engaged in gainful occupation though few were economically independent.
In the mill districts mothers scolded their small daughters by
threatening, “I’ll sell you to the weavers.” These _kaiko_, or “bought
ones,” served as apprentices generally from three to five years. Modern
Japanese industrialism had been able to take advantage of an ancient
Oriental habit of thought which placed slight value on the girl child.
I spent half a day as the guest of the Kanegafuchi plant, the largest
cotton mill in the Empire and the ideal industrial institution which was
to be a model for others, comparing favorably with one of our best. But
Kanegafuchi was the exception. On the average, employees in other mills
worked a twelve-hour shift, day and night, amid the deafening roar of
relentless power engines. Dust and fine particles of fabric fell like
minute snowflakes upon them. Their growth was stunted, their resistance
to infection and malignant disease broken down. In a silk-spinning mill
at Nagoya conditions were only slightly better. I found over seven
hundred girls, some no more than ten years of age, swiftly twirling off
the slender threads from the cocoons and catching them on the spindles.
They were pathetic, gentle, homeless little things, imprisoned in rooms
with all windows closed to keep them moist and hot. A quarter of their
seven dollars a month wages had to go for board.
Only by the graciousness and charity, in a sense, of the upper classes
were the household servants saved from institutions. When the Baroness,
for example, had married, some of them—cooks, maids, and nurses—had
stayed with her parents, some had gone to another sister, some had come
to her and been set to training the new ones. With her they had a home
for life. This system accounted in part, at least, for the fact there
were no beggars or mendicants in Japan.
Essentially conservative, essentially the product of a strange and
scarcely understood past, the Japanese woman in my opinion did not
possess in her typical psychology any strong leanings towards rebellion.
This was true even among the many women writers on papers and magazines.
Those who interviewed me were intelligent, but I was constantly amazed
at their ancient and domesticated outlook.
I did not believe the woman of Japan would discard her beautiful costume
or sacrifice her esthetic sense upon the altar of Occidental progress
and materialism. The kimono was her chrysalis. Outwardly it was often of
some thick serviceable goods, dull brown or black, shot through with
threads of purple or blue. Yet underneath were silks of the brightest
and most flaming hues, formalized for each particular occasion. Only a
fleeting glimpse was caught of these as she walked. They were symbolic
of her present position in society.
From the lowest serving maid to the finest aristocrat, certain indelible
traits immediately impressed themselves. First of all was the low, soft,
fluttering voice, like art and music combined. They were too modestly
shy to talk out loud; you could scarcely hear them in a small room.
Perhaps one reason men did not take their opinions seriously was because
they did not speak up. I heard on every side of the New Woman—but I
never saw her. Only those who had turned Christian showed any signs of
thinking independently. To be a Christian seemed to imply being a rebel
or radical of some kind. They told me it with great secret pride.
This was the single place where I had found men rather than women
responding to the potentialities of birth control. The former wanted to
learn and thereby make of themselves something better. They were more
and more in touch with the ideas of the Western world, and were
broadening themselves through travel. I was confident a shifting
environment was going to extend the masculine point of view and, if
birth control could be proved of benefit to them, they would practice
it. At that time I did not agree that East and West could never meet.
Japan was undoubtedly a man’s country. Wherever we went, Grant was
Exhibit A. He was a tall, dark, rather gawky youth, with adolescent
manners but always cheerful. In private houses butlers and maids paid
him much attention, and, in hotels, as soon as we entered the dining
room everybody, because he was a man child, rushed to anticipate his
wishes, to see that he was made comfortable. I straggled on behind. At
our first appearance in one of these, the little girls who were being
trained as waitresses and whose duty it was to bow the guests in and out
were obviously confused. When we were seated at the table the proprietor
apologized, “You must excuse them because they are so young, and they
have their minds too much on this young gentleman.”
