Lieutenant for his excellence
in arts and letters and favorably de¤nes his personal characteristics as
typically Japanese. The emperor justi¤es his support for the young Japa-
nese as a meritocratic practice with precedents going back to Emperor
Wu (Wudi, 156–87 BC; r. 141–87 BC) of the Early Han dynasty (202
BC–AD 8), who brought a Korean student of distinction to court.60 The
emperor’s Chinese subjects, however, are concerned about the unprece-
dented intimate treatment of the “traveler from afar” (harukanaru sakai
yori watari maireru tabibito) who is “not old enough” (yowai itaranu)
for such an honor.61 The reservation of the courtiers, in part due to the
lieutenant’s alien status, represents opposition to and antagonism to-
ward his increasingly signi¤cant presence in the imperial court.
Painfully aware that his remarkable advancement has caused strains,
the lieutenant strives to conform to “the customs of the country” to which
he has been sent (kuni no narai, a key phrase used throughout the text in
order for the Lesser Lieutenant to account for the otherwise inexplicable
 Imaginary Voyages • 43

actions of the Chinese). Hence, his celibacy in the ¤rst stage of his stay
re¶ects his fear that “the slightest transgression will be seriously chastised
in light of the formal manners and customs of the country.”62 The Lesser
Lieutenant’s reserve impresses the emperor, who thinks to himself that
“the Japanese man is more faithful than I thought previously.”63 In Ma-
tsura, a formality is now detected in Chinese behavior, whereas in
Hamamatsu it was a quality visible only in Chinese women’s clothes; on
the contrary, the Middle Councilor observed a lack of reserve and greater
freedom. Because he feels that the Chinese make rigid ethical judgments,
the Lesser Lieutenant does not mingle with them as much as the Middle
Councilor did. He and his Chinese associates are thus distinctly separated
from each other along the lines of their countries of origin, rather than
being united by a shared universal language and arts.
A very important new phase in the Sino-Japanese relationship is that
an interest in the other is now mutual. Chinese characters in Matsura pay
more attention to Japan than did those in Hamamatsu, and they are ready
to draw conclusions about the Japanese from observations of the Lesser
Lieutenant, who is well aware of the scrutiny cast upon him and is anx-
ious to make himself worthy of his country. This reciprocity of observa-
tion is matched by the terms of address used for the other country. Hito no
kuni (the country of others), a phrase coined by the Japanese for a foreign
country (most signi¤cantly China) from the Japanese perspective, is em-
ployed here by Chinese characters to refer to Japan. So are nami no hoka,
kumo no yoso (the country across the waves, beyond the clouds), shiranu
kuni (the unknown country), and aranu kuni (the country that is not this
one). Thus, foreignness is felt to be relative rather than inherent in China.
The two-directional interactions set a new standard for the works to
come. Japan becomes a player in the game, rather than being just an ob-
server who can exploit its insigni¤cance so as to claim neutrality.
While the Lesser Lieutenant’s celibacy is necessitated by political
considerations, it effectively lends a blank backdrop to the two love af-
fairs in which he is involved. The ¤rst evolves around the secret teaching
of the art of musical performance, an important theme in the tradition of
classical Japanese romance.64 Destiny guides the lieutenant to learn the
kin, taught ¤rst by an old recluse and then by a young imperial princess
called Kayô Kôshu (Ch. Huayang Gongzhu; Princess Huayang), the most
accomplished practitioner of the art; eventually the Lesser Lieutenant
falls for her. He visits her for instruction on the Fifteenth Night of the
Eighth Month and the Thirteenth Night of the Seventh Month, both dates
44 • Chapter 1

established in East Asian literary convention as special occasions on

which to appreciate the beauty of the full moon.
The Lesser Lieutenant’s attraction to the princess is for reasons dis-
tinct from the ones we witnessed in Hamamatsu. The princess does not
look “extravagant” or “distant” as Chinese women with unusual hair-
pieces and coiffures did in Hamamatsu; instead she is lovely, familiar,
pure, and pretty.65 To highlight her beauty, he compares her both with
Chinese dancers, whom the Lesser Lieutenant saw previously (“they
seem earthen now”), and with Princess Kannabi, who now appears to
him as “rustic and unkempt.”66 Unlike the Middle Councilor’s attraction
to the Heyang consort, accounted for by her quasi-Japanese attributes,
the Lesser Lieutenant’s infatuation with Princess Huayang results from a
cultural hierarchy in which the best Chinese traits clearly are placed
above the best of the Japanese.
It is Princess Huayang who suggests a joining of the two cultures
that appear so distinct to the lieutenant. Before her untimely death, she
con¤rms their bond by entrusting him with a crystal ball and asking him
to have a Buddhist ceremony conducted at Hatsuse Temple in Japan, a
place of reunion for long-lost family members and lovers according to
ancient Japanese myths. (She was prepared for death because a wizard
had predicted that her mastery of the kin would lead to her early de-
mise.) She tells her Japanese lover that she would rather die for the time
being so that she can be reincarnated sooner and then establish an ever-
lasting relationship with him.67 She pleads with him not to forget her
“even in the country other than this” and vows that she will meet with
him again in a different form “across the waves, beyond the clouds.”68
As we saw above, these phrases were normally used to refer to places
other than Japan. They now become referents for Japan when used by a
Chinese character, revealing that Japan might appear exotic and distant
to the Chinese. While the hierarchy between China and Japan has been
restored, the reciprocity of the gaze between the two is newly instated.
The princess’ wish for a memorial service in Japan has to be put on
hold, however, as military emergencies arise after the death of the em-
peror. On his sickbed the emperor con¤des in the Lesser Lieutenant his
premonition that there will be disturbances in China after his death. He
thus asks the Lesser Lieutenant to support the crown prince. The Lesser
Lieutenant need have no fear, the emperor tells him, as he will be able to
pacify the nation and then return to Japan. Despite his enormous trust
in the Lesser Lieutenant, however, the emperor swears him to secrecy in
 Imaginary Voyages • 45

“the country of origin” (moto no kuni). The emperor is aware that rela-
tionships can suffer as a result of physical distance and (perhaps more
important) from the context in which one party remembers the other.
As soon as the Lesser Lieutenant arrives in Japan, the bond between him
and the emperor may disintegrate, and it may seem pointless to remain
loyal to him. In order to maintain the integrity of their relationship, the
emperor further predicts their future reunion in Japan owing to retribu-
tions from their previous lives.69 Thus, both Princess Huayang and the
emperor procure the permanence of their bonds with the Lesser Lieu-
tenant by suggesting reunions in their next lives.
The emperor’s premonition soon proves right: a group opposing the
crown prince, led by a fellow called Ubun Kai (Ch. Yuwen Hui) and allied
with the northern nomads, raises a large force, and the Japanese traveler
¤nds himself in the center of a steadily diminishing group of supporters
for the legitimate successor to the throne. The Lesser Lieutenant repeat-
edly expresses his ignorance of military affairs, as he has never been
trained in the martial arts or military planning. However, Tô Kôgô (Ch.
Deng Huanghou; Empress Deng), the crown prince’s mother, urges him
to stay in the service of the crown prince so as to repay the emperor’s fa-
vors, although she admits that as a foreigner, he has no obligation to do
so. The empress further argues that Japan, though small in size, is a coun-
try of ¤erce warriors and that the Lesser Lieutenant should be able to
devise strategies to defeat the enemy.70 Thus persuaded, the Lesser Lieu-
tenant decides to stay on, even if it means dying an honorable death on
the battle¤eld.71
Sumiyoshi, the god of martial arts, exhibits his power by instanta-
neously increasing the crown prince’s forces tenfold.72 With his aid, the
crown prince succeeds in defeating the rebel forces. The loyal Chinese
subjects who previously berated the Lesser Lieutenant as a person from
the unknown country now rejoice in his achievement.
The way the lieutenant is treated after the war reveals how Sinocentric
the Chinese are. Having succeeded in his mission, the Lesser Lieutenant
thinks it is time for him to leave. However, the Chinese courtiers are
strongly opposed, offering the rationale that there is “no precedent of even
a low-ranking foreigner returning to his native land.”73 Indeed, the em-
press has bestowed upon the Lesser Lieutenant the rank of Grand General
of Ryôbu (Ch. Longwu), honoring the deceased emperor’s principle that
individuals should be rewarded for their merits regardless of their nation-
alities.74 While this is a gesture that transcends national boundaries, it
46 • Chapter 1

causes a reaction against the concept behind it. Many suggest that the
Lesser Lieutenant, a mere foreigner, is not entitled to refuse such an honor
and return to a land that is, in their view, undoubtedly inferior to China.
The plot of the story capitalizes upon this Sinocentric logic, which
serves to postpone the Lesser Lieutenant’s return until he is involved with
yet another woman. The empress, who even-handedly offers reasons for
and against the Lesser Lieutenant’s departure, adds to the dilemma for
herself and for him. On one hand, she suggests he should stay in China, as
it is solely owing to the Lesser Lieutenant that her nation successfully
overcame the threat it faced, and he could not be thanked enough even if
he was given half of the country. On the other hand, she admits that the
Chinese would not be rewarding the Lesser Lieutenant for his service if
they prevented him from going home as he wishes. She adds yet another
reason that the Lesser Lieutenant should be granted leave: divine aid was
offered during the warfare because of the Lesser Lieutenant’s deference to
the deities of his native land.75 Although she employs the somewhat com-
promising term onigami (demons, spirits), as well as a more respectful
kunitsukami (deities of the native land), to refer to the Shinto deities, she
suggests clearly that China has no equivalent to them.76 Such reverence
toward Shinto gods as binding forces for an individual to his native land
is not found in Hamamatsu but is predominant in Matsura. It is the prin-
cipal, if not the only, measure in which Japan is considered superior.
The supernatural again comes into play as the Lesser Lieutenant be-
comes involved with an unidenti¤ed woman whose body is imbued with
the fragrance of plums. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the em-
press—and she is later revealed to be the empress herself in disguise—she
seduces him into repeated and yet ¶eeting nights together. She disappears
without trace each time after love making, and the Lesser Lieutenant’s in-
quiries into her identity lead nowhere. Overcome with the mysterious
woman’s charms, the Lesser Lieutenant feels as though supernatural be-
ings are dictating the course of his life (“onigami nado no, hakari tsuru ni
ya”: Could this be engineered by demons and spirits?).77 It is obvious from
the use of the term onigami that the suspected deities are de¤nitely not
Sumiyoshi or the Great Goddess of Amaterasu, who are mentioned in the
text as the Lesser Lieutenant’s guardians. He wonders if the woman is a
demon in disguise or a deception devised by either the goddess Wushan or
the goddess of Xiangpu, both known to have allured ancient Chinese em-
perors. The hero’s romance is evidently imbued with the mystical and
erotic experience of encountering the divine, a ubiquitous theme in poetry
 Imaginary Voyages • 47

during the Warring States (403–221 BC) and Three Kingdoms periods
(220–280).78
Multiple identities are manifest in the theme of transnational reincar-
nation that drives the plot.79 There is no character of mixed blood in this
story, though both the emperor and Princess Huayang hint at their rein-
carnations in Japan. As is well known, Matsura is not complete, ending
with a colophon stating that the following pages are missing. Whether the
note is authentic or ¤ctive, we are left without learning about the reincar-
nations. As it stands now, the story evolves around a clearly drawn dis-
tinction between China and Japan and occasionally portrays hostility,
rivalry, and confrontation. While Japan’s sacredness is demonstrated
through the miraculous powers of the Shinto gods, Chinese women are
portrayed as heavenly, beautiful, and accomplished, as opposed to Japa-
nese women, who are earthly and rustic. Part of the reason for this dis-
tinction may be that Chinese characters in Japanese literature are
polarized into either the villainous or the virtuous, while a wider spec-
trum of Japanese characters was available to the Japanese literary imagi-
nation. The vulgarity of the Japanese versus the nobility of the Chinese
becomes a persistent theme, as we will see in the next section.

A Good Son
Kokusen’ya gassen (1715; hereafter Kokusen’ya) is a jôruri play (tradi-
tional puppet theater) from the eighteenth century and was thus written
for a distinctly different audience in a different historical period.80 None-
theless, it shares many important premises with Matsura in its speci¤c
model of the Sino-Japanese entanglement: disturbances in China are
caused by tensions between the Han and the non-Han (the Manchus in
the present case); the Japanese protagonist acts honorably and effectively
in service to the Han; Matsura is again the setting from which “China” be-
comes distinct from “Japan” and connotes journeys to the continent and
the longings of the loved ones left behind; and Japan is a divine country
protected by the power of Sumiyoshi. Given the utter difference between
the two works in terms of the periods in which they were written, the
genre, the expected primary audience, and the wealth of information on
China available to the author of Kokusen’ya, it is rather surprising that
many fundamental presuppositions are merely recon¤rmed.
Though deprived of the opportunity to travel to China, the play-
wright, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1724), was granted much greater
48 • Chapter 1

access to, and was more seriously compelled to consult, extraliterary

sources than were the previous three authors. Contemporary military af-
fairs involving Ming loyalist forces (or “rebels,” depending upon one’s loy-
alties) during the transitional period from late Ming to early Qing China
were registered in numerous historical records.81 The Ming dynasty’s dis-
solution and fall in 1644 and the establishment of the Qing dynasty were
closely monitored by the Tokugawa shogunate, especially through the
Nagasaki Bugyô, an of¤ce that, since 1603, had been commissioned to in-
terview Chinese and Dutch merchants on international matters and sub-
mit reports to the shogunate. Even after the shogunate forbade all
international trade and transportation (except for authorized and limited
Dutch, Chinese, and Korean merchants and vessels) as of 1639, Japan
could not be impervious to its neighbor’s political turmoil. Sometime
around 1649, Zheng Chenggong (1624–1662), the model for the protago-
nist of Kokusen’ya who had left Japan for China to join his father, Zheng
Zhilong (1604–1661), to resist the Manchu, wrote in vain to Japan for
military aid. Soon afterward the father and son split, the former reconcil-
ing with Qing China and the latter continuing in the anti-Manchu military
campaign in Amoy, Nanjing, and Taiwan. The son relied ¤nancially on
Japanese connections as he maintained saving accounts in Nagasaki (a
source of dispute among his descendants after his untimely death in
1661). Given these circumstances and general pro-Ming (or pro-Han)
feelings among the Japanese, it is not dif¤cult to imagine keen interest in
the subject. In fact, Chikamatsu is not the only playwright who used
Zheng Chenggong as a subject. Nor did he write only one play on the
topic: in 1717, he completed Kokusen’ya gonichi gassen (The later warfare
of Kokusen’ya) and in 1723, Tôsen banashi ima Kokusen’ya (Present-day
Kokusen’ya: Tales collected from Chinese ships). The piece under dis-
cussion is the most successful and oft-performed of the plays; it had a
seventeen-month continuous run in Osaka and was subsequently per-
formed in Kyoto and Edo.82
For our study of the rhetorical con¤guration of Sino-Japanese rela-
tions, it is more to the point to see how Japan is positioned in the text in
relation to the Han and the Manchu (rather than assessing the docu-
mented facts and incidents in the story). As we saw in Matsura (and as I
have discussed elsewhere concerning Japan’s fascination with legends
about Wang Zhaojun),83 the Japanese literary imagination tended to
de¤ne Japan as a reliable and worthy ally of Han China while relegating
nomads (of any ethnic identity) to the rank of barbarians. In contrast,
 Imaginary Voyages • 49

the Japanese, who were deemed just another barbarous people by the
Han Chinese, were elevated to a civilized status. Kokusen’ya expounds
on this theme to the extent that it seems to be out of a desperate need for
self-redemption. Immediately after the play begins, Wu Sangui ( J. Go
Sankei; 1612–1678), the grand general and in this play a loyal subject of
the Ming emperor, refutes a recommendation by the conniving villain,
Li Daotian ( J. Ri Tôten)—who behind the scenes conspires with the
Manchu to eradicate the Ming—that grain should be allotted for and
sent to the Manchu. Wu Sangui de¤nes China as a country of Confucian
ethics, Japan of Shintoist ethics, and the Manchu of no ethics, a “land of
beasts” (chikushô koku). The insulting term “land of beasts” is thereafter
applied by different parties to various others: the messenger from the
Manchu, upset by the insult, so calls China because it has failed to ob-
serve a previously arranged contract; Li Daotian says that it is shameful
that his country has been so called, and he theatrically scoops his eye
out, claiming that his act will redeem China’s name (the act is in fact
coded, secretly sending a message to the Manchu that he will collaborate
with them). The recurrence and reciprocity of insults suggest both an
obsession with hierarchies among countries and the relativity thereof.
Poetic composition was a measure by which one’s degree of civiliza-
tion was evaluated in the texts we have discussed above. Princess Zhan-
tan ( J. Sendan), the emperor’s younger sister, says, “I have heard that uta
in Japan soften relationships between men and women. It is the same
here: [poetry] mediates love.” She herself composes shi (kanshi).84 This
reference to the Japanese preface to Kokin wakashû is a little out of con-
text, as the subsequent passage tells us how immaculately virtuous and
disciplined the princess is, rather than how romantically inclined she is.
Thus, it appears that the point of the statement is to emphasize China and
Japan’s shared culture, exempli¤ed by poetry, the universal language of
the emotions, rather than to focus on the speaker’s character.
The princess’ knowledge of Japanese poetry is one of the many
¤ctional constructs that set the stage for a Chinese interest in Japanese
affairs (as they did in Matsura). The interest resurfaces when the em-
peror, fooled by Li Daotian’s theatrics, considers marrying Princess
Zhantan to him. In an attempt to change his mind, Wu Sangui reminds
the emperor—and thus informs the audience—that Zheng Zhilong of-
fended the emperor by recommending the removal of Li Daotian in the
narrative past. Wu reveals his concern that China will be put to shame if
Zhilong, now forlorn in Japan, hears that the emperor is again favoring
50 • Chapter 1

Li. While Li has expressed his (false) concern that the Manchu may
think of the Han Chinese as beastly, Wu is worried that the Japanese
might think that China is unjust. The relative elevation of Japan’s status
vis-à-vis China, evident here in a manner similar to that in Matsura, ef-
fectively anticipates a later development in the story, when the half-
Japanese protagonist comes to bear a lot of signi¤cance as a rightly con-
cerned Ming loyalist. The ¤rst act of the play closes in a series of drastic
turns: Wu’s worries about the future of the Ming dynasty materialize
with Li Daotian’s rebellion; the Manchu military forces invade Ming
China’s territory; Li’s brother murders the emperor; the pregnant em-
press dies on the battle¤eld; Wu kills his own baby and substitutes him
for the baby that he retrieves from the empress’ corpse; and Wu’s wife
defends Princess Zhantan and helps her escape alone on a boat without
knowing her destination.
The second act is set in Hirado, a seaside village in Matsura. While it
is a historical fact that Zheng Chenggong lived in Hirado, the signi¤cance
of the area as a literary topos, as noted above, cannot be ignored. The cul-
tural entanglement is deepened by the ambiguity of the protagonist’s
identity: he is only half Japanese. The ¤ctional name of the protagonist,
Wa Tônai—three characters representing “Japan,” “China,” and “within”
respectively—is appropriate, if not too pat, for a hybrid individual whose
father is Chinese and whose mother is Japanese.85
In a long soliloquy by Wa Tônai, which draws heavily on the Chinese
classics to re¶ect upon the current state of affairs in East Asia, we see an
interesting classi¤cation of diverse ethnic groups. The Han and the Man-
chu are grouped together as “Daimin Dattan” (Great Ming, the Tartar).86
While Wa Tônai recognizes “Daimin Dattan” as two distinct polities, as is
obvious in the phrasing ryôkoku (both countries),87 his expressed ambi-
tion to pacify “both countries” seems to be incongruous with the under-
standing that the Ming are legitimate and the Manchu are usurpers. Rather
than attributing this contradiction to the author’s lack of knowledge, I
would propose that different con¤gurations of allies and enemies—the in-
group and the out-group—are emerging almost simultaneously in Wa
Tônai’s speech.
While Wa Tônai’s identity is made evident at the beginning of the
act, by identifying his father as Zheng Zhilong, the narrator reinforces
the point by inserting his own commentary after the soliloquy: “Indeed,
this is the man—Coxinga, the king of Yuanping, who went over to
China, paci¤ed both the Ming and the Tartar, and earned a reputation in
 Imaginary Voyages • 51

both that country and this one; it is none other than this young man.”88
In the guise of a reminder or presentation of historical facts, the play-
wright distorts history, which he must have known from sources in Na-
gasaki, even if his prospective audience did not. Though Zheng
Chenggong was successful in the ¤rst stages of his military expedition,
to the extent that he almost captured Nanjing, his realm never encom-
passed China or the Northern Territories, as is suggested in the narra-
tor’s comment. In fact, he was eventually compelled to retreat from
mainland China to Taiwan, from where he pleaded for Japan’s military
aid. Since sources were available to Chikamatsu that recounted the
events in detail, one may conclude that the digression is intentional,
re¶ecting the author’s choice to conclude the play with the hero’s tri-
umph, perhaps as a redemption in theater for the disappointment in re-
ality. The narrator’s comment foreshadows the happy ending, in which
the hero realizes his ambitions and serves poetic justice.
Wa Tônai and his wife, Komutsu, are a ¤sherman and ¤sherwoman
(ama), a profession often considered to be on the borders of the Japanese
constituency because it is least rooted in the native soil and is of a ¶eeting
nature. In poetry anthologies, ama often appears near topics such as “Sen-
kyû” (the Immortals’ Palace), “Tôjin” (the Chinese people), or speci¤c
Chinese iconic ¤gures, an arrangement that suggests that ama are on the
borderline of the otherworldly and the exotic. The liminality of the major
characters is thus con¤rmed by their occupation as well as their location.
Wa Tônai and Komutsu ¤nd a deserted boat and in it a beautiful but
exhausted young woman who, judging from her hairstyle and clothes,
appears Chinese. The audience should immediately know that this is
Princess Zhantan. Drawing upon conventional rhetoric, the narrator
portrays her as having “a face comparable to a lotus” and “eyebrows
comparable to willow leaves,”89 attributes belonging to Yang Guifei and
Wang Zhaojun respectively.90 The analogy of “a blooming ¶ower soaked
in the rain”91 also reminds us of Yang Guifei, whom Bai Juyi compared
to “a branch of pear blossoms soaked in spring rain.”92 The literary asso-
ciations continue as Komutsu thinks of the lady on the boat as a Chinese
consort exiled because of lascivious acts, while Wa Tônai hypothesizes
that she is the ghost of Yang Guifei. Komutsu expresses jealousy, saying
that Tônai might have slept with a Chinese woman like that had he been
in China, but Tônai assures her that he would not have. His reason for
not doing so illustrates a Japanese image of China: Chinese women all
look like a deity (benzaiten) and thus make him feel unworthy and
52 • Chapter 1

tense. Though this rationale is in part an invention to assuage his wife’s

unfounded jealousy and in part a foreshadowing for the revelation of the
Chinese woman’s lofty identity, it also coincides with and recon¤rms
the common prejudice of Chinese formality, as opposed to Japanese fa-
miliarity, which we saw in Hamamatsu.
As the princess begins to communicate with the couple, her speech
is represented in hiragana, so that it sounds Chinese but makes no sense
in either Japanese or Chinese. As we shall see in the next section and in
the next chapter, the Japanese had long been accustomed to Chinese as
a written language, but they recited Chinese texts in a Japanese pronun-
ciation. Thus, when they heard Chinese spoken in the authentic pro-
nunciation, it sounded exotic, if not barbarous. Here the princess’
speech is not even an accurate transcript of anything said in Chinese but
mimicry that appears to be Chinese. However, that would do for an au-
dience who, in the early eighteenth century, did not have much knowl-
edge of spoken Chinese and thus could not detect a fabrication. The
anticipated effect on the audience was for the speech to sound funny or
silly. Such is the effect within the text as well as far as Komutsu is con-
cerned: rolling with laughter (to the extent that her stomach begins to
hurt), she asks, “What kind of Buddhist scripture is this?” (Buddhist
scriptures are recited phonetically and do not make obvious sense to the
Japanese ear.) Komutsu’s rhetorical question thus reveals the effect of
reciting a text written in a literary language.
Wa Tônai, on the other hand, comprehends the princess’ speech
and shows his reverence and loyalty toward her in both gesture and Chi-
nese word. This provokes Komutsu, who tries to attack Zhantan for
being a seductress. As soon as Wa Tônai stops her and reasons with her,
however, Komutsu’s attitude changes. Her sudden burst of sympathy in-
volves another contrast that is made between Japan and China. She says
to Zhantan: “Even within this country of Japan princesses of royalty and
nobility are supposed to be shielded from rough winds. You are even
more undeservedly tried, as you are from the royalty of the unseen land
of China.”93 Because it is far away and foreign, China is given a higher
rank than Japan in Komutsu’s speech. She then cries and even begins to
repeat some of the words she heard spoken by the princess, without un-
derstanding their meaning at all. Language is not a tool for communica-
tion but itself constitutes a communicative act; without intending to
mean anything, Komutsu shows loyalty by simply parroting the words
she has heard.
 Imaginary Voyages • 53

After further misunderstandings are resolved, Zheng Zhilong and his

Japanese wife depart on a boat for China, while Wa Tônai temporarily
leaves his wife and Princess Zhantan behind to go to China on another
boat. The two women, who are to join him later, see him off longingly, as
references are made to Hirefuri Saki (the cape from which shawls wave), a
Japanese topos of a woman waving her shawl to her husband at sea, as well
as to Wangfu Shan (the hill from which one gazes toward one’s husband;
also known as Wangfu shi, or, the rock from which one gazes toward one’s
husband), the site of a similar story in China that is collected in the afore-
mentioned Kara monogatari.94 From this point on, as the bond between
the two women deepens, things Chinese and Japanese are often intro-
duced as parallel to each other. The fourth act presents the procession
(michiyuki) of the two women and con¤rms the transnational camaraderie
while it continues to show the contrasts between Chinese and Japanese
clothes, hairdos, and other attributes. The comparative and contrastive
permutations thus authenticate the binary between China and Japan.
Komutsu crossdresses as a man to further display the binary opposi-
tion between her and Princess Zhantan, who represents femininity.95 The
pairing thus transgresses the conventional assignment of genders for
China (masculine) and Japan (feminine), and it is even noted by Chinese
women in the text when they remark that Japan, which is called a country
of “great harmony” (yamato), must be a good country for women.96 The
transnational transvestism encapsulates the text’s subversive effects: Chi-
nese feminine frailty (“yowaki wa Morokoshi onna no fû,” or being frail is
how Chinese women are) is contrasted with Japanese (implicitly male)
warriors’ resolve (“nakanu wa Nihon bushi no fû,” or not crying is how
Japanese warriors are), a quality shared by Japanese women in honoring
bonds with friends (“Nihon wa otoko mo onna mo gi wa sutezu,” or in Ja-
pan, men and women alike would not renounce bonding).97 Wa Tônai’s
mother in particular is portrayed as concerned with Japan’s honor, which
she thinks she could compromise if she, as a Japanese woman, were not to
conduct herself properly (such as acting out of personal enmity toward
her stepdaughter, Jin Xiangnü [ J. Kin Shôjo]).
The universality of values such as loyalty alternates with perceived ir-
reconcilable differences between China and Japan throughout the play.
For example, Wa Tônai, having successfully converted pro-Manchu Chi-
nese into pro-Han “Japanese” subjects, triumphantly mounts a horse,
standing up “over the saddle with his feet positioned as though he had one
foot in the foreign land and the other in the homeland” (ikoku honchô ni
54 • Chapter 1

fumimatagitaru kura abumi);98 Jin Xiangnü, Zheng Zhilong’s daughter,

who was left behind by her father and raised in China, tells her long-lost
father of how torn she has been, “unfolding the map of the world [and
pointing], ‘This is China, that is Japan’” (sekai no zu o hiraki kore wa
Morokoshi kore wa Nihon).99
Wa Tônai’s sense of honor and shame is so closely tied to the home-
land that he sounds confrontational, if not hysterical, when he addresses
the issue of nationality. Whenever he is challenged with hardships in
China, he takes it as an offense against the Japanese, and he often vows to
prove Japanese perseverance or resourcefulness and demolish any hint of
their being otherwise. Hence, when he and his mother get lost in a vast
bamboo grove, he is convinced that “Chinese foxes fool us chartless Japa-
nese”;100 when he ¤rst encounters Chinese soldiers, who call him “a way-
farer,” he responds, “My native land is Great Japan; I don’t deserve to be
called that!”;101 when he ¤ghts off their leader, he addresses the rest of the
group: “You despise Japan as a small country, but are you not impressed
with the martial art of the Japanese, which even a tiger fears?”102 Wa
Tônai’s preoccupation with Japanese national pride cancels out his two-
fold ethnic identity, which makes Kokusen’ya different from Hamamatsu
in terms of the handling of hybridity.
The patriotic emotions aroused in the narrative present are rein-
forced by references to mythical incidents that suggest Japan’s superiority
over China. Hence, mention is made of Empress Jingû’s failed attempts to
conquer Silla,103 which were known from Kojiki (Records of ancient mat-
ters, 712) and Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720); mention is also
made of Bai Juyi’s poetic challenges to the Japanese, which are success-
fully met by Sumiyoshi, as told in a popular legend that is immortalized in
Zeami’s nô play, Haku Rakuten.104 National boundaries are so irrevocably
entrenched in the characters’ minds that even if at times transnation
truces are called, each individual is expected to embody and demonstrate
distinct national characteristics and to act on behalf of his own country.
This expectation is particularly evident in the case of Wa Tônai: while he
is primarily and rightly de¤ned as bicultural and hybrid, his speeches and
actions in China clearly and exclusively represent Japan. His loyalty to
the Ming imperial house is justi¤ed merely as ¤lial piety.
The domestication and “puri¤cation” of Wa Tônai is underlined by
some deprecatory remarks he makes against hybrids or that the narrator
makes on his behalf. In Hirado, suspicious individuals around the geo-
graphical borders are called “chikuramono” (those who are neither
 Imaginary Voyages • 55

Japanese nor Chinese).105 When the Han Chinese warriors who were
previously united with the Manchus are defeated and converted into
Ming loyalists by Wa Tônai and his mother, the warriors’ jumbled ap-
pearance, which encapsulates their political conversion, is mocked as
follows: “Atama wa Nihon, hige wa Dattan, mi wa Tôjin” (their hairstyle
is Japanese, their beards are Tartar, and their bodies are Chinese); it
makes “the mother and son burst into laughter” and give them silly
sounding Japanese names.106 His lack of sympathy toward individuals of
ambiguous identity blatantly shows how nation-bound the protagonist
in fact is. This relentlessly jingoistic position—which does not exist in
Hamamatsu and which was not articulated in Matsura—recurs in the
subject of the next section.
Such a distinct national awareness, prior to the emergence of nation-
alism in the modern era, is also evident in Hiraga Gennai’s (1728–1779)
Fûryû Shidôken den (A biography of Shidôken, a man of taste, 1763), a
comical and fantastic account of the ¤ctive eponymous protagonist’s visit
to China. As Marcia Yonemoto points out, the protagonist tends to iden-
tify himself as “a Japanese” while in China and to portray Japan favorably,
if not hyperbolically so, in order to impress or intimidate the Chinese. For
example, when the Chinese mention the Five Sacred Mountains of China
(Wushan), Shidôken could have responded that Japan had adapted the
Chinese system of identifying the top ¤ve Buddhist monasteries and
granting them special privileges in Kyoto and Kamakura in the Kamakura
and Muromachi periods. In fact, that would have been the most relevant
subject to bring into the conversation. Instead, Shidôken boasts about the
height and magni¤cence of Mount Fuji which, in his opinion, is more im-
pressive than all the Five Sacred Mountains of China put together. The
protagonist’s (if not the author’s) competitiveness and search for unique-
ness rather than commonalities reveal the work’s jingoistic propensities
and represent a new dimension in Japanese sentiments toward China that
are already evident in Kokusen’ya gassen.107

Honor the Language of Their Own

Honchô Suikoden, a parody, as the title suggests, of the Chinese novel
Shuihu zhuan, is set in the Nara period (roughly contemporaneous with
Emperor Xuanzong’s reign in the Tang dynasty).108 Thus it is well prior
to the time in which Shuihu zhuan is set (during Emperor Huizong’s
reign [r. 1100–1125] in the Song dynasty) or was written (in the early
56 • Chapter 1

Ming). While it is necessary to de¤ne the historical backdrop as Nara in

order to justify the historically speci¤c content, the story’s anachronism
helps to create the illusion that the parody predates the original. As the
parody becomes primary and the parodied object secondary, the cul-
tural hierarchy is also reversed: the periphery ( Japan) has conquered
the center (China). Thus, the conventional parallel between temporality
and spatiality (the geographically de¤ned China as the origin, Japan as
the descendant) is destabilized as merely contingent.
The ambiguous Sino-Japanese relations implied in the tale may be
examined against another historical backdrop—namely, the date of au-
thorship/publication. The author, Takebe Ayatari (1719–1774), is pri-
marily known as one of the pioneers of yomihon, a genre of ¤ctional or
historical narratives with elaborate plots and an ornate style that can
best be appreciated by readers with narrative competence and literary
knowledge. Among the authors who were active in this genre, Ayatari is
roughly a contemporary of Tsuga Teishô (1718–ca. 1794), a Confucian
scholar and medical doctor who wrote sophisticated adaptations of Chi-
nese ¤ction; by a few decades he predates stellar writers such as Santô
Kyôden (1761–1816) and Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848), who brought
the genre to its full potential. As we shall see in the next chapter, it was
not uncommon for skilled writers in this period, who may not necessar-
ily have composed Chinese verse or prose, to write adaptations of Chi-
nese ¤ction. Many, including Ayatari, bene¤ted from the abundance of
annotations and Japanese translations of stories originally written in lit-
erary or vernacular Chinese. Ayatari was also a dilettante who dipped
into kokugaku (nativism). His life span partly overlaps with those of Moto-
ori Norinaga (1730–1801) and Ueda Akinari (1734–1809), two of the
scholars in the ¤eld. Unlike Norinaga or Akinari, who in many of their
works of criticism addressed issues of Sino-Japanese literary interaction
directly (as we saw in passing in the case of Akinari’s “Kaizoku” and
shall see in detail in chapter 3), Ayatari may not have articulated his
ideas as to how to position texts in Japanese vis-à-vis those in Chinese.
Yet in Honchô Suikoden, we shall see a problematization of the binary in
the unique setting of the transnational travel and relocation, which one
might say anticipates the scholarly sophistication and ideological charg-
ing of the dichotomy that was yet to fully materialize.
The text is divided into two books, the ¤rst comprising twenty
chapters and the second, ¤fty; it remains incomplete owing to the un-
timely death of the author. Travels to and from China appear in chapters
 Imaginary Voyages • 57

42–50 in the second book. Fujiwara no Kiyokawa (?–779), a historically

known envoy from Japan, is about to set out from China to Japan when
Abe no Nakamaro, who has been in China for a long time in an of¤cial
capacity, is allowed by Emperor Xuanzong to ¤nally return to Japan
with Kiyokawa’s group. Thus is presented another version of a well-
known scene, hitherto told in Tosa nikki, among others. Nakamaro tells
Kiyokawa: “I came to China at an early age and have since studied only
Chinese. I have never composed a poem from my country of origin.
However, when I am away from the shore, I will be Japanese. Shouldn’t I
then compose waka instead?”109 Nakamaro’s statement points to what
are considered the markers of one’s ethnic identity: it is de¤ned both by
one’s current place of residence and by the language one employs in po-
etic composition. While one is in China, one is Chinese; when one is
Chinese, one writes in Chinese. The same applies to Japanese identity.
For high-ranking courtiers like Nakamaro, being/working in China in-
volves serious engagement in poetic composition in Chinese. Thus the
two gauges of residence and language are by and large interchangeable.
One’s race and place of birth, two markers that are conventionally con-
sidered irreducible, natural, and original, are viewed as irrelevant to the
formation of identity in this picture. Cultural identity, in Nakamaro’s
view, is constructed on the site of cultural practice rather than out of bi-
ological essence or the native land. Radically in contrast with Tsura-
yuki’s portrait of Nakamaro as a nativist advocate of the poetry of his
motherland, Ayatari’s Nakamaro de¤nes himself by what he does at a
given moment rather than by where he happened to be born.
Nakamaro and Kiyokawa then each compose a poem. Nakamaro’s is
a slightly different version from both the one in Kokin wakashû (its ¤rst
line being “Amanohara,” or the Field of Heaven) and the one in Tosa
nikki (starting with “Aounabara,” or the Field of the Blue Sea):

Ôunabara / furisake mireba

Kasuga naru / Mikasa no yama ni / ideshi tsuki kamo

(Gazing across the vast extension of the sea,

I see the same moon that rose over the hill of Mikasa in Kasuga)110

Kiyokawa’s poem is in fact not his own but one that predates him, com-
posed by Yamanoue no Okura (660–ca. 733) (it is collected in Man’yô shû
[Anthology of ten myriad leaves], later than 759):111
58 • Chapter 1

Iza kodomo / hayaku Yamato e

Ôtomo no / Mitsu no hamamatsu / machi koinuran

(Children, let’s rush to Yamato;

The pines on the shore of Mitsu of Ôtomo must have been pining for us)112

The staging of this exchange recalls the practice of ¤ctional uta awase
(poetry contests), textually matching poems on the same topic regardless
of the contexts in which the poems were originally composed. The prac-
tice is validated by a faith in the timelessness of human emotions, such as
a longing for home (the topic of both poems in question), as well as—
contradictory as it may seem—by an experimental intent to relocate
poems in a new context so as to produce new effects—an instance of the
“baroque” (in Mieke Bal’s terminology) that we saw in the introduction.
The particular topic, premised on the spatial distance between the speaker
and the object of his attachment, ideally embodies, and is embodied by,
the nostalgic practice of neutralizing the temporal distance between the
past and the present. The spatial distance is recon¤rmed outside the text
of the waka by the fact that “the Chinese could not even comprehend the
meaning of the ¤rst waka” (Tôjin wa kiki mo waka zari kere ba), and then
it is overcome, if not neutralized, by the work of “interpreters” (kototoki
no hitobito); the Chinese company is moved to tears by a translation of
the ¤rst poem and applauds that of the second.113 In other words, the Chi-
nese have overcome the linguistic barrier and reached a sense of com-
monality regardless of nationality. To place this in our context, poems
about spatial distance that are arranged so as to diminish temporal dis-
tance work to diminish the spatial distance between different audiences,
with the help of translation. Instead of capitalizing on nostalgia, which is
premised upon a spatial distance, the translingual practice produces com-
municability in the present.
The poems about the excitement of returning home make for irony
later, as Kiyokawa and Nakamaro are shipwrecked and sent back to China.
From this point on the story ostensibly becomes original. An important de-
parture from the historical facts in our context begins when Kiyokawa and
Nakamaro are found and protected by a reclusive uncle of Yang Guifei,
Yang Meng ( J. Yô Mô), a ¤ctitious character, during the An Lushan Rebel-
lion, before which the shipwreck happens. Nakamaro is then escorted by
Yang Meng’s trusted friends back to Chang’an, while Kiyokawa stays on
with the host. Kiyokawa is eventually entrusted with Yang Guifei, who, con-
 Imaginary Voyages • 59

trary to what both history and legends tell us, did not die at Mawei; owing
to the wit of Yang Meng, she faked her death (by smudging her clothes with
mud and leaving them behind) and has since lived clandestinely with her
uncle.114 Kiyokawa then crosses the ocean with Guifei and this time returns
safely to Japan. In fear that his political opponent, who has since seized
power, may arrest him, he stays incognito in Matsura.115 (The opponent,
Dôkyô (?–772), a Buddhist monk, is known historically as the seducer of
Empress Shôtoku and a traitor who attempted to usurp the throne.)
Yang Guifei has the same problem in Japan as did Princess Zhantan in
Kokusen’ya: her speech sounds like gibberish to the local residents. Kiyo-
kawa easily convinces them that her speech is impaired (koto domori, or
stammering). The locals laugh at Guifei when she recites poems in Chi-
nese “as though birds were chirping,” saying, “Listen to the handicapped
sing.”116 This handling of Yang Guifei’s “strangeness” showcases the rela-
tivity of the intercultural hierarchy: the language of the cultural superior is
not appreciated as superior if the listener is not competent in the language.
The language of the civilized can sound barbarous to the ears of “barbari-
ans.” This message resonates more loudly if we consider the fact that
Takebe was a Sinophile. In order to further substantiate the point, he ex-
ploits three manifestations of linguistic hybridity involving Chinese and/
or Japanese. One is the rubi, the Japanese transcription system that pro-
vides a reading—phonetic or semantic—of Chinese characters alongside
the kana. Another is the Japanese practice of reciting Chinese texts in the
Japanese pronunciation. The third is the coexistence of literary and ver-
nacular languages within China. Yang Guifei’s remarks are accompanied
by rubi, which represents the sound of the Chinese rather than giving their
domesticated reading or a translation of their meaning into Japanese. This
creates a sardonic effect similar to the one we saw in Komutsu’s reaction to
Princess Zhantan’s speech in Kokusen’ya because the imagined canonicity/
formality of the Chinese text is juxtaposed with the obvious “vernacular-
ity”/vulgarity of the unintelligible sounds.117 The reader sees that the speech
sounds like gibberish, without being so told, simply by looking at the non-
sensical reading.
Since Yang Guifei is a political refugee whose protector, Kiyokawa,
also has to live under cover, her purported speech impairment functions
conveniently to shield her from possible interactions with local residents
or potential suitors.118 Kiyokawa, an eligible bachelor himself, starts
courting a local woman over the course of time. He is attracted to the local
woman rather than to the beautiful Yang Guifei because the latter does
60 • Chapter 1

not communicate in Japanese; Kiyokawa has to convey messages to her in

writing in Chinese, and thus she is “like a woman in a portrait.”119 This
image of Yang Guifei con¤rms the conventional inaccessibility and elu-
siveness of Chinese women that we saw aptly captured in Wa Tônai’s
metaphor for Princess Zhantan in Kokusen’ya.
China is transformed from an abstract model to a real entity as suit-
ors’ unsuccessful approaches to Yang Guifei and her reactions to them
¶esh out her role beyond her beautiful facade. When a local man, Aso-
maru, an accomplice of Dôkyô, tries to woo Yang Guifei and realizes that
he cannot read a single letter in the book she is reading, he concludes that
she must be the illegitimate daughter of a “hairy Chinese fellow” (Kara no
Keyakko) and suggests that the emperor would be interested in seeing
someone like her.120 Kiyokawa is compelled to protect Yang Guifei by fab-
ricating her life story: she is his younger sister, and she was educated ac-
cording to their deceased parents’ wishes. She is further handicapped by
lacking a vaginal opening and urinating through her belly—a heavy vul-
garization of the legendary beauty.121 That Yang Guifei is not even ca-
pable of knowing that she has been disparaged to this extent is again a
lampoon of Chinese monolingualism.
The subsequent transformation of Yang Guifei from monolingual to
bilingual is indicative of the complexity of the Sino-Japanese lingual en-
tanglement. Kiyokawa runs into an old comrade, Tamana, who suggests
that they should use Yang Guifei as a decoy to manipulate Asomaru in-
directly. In order to carry out this plan, they teach her how to speak
Japanese. Here another lingual distinction—between elegant and vulgar
diction—becomes important. Kiyokawa checks Guifei for her foul
mouth when she uses gaizi (fool), saying, “The word’s Japanese equiva-
lent would be baka, but it’s not used among the nobility.”122 It is not just
national boundaries but also social boundaries that need to be attended
to in speech, a fact that is appropriately addressed by the author, who
mediated both between Chinese and Japanese and between vernacular
and literary languages.
Once Yang Guifei has mastered the spoken language, the next sub-
ject of her education is naturally waka. As she has studied Japanese by
learning the Japanese equivalents of Chinese words, she legitimately
asks how waka presents the lines from a Li Bai poem.

㔕ᗐ⴩⵷⧎ᗐቴ Un san e shô hô san yô Yun xiang yi zhuang hua

xiang rong
 Imaginary Voyages • 61

ᤐ㘑ᜀ᯽㔺⪇Ớ chan hon fu kan ru ha chun feng fu jian lu hua

non nong
⧯㕖⟱₹ጊ㗡⷗ shaku hi kyan yo san tô ruo fei qun yu shan tou
ken jian
ᦩะℵፕ᦬ਅㅩ e hyan yô dai e hyô hon hui xiang yao tai yue xia
feng

(The clouds are like a jacket and skirt, a ¶ower, a countenance /

The spring breeze brushes the rail where dewdrops shine shimmering /
If not to see you on the top of Mount Qun’yu
Then we shall meet under the moon, toward the jade palace)123

This is a yuefu (rhapsody) called “Qingping diao” (A suite in the ch’ing-

p’ing mode), one of three composed by Li Bai upon the command of Em-
peror Xuanzong and in the presence of Yang Guifei when they were still
together in the imperial palace.124 Despite the elegance of the original text
and context, the lines, accompanied by the approximate phonetic tran-
scriptions of rubi in katakana (given above in romanization in the second
column), again end up sounding like gibberish. Though within the text
Yang Guifei does not write down the lines, let alone transcribe them, the
original Chinese pronunciation sounds funny to Tamana, his wife, and
Kiyokawa’s wife, all three of whom cannot help laughing. Notably, the ef-
fect is not lost on Yang Guifei: “She seems to ¤nd it funny herself now.”125
Now that she has become accustomed to Japanese literary conventions,
whether by composing in Japanese or reading Chinese poetry in Japa-
nese, Yang Guifei has become Japanese enough to appreciate the comical
effect of the Chinese sounds.
In a notable view of Japanese poetry in Honchô Suikoden, Kiyokawa
makes the technical point that waka, consisting of thirty-one syllables di-
vided into ¤ve lines, can convey a much less substantial message than
Chinese verse, which consists of more characters (each bearing meaning)
and more lines (in the case of the above excerpt, seven characters per line
and four lines); moreover, waka is meant to focus on one essence instead
of developing a narrative and thus cannot support the same content as
shi.126 Having reasoned out his thesis, Kiyokawa attempts to compose a
poem in order to capture the general ambience of the Chinese lines:
“Omokageno / hanani kumonimo / taguinaba / haruno yamabeni / aube-
karikeru” (If her image could be compared to a blossom or a cloud, then I
could meet her in the spring ¤eld). Then he adds a disclaimer: “Its mean-
ing falls short of the original.”127
62 • Chapter 1

This lesson on theory and practice prompts Guifei to compose a waka

of her own, inspired by another famous poem by Bai Juyi, “Changhenge.”

Ten ni ara ba / hiyoku to chigiri /

chi ni ara ba / renri to nori shi /
kimi zo koishiki

(If we are in the sky / we shall make our wings overlap /

On earth / we shall cross our boughs, /
I miss you who has so declared!)128

With this Guifei begins to cry, which moves the people around her.129 As
we saw above, in “Changhenge” Xuanzong misses the deceased Yang
Guifei so much that he sends a wizard to seek her spirit; Guifei’s spirit
tells the wizard of the pledge of love exchanged between her and the em-
peror, information that the messenger needs to prove that he has com-
pleted his mission for the emperor. At the time of the composition of this
poem, Yang Guifei is destined to live under cover and apart from her
lover, without any means of letting Xuanzong know that she is alive. The
geographic distance between China and Japan serves as an alternative for
the divide between life and death.
Yang Guifei longs for the days in China with her lover, and she is hav-
ing some dif¤culty completing the transition from one persona to another
as she attends a party to which she has been invited by the villain Asomaru
(as Kiyokawa and Tamana have engineered). Given her rank in her “pre-
vious life,” she is accustomed to being treated as the most important guest
at any gathering; thus Kiyokawa and Tamana have to keep her from taking
the seat reserved for such a guest, who in this case is Asomaru; the effect is
comical.130 When she sees women on boats plucking ¶owers, Guifei is re-
minded of such activities in Taiye Pond in the Huaqing Palace, where she
used to live, and she sheds tears of nostalgia.131 Then in order to get Guifei
to seduce Asomaru, Kiyokawa offers a music and dance performance. He
plays the ¶ute to Li Bai’s “Qingping diao”; it is meant to accompany a
dance called “Rainbow Skirts, Feathery Dress,” which portrays heavenly
beings in the attire in the title. Historically known as a talented dancer,
Yang Guifei is ready to perform, except she realizes that the sleeves of the
Japanese clothes she wears now are too short to create the intended effect.
When she requests that a robe, skirt, and fan be provided, she fails to pro-
nounce the items’ names in Japanese.132 Despite the potentially fatal error,
 Imaginary Voyages • 63

Guifei’s charm wins out. Her sudden burst of Chinese contributes to her
otherworldly appearance; the audience is taken with her beauty, which, it
says, excels that of the heavenly maiden who descended in Yoshino out of
admiration for Emperor Tenmu’s kin performance.133 The parallel of the
China-Japan dyad and the Heaven-Earth dyad is repeated here, except that
this time China is Heaven and Japan, Earth. This transposition points to
the sheer lack of a Chinese audience; unlike in the scene of the waka com-
position, in which Yang Guifei’s Japanese poem diminishes the distance
between China and Japan by capturing the sentiment of the Chinese poem
and transmitting it to the Japanese audience, a cultural distance is created
in the dance scene, as intended by Kiyokawa’s strategy and as desired by
the audience. Precisely because Guifei appears unearthly and foreign, she
makes a strong impression and helps along the scheme of seduction. None
of those present desires commonality across a distance; what is produced
and appreciated is an exoticism that capitalizes on the cultural distance.
While the analogy between nations (China and Japan) and cosmo-
logical spheres (Heaven and Earth) is made only tangentially, it fore-
shadows the later revelation of Yang Guifei’s identities in her previous
life and afterlife respectively. Japanese popular legends, such as one in
Kojiki, have it that Yang Guifei was a reincarnation of Miyazu Hime,
who was a wife of Yamato Takeru (a controversial warrior who con-
quered other tribes on behalf of the Japanese emperor only to be labeled
later as a rebel) and the founder of Atsuta Shrine. She had a mission to
distract Xuanzong from his intention of conquering Japan.134 Takebe’s
text gives a different account of the reincarnation: Yang Guifei tells her
protectors that her mother dreamed of a foreign-looking woman (i.e.,
non-Chinese) who told her that she would rent her womb so as to be
born into China for the time being. When her term was over, she would
return to Atsuta Shrine, where she belonged.135 The theme of transna-
tional reincarnation, prominent in Hamamatsu and important in Ma-
tsura, is again manifest in this story, where Japan is seen as the country
of deities and China, that of humans charged with earthly desires.
The subversion of course does not stop with the caricaturization of this
legendary beauty. As noted above, the bilingualism of the cultivated Japa-
nese (which was in reality a necessity for survival in a Sinocentric civiliza-
tion) is revealed to be superior to the monolingualism of the Chinese,
although initially one could dispense with any language other than Chi-
nese, the only civilized language. In addition, Kiyokawa has acquired ver-
nacular Chinese. A command of not only the literary language, which by
64 • Chapter 1

de¤nition should be acquired by any citizen of the Sinocentric world, but

also the vernacular language, which is meant to belong to native speakers,
disturbs the whole binary of the native/foreign, the spoken/written, and the
natural/cultural. As I will show in the next chapter, at the time Honchô
suikoden was written, vernacular Chinese was being studied by the Japanese
literati, although they still did not have many opportunities to visit China.

Conclusion
In the ¤ctional travelogues discussed in this chapter, the problem of com-
municating with the residents of the land of destination, a problem that
real travelers inevitably encounter, is either resolved owing to the primary
characters’ excellence in Chinese or exaggerated in order to exoticize
China. In the former cases, the exemplary characters, while garnering
honorary citizenship in the Sinocentric civilization, are also instrumental
in promoting the virtues of bilingualism and suggesting that one’s iden-
tity be based on the language (and its corollary, cultural practices) in
which one writes at a given moment. In this light, one might say that
Sino-Japanese travel, like miscegenation, is a metaphor for the heteroge-
neity inherent in identity that is continuously formed and dissolved, de-
pending upon the occasion.
As Japanese writers became increasingly familiar with colloquial Chi-
nese, however, the language contributed to a concept of ethnic unique-
ness of the Chinese in the Japanese mind—as though the psychological
distance had grown wider as the perception of geographical distance had
declined. Especially with the participation of lower-class characters, who
were not knowledgeable in the classical Chinese canon, the local color of
the foreign land, most obvious in the conversational language, was bla-
tantly foregrounded. The effect was that China became just another for-
eign land that, despite what a sharing of the universal literary language
might have suggested, was indeed ethnically distinct from Japan.
The awareness of China’s ethnic identity is not identical with the por-
trayal of China as either a hegemon or a blank slate against which Japan
struggled to mark its own presence. Indeed, the emerging awareness of
the diversity of Chinese culture compelled the Japanese to recon¤gure
their relationship with the Chinese. Given the arrival of yet another cul-
tural hegemon (the “West”), this proved to be a complex process of self-
rede¤nition, as we shall see in the next chapter.
 CHAPTER 2

From the Edifying

to the Edible
Chinese Fetishism and the China Fetish

It is not the passion (whether of objects or subjects) for substances that

speaks in fetishism, it is the passion for the code.
—Jean Baudrillard

The function of the tour is the estrangement of objects—to make what

is visible, what is surface, reveal a profound interiority through
narrative. This interiority is that of the perceiving subject; it is gained
at the expense of risking contamination . . . and the dissolution of the
boundary of that subject.
—Susan Stewart

rom the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, the Japa-

F nese had acquired a broad knowledge of Chinese culture, which

until then had been considered primarily the source of ideological,
intellectual, and literary texts. Three newer dimensions of Japan’s entan-
glement with China were vernacularism (corresponding to the rise of
baihua, the vernacular Chinese, as opposed to the predominance of wen-
yan, the literary language of the classical canon); an academic discourse
of Sinology, or kangaku (as opposed to the immersion in Chinese learn-
ing mandated for every man of letters); and the codi¤cation of Chinese
goods (as opposed to the production and reception of “meaning” in the
text). Irrelevant to and incongruous with one another as they may seem,
these three manifestations of the newer kind of contact were inter-
locked. Ibi Takashi maintains that Sinology changed its course almost
simultaneously with the explosion in popularity of the poetry on things

65
66 • Chapter 2

(eibutsu shi; Ch. yongwu shi), while Hino Tatsuo directs our attention to
the concurrent popularity of the connoisseurial collecting of stationery
(bunbô aigan) and kôshôgaku (Ch. kaozhengxue), a Qing scholarly ap-
proach to empiricism that involves the collection of information on a
given term/topic for the purpose of historicizing references.1 I would
further argue that the concurrent ethnocentric, scholarly, and material-
ist approaches to China were not coincidental but indeed interrelated, if
not mutually consequential. They even suggest a signi¤cant revision of
Japan’s self-de¤nition, for which its diversifying and tightening involve-
ment with Chinese culture was instrumental.
The shift of focus from the spiritual/intellectual to the material had
run its course by the Taishô period (1912–1926), when urban, trans-
national consumer culture had reached its maturity. In addition to Ja-
pan’s familiarity with Chinese goods, which had much increased in the
advent of the modern international trade system and the normalization of
transnational travel and transportation, the Western Orientalist apprecia-
tion of things Chinese, or chinoiserie, found a “colony” in Japan, especially
in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Just as the assimilation of
Chinese connoisseurship affected the Japanese acquisition and apprecia-
tion of Chinese objects and then of China itself, so the assimilation of Ori-
entalism led to Japan’s “orientalizing” of China, in which Japan’s own
position—whether object or subject—was made ambiguous. The con-
¶uence of the two trends, one since the eighteenth century and the other
since the nineteenth, played out against the backdrop of Japan’s aggres-
sion toward China. While military, capitalist, or other invasive actions
may have been taken toward other Asian countries, action against China
had two special symbolical meanings: the Japanese had either ¤nally mas-
tered the appreciation of artistic objects following the model of the Chi-
nese connoisseurs, or they had transformed themselves into a version of
the Western colonizers, for the majority of whom Chinese thought and
literature meant little.
In this chapter, I will ¤rst illuminate the interconnection of the three
developments, which contributed to the undoing of the older rhetoric
that constituted Chineseness, and reveal how Japanese recipients of Chi-
nese cultural products distanced themselves from them instead of fash-
ioning themselves after the Chinese model. I will then show how the
newly acquired critical distance was accommodated to the map of power
and knowledge involving the “West” in post–Russo-Japanese War Japan,
where physical proximity, realized by modern transportation, promoted
 Chinese Fetishism • 67

a Japanese aestheticization of the China of the past against the backdrop

of the China of the present.

“Read as They Speak”: Vernacularism and the

Birth of the “Barbarians”
Ogyû Sorai (1666–1728), who, as we shall see, is primarily known as a lead-
ing authority in the pro–High Tang Kobunji-ha school (Ch. Guwenci-pai)
of Sinology, was also known to be an enthusiastic advocate of vernacular-
ism. Sorai contended that Chinese texts (and the range of texts he had in
mind still consisted of Confucian classics and poetry) should be recited in
Chinese, honoring the authentic Chinese pronunciation (tôin). He re-
nounced kundoku (or yomikudashi), the long-established practice of reading
Chinese texts by rearranging the word order so as to reconstruct sentences
in accordance with Japanese syntax. It is undeniable that the practice, which
had domesticated Chinese texts, had curtailed the Japanese Sinophiles’ oral
skills and listening comprehension in Chinese. Two pieces of evidence are
particularly relevant in our context. First, it is documented that in the six-
teenth century, Ishikawa Jôzan (1583–1672), one of the most distinguished
Sinophiles of his time, could not speak with Kwõn Ch’ik, an of¤cer accom-
panying the Korean envoy (Chôsen tsûshinshi), in either Korean or Chinese
and yet was able to communicate with him by means of hitsudan, or brush
talk. The topic of their conversation was classical-style Chinese poems that
Jôzan had composed. The Korean offered a typical compliment—that Jôzan
was the “Japanese [equivalent of] Li Bai or Du Fu.”2 That the presentation
and evaluation of a Japanese man’s thoughts had to be mediated by inscrip-
tion in literary Chinese and by references to classical Chinese icons speaks
loudly for the reasons of Sorai’s frustration. The ¶ip side of the “universal-
ity” of literary Chinese is the sheer incapability of East Asian intellectuals to
communicate orally in each other’s languages.
The other example of the overemphasis on the written language is in
the different titles of the professional interpreters of Chinese and Dutch
in the port of Nagasaki. The former is tsûji, literally meaning “translating
things”; the latter, tsûshi, or “translating words.” Ishizaki Matazô con-
tends that the titles varied because “one could still understand what the
Chinese were saying if it was written, while one couldn’t comprehend the
Dutch texts.”3 Against the backdrop of a shared knowledge in written
Chinese, the speci¤c de¤ciency of the Japanese in oral and aural skills was
even more apparent.
68 • Chapter 2

Within a hundred years from the early Tokugawa, however, the sta-
tus of spoken Chinese changed. There was a remarkable increase in
human and material resources for the study of vernacular Chinese, a lan-
guage that had not been taught in schools because it was considered un-
necessary for, if not harmful to, serious students of classical essentials.
Ishizaki relates that Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu (1658–1714), the chief political
adviser for the ¤fth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646–1709; r. 1680–
1709), who employed Ogyû Sorai, studied colloquial Chinese with a Chi-
nese immigrant monk and was able to comprehend conversations in
Chinese between Chinese delegates from Nagasaki and their Japanese in-
terpreters.4 Yoshiyasu’s acquisition of pro¤ciency was not an isolated case
that was possible only for those of power and means. Interpreters in
Nagasaki were often relocated to other areas of Japan and published text-
books and dictionaries that made spoken Chinese more accessible to the
Japanese. Among the most famous was Okajima Kanzan (1675–1728),
whose works include Tôwa san’yô (Guidelines of spoken Chinese, 1716),
a widely distributed textbook. Okajima was invited to teach in Edo and
Osaka and was instrumental in Ogyû Sorai’s advocacy of vernacularism.
Okajima’s accomplishments extend to translations of Chinese vernacular
¤ction, such as Chûgi Suikoden (Loyal Shuihu zhuan, 1728).5
The trend of studying Chinese as a foreign tongue, as opposed to the
ostensibly universal literary language in which canonical texts were writ-
ten, came hand in hand with a demand for Chinese vernacular ¤ction, or
hakuwa shôsetsu (Ch. baihua xiaoshuo), a burgeoning genre in China
itself. Given the Japanese readers’ still shaky command of vernacular Chi-
nese, they still required devices to domesticate these texts, which appeared
more ethnically speci¤c (as written in the native tongue of China) and
“foreign” than did the Confucian classics or classical poetry, which had
been read in the yomikudashi style and which thus appeared accessible,
however deceptively so. For that reason a mode of negotiation with Chi-
nese ¤ction was devised: kun’yaku, or supplying Japanese readings of
characters, which inevitably provided a word-by-word translation into
Japanese. Another way for the Japanese to engage Chinese ¤ction was
with loose translations of the texts into Japanese. Such products typically
added the term tsûzoku (popularized) as a pre¤x to the original titles
(e.g., Okajima’s Tsûzoku chûgi Suikoden [Loyal Shuihu zhuan: Popular
version, 1757]). Even more remote from the original were parodies of
Chinese ¤ction in Japanese. Many works in this genre have remained
popular to date; among these, Takebe Ayatari’s Honchô Suikoden is particu-
 Chinese Fetishism • 69

larly renowned for a varied appropriation of Chinese sources not limited

to the literary canon.6 Many of the parodies reveal the authors’ familiarity
with the classics written in literary Japanese (bungo) and thus are examples
of translingual practices not only between Chinese and Japanese, but also
between the literary and vernacular languages.
It may appear only legitimate and sensible that the Japanese learned
to do justice to the reading of Chinese texts. Ironically, however, the new
recognition and observance of the distinct sounds of nonliterary (spoken
and vernacular) Chinese had rami¤cations that would not have been so
¶attering to the Chinese. Authentic Chinese pronunciation sounded so
odd to ears used to hearing the sodoku (recitation of Chinese texts in Japa-
nese) of high-¶own kundoku-style Japanese that many ¤ction writers
opted to mock the speech of Chinese characters as though they deserved
ridicule from the Japanese characters. As the idiom Tôjin no negoto (the
sleep talk of a Chinese) suggests, Chinese speech was taken as nonsensi-
cal. As we saw in chapter 1, in Honchô Suikoden Yang Guifei successfully
conceals her identity because the local residents of Matsura are ignorant
enough of spoken Chinese to accept the excuse that she is speech im-
paired. Yang Guifei’s speech is transcribed in katakana in an attempt to
honor the original and authentic pronunciation as much as possible, yet
the net effect is that her speech is highlighted as nothing but barbarous.
The average Japanese response that Chinese pronunciation was comical
was not simply ¤ctitions. Marcia Yonemoto tells us that according to a
travelogue entitled Saiyû zakki (1783), by Furukawa Koshôken (1726–
1807), Chinese speech was considered strange by the Japanese in Naga-
saki. Yonemoto analyzes a passage from the text that includes the phrase
chin-pun-kan (unintelligible): “‘Chin-pun-kan’ was a generic mimicry of
foreign languages as nonsensical babble, and it underscores the way in
which language, for Koshôken, and perhaps universally, has been a prime
distinguishing feature of cultural difference.”7
That Chinese speech sounds to the Japanese too odd to be normal
human speech is the whole premise of a sharebon (comic ¤ction) appro-
priately entitled Wa Tô chinkai (Hilarious translations between Japanese
and Chinese, 1785). A parody of Kokusen’ya gassen, it places the original
play’s major characters in the pleasure quarters of Maruyama in Naga-
saki.8 Wa Tônai, a.k.a. Coxinga, the half-Chinese, half-Japanese hero
and potential savior of the Ming imperial house in Chikamatsu’s play, is
here an interpreter and accompanies a Chinese client Li Daotian (J. Ri
Tôten, originally the villain who was instrumental in the demise of the
70 • Chapter 2

Ming dynasty) because he does not understand Japanese. Characters

refer to Wu Sangui (J. Go Sankei), the faithful subject of the Ming em-
peror, as a handsome client who is popular among Japanese courtesans.
Princess Zhantan ( J. Sendan), whom Li Daotian was intent upon marry-
ing and who later ¶ees to Japan, is here a beautiful Japanese courtesan
with whom Wa Tônai has been sleeping in secret as he deceives the re-
sourceless Daotian. The Chinese speeches of Daotian and Tônai are
given in Chinese characters, with rubi on both sides of the vertical lines
of the main text: on the right side the approximate Chinese pronuncia-
tion of the words is transcribed in katakana, and on the left, rough Japa-
nese translations are represented in hiragana. The courtesans and their
apprentices, who are half amused and half horri¤ed by the (to them) un-
usual physical appearance and manners of the Chinese customer and his
black servant from Malaysia, Konrondo, keep asking Tônai questions
about the sounds Daotian makes (including nonwords, such as
sneezes), taking it for granted that the object of their discussion and
teasing will not understand a word they say about him.9
The exoticization of Chinese speech manifest in works such as Wa Tô
chinkai coincides with the unabashedly domesticated and vulgarized read-
ings of Chinese canonical texts. Domestication is embraced in the abun-
dance of phonetic transcriptions of Chinese enunciation, as is evidenced
in Tôshisen ôkai: Gogon zekku (Distortion of a rake’s tea brush: Five-
character quatrain, 1770), a comical commentary of classical Chinese po-
etry.10 The ¤rst three letters of the title are obviously meant to be a parody
of Tôshisen, an anthology of Tang poetry compiled in the Ming era (con-
ventionally attributed to Li Panlong [1514–1570]) and widely distributed
in Japan since its arrival in the early Tokugawa, while the two compounds
are pronounced differently in Chinese (Dangzi quan and Tangshixuan re-
spectively). The parody relies on translations of literary Chinese into col-
loquial Japanese and the interpretation of high-brow content via the
manners and customs of the demimonde. Owing to the increased dissem-
ination of commentaries and scholarly works on classical Chinese poetry,
the range of moderately competent readers had widened, to the extent that
comic writers, such as Shoku Sanjin (a.k.a. Ôta Nanpo; 1749–1823),
could publish parodic commentaries and translations (kyôshi) and expect
commercial success. The scholarly works, which show a formidable famil-
iarity with the classical Chinese canon, challenge both the established
kundoku method and the quest for ethnic authenticity that Sorai’s allies
rigorously sought.
 Chinese Fetishism • 71

Hino Tatsuo attributes the fact that many intellectuals well-versed in

Chinese classics turned to sharebon and kyôshi to the intellectual and ex-
istential con¶icts that emerged in the late Tokugawa period. Hino ¤rst ar-
ticulates two stages in the transformation of literature: a distancing of
literature from Confucianism in the early Tokugawa and a departure
from the old rhetoric in the late Tokugawa. While it was possible by the
late Tokugawa to write literature without a Confucian ideological frame-
work, a way to represent ideas outside the scope of the classical poetic vo-
cabulary was still being sought. Hino then notes the dilemma of late Edo
literati—the desire to express themselves freely and the need to conform
to the norm of high literary rhetoric—and he hypothesizes that one solu-
tion was to take recourse in ostensibly vulgar genres such as kyôshi and
gesaku (comic ¤ction). The choice of such genres was possible as writers
abandoned the status of literati and accepted the use of the vulgar lan-
guage.11 In our context, however, the explicit popularization of Chinese
canonical texts does not contradict the rigorous restoration (or inven-
tion) of the exotic in Chinese discourse. In fact, the two operations are
precisely the ¶ip sides of each other, as both are premised on the linguistic
distance between Japanese and Chinese, whereas Chinese as the written
language was previously thought to be an essential and even formative
part of Japanese.

