Eventually, the phenomenon spread throughout Japan and was endorsed by occupation officials as a form of physical education that also promoted Western perceptions of healthy social interactions between men and women. By the early 1950s, the National Folk Dance Training Course had been established in Tokyo, and thousands of Japanese across the country were sashaying and do-si-do-ing to American folk tunes like “Little Brown Jug” and “Oh! Susanna.” The Japanese Ministry of Education later asked Niblo to contribute to a textbook on the subject. “Dancing people are happy people,” he wrote, “and
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