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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57861 ***
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 57861-h.htm or 57861-h.zip:
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57861/57861-h/57861-h.htm)
+ or
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57861/57861-h.zip)
+
+
+ Images of the original pages are available through
+ Internet Archive. See
+ https://archive.org/details/mysteriousjapan00stre
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+ Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+ Small capitals were replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
+
+ The oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
+
+ The letter o with macrom ligature was replaced by "[=o]".
+
+
+
+
+
+MYSTERIOUS JAPAN
+
+
+ [Illustration: Calligraphy that translates as "Mysterious Japan"]
+
+
+ * * * * * *
+
+ _Books by Julian Street_
+
+
+ ABROAD AT HOME
+
+ AFTER THIRTY
+
+ AMERICAN ADVENTURES
+
+ THE NEED OF CHANGE
+
+ THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN
+ (_A close-range study of Theodore Roosevelt_)
+
+ PARIS à LA CARTE
+
+ SHIP-BORED
+
+ WELCOME TO OUR CITY
+
+ THE GOLDFISH
+ (_For Children_)
+
+ SUNBEAMS, INC.
+
+ MYSTERIOUS JAPAN
+
+ * * * * * *
+
+
+ [Illustration: Photo. by Marguerite Leonard
+ At the top of the temple steps, above Lake Biwa]
+
+
+MYSTERIOUS JAPAN
+
+by
+
+JULIAN STREET
+
+
+ [Illustration: Publisher's logo]
+
+
+With Illustrations from Photographs
+by the Author and Others
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Garden City, N. Y., and Toronto
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+1921
+
+Copyright, 1921, by
+Julian Street
+All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
+into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
+
+Copyright, 1920, 1921, by McClure's Magazine, Incorporated
+All Rights Reserved
+
+Copyright, 1921, by the Century Company, the Outlook Company,
+P. F. Collier & Son Company, and the New York Times
+
+Printed at Garden City, N. Y., U. S. A.
+
+First Edition
+
+
+
+
+ TO
+ FRANK A. VANDERLIP
+
+
+
+
+ "_To see once is better than
+ to hear a hundred times_"
+
+ --MENCIUS
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+
+ PART I
+
+ CHAPTER PAGE
+
+ I. DISCUSSING CURIOUS TRAITS OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN . . 1
+
+ II. THE ROAD TO TOKYO . . . . . . . . . 16
+
+ III. THE CAPITAL AND COSTUMES . . . . . . . 26
+
+ IV. EARTHQUAKES AND BURGLARS . . . . . . . 38
+
+ V. INVERSIONS AND THE ORIENTAL MIND . . . . . 48
+
+ VI. THE ISLES OF COMPLEXITIES . . . . . . . 63
+
+
+ PART II
+
+ VII. THE GENTLEST OF THE GENTLER SEX . . . . . 81
+
+ VIII. MORE ABOUT WOMEN . . . . . . . . . 93
+
+ IX. THE NATIONAL SPORT . . . . . . . . 103
+
+ X. ON SAKé AND ITS EFFECTS . . . . . . . 115
+
+ XI. DIET AND DANCING . . . . . . . . . 127
+
+ XII. GEISHA PARTIES . . . . . . . . . 137
+
+ XIII. THE NIGHTLESS CITY . . . . . . . . 154
+
+ XIV. IN A GARDEN . . . . . . . . . . 163
+
+ XV. AN EXPLOSIVE PHILOSOPHER . . . . . . . 172
+
+ PART III
+
+ XVI. GRAND OLD MEN . . . . . . . . . . 183
+
+ XVII. RECOLLECTIONS OF VISCOUNT SHIBUSAWA . . . . 201
+
+ XVIII. VISCOUNT KANEKO'S MEMORIES OF ROOSEVELT . . . 212
+
+ XIX. ARE THE JAPANESE EFFICIENT? . . . . . . 228
+
+ XX. JAPANESE-AMERICAN RELATIONS . . . . . . 242
+
+ XXI. COURTESY AND DIPLOMACY . . . . . . . 258
+
+
+ PART IV
+
+ XXII. A RURAL RAILROAD . . . . . . . . . 273
+
+ XXIII. ADVENTURES IN A BATH AT KAMOGAWA . . . . . 284
+
+ XXIV. A NIGHT AT AN INN . . . . . . . . . 295
+
+ XXV. PRETTY GEN TAJIMA . . . . . . . . . 306
+
+ XXVI. SUPERSTITIONS AND YUKI'S EYES . . . . . 315
+
+ XXVII. "JAPANNED ENGLISH" AND ART . . . . . . 321
+
+ XXVIII. SAYONARA . . . . . . . . . . . 335
+
+
+
+
+ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ At the top of the temple steps, above Lake Biwa _Frontispiece_
+
+ FACING PAGE
+
+ Peasants of the region speak of Fuji as _O Yama_,
+ the "Honourable Mountain" . . . . . . . . 6
+
+ With his drum and his monkey he is Japan's
+ nearest equivalent for our old-style organ-grinder . . 22
+
+ The Japanese is not a slave to his possessions . . . 38
+
+ Sawing and planing are accomplished with a pulling instead
+ of a driving motion . . . . . . . . . 38
+
+ The bath of the proletariat consists of a large barrel . 54
+
+ While Yuki's fortune was being told I photographed her . 70
+
+ You cannot understand Japan without understanding the
+ Japanese woman . . . . . . . . . . . 86
+
+ A laundry on the river's brim . . . . . . . 94
+
+ Digging clams at low-tide in Tokyo Bay . . . . . 94
+
+ Cocoons--Five thousand silk worms make one kimono . . 118
+
+ No one without a sweet nature could smile the smile of one
+ of these tea-house maids . . . . . . . . 118
+
+ Family luncheon à la Japonaise . . . . . . . 134
+
+ Kimi-chiyo was at almost every Japanese-style party
+ I attended . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
+
+ It takes two hours to do a geisha's hair . . . . 162
+
+ Mrs. Charles Burnett in a 15th-Century Japanese
+ Court costume . . . . . . . . . . . 170
+
+ A teahouse garden, Tokyo . . . . . . . . 178
+
+ Viscount Shibusawa . . . . . . . . . . 190
+
+ Viscount Kentaro Kaneko . . . . . . . . . 190
+
+ The film was not large enough to hold the family of this
+ youngish fisherman at Nabuto . . . . . . . 214
+
+ Tai-no-ura . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
+
+ The theatre street in Kyoto is one of the most interesting
+ highways in the world . . . . . . . . . 246
+
+ The gates of the Tanjo-ji temple . . . . . . 246
+
+ Nor could a _grande dame_ in an opera box have exhibited
+ more aplomb . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
+
+ Pretty Gen was between the shafts . . . . . . 278
+
+ The middle-aged coolie hurriedly seated him on the bank . 294
+
+ Asakusa, the great popular temple of Tokyo . . . . 310
+
+ Saki, the housekeeper, obligingly posed for me . . . 326
+
+
+
+
+ PART I
+
+
+
+
+ MYSTERIOUS JAPAN
+
+
+ Far lie the Isles of Mystery,
+ With never a port between;
+ Green on the yellow of Asia's breast,
+ Like a necklace of tourmaline.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ _A Day Goes Overboard--A Sunday Schism--A Desert Island--Water,
+ Water Everywhere--Men with Tails--Anecdotes of the Emperor of
+ Korea--Korean Reforms--Cured by Brigands--The Man who Went to
+ Florida--The Black Current--White Cliffs and Coloured
+ Sails--Fuji Ahoy!_
+
+
+A peculiar ocean, the Pacific. A large and lonely ocean with few ships
+and many rutty spots that need mending. Ploughing westward over its
+restless surface for a week, you come to the place where East meets West
+with a bump that dislocates the calendar. It is as though a date-pad in
+your hand were knocked to pieces and the days distributed about the
+deck. You pick them up and reassemble them, but one is missing. Poor
+little lost day! It became entangled with the 180th meridian and was
+dragged overboard never to be seen again.
+
+With us, aboard the admirable _Kashima Maru_, the lost day happened to
+be Sunday, which caused a schism on the ship. In the smokeroom, where
+poker was a daily pastime, resignation was expressed, the impression
+being that with the lost day went the customary Sunday services. But in
+reaching this conclusion the smokeroom group had failed to reckon with
+the fact that missionaries were aboard. The missionaries held a hasty
+conference in the social hall, and ignoring the irreverent pranks of
+longitude and time, announced a service for the day that followed
+Saturday. Upon this a counter-conference was held around the poker
+table, whereat were reached the following conclusions:
+
+That aboard ship the captain's will is, and of a right ought to be,
+absolute; that the captain had pronounced the day Monday; that in the
+eyes of this law-abiding though poker-playing group, it therefore _was_
+Monday; that the proposal to hold church services on Monday constituted
+an attempt upon the part of certain passengers to set their will above
+that of the captain; that such action was, in the opinion of the
+smokeroom group, subversive to the ship's discipline, if indeed it did
+not constitute actual mutiny on the high seas; that members of this
+group could not, therefore, be party to the action proposed; that, upon
+the contrary, they deemed it their clear duty in this crisis to stand
+back of the captain; and finally, that in pursuance of this duty they
+should and would remain in the smokeroom throughout the entire day,
+carrying on their regular Monday game, even though others might see fit
+to carry on their regular Sunday game elsewhere in the vessel.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Had this been the Atlantic crossing we should by now have landed on the
+other side; yet here we were, pitching upon a cold gray waste a few
+miles south of Behring Sea, with Yokohama a full week away.
+
+Yet land--land of a kind--was not so distant as I had imagined. Early
+one morning in the middle of the voyage my steward, Sugimoto, came to my
+cabin and woke me up to see it. (A splendid fellow, Sugimoto; short and
+round of body, with flesh solid and resilient as a hard rubber ball, and
+a circular sweet face that Raphael might have painted for a cherub, had
+Raphael been Japanese.)
+
+"Good morning, gentleman," said he. "Gentleman look porthole, he see
+land."
+
+I arose and looked.
+
+A flounce of foam a mile or two away across the water edged the skirt of
+a dark mountain jutting abruptly from the sea. Through a mist, like a
+half-raised curtain of gray gauze, I saw a wintry peak from which long
+tongues of snow trailed downward, marking seams and gorges. It was, in
+short, just such an island as is discovered in the nick of time by a
+shipwrecked whaler who, famished and freezing in an open boat, has
+drifted for days through the storm-tossed pages of a sea story. He would
+land in a sheltered cove and would quickly discover a spring and a cave.
+He would devise a skilful means of killing seals, would dress himself in
+their skins, and subsist upon their meat--preceded by the customary clam
+and fish courses. For three years he would live upon the island,
+believing himself alone. Then suddenly would come to him the knowledge
+that life in this place was no longer safe. About the entrance to his
+cave he would find the tracks of a predatory animal--fresh prints of
+French heels in the snow!
+
+Austere though the island looked, my heart warmed at the sight of it;
+for there is no land so miserable that it is not to be preferred above
+the sea. Moreover I saw in this land a harbinger. The Empire of Japan, I
+knew, consisted of several large islands--to the chief one of which we
+were bound--and some four thousand smaller ones stretching out in a vast
+chain. This island, then, must be the first one of the chain. From now
+on we would no doubt be passing islands every little while. The
+remainder of the voyage would be like a trip down the St. Lawrence
+River.
+
+Soothed and encouraged by this pleasant thought, and wishing always to
+remember this outpost of the Island Empire, I asked its name of
+Sugimoto.
+
+"That Araska, gentleman," he answered.
+
+"Are you glad to see Japan again, Sugimoto?"
+
+"That Araska," he repeated.
+
+"Yes. A part of Japan, isn't it?"
+
+Sugimoto shook his head.
+
+"No, gentleman. Araska American land."
+
+"That island belongs to the United States?"
+
+"Yes, gentleman. That Araska."
+
+I had never heard of an island of that name. Surely Sugimoto was
+mistaken in thinking it an American possession.
+
+"Could you show it to me on the map?" I asked.
+
+From my dresser he took a folder of the steamship company and opening to
+a map of the Pacific, pointed to one of many little dots. "Aleutian
+Islands," they were marked. They dangled far, far out from the end of
+that peninsula which resembles a long tongue hanging from the mouth of a
+dog, the head of which is rudely suggested by the cartographic outlines
+of our northernmost territory. We had sailed directly away from our
+native land for a week, only to find ourselves, at the end of that time,
+still in sight of its outskirts. Like many another of his fellow
+countrymen, good Sugimoto had difficulties with his _l_'s and _r_'s. He
+had been trying to inform me that the island--the name of which proved
+to be Amatisnok--belonged to Alaska.
+
+I began to study the map and look up statistics concerning the Pacific
+Ocean. It was a great mistake. It is not pleasant to discover that three
+quarters of the world is worse than wasted, being entirely given over to
+salt water. Nor is it pleasant to discover, when far out on the Pacific,
+that more than a third of the surface of the earth is taken up by this
+one ocean. Any thought of getting General Goethals to remedy this matter
+by filling up the Pacific is, moreover, hopeless, for all the land in
+the world, if spread over the Pacific's surface, would only make an
+island surrounded by twenty million square miles of sea.
+
+Feeling depressed over these facts I now began to look for points of
+merit; for we are told to try to find the good in everything, and though
+I fear I pay but scant attention to this canon when in my normal state
+ashore, at sea I become another man.
+
+On land I have a childish feeling that the Creator has not time to pay
+attention to me, having so many other people to look after; but a ship
+far out at sea is a conspicuous object. I feel that it must catch His
+eye. I feel Him looking at me. And though I hope He likes me, I see no
+special reason why He should. I am so full of faults, so critical, so
+prejudiced. Consider, for instance, the way I used to go on about
+President Wilson and Josephus Daniels and W. J. Bryan. I am afraid that
+was very wrong in me. Instead of studying their failings I should have
+remedied my own. I should have given more to charity. I should have been
+more gentle in expressing my opinions. I should have written often to my
+sister, who so enjoys getting letters from me. I should have looked for
+good in everything.
+
+Immediately I begin to run about the ship looking for it. And lo! I find
+it. The ship is comfortable. It seems to be designed to stay on top of
+the water. The table is beyond criticism. The passengers are
+interesting. The very vastness of this ocean tends to make them so.
+Instead of being all of a pattern, as would be one's fellow passengers
+on an Atlantic liner, they are a heterogeneous lot, familiar with
+strange corners of the globe and full of curious tales and bits of
+information. Instead of talking always of hotels in London, Paris,
+Venice, Rome and Naples, they speak familiarly of Seoul, Shanghai,
+Peking, Hongkong, Saigon and Singapore. And amongst them are a few
+having intimate acquaintance with islands and cities so remote that
+their names sing in the ears like fantastic songs. Fragrant names. The
+Celebes and Samarkand!
+
+There was a little Englishman who hunted butterflies for a museum. He
+told me of great spiders as big as your two hands, that build their webs
+between the trees in the jungles of Borneo--I think he said Borneo. But
+whatever the name of the place, he found there natives having tails from
+two to four inches long--I think he said two to four inches. But
+whatever the length of the tails, he had photographs to prove that tails
+there were. The latest theory of man's evolution, he told me, is not the
+theory of Darwin, but holds that there existed long ago an intermediary
+creature between man and ape, from which both are derived--the ape
+having, I take it, evolved upward into the treetops, while man evolved
+downward--down, down, down, until at last came jazz and Lenine and
+Trotzky.
+
+Another man had lived for years in Korea. In the old days before it was
+taken over by Japan, he said, it was a perfect comic-opera country with
+the Emperor as chief comedian. He knew and liked the Emperor, and told
+me funny stories about him. Once when His Majesty's teeth required
+filling the work had to wait until the American dentist in Seoul could
+have a set of instruments made of gold, that being the only metal
+permitted within the sacred confines of the Imperial mouth.
+
+The concession to build an electric street railway in Seoul was given to
+Americans on the understanding that they should import motormen from the
+United States and that these should be held in readiness to fly to the
+Emperor's aid in case of trouble. A private wire connected the Imperial
+bedchamber with that of the manager of the street-car company, so that
+the latter might be quickly notified if help was needed. For more than a
+year the wire stood unused, but at last late one night the bell rang.
+The manager leaped from his bed and rushed to the special telephone. But
+it was not a revolution. The Emperor had just heard about a certain
+office building in New York and wished to know if it had, in fact, as
+many stories as had been reported to him.
+
+In his fear of revolution or invasion the Emperor built a palace
+adjoining the American legation. And when, as happened now and then,
+there came a _coup d'état_, threatening his personal safety, he would
+get a ladder and climb over the wall separating the back yard of the
+palace from that of the American minister. This occurring frequently, so
+embarrassed the latter, that in order to put an end to His Majesty's
+habit of informal calling, he caused the top of the wall to be covered
+with inhospitable broken glass.
+
+Up to the time of the annexation of Korea by Japan, my informant said,
+the Koreans were entirely without patriotism, but the Japanese so
+oppressed them that a strong national feeling was engendered after it
+was too late. That the Japanese had been harsh and brutal in Korea, he
+said, was indisputable, but this was the work of militarists, and was
+contrary to the will of the people of Japan who, when they learned what
+had been going on, protested with such violence that newspapers had to
+be suppressed in Japanese cities, and there was clubbing of rioters in
+the streets by the police. This caused immediate reform in Korea. The
+brutal Governor General was recalled and was replaced by Admiral Baron
+Saito, a humane and enlightened statesman who has earnestly striven to
+improve conditions, with the result that Koreans are to-day being better
+educated and better governed than they have been within the memory of
+man. Also they are prospering. First steps are now being taken toward
+allowing them to participate in their own government, and if conditions
+seem to justify the extension of their privileges, it is hoped that they
+may ultimately have home rule.
+
+From another passenger I got a story about an American who was captured
+by brigands in China. The victim was a civil engineer, very skilful at
+laying out railroad lines. The American International Corporation wished
+to send him to China to plan a railroad, but he demurred because he was
+in bad health. Finally, on being pressed by the company, he consented to
+go if his private physician was sent with him. This was agreed to.
+
+In China brigands caught the civil engineer but not the doctor. They
+kept him for a long time. He was taken from place to place over the
+roughest country, walking all night, sleeping by day in damp caves,
+eating coarse and insufficient food. At last he was released. He
+returned in rugged health. The life of the brigand was just the thing
+that he had needed.
+
+"Out here on the seas, without home newspapers," one thoughtful
+traveller remarked to me, "we lose touch with the world and never quite
+make up all that we have lost. When we land we hear about some of the
+things that have happened, but there are minor events of which we never
+hear, or of which the news comes to us long after, as a great surprise.
+I recall one example from my own experience.
+
+"In the New England town in which I live there was a banker, a prominent
+old citizen with a reputation for being very close, and none too
+scrupulous in the means he sometimes took for making money.
+
+"It had for years been his habit to go every winter to Florida, but his
+daughter, who kept house for him, liked the northern winter and remained
+at home.
+
+"Some years ago, while I was in the Far East, this old man died, but I
+was gone for a long time and heard nothing of it. When I got back it was
+winter. One day I met the daughter and stopped to speak to her. It was
+snowing and a cold wind was whistling down the street. We had been
+having trouble with the furnace at our house and my mind was full of
+that. So when I met her I said:
+
+"'One good thing--on a day like this you don't have to worry about your
+father. Furnaces don't get out of order down there where he is.'
+
+"Now, when I am away, I have the newspapers saved, and on my return I
+read them all if it takes me a whole week."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Somewhere in those seas that lie between the islands of Formosa and
+Luzon there arises a wide tepid current, known as the Black Current
+which, flowing northward, tempers the climate of Hondo, the main island
+of Japan. "To this beneficent stream," remarks the guidebook, "the
+shores of Nippon owe their luxuriant greenness."
+
+As we crossed the Black Current a certain greenness likewise was
+revealed upon my countenance. I did not find the stream beneficent at
+all. It was only about two hundred miles wide, however, and by morning
+the worst of it was past. I came on deck to find the _Kashima Maru_
+riding like a placid bulky water-fowl upon a friendly sunlit sea. And
+far away on the horizon lay a streak of mist that was Japan.
+
+In an hour or two the mist attained more substance. It was like a
+coloured lantern-slide coming slowly into focus. Someone showed me a
+white dot upon the shadow of a hill and said it was a lighthouse, and
+some one else discerned a village in a little smudge of buff where land
+and water met. Gulls were circling around us--gulls with dark serrated
+margins to their wings; smaller than those we had seen on Puget Sound.
+Foreign gulls!
+
+Since leaving Victoria we had sighted only one ship, but now an unladen
+freighter, pointing high and showing a broad strip of red underbody,
+reeled by like a gay drunkard, and was no sooner gone astern than we
+picked up on the other bow a wallowing stubby caravel with a high-tilted
+poop like that of the _Santa Maria_--a vessel such as I had never
+dreamed of seeing asail in sober earnest. And she was hardly gone when
+we overhauled a little fleet of fishing boats having the lovely colour
+of unpainted wood, and the slender graceful lines of viking ships. All
+of them but one carried a square white sail on either mast, but that one
+had three masts and three sails, two of which were yellow, while the
+third was of a tender faded indigo. It promised things, that boat with
+coloured sails!
+
+Distant white cliffs, tall and ghostly like those of Dover, brought
+memories of another island kingdom, far away through the cheek of the
+world, whose citizens were at this moment sleeping their midnight
+sleep--_last night_. Presently the white cliffs vanished, giving place
+to a wall of hills with conical tops and bright green sides splattered
+with blue-green patches of pine woods. And when I saw the brushwork on
+those wrinkled cone-shaped hills, so unlike any other hills that I had
+seen, I knew that Hokusai and Hiroshige, far from being merely
+decorative artists, had "painted nature as they saw it."
+
+The villages along the shore could now be seen more plainly--rows of
+one-story houses taking their colour from the yellow wood of which they
+were constructed, and the yellow thatch of their roofs, both tempered by
+the elements.
+
+Then, as I was looking at a village on a promontory reaching out to meet
+us, some one cried:
+
+"Fuji! Come and look at Fujiyama!" and I ran forward and gazed with
+straining eyes across the sea and the hilltops to where, shimmering
+white in the far-off sky, there hung--was it indeed the famous
+fan-shaped cone, or only a luminous patch of cloud? Or was it anything
+at all?
+
+"Where's Fuji?"
+
+"Right there. Don't you see?"
+
+"No. Yes, now I think----"
+
+"It's gone. No! There it is again!"
+
+So must the chorus ever go. For Fuji, most beautiful of mountains, is
+also the most elusive. Later, in Tokyo, when some one called me to come
+and see it, it disappeared while I was on the way upstairs.
+
+Splendid as Vesuvius appears when she floats in opalescent mist above
+the Bay of Naples with her smoke plume lowering above her, she is, by
+comparison with Fuji, but a tawny little ruffian. Vesuvius rises four
+thousand feet while Fuji stands three times as high. And although the
+top of Pike's Peak is higher than the sacred mountain of Japan by some
+two thousand feet, the former, starting from a plain one mile above
+sea-level, has an immense handicap, whereas the latter starts at
+"scratch." Thus it comes about that when you look at Pike's Peak from
+the plains what you actually see is a mountain rising nine thousand
+feet; whereas when you look at Fuji from the sea the whole of its twelve
+thousand and more feet is visible.
+
+Aside from Fuji's size, the things which make it more beautiful than
+Vesuvius are the perfection of its contour, the snow upon its cone, and
+the atmospheric quality of Japan--that source of so much disappointment
+to snapshotting travellers who time their pictures as they would at
+home.
+
+A Japanese friend on the ship told me that though Fuji had been
+quiescent for considerably longer than a century there was heat enough
+in some of its steaming fissures to permit eggs to be boiled. Eighteen
+or twenty thousand persons make the climb each year, he said, and some
+devout women of seventy years and over struggle slowly up the slope,
+taking a week or more to the ascent, which is made by able-bodied men in
+half a day or less.
+
+Peasants of the region speak of Fuji not by name but merely as _O Yama_,
+"the Honourable Mountain," but my Japanese friend added that though the
+honorific _O_, used so much by his countrymen, was translated literally
+into English as "honourable," it did not have, in the Japanese ear, any
+such elaborate and ponderous value, but was spoken automatically and
+often only for the sake of cadence.
+
+ [Illustration: Peasants of the region speak of Fuji not by name
+ but merely as _O Yama_, the "Honourable Mountain"]
+
+"We say _O_ without thinking," he explained, "just as you begin with
+'dear sir,' in writing to a stranger who is not dear to you at all."
+
+For Fuji, however, I like the full English polysyllabic of respect.
