Description
Book SynopsisA rare account by a foreigner working in Japan in the 20th century; a unique insight into this important period of Japan's history; complements existing material. First a student interpreter, then an assistant in Korea, Vice-Consul in Yokohama and Osaka, Consul in Nagasaki and Dairen, then Consul-General in Seoul, Osaka, Mukden and Tientsin. Not a contemporary diary as such, but a write-up of notes made towards the end of White's career spanning thirty-eight years. Importantly, it includes reflective passages on the momentous developments of the later 1930s, as Japan moved onto a war-footing in China - and as Consul-General in the Chinese treaty port of Tianjin under Japanese occupation, White was in the middle of the growing tensions between Britain and Japan. His post-war recollections are also valuable. Like others who had lived and worked in Japan, he sought to come to terms with what had happened to the country in which he had spent so much of his adult life. Along the way he provides fascinating vignettes of his colleagues, some well known, others less so, while his service in Seoul, Mukden (now Shenyang) and Tianjin provides fresh material on the Japanese colonial empire.
Table of ContentsFigures and Plate section face page 108
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Jim Hoare
Introduction by Hugo Read
List of Figures and Plates
Preface to ‘All Ambition Spent’
Chapter 1 The Japanese View
Chapter 2 Student Interpreter in Tokyo, 1903–1905
Chapter 3 Tokyo in 1904 and 1905
Chapter 4 Assistant at Yokohama, 1905–1908
Chapter 5 Stray Notes on Language
Chapter 6 Assistant in Corea, 1908–1910
Chapter 7 Corea in 1909 and 1910
Chapter 8 Vice-Consul at Yokohama, 1911–1913
Chapter 9 Vice-Consul at Osaka, 1913–1919
Chapter 10 Consul at Nagasaki, 1920–1925
Chapter 11 Consul at Dairen, 1925–1927
Chapter 12 Consul-General at Seoul, 1928–1931
Chapter 13 Consul-General at Osaka, 1931–1937
Chapter 14 Consul-General at Mukden, 1938–1939
Chapter 15 Consul-General at Tientsin, 1939–1941
Chapter 16 Anglo-Japanese Relations
Index
