A Study Of Japan In 1922

[Mulboyne]

Project Gutenberg, which publishes out-of-copyright books electronically on the web, has a few titles about Japan like this 1922 work by J.W. Robertson Scott called "The Foundations of Japan" (subtitled "Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People". Robertson (picture above front and centre) came up with this sentence "which expresses what wisdom I have gained about the Orient, The real barrier between East and West is a distrust of each other's morality and the illusion that the distrust is on one side only."

The plain text format is a chore to read but there is an interesting account of "girl collectors" who went around the countryside collecting cheap female labour for silk factories:

"The factory proprietors are no worse than many other people intent on money making. But the silk industry, as I saw it, was exploiting, consciously or unconsciously, not only the poverty of its girl employees but their strength, morality, deftness and remarkable school training in earnestness and obedience."

The best way to get something from this fairly lengthy work is to dip into the chapters through the contents page or go through links in the index.

[L S]

The plain text format is a chore to read but there is an interesting account of "girl collectors" who went around the countryside collecting cheap female labour for silk factories:

"The factory proprietors are no worse than many other people intent on money making. But the silk industry, as I saw it, was exploiting, consciously or unconsciously, not only the poverty of its girl employees but their strength, morality, deftness and remarkable school training in earnestness and obedience."

One of my favorite books on Japanese history is called Flowers in Salt. It traces the begining of the feminist movement in Japan and was quite surprising for me. I mention it b/c a lot of the book focuses on the the textile mills and how young women were enslaved for labor. The textile mills, on the back of these young women, essentially brought Japan into the modern industrial world with trade and money. But the horrid conditions and outright slavery also sparked the first feminists who in-turn were quite brutally stomped on by the authorities. Not a beach book, but very worth reading if you are into J-history.

[Greji]

The plain text format is a chore to read but there is an interesting account of "girl collectors" who went around the countryside collecting cheap female labour for silk factories:

The same process was applied to collecting women for apprenticeship as geisha, prostitutes and other such vital industries. It was the same process that existed all the way up through WWII and probably accounted for more comfort girls pressed into service for the troops than were recruited(?) by the J-Army itself, because there was too much money in it to allow the military to handle the business, but that's another thread.