"I have two relatives, China and Japan, China is the country of my mother, and Japan is the country of my father."
Li Xianglan was a household name in the 1930s and 1940s.
In the 1994 film "Domestic Zero Zero Paint" starring Stephen Chow, Li Xianglan's name was also mentioned. Although Xingye portrayed her as a villain, many people remember the song "Li Xianglan" sung by Jacky Cheung at the end of the film.
Li Xianglan has a lot of labels, she is a famous singer and movie star, is a woman who can make people fascinated at a glance, but she is saddled with the mystery of traitors and spies, and she has been misunderstood by the outside world because of her identity.
Figure | Li Xianglan
One
In 1932, in a luxurious mansion in Fengtian (present-day Shenyang), a lively recognition ceremony was being held.
The so-called recognition of relatives is to recognize each other's children as adopted daughters in order to deepen the interaction between good friends.
The protagonist of the ceremony is a 12-year-old Japanese girl named Shuko Yamaguchi wearing a flower hairpin and wearing a red cheongsam. She had beautiful big eyes and long, pitch-black, slightly curly hair, and a slightly baby-fat face that showed an innocent look.
The two sides of the ceremony were Li Jichun, president of Shenyang Bank, and Fumio Yamaguchi, a Japanese who works on the Manchuria Railway in Japan. Shuko Yamaguchi was the eldest daughter of Fumio Yamaguchi, and after solemnly prostrating her head three times to Li Jichun and toasting a glass of wine, she officially became Li Jichun's dry daughter.
In order to commemorate this relationship, Li Jichun racked his brains to give his daughter a Chinese name Li Xianglan. The word "pandan" was once the pen name used by Fumio Yamaguchi in the creation of haiku, and the orchid is also a famous flower, which has always been known for its noble and elegant temperament.
In this way, a name that could not be erased in the history of China and Japan was born, and since then, the world has only known Li Xianglan, and almost completely forgotten her real name, Shuko Yamaguchi.
Li Xianglan was born on February 12, 1920 in Fushun, China, but her parents were not descendants of Yan Huang, but Japanese who traveled across the sea to develop in China.
Li Xianglan's father, Fumio Yamaguchi, was a sinologist who spoke fluent Chinese and had a good understanding of Chinese customs and customs, and worked as a Chinese teacher for the company's staff for many years while working on the Manchuria Railway. Li Xianglan grew up in a Chinese-language environment and was able to talk and laugh with Chinese, and no one saw that this little girl was actually a pure Japanese.
Figure | Li Xianglan as a teenager
When Li Xianglan was 12 years old, the Pingdingshan massacre that shocked China and foreign countries occurred in Fushun. The Japanese Fushun garrison surrounded Pingdingshan, drove out the Chinese residents who had gathered nearby, and carried out inhumane killings.
Fumio Yamaguchi was also implicated in the massacre.
Because Yamaguchi Fumio speaks fluent Chinese and likes to socialize, he has many Chinese friends and acquaintances. He loved peace and worked to appease Chinese, so he was censored by the gendarmerie on the grounds of "collaborating with the enemy".
Although Yamaguchi Fumio's suspicions were eventually cleared, he was discouraged and unwilling to stay in Fushun, so he took his whole family to Fengtian to join his friend Li Jichun, which led to the scene at the beginning of the article.
Yamaguchi has a clear life plan for his daughter, and he hopes that Li Xianglan will be able to pursue a career related to Sino-Japanese relations in the future, preferably as a secretary or translator for politicians, and eventually to become a politician himself or a journalist.
With this desire, he planned to let Li Xianglan go to Beijing to study.
However, Li Xianglan was knocked down by the disease before she could set off, and she unfortunately suffered from invasive tuberculosis, lying in the hospital for a whole month, and had to rest at home for half a year after being discharged.
Bored, Li Xianglan, at the suggestion of her friend Liu Ba, plans to practice classical songs so that she can exercise her respiratory organs and learn Russian and English.
LiuBa is a slender Russian girl who met Li Xianglan on a train. At that time, the two sat next to each other, because Liuba could speak fluent Japanese and a little Chinese, and the two girls talked happily in Japanese and Chinese, and maintained frequent correspondence after parting.
