Pathway to Japanese Literature

Red Ghetto: Here and There in China

On Board the Ship (1)

My wife and I departed Kobe aboard the Chichibu Maru at noon on April 19th to tour China.
The Chichibu Maru, a seventeen-thousand-ton vessel said to be among the finest ships plying to America, proved most satisfactory for us first-class passengers.

Our party numbered twenty-three.

Originally, I should have gone to Dalian before taking this ship to Shanghai or elsewhere.
This was because I had business dealings with the Manchuria Daily News Company in Dalian.

I was just thinking of doing the same when a Shanghai inspection group formed around a Nagoya textile industrialist, joined by professionals of various trades, and its leader Mr. T proposed, "How about joining us?" So I decided it would do—to travel with this group and see southern China before northern China.

When we entered Japan's archipelago-studded sea—the Seto Inland Sea that could be called Japan's Mediterranean—I did think the scenery lived up to its reputation, but I wasn't particularly moved.
I suppose most who've grown tired of Japan's scenery would feel the same.
I think unless one has entered the Seto Inland Sea after completing a long voyage from Europe or America, they wouldn't feel particularly moved.
Because the scenery was too grand, too vast, too lacking in cohesion, and had too many similar-looking islands.

The voyage was uneventful.

Indeed, the voyage was uneventful, but the passengers were anything but.

In this Western-style journey (our fellow travelers referred to this Shanghai trip as a 'Western-style journey'), there was a gentleman who claimed it was his first time wearing Western clothes (though in truth he was a stockbroker). This stockbroker gentleman strutted about the deck in his ready-made suit well enough, but since he always kept his belt loose, his trousers would slide down so far that his navel area remained perpetually on display—I had to throw in the towel.

The young heir of a certain cotton merchant would don a creased morning coat when heading to the dining room in the morning, yet appear in the evenings wearing a rumpled everyday kimono without hakama trousers—a most amusing spectacle.

This was truly a case of inverted etiquette.

Such incidents as men barging into the ladies’ lavatory only to be sternly reprimanded by stewards, or bathwater being splashed noisily out of tubs, occurred without anyone batting an eye—that’s how things went.
I had assumed such gaudy mishaps of foreign travel had died out since the Iwakura Mission’s European tour, but turns out that’s not quite the case.

You might imagine traveling with such people would be unpleasant, but in reality, it was quite the opposite—utterly lively and enjoyable. Had I been traveling with colleagues—fellow literary professionals—I imagine all sorts of rivalrous jealousy would have crept in to make things unpleasant.

There were many Americans aboard.
They were the so-called inhabitants of Dollar Country.
How they guzzled down that liquor!

Well of course—when residents from a nation that’s supposedly a prohibition country board a Japanese ship from a gilded drinking nation, it’s only natural they’d guzzle enough liquor to drown in.

That they revere women is common knowledge worldwide, but we were treated to a thorough demonstration of this very principle.
For instance, should they be gathered in the smoking room conversing, and one of their female companions arrive there, they would all rise in unison—competing to offer flatteries with exaggerated gestures—and remain standing until she settled her monumental hips upon the sofa.
And they did this every time, no matter how many women came.

Friend, grant me pardon—and permission to relate how one night before those Yankees, we couple shone with decisive brilliance (though I confess my prose has grown somewhat affected here—let this too be forgiven)—and imagine if you will that on the voyage's final night, namely the evening of the 20th, a tea dance was held in the recreation room.

On Board the Ship (2)

I wore a tuxedo, and my wife stepped out in a pure Japanese-style evening dress.
And so our twenty-one fellow travelers assembled in full force on one side of the room to cheer us on—that’s how it came about.
In other words, they really put their backs into it, I suppose.
The Yankees assembled in full force on the opposite side too.
Now, the band began.
It was a jazz foxtrot.
No one was dancing yet.
Taking the lead in such situations required no small amount of courage.
The Yankees played poker and cards, yet showed no sign of starting to dance.
And so the band ended up pointlessly playing several numbers.

However, there was finally a couple who began to dance.
And that too was from our side.
A young, beautiful Chinese lady, a Mexican man who appeared to be her husband, and several Mexicans who seemed to be their friends had stationed themselves on our side conversing modestly in their native language—when lo and behold, that Chinese lady and her husband began to dance.
Moreover, with truly superb poses and steps.
We who were there could only stare in stunned silence.
We’d fully expected those meddlesome Yankees to take the lead as a matter of course, but then that Chinese lady went and seized the initiative instead—what a turn of events!
Our twenty-one fellow travelers hadn’t resolved to back my wife and me.
Why hadn't they taken the lead?!
National disgrace!
I immediately agreed—yes, this was a national disgrace, utterly unforgivable.
So I decided we’d dance about chaotically from here on out.
And indeed, I grabbed my wife’s waist and glided out.
And so when we finished our dance and returned to our seats, our group of twenty-one welcomed us with unified applause.
To offer such boisterous applause at a social tea dance was unprecedented and contrary to custom, yet our group of twenty-one serenely paid no heed to such matters.
I was the one who ended up blushing. “This makes it seem like we’re being treated as performers through and through,” I remarked.

Finally, the Yankees began to come out and dance.
They were greater in numbers and superior in skill.

Before long, a waltz struck up.

My wife and I danced.
Our waltz was something extraordinary!
The most antiquated and formal of dances—the Boston Waltz that once reigned supreme in Western ballrooms during an era when foxtrots hadn’t yet run rampant and waltzes held full sway—this very Boston Waltz was haphazardly blended with tango steps and mazurka steps to create what became known as the “Kunieda-style Waltz.”
This is what we danced!
Therefore, absolutely no one could possibly follow this and dance!
When this waltz ended, our group of twenty-one applauded like madmen.
However—not only our group—but even the Mexican who had a Chinese lady for a wife and his friends sent applause; then that very Mexican who had a Chinese lady for a wife stood up and came over to say: “That was splendid.
“In that case, I’d like to exchange partners and dance—lend me your wife, and I’ll lend you mine,” he proposed to me.
I of course said “O.K.,” agreed, and danced exactly as proposed.
And what do you know—the Yankees, inflamed by their characteristic jealousy, began slipping away one by one, then two by two, until not a single one remained amidst the dancing after a few more numbers.
And so it came to pass that just our two couples—my wife and I, and that Chinese lady with her husband—danced on until the band departed; that is, until this night’s tea dance drew its curtain to a close.

