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Abstract
All of the four Japanese sporting tours to Australia in the inter-war period are now largely forgotten. This article examines each of these tours – in swimming in 1926–27 and again in 1934–35, rugby in 1927 and tennis in 1932 – in order to further historic understandings of Australian-Japanese sporting connections and to augment existing knowledge of constructive engagements between the two nations in this period. Based mainly on press reports, the article aims to situate the tours within sporting and political contexts, consider positive responses to the tourists as cultural ambassadors, and assess how these visits simultaneously contributed to and challenged racial discourses, stereotypes and anxieties.
Notes
1 Referee, 17 August 1927; Daily Telegraph (hereafter DT), 18 August 1927.
2 For Australian–Japanese relations in various spheres, see CitationJones and Mackie, Relationships; CitationFrei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia, Ch. 5–8; CitationMurray, Watching the Sun Rise; CitationBroinowski, The Yellow Lady, 16–17; CitationAckland and Oliver, Unexpected Encounters, Ch. 2–3; CitationMeaney, Towards a New Vision, 45–47.
3 CitationKeys, Globalizing Sport.
4 CitationBrawley, ‘They Came’; CitationBrawley, ‘Ambassadors of Peace!’. Peter Fenton also addresses this tour in his biography of Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton: CitationFenton, They Called Him Boy, Ch. 6. See also CitationCashman, Sport in the National Imagination, 150–51.
5 Richard Cashman has commented on this neglect, see Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination, 151. For a recent exception, see CitationKobayashi, ‘Turning Japanese?’
6 For recent works on sport and international relations generally, see Keys, Globalizing Sport; CitationMajumdar and Collins, Olympism.
7 Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, 17; CitationSissons, ‘Australian Contacts with Japan’, 7–9.
8 DT, 13 January 1927 (Congress); Courier-Mail (hereafter CM), 12 December 1934 (trade); CM, 12 December 1934 (Scouts).
9 Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter SMH), 22 February 1932 (baseball) and (ju-jitsu); DT, 16 February 1932 (‘stick fighting’ and wrestling). For an account of the first visits of Japanese training squadrons to Australia, in 1903 and 1906, and their impact in terms of cultural diplomacy, see CitationWalker, Anxious Nation, Ch. 7.
10 Argus, 3 October 1927; CM, 2 January 1934.
11 For the concept of ‘cultural crossings’, and an exploration of literary fiction as an area of cultural crossing between Japan and Australia, see CitationKato, ‘Australian Literary Images’; CitationHartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt, xii–xiii.
12 CitationKnowles, Race and Social Analysis, 44.
13 Ackland and Oliver, Unexpected Encounters, xxi; Newcastle Sun (hereafter NS), January 1927; Sun (Melbourne), 12 August 1927; SMH, 18 January 1932; Referee, 24 January 1935.
14 CitationHill, ‘Anecdotal Evidence’, 127.
15 One partial exception is a collection of news clippings in response to the Japanese crawl stroke, which came to attention during the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and received much attention in Australia during the 1934–1935 swimming tour: CitationNational Library of Australia, Swimming Cuttings Book 1932–1936.
16 For a comparison of Australian rural and urban attitudes towards Japan in this period, see CitationMcInnes, ‘Assessing Australian Attitudes’, 13–22.
17 CitationGuttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports, 70–71. See also Ch. 3.
18 CitationGuttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports. See also Ch. 3, 87.
19 CitationGuttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports. See also Ch. 3, 76–7; CitationColwin, Breakthrough Swimming, 204–205; CitationSprawson, Haunts of the Black Masseur, Ch. 8.
20 Johnny Weismuller, three-time gold medallist at the 1924 Paris Olympics, had been the ASU's preferred choice but had declined the invitation: DT, 8 January 1927.
21 CitationSagita, ‘Part 5: Famous Figures’. Takaishi would win bronze in the 100-metre freestyle in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games and was captain of the Japanese team in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. On Takaishi, see CitationColwin, ‘A Tiny Bearded Swimmer’.
