Imperial Women's Travel Writing in the Japanese Colonial Magazine Taiwan fujinkai (Taiwan Women's World) 1934-1939 = 日本植民地雑誌「臺灣婦人界」に綴られた帝国女性紀行1934-1939

Abstract: Taiwan Women's World ( Taiwan fujinkai ), which ran from 1934-1939, was a Japanese language colonial magazine. In the first year, a series of travel essays by two Japanese women travelers were published. The essays were "Western Travel: Going to Egypt" (Ōbei no tabi: Wedjiputo gyō) by Akahori Umeko, and "Records of a Foreigner: France Memories" (Etoranze no ki: Omoide no Furansu) and "Random Thoughts from Europe" (Yōroppa dansō) by Honna Chōko. Neither woman was a writer by trade. They were wives living in the settler community of Japanese-ruled Taiwan who had the privilege to travel to Western Europe. The serialization of these three essays back-to-back was no accident. The editor, Kakinuma Fumiaki, chose these essays to showcase the literary talents of women of Taiwan and to provide a point of view of the travel world normally dominated by men. Both authors, in their descriptions of what they saw during their travels, provide intertextual references to Japanese and European civilization. By doing so, I argue, Akahori Umeko and Honna Chōko fulfilled Kakinuma Fumiaki's imagined function of the Japanese imperial woman traveler for the purposes of Taiwan Women's World . As Japanese women traveling in Europe during the age of Western orientalism, but also of Japanese imperialism, they were shaped by the dual desires to present Japanese women as on par with Western women, yet also to push the Japanese female ideal, "the good wife, wise mother" ( ryōsai kenbo ) ideology. Akahori and Honna's respectable behavior as Japanese "good wives, wise mothers" abroad lent legitimacy to their observations on foreign cultures for their readers back "home," the colonial space of Taiwan. As I will argue, what Akahori Umeko and Honna Chōko chose to see, and how they wrote about what they saw, reveals that they identified with the position of European women. Kakinuma chose to publish these essays about European travel in a Japanese language magazine for Japanese and Taiwanese women readers living in Japanese-ruled Taiwan not only to create a bridge between Japan and Taiwan, but also to affirm that the "good wife, wise mother" ideal for Japanese women applied to Taiwanese women as well.