Japan and China-Some Comparisons. National Geographic, February, 1901

Sometimes reading a really old article gives a person insights into the particular mindsets of people in the past.

The article starts off well enough by stating that :"The Japanese hold the position of being the most progressive people of which history gives any account."

Then things get rather, well, strange. The article refers to something called a "race smell". The author of the article asserts that the various races have their own smells.

"The race smells of several members of the human family are distinct enough to influence not only their neighbors, but the domesticated animals of other races. Witness the race smell of the North American Indian, sufficiently marked to be disagreeable to white nostrils."

It doesn't get any better."...the accidents of clothing, habits and environments are operative upon the race smell only as modifiers, increasing or decreasing that smell according to circumstances. Witness the strong race smell of the Negro, persisting in spite of the environments of ages of civilization."

The author, though, has no such negative things to say about the Japanese. He notes that"..the race smell of the Japanese is so slight as to be scarcely recognizable." He adds, though, that "...the Chinaman has the race smell so well developed as to be distinctly noticeable in any considerable assemblages."

The author, referring to Japan, states that "We are impressed with the national virility which can, after so many centuries of existence, voluntarily modify its system of government into sympathy with the ideas of today..." Writing about China, though, the author states that : "In China, on the other hand, but little of interest presents itself which is not a monument of a long-departed glory."He goes on to make other comparisons between the two countries, sometime favoring the Japanese and sometimes favoring the Chinese.

I've heard lots of ridiculous racial things said about people, but "race smell" is something I never heard anyone mention before. It's also interesting that the article is written only 36 years after the end of the Civil War and shows that, even in as prestigious a magazine as the National Geographic, racism still existed and could present itself under an umbrella of intellectual scholarship. The statements themselves go well beyond the realm of insulting and ridiculous. What's really frightening is that there are still people that believe such things even today.

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