The China Lover

by Ian Buruma

  Ri’s passport was duly stamped. She turned to Meng Hua and told her in Chinese that she would wait for her in the Customs hall. But the official had second thoughts and ordered her back. Inspecting her with a look of disgust, he barked: “Aren’t you a Japanese?” Ri nodded and cast her eyes at the floor. “So what are you doing in that ridiculous Chinese garb? You should be ashamed of yourself, gibbering in that Chink language. Don’t you realize that we are a first-class people!”

  I tried to intervene by telling the officer, as discreetly as I could, that she was a famous film star, on her way to Tokyo to celebrate Manchukuo-Japanese friendship. He was not in the least impressed and told me to mind my own business. Discretion clearly was not working, so I informed him of my affiliation with the Kanto Army and mentioned the name of Amakasu. The wretched fellow instantly straightened up and his fleshy lips curled in a hideous grin. “Please,” he said, “I didn’t realize . . . Welcome home, welcome home.”

  There was nothing I could do to speed up procedures for Meng Hua, however, and it was many hours later that we sat in the cramped compartment of our eastbound train. The fog had lifted but the sky was still smudged with dark clouds, like wet gray rags, casting a gloomy atmosphere over our homecoming journey. The air smelled of damp clothes and pickled horseradish. Few words were spoken in our compartment. Meng Hua was still put out by the hours of questioning she had had to endure, and puzzled by Ri’s status. But she was too discreet to probe. So we looked out the window in heavy silence at a succession of provincial towns, filled with small, shabby wooden houses, densely built as though huddled together in fear of the outside world. The clammy oppressiveness that had prompted me to leave for the Chinese continent came back to me instantly. I was already longing for the wide-open spaces of my beloved China and Manchuria. This was no country for a man who prized his freedom.

  11

  IHAVE A favorite walk in Tokyo, in a district I have frequented ever since I came to the capital as a student. It is an area quite without modern glamour. In fact, it has little to recommend itself at all. Most Japanese shun the place, because of its unwholesome reputation. People say that it is haunted by ghosts. My nocturnal wandering usually starts at the old execution ground in Senju, guarded by a statue of Jizo, the holy patron of souls suffering in hell. Here he is known as “Chopped-neck Jizo,” for this is where thousands of people literally lost their heads. Old bones are still found in this dark, forgotten corner of the city. Nezumi Kozo, the legendary burglar, was buried here. And so was Yoshida Shoin, the samurai scholar and revolutionary, who believed that we could only stop the Western barbarians from invading Japan by studying their ways. Imprisoned in a cage by the Shogun’s men after he attempted to board an American ship in 1854, Master Shoin wrote the immortal lines: “When a hero fails in his purpose, his acts are then regarded as those of a villain and robber.” He was beheaded in 1859 for his loyalty to the Emperor in opposition to the Shogun. Of all our historic figures, I admired him the most.

  After paying my respects to Master Shoin, and others, now long forgotten by our fickle countrymen, I walk along the Sanya Canal toward Yoshiwara, the old Edo pleasure district. It is now a sadly neglected place with ugly Western-style buildings, which look as flimsy and provisional as sets in a movie studio. Gone is the refined style of Edo men of pleasure who knew how to woo the great courtesans with their cleverness and wit. Gone, too, is the more plebeian but still spirited revelry of the 1920s.

  In the winter of 1940, many of the dance reviews of Asakusa had already been closed down, and so had most houses of pleasure in Yoshiwara. The few that were still open looked so forlorn that they might as well have been closed. Still, I found, much to my surprise, that one establishment I used to visit in my student days, a brothel that featured a popular girl made up to look like Clara Bow (the owner, a gruff man with the face of a bloodhound, was a movie fan), was still there. Since Hollywood films were now officially frowned upon as decadent, the place had changed its decor into something more Oriental, with a stucco facade made up to resemble a Chinese mansion. One of the pimps, a thin young lad with a bad case of acne, tugged my arm and whispered in my ear: “Master, you’ll like it here. We have a girl who’s the spitting image of Ri Koran.” My first instinct was to smash his face. I thought better of it, but walked away with a feeling of utter revulsion.

