Martial Arts in Japanese Proletarian Literature: Kataoka Teppei, “We Got Strong Guys,” June 1929

A supplement to an upcoming episode.

Kataoka Teppei, “We Got Strong Guys,” June 1929, trans. Fergal Schmudlach

X

That guy does Judo, he’s got a strong Yankee fist [Meriken], and even what they call that China hand technique [唐手術 Kara-te jutsu], Yaegaki style or whatever, he’s an incomparable master at that. This fucking guy, his name is Shinsuke…

I don’t know where he come from. Anyhow, was it 1925, or maybe the following Spring, Shinsuke come wandering into my Tsurumi Ward in not much more than a thin jūban jacket, looking very much the worse for wear, you know what I’m saying.

Tsurumi—round about the turn of 1925 to ’26, it was. How I miss Tsurumi, just thinking of it! Now that was a workers’ town. It was a big factory district with all the workers organized. Looking towards Yokohama Bay to the West from the shore under the swirling smoke, you had the Shiba*** Manufacturing Tsurumi Factory, A***** Glass, Niss*** Brass Foundry, Asa** Cement, and on and on, countless big factories standing shoulder to steel shoulder.

He came wandering into Tsurumi looking very much the worse for wear. And what do you think he did, first thing? First thing, I’m telling you—he got into a fight.

X

You see, there was a boss rolling around Tsurumi called Iwakichi. This boss was the strongest man in all of Tsurumi. Even the wildest man in town would keep his head down around him. If Iwakichi lost it, the other guy was bound to get a beating. And when he got into a fight he wouldn’t just give ’em a beating, either: he was never satisfied unless he could throw ’em into the gutter with the sewage. So basically, this Boss Iwakichi was known far and wide as a wild man who would throw you into the gutter in a fight.

And who did Shinsuke get into a fight with on his first day in Tsurumi, but this Boss Iwakichi!

Why did those two get into a fight?—I suppose it would have been because Shinsuke, come from another country [他国者 takokusha], didn’t make way for Boss Iwakichi, who always struts around with his shoulders out broad enough to stop the wind, and that must have set him off. And then, for better or for worse, the path where they met just happened to run right next to the gutter. With a gutter alongside, it was just too good a spot for a fight, as far as the Boss was concerned, so—Come on, motherfucker!—he roared, something like that, and the Boss threw the first punch at Shinsuke, they say.

X

And then, the Boss was throwing Shinsuke into the gutter—or was he?

No, it was the reverse! Shinsuke beat Boss Iwakichi and threw him into the gutter. That was the outcome of this fight.

X

“Here I was all full of myself, thinking I was the strongest fighter in all of Japan, but—my God, I’m astounded at your skills!”

Boss Iwakichi’s attitude turned on a dime. You come and stay with me for a while, he said, and it was decided that Boss Iwakichi would look after Shinsuke and pay his expenses.

And not long after that, Shinsuke entered the Niss*** Brass Foundry as a technician.

And then not long after that, he became a beautiful Fighter [闘士 tōshi] for the Union.

Anyway, that’s how it was in Tsurumi in 1926. You could search high and low from one end of the factory to the other and not find a single worker who wasn’t a Fighter—forget about it!

X

So how about it? Have we got strong guys in the proletariat or what? But even still, Shinsuke isn’t even the strongest guy we got. There’s one more guy who’s the greatest. And that’s just at Niss*** Brass Foundry, too, you understand.

This fucking guy was called Yamashiro, right, and he was third or fourth degree in Yaegaki style, and what’s more he had second degree in Judo. And then also, too, he was fifth degree in such and such a style of China hand [Kara-te], one of those body techniques, I don’t know, but when he got anywhere near a fight, no matter with how many guys, forget about it, you couldn’t believe your fucking eyes.

“My martial arts [武術 bujutsu] are just a little bit different from the kind of ‘sports’ [supōtsu] that university students do. I can stop a real sword with my bare hands. I’ve trained against real swords all along.”

This guy Yamashiro was always bragging like that, you know: nothing special, but even I have trained enough to take on five, ten guys with my bare hands, they can come at me with swords drawn, no problem, forget about it. You think I’m shitting you, let any one of yous come at me with a fucking katana, just try it! That’s what Yamashiro would say.

So one night, at the Union joint, Yamashiro is bragging like usual.

“Come on! Any one of yous, try and cut me!”

Yamashiro is strong, no doubt. But any way you slice it, coming at someone with a real sword is a dangerous proposition. What if he fucks up and you end up hurting him? Now you both lose, and get laughed at, to boot.

That’s why nobody would take Yamashiro up on his challenge. Everybody just smirked like, oh here comes Yamashiro with his tall tales again, and thought nothing more of it.

And then Shinsuke, who had been sitting with them, got up nonchalantly.