The Yoshiwara, to which some missionaries escorted me, was certainly an
integral part of this man’s world. First we visited the unlicensed
quarter, winding in our rickshas among alley-like streets lined with
small houses. The dark eyes of the girls peered out through slits in the
screen walls. Working men were standing in the muddy roadways,
chattering, scrutinizing the prices which were posted in front like
restaurant menus—so much per hour, so much per night. A door opened to
admit a visitor. The light in the lower story vanished and soon another
twinkled upstairs; or a light went out above and reappeared below, the
door opened again and a figure emerged. Hundreds of lights behind paper
windows seemed to flicker on and off constantly, low to high, high to
low. The sordidness, the innumerable, shining eyes made me shiver
involuntarily.
After we crossed a bridge to the licensed quarter the scene changed
immediately. The wide thoroughfare, with a row of trees down the center
festooned with electric globes like a midway, was clean and inviting.
The amply-built houses had an air of spaciousness and luxury, their
lanterns sent out a soft, alluring gleam, and carefully cultivated
gardens produced a profusion of flowers in the courtyards. This part of
the Yoshiwara appeared a delightful place. Its attraction for the girls
was obvious; they would rather seek a livelihood in this fashion than in
the dismal factories. Nor was it odd that they should find more romance
here with many men than drudging for one all their days as the
“incompetents” they became after marriage under the domination of their
mothers-in-law.
Through portals as broad as driveways the patrons, much better dressed
than those in the unlicensed quarter, strolled up to view the
photographs of the inmates, posted like those in the lobby of a Broadway
theater. In some frames was only the announcement, “—— just arrived,
straight from ——. No time for picture.” The clients did a great deal of
“window shopping.” Newcomers from the country might have eight or nine
visitors an evening, an older one but two or three. Many of the girls
came from good families, frequently to lift their fathers or brothers
out of debt. They sent their earnings back and, as soon as they had
accumulated a sufficiency, often went home, married, and became
reputable members of society.
But in spite of the Yoshiwara’s artificial glamour, the crowd of men
swarming like insects, automatically reacting to the stimulus of
instinct, was unutterably depressing.
We walked home at midnight through the sleeping city, mysterious and
quiet, not like a city at all—no jumping signs or illumination, but more
like a nice, low-ceilinged room trimmed with old, brown-stained oak, and
only here and there a glow.
Nothing else in my travels could compare with that month in Tokyo. The
language was strange and unfamiliar. The bells in the shafts of the
rickshas, ringing for pedestrians to get out of the way, added a bizarre
note. The queer, clicking sound of the wooden geta was different
although somewhat reminiscent of the clop, clop, of the Lancashire
wooden shoes, which also were taken off at the door and exchanged for
slippers. All the smells and the sights were quite new, even the signs
on the shops were unreadable. In Europe, you could usually guess from
some root word what kind of merchandise was for sale within. But not so
in Japan. One day I stopped, totally puzzled, to inquire the whereabouts
of a store the address of which had been written down for me. I showed
my slip of paper but nobody there could help me. I went on. Fully three
minutes later the pattering of hurried steps behind me caused me to
turn. Here was one of the clerks. He had gone to the trouble of looking
up the address I had asked for and had come to act as guide to make sure
I arrived.
Throughout Japan the custom of greeting you and seeing you off was
touching, and gave you a charming remembrance of a world where
friendships were worth time and consideration. When a Tokyo doctor heard
I was leaving Yokohama eighteen miles away at eight o’clock in the
morning, he presented himself at seven to bring me a box of choice silk
handkerchiefs. He must have risen at five to do so.
From the window of the train for Kyoto the faces of the old men trudging
along the road looked curiously like the drawings of them. Everywhere
were small village houses and, since I could see through from front to
rear, I wondered where the peasants and their numerous offspring ate and
slept.
The former capital was fascinating. The shopkeepers appeared to esteem
their visitors more highly than the goods they had to sell, though Kyoto
blue and, more especially, Kyoto red were like no other colors anywhere.
If ever you see the latter, buy it if you can, cherish it among your
treasures, save it for your children, because it is the most beautiful
of all reds.
It was now April, the festival of spring and of the geishas, the
jealously guarded and chaperoned entertainers, singers, players.
