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JAPANESE PLAYS
AND PLAYFELLOWS
[Illustration: Benkei at Sea. (Nō).]
JAPANESE PLAYS
AND PLAYFELLOWS
BY
OSMAN EDWARDS
WITH TWELVE COLOURED PLATES BY
JAPANESE ARTISTS
JOHN LANE
251 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
1901
TO
YAKUMO KOIZUMI
AND
LAFCADIO HEARN
POET AND FRIEND
WITH
ADMIRING GRATITUDE
PREFACE
_I do not pretend to compete in the crowded field of Japanese
sociology with those who have lived more than six months or less
than six weeks in the country. My own stay was limited to half a
year. I had, of course, studied the language with native teachers
and devoured the records of foreign travellers. I concluded that
theatrical matters had been less fully described than any other: to
them, accordingly, I devoted most attention. But there were other
themes on which I had been insufficiently informed. Impersonal
essays are, therefore, supplemented by personal reminiscences, for
which I claim indulgence. If the first now seem to me too short,
the second may seem to others too long. Yet I have tried only to
select incidents and characteristics which differ strikingly from
Western ways._
_Austere critics will assuredly resent the excess of incense
burned in these pages in honour of the_ musumé. _But, whether she
and they like it or not, she continues to summarise in her dainty
little person much of her country’s magic: its picturesqueness,
its kindness, its politeness. On certain symptoms of anti-foreign
feeling I have dwelt at some length, because the obvious witchery
of Japan so often results in the suppression of unpleasant
testimony by those whose own souvenirs are pleasantness itself.
There is certainly no reason why the Japanese should exhibit
more altruism to other nations than is exhibited in the reverse
case. The apprehensions expressed by such an admirer of the race
as Mr. A. B. Mitford, in a recent letter to the_ Times _as to
the expediency of giving them too free a hand in the solution
of the Chinese problem, however unwelcome to advocates of an
Anglo-Japanese alliance, deserve to be well weighed. Neither
pro-Japanese tourist nor anti-Japanese resident can refuse
admiration to the courage and cleverness of those Happy Islanders,
whose foreign policy is better left to impartial pens for judgment.
A partial spectator, I can only render appreciative thanks for what
I have seen and loved._
_I desire to acknowledge indebtedness to Mr. B. H. Chamberlain and
Mr. G. W. Aston for much information as to lore and literature; to
the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled “Notes on the History
of the Yoshiwara of Yedo”; to Mr. Fenollosa, Mr. Fukuchi, Mr.
Fukai, Mr. K. Hirata, and Mr. Isoh Yamagata for opportunities and
courtesies; to the editors of the_ Hansei Zasshi, The Sketch, _and_
The Studio _for permission to make use of material contributed to
their columns._
_WESTENDE-LES-BAINS._
CONTENTS
Page
I. Behind the Scenes 3
(Note to foregoing) Cassandra Justified 32
II. Religious Plays 39
III. Popular Plays 61
IV. Geisha and Cherry-Blossom 101
V. Vulgar Songs 121
VI. Taking the Waters 147
VII. Playing with Fire 209
VIII. Afternoon Calls 237
IX. The Scarlet Lady 275
Index 303
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Benkei at Sea_ _Frontispiece_
_Page_
_Shintō Temple at Miyajima_ 14
_Shunkwan in Exile_ 46
_Kintaro fights the Earth-Spider_ 56
_Portrait of Mdme. Sada Yacco_ 66
_Portrait of Mr. Kawakami_ 66
_Mr. Danjuro as the Lady-in-waiting of Kasuga_ 66
_Mr. Danjuro as Jiraiya_ 66
_The Heroine of a Problem-play_ 96
_Jealousy exorcised from Aoi-no-Uye_ (_Nō_) 142
_Personators of Jizō_ (_Kiōgen_) 162
_Dancers at the Feast of Lanterns_ 180
_Kintaikyō Bridge_ 198
_The Lion-Dance on New Year’s Day_ 248
_A Professional Story-teller_ 260
_The Taiyu waves her Saké-cup_ 300
BEHIND THE SCENES
BEHIND THE SCENES
A foreign country for most travellers is very like a theatre. They
arrive in holiday mood, resolving to be pleased, since otherwise
their judgment in choosing that country rather than another, their
faculty of appreciating what so many have proclaimed delectable,
might seem at fault. Should their choice have fallen on Japan, be
sure that eulogistic notices from the pens of Sir Edwin Arnold
and M. Pierre Loti have prepared them to enjoy the daintiest of
comediettas. They reach the enchanted shore. They pass swiftly
from one aspect of fairyland to another. Nothing happens to shake
their preconceived conviction that in the Land of the Rising Sun
Nature began and Art completed a yellow paradise. They do not heed
the jeremiads of resident aliens, nor the bitter cry of outcast
