Treaty between Japan and Corea 1876

This is an extract from the House of Lords parliamentary paper about the Treaty between Japan and Corea.

“Having heard that Mr. Miyamoto of the Guaimusho, had returned from Corea with the Envoys, we called upon him.  As it is not within the sphere of his duty to give any information upon purely official matters, we did not seek for this.  But the following observations made by him upon the state of the country and the habits and customs of the people, may prove interesting to our readers, and we therefore publish them.”

Some examples of the observations are; the soil is very poor as the pine trees are “crooked and ugly”, or the houses of the common people are about ten to twelve feet square and are “little better than dog kennels.”  The walls are made of stone and earth and the roofs are made of rice-straw thatch.  People sit on oiled paper on top of the compact earth floors, and they sit with straight legs.  The clothing is described “When approaching the land and at some distance the Coreans present the pretty appearance of snow herons, but on closer inspection they resemble the lazy priests of our own temples, whose garments may once have been white, but are so no longer.”

However, it was the last paragraph of the observations that caught my attention.

“We saw no wine-ships, “geisha” (singing girls), or the like.  It is said that all natural sons become priests, and the daughters prostitutes; but we could not discover whether this was actually the case.  We saw some Japanese hair-oil which they said were used by the women.  The custom of excluding women from the public gaze seems to exist in Corea as in China, and it is said that even among themselves visitors are not permitted to see the wife.  Thus we can give no description of the Corean Women.  Men do not use oil for the hair, which they pin up themselves.  We saw no public baths of hair-dressing shops, and we heard that the Coreans do not bathe.  In the warmer days of summer they go to the river or seashore to wash themselves; and in the hotel where we stayed there was not such a thing as a bath...This accounts for the filthy state in which the Coreans keep their persons, and for the dirty hue of their once white clothes.”

All this and a lot more can be found in the House of Lords parliamentary papers session 1876 vol. XX.

Scary Spider

As I was auditing I came across this book, A decade of Japanese underground activities in the Netherland East Indies

the picture on the cover made me stop and look at it.
It was issued for the Netherland Government Information Bureau by HMSO in 1942.
This is about the history of the war with Japan and the Netherlands East Indies why it started, the Japanese aggression, the propaganda that was used for the preparation of an invasion, the economic assault and the espionage involved.
I was particularly struck by the quote on the inside page.
“Time was when the ancient and noble rule of Bushido (the Road of the Warrior) withheld Japan from dishonourable action….Japan has branded herself among the nations as a country that knows only one law : the law of the jungle.”
On leafing through the book I came across the heading the Inclusion of Japanese Residents in the Espionage System. It mentions that the greater part of the Japanese community in the Netherlands Indies were hard-working and quiet immigrants. They held themselves away from the subversive and spying activities and gave the police little trouble. That is until after the Manchurian expedition and the subsequent disapproving vote of the League of Nations in 1933, when Japan became isolated and took a hostile attitude towards the Western Powers.
The Japanese abroad were asked to put themselves and their jobs at the disposal of Japan’s military aspirations.
This booklet is a fascinating insight to written propaganda in the Second World War.

Taste of Japan

I don’t know when it first started but it seems for a long time I have become more and more fascinated by Japanese culture. I thought for the month of June that the exhibition outside our office should demonstrate this. The books on display are from the Official Publications Collection, so yet again, it shows what a diverse collection of material we have, not just parliamentary papers and copies of Hansard.
One of the items is the Japanese Foreign Ministry a reference aid from the Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence,
Another item is Japanese art in detail from the British Museum, what an interesting book, it explains about Japanese art and goes into great detail describing Japanese art work in the British Museum.

The Tale of Genji is another book I have chosen and you can see on display the cover of this book. This ranks amongst the world’s greatest works of romantic works, it was written in the early eleventh century and had an enormous impact on Japanese literature, not just the wording but also the visual art.
The last book I want to point out is the British Museum book on Haiku poetry. Haiku poetry is short only seventeen syllables which normally consist of three phrases a five syllable phrase followed by a seven syllable phrase followed by another five syllables. When the strictest rules are followed there are three requirements, these are brevity, seasonal feeling and a cutting word, and this word can be placed at the end of any of the three lines.
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Why not try making up a Haiku or have a competition with your friends and colleagues.
I hope that you will enjoy this small exhibition and you will become as fascinated as myself on Japanese culture.