Talk:Yoshiko Kawashima

POV and balance

The term "Hanjian" in modern day usage no longer refers to simply the "Han" ethnicity. I have yet to hear any so-called "Manchurians" refer to her as a heroine of any sort. And this is coming from a Manchu Chinese.

If that's the case, why is Puyi never referred to as a Hanjian? --GCarty (talk) 14:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that Manchurian (i.e. Man Zhou Ren) is not even used today, and is considered insulting to many Northeastern Chinese - regardless of their ethnic status. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nuerhachi (talk • contribs) 20:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC).Nuerhachi 20:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I am again reverting removals by Nuerhachi.

Whether it is considered offensive today, it is a term that is still used in English, and was used as identification at the time. Wikipedia is not a portal to be politically correct but to show a balanced point of view, even those you find disagreeable. Chris 22:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never heard of any being called "Manchurian" with reference to people that reside in Northeast China. Most people in the West simply refer to them as Chinese or Northeast Chinese (just as we are called Dong Bei Ren in Mandarin). The term "Manchu" is used to refer to the ethnicity of Man Zu Ren, not Manchurian. I assure you that I am not trying to assert my POV in this article.

Manchuria is a term that was used to refer to the Northeast Chinese region by the West decades ago. It is being gradually replaced by Northeast China - in a similar manner that Peking has been replaced by Beijing, and Canton being replaced by Guang Dong.

Secondly, the assertion that "some 'Manchurians'" (whether they be ethnic Han, Manchu, etc.) regard her as a heroine is baseless. Being a native of NE China and a Manchu minority, I can say with a large degree of confidence that the overwhelming vast majority of Chinese in the Northeast do NOT view her as any sort of heroine. If there is any opinion of her being a heroine amongst the Northeastern Chinese, they must constitute a very very small and insignificant minority.

Lastly, Han Jian today is a much broader term than say, during the Song period. In modern usage, Han Jian can be applied to Kawashima Yoshiko.

Nuerhachi 19:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Chinese history, literature and films portray Yoshiko Kawashima as a detestable villain. Japanese literature and films portray her as a tragic heroine. Manchurians nowadays, who mostly identify themselves as Chinese, also regard her as a national traitor. IMO, it is Japanese who created the myth that "Manchurians regard her as a heroine" as a tactic to undermine and discredit Chinese portrayal of her villainy, and reinforce Japanese positive portrayal of her. Chinese and Japanese still have a lot of qualms over history, and they often find ways to discredit each other's version. -- ktchong 17 August 2009

Kawashima Yoshiko

The italicized reading of the hanzi / kanji is Yoshiko Kawashima, but shouldn't it be Kawashima Yoshiko?Erik-the-red 20:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Nationality

Which nationality did she in fact have? She was born in China by Chinese parents, but she was adopted by a Japanese, raised in Japan, and apparently she considered herself to be Japanese, so should she be considered Chinese or Japanese? Adopted people are, genereally, considered to be the nationality of the country they were adopted to, not of the country they were born to. The Chinese apparently considered her to be Chinese, as they executed her as a traitor, but how should this be defined? Was she a Chinese citizent, or did she have a Japanese citizienship?--85.226.42.181 (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Her nationality/ethnicity is Manchu. Her citizenship was both Japanese and Chinese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.46.2 (talk) 15:37, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Execution Photo?

there is a photo of her after execution. she sought a private situation but was shown before crowds as an added humiliation. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19480325_yoshiko_kawashima_hinrichtung_2a.jpg i wonder if it should be included. Cramyourspam (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

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Rumors of her survival?

This Listverse article mentions a story about a body-double being used in the execution and that Kawashima possibly survived to old age? The article even includes a link to a book in regards to this, which makes the entire situation a little more convincing. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 01:33, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Inaccurate information - please check?

