The Tokio professorship
Was Lawrence interested in Japan or the Japanese? Yes, he showed it on at least two occasions.Firstly, the Tôkyô professorship of English: On 13 January 1924 Lawrence wrote to Sydney Cockerell: 'About the Tokio [sic] professorship...not for me I'm afraid. I'm not going to be respectable again.' [Garnett, ed., Letters, No.238]. At that time, Tôkyô University was looking for a successor to Professor Robert Nicholes (1893-1944), an English poet. Lawrence evidently declined the offer. Another English poet, Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) accepted the post and held it until 1927.[*1]
 [*2] A Japanese lady- friend accompanied Blunden to England in 1927. |
Incidentally, NAKANO wrote in an article [*4] that it was not known how Cockerell (1867-1962), director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, became involved in the offer of the professorship. It was SAITÔ Takeshi of Tôkyô University who was primarily responsible for it. He was then in London and never knew Cockerell. NAKANO suspected that Nicholes might have had an association with Cockerell.
[*1] Blunden stayed again in Japan (1947-50), gave over six hundred lectures to Japanese people, and re-visited there occasionally. UNDERTONES OF WAR, his war time memoirs written in his Tôkyô days, has been used as a textbook for universities in Japan. Memorials raised to him in Miyagi, Hiroshima and two other places show how much he was accepted by the country.
[*2] After contributed an article about Blunden and his Japanese lady-friend to The Times Literary Supplement (30 Oct. 1981, pp.1271-2), OKADA Sumie, a Japanese scholar, published EDMUND BLUNDEN AND JAPAN: THE HISTORY OF A RELATIONSHIP by Macmillan, London in 1988. The Japanese edition of the book came out from Heibonsha, Tôkyô in 1995 (photo).
[*3] In England, SAITÔ met many men of letters including Ralph Hodgson (professor of Tôhoku University, Japan 1924-38), W. J. Turner, Robert Bridges, John Masefield, Arthur Waley, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. He joined for a few months in a discussion class of George Gordon, Merton professor of English literature in Oxford in 1924. In IGIRISU BUNGAKUSHI [A Historical Survey of English Literature], Kenkyûsha 1927; 5th revised ed. 1974, SAITÔ devoted numbers of lines to his Brisith acquaintances.
He was a strict Calvinist and gave lectures the Japanese crown prince (now the Emperor) on Christianity as well as English literature in 1946 and 1953.
[*4] "Eibungaku Yobanashi," Vol.14, Gakutô, January 1970, pp.69-73.
A Japanese who met T. E.?
There is one Japanese who claims that he once met Lawrence in 1922.The man, SATSUMA Jirohachi was born into one of the richest merchant families in Tôkyô in 1901 and was later know as "Baron SATSUMA" in Paris society, and was a generous donator to Fondation Japon (a hall of residence for Japanese students) in Cité Universitaire in Paris, for which he received the Officier de la Légion d'honneur.
According to his memoirs C'EST SI BON [*5], in 1922 he lived in a doctor's house in Richmond, west London, as a student and was an enthusiast of Greek Literature and Russian ballet. Once he spent an evening with Arthur Conan Doyle and Arthur Diósy at the Savage Club in London. and the Middle East happened to become a subject of their conversation. SATSUMA told them that Lawrence of Arabia was his mentor and that he had a strong desire to meet him. Diósy (1856-1923), Hungarian-British, the founder of the Japan Society in London and SATSUMA's patron, suggested that he could arrange a meeting with T. E..
About two months later, SATSUMA received a letter postmarked 'Hammersmith'. It read: "Dear Mr. Satsuma, Our friend Arthur Diósy told me of your friendly kindness to me. I inform you that I am going to call at his flat in Bayswater on 31 May at 5pm. Yours truly, L....ce."
On the evening of 31 May, he went to Diósy's flat on his motorcycle and found a modest looking gentleman talking with Diósy in the study. SATSUMA shook hands with him, convinced that he WAS Lawrence, though he never gave his name. Dressed in a blue pin-stripe suit, solid blue tie and black shoes, Lawrence appeared to be speaking of SEVEN PILLARS with Diósy. He then turned to SATSUMA and said. "I hear you are studying Greek literature which was my first subject in my school days. Some Asian people devote themselves to the study of Sanskrit as well as Pali, One ought to study the classics while one has enough time." They talked about various subjects: motorcycle engines, tyres, the deserts and mirages, concerts and music. T. E. seemed interested in French Impressionist composers. SATSUMA was fairly captivated by T. E. and had a presentiment that this meeting would be one of the keys to his future.