+It is indeed an "honourable mountain." The great volcanic cone
+hanging, as it sometimes seems, in thin blue air, has an ethereal
+look suggesting purity and spirituality, so that it is not
+difficult for the beholder from another land to sense its quality
+of sacredness, and to perceive its fitness to be the abiding
+place of that beautiful goddess whose Japanese name means
+"Princess-who-makes-the-Blossoms-of-the-Trees-to-Flower."
+
+"There are two kinds of fools," says a Japanese proverb: "--those who
+have never ascended Fuji and those who have ascended twice." To this
+category I would add a third kind of fool, the greatest of them all: the
+fool who fails to appreciate the spectacle of Fuji. A creature who would
+be disappointed in Fuji would be disappointed in any spectacle, however
+grand--be it the Grand Cañon, the Grand Canal, or the Grand Central
+Station.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ _The Pier at Yokohama--The Flower-People--A Celestial
+ Suburb--French Cooking and Frock Coats--From a Car-Window--Elfin
+ Gardens--"The Land of Little Children"_
+
+
+The satisfying thing about Japan is that it always looks exactly like
+Japan. It could not possibly be any other place. The gulls are Japanese
+gulls, the hills are Japanese hills, Tokyo Bay is a Japanese bay, and if
+the steamers anchored off the port of Yokohama are not all of them
+Japanese, many of them have, at least, an exotic look, with their
+preposterously fat red funnels or their slender blue ones. Even the
+little launches from which the port authorities board you as you lie in
+the harbour are not quite like the launches seen elsewhere, and though
+the great stone pier, to which at last you are warped in, might of
+itself fit the picture of a British seaport, the women and children
+waiting on the pier, trotting along beside the ship as she moves slowly
+to her berth, waving and smiling up at friends on deck, are costumed in
+inevitable suggestion of great brilliant flower-gardens agitated by the
+wind. Amongst these women and children in their bright draperies, the
+dingy European dress of the male is almost lost, so that, for all its
+pantaloons and derby hats, Japan is still Japan.
+
+Through this garden of chattering, laughing, fluttering human flowers we
+made our way to--score one for New Japan--a limousine, and in this
+vehicle were whirled off through the crowd: a jumble of blue-clad
+coolies wearing wide mushroom hats and the insignia of their employers
+stamped upon their backs, of rickshas, and touring cars, and
+motor-trucks, and skirted schoolboys riding bicycles, and curious little
+drays with tiny wheels, drawn by shaggy little horses which are always
+led, and which, when left to stand, have their front legs roped. Over a
+bridge we went, above the peaked rice-straw awnings of countless wooden
+cargo boats; then up a narrow road, surfaced with brown sand, between
+rows of delightful little wooden houses, terraced one above the other,
+with fences of board or bamboo only partly concealing infinitesimal
+gardens, and sliding front doors of paper and wood-lattice, some of
+which, pushed back, revealed straw-matted floors within, with perhaps
+more flower-like women and children looking out at us--the women and the
+larger children having babies tied to their backs. By some of the doors
+stood pots containing dwarf trees or flowering shrubs, by others were
+hung light wooden birdcages from which a snatch of song would come, and
+in front of every door was a low flat stone on which stood rows of
+little wooden clogs. Dogs of breeds unknown to me sat placidly before
+their masters' doors--brown dogs to match the houses, black and white
+dogs, none of them very large, all of them plump and benignant in
+expression. Not one of them left its place to run and bark at our car.
+They were the politest dogs I have ever seen. They simply sat upon their
+haunches, smiling. And the women smiled, and the children smiled, and
+the cherry blossoms smiled from branches overhead, and the sun smiled
+through them, casting over the brown roadway and brown houses and brown
+people a lovely splattering of light and shadow.
+
+And what with all these things, and a glimpse of a _torii_ and a shrine,
+and the musical sound of scraping wooden clogs upon the pavement and the
+faint pervasive fragrance, suggesting blended odours of new pine wood,
+incense, and spice--which is to me the smell of Japan; though hostile
+critics will be quick to remind me of the odour of paddy fields--what
+with all these sights and sounds and smells, so alluring and antipodal,
+I began to think we must be motoring through a celestial suburb, toward
+the gates of Paradise itself.
+
+But instead of climbing onward up the hill to heaven we swung off
+through a garden blooming with azaleas white, purple, pink, and
+salmon-colour, and drew up at a pleasant clubhouse. There we had
+luncheon; and it is worth remarking that, though prepared by Japanese,
+both the menu and the cooking were in faultless French. The Japanese
+gentlemen at this club were financiers, officials and prominent business
+men of Yokohama. One or two of them wore the graceful and dignified
+_hakama_ and _haori_--the silk skirt and coat of formal native
+dress--but by far the larger number were habited in European style: some
+of the younger men in cutaways, but the majority in frock-coats,
+garments still widely favoured in Japan, as are also congress gaiter
+shoes--a most convenient style of footwear in a land where shoes are
+shed on entering a house.
+
+Luncheon over, we drove to the station of the electric railroad that
+parallels the steam railroad from the seaport to the capital--which, by
+the way, will itself become a seaport when the proposed channel has been
+dredged up Tokyo Bay, now navigable only by small boats.
+
+From the car window we continued our observations as we rushed along.
+The gage of the steam railway is narrower than that of railways in
+America and Europe; the locomotives resemble European locomotives and
+the cars are small and light by comparison with ours. The engine
+whistles are shrill, and instead of two men, three are carried in each
+cab. This we shall presently discover, is characteristic of Japan. They
+employ more people than we do on a given piece of work--a discovery
+rather surprising after all that we have heard of Japanese efficiency.
+But Japan's reputation for efficiency is after all based largely on her
+military exploits. Perhaps her army is efficient. Perhaps her navy is.
+Certainly the discipline and service on the _Kashima Maru_ would bear
+comparison with those on a first-rate English ship. Yet why three men on
+a locomotive? Why several conductors on a street car? Why three servants
+in an ordinary middle-class home which in America or Europe would be run
+by one or two? Why fifteen servants in a house which we would run with
+six or eight? Why so many motor cars with an assistant sitting on the
+seat beside the chauffeur? Why so few motors? Why men and women drawing
+heavy carts that might so much better be drawn by horses or propelled by
+gasolene? Why these ill-paved narrow roads? Why this watering of streets
+with dippers or with little hand-carts pulled by men? Why a dozen or
+more coolies operating a hand-driven pile-driver, lifting the weight
+with ropes, when two men and a little steam would do the work so much
+faster and better? Why, for the matter of that, these delightful
+rickshas which some jester of an earlier age dubbed "pull-man" cars? Why
+this waste of labour everywhere?
+
+Can it be that in this densely populated little country there are more
+willing hands than there is work for willing hands to do? Must work be
+spread thin in order to provide a task and a living for everyone? But
+again, if that was it, would people work as hard as these people seem
+to? Would women be at work beside their husbands, digging knee deep in
+the mud and water of the rice fields, dragging heavy-laden carts,
+handling bulky boats? And would the working hours be so long? Here is
+something to be looked into. But not now.
+
+It is a hand-embroidered country, Japan, though the embroidery is done
+in fine stitches of an unfamiliar kind. The rural landscape is so formed
+and trimmed and cultivated that sometimes it achieves the look of a
+lovely little garden, just as the English landscape sometimes has the
+look of a great park. Here, much more than in England, every available
+inch of land is put to use. Where hillsides are so steep that they would
+wash away if not protected, tidy walls of diamond-shaped stone are laid
+dry against them; but whenever possible the hillsides are terraced up in
+a way to remind one of vineyards along the Rhine and the Moselle, making
+a series of shelf-like little fields, each doing its utmost to help
+solve the food problem.
+
+It is hard to say whether the towns along this line of railroad are
+separated by groups of farms, or whether the groups of farms are
+separated by towns, so even is the division. The farms are very small so
+that the open country is dotted over with little houses--the same low
+dainty houses of wood and paper that delighted us when we first saw
+them, and which will always delight us when, from the other side of the
+world, we think of them. For there is something in the sight of a neat
+little Japanese house with its few feet of garden which appeals
+curiously to one's imagination and one's sentiment. It is all so light
+and lovely, yet all so carefully contrived, so highly finished. To the
+Western eye--at least to mine--it has a quality of fantasy. I feel that
+it cannot be quite real, and that the people who live in it cannot be
+quite real: that they are part--say a quarter--fairy. And I ask you: who
+but people having in their veins at least a little fairy blood would
+take the trouble to plant a row of iris along the ridges of their roofs?
+
+The houses, too, are often set in elfin situations. One will stand at
+the crest of a little precipice with a minute table-land of garden back
+of it; another will nestle, half concealed, in a small sheltered basin
+where it seems to have grown from the ground, along with the trees and
+shrubbery surrounding it--the flowering hedges and the pines with
+branches like extended arms in drooping green kimono sleeves; still
+another rises at the border of a pond so small that in a land less
+toylike it would hardly be a pond; yet here it is adorned with
+grotesquely lovely rocks and overhanging leaves and blooms, and in the
+middle of it, like as not, will be an island hardly larger than a
+cartwheel, and on that island a stone lantern with a mushroom top, and
+reaching to it from the shore a delicate arched bridge of wood beneath
+which drowsy carp and goldfish cruise, with trading fins and rolling
+ruminative eyes.
+
+Just as one better understands Hokusai and Hiroshige for having seen the
+coastal hills, one understands them better for having seen these magic
+little houses with their settings resembling so charmingly those
+miniature landscapes made with moss, gravel, small rocks, and dwarf
+trees, arranged in china basins by a Japanese gardener, who is sometimes
+so kind as to let us see his productions in a window on Fifth Avenue.
+Often one feels that Japan herself is hardly more than such a garden on
+a larger scale. Over and over again one encounters in the larger, the
+finish and fantastic beauty of the smaller garden. And when one does
+encounter it, one is happy to forget the politics and problems of Japan,
+and to think of the whole country as a curiously perfect table
+decoration for the parlour of the world.
+
+And the children! Children everywhere! Children of the children Kipling
+wrote of thirty years ago, when he called Japan
+
+ "... the land of Little Children, where the
+ Babies are the Kings."
+
+ [Illustration: With his drum and his monkey he is Japan's
+ nearest equivalent for our old-style organ-grinder]
+
+Of course we had heard about the children. Everyone who writes about
+Japan, or comes home and talks about Japan, tells you about them. Yet
+somehow you must witness the phenomenon before you grasp the fact of
+their astonishing profusion. Even the statistics, showing that the
+population of Japan increases at the rate of from 400,000 to 700,000
+every year, don't begin to make the picture, though they do make
+apparent the fact that there are several million children of ten years
+or younger--about two thirds of whom go clattering about in wooden
+clogs, while the remainder ride on the backs of their parents and
+grandparents and brothers and sisters. All in a country smaller than the
+State of California.
+
+Children alone, children in groups of three or four, children in dozen
+lots. Children in all sizes, colourings, attitudes, and conditions.
+Children blocking the roads, playing under the trees or in them, romping
+along paths, swarming over little piles of earth like bees on
+bell-shaped hives. Children watching the passing cars, children in tiny
+skiffs, children wading in ponds. Children glimpsed through the open
+wood and paper _shoji_ of their matchbox houses, scampering on clean
+matted floors or placidly supping--the larger of them squatting before
+trays and operating nimble chopsticks, the smaller nursing at the
+mother's breast. (Sometimes those children nursed at the breast are not
+so very small--which is the reason why so many Japanese have
+over-prominent teeth.) Children brown and naked, ragged children,
+children in indigo or in bright flowered kimonos and white aprons.
+Demure children, wild rampageous children, children with shaved heads,
+children with jet-black manes bobbing about their ears and faces as they
+run. Chubby children with merry eyes and cheeks like rosy russet apples.
+Children achieving the impossible: delighting the eye despite their
+dirty little noses.
+
+Can it be that they pile the children on each others' backs, making two
+layers of them, because there isn't room upon the ground for all of them
+at once? Babies riding on their mothers' backs travel in comparative
+dignity and safety. Under their soft little mushroom hats they sleep
+through many things--street-car trips, shopping expeditions and gabbling
+parties in the tea-rooms of department stores. But those who ride the
+shoulders of their elder brothers lead lives of wild adventure. Their
+presence is not allowed to interfere with the progress of young
+masculine life. The brother will climb trees, walk on stilts and even
+play baseball, seemingly unconscious of the weight and the fragility of
+the little charge attached to him by ties of blood and cotton. If the
+drowsy baby head drops over, getting in the way, the brother alters its
+position with a bump from the back of his own head. When the small rider
+slips down too far, whether on the back of child or adult, its bearer
+stoops and bucks like a broncho, tossing baby into place again. Through
+all of which the infant generally sleeps. Are its dreams disturbed, one
+wonders, when big brother slides for second-base? I doubt it. Knowing no
+cradle, no easy-riding baby carriage, the Japanese baby is from the
+first accustomed to a life of action. It seems to be a fatalist. And
+indeed it would appear that some special god protects the baby, for it
+always seems to go unscathed.
+
+Sometimes in the streets the children outnumber their elders by two or
+three to one. Contemplating them one can easily fall into the way of
+looking upon adults as mere adjuncts, existing only to wash the
+children, see that they wear aprons, and give them their meals.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ _Growing Tokyo--Architecture and Statuary--The Westernization of
+ Japan--The Story of Costumes--Women's Dress Advantages of
+ Standardized Styles--Selection and Rejection_
+
+
+As you reach the outskirts of Tokyo you think you are coming to another
+little town, but the town goes on and on, and finally as the train draws
+near the city's heart large buildings, bulking here and there above the
+general two-story tile roofline, inform you in some measure of the
+importance of the place. In 1917 Tokyo ranked fifth among the cities of
+the world, with a population almost equal to Berlin's, and it seems
+likely that when reliable statistics for the world become available
+again we shall find that the population of Berlin has at most remained
+stationary, while that of Tokyo has grown even more rapidly than usual,
+owing to exceptional industrial activity and to the influx of Russian
+refugees, whose presence in large numbers in Japan has created a housing
+problem. Nor shall I be surprised to hear that Tokyo has passed Chicago
+in the population race, becoming third city of the world.
+
+The central railroad station exhibits the capital's modern architectural
+trend. It is conveniently arranged and impressive in its magnitude as
+seen across the open space on which it faces, but there its merit stops.
+Like most large foreign-style buildings in Japan, it is architecturally
+an ugly thing. Standing at the gate of Japan's chief city, it has about
+it nothing Japanese. Its façade is grandiose and meaningless, and as one
+turns one's back upon it and sees other large new public structures, one
+is saddened by the discovery that the Japanese, skilful at adaptation
+though they have often shown themselves, have signally failed to adapt
+the requirements, methods, and materials of modern building to their old
+national architectural lines. One thing is certain, however: there will
+be no new public buildings more unsightly than those already standing.
+This style of architecture in Japan has touched bottom.
+
+In twenty years or so I believe the ugliness of these modern piles will
+have become apparent to the Japanese. It will dawn upon them that they
+need not go to Europe and America for architectural themes, but to the
+castle of Nagoya, the watch-towers above the moat of the Imperial
+Palace, the palace gates, and the temples and pagodas everywhere.
+
+When this time comes the Japanese will also realize how very bad are
+most of the bronze statues of statesmen and military leaders throughout
+the world, and how particularly bad are their own adventures in this
+field of art.
+
+Until I saw Tokyo I was under the impression that the world's worst
+bronzes were to be found in the region of the Mall in Central Park, New
+York; but there is in Tokyo a statue of a statesman in a frock coat,
+with a silk hat in his hand, which surpasses any other awfulness in
+bronze that I have ever seen.
+
+Looking at such things one marvels that they can be created and
+tolerated in a land which has produced and still produces so much minute
+loveliness in pottery, ivory, and wood. How can these people, who still
+know flowing silken draperies, endure to see their heroes cast in Prince
+Albert coats and pantaloons? And how can they adopt the European style
+of statuary, when in so many places they have but to look at the
+roadside to see an ancient monument consisting of a single gigantic
+stone with unhewn edges and a flat face embellished only with an
+inscription--simple, dignified, impressive.
+
+All nations, however, have their periods of innovation-worship, and if
+Japan has sometimes erred in her selections, her excuse is a good one.
+She did not take up Western ways because she wanted to. She wished to
+remain a hermit nation. She asked of the world nothing more than that it
+leave her alone. She even fired on foreign ships to drive them from her
+shores--which, far from accomplishing her purpose, only cost her a
+bombardment. Then, in 1853, came our Commodore Perry and, as we now
+politely phrase it, "knocked at Japan's door." To the Japanese this
+"knocking" backed by a fleet of "big black ships," had a loud and
+ominous sound. The more astute of their statesmen saw that the summons
+was not to be ignored. Japan must become a part of the world, and if she
+would save herself from the world's rapacity she must quickly learn to
+play the world's game. Fourteen years after Perry's visit the Shogunate,
+which for seven centuries had suppressed the Imperial family, and itself
+ruled the land, fell, and the late Emperor, now known as Meiji
+Tenno--meaning "Emperor of Enlightenment"--came from his former capital
+in the lovely old city of Kyoto, the Boston of Japan, and took up the
+reins of government in Yedo--later renamed Tokyo, or "Eastern
+Capital"--occupying the former Shogun's palace which is the Imperial
+residence to-day.
+
+The Meiji Era will doubtless go down as the greatest of all eras in
+Japanese history, and as one of the greatest eras in the history of any
+nation. To Viscount Kaneko, who is in charge of the work of preparing
+the official record of the reign for publication, President Roosevelt
+wrote his opinion of what such a book should be.
+
+"No other emperor in history," he declared, "saw his people pass through
+as extraordinary a transformation, and the account of the Emperor's part
+in this transformation, of his own life, of the public lives of his
+great statesmen who were his servants and of the people over whom he
+ruled, would be a work that would be a model for all time."
+
+Under the Emperor Meiji, Japan made breathless haste to westernize
+herself, for she was determined to save herself from falling under
+foreign domination. Small wonder, then, if in her haste she snatched
+blindly at any innovation from abroad. Small wonder if she sometimes
+snatched the wrong thing. Small wonder if she sometimes does it to this
+day. For she is still a nation in a state of flux; you seem to feel her
+changing under your very feet.
+
+But because Japan has accepted a thing it does not mean that she has
+accepted it for ever. In great affairs and small, her history
+illustrates this fact. A case in point is the story of European dress.
+
+More than thirty years ago, when the craze for everything foreign was at
+its height, when the whole fabric of social life in the upper world was
+in process of radical change, European dress became fashionable not only
+for men but for women. When great ladies had worn it for a time their
+humbler sisters took it up, and one might have thought that the national
+costume, which is so charming, was destined entirely to disappear.
+
+Men attached to government offices, banks, and institutions tending to
+the European style in the construction and equipment of their buildings,
+had some excuse for the change, since the fine silks of Japan do not
+wear so well as tough woollen fabrics, and the loose sleeves tend to
+catch on door-knobs and other projections not to be found in the
+Japanese style of building.
+
+But in Japan more than in any other country, "woman's place is in the
+home," and just as the Japanese costume is not well suited to the
+European style of building, so the European costume is not well suited
+to the Japanese house and its customs. For in the Japanese house instead
+of sitting on a chair one squats upon a cushion, and corsets, stockings
+and tight skirts were not designed to squat in. Equally important, clogs
+and shoes are left outside the door of the Japanese house in winter and
+summer, and as in the winter the house is often very cold, having no
+cellar and only small braziers, called _hibachi_, to give warmth, the
+covering afforded the feet by the skirts of a Japanese costume is very
+comforting. Moreover, the Japanese themselves declare that European
+dress is not becoming to their women, being neither suited to their
+figures nor to the little pigeon-toed shuffle which is so fetching
+beneath the skirts of a kimono.
+
+What was the result of all this?
+
+The men who found foreign dress useful continued to wear it for
+business, although those who could afford to do so kept a Japanese
+wardrobe as well. But the women, to whom European dress was only an
+encumbrance, discarded it completely, so that to-day no sight is rarer
+in Japan than that of a Japanese woman dressed in other than the native
+costume.
+
+If a Japanese lady be cursed with atrocious taste, there is practically
+no way to find it out, no matter how much money she may spend on
+personal adornment. The worst that she may do is to carry her clothes
+less prettily than other women of her class. The lines she cannot
+change. The fabrics are prescribed. The colours are restricted in
+accordance with her age. Her dress, like almost every other detail of
+her daily life, is regulated by a rigid code. If she be middle-aged and
+fat she cannot make herself absurd by dressing as a débutante. If she be
+thin she cannot wear an evening gown cut down in back to show a spinal
+column like a string of wooden beads. Nor can she spend a fortune upon
+earrings, bracelets, necklaces. She may have some pretty ornamental
+combs for her black lacquer hair, a bar pin for her _obi_, a watch, and
+perhaps, if she be very much Americanized, a ring and a mesh bag. A
+hairdresser she must have, both to accomplish that amazing and effective
+coif she wears, and to tell her all the latest gossip (for in Japan, as
+elsewhere, the hairdresser is famed as a medium for the transmission of
+spicy items which ought not to be transmitted); but her pocketbook is
+free from the assaults of milliners; hats she has none; only a draped
+hood when the cold weather comes.
+
+The feminine costume is regulated by three things: first, by the age of
+the wearer; second, by the season; third, by the requirements of the
+occasion. The brightest colours are worn by children; the best kimonos
+of children of prosperous families are of silk in brilliant flowered
+patterns. Their pendant sleeves are very long. Young unmarried women
+also wear bright colours and sleeves a yard in length. But the young
+wife, though not denied the use of colour, uses it more sparingly and in
+shades relatively subdued; and the pocket-like pendants of her sleeves
+are but half the length of those of her younger unmarried sister. The
+older she grows the shorter the sleeve pendants become, and the darker
+and plainer grows her dress.
+
+In hot weather a kimono of light silk, often white with a coloured
+pattern, is worn by well-dressed women. Beneath this there will be
+another light kimono which is considered underwear--though other
+underwear is worn beneath it. Japanese underwear is not at all like
+ours, but one notices that many gentlemen in the national costume adopt
+the Occidental flannel undershirt, wearing it beneath their silks when
+the weather is cold--a fact revealed by a glimpse of the useful but
+unlovely garment rising up into the V-shaped opening formed by the
+collar of the kimono where it folds over at the throat.
+
+As with us, the temperature is not the thing that marks the time for
+changing from the attire of one season to that of another. Summer
+arrives on June first, whatever the weather may be. On that date the
+Tokyo policeman blossoms out in white trousers and a white cap, and on
+June fifteenth he confirms the arrival of summer by changing his blue
+coat for a white one. So with ladies of fashion. Their summer is from
+June first to September thirtieth; their autumn from October first to
+November thirtieth; their winter from December first to March
+thirty-first; their spring from April first to May thirty-first. In
+spring the brightest colours are worn. Those for autumn and winter are
+generally more subdued.
+
+Young ladies wear brilliant kimonos for ceremonial dress, but ceremonial
+dress for married women consists of three kimonos, the outer one of
+black, though those beneath, revealed only where they show a V-shaped
+margin at the neck, may be of lighter coloured silk. On the exterior
+kimono the family crest--some emblem generally circular in form, such as
+a conventionalized flower or leaf design, about an inch in
+diameter--appears five times in white: on the breast at either side, on
+the back of either sleeve at a point near the elbow, and at the centre
+of the back, between the shoulder-blades. Because of these crests the
+goods from which the kimono is made have to be dyed to order, the crests
+being blocked out in wax on the original white silk so that the dye
+fails to penetrate. Even the under-kimonos of fashionable ladies will
+have crests made in this way.
+
+With the kimono a Japanese lady always wears a neck-piece called an
+_eri_ (pronounced "airy"), a long straight band revealed in a narrow
+V-shaped margin inside the neck of the inner kimono. The eri varies in
+colour, material, and design according to the wearer's age, the occasion
+and the season, and it may be remarked that embroidered or stencilled
+eri in bright colourings make attractive souvenirs to be brought home as
+gifts to ladies, who can wear them as belts or as bands for summer hats.
+
+If the weather be cold the haori, an interlined silk coat hanging to the
+knees or a little below, is worn over the kimono. This is black, with
+crests, or of some solid colour, not too gay. A young lady's haori is
+sometimes made of flowered silk. Men also wear the haori, but the man's
+haori is always black; and while a man will wear a crested haori on the
+most formal occasions, a woman _en grande tenue_ will avoid wearing hers
+whenever possible for the reason that it conceals all but a tiny portion
+of the article of raiment which is her chief pride: namely the sash or
+obi.
