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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Sex in Japan's Globalization, 1870-1930, from which the following discussion is adapted and developed, deals with poor rural women who migrated overseas to work as sex labourers. The core of the book is a historical study of the gendered and class impact of Japan's first encounter with globalisation that began in the 1860s. The women who worked in overseas brothels, I argue, must be first understood as peasants liberated from the land by Meiji land and tax policies, who became “free labour” searching for work in the colonial cities of Asia. Prostitution was one form of labour in the integration of Japanese women into the global work force. However, sex work as “labour” clashed with the simultaneous modernization goals of the Meiji state and social reformers who sought to embed cultural standards of ideal womanhood throughout Japanese society and to project the image of Japanese modernity internationally.
1 According to the research carried out by Kurahashi Masanao, the 1910 Japanese Consular Population Survey of Expatriate Japanese by Occupation recorded 19,097 women working abroad in unsightly occupations. Of these, 14,254, or 75 percent, plied their trade on the informal frontier of the Japanese colonial empire; 7,928 (42%) Japanese women engaged, directly or indirectly, in sex work in the Kwantung Leased Territory; and 4,275 women (22%) worked in southern Manchuria. The consular survey indicated that 20 percent, or 3,745 women, made a living in “unsightly occupations” in Southeast Asia. See Kurahashi M., Kita no karayuki-san (Tokyo: Kyoei Shobo, 1989), p. 73.
2 S. Sugiyama, Japan's Industrialisation in the World Economy, 1859-1899: Export Trade and Overseas Competition (London: Athlone Press, 1988), pp. 30-33.
3 P. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 25, 28.
4 The examination of women working in Hong Kong house-brothels for venereal disease and the licensing of brothels by the register general was first introduced in 1857. A similar law was put into effect in Singapore in 1872. P. Levine, “Modernity, Medicine, and Colonialism: The Contagious Disease Ordinances in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements,” Positions 6, no. 3 (1998), pp. 676-78. In Singapore, compulsory medical inspection for all licensed prostitutes was abolished along with the Contagious Disease Ordinance in 1888.
5 The Contagious Disease Ordinance regulations prohibited men from running or owning a brothel.
6 J. F. Warren, Ah Ku and the Karayuki-san, 1870-1940 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993), 91-121; N. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule, 1912-1941 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 191-206.
7 J. D. Kelly, “Gaze and Grasp: Plantations, Desires, Indentured Indians, and Colonial Law in Fiji,” in L. Manderson and M. Jolly (ed.) Sites of desire, economies of pleasure; sexualities in Asia and the Pacific (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 74-75.
8 Mori K., Jinshin baibai - kaigai dekasegi onna (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1966), chapter two; Higaki M., “Kinsei amakusa no jinkomondai to sono haikei,” Kyushu bunkashi kenkyusho kiyo 2 (1951), pp. 1-12; Nakamura M., “Tokugawaki amakusa ni okeru dekasegi no shoso,” Kumamoto daigaku kyoiku gakubu kiyo 5 (1957), pp. 38-49.
9 Nihon Kirishitan Fujin Kyofukai, Kaigai shugyofu mondai: dai ichigo—Amakusa no bun (Kyoto: Nihon Kirishitan Fujin Kyofukai, 1920), p. 27. 1
10 Japan was connected to the network of submarine telegraphic communication in 1871, when a line was laid between Shanghai and Nagasaki by a Danish telegraphic company. See Tsunoyama S., “Introduction,” Nihon ryōjihōkoku no kenkyū (Tokyo: Dōbunkan shuppan, 1986), p. 6.
11 Ibid., pp. 172-73.
12 See Harry Parkes to Lord Stanley, 11 September 1867, “Reports Received from Her Majesty's Secretaries of Embassy and Legation respecting Coal” in British Parliamentary Papers 79 (1867-1868), p. 1075; Sugiyama, Japan's Industrialisation, p. 171.
