The Collaborators by Ian Buruma;

Author:Ian Buruma;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

Her first abode in Tokyo, after she moved back from Manchukuo, well before the invasion of China proper, was the Manchukuo embassy. Yoshiko’s latest male companion was a writer, public speaker, fraudster, stock market speculator, and man-about-town named Ito Hanni. They would flit around Tokyo in his Buick limousine frequenting nightclubs, which still thrived in Japan until the China war and especially the attack on Pearl Harbor put a stop to such “frivolous entertainments,” along with Hollywood movies, jazz music, and other forms of “enemy culture.” (That great paean to American democracy, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was playing in Tokyo cinemas until the eve of Pearl Harbor.)

Ito, who had the slim figure and brilliantined hair of a fashionable crooner, had made a fortune by buying shares cheaply after the Wall Street crash. His financial moves were inspired by his personal astrologer, or so he claimed. He met a variety of literary and political oddballs through a friendly group of astrologers. A flair for self-promotion and lavish donations to the Japanese Imperial Army, among other worthy causes, made him into a public figure, much written about in the gossip columns of popular magazines.

As well as writing several unsuccessful novels, Ito dabbled in politics, first as a promotor of what he called popular sovereignty. He founded a journal called The Japanese People (Nihon kokumin). But it was a peculiar concept of sovereignty that he was touting, based on ideals of friendship, labor, and love inspired by Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian spiritual guru and founder of anthroposophy. This, too, was apparently prompted by his astrologer. Ito added to his fame by traveling around Japan as an inspirational speaker. One of his gushing followers was inspired to write a novel comparing him with the Count of Monte Cristo for rather mysterious reasons.

Sadly, the magazine venture ended badly. The money ran out. And Ito decided to seek new adventures in China, which is where he first met Yoshiko at a dance hall. The China trip took Ito to new flights of political fancy, even more flowery than his ideals of popular sovereignty. He called it “New Asianism.” Japan would take over Asia after kicking out the Western powers. The following thoughts were expressed in one of his collected speeches: “The day will come when Japan will fly over the Pacific like a swallow to unite the world. . . . The Japanese people must never forget that the world will be united, inspired by thousands of years of the rising sun, as well as our mountains, forests, birds, the bottomless ocean filled with beautiful fish, Japanese rice, paddies, silent snow, our traditional warrior spirit, and the nobility running through our veins.”

The spirit of Ito’s New Asianism was more succinctly expressed in the lyrics he wrote for a popular tune that he first played on a phonograph for a group of Japanese military staff officers at a geisha party. He and Yoshiko gave a demonstration of a new dance, in which the partners rubbed up against each other while improvising the steps.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.