There is nothing quite so boring as to listen to a group of officers who have had duty on the Asiatic recounting their experiences, singing their songs, and swapping lies—unless it be to hear someone telling of a cruise in Constantinople. I know —I have done both. I now look forward to getting home so that I, too, may pose as an authority on China and things Chinese.
The Submarine Divisions, Asiatic, have never been a favorite with the student officers of the Submarine School. Generally the tail-enders get the preference of going to the Asiatic. There must be a reason and perhaps it is lack of information.
The Bureau of Navigation distributes a little circular concerning the station, telling in general terms what one may expect there, the duty in general, living costs, what one should take with him, and the percentage of people who like the duty. It was written from the point of view of general service on the Asiatic, certainly not from that of the submarines. Perhaps a little information having to do with the Asiatic submarines, their routine, cruises, duties, and stations, will tend to decrease the odds against such duty and make it appear more attractive. At any rate it will give the prospective Asiatic submarine sailor some idea of what to expect.
Of course, every submarine sailor knows that the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Divisions, with the Beaver and Canopus as tenders, plus the Pigeon as salvage vessel, comprise the Submarine Divisions, Asiatic. The boats are the S-30 to S-41 inclusive; all good boats. The Beaver tends the Sixteenth, and does a good job of it. She is comfortable and fast, a better tender than most. The Seventeenth is cared for by the Canopus, a large, roomy vessel with more staterooms than a liner. She appears to be all topsides but is well equipped, comfortable, and pretty much of a home. So much for the ships.
The Asiatic submarine year may well be divided into three parts: the torpedo year in China, the gunnery year in and about Manila, and overhaul at Cavite and Olongapo. The summer months from May to October are spent in going to, visiting, and returning from, China. From October to May is spent in and around Manila, with a yard overhaul period included.
When the newcomer arrives at Manila, either by transport via Honolulu and Guam, or commercially via Japan and China, he is apt to be disappointed. Manila is hot, not particularly clean, and the livable part all clustered within a small area. The Manila Hotel, The Army and Navy Club, the Elks Club, and the section around the Dewey Boulevard are the bright spots.
Married officers will learn that apartments are hard to obtain, mediocre when found, and living expensive. Servants are a necessary evil. They are independent and, generally, inefficient. In five months I hired and fired twelve cooks and my case was not unusual. There are numerous places to board, including the Manila, Leonard Wood, and Luneta Hotels and the Army and Navy Club Annex. Insofar as expense and comfort go, the married officer with children will probably do better by taking an apartment, either unfurnished and furnishing it with his own household effects, or one of the so- called furnished apartments. The childless couples will probably find it better to trust to the hotels and boarding houses. At any rate, with or without children, Manila will be found as expensive as the States.
For recreation there is golf and tennis, swimming in the pools of either the Polo Club or the Army and Navy Club, and dancing. Golf is cheap and the courses fair. Tennis is excellent if one can stand the heat and glare. The swimming, even though in a pool of filtered sea water, is no better than fair. There is dancing every night at the Manila Hotel, the Club, and the Polo Club.
As a rule, single officers like Manila. They save money, play around with Army and Navy juniors, and enjoy the Club.
That is Manila and that is all of Manila.
The Army has a rest camp about two hundred miles out of Manila up in the mountains called Baguio. It is an ideal spot, cool and delightful. The Army kindly allows limited numbers of Navy personnel to go up there for short stays to get out of the heat. It offers cool weather and golf and should be visited by everyone who comes to the station.
The conditions for operating in and around Manila are excellent, except, again, for the heat. The diving areas are near the anchorage. The gunnery area is just outside the bay, off Marivelles. From an operating viewpoint, Manila rates high.
Of course the trip north to Tsingtao and the summer months there are the bright spots of the whole cruise. The wives go up commercially via Hongkong and Shanghai, at a cost of about one hundred dollars (gold) or, if fortunate, by transport. The Submarine Divisions sometimes stop at Hongkong, Amoy, and Shanghai on the trip up, which makes a very delightful, instructive, and interesting cruise of about two thousand miles, leaving the heat behind and getting into cooler water and weather.
