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LETTERS FROM CHINA AND JAPAN
BY
JOHN DEWEY, Ph.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AND
ALICE CHIPMAN DEWEY
Edited by
EVELYN DEWEY
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1920,
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
PREFACE
John Dewey, Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University, and his
wife, Alice C. Dewey, who wrote the letters reproduced in this book,
left the United States early in 1919 for a trip to Japan. The trip was
eagerly embarked on, as they had desired for many years to see at
least something of the Eastern Hemisphere. The journey was to be
solely for pleasure, but just before their departure from San
Francisco, Professor Dewey was invited, by cable, to lecture at the
Imperial University at Tokyo, and later at a number of other points in
the Japanese Empire. They traveled and visited in Japan for some three
to four months and in May, after a most happy experience, made doubly
so by the unexpected courtesies extended them, they decided to go on
to China, at least for a few weeks, before returning to the United
States.
The fascination of the struggle going on in China for a unified and
independent democracy caused them to alter their plan to return to the
United States in the summer of 1919. Professor Dewey applied to
Columbia University for a year's leave of absence, which was granted,
and with Mrs. Dewey, is still in China. Both are lecturing and
conferring, endeavoring to take some of the story of a Western
Democracy to an Ancient Empire, and in turn are enjoying an
experience, which, as the letters indicate, they value as a great
enrichment of their own lives. The letters were written to their
children in America, without thought of their ever appearing in print.
EVELYN DEWEY.
NEW YORK,
January 5th, 1920.
LETTERS FROM CHINA AND JAPAN
TOKYO, Monday, February.
Well, if you want to see one mammoth, muddy masquerade just see Tokyo
to-day. I am so amused all the time that if I were to do just as I
feel, I should sit down or stand up and call out, as it were, from the
housetops to every one in the world to come and see the show. If it
were not for the cut of them I should think that all the cast-off
clothing had been misdirected and had gone to Japan instead of
Belgium. But they are mostly as queer in cut as they are in material.
Imagine rummaging your attic for the colors and patterns of past days
and then gathering up kimonos of all the different colors and patterns
and sizes and with it all a lot of men's hats that are like nothing
you ever saw, and very muddy streets, and there you have it. The
'ricksha men have their legs fitted with tight trousers and puttees to
end them, and they are graceful. They run all day, through the mud and
snow and wet in these things made of cotton cloth that are neither
stockings nor shoes but both, and they stand about or sit on steps and
wait, and yet they get through the day alive. I am distracted between
the desire to ride in the baby cart and the fear of the language,
mixed with the greater fear of the pain of being drawn by a
fellow-being. They are a lithe set of little men and look as if they
had steel springs to make them go when you look at their course. Still
I have been only in autos, of which there are not many here. I get
tired with the excitement of the constant amusement. This morning a
man came out of a curio shop. Bow. "Exguse me, madame, is this not
Mrs. Daway? I knew you because I saw your picture in the paper. Will
you not come in and look at our many curios? I shall have the pleasure
of bringing them to your hotel. What is the number of your room,
madame?" Bow. "No, please do not bring them to my room, for I am
always out. I will come in and see them sometime." "Thank you, madame,
please do so, madame, we have many fine curios." Bow. "Good-morning,
madame."
The looks of the streets are like the clothes, just left over from the
past ages. Of course Tokyo is the modern city of Japan, and we shall
watch out for the ancient ones when it comes their turn. I wish I
could give you an idea of the looks of the poor. The children up to
the age of about thirteen appear never to wipe their noses. Combine
this effect (more effect than in Italy) with several kimonos, one on
top of the other, made of cotton and wool of bright colors and
flowered, with a queer brown checked one on top; this wadded and much
too big, therefore hitched up round the waist. Swung in this outside
one a baby is carried on the back, the little baby head with black
bangs or still fuzzy scalp sticking out, nose never yet touched by a
handkerchief, wearer of the baby with a nose in the same condition if
at a tender age--I scream inside of me as I go about, and it is more
exciting than any play ever. We are as much curiosities to them as
they are to us, though we live where the most foreigners go. Now on
top of it all we can no more make a car driver understand where we
want to go than if we were monkeys. We can't find any names on the
streets, we can't read a sign except the few that are in English; the
streets wind in any and every direction; they are long and short and
circular, while a big canal circles through the part of the city where
we are and we seem to cross it every few minutes; every time we cross
it we think we are going in the same direction as the last time we
crossed it. About this stage of our search your father goes up to a
young fellow with an ulster on, and capes, and a felt hat that is like
a fedora except for a few inches taken out of its height, and says to
him, Tei-ko-ku Hotel, which would mean the Imperial Hotel if he had
pronounced it right, and the boy turns around and says, "Do you want
ze Imperialee Hoter?" And we say, "Yes" (you bet), and the fellow
says, "Eet is ze beeg building down zere," so we wade along some more
with all the clog walkers looking at our feet till we come to this old
barn of a place where we are paying as much as at a Fifth Avenue
hotel, and get clear soup for dinner. Just like any one of those
old-fashioned French places where they measure out with care all they
give you, and where the head is a most distinguished and conspicuous
jack-in-the-box who jacks at you all the time, bows every time you go
down the hall and all and all and all. It is all so screamingly funny.
