The China Lover

by Ian Buruma

  “Oh, honey,” I said.

  “But,” she burbled, “you can’t meet him, I’m afraid. He’s very jealous, you know.”

  “But,” I began.

  She didn’t wait for me to finish. “I know,” she said, “even though you’re not that kind of man. I know you’re not interested in me as a woman, but . . .” It was not quite what I had been meaning to say, but I decided to leave it at that.

  17

  WE SPOKE A few times on the phone, but the next place I saw Yoshiko was on television. She had landed a spot on The Ed Sullivan Show. This came just at the right moment, for auditions for The King and I had not been a success. Perhaps Yul had tired of her, but the coveted part as the Siamese princess failed to materialize. She had decided to practice her English-language skills, and hired a teacher to straighten out her pronunciation, the “l’s” and “r’s” and all that. The Ed Sullivan Show, meanwhile, would launch her career in America. She was tremendously excited. “You know,” she said, “that I’ll be seen by everyone in America?”

  I watched the show at the Upper East Side apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Owada, friends of Brad Martin’s. Judging from his art collection (including a rare Hokusai scroll painting, and several stone sculptures by Ken Ibuki), Owada-san was a very wealthy man. He wrote essays about literature and politics for a prestigious Japanese journal and prided himself on being, as he put it, “very progressive.” The Owadas, too, had been put in touch with Yoshiko through Kawamura, who seemed to know everyone worth knowing.

  Isamu was at the party, looking intense as usual. So was Brad, who had gone cool on me after I declined to continue our physical relations. I noticed how my subscription to Connoisseur had suddenly come to a halt. Brad was in a sour mood from the beginning and made sarcastic comments as soon as the program started. The first guest to appear on the show was a man with a singing saw. Then came Joe DiMaggio, wearing a loud checkered suit. “My God,” exclaimed Brad, “just look at that nose!” He proceeded to chatter all the way through the interview with DiMaggio, which didn’t bother us much, since none of us was particularly interested in baseball, except Mr. Owada, but he was too courteous to complain.

  I knew, as soon as the studio orchestra struck up the overture from Madama Butterfly, that Yoshiko’s moment had come. Sullivan announced: “All the way from Tokyo, Japan, land of Mount Fujiyama and the Geisha girls, ladies and gentlemen, the descendant of a long line of Cho Cho-sans, my good friend, the beautiful, the talented, the mysterious—Shirley Yamaguchi!” And there she was, my good friend, in a striking lemon yellow kimono bound with a burnt orange obi, smiling to the camera and bowing to Sullivan, who bowed back in elaborate fashion, whereupon Yoshiko bowed once again, a little deeper this time, to which Sullivan responded by falling to his knees to loud laughter from the studio audience. “Oh, my God!” said Brad. “Will you just look at that kimono. I haven’t seen anything like that since I was in Atami. She looks like a hot-spring entertainer.”

  “They drink a lot of tea in Japan,” said Sullivan. Yoshiko laughed and said that was indeed so. “But they don’t drink tea like we do, do they?”

  “No, we don’t, Ed-san.”

  “The Japanese are a velly velly porite people,” said Sullivan. Yoshiko tittered. Brad groaned. The Owadas looked on blankly.

  “Miss Yamaguchi-san here will show us just how her people drink tea, ceremoniously.”

  “Yes, I will, Ed-san,” Yoshiko said, as the various utensils of a traditional tea ceremony were produced. She sat on her knees and stirred the bitter green brew with a bamboo whisk, explaining to Sullivan and a grinning Joe DiMaggio just what she was doing. When the tea had been prepared, she offered the bowl to DiMaggio, who sniffed at it with suspicion, kept grinning, and passed it on to Sullivan, who turned the bowl, bowed to Yoshiko, took a sip, cleared his throat as though he had swallowed poison, bowed to Yoshiko once more, and thanked her for the delicious cup of tea. “Jesus,” said Brad. “Well, what can you expect,” said Madame Owada. The only one who had said nothing throughout the proceedings was Isamu. He stared at the television screen with the intensity of an artist contemplating a blank canvas or a pristine slab of stone.