Everybody was anticipating the flowering of the cherry trees, and with
the rest of Kyoto I went to see the enormous, spreading, willow cherry,
then in dazzling white blossom. It was several hundred years old, its
limbs which grew out and drooped towards the ground were propped up with
care, and around it was a superbly groomed landscape garden. The
proprietors of hotels near such trees erected unpretentious tea houses,
temporary in character, where hundreds of people kept vigil. You could
not help having respect for a people whose love of a tree brought them
from miles away and who waited day and night throughout the duration of
its brief blooming. They paid deference to it as they did to a great
artist who they knew could live just so long.
The Japanese designed their gardens with the mood of the individual in
mind. Some were filled with music, water, birds, activity, and there you
could go to be cheered when gloomy and despondent. As soon as I entered
the Golden Temple grounds its influence fell upon me. Everything was
planned for thought and concentration. No color, no noise, no rushing of
water, no singing birds distracted the attention. Only at certain hours
could you even walk about, because movement was disturbing to
meditation.
Japanese hospitality reached its finest flower in Kyoto, and the supreme
day of entertainment was offered by a generous and considerate doctor.
On inviting me to luncheon he said he would call with his car at ten in
the morning. This seemed a bit early, but it appeared he wanted me first
to visit the Museum of Art. Here was no wandering through miles of rooms
so that the eye was wearied and no lasting impression was gathered.
Instead, I was shown only the one most prized specimen of paintings,
porcelains, and rare screens. Afterwards, I was ushered into the library
to see a collection of precious manuscripts, then back through the city
for a few especially renowned views, and finally at noon to the doctor’s
home. His wife and two daughters greeted me and I was introduced to the
guests. Little short-legged trays were put before our floor cushions,
and we all picked up our chopsticks. I envied Grant his dexterity.
After the trays had been removed, we conversed until the business men
had to return to their offices. But a fresh group of guests took their
places, and with them appeared a painter. An easel was set up and each
of us in turn made a single brush line on the rice paper—some straight,
some curved, some vertical, some horizontal, crisscrossing each other in
every direction. Then the artist took his brush and, amid exclamations
of wonder and appreciation, with a few expert strokes converted the
mélange into a flower pattern, a lake, or a mountain.
An hour or so of this pleasure and the easel was swished away, the
painter vanished with his colors, and a sculptor was substituted. We
were now supplied with dabs of clay which we began to mold, the sculptor
going from one to another to give assistance. If you were clever, as
several of the Japanese were, works of art resulted. I created a plain
jug with handle and lip, was taught how to draw a design upon it and how
to paint it. Next day it was delivered to me, baked and glazed.
Later we were escorted to the garden where we congregated beneath an
open tea house perched high on a rock. There the younger daughter tended
a tiny fire and brewed a ceremonial tea—no simple brew, but leaves of a
special sort, beaten until the beverage was bright green. When we had
enjoyed this delight we strolled about, admiring the brooklets, the
dwarf pines, the shrubs, the iris in bloom.
We returned to the house to find, as though in a play, that the scenery
had all been changed. Different screens were up, fresh flowers in the
vases, the women of the household in more elaborate costumes, and new
visitors waiting. Grant and I alone seemed to remain static.
Now on the immaculate matted floor appeared little charcoal stoves. The
evening meal was served by the mother and daughters as a marked honor to
their guests. This time I was brought a spoon and fork; apparently I had
not been very deft at lunch in handling my chopsticks. After dinner came
yet more people and yet more conversation. I had been talking steadily
since early morning, the topic being selected according to the type of
gathering. In the evening it was population, and more serious. Sometimes
I forgot myself and spun out involved English phrases, then, realizing
they had missed fire, had to go back and choose key words more easily
comprehended.
This continued until midnight or later. At last we had to excuse
ourselves and ask to be taken home, because we were leaving for Kobe the
next morning.
The doctor and his wife, accompanied by some of their friends, were at
our hotel betimes, all with boxes and bon voyages. This reversal of the
Occidental custom of bestowing presents on one’s host or hostess was an
enchanting way of conducting the amenities of life. They wanted no
return for their hospitality. I had arrived in Japan with one small
trunk and departed with five, laden with gifts.
