Aloha Wanderwell

NINE

DO SVIDANIYA, TOVARISCH

By July 1924, Aloha and Walter had sailed south through the Bay of Bengal and into the Andaman Sea. They stopped on the island of Penang, just off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula and spent days sightseeing and sampling the island’s stinky pickled eggs, papaya, and purple mangosteens. Aloha was enthralled: “I should love to live in Penang.”1 There wasn’t much time to dally, however. If they were to get to America that year, they would have to make it to Japan before winter set in.

The sting of leaving Penang was soothed by the trip south along the peninsula and their arrival at the rarefied luxury of Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, a colonial, fin de siècle exercise in exoticism and indulgence. Named after the founder of Singapore, the hotel was palatial, with high white columned walls, coffered ceilings, an opulent ballroom, and the most famous long bar in all Asia — where, legend has it, the last wild tiger in Singapore was shot (hiding under a table) and the Singapore sling cocktail was invented.

Walter told Aloha to enjoy Singapore’s luxuries. China was next and he’d been warned that trying to cross China by car was absurd. What roads there were outside the cities and towns were virtually impassable. To quell his worries, Walter redoubled his promotional efforts. Within days, the Wanderwell cars were tattooed with company logos including Asiatic Oil, Ford, Agfa (again), and even the Bake Rite Bakery and Walk-Over-Shoe Company.2

Mail was waiting at Singapore’s central post office, including a letter from Unit N^o I. Walter’s wife Nell was still in the United States and informed Walter that she planned to stay in the US as long as it took to earn the money required to pay for the “endurance countries.” Aloha and Walter were appalled. A more anodyne letter came from Jarocki, who had made his way back to England. He was staying at the Seaman’s Institute in London but said that he would soon be setting out again and could perhaps join them in Asia, “ocean is large — rendezvous is possible.”3

While Walter looked after advertising arrangements, Aloha approached the local theatre tycoon, “Singapore” Joe Fisher. Like Madan in India, Fisher enjoyed a virtual monopoly of theatres in Singapore and could offer the Wanderwell Expedition excellent terms and promotion. He was intrigued by Aloha’s brimming self-confidence, not to mention her tight pants, while she, in turn, was impressed by the Englishman’s breezy, devil-may-care attitude and his occasionally ribald sense of humour. One evening he suggested Walter find himself a “Dutch nurse for the sultry Singapore nights.” Eventually, he explained that a “Dutch nurse” is the local euphemism for “a bolster to separate one’s legs for a cooler sleep.”4

After their Singapore run, the tour continued to Hong Kong and then on to Shanghai, where they docked at the mouth of the Yangtze River. While cargo was unloaded, Aloha and Walter sped to the central post office. There, a short clerk with oiled black hair and a starched white shirt stood shaking his head, chanting no, no, no, no. “There had been (mail), it seemed, but where the letters had gone to no one seemed to know.” Aloha began to panic. Somehow, being beyond the reach of letters from home left her feeling deeply homesick. “All my grown-up self-sufficiency seemed to disappear.”5

Back at the harbour, the cars had been cleared, but officials would not allow the rifles and ammunition — once again because the paperwork from Singapore had not been completed on the updated version of the appropriate form. Aloha was furious. “Embassies and consulates seem to want to move heaven and earth so that they may find a certain tint of paper on which to write a certain type of note; and then, maybe, the ink does not match.” But just when things looked most dire, a visit to the British consulate turned things around. The consul was “a big, friendly man” accustomed to dealing with Chinese officialdom. “He calmed us down and, glory of glories, our mail was at the consular offices. Then he called his wife and she made a tea party for me and the newspaper men came in.”6 As had happened elsewhere, enthusiastic press coverage, combined with impressive corporate sponsorship, worked its transforming magic: obstinate bureaucrats became gracious hosts and the Wanderwell Expedition was permitted to enter China, guns and all.

Despite the success, Aloha was depressed. Interminable bureaucracy and the tedium of secretarial work and promotional negotiations made her wonder what she was doing. Why had she come to China and why was everything so backwards, so primitive, so foreign?

