THE JAPS AS JOKERS.
The Japanese are very polite people, but they sometimes like to play a joke in a roundabout Oriental way, upon tbe men of the West. In tbe days of the Second Kmpire, Baron Gros was sent to Japan to demand the opening of certain ports to French commerce. Among the rest he named to the Japanese Ministers a certain city. The Japanese functionaries smiled so broadly when he preferred the request that the French Ambassador asked them to tell him what gave them so much amusement; but, instead of. answering, the Japanese Ministers said
“We will open the port in question, my lord, if France in her turn will open a certain port to us.”
“ What port is that ?” asked the Frenchman.
‘‘The port of Liverpool.” ‘‘But your excellencies” (laughing), “ Liverpool is not a French port, but an English one.” “Yes,” answered the Japanese. “ Arrd the port you named is not in Japan, but in Korea.”
The French Ambassador was compelled to admit that the joke was against him.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19080721.2.29
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 413, 21 July 1908, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
173THE JAPS AS JOKERS. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 413, 21 July 1908, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in