Hi, ladies!
Plum, I’m interested in your seminar on the English articles. I’m looking forward to attending it.
It’s fantastic to read about the life of Shoen and Sanger. Now, I also try to write some facts about Kiyoko Endo.
Kiyoko Endo was born in Takanawa, Tokyo in 1882 as the second child of a scribe. She worked as a higher primary school teacher for 4 years, and then joined the Denpo tsushinsha (present Dentsu) as a writer. She became a zealous supporter of the women suffrage activity under the influence of Utako Imai, who used to be a member of Heiminsha.
While working at the Denpo tsushinsha, Endo loved each other with a colleague Nakao, who already had his own family. She urged him to divorce his wife, but he denied. With a great disappointment, Endo tried to commit suicide at the Kouzu seashore, Kanagawa, but failed.
…This is the part 1 of her story. See you next!
9 comments:
Hi, everyone.
I am appalled by the result I began to write my autobiography in this blog. Is it a windfall? By the way, I know Azalea. She is chiken hearted and shy. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy your roller coaster like life. Good luck!
I seemed childish rather than my real age. I always took care of any domesticated animals randomly, such as a cat, a dog and a horse, etc. I was a little mother or sometimes a mentor to homeless children in my neighborhood. My time, especially my playtime was spent to take care of my playmate. It was peculially spent to bandage a hurt in the tip of his or her finger up. I grew up in a country town where I was born until I entered dormitory. This town was known for the production of the most beautifully grinded glasses in the world. I know that the town's industry was prosoperous, my playmates had been employed at those factories as soon as they turned to get labor certification since I was a child so that they could not receive enogh education.
Behind this meserable fact, I remembered, there was a pressing reason that they had to be a bread winner to supply necessities for their infant brothers and sisters.
Hello, Cherry and ladies.
I am Shoen Uemura. Today I'd like to talk about my hometown.
I love Kyoto and its culture from the bottom of my heart. It has the history of thousands years.
I have never thought of living apart from Kyoto. Although I was forced to evacuate from Kyoto to Nara during the Pacific War, I gradually took a liking to Nara, where there used to be an ancient capitol of the Heijo Palace.
After the Meiji Restoration, the capital of Kyoto was transferred to Tokyo in 1870 about five years before I was born. It was often said that Kyoto had lost its energy and vigor since then. All the political and cultural centers were moved to Tokyo. The Emperor and Empress, court nobles as well as government key officials left Kyoto, which made Kyoto people sad and low-spirited.
When I was little, the waves of modernization were surging toward Japan. I somehow lived in an atmosphere not directly related with its modernization.
Society and tradition appeared to change more slowly than the government’s desperate efforts to make Japan civilized and enlightened.
Most people in Kyoto still continued their lifestyles handed down from the Edo period. My mother followed and respected the customs and her lifestyle of the Edo period.
For example, to shave the eyebrows was one of customs for married women It was called Seibi “青眉”. I loved to see my mother’s freshly shaved eyebrows.
Hello, Cherry and ladies.
I'd like to tell you about my mother today. She was 26 when I was born. She had a frank and open personality.
I told blue eyebrows, “青眉”, which was a custom practiced by Kyoto women since the Edo period to signify their martial status and motherhood.
I grew up watching my mother carefully tend her “blue eyebrows” to keep the gentle glow of their pale color. Blue eyebrows came to symbolize the memory of my mother so dear to my heart. I respected and loved Mother and I also admired the lifestyle of early Meiji Kyoto. Blue eyebrows are the essence of beauty I have cherished throughout my life. I painted a picture name ‘blue eyebrows’ in 1934.
It is no exaggeration to say that my mother produced my arts as well as gave me a birth.
My mother, Naka, 79, had a stroke when I was 53. She died at the age of 86. I devoted all my energies to take care of her, thanking for her kindness she had showed to me. Although she had to spend seven years bedridden with a stroke, I believe she was happy in her later years surrounded by her family including me, my son and his wife and her three grate-grand children.
Soon after she passed away, I started to produce two pictures. One is “Blue eyebrows” and the other is “ Mother and a child”, prompted by the strong memories and yearning for my dead mother.
Hello, everyone
Nice to see you, Kiyoko Endo and Shoen Uemura. Both of you are older than I. Would you say 'Hello' to Mutsuhito?
My father was a highly skilled operative. He was a sculptor, creating his ideal carving out of marble or granite. He was highly paid, but to educate their children in the way my parents wanted, my siblings and I had to endure miserable things. In my girlhood, books I read were somewhat unbalanced. I chose philosophy books such as 'Progress and Poverty' written by Henry George and 'Looking forward' by Edward Bellamy.