22 CitationOsmond, ‘Honolulu Maori’.
23 Argus, 9 September 1926. For a more detailed analysis of this tour, see Brawley, ‘Ambassadors of Peace’; Brawley, ‘They Came’.
24 DT, 11 January 1927.
25 DT, 10 January 1927, 7; DT, 17 January 1927.
26 DT, 6 January 1927; Wellington Times (NSW; hereafter WT), 3 January 1927.
27 WT, 3 January 1927; DT, 10 January 1927; Border Morning Mail (Albury, NSW; hereafter BMM), 28 January 1927.
28 Sporting Globe (Melbourne; hereafter SG), 10 August 1927.
29 Guttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports, 72 (claims 1927); CitationLight, ‘A Centenary of Rugby’. For a contemporary discussion of the Japanese university sport system, especially rugby, and of sport in Japan, see Brisbane Courier (hereafter BC), 8 August 1927.
30 BC, 8 August 1927; New York Times, 11 January 1922.
31 DT, 10 August 1927. Seiichi Kishi actively supported the participation of Japanese athletes in international competition: see CitationSvinth, “Fulfilling His Duty as a Member'. This further helps contextualize the support given by his son to the Waseda rugby tour. As Vice-Consul in Sydney, Iichi Kishi and his wife were connected to the University of Sydney through their friendship with the professor of Oriental Studies, A.L. Sadler, and his wife: see CitationCoaldrake and Coaldrake, Japan from War to Peace, 171.
32 SMH, 23 June 1927.
33 SG, 27 August 1927 (swimming); Referee, 17 August 1927 (Waratahs); Referee, 17 August 1927 (soccer); Weekly Times (Melbourne), August 6, 1927 (bowlers). See Charles Little's article in this volume for additional information about Australia's sporting connections with Ceylon in this era.
34 SG, 10 August 1927.
35 Referee, 10 August 1927. Names of players are provided in various newspaper reports and confirmed in CitationHibino, Research on Waseda Rugby History. For photographs of the team, see Argus, 13 August 1927, 27; Referee, 24 August 1927; DT, 24 August 1927.
36 NS, 22 August 1927; Sun (Melbourne), 10 August 1927; Referee, 10 August 1927, DT, 9 August 1927.
37 DT, 22 August 1927.
38 DT, 18 August 1927; SG, 17 August 1927.
39 DT, 21 August 1927.
40 DT, 24 August 1927. The Sydney Morning Herald printed a farewell letter from the team: ‘The Waseda University Rugby Union team, on leaving Australia, wish to convey through you to the Australian people their hearty thanks for the warm and cordial welcome they received, and their sincere hopes for the continued and increasing prosperity of this beautiful country’. See SMH, 30 August 1927.
41 Guttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports, 79–80. Sun (Sydney), 11 January 1932. Shimizu's brother was one of the Waseda University rugby representatives who toured Australia in 1927: Referee, 24 August 1927.
42 Argus, 18 November 1931. Nunoi replaced Shimizu, whose participation was not possible. See also SMH, 18 February 1932.
43 DT, January 15, 1932; Bulletin, 13 January 1932.
44 Referee, 6 January 1932.
45 Referee, 6 January 1932.
46 BC, 8 January 1932.
47 Sun (Sydney), 17 January 1932.
48 BC, 25 January 1932. For commentary on deviation from standard match numbers in these tests, see Age, 26 January 1932.
49 DT, 18 January 1932; DT, 22 February 1932; Sun (Sydney), 21 February 1932.
50 BC, 24 February 1932; DT, 22 February 1932.
51 Bulletin, 24 February 1932; DT, 22 February 1932.
52 CitationOppenheim, The History of Swimming, 14.
53 Earlier invitations were declined: Argus, 14 October 1932; CM, 29 September 1933.
54 CitationKiyokawa, ‘Swimming into History’.
55 Referee, 17 January 1935 (French); DT, 7 January 1935 (Chinese). Coinciding with the Japanese swimming tour in 1934–1935 were visits by French and Czechoslovakian tennis players (see CM, 14 December 1934; Referee, 13 December 1934), and for the Victorian Centenary in 1935 no fewer than 10 foreign Olympians from the 1932 Los Angeles Games visited Melbourne for amateur and professional completion in swimming, track and field events and cycling: Referee, 17 January 1935.
