Good afternoon, everyone!
How are you??
Do you remember me? Kiyoko again.
Last time I told you my thoughts on my childbirth, which gave me a great pain. I was an outspoken person. Finally I could find the child was not my enemy, and happiness came my way. But my husband Iwano still had the bad habit of womanizing. Shortly after adopting a secretary, he had an illicit relationship with her. I would forgive them as long as they respected my pride as a legal wife, but they never did it…
After leaving the house, Iwano asked for divorce, but I turned down the request. Not only that, I called for the obligation to live together. A series of the case had begun, and I was drawn into a “war”…Was I too combative? I didn’t think so. I just wanted to establish wives’ position.
See you next.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Dear Cherry and friends,
Good evening!
I’m reading about history of English Christianity, that is, Church of England. At last, I could distinguish the Puritan Revolution from Glorious Revolution. I wonder why I have forgotten what I memorized in my schooldays.
In the Puritan Revolution, Charles I was executed in 1649. The Interregnum lasted until the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. His successor, James II, converted to Catholicism, which eventually caused the Glorious Revolution in which the Protestant William of Orange was invited and James II fled to France.
Now let me change myself into Miss Ellen MacRae, who fired by the committee of Tokyo Jogakkan.
As soon as they found that I was teaching the Bible as out-of-school activities, accompanied by a lawyer they came to me and said that I was preaching out of school. For this reason, they fired me and I had to go back to England. I worked for the school only for four years.
Talk to you later.
Hi, ladies!
I have questions to Miss MacRace.
You could preach the bible at school, couldn't you? Why was the preaching out 0f school so criticized? Tokyo Jogakkan was a Christian school, wasn't it?
Thank you for giving me a good question, cosmos.
Tokyo Jogakkan was established by Japanese men such as Mr. Masakazu Toyama, Mr. Hirobumi Ito, and Mr. Eiichi Shibusawa. Mr. Toyama is the first professor in sociology at Tokyo University.
Mr. Toyama was the person who first reached the idea that Japanese women should be civilized. In 1886, he submitted an essay to propagate his opinion. Although he first tolerated missionaries’ religious activities, he changed his opinion. In the essay, he argued:
_ _ _ _ _
To be civilized means to think as Westerners do, to rejoice as Westerners do, to lament as Westerners do, and to be angry as Westerners do. To civilize Japanese women within the country, we should make missionaries to make a school and to make Japanese women study and have opportunities to communicate with missionaries. This might be a good idea since missionaries may also wish to grab the heart of students and convert them to Christians. Once a woman is converted, converting a man might be easier. Accordingly, rather than preaching in Japanese, teaching at school is much more effective to promulgate Christianity.
_ _ _ _ _
When SPG missionaries, Rev. Bickersteth and Rev. Shaw first contacted Mr. Toyama, they understood his above idea and became so excited that they sent a message to the missionary board in London, telling them women missionaries were wanted as teachers. Miss MacRae and other women missionaries also understood the condition in which they were allowed to preach out of school. Mr. Toyama changed his policy after the school opened. Rev. Bickersteth was deeply disappointed and tried to remind Mr. Toyama of his promise. However, Mr. Toyama told them that he didn’t make such a promise. Knowing this, neither Rev. Bickersteth nor Rev. Shaw protected Miss MacRae’s career. Rather, they shifted the responsibility to her.
Hi Cherry and friends,
It is Sunday, June 28 and was cloudy in the morning and then turned to be sunny and clear with nice breeze. Today is a little bit comfortable compare to last two days. The weather yesterday was terrible. The daytime high temperature reached 32℃ in Nagoya and even 35℃ in some other areas. It was too hot!
Last year, I watched You Tube video, “The Last Lecture”, by Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University on September 18, 2007. Randy, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, had been suffering from pancreatic cancer and learned he would not live longer in September of 2006. At that time, I was very impressed by his energetic and positive lecture about his childhood dreams and his tremendous achievements in the field of virtual reality with humor and wit. He died 9 month after that lecture.
Last Friday, Cosmos lent me the book called “The Last Lecture” on the same theme, which Randy wrote after his last lecture with a reporter, Jeffrey Zashlow, and translated into Japanese, and I read it. This time, I reaffirmed and understood much deeply (of cause, because of Japanese) how he had lived his life and achieved his childhood dreams. Some of his words moved me very much. Such as, “Even thought some of my dreams did come true, the process I made efforts was not vain at all or even more precious.” “Brick walls are there for a reason : they let us prove how badly we want things.” “Be good at something, and it makes you valuable.”
