best I can on bear's milk." Whereupon he opened the "Bear Brand" can and
poured some of its contents into his coffee, while the hotel proprietor
and the nesan looked on with bulging eyes.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," I told him when he had finished
the story.
"The joke rebounded on me," he said. "After that I became a personage in
the inn, and I had to tip correspondingly when I left--for according to
the old custom of the country the size of the tip in a hotel is not in
proportion to the service received, but in proportion to the rank of the
tipper. And besides, the proprietor was very curious to know how they
milked the bears. I had a devil of a time explaining that."
* * * * *
After breakfast we set out on foot for the village of Nabuto, several
miles farther along the shore. The road, winding around the rampart
hills, was as beautiful as that we had travelled the day before, and as
full of interesting figures and intimate glimpses of the life of these
amiable industrious fisher-folk.
Nabuto proved to be a tiny settlement at the tip of a rocky promontory,
sheltered from direct assaults of the sea by a small, pinnacled island
known as Niemon Island because it belongs, and has for eight centuries
belonged, to a family of that name, residing there.
An old sea-wife, looking like a figure from one of Winslow Homer's
paintings, summoned the ferryman with a blast upon a conch shell, and a
few minutes later we stepped from his skiff to a natural platform of
granite at the island's edge. As we landed we were assimilated by a
guide who began by indicating certain circular holes in the granite
which, he declared, had been made by the hoofs of Yoritomo's horse. For
legend has it that, when pursued, this mediæval military hero used
Niemon Island as a hiding place. Nor are the horse's hoof-prints the
only evidence supporting this tale. One may see the cave in which the
great Yoritomo concealed himself.
Thither, by a rough, ascending path, the guide led us. It was a small,
damp cave. If Yoritomo lived there long he must have feared his enemies
more than he feared rheumatism. Within was a small shrine dedicated to
the ancient warrior, and hanging near it was a cord by which a bell
could be rung to notify the spirit of the departed that callers had
arrived. The guide signified to us that Yoritomo's spirit would be
profoundly gratified if we put a few coppers into the box in front of
his shrine. Having contributed we were allowed to ring the bell.
The ledge outside commanded a view of leagues and leagues of amethyst
sea into which jutted a succession of green bastioned promontories.
Below us, at the base of the cliff, where the long swells were crashing
in rhythmic succession, several small skiffs were tossing dangerously
near the margin of the foam. These, said the guide, were the boats of
abalone fishers--for the Niemon family, besides receiving tourists, and
selling them trinkets, picture postcards, and flasks of Osaka whiskey,
is in the business of canning abalone meat. I have attempted to eat
abalone. Considering that it is a mollusc leading an absolutely
sedentary life, it has astounding muscular development. A man who can
masticate it ought to be able also to masticate the can in which it
comes.
Each skiff contained two men; an oarsman and a diver. The former would
nurse his light craft close to where the seas were breaking on the
island's rocky wall, while the latter, standing and swaying with the
rise and fall of the boat, peered eagerly into the blue depths. Then,
suddenly, with the swiftness of a thrown knife, the brown body would cut
the water and disappear. One waited. One waited long enough to become a
little anxious. But when it seemed that human lungs could not have held
a breath for such a length of time, a head of wet black hair would pop
out of the water and the glistening body of the diver would slip over
the gunwale with the sinuous ease of a swimming seal. A moment later he
would be standing again in the bow of the boat, a figure beautifully
poised, gazing with the rapt eyes of a seer into the swaying, streaky
mysteries of the under-water world.
Out here the fresh sea breeze wove like a cool woof across the warp of
rays from a hot noonday sun. Ashore there was no breeze. I was beginning
to dread the baking dusty miles of highway leading back to Kamogawa.
Then someone suggested that we sail there, and the linguist sent the
guide to see about a boat.
The vessel he secured was a two-masted fishing boat with a brave viking
prow and long sleek lines. It was a piratical-looking craft and the
appearance of the crew was even more so. They were like the Malay
pirates in boys' books of adventure: almost naked, and tanned and
weathered to a dark copper colour. Two of them wore short white shirts,
open in front and terminating at the waist, but the others were innocent
of such sophisticated haberdashery, the entire costume of each
consisting of a pair of towels--one at the loins, the other wound around
the head.
All too soon they landed us upon the beach at the back of the hotel.
"Now," said the linguist, as we waded up through the deep sand, "we'll
pack our bags, get lunch, and be off."
And precisely that we did.
The whole staff of the inn assembled to see us depart. The proprietress
gave us little presents. There was much bowing. Then the basha creaked
away.
CHAPTER XXV
_I Take Gen's Photograph--The Pay of Fisher-Folk--Where All the
World Works--We Help Gen Pull Her Cart--And Surprise Some
Wayfarers--The Road Grows Long--Fairy Débutantes_
In an exceptionally picturesque fishing village a few miles on, I paused
to take some photographs. On a platform outside an old house overhanging
the gray sea-wall at the margin of the beach, three women were unloading
baskets of fish from a heavy handcart. One of them was fully sixty years
of age, another I judged to be thirty, but the third was a girl not over
twenty, a sturdy brown lass with eyes like those of a wild deer, and a
ready smile which showed a set of glorious white teeth. She was as
pretty a peasant girl as I had seen in Japan, wherefore through my
bi-lingual friend, I asked permission to take her picture.
From the amount of talking my friend did, and the laughter with which,
on both sides, it was accompanied, I judged that the request, as it
reached her, was festooned with gallantries. At all events she readily
consented to be photographed--as a pretty girl generally will--and when
the shutter had snapped she asked that I send her a print. This I agreed
to do if she would write her name and address in my notebook. She did so
in kana, which, being translated by my invaluable companion, revealed
her name as Gen Tajima.
[Illustration: Pretty Gen was between the shafts, the other girl
was pulling at a rope, and the grandmother was at the rear,
pushing]
Asked if all three of them were of the same family, the women replied
that they were merely neighbours. They resided in the village of
Amatsu-machi, several miles farther along the road that we were
travelling, and it was their daily business to draw the cart from
Amatsu-machi to this place, laden with baskets of fish to be salted and
shipped. Their pay for this labour amounted to the equivalent of
twenty-five cents a day in our money.
"I suppose you are all of you married?" asked my friend.
The old woman replied that she was; the other two laughed and declared
that they were not. But they soon betrayed each other. "Don't you
believe what _she_ says!" they warned us gaily. "She _is_ married. _I'm_
the one who is looking for a match." Then, having had their little joke,
each owned to a husband and children. Their husbands were fishermen, and
earned, they said, two yen a day--about a dollar.
"You work hard?" asked my friend.
"Of course."
"Why 'of course'?"
"Everybody down here works hard."
"Even those who don't have to?"
"Yes. Even people with a lot of money work hard. Here any one who did
not work would be laughed at."
They were typical Japanese women of the fisher class, happy, innocent,
industrious. They interested me profoundly. But there was a long trip
ahead of us and it was necessary to push on. We bade them farewell, got
into the basha, and drove away.
But we had not seen the last of them. When we had driven a quarter of a
mile or so, they came running up behind us with their cart. Pretty Gen
was between the shafts, the other girl was pulling at a rope tied to one
side, and the grandmother was at the rear, pushing. They ran
pigeon-toed, like Indians, and what with the commotion caused by their
rope sandals and the wheels, left a cloud of dust behind them.