Li Xianglan moved to Fengtian and reunited with Liu Ba, who was already living here, at that time Li Xianglan did not know that Liu Ba would be the biggest noble person in her life, and she changed Li Xianglan's fate twice.
Two
Li Xianglan, under the mediation of Liu Ba, visited Mrs. Bodolesov, the most famous vocalist in Fengtian.
Mrs. Bodolesov, a world-famous opera singer and soprano singer, first met Li Xianglan, and when she called Li Xianglan to the practice room, she asked her to follow the rhythm of the piano. Li Xianglan trembled with fear in this harsh atmosphere, and only barely made a sound like a mosquito's cry.
Unexpectedly, Mrs. Bodolesov accepted Li Xianglan as an apprentice, not because she had a pair of eyes that could see that Li Xianglan's future was unlimited, but because she could not stand Liuba's bitter pleading.
The first major turning point in Li Xianglan's life path was won for her by Liu Ba.
Since then, Li Xianglan has begun strict training, and before each vocal exercise, she has to press her back against the wall, and five or six books on her head cannot move. Follow the instructions while maintaining this posture and have to redo if a book falls out.
After rigorous training and her own unremitting efforts, Li Xianglan made rapid progress, and Mrs. Bodolesov was also satisfied with this disciple who had performed quite poorly at the beginning, and specially invited Li Xianglan to be her assistant in the solo concert.
Every autumn Mrs. Bodolisov holds a solo concert at the Grand River Hotel, the most grand performance in the Fengtian Autumn Concert, and the audience is high-class. To be able to get such an opportunity to assist, Li Xianglan was both excited and nervous.
On the day of the performance, Li Xianglan wore a long-sleeved kimono with a large white crane on a purple background and sang the Japanese song "Deserted City Moon", and her mellow voice was unanimously applauded by everyone. Of course, there was also a small episode at the concert, and during the performance, she accidentally stepped on Mrs. Bodolesov's long shawl, which fortunately did not cause much impact.
On a Saturday afternoon after the concert, Li Xianglan met a strange visitor at Mrs. Bodolesov's house. This person's name is Dong Keizo, the chief of the planning section of Fengtian Radio Station, he is an iron fan of Mrs. Bodolisov, but he accidentally found Li Xianglan, the "treasure girl", at the concert.
At that time, Fengtian Radio was looking for suitable singers to participate in the singing of its new project "Manchurian New Songs", which was one of the educational and propaganda cultural activities carried out in Japan to promote "Japanese-Manchurian goodwill and five ethnic harmony". The radio station is very demanding of singers: Chinese girls, can read musical scores, can speak standard Chinese and Japanese.
Dong Keizo was worried about finding a suitable singer, so he went to the concert to relax, and when Li Xianglan came on, his eyes immediately lit up: "It's her!" ”
So he warmly invited Li Xianglan to sing on the radio.
After learning of this, Li Xianglan's father was quite hesitant, but her mother felt that she did not need to show her face anyway, and she could continue to go to Beijing to study after singing, without delay, so Li Xianglan became a singer of "Manchurian New Songs" with the strong support of her mother, when she was only 13 years old.
Because the producer deliberately obscured her origins, many people believe that Li Xianglan is a native Chinese.
Three
In 1934, Li Xianglan, who had bid farewell to her career as a singer, went to Beijing to study and continued to practice the road of becoming a politician's secretary.
She lived in the home of her father's friend Pan Yugui, a prominent figure in North China, who served as the commander of the Pingjin garrison and the mayor of the Tianjin Special District.
With more than 100 servants and guards, Li Xianglan is the only Japanese, and in order to quickly integrate into the new environment, she must live exactly according to the Chinese way and can only speak Chinese.
The girls' middle school where Li Xianglan attended was full of anti-Japanese anti-Japanese atmosphere, which made Li Xianglan worry about her japanese identity. Because of the fear of being seen by others, she never took the initiative to speak for a long time in school.
Differences in behavioral habits also made her feel rather uncomfortable.