professors, who gather thorns where the tourist is dazzled by
cherry-blossom. The picturesque unreality of common things abets
illusion. Surely these dolls’ houses of wood and paper, these
canopies of rosy bloom and curtains of purple wistaria, the
gigantic cryptomeria, the tentacular pines, the azure inland sea
and snow-streaked Fuji itself--surely all these compose a superb
_mise en scène_ for poetic comedy! And when “the crowd” enters,
a smiling crowd of straw-sandalled rickshaw-runners, of kneeling
tea-house girls, and shaven babies, arrayed like bright-winged
butterflies, churlish indeed were the spectator who should refuse
to smile back and cheer with the best. Then consider the privileges
which he may enjoy in that admirably arranged theatre. Were he in
his own country, the footlights divide him for a few hours at most
from actors whose privacy, however coveted, he may seldom hope to
invade. But on Japanese soil he may often obtain, by fee or favour,
like the stage-struck noble of Molière’s and Shakespeare’s time,
familiar acquaintance with performance and performers. The latter
are, on the stage, his puppets; off the stage, his friends. Indeed,
he confounds the two, and ends by treating them with affectionate
condescension. This attitude, which he half-involuntarily assumes
from an ever-present consciousness of superior civilisation (as he
considers it), deceives only himself. The polite but thoughtful
patriot, perceiving that his temples are regarded as bric-à-brac,
his race as a race of ingenious marionettes, protests in vain
against the unwelcome flattery of surprised admirers. “To this
kind of people,” wrote Mr. Fukai, one of the ablest journalists in
Tōkyō, “our country is simply a play-ground for globe-trotters, our
people a band of cheerful, merry playfellows. Painstaking inquiries
are made about Japanese curios and objects of art--sometimes
important, no doubt, but sometimes ridiculously trivial--while the
investigation of such subjects as the ethical life, the social and
political institutions, are far too much neglected. The history of
the nation is ignored, and our recent progress is supposed to be
wholly owing to a miraculous touch of Western civilisation.” But
who is to remedy this unfortunate susceptibility on the part of
foreigners? The foreign _employé_ has his work to do--diplomatic,
professional, or commercial; the native is in no particular hurry
to court the esteem of outsiders, being quite contented with his
own high estimate of himself. Must it always be an officer “on
short leave,” or a journalist in a hurry, who undertakes to record
superficial impressions of a passing spectacle? At least, it is no
use reporting from the stalls what the casual playgoer imagines
he has seen, unless his report be confirmed and controlled by
those who move in the mysterious world “behind the scenes,” where
the drama of popular existence is more adequately observed and
to a great extent directed. Happily, the judicious inquirer has
only to choose between competent guides, whose eyes are no longer
confused by the glimmer of dancing lanterns. Let us pass behind
the scenes, and discover, if we can, what sort of piece is being
rehearsed--what mode of action the performers affect. If we lose
some illusions, we may gain a profitable glimpse of decorously
veiled truths.
The foreign resident is rarely cast for an important part, never
for a permanent one. It is notorious that he lacks æsthetic charm.
His wife and children, his club and counting-house, his racecourse
and cricket-field, are standing tokens of unassimilative exile.
In England he would be a good citizen and an excellent fellow,
sure of his seat on the School Board or County Council, if not in
Parliament, supposing that his ambitions included that of service
to the community. But in Kōbe or Yokohama he lives as isolated
from the fascinating “native-born” as any Jew in a mediæval
ghetto. And he does not feel the spell which takes the bookmaker
captive. It will not do to dismiss him as a Philistine, a coarse
barbarian, whose only aim is to exploit the country for his own
benefit, since, on closer acquaintance, you find him, more often
than not, cultured, kindly, and just. What, then, can be the cause
of his extraordinary antipathy to the land, ideally perfect as it
appears to us, in which his lines are cast? For every blessing you
pronounce he replies with a malediction, and, since his life behind
the scenes is at least nearer actuality than your own, you borrow
his eyes, with which the better to contemplate a Japanese Janus,
Whose smiling visage fills you with delight, though at him is
levelled a forbidding frown.
