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Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was one of Japan's greatest poets and translators from classical Japanese. Her output was extraordinary, including twenty volumes of poetry and the most popular translation of the ancient classic "The Tale of Genji" into modern Japanese. The mother of eleven children, she was a prominent feminist and frequent contributor to Japan's first feminist journal of creative writing, "Seito" (Blue stocking).
In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions, Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel around areas with a prominent Japanese presence in China's northeast. This volume, translated for the first time into English, is her account of that journey. Though a portrait of China and the Chinese, the chronicle is most revealing as a portrait of modern Japanese representations of China -- and as a study of Yosano herself.
In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions, Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel around areas with a prominent Japanese presence in China's northeast. This volume, translated for the first time into English, is her account of that journey. Though a portrait of China and the Chinese, the chronicle is most revealing as a portrait of modern Japanese representations of China -- and as a study of Yosano herself.
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2001
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About the author
Akiko Yosano
219 books142 followersSometimes Yosano Akiko. See also 与謝野 晶子.
Akiko Yosano was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Showa periods of Japan. Her real name was Yosano Shiyo. She is one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan.
Akiko Yosano was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Showa periods of Japan. Her real name was Yosano Shiyo. She is one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 17, 2017
This is a surreal travelogue, Yosano Akiko seems for the most part to be traveling in a peaceful dream with occasional frissons of tension just strong enough to emphasize rather than disturb the dreamlike quality.
It's an interesting trip, and Yosano writes well, but I wish the translator/commentator had put more work into analyzing and highlighting the propagandistic attributes of her account. This is after all, a paid account about Japanese controlled China, written for a Japanese audience, designed to persuade them of the excellence and nobility of the South Manchuria Railway Company as the vehicle for this imperialist policy. I did some limited additional research myself while reading, to get a fuller context of the political situation and events around her trip, but would have preferred to find more of that in the book itself.
It's still a fascinating look at the perspective of a Japanese traveler in the late 1920s and an interesting perspective on Manchuria and Mongolia.
It's an interesting trip, and Yosano writes well, but I wish the translator/commentator had put more work into analyzing and highlighting the propagandistic attributes of her account. This is after all, a paid account about Japanese controlled China, written for a Japanese audience, designed to persuade them of the excellence and nobility of the South Manchuria Railway Company as the vehicle for this imperialist policy. I did some limited additional research myself while reading, to get a fuller context of the political situation and events around her trip, but would have preferred to find more of that in the book itself.
It's still a fascinating look at the perspective of a Japanese traveler in the late 1920s and an interesting perspective on Manchuria and Mongolia.
December 4, 2023
La poeta japonesa Akiko Yosano recibe una invitación de la Compañía del Ferrocarril del Sur de Manchuria para viajar por esta zona junto a su marido, también poeta, en los últimos años de 1920. Viaje patrocinado y quizá con tintes propagandísticos, el libro es una maravilla descriptiva de la polémica zona de Manchuria (una década después se convertiría en el estado títere japonés de Manchukuo) y de Mongolia interior (la Mongolia China).
La pareja conoce gente encantadora durante todo el viaje, la cortesía y las buenas formas prevalecen en un momento complicado por el creciente sentimiento anti japonés en China y que se vería exacerbado años después durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Libro de viajes breve pero de una gran belleza descriptiva e histórica, señalando los acontecimientos históricos más relevantes de los lugares que visitan sin caer en la pedantería ni en el aburrimiento.
La pareja conoce gente encantadora durante todo el viaje, la cortesía y las buenas formas prevalecen en un momento complicado por el creciente sentimiento anti japonés en China y que se vería exacerbado años después durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Libro de viajes breve pero de una gran belleza descriptiva e histórica, señalando los acontecimientos históricos más relevantes de los lugares que visitan sin caer en la pedantería ni en el aburrimiento.
Want to read
August 19, 2024i read some reviews that said the book itself wasn’t really feminist insight and that was the vibe i was going for. i might pick it up again one day, who knows
November 13, 2024
This was an 1.5 star review for me.
