JAPANESE EVENINGS
Every land has evening entertainments of some kind. In Japan people go
to theatres, including the movies, and attend banquets in tea houses
where there are _geisha_ singers. Plays in the theatre, however, often
begin at noon and last until midnight. One evening a Japanese friend
took me to the Meiji-za, a great theatre of Tokyo. First of all we had
to check our shoes at the door, as we might our hats and coats in
America. To reach our box we went up a passageway covered with grass or
reed matting. It was quite a different box from those in American
theatres, for it was only about a foot deep, and in place of chairs
there were half a dozen cushions on the matting-covered floor. We sat
down cross-legged on these and looked about us. Most of the house was
filled with long, shallow inclosures divided by what looked like low,
narrow benches, and the floor sloped gently toward the stage. But the
hundreds of people who were watching the play did not sit on the
benches. They all squatted in the shallow inclosures, and used the
benches as tables. The aisles, instead of being lower than the seats,
were wooden runways raised above them. Boys in bare feet, or wearing
foot mittens, ran noiselessly back and forth along these aisles,
carrying tea and rice and other kinds of food and sweetmeats to the
spectators. Many of the people sat in family groups, men, women, and
children, sipping tea and eating with chopsticks while they watched the
actors.
All the actors were men, but some of them played women’s roles. They
were dressed in strange and gorgeous costumes, such as are never seen
now in real life in Japan. The Japanese have a different taste in plays
from that of Western peoples. They do not seem to like plays on modern,
everyday subjects, but prefer the stories of ancient times. Probably
that is the reason the actors do not look or act or speak like the
people of to-day. If a Japanese actor walked out upon the stage in
ordinary clothing, and spoke as he would talk on the street or in his
house, he would be considered a very poor actor, or no actor at all.
There are now a few theatres in Japan where plays of modern life are
given, but nearly all the people prefer the old kind.
Instead of speaking in his everyday voice, each actor tries to talk deep
down in his chest, so that he sounds like a giant down a well. When the
part he is playing becomes very exciting, as during a fight with another
character, he may roar like a lion. If he is playing the part of a
woman, or a comic role, he turns and talks with a falsetto screech that
suggests a boy whose voice is changing. To foreigners all this seems
very queer indeed, but the Japanese think it is just the thing to do,
and the more a man roars or screeches the more he is applauded. When
they are pleased, the people do not clap their hands, and of course they
cannot stamp their feet. Instead they shout louder and louder words that
mean “Good!” or “Well done!”
Playing in a Way All Their Own
In the play we saw, there were battles on the stage, with many generals
in ancient costumes and much waving of strange old flags. Soldiers armed
with spears and other ancient weapons, and dressed as Japanese soldiers
were a thousand years ago, swept back and forth across the bare boards.
There was almost no scenery. A paper arch set up in the middle of the
stage was supposed to represent the gate of a city encircled by a great
stone wall, and half a dozen sticks represented a forest. Sometimes the
actors ran back and forth along the raised aisles, still reciting in
their strange voices. Several times two of them, or even whole bands
representing _samurai_ (ancient warriors), fought with swords out on the
runways, right over the heads of the audience. The spectators did not
seem to mind this at all, but continued to sip tea and eat food from
little bowls.
No audience ever gave better attention, however, for all the eating and
drinking. When rival bands of warriors fought, the people watched every
movement of their swords, and shouted with excitement when one man or
another pretended to be killed. In our plays such a man would have lain
where he had fallen until the curtain came down. But here there was no
curtain, and the dead man merely got up and walked off the stage. The
play that seemed to affect the audience most was one having a scene
between a small boy and his father, who had promised to let himself be
killed for the Emperor. There was much blowing of noses all over the
house, and many of the spectators were almost crying out loud. Yet the
play was very old, and had been given so often that probably every one
in the audience knew what it was all about and what would be the ending
of it. When one play was over, another began immediately. In one of the
great theatres of Tokyo there is a revolving stage, so that the instant
one set of actors finishes playing another group is swung around before
the audience. But I did not enjoy these strange plays as much as the
Japanese audience did, and after watching them for a couple of hours we
went out, recovered our shoes, and took a rickshaw home.
The Popular Movies
The Japanese like old stories in their movies also. Passing along one of
the theatre streets of Tokyo, or of Osaka, the second largest city of
Japan, you would see long rows of posters. But instead of showing modern
people in everyday dress, using telephones and automobiles, the posters
are pictures of actors in ancient costumes, with strange old weapons.
Men, you can see, have played the women’s parts in the film, and even in
the picture you can make out that the actors had their faces painted
white, as do those on the stage. Nowadays one hears occasionally of a
Japanese screen actress, but it will be a long time before many enter
that field.
If you went into one of these motion-picture houses with the gay posters
and Japanese lanterns before it, you probably would not understand much
of the picture. The titles, being in Japanese, you could no more read
than you could read hen tracks in the sand. Besides, the story of those
ancient days in Japan, with the queer customs and point of view the
Japanese then had, would be very different from any American story. Yet
probably it would be as familiar to the Japanese children in the
audience as the story of Washington crossing the Delaware is to you, and
they would understand it even if there were no titles at all.
