From the reputation of Ōsaka as a centre of production and
distribution, one would imagine it the most modernized, the least
characteristically Japanese, of all Japanese cities. But Ōsaka is the
reverse. Fewer Western costumes are to be seen in Ōsaka than in any
other large city of Japan. No crowds are more attractively robed, and
no streets more picturesque, than those of the great mart.
Ōsaka is supposed to set many fashions; and the present ones show an
agreeable tendency to variety, of tint. When I first came to Japan
the dominant colors of male costume were dark,--especially dark blue;
any crowd of men usually presenting a mass of this shade. To-day the
tones are lighter; and greys--warm greys, steel greys, bluish greys,
purplish greys--seem to predominate. But there are also many pleasing
variations,--bronze-colors, gold-browns, "tea-colors," for example.
Women's costumes are of course more varied; but the character of the
fashions for adults of either sex indicates no tendency to abandon the
rules of severe good taste;--gay colors appearing only in the attire
of children and of dancing-girls,--to whom are granted the privileges
of perpetual youth. I may observe that the latest fashion in the silk
upper-dress, or _haori,_ of geisha, is a burning sky--blue,--a tropical
color that makes the profession of the wearer distinguishable miles
away. The higher-class geisha, however, affect sobriety in dress. I
must also speak of the long overcoats or overcloaks worn out-of-doors
in cold weather by both sexes. That of the men looks like an adaptation
and modification of our "ulster," and has a little cape attached to it:
the material is wool, and the color usually light brown or grey. That
of the ladies, which has no cape, is usually of black broadcloth, with
much silk binding, and a collar cut low in front. It is buttoned from
throat to feet, and looks decidedly genteel, though left very wide and
loose at the back to accommodate the bow of the great heavy silk girdle
beneath.
*
Architecturally not less than fashionably, Ōsaka remains almost as
Japanese as anybody could wish. Although some wide thoroughfares exist,
most of the streets are very narrow,--even more narrow than those of
Kyōto. There are streets of three-story houses and streets of two-story
houses; but there are square miles of houses one story high. The great
mass of the city is an agglomeration of low wooden buildings with
tiled roofs. Nevertheless the streets are more interesting, brighter,
quainter in their signs and sign-painting, than the streets of Tōkyō;
and the city as a whole is more picturesque than Tōkyō because of its
waterways. It has not inaptly been termed the Venice of Japan; for it
is traversed in all directions by canals, besides being separated into
several large portions by the branchings of the Yodogawa. The streets
facing the river are, however, much less interesting than the narrow
canals.
Anything more curious in the shape of a street vista than the view
looking down one of these waterways can scarcely be found in Japan.
Still as a mirror surface, the canal flows between high stone
embankments supporting the houses,--houses of two or three stories, all
sparred out from the stonework so that their façades bodily overhang
the water. They are huddled together in a way suggesting pressure from
behind; and this appearance of squeezing and crowding is strengthened
by the absence of regularity in design,--no house being exactly like
another, but all having an indefinable Far-Eastern queerness,--a sort
of racial character,--that gives the sensation of the very-far-away in
place and time. They push out funny little galleries with balustrades;
barred, projecting, glassless windows with elfish balconies under
them, and rootlets over them like eyebrows; tiers of tiled and tilted
awnings; and great eaves which, in certain hours, throw shadows down
to the foundation. As most of the timber-work is dark,--either with
age or staining,--the shadows look deeper than they really are. Within
them you catch glimpses of balcony pillars, bamboo ladders from gallery
to gallery, polished angles of joinery,--all kinds of jutting things.
At intervals you can see mattings hanging out, and curtains of split
bamboo, and cotton hangings with big white ideographs upon them; and
all this is faithfully repeated upside down in the water. The colors
ought to delight an artist,--umbers and chocolates and chestnut-browns
of old polished timber; warm yellows of mattings and bamboo screens;
creamy tones of stuccoed surfaces; cool greys of tiling.... The last
such vista I saw was bewitched by a spring haze. It was early morning.
Two hundred yards from the bridge on which I stood, the house fronts
began to turn blue; farther on, they were transparently vapory; and
yet farther, they seemed to melt away suddenly into the light,--a
procession of dreams. I watched the progress of a boat propelled by
a peasant in straw hat and straw coat,--like the peasants of the
old picture-books. Boat and man turned bright blue and then grey,
and then, before my eyes,----glided into Nirvana. The notion of
immateriality so created by that luminous haze was supported by the
absence of sound; for these canal-streets are as silent as the streets
of shops are noisy.
