Miscellany (cont’d)
Kishū Woman Who Invested in An Actor
There was an old woman from Kishū whose name was Toku Terada. She was initially in Seattle but moved to this country later. She has already returned to Japan now. She used to be the most popular prostitute in Cranbrook, and she owned her cave, competing with Matsumoto’s Oshige. She also had a white lover, who was a police officer in the city. This was when Tetsuji Ishida was dominating Nelson. I do not know why this came to his mind but he encouraged his wife’s brother to travel to this country. His wife’s brother is one of the new actors* and perhaps had a wish to visit this country once. He eventually came to Nelson with his children and was shocked to see Tetsuji Ishida running a brothel. He did not even dream about this and it was quite disappointing. Devils persistently encouraged him by saying, “You travelled all the way here so why don’t you try having a brothel yourself and make some profit? We will arrange prostitutes”. He did not have any other job anyway and he felt like giving it a try. He watched hot water in the kitchen, thinking about character Soroku from the Shiroishi Story of kabuki, but finally decided that he could not do such a business and quit after two months, which is a smart idea.
At around the same time, old woman Terada in Cranbrook wanted to return to Japan, as she had saved some money and was becoming old. Once she decided, the police man ended their relationship more easily than dumping a rotten pair of straw sandals. She asked every person she knew to let her know if they happened to know any Japanese person who was going to Japan. She said that she would be responsible for all the travel costs but she wants the person to safely take her to her home in Kishū from the port. Who would escort an ex-prostitute old bitch? There was no one who volunteered even among cave men.
Luckily, she overheard that a new actor in Nelson was leaving a cave and going back to Japan. She had known the Tetsuji couple for a long time, so the new Soroku and old Otoku left Vancouver for Japan three or four years ago.
The story ends here but according to a rumor in the interior, the new actor extorted all the money from Otoku. Just as casual philosophy says, the relationship ends when the money ends. Being dumped by the man, the old woman did not have any direction, had no money, could not go home, and went to Sendai region by relying on her acquaintance. She must have improved her Tohoku dialect by now, but we do not have information in such details.