There exists a Western proverb: blood is thicker than water.
The Yankees were simply Yankees.
The Japanese and Chinese people share considerably common blood as Orientals.
Thus when facing Yankees, wouldn't they naturally become our allies?
Furthermore, since Mexicans are constantly oppressed by Yankees, wouldn't they at least become our allies when confronting them?

On the Huangpu River

The next morning, the ship entered the mouth of the Yangtze River.
The vast, boundless Yangtze swallowed our ship whole yet refused to show us its banks.
Only by the water's eerily ominous earthen-plaster hue could one recognize it as such.
After sailing upriver for several hours, the vessel had slipped unnoticed into the Yangtze's tributary—the Huangpu River.
As the channel narrowed, scenery unfolded along both banks before us.
Willows glowed like verdigris patina, between which peeked Chinese houses—their beauty lying in jet-black roofs shaped like severed wings taking flight, harmonized with white plaster walls supporting them.
Yet one must understand that dwellings possessing such refinement belonged either to bourgeois homes or wine taverns.

It was also at this time that I came to know the beauty of junks.
The sails that looked like woven mats, the hulls that appeared strangely raised at the bow—how harmoniously beautiful they were when seen here!
These junks moved back and forth around our ship, while among them ordinary small boats without sails—rowed by Chinese boatmen in lazy, languid strokes—squirmed about, as plover-like waterbirds flitted around the scene.
The banks were exceedingly low, appearing as if on the verge of being swallowed by the water, while beyond them stretched nothing but a vast blue plain—such was the scenery that met my eyes.

However, these scenes—at least to me—were neither novel nor first-time sights, but rather landscapes I had already seen countless times before. That is to say—in the souvenir paintings brought back by Japan’s first-rate master painters like Takeuchi Seihō and Hashimoto Kansetsu from their China expeditions!

How astonishingly identical those paintings by those master painters were to these very landscapes we now beheld before our eyes!

Friend, I must confess here that I found myself unexpectedly compelled to believe that preposterously idiotic aestheticist argument Oscar Wilde propounded in his early years—"Nature imitates Art."
This is because—as I just said—the actual scenery unfolding before my eyes so closely resembled the paintings of Seihō and Kansetsu that I thought, "Ah! China's very nature is mimicking the artistry of Japan's painters Seihō and Kansetsu!"

But such things mattered little—I decided instead to write of the tragicomedy that had unfolded there.

Picture, if you will, an ordinary small boat drifting lazily past our ship.
There was a passenger aboard who, as a fine rain happened to be falling, had opened an umbrella when our ship’s wake struck the vessel and capsized it.
Naturally, the passenger tumbled into the river.
Yet no one made any commotion or attempted to help.
At that moment along the shore, Chinese proletarian women were nonchalantly doing laundry; Chinese proletarian children—or rather, to use the old-fashioned term, Tang children—had formed a crowd and were mock-fighting with what looked like bamboo poles; and a Chinese proletarian herder was marching along the riverside path leading about twenty pigs. Meanwhile on the river itself passed even the famed Yangtze water-dwellers’ raft boats—said to house families who built homes, tilled fields, raised pigpens and chicken coops, birthed children, and reared them there—with over a dozen family-like people aboard. Yet none turned to look at the human who had fallen into the river.
I felt righteous indignation and was about to cry out.
But even I couldn’t help bursting into laughter.
For the passenger who had fallen into the river, while clinging to the side of the boat and disregarding mortal danger, was frantically straining and agonizing as he reached out to grasp a single umbrella drifting away.

One might say a fragment of Chinese humanity pricked my heart at that moment.

In Shanghai (1)

Our lodging in Shanghai was a place called Banzai-kan on West Huade Road. It was a Japanese hotel located in the so-called Japanese quarter, and not only was the building itself quite splendid, but the service was also excellent.

Guided by the manager here， Mr。 Nomura Tokutarō， we took a cursory look at Shanghai’s bustling districts that night。 We saw Dàmǎlù， Sìmǎlù， and the like。 The thoroughfare leading to those towns was called Huangputan， and along this road there were a great many Japanese companies， banks， and other establishments。 There were banks such as Nippon Yusen， Yokohama Specie Bank， Taiwan， Mitsubishi， Chosen， Mitsui， Sumitomo， and others， as well as shipping companies like Nisshin Kisen， Osaka Shosen， Mitsubishi， and so on。

But I thought introducing these stiff capitalist kingdom buildings would be dull, so I decided to stop here.

The nightscape of Shanghai—the Orient’s premier trading port, a world-rare demon city dubbed "Morality-less," teeming with pleasure and vice, a perfect hideout for political criminals!

Oh, friend! How I had longed for years to behold this city’s nightscape! And on this day I finally met it face to face. What was the outcome? First came compelled praise for neon signs surpassing Tokyo’s in brilliance and chromatic complexity. Then astonishment at teeming crowds wherever I wandered—even streets beyond Nanking Road—though Shanghai’s shops by custom shuttered their doors after dark.

“Take a look at Shanghai’s Dàmǎlù and Sìmǎlù in daylight—that’s nothing compared to tonight’s paltry crowd!”

said Mr. Nomura.

That was indeed the case. After touring Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and other cities then returning to Shanghai, when we observed daytime Shanghai at relative leisure, we learned Mr. Nomura's words held true.

One factor may have been how Shanghai's street widths—somewhat narrow for a metropolis claiming two million residents—exaggeratedly displayed the ferocity of its crowds through sheer compression. This too struck me during daytime viewing: what a spectacle Shanghai made, bedecked from stem to stern with banners and signboards! It resembled nothing so much as Asakusa's theater district and Shinjuku's entertainment quarter haphazardly expanded to gargantuan proportions. And since those banners and signboards were colored in Chinese fashion—primordial hues applied garishly yet harmoniously—one might truly say timid Nippon-country bumpkins would find themselves utterly bewitched. Then consider the townspeople themselves—shopkeepers and managers and errand boys, shoppers and passersby and rickshaw pullers and chauffeurs and patrolmen and traffic officers—men and women, young and old alike—how extraordinarily loud and shrill their voices rang!

Writing some generalized *Shanghai Impressions* in this manner would hardly be amusing.

Very well—I shall now set down in concrete detail below the events I experienced in Shanghai.