  12

  I’M AFRAID I can’t boast of having been much good as a chaperone for our ambassadresses of friendship. Meng Hua was in a funk and only emerged from the Imperial Hotel for official functions. And Ri was being squired around town by the son of the foreign minister, which put my mind at rest, that is, until I realized that his attentions went further than the rules of hospitality strictly required. Ri didn’t seem to mind one bit. Perhaps she was still too naive to understand his true intentions. She seemed flattered by the reception she received in our imperial capital, meeting this famous writer or that celebrated actor, all totally “knowable” to her now. She had even been introduced to the foreign minister himself, a man with a rather brutal reputation, whom she declared, in the theatrical language she had begun to pick up, “an absolute sweetie.” It put me in an awkward spot, for I hated lecturing her. The dear child, disguised as a woman of the world, wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.

  In her interviews for the Japanese press, however, Ri played her part to perfection. Beautifully turned out in silk Chinese dresses, she answered a variety of inane questions in flawless Japanese (naturally), which elicited a great deal of favorable comment. What did she think of Japan? Who was her favorite male Japanese film star? Had she eaten Japanese raw fish yet? What about Japanese baths, and Japanese beds, and Japanese chopsticks? Weren’t they hard to handle if you were used to those long Chinese chopsticks? She put up with it all, telling the reporters what they wished to hear, including the fact that Japanese chopsticks may be shorter, but were far more beautifully shaped.

  Only one newspaper, mercifully with a small circulation, dared to suggest that Ri might actually not be a Manchurian at all. This article was ignored by the mainstream press, to my great relief, for Amakasu would have been furious if the rumor had gone any further. But there were threats to Ri’s reputation that were more dangerous than this press report. I was approached one morning at the hotel by an obsequious young man from the Oriental Peace Entertainment Company. After much bowing and mopping of his brow with a white handkerchief, the young man came to the point, not at all delicately. The president of the company, Mr. Nagai, a man notorious for his voracious appetite for young women, was interested in getting to know Ri Koran a little more intimately. I was handed a business card with the name of a well-known Tokyo hotel and a room number scribbled on the back.

  Even I, with my known weakness for the female sex, was shocked by the coarseness of this approach. All my relations with women were based on the premise of mutual pleasure. And if I may say so myself, I know how to give satisfaction. Women are always free to turn me down. In fact, I prize women’s freedom very highly. I am, indeed, a feminist in my way. Nagai was treating Ri like a common prostitute, Ri, who, despite her occasional childishness, was the embodiment of all that was good and pure. So I sent the young flunky on his way, instructing him to thank his boss for the kind invitation, but to convey the message that Ri Koran, alas, was indisposed. Since I knew this wouldn’t be the end of the affair, I also asked for a personal appointment.

  Nagai’s office in Marunouchi was large and comfortable, with wood-paneled walls, leather chairs, an open fireplace, and a large empty desk. A whiff of stale cigar smoke lingered in the air. Nagai was a short man, pressed into an expensive-looking double-breasted suit. His dyed black hair shone brightly in the light of a large chandelier, upon whose polished brass branches cherubs frolicked and angels played on trumpets. Nagai sat down behind his desk, shifting his ample rump in the soft leather seat, lit his cigar, and asked me in the familiar tone reserved for children and social inferiors what I had come to see him about.
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br />   “About Ri Koran,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “You know she is from a good Japanese family?”

  “You don’t say.”

  “We cannot afford any hint of scandal.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re implying, but whatever it is, I don’t think I like it. If it weren’t for me, she would be just another common starlet. I’m going to make her world-famous.”

  I knew this was not strictly true, but let it pass. I said, as politely as I could, that I had strict instructions from Captain Amakasu himself to the effect that the activities of Ri Koran in Japan should be of a strictly professional nature.

  Nagai’s face flushed. I could smell his expensive cologne. I was gratified to see little beads of sweat appear on his brow.

  “Very well then, I’ll have the other girl, the Manchu one.”