Tsingtao! During the opening days of the World War we read that the Japanese were laying seige to the German concession of Tsingtao in North China. If we had time, in those hectic days, we dusted off the old atlas, turned to a map of China, and tried to locate Tsingtao. We knew about where to locate Hongkong, Canton, Shanghai, and Pekin, but this place Tsingtao was rather elusive.
Not finding it in a cursory glance, perhaps we were interested enough to go over that vast country carefully, inch by inch on the map, in a careful search. We knew that it must be on the seaboard since the siege started out as a naval engagement. At last, if we were really patient, we discovered Tsing-Tau, or perhaps Tsingtao, on the northeast coast of Kiaochow Bay, on the southern side of the Shantung peninsula.
Perhaps, at that time, we wondered what in the world the Germans were doing away up there. More lately we may have wondered why the Japanese have been continually landing there and staying there even at an admittedly tremendous expenditure of good Japanese yen. What sort of place is this Tsingtao and why should it be so eagerly sought?
There is a reason! The Shantung peninsula is the garden spot of China. Situated in the same latitude as San Francisco and Norfolk, Tsingtao enjoys all of the climatic changes of both. The winters are cool but not cold; snow is almost unknown; the springs and autumns are delightful; but it is the summer months of July, August, and September that give Tsingtao its fame.
When, in 1897, the Germans took possession of the city, in consequence of the murder of two German missionaries, they laid plans for the ninety-nine years their lease was to extend. They designated their concession by the name of Kiaochou and the city proper Tsingtau, naming the city from a small island in the outer harbor. The Chinese were induced to migrate to Taih- sichen and Taitungshan, small villages near by, and then construction of a German city on Chinese soil was started.
Wide, well paved, level roads were built, a waterworks and a sewerage system were installed, forestation was started, and a modern city, typically German, had its beginning. Tsingtao became clean, orderly, and healthful, a truly lovely spot.
When that great conflagration of the World War broke out in 1914, Japan demanded the surrender of Tsingtao. After a point-blank refusal by Captain Meyer-Wall-deck, of the German Navy, governor of Tsingtao, the Japanese, aided by the British, laid siege to the city.
The concession had been well fortified by the Germans, with a concrete and turreted fort on Huichuen Point, and a land battery on Bismarck Hill, and it was only after two and a half months of severe fighting, with appalling losses to the Japanese, that Tsingtao fell; and then only after the Japanese had crossed Chinese territory to attack it from the land side. Their ammunition expended, a handful of Germans surrendered to a Japanese army.
The Japanese formally took possession in November, 1914, and held the city until December, 1922, when, in accordance with the famous “Wilson Points,” the territory was ceded back to China. Meanwhile, and before the actual transfer, Japanese moved in by the thousands and Japanese interests bought all of the business property in the city, so that Tsingtao took on the unique character of a typically German city architecturally, controlled by the Japanese financially, and administered by the Chinese apparently. At times the administration has tottered towards the Japanese.
Tsingtao became one of the most prized of the Northern cities. Chang Tsung Chang, that tall, ungainly Mongolian, the right-hand man of the late Chang Tso Lin, laid his heavy hand upon it and was proclaimed the “Tupan of Shantung.” He levied taxes, collected a harem of wives, about thirty in all, mostly Russians varying in age from sixteen to sixty, and made merry. When Chang Tsung Chang was in town, things happened. Those who attended his parties, and there were many parties, were allowed the privilege of dancing with his Chinese wives. The Russian wives, however, were never present. His victorious generals are said to have been allowed the pick of his harem. Chang Tsung Chang “tupanned” Shantung in merry style.
