Became professor in japanese. After moving back to new york he earned a masters degree, 19th century japanese history. She has worked as editor and reviewer for the los angeles times, Chicago Tribune and news day. It has been described a remarkably and beautiful written by the seattle times. Marie will be joining us with degree in language and civilization. Work often focuses on spirit she is current working in her fourth coming memoir. Please join me welcoming janice numb swrea and Marie Mutsuki mockett. [applause] thank you so much for coming and thank you for hosting us. First of all, i want to make one correction, this is an absolute true story. It is not fiction and no part of it is. I hope it reads like a novel. I just want to give you a fiveminute speed version of the story so that the kind of conversation that marie and i are going to have make more sense. So the first question that comes up when i stand up with a look like this and a name like mine, is like what. My husband was born to japan, we moved there and lived with his family there. E came back and did my masters. Period from 1868 to 1912. Its a period during which japan came to realization that it had fallen behind to the rest of the world after 250 years of not interacting with the world very much, it was no longer sustainable to do that. So in the space of a single lifetime, the lifetime emperor, you see him here as a divine emperor, part of his mandate, he sent embassadors around the world to learn everything from anything from weapons, technology, legal system. And as he began to send these embassadors out, one of them, just as the large in the embassy was about to leave, one of his advisers tipped out and said, the american women are educated and they seem to support their men in a way that japanese women dont. Fraps thats part of american success, that emotional and spiritual sport support is important. How about we send women and leave them there for ten years, let them get educated, let them come back. The idea was were going to be the yeast to help japan rise. Two on the end the one to the right of center was six when taken. They departed in the fall of 1871 with whats known as the mission, 100 scholars and five little girls, they landed in San Francisco in 1872, took the train, contentnal railroad to the washington, d. C. Where the two elder ones discovered that they were not cut out for the mission and home sick and left back to tokyo leaving the three younger ones, two in washington and the other in connecticut. American education became and earnest but they stuck together. They became extremely important to each other along a country of three because no one understood them as swell as as well as they understood each other. The youngest one grew up in washington, graduated from high school, fun family from the land of the sun, she went to school and forgot every word of her japanese as he grew. The middle one and the older one, who were in new haven were schoolgirls, thats their college, at this point was only about a dozen years ago. The middle of the three girls studied music. Its hard to see here but shes in the red circle, she was accepted for the full fouryear, the first japanese women to earn a College Degree anywhere. Within a year she was elected president of the sophomore class. She was a suck completely successful girl. Now its time to go back to japan, which has largely lost sight of the fact that they sent in the first place. Their mission is to go back and change womens education. They go back, shes the one in the middle on the left there because she just met another Japanese Exchange student while she is in japan while shes in america. Sotokichi, they get married and settle down. She teaches music. She raises seven children. Her older friend has a harder time because she come from a career, shes not ready to be an anonymous english teacher, and as she waits for the government to offer her something to do, she gets startling proposal from a man from the right who is the minister of war, one of the most powerful men, 18 years older than she is, a widower with three children. She realizes that she maybe able to do more and change more as part of his circle. She makes the difficult decision to marry him. She no longer speaks japanese and the idea to a japanese man is difficult. She after a few years of teaching english, the idea of she didnt have a College Education while she was in america. She returns to the graduate study. She comes back to japan again and stuns everybody by quitting. A small school devoted to teaching young women to pass the english certificate exam. Today one of the prestigious colleges in japan. One of the heros of womens education in japan and she got here supported by her two friends. Here they are with one of their foster sisters from america that came to help them. This is a story of extraordinary faith that three little girls who were children essentially by chance had the glits and intelligence and charm to be successful both when they were transplanted here and when they were transplanted back. Thats the story in a nutshell. [laughs] sue im marie, majored in east asian languages and civil ization. I remember reading the stories about the girls. Im half japanese, and i was so excited when i learned that your book was coming out and someone had taken the time to trace the history of these girls and find out what had happened. I