SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
_Bon yori shoko_ (Proof, not argument)
One day in Tokyo I heard a Japanese who was looking at a photograph of
a British woman War-worker feeding pigs ask if the animals were sheep.
Sheep are so rare in Japan that an old ram has been exhibited at a
country fair as a lion. In contrast with Western agriculture based on
live stock we have in Japan an agriculture based on rice.[247] But a
section of the Japanese agricultural world turns its eyes longingly to
mixed farming, and so, when I returned to Sapporo from my trip to the
north of Hokkaido, I was taken to see a Government stock farm--with a
smoking volcano in the background. Hokkaido has four other official
farms, one belonging to the Government and one for raising horses for
the army. I was shown, in addition to horses, Ayrshire, Holstein and
Brown Swiss cattle, Berkshire and Yorkshire pigs and Southdown and
Shropshire sheep in good buildings. I noticed two self-binders and a
hay loader and I beheld for the first time in Japan a dairymaid and
collies--one was of a useless show type.
The extent to which the knack of looking after animals and a liking
for them can be developed is an interesting question. Experts in
stock-keeping with generations of experience behind them will agree
that it is on the answer to this question that the success or
non-success of the Japanese in animal industry in no small measure
depends.
I have a note of a discussion on the general treatment of domestic
animals in Japan in the course of which it was admitted that they were
"certainly not treated as well as in most parts of Europe, or as in
China." One reason given was that "most sects believe in the
reincarnation of the wicked in the form of animals." The freedom which
dogs enjoyed in English houses seemed strange; my friends no doubt
forgot that Western houses have no _tatami_ to be preserved. It was
contended, however, that cavalry soldiers "often weep on parting from
their horses" and that "people with knowledge of animals are fond of
them." I have myself seen farmers' wives in tears at a horse fair when
the foals they had reared were to be sold and the animals in their
timidity nuzzled them. Westerners who are familiar with the exquisite
and humoursome studies of animal, bird and insect life by Japanese
artists of the past and present day,[248] are in no doubt that such
work was prompted by real knowledge and love of the "lower creation."
The Japanese have a keen appreciation of the "song" of an amazing
variety of "musical" insects--there are 20,000 kinds of insects. It is
an appreciation not vouchsafed to the foreigner whose nerves are
racked by the insistent bizz of the _semi_ or cicada--there are 38
kinds of cicada. Everyone will recall Hearn's chapter on the trade in
"singing insects."
One of my hosts in Aichi had two tiny cages which each contained one
of these creatures. The cages were hung from the eaves. In the evening
when the stone lantern in the garden was lit, and it was desired to
give an illusion of greater coolness after a hot day a servant was
sent up to the roof to pour down a tubful of water in order to produce
the dripping sound of rain; and this at once set the caged insects
chirping.
The sensitive foreigner is distressed by the way in which newly born
puppies and kittens are thrown out to die because their Buddhist
owners are too scrupulous to kill them. The stranger's feelings are
also worked on by the unhappy demeanour and uncared-for look of dogs
and cats. On chancing to enter in a Japanese city an English home
where there were three dogs I could not but mark how they contrasted
in bearing and appearance with the generality of the animals I had
seen. Yet these dogs were all mongrel foundlings which had been
abandoned near my friend's house or dropped into her garden. No doubt
most Japanese dogs suffer from having too much rice--and polished at
that--and practically no bones. An excuse for the neglect of cats is
that they scratch woodwork and _tatami_ and insist on carrying their
food into the best room.
Horses are often overloaded and mercilessly driven on hilly
roads.[249] On the other hand, carters lead their horses. It might be
added that the coolies who haul and push handcarts bearing enormous
loads never spare themselves. I was told more than once of people who
had been too tenderhearted to make an end of old horses. I also heard
of hens which had been allowed to live on until they died of old age.
In some mountain communities it is the custom, when a chicken must be
killed for a visitor's meal, for an exchange of birds to be made with
a neighbour in order that the killing may not be too painful for the
owner.[250]
Except in hotels and stores in Tokyo and the cities which cater for
foreigners, one seldom sees such an animal product as cheese. On the
Government farm I found excellent cheese and butter being made.
Untravelled Japanese have the dislike of the smell of cheese that
Western people have of the stench of boiling _daikon_. Nor is cheese
the only alien food with which the ordinary Japanese has a difficulty.
