Before I get to the play Rokumeikan I think it’s useful to understand at least a bit of the historical context around it. The play is set in 1886 in the middle of the Meiji era (1868-1912), one of the most tumultuous and consequential periods in the history of Japan. The historical setting of Rokumeikan would be as familiar to modern Japanese schoolgirls like those at Fujigaya and Matsuoka as the Civil War period is to us in the U.S. (The first episode of the currently-airing anime Meiji Tokyo Renka, about a girl who time-travels back to the Meiji era, has a scene set at the Rokumeikan.)
Since this post is ultimately in the service of my commentary on Sweet Blue Flowers, I thought it appropriate to discuss the history of Meiji-era Japan and the Rokumeikan from the point of view of Sutematsu Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda, the three ordinary girls whose extraordinary lives are documented in Janice Nimura’s book The Daughters of the Samurai. Sutematsu, the oldest of them, was born in 1860, only a few years after Commodore Matthew Perry and his “black ships” showed up in Tokyo harbor in 1853 demanding that Japan open its ports to the U.S.
With no navy and no national military the Tokugawa shogunate struggled to resist pressures from the U.S. and other countries, and in 1858 signed a series of “unequal treaties” that favored the various Western powers and impinged on Japanese sovereignty. Resentment of Western influence and long-standing grievances with the Tokugawas then led to a prolonged period of civil strife, ending in 1867-1868 with a civil war in which forces fighting in the name of the Emperor decisively defeated pro-government forces. Sutematsu, daughter of a mid-rank samurai on the losing side, was wounded by shrapnel in one of the final battles.
14-year-old Prince Mutsuhito became Emperor in 1867, with the new “Meiji” (”enlightened rule”) era proclaimed in 1868 with the fall of Edo (now Tokyo) and the formation of a new government populated by many energetic and relatively young mid-rank samurai. They embarked upon a crash course of importing Western knowledge, technology, and experts, with an eye towards making Japan a modern power as fast as possible.
One of those men, Kiyotaka Kuroda, had been impressed with American women while on a visit to the U.S., and conceived the fantastical idea of sending a group of Japanese girls to the U.S. for a ten-year stay in order to learn American ways and come back to educate a new generation of Japanese girls. After an initial recruitment effort failed, the government succeeded in finding five low-to-mid rank samurai families who had been on the losing side, were living in relative poverty, and were therefore willing to let their girls leave home so as not to have to support them.
The five girls left Japan in 1871 as part of the famous Iwakura mission along with a group of high-ranking government officials, scholars, and male students charged to visit foreign nations and bring back information of use to Japan. The oldest two of the girls returned to Japan due to ill health and homesickness, but Sutematsu Yamakawa (11 years old), Shige Nogai (10), and Ume Tsuda (6) found places with American families. They soon learned English, made close American friends, and became socialized in a manner typical of upper middle class American teenagers of the period.
While the girls were away Japan saw a blooming of intellectual discourse, the formation of grass-roots political movements, and the creation of nascent political parties, as elements within society and government contended over what political and cultural ideas and institutions were most appropriate for Japan.
The three girls returned in the early 1880s, Sutematsu Yamakawa having graduated from Vassar College (the first Japanese woman to receive an American college degree) and Shige Nogai having earned a certificate in music from Vassar. All three girls experienced severe culture shock, with Ume Tsuda having completely forgotten how to speak Japanese. They also found that foreign ideas were not quite as popular as when they left for America, as a conservative backlash was building.
Shige Nogai soon entered into a love match with a fellow Japanese student who had attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and went to work as a music teacher, continuing her career while bearing and raising her six children. (Some scholars contend that she’s depicted in the woodblock print above showing a dance at the Rokumeikan, the rightmost pianist to whom the other pianist seems to be looking for help in setting the tempo.) Her husband eventually became a Baron and Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and she a Baroness.
Sutematsu Yamakawa struggled to find work suitable to her upbringing and education, and ended up accepting an offer of marriage from Iwao Ōyama, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, twenty years her senior, who was looking for a wife who was familiar with Western ways and could assist him in his political and diplomatic activities. Her husband later became Minister of War and she became a pillar of the Japanese aristocracy, advising the Empress herself on Western culture and fashion.
As Countess (later Princess) Ōyama she became known as the “Lady of the Rokumeikan” for her role in hosting events there after its construction in 1883. She also introduced American-style philanthropy to Japan, including a charity bazaar held at the Rokumeikan. (This event was memorialized in a woodblock print by Toyohara Chikanobu, also the artist of the print shown above. Sutematsu and her daughter Hisako are apparently depicted in the center of the print.)
One of the major beneficiaries of Sutematsu’s philanthropy was Ume Tsuda, who had the worst time adjusting to life in Japan. She first obtained employment as a private tutor to the children of Hirobumi Itō, soon to become Japan’s first Prime Minister. She then taught at the Peeresses’ School, which Itō set up (with assistance from Countess Ōyama) to educate the daughters of the Imperial family and Japanese nobility. (Prestigious girls schools like Fujigaya Womens Academy would later offer an equivalent experience for the daughters of Japan’s upper and upper middle classes.)
Tsuda became frustrated by the conservatism of the Peeresses’ School and the expectations of her family and others that she marry. Due to her youth she had not been able to attend college while in America, and hence she applied for and was granted permission and funding to go back to the U.S. to complete her education. She enrolled at the recently-opened Bryn Mawr College for women and graduated with a bachelors degree. She then returned to Japan, having also found time to (anonymously) assist a friend in writing a book, Japanese Girls and Women, critical of Japanese laws and educational policies relating to girls and women.
After returning to Japan, after some time and with assistance from Countess Ōyama, Ume Tsuda was able to realize her dream of opening her own school, the Women's Institute for English Studies (女子英学塾 Joshi Eigaku Juku), with the goal of training teachers for Japan’s newly-mandated middle schools for girls. She was soon joined by Anna Cope Hartshorne, her close friend from Bryn Mawr who became her companion in both work and life. (Like Nobuko Yoshiya and her partner, Tsuda and Hartshorne bought a cottage together in Kamakura.)
Tsuda spent the last years of her life in ill health, living in Kamakura with Anna Hartshorne. After her death in 1929 her school was renamed in her honor, eventually becoming Tsuda College and then (more recently) Tsuda University. Hartshorne herself left Japan in 1940 on the brink of war, never to return. She died in 1957, a year after the first production of Rokumeikan and almost a century after the start of the Meiji era.
The Rokumeikan itself was long gone by then. Its use had declined with the rise of conservative sentiment and anti-Western feeling, and it was sold in 1890 to become a private club for the aristocracy. The building fell into disuse and was eventually demolished in 1941, as Japan went to war with the Western powers whose diplomats it had once invited to dance at the Rokumeikan.
A final thought: There’s an intriguing parallel between the three main 21st-century girls of Sweet Blue Flowers and the three 19th-century girls of Daughters of the Samurai. Kyoko resembles Sutematsu Yamakawa, thwarted in her original desire and falling back on a marriage with an older man of higher social status. We can only hope that Kyoko will find happiness in such a marriage, as Sutematsu apparently did in hers.
Fumi resembles Ume Tsuda, even to having a somewhat similar sounding given name. It’s clear that she will remain unmarried, as Ume did (unless marriage equality comes to Japan). Our hope for Fumi is that like Ume she will also find someone, whether Akira or another, who will be her lifelong companion.
As for Akira, her fate is not yet clear---though I doubt she’ll have six children like Shige Nogai did. We can at least hope that if Akira does find someone to spend her life with that it will be a love match, just as Shige’s was.
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