had the story in the back of my mind but i didnt know exactly what their fate was. Its incredible. Passage on page 12 outloud for us. Sure. This is about discovering the story. I recognized these women, i knew what it felt like to arrief in japan with little or no language and want desperately to fit in a japanese home and attitude towards women. I had a husband that did not see but parents did not meant to raise an american child. Three japanese girls became fluent in two world at one, all but except each other. Their story will not let me go. I remember going to japan at four and five and sort of fitting in but sort of not, sort of being able to sit correctly but not being able to sit collecty, and i wondered what the story can you talk about what it meant to you . Right. Well, let me show you a visual. The genesis of me telling a story started with a memoir written by alan bacon. She had written a memoir of one year that she spent in tokyo teaching, and living among her japanese foster sisters, and when i read her book, i had no idea what the larger story was, this woman in 1888 had had the same experience that i had had because she was a large White American woman and there was no december disguising that. Yet her voice was frank, forthright. Sense of humor but open mind, astonished by what she was discovering. I thought i should write a book about her because i thought she was me. That feeling frustration of not quite being able to be part of entirely but as great section for the culture that you have learning intim the roots are completely different from the last. You can go to a modern city like tokyo and feel like youre in a foreign country. Very much. Lets talk a little bit about the world that these girls came from because its so completely than what they went into. A passage that talks about the education, what the education would have been at the start of the right, right. Let me find it. You can imagine what that world would have looked like. The oldest of the three girls grew up as a world as it had been, a girl would include the 18th century, learning for women the only quality that fit a women are obedience to parents, husband and inlaws above all. A girl of this culture received a dagger and her mother made sure she knew how to use it not only in selfdefense but to take her own life if her honor be stained. This is the hassle that she grew up in the shadow thats been restored, northern japan did any daggers go to the United States, do we know . You know, two years, maybe, the eldest of the three girls went from here, devastated in the final battle of the civil war to new haven, connecticut. I dont know how many have spent many time there. She lived in a white collaborate house. The span that she income is mind boggling. Can you talk about maybe what the education would have been . [laughs] right. Honorable daughter. The individual, who are you and lead to express individual intellect, i i study what she had studied in new haven, connecticut, one of the entrance questions, categorize [laughs] you can imagine how she would feel that weighing on her shoulders. It was hard to emphasize the span that she spent. So many wonderful characters in your book. I love your description of what he had to say about alluded to in your intro, can you read that passage . Sure. What the japaneses man perspective was on american women. It wasnt just the man of business. He had been astonished by american women. Samurai wives, served, bore children and managed the household for their husbands who spent hours in the pleasure quarterrers enjoying the attention of a different sort of women trained in music, dance and sparkling conversation. Women were entertaining, beyond that, they were unimportant. They had opinions which they didnt hesitate to offer and the men listened. They joined their husbands, presided at table. Men gave up to women and dust their hats for them in public. Clearly american women had a happier life than japanese sisters, why, the answer was education. Idealistic view of the way the american women right. It does add another layer to your story. Theres this view of what the japanese man thought of right. But the United States was going through significant transition too. I dont know that all women would agree with the assessment of their lives. Women of a certain class, a funny character. Pictures of the same men. Before 1868. Right. He took it to extreme wearing the two swords. In fact, cut his hair but kind of crazy to med he its hard to overemphasized how extraordinary this lunch lunge to women was. An institution of lier education for women, purpose built. So he was onto something. It wasnt necessarily as dark as he made it seem. It was his pet project to get the girls sent and he was trying to the a sales job, so [laughs] its so charming on page 79. Yes. I love this story. [laughs] so the embassy which is 100 statesmen in San Francisco, the press cover every steps they take. The oriental and sub headings and another one the next day. One of the things that they did the japanese proved themselves to be good support. For dessert a huge cake in the shape of a woman representing america. Baffled, he turned to the host. He cut off the two hands of the figure and presented them the two ladies nearby explaining that japan extend the hand of friendship to her american friends. So quick thinking, thats so japanese, and so classy and