China under Scrutiny: Things and Their (Textual) Companions

Sinology in Japan developed rapidly. Not only did the shogunate have
Neo-Confucianism taught at its of¤cial school of Shôheikô, but also Japa-
nese scholars published annotations and criticisms of Chinese works that,
though distributed only in Japan, were as up to date and sophisticated as
that of Chinese scholars on their own literature. An exposure to current
Chinese scholarship was accelerated owing at least in part to the promo-
tion of trade with Qing China encouraged by the eighth shogun, Toku-
gawa Yoshimune (1684–1751; r. 1716–1751). It is of course not as though
the Japanese had never studied contemporary Chinese literature. There
were notable scholarly endeavors, such as Kûkai’s (774–835) works on
poetics, as well as practical guides that helped Japanese students to famil-
iarize themselves with Chinese literature. Moreover, Japanese scholars of
Chinese had formed opinions of speci¤c Chinese literary works. To take
the most prominent example, the works of Bai Juyi were read with enthu-
siasm by the poet’s contemporaries in Japan in the ninth century. It is also
72 • Chapter 2

evident that the Japanese readings of Bai’s works, especially poems of so-
cial criticism or satire, varied signi¤cantly from the Chinese readings
thereof.12 Nevertheless, the Japanese scholars of earlier generations did not
form a school whose critiques were deemed independent of and compa-
rable to those of the Chinese. Notable contributions to scholarship had to
be claimed via the genres of waka and karon (theories of waka), rather than
in Chinese studies. Even the invention of kundoku did not seem to have in-
spired Japanese students of Chinese toward autonomy or innovation.
It can be argued that among the earliest examples of critical evaluation
of Chinese poetry is that of Ishikawa Jôzan, who, in collegial consultation
with the Neo-Confucian authority Hayashi Razan (1583–1657), selected
thirty-six poetic immortals (shisen) from the history of Chinese poetry.13 A
critical distance from Chinese poetry is evident in the classical Japanese
practice of identifying thirty-six immortals to form the Chinese canon, as
well as the seemingly independent evaluative standard of screening thirty-
six poets and making eighteen pairs. Although Jôzan’s project turned out to
be the isolated personal pursuit of a reclusive dilettante of independent
means, Tokugawa Sinology was much more communal, if not institutional.
The scarcity of direct contact with Chinese colleagues did not prevent
Japanese Sinologists in the Tokugawa period from consulting scholarly
works imported from China or re¤ning their own theories by keeping
abreast of recent interpretations and trends in the ¤eld. The time lag be-
tween the initial publication and distribution (and possible Japanese edi-
tion) of Chinese scholarly works kept diminishing toward the end of the
Tokugawa period, while the autonomy of Japanese scholars grew. The de-
velopment of the publishing industry and marketing helped disseminate
scholarly works beyond an author’s immediate colleagues and disciples.
Increases in literacy and the demand for education also propelled the pub-
lication of Japanese editions of Chinese texts (wakokubon kanseki).14
In the early Tokugawa period, the Ming poetics of the Guwenci
school, which canonized High Tang poetry (such as that of Du Fu and Li
Bai) and most prominently represented by Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen
(1526–1590), dominated Japanese scholarship on Chinese poetry, with
Ogyû Sorai and Hattori Nankaku (1683–1759) as its most vocal advo-
cates. Nineteenth-century Japanese scholars were more in agreement with
the xingling theory advocated by Qing scholars such as Yuan Mei (1716–
1797, whom we will see in the next chapter in yet another context) and
discouraged the reproduction of Tang rhetoric while promoting the spon-
taneous expression of one’s own observations.15 The two critical stances
 Chinese Fetishism • 73

are not to be simpli¤ed as one privileging language and the other, spirit.
The High Tang poetry privileged in the Ming poetics tends to focus on in-
tense emotions, such as patriotic concerns, homesickness, and longing for
a lost lover, weaving what may appear to be hyperbolic rhetorical patterns
to effectively convey passion. Thus, one of the predominant genres in the
High Tang is the yonghuai shi ( J. eikai shi), or poems on what one has on
one’s mind. In contrast, Qing poetics honors an attention to quotidian de-
tails. The predominant method of the time was kaozheng ( J. kôshô), which
was the collection and exhibition of empirical information on a given
topic—as opposed to xungu ( J. kunko), a lexicographical study based on
the annotations of Tang criticism, or lixue ( J. rigaku), a philosophical and
theoretical study prevalent in the Song dynasty. In the words of Jean
Baudrillard, who claims that “we live in a world where there is more and
more information, and less and less meaning,” these writings might be
termed “the staging of meaning” rather than the production of meaning,
in which information can “exhaust itself.”16 The act of reading, which
used to be a medium to master the classics and gain virtue, became a sym-
bolic act of status, on one hand, and a pastime, an indulgence in itself, on
the other. Collected and displayed words are commodities, and owning
many of them—either metaphorically (i.e., holding an encyclopedic
knowledge) or literally (i.e., possessing a large personal library)—means
one has wealth and power, a highly sought status. Hino Tatsuo differenti-
ates thing-oriented connoisseurship (shumi) from text-oriented connois-
seurship (kyôyô). Whereas the former is based upon aesthetic tastes/
judgments exerted upon things, the latter is predicated on a body of fetish-
ized knowledge—that is, knowledge not for the sake of the things to
which it pertains but for its social value, knowledge not as a vehicle for the
understanding of things but as a demonstration of knowing itself, an em-
blem of a higher social status, or, in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms, “symbolical
capital.”17 If we focus less on the body of knowledge than on the function
of knowledge, it is obvious that knowledge not only helps those who have
it to more pro¤tably or effectively deal with the things that the knowledge
is about, but it also allows them to be more respectfully received in their
social circles. The concept appears in the following haiku:

Eibutsu no The peony

shi o kuchizusamu makes me recite
botan kana a poem on things
Buson18
74 • Chapter 2

This haiku encapsulates an almost tautological relationship between the

thing (in this case the peony) and the word; in an intellectual’s self-
conscious musings, the peony reminds the speaker of an object in a
poem that s/he knows. The object does not merely evoke a poem; it
evokes the idea that a poem can be and has been composed about it. It is
not just a simple reversal of the order of events that is at work here, but
also their placement in a paradoxical spiral, where causality as well as
chronology becomes ambiguous. The fetishization of knowledge and
the textualization of connoisseurship validate and facilitate each other.
Crowning this entanglement is the fact that the Japanese poem frames
the speaker’s act of recitation in Chinese. It has not been determined
whether the Chinese or Japanese language was primary in the making of
this poem.

Things That You Do, Things That Are You:

The Location of the Japanese Self
The practice of nonliterary Chinese arts (an exemplary case of which we
will see in Ema Saikô in the next chapter) had been diffused among Japa-
nese intellectuals since the mid-eighteenth century. This is not to deny an
earlier exposure of Japanese artists and art lovers to Chinese cultural
products in the early Muromachi period, which was known for its intense
acquisition and appreciation of “things Chinese,” or “Karamono”—
noted, for example, among the shogun’s attendants in charge of entertain-
ment (dôbô shû). The medieval collection and admiration of the Chinese
visual arts, however, differs from the case under investigation in two
ways. First, a systematic codi¤cation of things was yet to be completed, if
even begun, and thus things had not been saturated by their marriage
with language. Meticulous and profuse documentation and annotation
was a concept of the eighteenth century. Second, the acquisition and ap-
preciation of things Chinese in the Muromachi period was limited to the
nobility and artists with noble patronage, whereas an expansion of the
urban consumer culture in the mid-Tokugawa period provided a much
wider clientele for cultural products in ¤elds other than the literary. Patri-
cia C. Graham, inspired by Bourdieu, relates the circumstances as follows:

The [Tokugawa] government’s endorsement of Chinese learning for the

masses and encouragement of trade, both domestic and international, led to
far-reaching social changes, some of which the bakufu may not have foreseen
 Chinese Fetishism • 75

or approved. Excelling at learning became a means of moving beyond restric-

tions imposed by birth into a lower class, for education allowed commoners
access to knowledge of the higher culture of China to which they had previ-
ously been denied. Similarly, growth in trade resulted in increased wealth for
merchants, allowing them to acquire the material goods that were associated
with this higher culture. Wealthy merchants and townspeople aspiring to
parity with the samurai class sought the material trappings of that class, in-
cluding Chinese luxury products or Japanese substitutes in similar styles.19

The ¤fth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, during whose reign spoken

Chinese came to be studied widely (as we saw above), invited the Chinese
Buddhist monk Yinyuan and his followers to come to Japan and permit-
ted them to move freely around the country (including Edo); to found a
sect called Ôbaku-shû; and to build many temples, which offered venues
for intellectual and aesthetic gatherings of the Japanese literati, Ogyû
Sorai among them. Yinyuan greatly facilitated the importation of books,
paintings, and other artistic artifacts and practices and thus contributed
to further the appreciation of Chinese culture.20
As in China, kinki shoga (Ch. qinqi shuhua; music, chess, calligraphy,
drawing) were considered to be the four essentials that literati must mas-
ter and practice. Jiezi yuan huazhuan (The mustard seed garden manual of
painting, 1679), by Li Yu (Li Liweng, 1611–ca. 1680), was imported soon
after its original publication in China and was circulated widely among
Japanese painters and artists-to-be as a requisite for the study of correct
strokes and other drawing/painting methods.21 Some of the distinguished
masters of the four arts were not from the nobility or gentry, a fact that at-
tests to the wider dissemination of education and the consequent emer-
gence of a large number of connoisseurs. Among them were Ike no Taiga
(1723–1776) and Yosa (no) Buson (1716–1783), whose paintings are
densely informed by the Chinese poetic tradition and yet are illustrative
of the everyday life of commoners.22 An excellent example of cultural prac-
tices that transcend social boundaries is Jûben jûgi zu (Ten conveniences
and ten preferences, 1771), a collaborative work by the two artists that was
inspired by Li Liweng’s poetry.23 In addition to the aforementioned four
essentials, the tea ceremony (speci¤cally sencha, as distinct from cha no
yu), seal engraving (tenkoku), ¶ower arrangement, horticulture, incense
burning, bird feeding, and gold¤sh feeding (among others) were cele-
brated as commendable arts for the cultivated to practice in order to dem-
onstrate their discriminating taste.
76 • Chapter 2

Peony viewing was imported from China to Japan as an essential ac-

tivity of the literati. Bai Juyi’s criticism of the af¶uent urban residents’ fa-
natic spending on the ¶ower in “Mudan fang” (Peony is beautiful) was
lost on the Japanese audience for the second time (the ¤rst had been
when the poem itself had been imported).24 While the mid-Tang poet’s
intended satire may have eluded the Heian court because of the Japanese
emphasis on the lyrical rather than the political, this time, the Japanese
failed to recognize it because of the shift from an ideological to a material-
ist reception of Chinese culture. The aim of literature was no longer con-
sidered to be the crystallization of emotions (rather than social criticism)
but the archiving of information (rather than the promotion of ideas).
The earlier contrast of values may be construed as Japanese versus Chi-
nese de¤nitions of literature, while the newer dyad juxtaposes Qing and
Ming (pro-Tang) criticism. This reveals a much higher degree of, and
broader familiarity with, Chinese thought in Japan, on one hand, and,
ironically, a sense of transgression of the national cultural boundaries, on
the other hand. The latter is distinctly present in the following haiku:

Tôin mo The peony

sukoshi iitaki Makes me feel like
botan kana speaking in Chinese
Kanchô25

This haiku showcases an entanglement of the Japanese subject, who

views and speaks of the peony, and the Chineseness that he thinks the
peony embodies and that he wishes to embody by muttering in Chinese.
The authentic enunciation of Chinese would transform him into a
quasi-Chinese and thus exoticize him. What is happening along with
the Japanese fashioning themselves on the Chinese model is worth a
closer look. Because the peony is thought to emit Chineseness, the sub-
ject feels like exoticizing himself to match it. The ¶ower itself, as Hino
Tatsuo points out, had long ago been brought to the Japanese soil and
was familiar to the Japanese eye. But it had been re-Sini¤ed in order to
symbolically bear the mark of Chineseness.26 The recognition of the ma-
terialist aspects of Chinese culture—such as the cultivation, exhibition,
and appreciation of peonies—was a step short of the inscription of for-
eignness on China’s cultural products, which were also symbolic goods.
The shift from the Chinese art of cultivating and arranging ¶owers (the
model after which the Japanese had fashioned themselves) to the label-
 Chinese Fetishism • 77

ing of particular ¶owers as quintessentially Chinese was a shift from the

Japanese adaptation of Chinese connoisseurship to the Japanese ob-
jecti¤cation of things Chinese. The foreignness was imagined and rein-
vented so that objects of desire that had already been domesticated
could function as embodiments of Chineseness. Chineseness, which
had previously been recognized in the practice of connoisseurship, was
newly inscribed in the objects thereof.
The following haiku captures a moment of erosion in the image of
China as the spiritual and aesthetic model and reveals its material and
physical vigor:

Utsukushii The beautiful face

kao de Yôkihi of Yang Guifei
buta o kui reveling in pork
Senryû27

“Kao” is represented by a kokuji, or a made-in-Japan “Chinese” character,

commonly in use in haiku and other Tokugawa popular literary texts in
wabun, suggesting the ambiguous origin of the Japanese cultural practice
of inscription. This particular instance is signi¤cant, given that the kokuji
is used to contrast the facade of Yang Guifei, the legendary Chinese
beauty, with the vulgar act of eating pork—a dietary practice that had
been foreign to the Japanese and is thus connoted with savagery. On a
more physical note, the beautiful face and the vulgar act present a contrast
between the exterior and the interior (not the psyche, but the literal inte-
rior of the body), painting a picture of a gaping hole in the beautiful face
and the disappearance of the piece of meat into the darkness of the body.
It is interesting that the objecti¤cation of China is a rami¤cation of
the very act of the Japanese fashioning themselves after the Chinese
model. Be it a scholarly study; vernacularism; or the collection, exhibi-
tion, and utilization of objects of art, the Japanese had learned from the
Chinese how to establish and maintain a distance from which to valorize
the object. That knowledge—and its application—was used for China
itself, leading to a Japanese commodi¤cation of China, when the Japa-
nese became aware of the national boundaries between China and Ja-
pan. Whereas many Japanese literati may have imagined that they had
joined the Chinese connoisseurs in their acts of objecti¤cation, the Japa-
nese connoisseurship of Chinese products/objects slipped into the ob-
jecti¤cation of China itself. Consequently, Chineseness became equated
78 • Chapter 2

with materiality, whereas Japaneseness was concealed in the ostensible

neutrality of spectatorship/commentatorship.

The Self-Aware Subject of Objecti¤cation

Scholarship in Chinese literature that had begun in the eighteenth cen-
tury continued with a reorganization of the academic community in the
late nineteenth century as Japan adopted the Western institution of the
university. As departments in the Faculty of Letters were arranged by
language (e.g., the Department of National [i.e., Japanese] Literature,
Department of English Literature, Department of French Literature),
the standing of kanshibun became institutionally ambiguous and af-
fected the formation of the national canon.28 At the same time, the recip-
rocal embedding of the textual and the material in Chinese culture
continued to thrive as academia was being transformed.
By far the most prominent ¤gure in the study of Chinese material cul-
ture is Aoki Masaru (1887–1964), arguably the best scholar of his time in
Chinese literature, especially drama. Aoki, who taught such subjects as
Chinese theater and poetry at many universities—including his alma
mater, which was acclaimed as the center of Sinology—is at least equally
if not better known for his studies of the Chinese nonliterary arts.29 He
translated several signi¤cant works on Chinese painting (for example, Jiezi
yuan huazhuan); cuisine (Yuan Mei’s Suiyuan shidan [Suiyuan’s recipes]);
and tea (many works, starting with Lu Yu’s [?–804] Chajing [The classics
of tea], a study of tea from the Tang through the Ming dynasties).30 At the
same time, he wrote and published proli¤cally: on the Chinese art of
drinking (Shuchûshu [Taste in wines]), on cultural pursuits (Kinki shoga
[Music, chess, calligraphy, painting]), and on other aspects of Chinese
material culture. From these contributions, it is clear that Aoki was a me-
diator par excellence, informing his Japanese audience of how to evalu-
ate, collect, exhibit, utilize, and appreciate material goods in the Chinese
mode. While the direction of the dissemination of knowledge remained
the same—China the originator and Japan the recipient—the fact that
Chinese material culture began to receive Japanese analytical attention
reveals a new phase in the Sino-Japanese entanglement: China was now
the object and Japan the subject of cross-cultural analysis.
Aoki’s work marks a new phase in the Sino-Japanese entanglement in
yet another way: he is among the ¤rst Japanese Sinologists whose works
were extensively translated into Chinese. Many of his translated works
 Chinese Fetishism • 79

have been printed by Chinese presses and distributed in both mainland

China and Taiwan over an extended period.31 The number of transla-
tions, various places of publication, and duration suggest not only Aoki’s
individual accomplishments or a higher status for Japanese scholarship
on things Chinese, but also a change that had occurred in China—
namely, Chinese academics were becoming aware that their own culture
could be an object for others to study and that the research of other schol-
ars could bring something worthwhile to their study of their own culture.
That Chinese students of Chinese culture sought the views of Japanese Si-
nologists back in the mid-twentieth century signals an awareness and ac-
tive engagement in the “entanglement” on the part of the Chinese.
Aoki himself re¶ects upon the attention of the Chinese to Japanese
Sinology in an essay, “Shina bungaku kenkyû ni okeru hôjin no tachiba”
(The Japanese position on the study of Chinese literature, 1937) in which
he recalls that one of his teachers, Naitô Konan (1866–1934), used to say
that Chinese students would come to the University of Kyoto to study
Chinese in the foreseeable future.32 However, Naitô’s—and Aoki’s—
focus was the level of scholarship in Japan and not the paradigm change
on the part of the Chinese. In other words, Aoki does not seem to have
been concerned with the burden of the past, when Japan had no other
way to de¤ne itself than to compare itself with China. Thus “Chinese lit-
erature” in Aoki’s title is interchangeable with any national literature, and
the scholarship could have pertained to any region.
It is noteworthy that Aoki refers to Chinese literature throughout his
short essay as gaikoku bungaku, or “foreign literature,” whose foreignness
makes it dif¤cult for the Japanese to study it. Aoki’s term con¤rms that
Chinese literature is no longer an essential part of Japanese literature that
the Japanese should learn by heart; rather, it is a subject that individuals
can choose to study in institutional settings. It is in this spirit that in
“Kanbun chokudoku ron” (A discussion on the straightforward reading
of Chinese writings; written in 1920) Aoki ¤rmly renounces the Japanese
practice of kundoku/yomikudashi—as well as the whole mode of thinking
that the practice imprints in the minds of Japanese Sinologists—and ad-
vocates solely the Chinese reading of Chinese texts. He praises Ogyû
Sorai and Amenomori Hôshû (1668–1755, who was also pro¤cient in
spoken Korean) for promoting the mastery of the authentic and original
Chinese language.33
Aoki continues with the same thesis in an autobiographical essay,
“Shina gakusha no uwagoto” (A Sinologist babbling). He reveals that
80 • Chapter 2

upon entering college, he ceased to recite Chinese poems in kundoku

and began to recite them instead in the original Beijing dialect and to
read in the original word order rather than changing it in order to apply
Japanese grammar and syntax to Chinese texts.34 Aoki is obviously in
favor of undomesticating Chinese and cleansing the texts of the residues
of Japanese emotional input, which, he claims, increased the spiritual
value of the classical Chinese canon. Aoki worked to neutralize the age-old
fold within which the Japanese had found themselves and to re-ethnicize
Chinese literature. The time when English literature was not in the same
league as wen, or the Chinese classics (as once judged by Natsume
Sôseki), seems to have long passed by the Taishô period; just as the Chi-
nese began to see themselves being de¤ned by Japan, the Japanese began
to objectify China, not as a force pertinent to their identity but as noth-
ing more or less than a body of knowledge.35

Tourists but not Travelers

Japanese tourism in China is another modern phenomenon that strongly
attests to the changing Sino-Japanese entanglement. In the ¤ctional
narratives that we saw in chapter 1 Japanese travels to China were
centripetal—that is, toward the center of civilization. In the Taishô pe-
riod, however, the framework was much changed: unlike the privileged
and extraordinary ¤ctional heroes earnestly seeking and fortunately earn-
ing rare opportunities to visit China, more and more modern Japanese
could afford to travel to China. Their trips were often funded by Japanese
newspapers, which printed and distributed their travelogues for fellow
Japanese to read and enjoy vicariously.
Aoki was one of those travelers to China. Kônan shun (Spring in
Jiangnan) is a result of his visit in 1922—a short while after the publica-
tion of Tanizaki Jun’ichirô’s writings on China, with which I deal next.36
Aoki recounts his sightseeing tours, visits to theaters, and shopping in
Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Yangzhou—literary topoi that Tanizaki had
visited earlier and recurrently takes up in his ¤ction. Whereas Aoki is
occasionally surprised by the gap between the fantastic image of China
generated by texts he had read and the sobering, if not disillusioning, re-
ality, he does not resort to the cliché that China’s great tradition was tar-
nished by the invasion of modern Western civilization. In response to
those who lamented that the West Lake district had been cheapened by
the encroachment of Western-style buildings, he is quick to point out
 Chinese Fetishism • 81

that Chinese architecture is not incompatible with, let alone in con¶ict

with, Western architecture and that given the alacrity with which China
had been incorporating foreign cultural elements since the Tang dynasty,
the Chinese would soon ¤nd a way to design the landscape so that old
and new elements would be in harmony.37
Then Aoki offers a word of caution to the Japanese tourists who seek
to see historic China in contemporary China:

West Lake is not an antique object that is preserved for a small number of
curiosity-driven Japanese tourists—West Lake is alive and kicking. It is a site
of respite that heaven bestowed upon the Chinese people. It is natural for the
modern Chinese to build Western-style restaurants and hotels in order to ef-
fectively enjoy the gift—it is a way to augment the gift of nature with arti¤ce.
One should not view West Lake simply as a historic site. You should not visit it
with such a category in mind, or else you will be upset or repelled by thwarted
expectations. Let me advise [those of you who have predetermined notions]:
you had better explore West Lake in texts and fantasize about it with your eyes
closed.38

While maintaining a distance from China as the object of modern schol-

arly inquiry, Aoki counsels his reader against the fetishistic appreciation
of China as a thing of the past. It is not fair, he contends, to contrast the
present-day China that tourists see with the historic China gleaned from
their reading experience; it would be sel¤sh of privileged connoisseurs
to demand what they want to see. China was not a commodity that
would add luster to travelers’ lives. Unlike the travelers in earlier times,
Japanese tourists would not be compelled by their visits to re¶ect on
their cultural identity, much less to revise it. Their tours would be on a
prescribed route, and they would return with purchases, pictures im-
printed in their minds, and episodes archived and to be retrieved as
memories. No traveler returns, but tourists plan to and do return, exis-
tentially intact, in possession of things from the distant land, geographi-
cally and chronologically. The trajectory of the tourist’s mind is by
default nostalgic: he or she wants something that will be a reminder of
the trip later on—what is prospectively of their past.
Furthermore, the criticism of Japanese tourists regarding China was
as much a product of their formulaic de¤nition of what China should
and should not be vis-à-vis the West as it was a product of the choices
that China was making regarding Westernization. They wanted things
82 • Chapter 2

of the past in China because for them China belonged to the past. Aoki,
though informally and tangentially, questions the platform on which
the Japanese tended to judge China’s Westernization as a corruption of
its cultural heritage—that is, the ground on which the Japanese granted
themselves an ostensibly neutral position so as to make unsolicited
judgments on behalf of the Chinese.

Land of Extravaganza
The shift from practicing Chinese fetishism to fetishizing China is em-
bodied in a contemporary of Aoki, the renowned novelist Tanizaki
Jun’ichirô (1886–1965). Tanizaki’s Sinophilia is well documented though
relatively unexplored in comparison with his earlier pro-Western stance
and later manifest admiration of traditional Japanese culture. Unlike
many of his predecessors, Tanizaki did not grow up memorizing classical
Confucian texts before being admitted to school. His familiarity with Chi-
nese owes much to coincidence and personal preference. The encourage-
ment of a home room teacher at his elementary school may have led him,
at the age of fourteen, to transfer to a private school to study the Chinese
classics, as well as to attend another school to study English.39 The imme-
diate effect of such exposure was that four of Tanizaki’s kanshi composi-
tions appeared in a high school journal.40 He did not publish anything in
kanshi or kanbun as a professional writer. Kanshi or kanbun were never an
essential part of his writing—not uncommon among Japanese writers
who made their literary debuts in the Taishô period.
Tanizaki’s engagement with China ¶ourished in the genre of the trav-
elogue.41 He published several essays on the two trips that he made, in
1918 and 1926, including “Soshû kikô” (Account of my trip to Suzhou;
originally published as “Gabô ki” [Account of a painted vessel, 1919]);
“Shinwai no yoru” (Night in Qinhuai, 1919); and “Rozan nikki” (Diary of
Lushan, 1921), in which he describes historical sites, restaurants, and
brothels in southern China.42 The topics suggest that Tanizaki’s China
was the object of nostalgic aestheticization, appetite, or lust. It is true that
Tanizaki’s gaze and tongue (in its two functions) sensualize China as
erotic or edible. However, Tanizaki had an unfailing penchant for mate-
rial details, objectifying and devouring any place of his infatuation, be it
Yokohama, with its quasi-Western urban culture, or Kansai, with its re-
constructed Japanese court tradition. Thus one might wonder if in Tani-
zaki’s stories there was anything speci¤c to China, that only China did for
 Chinese Fetishism • 83

him—that is, if Tanizaki differentiated between China and the other ob-
jects of his aestheticizing creation.
The historic backdrop of Tanizaki’s Sinophilic ¤ction in the 1910s is
as follows: a part of Shanghai was a shared concession among several na-
tions, including Japan, which had intervened to pacify the Boxer Rebel-
lion (1899); in addition, Japan had attained a part of the Liaodong
Peninsula in 1905 as part of a pact with Russia, the Portsmouth Treaty,
signed after Russia’s defeat by Japan. A new power hierarchy was being
established, but it had yet to be con¤rmed by increasing Japanese control
over China. The political circumstances created ambiguity in the China-
Japan cultural hierarchy, and Tanizaki took advantage of it in writing
stories of privileged Japanese travelers and their observations and infatu-
ation with things Chinese. Within such a historical context, the two faces
of the Sino-Japanese entanglement resurface: while Tanizaki’s narrators
appropriate the format of Chinese intellectual travelers (the center view-
ing the periphery), they also symbolically help colonize China, as a newly
imperialist nation would. The dual function of the narrating subject ma-
terializes in Tanizaki’s eloquent and articulate writing.
In “Shina no ryôri” (Chinese cuisine, 1919), Tanizaki enumerates
dishes in the Chinese cuisine (most of which he had tasted); his list is a
much shorter version of Yuan Mei’s Suiyuan shidan. His critique of Chi-
nese food and restaurants is either extremely positive or extremely nega-
tive, with no middle ground. Tanizaki is more than willing to admit that
the food even in rural restaurants in China was “incomparably more de-
licious” than Chinese food he had tasted in Japan, that there was a much
wider variety of dishes, and that they were much more reasonably
priced than in Japan.43 On the other hand, he was “greatly distressed at
the extreme ¤lthiness of rooms and appliances” in restaurants in Man-
churia, to the extent that he had to “sanitize old and well-used ivory
chopsticks with hot Shaoxing liquor”; moreover, he was disappointed
with the quality of Western and Japanese food in China, and there was
so much garlic in Chinese food that his “urine reeked until the next
morning.”44 Then Tanizaki offers an overarching thesis on how to un-
derstand the Chinese:

If one has read Chinese poetry, which celebrates the divine and the ethereal,
and has then eaten those pungent foods, one may feel an insurmountable con-
tradiction. However, I think that China’s greatness lies in comprising both of
the two extremes. It seems to me that a people who could cook such elaborate
84 • Chapter 2

foods and eat them until they are satiated are, any way you look at it, a great
nation. I hear that although many Chinese drink more than Japanese, there are
very few who would lose consciousness from intoxication. I think it is neces-
sary to eat Chinese cuisine in order to understand the Chinese nation.45

The perceived contrast between the divine and the distasteful in Chinese
culture is indeed a perfect match for Tanizaki’s well-known sensibility,
which, while worshiping strikingly beautiful objects, never fails to incor-
porate elements of vulgarity. The greater the distance between contradic-
tory elements within an object, the more likely it is to capture his attention.
The Japanese tended to view Chinese culture as displaying both divine
beauty and earthly pleasure, often at the same time (recall the example of
Yang Guifei eating pork), and the tendency culminated in Tanizaki.
“Shina-geki o miru ki” (An account of seeing Chinese theater, 1919)
similarly offers an intense ambivalence—or, more precisely, a fascination
with both the pleasant and the unpleasant. Tanizaki’s ¤rst experience
with Chinese theater, which was in Fengtian, Manchuria, was disastrous:
the performance appeared “nightmarishly unpleasant” and sounded
clamorous “to deafening effect.”46 The hope that he would fare better in
Beijing was soon shattered; he was “distressed with the ¤lthiness of the
theaters,” in the worst of which he witnessed a whirl of dust each time the
actors somersaulted.47 Also, he was “utterly mysti¤ed” when he saw
actors, even those in the roles of beaus and beauties, spit on the stage and
blow their noses into their hands. He wonders how they could do that
when “they were clothed in dazzlingly gorgeous costumes.”48
While Tanizaki may have preferred more hygienic places and more
decorous people on his travels, as a writer he exploited the lower end of
the aesthetic spectrum in order to create effective bathos. Harada Chika-
sada cites a similar sudden turn from the beautiful and theatrical to the
¤lthy and disenchanting in Tanizaki’s “Itansha no kanashimi” (The sor-
row of the unorthodox, 1917) as the protagonist muses to himself, “Why
on earth can’t I help being reminded of Bai Letian [Bai Juyi] when I go to
the restroom?”49 Even though the narrator ¤gures out the immediate
reason—a scrap of newspaper in the toilet has an article on a hot spring
that subconsciously reminds him of the poet’s “Changhenge”—still the
initial shock holds, perhaps to an even greater degree since the associa-
tion is made in a place that would seem least evocative of the poem’s fo-
cus, the beautiful imperial consort Yang Guifei. Tanizaki might take full
credit for the connection between the fatal beauty and the toilet, as the
 Chinese Fetishism • 85

juxtaposition of the beautiful and the disgusting is not uncommon in his

work.50 However, the iconicity of the legendary beauty, as well as the he-
gemony of her country of origin, enhances the effect in a similar way that
it does in both Sen’ryû’s poem and Honchô Suikoden.
The several short stories Tanizaki wrote in the late Taishô, which I
will discuss in the balance of this chapter, should illuminate the coexist-
ence of the ethereal and the physical in the Japanese perceptions of China
and their ambivalence toward it.51 As he is always conscious of the posi-
tions of the subject and object of analysis, Tanizaki ¶eshes out the for-
mula with observations on gender, locale, historical period, and other
speci¤cs. We will see how China’s cultural attributes function to promote
fetishism, which borders on sadomasochism, and how miscegenation
and transvestism ¤gure into the staging of meaning so as to complicate
the subject-object relationship, both in Tanizaki’s work and beyond.

Fatal Disease and Fatal Beauty: Chinese Women on the Borderlines

Tanizaki’s portraits of Chinese women showcase his ambivalence toward
China most eloquently, owing to the observer’s relentlessly objectifying
gaze and speech. At times a narrator blatantly suggests that Chinese
women are somewhat inferior substitutes for Western women. At other
times, he loudly praises Chinese women’s beauty, which stands out
against Japanese women’s plainness (which he laments).
“Ningyo no nageki” (The lament of a mermaid), which has no explic-
itly Japanese characters, serves as a template of Tanizaki’s views of China
vis-à-vis the West.52 The story centers on a young millionaire in Nanjing
who has grown bored with all the luxuries available in a city in Qing dy-
nasty China. Wine, food, clothes, jewelry, and women have ceased to excite
him. While the character is no longer fascinated with what is to him domes-
tic and familiar, the readers are treated to a lavish list of exotic names of all
the objects of pleasure. Without a knowledge of what these objects are in
substance—or rather precisely because of the lack of knowledge—the cata-
logued names become objects of fetishism themselves, in a manner not un-
like that suggested by Jean Baudrillard in the epigram of this chapter.
What captures the young millionaire’s heart at the end of his deca-
dent life is a mermaid in captivity that is brought in from the southern
seas by a Dutch merchant. The European, distinctly exotic to the Chinese
eye, serves only as a preface to his merchandise, which is even more un-
usual and imaginative. After purchasing the mysterious creature and
86 • Chapter 2

keeping her in a glass tank, the Chinese man falls for her—or, more pre-
cisely, he falls for her unattainability: her body is semi¤sh, and initially
she appears to be mute. The biological boundary between species empha-
sizes, rather than obliterates, the cultural boundaries between China and
Europe. When the mermaid begins to speak, she tells of exotic places well
beyond the territory of China; they bear the same value of irreducible for-
eignness as she does for her Chinese listener. Inspired by her descriptions
of her native Netherlands and her ancestors’ home in the Mediterranean
Sea, the Chinese man comes to yearn for a glimpse of Europe.
In the process of the protagonist’s awakening, China is assigned a
lower place than the West in the scale of values. Since the story is told in
Japanese—and thus implies a Japanese narrator and a Japanese audience—
the placement either re¶ects Japan’s views of China and Europe or dis-
guises the perceived hierarchy between Japan and Europe. Whichever
may be the case, it is important to note that with the erasure of the body
of the narrator (as s/he remains nameless and uninvolved in the story), Ja-
pan’s position has become ambiguous, while China’s and Europe’s are ar-
ticulated as opposing poles. The invisible Japanese can function either as
an ostensibly objective observer (as is the case with modern Sinologists
and travelogue writers) or as a clandestine impersonator of the Chinese,
who vicariously share the Japanese desire for the West.
When Japanese characters step into Tanizaki’s ¤ction on China,
they turn a more appreciative gaze on it than its “second best” status
might suggest. Though not entirely without echoes of the hierarchy of
values noted above, “Seiko no tsuki” (The moon on West Lake) praises
the beauty of China’s natural landscape and its women in parallel.53 The
story is framed within the ¤rst-person narration of an unnamed and yet
intradiegetic Japanese male tourist (watakushi) who is stationed in
Beijing as a special correspondent for a Tokyo-based newspaper. Having
an opportunity to extend a business trip to Shanghai to visit Hangzhou,
he spares no praise for the region’s natural beauty, which he observes
from the window of a train. He makes frequent references to Chinese lit-
erary icons whose names the Japanese have long associated with West
Lake. Liberally superimposing scenes from Chinese romance onto the
landscape before his eye, he aestheticizes southern China as follows:

It was no wonder one was inspired with such ethereal fancies as those in Li Li-
weng’s poetic drama if one was born in such a beautiful land with such beauti-
ful residents. “Shenzhong lou” in Shizhongqu presents the mysterious story of
 Chinese Fetishism • 87

Liu Shijian, who visits the eastern seashores for a vacation, crosses the sea to
the illusory tower, and marries Shunhua, a daughter of the Blue Dragon King.
Perhaps the eastern seashores where the romance develops are somewhere
around here, in Jiangsu or Zhejiang Province. Perhaps Bimuyu—a story about
Liu Maogu, an actress, and Tan Chuyu, an exceptionally talented scholar, who
throw themselves into the river, arm in arm, to transform themselves into sole
and ¶ow in the direction of Yanlang—was also automatically conceived in Li-
weng’s mind. In this vein, I feel that anyone born in this area of southern China
could not help becoming a poet. I wish I could show a glimpse of this scenery
or local color to those who boast of Japan as the eastern nation of poetry.54

Evidently the narrator ahistoricizes and mythologizes what he sees in

China. He becomes infatuated with the China of the past, which seems
the only thing that he sees while glancing at the present-day landscape.
However, his list of Chinese references reveals that he is not necessarily
guided by the classical canon. He does not mindlessly celebrate all estab-
lished writers just for the sake of an abstract value with which they had
been imbued; rather, he makes a conscious choice to present his own
preference for less austere writers. In the above passage, he goes back at
least as far as Li Liweng (Li Yu) of the Qing dynasty. Elsewhere in the
same text, the narrator also mentions Su Dongpo (Su Shi; 1036–1101) of
the Song dynasty, who used to be governor of Hangzhou and thus is
closely associated with West Lake.55 The narrator further says he feels as
if he “had been lured into the poetic world of Yang Tieyai [Weizhen;
1296–1370], Gao Qingqiu [Qi; 1336–1374], and Wang Yuyang [Shizhen;
1634–1711],” poets from the late Yuan and Qing dynasties.56
Tanizaki’s preference for writers from post-Song periods suggests
his proximity to the late Tokugawa literary sensibility, of which we have
had a glimpse. Like many of the writers in that era, Tanizaki appreciates
the “vulgar,” quotidian, less ostensibly ideological and more material di-
mensions of literature. Even in the case of such a canonized poet as Su
Dongpo, the narrator’s interest lies not in his accomplishments as a man
of letters or a bureaucrat, but in his pursuit of earthly pleasures. One
evening the narrator has for supper a dish named after him—Dongpo rou
(Dongpo meat)—and is reminded of how the poet savored the delicacies
and beauties of life while he was governor of Hangzhou:

[Dongpo rou is] the equivalent of chateaubriand in Western cuisine. It’s a

stew of the white meat of pork, as tender as soybean cake, in a fatty and sticky
88 • Chapter 2

broth of a brownish color. Though Su Dongpo may appear an extremely re-

clusive and otherworldly poet, when you think of him drinking, with this
rich-¶avored meat as an appetizer, and ¶oating in a boat on West Lake with
his favorite mistress, Chaoyun, in the morning and at night—then you feel as
though you more or less understand the real Chinese ¶avor of things.57

Tanizaki’s “positivist desire” (kôtei teki yokubô), to use Kôno Taeko’s

phrase—that is, appetite or lust—has found a venue in China.58 He does
not praise historical ¤gures for enabling him to renounce the experi-
ences of the present. On the contrary, Tanizaki admires those who re-
portedly craved the fullness of life and appreciated the sensual pleasures
of the here and now. Indeed, as we saw Mieke Bal assert in the introduc-
tion, quoting is a contemporary art; instead of returning us to the past
from which a quotation is drawn, the quoted text becomes a part of the
present. While in the acts of reading and writing the vector of a quota-
tion may be invisible, in the acts of cooking and eating it is obvious that
the recipe (an archived body of knowledge) is brought into the present
as a physical object, rather than the cook or eater being dragged back
into the past. The sensual effect of the act of cooking and eating—that
is, bodily and contemporaneous—con¤rms the point.
Another point worth making is that Tanizaki is not so oblivious as
to dismiss regional differences within China: China for him is not just
one big entity. In fact, the north-south contrast within the country plays
an important part in his perceptions. Tanizaki’s narrator in “Seiko no
tsuki” embodies the sensibilities of the bureaucrat coming from Beijing
in the north; with these sensibilities he observes the landscape and the
people, who exist for him only as objects of art. Indeed he appropriates
the colonizing gaze of the traveler from the center with which Chinese
travelogues are replete. In this light, the following observations convey
an interesting message:

The ¤rst glimpse of the passengers in the train makes it obvious that the South
is much richer than the North. To me, accustomed to the second-rate trains of
the Jing-Feng Line and the Jing-Han Line [in the North], it looks as if the in-
side of the train is meticulously clean. . . . Passengers in the second-class cars
are as well dressed as only those in the ¤rst-class cars in the North. It is also re-
markable that there are many female passengers. It is rare to see women go out
in the North, while in the South not only entertainers, but also married and
unmarried women of respectable families frequently walk around hand in
 Chinese Fetishism • 89

hand with men. . . . Needless to say, the attire of women and children is richer
in color and more glamorous than in the North. . . . Indeed, Jiangsu and Zhe-
jiang are known for having produced beauties since ancient times.59

In this passage, the railroads running between Beijing and Fengtian (Shen-
yang) and between Beijing and Hankou (which are of military impor-
tance) are deemed aesthetically inferior to those of the South. The
narrator also generously praises the economic and cultural success of
southern China. While drawing upon the conventional aesthetic hierar-
chy between the South and the North, which he could have learned from
reading, Tanizaki may also be revealing his own preference for the liter-
ary and artistic milieu of the South over the industrial and military North.
Not only does the narrator objectify southern China as the beautiful
land that inspires poets, but he also gazes at women in much the same
way that he observes the natural landscape. He claims that Chinese
women have “more delicate ¤ngers than Japanese women”—a new
marker of value—and “trim calves and feet comparable to even those of
Western women,” hinting at the Europe-China hierarchy more prevalent
in “The Lament of a Mermaid.”60 Singled out among the Chinese women
is Li Xiaojie, an eighteen-year-old, taller than other Chinese women, at-
tired in celadon blue, with skin as ¤ne as “Western paper,” delicate
¤ngers, slender legs, small feet, and a graceful face with a “Grecian
nose.”61 Her every physical feature appears outstanding to the narrator
and is suggestive of “noble origins,” as well as of ephemerality; he notes a
“pathetic beauty” about her that he thinks might be “typical of Chinese
beauties.”62 His premonitions about “pathetic beauty” prove to be well
founded, as Li Xiaojie is later found dead, ¶oating on the surface of West
Lake; she has committed suicide for fear of an imminent death from tu-
berculosis. Here the narrator appropriately makes an association with Su
Xiaoxiao, a courtesan of the Six Dynasties who died and was buried on
the shores of West Lake; he quotes several poems composed by later
poets that were inscribed on her tombstone.63 The narrator also alludes to
another iconic ¤gure: Xishi, the fatal beauty sent to the King of Wu as part
of the plot by neighboring Yue to divert the king’s attention from his duties.
Legends have it that Xishi suffered from the same disease as Li Xiaojie.64
Linked to the legendary Xishi because they share a locale and an illness,
Li Xiaojie is granted a higher status than Japanese women, but only in aes-
thetic terms. While the narrator rides the same train and stays at the same
hotel as she, he never speaks with Li Xiaojie or with her female compan-
90 • Chapter 2

ion (who, though to a lesser degree, as is appropriate for a sidekick, is also

beautiful and graceful). The lack of conversation with Chinese women—
which is not unlike the remoteness of the mermaid from her Chinese
master—helps create and maintain an aesthetic distance from them—a
distance that diminishes in the companionship of Japanese women, who
share the same language. Chinese women can be objecti¤ed into muses,
while Japanese women are de¤ned as domestic.65
The gender divide also makes it easier for the narrator to aestheticize
the Chinese. It is worth noting that he does speak with Chinese men in the
story—with a passenger in the train and with a rickshaw puller who takes
him from the Hangzhou station to his hotel on the shores of West Lake.
The ¤rst conversation ends in uncomfortable silence because the Chinese
gentleman looks “obnoxious” and even “haughty,”66 and the second ends
in the puller’s demand for extra fare. The narrator needs to converse with
Chinese men for both social and business reasons; these involve psycho-
logical rami¤cations and make it dif¤cult to aestheticize Chinese men as
the Other. Neither with Japanese women nor with Chinese men can the
narrator indulge in his objectifying fancies. Thus, Chinese women are the
only ones around whom he can weave his web of fantasy.
Travel and gender relations also form an interface in another story by
Tanizaki, “Kakurei” (A crane’s cries, 1921). A Japanese man called Yasu-
nosuke, who had abandoned his wife Shizuko and daughter Teruko and
left for southern China, comes home after several years, begging for his
wife’s forgiveness. He is not alone on his return, however; he has brought
home a Chinese woman and a crane. Instead of settling down in a familiar
domestic setting, Yasunosuke has a separate building constructed on the
premises of his mansion and con¤nes the woman and himself within it. He
names the building Suo Lan Ge (Building That Holds Back Waves), obvi-
ously after one of the six picturesque bridges over West Lake, sightseeing
spots that the narrator of “Seiko no tsuki” does not fail to visit.67 The asso-
ciation of the building with the literary topos of West Lake continues with
a reference to plum blossoms and cranes. Yasunosuke keeps a crane in a
town renowned for plum blossoms. This is a direct allusion to Lin Bu
(967–1028), a man of virtue who lived on the shores of West Lake, had
two cranes, and cherished plum blossoms at his humble residence, Fang
He Ting (Crane-Liberating Arbor). (Lin’s property is one of the topoi that
the narrator of “Seiko no tsuki” mentions as “must-visits” during his stay
in Hangzhou.)68 Though physically back in Japan, Yasunosuke remains
existentially in China; he refuses to speak Japanese and wears Chinese
 Chinese Fetishism • 91

clothes only. He does not assume his duties as master of the house, hus-
band of Shizuko, or father of Teruko. He does nothing but spend time
with the Chinese woman in the Chinese arbor.
This is an extreme case of the souvenir as de¤ned by Susan Stewart,
who equates the souvenir, the antique, and the exotic in terms of the
distance from the “here and now” that the subject establishes: “The lo-
cation of authenticity becomes whatever is distant to the present time
and space; hence we can see the souvenir as attached to the antique and
the exotic.”69 In addition to objects Yasunosuke acquires that become
temporarily and spatially autonomous of both the context of travel and
present domestic life, an arti¤ce is constructed from the archive of cul-
tural memory at home in the present in order for Yasunosuke, the re-
turnee, to transcend geographic and historical boundaries and become a
Chinese literary recluse of the Song dynasty. In fact, the traveler has be-
come a souvenir par excellence himself, crystallized in the distance
(China) and the past (archive of cultural memory), rejecting if not re-
nouncing the domestic and the present. Geography and history are neu-
tralized in this act of an in¤nite and misplaced tour.
Yasunosuke’s wife and daughter try to adjust to Yasunosuke rather
than trying to change him into what he used to be. Shizuko dresses Teruko
in Chinese clothes purchased in the Chinatown in Yokohama in the hope
that Yasunosuke might at least speak with his daughter. Teruko, for her
part, teaches herself how to speak southern-accented Chinese by befriend-
ing the Chinese woman, having unintentionally offended her father by
speaking to him in Japanese. The mother’s and daughter’s transethnic ef-
forts, however, fail to persuade Yasunosuke to reunite with them. When
Teruko asks him in Chinese, “Father, when will you begin to speak in
Japanese again?”, Yasunosuke looks upset and says, “I will never again
speak in Japanese for the rest of my life.”70 From that moment on, he
seems annoyed by Teruko’s attempts to approach him. For him there is
no room for compromise with the domestic. The story ends melodramati-
cally, as Teruko stabs the Chinese woman to death, calling her “mother’s
enemy.”71 Her words complete the picture of polarity between the Chinese
woman—who is exotic, erotic, nonhuman, and (regardless of her intent,
which the text does not discuss) destructive to the Japanese family—and
the Japanese housewife, who is domestic, human, and trained for house-
hold duties.
The Chinese woman’s presence is central to the plot and yet devoid
of substance throughout the story. Her name is never disclosed to the
92 • Chapter 2

reader, and her speech is never represented either semantically or pho-

netically (unlike Yang Guifei’s speech in Honchô Suikoden, which, as we
saw in chapter 1, is transcribed in the text to signi¤cant effect). Though
the woman communicates with Teruko, and undoubtedly with Yasuno-
suke, the conversations are textually absent. Deprived of name and
speech, the Chinese woman is susceptible to exoticization. In fact, her
voice is compared to the crane’s, as if to suggest either a lack of human
intelligence or a lack of interest on the part of the Japanese in striking up
a conversation with her. Whereas the comparison of Yang Guifei’s
speech to bird chirping in Honchô Suikoden shakes up the hierarchy be-
tween the Chinese and Japanese languages, the analogy between this
Chinese woman and the crane sets her beneath humans in the Japanese
mind. Rather than a negotiation with the Chinese beauty across lan-
guages (however faulty), as happens in Honchô Suikoden, no transling-
ual attempts are made in “Kakurei.” The purpose is to maintain an
aesthetic distance from the woman so as to fetishize her.72 The crane as
her alter ego serves to con¤rm her as a fetish.

Mixed Blood and Mixed Pleasure: “Birôdo no yume”

The aestheticized and stereotyped image of the Chinese woman—either a
virgin or a whore—that emerges from “Seiko no tsuki” and “Kakurei” is
essential to the scheme of fetishization of China. The Chinese woman
thus imagined has no possibility of communicating with the connoisseur/
viewer and is not given a chance to change. She is kept at bay, in contrast
to the Chinese women we saw in chapter 1, who learn from cross-cultural
experience, re¶ect on themselves vis-à-vis the cultural Other, and grow
wiser and more capable. Another story by Tanizaki, however, compels us
to suspend all the generalizations we have made so far regarding the func-
tions of cultural and gender distinctions in his work. “Birôdo no yume”
(Velvet dreams, 1919) helps undo the neat contrasts between China and
Japan in the previous stories by introducing characters of mixed origin.73
Instead of celebrating hybridity as the possession of attributes and skills
informed by universal and local cultures, as we saw in Hamamatsu
chûnagon monogatari in chapter 1, however, hybridity here is presented
primarily if not exclusively in anatomical terms, evoking the presence of
a voyeuristic gaze.
Like “Kakurei,” this story has connections to “Seiko no tsuki,” as it
effectively draws upon literary connotations around West Lake.74 The
 Chinese Fetishism • 93

narrative is a Japanese man’s partial recounting of a trial in Shanghai’s

international court. The defendant is a Chinese man who is accused of
physically abusing his slaves in his magni¤cent villa in Hangzhou. The
site of the alleged crime—at the foot of Ge Ling (Ge Mountain), north of
West Lake—brings to mind Jifang Yuan (Garden of Assembled Beau-
ties), the estate of a legendary villain, Jia Sidao (1213–1275) of the
Southern Song period (1127–1279). Jia Sidao had built many houses;
collected beauties, beasts, and unusual objects of art; and indulged in
sex, gambling, and sadistic acts while neglecting his of¤ce.75 Thus, this
story is a product of both Tanizaki’s infatuation with the area through
his readings and his travels to southern China.
The narrative is multiply framed: the presence of an observer in each
layer is made evident. It is prefaced by a short description of the anony-
mous Japanese narrator’s sojourn in Hangzhou, where he is guided by a
friend who works for the consulate general of Japan in Shanghai. They
encounter a beautiful and apparently spiteful young woman who appears
to be “hybrid” (zasshu).76 The diplomat, who recognizes the girl, decides
to ¤ll the narrator in on the sadistic deeds in which she and her master
have been engaged in the mansion. Instead of retelling the friend’s tale,
the narrator chooses to reconstruct scenes in the criminal court to which
the couple’s case was brought in order to create immediacy for the reader.
The journalistic style yields another effect: it makes it possible to describe
each witness’ appearance anatomically in such a way as to augment the
machinery of fetishization.
Among the many slaves called as witnesses, three “relate” their par-
ticular experiences in the mansion. Then, the narrator summarizes the
testimony of the fourth slave, whose escape from the mansion led to the
investigation. The ¤rst witness is a sixteen-year-old boy from Shanghai,
with dark hair and yellow skin, who does not know his ethnic back-
ground because he was sold to a slave merchant as a child. His physical
features, which clearly suggest the boy’s Mongoloid origins, combined
with his lack of identi¤cation, signal the ambiguous position of the story
regarding ethnicity: it both explores and strives to undo ethnic identity.
The boy’s job is to watch the mistress nap in an underground bedroom
that has a ceiling made of glass; while on duty, he falls in love with the
next witness, who is seen from the bedroom through the glass ceiling.
The girl is twelve or thirteen years old, the daughter of a ¤sherman in
Shandong Province, right across the sea from the Japanese territory of
Liaodong; she was sold as a slave in Beijing. She is described, without a
94 • Chapter 2

speci¤ed reason, as “a pure Chinese,” but in terms of skin color and body
proportions she is “almost like a Caucasian.”77 The persistent attention to
physical details that are construed in racial terms emphasizes the ethnic
ambiguity represented by the ¤rst witness while reiterating the author’s
preference, which we saw in “Seiko no tsuki,” for the Chinese as a substi-
tute for the Caucasian. The girl is swimming in a pool whose ¶oor hap-
pens to be the ceiling of the bedroom mentioned above when she falls in
love with the ¤rst witness. Then she is poisoned by the mistress, who has
learned of the mutual affection between the two servants, and she drifts
out of the residence into West Lake, unconscious and half dead. In the
process, she is seen by the third witness, who is a Jewish woman, around
twenty years old, a former prostitute in Shanghai, hired in the mansion as
a violinist and imprisoned in a tower on the premises.78
Throughout the preface and the three testimonies, the narrator’s
aesthetic approval of hybridity and migration is evident. He uses such
terms as ainoko or zasshu, meaning “mixed blood”—terms that were
usually negatively construed in prewar Japanese writings, which pro-
moted the “purity” of the Japanese race—to praise a physical beauty un-
paralleled by “pure” folks.79 In other words, ambiguous racial or ethnic
origins are valued in this story. The clear preference for the hybrid is
further con¤rmed when the fourth witness is introduced. He is the only
one who is of one race and looks “unmixed”—a Japanese boy who looks
Japanese. His parents were from Nagasaki, but he was born and worked
in Shanghai until he was sold into slavery. There is a reason that his tes-
timony was summarized rather than transcribed in the text: he is men-
tally challenged. Because of his handicap, he was both mentally and
physically abused by the master and mistress. One of his tasks was to
count the number of people in a room whose walls, ceiling, and ¶oor
were made of mirrors—something that he could not manage to do, so he
was brutally punished. The tone with which this information is relayed
is not compassionate, and it is obvious that the narrator, though Japa-
nese himself, does not hold the boy in high esteem—and certainly not
higher than the others—simply because he is purely Japanese.
This is not to suggest that the Chinese are granted a privileged posi-
tion vis-à-vis the Japanese. As in many of Tanizaki’s works, the narrative
authority resides with a Japanese man—in this case, a Japanese man who
edits another Japanese man’s recounting of the trial. The power of media-
tion is obvious in the omission of the Chinese couple’s response to the
charges against them. Whether or not they chose to present a rebuttal in
 Chinese Fetishism • 95

court, one would expect them to have an emotional response, as well as

attempt to defend themselves by providing excuses for their actions, if
not outrightly denying that they had ever committed any crimes. The
Japanese characters are endowed with the power of speech, while the
speeches of the Chinese are either framed and mediated by the Japanese
or are entirely absent. Thus we must admit that the Chinese sadists are
objecti¤ed under the gaze of the Japanese observers, who stay out of the
story themselves. This is a classic formula of fetishism, where the fetishist
stays at a safe distance in order to observe. If we also consider the fact that
in Tanizaki’s ¤ction masochists are often in control of the narration—that
is, the process of making sense—even while being dominated and tor-
tured by their sadist masters (e.g., Fûten rôjin nikki [1961]), then it be-
comes obvious that the empowerment of and admiration for the Chinese
characters serve the aesthetic desires of the Japanese.80 It is the Japanese
who can afford to indulge in dreams that they are inferior and take plea-
sure in being enslaved. In the debased condition of the mentally handi-
capped and physically abused Japanese male slave is the utmost triumph
of a masochist who has succeeded in elevating his master to the divine
and diabolical.81

Transnationalism and Transvestism: “Kôjin”

Another story set in a cosmopolitan ambience is “Kôjin” (Mermaids/Mer-
men).82 With a Cen Shen (ca. 715–ca. 770) poem on mermen in the
southern seas as an epigraph, the story anticipates the reader’s desire for
Chineseness, as well as a Chinese exoticization of the periphery:

Bidding a Farewell to Lieutenant Zhang Leaving for Nanzhou

You did not choose to become lieutenant in Nanzhou;
You have aging parents to leave behind;
Buildings overlap with illusion;
And villages house mermen among humans.
The sea darkens as rain falls on the three mountains
Blossoms brighten the ¤ve ridges in spring
This region produces many jewels
Do not loath staying virtuous and frugal.83

In quoting this poem, Tanizaki employs kenten, a device commonly used

in texts in kanshibun to stress some characters. Small circles are placed
96 • Chapter 2

next to the characters in question—in this case, “mermen,” or kôjin—to

draw the reader’s attention to the source of the title of the story. The epi-
graph inscribes an Orientalist motif: a man from the capital travels to a re-
mote area and admires the natural beauty and exotic people, both so
antithetical to the civilization of the city that they degenerate the man. A
question that remains to be answered at this point is who assumes the role
of the Orientalist in the story. The beginning of the story somewhat
thwarts the expectation of an unusual setting; the place is 1918 Asakusa,
Tokyo, the Japanese version of a center of modernism and popular cul-
ture, with theaters, dance halls, cafes, and street performances (among
other things).84 It is out of this bustling cosmopolitan epicenter, however,
that the other important topos of the story emerges: southern China, cor-
responding to the epigraph.
The extant text of “Mermaids,” which was never completed, is in
four chapters: “A Certain Artist’s Yearning,” “A Flock of Actors Living
in the Park,” “Hayashi Shinju,” and “People in the Middle of the Night.”
Each chapter in turn consists of three or four sections. One might de-
duce from the statement at the end of the fourth chapter, “The ¤rst half
is completed,” that the author intended to write a second half of approxi-
mately the same length.85 The main characters are two Japanese intellec-
tuals without professions and their acquaintances—a group of actors
and actresses in Asakusa (one of whom provides the title for the third
chapter). The second, third, and fourth chapters are devoted, respec-
tively, to the most popular actress’ physical charms and popularity, to
unsolved mysteries involving her from a period when her group per-
formed in Shanghai, and to her strange behavior, which now becomes
noticed. The following discussion will focus on the ¤rst and third chap-
ters, in which China’s role is imperative.86
In “A Certain Artist’s Yearning,” a chapter that precedes the appear-
ance of the popular actress, one of the two intellectuals, who has been
trained in Western-style oil painting, announces that he plans to take up
traditional Chinese painting of the Nanga style (Ch. Nanhua; Southern
school of painting). The man, appropriately named Minami (meaning
“south”), asserts the superiority of Chinese culture over Western culture
and, by extension, over the heavily Western-in¶uenced culture of mod-
ern Japan. Minami voices these views when he is alone with the other
male intellectual, Hattori, evoking the homosociality that one might say
is appropriate for the degendered subject. In recalling a trip to China, Mi-
nami re¶ects as follows:
 Chinese Fetishism • 97

Though it was autumn, it was as warm as spring in Japan. The incredibly clear
sky extended beyond the window [of the train in which Minami is riding]; the
river and pools transparent and green, shining in joy; green ¤elds, willow
boughs, ¶ocks of geese, hills, castles, pagodas looking blissful in the abundant
sunshine—through the whole of Jiangsu Province, in which these scenes kept
appearing like the incessant music of rituals. The train ran all day. It’s a delight-
ful land, as if from a fairytale—how fortunate he would have been if he had
been born in such a land. How early in his life he would have awakened to na-
ture if he had been raised amid such magni¤cent scenery day and night. What a
profound secret his art could have been endowed with by nature. . . . Minami
couldn’t help feeling so. He felt it was an enormous misfortune that he, a de-
voted advocate of Chinese thought, had not been born in China. . . . Separated
from the invaluable continent that had been an ancestor and source of the Japa-
nese civilization of the past, he was to stay in Japan as a Japanese man. In place of
the meditative Beijing, this shallow and unsightly Tokyo before his eyes. . . . An
East Asian, Minami would not wish to depart from East Asian art. However, the
Japan of today, into which he had been born—haunted by pro-Westernization,
underdeveloped pro-Westernization, that is—had a pure nature in which he
found beauty destroyed everywhere. How could he seek a landscape in Ni Yun-
lin’s paintings or a place out of Wang Wei’s poems when Japan was so small and
shabby in comparison with China?87

The ¤rst half of the above quotation strikes the same chord as the pas-
sage cited from “Seiko no tsuki” in praise of the southern Chinese land-
scape. The author’s well-known penchant for the epicurean culture is
evident. The second half of the quotation slips into an abstract discus-
sion of values, which is not necessarily relevant to what Minami actually
saw while in China. First, Beijing enters the picture out of context, re-
placing Jiangsu Province, to form a hypothetical contrast with Tokyo.
Second, the mention of Wang Wei seems out of context, since the poet,
who lived near Chang’an, had little connection to the place Minami vis-
ited and was known for his austerity and reclusiveness. For the sake of
consistency, Minami should instead have mentioned Li Yu (for ex-
ample), as did the narrator of “Seiko no tsuki.” The local and actual are
replaced with the general and mythical in order to present the overarch-
ing thesis that Chinese culture and nature are superior to their Japanese
counterparts, which mimic the Western.
Minami’s impassioned argument is hardly unprecedented. In fact,
the text speci¤cally draws upon a predecessor in the formation of the
98 • Chapter 2

China-West dichotomy: Natsume Sôseki’s Kusamakura (1906).88 Mi-

nami mentions Sôseki as an acquaintance of his father and as a source of
inspiration for him:

As you know, my father was a friend of the late Mr. Natsume and often re-
ferred to him as an example. . . . In fact, Mr. Natsume is not that great a nov-
elist. If he had been born in China and had established himself as a poet or
painter, he may not have been as famous, but he would have been able to ex-
plore an area of superior art and would have felt much happier than being
born in the Japan of today. (Or so my father maintains.) English scholar
though he was, Mr. Natsume preferred classical Chinese literature to English
literature. . . . In the East, Li Taibai’s ¤ve-character quatrain is more precious
than Shuihu zhuan or Hong lou meng. With only twenty characters, Li Taibai
could reach the level of Dante or Goethe in a breath. He is still alive with
Dante and Goethe in human beings. Perhaps one could even claim that he is
more “omni-present” [an English word in the original] than Dante or Goethe;
we cannot learn by heart all of Faust or The Divine Comedy, but we can recite
Li Taibai’s quatrain any time.89

Minami’s argument echoes that of the narrator in Kusamakura. Par-

allels are obvious in the following passage from Sôseki’s work, which
defends Chinese and shorter forms of literature as opposed to Western
and longer forms (such as drama and the novel):

Happily, oriental poets have on occasion gained suf¤cient insight to enable

them to enter the realm of pure poetry.