The smell of mutton is repugnant to him and he has yet to acquire a
taste for milk. The demand for milk is increasing, however. The guide
books are quite out of date. Nearly all the milk ordinarily sold for
foreigners and invalids is supplied sterilised in bottles. On the
platforms of the larger railway stations bottles of milk are vended
from a copper container holding hot water. In places where I have been
able to obtain bread I have usually had no difficulty in getting milk.
(The word for bread, _pan_, has been in the language since the coming
of the Portuguese, and all over Japan one finds sponge cake,
_kasutera_, a word from the Spanish.) Butter in country hotels is
usually rancid, for the reason, I imagine, that it is carelessly
handled and kept too long and that few Japanese know the taste of good
butter. The development of a liking for bread and butter is obviously
one of the conditions of the establishment of a successful animal
industry. Condensed milk is sold in large quantities, but chiefly to
supplement infants' supplies and to make sweetstuff. The 1919
production was estimated at 57 million tins.
One argument for an animal industry is that with an increasing
population the fish supply will not go so far as it has done. It is
said that fish are not to be found in as large quantities as formerly.
Another argument is that the national imports include many products of
animal industry which might be advantageously produced at home. Not
only is more milk, condensed and fresh, being consumed: with the
adoption of foreign clothes in professional and business life and in
the army and navy, more and more wool is being worn[251] and more and
more leather is needed for the boots which are being substituted for
_geta_ and also for service requirements. It is contended that for the
emancipation of Japanese agriculture from the _petite culture_ stage
it is essential that a larger number of draught oxen and horses shall
be used. It is equally important, it is suggested, that more manure
shall be made on the farms, so that a limit shall be placed on the
outlay on imported fertilisers. Finally there are those who urge that
the Japanese should be better fed and that better feeding can only be
brought about by an increased consumption of animal products.[252]
The possibilities of outdoor stock keeping in Hokkaido are limited by
the fact that snow lies from November to the middle of February and in
the north of the island to the end of March. A high agricultural
authority did not think that the number of cattle in all Japan could
be raised to more than two million within twenty years.[253]
In the management of sheep--there were about 5,000 in the whole
country when I was in Hokkaido--there has been failure after failure,
but it is held that the prospects for sheep in Hokkaido are promising.
(The question is discussed in the next Chapter.) At present, owing to
the lack of a market for mutton, pigs, which used to be kept in the
days before Buddhism exerted its influence, seem more attractive to
experimenting farmers than sheep. No one has proposed that sheep
should be kept in ones and twos for milking as in Holland.[254] When
milk is needed it is said that goats, of which there are more than
90,000 in Japan, are desirable stock, but I doubt whether more than
500 of these goats are milked.[255] They are kept to produce meat.
Some people hope that those who eat goat's flesh will come to realise
the superiority of mutton.
The case for pigs is that sweet potatoes and squash can be fed to
them, that they produce frequent litters, that pork is more and more
appreciated, and that there are 300,000 of them in the country
already. Some confident experts who have possibly been influenced by
the large consumption of pork in China argue that pork may become
equally popular in Japan. There are two bacon factories not far from
Tokyo.
As in other countries, the argument for doing away with foreign
imports is pushed in Japan to ridiculous lengths. Japan, which aims
above all at being an exporting country, cannot attain her desire
without receiving imports to pay for her exports.[256] The
physiological argument for an animal industry is unconvincing. The
Japanese have a long dietetic history as vegetarians who eat a little
fish and a few eggs. There exists in Japan an exceptionally ingenious
variety of nitrogenous foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, and
the Japanese have become accustomed to digest vegetable protein.[257]
It might be suggested, with some show of reason, that in this matter
of the adoption of a meat dietary the Japanese are once more under the
influence of foreign ideas which are a little out of date.[258] In
Europe and America there is evidence of a decreasing meat consumption
among educated people, and medical papers are full of counsels to
diminish the amount of meat consumed. There is also in the West an
increasing sensitiveness to the horrors inflicted on animals in
transportation by rail and steamer, and if an animal industry were
established in Japan there would certainly be a great deal of
transportation by rail and steamer from the breeding to the rearing
districts, and from these districts to the slaughtering centres. If
the present advocacy of an animal industry for Japan should triumph
over the reluctance to take animal life inculcated by Buddhism it is
hardly likely to be regarded in the West as a forward step in the
ethical evolution of the Japanese.[259]
I had the good fortune to meet in Sapporo a man who has made a
special study of the food of the Japanese people, Professor Morimoto
of the University. He said that he had no doubt that when the Japanese
began to eat bread instead of rice they would develop a taste for meat
as well as butter. With great kindness he placed at my disposal
statistics which he afterwards expanded in a thesis for Johns Hopkins
University. He had investigated the dietary of the families of 200
tenants of the University farms. Reduced to terms of men per day the
result was:
Sen. Sen.