  The orchestra struck up another tune, a jazzier one with odd Chinese flourishes. I could hear a gong being sounded. Shirley got up behind a microphone, and Sullivan announced that she would sing us a song entitled “Cha Cha Cho Cho-san.” Gently swaying with the rhythm, smiling, continuously smiling, Shirley sang the song, which went:

  I’m Cho Cho-san, Cho Cho-san, butterfly from Japan,

  I’ll sing and I’ll dance and I’ll cha cha cha cha,

  I’ll please you any way I can.

  When it was all over, none of us knew what to say. Brad rolled his eyes. The Owadas refrained from comment. I was about to denounce Ed Sullivan for his crassness. Finally it was Isamu who broke the awkward silence: “She’s extraordinary,” he said, “absolutely remarkable. I must meet her. It is essential that I meet her . . .”

  “But of course,” cried Madame Owada, as she pressed a little bell for the maid to bring in some Japanese snacks. Watching television had made us all hungry.

  18

  ONE YEAR HAD passed at Columbia University. A relatively faultless conversation in Japanese was now possible, even though my reading was still at a basic level. Part of the problem was our textbook, which was of a somewhat specialized nature, since it was designed for intelligence officers during the war. I can still tell you exactly what a howitzer gun is in Japanese, or a sergeant second class in the Kanto Army. Typical textbook sentences like “Father has been shipped out to Manchukuo to join the Kanto Army as a lieutenant” held no mysteries for me, but were of limited use. Still, it was a start. A more vexing problem was finding people to practice my Japanese on, short of returning to Japan, something I intended to do as soon as I possibly could.

  Reading books I actually wanted to read was still a challenging, not to say frustrating, enterprise. I tried to decipher some Kawabata short stories, and understood just enough to guess what was going on. But it was like watching a movie in an unknown language, something I was quite used to, of course, and following a story by deduction had its own small satisfactions. Even the most banal sentences (not that there are many of those in Kawabata) contained deep mysteries for the semi-literate.

  I tried out some of my new linguistic knowledge on the Owadas, who were kind enough to praise every stumbling effort as though I spoke with extraordinary eloquence, but my military jargon, mixed with my teacher’s archaic manner of speech, did sometimes reduce these kindly socialists to helpless laughter. I felt rather like a half-trained seal, performing tricks to catch a fish from my grateful audience. Oftentimes, this made me into a shameless ham, raising my snout to land yet another fish, and another.

  The Owadas were indeed very wealthy (his grandfather had invented a new type of silk-weaving loom; she came from a family of soy sauce manufacturers) and they used their money generously. The guests at their parties fell into distinct categories: the Orientophile aesthetes; the activists for “progressive” causes; and the artists, some “progressive,” all fashionable. I belonged to a category of my own: the amusing nobody. Madame Owada found me entertaining and trusted me enough to treat me as part wayward son, part father confessor, a role I often ended up playing for my lady friends. Many little problems of marital life were poured into my always sympathetic ears; his furtive infidelities, her unfulfilled desires, his disinterest in her “ideas,” her disdain for his political hypocrisies. I felt I knew Mr. Owada rather more intimately than he was aware. It gave me a sense of power over him, the minor power of the spy, which, I must confess, shamefully, I rather enjoyed. Since I had neither money nor fame, secret knowledge was my only capital.

  I was there, at the Owadas’, on the memorable evening when Yoshiko met Isamu for the first time. There were many of us already in the room, talking about the ghastliness of Senator McCarthy, no doubt, since this was a common topic of convers
ation at progressive gatherings in those days. “The way they are hounding poor Charlie Chaplin,” said Madame Owada. “I don’t know how we can tolerate living in this country anymore.”

  Isamu said he no longer felt American and couldn’t wait to go back to Japan. “In the New Japan,” he said, “even Communists are free to express themselves any way they want. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m proud to be a Japanese. There is so much hope there, and people are so eager to learn.”

  “Quite right,” said Brad, and raised his glass of champagne to make a toast to “the New Japan.”

  “And to dear Charlie Chaplin,” exclaimed Madame Owada.

  “To Charlie,” we all went.