Ah, wait my friend—before that, I shall write of women, of Shanghai’s women!
When I say this, you’ll likely exclaim “Splendid!” and fix your gaze intently.
Indeed, for men there exists nothing more captivating than women.
And truth be told regarding travelogues—how much wiser to write solely of one’s destination’s women while carelessly skimping on descriptions of buildings, foodstuffs and scenery!

So I would write about Shanghai’s women.

The women of Shanghai nearly all had short hair.
Moreover, they’d all had their hair cut in nearly identical styles—so uniform you could call it perfect.
The style involved cutting their hair so that the ends just grazed the shoulders.

In Shanghai (2)

When I wondered why they all uniformly wore their hair in identical short styles and made inquiries, I learned this was apparently the result of a men's haircutting decree—issued some time prior—being followed by a women's decree that forcibly required the cut.
They had reportedly issued strict orders prohibiting hair from touching shoulders—or something to that effect—compelling compliance through threats of severe punishment if not done within a set period.
Geishas and their ilk would iron their cropped hair into tousled curls, while ordinary women did no such styling, merely oiling theirs to a glossy sheen.

This short haircut suited young Chinese women remarkably well.
As for those young Chinese women, they wore short jackets with wide-legged trousers, their slender legs stretched taut as they strode about briskly.
They looked exactly like European ladies.
However, women of the pleasure quarters wore long coats that reached their heels.
The current fashionable style of these coats was said to be slightly cinched at the sides of the torso and again at the knees, vividly revealing slender waists and ample hips through the fabric—clearly designed to catch observers’ eyes, primarily men’s of course.
Not a single woman with bound feet could be seen.
This was apparently because the foot-binding prohibition edict had been issued even before the men’s haircutting decree.
In Shanghai too, there must still have been elderly women retaining bound feet as relics of the past, but such women seemed not to venture into town.
In any case, I never saw a single woman with bound feet.

"If I told you there exists a ladies' secret club in Shanghai, you'd surely fix your gaze and lean forward, pressing 'Tell me! Tell me!' wouldn't you?"

“Very well, I’ll tell you.”

It is said this Ladies’ Nightclub was established by bourgeois leisured women. That such women’s sole desire lies in enjoying handsome men stands to reason as common sense.

They say the noblewomen of that Ladies’ Nightclub fix their hopes precisely there.

According to accounts, they paste notes drawn on toilet paper—depicting hearts pierced by arrows—onto the doors of targeted handsome men, inscribed with instructions to appear at a certain place on a specified date and time. Now, once a man has been claimed as a “husband,” they say escape from this summons proves utterly impossible.

Should one refuse this call, not only the man himself but his entire clan would allegedly face persecution, losing both lives and property. Thus compelled to attend the designated location, upon arrival he would reportedly be sexually indulged by several to over a dozen women until rendered emaciated and limp as withered grass—or so the story goes.

Yet they say his life remains unharmed, and he gets secretly returned home.

It may sound like a tall tale, but considering China’s historical heroines like Empress Wu Zetian and Empress Lü, I thought that if today’s Chinese women—especially those in Shanghai—were to do such things, they might well be capable of it.

The person who told me this story was a Chinese youth named Mr. Li, and since he went on to explain the structure of the Ladies’ Nightclub in greater detail, I shall now write about it.

Imagine there being a single staircase.
At the top of that staircase, imagine there being a single room, and from that room, about ten corridors branching out in ten directions.
It is said that at the ends of those corridors there was one room each.
That they were night rooms goes without saying.
Moreover, at the bottom of the staircase there was also one room from which a single corridor extended in one direction; proceeding a short way through it you could reach a Turkish bath, and if you pushed one of the doors of that Turkish bath...

In Shanghai (3)

Indeed, it was said that pushing one of the Turkish bath’s doors led to a long corridor. This corridor had been constructed parallel to the Turkish bath and was quite lengthy. On one side of this corridor—opposite where the Turkish bath stood—several rooms had been built, and these were said to serve as bedrooms.
The summoned handsome man was first put into a bath and thoroughly scrubbed clean, then placed into one of the bedrooms—or so it went.
There, one of the bourgeois leisured women who had been stationed in each second-floor room—the one who had won first place in the lottery—would first enter the Turkish bath, meticulously apply her makeup, then proceed to the room where the man lay sleeping—or so they said.
There was no need to write what followed.
In short, it amounted to complete intoxication.
The lady, sated by this intoxication, would reenter the Turkish bath, wash away every last trace of sweat, and withdraw to her second-floor room—or so the story went.
Next, the handsome man too was put into the bath and made to sleep in another bedroom.
Then the woman who had drawn the second lot would repeat the same steps in order, achieve the same intoxication, and withdraw.
Then the man was again put into the bath and made to sleep in yet another bedroom.
Then, it was said, the woman who had drawn the third lot would… and so on.

My friend, what a splendid tale this was!

How I had longed to play that handsome man's role! I might well have waited eagerly for that toilet paper with an arrow-pierced heart to appear, but Mr. Country Bumpkin here—fresh from the Land of Gentlemen in the Eastern Sea—seemed not to suit the tastes of the Republic of China’s bourgeois leisured women, and so met only the fate of waiting in vain.

Well, I thought I'd change the subject there.

Now, we were led by Mr. Nomura and entered a place called Great World at the corner of Seventh Avenue.
This was, so to speak, Shanghai's equivalent of Tokyo's Hanayashiki in Asakusa—a venue where various performances like plays, moving pictures, magic acts, and such each occupied their own small stages.
Now, regarding foreigners—to put it bluntly, country bumpkins—this seemed the sort of place they simply had to visit at least once.
Thus we did enter here, but unless one were a complete rustic, just as one wouldn't get excited over Hanayashiki's popular entertainments, neither did we feel any thrill or admiration for the Republic of China's new school theater, old school drama, manzai-style comedy (they had exact copies of Japanese manzai skits, mind you), or childish magic tricks.

Instead, I must confess that we felt admiration, excitement, interest, and even found them charming—so much so that we ill-advisedly considered giving in to our urges a bit.

Let me draw your attention to how every one of those unlicensed prostitutes swarming there held towels.
And observe how they competed with shrill voices, cooing entreaties as they tried to pass those towels to us passersby.
I’d assumed it was some genteel guest reception towel (a self-serving rationalization, truth be told) and reached to accept one.
But things weren’t that straightforward.
Our guide Mr. Nomura urgently warned me: “You mustn’t take that!”
“Accepting it means you’ve consented to purchase the woman,” he explained.