Beneath the eastern hedge I choose a chrysanthemum,

And my gaze wanders slowly to the southern hills.

Only two lines, but reading them, one is sharply aware of how com-
pletely the poet has succeeded in breaking free from this sti¶ing world. . . .

Seated alone, cloistered amid bamboo

I pluck the strings;
And from my harp
The lingering notes ¶ow leisurely away.
Into the dim and unfrequented depths
Comes bright moonlight ¤ltering through the leaves.
 Chinese Fetishism • 99

Within the space of these few short lines, a whole new world has been
created. Entering this world is not at all like entering that of such popular
novels as Hototogisu [Cuckoo, 1898] or Konjiki yasha [Gold demon, 1897]. It
is like falling into a sound sleep and escaping from the wearying round of
steamers, trains, rights, duties, morals, and etiquette. . . .
I am not really a poet by profession, so it is not my intention to preach to
modern society in the hope of obtaining converts to the kind of life led by
Wang Wei and Tao Yuanming [Qian, 365–427]. Suf¤ce it to say that in my
opinion, the inspiration to be gained from their works is a far more effective
antidote to the hustle and bustle of modern living than theatricals and dance
parties. Moreover, this type of poetry appears to me to be more palatable than
Faust or Hamlet.90

Not only do both narrators privilege China over the West, but they also
have a higher regard for poetry than prose ¤ction or drama. In the case
of Sôseki, the generic contrast is paralleled with a cultural one: poetic
China, prosaic West. Though the narrator does mention works of prose
¤ction in China, it is only to con¤rm the hierarchy among the genres.
Given that the narrator of “Seiko no tsuki” admires Li Yu, whose name
is absent from Minami’s list, Tanizaki is making Minami’s debt to Sôseki
explicit.91
The story develops in another direction in the second chapter, un-
folding in the quiet, secluded, and homosocial atmosphere in which two
intellectual males freely assume the role of unconcerned commentators
of cross-cultural comparisons. Enter a young Japanese actress—or a per-
son who so appears—by the name of Hayashi Shinju, and there goes the
men’s liberty to edit and analyze cultural icons. She is the most popular
actress in a theater in Asakusa that specializes in musical versions of
Shakespearean plays. Like that of other heroines in Tanizaki’s stories,
the portrayal of Shinju draws upon the attributes of archetypal Chinese
beauties. Some of her traits—frowning attractively, being temperamen-
tal and self-absorbed—are reminiscent of Lin Daiyu, one of the heroines
of Hong lou meng. Shinju’s artistic ¶air and tempestuous disposition are
especially evident when she is contrasted with one of her colleagues,
whose composure and sel¶essness recall such qualities in Xue Baochai,
another heroine in Hong lou meng.
Minami reminisces that Shinju’s troupe once toured in Shanghai and,
to please the Chinese audience, performed a scene from Shuihu zhuan.
That the Japanese actors perform a Chinese classic in China is a version of
100 • Chapter 2

the reversal of the roles in the exchange of cultural capital that we saw in
the case of scholarship in Sinology in the 1930s. The original producer of
“authentic” cultural capital is turned into the consumer, as the commod-
ities are now reproduced and distributed by those who were initially on
the margins of cultural capital. In the performance Shinju played Yan
Qing, one of 108 bandits, who is renowned for such fair skin that any
woman would envy it. The Japanese woman was cross-dressed so as to
become a Chinese man—and very compellingly at that; the audience, ex-
cept for those who knew her offstage, mistook her for a man.
The performance was interrupted by an old Chinese man who ran up
to the stage and claimed that the actor was his son, who had been lost for
years. Shinju was visibly shaken by this seemingly absurd claim, and,
though she resumed the performance, she lost consciousness on stage.
Through the mediation of a Chinese gentleman called Mr. Wang, who in-
troduces himself as a frequent customer of the old man’s daughter, a cour-
tesan, the intruder is later invited backstage to see Hayashi Shinju up
close. According to Mr. Wang, the old man, a coolie, was originally from a
very respectable family, the Lins of Nanjing (the surname and location co-
incide with those of Lin Daiyu). When the family’s fortunes declined, his
son was lost without a trace, and his daughter was sold into entertain-
ment/prostitution. His son’s name was Lin Zhenzhu—the same three
characters as for the name Hayashi Shinju and the reason that he came to
see her.92 Since Shinju looked exactly like Zhenzhu, the father was con-
vinced that she was his son. To grasp that this “Chinese man” was played
by a Japanese woman, the old man was allowed to see her half-naked. As
in “Birôdo no yume,” anatomical truth prevails, and yet ambiguity persists
because the marvels of transvestism and transethnicizing remain intact.
The reader is still left in some doubt: why is Hayashi Shinju so distraught
when ¤rst confronted if she had no prior knowledge of the old man or his
son? And how does one account for the remarkable resemblance that
Shinju bears to Lin Zhenzhu? (When his sister, who is said to look like her
brother, is brought in, she and Shinju look like twins.) The reader is not
given a solution to this mystery. The lack of closure may serve well for the
theme of ambiguous identity. Transvestite and transethnic performances
blur the boundaries of gender and ethnicity. Were the story to continue
and the mystery to be solved, Hayashi Shinju would have to be identi¤ed
as either Chinese or Japanese and either male or female, which would ruin
what appears to be the whole purpose of the story as it stands: de-essen-
tializing identity. Hayashi Shinju, whose occupation is appropriately that
 Chinese Fetishism • 101

of an actress, who assumes various identities, should not be de¤ned in one

way or another in terms of ethnicity or gender.
In light of the performativity of gender and ethnicity, one should note
that a peripheral character makes an ostensibly tangential reference to the
celebrated historical Chinese transvestite actor Mei Lanfang (1894–
1961), whom he seems to view as a competitor of Hayashi Shinju; he sug-
gests that the theater should perform the same pieces as Mei Lanfang’s
troupe, which is touring Japan at the same time.93 This hint at national ri-
valry is predicated upon the fetishization of China, manifest in the con-
sumer interest in the production of Chinese plays. The fascination of
Japanese intellectuals with Mei Lanfang has been well documented. Many
traveled to China partly in order to see him perform, and he was invited
to perform in Japan. In both cases, Mei became a commodity, a souvenir
or an imported good, in great demand of the Japanese connoisseurs who
craved things Chinese. Aoki Masaru, whose work we saw above, has an
essay entitled “Meirô to Konkyoku” (Mr. Mei and the Kun Theater), in
which the scholar of Chinese theater regrets that he had to miss Mei’s per-
formance in Osaka owing to illness. In Tanizaki’s own “Shina-geki o miru
ki” the author compares a performance by Mei that he saw earlier at the
Teigeki (Imperial Theater) in Tokyo and one he has just seen in Beijing.94
According to the essay, Tanizaki’s friend, Kinoshita Mokutarô (1885–
1945), a renowned exoticist poet and a physician and professor at the
South Manchurian School of Medicine, served Tanizaki as a guide in Feng-
tian. Mokutarô himself authored a travel account and wrote impassioned
poems about seeing Mei Lanfang’s performance in Beijing in 1916. In “Pe-
king” (1918), he attempts to translate a climactic scene from Su San qijie
(a.k.a. Yutangchun), featuring Mei Lanfang as the title character, a woman
falsely arrested and tortured by the authorities. In a poem entitled “Meilang
chang Su San” (Mr. Mei performs Su San), Kinoshita offers a much more
emotional response to Lanfang’s performance, which brought Kinoshita
(among other Japanese viewers) to tears.95 He appealed to both their infat-
uation with onnagata, or male transvestites, and Sinophilia, and he became
a phenomenon.96 Thus, the implied comparison of this legendary actor
with Hayashi Shinju works to praise her not only for her talent, but also for
her remarkable ability to cross-dress and cross-ethnicize, as she did in the
role of Yan Qing, the Chinese man. The comparison implies ambiguity
about her gender and ethnic identity, which the Shanghai incident raised.
On a larger scale, the responses evoked by the legendary Chinese ac-
tor, and the ¤ctional Japanese actress seem to recon¤rm the old aes-
102 • Chapter 2

thetic hierarchy between China the sublime and Japan the subordinate.
If we highlight the gender performance here, however, the feminization
of China and the masculinization of Japan are rather obvious. Although
in Tanizaki’s usual formula of worshipping femininity, this may appear
to imply China’s triumph, we must not forget that it is the masculine
sensibility that idolizes the feminine. Thus, China is once again a pawn
in the hands of the Japanese connoisseur. Tanizaki’s Japanese characters
prevail as they objectify the Chinese characters, who aesthetically con-
quer them within the plot crafted by the Japanese author.

Conclusion
The introduction of vernacular literature and material goods from China
into the Japanese market altered the perception that Chinese culture was
represented solely by the Chinese classics and poetry. The connoisseur’s
privilege of evaluating and utilizing Chinese objects was not unrelated to
the birth of Japanese scholarship in the Chinese canon. In this multifari-
ous process of the transformation of the Japanese observer, China ceased
to claim the center, from which it had judged the cultural values of
others. Instead, Japanese consumers and tourists began to offer their aes-
thetic judgments and even their sensory reactions to the material China.
Rather than putting an end to the textual engagement with China, the
Japanese awareness of the material and ethnic China called for an even more
intense and sophisticated codi¤cation of it. The most prominent example,
the Chinese female body, was iconicized as being either superhuman or
subhuman as the Japanese observer—voyeur, connoisseur, imperialist—
placed her in a web of sadomasochistic relationships. The themes of trans-
vestism and miscegenation prevailed in this context. These could have
complicated if not neutralized the polarity, but they were used not so much
to expound on the disparities of cultural identity as to accentuate the limi-
nality of an exotic China—in effect further validating the dichotomy.
The equation of the feminine and the physical with Chineseness,
however, was in fact itself a challenge to the conventional corollary drawn
between Chineseness, the intellectual, and the masculine. We will see an-
other challenge to the tripod, in which Chineseness, the intellectual, and
the feminine are linked together. The understanding that literary Chinese
was a language meant exclusively for men is a fallacy that I will challenge
in the next chapter.
 CHAPTER 3

Sliding Doors
Women and Chinese Literature
in the Heterosocial Literary Field

From the point of view of gender as enacted, questions have emerged

over the ¤xity of gender identity as an interior depth that is said to be
externalized in various forms of “expression.” . . . Strategies of exclusion
and hierarchy are also shown to persist in the formulation of the sex/
gender distinction and its recourse to “sex” as the prediscursive as well
as the priority of sexuality to culture and, in particular, the cultural
construction of sexuality as the prediscursive.
—Judith Butler

he 1990s witnessed a renewed interest in women’s literature from

T the Tokugawa period. Epitomizing this trend is, for example, the
1998 publication of Edo joryû bungaku no hakken (Discovery of
women’s literature in the Edo [i.e., Tokugawa] period), by Kado Reiko.1
The term “discovery” may not be appropriate, however; women writers
from the Tokugawa period—which some characterize as very oppressive
toward women—had not entirely been ignored, as is evident in the fairly
extensive list in Kado’s bibliography. Nonetheless, Tokugawa women’s
literary works have been only sporadically “discovered”: ¤rst in the 1910s
by Yosano Akiko (1878–1942), among others; then in the 1970s by a
kokubungaku (national literature) scholar, Yoshida Seiichi, and his col-
leagues; and again in the 1990s, as noted above.2 Such “discoveries” are
naturally accompanied by the implicit rhetorical question: “How could
we have forgotten such talented women of letters?”
It appears as though women’s literature from the Tokugawa period has
been strategically forgotten in order to demonstrate women’s liberation in

103
104 • Chapter 3

modern Japan, on one hand, and, on the other, to highlight the parallels
between the Heian court culture of the tenth and eleventh centuries, epito-
mized by Murasaki Shikibu (Lady Murasaki) and her contemporaries, and
modern capitalist culture, which conditioned the work of Higuchi Ichiyô
(1872–1896), among others.3 The imperial court came back into the cen-
ter of attention in the Meiji era, not only in political terms, but also in cul-
tural terms; as is well known, Empress Shôken reestablished literary and
artistic salons, in which talented and accomplished women gathered to
compose waka, intentionally recalling the environment of Heian ladies-in-
waiting. This renaissance of courtly culture in the Meiji was even more ob-
vious because of the neglect of literary women’s accomplishments in the
preceding (Tokugawa) period. The obliteration of Tokugawa women’s
contributions to the literary ¤eld created an illusion of homogeneity and
timelessness in the Japanese language and its literature.
The ¶ux of attention to Tokugawa women’s literature not only illu-
minates gender politics, but also raises issues such as contrasts between
literary and oral languages; perceived ruptures between modern and tra-
ditional literature; contrasts between the transparent representation of
the natural and the rhetorical presentation of a precon¤gured essence;
and, most directly relevant to our topic here, the putative incompatibility
of Sino-Japanese and so-called indigenous Japanese literatures. In her in-
formative study of kokubungaku scholarship in modern Japan, Suzuki
Tomi traces the process in which joryû nikki bungaku (memoir literature
by female authors)—a category that was not recognized by the premod-
ern audience—was legitimized as a genre and reveals the roles of gender
and genre in the construction of the Japanese literary canon.4 As the os-
tensibly confessional writings in the “natural,” “indigenous” language of
classical Japanese was authenticated as representative of the national lit-
erature, many Tokugawa women of letters, whose knowledge of Chinese
literature rather than personal life experience contributed to their literary
output, were perceived as contrived and out of place and thus deserving
to be silenced.5
Thus Tokugawa women of Chinese letters were not deemed “femi-
nine,” “natural,” or “native” enough in light of the values projected by the
normative study of Japanese literature in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Although men’s exposure to Chinese learning might
have been negatively construed by kokugaku-kokubungaku standards,
male Sinophilia was perceived more authentic than the female version: in
the modern view, it was “masculine” to write not in one’s own voice but in
 Women and Chinese Literature • 105

a “foreign” language, so it was more “natural” for male writers than for fe-
male writers. Female Sinophilia presents a radical challenge to the modern
concept of Japanese literature.6 Thus women Sinophile writers of the
Tokugawa have stayed in the shadow of Heian and medieval women
memoirists, who were viewed as embodying the national identity of Japan.
Given the ¶uidity of gender de¤nitions, I propose to use the metaphor
of “sliding doors” in place of the familiar “glass ceiling,” which has been
employed to represent hierarchical and static gender distinctions. “Sliding
doors,” in my terminology, suggest a contingent placement and varying
awareness of gender partitions. Unlike other partitions—walls, ceilings,
and ¶oors, which are static and stable—sliding doors can be opened and
closed with ease, allowing the control of visibility, ventilation, and move-
ment from room to room. It would be unjust to say that there have been no
gender-based restrictions in social and cultural practices, but the bound-
aries have been drawn, withdrawn, and redrawn by various contingent
factors. There have in fact been sliding doors that allowed women Sino-
philes to enter rooms that some might have thought were for males only.
The writers discussed in this chapter have been selected in order to high-
light the contingency of the gender-based boundaries and the strategic in-
tent behind them to either over- or underrepresent certain women writers
in order to paint a predetermined picture of women’s literature as a whole.
I will ¤rst brie¶y examine biographical and bibliographical facts
that have been downplayed in, if not left out of, portrayals of Murasaki
Shikibu, a female Sinophile in the Heian period, in order to identify the
conditions under which she would not have been canonized. Her image
as either a martyr to the social discrimination of women or a champion
of women’s literature/indigenous literature is contrived, made possible
by the bracketing of certain aspects of her cultural background, compo-
sitional practice, and literary accomplishments.
I will then examine two women Sinophiles from the Tokugawa pe-
riod: Arakida Reijo (Reiko; 1732–1806), an amateur historian and ¤ction
writer, and Ema Saikô (Tao; 1787–1861), a painter, calligrapher, and
poet in Chinese verse. I will show that Reijo and Saikô in effect chal-
lenged the modern norm of women’s literature by choosing (respectively)
historical and fantastic narratives (as opposed to quasi-autobiographical
narratives or lyric poetry) and the literary Chinese language (as opposed
to the native tongue, Japanese). Although Arakida Reijo and Ema Saikô
wrote as intelligently and knowledgeably as Murasaki, they have not
made their way into the literary canon as she has. I hope to help undo the
106 • Chapter 3

conventional link among the indigenously Japanese, the feminine, and

the natural and rede¤ne both Japanese literature and gender as cultural
practices rather than natural entities.
We will then shift gears to consider a man of Chinese letters in Meiji
Japan, Mori Ôgai (Rintarô; 1862–1922); his respect for writers who hap-
pen to be female quali¤es him for the title of a man of letters (bunjin; Ch.
wenren), to whom gender is cultural, rather than a male professional
writer of modern times (bunshi), to whom gender is natural. Speci¤cally,
we will look at his short story “Gyo Genki” (Ch. Yu Xuanji; 1915), in
which he paints a poignant picture of the eponymous character, a fe-
male intellectual of Tang dynasty China who was both celebrated in the
literary circles of Chang’an and rejected by the exclusively male body of
government. Her intelligence, independence, and isolation offered a
convenient venue for Ôgai to clandestinely praise a Taishô Japanese
feminist writer and activist, Hiratsuka Raichô (Haruko; 1886–1971),
who, like other talented women, earned his admiration for their cultural
merits regardless of their gender. Though Raichô herself does not ex-
hibit her knowledge of Chinese in any conspicuous way, the implicit
connection that Ôgai made between her and a Chinese female writer, as
well as his own role in supporting contemporary women writers, offers
another site on which to re¶ect on the challenges and opportunities of
women of letters in general who are active in heterosocial societies.
Though women in medieval China and modern Japan share in the rejec-
tion from and resistance to the mainstream, in which the privileged
male has claimed natural rights, those who rejected them occupied var-
ied positions vis-à-vis the literary canon. The same is true of their male
supporters, who recognized, if did not share in, the women’s burdens.
Whereas female intellectuals in Tang China were banned from partici-
pation in politics in spite of their merits, which were well recognized by
the cultural standards of the time, the “New Women” in Taishô Japan
were taken to be radical rebels because of their writings, destabilizing the
norms of the establishment, literary or otherwise. That Ôgai apparently
presented parallels of distinguished women from the two respective
groups reveals the displacement of intellectuals in modern Japan, as
well as Ôgai’s unique view of what the literary norm should be, in con-
trast to the view held by in¶uential contemporary critics.
Finally, I will take up a contemporary novelist, Kurahashi Yumiko
(1935–2005), who has demonstrated a competence not only in classical
Chinese, but also in multifarious negotiations with male authors and crit-
 Women and Chinese Literature • 107

ics, whose endorsements were relevant to her status in the literary estab-
lishment in the early 1960s. She refused to write about her self
“naturally,” in the “feminine” discourse, and instead endeavored to write
out of her reading knowledge and in a headstrong, “masculine” language.
As I have discussed elsewhere, her intelligent, cosmopolitan, and erudite
writing was often labeled “unnatural.”7 Active in a period in which the
modern category of women’s literature had been legitimized, Kurahashi
was confronted with even harsher criticism than her Tokugawa predeces-
sors for writing like a man. She had to endure unsympathetic and patron-
izing male critics in her younger days. Given her long and strenuous
experience of coping with male critics, it may not be coincidental that
Kurahashi’s ¤ction has many precocious young female intellectuals and
their male mentors; one such pair is explicitly parallel to Yu Xuanji ( J.
Gyo Genki) and Wen Tingyun (Feiqing; 812–ca. 872), who had inspired
Ôgai earlier. An examination of Kurahashi will reveal a variation on the
pattern in women intellectuals’ fates and feats in literary production.

Grappling with Lady Murasaki: “A Woman’s Hand”?

It seems appropriate to begin our discussion with the following oft-cited
remark by Murasaki Shikibu, which is taken to delineate the boundaries
of women’s ¤eld of literature as opposed to men’s:

When my brother, Secretary at the Ministry of Ceremonial, was a young boy

learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I
became unusually pro¤cient at understanding those passages that he found
too dif¤cult to grasp and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always
regretting the fact: “Just my luck!” he would say. “What a pity she was not
born a man!” But then I gradually realized that people were saying “It’s bad
enough when a man ¶aunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good,”
and since then I have avoided writing the simplest character.8

The passage has usually been interpreted as venting a woman’s regret

that her learning in Chinese would not be appreciated because she had
been born a woman. What we see here is the construction of the image
of Murasaki as a phoenix who was ¤rst denied a formal education in
Chinese and recognition in the public sphere but who nevertheless
emerged as a master of “the woman’s hand” (onnade), or indigenous
discourse (wabun) by taking advantage of the social constraints that
108 • Chapter 3

prevented her from publicly utilizing her knowledge in “a man’s hand”

(otokode) or Chinese discourse (kanbun).9
While it is true that women of the Heian period had to deal with
gender-speci¤c social expectations and rules, later readers might have
misconstrued the ways that Murasaki negotiated them.10 There seems to
be a deliberate manipulation behind this con¤rmation of the woman au-
thor as a sacri¤ce to social discrimination against women who took re-
course to the indigenous language. The passage quoted above was taken
out of context and blown out of proportion, so that the author’s other
thoughts and emotions could be obliterated. The point that Murasaki
makes in the passage is nothing more or less than the fact that women
were not admitted to schools and were therefore not provided with the
formal education in Chinese that was made available to men. It also sug-
gests that women—at least some of them—were given opportunities to
learn Chinese literature informally. Murasaki’s statement is thus not the
Japanese equivalent of a famous Tang dynasty poem by Yu Xuanji (which
we will examine below) lamenting her lack of opportunity to become a
civil servant and participate in public and political activities.11 Murasaki’s
tone is proud and triumphant rather than defeated and frustrated. Mura-
saki is not lamenting her lack of opportunity; rather, she is boasting of her
brightness, which enabled her to acquire Chinese learning even without
institutional instruction. By the very act of retelling how self-effacing she
was compelled to be, Murasaki inscribes rather than effaces how learned
she was, an act outside of the decorum for which she is known.12
A key to understanding Murasaki’s position and its relative ¶exibility
is the Japanese practice of learning Chinese. The domestication of Chi-
nese sources through annotation, translation, adaptation, and appropria-
tion made Chinese sources accessible to an audience without formal
Chinese learning.13 The best known source of Chinese poetry available to
those illiterate (or incompetent) in Chinese is Wakan rôeishû, in which
waka and excerpts from shi and kanshi are grouped under a given topic.
Such a domestication of Chinese sources could mean either that the au-
thors were simply experimenting with translation to determine the de-
gree of stylistic compatibility between the two languages or that they
expected some part of the audience not to completely understand Chi-
nese and wanted to disseminate “privileged” texts in a way that was acces-
sible to the less educated. The authors’ intentions aside, the effect of the
anthology, as well as other reference materials (ruisho; Ch. leishu), is
double-edged, as is always the case with “secondary” materials: it helps to
 Women and Chinese Literature • 109

both diminish and con¤rm the distance between the audience and the
“original” sources. Knowledge is handed down in a distinctly altered
form; many in the audience would not seek an opportunity to read the
“original,” and even if they did, they would already be deprived of the un-
mediated primary encounter with “the original.”
That said, the existence of such materials suggests that those with-
out a reading knowledge of Chinese (of whom women would probably
have been the majority) could acquire a degree of familiarity with Chi-
nese literature (which some of them relied on in their own writing),
often without knowing the exact sources from which they were quoting.
Chinese stories were recycled in later periods, reproduced by agents
with different levels of competence, desire, intent, and goals. Kawaguchi
Hisao, one of the most proli¤c historians of Sino-Japanese literature to
date, rightly argues that kanshi poets (or courtiers) and waka poets (or
ladies-in-waiting) were closely connected, in both familial and social
terms and in both the private and public spheres.14 In Murasaki Shikibu
nikki (ca. 1009), Murasaki describes the celebration upon the birth of
the imperial prince, in which many Chinese texts were recited to the
newborn by leading scholars. She and other ladies-in-waiting who
served the prince’s mother were not formal participants in any of the
events but were nonetheless physically present, facilitating procedures
by providing necessary items for the courtiers and monks conducting
the ritual. Nakajima Wakako cites a section of Sei Shônagon’s Makura no
sôshi (ca. 1002), in which a prepubescent boy recites Chinese texts, as
another example of women’s aural reception of kanshibun.15 Similarly,
though women may not have been formally invited to Chinese poetic
competitions, they were aware of such events and of the fact that Japa-
nese poetic competitions were designed as counterparts.
It is an obvious and yet often understated fact that the editors of and
contributors to major collections of Chinese poetry composed by Japa-
nese, such as Honchô reisô (Beautiful pieces of poetry of Japan, ca. 1010),
are mentioned at length and frequently in Heian women’s works, includ-
ing Murasaki’s own memoir (nikki) and Sei Shônagon’s Makura no sôshi.
One of these ¤gures, Fujiwara no Kintô (965–1041), is known not only as
a leading kanshi poet and critic, but also as the author of important waka
treatises, such as Waka kuhon (Nine gradations of waka, 1009), and thus
embodies the syncreticism of the imperial court culture in the reign of
Emperor Ichijô (r. 986–1011) that evolved around and yet blurred the
distinctions between Chinese and Japanese and between male and female.
110 • Chapter 3

Women of letters were exposed to incidental and yet fully predictable en-
counters with male courtiers in the public space, where courtiers would
recite Chinese poetry and allude to Chinese sources. Women could see
through “sliding doors” even when they were closed and occasionally
would even open them and step into the male domain.
It is in light of the heterogeneity in reading knowledge of the Heian
period women, suggested above (and, more extensively, in the inspiring
work by Joshua Mostow), that I wish to reexamine Murasaki Shikibu’s in-
tellectual milieu.16 Some well-documented historical facts were neglected
in the construction of Murasaki as the exceptional woman of letters who,
denied access to the Chinese canon, resorted to the native tongue and
woman’s hand and marked the pinnacle of Japanese literature in the in-
digenous language. As Kawaguchi notes, most of the leading women of
letters in the court of Emperor Ichijô were somehow related to one or
more of the contributors to Honchô reisô.17 Akazome Emon (mid-tenth
century–mid-eleventh century), for one, the alleged author of Eiga mono-
gatari (translated as A tale of ¶owering fortunes, late eleventh century),
was married to Ôe no Masahira (952–1012), one of the best Confucian
scholars of the time, and was the mother of Ôe no Takachika (?–1046), a
poet whose work made its way into Honchô reisô.
Murasaki’s father, Fujiwara no Tametoki (949?–1029?), studied Chi-
nese with Sugawara no Fumitoki (whose work we saw quoted in
Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari in chapter 1) and became a renowned
scholar and practitioner of Chinese verse in the circle of Prince Tomohira
(964–1009; also known by the Sini¤ed title Nochi No Chûsho Ô [Later
prince in charge of the of¤ce of central affairs]). Tametoki took his
daughter to Echizen (present-day Fukui), where he held an appointment.
Its capital, Tsuruga, was one of the few ports in Japan that maintained in-
ternational trade with the continent after 894, the year the Japanese gov-
ernment of¤cially discontinued sending envoys to Tang China. A well-
established and yet often ignored fact is that Japan maintained an of¤cial
relationship with Parhae (as noted in chapter 1). Envoys from the coun-
try, as well as their Japanese hosts (including notable literati such as Shi-
mada no Tadaomi [829–891] and Sugawara no Michizane), contributed
poems to Bunka shûrei shû and Wakan rôeishû. Kawazoe Fusae counts
thirty-four Parhae envoys from 727 to 919.18 By Murasaki’s time Parhae
had long been taken over by another country called Liao (916–1125),
which was not necessarily on good diplomatic terms with Japan. None-
theless, Tsuruga retained its international ambience, and many Chinese
 Women and Chinese Literature • 111

books from the continent arrived there. In 995, some seventy Chinese
people drifted to the shores of the adjacent prefecture of Wakasa (the
western part of Fukui) and then were moved to Echizen, which prompted
a man hypothesized as Murasaki’s husband-to-be, Fujiwara no Nobutaka,
to write to her and hint at a probable visit to Tsuruga in the near future to
see the Chinese (“Tôjin mini yukamu”).19 Thus the physical environment
surrounding young Murasaki Shikibu was distinctly hybrid and anything
but indigenously Japanese.
A well-known speculation by Emperor Ichijô upon reading a part of
Genji monogatari—namely, “She [Murasaki] must have read the Chronicles
of Japan!” (Kono hito wa Nihongi o koso yomitaru bekere)20—is veri¤ed
in Kakaishô (An abridged account of rivers and seas, 1367), a medieval
commentary edited by Yotsutsuji (Minamoto) Yoshinari (1325–1402)
and revered by later critics such as Motoori Norinaga as an excellent ref-
erence. The commentary attributes references to matters of the imperial
court to the Six Histories of Japan (Rikkokushi), as well as to many Chinese
texts composed in either Japan or China, in both prose and poetry. Hiro-
kawa Katsumi suggests that not only Nihongi (Nihon shoki; Chronicles of
Japan, 720) but also subsequent books, such as Nihon kôki (Later chro-
nicles of Japan, 840) and Nihon sandai jitsuroku, were consulted.21 Need-
less to say, all of these of¤cial historical records are written in kanbun, and
thus we can conclude that Murasaki was suf¤ciently competent in Chi-
nese. In addition to her reading knowledge of the language, the range of
Murasaki’s allusions—for example, to Korean diplomats and on the suc-
cession to the throne—attests to her cultural background and political
consciousness.
Another well-known but suppressed fact in situating Murasaki in a
history of Japanese literature is that the Chinese texts she read with the
imperial consort, Fujiwara no Shôshi (Akiko; 988–1074; also known as
Jôtô Mon’in), are of a political nature and thus would be conventionally
de¤ned as “masculine.” One text that is mentioned in Murasaki Shikibu
nikki is Xin yuefu (New rhapsodies), by Bai Juyi, which includes many
long poems of social criticism, with subjects ranging from a war veteran
who dis¤gured himself in order to be discharged from the army to an old
coal seller exploited by of¤cers to a Chinese hostage of the Tartars who is
recaptured and imprisoned by Chinese military forces—topics clearly at
odds with the putatively aestheticized poetic topics of waka.22 The read-
ings with the consort took place roughly concurrently with Murasaki’s
writing of Genji monogatari, making it plausible that some of the texts she
112 • Chapter 3

read found their way into the work of this “paragon” of Japanese aesthetic
sensibility.
The references to sources in Chinese, written physically in either
Japan or China, suggest that Murasaki was ready to liberally incorporate
sources available only in Chinese. Male courtiers no doubt formed a part
of her intended audience, and she expected them to realize how knowl-
edgeable she was on texts that were not commonly read by women. While
observing social rules speci¤c to women, Murasaki earned respect for her
learnedness. She may have suffered from the males-only educational sys-
tem and from women who conformed to the norm, but she also suc-
ceeded in convincing her male associates, as well as some competent
women of letters of her time, that she was their intellectual equal.
Contrasts often made between Murasaki and Sei Shônagon both re-
veal and conceal various facets about Murasaki. As is widely known,
Murasaki presents a negative portrayal of Sei Shônagon as showy and
error-prone: “Sei Shônagon, for instance, was dreadfully conceited. She
thought herself so clever and littered her writings with Chinese charac-
ters, but if you examined them closely, they left a great deal to be de-
sired.”23 This observation has led to a hypothesis of rivalry between the
two women: the well-behaved and yet mean-spirited Murasaki and the
high-¶ying and yet open-minded Sei.24 This impression was further
con¤rmed by the fact that they served opposing royal consorts of Em-
peror Ichijô.
It would be premature to conclude on the basis of Murasaki’s passing
remark and no equivalent from Sei that the two women represented—
either in their own minds or in those of their contemporaries—two ex-
tremes in women’s self-ful¤llment and self-expression. Such a view ne-
glects other women of their time who were fairly knowledgeable of Chinese
sources—for example, Akazome Emon, a historian and Murasaki’s con-
temporary, or (though of a slightly later generation) Sugawara no Takasue
no musume, the alleged author of many late Heian narratives, including
Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari, which we examined in chapter 1.
The idiom of “Sei-Shi” (Sei Shônagon–Murasaki, “Shi” being another
reading of the character for Murasaki) became most conspicuous in the
Tokugawa period (as we will see below). According to Miyazaki Sôhei,
who has surveyed the parallels drawn between Sei and Murasaki from the
medieval period to the modern period, it was not until Andô Tameakira’s
Shika shichiron (Seven treatises on Lady Murasaki; also known as Shijo
shichiron and as Genji monogatari shichiron, 1703) that a radical contrast
 Women and Chinese Literature • 113

was made between the two.25 Since the Meiji period, the contrast has been
maintained, in effect providing two possible responses for intellectual
women to make to what was perceived as discrimination against women.
Another downplayed aspect of Murasaki Shikibu concerns her vision of
the structure of Genji monogatari. Her use of Chinese sources is strategic and
systematic rather than arbitrary and fragmentary. Nihei Michiaki demon-
strates consistent parallels between the ¤rst part of Genji monogatari (from
chapter 1, “Kiritsubo” [The Paulownia Court] to chapter 33, “Fuji no uraba”
[Wisteria Leaves]) and “Qinghe wang Qing zhuan” (Biography of Qing,
Prince of Qinghe) in Hou Han shu (History of the Later Han, 445) that sug-
gest that Murasaki was well aware of how to develop her story, rather than
episodically writing one chapter after another without a blueprint.26 Mura-
saki’s references to then famous Bai Juyi poems such as “Changhenge,” “Li
Furen,” and “Shangyang Baifaren,” as well as other Chinese sources, have
been annotated by scholars in Japanese literature. They added many foot-
notes expressing her debt to Chinese literature. However, these did not lead
scholars to conclude that Murasaki did more than merely sprinkle her text
with excerpts from Chinese works that she happened to know. In fact, quo-
tations from Chinese contributed to the emplotment of the narrative.
In Shibun yôryô (Essence of Lady Murasaki’s text, 1763), Motoori
Norinaga not only renounces the validity of seeking Chinese sources for
Genji monogatari, but also pays little attention to the book’s structural di-
mensions or to the fact that its complex plot has few logical ¶aws.27 The
Chinese factor is obliterated for the sake of the image of Genji monogatari
as quintessentially Japanese and aesthetically homogeneous. Norinaga’s
praise for its crystallized ethereal essence (mono no aware, pathetic
beauty), overshadows the remarkable art of storytelling that Murasaki
demonstrated using the structure of the Chinese historical tale. Action
(shiwaza) is considered subordinate to emotions (kokoro), which are
meant to make the subject feminine and indecisive. Norinaga further ar-
gues that Genji monogatari functions ¤rst and foremost to show the
reader the essence of each character or each occasion, rather than to tell
us what it does or what is expected of it. Hence Norinaga neglects the
dynamics of the narrative and reduces the text to fragmented poetic mo-
ments.28 This position is consistent with Norinaga’s view that Genji mo-
nogatari is primarily useful as a text for waka poets:

The origin of poetry is mono no aware. There is no better way to understand

mono no aware than by reading this narrative. This narrative came out of the
114 • Chapter 3

mono no aware that Murasaki understood, and the mono no aware that the
present-day reader sees comes out of this narrative. Thus, this narrative has no
other signi¤cance than enumerating instances of mono no aware and letting
the reader know of it. The reader should not have any other expectation than
to understand mono no aware. This is the essence of the discipline of poetry.
No narrative or discipline of poetry should exist outside the understanding of
mono no aware. Thus there is no discipline of poetry other than [reading] this
narrative. Scholars, do take this into serious consideration and be urged to
grasp mono no aware. It is exactly to understand this narrative, which is exactly
to master the discipline of poetry.29

Norinaga emphasizes his point in the contrast he makes between

mono no aware (represented by Genji monogatari and waka) and ima-
shime, or lessons (to be conveyed by Chinese sources), as well as (though
not so clearly) in the possible contrast between poetry (a genre to repre-
sent an essence and make an immediate impression) and prose (a genre
for recounting a story to sustain the reader’s interest and make a convinc-
ing argument). In addition, Norinaga downplays the importance of the
order in which events are arranged in the narrative. This becomes evident
in a comparison of his and other commentators’ interpretations of the
adulterous and quasi-incestuous affair between Genji and Fujitsubo
(a.k.a. Usugumo, as Norinaga refers to her). In many preceding commen-
taries, including the above-mentioned Shika shichiron (which Norinaga
cites in order to refute), the incident is considered pivotal, as it is the re-
sult of Genji’s longing for his lost mother and later leads to retribution on
the part of Genji’s principal wife, who gives birth to an illegitimate
child.30 Norinaga, however, suggests that the point of the affair is to con-
vey mono no aware and that the incident is “not signi¤cant enough to
make a big deal out of it” (daiji to suru ni oyobanu koto nari).31
Instead of portraying Murasaki as appropriately feminine, Norinaga
equates femininity with the poetic, the natural, and the indigenous, thus
de¤ning it as a quality that needs to be restored in both men’s and
women’s Japanese writing:

All in all, the true emotions of human beings are, like girls, silly and full of at-
tachments. The masculine, well-disciplined, and wise state of mind does not
re¶ect true emotions. It is fabrication and false display. However wise one may
be, the depth of one’s heart is always like a girl’s. The only difference is
whether or not one is ashamed of it and hides it. Chinese texts are concerned
 Women and Chinese Literature • 115

exclusively with fabricated and contrived appearances and neglect to write of

true emotions. At a glance they may appear wise, but all is made up and not
true. Only because one is accustomed to reading such fabrications do they ap-
pear wise. The poetic narratives of Japan describe the depths of true human
emotions and demonstrate mono no aware. Nothing can compete with poetic
narratives in the detailed and thorough description of ¤ne human emotions.32

The negative labels that Norinaga attaches to Chinese texts—“fabri-

cations” and “contrived appearances”—seem to apply to the art of story-
telling, which consists of an awareness of structure, the control of action,
and the sustenance of plot over an extended period. The act of narration
thus may well be de¤ned as “masculine,” as it requires the “well-disciplined
and wise state of mind.” Instead of dwelling upon personal sentiments, a
storyteller needs to be well aware of the affairs of many characters and
stand ostensibly omniscient, rational, and autonomous of those charac-
ters. In order to execute the authority of observation, he or she needs to
control personal emotions, which are “like a girl’s.” Norinaga’s emphasis
on the poetic nature of Genji monogatari in effect overlooks Murasaki’s
skills in what he deems the “masculine” art of storytelling and thus en-
genders her as feminine. As Norinaga de¤ned Genji monogatari as a series
of fragmented poetic moments, so he de¤ned Murasaki Shikibu as a
champion of Japanese indigenous literature. When Norinaga matched
“feminine” attributes with the notion of Japaneseness, he replaced history
with myth, and a master narrative was constructed that Japanese national
identity was unchangingly present throughout the history of the Chinese
intervention. Within the myth, Genji monogatari became an epitome of
aesthetic indigenousness and homogeneity, rather than a showcase of lin-
gual heterogeneity that it in fact is.

Arakida Reijo, a Woman Historian

Arakida Reijo, a contemporary of Norinaga’s, is rightly designated by
Furuya Tomoyoshi as “by far the most proli¤c woman writer of all time
in Japan.”33 Indeed, Izuno Tatsu’s bibliography of Reijo’s works includes
forty-nine titles of ¤ction (mostly multivolume), all completed between
1771 and 1779.34 Ichikawa Seigaku categorizes her as a chojutsuka, or
“professional writer,” rather than a poet or novelist, as she wrote in sev-
eral genres, most conspicuously history and fantasy.35 Nonetheless, few
women of letters in later generations cite Reijo as a model who inspired
116 • Chapter 3

them. Yosano Akiko, a notable exception, was puzzled by Reijo’s rela-

tive obscurity and tried to redeem Reijo by publishing a two-volume
collection of her writings, with summaries and a biographical introduc-
tion.36 This collection, though a small sampling of Reijo’s work, is
enough to demonstrate the wide range of genres in which she exercised
her talent.37
Although Akiko’s intention is to portray Reijo as a victim of gender
discrimination in the “Confucianist” Tokugawa period, the claim is not
entirely true.38 Except for her parents’ opposition to her getting an edu-
cation, Reijo was surrounded by supportive men of letters. Her failure to
establish lasting fame seems to have more to do with the fact that she did
not write in genres that modern scholars considered more personal than
public—and thus suited to women’s participation—such as lyrics or
memoirs or genres that transcended gender boundaries (such as Chi-
nese poetry). Most women-authored prose narratives that have been
canonized in modern times are ostensibly confessional and lyrical, as-
suming a single persona that is often (intentionally) confused with the
author. Reijo’s narratives, in contrast, are on public affairs or supernatu-
ral incidents and thus are distinct from her own life. Her narrators are
not emotive but detached from the stories they recount.
First, a brief glance at Reijo’s background is in order.39 She was born
into, then adopted by and married into the families of Shintoist priests
in Ise, in relative proximity to Matsuzaka, the town in which Motoori
Norinaga lived and taught classical literature. Though her parents dis-
couraged her from getting an education in either Chinese or Japanese,
reasoning that it was inappropriate for women, Reijo’s four brothers tu-
tored her in their subjects of study and nurtured her academic potential.
Her adoptive father taught her to read Chinese classics and poetry. She
then studied Chinese poetic composition with Emura Hokkai (1713–
1788), a leading poet, critic, and author of Nihon shishi (A history of
Chinese poetry in Japan, 1771). In the third volume of the work, Hokkai
lists Reijo among a handful of women kanshi poets of the time.40
Reijo did not establish herself as a kanshi poet, however. Nor did she
excel in waka composition. Though her name is included in Aida Hanji
and Harada Yoshino’s Kinsei joryû bunjin den (Biographies of women of
letters in the Tokugawa period), the reception to her waka poetry was
lukewarm; awkward expressions and transitions seem to have troubled
some critics.41 The only area in which she demonstrated poetic skills
was renga, or linked poetry. Satomura Shôteki (?–1758), her teacher in
 Women and Chinese Literature • 117

the genre, stated that women linked poets were rare, implying that he
welcomed her for that reason.42 The fact that women poets were more
inclined to compose in isolation and that Reijo was successful and active
in linked poetry instead suggests that she was more communicative than
self-indulgent and more keen on developing sequences than on captur-
ing a single theme. It thus seems safe to conclude that Reijo’s strength
lay less in her style than in her ability to build an overarching structure.
Reijo’s husband, Yoshishige Ietada (the surname is also read “Kei-
toku” by some), considered by Nomura Kôdai (1717–1784) to be a de-
scendant of the Heian courtier and kanbun writer Yoshishige no Yasutane
(?–1002), encouraged her to write historical and ¤ctional narratives.43 He
took an active role in supporting her, exploiting his library privileges at
the Great Shrine of Ise to check out books in both Japanese and Chinese
for Reijo to read and volunteering to produce clean copies of her manu-
scripts. Many of her works are thus handed down in his handwriting.
Nomura Kôdai notes in his preface to Reijo’s Tsuki no yukue (The Where-
abouts of the Moon, 1771), which he wrote at her husband’s request, that
“The husband and wife read books together and discussed dif¤cult pas-
sages. Together forever, they traveled hand in hand westbound and so-
journed among the ¤ve provinces.”44 Emura Hokkai in his preface to
Reijo’s Ike no mokuzu (Weeds in the pond, 1771) makes a similar observa-
tion on the couple’s relationship: “[Reijo] is . . . married to Keitoku Joshô
(studio name of Ietada). Joshô also likes to study and knows the classics
well. The husband and wife pore over books and scrolls day and night
and take pleasure in deciphering the meanings of the texts. They are com-
parable to Zhao Mingcheng and Li Yi’an [Qingzhao (1084–ca. 1151)] as a
couple.”45
In short, Reijo was ¤rst blessed with male family members who were
willing to help her grow as a writer. Then her teachers in linked poetry
and Chinese learning thought highly of her and bestowed upon her stu-
dio names using one character each from the names of Murasaki Shikibu
and Sei Shônagon: Shizan (Purple Hill) and Seisho (Clean Shore). The
naming was not only complimentary, but also appropriate, given Reijo’s
determination to write in the Heian courtly style. Her mastery of classical
poetic prose was such that in Hakubunkan Kokubun sôsho (1914), a classi-
cal literature series, her Ike no mokuzu is included in the same volume as
Uji shûi monogatari (ca. 1222) and Matsukage no nikki (Diary in the shade
of the pine, ca. 1710), while her Tsuki no yukue appears in the volume that
contains Kagerô nikki (ca. 975), Sarashina nikki (ca. 1060), Hamamatsu
118 • Chapter 3

chûnagon monogatari, Torikaebaya monogatari (ca. 1072), and Hôjôki

(1212). Reijo’s work does not seem misplaced as far as its language is con-
cerned, even when it is grouped with historically distant works.46
Reijo’s ¤rst extensive work was an annotation of the twenty-volume
Utsubo monogatari. As is well known, this early Heian narrative is set
partly in China and Persia, as well as in the Japanese mountainside, which
gives an exotic feel to the story, and it thus may not be immediately asso-
ciated with the feminine as equated with the indigenous. The story
evolves around several major characters, rather than a single protagonist,
and it spans several generations. Utsubo monogatari thus has multiple
perspectives, several storylines starting independently of one another and
converging later, all of which led to confusion in the chronological order
of incidents and in the identi¤cation and genealogy of the characters.
Reijo obtained a copy from her husband, and she was able to study the
text carefully and straighten out its chronology, names, and style.
Though the contents of Utsubo monogatari are ¤ctional, Reijo sought a
historiographic consistency within the premises of the text. The choice of
this text and the methodology she applied to it attest to her mastery of
historical narratives. Indeed, Ogino Yoshiyuki praises her as “the only
woman historian,” while there are many women poets in Japan.47
Among Reijo’s best-known works are “Japanese” translations of kan-
bun chronicles of Japanese history. Ike no mokuzu is a historical record of
the reigns of medieval Japanese emperors. Emura compares Reijo to
Murasaki Shikibu in terms of her compositional skills in structuring texts
of substantial length and to the authors of the “Four Mirrors”—Ôkagami
(The great mirror, ca. 1077); Imakagami (The present mirror, ca. 1170);
Mizukagami (The water mirror, ca. 1190); and Masukagami (The clear
mirror, ca. 1375)—historical narratives written in wabun, a tradition that
had not been maintained since.48 In the postscript to Ike no mokuzu, also
written in kanbun by Miyoshi Genmei, Reijo is compared to Dong Hu, a
historian from the Warring States period highly regarded by Confucius,
and to Cao Dajia and Ban Zhao (45–117), the sister of Ban Gu (32–92)
and co-author of Hanshu (History of the Han, ca. 82). Tsuki no yukue, also
a historical narrative, recounts events under Emperors Takakura (r. 1168–
1180) and Antoku (r. 1180–1183), whose reigns coincided with the Gen-
Pei Civil War (1180–1185). In the preface, Nomura Kôdai also maintains
that while there were many women poets, there were few women histori-
ans, and he too compares Reijo with Ban Zhao.49 The author’s own post-
script to Tsuki no yukue states that she completed writing the narrative on
 Women and Chinese Literature • 119

the same day that Murasaki is reputed to have begun writing Genji mono-
gatari. In contrast to medieval Japanese women writers who explicitly
molded their characters after ¤gures in Genji monogatari (such as Lady
Nijô), Reijo made a conscious effort to become a latter-day Murasaki.
Reijo refused to embody poetic essence and planned instead to construct
histoire (in the sense of both history and story).
Confucian and Chinese scholars accepted this unconventionally in-
tellectual woman, while Reijo was isolated from the kokugakusha, or na-
tivist scholars. Furuya Tomoyoshi points out that her reworking of
Chinese sources in ¤ction is among the ¤rst of its kind, preceded only by
Takebe Ayatari’s Honchô Suikoden.50 Among her short stories with a debt
to Chinese literature are many of the thirty stories collected in Ayashi no
yo gatari (Tales of the strange reigns, 1778), an anthology inspired by
Chinese ghost stories and using sources such as Sou shen ji, an Eastern Jin
dynasty (317–420) anthology of zhiguai xiaoshuo (horror stories) written
by Gan Bao; the same is true of “Fuji no iwaya” (The wisteria cave, 1772),
a story based on You xian ku.51 These few of the many examples of Reijo’s
reworking of Chinese literature demonstrate both her wide reading
knowledge of the subject and her willingness to incorporate Chinese ele-
ments, either directly or by domestication.
It should be obvious by now that Reijo’s work does not conform to
the norms of transparency, immediacy, and indigenousness—values that
began to be legitimated by the kokugakusha and then, with the help of
modern aestheticism, by kokubungaku scholars in modern times. Reijo’s
many allusions to Chinese references in Nonaka no shimizu (The pure
stream in the ¤eld, 1772) were among the reasons that Motoori Norinaga
criticized her work: “Kono dan kaesugaesu Karagoto ni matsuware sugite
ito urusashi” (This passage is cumbersome, plagued with too many refer-
ences to Chinese sources).52 Indeed Nonaka no shimizu is remotely based
on You xian ku, which, as we saw touched upon in chapter 1, is a classical
tale about a male traveler’s incidental encounter with two mythical
women. Norinaga made unsolicited corrections to the manuscript of
Nonaka no shimizu, marking words and phrases to be replaced with better
choices, whereas Reijo herself was more concerned with the overall struc-
ture of the story.53 In “Keitoku Reijo nanchin” (Statement of complaints
by Keitoku Reijo), Reijo called Norinaga “a country bumpkin, a phony
student” (inaka no ese shosei) not entitled to criticize her work.54 Shimizu
Hamaomi (1776–1824), a nativist scholar of the Kamo no Mabuchi (1697–
1769) lineage, states the following: “This old woman thought so highly of
120 • Chapter 3

herself that she did not follow others’ cautionary advice. Since she did not
ask for instruction of Mr. Motoori or Mr. Uji, her writing is often ¶awed
with the misuse of particles, which is regrettable.”55
It is true that Norinaga was generous with his time and expertise and
may have meant well in offering editorial suggestions to someone who
was not his student. Indeed, as Ishimura notes, many of his suggestions
helped Reijo’s text read more smoothly and coherently.56 But Norinaga
may also have had an agenda in voluntarily taking up the task of editing
(or anatomizing) her text. Reijo’s compositional practice of liberally draw-
ing upon Chinese sources squarely de¤ed Norinaga’s conviction that dif-
ferences between Chinese literature (which was didactic and arti¤cial)
and Japanese literature (which was aesthetic and natural) were so essen-
tial that readers should not even try to trace references to Chinese texts
and that writers should not intentionally allude to them. Furthermore, it is
evident that Reijo’s purposes in writing—writing history to set the record
straight and entertaining readers with well-plotted stories—had little in
common with what Norinaga believed were the purposes of prose ¤ction,
which we saw in his guidelines on how to read Genji monogatari—namely,
to show poetic essence and to move the reader emotionally. Reijo sought
to perfect her style according to Murasaki (and may have failed to do so ac-
cording to Norinaga’s philological judgment), and she had no intention of
capturing the poetic essence of “feminine” emotions. Rather Reijo
planned, developed, and controlled her complex plots rationally. She was
more than willing to seek inspiration in Chinese sources in order to
achieve her goals. She did not write out of her body; her writing came out
of her mind, which was neither “feminine” nor “indigenous” by Nori-
naga’s standards.
In fairness to Norinaga, I should hasten to add that he did not suggest
that Reijo should not write the way she did because she was a woman. His
criticism of Sinophilic writing is consistent regardless of whether the au-
thor in question is male or female. However, when we go beyond Nori-
naga’s critique of Reijo’s texts speci¤cally and consider the fact that Reijo
is largely dismissed from later histories of Japanese literature—unlike
male fantasy writers, such as Ueda Akinari, who also had con¶icts with
Norinaga—we may suspect that her gender affected her status. When
“how women are supposed to write” is equated with “how the Japanese
are supposed to write,” there is no place for women historians or women
Sinophiles. Womanhood and nationality are essentialized and crystal-
lized by masculine observers, who claim to have a monopoly on reason
 Women and Chinese Literature • 121

and who resist women’s control of time. Women and/or the nation
should either embody timeless qualities or succumb to oblivion.
Women were welcome to make spontaneous and improvisational ob-
servations (hence the large number of women poets from ancient to mod-
ern times who had done so) but were not encouraged or expected to draw
pictures on a large scale—an act that requires logical thinking.57 Nation-
ality, likewise, was taken to be unchanging over time, transforming his-
tory into myths that showed only origins and essence. Women with four-
dimensional vision, discussing chronology and causality in events and
actions, were either reduced to representing the embodiment of momen-
tary beauty, as Murasaki was (in the guise of being elevated to an idol), or
erased from literary history, as Reijo nearly was. “Sliding doors” were
opened and closed for Reijo by different elements of her contemporary
audience and then shut in such a way that few could even see her from be-
hind the closed doors.

Between Transvestism and Essentialism:

Ema Saikô, a Muse with a Pen in Hand
Accomplished and productive in Chinese verse, calligraphy, and ink
painting—subjects that men of letters were expected to study—rather
than excelling in historical ¤ction or fantasy in classical wabun as Reijo
did, Ema Saikô faced a challenge of a different kind from Reijo’s.
Whereas Reijo’s negotiations with earlier Chinese sources invited criti-
cism, Saikô did not need to defend her compositional method of quota-
tion from Chinese texts as it was a common and commended practice in
her ¤elds of production. Saikô’s challenge instead was to cope con-
stantly with comparisons of her work with that of male colleagues, who
outnumbered female artists. Her work was received with comments that
it was as good as, if not better than, that of her male contemporaries and
that she made a unique contribution to the literary tradition by creating
it in an unmistakably feminine manner.58
Saikô was one of the many women kanshi poets (kanshijin) who were
exceptionally privileged, respected, and successful in this “masculine”
genre during the Tokugawa period. As Maeda Yoshi, who has been study-
ing the subject, has pointed out, there were many notable women kanshi
poets in different regions of Japan but most notably in Kyûshû: Tachibana
Gyokuran (?–1794) of Chikugo (present-day Fukuoka); Kamei Shôkin
(Tomo; 1798–1857) of Chikuzen (Fukuoka); and Hara Saihin (Michi or
122 • Chapter 3

Mitsu; 1798–1859), also of Chikuzen.59 In 1880, Minakami Roteki com-

piled and published Nihon keien ginsô (Anthology of Japanese women’s
poetry), which is a proof of the sizable and worthy output of female kan-
shijin. In 1883, thirty-six poets from Minakami’s collection, including
Saikô as well as Reijo, were further selected by Yu Yue (Quyuan; 1821–
1906) to form a volume of women’s poetry (guixiu; J. keishû) in Dongying
shixuan (Anthology of poems from the eastern sea, 1903).60 Another an-
thology that we touched upon above, Edo Joryû bunjin den, lists thirty-
three major kanshi poets (including Saikô, Shôkin, and Saihin), as well as
a group of minor ones. The works of Saikô, Saihin, and Yanagawa (nee
Chô) Kôran (Kei; 1804–1878) are collected in Joryû (The Female
School), a volume in the series Edo kanshi sen (Anthology of kanshi from
the Tokugawa period).61 Thus, women kanshi poets were published and
established, sometimes even in their lifetimes, and their work remained
in print in various editions.
Although the Tokugawa women kanshi poets stepped into the “male”
territory of composition in Chinese, gender still remained an issue for
them and their male colleagues. However, participation in a cultural prac-
tice that had been construed as masculine inspired an interesting ap-
proach to gender con¤guration: discursive transvestism and dialogue with
the male audience. For example, Hara Saihin, as legends have it, wore
men’s clothes, carried a sword, and loved to drink in the mode of her fa-
vorite poet, Li Bai.62 Her father, Hara Kosho, was an accomplished Confu-
cian scholar in the Ko-bunjigaku school in Kyûshû with whom Saihin ¤rst
studied Confucian texts.63 The following poem by Saihin, addressed to a
male friend who apparently had praised her for her talent in kanshi com-
position, offers a quali¤ed acceptance of the conventional gender divide:

You are a true man, who could slight you? . . .

