Excerpt from The Playground of the Far East The Japan of picturesque romance is passing away, and is being replaced by a land of materialism, which, however prosperous, powerful, and wealthy it may be, can no longer be the universally lovely fairyland that it was when first we knew it. These words form the conclusion and the summing-up of an interesting and sympathetic review of one of the most recent works on Japan (japan: The Rise of a Modern Power, by R. P. Porter, Times Literary Supplement, 18th February Yet, true as the writer's lament may be of the effects wrought by the unpleasing changes that have followed in the wake of modern industrialism in Tokyo and other large cities on the coast, the transformation is far more restricted in its extent than is at all realised by the outside world. For it is possible in a few short hours to pass from the beaten tracks of tourist traffic into what is virtually another state of existence. There the old order still abides unchanged, in the quaint and picturesque open-air life of the streets, and in that simple courtesy and friendliness of the kindly country folk which helps to make travel in the interior of Japan a thing almost apart. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.