Modernization as creative problem making: Political action, personal conduct and Japanese overseas prostitutes= La modernisation en tant que source de problème …

Modernization as creative problem making: political action, personal conduct and Japanese overseas prostitutes Bill Mihalopoulos Abstract This paper is concerned with how and why the karayuki-san - Japanese female migrants who worked as sexual labourers from 1880 until the start of the Pacific War - became an issue that had to be dealt by successive Japanese governments. The argu- ment of the paper is that the creation of the karayuki-san as a problem of government cannot be divorced from the concurrent emergence of changes in the ethics of per- sonal conduct under the rubric of 'modernization'. The process in which the karayuki-san became an issue worthy of governmental attention and action coalesced around a theme central to the politics of modernization: how to achieve cohesion between the principles of political action and personal conduct. Keywords: Japan, modernization, national policy, migration, governance. Imagine waking up one day and finding all your scientific knowledge and moral and ethical principles were obsolete due to the discovery of a more advanced and powerful civilization. No, the above is not a scenerio for a second-rate science fiction novel, but Japan's first direct encounter with Western imperialism in the 1850s. Seeing China succumb to Western penetration, Japanese rulers started on an urgent and desperate quest for practical ways to resist Western domination. Japan's encounter with the seemingly invincible 'Occidential civilization' (seiyd) introduced a new set of questions pertaining to politics: what are we in our actu- ality today and where do we have to go to catch up with the West? The Japanese rulers decided that the best means of defence against Western domination was to emulate the West. Japanese modernization, thus, took place along acknow- ledged international, as well as national, axes of learning, exchange and Economy and Society Volume 27 Number 1 February 1998: 50-73 © Routledge 1998 0308-5147 Modernization as creative problem making 51 adaptation of rationally reflected ways of directing, shaping, correcting and manipulating the conduct of individuals taken either singularly or collectively. Industrialization as a political programme was interdependent and coeval with the emergence of changing forms of ethical culture. Seen from this perspective, there are two broad tenets pertaining to govern- ment that give shape to Japan's confrontation with the problems of moderniz- ation. First, modernization as a distinct political programme focused upon finding formulas for redirecting and transforming the capacities and conduct of the Japanese as a collective in order to meet the dictates of material progress. In the instance of Japan at least, modernization (kindaika) was a political task con- cerned with finding ways of acting on what already existed. The political task of modernization was to create the conditions that would reinvent Japan as a nation among the 'civilized nations'. Second, modernization also involved the creation and organization of an ethos concerned with how to govern. The question of 'what we are today' made poss- ible a self-critical approach to the problem of government; a recurrent critique of state reason and politics asking in particular how the Japanese could progress to a higher form of social being that was qualitatively different from the past. This process of ethical and political questioning developed a body of principles that the Japanese state had to take into account, but which could not be made to serve as a universal axiomatic of policy. This ethos was not so much a substan- tive doctrine or practice of government in itself, but a kind of intellectual measuring stick or critique used to judge how far Japan had or had not evolved as a modern nation. The unequal relation of Japan vis-d-vis the West, thematized as the problem of how to achieve a higher form of social being, merged the political goal of industrializing Japan with the need to enhance the performance of the Japanese to this end. What I am interested in is a history of the relationship between the thought and the practices of Japanese modernization. I propose that the prob- lematics of Japanese modernization represented a critique that addressed the issues of how to govern, with what means and techniques, and what kind of beings the Japanese people, as individuals and as a collective, should aspire to be. To this end, I would like to present a partial and provisional investigation into an aspect of the problematic nature of Japanese modernization. My investigation will centre around how and why the karayuki-san, Japanese women engaged in sexual labour overseas, became a problem to successive Japanese governments. The argument of this paper is that the constitution of the karayuki-san as a problem of government cannot be divorced from concurrent emergence of changes in the ethics of personal conduct. The process in which the karayuki- san became an entity worthy of governmental attention and action coalesced around a central theme in the politics of modernization: how to achieve a cohesion between the principles of political action, the transformation of Japan into a modern nation-state, and personal conduct. The questions raised by the existence of Japanese migrant sexual labourers were wide ranging, involving issues such as national commerce and trade, Japan's relations with other nations 52 Bill Mihalopoulos and the proper conduct for Japanese women. As such, the karayuki-san offer a case study par excellence of the problems faced by Japanese political rule around the questions of how to modernize. The historical investigation of the 'problematization' of the karayuki-san involves two complementary levels of analysis: first, the examination of the different practices which provided the principles for identifying and formulating aspects of the women's lives as being a 'problem'; second, an analysis of the issues of modernization that crystallized around the karayuki-san in terms of the training and modification of the Japanese, collectively and individually, not only in the obvious sense of acquiring new skills in production for example, but also in the sense of acquiring new attitudes. 'Problematization' as a procedure of historical analysis and investigation owes much to the work of Michel Foucault. The premise1 of 'problematization' as a form of historical analysis is based on the observation that we are all living and thinking entities. Everybody both acts and thinks. The way people act or react is linked to a way of thinking. Put simply, thinking has a tradition too (Foucault 1988: 16-17). Thinking is related to a matrix of particular reasoning: a certain 'know-how'-cum-'understanding' formed out of practice. Thus, for Foucault, in a deliciously unexpected turn, the emergence of a 'problem' points to an encounter with something unrecognizable in the world that forces us to examine our existing forms of reason critically. Responses to a problem do not present us with solutions, argues Foucault, but a practical space in which new styles of reason can be put into effect. As such, a problem has a history in the sense that it will elicit several responses at the same time (Foucault 1984: 388-9). Consular reports and administration In the Japanese Diplomatic Record Office, Azabudai, Tokyo, under the major classification 'Judicial Administration and Police' {Shihd oyobi keisatsu), sub- category 'Matters of Police: Procedures and Regulations' (keisatsu jikd: torishi- mari oyobi shobun), are housed around twenty files of varying thickness concerned directly with Japanese female migrant sexual labourers. Having found the documents I was immediately challenged by the very element which I was trained as a historian to consider as objectively given - the document as a his- torical event in its own terms. In trying to make sense of the documents I was struck by the question: why do such documents exist in a national archive that has been specifically established for the study of treaties and battles in the memory of the Japanese nation-state? The question is not a simple reiteration of the idea that all histories are written from a particular perspective. What con- cerns me, rather, is what historical conditions made the documentation of the karayuki-san a necessity. My analysis starts at the institutional procedures adopted by the Japanese foreign ministry. What is important to recognize is that, at the level of Modernization as creative problem making 53 perception, the karayuki-san were initially 'invisible' to the foreign ministry. The reason for this was not that the women did not exist, since their presence in Shanghai was recorded as early as 1872 (Kim 1960: 186), but that the inscrip- tion and administration of their lives was not yet worthy of