I have learned how to sew and have sewn women’s jackets and the like. . . .
I do not wish to take a broom and become someone’s wife
thus have left my humble home with books my late father had left me.64

Despite the ostentatious humility, Saihin seems to imply that she is now
on a par with male literati in the masculine art of kanshi composition. She
studied poetry with Rai San’yô (1780–1832), a well-known and arguably
the best Sinologist and kanshi poet in Kyoto in the late Tokugawa period.65
She had a chance to show him her “Gengo-shi” (Poems on The Tale of
Genji), ¤fty-four poems to match the number of chapters in Genji.66
 Women and Chinese Literature • 123

Saihin was not the only female disciple that San’yô took on. In fact, he
was rather famous for mentoring younger female poets, among whom he
named Ema Saikô as the best.67 San’yô ¤rst met Saikô, then twenty-seven
years old, at her father’s home in 1813. Shortly afterward, her father, Ema
Ransai, a physician and scholar of Dutch medicine who worked for the
Ôgaki feudal domain, asked San’yô to mentor her in Chinese poetic com-
position and calligraphy.68 San’yô not only offered her instruction, but
also acted as an agent of sorts, promoting the distribution of her works of
art. San’yô would pass Saikô’s work on to his friends, inscribing compli-
mentary remarks on her paintings. While not a professional painter,
San’yô was an accomplished amateur and was a renowned critic of Ming
dynasty paintings. He apparently suggested to Saikô that she abandon the
style of Gyokurin, her ¤rst painting teacher, who San’yô thought was too
technically inclined to be artistic.69 In 1814, San’yô took the trouble to in-
troduce her to Uragami Shunkin (1779–1846), a son of the renowned
Uragami Gyokudô (1745–1820) and himself a leading painter of his day
who later taught Saikô.70 From all these negotiations, we can see the ex-
tent of San’yô’s commitment to Saikô’s education, which necessitated in-
teractions with selected senior male colleagues.
Calligraphy was another venue of communication between this ver-
satile woman and her mentor. San’yô would send Saikô poems for her to
inscribe, including his own poems (yanshi, “erotic poems”) and those of
others, such as Cao Zhi’s “Luoshen fu,” about an erotic encounter with
the eponymous beautiful mythical being.71 Fukushima Riko suggests that
San’yô selected the speci¤c poems because he intended to help Saikô be-
come a quintessentially feminine poet.72 This interpretation would cor-
roborate a part of San’yô’s commentary on Saikô’s poetry (to be discussed
below) but would contradict another part. Fukushima’s interpretation is
valuable in her resistance to the persistent and yet unfounded speculation
about a romantic liaison between the younger female student and her
male mentor.
It is true that San’yô was romantically interested in his young student
at one point. One of his extant letters, addressed to a close friend, Koishi
Genzui, reveals that San’yô was so attracted to Saikô that he seriously
considered her as a potential wife; he says that he “wants to edit ( J. ten-
saku) her entire body.”73 From the unusual phrasing in this letter and
from later remarks that her letters to him evoked the image of her body, it
seems that San’yô equated Saikô’s texts with her corporeal presence. In
other words, he had the propensity to eroticize her literature, which
124 • Chapter 3

indeed transcended conventional gender distinctions. It is also true, how-

ever, that the artistic and intellectual relationship between the two sur-
vived the apparent emergence and disappearance of the possibility of
marriage or romance. San’yô’s putative marriage proposal for Saikô, made
to her father, and her father’s rejection thereof in 1814 did not stop San’yô
from mediating Saikô’s acquaintances with distinguished men and
women of letters and arts.74 With his recommendations, Saikô began in
1819 to correspond with people such as Tanomura Chikuden (1777–
1835), a literatus who remains famous to date, and Jiang Yige, a Chinese
visitor in Nagasaki.75
Saikô kept sending her kanshi to San’yô for his comments and sug-
gestions until his death. While this practice may appear at ¤rst glance to
be an example of female subservience to the male cultural standard, it
should be noted that male disciples commonly did the same thing as
part of their learning. San’yô seems to have taken pride in helping her
grow as a poet. His pride is evident in his presentation to her of an
abridged and newly annotated version of Suiyuan nudizi shixuan (An-
thology of poems by the female disciples of Suiyuan; reprinted in Edo,
1830), a work by Yuan Mei (Suiyuan). Yuan is known not only for his
famous recipe collections, which we touched upon in chapter 2, but also
for mentoring many female poets. Rai San’yô inscribed the following
note on the front page of the copy that he gave Saikô: “I too have female
disciples. They are not necessarily inferior to some of the female poets
whose works are collected in this volume. Though I do not wish [in my
own merits] to rival their mentor, Suiyuan, I should be able to parallel
him in this regard.”76 San’yô also recommended that Saikô publish her
works, especially because she had been so dedicated to poetry that she
had allowed herself no distractions. Her refusal to do so, out of humility,
meant that she could not show her entire work in print to her mentor
during his lifetime. San’yô died within two years of making the sugges-
tion. In a poem she composed upon his death, Saikô compares San’yô to
Yuan Mei while humbly stating that she does not have the talent to
equal Yuan’s best female disciple, Jin Yi (1770–1794).77
San’yô’s comments on Saikô’s poems reveal several distinct outlooks
on gender: sometimes he assumes there are essential differences between
males and females; at other times he is willing to admit that this woman
poet could do much better than his male disciples; and yet at other times
he considers it ridiculous to evaluate poems according to an author’s gen-
der.78 For some of Saikô’s poems that appeared to deal with sentiments
 Women and Chinese Literature • 125

aroused by subtle changes in natural surroundings and domestic inci-

dents, he would add what was meant to be praise: “Every line is gentle—
this is truly a feminine tone of speech; men with beards and eyebrows
could not imitate it no matter how many tactics they devised”;79 “[this is]
truly feminine expression—no one has ever said this yet. Without an as-
tute mind or feminine voice, how could one manage to mold expression
like this?”;80 “[this is] truly a distinguished woman’s expression.”81 At the
same time, he would proclaim her “a female version of Lu Wuguan [You;
1125–1210],” comparing her to the Southern Song poet renowned for his
attention to minutiae; in so doing, San’yô would transcend the gender
boundaries in poetic composition.82
In a similar vein, San’yô’s comments on a particular poem by Saikô
sound double-edged: “[It is] not accommodating to female language. If it
had been composed by a man, it would have been a masterpiece”;83 “I did
not expect women to have such knowledge of [Chinese] history; [even] a
distinguished male of today may not understand this [reference].”84
While San’yô seems to have viewed the gap between Saikô’s discursive
and anatomical gender identities as affecting the quality of the poem in
question, he simultaneously admitted that Saikô had mastered the mas-
culine language. Echoing a question frequently asked by feminists, San’yô
also wondered, while looking at another poem, “Who could tell this is a
woman’s work without having asked for the author’s identity before-
hand?”85 He also quoted a statement by a male disciple of his who had
read her work: “How could she put such complex thoughts so lucidly?
Whenever I attempted to do the same, I ended up being scolded by you
[San’yô].” (San’yô con¤ded in Saikô that while the male disciple was
quite good, his expression could become awkward, a shortcoming from
which Saikô did not suffer.) “It was surprising to him that the work was
done by a woman.”86 Here again we recognize both the prejudice against
women writers and men’s willingness to admit that they were prejudiced.
Mastering the masculine discourse to the extent of surpassing male
colleagues could mean alienation from other women. San’yô was mindful
of such a potentially distressing circumstance and advised Saikô not to be
afraid to be different: “If you are quali¤ed to join my poetic circle, you are
already unusual.”87 San’yô’s advice suggests that he was evaluating Saikô
on the basis of her cultural achievements rather than her sex. Yet Saikô
deeply felt the isolation from other women. She told younger women
with aspirations of following in her footsteps to reconsider: “I have failed
to observe any of the three obligations of obedience [that women should
126 • Chapter 3

exhibit to their fathers, husbands, and sons],” she begins “Jijutsu” (Auto-
biographically speaking), and she concludes with the following: “I fear
lazy women in the world go out of their way to pursue the literary arts and
follow in my footsteps.”88 She de¤ed the norms, for which she felt she had
to pay the price. Sliding doors might have been opened for her to enter an
adjacent room of the masculine hand, but they were closed behind her,
allowing her no way back into the conventionally engendered area of
femininity.
Saikô was conscious of her divergence not only from the social
norms, but also, at times, from the conventional expectations of women
poets. Saikô’s book collection included Meien shiki (Ch. Mingyuan
shigui; Poems by famous beauties), an anthology of more than two thou-
sand Chinese poems attributed to more than four hundred women from
antiquity through the Ming dynasty.89 On her reading of works in the
volume, she wrote: “Why do they all write of loneliness, isolation, and
longing for their heartless lovers?”90 Saikô seems to suggest that women
should deal with as wide a range of subject matter as men do, and thus
she seemed apprehensive about endorsing the convention of keien shi
(Ch. guiyuan shi; poems on bedchamber regrets). Women’s portrayals of
themselves as lonely ladies deserted by their husbands or lovers are a
choice made in accordance with the male representation of women and
are the opposite of another choice available to them—namely, present-
ing themselves as content, independent, and intellectually engaged and
engaging. Saikô’s choice was well known and respected among those
who knew her, and it is evident from the inscription on her tombstone:
“As for her personality, [it was] sincere and graceful, sensible, pious to
her father; for some reason never married, [she] indulged in poetry and
drawing, though at the same time she was concerned with the fortunes
of the nation, lamenting its negative prospects; [such concern] put men
with beards to shame. . . . [She was] a woman but not a wife, female but
not feminine (Onna ni shite fu ni arazu).”91
Saikô’s versatility in poetry has been forgotten, if not willfully ignored,
by modern critics. Moreover, according to Kado Reiko, contemporary
critics and biographers tended to view Saikô’s relationship with San’yô in
a positive light, whereas in the Meiji and the periods thereafter criticism of
her became intense. For example, Morita Sôhei (1881–1949), a one-time
lover of Hiratsuka Raichô (Haruko, to whom we will return below), wrote
a story entitled “Onna deshi” (Female disciple), which exploited the well-
known mentor-disciple relationship between San’yô and Saikô; it was se-
 Women and Chinese Literature • 127

rialized in a women’s journal, Fujin kôron, in 1931. Without having stud-

ied primary sources such as San’yô’s letters, Morita changed the mentor-
disciple relationship into an adulterous affair and thus was publicly criti-
cized by Kizaki Yoshinao, a biographer of Rai San’yô.92 Morita eroticized a
primarily if not exclusively scholarly relationship and in so doing por-
trayed the woman poet as essentially erotic and as voicing her female es-
sence rather than representing a culturally formed identity. Also, a
popular historical novelist, Yoshikawa Eiji (1892–1962), writes of Saikô
in a section on San’yô’s mother, Baishi (who herself was well educated and
accomplished in waka; hence the possession of a pseudonym by which she
is known) in his volume of historical stories, Nihon meifu den (Biographies
of distinguished women in Japan, 1942) as follows: “Baishi was terribly
concerned with the rumor that the spinster and self-proclaimed poet took
pains to make up her face and dress herself up and shamelessly came to see
San’yô in his residence, Suisei-sô. Not only that, [it was said that] the two
took advantage of poetic composition meetings to have trysts.”93 Such
portrayals of Saikô are at odds with the observations of Saikô, San’yô, his
mother, and their friends, whose writings Yoshikawa neglected, if he con-
sulted them at all. Yoshikawa’s intent to rede¤ne Saikô as a lascivious, pe-
dantic, and adulterous woman is an image as distant as can be from the
portrayal of Saikô as “sincere and graceful,” as written on her tombstone.94
Morita and Yoshikawa’s views of Saikô tell us less about her than
about them. While Meiji society may have liberated women on some ac-
counts, it could be less agreeable than Tokugawa society to women intel-
lectuals who did not conform to the institution of marriage. Professional
women were accepted only if they were also proper wives—and preferably
mothers as well—in the ¤rst place. While Tokugawa literati were more
willing to accept intellectual women as their colleagues and comrades,
rather than as objects of erotic or voyeuristic desire, Meiji men of letters
tended to see them in physical terms, as they rede¤ned women’s literature
as the natural expression of their emotions in their native (and thus natu-
rally given) language.
That it took Saikô many years of training to acquire a reading knowl-
edge of Chinese literary conventions before she could start writing has
been largely obliterated, while the fact that she was an unmarried woman
who was closely associated with a married man has been emphasized and
often blown out of proportion in the modern reception of her poetry. That
her work is almost exclusively in literary Chinese has further led to its
marginalization, as modern Japanese literature and modern perceptions of
128 • Chapter 3

classical Japanese literature have increasingly taken the path of homoge-

nization, domestication, and naturalization.95 Thus fewer women of let-
ters followed her footsteps to become kanshijin, and the numbers of
readers of her poetry declined. As noted, the modern perception of litera-
ture dictates that writers should write as they feel and in their “own” lan-
guage, which is “natural”—just as Murasaki Shikibu is mistakenly
believed to have done. Thus, Saikô is shut out of the room into which she
was once warmly invited, although an intense gaze can still be cast upon
her from behind the “sliding doors.”

Mori Ôgai: Defending “Mis¤ts”

Mori Ôgai seems to have been able to transcend gender boundaries as
some Tokugawa literati that we have seen. His support for Meiji and
Taishô women writers is well documented: Higuchi Ichiyô’s posthumous
fame owes much to his positive reviews; Yosano Akiko published some of
her poetry in Subaru, a journal that Ôgai helped establish; and Hiratsuka
Raichô was acquainted with Ôgai (to be discussed below). His short story
“Gyo Genki” (1915) features Yu Xuanji (Gyo Genki in the Japanese read-
ing) from Tang China, a legendary beauty and poetess who fell prey to the
gender relations of her time. We will ¤rst see how Mori Ôgai portrays his
heroine and if he does justice to the historically documented facts about
her, which he ostensibly knew. The well-known relationship between Yu
Xuanji and her mentor, Wen Tingyun, constitutes an important part of
this story (with some ¤ctional modi¤cations), and it seems to be an intra-
textual model for the relationship between Ôgai and Raichô.
The pairing of the male mentor and the younger female disciple—not
unlike the case of San’yô and Saikô—illustrates the art-for-art’s-sake of
the classical literary canon in women’s education. While teaching male
students, mentors could be rewarded by these students’ success in the bu-
reaucracy or in academia, but mentoring females guaranteed no social re-
ward. However accomplished she may have been, a woman intellectual
could not be a government of¤cial or a teacher in the scholarly institu-
tions. The mentor’s satisfaction thus consisted solely in witnessing the in-
tellectual or artistic growth of the student. One could say that women’s
mastery of the masculine language was as much of a dead end as the mod-
ern intellectuals’ reliance on classical language (the subject of chapter 4).
Mori Ôgai is known to have portrayed many historical as well as
¤ctional women of intelligence and integrity. Critics have observed that
 Women and Chinese Literature • 129

Ôgai tended to be more inventive—exhibiting what he termed rekishi

banare (departures from history)—when it came to the portrayal of
women in his historical ¤ction.96 The greater degree of free interpreta-
tion is attributed to the relative lack of historical documentation about
women, a point that precisely corroborates our concern with canoniza-
tion: women found their place in orthodox history much less than men
did. The relative lack of information on women as legitimate authors
within the canon often caused them to fall prey to rumors and gossip.
The title character of Ôgai’s story, Yu Xuanji, is no exception. The leg-
endary courtesan, Daoist nun, and poetess of the late Tang dynasty has
been the subject of many anecdotes that are hard to either validate or in-
validate. Still, data about her are better preserved than those of many
other women in of¤cial histories, owing to her associations with male
of¤cials, most notably Wen Tingyun. Ôgai lists a considerable number
of archival sources at the end of the story, and in part he followed some
of them very faithfully. It will thus be even more revealing of his autho-
rial intent for us to examine the space that his invention rather than his
research ¤lled.
The story begins with the shocking news that Xuanji has been ar-
rested for murder—an incident that occurred toward the end of her life—
and it then turns to a retrospective of her public life. The voyeuristic gaze
prevails at the beginning of the story with a description of her physical ap-
pearance, suggesting the entire business of the scandal: “Xuanji had long
been renowned for her beauty. She was as voluptuous as Yang Guifei
rather than as slim as Zhao Feiyan”97 However, the narrator soon estab-
lishes Xuanji as more than just a passive object of observation. She was
aware of herself and interested in enhancing and showing off her physical
beauty, as is suggested immediately after the above-cited passage: “One
might assume that as a Daoist nun she avoided tainting her face with
makeup. That was not the case: she was always carefully dressed and
made up.”98 Though her background as a courtesan and a concubine
might suf¤ciently account for such habits, this passage precedes Ôgai’s
description of her days in a pleasure quarter or in her master’s residence
and thus points more to her will to perform than to the necessity of selling
her beauty as a means of earning a living.
Instead, however, of praising her beauty or portraying her as a lonely
lady longing for a distant lover—the effect of which would be to aestheti-
cize and objectify her—Ôgai’s narrator foregrounds her dignity, learning,
and talent:
130 • Chapter 3

Xuanji’s fame among the men of letters in Chang’an was not solely as a beauty:
she was distinguished in poetry. . . . Xuanji was only ¤ve years old when Bai
Juyi passed away in the ¤rst year of Dazhong, in the reign of Yizong, but she
was so precocious that she had memorized many poems not only by Bai Juyi,
but also by Yuan Weizhi, who was as celebrated as Juyi. The total number of
poems, in old and new styles combined, that she had memorized reached sev-
eral dozen. Xuanji composed her ¤rst seven-character quatrain at the age of
thirteen. By the time she was ¤fteen, some connoisseurs had already begun to
copy and circulate poems by that girl from the Yu family.99

As the detailed studies of Yamazaki Kazuhide and others have shown,

Ôgai draws on a number of Chinese sources in this story, including Tai-
ping guangji (A wide range of accounts of the great peace, 978), from
which the above passage is derived.100 He is thus not exclusively respon-
sible for the construction of Yu Xuanji as she appears in his story. None-
theless, his strategic selection and placement of references suggest that he
makes his own statement about the poetess. Ôgai’s portrait of Xuanji is
distinct from those offered by either Karashima Takeshi, a contemporary
Japanese scholar in Chinese literature, or Satô Haruo, a Japanese literary
man and Sinophile whom we saw in passing as a friend of Tanizaki
Jun’ichirô in chapter 2. One fact that Karashima and Satô seem to agree
upon—and that Ôgai disregards—is that Yu Xuanji composed poems
about longing for her master, Li Yi, who apparently deserted her after
traveling with her. Karashima explains how the man and his concubine
separated and emphasizes Yu Xuanji’s expressions of agony in his annota-
tions to her poems.101 In a similar vein, Satô includes in his anthology of
translations of Chinese women’s poems, Shajin shû (Anthology of particles
of dust from passing vehicles, 1929), only one poem by Yu Xuanji—
“Qiuyuan” (Autumn regrets), which concerns the fading beauty of a
lonely lady who longs for her former lover.102 In contrast, the ¤ve poems
by Xuanji quoted in “Gyo Genki” do not include “Qiuyuan” or any
guiyuan poetry that concerns a lonely lady’s laments.
The omniscient narrator of “Gyo Genki” highlights the presence of
the male objectifying gaze upon Xuanji’s body and thus in effect invali-
dates the framework for Karashima and Sato’s readings. He/she recounts
how men’s expectations of physical intimacy with Xuanji are thwarted by
her relentless expressions of contempt and by their sense of inferiority
when faced with her intelligence and poetic talent: “When visitors with
no literary penchant turned up, simply lured by the reputation of the
 Women and Chinese Literature • 131

beauty, Xuanji would relentlessly insult them and chase them away. Even
if illiterate young men, exploiting their connections with frequent cus-
tomers, could be spared contempt and curses, they would voluntarily
sneak out of the house, convinced of their own de¤ciencies after witness-
ing the poetic composition and musical performance of the company.”103
The tone of narration, though detached, clearly mocks male attempts at
eroticizing this female intellectual.
Ôgai’s narrator observes that Yu Xuanji is not “feminine” in the con-
ventional sense of the word and that she is equal if not superior to the
male intellectuals of her day in her scholarly manner and literary talent.
The scene in which Wen Tingyun, one of the best poets of the late Tang,
¤rst meets her is presented as follows: “Xuanji straightened her collar
and received Wen with utmost respect. Wen, predisposed to meet her
the same way he would meet courtesans, could not help but change his
attitude. An exchange of a few words was enough for Wen to see that
Xuanji was no ordinary woman; that ¤fteen-year-old girl, as pretty as a
¶ower, showed no sign of coquetry and spoke like a man.”104 Subse-
quently, Wen gives Xuanji a topic on which he suggests that she com-
pose a poem. Her work impresses him: “Wen had been a judge for the
civil service examination seven times, and every time he witnessed a
presentable man agonizing in vain to ¤nish even one line. No such man
could possibly compete with her.”105 The narrator also states that Yu
Xuanji has a “masculine soul” within her “feminine appearance”; he
cites a famous poem by her, in which she regrets having been born fe-
male, and he does so while looking at the signatures that recent success-
ful candidates in the civil service examinations had left on the walls of a
Daoist temple during a celebration.106
This is not to say, however, that Ôgai did not recognize Yu Xuanji’s
erotic potential.107 On the contrary, the story also describes the process
of her sexual awakening—but it is not initiated by men. Remaining celi-
bate throughout her career as a courtesan and later as an of¤cer’s concu-
bine, Ôgai’s Yu Xuanji sexually matures on her own rather than in
response to male demands. She refuses to sleep with her master, Li Yi,
who then sends her off to a Daoist temple, and as a result of Daoist train-
ing, she is ¤nally awakened to sexual pleasure. According to Karashima,
neither her biographies nor her poems register this transformation;
there is no indication that the liaison between Yu Xuanji and Li Yi was
not physically consummated; furthermore, a poem addressed to her
next lover explicitly says that she was experienced.108 Ôgai must then
132 • Chapter 3

have deliberately rewritten the way in which Yu Xuanji’s sexuality

comes to the fore so that it would appear as though the process had oc-
curred independently of male desire.
The story goes on to describe further sexual development—a quasi-
lesbian relationship with another Daoist nun and Xuanji’s invitation to a
younger man to spend nights with her—and compellingly paints a pic-
ture of Yu Xuanji as taking the initiative in planning her vita sexualis. The
classical Chinese stereotype of the lonely lady longing for her absent lover
is replaced with the image of a woman who is uninhibited in her sexual
relationships. Some Japanese scholars have noted that the episode of fe-
male companionship in Ôgai’s story is not to be found in any biography of
Yu Xuanji and that it is thus Ôgai’s invention.109 Ogata Tsutomu main-
tains that the author must have been inspired by a matter of journalistic
interest in contemporary Japan—namely, the allegedly lesbian relation-
ship between Hiratsuka Raichô, the feminist activist who in 1911
founded the feminist association Seitô (Blue Stockings), as well as a jour-
nal of the same title, and one of her followers, Otake Kôkichi (Kazue).110
Raichô was known to her contemporaries as a sexually liberated woman.
Earlier in her life, when she was engaged to marry a man, she eloped with
another, Morita Sôhei, apparently intending to commit double suicide
with him. The lovers parted but were reported to have consummated
their relationship while on the road. This incident was further publicized
by Morita’s ostensibly confessional novel, Baien (Soot, 1909), which
came out within a year of the breakup and became a best seller. Raichô
appears to have inspired not only Morita, but also Natsume Sôseki with
the concept of a “New Woman,” or atarashii onna (or atarashiki onna),
which Morita portrayed with both awe and repulsion.
In contrast to Sôseki, Ôgai is known to have actively supported the
feminist movement. As Kaneko Sachiyo and Watanabe Yoshio (among
others) have observed, he attended feminist meetings in Leipzig, where
he was a student of hygiene; approved of his wife Shige’s af¤liation with
Seitô; and complied with Raichô’s requests for articles to her journal (the
requests were usually mediated by her business associate and alleged
lover, Otake Kazue).111 Raichô affectionately recollects her interactions
with Ôgai in an essay, “Ôgai sensei” (About Master Ôgai; written in 1962
and published in the following year):

For one of the earliest examples, I heard from someone that he [Ôgai] had
said that the title of the journal Seitô was very good. This might perhaps be
 Women and Chinese Literature • 133

the source of the widely spread fallacy that Ôgai gave the title Seitô. Natural
as it may be, given that his wife, Mori Shige, was an associate member of Seitô
and that every issue of the journal was mailed to him, it was still surprising
for me to hear more than once, and also see from his comments on me, that
he read my writings. I felt as if I, as well as Seitô, were being looked after by
him for a certain time. How different these things about him are from
Sôseki’s attitude toward women—his indifference to us and his lack of un-
derstanding of women!112

The hypothesis that Ôgai wrote “Gyo Genki” as an implicit tribute

to Raichô is congruent with his outspoken praise for her and with his
acclaimed role as a mentor of women of letters in the late Meiji to early
Taishô periods. In a special issue of Chûô kôron on Yosano Akiko pub-
lished in June 1912, Ôgai touches upon Raichô as a talent comparable to
Akiko’s:

I do not think there is anything new left for me to say. But if I am to recom-
mend a distinguished woman writer, it has to be her, now that Ms. Higuchi
Ichiyô is deceased. Akiko does not imitate others in any regard. One cannot
miss her distinctive qualities. An American, Percival Lowell, said recently
that Far Easterners are unique in their lack of individuality. I wish I could
show him Akiko—but she will soon be shown in Paris.
Incidentally, the one I think might equal Akiko is Ms. Hiratsuka Haruko.
Though she does not seem to have much talent in poetry, her critical essays,
published under the pseudonym “Raichô,” make me realize that no male critic
could write of philosophical matters as lucidly as she does. Aside from the
bases of hypotheses that are yet to be tested, her writing itself is articulate in
every corner. In contrast, male critics are not worth consulting on philosophi-
cal issues.113

The last few lines of the short essay suggest that the sex of an author does
not affect Ôgai’s reading of his/her work. If female writers such as Hira-
tsuka Raichô were superior to male writers, then Ôgai was ready to ac-
knowledge it, just as Rai San’yô was.
As is well known, in his historical ¤ction Ôgai likes to portray women
of strong will and intelligence—for example, Sayo in “Yasui fujin” (Mrs.
Yasui, 1914), Ichi in “Saigo no ikku” (The last phrase, 1915), and Io in
Shibue Chûsai (1916), to mention but a few.114 They were historical
persons in Tokugawa Japan from whom the author could maintain a
134 • Chapter 3

temporal distance (as was the case with Yu Xuanji). Given what we have
learned from Mieke Bal, the reworking of the lore does not necessarily
con¤rm a nostalgic penchant on the part of the author; the author must
have been motivated to write stories of women of this kind in the early
twentieth century, when feminism was rising in Japan, in order to create
speci¤cally contemporary effects. If we read “Gyo Genki” partially as a bi-
ography of Hiratsuka Raichô under the guise of a biography of Yu Xuanji,
the story would convey another message: Ôgai, neither frightened nor re-
pelled by the “New Woman,” does not present the ¤gure for the sake of
criticism of, or curiosity about, “sexual mis¤ts.” The detached and yet re-
spectful tone suggests that he intended to do justice to a woman’s inde-
pendence and intelligence, regardless of who she happened to be or with
whom she happened to be involved.
Raichô’s position in the Japanese literary establishment was even
more peripheral than Yu Xuanji’s was in the Tang dynasty. While the Chi-
nese poetess was admired by men for her mastery of “their own” language
and cultural practices, Raichô staked out an area of criticism/philosophy
that was then considered outside the pale of literature. In contrast to Yu
Xuanji’s days, when those who were engaged in literary production were
all intellectuals, anti-intellectualism was evident in the renunciation of
rhetoric, mediation, or structure in modern Japanese literature. Whereas
Yu Xuanji’s case represents the gender partition that prevented her from
political engagement, Raichô’s suggests that writing intellectually was a
challenge to the entire premise of literature in modern Japan.
The reason for Ôgai’s choice of Tang China as the historical back-
drop of “Gyo Genki” is completely different from Sôseki’s references to
archaic China. Ôgai does not try to aesthetically distance, idealize, or
immortalize China, as we saw Sôseki do in chapter 2. Instead of equat-
ing China with the historical past so as to create and maintain a distance
at which a purportedly neutral Japanese commentator can make aes-
thetic and critical judgments, Ôgai puts incidents of Tang China in the
contemporary context, where it becomes relevant to current issues.
Ôgai also recognized the double-edged nature of the canonicity of clas-
sical Chinese literature; he was not oblivious to the fact that the full
bene¤ts of meritocracy, in which individuals’ merits were to be mea-
sured by their levels of mastery of the Chinese canon and not by family
prestige, were not extended to women in Tang China. Knowledge of the
canon was an essential and yet insuf¤cient precondition for success in
the classical elitist society, and the Chinese meritocracy was not gender
 Women and Chinese Literature • 135

neutral. When we consider the fear and rejection of intellectual women

in modern Japan, where the classical Chinese canon was actively ex-
cluded from the core literature (as we will see in the next chapter), it be-
comes evident that gender-screening was not intrinsic to the classical
Chinese canon alone. Paradoxically, female intellectuals in modern Ja-
pan, who were deemed anomalous, could justify their “arti¤cial” writing
by exhibiting knowledge of the classical Chinese canon; unlike in the
nineteenth century, familiarity with classical Chinese was no longer
considered a major threat to the primacy of the native tongue, which
was rede¤ned in the twentieth century against European languages of
the imperialist nations.
What Ôgai, vicariously through the “New Women,” showcased in
“Gyo Genki”—the denaturalization of gender identity—resonates in
Kurahashi Yumiko’s exploitation of her knowledge of classical Chinese
literature, though with twists and turns that complicate analogies be-
tween Chinese and Japanese, origin and destination, the physical and
the spiritual, and the female and male.

Kurahashi Yumiko: Female Sinophile in Contemporary Japan

Classical and “premodern” vernacular Chinese literature found a seem-
ingly unlikely admirer in Kurahashi Yumiko (1935–), who made her lit-
erary debut in 1960 with experimental and absurdist stories often
compared to Franz Kafka’s. Her interest in the classical literature of Japan
and Greece became obvious in the late 1960s, and it was followed by her
active reworking of Chinese texts in the 1980s. Whereas many critics
consider her transformation from experimentalist to classicist the result
of maturity (attributed to marriage and motherhood and her ¤rst visit to
the United States in between), I intend to situate her increasing and sus-
tained use of Chinese texts as a professional and strategic choice.115
Given her prominent use of pastiche and preference for elaborately
structured texts, premodern Chinese literature seems a natural destina-
tion in Kurahashi’s bibliophilic tour. Critics did not problematize her
quotations from classical Chinese sources, as they did those from
French existentialist works, illuminating the ambiguous status of classi-
cal Chinese in modern Japan. The Chinese classics were already ex-
cluded from the canon of Japanese literature by the beginning of the
twentieth century (as we shall see in the next chapter), and Chinese lit-
erature was recognized as a foreign national literature in the 1930s
136 • Chapter 3

(gaikoku bungaku, as we saw Aoki Masaru label it in chapter 2). It con-

stituted little threat to the imagined autonomy of the national literature
of Japan in the 1960s. Kurahashi thus was able to write as eruditely as
she wanted to when negotiating with Chinese literature. Quotations
from archaic Chinese sources are of particular importance, as they allow
Kurahashi to reject the confessional, native, and feminine without being
accused of doing so.
Kurahashi often domesticates Chinese literary or legendary ¤gures.
Arakida Reijo did the same, transplanting characters from Chinese
stories into Japanese settings, while Mori Ôgai used the original settings
so as to disguise his parallels to contemporary Japan. “Kôkan” (1985)—
Kurahashi’s parody of both “Peach Blossom Spring” (immortalized by
Tao Qian of Six Dynasties China in his “Taohuayuan ji”) and a story col-
lected in Lu Xun’s (1881–1936) Guxiaoshuo goushen (Probing the
depths of old ¤ction)—is set in an unspeci¤ed location that could quite
well be contemporary Japan.116 The main characters are government
of¤cials, as many Chinese literati characters are. One of them looks de-
monically hideous; the other, who is the “I” narrator of the story, di-
vinely handsome. The ¤rst, who has a monstrous face, tells the other
that he used to be as good looking as the narrator but was demanded his
original face by a man in a dream who had a hideous face. The dream
man tells him that the face he now has is not his original face. He once
visited a seemingly utopian mountainside village inhabited exclusively
by beautiful people; then he discovered many ugly face skins, presum-
ably the residents’ real faces, hung on polls to dry. Frightened, he man-
aged to ¶ee from this “paradise,” except an ugly face skin got attached to
his handsome face like a mask. He then began looking for an attractive
face to replace the hideous skin. Having explained that much, the man
in the dream demands the dreamer’s face. When the dreamer wakes up,
he realizes that his original face is gone and has been replaced with the
face of the man in the dream. Listening to the story, the narrator begins
to fear that the same misfortune will befall him.
Kurahashi’s parodies of Chinese stories attest to her erudition. For
example, the characters of “Kôkan” explicitly cite “Peach Blossom
Spring” (the other source is not mentioned). Such explicit mentions of
sources have another and more important function in our context: they
foreground the act of quotation, in which an active negotiation with the
earlier text makes a new point. The original story in the Lu collection
has no psychological descriptions of the parties involved in the trade of
 Women and Chinese Literature • 137

faces, and thus it comes across as a simple horror story. Kurahashi’s re-
working adds a layer of modern self-awareness to it and challenges the
conventional divide between essence and appearance and male and fe-
male. The men’s obsession with their appearance is a reversal of conven-
tional gender stereotypes, as vanity and narcissism have been more
persistently attributed to women than to men.117 In fact the story is en-
tirely devoid of female spectacle; no mention is made of whether or not a
given female character is physically attractive, while some female spec-
tators assess the main male characters’ appearance. Thus the story sub-
verts the formulaic pattern of the male observer/female object. Most
vital in our context, however, is that quotations from archaic Chinese
texts, one highlighted and the other subdued, are not tangential but es-
sential to the plot. These factors are all evident in Arakida Reijo’s ¤ction
as well, but Kurahashi has successfully escaped any nativist criticism for
her use of classical Chinese texts because inspirations from the Chinese
were less threatening to the commended autonomy of the indigenous in
Kurahashi’s time. We might say that the China-Japan entanglement has
loosened and that there are other entanglements at work, involving play-
ers other than China and Japan.
“China” operates on multiple levels in “Kubi no tobu onna” (1985),
another story by Kurahashi. Inspired by Sou shen ji, as was Arakida Reijo,
Kurahashi reworks the story of the Feitouman (Flying head savages). In
Ayashi no yo gatari, Reijo reworked this same story in “Hitôban” (Flying
head savages), precisely the same characters as in Feitouman, only read in
Japanese.118 While Arakida’s story is set in Heian Japan as a way to equate
Chinese fantasy with courtly Japanese language, Kurahashi’s story is set
in postwar Japan at a time when Sino-Japanese contact is imminent. The
story features two Japanese men, one of whom has returned from conti-
nental China after the Fifteen Year War between China and Japan (1931–
1945), and one young woman; the Japanese returnee assumed that she
was a Chinese orphan and brought her home with him to raise as an
adopted daughter. It is this young woman’s head that is found to be ¶ying
about at night. Observing this, her adoptive father is reminded of the Fly-
ing Head Savages that he has read about in Sou shen ji. The story thus
evokes exoticism in much the same way that Tanizaki’s Sinophilic stories
do (as we saw in chapter 2); it capitalizes on a fascination with the super-
natural that is also beastly. Thus, Kurahashi’s version resonates with the
implication of the colonizing gaze of the Japanese upon the Chinese that
is of course nonexistent in the original story.
138 • Chapter 3

Another prototype for the story—Genji’s pseudo-incestuous desire

for his adopted daughter Tamakazura—invests the story with a message
that transcends the national boundaries between China and Japan and
hinges more ¤rmly on the gender divide.119 The woman, whose head
¶ies away to have nightly trysts with the other Japanese man, with
whom she is in love, while her body is violated by her adoptive father
night after night, offers an allegory of the perceived divide between the
mind and the body of a woman. The pseudo-incest suggests the patri-
arch’s physical control over the female body, or his fantasy of surrender
by a woman whom he has symbolically decapitated, whereas the free
movement of her head implies the independent mind of the woman,
who seeks and establishes an emotional outlet of her own. The marriage
of the Flying Head Savages and the quasi-incest thus brings an entirely
new perspective to the fore, taking full advantage of quotation.
Kurahashi’s persistent choice of Chinese stories about the supernat-
ural, beyond the two sketched above, is more than a simple infatuation
with the strange. Chinese fantastic literature is a powerful weapon with
which to neutralize the legitimacy of modern medical knowledge, a mis-
sion that has concerned her since the earlier stages of her career, when
she was labeled an “absurdist” and Europhilic. She has been committed
to challenging the autonomy of the body, and in doing so, she has also
challenged the autonomy of the text. Regardless of the cultural origins
of her inspirations, Kurahashi strategically selects which body of texts to
cannibalize in order to demonstrate the contingency of the perceived
constitution and delineation of the body. Chinese literature happens to
be inspiring for her, and neither its ethnic uniqueness nor its canonicity
in Japan concerns her as much as it did earlier writers that we saw.
The works that most clearly showcase Kurahashi’s Sinophilia are
Shiro no naka no shiro (The castle within the castle, 1980) and Kôkan
(Pleasure exchange, 1989). The chapter titles in both books are four-
character compounds taken from or inspired by Chinese verse, including
the compositions of Tokugawa Japanese poets. This design is appropriate
for the novels as their major characters are Sinophiles. The female protag-
onist of both novels, Keiko, mentions that her late father, a publisher, ed-
ited a volume of Tangshi sanbai shou (Three hundred poems from the
Tang dynasty, ca. 1763), an anthology of classical Chinese poetry that
was well circulated in Japan in the Tokugawa period, although he person-
ally preferred Song dynasty poetry, a penchant that his daughter has in-
herited. When her beloved cat died, the father consoled Keiko by reciting
 Women and Chinese Literature • 139

Mei Yaochen’s (1002–1060) eulogy to a deceased cat, “Simao.”120 Charac-

ters in the novels often refer to jiu cha lun, or “debates on the merits of
wine and tea,” hypothetical arguments often made in order to re¶ect
upon the contrasts between Tang and Song cultures, represented by the
two beverages respectively. These well-established literary conceits in
Kurahashi’s ¤ction serve to divide the characters into two groups: those
who are impassioned with ideological, political, religious, or romantic
ideals, and those who are emotionally detached and inclined to appreci-
ate the minutiae of everyday life. The two types are also distinguished by
their musical preferences, the romantics versus the classicists.
References to Chinese literature are also abundant in another novel by
Kurahashi, Shunposhion (Symposium, 1985), which alludes to not only
texts, but also material products of Chinese and other origin. Suiyuan
shidan (discussed in chapter 2) is cited as characters experiment with the
gastronomical. A speci¤c quotation from Yu Xuanji, by way of Mori Ôgai,
is central to the most important storyline in the novel and underlines the
considerable entanglement with Chinese texts in Kurahashi’s ¤ction. The
novel’s focal female character, Satoko, writes a semi-autobiographical
story in which Mori Ôgai’s “Gyo Genki” is occasionally quoted. The rela-
tionship between Yu Xuanji and Wen Tingyun proves to be a perfect ve-
hicle through which Satoko can elaborate on the asymmetrical,
hierarchical, and volatile union of intellectuals of the opposite sex that
she has experienced. Instead of addressing it directly as her own experi-
ence, Satoko uses layers of analogies. Mariko, the heroine of Satoko’s
story, is a precocious teenager who develops an intensely emotional and
intellectual relationship with Mr. Matsudaira, her private tutor in French
and Latin and a former lover of her mother; he may have possibly fathered
Mariko. Given these circumstances, she compares herself to Tamakazura
in Genji and Lady Nijô of Towazu gatari (1313), both of whom were sub-
ject to sexual advances by father ¤gures who used to be involved with
their mothers.121 Indeed, it is Mr. Matsudaira’s gaze upon her body that
makes Mariko ¤rst realize that she exists in the ¶esh. The theme of the
mind/body entanglement, which we saw in “Kubi no tobu onna,” recurs
in Shunposhion, except this time we get the woman’s perspective, which
was entirely missing in the previous story.
Mariko then turns to Mori Ôgai’s “Gyo Genki” in order to compare
her relationship with Matsudaira against the relationship between Yu
Xuanji and Wen Tingyun. She offers the paradoxical assessment that her
relationship with Matsudaira is “problematic because there is nothing
140 • Chapter 3

improper.”122 Though Mariko has been awakened to her sexuality by her

tutor, their liaison is not sexually consummated; they share only intense
gazes, occasional cuddling, and intellectual exchanges. We might recall
that in Ôgai’s account, the male mentor and the female disciple also do
not develop a sexual relationship, a situation that might in part have led
to Xuanji’s liaison with the musician Chen, whom she ends up murder-
ing. Mariko has her own potentially romantic partner, her cousin Hiro-
shi, who happens to be musically talented. Mariko shares with him her
interpretation of Yu’s feelings for Wen, implicitly suggesting her own
feelings for Matsudaira: “Yu Xuanji may have wished she could become
both Wen’s disciple and his mistress, devoting her life to composition
rather than reproduction.”123 This statement also echoes one interpreta-
tion of Ema Saikô’s relationship with Rai San’yô. It appears again to focus
on a woman’s body in a story about a woman’s intellectual growth, but be-
cause the story comes from the woman herself, it is obviously an attempt
to reunite the ¶ying head with the potentially sexually vulnerable body.
Mariko is both disappointed by her incompetence as a seductress—
she tries to seduce Matsudaira by pouring sake for him and leaning
against him, but to no avail—and embarrassed by her secret desire for
physical intimacy with her tutor. The sensual thrill she experiences as he
strokes her hair contrasts sharply with Yu Xuanji’s composure and deter-
mination to present herself not as a woman but as an intellectual, an atti-
tude that makes Wen Tingyun immediately alter his behavior toward her.
While Ôgai does hint at Yu Xuanji’s longing for personal as well as intel-
lectual attention from her mentor, he respects her as an independent,
proud, and distinguished poet who would not cross the boundaries of
propriety. As a male mentor for many female writers himself, Ôgai may
have been keener on drawing the line between the professional and the
private. Having been a female disciple, however, Kurahashi portrays
Mariko as aware of her own corporeality; she cannot afford to bracket it,
while at the same time she refuses to be seen only as a body.
Mariko’s unful¤lled wish to fashion herself after Ôgai’s Yu Xuanji
and then develop a physical relationship with her mentor leaves her
confused about her identity, a dif¤culty women writers faced when they
chose to write like men.124 In the cultural milieu of modern Japan, in
which writers, women in particular, were expected to expose their gen-
der identity to public scrutiny, it was dif¤cult to maintain a balance be-
tween “masculinity” in the discourse of their choice and the “properly
feminine” that was entrenched in the public image.125 Mariko’s choice of
 Women and Chinese Literature • 141

“Gyo Genki” as a site for negotiations on this dilemma is multiply pro-

vocative because in Kurahashi’s story, erudition meets confession, the
intellectual meets the physical, the male meets the female, and the Chi-
nese meets the Japanese. The multifarious entanglement shows that
while China is still a powerful factor in the investigation of identity, it
may not demand the intense inquiry it used to; investigation of the other
polarities is obviously much more pressing. Unlike in early modern Ja-
pan, Chinese literature is no longer the canon that commands the atten-
tion of all competent readers. One might say that in negotiating with
Chinese texts, Kurahashi made the “sliding doors” transparent both to
convention-bound fellow women writers in modern Japan and to the
Chinese-illiterate modern male critics, even though she may have shut
them behind herself.

Conclusion
Just as women have not lived entirely on their own, so has their writing
not been independent of discursive and social negotiations with men.
The facts that Murasaki grew up in a highly cosmopolitan ambience,
studied Chinese literature (especially that of a historical and political
nature), and took advantage of the content and form of her reading in
her writing have been brushed aside in favor of inaccurately de¤ning her
work as “indigenously Japanese” and an expression of naturally felt
emotions. The image of Murasaki’s work has thus been distorted to ac-
commodate a certain perception of women’s literature. That Arakida
Reijo—whose strength lies in her ability to plan complex plots, tell co-
herent stories, and incorporate Chinese sources into her texts—has
been largely neglected in the literary history of Japan also suggests that
women’s literature was taken to represent intuition and indigenousness
rather than intellect and information. That Ema Saikô’s literature has
been interpreted by many modern critics only in association with her
marital status rather than in light of her compositional practice demon-
strates that women’s writing was received on the basis of who the
women were rather than on what they did. That in the age of the “New
Women” Mori Ôgai’s portrait of a Chinese female poet still stood out
from other interpretations of her reveals a lack of attention to women’s
intelligence and intellectual equity, as opposed to women’s desires and
frustrations, and it has resulted in caricatures of feminists as mis¤ts.
Kurahashi Yumiko was active in a period when Chinese literature was
142 • Chapter 3

no longer relevant as a gender marker, and thus she rewrote Chinese

texts without drawing such criticisms as “she writes unnaturally, like a
man,” as she did when reworking contemporary European literature.
Yet the engendered literary standard held just as ¤rmly as in preceding
periods, so that Yu Xuanji was still a valid model from which to review
gender relations between male and female artists. It is ironic that these
women’s works tend to be misrepresented, favorably or unfavorably, so
that each of the writers can be seen ¤rst as a woman rather than as a
writer and that a history of women’s literature has been constructed in
Japan that in effect makes us fail to see that gender (and ethnicity) is a
part of cultural identity.
Let me return to the metaphor of “sliding doors.” Sometimes women
were welcomed and other times denied access to a room that was for men
only. Sometimes women of letters were privileged precisely because of
the scarcity of women, and they were rare members in the room. Some-
times women were portrayed as though excluded so that they could be
idolized by those inside the room. Sometimes points of distinction
shifted, and what had mattered before was no longer an issue. Partitions
are moved for reasons other than gender relations, including genre
de¤nitions, language reforms, or the construction of nation-states. To as-
sume that the doors were always on the same spot and locked is to miss
many implications in gender con¤gurations and the Sino-Japanese entan-
glement, which are too often presented as parallel.
 CHAPTER 4

The Transgressive Canon?

Intellectuals on the Margins and the
Fate of the “Universal” Language

Classical language is always a persuasive continuum, it postulates the

possibility of dialogue, it establishes a universe in which men are not
alone, where words never have the terrible weight of things, where
speech is always a meeting with the others. Classical language is a
bringer of euphoria because it is immediately social. There is no genre,
no written work of classicism which does not suppose a collective
consumption, akin to speech; classical literary art is an object which
circulates among several persons brought together on a class basis.
—Roland Barthes

Literary language (as the product of the educational system) will always
mediate between canonical texts (the syllabus of study) and the
production of new literary works; but literary language is neither
necessarily inhibiting nor enabling in relation to new works. The
relation will rather be differently constituted at different times
according to the total complex of institutional forms and social/
linguistic strati¤cation. Hence, while it is simply (but not trivially)
correct to say that literature must be written in the literary language,
with its linguistic and generic constraints, it does not necessarily follow
that the heteroglossic is the wellspring of the new, but rather that it acts
through texts upon the literary language and its genres.
—John Guillory

n chapter 3, we saw how mastery of the Chinese literary canon em-

I powered some of the women of letters in Japan and allowed them

admission on the basis of their merits to the intellectual society of
their times. However, learning and compositional accomplishments did
not qualify the women for positions in the “real world”—the bureaucracy,
business, or in most cases even education.1 The acknowledgment of
women’s literary talent within artistic and literary circles was considered

143
144 • Chapter 4

reward enough. These distinguished women did not become profession-

als in the sense of either earning a living or holding an of¤cial position.2
Cultural merit did not facilitate admission into the polity or economy as
full-¶edged members who could participate in decision making and
take responsibility in legislation and administration.
In modern Japan, the classical canon ceased to empower men as well
as women. The disappearance of men of letters from the centers of bu-
reaucracy and commerce is a marker of modernity. Knowledge of the
Chinese classics and poetry, once a requirement for bureaucrats and
scholars in the state schools, became irrelevant to the attainment of
worldly success.3 Classical elitism, which had entitled the privileged and
educated few to lead in both government and culture, broke down, and
learning was compartmentalized into ¤elds of expertise, to be assumed by
professionals with specialized training. Literature and the arts, no longer
essentials for the elite, became ¤elds of production and consumption in a
capitalist society. In place of literary Chinese, the acquisition of one or
more European languages useful in particular ¤elds of the real world (En-
glish for business, French for law, and German for medicine) became im-
perative and thus compulsory in the educational system.
The effects of this shift were not only domestic. The loss of literary
Chinese affected the ability of the Japanese to correspond with the rest
of East Asia because literary Chinese had long been the lingua franca
among East Asians. (As I mentioned in chapter 2, Ishikawa Jôzan suc-
ceeded in communicating with a Korean envoy by writing in literary
Chinese.) Since the mid-Meiji era, however, an increasing number of
Japanese intellectuals who became pro¤cient in one or more of the Eu-
ropean languages found it dif¤cult to write in kanbun. By the Taishô pe-
riod, the Chinese literary canon had become a mystery even to many
well-educated Japanese.4 In addition to the loss of the “universal lan-
guage,” a lack of familiarity with the modern languages of other East
Asian countries increased the barriers for communication. The “one na-
tion, one language” policy of modern nationalism naturally presents an
obstacle to transnational communication, which was possible among
the elite of a common lingual culture. The only way to overcome the ob-
stacle was to master a European language (English or French), the lan-
guage of an imperialist nation-state. Thus, in lingual terms, nationalism
replaced one civilization (Sinocentric) with another (Anglophone/Fran-
cophone), rather than freeing all from the constraints of literary Chi-
nese, which had symbolized Chinese hegemony.
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 145

It should be stressed, however, that the changes did not occur over-
night. There was a transitional period during which many Japanese re-
mained conversant in the classical Chinese canon while acquiring a
pro¤ciency in European languages and disciplines. Literary Chinese was
effectively employed by early Meiji bureaucrats and educators to denote
their experiences in Europe or in the modern environment, which obvi-
ously had not informed the language until their time. Furthermore, the
Chinese literary canon became a useful medium with which to voice re-
sistance to nationalism: in opposition to the nationalist promotion of a
spoken language, a common written language was celebrated as a path
to transnational networking. The irony of the classical canon becoming
a weapon in the hands of discontented literati has inspired the title of
this chapter. Against the modern, state-endorsed efforts to identify the
“canon” exclusively in the “national language,” the classical Chinese
canon was given a new role.5 In the age of globalization, where we con-
stantly reassess the validity of national boundaries, it is useful to revisit
some of the earlier opposition to nationalist enterprises.
In this chapter, I will ¤rst present an overview of the state of literary
Chinese in Meiji Japan. I will then examine how speci¤c applications of
classical Chinese in the modern genre of prose ¤ction (shôsetsu) facili-
tated communication among intellectuals across national boundaries and
presented an alternative to hegemonic modern ideologies such as imperi-
alism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism. The genre of the novel is a prod-
uct of nationalism, diffused by European imperialism, and it became
almost synonymous with literature in modern Japan. However, we will
closely examine two shôsetsu that resist the compromising effects of the
new de¤nition of literature by liberally incorporating features of premod-
ern literariness, best manifested in the use of literary Chinese. It is inter-
esting to explore how the medium, while invested with nationalism,
imperialism, and ethnocentrism, offers a venue for resisting these mod-
ern ideologies.
We will begin our journey with a political novel started in the late
1880s, Kajin no kigû (Unexpected encounters with beauties; 1885–1892,
incomplete), by Shiba Shirô (1852–1922; studio name: Tôkai Sanshi). In
a style highly imbued with wenyan, it relates the unions and separations
of male and female intellectuals from four modern nation-states. In terms
of its discourse and its mode of production and distribution, Kajin no kigû
captures the last glow of an East Asian intellectual community that shared
the cultural practices of reading, composition, and recitation in literary
146 • Chapter 4

Chinese. The novel also hypothesizes the dissemination of literary Chi-

nese beyond East Asia as a counternarrative to the reality of cultural im-
perialism. Its reception by critics reveals the value contingencies that
worked against literary Chinese in modern Japan.
We will then examine the case of Nakamura Shin’ichirô (1918–
1999), whose biography of Rai San’yô we consulted in chapter 3 and who,
like Mori Ôgai, was well versed in both modern European and classical
Chinese literature. He wrote extensively on Japanese Sinophiles in the
Tokugawa period while generously drawing analogies with European
and Japanese Europhile intellectuals. The imagined hierarchy between
Chinese refugees in Japan and members of their adoptive homes is not
unlike that between male and female intellectuals in that the “superior”
groups own literary Chinese, which they “graciously” share with the
others so as to cultivate them. The implicit aims of enfranchisement are
exposed in Kumo no yukiki (Traf¤c of clouds, 1965–1966), an essay-like
novel by Nakamura on which I will focus below. We will see many faces
of pro-traditionalism in this novel that, unlike the nationalist de¤nition
of the ideology, do not conform to the nostalgic image of the nation’s past.

Kanshibun in the Meiji Period

The end of the so-called “locking up of the ( Japanese) nation” (sakoku)
and a major expansion of diplomatic and trade relations with European
and American nations did not mean that the importance of the Chinese
literary and cultural heritage suddenly began to decline. In fact, after the
1850s more Chinese books were imported than in the eighteenth cen-
tury because the Japanese market was much more widely opened to East
Asia as well as to the West. A larger readership developed for classical
Chinese literature, as well as for vernacular Chinese ¤ction, and Chi-
nese literature became more signi¤cant than ever in Japan’s reading ex-
perience in the early Meiji.6 Moreover, advances in printing techniques
allowed for a radical increase in distribution, and thus many literary and
scholarly works of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had a
larger readership at the end of the nineteenth century than when they
were originally produced.
The tradition of kanshibun was hardly fading in the early Meiji. Societ-
ies of poetic composition, shisha, kept being formed after the Meiji Restora-
tion (1868), and commercial journals—a new mode for the dissemination
of literary works—offered a new venue for kanshi poets, as well as for
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 147

other types of writers. Among the leading ¤gures in kanshibun of the early
Meiji period were Ônuma Chinzan (1818–1891), who was a champion of
Song poetry; Mori Shuntô (1819–1889), a proponent of Qing poetry; and
Yoda Gakkai (1833–1909), an avid reader of vernacular ¤ction (as we
shall see below).7
It was not only the specialists—professional poets and teachers of
Chinese literature—who practiced composition in kanshibun. Many
people whose primary occupations were not in Chinese literature are
known to have kept diaries in kanbun and to have maintained the practice
of kanshi composition. Meiji kanshijin include some bureaucrats—and
prominent ones at that—who were more like literati than technocrats.
Takezoe Seisei (Shin’ichirô; 1842–1917), who had quit his career as a
diplomat assigned to posts in Tianjin and Beijing, traveled into the depths
of Sichuan Province in order to visit literary topoi, a trip that produced
his best known work, San’un kyôu nikki narabini shisô (Clouds around the
bridge, the rain over the valley: A diary and poetry manuscript, 1879).8
The travel journal, accompanied by many poems by Takezoe himself,
pays frequent tribute to such admired poets as Du Fu and Su Shi, who
were from Sichuan, and to precedents in the genre of literary travelogue,
most notably Lu You’s Ru shu ji (A journey into Shu, 1170) and Fan
Chengda’s Wu chuan lu (Diary of a boat trip to Wu, 1177).9 Takezoe’s text
is prefaced by many Chinese and Japanese political and literary lumi-
naries (the author’s associates), including Li Hongzhang (1823–1901), a
statesman who oversaw many crucial changes in military, diplomatic,
and industrial affairs in the late Qing, and Yu Yue, whom we saw in pass-
ing in chapter 3; Yu acknowledges Takezoe’s help in collecting Chinese
verse composed by Japanese poets in the preface to his anthology (Dong-
ying shixuan).10
Suematsu Kenchô (Seihyô; 1855–1920) was formally educated in
England and earned a degree from Cambridge. As a man of letters, he is
probably best known for the ¤rst (though partial) English translation of
Genji monogatari;11 in the preface he promotes what he considered in-
digenous literature of the Heian period.12 Despite his nativistic remarks,
Suematsu was enough of a kanshi poet to edit his own anthology, Seihyô
shû (Collected poems by Seihyô, 1923). His name is also found in the
anthologies of many other writers, as he exchanged poems with them
and composed rhyming poems with theirs.
One of Suematsu’s poetry friends, Nagai Kagen (Kyûichirô; 1852–
1913), was, according to his son, Nagai Kafû (1879–1959), so crazed
148 • Chapter 4

with Chinese poetry that he performed a ritual to pay respect to his favor-
ite poet, Su Shi.13 Originally from the feudal domain of Owari (present-
day Aichi Prefecture), Nagai moved to Tokyo to pursue a bureaucratic ca-
reer in the ministries of education and the interior; he married a daughter
of Washizu Kidô (1825–1882), a distinguished Sinologist in Owari who
had had the opportunity to study at the shogunate school of Shôheikô.
Nagai then quit the bureaucracy to join Nihon Yûsen, a shipping and pas-
senger liner company partly operated by the government that sent him to
Shanghai to head its branch there. Nagai composed kanshi extensively
both in and outside China; these are collected in his anthology,
Raiseikaku shishû (Anthology of poems by Raiseikaku, 1913).14
As is obvious from these examples, which are only the tips of the ice-
berg of the kanshijin community, it was not a contradiction to be a man of
the rapidly changing “real world” and a writer in the time-honored genre
of kanshibun. Rather, these “real” men turned to kanshibun in order to ad-
dress worldly matters.
Whereas the literary contributions of Takezoe, Suematsu, and Nagai
(among others) did not extend much beyond kanshibun and thus did
not garner a readership beyond the longevity of the genre, it should be
noted that Mori Ôgai, the most accomplished Japanese Europhile of his
time, also took kanshibun very seriously. Ôgai, whose versatility is well
demonstrated in the wide range of genres and styles with which he ex-
perimented, composed kanshi and kept diaries in kanbun. Some of them
were written during the time he spent in Germany and thus obviously
engage topics that previously had not been explored in classical Chinese
vocabulary or rhetoric. Kôsei nikki (Diary of a westbound voyage, 1884);
Taimu nikki (Diary during the term of military duties, 1888); and Kantô
nichijô (Diary of returning to the east, 1888) are in kanbun, as is Zai
Toku ki (Account of the stay in Germany, 1884–1888), a nonextant text
that is now thought to be the original version of what we know as Doitsu
nikki (German diary), published in 1899 in bungo.15
Unlike Natsume Sôseki, with whom he is often compared, Ôgai
does not polarize literature between the Chinese and the European. As
we saw in chapter 2, Sôseki was disillusioned by English literature,
which he had previously thought comparable to the Chinese classics,16
and since that time he was antagonistic toward Western civilization in
general, a sentiment Ôgai does not seem to have shared. Instead of hy-
pothesizing an essential dichotomy between the East and the West, Ôgai
took to cosmopolitanism: he translated some Western poems in kanshi;
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 149

he collected these along with his own and others’ translations of poems
from a range of places in the world (naturally including China, repre-
sented here by Gao Qingqiu) in Omokage (Lingering images, 1889).17
Nor did he share Sôseki’s inferiority complex of being a nonnative
speaker of the language he was studying. He triumphantly records, in
kanbun, that his command of German proved to be good enough to
communicate with the Germans: “As I arrived in Cologne, Germany, I
understood German. Thereafter I was cured of deafness and muteness—
how pleasant it was!”18 The mastery of both a modern European lan-
guage and classical Chinese spared him the pitfall of ethnocentrism, a
snare for those whose aspirations for the international currency of their
work were thwarted by the asymmetric values between the languages of
imperialist nations and their own.
The early Meiji reception of Chinese literature was not con¤ned to
classical poetry. One of the best known of Ôgai’s works, Gan (Wild
geese, 1915), offers a glimpse of the addiction of the period’s young in-
tellectuals to kanshi journals and Chinese vernacular ¤ction.19 More-
over, in a plausible episode in Mori Ôgai’s ¤ction, Vita sekusuarisu, a
kanbun teacher—speculatively identi¤ed as Yoda Gakkai, a teacher of
Ôgai’s—is caught red-handed by a student in the act of reading the sex-
ually charged novel Jinpingmei.20 This episode, along with the fact that
students at the dormitory of the Tokyo School of Agriculture were pro-
hibited from reading Chinese vernacular ¤ction, shows the extent of
Meiji intellectuals’ craving for such “obscene” stories and of unof¤cial
recognition thereof.21
Kôda Rohan (1867–1947) articulated the position of Chinese ver-
nacular ¤ction vis-à-vis European literature in modern Japan. Kôda
boasted a high degree of familiarity with genres that had not formed a
part of the canon, such as Yuan drama and vernacular ¤ction, as is evi-
dent in his essay on Yuan drama, “Gen jidai no zatsugeki” (Musical the-
ater in the Yuan dynasty). Rohan also translated such monumental
¤ction as Shuihu zhuan (which Okajima Kanzan had translated and
Takebe Ayatari had parodied) and co-translated Hong lou meng (which
had informed Tanizaki’s “Kôjin”), both for the prestigious Kokuyaku
kanbun taisei series.22
While eager to make Chinese ¤ction accessible to general readers,
Rohan nonetheless evenhandedly evaluated literary genres according to
Chinese standards, which rank prose ¤ction lowest on the ladder. While
he was genre conscious, Rohan was not oblivious to the changing status of
150 • Chapter 4

prose ¤ction in world literature. Though he had not had an opportunity to

formally study Western literature, he compellingly discussed Chinese lit-
erary genres in comparative perspective. In his “Ko-Shina bungaku ni
okeru shôsetsu no chii ni tsuite” (On the status of prose ¤ction in premod-
ern Chinese literature, 1926), Rohan asserts the following:

There is a tendency in European and American countries to consider prose

¤ction the primary form of literature—far from despising the genre, they
even give it prestige. In China, by contrast, the society not only dispenses
with respect for the authors of prose ¤ction, but it also actively disdains them
for doing things inappropriate for literati, even though talented men of
letters occasionally author such works. There is no point in trying to come
up with a logical reason for this, since it is only natural, given the different
manners and customs in different countries. Thus, it would be a ridiculous
mistake, quite out of the question, to assume that Chinese prose ¤ction is
Chinese literature.23

Although Chinese literature had grown “natural” to him, Rohan was

aware that alternative literary judgments could be made according to Eu-
ropean standards. In the above-quoted passage he goes on to caution
against a generalization of literary conventions across lingual and literary
diversity. Without falling into nostalgia or cultural antagonism toward
the “foreign,” he maintains, in concrete and technical terms, that literary
genres are not universal but culturally de¤ned. With his reading experi-
ence, although limited on the European language side, Rohan is able to
differentiate genres and historical stages in Chinese literature and does
not treat everything Chinese as timeless, invariably valuable, and repre-
sentative of the entire tradition of China or literature.
As is obvious from these examples of Europhiles who were also Si-
nophiles, the supposed incompatibility of kanshibun and Westernness is
only an illusion, created by a post-Meiji understanding of Westernness
as an autonomous, homogeneous, and tangible entity distinct from Chi-
neseness or Japaneseness. The essentialist contrast between the modern/
West and the classical/East is theoretically groundless. Nonetheless, the
illusion began to grow as conviction in the autonomy of each nation as a
monolingual community replaced faith in the transnational communal-
ity facilitated by a universal language. The growing suspicion of the in-
commensurability of kanshibun with modernity/Westernness, however
misconceived, coincided with the marginalization of the literati.
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 151

Sharing Kanshibun with “Barbarians”:

Variations on Literary Chinese
Kajin no kigû features four nationalists from different nations who hap-
pen to become friends in Philadelphia, where the author, Shiba Shirô,
lived from 1882 to 1886: a Japanese man, originally a samurai from the
defeated pro-shogunate domain of Aizu (present-day Fukushima Pre-
fecture) who goes by the quasi-Chinese pseudonym of Tôkai Sanshi; an
old Chinese man, Tei Hankyô (Ch. Ding Fanqing); a young Spanish
woman, Yûran; and an Irish woman, Kôren.24 The story evolves around
their partings and meetings through family or national emergencies,
revolutionary activities, arrests, and other trials and tribulations. Owing
to frequent interruptions, a potentially romantic relationship between
Tôkai Sanshi and Yûran is never consummated, even with the efforts of
Kôren, a capable go-between. The threesome seems inspired by the
scholar-beauty romance genre of Chinese ¤ction, caizi jiaren xiaoshuo
( J. saishi kajin shôsetsu).25 The lovers’ devotion to and respect for each
other set a digni¤ed tone. Meanwhile, the fourth nationalist, Hankyô re-
mains romantically uninvolved, as is appropriate for an old sage, a role
typically found in classical Chinese literature. While the story is dis-
tinctly set in the age of nationalism and imperialism and references are
made to events and ¤gures of the period, the characterization nonethe-
less is clearly bound to rhetorical conventions.
Transnational bonding among intellectuals in the age of nationalism
is elusive. Having to ¤ght battles at “home,” they can share only inciden-
tal “encounters” that allow them to give vent to their discontent, with the
Chinese literary canon as a source of discursive energy. The premise of
the characters’ alliance—they are expatriate intellectuals—calls for part-
ings and chance meetings; this status does not allow them to be perma-
nently united as immigrants or refugees, who can establish a common
base for new lives in the United States. This is not a story of settlers in one
nation; it is a story of transnational wanderers.
The con¶ict of wishing to belong to different lands and individuals
and feeling alienated from all of them is captured by Yûran in a poem se-
quence she composes in literary Chinese. Four emotions—homesick-
ness, longing for her father, the hope of seeing Japan, and her attachment
to a Japanese man (Tôkai Sanshi)—are represented in a pastiche of a four-
poem sequence entitled “Sichou shi” (Poems on four sorrows), by Zhang
Heng (78–139), collected in Wenxuan.26 The cultural authenticity of the
152 • Chapter 4

characters’ actions and speech is obviously not an issue here; rhetorical

perfection within the context of traditional East Asian high-cultural prac-
tice is. Insofar as European women are portrayed as major ¤gures who
bond with Japanese and Chinese men of letters, they must conform to the
textual norms epitomized by the composition of kanshi. However unreal-
istic it may be in light of the extratextual social conditions in Europe in
the 1880s for them to be competent in Chinese poetic composition, the
law of the scholar-beauty romance genre demands that they should be, in
order for them to qualify for their roles as kajin (Ch. jiaren)—beauties—
in this text.27
Few critics have failed to point out the consequences of Kajin no
kigû’s style: inaccessibility and the sacri¤ce of realistic effects. Its diction
has long been blamed for its failure to qualify as a piece of “modern Japa-
nese literature.” As Donald Keene observes, “The language is ornate,
dif¤cult, and exceedingly conventional, borrowing heavily from the stereo-
types of Chinese ¤ction. The characters, regardless of their country, are
constantly referring to events in Chinese history, using all the appropri-
ate clichés.”28 It is true that the style is not descriptive but rhetorical,
geared less to the mimetic portrayal of people and things than to an obser-
vance of the laws of shûji (rhetoric) and bibun (elaborate discourse). At
elevated moments, the text adopts the parallel prose in four and six char-
acters (shiroku benrei tai) that was established in the Six Dynasties in such
notable examples as Song Yu’s “Gaotang fu” and Cao Zhi’s “Luoshen fu”
(both of which we saw as inspirations for The Tale of Matsura in chapter
1); Tao Qian’s Taohuayuan-ji (which both Natsume Sôseki and Kurahashi
Yumiko quote); and Zhang Wencheng’s You xian ku (which Arakida Reijo
parodied).29 The text thus obviously does not transcribe “natural” Japa-
nese speech of the 1880s.
Accordingly, the two women are depicted in Chinese rhetorical terms.
The following excerpt describes the way Kôren and Yûran ¤rst appear to
the Japanese male protagonist:

Sanshi would always regret that Americans lacked aesthetic taste and missed
having friends to talk to about blossoms and the moon. However, now that
he had met these ethereal ladies, who sang and played stringed instruments
among blossoms in the late spring, he admired their re¤nement and the aes-
thetic atmosphere about them and was eager to ¶oat on the ripples so as to
convey his feelings to them on the other shore. He thus thought to himself:
Once Wang Zhaojun’s fortunes declined in the boundless desert of the Hun
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 153

and saddened the heart of the Emperor of Han; and when Yang Taizhen
[Guifei] passed away as transiently as a dewdrop in Mawei, the Ming em-
peror dreamt of past romance in the Pavilion of Longevity. Such things hap-
pened for good reason.30

Aesthetic appreciation of the moon and blossoms on appropriate occa-

sions alone seem informed of East Asian literary tradition. More speci-
¤cally, Wang Zhaojun and Yang Guifei are two Chinese literary arche-
types that Japanese literature had long ago adopted.31 The usage of tropes
shared within the Sinocentric East Asian civilization con¤rms the discur-
sive space that the text claims outside the location of the story. The Yang
Guifei association continues: as Kôren ¤rst approaches Sanshi, she
“snaps a twig of the willow” and is compared by Sanshi to “a dewy pear
blossom” or to “a crimson lotus soaked in a green pond.”32 They are all
tropes conventionally used for Yang Guifei.33
The “West,” however, does not remain an empty space to be en-
coded by the literary discourse of East Asia. Yûran and Kôren demon-
strate their knowledge of classical Chinese as opportunities present
themselves. Thus, in a comment by Tôkai, Kôren immediately recog-
nizes a reference to the Shijing, where a man says he has encountered an
attractive lady who meets his standards for a spouse:

There is a beauty
as curvaceous as a fresh willow;
I met her by chance
and she ful¤lled my wishes.34

Kôren’s ability to identify the source and interpret the intent of the quo-
tation is obvious from her prompt response to Sanshi: “I am not your
match; you must mean the other one [Yûran] in the shade.”35 Yûran also
reveals her knowledge of classical Chinese. When Sanshi ¤rst visits Yû-
ran’s residence, he notices framed calligraphy:

The orchid in the distant valley harbors its fragrance for nothing
Year after year it remains chaste and waits for a phoenix to come.36

The couplet, taken from Qu Yuan’s (340–257 BC) Lisao (Encountering

sorrows), is about a virtuous person waiting for the right opportunity; if
interpreted in romantic terms, it is about a reserved woman waiting to
154 • Chapter 4

meet the right man to marry. The upper column commentary of Kajin no
kigû con¤rms the effect of the quotation—“The phoenix indeed arrived
just at that moment”37—suggesting that Yûran’s wait is over when she
meets Sanshi and that a romance between the two is set to begin. Yûran
seems to be able not only to appreciate the Chinese art of calligraphy,
but also to understand the Chinese origin of her name represented in
the ¤rst line.
The way that the Spanish and Irish women’s names are transcribed
is an instance of entanglement. They are each represented by two Chi-
nese characters that each stand for a concept: Yûran ᐝ⯗, as we noted, is
an idiom in Chinese meaning “an orchid in a deep valley,” or, more meta-
phorically, “a virtuous and reserved woman”; Kôren ⚃⬒, literally mean-
ing “crimson lotus,” is a Chinese Buddhist term for one of the eight
infernos where one’s skin cracks from excessive cold, and by extension
it is also a metaphor for a ¶ame. Indeed, the meanings of the two names
correspond to the two women’s personalities: Yûran speaks less and
seems the more introspective of the two; Kôren is the more vocal and
lively of the two. As a result of their political activities, Yûran is impris-
oned and helpless, and Kôren comes to her rescue with a witty plot to
seduce the head guard. Yûran is believed to have died in a shipwreck,
and Kôren brings Sanshi the news that she is alive. Thus, these names
need to be interpreted in light of the East Asian traditional lexicon in
order that their bearing to the plot of the novel becomes clear.
Whereas the naming of the two characters ostensibly showcases the
versatility of the classical Chinese vocabulary, it in fact suggests a
speci¤cally Japanese engagement with the East Asian tradition, which is
the focus of this chapter. The two names sound recognizably European
only when they are pronounced in Japanese. In their Japanese readings
Yûran and Kôren are identi¤able with “Jolanda” and “Colleen” respec-
tively. The latter in Chinese reads “Honglian,” which could not stand
for “Colleen” or any other readily recognizable European female name.
Thus, the Chinese characters, connoted in the classical Chinese literary
tradition, are able to stand for European names only via the Japanese
sound. In other words, it is not exactly literary Chinese that manages
the discourse here: it is kanshibun.
The Japanese mediation of Chinese is obvious in the style of the entire
text. It employs kanbun kundoku (yomikudashi)-tai, or a Japanese reading
of literary Chinese. When characters in the novel quote or compose
poems, these are accompanied by kunten (signs to direct the reader to the
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 155

next character according to the word order of Japanese rather than Chi-
nese syntax) and furigana (a Japanese reading supplied to Chinese letters).
Another entanglement is evident as the four nationalists get together
to compose Chinese verse. The scene purportedly shows the universal
canonicity of Chinese poetry. The Spanish and Irish women begin to
compose gushi (old poem)-style pieces in classical Chinese. They prove
to be faster and better in improvisational composition than their East
Asian male counterparts, demonstrating a remarkable mastery of the
practice.38 This should put the two East Asian males to shame, as they are
supposed to embody the essence of their own culture. The two take it in
stride, however. The scene suggests that the author understood poetic
composition as a cultural practice rather than the natural manifestation of
an essence, and thus it was not gender- or race-speci¤c.
What is unique in this case is the fact that European women write clas-
sical Chinese poetry. It would have been not only extraordinary but impos-
sible for European women of the 1880s (and at the tender age of the early
twenties) to do what Yûran and Kôren were doing. In our context of re-
con¤guration of cultural relationships, this hypothetical distribution of the
cultural capital of China beyond East Asia could mean either a European
fetishization/colonization of the Chinese canon or the East Asian “enfran-
chisement” (in Stephen Greenblatt’s terminology) of the “barbarians.”39
Indeed, the blunt intent of educating the perceived barbarians could be
concealed by engendering the subject as female: encountering “beauties,”
rather than male barbarians—the real threats in the real world—Sanshi
and Hankyô can afford to sit back and praise the Western women’s accom-
plishments while taking for granted the hegemony of their own culture.
Whichever the interpretation, the illusion of transnationalism holds
only in written form. A transcription alone can tactfully conceal the poten-
tially disruptive effects of European women composing in Chinese and re-
citing their verse in, presumably, Japanese, because the text silences the
voice. Instead of hearing the women’s engendered and ethnicized voice,
we read what they “say” in kanbun kundoku, separate from their bodies, a
seemingly neutral and authenticated exclusive version that claims immor-
tality. Reservations, conditions, or modi¤cations that would have been
noted if the performance were “real” are suppressed in the text as we are
immersed in the illusion of the universality of literary Chinese. The writ-
ten language thus acquires transnational currency within the text, while
orality, an element crucial to the phonocentricism in the European lan-
guages, is suffocated.
156 • Chapter 4

A similar and yet distinctly different entanglement of European and

Chinese languages is evident as Yûran and Kôren sing La Marseillaise in
Chinese. In place of the original French lyrics, the narrator provides the
Chinese translation by Wang Ziquan (Tao; 1828–1897), which is in-
dented to be distinct from the body of the main text.40 Sanshi and Han-
kyô are clearly swept away with the concepts of liberty, equality, and
fraternity, separated though they are from the French historical context.
At other points in the text, they are blatantly critical of French imperial-
ism, so they are not Francophiles by default. The de-ethnicization of the
French national anthem is made possible by using a translation in an-
other language, the one that for the two East Asian intellectuals is the
only “universal” language.