quick, i dont know. Did it mean to you i was thinking about letters that i found that my american grandmother wrote to my japanese grandfather. Right. Is that same quality. Right. The mission has just landed. As you see, you and her might have on but they have put all their western suits. Theyre not japanese shoes. Those are San Francisco shoes. They were talking the walk. They were out to learn what it meant to be western, harness those ideas. The other thing i think their transition from samurai men, a version of western japanese men, interesting transformation of the girls go who go from being japanese. I had to fiscally transform and come back to the United States and adapt to being a western again. You probably went through to. You have a wonderful description of what happens to the girls. One of the mothers is concerned about. Give us a little picture of what was happening. Lets see. Its on page 116. Okay. Now settled down in washington at the age of seven imprinting like an orphan chick, it was shifting, to her own mother she wrote in english of a dream shed had. I dreamed that i went home to get my older sister to come here to america. My American Mother went with me and after we inquired many times we were shown to a house that was my fathers house, it was an american threestory house and i rang the doorbell and my sister came there. She was so glad to see me. So this is a little girls dream of going home to get her sister, but home when she finds it is a house that looks much like her georgetown house all of a sudden. At the age of seven, right around when she would have had this dream and writing the note. You see how thoroughly she was assimilating even then, embrace everything the family was giving. She was requesting that she be baptized and made cristian h. She was it was interesting to know her faith. Absolutely. Tells us what is going to happen almost. It seems that way. Definitely. You were talking about the education of women received and there are some funny lines. This is kind of interesting because this is we think a japanese person of what japan had been after being in the states. Right, this is now the older of the three in new haven at the end of her High School Career writing for a newspaper. She writes, most of us in japan are radicals in this century of science and civilization we dont like to live the life of the middle ages, we like changes and modern improvement. We dont believe women were to provide judgment. We dont believe in childrens independence. One of the girls whose own family had sent her at the age of 1 1. 11. She had a different path because when she arrived at the age of 12 she was already more formed she came from that castle. The other factor for her was that her brother was the first graduate in yale. And he made sure that she kept her japanese identity and samurai identity in front of her. That it didnt fade behind her. Yeah. Im going to skip ahead on 139 so we are past education. If you can read a section and tell us about the author. Right. As i mentioned going home, home, quote unquote, was more difficult as you can imagine than coming bewildered than no english to america. This is one of the girls. This is after she had returned to tokyo. She is writing home to mothers, she is writing in english pouring her hearts out, i must not, will not go back to those days for god has given me to teach example for you have shown me. I am a child to no longer, i am a teacher, everyone comes to me to know what to do and i am old in their eyes if i cannot feel old myself. Coming back settling in to her music school teaching. There we go. And a lot of people, this is a print, she in some ways was quite lucky. Her music skills didnt require for her to read and write japanese. Tokyo needed her this moment because entertaining required westernstyle state dinners, balls. A western guest house that had been built for entertainment of foreign visitors, they needed to learn how to ballroom dance and wear western clothes. In this print, many people believe that the woman on the right, yellow dress is playing and the woman is looking for her for guidance. She became a real mother figure both to students and to the other two members of her trio of travelers. She became their mother in a way. She became an emotional support. She she had a warm soul. I couldnt help but think when i was reading, i couldnt help to think about the different characters and the girls bound together. I had that feel to it. Uma goes back to japan and did so well in japan, and you have this section, i think, on page 166. I mean, it could have come out straight out of want to go write about wanting to be free. Its a universal feeling that uma describes for us. Can you read that . A feeling that i had when i first moved to japan. For the first time is awkward, she had been the middle one, reach her bedroom window in georgetown. Now in japan i feel so big, she wrote. Its uncomfortablial for uncomfortably. What a land of Little People anyway. [laughs] every time goi to japan i go to japan they think im enormous. Youre actuallial. Im 53. It speaks to the power of culture. Its not just what you eat but what you feel fiscally. She captures that so beautifully. She changes so much, i think, that its not surprising i guess. Right. She really in some ways is astonishing to read the letters because she has developed a mind of a Young American missionary in the