Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia: A Feminist Poet from Japan Encounters Prewar China

A valuable document for the study of the modern Japanese construction of "China" and "the Chinese," this important travelogue by Yosana Akiko--one of Japan's greatest poets and a prominent spokeswoman during the early years of Japanese feminism--charts her travels in Japanese-controlled Manchuria and Mongolia in 1928. Written during a tense period in Sino-Japanese relations, Yosana's travelogue clearly reveals the limits of her stated progressive leanings in the face of the imperialist project of which she could not help but be a part.