Japanese people believe that women should show a smile to others even if they are unhappy, and only laughter can show the characteristics of women's weakness like flowing water. But Li Xianglan was severely warned by Mrs. Pan Yugui, telling her that meaningless laughter is called "selling laughter" in China, which is despised.
Since then, Li Xianglan has remembered to nod when greeting people, there is no need to bow deeply, and there is no need to smile on his face. However, when she returned home from vacation, she was criticized by her mother, saying that she was becoming more and more impolite, which made Li Xianglan extremely distressed.
At the same time, the antagonism between China and Japan became more and more serious, and students often participated in anti-Japanese demonstrations. Whenever Li Xianglan encountered this situation, she could only shrink at home, even curled up with her hands and feet, and many classmates thought that she was an out of place.
Figure | A group photo with his father when he was in school in Beijing
During her three years of studying in Beijing, Li Xianglan has been suffering from identity.
On the eve of graduation, she pondered where she was going, and before she could figure out whether to be a singer or a politician's secretary, the god of fate had sent a man named Yamaga-hyung to arrange another way out for her.
Yamaga-hyung was once Yoshiko Kawashima's first love, has been working in the propaganda class of the reporting department, and has a lot of contact with people in the art circles such as film and theater, and it is said that he opened the Fengtian Radio Station, where Li Xianglan once sang songs.
He was entrusted to find Li Xianglan and said that the Manchurian Film Association (hereinafter referred to as Man Ying) planned to make a music film, the protagonist will have a lot of singing shots, but the heroine can not sing, he hopes that Li Xianglan can play the lead role in the national policy of "Nichiman goodwill".
Li Xianglan, who already likes to sing, is impressed, and Shan Jiaheng is good at observing the color of speech, and immediately promised that if Li Xianglan agrees to sing, she can let her visit her family and friends who have not met for a long time when passing through Fengtian.
The unworldly 16-year-old girl took on the task, but she didn't expect that things wouldn't be as simple as singing.
When Li Xianglan arrived in Xinjing (now Changchun), she was immediately pulled into the studio to make up, and then posed in front of a large camera with various expressions as required, laughing and crying. After doing this series of actions, the person who gave the command, that is, the director of the film, immediately made a decision: "The protagonist will set her." ”
At this time, Li Xianglan realized that she had been deceived by Shan Jiaheng. In fact, Man Ying planned to let her play the heroine from the beginning, but he was afraid that she would not agree, so he lied to her that he was just a voice actor who did not need to show his face.
This movie is Li Xianglan's debut work "Honeymoon Express", after the movie was completed, Li Xianglan breathed a sigh of relief and only wanted to flee quickly. But Man Ying had already found her parents through Shan Jiaheng and persuaded her parents to sign a contract on the basis of "for the sake of the country", and in this way, Li Xianglan became a full-time actor of Man Ying without knowing it.
Since she could not escape, she bravely faced it, Li Xianglan began to actively learn how to improve her acting skills, and often went to the Actors Research Institute to listen to lectures and accept practical performance guidance.
In the movie "The Song of Bailan", Li Xianglan played a Chinese girl, and after the success of this role, she took over many movies, and the basic plot model was that the beautiful Chinese lady admired the Japanese youth who were keen to develop the mainland.
The film strives to make the audience believe that this is the ideal realm of "Japanese-Chinese goodwill" through a beautiful love story.
Four
Li Xianglan, who became a famous movie star, fell into a deep distress, which came from the pressure of identity.
Man Ying is a national policy company, and its job is to make films that promote "Goodwill and Harmony of the Five Nationalities". In order to achieve the best publicity effect, Man Ying made a big exaggeration and distortion of Li Xianglan's life, saying that she was the beloved daughter of the mayor of Fengtian, grew up in Beijing, attended a Japanese school, and therefore spoke fluent Japanese.
Although in Fengtian, many people know that Li Xianglan is Japanese, but under this speculation everyone is confused, and the rumor that Li Xianglan is of Mixed Chinese and Japanese descent is very popular.
For this reason, Li Xianglan has a deep sense of guilt, and she feels that this practice of concealing her identity has deceived the feelings of the Chinese and Japanese peoples at the same time.