13 Nagasaki Rising Sun, 6 July 1878.
14 Sugiyama, Japan's Industrialisation, p. 189.
15 Sumiya M., Nihon sekitan sangyō bunseki (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968), p. 245.
16 Ibid., pp. 226-27, 245-46.
17 Nagasaki ken keisatsushi, ed. Nagasaki ken henshu i-inkai, 3 vols (Nagasaki: Nagasaki ken keisatsu honbu, 1976), vol. 1, p. 1361.
18 Karatsu is located in Saga prefecture, Kyushu.
19 Miyagawa Kyūjirō to Aoki Shūzō, Confidential Dispatch no. 19, 27 November 1890, “Nihon fujin mikkō bōatsu no ken nitsuki utagai” Honpōjin fuseigyō torishimari kankei zakken, 7 vols., Diplomatic Record Office, Gaikō shiryōkan, Tokyo, Code No. 4.2.2.34. vol. 1. Hereafter HFTKZ.
20 Edward Porter, Master of the British SS Macduff before C.Q.S. Crawford, 10 February 1894,. Porter also claimed innocence as he did not know that taking the women onboard was a violation of any kind. Honpōjin kaigai e mikkō kankei zakken, Diplomatic Record Office, Gaikō shiryōkan, Tokyo, 7 vols., Code No. 4.2.2.27, vol. 1. Hereafter HKMKZ.
21 In November 1885 there were 46 Japanese women licensed to work as prostitutes in the public brothels. Minami Sadatsuke to Inoue Kaoru, Confidential Dispatch no. 28, 17 September 1885, Honpōjin fuseigyō torishimari kankei hōki zassan, Diplomatic Record Office,
Gaikō shiryōkan, Tokyo, 2 vols. Code No. 4.2.2.99, vol. 1. Hereafter HFTKHZ; Minami Sadatsuke to Inoue Kaoru, Confidential Dispatch no. 31, 7 November 1885; J. H. Stewart Lochart to Fredrick Stewart, 2 November 1885, HKMKZ, vol. 1.
22 Lock Hospitals were hospitals that specifically treated VD patients. Men were treated as outpatients. It was compulsory for licensed prostitutes who contracted VD to enter the hospital as an inpatient. The women could only leave the hospital by official consent. The compulsory requirement and strict daily regime often led the women housed in the hospitals to compare them to prisons. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics, pp. 70-72.
23 Under the family registration law (kosekihō) enacted in 1873 all details of family were registered under the name of the head of the household. The oldest male member of the family effectively became the sole legal entity of the household and exercised legal control over all other members, especially women and children, who were not legally recognized persons and therefore had no access to rights.
24 Miyagawa Kyūjirō to Aoki Shūzō, Confidential Dispatch no. 19, 27 Nov. 1890, “Nihon fujin mikkō bōatsu no ken nitsuki utagai,” HFTKZ, vol. 1.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid. Singapore consul Nakagawa Tsunejiro made a similar statement to Aoki Shuzo, Confidential Dispatch, no. 4, 25 March 1889, HFTKZ, vol. 1.
27 The Société des Messageries Maritimes began providing a regular service between Yokohama and Shanghai in 1865. Receipt no. 12758, 25 September 1892, Petition sent by Sasaki Shigetoshi along with the signatures of 36 Japanese laborers to the foreign minister of Japan, via the honorary Japanese consul in Australia, Alexander Marks. The petition is titled “Shugyofu kuchiku no ken ni tsuki seigansho,” HFTKZ, vol. 1.
28 Yamamuro Gunpei, Shakai kakusei ron (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1977), pp. 255-58. Yasui T., “Kaigai ni oite nameta nigai keiken”, Kakusei 3, no. 2 (1913), pp. 14-15.
29 Tanaka Tokichi to Hayashi Tadasu, Receipt no. 12571, 13 June 1906, “Shugyo toko torishimari no ken,” HFTKZ, vol. 2.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 See Kawai Y., Muraoka Iheiji jiden (Tokyo: Nanposha, 1960). In a series of interviews compiled and edited by Kawai Yuzuru in 1960, Muraoka, a native of Shimabara, paints himself as being the boss of procurers (zegen) responsible for kidnapping young Japanese women and selling them to brothels abroad. Mark Driscoll relies heavily on Muraoka's biography to show the connection between Japanese imperial expansion and trafficking in women. See M. Driscoll, Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan's Imperialism, 1895-1945.