When the Nationalists, or Southerners, drove the Northerners back into Manchuria, the Japanese landed in Tsingtao and forbade any military operations by either faction within the confines of the city, much to the benefit of Tsingtao. As a consequence, the Nationalists took all of the territory around about but left Tsingtao an island in a war- torn land, still flying the Northern flag but unable to have communication with the Northerners. Tsingtao became a city with no national connection unless it were Japan. At the present time the Japanese are handing Tsingtao over to the Central Government.
Today the population of Tsingtao is divided into five groups. There are the Chinese, the Japanese, the White Russians, the Europeans and resident Americans, and the summer visitors, including the families of the naval personnel. The last-named group are by no means a small part of the foreign (non-Oriental) population, for Tsingtao is the summer resort of all of North China.
From the time one lands at the commercial harbor, either from a palatial ocean liner or from one of the little Chinese or Japanese coastwise traders held together by their rust, one realizes that at last a new sort of Chinese city has been discovered. A short ride in a brand new, high-powered, horn-honking American car, or in a more leisurely and far more economical ricksha, lands one in the very center of the foreign settlement. An hour’s drive takes one to Victoria Beach around the old fortifications, now abandoned to the elements; past the former residence of the German governor, now occupied by the Chinese director-general, Chao Chi, a very dignified and capable politician; up the hill, and by the modern Japanese hospital. A short stop should be made at the Japanese Shrine and then the trip concludes with a shopping tour of the business district, 75 per cent Japanese.
A more extensive trip may be made to Laoshan, the mountain district to the north: rocky, picturesque, and entirely deforested.
On the way we pass the Hsian Ku pagoda said to have been erected to the memory of a little Chinese girl who died at the age of fifteen but who had aleady at that tender age become famous as a doctor and herbist and had surpassed the scholars of her day in her knowledge of the intricacies of reading and writing.
Laoshan proves to be a high pinnacle of rock which commands an excellent view of the plains beyond. Refreshments are served at Munchen Valley, by Mein Herr Munchen himself, and then the return trip is made through truck gardens and level plains past the public laundries, quite unlike the American conception of a Chinese laundry, by the potter’s shop, past the huge plant of the British-American Tobacco Company, for Shantung is a tobacco-raising district, back to town, and to the Grand Hotel for tiffin.
In the afternoon there may be racing; little Chinese ponies scooting around the track like rabbits, ridden by Chang, Needa, Tam, and other gentlemen jockeys. Graduates of various universities in the States, they sweat with their ponies in the effort to be the first at the finish.
For those who prefer to engage actively in sports, rather than to watch them, there is tennis, golf, swimming, and riding. Refreshments are served on the beach, cold German beer, soda pop, or whatever you may wish.
Fresh fruit there is in abundance. Strawberries as choice as those of New England; peaches that rival the pride of Delaware; apples, pears, plums—all are to be had, fresh, in Tsingtao.
Such is Tsingtao, the gateway to the north, the Riviera of North China, and the summer base of the Asiatic Submarine Divisions. Here one lives at the Grand Hotel, the Castle Inn, Madame Paulin’s or any one of several other boarding places. Very good accommodations may be had, including board, for one hundred dollars (gold) a month and up, according to how large a place is desired.
Tsingtao is ideal as a submarine operating base, there being plenty of good diving area close to the anchorage, the summer weather generally favorable, and plenty of supplies of all kinds available.
During the summer cruises are made to interesting ports nearby. Last year the Seventeenth Division made two such cruises: one to Dairen and one to Kobe. The trip to Kobe was made by the tender alone, taking such of the submarine officers as cared to go.
Now, there are several ways to see Japan. The most common is to call at Yokohama and Kobe, making flying leaps up to Tokyo, Kioto, and Nara. On this sort of trip you would meet all of the Number One ricksha men, the most pestiferous of the shopkeepers, and plenty of geisha girls. Of course you would head for the most European hotels to be found and you would find your childhood friends drinking Asahi beer in the lobbies. When you left Nippon you would take away a confused idea of a clever little people, slightly dark complexioned, either dressed very charmingly in native costume of kimono or haori coats, grotesquely in half European and half Oriental clothing, or monotonously in wholly Western clothes. Your dreams might be troubled by nightmares of crowded, narrow streets, cute little spider-webs of shops, Tansan water, Japanese saki, dwarfed trees, and hagglings over ricksha fares. At any rate you would assure all of the folks back home that the good old United States was “God’s country” and that you couldn’t see anything in Japan.
