been asked since my return, it seems fairly safe to say that nearly
everything which is commonly held in England to be “Japanese,” and
typical of that country, is not so. The number of horrible “export
articles” which have been shown to me as “real Japanese,” or are said
to have been brought back from Japan by some relative who had visited
it, show that there is not a very wide knowledge of the true domestic
culture of that country here. There is a phrase which seems to hover
over every conversation on Japan, which should be included in the Book
of Bromidioms. It is, “Of course everything in Japan is so artistic!”
It sometimes appears in the alternative form, “The Japanese are a
nation of artists!” As a result, everything which is guaranteed as
coming from Japan is accepted as artistic by most people, and one finds
otherwise cultured ladies serving their tea in the most unutterable
crockery, which was made in Japan according to the Japanese merchant’s
idea of what European (barbaric) taste must be, in defiance of every
law of beauty both in Japan and here.
The Japanese are no longer a nation of artists. They cannot afford
to be. In the security of their long peace, and when they were shut
out from competition with the rest of the world, they evolved for
every detail of daily life, and not only for their churches and
palaces, formulae by which every workman could construct intrinsically
beautiful things. These formulae, where they are undisturbed to-day,
still make of the common workman an artist, in so far that he creates
a beautiful thing, even if it be only a farthing piece of pottery.
But alas, Western influence has in many places disturbed or broken
these old traditions, and the craftsman is then like a mariner at
sea without a compass. Apart from their own traditions, there is in
the great majority of Japanese practically no artistic instinct. As
a wise Japanese man once said to me, after deploring the lack of
artistic feeling in his countrymen, perhaps it will reappear in another
generation. The present one has had to use all its energies and thought
for national defence. Commerce, Diplomacy, Education, Scientific
Research, all, as well as war, he included in national defence. In
these years of stress, Art, being of little account in the Western
civilisation which they were trying to assimilate, had to stand aside.
Where the progress in a new direction has not disturbed her courts, she
is still served as she was served before the revolution, often best in
the simple things of life, which in England have not yet been reached
by an all-pervading genius, such as penetrated everywhere in the Japan
of long ago.
Another of the myths common in this country about Japan is that her
people are all brilliantly, almost diabolically, clever. This, I
think, is very far from being even a semblance of the truth. With
very few exceptions, individual men and women among the Japanese are
capable of very much less mental activity in a day than a corresponding
English man or woman. An educated Englishman has his hobby, often
more or less intellectual, to come to when the day’s work is done. He
reads, as a matter of course, a number of books and reviews on all
sorts of subjects, and he spends a good many hours per week in social
life of various kinds. Because he goes to the theatre one evening
or takes his wife to a concert, it does not mean that he requires to
come two hours late to work the following day, or that he thinks it
an excuse for absenting himself all morning from business. A dinner
with a dozen friends in the evening may often precede several hours’
writing late at night, in the life of an English Professor. But the
average Japanese intellectual man could not do this at all, or could
not do it often. An individual Japanese may make as good a show in his
profession as the Englishman, but he is generally economising every
possible expenditure of brain force outside this profession, and will
enjoy less social life in a month than the average working (not social)
Englishman indulges in in a week. It seemed to me to be characteristic
of the average Japanese to be only able to hold the reins of one set of
thoughts at once. I shall never forget the astonishment with which I
listened to a Professor who explained that the reason that he came two
hours after the time he should have given his University lecture was
that his child had been naughty that morning and required correction,
and that it took thought and time to accomplish it. It is difficult
to give concrete examples, but on many occasions I have watched one
thought ousting another in a Japanese mind which in an Englishman’s
would have developed together. This gives an impression of what often
appears very like stupidity in a Japanese, outside the range of the
one thing that he has in hand, and sometimes even within it. But this
does not affect the general position of the nation as a whole when it
sets itself to any task, let us say the conquering of the Russians in
a war. In Government Departments each man has his special duty, and
can concentrate entirely on that. The man above him has to correlate
that with the rest, and so on to the top of the service, where the
places are generally filled (certainly in the University, a Government
Department) by brilliant men, who have what I feel inclined to call
the English capacity for controlling a number of things at once. Most
of the men at the top have been in the West, and even without that
additional training they form exceptions to the rule which the others
seem to exemplify. The nation as a whole then, composed of individuals
who are rather stupid, led by brilliant men, and worked with a splendid
system of organisation, assisted by the old feudal spirit not yet dead,
presents to the world as good or better a front than one in which the
individuals are each more independently developed.