The root of his discomfort and your enchantment is a profoundly
narrow patriotism. Viewed from without, this brave and alert
nation, courteous to strangers and glad to excite admiration,
retaining so much that is picturesque and unique, yet capable of
appropriating the external panoply of Western civilisation, might
seem more companionable than any other; viewed from within, it is
evidently a close corporation, intolerant of rivalry, diligent to
protect itself, and determined to restrict at all costs “Japan to
the Japanese.” It is futile to blame this trait, which springs
inevitably from the forced seclusion of two centuries, during which
period the barbarian was rigorously excluded until he obtained
readmission at the cannon’s mouth. Nor is such hostile feeling
confined to the ignorant. On the contrary, the farther you go from
the great centres, where the mixture of races might be expected to
produce a better mutual understanding, the more amiable is your
reception. The mercantile classes dread and dislike the invading
trader, while imitating his methods, so far as they can grasp them,
with the intention of ousting him as much as possible from their
markets. Even the intellectual classes, quick to appreciate the
value of Western science, arms, and government, are none the nearer
spiritually through their acquisition. Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, whose
passionate devotion to his adopted country has inspired many pæans
of tender praise, yet writes: “Between the most elevated class of
thoroughly modernised Japanese and the Western thinker anything
akin to intellectual sympathy is non-existent: it is replaced on
the native side by a cold and faultless politeness.” Finally, a
Tōkyō critic, whose language is as vigorous as his disillusion is
genuine, complains thus bitterly in _The Orient_ (April 1899) of
“The Rest of the World”:
“From first to last our foreign records have shown almost
insatiable greed on the part of our treaty-allies. We have, it
is true, asked for no favours; and it is equally certain that we
have not received any. There never has been any real feeling of
fraternal amity between us and our allies; and this not because we
were not willing, indeed eager, to take the initiative, but because
our treaty-allies have held superciliously aloof and grudged us an
entrance into the comity of nations. All things considered, we do
not find the debt of gratitude we owe to foreign lands beyond power
of bearing. Civilisation? We had that before ever Commodore Perry
came to Uraga and Mississippi Bay. Schools? Well, text-books are
to be bought in the open market, and our students have always paid
their way at Western universities. Railways? Yes, but look at the
absurd price we had to pay for the first line between Tōkyō and
Yokohama! And so on with the whole list. We have paid the highest
market price for our experience, with a thumping big commission
for the privilege of buying it even at that rate. Yes, we have
profited, but largely lost our own self-respect in the profiting.”
Innocently unaware of storms in the beautiful Satsuma tea-pot,
the globe-trotter goes his way, playing and paying to the
satisfaction of all. But the business man, whose presence is an
affront and not a compliment, has to bear the brunt of them. The
difficulties which beset his calling are not to be paralleled
elsewhere. There was a time when the native merchant would try
to intimidate his rival into concluding a bargain by employing
_sōshi_, importunate bravoes, to lay siege at all hours to the
private and official door of their victim, until he capitulated
or demanded police protection. But this somewhat _naïf_ procedure
did not command general approval. More easy and more usual is the
device of ordering goods and refusing to take delivery except at
a much reduced rate. The perpetually quoted case of Cornes _v._
Kimura (Yokohama, 1894), which the reader will find described at
length in Mr. Chamberlain’s “Things Japanese” (under the heading
“Trade”), is more eloquent than pages of second-hand rhetoric.
Briefly, the British importer, in spite of a verdict given in
his favour by a Japanese judge, was compelled to retain some of
the ordered goods, at a loss of 2500 _yen_, on pain of being
boycotted by the Yarn Traders’ Guild. If this case stood alone,
one would be loath to revive recollection of it, but there remains
so many a slip between the signing of similar contracts and their
fulfilments, that the warehouses at the treaty-ports are never
without incriminating bales, which lower Japanese credit and
testify to the slow growth of commercial honesty. To eliminate
the foreign importer altogether is, of course, better than to
boycott him, and this, with Government aid, is gradually being
accomplished. First, a law was passed that Government contracts
for plant and material were to be given only to Japanese subjects.
Then, when it was found that a foreign firm would try to evade this
by employing a Japanese man of straw, an enactment was issued for
the re-inspection of all plant on arrival in Japan. Mr. Stafford
Ransome, in an article contributed to _The Engineer_ on the subject
of this official re-inspection, quotes the case of 16,000 tons of
cast-iron pipes supplied by one Belgian and two British firms for
the Tōkyō waterworks. Of the 10,000 tons of Belgian pipes only
2700 were accepted, and of the English 4000 out of 6000 tons. Yet
in his opinion the rejected pipes were perfectly good for the
purpose. That experience will correct short-sighted dishonesty,
that the native merchant will gradually master the principles of
international trade and become as respected as he was in feudal
days despised, nobody doubts; and if for the moment the stranger
within his gates must suffer, the gates are not yet stripped of
all their gold. Already the Chambers of Commerce have realised
that capital is cosmopolitan, and that excess of chauvinism spells
bankruptcy for local enterprise. So long as the laws forbid the
foreigner to own land, to hold shares in native companies or to
assist in their management, he is naturally shy of responding to
invitations to invest. But at first such invitations were not
frequent. Ten years ago the craze for joint-stock companies,
though widespread, was yet hedged in by patriotic precaution.
