Rizal is hardly ‘gasgas’

“DON’T THINK you have written everything on Rizal already,” warned my supervisor at the University of London, “because if you look hard enough there will always be an obscure German academic who has beaten you to it!” In my case, the Rizal surprises do not come from obscure foreign scholars and academic journals, but overlooked sources in Manila. They say that if you ask a fish to describe its surroundings, the last thing it will mention is the water in which it swims.

Over two decades ago, on my first visit to the Philippine National Archives, a researcher sneered at me when he spotted my request to examine a bundle of documents on Rizal. “What can you write on Rizal that can even be considered new?” he said before declaring the hero sufficiently well-worn: “Rizal? Gasgas na yan!” Had I heeded his unsolicited sarcasm, I would not be where I am today.

That day in the National Archives, I came across a bundle of letters written by Rizal’s sisters that had not been published or cited anywhere. Those letters came to mind this week when yet another batch of unpublished letters from Rizal’s relatives turned up in another archive. Ignored by most scholars because they are not letters by or to Rizal, they may provide additional context to the “Epistolario Rizalino,” the first compilation of Rizal’s correspondence compiled by T.M. Kalaw in the 1930s. Just when I was starting to think that Rizal was truly gasgas, the Lopez Museum provided the boost to look into him again.

My current interest in the early relations between the Philippines and Japan includes Rizal’s trip to Japan from Feb. 28 to April 13, 1888, that is commemorated with a small bust in Hibiya Park, Tokyo (across from the Imperial Hotel), which marks the spot of the hotel in which he stayed. It is unfortunate that Rizal wrote very little during his stay in Japan, or maybe those writings have not survived, or are waiting to be discovered somewhere.

Nevertheless, preserved in the Lopez Museum are: two original letters written from Tokyo describing Japan to his family, a small pocket diary marked “Travel Diary from Manila to Japan via Hongkong and Macau,” and a pocket notebook of stitched Japanese paper with “Japon 1888” on the cover. The latter contains notes and sketches that have yet to be fully deciphered. Offhand there are addresses in Kobe, as well as train routes and schedules that document his trip to Nikko, the lake of Chuzen, Fuji, Hakone, Nagoya, Kyoto, Nara and the lake of Biwa—staples in package tours of Japan today. This notebook also contains shopping lists, book titles, and the addresses of a tailor and a photographer.

Rizal tried his hand at writing Japanese characters, and even drew and painted in the Japanese style. I think one or two of the women sketched are of O-Sei-san, with whom he had a brief romance.

On a previous trip, Prof. Takefumi Terada of Sophia University took me to visit Zoshigaya cemetery, where O-Sei-San is buried beside her husband, an Englishman named Alfred Charlton. Until more material turns up, all we know about her and her background is:

Her full name was Usui Seiko, and her nickname was “O-sei.” The Usui family came from Chiba, a prefecture near the present Narita International Airport. Her father was a samurai who turned to business and ran a trading store in Yokohama. Her older brother was killed in Ueno during the Shogitai revolt against the Meiji government.

Seiko’s parents provided her with a playmate by adopting an orphan from Nagasaki named Yoshi. She spoke fluent English and a bit of French, and I assume that is how she communicated with Rizal. Although described as a shy girl, she did serve as Rizal’s interpreter, and accompanied him on sightseeing trips around Japan. Being a woman of “high culture,” she introduced Rizal to Japanese culture, and taught him to write simple words in Japanese characters and to paint in the Japanese style.

She was married to Alfred Charlton (born Aug. 13, 1859, in Liverpool; died Nov. 2, 1915), an English teacher in the First High School, then the Yamaguchi High School, in Imaguchi. He later taught chemistry in the prestigious Gakushuin High School. He was decorated with the Japanese Order of Merit, fifth class, as indicated on his tombstone. The couple had a daughter named Yuriko, who married the son of a senator named Yoshiharu Takiguchi. Seiko’s grandson (no name provided) was a Japanese diplomat posted in Geneva.

Seiko never told anyone about her friendship with Rizal, and all we know comes from her stepsister Usui Yoshida, who was tracked down by Filipino historians in the 1950s. Yoshi said Seiko collected Philippine stamps and cherished those which had Rizal’s picture. Her stamp collection and any mementos left by Rizal were destroyed during the bombing of Tokyo in 1944. After her home in Shinjuku was destroyed, Seiko moved to Hagi, west of Yamaguchi, where she died on May 1, 1947, at the age of 80.

Hans Sirban, former cultural officer of the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, gave me a photocopy of a page from the 1888 registry of foreigners that lists Rizal and gives his place of residence as “Kojimachi.” Surely, there is more material waiting to be found. Just when I thought I could retire from Rizal and embark on a new topic, I have realized there is more to Rizal to fill two lifetimes.

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