The Weird History of the Kanbe Family

Kanbe is the surname for a youkai-born family that was the head of Dragon’s Tower, a residence located near Kanawa, a city in eastern Gensokyo. Its namesake was given by Yuugiku Kanbe (born Ba Youju), who was born in China as a member of the Yao tribe. She didn’t adopt her Japanese name until she married her husband Ichimatsu Kanbe upon her arrival in Gensokyo. Both of them are native to the Outside World, and the husband defected from the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Their only daughter, Mabayu Kanbe, is of mixed heritage, with the Japanese blood coming from the father and the Chinese blood coming from the mother. Even though she was mostly raised under Japanese customs, she ended up becoming a Sinophile and long dreamt of marrying a Chinese man, which was the opposite of her mother’s dreams of a Chinese-turned-Japanese.

To further her path to becoming a true Chinese woman, despite being of mixed blood, she became an opera singer in the field of Chinese opera and started training at a young age. She was given that opportunity when a man in Kedomachi, where her parents used to live, gave her a set of Ming-era clothing in hopes of meeting a Chinese man. Her parents turned out to be right; when she came of age she did marry a Chinese man and upon doing so, she changed her name to Ba Xuan (八眩, the first character being her mother’s maiden name for the surname and the other character being taken from the pinyin transcription used to write her Japanese name in kanji).

When Mabayu’s own children were born, they married Japanese spouses just like their grandparents. Every generation has swapped back and forth for their marriages ever since.