SATSUMA's statement about T. E. contains many mistakes and inconsistencies. For example, after T. E. had gone, he promised Diósy that he would never mention the meeting to anyone while T. E. was still alive, because "nobody in the world knew where T. E. was at that time, so, if I reveal the meeting, every reporter would jump at my story." It was a rather odd reason. He obviously didn't know that T. E. held a post at the Colonial office at that time. Above all, the year the incident took place seems doubtful. SATSUMA wrote the year was 1922 clearly in the book, though, one of his obituaries [*6] put the year before 1921, his pre-Paris years. Anyway, he evidently gilded the memory with hindsight and imagination, including the outrageous statement that a swallow killed T. E. -- he was struck by a swallow's bill on the forehead when he riding his motorcycle, and T. E. lost his life! Such a statement reduces SATSUMA's worth greatly.
Nevertheless, there may be some probability that the gentleman he met (around 1920?) was T. E. himself, I dare say. If so, it would appear that he was the only Japanese who met T. E. privately.
Later, SATSUMA joined the Foreign Legion and then lived for a long time in France as a dilettante and a generous patron of artists. After the Second World War he returned to Tôkyô bankrupt and died in 1976 after a long illness.
[*5] SE-SHI-BON: WAGA HANSEI NO YUME, Sanbunsha, Tôkyô, September 1955; 1991.
[*6] Asahi Gurafu, 19 March 1976, pp.60-65.
* T. E.'s words in this article are translated from SATSUMA's statement in Japanese, so they may not be an exact translation.
T. E. articles in the 1930s
Before NAKANO's biography came out in 1941, there were several articles about T. E. in monthly magazines. The August 1938 issue of Serupan [serpent], carries two articles on T. E., "Lawrence of Arabia" by SUZUKI Osamu [*7] and "Lawrence's SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM" by IWASAKI Ryuzô (1908-76) [*8]. The former is a brief life of T. E., the latter explains how T. E. wrote SEVEN PILLARS, by a scholar of English literature.It is interesting that the former converts the price of a copy of the subscriber's edition (30 guineas) into 5,700 yen -- over six times the annual income of a rank and file employee in 1938 and one could buy two villas with 5,700 yen! The author says that in BY HIS FRIENDS, Sarah Lawrence's, Winston Churchill's, and Lorna Norrington's memoirs are worth reading.
On December in the same year, HARA Kei'ichirô (1902-83), son of a Japanese prime minister and a journalist, wrote an 18 page article [*9], entitled "Lawrence of Arabia, a life of an honest hero" with skill. His article is apparently based on Robert Graves' LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS and Basil Liddell Hart's 'T. E. LAWRENCE': IN ARABIA AND AFTER.
Another journalist, KAJI Ryûichi (1896-1978) had read Clare Sydney Smith's THE GOLDEN REIGN and BY HIS FRIENDS to prepare a 12 page article entitled "Lawrence as a human being" [*10]. With five photos from THE GOLDEN REIGN, it appeared on the October 1940 issue of a monthly magazine, Shin Azia [New Asia]," which was involved in the Japanese colonization of Asian countries at that time. The same issue carries seven of photos taken by T. E. during the Arab Revolt.
[*7] SUZUKI Osamu, "Arabia no Roorensu," Serupan, August 1938, pp.72-3. Nothing was known about the author.
[*8] IWASAKI Ryuzô, "Roorensu no CHIE NO NANATSU NO HASHIRA," Serupan, August 1938, pp.74-7.
[*9] HARA Keiichirô, "Arabia no Roorensu," Chûôkôron, December 1938, pp.496-513.
[*10] KAJI Ryûichi, "Hito to shite no Ro^rensu," Shin Ajia, October 1940, pp.96-107.
Lawrence of Manchuria
Have you ever heard of Lawrence of Manchuria? His name is DOIHARA [or DOHIHARA] Kenji (1883-1948), a Japanese Army officer. After graduating from both the Army Academy and the Army War College, he was involved in political and military schemes from 1913 in China. When the Manchurian Incident [*11] took place in 1931, he was the director of the military intelligence bureau in Mukden, now Shenyang, and arranged for Henry Puyi (Hsiian-t'ung 1906-67), the last Ch'ing emperor to escape from Tientsin and to put him on another throne as emperor of Manchuria.Because DOIHARA was a good speaker of Chinese, wore Chinese dress occasionally and enjoyed having a wide acquaintance with the Chinese, he was named Lawrence of Manchuria or Lawrence of the East [*12]. Some Japanese says he was modest and devoted his life to promoting a good relations between China and Japan. However, there are other Chinese opinions. Chang Hsüeh-liang (Zhang Xueliang, 1898-2001) the son and successor of Marshal Chang Tso-lin (Zhang Zuolin), regarded DOIHARA, his military adviser, as "the rudest man" [*13] among Japanese who approached him after his father's death in 1928. The puppet emperor of Manchuria, Puyi writes as follows.