body of an American Girl that feels debt to go back and do her best in the service of her country but she thinks like an american, not just an american but american who brings enlightenment. She looks at japanese men who drink on sundays and say, how can i live among these people. She comes from a family. The fact that the girls go back to japan, its not necessarily a japan to have even more western ideas brought into the country, right. So all these years they have been going to school, western way, go back and teach, what happens . Right. So oh, yeah. During 1870s an incredible lunge, while they are in 12 years, by the time they come back theres action against studying english, against throwing out japanese tradition and favoring western ones. She gets back and says, a few years, a few years ago, now japanese things are being put ahead and everything foreign is approved of simply because it isnt foreign. I have to show the slide because hs its hysterical. This is documentary footage here. [laughs] this is what happened when president grant visited in 1879. Wearing kimono with the american flag. Straight face and with great joy and enthusiasm. You see how far things went and snap back. You know its going to happen. Theres this great period of opens. It wont be too long that japan closes off and a terrible history is just around the corner. You do have another female visitor to japan. Go back but their friends go back. She remained single and becomes an educator in the u. S. And makes a couple of trips over to aid in the process. One of her conditions for coming over to teach is she can bring her colleague bruce. Then there was bruce. She was beloved colleague. She considered him part of the family. He will insist on following alice everywhere she goes. There was no teaching manners of any kind let alone japanese manners. I cant help that. I keep him out of our sight as much as possible. When i was a child people had dogs, maybe some pets but the pets were kept outside. Right. You really didnt have any animals come inside the house. What has happened in japan now . [laughs] i think they are now more pets in japan than there are babies. Right. Its become a pet culture. [laughs] right. Adaptation. Yeah. Maybe we could leave an observation on page 224 that she wrote which i loved. Yeah. Summed your book so beautifully. At the end of her year in 1880. She comes back and she writes, the words civilization is so difficult to define and understand but i do not know what it means now as well as i did when i left home. So many things in your book, right, worlds and what is culture and civilization and what this one learned. At the end even though i didnt write a biography of alice, i returned to her in the end because she embodied the ability to keep her mind open, not be totally uncritical and yet clearly and she taught me in sort of retrospect the best way to be when you move between two cultures, which is to really try as much as you can to look at the lenses of the place that is you places that you are when youre there and reflect there a little bit. But while youre in a place, embrace what you see. It can be an incredible challenge to a person. Its almost the biggest challenge to go to another world because you are confronted with the question, wait, who am i, nobody is behaving the way i want to, i dont know what to do. Definitely. Specially coming back the story resinated for me so much, to move in with my inlaws. Frustration of just underestimated. I was somebodys wife. It was hard for anybody to see me other than just a wife. That was very, very hard. It taught me a lot about the power of being underestimated. Thats something that i carried forward and continue to treasure much more than trumpeting my achievements. You are not to be underestimated. This is a wonderful book. I loved it so much. Youre all in for an incredible treat. I think we have time for questions. Maybe if we can get a microphone its in the front. If these five women stayed in japan, would they have received the same level of education or there was not that opportunity . No, by the time they were of age there was maybe one place that women where it would be possible to continue an education. But thats one place, and given certainly where at least the north, she probably wouldnt have had social accessed to it. She probably wouldnt have been taught the courses she was exposed to. Because they went to the states that we have right. Right. Yeah. [laughs] were they offered anything special. Thats a good question. They were originally five families. All five had been on the losing side of the recent civil war. They had backed the show guns. They had lost a significant amount of prestige. All for different reasons, had a rather advanced sense that western ideas per the future for japan, and so other children. They were willing to take the risk and send one girl off making a gamble that when she returned if she returned she might bring back with her some of the prestige that they had lost. In addition to that, what about the one i forget which name, went back to convert to convert the japanese, what was her family buddhist or interestingly she had the most progressively father from all of them. So when she came back, he had already had a local church, he was none of the former samurai class in japan, the men of the elite class, for them converting to christianity was just not done. The