Further more, I learned this time how Randi and his wife overcame the difficulties after being noticed his terminal illness and why and to whom he decided to make the last lecture. He wanted to tell how he lived seriously and how he enjoyed his life and show his gratitude to people surrounding him, especially to his wife and his three small children. He said he was lucky to be given time for him to do for his loved ones, not sudden death like heart attack or a car accident.
It was a really nice book.
Bye for now, my precious friends,
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello.
Rose, I watched the video on YouTube. Thank you for mentioning it. That lecture is worth watching. After watching it, I wanted to remember what my childhood dream was. Mine was 'a teacher'. When I was a preschool kid, I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher. As an elementary school student, I wanted to become an elementary school teacher.
As a teenager, however, I hated to become a teacher, especially a teacher at a junior high school. I always thought it was one of the toughest jobs. And I believe I was right.
Let's welcome Miss Ellen MacRae, tonight.
Hi! I'm Ellen MacRae, again.
As soon as I went back to UK, a classified ad drew my attention. This ad submitted by Mrs. Kirks, who sailed to Japan with me four years ago, wanted teachers. To my surprise, the condition was the same as the one agreed when I was accepted. It said that Tokyo Jogakkan needs teachers. It added that although it was not a mission school, teachers were allowed to preach out-of-school. You might be able to imagine how furious I got. And I really did. Then I suspected I was imposed on.
The editor of The Guardian, which was not the famous Guardian but a Christian newspaper published between 1846 and 1951, was my side. On this paper, the battle between Anglicans on my side and missionaries in Japan continued from September 1892 to February 1893. First, the Guardian criticized missionaries who obeyed the Japanese authorities trivializing mission work. After attacked, Rev. Bickersteth in Japan replied to the paper insisting that considering the current complex situation of Japanese society, obeying the Japanese authorities is the best strategy that missionaries could take. His remark ended the debate. In other words, I lost.
Good night.
Hi, ladies!
I went to Hakone to attend a training camp of swimming last weekend. It was just like a school excursion, though almost all participants were seniors. However the coaches were all young handsome men and women. All members swam like beavers with high spirits. Well, I am suffering from muscular pain today. Alas! I admit that it’s something that a senior like me shouldn’t have tried to do. But, we could enjoy a jovial time together.
Oops; I have almost forgotten I should become Rice.
Ok, I am Rice. Today I7d like to talk about the time background of the Rice Riot Incident. Japan had experienced a few wars after the Meiji Restoration and managed to get victories and expand its power and influence to foreign countries.
Japan enjoyed an economic boom as a result of World War 1. The war boom produced many people known as the “newly rich”. At the same time, it also caused prices to rise. The rice price increase with inflationary spiral, which also affected most consumer goods and rents. Further more, the Siberia Intervention inflamed the situation, with the government buying up existing rice stocks to support the troops overseas, which further drove rice prices higher. The government had no idea that the nation has a responsibility to its people. Why do they carry the rice somewhere, without caring hungry people in the homeland? Don’t you think it is a matter of course that we got angry and stood up to survive?
I am angry at the greedy, money-oriented merchants, too. They don’t care if howmany people might die from hunger. They simply thought this is a good chance to earn a huge money and speculate by buying rice.
Though my anger hasn’ been quelled, I am going to bed tonight. See you soon, my friends. Good night!
Dear Cherry and friends,
Good evening. Night has fallen completely. I have been doing the article quizz. Though this is the third time, it still seems a long way to go. It will be a long summer. Sigh.
Cosmos, thanks for your contribution. Sounds like Eve of the riot. What an exciting story!
Good night.
Hello
Sorry for the long interval.
Alice, may I say something about Glorious Revolution from what I have learned?
In 1688, there was what the English call "the Glorious Revolution". A would-be absolutist King, Charles Ⅱ was deposed in favor of a Protestant Dutch Monarch. In essence, this was a coup d’état, a Dutch coup d’état engineered by a few English Protestants to depose their Stuart King. William of Orange and Mary came from the Netherlands. It did not mark the onset of parliamentary government; It did not mark the onset of more liberal, free Britain. What it marked was the fundamental change in English foreign policy, because what the Dutch William brought to London was antagonism to France and antagonism to things Catholic on the mainland of Europe.
