Tokai Sanshi
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Shiba Shirō (柴四郎), better known for his pen name Tōkai Sanshi (東海散士, Wanderer of the Eastern Sea), (21 June 1852 – 13 December 1922) was a political activist and novelist during the Meiji period. He was born into a samurai family and fought for domain of Aizu during the Boshin War from 1868 to 1869, after which the Aizu domain was abandoned. He was educated at different facilities in Japan and in the United States, and he served in the military during the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War. His major works include Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women (Kajin no Kigū), first serialized in 1885 and concluded in 1897.
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Shiba was a Japanese political novelist and journalist. He is best known for writing Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women, which revolves around a Japanese man from Aizu who goes by the quasi-Chinese pseudonym of Tōkai Sanshi, a Chinese man, a Spanish woman named Yolanda and an Irish woman named Colleen.[1]
Born as the 4th son of Aizu samurai Shiba Satazō, Shiba Shirō was fourteen years old when the Aizu domain was attacked by the imperial forces during the civil war prior to the Meiji Restoration in 1868.[1] As a youth, Shiba fought for the failing Tokugawa shogunate.[2] During the siege of Aizu castle, his grandmother, mother, and two sisters committed suicide so that the men in the family could do battle without distractions. Aizu castle fell to the forces of the new Meiji government and the domain surrendered. After a period spent in captivity, Shiba studied at Toogijuku, a private academy in Hirosaki that trained talented young man for government service and attracted many former samurai from the northeastern domain.[1]
From 1879 to 1885, Shiba Shirō received funds from the Iwasaki family to pursue further education in the United States.[3] He remained in America for seven years, first attending Pacific Business College in San Francisco, and then went to Boston, where he briefly studied at Harvard.[4] Finally, he went to Philadelphia and studied at the University of Pennsylvania from 1881 to 1885, obtaining a Bachelor of Finance from the Wharton School.[1]
In 1885, shortly after his return from the United States, Shiba published the first two volumes of Kajin no kigū. When the Satsuma Rebellion broke out in 1877, he was recruited by the Meiji government forces as a temporary officer.[5]
Shiba's time was increasingly taken up by government work and in subsequent years by the writing of Kajin no kigū, which was published serially in eight parts between 1885 and 1897 political activities. The book was so enthusiastically received that it not only became the most popular political novel in the Meiji era, it also continued to inspire readers decades after it was written.[1]
In 1891, Shiba won a seat in the new national legislative assembly, to which he was reelected eight times.[5]
Ideology
Shiba Shirō was a political novelist whose stance can be considered as nationalist (kokusuishugi, 国粋主義). His having grown up in a samurai family and experienced his domain's destruction was an essential to the formation of Shiba Shirō's political ideology.
An "enlightened" aspect of Tokai Sanshi's view lies in his understanding of power relations in the world and his refutation of hierarchy often hypothesized between "civilized" or hegemonic nations (Britain, France, and Russia) and the “undercivilized” (nations whose independence was threatened if not terminated by the imperialist nations).[6]
Because he witnessed his father Shiba Satazo's loyalty to Tokugawu shogunate, Shiba Shirō advocated the preservation of Japanese traditions and domestic economics. He supported the establishment of Tobokyokai (東邦協会), an organization that attracted people who advocate Nanshin-ron (南進論), Pan-Asianism, and economic independence in 1891, and took up responsibilities in Rikkenkakushinto (立憲革新党) in 1984. Both of them were active organizations in supporting a more rigid foreign policy against the westernization of Japan.[7]
In his novel Toyo no Bijin (東洋之佳人, 1888), Shiba Shirō tells the story of a beautiful Japanese girl who falls in love with a Western playboy who seduces her with beautiful clothes and exquisite cuisine. The girl is not able to resist the temptation and gives herself to the Western man but eventually contracts syphilis and loses her beauty.[8] The beautiful girl is an allegorical representation of Japan and Western countries are symbolized by the playboy.and the story conveys the idea that westernization is not the solution but a crisis for Meiji Japan. This concept also appears in his most well-known work Kajin no Kigū.
But his view is also formed on the basis of his western education and military services. With his awareness of the complexity of the world, he does not advocate a Japanese uniqueness, nor does he simplify the foreign as one distinct entity.[6] He sympathize with the challenged nations such as Ireland and Hungary but resist the hegemony of imperialist nations.