Full of merriment they closed in upon us. One of them called to us in
Japanese.
"What did she say?" I asked.
My friend translated:
"She says that because we are strangers they will escort us."
"Come on," I said, jumping out of the basha. "Let's help them pull the
cart."
He joined me at once. We took up our places, naturally, at either side
of Gen.
She was full of questions. Where were we from? How long did it take to
come all the way from America? What was America like? Didn't the
American people like the Japanese people? Her brother was a sailor. He
had made a voyage to America and said it was a very fine place, and that
everyone was rich. It wasn't like that in Japan. Here almost everyone
was poor. It was hard to earn enough to live on, now that food cost so
much.
Finding that there were now too many willing hands at the cart, we
discharged the grandmother and the other woman, placing them in our
seats in the basha.
"It is a pity you can't ride, too," my friend said to Gen, "but it is
better for you to stay here and see that we don't steal the cart."
To which the old woman leaning out of the back seat of the basha
remarked that she thought us much more likely to steal the cart if Gen
went with it.
This caused much hilarity. Gen, I think, was a little embarrassed, but
she enjoyed it all the same.
"As things are," she said, smiling and looking at the road, "I am well
satisfied to walk."
The chatter was so lively that I had a good deal of difficulty in
finding out all that was being said; it was no small task for my
companion to keep up his end of the conversation against all three of
them, and at the same time translate for me. I began to find myself left
out.
Moreover, I had not anticipated that we should attract so much
attention. The mere fact that we were aliens made us conspicuous in this
part of the country, and the sight of two foreign men helping a peasant
girl pull a cart, while the girl's usual companions rode ahead in the
comparative magnificence of a basha, caused people in the villages
through which we passed not only to stare in amazement, but to call
their friends to come and witness the unheard-of spectacle.
I remember an old woman bent under a great load of straw which she was
carrying on her back, who, when she glanced up and saw us, looked as if
she were going to fall over, and I shall never forget the quizzical,
puzzled, fixed gaze of a middle-aged coolie, with a load of wood on his
back and a little pipe in his mouth, who, on sight of us, hurriedly
seated himself on the bank at the roadside to pass us in review. He was
a fine type. I dropped my hold upon the shaft, unslung my kodak, and
embalmed his features on a film.
[Illustration: The middle-aged coolie hurriedly seated himself
on the bank to pass us in review]
"Come on back here!" called my companion. "Gen and I need you with our
cart."
Gen and I!... _Our_ cart, indeed! Who first thought of helping Gen with
her cart, I should like to know!
Without enthusiasm I returned and took hold of the shaft again. The cart
was getting heavier. He and Gen weren't pulling as they should. They
were too busy talking--that was the trouble with them!
"Say, how far is it to this town where these people live?" I demanded of
him.
"I guess it's not very much farther," my friend interrupted his
conversation with Gen to reply.
"I should hope not! We've pulled this infernal cart about five miles
already."
"If you don't like it," he answered, "why don't you get back in the
basha?"
"How am I going to do that, when that old woman is in my place?"
"Tell her you want to ride. Tell her to come back here and get on the
job again."
I looked up at her. It was quite out of the question to do such a thing.
Much as I should have enjoyed my seat in the basha, she was enjoying it
more. She and the younger woman were having a magnificent time,
chattering, giggling, hailing every acquaintance they passed. And when
other peasants who knew them gazed, astonished, they would burst into
roars of mirth. All of which gave our progress more than ever the aspect
of a circus parade in which, it began to seem to me, I figured as the
clown.
Left to my own thoughts I endeavoured to meet the situation
philosophically. If I had been foolish to get myself into this
cart-pulling adventure my folly was of a kind common to my sex. Other
men without number had made even greater fools of themselves. And,
whereas in a little while this incident would be ended, some men got
into scrapes that lasted all their lives. It was pleasant to reflect on
that.
I began to see an allegory in the episode. In miniature it was like the
story of a hasty marriage.... A man travelling the road of life in the
comfortable basha of bachelorhood sees a pretty girl. Bright eyes, white
teeth shown in a smile, and out he jumps.
"Let me help you pull the cart!" he cries, without giving a thought to
the future. So he takes hold, and as likely as not she eases off and
lets him do most of the pulling.
He wants companionship, but when he begins to look for it, what does he
discover? He discovers that she doesn't know a word of his language, nor
he a word of hers. He has sold his birthright for a mess of pulchritude.
The road is long, the hills steep, the cart heavy. Presently appears
another man and offers to help--some smart-aleck who _can_ talk her kind
of talk. And, of course, this linguistic ass begins prattling a lot of
nonsense to her and turns her head. The more she listens to him the more
inflated he becomes. That's what happens to some men if a pretty girl
shows them a little attention! Does he stop for a minute to consider
that his advantage is purely one of language? Not at all! The idiot
thinks himself fascinating.
So much for that.
But now imagine another picture. Take those two men out of a situation
in which one has manifestly an unfair advantage, and place them on an
equal footing in a totally different environment. Take them, let us say,
to an American city, place them in a ballroom, bring in a lot of
beautiful débutantes--hundreds of them, all in pretty little evening
gowns and satin slippers--start up the band. _Then_ see what happens!
One of these men is a bookworm. He knows a lot about languages. He can
speak Japanese. (You see I am being perfectly fair to him.) But the
other, though he cannot speak Japanese, is--you understand this is
purely an imaginary case--a handsome, dashing, debonair fellow. While
one has been learning Japanese the other has learned a few effective
steps. In the intricate mazes of the dance he seems to float godlike
through the air.
All right! Now I ask you, which one of these two men is going to be a
success with all those débutantes? Is Japanese going to advance a man
very far with an American débutante? In all fairness I say No! A
débutante is too clever--too clever with her feet--to be misled by mere
linguistic talent. True worth is the thing that counts with her. She
looks for solid merit in a man. In other words: _What kind of a dancer
is he?_
Is not the conclusion obvious? In the environment I have pictured one of
those two men will be left practically alone, while the other will find
himself constantly surrounded by a bevy of dainty, beautiful----
"This is Amatsu-machi," I heard my companion say.
With a start I came back to Japan.
"They're leaving us at the crossroads," said he.
The basha drew up. The two women got out. They thanked us prettily. Then
amid many "_Sayonaras_" we drove off, while they stood and watched us,
smiling and waving until we passed from their sight around a bend in the
road.
"They have lovely natures, these Japanese women," the linguist presently
remarked.
"If you'll look over a lot of American débutantes," I replied, "you'll
find that they are just about as----"
"You don't understand," he interrupted. "I'm not talking about mere
prettiness--though you'd hardly say that girl Gen wasn't pretty. I'm
talking about spiritual quality. Couldn't you tell, just by looking at
her, that she was sweet right straight through?"
"I guess she's all right," I answered in an off-hand tone.
That did not half satisfy him. But though he kept at me for a long time,
trying to make me say something more enthusiastic, I would not be
coerced. He was too much puffed up as it was.
