JAPAN: Puppet Pageant

Showering her choicest honors on a beaming, bewildered Chinese last week.Dai Nippon or Great Japan asked in effect, “What have you got to have that I haven’t got to give?”

First the Nation’s guest had to have the Order of Merit (1st class) plus the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun with the gold & silver Medallion of the Rising Sun (with 31 rays) and the Imperial Paulownia Blossom, an affair of precious cloisonné. That was easy. Everything was easy in Tokyo last week for slightly rheumatic Guest Hsieh Kai-shih, snuff-taking Foreign Minister of Japan’s new puppet state Manchukuo.

With a name that sounds like a sneeze, Hsieh Kai-shih (pronounced sheh ky-shee) set gloriously out from Manchukuo’s capital fortnight ago, bedight in brand new robes of Chinese silk (TIME, Oct. 24). Hours before his train was due in Tokyo Japanese schoolmarms excused little boys and girls from classes, washed the children’s hands, stuck a clean Japanese flag into each chubby fist and let the moppets off in droves to shriek “Banzai! May you live 10,000 years!”

At the Tokyo railway station as Mr. Hsieh’s train coasted in, 13 masters of Japanese court ceremonies stood like statues behind alert, businesslike Foreign Minister Count Yasuya Uchida, representing the State, and rheumy-eyed old Minister of the Imperial Household Kitokuro Ichiki representing the ”Son of Heaven.” In his compartment on the train Manchuria’s big sneeze took a last pinch of snuff, wiped his nose and stepped splendidly forth upon the platform, followed by his suite of 15 Manchukuo undersecretaries all in brand new clothes paid for by Japan.

“My mission and my purpose,” said Mr. Hsieh, “is to convey the great thanks of my master. Regent Pu Yi, to the august Emperor of Japan for so swiftly conferring diplomatic recognition upon Manchukuo.”

Whisked away to the Royal Palace, happy Mr. Hsieh disappeared behind its frowning moat and was solemnly conducted to awesome Phoenix Hall. Being incombustible, or at least always able to rise from its own ashes, the mythical phoenix is the fiery symbol of Japan’s sun-begotten reigning house. Last week when the Son of Heaven actually appeared, Hsieh Kai-shih seemed so flabbergasted by the honor done him that Japanese courtiers had to nudge him at the right moments as he made his speech of thanks for recognition of Manchukuo, then received the dazzling Order of Merit, Grand Cordon, Medallion of the Rising Sun and the Imperial Paulownia Blossom.

For the whole week thereafter Japanese never ceased to fete the happy man from Manchukuo. As a special treat he was taken to a pond in the gardens of the Royal Palace, given a gun, permitted to shoot tame ducks.