attention. During the first twenty years of its establishment, the Japanese foreign min- istry regarded its primary responsibility as supplying intelligence and infor- mation about trade conditions. Consuls acted as intermediaries, providing Tokyo with information for potential business ventures. An example is the case of the honorary Japanese consul for the Australian Colonies (excluding Western Aus- tralia), Alexander Marks.2 In 1892, Marks alerted the Japanese foreign minister to the possibility of sending Japanese labourers to the New Hebrides and estab- lishing Japanese settlements on the many 'other [islands] of equal fertility and value to Japanese enterprise'.3 Marks went as far as to suggest that the Japanese government should approach Paris over the possibility of purchasing the islands for Japanese settlement.4 Another procedure defined by the foreign ministry as one of its essential duties was to supply domestic industry with the latest overseas technical and trade information.5 For that purpose, consuls and legations overseas were called upon to collect information and intelligence on the economic and technical developments within their area of jurisdiction, and on the prospects of poten- tial markets for Japanese exports. Consuls were expected to report on the volume of Japanese trade, the type of Japanese products purchased, means by which they were marketed and how their competitiveness could be improved. The reports themselves were published in one form or another in government publications such as the 'Government Gazette' (Kanpo) or in contemporary newspapers under columns titled 'Miscellaneous News' (zappo) (Takashima 1986: 90). Another method used by the foreign ministry to obtain information on the conditions overseas was to dispatch fact-finding expeditions. These expeditions were not prompted by any specific concern over the existence or welfare of Japanese expatriates. The impetus behind fact-finding expeditions was the desire to discover and map out the commercial conditions of regions deemed poten- tially lucrative to Japanese commercial interests. For instance, in July 1893, the foreign ministry dispatched Watanabe Kanjuro to Australia with orders to assess trading and commercial possibilities for Japanese enterprises (Watanabe 1894: 1-5). Another example is the series of fact-finding tours initiated by Singapore consul SaitoMiki, into the southern Malaya peninsula, from October 1893 until February 1894. Influenced greatly by Taguchi Ukichi,6 an advocate of free trade and Japanese expansion in the Pacific during his visit to Singapore around 1891 (Nanyo oyobi Nihonjinsha 1938: 141), Saito gained permission to tour the Malaya peninsular with the intent of assessing the suitability of the region for the promotion of Japanese trade and settlement (Hara 1985: 7).7 Indeed, the importance given to consular intelligence-gathering missions can be gauged from the fact that during a seventeen-year period, between the years 1884 and 1909, the Singapore and Hong Kong consuls undertook fifteen intelligence- gathering expeditions into the Malaya peninsular and the south China region.8 54 Bill Mihalopoulos The karayuki-san began to register in reports sent back to Tokyo once the consul's role started to shift away from the narrow 'economic' function of sup- plying industry and trade with information. The content of the reports changed as the Japanese foreign ministry experimented with the possibilities of exercis- ing rule over Japanese communities abroad. Slowly but surely, as the number of Japanese people residing overseas increased, the consuls' role became an increas- ingly administrative one, concerned with surveillance, regulation and optimal management of all dealings by Japanese residents. Consular reports and surveys came to include detailed statistics on the occupations, growth and composition of the various Japanese communities overseas. This information became incor- porated into a network of administrative techniques aimed at assessing and knowing all Japanese subjects living overseas so as to make them open to inter- vention and manipulation. What emerges is a gradual intensification in institutional procedures within the foreign ministry intended to produce some kind of understanding of the over-all pattern of Japanese overseas migration by reducing the phenomenon to practical statisitical models. From as early as the mid-1870s, albeit sporadically, the tabulation of population surveys (jinkd chosa) of resident Japanese subjects was compiled as a part of the consular reports. From 1888, Japanese consuls in South-east Asia were required to produce an annual survey of all Japanese resid- ing within their jurisdiction (Shimizu 1985: 3). Furthermore, in 1897, all consuls were ordered to compile a survey of the state of affairs of expatriate Japanese found under their jurisdiction (kaigai kakuchi no honpqjin no kinkyo). A table of all Japanese expatriates broken down according to occupation (shokubetsuhyo) was to be included with the survey. Japanese women working as prostitutes were included in this table under the category of 'miscellaneous occupations' (zat- sugyo). All completed tables were published by the foreign ministry in the Com- mercial Bulletin (Sushoisan). From 1907, surveys from the various consuls were compiled and published yearly in a format covering all Japanese expatriate com- munities scattered across the world. Similar details were compiled on Japanese expatriates successfully engaged in industry, commerce and agriculture, the first being published in 1905. This survey also became a yearly event from 1909.9 Technically the surveys and reports filled out by the consuls were very similar in nature to cartography. The details of distant events and individual lives were made open for inspection and analysis by foreign ministry personnel in Tokyo. The intelligence gathered by Japanese consuls provided the necessary link between Japanese communities overseas and the deliberations of authorities in Tokyo. The reports provided the means for policy makers in Tokyo to respond promptly to events overseas that would enhance or obstruct Japanese commerce and trade. The steady flow of information from consuls kept Tokyo constantly alert to the existence of possible profit or danger and reinforced the urgency and necessity of intervention by the state in ways which cultivated and fostered Japanese commerce and trade. This process of documentation focused a closer surveillance on overseas Japanese communities, and a finer administration of their daily activities. The Modernization as creative problem making 55 increasing concern with the details of the daily life of overseas Japanese was aimed at enlarging the field of vision of the foreign ministry over this same popu- lation. It is precisely within the context of this set of concerns that the docu- ments on the karayuki-san came to exist. Unearthing the karayuki-san As was mentioned previously, consular reports initally often ignored the exist- ence of Japanese women engaged in prostitution. Take, for example, the actions by the Singapore consul, Saito Miki, in September 1892. Saito tolerated entry by Japanese sex labourers as long as they did not disrupt the moral climate of the region and did not hurt the standing of Japanese subjects.10 What Saito did find intolerable was being inundated by requests from the Protector of Chinese11 to make inquiries as to the intentions of women smuggled into Singapore via incoming ships. Saito resented the amount of time he had to expend on a task he regarded as being of little importance in comparison with his other duties, such as expanding as far as possible the established rights of resident Japanese in the Straits Settlement and promoting Japanese trade. Saito aired his frus- tration at such an encroachment on his time in a frank letter to the Protector of Chinese. I beg to inform you privately regarding the enquiries held in connection with poor Japanese women who are coming to this port and whom you forward to me for further enquiries, that I shall be greatly obliged if you will favour me with your letter every time pointing out the important points which you wish to know. The great number of enquiries which I have made, I think could be done equally as well at your offices, and you need not take the trouble to forward the woman to me unless a particular case arises.12 Saito goes on to state that the protection of these women did not fall into his areas of responsibility, but was within the jurisdiction of the Chinese Protec- torate: 'I must take every precaution to avoid, what may appear likely to inter- fere with anothers duty'.13 This point is further clarified by Saito in a later letter: I beg to inform you for your own knowledge that Japanese subjects who have escaped from Japan, strictly speaking have no right to ask for any protection at the Japanese Consul in any foreign country, and I am consequently quite unable to