Japanese Christmas card and photo

[Darren Lillington]

Hi,

I have a Christmas card and photo sent from a Japanese Army Corporal to a friend in Australia.

In case you can not clearly read what is written in the card because of picture clarity for instance, I have have typed it up for you-

2nd of Jan 1941.

After 2 years dispatch to manchuria, I returnd home last October.

I am still in the army and in good health. Hoping all of your family are in the same condition.

Yours sincerely-

Seiji Koshigaki.


What do you think?

Darren

[Adrian Stevenson]

Very interesting to see. To think that by the end of the year they would technically be enemies.....

Cheers, Ade.

[BOB COLEMAN]

The card is likelly a New Year's greeting. I can not make out the the picture on the front of the card but it is likely an animal of the Asian Zodiac for the year 1941. New Year's is the biggest holiday in Asian and the sending of cards wishing good luck in the New Year are very common.

[Darren Lillington]

I can assure you the card is in fact a christmas card.

The print on the front is a well known Japanese woodblock print from Edo period of travelers wearing straw hats going up a hill in the rain and is known as "travelers in the rain"

I know it is hard to make out but there are no animals, just travelers of either peasant or servant class sometimes known as Naota carrying what appears to be a kago (Palanquin) covered in a material or straw rain cover.