Pathway to Japanese Literature

When Hoshino Takeo came to Shanghai, the Chinese person he most wanted to meet was Qin Qiyuan.
But Qin Qiyuan was, so to speak, living in seclusion somewhere in Shanghai’s city center, and his whereabouts were not well understood.

Hoshino asked a person from the Sino-Japanese Cultural Association.

The association person tilted his head.

“We do not have sufficient information regarding Mr. Qin Qiyuan, but we will immediately look into it and somehow establish contact.”

Even after waiting several days, there was no word from them.

Hoshino also asked a person from the Continental New Journal.

The Continental New Journal person thought for a moment.

“Qin Qiyuan... I know the name, but I’m not familiar with him. I’ll look into it.”

But again, there was still no word from them.

Then, Hoshino also tried asking a certain person who had become a contractor for the Japanese military's Special Services Agency.

The certain person nonchalantly agreed to handle it.

“Qin Qiyuan? I know him well,”
“I’ll arrange for you to meet him right away.”

However, after that, there was no further word.
Hoshino tried asking two or three more Chinese people but couldn't obtain any concrete information.

In other words, Qin Qiyuan was known to some on both the Japanese and Chinese sides but remained unknown to most.
Moreover, he seemed to be deliberately concealing his presence.
Hoshino felt mildly irritated.
Then he began gradually forgetting about him.

Hoshino was busy.
Straddling Shanghai and Nanjing, his schedule overflowed with commitments in every direction.
Centered on literature yet spanning all cultural spheres, he raced daily between meetings and investigations.
Days blurred by in hectic motion until his planned month concluded, leaving mere days before his return to Japan.

Bit by bit, while organizing his luggage for the return trip, Hoshino found himself recalling Qin Qiyuan once more. And now, his recollections—true to Hoshino’s temperament—had begun to lean toward reflecting on why he had wanted to meet him in the first place.

Qin Qiyuan had previously spent a long time in Tokyo. There had been talk of him being an interpreter attached to the Chinese embassy, but no one had ever actually seen him perform any interpretation. Rather, he was known among literary circles as a poet. He also published several long poems in Japanese. His poetic style was expansive yet ambiguous, containing sharp observations within them. Epic poetry draped in lyrical garb—that appeared to be his true forte. Of course, those who recognized his poetic talent and held it in high esteem were but a portion of Tokyo’s literary figures. To that same group, he was also an occasional drinking companion. He could really hold his liquor. He always carried a lot of money.

About half a year after the Pacific War began, he suddenly returned to China.
There were rumors it resulted from a failed romance.
There were rumors he had been recalled by the embassy.
There were rumors he was suspected of misusing public funds.
That he had many acquaintances among Chongqing-aligned intellectuals was now acknowledged by some.

He first lived in Beijing before moving to Shanghai.

It was this Qin Qiyuan whom Hoshino had wanted to bring back to literature.
He believed his poetry could inject vitality into Chinese literature.
And he had wanted to draw him into the forefront of cultural activities.
To leave a talent like him buried among the common folk seemed nothing short of tragic.
Hoshino had wanted to meet him both out of duty as an unofficial cultural envoy and through literary camaraderie.

Without having fulfilled that hope, Hoshino was already preparing to leave Shanghai.
That Hoshino had come to this city was something Qin Qiyuan should have known through newspaper articles.
Shouldn't he have shown himself immediately?

As if to shake off the lingering unpleasantness in his chest, Hoshino abruptly stood up, took out a bottle of whiskey he had received from an acquaintance from the cupboard, and began drinking by the window.

Shanghai’s sky was always murky.
It now hung pregnant with the fading sunlight, oddly blank and expressionless.
From Hoshino’s fifth-floor room in the Cathay Hotel, the remaining sky—cut out by neighboring buildings—appeared like scraps of cloth, and toward those echo-less fabric fragments rose the clamor of the streets—a jumble of assorted noises blending together.

Hoshino drank whiskey in his forlorn mood, no appetite stirring within him.
His ears instinctively turned toward the clamor filling the air.
That this differed from Tokyo's familiar clamor deepened his wanderer's melancholy.
Within this melancholy surfaced the radiant image of a young Suzhou woman.
This sudden antithetical association brought to mind Qin Qiyuan's figure from another time.

That Qin Qiyuan had been intimately involved with Umeko, a geisha from Akasaka, during his time in Tokyo was common knowledge among Hoshino and their entire circle.
Umeko was already twenty-six or twenty-seven—considered somewhat past her prime as a geisha—a delicate and willowy woman.
What they had seen in each other remained known only to themselves, though it appeared their entanglement had been profound.
Qin Qiyuan had openly declared his intention to formally marry her.
Yet for reasons unclear, Umeko had taken on another patron while simultaneously suspending her geisha engagements for a time.