Even in merely manual labour, the Japanese in Japan do not seem to do
so much as workmen do at home. A Japanese coal mine has in its pay
nearly one-half as many workers again as an English mine with the same
output. The climate has much to do with this, and the national customs.
The climate, although beautiful and sunny nearly all the year round,
has a subtle lethargic effect, so that even the Englishman in Japan
does less than he could do in England. Generations of this insidious
influence have undoubtedly affected the Japanese; the children playing
so quietly with none of the obstreperousness of vigorous youth are an
index of its power.
A question that few of my drawing-room acquaintances spare me is one
on the religious condition of the Japanese. This is generally so
worded that it is clear that the interrogator is already certain that
they are devoid of religious feeling, but that he trusts the West
is doing something for the stimulation of their souls. Again I must
disagree with the popular impression in this country. There is no
land in which I have been where there seemed to be a more universal
religious feeling, none in which the religion formed more an integral
part of daily life. The religious temperament is strongly developed
in the majority of Japanese. But the religious temperament is not to
be confounded with any particular religion. It is indeed often most
strongly developed in those who appear to have no religion, perhaps
because the very strength of their religious instincts debars them
from being satisfied with the formulated religion of their time. In
little-educated people too that instinct often finds expression in
superstitions, or in the popular forms of religions which have a
pantheon of gods or saints. Thus is it in Japan. Their feeling for
religion is gratified constantly throughout every day, not kept apart
for the Sabbath, as it is here. It is true that the religious ideas of
the mass of the people are neither very clear nor very high, but they
are a very real part of their daily life. In the country in England
one may go many miles without seeing a church, and we do not have
wayside shrines, but in Japan there is some shrine or temple at every
turn, in nearly every house, even in most hotels. And these shrines
are not deserted, they are tended daily by the passers-by as well as
by the dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood. In the main streets of
Tokio, the streets where the West has penetrated, even there I have
seen little shrines, perhaps like dolls’ houses, only a couple of feet
high, reverently tended by passing labourers, or coolies who set down a
long pole with its swinging burdens to present some little offering to
the spirit of the shrine. It may be that all they have to offer are the
worn sandals which they take off their feet, or a wisp of straw.
It is curious to notice how largely straw enters into the place of
religious offerings. Straw ropes hang before the temple gates, or
single straws depending from a line make a decorative fringe; old straw
sandals, or new and monstrous sandals specially made for the purpose,
are offered in piles to a small shrine. This offering of straw is
symbolic in a land where so many things are made of it. The matting and
nearly all the comforts of the house are made of straw, the sandals
and rain coats, the labourer’s hats,--in the very poor places even
the walls as well as the thatch of his house are all made of straw.
Those who are too poor to give the ears of the rice except on special
occasions, can yet afford a wisp of rice-straw for many a shrine, and
rice is naturally symbolic of all their material welfare. It is not
only in the peasant that this close daily touch of religion may be
found. Driven back to the secret places of the house, and not spoken of
to foreigners, is yet the shrine, kept with its daily ministration, in
homes where one would least expect to find it. I asked an “atheist”
scientific professor once what he would do if the woman whom he loved
should die. He told me that he would engrave her name on the tablet in
his shrine, before which was a prayer made every day. The religious
instinct is a far greater thing than any formulated religion, and
though missionaries may continue to tell the world that the Japanese
are naturally irreligious, that will not prevent the Japanese from
being deeply religious--until they have assimilated the Western
attitude to religion, as they are doing toward other things. Perhaps
one reason that the missionary finds the Japanese irreligious is that
they take religion so happily, and make of it so much a part of their
daily life, laughing in the temples, playing round the temple grounds,
lighting the light of their little shrines in their homes when their
household lamps are lit. One of the commonest sights in Japan is a band
of peasant pilgrims on their way to some shrine, and it is the ambition
of innumerable poor folk, who could never afford ordinary travel and
holidays, to visit every temple of importance in the country. How many
English common folk since the days of the Canterbury Pilgrims would
travel on foot for a hundred miles to lay a wisp of straw on a shrine?
Because the Japanese are not (and I think never will be in our sense of
the word) Christians there is no excuse for our concluding that they
are not religious.
Only of one thing more will I now speak. Sometimes carelessly,
sometimes sadly, it has often been said that there can be no true
understanding, no deep friendship between the East and the West. Even
Lafcadio Hearn is quoted as an instance of the disappointment that must
await the foreigner who tries to get to the heart of a Japanese. And
Lafcadio Hearn, as is now being recognised, has shown us more truly
and more beautifully than any other writer the inner life of Japan.
