The Katipunan and the emperor of Japan

Pinoy tourists I meet in Tokyo often ask how to get to Akihabara, the area famous for everything electronic. A few seek directions to Tsukiji market, where tuna auctions are held at the crack of dawn. Others ask about Harajuku and the best time to see young Japanese girls walking around in Cosplay costume, or the best place to get green-tea-flavored KitKat and souvenirs.

When I’m guiding academics or writers, I take them to the weekend flea markets and the Jimbocho book town. When in Tokyo I spend one afternoon a week browsing in the used bookstores that carry titles in English or other Western languages. There I have picked up some rare Filipiniana: One store had a book on Fernando Amorsolo, another the book “Oriental Ceramics” by Leandro and Cecilia Locsin (these may be second-hand but are worth a small fortune in Manila). In another store I bought a shelf of books on Yamashita; in another I found a century-old travel guide to Asia with many pictures of the Philippines.

I visit only half a dozen stores in Jimbocho and feel frustrated when I see so many books available in Japanese and realize that a whole universe is closed to me because of language. This handicap makes me sigh further, thinking about all the Philippine-related materials in Japanese libraries and archives that remain closed to me because I cannot understand Japanese. While I can read enough katakana and hiragana to read street signs, order from a menu, or tell the difference between shampoo and conditioner in identical bottles, I can’t read as much kanji to make sense of Filipiniana in Japan. Life is too short to learn Nihongo, and I wish a young Filipino historian would fill in the gaps.

In May 1896, according to the memoirs of Pio Valenzuela, the Japanese cruiser Kongo docked in Manila. It was commanded by a Japanese admiral named “Canimura” (though in another equally unreliable source, the name is given as “Hirawa”), who was to pay courtesy calls on Spanish officials in Manila. Valenzuela was told about the visit by Jose Moritaro Tagawa, his Japanese friend who was married to a Filipino woman from Bocaue. He informed Andres Bonifacio and the leaders of the Katipunan of the visit, and they agreed to arrange a meeting.

Valenzuela recounted:

“Emilio Jacinto took charge of drafting a message addressed to the Emperor of Japan through the courtesy of the admiral. Informed of the intention of the organizing committee of the Katipunan to give a reception to the admiral, Tagawa courteously offered to serve as interpreter and to introduce the committee members to the Japanese admiral. Early in the morning of the following day Tagawa came to my house on Calle Lavezares and told me that the meeting with the admiral would take place at 10 o’clock that morning, the day after I was informed for the first time of the admiral’s visit. The reception was to take place in the upper story of the ‘Japanese Bazaar’ in Plaza Moraga. At 9 o’clock sharp the members of the committee were all at my house at No. 35 (now No. 408) Calle Lavezares. Among those who were with me were: Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, Enrique Pacheco, Cipriano Pacheco, Jose Dizon, Aguedo del Rosario, Candido Tirona, Daniel Tirona, and Alejandro Santiago. From my house we proceeded to the Japanese Bazaar.

“At exactly 10 o’clock the Japanese admiral arrived, and Tagawa made the introductions and presented to the admiral the message of the Katipunan that had been written by Jacinto. After the customary greetings, Jacinto delivered a brief speech of welcome to the admiral in Tagalog that was translated to Japanese by Tagawa. The admiral’s reply touched on the freedom of Oriental nations. He said he was happy to hear of the existence of an association such as the Katipunan, a society of the sons of the country, and that he hoped to see the independence of our country. Jacinto in his speech declared that the liberty and independence cherished by the members of the Katipunan would be realized with the cooperation of the Japanese nation, being the only nation in the Far East which could lend help to the Philippines in the manner that France lent aid to the United States to secure the latter’s independence.

“The message of the Katipunan presented by Tagawa to the Japanese admiral for the Emperor of Japan was more or less in this tenor:

“‘The Filipino people greet the Emperor of Japan and the entire Japanese nation, with the hope that the light of liberty in Japan will also shed its rays in the Philippines…’”

That afternoon they sent some presents to the admiral: a wood frame carved by a Filipino sculptor that cost P60, and P14 worth of ripe mangoes bought that day from Divisoria. The mangoes are long gone, but this wood carving showing Filipinos pounding and husking rice might still be in some museum or archive together with the Katipunan letter to the modern-thinking Emperor Meiji of Japan.

Was something lost in translation? Are these documents extant together with the admiral’s account of the meeting with Bonifacio and the Katipunan?

When found, these will serve to supplement what we know of early Philippine-Japanese historical relations.

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