Peaceful Monotony—A Japanese School—A Dismal Ditty—Punishment—A
Children’s Party—A Juvenile Belle—Female Names—A Juvenile
Drama—Needlework—Calligraphy—Arranging Flowers—Kanaya—Daily Routine—An
Evening’s Entertainment—Planning Routes—The God-shelf.
IRIMICHI, Nikkô, _June_ 23.
My peacefully monotonous life here is nearly at an end. The people are
so quiet and kindly, though almost too still, and I have learned to know
something of the externals of village life, and have become quite fond of
the place.
The village of Irimichi, which epitomises for me at present the village
life of Japan, consists of about three hundred houses built along three
roads, across which steps in fours and threes are placed at intervals.
Down the middle of each a rapid stream runs in a stone channel, and this
gives endless amusement to the children, specially to the boys, who
devise many ingenious models and mechanical toys, which are put in motion
by water-wheels. But at 7 a.m. a drum beats to summon the children to a
school whose buildings would not discredit any school-board at home. Too
much Europeanised I thought it, and the children looked very
uncomfortable sitting on high benches in front of desks, instead of
squatting, native fashion. The school apparatus is very good, and there
are fine maps on the walls. The teacher, a man about twenty-five, made
very free use of the black-board, and questioned his pupils with much
rapidity. The best answer moved its giver to the head of the class, as
with us. Obedience is the foundation of the Japanese social order, and
with children accustomed to unquestioning obedience at home the teacher
has no trouble in securing quietness, attention, and docility. There was
almost a painful earnestness in the old-fashioned faces which pored over
the school-books; even such a rare event as the entrance of a foreigner
failed to distract these childish students. The younger pupils were
taught chiefly by object lessons, and the older were exercised in reading
geographical and historical books aloud, a very high key being adopted,
and a most disagreeable tone, both with the Chinese and Japanese
pronunciation. Arithmetic and the elements of some of the branches of
natural philosophy are also taught. The children recited a verse of
poetry which I understood contained the whole of the simple syllabary.
It has been translated thus:—
“Colour and perfume vanish away.
What can be lasting in this world?
To-day disappears in the abyss of nothingness;
It is but the passing image of a dream, and causes only a slight
trouble.”
It is the echo of the wearied sensualist’s cry, “Vanity of vanities, all
is vanity,” and indicates the singular Oriental distaste for life, but is
a dismal ditty for young children to learn. The Chinese classics,
formerly the basis of Japanese education, are now mainly taught as a
vehicle for conveying a knowledge of the Chinese character, in acquiring
even a moderate acquaintance with which the children undergo a great deal
of useless toil.
The penalties for bad conduct used to be a few blows with a switch on the
front of the leg, or a slight burn with the _moxa_ on the
forefinger—still a common punishment in households; but I understood the
teacher to say that detention in the school-house is the only punishment
now resorted to, and he expressed great disapprobation of our plan of
imposing an added task. When twelve o’clock came the children marched in
orderly fashion out of the school grounds, the boys in one division and
the girls in another, after which they quietly dispersed.
On going home the children dine, and in the evening in nearly every house
you hear the monotonous hum of the preparation of lessons. After dinner
they are liberated for play, but the girls often hang about the house
with babies on their backs the whole afternoon nursing dolls. One
evening I met a procession of sixty boys and girls, all carrying white
flags with black balls, except the leader, who carried a white flag with
a gilded ball, and they sang, or rather howled, as they walked; but the
other amusements have been of a most sedentary kind. The mechanical
toys, worked by water-wheels in the stream, are most fascinating.