He tells us, it is true, that in the end he found that it was only
with the children that we could reach a real and close understanding
and love, that as they grew up to men and women they receded farther
and farther from one, till a great wall was built between them, and
the lovable and loving child had become a friend who had lost the
key of sympathy. This is perhaps true in most cases, but we must not
forget that with his genius for suggestive and true description, and
for poetical rendering of the things around him, Hearn seems to have
had also a perfect genius for destroying individual friendships.
Evidence of this is found cropping up in many places in Japan, where
he shattered his friendships with English and Japanese alike; and it
is already made clear in his Letters. One of the tests of friendship
is time, and only at the end of a lifetime can one say just which men
and women had been one’s real friends, but circumstance is almost as
good a test as time, and that may give its stamp to a relationship very
swiftly. Some Japanese--perhaps, nay certainly, they are exceptional
natures--have a genius for friendship. There is in them a sweetness and
delicacy, a sensitive comprehension of moods, a depth of feeling and a
beauty of feeling which only the exceptional Westerner could match. The
almost inhuman coldness which is so often attributed to the Japanese
is not at all truly characteristic of them. Their reserve appears to
us to be reserve only because we do not know how to read the signs of
their expression, and because many careless Europeans before us may
have trampled on holy ground. The apparently immobile face is immobile
only because we ourselves are not alive to its subtle changes. When you
know a Japanese face it is as eloquent as that of a sensitive English
girl. And the moods and feelings it mirrors are not alien to ours. Some
of the thoughts and some of the conclusions from the same premises may
be different from ours, but they are not the essentials in friendship.
The coldness and the insincerity of the Japanese are qualities which we
have largely invented for them to save us the trouble of learning their
truths, and of cultivating the power to read their subtle expressions.
Nor are they always difficult to read if we have the privilege of
friendship. In the “changeless eyes” of the Japanese I have seen fire
and mist, radiance and storm. I have seen men’s tears welling up from
the sweetness beneath to veil the eyes that looked on sorrowful things,
or things so beautiful as to be a pain--as is Mount Fuji in an opal
morning. In the hearts of some Japanese I have found friendship, tested
by circumstance, true, and generous, and sweet. Those from the West who
cannot find it also need not lay all the blame on the Japanese.
INDEX
Admiralty gardens, 147
Agricultural University at Sapporo, 25;
at Tokio, 174
Aino, village at Shiroi, 25;
in the forest, 27;
language, 27
Akabane, country round, 102
Alpine garden, at Nikko, 62
Amakusa, island of, 50;
arrival at, 53;
mines at, 54;
difficulties of transit in, 56
American Fleet, in Japan, 226, 227
Anthropological Department of University, 242
Ants, discovery of curious habits of, 213
Aomori, 11, 28
Art in modern Japan, 266
Azaleas, at Okabu, 149
Balsam, troubles through, 93;
bubbles in, 210
Bamboo, beauty of, 10;
loved by Hearn, 249
_Basha_ (native carriage), delights of, 125, 126
Bell insect, 184
Bethell trial, 181
Boshu, walking tour in, 122 _et seq._
Botanical festival at the shrine of Inari, 114
Botanical Gardens in Tokio, first impression of, 3;
tea-parties in, 5, 120;
branch of, at Nikko, 62
Botanical Institute in Tokio, first impression of, 3;
work in laboratory, 31 (and constant references after)
Botanical Institute of Agricultural University, 174
Camping in the virgin forests, 16, 17
Capacity of the Japanese, 267
Cherry flowers, blooming through the snow, 134;
beauty of, in Tokio, 139;
double blooms, 142
Cherry garden party at the palace, 144
