Comments are by far one of the best parts of blogging.  As one well-known blogger has said, “C’mon readers, I blog for comments!”  Even better than just a comment is one that adds a participatory note to a post. I have been extremely lucky lately with this, from photos of tansu at home for an upcoming post, to some wonderful research sent in by a reader on my most recent find – Mr. Yamamura’s suitcase.

Not content to rest with my inability to locate a Yamamoto Hotel in the Tientsin Concession in China, she took it upon herself to find a 1931 map of the area. If you click on it, you can see all the detail full-sized, including the Italian, Ex-Russian, French and Japanese Concessions and the way in which each neighborhood named their streets and landmarks in accordance with their own language.

Furthermore, she even managed to locate the Yamamoto Hotel on the corner of Naniwa and Hanzono Streets in the Japanese concession. I have put a tiny red dot there, but again, you can click the map to enlarge it. So we now know that the hotel existed at least by 1931.

My lovely reader has also looked into some of the smaller labels that I neglected to mention, including one that refers to a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn).

Her research reveals it to be the Onnuri Ryokan, not in China, but in Seoul, Korea. So it looks like Yamamura-san surely did a lot of traveling. Next on deck is to figure out who he was and who he worked for! In the meantime, my warmest thanks to Mary!

One Kings Lane has had some “vintage” suitcases in a Tastemaker Sale recently. Not sure of their bonafides though – looks like too many of the same stickers on multiple cases, don’t you think? No comparison to Yamamura’s either…

Image credits: 1 & 4. me, 2-3. via http://www.geocities.jp/keropero2000/china/tianjin06.html, 5-6. via One Kings Lane