The Literary Versus the Literal: Literature’s Missions

While the characters of Kajin no kigû rely upon kanshi as a medium of
communication, some critics were troubled by the predominance of kan-
shibun in the novel because the discourse embodied “antimodernity” for
them: the premodern and Sino-Japanese form appeared historically and
culturally inadequate for representing a modern and Western content. As
Morita Shiken (1861–1897) argued in an essay entitled “Nihon bunshô
no shôrai” (The future of Japanese writing, 1888), “Chinese rhetorical
expressions should be expelled from modern Japanese discourse as the
Japanese begin to think in a more complex manner.”41
Many claimed, however, that there were good reasons for the choice
of this particular style. The style effectively defended the cause of litera-
ture, in which premodern Japanese writers and readers had faith. A literary
critic, Etô Jun, and two literary historians, Ochi Haruo and Seki Ryôichi,
have looked into the literary past and situate Kajin no kigû in the geneal-
ogy of a kind of literature that was distinct from European literature as was
understood by Meiji Japan. Etô offers a class-based reevaluation of the
rhetorical language that some seiji shôsetsu (political novels) used. He
contrasts novels descending from gesaku (comical works) and those writ-
ten by bunjin (literati) and identi¤es venues of publication for each. There
are two types of newspapers: ô shinbun (major papers), in which seiji
shôsetsu, stylistically more or less con¤ned to kanbun or bungo, were serial-
ized; and ko shinbun (minor papers), in which the remnants of gesaku were
serialized.42 They have distinct styles suited to distinct audiences. Al-
though Kajin no kigû was never serialized in a newspaper, the contrast Etô
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 157

draws seems to apply to its position vis-à-vis the more popular styles of
¤ction. Shiba Shirô was not a professional writer but a literatus. Thus he
chose artistic perfection, which readers of his class could appreciate, over
descriptive precision, which would appeal to less sophisticated readers.
Ochi Haruo and Seki Ryôichi also note, in somewhat different ways,
differences in the de¤nitions of literature, though Tôkai Sanshi himself
did not explicitly theorize about literature. The samurai in the
Tokugawa era and the ex-samurai in the Meiji era took bungaku (litera-
ture) to mean learning in the discourse of kanshibun. (One exception,
Tsubouchi Shôyô [1859–1935], though an ex-samurai himself, repre-
sented gesaku authors rather than the literati in Shôsetsu shinzui [The es-
sence of the novel, 1885]). As Seki discusses, the term bungaku or
wenxue meant studies of the Shisho (Ch. Sishu; Four books) and Gokyô
(Ch. Wujing; Five classics), as opposed to a mastery of the martial arts:

Chinese learning and kanbun had obviously been validated since the impor-
tation of Chinese thought and literature, especially Confucianism. However,
this tendency was most predominant in the Tokugawa era. . . . What we call
“literature” now consists of poetry, ¤ction, and theater. In light of the nega-
tive view that Confucianism held of ¤ction and theater, it was thought that
haishi, shôsetsu, jôruri, and kabuki should not be dealt with by respectful lite-
rati. Such an idea was also inherited by the modern era. In this light, the his-
tory of modern Japanese literature can be described as the history of a
movement to upset and change this view of “literature,” and to give “civil
rights” to ¤ction and theater. . . .
This is not to say, however, that the tradition of Confucian learning was
irrelevant to modern “literature,” nor does it mean that the tradition had only
negative effects on it. Furthermore, it does not necessarily mean that the
Confucian view of “literature” was incorrect. . . . The samurai in the Toku-
gawa era and the ex-samurai in the modern era believed in Cao Pi’s saying,
“Literary works are the supreme achievement in the business of state,” in
Dianlun [Authoritative discourses], and tried to discuss all kinds of things lit-
erary. In their mind always lay such a view of writing, or “literature.”43

Many authors of seiji shôsetsu were originally samurai and later became
members of parliament. For samurai-turned-statesmen, it was only nat-
ural to write of political affairs in the highly rhetoricized style of kanbun,
which had been meant to discuss a variety of issues involving individu-
als and the government.
158 • Chapter 4

Literature as a manifesto becomes more evident in later chapters of

Kajin no kigû, in which Tôkai Sanshi relates the histories of several na-
tions. An “enlightened” aspect of Tôkai Sanshi’s views lies in his under-
standing of power relations in the world and his refutation of the
hierarchy often hypothesized between “civilized” or hegemonic nations
(Britain, France, and Russia) and the “undercivilized” (nations whose in-
dependence was threatened if not terminated by the imperialist nations).
Kajin no kigû generously references historical incidents in the latter coun-
tries: Poland, Turkey, Egypt, and Korea, countries Shiba Shirô had the
opportunity to visit as a government of¤cial and a member of parliament.
Matsui Sachiko compares volumes 11–16 of the novel, in which Tôkai
Sanshi visits these countries, and the diary of Tani Tateki (1837–1911),
then minister of agriculture and commerce and head of an entourage in
which Shiba Shirô took part, and she points out a signi¤cant discrepancy
between the two texts: while Tani minutely describes events in Vienna,
Florence, Paris, and London (in which the party stayed for longer periods
than elsewhere), Shiba Shirô hardly says anything about these cities and
instead concentrates on meetings with political leaders in Egypt, Hun-
gary, Poland, and Turkey (whom he met in reality).44
Shiba’s explicit sympathy toward challenged nations is usually attrib-
uted to the fact that Tôkai Sanshi (as well as the author himself) is from
Aizu, one of the feudal domains that was steadfastly in favor of the sho-
gunate and against the imperial court in the civil war (1868–1869). Thus
he is opposed to the foreign policies of the Meiji government, as Shiba
was in an earlier stage of his career.45 In passages censored from the origi-
nal manuscript, Tôkai Sanshi liberally criticizes Satsuma (present-day
Kagoshima Prefecture) and Chôshû (Yamaguchi Prefecture), the two feu-
dal domains behind the Meiji Restoration, for defeating and exploiting
Aizu, and he blames the United Kingdom for the Opium War. Tôkai San-
shi is more preoccupied with af¤nities between Japan and the nonhege-
monic nations than with the much emphasized differences between the
West and the East (or Japan, to be speci¤c). With his awareness of the
complexity of the world, he does not advocate a Japanese uniqueness, nor
does he simplify the foreign (gaikoku) as one distinct entity. Donald
Keene suggests the following:

The Wanderer of the Eastern Seas is so proud of being a Japanese that he is

moved to copious tears when he hears praise of his country, but there is no
suggestion that he ¤nds the Irish, Spanish, Chinese, or Hungarian people he
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 159

encounters alien from himself, nor does the wanderer suppose, as many Japa-
nese still suppose, that foreigners, by de¤nition, are incapable of understand-
ing the griefs of a Japanese. For all its childishness, this novel (like Inspiring
Instances of Statesmanship) is deeply appealing in its idealism, especially its
faith in the emergence of Japan as a strong, compassionate, and democratic
country.46

Similarly highlighting the cosmopolitan solidarity found in Kajin no

kigû, Maeda Ai calls our attention to different views of Ireland presented
by Tôkai Sanshi and Katô Hiroyuki (1836–1916), an enlightenment
thinker; in so doing, he puts Sanshi in a positive light because he resists
the hegemony of imperialist nations:

Tôkai Sanshi’s Kajin no kigû is a book of accusation, on the largest scale, of

the Darwinist progressive views of civilization that had captivated “enlight-
enment” thinkers, ranging from Fukuzawa Yukichi to Katô Hiroyuki. Sanshi
has political refugees from Spain, Ireland, Hungary and other countries nar-
rate the tragic histories of their nations, deprived of independence, and com-
piles a long list of crimes that European hegemonic nations forcibly
committed in the name of civilization....
Contemporary readers must have naturally sensed another history, con-
trasting with that seen from the progressive perspective. While in classrooms
they studied Parley’s [i.e., Samuel G. Goodrich’s] and [William] Swinton’s
History of Nations, which echoes [François] Guizot and [Henry Thomas]
Buckle’s history of civilization, Kajin no kigû demonstrated for the readers
another possible version of world history, narrated from the viewpoint of the
non-European world.47

While Maeda and others do not overlook the imperialist orientation that
becomes increasingly evident toward the end of Kajin no kigû, the novel
nonetheless presents a radically different vision of world history from the
“of¤cial” versions taught in early Meiji educational institutions and thus
suggests other paths that could have been taken by modern Japan.
We could cite Tsubouchi Shôyô’s Shôsetsu shinzui as the primary
standard by which critics came to consider Kajin no kigû’s ideological
content and traditional rhetoric inappropriate for modern literature.
Kajin no kigû in effect con¶icts directly with the genre, style, and themes
recommended by Shôyô, who advocates shôsetsu over other genres; ga-
zoku setchû-tai or kusazôshi-tai over other styles; ninjô (human emotions)
160 • Chapter 4

and setai (customs and manners of society) over other themes; and the
mode of shasei (mimetic representation) over that of shûji (rhetorical
control over characters, incidents, and settings).
I must hasten to add that Shôyô could not have seen Kajin no kigû be-
fore the publication of Shôsetsu shinzui; the ¤rst book (consisting of the
¤rst two volumes) of Tôkai Sanshi’s novel came out in the same year as
Shôsetsu shinzui. Nevertheless, the contrasting values of the two authors
led to a later and oft-repeated practice of reading Kajin no kigû against
Shôyô’s work. Asukai Masamichi stresses the contrast between Shôyô’s
and Tôkai Sanshi’s views of literature, quoting from an essay by Shôyô,
“Shôsetsu o ronjite Shosei katagi no shui ni oyobu” (On the novel, with
references to the main thesis of Shosei katagi; published in August 1885,
after the completion of Shôsetsu shinzui), in which Shôyô comments that
“it is wrong to hold political allegories as the main theme of the shôsetsu,”
Asukai maintains that Shôyô was witnessing a decline in the civil rights
movement and took advantage of it in order to promote his thesis of liter-
ature for the sake of literature. Shiba’s statement in the preface to volume
5 (in the third book of Kajin no kigû, published in 1886), sounds like a
counter response to Shôyô: “The novelist’s goal is not to play with exquis-
ite devices or to describe customs and human emotions; it is to demon-
strate opinions and disciplines and to in¶uence people with ease—in
other words, the goal lies outside the text.”48 Though without an explicit
mention of Shôyô, this manifesto should be understood in the context of
Shôyô’s position that literature was independent of ideology.
Notwithstanding the lack of any further exchange of opinions be-
tween Shôyô and Shiba, later receptions of Shiba’s novel are informed by
Shôyô’s argument. As readers grew increasingly accustomed to the psy-
chological novel—a genre developed under the aegis of individualism—
they came to ¤nd the conspicuous dogmatic orientation and stereotyped
characterizations in Kajin no kigû outdated and unsatisfying.49 Tokutomi
Sohô (1863–1957) was among the ¤rst of these critical readers. As early as
1887, in “Kinrai ryûkô no seiji shôsetsu o hyôsu” (A criticism of the politi-
cal novels recently in vogue), he criticized seiji shôsetsu for their lack of
“literary qualities”; poorly structured plots; and ¶at, stereotypical charac-
terization.50 While Sohô’s criticisms were addressed toward the genre as a
whole, Kajin no kigû must have been on his mind to some extent, given the
enthusiastic reception of the novel throughout the country at that time. In
further negative reviews along these lines, the “Kanmatsu kaidai” (Appen-
dix to the volume: A guide to readers) in the 1931 Kaizôsha version of
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 161

Kajin no kigû, written by Kimura Ki, noted that characters in the novel
were nothing but puppets of concepts and lacked individual characteris-
tics.51 Similarly, Donald Keene’s view was that this work “possesses little
novelistic merit. At times the plot can hardly be followed because of the di-
gressions and interpolations, and no attempt is made to create believable
characters or to describe scenes convincingly.”52
It is worth taking into account the critical criteria that the novel’s
contemporary audience applied to the work. What it considered to be
literature—or bungaku—in terms of suitable themes and authorial in-
tent was radically different from the standards held by Sohô in the
1880s, Kimura in the 1930s, or Keene in the 1980s outside of Japan. The
difference between the reception of the work in the mid-Meiji and in
later periods compels us to historicize our notion of literature or literari-
ness. The de¤nition of literature was much broader in early modern
Japan than after the late Meiji, and the Japanese language encompassed
dimensions other than the genbun itchi style, the ostensibly speech-
oriented discourse that was privileged as modern and authentically
native/national. Kôda Rohan de¤nes kanbun as an aesthetically and in-
tellectually engaging discourse for the early Meiji literati.53 As Asukai
Masamichi notes, Shiba Shirô had no other choice for his work than
kanbun, “the only style for the expression of thought”; the choice was
“most effective for communication,” as “kanbun was meant for ideologi-
cal issues.”54 Indeed, kanbun might have been best suited to describe
Western thought and affairs during the 1880s—more articulate than
wabun, more formal than gesaku buntai, and more intelligible than the
early stages of the genbun itchi style.55 Many readers were well at ease
reading about a variety of contemporary issues in kanbun.56

Sound and/or/of Silence: Orality, Modern and Premodern

While today’s readers might ¤nd the kanji-¤lled text of Kajin no kigû visu-
ally intimidating and suited exclusively to a semantic and silent reading,
it would be a mistake to assume that readers in the 1880s shared this im-
pression; indeed they took to reciting the text. As George Sansom notes,

Its literary merit is negligible, but it is of value as evidence of the way in which
patriotic Japanese minds were working after some twenty years of interna-
tional intercourse. It is said that there was not a remote mountain village in
Japan in which some young man had not a copy in his pocket, and the Chinese
162 • Chapter 4

verses that so freely stud its pages were recited everywhere with great relish.
Even its congested prose seems to have been imitated by younger writers, but
no doubt its political complexion was what gave it most of its success.57

It is not clear where Sansom obtained the above information, but young
students’ passion for reciting Kajin no kigû is noted in Tokutomi Roka’s
(1868–1927) novel, Kuroi me to chairo no me (Dark eyes and hazel eyes,
1914).58
While oral literature may often be regarded as “lowbrow,” this was
not always the case. Tokugawa and Meiji literati used to begin their edu-
cation with the memorization and recitation of the classics at the ages of
four or ¤ve—that is, before they were even able to understand what a
text meant. Chinese literary discourse was thus primarily orally ac-
quired and then textually interpreted. Even after aspiring literati passed
this secondary stage, they would practice shigin, or the recitation of
poems, either solo or in a group. Such recitations functioned to reaf¤rm
solidarity within a group, college, or prep school and were speci¤c to
oral readings, or ondoku, and not silent readings (mokudoku). While com-
moners took pleasure in reciting famous passages from jôruri, and some
samurai or ex-samurai often followed in their footsteps in doing so, the
latter also—and more publicly, proudly, and perhaps pedantically—were
accustomed to orally performing kanshibun, which might appear to us,
who have lost the practice of sodoku or shigin, the least oral and most
heavily literate.59
Given that the Chinese classics and poetry were not recited in the
original pronunciation, however, the effects of recitation became ambig-
uous, as we observed above in the instances of recitation in Kajin no kigû.
While ostensibly con¤rming and celebrating the universal canonicity of
these texts, recitation in the kanbun kundoku style—a twofold structure of
oralizing written and read discourse—inserted a layer of domestication
that was naturalized and thus was invisible or negligible to the Japanese
intellectuals. What they saw/decided to see as universal—the classical
Chinese canon—was in fact already de-ethnicized, deprived of the sound
of the native tongue, and re-ethnicized, given the sound of the Japanese
poetic language. To ¶ip the coin just one more time, however, the “fa-
cade” of transnationalism, supported by the obviously Japan-speci¤c
method of reading, may not be as illusory as it seems. It may well be a Eu-
ropean phonocentric idea to de¤ne as inauthentic an oral performance of
a text in any other language than the original native tongue. Reciting the
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 163

Chinese literary canon in Japanese may not be an act of domestication but

a movement toward transnational ¶uidity.

Literary Text as Intellectual Property

Given the propensity for intellectuals to bond, transcending the bound-
aries of nationality, gender, and age, it seems appropriate that Shiba Shirô
is reported to have considered translating Kajin no kigû into Chinese. Al-
though his own translation did not materialize, a Chinese translation did
come out as Jiaren qiyu, by Liang Qichao (1873–1929), a distinguished
politician and literatus. In light of the heavily Chinese-imbued style of the
original, Donald Keene muses, “It could not have been very dif¤cult for
the distinguished scholar Liang Ch’i-ch’ao to make the Chinese transla-
tion of this work!”60 Liang’s translation became not only a best-selling
novel in China, but also a subject of scholarly investigation in studies of
modern Chinese literature.61 According to C. T. Hsia (among others),
Liang came across the original novel in 1898, a year after the publication
of its last part, as he was headed to Japan as a political refugee. He was so
impressed with it that he immediately began to translate it. Jiaren qiyu
was serialized in Qingyi bao, starting in December 1898, in thirty-¤ve seg-
ments. Hsia casts some doubt on the accuracy of Liang’s translation:
“Since he did not seriously study the language until after his arrival in Ja-
pan, one may well wonder if he knew enough Japanese at the time to
translate the work even though its style was highly Sinicized.”62 The
question of accuracy aside, it is undeniable that Liang edited the original
extensively, probably for political considerations. Hsü traces the process
by which Liang departed from the original in order to erase the anti-
Manchurian/pro-Han (mieman xinghan) statements made by Ding Fan-
qing, the Chinese nationalist character; he did so upon the suggestion of
his mentor, Kang Youwei (1858–1927), a scholar and political leader.
Most surprisingly, in the ¤nal version (included in Liang Qichao’s col-
lected works) the Chinese character has been completely eliminated,
leaving the Japanese man with two “beauties” and making the content os-
tensibly irrelevant to China.63
While the degree of liberty that Liang took does not seem to have
provoked any objections from the Japanese author, a variation of Kajin
no kigû in Japanese became the basis for a lawsuit—a modern medium
to which allegedly plagiarized authors could resort in order to reclaim
possession of their “own” texts. The book in question, Tsûzoku Kajin no
164 • Chapter 4

kigû, was written under the pseudonym of Daitô Hyôshi and was pub-
lished in 1887 in two volumes.64 The copyright page mentions as the
book’s author a Tsuchida Taizô, a little known commoner (heimin) from
Tokyo. The work is generally attributed to Hattori Seiichi (Bushô;
1842?–1908), whose name appears as the contributor of the preface to
the second volume. Hattori was the defendant, held accountable for the
legal liabilities created by the publication of the text.
The story by Hattori reveals unmistakable resemblances to Kajin no
kigû, but also has drastic alterations. It is set in no place other than Penn-
sylvania, where a Japanese man called Daitô Hyôshi meets Irish (Maria),
Spanish (Alice), and Persian (Sarais) women and subsequently befriends
an African American man (Port) and a Chinese man (Ruan Yiquan), both
servants for the three women, who live under the same roof. Interspersed
with the romance between the Japanese man and the Irish woman are po-
litical references, which are at times more detailed and informative than
in Shiba Shirô’s version. Battles in the U.S. War of Independence, con-
¶icts between Russia and Persia in Central Asia, and the British invasion
of Sudan are not to be found in the original and thus must come from Hat-
tori’s own sources.65
More signi¤cant than the alterations to the plot is the choice of a dis-
tinctly different style and format. We might recall from chapter 2 that the
term tsûzoku in a title was used to suggest the popularization of the style.
Hattori’s language is indeed much more accessible than that of the original:
the text is written not in kanbun kundoku, but in gabun, or quasi-classical
Japanese, transcribed in kanji and hiragana, rather than in katakana. Char-
acters often compose poems, but their work is either in bungo or its vul-
garized version, reminiscent of zokuyô, or the popular songs of early
modern Japan. Commentaries are added in the upper column of a page, as
in the ¤rst edition of the original, but the language employed is not kan-
bun in Chinese characters with kundoku signs (as in the original) but
kanbun yomikudashi. In other words, both the main text and the commen-
taries are written in styles that are slightly more accessible for a mass au-
dience. Hattori claims to have written his version so that ordinary people
without kanbun learning could read the text—a point well made in light
of the civil rights movement that was then at its peak.66 The inclusion of a
mass audience was also crucial to a modern literary author’s professional
survival in modern capitalist society. While Shiba wrote the original Kajin
no kigû primarily, if not exclusively, for the people of his class, Hattori
was aiming at the emergent mass audience.
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 165

These differences between the two texts notwithstanding, similarities

were obvious enough to convince Shiba Shirô and the Hakubundô pub-
lishing house to ¤le a lawsuit in 1889 against Hattori and his publisher,
Shiotani Yoshibei of Dômei shobô. After three trials, Hattori and Shiotani
were found guilty of copyright violation. Thus, the modern concept of the
author as the owner of a text was applied and con¤rmed.67 As Mark Rose
states, “Copyright is founded on the concept of the unique individual
who creates something original and is entitled to reap a pro¤t from those
labors,” a concept that is in fact “a speci¤cally modern institution, the
creature of the printing press, the individualization of authorship . . . and
the development of the advanced marketplace society.”68 Kajin no kigû as
printed and marketed was judged to be original enough that Tsûzoku
Kajin no kigû constituted a legal infringement on its copyright.
Two essential aspects of Kajin no kigû were ignored in the process
of this legal dispute. First, the “original” text negotiated with even older
sources; second, the text was collaboratively written: poems were commis-
sioned, the manuscript was edited, and commentaries were added by read-
ers who saw versions of the manuscript before it came out in print. Since
erudition was indispensable in the type of literary composition practiced
among men of letters in premodern Japan, resonance with other texts was
essential if a text were to qualify as “literary” at all. Literary discourse was
“literary” precisely because of the prominence of quotation from the clas-
sics. This practice contradicts the modern de¤nition of literary texts as
original products of individual authors, an understanding that is necessary
for the protection of an author’s ownership of intellectual property, a legal
category under which literary texts came to be recognized.
Not only the style, but also the format of the printed text of Kajin no
kigû re¶ected the communality that prevailed in East Asian texts in pre-
Meiji periods. The original Hakubundô edition is multifaceted: the six-
teen volumes, published in eight books, are accompanied by prefaces by
prominent men with whom the author was associated in real life (for ex-
ample, Tani Tateki). Often colophons were added by the author himself
or his associates, such as the Korean political activist Kim Ok-kyun
(1851–1894), who appears as himself in the last volume. Very obvious
contributions to the author’s text are in the upper column of each page,
where readers’ commentaries and responses appear—usually positive
evaluations of the masterful narration—a feature that, unlike prefaces
and postscripts, has somehow escaped the attention of critics.69 The text
thus incorporates reader responses and the author’s re¶ections thereon.
166 • Chapter 4

Such a communal production of texts was common among men of let-

ters in premodern Japan. These premodern multivalent features, how-
ever, were signi¤cantly compromised in the 1931 edition and were
completely erased from the 1965 edition. Instead, the text came to rep-
resent the linear ¶ow of the story and to demonstrate a single narrative
authority at the cost of the other voices from the exterior.
Kajin no kigû is a collaborative effort beyond the sense of communal
composition. Shiba Shirô, while from the samurai class, was apparently
not pro¤cient enough in literary discourse to complete the manuscript
on his own and required help from more competent kanshi or kanbun
writers. In the author’s preface to the main text, Shiba (signing himself
as “Tôkai Sanshi” there) defensively states that he is “not a specialist in
classical poetry or prose” and that his work thus “cannot be without
¶aws.” The preface also shows that the author was fully aware of a range
of hypothetical responses to his draft:

Upon my completion of this piece, a Confucian scholar commented that its

style tends to be that of lowbrow ¤ction (gesaku shôsetsu) and that the work
also could introduce the noncommendable Western trend of humiliating men
and respecting women, which may make women haughty and base. A story-
teller (haishi-ka) criticized it saying that the reader could grow bored at a
glance since there are few erotic passages or romantic emotions and no talk of
pleasure quarters or the popular theater, only angst and sorrow [over the na-
tion’s fortunes] from beginning to end. A man made of steel regrets that there
were not more parallel clauses and that high literary words were not consis-
tently selected, suggesting that it would be perfect if more parallel clauses were
used and the style were more polished. A recluse, however, has the following
to say: because of the meaningless persistence upon old-style prose [kobun;
Ch. guwen] from the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties, [evident in the] parallel
clauses and high literary expressions, the work, though ¤guratively elegant,
lacks the spirit that is appreciated by the Western masters—besides, it imitates
only the worst of Eastern and Western ¤ction. Another of ¶amboyant tastes re-
futes this, saying that [this author] stands out from the rest of the ¤ction writ-
ers because he has invented a new design, without drawing upon Eastern
thought or borrowing from Western structure, with no talk of spirits or de-
mons, responding to current affairs and registering real incidents, all of which
results in a ¶uid style and lofty spirit—every character is a gem. Another man,
without reading more than a few lines, closes the book and says that this is an-
other returnee student’s thesis on freedom, not worth a look.70
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 167

Takahashi Taika (1863–?), among others, is often thought to have con-

siderably revised the prose, while Nishimura Tenshû (1865–1924) is
thought to have authored poems embedded in the text.71
The collaborative nature of the production process, however, was to
an extent neutralized when Shiba’s manuscript was published by Haku-
bundô. Although the edition faithfully reproduced the prefaces and post-
scripts written by individuals other than Shiba Shirô, under their own
names, the copyright page bears only Shiba Shirô’s name (and emphati-
cally not the literary pseudonym of Tôkai Sanshi), with the domain and
class of origin speci¤cally mentioned as chosakusha ken shuppannin (au-
thor as well as copyright holder) and, for Hakubundô’s Harada Shôzae-
mon, as seihon ken hatsubainin (publisher as well as distributor). The text
in print thus was de¤ned as belonging neither to the man of letters, who
could go by the studio name of his choice, nor to his circle of friends, who
had participated in the discursive formation and transformation of the
text, but to the modern citizen, identi¤ed in bureaucratic terms, and his
business partner, who was responsible for the production and circulation
of the printed copies. The copyright page also speci¤ed the date on which
the copyright was acknowledged by Naimu Shô (the Ministry of Internal
Affairs)—the mark of a modern legal system, which protects the owner-
ship of cultural capital and recognizes that a text, when in print, should
belong to its legally certi¤ed author.
Kajin no kigû bears the marks of both modern and premodern liter-
ariness at the same time and thus is in its own right a watershed in the
history of Japanese literature. Whereas its content celebrates the trans-
national communion of intellectuals (facilitated by the use of classical
Chinese) and its format takes full advantage of the multivalent mode of
writing (prefaces, colophons, and peer commentaries), substantive
changes in its publication history deny the communality of literature by
identifying and legally protecting the autonomy of the text. While the
text suggests the productive use of the classical Chinese canon, its pub-
lication effectively put an end to the cultural environment in which the
heritage of the Chinese literati culture prospered.

“The Garden in the Air”: Hybrids and Exiles in

Nakamura Shin’ichirô’s Kumo no yukiki
Nakamura Shin’ichirô exhibited a wide range of interests. He is probably
best known for his essays on French literature, the subject he studied at
168 • Chapter 4

the University of Tokyo, and for French-inspired psychological novels

that deal with romantic relationships among Japanese intellectuals. He
also wrote extensively on classical Japanese literature, analyzing the psy-
chological dimensions of courtly romantic tales such as Genji mono-
gatari.72 His interest in kanshibun is no ¶eeting matter. He followed up his
voluminous biographical study, Rai San’yô to sono jidai, with two more
equally sizable biographies: Kakizaki Hakyô no shôgai (The life and death
of Kakizaki Hakyô [1764–1826]) and Kimura Kenkadô no saron (The
salon of Kimura Kenkadô [1736–1802]; manuscript completed in 1997,
serialized in 1995–1998, and published posthumously as a book with the
remaining draft in 2000). Nakamura also wrote Shijin no niwa (The poets’
gardens), a collection of essays on Tokugawa kanshi poets.
Nakamura thus belongs to the literary class of “tripod writers.” That
is, his work extends into three conventionally demarcated areas in Japan:
wa ( Japanese), yô (Western), and chû (Chinese) literature. One of his
mentors was Hori Tatsuo (1904–1953), another Europhile who also ex-
tended into the different areas.73 Hori’s literary debut was supported by
Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, whose Sinophilic stories are well known.74 As is
more often the case, however, such writers’ references to texts in Chinese
are discussed more as formative of their careers rather than as re¶ective of
a recon¤guration of the Sino-Japanese relationship. Nakamura’s musings
on the entanglement of the Japanese subject with Chinese and French lit-
erary ¤gures remain and deserve to be explored.
In the following excerpt from a novel by Nakamura Shin’ichirô,
Kûchû teien (The garden in the air, 1965), Uomi Shûtarô, the protagonist,
encapsulates the author’s view of Japan’s complex cultural position, for
which the title of the novel serves as a metaphor:

They [Tokugawa kanshi poets] composed poems in classical Chinese. Many

of them did not even know the correct pronunciation in the classical lan-
guage. Their audience was also limited to the Japanese. Literature that repre-
sented their time was not written in their own language, even though the
Japanese wrote for themselves. Yet their work was not all trash: Kan Sazan
[1748–1827], Rai Kyôhei [1756–1834], Ichikawa Kansai [1749–1820],
Kashiwagi Jotei [1763–1819], Fujii Chikugai [1807–1866], Ôkubo Shibutsu
[1767–1837], Tachi Ryûwan [1762–1844], Yanagawa Seigan [1789–1858],
Kusaba Haisen [1788–1867], etc. . . .
The role that the Japanese assumed in world civilization was not to create,
but to adopt and apply. Thus, Japanese literature and art do not encompass the
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 169

grandiose universe. When it comes to reception, the Japanese also appreciate

minor artists and authors. As the German idealist theory of the 1910s arrived
in Taishô Japan, it became something lovely and sophisticated. We are resi-
dents in the garden in the air, set apart from the earth.75

The teien (garden) in the title of the novel is an apt metaphor for the rhe-
torical elaboration that poets in classical Chinese verse strove for, as
opposed to the ostensible spontaneity that scholars often suggest charac-
terizes modern Japanese literature.76 The kûchû (in the air) suggests that
Chinese verse composed by Japanese poets does not belong to either
China or Japan and thus de¤es the Sino-Japanese polarity.
Nakamura’s metacritical framing of the Sino-Japanese entanglement
itself is most evident in Kumo no yukiki, a loosely structured novel. Its
¤rst-person narrator, who is a Japanese male writer, is interested in the
early Tokugawa kanshi poet and monk Gensei (1623–1667), and he re-
lates his experience of reading his poetry and other writings. The narra-
tive structure evokes Mori Ôgai’s shiden (biographies), in that the text
relates the project as it develops, as well as the outcome of the narrator’s
readings. Like Ôgai’s biographies, Nakamura’s piece thus foregrounds
the pre-posterity of history that we discussed in the introduction. The
text later recounts the narrator’s life after the project and con¤rms the
presentness of the story we follow.
A further echo of Bal and Deleuze is the way the narrator de¤nes his
approach:

Somehow a portrait of the early Tokugawa monk had begun to form within
my heart.
It was not consciously sought and built through maneuvers required for
“biographical studies.” While I read this and that work by him, [such incon-
sequential things as] incidentally transmitted episodes and tones of speech
heard from bits and pieces of the writing emerged from the margins of the
pages, so to speak, and silently piled up like ashes from a volcano, without
being caught in the net of consciousness. The monk had inhabited me long
before I noticed it.77

“Rather than the portrait of a person hatched up arti¤cially through mate-

rials collected as in ‘biographical studies’ (though archives helped au-
thenticate the basis of the portrait),” Nakamura goes on to say that the
portrait he found inhabiting his mind was “imbued with [his] own scent.”78
170 • Chapter 4

The inseparability of the subject from the object, and the object from the
subject, reminds us of the concept of the “fold” in Deleuze’s terminology.
“I” does not study “him” at a distance; in the act of involvement, “I” is al-
ready a part of “him,” who is a part of “I.”
Gensei’s befriending of a late Ming political refugee, Chen Yuanyun
( J. Chin Gen’in), presents a case in point in our discussion of the Sino-
Japanese literary negotiation. The Chinese man, exchanging poems with
Gensei, calls Gensei “a brother” because they both bear the character
“Yuan” ( J. Gen) in their names.79 This gesture intrigues, and perhaps
slightly annoys, the narrator, who feels “the in¶ection of the Chinese
refugee’s complex psyche”: “Yuanyun had come from the center of world
civilization at that time to Japan, the periphery. The intellectuals on the
island on the eastern sea must indeed have had their egos boosted by
being deemed ‘brothers’ by the Chinese intellectual. The refugee must
have learned from long-term experience the survival tactics of how to
take advantage of the inferiority complex of the Japanese.”80 Yuanyun was
being protected and hosted by the feudal lord of Owari and was sur-
rounded by the uncertainty in which every exile ¤nds himself. Yet he had
a medium through which to reclaim and exercise power—that is, cultural
authority—and he used it to call Gensei a cultural brother and annoint
him as quasi-Chinese. Gensei could not have issued the license of broth-
erhood to Yuanyun, even though Gensei was a member of the host coun-
try. The concept of brotherhood is predicated upon the universality of
Chinese cultural practices, which automatically situates China in the
center and Japan on the margins. The enfranchisement of “barbarians”
who understand literary Chinese, conducted by an intellectual in exile, is
evidently in operation in Yuanyun’s ostensibly friendly remark.81
The “I” narrator says that he is reminded of another anecdote involv-
ing another refugee—a Russian expatriate, Ilya Ehrenburg, residing in
France.82 Ehrenburg was introduced to a group of French writers by Jules
Roman, who, “in order to extend a warm welcome to the barbarian who
had ¶ed from the margins of the Latin civilization,” said to him, “You are
already half French.” This remark upset Ehrenburg, who later unleashed
his fury in his correspondence from France, entitled “From the Western
Front.”83 Clearly the two anecdotes are different in terms of the vector of
(dis)placement of the intellectual: one is centrifugal, the other centripe-
tal. Still, the operation of normalized cultural hegemony remains the
same. In our context, in which we examine Nakamura Shin’ichirô rather
than Chen Yuanyun or Ilya Ehrenburg, I might point out that the narra-
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 171

tor’s equation of the two entanglements potentially neutralizes him in the

position of the observer/judge/comparativist. He manages to avoid the
pitfall, however, by later placing himself as a character deeply affected by
the entanglements and in effect renouncing the privilege of neutrality (as
we will see below).
The narrator then observes a shift that occurred between the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries in Japanese Sinophiles’ perspectives on
Chinese poetry and poetics. Whereas leading eighteenth-century Sinolo-
gists and kanshi poets such as Ogyû Sorai and Hattori Nankaku (among
others) advocated a strict observance of the conventions set by high Tang
poetry, echoing the sentiments of their contemporaries, such as Li Pan-
long and Wang Shizhen (as we saw in chapter 2), a later generation of
Japanese Sinophiles found a comrade in Yuan Mei, who refuted the nos-
talgic recycling of ancient poetry and proposed more free-spirited com-
position. The two methods of composition have different origins: moni
( J. mogi; imitation) and xingling ( J. seirei; spirit) respectively.
Nakamura’s narrator maintains that Yuan Mei’s groundbreaking work
of criticism, Suiyuan shihua, was a phenomenon in Japanese circles of
poetic composition and criticism. He then resorts again to a comparison,
this time between Japanese Sinophiles and Japanese Europhiles:

The Japanese edition of Suiyuan shihua, whose impact on Japanese intellectu-

als was comparable to that of André Breton’s Surrealist theory in the interwar
period, was published in 1804, thirteen years after its original publication in
China, with prefaces by innovative scholars, critics, and poets such as Yama-
moto Hokuzan [1752–1812], Ôta Kinjô [1765–1825], Satô Issai [1772–1859],
Ôkubo Shibutsu, and Kashiwagi Jotei. Those who initiated a new literary gen-
eration praise the released poetic spirit with hardly any reservations.
One can imagine the excitement in the poetry establishment in Japan at
that time by wondering [what it would have been like] if [Breton’s] “The
Manifesto of Surrealism” had been published with provocative prefaces by
Haruyama Yukio [1902–1994], an advocate as energetic as Hokuzan; Nishi-
waki Junzaburô [1894–1982], who is reminiscent of Kinjô as a theorist and
practitioner; Suzuki Shintarô [1895–1970], an academician not unlike Issai;
or Kitasono Katsue [1902–1978] and Anzai Fuyue [1898–1965], poets as in-
novative as Shibutsu and Jotei.84

Despite the enthusiasm that Yuan Mei’s work ignited, Nakamura’s “I”
narrator notes that the Japanese poets/critics did not admit their debt to
172 • Chapter 4

him. Instead of viewing his theory as the origin from which theirs
stemmed, they considered him a contemporary who happened to have
the same views. In contrast to the eighteenth-century Sinologists, who
strictly chastised the domestication of Chinese verse as washû (Japanese
¶avor/custom) and promoted a return to authenticity, the narrator sug-
gests that the nineteenth-century Japanese Sinophile intellectuals neu-
tralized the hierarchy between the origin and the destination/descendant
while holding their Chinese comrade’s thesis in high esteem. Just as Yuan
Mei renounced Tang poetry as the ancestor of all poetry, so contemporary
Japanese intellectuals renounced Chinese criticism as the predetermined
authority and began to evaluate its achievements on the same basis as
they would evaluate their fellow countrymen’s.
Prudently, Nakamura’s narrator hastens to add that the new genera-
tion of Japanese Sinophiles admits to having been inspired with the con-
cept of xingling by a Chinese from an earlier period, Yuan Hongdao
(1568–1610) of the Ming dynasty.85 It is thus not that the nineteenth-
century Japanese critics claimed to be indigenous and original, but that
they considered themselves to be the legitimate descendants of Yuan
Hongdao as much as Yuan Mei. The national boundary was not drawn
but withdrawn in favor of literary communality in East Asia.
Nakamura’s narrator comes to realize that Yuan Hongdao is Gensei’s
favorite poet; he cites a legend that Gensei read Yuan’s work twenty
times, burned it, and never read any other poet’s work after that.86 Never-
theless, Gensei did not repeat in his own works the erotic and decadent
ambience for which Yuan Hongdao’s poetry—and late Ming poetry in
general—is known. Instead of attributing the serenity of Gensei’s poetry
exclusively to his Buddhist practice, Nakamura’s narrator maintains that
a harmonious amalgam of different cultural elements—Confucian, Bud-
dhist, Chinese, and (courtly) Japanese—brought about an equilibrium in
Gensei’s mind that comes through in his work. The narrator ¤nds a body
of Gensei’s waka poems and a travelogue written in wabun; these not only
refute the argument that one can only be either a kanshi poet or a waka
poet, but also show Gensei’s orderly and systematic reception of diverse
cultures, rather than an arbitrary juxtaposition that is often found in the
work of dilettantes. As he guides us through Gensei’s writings, the narra-
tor alerts us to the parody in which Gensei engages, taking advantage of
his erudition. Aware of the boundaries among different rhetorical tradi-
tions, Gensei inventively and intentionally crosses the borders in order to
enrich the traditional rhetoric of a given genre.
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 173

The narrator’s study of Gensei is interrupted by his friend’s sudden

request that he entertain a young ¤lm actress. She is visiting Japan en
route to Taiwan, where she is to participate in an international ¤lm festi-
val. Reluctantly obliging, the narrator soon realizes that the actress, Ms.
Yang, is not only well versed in Chinese and European poetry, but is also
herself an embodiment of lingual, physical, and cultural hybridity. She
has been trained to assume different roles, as any actress would, and she
is also a polyglot. Her success has taken her to many countries, and she
can speak the language of whatever place she happens to be (recall Abe no
Nakamaro’s translingual practice, split between China and Japan). Either
retrieving attributes from her repertoire or acquiring some new ones, she
can represent any identity that is needed.
Ironically, Ms. Yang does not speak Japanese, possibly implying the
marginality of the language that has survived Sinocentrism and persists in
the age of nationalism. Still, the narrator manages to communicate with
her, both by writing down Chinese characters (a scaled-down version of
the “brush talk” between Ishikawa Jôzan and the Korean diplomat dis-
cussed in chapter 2) and by speaking French, a language the two have in
common. Despite their age and gender differences, the unlikely compan-
ions realize that they can discuss quite a few poets of different nationali-
ties, including Yuan Mei and Yuan Hongdao. However, the narrator has
trouble identifying them when Ms. Yang pronounces Chinese names in
the “authentic” Chinese fashion or when European names are phoneti-
cally transcribed in Chinese characters.87 The barrier for communication
is thus represented by the modern Chinese language—or the Japanese
unfamiliarity therewith. The Japanese narrator knows Chinese names in
the domesticated Japanese reading of the characters, according to which
they are represented in katakana. Their authentic pronunciation may not
sound “barbaric” or “like gibberish” to him—as it did to Japanese charac-
ters in Kokusen’ya gassen and Honchô Suikoden, as we saw in chapter 1—
but it still is largely unintelligible. The transcription of a European name
into Chinese characters is challenging to the narrator for yet another rea-
son: to him, the Chinese script stands not for sound but for meaning,
which the Japanese can ¤gure out owing to the shared classical Chinese
literary tradition. It baf¶es him when the Chinese language arrives at him
aurally and when the Chinese script is used to transcribe characters that
are phonetic.
From this tedious means of communication we can make two obser-
vations. First, the phonocentricism of modern languages—their claim
174 • Chapter 4

to authenticity via phonetic distinction—is dissonant with the tradi-

tional East Asian means of identifying names with Chinese characters,
which may be pronounced differently and yet mean the same. Second,
Chinese script is transformed into, if not reduced to, phonetic signs in
order to accommodate European sounds. It should be noted, however,
that these phonetic signs are not for recitation; they are to be read si-
lently and deciphered as European names. The orality of classical Chi-
nese, which we saw in the ¤rst half of this chapter, is nowhere to be
found in the scribblings of Nakamura’s narrator and his guest, while the
text has become phonocentric. The duality of the classical Chinese
texts—ideologemes to be recited orally—is lost both ways.
Ms. Yang’s family relationships provide another venue for a re¶ection
on the roles of the universal and national languages in expatriate circum-
stances. She turns out to be the daughter of the narrator’s old acquain-
tance, Professor Silvermann, a Jewish Sinologist from Germany, and a
Chinese woman. The narrator and the professor exchanged language tu-
torials, though it is not clear which language the professor taught the nar-
rator in return for Japanese. It may have been French, rather than
German, as the narrator tells Ms. Yang that Silvermann gave him a copy of
the French translation of Simon Fraser’s The Golden Bough.
The professor taught German to a Japanese woman (a friend of the
narrator), who fell in love with him. Later she published a book of poetry
in the format inspired by an exchange between Rilke and one of his lov-
ers. The narrator deems this imaginary exchange of poems in Japanese a
miserable comparison with the poetic dialogue between Gensei and Chen
Yuanyun. According to the narrator, the difference in Japan’s reception of
Chinese literature and European literature is not owing to the different
lengths of exposure but to the fact that European literature was intro-
duced in a time of nationalism, which both by de¤nition and in effect pre-
cluded a transnational sharing of a common culture. Premodern Japanese
intellectuals did not think of Chinese literature as foreign, whereas in
modern times every national literature is foreign to every other, and thus
European literature has always been beyond the linguistic boundary and
foreign.
Ms. Yang’s true motive in coming to Japan was to visit her late father’s
former lovers, including the amateur poet. The narrator compares Silver-
mann’s constant wandering among languages and women to the behavior
of Rilke and Kafka, both of whom were known to do the same. Just as Sil-
vermann felt marginalized and compelled to leave Germany under the
 Intellectuals on the Margins • 175

Nazi regime, Rilke and Kafka were made to feel inferior in Vienna because
they were Czechs writing in German, the language of a hegemon. The
narrator suspects that Rilke turned to another hegemonic language,
French, because he felt the lack of authenticity in his use of German.
Whether or not one accepts this hypothesis, it is evident that the narrator
recognizes a hierarchy among German speakers. His theory also accounts
for the inclination of polyglots to move on to yet another language to
speak or write. They feel compelled to be out of a place where they feel
out of place, and they stay in the place only as long as they are accepted as
displaced.88 Their lack of belonging or authenticity is excused when they
attempt to speak/write in another’s language and when they have a range
of languages that they have “mastered.” The quality of language com-
mand is replaced by the quantity of languages and the speed at which they
change from one language to another.
Thus, Silvermann’s polygamy may not be irrelevant to cosmopolitan-
ism. Neither is another piece of his personal history, revealed by Ms.
Yang: Silvermann was raised by a possessive mother, whom he resented.
The narrator is reminded of how agonized Silvermann looked when the
term “mother” was mentioned. Matriphobia is also a fear of origins and
the sense of belonging that one cannot overcome. As cultural nostalgia is
often compared to attachment to the mother, transnationalism can be
paralleled with detachment from the maternal ¤gure. The aspiration to
learn other languages may be triggered by the desire to reject the mother
tongue, or at least its claim to the cultural authenticity in which one is ex-
pected to build and preserve one’s identity. Languages, to transnational-
ists, are cultural products to be learned and practiced, and thus the
concept of the mother tongue as naturally given is to be rejected—just as
the love for a mother is a cultural construct.

Conclusion
Literary Chinese and the canon written in it presented a medium with
which intellectual expatriates could escape the constraints of a national
language. The assignment of masculinity to literary Chinese and its var-
ious applications, which we saw in chapter 3, elevated the indigenous
“mother tongue” as the only legitimate modern language of each nation.
Whereas gender is not restrictive, the practice of engendering the con-
trast between the foreign and the indigenous is. The tradition of kanshi-
bun, which thrived on the incidentality of ethnicity and gender, thus had
176 • Chapter 4

to be brought to a halt in modern Japan. The mediation of Japanese

sounds in the transnational reception of literary Chinese was replaced
with the orality of modern Chinese, a language that is nation-speci¤c
and thus presents an obstacle to the attainment of universal citizenship.
Instead of being rooted in native soil or under the spell of the mother
tongue, however, intellectuals sought to soar—on the wings of the liter-
ary, transnational language, however imaginary it might have been in
their age. They oscillated between the sound (ethnic) and script (univer-
sal) of Chinese to defy the mutation of their voice/hand in the name of
nationalism.
 Coda
Folding the Subject into the Object

Perception is inappropriate as an instrument of empirical, positive

knowledge, whereas it simultaneously represents the kind of knowl-
edge that happens within a baroque point of view. . . . This knowledge
is legitimate and offers insights into every endeavor of knowledge pro-
duction which cannot be offered by a positivism that has con¤dence in
perception’s capacity to yield up knowledge of the object. Perception
“has no object,” but it involves objects; just as white is not a color be-
cause it is all colors: it re¶ects them.
—Mieke Bal

n the preceding chapters, I have tried to challenge the conventional

I equation of “China” with a speci¤c kind of spatiality (China as a terri-

tory on the continent, as opposed to Japan as an archipelago, each a
geographically de¤ned entity); system of language (the intellectual, the
metaphysical, and the written, as opposed to the material, the physical,
and the oral); gender (writing and reading in Chinese in Japan as associ-
ated with masculinity, as though there were no Chinese or Japanese
women writing or reading in Chinese); and temporality (the imagined
“past,” which is timeless and homogeneous, with little recognition of the
historical transformations of China). The quadruple equation of reading
China predominates in the modern understanding of Chineseness in
Japanese literature as a given, ¤xed quality, while what was perceived as
Chinese is in fact entirely contingent upon circumstances (constituted by
artistic, academic, journalistic, social, economic, or political agendas; hi-
erarchies; rivalries; compromises; and conspiracies—in short, dissonance
and its political manifestations, exploitations, and rami¤cations). As Mieke
Bal has noted, “This is the story of the changing but still vital collusion be-
tween privilege and knowledge, possession and display, stereotyping and

177
178 • Coda

realism, exhibition and the repression of history.”1 It is my hope that this

statement has come to sound as if it were written about the Sino-Japanese
entanglement as seen in Japanese literature.
By telling my version of such a “story” as stipulated by Bal, I hope I
have revealed that what is persistent is not “China” as de¤ned by the Japa-
nese in the terms noted above, but the faith in the images of China that
the Japanese held. The desire to believe that “nature”—geographically
circumscribed space, nationally identi¤ed language, biologically anato-
mized bodies, and chronologically measured time—exists externally to
culture is just as much a product of culture as is the opposite desire to
claim that there is nothing that has not been constructed. The issue here
is not which, if either, of these views is the case, but how culture articu-
lates its relationship to nature, truth, and reality as envisioned in space,
language, bodies, and time.2
I propose to end this study in a way that may appear to be unusual; in-
stead of summarizing the points that I have made in the preceding chap-
ters, I would like to demonstrate how these premises about what has been
taken for granted as natural can cloud our vision to the extent that we fail
to see obvious manifestations of their arbitrariness. As the chapters invali-
date the predominant myths about China de¤ned in contrast to Japan, we
are now at a vantage point from which to apply the thesis of this study to
other texts and to see the extent to which it holds.
There seems no one in Japan who better articulates the contingencies
of space, language, gender, and time than Tanizaki Jun’ichirô. Various
principles that are formative of Sino-Japanese negotiations are eloquently
presented in some of Tanizaki Jun’ichirô’s stories that are set in Japan and
cite traditional Japanese literature and arts. These stories have been either
celebrated largely for their “quintessentially Japanese” qualities (unlike
those about China that we saw in chapter 2 and that have not been taken
seriously in the literary establishment) or criticized for their ostensibly
nativistic penchant. Whether positively or negatively construed, these
stories have been regarded as evidence of the so-called “return to Japan”
(Nihon kaiki), or renativization, that Tanizaki is believed to have made as
he advanced into midlife after a stage of infatuation with modern Euro-
American literature and arts. In fact, these stories cut across an entangle-
ment of mobile positions that China and Japan took in Japanese litera-
ture, rather than ¤xing on a static Sino-Japanese dialectic. They thus
serve my purposes to identify and neutralize those abiding regulatory
forces that have dominated the way China has been viewed in Japanese
 Coda • 179

literature. By using some of Tanizaki’s stories as test cases, we can cata-

logue the crucial moments in the Sino-Japanese entanglement and ex-
plore the revised ways of reading China/Japan as I have discussed.
While this coda may appear informal as a conclusion, I believe it is
appropriate for both thematic and structural reasons. Tanizaki’s well-
known stories are ideal for the thematic purpose, as they have been mis-
construed as embodying a Japanese aesthetic essence by the same modern
sensibility that has wrongly formed and maintained the Sino-Japanese di-
alectics. In structural terms, a standard conclusion summarizing the im-
portant points made in this study would reestablish a faith in empiricism
and chronology, whose legitimacy this study set out to modify. Instead, I
aspire to intentionally confuse and complicate the choice, pace, and order
of the events that have been discussed in the preceding chapters by letting
the select stories by Tanizaki speak to many of the points raised. We will
start with the theme of chapter 4 and proceed in reverse order.

Orality and Emotion in the Written Language

The aural/oral method of teaching classical Chinese texts to children at an
early age, without expecting that the learner would understand their
meaning, had been very common in Japan until the nineteenth century
(as discussed in chapter 4). We then saw that as the canonicity of classical
Chinese was renounced in modern Japan, a mastery of the language be-
came a weapon for intellectuals to voice dissatisfaction with and resis-
tance to the barriers created by nationalism. As discontented men and
women of letters took recourse in the commonality of classical Chinese,
however, the issue of orality surfaced and complicated the perceived East
Asian sharing of the same culture. While the oral performance of classical
Chinese poetry allowed for a communal site in which everyone who had
mastered the language could express his or her emotions and publicly re-
spond to another’s, it also exposed the barriers of national oral languages,
which are privileged in the modern age of phonocentricism.
The oral recitation of Chinese poems, a common practice among
Heian courtiers that has been ignored in the modern misunderstanding of
the mid- to late-Heian culture as homogeneous and indigenous, surfaces in
Tanizaki’s Shôshô Shigemoto no haha (1950), a novella that is set in the
early tenth century.3 The major characters of the story include Fujiwara no
Tokihira (better known in the Sini¤ed reading of his given name, “Shihei”;
871–909), the scion of the most powerful aristocratic family in Japan.
180 • Coda

Shihei allegedly fabricated a conspiracy against the emperor so as to impli-

cate a rival minister, Sugawara no Michizane, a renowned poet, scholar,
and teacher of the Chinese classics and poetry, and remove him from the
central administration.4 This widely known turn of events could be con-
strued as signaling a transition from the Sini¤ed meritocracy, which Suga-
wara no Michizane embodied, to a native aristocratic order. Rather than
squarely dealing with the political transformation, however, Tanizaki fo-
cuses on another episode about Shihei that sheds light on the role of classi-
cal Chinese poetry in tenth-century Japan. Explicitly drawing upon of¤cial
and popular accounts that document Shihei’s callow behavior, Tanizaki
elaborates upon the fact that Shihei forcibly married a woman who was the
wife of another courtier. In some of the scenes, the unfortunate courtier, an
old man, misses the wife that he let go but convinces himself that it was for
her good, and he recites poems by Bai Juyi that match his feelings. The
poems are generously quoted within the novella, as the old man teaches his
little son (the eponymous character, Shigemoto), how to recite them: “Son,
let me share with you this Chinese poem. It’s composed by a Chinese man
called Bai Letian. It may be too dif¤cult for a child like you to understand
its meaning, but it doesn’t matter. It is ¤ne if you can only memorize it as I
give it to you. You will understand the meaning when you are of age.”5
Obviously, the old man is trying to teach his young son classical Chi-
nese texts orally/aurally rather than semantically. The term “Chinese
poem” is represented as shi ⹞ , with the Japanese reading instruction of
kara uta on the side, a practice that accentuates the hybridity of Sini¤ed
Japanese. The poems by Bai Juyi (here referred to by his studio name as Bai
Letian) include one about an old man’s longing for a pet crane that has
¶own away (entitled “Shihe” [Losing a crane]) and another about a man’s
yearning for an unattainable object of affection (“Yeyu” [Nocturnal rain-
fall]). Both poems are given in kanbun kundoku-tai (the style employed in
Kajin no kigû) rather than in their original “authentic” forms. Later Shige-
moto recalls many other lines, without being able to identify exactly
where they are from; Chinese verse as he knows it has already been do-
mesticated and edited. The domestication of Chinese poetry bears witness
to the entanglement that produces Japaneseness as well as Chineseness in
Japanese literature when quotations are given from Chinese texts.
The father’s recitation of Bai Juyi’s Chinese poems has an effect similar
to what we saw in Kajin no kigû. He is overcome with emotion, and, instead
of teaching Shigemoto the poems line by line, he recites them rapidly in his
husky voice, pausing only to sip wine and shed tears; the sight and sounds
 Coda • 181

move the child even though he does not know the texts. That classical Chi-
nese poetry is a venue in which to vent the most strongly felt emotions (the
loss of a beloved wife in this case; in Kajin no kigû, indignation toward
Western imperialism, homesickness, and romantic love) puts into ques-
tion the legitimacy of the conventional claim that the Chinese language is
meant for arti¤cial and intelligent writing and that the Japanese language is
suited to the natural and emotional. Indeed, the classical Chinese verse has
a dual effect: it is highly charged with meaning and is orally performative.
“Yume no ukihashi” (1959), a story about a son’s obsessions with his
birth mother and stepmother, similarly de¤es the divide between the Chi-
nese and Japanese languages along the axis of foreign versus native and
written versus oral.6 The story begins with a quotation from a handwritten
poem (waka) that has been apparently composed by one of the two mother
¤gures. The poem says that its speaker has ¤nished reading The Tale of
Genji. Persistent critical attention has been given to the link that the poem
establishes between this story by Tanizaki and the Heian classic. Critics
have discussed at length the pseudo-incestuous romance between a son
and his stepmother, a major storyline in both works. In contrast, the atten-
tive description of the technical and material aspects of the calligraphy as a
work of visual art has largely been neglected. The narrator tells us that this
work of calligraphy (among others said to have been written by the mother)
uses man’yôgana, an ancient Japanese mode of transcription using Chinese
characters, to represent the sound of each syllable of Japanese words. The
transcription system reveals a problem in the Japanese use of Chinese
script: it relies upon the phonetic aspect of Chinese characters while neu-
tralizing their semantic aspect, which had established Chinese as the liter-
ary language. Man’yôgana overwrites the essence of the ideologemes of the
Chinese characters. The orality of Chinese is exploited not in order to dem-
onstrate the language’s ethnic identity, but to transcribe text in a foreign
language, Japanese; Chinese is phonocentralized as Japanese is made liter-
ate. Keenly aware of the duality of Japanese writing—sound/script, Japa-
nese/Chinese—as is evident in many of his pieces, Tanizaki takes advantage
of the implications of disparity that lie in the system of man’yôgana.

