It soon became evident that the foreign "barbarians" were not to
be driven away. Hundreds had come, from the East as well as from
the West; and all possible measures for their protection had been
taken; and they had built queer cities of their own upon Japanese
soil. The government had even commanded that Western knowledge
was to be taught in all schools; that the study of English was to
be made an important branch of public education; and that public
education itself was to be remodeled upon Occidental lines. The
government had also declared that the future of the country would
depend upon the study and mastery of the languages and the
science of the foreigners. During the interval, then, between
such study and its successful results, Japan would practically
remain under alien domination. The fact was not, indeed, publicly
stated in so many words; but the signification of the policy was
unmistakable. After the first violent emotions provoked by
knowledge of the situation,--after the great dismay of the
people, and the suppressed fury of the samurai,--there arose an
intense curiosity regarding the appearance and character of those
insolent strangers who had been able to obtain what they wanted
by mere display of superior force. This general curiosity was
partly satisfied by an immense production and distribution of
cheap colored prints, picturing the manner and customs of the
barbarians, and the extraordinary streets of their settlements.
Caricatures only those flaring wood--prints could have seemed to
foreign eyes. But caricature was not the conscious object of the
artist. He tried to portray foreigners as he really saw them; and
he saw them as green-eyed monsters, with red hair like Shojo(1),
and with noses like Tengu(2), wearing clothes of absurd forms and
colors; and dwelling in structures like storehouses or prisons.
Sold by hundreds of thousands throughout the interior, these
prints must have created many uncanny ideas. Yet as attempts to
depict the unfamiliar they were only innocent. One should be able
to study those old drawings in order to comprehend just how we
appeared to the Japanese of that era; how ugly, how grotesque,
how ridiculous.
The young samurai of the town soon had the experience of seeing a
real Western foreigner, a teacher hired for them by the prince.
He was an Englishman. He came under the protection of an armed
escort; and orders were given to treat him as a person of
distinction. He did not seem quite so ugly as the foreigners in
the Japanese prints: his hair was red, indeed, and his eyes of a
strange color; but his face was not disagreeable. He at once
became, and long remained, the subject of tireless observation.
How closely his every act was watched could never be guessed by
any one ignorant of the queer superstitions of the pre-Meiji era
concerning ourselves. Although recognized as intelligent and
formidable creatures, Occidentals were not generally regarded as
quite human; they were thought of as more closely allied to
animals than to mankind. They had hairy bodies of queer shape;
their teeth were different from those of men; their internal
organs were also peculiar; and their moral ideas those of
goblins. The timidity which foreigners then inspired, not,
indeed, to the samurai, but to the common people, was not a
physical, but a superstitious fear. Even the Japanese peasant has
never been a coward. But to know his feelings in that time toward
foreigners, one must also know something of the ancient beliefs,
common to both Japan and China, about animals gifted with
supernatural powers, and capable of assuming human form; about
the existence of races half-human and half-superhuman; and about
the mythical beings of the old picture-books,--goblins
long-legged and long-armed and bearded (ashinaga and tenaga),
whether depicted by the illustrators of weird stories or
comically treated by the brush of Hokusai. Really the aspect of
the new strangers seemed to afford confirmation of the fables
related by a certain Chinese Herodotus; and the clothing they
wore might seem to have been devised for the purpose of hiding
what would prove them not human. So the new English teacher,
blissfully ignorant of the fact, was studied surreptitiously,
just as one might study a curious animal! Nevertheless, from
his students he experienced only courtesy: they treated him by
that Chinese code which ordains that "even the shadow of a
teacher must not be trodden on." In any event it would have
mattered little to samurai students whether their teacher were
perfectly human or not, so long as he could teach. The hero
Yoshitsune had been taught the art of the sword by a Tengu.
Beings not human had proved themselves scholars and poets(3). But
behind the never-lifted mask of delicate courtesy, the stranger's
habits were minutely noted; and the ultimate judgment, based upon
the comparison of such observation, was not altogether
flattering. The teacher himself could never have imagined the
comments made upon him by his two-sworded pupils; nor would it
have increased his peace of mind, while overlooking compositions
in the class-room, to have understood their conversation:--
"See the color of his flesh, how soft it is! To take off his head
with a single blow would be very easy."
Once he was induced to try their mode of wrestling, just for fun,
he supposed. But they really wanted to take his physical measure.
He was not very highly estimated as an athlete.
"Strong arms he certainly has," one said. "But he does not know
how to use his body while using his arms; and his loins are very
weak. To break his back would not be difficult."
"I think," said another, "that it would be easy to fight with
foreigners."
"With swords it would be very easy," responded a third; "but they
are more skilful than we in the use of guns and cannon."
"We can learn all that," said the first speaker. "When we have
learned Western military matters, we need not care for Western
soldiers."
"Foreigners," observed another, "are not hardy like we are. They
soon tire, and they fear cold. All winter our teacher must have a
great fire in his room. To stay there five minutes gives me the
headache."
But for all that, the lads were kind to their teacher, and made
him love them.
(1) Apish mythological beings with red hair, delighting in
drunkenness.
(2) Mythological beings of several kinds, supposed to live in the
mountains. Some have long noses.
(3) There is a legend that when Toryoko, a great poet, who was
the teacher of Sugiwara-no-Michizane (now deified as Tenjin), was
once passing the Gate called Ra-jo-mon, of the Emperor's palace
at Kyoto, he recited aloud this single verse which he had just
composed:--
"Clear is the weather and fair;--and the wind waves the hair of
young willows."
Immediately a deep mocking voice from the gateway continued the
poem, thus:--
"Melted and vanished the ice; the waves comb the locks of old
mosses."
Toryoko looked, but there was no one to be seen. Reaching home,
he told his pupil about the matter, and repeated the two
compositions. Sugiwara-no-Michizane praised the second one,
saying:--
"Truly the words of the first are the words of a poet;
but the words of the second are the words of a Demon!"