# The Flowering of Racial Spirit/Some Memories About Manchoukuo

Some Memories About Manchoukuo
This year is the Tenth Anniversary of the Foundation of Manchoukuo, the origin of which, the Liuchaokou Incident, broke out on the 18th of September of the Sixth Year of the Syōwa Era (1931), or eleven years ago. Just on the 18th of September last year, or on the Tenth Anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, I was at Hsinking, the capital of Manchoukuo. The celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Incident was held to bless the flourishing development of Manchoukuo. Having been invited to the occasion I went there, and afterwards I made an observation tour for one month around the newly rising country. Now, I am filled with a profound emotion that after one year I greet the same commemoration day in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
​Last year, when I went around Manchoukuo, the biting cold of the weather pierced our skin and there were some days when we could not leave the side of our pechka (a Russian stove), and in some cases we were forced to change our schedule of activities due to heavy snow-storms. Now I am on the same commemoration day in the midst of the eternal summer of the Philippines, and I am writing this piece with only an undershirt on, and drying every so often my perspiration with a handkerchief.
At present, wars are raging everywhere on earth, and world history has reached the revolutionary epoch since the dawn of history. The Manchurian Incident, which originated from Liuchaokou, developed into the China Incident and, in connection with the outbreak of the second great war in Europe, culminated as a natural result into the Greater East Asia War. Thus, since the outbreak of the Greater East Asia War, the ​various important positions of Great Britain and the United States of America in East Asia were captured by the Imperial Japanese Forces, and in less than a year, I came from the northernmost region of Manchoukuo to the Philippines in the South. Through such changes, the fact which we, as Japanese, can realize with great pride is that our Fatherland, Japan, is a great nation. Throughout all the battle fronts and the occupied regions, the peerlessly fierce valour of the Imperial Forces is expanding their sphere of action, and vigorous strides of reconstruction are being made all over such a broad area. We are stretching our national strength serenely and gracefully, and yet our Japanese Empire leaves untouched a great reserve of energy.
When Manchoukuo was founded under the guidance of Japan, the atrocious United States of America and Great Britain would not recognize it. In spite of this fact, the prosperity of Manchoukuo of today, rejecting ​every kind of defamation, is advancing along the line of development in every aspect. Nothing can deny the actual fact.
I saw in the towns everywhere in Manchoukuo the faces overflowing with smiles of Manchoukuoans, who are living in peace and enjoying their everyday work. They told me, with the expression of intimacy peculiar to them, the hearty pleasure which they enjoy in the pursuance of their daily occupation, having escaped from the exploitation and fear of warlords and bandits. I can’t forget the impression from the silhouette stage plays, which I saw at a certain back-street in Mukden. It was a rather dark and dirty place, but there was a stage made of stretched thin paper, and from behind which a light projected the silhouettes of dolls with various poses and colours, were moved about as if they were alive, by the clever manipulations of Manchoukouan entertainers. Gorgeously painted colours, strangely rare symbolic ​features, and superrealistic rhythm of the silhouettes, were accompanied with the music of drums, wooden clappers, flutes, gongs, etc. In the gallery on the bare ground there were many square tables, on which many Manchoukuoans were sipping hot tea, while enjoying the show with overflowing leisurely smiles on their serenely insipid faces. Some of the musical shows were traditional old ones, some others were new ones in which the subject of the foundation of New Manchoukuo was interwoven. I felt that my mind was also fused into the pleasant atmosphere of the dark showroom, and I could not leave that place until the Manchoukuoans went out noisily with the countenance of satisfaction, after all the numbers in the programme were over. I could not but feel that the atmosphere of this narrow and close room at this back-street symbolizes that the New Manchoukuo, prosecuting the necessary development, has by degrees, steadying herself, achieved a calm composure.
​I feel, of course, the same emotion in the scenes of magnificent construction in the towns as in such outskirts. Many metal and coal mines are exploited, and railroads are laid down toward every direction, electric power is generated by damming up large rivers and illuminates marvelous lights. The great river Sungari was made into such a large lake as to have so great dimensions as several tens kilometers of depth and width. The electric power which is generated by the difference of levels made by the dam can illuminate the bright electric lights all over the vast area of Manchoukuo with a population of nearly forty millions. Manchoukuo increases her population more and more since after the incident, and it has now the tendency to increase at a still greater rate. The people are streaming into the pleasant land.
The vigorous work of reclamation has been begun all over the vast regions, which were deserted due to the rampancy of ​warlords and bandits. I visited Manchoukuo three times, and at each time invariably my surprise was renewed. The place where I found desolate moors at my first visit, became a field, the grasses on it having been mown at my second visit, and at my third visit abundant fluffy cotton flowers were blooming and ripening there. The fertile lands of Manchoukuo are still vastly stretching. The desolate plains, which were heretofore left untouched are reclaimed as if water were permeating them; in some places kaoliang, in some other places, cotton, and in still other places, beans, rice, wheat, or other agricultural products are planted and harvested. Now that I am in the Philippines, the above fact makes me look at the uncultivated lands all over the Philippines. Why are such plentiful lands left uncultivated? I cannot help wondering about it. A land which can afford to sustain a two or three-crop farming, is now utilized only for one-crop farming; ​moreover, the method of cultivation is very extremely careless. Furthermore, other lands, in which if cotton would be planted or wheat sown, much harvest could be obtained, are left deserted with a profuse growth of weeds and dust, leaving them for carabaos to gambol about. This fact, however, may be due to some elements which heretofore have been preventing the advantageous utilization of the land. The Epicureanistic and materialistic civilization, which was brought over by the Americans, must have disdained such agricultural cultivation and made light of the spirit of labour. In Manchoukuo, too, the case was formerly the same. But now the Filipinos themselves restored their sound and healthy spirit, and the condition under which they can produce new crops to their entire satisfaction on their own land. They should emulate the good example of Manchoukuo.
If I continue the narration of my memories about Manchoukuo, it would be boundless. I ​want to relate more memories at another opportunity. The development of industry is remarkably amazing, and the upgrowth of the new civilization is quite phenomenal. Just as in the Philippines today the establishment of its new civilization is an important subject, in Manchoukuo also the movement for the establisment of its new civilization is being energetically developed.
In the Philippines there seems to be very few Manchoukuoans, but we are all alike Orientals. The complexion, the colour of the eyes and the hair are all the same. What reason is there for the difference of thought? Only in some cases have the original figures of us, Orientals, been distorted. But the Greater East Asia War has begun as a sacred war to adjust every such kind of distortion. In the Co-Prosperity Sphere of Greater East Asia, the Filipinos and Manchoukuoans are both alike our brethren. I hope that Filipinos may have a good ​understanding towards Manchoukuo.
The fact that while I was suffering from snow-storms last year on this same 18th of September, one year later on the same date, I am exposed to scorching heat, makes me deliberate, setting aside my own private concerns, on the vastness of the scale of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and at the same time it makes me conceive an immeasurable hope for the creation of a new history as Oriental people.
       (The 18th of September, 1942.)