_Chapter Twenty-seven_
ANCIENTS OF THE EARTH
New and different places, strange countries, peoples, and faces have
always appealed to me. I did not have to be in London for the Fifth
International Conference until July. When I had secured my Chinese visa
it had occurred to me that it might be much better to go on around the
world than retrace my steps.
On a misty day, the sun not bright enough to clear the sky completely,
we sailed from Kobe through the glorious Inland Sea, threaded its
innumerable islets, like the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, only
more delicate. The boat was small and out-of-date. A few of the English
had chairs but Grant and I wandered between crates of ducks, chickens,
and livestock, and hundreds of Japanese squatting stolidly on the deck.
When we emerged into the Yellow Sea it became very foggy and Grant was
sick to his toes. I put on a brave face and ate, though with long teeth,
as the old phrase goes.
We landed at Fusan one evening. Koreans stood about in their white robes
which fell to their ankles, pale figures outlined against the night in
the subdued light of their mysterious paper lanterns. The next morning
as I glanced out over the countryside on the way to Seoul it appeared an
Oriental desert, odd but seemingly familiar. I felt at home within its
gates. White-robed coolies smoking long thin pipes with minute bowls
drove oxen, worked in the fields. They had North American Indian faces,
uncut, ragged hair, reddish skins, and curious, wooden structures
strapped to their backs to carry burdens of any kind—soil, coal, rocks.
The streets of Seoul were broad, dimly lit. The tall Korean men were
unique, a combination of priest, patriarch, and grandee, so formal and
elegant with their pointed beards a trifle larger than Van Dykes. They
were utterly indifferent to other people, managing to preserve a proud
and aloof air in spite of their idiotic, silly-looking hats,
dinky-crowned and wide-brimmed, from which hung strings of amber beads,
valuable family heirlooms.
I wondered again at the universal white costumes. Everywhere on the
banks of rivers women were eternally pounding laundry; you could almost
feel the threads parting company with the terrific beating—washing with
stones and ironing with sticks.
The Korean was held in contempt by the Japanese, who declared his
Government had built schools, roads, railroads, brought cleanliness. It
was true that the houses of the Koreans were not so well-kept, their
habits not so sanitary, but they were a separate race, and they accepted
scouring and scrubbing and sweeping only under pressure. Hatred and
rebellion had been the result of denying them their language and
customs. They claimed they were taxed out of existence to pay for such
luxuries, and nourished antagonism and stubborn resistance against
anything Japanese. They maintained further that they had no personal
liberty, even being required to have passports to move about in their
own country.
Koreans also resented the speeding up of production in the silk
factories through the exploitation of little girls. I saw them there,
shoulders bent, crouched up over their work, hair braided down their
backs; they were almost like babies. Their job was to put their tender,
delicate fingers into boiling water to pull out the silk cocoons—the
hands of older people were not sensitive enough. But the Japanese said
they did not feel the pain.
Even though I had a large luncheon meeting attended by foreign
missionaries and officials, Korea was but a stepping stone to China. The
Celestial Kingdom had an indefinable odor of its own, peculiar and
inimitable, which waxed and waned, varying with each city and with each
district of a city. It might be a compound of sauces, onions, garlic,
incense, opium, and charcoal, but who has ever succeeded in putting an
odor into words? It marched upon you, at first faintly and indistinctly
like a distant army, and then closed in relentlessly, associating itself
with memories, making you gasp in protest or pleasure.
At Peking I wanted to change into fresh clothes all the time. I was
haunted by dust—dust in my body, in my ears, up my nose, down my throat,
between my teeth. Some of the streets were paved, but the dust was
suffocating. After every sight-seeing sortie I bathed and bathed and
bathed in a desperate effort to rid myself of the diabolical dust.
We were seven days viewing palaces, native quarters, night life,
sing-song girls, hospitals, factories, silk mills. We heard the
mechanical chanting and beating of drums by Buddhist priests, mostly
young boys dressed in soiled yellow robes; gazed with amazement at the
funeral processions—great floats, fantastic gods, food, flowers,
possessions; visited old Chinese gardens and museums. I shopped for jade
and lapis lazuli and was well cheated.
