Behind the Paper Screen / Personal history may not be so personal
By Sawa Kurotani Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Last month, I shared a little piece of my personal history in this column, saying that the small public housing complex where my family has lived for a long time soon would be demolished. This story is most certainly significant to me and my family, but its significance does not end there. Personal history always extends beyond any one individual, as it is an integral part of social and national history. To really understand an individual's experience requires it to be placed in a larger historical context.
This little housing complex, along with the lives connected with it, is very much the product of Japan's sengo (post-World War II era). The land on which the housing complex was built, however, has its own history, which takes us farther back into Japan's modern history.
The place where I grew up sits on the border between Yokohama and Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. The plot of land, which is 300 by 800 meters, was developed as a low-income housing complex following the end of the war. Our complex of 15 individual homes was located in the southwest corner of this parcel of land, while to the north of us were larger apartment buildings that belonged to the Kanagawa prefectural government. Farther up were two-story townhouses, which were managed by the Yokohama municipal government. Right behind us were Self-Defense Forces apartment building. In the southeast corner of the land stood a large two-story building, which belonged to a private university and was used as a dormitory.
Since the prewar period, neighborhoods adjacent to this plot of land were densely occupied with small businesses and the modest homes of local working families. Why was this parcel of land left unused prior to the end of the war?
When I was growing up, I was told that the Japanese military forces owned this land until the end of the war. Later, the GHQ requisitioned it from the Imperial Japanese Army, built a recreational facility on it, and used it for about a decade. The GHQ handed the land over to the local government in the early 1950s, and the housing projects were built shortly afterward. My father's family moved into their little home in 1955, about a year after the complex became available.
All this information belongs in the realm of oral history, and I have not had the opportunity to confirm! this through archival research. However, it all makes sense in view of major historical events of the time. The timing of the land transfer coincides with the end of the Occupation in 1952. The United States had anticipated a full-scale military engagement on the Korean Peninsula, and was eager for Japan's economic reconstruction and political stabilization, so that it could serve as a secure base for U.S. military forces. This would have been an opportune moment for the GHQ to release this isolated piece of land that no longer served a significant military function, and help the local government to provide housing for families in need.
More concrete evidence is the building that stood in the southeast corner of the plot, which was built during the Occupation but, for one reason or another, was kept intact after the land was turned over to the local government. When I was young, a local university used it as a student dorm, and neighborhood children were allowed to play in its large yard. A semicircular driveway led to the front entrance of the building. Across this driveway from the building was a garden with a pond, a fountain and several palm trees. It was overgrown and unkempt then, but its design seemed quite elaborate to a child's eyes.
I was fascinated by this place, and, though I knew I'd be in trouble if grown-ups found out, I explored the inside of the building many times with my friends. It was like no other building I had ever been in. When we entered the front door, there was a large room with a long counter at the rear. To the right, there was another room, round and with a small stage on one side.
Obviously, this was once a "recreational facility" for Allied Occupation forces, perhaps an officers' club, complete with a bar and a dance hall. The semicircular driveway and the open space next to the building suggest that many patrons--U.S. military personnel and their guests--must have arrived by car. After leaving their cars with the valet, they would see the palm garden across the driveway. Inside, they'd have a drink or two at the bar, and walk toward the dance floor, where the band would be playing on the stage.
I might add that it was once a common practice to build a recreational facility off-base so that local women could enter it without a problem.
The building was demolished years ago and the palm garden went with it. It's just a mundane looking parking lot today. The U.S. forces in Japan now build their recreational facilities on base. The differences in the relationship between Japan and the United States in different eras show up in unexpected places such as this.
It may seem odd that the Japanese military used to own a piece of land in such an ordinary looking neighborhood. But this ordinary looking neighborhood is, in fact, located in a part of the Tokyo Bay area that has a great deal of significance in Japan's modern history.
My hometown is situated on Miura Peninsula, and if you remember your history lessons, you may recognize it as the very place where Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" arrived in the mid-19th century.
The presence of this external threat triggered the Tokugawa shogunate to begin building forts around the peninsula, and, since that time, Yokosuka grew as a military town, particularly as Japan's modern militarization progressed in the early part of the 20th century. At the end of World War II, a number of the old Japanese navy and air force facilities were scattered around my hometown, and the land on which my family home stood once harbored one of those many military facilities.
In fact, Miura Peninsula's strategic import!ance was realized much earlier--as early as the beginning of the 17th century. William Adams (aka Miura Anjin), a British navigator and shipwright for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, was given an estate here, an indication that Ieyasu was already aware of Adams' import!ance in the defense of his new capital, Edo (today's Tokyo).
So, in a very roundabout way, across 400 years, I might say that I ended up growing up in a little wooden house on the border of Yokosuka and Yokohama, because Ieyasu decided to move his capital to Edo!
Kurotani is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Redlands in California, and the author of "Home Away from Home: Japanese Corporate Wives in the United States" (Duke University Press, 2005).
