Lazy Sunday reading: Japanese South Polar Expedition, 1911-2

In a lazy Sunday I was seating by the window to feel the breeze of winter in Hong Kong with a cup of English Breakfast tea and dark chocolate left from the Christmas.

I picked up something to read, or I should say just to occupy my attention and hands a bit to get along with a cosy afternoon.

Without any difficulty I found an interesting book catalogue in my bag (I love book catalogues!). In the next minute I was consumed by the Royal Geographical Journal catalogue of Henry Sotheran, the oldest antiquarian booksellers in England and the world since 1761.

An entry was intriguing to read and muse for quite a while. It was an article titled "The Japanese South Polar Expedition of 1911-1912" published in 1933.

I am a Chinese historian not Japanese but the expedition came no surprise to me. Having defeated China and Russia in only one decade between the nineteenth century and twentieth century, Japan became the most powerful country in Asia and was a rising power in the world stage. Japan was like China today.

In 1911, when the Chinese revolutionaries were trying to overthrow the Manchu rule in China, the Japanese explorers sailed outside Asian waters for scientific quest. Why Japanese scientists received the first Nobel prize in science in Asia? It explains it all.

The entry provide a brief note of the expedition:

"The 1911-1912 Antarctic Expedition under Nobu Shirase was the first Japanese expedition to the continent, and one of the first outside Asian waters. They sailed abroad the Kainan Maru, a vessel only 100 ft long. The party reached the ice on 26th February 1911, and explored the Ross Sea during their first season. They returned the following season to examine King Edward VII Land, although bad weather held back much of their work. At the Great Ice Barrier they encountered Roald Amundsen's Fram, waiting for the return of his South Pole party. They moved on to the Alexandra Range, before returning to Japan, having travelled a total of 27,000 miles. They hadn't reached the South Pole, their southernmost point being 80o05'S, but their scientific work was of immense importance."

Following Russia and U.S.A to land in the moon after nearly four decades, China is reckoned to join leading developed countries in scientific exploration. Perhaps we should stop a minute and hold our breath.

Over one hundred years after the Japanese expedition, a Chinese icebreaker lately went there to rescue a Russian research ship trapped in Antarctica. To the dismay of over a billion Chinese people the Chinese explorer joined his comrade and got stranded. Finally an American icebreaker came to help out. Ain't the American public through the Cold War happy to see this?