fact that it made uma be proud of him because he had proved himself as an odd ball in the context of japanese society. I think there was a question back here. Yes . The question is is this on . Is for the camera. Its for janice. You said that the girls returned to ten years, im joes wondering what was going on in japan politically from american that sort of left as america. Right. Thats one question. Ill let you answer. Okay. I think it was sort of a natural swing. It was a correction. The fervor for which embraced ideas through most of the 1870s had to do with catching up. We need to prove to the western world that we can play on an equal level. In order to do that, we have to show that we can dress like them, talk like them, constitution and laws and schools like them. Okay, and then once that started to be more of a reality, then there was sort of a feeling of what have we december discarded. And so the return, okay, instead of Samuel Smiles and benjamin, we should be paying attention to history. A swing back to that. Thank you. My next question, it only existed for ten years and also such a phenomenal researcher, i was wondering if you can tell us what the right. I had to skip which i kind of like. This is mariah mitchell. She was household names. So astronomy was part. Literature, math. Vigorous [inaudible conversations] not at all. Interestingly they pride themselves on being part of what a boy would be studying at yale. The girls who were studying were studying not to be statesmen, they were studying to be better wives and mothers. Sometimes teachers but mostly they were heading to marriage and to be better for their men. Theres a funny inbalance there. The goal wasnt necessarily to be on a par with the others. Wrong assessment then. This is when the schools were being founded. Any other questions . I was listening to the story of these women, the first thing i thought, what a problem it must have been for the girls to be removed from their families and placed in completely foreign alien culture and like the six yearold not understanding what was happening. Do you have a sense when they returned to japan, how they were received by their families . What was that like . Its not easy. My husband was one and i know exactly how not easy it is. We do know because happy, sad reasons, since they didnt speak good japanese when they came back, all of their struggle and emotional were channeled back to their American Family in english. She didnt stop until her foster mother died in her mid90s. The letters that i read about the english, realizing that she was the teacher and people were looking to her to teach them about western ways, and she couldnt be a little girl anymore. Uma, writing with angry, i wish that i could speak my native language. Stamsu writing about how she wished for when she use today wear her hair done in a braid and she could write and sit under a tree. Running around sitting under a tree were not options anymore. Theres a great point to that. [laughs] her mind and body were free in america in a way that they werent when she returned to japan. She made significant change, so [laughs] to know youre such a good writer and have so much passion for research. Im going to switch a little bit and ask questions about where you found the letters and the process of finding things, can you talk about that . Yes. Definitely. I had so much good luck. That was an important place. Its an interesting source of thing. Records had arelationship with japanese students from the very beginning of japanese students leaving japan. New haven is such an important part of the story. I got to meet im sorry. Five years ago i started working on it with determines. So about five years to write it. Its for them. Any transformation version not only japanese but the chinese or french or english . Not yet but my fingers are crossed. Were hopeful. Its a good story. One more . You mentioned the college but did you also have to do other research in japan not to deal with the japanese language . My japanese is i call it aunt japanese. Sufficient for hanging out withmy husbands aunt. But through them and through my inlaws i was blessed with research and translation helpers. They became great sources of support when there was a source that couldnt be had any other way. Anybody else . Anything else . I just want to thank marie so much, and i hope youll look for her book, where the dead s the japanese say goodbye. Its an extraordinary journey in it own right. Thank you. I think journey is a subtitle in your book as well. It is also a journey. The present in japan and the best care of armchair travel. Thank you all. Thank you. [applause] thank you for herein came today. I you want to start a line at the table. Please purchase them before they get signed. Another round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] with fdrs decision to let macarthur and king go through the central and south pacific, virtually all the big military strategy decisions had been made. The rest was up to the commanders in the field. There were only two major decisions left to be made, and unexpectedly roosevelt would not be the one to make them. On the afternoon of april 12, 1945, Vice President harry truman thought he would be playing poker that night. Instead he was in friend of the chief justice and being sworn in as the 33rd president of the United States. When roosevelt died in ap