Those same children, however, have almost as hard a time understanding
the kind of film-stories Americans know so well as we would to
understand theirs. There are now quite a number of Japanese makers of
their own kind of motion pictures. But often, when there are not enough
films on hand to fill out the evening, the manager puts on an American
film or two. So thousands of Japanese children have seen our American
movie stars. Since few of the audience can read the English titles of
these films, a man usually stands at one side of the darkened stage and
shouts out the story in Japanese as it goes along. But perhaps he also
cannot read English, and is not very sure what some of the action in the
picture means. In many little ways Americans act quite differently from
Japanese, and all such things are puzzling to a Japanese audience when
it sees them on the screen. For instance, the Japanese do not shake
hands, but bow up and down to each other, rubbing their thighs. So the
small boys in the audience wonder what in the world the strange people
in this picture mean by grabbing one another by the hand. Perhaps they
are going to wrestle! But no, they are smiling at each other, and look
very friendly, and before long they let go, without either one having
tried to throw the other.
The Japanese Do No Kissing
In Japan a man and woman, if well bred, do not speak to each other on
the street; a wife would not take her husband’s arm in public and they
certainly would not kiss each other good-by at the railway station. The
Japanese do not kiss, anyway; a mother shows affection for her child by
rubbing her cheek against his, and even that she does not do when
strangers are looking. So you can imagine how odd American or European
films seem to the Japanese, especially to the boys and girls, or to
those grown-ups who have never traveled in other countries or read much
about the ways of other people. Of all the motion pictures America sends
abroad, the Japanese, and a great many other foreign peoples, seem to
like best the Wild West films in which there is much horseback riding
across rough and mountainous country. Perhaps this is because such films
are easy to understand, as well as because any people as sturdy as the
Japanese like what we sometimes call red-blooded action. It is
interesting to know that such films are as popular in Japan as they are
in America.
The Geisha Girls of Japan
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co.
Geisha girls in their gay costumes on their way to entertain guests.
]
When a Japanese business man wishes to entertain a client from another
city, he does not invite him home to dinner, nor even to his club.
Instead, he offers him an expensive meal at a restaurant or tea house,
and has several _geisha_, or “accomplished persons,” in to help amuse
his guest. The _geisha_ are a class of women who sing and dance and play
on instruments such as the _koto_ and _samisen_, perform the elaborate
tea ceremony that has come down from olden times in Japan, and do other
things of that kind. Although they are, in a way, actresses, they do not
appear on the stage, but at evening parties. The Japanese business man
would almost certainly not bring his wife or daughters with him to the
dinner he had arranged. He would, however, have at least one _geisha_ to
do nothing but wait upon his guest, to pour out his tea or wine, help
him to choose the best food from what the regular waiting-girls of the
restaurant brought, and so on. Others would arrange the flowers, squat
on their cushions and thrum the _samisen_, sing the queer music of
Japan; some, probably the youngest and most lively, would dance.
A Tea-House Dinner
The same man who had his employee take us into his house invited my wife
and me to a tea-house dinner in our honor. There were of course polite
servants at the door to take our shoes, as well as our hats and coats.
Soon we were all kneeling on cushions in a very fine room ten or twelve
mats square, as the Japanese would say, and with beautiful paintings on
the oiled paper walls. Three young women, in much more gay and costly
kimonos than one sees on the streets or in the homes, at once began
making us comfortable. They had their jet-black hair done up in the
elaborate Japanese fashion, like a great Russian wool cap, with a few
flowers in it. They showed much surprise at and interest in my wife, for
Japanese wives do not come to dinners given for their husbands, and it
seemed very strange to them that foreign women could. They stared a
great deal, for that is not considered impolite in Japan, and they asked
many questions about the foreign clothes that looked so queer to them.
They wished to know whether there were _geisha_ in America also, and
were very curious about all our customs.
While we ate, the oldest girl played and sang, the other two serving us
tea and food. The head _geisha_ acts as hostess, and does her best to
make her guests enjoy the evening. When the two younger ones began to
dance, their dancing was not what we would call by that name at home.
They moved slowly back and forth, squatted, bowed down to the ground,
rose again, slipped to and fro across the matting in their foot-mittens,
opened and closed and waved and turned a fan that each held in her hand.
When it was time for us to go, all three saw us to the door, and kneeled
to touch their hair to the floor as a way of saying _sayonara_, the
Japanese good-by. Though we had not seen him do so, we knew that our
host had given, or would give, them plenty of money for their evening’s
entertainment. For though they had smiled and acted all the time we were
there as if they were high-class ladies who took great pleasure in
entertaining us, they make a business of hospitality.
Girls who are to become _geisha_ begin their training early, often when
they are eight or ten. There are training schools for them, where they
are usually taken by their parents. The head of the school pays for
everything, but the _geisha_ girl must pay him back after graduation. It
is often ten years or more before she has earned enough to be out of
debt for her training and can begin to give money to her parents. The
Japanese hold their fathers and mothers in great honor, and most of the
girls who become _geisha_ do so either to save their parents from
supporting them or in order to be able to take care of their parents in
old age. So, under the smiles and the cheerful exterior of the _geisha_
who sings or dances for you, there may be deep sorrow. When their youth
is gone and they are no longer attractive to hosts and guests, some of
the _geisha_ marry and go back to their native village; others become
head _geisha_, and help in the training and managing of the younger
ones.
[Illustration:
One of the favorite actors of the Japanese stage, in his most famous
role. In Japan, the old national legends are played over and over,
year after year, and the people never tire of them.
]