Formal children’s parties have been given in this house, for which formal
invitations, in the name of the house-child, a girl of twelve, are sent
out. About 3 p.m. the guests arrive, frequently attended by servants;
and this child, Haru, receives them at the top of the stone steps, and
conducts each into the reception room, where they are arranged according
to some well-understood rules of precedence. Haru’s hair is drawn back,
raised in front, and gathered into a double loop, in which some scarlet
_crépe_ is twisted. Her face and throat are much whitened, the paint
terminating in three points at the back of the neck, from which all the
short hair has been carefully extracted with pincers. Her lips are
slightly touched with red paint, and her face looks like that of a cheap
doll. She wears a blue, flowered silk _kimono_, with sleeves touching
the ground, a blue girdle lined with scarlet, and a fold of scarlet
_crépe_ lies between her painted neck and her _kimono_. On her little
feet she wears white _tabi_, socks of cotton cloth, with a separate place
for the great toe, so as to allow the scarlet-covered thongs of the
finely lacquered clogs, which she puts on when she stands on the stone
steps to receive her guests, to pass between it and the smaller toes.
All the other little ladies were dressed in the same style, and all
looked like ill-executed dolls. She met them with very formal but
graceful bows.
When they were all assembled, she and her very graceful mother, squatting
before each, presented tea and sweetmeats on lacquer trays, and then they
played at very quiet and polite games till dusk. They addressed each
other by their names with the honorific prefix _O_, only used in the case
of women, and the respectful affix _San_; thus Haru becomes O-Haru-San,
which is equivalent to “Miss.” A mistress of a house is addressed as
_O-Kami-San_, and _O-Kusuma_—something like “my lady”—is used to married
ladies. Women have no surnames; thus you do not speak of Mrs. Saguchi,
but of the wife of Saguchi _San_; and you would address her as
_O-Kusuma_. Among the children’s names were _Haru_, Spring; _Yuki_,
Snow; _Hana_, Blossom; _Kiku_, Chrysanthemum; _Gin_, Silver.
One of their games was most amusing, and was played with some spirit and
much dignity. It consisted in one child feigning sickness and another
playing the doctor, and the pompousness and gravity of the latter, and
the distress and weakness of the former, were most successfully imitated.
Unfortunately the doctor killed his patient, who counterfeited the
death-sleep very effectively with her whitened face; and then followed
the funeral and the mourning. They dramatise thus weddings,
dinner-parties, and many other of the events of life. The dignity and
self-possession of these children are wonderful. The fact is that their
initiation into all that is required by the rules of Japanese etiquette
begins as soon as they can speak, so that by the time they are ten years
old they know exactly what to do and avoid under all possible
circumstances. Before they went away tea and sweetmeats were again
handed round, and, as it is neither etiquette to refuse them or to leave
anything behind that you have once taken, several of the small ladies
slipped the residue into their capacious sleeves. On departing the same
formal courtesies were used as on arriving.
Yuki, Haru’s mother, speaks, acts, and moves with a charming
gracefulness. Except at night, and when friends drop in to afternoon
tea, as they often do, she is always either at domestic avocations, such
as cleaning, sewing, or cooking, or planting vegetables, or weeding them.
All Japanese girls learn to sew and to make their own clothes, but there
are none of the mysteries and difficulties which make the sewing lesson a
thing of dread with us. The _kimono_, _haori_, and girdle, and even the
long hanging sleeves, have only parallel seams, and these are only tacked
or basted, as the garments, when washed, are taken to pieces, and each
piece, after being very slightly stiffened, is stretched upon a board to
dry. There is no underclothing, with its bands, frills, gussets, and
button-holes; the poorer women wear none, and those above them wear, like
Yuki, an under-dress of a frothy-looking silk _crépe_, as simply made as
the upper one. There are circulating libraries here, as in most
villages, and in the evening both Yuki and Haru read love stories, or
accounts of ancient heroes and heroines, dressed up to suit the popular
taste, written in the easiest possible style. Ito has about ten volumes
of novels in his room, and spends half the night in reading them.
Yuki’s son, a lad of thirteen, often comes to my room to display his
skill in writing the Chinese character. He is a very bright boy, and
shows considerable talent for drawing. Indeed, it is only a short step
from writing to drawing. Giotto’s O hardly involved more breadth and
vigour of touch than some of these characters. They are written with a
camel’s-hair brush dipped in Indian ink, instead of a pen, and this boy,
with two or three vigorous touches, produces characters a foot long, such
as are mounted and hung as tablets outside the different shops. Yuki
plays the _samisen_, which may be regarded as the national female
instrument, and Haru goes to a teacher daily for lessons on the same.
