Chapter 2 Roots

Roots (kompon)

The old cherry tree has fallen down,

perhaps someone will dig it up.

Also the people who used to sit

under the beautiful blossoms,

all gone.

yowai tsuki

horioko sareshi

ro-ō no

hana no sakari o

mishi hito mo nashi

These stories, not everyone is interested in them, but I believe it is important to tell young people about rekishi, their history. In the years of my life I experienced many things. I lived through earthquakes, fires, typhoons and bombings. At a very young age I learned that life is precious and people should help each other.

My given name is Hiroko. Grandfather named me, inspired by the words of Mêng-tzŭ (Mencius), the itinerant Chinese sage, one of the great interpreters of Confucianism. Mêng-tzŭ said, “The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.”  Hiro means “broad” and ko means “child” and is often added to a girl’s name. By naming me Hiroko, perhaps he wished for me to become a person who had a broad mind and strong will, yet always remained a child at heart.

I am a traditional Japanese woman, brought up in a very proper way. My family on both sides is descended from shizoku, the elite samurai class connected to the ruling Tokugawa han, the clan of military leaders who ruled most of Japan during the Edo period.

This historical period began in 1600 when Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun, the military ruler of Japan. In 1603 he moved the administrative capital from Kyōto in the south, where the emperor lived, to Edo in the north. Edo, the old name of Tōkyō, means “gate of the river” because of its location at the mouth of the Sumida-gawa. The Tokugawa shogunate marked a long period of feudalism, national seclusion and the promotion of Buddhism as the national religion. In 1867 the Tokugawa clan fell from power and the authority of the emperor was reestablished. A year later, the emperor moved the imperial capital from Kyōto, “western gate,” to Edo, and the city was renamed Tōkyō, “eastern gate.” The reign of the emperor Meiji Tennō, 1867-1912, was a period of extensive reform, including the abolition of feudalism, the introduction of a new constitution in 1889, the modernization of industry, and the elevation of Shinto as the national religion and its separation from Buddhism. After the Meiji Restoration, class names were no longer used.

The circumstances of my birth were different from other Japanese born in bokoku, their mother land. I was born in Shanghai, China, during the imperial reign of Taisho Tennō, 13 August 1921, the Year of the Rooster. In Japan, this was the ninth year of the Taishō era, during the imperial reign of Yoshishito Tennō, the son of Meiji Tennō. My father was working for the Japan Cotton Company at their branch in Shanghai.

During my second year, my father had to come back to Japan because of his father’s death so he could take care of his mother. We returned to his family home in the Hongo district in Tōkyō, very close to Tōkyō University. My father went to work for General Motors, supervising the final check of Chevrolet automobiles being assembled in Japan. There were some Americans in his office, so he learned to speak English, but not so well.

My father’s name was Satomi Rokuro-hei. His paternal ancestors came from Kumamoto-ken in Kyushu, the southern island of Japan. They worked for the daimyō, the castle lord who ruled the Hosokawa-han area under the Tokugawa shogun. My great-grandfather, Satomi Matazo, was an administrator and treasurer of Hosokawa-han. I have a copy of documents written by him: a real estate report and an annual report of the castle. Continuing in his father’s footsteps, my grandfather also served as the Hosokawa-han treasurer for the daimyō, until the Meiji Restoration when the new emperor made many reforms. Under the new constitution, my grandfather became a member of the Meiji government, though I am not sure which assembly he belonged to. He may have been a member of the Imperial Diet, or a member of a prefectual or municipal assembly.

My father’s maternal ancestors were also shizoku. My great-grandfather was from Ninomiya, in Kanagawa-ken. My great-grandmother, before her marriage, was in service at Edo castle. There were rooms in the castle called ōku, where the shogun’s wives lived. Those wives were classified as one legal wife and the official concubines. Each wife had her own quarters and servants, which were managed by a woman called tsubone. My great-grandmother served under one of these managers. At that time, to become even a servant in Edo castle was a great honor. After my great-grandmother retired from that position, she married my great-grandfather.

In those days only shizoku boys went to school. They were private schools that cost a lot of money. But my great-grandmother wanted her daughter to have a good education, so she sent my grandmother to a private school, where she was the only girl in the class. My grandmother told me that her mother was very strict with her, as she was with me.

My mother’s name was Wakao Teruko and she came from Kisyu, now called Wakayama-ken, near Kyōto. It is known for three famous families of Tokugawa established by three of Togugawa Ieyasu’s sons: Kisyu-ke, Owari-ke and Mito-ke. This was done so that if the main Tokugawa line failed to produce an heir, one was adopted from these families. The Wakao family served Kisyu-ke. My mother’s father was a prefecture official. He had eight daughters and my mother was the sixth. They were all quite tall. My grandfather must have been proud of his tall daughters because he sent all eight of them through school and gave each of them an equal number of nagamochi dowry chests of equal value. These long wooden boxes, filled with bedding and clothing for a young bride to bring to her husband’s home, represented the family’s wealth.

My parents were married in 1919, about two years before I was born. The year 1923 was very eventful. My grandfather died, we returned from China to live with my grandmother, the Great Earthquake destroyed most of Tōkyō, my grandmother saved the rice from the fire and fed the people, and my brother Taro was born. Two years later, my youngest brother, Jiro, was born. The year 1926 was also significant. In that year, the imperial Shōwa era began, with the ascent of Hirohito Tennō to the throne. I was five and my brothers were three and one. That year our mother died. She was very young, only 29. She had an inner ear infection that went to her brain. I remember going to the hospital every day to visit her. Our family suffered another loss in 1938, shortly before the Great Pacific War. My brother Taro died of tuberculosis. He was only 15.

After my mother died, my grandmother, Satimi Tomi, raised us. In addition to raising three young grandchildren, my grandmother took care of the students at Tōkyō University who came from Kumamoto, where my ancestors originated. In those days only the sons of high society could go to Tōkyō University. It is very different today. When I was growing up, these students from Kumamoto stayed in the ryō attached to our family house. Thanks to that, my family had good connections with high society.

We had many servants, ten men and ten women. The cook prepared food for the students and the servants delivered the meals to their rooms. I remember that the steps to the ryō were not too steep because the servants had to carry the heavy trays of food up and down the steps. In the summer, when the students went back to Kumamoto, our servants had to clean everything in the ryō. It was a big undertaking, requiring a lot of space in the garden to clean the tatami and futon.

My mother had seven sisters and my father had two brothers, so I grew up with many cousins. In those days people had many children. Often the children would die in childhood, but my mother and all her sisters lived to adulthood. Even so, my mother died quite young and my aunts were very sad. They became second mothers to me, especially my eldest aunt. She would often send me presents, such as kimono, or pay for my extracurricular classes in lute, dancing and calligraphy. During summer vacations I would go to each aunt’s house for one week. Three of them lived in Tōkyō. After I visited them I would take a train to Ōsaka, at the southern tip of Japan, to stay with the four aunts who lived in Ōsaka, Nara and that area. Nowadays it only takes three hours from Tōkyō to Ōsaka, but at that time it was a long trip of eleven hours. One of my uncles lived in Tōkyō and I would also visit him. My other uncle worked for the Japanese Embassy in South Korea but I did not visit him there. Six of my cousins are still alive and I see them from time to time. One of them lives in Tacoma, Washington, and I have visited him once.

Those are my roots, and the environment I grew up in shaped who I was to become.