How about this blast from the past, in a recent edition of the Scientific American?

Note the date: 1869. In my reckoning, that puts Japan ahead of the West at that time by 150 years.

The Japanese dignitaries, says the Boston Journal of Chemistry, who recently visited this country under the direction of Mr. Burlingame, were observed to use pocket paper instead of pocket handkerchiefs, whenever they had occasion to remove perspiration from the forehead, or ‘blow the nose.’ The same piece is never used twice, but is thrown away after it is first taken in hand. We should suppose in time of general catarrh, the whole empire of Japan would be covered with bits of paper blowing about. The paper is quite peculiar, being soft, thin, and very tough.

“Pocket Paper,” in Scientific American, Vol. XX, No. 25, page 391; June 19, 1869