In Shanghai (4)

These women appeared to be among the lowest class of unlicensed prostitutes—what they call soliciting streetwalkers.
That is to say, they were the sort who would appear at places like Tongyuchun Teahouse on Daimalu Road, Qinglian Pavilion on Simalu Road, theaters, and other amusement spots to solicit customers.
How astonishingly childlike these prostitutes were in their youth—so full of vigor, so chatty, so mischievous as children!
It was utterly astonishing.
At first glance, every single prostitute appeared no older than sixteen or seventeen.
Some looked even younger—fourteen or fifteen at most.
Moreover, those who seemed twenty or older were almost nowhere to be seen.
Yet their actual ages differed; there were apparently women well into their twenties—twenty-five or twenty-six, even twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
The hairstyle—chiefly bangs swept sharply over their foreheads—seemed to make them look young.
How spirited they were when they came charging at us—colliding their bodies against ours, grabbing our arms, trying to take us captive!
And what of that barrage of insults they showered upon us in unison like an orchestra when they realized we would ultimately pass them by?
That orchestra of insults, however, rang pleasantly harmonious in my ears.
To me, their voices sounded like nothing but "Peep-peep!"
But our guide Mr. Nomura explained: “They’re hurling every insult at us—stingy bastards! Lechers! Deadbeats! Swine-fodder! Souls damned to never reach paradise even in death—that sort of abuse.”

Very well, dear prostitutes, you streetwalking ladies—go ahead and speak ill of us Far Eastern wanderers all you like, for your part has every reason to do so. After all, you’re so earnestly recommending that we purchase your lovely bodies, yet here we are coldly declining out of politeness. But, chirping streetwalking ladies, the truth is we—or at least I—greatly enjoy appreciating your lovely bodies, but are cowards who fear nothing more than contracting the terrifying viruses lurking within those lovely bodies. So goodbye! And with that, I broke through their encirclement in one dash and pressed forward.

Standing atop the Great World building and looking down at all of Shanghai’s night view, I would need to describe that beautiful and vibrant spectacle; but since this travelogue is restricted in space, I shall refrain from attempting to write it all here.

Before long, we left Great World and were guided to the "Xinxin Dance Hall" on Nanjing Road.
It was a dance hall.
The dancers were all Chinese girls.

This dance hall maintained a membership system but absorbed even non-member guests and of course let them dance.
Our companions there once again pestered me, threatening, "Come on, dance! If you don’t dance, it’ll be a national disgrace!"
"I’ll dance! I’ll dance!" I chanted—with the heart of a lamb upon an altar, a sacrificial resolve—as I dashed out, yet still managed to pull out the most beautiful Chinese girl and glide into motion.

She truly danced splendidly.

She was light and stylish.
We first danced the trot; next came the tango.
However，in this tango，I was suddenly made to shudder.

My friend, let us speak of that!

In Shanghai (5)

Before that, there's something I want to mention: apart from this "Xinxin Dance Hall," I also visited another establishment called "Seibi"—a dance hall managed by Japanese where Japanese girls worked as dancers. What I learned from this was that Shanghai's dance scene, whether in terms of its bands or dance styles, proved neither more advanced nor inferior when compared to those in Tokyo or along the Hanshin line—they were essentially similar.
However, it was undeniable that the dancers themselves—their nature, speech, and movements—compared to their counterparts in mainland Japan, were more reckless in disposition, coarser in manner, and utterly callous toward others.
The hall’s capacity was small, its facilities far from complete, and even its use of lighting lacked any particular distinction.
However, Shanghai also had dance halls beyond these, such as the "Blue Bird," and the Carlton, rumored to be truly magnificent.
Dance halls—there were so many that I supposed one could say it’s impossible to discuss Shanghai’s dance world without having seen them all…

But setting that aside, let us turn to recount the incident where I danced tango with a Chinese dancer at the Xinxin Dance Hall and was struck with horror.

In tango, I presume you know there exists a figure where one holds their partner in a rocking motion.
When I executed this rocking movement, I shuddered violently.

For in that instant—her upper body bent backward at such an extreme angle from her torso that it seemed detached, hanging limp as if boneless, until her bobbed hair brushed against the dance hall floor.

Boneless!
She’s made of jelly!

Indeed, unless one were boneless, such a feat would be impossible.

Of course, were this stage dancing, such absurdity would be child’s play—but would anyone perform such an outlandish figure in a dance hall’s social dance?

At that moment, I shuddered.

In my panic—as if my fingertips had been scorched by fire—I flung the dancer away and dashed back to my seat.

My friend, at this moment I was utterly overwhelmed.

Of course, Shanghai’s dance halls served alcohol.

Unlike their Japanese counterparts, they don’t engage in such boorish practices as prohibiting alcohol.
—I should note this fact for the record.

Now then, having kept my introduction of Shanghai’s dance halls to this extent, I wish to turn my efforts to introducing other aspects; however, with so many things to write about, I find myself somewhat perplexed as to where to begin.

After all, even when writing in broad strokes, I must introduce at least this much.

How, shortly before our group arrived in this city, a certain wealthy man here had been kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of villains unique to this city and forced to write a check for tens of thousands of yen as ransom; how next, since becoming infamous through such an ordeal, other fame-hungry wealthy individuals would likely soon beg those same gangs to kidnap them and extort ransom money; how past one in the morning, any unsuspecting visitor carelessly hailing a rickshaw would be dragged into an alley fifty percent darker and shaken down by the rickshaw puller……

In Shanghai (6)

Through these perilous Shanghai night streets threaded street girls of various nations soliciting clients; how our group’s young knight of carnal desire T-kun conquered those girls in a single night and the next day told me with a grin—“Last night I took France first, then Russia, then China”—leaving me flustered and astonishing me with his formidable embrace and voracious vigor; how he detailed the women’s rates—“Eighty dollars for French, forty for Chinese, thirty for Russian”—providing such useful reference that I thanked him with a “Thank you”; how the Yong’an Company department store was likely as large as Mitsukoshi, Tokyo’s grandest emporium; how the complexity of concession governance meant a criminal who committed an offense in one concession could skip across a single street into another and laugh mockingly while police from the original concession stamped their feet helplessly; how thus vicious felons and brazen political offenders poured into Shanghai from all nations, with the latter living leisurely chiefly in the French Concession; how Shanghai’s entire police force comprised four nations—Japan, Britain (whose constables were Indians), France, and China—with reliability ranked in that order; how the silver exchange rate fluctuated daily, so converting Japanese yen to Chinese currency saw one yen become two yuan twenty cents today, two fifteen tomorrow, two twenty-five the next—not only supremely complex but even between Chinese currencies themselves, calculations among silver dollars, fractional coins, and coppers were so convoluted that skillfully breaking coins could increase their quantity and value through exchange tricks, while clumsiness reversed this, making abacus mastery essential for Shanghai life; how counterfeit money circulated rampantly here, requiring silver coins to be clinked together—authentic ones producing a delicate *jiiin* tone while fakes fell silent.

