Bøger af Rei Kimura

Three young women arrived in Tokyo from the small towns of rural Japan with nothing but a burning ambition and the vague knowledge that somehow, their lives would be different. With so many odds stacked against them, what were the chances that their ambitions would eventually be realized? And at what cost? The fourth woman, Emi is from an affluent family in Tokyo but her privileged life did nothing to lessen the odds stacked even higher against her. This is the tense, smoldering story of four young Japanese professional women from diverse backgrounds and a big score to settle with their female unfriendly society, whose lives converged in Tokyo where they met by chance and started the "four pillars." Well educated, vibrant and ambitious, the four women, Suzue, Sachi, Tomoko and Emi are bonded by their common struggle to break out of the system which traditionally placed Japanese women as the coffee and tea serving ladies of the corporate world. Emi, from the snobbish upper crust of Japanese society whose family still has the samurai mindset, a well connected marriage is planned for her, Sachi, from a middle class surbaban town in Kyushu and Tomoko from a traditional small town family buried deep in the interiors of Japan, short stints of mindless employment ending in the inevitable "stable" marriages with provincial "salary" men is their fate and the most controversial of them all, the sultry and defiant Suzue, illegitimate love child of a Japanese mother and a half black American father she never knew, if the Japanese society had its way, most doors should be closing in her face in fiercely homogenous Japan. This gripping story is set against the backdrop of vibrant, contradictory and pulsating Tokyo, the capital and heartbeat of Japan and the way life is really led in a country where traditions and extreme modernity co exist in perplexing harmony. But it's not all gloom and doom, the four pillars' dissection of the men they "cannot live without and yet cannot live with" are told in an entertaining way with great wit and a satirical sense of humor. So is the wicked fun they consistently make of Japanese society's outdated and failing visions of women either as the nation's reproductive receptacles and baby sitters or corporate "tea ladies" trained only to bow at the right angles. Suzue.... The room would be full of traditional male suits and she could imagine the look on their faces when they realized that the two women at the head of the long shining conference table were not the agency's "tea" ladies but powerful executives who would be spear heading the pitch. Sachi..... Maybe she was a little under the weather or that scatterbrained receptionist had passed her cold on but Sachi suddenly felt a little down and alone. She had to admit to her sophisticated face in the mirror that deep down, she still believed that men and women did belong together and should compliment each other or even try to grow old together, it was just so hard to find the right fit among the millions of busy scurrying people in Tokyo especially for independent, successful women who intimidated the men looking for pliant women with simple needs to warm their beds, home and hearth. Together and yet apart, each woman has her own secret yearnings and dreams and having forced their way into the boardrooms of Japan, what lies ahead for them? Will and can the parallel lines of their ambitions and personal lives finally converge or travel forever, open ended and unresolved?

This is the true story of a mysterious religious cult Aum Shinrikyo which threw the neat orderly Japanese society into pandemonium with its massive acts of terroism murders culminating in the bloody Tokyo subway sarin gas poisoning in which over 3,000 innocent commuters perished.

