A 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.

Hugo Read is the great-grandson of Oswald White who spent 38 years in the Japan Consular Service (1903-1941). White's 'Japan memoir' was entitled All Ambition Spent, mostly written pre-1939 but completed towards the end of the war. Hugo Read is also the author of a portrait of Oswald White published in Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. X. He works in the telecoms industry, and is a wine consultant and member of the Association of Wine Educators. He writes on food, drink, travel.

Figures 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