A Book To Read. In Eastern Eyes

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 7

A Book To Read. In Eastern Eyes

Japanese Woman Tourist And Iler Candour About Europe

“Japanese Lady in Europe,” by Haruko Ichikawa. (London: Jonathan Cape.) VVIIEN Professor Sanki Ichikawa. ’’ head of the English department of the Imperial University of Tokio, was elected in 1931 to an Albert Kahn Travelling Scholarship, he decided to take his wife with him on the European tour it made possible. His object was to inspect general conditions of life in other countries and hers “to endeavour to take in the impressions of things I met with for the first time with unsophisticated susceptibility as on a photographic film, unmarked with any preconceived ideas.”

The result is a travel-diary as refreshing as it is unexpected. Any one who imagines Japanese women tourists to be very modest, silent and polite little persons will find here reason to adjust their opinions. Mrs. Ichikawa has lively intelligence and keen eyes which, with her untiring zest for new experiences, gives her a disconcerting insight into the foibles and pet mannerisms of nations. Though she never fails in politeness, this Japanese lady is not always flattering. She finds much in Europe to criticise, yet she does it so neatly and sweetly that she could convert even the biased reader.

Her observations are, indeed, so admirably expressed that they will do much toward the fulfilment of one of her greatest hopes, the better understanding among Western people of the Japanese character and way of looking at things.

fpi-IK route of the two travellers began in China, crossed Russia and Siberia to Paris, wound through' the British Isles, came to Spain in summertime, turned north to Denmark, Poland and Berlin, took in Switzerland on its way to Italy, and then returned home through Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. Every country was to Mrs. Ichikawa a kaleidoscope of changing and vivid impressions, some pleasant, some disagreeable. She has an effective trick of using minor incident to throw light upon the character of the people. For instance, a rickshawman in China refused to carry her for longer than four hours because he'had earned enough for one day and did not trouble about the morrow. “This nation who have not yet got their nerves blistered by the ■stimulating fruit of the tree of knowledge,” comments Mrs. Ichikawa, “seem to be likely to inherit the earth and go on for ever, while the Japanese, Italians and other Latin peoples go neurotic and mad, followed by the English and Danish, who will be a little later in going the same way.” The Russians were totally different. “They impressed me as being useful men and women, showing their bulkiness, necessary for the founding of a new world order with tiieir strong, big marrow of life. They do not give me the same feeling that the lower classes in China give us, whom we would like to leave as they are without changing them. When we see Russians, we hope that education will spread among them as quickly as possible.” Such astute comment abounds in the diary. Mrs. Ichikawa has the gift of

describing a whole country or a whole city in one striking sentence. The English to her eyes had many virtues, but very many irritating eccentricities and peculiarities. “It would be almost senseless to be too serious about this, but what I do hate is their attitude of taking it for granted that they will not go to excess in anything. . . . England is a country of antique formality in everything.”

QF all the Japanese adventures, the sections on the British Isles and China are possibly the most interesting. In Russia and Paris, Mrs. Ichikawa found much that was in sympathy with her own ideas; Spain was a place of contrasts, “where barren desolation and gorgeous brilliance are intermingled. . . . Imagine Spain as a sheet of sandpaper with an earshell upon it.” But she admired rather than liked the Scandinavians, and was more preoccupied with Swiss scenery than Swiss people. In Italy, her prejudice against Fascism coloured her opinions and Central Europe oppressed her with a sense of impotent misery and low spirits.

To whatever she writes, however, Mrs. Ichikawa brings a natural freshness of thought and feeling. It is true, as Mr. William Plomer points out in his introduction, that her diary proves how much civilised people of all nations have in common; yet it has a distinctly Japanese flavour, particularly in the descriptive passages, which is delightfully piquant. From the first page to the very charming dedication at the end, this book is frank, stimulating and entertaining.