give any guarantee to these people unless by special instruction from my Government.14 Saito's argument was based on the reasoning that travel documents substan- tiated the nationality of the bearer. In times of trouble, the bearer could call for protection to ensure their safety. However, if a person was to leave Japan without a letter of travel, or failed to request one from the resident consul on arrival, then that person forfeited all rights to call on the protection of the Japanese consul.15 56 Bill Mihalopoulos As the women had 'escaped' from Japan without the necessary travel documents from the Japanese government, according to Saitoand government policy16 they were not entitled to any aid or protection. The Japanese authorities became more and more aware of the existence of the karayuki-san in terms of 'disreputable women' with the increase in anti-Japan- ese incidents. In 1891, for example, a succession of ships carrying large numbers of Japanese labourers was prevented from landing by US authorities. The ships were deemed as having contravened recent legislation which prohibited paupers, persons suffering from contagious diseases, prostitutes or contract labourers from entering the United States.17 Restrictions, or the mere threat of restric- tions, transformed the karayuki-san into an 'undesirable class of Japanese women' based on the perception that their existence was dangerous to the pro- motion of Japanese trade and industry. The affirmation of the women's threat to Japanese commerce and trade actualized the karayuki-san as a problem of government in terms of a more or less probable relationship between the unregu- lated spread of Japanese prostitutes and the certainty of restrictions being placed on the autonomy of Japanese merchants and migrant labourers. Clearly, the sifting out of the karayuki-san was not prompted by any specific concern for the protection or well-being of the women. On the contrary, it arose out of the Japanese foreign ministry's apprehension that the women's existence posed a potential threat to the standing and autonomy of other Japanese subjects abroad, migrant labourers and merchants. The isolation of the karayuki-san from other categories of overseas Japanese migrants began on 4 March 1897. The vice foreign minister, Komura Jutaro, singled out the karayuki-san as a special class of overseas Japanese to be discov- ered and understood. The directive from Komura read: It has become necessary to acknowledge the fact that the number of disrep- utable Japanese women (shugydfu) living overseas and their condition of life has become intolerable. It is not without good reason that I ask you hereafter to inform [this office] on the total number of disreputable women. Hence, I would like you to report bi-annually, every June and December, on the number of disreputable women present in your locality, their movement to and fro, and their living conditions. The number can be included in a separate column marked 'miscellaneous' (sonota shoyo) in the mid year list showing the number [of Japanese] entering and leaving, or in the end of year tabular statement on the number of Japanese residents. In instances where it is necessary to make a specific report beyond the two above mentioned tabular statements, I would like you to place a report after having endeavoured, wherever practical, to investigate the real state of affairs, although there will be instances where it will be hard to ensure accuracy.18 The significance of Komura's directive should not be lost on us, for a number of reasons. First, there is the inventiveness and creativity of the moment in terms of the formation of new ways of governing. The bi-annual tabulation of the numbers of 'disreputable Japanese women' working overseas was made possible Modernization as creative problem making 57 by the invention of new procedures of documentation, computation and evalu- ation. It required the consuls to pay attention to particular techniques of writing, listing and numbering - surveys and presentational forms such as tables, for example. Second, the tables were meant to be a device for 'the inscription of reality', or 'the real state of affairs', in a form that could be debated and diag- nosed. The compilation of the information and the drawing up of the document was in itself a way of formulating the karayuki-san as an object and target of social administration in terms of a 'disreputable' and distinct class of women. It is also important to emphasize the historical importance of these adminis- trative devices. The tables and surveys posited the 'reality' of the women's lives in a technical manner, as the 'know how' which promised to make the regulation of the karayuki-san possible. The documentation of the women was done in the belief that the key to their unruliness, and also the means of combating it, lay in their opacity. The karayuki-san were opaque in two ways: first, in the sense that their numbers, location, mode of dwelling, and so forth were all unknown. Second, in cases where the circumstances of the karayuki-sari's lives were known, they appeared as an area of social life resistant to disciplinary regulation and a breeding ground for unsightly and supposedly anti-social behaviour. The surveys were a means of combating the inherently itinerant character of the women's lives by registering their movements, identifying their groupings and calculating their distribution. Karayuki-san as a problem of government The above history of the emergence of the karayuki-san as a class of 'disrepu- table women' may explain the series of conceptual and practical operations through which the women became constituted as a social problem that needed solving. However, this does not explain how the existence of the karayuki-san became re-configured as a problem of government in the context of how to 'coach' the Japanese people for the task of industrializing Japan under the rubric of modernization. As I mentioned earlier, the facts gathered by the consuls in their reports were made accessible to the public. The contents of the reports were not scrutinized just by bureaucrats, but also by people separated from the direct exercise of government. Educated members of the public were well informed as to the con- ditions of Japanese overseas trade, commerce and migration, and thus able to judge for themselves the urgency and necessity of intervention by the Japanese state. Second, the detailed collection and tabulation of knowledge about the lives of the karayuki-san was not carried out solely by consuls. Amateurs not directly connected to the exercise of government also reported on the existence of the karayuki-san. Japanese merchants, journalists and Christian reformers, calling upon their expertise on the karayuki-san, demanded that the Japanese state take action against the many women migrating overseas as sex labourers. Discussion of how the Japanese state should respond to the increasing number of Japanese 58 Bill Mihalopoulos women entering prostitution overseas developed into a public debate about the way in which political power should be exercised. Problem of over-government Not everyone, however, agreed that the karayuki-san were the urgent problem that they were made out to be by consular reports. During the mid-1890s, there was much public debate in Japan on the pros and cons of unregulated Japanese overseas migration and settlement. Advocates of unrestricted overseas migration argued that Japan's rulers should govern cautiously and delicately and avoid being heavy-handed in their regulation of the karayuki-san. A contemporary English-language newspaper, Japan Weekly Mail, had the following to report on the matter and is worth quoting at length: The Jiji Shimpo ... in recent issues, expresses want of sympathy with persons who cry out about the disgrace brought on the nation by Japanese prostitutes and other low class persons in foreign countries. The actual facts of the case, we read, in no way warrant the excitement caused. It is taken for granted that those who have started the agitation have given an accurate account of the state of affairs abroad. But this is the very point concerning which the Jiji has serious doubts. In reading the reports which Consuls send home it is neces- sary to bear in mind that the Japanese whose lives are most frequently brought to the notice of these officials are not fair representatives of the Japanese com- munity in any one place. It would be palpably unjust when reading a consular report to judge the character of the people under consular jurisdiction by the law-breakers of whose crimes the Consul has to take notice. Is it true . . . that Japan's national honour is tarnished by the bad characters that exist abroad? We think not. The restrictions put upon foreign travel during the past few years have been based rather on what foreigners might say than on what they have said. Constituted as the world is, the crossing of women of bad charac- ter from one country to another, or the wanderings of habitual loafers is unavoidable. Japan is not the only country which has subjects who bring her no credit. The Jiji understands perfectly how it comes about that Consuls lay so much stress on the existence of discreditable persons. It is the habit of such people to constantly apply at the Consulate when in any difficulty. 