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journal article Review: [Untitled]Reviewed Work: Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai. by Tokugawa Samurai, Teruko Craig Review by: Anne Walthall Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988) , pp. 374-376 (3 pages) Published By: Sophia University https://doi.org/10.2307/2385060 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2385060 Read and download Log in through your school or library Alternate access options For independent researchers Read Online Read 100 articles/month free Subscribe to JPASS Unlimited reading + 10 downloads Purchase article $12.00 - Download now and later Journal Information Founded in 1938 and published semiannually by Sophia University, Monumenta Nipponica (MN) is one of the oldest English-language academic journals in the field of Asian studies. As a peer-reviewed international forum for researchers across the globe, it carries original scholarly contributions on premodern and modern history, literature, art history, religion, and thought; translations of important Japanese literary and historical sources; and authoritative reviews of recent books on Japan. Publisher Information Sophia University was established in Tokyo in 1913 by the Society of Jesus. Beginning its educational efforts with a small staff and only a handful of students, the university confronted many difficulties in its early years. The decision in 1938 to undertake publication of Monumenta Nipponica despite these problems symbolized the founders' commitment to academic excellence, an international orientation, and a liberal spirit. Today, building on this tradition, Sophia has developed into one of Japan's leading private universities, with a student body of nearly 14,000 and a multinational faculty of some 1,500 as of 2019. Note: This article is a review of another work, such as a book, film, musical composition, etc. The original work is not included in the purchase of this review. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. 2,629 Previews 28 Favorites No suitable files to display here. 14 day loan required to access EPUB and PDF files. Books to Borrow Books for People with Print Disabilities Internet Archive
Books Scanned in China Uploaded by Lotu Tii on September 18, 2013 Fred Smithberg Armstrong State University (Savannah, Georgia)  Neo-Confucian thought and Zen Buddhism dominated Edo Japan and strongly influenced the Code of Bushido. Neo-Confucianism stressed filial piety, loyalty, obedience, and a sense of indebtedness to superiors. This was the ideal accepted by Japanese society for all Japanese and especially the samurai. Unfortunately, for Katsu Kokichi and for thousands of other unemployed samurai, this ideal proved to be elusive. With the end of the wars of unification, the samurai class struggled to find relevancy within the shogunate and would compete with the new merchant class for power and influence. Government positions were few in number and Katsu complained about this circumstance when he said: “Often my name was entered on the rolls of candidates, but not once was I given a post, and that I found very galling.”[5] At the top of the samurai class structure more opportunity existed, but at the level of the bannerman, like Katsu, there were few opportunities for the uneducated to achieve government employment. As a result of the realities of the Edo period, Katsu became the antithesis of the neo-Confucian samurai. He was more like a mafia don and crime boss than a righteous man, the ideal described by neo-Confucian thought and bushido. Katsu was a braggart, a bully, a brawler, a wife beater, a hustler, and more importantly a racketeer. He was the epitome of “a criminal servant of the shogun,” a street fighter and a thief.[6] He was a misfit and a juvenile delinquent, an outsider who would join the thousands of the poor and landless even though he had social status as a samurai. This was the new reality of the peaceful Edo Japan. Katsu scorned education and only learned to read and write in his early twenties. As a lower level samurai and unemployed retainer of the shogun, Katsu was expected to practice and live up to bushido. Unfortunately, that required money and a government position, two things that Katsu did not have. Instead, he joined the many dispossessed in Edo Japan and he existed and thrived on the fringes of Japanese society. Katsu became by personality and circumstance, attracted to a counter culture of racketeers and ruffians that rose from the gamblers (bakuto), street peddlers (tekiya) and unemployed samurai (hatamoto-yakko).[7] This counter culture of misfits and juvenile delinquents became the Robin Hoods of Edo Japan, but more importantly would create the beginnings of organized crime. With the new tastes for entertainment in the teahouses and brothels in districts like the Yoshiwara in Edo, a new class of organized criminal rose to take advantage of the new realities. It would not be until after Katsu’s retirement that he realized that he had not lived up to the standards expected of a samurai. He would eventually seek education and enlightenment and as a result leave only his autobiography as a warning to his posterity. Yakuza members attending local festival. Wiki picture. Katsu Kokichi began his criminal path with a spiral toward juvenile delinquency in early childhood. “I was naughty from the time I was little and made life difficult for my mother, and with my father away at his office everyday, I acted up and was so headstrong that all were at their wit’s end.”[8] Personal honesty (makoto) was a tenant of bushido and Katsu was never able to live up to the ideal.[9] Instead, he became a petty thief at a very early age, a trend that would follow him into adulthood. “My mother would put away the sweets and cakes that people gave us. I would steal them, so she took to hiding them here and there.”[10] Katsu continued to steal from his family and would progress from stealing sweets to stealing money. “I began stealing from my mother’s pin money and the cash she had set aside for emergencies.”[11] Katsu’s wild and generally dishonest nature coupled with his experiences as a runaway would serve to form his future character. His exposure to beggars, peddlers, and thieves on the Tokaido became a manifestation of the social and economic changes of Edo Japan and would create Katsu’s world view. Katsu was inextricably drawn toward the underworld and people on the fringes of society like himself. He would say, “You’ve got to admit, the friendship between beggars is something special.”