Gender, Nationality, and Language

In chapter 3, we saw that Japanese female Sinophiles were acknowledged
by their peers as legitimate members of the intellectual/artistic community,
while they were either under- or misrepresented by the modern literary
182 • Coda

community because they did not comply with the norms of the natural
and the nativistic attributed especially to the female. Whereas Tanizaki is
normally considered keen on the maternal woman or the femme fatale,
both catering to the conventional heterosexual economy of gender one
way or another, upon careful examination his female characters often
prove to be culturally ambiguous. In “Shunkin shô” (1933), the narrator
is a historian who collects information on the eponymous female artist, in
much the same way as Mori Ôgai writes of Yu Xuanji through an un-
identi¤ed narrator (as we saw in chapter 3).7 Shunkin, a professional
shamisen player and music teacher, keeps a warbler that sings divinely.
Her practice of the art of bird feeding, one of the arts learned from China
and made popular in Tokugawa Japan (as we saw in chapter 2), quali¤es
her as a member of the literati community. Since domesticated warblers
chirp only out of the sight of humans, they have to be kept in a cage; as a
result, humans became obsessed with elaborate cage designs. Shunkin
uses a cage imported from China, an exquisite artifact in itself, with a
frame of rosewood and a plaque of jade displaying landscapes and build-
ings, a prevalent motif in traditional Chinese crafts.8 Thus the Japanese
female artist has assumed a connoisseurship of things Chinese, destabi-
lizing the conventional pairings of male subject/female object and Chi-
nese/Japanese.
“Yume no ukihashi” also effectively questions the validity of the
contrasts between the intellectual and the natural and the masculine
and the feminine, the theme of chapter 3. Having given some examples
of calligraphy in which the mother employs a writing system replete
with Chinese characters, the narrator offers the following observation:
“A woman calligrapher, one would expect, should choose kana charac-
ters, slender and swerving in the Kôzei school style. It is strange that she
instead has chosen this plump and pudgy style with many Chinese char-
acters, which I feel might reveal peculiar characteristics of this lady.”9
The narrator does not elaborate on the “peculiar characteristics” at this
point in the narrative, leaving ambiguous exactly what he intends to
convey. Given the contrived nature of the retrospective account, which
is prudently designed, the perceived masculinity of the lady’s calli-
graphic style cannot be dismissed as incidental or inconsequential. Never-
theless, critical focus on the quasi-incestuous relationship between the
son and the stepmother has required ascribing the maternal to the step-
mother. However, it becomes obvious as the story unfolds that the step-
mother lacks maternal instinct; she shows absolutely no joy while
 Coda • 183

expecting a child; nor does she seem remorseful or distressed after giv-
ing away the newborn for adoption. This unmotherly woman appropri-
ately chooses to use a conventionally masculine style of calligraphy.
Whether her choice is in de¤ance of the conventional de¤nition of the
feminine or in compliance with masculine cultural practices, we see
here a challenge to the gender divide—similar to the one laid down by
the women Sinophiles whom we discussed in chapter 3.

The Material Culture of China in the Japanese Lifestyle

“Yume no ukihashi” enfolds not only the themes of chapters 4 and 3, but
also showcases the theme of chapter 2—namely, how early modern Japa-
nese Sinophiles lived with encoded products of the Chinese material cul-
ture. The style of calligraphy described above as “plump and pudgy,”
anticipating the physique of the lady that could comparably be described,
cannot but evoke the physicality of the Chinese characters. The
speci¤cation thus evokes disparate views of the Chinese script: it cannot
be reduced to the semantic or the idealistic, as perceived especially when
written in kaisho (the upright style). In addition to the story’s detailed de-
scriptions of paper and methods of mounting it, the “plump and pudgy”
style highlights the physicality of Chineseness that we saw in chapter 2.
The narrator paints a colorful picture of his family home, Goi-an
(Herons’ Hermitage), by detailing the architectural and interior designs.
Beyond the references to calligraphy, the story introduces art works that
the narrator’s father and grandfather have collected, which happen to be
mostly written in Chinese or imported from the continent. For example,
there are two bamboo tablets with parallel ¤ve-character lines on both
sides of a gate:

ᨋᷓ⑯㠽ᭉ
Ⴒ㆙┻᧻ᷡ

(The forest being deep, birds take pleasure

The dust being far, bamboos and pines stand pure)

Though the lines are anonymous (the narrator recalls that his father said
he did not know who composed or inscribed them) and thus the geo-
graphic location of the poet is unknown, the typical Chinese parallel
structure hints at classical Chinese literature.
184 • Coda

Nature associated with the reclusive lifestyle—the theme of the bam-

boo tablets above—resurfaces in a work of art that graces the foyer of the
main building: Rai San’yô’s framed calligraphy of a phrase from the Confu-
cian classic Zhongyong, which literally means “kites ¶y, ¤sh jump” and is a
metaphor for the way of all things between heaven and earth, as well as for
the virtue of a ruler, which manifests itself in the vigor of the fauna.10 The
fact that it is not the same work of calligraphy that hung in the foyer of
Senkan Tei, Tanizaki’s own one-time residence and the reported inspira-
tion for Goi-an, only highlights the deliberateness of the choice. The refer-
ences to birds and ¤sh go well with the natural environment of Goi-an; it
was named for the goi sagi (black-crowned night heron), which would fre-
quently ¶y by, and it has a large pond with many carp. These living crea-
tures give a rapturous sensuality to the otherwise quiet, mediated, artistic
life of the recluse. Both birds and ¤sh are associated with the mother of the
story, the bird immortalized in her waka, the ¤sh, in the narrator’s mem-
ory of the mother feeding them with her feet soaking in the water. A line
from a poem by Wei Ye (uncredited in the text; the narrator simply says
that he has found the line “somewhere” [nanikade]) serves to con¤rm the
cohabitation of human and other living creatures on the secluded pre-
mises: “If you washed your ink stone, ¤sh would drink the ink.”11
The line above suggests the physical proximity of humans and ¤sh
and thus neutralizes the binary between nature and culture. While the
reference to an ink stone is only appropriate, given that the mother is en-
gaged in calligraphy, it seems misplaced in the present context, in which
the narrator describes the mother’s feet as looking like white dumplings
in the clear water. Indeed, the edible and the edifying, as discussed in
chapter 2, converge as a classical Chinese line cuts into a scene where the
son has cast his voyeuristic gaze upon the mother’s exposed ¶esh.
Ishikawa Jôzan, an early Tokugawa Sinophile whom we saw in chap-
ters 2 and 4, is mentioned a few times in Tanizaki’s story, most signi-
¤cantly in reference to a famed water mortar in his Hall of Poetry Immor-
tals, a copy of which is placed in the garden of Goi-an and becomes a cru-
cial element in the narrator’s obsession with his mother. The origin of the
mortar, an agricultural device, is recounted in kanbun by Jôzan. His re-
counting reveals an example of the entanglement similar to those we saw
in chapter 2: he makes a pun on sôzu, which can mean either a water
mortar (if represented by the Chinese characters ᷝ᳓) or a Buddhist priest
( ௯ㇺ ), a pun that makes sense only if these Chinese compounds are read
in Japanese, as the two words’ Chinese pronunciations are distinct.
 Coda • 185

Fujiwara no Seika (1561–1619), who was a friend of Jôzan, the teacher

of Hayashi Razan, and the founding father of Tokugawa Neo-Confucian-
ism, is another Sinophile cited in the text, and he ¶eshes out the associa-
tions of Goi-an within the kanshibun discourse (albeit remotely). Just as
Ishikawa Jôzan declined the emperor’s invitation to the court, expressing
his preference for seclusion, so Seika had declined an offer of of¤ce ex-
tended by the ¤rst shogun of the Tokugawa government, Tokugawa Ie-
yasu (1542–1616; r. 1603–1605) because he was committed to the life of a
recluse. The eight picturesque places that he selected around his dwelling
along the Kurama River in Kyoto are recalled as points of interest en route
to Kurama, where the narrator’s newly born brother is sent for adoption.
Some of the place names given by Seika (Chin’ryû Dô, or Cave of Laying
One’s Head on the Stream; Hichô Tan, or Abyss of the Flying Birds”;
Ryûriku Kei, or Valley of the Six-Way Stream) resonate with a life in har-
mony with birds and water and thus establish a parallel between this early
Tokugawa Sinophile and the narrator’s own family members in the 1930s.
As the two examples of Jôzan and Seika suggest, the location of the
story speci¤cally connotes the early Tokugawa Sinophile milieu. Even
when Heian cultural products are cited, a layer of Tokugawa aesthetic or
scholarly sensibility mediates between the Heian era and the modern char-
acters. A signi¤cant example of the Tokugawa framing of Heian society, a
quotation from and citation of Sugawara no denju tenarai no kagami (1746)
reveals other acts of staging as well.12 This popular jôruri play is mentioned
as a means of comparing the narrator’s half brother and Sugawara no
Michizane’s son, who are both secretly adopted. First, as a jidai mono jôruri
(historical play for the traditional puppet theater), Sugawara is a Tokugawa
reinterpretation of historical incidents that involve Sugawara no Michizane
in the Heian period. Second, this play was ¤rst performed in Edo, even
though the play is set in Kyoto and its suburbs; hence, the Edo framing of
Kyoto culture. Third and most relevant to our study, Sugawara no Michi-
zane, the renowned and dei¤ed kanshi poet and scholar of the Chinese clas-
sics and poetry, is portrayed in a popularized and oralized genre, jôruri.
Again Tanizaki thrives on the hybridity of the Japanese language, which is
constituted of various elements, and he puts it under a microscope.

Problematizing Geography
In chapter 1, we saw how some places in Japan became literary topoi
owing to Chinese literary associations, to the effect of neutralizing
186 • Coda

geographic boundaries, and also how the boundaries between China

and Japan were envisioned in terms of the sea between the two shores.
Tanizaki’s story “Ashikari” (1932), which is usually cited as an embodi-
ment of Heian courtly aesthetic values, is set in a topos that historically
resonated along Chinese poetic lines.13 The text opens with the follow-
ing oft-cited waka, which is placed as an epithet in order to emphasize
the inspiration for the title:

Kimi naku te / ashikari keri to / omou ni mo

itodo Naniwa no / ura wa sumi uki

(Without you, things have worsened; as I think that way /

the reed-covered Naniwa Bay area feels even less tolerable to live in)

The subsequent text embeds numerous quotations from and allusions to

waka and wabun. However, they do not overshadow the equally frequent
quotations from Chinese verse and prose. The narrator visits Yamazaki,
the literary topos that was compared to Heyang (as we saw in chapter 1),
where rivers meet and reeds grow (hence the mention of reeds in the epi-
thet). He recites not only Japanese poems, but also lines from well-known
classical Chinese poetry such as Su Shi’s “Chibi fu” (An ode to the red
cliff) and Bai Juyi’s “Pipa xing” (Ballad of the p’i-p’a) in order to release
the emotions with which the scenery has ¤lled him.14 The citation of
“Chibi fu” enables him to address themes about the moon, recollections
of the past, and visitations of supernatural beings, all of which are ele-
ments of the story to come. The poem “Pipa xing,” on the other hand,
brings him closer to the historical connotations of the place because it is
about the misfortune of a woman that the poet encountered on a boat. In
addition to being the location of an imperial palace, Yamazaki is a site to
which courtesans swarmed in ancient Japan. The narrator liberally and
effectively uses Heian kanbun accounts of female entertainers in the area
in order to underpin the connotation of the topos. Among the texts are
“Yûjo o miru no jo” (Preface to the viewing of courtesans), by Ôe no
Masahira (whose wife, Akazome Emon, was allegedly an unof¤cial histo-
rian in the Heian era, as we saw in chapter 3), and “Yûjo ki” (Account of
courtesans), by Ôe no Masafusa, the author of Gôdanshô. These refer-
ences are appropriate homage to the literary topoi of Yamazaki, which
was honored in many kanshi poems composed in the reign of Emperor
Saga, as we saw in chapter 1. If suf¤cient attention were given to all these
 Coda • 187

quotations, it would paint a new picture of “Ashikari” that resonates with

multiple precedents and that undoes the high/low, masculine/feminine,
and foreign/indigenous contrasts that are conventionally made between
Chinese and Japanese writing in general. One could count on classical
Chinese poetry for emotional outlet, as well as for intellectual endeavor.
One could write in kanbun about the most profane, feminine, and indige-
nous subjects, as well as the most highbrow, masculine, and universal.
Tanizaki’s incomplete picaresque romance, Rangiku monogatari
(Chrysanthemum in disarray, 1930), puts an interesting and historically
important spin on the image of the Chinese and Japanese shores, sepa-
rated from each other by waves, and it also effectively captures our meta-
phor of the fold. Thus it is an appropriate choice with which to end this
text, even though it is not nearly as well known as the other works men-
tioned above. The novella is set in politically disordered late medieval Ja-
pan. A Ming Chinese merchant, Zhang Huiqing ( J. Chô Keikyô), gets a
glimpse of Kagerô, a high-pro¤le Japanese courtesan who is stationed in
Muronotsu, a port in the Inland Sea, across which mercantile ships navi-
gate to and from China. As Kagerô’s name is given in the phonetic signs of
hiragana, it could mean either “drake¶y” or “mirage.”15 We shall return to
the signi¤cance of the name(s) below. Upon Zhang’s request that she
spend a night with him, Kagerô demands a special treasure if she, the best
Japanese courtesan, is to do such a favor for a foreigner (a derogatory cat-
egory in this context). Kagerô’s demand is inspired by the legend of Han-
aurushi (Floral Lacquer) who was alleged to be the ¤rst courtesan in
Muronotsu, dating back to the reign of Emperor Engi (r. 901–922; the
emperor’s reign was commonly referred to as the golden age) and who
was also sought after by a Chinese customer. Hanaurushi denotes a
speci¤c kind of lacquer, ¤ltered with ¤ne paper, that was one of the most
renowned Japanese exports and thus is an appropriate name for the cour-
tesan, a rare Japanese “commodity” to be proudly shown to the Chinese.
The legend has it that the Chinese man gave Hanaurushi a silk crepe mos-
quito net (kaya) that was large enough to cover the entire space of an
eight-mat room and yet was so ¤nely woven that it could be folded into a
four-by-four-inch box. The delicacy of the net was such that the imperial
court, to which she later gave it as a gift, bestowed upon her an amount of
gold suf¤cient to build ¤ve Buddhist temples.
Out of competitiveness, Kagerô demands a mosquito net that is
large enough for a sixteen-mat room and that can be folded into a two-
inch-square box: twice the size, four times the ¤neness. Within two
188 • Coda

years of the request, Zhang manages to have just such a mosquito net
crafted in China, stores it in a two-inch-square golden box, and navi-
gates toward Muronotsu through the Inland Sea. However, the rumor of
the rare artifact has spread among Japanese pirates and their like, who
swarm the area to steal the gift; they think that being Japanese, they are
more worthy of Kagerô than the “foreigner.” Despite the precautions
that Zhang has taken—among other things, he has procured the mili-
tary guard of Ôuchi, the feudal lord in the area—just a stop short of
Muronotsu Zhang’s boat is assaulted by an unidenti¤ed group of people
who look like ghosts. During the commotion the box is ¤rst stolen by
Kagerô’s maid, who met Zhang in advance to welcome him, and then, as
someone attacks her, it is lost in the sea. At least so it is believed until a
mysterious individual claims in a signpost to have found it. He signs his
claim “Kairyû Ô,” or “Dragon King.”
The course of events is telling of the China-Japan entanglement
speci¤cally in physical and material terms. First, unlike Matsura, the an-
cient topos on the borders of Japan that we looked at in chapter 1, the set-
ting of the story—the Inland Sea—is within the Japanese archipelago. As
a legitimate trader from Ming China with a tally (kangôfu) issued by the
Ashikaga shogunate, Zhang is allowed to navigate through the Inland
Sea. In contrast to the two shores divided by the Sea of Japan, represent-
ing China and Japan before cartography de¤ned territory (as in the works
we saw in chapter 1), the image of the Inland Sea opened to the Chinese is
a fold: China does not stand apart from Japan; it is enfolded within Japan.
The ambiguity of Kagerô’s role plays a part in the symbolical con¤gu-
ration of the characters. The name, whether it means “drake¶y” or “mi-
rage,” embodies intangibility in the Japanese poetic lexicon. Indeed,
despite the fact that she is a prostitute and thus an embodiment of the pro-
fane, Kagerô is af¤liated with the Kamo Shrine, one of the two most ex-
alted Shinto institutions in the country; presided over by unmarried
imperial princesses, it is thus considered sacred. Furthermore, she rarely
sees any of her customers, even though she is by de¤nition a shared prop-
erty and is expected to make herself available. In short, what is expected to
be most exposed and commodi¤ed is in fact most secluded and enshrined.
This paradox accounts for the extraordinary demand she imposes upon
Zhang; it also explains the reaction of the pirates to the projected exchange
between the courtesan and her prospective customer; for her to spend a
night with a Chinese man is a reversal of the fold, the most esoteric being
revealed to the utmost exterior, an ultimate violation of the sacred.
 Coda • 189

Then comes another reversal: the mosquito net that she demands is
to enclose a Japanese room and presumably herself. It would thus be
Japan that is enfolded within China—the Japanese body, indigenous, nat-
ural, and feminine, enclosed within a Chinese artwork. One after another
reversals follow hereafter: the net itself is made of silk, presumably an ex-
port from Japan to China, and thus complicates the origin and trajectory
of the exchange; the net is folded into a tiny box, shifting its status from
container to contained, from large to small; the box is made of gold,
which, as Tanizaki has taken the trouble to remind us, is the most impor-
tant export from Japan to China. The Japanese raw material is exported to
China and is crafted into a product that enfolds the Chinese good, which
has been commissioned by and is to be given to a Japanese courtesan,
who in turn will give herself to the Chinese man who brings it. Then the
box with the net in it is stolen by the courtesan’s maid, is subsequently
lost to the sea, and is then claimed to be found by the Dragon King. The
ownership of the box, nominal and virtual, thus becomes as questionable
as the origins of the box and its contents in the production and exchange
of goods between the two countries.

The oscillation and mise-en-abyme of the acts of folding-inside-out and

folding-outside-in, the sequences that materialize in Rangiku monogatari
and are conspicuous in other texts with which we negotiated in the pre-
ceding chapters, make it impossible to differentiate the Japanese from
the Chinese, origin from destination, or subject from object. One must
stop and wonder if it is the act of differentiation and contrasting itself
that is wrong. The time-honored dialectic of the wa/kan, one might sug-
gest, should be dismissed all together. Yet it is true that the dialectic is
not necessarily of the modern academics’ making; the texts that we have
engaged, mostly literary, all obsess with the contrast, exploit it, and trig-
ger its explosion. Imagined, designed, and constructed as it may be, the
Sino-Japanese dialectic has been essential to the organization and de¤ni-
tion of cultural elements in Japan. How long will we be treading upon
the ¤ne line between the awareness of an arbitrary distinction and an
immersion in the binary? We have yet to see.
 Notes

Introduction
1. Pollack, The Fracture of Meaning, 3.
2. Ibid., 227.
3. “Coordination,” as well as “tabulation,” is a guiding formula used through-
out in LaMarre, Uncovering Heian Japan.
4. Imai Yasuko, “Wakon Yôsai, Wakon Kansai, Yamato damashii.”
5. S.Tanaka, Japan’s Orient.
6. Sakai, Voices of the Past.
7. LaMarre, Uncovering Heian Japan, 2.
8. The following are but a few of the scholarly works in this category: Mizuno,
Haku Rakuten to Nihon bungaku (Bai Juyi and Japanese literature); Ishizaki, Kinsei
Nihon bungaku ni okeru Shina zokugo bungakushi (The history of Chinese vernacular
literature in early modern Japanese literature); Kaneko Hikojirô, Heian jidai bun-
gaku to Hakushi monjû (Literature of the Heian era and the anthology of Bai Juyi’s
writings); Asô, Edo bungaku to Shina bungaku (Literature of the Tokugawa era and
Chinese literature; reprinted under the new [and politically correct] title Edo bun-
gaku to Chûgoku bungaku); Kawaguchi, Heianchô Nihon kanbungakushi no kenkyû (A
study of Japanese literature in Chinese in the Heian era); Kojima, Jôdai Nihon bun-
gaku to Chûgoku bungaku (Early Japanese literature and Chinese literature), and
Kokufû ankoku jidai no bungaku (The Dark Ages of Japanese Literature); Kanda Ki-
ichirô, Nihon ni okeru Chûgoku bungaku (Chinese literature in Japanese literature);
and Ôta, Nihon kagaku to Chûgoku shigaku ( Japanese poetics and Chinese poetics).
9. Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 263.
10. Hutcheon, “The Pastime of Past Time,’” 490.
11. Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 261.
12. Chino, “Nihon bijutsu no jendâ,” 235.
13. Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, 66.
14. Bal, Double Exposures, 69.
15. Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, 8–9.
16. Ibid., 9.
17. Ibid., 11. The text by Derrida to which Bal refers is Limited Inc.
18. Scott, “Experience,” 61.
19. Ibid., 66.

191
192 • Notes to Pages 10–20

20. Bal, Double Exposures, 72–73.

21. Cited in ibid., 67.
22. That is with the notable exception of Genji monogatari, which refers to
and engenders Korea vis-à-vis China and Japan. See, for example, Kawazoe Fusae,
“Kôekishi no naka no Genji monogatari” (The Tale of Genji in the history of trade),
in Kawazoe, Sei to bunka no Genji monogatari: Kaku onna no tanjô (The Tale of
Genji in terms of gender and culture: The birth of a writing woman), 107–125.
23. Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, 25.
24. Chambers, Story and Situation, 3.
25. Deleuze, The Fold, 3.
26. Levinas expounds the theory of alterity in many of his writings, including
Time and the Other.
27. For the texts or translations of these works, see the following: McCullough,
“A Tosa Journal” (published in two anthologies); Sugawara, A Tale of Eleventh-
Century Japan; Fujiwara no Teika, The Tale of Matsura; Chikamatsu, The Battles of
Coxinga.

Chapter 1: Site Unseen

1. I have discussed poetry separately in Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound,” as
the rhetoricity of language was explicitly con¤rmed in that genre by way of com-
position on, and arrangements according to, topics (dai).
2. As Suda Tetsuo notes, courtiers’ diaries record the continual arrival of Chi-
nese drifters during the Song dynasty. The books they brought with them to Japan
must have provided those who had not visited the continent—possibly including
the alleged author of Hamamatsu—a degree of geographic knowledge (“Hamamatsu
Chûnagon monogatari ni okeru sakusha no Tô chishiki ron” [Discussion on the
knowledge of China possessed by the author of The Tale of Middle Councilor
Hamamatsu], 34).
3. While Matsuo Akira (“Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari ni okeru Tô no
byôsha ni tsuite” [On the descriptions of China in The Tale of Middle Councilor
Hamamatsu]) enumerates erroneous references to China in Hamamatsu, Suda, in
the above-cited article, takes a positive view of these “misrepresentations,” suggest-
ing that the author’s intent was not so much to compare China with Japan as to lib-
erally quote from legends and other preceding sources, including those on China.
Suda’s stance is somewhat similar to Bal’s, which we saw in the introduction, in that
discrepancies between the new and the old texts are accounted for by an attempt at
building a new meaning rather than misrepresenting the old meaning.
4. Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, 88.
5. Kawase, “Kara monogatari to Môgyû waka” (The tales of China and Japa-
nese poems inspired by Mengqiu), 128. The “author of Sarashina nikki” to whom
Kawase refers is of course the alleged author of Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari,
whom I discuss below in this chapter.
 Notes to Pages 21–26 • 193

6. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 6–7.

7. A more appropriate analogy might be with those who undertook the Grand
Tour, notably the English visiting Italy to immerse themselves in the great cultural
heritage of Europe. The English thus had long fantasized about Italy, a cultural su-
perior that only the privileged could afford to visit. However, I do not pursue a
comparative analysis here, for the reasons articulated in the introduction.
8. A complete translation of Tosa Nikki can be found in McCullough, “A Tosa
Journal.” All translations here are mine.
9. See, for example, Miyake, “The Tosa Diary,” and Watanabe Hideo, Heianchô
bungaku to kanbun sekai, 257–281 (“Kanbun nikki kara nikki bungaku e” [From
diaries in kanbun to memoirs as a literary genre]).
10. For translations, see Rodd and Henkenius, Kokinshu, and McCullough,
Kokin wakashu.
11. Wixted, “The Kokinshû Prefaces,” LaMarre, Uncovering Heian Japan,
143–144. For a translation of Maoshi daxu, see Owen, “The ‘Great Preface.’”
12. Ki no Tsurayuki, Tosa nikki, 42. I am following Thomas LaMarre’s chal-
lenge to the convention that waka is broken into ¤ve lines in English translations,
as I honor the Japanese breakdown of waka into two lines (kami no ku [upper
half] and shimo no ku [lower half]).
13. For a biography of Nakamaro and the composition and registration of the
poem, see Hayashi, Honchô ichiniin isshu, book 10, 300–304, which offers one
poem each by Japanese kanshi poets.
14. Partial translation in Ôe, “The Ôe Conversations.”
15. Gôdanshô, book 3, no.1, 63–69.
16. Ibid., book 3, no. 3, 71.
17. Another episode from Gôdanshô (book 4, no. 16) on Ono no Takamura
(802–852), more renowned for his waka composition than Nakamaro, showcases
a ground on which waka could be irrelevant to Japan’s self-de¤nition vis-à-vis
China in literary terms. A ¤gure of multiple literary connotations, Takamura was
once appointed vice ambassador to Tang China, then removed from and exiled
because he composed a satirical poem on the alleged mishandling of embarkation.
In the Gôdanshô episode, as Bai Juyi was renowned in Japan for his composition,
so was Takamura known in China as a great poet in Chinese verse, to the extent
that Bai Juyi had a watch tower Wanghai Lou (Seaview Tower) built to monitor
Takamura’s arrival. For the above-mentioned reasons, Takamura could not make
it to China, but Bai Juyi’s posthumous poems had lines identical to those in Taka-
mura’s compositions (p. 113). There is no reference to Takamura’s waka, even
though he at least allegedly composed waka in suf¤cient numbers to sustain a
quasi-biographical poetic tale (uta monogatari), Takamura monogatari (late
twelfth century). This attests not only to the relative indifference of the author of
Gôdanshô to waka, but also to the fact that an emphasis on waka composition in
the portrayal of a poet is purely contingent.
194 • Notes to Pages 26–29

18. LaMarre, Uncovering Heian Japan, 2.

19. Ueda Akinari’s (1734–1809) “Kaizoku” (The pirate), a short story col-
lected in Ueda, Harusame monogatari (Tales of the spring rain, 1808–1809), paints
an unfavorable picture of Ki no Tsurayuki: he is interrogated by an intellectual pi-
rate on his way to the capital—a similar setting to that in the episode of Tosa nikki
discussed above. The pirate expounds upon Tsurayuki’s incompetence in Chinese,
ranging from unreliable references to Chinese poetic terminology in his preface to
Kokin wakashû to the mispronunciation of his name (the correct reading, according
to the pirate, is “Tsuranuki”). The model for this unlikely literary critic, who la-
ments the proliferation of love poems in waka, was later hypothesized to have been
Fun’ya no Akitsu, a historical ¤gure who putatively wasted his talent in alcohol and
died in exile. As is obvious from his surname, Akitsu was a descendant of Fun’ya no
Yasuhide, one of the six poetic immortals, or rokkasen, listed in Tsurayuki’s preface
to Kokin wakashû. His given name, Akitsu, literally means a drake ¶y, which is an
established metaphor for the Japanese archipelago. The fact that the character
whose name represents the essence of Japan renounces waka, as well as the fact that
he does so in the inland Sea of Japan (we shall see more on the implications of the
location in the coda as we discuss a modern short story on medieval pirates set in
part in the area) suggests Akinari’s awareness of the ambiguous origins of Japanese
poetry and clumsy attempts at concealing the heterogeneity—an awareness that is
also evident in Akinari’s critical works on Japanese literature. For what this story
suggests about Ueda Akinari’s scholarly position, see Hino, “Akinari to fukko” (Ak-
inari and the restoration of tradition), in Hino, Norinaga to Akinari: Kinsei chûki
bungaku no kenkyû (Norinaga and Akinari: A study of literature in the middle pe-
riod of early modern Japan), 223–250, and Katsukura, “‘Kaizoku’ ron no kiso: Sono
zôkeisei to hihyô seishin” (A foundation for discussions on “The Pirate”: Its typol-
ogy and critical spirit), in Katsukura, Ueda Akinari no kotengaku to bungei ni kan-
suru kenkyû (A study of Ueda Akinari’s literature and scholarship in the classics),
634–660.
20. While, as noted in the introduction, there is a complete English transla-
tion of Hamamatsu in Sugawara, A Tale of Eleventh-Century Japan, all translations
here are mine.
21. Matsuo Akira discusses in detail the transformation of the titles. See
“Daimei kô” (Re¶ections on titles).
22. We shall see in chapter 3 that such resources were available to some
young girls in the capital, such as Murasaki Shikibu.
23. The memoir is translated in Sugawara no Takasue no musume, As I
Crossed a Bridge of Dreams.
24. See Kojima, Kokinshû izen, 161–171, for more on the topos in kanshibun
in the Saga reign (809–823).
25. Bunka shûrei shû, vol. 3, Zatsuei (Compositions on miscellaneous subjects),
no. 96–99. Two poems in response were composed by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu (775–
 Notes to Pages 29–32 • 195

826), one by Yoshimine no Yasuyo (785–830), four by Nakao Ô (dates unknown),

two by Asano no Katori (774–843), and one by Shigeno no Sadanushi (785–852).
26. Narihira’s inadequacy in kanshi/kanbun composition was documented in
Nihon sandai jitsuroku (Factual records of three reigns of Japan, 901), vol. 8, 28: “ ⇛
ήᚽቑༀ૞୸᱌ ” (generally no mastery of the canon, skilled at composing waka).
This oft-quoted phrase contributed to con¤rming the binary opposition between
composition in Chinese, which was a practice requiring intelligence and disci-
plined study, and composition in Japanese, which, implicitly, was intuitive. For
the concealed conversion of Chinese texts in Ise monogatari, a mid-Heian poetic
tale for which Narihira is conventionally held responsible as either the protago-
nist or author or both, see Watanabe Hideo: “Ise monogatari to kanshibun” (Tales
of Ise and kanshibun) and Heianchô bungaku to kanbun sekai (“Ise monogatari ni
okeru kanshibun juyô” [The reception of kanshibun in Tales of Ise]), 491–513. Ise
monogatari is translated in McCullough, Tales of Ise, and excerpts are in Mc-
Cullough, Classical Japanese Prose, 38–69.
27. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 13.
28. The original lines by Sugawara no Fumitoki are “ ⯗⭕⧞፲៹⚡ᓟ㧛⬑ ဒ
ᵢ᦬ᾖ㔮ਛ” (in ibid., 12; the source of the phrase is given in n. 13). They also ap-
pear in Gôdanshô, vol. 4, no. 36. They are translated in Fujiwara no Kintô, Japanese
and Chinese Poems to Sing, 91. Incidentally, “Hôraitô no tsuki” (the moon in the Im-
mortals’ Palace), from the second line, a phrase is quoted by the Middle Councilor
when he recounts the evening for the Japanese emperor and courtiers upon his re-
turn to his homeland (Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 134).
29. ਇᤚ⧎ਛ஍ᗲ⩵ᱝ⧎㐿ᓟᦝή⧎ (It is not that the chrysanthemum is
the favorite among all the ¶owers; it is because there is no ¶ower whatsoever after
this one blooms), as is given in Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 13, n. 14. See Fujiwara no
Kintô, Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing, 90.
30. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 13. The exchange between the Middle Councilor
and the consort is evocative of many ¤rst encounters in classical Japanese ro-
mance, possibly the most prominent one being the encounter of Genji and Yûgao
in the beginning of the “Yûgao” (Evening faces) chapter in Genji monogatari,
where Yûgao’s servant offers Genji’s attendant a fan with which to carry the ¶ower
that he found on the fence of Yûgao’s house (Murasaki, Genji monogatari, vol. 1,
126–127). Owing to such associations, the reader could relate to the Middle
Councilor’s impression that the consort’s gesture was “Japanese.”
31. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 21.
32. Tsukushi is a topos representing the “wandering of the noble” (kishu
ryûri) in classical Japanese literature and thus is, in its liminality, appropriate for
the story of border crossing.
33. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 12.
34. Ibid., 16.
35. Ibid., 15.
196 • Notes to Pages 32–41

36. Murasaki, Genji monogatari, vol. 1, 27.

37. For more on these consorts, see Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound.”
38. See Mostow, “Mother Tongue and Father Script” for the history of the
concept of miyabi (usually translated as “courtly elegance”); Mostow identi¤es Ise
monogatari as the origin of the term.
39. See Fukui, “Honji shi to Ise monogatari” (Poems of tales and Tales of Ise),
292–304.
40. The episode is the ¤rst tale in Kara monogatari, a collection of tales whose
complete English translation is in Geddes, Kara monogatari. Geddes translates the
story in question as “Wang Ziyou Visits Dai Andao” (pp. 70–71).
41. See Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound,” for more on the signi¤cance of this
anthology in the tradition of waka composition.
42. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 28.
43. Ibid., 35. We should note that in this adaptation, the agent of speech has
changed from Yang Guifei (as the original has it) to Xuanzong. The lines from
“Changhenge” that inspire the Middle Councilor and the emperor are in fact from
a speech by Yang Guifei’s spirit, addressing the wizard who visits her at Xuanzong’s
request. In Hamamatsu, the Middle Councilor senses the emperor’s longing for the
consort and reworks this passage from the lonely man’s perspective. This is much
the same operation as the reversal of perspective seen in adaptations of the same
lines in Genji monogatari: in the chapters “Kiritsubo” and “Maboroshi” (The wiz-
ard), the Kiritsubo Emperor and Genji compose waka on their respective longing
for the Kiritsubo consort; Murasaki, drawing upon these lines, focuses on the vow
from the man left behind by the love of his life. See Murasaki, Genji monogatari, vol.
1, 40, and vol. 3, 213.
44. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 15.
45. Ibid., 45.
46. Ibid.
47. Murasaki, Genji monogatari, vol. 1, 47.
48. Sugawara, Hamamatsu, 48.
49. The prediction comes true, but the protagonist’s object of longing is not
the ¤fth daughter but his true love. Ibid., 57.
50. Ibid., 85.
51. Ibid., 86.
52. Ibid., 85.
53. Ibid., 133.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., 135.
56. Ibid., 134.
57. Ibid., 135.
58. As noted in the introduction, a complete translation of Matsura is in Fuji-
wara no Teika, The Tale of Matsura, 57–162. All translations here are mine.
 Notes to Pages 41–47 • 197

59. Fujiwara no Teika, Meigetsuki, vol. 1, 58.

60. Fujiwara no Teika, Matsura, 162.
61. Ibid., 161–162.
62. Ibid., 162.
63. Ibid.
64. The secret teaching of music usually calls for a foreign or supernatural
setting. For example, in Utsubo monogatari (late tenth century), it ¤rst takes place
in Persia and later makes the descent of heavenly beings happen. The exotic and
supernatural ambience is certainly visible in Matsura, as the tradition dictates. For
a translation of Utsubo monogatari, see Uraki, The Tale of the Cavern.
65. Fujiwara no Teika, Matsura, 166.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., 172.
68. Ibid., 173.
69. Ibid., 171.
70. Ibid., 180.
71. Ibid., 180–181.
72. As we saw, Sumiyoshi also ¤gured in the aforementioned Gôdanshô epi-
sode on Abe no Nakamaro. Perhaps the best known example of the deity’s miracu-
lous power is in a nô play by Zeami Motokiyo (1363?–1443?), Haku Rakuten (Ch.
Bai Letian), where the deity, in the guise of a ¤sherman, meets the eponymous poet
(Bai Juyi), who, also incognito, is visiting Japan. The deity identi¤es Bai Juyi (much
to his surprise), explains that the Japanese are familiar with his poetry, and matches
his composition with a waka so as to impress him with the level of artistic sophisti-
cation in Japan. This play helped to homogenize Japanese poetic practices, which
were bilingual at the time of the play’s production. It does not re¶ect the fact that
the Zen monks of Japan regarded Su Shi (1036–1101) and Huang Tingjian (1045–
1105), rather than Bai Juyi, as the most important of the classical Chinese poets.
See Yokomichi and Omote, Yôkyoku shû, 305–308, and, for a translation of the
play, Waley, The Nô Plays of Japan, 207–215.
73. Fujiwara no Teika, Matsura, 190.
74. Ibid., 187.
75. Ibid., 192.
76. China has its own deities and mythical ¤gures, which are known to inter-
vene in human affairs, but their presence is conveniently forgotten in this context
of contrasting Japan with China.
77. Fujiwara no Teika, Matsura, 198.
78. The theme is exempli¤ed by such famous rhapsodies as “Gaotang fu” (A
poetic exposition on Gao-tang) and “Shennu fu” (The goddess), by Song Yu
(290–223 BC); “Luoshen fu” (The goddess of the Luo), by Cao Zhi (192–232);
and “Qiuxing fu” (Autumn delight), by Pan Yue. The prose preface to “Gaotang
fu,” without the main part, is translated in Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Litera-
198 • Notes to Pages 47–53

ture, 189–190. For “Shennu fu” and “Luoshen fu,” see ibid., 190–193 and 194–
197.
79. The theme of reincarnation also involves the heavens, apart from Japan or
China. Shortly before the lieutenant’s departure for Japan, the empress confesses to
him that she is indeed the mysterious woman. She further reveals that she was a
heavenly being who, upon the Heavenly Emperor’s command, descended to con-
quer Yuwen Hui, who was a reincarnation of Ashura (Ch. Axiuluo), a bellicose
mythical Buddhist ¤gure, and that the lieutenant was a boy servant to the Heavenly
Emperor who was given arms by Sumiyoshi in order to help her. See ibid., 217.
80. A complete translation of Kokusen’ya gassen is in Chikamatsu, The Battles
of Coxinga, 57–131. All translations here are mine.
81. Among these are the following: Minshin tôki (An account of Ming-Qing
battles), published in Japan in 1661; Kai hentai (The transformation of the Chi-
nese and barbarians), edited by shogunate Confucian scholars in 1717; Kikô
shôsetsu (Merchants’ talks in Nagasaki harbor, 1721); Jing Tai shilu (The true
record of the paci¤cation of Taiwan), edited in China in 1722; and Taiwan gundan
(Military tales of Taiwan), edited in Japan in 1723.
82. See Suwa, “Kaihi no fûsetsu” (Rumors from beyond the sea) in Suwa and
Hino, Edo bungaku to Chûgoku (Literature of the Tokugawa era and China), 228.
For another account of the circumstances, see Masuda, Japan and China, 184–205.
83. See Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound,” for how Wang Zhaojun’s marriage to
the Xiongnu chieftain is con¤gured in Japanese literature. For more on Wang
Zhaojun, see note 31 in chapter 4.
84. Chikamatsu, Kokusen’ya gassen, 232.
85. The three characters are ๺⮮ౝ . The second character is said to be a homo-
phone of “Tô” ໊ (“Tô no koe o katadotte”; ibid., 242), except that the two are pho-
netically identical only in the Japanese pronunciation; ໊ reads “Tang,” as opposed
to “Teng” (⮮) in Chinese. This is an example of a widely seen domestication of what
is thought to be essential to the national identity of China, and it in effect ridicules
the phonocentricism in the linguistic con¤rmation of the nation-state.
86. Ibid., 244.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid., 245.
89. Ibid.
90. See Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound.”
91. Chikamatsu, Kokusen’ya, 245.
92. Bai Juyi, “Changhenge” (The Song of Lasting Sorrow).
93. Chikamatsu, Kokusen’ya, 247.
94. Geddes, Kara monogatari, 88–89, translates this story as “The Faithful
Wife Who Turned to Stone.”
95. Chikamatsu, Kokusen’ya, 272.
96. Ibid., 263.
 Notes to Pages 53–61 • 199

97. Ibid., 262.

98. Ibid., 256.
99. Ibid., 260.
100. Ibid., 252.
101. Ibid., 254.
102. Ibid., 255.
103. Ibid., 273.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., 272.
106. Ibid., 256.
107. Yonemoto, Mapping Early Modern Japan, ch. 4, “Imagining Japan, Invent-
ing the World: Foreign Knowledge and Fictional Journeys in the Eighteenth Cen-
tury,” 101–128.
108. The preface of Honchô Suikoden, signed by a Fujiwara no ason Kaneyo, os-
tensibly minimizes the parodic intent of the author; it ends with a seemingly non-
chalant mention that the reference to the Chinese work in the title is attributed to the
publisher (“fumiya ga wazani shitsuru to iunaru”). See Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 3.
109. Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 264. All translations are mine.
110. Ibid., 264.
111. The title of the poem was the inspiration for the title of Hamamatsu.
112. Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 265.
113. Ibid.
114. Ibid., 268.
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid., 269.
117. I hasten to add that the transcriptions of Chinese in Honchô Suikoden do
much more justice to the authentic sounds than they do in Kokusen’ya, possibly
re¶ecting the distance between the respective authors’ relative knowledge of the
Chinese language.
118. In the “Tamakazura” (The jeweled chaplet) chapter of Genji monogatari,
Tamakazura’s chaperon claimed that she was physically handicapped in order to
protect her from persistent suitors during the time of her wanderings in Kyûshû.
See Murasaki, Genji monogatari, vol. 2, 333.
119. Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 275, 270. Note the similarity between this in-
stance and one we saw in Kokusen’ya, where a Japanese man distanced himself
from a Chinese noblewoman in exile.
120. Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 274.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid., 284.
123. Ibid., 285.
124. Victor Mair’s translation of the poem is as follows (from Mair, The Co-
lumbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, 300–301):
200 • Notes to Pages 61–69

As clouds think of her clothing, as blossoms think of her face

Spring wind caresses the railings
and dew is thick on the ¶owers.
If you do not ¤nd her by the Mountain of Numerous Jewels
You may head for the Jasper Terrace
to meet her beneath the moon.

125. Takebe, Honchô Suikoden, 285.

126. Ibid.
127. Ibid.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid.
130. Ibid., 287.
131. Ibid., 288–289.
132. Ibid., 289.
133. Ibid.
134. Ibid., 285.
135. Ibid., 300.

Chapter 2: From the Edifying to the Edible

1. Ibi, “Eibutsu no shi: Kanshi to haikai no ichi setten” (Poems on things: A
point of contact between kanshi and haikai), in Ibi, Edo Shiika ron, 111; Hino,
“Kôshôheki to bunbô shumi: Bunjinteki yûtô” (Penchant for empirical studies and
a relish for stationery: Dilettantism typical of literati), in Hino, Sorai gaku ha (The
school of Ogyû Sorai), 108–122.
2. The incident took place in 1636. See Ueno, Ishikawa Jôzan Gensei, 348–
352.
3. Ishizaki Matazô, Kinsei Nihon ni okeru Shina zokugo bungakushi, chapter 1:
Shina gogaku no genryû so no ichi Tô tsûji (The origin of the study of the Chinese
language, 1: Interpreters of Chinese), 20.
4. Ibid., esp. 44–50.
5. Ishizaki gives an elaborately annotated list of the seven Chinese language
textbooks edited by Okajima Kanzan in ibid., 96–116. See also Aoki, “Okajima
Kanzan to Shina hakuwa bungaku,” for the corpus of Okajima’s work.
6. There was also a host of Japanese writers who translated classical Chinese
¤ction stories in Tsuga Teishô’s Kokon kidan: Hanabusa zôshi (1749) and Kokon
kidan: Hanabusa zôshi kôhen: Shigeshige Yawa (1766) and in Ueda Akinari’s
Ugetsu monogatari (1768; published 1776) and Harusame monogatari (1808) are
the most prominent examples.
7. Yonemoto, “Narrating Japan: Travel and the Writing of Cultural Differ-
ence in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” in Yonemoto, Map-
ping Early Modern Japan, 85.
 Notes to Pages 69–75 • 201

8. The Chinese, who were con¤ned to speci¤c areas of the port city of Naga-
saki, were well documented by their contemporaries. For details, see P. J. Graham,
“The Chinese Community in Nagasaki,” in P. J. Graham, Tea of the Sages, 31–41,
and Yonemoto, Mapping Early Modern Japan, 69–100.
9. Konrondo is a generic name for black servants working for the Dutch, but
it is used as a character’s name in this text. See Yonemoto, 77, for an illustration of
“Kuronbo” (another term for black servants), with an annotation in the upper
column: “also called Konrondo.”
10. Although the character ╮ denotes a net to catch ¤sh, it was used inter-
changeably with ╨ , which means a brush made of bamboo that is used for making
tea. Given the names of the author (Chagama Sanjin) and editor (Yakan Shi),
which play upon tea-making utensils, it would make more sense to translate the sen
as a tea brush rather than a ¤shnet.
11. Hino, “Tôshisen no yakuwari: Toshi no hanga to Kobunji-ha” (The role of
Tangshixuan: The burgeoning of the city and the Old Discourse School), in Sorai
gaku ha.
12. See Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound.”
13. Jôzan became a legend himself; his residence, with portraits of the poetic
immortals, has become a topos. For an elaborate account of his accomplishments,
see Chaves, “Jôzan and Poetry,” in Rimer and Chaves, Shisendo, 27–90. A list of
works by the thirty-six Chinese poetic immortals is on 58–75.
14. A corpus of such works is reprinted in the series Wakokubon kanseki shûsei
(published by Kyûko shoin), which includes many of the book-length works men-
tioned below in this chapter.
15. See Sakai, Voices of the Past, ch. 7, for Ogyû Sorai’s response to the Japanese
custom of reading Chinese texts. For a survey of the scholarly trends, see, for ex-
ample, Inoguchi, Nihon kanbungakushi, or Ôta, Nihon kagaku to Chûgoku shigaku.
16. Baudrillard, “The Implosion of Meaning in the Media,” 79 and 80.
17. See Hino, “Kôshôheki to bunbô shumi,” in Hino, Sorai gaku ha, 108–122.
Bourdieu, “The Production of Belief: Contribution to an Economy of Symbolic
Goods,” chapter 2 in Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, 75.
18. The original is “ ⹗‛ߩ⹞ࠍญߔߐ߻‖ਤ߆ߥ ”; it is from one of Buson’s
anthologies, Shin hanatsumi (New ¶ower plucking, 1777). See Yosa Buson, Shin
hanatsumi, 78.
19. “Mass Consumption of Chinese Goods,” in P. J. Graham, Tea of the Sages,
42.
20. For a succinct account of the emergence of the Ôbaku sect and its promo-
tion of cultural activities, see P. J. Graham, “Sencha and the Literati Culture of
Ôbaku Zen Monks,” in P.J.Graham, Tea of the Sages, 48–57. Baroni, Ôbaku Zen, of-
fers the most extensive study of the Ôbaku sect that is available in English to date.
21. According to Mizuta Norihisa, the book was printed in Japan in 1748 and
1817, followed by a Japanese translation by Kashiwagi Jotei, prior to one by Aoki
202 • Notes to Pages 75–79

Masaru that I will mention below in this chapter. See Mizuta, “Bunjin shumi,
195.” For a translation, see Sze, The Tao of Painting. For extensive information on
Li Yu, see Hanan, The Invention of Li Yu.
22. For Ike no Taiga’s reception of the Chinese artistic tradition, see Take-
uchi, Taiga’s True Views, esp. 23–36 and 81–98.
23. There are many references to the work. Particularly inspiring are Koba-
yashi Tadashi and Tokuda Takeshi, “Jûben jûgi zu o yomu” (Interpreting Ten Con-
veniences and Ten Preferences) and Tokuda, “Jûben jûgi zu o yomu.”
24. See Kondô, Hakushi monjû to kokubungaku, 195–208, for extensive annota-
tions to the poem. “Mudan fang” was collected in Bai Jui’s Xin yuefu (New rhapsodies).
25. The original is “ ໊㖸߽ዋߒ੔߭ߚ߈‖ਤ߆ߥ .” This haiku appears in Tan
Taigi (1709–1771) and Miyake Shôzan (1781–1801), Haikai shinsen (1773) and
is collected in Shimasue and Yamashita, Chûkô haikai shû, 113.
26. Hino, “Kôshô-heki to bunbô shumi: Bunjinteki yûtô,” in Hino, Sorai gaku
ha, 109.
27. The original is “⟤ߒ޿ ¿ ߢᬢ⾆ᅥ⽋ࠍ㘩޿” (in Karai, Haifû Yanagidaru,
106). In addition to the arts of the literati, popular cultural elements began to be
imported: Chinese restaurants opened in Osaka, and Chinese cuisine came into
fashion.
28. For more on the modern rearrangement of disciplines within the univer-
sities, see Shirane and Suzuki, Inventing the Classics, and Suzuki Sadami, Nihon no
“bungaku” gainen.
29. For references to his work, consult Wixted, Japanese Scholars of China,
10. Joshua A. Fogel also has a brief account of Aoki’s visit to China in The Litera-
ture of Travel, 167.
30. Chajing is collected in Aoki, Chûka chasho (A book on Chinese tea), for
which Aoki wrote a substantial introduction, “Chasho nyûmon: Kissa shôshi” (An
introduction to books on tea: A concise history of tea tasting). For more on Lu Yu’s
inaugural role in the study of tea, see P. J. Graham, “Framing a Philosophy for Tea
in Early China,” in P. J. Graham, Tea of the Sages, 10–13.
31. Among these are the following: Shina kinsei gikyoku-shi (A history of
early modern Chinese theater, 1930; published in Shanghai, 1933, and in Beijing,
1958); Genjin zatsugeki josetsu (An introduction to Yuan opera, 1937; in Shang-
hai, 1941, and in Beijing, 1957); Nanboku kyokugi genryû kô (A thesis on the ori-
gins of theater in northern and southern China, 1930; in Changsha, 1939); Pekin
fûzoku zufu (An illustrious record of manners and customs in Beijing, 1964; in
Taipei, 1978); Shindai bungaku hyôron shi (A history of literary criticism in the
Qing dynasty, 1950; in Beijing, 1988); and Shina bungaku gaisetsu (An outline of
Chinese literature, 1926; in Shanghai, 1938, and in Hong Kong, 1959). Aoki is
even mentioned in the ¤lm Farewell, My Concubine, as a famous Japanese scholar
for whom Chinese actors (who were naturally antagonistic toward the Japanese
colonizers) felt it was worth performing. I thank Wilt Idema for the information.
 Notes to Pages 79–82 • 203

32. The essay was originally published in Tokyo Teidai shinbun in June 1937.
It was reissued in Aoki, Kônan shun, 67–72. For more on Naitô as a Sinologist, see
Fogel, Politics and Sinology.
33. Aoki, “Kanbun chokudoku ron,” 334–341.
34. The essay was originally published in Tokyo Teidai shinbun in June 1935.
It was reissued in Aoki, Kônan shun, 64–67. It is well known that Ogyû Sorai’s ref-
utation of kundoku and kaeriten did not establish a new practice. See also Sakai,
“The Problem of Translation,” in Sakai, Voices of the Past, ch. 7, 211–239.
35. Sôseki was known to be distressed by the ethnic speci¤city and presumed
universality of Western civilization, which justi¤ed its edifying role in non-
European regions. Writing in Sino-Japanese—a hitherto “universal” language in
East Asia—meant a resistance to the dominance of Western culture. Sôseki wrote
as follows:

As a boy I took pleasure in studying the Chinese classics. Though I had not studied
them for a long time, I had acquired a de¤nition of literature, vaguely, in the sub-
conscious, from [reading] Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu, Shiji, and Hanshu. I thought to my-
self that English literature must be the same, and that, if so, it would not be
regrettable to dedicate one’s life to studying it. . . . Having come to think about it,
I am not particularly competent in Chinese literature, and yet I am con¤dent that
I could fully appreciate the texts. I do not think that my knowledge in English,
though not profound, is inferior to that in the Chinese classics. With the same
level of competence, I like one much better than the other. This must be for no
other reason than the utter difference between the two literatures. In other words,
what is meant by literature in Chinese and what is meant by literature in English
can never be encompassed under the same de¤nition (Natsume, Bungakuron [A
thesis on literature], 7–8).

36. Four of the ¤ve sections in the current edition of Kônan shun were printed
in the journal Shinagaku (Sinology) almost concurrently with the trip.
37. Aoki, “Kôshû kashin” (Correspondence of blossoms from Hangzhou), in
Aoki, Kônan shun, 6–7.
38. Ibid., 8–9.
39. The teacher, Inaba Seikichi, is portrayed in Tanizaki’s “Yôshô jidai,” espe-
cially the sections entitled “Inaba Seikichi sensei” (Mr. Seikichi Inaba, my teacher,
214–225) and “Shûkô juku to sanmâ juku” (Shûkô school and summer school,
231–240); translated in Tanizaki, Childhood Years. See also Harada: “Chûgoku
bungaku to Tanizaki Jun’ichirô 1,” and “Tanizaki Jun’ichirô to Chûgoku bungaku
2,” and Nagae, Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, 79–80.
40. They are collected in Tanizaki, Tanizaki Jun’ichirô zenshû, vol. 24, 52–53.
Tanizaki’s “Shindô” (Prodigy) also features a prodigy who impresses his teacher
by his ability to compose and recite Chinese poems brilliantly.
204 • Notes to Pages 82–84

41. China was the only foreign land that Tanizaki ever visited except for Ko-
rea. Korea had been “annexed” and considered a part of Japanese territory by the
time of Tanizaki’s visit in 1918. Incidentally, Tanizaki’s observations on Korea are
consistently positive and appreciative, except for his comments on Korean
cuisine—an interesting contrast with his usual enthusiasm for Chinese cuisine.
His dislike of the Korean cuisine may explain why Tanizaki never wrote a story
on Korean culture. See “Chôsen zakkan.”
42. Tanizaki’s second trip to China in 1926 did not bear more fruit for ¤ction
with an ostensibly Chinese ¶avor. With the exception of “Tomoda to Matsunaga
no hanashi” (The tale of Tomoda and Matsunaga, 1926), a story about a man who
lived a double life, partly rooted in Shanghai, Tanizaki ceased to write ¤ction
about China. Tomoda, one of the two title characters, who proves to be the same
person as Matsunaga, talks about Shanghai (and by extension China) as the sec-
ond best thing to Paris (by extension the “West”). An eccentric Europhile,
Tomoda visits Paris as a young man and transforms himself into a Frenchman,
Jacques Morain, not only in name, but also—fantastically—in appearance. In his
later years, he visits Shanghai to continue enjoying a cosmopolitan life, as it is eas-
ier for him to visit Shanghai than Paris, both ¤nancially and physically. Tanizaki
wrote two travel accounts—“Shanhai kenbun roku” (Observations in Shanghai)
and “Shanhai kôyûki” (translated as Shanghai friends)—within a year of his re-
turn from the second trip to China. In these he reiterated some of the cultural
analyses from his ¤rst trip and also reminisced about his encounters with up-and-
coming Chinese writers and intellectuals, such as Tian Han (1898–1968), Guo
Moruo (1892–1978), and Ouyang Yuqian (1889–1962); over a long period, he
wrote a few essays about them. It appears that China had ceased to inspire Tani-
zaki’s creative imagination and had become instead a place in the real, if not mun-
dane, world. When the observer begins to speak with the object of his/her
observation in person, the imaginary path of “communication,” where the hypo-
thetical entanglement had been taking place, is blocked. As much as Tanizaki’s
formulation of the Chinese was multifarious and nuanced, his ¤ction ceased to
function as a laboratory of negotiation with China. See Fogel, The Literature of
Travel, 261–265, and Baba, “Tanizaki Jun’ichirô,” for circumstances surrounding
Tanizaki’s visits to China.
43. Tanizaki, “Shina no ryôri,” 78.
44. Ibid., 79, 82.
45. Ibid., 83.
46. Tanizaki, “Shina-geki o miru ki,” 71.
47. Ibid., 72.
48. Ibid. Akutagawa Ryûnosuke also expresses his dismay at a beautiful trans-
vestite blowing his nose with his hands in “Shina yûki.” See Akutagawa, “Travels in
China,” 24.
49. Harada, “Chûgoku bungaku to Tanizaki Jun’ichirô 1,” 53–54.
 Notes to Pages 85–90 • 205

50. Tanizaki’s penchant for the scatological is well known—for example, Jijû’s
excretion in Shôshô Shigemoto no haha (translated as “Captain Shigemoto’s
Mother”).
51. Tanizaki also wrote such explicitly and consistently biographical pieces as
“Kirin” (1910), which features Confucius; “Genjô Sanzô” (Xuanjiang Sancang,
1917); and “So Tôba: Arui wa Kojô no shijin” (Su Dongpo, or a poet on the lake,
1920).
52. A complete translation of this story appears in LaMarre, Shadows on the
Screen. The translation here is mine.
53. The story was originally published as “Seiji iro no onna” (A woman in
celadon blue).
54. Tanizaki, “Seiko no tsuki,” 338.
55. Ibid., 340–341.
56. Ibid., 337.
57. Ibid., 340–341.
58. As in Kôno, Tanizaki bungaku to kôtei no yokubô.
59. Tanizaki, “Seiko no tsuki,” 334–335.
60. Ibid., 335, 342.
61. Ibid., 335.
62. Ibid., 342.
63. Ibid., 353–354. Su Xiaoxiao forms an entry in the well-circulated Xihu
youlan zhi yu (Supplement to an account of West Lake sightseeing), by Tian
Rucheng of the Ming dynasty; the latter quotes a poem in Yutai xinyong (New
songs from the Jade Terrace, 583), which is attributed to her, and to later poems
composed about her. The narrator also mentions Shi Yin’s Xihu jiahua (Fine
stories on West Lake), which may have been one of the sources that the author
consulted. See Shi Yin, Xihu jiahua, vol. 6. For archetypes of female characters in
this and other stories by Tanizaki, see Sakaki, “Keshin no mangekyô.”
64. This is another reason why Xishi must have been a convenient choice: tu-
berculosis was the most romanticized disease in the Japanese literary imagination
in the period. See Fukuda, Kekkaku no Nihon bunkashi, for a survey of literary
works that feature characters with this disease.
65. A conversation with a Western woman seems to suggest an inversion of
the hierarchy involving the West and China. The narrator sees her on the terrace
of the hotel in which the beautiful Chinese women sat earlier. His gaze on this
Western woman is de¤nitely unkind: she is “fat” and dressed in an “un¤ttingly
big” jacket that is “roughly striped” and looks like a dotera, a Japanese padded
gown worn informally at home. It is not incidental that she takes the initiative in
talking to him—and signi¤cantly in Japanese—nor that the narrator thinks of
asking for her company, thinking that “she must be a prostitute” (Tanizaki,
“Seiko no tsuki,” 345). By downgrading the Western woman, this short episode
highlights the Chinese women’s inaccessibility, both linguistic and physical, as
206 • Notes to Pages 90–93

well as elevates the aesthetic status of Li Xiaojie, if not that of Chinese women in
general.
66. Ibid., 332–333.
67. Tanizaki, “Seiko no tsuki,” 350–351.
68. Ibid., 340. The reference to plum trees in “Kakurei” is deemed autobio-
graphical given that the setting of the story is obviously Odawara, a city in which
the author once lived and that is famous for its plum blossoms. More autobiograph-
ical materials are found in the protagonist’s family structure: a subservient wife, a
daughter ¤rmly standing by her mother, and a lover who lives with them. The de-
tails of the love triangle involving Tanizaki; his ¤rst wife, Chiyoko, who gave birth
to his only daughter, Ayuko; and Chiyoko’s younger sister, Seiko, are often thought
to be the bases of plots involving a husband, wife, daughter, and husband’s lover,
recurring in Tanizaki’s stories in the Taishô period. See Sakaki, “Keshin no
mangekyô.” It is noteworthy that his personal situation did not inspire Tanizaki to
write ostensibly autobiographical ¤ction (shishôsetsu) but a ¤ction of exoticism and
fetishism.
69. Stewart, On Longing, 140.
70. Tanizaki, “Kakurei,” 401.
71. Ibid., 402.
72. The Chinese woman is even more dehumanized when her manner of walking
is compared to that of the crane. Whereas this is an empirically accurate description,
suggesting that she cannot take long strides owing to the premodern Chinese custom
of foot binding, the recurrent metaphor of the crane produces its own iconicity.
73. “Birôdo no yume” was ¤rst serialized in the Osaka Asahi shinbun.
74. For example, the title, which is not fully explained in the text, can be ac-
counted for by the following statement by the narrator of “Seiko no tsuki”:

Though [the water of West Lake] is crystal clear and of the utmost purity, it does
not seem light, but instead rather heavy. Such an impression must be partly due
to the ¤ne weeds, like green moss, that have grown thickly on the bottom and
shimmer in dark green as though [the bottom of the lake were] a ¶oor made of
soft velvet. Indeed, no description would be adequate for the bottom other than
that of extremely ¤nely woven velvet of an amazingly beautiful gloss and mois-
ture. Moreover, the goddess of the moon in the sky embroiders all over the sur-
face waving serpentine patterns with an in¤nite number of long silver threads.
The surface’s beauty was such that I felt I would love to cover my favorite actress,
K-ko’s, skin with such a texture if there had been one so beautiful in the human
world. If there is a fairy in this lake, the shawl she should put on should be of this
velvet. (Tanizaki, “Seiko no tsuki,” 348)

75. For more information on Jia Sidao, see, for example, Tian, Xihu youlan
zhi yu, 85–95.
 Notes to Pages 93–96 • 207

76. Tanizaki, “Birôdo no yume,” 507. Incidentally, this hybrid heroine seems
to have made an impact on at least one contemporary reader—Akutagawa Ryûno-
suke. In his travel account, “Shina yûki,” he mentions that the famous entertainer,
Lin Daiyu (doubtless named after the character in Hong lou meng, 1763), reminds
him of the Tanizaki character: “Such an appearance one does not ordinarily come
across in a restaurant. She resembled a character who mixed crime and extrava-
gance in a work by Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, The Velvet Dream” (Akutagawa, “Travels in
China,” 33). For Hong lou meng, see Ts’ao, A Dream of Red Mansions.
77. Tanizaki, “Birôdo no yume,” 520.
78. Some twenty years later, Yokomitsu Riichi noted in his novel Shanhai
(Shanghai, 1928) that many Russian women refugees engaged in prostitution in
the city.
79. In “kaisetsu” (Guide to readers) to the autobiographical ¤ction Dankô Reigan
ki, by the activist/litterateur Su Manzhu ( J. So Manshu, 1884–1918), Iizuka Akira
states that there were many hybrid children, or Xiangzi—including half-Chinese and
half-Japanese, such as Su Manzhu was believed to be—in Yokohama in the late Meiji
(Iizuka, “Kaisetsu,” 289)—a backdrop that may have appealed to Tanizaki.
80. Fûten rôjin nikki is translated in Tanizaki, Diary of a Mad Old Man.
81. The sadomasochistic struggle for power plays a signi¤cant part in ethno-
graphic or, to borrow Mary Louise Pratt’s terminology, “autoethnographic” writ-
ings (Imperial Eyes, 7). While the colonizers exert their power to make sense of and
legitimize their de¤nitions of the colonized, the latter strike back, in part by a ges-
tured surrender to the former’s idioms, which often functions in effect as a parody
of the colonizers’ indecency. In the scheme of fetishism, the colonized become the
“colonizers” in the dissemination of their cultural products as collectibles (e.g.,
souvenirs), although these were constructed in order to cater to the colonizers’ de-
sires. Thus, the colonial desire and its object are reproduced and counterrepro-
duced, just as in sadomasochistic acts, creating yet another “fold” in the Deleuzean
terminology.
82. “Kôjin” was serialized in Chûô kôron in 1920.
83. The original reads as follows:

ㅍᒛሶዄධᎺ

ਇᠭධᎺዄ 㜞ၴ᦭⠧ⷫ
ᰞบ㊀ⱏ᳋ ㇁㉿㔈㞯ੱ
ᶏᥧਃጊ㔎 ⧎᣿੖Ꭸᤐ
ᱝㇹᄙ኷₹ ᘕ൩෤ᷡ⽺ (Cited in Tanizaki, “Kôjin,” 29.)

