Earning foreign exchange was hardly a strange phenomenon. In fact, the Soviet approach was almost too normal. Malazov knew of an island nation in the Far East called Japan, whose government, in order to raise development funds, stopped at nothing: it vigorously developed the service industry, sent large numbers of men overseas every year to work, or dispatched women to places like Southeast Asia to sell their bodies for the country. The latter were known as "Southeast Asian Sisters."
In 1902 alone, Japan's annual foreign exchange amounted to roughly 100 billion yen, with the Southeast Asian Sisters contributing around 20 percent. This led Japan's economic circles at the time to cry out, "Japan will be a modern nation built upon women."
The yen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not the yen of later generations. It carried substantial gold value. In 1871, the Meiji government stipulated that one yen equaled 1.5 grams of pure gold, making it equivalent in value to the US Dollar at the time.
After entering the twentieth century, although the yen underwent depreciation, its exchange rate against the US Dollar could still reach two to one—two yen for one US Dollar.
However, around the time of the First World War, Japan's Southeast Asian service industry drew international condemnation and restrictions because its workers lived in conditions too miserable to bear. The industry consequently declined, while the Japanese Government, which had led the whole enterprise, shamelessly chose to abandon these "meritorious servants of the Empire" and barred them from returning home. Many died as strangers in foreign lands.
In East Africa's early years, the government had in fact organized widespread foreign-exchange-earning activities as well. To raise funds for colonial construction, East Africa opened certain seaport cities and established dedicated red-light districts, earning foreign exchange