[12] If friendship between beggars was special, he would find the friendship between peddlers to be even more sublime. The peddlers in the Edo period, along with gamblers and unemployed samurai, were credited as the fathers of organized crime in Japan. Katsu was exposed to this phenomenon as a teenage runaway and itinerant fisherman and would embrace their ethos and lifestyle. “We would haul the boat about three or four hundred yards inland and set out the nets to dry. Then each of us would be given a small share of the day’s catch to peddle in Odawara.” [13] As an adult, Katsu makes the leap from street thug and gang leader to racketeer and joins the ranks of organized criminals. He gets involved with illegal “shadow lotteries” and said: “I joined forces with Tokuyama and on “shadow lotteries” alone made ninety ryo. Apart from this we easily made ten or twenty ryo any number of times.”[14] He becomes a rent collector and an enforcer, and when fired from that position he steals the rents. “I went around to collect the rents that were due and pocketed the money.”[15] Katsu becomes a loan shark and begins to loan money at illegal interest rates. “The gambling game gave me the idea of lending money to friends and acquaintances at high interest. It was a profitable arrangement, as I soon found out.”[16] Katsu would create and operate a protection racket in Yoshiwara and would brag about his power and authority in the district. “For the last three or four years, I had fallen into dissolute ways and been spending most of my time in Yoshiwara. So much so that the roughnecks who prowled through the quarters had become my underlings and no one dared defy me.”[17] Katsu had finally transitioned from petty thief and thug into a crime boss providing protection services in the Yoshiwara district. “I had them patrol the brothels in the vicinity and dispatched a man whenever a customer got out of hand. In return the proprietors sent over gifts of cash. It was all very simple-I was the boss of the entire neighborhood.”[18] By his mid-thirties, he had essentially become the boss of all those toughs making a living as enforcers in the Yoshiwara.[19] Katsu move from gang leader to crime boss can easily be compared to a modern Yakuza gangster patrolling nightclubs in the Ginza. In Yakuza by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro, a modern gangster named Goro Fujita is described and is hauntingly similar to Katsu. Goro was described this way: “He is, in fact, a former gangster, a veteran of the Tosei-Kai, the largely ethnic Korean gang known for its ruthless control of nightclubs in Tokyo’s famous Ginza district. But Goro Fujita no longer patrols the night streets for the ‘Ginza Police,’ as they were once called.” [20] Katsu Kokichi was the creation of the times in which he lived. A samurai with a small stipend and no real prospects, status without economic power, he would turn from sword merchant to a life of crime. Katsu’s story is the story of the development of organized crime in Edo Japan and the precursor of modern Japanese crime families like the Yakuza and its offshoot, the Yamaguchi Gumi. Katsu justified his criminal activities by becoming a Robin Hood figure. He began righting wrongs, helping others and displaying ostentatious generosity, a modus operandi of crime bosses today. “I always put giving to others first, helping neighbors as a matter of course and those in need according to who they were.”[21] Katsu lived a hedonistic lifestyle and neglected the needs of his family. Like the modern day mafia don, he wore expensive woolen clothing and spent large amounts on his own pleasure while his family were left wanting. His questionable activities were not lost on his successful older brothers and his lifestyle met with their condemnation. “You are wicked and utterly without scruples. And what’s this you’re wearing-a woolen haori? Tell me, what makes you think you can act so arrogantly?”[22] The answer was that Katsu had been a failure as a samurai, but had become a respected and arrogant leader of organized crime, a new reality in Edo Japan. Katsu had found his niche in a growing criminal organization and was able to find the respect that he craved, but was denied by the rigid structure of the shogunate. Katsu’s criminal creations in Edo Japan and their antecedents continue to reverberate through modern Japanese society today. About the author Fred Smithberg is a retired airline pilot and U.S. Marine Corps officer. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and of the U.S. Naval War College. Now he lives in Savannah and takes history courses he loves at Armstrong State University. Recommended citation Smithberg, Fred. “Musui’s Story or Mafia’s Story: A Different Reading of The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai.” Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History 6, no.2 (Nov. 2016). Notes [1] David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro, Yakuza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 8, 13. [2] Kaplan and Dubro, Yakuza, 8. [3] Kaplan and Dubro, Yakuza, 7. [4] Mitsuo Kure, Samurai; An Illustrated History (Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2001), 10. [5] Kokichi Katsu, Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai, Trans. by Teruko Craig (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988),72. [6] Kaplan, and Dubro, Yakuza, 5. [7] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 7. [8] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 9. [9] Nitobe Inazo, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, 13th ed. (1908; repr., Merchant Books, 2009), 54. [10] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 11. [11] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 20. [12] Katsu. Musui’s Story, 33. [13] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 40. [14] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 84. [15] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 87. [16] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 111. [17] Katsu. Musui’s Story, 106. [18] Katsu, Musui’s Story, 145. [19] David R. Ambaras, Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.), 17. [20] Kaplan and Dubro, Yakuza. [21] Katsu. Musui’s Story, 97. [22] Katsu. Musui’s Story, 103. |
Musuis story the autobiography of a tokugawa samurai
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