I had another reason, too, for withholding from that pretty peasant girl
the fullest praise. I must be faithful to the débutantes who, from far
away, had come floating like a swarm of fairies to console me as I
tugged Gen Tajima's lumbering cart along a dusty road upon the seacoast
of Japan.
CHAPTER XXVI
_The Handkerchief as a Travelling Bag--Bags and
Bottles--Computing Time--The Mystic Animals of the
Zodiac--Superstitions Regarding Them--Temple Fortune-Telling--An
Ekisha--The Ema--Yuki Tells of a Wonderful Cure_
The national travelling bag of the Japanese is a large, strong
handkerchief of silk or cotton, in which the articles carried on a
journey are tied up. The elasticity of this container, which is called a
_furoshiki_, is its great advantage. It is as large or as small as its
contents require, and when it is empty you do not have to lug it about
by hand, like an empty suitcase, but merely put it in your pocket.
The trouble with our style of suitcases and bags is that they are heavy,
bulky, and not adaptable. On one occasion they are overcrowded, on
another we carry them half empty. My own bags remind me of the way I
used to feel about wine bottles in the cheery days when one could afford
to regard such things with a somewhat critical eye. I always felt that
wine bottles were either too large or too small. Pints held a little too
much for one, yet not enough for two; and quarts held rather more than
was required by three, yet left four dissatisfied. Let us, however, drop
this subject. _De mortuis_....
I was often struck with the fact that though the Japanese woman seems to
be more heavily dressed than the foreign woman, and though her coiffure
is generally more elaborate, she carries so much less baggage when she
travels. In our Yuki's furoshiki there was always room for my cigars,
cigarettes, books, and kodak films. Her own things seemed to take no
space at all.
There are several reasons for this. A Japanese woman carries no
hair-brush and wears her comb in her hair. Nor do the Japanese generally
take nightclothes with them on a journey, for a clean cotton kimono, in
which to sleep, is supplied by all Japanese hotels. More than once, when
I saw Yuki starting off with us for a two- or three-days' trip with
baggage consisting of a furoshiki tied to about the size of two ordinary
novels, I thought of Johnnie Poe's famous "fifty-three pieces of
baggage--a deck of cards and a tooth-brush."
A favourite theme for the decoration of the furoshiki embodies the signs
of the Chinese zodiac, consisting of twelve animals. The Chinese
calendar was adopted centuries ago by the Japanese, and they still take
account of it, though they now generally use our Gregorian calendar for
computing time. But even so, their era is not the Christian Era, but
dates from the beginning of the reign of Jimmu Tenno the Divine, whom
the Japanese count as the first of their Imperial line, and who is said
to have ascended the throne, 660 B.C. Thus our current year, 1921, is
the year 2581 in Japan. Time is also measured arbitrarily by the reigns
of emperors, the present year being Taisho 10, or the tenth year of the
reign of the present Emperor.
The Chinese zodiac, however, figures largely in Japanese superstition.
As there are twelve animals, the years are counted off in cycles of
twelve; and the same animals are also associated with days and hours, in
cycles of twelve. The attributes of the astrological animal governing
the year of one's birth are supposed to attach to one.
"My mother is a cow," a Japanese lady explained to me. "My husband is a
snake and I am a rabbit."
The lore of these animals is complicated. I have only a smattering of
it, but what I know will suffice to show the general tendency of such
superstition.
It is considered good fortune to be born in the year of the horse
because the horse is strong and energetic. 1920 was the year of the
monkey. It is unlucky to marry in monkey year because the word _saru_,
which means "monkey," also means "to go back," the suggestion being that
the bride will go back to her former home, or in other words be
divorced. A woman born in the year of the rabbit will be prolific. (The
lady who said, "I'm a rabbit," though very young, was the mother of
four.)
Similarly the animals, in their cycle, bring good luck or ill luck in
connection with events occurring on certain days. It is unlucky to take
to one's bed with a sickness on the day of the cow, because the cow is
slow to get up. It is lucky to begin a journey on the day of the tiger,
because the tiger, though he travels a thousand miles, always returns to
the point from which he started; but for the same reason it is unlucky
for a girl to marry on this day, because she, like the tiger, may return
to the place from which she started: her father's house. And the day of
the tiger is a bad one for funerals, because the tiger drags its prey
with it, suggesting that another funeral will soon follow. The
significance attaching to each animal according to the Japanese idea is
not always apparent, without explanation, to the stranger. For instance,
though I know it is considered lucky for a bride to cut her kimonos on
the day of the rooster, I do not know why. Nor do I know why it is
considered particularly lucky to have, in one family, three persons born
under the same sign.
Superstition of all kinds plays a large part in the daily life of the
Japanese masses, and persons of intelligence often patronize fortune
tellers, among whom are the Buddhist priests in certain temples.
[Illustration: At Asakusa, the great popular temple of Tokyo,
the fortune-telling business is so brisk that two or three
priests are busy at it all the time]
At Asakusa, the great popular temple of Tokyo, the fortune-telling
business is so brisk that two or three priests are busy at it all the
time. The system is simple. The diviner shakes a lot of numbered sticks
in a box, draws one out, and takes a paper from a little drawer which
bears a number corresponding with that on the stick. Your fortune is
written on the paper, in multigraph. I paid two cents for mine, and when
it was translated to me I felt that I had paid too much.
Yuki, when she saw that I was disposed to take the matter lightly,
seemed a little disappointed, and when later several of us decided to
give the necromancers one more fling, she herself escorted us to the
establishment called Hokokudo, at number 3 Chome, the Ginza, where
father, son, and grandson successively have told fortunes for the past
hundred and twenty years. Here we paid one yen each for our fortunes,
but though the _ekisha_ took more time to the job, examining our hands
and faces, rattling his divining rods and making patterns with his
Chinese wooden blocks, he didn't do much better than the priest had done
for two cents. Yuki was impressed when he predicted a sea voyage for me,
but the prophecy did not seem to me to constitute a remarkable example
of divination.
The visit to the ekisha was however, an experience. The little house was
picturesque, and it was interesting to see the stream of Japanese coming
in, one after another, intent on learning what the future held in store
for them. Also, while Yuki's fortune was being told I got a good
photograph of the ekisha examining her hand through his magnifying
glass.
[Illustration: While Yuki's fortune was being told I
photographed her]
Another superstition is exampled in the _ema_, votive offerings in the
form of little paintings on wood, which are put up at Shinto shrines by
those in need of help of one kind or another. For almost any sort of
affliction an ema of suitable design may be found, though the meaning of
the grotesque design is seldom apparent to the foreigner.
While in Japan I collected a number of these curious little objects and
investigated their significance. Among them was one which Yuki
recognized as an appeal for relief from eye trouble.
"That very good ema," she told me. "I use one like that once when I have
sore eyes."
"Did it cure you, Yuki?"
"Yes--in two weeks. I put it up at shrine and I promise the god I no
drink tea for two weeks. In two weeks my eyes all right again."
"And you are sure the ema did it?"
"Yes, sir, I sure."
"You didn't do anything else for your eyes?"
"No, it just like I say. I put up ema for god and not drink tea. Then I
wait two weeks."
"Did your eyes hurt you during the two weeks?"
"Oh, yes. They hurt so much I have to wash them two three times a day
with boric acid, while I wait for ema to make cure. But when end of two
weeks comes they not sore any more. That ema work very good."
