William Plomer has such an interesting way of describing the things he has observed, that after having read the first few pages, I never suspected that this was a book I would struggle to finish. I loved his first two chapters in which he describes his journey to England in 1929 to begin what he refers to as a process of re-Westernization. He records fragments of his experience; small moments observed during the nine day train journey from Japan to Ostend, via Siberia, aware that he is glimpsing a fast-vanishing world that few will have the opportunity to witness again. Continued