- Because of the mysterious stories that were told about him [DOIHARA] the Western press described him as the "Lawrence of the East" and the Chinese papers said that he usually wore Chinese clothes and was fluent in several Chinese dialects. But it seems to me that if all his activities were like persuading me to go to the Northeast he would have had no need for the cunning and ingenuity of a Lawrence: the gambler's ability to keep a straight face while lying would have been enough. When I met him he wore not Chinese clothes but Japanese-style Western ones, and his spoken Chinese was nothing marvelous, as he had to use the services of the Tientsin garrison interpreter Yoshida to be sure that there would be no misunderstandings. [*14]
During the Second World War DOIHARA served as general, area army commander and inspector general of military education. After the war, he was arraigned before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Tôkyô Trial) [*15] and founded guilty, mainly because of his responsibility as an army commander (1943-45) for ill treating war prisoners of the allied force, and thousands of unjustifiable murders. Apart from that, an American prosecuting attorney criticised him for his title Lawrence of Manchuria. Curiously enough, "Lawrence" meant there "head of a riotous mob," that had filled Chinese people with great fear during the 1930's.
There are very few Japanese people who now remember DOIHARA, who was executed in 1948.
[*11] The Manchurian Incident (or Mukden Incident) was the conquest and pacification of Manchuria by the Kwantung (Guandong) army [the Japanese field army in Manchuria] from September 1931 to January 1933; or, more specifically, the initial attack on the Chinese garrison at Mukden on the night of 18/19 September 1931 by the elements of the Kwantung Army, which was notorious for its brutality. It has been unclear, however, what part DOIHARA himself took in the incident.
[*12] I wonder if Bob and Sarah Lawrence heard his name in China? The distance over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) between Manchuria and Szechwan prov. may have got in the way, though.
[*13] NHK Shuzaihan & USUI Katsuyoshi, CHÔ GAKURYÔ NO SHÔWASHI SAIGO NO SHÔGEN [The Last Testimony by Chang Hsüeh-liang in Shôwa era], Kadokawa Shoten, Tôkyô, August 1991, p.79.
[*14] FROM EMPEROR TO CITIZEN - THE AUTOBIOGRAPH OF AISIN-GIORO PU YI, Volume 1, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1964, p.226.
[*15] A Tôhô film INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FAR EAST (1983) filmed Puyi and DOIHARA on the court.
A singer-actress Li Xianglan
It is said that many Japanese who were concerned with China or Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s empathized heartily with T. E.. I found some evidence in an autobiography [*16] of a Japanese singer-actress, Li Xianglan (b.1920), now YAMAGUCHI Yoshiko. She worked for the Manchuria Film Company from 1938 to 1944 and was well known in both China and Japan. When she went to the chairman's room of the company in Hsinking (now Changchun) to resign her job, she discovered the T. E. biography by NAKANO on the desk of the chairman, AMAKASU Masahiko. Captain AMAKASU (1891-1945), ex-military policeman of the Japanese Army, was notorious as a schemer who controlled Manchuria from behind the scenes, and anyone who watched the Academy Award film THE LAST EMPEROR (1987), might recall him. Nine months after this meeting, he committed suicide.After the war Li Xianglan found her way to Hollywood and married Isamu Noguchi, an American sculptor, then became the wife of a Japanese diplomat. After five years work as a TV journalist, she became a member of the House of Councillors in 1974, specialising in Arab matters.
She visited the Middle East several times and in her report THE ARABS UNWRITTEN [*17] she wrote that she met a young Bedouin Sherif in Egypt whose uncle claimed that he had adopted T. E. as a son(!). She is now retired.
[*16] YAMAGUCHI Yoshiko and FUJIWARA Sakuya, RI KÔRAN, WATAKUSHI NO HANSEI [Li Xianglan: My Life]," Shinchôsha, Tôkyô, July 1987, p.274.
According to the book, her Chinese name Li Xianglan was given from her father's close friend, General Li. Later she found that this pro-Japanese Chinese general was a collaborator of Colonel DOIHARA, and was executed as a traitor after the war.
[*17] DAREMO KAKANAKATTA ARABU: GERIRA NO TAMI NO SHI TO GENJITSU, Sankei Shimbun Shuppankyoku, Tôkyô, April 1974, pp.221-24.
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