33 In 1901, Matsumoto Murakichi, a known procurer of women for overseas brothels was reported roaming Fukuoka, Kurume, and Nagasaki. See Fukano Kazumi to Kato Takaaki, Receipt No. 40008, 4 October 1901, HFTKZ, vol. 2.
34 Noma Seiichi to Komura Jutaro, Receipt No. 366, 2 July 1902, “Mikkosha torishimarikata rinshin no ken,” HFTKZ, vol. 2.
35 Aburatani I., Keiteki - kōkoku no jiki ni saishi tsutsushinde waga dōhō ni keikokusu (Okayama: Okayamakoji-in kappan-bu, 1895), pp. 7-8; Mori, Jinshin baibai, pp. 95-96.
36 Ryoriten was the term commonly used to refer to lower-class, unlicensed brothels in the Japanese colonies.
37 In 1900 a day labourer earned 37 sen a day. There were one hundred sen in one yen. Nihon chōki tōkei soran, ed. Nihon Tōkei Kyōkai, 5 vols (Tokyo: Nihon Tōkei Kyōkai, 1988), vol. 4, p. 230.
38 Kyushu nichinichi shimbun, 10 August 1909.
39 Imai Shinoburō to Uchida Yasunori, 29 February 1912, No. 75, Receipt No. 184, “Honkon ni okeru honpō shūgyōfujin no jōtai hōkoku no ken.” The actual report is found in an attached letter entitled “Honkon ni okeru honpō shūgyōfu no jotai.” Kaigai ni okeru honpō shūgyōfu no insū oyobi sono jōkyō nado nen nikai hōkoku kata kuntatsu ikken, Diplomatic Record Office, Gaikō shiryōkan, Tokyo, Code No. B.7.10.0.1-1.
40 Imai to Uchida, “Honkon ni okeru honpō shūgyōfujin no jōtai hōkoku no ken.”
41 Kaigai shūgyōfu mondai, p. 39
42 Imai to Uchida, “Honkon ni okeru honpō shūgyōfujin no jōtai hōkoku no ken.”
43 “Fujin yūkai shūdan no ichirei,” Fukuoka Nichinichi, 29 October 1905.
44 (Copy) 21 March 1888, Register General Office, Hong Kong, HKMKZ, vol. 1.
45 Hattori Ichizō to Aoki Shūzō, Confidential Receipt No. 214, 6 August 1900, HFTKZ, vol. 1.
46 Inoue Kizaburō to Aoki Shūzō,Receipt No. 2572, 1 September 1900, HFTKZ, vol. 1.
47 Inoue to Aoki, Receipt No. 2572, 1 September 1900. The Singapore-based Japanese-language weekly Nanyō oyobi nihonjin recounted, in a retrospective piece on the Japanese community in the area, that on average, brothel owners in Hong Kong paid the procurers around $250 to obtain a newly arrived Japanese woman. The cost in Singapore was higher, with the asking price between $300 and $350. The newspaper went on to report that after deducting all expenses, the procurer made a profit of around $200 per woman. Yashikoyama M., “Kagai no omoide—[part] 1,” Nanyō oyobi nihonjin, 1 January 1928, p. 46.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Nihon chōki tokei soran, vol. 4, p. 230.
51 Such was the case of a patrolman, Seki, from Nagasaki prefecture, who in January 1901 brought seventeen women to Hong Kong to sell into Japanese brothels. Kato Motoshiro to Kato Takaaki, Receipt 1561, 1 February 1901, HFTKZ, vol. 2.
52 Miyagawa Kyujiro to Hayashi Tadasu, Confidential Dispatch no. 7, 28 December 1892, “Honkon ryojin yado eigyo Nishiyama Yuzo shugyofu shusen no gi torishirabe wo yosuru ken ni tsuki toshin,” HFTKZ, vol. 1.