The shops are nearly as big as our bedrooms at home with enough space
to step in and leave your shoes before you mount the takenomo and walk
on the mats. We could not go into any shop, except the foreign book
stores, because we were too dirty and had no time to unlace our shoes
even if we wanted to wear out our silk stockings. We shall have some
nice striped socks before we begin to do shopping. I am possessed with
the notion of trying the clogs.
Tuesday, February 11 (TOKYO).
To-day is a holiday, so we cannot go to the bank, but we can go to a
meeting where they will discuss universal franchise and
democratization generally. The Emperor is said to be indisposed, so he
will not come to the celebration. His illnesses, like everything else
about him, are arranged by the ministers and mistresses, as near as we
can make out.
We are having so many interesting experiences and impressions that it
is already difficult to catch up in writing them down. Yesterday
morning we went to walk and in the afternoon we were taken out in a
car so that we have got over the first impression of the surface. We
saw the university and the park where the tombs of the shoguns are,
and those tombs are wonderful, just to look at from the car. About
to-morrow we may be able to go to the museum. The rows of stone
lanterns are impressive beyond anything I had imagined; hundreds of
them which must have given to the nights they illuminated a
wonderfully weird spectral look.
It is not fully true that the Japanese are not interested in their
history. At least the educated are, as in any other country. A friend
told us about the revival of interest in the tea ceremony. He is going
to arrange for us to go to one somewhere, he did not say where, but it
will be accompanied by a grand dinner and will express the
magnificence of the new rich as well as the taste of old Japan, to
judge from the impressions he gave us. He told us of an old Chinese
cup for the tea ceremony that a certain millionaire has recently paid
160,000 yen for. That means $80,000. He says the collectors have
various sets, and each set will often represent a million dollars.
This particular bowl is of black porcelain with decorations of bright
color. He told us also of a tea which is now produced in China by
grafting the tea branches on to lemon trees. He has some of this tea
which was given him by the Chinese ambassador and so I hope we may get
a taste of it.
Apropos of this hotel you will be interested to know the manager who
runs the house has just come home from the Waldorf and from London
where he has been learning how to do--people. The exchange rates they
offered Papa seem to be an index of their line of development and they
are going to build more. This is _the_ one first-class hotel in Japan.
At present they have only about sixty rooms or a little more.
In general, things are coming along promisingly. I should be through
lecturing by the first of April here, which is _just_ the time to
begin traveling. It turns out a good scheme to come in winter, for the
weather, while not cheerful, is far from really cold, though it is not
easy to see just how the palms thrive in the snow. Japan seems to have
developed a peculiar type of semi-tropical vegetation which endures
freezing and winter. I can foresee that we are going to be busy
enough, and for the next few weeks your mother is going to have more
time for miscellaneous sightseeing than I. It is indescribably
fascinating; in substance, of course, like the books and pictures, but
nothing really prepares you for the fact that it is not only real in
quality but on such a vast scale---not just specimens here and there.
TOKYO, Thursday, February 13.
We have done our first independent shopping to-day. I can't get over
my astonishment at the amount and quality of English spoken here; it
is about as easy shopping in this store, the big department store, as
it is at home--much easier as respects attention and comfort. They
give us little wrappers or feet gloves to put over our shoes. Think of
what an improvement that would be in muddy weather in Chicago.
This afternoon is sort of a lull after the storm of sociability and
hospitality which reached its temporary height yesterday. Let me give
the diary. Before we had finished breakfast--and we have eaten every
morning at eight until to-day--people began to call. Then two
gentlemen took us to the University in their car and we called on the
President again. He is a gentleman of the old school, Confucianist I
suppose, and your mother was much impressed at being taken in, instead
of staying in the car, but I think he was much more pleased and
complimented by her call than by mine. Then we were taken to the
department store to which I have already alluded. Many people do all
their buying there, because there are fixed prices with a reward for a
discovery of any place where the same goods are sold cheaper, and
absolute honesty as to quality. But they also said that was the easy
way to visit Japan and learn about the clothes, ornaments, toys, etc.,
and also to see the people, as the Japanese from all over the country
come there to see the sights. There were a group of country people in;
they are called red blankets, not greenhorns, because they wear in
winter a red bed blanket gathered with a string, instead of an
overcoat. Then at night it comes in handy.