Rice (1.95 _go_) 4.2 Vegetables 2.2
(Naked) barley (3.45 _go_) 3.3 Pickles[260] .6
Fish 1.0 Saké .08
_Miso_ .7 Sugar .02
_Shoyu_ (soy) .03 ------
12.13
Or at Tokyo prices, 14.3 sen. On averaging, in terms of per man per
day, the food and drink consumption of all Japan, Professor Morimoto
found the result to be:
Sen. Sen.
Grain 6.60 Fruits .40
Legumes .39 Sugar .53
Vegetables 2.00 Salt .20
Fish and seaweeds .54 Tea .10
Beef and veal .10 } Alcoholic
Other animal food .03 } liquor 1.50
Chicken .03 } .33 Tobacco .45
Eggs .13 }
Milk .04 }
-----
13.04[261]
The Professor compares with these totals the 34.4 sen and 39.3 sen per
day which seem to represent the cost of the food of the rank and file
in the navy and army, and three standards of diet issued by the
official Bureau of Hygiene providing for expenditures of 32.1 sen, 33
sen and 44.4 sen respectively. (All the prices I have cited are dated
1915.) Beef and pork as well as fish are used in the army and navy.
The navy also uses bread.
Professor Morimoto estimates that a Japanese may be fairly expected to
consume only 80 per cent. of what a foreigner needs, for the average
weight of Japanese is only 13 _kwan_ 830 _momme_ to the European's 17
_kwan_ 20 _momme_.
My personal impression, which I give merely for what it is worth, for
I have made no investigation of the subject, is that, though Japanese
may thrive on meagre fare, they eat large quantities of food when
their resources permit of indulgence. The common ailment seems to be
"stomach ache." This may be due to eating at irregular hours, to an
unbalanced dietary, to the eating of undercooked viands or to
occasional over-eating, or to all of these causes.[262] Undoubtedly
there is much room for dietetic reform.
Professor Morimoto had come to the conclusion "that there is
under-feeding, largely due to a bad choice of foods, that the relation
of the nutritive value of foods to their cost is insufficiently
studied and that cooking can be improved." It is of course an old
criticism of the Japanese table that food is either imperfectly cooked
or prepared too much with a view to appearance. The Professor's
finding was that the Japanese need the addition of meat and bread to
their dietary. As far as meat is concerned he did not convince me. Let
me quote him on the soy bean: "It is a remarkably good substitute for
meat. It is very low in price but its nutritive value is very high.
The essential element of _miso_, _tofu_ and _shoyu_ is soy bean."
Bread is another matter. The Japanese Navy, presumably because it may
find itself far from Japan, has accustomed its sailors to eat bread,
and a case can certainly be made out for the general population not
relying on rice as a grain food. But, as the large quantities of
barley eaten show, there is no such reliance now. Morimoto urged that
while there might be no difference in the nutritive value of wheat and
rice, rice as usually eaten induced "abnormal distension of the
stomach and poor nutrition." Again, wheat was a world crop,[263]
whereas rice, owing to the Japanese objection to foreign rice, was a
local crop. If the Japanese were users of wheat as well as of rice
they would not have to pay so much for food, when, on the failure of
the rice crop in considerable parts of Japan, the price of rice was
high. "The consumption is about 10 million bushels more than the
production." Further, rice was more costly in cultivation than wheat,
and its production could not be increased so as to keep pace with the
increase in population. The yield, which was 46 million _koku_ in
1904, was only 50 millions in 1912; and 65 millions in 1927 seemed an
excessive estimate. In 1912 the importation of rice was 2 million
_koku_. But on all these points the reader should take note of the
data on page 84 and in Appendices XXIV and XXV.
The Professor's concluding point against rice was that it was
expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of
waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and
of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of
time. Then in order to cook rice properly--and the Japanese have
become connoisseurs--the exact proportion of water must be gauged. The
supplies of rice to be cooked were so considerable that the name of
the servant lass was "girl to boil the rice." But when bread was used
instead of rice, said the Professor jubilantly, a baking twice a week
would do. Why, an hour a day might be saved, which in twenty years
would be 73,000 hours, or a whole year, and, reckoning women's labour
as worth 5 sen an hour, that would be a saving of 565 yen!