53 In 1890 the rate of a loan was around 25% per month interest, which was borrowed by the procurer but made liable to the women he or she brought to Hong Kong. Satō Miki to Aoki Shūzō, Confidential Dispatch 9, 20 February 1890, HKMKZ vol. 1; Miyakawa Kyūjirō to Hayashi Tadasu, Confidential Dispatch no. 7, 28 December 1892, “Honkon ryojin yado eigyō Nishiyama Yuzō shūgyōfu shūsen no gi torishirabe wo yō suru ken ni tsuki,” HFTKZ, vol. 1.
54 10 August 1888, H. Sato to A. Marks, HKMKZ, vol. 1.
55 Miyagawa Kyūjirō to Hayashi Tadasu, 28 December 1892. Japanese procurers used Singapore as a clearinghouse from which to sell women to prospective buyers in the Malay Peninsula and Dutch East Indies. Ōga Kamekichi to Komura Jyūtarō, Dispatch 85, 5 September 1902, “Singapōru kata ni honpō shūgyōfu torai no gi ni tsuki gushin,” HFTKZ, vol. 2.
56 T. C. Smith, Native Sources of Japanese Industrialization, 1750-1920 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1988), pp. 206, 215-16, 218.
57 I would like to express my gratitude to the Miyazaki family for access and permission to use the interview.
58 Malay Street was also the heart of the Japanese community in Singapore until the start of World War I.
59 My informant was convinced that K-san had engaged in sex work while abroad. Personally, I thought my informant might be jumping to preconceived conclusions. My aim in interviewing K-san was to try and gain insights into the motivations and logic of women undertaking migration abroad. The subject of sex work was not brought up.
60 C. Henriot, “‘Little Japan’ in Shanghai: An insulated community, 1875-1945,” in R. Bickers and C, Henriot (eds.) New Frontiers: Imperialism's New Communities in East Asia, 1842-1953 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 151-57.
61 Miyamoto T., Wasurerareta Nihonjin (Tokyo: Iwanami bunkō 1987), p. 211.
62 Ibid., pp. 44-58, 305-6.
63 The number of people leaving the island to find work in other parts of Japan was 600. Inokawa S., “Shimabara amakusa kenkyu,” Fujinshinpo, October 1919, pp. 12-13; N. O. K., “Shimabara amakusa shisatsu,” Fujinshinpo, September 1919, p. 12.
64 Inokawa, “Shimabara amakusa kenkyu,” pp. 12-13.
65 Kaigai shūgyofu mondai, pp. 18, 39, 41. See also “Nanyō no kusawake - Sandakan no Okunibaasan,” Nanyō nichinichi shinbun, 13 August, 1915.
66 Inokawa, “Shimabara amakusa kenkyū,” p. 13.
67 Cited from Kitano N., Amakusa kaigai hattenshi (Fukuoka: Ashishobō, 1985), p. 146.
68 “Nyonin no kuni-III,” Fukuoka nichinichi, 9 September 1926; Inokawa, “Shimabara amakusa kenkyu,” p.13.
69 Sasaki to Marks, 25 August 1892, “Shūgyōfujo kuchiku no ken ni tsuki seigansho.”
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Inokawa, “Shimabara amakusa kenkyu”, p. 14
73 I am indebted to the work of H. D. Harootunian for these insights. See Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 242-72.
74 Smith, Native Sources of Japanese Industrialization, pp. 205-6.
75 Inokawa, “Shimabara amakusa kenkyu,” p. 13.
76 Kaigai shūgyofu mondai, pp. 18, 39, 41. This practice was not peculiar to Amakusa. Wiswell noted the presence of several married women who had children from different men living in Suye mura. R. Smith and E. L. Wiswell, The Women of Suye Mura (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 152-53.
77 Kaigai shūgyofu mondai, p. 41. The women's names and amounts donated were written on pieces of paper called kifukin keiji (literally, donation notice). A notable example is the Daishidō temple in the town of Shimabara. Inside the temple's enclosure is a tower called tenshiyō, which was built exclusively from donations sent by karayuki-san. Surrounding this tower is a stone fence, with the name and amount donated by each woman. For the history of how the temple was built, see Kurahashi M., Shimabara no karayukisan: Kiso Hirota Gonsho to Daishidō (Tokyo: Kyoei Shobo, 1993).
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