Pierre Loti also saw Japan, but that is another story which he tells very cleverly in his little book Madame Chrysanthème.
We, however, were fortunate in that we saw Japan under the kind auspices of the Japanese-American Society of Osaka, whose purpose was, and frankly is, to seek a better understanding with the American people— a gospel of Japanese propaganda. We were willing victims upon whom the Japanese- American Society worked—and how!
The American consul at Kobe, Mr. Dick- over, brought us an invitation from the Osaka branch of the society to be their guests for a day. You know how anything of that sort is received. There is a general feeling that anything free has a “catch” in it. But finally fourteen of us, plus Mr. Dickover, accepted. We left the Canopus at nine o’clock the next morning, just a little suspicious that we were in for a dull day.
When we arrived at the dock, which, by the way, is known as the American Hatoba, we were met by a fleet of Blue taxies, nice little Chevrolet coaches, and conveyed to the Hanshin Electric Railway Station, the terminus of the Kobe-Osaka electric interurban railway. It was well out of the city proper and located on quite a high hill. Someone suggested that perhaps they had to have a high hill to take-off from, in order to get a good start, but we were soon to lose that impression.
We found ourselves provided with passes for the round trip to Osaka and the consul checked us in through the gates like a crowd of excited schoolboys. We mixed right in with the commuters: mothers with their babies strapped to their backs, flappers with bobbed hair and short skirts, business men with their brief cases, men in kimonos and wooden sandals and men who might have just stepped off Fifth Avenue. With our superior “subway” tactics we were all able to dive into a familiar type of side-seating car and grab seats to the exclusion of at least fifteen Japanese. The train filled up rapidly, almost Forty-second Street fashion, a bell rang, a whistle blew, and we were off. Differing from steam train practice, everyone kept on all of his clothes. You know, in the coaches of a Japanese steam train it is quite the thing to remove one’s coat, trousers, shirt, and shoes and ride in comfort. It makes for quite a saving in laundry bills.
This custom of disrobing in the trains certainly does make for intimacy. Imagine walking into the Twentieth Century Limited and calmly removing your coat, collar and tie, shirt and trousers; folding them up carefully, and then taking your seat in an unconcerned manner. There is no privacy or hurry to this disrobing act; all is deliberate and above board; nothing is concealed. Imagine trying to put over a good Pullman car story on a Japanese train!
Once our train started, there was no hesitation. The train jumped up to high speed and then gathered more speed. Soon we were just flying through the outskirts of Kobe, into little towns where we barely seemed to pause and then away again as though a huge magnet was sucking us into Osaka.
Only a few days before there had been a rather deplorable accident in this line. At one of the crossings a train had struck and killed a boy on a bicycle. Now, that in itself is not remarkable. Had the boy on the bicycle struck and injured the train, that would have been something to get excited about. However, the train stopped and the villagers clambered about the cars, seemingly intent upon lynching the motorman for the death he had so unwittingly caused. They became so intent upon chastising the unfortunate railroad man that they flocked all over both the east- and west-bound tracks, like hounds eager to be in on the death. Several west-bound trains, observing what was going on, slowed down and passed the scene of the accident without incident. Finally one train came zooming along and plowed into the excited mob, killing four more.
The Japanese is stubborn when he considers that he has a just cause and will sometimes risk death rather than give way. It perhaps is the old story of “losing face,” which is never to be done. To us it was a lesson as to the stubbornness of the average Japanese when he considers that his rights have been in any way jeopardized. Perhaps we should remember this characteristic in our dealings with them.
After a run of a scant thirty minutes we found ourselves approaching a city of lofty, smoking stacks; a second Pittsburgh; Osaka, the largest city of Japan; a city with a population of over 2,220,000 people.
