The public manners of the Japanese are not good. In all my solitary
walks about Myanoshita I met with no single peasant who passed the time
of day, and in the streets of Tokio English people were being jostled
and stared at and treated without respect. It was a moment when
Americans were unpopular, and the theory was broached that for fear of
missing the chance to be rude to an American the Japanese became rude
to all outlanders indiscriminately. One indeed gathered the impression
that, except in Kyoto, which is a backwater, foreigners are no longer
wanted. "Japan for the Japanese" would seem to be the motto: one day,
not far distant, to be amended to "The World for Japan." I shall never
forget the humiliation I suffered in a stockbroker's office in Tokio,
into which, seeing the words "English spoken" over the door, I had
ventured in the hope of being directed to an address I was seeking.
Not a word of English did any one know, but the whole staff left its
typewriters and desks to come and laugh. I was always willing to remove
the gravity of Japanese children by my grotesque Occidentalism, but
I have a very real objection to being a butt for the ridicule of
grown-ups. Such an incident could not have occurred, I believe, anywhere
else. But it is not only the foreigners to whom the Japanese are rude:
they do nothing for their fellows either. The want of chivalry in trains
and trams was conspicuous.
The ceremonial manners of the Japanese can, however, be more precise and
formal than any I ever witnessed. A wedding reception chanced to be in
progress in my Tokio hotel one afternoon, and through the open door I
had glimpses of Japanese gentlemen in frock coats bowing to Japanese
ladies and making perfect right angles as they did so. So elaborate
indeed were the courtesies that to Western eyes they bordered
dangerously on burlesque.
The destination that I was seeking when I entered the stockbroker's
office was a certain book-store, and when I eventually found it I was
asked a question by a Japanese youth that still perplexes me. It was
in the English section, the principal volumes in which, as imported to
supply Japanese demands, were American, and all bore either upon
success in engineering and other professions and crafts, or on the rapid
acquirement of wealth. "How to double your income in a week"; "How
to get rich quickly"; "How to succeed in business"; and so forth; all
preaching, in fact, the new gospel which is doing Japan no good.
There were also, however, a certain number of novels, and one of the
customers, a boy who looked as though he were still at school, noting my
English appearance, brought a translation of Maupassant to me and asked
me what "soul" meant--"A Woman's Soul" being the new title. Now I defy
any one with no Japanese to make it clear to a Japanese boy with very
little English what a woman's soul is.