In 1941, Li Xianglan went to Tokyo as a messenger of goodwill to give a solo concert. Thousands of people flocked to the ticket office to grab tickets in order to watch her performance, and the venue was full of discarded clogs and women's red scarves, which was no less crazy than the current star chasers.
The red-haired Li Xianglan has been targeted by several newspapers, notably the Asahi Shimbun, who plan to track down her true identity.
Although the company has adopted strict secrecy measures for Li Xianglan's true identity, it still cannot block the mouth of the you.
Soon, the influential "Metropolitan News" published a short message entitled "Li Xianglan is a stage name, she is from Saga Prefecture, not Manchurian".
The report said that Li Xianglan, a Japanese named Shizuko Yamaguchi, was born in Beijing at the age of 22. Although the reported statements about the place of birth and name are incorrect, the basic parameters are true.
This news caused a high degree of tension in Manying, before the "Asahi Shimbun" blockade, and then there was the "Capital News" interception, the company's top management decided that instead of letting the rumors fly all over the sky, it was better to let Li Xianglan stand up and admit her identity.
So Li Xianglan held a press conference, and explained his identity as follows in the interview: "I accidentally named Li Xianglan, but I was misunderstood as if I had deliberately concealed the identity of the Japanese so far... I felt as if everything in my life had been focused on this week. “
However, this press release was not published in the Asahi Shimbun, which may be related to the government's sudden and strict control of public opinion. Almost all newspapers needed to publish large amounts of official news, and the pages of the literary column were compressed to almost none.
Although some Japanese people knew Li Xianglan's true nationality, the Chinese people and a considerable number of Japanese still believed that she was Chinese or of mixed Chinese and Japanese descent. She thought that the big stone pressed in her heart after boldly admitting it could land on the ground, but the identity problem was still tightly wrapped around her.
After returning to China, Li Xianglan planned to copy the Japanese route and held a press conference in China to confess her identity in public, but she encountered great resistance.
Many people persuaded her, saying that there may be many people in China who already know the truth, but no one is willing to admit and face this, for Chinese, Li Xianglan is a beautiful dream in their hearts, hoping that she can maintain the status quo ante and not let their dreams be shattered.
These words made Li Xianglan waver again, but just when everything seemed to be calm, a young reporter asked Li Xianglan a sharp question: "Are you Chinese?" If so, why star in a movie like that? Isn't this a loss of national honor? ”
Li Xianglan was at a loss, and it took half a day to say something: "That was a mistake I made when I was 20 years old and didn't understand things, a mistake I made in a vacuum, I regret it now, I apologize in front of everyone for the series of movies starring, please forgive me, I will not make that mistake again." ”
In fact, many years later, Li Xianglan looked back on the past and was also surprised why she was able to say those words such as "Sino-Japanese goodwill" and "friendly family" in the film without pressure.
Although she did not confess her true identity to Chinese, there is no need to be too harsh on her. In that era of militarism, Li Xianglan, as a Japanese, had to match her personal will with the will of the state.
Figure | Li Xianglan took a group photo with friends
Five
In the autumn of 1944, Li Xianglan could no longer survive the torment of his soul, and plucked up the courage to meet with Chairman Man Ying's chairman Gan Yu to discuss the termination of the contract: "I can no longer pretend to be Chinese, so far, I have suffered too much from being sandwiched between China and Japan, I can no longer continue Li Xianglan's life, I ask for the termination of the contract, very sorry." ”
For a long time, 4 words came from the air: "I understand.". Such a breezy reply is heavy for Li Xianglan, and it marks the end of Li Xianglan's image of playing a Chinese girl on the screen.
After the termination of the contract, Li Xianglan lived in Shanghai until August 1945, when Japan announced its unconditional surrender.
Hearing the news of Japan's surrender, Li Xianglan was as excited as the Chinese on the street, and what she thought in her heart was that Chinese and the Japanese finally did not have to hurt each other anymore, and there was no need to make movies that she did not like, it was all over.
But greater tribulations were already waiting for her ahead.
Li Xianglan was first taken into custody and put under "house arrest" in a concentration camp, and then newspapers began to publish articles one after another, saying that Li Xianglan was a cultural traitor and that she and Yoshiko Kawashima were the same.
