Miss Numè of Japan by Onoto Watanna

One of the major themes that Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton) handled in her literary works was cultural heritage. Watanna came from a British-Chinese family and pulled on this aspect within her writing. For this assignment, I chose to read her first published novel Miss Numè of Japan. This book investigates the lives of four main characters as they grapple with following their hearts or letting the pressure of Japanese marital traditions influence their decisions.

Riddled throughout this book are insights into Japanese culture. While the main theme associates to Japanese culture and how it relates to marriage, Watanna also delves into how Japanese cultures deals with honor or dishonor and gender roles. Two of the main characters and an extremely important secondary character are originally from the United States, therefore, this book also offers an outsider’s perspective into Japanese culture.

The book opens with the introduction of two of the main characters, Orito Takashima and Numè Watanabe. Since Orito and Numè were ten and three years old, respectively, their fathers planned for them to be married. When Orito turns 18, his father sends him to the US to go to college while he waits for Numè to turn 18. While Orito is gone, Numè’s father allows her to intermingle with the American Elite community that lives in Tokyo because he wants to make sure that Orito will still like Numè after being exposed to American culture. This portion of the plot highlights the gender roles that flow throughout the book. Numè is never given a chose to make decisions about her life.

Toward the end of the book, we also see these gender roles highlighted. Orito falls in love with American whose name is Cleo as he’s traveling back from America. Before they reach Tokyo, he asks her to marry him and decides to tell his father that he will not marry Numè. When Orito tells his father and Numè’s father that he’s not going to marry Numè, they are both devastated and say that this decision will bring dishonor on to their family. As readers, we see the regret from Numè’s father as he grapples with the fact that she wasn’t born a son, and he even remarks that since she was a baby, he had only seen her as the future wife of Orito. Unfortunately, this shows how little regard women got during this time.

Meanwhile, Numè meets an American man—who, coincidentally, is engaged to Cleo—named Arthur Sinclair. They first meet at a ball and spend the whole evening talking and getting to know each other. After the party, Mrs. Davis—a member of the American Elite community who lives in Tokyo—tells Numè that she can’t be spending whole evenings talking with a man who are engaged to another woman. Numè feels very guilty and tells Mr. Sinclair that she doesn’t like him and can’t speak with him anymore. However, Numè runs into Mr. Sinclair on her way to Tokyo, and they make plans to meet regularly in the woods. This is where their love really blossoms, and by the end of the book, they get married and move to the US.

Watanna gives insights into an American perspective of Japanese culture through the character Mrs. Davis. To her and some of the other American characters, Japanese culture is routed in tradition and requires some explanation into why certain things work the way that they do. For instance, Mrs. Davis has lived in Japan for eight years. As she is talking with Cleo, she must explain why Cleo and Orito’s possible relationship will ruin the families of Orito and Numè. Cleo has a hard time understanding this because relationships and marriage function differently in the America, but in the end, Cleo tells Orito that she never intended to marry him and that she was just bored with being on the ship over to Tokyo.