BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN
In no country in the world do children have a happier childhood than in
Japan. Their parents are devoted to them, and the children are always good.
This seems a great deal to say, but it is quite true. Japanese boys and
girls behave as quietly and with as much composure as grown-up men and
women. From the first moment that it can understand anything, a Japanese
baby is taught to control its feelings. If it is in pain or sad, it is not
to cry or to pull an ugly face; that would not be nice for other people to
hear or see. If it is very merry or happy, it is not to laugh too loudly or
to make too much noise; that would be vulgar. So the Japanese boy or girl
grows up very quiet, very gentle, and very polite, with a smile for
everything and everybody.
While they are little they have plenty of play and fun when they are not in
school. In both towns and villages the streets are the playground, and here
they play ball, or battledore and shuttlecock, or fly kites.
Almost every little girl has a baby brother or sister strapped on her back,
for babies are never carried in the arms in Japan except by the nurses of
very wealthy people. The baby is fastened on its mother's or its sister's
shoulders by a shawl, and that serves it for both cot and cradle. The
little girl does not lose a single scrap of her play because of the baby.
She runs here and there, striking with her battledore, or racing after her
friends, and the baby swings to and fro on her shoulders, its little head
wobbling from side to side as if it were going to tumble off. But it is
perfectly content, and either watches the game with its sharp little black
eyes, or goes calmly off to sleep.
In the form of their dress both boys and girls appear alike, and, more than
that, they are dressed exactly like their parents. There is no child's
dress in Japan. The garments are smaller, to fit the small wearers--that is
all.
The main article of dress is a loose gown, called a kimono. Under the outer
kimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are girt about the body with a
large sash, called an obi. The obi is the pride of a Japanese girl's heart.
If her parents are rich, it will be of shining costly silk or rich brocade
or cloth of gold; if her parents are poor, they will make an effort to get
her one as handsome as their means will allow. Next to her obi, she prides
herself on the ornaments which decorate her black hair--fine hairpins,
with heads of tortoiseshell or coral or lacquer, and hair-combs, all most
beautifully carved.
A boy's obi is more for practical use, and is not of such splendour as
his sister's. When he is very small, his clothes are of yellow, while his
sister's are of red. At the age of five he puts on the hakama, and then he
is a very proud boy. The hakama is a kind of trousers made of silk, and is
worn by men instead of an under-kimono. At five years old a boy is taken
to the temple to thank the gods who have protected him thus far; and as he
struts along, and hears with joy his hakama rustling its stiff new silk
beneath his kimono, he feels himself a man indeed, and that his babyhood of
yesterday is left far behind.
Upon the feet are worn the tabi--thick white socks, which may be called
foot-gloves, for there are separate divisions for the toes.
These serve both as stockings outside the house and slippers inside, for no
boots are worn in a Japanese house. When a Japanese walks out, he slips his
feet into high wooden clogs, and when he comes home he kicks off the clogs
at the door, and enters his home in tabi alone. The reason for this we
shall hear later on. In Japanese clothes there are no pockets. Whatever
they need to carry with them is tucked into the sash or into the sleeves of
the kimono. The latter are often very long, and afford ample room for the
odds and ends one usually carries in the pocket.
But fine kimonos and rich obis are for the wealthy Japanese; the poor
cannot afford them, and dress very simply. The coolie--the Japanese working
man--goes almost naked in the warm weather, wearing only a pair of short
cotton trousers, until he catches sight of a policeman, when he slips on
his blue cotton coat, for the police have orders to see that he dresses
himself properly. His wife wears a cotton kimono, and the pair of them can
dress themselves handsomely--for coolies--from head to foot for a sum of 45
sen, which, taking the sen at a halfpenny, amounts to 1 S. 10-1/2d. in our
money.