EASTERN JEWEL (REVISED)

NEW FROM SHISEI-DO PUBLICATIONS! Eastern Jewel: Japan's Mata Hari - The Life and Death of Yoshiko Kawashima, by Hayato Tokugawa, in a new, revised edition. Now available for reading and for free download (for a limited time on Scribd at:

www.scribd.com/doc/48131055/Eastern-Jewel-Japan-s-Mata-Hari-Revised.

Our most popular essay published on the Internet and soon to be a "stand-alone" book.

The name Mata Hari conjures up images of an eye-catching, exotic woman, operating as a secret agent during World War I, and using her powers of seduction to mine military secrets from her many lovers and contacts. The name fires the imagination and stimulates images of the classic femme fatale. Devotees of classic cinema will almost certainly turn their minds to images of Greta Garbo in the 1931 film based on the life of Mata Hari: commercially Garbo's most successful film.

A perhaps equally evocative term (albeit stereotypical), especially to people who grew up in the United States during the period of the 1920s through the 1950s, is that of the “dragon lady.” Typically, she was an East Asian woman, characteristically either Chinese or Japanese, found in popular fiction, who was identified and objectified romantically and erotically as being alluring, wicked, scheming, and troublesome. Even though the use of “dragon” or “dragoness” appears in dictionaries from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to identify a forceful Asian woman, the actual term “dragon lady” did not appear until its introduction in the 1930s by Milton Caniff in his popular adventure comic strip Terry and the Pirates, and his characterization of Lai Choi San, a female Chinese pirate of the South China Sea.

A slightly earlier version of the “dragon lady,” one that was more tangibly romantic and erotic, appeared in American cinema during the 1920s and early 30s; particularly in the early films of Anna May Wong, such as Daughter of the Dragon (1931). Many men, and women, on both sides of the Pacific found her roles, and the image of the classic “dragon lady” as a source of innumerable erotic fantasies.

Sociologists and various social activists have, and will continue to write on the subject of whether or not the characters of Mata Hari and the “dragon lady,” as portrayed in literature and films, are misogynistic or sexist. Certainly one could also do so here, but then, that would not be nearly as much fun.

Political correctness aside, one might ponder the possibility of the synthesis of Mata Hari with the character of the “dragon lady” into one person. Well, such a person did in fact exist, and while obscure in the minds of most people, she possessed the distinctiveness of both and uncanny similarities to one in particular, both in time and in circumstance.

LAFCADIO HEARN: An Introduction

Lafcadio Hearn loved Japan; of this there can be no doubt. He wrote 11 books on the subject of Japan, it's culture, people, history, legends and folklore, as well as countless essays. Shisei-Do Publications is now offering "Lafcadio Hearn: An Introduction," originally written to our "An Annotated, In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, as a stand-alone essay. If you want to learn more, please visit this great illustrated essay at : http://www.scribd.com/doc/35387259/Lafcadio-Hearn-An-Introduction

The Secret of Iidamachi Pond

The Secret of Iidamachi Pond - Uncle Hayato's Ghost Stories

Shisei-Do Publications is happy to present a new short story, The Secret of Iidamachi Pond, an excerpt from the soon to be released book, Uncle Hayato's Ghost Stories: a collection of traditional Japanese mystery and ghost stories as told by Japanese story teller "Uncle Hayato" otherwise known as "Hayato Ojisan". The story is vintage folk tale from the time of the shoguns involving a murder, a cynical samurai, a desperate wife, a terrorized child, the ghost of a beautiful woman, and an old woman with a secret.

Come and read this and other stories at our pages on Scribd.com at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21299385/The-Secret-of-Iidamachi-Pond

LORD BAG OF RICE

We just published a great traditional Japanese folk tale on Scribd titled My Lord Bag of Rice, hopefully to re-kindle interest in our fledgling publishing company, Shisei-Do Publications. This is an exceprt from Uncle Hayato's Story Book, a collection of stories that have been featured here and on the now defunct Yahoo 360 website over the years, as well as new stories, told by Hayato Ojisan. Our biographical essay on Yoshida Shoin and Eastern Jewel, Japan's Mata Hari, have been very successful and well-received - more successful than we had possibly imagined with Eastern Jewel becoming the primier non-fiction source on the life of Kawashima Yoshiko.

