Donald Keene’s Japan (Pt. 9): Time in post-war China before at last reaching Japan

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Donald Keene, right, and colleague Dick Beardsley are seen in this photo taken in November 1945, when Keene was staying in Tsingtao, China. (Provided by the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation)

TOKYO – Donald Keene was in Guam when he listened to Emperor Hirohito’s broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945, announcing Japan’s surrender. Following the end of World War II, he was dispatched to China as part of Allied occupation policy.

Keene came so close to realizing his wish of setting foot in Japan’s mainland, but it was blocked by a superior he was on bad terms with. He was instead sent to China. However, he had originally encountered Chinese culture prior to that of Japan, and had experience learning Chinese characters with his college friend. He had strong interest in Asia as a whole, so his time in China was enjoyable in its own way.

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In the distance I could see the silhouettes of mountains. China! I stared at the shore, unable to believe that my dream of many years had been realized.

(On Familiar Terms)

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Donald Keene is seen in the living room of his home in Tokyo’s Kita Ward on Dec. 17, 2010. His favorite red folding screen features letters by Deng Shiru, a Chinese calligrapher during the late Qing Dynasty. Keene apparently purchased it in a secondhand bookshop in Kyoto around 1974. (Mainichi/Tadahiko Mori)

Keene was genuinely delighted. He arrived and stayed in the port city Tsingtao in October 1945. He apparently walked around the area like a young boy full of curiosity and enthusiasm, as recounted in his autobiography below.

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After a while I got down from the ricksha and went walking through the streets. I was the object of great attention, but I felt no fear or even a sense of being in an alien place. A young Chinese officer who spoke some English joined me and offered to take me shopping. I had heard from friends who had been sent to Tokyo that the shops were so empty and necessities so scarce that one could trade a package of cigarettes for a work of art; but here in Tsingtao there was sprawling abundance along the streets – food of every kind being sliced ​​and weighed, boxes of tea, cigarettes, clothing, brushes, inkstones, pottery. With my friend’s help I bought a jade ring, a Chinese robe, and Chinese shoes. “Everything Chinese now except the face!” he said laughing.

(On Familiar Terms)

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This image shows a copy of the Sept. 29, 1945, edition of The Mainichi, with coverage on a historic meeting between Emperor Hirohito and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied occupation forces, two days before. A photo of the Emperor was also revealed, which was rare before World War II, symbolizing a change of times and causing great shock among the Japanese people.

However, such carefree fun was short-lived. Keene was assigned with the task of probing into Japanese military war crimes on the Chinese mainland. Keene did not join the US Navy to take part in fighting, and had no interest whatsoever in combat or the brutal events that happened as a result. The more he looked into the matters, the more he heard about the wicked acts committed by Japanese troops in China. He grew sick of it, questioning why he had to expose such cruel realities long after the war’s end.

Keene then requested to be discharged from the military. Though he was presented with an offer to take a one-week trip to Beijing if he remained one more month, he refused this too and decided to return to the US However, this offer seems to have been one he rejected with great reluctance, and felt regretful about, as written in his autobiography.

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This Nov. 20, 2012 image shows Donald Keene walking in the Yokohama Chinatown. (Provided by the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation)

When I think back on the decision now, I regret it. Peking in the late autumn of 1945 would not have been at its best, but it certainly would have looked more like the Peking of my dreams than it did when I finally visited the city six or seven years ago. Friends of mine who knew the city before 1945 and have seen it in recent years are unanimous in the belief that the charm of the old city has been destroyed. There is still much to see, of course, and I am glad I was able to get there at last, but I was dismayed by the wide avenues that had been brutally driven through the old city, and the drabness of the remaining houses.

(On Familiar Terms)

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Keene visited Beijing in October 1980 when he was invited to give a lecture on the topic of “special qualities of Japanese literature.” He apparently stayed there for six days. Three years after this, he participated in a tour to visit locations along the Silk Road, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Dunhuang. It may well be natural for Keene, who was interested in Chinese characters and oriental culture, to have wanted to view Beijing at the time before it went through great change.

This image shows a copy of the Nov. 13, 1945, edition of The Mainichi, which reports about Emperor Hirohito leaving Tokyo Station the day before to visit the Ise Jingu shrine, accompanied with a large photo. The Emperor’s security guards and clothing became scaled down and simplified compared to the prewar period. The paper also reports that the Emperor expressed the intention to present jewelry and other objects in the imperial possession as part of the collateral for food imports in the face of Japan’s economic difficulties.

Keene later said in various interviews that the reason he was able to master Japanese was that he was familiar with Chinese characters first. In one of his books in Japanese, he wrote, “Before studying Japanese, I knew some kanji characters by studying Chinese … I think it was good that I memorized kanji from the beginning … At American universities, the method of teaching with text in Romanized Japanese at the start, and introducing kanji for the first time much later, has become mainstream, but I’m against this method. It’s better to learn Japanese together with kanji from the start. ”

The flight route to return to Keene’s original command in Hawaii from Shanghai passed by Japan. Keene took advantage of this, and went against his division’s orders by telling a white lie.

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My orders read simply, “You will return to your original command,” without specifying where that might be. I made up my mind that when I arrived in Japan I would inform the American military that my original command was now at the naval base in Yokosuka, reasoning that they would not be too suspicious now that the war was over.

As the plane neared Japan I strained for a first glimpse of the country that had been in my thoughts virtually every minute for the last four years. Suddenly we were over Japan, I don’t know where. My first impression was of the greenness of the country. In China virtually the only trees were those planted around the Japanese shrines, but here the mountains were covered with trees, and where there were no trees there were carefully cultivated fields.

When the plane landed at Atsugi I was so excited at the thought of being in Japan that I stammered when asked to show my orders and explain my presence. But, obviously, nobody was interested in me, and soon afterward I was on a military bus bound for Tokyo. Japan and last!

(On Familiar Terms)

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It was in mid-December 1945 that Keene was finally able to tread on Japanese soil.

(This is Part 9 of a series. The next “Donald Keene’s Japan” story will be published on July 19.)

Relatives, friends, editors and others who knew Donald Keene are seen at a restaurant in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward, where they gathered to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday on June 18, 2022. (Mainichi/Tadahiko Mori) Items and photos are seen on display at the “Exhibition on Donald Keene’s Bonds with Soka City” in Saitama Prefecture, on June 20, 2022. (Mainichi/Tadahiko Mori)

(Japanese original by Tadahiko Mori, The Mainichi Staff Writer and Donald Keene Memorial Foundation director)

The original text of Donald Keene’s autobiographies is used with permission from the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation. The foundation’s website can be reached at: https://www.donaldkeene.org/

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Profile:

Donald Keene was born on June 18, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. He was a Japanese literature scholar and professor emeritus at Columbia University. After earning postgraduate degrees at Columbia University and Cambridge University, he received a fellowship to study at Kyoto University in 1953. Keene developed friendships with prominent Japanese authors, including Junichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Over the course of half a century, Keene traveled back and forth between the US and Japan, and continued to study Japanese literature and culture, while conveying their charms to the world in English. His main works include a multivolume history of Japanese literature, “Travelers of a Hundred Ages,” and “Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912.” In 2008, Keene received the Order of Culture from the Japanese government. The scholar obtained Japanese citizenship in the year following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. He died on Feb. 24, 2019, at age 96.

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