The promoters had no desire to share with outsiders the golden
fruit which seemed to beckon from speculative boughs. Moreover,
the Government, always paternal from sentiment and tradition,
would often pledge its support in liberal subsidies. The defeat of
China redoubled the victor’s confidence in his capacity to develop
his own possessions with his own resources. But events have not
kept pace with his hopes. The greater portion of the indemnity
was diverted, after all, into British pockets in return for
unproductive ironclads: prices went up, dividends went down; the
shining fruit was turned to ashes through inexpert gardening, for
the art of industrial horticulture is not to be learned in a day,
especially by amateurs, who sometimes drew an erratic line between
private and public consumption of the crop. Whatever the causes,
those very Chambers of Commerce, which had strongly opposed the
introduction of foreign capital, passed in 1898-99 one resolution
after another to the effect that aliens be permitted and solicited
to contribute where the funds of indigenous subscribers required to
be supplemented. It does not, however, seem probable that foreign
investors will be in any hurry to unloose their purse-strings,
unless and until the over-cautious patriot can be persuaded to
modify the laws in such a way as will give his coadjutor the right
to share in the management and responsibility of any scheme towards
the success of which his money may be largely, even preponderantly,
instrumental.
It must not be supposed that apprehension and mistrust are
monopolised by one party to this subterranean war. For five years
it has been impossible to open an English journal published in the
treaty-ports without finding in it some dismal prophecy of the
time (it began on June 18, 1899) when the treaties concluded by
Lord Rosebery’s Government should be put into operation, when the
walls of the ghetto should be razed, when the British lion and the
Japanese lamb must lie down together in unity. The right to travel
in the interior without passports, and to reside in any district
whatsoever without special permission, are the only advantages
conferred by the treaties on resident aliens--advantages which
he would enjoy as a matter of course in any civilised country.
The disadvantages, of which he fears the inconvenience, to use no
stronger term, are numerous. Extra-territoriality being abolished,
he becomes subject to Japanese law, which is incompletely codified
and must be administered by men whose patriotic bias and sense of
justice may be subjected at times to a severe strain. Still, the
right to exercise jurisdiction on all within her borders cannot be
refused, without insult, to a civilised Power. The right to impose
duty on imports (hitherto limited to five per cent.) up to thirty
or forty per cent. is not only undeniable, but absolutely desirable
in the interests of Japanese trade. It is suggested, however, that
such high duties might be levied on objects which are indispensable
to foreigners and of little utility to natives, as to form a lever
for the gradual ejection of aliens. There is no guarantee that
the freedom of the Press and the freedom of public meeting will
be exempt from those restrictions, which are daily and legally
imposed on the Japanese themselves. The coasting trade, the right
of doctors and lawyers to practise without a Japanese diploma,
the conditions of holding and selling leases--on these most vital
points the utmost uncertainty exists. No wonder that Mr. B. H.
Chamberlain asked, “Could any one imagine such terms having ever
been agreed to except as the result of a disastrous war?”
Happily, between the discontented British and the ultra-patriotic
Japanese lies a barrier of prudent statesmanship, which has proved
itself equal to solving harder problems than any with which the
Western world is confronted. No other Eastern nation has known
how to transform its polity in accordance with Occidental ideas
without provoking internal disruption or external conquest. It is
not yet realised that the credit of the achievement is due to a
very small band of men--to the Marquess Ito and his associates on
the one hand and the foreign instructors on the other, whose names
are too soon forgotten, while their works live after them. Though
all their compatriots now reap in advancing prestige and prosperity
the benefits of the work performed by the “Clan Statesmen,” it
must not be forgotten that much of that work was accomplished in
the face of every obstacle which prejudice and short-sightedness
could interpose. Popular dissatisfaction was adroitly diverted by
declaring war on China at the moment when factious opposition was
bringing discredit on the four-years-old parliamentary Government,
and Ministers were strong enough to hold an indignant nation in
hand when the fruits of war were so unscrupulously torn from their
grasp by Muscovite intrigue. Indications are not wanting that
the spirit of tactful sense which has steered Japan through so
many tempests is competent to allay those prognosticated by the
Cassandras of Kōbe and Yokohama. Those journalistic beldames, who
predicted sickness and death for the European inmate of a Japanese
prison unless he should be granted a special diet and a particular
_régime_, have been already conciliated by the construction of an
expensive gaol, which it is hoped they will never be called upon
to occupy. This building, situated at Sugamo, covers an area of
about 28,000 square yards. It is provided with tables and chairs,
and the cells will be lighted with electricity. Thus the grievance
is redressed before it can even occur; murder is averted; _ab uno
disce omnes_.