CHAPTER XXVII
_Our Difficulties with the Language--The Questionable Humour of
Broken Speech--"Do You Striking This Man for That?"--"Companies,
Scholars, and Other Households"--Curious Correspondence--Japanese
Puns--Strange Laughter--The Grotesque in Art--Japanese
Colour-Prints--Famous Print Collections--Monet's Discovery of Prints
at Zaandam--Japanese Prints and French Impressionism_
The complete dissimilarity between the Japanese language and our own,
referred to in an earlier chapter, of course adds greatly to the
difficulty of communication in all its various forms.
In Tokyo and other cities I attended many luncheons and dinners
organized for the purpose of discussing relations between the United
States and Japan, and promoting a friendly understanding between the two
nations, but though Japanese statesmen and men of affairs spoke at these
gatherings in fluent and even polished English, I never met with one
American who was equipped to return the compliment in kind. The
Americans, even those who had lived for years in Japan, always spoke in
English, whereafter a Japanese interpreter who had taken notes on the
speech would arise and render a translation.
The linguistic chasm dividing the two peoples is not, however, entirely
a black abyss. If one wall is dark, the other catches the sun.
Practically all Japanese students now study English in their schools,
our language being considered next in importance to their own. And
though, as I have said, many of them have perfectly mastered English
despite the enormous difficulties it presents to them, there are many
others whose English is imperfect, and whose "Japanned English," as some
one has called it, achieves effects the unconscious grotesqueness of
which startles and fascinates Americans and Englishmen.
To be honest, I have been in some doubt as to whether I should touch
upon this theme or not; for it has always seemed to me that humour based
upon the efforts of an individual to express himself in a language not
his own was meretricious humour, inasmuch as it makes fun of an attempt
to do a creditable thing. It is a kind of humour which is enjoyed in
some measure by the French and the British but which is relished
infinitely more by us than by any other people in the world, as witness
entertainments in our theatres, and stories in our magazines, depending
for comedy upon dialect: German, French, Italian, Irish, Jewish,
Cockney, Negro, or even the several purely American dialects
characteristic of various parts of the country.
This dubious taste of ours doubtless springs, to some extent at least,
from the polyglot nature of our population; but whatever its origin it
is a bad thing for us in one important respect. We find the English
dialect of foreigners so funny that we ourselves fear to attempt foreign
tongues, lest we make ourselves ridiculous. Wherefore we are the poorest
linguists in the world.
Even after the foregoing apology--for that, frankly, is what it is--I
should still hesitate to present examples of "Japanned English" had I
not discovered that Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, perhaps the
greatest of modern authorities on Japan, a man whose writings reveal an
impeccable nicety of taste, had already done so in his most valuable
book, "Things Japanese."
One of the examples given by Professor Chamberlain is quoted from a work
entitled: "The Practical Use of Conversation for Police Authorities,"
which assumes to teach the Japanese policeman how to converse in
English. The following is an imaginary conversation intended to guide
the officer in parley with a British bluejacket:
What countryman are you?
I am a sailor belonged to the Golden Eagle, the English
man-of-war.
Why do you strike this jinricksha-man?
He told me impolitely.
What does he told you impolitely?
He insulted me saying loudly, "the Sailor the Sailor" when
I am passing here.
Do you striking this man for that?
Yes.
But do not strike him for it is forbidden.
I strike him no more.
One curious aspect of the matter is that so much
of this weird English creeps into print, appearing
in guidebooks, advertisements, and on the labels of
goods of various kinds manufactured in Japan.
Thus in the barber shop of the ship, going over,
I found a bottle containing a toilet preparation
called "Fulay," the label of which bore the following
legend:
"Fulay" is manufactures under chemical method and long years
experience with pure and refined materials. It is, therefore,
only the article in the circle as ladies and gents daily toilet.
And on a jar of paste I found this label, which will be better
understood if the tendency of the Japanese to confuse the letters _l_
and _r_ is kept in mind:
This paste is of a pureness cleanliness and of a strong
cohesion, so that it does not putrefy even when the paste grass
is left open. Though written down on paper or the like
immediately after pasting, the character is never spread. This
paste has an especial fragrance therefore all of pasted things
after using this are always kept from the frys and all sorts of
bacteria, and prevents the infectious diseases. This paste is an
indispensable one for the banks, companies, scholars and other
households. Please notice for "Kuchi's Yamato-Nori" as there are
similar things.
The circular of one firm, advertising "a large assortment of ladies'
blushes," might have been misinterpreted as having some scandalous
suggestion, had it not gone on to discuss the ivory backs and high-grade
bristles with which the "blushes" were equipped.
Another circular was that of a butcher who catered to foreigners in
Tokyo. After stating that his meats were sold at "a fixed plice" this
worthy merchant mentioned the various kinds of beef he could supply.
There were, "rosu beef, rampu beef, pig beef, soup beef, and beard
beef"--which being interpreted signified roast beef, rump beef, pork,
soup meat and poultry--the word "beard" being intended for "bird."
In the admirable hotel at Nara I saw the following notice posted in a
corridor:
REMARQUE
Parents are requested kindly to send their children to the Hotel
Garden for when weather is fine. When it is bad weather I will
offer the children the small dining-room, except meal hours, as
playing room for them, therefore please don't let them run round
upstairs and downstairs at all. Please kindly have the children
after dinner in a manner quiet and repose.
MANAGER, Nara Hotel.
From a friend, an official of a large company, I got a number of letters
revealing the peculiarities of "English as she is wrote"--at least as
she is sometimes wrote--in Japan. All these letters are authentic,
having come to him in connection with his business.
The first one, written by a clerk to the office manager, refers to an
admirable Japanese custom which in itself is worthy of brief mention.
Throughout Japan there is housecleaning twice a year under police
supervision. Certain districts have certain days on which the cleaning
must be done. The shoji are removed, the furniture is carried out, and
the mats are taken up and beaten. The streets are full of activity and
dust when this is going on, and there is a pile of rubbish in front of
every residence. Meanwhile police officers pass up and down, wearing
gauze masks over their noses and mouths to protect them from the dust,
and at the end they inspect each house to see that the work has been
properly done, after which they affix an official stamp over the door.
Wherefore wrote the clerk to the office manager:
MR. S----:
Excuse my absent of this morning. All of my neighbourhood have
got instruction to clean out nest.
SIDA.
A more serious dilemma is revealed in the following:
To General Manager.
DEAR SIR,
My wife gave birth this noon and as it happened nearly a month
ahead than I expected, I much rather find myself in painful
situation, having not yet prepared for this sudden ocurrence.
Up to this day, unfortunate enough, I am destined most
unfavourably for the monetary circumstance, and consequently
have no saving against worldly concerns, I am forced to ask you
for a loan of ¥ 25.00 to get rid of the burden befallen on me by
the birth.
I know it is the meanest of all to ask one's help for monetary
affair but as I am being unable to find any better way than to
solicit you, I have at last come to a conclusion to trouble you
but against my will. I deem it much more shamefull to advertise
my poor condition around my relatives or acquaintances no matter
wheater it will be fruitfull or fruitless.
Yours obediently,
Y----.