+
+The best obi of a fashionable woman consists of a strip of heavy
+brocaded or hand-embroidered silk, folded lengthwise and sewn at the
+edges making a stiff double band about thirteen inches wide and three
+and one third yards long. This is wrapped twice around the waist and
+tied in a large flat knot in back, the mode of tying varying in
+accordance with the age of the wearer, and differing somewhat in divers
+localities. The average cost of a fine new obi is, I believe, about two
+hundred dollars, and I have heard of obi costing as much as a thousand
+dollars. Some of the less expensive ones are very pretty also, and many
+a poor woman will have as her chief treasure an obi worth forty or fifty
+dollars which she will wear only on great occasions, with her best silk
+kimono.
+
+A Tokyo lady notable for the invariable loveliness of her costumes gives
+me the following information in response to an inquiry as to the cost of
+dressing.
+
+"As our style never changes," she writes, "we don't have to buy new
+dresses every season, as our American sisters do. When a girl marries,
+her parents supply her, according to their means, with complete costumes
+for all seasons. Sometimes these sets will include several hundred
+kimonos, and they may cost anywhere from two thousand to twenty thousand
+yen. [A yen is about equal to half a dollar.]
+
+"So if a girl is well fitted out she need not spend a great deal on
+dress after her marriage. A couple of hundred yen may represent her
+whole year's outlay for dress, though of course if she is rich and cares
+a great deal for dress, she may spend several thousand.
+
+"Our fashions vary only in colour and such figures as may be displayed
+in the goods. Therefore they are not nearly so 'busy' as your fashions.
+And we can always rip a kimono to pieces, dye it, and make it over."
+
+Some other items I get from this lady: When a Japanese girl is married
+it is customary for the bride's family to present obi to the ladies of
+the groom's family. For a funeral the entire costume including the obi,
+is black, save for the white crests. Ladies of the family of the
+deceased wear white silk kimonos without crests, and white silk obi. The
+Japanese ladies' costume, put on to the best advantage, is not so
+comfortable as it looks. It is fitted as tight as possible over the
+chest, to give a flat appearance, and is also bound tight at the waist
+to hold it in position. The obi, moreover, is very stiff, and to look
+well must also be tight.
+
+The more select _geisha_ are said to attain the greatest perfection of
+style; which probably means merely that, being professional entertainers
+whose sole business it is to please men, they make more of a study of
+dress, and spend more time before their mirrors than other women do.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The speed with which women reverted to the lovely kimono after their
+brief experiment with foreign fashions, may have been due in part to a
+lurking fear in Japanese male minds that along with the costume their
+women might adopt pernicious foreign ways, becoming aggressive and
+intractable, like American women who, according to the Japanese idea,
+are spoiled by their men--precisely as, according to our idea, Japanese
+men are spoiled by their women.
+
+But whatever the reasons, the fact remains that the Japanese revealed
+good practical judgment. They kept what they needed and discarded the
+rest. It is their avowed purpose to follow this rule in all situations
+involving the acceptance or rejection of western innovations, their
+object being to preserve the national customs wherever these do not
+conflict with the requirements of the hideous urge we are pleased to
+term "modern progress." This is a good rule to follow, and if we but
+knew the story of the period when Chinese civilization was brought to
+Japan, nearly fourteen centuries ago, we might perhaps find interesting
+parallels between the two eras of change.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ _Quakes and the Building Problem--Big Quakes--Democracy in
+ Architecture--Narrow Streets and Tiny Shops--The Majestic Little
+ Policeman--The Dread of Burglars--What to Do in a Quake--The Man
+ Who Went Home--"Fire!"--A Ricksha Ride to the Wrong Address--A
+ Front-Porch Bath_
+
+
+Have I given the impression that Tokyo is a disappointing city to one in
+search of things purely Japanese? If so it was because I tarried too
+long in the district of railroad stations and big business. Moreover, to
+the practical commercial eye, this portion of the city must look
+promising indeed, because of the wide streets and the new building going
+on. And it is building of a kind to be approved by the man of commerce,
+for in her new edifices Tokyo is adopting steel-frame construction.
+
+That she is only now beginning to build in this way is not due to
+inertia, but to the fact that earthquakes complicate her building
+problem. The tallest of her present office buildings is, I believe, but
+seven stories high, and I have heard that twice as much steel was
+employed in its construction as would have been employed in a similar
+building where earthquakes did not enter into the calculations of the
+architect.
+
+It would be difficult to overestimate the part that earthquakes play in
+establishing the character of Japanese cities. There will never be
+skyscrapers in Japan, or apartment buildings with families piled high in
+air. The family, not the individual, is the social unit of the land, and
+the private house is the symbol of the family. Even in the congested
+slums of Japanese cities, or in the quarters given over to the pitiful
+outcast class called _eta_, each family has its house, though the house
+may consist only of a single room no larger than a woodshed and may
+harbour an appalling number of people, as miserable and as crowded as
+those of the poorest slums in the United States.
+
+Though the seismograph records an average of about four earthquakes a
+day, most of the shocks are too slight to be felt. Tokyo is however,
+conscious of about fifty shocks a year. But she has not had a
+destructive earthquake since 1894, nor a great disaster since 1855, when
+most of the city was shaken down or burned, and 100,000 persons
+perished.
+
+Minor shocks receive but little attention. In fact by many they are
+regarded with favour, on the assumption that they tend to reduce
+pressure in the boiler-room, preventing savage visitations. However,
+these do occasionally occur and on the seacoast they are sometimes
+accompanied by tidal waves which ravage long stretches of shore, wiping
+out towns and villages.
+
+Earthquake shocks are sometimes accompanied by terrifying subterranean
+sounds. Scientists have their ways of accounting for all these things,
+but the man who really knows is the old peasant of the seacoast village.
+He can tell you what really causes the earth to tremble. It is the
+wrigglings of a pair of giant fish called _Namazu_, whiskered creatures
+somewhat resembling catfish, which inhabit the bowels of the earth and
+support upon their backs the Islands of Japan.
+
+Even though the quakes are slight, they serve to keep in people's minds
+certain unpleasant possibilities; and these possibilities are, as I have
+said, acknowledged in the structure of Japanese houses. Two stories is
+the maximum height for a residence, and even tea-houses and hotels are
+seldom more than three stories high. This, together with the fact that
+everyone who can afford it has a garden, causes Japanese cities to
+spread enormously.
+
+On the other hand, the Japanese requires fewer rooms than we do; his
+home life is simple and he is less a slave to his possessions than any
+other civilized human being. The average family can move its household
+goods in a hand-cart. Even the houses of the rich are not blatant except
+in a few cases in which florid European architecture has been attempted.
+The difference between the houses of the rich and of the poor is in
+degree, not in kind. As with the Japanese costume, the essential lines
+do not vary.
+
+ [Illustration: The Japanese is not a slave to his possessions.
+ The average family can move its household goods in a hand-cart]
+
+This democracy in architecture is restful to the eye and to the senses.
+It gives the streets of Tokyo--excepting the important thoroughfares--a
+sort of small-town look. Nor is a great metropolis suggested by the old
+narrow streets, with their bazaar-like open shop fronts, their
+banner-like awnings of blue and white, and their colourful displays of
+fish, fresh vegetables, fruits, wooden clogs, curios, and many other
+objects less definable, the possible uses of which entice the alien
+wayfarer to speculation or investigation.
+
+I never got enough of prowling in the narrow streets of Tokyo, staring
+into shops (and sometimes, I fear, into houses), watching various
+artisans carrying on home industries, wondering what were the legends
+displayed in Chinese characters on awnings, banners and lacquered signs;
+stumbling now upon an ancient wayside shrine, now upon a shop full of
+"two-and-a-half-puff pipes," tobacco pouches for the male and female
+users of such pipes, and _netsuke_ (large buttons for attaching
+pipe-cases and pouches to the sash) carved in delightfully fantastic
+forms; now upon a tea-shop full of tall coloured earthenware urns,
+shaped like the amphoræ of ancient Rome and marked with baffling black
+ideographs. Now I would discover a tea-house on the brink of a stream,
+its balconies abloom with little geisha, its portals protected from
+impurity by three small piles of salt; now it would be a geisha quarter
+I was in, and I would hear the drum and flute and _samisen_; or again I
+would discover a little shop with Japanese prints for sale, and would
+enter and drink green tea with the silk-robed proprietor, bagging the
+knees of my trousers and cramping my legs by squatting for an hour to
+look at his wares.
+
+Heavy wheeled traffic was not contemplated when the narrow streets of
+Tokyo were laid out. From the most attenuated of them, automobiles and
+carriages are automatically excluded by their size, while from others
+they are excluded by the policeman who inhabits the white kiosk on the
+corner. The policeman has discretionary power, and if you have good
+reason for wishing to drive down a narrow street he will sometimes let
+you do so, granting the permission coldly. He is a majestic little
+figure. He wears a sword and is treated as a personage.
+
+Naturally, the first consideration in the construction of a Japanese
+house is flexibility. In an earthquake a house should sway. Earthquakes
+are thus responsible for the general use of wood, which is in turn
+responsible for the frequency of fires. And next to earthquakes, fires
+are regarded by the Japanese as their greatest menace.
+
+Third on the list of things feared and abhorred comes the burglar. I
+doubt that there are more burglars in Japan than elsewhere, or that the
+Japanese burglar is more murderous than the average gentleman of his
+profession in other lands, but for some reason he is more thought about.
+This may be because of the vicious knife he carries, or it may be
+because Japanese houses are so easy to get into. In the daytime one
+would only have to push a hand through the paper shoji and undo the
+catch--which is about as strong as a hairpin. At night one might need a
+cigar-box opener. At all events, it is for fear of burglars that the
+Japanese householder barricades himself, after dark, behind a layer of
+unperforated wooden shutters, which are slid into place in grooves
+outside those in which the shoji slide. If the shutters keep out
+burglars they also keep out air; and even though you may be willing to
+risk the entrance of the former with the latter, the police will not
+permit you to leave your shutters open--not if they catch you at it.
+
+I made some inquiries as to the course to be pursued in the event of
+burglary, fire, or severe earthquakes.
+
+In earthquakes people act differently. I asked our maid, Yuki, what she
+did, and found that, when in a foreign-style house, she would crouch
+beside a wardrobe or other heavy piece of furniture which she thought
+would protect her if the ceiling should come down.
+
+"But what if the wardrobe should fall over on you?" I asked.
+
+Yuki, however, was not planning for that kind of an earthquake.
+
+In a Japanese house one need not worry about the ceiling, as it is of
+wood; and as a matter of fact most of the ceilings in foreign-style
+houses are of sheet metal.
+
+It seems to me that the most intelligent thing to do in an earthquake is
+to stand in the arch of a doorway; certainly it is a bad plan to try to
+run out of the house, as many people, attempting that, have been killed
+by falling fragments.
+
+One night I got a letter from a friend at home. "Try to be in a little
+earthquake," he wrote. "They build their houses for them, don't they?"
+
+In the middle of that same night a little earthquake came, as though on
+invitation. The bed-springs swung; the doors and windows rattled.
+
+At breakfast next morning I asked my hostess, an American lady who has
+lived most of her life in Japan, whether she had felt the tremor.
+
+"I always feel them," she said. "They bother me more and more. In the
+last few years I have got into the habit of waking up a minute or two
+before the shocks begin."
+
+"What do you do then?" I asked.
+
+"I lie still," she said, "until the shaking stops. Then I wake my
+husband and scold him."
+
+The husband of this lady told me of a man he knew, an American, who came
+out to Japan some years ago on business, intending to stay for a
+considerable time. On landing in Yokohama he went directly to the office
+of the company with which he was connected, and had hardly stepped in
+when the city was violently shaken.
+
+By the time the shocks were over he had changed all his plans.
+
+"Nothing could induce me to stay in a country where this sort of things
+goes on," he said. "I shall take the next boat back to San Francisco."
+
+He did--and arrived just in time for the great San Francisco quake.
+
+The course to take in case of fire is the same the world over. Shout
+"Fire!" in the language of the country and try to put the fire out.
+
+But if you find a burglar in your room don't shout the Japanese word for
+"burglars," even if you know it--which I do not. The thing to shout is
+"Fire!"--so I am advised by a Japanese friend, who, I am sure, has my
+best interests at heart. For if you shout "Fire!" in the middle of the
+night, the neighbours, fearing that the fire will spread to their own
+houses, rush to your assistance; whereas if you cry "Burglars!" it
+merely gives them gooseflesh as they lie abed.
+
+Many times it happened in Tokyo that when I was bound on a definite
+errand somewhere, the chauffeur or the ricksha coolie would land me
+miles from my intended destination. There are three reasons why this
+happened so often. First, Tokyo is a very difficult place in which to
+find one's way about. Second, addresses in Tokyo are not always given by
+street number, but by wards and districts, and there are tricks about
+some addresses, as, for instance, the fact that 22 Shiba Park isn't on
+Shiba Park at all, but is a block or two distant from the park's margin.
+And third, though the language in which I told the chauffeur or the
+_kurumaya_ where to go, was offered in good faith as Japanese, it was
+nine times out of ten not Japanese, but a dead language--a language that
+was dead because I myself had murdered it.
+
+In some other city I might have felt annoyance over being delivered at
+the wrong address. But in Tokyo I never really cared where I was going,
+I found it all so charming.
+
+Once a kurumaya trotted with me for three hours around the city to reach
+a place he should have reached in one. I knew I would be hours late for
+my appointment. I knew I ought to fret. But did I? No! Because of all
+the things that I was seeing.
+
+I saw the bean-curd man jogging along the street with a long rod over
+his shoulder, at each end of which was suspended a box of _tofu_, which
+he announced at intervals by a blast on a little brass horn: "Ta--ta:
+teeya; _tee-e-e_--ta!" I saw a thicket of bamboo. I saw a diminutive
+farmhouse, with mud walls and a deep straw thatch, and in the doorway
+was a bent old white-haired woman seated at a wooden loom, weaving plaid
+silk. And behind the bamboo fence and the flowering hedge, stood a
+cherry tree in blossom.
+
+It began to rain. In any other land I might have felt annoyance over so
+much rain as we were having. But not so in Japan. Japan could not look
+gloomy if it tried. Rain makes the landscape greener and the flowers
+fresher. It makes the coolies put on bristling capes of straw which shed
+the water as a bird's feathers do, and transform the wearer into a
+gigantic yellow porcupine. It makes the people leave off the little
+cotton shoes, called _tabi_, and go barefoot in their clogs. It makes
+them change their usual clogs for tall ones lifted up on four-inch
+stilts; and these as they scrape along the pavement give off a musical
+"clotch-clotch," which is sometimes curiously tuned in two keys, one for
+either foot. It brings out huge coloured Japanese umbrellas of bamboo
+and oiled paper, with black bull's-eyes at their centres, and a halo of
+little points around their outside edges. And as you go splashing by
+them with your kurumaya ringing his little bell, the women turn their
+great umbrellas sidewise, resting the margins of them in the road to
+keep their kimonos from being splattered. And even then they do not look
+at you severely. They understand that you can't help it. And are you
+not, moreover, that lordly creature, Man, whereas they are merely women?
+
+All these things I saw while I was lost, that afternoon. Then, just when
+I might have begun to wonder if I was ever going to reach my
+destination, what did I see?
+
+Under the eaves of a thatched house beside the way a bronze young mother
+and three children, all innocent of clothing and self-consciousness,
+preparing to get into a great wooden barrel of a bathtub. You never saw
+a sweeter family picture!... Yes, the Japanese are peculiarly a clean
+race. It is not merely hearsay. It is a front-porch fact.
+
+ [Illustration: The bath of the proletariat consists of a large
+ barrel with a charcoal stove attached. Frequently it stands out
+ of doors]
+
+Could any man lose patience with a kurumaya who can get him lost and
+make him like it?
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ _Reversed Ideas--Some Advantages of Old Age--Morbidity and
+ Suicide--High Necks and Long Skirts--Language--Chinese
+ Characters and Kana--Calligraphy as a Fine Art--The Oriental
+ Mind--False Hair--The Mystery of the Bamboo Screens--A Note on
+ Cats at Cripple Creek--The Occidental Mind_
+
+
+On the day of my arrival in Japan I started a list of things which
+according to our ideas the Japanese do backwards--or which according to
+their ideas we do backwards. I suppose that every traveller in Japan has
+kept some such record. My list, beginning with the observation that
+their books commence at what we call the back, that the lines of type
+run down the page instead of across, and that "foot-notes" are printed
+at the top of the page, soon grew to considerable proportions. Almost
+every day I had been able to add an item or two, and every time I did so
+I found myself playing with the fancy that such contrarieties ought in
+some way to be associated with the fact that we stand foot-to-foot with
+the Japanese upon the globe.
+
+The Japanese method of beckoning would, to us, signify "go away"; boats
+are beached stem foremost; horses are backed into their stalls; sawing
+and planing are accomplished with a pulling instead of a driving motion;
+keys turn in their locks in a reverse direction from that customary with
+us. In the Japanese game of _Go_, played on a sort of checkerboard, the
+pieces are placed not within the squares but over the points of linear
+intersection. During the day Japanese houses, with their sliding walls
+of wood and paper, are wide open, but at night they are enclosed with
+solid board shutters and people sleep practically without ventilation.
+At the door of a theatre or a restaurant the Japanese check their shoes
+instead of their hats; their sweets, if they come at all, are served
+early in the meal instead of toward the end; men do their _saké_
+drinking before rather than after the meal, and instead of icing the
+national beverage they heat it in a kettle. Action in the theatre is
+modelled not on life but on the movements of dolls in marionette shows,
+and in the classic _No_ drama the possibility of showing emotion by
+facial expression is eliminated by the use of carved wooden masks.
+
+ [Illustration: Sawing and planing are accomplished with a
+ pulling instead of a driving motion]
+
+Instead of slipping her thread through the eye of her needle a Japanese
+woman slips the eye of her needle over the point of her thread; she
+reckons her child one year old on the day it is born and two years old
+on the following New Year's Day. Thus, when an American child born on
+December thirty-first is counted one _day_ old, a Japanese child born on
+the same day is counted two _years_ old.
+
+Once when I was dining at the house of a Japanese family who had resided
+for years in New York, their little daughter came into the room. Hearing
+her speaking English, I asked:
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Five and six," she answered. Then she added, by way of explanation,
+that five was her "American age" and six her "Japanese age."
+
+Old age is accepted gracefully in Japan, and is, moreover, highly
+honoured. Often you will find men and women actually looking forward to
+their declining years, knowing that they will be kindly and respectfully
+treated and that their material needs will be looked after by their
+families. Old gentlemen and ladies are pleased at being called
+grandfather and grandmother--_o-ji-san_ and _oba san_--by those who know
+them well, and elderly unmarried women like similarly to be called _oba
+san_--aunt. The same terms are also used in speaking to aged servants
+and peasants whom one does not know, but to whom one wishes to show
+amiability.
+
+The duty of the younger to the older members of a family does not stop
+with near relatives, but includes remote ones, wherefore poorhouses have
+until quite recently been considered unnecessary.
+
+It seems to me that one of the most striking differences between the two
+nations is revealed in the attitude of Japanese school and college boys.
+Instead of killing themselves at play--at football and in automobile
+accidents--as is the way of our student class, Japanese boys not
+infrequently undermine their health by overstudy, and now and then one
+hears that a student, having failed to pass his examinations, has thrown
+himself over the Falls of Kegon at Nikko. Undoubtedly there is a morbid
+strain in the Japanese nature. Translations of the works of unwholesome
+European authors have a large sale in Japan, and suicides are by no
+means confined to the student class. Poisoning, and plunging before an
+oncoming locomotive are favourite methods of self-destruction. Once when
+I was riding on an express train I felt the emergency brakes go on
+suddenly. A moment after we had stopped I saw a woman running rapidly
+away on a banked path between two flooded rice-fields with a couple of
+trainmen in pursuit. They caught her, but after a few minutes' agitated
+talk during which they shook her by the sleeves as though for emphasis,
+let her go. We were told that the engineman had seen her sitting on the
+track. Two or three days later I read in a newspaper that a woman had
+committed suicide beneath a train at about the place where I witnessed
+this episode. Her husband, the paper said, had deserted her. I suppose
+it was the same woman.
+
+Another curious inversion is to be found in the Japanese point of view
+concerning woman's dress--and undress. I have been told that our style
+of evening gown, revealing shoulders, arms and ankles (to state the
+matter mildly), does not strike the Japanese as modest. Certainly the
+mandate of the Japanese Imperial Court is not the same as that of the
+French _modiste_ (how curiously and inappropriately the word suggests
+our word "moddest"!) for whereas, at the time of writing, the latter
+decrees skirts of hardly more than knee length, the former decrees, for
+ladies being presented at court, skirts that touch the ground.
+Considering the foregoing facts it is, however, somewhat perplexing to
+the Occidental mind to find that men and women often dress and undress,
+in Japanese inns, with their bedroom shoji wide open, and that
+furthermore they meet in the bath without, apparently, the least
+embarrassment.
+
+Like the English, the Japanese are persistent bathers, but whereas the
+English take cold baths the Japanese bathe in water so hot that we could
+hardly stand it. And when they have bathed they dry themselves with a
+small, damp towel, which they use as a sort of mop.
+
+Also like the English they drive to the left of the road. There is much
+to be said for that, but some of their other customs of the road
+surprise one. Wherever they have not been "civilized" out of their
+native courtesy you will find that one chauffeur dislikes to overtake
+and pass another. Surely to an American this is an inversion! When a
+procession of automobiles is going along a road and one of them is for
+some reason required to stop, the cars which follow do not blow their
+horns and dash by in delight and a cloud of dust, but draw up behind the
+stationary car; and if it becomes necessary for them to go on, the
+chauffeurs who do so apologize for passing. This custom, which is dying
+out, comes, I fancy, from that of ricksha-men, who never overtake and
+pass each other on the road, but always fall in behind the slowest
+runner, getting their pace from him, protecting him against the
+complaints which his passenger would make if others were continually
+coming up behind and going by.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Of all differences, however, none is more pronounced than that of
+language. Instead of a simple alphabet like ours, the fairly educated
+Japanese must know two or three thousand Chinese ideographs, and a
+highly cultivated person will know several thousand more. To be sure,
+there is a simple way of writing by a phonetic system, not unlike
+shorthand, which is called _kana_. Every Japanese can read kana, which
+is sometimes also mastered by foreigners long resident in Japan. There
+are but forty-eight characters in kana, and as the characters have in
+themselves no meaning, but signify only a set of sounds, they can be
+used to write English names as well as Japanese words. My own name is
+written in kana characters having the following sounds:
+_Su-t[=o]-rii-t[=o]_--which being spoken in swift succession produce a
+sound not unlike "Street."
+
+ [Illustration: su
+
+ t[=o]
+
+ ri
+
+ a character denoting
+ that the preceding
+ syllable is
+ long
+
+ t[=o]
+
+ Dono or Esquire--a
+ Chinese character]
+
+The Chinese ideographs used by the Japanese have the same forms as the
+characters used in China, but are pronounced in an entirely different
+way, so that the Japanese and Chinese can read each other's writing, yet
+cannot talk together. Books and newspapers published in Japan are
+printed in a mixture of Chinese characters and kana, and there is,
+moreover, beside each Chinese character in newspapers a tiny line of
+kana giving the sound of the word represented. In this way a reader of
+newspapers gets continual instruction in the written language and
+finally comes to know the most frequently used words from the
+ideographs, without referring to the kana interpretation. Thus there are
+actually two ways of reading a Japanese paper. A thoroughly educated man
+reads the ideographs, while a poorly educated one reads the kana, which
+gives him the sound of a word that he knows by ear, though he does not
+know it by sight when it is written in the classic character. These
+conditions, of course, eliminate the use of our sort of typewriter,
+though there is an extremely complicated and slow Japanese typewriter
+which is used chiefly where carbon copies are required. Also, they
+render the use of the linotype impracticable, and make hand-typesetting
+an extremely complicated trade. The difficulty of learning the Chinese
+characters, moreover, makes it necessary for students to remain in
+school and college several years longer than is the case with us. There
+is a movement on foot to Romanize the Japanese language, just as in this
+country there is a movement to adopt the metric system; but practical
+though such improvements would be in both cases, the realization of them
+is, I fear, far distant, because of the difficulties involved in making
+the change. And, indeed, from the standpoint of picturesqueness, I
+should be sorry to see the Chinese characters discarded, for they are
+fascinating not only in form but by reason of the very fact that we
+never, by any chance, know what they mean.
+
+The Japanese write with a brush dipped in water and rubbed on a stick of
+India-ink; they seem to push the brush, writing with little jabs,
+instead of drawing it after the hand, even though they write down the
+column. Calligraphy is with them a fine art; and beautiful brushwork,
+such as we look for in a masterly painting, is a mark of cultivation.
