A JAPANESE DAY (_continued_)
But we must return to our Japanese housewife, who has at present only shown
her husband out politely to his business. Now she sees that all the paper
screens are removed, so that the whole house becomes, as it were, one great
room, and thus is thoroughly aired. The beds are rolled up and put away
in cupboards, and the woodwork is carefully rubbed down and polished.
Perhaps the flowers in the vases are faded, and it is a long and elaborate
performance to rearrange the beautiful sprays and the blossoms brought in
from the garden.
Cooking is not by any means so important a matter in her household life
as it is in that of her Western sister. If her rice-box is well filled,
her tea-caddy well stored, her pickle-jar and store of vegetables in good
order, she has little more to think about. "Rice is the staple food of
Japan, and is eaten at every meal by rich or poor, taking the place of our
bread. It is of particularly fine quality, and at meals is brought in small
bright-looking tubs kept for this exclusive purpose and scrupulously clean;
it is then helped to each individual in small quantities, and steaming hot.
The humblest meal is served with nicety, and with the rice various tasty
condiments, such as pickles, salted fish, and numerous other dainty little
appetizers, are eaten. To moisten the meal, tea without sugar is taken. A
hibachi, or charcoal basin, generally occupies the central position, round
which the meal is enjoyed, and on the fire of which the teapot is always
kept easily boiling."
[Illustration: OFFERING TEA TO A GUEST]
When the Japanese housekeeper goes to market, she turns her attention,
after the rice merchant's, to the fish and vegetable stalls. At the
fish-stall nothing that comes out of the sea is overlooked. She buys not
only fish, but seaweed, which is a common article of diet. It is eaten
raw; it is also boiled, pickled, or fried; it is often made into soup.
Sea-slugs, cuttle-fish, and other creatures which we consider the mere
offal of the sea, are eagerly devoured by the Japanese.
At the vegetable-stall there will be a great variety of things for
sale--beans, peas, potatoes, maize, buckwheat, carrots, lettuce, turnips,
squash, musk- and water-melons, cucumbers, spinach, garlic, onions, leeks,
chillies, capucams (the produce of the egg-plant), and a score of other
things, including yellow chrysanthemum blossoms and the roots and seeds of
the lotus. The Japanese eat almost everything that grows, for they delight
in dock and ferns, in wild ginger and bamboo shoots, and consider the last
a great tit-bit.
But to Europeans the Japanese vegetables seem very tasteless, and the chief
of them all is very much disliked by Westerners. This is the famous daikon,
the mighty Japanese radish, beloved among the poorer classes in its native
land and abhorred by foreigners. It grows to an immense size, being often
seen a yard long and as thick as a man's arm. When fresh it is harmless
enough, but the Japanese love to pickle it, and Mrs. Bishop remarks:
"It is slightly dried and then pickled in brine, with rice bran. It is very
porous, and absorbs a good deal of the pickle in the three months in which
it lies in it, and then has a smell so awful that it is difficult to remain
in a house in which it is being eaten. It is the worst smell I know of
except that of a skunk!"
The pickle-seller's stall must not be forgotten, for the Japanese flavour
their rather tasteless food with a wonderful variety of pickles and sauces.
The great sauce is soy, made from fermented wheat and beans with salt and
vinegar, and at times saké is added to it to heighten its flavour. This
sauce is served with many articles of food, and fish are often cooked in
it.
When the Japanese housekeeper reaches home again she finds that her
servants have finished their simple duties. Englishwomen always wonder what
there is in a Japanese house for servants to do. There are no fires to lay,
no furniture to polish and clean, no carpets to sweep, and no linen to wash
and mend; so Japanese servants spend much time chatting to each other, or
sewing new kimonos together, or playing chess. As a rule, there are many
more servants than are necessary to do the work. This is because servants
are very cheap. There are always plenty of girls who are ready to fill the
lower places if they can obtain food and clothes for their services, and
the upper servants only receive small sums, sometimes as low as six or
eight shillings a month.
If a servant wishes to leave her employment, she never gives direct notice
to her mistress. That would be the height of rudeness. Instead she begs
permission to visit her home, or a sick relation, or some one who needs
her assistance. Upon the day that she should return a long and elaborate
apology for her non-arrival is sent, saying that, most unhappily, she
cannot be spared from her home or her post of duty. It is then understood
that she has left.
In a similar fashion, no mistress tells a servant that she will not suit. A
polite explanation that it will be inconvenient to accept her services at
the moment is sent through a third party.
In the evening the whole family, servants included, gather in the main room
of the house. The master and mistress sit near the hibachi (the stove)
and the andon (the big paper lantern); the maids glide in and sit at a
respectful distance with their sewing, if they have any. There may be
conversation, or the master may read aloud from a book of historical
romances or fairy stories; but the servants may laugh and chat as freely
over joke or story as anyone.
When bed-time arrives the quilts come out of the cupboards, and are spread
with due care that no one sleeps with the head to the north, for that is
the position in which the dead are laid out, and so is a very unlucky
one for the living. Then the little wooden neck-rests, which they use as
pillows, are set in their places, and every one goes to bed. The Japanese
day is over.