Before dismissing from consideration the prevalent hostility to
foreign residents, more noticeable in the ports than elsewhere, and
most pronounced in relation to mercantile rivals, a word should
be said as to its effects on mission work. Between 1878 and 1888
Christianity appeared to be carrying all before it. The land was
honeycombed with evangelists of every sect, from the resplendent
deacons of the Orthodox Russian cathedral, which so insolently
dominates the capital from the summit of Suruga-dai, to the
dingy crowd of Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, Universalists,
and others, none of whom were without a hopeful following of
more or less sincere converts. In fact, so fashionable did the
once-persecuted faith become that Mr. Fukuzawa, “the Jowett of
Japan,” the intellectual father of her most progressive pioneers,
advocated for a time that it should be adopted as the national
religion, by no means on account of its intrinsic merits, but
rather as a certificate of spiritual respectability and a passport
to more intimate relationship with the Powers which call themselves
Christian. This success is easily explained. Not only were many of
the missionaries men of high principle and attractive personality,
but they had the wisdom to minimise doctrinal differences and the
opportunity of conferring no small material benefit on their
disciples by teaching them the English tongue. The commercial
value of an English education stood high, and the army of native
Christians had a better chance than most of obtaining posts in
governmental or other offices. I may mention in passing that the
first professed Christian to hold ministerial rank was the Minister
of Education in the short-lived Okuma-Itagaki Government of 1898.
Of course, I would not insinuate that cases of genuine conversion
were not numerous and productive of moral regeneration, or that the
creed of Christendom has failed to strike root among the simple and
warm-hearted peasantry. But it is certain that among the educated
classes it is now viewed with rationalistic indifference.
Mr. G. W. Aston, towards the close of his “History of Japanese
Literature,” makes a very significant admission:
“The process of absorbing new ideas, which has mainly occupied the
Japanese nation during the last thirty years, is incomplete in
one very important particular. Although much in European thought
which is inseparable from Christianity has been freely adopted by
Japan, the Christian religion itself has made comparatively little
progress. The writings of the Kamakura and two subsequent periods
are penetrated with Buddhism, and those of the Yedo age with moral
and religious ideas derived from China. Christianity has still to
put its stamp on the literature of the Tōkyō period.”
[Illustration: Shintō Temple at Miyajima.]
Whether this apathy towards Christian teaching should be
attributed, as some aver, to an incapacity for abstract
speculation, or, as others assert, to the revolution which
its adoption would entail in the position of women, need not be
discussed at present. Let the following facts speak for themselves.
The latest available statistics show that the number of converts
is decreasing. Even within the ranks of Japanese Christianity is
a strongly marked tendency to replace foreign by native teachers,
and to nationalise that religion by robbing it of many dogmas which
are elsewhere regarded as essential. The case of the Dōshisha,
which has been of late years a burning question among Japanese and
American Christians, is one with which all who take an interest
in mission work should certainly be well acquainted, for it
furnishes a striking illustration of the appropriative and, to our
ideas, somewhat unscrupulous proclivities of Nipponean patriots.
The Dōshisha is a Christian university founded at Kyōto in 1875
under the auspices of the American Board Mission. So liberal were
the contributions of foreign believers to this very flourishing
institution, that at last it came to include, besides a special
theological department, a girls’ school, a science school, a
hospital, and a nurses’ training school. Needless to say, the
Presbyterian donors inserted a clause in the constitution to
the effect that their form of faith should be perpetually and
obligatorily taught. Religious schools, however, cannot claim the
same privileges as civil schools from the Home Department, which,
on the plea of neutrality, only grants to undenominational ones
special concessions with regard to military conscription. Realising
that this disability acted unfavourably on the number of pupils and
retarded the expansion of their work, the governing body of the
Dōshisha proceeded to increase the number of native subscribers,
and with their connivance to dechristianise the college, in
order to escape the disadvantage already mentioned. That is, the
Christian instruction was made optional instead of obligatory, but
the buildings and appliances, bought with American money, were of
course retained. The Board, representing the original subscribers,
protested against what they did not hesitate to characterise as a
flagrant breach of faith: the governing body pleaded expediency,
and were prepared to redefine Christianity in accordance with their
own conceptions of an undeniably vague term. There the matter
rests. It might seem unfair to lay stress on this matter, were it
not that this action of the Dōshisha authorities is typical of the
attitude of native educationalists at the present time to foreign
teaching: it forms, in fact, part of the patriotic movement, which
I desire to indicate without praise or blame, more especially as
that movement is so little known outside Japan. Of course, there
has been for years a very natural and proper tendency to replace
foreign by native officials as soon as the latter seemed capable
of discharging the functions primarily entrusted to the former.