The stores are already displaying the things for the girls' festival
though it doesn't come till early March--this is the peach fete, and
the display of festive dolls--king and queen, servants, ladies of the
court in their old costumes, is very interesting and artistic. They
have certainly put the doll to uses which we haven't approached. Then
we had lunch at the store, a regular Japanese lunch, which tasted very
good, and I ate mine with chop sticks. Then they brought us back to
the hotel, and at two a friend came and took me to call on Baron
Shibusawa--I suppose even benighted foreigners like yourself will know
who he is, but you may not know that he is 83, that he has a skin like
a baby's, and shows all the signs of the most acute mental vigor, or
that for the last two or three years he has given up all business and
devoted himself to philanthropic and humanitarian activities. He does
evidently what not many American millionaires do; he takes an
intellectual and moral interest, and doesn't merely give money. He
explained for about half an hour or more his theory of life (he is
purely a Confucianist and not a religionist of any kind), and what he
was trying to do, especially that it isn't merely relief. He is
desirous to preserve the old Confucian standards only adapted to
present economic conditions; it is essentially a morality of feudal
economic relationships, as perhaps you know, and he thinks the modern
factory employers can be brought to take the old paternal attitude to
the employees and thus forestall the class struggle here. The radicals
laugh at the notion here much as they would in the United States, but
for my part if he can get in a swipe at the Marxian theory of social
evolution and bring about another type still of social evolution, I
don't see why he should not have a run for his money. According to all
reports there is very little labor and capital problem here yet,
though the big fortunes made by the war and the increased prosperity
of the workingmen have begun to make a change, it is said. Up to the
present labor unions have not been permitted, but the government has
announced that while they are not encouraged they will not be any
longer forbidden.
But I must get back to the story. Another friend had asked us to go to
the theater with him, the Imperial Theater, which has European seats
and is a fine and large building, as fine as in any capital and not
overdecorated like a New York one. The theater began at four, and,
with about half an hour intermission for dinner, continued till ten at
night; the regular Japanese theaters begin at eleven in the morning
and continue till ten at night and you have your food brought to you;
also they have no seats and you sit on your legs. None of the plays
was strictly of the old historic type, but the most interesting one by
far was adapted from a classic--it centers to some extent about a
faithful horse, and the people are country farmers of several
centuries ago. The least interesting was a kind of problem
play--mostly philosophical discourse of the modern type--the right to
expression of self and an artistic career, aphorisms having no
dramatic appeal to even the Japanese audience. These people certainly
have an alert intelligence--almost as specialized as the Parisian, for
the audience was distinctly of the people, and no American audience
could be got to pay the close attention it gave to performances where
the merits, so far as they are not strictly artistic, in the technique
of acting which is very highly developed, depend upon catching the
play of moral emotions rather than upon anything very theatrical.
However, the classic drama which is based upon old stories and
traditions is more dramatic and melodramatic. The Japanese also say
the old theater has much better actors than the semi-Europeanized one
which is, I suppose, supported by the government. In the Imperial, the
orchestra seats are one dollar and a half; they are more--on the floor
at that--in the all-day theaters. Even in this one they have not
introduced applause, though there was slight handclapping once or
twice when the curtain went down. The Japanese have always had the
revolving theater as a means of scene shifting; it works like a
railway turntable apparently. Well, that ended the day yesterday.
Except we had invited two gentlemen to dinner, and when we told our
friends about it, they said, "Oh, just telephone them to come some
other day," which appears to be good Japanese etiquette, as it is also
to make calls at any time of the day, so we did. But unfortunately
they had to telephone to-day that they couldn't come to-night.
To-day has been comparatively calm; we have only had four Japanese
callers and two American ones. Of the two Japanese, one is a woman who
is the warden of the Girls' University, and the other is a teacher in
it, a young woman of a wealthy and aristocratic family who has become
too modern, I judge, for her family. I hope all you children will make
a bow to every Japanese you meet and ask him what you can do to be of
service to him. I shall have to spend the rest of my life trying to
make up for some of the kindnesses and courtesies which so abound
here.
I am afraid much of this is more interesting to me to write about than
it is to you to read, to say nothing of being more interesting to go
through than to read about. But you can then save the letter for us to
re-read when we get old and return from our Odysseying, and wish to
recover the memories of the days when people were so kind that they
created in us the illusion of being somebody, and gave us the combined
enjoyments of home and being in a strange and semi-magic country;
semi-magic for us. For the mass of the people, one can only wonder at
their cheerfulness and realize what a really old and overcrowded
country is and how Buddhism and stoic fatalistic cheerfulness develop.
Don't ever fool yourself into thinking of Japan as a new country; I
don't any longer believe the people who tell you that you have to go
to China and India to see antiquity. Superficially it may be so, but
not fundamentally. Any country is old where birth and death are like
the coming and dropping of leaves on a tree, and where the individual
is of as much importance as the leaf. Old world and New world are not
mere relatives; they are as near absolutes as anything.