Thus, to survive in Shanghai, one had to possess a musician’s delicate ear capable of discerning that *jiiin* tone—or so we heard—and so our group threw ourselves into the farce of clinking silver coins together, hurriedly pressing them to our ears to test their timbre, only to discover that most of us had been neatly swindled out of three to five yen in counterfeit money. Or rather, we were told the *true* method involved blowing hard on a silver coin, immediately holding it to one’s ear to judge authenticity by whether it rang out *jiiin*. Following this wisdom, we again mimicked Sun Wukong—that monkey king who plucked hairs from his body, blew on them, and transformed them into clones of himself—pursing our lips to huff-puff on coins before holding them to our ears… only to be splendidly swindled once more, again losing three to five yen apiece in fakes…….

In Shanghai (7)

Shanghai's prices were exceedingly low—especially cigarettes, where Westminster brands costing seventy-five sen in Japan sold for seventeen sen here; how automobile (*qìchē*) and train (*huǒchē*) terminology caused constant confusion; how police patrols and military police carrying pistols and bayonet-tipped rifles roamed the city, creating perpetual martial law atmosphere; how two parks existed—Jessfield Park dominated by Westerners where coats outshone kimonos, and New Park under Japanese influence showcasing traditional attire; how our group visited Tōa Dōbun Shoin only to find Chinese laborers gambling openly on Haifang Road, confirming Shanghai's lawless reputation; how buildings everywhere bore slogans—"Down with imperialism!", "Strengthen revolutionary foundations!", "Abolish unequal treaties!"—signaling national awakening in Chiang Kai-shek's southern China; how foreign warships anchored defiantly in the harbor while China countered with roared demands of "Return our concessions! Return our special interests!"... I must indeed write about all these things.

However, I simply could not afford to write about all those things in detail.

Therefore, omitting all that and changing the order—to explain: since we toured from Shanghai to Hangzhou, then Nanjing, then Suzhou, I ought to write in that sequence; yet even that order I shall invert, for afterward my wife and I alone parted from the group and went to Dalian—so I shall now write about our observations there.

× × ×

Now, this place was Dalian.

My wife and I had taken up residence at the Yamato Hotel.
The previous evening, at the private residence of Mr. Takeuchi Katsumi—my close friend of twenty years and current chief editor of the Manchuria Daily News—we had been treated to dinner alongside his wife Mrs. Tomiko, whom Chinese attire suited splendidly, and my uncle Imai Yukihira.

“Kunieda must be exhausted; it would be best to let him rest today,” my wife and I were accordingly left behind at the hotel through Mr. Takeuchi’s considerate suggestion.

However, even during this time, I did not neglect my observations of Dalian. Through the window of our room, I observed several things: how the statue of General Ōshima stood with its back turned to us in Dalian’s renowned grand square—clearly visible from our vantage; how the majority of people coming and going through that square were our compatriots, that is to say Japanese, making it hearteningly different from Shanghai where Japanese had been scarce; and how, though rickshaws abounded, old-fashioned four-person carriages drawn by single horses (sometimes two)—unseen in Shanghai—passed by one after another.

In Dalian (1)

My friend, understand that Dalian has been assimilated until it differs little from mainland Japan itself. Should you come here seeking exoticism, prepare instead for mild disappointment. Yet unlike Shanghai, this place holds no fears for life or property. And how gloriously we Japanese can swagger here! Toward Westerners and Chinese alike! What absolute delight!

Observe their faces—their daily movements and speech! How expansive and carefree they seem, how utterly unhurried! Compared to Tokyo folk—eyes blinking like shutters, legs kicking up to shoulder height, scurrying about like startled hens—I concluded Dalian’s residents must be truly blessed.

The structures of the buildings were so leisurely—to the point where one might think there was excessive wastefulness—that they formed a colonial landscape in the best sense. The unhurried corridors of the South Manchuria Railway Company headquarters; the unhurried offices. That corridor served as both corridor and promenade; that office functioned as both workplace and smoking room, you understand. Naturally, this was meant in the most favorable way.

When I visited places like the newly constructed Manchuria Daily News editorial room, I grew utterly flustered at how disproportionately vast the space felt compared to the number of reporters—and consequently, the desks and chairs they required.

But writing only about such things could hardly be interesting.
Therefore, I decided to write about more interesting and concrete matters.

I thought I’d be able to rest all day today, but that plan went up in smoke.
Uncle Imai came over and barked, “Now then, Shirō, time to move out!” declaring, “I’ll show you around Dalian properly.”
So my wife and I dashed out of the hotel and hopped into a car, deciding to take the scenic route under the guise of “getting a bird’s-eye view of Dalian.”
Along the way, we saw various sights.
We visited Central Park.
It goes by another name—Tiger Park.
They say during the Russo-Japanese War, cruel Russian officials threw one of our brave female military intelligence operatives into a tiger cage here as food for the beasts—hence the name.
How could one not feel righteous fury?
We also saw the public hall.
At this very hall, three days before Prince Itō Hirobumi was assassinated by a Korean at Harbin Station, they held an extraordinarily lavish welcome banquet.
Life is as fleeting as morning dew—the thought filled me with profound melancholy.
That public hall incorporated many elements of Republic of China architectural styles, making it truly commendable among concession buildings.

When I toured southern China—yes, before coming to Dalian, I had seen Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing—it was then, particularly at West Lake in Hangzhou, that I witnessed the indescribably poetic and pure beauty of willow flowers scattering white like snow or cotton or feathers: clinging to travelers' clothes, thinly accumulating on roadsides, even fluttering onto restaurant tables. This moved me to teary-eyed affection and poetic sentiment, making me understand why poets of the Tang Dynasty—no, all Chinese poets—had so copiously versified about willow catkins in their works. Yet upon coming to northern China and seeing the pear blossoms in full bloom here at Central Park in Qingdao (having stopped in Qingdao before reaching Dalian) and Dalian, I felt a beauty rivaling even those willow catkins.