""MY NAME IS YOSHIKO KAWASHIMA, SOME CALL ME AISIN GIORO XIANYU IN MANCHURIA BUT TO MANY IN MY CIRCLE WHO KNEW WHAT I DID, I AM KNOWN SIMPLY AS THE JAPANESE PEONY AFTER MY FAVORITE FLOWER! I HAVE LIVED A COLORFUL AND COVERT DOUBLE LIFE OF INTRIGUE AND LIES, I'M EVEN SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN EXECUTED IN 1948! SO I REALLY CAN'T COMPLAIN THAT I MANAGED TO MAKE IT TO "OLD BONES" BUT DAY BY DAY, AS MY BODY GROWS WEAK, THE BURDEN OF THE SECRETS THAT WILL DIE WITH ME GROWS HEAVIER. I NEED TO TELL MY STORY AND CHANGE HISTORY FOREVER!" BORN INTO THE ROYAL FAMILY OF PRINCE SU AND A RELATIVE OF PU YI, THE LAST EMPEROR OF CHINA, YOSHIKO WAS A PRINCESS. HOW, ONE MIGHT ASK, DID A CHINESE PRINCESS FROM THE ROYAL HOUSE OF THE QING DYNASTY BECOME A SPY FOR THE JAPANESE SECRET SERVICE UNIT? THIS BOOK SETS OUT TO PUT ALL THE DISJOINTED PIECES OF A HUGE PUZZLE TOGETHER TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION! THIS BOOK ALSO LOOKS AT THE FASCINATING COVERT ACTIVITIES OF YOSHIKO AS A SPY, PLANNING AND ENGINEERING SOME OF THE MOST FAMOUS JAPANESE INCURSIONS INTO CHINA THAT MADE HER A HISTORICAL FIGURE NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN. BUT IN THE MIDST OF SO MUCH HARDNESS, ANGST AND HIGH LIVING WERE TWO POIGNANT MOMENTS IN YOSHIKO'S LIFE WHEN SHE LOVED AND LOST FIRST YAMAGA, A JAPANESE MILITARY OFFICER AND IN THE FINAL YEARS OF HER HEYDAYS, JACK STONE, AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST. IN 1945, WHEN JAPAN LOST THE WAR, YOSHIKO WAS BETRAYED BY HER BODYGUARDS AND CAPTURED BY CHIANG KAI SHEK'S MEN AND SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR TREASON AND ESPIONAGE. HISTORY HAS IT THAT SHE WAS EXECUTED ON 25TH MARCH, 1948 BUT AS IN LIFE, HER "DEATH" WAS SHROUDED IN MYSTERY AND INTRIGUE. WAS SHE EXECUTED OR DID SHE CHEAT DEATH IN A DARING SWAP WITH A DYING GIRL PAID TO TAKE HER PLACE? THIS IS THE TRUE STORY OF YOSHIKO KAWASHIMA AND HER SPECTACULAR LIFE AS A PRINCESS AND A SPY. WE TRAVEL WITH HER THROUGH THE BREATH TAKING MAZE OF HER EARLY YEARS IN MANCHURIA EVOLVING TO HER TURBULENT LIFE IN JAPAN AS THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER OF NANIWA KAWASHIMA AND HIS COLD, DISDAINFUL WIFE, NATSUKO. THE TRAIL THEN TAKES US ON A WHIRLWIND ARRANGED MARRIAGE TO A MONGOLIAN PRINCE WHICH LASTED JUST ONE YEAR AND ON TO A GLITTERING LIFE IN SHANGHAI WHERE YOSHIKO WAS RECRUITED BY THE JAPANESE INTELLIGENCE AS A SPY FOR JAPAN AND FINALLY TO PEKING WHERE SHE ENDED UP IN PRISON NO. 1 WITH AN EXECUTION ORDER ON HER HEAD. IT REMAINS A MYSTERY WHETHER YOSHIKO KAWASHIMA WAS ACTUALLY EXECUTED ON 25TH MARCH, 1948, THE OFFICIAL STAND OF CHINA IS THAT SHE WAS EXECUTED. " "'योशिको कावाशिमा' अर्थात मंचुरियाची 'आयसिन गिओरो' आणि राजकुमार स्यू यांची मुलगी; कोणी तिला 'जपानी पियुनी' या नावानेही ओळखत असत. योशिकोचे वैवाहिक (!) जीवन किंबहुना तिचे सारे आयुष्यच जपानी पियुनी या फुलासारखे रंगीत आणि त्याच्या दुहेरी गच्च पाकळ्यांप्रमाणे स

THIS IS THE DRAMATIC AND YET POIGNANT STORY OF THAT BACKSTAGE LIFE WHICH STARTED AND ENDED IN NAGASAKI. WE LIVE CHO CHO SAN'S LIFE FROM A TEA HOUSE HOSTESS WHO MORPHED INTO THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND ELEGANT GEISHA OF MARUYAMA LANE AND CAUGHT THE EYE OF AN AMERICAN NAVAL OFFICER BENJAMIN PINKERTON. WERE THEY EVER MARRIED? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO CHO CHO AFTER PINKERTON LEFT HER TO RETURN TO AMERICA? AND WHAT OF THE SON KEN PINKERTON SHE BORE HIM? DECADES LATER, A NEWLY ARRIVED KIND HEARTED MIDWEST AMERICAN WOMAN WHO HAD NEVER FACED A DAY OF COMPLICATED SITUATIONS IN HER LIFE THUS FAR LISTENED TO THE STORY OF CHO CHO SAN, MESMERIZED. ही गोष्ट आहे जपानच्या एका फुलपाखरासारख्या नाजूक मदाम, च्यो-च्योची. 20व्या शतकाच्या पूर्वार्धातील अमेरिकी प्रभावातल्या जपानी वातावरणातलं हे कथाबीज. स्वयंभू, आत्मनिर्भर च्यो-च्यो कष्टाळू जपानी स्त्रीचं मूर्तिमंत उदाहरण.. एका अमेरिकी माणसासोबत ती प्रेमानं संसार थाटते. पण आयुष्यातले कष्ट कमी होण्याऐवजी तिच्या आयुष्यात नव्या प्रश्नांची भर पडते. जीवनातल्या चढउतारांना कणखरपणे सामोरं जाणारी च्यो च्यो ती सारी आव्हाने पेलते. पण या फुलपाखराला जणू दुर्दैवाचा शापच असतो. तिचा अमेरिकी नवरा पुन्हा नवं वादळ घेऊन तिच्या आयुष्यात येतो..आणि आयुष्याची घटी पुन्हा विस्कटते. आत