*
No other city in Japan has so many bridges as Ōsaka: wards are named
after them, and distances marked by them,--reckoning always from
Koraibashi, the Bridge of the Koreans, as a centre. Ōsaka people find
their way to any place most readily by remembering the name of the
bridge nearest to it. But as there are one hundred and eighty-nine
principal bridges, this method of reckoning can be of little service
to a stranger. If a business man, he can find whatever he wants
without learning the names of the bridges. Ōsaka is the best-ordered
city, commercially, in the empire, and one of the best-ordered in the
world. It has always been a city of guilds; and the various trades
and industries are congregated still, according to ancient custom, in
special districts or particular streets. Thus all the money-changers
are in Kitahama,--the Lombard Street of Japan; the dry-goods trade
monopolizes Honmachi; the timber merchants are all in Nagabori
and Nishi-Yokobori; the toy-makers are in Minami Kiuhojimachi and
Kita Midōmae; the dealers in metal wares have Andojibashidōri to
themselves; the druggists are in Doshiōmachi, and the cabinet-makers
in Hachimansuji. So with many other trades; and so with the places of
amusement. The theatres are in the Dōtombori; the jugglers, singers,
dancers, acrobats, and fortune-tellers in the Sennichimae, close by.
The central part of Ōsaka contains many very large
buildings,--including theatres, refreshment-houses, and hotels having
a reputation throughout the country. The number of edifices in Western
style is nevertheless remarkably small. There are indeed between
eight and nine hundred factory chimneys; but the factories, with few
exceptions, are not constructed on Western plans. The really "foreign"
buildings include a hotel, a prefectual hall with a mansard roof, a
city hall with a classical porch of granite pillars, a good modern
post-office, a mint, an arsenal, and sundry mills and breweries.
But these are so scattered and situated that they really make no
particular impression at variance with the Far-Eastern character
of the city. However, there is one purely foreign corner,--the old
Concession, dating back to a time before Kobé existed. Its streets
were well laid out, and its buildings solidly constructed; but for
various reasons it has been abandoned to the missionaries,--only one
of the old firms, with perhaps an agency or two, remaining open. This
deserted settlement is an oasis of silence in the great commercial
wilderness.[1] No at-tempts have been made by the native merchants to
imitate its styles of building: indeed, no Japanese city shows less
favor than Ōsaka to Occidental architecture. This is not through want
of appreciation, but because of economical experience. Ōsaka will
build in Western style--with stone, brick, and iron--only when and
where the advantage of so doing is indubitable. There will be no
speculation in such constructions, as there has been at Tōkyō: Ōsaka
"goes slow" and invests upon certainties. When there is a certainty,
her merchants can make remarkable offers,--like that to the government
two years ago of $56,000,000 for the purchase and reconstruction of a
railway. Of all the houses in Osaka, the office of the "Asahi Shimbun"
most surprised me. The "Asahi Shimbun" is the greatest of Japanese
newspapers,--perhaps the greatest journal published in any Oriental
language. It is an illustrated daily, conducted very much like a Paris
newspaper,--publishing a _feuilleton,_ translations from foreign
fiction, and columns of light, witty chatter about current events. It
pays big sums to popular writers, and spends largely for correspondence
and telegraphic news. Its illustrations--now made by a woman--offer as
full a reflection of all phases of Japanese life, old or new, as Punch
gives of English life. It uses perfecting presses, charters special
trains, and has a circulation reaching into most parts of the empire.
So I certainly expected to find the "Asahi Shimbun" office one of
the handsomest buildings in Ōsaka. But it proved to be an old-time
Samurai-yashiki,--about the most quiet and modest-looking place in the
whole district where it was situated.
I must confess that all this sober and sensible conservatism delighted
me. The competitive power of Japan must long depend upon her power to
maintain the old simplicity of life.
[Footnote 1: The foreign legations left Ōsaka to take shelter at
Kobé in 1868, during the civil war; for they could not be very well
protected by their men-of-war in Ōsaka. Kobé once settled, the
advantages offered by its deep harbor settled the fate of the Ōsaka
Concession.]