We heard a whistle making its cry outside and Mamma thought it was the
bank messenger, so I rang the bell for the boy to bring him in--but
alas, it was much less romantic; it was the call of the macaroni
peddler.
TOKYO, February.
Here we are, one week after landing, on a hill in a beautiful garden of
trees on which the buds are already swelling. The plums will soon be in
bloom, and in March the camellias, which grow to fairly large trees. In
the distance we see the wonderful Fuji, nearby the other hills of this
district, and the further plains of the city. Just at the foot of our
hill is a canal, along which is an alley of cherry trees formerly
famous, but largely destroyed by a storm a few years ago.
We have a wonderful apartment to ourselves, mostly all windows, which in
this house are glass. A very large bedroom, a small dressing room, and a
study where I now sit with the sun coming in the windows which are all
its sides. We need this sun, though the hibashi, or boxes of charcoal,
do wonders in warming up your feet and drying hair, as I am now doing.
We are surrounded by all the books on Japan that modern learning has
produced, so we have never a waiting moment. The house is very large,
with one house after another covering the hilltop and connected by the
galleries that are cut off the sides of each room in succession. I shall
try to get a photo. At the extreme end of the house is Mr. X----'s
library of several rooms, and at the limit of that the tea room for the
tea ceremonies. Our host is not one of the new rich who buy sets at a
million dollars for performing this ceremony. He laughs at that. But
there is a gold lacquer table which is like transfixed sunshine, and
there are other pieces of old furniture, which are priceless now, and
which have come down in his family. You would be amused to see us at
breakfast, which O-Tei, the maid assigned to us, serves in our sun
parlor. First we have fruit. Two little lacquer tables to move wherever
we want to sit. The dishes and service are in our fashion in this house.
Nice old blue Canton plates and other things Japanese. After fruit she
makes toast over the charcoal in the hibashi, two little iron sticks
stuck in the bread to hold it. On these prongs she hands us the toast.
Meantime she teaches us Japanese and we teach her English which she
already knows, and she giggles every time we speak. Well, we put our
toast down on the plate and she disappears. The coffee pot is on a side
table and we desperately look for cups for ourselves, though with some
fear of disturbing the etiquette. No cups, she forgot them. After a
while she comes up again with the cups and we get coffee, then she goes
down again and brings scrambled eggs on the nice old blue plates. Then
she giggles a little more and talks in that soft voice that is like
nothing else we ever heard, as she hands us a nice hot piece of toast on
an iron spike; she is much pleased and giggles because I tell her the
toast is not harmed by dropping it on the clean floor, and she walks off
into the big bedroom to bring the coffee from the gas heater. It is all
like a pretty play unmarred by any remote ideas about efficiency, and
time and labor-saving devices. Then two maids make our beds; then they
dust the floor, one holding up the sofa on edge while the other whisks
underneath it, and they smile and bow and take an interest in every move
we make as if we were their dearest friends.
Enter now the housekeeper who, with many bows, announces v-e-r-y
s-l-o-w-l-y that she would like to accompany me to go about the city and
to explain things to me, as I would thus teach her English. I asked if
she were going to church and she said she wasn't a Christian. Think what
a funny sound that has. She is the secretary of Mr. X---- and a student
in the new Christian college of which he is the President. She comes in
now to wait on us at breakfast and she stays and repeats English after
us. She knows a lot of English, but it is so literary that it is quite
amusing to turn her into the ways of ordinary talk. To get her to open
her mouth and break the polite Japanese whisper, in which the Japanese
women speak, is what I work most on. Yesterday we visited the Women's
University which is within walking distance of this house. The
President, Mr. Naruse, is dying of cancer. He is in bed but is able to
talk quite naturally. He has made a farewell address to his students,
has said good-bye to his faculty in a speech, and has named the dean,
who is acting in his place now, as his successor. At this University
they teach flower arrangement, long sword, and Japanese etiquette, and
the chief warden is a fine woman. She says I may come in as much as I
like to see those different things.
In the afternoon we had callers again, among them two women. Women are
rare. One, a Dr. R----, is an osteopath who has practiced here for
fifteen years and is an old friend of our host's. The second, Miss
T----, has just returned from seven years in our country. I heard much
of her at Stanford and brought letters to her. She has a chair in the
Women's University. It is a chair of Sociology, but she says the
authorities are afraid the time has not yet come for her to start on
sociology, so she will begin with the teaching of English and work into
sociology by the process of ingratiating it into her classes. She is an
interesting personality. She was sent to me to say I might be lonely
because your father was away so she was to take me, with any other
friends I wanted, to the theater. As we had already been to the Imperial
Theater and sat in the Baron's box it was finally arranged to go to the
Kabuki, where we sit on the floor and see real old Japanese acting,
which I am very anxious to do. I understand it begins at 11 in the
morning and lasts until ten at night.
February 22.