In Dalian (2)

Our car soon arrived at a spot near the end of the sightseeing road. So we abandoned the automobile, walked a little, and surveyed Dalian City from above.

I had heard that my friend Kōga Saburō—a detective novelist who once came from mainland Japan to Dalian and viewed the city from this sightseeing road—had praised Dalian as “as beautiful as a phantom city from Arabian Nights,” and I too wish to offer the same praise. It truly is that beautiful. The colors were rich, the architectural styles complex and diverse, yet all harmonized perfectly. This was because there existed an Old Russian Town, a traditional China Town, and a Japan Town—each asserting their distinct styles and colors—all softly blurred by spring haze and thin smoke, you see. However, detailed descriptions of cityscapes from a bird’s-eye view and conventional musings are ill-advised in travelogues—being neither interesting nor meaningful—so I shall refrain.

Around noon the next day, we received a visit from Chief Editor T.
"I think I'll treat you to a proper grill," he declared.
Then he dragged my wife and me down to the hotel's basement grill room and treated us to an excellent grilled meal.
Though three years my junior, Mr.T carried himself like someone three years my senior.
In temperament, in worldview.
There was even something of the self-appointed manager about him.
Indeed, whenever I drank too deeply, he'd seize me by the scruff and toss me from drinking gatherings like an unruly cat.
Somehow I'd grown accustomed to submitting meekly to these ministrations.
The very architect of my Dalian entrapment stood before me - none other than Mr.T himself.

The grill was delicious, and the grill room was magnificent, spacious, and expansively constructed.

“Tonight, I’ll have a young reporter from the company show you around an interesting place… Then tomorrow, come again and I’ll treat you to a delicious grill.”
Having said this, Mr. T left.

Around the time we finished dinner, Mr. S—a young reporter from the Man'nichi Newspaper—along with Mr. O—who was serializing a novel in the Man'nichi Newspaper—and a Republic of China youth named Mr. Zhang, who worked in the sales department of Man'nichi Company, came visiting together.
So I went out with them.
“Let’s go see Mr. Zhang’s acquaintance’s opium den,” said Reporter S.

My friend, imagine how my morbid curiosity as a popular writer swelled when I heard these words!

The opium den we visited was in a house called Kankarō in Okumachi (this was a Chinese district)—a government-licensed establishment.
That is to say, it was an opium den sanctioned by the Japanese government for Republic of China nationals—for those addicts whose lives were in such peril without opium that they needed it to survive.
However, they said Japanese were absolutely not accepted as customers.

We pushed open the gate door and advanced.
Then we emerged into a narrow courtyard.
The courtyard was dark, and within that darkness, a stone staircase extended diagonally toward the night sky.

We climbed the stone steps a little.

And we emerged into a narrow corridor, along which there were several rooms.

When we entered one of them, Mr. Zhang introduced us to a person who appeared to be the master of the house.

Guided by that person, we entered the next room.

My friend, that room was indeed the opium-smoking chamber.

In Dalian (3)

Smoke!
Stench!
Eerie lamplight!

My friend, how utterly identical the opium den I had conjured through my imaginings was to what I actually witnessed at that moment!

My friend, and so at this moment I felt grateful for my own imaginative power and could believe in it.

Smoke!
Stench!
Eerie lamplight!

This was what first stimulated my senses.

What existed there, enveloped in these elements, were several small rooms with soiled white cloth curtains hanging across their fronts.
The rooms were lined up in two rows facing each other.

And what of the structure of these rooms' interiors?

One had to note that the bed was built several feet above the floor, with two soiled blankets spread upon it.
This proved it had been designed for two people to face each other while smoking opium.
In the center lay a slightly sunken rectangular area where a red cloth fragment was spread, upon which sat a ceramic rectangular tray holding a metal smoke lamp and a jujube-shaped jar containing one dose's worth of opium liquid, with two yāndǒu (opium pipes) arranged beside them—all details demanding careful observation.

That was all there was.

That night, nearly all of the dozen or so rooms were filled to capacity.
There were young men, middle-aged women, old men, and girls—all in pairs facing each other, lying sprawled on blankets and clutching their pipes as they smoked opium.

It had been explained that those who came here were mostly middle-class or below, but in my eyes, they were nothing more than workers.

Each room was filled with those sleeping, those about to fall asleep, those now awakening from slumber, and so on.

The sound of a kokyū—a Chinese fiddle—could be heard drifting in from somewhere.

In another room there was a club, and apparently that was where they were playing the kokyū.

My friend, shall I teach you how to smoke opium?
It’s quite a technical process.
First take something like a needle—or rather, a tool called senmai-toji used for binding manuscripts—something resembling that (what they call a kemurisenko), dip its tip into the opium contained in the small jar and roast it over the smoke lamp’s flame, then dip it again into the opium within the small jar and roast it once more over the smoke lamp’s flame.
Through repeating this process a dozen times, the liquid opium in the small jar would solidify at the tip of the kemurisenko like candy.
However, this required skill—when I later tried doing this at a brothel where I went intending to smoke opium, I failed spectacularly, the opium liquid turning not into candy but something dry and crumbly like moss.

Now then—once you’ve packed that candy-solidified opium into yāndǒu’s tiny hole (the opium pipe’s aperture), roasted it over the smoke lamp’s flame until it combusts into fumes—this inhaling method proves devilish precisely because you must gulp down every wisp into your guts without letting slip even a ghost through nose or mouth.
So no leisurely cigarette puffing here—clamp your lips around that pipe tip like your life depends on it (it does), grip its shaft two-fisted like some starved beast lunging at prey.
And hold that breath—not even an exhale’s whisper.

In Dalian (4)

After retreating from the opium den, we went to Xiaogangzi and saw the night open-air market (better known as the "thief market").
It was a purely Chinese market where by day street performers would come out to do various acts, creating such chokingly crowded throngs that one could scarcely breathe—but by night, this place transformed into a row of brothels occupied by the lowest-class Chinese prostitutes, exactly like Tokyo’s Tamanoi district.
The rows of brothels lining the street—as small as matchboxes, as garish as matchbox labels yet splendidly painted—housing Chinese prostitutes decked out in gaudy finery made for quite an amusing sight.