On previous trips to Kobe I had known that there was a city called Osaka across the bay. Right after the earthquake in 1927 I had visited Kobe and heard that several thousand people had lost their lives there. I had pictured it as a little city, spread out over a considerable territory, far inferior to and less modern than Kobe. I had no idea that the largest city in Japan was Osaka and that Kobe was only about one quarter its size.
The train slid into the station, the doors flew open, and we all piled out—and into the arms of the mayor’s secretary and a whole flock of newspaper men. Cameras clicked, posed handshakes were exchanged, our impressions were asked and we all felt like movie queens returning from Europe married to dukes. We were rushed into a fleet of waiting cars, Buicks, Willys-Knights, and Packards, and in triumphant procession given the right-of-way by vigilant traffic police, on our way to the city hall to call on the mayor. Lacking only were the ticker- tapes and confetti to complete the illusion of a real New York-Broadway reception. Even some of the streets were torn up to make it realistic.
The mayor, very businesslike and quite Western in his ways, met us, shook us each by the hand, hoped that we would enjoy Osaka, and refreshed us with iced tea. We visited a few minutes and then posed on the city hall steps for the newspaper men, the mayor in our midst.
Knowing that we had a full day ahead of us, the mayor sped us on our way saying that he would see us at tiffin at the club and hoped that we would know Osaka better by that time.
Our second call was at the prefectural office, where we called upon the governor. He, too, was dressed in Western clothing, was rather reserved in manner, and appeared to be tremendously busy. Our call was short; the governor glanced at his wrist watch and then at his desk, wished us a pleasant and instructive visit, and said that he would see us at noon. We were not so sure that the governor had been so pleased to have us interrupt his work and left rather abashed. Anyhow, he did not speak English and it was rather difficult talking through an interpreter.
From there we made a round of the city, seeing the various points of interest, the temples, and the old castle.
Having had our fill of scenery, we were next driven to the Osaka Club, a select businessmen’s club, for something more substantial. We found the governor and the mayor, together with about twenty representative Japanese business men, waiting as our hosts at tiffin. A very well-chosen and delicious luncheon, Western style, was served, and then the mayor and the governor both made short speeches of welcome and good will, which were suitably returned.
We certainly were surprised when the governor read his speech—in English. Our call had evidently interrupted his preparation of this speech for we now found him, that effort over, an excellent host, genial and beaming. All of our other Japanese tiffin friends spoke excellent English and most of them with the slang of America. The greater part of the conversation was of baseball, over which the Japanese have gone mad. It was difficult to believe that we were not in some first-class club at home. The consul said that the Osaka Club was so expensive that few of the resident Americans could afford to belong; then we knew that we were not at home.
Toasts were sealed in Japanese beer and saki, that distinctive Japanese wine, and then we were conducted to the two largest newspaper plants in Japan, the plant of the Osaka Asahi and that of the Osaka Mainichi, each claiming a circulation of over a million copies daily. Both papers print English supplements and are active, energetic, and thoroughly alive to the newspaper game. In their Japanese edition they are handicapped in that all of the type must be set up by hand, for no linotype machine is conceivable which could handle the some three thousand characters necessary to the language.
I asked the managing editor of the Mainichi if he thought that Japan would ever come to the Roman alphabet in place of the Japanese. He was enthusiastic as to the advantages to be gained from a newspaper point of view but pointed out that the Japanese language is a spoken language with the written characters borrowed from the Chinese and that such a change would cause a great upheaval in the literature of Japan, would entail no end of expense, and could only come about through years of education.
Asked my impression of the plant in comparison with a newspaper press room in the United States, I said that the one outstanding difference was the number of men engaged in setting type, all by hand. That evidently was the wrong answer for my Japanese friend then explained in great detail that this paper had to be set up in a hurry, that time was limited, and that many men were of course necessary to get out such a big paper in such a short space of time. No up-and-coming Japanese will ever admit that they are even a little bit behind the times. Their pride is in their modern methods. The pet of the whole plant was a Hoe Ultra-Lightning press, the only one in the whole world, they said.
