Mine Imaizumi

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

Yukichi Fukuzawa, who opened a Dutch learning Juku in Teppozu, Tsukiji, frequently visited the nearby house of Hoshu Katsuragawa. Among those aspiring to Dutch learning, none were wealthy, but Fukuzawa's appearance was particularly modest; he wore only a cotton kimono with a haori over a white juban and 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 parlor. Suddenly, a child began poking at the holes in his tabi with a bundle of about ten pine needles. Since Katsuragawa was speaking earnestly, Fukuzawa had to endure the prickling 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 Fukuzawa Yukichi" as "the headquarters of Dutch medical scholars 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 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, Ienobu), Hochiku became an inner physician and was granted the title of Hogen. The Shogunate's medical officers served in 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, holding considerably high status. The Katsuragawa family inherited the title of Hogen for generations, down to the seventh generation, Hoshu (Kunioki). Note that 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 age of only 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 called the "Doeff-Halma" because it was based on François Halma's Dutch-French dictionary. The Shogunate only permitted it to be kept in the interpreters' quarters in Nagasaki, the observatory in Edo, and the Katsuragawa family of Dutch physicians. The "Doeff-Halma" in the Doeff Room at Tekijuku was a manuscript copy. In Fukuzawa's recollections ("The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi"), he mentions that requests to copy parts of it helped support the living expenses of Keio students, illustrating its immense value. Amidst the changing times brought by Perry's arrival, Katsuragawa believed it was important to relinquish 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 house of a personal physician, though high in status, lived in poverty in a house with a leaking roof. 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 talented in the halberd, 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 also famous for their good relationship, and they always had two palanquins (kago) ready for outings. 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 children.

The Katsuragawa house in Tsukiji Nakadori was always bustling with people aspiring to Dutch learning. Among those who visited frequently were figures who would leave their names to posterity, such as Shunsan Yanagawa (a pioneer of newspapers and magazines), Saburo Utsunomiya (a pioneer of chemical technology who succeeded in domesticating cement production), Ryuho Narushima (president of the "Choya Shimbun"), Takahira Kanda (a pioneer of Western mathematics and economics), and Shuhei Mitsukuri (founder of Sansha Gakusha). Fukuzawa joined this group, but even in the eyes of the young Mine, Fukuzawa appeared different from the other playmates. He would borrow Western books from Katsuragawa and return copies in a few days that took others one or two months. This was likely due to the rapid transcription skills he acquired at Tekijuku.

The guests of the Katsuragawa family took turns playing with Mine, but for her, 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 the eyes of young Mine, he was a person who was good at everything, interesting, knowledgeable, and told many stories. He was not just kind; the Fukuzawa style was to stop playing exactly when the time came, 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 seeming bothered. Mine never forgot Fukuzawa's teaching: "You must not give things to beggars recklessly. Many beggars are lazy, so giving things recklessly 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) intended to cross the Pacific accompanying the mission to the United States. Kimura was the son of Matasuke and Kuni's biological younger brother. Because he lived in Shinsenza, Shiba, Mine called him "Uncle 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 (nagaya) inside 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 parlor was about six mats, and there was an alcove (tokonoma). 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 her. One was "something like yokan, but not for eating; it smelled good and produced bubbles when wet 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 might 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 account, a story from after Fukuzawa returned to the Nakatsu Domain's middle residence in the autumn of 1863. Since Mine's account 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 passed the family headship to his younger brother, Hosaku, and was forced out of his residence to live in a longhouse. Even to Mine, he seemed "like a completely different person"; he quit being a doctor and stopped all social interactions, even briefly using the name "Shingo Morishima." Katsuragawa had no desire to serve the Meiji government. He started a pharmacy in Asakusa with the like-minded Narushima, 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 "deep kindness, who could not help but stop and comfort a poor child crying in the street" (Mine's recollection) and had been a close friend of Fukuzawa since their Tekijuku days. According to Mine, Fukuzawa visited the Ishii residence frequently. "I heard that Mr. Ishii also corrected parts of 'Sekai Kunizukushi' (All the Countries of the World) from the side. They seemed to be creating it while consulting each other harmoniously. I would sometimes carry Mr. Ishii's child, who had no one to watch them, on my back and hum the song 'The world is wide, all nations are...' in its seven-five syllable meter even before it was sung by the public." Ishii treated Mine with great respect, as if she were the daughter of his master, bowing and greeting her every morning with "Good morning, Princess." Ishii worked hard to find a good match for Mine, 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. As Fukuzawa became busier and lived further away, "he stopped coming to see my father very often," but among Katsuragawa's belongings is an envelope (without the letter) from when Fukuzawa delivered money to Katsuragawa, who was living in Honjo Yokonami around 1873. Since this coincides 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 was discontinued 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 Shimpei Eto and others, he served as an information officer in Tokyo. Furthermore, because he sided with the Satsuma faction in the Satsuma Rebellion, he was imprisoned. Later, through Soejima's arrangements, he worked at the courts 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, past the age of 80, she responded to her son Genkichi's encouragement and told her life story 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.