Chapter I: Preface

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong," as Mr. Gilbert Chesterton begins one of his books by saying, has half its members in Asia. That Americans should know something about so considerable a portion of our human race is manifestly worth while. And really to know them at all we must know them as they are to-day.

Vast changes are in progress, and even as I write this, the revolution in China, foreshadowed in the chapters written by me from that country, is remaking the political life of earth's oldest empire. From Japan to India there is industrial, educational, political ferment. The old order changes, yielding place to the new.

"Where Half the World is Waking Up" is not inappropriate therefore as the title of the book now offered to the public. The reader will kindly observe here that I have written of where half the world is waking up and not merely of the waking-up itself. My purpose has been to set forth the old and the new in due proportion; to present the play of new forces against and upon the ancient, the amazingly ancient, forces that have dominated whole races for centuries. In most places, in fact, the ancient force is still clearly the dominant one. Observe, too, therefore, that I have written not of where half the world has waked up, but only of where it is waking up. The significant thing is that the waking is really taking place at all, and of this there can be no doubt.

It was, in short, with the hope of securing for myself and presenting to others a photograph of the Orient as it is to-day that I made my long trip through Japan, Korea, Manchuria, {viii} China, the Philippines, and India during the past year. It was not a pleasure trip nor yet a hurried "seaport trip." I travelled either entirely across or well into the interior of each country visited, and all my time was given to study and research to fit me for the preparation of these articles.

That despite of the care exercised the book contains some errors, is doubtless true. The sources of information in the Orient are not always easy to find, nor always in accord after one finds them. Consider, for example, the population of Manchuria: it seems a simple enough matter, yet it required the help of consuls of two or three nations to enable me to sift out the truth from the conflicting representations of several writers and so-called authorities.

For my part I can only claim a laborious and painstaking effort to get the facts. Letters of introduction to eminent Englishmen kindly furnished me by Ambassador Bryce opened the doors of British officialdom for me, and the friendship of Mr. Roosevelt and letters from Mr. Bryan and our Department of State proved helpful in other ways. I thus had the good fortune not only to get the ready fraternal assistance of my brother newspaper men (of all races) everywhere, and the help of English, German, and American consuls, but I was aided by some of the most eminent authorities in each country visited--in China, by H. E. Tang Shao-yi, Wu Ting Fang, Sir Robert Bredon, Dr. C. D. Tenney, Dr. Timothy Richard; in Japan, by ex-Premier Okuma, Viscount Kaneko, Baron Shibusawa, Dr. Juichi Soyeda; in Hong Kong, by Governor-General Sir Frederick Lugard; in Manila by Governor-General Forbes, Vice-Governor Gilbert; in India, the members of the Viceroy's Cabinet, Hon. Krishnaswami Iyer, Dr. J. P. Jones, etc, etc. To all of these and to scores of others, my grateful acknowledgments are tendered. They helped me get information, but of course are in no case to be held responsible for any opinions that I have expressed.

To Mr. G. D. Adams, of Akron, Ohio, and Dr. Arthur {ix} Mez, of Mannheim, Germany, two generous fellow-travellers, my thanks are due for the use of many of their photographs, and I am also indebted to _The World's Work_ and _The Review of Reviews_ for permission to republish articles that have already appeared in these magazines. The larger number of chapters included in this volume, however, were originally prepared with a view to their use in my own paper, The Progressive Farmer. They are, therefore, often more elementary in character, let me say in the outset, than if they had been written exclusively for bookbuyers, but it is my hope that their journalistic flavor, even if it has this disadvantage, will also be found to have certain compensating qualities.

Perhaps just one other thing ought to be said: that practically every article about any country was written while I was still in the country described. In this way I hoped not only to write with greater freshness and vividness, but I was enabled to have my articles revised and criticised by friends well informed concerning the subjects discussed. The reader will please bear in mind, therefore, that a letter about Tokyo is also a letter from Tokyo, a letter about Korea is a letter from Korea, etc., and shift his viewpoint accordingly. I have also thought it best to be frank with the reader and let the chapters on China remain exactly as they were written--presenting a pen picture of the Dragon Empire as it appeared on the eve of the outbreak, while the revolution was indeed definitely in prospect but not yet a reality.

