Summary:

Twelve years since graduating from Lillian Girls' School, the former Yamayuri – all successful women in their own right – are TV guests in a highly acclaimed women's talk show. As the interviews progress, they reminisce together, and individually, how much their lives have changed since Lillian and how much has stayed the same. Gaela Horowitz, a well-respected broadcast journalist attempts to understand the magical intimacy of female friendship among the Yamayurikai and the sacrifices these successful women all had to make to attain their personal brand of happiness.

THE LILLIAN INTERVIEWS

Chapter One: The Gaela Excitement

Gaela Horowitz was getting excited.

Two years ago, the show's producers came up with a grand idea to boost television ratings by creating a live telecast table-talk series of the world's progressive and successful women in society. The Yamayurikai women who graduated from Lillian Girls' School were on the Top 50 list. For over a year and half, the women have been incessantly invited, month over month, as individual guests or collaborators on her widely popular program Gaela. However, because of so many scheduling conflicts and commitments, none of them have been able to join. Until now.

Youko Mizuno, currently one of Asia's top international trade lawyers was the first to get invited. She had been travelling across Europe and within the region to spearhead G8 initiatives to which Japan is a member-country. She rose to international fame by successfully lobbying towards a more open yet socially-responsible trade regulations between Japan, China with the rest of the countries within the great continent. These economic trade programs have then allowed a greater influx of growth opportunities within the region, moving Japan out of a long costly depression that started in the mid-90's. She has authored several white paper proposals to the G8 promoting the value of women-led entrepreneurship as the wave of the future. Quoted in the Economist, Mizuno states that womankind is a continuing force – an untapped potential that, when realized, can shift the scales of known global economic indicators. To her, the role of women is key in ushering in emerging economies. The Equitable Tax Incentive Plan for Women, one of her latest initiatives encourages governments to recognize and plan towards enabling women-entrepreneurship especially within the region. Despite the producers' persistent requests for a telecast interview, Mizuno obviously just had to decline because of important regional commitments and frequent travelling.

Sei Satou was also invited by the show's producers but to no success either. The eccentric Pulitzer Prize winner and surrealism novelist had been getting rave reviews on her book Flights of Fancy on a Yellow Beetle. The work has been recently acclaimed by several literary societies as a fresh depiction of New Age Feminism. She is currently working on a travelogue called Journeywoman with Youko Mizuno. It is a light narration about destinations and experiences where women find themselves. It generally chronicles Satou and Mizuno's international travels throughout the years and the places their work takes them. Satou is also guest lecturing in Oxford and Cambridge in England, while holding conferences on Social Feminism across the globe. She currently heads the international community of women free-thinkers called PROGRESA.

World-renowned style expert Eriko (who in real life is named Eriko Torii-Yamanobe) who heads the company Marimite Designs – a premier modelling agency, cosmetics and designer outfits firm – is one of the fastest-rising women-entrepreneurs in the world of fashion. She is fondly remembered for reinventing a blended retro 60's design into a newer and lighter chic fabric. Her company has since made her mark in Asia and Europe. With over 5,000 affiliated boutiques and stores worldwide and an impressive line-up of international models and photographers, Eriko has been voted by Elle magazine as this decade's Woman Designer of Choice. Very recently, Eriko has founded the Marimite Designs Institute, a fashion and clothes designing school open to financially-challenged yet budding women designers. Previous invitations sent out to her have been unsuccessful as she had been mostly based in France for the past year.

Lady Iron Chef and Kendo Master extraordinaire Rei Hasekura was too busy the past years preparing for the World Olympics. Including last year's grand slam win, she has garnered 23 gold medals, 15 silvers and 8 bronzes throughout her very illustrious sports career. Announcing early on in the year of an impending retirement from kendo, Hasekura has been quoted as wanting to devote much of her time to her culinary pursuits. The success of her Dojo Bar – a hip and happening culinary lounge and watering hole in Japan has kept her busy in between trainings. There are now at least ten Dojo Bar houses across Asia, 6 in Europe and 4 in the United States. In a few months, Hasekura will lead the opening of Kendo Palace – a dining and kendo sports complex that will house several culinary establishments, as well as a free kendo sports clinic and a cooking school for out-of-school teenage girls.