+Because of their drilling with the brush almost all educated Japanese
+can draw pictures. Short poems and aphorisms written in large characters
+by famous men are mounted on gold mats and hung like paintings in the
+homes of those so fortunate as to possess them. A scription from the
+hand of General Count Nogi or Prince Ito would be treasured by a
+Japanese as we would treasure one from the hand of Lincoln or
+Roosevelt--possibly even more so, for where a letter from one of our
+great men has a sentimental and historical value, a piece of writing
+from one of their great men has these values plus the merit of being a
+work of art. Such bits of writing bring large prices when put up at
+auction, and forgeries are not uncommon.
+
+In its structure the Japanese language is the antithesis of ours.
+Lafcadio Hearn declares that no adult Occidental can perfectly master
+it. "Could you learn all the words in the Japanese dictionary," he
+writes, "your acquisition would not help you in the least to make
+yourself understood in speaking, unless you learned also to think like a
+Japanese--that is to say, to think backward, to think upside down and
+inside out, to think in directions totally foreign to Aryan habit."
+
+The simplest English sentence translated word for word into Japanese
+would be meaningless, and the simplest Japanese sentence, translated
+into English, equally so. To illustrate, I choose at random from my
+phrase book: "Please write the address in Japanese." The translation is
+given as: _Doka Nihon no moji de tokoro wo kaite kudasai_. But that
+sentence translated back into English, word for word, gives this result:
+"Of beseeching Japan of words with a place write please." And there is
+one word, _wo_, which is untranslatable, being a particle which,
+following the word _tokoro_, "a place," indicates it as the object of
+the verb.
+
+I shall mention but one more inversion. The Japanese use no profanity.
+If they wish to be insulting or abusive they omit the customary
+honorifics from their speech, or else go to the opposite extreme,
+inserting honorifics in a manner so elaborate as to convey derision.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Numerous and curious though these reversals be, they are but the merest
+surface ripples upon the deep, dark, pool of Japanese thought and
+custom.
+
+At first I did not quite grasp this fact. In my early days in Japan,
+when I was asking questions about everything, it sometimes looked to me
+as if the average Japanese was constitutionally unable to give a direct
+and simple answer to a direct and simple question, and my first
+impression was that this was due to some peculiarity of the far-famed
+Oriental Mind. But that impression soon changed--so much so that I am
+now disposed to doubt that such a thing as the Oriental Mind exists in
+Japan, if by that term is meant a mental fabric constitutionally
+different from that of Occidental peoples. That is to say, I believe the
+average Japanese child starts out in life with about the same
+intellectual potentialities as the average American, English, French or
+Italian child, and that differences which develop as the child grows
+older are not differences in mental texture, but only in the mental
+pattern produced by environment. My contention is not that Japanese
+brains are never imperfect or peculiar, but that their imperfections and
+peculiarities are precisely those found everywhere else in the world.
+And the same rule applies, of course, when one compares the great
+intellects of Japan with the great intellects of other nations. At
+bottom we are much more of a piece with the Japanese than either they or
+we generally suppose. The differences between us, aside from those of
+colour, size, and physiognomy, are almost entirely the result of our
+opposite training and customs and the effect of these upon our
+respective modes of thought. Neither nation has a corner on brains nor
+on the lack of them.
+
+In a hotel in Kobe a lady of my acquaintance ordered orange juice for
+breakfast. The Japanese "boy"--waiters and stewards are all "boys" in
+the Far East--presently returned to say that there was no orange juice
+to be had that morning. But he added that he could bring oranges if she
+so desired.
+
+The Oriental Mind? Not at all. The Orient has no monopoly of stupid
+waiters. The same thing might have happened in our own country or
+another. And that is the test we should apply to every incident which we
+are inclined to attribute to some basic mental difference between the
+Orientals and ourselves.
+
+_Granted the same background, could not this thing have happened in an
+Occidental country?_
+
+Never, in Japan, was I able to answer that test question with a final,
+confident "No."
+
+Sometimes, however, I thought I was going to be able to.
+
+One day on the Ginza, the chief shopping street of Tokyo, I saw a
+well-dressed young lady strolling along the walk with her long,
+beautiful hair hanging down her back, and false hair dangling from her
+hand. She was evidently returning from the hairdresser's where she had
+been for a shampoo. The situation, from my point of view, was precisely
+as if I had seen a similar spectacle on Fifth Avenue. But when I spoke
+about it to Yuki, who besides being our maid was our guide, philosopher,
+and friend, she assured me that the young lady was quite within the
+bounds of custom.
+
+"We Japanese no think it shame to have false hair," she said.
+
+Once I thought I had the Oriental Mind fairly cornered, and had I not
+later chanced to discover my mistake I should probably be thinking so
+still.
+
+I was driving in an automobile with a Japanese gentleman, a director in
+a large pharmaceutical company. Parenthetically, I may say that he had
+been telling me how, when his company bought three hundred thousand
+_hectares_ of land in Peru, for the purpose of raising plants from which
+some of their products are manufactured, the anti-Japanese press of the
+United States took up the story, falsely declaring that here was a great
+emigration scheme backed by the Japanese Government. But that is by the
+way.
+
+Presently we came to a place where a large building was being erected.
+The framework was already standing and was surrounded by screens of
+split bamboo which were attached to the scaffolding. Having noticed
+other buildings similarly screened, I asked about the matter.
+
+"Ah," said the gentleman, "the screens are to prevent the people on the
+streets from seeing what is going on inside."
+
+"But what goes on inside that they ought not to see?" I asked,
+mystified.
+
+My informant gazed at me gravely for a moment through his large round
+spectacles. Then he said, as it seemed to me cryptically: "It is not
+thought best for the people to see too much."
+
+I pondered this answer for a moment, then noted it down in my little
+book, adding the memorandum: "The Oriental Mind!"
+
+Doubtless I should now be making weird deductions from that brown-eyed
+gentleman's explanation of the screens, had I not chanced to mention the
+matter to another Japanese with whom I was more intimately acquainted.
+
+"But that is not correct," he said, smiling. "The screens are not there
+to prevent people from seeing in, but to prevent things from falling on
+their heads as they pass by."
+
+The bamboo screens, in other words, served precisely the protective
+purpose of the wooden sheds we erect over sidewalks before buildings in
+process of construction. The pharmaceutical gentleman did not know what
+they were for, just as we do not know the uses of a great many things we
+see daily on the streets of cities in which we live; he was anxious to
+be helpful to me; he did not wish to fail to answer any question I might
+ask him; so he guessed, and guessed wrong. But as any reporter can tell
+you, the practice of passing out the results of guessing in the guise of
+accurate information is by no means exclusively a Japanese practice.
+Reporters sometimes guess at things themselves, but that is not what I
+mean. I mean that a conscientious reporter now and then finds himself
+deceived by misinformation coming from some source he had supposed
+reliable.
+
+In writing about American towns and cities I have more than once been so
+deceived. An old inhabitant of Colorado told me that the altitude of
+Cripple Creek was so great that cats could not live there. Later,
+however, I learned that cats can perfectly well live in Cripple Creek
+despite the altitude. Indeed some cats having but little regard for the
+character of their surroundings do live there. It is only the more
+critical cats who cannot stand the place.
+
+Every American knows that he could be asked questions about his own
+country and its ways which he could not answer accurately offhand, but
+in a foreign land he expects every resident of that land to be able to
+explain anything and everything. I wonder if the Japanese expect as much
+of us when they question us.
+
+"Why do you say 'Dear me!'?" I once heard a Japanese gentleman inquire
+of an American lady. And though the lady explained why she said "Dear
+me!" I doubt that the Japanese gentleman was able to understand. I know
+that I was not.
+
+Another Japanese who had been in New York wished to know why we called a
+building in which there were no flowers "Madison Square _Garden_," and
+why ladies called a certain garment, once generally worn by them, a
+"petti_coat_," although it is distinctly not a coat, but a skirt.
+
+My answers to these questions were, to put it mildly, vague, and I
+suppose my questioner said to himself as he listened to me:
+
+"Ah, the Occidental Mind! How curiously it works!"
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ _Interlocking Ideas--Customs and Symbolism--Simplicity versus
+ Complexity--Flower Arrangement--Teaism--The Egg-Shaped God--The
+ Feudal Era--Ceremonial Tea--Household Decoration--Keys to
+ Japan--The Seven Blind Men_
+
+
+When I had been several weeks in Japan, striving continually to gain
+some comprehension of the people and their ways, I began to feel a
+little bit discouraged. Never had I been so fascinated by a foreign
+land. Never in so short a time had I seen and heard so much that was new
+and strange and charming. Yet never had my observations been so
+fragmentary, so puzzling. My notebooks made me think of travelling-bags
+packed with unrelated articles of clothing. With the stockings belonging
+to one theme I had, as it were, packed the shoes of another. Here was a
+full dress coat; here a pair of overalls. Nothing was complete and no
+two things seemed to match. I could help to dress an army of ideas, but
+I wondered if I could fully clothe one.
+
+I kept asking questions, but frequently the answers led me far afield,
+and were incomplete and unsatisfactory.
+
+After a time, however, I began to understand why a Japanese so often
+fails to give a simple and direct answer to a simple and direct question
+about things Japanese. It is because, in many instances, no such answer
+is possible. Nor is this impossibility due to any mental kink in the
+Japanese of whom the question is asked. It is due to the fact that the
+thing asked about is not a simple, self-contained unit, but is a minute
+part of some great mass of thought or custom which must be in a general
+way understood before any single detail of it can be understood. It is
+as though you were to ask a question about a coloured pebble only to
+find yourself thereby involved with cosmos.
+
+Japan is a land of customs. Her customs are based on principles which
+are rooted in traditions, which in turn frequently rest upon foundations
+of history, religion, superstition, or perhaps a mythology involving all
+three. Thus it often seems that every little word and act of a Japanese
+can be accounted for in some curious, complex yet essentially logical
+manner--that every thought in the Japanese mind has, so to speak, a
+genealogy, which, like the genealogy of the Japanese Imperial Family,
+reaches back into the mists of antiquity. Symbolism, moreover, plays an
+immense part in the daily life of Japan, and this fact enormously
+complicates matters for the foreigner who aspires to understand the
+country and the people. These are some of the reasons why in an article
+recently written for a magazine, I called Japan "The Isles of
+Complexities."
+
+Yet when I mentioned the title of that article to an American friend who
+has lived for many years in Japan, he wrote me that he considered it a
+misnomer.
+
+"I should call Japan 'The Isles of Simplicities,'" he declared, "just
+because life there is so different from life in our own artificial
+civilization. I am speaking particularly of our false modesty as
+compared with the more natural ideas of the Japanese concerning natural
+functions and unnatural emotions--or emotions unnaturally excited. If
+you will get down to fundamentals I think you will find that we are the
+complex people and they the simple people. Can you, for instance,
+project yourself into the mind of a Martian visiting this earth for the
+first time, taking a trip through the dance-halls, cabarets, and
+midnight frolics of New York and Chicago, then going to Japan and seeing
+the class of entertainment there provided for natives and foreigners
+alike? Let such an unprejudiced outsider watch the street scenes of
+Japan, note the frank customs of the people, including those revealed in
+the community baths, and I think he would say the Japanese are
+essentially simple as compared with us, that they are purer in thought
+and action, and (though I know I am inviting contradiction) that they
+have on the average a higher sense of real morality."
+
+My friend makes out a good case and I agree with much that he says, but
+he is thinking along one line while I am thinking along another. He is
+thinking of the outward simplicities of Japanese life, while I am
+thinking of its inward complexities, especially with regard to the
+relation of one fact to another--I might almost say of every fact to
+every other fact.
+
+Let me illustrate:
+
+That grouping of flowers in a bamboo vase, which you find so satisfying,
+is not the result of any fancy of the moment, but is the product of an
+elaborate art, dating back at least five centuries. Flower Arrangement
+is a part of the curriculum of girls' schools and is one of the
+accomplishments of every lady. Hundreds of books have been written on
+the art and there are thousands of professional teachers of it. It has,
+you are informed, a philosophy of its own. Confucianism is invoked. The
+Universe is represented by three sprays of different height--an effect
+often found also in plantings in Japanese gardens. The tallest spray,
+standing in the middle, symbolizes Heaven; the shortest, Earth; the
+intermediate, Man. There may be five, seven or nine sprays, but the
+principle of Heaven, Earth and Man must be preserved. There must never
+be an even number of sprays, and four is a number to be avoided above
+all others, since _shi_, the Japanese word for "four", also means
+"death."
+
+Significance likewise attaches to the species of blooms and branches
+used. The plum blossom, which is sent to brides, symbolizes purity, and
+also, because it flowers when snow is on the ground, stands for courage
+in adversity.
+
+But just when you begin to flatter yourself that you have acquired some
+understanding of Flower Arrangement you meet some one who does not
+follow the tenets of the particular school of Flower Arrangement you
+have heard about--which, let us say, is the popular Ikenobo school--but
+believes in the teachings of the Enshiu school, the Koriu school, or the
+Nagéire--"thrown in"--school. Or perhaps he favours the kindred art
+called Morimono--"things-piled-up"--which deals with compositions of
+fruit and vegetables; or the Morihana school, which applies the
+"things-piled-up" principle to flowers; or that other kindred art which
+teaches the making of "tray landscapes"--pictures drawn on the flat
+surface of a tray in pebbles and various kinds of sand.
+
+The essential point in all Flower Arrangement is that there shall be
+form and balance, yet that the composition shall not be perfectly
+symmetrical, as perfect symmetry is not found in nature. In order to
+attain the desired effects the flower-stalks and branches used are
+carefully bent and twisted, and this work is done with such delicacy and
+dexterity as to conceal the fact that their forms have been altered by
+artificial means. I have seen a Flower Master make waterlilies stand
+upright on their stalks by forcing water up through the stalks with a
+syringe. He then set them on one of those flat metal flower-holders we
+have lately been learning to use in this country, so arranging them in a
+shallow bowl that there was an open space between the stems, which he
+said was "for the fish to swim through"--though the fish was in this
+case purely a creature of his imagination.
+
+Many methods of making flowers draw water are also taught. Especially in
+the case of chrysanthemums, the ends of the stalks are burned; the end
+of a hardwood branch is often crushed so that it admits water more
+freely; certain flowers are put in hot water; others are dipped in a
+solution of strong tea and pepper.
+
+The origin of Flower Arrangement is traced by Okakura to a time when
+ancient Buddhist saints "gathered the flowers strewn by the storm and,
+in their infinite solicitude for all living things, placed them in
+vessels of water." We are told that Soami, a painter of the Ashikaga
+period, was an adept, and that Juko the Tea Master was his pupil. Flower
+Arrangement thus became a recognized art in the fifteenth century,
+albeit not an independent art, since it was at first a branch of Teaism.
+
+Teaism? They tell you you cannot understand Flower Arrangement unless
+you also understand Teaism. What is Teaism?
+
+Here is unfolded to you a further range for study. You knew, of course,
+that the first thing which happens when you pay a call in Japan, be it a
+business or social call, is the arrival of a cup of clear Japan tea, and
+that the second and third things which happen are the arrival of the
+second and third cups. You knew that the tea of Japan is green tea, and
+that it is taken without cream or sugar from cups having no handles. You
+knew, perhaps, that such tea is made with hot--_not_ boiling--water. But
+were you aware that tea is in its highest sense not a beverage, but a
+creed, a ritual, a philosophy?
+
+The discovery of the brew is said to have been made by the Chinese
+Emperor Chinnung, in the year 2737 B.C., but the mythology of Buddhism
+traces the creation of the tea-bush itself to the diverting god
+Daruma--that amusing egg-shaped fellow often represented in a child's
+toy which, when pushed over, persists in rolling back to an upright
+position, thereby symbolizing unflagging aspiration. "Down seven
+times--up eight times," the Japanese say of Daruma.
+
+Having meditated day and night for weeks, Daruma fell asleep. On
+awakening he was so vexed with his drowsy eyelids that he cut them off
+and flung them to the ground, where they sprouted into plants from the
+leaves of which a sleep-destroying beverage might be made.
+
+The seeds of the tea-plant were brought to Japan from China in the year
+805 A.D., but the initiation of the habit of tea-drinking is generally
+dated from the time, about four centuries later, when the priest Eisai,
+of the Zen sect of Buddhists--a favourite sect among artists and
+tea-drinkers to this day--wrote a treatise on "The Salutary Influence of
+Tea-Drinking," which he presented, along with a cup of tea, to one of
+the early _shoguns_, who was ill. Thus tea was first taken as a medicine
+"to regulate the five viscera and expel evil spirits."
+
+Not long after this we find the drinking of tea becoming a pastime of
+the nobility, and by degrees we see the development of aesthetic
+practices in connection with it. Art objects were displayed when people
+met for tea; sumptuous tea-parties were given by _daimyos_, and one
+writer tells us that there came a period of decadence in the Feudal Era
+when warriors would lay down the sword in favour of the teapot, and die
+cup in hand when their castles were taken by their enemies.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Let me digress here to speak briefly of the Feudal Era, the most
+interesting era of Japanese history. It lasted from the twelfth to the
+middle of the nineteenth century--that is, throughout the period during
+which Japan was ruled not by its Emperors, but by several successive
+families of shoguns, or as for reasons given later they were sometimes
+called, _tycoons_. Though the shoguns usurped Imperial power it is a
+noteworthy fact that they did not usurp the throne itself nor attempt to
+destroy the Imperial family, but were content to keep the successive
+emperors in a state of impotence. Under the shoguns were the daimyos,
+powerful feudal lords acting in effect as provincial governors; and each
+daimyo had his _samurai_, or fighting men, holding rank in several
+grades. There was also a class of samurai known as _ronin_ who
+acknowledged no lord as their master, but were independent fighters and
+trouble-makers. I give this outline because these various terms confused
+me at first. There was but one shogun at a time; the daimyos numbered
+between two and three hundred, and it has been estimated that there were
+some two million samurai. With a very few exceptions--among them rich
+farmers and swordmakers--no one below the rank of samurai could wear a
+sword. The sword-wearing class was the ruling class, and ordinary
+workers were regarded as of little consequence. A samurai could strike
+down with his sword any plebeian who jostled him by accident, or who as
+much as looked at him in a manner which he found distasteful.
+
+The rank of samurai corresponded with that of knights in feudal Europe,
+and Japanese families who are descended from samurai are proud of the
+fact, precisely as some European families, and indeed some American
+families, are proud of having sprung from knightly forbears.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But to return to our tea. A Zen priest named Shuko is said to have
+originated the idea of associating with the habit of tea-drinking the
+cultivation of "the four virtues"--urbanity, purity, courtesy, and
+imperturbability--and this conception, originating about the middle of
+the fifteenth century, is to this day a tradition of the Tea Ceremony,
+or _cha-no-yu_.
+
+The great soldiers Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, chief figures of the latter
+half of the sixteenth century, were addicts of the Tea Ceremony. It was
+Hideyoshi who caused the Tea Master, Sen-no-Rikyu, to consider the
+various schools of Ceremonial Tea which had developed, and codify them.
+
+The keynote of the ceremony prescribed by Sen-no-Rikyu was "simplicity"
+of a most elaborate kind. There must be a special teahouse in the
+garden--though in recent times a special tearoom in the house is
+considered adequate. The teahouse was required to be small. Its exact
+dimensions were given, down even to the height of the doorway, which was
+so low as to compel guests to enter with bowed heads. The house must be
+simple in the extreme, yet built of the choicest woods. The character of
+the tea equipment was specified, as was the nature of the decorations.
+
+This was where Flower Arrangement originally came in. A _kakemono_--one
+of those Oriental paintings mounted on a vertical panel of silk arranged
+to roll up on a cylindrical piece of wood and ivory attached to its
+lower margin--must hang in the shallow alcove which is the place of
+honour in every Japanese room; and beneath the kakemono must be
+displayed an object of art or an arrangement of flowers having a certain
+relationship to the painting.
+
+For example, if the painting be that of a lion the suitable flower to be
+displayed beneath it is the peony, because the lion is the king of
+beasts and the peony the king of flowers. This is merely one simple
+instance of an artistic association of ideas, infinite in number and
+sometimes complicated in character. Yet these decorative affinities are
+understood not only by the highly educated Japanese, but by a large
+proportion of the people--for the feeling for art is, I believe,
+distributed more widely amongst the people of Japan than amongst those
+of any other nation. The Japanese do not jam their homes with furniture
+and decorations as we so often do, but exhibit their art treasures a few
+at a time, keeping most of them put away. It is said that Japanese rooms
+look bare to the average foreigner. To me, however, their rooms do not
+look bare, but have an air of exquisite refinement seldom found in an
+American or English room.
+
+Some Americans who have learned to appreciate the Japanese idea of
+decoration, and who imitate it superficially, nevertheless achieve
+assemblages of art objects which, because of the lack of relationship
+between them, offend the trained Japanese eye precisely as a discord
+offends a trained musical ear. As Chamberlain points out, the Japanese
+have few mere "patterns." They don't make "fancy figures" merely for the
+sake of covering up a surface. Their decoration means something--as
+indeed decoration has in its highest periods in all countries.
+
+There have been many Tea Masters since Sen-no-Rikyu, and the names of
+not a few of them are remembered to this day with veneration. The chief
+treasure of a friend of mine in Tokyo is a little teahouse, standing in
+his garden, which belonged some three hundred years ago to
+Kobori-Enshiu, Tea Master to the third Tokugawa shogun. If you would
+know how such associations are valued in Japan, go to an auction when
+some piece of Ceremonial Tea equipment, once the property of a famous
+Tea Master, is coming up for sale.
+
+Ceremonial Tea has practically nothing to do with ordinary tea-drinking.
+The very tea used for the purpose is not like other tea. It comes in the
+form of fine green powder which is placed in a special sort of bowl in a
+special sort of way, whereafter water of exactly the right temperature
+and quantity is added, and the mixture is whipped to a creamy froth with
+a tiny bamboo brush, manipulated in a special manner. Great stress is
+laid upon the frame of mind brought into the tearoom, as well as on the
+etiquette and technique governing every detail connected with the making
+and drinking of the tea. The bowl is passed and received according to
+exact rules, and there is profound bowing back and forth. First it
+circulates as a loving-cup amongst the guests; later a special bowl is
+served to each in turn. On accepting the bowl the guest revolves it
+gently in both hands; then with as much of the calm dignity of a Zen
+Buddhist as he is able to exhibit, he raises it and takes a large sip.
+Removing the bowl from his lips he pauses meditatively; then repeats the
+process. Etiquette demands that when three large sips have been taken
+there shall remain in the bowl enough tea to make a small sip. In
+disposing of this final draught great gusto must be shown. The head is
+thrown back in indication of eagerness to drain the last drop, and the
+tea is drawn into the mouth with a sucking sound which advertises the
+delight of the drinker.
+
+ [Illustration: Nor is the potency of Ceremonial Tea diminished
+ by the fact that it is served by a lovely little Japanese hand]
+
+The second night afterward he may be able to sleep. Ceremonial Tea is
+potent. Nor is its potency diminished by the fact that the hand which
+makes and serves it is a characteristically exquisite little Japanese
+hand, set off by the long soft sleeve of a flowered silk kimono.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Obviously you cannot understand Japan without understanding the Japanese
+woman--the nation's crowning glory. But as Lafcadio Hearn tells you, she
+is not to be understood without an understanding of the organization of
+Japanese society, which in turn, is not to be understood without a
+comprehension of Shintoism, the State religion.
+
+Everyone has a prescription for understanding Japan. One friend told me
+I could never understand it until I had grasped the attitude of the
+people toward the Imperial House. But that is only another way of saying
+that Shintoism must be understood. Many, naturally, speak of Buddhism.
+Others mention the feudal system, with its clan loyalty, as the
+touchstone, and still others assured me that a knowledge of the Tea
+Ceremony and the No drama were essential.
+
+"Fujiyama is the key-note of Japan," wrote Kipling. "When you understand
+the one you are in position to learn something about the other." Sir
+Charles Eliot, long before he became British Ambassador at Tokyo, wrote
+that it is hopeless to attempt to understand Japan without first
+recognizing "the peculiar spirituality of the Japanese"; but there are
+not wanting others to deny the existence of any such spirituality as Sir
+Charles describes, and who, instead, harp upon the alleged Prussianism
+of Japan as explaining everything.
+
+Doctor Nitobé, the gifted Japanese author, who, like Okakura, writes
+delightfully in English, gives us as the key to Japan the doctrine of
+_bushido_, or "military knight ways"; but again there are students of
+Japan who affirm that the system of practical ethics attributed by the
+doctor's patriotic pen to the samurai of old, would astound those
+doughty warriors could they hear of it. The book "Bushido," declare
+these critics, is less a key to Japan than to Doctor Nitobé.