The art of arranging flowers is taught in manuals, the study of which
forms part of a girl’s education, and there is scarcely a day in which my
room is not newly decorated. It is an education to me; I am beginning to
appreciate the extreme beauty of solitude in decoration. In the alcove
hangs a _kakemono_ of exquisite beauty, a single blossoming branch of the
cherry. On one panel of a folding screen there is a single iris. The
vases which hang so gracefully on the polished posts contain each a
single peony, a single iris, a single azalea, stalk, leaves, and
corolla—all displayed in their full beauty. Can anything be more
grotesque and barbarous than our “florists’ bouquets,” a series of
concentric rings of flowers of divers colours, bordered by maidenhair and
a piece of stiff lace paper, in which stems, leaves, and even petals are
brutally crushed, and the grace and individuality of each flower
systematically destroyed?
Kanaya is the chief man in this village, besides being the leader of the
dissonant squeaks and discords which represent music at the Shintô
festivals, and in some mysterious back region he compounds and sells
drugs. Since I have been here the beautification of his garden has been
his chief object, and he has made a very respectable waterfall, a rushing
stream, a small lake, a rustic bamboo bridge, and several grass banks,
and has transplanted several large trees. He kindly goes out with me a
good deal, and, as he is very intelligent, and Ito is proving an
excellent, and, I think, a faithful interpreter, I find it very pleasant
to be here.
They rise at daylight, fold up the wadded quilts or _futons_ on and under
which they have slept, and put them and the wooden pillows, much like
stereoscopes in shape, with little rolls of paper or wadding on the top,
into a press with a sliding door, sweep the mats carefully, dust all the
woodwork and the verandahs, open the _amado_—wooden shutters which, by
sliding in a groove along the edge of the verandah, box in the whole
house at night, and retire into an ornamental projection in the day—and
throw the paper windows back. Breakfast follows, then domestic
avocations, dinner at one, and sewing, gardening, and visiting till six,
when they take the evening meal.
Visitors usually arrive soon afterwards, and stay till eleven or twelve.
Japanese chess, story-telling, and the _samisen_ fill up the early part
of the evening, but later, an agonising performance, which they call
singing, begins, which sounds like the very essence of heathenishness,
and consists mainly in a prolonged vibrating “No.” As soon as I hear it
I feel as if I were among savages. _Saké_, or rice beer, is always
passed round before the visitors leave, in little cups with the gods of
luck at the bottom of them. _Saké_, when heated, mounts readily to the
head, and a single small cup excites the half-witted man-servant to some
very foolish musical performances. I am sorry to write it, but his
master and mistress take great pleasure in seeing him make a fool of
himself, and Ito, who is from policy a total abstainer, goes into
convulsions of laughter.
One evening I was invited to join the family, and they entertained me by
showing me picture and guide books. Most Japanese provinces have their
guide-books, illustrated by wood-cuts of the most striking objects, and
giving itineraries, names of _yadoyas_, and other local information. One
volume of pictures, very finely executed on silk, was more than a century
old. Old gold lacquer and china, and some pieces of antique embroidered
silk, were also produced for my benefit, and some musical instruments of
great beauty, said to be more than two centuries old. None of these
treasures are kept in the house, but in the _kura_, or fireproof
storehouse, close by. The rooms are not encumbered by ornaments; a
single _kakemono_, or fine piece of lacquer or china, appears for a few
days and then makes way for something else; so they have variety as well
as simplicity, and each object is enjoyed in its turn without
distraction.
Kanaya and his sister often pay me an evening visit, and, with Brunton’s
map on the floor, we project astonishing routes to Niigata, which are
usually abruptly abandoned on finding a mountain-chain in the way with
never a road over it. The life of these people seems to pass easily
enough, but Kanaya deplores the want of money; he would like to be rich,
and intends to build a hotel for foreigners.
The only vestige of religion in his house is the _kamidana_, or
god-shelf, on which stands a wooden shrine like a Shintô temple, which
contains the memorial tablets to deceased relations. Each morning a
sprig of evergreen and a little rice and _saké_ are placed before it, and
every evening a lighted lamp.