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"Give us as many anecdotes as you can," was old Samuel Johnson's advice to Boswell, when that worthy proposed to write of Corsica; and this wise suggestion I have sought to keep in mind in all my travel. Moreover, another saying of the great lexicographer's comes quaintly into my memory as I conclude this Foreword: "There are two things which I am confident I could do very well," he once remarked to Sir Joshua Reynolds; "one is an introduction to any literary work stating {x} what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner: the other is a conclusion, showing from various causes why the execution has not been equal to what the author promised to himself and to the publick!"

C. P. Raleigh, N. C. December 1, 1911.

{xi}

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Japan: The Land of Upside Down 3

A Land of Contradictions
Music as an Example
Marriage and the Home Life
Patriarchal Ideas Still Dominant.

II. Snapshots of Japanese Life and Philosophy 9

What a Japanese City Is Like
Strange Clothing of the Japanese
Who Ever Saw So Many Babies?
Alphonse and Gaston Outdone
The Grace of the Little Women
How the Old Japan and the Old South Were Alike
A "Moral Distinction" Between Producers and Non-Producers.

III. Japanese Farming and Farmer Folk 17

Japanese Farm Children Getting More Schooling
than American Farm Children
No Illiteracy in the New Japan
Where Five Acres Is a Large Farm
How Iowa Might Feed the Whole United States
Farming Without Horses or Oxen
What the Japanese Farmers Raise
The Crime of Soil-waste
All Work Done by Hand
Cooperative Credit Societies a Success
Farm Houses Grouped in Villages
"A Seller of the Ancestral Land"
The Japanese Love of the Beautiful a Suggestion for America.

IV. "Welfare Work" in Japanese Factories 29

Manufacturing Bound to Increase
Tariff Legislation Unfair to Agriculture
A Visit to a Progressive Japanese Factory
How the Factory Operatives Are Looked After
Stricter Factory Legislation Coming.

V. Does Japanese Competition Menace the White Man's Trade 34

A Study of Japanese Industrial Conditions
Japanese Labor Cheap but Inefficient
Actual Cost of Output Little Cheaper than in America
Laborers in a State {xii} of Deplorable Inexperience
Illustrations of Japanese Inefficiency
Some Current Misconceptions Corrected
Labor Wage Has Increased 40 Per Cent, in Eight Years
The Burden of Taxation
High Tariff Will Decrease Japan's Export Trade
Subsidy Policy Destroying Individual Initiative
Japanese Competition Not a Serious Menace to the White Man.

VI. Buddhism, Shintoism, and Christianity in Japan 48

The Artistic Touch of the Japanese
Religion Without Morals
Buddhism in Fact vs. Buddhism Idealized by Arnold
Official Notices Prohibiting Christianity
Christianity "Puts Too High an Estimate on Woman"
The Worth of the Individual Not Recognized
The Elemental Significance of Japan's Awakening
A New Type of Civilization.

VII. Korea: "The Land of the Morning Calm" 60

I Have Become a Contemporary of David
The Fascination of a Primitive City
Some Odd Korean Customs-A True Romance and an Odd One
Many Faces Marked by Smallpox
A Typical Monarchy of Ancient Asia-The Honorable Mr. Yang-ban
Six Men to Carry Fifty Dollars' Worth of Money
Japanese Annexation
Splendid Work of Foreign Missionaries.

VIII. Manchuria: Fair and Fertile 70

Some First-hand Stories of the Russo-Japanese War
A Bit of History with a Lesson
The Site of the World's Next Great War
Manchuria: Fair and Fertile
Fat Harvests of Food, Feed, and Fuel
A Land Where Everybody "Knows Beans"
Golden Opportunities for Stock-raising
Better Plows and Level Culture
Graves as Thick as Corn Shocks

IX. Where Japan Is Absorbing an Empire 78

Manchuria the One Great Oriental Empire Not Yet Developed
Its Strategic Importance
Why the "Open Door" Concerns Us All
Japan's Shrewd Policies {xiii}
Contempt of Chinese Authority
Japan at Home vs. Japan in Manchuria
How the Open Door Policy Was Violated
Will Manchuria Go the Way of Korea?
A Bit of Chinese Wit and Wisdom
Truth Is in the Interest of Peace.

X. Light from China on Problems at Home 93

A Chinese Martyr-Hero
The Most Tremendous Moral Achievement of Recent Times
A Lesson for America
Putting Officials on Salaries
Money Changers and Title Changers
Making Education Practical
The Parcels Post and Tariff Reform.

XI. The New China: Awake and at Work 102

The Coming National Parliament
The Successful War Against Opium
China's Right-about-face in Education
Building Up an Army
Attacking the Graft System
Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs
America's Relations with China.