Around that time, when Qin, Hoshino, and Tanaka—who was also part of their literary circle—were walking near Toranomon one evening, they encountered Umeko.

Though it was evening, the lingering sunlight was clear, making it a moment when visibility stretched far into the distance.

Umeko walked alone along the opposite side of the street.
Qin was the first to spot her.
Her Western-style coiffure was pulled back just so, the muted crimson stripes of her kimono offset by golden peony blossoms shimmering from the obi.
Qin let out an indescribably strange cry.
And then he took three or four running steps.
The instant he did, a speeding automobile streaked past right in front of him.
Qin stood in the middle of the roadway.

On the opposite sidewalk, Umeko came to a halt.
She stared, her face paling.
And for an instant, she bowed lightly yet gracefully, and that delicate woman walked away without breaking the rhythm of her small steps.

The scene of this encounter struck Hoshino as perfectly natural, but seemed to leave Qin Qiyuan with a strange impression.
He remained silent for a while.
He walked with an unsteady gait.
And that night, while getting drunk at a bar behind Ginza, he began speaking in general terms—not about Umeko—saying things like how the divide between different ethnic groups was insurmountable.
Then he went even further, declaring that the Japanese as a whole looked down upon the Chinese.

The sensitive Hoshino, steering the conversation back to Umeko, defended his position in general terms: “Given that, what should she have done at that time? Wasn’t that manner—enveloping personal feelings with the training of a geisha—a splendid thing? That seemingly cold attitude was by no means looking down on you as a foreigner. Even if you had been Japanese and found yourself in the same situation, there would have been not the slightest change in her attitude. In each social stratum of Japan, there exists training specific to that stratum—training that becomes ingrained as cultivation. Unless one perceives this, they cannot comprehend the merits of the Japanese....”

Whether Qin Qiyuan had grasped the essence of his argument remained unclear even to Hoshino. After all, it had been a drunken exchange. Yet whenever he recalled it now, bitterness rose in his throat—they’d wasted breath on such foolishness. He should have simply asked about their love and offered comfort instead.

Even that regret had nearly faded from Hoshino’s memory. Only that fleeting street scene persisted with unnatural vividness, its rawness intensifying through time’s remove.

The scene grew distant, the visage of the Suzhou beauty blurring close at hand...
The clamor of the streets seemed poised to engulf everything.
While Hoshino lingered in this daze, there came a quiet knock at the door, and an elderly room attendant entered.
He presented a single business card.

It was an oversized card bearing only the printed name Qin Qiyuan.
A brief note in pencil read:
If you should find yourself at leisure, I humbly request the honor of your visit. This messenger shall guide you, as propriety dictates our coming to you would be discourteous—a transgression I beg your indulgence to forgive.

Hoshino leapt up.
In the corridor waited a single Chinese man.
When invited in, he respectfully bowed and remained standing by the door.
Hoshino gazed fixedly.
He was a sturdy man around thirty years old, wearing a suit with disheveled creases; his broad forehead and somewhat low nose caught the eye.

Hoshino decided to go.

“Is it far?”

“It is nearby,” the man answered in clear Japanese.

Hoshino called to inform the acquaintance he was supposed to meet that evening that an unavoidable matter had come up, put on his hat, and went out. Along the way, he had intended to ask the guide about Qin Qiyuan’s recent circumstances, but the guide maintained an excessively formal and silent demeanor, and a pedicab had been waiting in front of the hotel. Everything could wait until after they met, Hoshino thought.

Given Hoshino’s usual perceptiveness, under normal circumstances he would have found this somewhat suspicious. Qin Qiyuan knew where he was staying and had even written his room number on the business card addressed to him, yet until now had neither shown his face nor even made a phone call. Whether Hoshino had dismissed the matter as a traveler’s custom or simply forgotten remained unclear. In any case, he had been caught off guard.

On Qin Qiyuan’s side, welcoming Hoshino seemed to be nothing more than a formality toward an old acquaintance he had once been close to.

That evening, in fact, I had been savoring autumn-season Wuxi cuisine with him at a corner of Sanmalu Road.
Near Wuxi was his family home, which appeared to be a rather considerable wealthy household, and he had nearly resolved in his mind to withdraw there for several years to come.
I too understood that, for various reasons, threats were accumulating around him in Shanghai.
However, I will leave this matter for another story.

He, whose heart was turned toward his hometown of Wuxi, favored Wuxi cuisine.
That evening, I too drank Chinese rice wine with him while picking at a large stone crab, nibbling on spear shrimp, and digging out blood clams.
He kept praising the fresh meat of these large crabs, small shrimp, and small shellfish that lived in clear water.

“If not for the stories about parasites, even Japanese literary figures would likely take a liking to these foods,” he said.

From that mention of literary figures, I suggested meeting Hoshino Takeo.

“You’re right—we mustn’t neglect courtesy,” he declared clearly.

Yet his expression had clouded over.
He then furrowed his brow and pondered awhile.

“Let us meet immediately.”

No sooner had he spoken than his countenance brightened again.

He produced a business card and scrawled several lines in pencil.
Then he sent Zhang Hao—the attendant he always kept at his side—to Hoshino Takeo’s hotel.

“Shouldn’t you try calling?” I advised.

“No, he should be at the hotel.”

That response took me by surprise. He might have already been tracking Hoshino's movements. I studied his face. He lifted his gaze.

"You'll accompany me tonight too, I trust."

I smiled and answered.
“Well, I have business elsewhere, and anyway, it’s better if it’s just you two.”
He looked at me and smiled faintly.

This was an unspoken understanding between him and me, but there were circumstances surrounding how exceptionally close we had become that we did not want others knowing about for the time being. This matter too could not be told unless it became another story.

Therefore, after some time, I left.

When Hoshino Takeo arrived guided by Zhang Hao, Qin Qiyuan sat alone.
It was a second-floor hall with numerous large tables arranged in rows, the guests packed tightly together.
Qin was at a corner table by the window.

Hoshino strode briskly over.

“Oh, it’s been a while.”
“I had been searching quite extensively for you.”
“I’m glad we met.”

Qin stood up, smiled silently, and extended his right hand.
Then, taking his seat, he offered a cigarette from a case.
Zhang struck a match.

He was the same Qin as before. Coarse long hair, a clear deep gaze, a prominent nose bridge rare among Chinese people... Yet there lingered in the skin of his cheeks a faint pallor of roughness. The black Western suit was tailored to fit his frame precisely—whether through the collar’s fold, the shoulder seams’ alignment, or perhaps the influence of his pale knitted tie—giving off an oddly dandyish air. At this mismatch between those cheeks and the overall impression, Hoshino felt a chill.

“What about dinner…?” Qin asked.

“Not yet.”
“I wasn’t particularly hungry, so I just had a little whiskey.”

“Right, you’re the one for Western liquor.”
“But how about a little Chinese rice wine?”

“No, I’m quite fond of it.”

Nothing but inoffensive greetings dragged on.
It wasn’t just because they were meeting after so long, nor was it solely due to Zhang waiting nearby—there was an air that made steering the conversation toward weighty matters difficult.

Hoshino looked around the room.
The customers leaning against tables here and there were mostly middle-aged men in Chinese clothing who looked like merchants, but they were all quiet with gentle, calm faces.
Hoshino felt something strange.
The Chinese people he had encountered until now were mostly talkative, boisterous, and had harsh expressions.

“This place is nice.
It’s somehow so calm and…”

Qin smiled.

“Are you saying it’s different from others?”

“Yes, the atmosphere is…”

“This is the real China… the real Shina. You must have toured various places, but I imagine you never expected to encounter such a scene in Shanghai’s bustling heart.”

“But what do you mean by this being China’s true form? Are you saying the noisy China with harsh expressions isn’t genuine? Reality must always be genuine.”

“No, that’s a separate matter. I’m speaking of your lived reality. The concept of China doesn’t exist within your reality—only the concept of Shina does.”

“Wrong!” Hoshino shouted.

To put it in Hoshino’s terms, those who perceived Shina as a tangible reality belonged to Japan’s old guard, while the new generation perceived the Republic of China.
From that tangible reality arose the sincerity to protect and nurture China into a modern unified state.
This sincerity had to be trusted.

However, to put it in Qin’s terms, there was a discrepancy within the Japanese mind between the concept of a modern unified state and that of Shina.
Therefore, even regarding matters like Japan-China cultural exchange and cooperation, might there not have been pitfalls arising from viewing it through the lens of an exchange between old Shina culture and new Japanese culture—a fundamentally discrepant framework?

However, to put it in Hoshino's terms, Japan had no essential fault line between old and new. However, from Qin's perspective, while there should have been no such essential fault line in Shina either, it was that great writer Lu Xun who had genuinely mourned the phenomenon that appeared as a fault line. However, to put it in Hoshino's terms, Lu Xun would have wept all the more at that vulgarity—the inlaid portrait photograph on his tomb in the International Cemetery.

The conversation followed such a course, but Qin gradually grew more melancholy, and accordingly, his words grew fewer.
Tapping Qin’s shoulder, Hoshino repeated:
“Won’t you return to poetry once more?
We are eagerly awaiting your poetry.
The world situation should inevitably provoke your poetic spirit, but…”

Even Hoshino avoided mentioning the war directly.
However, when the topic of poetry arose, Qin immediately diverted the conversation.

“Shall we step out for a bite?”

In the middle of the conversation, Qin stood up.
He sent Zhang to the host and urged Hoshino outside.

The evening streets were at their busiest.
The shoulder-to-shoulder crowd flowed seamlessly onward without obstruction.
It was a strangely orderly crowd.
Qin skillfully slipped through the gaps in the crowd as he led Hoshino toward the far side of the racecourse.
Several times along the way, Hoshino noticed that he seemed to be signaling passersby with subtle gestures of his head, shoulders, or fingertips.
Before long, two youths somehow began following behind them.
Qin did not speak a single word to them.

When they settled into a small Islamic restaurant, Hoshino found himself flanked by Qin on one side and encircled by Zhang and two other youths.
Qin simply referred to them as acquaintances and offered no introductions.
They hardly spoke, kept modestly reserved, and busily boiled mutton.
They didn’t drink much.
Qin and Hoshino focused more on the wine than the mutton.

Hoshino was already quite drunk.
Surrounded by unidentifiable youths and seated before a pot with a chimney protruding from its center, they kept refilling their cups with rice wine.
Above the kitchen entrance at the front transom—from which plates piled with blood-dripping mutton endlessly appeared—hung a framed scripture of the Arab patriarch, its Arabic script forming eerie patterns.

Just as he had when drunk in Tokyo before, Hoshino now called Qin not *Shin-kun* but *Hata-kun* in the Japanese manner.

“Hey Hata-kun, above all else, it’s poetry—and poetry and wine.”
“Through that gate lies the path to supreme spirit.”

Qin quietly raised his eyes to the Arab patriarch’s scripture.

“The path of the sword also leads…”

“Yes, the path of the sword also…”
“You must write poetry.”

Qin furrowed his brows. After a while, he said quietly:
"Cultivate fields rather than write poems—this too is one aspect of Eastern spirit."
Hoshino, unable to grasp his meaning, blinked several times.
Qin abruptly began talking about a Japanese military-operated farm in the Shanghai suburbs. There, numerous young men from Taiwan’s main island and young women from nearby rural villages were working. They worked under strict training and discipline, but now everyone had bright, energetic expressions. The youths felt the farm was their own land and no longer had any desire to return to Taiwan. The girls enjoyed their work at the farm and gladly commuted there.

“Have you seen their expressions?”
“No, I hadn’t known.”

“In that case, you really must go see it at least once.”

The conversation broke off awkwardly there.
The words no longer came.

When they left the restaurant and came to the crossroads, Qin suddenly stopped.
Gazing up at the night sky where faint starlight scattered here and there, he came to a standstill there.

Hoshino retraced a few steps and called out to him.
He didn’t even respond.
Hoshino grabbed his shoulder.
He remained standing stiff as a rod.
Then, he suddenly burst into loud laughter.

He must be drunk, Hoshino thought.

But he said something unexpected.

“I remembered Tokyo…”
“Huh? Tokyo...”
“The crossroads in Ginza.”
He laughed again.

Hoshino felt thrown off, but eventually recalling it, he laughed cheerfully.

The crossroads in Ginza’s backstreets formed one of the twin pillars of anecdotes about Qin Qiyuan alongside the Toranomon Incident.—He had once abruptly stopped at those Ginza crossroads in broad daylight. There was something twinkling in the sky. Perhaps it was his eyesight—the glimmer vanished almost immediately—but he remained gazing skyward nonetheless, arrested by some unconscious thought as he stood there in a daze. It was a place with little foot traffic. However, when he noticed, seven or eight passersby had stopped around him, all similarly gazing up at the sky. He gazed up at the sky once more but saw nothing. He started walking with an odd sensation. When he looked back after some time, there were no people standing there anymore. It was no dream.

That story delighted people.
They exaggeratedly attributed Qin Qiyuan’s personality to his "continental demeanor."
Qin Qiyuan, for his part, could only give a wry smile at the abundance of curious onlookers in Tokyo.

But now, Qin’s laughter was different.
At its core, there dwelled a different kind of earnestness.

While walking, he said:

"If one person stops to look up at the sky, several people will stop to look up at the sky."

"Can such things be seen here in Shanghai?"

"In Tokyo there exists a shared collective psychology, but in Shanghai there are only individual psychologies."

"A shared psychology has shared words, but individual psychology has only individual words."

"In China, the first step is to create a shared language."

Hoshino vaguely muttered whatever came to mind—a unified Chinese state, the liberation of East Asia, and such.

“That won’t do,” Qin interrupted.

He had made tentative overtures to the Hoju Seinendan youth group.
It hadn't gone well.
Then his thoughts turned to his hometown.
Cemeteries—occupying three percent of China's arable land according to some estimates, those ever-present burial grounds—now surfaced in his mind with fresh significance.
Next came thoughts of farmers endlessly displaced by natural calamities and war's chaos.

"It's the land," he told Hoshino. "Attachment to the land. What matters is..."

“In Japan—where multitudes live by that very thing—it must conversely be harder for you to grasp.”

“Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly…”

But Hoshino’s words had a hollow ring to them.

“I used to think in such old-fashioned ways.”

With that, Qin laughed.
That laughter sent something sharp through Hoshino's chest.

When they emerged onto the bustling main street, Zhang hailed three pedicabs.
Hoshino was seated next to Qin.
His head and body were reeling.

The group entered a secluded dance hall on Jing'an Temple Road.
They seemed to have received special treatment.
Strong liquor was served.

The music was poor, and oddly enough, there were few customers, creating a lonely atmosphere, but before they knew it, a large number of plainly dressed dancers had joined them.
Qin danced skillfully.
Hoshino also danced a little.

Hoshino’s consciousness suddenly began to blur.
He lost track of time.
He was on the verge of forgetting everything.

As everyone began to rise, Hoshino too stood up.
He felt a silence that was strangely clamorous.
He emerged into the alley.
Outside was dark.

The two youths who had been accompanying them up to this point suddenly broke into a run.
A shout arose.
Qin’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
Hoshino impulsively ran into the street.
He felt as if he had woken up.

In the pale glow, there was a crowd.
Several people were running.
Amidst them, Zhang Hao lay collapsed on the ground.
Blood flowed from his flank, and he didn’t move a muscle.

Hoshino found Qin.
He stood rigidly with an air of pride—or so it seemed.
When his arm was grabbed, he turned around.

“I will have someone escort you, so please return immediately.”

The words were so stern they left no room for reply.
One of the youths from earlier came running with a pedicab.
Hoshino got on it alongside the youth.
The rickshaw puller stepped on the pedals as if he held no curiosity or interest whatsoever.

After that, Hoshino returned to Japan without being able to meet Qin Qiyuan again.
It was due to his own carelessness that he hadn't inquired about Qin's whereabouts.
However, even if he had asked, Qin probably wouldn't have told him.

Until his departure, he searched for Qin, but there wasn't even a clue about how to search.
Once, amidst the crowds on Nanjing Road, he thought he caught sight of one of those youths from that time, but whether the other had hidden himself or not, he lost sight of him immediately.

He was scheduled to fly back to Japan by airplane four days later, in the early morning.

Before his departure, he entrusted me with a message for Qin Qiyuan.
"If I could meet him..." was my reply.
Instead, I informed him of Zhang Hao's death.
I insisted it wasn't a case of political or ideological terrorism but some commercial dispute-related incident, but he stubbornly refused to believe it.
Even had I ordered him to believe it, it would have been futile.
Yet my words were truth.
Through this incident, I came to know Qin Qiyuan's circumstances in considerable detail.
That too belongs to another story.

The room where I was staying was on the fifteenth floor of Broadway Mansion, and below me beyond the rows of city buildings stretched distant views of the Huangpu River's flow and villages.
Much of the air was murky, rendering anything beyond short distances already blurred into indistinctness.

One evening, there was a time when Qin Qiyuan and I looked out from that window together.
Outside the window, bats were already flitting about, but we didn’t turn on the lights and remained silent.

Qin looked back at me and said.

“In Shanghai, I always feel like I’m surrounded by foreigners.”
“You seem more settled in Shanghai, don’t you?”

“Well, you could say that,” I smiled.

Then I said seriously.

“Are you returning to Wuxi?”

“I intend to. Here, there are too many distractions—I can’t do my real work.”

“Shanghai’s melancholy.”

“Not to sound like Hoshino-kun, but writing poetry might do some good.”

“Hmm, I’ve begun to feel that way myself.”

Then once again we fell silent.
Eventually, as if by mutual agreement, we stood up.
We were going for Chinese rice wine and Wuxi cuisine.