departmental bulletin paper

Departmental Bulletin Paper

Text

大阪大学大学院人文学研究科紀要. 2025, 2, p. 1-26

Japanese

Text

2025-03

In the late 19th century, as Japan expanded in pursuit of its imperialist ambitions, the concept of “maritime Japan” was adopted alongside existing historical narratives to justify Japan’s colonial endeavours. The exaggerated portrayal of Japanese mercantile activities as piracy in the 16th and 17th centuries further legitimized these imperial aspirations. However, the emergence of the category of poverty-stricken Japanese women known as karayuki, who began working abroad in the 1870s, presented a significant challenge to this narrative. Many of these women were engaged as prostitutes or maids and were allowed to migrate; their substantial foreign earnings led to the perception of them as advance troops of colonialism, in particular because the immigration of Japanese men faced significant restrictions. As international scrutiny of human trafficking grew in the 1920s, emigration of Japanese prostitutes was significantly curtailed. Kishida Kunio’s Ushiyama Hotel (1929) poignantly depicts Japanese men who are living parasitically off of these women in French Indochina, juxtaposing the plight of Japanese males who struggled with their identity in the context of cultural conflicts between Europeans and Japanese, against the resilience of Japanese women who were forging their own paths. During the 1930s, Japan’s southern expansion policies only intensified, and male dominance grew in colonial ventures, with the result that independent women such as the karayuki became portrayed as inferior or as merely auxiliary figures. The melodramatic film Karayuki san (1937) popularized the term karayuki and portrayed this group of women as passive victims, suggesting that decisions on their part to emigrate from Japan or to marry non-Japanese men were somehow criminal. By contrast, Japanese women who accompanied their husbands to the South Seas were celebrated as role models, which led to revisionist portrayals of the karayuki women. A prime example of this revisionism narrative can be seen in Shishi Bunroku’s Minami no Kaze (South Wind) (1942), in which the lived experiences of Japanese women in the South Seas—which have a resemblance to those of the karayuki—are transformed into those of tragic figure who marries a French man and then becomes isolated from everyone. Ine Brinkley was a prominent figure whose status was similar to that of a modern celebrity. Her father, Francis Brinkley, the owner of the Japan Mail, engaged in lengthy legal battles with the British government to legitimize his marriage to Ine’s mother, Yasuko, rather than have it classified as a customary local union. As a result of his victory, Ine and her brother Jack acquired British citizenship, and their parents’ egalitarian marriage became symbolically linked with the later Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902). In Japanese society, Ine was a frequent topic of discussion among the men around her, and she was praised and critiqued for her beauty. Notably, in his “Ōtsu Junkichi” (1912), novelist Shiga Naoya portrayed her as a liberated and enigmatic woman. In 1921, in the context of deliberations regarding the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the British diplomat Ashton-Gwatkin scandalously depicted her as a voluptuous femme fatale in his novel Kimono (1921). After she married H.T. Thomas, the managing director of Lever Brothers (Japan) in 1915, she gave birth to a daughter on June 24 of the same year, Fukuko, who was conceived with another man whose identity is not known. Ine arranged for Fukuko to be adopted. Ashton-Gwatkin characterized Ine and her father as emblems of the calamities arising from the Anglo–Japanese Alliance. Rumour suggested that Ine subsequently had a difficult life in exile in Europe, ultimately abandoning her libel lawsuit against Ashton-Gwatkin, considering it as mere publicity for his novel. However, newly discovered materials show that Ine was thriving, working as a dancer in France. After meeting Shiga Naoya in 1922, she performed Japanese songs and dances under the name Toshiko in Paris and London, alongside of Komori Toshi and Ashida Sakae, earning acclaim for her elegant performances. This acclaim is documented in the homage “To-Shiko San” (1923) by writer André Suarès. According to reminiscences from Kiki de Montparnasse, Toshiko Brinkley was also known as a painter’s model, with a lost portrait titled Toshiko being exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries in 1925 by Tanaka Yasushi. The connections that Ine and her colleagues maintained with figures like Maud MacCarthy and Georgette Leblanc were likely significantly influenced by her Jack Brinkley’s Theosophist network in Europe. Kiki suggested that Ine was effectively partnered with Ashida, and the profound impact of his death in 1927 led her to retire to “recover her mental health.” In addition to her navigation of both Japanese and British society, the revelation of Ine’s artistic endeavours in France invites further exploration of her lasting legacy.

10.18910/100800

100800

「からゆき」の改変 : 岸田國士の『牛山ホテル』から獅子文六の『南の風』まで : 付　イネ・ブリンクリーのパリ時代の新資料紹介

橋本, 順光

大阪大学大学院人文学研究科

Japanese

2025-03

大阪大学大学院人文学研究科紀要

2

1

26

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/100800

10.18910/100800

https://doi.org/10.18910/100800