84. See Lippit, Topographies of Japanese Modernism, for the important role of
Asakusa in the Japanese modernist imaginary of space.
85. Tanizaki, “Kôjin,” 212. Tanizaki published a short piece entitled “Kôjin
no zokkô ni tsuite” (On the continuation of “Mermaids”) in November 1920 in
208 • Notes to Pages 96–103

which he stated that he would make no commitment about completing the story
by a certain deadline.
86. For the signi¤cance of “Kôjin” in the context of the cultural ambience of
Japan at that time, see Ito, Visions of Desire, 65–74.
87. Tanizaki, “Kôjin,” 57–58.
88. For a translation, see Natsume, The Three-Cornered World.
89. Tanizaki, “Kôjin,” 69–71.
90. Natsume, The Three-Cornered World, 20–21. For a translation of Konjiki
yasha, see Ozaki, The Gold Demon.
91. Slight variations between the two writers may be worth noting. While
Sôseki prefers reclusive poets such as Tao Qian (Yuanming), Tanizaki had a fond-
ness for Li Bai (Taibai). That the Tang poet’s legendary eccentric behavior and cel-
ebration of intoxication in his poetry were more attractive to Tanizaki (as they were
to some other “dilettante” writers such as Satô Haruo [1892–1964], whose Sino-
philic writings began to appear in 1923) is apparent in such works as “Sakana no Ri
Taihaku” (Li Taibai, the ¤sh, 1918), a fantasy about communication between a
young Japanese woman and a ¤sh made of silk crepe that is the transformation of Li
Bai. In his preference for Li Bai, Tanizaki reveals his attachment to human desires,
something that Sôseki claims to reject. Tanizaki also mentions other Chinese poets
in “Kôjin” (e.g., Liu Tingzhi [651–679] and Song Zhiwen [?–ca. 710], 72–73) and
elsewhere (e.g., Wu Meicun [1609–1671] in “Shina shumi to iu koto,” 122).
92. Both names are represented in the following three characters: ᨋ⌀⃨ .
93. The reference to Mei Lanfang’s performance in Tokyo is historically accu-
rate. See Mei, Tôyûki, an account of his third visit to Japan in 1956 that touches
upon his ¤rst visit in 1919.
94. Tanizaki, “Shina-geki o miru ki,” 70–74. Tanizaki also comments on the
art and behavior of Mei and other actors.
95. See Fogel, The Literature of Travel, 157, for Mokutarô’s experiences with
seeing Mei Lanfang.
96. On the interface of transvestism and transnationalism, see Garber, “Phan-
toms of the Opera: Actor, Diplomat, Transvestite, Spy,” chapter 10 of Garber, Vested
Interests, 234–266. The interface has many modern and contemporary literary man-
ifestations, such as David Henry Hwang’s M. Butter¶y, which centers on a transves-
tite actor in Chinese opera who exploits the Orientalist fantasies of a French
diplomat.

Chapter 3: Sliding Doors

1. The volume was issued by Fujiwara shoten, a publishing house known for its
translations of books on contemporary theories. Kado has also published Ema Saikô:
Kasei-ki no joryû shijin (Ema Saikô: A female poet of the Kasei period [1804–1830]), a
work Kado calls a novel rather than a biography, and, with Iritani Sensuke, a specialist
in Song dynasty poetry, has annotated a two-volume anthology, Ema Saikô shishû.
 Notes to Pages 103–108 • 209

2. We must not, of course, forget scholars outside Japan, such as Roger Thomas,
who have consistently studied Tokugawa women’s literary works.
3. I do not discuss here the other end of this “bridge”—namely, Meiji literary
women. For information on the subject, see Copeland, “The Meiji Woman Writer.”
4. Suzuki Tomi, “‘Joryû nikki bungaku’ no kôchiku: Janru, jendâ, bungakushi
kijutsu” (The establishment of “women’s memoirs” as a literary genre: Genre, gen-
der, and the register of literary history). A similar line of argument is in Suzuki’s
“Gender and Genre.”
5. Tokugawa women memoirists and waka and haiku poets were, of course,
less “inadequate” in the modern version of Japanese literary history, as they wrote
in wabun and more ostensibly in confessional terms than ¤ction writers (such as
Arakida Reijo) and kanshi poets (such as Ema Saikô). Still, they remained more or
less obscure until recently, perhaps due to the de¤nition of Tokugawa literature
as “masculine,” as opposed to Heian literature as “feminine,” a distinction made
in Meiji kokubungaku scholarship so as to make Confucian affectation in the pe-
riod seem more predominant than it was. That there were Tokugawa counterparts
to Heian literary women may have con¶icted with this en-gendering of Tokugawa
literature. See Suzuki Tomi, “‘Joryû nikki bungaku’ no kôchiku,” for details.
6. Nakajima Wakako locates the origin of the en-gendering of kanshibun in
the Heian rather than in the Tokugawa. She argues that Heian male courtiers were
in a precarious position (with a mix of inferiority complexes and pride), and
women’s increasing command of kanshibun threatened the men’s reason for exist-
ence. Women were distanced from kanshibun precisely because of their closeness
to the culture. See Nakajima, “‘Karafû ankoku jidai’ no naka de,” 81.
7. See Sakaki, “Kurahashi Yumiko’s Negotiations with the Fathers.”
8. Murasaki, The Diary of Lady Murasaki, 57–58. The original is in Murasaki,
Murasaki Shikibu nikki, 500.
9. While Murasaki is believed to have turned the tables to her advantage and
created a masterpiece in the only language in which she was allowed to write,
Ichiyô was strongly urged by her mentor, Nakarai Tôsui, to write in a quasi-classical
Japanese, which Seki Reiko rightly calls josô buntai (feminized discourse) in order
to display feminine attributes. Seki Reiko, “Fude motsu hito e” (For the woman
with a pen in hand). It may be easily overlooked—and Seki directs the reader’s at-
tention to it—that Tôsui was explicitly aware of gender as cultural practice rather
than anatomical essence. His advice was not that Ichiyô should write like a
woman because she was a woman but that she should not take it for granted that
she could write in a feminine style just because she was a woman. Femininity, in
his view, was to be acquired and demonstrated, rather than naturally given or as-
sumed; his metaphor of drag performances in the theater is particularly effective
as a manifesto of performative rather than essentialist gender theory. See also Seki
Reiko, “Tatakau ‘Chichi no musume’: Ichiyô tekusuto no seisei” (‘Father’s daugh-
ter’ at war: Formation of Ichiyô’s text), in Seki Reiko, Kataru onna tachi no jidai:
210 • Notes to Pages 108–110

Ichiyô to Meiji josei hyôgen (The age of narrating women: Ichiyô and feminine ex-
pression in the Meiji period).
10. It is not as though the criticism of women of Chinese letters is entirely a
Tokugawa invention. Nakajima Wakako points out that in the “Biography of Michi-
taka” in Ôkagami, the fall of Fujiwara no Michitaka’s wife, Takashina Takako, in later
life (after her husband’s untimely death, her sons’ exile, and her daughter Teishi’s hu-
miliation) is attributed to her exposure to and exhibition of Chinese learning. See
Nakajima, “‘Karafû ankoku jidai’ no nakade,” 80, and Ôkagami, 268–269.
11. Stephen Owen translates Yu Xuanji’s poem in An Anthology of Chinese Lit-
erature, 510; I have provided the translation below. Whereas many legendary Chi-
nese women have embraced the status of celebrity in the Japanese literary
imagination, Yu Xuanji—a celebrated poet, Daoist nun, and courtesan—remained
a surprisingly neglected ¤gure. This may be a reason to assume that the male/fe-
male dichotomy did not have as strong a hold in Japan as it did in China. It of
course had a great deal to do with the fact that the Chinese government was much
more bureaucratic than social, while the Japanese government was the opposite.
See chapter 4 for more.
12. Ichiyô writes of her experience of using a library in a similarly self-effacing
way, yet not without pride at being one of few educated and motivated women:

Whenever I come and look, it is strange that, while there are many men, hardly
any women are looking at books. That alone would still be all right. If I am told
that I have made a mistake and have to rewrite the form when I have ¤lled it out
with the title, looked up the number of the issue, and brought it [to the circula-
tion desk] amid many men, I blush and shudder. It is worse if I am looked at in
the face and whispered to—I feel effaced, drenched with sweat, and unmotivated
to examine books (in Nishio, ed., Zenshaku Ichiyô nikki, vol. 1, 84–85).

13. Nakajima points out that Sei Shônagon’s references to Chinese sources,
which we will examine below, are found in secondary reference books, which puts
in question the level of her mastery of Chinese. See Nakajima, “‘Karafû ankoku
jidai’ no naka de,” 78–79.
14. Kawaguchi, Heianchô Nihon kanbungakushi no kenkyû, vol. 2, 663.
15. Murasaki: Murasaki shikibu nikki, 453; Diary of Lady Murasaki, 14. Naka-
jima, “‘Karafû ankoku jidai’ no naka de,” 78. Nakajima refers speci¤cally to Sec-
tion 146, “Utsukushiki mono” (Pretty things). Makura no sôshi is translated in
Sei, The Pillow Book of Sei Shônagon.
16. Mostow, “Mother Tongue and Father Script.”
17. Kawaguchi, Heian chô Nihon kanbungakushi no kenkyû, vol. 2, 663.
18. Kawazoe Fusae discusses trade with Parhae in Genji monogatari, which
forms the material background of the story, in “Kôekishi no naka no Genji mono-
gatari,” in Kawazoe, Sei to bunka no Genji monogatari, 110.
 Notes to Pages 111–115 • 211

19. Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu shû, 125.

20. Ibid., 96; Murasaki, The Diary of Lady Murasaki, 57.
21. Hirokawa, “Genji monogatari no rekishi jojutsu to setsuwa.”
22. Murasaki: Murasaki Shikibu nikki, 501; The Diary of Lady Murasaki, 58.
23. Murasaki: Murasaki Shikibu nikki, 496; The Diary of Lady Murasaki, 54.
24. On the contrast, see Miyazaki, Sei Shônagon to Murasaki Shikibu, for ex-
ample, lists Higuchi Ichiyô, “Sao no shizuku” (Drops dripping from the rod, 1895),
in which Ichiyô sympathizes with Sei Shônagon for her unhappy familial circum-
stances; Yosano Akiko, “Sei Shônagon no koto domo” (On Sei Shônagon and other
things, 1911), in which Akiko confesses that she does not like Sei; Shimazu
Hisamoto, Taiyaku Genji monogatari kôwa (Lectures on The Tale of Genji in original
and modern translation, 1950); and Shimizu Yoshiko, “Sei Shônagon to Murasaki
Shikibu” (Sei Shônagon and Murasaki Shikibu, 1981), to name but a few.
25. Miyazaki, Sei Shônagon to Murasaki Shikibu, 27–28. Among other texts,
Miyazaki consulted the following: Mumyô zôshi (Anonymous text, 1200–1201;
translated in Marra, “Mumyô zôshi”); Kakaishô, Kachô yosei (yojô) (Lingering sen-
timents of ¶ora and fauna, 1472); Kogetsushô (An abridged account of the moon in
the lake, 1673); Genji monogatari hyôshaku (The Tale of Genji: Commentary and an-
notations, 1854, 1861); and Shimazu Hisamoto, Genji monogatari kôwa (Lectures
on The Tale of Genji). The titles that Miyazaki mentions, and many more on the
subject, are found in “Sankô bunken nenpyô” (for works from 1868 on).
26. See Nihei, “Genji monogatari to Go Kanjo.”
27. Motoori Norinaga’s Shibun yôryô has been incorporated into his best-
known critical work on Genji, Genji monogatari tama no ogushi and is found in
two different editions—Motoori Norinaga zenshû, vol. 4, and supplementary vol.
1. References here are based on the latter.
28. Hagiwara Hiromichi, in contrast, explored the structural aspects of Genji
monogatari in his Genji monogatari hyôshaku, applying—important in our
context—the terminology of Chinese ¤ction. Despite the anachronisms (Genji
monogatari predates the works of Chinese ¤ction from which Hiromichi’s critical
theories were drawn), his commentary does justice to the dynamics of the narra-
tion, as well as alerting us to the translingual exchange that informed the book’s
structure.
29. Motoori, Shibun yôryô, 480.
30. Andô, Shijo shichiron, 13–16.
31. Motoori, Shibun yôryô, 457.
32. Ibid., 465.
33. Furuya, “Shogen,” 1. In vol. 2 of Edo jidai joryû bungaku zenshû (Col-
lected works of women’s literature in the Tokugawa period). For the signi¤cance
of this series in the study of “women’s literature,” see Ericson, “The Origins of the
Concept of ‘Women’s Literature.’” Also see Ichikawa Seigaku, Kinsei joryû shoka
retsuden, 59, for a similar statement.
212 • Notes to Pages 115–118

34. Izuno, “Arakida Reijo nenpu” (Biographical chronology of Arakida Reijo),

in Izuno, Arakida Reijo monogatari shûsei, 1313–1319.
35. Ichikawa Seigaku, Kinsei joryû shoka retsuden (Biographies of early mod-
ern women calligraphers), 7; also see 59–60.
36. Yosano, “Reijo shôsetsu shû o yo ni susumeru ni tsuite” (Upon recom-
mending the collection of Reijo’s stories), in Yosano, Tokugawa jidai joryû bungaku,
vol. 1, 3. Joan Ericson refers to this collection as well in “The Origins of the Con-
cept of ‘Women’s Literature.’”
37. Regrettably the collection has some editorial errors because it includes
someone else’s work.
38. Yosano, Tokugawa jidai joryû bungaku, 1.
39. Consult the following for further details: Arakida, “Keitoku Reijo ikô”
(Posthumous manuscript of Keitoku Reijo); Yosano, “Arakida Reijo shôden” (Brief
biography of Arakida Reijo), 1–12; Aida and Harada, “Arakida Reijo”; Izuno, Ara-
kida Reijo monogatari shûsei, and “Arakida Reijo”; and Kado, “Motoori Norinaga to
ronsôshita kyôretsuna kosei, Arakida Reijo,” ch. 4 of Kado, Edo joryû bungaku no
hakken, 113–157.
40. Emura, Nihon shishi, 82. The book is vol. 65 of Shin Nihon koten bungaku
taikei.
41. Aida and Harada, “Arakida Reijo,” 205.
42. Shôteki was so welcoming that he paid Reijo for the expenses of the ceremo-
nial haiku composition, which normally would be paid by a new disciple; described
in Arakida, “Keitoku Reijo ikô,” 675, and Yosano, “Arakida Reijo shôden,” 3.
43. Nomura, “Arakida shi Tsuki no yukue jo” (Preface to The Whereabouts of
the Moon, by Ms. Arakida), 2.
44. Ibid.
45. Emura, “Ike no mokuzu jo” (Preface to Weeds in the Pond), 2. For more on
the intellectual comradeship between Zhao Mingzheng and Li Yi’an, see Owen,
Remembrances, ch. 5, 80–98. A concise biographical pro¤le of Li and some of her
poems can be found in Chang and Saussy, Women Writers of Traditional China,
89–99.
46. According to the colophon of Kôchû kokubun sôsho, the series was issued to
celebrate the publisher’s thirty-¤fth anniversary and was prepared in consultation
with many leading kokubungaku scholars of the time. Although the editor of the two
volumes, Ikebe Yoshikata, complains of the historical distance among works in each
volume—an inevitable consequence of making each book about equal in length
(Ikebe, “Kaidai” [Bibliographical accounts], in vol. 12 of Kôchû kokubun sôsho, 1)—
the inclusion of Reijo’s work in the same volumes as such classical narratives seem
to be less mechanical than deliberate and mindful of their similarities in style across
time. For translations of the works mentioned here and not already cited, see the
following: Uji shûi monogatari: Mills, A Collection of tales from Uji; Kagerô nikki:
Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha: The Gossamer Years and The Kagerô Diary; Tori-
 Notes to Pages 118–122 • 213

kaebaya monogatari: Willig, The Changelings; Hôjôki: Kamo no Chômei, The Ten
Foot Square Hut.
47. Cited in Yosano, “Arakida Reijo shôden,” 5. Ogino’s statement is, of
course, not entirely accurate, given the existence of Akazome Emon, for one.
48. Emura, “Ike no mokuzu jo,” 1. For translations of the texts mentioned, see
McCullough, The Great Mirror, and Perkins, The Clear Mirror.
49. Nomura, “Arakida-shi Tsuki no yukue jo,” 2.
50. Furuya, “Shogen,” 3.
51. Ayashi no yo gatari (also transcribed as Kaisei dan) and “Fuji no iwaya”
are included in Yosano, Tokugawa jidai joryû bungaku, vols. 2 and 1 respectively;
in Furuya, Edo jidai joryû bungaku zenshû, vols. 2 and 1 respectively; and in Izuno,
Arakida Reijo monogatari shûsei. For a translation of Sou shen ji, see DeWoskin
and Crump, In Search of the supernatural.
52. Motoori, “Nonaka no shimizu tensaku,” 372.
53. Ibid. Also see Ishimura, “Motoori Norinaga no bunshô hihyô ni tsuite,” 49.
54. Cited in Ishimura, “Motoori Norinaga no bunshô hihyô ni tsuite,” 49.
55. Cited in Furuya, “Shogen,” iv.
56. Ishimura, “Motoori Norinaga no bunshô hihyô ni tsuite.”
57. While there were a number of women poets, few women critics of poetry
could be identi¤ed, and none was selected to compile imperially commissioned
anthologies (chokusen waka shû), a mark of recognition for critics of the time.
Women were not expected to exercise their intellectual faculties to draw theoreti-
cal arguments; they may have been adored as muses or shamanesses, who sponta-
neously tossed out inspiring words, but not as critics, who were expected to
observe and judge—much less editors of anthologies, a task that requires skills in
evaluating, classifying, and arranging poems in an appropriate sequence.
58. See Copeland, “The Meiji Woman Writer,” 416, for the persistence of two
typical gender-based evaluations of women’s works: “She-Writes-Like-a-Man” (or
She has “transcended her sex”) and “She writes like women as she should.”
59. See the following by Maeda Yoshi: “Kinsei joryû kanshijin Tachibana
Gyokuran: Sono shôgai to sakuhin” (Tachibana Gyokuran, a female kanshi poet
in early modern Japan: Her life and work); “Kinsei keishû shijin Hara Saihin to
Bôsô no tabi: Hara Saihin kenkyû sono 1” (Hara Saihin, a female kanshi poet in
early modern Japan and her trip to Bôsô: A study of Hara Saihin, no. 1); “Joryû
bunjin Kamei Shôkin shôden: Kamei Shôkin kenkyû nôto 1” (Brief biography of
Kamei Shôkin, a female literatus: A draft of a study of Kamei Shôkin, no. 1);
“Shôkin shikô Yôchô kô Kinoto i o megutte: Kamei Shôkin kenkyû nôto 2” (On the
private draft of The Enticing Travel, by Shôkin). Also see Shiba, “Kinsei nyonin
bunjin fudoki 2.”
60. Yu, Dongying shixuan ( J. Tôei shisen). Sai Ki (Ch. Cai Yi) recounts the
process of compilation of this anthology, in which he notes that the women’s po-
etry volume was separately published in China. See Sai, “Yu Etsu [Ch. Yu Yue] to
214 • Notes to Pages 122–123

ChûNichi kanseki no kôryû” (Yu Yue and the exchange of books in Chinese be-
tween China and Japan).
61. Fukushima, Joryû.
62. Maeda Yoshi, “Kinsei keishû shijin Hara Saihin to Bôsô no tabi,” 14;
Fukushima, “Kaisetsu” (Guide for readers), in Fukushima, Joryû, 327.
63. Saihin’s primary career plan was to become a Confucian scholar. She con-
sulted Matsuzaki Kôdô, who counseled her against the plan, suggesting that a fe-
male scholar would invite undue criticism, as the public would suspect that she
lacked virtue. See Matsuzaki, Kôdô nichireki (Kôdô’s diary), vol. 3, 18 (entries for
Bunsei 12-nen, 11-gatsu 24-ka and 25-nichi [twenty-fourth and twenty-¤fth days,
eleventh month, twelfth year of Bunsei]). Kôdô also notes here that he lent Saihin
vols. 22–28 of Xiaocang shichao (An abridged anthology from Xiaocang), a collec-
tion of Yuan Mei’s poetry, as Saihin was keen on poetic composition.
64. The original lines are as follows:

ำᤚ⌀↵⺕ᢓデ . . . .
ᚒ੦ቑ⵾ⵙ⟜ⵗ . . . .
ਇ㗿ၫᏠὑੱᆄ
₡ᛴㆮᦠㄓ㒞ደ (in Aida and Harada, Kinsei joryû bunjin den, 16–17).

65. Ibid., 15; Maeda Yoshi, “Kinsei keishû shijin Hara Saihin no Bôsô no
tabi,” 17; Fukushima, “Kaisetsu,” in Fukushima, Joryû, 324 and 327–328.
66. San’yô must have been impressed with Saihin’s work, as he advised Ema
Saikô later that she should also compose ¤fty-four poems to cover the contents of all
the chapters of Genji, after she showed him a few poems that corresponded to some
of them. This episode also suggests that San’yô viewed Genji as a whole, rather than
a series of fragments, a view that differed from Norinaga’s. Also important to note
here is that Murasaki was a model and source of inspiration even for kanshi poets.
The equation of the gender divide and the language divide prevents us from seeing
some of Genji’s potentials.
67. In Nakamura Shin’ichirô, “Onna deshi tachi” (Female disciples), in Na-
kamura Shin’ichirô, Rai San’yô to sono jidai (Rai San’yô and his day), 63–81.
68. “Ema Saikô nenpu” (Biographical chronology of Ema Saikô), in Ema monjo
(bunsho) hozonkai, Ema Saikô raikan shû (Collection of letters addressed to Ema
Saikô), 317. Portrayals of the author are also found in the following: Aida, “Ema
Saikô”; Fister, “Female Bunjin”; Bradstock and Rabinovitch, An Anthology of Kanshi,
297–298; and Ema, Breeze through Bamboo, 1–27 (introduction by Hiroaki Sato).
69. Ema monjo (bunsho) hozonkai, Ema Saikô raikan shû, 6–20, includes
nine letters from Gyokurin addressed Saikô.
70. Ibid., 9.
71. Ibid., 30–31 and 34–35. See also Fukushima, “Keishû shijin Ema Saikô”
(Ema Saikô, a female poet), 7.
 Notes to Pages 123–126 • 215

72. Fukushima, “Kaisetsu,” in Fukushima, Joryû, 7.

73. Cited in Nakamura Shin’ichiro, Rai San’yô to sono jidai, 69.
74. “Ema Saikô nenpu,” in Ema monjo (bunsho) hozonkai, Ema Saikô raikan
shû, 317.
75. Ibid., 318. For Jiang’s networking with other artists, see P. J. Graham,
Tea of the Sages, 108. Two poems by Jiang are included in Kikuchi Gozan (1769–
1849), Gozandô shiwa (Talks on poetry by Gozandô), an anthology that selected
more generously from the works of Japanese kanshijin and classical Chinese poets
than from the contemporary Chinese. See Ibi, “Kasei-ki shidan to hihyôka: Go-
zandô shiwa ron” (Critics and the establishment of poetry in the Kasei period: Dis-
cussions on Talks on Poetry by Gozandô), 4.
76. Cited in Ibi, “Kasei-ki shidan to hihyôka,” 70–71; Kado, Ema Saikô shi-
shû, vol. 1, 1.
77. Ema, Shômu ikô, vol. 2, 11; Kado, Ema Saikô shishû, vol. 2, 352. Some of
the poems Jin Yi composed, along with a short biographical account, are in Chang
and Saussy, Women Writers of Traditional China, 485–487.
78. San’yô’s comments in their (supposed) entirety are found in Ema, San’yô
sensei hiten, a reproduction of Saikô’s handwritten copies of her poetry with
San’yô’s comments; it covers poems composed between 1814 and 1832, the year of
San’yô’s death. San’yô’s comments are also included in the 1871 edition of Ema,
Shômu iko, and in Kado, Ema Saikô shishû. Sadako Ohki categorized San’yô’s gender-
related comments in a paper that I am not at liberty to quote. For her thesis, see
Ohki, “Ema Saikô’s Kanshi Poetry,” 162.
79. ฏ ฏ ᨵ 㤀 ⌀ ᅚ ੱ ญ ่ 㝏 ⋲ ↵ ሶ ⊖ ⸘ ᮨ ୮ ⚳ ਇ น ᓧ (in Ema, Sanyô
sensei hiten, 27).
80. ⌀ᅚ ሶ⺆ ᧂ⛫ ㆏⯪ 㕖ᘢ ᔃ㚅 ญ቟ ⢻᜝ ⎕ (in ibid., 96).
81. ⌀ᅚ ㇢⡪ ᳋ (in ibid., 150).
82. In ibid., 17. In fact, San’yô’s comparison with Lu Wuguan was owing not
only to his acceptance of women of letters, but also to a better understanding in
Japan of the diversity of Chinese literature (as we saw in chapter 2) and to the Japa-
nese literati’s own practice of the domestic arts that had inspired poets such as Lu
You.
83. ⽕Ό ਇ㘃 ᅚሶ ⺆⧯ ಴ᣈ 㝏⋲ ↵ሶ ⌀வ ૞ ਽ (in ibid., 74).
84. ਇᢱ 㑖㑒 ᦭ᱝ ผቑ ੹ઍ 㝏⋲ ฬኅ ᚗਇ ⸃ᱝ (in ibid., 121).
85. Ibid.
86. Cited in Ema monjo (bunsho) hozonkai, Ema Saikô raikan shû, 55.
87. ⥄๮ਇಠਇᅤᱝ૗⿷એෛጊ㓁␠⋖຦ (in Ema, San’yô sensei hiten, 260–
261).
88. ਃ ᓬ ❢ ➩ ৻ ↢ ᶦ and ᗅ ᕟ ੱ 㑆 ⇺ ᙾ ᇚ ᒝ ዂ㘑 ୮ ๋ ఎ (in ibid., 281).
Hiroaki Sato translates this poem as “Describing Myself” (see Ema, Breeze through
Bamboo, 115).
89. Noted by Kobayashi Tetsuyuki, “Kaidai,” 356.
216 • Notes to Pages 126–131

90. Ema: San’yô sensei hiten, 27–28; Breeze through Bamboo, 50.
91. ᅚ ผ ὑ ੱ ◊ ኪ ᷷ 㓷 ᦭ ථ ⼂ ੐ ῳ ቁ ᦭ ᡿ ਇ ╂ ╩ ⎮ ⥄ ᇅ ⠰ ෶ ᘣ ὼ ᦭ ᘷ
࿡ਯ ᳋૶ 㝏⋲ ਂᄦ ᦭ᗹ ⦡ (“Saikô joshi boshimei,” in Ema, Shômu ikô, 31). Also
in Kado, Ema Saikô shishû, vol. 2, 563. Judging from her poems on drinking and
on historical topics—such as the Nanjing Treaty (1842), which con¤rmed the hu-
miliating status of Qing China vis-à-vis Britain and caused Saikô to be deeply con-
cerned about Japan’s future—Saikô loved to drink in the company of friends and
discuss politics with them, just as male kanshijin would.
92. Kado, Ema Saikô: Kasei-ki no joryû shijin, 13.
93. Cited in ibid., 13–14.
94. While Saikô’s poems record that she stayed overnight at San’yô’s residence in
Kyoto and that during her visit his wife kept out of their way except to serve tea and
provide a lamp and other necessities, there is no con¤rmation of a sexual relationship
between the two. San’yô, even after marrying a woman who was the domestic type,
was candid enough to write of his admiration for Saikô and of his dissatisfaction with
his wife, who was hardly as educated as Saikô. Saikô, for her part, composed a poem
in which she suggested that she had made a mistake in planning a life that would
leave her single. In another poem (“Renshi o tsumamite en’ô o utsu” [Throwing a
lotus seed at a couple of waterfowl], in Ema, San’yô sensei hiten, 96), she envies a pair
of waterfowl and tries to separate them by throwing a lotus seed at them; the action is
often taken as a suggestion of her jealousy of San’yô’s wife. Despite room for specula-
tion on the possibility of a romantic liaison, many who knew both Saikô and San’yô
explicitly con¤rmed that she remained proper. San’yô himself praised her for remain-
ing “unblemished” in a letter written two years before his death.
95. Saikô’s ¤rst—and posthumous—individual anthology was published in
1871.
96. See Mori Ôgai, “Rekishi sonomama to rekishi banare,” 508–511. It is
translated in Mori Ôgai, “History as It Is and History Ignored,” 179–184.
97. Mori Ôgai, “Gyo Genki,” 103. My translation. A translation of this entire
story by David Dilworth can be found in Rimer and Dilworth, The Historical Fic-
tion of Mori Ôgai, 185–198.
98. Mori Ôgai, “Gyo Genki,” 103.
99. Ibid., 103–104.
100. See Yamazaki Kazuhide, “‘Gyo Genki’ ron” (Discussion of “Gyo Genki”).
101. See Karashima, Gyo Genki, Setsu Tô (Yu Xuanji, Xue Tao), 80–83, where
he annotates, translates, and interprets Yu Xuanji’s “Qingshu ji Li Zian” (Love let-
ter to Li Zian [Yi]) and expresses his frustration with what he perceives as Ôgai’s
desexualization of the female poet.
102. See Yoshikawa Hakki, Satô Haruo no Shajin shû, esp. 118–131.
103. Mori Ôgai, “Gyo Genki,” 112.
104. Ibid., 106.
105. Ibid.
 Notes to Pages 131–133 • 217

106. Ibid., 110. The poem by Yu Xuanji mentioned in this passage is translated
by Stephen Owen as follows:

Cloud-covered hilltops ¤ll my eyes,

I revel in springtime light,
here clearly ranged are the silver hooks
that grew at their ¤ngertips.
I have bitter regret that skirts of lace
hide the lines of my poems,
and lifting my head in vain I covet
the publicly posted name (An Anthology of Chinese Literature, 510).

107. For an example of a critic who thought that Ôgai’s Yu Xuanji was desexu-
alized, see Moriyasu, “Ôgai to Gyo Genki” (Ôgai and Yu Xuanji).
108. Karashima, Gyo Genki, Setsu Tô, 123–126.
109. Citing the following poem by Yu Xuanji, Ôgai embellishes it with quasi-
lesbian sentiments, which are not the established reading of the poem:

“Presented to the Girl Next Door”

Shying from the sun, I shade myself with gauze sleeves,

Made melancholy by spring, too listless to rise and put on my make-up.
It’s easy to seek a priceless treasure—
But hard to ¤nd a man with a heart.
I let my tears fall unseen on my pillow,
I am secretly downcast among the ¶owers,
But if I can steal glances at Song Yu,
Why should I regret Wang Chang? (in Chang and Saussy, Women Writers of Tra-
ditional China, 75).

110. See Ogata, “‘Gyo Genki’ to ‘atarashii onna’-tachi: Sei to bungaku e no

kaigan no kiroku” (“Yu Xuanji” and “New Women”: A record of awakening to
sex and literature).
111. See, Kaneko Sachiyo, “‘Atarashiki onna’-tachi no taitô: Nichi-Doku ni
okeru josei kaihô to Mori Ôgai” (The emergence of “New Women”: Mori Ôgai and
women’s liberation in Japan and Germany), and Watanabe Yoshio “Josei kaihô to
Mori Ôgai: ‘Saezuri’ no haikei to igi” (Mori Ôgai and women’s liberation: The back-
ground and signi¤cance of “Chirping”).
112. Cited in Kaneko Sachiyo, “‘Atarashiki onna,’” 44.
113. Mori Ôgai, “Yosano Akiko san ni tsuite.” Ôgai’s high esteem for Yosano
Akiko is reminiscent of his comment on a legendary Chinese female poet, Xiao-
qing; he scribbled the comment in the margins of his copy of her anthology. He
218 • Notes to Pages 133–137

was impressed with Xiaoqing’s lucid style, in comparison with which contempo-
rary Japanese male writers appeared to him wishy-washy. For details, see Maeda
Ai, “Ôgai no Chûgoku shôsetsu shumi” (Ôgai’s penchant for Chinese ¤ction),
and Sakaki, Recontextualizing Texts, ch. 3, esp. 170–171.
114. Translations of “Yasui fujin” and “Saigo no ikku” appear in Rimer and
Dilworth, The Historical Fiction of Mori Ôgai, 255–270 and 209–221 respectively.
Edwin McClellan has written an account of Shibue Io based upon Mori Ôgai’s his-
torical ¤ction. See McClellan, Woman in the Crested Kimono.
115. For more on my argument that Kurahashi’s work speaks against the for-
mula of recounting and assessing a given writer’s work according to his or her life
story, see Sakaki, “Kurahashi Yumiko.”
116. For a translation of “Peach Blossom Spring,” see Owen, An Anthology of
Chinese Literature, 309–310. “Kôkan” is translated in Kurahashi, “Trade.”
117. For a detailed account of the short story, see Sakaki, “Kurahashi Yumiko
no ‘Kôkan’ o yomu: Shikai hon’an no hôhô o chûshin to shite” (A reading of
“Trade” by Kurahashi Yumiko: Centering on the methodology of reworking Chi-
nese horror stories).
118. “Kubi no tobu onna” is translated by Sakaki as “The Woman with the
Flying Head.” The original reads as follows:

In Ch’in times, in the south, there lived the Headfall people whose heads were ca-
pable of ¶ying about. This particular tribe conducted sacri¤ces which they named
“Insect Fall,” and from that ceremony they took their name.
In Wu times, General Chu Huan took a captive maid from there, and each
night when he had fallen asleep, her head would suddenly begin to ¶y about. It
would ¶y in and out of the dog door or the skylight using its ears as wings; toward
dawn it would return to its proper place—and this happened many, many times.
Those around General Chu Huan found this very strange, and late one night
they came with torches to observe. They found only the body of the girl, the head
being missing. Her body was slightly chilled, and her breathing was labored. They
covered the body completely with a counterpane, and near dawn the head re-
turned, only to be balked by the bedcovers. Two or three times it attempted to get
under the covers with no success; it ¤nally fell to the ¶oor. The sounds it made
were piteous indeed, and the body’s breathing became agitated. It appeared to be on
the brink of death when the men pulled back the covers, and the head rose again to
attach itself to the neck. A short while later, her respiration became tranquil.
Chu Huan found their report very strange indeed and, being afraid to keep
the girl in his household, released her and returned her to the tribe. Having exam-
ined this very carefully, all came to the conclusion that the ¶ying head was a nat-
ural attribute of these people.
At that time the commanding general of Yün-nan expeditions frequently
came across such tribes. Once someone covered one of the bodies with an inverted
 Notes to Pages 138–145 • 219

copper bowl, and the head being unable to reach its body, both parts perished
(translated in DeWoskin and Crump, In Search of the Supernatural, as “The Tribe
with Flying Heads,” 147).

119. The ostensible mind/body split, manifested in the body of the Chinese woman
in association with Japanese males, could be read as analogous to the Japanese reception
of the Chinese intellectual heritage and Chinese material products respectively.
120. Translated as “An offering for the Cat” in Watson, The Columbia Book of
Chinese Poetry, 342–343.
121. For a translation of Towazu gatari, see Go-Fukakusa in Nijô, Confessions
of Lady Nijô.
122. Kurahashi, Shunposhion, 302.
123. Ibid., 309.
124. A case in point is Higuchi Ichiyô’s relationship with Nakarai Tôsui, who
coached her in stylistics. He advised her to learn how to write in a feminine style,
rather than assuming that her writing was by default feminine because she was a
woman. This suggests that he knew gender was cultural rather than anatomical.
She was compelled to leave his tutelage because of rumors of romance between
them. See Seki Reiko, “Fude motsu hito e.”
125. For more on engendered territories in the ¤eld of literary production in
modern Japan and Kurahashi’s position therein, see Sakaki, “Kurahashi Yumiko’s
Negotiation with the Fathers.”

Chapter 4: The Transgressive Canon?

1. It is known that Matsuzaki Kôdô discouraged Hara Saihin from opening a
private school (juku) to teach the Chinese classics in 1829, when she was thirty-
one years old. See Fukushima, “Kaisetsu” (Guide to readers), 324–325.
2. As noted above, Saikô’s paintings were sold via San’yô, but the artist did
not rely on the sales as a primary source of income. In a notable exception, the
feudal lord of Niwa gave Reijo an of¤cial position, though it was not of a regular
of¤ce but more honorary in nature. See Izuno, “Arakida Reijo,” 115.
3. This is not to suggest that there were no men of letters in the “real” world.
Moreover, there have been unemployed men of letters through the ages in Japan,
as well as in China, who have upheld the purist vision of the canon as an inherent
value regardless of its monetary or social value.
4. Yoshida Ken’ichi points out that Akutagawa Ryûnosuke was able to read
kanshibun, which his Japanese teacher in German could not read. Yoshida uses
this anecdote to differentiate generations of readers. See Yoshida Ken’ichi, “Ni-
hongo” (Japanese language), 264. We might also recall Tanizaki Jun’ichirô’s lim-
ited mastery of the genre (noted in chapter 2).
5. For a study of modernity and the “national canon,” see Tomi Suzuki,
“Gender and Genre.”
220 • Notes to Pages 146–149

6. See Maeda Ai, “Meiji shoki bunjin no chûgoku shôsetsu shumi” (The early
Meiji literati’s penchant for Chinese ¤ction), 298.
7. Ômachi Keigetsu observed that kanshi peaked in popularity in the early
Meiji and that the genre was revitalized in the second decade of the Meiji (1878–
1887), after a period of political unrest. Cited in Ibi, “Meiji kanshi no shuppatsu”
(The beginning of Meiji kanshi), 5. The article is particularly useful in its account
of Mori Shuntô. See also Inoguchi, Nihon kanbungakushi, 507–577, for an over-
view of major kanshi poets in the Meiji.
8. For a modern translation with annotations, see Takezoe, San’un kyôu nikki:
Meiji kanshijin no Shisen no tabi (A diary of clouds around the bridge, the rain over
the valley: A Meiji kanshi poet’s trip to Sichuan). For the ambiguous position of the
author and narrator of the text in terms of enfranchisement, see Sakaki, “Trans-
national Communications in the Classical Language in the Age of Nationalism.”
9. Brief excerpts from Lu You’s and Fan Chengda’s travelogues, with biograph-
ical information on the authors, can be found in Strassberg, Inscribed Landscapes,
205–212 and 213–218. We saw in chapter 3 that Ema Saikô was compared to Lu
You.
10. Sano Masami’s “Kaidai,” attached to Dongying shixuan, relates Takezoe’s
involvement in the compilation of the volume. For a brief pro¤le of Takezoe, a
few of his poems, and an example of his composition in prose, see Kanda Ki-
ichirô, Meiji kanshibun shû, 46–48, 247–255, and 410.
11. For a pro¤le of Suematsu and selections of his poetry, see Kanda Kiichirô,
Meiji kanshibun shû, 416–417 and 77–79.
12. See Suematsu, The Tale of Genji, 15–16.
13. See Kanda Kiichiro, Meiji kanshibun shû, 418, for a biographical sketch of
Nagai Kagen and 87–89 for a sampling of his poetry. Also see Seidensticker, Kafû,
the Scribbler, for references to Kagen.
14. Raiseikaku was the name of Kagen’s residence, which he built in the Chinese
mode (his son Kafû demolished it after his death in order to build a European-style
house on the premises); Kagen also used “Raiseikaku” as one of his pseudonyms.
15. Doitsu nikki covers Ôgai’s stay in Germany immediately after the time re-
lated in Kôsei nikki. Zai Toku ki is imagined to have been kept concurrently. See
Nakai, Ôgai ryûgaku shimatsu, 50–52, for a discussion of the extensive editing that
must have taken place in the writing of Doitsu nikki.
16. Natsume, Bungakuron, 7–8.
17. The anthology bears two epithets: one, a waka from Man’yô shû; the
other, a ¤ve-character couplet from a poem by Su Shi. See Mori, Omokage, 2.
18. ㆐ ᓼ ࿡ ᱌ ୶ ૛ ⸃ ᓼ ࿡ ⺆ ᧪ ᱝ ᓧ ఺ ⡲ ໍ ਯ ∛ น ⻐ ᔟ ⍬ (Mori Ôgai,
Kôsei nikki, 83).
19. See Sakaki, Recontextualizing Texts, ch. 3, for references in Gan to univer-
sity students’ readings of Zhang Chao’s Yuzhu xinzhi, Xiaoqing Zhuan, and Jin Ping
Mei. For translations of Gan, see Mori Ôgai: Wild Geese and Wild Goose.
 Notes to Pages 149–152 • 221

20. See Maeda Ai, “Ôgai no Chûgoku shôsetsu shumi,” 76. For a translation
of Vita sekusuarisu, see Mori Ôgai, Vita Sexualis.
21. See Maeda Ai, “Meiji shonen no dokusha zô” (The image of the reader in
the early Meiji), 112.
22. For the Hong lou meng translation, see Kôda, Kôrômu, and for Shuihu zhuan,
see Kôda, Suikoden. Both are in the literature (bungaku) section (preceded by the
Confucian classics and history [keishi] section) of the series. The publication of the
series—both Kokuyaku kanbun taisei and its sequel—tells an ambiguous story about
the Japanese reception of Chinese literature in the Taishô period. While the breadth
of the works included and the size of the series suggest that the publisher antici-
pated an enthusiastic reception, the very fact that a Japanese translation was needed
is an indication of the Japanese loss of pro¤ciency in Chinese. In a different perspec-
tive, a sizable audience had emerged out of the hitherto illiterate population.
23. Kôda, “Ko-Shina bungaku ni okeru shôsetsu no chii ni tsuite,” 39.
24. Shiba Shirô received ¤nancial support from the Iwasaki family to visit the
United States to study. He ¤rst arrived in San Francisco in 1879 to study at Paci¤c
Business College, then went to Boston to audit some courses at Harvard, and ¤nally
went to Philadelphia to enroll in the Wharton School for a Bachelor of Finance de-
gree from the University of Pennsylvania. See Ônuma, “Zaibei jidai no Tôkai San-
shi: Nimai no shashin kara” (Tôkai Sanshi in his days in the United States: From
two photographs).
25. In the early Meiji works of caizi jiaren xiaoshuo boasted an unprecedented
popularity, which may be accounted for by the fact that Meiji Japan witnessed the
emergence of social conditions similar to premodern China’s, as Maeda Ai points
out in “Gesaku bungaku to Tôsei shosei katagi” (Comical literature and The Es-
sence of Contemporary Students), 123. The Chinese-style civil service examination
had never been ¤rmly rooted in the Japanese bureaucracy, despite its early intro-
duction, until the Meiji era. The loosening of the rigid social hierarchy left young
intellectuals in an unreliable yet ¶exible world in which they had to prove their
talent or perish. Thus it was in a sense natural that romance ¤ction involving
scholars and beauties became popular in the early Meiji, including Tsubouchi
Shôyô’s Ichidoku santan: Tôsei shosei katagi (Once read, thrice praised: The es-
sence of contemporary students, 1885), and Setchûbai, a political novel. (Shôyô is
discussed below.) The title Kajin no kigû also suggests its intended genre.
26. Xiao, Wenxuan, 638–640.
27. Kajin no kigû nonetheless displays signs of modernity that go beyond the
expectations of the genre. There are moments in which it goes beyond the rhetori-
cal requirements governing plot and characterization. When Ms. Parnell, a histori-
cal activist in the Irish Independence Movement in the United States, humbly
describes herself as a woman who has passed her prime, Tôkai Sanshi demurs, chal-
lenging the conventional expression san-go, ni-hachi—three-¤ve (that is, ¤fteen)
and two-eight (that is, sixteen)—the years at which women were considered most
222 • Notes to Pages 152–153

attractive. This is not an exclusively realistic observation but an observation

justi¤ed in rhetorical terms, for the moon is full when it is ¤fteen days old and
nearly full when it is sixteen days old. Women were often associated with the
moon, and hence they had to be ¤fteen or sixteen years old to be at their most beau-
tiful. Tôkai Sanshi, however, maintains that age is not an issue in the discussion of
female beauty. He claims that he sees beauty in women’s intelligence, experience,
and social awareness, rather than in a youthful physical appearance, as the former
are the qualities that make women delightful conversational companions. He then
lists all the aging or aged women from East and West who were known to be beau-
tiful: Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Wu Zetian, the Queen Mother of the West, and Mrs.
En’ya in Chûshingura (1748; translated in Takeda, Miyoshi, and Namiki, Chûshin-
gura [The Treasury of Loyal Retainers], 1971). Though the choices might not be
readily accepted by every reader, as many of these women were known to have
caused their countries trouble rather than to have delighted their friends, the logic
is ¶attering to women and thus strikes us as modern.
28. Keene, Dawn to the West, 85–86.
29. See Fujikawa Shin’ichi, “Kajin no kigû to Yusenkutsu” (Unexpected En-
counters with Beauties and Excursion to the Cave of the Immortals), and Yanagida,
“Kajin no kigû to Tôkai Sanshi” (Unexpected encounters with Beauties and Tôkai San-
shi), 392.
30. Tôkai Sanshi, Kajin no kigû (1885), vol. 1, 8. All the translations are mine
unless otherwise noted.
31. Wang Zhaojun was a beautiful lady-in-waiting at the court of Emperor
Yuan of the Han dynasty. Because she failed to bribe a painter, he did not do justice
to her unparalleled beauty in a portrait; on the basis of the portrait, the emperor
gave her as a gift to the Xiongnu chieftain. Much to the emperor’s regret, he found
her to be an extraordinary beauty after making the decision. Yang Guifei, as we
know, was a consort of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty, who indulged his
lust for her to the extent of neglecting his duties and bringing on the catastrophic
An Lushan Rebellion. See Sakaki, “Archetypes Unbound,” for more.
32. ᬢᩉ ᛬৻ ᨑ , ᪸ ⧎㔺 ฽ and ⚃ ⬒ᶎ ✛ᳰ (Tôkai Sanshi, Kajin no kigû
[1885], vol. 1, 10).
33. Note that two levels of discourse coexist in the text. When the protagonist
talks directly to one of the beauties, Kôren of Ireland, he compares her to Helen of
Troy and Jane, Queen of Scotland— ᅥ⬒⯃⊞ —apparently in consideration of the
reading knowledge of his addressee. Then the author adds a parenthetical annota-
tion to each of the references—“Greek beauty” or “Queen of Scotland who stood out
in beauty and intelligence”—presumably for the sake of his readers in 1880s Japan.
34. Tôkai Sanshi says the following:

᦭⟤ ৻ੱ
ᷡᬢ ተ౑
 Notes to Pages 153–158 • 223

ㆴㅑ ⋧ㆄ
ㅳᚒ 㗿౑ (Tôkai Sanshi, Kajin no kigû [1885], vol. 1, 11).

The original poem in Shijing, which is slightly different ( ⦣ for ተ ) and longer, is
entitled “Yeyou wancao” ㊁᦭⬧⨲ and can be found in Yoshikawa Kôjirô, Shikyô
kokufû, vol. 2, 84–86.
35. Tôkai Sanshi, Kajin no kigû (1885), vol. 1, 11. Kajin no kigû uses classical
language even for speeches and dialogues: the characters speak as they write.
36. ᐝ⼱ ⭕ ⯗ⓨ ᙬ㚅
ᐕᐕ ో ▵ᓙ 㡅ಪ (ibid., 13).
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., vol. 2, 26–27.
39. Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions.
40. Tôkai Sanshi, Kajin no kigû (1885), vol. 2, 24–25.
41. Cited in Hata and Yamada Kindai I, 68. It would be unjust to Morita
Shiken, however, if we took him to be invariably antagonistic to modern usages of
kanbun. (As a comment attached to the quotation we cite suggests, Morita was not
expected to make a statement for the “pro-compromise school” [setchû-ha].) See
“Jibun hyôron” (A critique of current matters). Elsewhere Morita says that he was
delighted to see a revival of interest in kanbun among the youth, as Chinese com-
pounds could be used for equivalents of new concepts, and as a knowledge of Chi-
nese words was essential even in creating neologisms (in Kokumin no tomo [The
nation’s friend]; cited in “Jibun hyôron”).
42. Etô, “Kindai sanbun no keisei to zasetsu” (The formation and demise of
modern prose), 26.
43. Seki Ryôichi, “Kindai bungaku no keisei: Dentô to kindai” (The formation
of modern literature: Tradition and modernity), 4–5. The translation of the line
from Authoritative Discourses (Wenzhang jingguo zhi daye; ᢥ┨ ⛫࿡ ᄢ ᬺ) is based
on Stephen Owen’s translation of “Discourse on Literature” [the title of a section of
the work in which the line appears] in Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, 68. See
also Ochi, “‘Seiji to bungaku’ no tansho” (The inception of the political novel), 126,
for a similar argument.
44. See Matsui, “Kajin no kigû to ‘Yôkô nikki’: Shiba Shirô Tani Tateki no seiji
ishiki” (Unexpected Encounters with Beauties and “Diary of a Visit to the West”: The
political awareness of Shiba Shirô and Tani Tateki). See also Inoue Hiroshi, “Tôkai
Sanshi Shiba Shirô no Kajin no kigû to Tôyô no kajin” (Unexpected Encounters with
Beauties and Beauties in the East, by Tôkai Sanshi, a.k.a. Shiba Shirô), for another
byproduct of this trip. Beauties in the East is also an allegory; it was prefaced by Sue-
hiro Tetchô and published in 1888.
45. See Satô Tsuyoshi, “Kindai bungaku shi kôsô no shomondai: Shuppatsu-
ten to shite no seiji shôsetsu” (Problems with the prospectus of a history of mod-
ern literature: The political novel as a starting point).
224 • Notes to Pages 159–162

46. Keene, Dawn to the West, 86. The political novel which Keene refers, to In-
spiring Instances of Statesmanship, is Keikoku bidan (1883), by Yano Ryûkei (1850–
1931).
47. Maeda Ai, “Meiji rekishi bungaku no genzô: seiji shôsetsu no baai” (The
original image of Meiji historical ¤ction: A case of the political novel), 14–15.
48. See Asukai, “Seiji shôsetsu to ‘kindai’ bungaku: Meiji seiji shôsetsu
saihyôka no tameni” (The political novel and “modern” literature: For the sake of
reevaluation of the Meiji political novel), 76.
49. In the following I discuss critics mostly different from the ones Matsui
mentions in “Kajin no kigû to ‘Yôkô nikki.’”
50. Cited in Keene, Dawn to the West, 86–87.
51. This should not be taken, however, to mean that Kimura was consistently
negative about seiji shôsetsu. Matsui cites from Kimura’s “Seiji shôsetsu wa seinen
Nihon no koe” (1934), in which he praises the genre of the political novel as a
sign of growth in people’s interest in politics, rather than as a sign of underdevel-
oped literature. See Matsui, “Kajin no kigû to ‘Yôkô nikki,’” 212–213.
52. Cited in Keene, Dawn to the West, 85–86.
53. See, for example, Kôda, “Meiji shoki bungaku-kai” (The literary world of
the early Meiji), 308, in which Kajin no kigû earns a brief mention.
54. Asukai, “Seiji shôsetsu to ‘kindai’ bungaku,” 72–73.
55. It should also be noted that kanbun kakikudashi-tai, and not the so-called
indigenous Japanese, was used for legal documents and discussions of stately and
other public affairs of the modern nation-state of Japan.
56. However, Ochi notes that Kajin no kigû was probably so dif¤cult for ordi-
nary readers to comprehend that it was “vernacularized” as Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû
(“Suehiro Tetchô,” 140). Ochi further elaborates on the mass audience’s desire for
seiji shôsetsu, as well as on stylistic compromises between the audience and the
highly ideologically minded authors (“Seiji shôsetsu to taishû” [The political novel
and the mass audience]).
57. Sansom, The Western World and Japan, 414.
58. Cited in Maeda Ai, “Meiji shonen no dokusha zô,” 117.
59. Interestingly enough, in the Japanese intellectual reception of Chinese liter-
ature, it was the so-called “high” literature—such as the Confucian classics, histori-
cal records, and Tang poetry—that was more often orally received than the “low”
literature, such as ghost stories and romances. Unlike classical literary works, pas-
sages from the latter stories were not to be read aloud, especially in public, for the
sake of propriety. Also, Meiji intellectuals seem to have found it more dif¤cult to
read Chinese vernacular ¤ction than the classics owing to a lack of institutional
training. See Maeda Ai, “Ôgai no Chûgoku shôsetsu shumi,” 76. These factors made
the “low” literature a purely written (or “read”) discourse, while “high” literature re-
mained a relatively oral (or “aural”) discourse. “High” literature occupied the public
space, which was then the very site on which literature as performance took place.
 Notes to Pages 163–167 • 225

60. Keene, Dawn to the West, 85. “Liang Ch’i-ch’ao” is “Liang Qichao” in
ping’yin.
61. For more on late imperial Chinese political novels, see Willcock, “Meiji
Japan and the Late Qing Political Novel.”
62. Hsia, “Yen Fu and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao as Advocates of New Fiction,” 235–
236. See also Hsü, “Shin gihô dai 4 satsu yakusai no ‘Kajin kigû’ [Jiaren qiyu] ni
tsuite” (On Unexpected Encounters with Beauties translated in the fourth issue of
Qingyi bao); and Yeh, “Zeng Pu’s Niehai Hua as a Political Novel,” 135–136, for
some of the circumstances of Liang Qichao’s translation.
63. Hsü, “Shingihô dai 4 satsu yakusai no Kajin kigû [Jiaren qiyu] no tsuite.”
64. Daitô Hyôshi [Tsuchida Taizô], Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû, zen. A sequel, Tsû-
zoku Kajin no kigû, zokuhen, also prefaced by Hattori Seiichi, was published by
Kakuseisha (Tokyo) in 1887. There is at least another volume that purports to be a
“vulgarized” version of Kajin no kigû: Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû, by Sekishin Tetchôshi.
It was originally published by Keihan dômei shoshi and distributed by Shinshindô
(Osaka) in 1887. This version bears little resemblance to the original, however, in
terms of either style or plot. It is about romantic and antagonistic relationships
among characters, all Japanese, who embody such notions as the police, the civil
rights movement, and freedom. The language is that of kusazôshi, and the text is
not accompanied by commentaries. See Ochi, “Seiji shôsetsu to taishû,” 62–63, for
more.
65. Kanro Junki points out that the Hattori version takes the War of Indepen-
dence not as a war between two nations but one between a colony and a colonizer;
this position helps establish a more people-oriented (rather than government-
oriented) political stance. See “Mô hitotsu no Kajin no kigû: Aruiwa mô hitotsu no
Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû” (Another Unexpected Encounters with Beauties: Or, another
Vulgar version of Unexpected Encounters with Beauties).
66. Daitô Hyôshi, Tsûzoku kajin no kigû, zen, postscript; no page number given.
67. See Kurata, Chosakuken shiwa (Historical tales about the copyright),
118–122, for a discussion of the trials.
68. Rose, Authors and Owners, 2–3.
69. Occasionally two-page wide illustrations are inserted; each is accompanied
by a caption in kanbun kundoku-tai (like the main text). Given the expected high in-
tellectual level of the audience, illustrations were less for the explication of a com-
plex plot than for the visual presentation of foreign landscapes, manners, and
customs.
70. Tôkai Sanshi, “Jijo” (author’s preface), in Tôkai, Kajin no kigû (1885), 2–3.
71. Ônuma Toshio, who studies partial manuscripts owned by Keio University
Library, suggests that there were at least four versions of the manuscript: Shiba
Shirô’s original draft, which he wrote soon after returning to Japan and which is
without many (if not all) kanshi; one with instructions on how to insert kanshi; one
with most of the kanshi and with some repetitive passages, copied partly in a cus-
226 • Notes to Pages 168–170

tom-made writing pad that has Takahashi Taika’s studio name printed on it; and
one with all the kanshi inserted, including those composed by the four nationalists
on the occasion discussed above. See Ônuma, “‘Kajin no kigû’ seiritsu kôshô jo-
setsu” (An introduction to a historical study of the creation of Unexpected Encoun-
ters with Beauties). Kinoshita Hyô lists many references to the novel that suspect
that Shiba Shirô, who published few other literary works and did not demonstrate
a mastery of kanshibun in them, was not the author. See Kinoshita Hyô, “Kajin no
kigû no shi to sono sakusha” (The poems in Unexpected Encounters with Beauties
and their authors).
72. See Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Ôchô bungaku no sekai (The world of courtly
literature).
73. Hori wrote several stories inspired by classical Japanese literature, includ-
ing “Kagerô no nikki” (A drake¶y’s diary, 1927) and “Hototogisu” (A cuckoo,
1929); two sequential renditions of the classical female memoir Kagerô nikki; “Oba-
sute” (Disposing of elderly women, 1940), a story inspired by another memoir,
Sarashina nikki; and “Arano” (Wilderness, 1941), based upon a story in Konjaku
monogatari (for partial translations, see Brower, “The Konzyaku Monogatarisyu,” and
Ury, Tales of Times Now Past). Hori also wrote a monograph on Du Fu’s poetry, To
Ho shi nôto (Notes on Du Fu).
74. Among these, see Akutagawa, “To Shishun” (1920; translated in Akuta-
gawa, “Tu Tzu-ch’un”) and his travelogues from China (e.g., “Shanhai yûki” and
“Pekin nikki shô” [translated in Akutagawa, “Travels in China”]).
75. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Kûchû teien, 374.
76. Nakamura’s comparison of designs in poetry with those in gardening is
evident in his use of yet another term for “garden,” niwa, which appears in Shijin
no niwa.
77. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Kûchû teien, 394.
78. Ibid.
79. The episode is originally related by Gensei in his “Minobu michi no ki”
(An account of travels in Minobu). According to the text, Yuanyun was pro¤cient
in Japanese, having lived in the country for a long time. See Sano, “Kaidai,” 11.
For the Gensei-Yuanyun poems, see Gensei and Chen, Gengen shôwa shû (Collec-
tion of poems exchanged between Gen/Yuan and Gen/Yuan). See also Gensei, Sô-
zanshû (translated in Gensei, Grass Hill).
80. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Kumo no yukiki, 384.
81. Nakamura does not note in this text another manifestation of the enfran-
chisement: Yuanyun wrote a preface to Gensei’s anthology, Sôzanshû. See Sano,
“Kaidai,” 5.
82. Ilya Ehrenburg was born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family in
Kiev in 1891; he immigrated to France in 1908, stayed in Paris until 1917, and re-
turned to Russia in 1925. See Rollberg, “Il’ia Grigor’evich Erenburg.”
83. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Kumo no yukiki, 384.
 Notes to Pages 171–184 • 227

84. Ibid.
85. In Sakushi shikô (Essence of poetic composition, 1783), Yamamoto Hoku-
zan claims that Yuan Hongdao conceptualizes xingling; thus he is revered by some
eighteenth-century Japanese Sinophiles, in contrast to Li Yulin (Li Panlong),
whom Ogyû Sorai and the rest of the pro-Tang Sinophiles held as the model. See
Matsushita, Edo jidai no shifû shiron: Min Shin no shiron to sono sesshu (Poetic trends
and theories in the Tokugawa era: Ming-Qing theories on poetry and its reception).
86. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, Kumo no yukiki, 386. As Nakamura also notes in
passing (p. 385), it was Chen Yuanyun who ¤rst informed Gensei of Yuan
Hongdao’s poetry when they ¤rst met in 1659. See Sano, “Kaidai,” 4, which quotes
both Gensei’s letter to Chen Yuanyun and an account of Gensei in Emura, Nihon
shishi, vol. 3. See also Ueno, Ishikawa Jôzan Gensei, 185, for an annotation to one of
Gensei’s poems rhyming with one by Yuan Hongdao and a similar retelling of
Gensei’s encounter with Yuan.
87. For example, Goethe is represented as ᱌ᓼ and Eckermann as ᗲసᦤ.
88. See Said, “Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and Marginals,” chapter 3 of Said,
Representation of the Intellectual, 47–64, for an explication of the complex position-
ing of intellectual expatriates.

Coda
1. Bal, Double Exposure, 49.
2. Bal, Quoting Caravaggio, 264.
3. For a translation, see Tanizaki, Captain Shigemoto’s Mother. All translations
here are mine.
4. Robert Borgen’s Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court offers
the most extensive biographical account in English of Michizane, both as a histor-
ical ¤gure and a mythical one in his afterlife.
5. Tanizaki, Shôshô Shigemoto no haha, 248.
6. Translated in Tanizaki, “The Bridge of Dreams.”
7. Translated in Tanizaki, “A Portrait of Shunkin.” I should alert the reader to
the fact that Shunkin is a ¤ctional construct, and thus the parallel between “Gyo
Genki” and this story is only partial. In fact Tanizaki deliberately and effectively ap-
propriates the format of biography used by Ôgai: Tanizaki’s narrator frequently
draws upon a source entitled “Mozuya Shunkin den” (A biography of Mozuya
Shunkin), which is his fabrication. Its style is the typical kanbun kundoku-tai, in-
formed by both Chinese and Japanese. The material aspects of the publication also
manifest hybridity, albeit of a different kind: the text is printed on traditional Japa-
nese handmade paper (washi) and is typed using the modern printing technology
of 4-gô katsuji (no. 4 letter).
8. Tanizaki, “Shunkin shô,” 530.
9. Tanizaki, “Yume no ukihashi,” 148.
10. The original compound is 㡇㘧㝼べ.
228 • Notes to Pages 184–187

11. ᵞ⎮㝼๘ა (in Tanizaki, “Yume no ukihashi,” 154–155).

