Mistress Oriku : Stories from a Tokyo Teahouse by Matsutaro Kawaguchi (Tuttle)

Originally published as Shigurejaya Oriku in Japanese in 1969 and available for the first time in English, Mistress Oriku : Stories from a Tokyo Teahouse by Matsutaro Kawaguchi and translated by Royall Tyler focuses on the life of the owner of the famous Shigure Teachouse, Mistress Oriku. It is set in the early Showa era, sometime around the 1920s. 

Oriku, who is now in her sixties, grew up in the Asakusa area and is currently talking to another native of Akasuka, Shinkichi, who is in his late twenties, about life in the area during the Meiji period, some forty years ago. Oriku’s Shigure Teahouse which also served as an inn was built along the river in Mukojima, an isolated area on the outskirts of town. The place looked like a farmhouse and contained eight tatami floored rooms. The house specialty was chazuke, green tea over rice, served with clams brought in from Kuwana on the Ise coast. 

Oriku was telling him, “you could drop a line in the river from the garden of my place and catch a sea bass”. She was telling Shinkichi that people jumped in the river from the jetty in the summer, they didn’t swim but just cooled off in it which proves how clean the river was. They were both lamenting on how Tokyo changed over the years and how the Sumida River has become so dirty. 

Oriku was also telling Shikichi, “People nowadays don’t even know what good food is anymore. They have sake with some tuna sashimi, then some shrimp tempura with their rice, and they think they’ve eaten well.” She goes on to tell Shinkichi that people can’t eat sashimi or tempura three days in a row but at the Shigure Teahouse “you can eat clam chazuke three-hundred and sixty-six days of the year and never get tired of it.”

As the two continue to talk, Oriku tells Shinkichi that before she started her restaurant, she worked in the Yoshiwara District, the pleasure quarters which was created by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 17th century. She was sold to a brothel called the Silver Flower at the age of eighteen. She tells Shinkichi that she was on her way to becoming a courtesan but became the mistress of the owner, and then worked there herself, not as a prostitute but as brothel madam after the owner died. 

At the age of forty, Oriku leaves the Silver Flower to her adopted daughter, Oito and her husband and opens the teahouse. Everybody around her said it was a bad idea but she was adamant about following her own dream. 

Kawaguchi brings to life the Tokyo of bygone days featuring geishas and artisans, actors and musicians performing a certain style of theater such as kabuki and noh. He blends real life historical figures and locations along with the creations of his own imagination. He portrays Oriku as a feminist before her time. She’s strong and passionate, does what she thinks is right and has no shame in taking on a number of lovers but refuses to settle down with any one of them. 

Although Kawaguchi’s Oriku wasn’t born in Edo, she epitomizes the spirit of the true Edokko, a person born and raised in Edo, the former name of Tokyo. Timeslip into the past and enjoy the journey. ~Ernie Hoyt