Chikura, 123
Children’s stalls at holiday fair, 186
Chinese writing, value of, 59
Chōnan, 131
Chrysanthemums, popular exhibits of, 66;
Imperial exhibition of, 68
Chuzenji, autumn colouring at, 62
Coal mines at Ōyubari, 15, 17;
Ikushimbets, 20;
Jito, 42;
Omine, 47;
Habu, 47;
Nariwa, 48;
Namazuta, 49;
Miike, 50;
Amakusa, 50, 54;
Takashima, 57
Costumes, old Japanese style, 117
Crowds, smells of, 194
_Cryptomeria_, splendid avenues of, 61, 195;
cones of, 210;
seedlings of, 224
Cutting-machine, for fossils, 63, 82, 91, 102;
testing disks for, 89
Cycads, expeditions to collect, 168, 205;
ancient and branched specimens of, 170;
at Yokohama, 191
Cycling, in Tokio, 153, 165, 225;
in country, 201, 206;
through floods, 206
Dancing, street, 180
Debating Society, started in Tokio, 158, 175, 228
Debts, all to be paid by New Year, 255
Dinners, advantage of uniform menus for, 88
Disease in Tokio, 98
Dolls’ Festival, preparation for, 106;
food for, 110;
arrangements for, 110, 111
Dwarf as luggage carrier, 195, 196
Earthquake, the first experience of, 33;
small shocks of, 79
Emperor, garden-parties given by, 68, 144;
present to all officials from, 229
English language used by Japanese professors to lecture to other
Asiatics, 175
Enoshima, 8, 256
European artists, Japanese views on, 91
European entertainments given by Japanese, elaboration of, 120
_Feruské_, Japanese wrapping, value of, in removals, 136;
use when carrying plants, 150
Fishing, use of dynamite for, 17
Floods, in Tokio, 187, 221;
in the country, 206
Foreign influence in Yokohama, 192
Fossil plants, 16 _et seq._;
insects, 201
Fox, apparition of? 217
Friendship with Japanese, 273
Frog, changing colour of, 185
Fruit, only obtainable in season, 97
Fuji mountain, 7 (and constant reference all through);
last view of, 264
Fukuoka, 50
Furnishing in Japanese house, 118, 137
Furs worn by Japanese men, 104
Garden, watering stones in, 64;
beauty of, in November, 67;
Imperial palace, 68, 145;
arrangements for winter in, 83;
old garden of the Admiralty, 147;
Japanese party in, 232.
_See also_ Botanical Gardens
_Ginkgo_, swimming out of spermatozoids of, 31, 218;
exhibited to Dr. Koch, 176
_Ginkgo_ seeds cooked, 93
_Ginkgo_ tree, golden colour of, in autumn, 66, 68
Gold-fish with double tails, 143
Greek church in Tokio, Easter service at, 151
Habu, small coal mine at, 47
Hail, exceptional size of hailstones, 173
Hakone, 195
“Hardening” process, 260
Hayama, 213
Hearn, Lafcadio, debate on, 159, 175;
eldest son of, 241, 249;
visit to house of, 247
Hearn, Mrs., 247
Hockey, attempts to play without grass, 94, 105
Hojo, 122
Hokkaido, arrival in, 11
Holidays, sight-seeing at temples on, 34
Horonai, 18
House cleaning, instituted by Government, 162
House hiring, difficulties of, 133
_Human Bullets_, by Lieut. Sakurai, 113
Ice pillars, curious effect of, 78
Ikushimbets, mine at, 20
Imperial crest, reverence towards, 67
Inari, festival for, 114
Inland Sea, beauty of, 1, 46
Insects, noise of, 160;
song of, 184;
fossil specimens of, 201
Interpreter, loss of, 18
Japanese houses, simplicity of, 118
Japanese language, difficulties of, 74;
sound effect of, 77
Jehinomiya, 130
Jito, village of, 42
Kamakura, 86;
Dai Butsu at, 86
Kanbara, bathing at, 172
_Kankobas_, delightful bazaars, 81, 231
Kasamori, Buddhist temple at, very ancient, 132
Katsuura, 124
Kitchen in Japanese house, 138
Kiushiu, 49, 56
Kominato, 123
Koraku-en gardens at Okayama, 38
Korean affairs, 181
_Kuruma_, country travel in, 40, 44, 72
Lafcadio Hearn, debate on, 159, 175;
eldest son of, 241, 249;
visit to house of, 247
Lectures in Government House, Sapporo, 23;
at the Imperial University, 224;
by Sven Hedin, 236
Lepers, 98, 209;
contact with, 142;
marrying of, 209
Lies told by tradespeople, 165
London University Union in Japan, 111, 245, 259
Lotus, fritters made of, 146;
flowers of, at Oyeno, 212
Maple Club, dinner at, 233
Matsushima, beauty of, 28
Mera, 122
Misumi, arrival at, 50;
delayed start from, 51
