As to kissing in Japan, there is no kissing. Kissing is not "forbidden"
at all;--there is simply no impulse to kiss among the Turanian races.
All Aryan races have the impulse, as an affectionate greeting. Children
do not kiss their parents;--but the pressing of cheek to cheek is
nearly the same thing--as a demonstration. Mothers lip their little
ones;--but--how shall I explain? The kiss, as we understand it in the
Occident, is considered not as an affectionate, but as a _sexual_
impulse, or as of kin to such an impulse. Now this is absolutely true.
Undoubtedly the modern kiss of the cultivated West may have no such
meaning in 99,997 cases out of 99,998. But the original primitive
signification of pressing lip to lip, as Aryan races do, or even lip
to cheek, is physiologically traceable to the love which is too often
called _l'amour_, but which has little to do with the higher sense
of affection. With us the impulse of a child to kiss is absolutely
_instinctive_. The Japanese child has no such impulse whatever; but his
way of caressing is none the less delicious.
On the other hand, it is significant that the Japanese word for
"dear," "lovable" is also used to signify "sweetness" of the material
saccharine kind. But perhaps this is offset by the fact that Japanese
confectionery, though delicious, never nauseates through over-sweetness;
and that the quantity of sugar used is very much less than with us.
One never gets tired of _kwashi_; but plumcake and bonbons in the
West need to be sparingly used. Perhaps we want too much sweetness of
all kinds. The Japanese are in all things essentially temperate and
self-restrained--as a people. Of course, Western notions and examples
begin to spoil them a little.
It is possible by the time this reaches you that I shall have become a
Japanese citizen,--for legal reasons. (Say nothing yet about it.) If I
marry my wife before the consul, then she becomes English, and loses
the right to hold property in her own country. Marrying her by Japanese
custom will not be acknowledged as legal, without special permission
of the minister of foreign affairs,--but if I get the permission, then
she becomes English, and the _boy_ too. So my marriage, though legal
according to every moral code, and according to the old law, becomes
illegal by new law, and the wife and family--as I really follow the
Japanese code, supporting father, mother, and grandparents--have no
rights except through a will, which relatives can dispute. I therefore
cut the puzzle by changing nationality, and becoming a Japanese. Then
I lose all chance of Government employ at a living salary; for the
Englishman who becomes a Japanese is only paid by the Japanese scale.
Also I lose the really powerful protection given to Englishmen by their
own nation. Finally I have to pay taxes much bigger than consular fees,
and my boy becomes liable to military service. (But that won't hurt
him.) I hope in any case to give him a scientific education abroad.
The trouble is I am now forty-five. I'll be sleeping in some Buddhist
cemetery before I can see him quite independent....
I have lost friends because their wives didn't like me--more than
once;--as Chamberlain says, "No: you'll never be a ladies' man." But the
kindly spirit of Mrs. Baker shows even through your own letters;--and
if I can ever see you again, I know that, although not a ladies' man,
I won't be disliked in one friend's home as a fugitive visitor. Say
everything grateful to her for me that you can.
Good-bye, with love to your pretty gold-head,--and regards to all
friends.