Jodai Yoshi (1878-1927)
Jan. 30th, 2026 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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senzenwomen[Note that I can only find one (1) source for this lady at all, so the accuracy of this account may be in (even) more question than usual.]
Jodai Yoshi was born in Nagasaki in 1878; her original family name was Arashima, but she was adopted as a baby by the Jodai family, who ran a restaurant/bar. She grew up as an apprentice geisha, learning dance, shamisen, koto, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony. In 1903, when the family fortunes suffered, she went out to Manchuria to earn some money. The Russo-Japanese War began the following year; Yoshi followed the army north to Mukden [Shenyang] and then south to Changchun, doing well for herself. At thirty she opened her own restaurant/brothel in Harbin, the Musashino, which had its own bathhouse and was popular with vagabonds and adventurers.
As Russia made inroads into Manchuria, Yoshi was recruited by the Kantogun to serve as a spy. She used her network of women throughout Manchuria and Siberia, mostly karayuki-san (like the two O-Kikus) who knew the region and its inhabitants of all nationalities. Reports went to a brothel madam in Irkutsk. The Musashino, now employing a large number of these karayuki-san, became a private-sector spy factory of sorts, where women grew practiced at teasing classified information out of their customers in bed or over drinks. For some of them it was a chance to feel redeemed for past experiences considered shameful, whether being sold as a child, fleeing to the Continent to avoid rap sheets in Japan, surviving a love suicide, or much worse. Yoshi herself survived the Russo-Japanese War and the following upheavals, remaining in control of the Musashino to die a wealthy woman in 1927 at the age of forty-eight.
Jodai Yoshi was born in Nagasaki in 1878; her original family name was Arashima, but she was adopted as a baby by the Jodai family, who ran a restaurant/bar. She grew up as an apprentice geisha, learning dance, shamisen, koto, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony. In 1903, when the family fortunes suffered, she went out to Manchuria to earn some money. The Russo-Japanese War began the following year; Yoshi followed the army north to Mukden [Shenyang] and then south to Changchun, doing well for herself. At thirty she opened her own restaurant/brothel in Harbin, the Musashino, which had its own bathhouse and was popular with vagabonds and adventurers.
As Russia made inroads into Manchuria, Yoshi was recruited by the Kantogun to serve as a spy. She used her network of women throughout Manchuria and Siberia, mostly karayuki-san (like the two O-Kikus) who knew the region and its inhabitants of all nationalities. Reports went to a brothel madam in Irkutsk. The Musashino, now employing a large number of these karayuki-san, became a private-sector spy factory of sorts, where women grew practiced at teasing classified information out of their customers in bed or over drinks. For some of them it was a chance to feel redeemed for past experiences considered shameful, whether being sold as a child, fleeing to the Continent to avoid rap sheets in Japan, surviving a love suicide, or much worse. Yoshi herself survived the Russo-Japanese War and the following upheavals, remaining in control of the Musashino to die a wealthy woman in 1927 at the age of forty-eight.
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Date: 2026-01-30 03:48 pm (UTC)What is this about?
And the last few entries have been fascinating, even if I haven't commented much!