Some Japanese and T. E. Part 1Last Updated 09 MAY 2017 ver.2.13 | Notes on transcribing Japanese words | BOTTOM |
The Tokio professorship Was Lawrence interested in Japan or the Japanese? Yes, he showed it on at least two occasions.Firstly, the Tōkyō 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.' [DG, p.450]. At that time, Tōkyō University [Tokyo Imperial University] was looking for a successor to Professor Robert Nichols (1893-1944), an English poet. Lawrence evidently declined the offer. The names of Nichols was found in 1925 at a letter to Robert Graves, who asked Lawrence for his advice about a job in Egyptian University at Cairo: “I thought the salary attractive. It has just been raised. The work may be interesting, or may be terrible, according to whether you get keen on it, like Hearn, or hate it like Nichols.” [21.X.25, B:RG, p.35] It seems that this letter means TEL once considered about the professorship in Japan seriously -- both of the names he referred, Hearn (Lafcadio Hearn 1850-1904) and Nichols, taught English Literature in Tokyo University. Anyway, another English poet, Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) accepted the post and held it until 1927.[*1]
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 SAITŌ Takeshi of Tōkyō University who was primarily responsible for it. He was then in London and never knew Cockerell. NAKANO suspected that Nichols 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 Tōkyō 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. 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 Tōkyō 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 Tōkyō bankrupt and died in 1976 after a long illness. [*5] SE-SHI-BON: WAGA HANSEI NO YUME, Sanbunsha, Tōkyō, September 1955; 1991. 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 Ryuzō (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'ichirō (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 Ryūichi (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. Lawrence of Manchuria
DOIHARA had an extraordinary knowledge of the Chinese and their language, spoke a number of widely differing dialects fluently, wore Chinese dress occasionally and enjoyed having a wide acquaintance with the Chinese. That's why he was named Lawrence of Manchuria or Lawrence of the East in English papers [*12]. It was the year of 1935, when Lawrence of Manchuria became popular on the press both of sides of the Atlantic. Some Japanese says DOIHARA 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.
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. A singer-actress Li Xianglan
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 retired from politics in 1992, and died in 2014 aged 94. [*16] YAMAGUCHI Yoshiko and FUJIWARA Sakuya, RI KŌRAN, WATAKUSHI NO HANSEI [Li Xianglan: My Life]," Shinchōsha, Tōkyō, July 1987, p.274. Lawrence Onboard T. E. Lawrence had never been to Japan. However, his brother did.It was 28 Sep 1923 when Sarah Lawrence, mother of TEL left Liverpool to Shanghai, China, via Canada to join Dr Bob Lawrence to help his missionary work on the China Inland Mission. She had been accompanied by her youngest son A. W. Lawrence, who returned home via Japan and the USA. There is a passenger list [*18], informs that he took the steamer for San Francisco at the port of Kobe, Japan on 23 December 1923. This means that he had stepped into Japan. Then, how about his mother Sarah? Did she need to transit through Japan on going trip? I'm afraid there is no information about that. Only thing I may say is that they could not visit Yokohama or Tokyo then, because it was just a few months after the Great Kanto earthquake had demolished those cities. AWL finally returned London on 11 Jun 1924. Incidentally, the travelers were asked “nearest relative in country from which you come” on the passengers list or the embarkation card at the time. AWL and Sarah wrote the name of Col. T. E. Lawrence, All Souls College, Oxford. [*18] passenger list of S.S. Taiyo Maru, sailing from Kobe, December 23rd 1923 (The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at San Francisco, California; NAI Number: 4498993; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85) | TOP | Some Japanese and T. E. PART 2 |  HOME PAGEThis page's URL: http://yagitani.na.coocan.jp/en/art_en01.htm |
![[Doihara Kanji in 1936]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/193603_doihara_kenji.png/375px-193603_doihara_kenji.png)
![[March 10, 1938, Morning Star (Rockford, Illinois), Page 2]](imagejpg/1938_doihara.jpg)
![[Yoshiko Yamaguchi or Li Xianglan]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Li_Xianglan.jpg/330px-Li_Xianglan.jpg)