The subjoined was received from one of the company's agents in another
city:
DEAR SIR,
We have the honour to thank you for your having bestowed us a
Remington typewriter which has just arrived via railway express.
We will treat her very kindly and she will give us her best
service in return. Thus we can work to our mutual satisfaction
and benefit.
Thanking you for your kindness we beg to remain,
Yours very truly,
O---- I----.
The porter in a Japanese office not infrequently sleeps on the premises.
But he must have the necessary equipment, as the following letter from
an agent to a principal reveals:
DEAR SIR,
In accordance to your esteemed conversation of other day for
lodging the servant at this office, we consider we must provide
to him the bed or sleeping tools. Please inform us that you
could approve the expense to purchase this tool.
Awaiting your esteemed reply we are, dear sir,
Yours faithfully,
T---- A----.
The next letter is from a man who wished to establish business relations
with my friend's company:
DEAR SIR,
I am a trader at Kokura city in Kyushu, always treating the
various machines or steels and the architectural using goods.
I have known of your great names at Tokyo. Therefore I want to
open the connection with each other so affectionately.
Accordingly I beg to see your company's inside scene so clearly,
please send me the catalogue and plice-list of good samples of
your company.
I am a baby on our commercial society, because you will lead me
to the machinery society I think.
I trusted,
Yours affectionately,
I am,
K---- M----.
One thing which sometimes makes these letters startling is the fact that
they are couched in English which is perfectly correct save in one or
two particulars. Thus the errors or strange usages pop out at one
unexpectedly, adding an element of surprise, as in the case of a man who
wrote to my friend applying for work:
DEAR SIR,
I beg leave to inquire whether you can make use of my services
as a salesman and correspondent in your firm. I have had
considerable experiences as a apparatus, and can furnish
references and insurance against risk.
Awaiting your reply, I am
Yours respectfully,
K---- S----.
I have often been asked whether the Japanese possess the gift of humour.
They do--though humour does not occupy a place so important in their
daily life as it does in ours.
A light touch in conversation is uncommon with them, and those who have
it do not generally exhibit it except to their intimates. Yet they are
great punsters, and some of their puns are very clever. A case in point
is the slang term _narikin_ which they have recently adopted to describe
the flashy new-rich type which has come into being since the war.
To understand the derivation of this word, and its witty connotation,
you must know that in their game of chess, called _shogi_, a humble pawn
advanced to the adversary's third row is, by a process resembling
queening, converted into a powerful, free-moving piece called _kin_. The
word _nari_ means "to become"; hence _nari-kin_ means literally "to
become _kin_"--which gives us, when applied to a flamboyant profiteer, a
droll picture of a poor little pawn suddenly exalted to power and
magnificence. The pun, which adds greatly to the value of this term,
comes with the word _kin_. _Kin_ is not only a chessman; it also means
"gold." Which naturally contributes further piquancy in the application
to a _nouveau riche_.
Moreover, through a play on the word narikin there has been evolved a
second slang term: _narihin_--_hin_ meaning "poor"--"to become poor."
And alas, this term as well as the other is useful in Japan to-day. War
speculation has made some fortunes, but it has wiped out others.
My friend O----, a truly lovable fellow, once spent the better part of
an afternoon explaining a lot of Japanese puns to me, and I was hardly
more pleased by the jests themselves than by my friend's infectious
little chuckles over them. At parting we made an engagement for the
evening, but about dinner time O---- returned to say that he could not
spend the evening with me.
"I have just heard that my best friend died last night," he said, "It is
very unexpected. I must go to his house." So speaking he emitted what
appeared to me to be precisely the same little chuckle he had uttered
over the puns.
The suppression of one's feeling is a primary canon of Japanese
etiquette. To show unhappiness is to make others unhappy; wherefore,
when one suffers, it is good form to laugh or smile. The foreigner who
comprehends this doctrine must, if he be a man of any delicacy of
feeling, respect it. But if he does not grasp the underlying principle
he is likely to misjudge the Japanese and consider their laughter, in
some circumstances, hard-hearted, apologetic, or inane.
* * * * *
The supreme proof of Japanese humour is to be found in the grotesqueries
and whimsicalities of Japanese Art. You see it revealed everywhere--in
the shape of a gnarled, stunted pine, carefully trained to a pleasing
deformity; in the images of cats left in various parts of Japan by
Hidari Jingoro, the great left-handed wood-carver of the sixteenth
century; in the famous trio of monkeys adorning the stable of the Ieyasu
Shrine at Nikko--those which neither hear, see, nor speak evil; in a
thousand earthenware figures of ragged, pot-bellied Hotei, one of the
Seven Gods of Luck, sitting, gross and contented in a small boat,
waiting for some one to bring his abdominal belt; in the countless
representations of the Buddhist god Daruma, that delightful egg-shaped
comedian who will run out his tongue and his eyes for you, or, if not
that, will refuse to stay down when you roll him over; in figurines
without number, of ivory or wood; in sword-guards embellished with
fantastic conceits; in those carved ivory buttons called _netsuké_,
treasured by collectors; and perhaps most often in Japanese
colour-prints.
The hundred years between 1730 and 1830 was the golden age of
wood-engraving in Japan.
During the lifetime of this art it was regarded as distinctly plebeian.
Many of the fine prints were made to be used as advertisements or
souvenirs. Some, it is true, were issued in limited editions, and these
cost more than the commoner ones, but generally they were sold for a few
cents.
Unfortunately, before the art-lovers of Japan perceived that the finest
of these prints were masterpieces representing wood-engraving at its
highest perfection, the best prints had got out of Japan and gone to
Paris, London, Boston, New York, Chicago, and other foreign cities,
whence the Japanese have lately been buying them back at enormous
prices.
From a friend of mine in Tokyo, himself the owner of a very valuable
collection, I learned that the collection of 7,500 prints assembled by
M. Vever, of Paris, has long been considered by connoisseurs the finest
in the world. This collection was recently purchased intact by Mr.
Kojiro Matsukata, of Kobe, president of the Kawasaki shipbuilding firm.
It is said that Mr. Matsukata paid half a million dollars for it. My
Tokyo friend tells me that the collection belonging to Messrs. William
S., and John T. Spalding, of Boston, is probably next in importance to
the Matsukata collection, and that it is difficult to say whether the
Boston Museum collection or the British Museum collection takes third
place. For primitive prints, the Clarence Buckingham collection, housed
in the Chicago Art Institute, is also very important.
How does it happen that it was in Europe that Japanese prints first came
to be highly appreciated as works of art?
Octave Mirbeau, in his delightful book of automobiling adventures, "La
628-E8" (which, I believe, has never been brought out in English) tells
the story.
The great impressionist, Claude Monet, went to Holland to paint. Some
groceries sent home to him from a little shop were wrapped in a Japanese
print--the first one Monet had ever seen.
"You can imagine," writes Mirbeau, "his emotion before that marvellous
art.... His astonishment and joy were such that he could not speak, but
could only give vent to cries of delight.
"And it was in Zaandam that this miracle came to pass--Zaandam with its
canals, its boats at the quay unloading cargoes of Norwegian wood, its
huddled flotillas of barks, its little streets of water, its tiny red
cabins, its green houses--Zaandam, the most Japanese spot in all the
Dutch landscape....