+
+Is not the interdependence of facts, of which I spoke earlier,
+illustrated in the trend of this chapter, all of which, remember, grew
+out of a discussion of a bunch of flowers in a bamboo vase? Do you see
+why I called Japan "The Isles of Complexities"? And do you see that I
+might also call it "The Isles of Contradictions"?
+
+Perhaps you will not be surprised, then, at my confession that after
+having spent several weeks in Japan I found myself fascinated but also
+puzzled. Why, I asked myself, had I so gaily set forth under an
+agreement to write about Japan? Why hadn't I made it a mere pleasure
+trip? For it is one thing to see and be satisfied with seeing, and quite
+another to attempt interpretation.
+
+It has often been said that if a man stays in Japan six or eight weeks
+he can write a book about it; that if he stays a year or two he may
+write a single article for a magazine; but that if he stays several
+years he will be afraid to write at all.
+
+"To get the Japanese background," one friend told me, "you ought to have
+a month or two in Korea, and at least a year in China. Then you should
+come back and rent a house and live in Japanese fashion for a while."
+
+"Say about two hundred years?" I suggested.
+
+My friend smiled.
+
+"One hundred and fifty years might do," he said, "if you made every
+minute count."
+
+Then, perhaps because he read in my face the signs of my discouragement,
+he reminded me of an old fable:
+
+ Seven blind men went to "see" an elephant. One of them, bumping
+ into the great beast's side, said, "Here is a creature
+ resembling a wall." Another, feeling the trunk, likened the
+ elephant to a serpent; another, touching a tusk, announced that
+ the animal resembled a spear; and still another, grasping an
+ ear, compared the elephant to a large leaf. The one who got hold
+ of the tail likened it to a rope, while he who embraced a leg
+ thought of a tree, and he who crawled over the back declared
+ that an elephant resembled a hill.
+
+There in a paragraph you have Japan and her interpreters.
+
+
+
+
+ PART II
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ _The Lyric Impulse--A Man-Made Product--The Remoteness of Woman
+ Suffrage--Efforts Toward Progress--Divorce--Marriage and the
+ Go-Between--The Rising Generation--Japanese-American
+ Duality--Leprosy_
+
+
+Lafcadio Hearn tells us that training in the Tea Ceremony "is held to be
+a training in politeness, in self-control, in delicacy--a discipline in
+deportment"; but Jakichi Inouye, a searching and sincere Japanese
+writer, goes even further, declaring that "the calm, sedate gracefulness
+of the Japanese lady of culture is the result of the study of the Tea
+Ceremony...."
+
+My one quarrel with Mr. Inouye is over that statement. To say that the
+study of the Tea Ceremony assists young ladies to attain poise is safe
+enough; but to say that the fine bearing of the Japanese lady is _the
+result_ of studying the Tea Ceremony seems to me to be going altogether
+too far.
+
+The bearing of the Japanese lady is a thing too exquisite to have been
+produced by the practice of any artificial social ritual. Such a bearing
+is not, in my opinion, to be classed as a mere accomplishment, though it
+may have been so a thousand years ago. Rather it is the reflection of an
+incomparably lovely spirit, the flower of countless generations of such
+spirits, reaching back through ages of tradition, centuries of
+self-abnegation. It is the crowning product and proof, not of any Tea
+Ceremony, but of the disciplined civilization of Old Japan.
+
+Whenever I find my thoughts reverting to the Japanese woman, I feel
+stirring within me a tendency to lyricism. Let Lafcadio Hearn, whose
+wife was a Japanese lady, speak for me. "Before this ethical creation,"
+he writes, "criticism should hold its breath; for there is here no
+single fault save the fault of a moral charm unsuited to any world of
+selfishness and struggle.... Perhaps no such type of woman will appear
+again in this world for a hundred thousand years: the conditions of
+industrial civilization will not admit of her existence."
+
+The fact that the Japanese woman is in no small degree a man-made
+product does not fill me with admiration for Japanese men, as would some
+insentient product of their art. For whereas the artist has a right to
+carve what he will in wood or ivory or lacquer, to mould what he will in
+wax or clay or bronze, I doubt his moral right to use the human soul as
+a medium for his craftsmanship in making an ornament for his own home,
+however exquisite that ornament may be.
+
+I am well aware that in this case the end may be said to justify the
+means, but I am enough of an individualist to believe in our American
+system, even though I must admit that it has not produced so sweet and
+delicate an average of womanhood as has the Japanese system. Women as we
+produce them exhibit a much wider range of types than may be found in
+Japan, and though a vulgar American woman, be she rich or poor, attains
+a degree of vulgarity such as is not even faintly approximated in Japan,
+we also know that we produce types of women as fine as the world can
+show. And while I cannot speak with absolute certainty of the
+intellectual attainments of Japanese women, I am inclined to think that
+our more liberal attitude toward the sex, the greater freedom of
+companionship between American women and men, and the growth of the
+American woman's interest and share in public matters may tend to make
+her, at her best, a more completely satisfying comrade--not because her
+brains are necessarily better brains than those of the women of Japan,
+or of other countries, but because she has been encouraged to exercise
+them in a larger way.
+
+From my point of view, however, the basic question here is not the
+question of which system produces the highest specimens of womanhood,
+but that of the inherent right of the individual to develop, let the
+results be what they may.
+
+The Japanese woman is not allowed this freedom, since it is obviously to
+the interest of the Japanese man to keep her as she is. Lately there has
+been some agitation in Japan for what is called "universal suffrage,"
+but it must not be supposed that by that term woman suffrage is meant.
+The proposal involves only the extension of the ballot to all males, as
+against the present system which requires that a man shall pay taxes
+above a certain amount in order to have a vote. Woman suffrage is not
+even in sight. When I was in Japan a few progressive women were asking,
+not for the vote, but for the abrogation of the rule which denied their
+sex the right to attend political meetings. They were successful. The
+rule was recently abrogated. A movement had also been started by some
+advanced women led by Mrs. Raicho Hiratsuka, for laws compelling men who
+wish to marry to obtain medical certificates declaring them mentally
+sound and free from diseases of a kind likely to be communicated to a
+wife. I heard that seventy out of three hundred girls employed by the
+railway administration in Kyoto had organized an association to aid in
+the advancement of the measures proposed, vowing never to marry unless
+their would-be husbands complied with the requirements for which Mrs.
+Raicho Hiratsuka and her associates were endeavouring to obtain legal
+recognition.
+
+Another matter that wants mending is the legal status of married women.
+So far as I know there has been made no serious effort to improve the
+present situation. Under Japanese law a woman, upon contracting
+marriage, is debarred from civil rights, having practically the standing
+of a minor. A wife cannot transfer her own real estate, bring an action
+at law, or even accept or reject a legacy or a gift, without the consent
+of her husband. Laws not dissimilar to these exist, I believe, in some
+of the more backward states of our own Union. According to the law of
+Japan a widow cannot succeed her husband as head of the family if she
+has a child who can take the succession. In matters of inheritance an
+elder sister gives place to a younger son, even to an illegitimate son
+recognized by the father.
+
+A husband may divorce a wife for adultery, but a wife cannot divorce a
+husband for this cause--or rather, she can do so only when he has
+offended with a married woman whose husband has therefore brought action
+for divorce. Thus it will be seen that a husband may even take a
+concubine to live in his home, along with his wife and children, without
+giving ground for divorce. Concubinage, I am told, is still to some
+extent practised in Japan, though popular opinion is against it. In one
+respect, however, the Japanese divorce laws are more enlightened than
+our own. A husband and a wife who agree in desiring a divorce may easily
+obtain it by stating the fact to the court.
+
+Somehow or other I came to the subject of divorce before that of
+marriage. The Orient and the Occident are nowhere farther apart than in
+their views and customs as to the mating of men and women. In Japan
+marriages for love rarely occur, though it is said that the tendency of
+young people to marry to suit themselves is growing. Young Japanese
+girls, I am told, often look with envy upon women of other nations,
+where marriage for love is the general rule. Probably they suppose that
+such matches are invariably happy; that the love is always real love,
+and that it endures for ever. No doubt our system, viewed from afar,
+looks as rosy to a Japanese girl as their system looks appalling to an
+American girl. Yet each has certain merits. The Japanese system does not
+suggest romance, it is true; but is romance, after all, the most
+essential stone in the foundation for a happy married life? Romantic
+notions figure too largely in some of our matches, and too little in
+some of theirs. And while the mature judgment of older people is with
+them the determining factor in the making of a match, it is too often
+with us no factor at all.
+
+Marriages in Japan are generally brought about by older married couples
+who act as go-betweens. There is a popular saying that everyone should
+act as a go-between at least three times. The go-between, knowing a
+young man and a young woman whom he regards as suitable to each other,
+proposes the match confidentially to the parents of both. If preliminary
+reports are mutually satisfactory to the two families, a meeting of the
+young couple and their parents and relatives is arranged on neutral
+ground. Any intimation of the real purpose of this meeting is tactfully
+avoided at the time, though the purpose of it is, of course, fully
+understood by all concerned. Under this arrangement either family may,
+without giving offence, drop the matter after the first meeting, but if
+the results of the preliminary inspection are satisfactory to both
+sides, the parents meet again and definitely arrange the match, which is
+made binding by an exchange of presents.
+
+ [Illustration: You cannot understand Japan without understanding
+ the Japanese woman, who is the nation's crowning glory]
+
+Chamberlain says that while, in theory, the betrothal may not be
+concluded if either young person objects, in practice the two are in the
+hands of their parents, and that "the girl, in particular, is nobody in
+the matter."
+
+This generalization was doubtless accurate a few years ago, and may be
+accurate to-day in remote parts of Japan where Western ideas have not
+crept in, but among the educated classes in large cities a distinct
+change has come over the rising generation. There is as great a gap
+between the older and the younger generations in Japan as in the United
+States, and as with us, the older people over there complain that youth
+is getting altogether out of hand, while youth complains that its
+aspirations are not understood by parents and grandparents. This does
+not mean that Japanese young men and young women run practically wild,
+as so many of our young people now are doing, but merely that the slight
+personal freedom they are demanding represents in Japan as great a
+novelty as is exhibited in the United States by the change from moderate
+parental control to no control at all.
+
+Yet the cults and traditions of Old Japan are vastly powerful, and
+though they may yield a little here and there, they will not soon be
+broken down. This fact is made apparent in the quick reversion to type
+of Japanese men and women who have lived for years in the United States,
+and who, when in the United States, seem to have become quite like
+Americans. Meet them in Japan and you see that their Occidentalism was
+only skin-deep. While among us they gracefully adapted themselves to our
+ways, and doubtless enjoyed them, but always in the back of their minds
+was the knowledge that they were Japanese and that they would ultimately
+return to Japan, there to become a part of the finely adjusted mechanism
+of Japanese homogeneity. I know many such men and women and find them
+very interesting. They have passed through an extraordinary mental and
+spiritual experience, generally without being confused by it. Instead of
+mixing their Japanese and American selves, they acquire a perfect
+duality. They can sit on either side of the fence, as it were, and look
+over calmly and interpretatively at the other side.
+
+I discussed this subject with one young matron who spent the first
+twenty years of her life in the United States, and who, when she moved
+to Japan, spoke her native tongue with an American accent.
+
+"My brothers and sisters and I went to American boarding schools," she
+said. "We dressed like Americans, had American boy and girl friends,
+went to house-parties, and grew up outwardly, just as they were growing
+up. But always we were taught by our parents to understand that this was
+not to go on for ever.
+
+"When I came to Japan and married I saw that the best thing to do was to
+show people that I was as Japanese as any of them. If I had kept up my
+foreign ways it would have been resented. So I became completely
+Japanese, and for a number of years did not even meet Americans who came
+here. Then when I had made clear my attitude and felt I was established,
+I began to see Americans again and entertain them."
+
+In another case a young Japanese in an American university used to tell
+his college friends that when he went back to Japan he would show his
+emancipation from old Japanese tradition by marrying as he pleased. Soon
+after reaching home, however, he was married by his parents to a bride
+he hardly knew. He speaks fluent English, I am told, and has an American
+side which he can show at will, but the inner man is essentially as
+Japanese as though he had never been away. And rightly so, of course.
+The Japanese who throws himself as an impediment against the movement of
+the great machine of national conventions is not likely to break so much
+as a single tooth in the smallest of its wheels, but will surely break
+himself.
+
+But to return to the subject of marriages:
+
+Having arranged the match, the go-between naturally takes pride in its
+success. He befriends the young couple; if they are unhappy he mediates
+between them, endeavouring to settle their difficulties; and if their
+unhappiness continues, and divorce is spoken of, it becomes his duty to
+exhaust every resource to prevent their acting rashly.
+
+Before arranging the match, however, the go-between takes precautions to
+provide against such dangers as may be foreseen. He must, for example,
+make discreet investigations as to the health of both families for
+several generations back, to insure against hereditary taints, among
+which the most dreaded is leprosy.
+
+The Japan Year Book, in most cases a useful reference work, is curiously
+silent on the subject of leprosy, though several pages are devoted to
+tuberculosis and other diseases. It was reported recently that a million
+Japanese have tuberculosis, but leprosy, though less contagious and
+consequently much less frequent, is more feared. An authority has told
+me that there are probably two million lepers in the world and that the
+only countries free from the disease are England and Scotland, from
+which it has been eradicated by segregation. It is estimated that New
+York City has one hundred lepers, and that there are cases of it in
+most, if not all states in the Union. Yet according to the government
+report only three states--California, Louisiana, and Massachusetts--make
+provision for the segregation and care of sufferers from this most
+terrible of diseases. Some people give the number of lepers in Japan as
+under twenty thousand. The Home Office sets the figure at sixty-four
+thousand. Specialists, however, say that even the latter figure is far
+too low, and that the actual number is nearer one hundred thousand.
+
+The first leprosarium in Japan was started twenty-eight years ago by
+Roman Catholic missionaries. A few years later a second leper hospital
+was founded by Miss H. Riddell, an Englishwoman who has been probably
+the greatest single influence in bettering conditions for the Japanese
+lepers. Miss Riddell's leprosarium at Kumamoto, south Japan, was, I
+believe, used by the Japanese Government as a model for the State
+leprosariums of which there are now five. Other such institutions are
+operated by missionaries and private individuals, but the work must be
+greatly extended if it is hoped to check the spread of the disease, to
+say nothing of stamping it out.
+
+A Japanese friend of mine who has frequently acted as go-between in
+arranging matches for employees of a large company of which he is an
+official, tells me that girls in families tainted with leprosy are often
+exceptionally beautiful, and that they frequently have very white skins.
+In certain parts of Japan where leprosy is common there are, he tells
+me, rich families having beautiful daughters for whom it is impossible
+to find husbands in the neighbourhood because of rumours that the dread
+disease is in their blood. Such families occasionally move to the great
+cities where they seek to find husbands for their daughters through
+matrimonial agents or by personal advertisements in newspapers. The
+custom of advertising for a husband or a wife has of late years grown
+considerably, and as has happened in this country, rascalities are
+sometimes discovered behind such advertisements, wherefore the police
+keep an eye on matrimonial agencies.
+
+One reason why accurate statistics on leprosy are hard to get, not only
+in Japan, but in all countries, is that families in which a case occurs
+will often go to great lengths to conceal it. In Japan this is
+particularly true because there a leper cannot marry, and leprosy is
+cause for divorce not only in the case of the individual actually
+afflicted, but in that of the victim's blood relations including those
+as far removed as second cousins.
+
+No wonder the go-between feels a sense of responsibility!
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ _Wedding Gifts--A Wife's Duties--Adopted Son-Husbands--Women in
+ Business and Professional Life--Actresses--The "New
+ Woman"--Kissing as a Business Custom--Film Censorship_--"Oi,
+ Kora!"--_Women of Old Japan--The Change is Coming_
+
+
+Though the Japanese system of arranged marriages is sometimes likened to
+the French system, the two are quite different. In France the great
+point is the bride's dowry, but the Japanese bride is not necessarily
+expected to bring a dowry of money. Her wedding present from her parents
+consists as a rule of furniture and clothing which they give according
+to their purse.
+
+The ceremonies connected with a Japanese wedding are extremely
+interesting, but are too elaborate to be gone into here. There is no
+wedding trip. The bride moves at once to the home of her husband's
+parents, unless she has married a younger son sufficiently prosperous
+and enterprising to set up a home of his own. The rule is that the
+eldest son continues to live under the parental roof after his marriage.
+Along with her name and residence the bride transfers her allegiance
+absolutely to the husband's family. Particular stress is laid upon her
+duty to her husband's mother.
+
+This fact is recognized in a textbook issued by the Imperial Department
+of Education for use in the higher girls' schools, which says:
+
+ Absence of harmony is often witnessed between a husband's mother
+ and her daughter-in-law, and this is often traceable to the
+ latter's disobedience and undutifulness. The mother-in-law may
+ be too conservative to get on smoothly with the young
+ daughter-in-law trained in new ideas, but dutifulness, patience,
+ and sincerity on the latter's part will bring on peace and
+ harmony.... If, on the contrary, the daughter-in-law, while
+ tolerant of her own weaknesses, is critical toward her husband's
+ mother and complains of her heartlessness, she will only betray
+ her own unworthiness. These points should always be kept in mind
+ by young girls.
+
+Young Japanese heiresses are doubly fortunate since their affluence
+provides, among other comforts, a means of escaping the dreaded
+mother-in-law. Instead of moving to her husband's home, an heiress will
+often bring her husband to the shelter of her own paternal roof, where
+by adoption he becomes a son of her family, taking the family name. One
+hears that the bed of roses sought by some of these _muko-yoshi_, or
+adopted son-husbands, does not prove always to be free from thorns, and
+there is a Japanese proverb which advises: "If you have left so much as
+a pound of bad rice, don't become a muko-yoshi." The muko-yoshi is not,
+however, always married to an heiress. Poor families having daughters,
+but no sons, will often take in a muko-yoshi to perpetuate the family
+line under the ancestral roof.
+
+ [Illustration: A laundry on the river's brim]
+
+When all is said, there is no question that the condition of Japanese
+women is slowly improving, although the woman movement there is still in
+the academic stage. Little by little the example of women in America and
+England is making itself felt, and the educational opportunities open to
+women are gradually increasing. The average college for women is not, to
+be sure, comparable with the ordinary college for men, but there is said
+to be one university of really high standing which is open to women, and
+a number of other co-educational institutions are listed as fairly good.
+Waseda College is now opening its doors for the first time to women as
+well as men, and though women cannot graduate from Tokyo Imperial
+University, I am informed that they are permitted to attend lectures
+there.
+
+Women are going more and more into business and professional life. Great
+numbers of them are now employed in the government postal and railway
+offices, in the offices of prefectures and municipalities, and, of
+course, in the telephone service, as well as by private companies of all
+kinds. Employers report steady improvement in the standard of
+intelligence and capability among their woman employees. Women, they
+say, do their work well and are usually content with small salaries. In
+seeking positions they generally declare that they wish to occupy
+themselves profitably between the time of leaving high school and that
+of marrying.
+
+Eliminating, for the time being, the geisha, who because of her curious
+occupation will be separately discussed, and who does not in any case
+fit into a discussion of woman's progress, since she is in some measure
+a barrier to it, we find that the medical profession is probably the
+most profitable field for woman workers. There are some seven or eight
+hundred woman doctors in Japan, of whom almost half are graduates of the
+Tokyo School for Women, founded by a woman physician, Dr. Y. Yoshioka.
+
+Trained nursing is also a popular occupation, and many girls have lately
+been leaving office and telephone work to take it up, chiefly for the
+reason that trained nurses receive from $1 to $1.25 per day, which is
+considered good pay.
+
+Until ten or a dozen years ago there were no actresses in Japan, female
+rôles invariably having been played by men, but the octogenarian Baron
+Shibusawa (lately created Viscount), who has done so much toward
+liberalizing the thought of Japan in many lines, founded a school for
+actresses, with the result that there is now a place for them, and that
+a few have come to be well known, although none is as yet so popular as
+are the best-known actors. Actors hold in Japan a social position
+similar to that held by Occidental players a century or more ago. They
+are distinctly a lower caste, and while they are admired for their art,
+and are adored by young girls as matinée idols are with us, they are
+considered as belonging to a social stratum in which geisha and
+wrestlers figure.
+
+There are now perhaps a dozen or more women working as reporters and
+special writers on the various Tokyo newspapers. Miss Osawa, who started
+work on the _Jiji Shimpo_ twenty-one years ago, is, I believe, the dean
+of Japanese woman journalists.
+
+There are more than twenty well-known monthly magazines for women, many
+of them edited by women and largely contributed to by woman writers.
+Authorship is a traditional occupation for women in Japan, women's names
+being among the greatest in the nation's ancient literature--in which
+connection it is interesting to note the fact that some of the old-time
+authoresses were courtesans.
+
+One hears a good deal of talk of the "new woman" in Japan, and perhaps
+the surest indication that she is coming into being is the fact that
+supposedly humorous postcards are sold on the Tokyo streets, in which
+the new woman is shown in various dictatorial attitudes before a
+cringing husband. Once, at a dinner I attended in Osaka, a woman who
+runs a business training school for girls, arose and made a short
+speech. I noticed that while she spoke not a few of the men smiled
+pityingly. From this item American women old enough to recall the early
+days of the woman movement in this country will have no difficulty in
+estimating the distance that the Japanese woman has yet to go.
+
+Japanese ladies who have the time and the inclination for charitable
+activity accomplish a great deal. The W. C. T. U. is active in Japan,
+Mrs. Yajima, its president, a lady who, in 1920, at the age of
+eighty-eight, went to England for the International W. C. T. U.
+Convention, being perhaps the leader among progressive women of the
+land. The Red Cross has a large membership, and the Y. W. C. A., like
+the Y. M. C. A., has a firmly fixed and useful place, carrying on a wide
+variety of activities. Among these are classes to teach young girls the
+ways of the business world which is so rapidly opening to them. As an
+indication of the need for such instruction, a lady who works in the Y.
+W. C. A. in Tokyo told me of a case in which a Japanese girl who came
+for instruction reported that she was in the habit of kissing her
+foreign employer good morning and good night, in the belief--a belief we
+must suppose to have been inculcated by him--that such was the general
+business custom.
+
+It is often said that the Japanese never kiss. Bowing is the national
+form of salutation, though those accustomed to meet foreigners shake
+hands with them. The fact as to kissing is that one never sees it, even
+between mother and child, and that this is interpreted as signifying
+that kissing is unknown. That is not the case. I own an old print by
+Utamaro which shows a man and a woman kissing with the greatest zeal.
+The Japanese simply do not kiss indiscriminately or in public places.
+
+The feeling against demonstrations of affection in public is so strong
+that when American motion pictures were first taken to Japan, audiences
+would hoot at those tender passages so much enjoyed by some persons in
+this country. For several years past, however, all such representations
+have been cut from American films intended for exhibition over there.
+This work is done by an American who lives in Japan, and who has made up
+what is probably one of the strangest films in the world by assembling
+all the cuts into one awful reel of lust and osculation, in which figure
+most of the widely known American movie stars. This film he sometimes
+runs off privately for his friends, and it is said to leave those who
+witness it in a frame of mind to vote kissing a capital offence.
+
+In a rather pitiful list of ten requests made by a Japanese wife to her
+husband, and exhibited as a poster at the Girls' Industrial School of
+Tokyo, was the appeal: "Please stop saying '_Oi, kora_,' when you call
+me."
+
+_Oi_, the expression used by most Japanese husbands when they call their
+wives, is about equivalent to our "Hallo!" or "Hey!" Sometimes a husband
+will call his wife by name, but one more often hears "_Oi_," or "_Oi,
+oi_," even among persons of position. _Oi_ is more familiar than rude. A
+man would say it to his close friend. But a woman would never say it to
+her husband. _Kora_ is really objectionable, being an exclamation
+addressed only to inferiors. Naturally, then, wives do not like it,
+whether they make bold to declare the fact or not. For a wife may not
+even call her husband by his first name, but must address him as
+_anata_, which is a respectful form for "you."
+
+It has been declared that the peasant woman who works beside her husband
+in the fields or fishing villages, or who helps him push a cart, or
+navigate a boat on the rivers and canals, is the happiest woman in
+Japan, being a real companion to him. However, that may be, there is
+much room for improvement in the attitude of the average middle-class
+Japanese toward his wife. He gets into automobiles and railroad trains
+ahead of her and has the air of ignoring her in public.
+
+It should be said, though, that the attitude of such husbands does not
+necessarily mean that they do not care for their wives. Rather it means
+that they are old-fashioned--that the ancient notion of woman's
+position, based on the teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism, has clung
+to them. But most of all, I think, it reveals their fear of being
+thought ridiculous. For if a man showed his wife what we should call
+ordinary civility, the old-school Japanese thought him henpecked.