Yoshino Shimazu who currently is Regional Strategies Deputy Chair of the Disaster Monitoring Council has been working on several high-profile non-government initiatives to ensure crisis preparedness, technology infrastructure support and regional disaster recovery strategies in the face of climate change, pandemics and even terrorism. This catch-all council within the region has propelled Shimazu to advance and further enhance the New Kyoto Protocol of which Japan is a major sponsor. The highlights of Yoshino's leadership come with a cross-collaboration with Doctors Without Borders during last year's influenza outbreak in Indonesia. There were also classified reports that the DMC was able to prevent what could have been a major terrorist bombing in Hokkaido early the first quarter of this year. Getting through her secured line was tough as hell, Horowitz recalls.

Doctors Without Borders Chief Community Surgeon Shimako Todou is now touted by several sectors in the society as the young Mother Teresa of Asia. After garnering years of medical practice in the most prestigious hospitals in Japan and in the United States, she rose to the position of Deputy Chief for Medical Affairs in the prestigious Johns Hopkins Medical Hospital. Leaving a lucrative medical career, Dr. Todou has since committed to spending a life extending free medical services to indigenous peoples and poverty-stricken communities within Asia. In the last influenza epidemic that started in Indonesia, under her leadership, Doctors Without Borders spearheaded Critical Medical Response Teams that could setup quarantine sites and centres for people already stricken with the flu. Together with AsiaPac's Disaster Monitoring Council, prevention efforts had helped arrest forecasted mortality rates and the further spread of the disease within Asia. Although not entirely declining the Gaela invitation, she had asked for increasing patience due to conflicting schedules.

Premier research scientist and bio engineer, Dr. Noriko Nijou rose to worldwide fame after the patented pioneering discovery of bio-nanotechs. She now heads the emerging bioengineering-research firm called Nijou Research Technologies, Ltd. The NRT has been instrumental in making huge research strides towards the development of high quality but production-efficient organ transplants, skin grafting, experimental vaccinations and alternative stem-cell research. In a lecture at the Life Sciences and Medical Conference held in Luxemburg, Nijou broke away from tradition and appealed to global pharmaceutical companies to integrate cost-effective but emerging technologies into production processes. This would help arrest bloated research costs that keep the prices of what could have been affordable medicines to patients. She said that in the age of nano-technology and bio-engineering, the research on the first-pill production should be less than they were 10 years ago. Nijou initially committed to an interview only on the condition that Dr. Shimako Todou gets interviewed first.

Multi-awarded theatre director & writer and erstwhile stage actress, Tuoko Matsudeira has just been awarded Best Emerging Playwright and Best Stage Director in the recent Cannes Festival for the play Shoganon, commemorating the timeless work of Sei Shoganon's Pillow Book. Starting off as a dramatic theatre actress, Matsudeira starred in highly-acclaimed productions such as Light and Darkness, lifted from Soseki Natsume's unfinished novel. She also lent her acting prowess to the play Redeeming The Geisha, a story about the cultural lament of the declining status of the geisha amidst myths of prostitution. Matsudeira won a Tony award for Best Actress in her portrayal of Mineko in Redeeming the Geisha. She is the recipient of the Best Supporting Actress award for the role of O-Nobu in Light and Darkness. She currently owns her own theatre production outfit Geki-Jo Mura (village theatre) specializing in avant-garde plays from indie women-playwrights. Her schedules also, then did not permit her to say yes to a Gaela interview.

Yumi Fukuzawa of Fukuzawa Architects and Landscapes has been known for pursuing initiatives towards eco-architecture and green building designs. As Chief Architect and Executive Vice President for Asia, Fukuzawa together with her brother Yuuki, have made collaboration projects on lifestyle condominium buildings, commercial skyscrapers and suburban community construction. One of Fukuzawa's initial projects was the highly popular Little Bonsai, an eco-park complex in Kyoto predominantly placing a bonsai greenhouse gallery for tourists and travellers. There is also The Ikebana Village, a sprawling suburban community in Kobe known for its massive flower gardens, tree banks and environment-friendly pedestrian avenues. Etherea is an organic shopping complex strip that was inspired from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Heian-period architecture. Fukuzawa currently supports Habitat for Humanity in the region, and sits as Projects Consultant, having already built over 3,000 free mid-sized houses for poverty-stricken villages in Malaysia, China, the Philippines and Myanmar. Because of frequent travelling, she has also asked for Gaela's patience.

Amongst all of the Lillian Yamayurikai, getting the attractive yet enigmatic lady tycoon Sachiko Ogasawara on the program was the single most unique challenge of the show's producers and also for Horowitz.