"Monet ran to the shop whence came his package--a vague little grocery
shop where the fat fingers of a fat man were tying up (without being
paralyzed by the deed!) two cents' worth of pepper and ten cents' worth
of coffee, in paper bearing these glorious images brought from the Far
East along with groceries in the bottom of a ship's hold.
"Although he was not rich at that time, Monet was resolved to buy all of
these masterpieces that the grocery contained. He saw a pile of them on
the counter. His heart bounded. The grocer was waiting upon an old lady.
He was about to wrap something up. Monet saw him reach for one of the
prints.
'No, no!' he cried. 'I want to buy that! I want to buy all those--all
those!'
"The grocer was a good man. He believed that he was dealing with some
one who was a little touched. Anyway the coloured papers had cost him
nothing. They were thrown in with the goods. Like some one who gives a
toy to a crying child to appease it, he gave the pile of prints to
Monet, smilingly and a bit mockingly.
"'Take them, take them,' he said. 'You can have them. They aren't worth
anything. They aren't solid enough. I prefer regular wrapping-paper.'"
So the grocer enveloped the old lady's cheese in a piece of yellow
paper, and Monet went home and spent the rest of the day in adoration of
his new-found treasures. The names of the great Japanese wood-engravers
were of course unknown in Europe then, but Monet learned later that some
of these prints were by Hokusai, Utamaro, and Korin.
"This," continues Mirbeau, "was the beginning of a celebrated
collection, but much more important, it was the beginning of such an
evolution in French painting that the anecdote has, besides its own
savour, a veritable historic value. For it is a story which cannot be
overlooked by those who seriously study the important movement in art
which is called Impressionism."
CHAPTER XXVIII
_Living in a Japanese House--The Priceless Yuki--The Servants in
the House--The Red Carpet--Our Trunks Depart--Tokyo's Night-time
Sounds--Tipping and Noshi--The Etiquette of Farewells--Sayonara_
My last days in Japan were my best days, for I spent them in a Japanese
home, standing amid its own lovely gardens in Mita, a residential
district some twenty minutes by motor from the central part of Tokyo.
Through the open shoji of my bedroom I could look out in the mornings to
where, beyond the velvet lawns, the flowers and the treetops, the
inverted fan of Fuji's cone was often to be seen floating white and
spectral in the sky, seventy miles away.
After my bath in a majestic family tub I would breakfast in my room,
wearing a kimono, recently acquired, and feeling very Japanese.
While I was dressing, Yuki sometimes entered, but I had by this time
become accustomed to her matutinal invasions and no longer found them
embarrassing. She was so entirely practical, so useful. She knew where
everything was. She would go to a curious little cupboard, which was
built into the wall and had sliding doors of lacquer and silk, and get
me a shirt, or would retrieve from their place of concealment a missing
pair of trousers, and bring them to me neatly folded in one of those
flat, shallow baskets which, with the Japanese, seem to take the place
of bureau drawers.
Thus, besides being my daughter's duenna and my wife's maid, she was in
effect, my valet. Nor did her usefulness by any means end there. She was
our interpreter, dragoman, purchasing-agent; she was our steward, major
domo, seneschal; nay, she was our Prime Minister.
The house had a large staff, and all the servants made us feel that they
were _our_ servants, and that they were glad to have us there. With the
exception of a butler, an English-speaking Japanese temporarily added to
the establishment on our account, all wore the native dress; and there
were among them two men so fine of feature, so dignified of bearing, so
elegant in their silks, that we took them, at first, for members of the
family. One of them was a white-bearded old gentleman who would have
made a desirable grandfather for anybody. If he had duties other than to
decorate the hall with his presence I never discovered what they were.
The other, a young man, was clerk of the household, and enjoyed the
distinction of being Saki's husband.
[Illustration: Saki, the housekeeper of some Japanese friends we
visited, obligingly posed for me. The mattress is stuffed with
floss silk, the pillow is hard and round, and the covering is a
sort of quilted kimono]
Saki was the housekeeper, young and pretty. She and her husband lived in
a cottage near by, and their home was extensively equipped with musical
instruments, Saki being proficient on the samisen and koto, and also on
an American melodeon which was one of her chief treasures. She was all
smiles and sweetness--a most obliging person. Indeed it was she who
pretended to be asleep in a Japanese bed, in order that I might make the
photograph which is one of the illustrations in this book.
Four or five coolies, excellent fellows, wearing blue cotton coats with
the insignia of our host's family upon the backs of them, worked about
the house and grounds; and several little maids were continually
trotting through the corridors; with that pigeon-toed shuffle in which
one comes, when one is used to it, actually to see a curious prettiness.
Sometimes we felt that the servants were showing us too much
consideration. We dined out a great deal and were often late in getting
home ("Home" was the term we found ourselves using there), yet however
advanced the hour, the chauffeur would sound his horn on entering the
gate, whereupon lights would flash on beneath the porte-cochère, the
shoji at the entrance of the house would slide open, and three or four
domestics would come out, dragging a wide strip of red velvet carpet,
over which we would walk magnificently up the two steps leading to the
hall. But though I urged them to omit this regal detail, because two or
three men had to sit up to handle the heavy carpet, and also because the
production of it made me feel like a bogus prince, I could never induce
them to do so. Always, regardless of the hour, a little group of
servants appeared at the door when we came home.
* * * * *
Even on the night when, under the ministrations of the all-wise and
all-powerful head porter of the Imperial Hotel, our trunks were spirited
away, to be taken to Yokohama and placed aboard the _Tenyo Maru_, even
then we found it difficult to realize that our last night in Japan had
come.
The realization did not strike me with full force until I went to bed.
I was not sleepy. I lay there, thinking. And the background of my
thoughts was woven out of sounds wafted through the open shoji on the
summer wind: the nocturnal sounds of the Tokyo streets.
I recalled how, on my first night in Tokyo, I had listened to these
sounds and wondered what they signified.
Now they explained themselves to me, as to a Japanese.
A distant jingling, like that of sleigh-bells, informed me that a
newsboy was running with late papers. A plaintive musical phrase
suggestive of Debussy, bursting out suddenly and stopping with startling
abruptness, told me that the Chinese macaroni man was abroad with his
lantern-trimmed cart and his little brass horn. At last I heard a
xylophone-like note, resembling somewhat the sound of a New York
policeman's club tapping the sidewalk. It was repeated several times;
then there would come a silence; then the sound again, a little nearer.
It was the night watchman on his rounds, guarding the neighbourhood not
against thieves, but against fire, "the Flower of Tokyo." In my mind's
eye I could see him hurrying along, knocking his two sticks together now
and then, to spread the news that all was well.
Then it was that I reflected: "To-morrow night I shall not hear these
sounds. In their place I shall hear the creaking of the ship, the roar
of the wind, the hiss of the sea. Possibly I shall never again hear the
music of the Tokyo streets."
My heart was sad as I went to sleep.
* * * * *
Fortunately for our peace of mind, we had learned through the experience
of American friends, visitors in another Japanese home, how _not_ to tip
these well-bred domestics--or rather, how not to try to tip them. On
leaving the house in which they had been guests, these friends had
offered money to the servants, only to have it politely but positively
refused.