  At that moment, Yoshiko came sweeping into the room, looking lovelier than ever in a lilac kimono and a navy blue sash. “Charlie Chaplin?” she said. “Oh, I love Charlie. No one is more dedicated to peace than Charlie. He loves Japan. You know, he’s always talking about his trip to Japan before the war. He says that the Nara Hotel has the best bathrooms in the world. Charlie is very particular about bathrooms. One of his men always checks out the bathrooms, even in private houses, before he’ll set foot in them.”

  Isamu was looking at Yoshiko intently, soaking up her presence with those large, hungry brown eyes. When Madame Owada introduced them, it was clear that Yoshiko had no idea who Isamu was. Informed that he was an artist, she asked in her innocent way: “So are you very famous?” Whereupon Madame Owada showed her the Japanese art magazines with pictures of his work. This seemed to impress Yoshiko, and she asked him how old he was. “Why should that matter?” said Isamu, who knew a great deal more about her. He folded her small white hand into both of his. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?” he said. “The battered children of history, me in the camps here in the States, you in China. We come from different places, but belong to one place alone, the only place that matters, our real home, the land of art.”

  I watched with fascination how a fuse had been lit that promised to be hotter than mere seduction. I could see nature taking its course: her eyes widened, her mouth slackened.

  “You were exploited, weren’t you,” he said, “by the militarists.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I was.”

  “It must have been very hard for you.”

  “Yes, yes, it was,” she whispered, as tears made little tracks down her white powdered cheeks.

  19

  ISAMU AND YOSHIKO got married in Tokyo on a cold day in December 1951, three months after Japan and the United States signed a peace treaty in San Francisco, and the occupation was formally declared over. I had managed to come back to Tokyo in the spring of that year, as the movie reviewer for the Japan Evening Post. The job wasn’t particularly well paid, but it suited me fine. The arrangements had been made by my dear friend Carl, who knew the editor, a pipe-smoking man with a stammer named Cecil Shiratori. Cecil’s British childhood, of which he was tiresomely proud, still showed in his fondness for tweeds, and in his bottomless fund of well-worn anecdotes about long-dead literary figures, whose exploits in London’s clubland were a source of enduring fascination to him. You mentioned Max Beerbohm, and a wistful look would appear on his narrow face. “D’you know what B-B-B-Beerbohm said about f-f-f-feeling like exercise?”

  “No.”

  “He s-s-said: ‘You lie d-d-down until the f-f-f-feeling wears off.’ Ha ha hmmm.”

  But listening to Max Beerbohm stories was a small price to pay for being able to return to my beloved Japan.

  Even after an absence of little more than a year I could barely recognize parts of Tokyo. The Ginza area especially. The rubble had made way for spanking new buildings. People were better dressed and moved about town in a less resigned, brisker, more businesslike manner. The black markets were no longer the only places to get food and other necessities. Stores now had stuff you could actually buy for reasonable prices. Young toughs still roamed the main strips in Shibuya and Shinjuku, but sharkskin suits had replaced the Hawaiian shirts in vogue in the late 1940s. Above all, I felt a difference in the way Japanese treated foreigners, especially Americans. Too polite, and still no doubt too fearful to be openly hostile, the old deference was fading. No more “Japan no fuckin’ good,” and more “USA no fuckin’ good.” Less “Tokyo Boogie-Woogie,” more “Tears of Nagasaki” (the big hit of 1951).

  Being able to read the billboard advertisements was exhilarating and disappointing—exhilarating because they no longer held any mystery for me, and disappointing for the same reason. Those beautiful calligraphies in neon and paint lost all their exotic allure once I knew that they signified nothing more than a brand of beer or hair tonic.

  I practiced my Japanese on anyone who would listen, sometimes in my half-trained seal mode, fishing for compliments or laughs, but mostly because there was no other way to communicate. Some Japanese pretended not to understand, rendered deaf and dumb by the assumption that no foreigner could possibly speak Japanese. And so even the clearest, most basic statement—“Take me to the Ginza, please, driver”—would be met with blank stares of incomprehension, as though one had said it in Swahili. The more common reaction was a theatrical show of utter disbelief. I often felt like a conjurer who had just bamboozled his public with a particularly good trick, which, I guess, is a variation of the performing seal act.