People derogatorily referred to THE prostitutes here as “thief prostitutes,” but I couldn’t believe how many lovely beauties I discovered among those so-called lowlifes.
Their appearance seemed scarcely different from THE streetwalkers we had encountered at Shanghai’s Great World.
A curtain had been hung over one spot on THE front of THE room—fully visible from THE street—but THEY SAID THERE WAS ALREADY A BED BEHIND IT.

This district twisted right and left, its narrow alleyways crisscrossing in several directions—carelessly wandering in alone would surely leave one completely lost. Along those alleyways stood those very brothels, and while idly teasing the prostitutes of those establishments, coolie-like lower-class laborers milled about in confusion. And yet, for some reason, the overall atmosphere wasn’t all that gloomy—there were even cheerful spots.

We soon left that district and arrived at "Daiichigō," a brothel said to be the foremost establishment in Dalian's premier pleasure quarters.

Then we were shown to the room of the courtesan named Rantei, renowned for her beauty at that establishment.

"Since this Ms. Rantei speaks Japanese, we've arranged for her," explained the Chinese youth—our guide Mr. Zhang.

That Mr. Zhang appeared to be a connoisseur of such matters and was a handsome young man.

The room measured perhaps ten tatami mats in size, with a bed occupying one corner.
This bed differed little from those found in hotels, save for its unusual function as an opium-smoking platform.
Indeed, it perfectly replicated the opium consumption setup we had previously observed at Kankarō.
As for other decorative elements—several tables with matching chairs, rectangular colored papers inscribed with literary phrases pasted on walls and pillars, framed paintings of beauties and landscapes hanging about—these completed the furnishings.
That constituted the entirety of the decor.

As per custom, we were served pumpkin and lotus seeds, and needless to say, following convention, we clumsily yet pretentiously cracked open their shells with our front teeth—crack-crack—and ate them.

In Dalian (5)

Ms. Rantei was quite the ironic courtesan.

Since she understood Japanese, I used extremely simple Japanese.

“Ms. Rantei, you’re beautiful. Will you love me?”

When I spoke to her, she didn’t answer in Japanese but replied in Chinese instead.

“Mr. Zhang, what did she say?”

When I posed this question to our guide—who also served as interpreter—young Mr. Zhang responded with an evasive laugh characteristic of Chinese diplomacy while...

“Ms. Rantei says, ‘This gentleman from Japan—I do not care for him very much. Why? Because his eyes are too piercing.’…My most sincere apologies.”

That was the interpretation I received, you see.

As a man of my standing, I had no choice but to strike a defiant pose.

So I, resignedly, used plain Japanese as clear as phrases written on telegram forms:

“My piercing eyes aren’t my fault—they’re my parents’ responsibility for birthing me, so don’t blame me. Though my eyes are sharp, my heart isn’t cruel, and plenty of women have loved me tremendously up to now.”

When I spoke to her, Rantei-san answered again in Chinese.

“Mr. Zhang, what did she say?”

“Yes,” Mr. Zhang replied with an apologetic look, “I’m terribly sorry, but Ms. Rantei says this: ‘This Japanese gentleman—isn’t he just a little off in the head? He keeps saying such odd things.’ This is what she says.”

He spoke in this way.

I immediately lost all heart.

I even thought about leaving right then.

Then, Ms. Rantei said something to Mr. Zhang.

Mr. Zhang relayed that to me.

“Ms. Rantei says she would like to have the Japanese gentleman smoke opium.”

So I agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

“Let’s smoke,” he said.

Rantei had her husband lie down on the bed and had me lie down too, facing each other with such apparent harmony that it would likely invite envy from onlookers. Then Rantei, with great skill and dexterity, prepared the opium and offered it to me—and for the first time, in fluent Japanese,

“Please drink,” she said.

“Thank you kindly,” I said.

With that, I tried to take the pipe.

But for some reason, Ms. Rantei suddenly placed the pipe on the tray with a clatter,

“Stop that,” she said.

I simply couldn’t comprehend her mentality.

But doing so, I spent about two hours in that room.

In the meantime, a young man who seemed to be a male attendant came in several times to serve tea and replace the damp towels.

When I was leaving, Rantei-san saw me out to the entrance and grasped my hand,

“Please come again. Do come tomorrow evening,” she said.

We then advanced by automobile to Yamagata-dori’s Bombay Dance Hall.

In Dalian (6)

What delighted me about the Bombay Dance Hall was that its entire operation was run by White Russians.
The band members, dancers, managers—even those handling hats and walking sticks—were all Russians.
As for those dancers—were they not rather beautiful?
They carried themselves with refinement.
The exceptionally tall, slender woman perpetually seated in the chair nearest the band appeared every inch a noblewoman.
Rumors claimed her to be the daughter of an Imperial Russian army general.
Not that such talk signifies anything, mind you.

In fact, not just that dancer, but every single one of them there proudly declared, “I am the daughter of a commander from the imperial era.”
“I am the daughter of the chief chamberlain from the imperial era.”
“I am the niece of a certain grand duke from the imperial era.”
“I was a friend of Princess Tatiana of Russia,” and so on.

Not that it amounted to anything, mind you.

Even among the band members was a man of refined appearance.
The man playing the piano resembled Oscar Wilde, and the man pounding the drums looked like a middle-aged Gerhart Hauptmann.
Here, they put on something like stage dances as entertainment, you see.
There was no stage constructed.

Men and women in grotesque costumes and makeup were putting on a show of something resembling stage dances in the middle of the hall. Guests could watch such spectacles, dance with the dancers, or dance with the partners they had brought along—all while drinking beer or whiskey at the tables lining both sides of the hall. And they could get drunk and dance. In Japanese halls, one could not drink alcohol inside; they were so strict and uncouth that even if you drank outside, got drunk, and came back to dance, it was still not permissible—but here, such things didn’t exist.

This really delighted me.

I danced wildly.

But their dancing could not be called skillful. It was heavy, clumsy, and monotonous. The true geniuses of social dance are the Japanese. There was one interesting dancer. She was an unpopular dancer. She was a plump, lanky woman, not particularly beautiful, with something of a Jewish girl about her. This wasn’t selling at all. No—she was practically never chosen. Yet, showing not a trace of distress, she leisurely draped both arms over the table and surveyed the hall. Her demeanor struck me as so amusing that I decided to dance with her and did so.

Yet it stood to reason she was unpopular.
She was exactly like an anchor.
An anchor that must have weighed tons.
The weight was unbearable.
If it had just been heavy, that would’ve been manageable—but she sank.
She’d cling to me and drag me downward.
There was no dancing to be done.