Yuki cleared the matter up for us.
"They should put _noshi_ with money," she explained in response to our
questions. "That make it all right to take. It mean a present."
Without having previously known noshi by name, we knew immediately what
she meant, for we had received during our stay in Japan enough presents
to fill a large trunk, and each had been accompanied by a little piece
of coloured paper folded in a certain way, signifying a gift.
In the old days these coloured papers always contained small pieces of
dried _awabi_--abelone--but with the years the dried awabi began to be
omitted, and the little folded papers by themselves came to be
considered adequate.
Fortified with this knowledge I went, on the day before our departure,
to the Ginza, where I bought envelopes on which the noshi design was
printed. Money placed in these envelopes was graciously accepted by all
the servants. Tips they would not have received. But these were not
tips. They were gifts from friend to friend, at parting.
* * * * *
The code of Japanese courtesy is very exact and very exacting in the
matter of farewells to the departing guest. Callers are invariably
escorted to the door by the host, such members of his family as have
been present, and a servant or two, all of whom stand in the portal
bowing as the visitor drives away.
A house-guest is dispatched with even greater ceremony. The entire
personnel of the establishment will gather at with profound bows and
cries of "Sayonara!" the door to speed him on his way Members of the
family, often the entire family, accompany him to the station, where
appear other friends who have carefully inquired in advance as to the
time of departure. The traveller is escorted to his car, and his friends
remain upon the platform until the train leaves, when the bowing and
"Sayonaras" are repeated.
Tokyo people often go to Yokohama with friends who are sailing from
Japan, accompanying them to the ship, and remaining on the dock until
the vessel moves into the bay. How Tokyo men-of-affairs can manage to go
upon these time-consuming seeing-off parties is one of the great
mysteries of Mysterious Japan, for such an excursion takes up the
greater part of a day.
To the American, accustomed in his friendships to take so much for
granted, a Japanese farewell affords a new sensation, and one which can
hardly fail to touch the heart.
Departing passengers are given coils of paper ribbon confetti, to throw
to their friends ashore, so that each may hold an end until the wall of
steel parts from the wall of stone, and the paper strand strains and
breaks. There is something poignant and poetic in that breaking,
symbolizing the vastness of the world, the littleness of men and ships,
the fragility of human contacts.
The last face I recognized, back there across the water, in Japan, was
Yuki's. She was standing on the dock with the end of a broken paper
ribbon in her hand. The other end trailed down into the water. She was
weeping bitterly.
Wishing to be sure that my wife and daughter had not failed to discover
her in the crowd, I turned to them. But I did not have to point her out.
Their faces told me that they saw her. They too were weeping.
So it is with women. They weep. As for a man, he merely waves his hat. I
waved mine.
"Sayonara!"
I turned away. There were things I had to see to in my cabin. Besides,
the wind on deck was freshening. It hurt my eyes.
THE END
INDEX
INDEX
Abalone, diving for, 304
Actresses, increase of, 96
Architecture, democracy in, 40
Architecture and sculpture, horrors in, 27
Art, grotesqueries and whimsicalities, 330
Athletic sports, popularity of, 103
Back-end-formost methods and customs, 48
Bathing customs, 52, 65, 289
Beauty, artistic conceptions, 163
Beds, how arranged, 299
Bill of fare, luncheon, 127
Boasting, a cardinal sin, 173
Brides, outfitted for life, 36
Burglars, feared next to fire and earthquake, 42;
what to do when visited by, 45
Bushido, doctrine of, 76
Business methods, placidity in, 228
Butokukai--Association for Inculcation of Military Virtues, 195
Calendar, Chinese, adopted by Japanese, 316
California, Japanese issue in, 244
Calligraphy, a fine art, 55
Chafing-dish, cooking in, 149
Cherry Dance of Kyoto, 144
Children, in profusion, 23
China, American engineer among brigands in, 10;
compared with Japan, 266
Chinnung, Emperor, discoverer of tea, 69
Chop-sticks, lesson in use of, 120
Class, the distinctions of, 140
Colonization, efforts in, 233
Concubinage, still practised, 85
Cooking, chafing-dish, 149
Costume, regulated by calendar, 33
Courtesans, segregated, 154
Courtesy, the code of, in making farewells, 340
Crest, family, as used on kimono, 34
Customs changed to fit Western ideas, 174
Dancing girls, or maiko, 119, 135, 137, 141
Daruma, mythological creator of tea, 69
Divorce customs, 85
Dress of women, uniformity of, 31;
cost of, 35
Earthquakes, influence of, in building construction, 38, 42;
frequency and extent, 39;
best course to pursue during, 43
Efficiency and non-efficiency of the people, 235
Elder Statesmen, the, 185
Eliot, Sir Charles, on understanding Japan, 75
Ema, efficacy of an, 320
English as she is wrote, 323
Eri, neck piece worn with kimono, 34
European dress not popular with women, 31, 37
Fashions, little variation in, 36
Feudal Era, the, 70
Films, kissing scenes cut, 98
Finley, Dr. John H., on reverential attitude of the Japanese, 280
Flower Arrangement, the study of, 66;
origin of, 68;
in connection with display of paintings, 72
Folk dances by maiko, 137
Foods and delicacies, 129
Foreign customs adopted, 174
Fortune tellers, well patronized, 318
Fujiyama, as seen from the sea, 13;
the "Honourable Mountain," 14
Gardens, history and theory, 167, 177
Gardens, diminutive, 21
Geisha, the best dressers, 37;
at a luncheon, 116;
various grades in, 119;
no rhythm in their dancing, 132;
what they really are, 132;
in Japanese romances, 146;
cost of entertainment, 151
Geisha, male, or comedian, 156
Great Britain's attitude toward Japan, 268.
