Translation Works
To Japanese
The 2nd Selected Works
TITLE
Beyond the Blossoming Fields
(Hanauzumi)
AUTHOR
Translator
ENGLISH / Deborah Iwabuchi & Anna Isozaki published
Originally Published by:
Kawade Shobo Shinsha (1970)
Shinchosha (1975) (pb)
KEY POINTS
  • A biographical novel brimming with reality that is one of the early masterpieces of Jun'ichi Watanabe, who was formerly a medical doctor,
SYNOPSIS
Why can I not become a female doctor who can help women…?
 
In the early part of Japan's Meiji Era, when society strongly felt that women had no need for academic learning, there was a woman with the ambition of becoming a medical doctor. She was Ginko Ogino, the first woman in Japan to obtain the national certification required to practice medicine.
Ginko married at the age of 16, but contracted gonorrhea from her husband three years later. In that era, before the discovery of antibiotics, the disease meant that Ginko could never bear children, and she therefore got divorced. Many people gathered around Ginko to comfort her, but one was special—Ogie, a very strong willed woman seven years older than Ginko. She told Ginko that her returning ill to her parent's home was an opportunity for her to develop her talents in whatever way she wished.
When her symptoms worsened, Ginko went to be examined by renowned doctors. Having experienced the humiliation of exposing her private region to several doctors of the opposite sex in the examination room, Ginko vowed to become a doctor so that she could prevent other women from suffering such embarrassment.
Overcoming her mother's objections, Ginko left home and went to Tokyo, where she studied at the Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School (currently Ochanomizu University) before beginning to study medicine at a private school in Tokyo's Shitaya district.
Although she had begun her medical studies, Ginko had to worry about how to pay for tuition fees and medical textbooks, but Ogie helped her out by arranging for her to work at home as a private tutor. Having figured out how to subdue the economic problems she faced, Ginko graduated from her private school with outstanding grades. Afterward, she applied to take the certification exam (which was not open to women in those days) that would enable her to practice medicine, but her applications were repeatedly rejected.
Ginko's many friends and acquaintances learned of this situation and their lobbying efforts eventually made it possible for women to take the exam. The first year of women's eligibility, three women took the exam. Ginko was the only woman to pass the first half of the exam, and she also passed the second half with superb marks, thereby becoming the first woman certified by the Japanese government to practice medicine.
This book tells the long story of Ginko's tumultuous life, during which she fought fiercely to surmount diverse challenges that confronted her owing to her gender.
 
Genre: Popular fiction
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