But this is very different from denying to foreigners the right of
founding schools at their own risk--a right which they would enjoy
as a matter of course in any but reactionary States. Such, however,
is the policy urged on the Government by the Higher Educational
Council (composed of professors in the chief schools and colleges),
which on April 17, 1899, passed the following resolution:
“Foreigners who are not conversant with Japanese shall not be
allowed to become teachers in other courses than those of foreign
languages or special courses in special schools and of schools
exclusively intended for foreigners. _Foreigners who are licensed
as teachers in the above-mentioned capacities shall not be allowed
to found schools other than those exclusively intended for
foreigners._”
As the founder of a school should legally be a licensed teacher,
the foregoing clauses practically prohibit foreigners from
establishing schools for Japanese. Besides, there is a clause
prohibiting religious education and ceremonies in privileged
schools. In other words, the nationalists wish education to be not
only in their own hands, but also entirely secular; and those who
desire to introduce from abroad theological tenets may no longer do
so, if the Government should follow this advice, except from the
pulpit or as private individuals. Whether such a restriction be or
be not in violation of existing treaties with foreign Powers, I
cannot say.
Sufficient proof has perhaps been already adduced of anti-foreign
feeling to convince an impartial reader that an Anglo-Saxon exile
has some reason for feeling ill at ease in the tourists’ paradise.
It might be added, however, that even the victim of patriotic
manœuvres is hardly ever exposed to personal malevolence. The
politest nation in the world would certainly not be guilty of any
overt discourtesy. The accident of foreign birth may place you
outside the pale of those secure and intimate relations which you
might form with colleagues in other lands (the divergence of social
and domestic habits by itself almost necessitates this), but, if
the collision of financial interests should result in your ejection
from a post of vantage, you cannot justly blame an individual,
only those centripetal forces that give solidarity and cohesion to
a race which remains, the more it changes, the more indissolubly
the same. And though the patriot might think, he would never say to
your face, “L’étranger, voilà l’ennemi.” On the contrary, if he had
not the racial interest to consider, if he were not born in a maze
of reciprocal duties which to us are inconceivable, so charming is
his natural disposition that I am not at all sure that he would
not, now and then, sacrifice himself to oblige an alien!
I have used the phrase “charming natural disposition” deliberately,
though it may seem incongruous, or even incompatible with dislike
of strangers. What traveller has not felt and described this charm?
Will Adams in the beginning of the seventeenth century found “the
people of this Iland good of nature, curteous aboue measure,” and
Sir Rutherford Alcock in the middle of the nineteenth reports
them “as kindly and well-disposed people as any in the world.”
Has their nature, then, suffered any deterioration? Has contact
with Europeans and Americans brought material gain at the cost of
ethical loss? Many observers, both native and foreign, declare this
to be the case: a little reflection will show that it cannot, for
the present, be otherwise.
“Old Japan,” in the opinion of Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, “was quite as
much in advance of the nineteenth century morally as she was behind
materially. She had made morality instinctive.” This verdict is
not yet of purely historic interest; it may be tested by all who
care to travel beyond the radius of photographs and railways. In
remote districts, where the innkeeper charges a minimum price,
relying for profit on the generosity of his guest, whose present
is acknowledged by the bestowal of a fan or an embroidered towel,
even such fugitive relations rest on a benevolent rather than a
wholly commercial basis. Patriarchal manners--contented submission,
fidelity, courtesy--yield a rich return of domestic happiness. The
struggle for life and for wealth is tempered by self-sacrificing
customs and amenities. If the apprentice be willing to work for
no other wage than his master’s approval and satisfaction through
long probationary years, the master, on his side, will resign his
charge into the hands of a younger generation before decrepitude
has come to rob “honourable retirement” of its grace. If the young
wife devote her summer to unquestioning service of her husband
and his parents, she has her reward when her sons’ wives repay
her with the same filial homage. Similar ties, imposing restraint
on egoism and sanctified by public esteem, have had their full
share in developing those amiable qualities which every observer
has acknowledged. But the break-up of feudal society cannot fail
to react on the manners which reflected feudal discipline. The
Western ideals of liberty, equality, and self-assertion, the decay
of religious belief, the necessity of fighting on even terms in
the great competitive _mêlée_ to the tune of “The devil take the
hindmost, oh!” and, it must be added, the example set by the rest
of the world, which does not practise altruism, whatever its
representatives may preach, all these factors tend to harden and
sharpen the modernised Japanese.
A curious sign of the independent spirit, nourished on new
ideas and strangely at variance with the old, is the organised
indiscipline of schoolboys. During the six months which the writer
spent in the country two flagrant cases occurred of defiance of
authority, by no means unusual, it would appear, in scholastic
experience, if one might judge by the comments of the local Press.
