Lili Körber’s Travel Reports from the Far East China and Japan in the Eyes of an Emancipated Woman

Abstract

Körber’s (1932) accounts from the 1930s—namely Eine Frau erlebt den roten Alltag, Begegnungen im Fernen Osten (1934), and Sato-San, ein japanischer Held (1936)—address social, political, and cultural aspects of her travels to Russia, Japan, and China in a striking, vivid manner. Körber highlights differences from European culture while simultaneously emphasizing the distinctiveness of an autonomous past rich in cultural heritage within the countries she visited. She acknowledges the societal and industrial efforts to align with the Western process of modernization. All these observations enable Körber to establish an intercultural, comparative vision of the Far East—one in which her own political stance and convictions, her perspective as a woman, and her Jewish-European background as an anti-fascist exile remain constantly visible.