Mobara, 130, 131
“Morning glories,” 189
Mororan, 28
Museum, Imperial, 246
Nagasaki, 56
Namazuta, coal mine at, 49
Naval Briquette Factory, 47
Naval officers on duty in coal mine, 47
Neolithic implements, 243
New Year, gifts and debts of, 81;
special food for, 84;
streets during, 86
Nikko, excursion to, 61;
avenue leading to, 61;
Alpine garden at, 62
_Nō_, performance of, 64
Noboribetsu, 26;
crater at, 26
Nodules containing fossils, collecting of, 16 _et seq._
Ōhara, 125
Okabu, azaleas at, 149
Okayama, visit to, 38
Okuma, Count, 70;
garden of, 71
Omine, mine at, 47
Omori, plum blossom at, 115;
temple near, 223
Opera House, foreign style, in Tokio, 251
Ōyubari, recently opened mine in, 15, 17;
scenery of neighbourhood, 15
Paeonies, show of, 155
Pictures, special exhibition of, excellent arrangement in, 60
Poet, American wife of Japanese, 240, 246, 261
Police, as escort, 18;
regulation of house cleaning by, 162
Porcelain, makers of, brought to private house, 262
Poronai, 18
Rackham’s illustrations, 119
Railway train returns to deliver forgotten parcel, 105
Railway trains, life in, 9, 12, 58;
snowed up in April, 136
Religion in Japan, 270
Rivers, work in, while collecting, 20, 21
Roads, effect of rain on, 31;
beauty of, in Tokio, 32
Robbers, frequent attempts of, 75
Roses, fading of scent of, in Japan, 67
Saké put to scientific use, 215
Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido, 11, 12;
Government of, 12;
scenery of, 13;
return to, 23;
University at, 25
Sendai, “fossil wood” at, 31
Sendocre, 129
Sheep, flock of, 73;
scarcity of, in Japan, 179
Shimonoseki, 48
Shiobara, 201
Shiogama, 29, 30;
women’s dress in neighbourhood of, 30
Shizuoka, 206
Shop signs, humorous, 182
Silk-worms, useful for scientific breeding, 175
Smells, of a Japanese crowd, 194
Snow, exceptional fall in April, 134;
beauty of, at Shiba, 258
Stuffiness, endured by Japanese in Western-style vehicles or
houses, 211, 212
Sven Hedin lecturing in Tokio, 236
Takahashi, beautiful river of, 40
Takashima, coal mine at, 57
Teachers, special dress for women, 161
Telegraph wire, dragon flies perched on, 45
Temples, two contrasting, 34, 35;
a country temple, 36;
at Nikko, 61;
at Kasamori, 132;
stay at country, 168;
service in, 199;
near Omori, 223;
at Shiba, in the snow, 258
Tertiary coal, 49
Thunder, god of, 173;
continuous peals of, 208
Tin box, difficulty in obtaining, 214
Togo, Admiral, 70, 226
Tokio, likeness to Venice, 1;
getting about, 4;
beauty of streets in, 82;
streets at New Year, 86;
floods in, 187, 221
Tokkaido, old road, 195
Tokuyama, 46
Traffic, lack of regulation of, 164
Triassic coal, 41, 42;
difficulty in finding, 41
University, Agricultural, 174;
Imperial, 6, 7, 60;
farewell party from, 233;
Anthropological Department of, 242;
present from, 253
University for women, 164, 165
Wada, 123
Walking tour in Boshu, 122 _et seq._
Wind storm, 94
Wistaria, enormous flowering plan of, 155
Women’s University, 164, 165
Yejiri, 168, 205
Yubari, 13
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Illustrations have been moved next to the text which they illustrate,
and may not match the locations in the List of Illustrations. A
duplicate "INDEX" heading has been removed from the text.
The following apparent typographical errors have been corrected:
p. 88 "princesess" changed to "princesses"
p. 119 "intosuch" changed to "into such"
p. 127 "solid rock." changed to "solid rock,"
p. 136 "_feruske_" changed to "_feruské_"
p. 177 "(who leave on Friday" changed to "(who leave on Friday)"
p. 236 "Baron K----" changed to "Baron _K----_"
p. 279 "159, 175," changed to "159, 175;"
The following possible errors have been left as printed:
p. 86 went picnics
p. 166 Kyshyu
p. 187 When I get
p. 244 beach! but I
p. 263 the F----s
The following are inconsistently used in the text:
foothold and foot-hold
footpath and foot-path
Fujii and Fuji
Fujisan and Fuji-san
midday and mid-day
seaweed and sea-weed
tradespeople and trades-people
workshop and work-shop