In one case the majority of the scholars absented themselves for
a fortnight as a protest against the alleged incapacity of the
teacher, and maltreated a more docile minority who endeavoured
to resume their lessons. In another the upper forms refused
to recognise the authority of a headmaster appointed by the
Government, on the ground that his talents and attainments fell
below the standard which they deemed desirable in the director
of their studies. In consequence, the unfortunate nominee of the
Minister of Education was completely boycotted; his class-room was
deserted, his suggestions ignored; and, on the occasion of the
annual prize-giving, he was publicly insulted, for, whereas the
whole school rose and remained standing as a mark of respect during
the speeches of distinguished visitors, when their unfortunate
chief began his address they resumed their seats and engaged in
loud conversation, after the manner of our own House of Commons
when the suppression of an unwelcome orator is desired. The most
surprising feature in both these instances was that a section
of the Japanese Press, instead of regarding the incidents as
deplorable, indeed, but as domestic matters, which it concerned
only the governing body to regulate, made them the subject of a
long polemic, sided with or against the malcontents, and, in short,
exalted the revolting schoolboys into fellow-citizens “rightly
struggling to be free.” The college Hampden does not shrink from
his _rôle_, and is prepared in the interests of curiosity and “the
higher education” to cross-examine a newly-appointed professor,
insufficiently protected by a Harvard or Oxford reputation, on his
knowledge of Shakespeare, his theological beliefs, his preference
for “the open door” or the gradual partition of China. If this
precocious independence conflict with our old-fashioned notions
of modesty and reverence on the part of adolescence towards its
seniors, it should make life more amusing for the professor, who,
after all, is better off with inquisitive than with incurious
pupils. I am confirmed in my supposition that the autonomous
schoolboy is not at all abnormal by a schoolmaster of nearly ten
years’ standing, who writes: “In the Occident the master expels
the pupil. In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil
expels the master. Each public school is an earnest, spirited
little republic.” One thing is certain. The taught are as eager to
absorb knowledge as the teacher to impart it; idleness is rare;
without extraordinary application but little progress can be made.
For it should not be forgotten that four or five years must be
devoted to the sole acquisition of a working stock of Chinese
ideographs, the scholar’s needlessly complicated alphabet, before
he attacks Western science, law, language, or medicine themselves
supplementary to subjects of native growth. Demands so various can
only be met by the most systematic precision, and in effect no
country has more carefully organised popular education. To organise
comes naturally to the Japanese, and this capacity explains the
apparent contradiction of co-existent order and revolt. The revolt
is always corporate, one organisation within another. Whether the
disaffected body consist of waiters, or workmen, or schoolboys, it
has to be treated as a collective unit. The objects pursued--higher
wages, more liberty, more privileges--may bear the impress of
democratic ambition, but the spirit in which they are fought for is
that of feudal obedience to a common call.
It cannot be said that the Japanese Press has degenerated
through contact with foreigners, since it is a plant, imported
from abroad nearly thirty years ago, which has thriven and
multiplied exceedingly on favourable soil. As might have been
expected, no modern novelty is more popular than the newspaper
in a land where gossip and laughter and criticism are as the
breath of life to a sharp-witted, good-tempered race. More than a
thousand newspapers--several illustrated, some wholly or partly
in English--cater at very low prices to the public appetite. It
is natural that the right to speak and print freely should be
liable to abuse when first exercised. Nor could the wary group of
reformers, whose task of nursing democratic institutions among
hereditary partisans of a rigid caste system was no less delicate
than difficult, be blamed for setting legal limits to editorial
indiscretion. In India and in Egypt the British authorities are
often compelled for reasons of State to quench the sacred torch
of incendiary invective. But as public opinion grows better
educated, it is less liable to be led astray by journalistic
tirades. Moreover, the journalist soon acquires a hold, direct or
indirect, on the Legislature, wherever Parliament and Press become
interdependent. The Press laws of Japan have, in consequence, lost
much of their severity, and the “prison-editor” (whose position
corresponds to that of the _Sitz-Redaktör_ in Prussia) finds his
fate of vicarious imprisonment, when the actual editor sins,
grow daily less onerous. It was, indeed, urged as a reproach by
opposition sheets against the Okuma-Itagaki Ministry of 1898
that five or six of the Ministers had been at some time or other
inmates of his Imperial Majesty’s gaols; but the gravity of the
reproach is much diminished by the explanation that in nearly every
case incarceration had been inflicted for unguarded liberty of
expression in the Press or on the platform. Political offences,
all the world over, are merely political offences. For the Irish
Nationalist Kilmainham is more sacred than Westminster. Such
prisoners are no more than naughty children, locked in a dark room
by a paternal Government.
