LETTER: ALS from a female correspondent, "Vin," to her sister.
CORRESPONDENCE SCROLL
[Travel] Autograph letter signed, “Vin,” to her sister, “Dearest Peggie Weggie,” describing a four month long trip with her husband and sons to Hawaii and Asia from San Francisco in April, 1912.
16.5 feet x 7 inch scroll of Japanese paper constructed by joining 11 sheets of 17.5 x 7 inch paper; each individual sheet has a printed background of green hills and pink flowering trees; the text is in ink on rectos only.
The S.S. Tenyo Maru, a famous Japanese passenger liner, left San Francisco on April 24, 1912 and took the author of this early and unintended example of “mail art” – a letter of over three thousand words – on the first leg of her sojourn to Hawaii and Japan. From there she and her family traveled to Korea, China and the Philippines.
Vin describes Hawaii, Japan and Korea in a chatty and literate fashion, writing about people, costumes, religious and cultural practices. In Hawaii they visited several parts of the islands; she describes Hawaiian men on surf boards and supplies a diagram of a surf board. The Hawaiians were “fine looking people . . . They are very kind, forgiving, and affectionate in their natures . . .” She compares and contrasts Japanese and Koreans, whom she says were entirely different. In Hawaii and Japan she comments on how the local cultures are changing due to Western influences. She worries about eating uncooked eel in rice balls and other foods foreign to them. The letter ends as they are about to embark for Manila and “Vin” supplies an address for her sister for correspondence.
The duration of their trip was at least four months, and though “Vin” was a tourist and had tour guides, her husband, Arthur, and “the boys” were apparently also traveling for business. Twice she writes that they had been making money and that the trip was a financial success.
(#4658060)
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