A little culture shock was inevitable, perhaps, but it was unfortunate that it should happen in Shanghai, because the city was exactly the kind of vital, careening city that Aloha had pined for in Nice and Geneva — “an exotic stew of Jewish opium traders, Chinese compradors and Viennese dancing girls.”7 When Aldous Huxley arrived on the scene shortly after Aloha, he was similarly wowed by the city’s intense character. “In no city, West and East, have I ever had such an impression of dense, rank, richly clotted life.”8

But Aloha could not enjoy it. Of the city she noted only the “noisy, narrow streets, over-crowded with smiling Chinese, slinking along single file.” Even the glamorous aspects of expedition life had, for the moment, lost their attraction. She lamented the “endless society dances that keep the younger generation out of bed until the hour of dawn and at which there are always a scarcity of girls.”⁹

They arrived in Tientsin (now Tianjin) in August, nearly one month after leaving India. Like Shanghai, Tientsin contained European “concessions” or trading areas administered by various European powers. Each concession contained its own prison, school, barracks, and hospital. Traders living in their concession were subject to their own national laws and made the city a kind of administrative Epcot Center. Tientsin’s buildings were a blend of Chinese, British, French, Austrian, German, Belgian, Japanese, and Russian, but like any trade centre, the city’s primary feature was its customs agents.

We resorted to a routine device — a statement from someone of status, viz. “To Whom it May Concern: On this date Captain Wanderwell called on me. He states that . . . (whatever the impasse) . . . is essential to his progress toward . . . .” This pompous declaration [is] followed by status signature and STAMP. British consuls are excellent at this open sesame — spoken of as bumf . . . . In our jargon, we referred to these letters as “This is to certify what has been certified is certified.”10

Aloha’s mood recovered and she spent three days lecturing while Walter restocked supplies from various corporate sponsors: film, gasoline, and “longer tow lines.” She was beginning to look forward to a triumphant arrival in America.

On their second day, Walter burst into her hotel room and announced that he had “just seen a real humdinger! Going down the main stem — she came spinning past in a rickshaw. You should’ve seen those silk gams stretched out behind that coolie. I want you to meet her — wanna see if you like her. Think she’d be great stuff. She’s Latvian, speaks Mandarin, and Russian!” Aloha closed the book in which she’d been writing and began to laugh. “Cap was of that dashing breed; his enthusiasm genuine, dazzled by his own capacity for zest: a good audience, an open road, fine music, a new theory; encountering an unusual female.” She agreed to meet the humdinger and quite agreed with Walter. “With or without the reclining rickshaw, the silk clad legs were perfection.”¹¹ They made arrangements to meet the girl in Peiping (now Beijing), where she would officially join the tour under the name “Olga Tomska.”

The local car sales agency sponsoring them insisted that the Wanderwell Expedition make use of their own guide, a husky, square-jawed fellow named Jurov who had, the previous season, made his own trip via motorcycle over “what was jokingly called ‘the Way to Peiping.’”12 He was to accompany them through rural China, leaving the expedition just short of Peiping.

So they set out with Jurov, a Russian national who turned out to be “the best piece of advice given us in China,” and not just because he spoke several Chinese dialects.13 The road north was a series of connected mud pits, so to escape the boggy landscape, Jurov directed the cars to drive atop ancient irrigation dykes where the ground was dry, though even here the going was slow. Chinese peasants believed that an auspicious burial site would bring prosperity to succeeding generations, and a raised area was considered especially propitious so the dykes were laden with cemeteries. “At places we had difficulty in passing, for some of the coffins lay open to the weather, and the skeleton was to be seen inside.”14

The cars became stuck regularly on the muddy slopes and Jurov would hail labourers from nearby paddies to assist. It was Aloha’s first close interaction with the rural Chinese and she found them “to a man handsome in their friendly expression.” The experience marked a widening of her worldview and a softening of her sympathies. Once, she fetched a box of chocolates from her car and offered them to the labourers, many of them children. No one stepped forward. Jurov attempted to explain what the chocolate was, but still no one would accept. Aloha grasped one mud-smeared boy by the ear and shoved a chocolate between his teeth. “Momentary terror struck, then glee.” Instantly, the others held out their hands.

