"Ichiyo Higuchi (1872 - 1896)" - 1 -
 Many of you may have seen the woman's portrait printed on the new five thousand yen note issued last year. This marks the first time in Japan that a woman's portrait is adopted on the banknote. The portrait is that of Ichiyo Higuchi, who was a female writer in Meji era. I'd like to dedicate few lines for the introduction of Ichiyo Higuchi, who suffered extreme poverty and ended her life due to tuberculosis at age of twenty-four, but nevertheless wrote no less than four thousand tanka (a Japanese poem of thirty-one syllables) and more than twenty novels in her short life. Ichiyo was born in March 25, 1872 as a second daughter between her father Daikichi who was fond of learning and her mother Ayame. Ichiyo liked reading very much since her childhood following her father's steps. There were large volumes of illustrated books in the Higuchi family's warehouse, where she spent endless days reading biographical writings of heroes and warmhearted stories, so much that she became near-sighted. Later, she looked back on those days and said, "I do not want to end my life commonly, but always desired to make my life wonderful. She had good record in her studies and graduated Aoumi primary school in honor when she was eleven years old in 1883. However, her mother who had an opinion that woman should learn sewing and house keeping, denied her path to the next stage of education, while her father wanted to let her pursue further studies. Her father asked her what she wishes to do, but as she was not outspoken because of her fainthearted character, ending up obeying her mothers will. In her dairy, she wrote about this affair, "It saddened me to death, but I quit school". However, Ichiyo did not stop studying at night. Her father was quick to observe this and he made her enroll in a flourishing composing school named Hagino-ya when she was fourteen years old. Since most students of Hagino-ya were daughters of the Imperial Family and came from the noble class, sometimes Ichiyo faced a difficult time, but she studied hard to be second to none in composing. As a result of her hard work, she distinguished herself among more than one thousand students, and with her ability and good personality, she was eventually appointed as an assistant to a master. To be continued... |