But, in truth, it is not the political columns which have most
influence on the circulation of Tōkyō journals. If the typical
leading article seems to English taste wanting in force and
directness, abounding in vague sonorities, that is a fault
shared by European editors, who are bound to veil an oracle with
traditional obscurity. This trait is, of course, intensified by the
impersonal periphrases of the language. Where the director of the
journal is most to blame is in allowing his organ to become the
medium of worse than American personalities. The newspaper which
enjoys the largest circulation among the middle and lower classes
of the capital devotes much attention to maintaining the prestige
of its _chronique scandaleuse_. The Prime Minister, the foreign
merchant or professor, the Buddhist high-priest, will discover that
his amours, embellished with corroborative detail and treated with
more regard to artistic effect than the facts warrant, command
the most flattering and embarrassing popularity. What would be
thought of a London newspaper which should record so minutely
the movements of a visiting prince as to chronicle the names of
professional beauties visited by him, as well as the price paid
for their transitory favours? The aggrieved hero or villain has no
doubt legal remedy, should he choose to prosecute the offending
reporter; but the remedy would be worse than the disease, since not
only is it dilatory and expensive, but the protracted advertisement
would tend to circulate rather than to kill the slander. Besides,
in the eyes of an indulgent public gallantry, as our French
neighbours call it, excites more amusement then reprobation. At any
rate, libellous paragraphs, with their inevitable accompaniment
of blackmail, are at present sufficiently numerous to detract
from the high reputation deservedly enjoyed by more scrupulous
journals such as the _Nihon_, the _Nichi Nichi_, and the _Jiji
Shimpo_. The _feuilleton_ flourishes. When illustrated by woodcuts,
representing a Japanese woman tied naked to a tree and assaulted
by Russian sailors, it makes good fuel for chauvinistic flame; but
such outrages on taste are rare, and in general the reader prefers
adventurous romance, with a spice of unreality, in the vein of
Jules Verne or the elder Dumas.
Proximity to the continent where manners count for less than
dollars has, in the opinion of many, made the present generation
less polite and more mercenary than its predecessors. One certainly
misses the exquisite courtesy still in vogue in outlying districts,
when one has occasion to remark the rudeness or familiarity of
certain classes in or near Tōkyō. But this declining courtesy,
which cannot be called general, is not to be attributed solely to
ignorant dislike of strangers. As soon as the sensitive native
discovers that ceremonious attention is apt to be mistaken for
obsequiousness, his pride intervenes and his bearing becomes less
affable. The example of ill-mannered tourists has, it is true,
demoralised the service of certain hotels, where the visitor
persists in regarding the attendant _musumé_ as a plaything, but
the incivility of the rickshaw-man when his invariable attempt
to overcharge is frustrated rests on no other basis than the
presumption, not confined to one country, that since the traveller
has arrived to spend money, he should be encouraged to spend it as
freely as possible. Sometimes, too, an amusing reciprocal patronage
is to be observed. If the tourist be inclined to regard the peasant
as a living toy invented for his diversion, the peasant not
infrequently will see in the tourist a helpless, rather childish
creature, pleased by infantile things and unable to speak a word
of Japanese. He therefore pities, protects, and fleeces him. None
but the incapable rich, whom vanity or idleness compels to become
dependent on inferiors, should dream of employing a professional
guide. He probably is less well informed than “Murray”; he seeks
on every pretext to prolong his services; he exacts a commission
on every purchase made, both from his employer and the shopkeeper,
for if the latter refuse he will conduct the customer elsewhere.
Notwithstanding these peculiarities, he is perhaps worth his price
to hurried visitors.
How far materialism has gone in replacing dutiolatry by
worship of the golden calf, to what extent the old high ideals
have ceased to affect the relations of the Japanese to one
another--such a question is difficult, perhaps impossible, to
answer satisfactorily. Mr. B. H. Chamberlain declares roundly that
“patriotism is the only ideal left,” but on such a nice point it is
better to let the native speak for himself.
From _The Orient_, a monthly magazine, Buddhistic in sympathy and
of modern tendency, is quoted the following unequivocal indictment:
“Spiritually there is very undeniable decadence. Open ports, huge
fleets of steamers, thousands of miles of rails, telephone and
telegraph wires, a navy ranking at least seventh in the world’s
list, a consolidated postal system, flourishing banks, and all else
of like nature, are nothing more than signs of material progress.
Like our allies, we have grown worldly wise, and have come to view
the almighty dollar with a feeling akin to veneration. People
point, and with justice, to the tremendous social revolution of
the Restoration days; but where we have got rid of _daimyō_ and
_shōmyō_, of _hatamoto_ and _samurai_, have we not plutocrats and
bureaucrats as potent and unconscionable as the most tyrannical
of the one-time feudal barons? The outcast pariahs--the _eta_--no
longer exist in law or name; but they exist in fact. The operatives
of the Ōsaka mills, the wretched human shambles of the prostitute
quarters, the sick and suffering poor--are these not social pariahs
and even worse? We miss the sternly martial virtue of the days of
yore; the unbending dignity of the true, the real _Yamato-damashii_
(the spirit of Japanese chivalry).... Never were bribery and
corruption more rife: the whole machinery of the State is suffering
from this dry-rot; and even those who are called upon to set the
country an example have their price. Nepotism is taking the place
of clannish interdependence. One’s fortunes are easily made if one
happens to be a ‘forty-second cousin’ of a favourite courtesan, a
popular _geisha_, or a spoiled mistress.”