Aloha enjoyed people she encountered, but she was shocked by what she called “the horror of their emaciation,” recounting “signs of indescribable suffering, patient endurance,” before deciding that the Chinese land could yield “but mere existence.”15

The expedition finally arrived at the gates of Peiping. Aloha recalled making a bet with Walter in Paris that she would be the first to pass through the city gates.16 When their entrance was blocked by soldiers whose faces bore a “half asleep expression,” they relied again on old tricks. Aloha smiled and offered pamphlets (to no effect) while Walter leapt from his car and strode imperiously towards the soldiers, saluting and pointing forward, shouting the name Wu Peifu, the general of the Zhili clique who, in 1924, controlled the city and its surrounding territory. When the soldiers parted, Aloha hit the gas and rolled through. The stunt caused just enough confusion for Walter to jump back into N^o II and follow her though. Aloha had won the bet.

The largest city in China, Peiping did not exactly live up to its nickname, “Paris of the East.” Poor sanitation meant frequent epidemics, including the plague, smallpox, and scarlet fever. The biggest killer, however, was pneumonia, made worse by the Gobi Desert dust storms that sliced through the city several times a year. One American soldier stationed there recalled that being caught in these storms meant that “every breath you took was like inhaling shards of glass.”17

Despite the dust and dangers, however, Aloha wrote glowingly about the city.

Peiping was swarming with humanity: rickshaw coolies; men and women and children; caravans of Mongolians with camels coming in from the Gobi desert; and everywhere soldiers — mercenaries, we were told. Yet this center of China got me by the heart strings. I do not know why, more than do many others who, once they live in China, do not wish to leave . . . maybe to the Occidental it is the pull of centuries piled one on top of the other which constitutes the fascination.¹⁸

Aloha was an instant celebrity, snatching headlines and winning invitations from the local elite, thanks in part to the city’s embrace of motor racing. The Wanderwell Expedition was part of what had become a tradition of endurance races from Paris to Peiping (and vice versa) that began with a challenge issued by the French newspaper Le Matin in January 1907. The route was first successfully driven by an Italian team, finishing in August 1907, and by 1924 numerous cars had completed the drive between the two capitals — through the Gobi Desert and across Siberia to Moscow, then through Europe to Paris. As yet, none had come overland from India, and certainly not with a seventeen-year-old girl behind the wheel.

Aloha gave lectures in schools and theatres around the city and soon befriended two daughters of the former Chinese ambassador to Belgium. The girls loved to speak French, and Aloha was thrilled to have female guides through the city. Walter, meanwhile, was busy planning the trip through newly Soviet Russia. Mukden (now known as Shenyang), in the northern province of Manchuria, was the last station where they might secure a visa, but there was war in the area and success was far from certain. The problem was solved when an embassy clerk mentioned that a high-ranking member of the Russian foreign office, Lev Karakhan, was in Peiping, and they succeeded in getting their visas there.

As promised, Olga Tomska arrived on the scene and was fitted with a Wanderwell uniform. A white Russian, she was once the wife of a tsarist officer, and after her husband’s death she was sent to a concentration camp with hundreds of other widows. “Olga’s infant son died . . . (and she told me) that she had bought indulgences with her body from a Commandant who had visited the starving creatures in the camp, and so had managed an escape to China.”19

At the close of an afternoon lecture, Aloha was surprised by the arrival of a former Wanderwell crew member. Not Jarocki, as they had expected, but Benno, the lisping German who had been scouting the world for a potential Jewish homeland. Dishevelled and awkward as ever, his face was, nonetheless, “bright with Glaube dem Leben.” Photographs show him with Walter, Aloha, and the cars in front of the imperial palace. His presence also explains why there are suddenly more photographs showing Walter and Aloha. As Aloha put it, “He’ll carry the camera gear instead of me!”20

With two new assistants, they motored north to where the monotonous dusty plains erupted into dramatic vistas of steep mountain slopes and deep green forest. Then came a valley bisected by a massive, sand-coloured structure, more like a raised single-track road than a wall, which snaked over the body of land like the spine of some sleeping giant. At Kalgan (now known as Zhangjiakou), they drove the cars onto the Great Wall of China. Spectacular film footage shows Aloha behind the wheel of N^o III, crawling slowly up a steep portion, ascending towards the camera. In the bottom of the frame we can see Walter’s long shadow, furiously cranking the camera arm.

