I had forgotten how wonderful this book is. My elementary school, Ohlone, was founded on many of the same principles Totto-chan’s school Tomoe Gakkuen was. Our teachers would read us stories from this book in fourth grade and even before.
Japanese talk-show host Tetsuko Kuroyanagi reminisces about her elementary school, Tomoe, but entirely in the third person, as a children’s book. The teaching philosophy of its founder and principal, Sosaku Kobayashi, is inspiring. Totto-chan has the kinds of adventures we all have as children, digging up entire cesspools and helping her polio-stricken friend how to climb a tree. Well, some of us have those adventures anyway… Your childhood may be squandered already, but it’s not too late to live vicariously through Totto-chan! Entry in WikipediaHere are my notes on the things I found in this book:
- Tomoe Gakuen 1937-1945
- destroyed by fire in 1945
- southwest Tokyo
- 3 minute walk from Jiyugaoka Station on the Toyoko Line
- lot now occupied by Peacock market
- Sosaku Kobayashi ( june 18 1893- 1963)
- born near Mount Haruna in Gumma Prefecture
- assistant schoolteacher as a teenager after only elementary education
- combined teaching with music studies
- proponent of Eurythmics
- entered what is now the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, graduated
- music instructor at Seikei Elementary School, founded by Haruki Nakamura
- wrote a children’s operetta- this got the attention of Baron Iwasaki (of the family who founded Mitsubishi)- who sent him to Europe
- Baron Iwasaki also sponsored Kosçak Yamada, “doyen of Japanese composers”
- Kobayashi in Europe 1922-1924, studying with Swiss compooser Emile Jaques-Dalcrroze in Paris.
- Kobayashi establishes Seijo Kindergarten
- 1930 back to Europe
- established the Japan Eurythmics Association
- worked with the Kunitachi College of Music
- Swiss compooser Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
- Euryhmics, 1904
- influenced many Japanese artists:
- Kosçak Yamada
- Baku Ishii (pioneer of modern dance in Japan)
- Kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji II
- Kaoru Asannai (modern drama pioneer)
- Michio Ito (dancer)
- Chihiro Iwasaki ( – 1974 )
- Chihiro Iwasaki Museum of Picture Books in Shimo-shakuji, Nerima-ku, Tokyo
- curated by playwright Tadasu Iizawa
- tsukuda-ni (tiny crustaceans and the like boiled in soy sauce and sweet sake)
- kinpira gobo (spicy burdock)
- nori
- chikuwa (fish rolls)
- denbu
- itadakimasu!
- Kuhonbutsu Temple
- Josef Rosenstock – Jewish refugee conductor
- Kosçak Yamada
- kingyo vendor – apparently there used to be goldfish vendors who would roam around with carts selling goldfish!
- “Seaside School” field trip – Toi Spa (hot spring on ocean)
- on the Izu Peninsula in Shiuoka
- ferry from Numazu
- poet Basho:
Listen! a frog
Jumping into the silence
Of an ancient pond! - Senzoku Pond has an island with a shrine on it-
dedicated to Benten, goddess of beauty and music (also a character in Urusei Yatsura) - poet Issa Kobayashi
Lean Frog,
Feldgling Sparrows!
Don’t you surrender!
Here’s Issa by you
Make way, make way,
Way for the noble Horse! Spare the Fly!
Wringing his hands, wringing his feet,
He implores your mercy! The snow thaws-
And suddenly the whole village
Is full of children! - Kuhonbutsu Temple
- station Midorigaoka – on the way to school on the Oimachi line
- 5-sen coin – before the war, a yen was divided into sen
- 47 Ronin – chushingura – an incredibly violent national epic about loyalty and self-sacrifice.
- Lord Asano
- “I, Rihei Amanoya, am a man!” – accessory merchant who did not narc
- Sengakuji Temple
- Kuhonbutsu Temple
- Hideo Saito, cellist, friend of “daddy”
- Shiga highlands
- The skiing star that Totto-chan rides with, “Schneider,”
is likely Austrian skiing legend Hannes Schneider, who left Nazi-occupied Austria in 1939 for the US. Given the age of Totto-chan, their meeting could be after his German imprisonment or even after his US immigration, but is definitely before the war. - Singing Pictures
- Japanese children’s book
-
A circle and a spot; A circle and a spot;
Criss-crosses for the nose; another roungs and dot.
Three hairs, three hairs, three hairs – and wow!
Quick as a wink, there’s a fat hausfrau.
- folk tale about a rich man’s daughter who couldn’t marry because she kept farting.
Her groom is blown out of bed 7 and a half times. - Performance of Swan Lake at Hibiya Hall
- rakugo tale about a man whose name is so long he drowns in a well before he can tell his rescuers who he is
- Todoroki Keikoku (Thunder Canyon)
-
Tomoe School is a shabby old school;
Inside though; it’s a splendid school! - folk songs:
“Carp Streamers”
“The Doll Festival”
Over the sea of rooftops,
Over the sea of clouds…
Come let us light the lanterns,
Light them one by one… - Kabuki play Kanjincho (“The Fund-Raising Charter”)
- Yoshitsune
- Togashi
- Benkei
- Denenchofu
- Daddy’s brother “Uncle Shuji” is Shuji Taguchi ( aka Shu Taguchi )
of the Nihon News in New York, and the Far East representative of
American Metro-News - film “Battle of Rabaul”
- new word: sawakai (“tea party)”
instead of sobetsukai (“farewell party”) - what are “funeral dumplings” ?
- classmate Aiko Saisho – her great-uncle is Admiral Togo of the Russo-Japanese War
and relative Atsuko Saisho is a poetess for Emperor Meiji
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