THE OLD AND THE NEW
I was about eight years old when I had my first taste of meat.
For twelve centuries, following the introduction of the Buddhist
religion, which forbids the killing of animals, the Japanese people
were vegetarians. In late years, however, both belief and custom have
changed considerably, and now, though meat is not universally eaten, it
can be found in all restaurants and hotels. But when I was a child it
was looked upon with horror and loathing.
How well I remember one day when I came home from school and found the
entire household wrapped in gloom. I felt a sense of depression as
soon as I stepped into the "shoe-off" entrance, and heard my mother,
in low, solemn tones, giving directions to a maid. A group of servants
at the end of the hall seemed excited, but they also were talking in
hushed voices. Of course, since I had not yet greeted the family, I did
not ask any questions, but I had an uneasy feeling that something was
wrong, and it was very hard for me to walk calmly and unhurriedly down
the long hall to my grandmother's room.
"Honourable Grandmother, I have returned," I murmured, as I sank to
the floor with my usual salutation. She returned my bow with a gentle
smile, but she was graver than usual. She and a maid were sitting
before the black-and-gold cabinet of the family shrine. They had a
large lacquer tray with rolls of white paper on it and the maid was
pasting paper over the gilded doors of the shrine.
Like almost every Japanese home, ours had two shrines. In time of
sickness or death, the plain wooden Shinto shrine, which honours
the Sun goddess, the Emperor, and the nation, was sealed with white
paper to guard it from pollution. But the gilded Buddhist shrine was
kept wide open at such a time; for Buddhist gods give comfort to the
sorrowing and guide the dead on their heavenward journey. I had never
known the gold shrine to be sealed; and besides, this was the very hour
for it to be lighted in readiness for the evening meal. That was always
the pleasantest part of the day; for after the first helping of our
food had been placed on a tiny lacquer table before the shrine, we all
seated ourselves at our separate tables, and ate, talked and laughed,
feeling that the loving hearts of the ancestors were also with us. But
the shrine was closed. What could it mean?
I remember that my voice trembled a little as I asked, "Honourable
Grandmother, is--is anybody going to die?"
I can see now how she looked--half amused and half shocked.
"Little Etsu-ko," she said, "you talk too freely, like a boy. A girl
should never speak with abrupt unceremony."
"Pardon me, Honourable Grandmother," I persisted anxiously; "but is not
the shrine being sealed with the pure paper of protection?"
"Yes," she answered with a little sigh, and said nothing more.
I did not speak again but sat watching her bent shoulders as she leaned
over, unrolling the paper for the maid. My heart was greatly troubled.
Presently she straightened up and turned toward me.
"Your honourable father has ordered his household to eat flesh," she
said very slowly. "The wise physician who follows the path of the
Western barbarians has told him that the flesh of animals will bring
strength to his weak body, and also will make the children robust
and clever like the people of the Western sea. The ox flesh is to be
brought into the house in another hour and our duty is to protect the
holy shrine from pollution."
That evening we ate a solemn dinner with meat in our soup; but
no friendly spirits were with us, for both shrines were sealed.
Grandmother did not join us. She always occupied the seat of honour,
and the vacant place looked strange and lonely. That night I asked her
why she had not come.
"I would rather not grow as strong as a Westerner--nor as clever," she
answered sadly. "It is more becoming for me to follow the path of our
ancestors."
My sister and I confided to each other that we liked the taste of meat.
But neither of us mentioned this to any one else; for we both loved
Grandmother, and we knew our disloyalty would sadden her heart.
The introduction of foreign food helped greatly to break down the wall
of tradition which shut our people away from the world of the West,
but sometimes the change was made at a great cost. This could not
be otherwise; for after the Restoration many samurai suddenly found
themselves not only poor and at the same time separated entirely from
the system that had given them support; but also, bound as firmly as
ever by the code of ethics that for centuries had taught them utter
contempt for money. The land was flooded, during those first years,
with business failures; for many of these men were young, ambitious,
and eager to experiment with new customs.