'If the supply of money from home does not arrive punctually, application for help is made at the Consulate; if the money has been stolen, if a Japanese finds himself unable to returned borrowed money, to pay his lodgings-house bill, if there be a complication of any kind, a dispute of any sort, the Consul is the man to whom to appeal'. . . . Good and evil is mixed in the world, and the best thing to do is to recognise the fact. Restriction on foreign travel is . . . pro- ductive of more evil than results from the importation of bad characters into foreign lands.19 Modernization as creative problem making 59 The message of the Jfiji was simple. Restrictions on any kind of travel overseas were more of an impediment to overseas migration and expansion than were the relatively small numbers of 'Japanese prostitutes' found abroad. This line of argument was fully endorsed by the Japan Weekly Mail which ended the article with a small editorial statement: '[w]e think undue prominence has been given to the subject here, and that Japan has no fear of being reproached for an abuse which exists in all countries alike, and is likely to do so to the end of time.'20 The comments of the Jiji centre on the political discovery that, by governing too much, rulers thwarted the very ends of government. The karayuki-san thus became an issue through which to address the appropriate conditions in which state intervention was permissible in public life. The perception here is that any state action leading to restrictions placed on the ability of Japanese subjects to migrate freely overseas will frustrate the objectives of modernization: the pro- motion of Japanese trade, commerce and overseas settlement. Fukuzawa Yukichi, a prominent educator and social critic, develops further the idea that commerce, trade and Japanese migration abroad were not pliable and open to manipulation by enlightened leaders in a series of articles written in January 1896. Fukuzawa penned the articles dealing with Japanese overseas expansion, the role of the state and the karayuki-san on the eve of the passing of the Migration Protection Law (Imin hogoho)2^ which saw the end of government- mediated labour migration.22 This legislation passed the responsibility for the undertaking and handling of overseas migration from the Japanese government to the business sector, namely the immigration companies (imingaisha)P In his articles, Fukuzawa emphasized that 'modernization' did not involve the government of individual conduct through fixed rules and regulations. Rather, he argued, the role of Japanese rulers was to limit any kind of government inter- ference that might disturb the natural process of Japanese expansion overseas. Commercially and territorially, Japanese overseas expansion was to be the cru- cible of a modern nation-state. Fukuzawa spoke about the karayuki-san in a manner that was not determined by divisions between moral and immoral behaviour, even if he did maintain a personal distinction for himself. He spoke of the women not simply as individuals to be condemned or tolerated, but as a natural phenomenon to be managed, inserted into systems of utility and to be shaped for the greater good of all - namely, the establishing of overseas Japan- ese settlements. The karayuki-san were here identified as an integral factor in overcoming Japan's pending over-population with an important part to play in the establishment of overseas settlements before national resources and strength were eroded. Fukuzawa's first two articles were devoted to the problem of Japanese settle- ment overseas. He began the first article by identifying a causal relationship between the strength of the nation and population: in countries past and present, the development of national strength had generally been accompanied by an increase in population. Therefore, argued Fukuzawa, if Japan was to increase its national strength and resources and promote the overall prosperity of the nation, Japan should follow the example set by the Anglo-Saxon race and induce her 60 Bill Mihalopoulos people to migrate. Fukuzawa identified the newly acquired Japanese colony of Formosa, the neighbouring countries of China, Korea, Annam, Siam, the islands scattered in the Pacific and South America as locations promising success to those Japanese subjects enterprising enough to migrate. Fukuzawa did not envis- age migration through piecemeal territorial acquisitions, but through the opening of territories that had not yet been made available for settlement. Developing Japanese communities in these areas would result in the promotion of commercial relations between those locations and Japan, as was the case with Great Britain and her colonies. The second article dealt with the suitability of the Japanese for settlement abroad. Fukuzawa answered in the affirmative on the grounds that the Japanese, like the British, appreciated the comforts of their own home and therefore were comparatively indifferent as to whether they lived at home or abroad as long as they had their families and their own firesides. His proof was that migration to Hawaii had proved an unqualified success.24 Fukuzawa's article on the karayuki-san appeared on 18 January under the title 'The migration of [Japanese] subjects and prostitutes working abroad' (jfinmin no iju to shofu no dekasegi). The article was devoted to outlining the importance of Japanese prostitutes in reconciling Japanese migrants to life in a foreign country. Fukuzawa's response to the indignation shown over the issue of Japanese pros- titutes abroad was to marvel at the commotion. He argued that, just as alcohol and tobacco were ceaselessly condemned for reasons of health, prostitution, too, no matter how loudly denounced on ethical or moral grounds, would never dis- appear as long as human society (ningen shakai) existed. Fukuzawa regarded out- cries against Japanese prostitutes going abroad cynically, especially since he rejected the notion that the women's existence discredited Japan in the eyes of the world. He likewise mocked the thought that efforts to keep prostitutes at home could delude the world into believing that prostitution did not exist in Japan. Rather, for Fukuzawa the major point concerning the women's existence was that they served a necessary purpose, one completely in harmony with larger national goals: There is only one reason that I deal with this question in particular. That is because I recognize that concerning the encouragement of overseas settle- ments for our people it is especially necessary for prostitutes to go abroad. The best scenario would be to try and have migrants move overseas as much as possible with their wives, taking with them the pleasures of a happy family life; by having the reassurance of their family it would be the same as if they were in their native homeland. But, migrants are not just married men. Indeed, one has recourse to appeal that, in the beginning, aspirants who want to migrate to the so-called unknown lands abroad are mostly single men without dependants. Moreover, in the case of married men, they initially migrate alone with the intention of calling for their wives from Japan after they are settled. Consequently, in the populations of overseas settlements the Modernization as creative problem making 61 proportion of women to men is meagre. As there are many people who recog- nize the necessity of prostitution even in Japan with its increasing population, I cannot help but feel more and more keenly the need for prostitutes given the circumstances found in newly opened lands. (KeioGijuku 1961: 363-4). The historical evidence Fukuzawa provides to support his argument is that, during the twilight of the Tokugawa reign over Japan, the British authorities in Hong Kong made a request for Japanese girls to be sent to the colony in order to service British troops stationed there. Russian authorities in Vladivostok also made numerous requests for Japanese women for similar reasons. Fukuzawa ends his article with his final words of advice: 'the encouragement of migration and the freedom of prostitutes to work abroad are on the face of the conduct of state affairs, a necessity' (KeioGijuku 1961: 364). The articles written by Fukuzawa provided a sustained argument calling for necessary limits on the exercise of political rule. Fukuzawa argued that demo- graphic growth and migration had their own internal logics and destinies, their own intrinsic mechanisms of self-regulation. Thus, interventions by the Japan- ese state in the process of overseas migration were liable to