Shimoda's Program for Japanese and Chinese Women's Education

In her article "Shimoda Program for Japanese and Chinese Women's Education" Mamiko Suzuki discusses Western developments as a facet of educational curricula in Japan in the early twentieth century. When in the early 1900s a number of elite Chinese women traveled to Tokyo — for most, their first time abroad — to receive a modern education, it was at Jissen Women's Academy, which was the first to enroll female Chinese students in Tokyo and thus a crucial site for the development of a modern pan-Asian female identity. A central figure in the popularization of women's education and household and hygiene management was Utako Shimoda (1854-1936), a leading figure of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Suzuki analyzes how Shimoda portrayed the role of the modern homemaker to elite Japanese and Chinese women and how her inclusion of Chinese women engaged with a discourse of empire and feminism. The new body of knowledge and curricular experience Shimoda provided for her students was then directed by them toward modern homemaking in Japan and revolutionary activities in China. Mamiko Suzuki, "Shimoda's Program for Japanese and Chinese Women's Education" page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.1 (2013): Thematic Issue Asian Culture(s) and Globalization. Ed. I-Chun Wang and Li Guo