(Oct. 16, 2007)
By Sawa Kurotani Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Last month, I shared a little piece of my personal history in this column, saying that the small public housing complex where my family has lived for a long time soon would be demolished. This story is most certainly significant to me and my family, but its significance does not end there. Personal history always extends beyond any one individual, as it is an integral part of social and national history. To really understand an individual's experience requires it to be placed in a larger historical context.
This little housing complex, along with the lives connected with it, is very much the product of Japan's sengo (post-World War II era). The land on which the housing complex was built, however, has its own history, which takes us farther back into Japan's modern history.
The place where I grew up sits on the border between Yokohama and Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. The plot of land, which is 300 by 800 meters, was developed as a low-income housing complex following the end of the war. Our complex of 15 individual homes was located in the southwest corner of this parcel of land, while to the north of us were larger apartment buildings that belonged to the Kanagawa prefectural government. Farther up were two-story townhouses, which were managed by the Yokohama municipal government. Right behind us were Self-Defense Forces apartment building. In the southeast corner of the land stood a large two-story building, which belonged to a private university and was used as a dormitory.
Since the prewar period, neighborhoods adjacent to this plot of land were densely occupied with small businesses and the modest homes of local working families. Why was this parcel of land left unused prior to the end of the war?
When I was growing up, I was told that the Japanese military forces owned this land until the end of the war. Later, the GHQ requisitioned it from the Imperial Japanese Army, built a recreational facility on it, and used it for about a decade. The GHQ handed the land over to the local government in the early 1950s, and the housing projects were built shortly afterward. My father's family moved into their little home in 1955, about a year after the complex became available.
All this information belongs in the realm of oral history, and I have not had the opportunity to confirm! this through archival research. However, it all makes sense in view of major historical events of the time. The timing of the land transfer coincides with the end of the Occupation in 1952. The United States had anticipated a full-scale military engagement on the Korean Peninsula, and was eager for Japan's economic reconstruction and political stabilization, so that it could serve as a secure base for U.S. military forces. This would have been an opportune moment for the GHQ to release this isolated piece of land that no longer served a significant military function, and help the local government to provide housing for families in need.
More concrete evidence is the building that stood in the southeast corner of the plot, which was built during the Occupation but, for one reason or another, was kept intact after the land was turned over to the local government. When I was young, a local university used it as a student dorm, and neighborhood children were allowed to play in its large yard. A semicircular driveway led to the front entrance of the building. Across this driveway from the building was a garden with a pond, a fountain and several palm trees. It was overgrown and unkempt then, but its design seemed quite elaborate to a child's eyes.
I was fascinated by this place, and, though I knew I'd be in trouble if grown-ups found out, I explored the inside of the building many times with my friends. It was like no other building I had ever been in. When we entered the front door, there was a large room with a long counter at the rear. To the right, there was another room, round and with a small stage on one side.
Obviously, this was once a "recreational facility" for Allied Occupation forces, perhaps an officers' club, complete with a bar and a dance hall. The semicircular driveway and the open space next to the building suggest that many patrons--U.S. military personnel and their guests--must have arrived by car. After leaving their cars with the valet, they would see the palm garden across the driveway. Inside, they'd have a drink or two at the bar, and walk toward the dance floor, where the band would be playing on the stage.
I might add that it was once a common practice to build a recreational facility off-base so that local women could enter it without a problem.
The building was demolished years ago and the palm garden went with it. It's just a mundane looking parking lot today. The U.S. forces in Japan now build their recreational facilities on base. The differences in the relationship between Japan and the United States in different eras show up in unexpected places such as this.
It may seem odd that the Japanese military used to own a piece of land in such an ordinary looking neighborhood. But this ordinary looking neighborhood is, in fact, located in a part of the Tokyo Bay area that has a great deal of significance in Japan's modern history.
My hometown is situated on Miura Peninsula, and if you remember your history lessons, you may recognize it as the very place where Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" arrived in the mid-19th century.
The presence of this external threat triggered the Tokugawa shogunate to begin building forts around the peninsula, and, since that time, Yokosuka grew as a military town, particularly as Japan's modern militarization progressed in the early part of the 20th century. At the end of World War II, a number of the old Japanese navy and air force facilities were scattered around my hometown, and the land on which my family home stood once harbored one of those many military facilities.
In fact, Miura Peninsula's strategic import!ance was realized much earlier--as early as the beginning of the 17th century. William Adams (aka Miura Anjin), a British navigator and shipwright for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, was given an estate here, an indication that Ieyasu was already aware of Adams' import!ance in the defense of his new capital, Edo (today's Tokyo).
So, in a very roundabout way, across 400 years, I might say that I ended up growing up in a little wooden house on the border of Yokosuka and Yokohama, because Ieyasu decided to move his capital to Edo!
Kurotani is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Redlands in California, and the author of "Home Away from Home: Japanese Corporate Wives in the United States" (Duke University Press, 2005).
(Oct. 16, 2007)