Yesterday we went to the theater, beginning at one and ending about
nine; tea is constantly in the box, and little meals--and a big
one--between the acts. We liked the old Japanese theater better than the
more or less modernized one. Baron Shibusawa presented us with a box--or
rather two of them--and his niece and another relative and the two young
people from the house went. I won't try to describe the dramas, except
to say that the way to study Japanese history and tradition would be to
go to the theater with some one to interpret, and that while the theater
is as plain as a medieval European one, the dresses are even more
elaborate and costly. The stage is a beautiful spectacle when there are
forty old Samurai on it, as the garments are genuine, not tinsel. Mamma
went more than I, because I had to leave at half-past four to go to the
Concordia Society--in fact, I hadn't expected to go at all at first, as
the Baron said that he sent the offer of the box because he feared Mamma
might be lonely when I was away! There were about twenty-five Japanese
and Americans at the meeting and after I had spoken for half an hour we
had dinner in an adjoining restaurant, and then sat around and visited
for an hour or so.
The great event of the week, aside from the theater yesterday, was
visiting the Women's University--you mightn't think that a great treat,
but you don't know what we saw. We started early to walk, since it isn't
far and we had been shown the way once, but we were rubbering so busily
at the shops that we failed to notice where we were till we got to the
end of things and then had to turn around and walk back, so we got there
late. The forenoon we spent in the elementary classes and kindergarten,
which are their practice school. Those very bright kimonos for children
you see are real--all the children wear them, as bright as can be,
generally reds, and then some. So the rooms where the little children
were are like gardens of flowers with bright birds in them--gay as can
be. The work was all interesting, but the colored crayon drawings
particularly. They have a great deal of freedom there, and instead of
the children imitating and showing no individuality--which seems to be
the proper thing to say--I never saw so much variety and so little
similarity in drawings and other hand work, to say nothing of its
quality being much better than the average of ours. The children were
under no visible discipline, but were good as well as happy; they paid
no attention to visitors, which I think is ultramodern, as I expected to
see them all rise and bow. If you will think of doing all the regular
school work--including in this school a good deal of hand work, drawing,
etc.--and then learning by the end of the sixth grade a thousand or more
Chinese characters, to make as well as to read, you will have some idea
of how industrious the kids have to be, and of course they have to learn
Japanese characters, too. Then we had a luncheon, ten of us altogether,
cooked and served by the girls in the Domestic Department; some
luncheon!--and garnished in a way to beat the Ritz--European food and
service. Then the real show began. First we had flower arrangement,
ancient and modern styles, then examples of the ancient etiquette in
serving tea and cakes to guests, and then of inferiors calling on
superiors; then Koto playing--a thirteen-stringed harp that lies on the
floor--first two girls and the teacher, and then a solo by the teacher.
He is blind and said to be the best player in Japan; he gave "Cotton
Bleaching in the Brook," and said he rarely played it, only once a year.
Well, you could hear the water ripple and fall, and hit the stones, and
the women singing and beating the cotton. I could hear it better than I
can hear spring in our music, so I think perhaps my ears are made to fit
the Japanese scale, or lack of it. Then we were taken into the tea house
and shown the tea ceremony, being served with tea. Mamma sat tatami, on
her heels, but I basely took a chair. Then we went to the gymnasium and
saw the old Samurai women's sword and spear exercises, etc. The teacher
was an old woman of seventy-five and as lithe and nimble as a cat--more
graceful than any of the girls. I have an enormous respect now for the
old etiquette and ceremonies regarded as physical culture. Every
movement has to be made perfectly, and it cannot be done without
conscious control. The modernized gym exercises by the children were
simply pitiful compared with all these ceremonies. Then we were taken to
the dormitories, which are in a garden, simple wooden Japanese
buildings, like barns our girls would think, but everything so clean you
could eat on the floor anywhere, with the south side all glass and sun,
and the girls sitting on the floor to study on a table about a foot and
a half high; no beds or chairs to litter up the rooms. Then after we
were taken over some of the other rooms, we went back to the dining-room
and had a most exquisite Japanese vegetarian Buddhist lunch served--just
a sample, all on a little plate, but including the sweets for dessert,
five or six things all quite different and elegantly cooked. Also three
kinds of tea.
Politeness is so universal here that when we get back we shall either be
so civil that you won't know us, or else we shall be so irritated that
nobody is sufficiently civil that you won't know us either. Mr. X----
took me in his car and brought me back. When we got to the hall there
were five maids bowing and smiling to get our slippers and hang up our
coats and hats. Just going in or out is like going to a picnic; I think
the maids enjoy this change in their regular work, for they really
smile, as if they were having the time of their lives. If it is
perfunctory and put on, they have me fooled.
Well, I'll spare you all any philosophical reflections this trip.
