I’m sure some of you wonder why I chose to write and set The Scarlet Daughter in 1890s Japan (the Meiji era in Japanese history). Why choose a time and place that’s fairly obscure to most of Western culture?
Well there are many reasons, so many that I’ll do a little “mini-series” on my blog about it. I’m sure it won’t be very interesting to many–especially if you aren’t a huge history fan–but I thought it might be something of interest to a few 🙂 The Meiji era is such an interesting time, when Japan truly transformed. And it’s a time when the country had to adjust to many new and very foreign ideas, something that didn’t always settle well with many who were used to the old ways. This is just a sampling of some of the conflicts that I try to examine in The Scarlet Daughter through Naomi’s character.
Of course, there’s much more–so much that I’m still researching and learning about it (just discovered another new tidbit today that may change Ryuji’s backstory slightly). Anyway, I’ll post more details about it come next week, in case you’re interested. If not, well that’s your loss 😛
Tales from the Writing Front 
Comments on: "Background for The Scarlet Daughter" (3)
I love historical fiction and admire anyone who writes it, there’s so much research. One day I’m going to write my World War 2 stories.
I’m interested! I’m taking Japanese in a month or so. Keep it coming.
I think this is a really interesting topic that still applies to today. Translating foreign (western) values into a very traditional (eastern) culture and getting it to work in a way that both doesn’t destroy that culture but also doesn’t increase xenophobia and create instability? Well, that’s hard. And Japan didn’t do such a good job (ahem, WWII and the “Eastern Asia ‘Co-Prosperity’ Sphere).
Why does this still apply?
Well… isn’t it what we’re trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Translating western government and, to some extent, values, into a very traditional culture? So yeah, it’s interesting!
Besides, Natsume Soseki is one of my favorite authors of all time and he wrote about this period. Bring it on.