Peiping’s English-language daily, the North China Star, ran a retrospective of the Wanderwell visit and wished them Godspeed to Russia. One column over, a dispatch from Shanhaiguan (where the expedition was headed) reported infantry attacks and the arrival of Italian-trained Chinese aviators. Foreigners were fleeing. The region’s warlord, Chang Tso-lin (Zhang Zuolin), had recently declared Manchuria independent and, in co-operation with Japan, asserted control over the area. Just as the Wanderwell Expedition was about to set out, Chang launched an attack on northern China in what turned out to be the start of the Second Zhili-Fengtian War. “American and British gunboats were steaming into Tientsin to evacuate nationals, and in Peiping the exodus toward Nanking was foreshadowed. On our last afternoon in Peiping, I went to a temple and paid homage to a marble god of war. I thought I ought to.”21

Although Aloha had not yet seen war, she had no romantic ideas about it. Armed conflict had snatched her stepfather. She had seen the fields of endless white crosses. She had dropped coins into the hats of mangled veterans begging in the train stations of Europe. And if she held hope that Chinese war might be less vicious, she would have been corrected by the “supposedly illegal” postcards given to her in Peiping depicting the methods of justice applied in the north: a decapitation by cutlass, captured mid-swing, blood shooting from the neck;²² a “flatbed wagon (with) fifteen or more bodies flopped crosswise . . . the arms still lashed to the frame from which they must have hung. All tortured, horrendously mutilated, dripping.”²³ The images came from towns along their intended route. While Aloha “hoped the pictures were very out of date,” the grim news was enough to make Benno reconsider. He would, he decided, find his own way across the Pacific. Olga, though, would not be deterred. She was determined to get to Shenyang, no matter the dangers. Aloha made it clear from the outset that she was the senior member on the expedition. “We exchanged a firm hand-shake contracting our alliance. . . . What becomes yours is yours . . . what is mine is mine.”24 Undoubtedly, Aloha was referring to Walter.

A memorandum from the Asiatic Petroleum Company suggests that the Wanderwell Expedition did not proceed north by car but, instead, covered the more than 400 miles along the Mukden railroad by train.

Dear Captain Wanderwell,

I hear your train does not leave before 11 a.m. so I am sending you a letter addressed to our Chinese agent at Mukden, who will deliver your requirements free. In case you go by road from Mukden you can obtain supplies at [several names given] from our Chinese agents. Just ask for the “Ya His Ya Ho You Kungsze.”25

The letter seems to contradict Aloha’s claim that she drove the distance, though it is possible that the note, dated September 20, 1924, was referring only to the supplies the expedition was shipping ahead, as they had done throughout India. Still, it was a dangerous journey. Within three days, the area north of Peiping was ruled by Chang Tso-lin. His forces, known as the Fengtien Army, were engaged in pitched battles with the Zhili soldiers of Peiping warlord General Wu Peifu.26 There were high casualties on both sides and especially to the local civilians. After reaching the local train depot, the expedition needed to cross a no-man’s land into the state of Manchuria proper. Aloha and Walter were soon taking photographs gruesome enough to rival the postcards purchased in Peiping. “Bodies lay sprawled on the ground in advanced stages of putrefaction and the stench nauseated us.” One photograph shows a peasant woman face down at the edge of a field. Her hat and basket rest neatly beside her. When Aloha asked Walter what he thought might have killed “the bodies which (lay) apparently unmutilated,” he responded laconically, “‘Gas . . . or small arms fire’ . . . but Cap did not want to talk of what he had seen.”²⁷

In Shenyang, their cars were halted by Fengtien soldiers. “The men were quite polite but they rode in the car with us and directed our progress.” Unsure whether they were being escorted or arrested, they drove to a sprawling European-style house, where they were presented to an imposing Englishman. “He wore khaki shorts, a neat white shirt, and a pale blue sleeveless pull-over sweater. The right sleeve of his shirt hung limp and empty at his side.” Their host introduced himself as Sutton and told them he was “sort of running the show.” The introduction was hardly necessary since everyone already knew who he was.

I stared at General Sutton open-mouthed, frankly full of curiosity. This was the famed — or notorious — General Sutton, depending on how one cared to consider those things . . . . Stories about him were fabulous; he was accused of inciting the Chinese Civil War, some said he was Chang Tso Lin’s right-hand man, and others said he controlled an arsenal in Mukden. I knew him as a most charming and generous host.28