Besides, I've been too busy having a good time to think of any. They
will probably grow spontaneously in China. I forgot whether I told you
in my last letter that the Minister of the Interior has given me a
monthly and renewable pass first class on the Japanese railways. A
friend here asked him for one for Mamma, too, but he said he was very
sorry, that privilege could not be extended to a woman. So I'm the only
grafter in the family. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but shall
make one at the first opportunity in order to get the sensation.
TOKYO, Friday, February 28.
I don't get much sightseeing done except in the way of seeing street
sights. I am generally accompanied when I take a walk for exercise and
always taken by some new way. The other evening we went out after dinner
and took a walk to a lively street not far off--booksellers with their
things spread out on the sidewalk or rather road, little lunch wagons,
crowded streets and shops--they have electricity everywhere, and some
geisha girls trotting along with maids to carry their samisens. We went
into a Japanese movie beside rubbering at everything and then went into
a Japanese restaurant. Their eating places here are specialized--this
was a noodle shop, and we tried three kinds, one wheat in a soup, one
buckwheat with fried shrimps, and another cold with seaweed. For the
entire lot for the two of us it cost 27 cents American money, and the
place, which was an ordinary one, was cleaner than any American one,
even the best. The movie story seemed more complicated than any of ours,
and was certainly slower, because there is a man and a woman in a little
coop near the curtain who say what the actors are saying whenever their
lips move, this gives a chance of course for more talk. There were a few
knockouts and a murder and a villain and a persecuted damsel, and an
attempted suicide to provide thrills, but I couldn't make out what it
was about even with the aid of the guide with me. Such are simple
pleasures here, save that when we walk in the daytime we generally go to
a temple where on the whole the people are more interesting than the
temples, though sometimes the layout of trees is beautiful and gives
much the same effect of religious calm as a cathedral. In general the
similarity between worship here and the country Italian Catholicism is
more striking than anything else. They are slightly more naive here--to
see the dolls, woolly dogs, and pinwheels at the shrines of the
children's gods, besides their straw slippers, straw sandals and an
occasional child's kimono is quite touching, also sometimes a mother has
cut off her hair and pinned it up as an offering. Other things are as
humorous as these are pathetic, such as making spitballs of written
prayers and pasting the god with them. Some of the gods are now
protected by wire netting on this account. I have got fairly well used
to the street scenes now and can tell most of the kinds of shops, such
as an undertaker's from a cooper's. What makes the street so interesting
is that you can look in and see everything going on. I forgot to mention
the most interesting street thing I've seen, a bird catcher with a long
limed pole like a bamboo fishing rod, a basket with a valve door to put
them in and some other utensils. I didn't see him catch any, though.
Sunday Morning, March 2.
I am writing early because we are going to-day to Kamakura. You have
probably heard of the big bronze Buddha--fifty feet high--well, that is
there. A friend has arranged an interview for us with the most
distinguished or most learned of the Buddhist priests in Japan--who
belongs to the most philosophical of all the sects, the Zen, which
believes in the simple life and is more or less Stoical; this is the
sect that had the greatest influence on the warrior class in the good
old days. Kamakura is on the other side of Yokohama, an old Shogun
capital; has lots of historic shrines, etc.
Yesterday I made my first speech with an interpreter to a teachers'
association, some five hundred in all, mostly elementary school teachers
conspicuous for the fact that only about twenty-five were women. In the
evening we went to a supper and reception of the English-Speaking
Society, Americans and Japanese, mostly the latter; both men and women
and the most generally sociable thing we have seen yet. We have heard
said it was the only place in Tokyo where Japanese men and women really
met in a free sociable way, and the president said that when Japanese
met for sociable purposes they were reserved and stiff--at least till
the wine went round--as long as they spoke Japanese, but speaking
English brought back the habits they got in America and thawed them
out--an interesting psychological observation on the effect of language.
TOKYO, Tuesday, March 4.
You would be surprised to see how free from all affectations this
country has remained, at least so far as we see it. There is a social
democracy here that we do not know. All Japan is talking democracy now,
which is to be taken in the sense of representative government rather
than in the sense of tearing down the present form of government. The
representation in elections here now does not seem to extend much
further, if any, than to include those large taxpayers who would under
any system be a force in forming policy. The extension of the suffrage
is the great question under discussion at present. That and the
expansion of special education for men are the turning points for the
coming legislators. Japan has acquired many new millionaires during the
war and those men are already founding new schools for vocational
purposes for men. Four hundred and forty students are to be sent abroad
with a very generous allowance for living in the different foreign
countries, none of them women, and no women are mentioned in any of the
new appropriation bills. Not even a mention of the needs for women.
Yesterday, to begin, was spent thus: It was the famous festival of
dolls. In the morning I made a dress for a poor sort of foreign doll I
had hunted out for a little girl. It was all American. Another
ridiculous imitation of American baby, looking half caste Japanese, has
still to be dressed when I can find the material for long clothes, but I
presented it as is. They invited me in to see their exhibition. Some of
their dolls are two hundred years old from their mothers' family. I
shall try to find some literature on this festival as it is too long to
write about. But it is true that one begins immediately to get the
passion for dolls; they are not dead things like ours, but works of art
symbolic of all the different phases of national life. The little girls
were delighted with their possessions. If I had only known about this I
should have known what to bring to Japan for gifts, instead of feeling
as helpless as I did. If you come, bring dolls.