+
+Strangely enough the position occupied by women in the days of Japan's
+early antiquity was much higher than it has since become. In olden times
+women took part in war, had a voice in politics, and in other ways held
+their own with men. In the eighth century successive Empresses occupied
+the Imperial throne, and the influence of certain able women was
+strongly felt at court; two centuries later we find a great era of
+literary women many of whose names are famous to this day.
+
+But soon after the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism all this
+was changed. The Buddhist doctrine called women creatures of sin,
+treacherous and cruel; and says Confucius: "When a boy is born let him
+play with jewels; when a girl is born let her play with tiles." So it
+came about that woman's position declined until it was possible for a
+famous moralist to write a treatise on the Duty of Woman, containing
+such maxims as these:
+
+ A woman should look upon her husband as if he were Heaven
+ itself, and never weary of thinking how she may yield to him,
+ and thus escape celestial castigation. Let her never dream of
+ jealousy. If her husband be dissolute she must expostulate with
+ him but never either nurse or vent her anger. Should her husband
+ become angry she should obey him with fear and trembling and not
+ set herself up against him in anger and frowardness.
+
+An endless quantity of such quotations may be taken from the writings of
+moral teachers, and in them is indicated the debt of the women of Japan
+to Chinese doctrines. In view of which it seems strange indeed to visit
+a Buddhist temple and there be shown coils of thick black rope which was
+used in the erection of the building, and which was made entirely from
+the hair of devout women who sacrificed their prized tresses for this
+purpose, being too poor to give aught else.
+
+Thus, while the Occident was teaching men to be chivalrous toward women,
+the Orient was teaching women to be, as one might put it, chivalrous
+toward men. But in both cases the modern tendency is toward change. The
+growth of woman's economic independence in this country, making her
+man's competitor, tends to make man less polite in his general casual
+contacts with her. Having elected to be his equal she must take her
+chances with him in the subway rush and in the scramble for street-car
+seats.
+
+Fifty years hence, Japan will perhaps have reached this pass, but the
+present rudeness of men to women is not that of equals to equals, but of
+superiors to inferiors; that is the thing that must be changed.
+
+And it will be changed. Slowly, very slowly, the attitude of the
+Japanese man toward the Japanese woman is improving. I found that
+evening classes were being held at the Y. W. C. A. in Tokyo for the
+purpose of teaching young husbands and wives how to enjoy social life
+together, and there is no doubt that in fashionable society the better
+type of modern young husband treats his wife with much more
+consideration and courtesy, and makes much more a companion of her, than
+was customary or even possible under the old régime. Twenty-five years
+ago it was well enough for a man to walk on the street with a geisha,
+but the man who walked in public with his wife was jeered at, and might
+even find himself a target for missiles. Though that is no longer the
+case, the tradition that man should assume a superior air still to some
+extent survives among the masses, so that for a husband to treat his
+wife with perfect courtesy before strangers requires, singular though it
+may seem, real moral courage.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ _Baseball in Japan--The National Sport--Wrestling and
+ Shintoism--Fans--Wrestlers' Earnings--The National Game
+ Building--Formalities Before the Matches--The
+ Super-Champions--Peculiarities of Japanese Wrestling--Days Off_
+
+
+Though the grip of the American national game upon Japan is sufficiently
+strong to have brought a Japanese university team to this country and to
+have taken one or two American university teams to Japan for return
+games, there is as yet no professional baseball in Nippon, and the kind
+of wrestling known as _sumo_ still maintains its ancient prestige as the
+national sport.
+
+Having been in Tokyo at the time of an election and again during the
+annual spring wrestling season, I could not but be struck by the fact
+that the street crowds watching the bulletin boards for the results of
+the physical contests were larger and more enthusiastic than the crowds
+which assembled to learn the results of the political struggle.
+
+The average Japanese knows, I believe, about as much and about as little
+of domestic politics as the average American. He has a loose idea of the
+structure of the government and of political machinery; he follows
+political leaders rather than causes, and like us he is prone to read
+rich meanings into the glib banalities of politicians.
+
+Wrestling he understands much better. He knows all its fine points. His
+enthusiasms on this subject are informed enthusiasms, and unlike the
+baseball fan, he inherits them from a long line of ancestors--for
+compared with wrestling, baseball is a brand-new sport. When the Greeks
+and Romans wrestled, the Japanese were wrestling, too. In the ninth
+century the Japanese throne was wrestled for. A Mikado died and left two
+sons, and these, instead of going to war against each other, left their
+claims to be settled by a wrestling match.
+
+The sport is, furthermore, associated, in a manner more or less
+diaphanous, with Shintoism. Certain Shinto traditions are connected with
+it, and the matches used to be held in the grounds of Shinto temples--as
+indeed amateur matches often are today in country districts.
+
+For many years past it has been customary to hold wrestling meets in
+Tokyo twice yearly, in January and May. Prior to the construction of the
+Kokugikwan, or National Game Building, the large steel and concrete
+structure in which the meets are now held, they occurred in the grounds
+of the Eko-in temple. January is a cold month in Tokyo and even May is
+often chilly, wherefore, the audience was none too comfortable at these
+open-air matches. Moreover, Japan is a rainy land; the old open-air
+matches had frequently to be declared off because of bad weather;
+sometimes it took twenty days to run off a ten-day meet. But the
+Kokugikwan has put an end to these difficulties. The modern Japanese
+wrestling fan keeps warm and dry, with the result that the sport now has
+more devotees than ever.
+
+During the wrestling season Tokyo is profoundly excited. Men of large
+affairs have a way of disappearing mysteriously from their offices.
+Officials of banks and large corporations are vaguely reported to be
+"out of town for a few days." Prince Tokugawa, President of the House of
+Peers, suddenly becomes a difficult gentleman to find--unless,
+perchance, you happen to know where to look for him. So, too, with many
+a man of smaller consequence. If he can afford it--often whether he can
+afford it or not--he drops his work and vanishes. But he does not always
+vanish; for if his enthusiasm for wrestling verges on dementia he may
+adorn himself in an eccentric manner and make himself conspicuous in the
+auditorium by his antics and his cries. Thus certain wrestling fans of
+Tokyo have come to be considered privileged characters--as, for
+instance, the one who always appears at the great matches in a coat of
+scarlet silk, which his father wore before him, and whose habit it is to
+prance down the aisle before the wrestlers as they march in solemn
+procession to the ring.
+
+When I inquired about tickets for one of the days of the great meet I
+was strongly reminded of our World Series baseball games. It seemed that
+tickets were not to be had. Eventually, however, I managed to secure
+them in the way such things are secured the world over--by means of
+"pull." I found a friend who had a sporting friend who knew a wrestler
+who could get seats.
+
+The attitude of the sporting Japanese gentleman toward wrestlers
+resembles that of the sporting American or Englishman toward pugilists
+and jockeys. It is _chic_ to know them, but not as equals. One is very
+genial with them and at the same time a little patronizing, whereas they
+are expected to assume a slightly deferential manner. Perhaps the
+attitude of the Japanese sporting gentleman toward his favourite
+wrestlers is rather more like that of the Spanish sporting gentleman
+toward bullfighters, for in both countries it is customary for the
+wealthy patron to give expensive presents to the hero. But whereas in
+Spain handsome jewelry is sometimes thrown to the bull-fighters in the
+ring, it is the custom in Japan for the fan to throw his hat, coat,
+pocketbook, cigarette case, or whatnot to the popular idol, who later
+sends the trophy back to the owner, receiving in exchange a valuable
+gift--frequently a gift of money.
+
+Hence, though the actual pay of wrestlers is small, perquisites make the
+profession profitable to those fairly successful in it, and poor
+parents, having a son of unusually large proportions, are likely to look
+with resignation upon the Japanese theory that great size is generally
+accompanied by stupidity, and to rejoice in the dimensions of their
+offspring because of a fond hope that he may become a champion wrestler
+and grow rich.
+
+My friend the Japanese sporting gentleman (who, by the way, was a
+graduate of the University of Michigan) did more than obtain tickets for
+me. He called with his automobile and took me to the amphitheatre.
+
+"Our mode of wrestling is not at all like yours," he said, "and I want
+to explain it to you."
+
+It was about eleven in the morning when, after traversing several
+streets strung with rows of Japanese lanterns, and filled with hurrying
+throngs, we reached the great circular concrete building into which an
+eager crowd was pouring through many portals--an audience which, though
+made up for the most part of men, contained not a few women and some
+children. Many, though by no means all of the women were geisha, for
+wrestlers have about the same rank as geisha in the social scale, and
+they are often the heroes as well as the intimates of the fair
+entertainers.
+
+As we approached the amphitheatre the thought came to me that there is a
+curious sameness in the atmosphere surrounding great sporting events the
+world over, however little the various sports themselves may resemble
+one another. To approach this great building in Tokyo during wrestling
+week is quite like approaching the Plaza de Toros in Madrid, or the
+building in which _jai alai_ is played in Havana, or the Polo Grounds in
+New York, or the Yale Bowl, or the Harvard Stadium.
+
+The Kokugikwan is a circular building roofed with glass and seating
+fourteen or fifteen thousand persons. At the centre is a mound of earth
+with a flat top on which the ring is marked with a border of woven
+straw. Over the ring is a kiosk supported by four heavy posts which are
+respectively red, green, black, and white in colour, and are considered
+to symbolize the four corners of the earth. The kiosk has a roof
+somewhat resembling that of a temple and is embellished with curtains of
+purple-and-white silk which hang down a few feet below the eaves.
+
+The main floor of the amphitheatre is banked up toward the back. The
+seats at the ringside are reserved for the participant wrestlers; behind
+these are some tiers of chairs which are presumably occupied by the most
+frantic fans, and behind the chairs comes a great area of boxes, each
+seating from four to six persons. These boxes, like those of a typical
+Japanese theatre, do not contain chairs, but are floored with thick
+straw mats on which are cushions for the occupants to squat on. The only
+division between the boxes is a railing about a foot high. Above the
+main floor are two galleries running all the way around the building.
+The Imperial box is in the first gallery. People in the galleries sit in
+chairs, in front of which are narrow shelf-like tables from which
+luncheon may be eaten--for wrestling matches, like the old-style
+theatrical performances, last practically all day.
+
+During the first part of the morning, bouts between numerous minor
+wrestlers are run off, but at about eleven the building fills up, for
+everyone wishes to see the two groups of champions march in. One group
+represents East Japan, the other West Japan; each group contains about
+twenty men, and their seats are at the eastern and western sides of the
+ring, respectively. This representation of East and West is not literal,
+but is the traditional division. A man from an Eastern province may be
+champion of the West, and vice versa.
+
+Gross-looking creatures, naked to the waist, they enter in single file,
+each wearing a long velvet apron, elaborately embroidered and tasselled.
+These aprons, which are given to them by their patrons, are removed
+before the contests, a loin-cloth and short skirt of fringe being worn
+beneath them.
+
+Marching into the ring the champions form a circle and go through a
+series of set exercises, clapping their hands in unison, raising their
+legs high and stamping their feet violently upon the ground to exhibit
+their muscular flexibility. After these exercises they march out again.
+
+Next enter the supreme champions of the Eastern group and of the Western
+group--the two great wrestlers of Japan--popular idols who, by reason of
+having remained undefeated throughout three or more successive wrestling
+meets, are entitled to wear not only the elaborate velvet apron, but a
+very thick white rope wound several times about their waists and knotted
+in a certain way.
+
+Each of these super-champions is attended on his march to the ring by
+two other wrestlers. The one who precedes him is known as the _tsuyu
+harai_, or dew-brusher. In theory, he clears the way, brushing dew from
+imaginary grass before the feet of the mighty one. The attendant who
+brings up the rear is the _tachi mochi_, or sword-bearer; for according
+to old Japanese custom no wrestler except a super-champion was allowed
+to wear a sword, and though the sword is now only a symbol, the custom
+still survives, and the sword of the super-champion must be carried in
+behind him.
+
+To one accustomed to the sort of wrestling practised in the Western
+world, many of these champions do not look like athletes, since they
+are, as a rule, so fat that their paunches bulge like balconies over the
+tops of their aprons and loin cloths, and their arms and thighs tremble
+like jelly when they walk. Under the Japanese method of wrestling,
+however, each match is quickly settled, wherefore endurance is not so
+important as great weight and power in the first moment of attack. It is
+for this reason that fat wrestlers are usually the most successful. Some
+of them have weighed as much as three hundred and fifty pounds. But now
+and then there comes along a super-champion like Tachiyama, who is not
+very fat, and who conquers by strength, speed, and reach rather than by
+mere weight.
+
+When the super-champions have exhibited themselves, the two groups of
+lesser champions return and occupy their seats around the ring. The four
+referees--retired wrestlers--take seats on cushions, one at each corner
+of the kiosk, and the umpire, wearing beautiful flowing silks and a
+strange little pointed hat like that of a Buddhist priest, enters the
+ring and, holding up the lacquered wooden fan, which is his badge of
+office, announces in impressive tones the names of the two men who are
+about to meet.
+
+The adversaries then enter the ring and go through the same old series
+of stampings and flexings. Each takes a handful of salt from a box at
+his side of the ring, puts a little in his mouth and throws the rest
+upon the ground before him. This is supposed to have a purifying effect,
+not in the antiseptic sense, but in some occult way. Salt is often used
+thus in Japan.
+
+Having completed these preliminaries the two men take their positions
+facing each other, braced upon all fours. But this apparent readiness by
+no means indicates that the contest is commencing. Instead of
+immediately attacking, they will often remain thus poised for minutes,
+sharply watching each other. Then one of them will get up and take a
+drink, or will go for some more salt and throw it in the ring. Also one
+or the other will often make a false start, attacking when his adversary
+is not ready to accept combat; whereafter the two resume their crouching
+attitudes, toes braced, hands on the ground. This sort of thing may
+continue for ten or twenty minutes, to the accompaniment of howls from
+the fans, who shout the names of their favourites and bellow Japanese
+equivalents for such Americanisms as "Go to it!" and "Atta Boy!"
+
+But whereas the period of preparation may often be measured in fractions
+of an hour, the actual struggle usually consumes but a few seconds. The
+men spring at each other like a pair of savage fighting dogs and the
+contest is settled before you know it. There is none of that straining
+to get a certain hold, or to break one, which is so characteristic of
+our style of wrestling, and you never see the contestants writhing in
+deadly embrace upon the floor. The vanquished need not necessarily be
+thrown at all, though often he is. If any portion of his body, other
+than the soles of his feet, touches the ground, or if (whether he be
+thrown or not) any portion of his body touches the ground outside the
+ring, that means defeat. In case both men fall, or are forced from the
+ring together, the one who first makes contact with the ground, or first
+leaves the ring, is vanquished.
+
+Often a man is beaten by being bent over until he is forced to support
+himself on one hand, and there have been cases in which decisions were
+rendered merely because one man's head was bent down until his top-knot
+touched the floor. A wrestler will sometimes win in one hard push,
+backing his opponent out of the ring; but in this there is always the
+danger that the one being pushed will at the last moment step aside,
+causing the adversary's own momentum to carry him beyond the boundary,
+thus applying an underlying principle of _jiu-jutsu_,--or _jiudo_, as it
+is called in its improved form--in which a man's own strength is used to
+defeat him. Frequently, however, there will be a spectacular throw; and
+sometimes, when this occurs, the ringside seats, so coveted at wrestling
+and boxing matches in this country, are not highly desirable. I have
+seen huge wrestlers hurled through the air to land sprawling on their
+comrades in their seats.
+
+When a close decision has to be made the umpire confers with the
+referees, and at such times the audience and the two opposing groups of
+wrestlers are vociferous in support of the contestant they favour.
+
+To the credit of the Japanese be it said, however, that they do not
+yell: "Kill the umpire!" when displeased by a decision rendered in
+connection with their national sport; that they do not throw bottles at
+the umpire, and that it never becomes necessary to give police
+protection to an umpire whose judgment has not accorded with that of the
+crowd. The Japanese, you see, have not adopted every detail of Western
+civilization.
+
+I must have seen twenty-five or thirty bouts that day. But though I was
+interested I cannot pretend to find in Japanese wrestling the qualities
+of a really great sport. Skill their wrestlers have, but there is no
+call for stamina. Their style of wrestling seems to me to let off where
+ours begins.
+
+Japanese life runs at lower pressure than our life. There is not the
+nervous rush about it. Matters move at a more comfortable pace, and
+people seem to have more patience. An American crowd would become
+restless over the interminable preliminaries of each Japanese wrestling
+bout, and would find the bout itself unsatisfactory because of its
+brevity and the lack of sustained effort. The Japanese, on the other
+hand, seem always to be willing to wait for something to happen. One
+notices this in innumerable ways. Motion pictures made in Japan are
+likely to be, from our point of view, intolerably slow in their action.
+So also with the all-day plays of the typical Japanese theatre.
+
+The Japanese business man's custom of taking a day off whenever it
+happens to suit him is doubtless due in part to the fact that until
+recently Sunday in Japan was just like any other day. There was no
+regular day of rest. One day a month was usually appointed as a holiday
+for commercial and industrial workers; later it became two days a month;
+and at last there developed a custom of making those days the first and
+third Sundays of the month. For though Sunday has, of course, no
+religious significance in the eyes of the large body of Japanese, it
+seemed the most practical day to select for a holiday if only because it
+was a day on which the offices of American and European residents were
+closed.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ _The Courageous Congressmen--Geisha and Nesan--The Maple
+ Club--The Gentleness of Servants--Removable Walls--Dancing
+ Girls--A Lesson in the Use of Chopsticks--"Truthful Girl"--A
+ Toast in Saké--Drunkenness--My Friend the Amiable Inebriate--The
+ Great Rice-Ball Mystery_
+
+
+It amused me to hear, a little while ago, that a party of our
+Congressmen, on a junket in Japan, had been implored by certain pious
+Americans over there, to avoid such sinful things as teahouses and
+geisha. No doubt the poor devils of Congressmen had fancied they would
+be able to lead their own lives five thousand miles from home and
+constituents. And evidently they proposed to do it, for they replied
+with uncongressmanlike boldness that teahouses and geisha were among the
+things they most desired to see. That pleased me not only because it
+showed that a Congressman can be spunky--even though he has to go to
+another hemisphere to do it--but because it showed a normal human
+interest in what is assuredly a very curious phase of life.
+
+I, too, was interested in tea houses and geisha, and I made it a point
+to find out as much about them as I could.
+
+The first geisha I saw were in attendance at a luncheon for some forty
+persons--about half of them Americans--given by a Tokyo gentleman for
+the purpose of showing us what a purely Japanese luncheon was like. It
+was held at the Maple Club, a large, rambling Japanese-style building
+standing in charming gardens in the midst of one of the Tokyo parks--a
+Far Eastern equivalent of such Parisian restaurants as the Café
+d'Armenonville or the Pré Catelan.
+
+As we alighted from our rickshas a flock of smiling serving maids
+appeared in the doorway to greet us, indicating to us that we were to
+sit on the high door-step and have our shoes removed by the blue-clad
+coolies who were in attendance--each with the insignia of the Maple Club
+in a large design upon the back of his coat. (If you wish the coolie who
+draws your ricksha or does other work for you to wear your crest you
+supply his costume and pay him a few cents extra per day.)
+
+When our shoes had been checked and our feet encased in soft woollen
+slippers like bed-bootees, we were bowed into the building and escorted
+through a series of rooms with soft straw-matted floors and walls of
+wood and paper. Emerging upon an outer gallery of highly polished wood,
+we followed it, looking out over the lovely garden as we moved along,
+and finally reached a flight of stairs, also of wood having a satiny
+polish, which led to the banquet hall. Our escorts on this journey were
+several little Japanese maids in pretty kimonos, who, though they spoke
+no English, talked to us in soft international smiles. No one without a
+sweet nature could smile the smile of one of these Japanese serving
+maids. They are called _nesan_, meaning literally "elder sister." This
+familiar appellation is generally used in speaking to a maidservant
+whose name one does not know, and in the term is revealed a hint of the
+beautiful relationship which exists in Japan between master and servant,
+whether in a private house or a Japanese inn. In the great cities this
+old relationship is to some extent breaking down as Japan becomes
+Westernized, but in Japanese hotels and country inns, and in prosperous
+homes one sees it still. Service is rendered with a grace and
+friendliness which make it very charming. Even about the menservants in
+the houses of the rich there is nothing of the flunkey spirit. The
+Japanese manservant generally wears silken robes which give him a fine
+dignity and make it difficult, sometimes, to differentiate him from
+members of the family. He is extremely polite, but not rigid. You feel
+that he is a self-respecting _man_. As for maidservants, they are like
+so many pet butterflies. One of Japan's strongest claims to democracy,
+it seems to me, is founded on the attitude existing between master and
+servant.
+
+ [Illustration: No one without a sweet nature could smile the
+ smile of one of these tea-house maids. They are called
+ _nesan_--"elder sister"]
+
+Those who have visited Japan, yet who do not agree with me as to the
+exquisite courtesy of the Japanese servant, will be those whose stopping
+places have been European-style hotels in the large cities. In such
+hotels the service is often poor and one occasionally encounters a
+servant who is surly and ill-mannered. I encountered one such in
+Kobe--said to be the rudest city in Japan. But by the time I ran across
+him I had seen enough of the real Japan to know what such rudeness
+signified. It showed merely that in this individual case native courtesy
+had been worn away by contact with innumerable ill-bred foreigners.
+
+But to return to our luncheon.
+
+As a concession to American custom our host greeted us with a handshake,
+and his Japanese guests walked in and shook hands instead of dropping to
+their knees on entering and bowing to the floor according to the old
+national custom.
+
+The room, which was large, well illustrated the elasticity of the
+Japanese style of building. Five or six private dining rooms usually
+occupied this section of the house, but for the requirements of the
+present occasion the walls forming these rooms had been removed making
+the entire area into one spacious chamber. It is a simple matter to
+remove such walls, since they consist only of a series of screens of
+wood and paper which slide in grooves and can easily be lifted out and
+put away in closets. And let me add that, though the climate of Japan is
+very damp, the Japanese use such thoroughly seasoned wood, and work in
+wood so admirably, that I never once found a sliding screen that stuck
+in its grooves.
+
+ [Illustration: Cocoons--Five thousand silk worms eat 125 lbs. of
+ mulberry leaves and yield eight skeins of silk, which make one
+ kimono]
+
+For the meal we knelt upon silk cushions laid two or three feet apart
+around three walls of the room. As the weather was chilly there stood
+beside each of us a brazier, or hibachi, consisting of a pot of live
+charcoal standing in a wooden box. The Japanese love of finish in all
+things is shown in the careful way they have of banking the ashes in a
+hibachi, and making neat patterns over the top of them.
+
+In front of each of us was placed a little table of red lacquer about a
+foot high, with an edge like that of a tray, and on this table were
+sundry covered bowls of lacquer and of china, and little dishes
+containing sour pickles and a pungent, watery brown sauce. In front of
+every one or two guests knelt a nesan, presiding over a covered
+lacquered tub, containing boiled rice, which is eaten with almost
+everything, and even mixed with green tea and drunk with it out of the
+rice-bowl.
+
+Also, in attendance upon each guest, there was a geisha. Some of the
+geisha were women perhaps twenty years old, wearing handsome dark
+kimonos which they generally carried with a great deal of style, but
+others were little _maiko_, dancing girls, in brilliant-coloured kimonos
+with the yard-long sleeves of youth. The youngest of these was perhaps
+twelve years of age, while the oldest may have been sixteen.
+
+As I afterward learned, there is a vast difference between various
+grades of geisha. Those present at this luncheon were among the most
+popular in Tokyo. They were truly charming creatures, sweet-faced,
+soft-eyed and gentle, with beautiful manners and much more poise than is
+shown by the average Japanese lady. For Japanese ladies are not, as a
+rule, accustomed to our sort of mixed social life, in which husbands and
+wives take part together, whereas geisha are in the business of
+entertaining men and presumably understand men as women seldom do.
+
+Since few geisha speak English, and very few Americans speak Japanese,
+we travellers from abroad are rather outsiders with the geisha, and our
+appreciation of them must be largely ocular. But a geisha can come as
+near to carrying on a wordless conversation as any woman can. Mine
+smiled at me, filled my shallow little cup with warm saké from time to
+time, and showed me how to use my chop-sticks. I found the lesson most
+agreeable, and was presently rewarded by being told, through the
+Japanese friend at my side, that for a beginner I was doing very well.
