Comment fights before the blog days (A reader fights back on an Western guy’s travelogue on Japan)

This one is a travelogue written in the 1930s by an American traveler. I found this in the same old book shop in Bangalore.


The Author traveled through Japan, Korea and China

Here he talks about a god called Binzulu, never heard of this god.

What were more interesting for me were the comments a previous reader had left in the margins. The author has a pompous style and he often chides or makes fun of the things he sees in Asia. In this page the author is criticizing Sumo wrestling. The reader is questioning why the western sport of boxing is not stupid (the author calls Sumo wrestling a stupid sport).

On this page the authors delves into geo-politics of the time and gives his reasons why there will not be war between Japan and the US. Our commentator strikes again with his/her disapproval.

Here the author talks about the Exclusion Act of 1924, US politician passed a law to control immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia. Japan took a big offence at this law. Our commentator feels that the author’s harsh words for Japan are due to

like all their white brethren they could not bear to see an asiatic country rising. As this would mean one place less which they could exploit and one place more with whom they would have to compete for the world market

The commentator was surely a proud pan-asianist. Pan-Asianism was encouraged by the Japanese. They urged all Asian countries to band together and beat their colonial masters. Pan Asianism found strong support in India.