English born in 1884, Sutton was an engineer who built railways in Argentina and in Mexico prior to the First World War. He lost his right arm at the Battle of Gallipoli (and came to be nicknamed “One-Arm” Sutton). An inventor, adventurer, and relentless fortune seeker, Sutton had obtained rights to the manufacture of the Stokes mortar in North America and the Far East. After initially offering his services to Wu Peifu, Sutton struck a deal with Chang Tso-lin to produce 600 mortars and 60,000 projectiles for the staggering sum of US $125,000 (now equivalent to roughly US $1.7 million). Before long, he was in charge of the Mukden Stokes Mortar and Ammunition Factory, producing 200,000 rounds of ammunition per day, along with rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, and various customized versions of the Stokes mortar, including a gun that threw an eight-pound shell and could easily be disassembled for transport.29 Though undoubtedly a dangerous man (with a reputation for moodiness and eccentricity), Aloha was thrilled to be under his protection. “General Sutton relieved our anxiety, and I had infinite faith in this ex-officer of the British Army. Sutton put them up in his rambling house and asked them to show their films at the Mukden Foreign Club.

Inevitably, Walter spoke to Sutton about his idea for an international police. He had hardly mouthed the words “League of Nations” before Sutton guffawed. Walter pressed on, asking Sutton what he thought of an “all nations fire department to extinguish wars before the conflagration.”30 Sutton’s response was characteristically circumspect. On the one hand he applauded Wanderwell’s enthusiastic efforts to “put us sons of bitches out of work.” On the other hand, he offered the expedition custom-made pistol belts and a tour of the arsenal and proving ground. Film and photographs show Aloha and Olga in leather helmets, loading Stokes mortars and then covering their ears against the noise. Sutton was a good host but “somewhere was the warning: Don’t overdo your stay and don’t brag about the arsenal.”31

The expedition spent nearly a month in Shenyang, securing a treasure trove of film and lolling among the luxuries offered by the well-paid general. Sutton himself would stay in China long enough to see his benefactor defeat Wu Peifu and conquer almost all of China, thanks largely to an enormous arsenal of Sutton-enhanced Stokes mortars. By mid-September martial law had been declared in Shanghai, and cars (private and foreign) were being requisitioned to the war effort.32 In the north, the expedition not only enjoyed the protection of a warlord’s chief of staff but also were guaranteed safe passage and the continued use of their car.

By the time they were moving again it was late October and temperatures were plummeting. Aloha’s monkey, Kim, was miserable and mangy looking. He often tried to crawl inside Aloha’s Polish jacket for warmth but spent most of the 300-mile journey north shivering in the little sweater Aloha had knitted for him.

They arrived in Harbin near dark. A light snow was falling and the rail yards seemed deserted. Olga and Walter set out to find accommodations while Aloha waited with the cars, still loaded on the train gondola. Since Aloha spoke neither Russian nor Chinese, it only made sense that Olga should be the one to accompany Walter into town. But Aloha was far from happy. “Besides being cold, hungry, I was seething because HE has taken HER off to town ‘to make arrangements.’”33 With echoes of van der Ray, it’s clear Aloha did not trust Walter and Olga to return without first testing the bedsprings.

As the expedition readied itself for the final 300-mile push to Vladivostok in Russia, Olga announced that she would be staying behind. Aloha provides two versions of Olga’s departure. In the first, she boarded a train back to Mukden, presumably to pursue whatever mission had brought her north from Shanghai. In the second, Olga was offered a job by a member of the European colony and would stay in Harbin. Both accounts agree, however, that Aloha was sad to see her go, describing her as charming, engaging, and “a wonderful sidekick.” Her suspicions about Olga and Walter were either forgotten or forgiven.

The expedition headed southeast towards Vladivostok. They stayed close to the local railway line, the Chinese Eastern Railway. Walter had received assurances from “the railway’s General Manager, Mr. Ostroumoff, that the weekly freight to the border was guarded by an armoured car and would stop at our signal for help.”34 The line was also regularly patrolled and this, together with the goodwill of local military forces (secured through “patronage” payments to Chang Tso-lin’s forces), made the trip through the rugged landscape of eastern Manchuria less dangerous than it might have been. Aloha was glad to be behind the wheel again, although she found the landscape dreary and the bugs relentless. She was also lonely without Olga and depressed by the area’s intense poverty.