In the afternoon I was invited to go to the best or one of the best
collections in the country and that was a great experience. It began
very painfully for me because I got lost and was three-quarters of an
hour late at the Imperial Hotel from which we started. The family that
owns this famous collection is very old and the wife is the daughter of
a Daimyo, hence the dolls are very old. And they are wonderful, and more
wonderful still their housekeeping equipment of old lacquer and
porcelain and glass. The doll refreshments are served in tiny dishes on
tiny tables while the guests sit on the floor, the hostess and her
family doing all the serving. We had the thick white wine made from rice
poured out of wonderful little decanters into tiny glasses. We drank to
the health of the family and the stuff is delicious, with an aroma such
as no honey can excel. After these refreshments we were shown the room
for the tea ceremony and then taken back into the foreign part of the
house for real refreshments, which consisted of many and wonderful
varieties of cakes. The tea was served in cups with saucers decorated
with plum blossoms, this being the time of plum blossoms. Then tea cups
taken away and cups of rich chocolate placed on the tables. These tables
were high enough for the ordinary chairs. All the foreign houses are
very ugly in style but very comfortable and mid-Victorian. The Baroness
urged us to eat special cakes and we left stuffed. One kind is in the
form of a beautiful pink leaf wrapped in a cherry leaf which has been
preserved from last year. The leaf gives the cake a delicious flavor and
also a cover to protect the fingers from its stickiness. Then three
little round brown cakes looking some like chocolate--on a skewer. You
bite off the first one whole, then slip the other two as you eat them.
Those alone are enough for a meal and very nourishing. All cakes are
made from bean paste or like our richest pastries. When that second meal
was finished, we said good-bye. The Baroness and her three pretty
daughters and her sister all followed us to the outer door and when our
auto drove off the last thing we saw were the bows of the butlers and
these pretty ladies, all saying one more harmonious good-bye. The young
girls dress in kimonos of wool muslin of the brightest colors and
designs which are conceivable even to the Japanese imagination. They
look like a very profusely blooming garden of old fashioned perennials.
The garden is indescribable. I had some fancy of what a Japanese garden
would look like, but find it is nothing at all beside the reality. This
place is big and the grass is now brown. Most of the grass is covered
with a thick carpet of pine needles and at the edge of the pine needle
carpet a rope of twisted straw outlines graceful curves. The use of the
big stones is the most surprising part of the whole. They are very old
and weather-stained, of many shades of gray and blue-gray, with the
short shrubs for a background, and the severity and simplicity of the
result has a classic beauty which we may attain in centuries, and only
after we have consumed our abundance of things material.
Then we went to dinner at the house of Professor M----. There are six
children in his family, the oldest a man of about twenty-five, a
graduate of the Imperial University, now a factory inspector for the
government; he speaks eight languages. One of these is Esperanto, which
is his hobby. The French Professors were there also, two of them, a
clever and amusing pair, who did their duty in talking, and the young
man spoke better than any of us and with an excellent pronunciation. He
has never been out of Japan. Two little girls and a young boy appeared
after dinner and made their pretty bows to the floor, and then went to a
low table and squatted and played Go the rest of the evening. Go is the
famous shell game. Go means five and it is a game of fives, but ask me
no more, except that the men are 364 in number and you play it on an
expanded checker board. There was an endless succession of food and
drinks and we did not leave till nearly eleven. Japanese families have
many nice drinks which we do not. Theirs are perhaps no better than our
best ones, but they add to the pleasant variety of non-alcoholic drinks.
Besides those we had two wines.
This was the dinner as near as I can remember. A menu card was at each
plate and I fancy they were intended as souvenirs for the foreign
guests, but I forgot to take mine, if that was their purpose. We had
soup, bread of two kinds, and butter. Then fish patties, then little
birds, boned, on toast with a vegetable, then ramekins of Japanese
macaroni, which is not like ours. Next roast beef, very tender fillet,
with potato balls, peas, gravy, another vegetable forgot, and salad,
white and red wine, coming after the orange cider. Then a delicious
pudding, then cake and strawberries. Those berries are raised out of
doors. They are planted between rows of stones which are heated
artificially, I did not quite understand how, the vines being kept from
touching the stones by low bamboo trellises. Whipped cream served with
the berries. Then delicious coffee in foreign style.