Haori, how worn, 35
Hara-Kiri, privileges associated with, 192
Hearn, Lafcadio, on the Japanese language, 56;
on Japanese women, 75, 82;
on the Tea Ceremony, 81;
Hiratsuka, Mrs. Raicho, efforts to improve marriage laws, 84
Honesty, Japanese and Chinese, 278
Hospitality, New York and Japan compared, 258
House cleaning, under police supervision, 325
Humour, extent of native, 328
Imperial Bureau of Poems, duties of, 165
Inouye, Jakichi, attributes bearing of Japanese ladies to study of
Tea Ceremony, 81
International Affairs ignored by Americans, 242
Intoxication, prevalence of, 123
Italy, compared to Japan, 163
Japanese-American relations, letter from President Roosevelt to Baron
Kaneko, 223
Jesuits, expulsion of, 201
Jiu-jutsu, in wrestling, 112;
taught to samurai, 192;
renascence of, 193
Jiudo, development of, 193
Johnson, Senator Hiram, agitator on Japanese question, 256
Kakemono, method of hanging the, 72
Kamogawa, visit to, 288
Kaneko, Viscount Kentaro, preparing history of Meiji Era 29;
interviews with, 212;
visits at Roosevelt's home, 213;
Roosevelt's letters to, 222, 223, 226, 227
Kano, Jigoro, revives art of jiu-jutsu, 193
_Kashima Maru_, voyage on, 1
Katsuura, visit to, 284
Kimono, use of, 34
Kipling, Rudyard, on understanding Japan, 75
Kissing, attitude toward, 98
Kodokwan, school of jiu-jutsu, 194
Kokugikwan, the national game building, 104, 107
Korea, conditions under Japanese control, 9
Korean Emperor, anecdotes on, 8
Kyoto, Cherry Dance at, 144
Labor, abundance of, 19;
waste of, 236
Landscape gardening, history of, 169
Language, peculiarities of the, 53;
difficulties with, 321
Leprosy, extent of, 90
Lunch, the railway, 276
Maple Club, luncheon at, 116
Marquis, Don, on reformers, 151
Marriage customs, 85, 93
Meiji Tenno, "Emperor of Enlightenment," 29
"Melting Pot," overloading of the, 251
Militarism, slowly waning, 232
Mirbeau, Octave, on discovery of Japanese prints by Claude Monet, 332
Morris, Roland S., address on Japanese issue in California, 244
Mothers-in-law, dutifulness toward, 93
Mourning, costume for, 36
Muko-yoshi, adopted son-husbands, 94
Music, unmelodious to foreign ear, 131
Nabuto, visit to, 302
Naginata, the woman's weapon 196
Namazu, "cause" of earthquakes, 40
Nara, luncheon party in, 137, 141
Nesan, serving maids, 117
Nitobe, Doctor, on bushido, 76
_No_ drama, masks used in 49;
knowledge of, necessary in study of the people, 75
Nogi, Count, story of his death, 197
Nurses' occupation popular, 96
Obi, chief treasure of woman's costume, 35;
how worn, 36
Okuma, Marquis, Japan's "Grand Old Man," 185
Old age, deference to, 50
Oriental Mind, the, 57
Partitions, removable, 118
Period of transition, beginning of, 184
Perry, Commodore, "knocking at Japan's door," 28;
opens door to progress, 184
Physicians, women as, 96
Picture brides, no longer allowed to come to America, 244
Pipes, diminutive, 130
Placidity in business and home life, 228
Poems, annually submitted to the Imperial Bureau, 165
Politeness, Japanese ideas of 260
Politics, lack of interest in, 103
Population, excess in 231, 233;
must be balanced by industrial expansion, 234
Prints, Japanese, important collections of, 331;
discovery of in Europe by Claude Monet, 332
Privacy, lack of in Japanese homes, 298
Public utilities, inefficiency in, 238
Race, unassimilability of, 253
Race problems of America, 249
Railroads, under government management, 274
Restaurant, cost of food and entertainment, 151
Riddell, Miss H., work with lepers, 90
Roosevelt, Quentin, Baron Kaneko's regard for, 213, 219, 227
Roosevelt, Theodore, on reign of Emperor Meiji, 29;
interest in jiu-jutsu, 193;
visit of Viscount Shibusawa to, 210;
Viscount Kaneko's regard for, 213;
letter to Baron Kaneko on our Japanese question, 223;
wise attitude toward Japan, 270
Sake, how served, 121
Samurai, strength of the, 70;
customs and privileges, 192
Sculpture and architecture.
Self-made men, 187.
Segregation of vice, 154
Servants, courtesy of and to, 117, 336
Shibusawa, Viscount Eiichi founder of school for actresses, 96;
interview with, 188, 201;
anecdote of President Roosevelt, 210;
visit to grave of Townsend Harris, 280
Shimabara, courtesan district, Kyoto, 160
Suicide, prevalence of 51;
the Oriental view of, 199
Sunday, as a holiday, 114
Superstition, prevalence of, 318
Tails, wild men with, 7
Tai-no-ura, and the Nativity Temple, 287
Tea, significance of, 68;
origin, 69
Tea Ceremony, or cha-no-yu, 71, 74, 81.
Tea Masters, veneration of the, 73
Teahouse, entertainment expensive, 143, 151
Teaism, as a study, 68
Telephone service, inefficiency of, 238
Tipping, proper procedure in, 339
Tobacco industry, a monopoly, 130
Tokugawa, Prince, interest in wrestling, 105
Tokyo, growth, 26;
architecture and sculpture, 27;
adopting steel for building construction, 38
Tourists welcomed to Japan, 263
Tray landscapes, art of making, 67
Tuberculosis, extent of, 90
Vandalism at historic places, 280
Vice, commercialized, 154
Waseda University, now open to women, 95;
founded by Marquis Okuma, 186
W. C. T. U., activities, 97
Women, costume of, 32;
sedate gracefulness of, 81;
suffrage, 83
legal status, 84;
condition slowly improving, 95;
in business and professions, 95;
the "new woman," 97;
husbands' attitude toward wives, 100;
position higher in early times, 100
Wood engraving, era of, 331
_World_, New York, editorial on Japanese issue in California, 244
Wrestling, the national sport, 103
Yajima, Mrs., leader in W. C. T. U., 97
"Yellow Peril," the true, 246
Yokohama, the landing, 16
Yoritomo, legend of, 303
Yoshinobu, becomes shogun, 202;
held prisoner after conflict with Emperor, 205;
battle neither sought nor desired, 207
Yoshioka, Dr. G. founder of Tokyo School for Women, 96
Yoshiwara, courtesan district, Tokyo, 154
Yuasa, Commander, heroism at Port Arthur, 195
Zodiac, belief in the signs of the, 317
[Illustration]
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Some of the original illustrations were pairs of illustrations related
to different topics. Those pairs were separated and moved to text they
illustrate. The list of illustrations refer to the original locations of
those illustrations. In the paired illustrations, references to
"(above)" and "(below)" have been removed.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
On page 29, "to day" was replaced with "today".
On page 86, "mutally" was replaced with "mutually".
On page 87, "bethrothal" was replaced with "betrothal".
On page 113 a comma at an end of a sentence was replaced by a period.
On page 138, "pantomine" was replaced with "pantomime".
On page 149, "chafing-fish" was replaced with "chafing-dish".
On page 160, "Tokugowa" was replaced with "Tokugawa".
On page 163 a comma was added after the word "fascinating".
On page 168, "sensui" was replaced with "sansui".
On page 172, "Distate" was replaced with "Distaste".
On page 176, "daimio" was replaced with "daimyo]".
On page 185, "Marquise" was replaced with "Marquis".
On page 202, "Hizan" was replaced with "Hizen".
On page 203 a period was added after "Highness".
On page 219 a comma at an end of a sentence was replaced by a period.
On page 230 a period was added after "60,000,000".
On page 254, "overwhemingly" was replaced with "overwhelmingly".
On page 264, "supicious" was replaced with "suspicious".
On page 273, "the Little Train" was replaced with "The Little Train".
On page 275, "pratice" was replaced with "practice".
On page 284, "orginally" was replaced with "originally".
On page 285, "af" was replaced with "of".
On page 292, "summond" was replaced with "summoned".
On page 306, "event" was replaced with "events".
On page 318, "Superstitition" was replaced with "Superstition".
On page 323 a comma was added after "Basil Hall Chamberlain".
On page 327 a space was added between "O----" and "I".
On page 328 a space was added between "K----" and "S".
On page 340, "despatched" was replaced with "dispatched".
In the index, "peculiarties" was replaced with "peculiarities".
Notice: There are no cites for the item Sculpture and architecture, and
in the index some items are closed with periods, but most are not.