Once we boarded a ferry and small boys punted us to the further side. We ate eggs, the muddy water stank, and chunks of thin ice floated in it . . . . Cap broke the shell of an egg and a boiled chicken popped to view. Cap was awfully sick, but the hunger-ridden eyes of our ferry lads begged for the boiled dreadfulness, so we bestowed largesse of all the eggs we had left.35

At Grodekovo, the Russian border guards were stiff and formal, though Aloha smiled to notice that their black uniform shirts were trimmed with pink. Walter’s Russian was rudimentary and rusty and soon he and Aloha were reduced to flamboyant arm gestures, punctuated by shouts of "Tovarisch!" (comrade). For good measure they threw in some enthusiastic nodding and a generous helping of, “Ok, ok!” It was enough. Guards directed them to a timber cabin that served as the customs house. “We had no trouble; I took out the Soviet courtesy flags we carried 36 and put them up beside the Stars and Stripes which looked incongruous. This no doubt this was a breach of diplomatic etiquette, for our country did not then recognize the Soviet government.”³⁷

If Soviet Russia had welcomed the Wanderwell Expedition, the weather did not. “Cap bought me a pair of fur mittens to wear over my woollen gloves” but “there was an almost continuous sleet that cut my face and burned like fire.”38 The upside to these trials, however, were the stops in the fire-warmed inns along the way, where grandmothers delivered fresh loaves of black bread, soup, eggs, and sour cream. Food had never tasted so good.

Vladivostok was only 100 miles from the border at Grodekovo but it took Walter and Aloha two days of slow progress over rolling, barren landscape before they glimpsed the coastal town. There wasn’t much to see. Founded in 1880, Vladivostok’s real growth had only happened since 1903, when the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed. Streets were largely empty, save for a few wandering naval officers. Without an interpreter or guide, Aloha and Walter managed to find their pre-arranged lodgings at the improbably named Hotel Versailles.39

Aloha is made an honorary colonel in the Nihinsky Regiment of the Soviet Army, Vladivostok, USSR, 1924.

David Abramovich Zimmerman was the pre-revolutionary director of Vladivostok’s harbour facilities and had owned stakes in numerous regional enterprises, from ships to salt to gold to grain. “The Bolsheviks had so far spared his life because no other port expert was available.” Over supper at their dilapidated lodgings, the Zimmermans pressed Aloha and Walter for news. “Chère Mademoiselle, believe me, we are overjoyed to have you among us. Tell us of beloved Paris . . . Nice.”40

Aloha relished the luxuries the Zimmermans were able to offer, and Walter was grateful for their insights into Vladivostok’s geography and politics, learning where to go, where not to go, and even arranging for a French-trained hairdresser to cut Aloha’s hair. As helpful as the Zimmermans were, however, associating with them was not without its dangers. Walter and Aloha soon became aware that street police had begun watching them. Walter responded by paying a visit to the local police commissar and handing out souvenirs to officers they met.

One afternoon when Aloha was in her room at the hotel and Walter was out attending to business, a “soldier entered, saluted and began shouting — assuming, as usual, that shouting would make his message understood.” He handed her a letter stamped with a hammer and sickle and indicated that she should follow him, making a steering motion with his arms. Once in N^o III, he directed her in a familiar direction. “Good Lord! We were heading for the execution grounds!” When they arrived Aloha saw an entire regiment lined up, together with a brass band. The soldier motioned for her to get out of the car. “My knees were weak as a short dark officer stepped from the line.” He addressed her in Russian, then switched to German, which Aloha could at least understand. The officer announced that while the Third Nihinsky Regiment could not yet organize an official reception for such important visitors, they wished to “accolade you for being the first Demoiselle to pilot a motorcar to Siberia. We wish to present to you the title Honorary Oberst (colonel) . . . [My] knees were ready to collapse. I glimpsed N^o II racing up.” Cap leapt from the car and set up the camera and tripod. What followed were long scenes of Russian soldiers marching past the camera, occasionally pulling crooked faces, followed by the brass band, several “very small boys and two dogs.” The scene would become a staple in the Wanderwell film shows for years, amazing “prejudiced global audiences with the whimsy display.”41

Aloha’s precious gold Russian cuff, presented to her in Vladivostok, USSR, in 1924. In 2001 the bracelet was valued by PBS’s Antiques Roadshow as being worth at least $20,000.

October 13, 1924, was Aloha’s eighteenth birthday. She spent a quiet morning in her hotel room, writing in her diary, and worrying that despite her many experiences she was growing old before she had accomplished anything remarkable.