Such a one was Mr. Toda, a friend and neighbour, who often came to
shoot on our archery grounds with my father, or to take horseback rides
with him in the mountains. I liked Mr. Toda very much, and could not
understand why Grandmother seemed to feel that his ideas were too
progressive and informal.
One day when he and Father were having a game of archery, they stopped
to argue about some business plan. I was near by, trying to ride on the
back of my father's big white dog, Shiro. After I had had a more severe
tumble than usual, Mr. Toda picked me up and stood me very near the
grassy bank against which was placed the large round target with its
broad rings of black and white. Putting the big bow in front of me, he
held my arms while I shot. The arrow struck the target.
"Best done!" he shouted. "You will make a great warrior, Little
Mistress! You are your father's son, after all!"
My father laughed as he told the story that night. I felt very proud,
but Mother looked thoughtful and Grandmother shook her head sadly.
"Your honourable father trains you in so boy-like a manner," she said
turning to me, "that I fear fate must search long for your unfound
husband. No genteel family wants an ungentle bride."
And so, even in our pleasant family, there was a continual hidden
battle between the old and the new.
Mr. Toda was a man of independent thought, and after several vain
attempts to adjust himself to new conditions and at the same time
retain his dignity, he decided to throw dignity aside and engage in
some business that would bring material results. This was just at
the beginning of the talk about the strength-giving properties of
foreign food. Since Mr. Toda owned a good-sized estate which at that
time nobody would accept even as a gift, he converted it into a grass
farm and sent to a far-away coast for some cattle. Then, with a few
experienced men as assistants, he once more ventured into the business
world; this time as a dairy man and a butcher.
The aristocratic family of Mr. Toda did not approve at all of this new
occupation; for in the old days, only _eta_ (the outcast class) ever
handled bodies from which life had gone. For a while almost everyone
looked upon him with a sort of curious horror, but gradually faith in
meat as a strengthening food gained ground, and the families who used
it on their tables grew steadily in number. So the business prospered.
The simpler part of his work--the selling of milk--was also successful,
but it also had serious drawbacks. Most of the common people believed
that cow's milk would influence the nature of those who drank it, and
on this subject they gossiped much. We children heard from servants
that Mrs. Toda's new-born baby had a tiny horn on its forehead and
that its fingers were clubbed together like cows' hoofs. These tales
were not true, of course. But fear has a strong influence on our lives
for happiness or misery, and in the Toda household there was real and
desperate anxiety about many trifling things.
The majority of intellectual men of that day, though broad thinkers
themselves, allowed the women of their families to remain narrow and
ignorant; and so it was that the constant friction between the old and
new ideas ended finally in a tragedy. The proud old grandmother of the
Toda house, feeling keenly what in her eyes was disgrace to the family
name, chose the only way to right a wrong that a helpless Japanese
knows--sacrifice. If one must die for a principle, it is not hard
to find a way; so one day the grandmother was laid to rest with the
ancestors whose honour she had died to uphold.
Mr. Toda was an unflinching man, who honestly believed that he was
right in carrying out his progressive ideas, but to his mother's silent
protest he yielded. He sold his business to a wealthy fish dealer, who
steadily became wealthier, for the use of meat and milk constantly
increased.
The spacious grounds where Mr. Toda's cattle had leisurely browsed
were left vacant a long time. We children on our way home from school
used to peep fearfully through the cracks in the black board fence and
talk in whispers as we gazed at the desolate land covered with coarse
grass and tall weeds. We always, in some way, associated that lonely
place with the wandering soul of Mrs. Toda, who by going on the unknown
journey had accomplished what here she was helpless to do.