We will soon be publishing our first books, The Annotated In Ghostly Japan, by Lafacadio Hearn, which I edited and illustrated with historic photographs, original shin hanga prints, and traditional ukiyo-e prints; plus our second book, The Annotated Bushido, by Inazo Nitobe, completely revised into contemporary English with detailed explanations of the authors references, anaysis of the book, and copius illustrations. Both books are in the final stages of illustration and editing and we hope to have them available on Amazon by the end of the year.

My Lord Bag of Rice is a traditional Japanese folk tale dating back to the early Heian Period and has been the subject of many forms of Japanese performance art and graphic art for centuries and tells the fantastic story of a brave samurai:

In olden times, when Fujiwara no Hidesato (who lived in the first half of the tenth century) crossed the bridge, a big serpent lay across it. The hero, however, was not at all afraid, and calmly stepped over the monster which at once disappeared into the water and returned in the shape of a beautiful woman. Two thousand years, she said, she had lived under this bridge, but never had she seen such a brave man as he. For this reason she requested him to destroy her enemy, a huge centipede, which had killed her sons and grandsons.

If you would like to read the entire story, please follow the link below to our Scribd site where the entire text is available to read or even download, as well as A Most Audacious Young Man, the biography of one of Japan's greatest intellectuals and revolutionaries at the time when Commodore Perry was knocking on the door of a reclusive Japan, and Eastern Jewel, Japan's Mata Hari, the live of Yoshiko Kawashima, a story of intrique in the days preceeding World War II.

http://www.scribd.com/full/19568969?access_key=key-fakn7avunch07x7pmrz

PROFILES IN JAPANESE HISTORY: EASTERN JEWEL

Eastern Jewel

We just published a new essay entitled Eastern Jewel, Japan's Mata Hari. It is a biographical essay on the life and death of one of the most unusual women in Japanese history. Part Mata Hari, part Dragon Lady, spy, seducer, soldier, hero, villian, the story is set in Qing Dynasty China, Manchuria and Shanghai at the opening of World War II.

Please come and visit us and read this interesting story at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13647117/Eastern-Jewelscribd1Book-Formatv2

Later on this year, this essay will be part of a book to be published by Shisei-Do Publications, entitled Profiles in Japanese History and possibly part of a second book in combination with Yoshiko Yamaguchi otherwise known as Ri Koran.

Anyway, we hope you will read about Yoshiko and enjoy meeting this unusual woman.

PROFILES IN JAPANESE HISTORY: Yoshida Shoin

Welcome to Shisei-Do Publications. The following is an excerpt from our forthcoming book Profiles In Japanese History by Hayato Tokugawa, to be published later this year. The following is a biographical sketch of the life of Yoshida Shoin, one of Japan's greatest intellectuals and revolutionary of the Meiji Restoration.

Because of the limitations of Yahoo 360, please feel free to use the following link in order to see the entire article as published on Scribd:

http://www.scribd.com/full/11997930?access_key=key-1taafo3htwfx9kiurd1l

SHISEI-DO PUBLICATIONS - The Meanng of Shisei-do

SHISEI-DO PUBLICATIONS: The Meaning of Shisei-do

至 誠

The name Shisei-do Publications is based upon the words and teachings of one of Japan's greatest intellectuals and educators, Yoshida Shōin (吉田 松陰) who lived and died a premature death during the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, a time of great political and social upheaval.

He once wrote: Shisei ni shite ugokkazaru mono wa, immadakore arazarunari

The first word in the quotation, shisei, is key to what we believe at Shisei-do Publications and it is why we exist. Shi (至) means the height of or the ultimate in something; sei (誠) refers to what is called "heart's blood", unaffected or unrestrained sincerity, wholeheartedness, eagerness, or enthusiasm. Do (道) means the path or the way.

For us then, Shisei-do (至誠道) is the way of the height of enthusiasm in each project we undertake. Each book, each essay, whether we are translating it, interpreting it, hopefully giving it new life, or if we are developing a project from within our own creativity, it is a work of love, done with the greatest enthusiasm.

Shisei ni shite ugokkazaru mono wa, imadakore arazarunari.

"If one has shise to do something, if one does something with shisei, if one does not forget shisei when one does something, one can accomplish anything."

-Yoshida Shoin