I am sorry for suspending my own story here because I feel catching a cold. New flu reminds me of Spanish Flu in 1918. Everyone, take care of yourself. See you tomorrow, I hope so. If I am alive???????????
Good night and nice week end to you.
Hello, Cherry and ladies.
Asalea, are you all right with your cold?
Let me tell you my story about when I became a professional artist.
My mother was a breadwinner for about thirty years. When I reached thirty, she closed her tea-leaf shop because I finally became economically independent as a professional artist.
As I had no father in my family, she played a role of father.
I don’t know my father, but I have not particularly felt lonely. He passed away two months before I appeared in this world. I had my elder sister.
Mother was enjoing her good health. And I got her good health from my mother.
Since I decided to become a professional painter, I strived to become as strong as men spiritaully. In other words, I lived my life with men's mentality.
In 1928 when I was 53, I was regarded as one of the wealthiest painters in Kyoto.
Hello, Cherry and Ladies.
I'm Shoen Uemura.
For painters, sketching is one of the most indispensable practices among painting activities. Artists should do it on an everyday basis.
Seiho Takeuchi, the third teacher, encouraged me to draw as many scktchings as possible. The technique of sketching is to be acquired only through self-training of practicing.
I insist that the same things would be applied to English learners who want to improve the ability of English writing abilities.
My daily life was captured in my son's memory. He wrote in a book that I continued to make uncompromising efforts to climb the social ladder in the art world.
Hi, everyone
Sunflower, Thank you for your compassion. I am fine. I am vulnerable to intellectual exercises.
In my girlhood, books I read were somewhat unbalanced. I chose difficult philosophy books such as 'Progress and Poverty' written by Henry George and 'Looking forward' by Edward Bellamy or Ecce Homo by Nietzsche or a thesis by Schopenhauer. The philosophy of Schopenhauer made my curiosity frustrated and vexed. I enjoyed other authors' books the same kind of his. My diurnal was spent for reading books on complex thoughts like these though, in the nocturnal time, I was indulged in fairy tale beside a hearth.
These bedtime stories consisted of Gromm's Fairy Tales or my father's imaginative and distinctive stories derived from Ireland legend. I looking back these contradict influence, my parents seemed to want their children to be just simple but creative as well.
Dear Cherry and friends
Hi! How are you?
I thought it was cloudy weather but the sun sometimes came out. I was inside being afraid of UV rays.
Miss Hannah Maria Birkenhead, missionary sent by the Ladies’ Association of SPG, is not acknowledged as the first principal of Kobe Shoin Girls’ School although she opened the school.
Early December 1888, she reached Japan. She had sailed across the Atlantic, traveled across North America by car, and sailed from Vancouver.
While in Tokyo, she stayed at St. Hilda’s School and often met Miss Alice Eleanor Hoar and Miss Annie Hoar. On December 14th she sailed from Yokohama to Kobe.
Shortly after starting her mission in Kobe, Mr. Foss sent her to Awaji to her surprise. SPG had already planed to open a school for girls and Miss Birkenhead was supposed to start the school, but they had decided to postpone the plan for lack of resources. By summer 1889, she was in Awaji.
Although she loved Awaji and enjoyed living there, Mr. Foss called her back to Kobe in winter 1890.
According to her letter, she was refused to live with Mr. and Mrs. Foss because Mrs. Foss thought they were not obliged to do so. Miss Birkenhead had to rent a house, which imposed a financial burden on her and she piled up a lot of debt.
Mr. Foss wrote about her debt in his letter to the Ladies’ Association of SPG.
She asked the Association to clear the debt on her behalf. In return, she offered the deduction from her salary.
Meanwhile, SPG decided to open the Girls’ School under the charge of Miss Birkenhead.
Only half a year later, she resigned from the society and moved to Yokohama leaving a short letter to Mr. Foss.
“If it could be arranged for someone to take my place, I should like to withdraw from this Mission at the end of this quarter. I feel that the one thing needed to make the school a success is an earnest loving Christian Principal, and I do not know if I call myself a Christian any longer. If I were not in debt, I should ask to be sent home. As it is I wish to stay in the country doing secular work until I have paid all that I owe. I ought to have told you this last night, but you came unexpectedly so I did not speak.”
Mr. Foss did not know exactly where she worked in Yokohama but guessed it was one of Methodist schools. She did not work long there, either. She sailed to British Columbia, where she married an Irish. We don’t know what happened to her after she divorced.
Mr. Foss reported that she could get along with neither Japanese workers nor fellow missionaries.
Wasn’t she really qualified as a principal? That puzzles me.
Good night.
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