I have already given it as my humble opinion that the Japanese are not
particularly adaptable. This was impressed upon me once more in Takao,
principal port of southern Formosa and the end of the main line of the
railway. The island is small; American or European visitors are rare;
the “foreign office” in the capital had insisted on showing me special
attention—which of course was not entirely mere courtesy. As I descended
from the train at Takao, the government official who met me turned out
to be one of those charming gentlemen into which the brighter pebbles of
Japanese humanity can be polished under favorable circumstances, who
spoke English perfectly, and who was a Christian into the bargain,
whatever difference that may make. He made the inexcusable error of
mistaking me for a person of importance, and we were soon spinning away
in his high-powered motor-car to the best inn of Takao. It was the
absolutely unchanged Nipponese character of this hostelry which
emphasized the old impression that the people of Japan do not readily
adapt themselves to a new environment. From its arched entrance to the
tiny back garden the principal inn of Takao might have been in the heart
of Tokyo—and in the depths of midwinter. There were the same polished
wooden floors between the step-shelf at the door where one exchanged
one’s footwear for inn slippers; the square, mat-floored room with
almost as large an antechamber to which I was assigned had been as
hermetically sealed as paper _shoji_ and sliding wooden outer walls
could make it. The three or four quilts spread on the floor in the
middle of the room would have been an excellent bed in northern
Manchuria in January; on an early October night in the tropics a sheet
would have been a much more welcome covering than the arctic quilt in
the form of a kimono, the invariable one under which the guest of the
Japanese is forced to smother himself in all climates and latitudes, or
go uncovered. For toward morning there is a mild chill even in southern
Formosa, which the immense mosquito-net all but filling the large room
could not entirely shut out. To say that the inn was Japanese is also
equivalent to mentioning that electric lights blazed throughout it
during the night, glaring fiercely in upon the pseudo-sleeper even
though he may have found some means of turning out the one immediately
over his head.
But if every other suggestion had been lacking, the bath alone would
have proved how thoroughly Japan has been transplanted to this
southernmost point of the empire. The lady of the house herself
conducted me to the place of public ablutions; no respectable Japanese
hostess would leave to a mere servant-maid this courtesy toward a guest
whom the attentions of the government proved a distinguished personage.
She was as comely a young woman as an uncomely race ordinarily produces,
eminently respectable, I am sure, in the Japanese sense of the word,
with a plump baby of the vintage of the previous summer, and a husband
who would certainly not have endured with equanimity any suggestion of
unseemly conduct, from his Nipponese point of view, on the part of his
wife. A shadow projected upon the glazed glass of the bath-room door
showed that it was occupied. I know of ladies who might have turned back
under the circumstances; my Japanese hostess slid the door wide open and
courteously invited me to enter with her.
In the middle of the wet floor, between the big steaming wooden tub and
the small wooden bucket with which he had been rinsing his parboiled
body, stood a young man, a stranger for the night, like myself, as I
gathered from the subsequent conversation. He was clothed in a wet skin
and a welcoming smile. On the wall within reach of him hung a large
towel that would have covered him completely; he might even have turned
his back; but he was too well bred a Japanese gentlemen to indulge in
selfish personal activity while receiving guests, as it were, in a
temporary abode. He bowed courteously to us, begging me with a gesture
and a word to make myself at home, then stood smiling as serenely as if
he had been arrayed in a frockcoat gleaming with the order of the Rising
Sun.
The more old-fashioned and circumspect of American ladies might perhaps
by this time have found some fitting excuse to discreetly withdraw; my
hostess could not, of course, think of subjecting me to such a
discourtesy. She had still to show me where the soap was kept, to
indicate the tub of steaming water, to point to the wooden wash-basins
strewn about the floor and to the cold-water faucets from which to fill
them when I wished to cool my cooked skin, and to imply that all these
things were at my disposal, though it would surely not have required
genius to guess all this without her immediate personal assistance.
Meanwhile she had opened conversation with the gentleman garbed in the
welcoming smile. He had found his chamber comfortable, she hoped, my
scanty knowledge of Japanese told me. He had indeed; and would she be
good enough to have him called in time for the early morning train
south? From this auspicious beginning social intercourse went smoothly
on, through what seemed to be a comparing of the number of friends, or
enemies, lost in the great earthquake, and such other matters as might
come up between a lady and a gentleman at a dinner-table or in a
ball-room. Then at length the dripping guest, having fulfilled the
proprieties by showing no unseemly haste to attend to his own
insignificant affairs in the face of social requirements, strolled
across to the towel-rack, thrust his feet into rubber slippers, bade us
a courteous good evening, and shuffled out into the hallway.
My hostess showed no indication of following, but waited politely for me
to slip off the newly laundered kimono that had been laid out for me
upon my arrival. There was in her manner no suggestion of a Chinese
curiosity to know how foreigners bathe, or whether their skins are that
color all over; such questions she had probably long since solved. She
was merely waiting upon me like an attentive servant, quite as she might
have waited to pour out my beer or to fill my bowl with rice at dinner.
Perhaps she meant to soap my back or.... Luckily her husband looked in
at last, to bow ceremoniously to me and to tell his wife that new guests
had arrived, requiring her attention, if I would be so good as to excuse
her. Nor was this, of course, the trumped-up story of a suspicious
husband, as the sounds of thrice-clapped hands throughout the house
indicated. Truly a Japanese would have felt as completely at home in the
principal inn of Takao as within sight of the moat of the Imperial
Palace; even the charge of five yen for the privilege of lying a few
hours on the floor would have struck him as home-like in its
exorbitance.
[Illustration: The Japanese build Shinto shrines in every Formosan town
of importance, but they have made little progress in making Shintoists
or mikado-worshipers of the inhabitants]
[Illustration: The Chinese type of temples and demon-propitiating are
still dearest to the hearts of the Formosans]