◆ Jiang Feng, chief writer of "Japanese Overseas Chinese Daily".
August 15, 1945, the day of defeat of the Japanese nation. On that day, President Kikumatsu Ogawa of Seibundo Shinkosha of a Japanese publishing house was on a business trip, and when he passed through Iwai Station in Chiba Prefecture, he heard Japan's national "obituary" - Emperor Hirohito's "Edict of the End of the War".
However, this Ogawa Kikumatsu did not cry to death like thousands of Japanese at that time, but had a thought in his heart: whether he likes it or not, the US army is about to occupy Japan. In the future, there will certainly be more and more opportunities for Japanese people to come into contact with Europeans and Americans. In this way, the Japanese have to pass on their ideas to them, and the Japanese have to do everything possible to find a way to understand their ideas. All of this is premised on learning English!
Ogawa Kikumatsu hurried back to Tokyo and went straight to the publishing house without going home. Immediately arranged for the relevant employees to draw up a planning plan, and asked an employee named Mio Kato to immediately write a Japanese plan, and asked Katsumasa Itakura, who was a "nobody" at the time, to take charge of the work of "turning the Japanese into English", and a simple and only 32-page "Japanese-American Conversation Journal" was quickly edited.
"It's priced at 50 yuan per volume", after Ogawa Kikumatsu said this, the head of the publishing department's distribution section, Ji Yezhong, jumped to his feet and objected, "No, let's still price 1 yuan per volume." I can guarantee that at this price, it will be able to sell 1 million copies. Ogawa Kikumatsu looked at him and said in his heart, "Is this kid in the water?" But because the distribution and sales still depend on him, he patiently discussed with him and said, "Otherwise, the price of each copy is 80 yuan, right?"
In this way, on September 15, 1945, a month after Japan announced its defeat and surrender, the book "Handbook of Japan-American Conversation" appeared on the streets of Tokyo, Japan. The first edition was printed in 300,000 copies! You must know that before August 15, 1945, English was designated as a "hostile language" by the government in Japan.
Orders flew to the publishing house like snowflakes. The "Dai-Nippon Printing" company, which undertook the printing, was frowning at the defeat and surrender, and at the moment it was as happy as wrestling and picking up an ingot. All printing presses rotate day and night 24 hours a day, and all printing workers go to work every day except for a few hours of sleep! They never dreamed that they could make money by "defeating the war."
By the end of 1945, the "Japan-U.S. Conversation Journal" had increased its sales in Tokyo from 300,000 copies to 3 million copies. There is also an "English craze" in various parts of Japan, and there is a scene where it is difficult to find a book. Ogawa Kikumatsu had an idea and sold the typesetting of the book to Hoshino Shoten in Nagoya and Hakushodo Publishing in Kyoto, selling more than 200,000 copies at once. Subsequently, the cities of Kawagoe and Utsunomiya in Japan also obtained the printing rights, and each printed and sold 100,000 copies.
The market is always like this, after a best-selling product comes out, multiple "imitation best-sellers" will follow. Soon, NHK Radio put down the "boss" shelf and also came out to write English conversations, and Aiyusha's "Japan-U.S. Conversation" directly challenged the "Japan-U.S. Conversation Journal".
Speaking of which, Ogawa Kikumatsu is really "alternative". At the age of 15, when he did not graduate from high school, he entered the "metropolis" Tokyo from the "countryside" Ibaraki, first as a "shopkeeper" in a bookstore, and then "jumped" to one of the bookstore's suppliers, "Zhichengdo" Publishing House, and at the age of 24, he "independently" founded "Chengbundo" Publishing House. At the age of 47, he merged with Shinkosha and became the owner of "Seibundo Shinkosha". During this period, many best-selling books were published.
By the way, it should also be noted that when Ogawa Kikumatsu was preparing to publish the "Journals of Japan-U.S. Conversations", he was strongly opposed by his two sons, who were the "successors". They said, "Dad, although you have experience in publishing best-selling books, no one can guarantee whether this book will be a bestseller or not." With our own future in mind, we can't let you do it so casually, and the paper we manage can't let you use it so casually. This time, it was not that the arm could not twist the thigh, but that the thigh did not twist the arm, and Ogawa Kikumatsu finally published the book in the name of the "Science Textbook Society".
If you get rich and hold silver here, there must be people over there who are hot-eyed. Don't look at the fact that you published the "Japan-US Conversation Handbook", there are still people who have a way to find the US military headquarters in Japan to "denounce" Ogawa Kikumatsu. He never dreamed that on December 22, 1947, he would be designated as a "war criminal" in the publishing industry and deprived of the power of the director of the publishing house.
It was not until October 13, 1950 that Ogawa Kikumatsu was removed from the blacklist of "war criminals" and returned to the Shinkosha of "Seibundo" as the president. By this time, however, his ambitions to dominate the publishing industry had quietly faded.
Was it a coincidence? In 1957, the Shinkosha of Seibundo published the "Hounds Gun Hunting and Shooting Dictionary" edited by Ogawa Kikumatsu. In 1962, Kikumatsu Ogawa committed suicide with a shotgun.
Today, when Japanese people are still speaking broken English, I wonder if I remember Kikumatsu Ogawa, who made an outstanding contribution to the "English learning" of Japanese society after the war. Anyway, the US troops stationed in Japan did not buy his face back then. (Revised on April 22, 2024 at Mehood Ritz Hotel Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, China)