  My comprehension of Japanese movies was far better than before, though not yet by any means perfect. I would still spend many daylight hours in dark halls, figuring out what was happening on the screen by deduction, while savoring my favorite odor of rice-sweat and pomade. Afterwards, I would take a stroll around Ueno Park, where the workingmen lolling about the lake with time on their hands were a constant temptation. Sometimes my conversations with likely prospects ended there, as pleasant conversations, which was just fine, since my vocabulary was invariably enriched by such encounters, replacing my repertoire of military terms and stilted court language with a different and earthier patois. And sometimes they resulted in more intimate encounters, where I would pay silent tribute. Anonymous, on my knees, in rapture; there is no greater feeling of ecstasy, or, indeed, of freedom.

  The wedding, as I said, was in December, on the 28th, to be precise. I accompanied Isamu to Haneda International Airport for the arrival of his bride. Isamu hadn’t seen Yoshiko for several months, and was frisky as a colt. Yoshiko had been busy with her first American picture, playing the wife of an American GI, returning home to California from the Far East. The picture was shot in and around Los Angeles. News of her casting in a real Hollywood movie had made the headlines in Japan. So her reception at Haneda was almost as spectacular as Charlie Chaplin’s had been: reporters from all the main newspapers and magazines were there, creating such a scrum that Isamu and I could get nowhere near the spot where she would emerge from the Customs area. Announcements on the public address system told us how far she was still from the airport: thirty minutes, fifteen minutes, ten minutes—“Landed! Shirley Yamaguchi has come home to her native soil all the way from Hollywood, USA!”

  That Haneda was in fact very far away from her native soil was a minor detail that bothered no one, least of all Yoshiko, who finally appeared to an explosion of flashbulbs. It was such pandemonium that we could barely see her at all. Bug-eyed pressmen were trampling over each other just to catch a glimpse of her, shouting questions in her general direction. A wooden platform decorated with flowers had been prepared for the press conference. Yoshiko, looking every inch the Hollywood diva in her large sunglasses, white gloves, and flowered dress, stepped up to the microphone, waved her arms at the crowd, and said in English: “Hello, boys, long time no see!” More pandemonium. More questions: What did she eat in the States? Did she get used to American bathrooms? Were the houses very big? Whom did she meet in Hollywood? What did the Americans think of Japan?

  Isamu tried to press his way through the melee. Reporters violently resisted his progress, assuming that he was just another pushy shutter-bug trying to barge to the front. Howev
er, a critic from the Mainichi, craning his neck to see what was going on, recognized Isamu and called out his name. All of a sudden Isamu was propelled forward by many arms, while people called for a photo. Spotting Isamu, Yoshiko cried out: “Hey, Isamu-san! Come over here!” “Kiss kiss!” went the reporters, as Yoshiko helped her bridegroom, looking a picture of misery, onto the podium. “Kiss kiss!” went the crowd. To Isamu’s visible discomfort, they kissed. When he made to pull away, Yoshiko pulled him back toward her cheek, giving photographers one more chance to record the moment of young bliss for the early morning editions.

  After that, I did not see the happy couple until their wedding day. They were ensconced in the bridal suite of the Imperial Hotel, or perhaps I should say they were besieged, with photographers lying in wait all day and night. The curtains of their room remained drawn for three full days.

  I was reminded of this time many years later, when I met a paper craftsman who had known the young couple, when Isamu was designing Japanese-style lanterns in Gifu Prefecture. The craftsman would pick up Isamu in the mornings from an old Buddhist temple, where he was put up with Yoshiko.

  “I learned about the power of love,” said the craftsman, looking rather solemn. I asked him what he meant.

  “In Japan,” he explained, “men and women don’t show their sexual feelings openly. But Noguchi-sensei and Yamaguchi-san couldn’t get enough of each other. They’d disappear for hours into the temple. Even in public, they’d be touching and kissing and stroking, like young cats. Americans are more frank and open, you know. This is good. We Japanese should learn from that.”