Now back to Flame (Kaneko Kitamura).
Well, I would like to tell you the reason why I have been studying law.
I think that the current law has lost touch with the realities in the society; women especially tend to keep a mental distance from it. So, I hope that law could be taken into home. We should not dismiss it just as a dreamy thought. The time would come when the law is rewritten in a colloquial style.
I have been studying law, but I aspire to be neither a scholar nor a demagogue All I could consider is that I might make myself necessary to the state in the near future.
(This passage is extracted from the article ‘Hōritsu o manabu watashi' of Kaneko Kitamura contained in the journal Fujin issued by Zen-Kansai Fujin Rengō kai in February, 1925)
Hi, ladies!
Good morning! Now is the rainy season, but we luckily haven’t had rain during day times. Tomorrow is the day when we’re getting together for the rehearsal of Aisemi.
Well, now this is Rice talking.
You probably learned the Rice Riot at Toyama in history class of junior high-school. But I suppose you might wonder why such a miner riot keeps on remaining in history books.
Actually, the uprising in Toyama was the only beginning of the unparalleled nation-wide chaotic protest. Starting with peaceful petitioning, the disturbamce quickly escalated to riots, strikes, looting, bombings of police stations and government offices. Of course, polices and troops were mobilized in order to put down the disturbances. There was no specific leader in these riots, which over 200 million people joined all over Japan. A crowd of more than 200000 got together to protest against rice dealers in Tsurumai Park in Nagoya and crashed into the police in August.
A string of incidents lasted for about 50 days, affecting severely the government and civil movements from then. Bye my precious friends. See you tomorrow
Hello, Cherry and my friends.
I'd like to write what I thought of marriage.
I’m a single mother. I had a child out of wedlock.
How I wish I had a romantic marriage based on mutual love!
But it seemed to be impossible for me to marry as I was not a virgin.
I had had a powerful longing for marriage. I sometimes envied a married woman who seemed to be protected by her husband. I had no husband to rely on.
I know married women’s position was very low. They were not treated equally under the Meiji constitution.
First, the relationships between husbands and wives were not equal. A married woman had no rights of property.
Secondly, They could not sue on the grounds of husband’s adultery. Men could divorce wife on the ground of the woman’s adultery, while women could not divorce husband on the ground of husband’s adultery. Adultery with a single woman was no offence（罪) as it did not threaten the family line.
Thirdly, families could easily forced bride into signing consént for divorce.
Finally, Women’s role was restricted to the domestic sphere and to produce children and raise them up.
The idea that women should be good wives and wise mothers was prevalent. So women should receive a proper education to train women to be mothers of the nation, capable of training their sons to be loyal subjects and disciplined soldiers.
I was a career woman and a single mother. I got angry with Suzuki Shone because he treated me like one of the mistresses or concubines. He was not punished because adultery with a single woman was no offense.
But for a single woman, chastity was highly valued and demanded of women. My behavior was considered antisocial and unbecoming of a woman in the late Meiji period. I was not a virgin so I had to give up marrying a young man whom I wanted to marry.
I was ostracized socially for having a child out of wedlock so I endured my hardships in silence, sealing my emotions within myself and never revealing how I felt about my personal life.
I acknowledged myself as the victims of male sexual behaviour and a sexual double standard.
I wished I could have had a romantic marriage based on mutual love!
Hi, ladies,
How are you doing? I was worried about DH's unreasonable stomachache, but he seems rather all right these days.
He had been taking vitamin C capsuls excessively. That can be one of the reasons, I guess.
Cancer of my mother-in-law's was luckly removed by the radiation. The maker of tumor was diminished into normal. We are so delighted at the good news. We went to an eel restaurant to celebrate her recovery yesterday. Eels is her favorite dishes, but she had stopped eating them for the illness. I was worried about the recurrence but she did not care at all yesterday.
I'm Utako now. Let me tell about the reason why I was so involved in the movement of abolishing public prostitution. When we established Fujin home in Osaka as an activity of Kyofukai, a woman rushed into there. She ran away from the entertaining place. She was sold there by her uncle and suffered from venereal disease. We had to tackel with gangstars to protect her. We provided her with bed, meals and job training. This facility still exists even now in Osaka. If we know how the facility acts, we understand the problem women have to face with at present society.
Good night, everyone.
Post a Comment