That night, the Zimmermans threw a farewell dinner for the Wanderwells and did their best to cheer up Aloha. They extended their sympathies on the occasion of her birthday, “not for the accomplishment, ‘but because you are so young and so far from home, child.’” After dinner, Mrs. Zimmerman announced that they had a little memento for Aloha on the occasion of her visit and her birthday. “From a basement cache of their once handsome heirloom collection, they brought a priceless slave bracelet wrought generations ago of gold from their Arctic trading. Mine to wear forever.” Aloha was dumbfounded and attempted to refuse, but Mrs. Zimmerman insisted, saying, “We exist only at their (the Bolsheviks [sic]) pleasure.”42 If discovered, such extravagances would surely have been confiscated and she preferred that the bracelet should find a new life in the distant world that she herself would probably never see. The imposing clasp-style bracelet was over two inches wide, cast of solid eighteen karat gold with various Asian motifs, including birds, flowers, and bamboo. It became a staple of Aloha’s professional attire.

Aloha described her last glimpse of Vladivostok as “the sad panorama of a ghost city wrapped in its winding sheet of driving snow.”⁴³ Bureaucratic nonsense had almost left them stranded in Russia but some last-minute forgeries had gotten them safely on board the Holland China Company cargo ship. After a stormy two-day crossing to Tsuruga Bay, they were made to wait by white-gloved Japanese officials who interrogated them, suspicious especially of their time in Siberia. They would not be allowed to land and would be required to wait on board while official permission was sought.

Japan in 1924 was suspicious of its neighbours. The current emperor, Yoshihito, was mentally ill. As a result, his son, the future emperor Hirohito, was made Prince Regent in November 1921, ushering in an era of rapid militarization. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, foreign visitors were greeted with intense scepticism. After three days of waiting, permission arrived.

Free at last, Aloha and Walter found travelling in Japan was easier than in China or Siberia, with fine weather and a wider availability of gasoline. They also enjoyed a string of happy coincidences that made their stay easier. During a fuel stop on the second day, they were astonished to meet a “man in a brown kimono, taller than usual Japanese” offering his hand, Western style. “Have you folks really come all the way from the States as your sign says?” he asked. “I was born in Nevada.”44 He explained that his elderly father had been repatriated following the Asian Exclusion Act, so he followed along. He invited them to his home for refreshments, their first experience of a genuine Japanese home and a tea ceremony.

Their luck held in Kobe, where their barely functioning cars were over-hauled by the Sale & Frazar Company, importers for several makes of American automobiles. The representative, whom Aloha called variously G.F. Drummond or MacDonald, was eager to impress them, though it’s unlikely they knew why. Following the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 that had wiped out the city’s tram lines, the city had placed a massive order for one thousand Ford truck chassis. As Ford’s sole importer, Sale & Frazar was eager to make sure their client was happy, and as far as they were concerned the Wanderwell Expedition were emissaries of Ford himself. Walter and Aloha stayed at Drummond’s elaborate home, where Aloha’s first indulgence, as always, was to take a bath. “Ecstatically I hummed, ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina . . . .’” The next morning Aloha discovered she had committed a cultural blunder. In Japan people did not immerse themselves but stood on a bamboo grate and poured the water over their heads with a ladle. By jumping in and then draining the tub after her bath, Aloha had “deprived the household of their nightly tub soak — the compliment of ‘first water’ had been paid me.”45

In Osaka they were booked for a week of engagements at a theatre on the Dōtonbori, Osaka’s famous avenue of theatres. The manager, a tall man in gold-rimmed spectacles, observed that the daily commute could be tiring — hotels were far away and the streets narrow and congested. Why not sleep on the theatre’s rooftop? When Walter and Aloha went to take a look, they found that “atop the fifth floor of the theatre . . . was a magical landscape.” There was a bedroom with sliding glass doors, which “revealed a perfect miniature pond rimmed by mountains, bonsai pine and maple forest.”46 There was even a cascading brook. Dōtonbori was a former pleasure district, which could explain such accommodations, but it made for a memorable stay.

For Aloha, who had arrived in Japan once again exhausted and depressed, the country was more than she’d hoped for. She found the culture familiar enough to be comfortable and foreign enough to remain exotic. The people were friendly and refreshingly polite, but most importantly they were enthusiastic about the expedition — Walter could not print their souvenir pamphlets and postcards fast enough.

The enthusiastic mood was shared by distant sponsoring companies.