12. For a translation, see Takeda, Miyoshi, and Namiki, Sugawara and the Se-
crets of Calligraphy.
13. For a translation, see Tanizaki, “The Reed Cutter.”
14. English translations of “Chibi fu” and its sequel, “Hou chibi fu,” have been
published as “Red Cliff I” and “Red Cliff II” in Strassberg, Inscribed Landscapes,
183–188. An English translation of “Pipa xing” has been published in Levy, Chinese
Narrative Poetry, 133–138.
15. ⱳⰭ (drake¶y); 㓁Ἳ (mirage).
 Glossary

Abe no Nakamaro ቟ㇱખ㤗ํ Cao Pi ඦ‫׉‬

ainoko วߩሶ Cao Zhi ඦཬ
Akazome Emon ⿒ᨴⴡ㐷 Cen Shen ‫ݢ‬೶
Amenomori Hôshû 㔎᫪⧐ᵮ Chajing ಁᆖ
Andô Tameakira ቟⮮ὑ┨ Chang’an ९‫ڜ‬
Anzai Fuyue ቟⷏౻ⴡ “Changhenge” ९৿ዚ
Aoki Masaru 㕍ᧁᱜా Chaoyun ཛႆ
Arakida Reijo ⨹ᧁ↰㤀ᅚ “Chasho nyûmon: Kissa shôshi” ⨥ᦠ
Ariwara no Narihira ࿷ේᬺᐔ ౉㐷༛⨥ዊผ
Asano no Katori ᦺ㊁㣮ข Chen Yuanyun ຫց㐏( J. Chin Gen’in)
“Ashikari” ⯂ಿ “Chibi fu” ߧᕻᓿ
Asô Isoji 㤗↢⏷ᰴ Chikamatsu Monzaemon ㄭ᧻㐷Ꮐⴡ
Asukai Masamichi 㘧㠽੗㓷㆏ 㐷
Ayashi no yo gatari ᕋ਎⺣ Chin Gen’in (Ch. Chen Yuanyun ຫց
Bai Juyi ⊕ዬᤃ 㐏)
Bai Letian ⊕ᮔᄤ Chô Keikyô (്༡ହ Ch. Zhang Hui-
baihua ⊕⹤ qing)
Baishi ᪢㌕ chosakusha ken shuppannin ⪺૞⠪౗
Ban Gu ⃰࿕ ಴ ੱ
Ban Zhao ⃰ᤘ Chôsen tsûshinshi ᦺ㞲ㅢା૶
Benshi shi ᧄ੐⹞ “Chôsen zakkan” ᦺ㞲㔀ⷰ
benzaiten ㄕ⽷ᄤ chû ਛ
bibun ⟤ᢥ Chûgi Suikoden ᔘ⟵᳓Ṥવ
Bimuyu Ყ⋡㝼 Chûka chasho ਛ⪇⨥ᦠ
“Birôdo no yume” ᄤ㡼⛐ߩᄞ Daitô Hyôshi ᄢ᧲⪛჻
Blue Dragon King 㕍㦖₺ Dankô Reigan ki ᣆ㡨㔖㓵⸥
bunbô aigan ᢥᚱᗲ⃉ Dianlun ࠢᓵ
bungo ᢥ⺆ dôbô shû ห᦮ⴐ
Bunka shûrei shû ᢥ⪇⑲㤀㓸 Doitsu nikki ⁛ㅺᣣ⸥
Cai Yi ⬰ᑞ Dôkyô ㆏㏜
caizi jiaren xiaoshuo թ՗ࠋԳ՛ᎅ (J. Dong Hu ᇀध
saishi kajin shôsetsu) Dong Jin ࣟவ
Cao Dajia ඦՕ୮ Dongpo rou ࣟࡕۚ

229
230 • Glossary

Dongying shixuan ࣟᡡᇣᙇ (J. Tôei “Genjô Sanzô” ₵ᅄਃ⬿

shisen) Gensei ర᡽
eibutsu shi ⹗‛⹞ (Ch. yongwu shi) Go Sankei ‫ܦ‬Կெ (Ch. Wu Sangui)
Eiga monogatari ᭢⪇‛⺆ Gôdanshô ᳯ⺣ᛞ
eikai shi ⹗ᙬ⹞ (Ch. yonghuai shi) Gokyô ੖⛫
Ema Saikô ᳯ㚍⚦㚅 Gozandô shiwa ੖ጊၴ⹞⹤
Emura Hokkai ᳯ᧛ർᶏ guixiu Ꮇߐ ( J. keishû)
Engi ᑧ༑ Guo Moruo ພःૉ
Etô Jun ᳯ⮮ᷕ gushi ‫ײ‬ᇣ
Fan Chengda ૃ‫ګ‬Օ Guwenci-pai ‫֮ײ‬᢯੔ (J. Kobunji-ha)
Fang He Ting ࣋ᦊॼ Guxiaoshuo goushen ‫ײ‬՛ᎅራާ
Feitouman ଆᙰ᨟ Gyo Genki ູ‫خ‬ᖲ (Ch. Yu Xuanji)
Fengtian ࡚֚ Haikai shinsen େ⺽ᣂㆬ
Fuji no iwaya ⮮ߩ޿ߪደ Haku Rakuten ⊕ᮔᄤ
Fujii Chikugai ⮮੗┻ᄖ Hakubundô ඳᢥၴ
Fujin kôron ᇚੱ౏⺰ Hakubunkan Kokubun sôsho ඳᢥၴ࿡
Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu ⮮ේ౻༹ ᢥฌᦠ
Fujiwara no Kintô ⮮ේ౏છ hakuwa shôsetsu ‫ػ‬ᇩ՛ᎅ (Ch. baihua
Fujiwara no Kiyokawa ⮮ේᷡᴡ xiaoshuo)
Fujiwara no Seika ⮮ේᗗ┃ Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari ự᧻
Fujiwara no Shôshi ⮮ේᓆሶ ਛ⚊⸒‛⺆
Fujiwara no Tametoki ⮮ේὑᤨ Hanaurushi ⧎ṭ
Fujiwara no Teika ⮮ේቯኅ Hangzhou ࣜ‫ڠ‬
fujo dômô ᇚᅚ┬⫥ Hankou ዧՑ
Fun’ya no Akitsu ᢥደ⑺ᵤ Hanshu ዧ஼
Fun’ya no Yasuhide ᢥደᐽ⑲ Hara Kosho ේฎ⯪
Furukawa Koshôken ฎᎹ⯥╉イ Hara Saihin ේ㉻⯅
Fûryû Shidôken den 㘑ᵹᔒ㆏イொ Harusame monogatari ᤐ㔎‛⺆
“Gabô ki” ྽⥷⸥ Haruyama Yukio ᤐጊⴕᄦ
Gan Bao եᣪ Hattori Nankaku ᦯ㇱධㇳ
Gao Qingqiu ೏ॹ५ (Qi ඔ) Hattori Seiichi (᦯ㇱ⺈৻; Bushô ᧻)
“Gaotang fu” ೏ାᓿ Hayashi Razan ጊ
gazoku setchû-tai 㓷ଶ᛬ⴲ૕ Heyang ࣾၺ
Ge Ling ᆼᚢ Higuchi Ichiyô ৻
“Gen jidai no zatsugeki” రᤨઍߩ㔀 Hiraga Gennai ᐔḮ
഍ Hiratsuka Raichô ᐔ
㠽
Gengen shôwa shû రర໒๺㓸 “Hitôban” 㘧
“Gengo-shi” Ḯ⺆⹞ Hôjôki ⸥
Genji monogatari hyôshaku Ḯ᳁‛⺆ Honchô ichiniin isshu ᧄᦺ৻ੱ৻
⹏㉾ Honchô reisô ᧄᦺ㤀
Genji monogatari kôwa Ḯ᳁‛⺆⻠⹤ Honchô Suikoden ᧄᦺ᳓Ṥવ
Genjin zatsugeki josetsu రੱ㔀഍ᐨ⺑ Hong lou meng દᑔኄ
 Glossary • 231

Hori Tatsuo  “Kakurei” GH

Hou Hanshu ৵ዧ஼ Kamei Shôkin I੗JK
Huang Tingjian ႓அഒ Kamo no Mabuchi LMN
Huizong ᚧࡲ Kan Sanbon OਃP
Ichikawa Kansai Ꮉ Kan Sazan O⨥ጊ
Ike no mokuzu ߩ “Kanbun chokudoku ron” QᢥRS
Ike no Taiga ᄢ㓷 ⺰
Imakagami ㏜ kanbun kundoku (yomikudashi)-tai Q
“Inaba Seikichi sensei” ᷡ↢ ᢥTSUSV)W1
Ingen ర (Ch. Yinyuan) Kanda Kiichirô X↰༑৻Y
Ise monogatari  ‛⺆ Kaneko Hikojirô Zሶ[ᰴY
Ishikawa Jôzan !Ꮉጊ Kang Youwei ൈ‫ڶ‬੡
Ishizaki Matazô !"#$ kangaku Qᖂ
Issan Ichinei ৻ጊ৻% Kannabi X\]
“Itansha no kanashimi” &'⠪ߩ( Kantô nichijô ^᧲ᣣ_
)* Kara monogatari `‛⺆
Jia Sidao ᇸ‫ۿ‬ሐ “Karafû ankoku jidai” `㘑abᤨઍ
Jiang Yige ‫ۂ‬ᢌᎹ Karamono `‛
Jiangsu ‫ۂ‬ᤕ Kashiwagi Jotei cᧁde
Jiaren qiyu ࠋԳ࡛ሖ Katô Hiroyuki f⮮gA
Jiezi yuan huazhuan ग़՗Ⴜ྽ႚ Kawaguchi Hisao Ꮉh
Jifang Yuan ႃ॑Ⴜ “Kayô jûei” ᴡi2⹗
jijo +, Kayô Kôshu ⪇i౏j (Ch. Huayang
“Jijutsu” +- gongzhu)
Jin Yi ८ၝ Kayô Kyû ᴡik
Jing-Feng Line ࠇ࡚/ Keikoku bidan ⛫࿡⟤⺣
Jing-Han Line ࠇዧ/ keishû Ꮇߐ (Ch. guixiu)
Jing Tai shilu 壃ፕኔᙕ “Keitoku Reijo nanchin” lm㤀ᅚn
Jin Ping Mei ८෿ම o
jiu cha lun ಺ಁᓵ kenten pq
joryû ᅚᵹ Ki no Tsurayuki rsA
josô buntai ᅚ0ᢥ1 Kibi no Makibi ]M]
Jûben jûgi zu 23245 Kikô shôsetsu "tu⺑
Kachô yosei (yojô) ⧎㠽67 Kikuchi Gozan v੖ጊ
Kagerô nikki 89ᣣ⸥ Kim Ok-kyun Zwx
Kai hentai ⪇:;< Kimura Kenkadô no saron ᧁ᧛yzၴ
kaisho =ᦠ Kimura Ki ᧁ᧛{
Kaizôsha >$? Kin Shôjo |}ᅚ
kajin @ੱ kinki shoga K~ᦠ྽ (Ch. qinqi shu-
Kajin no kigû @ੱABC hua)
Kakaishô ᴡᶏᛞ Kinoshita Mokutarô ᧁV€Y
Kakizaki Hakyô no shôgai D"EF “Kirin” ‚
232 • Glossary

kishu ryûri ƒ„ᵹ… Kusaba Haisen ¢¿ÀᎹ

Kitasono Katsue ർ†‡ⴡ kusazôshi-tai ¢Á£૕
Kizaki Yoshinao ᧁ"ˆ‰ Kwõn Ch’ik ᦞœ
“Ko-Shina bungaku ni okeru shôsetsu Kyokutei Bakin Âe㚍K
no chii ni tsuite” ฎŠ‹ᢥᖂŒ kyôshi Ã⹞
Žዊ⺑ߩ‘Œ’“ kyôyô ÄÅ
ko shinbun ዊᣂ” Li Bai ‫ػޕ‬
kobun (Ch. guwen) ฎᢥ Li Daotian ‫ޕ‬ᝢ֚ ( J. Ri Tôten)
Kobunji-ha ‫֮ײ‬᢯੔ (Ch. Guwenci- Li Furen ‫֛ޕ‬Գ
pai) Li Hongzhang ‫ޕ‬ពີ
Kôda Rohan •↰–— Li Panlong ‫ޕ‬ᡙᚊ (Yulin ‫ޕ‬Պ᧲ )
Kogetsushô ˜™ᛞ Li Xiaojie ᦶ՛ࡦ
Kojima Noriyuki ዊš›A Li Yi ‫ޕ‬Ꮩ
“Kôjin” œੱ Li Yi’an ‫( ڜ࣐ޕ‬Qingzhao 堚ᅃ )
“Kôkan” ž Li Yu ‫ޕ‬ድ (Li Liweng ภౖ )
Kôkan Ÿ Liang ඩ
Kokin wakashû ฎ๺ 㓸 Liang Qichao ඩඔ၌
Kokon kidan: Hanabusa zôshi ฎB Liao ᙉ
⺣¡¢£ Lin Bu ࣥ⍛
Kokon kidan Hanabusa zôshi kôhen: Lin Daiyu ࣥឝ‫د‬
Shigeshige Yawa ฎB⺣¤㊁⹤ Lingyuan Qie ສႼ࡟
“Kokufû ankoku jidai” ࿡㘑abᤨઍ Lisao ᠦᤵ
kokuji ࿡¥ Liu Maogu Ꮵᎎࡤ
Kokusen’ya gassen ࿡¦§ว¨ Liu Shijian ਻Փॊ
Kokusen’ya gonichi gassen ࿡¦§©ᣣ Liu Tingzhi Ꮵ‫॒ݪ‬
ว¨ lixue (J. rigaku) ෻ᖂ
Kokuyaku kanbun taisei ࿡ªQᢥᄢ« Lu Wuguan ຬ೭ᨠ (You ཾ)
Kônan shun ᳯධᤐ Lu Xun ᕙ߰
Konrondo ¬­® Lu Yu ຬ壅
Kôren ¯° “Luoshen fu” ੖壀ᓿ
Kôsei nikki ±⷏ᣣ⸥ Maeda Ai Æ↰ᗲ
kôshôgaku ‫ە‬ᢞᖂ (Ch. kaozhengxue) Makura no sôshi Ç¢ሶ
“Kôshû kashin” ²³⧎ା Man’yô shû È㓸
“Kubi no tobu onna” ߩ㘧´ᅚ man’yôgana ÈÉÊ
Kûchû teien µਛ¶† Maoshi daxu ֻᇣՕ‫ݧ‬
Kûkai µᶏ Masukagami Ë㏜
Kumo no yukiki ·ߩ¸¹º Matsukage no nikki ᧻Ìᣣ⸥
kundoku TS Matsura no miya monogatari ᧻Ík‛⺆
kunko T» (Ch. xungu) Mei Lanfang මᥞ॑
kunten Tq Mei Yaochen ම໯‫۝‬
kun’yaku Tª Meien shiki ‫ټ‬໿ᇣូ (Ch. Mingyuan
Kurahashi Yumiko ¼½¾⟤ሶ shigui)
 Glossary • 233

Meigetsuki Ι⸥ ninjô ੱ7

“Meilang chang Su San” ම૴ഀᤕԿ Nishimura Tenshû ⷏᧛ᄤ྽
“Meirô to Konkyoku” ᪢YÏÐÂ Nishiwaki Junzaburô ⷏⣁㗅ਃY
Minakami Roteki ᳓Ñ⯂Ò Nittô no Ri To ᣣ᧲᧘᧡
Minami ධ Nochi no chûsho ô ©ਛᦠ₺
Minshin tôki ÎᷡÓ⸥ Nomura Kôdai ㊁᧛౏ፕ
Mitsu no Hamamatsu ÔᵤAự᧻ “Nonaka no shimizu” ㊁ਛߩᷡ᳓
Miyake Shôzan ਃÕÖጊ ô shinbun ᄢᣂ”
Miyoshi Genmei ਃ×[Î Ôbaku-shû 㤛ᯩቬ
Mizukagami ᳓㏜ Ochi Haruo ⿧ᥓᴦᄦ
Mizuno Heiji ᳓㊁ᐔᰴ Ôchô bungaku no sekai ₺ᦺᢥÞ⺰
moni ᑓᚵ ( J. mogi) Ôe no Masafusa ᄢᳯආᚱ
Mori Ôgai ᫪Øᄖ Ôe no Masahira ᄢᳯආⴧ
Mori Shuntô ᫪ᤐÙ Ôe no Takachika ᄢᳯ⥞๟
Morita Shiken ᫪↰Úイ Ogyû Sorai Ò↢ᓖᓭ
Morita Sôhei ᫪↰¢ᐔ Ôkagami ᄢ㏜
Motoori Norinaga ᧄዬÛÜ Okajima Kanzan ጟš౰ጊ
Mu Lanzi ֵᥞ՗ Ôkubo Shibutsu ᄢ┄⹞૝
“Mudan fang” ߃կ॑ Omokage Უᓇ
Mugaku Sogen ÝÞßర On Shôki ᄵᤪ⎇ (Ch. Wen Zhongkui)
Mumyô zôshi ÝÊ¢ሶ “Onna deshi” ᅚᒉሶ
Murasaki Shikibu àáㇱ Ono no Takamura ዊ㊁▶
Nagai Kafû ᳗੗⩄㘑 Ônuma Chinzan ᄢᴧÇጊ
Nagai Kagen ᳗੗⑰ේ (h৻Y Ôta Kinjô ᄢ↰|ၔ
Kyûichirô) Ôta Nanpo ᄢ↰ධ⇔
Naimu Shô ോ⋭ Ôta Seikyû €↰㕍ਐ
Naitô Konan ⮮˜ධ Otake Kôkichi የ┻¯ (Kazue ৻ᨑ)
Nakamura Shin’ichirô ਛ᧛M৻Y Ouyang Yuqian ᑛၺղᓮ
Nakao Ô ખ₺ Pan Yue ᑰࢂ
Nanboku kyokugi genryû kô ධർÂᚨ Parhae ᷳᶏ
Ḯᵹ⠨ “Pekin” ‫ࠇק‬
Nanga ত྽ (Ch. Nanhua) Pekin fûzoku zufu ‫ࠇק‬㘑ଶ5⼆
Nanjing তࠇ “Pekin nikki shô” ‫ࠇק‬ᣣ⸥ᛞ
Ni Yunlin ଧႆࣥ “Pipa xing” ྴྵ۩
Nihon keien ginsô ᣣᧄ㑖ᇫี Qing 堚
Nihon kôki ᣣᧄ©⸥ “Qinghe wang Qing zhuan” 堚ࣾ‫׆‬ᐜ
Nihon meifu den ᣣᧄÊᇚொ “Qingping diao” 堚ؓᓳ
Nihon sandai jitsuroku ᣣᧄਃઍኪ㍳ “Qingshu ji Li Zian” ൣ஼ബ‫ڜ۞ޕ‬
Nihon shishi ᣣᧄ⹞ผ Qingyi bao 堚ᤜ໴
Nihon shoki ᣣᧄᦠr “Qiuxing fu” ટᘋᓿ
Nihongi ᣣᧄr “Qiuyuan” ટৼ
“Ningyo no nageki” ੱ㝼ߩགྷ¹ Qu Yuan ࡹ଺
234 • Glossary

Rai Kyôhei 㗬᧙ဝ “Shanhai kôyûki” Ñᶏㆆ⸥

Rai San’yô 㗬ጊi “Shanhai yûki” Ñᶏ᷿⸥
Raiseikaku shishû ૼ㕍㑑⹞㓸 Shan’yin ՞ອ ( J. San’in)
Rangiku monogatari ੊v‛⺆ sharebon ᵜ⪭ᧄ
Ri Tôten ‫ޕ‬ᝢ֚ (Ch. Li Daotian) shasei ኮ↢
Rikkokushi ౐࿡ผ “Shennu fu” 壀Ֆᓿ
rokkasen ౐ ઄ “Shenzhong lou” ᇏխᑔ
“Rozan nikki” ᑢጊᣣ⸥ Shi Yin ‫ٱف‬
Ru shu ji Եᇋಖ Shiba Shirô ᩊ྾ᦶ
Ruan Yiquan ߼ᆠᇭ Shibue Chûsai Ằᳯ᛽
ruisho ᣊ஼ (Ch. leishu) Shibun yôryô àᢥⷐ㗔
Ryôbu (Ch. Longwu) 㦖ᱞᄢዂァ shiden ผொ
“Saigo no ikku” ᦨ©ߩ৻ฏ Shigeno no Sadanushi ṑ㊁⽵j
saishi kajin shôsetsu ᚽሶ@ੱዊ⺑ “Shihe” ؈ᦊ
(Ch. caizi jiaren xiaoshuo) Shijin no niwa ⹞ੱߩ¶
Saiyû zakki ⷏ㆆ㔀⸥ Shika shichiron àኅ৾⺰
“Sakana no Ri Taihaku” 㝼ߩ᧘€⊕ Shimada no Tadaomi š↰ᔘ⤿
Sakushi shikô ૞⹞ᔒ ⚪ Shimazu Hisamoto šᵤhၮ
San’in ՞ອ (Ch. Shan’yin) Shimizu Hamaomi ᷡ᳓ự⤿
Santô Kyôden ጊ᧲੩ொ “Shina bungaku kenkyû ni okeru hôjin
San’un kyôu nikki narabini shisô ᪋· no tachiba” Š‹ᢥÞ⎇ⓥŒ߅
ጽ㔎ᣣ⸥ਗ⹞¢ Ž㇌ੱߩ┙¿
Sarashina nikki ᦝ⚖ᣣ⸥ “Shina gakusha no uwagoto” Š‹Þ
Satô Haruo ૒⮮ᤐᄦ ⠪ߩྯ⺆
Satô Issai ૒⮮৻ “Shina-geki o miru ki” Š‹഍ࠍⷹ
Satomura Shôteki ㉿᧛⚫ㄻ ⸥
Sei-Shi ᷡà Shina kinsei gikyoku-shi Š‹ㄭ਎ᚨ
Sei Shônagon ᷡJ⚊⸒ Âผ
seihon ken hatsubainin ⵾ᧄ౗⊔⾬ੱ “Shina no ryôri” Š‹ߩᢱℂ
Seihyô shû 㕍⪛㓸 “Shina shumi to iu koto” Š‹⿰๧Ï
“Seiji iro no onna” 㕍↊⦡ߩᅚ ੔߰ߎÏ
seiji shôsetsu ᡽ᴦዊ⺑ Shindai bungaku hyôron shi ᷡઍᢥቇ
“Seiko no tsuki” ⷏˜ߩ™ Þ⹏⺰ผ
Seisho ᷡᷪ “Shindô” X┬
Seitô 㕍㖀 Shinhanatsumi ᣂ⧎៰
Seki Ryôichi 㑸⦟৻ “Shinwai no yoru” ⒌᷐ߩᄛ
Sendan ᾴᚽ (Ch. Zhantan) Shiro no naka no shiro ၔߩਛߩၔ
setai ਎< shiroku benrei tai ྾౐㚰ద1
Shajin shû ゞႲ㓸 shisen ⹞઄
Shandong ՞ࣟ shisha ⹞?
Shangyang Baifaren Ղၺ‫ػ‬ᕓԳ Shisho ྾ᦠ
“Shanhai kenbun roku” Ñᶏ⷗”㍳ Shizan àጊ
 Glossary • 235

Shizhongqu Լጟ‫ڴ‬ Taimu nikki 㓌ോᣣ⸥

Shôheikô ᣽ᐔ㤟 Taiping guangji ֜ؓᐖಖ
Shoku Sanjin ⱍጊੱ Taiwan gundan ፕ᨜ァ⺣
Shôsetsu shinzui ዊ⺑X㜑 Takahashi Taika 㜞½€⪇
Shôshô Shigemoto no haha Jዂṑᐙߩ Takebe Ayatari ᑪㇱ✍⿷
Უ Takezoe Seisei ┻ᷝ੗੗ (Shin’ichirô
Shuchûshu ㈬ਛ⿰ ㅴ৻Y)
Shuihu zhuan ֽ⧊ႚ Tan Chuyu ᢟᄑ‫د‬
shûji ୃㄓ Tan Taigi ੥֜␧
“Shûkô juku to Sanmâ juku” ⑺㚅Ⴖ Tangshi sanbai shou ାᇣԿ‫ۍ‬ଈ
Ïࠨࡦࡑ࡯Ⴖ Tani Tateki ⼱੓ၔ
shumi ⿰๧ Tanizaki Jun’ichirô ⼱"Ả৻Y
Shunka စဎ (Ch. Chunhua) Tanomura Chikuden ↰㊁᧛┻↰
“Shunkin shô” ᤐKᛞ Tao Qian ຯᑨ (Yuanming ෘࣔ)
“Sichou shi” ؄ღᇣ “Taohuayuan ji” ௒क़ᄭಖ
“Simao” सᘷ Tei Hankyô ቓૃହ (Ch. Ding Fan-
“So Tôba: Arui wa Kojô no shijin” ⯃ qing)
᧲ပᚗߪ˜Ñߩ⹞ੱ Tian Han ‫ض‬ዧ
sodoku ⚛S Tian Rucheng ‫ګڿض‬
Song ‫ݚ‬ Tô Kôgô ᔥ઄‫( ٿ‬Ch. Deng Huang-
Song Yu ‫دݚ‬ hou)
Song Zhiwen ‫ݚ‬հം Tôei shisen ࣟᡡᇣᙇ (Ch. Dongying
“Soshû kikô” ⯃³rⴕ shixuan)
Sou shen ji ჼ壀ಖ tôin `㖸
Sôzanshû ¢ጊ㓸 Tôkai Sanshi ᧲ᶏᢔ჻
Su Dongpo ᤕࣟࡕ Tokugawa Tsunayoshi mᎹ✁
Su Manzhu ᤕ೷ఇ (J. So Manshu) Tokugawa Yoshimune mᎹቬ
Su San qijie ᤕԿದᇞ Tokutomi Roka mን⯂⧎
Su Shi ᤕሊ Tokutomi Sohô mን⯃ፄ
Su Xiaoxiao ᤕ՛՛ “Tomoda to Matsunaga no
Suematsu Kenchô ᧃ᧻⻞Ẵ (Seihyô hanashi” ෹↰Ï᧻᳗ߩ⹤
㕍⪛) Tomohira ౕᐔ
Sugawara no Fumitoki Oේᢥᤨ Torikaebaya monogatari Ïࠅ߆߳ߪ
Sugawara no Michizane Oේ㆏M ߿‛⺆
Suiyuan nudizi shixuan ᙟႼՖ‫ݬ‬՗ᇣ Tosa nikki ࿯૒ᣣ⸥
ᙇ Tôsen banashi ima Kokusen’ya `⦁྆
Suiyuan shidan ᙟႼଇ໢ ࿡¦§
Sumiyoshi ૑ Tôshisen `⹞ㆬ
Suo Lange ᠙ᣴᎹ Tôshisen ôkai: Gogon zekku ⭡ሶ╮ᨁ
Suzuki Shintarô ㋈ᧁା€Y ⸃੖⸒⛘ฏ
Tachi Ryûwan 㙚ᩉ᨜ Tôwa san’yô `⹤◪ⷐ
Tachibana Gyokuran ┙⧎w⯗ Tôyûki ᧲ㆆ⸥
236 • Glossary

Tsubouchi Shôyô ဝ ㅖ㆝ Wushan ‫ݥ‬՞

Tsuchida Taizô ࿯↰ᵏ⬿ Wushan ն՞
Tsuga Teishô ㇺ¶㏹ Xiangpu ྉ௥
tsûji ㅢ੐ Xiangzi ઌ՗
Tsuki no yukue ™ߩ¸ߊ߳ Xiaocang shichao ՛ପᇣၧ
Tsukushi ╳à Xiaoqing ՛ॹ
tsûshi ㅢ⹖ Xihu jiahua ۫ྋࠋᇩ
tsûzoku ㅢଶ Xihu youlan zhi yu ۫ྋሏᥦ‫ݳ‬塒
Tsûzoku chûgi Suikoden ㅢଶᔘ⟵᳓Ṥવ Xin yuefu ᄅᑗࢌ
Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû ㅢଶ@ੱABC xingling ࢤᨋᎅ
Ubun Kai ‫֮ڙ‬ᄎ (Ch. Yuwen Hui) Xishi ۫ਜ
Ueda Akinari Ñ↰⑺« Xuanzong ‫ࡲخ‬
Ugetsu monogatari 㔎™‛⺆ Xue Baochai ᜹ᣪຢ
Uji shûi monogatari ቝᴦᜪㆮ‛⺆ xungu ಝဴᖂ (J. kunko)
Uragami Gyokudô ÍÑwၴ Yamamoto Hokuzan ጊᧄർጊ
Uragami Shunkin ÍÑᤐK Yamanoue no Okura ጊÑᙘ⦟
Utsubo monogatari ቝᵤ଻‛⺆ Yamazaki Rikyû ጊ"…k
wa ๺ Yan Qing ᗊॹ
Wa Tô chinkai ๺`⃟⸃ Yanagawa ᪞Ꮉ (Chô ᒛ ) Kôran ¯⯗
Waka kuhon ๺ ਻P Yanagawa Seigan ᪞ᎹᤊᎯ
Wakan rôeishû ๺Qᦶ⹗㓸 Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu ᩉỈ଻
wakokubon kanseki ๺ೞᧄQ☋ Yang Guifei ᄘ၆‫ڒ‬
wakon kansai ๺㝬Qᚽ Yang Meng ᄘ፞
Wang Shizhen ‫ૣ׈׆‬ Yang Tieyai ᄘᥳഺ (Weizhen ፂᄙ)
Wang Wei ‫׆‬ፂ Yangzhou ཆ‫ڠ‬
Wang Yuyang ‫׆‬ድ੉ (Shizhen Փⱻ) Yanlang ᣤສ
Wang Ziquan ‫׆‬࿫ᇭ (Tao ⛖) Yano Ryûkei ⍫㊁㦖ᷧ
Wang Ziyou ‫׆‬՗ᅏ yanshi ᨆᇣ
wangfu shan ඨ֛՞ “Yasui fujin” ቟੗ᄦੱ
wangfu shi ඨ֛‫ف‬ “Yeyu” ࡙ॸ
Wanghai Lou ඨ௧ᑔ Yinyuan ឆց ( J. Ingen)
Washizu Kidô 㣐ᵤ{ၴ yô ᵗ
washû ๺⥇ / ⠌ Yoda Gakkai ଐ↰Þᶏ
Wei Ye ᠿມ yonghuai shi (ူᡖᇣ; J. eikai shi)
Wen Tingyun ᄵஅᆐ (Feiqing ଆହ) yongwu shi ူढᇣ ( J. eibutsu shi)
Wenxuan ֮ᙇ Yosa (no) Buson ⥜⻢⭢᧛
wenyan ֮ߢ Yosano Akiko ⥜⻢㊁᥏ሶ
Wenyuan yinghua ֮૒૎ဎ Yoshikawa Eiji Ꮉ¡ᴦ
Wu Meicun ‫ܦ‬ම‫ޘ‬ Yoshimine no Yasuyo ⦟ፄ቟਎
Wu Sangui ‫ܦ‬Կெ ( J. Go Sankei) Yoshishige lṑ (Keitoku lm) Ietada
Wu chuan lu ‫ํܦ‬ᙕ ኅ㓷
Wudi ࣳ০ Yoshishige no Yasutane lṑ଻⢬
 Glossary • 237

“Yôshô jidai” ᐜJᤨઍ Yutangchun ‫د‬ഘਞ

Yotsutsuji (Minamoto) Yoshinari ྾ㄞ Yuwen Hui ‫֮ڙ‬ᄎ ( J. Ubun Kai)
UḮW׫ Zai Toku ki ࿷m⸥
You xian ku ሏ‫ט‬ᆌ zasshu 㔀„
Yu Xuanji ູ‫خ‬ᖲ ( J. Gyo Genki) Zatsuei 㔀⹗
Yu Yue ঒⹆ (Quyuan ‫ڴ‬Ⴜ) Zhang Heng ്ᘝ
Yuan ց Zhang Huiqing ്༡ହ ( J. Chô
Yuan Hongdao ಒ‫ݛ‬ሐ Keikyô)
Yuan Mei ಒ࣭ (Suiyuan ᙟႼ) Zhang Wencheng ്֮‫ګ‬
Yuan Zhen ցⱽ Zhantan ᾴᚽ (J. Sendan)
“Yûjo ki” ㆆᅚ⸥ Zhao Mingcheng ᎓ࣔᇨ
“Yûjo o miru no jo” ⷗ㆆᅚᐨ Zhejiang ௨‫ۂ‬
“Yume no ukihashi” ᄞߩᶋ½ Zheng Chenggong ᔤ‫פګ‬
Yûran ᐝ⯗ Zheng Zhilong ᔤ॒ᚊ
Yutai xinyong ‫د‬ፕᄅူ zhiguai xiaoshuo ‫ࢡݳ‬՛ᎅ
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 Index

Abe no Nakamaro, 23–27, 37, 39, 57–58, Arakida Reijo, 15, 105, 115–121, 136–
193n.13, 197n.72 137, 152, 209n.5, 212nn.42, 46,
ainoko, 94. See also hybridity; xiangzi; 219n.2; Ayashi no yo gatari, 119,
zasshu 137; “Fuji no iwaya,” 119;
Akazome Emon, 110, 112, 186, 213n.47; “Hitôban,” 137; Ike no mokuzu, 117–
Eiga monogatari, 110 118, 212n.45; “Keitoku Reijo
Akutagawa (Ryûnosuke), 168, 204n.48, nanchin,” 119; “Nonaka no
207n.76, 219n.4; “Pekin nikki shô,” shimizu,” 119; Tsuki no yukue, 117,
226n.74; “Shanhai yûki,” 226n.74 118
ancestors, 9, 31–32, 86, 97, 172. See also Ariwara no Narihira, 29, 33
origin/descendant aural, 67–69, 109, 173, 179–180,
anthropology/anthropological/anthro- 224n.59
pologist, 9–11, 13–14, 19–21 authentic/authenticity, 9–10, 20, 28, 47,
Anderson, Benedict, 4, 26 52, 67, 69–70, 76, 79, 91, 100, 104,
Andô Tameakira, 112, 211n.30; Shika 151–152, 162, 170–175, 180,
shichiron, 112, 114 199n.117, 206n.68
Aoki Masaru, 15, 78–82, 101, 136, autobiographical, 79, 105, 126, 139,
201n.21, 202nn.29, 31, 203n.34; 140–141, 206n.68, 207n.79. See also
Chasho nyûmon: Chûka chasho, confessional
202n.30; “Gen jidai no zatsugeki,”
149; Genjin zatsugeki josetsu, baihua, 65, 68. See also vernacular Chi-
202n.31; “Kanbun chokudoku ron,” nese
79, 203n.33; Kissa shôshi, 202n.30; Bai Juyi, 34–35, 54, 62, 71, 76, 84, 111,
Kônan shun, 80, 203n.32, 203n.34; 113, 130, 180, 186, 191n.8,
“Ko-Shina bungaku ni okeru 193n.17, 197n.72; “Changhenge,”
shôsetsu no chii ni tsuite,” 150; 34, 62, 84; “Mudan fang,” 76; “Pipa
“Kôshû kashin,” 203n.73; “Meirô to xing,” 186; “Shihe,” 180; Xin yuefu,
Konkyoku,” 101; Nanboku kyokugi 111, 202n.24; “Yeyu,” 180. See also
genryû kô, 202n.81; Pekin fûzoku Bai Letian
zufu, 202n.31; “Shina bungaku ken- Bai Letian, 84, 180, 197n.72. See also Bai
kyû ni okeru hôjin no tachiba,” 79; Juyi
“Shina gakusha no uwagoto,” 79; Bal, Mieke, 1, 2, 7–8, 10, 12–13, 58, 88,
Shina kinsei gikyoku-shi, 202n.31; 134, 169, 177–178, 192n.3
Shindai bungaku hyôron shi, Ban Gu, 118; Hanshu, 118
202n.31; Shuchûshu, 78 Ban Zhao, 118; Hanshu, 118

261
262 • Index

barbarian/barbaric, 48–49, 59, 67, 151, coordination, 3, 23, 191n.3

155, 170, 173 cultural capital, 100, 155, 167
Baudrillard, Jean, 65, 73, 85
Bhabha, Homi, 1, 14 Deleuze, Gilles, 1, 12, 29–30, 169–170,
binary, 2–3, 5, 10, 11–13, 22–23, 41, 53, 207n.81
56, 64, 183, 189. See also dialectics, dialectics, 2–3, 179. See also binary, di-
dichotomy, dyad, polarity, rivalry chotomy, dyad, polarity, rivalry
boundaries, 3, 15, 16, 21, 25–26, 27, 45– dichotomy, 2, 29–30, 36, 56, 98, 102,
46, 54, 60, 75–77, 86, 91, 100, 105, 148, 210n.11. See also binary, dia-
107, 125, 128, 138, 140, 145, 163, lectics, dyad, rivalry, polarity
172, 186. See also interface domestication, 54, 68, 70, 108, 119, 128,
brush talk, 67, 173 136, 162–163, 172–173, 180,
bungo, 69, 148, 156, 164. See also literary 198n.85
language dyad, 2–3, 11–14, 16, 63, 76. See also bi-
nary, dialectics, dichotomy, polar-
canon, classical Chinese, 4, 5, 15, 16–17, ity, rivalry
64, 65, 68–71, 72, 80, 87, 102, 110,
128, 134–135, 143–146, 151, 155, Ehrenburg, Ilya, 170, 226n.82
162–163, 167, 175, 179 Ema Saikô, 15, 73, 105, 121–128, 140,
Cao Pi, 157; “Luoshen fu,” 123, 152, 141, 209n.5, 214n.66, 214n.69,
197n.78 215n.78, 216nn.94, 95, 219n.2,
Cao Zhi, 123, 152, 197n.78; “Luoshen 220n.9; “Jijutsu,” 126
fu,” 123, 152, 197n.78 Emperor Saga, 29, 186, 194n.24; Bunka
Cen Shen, i, 95 shûrei shû, 29
Chang’an, 58, 97, 106, 130 Emura Hokkai, 116, 117, 118, 227n.86;
Chen Yuanyun ( J. Chin Gen’in), 170, Nihon shishi, 116, 227n.86
174, 226nn.79, 81, 227n.86; Gengen entanglement, 12–13, 15, 20, 23, 29–30,
shôwa shû, 226n.79 39, 41, 47, 50, 60, 65, 74, 76, 78–79,
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, 47–48, 51, 69. 80, 83, 139, 141, 142, 154–156,
See also Kokusen’ya gassen 168–169, 171, 178–179, 180, 184,
Chineseness, 1–3, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 31, 188, 204n.42
34, 66, 76–77, 95, 102, 150, 177, essentialism, 11, 15, 121, 150, 209n.9
180, 183 ethnocentrism, 66, 145, 148
communality, 150, 165–167, 172 Europhile, 148, 150, 168, 204n.42
comparative, 11–14, 23, 53, 150 exoticism, 19, 40, 63, 101, 137, 206n.68
confessional, 10, 104, 116, 132, 146, exoticize/exoticization, 18, 21, 29, 64,
209n.5. See also autobiographical 70, 76, 92, 95
connoisseur, 15, 21, 66, 73–74, 75–77,
81, 92, 101–102, 130, 143–144, 182, Fan Chengda, 147, 220n.9; Wu chuan lu,
184 147
contact zone, 21–22 femininity, 53, 102, 114, 126, 131,
contrast, 1–4, 11–14, 22, 24, 27, 30–31, 209n.9. See also gender divide/-par-
34, 40, 41, 52–53, 76–77, 84, 88, 92, tition; guixiu; joryû
97, 99, 104, 112–113, 114, 139, 150, Fengtian, 84, 89, 101
156, 160–161, 171, 175–176, 181, fetish(ization), 15, 65, 73–74, 81, 82, 85,
182, 187–189 92–95, 101, 155, 206n.68, 207n.81
 Index • 263

fold, 7, 11, 12–13, 22, 29–31, 80, 169– 225n.64; Tsûzoku Kajin no kigû,
170, 187–189, 207n.81 163–165, 224n.56, 225n.64. See also
foreign, 16, 19–20, 22, 28, 35, 37–40, 43, Daitô Hyôshi
45–46, 52, 54, 61, 63–64, 68–69, 76– Hayashi Razan, 72, 185
77, 79, 81, 86, 105, 135–136, 138, hegemon/hegemony, 21, 64, 85, 144–
150, 158–159, 174, 176, 181, 187 145, 155, 158–159, 170, 175
Fujiwara no Kintô, 109; Waka kuhon, heterogeneity/heterogeneous, 2, 64, 110,
109. See also Wakan rôeishû 115, 194n.19
Fujiwara no Kiyokawa, 57–63 Heyang, 28–37, 40, 44, 186
Fujiwara no Seika, 185 hierarchy/hierarchization, 8, 11, 24, 31,
Fujiwara no Teika, 41; Meigetsuki, 41. 37, 40, 44, 49, 56, 59, 83, 84, 86, 89,
See also Matsura no miya monogatari 92, 99, 102, 103, 146, 158, 172, 175,
Furukawa Koshôken, 69; Saiyû zakki, 69 205n.65, 221n.25
High-Tang, 67, 72–73, 171
Gan Bao, 119; Sou shen ji, 119, 137 Higuchi Ichiyô, 104, 128, 133, 209n.9,
Gao Qingqiu, 87, 149 211n.24, 219n.124
gender/-divide/ partition, 92, 103, 105. Hino Tatsuo, 66, 71, 73, 76, 194n.19
See also femininity; masculinity Hiraga Gennai, 55; Fûryû Shidôken den,
Gensei, 169–170, 172–174, 226nn.79, 55
226n.81, 86; Gengen shôwa shû, Hiratsuka Raichô, 106, 128, 132–134
226n.79; Sôzanshû, 226n.81 historicism, 1, 6, 9
geography, 14, 19, 21–22, 91, 185–189 historiography, 6, 118
Graham, Patricia, 74, 201nn.8, 20, homogeneity/homogeneous, 4, 6–7, 15,
202n.30, 215n.75 22, 88, 104, 113, 115, 128, 150, 177,
Greenblatt, Stephen, 19–20, 155 179
guixiu ( J. keishû), 122. See also feminin- Honchô reisô, 109–110
ity; joryû Honchô Suikoden, 14, 55–64, 68–69, 85,
Guwenci ( J. Kobunji), 67, 72 92, 119, 173, 199nn.108, 117, 119,
Hong lou meng, 98, 99, 149, 207n.76,
Hagiwara Hiromichi, 211n.28; Genji 221n.22
monogatari hyôshaku, 211nn.25, 28 Hori Tatsuo, 168
Haku Rakuten, 54, 197n.72 hybrid/hybriditity, 14, 32, 35, 40, 54, 59,
Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari, 14, 92–94, 111, 167–168, 173, 180, 185,
27–40, 42, 43, 44, 46, 52, 54, 55, 63, 207n.76, 79, 227n.7. See also ai-
92, 110, 112, 117–118, 192nn.2, 3, noko; xiangzi; zasshu
5, 194n.20, 195nn.28, 29, 30,
196nn.43, 49, 199n.111. See also Ibi Takashi, 65, 215n.75, 220n.7
Mitsu no Hamamatsu Ike no Taiga, 75, 202n.22; Jûben jûgi zu,
Han, 42, 48–49, 50, 53, 55, 153, 163, 75, 202n.23
166, 222n.31 Indigenous, 4, 16, 23, 26, 104–106, 107–
Hangzhou, 80, 86, 87, 90, 93 108, 110, 111, 114–115, 118, 119–
Hara Saihin, 121, 122–123, 213n.59, 120, 137, 141, 147, 172, 175, 179,
214nn.62–66, 219n.1; “Gengo-shi,” 187, 189, 224n.55. See also native/
122 nativity
Hattori Nankaku, 72, 171 in¶uence(s), 2, 7, 13, 23, 96. See also an-
Hattori Seiichi (Bushô), 164–165, cestor; origin/descendant; quotation
264 • Index

interface, 90, 208n.96. See also bound- Kibi no Makibi, 25, 27

aries Kikuchi Gozan, 215n.75; Gozandô shiwa,
Ise monogatari, 33, 195n.26, 196n.38 215n.75
Ishikawa Jôzan, 67, 72, 144, 173, 200n.2, kinki shoga (Ch. qinqi shuhua), 75, 78
201n.13 Kinoshita Mokutarô, 101, 208n.95; “Mei-
lang chang Su San,” 101; “Peking,”
Japaneseness, 2–3, 13, 15, 21–22, 34, 38, 101
78, 115, 150, 180 Ki no Tsurayuki, 22, 194n.19. See also
Jiangsu, 87, 89, 97 Tosa nikki
Jia Sidao, 93, 206n.75 Kôda Rohan, 149–150, 161, 221n.22
Jin Yi, 124, 215n.77 Kokin wakashû, 22, 49, 57
jingoism/jingoistic, 41, 55. See also na- Kokuji, 77
tionalism Kokusen’ya gassen, 14, 47–55, 59–60, 69,
Jinpingmei, 149 173, 198nn.80, 85
joryû, 103–105, 209n.4, 211n.33, Kokuyaku kanbun taisei, 149, 221n.22
212n.36. See also femininity; guixiu Konrondo, 70, 201n.9
kundoku, 67, 69–70, 72, 79–80, 155, 164.
Kado, Reiko, 103, 126, 208n.1 See also yomikudashi
Kafka, Franz, 135, 174–175 kunten, 154
Kajin no kigû, 16, 145–146, 151–167, kun’yaku, 68
180–181, 221nn.25, 27, 223nn.35, Kurahashi Yumiko, 16, 106–107, 135–
40, 44, 224nn.53, 56, 225nn.64, 65, 141, 152, 218nn.115, 118,
71 219n.125; “Kôkan,” 136–137; Kô-
Kamei Shôkin, 121, 213n.59 kan, 138; “Kubi no tobu onna,”
kanbun, 41, 82, 111, 117, 118, 144, 147– 137–138; Shiro no naka no shiro, 138
149, 156–157, 161, 164, 166, 184,
186–187, 195n.26, 223n.41 LaMarre, Thomas, 3–4, 22–23, 26, 191n.3
Kan Sanbon, 29. See also Sugawara no Liang Qichao, 163, 225nn.60, 62; Jiaren
Fumitoki qiyu, 163
kanshi, 24, 29–30, 49, 82, 108–109, 116, Li Bai, 25, 60–61, 62, 67, 72, 122,
121–122, 124, 146–149, 152, 156, 208n.91; “Qingping diao,” 61, 62
166, 168, 171, 172, 185, 195n.26, Li Daotian ( J. Ri Tôten), 49–50, 69–70
209n.5, 214n.66, 215n.75, 220n.7, Li Furen, 40, 113
225n.71 Lin Bu, 90
kanshibun, 4, 78, 95, 109, 151, 154, 162, Lin Daiyu, 99, 100, 207n.76
168, 175, 185, 194n.24, 209n.6, Li Panlong (Yulin), 70, 72, 171, 227n.85
219n.4, 225n.71; incommensurabil- literary language, 19, 52, 60, 63–64, 65,
ity with Westernness, 146–150, 67–68, 143, 181. See also bungo;
156–157 wenyan
Kara monogatari, 34, 53, 196n.40 literati, 25–26, 64, 71, 75–77, 110, 122,
Kashiwagi Jotei, 168, 171, 201n.21 127, 128, 136, 145, 147, 150, 156–
Kawaguchi Hisao, 109–110, 191n.8 157, 161, 162, 167, 182, 202n.27,
Kawase Kazuma, 20, 192n.5 215n.82
Kawazoe Fusae, 110, 210n.18 Li Yi’an (Qingzhao), 117, 212n.45
Keene, Donald, 152, 158–159, 161, 163 Li Yu (Li Liweng), 75, 87, 97, 99,
kenten, 95 201n.21; Bimuyu, 87; Jiezi yuan hua-
 Index • 265

zhuan, 75; Shenzhong lou, 86–87; Taimu nikki, 148; “Yasui fujin,” 133,
Shizhongqu, 86 218n.114; Zai Toku ki, 148
Lu Wuguan (You), 125, 147, 215n.82, Mori Shuntô, 147, 220n.7
220n.9 Morita Shiken, 156, 223n.41
Lu Xun, 136; Guxiaoshuo goushen, 136 Morita Sôhei, 126, 132; “Onna deshi,”
Lu You, 147; Ru shu ji, 147 126
Lu Yu, 78, 202n.30; Chajing, 78, 202n.30 Mostow, Joshua, 110
mother tongue, 17, 175–176, 196n.38
Maeda Ai, 159, 221n.25 Motoori Norinaga, 56, 111, 113–115,
man’yôgana, 181 116, 119–120, 211n.27, 214n.66;
Man’yô shû, 57, 220n.17 “Nonaka no shimizu tensaku,”
Maoshi daxu, 22 213n.52; Shibun yôryô, 113, 211n.27
masculinity, 16, 102, 140, 175, 177, 182. Murasaki Shikibu, 15, 104, 105, 107–
See also gender divide/-partition 115, 117, 118–119, 120–121, 128,
material/materiality, 3–5, 8, 15, 66, 68, 141, 209n.9, 211n.24, 214n.66
75, 77–78, 82, 87–88, 102, 139, 167,
177, 181, 183–185, 187–189, Nagai Kafû, 147, 220nn.13, 14
219n.119 Nagai Kagen (Kyûichirô), 147–148,
Matsui, Sachiko, 158, 224nn.49, 51 220nn.13, 14; Raiseikaku shishû,
Matsura no miya monogatari, 14, 27, 40– 148
47, 48, 49–50, 55, 63, 152, 196n.58 Naitô Konan, 79, 203n.32
Mei Lanfang, 101, 208nn.93, 95; Tôyûki, Nakajima, Wakako, 3–4, 109, 209n.6,
208n.93 210n.10, 13
Meien shiki (Ch. Mingyuan shigui), 126. Nakamura Shin’ichirô, 16, 146, 167–175,
See also guixiu 226nn.76, 81, 227n.86; Kimura Ken-
Mei Yaochen, 138–139; “Simao,” 139 kadô no saron, 168; Ôchô bungaku no
mentor-disciple, 26, 72, 107, 123–127, sekai, 226n.72; Kûchû teien, 168–
128, 130–131, 133, 139–140, 169; Kumo no yukiki, 16, 146, 167,
209n.9, 212n.42 169–175, 227n.86; Shijin no niwa,
Minakami Roteki, 122; Nihon keien ginsô, 168, 226n.76
122 Nanjing, 48, 51, 80, 85, 100
Ming dynasty, 48–50, 54–55, 56, 69–70, national boundaries, 16, 21, 25–26, 45,
72, 76, 78, 123, 126, 170, 172, 188, 54, 60, 76–77, 138, 145, 163, 172
205n.63 national identities, 2, 6, 34, 54, 105, 115,
Mitsu no Hamamatsu, 27, 58. See also 198n.85
Hamamatsu chûnagon monogatari nationalism, 5, 14, 15–16, 17, 21, 55,
Mori Ôgai, 16, 106, 107, 128–135, 136, 144–146, 151, 173–174, 176
139–140, 141, 146, 148–149, 169, national language, 78–79, 104, 135, 145,
216nn.97, 101, 217nn.107, 109, 174, 175, 178, 179
113, 218n.114, 220n.15; Doitsu nation-state, 17, 142, 144–145, 198n.85
nikki, 148; “Gyo Genki,” 106, 128– native/nativity, 2, 15, 27, 29, 34, 39, 41–
134, 139–141, 227n.7; Kantô nichijô, 42, 45–46, 51, 54, 56–57, 64, 68,
148; Kôsei nikki, 148, 220nn.15, 18; 86, 104–105, 110, 119, 127, 135,
Omokage, 149; “Rekishi sonomama 136–137, 144, 147, 148, 162, 176,
to rekishi banare,” 216n.96; “Saigo 178, 180–181, 182. See also indige-
no ikku,” 133; Shibue Chûsai, 133; nous
266 • Index

Natsume Sôseki, 80, 98–99, 132–133, 169. See also binary; dialectics; di-
134, 148–149, 152, 203n.35, chotomy; dyad; rivalry
208n.91 Pollack, David, 2
“New Women,” 106, 135, 141 polyglot, 173, 175. See also transnational
Nishimura Tenshû, 167 popular, 35, 54, 63, 68, 71, 77, 96, 99, 157,
Nomura Kôdai, 117, 118 162, 164, 166, 180, 182, 185, 202n.27,
220n.7, 221n.25. See also tsûzoku
Ôbaku-shû, 75 Pratt, Mary Louise, 21, 207n.81
objectifying/objecti¤cation, 4, 8, 10, 12,
15, 20–22, 77, 78–80, 82, 85, 89–90, Qing dynasty, 18–19, 48, 66, 71, 72–73,
95, 102, 129–130 76, 85, 87, 147, 227n.85
Ochi Haruo, 156–157, 224n.56 quotation, 8, 9, 17, 35, 88, 112–113, 121,
Ôe no Masafusa, 25, 186; Gôdanshô, 25– 135–139, 153–154, 165, 180–181,
27, 30, 186, 193n.17, 195n.28, 185, 186. See also in¶uence(s); ori-
197n.72; “Yûjo ki,” 186 gin/descendant
Ôe no Masahira, 110, 186; “Yûjo o miru Qu Yuan, 153; Lisao, 153
no jo,” 186
Ogyû Sorai, 4, 67–68, 70, 72, 75, 79, 171, Rai San’yô, 122–127, 128, 133, 140, 146,
201n.15, 203n.34, 227n.85 184, 214n.66, 215nn.78, 82,
Okajima Kanzan, 68, 149, 200n.5; Chûgi 216n.94, 219n.2
Suikoden, 68; Tôwa san’yô, 68; Tsû- recitation, 29–30, 69, 74, 82, 109, 145–
zoku chûgi Suikoden, 68 146, 162–163, 174, 179–181. See
Ônuma Chinzan, 147 also oral/orality; sodoku
oral/orality, 3, 60–61, 67–80, 104, 155, rhetoric/rhetorical, 1, 3, 5, 11, 15, 16,
161–162, 174, 176, 177, 179–181, 19–22, 33, 48, 51–52, 66, 71, 72–73,
182, 185, 224n.59. See also recita- 89, 103–104, 134, 148, 151–152,
tion 156–157, 159–160, 169, 172,
original, 4, 30, 32–33, 56, 57, 58, 61, 68– 192n.1, 221n.27. See also shûji
69, 75, 79–80, 100, 108–109, 136– Rilke, Rainer Maria, 174–175
137, 148, 158, 162, 163–166, 172, Rimer, J. Thomas, 201n.13, 216n.97,
180, 196n.43, 225nn.64, 71. See also 218n.114
quotation rivalry, 25–26, 47, 101, 112. See also bi-
origin/descendant, 3, 7–8, 21, 42, 56, 77, nary, dialectics, dichotomy, dyad,
78, 89, 92–94, 113–114, 118, 121, polarity
171–172, 175, 184, 194n.19, ruisho (Ch. leishu), 108–109
196n.38, 209n.6. See also in¶u-
ence(s); quotation Said, Edward, 227n.88
origin/destination, 21, 38, 43, 44–45, 57, saishi kajin shôsetsu (Ch. caizi jiaren
85, 135, 139, 154, 171–172, 189. See xiaoshuo), 151
also vector Sakai, Naoki, 4, 201n.15, 203n.34
Sakaki, Atsuko, 13, 196n.41, 198n.83,
perception, 1, 4, 8–9, 11, 13, 64, 85, 88, 205n.63, 217n.113, 219n.125,
127–128, 141–142, 177 222n.31
phonocentricism, 162, 173–174, 179, Sano Masami, 220n.10, 226nn.79, 81
198n.85 Satô Haruo, 130, 208n.91; Shajin shû,
polarity/polarization, 2, 11, 13, 91, 102, 130
 Index • 267

scholarship, 4, 7, 15, 28, 71–72, 78–79, Su Manzhu ( J. So Manshu), 207n.79;

99–100, 102, 104, 144, 209n.5 Dankô Reigan ki, 207n.79
Scott, Joan, 9 Sumiyoshi, 25, 45, 46, 47, 54, 197n.72,
seiji shôsetsu, 156–157, 160–161, 198n.79
224n.51, 57 Su Shi (Dongpo), 87, 88, 147, 148, 186,
Seitô, 132–133 197n.72, 205n.51, 220n.17; “Chibi
Shangyang Baifaren, 33, 40, 113 fu,” 186
Shiba Shirô, 16, 145, 151, 157–158, 161, Su Xiaoxiao, 89, 205n.63
163, 164–167, 221n.24, 225n.71. Suzuki, Tomi, 104, 202n.28, 209n.5,
See also Kajin no kigû; Tôkai Sanshi 219n.5
Shimada no Tadaomi, 110
Shimizu Hamaomi, 119 Takahashi Taika, 167
Shi Yin, 205n.63; Xihu jiahua, 205n.63 Takebe Ayatari, 56–57, 59, 68, 119, 149.
Shôheikô, 71, 148 See also Honchô Suikoden
Shuihu zhuan, 14, 55, 98, 99, 149, Takezoe Seisei (Shin’ichirô), 147–148,
221n.22 220n.10; San’un kyôu nikki narabini
shûji, 152, 160. See also rhetoric/rhetori- shisô, 147
cal Tanaka, Stefan, 4
Sinophile, 5, 15–16, 26, 59, 67, 82–83, Tangshi sanbai shou, 138
105, 120, 130, 135, 137–138, 146, Tani Tateki, 158, 165
150, 168, 171–172, 181, 183, 184– Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, 15, 17, 80, 82–90,
185, 227n.85 92–93, 95–96, 99–102, 130, 137,
Six dynasties, 89, 136, 152, 166 149, 178–179, 181, 184–185, 187,
sodoku, 69, 162. See also recitation 189, 203nn.39, 40, 204nn.41, 42,
Song dynasty, 18–19, 41, 55, 73, 87, 91, 205nn.50, 51, 206n.68, 207nn.76,
93, 138–139, 147, 192n.2 79, 85, 208n.91, 219n.4, 227n.7;
Song Yu, 152, 197n.78, 217n.109; “Gao- “Ashikari,” 186–187; “Birôdo no
tang fu,” 152, 197n.78; “Shennu fu,” yume,” 92–95, 100; “Chôsen zak-
197n.78 kan,” 204n.41; “Gabô ki,” 82;
souvenir, 91, 101, 207n.81 “Genjô Sanzô,” 205n.51; “Inaba
Stewart, Susan, 65, 91 Seikichi sensei,” 203n.39; “Itansha
style, 3–4, 36, 56, 67, 68, 75, 79, 80–81, no kanashimi,” 84; “Kakurei,” 90–
93, 96, 117–118, 120, 123, 130, 145, 92, 206n.68; “Kirin,” 205n.51;
148, 152, 154–155, 156–159, 161, “Kôjin,” 95–102, 149, 207n.85,
162, 163–166, 180, 182–183, 209n.9, 208nn.82, 86; “Ningyo no nageki,”
212n.46, 217n.113, 219n.124, 85–86; Rangiku monogatari, 187–
221n.25, 225n.64, 227n.7 189; “Rozan nikki,” 82; “Sakana no
Suematsu Kenchô (Seihyô), 147–148; Ri Taihaku,” 208n.91; “Seiji iro no
Seihyô shû, 147 onna,” 205n.53; “Seiko no tsuki,”
Sugawara no Fumitoki, 29, 110, 195n.28. 86; “Shanhai kenbun roku,”
See also Kan Sanbon 204n.42; “Shanhai kôyûki,”
Sugawara no Michizane, 28, 110, 180, 204n.42; “Shina-geki o miru ki,” 84,
185, 227n.4 101; “Shina no ryôri,” 83–84; “Shina
Sugawara no Takasue no musume, 28, shumi to iu koto,” 208n.91;
112; Sarashina nikki, 20, 28, 117, “Shindô,” 203n.40; “Shinwai no
192n.5, 226n.73 yoru,” 82; Shôshô Shigemoto no haha,
268 • Index

179, 205n.50; “Shûkô juku to tsûzoku, 68, 164. See also popular
Sanmâ juku,” 203n.39; “Shunkin
shô,” 182, 227n.7; “Soshû kikô,” 82; Ueda Akinari, 56, 120, 194n.19, 200n.6;
“So Tôba: Arui wa Kojô no shijin,” Harusame monogatari, 194n.19,
205n.51; “Tomoda to Matsunaga no 200n.6;
hanashi,” 204n.42; “Yôshô jidai,” Ugetsu monogatari, 200n.6
203n.39?; “Yume no ukihashi,” universal language, 30, 43, 144, 150. See
181–183 also transnational
Tanomura Chikuden, 124 Utsubo monogatari, 118, 197n.64
Tao Yuanming (Qian), 99, 136, 152,
208n.91; “Taohuayuan ji,” 136, 152 vector, 7, 12, 39, 88, 170. See also origin/
territoriality, 26, 188 destination
Tian Rucheng, 205n.63; Xihu youlan zhi vernacular Chinese, 56, 63–64, 68, 135,
yu, 205n.63 146. See also baihua
tôin, 67, 76. See also authentic/authenticity
Tôkai Sanshi, 145, 151, 153, 157–160, Wakan rôeishû, 30, 108, 110
166–167, 221n.27; Jijo, 225n.70. See wakokubon kanseki, 72, 201n.14
also Kajin no kigû; Shiba Shirô wakon kansai, 2–3
Tokutomi Roka, 162 Wang Wei, 25, 97, 99
Tokutomi Sohô, 160 Wang Yuyang (Shizhen), 72, 87, 171
Tomohira, 110 washû, 172. See also domestication
Tosa nikki, 14, 22, 25–26, 27, 57, 193n.8, Wa Tô chinkai, 69
194n.19 Wei Ye, 184
Tôshisen (Ch. Tangshixuan), 70 Wen Tingyun (Feiqing), 107, 128, 129,
Tôshisen ôkai: Gogon zekku, 70 131, 139–140
tourism, 15, 80–81, 86, 102 Wenxuan, 25, 151
translation, 20, 56, 58, 68–71, 78–79, wenyan, 65, 145. See also literary lan-
108, 118, 130, 147, 149, 156, 163, guage
174, 221n.22 Wenyuan yinghua, 25
transnational, 16–17, 27, 47, 53–54, 56, Wixted, John Timothy, 22, 202n.29
63, 66, 95, 144–145, 150, 151, 155, Wu Sangui ( J. Go Sankei), 49, 70
162–163, 167, 174–176, 209n.96. Wushan, 46, 55
See also polyglot
transvestism, 53, 85, 95, 100–102, 121– xiangzi, 207n.79. See also ainoko; hybrid-
122 ity; zasshu
travel, 14–15, 19–21, 24, 27, 32, 33, 42, Xiaoqing, 217n.113
45, 47, 56–57, 64, 66, 80–81, 82–84, xingling, 72, 171–172, 227n.85
88, 90–91, 93, 96, 101, 147, 172, Xishi, 89, 205n.64
204n.42, 207n.76, 220n.9 Xuanzong, 23, 32, 35, 55, 57, 61–63,
Tsubouchi Shôyô, 157, 159–161, 221n.25; 196n.43, 222n.31
Shôsetsu shinzui, 157, 159–161
Tsuga Teishô, 56, 200n.6; Kokon kidan: Yamamoto Hokuzan, 171, 227n.85;
Hanabusa zôshi, 200n.6; Kokon Sakushi shikô, 227n.85
kidan Hanabusa zôshi kôhen: Yamanoue no Okura, 57
Shigeshige Yawa, 200n.6 Yanagawa (nee Chô) Kôran (Kei), 122
Tsukushi, 32, 195n.32 Yanagawa Seigan, 168
 Index • 269

Yang Guifei, 32–35, 40, 51, 58–63, 69, Yuan Hongdao, 172–173, 227nn.85, 86
77, 84, 92, 129, 153, 196n.43 Yuan Mei (Suiyuan), 72, 78, 83, 124,
Yang Tieyai (Weizhen), 87 171–173, 214n.63; Suiyuan nudizi
Yan Qing, 101 shixuan, 124; Suiyuan shidan, 78, 83,
Yinyuan ( J. Ingen), 19, 75 139; Xiaocang shichao, 214n.63
Yoda Gakkai, 147, 149 Yuan Zhen, 30
yomi kudashi, 79, 154–155, 162, 164, Yu Xuanji ( J. Gyo Genki), 106, 107, 108,
225n.69. See also kundoku 128–132, 134, 139–140, 142, 182,
Yonemoto, Marcia, 55, 69, 201n.9 210n.11, 217nn.106, 107, 109;
yonghuai shi ( J. eikai shi), 73 “Qingshu ji Li Zian,” 216n.101;
yongwu shi ( J. eibutsu shi), 66 “Qiuyuan,” 130
Yosa Buson, 73, 75, 201n.18; Jûben jûgi Yu Yue (Quyuan), 122, 147; Dongying
zu, 75, 202n.23; Shin hanatsumi, shixuan ( J. Tôei shisen), 122, 147,
201n.18 213n.60, 220n.10
Yosano Akiko, 103, 116, 128, 133,
217n.113 zasshu, 93–94. See also ainoko; hybridity;
Yoshikawa Eiji, 127; Nihon meifu den, 127 xiangzi
Yotsutsuji (Minamoto) Yoshinari, 111; Zhang Heng, 151; “Sichou shi,” 151
Kakaishô, 111 Zhejiang, 87, 89
You xian ku, 33, 119, 152 Zheng Chenggong, 48–51
Yuan dynasty, 18–19, 87, 149 Zheng Zhilong, 48–51, 53, 54
 About the Author

Atsuko Sakaki is a professor in the Department of East Asian

Studies and associate member of the Centre for Comparative Lit-
erature at the University of Toronto. Her previous books include
a translation, The Woman with the Flying Head and Other Stories
by Kurahashi Yumiko (1998), and Recontextualizing Texts: Narra-
tive Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction (1999). Her current
research is a book project on “Corporeality and Spatiality in Mod-
ern Japanese Literature.”