Today, 10 October, a hundred years ago, a revolution which originated in Wuhan city pulled down the Ch'ing dynasty in China. Not only this dynasty, but the imperial rule in general was put an end to in China. The revolution changed the course of history in East Asia, and in the world. Sun Yat-sen was the undisputed leader of the revolution, though he was not there on the spot on that day.
China does not usually talk much of this revolution on its anniversaries. This year, however, they celebrated it officially in a big way. Mr.Hu spoke before a large audience, including all the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, that the Communist Party is the sucessor to this revolution.
Here in Japan, the China town in Yokohama, the largest of the sort in the country, though we have only two others worth the name, Kobe and Nagasaki, celebrated it with a music festival yesterday, and a more formal ceremony to be followed by a parade today. Thousands came for the music festival, presumably many more from Taiwan than from China, especially in view of the fact that the tourists from China declined sharply after the nuclear accident in March. That could also be guessed from the flags, as they were Sun's Nationalist flags. Or the Chinese characters, as they were not simplified ones which are in use in China. The festival started with a very skillful dance by a pair of lions, not real ones but a couple of men each in an envelope of cloth with a lion's mask.
The festival was held in a Chinese school. Just next door is a mausoleum of General Guan Yu, red-faced with a long beard, who died in the third century and has been elevated to the rank of the Emperor later on. He is much respected in this country, too. One of his ledends is that when he was injured in his arm in a battle with a poizoned arrow, he called a doctor and had it operated on while drinking wine and enjoying board games with his staff member. Its premises are usually crowded. I have seen another at Kobe.
There was a close association of Sun and Yokohama, and for that matter Kobe, as both cities were the major ports of Japan in his time. It is said that he came to Yokohama and lived there twelve times.
We in Japan like to think that Japan helped him with his revolutionary activities. True, many Japanese tried to be helpful. Some of them, at least, did so without any personal consideration, probably because they saw in Sun a light of hope which they were unable to realize in this country. But not all of them were like that. Moreover, the government was not taking kindly to him as they thought the Ch'ing dynasty was easier to handle. We will discuss some of these matters in the next blog.
Sun was survived by his wife, Song Qing-ling, who was much younger than he and who did a lot for the Revolution of 1949. Her younger sister, Song Mei-ling, on the other hand, married Jiang Jie-shi. They were exiled in Taiwan when defeated in the civil war. There was also the eldest sister who married a business tycoon. All the three studied at the Wellesley Women's College and became known as the three Song sisters.
At the music festival yesterday there was practically no photograph of Jiang. It was all Sun's. Do the people of Taiwan consider themselves as Sun's successors? Or are they even independent of Sun?
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