Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1918 — JAPAN AFTER OUR FAN TRADE [ARTICLE]

JAPAN AFTER OUR FAN TRADE

New Creations Open In Regular Shape, With Pictures Depicting Western Manners and Customs. Japan has been swift to profit by the fact that Europe Is not producing and selling to America all the things for which she has for centuries been Aimed. One of the commodities that she has been especially quick in sending us is a supply of fans of various sorts, notes a fashion critic. Real Japanese fans and Chinese fans, too, are charming, and really much more attractive than some of the later ones that she has so cleverly sent us. These new ones open in regular fan shape, and are printed or painted with scenes supposedly depicting Western manners and customs. No more wistaria and chrysanthemums, no more almond-eyed maidens in soft kimonos. No; these new, fans show supposedly American women. One fan shows two women sitting by a table in chairs. One of the'm is actually clad in a skirt and shirtwaist quite in the most Western fashion possible, and if one may judge by appearances, she is trying to run the Western world according to her own plans, for she is most domineering in appearance. But of course there are the lovely Japanese fans still to be found, unspoiled by any ideas of Westernism, but just the pretty, transplanted things they always have been.