produce effects likely to hinder the establishment of Japanese settlements overseas. Fukuzawa was arguing that, for migration to function optimally in accordance with its nature, the act of governing must be linked to the private interests motivating the conduct of free and autonomous individuals. Japanese subjects wanting to migrate were equipped with rights and interests that were not to be interdicted by political power. Fukuzawa saw Japan's evolution into a modern nation-state as following the natural laws and rhythms of increases in population, migration and overseas settlements. The assumed role of proper government was not to impede the, sup- posedly evolutionary, natural course of events and restrict the migration of pros- titutes. Rather, it was to assure the allocated function of the karayuki-san as an intrinsic part of the process of overseas migration and the establishment of Japanese settlements. The karayuki-san were to be one of many developments aimed at stimulating overseas migration and settlement, such as wealthy mer- chants guaranteeing migrants fully-subsidized passages, the improvement of overseas communications, the expansion of Japanese maritime resources and government investment in overseas settlements for future profit and security.25 Need for government artifice Another theme that often appeared in accounts dealing with the karayuki-san was the potential economic ramifications of the women's existence. In contrast to the views put forward by Fukuzawa, the main emphasis of such accounts was the need for Japanese migration to exist under certain political, legal and institutional conditions that had to be actively constructed by government inter- vention. 62 Bill Mihalopoulos This call for intervention is best exemplified in the contents of a petition sent from Thursday Island in Australia in 1892 by a lower-class samurai from Kumamoto, Sasaki Shigetoshi, and thirty-six other migrant labourers26 asking for the expulsion of Japanese prostitutes from the island. In the petition, Sasaki pleaded in earnest for the women's forced return to Japan. He argued that: due to the people (women and men) involved in prostitution our emigrant labourers (dekasegi-nin) are at times called ignorant dark-skinned savages or subjects of a country of prostitutes. Also foreigners say to our labourers, in all seriousness, why don't you call for women from your country and put them to work as prostitutes? Rather than break into sweat in labour that only brings slight wages, isn't it more profitable to engage in prostitution and make money with ease? Examples of this kind are too numerous to mention.27 In Sasaki's eyes, such allegedly degrading behaviour involved political and commercial implications for Japan's international standing among 'civilized countries'. Japan's material, political and international standing as the most 'civilized' Asian country, he asserted, was jeopardized by the presence of these women overseas. As Sasaki went on to lament, it was not only the humiliation, but: also in relation to overseas commercial, agricultural and other enterprises, in political comparison to the Chinese, we Japanese are exceedingly inferior now because of the display of the likes of these filthy prostitutes. ... If we (Japan- ese] want to exaggerate this [superiority over the Chinese] by means of our Japanese nation being the England of the East, the first thing that should be initiated is the eradication of prostitutes of this sort.28 The women's conduct was unacceptable to Sasaki for two reasons. First, it highlighted Japan's state of 'under-development'; the women were constituted as an obstacle blocking Japan's progress towards a higher form of 'social being'. Second, in Sasaki's conceptualization of the potential Japanese nation, the labour of his fellow migrants differed from that of the women because it was seen as fostering the strength of the state in ways that would enable Japan to became the 'England of the East', a highly industrialized naval power capable of maintain- ing its autonomy within a framework of inter-state rivalry. The women's labour, on the other hand, failed to contribute to the productivity and strength of the state. Moreover, by the women persistently acting in disreputable ways, the Japanese were collectively constituted and positioned as being inferior to other racial groups, which in turn undermined the efforts of the Japanese state to achieve equity with the West. This concern with screening Japanese migrants before they went overseas is also prevalent in the reports of the honorary Japanese consul for Australia, Alexander Marks. He, too, shared Sasaki's belief that every individual woman of 'disreputable character' was an enormous threat to commercial and diplomatic relations between Japan and Australia. In December 1887, Marks informed Modernization as creative problem making 63 Tokyo that '[t]here is a tendency amongst a certain class to introduce into Australia women of bad character . . . and I fear that should numbers of the class be brought here by unscrupulous men considerable trouble would be the result'.29 In the wake of the restrictions placed on Chinese labourers by the Victorian government in 1881, Marks was filled with dread when he received word from Samuel Griffith, the premier of Queensland, that two more 'women of the unfortunate class' had arrived at Thursday Island. He immediately wired a reply calling for their deportation, fearing the presence of Japanese women of 'immoral character' would lead to restrictions being placed against all Japanese coming to Australia. In his report to Tokyo he explains: I am much afraid from the present temper of the various Legislation of the Australian colonies that a poll tax be levied on Japanese subjects should low women continue to arrive in Australia. ... I am apprehensive that action might be taken by the Australian Governments (who act conjointly in these matters) with a view of placing a heavy poll tax on Japanese subjects which might be avoided if possible. On two occasions a poll tax was threatened to be put on Japanese subjects should they try arrive in large numbers. I interviewed the different Premiers of the various colonies who feel well disposed towards your nationals as long as they come here in small numbers. But Australian Governments change and are much led by the working classes who will not have cheap labour compet- ing against them. . . . This communication I have taken the liberty of address- ing privately to your Excellency so that it might not by any means find its way into the Press and eventually reappear in the Australian papers. It would have a bad effect as all allusions to the subject of special tax should be strongly avoided.30 Marks' caution and diligence in attempting to prevent karayuki-san entering Australia was motivated by racial and economic concerns. He feared that an influx of Japanese females lacking such universal 'feminine' virtues as self- control, chastity and social decorum would be unacceptable to white Australians already suspicious of a growing Asian presence. Restrictions in the form of a poll tax on incoming Japanese would jeopardize the current practice of employing Japanese migrant labourers to work the sugar-cane plantations of north Queens- land and also hinder trade and commerce between the two countries. As a solu- tion, Marks proposed that the Japanese government take immediate action to implement ways of identifying Japanese women intending to work as prostitutes and measures preventing them from coming to Australia. The argument of Sasaki and Marks was simply this. Japanese migration had to be shaped and guided in order to produce the desired objectives. Unruly ele- ments such as the karayuki-san found within Japanese migration had to be regu- lated. Both argued that good government called for the provision of fixed regimes and rules that would prevent 'disreputable women' from leaving Japan. 