In the 1930s, the ordinary Japanese people had become implicated (consciously or not) in the act of inflicting colonial violence. In “Manchu Girl,” Koizumi Kikue narrates her experiences in Manchuria after she accompanied her husband, who was an army officer. In Manchuria, she narrates her experiences and relations with two maids she had hired. The first maid did not stay for long, and she dismissed her for her action, including her strange attitude. The second maid was slightly younger, but she well conversed with different aspects of the Japanese way of life and language from her previous employer. In “Machu Girl,” we see Kikue trying to civilize those girls and teaching them the Japanese ways of life. Kikue supported military operations in Manchuria and condemned a group she described as rebels. She was so much into transforming Manchurians to become Japanese and adopt the Japanese culture and education. When referring to Guiyu, Kikue says, “I don’t know for how long we will be in Manchuria, but in the short time she was in our household, I will have her become Japanese” (222). Kikue supported military intervention in Manchuria.
In Mizoguchi’s Osaka Elegy, we see a young girl by the name Ayako. This girl represents a modern Japanese life and lives a modern life, different from the lives her parents and relatives were living. Ayako worked as a telephone operator at Mr. Asai’s pharmaceutical. After some time, she becomes Asai’s mistress so that she could get some money for her family. She sacrifices her body so that she could help her family back at home, who lived a conservative life. For instance, she uses Mr. Fujino to acquire 200 yen for her brother’s tuition. Once she got the money, she dumped Mr. Fujino. Ayako is later isolated by her family since they considered her a delinquent. She is left alone without a family.
Basically, in Kikue’s “Manchu Girl,” we find her, as ordinary Japanese, exerting symbolic forms of colonial violence. Once she accompanied her husband in Manchuria, she actively supports the Japanese army in dealing with the rebels and also engages in the assimilation of Manchu girls. This context is slightly different from Ayako’s in Mizoguchi’s Osaka Elegy since it involved traditional Japanese life versus the modern life as exhibited by Ayako. However, both readings relate in their representation of women and the role they played in Japan’s 1930s. While Kikue was active in supporting the army and transforming Manchu girls into Japanese, Ayako was active in sacrificing herself for the sake of her family. In Osaka Elegy, we see the conflicts between traditional or conservative Japanese and modernity. Basically, Kikue and Ayako represent femininity in imperial Japan in the late 1930s, which is similar to the kind of imperialist masculinity we see in the readings for lecture 8.