One day my father came home and told us that Mr. Toda was now guard
to a farmer landlord in an adjacent province. His good fortune was
due to the fact that, for several years after the Restoration, the
new government had much trouble in handling its numerous, previously
separately governed provinces, and there was much lawlessness
everywhere. To the landlord of many small farms the Restoration was
not the tragedy it was to the samurai, for Echigo was famous for its
abundant rice crops, and farmer storehouses were often filled with
treasure. But it was a common thing for desperate robbers to raid these
storehouses and sometimes even to murder the owners. Wealthy farmers
had to be guarded, and since the restrictions of feudal days, which had
rigidly regulated the style of living of the various classes, no longer
existed, those farmers could enjoy their riches without interference
from the Government, and it became the fashion for them to hire
ex-samurai--once their superiors--as guards. Partly on account of the
dignity of their former station, which everyone of less honourable rank
respected, and partly because of their skilled military training, the
samurai were well fitted for this duty.
In his new business Mr. Toda was treated as a sort of honourable
policeman-guest. He received a good salary, always formally presented
folded in white paper and labelled: "An appreciation tribute." Of
course, this position could not be permanent; for government authority
gradually penetrated even to our remote district and made the farmers
safe.
We next heard that Mr. Toda had become a teacher in a test school of
the newly organized public-school system. His associate teachers were
mostly young men proud to be called progressive, and affecting a lofty
disdain for the old culture of Japan. The old samurai was sadly out
of place, but being of philosophical bent and not without a sense of
humour, he got along very well until the Department of Education made
a rule that no one should be accepted as a teacher unless he held a
normal-school diploma. To go through the required schooling and be
examined by those whom he considered only conceited youths of shallow
brain would have been too humiliating to a man of Mr. Toda's age,
learning, and culture. He refused and turned his attention to one
of his most elegant accomplishments--penmanship. He made beautiful
ideographs for the trade-marks so frequently seen on the curtains that
hang from the eaves of Japanese shops. He also copied Chinese poems for
folding-screens and roll pictures and even wrote inscriptions for the
banners of Shinto shrines.
Changes came to our family which separated us from the Todas, and
it was several years before I learned that they had moved to Tokyo,
Mr. Toda trusting with brave confidence that the new capital, with
its advanced ideas, would treat him fairly. But, after all, he was a
gentleman of feudal days, and the capital was overflowing with wild
enthusiasm for everything new and supreme contempt for everything old.
There was nowhere a place for him.
One day, years after, while I was a schoolgirl in Tokyo, I was passing
through a crowded street when my eyes were caught by a beautifully
written sign: "Instructor in the Cultural Game of _Go_." Between the
strips of the lattice door I saw Mr. Toda, sitting very straight
with samurai dignity, teaching _go_, a sort of chess, to a number of
new-rich tradesmen. They were men who had retired, as our older people
do, leaving their business to sons or heirs and devoting their time
to practice in _go_, tea ceremony, or other cultural occupation. Mr.
Toda looked aged and poor, but he still had his undaunted air and
half-humorous smile. Had I been a man I should have gone in, but for a
young girl to intrude on his game would have been too rude, so I passed
on.
Once more did I see him a few years later. Early one morning when
I was waiting for a horse-car on a corner near an office building
there passed an old man who had the slight droop of the left shoulder
that always marks the man who once wore two swords. He went into the
building, in a moment reappearing in the cap and coat of a uniform,
and taking his stand at the door, opened and closed it for the people
passing in and out. It was Mr. Toda. A number of supercilious young
clerks in smart European dress pushed hastily by without even a nod of
thanks. It was the new foreign way assumed by so-called progressive
youths.
It is well for the world to advance, but I could not help thinking
how, less than a generation before, the fathers of these same youths
would have had to bow with their foreheads to the ground when Mr. Toda,
sitting erect on his horse, galloped by. The door swung to and fro, and
he stood with his head held high and on his lips the same half-humorous
smile. Brave, unconquered Mr. Toda! He represented thousands of men
of the past, who, having nothing to offer the new world except the
wonderful but unwanted culture of the old, accepted with calm dignity
the fate of failure--but they were all heroes!