The part where it says that YK, after leaving her marriage, spent time in Tokyo living a bohemian existence with various lovers of both sexes. It's footnoted, but I'm not convinced the source listed actually makes such a claim. I suspect that the actual source is Maureen Lindley's The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel, which is a novel and, while possessed of a strikingly authoritative narrative voice, nonetheless should not be taken as an accurate depiction of YK's career. It contains a number of fictitious people not based on any real-life counterpart, and many of the events described in the novel simply did not happen in reality. 61.69.176.206 (talk) 21:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Gendering

Phyllis Birnbaum, the cited source for Kawashima Yoshiko's male name, in that same chapter maintains that Kawashima did not identify as a male, but also leaves open the question of whether it is reasonable to call Kawashima transgender at all. "Transgender", as a self-classification, did not exist and Kawashima would not have recognized it -- on the other hand, the "third gender" in the temporal context of Imperial Japan was a nebulous category that includes many things that later became distinct identities, including but not limited to transgender. In Kawashima's case, I think it is advisable to follow Birnbaum's caution and use female pronouns as was used by her and in the press coverage during Kawashima's adult life, unless some academic proof surfaces that Kawashima preferred masculine pronounce in general and outside of Murumatsu Shofu's novels. Lycrophon (talk) 05:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

These reviews of the Birnbaum book all use she/her pronouns:

• ‘Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy,’ by Phyllis Birnbaum (NYT, 2015)
• Review: Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy (The Diplomat, 2015)
• Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army (Japan Times, 2015)

Beccaynr (talk) 06:16, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

It's explicitly said in the article that they started identifying as a male at one point, i.e. Kawashima was a trans man. @Beccaynr:, keep in mind that the said authors obviously didn't accept Kawashima's new gender identity. Also AFAIK Kawashima lived through the rest of their life as a man. Thus pronouns have to be changed to male ones. Statskvinde (talk) 13:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Statskvinde, I offered sources here per the MOS:GENDERID guideline, which includes:

Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, man/woman/person, waiter/waitress/server) that reflect the person's most recent expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise.

As I continue to look for sources, I also found this 2012 film review from Time Out that also uses her pronouns. To avoid original research, we need reliable sources to help develop this article, so if there are sources that can help clarify the issue of gender identity and pronouns, these would be helpful to find and add to the article. The question about pronouns could also be posted to the No original research noticeboard to ask for help with finding sources and determining appropriate pronoun usage for this article. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 15:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

@Beccaynr Again, it doesn't matter what others have thought/think about Kawashima in this regard. As you said, what's important here is solely the self-identification. And as I said, it's written in the very article:

On 22 November 1925, Yoshiko said that she had "...decided to cease being a woman forever." Earlier that day she had dressed in a kimono with a traditional female hair style and took a photo among blooming cosmos to commemorate "my farewell to life as a woman." That evening, Yoshiko went to a barbershop and had all her hair cut off, adopting a crew cut and from then on dressing in men's clothes. A photo of the transformation appeared five days later in the Asahi Shimbun under the headline: "Kawashima Yoshiko's Beautiful Black Hair Completely Cut Off - Because of Unfounded 'Rumors,' Makes Firm Decision to Become a Man - Touching Secret Tale of Her Shooting Herself," alluding to a prior episode in which she had shot herself in the chest with a pistol given to her by Iwata Ainosuke [ja].

She explained in another article two days after the first that "I was born with what the doctors call a tendency toward the third sex, and so I cannot pursue an ordinary woman's goals in life... Since I was young I've been dying to do the things that boys do. My impossible dream is to work hard like a man for China, for Asia." Statskvinde (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

• Hi Statskvinde, I have posted a request for assistance at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Yoshiko Kawashima, because I think input from more editors would be helpful for figuring out how to proceed. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 17:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Beccaynr I thank you too. That's a good idea. Cheers. Statskvinde (talk) 17:57, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

  Hi Statskvinde, as an update, I also posted a notice about this discussion at the WikiProject Gender studies talk page. Cheers, Beccaynr (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Beccaynr That's great. Thank you! Let's hope that something will come out of it in the right direction in this regard. Regarding Kawashima, they (using this pronoun because I think it better fits this situation) could have been bigender (male and female in this case) or something like that - this could explain the inconsistencies in the use of male pronouns. Which, nevertheless, does not negate the obvious fact that Kawashima was trans (bigender being a non-binary gender and non-binary itself is under the trans umbrella). So, in any case, I think that it would be factologically corect to be mentioned in the article atleast that Kawashima was a trans person without mentions of gender. This could be a compromise option anyway. HNY and cheers! Statskvinde (talk) 13:47, 10 January 2023 (UTC)