+
+If you want to know what it is like to eat with chop-sticks try sitting
+on the floor and eating from a bowl, placed in front of you, with a pair
+of pencils or thick knitting needles. It is a dangerous business, and
+the risk is rendered greater by the fact that the Japanese do not wear
+napkins in their laps, and that to soil the spotless matting is about
+the greatest sin the barbarian outlander can commit. The Japanese napkin
+is a small soft towel which is brought to one warm and damp, in a little
+basket. It is used on the face and hands as a wash-cloth and is then
+removed.
+
+ [Illustration: Family luncheon à la Japonaise. The serving maid
+ is kneeling in the corner at the back. If you would essay eating
+ with chopsticks, try it with a pair of heavy knitting needles]
+
+Presently my geisha called one of her sisters in the craft to witness my
+progress with the chop-sticks. The new arrival was named
+Jitsuko--otherwise "truthful girl"--and she seemed to be quite the most
+fashionable of them all. Her kimono, with its dyed-out decorations and
+its five ceremonial crests, was very handsome and was worn with great
+_chic_, her obi was a gorgeous thing richly patterned in gold brocade,
+and I noticed that she wore upon it a pin containing a very fine large
+diamond--a most unusual sort of trinket in Japan. Also she wore a ring
+containing a large diamond. Nor was this foreign note purely
+superficial. For, to my delight, Jitsuko spoke to me in English. She was
+one of Tokyo's two English-speaking geisha, and as I later learned, had
+the honour of being nominated as the geisha to entertain the Duke of
+Connaught at dinners he attended at the time of his visit to the
+Japanese capital.
+
+Jitsuko and the other geisha talked together about me. Then Jitsuko paid
+me the compliment of saying that they agreed in thinking that I looked a
+little bit like a Japanese. I thanked her, and returned the compliment
+in kind, saying that I thought they also looked like Japanese, and very
+pretty ones, whereat they both giggled.
+
+By this time we had established an _entente_ so cordial that it seemed
+fitting that we should drink to each other. Aided by the gentleman at my
+side and by Jitsuko, I learned the proper formalities of this ceremony.
+First I rinsed my saké cup in a lacquer bowl provided for the purpose,
+then passed it to Jitsuko. The preliminary rinsing indicated that she
+was now to fill the cup and drink. Had I passed it to her without
+rinsing, it would have meant that she was to refill it for me--for a
+geisha never "plies" one with saké but waits for the cup to be passed.
+When she had sipped the saké she in turn rinsed the cup, refilled it,
+and handed it to me to drink. Thus the friendly rite was completed.
+
+I had heard that saké was extremely intoxicating, but that is not so. It
+is rice wine, almost white in colour, and is served sometimes at normal
+temperature and sometimes slightly warm. It is rather more like a pale
+light sherry than any other Occidental beverage, but it lacks the full
+flavour of sherry, having a mild and not unpleasant flavour all its own.
+On the whole I rather liked saké, and I found myself able to detect the
+difference between ordinary saké and saké that was particularly good.
+While on this subject I may add that liquor of all sorts flows freely in
+Japan. Saké is the one alcoholic beverage generally served with meals in
+the Japanese style, but at the European-style luncheons and dinners I
+attended two or three kinds of wine were usually served, and there were
+cocktails before and sometimes liqueurs afterward. The Japanese have
+also taken up whisky-drinking to some extent. They import Scotch whisky
+and also make a bad imitation Scotch whisky of their own. But saké still
+reigns supreme as the national alcoholic drink, and when you see a
+Japanese intoxicated you may be pretty sure that saké--a lot of
+saké--did it.
+
+In my evening strolls, particularly in the gay, crowded district of
+Asakusa Park in Tokyo--a Japanese Coney Island, full of theatres,
+motion-picture houses, animal shows, conjuring exhibitions, teahouses,
+bazaars and the like, surrounding a great Buddhist temple--I saw many
+intoxicated men, but I never came upon one who was ugly or troublesome.
+Whether because of some quality in the Japanese nature, or in the saké,
+this drink seems only to make gay, talkative and sometimes boisterous
+those who have taken too much of it. I should not be surprised if the
+Japanese need alcoholic stimulants rather more than other races need
+them. For one thing the climate of Japan, except in the mountains, is
+enervating; and for another, the Japanese nature is generally repressed,
+and saké tends to liberate it.
+
+I noticed this at another entertainment in Tokyo--a dinner of newspaper
+editors. Being the only foreigner there, and being enormously interested
+in the problems connected with relations between the United States and
+Japan, I launched forth, telling them my views in the hope of learning
+theirs. But although I sensed that they did not agree with all I said,
+their responses exhibited only the sort of polite tolerance that a
+courteous host will show a somewhat obstreperous guest. For some time I
+felt that I had acted like a bad boy at a party. But after the geisha
+had filled our cups with saké more than once, I got what I was looking
+for--an argument. It was a polite argument, but we had become friendly
+enough to speak frankly. _In saké veritas._
+
+This was a case of just enough saké, but so far as I was able to
+observe, even too much saké produces no very objectionable results. I
+shall never forget the young man, brightly illuminated with this
+beverage, who came up to me one evening on the street, in a small town.
+He was full of a desire to practise English on me and to help me. He
+didn't care what he helped me to do. He would help me to buy whatever I
+wanted to buy, go wherever I wanted to go, or stay wherever I wanted to
+stay.
+
+I explained to him that I was only strolling about while waiting for a
+train and that it was now time for me to return to the station.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I like you. I am drawn to you. I have been in
+America. I can talk to you. We are friends. Wait!" He looked about him
+hurriedly, then darted into a near-by shop.
+
+In a moment he emerged and came running toward me bearing in his
+extended hand a curious-looking object, resembling, as nearly as I could
+see in the dim light, a somewhat soiled popcorn ball. This he pressed
+into my hand with a generous eagerness which could not fail to convey to
+me the fact his heart went with the gift.
+
+"It is a present. It is for you. You will remember me. Another kind
+might be better, but you are in a hurry."
+
+My fingers grasped something heavy but yielding and glutinous. As I
+thanked my new-found friend I examined it. It was a ball of rice
+somewhat larger than a baseball. Scattered through it were brown objects
+the precise nature of which I was unable to determine. I might very
+accurately have told the donor that I was "stuck on" his present, since
+the mass in my hand was held in form not merely by the cohesiveness of
+the rice, but also by some substance of the nature of molasses.
+
+We parted. I moved toward the railroad station where my family and
+friends were waiting with Yuki, our invaluable maid. As I walked along I
+studied the object. Obviously it was intended to be eaten. Yet there
+were other purposes to which it might be put. It was a thing that a Sinn
+Feiner would like to have in his hand as the British Premier passed by
+in a silk hat. Charley Chaplin would have known what to do with it. It
+was heavier than a custard pie and fully as dramatic.
+
+My first impulse was to drop it as soon as I could do so unobserved; but
+the thought occurred to me that it was probably a Japanese delicacy, and
+that Yuki might like it; wherefor I carried it to the station.
+
+When I offered it to Yuki she looked surprised. Her refusal was
+courteous but determined.
+
+"Where Mr. Street get that?" she demanded.
+
+"A man gave it to me. Here, you take it."
+
+Yuki giggled and stepped back.
+
+"But what the man give it to Mr. Street for?"
+
+"A present. What's the matter with it? Isn't it good to eat?"
+
+"Yes--good to eat."
+
+"Why don't you take it, then?"
+
+Giggling, she shook her head.
+
+"But Yuki--I don't understand. What's the joke?"
+
+Shaking with merriment she whispered to my wife. It developed that the
+saké-inspired Japanese had presented me with a tidbit specially prepared
+for prospective mothers.
+
+All things considered it seemed advisable to get rid of it at once. I
+threw it on the railroad track.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ _A Japanese Meal--Other Meals--Smoking and the Duty on
+ Cigars--Japanese Music--Geisha Dancing--What Is a Geisha?--Their
+ Refinement--Autumn Leaves--Filial Piety and Certain Horrors
+ Thereof_
+
+
+As the luncheon at the Maple Club was my first meal in the Japanese
+style I had not realized the volume of such a repast. I ate too much of
+the first few courses, and as a result found myself unable to partake of
+the last two thirds of the feast. The amount of food was simply
+stupendous. I might have realized this in advance, and governed myself
+accordingly, had I looked at the menu. But I failed to do so until
+driven to it by my surprise as course after course was served. This was
+the bill of fare:
+
+ FIRST TABLE
+
+ _Hors d'oeuvres--Vegetables_
+ _Soup--terrapin with quail eggs and onions_
+ _Baked fish with sea-hedgehog paste_
+ _Raw fish with horseradish and eutrema root_
+ _Fried prawns and deep-sea eels_
+ _Duck, fish-cake and vegetables in egg soup, steamed_
+ _Roast duck with relishes_
+
+When this much had been served the nesans took up the little tables from
+in front of us and went trooping out of the room. As I had already eaten
+what amounted to about three normal dinners, I concluded that the meal
+was over, but not so. In they came again bearing other little lacquered
+tables of the same pattern as the first, but slightly smaller;
+whereupon, as it seemed to me, an entire second luncheon was served. The
+menu was as follows:
+
+ SECOND TABLE
+
+ _Hors d'oeuvres--Vegetables_
+ _Fish consommé_
+ _Grilled eels_
+ _Rice_
+ _Pickled vegetables_
+ _Fruits_
+
+I am told that indigestion is a prevalent ailment of the Japanese, and
+as regards prosperous persons who do no hard physical work I can readily
+believe it. The toiling coolie is the only man in Japan who might
+reasonably be expected to digest an elaborate Japanese meal, and he, of
+course, never gets one, but subsists almost entirely upon a diet of rice
+and fish.
+
+Though some Japanese dishes are found palatable by Americans there are
+many things we miss in the Japanese cuisine. It lacks variety.
+Breakfast, luncheon, and dinner are composed of about the same dishes.
+The divers well-cooked vegetables which form such an important part of
+our diet are entirely absent from theirs, nor do they have stewed
+fruits, salads, sweets, or the numerous meats to which we are
+accustomed.
+
+Of their best-known table delicacies it may be said that grilled eels
+with rice are very good; that the pink fish, the flesh of which is eaten
+raw, is pleasing to the eye and by no means unpalatable when dipped in
+the accompanying _shoyu_, a brown sauce not unlike Worcestershire, made
+from soy beans; that though they have no cream soups, some of their
+soups are pleasant to the taste, albeit they have the peculiarity of
+being either thin and watery on the one hand, or of the consistency of
+custard on the other; that bamboo shoots are rather tough, lily roots
+sweet and succulent, and quail eggs delicious. The Japanese, by the way,
+domesticate the quail for its eggs, regard the cow not as a milch animal
+but as a beast of burden, and cultivate the cherry tree not for its
+fruit but for its flower.
+
+The diet of ancient Japan was even less varied than that of to-day, for
+more than a thousand years ago the Japanese became vegetarians, and for
+some centuries thereafter adhered scrupulously to the Buddhistic
+injunction against killing living creatures. For several hundred years
+they even abjured fish, but by degrees they have fallen away from the
+strict observance of the vegetarian doctrine, until to-day a Japanese
+who is at all sophisticated will thoroughly enjoy a dinner in the
+European style, beef and all. Indeed many of those who have travelled
+abroad and acquired a taste for foreign cookery make it a point to have
+at least one of their daily meals prepared in the foreign fashion.
+
+Government officials or wealthy cosmopolitans who entertain on a large
+scale usually do so in the European manner. A banquet at the Imperial
+Hotel in Tokyo is much like a banquet in New York, and one at the
+Bankers' Club is even more so, except that the meal itself is likely to
+be better than at our banquets. To dine with a large gathering at the
+Peers' Club is like dining at some great club or official residence in
+Paris; while as for the cocktail hour at the Tokyo Club, I cannot
+imagine anything in the world more completely and delightfully
+international.
+
+An important part of the equipment for a meal in the pure Japanese style
+is a smoker's outfit, consisting of a tray on which stands a small urn
+of live charcoal, and a bamboo vase with a little water in it--the
+former for lighting the tobacco, the latter a receptacle for ashes. The
+native smoke is a tiny pipe, called a two-and-a-half-puff pipe, with a
+bowl as small as a child's thimble. Finely shredded Japanese tobacco is
+smoked in this pipe, which is used by men and women alike, and the
+constant refilling and relighting of it seem to figure as a part of the
+pleasure of smoking. The Japanese smoke cigarettes also, and cigars, but
+the tobacco industry of Japan, like that of France, is a government
+monopoly, with the result that, as in France, good cigarettes and cigars
+are difficult to obtain.
+
+A visit to a government tobacco factory left me with the impression
+that, from the point of view of management, mechanical equipment, and
+perhaps also labour conditions, the plant would compare not unfavourably
+with some large tobacco manufactories in our own Southern States; but as
+to the product of this factory, the best of which I sampled, I can
+pretend to no enthusiasm. Japanese tobacco goes well enough in the
+little native pipes, but it does not make good cigarettes or cigars, and
+even the cigarettes made of blended tobaccos, or from pure Virginia or
+Egyptian leaves, would hardly satisfy a critical taste. Cigars made in
+Japan are uniformly poor, like the government-made cigars of France, but
+whereas in France it is possible to buy a good imported Havana, I found
+none for sale in Japan. One reason for this is that the duty on cigars
+is 355 per cent., so that only a millionaire can afford good Havanas.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Whether because the enormous luncheon at the Maple Club left me in a
+stupor, or because my mind could not adjust itself quickly to
+appreciation of an unfamiliar and extremely curious art, I did not find
+myself enchanted by the shrill falsetto singing of the geisha musicians,
+or the strange sounds they evoked from the samisen, fife and drums, as
+they accompanied the dancers.
+
+The native Japanese music, with its crude five-tone scale, is
+demonstrably inferior to that of Western peoples. To the foreign ear it
+is unmelodious, even barbarous, and yet I must say for it that the more
+I heard it the more I felt in it a kind of weird appeal--an appeal not
+to the ear but to the imagination. Even now, when I am far away from
+Japan, a note or two struck on a guitar, a mandolin, or a ukulele, in
+imitation of the samisen, conjures up vivid pictures in my mind. I see a
+narrow geisha street, with a musician seated in an upper window, or I
+get a vision of a geisha dancer arrayed in brilliant silks, posturing,
+fan in hand, against a background of gold screens, in the exquisitely
+chaste simplicity of a Japanese teahouse room. The sound that evokes the
+picture is not harmonious, but the picture itself is harmonious beyond
+expression.
+
+One thing that sometimes makes the stranger in Japan slow to appreciate
+the dancing of geisha, is the very fact that it is called dancing; for
+the term suggests to us a picture of Pavlowa poised like a swiftly
+flying bird, or Genée looking like a bisque doll and spinning on one
+toe. Dancing, to us, means, first of all, rhythm. We look for rhythm in
+a geisha dance, and failing to find it--at least in the sense in which
+we understand the meaning of the word--we are baffled. It is only one
+more case of preconception as a barrier to just appreciation.
+
+Many travellers, and at least one author who has written a book on
+Japan, have made the mistake of confusing geisha with prostitutes. This
+is a gigantic error. The error is kept alive by ricksha coolies who,
+understanding that it is a common mistake of foreigners, often use the
+term "geisha house" as meaning an establishment of altogether different
+character. A geisha house is in fact simply a house in which geisha live
+under the charge of the master or mistress to whom they are bound by
+contract or indenture. Geisha are booked through exchanges and meet
+their patrons at restaurants or teahouses. When not on duty they are
+private citizens, and it would be considered the height of vulgarity for
+a man to call upon a geisha at the geisha house, however innocent the
+purpose of his call.
+
+A further reason for the erroneous idea of what a geisha is, lies in the
+fact that Western civilization has no equivalent class. Geisha
+correspond more nearly to cabaret entertainers than to any other class
+we have, yet even here there is no real parallel. It is not customary in
+Japan--except in foreign-style hotels--to dine in public. If a man be
+alone in a hotel he dines by himself in his room, save that the little
+nesans who serve him will try to make themselves agreeable and that the
+proprietor may do the same. Or if a man gives a luncheon or a dinner
+party at a restaurant he will have a private room. Therefore, under the
+Japanese system, there is never a general assemblage of persons,
+strangers to one another, who may be entertained as a body while they
+are dining. Thus the geisha is a private entertainer, and in order that
+the most desirable geisha may be secured it is customary to make
+arrangements for a luncheon or dinner several days in advance. This is
+usually done through the proprietor of the restaurant, who is told the
+names of the geisha the host desires to summon, and who notifies them
+through the local geisha exchange.
+
+Men who frequently lunch and dine out naturally become acquainted with
+many geisha, and have their preferences; and if a host knows that one of
+his guests particularly likes a certain geisha he will generally try to
+arrange to have her at his party.
+
+There are three classes of geisha. Those of the best class frequently
+have good incomes. They are often given large presents by their wealthy
+patrons, and many of them are the mistresses of men of means, who
+sometimes take them off on week-end outings and spend a great deal of
+money on them.
+
+However this may be, a geisha of the first class is a creature of
+exquisite refinement of manner, and there is about her not the faintest
+suggestion of coarseness. She will be friendly, even pleasantly
+familiar, but never, in public, is she guilty of the slightest
+impropriety. I have been to many gay parties in Japan, but I have never
+seen a geisha or her patron behave in a way that would shock the most
+fastidious American lady. Naturally the situation is somewhat different
+among low-class Japanese and the geisha they patronize. There are vulgar
+geisha to entertain vulgar men. But even a low-class geisha, if sent for
+in an emergency to entertain a man of taste, will often be sufficiently
+clever to adjust herself to the situation.
+
+During the meal the geisha will sit before or beside the gentleman she
+is designated to entertain, chatting with him, amusing him and serving
+him with saké. Afterward she will join the other geisha in giving an
+entertainment, the part she takes in this depending upon her special
+talent, which may be for singing, playing, or dancing. Pretty young
+geisha are most often dancers, while those who are older are generally
+musicians. Also there are some geisha who are merely bright and pleasing
+and who succeed without other accomplishments. The host, making up a
+party, selects his geisha with these various requirements in mind, so
+that his whole company of geisha will be well balanced.
+
+Foreigners are generally most taken with the little dancing girls, or
+maiko, who are mere children, and who with their sweet, bright, happy
+little faces, and their bewitchingly brilliant flowered-silk costumes,
+are altogether fascinating. Once at a party in a great house in Tokyo I
+saw a score of these little creatures scampering down a broad flight of
+stairs, making a picture that was like nothing so much as a mass of
+autumn leaves blown by a high wind.
+
+These children are in effect apprentices who are being schooled in the
+geisha's arts. Often they are in this occupation because their parents
+have sold them into it as a means of raising money. With the older
+geisha it is frequently the same. The Japanese teaching of filial piety
+makes it incumbent upon a daughter to become a geisha, or even a
+prostitute, to relieve the financial distress of her parents. In either
+case she goes under contract for a term of years--usually three.
+
+A girl who is refined, pretty, and talented can raise a sum in the
+neighbourhood of a thousand dollars by becoming a geisha, but if she is
+not sufficiently talented or attractive to be a geisha, her next
+resource is the "nightless city." The opening to women of professional
+and commercial opportunities should tend to improve this situation.
+
+I am told that geisha and the little dancing girls are generally kindly
+treated by the geisha-masters, and the gaiety they exhibit leads me to
+conclude that this is true. The little dancers, in particular, want but
+slight encouragement to become as playful as kittens.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+ _I Entertain at a Teahouse--Folk Dances--The Sense of Form--The
+ Organization of Society--Jitsuko Helps me Give a Party--Pretty
+ Kokinoyou--Geisha Games--Rivalries of Geisha--The Cherry Dance
+ at Kyoto--Theatre Settings--Unmercenary Geisha--Teahouse
+ Romances--Restaurants, Cheap and Costly--Reflections on Reform_
+
+ "'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
+ By foreign lips and eyes...."
+
+ --Byron
+
+
+The way to see geisha and maiko to the best advantage is at small
+parties where the guests are well acquainted and formality can be to
+some extent cast off. I was much pleased when I learned enough of the
+ways of teahouses and geisha to be able to give such a party.
+
+My first essay as host at a Japanese dinner was not, however, entirely
+independent, since I had the help of a Japanese friend. It occurred at
+the charming Maruya teahouse, in the ancient town of Nara.
+
+ [Illustration: The theatre street in Kyoto is one of the most
+ interesting highways in the world]
+
+It was at the Maruya that I first began to feel some real understanding
+and appreciation of geisha dancing, and I think the thing that assisted
+me most was the fact that the little maiko executed several Japanese
+folk dances, the action of which, unlike that of most geisha dances, was
+to a large extent self-explanatory. One of these dances represented
+clam-digging. In it the dancers held small trays which in pantomime they
+used as shovels, going through the motion of digging the clams out of
+the sand and throwing them into a basket. The dance was accompanied by a
+song, as was also another folk dance in which two of the maiko enacted
+the rôles of lovers who were obliged to part because the mother of the
+girl was forcing her to marry a rich man. I was interested to notice in
+this dance that the gesture to indicate weeping--the holding of one hand
+in front of the eyes at a distance of two or three inches from them--is
+not taken from life, but is copied from the gesture of dolls in the
+marionette theatre. That is the gesture for a man. When a woman weeps
+she holds her sleeve-tab before her eyes, for it is a tradition that
+women dry their tears with their sleeves. When in Japanese poetry moist
+sleeves are spoken of, the figure of speech signifies that a woman has
+been weeping.
+
+ [Illustration: Digging clams at low-tide in Tokyo Bay]
+
+The girls who executed the last-mentioned folk dance were respectively
+thirteen and fifteen years old, and they were evidently much amused by
+the passionate utterances they were obliged to deliver. The one who
+played the part of the youth--a fetching little creature with a roguish
+face--was unable at times to restrain her mirth as she recited the
+tragic and romantic lines, and her rendition of them was punctuated by
+little explosions of giggling, which though they cannot be said to have
+heightened the dramatic effect of the sad story, her audience found most
+contagious. Then with a great effort she would pull herself together and
+try to live down the mirthful outburst, lowering her voice, to imitate
+that of a man, and assuming a tragic demeanor which, in a creature so
+sweet and childish, habited in silken robes that made her like a
+butterfly, was even more amusing.
+
+People who follow the arts, or have a feeling for them, seldom fail to
+appreciate geisha dancing after they have seen enough of it to get an
+understanding of what it is. This, I think, is because they generally
+have a sense of form, and as geisha dancing is a sort of animated
+_tableau vivant_, a sense of form is the one thing most essential to an
+appreciation of it.
+
+Indeed I will go further and proclaim my belief that, to a visitor who
+would really understand Japan, a sense of form is a vital necessity.
+
+Japan is all form. In Japanese art even colour takes second place. Nor
+does the Japanese feeling for form by any means stop where art ends. It
+permeates the entire fabric of Japanese life. The formal courtesy of old
+French society was as nothing to the formal courtesy of the Japanese.
+The whole life of the average Japanese is so regulated by form that his
+existence seems to progress according to a sort of geometrical pattern.
+The very nation itself is organized in such a way as to suggest a
+compact artistic composition. Not only every class, but every family and
+individual has an exact place in the structure. A friend of mine who
+knows Japan as but few foreigners do, goes so far as to say that the
+shades of difference between individuals are so finely drawn that no two
+persons in Japan are of exactly the same social rank, and that the
+precise position of every man in the country can be established
+according to the codes of Japanese formalism. Though this may be an
+exaggeration it expresses what I believe to be essentially a truth. I
+visualize the social and political structure of Japan as a great pyramid
+in which the blocks are families. At the bottom are the submerged
+classes--among them, down in the mud of the foundation, the _eta_ or
+pariah class. Then come layers of families representing the voteless
+masses, among which the merchant class was in feudal times considered
+the lowest. Next come the little taxpayers who vote, and these pile up
+and up to the place where the more exalted classes are superimposed upon
+them--for in Japan it may be said that there is practically no middle
+class. I am told that there are now about a million families who are
+descended from samurai. This is where the aristocracy begins. So the
+pyramid ascends. Layers of lower officials; layers of higher officials,
+layers of ex-officials, high and low; layers of those having decorations
+from the Government; layers of army and navy families, and so on to
+where, very near the summit, are placed the _Genro_, or elder statesmen.
+Above them is a massive block representing the Imperial Family, and at
+the very peak, is the Emperor, Head of all Heads of Families.
+
+My party in Nara having given me confidence, I gave a luncheon at the
+delightful Kanetanaka teahouse which overlooks a canal in the Kyobashi
+district of Tokyo.
+
+I cannot claim much credit for the fact that this party was a success,
+since Jitsuko, the English speaking geisha I met at my first Japanese
+luncheon, was there to help me. Jitsuko's English, I must own, was not
+perfect. Nor would I have had it so, for I enjoyed teaching her, and
+learning from her.
