The Ideal World

“Saneatsu’s Ideal World: Centenary Exhibition,” Yomiuri Shimbun, Morning Edition, October 30, 2018.

Zhou Zuoren, “Visit to Japan’s New Village,” in Art and Life (October Literature and Art Press, 2011).

Mushakoji Saneatsu, The Land (Aranosha, 1921). This is a documentary work where Mushakoji records the search for and purchase of land in Kijo. Aranosha is a New Village publishing division established in 1920 in former Kitatoshima district in Tokyo prefecture.

The Complete Works of Mushakoji Saneatsu, vol. 4 (Shogakukan, 1988). Quoted in Liu Lishan, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society and Chinese Writers (Liaoning University Press, 1995), 202. According to Japanese measurement, one cho is ten tan, one tan is ten se, one se is thirty tsubo, one tsubo is two jo, one jo is five go, one go is ten shaku, and one shaku is about 0.0331 square meters. Two cho, five tan, and three se total is 25,122.9 square meters, which translates into 2.51229 hectares.

Complete Works of Mushakoji Saneatsu, vol. 4. Quoted in Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 202.

Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Beyond Utopia: New Villages and Living Politics in Modern Japan and across Frontiers,” History Workshop Journal, no. 85 (2018).

“The Spirit of the New Village” has remained unchanged since it was written. I reference Sun Baigang’s translation here; see Sun Baigang, The New Village (Guanghua Book Company, 1933), 137–38.

This is the 1920 revision of the “New Village Rules.” See Sun, New Village, 139–40. The membership fee mentioned in Article 11 was in Japanese yen at that time.

See correspondence of December 7, 1918, by Mushakoji Saneatsu, New Village 2, no. 1 (January 1919). Translated by Zhou Zuoren and included in his article “Japan’s New Village,” published in New Youth 6, no. 3 (April 1919). See Zhou, Art and Life, 233. However, the birth dates of Tolstoy and Rodin are incorrect; according to Wikipedia, Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, and Rodin on November 12, 1840.

He wrote Biography of Jesus (New Village Publishing, 1920), Biography of Buddha (Kodansha, 1934), and Biography of Tolstoy (Saikensha, 1959).

Mushakoji Saneatsu, “For Oneself and Others,” Shirakaba, no. 2 (1912). Cited in Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 134.

Zhou Zuoren, “A Visit to a New Village in Japan,” in Art and Life.

Zhou, “A Visit to a New Village in Japan.”

Yukio Akimiti, New Village at Hyuga, 16 mm film, original copy, Mushakoji Saneatsu Memorial Museum in Chofu, data number: V-5031. This film has been digitized and is available on the official website →, but for copyright reasons can only be accessed at the museum.

See Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 210.

See Zhou, Art and Life, 251.

See Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 207.

“Mushakoji Fusako,” in Rediscovering Home: 101 People in Myazaki, ed. Miyazaki Prefecture (Nichi Nichi Shimbun, 1999) →.

Published in the November 1928 issue of The Great Harmony. Translation in Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 236.

“Mushakoji Fusako.”

Watanabe Kanji, “The Present State of New Village,” in Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 212.

Mushakoji Saneatsu Memorial Museum, 100 Years of New Village: 1918–2018 (Mushakoji Saneatsu Memorial Museum, 2018), 18.

“The Location of New Village and its Branches,” in Sun, New Village.

Complete Works of Mushakoji Saneatsu, vol. 4. Quoted in Liu, Japanese Writers of the White Birch Society, 214.