In the corner of the room stood our red Union flag. This was what Shinsuke went and took, silently, in no time at all, and with a shout of: YA!—

By then, Yamashiro had already started talking about something else. He was caught unawares. I’m talking about right when he was most off guard, here come Shinsuke thrusting at him with the pointed spear at the tip of the pole of the Union flag.

Now this spear on the tip of the Union flag, as you all know, it’s plenty sharp, about as sharp as a bayonet. I don’t care who you are, if you got stabbed in the side with that thing you’d be skewered like a tofu kebab. And on top of that, the sharpness of Shinsuke’s hand movements as he thrust in at him! We all cried out: AH!

But in an instant, Yamashiro’s body flipped around in a half turn, and at the same moment his right hand leapt up in a flash. The spear was parried clean aside, and Shinsuke stumbled and stabbed the tatami floor: GISS!

“Oh damn, sure enough,” said Yamashiro, his voice calm, “if you catch me unawares, I guess I can’t block you properly: you got me!”

As he said this, he held out his finger to all of us, who had turned white as a sheet [lit., “blue”]. And what do you know, even the great Yamashiro had been just late enough blocking it that he was bleeding a bit from his finger.

X

At the time of the 1926 Niss*** Brass Foundry Struggle, these two Braves [yūshi], Yamashiro and Shinsuke, fought their way into a nest of twenty or thirty gangsters in the middle of the night, a true story so famous now that the old Fighters tell it all the time.

They went in just the two of them, but against dozens of men, and what’s more they came at them with swords drawn, and so they say that even the great Shinsuke thought: this might be it.

“Go home, it’s not safe for you!”

They say that’s what Yamashiro whispered to Shinsuke in that moment. And Yamashiro went and stood alone against those dozens of swordsmen.

How could he do that? You boys probably think this story isn’t true. But I swear on my conscience that these things really happened. What do you want me to do?

They say that in Yamashiro’s school, when someone comes to cut you down, you strike with your fist at the back of the hand holding the katana: EI! YAH! And then, thanks to this wondrous martial arts technique, your opponents drop their sharp swords in spite of themselves, and they go clattering to the ground.

I ain’t fucking with you, true story. And as proof, after he beat down those dozens of gangsters with his bare hands, Yamashiro bundled up their dozens of katanas, bore them up on his shoulder, and brought them back to the Union hall that very night as a trophy of his exploits. My God, the chutzpah [lit., “nose-breath”] on that Yamashiro right then, eh!

X

I tell you, when it comes to the martial arts, there were lots of masters among the Fighters I knew back then.

Sure enough, that—what’s his name—from the Shibaura Tsurumi Factory in 1926, he had been in the class struggle since he was thirteen, and he was sixteen or maybe fifteen at the time, still a boy…

Apparently he was a child of the nobility, and you could tell he had been trained in that kind of thing since he was little. Swordplay and body techniques, and they say he’s a rare talent with a bo staff.

During the labor dispute he come out in his judo-gi to join the picket line. He got arrested, and at the ******* they said, “What, you do judo? I’ll show you a throw, you little shit!” and they knew he wouldn’t fight back, so a crowd of ****** tossed him and kicked him around.

This kid used a bo staff. You wouldn’t believe the way he could swing that thing around. He could control all six feet of it from tip to tip so free and easy, to see it you’d think it was growing longer and shorter in his hands. This fucking kid would stand at the head of the demonstration, you know, whirling his six-foot staff around like a waterwheel, and when the stones started flying at us, damned if he didn’t bat them right back at the goons—oh, I wish I could show you how he looked in his big hakama pants!

More! More! We got more strong guys in the proletariat than you can imagine!

X

Hey! Come on, what are you all sad and slouchy for? Sure, we’re having a hard time right now. But is that any reason to be slouching around? We got more strong guys in the proletariat than you can imagine!

We can’t be slouching around! Pull yourselves together. Join hands. If we just keep our hands joined, strong guys will keep on coming forth one after another from among us.

One or two strong guys is nothing. But when we all keep our hands joined, that’s when the happy warrior tales of those strong guys can come to birth.

X

These days Yamashiro goes to the dojo in Tsurumi to train judo.

The ****** come to this dojo, and so do the workers from the Union. From what I hear, it seems the master at this dojo has a special understanding with the ******.

One night, after practice, they were changing clothes. It was a bit late, so the other students had all gone home. Yamashiro was alone with the master in the big dojo under the dim electric lights.

Yamashiro finished changing.

“Well then, good night.”

The master of the dojo, and his teacher [shihan], was about to go out to his own room when Yamashiro called to him to wait.

“Hey you! You better not be having secret back channels to the ****** and selling out the workers. If you do anything like that, I will **** you!”

The master marched up close to Yamashiro, his face a mask of furious disbelief.

Yamashiro just kept talking.

“In the dojo, I’m your student. But in a fight, you’re like a baby to me.”

“I didn’t say anything about fighting.”

Watching the master’s face turn white [blue] out of the corner of his eye, Yamashiro turned and slowly walked away.