After dinner we leave the reception room in foreign style and go
upstairs to the big Japanese room, sit by the hibashi or the grate, and
here the children come. At once tea is served. Then just as we were
starting for home we were urged to stay for a drink, which was more
orange cider, very sweet, and bottled waters, which are so good and come
from the many natural springs. One of the amusements of the Japanese is
seeing the foreign visitors try to sit, and you can't wonder they are
amused. I can manage it, in awkward fashion, but your father can't even
bend for the pose. On Sunday we sat for two hours in the presence of the
greatest Buddhist priest in Japan, and you can guess whether we wriggled
and if my feet were asleep if you try the pose for a few minutes
yourself, even on a nice soft cushion as we were. Getting up properly is
the hardest part of it.
TOKYO, Tuesday, March 4.
Our friends took us to Kamakura; it isn't interesting reading these
things in advance in guide books, so I don't think a description will be
interesting, but something over seven hundred years ago, the first
Shogun rulers settled there and made it their capital, of which nothing
is now left save the Buddhist temples. We met on the train going down
the professor of Japanese literature in the University, who was going
there because it was the seventh hundred anniversary of a Shogun who
wrote poetry, and the professor was going over to lecture on his poems.
Also we ran across several hundred school children, boys and girls with
their teachers, who were spending Sunday seeing the historic sights. One
of the big temples to the god of war was a kind of museum, with old
swords and masks and things in it. They took us to call on the Reverend
Shaku, who is the head of the Zen sect of Buddhists in Japan, and who
talked--including the interpreter--about two hours, in answer to
questions about Buddhism, especially his variety. It was very
interesting. We were ushered into a Japanese room, beautiful
proportions, a lovely kakemono in the alcove--it's a scroll, not a
kimono--and a five-legged little table made of metal with
mother-of-pearl inlay. Otherwise nothing but the room with gorgeous blue
and gold chrysanthemums alternating on the paneled ceiling and five silk
cushions scattered around for us to sit on, and a single one at the end
of the room for him. In about five minutes another screen door opened
and he appeared in a gorgeous but simple flowing robe, copper colored.
Then tea and sponge cake--meantime the talk fest had begun. Incidentally
I should remark that the bowing and kneeling of the servants looks much
more natural and less servile when you see people seated on the floor,
and the servants have to kneel to hand them anything. His personality is
that of a scholarly type, rather ascetic, not over refined, but not in
the least sleek like some of our Hindu swamis, and very charming. When
we left he thanked us for coming and expressed his great satisfaction
that he had made some friends. His talk was largely moral but with a
high metaphysical flavor, somewhat elusive, and reminding one of Royce.
Well it was an experience worth having, as he is reputed the most
learned and representative Buddhist in Japan, and as I have remarked
before, seeing is quite different from reading. He was more modern than
Royce in one respect; he said God is the moral ideal in man and as man
develops the divine principle does also. We saw the big fifty-foot
bronze statue of Buddha, in some respects the most celebrated single
thing in Japan and again one you have to see. It is as impressive as a
cathedral.
We have been to a dinner party since I began this. Our host seems to be
a universal genius--a member of the house of peers, an authority on
education, an orchid fancier, a painter and I don't know what. There
were over twenty at table, and our health was drunk in champagne with a
little speech, and two members of the cabinet were there. The Countess
is the mother of eight children, and looks about thirty and very pretty
for thirty. Three or four of the little girls were about before and
after dinner, and, like several of the little girls of the new
generation, are as spontaneous and natural as you would wish. Acquired
characteristics are certainly hereditary in Japan, for even the most
lively and spontaneous children are civilized. Whatever else you think
about the Japanese they are about the most highly civilized people on
earth, perhaps overcultivated. I asked Mamma when these girls would
undergo the clammifying process and have all their life taken out of
them, and she said never for these girls.
President Naruse died this morning; as he had cancer, it was fortunate
he did not linger longer. He was one of the most remarkable men in
Japan. Two days before he died the Empress sent him a present of five
thousand dollars for his school--a very great tribute and one which will
help the cause of woman's education. Speaking of this family where we
dined, you can judge of the high aristocracy of our hosts of the evening
by the fact that when they showed us the dolls' festival, there were
some fine ones which had been sent the Countess by the Imperial
Princesses. The dolls by the way are never played with--they are works
of art and history to look at. These children got out their American
dolls, of which they had ten, to show Mamma.
March 5.
I have now given three lectures. They are a patient race; there is still
a good-sized audience, probably five hundred. We are gradually getting a
superficial acquaintance with a good many people, and if I could get two
or three weeks free from lectures to prepare I could make a business of
finding things out, but as it is I only accumulate certain impressions.
There is no doubt a great change is going on; how permanent it will be
depends a good deal upon how the rest of the world behaves. If it
doesn't live up to its peaceful and democratic professions, the
conservative bureaucrats and militarists, who of course are still very
strong, will say we told you so and there will be a backset. But if
other countries, and especially our own, behave decently, the
democratizing here will go on as steadily and as rapidly as is
desirable.
TOKYO, Monday, March 10.