Perhaps it was the result of our huge appetites at the club, but at both newspaper plants we were treated to watermelon, ice cream, and various soft drinks. As we were leaving the Mainichi we were each presented with huge boxes of rice cakes, presents from the mayor, carefully and tastefully packed, to tide over our hunger until tea time. With the various pamphlets, magazines, folders and boxes we had collected en route, we all looked like Christmas shoppers gone astray.
Our guide, the mayor’s secretary, now said that he had a real treat for us. When the society had first heard that we were coming it had decided to entertain us at tea in a typical Japanese home after the Western style. Fortunately, at the last minute, it had been decided that it would be more interesting and truly friendly for us to visit a real Japanese home and to be the guests of a Japanese who lived in Japanese style. Mr. Imai, a very wealthy man, had asked us to accept his hospitality at tea.
Once more we got into cars and went right into the very heart of the city, down a street given over to small shops, and stopped at a corner every bit as busy as Fourteenth Street at Broadway. We found ourselves entering a little curtained-off passageway into a small garden and being greeted by a squad of Japanese schoolboys all dressed up in sailor suits. Our host and hostess greeted us and bade us welcome to their home.
The entrance was not very prepossessing, but what a garden spot and doll house we found upon entering! The home comprised a small city block and was laid out complete with entrance court, reception room, tea rooms, living rooms, music room, and garden.
For the first time during the day we removed our shoes, and entered a small reception room where we knelt and paid our respects at the family shrine to the departed ancestors. A cleaner, trickier little shrine there never was. We then made our way to a small enclosed garden, where we were provided with the thonged type of Japanese straw sandal, not meant for Western stockings, and conducted across the garden to a small ceremonial tea room, into which we entered on all fours.
In the olden days the door to the tea room was always made small so that it was necessary to enter by crawling. This necessitated the removal of one’s sword before entering, which insured peace and harmony at tea. Nowadays we have only to provide gags.
The tea room contained all of the equipment for making tea as it should be made; a small charcoal hearth and kettle, tea bowls, ground green tea powder, a stirring brush of bamboo, a long-handled wooden dipper of minute capacity, and the jar for brewing the tea. After the process of a ceremonial tea had been explained to us, we went into a larger living room and then out along a platform overlooking a fairly large pond in the main garden. Here we fed bread rolls to hundreds of golden Japanese carp that seemed to be waiting expectantly. The fish well fed, we entered a large living room on the left and all squatted around in a circle; the Americans as near Turk fashion as nature would allow them, while the Japanese squatted on their heels. Here our party was supplemented by several very beautiful Japanese girls from the local girls’ college, all thoroughly conversant with English, shy at first, extremely polite, and effeminate always. The party was divided so that there was a Japanese girl between each officer and then the tea ceremony commenced.
We were fortunate to have the master of the tea ceremonial with us and he, with his assistants, served the tea in accordance with the best Japanese traditions. I shall not attempt to describe the process; it is a study of a lifetime. Every move in the brewing of the tea, the whisking of the tea powder in the bowl of hot water, and of its serving, was a studied posture in gracefulness. The tea itself was a green, creamy fluid and was nothing at all like we are apt to expect tea to be. It was far richer and one drank tea leaves (which had been powdered) and all.
The tea ceremonial over, we were treated to a danse d’Orient, a slow walk with gestures, presented by a small Japanese boy to the music of a male soloist. In all truth, we were not much impressed with the dance but did enjoy it as a novelty of an ancient day.
Again we donned slippers, this time similar to the shinali of the Philippines, and walked out through the garden, around the fish pond, and over to a table set in the shrubbery. Since it was not the season for flowers, strips of colored paper and lanterns were hung about in substitution, for the Japanese must have their flowers, real or otherwise.