In 1928, the esteemed Japanese female author Akiko Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel, free of charge, around the then Japanese colony of Manchuria (roughly what today we know as Northeast China, provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning).
Sadly, the narration is the dull diary of a tourist who is hopping around towns and train stations, whilst being the guest of honor of the Japanese settlers. Other than the description of certain temples and cultural elements such as religion or music, Yosano didn't seem to engage, or wanting to engage, with the local population.
Naturally, the explanation for this dullness and lack of purpose can be found in the context upon which this journey was made. Back in 1928, the Japanese had a de facto colony in Manchuria . It was the practice of the South Manchurian Railway Company to invite famed Japanese authors to travel around at the expense of the company, with the tacit agreement that, in turn, these would publish glowing accounts of the Japanese involvement in China.
Therefore, when Yosano mentions the assassination of warlord Zhang Zuolin when his train wagon got blown up, she is quick to point out of wave of hatred it provoked by the local Chinese against their Japanese masters. She also talks about of hideous and violent graffities being written on walls against the Japanese.
With the benefit of history, now we know that Zhang Zuolin was killed by officers of the Kwantung Army so Japan could deal with a more compliant leader and let them do as they pleased in North China. Along with the different abuses perpetrated by the Japanese on that land, it's little wonder such emotions were running high in 1928 at Manchuria.
I conclude the only reason for this book to exist was to produce propaganda favorable to the Japanese rule in Manchuria. It's a journey with no destination, it reads like the early 20th century equivalent of a modern influencer going on a trip to share as many trivial pictures as possible in Instagram.
If anything, this book stimulated me to find out more about Zhang Zuolin and his life. But that's little payoff after few days of reading.
In 1928, the esteemed Japanese female author Akiko Yosano was invited by the South Manchurian Railway Company to travel, free of charge, around the then Japanese colony of Manchuria (roughly what today we know as Northeast China, provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning).
Sadly, the narration is the dull diary of a tourist who is hopping around towns and train stations, whilst being the guest of honor of the Japanese settlers. Other than the description of certain temples and cultural elements such as religion or music, Yosano didn't seem to engage, or wanting to engage, with the local population.
Naturally, the explanation for this dullness and lack of purpose can be found in the context upon which this journey was made. Back in 1928, the Japanese had a de facto colony in Manchuria . It was the practice of the South Manchurian Railway Company to invite famed Japanese authors to travel around at the expense of the company, with the tacit agreement that, in turn, these would publish glowing accounts of the Japanese involvement in China.
Therefore, when Yosano mentions the assassination of warlord Zhang Zuolin when his train wagon got blown up, she is quick to point out of wave of hatred it provoked by the local Chinese against their Japanese masters. She also talks about of hideous and violent graffities being written on walls against the Japanese.
With the benefit of history, now we know that Zhang Zuolin was killed by officers of the Kwantung Army so Japan could deal with a more compliant leader and let them do as they pleased in North China. Along with the different abuses perpetrated by the Japanese on that land, it's little wonder such emotions were running high in 1928 at Manchuria.
I conclude the only reason for this book to exist was to produce propaganda favorable to the Japanese rule in Manchuria. It's a journey with no destination, it reads like the early 20th century equivalent of a modern influencer going on a trip to share as many trivial pictures as possible in Instagram.
If anything, this book stimulated me to find out more about Zhang Zuolin and his life. But that's little payoff after few days of reading.
April 20, 2023
Despite the name there is not much feminism insight to be found here, is just a diary of a travel written by a feminist writer, which at points makes some trivial passing critique about women and imperialism, but nothing really substantial. Is more interesting as a historical piece by itself, on how things in the colony looked to a citizen of the empire.
July 14, 2021
While I'd known the Japanese were (notoriously) in Manchuria, having not studied it I didn't have a grasp of how thoroughly they'd occupied the area, where a famous Japanese writer can travel with mostly Japanese interactions the entire time.
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May 31, 2015My review, originally published in Monumenta Nipponica 57.3 (Autumn 2002): 386-389, is available here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3096778.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews