Mine Imaizumi

2023/02/09

Image: Mine in her later years (From "The House of Dutch Learning: The Katsuragawa Family, Final Volume," Shinozaki Shorin, 1969)

Yukichi Fukuzawa, who opened a Dutch Learning Juku in Teppozu, Tsukiji, frequently visited the nearby home of Hoshu Katsuragawa. Among those aspiring to study Dutch Learning, none were wealthy, but Fukuzawa's appearance was particularly simple; he wore only a cotton kimono with a haori coat over a white undergarment, and he paid no mind to the holes in his tabi socks.

One day, as usual, Fukuzawa had his pockets bulging with books borrowed from the Katsuragawa family library and was deep in conversation with the master, Katsuragawa, in the back room. Suddenly, a child began poking at the holes in his tabi socks with a bundle of about ten pine needles. Since Katsuragawa was speaking earnestly, Fukuzawa had to endure the prickling sensation without crying out or moving. This prank was feared among the Dutch scholars who visited the Katsuragawa household as the "Katsuragawa Pine Needle Attack." The perpetrator was Katsuragawa's daughter, Mine (later surnamed Imaizumi).

The Katsuragawa family, which Fukuzawa described in "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa" as the "headquarters of Dutch physicians throughout Japan," served as the Shogun's personal physicians for generations. The first generation was originally named Kosuke Morishima, but his talent was loved by Hoan Arashiyama, the founder of Dutch-style medicine. Encouraged by the words "The Katsuragawa River flows beneath Mount Arashiyama and will eventually become a great river," he took the name Hochiku Katsuragawa. Hochiku became the personal physician to Tsunatoyo Tokugawa, the Lord of Kofu Castle. When Tsunatoyo became the Shogun (the sixth Shogun, Ienobu), Hochiku became an inner physician and was granted the title of Hogen. The Shogunate's medical officers served at the castle in day and night shifts; the head (internal medicine) was appointed Hoin by the Imperial Court, and the second-in-command (surgery) was appointed Hogen, positions of considerable status. The Katsuragawa family held the hereditary title of Hogen through to the seventh generation, Hoshu (Kunioki). Notably, the fourth generation also used the name Hoshu (Kuniakira) and is known for his involvement in the translation of "Kaitai Shinsho" (New Text on Anatomy) alongside Genpaku Sugita and Ryotaku Maeno.

Katsuragawa (the seventh Hoshu) became the personal physician to the 12th Shogun, Ieyoshi, at the young age of 21 and was granted the title of Hogen seven years later. At that time, the Dutch-Japanese dictionary started by Doeff, the head of the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki, was based on François Halma's Dutch-French dictionary and was thus called the "Doeff-Halma." The Shogunate only permitted it to be kept at the interpreters' office in Nagasaki, the observatory in Edo, and the Katsuragawa family of Dutch physicians. The copy of the "Doeff-Halma" in the Doeff Room at Tekijuku was a manuscript; Fukuzawa's memoirs mention that orders to copy parts of it helped support the living expenses of Keio students, illustrating its value. Amidst the changing times brought by Perry's arrival, Katsuragawa believed it was important to waive his privileges and spread this dictionary to the world. After a heated debate with the Junior Elders (Wakadoshiyori), he obtained permission from the Shogunate to publish it. The expansion and revision work took three years with the help of Katsuragawa's siblings and the Dutch scholars who visited the house, and it was completed in 1858 under the title "Oranda Jii" (Dutch Vocabulary).

Katsuragawa's wife was Kuni, the eldest daughter of Matasuke Kimura, the magistrate of Hama-goten (now Hama-rikyu). The Kimura family's status was not high, but they had financial power. On the other hand, the household of a personal physician lived in poverty in a house with a leaking roof, despite their high status. This match was reportedly decided by a single word from the Shogun: "Matasuke, give your daughter to Katsuragawa. I shall be the mediator." Kuni was tall and versatile, skilled in the polearm, horsemanship, and martial arts. From the day after her wedding, she declared, "From now on, I am the mistress of the house, so follow my instructions in all things," and she reportedly memorized the names of medicines immediately. The Katsuragawa family had many debts and many siblings, but once Kuni began managing the household, the family was restored to order. The couple was known for their good relationship, and they always traveled with two palanquins side-by-side. In March 1855, their second daughter Mine was born, but Kuni's recovery after childbirth was poor, and she passed away in August. Katsuragawa did not take a second wife, saying he felt sorry for the child.

The Katsuragawa house in Tsukiji Nakadori was a gathering place for those aspiring to study Dutch Learning and was always lively. Among the frequent visitors were figures who would leave their names to posterity, such as Shunzan Yanagawa (a pioneer of newspapers and magazines), Saburo Utsunomiya (a pioneer of chemical technology who succeeded in domestic cement production), Ryuho Narushima (president of the "Choya Shimbun"), Takahira Kanda (a pioneer of Western mathematics and economics), and Shuhei Mitsukuri (founder of Sansa Gakusha). Fukuzawa joined this circle, but even to the young Mine, Fukuzawa appeared different from her other playmates. He would borrow Western books from Katsuragawa and return copies within a few days that took others one or two months. This was likely due to the rapid transcription skills he had acquired at Tekijuku.

The guests of the Katsuragawa family took turns playing with Mine, but for Mine, Fukuzawa had the broadest back and was the most comfortable to be carried on. When they played war games around a large rock in the garden, Fukuzawa would carry Mine on his back and lightly leap over the rock in two or three strides. In young Mine's eyes, he was a person who was good at everything and interesting, a knowledgeable person who told her many stories. He was not just kind; the Fukuzawa style was to stop playing exactly when the time was up, refusing to listen no matter how much she begged. He did not flatter children but had the backbone to teach them. Even as a child, Mine felt he was like a teacher and asked him various questions, which Fukuzawa answered without ever acting as if it were a bother. Mine never forgot Fukuzawa's teaching: "You must not give things to beggars indiscriminately. Many beggars are lazy, so giving things indiscriminately only increases the number of lazy people."

In 1859, Yoshitake Kimura was appointed as the commander of the warship (later decided to be the Kanrin Maru) that would accompany the mission to America and aim to cross the Pacific. Kimura was the son of Matasuke and Kuni's younger brother. Because he lived in Shinsenza, Shiba, Mine called him "the uncle from Shinsenza." Fukuzawa asked Katsuragawa to write a letter of introduction and met with Kimura. The reason Kimura immediately agreed to take Fukuzawa to America as an attendant was likely because Katsuragawa had informed Kimura of Fukuzawa's visit in advance and had highly evaluated and recommended Fukuzawa's character.

When Mine was six or seven years old, Fukuzawa quietly took her from the Katsuragawa house and carried her on his back to his own home. According to Mine's recollections, "The house was part of a longhouse within a large daimyo residence," consisting of only two rooms with no entrance hall. Entering through the kitchen while still on his back, she recalled, "I think the main room was about six mats in size, and it had an alcove. The other three mats or so were the kitchen." She also remembered, "At the end of this six-mat room was a veranda, and there was a toilet where I remember urinating." Fukuzawa said, "Good girl, good girl," and took something out of a desk drawer that did not exist in Japan to give to Mine. One was "something like yokan, but not for eating; it smelled good and would produce bubbles if wetted with water. Looking back, it was soap. I also received a beautiful piece of cloth about the width of a ribbon." Fukuzawa had bought "something like an alarm clock" as a foreign souvenir for Mine's father.

Based on Mine's age, one can imagine this event took place shortly after Fukuzawa's first trip to America (1860). The description of the Fukuzawa residence matches many points in the reminiscences of Hiroshi Adachi (later principal of the Army Medical School), who visited the Katsuragawa house, helped edit the "Oranda Jii," and became an early student of the Fukuzawa Juku. However, Mine's subsequent memory—"I think it was also at that time that Mr. Fukuzawa's wife was doing laundry in the kitchen with a child on her back"—is, by any logic, a story from after Fukuzawa returned to the Nakatsu Domain's middle residence in the autumn of 1863. As Mine's dictation was given in her later years, multiple memories may have overlapped.

With the arrival of the Meiji era, the Shogunate and the Shogun vanished in an instant, and the status of personal physician and Hogen also disappeared. Katsuragawa handed over the family headship to his younger brother Hosaku and was forced out of his residence to live in a longhouse. Even to Mine's eyes, he became "like a completely different person," ceasing all medical practice and social interactions, and for a time took the name "Shingo Morishima." Katsuragawa had no desire to serve the Meiji government and, finding a kindred spirit in Narushima, started a pharmacy in Asakusa, selling traditional family medicines such as Kinryumaru.

Kendo (Nobuyoshi) Ishii took Mine in, worried that staying in a shop would hinder her marriage prospects. Ishii had studied Dutch Learning in Edo, visited the Katsuragawa house, and helped edit the "Oranda Jii." Later, he went to Osaka to study at Tekijuku, and when Koan Ogata moved to Edo, Ishii became a professor at the Medical Institute upon Ogata's recommendation. Ishii was a person with "a deep-seated kindness, unable to pass by a poor child crying in the street without stopping to comfort them" (Mine's recollection), and had been a close friend of Fukuzawa since their Tekijuku days. According to Mine, Fukuzawa visited the Ishii residence frequently, and she heard that "Mr. Ishii also helped correct parts of 'Sekai Kunizukushi' (All the Countries of the World). They seemed to be creating it while consulting each other harmoniously. I would sometimes carry Mr. Ishii's child, who had no one to look after them, and hum the song 'The world is wide, all nations are...'" in its seven-five syllable meter before it became popular. Ishii treated Mine with great care, as if she were his master's daughter, bowing and greeting her every morning with "Good morning, young lady." Ishii worked hard to find a good match for Mine quickly, but it is said that a marriage proposal fell through because Mine was too much of a tomboy during the meeting. In 1873, a friend of Ishii's who was close to Taneomi Soejima introduced her, and Mine married Toshiharu Imaizumi, a former Saga Domain samurai and a favorite pupil of Soejima. Fukuzawa became busy and lived further away, so "he stopped coming to see my father very often," but among Katsuragawa's belongings is an envelope (without a letter) from when Fukuzawa delivered money to Katsuragawa, who was living in Honjo Yokonami around 1873. Since this overlaps with the time Mine married, one would like to believe that Fukuzawa sent the money upon hearing of Mine's marriage.

Katsuragawa's pharmacy ended in failure. When Narushima became active as the president of the "Choya Shimbun," Katsuragawa contributed to the miscellaneous news columns as a guest writer. He also aspired to publish his own newspaper and founded the "Tokyo Iji Shinbun," but it ceased publication after about six months. In his later years, he became the printing manager for the Tokyo Iji Shinshi and died of illness in September 1881.

The year after their marriage, Mine's husband, Imaizumi, resigned from public office along with comrades who advocated for the invasion of Korea. During the Saga Rebellion led by Shinpei Eto and others, he served as an intelligence officer in Tokyo. Furthermore, because he sided with the Satsuma forces in the Satsuma Rebellion, he was imprisoned. Later, through Soejima's arrangements, he worked at a court and moved from place to place, eventually becoming the chief prosecutor in Kagoshima. However, while inspecting a prison on Tanegashima, he contracted dysentery and died (1894). From then on, Mine raised her children alone. After a long silence, when she was over 80 years old, she responded to her son Genkichi's encouragement and told the story of her life through dictation. Through this autobiography titled "Nagori no Yume" (Dreams of Reminiscence), the vivid figures of Fukuzawa and other Western scholars as seen by a young girl were brought back to life.