Japan
The tradition of book peddling traces back to the Edo period. Taro Aso, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, in his speech in the Japan Institute of International Affairs (2006) describes them as follows.
If you look for example at the book lenders of the day, it seems that a single book lender would have over a hundred customers. When a new title was released, the book lenders would put it into a bag and take it round to their customers. The customers would then slice open the seal on the bag to get the latest release. This, incidentally, is where the word for “the latest release,” fukiri — literally “seal-slicing” — has its origins, and we still use that word to this day, although in recent years to describe the release of new movies.
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Famous quotes containing the word japan:
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)