56 Sources include CitationNational Archives of Australia, ‘Sakagami and Kyokama’.
57 DT, 4 January 1935; DT, 24 January 1935; Canberra Times (hereafter CT), 11 January 1935; Sun (Sydney), 5 January 1935; Sun (Sydney), January 12, 1935.
58 News clippings in National Library of Australia, Swimming Cuttings Book 1932–1936; Referee, December 27, 1934.
59 DT, 25 January 1935; Referee, 31 January 1935.
60 Referee, 7 February 1935; Bulletin, 13 February 1935; Sun (Sydney), 17 January 1935.
61 CM, 28 December 1934; DT, 18 January 1935.
62 Referee, 31 January 1935; Referee, 22 October 1936. In 1937, Kiyokawa returned to Australia to work as a wool buyer: CT, 2 February 1937. The proposed visit by swimmer H. Mayehata in 1935–1936 did not eventuate.
63 For an overview of the relationship, see Jones and Mackie, Relationships; CitationMeaney, Towards a New Vision; Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia.
64 Meaney, ‘1901–1950’, 13.
65 Meaney, Towards a New Vision, 69–73; Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia, Ch. 6; Jones and Mackie, Relationships, Ch. 5.
66 Meaney, Towards a New Vision, 74; CitationBrawley, The White Peril, Chapters 12 and 13.
67 Murray, Watching the Sun Rise, 1–2.
68 Bulletin, 10 February 1932, 31.
69 Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia, 111.
70 Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia, 122. For Japanese demand for Australian wool, see DT, 16 February 1932; CM, 19 December 1934.
71 Jones and Mackie, Relationships, 151.
72 For an example of a travel advertisement for Japan, see CM, 20 December 1934.
73 Meaney, Towards a New Vision, 75–7.
74 DT, 10 August 1927. See also comments by the Acting Consul-General for Japan at the conclusion of the tour: Referee, 31 August 1927.
75 SMH, 19 January 1932.
76 Sun (Sydney), 30 December 1934.
77 Murray, Watching the Sun Rise, 251.
78 Argus, 6 January 1927, 3; BC, 18 December 1926.
79 DT, 10 January 1927; Referee, 12 January 1927.
80 Referee, 20 January 1932; Referee, 3 January 1935.
81 DT, 17 January 1927; BMM, 28 January 1927; Referee, 24 January 1935.
82 DT, 4 January 1927.
83 DT, 10 August 1927.
84 DT, 7 January 1927; BC, 18 December 1926.
85 DT, 5 January 1935.
86 DT, 10 January 1927; DT, 17 February 1932.
87 Argus, 19 January 1927; SMH, 18 January 1932; SMH, 18 February 1932; unsourced news clipping dated 26 January 1935 – likely Sporting Globe, in National Library of Australia, Swimming Cuttings Book 1932–1936.
88 CitationWelky, ‘Viking Girls’, 40; Guttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports, 121–2.
89 SG, 17 August 1927; DT, 14 August 1927.
90 Referee, 2 February 1927.
91 Referee, 3 February 1932.
92 Referee, 27 January 1932; Referee, 31 January 1935.
93 Referee, 3 January 1935.
94 CM, 20 December 1934.
95 NS, 5 January 1927.
96 DT, 7 January 1927.
97 CitationHoney, ‘Sport, Immigration Restriction and Race’, 46. Cashman also writes about the impact that Australian–Japanese sporting contacts had on stereotypes of Asian sporting inferiority in the 1920s and 1930s: see Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination, 150–1.
98 WT, 3 January 1927; SMH, 18 January 1932; Sun (Sydney), 8 January 1932.
99 Honey, ‘Sport, Immigration Restriction and Race’. This is especially evident in the contrast between Jack Johnson's visit in 1908 with the Fijian cricket tour in 1907–1908.
