 At that time, when he visited Odense, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, he was distressed to find that the house in which Andersen was born was being used as little more than a storehouse, and that Andersen's grave was unattended to and had gone to seed.He appealed to the local newspaper, and to wherever else he visited, to return Andersen to his rightful prominence.Moved by this, the Danish people came to call him "the Japanese Hans Christian Andersen".