I nearly got pulled into the sea—no, wait—almost sank straight through the dance hall floor.

We kept dancing until the hall closed before making our retreat.

We then boarded a famous Dalian carriage to begin our return journey, but this carriage proved quite amusing.
Or rather, it was the coachman of that carriage who proved amusing.

After all, he was trying to tempt us, you see.

In Dalian (7)

My friend, since the topic of carriages has arisen, I shall write a bit about them.

The first thing I must tell you is this: when you come to Dalian, ride a carriage rather than an automobile.

This carriage—an old-fashioned four-seater pulled by a single horse (though one might occasionally see two horses harnessed to it)—seemed like a relic from the time when Russia occupied Dalian.
Its form was magnificently aristocratic—precisely the type of carriage that even in Japan, dignitaries like the late Count Ōkuma and Marquis Itō once rode about in, from an era when automobiles had not yet developed their present-day dominance.
These carriages were truly abundant in Dalian, and they were inexpensive.
Rather than cheap, it was downright absurd.
Their wage payment practices, I tell you.
What this meant was that whether it was ten sen, twenty sen, or even five sen—if you paid that amount, they would take you anywhere within Dalian City.
The coachmen were all Chinese.
Just as the coachmen were all Chinese, you see.

Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop!
Hoofbeats!
It was truly light and swift.

Whoosh, whoosh!

The sound of the coachman’s brandished whip!

It was truly full of vigor!

Riding in this carriage, I somehow felt as though I’d become His Highness the Grand Duke.

Now then, picture yourself riding that carriage on your return from Bombay.

To get us into this carriage, the coachman first—

“A carriage faster than automobiles!
Step right in!” he proclaimed.

So we boarded, but once aboard—what do you know? Far from being faster than automobiles, it was slower than any other carriage, constantly overtaken by those coming up from behind.
This made us furious. “Hey! What’s going on here?
This is quite different from what you declared earlier!” we fired back.

And then came the coachman’s reply—
“Now, now, young gentlemen of Japan—you shouldn’t scold so harshly.
Rather than that, when you return to the hotel and change into your kimono, why don’t we go together?
There’s a beautiful woman there, and I’ll take you to a great place where you can dance all night,” he said.
Then he brandished his whip overhead with great vigor, struck the horse, and roared: “Faster than an automobile!
Faster than an automobile!”

The following day, guided by Mr. I—an old friend and classmate from my middle school days, now a Japanese-style painter commissioned by the South Manchuria Railway and an alumnus of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts—my wife and I went to Port Arthur, where we toured battle sites from the Russo-Japanese War such as East Keekwan Mountain, and held discussions with Mr. Uzumaki, manager of the Manchuria Daily’s Port Arthur branch—a man once renowned as a detective novelist and destined for even greater fame. When I saw the permanent forts at East Keekwan Mountain and their fully equipped facilities, I could imagine just how fiercely our forces had struggled during the Russo-Japanese War. It was exactly as if an incomparably sturdy building had been constructed underground. When the enemy entered the fort, we could remain concealed and fire machine guns at them from three directions.

How many of our brave officers and soldiers, unaware of such things at first, perished there in battle.

In Dalian (8)

“*Banzai!*” they would shout as they charged forward, our brave officers and soldiers rushing into this fort.
Then machine gun bullets poured in from three directions with a rattling clamor, killing every last one of those officers and soldiers in a mere instant.
Unaware of such things, another group would shout “*Banzai!*” and charge into the fort.
With a rattling clamor, machine gun bullets poured in from three directions and killed them all.
Another group would shout *Banzai!*—rat-a-tat-tat!
Another group would shout *Banzai!*—rat-a-tat-tat!

*Banzai!*
With each *Banzai!* and rat-a-tat-tat—how many people lost their lives here!

I could not help but be overcome with emotion.

In Port Arthur, we also saw the War Trophy Memorial Museum.
When I saw the straitjackets reportedly used on madmen—Russian officers and soldiers who had gone insane from terror and anxiety during the siege—it sent a chill down my spine.
They suffered too, you see.

We also saw the Kantōchō Museum.

We saw all sorts of rare and precious things that could never be found in museums back in mainland Japan.

On our return journey, we drove back to Dalian, where the sunset cast its light upon Manchuria’s red earth—its crimson hills, fields, plains, and mountains—allowing us to fully grasp the essence of *Beneath the Crimson Sunset*, a song often sung during the Russo-Japanese War.

My friend, after returning to Dalian, my wife and I went on to examine various aspects of the city in even greater detail. However, I shall refrain from recounting each and every one of them here, for I suspect such communications would hardly interest you.

Moreover, I have a sense that I have written this travelogue a bit too long, you see.

However, when I saw the magnificent view of Hoshigaura and was truly struck by its vastness, complexity, and excellent facilities—realizing that Kamakura and Zushi could never compare—and when I saw Laohutan and felt it was indeed the "quintessence of Japanese landscapes," I thought I simply had to inform you of these things.
When I saw the Manchurian Resources Museum, I truly realized—Manchuria’s resources are indeed boundless! America and others salivate with envy, which is why they try to extend their influence into this Manchuria through all sorts of unpleasant petty knife-work against our country and the Republic of China—or so I thought.

At Tōshūkaku restaurant in Dalian’s Denki Yūen—a beautiful amusement park—we, my wife and I, were invited by President Matsuyama Chūjirō of the Manchuria Daily and his wife, where together with Editor-in-Chief T and his wife and Secretary S to the president and his wife, we savored Beijing cuisine, received introductions to Republic of China courtesans in Dalian, and listened to their songs—it proved a most agreeable affair.

Rantei, whom we had met at that “First Tower,” was also there.

When the man playing the *kokyū* bowed its strings in a high-pitched tone with an utterly disinterested air, feigning enthusiasm all the while, the courtesans stepped forward one by one to stand before him. They then sang with desperate fervor, straining their voices to the limit—exactly like elementary school students taking a singing exam—a spectacle we found most peculiar.

After that, we also went to Fengtian.
We stayed overnight at Tanggangzi Hot Springs.

At the South Manchuria Railway headquarters screening room, we were shown a documentary said to have been filmed by the Railway’s photography team at an exchange market in Mongolia’s Ganjur.
So many things—so very many—remained to be written.
But it had grown long.
With this, I shall lay down my pen.