At the same time, Li Xianglan received news that some colleagues and friends who had worked with her in the film industry had been censored one after another.
She began to be frequently summoned by the Ministry of Military Affairs, but the so-called investigation, which was to inquire about her name and current residence, as well as travel abroad, has been dragging on and making people feel extremely uneasy.
At this time, all kinds of people who took advantage of the fire began to jump out, and some people nakedly asked for money, suggesting that as long as she was willing to pay 5,000 US dollars, she could be acquitted, and Li Xianglan ignored it.
There are more people who covet her beauty. First, Yang, the president of a large newspaper, invited Li Xianglan to go to the northeast with him, but Li Xianglan refused: "I want to go where I should go." ”
Then a major general Liu drove into the concentration camp with a huge jeep convoy, invited Li Xianglan to sing "Night Incense" for the Americans, and also released the news in the newspaper: Li Xianglan will be Major General Liu's eighth wife.
Fortunately, friends helped to find the Japanese Overseas Chinese Management Office and the head of the gendarmerie to lodge a strong protest, and the major general Liu did not continue to pestered her under the intervention of the authorities.
Before Li Xianglan could breathe a sigh of relief, a strange young man took her to a luxurious building in the French concession, which was full of real power figures. Someone offered to help her settle in China and cancel her trial, and to give her a luxurious villa, she just needed to return to the northeast of her birthplace and go to the place occupied by the Eighth Route Army to find out the situation.
Li Xianglan instantly understood that these people wanted her to be a spy. As depressed as she was, she sternly rejected the other party's "good intentions":
"I've never spied, and I don't want to be a spy in the future."
"I can go to jail until I figure it out."
"I was born in China, grew up in China, and I love China."
Li Xianglan's righteous words infected those big people present, and after this incident, Li Xianglan's atmosphere eased up a lot when she was investigated, but her traitorous problem was still not solved, and the solution was actually very simple, that is, to confirm that Li Xianglan was indeed Japanese.
In terms of appearance alone, Li Xianglan's appearance is no different from her Chinese, and to prove her identity, it is necessary to produce tangible and powerful evidence, that is, the household registration transcript of the family relationship, date of birth, place of birth, etc., with the signature and seal of the mayor of the city and village, which is the only official document proving the nationality.
The problem is that Li Xianglan's household registration transcript is in her parents' place, her parents in Shanghai are in Beijing, when the two sides have been cut off, and if the household registration transcript cannot be obtained, Li Xianglan will be punished as a traitor, and her life will soon be declared.
At the critical moment, her good friend Liu Ba appeared in front of Li Xianglan like a god. She worked at the Consulate General in Shanghai, often flying to Harbin and Fengtian, passing through Beijing on the way, so Li Xianglan gave Liu Ba the responsibility of obtaining a transcript of her household registration.
But Liuba was completely "the yellow crane is gone", at this time the newspaper was full of news that Li Xianglan was about to be executed, and at the moment when Li Xianglan was anxious, she accidentally received a small rectangular wooden box.
Inside the wooden box was Li Xianglan's favorite doll when she was a child, which her mother had bought for her from Japan, and there was nothing else. Li Xianglan searched the corners and corners of the wooden box, and finally her mind moved, and her eyes turned back to the doll.
She carefully examined the doll, and suddenly found that there was a trace of not ironing on the doll's belt, Li Xianglan carefully untied the belt and found a thin piece of paper folded into a thin strip, which was the household registration transcript she had been thinking about.
In February 1946, Li Xianglan was interrogated for the last time, and the presiding judge announced that her suspicion of adultery had been clarified, and Li Xianglan was acquitted, but at the same time the court found it regrettable that she had starred in a series of movies under the stage name of Chinese.
Li Xianglan publicly apologized in court, and she felt deeply guilty about what she did when she was young.
At the end of March 1946, Li Xianglan returned to her hometown of Japan on the "Yunxian Maru" steamship, and light and lyrical music sounded in the cabin, and when she listened to it, it was her famous song "Night Incense".
In an elegant melody, she completely bid farewell to the name "Li Xianglan", and from now on, people will call her "Shuko Yamaguchi".
Text | Snow