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Mutsu Ryoko (1856-1900)
Mar. 29th, 2024 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiMutsu Ryoko was born in 1856 in Edo as the daughter of a samurai bannerman and his concubine. After the Meiji Restoration, she became a geisha [perhaps because of her illegitimacy, perhaps because her family had fallen from grace due to being on the wrong side in the Imperialist vs bakufu conflict?], where she earned the contradictory reputation of being both popular for her beauty and intelligence and a chaste man-hater. In 1872, at seventeen, she married Count Mutsu Munemitsu, three months after the death of his first wife Renko, becoming stepmother to his sons Hirokichi and Junkichi. The following year Ryoko gave birth to a daughter of her own, Sayako.
Munemitsu spent five years in prison on charges of treason against the government; upon his release in 1882, he went to study in Europe. During both separations, he and Ryoko exchanged passionate letters in which, among other things, he urged on her wide reading habits (and told her to eat oatmeal regularly). Ryoko, remaining in Japan, spent her time while he was in prison caring for her mother-in-law Masako and working for the Red Cross; after her husband’s rehabilitation she became one of the leading ladies of the Rokumeikan along with another diplomat’s wife, Toda Kiwako, better known for her musical adventures in Vienna.
In 1888, when Munemitsu became ambassador to the United States, he took the whole family (apart from Hirokichi, who was studying at Cambridge and getting to know his future wife Ethel) with him; Junkichi attended Cornell and Sayako went to balls in Washington with her mother. Ryoko’s beauty and accomplishment earned her the title of “the flower of Washington society.” She also became famous for spending two hours every morning translating Japanese novels into English for publication (sadly, the titles and results do not seem to have survived).
Munemitsu died in 1897. After his death, Ryoko adopted Kaneda Fuyuko, the daughter he had fathered with a Gion geisha; Fuyuko became part of her half-brother Hirokichi’s household when Ryoko herself died in 1900.
Sources
Nakae
https://mag.japaaan.com/archives/155309/3 (Japanese) 3-page article with numerous photos and some fanciful conversations
http://setubikougyo.co.jp/publication/column/column354.pdf (Japanese) Straightforward biographical article
https://leftygolf.jp/aboutjapanpost/6-two-geishas-behind-the-dawn-of-modern-japan/ (English) Comparison of Ryoko and Ito Umeko, also with good photos (why this article is on the site of the Left-Handed Golfers of Japan I can’t imagine)
Munemitsu spent five years in prison on charges of treason against the government; upon his release in 1882, he went to study in Europe. During both separations, he and Ryoko exchanged passionate letters in which, among other things, he urged on her wide reading habits (and told her to eat oatmeal regularly). Ryoko, remaining in Japan, spent her time while he was in prison caring for her mother-in-law Masako and working for the Red Cross; after her husband’s rehabilitation she became one of the leading ladies of the Rokumeikan along with another diplomat’s wife, Toda Kiwako, better known for her musical adventures in Vienna.
In 1888, when Munemitsu became ambassador to the United States, he took the whole family (apart from Hirokichi, who was studying at Cambridge and getting to know his future wife Ethel) with him; Junkichi attended Cornell and Sayako went to balls in Washington with her mother. Ryoko’s beauty and accomplishment earned her the title of “the flower of Washington society.” She also became famous for spending two hours every morning translating Japanese novels into English for publication (sadly, the titles and results do not seem to have survived).
Munemitsu died in 1897. After his death, Ryoko adopted Kaneda Fuyuko, the daughter he had fathered with a Gion geisha; Fuyuko became part of her half-brother Hirokichi’s household when Ryoko herself died in 1900.
Sources
Nakae
https://mag.japaaan.com/archives/155309/3 (Japanese) 3-page article with numerous photos and some fanciful conversations
http://setubikougyo.co.jp/publication/column/column354.pdf (Japanese) Straightforward biographical article
https://leftygolf.jp/aboutjapanpost/6-two-geishas-behind-the-dawn-of-modern-japan/ (English) Comparison of Ryoko and Ito Umeko, also with good photos (why this article is on the site of the Left-Handed Golfers of Japan I can’t imagine)
