DE ME HIS DEBTOR BEFORE IT
AIDED ME ANEW IN PLANNING AND EXECUTING MY ORIENTAL TOUR

{vii}

PREFACE

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong," as Mr.
Gilbert Chesterton begins one of his books by saying, has half its
members in Asia. That Americans should know something about so
considerable a portion of our human race is manifestly worth while.
And really to know them at all we must know them as they are to-day.

Vast changes are in progress, and even as I write this, the revolution
in China, foreshadowed in the chapters written by me from that
country, is remaking the political life of earth's oldest empire. From
Japan to India there is industrial, educational, political ferment.
The old order changes, yielding place to the new.

"Where Half the World is Waking Up" is not inappropriate therefore as
the title of the book now offered to the public. The reader will
kindly observe here that I have written of where half the world is
waking up and not merely of the waking-up itself. My purpose has been
to set forth the old and the new in due proportion; to present the
play of new forces against and upon the ancient, the amazingly
ancient, forces that have dominated whole races for centuries. In most
places, in fact, the ancient force is still clearly the dominant one.
Observe, too, therefore, that I have written not of where half the
world has waked up, but only of where it is waking up. The significant
thing is that the waking is really taking place at all, and of this
there can be no doubt.

It was, in short, with the hope of securing for myself and presenting
to others a photograph of the Orient as it is to-day that I made my
long trip through Japan, Korea, Manchuria, {viii} China, the
Philippines, and India during the past year. It was not a pleasure
trip nor yet a hurried "seaport trip." I travelled either entirely
across or well into the interior of each country visited, and all my
time was given to study and research to fit me for the preparation of
these articles.

That despite of the care exercised the book contains some errors, is
doubtless true. The sources of information in the Orient are not
always easy to find, nor always in accord after one finds them.
Consider, for example, the population of Manchuria: it seems a simple
enough matter, yet it required the help of consuls of two or three
nations to enable me to sift out the truth from the conflicting
representations of several wr