Beggars, many of them crippled and on crutches, were hobbling along in
the gutters or sitting on corners, gaunt and filthy. Children were
turning handsprings, doing anything to attract your attention; they
edged beside you, and you had the feeling they had been born with palms
upward.
You could not set foot out of doors without being besieged by ricksha
boys clothed only in scant, cotton trousers and jackets, always short at
ankles and wrists. The moment you stepped in they picked up the shafts
of their little vehicles and began the dogtrot journey. I could not
become accustomed to the eager running of these half-naked creatures, so
weak, so underfed, so much less able than the rest of us. It had been
bad enough in Japan, but there you felt the runners were sturdy; in
China they usually were suffering from varicose veins, heart disease,
and, forever, hunger. Often, as the wind blew some of the rags and
tatters aside, I saw pock marks and wondered how close we were to the
manifold diseases of the Orient.
I was going about a good deal and it worried me to be pulled around by a
human being so emaciated. One morning our regular boy was missing.
Another replaced him, cheery and smiling. Three days later the first
returned. He had been sick, he said; he had had smallpox. The scabs had
not yet peeled off.
I spoke to the doorman at the hotel, who managed the rickshas. “This boy
is not well enough to work.”
“Oh, yes, he’s used to it. He feels a little bad, but he’s all right.”
Nevertheless, I sent him home to rest up. Nothing save famine and
pestilence and plague seemed to give the Chinese any breathing spell. It
was said the average ricksha coolie lasted but four or five years—the
remainder of his life he merely subsisted. I was submerged in a strange
despondency and questioned “the oldest civilization in the world” which
still, after so many thousand years, permitted this barbarism.
Grant rode a donkey when we went to the Ming tombs, and the guide did
also. I was carried in a chair for miles and miles through an arid,
dusty plain. Two coolies held the lengthy bamboo poles on their
shoulders and a third jogged alongside waiting to take his turn. I felt
so sorry for them I wanted to get out and walk. I wished I could carry
myself. All the way these poor, starved creatures made animal noises,
“Aah-huh, aah-huh,” nasal, interminable, varying the tone but slightly;
even their words sounded like grunts to me.
China was not yet past the story-telling age, as you saw in the theater,
where someone recited the news from the stage; for a copper anybody
could hear what was going on in the world. The ancient classical forms
of the Chinese language were intelligible to scholars alone, and Dr.
Hu-Shih had been instrumental in devising a literary vernacular which
the people could use. This philosopher who at three years old had been
familiar with eight hundred characters, now in 1922, while only in his
late twenties, was already reputed to be the initiator of the Chinese
Renaissance. He asked whether I would speak to the students of the
Peking National University and, though he was to act as chairman,
volunteered also to interpret, which I esteemed an almost unheard-of
honor. His outlook, coinciding with mine, recognized what birth control
might mean for civilization.
Dr. Tsai Yuen-Pei, the Chancellor of the University and a leader of the
anti-Christian movement, had gathered into his fold the most brilliant
students of Young China, all of them bubbling over with interest at
Western ideas, which were sweeping the globe. A great turmoil was going
on in their lives and a revolt against rigid Chinese tradition.
Due to the translation difficulties I had encountered in Japan, I had
decided I could not afford to speak in China unless I went over the
subject first with my interpreter and knew he understood the spirit as
well as the words. Therefore I showed Dr. Hu-Shih my lecture material in
advance. He suggested, “These students will want to know everything
about contraception as it is practiced.”
“But I’ve never given that except at medical meetings.”
“China is different from the West. Here you may discuss contraception as
an educational fact as well as a social measure. You will be listened to
respectfully, laughed at if you do not, and will surely be asked for
definite information. I think you should prepare yourself for this.”
It was not simple to digress from principles and theories and go into
methods that needed diagrams and technical knowledge to secure
understanding, and I felt diffident about following his advice. But
these young people, responsive and alert, received my first practical
lecture with earnest attention. Dr. Hu-Shih translated accurately and
quickly, interjecting amusing stories and improving, I imagine, upon my
own words.