100 DT, 7 January 1927; Referee, 12 January 1927; CM, 15 December 1934.
101 Brawley, ‘They Came’, 60.
102 Honey, ‘Sport, Immigration Restriction and Race’, 46.
103 Brawley, ‘They Came’, 59–61.
104 Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, 12; DT, 3 January 1935. See also: Sissons, ‘Australian Contacts with Japan’; Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, Chapters 2–4.
105 Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, 17.
106 CitationAkami, ‘Frederick Eggleston and Oriental Power’, 104.
107 Referee, 5 January 1927.
108 Sun (Melbourne), 12 August 1927; Referee, 10 August 1927; SG, 24 August 1927; DT, 21 August 1927; DT, 27 August 1927; DT, 13 February 1932; DT, 19 February 1932. The adjective brown replaced yellow from the 1890s in some Australian commentary: Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, 11.
109 SG, 17 August 1927; DT, 7 January 1927. A newspaper photograph of Takaishi and Charlton that emphasised their size difference was captioned ‘A Study in Physique’: DT, 10 January 1927. See also Brawley, ‘They Came’, 60.
110 WT, 6 January 1927; DT, 1 January 1935.
111 Unsourced news clipping dated 27 September 1932, in National Library of Australia, Swimming Cuttings Book 1932–1936; Bulletin, 16 January 1935.
112 CitationRyan, ‘How the Japanese Swim’, 1.
113 DT, 1 January 1935. For other admiring comments, see Sun (Melbourne), 12 August 1927; CM, 12 December 1934; BC, 14 January 1932; SMH, 1 January 1932.
114 DT, 7 January 1927; Sun (Sydney), 1 January 1932; CM, 12 December 1934; Referee, 12 January 1927.
115 Sun (Sydney), 24 January 1932.
116 CitationSmith, ‘Representations of the Japanese’, 55; CitationMaykovich, ‘White-Yellow Stereotypes’, 461; CitationJohnson, ‘The Japanese Through American Eyes’, 164–65.
117 DT, 11 August 1927.
118 NS, January 5, 1927; DT, 3 January 1935; CM, December 15, 1934.
119 BC, February 23, 1932; Age, January 5, 1932; DT, January 15, 1932. For an image of Satoh smiling see Sun (Sydney), 14 January 1932.
120 DT, 15 January 1932.
121 Age, 23 January 1932; BC, 11December 1926; BC, 24 December 1926; DT, 9 January 1932; Sun (Sydney), 7 January 1935.
122 SG, 13 August 1927; Sun (Melbourne), 10 August 1927; DT, 13 January 1927; DT, 21 August 1927; Sun (Sydney), 21 February 1932.
123 Newcastle Morning Herald (hereafter NMH), 4 January 1935; Sun (Sydney), 3 January 1935.
124 Sun, 30 December 1934; DT, 3 January 1935. See also regular ‘letters’ from a Japanese ‘resident’ in Sydney that occasionally refer to the visitors in the DT regular column ‘A Little Laughter Now and Then’ throughout January 1932: see especially 18 January 1932. For comments on the English ability of the visitors, see Referee, 12 January 1927; Sun (Sydney), 9 August 1927; DT, 14 January 1932; Referee, 27 December 1934.
125 Honey, ‘Sport, Immigration Restriction and Race’, 46.
126 Bulletin, 16 January 1935.
127 Broinowski, The Yellow Lady, 12.
128 See, for example, DT, 20 August 1927; DT, 18 February 1932.
129 See, for example, Sun (Sydney), 14 January 1932; DT, 15 January 1932.
130 DT, 20 August 1927.
131 Bulletin, 2 March 1932.
132 For a war-time cartoon that repeats negative physical stereotypes of Japanese, see Daily Mirror (Sydney), 18 October 1941.
133 Walker, Anxious Nation, Ch. 7; Walker, ‘Strange Reading’, 117-18; Brawley, ‘They Came’, 52.
134 Walker, ‘Strange Reading’, 122.