Wartime Scroll

[John R.]

Can anyone help me determine was the purpose/translation was of this scroll? This was given to me in Japan in 1985 by an-ex Japanese soldier (New Guinea campaign) along with the large print below.

The scroll measures 6 ft by 1 1/2 ft.

My guess it is just a patriotic banner maybe kept in a home, but I am not sure. I have been told this might have been posted in the wardroom of a combat ship, but just a guess at this point. Any help would be great, John

[John R.]

Tushima Print

The second gift, clearly of Admiral Togo defeating the Russians, but not sure of the date this print might have been produced. Perhaps in 30s as a patriotic print? John

[ketoujin]

Togo portrait

Hi trident3 -
I have the same print of Togo on a postcard too. Will post a pic soon as I have time.

Gunnar

[Sonderkommando]

Hi John,

Your scroll is not Japanese but Chinese and dates from around 48-49. It is a scroll written by an Officer in the Kuomintang (Nationalist party of China) which were at war (a Chinese civil war) with the Communist Party and the scroll says that whoever loses this war will lose control of China. So basically it is encouragement from an Officer of the Kuomintang to his soldiers to beat the Communist Party or they will lose control of China, and as such the scroll may have been hung in a barracks, etc.
Of course the Kuomintang lost the civil war and China went under Communist rule from 1949.
It is interesting in its own right, but most certainly not Japanese.

Regards,
Brett

[cbuehler]

Brett is correct regarding the scroll.
The vast majority of Americans and others still cannot distinguish between what is Chinese and Japanese and please understand that I mean no insult by this.
It is one of the difficulties met with by those who collect anything Japanese outside of Japan itself. I am sure this is the major stumbling block that anybody who is interested in Japanese militaria will encounter and why so little is known about it relative to other areas of collecting. This forum can certainly help though!
I have been fortunate to have been able to study Japanese and make a dozen trips to Japan over the past twenty years.
I will never be fluent and reading Kanji never was a strong point, but I have gotten to the point where Japanese is readily distinguished linguistically or with regard to objects and art.
There is yet to be a book published in English that gives anywhere near the information that is known about German militaria and probably never will be.
Most information and records in Japan itself were lost or destroyed during and after the war and Japanese vets are few now and most will not talk about what was a horrible experience for them.
But the knowledge over here is increasing and compared to what was known about Japanese militaria twenty years ago, great progress has been made.

Cheers,
Conrad

[John R.]

characaters

Thanks for the help on the scrolls. I have lived in Japan and Korea and find it interesting that learning the characters are the easy part, especially with the modern Korean alphabet. Pronuciation is another challenge. In the case of Japan, even current Japanese have great difficulty or it is impossible for them to read my wartime letters captured in Okinawa. It takes a very old person or a scholar. I am still vey surprised this scroll turned out to be post WWII Chinese.

Originally, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana were not used together. Today, however, Kanji and Hiragana are used to write the Japanese language itself and Katakana is mainly used to write foreign words adopted into the Japanese language.

With scrolls, it is better to translate them to make sure what it is saying. I can tell you that the both countries produce scrolls with Chinese characters, especially Korea where it is a real art form. I hve tried it and been laughed out of the studio and I truthfull saw no difference in the stroke--but there was.

Anyway, my point is to be careful on the Japanese side because of the language simplifiction since WWII. My understanding of the situation, I am not a linguist of asian languages, just an observer. John

[Eric Doody]

John,

I tried for about two hours to make some (translating) sense of your scroll working it from a Japanese (translating) perspective, and was about to post my findings (or lack thereof), when I saw Brett's posting. (After I saw Brett's posting, I said no wonder I'm having a heck of a time with the translation and basically scraped what I had.)

As noted earlier, a lot of folks can not tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese writing. Usually, when I have a heck of a time translating something, I usually end up finding out it's Chinese and not Japanese. (I'm just a guy that was stationed in the Far East for three years; was fortunate enough to learn some basic Japanese reading, writing, and speaking skills; and have a kanji dictionary that helps me with translating.)

It is also interesting to note, that translating Japanese military kanji can be even more challenging because of the abbreviations, acronyms, etc. that were used.

This was an informative thread for me and I wish to thank all those folks that posted comments.

Eric

[John R.]

Brett,

I took the scroll to the local Chinese restaurant and asked for their opinion since they are from Taiwan, several generations. I wa surprised that they proceeded to have a deep conversation that emptied the kitchen regarding the translation.

At the end, they all felt that while it was pre-1949 characters, it was of Japanese style. The said the column to the right said, "This war indicates the rise of our nation", the middle "Everyone has to put forth effort" and the left is the name of an officer. The bottom characters of that left hand column show the name of the writer of the scroll. They could not say if the name was Japanese or Chinese. Said it was like "Smith". No date on the scroll.

I know the origin of the scroll since I took it from the house of the old Japanese man in Sasebo. With it he had the picture of the naval fight of 1905 and his father's naval uniforms from pre-1945--apparently CO of a cruiser plus many medals in little wooden boxes. 100s of photos. The old man himself was army infantry private in the New Guinea campaign. His daughter was sitting there translating so I might have gotten some things wrong.

Not sure how you feel it is from the Chinese Civil War, is there an indication on the scroll or have you seen this before somewhere? I guess my next stop will be Asian Language Department at the Universtity of Texas since now I am curious.

I know it is of not much value, but for now, it is a mystery I would like to resolve. Thanks, John

[John R.]

OK, I am not going to beat this to death, but I went another step and had an ex-Korean military officer who is 70 read the scroll. He said it was easy to read and is as follows:

The rise and fall of the Empire depends on this war.
Each of you make further exertions and efforts.
Count, General Hyang Pyung Cha

He stated the pronounciation of the name can make it either Korean or Japanese, the character is the same. He felt it was posted on a wall for Japanese soldiers fighting either the Americans or the Chinese. The fact that it is in Chinese was common according to him as this was the style of the period. Based on the word Empire and Count, I tend to think this was a Japanese, not Nationalist Chinese banner, but again, I am not positive. He also said many Korean soldiers served in the Japanese Army as officers. Probably only the Japanese War Museum would be the only one to settle the issue unless we had a duplicate out there somewhere, John