Japanese Outlook
SOME miles from Tokyo, among the villages, one of the liveliest and most resourceful schools in the Fat East attracts many visitors. It IS called Jiyu-Gakuen, or The School of Freedom, and its founder, Mrs. Ham, still reigns over it after half a century. To this stronghold Of co-education a niece of Mrs. Hani was admitted in due time, and as Mrs. Matsuoka she now tells of her schooldays and many other experiences in a book noteworthy for plenty of freedom of mind. It is written in good English, but for that Mrs. Matsuoka is partly indebted to her attending Cleveland and Swarthmore Universities.
The last-mentioned detail helps to show that the title of the book; Daughter of the Pacific, is not a mere flourish. The Pacific has an American aspect which is much more in the ordinary consciousness of Japan than we here always remember. Geography and history have ensured that many Japanese families have their American aspect too. Although the Second World War evoked such tremendous hostilities between Japan and the United States, it may be felt that the Japanese Performance was in some measure an expression of the American affiliation; the ordinary game in Japan is not cricket but baseball. Perry, whose expedition unlocked the gates of that long-isolated land, Was not an English commodore. To return to Mrs. Matsuoka's _nook, the second chapter opens, "In my earliest memory of him, Father was smoking a corncob pipe which he had brought back from America."
But the reasons why she should describe herself as somebody not quite defined as Japanese go further back in her family history. Her allele, Mr. Tsuda, a dozen years or so after Perry's fateful expedition, sent his daughter to Bryn Mawr, and the girl returned to found Tsuda College which continues to be one of the glories of women's education in Japan. Mrs. Matsuoka's mother was in business in New York for seven years. These are details 'enough to suggest— for the family concerned was far from being unique in such respects— that the deeper interest of Mrs. Matsuoka's autobiography, is the American interplay of mind and manners across the Pacific. The time was when European example and influence, those of c'ngland predominantly, were greater than those of Japan's Pacific – neighbour, but a rapid change has occurred and is in progress. The candour of Mrs. Matsuoka, who is no automatic admirer of every- thing in that which she admires, deserves our thoughtful attention. discovered," she says, "that, among the Allied Powers, it was the united States alone who no longer saw any danger in her former „nemy." This was, of course, when the war had ended, but before N .rs. Matsuoka had been invited (like her sister) to spend a year in the Ynited States once again. She did not altogether welcome this invitation, which meant that she would have to leave a small daughter, oeiko, behind. But she accepted because she believed that by taking this chance of making new friendships and gaining understanding of other traditions than Japanese she might benefit the next genera- tion.
Mrs. Matsuoka visited England before the war, and her memories of that brief view are necessarily tentative; on the whole she judged that she was more comfortable in America where people were less reserved—and our politeness itself might be menacing. Therein, again, she discloses something of much more extensive significance ..11.tan one traveller's encounters. It is true that personalities as vigorous as hers are not found in great numbers in Japan, but she is rePresentative of many enquiring spirits, and her autobiography
includes the unforced communication of an outlook which is growing. Delightful in its local and personal sketches, it also makes us more aware of what must be a most important development in international affairs, a result perhaps of causes which have been present from long ago but were hitherto delayed in their workings.
EDMUND BLUNDEN.
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