FLOWERS OF THE FLOATING WORLD

Flowers of the Floating World at a Tokyo Train Station is a ukiyo-e woodblock print of the Utagawa school, probably early Meiji period (late 1800s). In Western parlance, the Flowers are ladies-of-the-night and the Floating World is the demi-monde. By their flamboyant dress, these flowers cannot be mistaken for anything else, nor do they try to hide the fact.

I’m reminded that soon after Miss Gone-overseas arrived on the island, she witnessed the departure of a number of the Japanese colony’s women and children who were seeking safety from the war. They were being sent to the homeland on the same ship on which she herself arrived. In the fashion typical of ship departures in the Pacific tropics, flowers abound -- leis and mwarmwar -- and she notes all the tears.

Watching one particular man say goodbye to his young son brings tears to her own eyes, reminding her of another departure, but one with no flowers, no ship, and definitely no tears. Instead, it was the departure of soldiers, bound for Manchuria, from a train station in rural Japan. Little did she know, she herself was the only flower on the station platform that day. Or perhaps I should say, flower bud.

America is said to be a mobile society. Supposedly, through merit one can rise, just as through stupidity one can fail. I cannot speak for contemporary Japan, but the country depicted in this woodblock and in my novella Miss Gone-overseas, was not a mobile society. My Miss Gone-overseas, the same as the ladies in this wood block, had only one option into another life: to find a patron who would sponsor her in a commercial enterprise, usually a teashop or a restaurant or her own brothel.

Those who have read Miss Gone-overseas know that my heroine creates a unique option for herself. Most readers have expressed a desire to know how that option turned out for her. So, I gave her a speaking part in my story Same Father, Different Mother and I mentioned her in Under the Flame Tree (both in Overseas: stories). I’m feeling, perhaps, this is not enough. Cross your fingers for me, and stay tuned.