64 Bill Mihalopoulos Christian philanthropic work and government Modernization as a means of transforming the Japanese people into a higher form of existence was an issue that had currency beyond rulers and bureaucrats. Educated members of the public also actively participated in debates on how Japan should proceed in order to become a powerful, wealthy and modern nation-state. One of the most vocal groups calling for unprecedented change within Japanese society were Japanese Protestant Christian organizations. The members of Christian organizations formed in the mid-1880s comprised men and women from a newly emerging class of urban professionals such as teachers and public servants. Christian beliefs were enthusiastically embraced as a resource to reach higher civil realities and spiritual standards. For Japanese Christians, Christian beliefs provided a moral and ethical orientation that would allow Japan to meet the dictates of material progress and, simultaneously, strengthen Japan's standing with other nations. The family founded on Christ- ian beliefs stood as a technical and moral model of how Japan should proceed to its future. The Japanese family, based on the principles of strict monogamy, the sanctity of the home and the wife's specific duties as the instrument of cultural diffusion, was put forward as the primary apparatus for the transformation of Japanese society to a 'higher existence'. The role of woman as educator and atten- tive mother was seen as crucial for the physical development of the Japanese child and the cultivation of its hidden potential and aptitudes. Although by no means politically radical in nature, Japanese Protestant Chris- tians were interested in reforming society. They were often at loggerheads with successive Japanese governments over the sanctioning of licensed prostitution and the threat this posed to the family, especially the specific duties of woman as wife and mother (Sievers 1983; Garon 1994). From the early 1880s, Japanese Christians began to form themselves into philanthropic organizations to induce good morals. The objectives of such organizations were twofold: to provoke the Japanese government into taking action to abolish all forms of prostitution and to find practical ways of correcting and redirecting the lives of women who had fallen into 'vice'. One of the first Japanese Christian organizations formed to combat the flow of Japanese women into brothels was the Japanese Women's Christian Temperance Union (Nihon Kirisutokyo Fujin Kyofukai). From its for- mation in 1886 until the mid-1930s the JWCTU campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of Japanese prostitution, domestically and abroad. In 1895 the JWCTU was joined by the newly formed Salvation Army (Kyuseigun) in the fight to abolish all forms of institutionalized prostitution. Both organizations combined charitable work with moral correction. By 1900, both groups had established several shelters for the rescue and rehabilitation of women who had fallen into prostitution in Japan and in Japanese settlements overseas (Sievers 1983: 92-8; Kurahashi 1990: 185-90). The JWCTU and Japanese Salvation Army understood prostitution as a sick- ness due to a social environment infected by bad moral habits and degradation. The statement of the JWCTU's founding begins with this item: '[t]he purpose of Modernization as creative problem making 65 this society is to reform corrupt social practices, cultivate morality, the prohibi- tion of drinking and smoking, and to develop the dignity of [Japanese] women.'31 It was in connection with these concerns that Christian philanthropic organiz- ations targeted the karayuki-san as an area of social life crying out for intervention. When the JWCTU first addressed the problem of overseas Japanese prosti- tutes in 1890, it was especially critical of the lack of action by the Japanese government concerning a problem that threatened the potency of the whole nation. For the JWCTU, the regulation of overseas Japanese prostitution was registered as a vital national and racial concern because: if Imperial Japan aims to be a supreme power in the East, a wealthy and mil- itarily strong country, and furthermore, spread its righteousness to the four corners of the world, the presence of many young Japanese girls living in con- ditions worse than slavery will stain the Japanese flag for a long time.32 Although the activities of the JWCTU deflected the problem of prostitution and the karayuki-san to the field of personal conduct and morality, they did align political objectives with the transformation of personal conduct.33 The alignment between personal conduct, morality and political objectives is clearly evident in the argument of a pamphlet produced jointly by the Kyoto branch of the Women's Reform Society (Fujin Kyoseikai) and the Young Men's Moral Reform Association (Seinen Kyofudantai) entitled 'Warning Bell: a warning to our compatriots at a time of national prosperity' (Keiteki- kokoku no jikinisaishi tsutsushinde maga dbhbni keikokusu). Written in April 1895, in the wake of Japan's military success against China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), the pamphlet addressed the social disorder brought by the spoils of victory and the harm this brought to the dignity of the Japanese race. The prevalence of prosti- tution and the ever-increasing numbers of Japanese prostitutes abroad were identified as visible symptoms of the general lapse in public morality. The pam- phlet traced the spread of Japanese prostitutes to the coasts of Asia, Africa, North America, as well as to Australia and other locations in the Pacific (Aburatani 1895: 3-4). It observed that the women were regarded as no more than highly valued exports, playthings for lower-class foreigners (Aburatani 1895: 7). The pamphlet grudgingly acknowledged the fact that the women were the forerunners of Japanese trade overseas. However, it was precisely the prevalence and economic success of Japanese prostitutes overseas, argued the Keiteki, that made the situation unbearable: [I]n the areas of the Pacific where Japanese prostitutes exist, the number of Chinese merchants exceed the tens of thousands. From this position of influ- ence they prosper. Our merchants, on the other hand, are small in number and consequently business does not flourish. They cannot even open a market for goods manufactured in Japan as commercial rights in general are deprived from our merchants by the Chinese. There are also many overseas Japanese emporiums barely making a living, dependent solely on the petty trade they have with prostitutes. One is given the unavoidable impression that the main 66 Bill Mihalopoulos trade of the Japanese is prostitution, and that the main article of commerce is harlots, because it appears that Japanese merchants with their wretched empo- riums are following these unsightly women. This is the reason why Japanese prostitutes, especially abroad, soil the dignity of our country and humiliate the honour of all our women. (Aburatani 1895: 8-10) Furthermore, it was argued that Japanese prostitutes brought about the moral degradation of Japanese expatriate communities. Keiteki maintained that the natural harmony of Japanese families residing abroad was destroyed because the authority of the patriarch was undermined by the dependence of men on the earning power of women. Women working as prostitutes ended up looking down on their male compatriots because of their earning power. To compound matters further, argued Keiteki, moral degradation was also spread by the women to their native villages by the manner in which they would return to their homes, adorned in gorgeous clothes and gold hair pins in the style of 'gentlewomen', brought from the earnings they had made as 'concubines to foreigners'. Seeing this display of gratuitous wealth, the other women of the village would look on the women with envy. In the end, postulated the Keiteki, the young women from the village, seeking to emulate the wealth of the returned women, were willingly lured overseas by promises of wealth, smuggled onboard outgoing ships to a life of depravity, idleness and addiction to drink (Aburatani 1895: 7-8). Keiteki concluded that the cause of prostitution was the environment from which the women came. The solution to the moral degradation of society through prostitution lay in the denunciation of corrupt religions (Buddhism and Shinto), the establishment of a system of monogamous marriage, eradicating the practice of married men keeping concubines, strengthening the sanctity of mar- riage to check the spread of divorce, as well as the regulation of prostitutes bound abroad. The path for the improvement of public morality and the dignity of Japan, according to Keiteki's argument, lay within the family, by means of the assumed peace and harmony of domestic life and the maternal functions of the housewife (Aburatani 1895: 21-4). The relationship between Christian philanthropic groups and the state changed during the first ten to fifteen years of the twentieth century from one of antagonism to one of converging interest in reforming social life. The reasons for this development were many. One factor was that bureaucrats and Japanese Protestant Christians increasingly shared common backgrounds and experi- ences. Both groups were constituted by an urban middle class of professional and salaried employees (Garon 1994: 351). The other factor was that government concerns tuned into the same frequency as philanthropic organizations and their work in the field of personal conduct and morality. The rise of what Sheldon Garon describes as 'social bureaucrats' coincided with the objective of the home ministry to relieve poverty and other sources of social unrest through social welfare programmes, coupled with campaigns to reshape popular mores and practices through education and practical moral instruction. This process can Modernization as creative problem making 67 be best