One of the youngest woman CEOs in the world, Sachiko Ogasawara inherited the OGC (Ogasawara Group of Companies) from her late father Tuoru, only three years after getting her MBA degree from the University of Cambridge in England. Lady Ogasawara (endearingly called by foreign news business analysts as "Ice Lady O" ) has since further expanded OGC interests worldwide making it one of the most highly successful Japanese companies in the world. OGC sits among other Japanese companies like Sony, Fujitsu, Toyota and Honda who have a considerable world market penetration. The young Ogasawara heiress was initially faced with how to contend with the burgeoning cost of maintaining a considerable number of OGC production houses especially in textile and semi-conductor chip production amidst Japan's economic depression. After winning an impressive battle for controlling interests against an older and more conservative Board, Ogasawara boldly converted OGC's non-performing manufacturing companies into more service-oriented global firms. This was done by radically changing corporate paradigms and engaging in back-office knowledge process outsourcing services, travel and tourism, research engineering, modern infrastructures like technology integration. She has fostered a more entrepreneurial set-up of the OGC by spreading investments to a newer franchise system favouring the rise of innovative & emerging businesses. Sachiko Ogasawara is the region's leading woman-philanthropist, creating and supporting massive endowment funds towards global women's issues. She was Times' Man of The Year, permitting only a very brief interview. The rest of the article was based on interviews with partner-clients, leading associates and public records. The Ogasawara princess has been known to be quite a media recluse, such that offers for interviews and coverage have been continuously declined.

Until Now.

Gaela Horowitz could not believe her luck. The producers excitedly informed her that in celebration of the Lillian Girls' School 100th year anniversary, the former Yamayurikai council has accepted a live-to-tape broadcast interview with studio audience presence. Although the invitation was originally set to be individual interviews, the women decided that it might be best to conduct an informal group talk largely because of their schedules. The show's producers readily agreed to a two 3-hour broadcast, recorded live at the newly reconstructed Rosa Manor Pavilion in Tokyo. The interviews will be televised two-weeks after the taping. An exclusive DVD release will be made a month after the broadcast.

The actual interview date is set in two days. The former Yamayuri committed to a whole 8-hour taping with prep time, breaks and exclusive live audience interaction.

Gaela kept looking at the program checklist taking careful note if she has missed anything. Even though she is one of the most highly respected broadcast journalists in the industry and an acclaimed talk show host, she feels a kind of nervous excitement towards interviewing the former Mountain Lily graduates. Perhaps them being younger and more globally successful can present a rather intimidating impression even upon the more established and mature female personalities.

Gaela exhaled deeply before opening the conference room door to meet with her staff. It was their final meeting to rehearse interview questions and go through program logistics.

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Authors Notes:

When I came up with the concept for this fan-fiction, one of the things that became a driving theme for me was to ensure that this is a thinking woman's Marimite. And perhaps, that would mean that this caters towards more mature fan-fiction readers who are in their late 20's to the mid 40's. However, I do believe that young readers have, at times, an impressive capacity to appreciate literature beyond their ages.

As the stories progress, readers will note that Sachiko will eventually come out as the leading character although it must be said that the story does not concentrate on her alone. Interestingly, it will touch on the myriad relationships they have with each other: sisterly responsibilities, romantic friendships (which may or may not progress to having intimate sexual bonds), jealousy, depression, business ties, family obligations, anxiety and celebration towards motherhood and their definition of individual and group success. A large portion of the work uses flashbacks.

Whether they eventually find love, amongst each other or whether they meet other people along the way will be made apparent in the series. So the pairings you might have been used to may not exactly be the pairings in the end. This was a conscious effort on my part because it lends towards authenticity in depicting the emotional maturity of all the characters involved as they meet new people and re-assess feelings.

The homosexual aspect is treated liberally by the characters, if not loosely defined. But no attempt to declare themselves as gay or lesbians will be written in the story. In the course of this, Sei will explain it much better in the interviews.

Nana, Tsutako, Kanako, Mami, Kei Katou, Sayako Ogasawara, Suguru Kashiwagi and Yuuki together the rest of the Fukuzawa family will make appearances also. They all play a part in the evolving inter-relationships of the maturing Yamayuri.

Most importantly, the thought process of this series is played out in a more Asian voice and context. To the Western reader, you might wonder at the culturally submissive attitude of the Yamayuri towards institutions (society, religion, family, education, etc) or even sometimes slow-paced reactions especially in trying moments of the Yamayurikai. But truth be told, the main characters are all Asian women and therefore they are subject to certain social norms like any other Japanese woman growing up and coming to terms with her value and her place in tradition. This should not be treated as cowardice by the characters but a form of respect towards their roots.

Finally before I end the notes: this is a tribute to Konno Oyuki, without whom there would be no Sachiko Ogasawara.