BD. Edmund Blunden

137. ‘Fourth Visit: Or, Japan up-to-date’. Albion, 1 August 1959, pp. 9-11.

		Reprinted in A Tribute from Japan.

Blunden’s fourth journey to Japan was for a three-week lecture tour in Tokyo and Fukuoka, largely in the company of Hiramatsu Mikio (see 185b). He recalls here details of the trip and these lead to memories of years past, particularly of a day thirty-five years earlier when Saitô Takeshi (Ap) saw him off from London on the Hakone Maru, and another six weeks later when he first met Ichikawa Sanki (Ap) at Tokyo Station. These friends have been with him ‘again and again’ in ‘these latest lectures and reunions’. The work closes with words about those of the ‘rising generation’ in Japan, who by their politeness and eager acceptance of his lectures have made Blunden feel that his ‘earliest picture’ of the country was correct. The work was composed at a traditional inn on Lake Chûzenji. Blunden writes that he is grateful for the tatami but laments the lack of a tokonoma. Hiramatsu recalls details of the afternoon in 185b. Reprinted in 165.