The table was loaded with food: rice, fish and what-not being pressed into tasty rolls. Chop sticks were provided and again we ate. Saki made its appearance in hornshaped containers. Beer and sweet cider there was in abundance. Food began to be the last thing we desired.
As a further attraction we were taken to the end of the garden where earthen-ware vases, cups, bowls, and plates had been laid out for our signatures. They had been formed but not glazed or baked. We were each asked to take one and date and initial it. They would then be glazed, baked, and forwarded to us as a souvenir of our visit.
It is remarkable how, given half a chance, the least artistic of us will attempt to gild the lily. Instead of just dating and initialing the pottery, each and every one tried to outdo his neighbor in the artistry of his design. Were the artists who adorn satsuma ware to see that collection they would all die of envy.
We had now overstayed our allotted time by half an hour and, with sincere expressions of regret, we parted from our Japanese friends, the family of Mr. Imai. Our last call of the day was to be a tea-luncheon at the largest department store in Osaka, Mitsukoshi, Ltd., a seven-story building with a roof-garden dining room.
After the call at Mr. Imai’s, this visit was distinctly anticlimax. We might just as well have been in Macy’s in New York or Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. The store was absolutely modern, American, and not even interesting. We had come to expect nothing less, and there it was. It is, perhaps, the highest compliment that I am able to pay the store but it was rather disappointing after our truly Japanese tea of the afternoon. Don’t think that the store was not a model of its kind; it was, but it brought us back to everyday life with too much of a thump.
Loaded down with tokens of good will, not having spent one sen or visited one temple, we regretfully left Osaka feeling that we had been delightfully entertained by charming people. We had met and played with the Japanese as "folks.” They had shown us the high spots of their city, the buildings and plants in which they took the most pride. That pride was not hidden under a mask; it was clearly evident, as evident as ours would have been in Columbus, Ohio, or Richmond, Virginia.
They took a natural and just pride in the old style of Japanese home, the same that we take in an old colonial house. They knew that it was entirely foreign and queer to us for they know the insides and outsides of the Western home. They had no objection to our thinking what we wished of that home. It belonged to them, nationally. True, they did appreciate a sympathetic attitude but they offered no excuses for any feature of it; it was theirs and they loved it.
Industrially, the story is quite different. Japan is chock-a-block full of the newest and most modern machinery for every purpose. They would not admit being behind the times industrially, even if they knew they were. Japan is going after world trade with every ounce that is in her. Japan believes that the Japanese are the equal of any people in the world and it will take a whole lot of showing to prove to her otherwise. She resents any suggestion of inferiority. They will fight for that belief and, like the people on the railroad track, will take death in preference to any national dishonor.
The people we had visited during the day would do honor to any community. Well bred, educated to the minute, they were thoroughly cosmopolitan. One liked them for themselves, not just because they were charming hosts. One left them with the feeling that it would be nice to see them again and to know them better.
The old is passing; automobiles are crowding rickshas off the streets, modern business methods prevail, the Japanese are becoming truly Western in their apparel, their speech, their ways, and even in their manner of thinking. A nation soaked in national consciousness is demanding a place in the world second to none and will insist upon getting it. Surely the East and West shall meet. The question is—how?
It may appear that we have wandered quite a way from submarines. Submarining in the Asiatic is not all torpedoes, gunnery, and engineering, however, and that I have tried to bring out by giving a few examples of other things that submarines do in the Orient. They are some of the reasons why submarining in the Orient has its charms.
On the whole the Submarine Divisions, Asiatic, is a pretty good place to be. There is work and plenty of it, not always under the best of conditions. There is plenty of sun, with its attendant “prickly heat.” Mail arrives about every two weeks, and it is over a month old. Expenses are not much, if any, less than in the States—and slowly going up. Food is good, but not as good as in the States. It is a long way from home. It is about two years behind on the current movies and there are no first-class shows. It is becoming more and more Westernized and will soon cease to be truly Oriental. All in all, no submariner will do wrong to give it a whirl.