  Again, I was taken aback by the sheer vulgarity of the man, and was about to make an excuse to protect Meng Hua. But he had regained some of his composure and moistened his cigar by rolling his tongue around the tip. “Or do you want me to inform the press—after the concert, of course—that we have all been duped, and that we now have it on the authority of her personal minder, Sato Daisuke, that Miss Ri Koran has been performing under an assumed identity?”

  I found it hard to believe that Nagai would take such a risk just to satisfy his sexual urges. He might have been bluffing. But I couldn’t afford any mistakes. My first duty was to make absolutely sure that Ri was safe from this predatory beast. If the Oriental Peace Entertainment Company had muscle, Manchuria Motion Pictures too was not without resources. Our man in Tokyo, an old friend of Amakasu’s from his policing days, had gangster connections. He was a trifle uncouth, but effective. When I explained the problem to him, he first threatened to have Nagai “rubbed out.” Since this was not practical, he said he would provide Ri with guards, but Meng would have to take care of herself.

  At first, Meng didn’t understand. Why did she have to go and entertain the company boss? I explained to her that he was a very powerful figure in Tokyo. His goodwill was vital to the success of our tour. Perhaps there might be a future role for her in a major Japanese picture. I was speaking too fast, and felt like a heel. She had been around powerful Japanese men in Manchukuo long enough to suspect what might be required of her. But she didn’t even speak proper Japanese, she said. When she realized that was no impediment, she began beating my chest, screaming in her northern dialect, before breaking down in sobs. I tried to comfort her, stroking her back, telling her that greater things than movies were at stake, that sometimes sacrifices had to be made for a good cause, that there were certain things in life that were beyond our control, that if she would agree just this once to meet Mr. Nagai, she would be rewarded back in Shinkyo, that I would never forget her courage and devotion. It was one of the most difficult moments in my career. Neither she nor I mentioned this unfortunate incident ever again.

  13

  THE NICHIGEKI GALA concert was a triumph. The date was auspicious, for it fell on February 11, the 2600th anniversary day of our nation’s foundation by Emperor Jinmu. Emperor Pu Yi had come to Tokyo especially for the occasion. Despite the cold weather, thousands of people lined up in front of the Imperial Palace to bow to our Emperor— and perhaps catch a glimpse of Emperor Pu Yi too, about whom there had been much written in the papers. Little did they know what I knew—that the Emperor of Manchukuo spent most of his time smoking opium and watching Charlie Chaplin movies. This was just one of the satisfactions of being in the information business. I knew things that ordinary people couldn’t even imagine, not in a million years.

  The scenes around the palace were nothing, however, compared to what was going on around the Nichigeki Theater. People had been out there all night, wrapped in overcoats and blankets, waiting for the box office to open. By nine o’clock in the morning there were three lines coiled round the building. By ten, it was five. And by the time the concert started at eleven, seven lines of people packed together in the freezing cold surrounded the theater. There was not an inch of room to move. The concert almost didn’t begin at all, for Ri and her bodyguards couldn’t get through the lines, which were like a solid wall of humanity. Policemen had to be called in to help the guards beat their way through with truncheons, and hustle poor Ri, who was hiding her face under the collar of her fur coat, into the stage door.

  The show was magnificent. I knew Meng Hua could be depended on. She was a tough Manchu, who could sing like an angel. The applause was generous. There were even cries of “Manchukuo Banzai!” But no matter how well Meng Hua sang, Ri was the star attraction. It was she whom everyone had come to see. Half the curtain was in the colors of Manchukuo, and the other half showed the red beams of our rising sun. Across the top, printed in gold letters, were the characters: Harmony among the Five Races and Peace in the Orient. When the curtain rose, the stage was dark except for a small spotlight that picked up Ri, dressed in Chinese rags, just like in the famous street scene at the beginning of China Nights. She cursed in Chinese, and the more she cursed, the more the audience loved it. The light dimmed, the theater went dark. No one knew what to expect. Softly, the melody of “China Nights” began to fill the hall. Some people clapped in anticipation. The music grew louder. A spotlight revealed a solitary figure, dressed this time in a shimmering gold Chinese dress, her face hidden behind a large fan in the Manchukuo colors. The fan came down, and Ri, with a smile that could melt an iceberg, sang her famous song.

