Japanese media confirmed yesterday that Chinese-born Japanese singer and actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi died of heart failure on 7 September, aged 94.
Yoshiko was born in Fushun, Liaoning to Japanese parents, in what would soon become the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo after the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931. Although still under nominal Chinese control when she was born in 1920, Japan had became the dominant imperial power in the region since triumphing in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 and seizing control of the South Manchuria Railway, for which Yoshiko's father worked.
Yamaguchi adopted the stage name Li Hsiang-lan, which was given to her by her Chinese godfather, when she began performing for Japanese and Chinese audiences at the age of 18. For years she passed herself off as Chinese, convincing audiences around the country with her fluency in the language, to which she had been exposed from a young age. It wasn't until after the war with Japan ended in 1945 that her erstwhile fans finally found out her true identity.
Arrested after the war as a traitor for the pro-Japanese themes depicted in her wartime films, she narrowly avoided execution for treason by revealing her Japanese identity to the Chinese court. Instead, she was deported and for years her work was banned in China.
Yamaguchi's most famous song, Fragrance of the Night
After leading successful acting and singing careers in Hollywood — where she took the name Shirley Yamaguchi — and Hong Kong, Yamaguchi returned to Japan to begin her career in politics. Elected to the upper house of the national legislature for three consecutive terms, Yamaguchi sat in the House of Councilors for 18 years.
Some of the films Yamaguchi starred in during the war years, such as China Nights, were justifiably regarded as tools of Japanese propaganda, and she later expressed regret over these. After the war, she was active in promoting better relations with China and other Asian neighbors that Japan had wronged. She was particularly active in pressing for compensation for Chinese and Korean "comfort women," young girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during wartime.
"I myself suffered much as I was trapped in a war between two countries as long as I remember," Yamaguchi said in 1985, "therefore I am determined not to tolerate any war."
Jacky Cheung's tribute to Yamaguchi, Li Hsiang-lan
0 User Comments