described as an instance when state apparatuses invested in a variety of 'amateurs' the authority to act as experts in the integration of individuals into the social body. What one witnesses at this particular historical moment is the connection and assembly of forces and institutions deemed as 'political' with organizations that shaped and managed Japanese individual and collective conduct in relation to the norms and objectives of modernization but yet con- stituted as working outside politics. This concerted effort by sections of the home ministry to increase the welfare and quality of life for all Japanese subjects was not simply an attempt to install a social safety net for the maintenance of domestic order. It was a campaign which reassessed the total population of Japan as a valuable national resource, a vital element for production and a strong military, whose moral and physical health had to be maintained. It was in this realm of social and educational administration that networks of convergence and alliance between high-ranking civil servants and Japanese Christian reformers were formed. The Japanese government subsidized the shelters run by the Japanese Salvation Army and the JWTC for women made destitute or who wanted to leave prostitution. On other occasions the alliance was one based on expertise. The home ministry bureau- cracy relied extensively on the knowledge of prominent Christian reformers to inform its policy makers on the latest innovations in social and educational policy in the West (Garon 1993: 730-1). The special relationship between the state and Christian reformers is best illustrated in the process by which the Amukusa Islands were categorized as the source of Japanese women working overseas as prostitutes. Japanese Christian organizations sent out two expeditions in 1918 to examine the conditions of Japanese prostitutes following Japanese troops in northern Manchuria and Siberia due to the decision by the Terauchi cabinet to give military support to the Czech forces fighting against the Bolsheviks. The first expedition was under- taken by Nunokawa Magoichi, an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. His survey and assessment of the situation was published in the women's magazine Fujin Koron, under the pen name Seinen, in February 1918; it was entitled 'The soiled honour of Japanese women' (Nihon fujin no tsura yogoshi) (Maruoka and Yamaguchi 1980: 330). The second expedition was embarked upon by three representatives of the JWCTU. This expedition was organized in response to a letter sent to the JWCTU by an American represen- tative of their sister organization urging the 'mothers of Japan' to stop Japanese prostitutes tempting American soldiers in Siberia (Takemura 1982: 84). The two investigations drew the same conclusions: the presence and living conditions of Japanese prostitutes in the remote regions of Manchuria and Siberia were unacceptable. The dignity of Japan was being degraded. The large numbers of Japanese prostitutes subjected honest, good countrywomen to unjustifiable discrimination and prejudice from the local foreign communities. Moreover, the almost 'slave-like' existence of the Japanese women working in the brothels sabotaged Japan's standing vis-d-vis other 'advanced' nations (Maruoka and Yamaguchi 1980: 330). 68 Bill Mihalopoulos Both investigations also discovered that the majority of women originated from Kyushu, especially the Amakusa Islands and Shimabara regions. Armed with this discovery, the JWCTU representatives came to the conclusion that the only way the problem of overseas prostitutes could be successfully rectified was to stop the supply of women at their source. Information on the circumstances which led to the large numbers of women from these two locations migrating overseas to work as prostitutes was imperative. Before the conduct of the women could be corrected, detailed information was needed on the environment that produced them. Not having the resources to compile an extensive survey of both regions, the JWCTU approached Nunokawa and asked if he was willing to carry out a survey of the Amakusa Islands. Thus, during the summer of 1919, Nunokawa, at the request of the JWCTU, took three weeks' absence from work and travelled to the Amakusa Islands, whereupon he completed a survey on the local practice of women migrating overseas as sexual labourers (Kurahashi 1990: 219-20). His survey and analysis was published in 1920 as 'The problem of over- seas prostitutes: part one - Amakusa' (Kaigai shugydfu mondai: dai ichigb - Amakusa no bun)}1' Nunokawa's survey was a diagnosis of ways in which the pathological ills of the Amakusa Islands led the local women to a life of 'disrepute'. It was a study that revealed a systematic concern with the relationship between 'cultural back- wardness' and the susceptibility of women to engage in work as sex labourers. He identified the following reasons as the primary factors which led to young women from Amakusa going overseas to work as prostitutes; a) over-population and lack of industry, b) cultural underdevelopment, such as religious beliefs (Buddhism and Shinto) which were anti-social, and the inability of the women to learn and be directed, c) the lack of inherent ideals relating to chastity and virginity and d) the worshipping of 'mammon'. Moreover, in his summary, Nunokawa dismissed all arguments that the women were vital for Japanese expansion overseas. Contemporary Japan, having achieved what he considered a higher level of civilization, had no room for the existence of such women (Nihon Kirisutokyo Fujin Kyofukai: 51). The role of Nunokawa in mapping out the social ills leading to Japanese women prostituting themselves overseas illustrates the rise of a new formula for the exercise of rule. It reveals the role of Christian philanthropic organizations as mediators between the decisions and calculations of the home ministry and the reality of the karayuki-san. The 'expertise' of the JWCTU in correcting prostitution became linked to the formal political apparatus of rule in attempts to govern the undesirable and degenerate consequences caused by pockets of 'backwardness' in Japanese society. Under the rubric of modernization, a new relation emerged between expertise and politics. It was not simply a question of Japanese Christian organizations being co-opted into the Japanese state. Rather, the new formula of rule between expertise and politics points to a rather more complex relationship, one where the telos of Christian philanthropic organiz- ations, in terms of what it is to be a 'civilized' Japanese, became aligned with and incorporated into the deliberations of the home ministry in assigning to the Modernization as creative problem making 69 family its specific social duty to retain, supervise and educate its children as a condition of social and economic progress. Conclusion The inscription of the karayuki-san as 'overseas prostitutes' was the product of a series of conceptual and practical operations through which Japanese women who engaged in sexual labour outside Japan became constituted as a problem of government. The women's existence posed the question to successive Japanese governments as to what should be done to align the conduct of personal life with the political objectives of the state to reinvent Japan as a modern nation-state. As such, the karayuki-san as 'overseas prostitute' does not signify an immutable his- torical entity, but is, rather, the name of a historical construct produced by the very same conceptual and practical operations which turned the women into an object of certain forms of knowledge and a target for institutional intervention. The study of the diverse ways in which the women were recorded and cate- gorized is important, not simply in terms of the meanings produced, but also as reasoning tools that linked the women's conduct to political objectives. A whole network of varying, specific debates clustered around the karayuki-san in the context of Japan's efforts to modernize. The karayuki-san were not at all con- signed to a shadow existence, certainly not in the way some commentators on the women would have us believe.35 Rather, bureaucrats, Christian reformers, jour- nalists and merchants - to name but a few - were dedicated to speaking about the women ad infinitum. Although the forms in which the women were constituted as a problem of government were diverse, it is still possible to make this process intelligible. Docu- menting the women's lives was itself an act of government; it shaped and directed the conditions in which the women were to be regulated and managed. The actual documentation combined knowledge about the women with normative objectives such as overseas economic expansion, colonial settlement or the proper relation- ship between the sexes. The diverse information accumulated on the karayuki-san was both strategic and practical, and always oriented by political