  The audience went wild. I had never heard anything like it. People were hooting, screaming, stamping, even dancing on their chairs. The frenzy was such that the Nichigeki security staff panicked and ran into the hall ordering people to sit down. Some were slapped in the face, or kicked. Girls were fainting with excitement, and rowdy students were dragged out of the hall. The music just kept going: “Suzhou Creek,” “Ah, Our Manchuria!” Ri, all alone in the spotlights, with the band drowning out all other sound, had no idea what she had unleashed. I shall never forget the acrid smell of urine and sweat that hung in the empty hall after the concert was over.

  We didn’t know this at the time, but even more riotous scenes had been going on outside. Only about two lines out of those seven and a half that ringed the theater ever managed to get through the door, and the people who didn’t, after having suffered for hours in the cold, did not take kindly to their exclusion. Japanese are an obedient race and not prone to causing disturbances, especially not at a time when the military were keeping such strict control, but the disappointment of missing Ri Koran at the height of the China Boom was too much to endure. What followed was the one and only riot to take place in Japan between 1940 and our defeat. The press was instructed to ignore it, but word got around anyway: the large black staff cars outside the Asahi Newspaper Building were rocked and the windows smashed. The mounted police charged into the crowd on their horses. A young woman in a Ri Koran haircut got crushed under a horse’s hooves. A policeman was lynched and barely breathing when relief finally came in the form of auxiliary police forces, who attacked the riotous young fans with great ferocity. By the time we emerged into the night, men in dark blue uniforms were busy hosing down the streets, causing streaks of cold dark water to swill around our feet as we stepped into the cars waiting for us outside the theater.

  14

  THE YEAR 1941 was a magnificent one, but it did not begin auspiciously. I had rented an apartment at Broadway Mansions in Shanghai, a city more suited to the task of penetrating the artistic circles of China than my old haunts in Manchukuo. I had always liked Shanghai, despite its rancid smell of Western imperialism. It gave me a peculiar satisfaction to stroll past the British consulate on the other side of the creek, with its huge lawn kept smooth as a billiard table by teams of natives straining to pull an iron roller so the English could play their game of cricket. In the spring I would listen to the sound of arrogant English voices rising over their teacups, and I would say to myself: It is our turn
now. They had lorded it over the Asians for too long. This time we were in charge. They had to bow to us, even to the lowliest Japanese policeman, if they wished to go anywhere outside their wretched concession.

  However, I’m getting ahead of the story. New Year’s Day, 1941. After handing the doorman of Broadway Mansions his New Year’s tip, I walked into my bedroom to get changed for an evening I had been looking forward to all week. Bai Yu, a budding young actress, was going to be my guest at the premiere of a new film at the Cathay Theater. She was a charmer, with a saucy smile and the kind of Chinese legs, long, firm, slender, that drive me crazy. Her young breasts stood up proudly to attention. Her peachy bottom was just begging to be caressed by a man of experience.

  So I wanted to look my very best. After a long soak in the bath, thinking of all the things I would do with that little minx, I opened my closet. And there, to my horror, was a scene of total devastation. Every single item of my clothing—my silk Chinese robes, my summer kimonos, my Kanto Army uniforms, my white sharkskin suit made by C. C. Lau, the finest tailor in Shanghai, my shirts from Charvet, even my Italian neckties—had been cut to shreds. Strips of linen, worsted, and silk were spilled all over the floor, as though a wild animal had been rampaging in my closet. What kind of maniac could have done this? I looked for a clue, but found nothing. I switched on the bathroom light to splash cold water on my face, and then I saw it—how could I have missed it before? Daubed in powerful, rather masculine, but extremely elegant Chinese characters, in lipstick, on the bathroom mirror: “There cannot be two Yoshikos in your life. You have chosen the wrong one.”