Originally published as
Why Japan Was Strong
John Patric breaks the rule about journalists who write books. His book is indeed verbose and out of control, but his personality is so strong that it is worth the ride. He decided to visit Japan and China on a few cents a day, which he saved up by living in his car, while driving around selling rubber stamps and other such hobo like jobs. At several points he digresses into stories of American hobo life, but then says the reader must wait for his next book "Hobo Years", of which I can find no record. He also wrote "Repairmen Will Gyp You If You Don't Watch Out" as well as articles for National Geographic.
Patric was an early Libertarian, and is vehemently anti-government, anti-tax and pro-trade (also, weirdly, anti-zipcode!). This allows him to like the Japanese common man, despite the war, which could be blamed on the government. He travels all over, calling himself a "rumpin". Apparently "rumpin" is to "ronin" as Sancho Panza is to Don Quixote (though my Japanese dictionary just has "runpen" meaning "hobo"). He pokes his nose in when a Nazi girl visits the Japanese widow of a famous German doctor. He climbs Mt Fuji and Mt Komogatake. He goes to Matsushima, and hires the oldest boatman to show him around, later enjoying together a fresh caught octopus grilled on a remote beach. He has a small love affair with a maid at an inn in Nikko (there are a number of line-drawings, several of topless beauties, many of Japanese advertisements).
Later, he takes a steamer to Korea, where there are some ugly moments when he interferes with some Japanese police who nearly kill a small boy caught riding under the train. Manchuria is equally a grim experience. His stint in Peking is amusing, though. He makes friends with his rickshaw driver, and also hangs out with some marines who have a cheap refectory with coffee and hamburgers. He returns to Japan with just $2, spends a night in jail being interrogated, or perhaps just having a philosophical conversation. He finally gets back to San Franciso with 25 cents in his pocket.
I enjoyed this book. I wonder what ever happened to Patric's home at Frying Pan Creek, where he was trying to live off the land, and start a sort of commune. An unusual man.
Ron Harris wrote:
After re-reading John Patric's "A Yankee Hobo in the Orient", I was moved to Google the author. One of the most interesting hits was your review of his book, in which you wondered who Patric was and whatever happened to Frying Pan Creek.
I'm interested by Patric because he lived his last years in the small town of Snohomish, Washington (1967 population 4100), where I spent my junior-high and high-school days.
I never met Patric. He was a reclusive man whom everyone shunned as a weirdo. I often saw him, though, a raggedy old man with a flowing white beard, hiking the several miles between Snohomish and the nearest large town, Everett (pop. about 40 000). He always carried a walking stick in one hand and a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. In the bag were copies of "The Free Press" (I may be wrong on the title), a self-published newspaper which he distributed around the county. I don't remember ever reading a copy, but it no doubt expressed the same libertarian politics he put into "Yankee Hobo."
John's brother Bill ran a hardware store on the edge of town. It was a crumbling mess of ancient wood, iron junk, and every imaginable kind of hardware. Weathered hand-painted signs like "US out of the UN" and "Save our Salmon" were nailed to the storefront. Bill was notoriously crotchety and hard to deal with; "That old son of a bitch" was the way most locals described him. I don't know the nature of his relationship with John, just that they got along with each other and shared the same politics.
John himself lived in a decaying two-story one-time mansion overgrown with brush and hidden by a curtain of trees. Some time in the late 1960s the place caught fire and the top floor was burnt off. After that the house seemed deserted. However some said John still lived in the remains. Others said he'd moved to a small place outside town. The firemen said the house was so crammed with junk and garbage that it was a wonder any of it survived.
I left Snohomish in 1968. Twenty-some years later I went back to visit. By that time I'd discovered "Yankee Hobo," which I hadn't known about before. Bill's hardware store was still extant, but out of business. It seemed to have collapsed of old age and rot. Someone told me Bill lived in a tiny apartment somewhere in town, very old and very nasty. The city librarian, who was probably of Bill's generation, said John had died a few years back and no one missed him. I told her how I'd liked "Yankee Hobo," and thought it would have been interesting to meet the writer. She made a horrified face and told me John had always been "mean" and "awful," but that age had made him even worse. She actually considered him dangerous, though to whom or to what I don't know.
So while I can't tell you what became of Frying Pan Creek, I can at least tell you what happened to John. I hope this information interest you without being much, much more than you wanted to know. My compliments on your reviews and best of luck in the future.
I replied: Fascinating!
If this were a Disney story, of course you would have snooped his property, got caught in a hole in the front porch, and then found out that he had a heart of gold, learned a moral about life and saved his treasures from burglars.
As it was, perhaps he just got mad and unbearable.
Or not...I googled harder still, and found this strange stream-of-consciousness account of how local Snohomish cops beat him up and set his house on fire! It looks like it was written by Mark V Shaney, though.
Also somebody of the same name wrote for the National Geographic...
There is more of a story here, still!
Thanks for your reply to my e-mail. I read the stream-of-consciousness piece and wondered if I'd ever met the writer; his age and time in Snohomish seems to correspond to mine. However I'm reluctant to befriend anyone who gets from a police beating in 1957 to an auto transmission in the late 1980s without a single period.
John Patric's "National Geographic" pieces were condensed versions of material he later put into "Why Japan Was Strong." I may have one or two. It only now occurs to me that the article would have pictures of his travels.
By strange coincidence, the day after I received your letter my mother sent me a copy of the Snohomish paper with a reminiscence about the latter-day John. The author was an elderly minister with whom John felt a connection because both liked poetry, music, and other intellectual subjects. The minister received many letters and phone calls from Patric. I learned these interesting facts:
John's mother was one of the two librarians at Snohomish's library during the 1930s. John was the valedictorian of his high school class. His younger brother Bill was valedictorian of his own class. Patric is listed in a national database of political candidates, since he was constantly running for various state and local offices. At least once he received a couple of hundred votes; mostly he got less than fifty. And finally, the minister said that while everyone thought John was insane, Patric went to court (on his own behalf) and proved he was not. That would be some story.
There was also a photo of Patric from the 60s.
A fascinating fellow...
I replied: Thanks again, and two related tidbits: Patric in jail for electoral fraud (dismissed), and the pseudonym he used.
I add (much later): On EBay I bought a copy of the National Geographic magazine for April 1936, which has Patric's "Friendly Journeys in Japan" with 29 illustrations. The article content seems similar to that in the book, though toned down. The pictures have many different attributions, so are probably all stock and do not depict Patric's actual adventures (he surely had no money for film, anyway). Also, there were no "about the author" blurbs back then, so the purchase is a little disappointing, from the viewpoint of learning more about Patric.