FOOTNOTES:
[247] For statistics of cultivated area and live stock, see Appendix
LXVI.
[248] One thinks of Takeuchi Seiho who lives in Kyoto, of
Toba Sojo (11th century) for monkeys, frogs and bullocks, and in the
Tokugawa period of Okio for dogs and carp, of Jakchū for fowls and
birds, of Hasegawa Tohaku and Sosen for monkeys, of Kawanabe Kyosai
for crows, and of Kesai and Hokusai for birds, fish and insects.
[249] Nevertheless it is well not to be hasty in judgment. On the day
on which this footnote was written, April 7, 1921, I find the
following items in the _Daily Mail_. On page 4 the Attorney-General
regrets that the law tolerates the "cruel practice" by which 30
pigeons were killed or injured at a certain pigeon-shooting
competition and expresses inability to bring in legislation. On page
5, col. 2, an M.P. is reported as mentioning a case in which a puppy
had been kicked to death and as asking the Home Secretary whether the
law imposing imprisonment for a short term could not be strengthened.
On the same page, col. 5, a railway porter is reported as having been
fined for flinging three small calves into a farm cart by the tails.
[250] For poultry statistics, see Appendix LXVII.
[251] Before the extensive use of _yofuku_ (foreign clothes) the dress
of Japanese men and women was entirely of cotton and silk or of cotton
only. Much of the material from which _yofuku_ are made is no doubt
cotton.
[252] See Appendix LXVIII
[253] The number of cattle, which was 1,342,587 in 1916, was only
1,307,120 in 1918. See also Appendix LXVI.
[254] For photographs and particulars of the milk sheep, see my _Free
Farmer in a Free State_.
[255] The value of the well-bred and well-cared-for goat as a milk and
manure producer is underestimated. The problem of keeping goats in
such a way that they shall not be destructive and shall yield the
maximum of manure is discussed in my _Case for the Goat_.
[256] This question as it affects an agricultural country is discussed
in _A Free Farmer in a Free State_.
[257] There is a consensus of scientific opinion that "non-meat
eating" races such as the Japanese have longer alimentary tracts than
flesh-eating Europeans. It is difficult to be precise on the subject,
an eminent Western surgeon tells me, for bowels are as contractile as
worms, which at one minute measure 100 units in length and the next
minute have shortened to 30. So much depends on the state at death.
[258] On the other hand, the Japanese have taken up many new things at
the point which we in the West have only recently reached. They begin
to produce milk and supply it, not in the milkman's pail, but in
sterilised bottles. They abandon candles and lamps and, practically
skipping gas, adopt electric light or power. The capital invested in
electric enterprises in 1919 was about 700 million yen or seven times
that invested in gas.
[259] There is one blameless form of stock keeping which is developing
in Hokkaido. Bees, which have still to make their way in Old Japan,
are now 6,000 hives strong in the northern island, though a start was
made only six or seven years ago.
[260] It is illustrative of the extent to which pickle is
consumed in Japan that a family in Sapporo was found to have eaten no
fewer than 283 _daikon_ in a year.
[261] The reader must put away the impression which this table
gives of a varied dietary. Few Japanese have such a range of food. The
average man habitually lives on rice, bean products (_tofu_, bean
jelly and _miso_, soft bean cheese), pickles, vegetables, tea, a
little fish and sometimes eggs. People of narrow means see little of
eggs and not much fish, unless it be _katsubushi_.
[262] The watering of vegetables with liquid manure, the usual
practice of the Japanese farmer, and the pollution of the paddies make
salads and insufficiently cooked green stuff dangerous and many water
supplies of questionable purity. Great efforts have been made to
provide safe tap water from the hills. Intestinal parasites are
common. The build of the Japanese makes for strength, but in the urban
areas there is much absence from work on the plea of ill-health. Both
in Japan and in England I have been struck by the fact that when I
made an excursion with an urban Japanese he often tired before I did,
and on none of these trips was I in anything like first-class
condition.
[263] Many Japanese look forward to a great production of wheat on the
north-eastern Asiatic mainland under Japanese auspices. In considering
imports of wheat it should be remembered that some of it is used in
soy and macaroni.