ends. Lastly, there is a broader significance to the history of the karayuki-san as a problem that requires governmental action. The investigation of how the karayuki-san become a problem requiring some kind of governmental response reveals that modernization was an ethos concerned with transforming and shaping the capacities and conduct of all Japanese in ways that were qualitatively different from the 'present'. The perceived connection between the backwardness of Japan and the existence of the karayuki-san posed the activity of government as essen- tially interdependent with the shaping of the moral and psychological makeup of the Japanese people. Modernization was not so much a substantive doctrine or practice of government in itself, but a kind of intellectual measuring stick or cri- tique used to judge how far Japan had or had not evolved as a modern nation. Modernization was both an activity and a way of thinking which led the Japanese, 70 Bill Mihalopoulos individually and collectively, constantly to reflect on what they were, what they could and should do, and the world that they found themselves in. The docu- mentation and utterances about the karayuki-san reveal how Japanese nation building was seen as an activity that involved the rethinking and reinventing of the ethical and political culture of Japan. Aalborg University, Denmark Notes Many thanks to Peter Williams, Graham Burchell, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Tom Osborne, Colin Gordon, Lynette Zeitz, Hugh Whittaker, Barry Keehn, Anne Showstack Sassoon, Chris Nelson and John Whalen-Bridge for their help and comments. 1 I would like to thank Graham Burchell for pointing out to me and clarifying this form of analysis. 2 Alexander Marks (1838-1919) established a business as a merchant in partnership with his brother in Hong Kong and Yokohama in 1858. He resided in Yokohama until 1872 whereupon he returned to Melbourne. He was appointed honorary Japanese consul at the opening of the Melbourne consulate in 1880. 3 A. Marks to vice-foreign minister Hayashi Tadasu, 19 Jan., 1892, (Gaimusho 1953b: 588-9). 4 A. Marks to foreign minister Mutsu Munemitsu, 21 Oct., 1892 (Gaimusho 1953b: 643-4). The complete sequence of correspondence is found on pages 624-52. 5 International exhibitions were another important means by which Japanese commerce and industry obtained technical and trade information from the rest of the world during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. An Exhibition Bureau (Hakurankai jimukyoku) was established within the home ministry to promote and co-ordinate Japanese exhibitions (Kornicki 1994: 169-71). 6 Taguchi Ukichi (1855-1905) established the influential journal Keizat zasshi (Journal of Economics). He was one of many leading Meiji thinkers who asserted that the regions south of mainland China were a separate and independent area, and that Japan was primarily a maritime power that should advance into the Pacific. 7 Around this time there was an urgent need of agricultural labourers in the Strait Settlements and Japanese migrants were seen as a possible answer. See extract from the Singapore Free Press entitled 'Japanese labour for the Straits settlement', reprinted in the Japan Weekly Mail, 25 October 1890. Saito's findings were published in serial form in the Shokumin kyokai hokoku in 1894-5, and in full by the Gaimusho tsushokyoko in August 1894 under the title Marehanto nanbuseigan shokoku junshiki. 8 See Foreign Ministry Archives files Hon Kon soryqji hokokusho, Code No. 6.1.6.7 and Shingapdru ryojikan hokokusho, Code No. 6.1.6.15: Tokyo. 9 The surveys went under the title Kaigai nihon jitsugydsha no chosa [Survey of Ex- patriate Japanese Entrepreneurs] (Tsunoyama 1986: 33, 39). 10 Receipt no. 926, 28 September 1892, Saito to vice-foreign minister Hayashi Tadasu 'Penan ni okeru yufu nihonfu shogimenkyo shutsugan ni tsuki setsuyu irai no ken' (H.F.T.K.Z.) 11 The Chinese Protectorate was established in 1877 by the British Colonial Govern- ment. It was established to protect the Chinese community and incoming coolie migrants from extortion by Chinese secret societies, and to prevent the illegal traffic in Chinese women and girls sold to brothel owners in Singapore. Modernization as creative problem making 71 12 Saito to the Protector of Chinese, 9 June 1893 (H.F.T.K.Z.). 13 Ibid. 14 Saito to the Protector of Chinese, 12 June 1894 (H.K.M.K.). 15 See undated memo by the Head of Communication Bureau, Asada Tokusoku, in response to Dispatch 19,22 March 1882, Shanghai consul-general Shinagawa Tadamichi to vice-foreign minister Ueno Kakenori (H.F.T.K.H.Z.). 16 Foreign minister Inoue Kaoru clearly asserts this position by the Japanese govern- ment regarding expatriate Japanese destitute overseas in his missive to British consul in Tokyo, J. Kennedy, no. 31, 25 June 1880, FO/262/527, Public Record Office, Kew Gardens. 17 San Francisco consul, Chinda Sutemi, to foreign minister Aoki Shuzo, Confidential Dispatch no. 6, 25 April 1891, 'Sen happyaku nen sangatsu mikka seitei gassshu kyujuihi koku kaitei gaikokujin iju jorei' (Gaimusho 1953a: 464). 18 Vice-foreign minister Komura Jutaro to Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco, Vancouver, Tacoma consuls and Vladivostok trade secretariat, March 1897, 'Honpo shu- gyofu no shutsunyu oyobi jokyo nado hokoku kata tsutatsu'. Exact instructions were sent on 31 July 1897 by vice-foreign ministry Komura Jutaro to consul-general of Hawaii, Minister Resident in Siam, and the consuls of Sydnev, Townsville and Manila (K.N.H.S.I.). 19 'Japanese reputation abroad', Japan Weekly Mail, 3 October 1891. 20 Ibid. 21 The Imin hogohowzs passed on 29 April 1896, and took effect on 1 June. 22 From 1885 to 1896, it was mainly male Japanese who migrated overseas as contract labourers under the auspices of the Japanese government. The labourers signed contracts to work for a three-year period. Most were sent to work on the sugar plantations in Hawaii and northern Queensland. 23 In 1896, government-mediated migration came to a close. The promotion of Japanese labour migration abroad was handed over to private business enterprises which recruited and shipped labourers for profit. 24 'Jinmin no ishoku', 4 January 1896, and 'Nihonjin wa ishoku ni tekisuruya inaya', 7 January 1896 (Keio Gijuku 1961: 350-4). 25 See 'Imin to kokai', 25 January 1896, and 'Imin no hogo', 26 January 1896 (Keio Gijuku: 371-3, 373-5). 26 Sasaki Shigetoshi seems to have been the leader of the Japanese labourers on Thursday Island. Many lower-class samurai acted as recruiters for emigration companies (iminkaisha) which mediated in obtaining contracts for and transporting Japanese labourers overseas (Moriyama 1985: 61). 27 Receipt no. 12758, 25 August 1892, sent by Sasaki Shigetoshi et al. to the Japanese foreign minister, via honorary Japanese consul in Australia, A. Marks. The petition was signed by thirty-six Japanese labourers in the country of South Australia (sic), State of Queensland. The petition is titled 'Shugyofujo kuchiku no ken nitsuki seigansho' (H.FT.K.Z.). 28 Ibid. 29 A. Marks to vice-foreign minister Aoki Shuzo, 13 December 1887 (H.F.T.K.Z.). 30 Private correspondence, A. Marks to vice-foreign minister Hayashi Tadasu, 11 October 1891 (H.F.T.K.Z.). 31 'Fujin kyofukai soritsu, yakuin oyobi kisoku' (Maruoka and Yamaguchi 1980: 206). 32 Nihon Kirisutokyo Fujin Kyofukai, 'Keiho oyobi minp5 kaisei narabi ni zaigaikoku bai-infu torishimariho seitei ni kansuru seigan' (Maruoka and Yamaguchi 1980: 30). 33 Philanthropic organizations were not the only institutions concerned with the social function of women within the household and in the education of future Japanese subjects. Mori Arinori (1847-89), the architect of Japan's pre-war education system, regarded women's education as a pillar of the state: 72 Bill Mihalopoulos The foundations of national prosperity rest upon education; the foundations of education upon women's education. We must remember that the safety or peril of the state are related to the success or failure of women's education. It is extremely important to foster the spirit of thinking of the nation in our education of women. (Hall 1973: 423). 34 A similar survey was carried out of the Shimabara region in 1921 and published in 1922. Unfortunately I have been unable to locate a surviving copy thus far. 35 Both Yamazaki Tomoko and Morisaki Kazue, the two writers who, in the 1970s, re- identified the karayuki-san as a product of the repressive patriarchal nature of the modern Japanese state, reiterated their opinion that the women were largely ignored by the Japanese state even when references to the karayuki-san were found in the 'Stenographed Proceedings of Closed Door Sessions held by the House of Peers' (Kizoku-in himitsukai giji sokkijutsu shit). The Proceedings were made open to the public in June 1995. SeeAsahi shimbun and Kumamoto nichinichi, 5 June 1995. 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