| Man-shu |
Born in Yokohama, liberal-minded Su Man-shu (1884-1918) was the son of a Japanese mother
and a Chinese father who was native of Zhong-shan county, same as Dr. Sun. He was short story writer, poet, painter, translator
of Byron, Shelley and Hugo, compiler of dictionaries of Sanskrit, English and Chinese, and a Buddhist monk.
His final words in mid-1918 were: "Only thinking of aged Mother in the east islands [that is, Japan]. All beings with senses [a Buddhist term]
do not worry me howsoever."
His most well-known novel, though unfinished, is
Duan hong ling yan ji (1912), translated as
The Lone Swan.
In his 35 years of life, he remained single.
He seemed to favour sweets things like sugar roasted chestnuts,
Japanese yokan, shaved ice, etc.
In 1987, in his honour a literary commemorative tablet was erected at Yokohama Chuka Gakuin
(Yokohama Chinese Institute), Japan, by the Chinese community in Japan. The tablet displays his well-known four-line
Shakuhachi flute poem. Man-shu spent some four years in that school in his late teens. |
