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TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"
Imperial Hotel
Tokyo
(4)

Emphasis on western ideas and improvements has gone ahead with such leaps and bounds that Japan is now retracting to a certain extent, unable in their rather slow philosophical oriental way to imbibe it all, and many people have told me that they are returning to their own ideas and ways now.

May 16, 1935.
I am regretfully continuing this lettersome days later as the news I have to impart or rather the lack of them is extremely black. I had a most delightful interview with our Ambassador, Mr. Grew, who is a charming and brilliant man, and although offering to help me in any way possible, assured me that there was not the remotest interest in either European or American art here. He gave me a letter to the head of the Imperial Museum and was having his underlings arrange for me to see one or two collections. To date I have heard nothing. Likewise with the Fleishers---Mrs. is what is commonly known to you and me as "impossible woman", and has been so taken up with the Garden Club functions that she has had no time for me nor has she arranged for me to come along. She is very much impressed with her own importance here, keeps repeating things endlessly, and is, I think, a little daffy----all of which makes her pretty impossible---and all of which I tried to play up to, but I guess I was a little out of practice. In any case, all the talk about this person and that has amounted to nothing. 
MR. T. KOMATSU, to whom we had a letter from Herbert Fleishacker, took us to a most delightful Japanese luncheon. He is one of the most important men in Tokyo, is head of the Asano Cement Co., which is a huge organization, and is on all sorts of committees. But again, I can report no success. As a matter of fact, I found out it is very gauche to discuss business unless you have been out with a man some ten or fifteen times. I'm afraid I should remain here for months under these circumstances. 
I have met and talked to several other people of some note here, as well as some people at the embassy who turned out to be classmates of mine whom I hadn't seen

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