The agent for the Berlin Anilin & Company called, enthusiastic over their office reports from Shanghai, ready with 3000 [feet of] negative and 3000 positive, which meant we could print North China and Siberia immediately (and) have footage to shoot Japan and Hawaii.47

By the time they reached Kyoto, newspapers were flooded with stories about the American adventurers, including a near-death experience. While crossing a wooden bridge at the city’s outskirts, something went badly awry. An article in the Japan Times and Mail described how “Miss Wanderwell’s car skidded through a railing and hung within inches of plunging her to her death.”48 Photographs show that the article was not exaggerating, though they also reveal an interesting detail not mentioned by Aloha or the newspapers: it was N^o II that hung at the precipice. Either Aloha and Walter had traded cars or it was Walter who drove his car through the bridge railing — and if that’s the case, it sheds light on what was considered “good PR optics” and whose reputation most needed protecting. Walter could not risk appearing inept. Events in Geneva and elsewhere (as Aloha would soon discover) had already done enough damage to his image.

No shows were scheduled for Kyoto. Instead they visited temples and took footage, much as they’d done in Benares. “Our cameras were out filming the people at art centres, exquisite parks, palaces. I had longed to see the Goddess of Mercy Temple, one thousand and one hand-carved gilded statues, and to know their admirers.” Both Aloha and Walter were increasingly attracted to the quiet beauty of the Buddhist religious expression they’d seen throughout Asia. At the Higashi Honganji Temple Aloha stood alongside other worshippers, each waiting to pull a hemp cord that tolled an enormous bell. “I touched softly too, thrilled to its deep vibration.”49 For Aloha, this was what travel was all about: sharing meaningful experiences with people of other cultures.

Expedition Unit N^o II loses traction and almost goes off a rickety bridge near Kyoto, Japan, 1924.

While in Kyoto Walter and Aloha heard that the Prince Regent Hirohito was about to pass by their restaurant. Walter decided to film the prince’s passage from a porch overlooking the hotel entrance. “A black limousine pulled to the steps, (an) equerry stepped out holding the door for H.I.H. Regent Emperor Hirohito [sic]. Cap cranking, the Regent mounted the landing. Cap and I saluted. In natural reflex, His Imperial Highness INCLINED HIS HOMBURG TO US and with a vague smile, vanished.”50 They soon discovered that it was considered lèse-majesté to view royalty from an elevated position, punishable by imprisonment or worse. However, because the Prince Regent had positively acknowledged their presence with a tip of his hat, it was as good as a Royal Warrant.⁵¹

Aloha and Walter in Japan, 1924.

On arriving in Tokyo they were engulfed by flashbulbs and the shouted questions of journalists. A single tip of the hat, it turned out, had sparked national attention. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know the Wanderwell story. In most cities, they tried to reserve their epic tales until endorsements had been signed, but “there was no way to escape [or] to save it for the hotel boost.” A letter from Henry Ford’s right-hand man, E.G. Liebold, was waiting for them at the Tokyo post office, telling them that Mr. Ford would be pleased to accept “the first Ford car which had encircled the world,” adding that “I assume that you will wish to present the same to him for exhibition in the Museum, without any restrictions or conditions.”52 Walter was thrilled. This would ensure them a permanent place in American history and increase the credibility of the entire Wanderwell enterprise.

After so much attention, sponsorship was easy. They stayed at Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), where they were treated to a publicity dinner. Later, Aloha strolled into the Nippon Theatre, then one of Tokyo’s foremost venues. Standing in the manager’s office, “He and I looked out below on the crowded car. I said jubilantly, ‘We can give you five days, Mr. Ohta, two performances each. The fee is $1,000 US.”53 Mr. Ohta accepted immediately. It was the highest fee they had ever charged, twenty times the rate Walter had negotiated in Osaka.

By mid-November the cars had been loaded onto the Taiyo Maru, a luxurious steamer belonging to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) line. A few days before their departure, Aloha nipped by the American consulate in order to secure a visa for the United States but was shocked by the outcome. “It never occurred to me that I could be refused a visa by Great Britain’s closest ally . . . . The wind was knocked out of my sails, only momentarily.” She later claimed to have solved the problem by simply approaching another official whose “morning coffee had agreed with him.”54 The paper record shows a rather different solution. Aloha came to the United States on Walter’s visa, listed not as his employee or even his sister but, for the first time, as his wife. It was a risky deception.