In Inside Europe, first published three years ago and since continuously revised to keep up-to-date, Correspondent John Gunther wrote a swift, popular handbook of present-day Europe. His system was to take a country, give the lives, habits and personalities of its leaders, put in a few choice anecdotes, make a few sound generalizations about the people, sketch in historical background, retell the nation's most recent and dramatic episodes and then move on to the next country, where the same process was repeated.
In Inside Asia,* published this week, Author Gunther tries out this technique on Asia and produces much the same kind of book: a lively, gossipy, not too profound but interesting encyclopedia of present-day Asia. Jumping-off place for Inside Europe was Germany; Inside Asia begins with Japan. From Japan, the book takes the reader to Manchukuo, makes a brief stopover in Siberia, moves on to China and then, going south and east by way of the Philippines and The Netherlands Indies, rounds the Malay Peninsula for a look at Siam, India, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, Burma, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Trans-Jordan and finally Palestine.
The sacred Japanese Emperor leads the parade of personalities in the newest Almanac de Gunther, as the author discusses his divinity, ancestry, poetry, wealth, family and advisers. After that, among many others, come the venerable, 89-year-old Prince Saionji, last of the Genro; jingoistic Baron Kuchiro Hiranuma, who as Premier has an earthquake-and-assassination-proof house; aristocratic former Premier Prince Fumimaro Konoye, who has made a "cult of languor"; Lieut.-General Seishiro Itagaki, most prominent member of the Army's radical Kwantung Clique, who conquered and now rules Manchukuo; the fabulously rich men who own the Houses of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda and Okura, firms that control 62% of the total wealth of Japan (Mr. Gunther calls them "Men of Yen") ; Emperor Kang Teh (formerly Henry Pu-yi) of Manchukuo, "least consequential monarch on earth."
With a good eye for detail, Mr. Gunther remembers a Tokyo night-club sign in English: WINE WOMEN SONG AND WHATNOT. Illustrating Japanese lack of tact: Geisha girls, entertaining a U. S. naval officer who had been on the U. S. S. Panay when it was bombed and sunk by the Japanese, kept repeating all evening: "Panay! Panay! So sorry! So sorry!" Typical Japanese Army reasoning: Capitalism is responsible for communism, hence to defeat communism capitalism must be overthrown. Author Gunther also picked up a warning that the Japanese are capable of committing hara-kiri on a national as well as individual scale: the more inextricably Japan becomes involved in China the more likely it is that Japan will deliberately attack a stronger enemy and go down blazingly to defeat in a first-class war.