In Chinese culture, forgetting one's ancestors is a very serious crime, and those who stay in foreign languages are too slippery to forget what they Chinese often ridiculed as "fake foreign devils". However, this situation is not the case in Japan - Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso announced on the 9th that in order to reflect the latest anti-counterfeiting technology of banknotes and welcome the arrival of the New Year number "Reiwa", the design of 10,000 yen, 5,000 yen and 1,000 yen banknotes will be changed, of which 5,000 yen banknotes will be printed on the Japanese female educator Tsuda Umeko. This woman, according to our Chinese, is a "fake foreign devil" - in order to learn English, she even forgot her native Japanese.
Born in Edo on December 3, 1864, Umeko Tsuda was the second daughter of Mori Tsuda and Hatsuko Tsuda. Tsuda's father was a local official in charge of foreign affairs and was fluent in spoken English. When Tsuda was three years old, his father accompanied Japanese officials to the United States for six months. He was deeply impressed by American weapons, science, and technology, and his ideas had a great influence on Tsuda. At that time, the new Government of Meiji in Japan strove to pursue the method of cultivating Japanese women as "good wives and mothers". Women remain subordinated to men in all aspects of society and culture. The Japanese government encourages officials visiting Europe or the United States to accompany their wives. Women are also encouraged to broaden their knowledge, but not for self-improvement, but to develop the next generation of intelligence. The government decided to send a small group of girls to the United States for a ten-year study, providing them with subsidies including travel, schooling, and living every year. When Tsuda's father heard the news, he quickly signed up for Tsuda, and 7-year-old Tsuda was the youngest of all the girls selected. They followed a mission led by Iwakura to the United States on December 23, 1871. Tsuda and Ryoko Yoshisumo, 15, live together at the home of Charles Lanman near Washington.
Tsuda was sent to a private school. While living in Lanman's house, she was baptized and became a Christian. As time went on, she became more and more American, and even gradually forgot Japanese in order to learn English. In 1882, she returned to Japan with 4 other girls. Forgetting Japanese, she could only communicate with her father and an older sister in English, but she could not communicate with her mother or anyone else in the family. Although Tsuda soon relearned Japanese, throughout his life he could not speak Japanese as fluently as the average Japanese, but always with a little American flavor. In addition, her ideas are also American, and her works are all written in English.
It stands to reason that it would be difficult for Tsuda to adapt to life in Japan when he returned home. At marriageable age, she still doesn't have the social skills needed in Japanese society and doesn't want to get married. Tsuda was determined to spread what he had learned, but japanese girls at the time had few opportunities to receive an education. In 1883, she worked as a tutor for the children of Japan's first Prime Minister, Hirobumi Ito. In 1885, at Ito's recommendation, Tsuda entered the Chinese Girls' School to teach. Teaching at this school still can't satisfy her, and she hopes to receive more American education. She got in touch with american friends to help her secure scholarships and in 1889 went to Brin Mawr College for further studies. Tsuda studied in the United States for two and a half years as a special student, and her performance in biology, chemistry, and English subjects was outstanding. At the same time, she also developed a plan to improve higher education for women in Japan.
She took a closer look at the Networks of American Society and pressure groups that had forced universities and colleges to open up to women, often spoke publicly about the lack of higher education for women in Japan, and formed a group to raise donations to fund her efforts. The Japanese Women in the United States Scholarship Committee, made up of women from different Protestant denominations, initially raised $8,000 in donations, but that wasn't enough. The group spent the next 80 years working to advance japanese girls' education. Tsuda returned to Japan in 1892 and again taught at the Chinese Girls' School. In 1898, she became a professor at the Higher Normal School for Girls, the predecessor of the Ochanomizu Women's University. In February 1899, the Japanese government decreed that each prefecture must build more than one girls' high school. In August, private schools were recognized by the government. The number of girls' and women's schools has grown rapidly, but only one higher normal school for girls, which trains English teachers, is providing higher education. Tsuda decided to start her own private school for girls, and her Girls' English School opened in 1900, and in 1951, the school was officially renamed Tsuda Juku University, which has always been a famous and feminist center among Japanese girls' schools.
The life experience of Tsuda Umeko reminds people of the fate of Chinese students studying abroad in the same era, in recent history, China and Japan have opened the door of the country almost at the same time, and there are also a group of young people who went abroad at an early age. There have even been talents like Rong Hong who stayed in the West earlier than Tsuda, and even more talented and well-connected (Rong Hong was a highly qualified student at Yale, and he was a classmate of american elites such as Wilson, who later became president). However, these earliest returnees, after returning to China, were all ridiculed as "fake foreign devils" and could not be reused as they deserved. The fate of Tsuda Umeko, who has forgotten her mother tongue, and their different fates may reflect from one side the internal reasons why China and Japan have embarked on different paths in modern times.
Qilu Evening News Qilu One Point reporter Wang Yu
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