+
+"Naughty boy!" was one expression that I taught her, and I showed her
+how to accompany the phrase with an admonitory shake of the finger, with
+results which altogether charmed the American gentlemen at my luncheon.
+
+One of these gentlemen, a new arrival in Japan and consequently entirely
+unfamiliar with Japanese fare, asked Jitsuko about a certain dish that
+was set before him.
+
+"What is this?" he demanded, looking at it doubtfully.
+
+"That fried ears," said Jitsuko.
+
+"Fried ears!" he cried. "Not really?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+But it was not fried ears. Jitsuko had the usual trouble with her _l_'s
+and _r_'s. She had meant to say "fried eels."
+
+Besides Jitsuko I had at my luncheon six of the lovely little maiko. One
+of them, an intelligent child called Shinobu--"tiptoes"--was picking up
+a little English. She sent for ink and a brush and wrote out for me the
+names of her companions. Later I had the names translated, getting the
+meaning of them in English--for geisha generally take fanciful names.
+They were: Kokinoyou--"little alligator"[1]; Akika--"scent of autumn";
+Komon--"little gate"; Shintama--"new ball"; and Kimi-chiyo, whose name
+was not translated for me, but who was the prettiest little dancing girl
+I saw in all Japan.
+
+ [1] "What a queer name!" a Japanese friend writes me. And he
+ adds: "Your translation cannot be right. A little alligator
+ might be taken for a mascot in America, but it could never
+ be the name of a dainty little geisha."
+
+Though the Japanese idea of female loveliness does not generally accord
+with ours, I think Kimi-chiyo was an exception and was as lovely in
+native eyes as in those of an American, for she seemed very popular, and
+was at almost every Japanese-style party I attended in Tokyo. Moreover,
+though she could not have been older than sixteen, she carried herself
+with the placid confidence of an established belle. I have met many a
+lady twice or three times her age who had not her aplomb.
+
+ [Illustration: The little dancing girl at the right, Kimi-chiyo,
+ was at almost every Japanese-style party I attended in Tokyo.
+ She carried herself with the placid confidence of an established
+ belle]
+
+After luncheon the maiko danced for us while Jitsuko and another geisha
+played. Then, as my guest of honour had not yet acquired a taste for
+geisha dancing, the programme was changed and Jitsuko set the little
+maiko to playing games. First they showed us how to play their great
+game of _ken_, but though we learned it we could not compete with them
+in playing it. They were too quick for us. We pitched quoits with
+them--and were beaten. We played bottle-and-cup--and were beaten. And
+finally they introduced us to a Japanese version of "Going to
+Jerusalem," which they play with cushions instead of chairs, with the
+samisen for music. Of course they beat us at that. Who can sink down
+upon a cushion with the agility of a little Japanese girl? All in all,
+the Americans were beaten at every point--and thoroughly enjoyed the
+beating.
+
+I could tell a story about the president of one of the greatest
+corporations in America. He was at my luncheon. He is a very dignified
+and formidable man, and is considered able. But he can't play ken worth
+a cent. Kimi-chiyo herself said so. She told Jitsuko and Jitsuko told
+me.
+
+"In America he is a great man," I said.
+
+"He is very slow at ken," Kimi-chiyo insisted, unimpressed.
+
+"In business he is not slow," I told her.
+
+"Perhaps. But any one who is really clever will be quick at ken."
+
+I decided to avoid the game of ken in future. It shows one up.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Between the geisha of the various great cities there exists a gentle
+rivalry. Kyoto, for example, concedes a certain vivacity to the geisha
+of the five or six leading districts of Tokyo, but it insists that the
+Kyoto geisha have unrivalled complexions, and that the famous Gion
+geisha of Kyoto are more perfect in their grace and charm than any
+others in Japan. This they account for by the fact that the Gion geisha
+have a long and distinguished history, and that there is a geisha school
+in Kyoto, whereas the Tokyo geisha have no school but are trained by
+older geisha under the supervision of the master of the individual
+geisha-house to which they are attached. Similarly the Tokyo geisha
+consider those of Kyoto rather "slow," and regard the Yokohama geisha as
+distinctly inferior. Once I asked a Tokyo geisha to give a dance of
+which I had heard, but she replied with something like a shrug that the
+dance in question was given by the Yokohama geisha, wherefore, she and
+her associates did not perform it.
+
+So far as I know there is not to be seen in Tokyo or Yokohama any large
+geisha show, resembling a theatrical entertainment, such as one may see
+in Kyoto in cherry-blossom season, or at the Embujo Theatre in Osaka
+every May. These exhibitions are delightful things to see, the Cherry
+Dance of Kyoto, in particular, being famous throughout Japan. The
+buildings in which they are held are impressive. The one in Kyoto was
+built especially for the Cherry Dance, and the interior of it, while in
+a general way like a large theatre, is modelled after the style of an
+old Japanese palace. The geisha dancers and musicians are splendidly
+trained and the costumes are magnificent.
+
+Rapid changes of scene are made in these theatres by means unfamiliar to
+American theatre-goers. As in our playhouses, flies and drops are
+sometimes hoisted upward when a scene is being changed, but quite as
+frequently they sink down through slots in the stage floor. Also, in the
+dimness of a "dark change" one sees whole settings going through
+extraordinary contortions, folding up in ways unknown in our theatres,
+or turning inside-out, or upside-down. One feels that their stage is
+generally equipped with less perfect mechanical and lighting devices
+than ours, but that a great deal of ingenuity is shown in the actual
+building of scenery. One of the most astonishing things I ever saw in
+any theatre was the sudden disappearance of a back-drop at the Embujo in
+Osaka. The bottom of this drop began all at once to contract; then the
+whole funnel-shaped mass shot down through a small aperture in the
+floor, like a silk handkerchief passing swiftly through a ring.
+
+The most perfect illusion of depth and distance I ever saw on a stage
+was in one scene of the Kyoto Cherry Dance. From the front of the house
+the scene appeared to go back and back incredibly. Nor could I make out
+where the back-drop met the stage, so skilfully was the painted picture
+blended with the built-up scenery. When the performance was over I
+inspected this setting and found that the scenic artist had achieved his
+result by a most elaborately complete contraction of the lines of
+perspective, not only in the painted scenery but in objects on the
+stage. A row of tables running from the footlights to the rear of the
+stage had been built in diminishing scale, and rows of Japanese
+lanterns, apparently exactly alike, became in reality smaller and
+smaller as they reached back from the proscenium, so that the whole
+perspective was exaggerated. The stage of this theatre was not in fact
+so deep as that of the New York Hippodrome or the Century Theatre.
+
+At the geisha dance in Osaka I asked what pay the hundred or more geisha
+musicians and dancers received, and was told that they are not paid at
+all. There are two reasons for this. First, it is regarded as the duty
+of all geisha to celebrate the spring with music and dancing; and
+second, they consider it an honour to be selected for these festivals,
+since only the most skilful members of their sisterhood are chosen.
+
+Geisha, you see, are not entirely mercenary. When two or three of them
+go off for a little outing together, or when they shop, they spend money
+freely; and there are stories of geisha who pay their own fees in order
+to meet their impecunious lovers at teahouses.
+
+In Japanese romances the geisha is a favourite figure. A popular theme
+for stories concerning her is that of her love affair with a student
+whose family disown him because of his infatuation. The geisha
+sweetheart then supports him while he completes his education. He
+graduates brilliantly, securing an important appointment under the
+government, and rewards the girl's devotion by making her his bride. Or
+if the story be tragic--and the Japanese have a strong taste for
+tragedy--the student's family is endeavouring to force him into a
+brilliant match, wherefore the self-sacrificing geisha, whom he really
+loves, takes her own life, so that she may not stand in the way of his
+success.
+
+There was a time a generation or two ago when Japanese aristocrats
+occasionally took geisha for their wives, much as young English noblemen
+used to marry chorus girls. But those things have changed in Japan and
+it is a long time since a man of position has made such a match. The
+plain truth is that, however justly or unjustly, the geisha class is not
+respected. They are victims of the curious law which operates the world
+over to make us always a little bit contemptuous of those whose
+occupation it is to amuse us. Moreover, geisha are not as a rule highly
+educated, and it is said that this fact makes it difficult for them to
+adjust themselves to an elevated place in the social scale.
+
+Thus it comes about that, when geisha marry, their husbands are as a
+rule business men or merchants on a modest scale.
+
+Yuki our treasured maid, had a friend who became a geisha, but who
+retired from the profession through the matrimonial portal.
+
+"She smart girl," said Yuki. "She too head to be geisha."
+
+"Why did she become one, then?" I asked.
+
+"Her family have great trouble. Her father need fifteen hundred yen
+right off. Must have. So she be geisha. But after while she meet rich
+man in teahouse, and he pay for her, so she don't have to be geisha any
+more, and they get married."
+
+Some excellent people I met in Japan--Americans imbued with the spirit
+of reform--objected strongly to the geisha system, contending that it is
+a barrier to happy domesticity. They felt that so long as there are
+geisha in Japan the average Japanese husband will have them at his
+parties, and will continue his present practice of leaving his wife at
+home when he goes out for a good time. I suppose this is true.
+Undoubtedly, to the Japanese wife, the geisha is the "other woman." And
+as is so often the case with the "other woman," in whatever land you
+find her, the geisha has certain strategic advantages over the wife.
+Like good wives everywhere, the Japanese wife is concerned with humdrum
+things--the children, housekeeping, the family finances--the things
+which often irritate and bore a husband if harped upon. But the
+circumstances in which a husband meets a geisha are genial and gay. Her
+business is to make him forget his cares and enjoy himself.
+
+The expense of the geisha system is also urged against it. To dine at a
+first-class teahouse, with geisha, costs as much as, or more than, to
+dine elaborately at the most expensive New York hotels. It is well for
+strangers in Japan to understand this, since they often jump to the
+conclusion that the Japanese teahouse, which looks so simple--so
+delightfully simple!--by comparison with the gold and marble grandeur of
+a great American hotel dining room, must necessarily be cheaper. I
+remember a case in which some Americans, newly arrived in Tokyo, were
+entertained in the native manner by a Japanese gentleman, and felt that
+they were returning the courtesy in royal style when they invited him to
+dine with them at their hotel. Yet in point of fact their hotel
+dinner-party cost less than half as much per plate as his Japanese
+dinner had cost. While one does not value courtesy by what it costs, it
+is important not to undervalue it on any basis whatsoever.
+
+There is, of course, a great variation in the cost of meals in teahouses
+and restaurants, and the fact that those which are inexpensive look
+exactly like those which are expensive helps to confuse the stranger. A
+great deal may be saved if one does without geisha. Also there are very
+agreeable restaurants in which the guest may cook his own food in a pan
+over a brazier which is brought into the dining room.
+
+This chafing-dish style of cooking is said to have been introduced by a
+missionary who became tired of Japanese food and formed the habit of
+preparing his own meals as he travelled about. Now, however, it has come
+to be considered typically Japanese.
+
+There are two names for cooking in this simple fashion. The word
+_torinabe_ is derived from _tori_, a bird, and _nabe_, a pot or kettle;
+and _gyunabe_ from a combination of the word for a pot with _gyu_, which
+means a cow, or beef. The Suyehiro restaurants, having three branches in
+Tokyo, are famous for _torinabe_, as well as for an affectation of
+elegant simplicity and crudity in chinaware. A good place for the
+_gyunabe_ is the Mikawaya restaurant in the Yotsuya section, not far
+from the palace of the Crown Prince.
+
+ [Illustration: A bill from the Kanetanaka teahouse, with items
+ of ¥ 26.30 for food, saké, etc., and ¥ 27.80 for "six
+ saké-servers (geisha) tips to geisha and their attendants."]
+
+To be more specific about prices, I gave an excellent luncheon of this
+kind for four, at one of the Suyehiro restaurants, at a cost of about
+four dollars and a half, whereas a luncheon for the same number of
+persons, with geisha, at a fashionable teahouse, which looked just about
+like the other restaurant, cost thirty dollars, and a dinner for eight
+with geisha, came to fifty-three. All tips are however included on the
+teahouse bill. One does not pay at the time, but receives the bill
+later, regular patrons of a teahouse usually settling their accounts
+quarterly.
+
+Adversaries of the geisha system informed me with the air of imparting
+scandal, that one sixth of all the money spent in Japan goes to geisha
+and things connected with geisha, presumably meaning restaurants,
+teahouses, saké and the like.
+
+"A reformer," says Don Marquis, the Sage of Nassau Street, "is a dog in
+the manger who won't sin himself and won't let any one else sin
+comfortably." That is a terrible thing to say. I wouldn't say such a
+thing. It is always better in such cases to quote some one else. But I
+will say this much: If I were a reformer I should begin work at
+home--not in Japan. I should join the great movement, already so well
+started, for making the United States the purest and dullest country in
+the world. I should work with those who are attempting to accomplish
+this result entirely by legislation. But instead of trying, as they are
+now trying, to bring about the desired end by means of quantities of
+little pious laws covering quantities of little impious subjects, I
+should work for a blanket law covering everything--one great, sweeping
+law requiring all American citizens to be absolutely pure and good, not
+only in action but in thought. I assume that, if such a law were passed,
+everybody would abide by it, but in order to make it easier for them to
+do so I should abolish restaurants, theatres, motion pictures, dancing,
+baseball, talking-machines, art, literature, tobacco, candy, and
+soda-water. I should put dictographs in every home and have the police
+listen in on all conversations. Light-heartedness I should make a
+misdemeanor, and frivolity a crime.
+
+Then, when our whole country had reached a state of perfection that was
+absolutely morbid, I should consider my work here done, and should move
+to Japan. But I should not stop being a reformer. Assuredly no! I should
+start at once to improve things over there. Take for instance this
+report that one sixth of all the money spent goes to geisha and such
+things. I should try first of all to remedy that situation. One sixth of
+the national expenditure represents a vast amount of money. Think of its
+being spent on good times! Such a lot of money! Still it isn't quite
+enough. A quarter or a third would be better than a sixth. It would make
+things perfect. Not being a Japanese wife, I should advocate that.
+
+I see but one serious objection to this plan. Should Japan become any
+more attractive than it now is, the Japanese might feel forced to pass
+exclusion laws. If they were to do so I hope they would not discriminate
+against people of any one race. I hope they would bar out everybody--not
+Americans alone. Because if they were to bar us out and at the same time
+allow the riffraff of Europe to come in, that might hurt our feelings.
+It isn't so hard to hurt our feelings, either. We are a proud and
+sensitive race, you know. Yes, indeed! It is largely because we are so
+proud and sensitive that we treat the Japanese with such scant courtesy.
+That's the way pride and sensitiveness sometimes work. Of course the
+Japanese are proud and sensitive, too. But we can't be bothered about
+that. We haven't the time. We are too busy being proud and sensitive
+ourselves.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII
+
+ _Commercialized Vice--The Yoshiwara--An Establishment
+ Therein--Famous Old Geisha--A "Male Geisha"--The Stately
+ Shogi--They Show Us Courtesy--The Merits of the Shogi--Kyoto's
+ Shimabara--The Shogi in Romance--The Tale of the Fair Yoshino_
+
+
+Some Americans are horrified because commercialized vice is officially
+recognized in Japan. The thought is unpleasant. But I am by no means
+sure that, since this form of vice does exist everywhere in the world,
+the policy of recognizing and regulating it is not the best policy.
+
+The Japanese work, apparently, upon the theory that, as this evil cannot
+be stamped out of existence, the next best thing is to stamp it as far
+as possible out of the public consciousness. This is done by segregating
+the women called _shogi_ in certain specified districts, and keeping
+them off the city streets.
+
+Whatever may be urged for or against this system it enables me to say of
+Japan what I am not able to say of my own country or any other country I
+have visited: namely, that in Japan I never saw a street-walker.
+
+The Tokyo district called the Yoshiwara is entered by a wide road
+spanned by an arch. Within, the streets look much like other Japanese
+streets, save that they are brightly lighted and that some of the
+buildings are large and rather ornate. First we went to a teahouse of
+the Yoshiwara, and I was readily able to perceive that the geisha in
+this teahouse were of a lower grade than those I had hitherto seen.
+Their faces were less intelligent, and they lacked the perfect grace and
+charm of their more successful sisters.
+
+From the sounds about us it was apparent that a Yoshiwara teahouse is a
+place for drinking and more or less wild merrymaking.
+
+Proceeding down the street from this teahouse we passed through orderly
+crowds and presently came to the district's most elaborate
+establishment. It was a large three-story building of white glazed
+brick, with an inner courtyard containing a pretty garden. To enter this
+place was like entering a very fine Japanese hotel.
+
+In the corridor hung a row of lacquered sticks each bearing a number in
+the Chinese character. There were, I think, about thirty of these
+sticks, and each represented a shogi. The number-one shogi was the most
+sought-after; number two ranked next, and so on. We were shown by the
+proprietress and some maids to a large matted room on the second floor,
+where saké, cakes and fruit were served to us. Then there appeared three
+geisha of a most unusual kind. They were women fifty-five or sixty years
+of age, rather large, with faces genial, amusing, and respectable. These
+I was told were geisha with a great local reputation for boisterous wit.
+My Japanese friends were thereafter kept in a continual state of mirth,
+and though I could not understand what the old geisha were saying, their
+droll manner was so infectious that I, too, was amused. Presently they
+were joined by a man with the face of a comedian. He was described to me
+as a "male geisha." That is, he was an entertainer. He sang, told comic
+stories and showed real ability as a mimic.
+
+This entertainment lasted for the better part of an hour. Then the
+mistress of the house came in with the air of one having something
+important to reveal. At a word from her the entertainers drew back and
+seated themselves on cushions at one side of the room. There was an
+impressive silence. Slowly, a sliding screen door of black lacquer and
+gold paper slipped back, moved by an unseen hand. We watched the open
+doorway.
+
+Presently appeared the figure of a woman. She did not look in our
+direction, but moved out into the room as if it had been a stage and she
+an actress. Her step was slow and stately, and she was arrayed in a
+brilliant robe of red satin, heavily quilted, and embroidered with large
+elaborate designs. This was the number-one shogi. Her costume and
+bearing were magnificent, but her face was expressionless and not at all
+beautiful.
+
+When she was well within the room the number-two shogi, dressed in the
+same style, moved in behind her, and followed with the same stately
+tread. In procession they walked across the room, turned slowly, trailed
+the hems of their wadded kimonos back across the matting, and made an
+exit by the door at which they had entered. Then the door slipped shut.
+
+The chatter began once more, but after a few minutes we were again
+silenced. For the second time the door opened and the two women
+appeared. They were now arrayed in purple kimonos, quilted and
+embroidered like the first. Again they made a dignified progress across
+the room and back; again they disappeared.
+
+That was the end of the inspection. By now we should, in theory, have
+been entranced with one or the other of the shogi we had seen. It was
+time to go. But as the Japanese gentleman whom I had asked to bring me
+to this place was a man of consequence, an especial courtesy was shown
+us ere we departed. In ordinary circumstances we should not have seen
+the two women again, but now they unbent so far as to come in and kneel
+upon the floor beside us--for we had checked our shoes at the entrance,
+and were seated Japanese-fashion upon silk cushions.
+
+My Japanese friends attempted to chat with the shogi, but evidently the
+latter did not shine in the arts of conversation. The talk was grave and
+unmistakably perfunctory, and after a little while the two arose, bowed
+profoundly, with a sort of grandeur, and trailed their wondrous robes
+out of the room. It was like seeing in the life a pair of courtesans
+from a colour-print by Utamaro. As they went I wondered whether, in the
+beginning, they had striven to be geisha instead of shogi, but had been
+forced to the Yoshiwara by reason of their lack of talent for music and
+conversation.
+
+Before we left I was shown some of the other rooms of this huge house,
+including those of several of the women. The woodwork was like light
+brown satin and the matting glistened almost as though it were
+lacquered. There were some kakemono and fine painted screens with
+old-gold backgrounds, and in the women's rooms were cabinets and
+dressing-stands lacquered red and gold. The dressing-stands were of a
+height to suit one squatting on the floor. It was as though the top
+section of one of our dressing tables were set upon the floor--a mirror
+with small drawers at either side.
+
+The mistress and her maids accompanied us to the street door when we
+departed. They made profound obeisances, and the mistress declared her
+appreciation of the great honour we had paid her by visiting her
+establishment. My Japanese friends replied in kind. The whole affair was
+conducted with a fine sense of ceremony.
+
+As for the three elderly geisha, they took another way of complimenting
+us. Instead of making ceremonious speeches they continued to be gay and
+amusing, but they did something which, when geisha do it, is considered
+a mark of high respect. They left the place with us, accompanying us as
+far as the gate of the Yoshiwara. One of them, a jolly old creature,
+with a fine, strong humorous face, linked arms with me as we walked
+along, and conversed with me in English. Perhaps the word "conversed"
+implies too much. Her entire English vocabulary consisted of the words:
+"All right," but she repeated the expression frequently and with
+changing intonations which gave a sort of variety.
+
+It was a strange evening, and the strangest part of it was the absence
+of vulgarity. I had seen nothing that the most fastidious woman could
+not have seen.
+
+As to what treatment is accorded the shogi themselves I cannot say.
+Certainly they did not have the air of being happy. Almost all of them
+are there because of poverty, and it is said that all live in the hope
+that some man will become fond of them and buy them out of the life of
+the _joroya_. This I believe occasionally happens. It should be added
+that, under the Japanese law, contracts by which women sell themselves,
+or are sold by others into this life, are not valid. It may further be
+added that all authorities on Japan seem to be in accord with
+Chamberlain who says that "the fallen women of Japan are, as a class,
+much less vicious than their representatives in Western lands, being
+neither drunken nor foul-mouthed." They also have a high reputation for
+honesty.
+
+The name Yoshiwara is not a generic term, though strangers sometimes use
+it as if it were, speaking of "a Yoshiwara." Similar districts in other
+cities are known by other names--as, for example, the historic
+Shimabara, in Kyoto, which dates back about four centuries.
+
+Like the Yoshiwara, the Shimabara has been moved from time to time, with
+a view to keeping it away from the heart of the city. History records
+that Hideyoshi caused the district to be uprooted and transplanted, and
+Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun, did the same, on the ground that it
+was too near the palace and the business centre.
+
+I find some odd items in a book giving the history of the Shimabara. It
+is said that in the old days only ronin--samurai acknowledging no
+overlord--were given charters to operate resorts in the Shimabara, and
+that court gentlemen visiting this quarter were required to wear white
+garments. There is also the story of a city official who used to meet
+now and then upon the streets of Kyoto a beautiful woman riding in a
+palanquin. It was his custom to salute her respectfully, for he thought
+her a court lady. But one day, upon inquiry, he learned that she was a
+courtesan, whereupon he became indignant, and caused the Shimabara
+quarter to be again removed, placing it still farther away from the
+city's heart.
+
+There is some evidence that in feudal Japan the most admired courtesans
+were persons of more consequence than those of to-day. In olden times,
+for example, the Shimabara women were considered to rank above geisha,
+whereas now the situation is decidedly the reverse.
+
+The stories of certain famous women of the ancient Shimabara are still
+remembered, and are favourites with writers of romances. One quaint tale
+tells of a beautiful girl named Tokuko, the daughter of a ronin. When
+her father and her mother died, leaving her penniless, she went into the
+Shimabara. Here, because of her grace, she became known as _Uki-fune_
+"floating ship." But she wrote a poem about the cherry blossoms at Mt.
+Yoshino, in Yamato Province, a place which for more than ten centuries
+has been noted for these blooms, and her poem was so much admired that
+she herself came to be called Yoshino.
+
+A rich man's son fell in love with this girl and married her, but when
+his father learned what had been her occupation he disowned the youth.
+The young couple were however courageous. In a tiny cottage they lived a
+happy and romantic life.
+
+One day it happened that the father, caught in a heavy rainstorm, asked
+shelter in a little house at the roadside. Here he found a beautiful
+young woman playing exquisitely upon the harp-like musical instrument
+called the _koto_. She welcomed him charmingly, made him comfortable,
+served him tea. When the storm had passed the old man thanked her for
+her hospitality and departed. But he had been so struck with her beauty
+and grace that he made inquiries about her.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the one of whom he asked, "she is none other than
+Yoshino, wife of your disinherited son!"
+
+Upon hearing this the father relented. He sent for the young couple,
+took them to live in his own mansion, and directed the daughter-in-law
+to resume her original name, Tokuko--which means "virtue."
+
+However, I have noticed that in Japan and all other lands, romantic
+stories making heroines of courtesans have to be dated pretty far back.
+The living courtesan is but rarely regarded as a romantic figure. She is
+like a piece of common glass.
+
+But a piece of common glass, buried long enough in certain kinds of
+soil, acquires iridescence. This iridescence is not actually in the
+glass, but exists in a patine which gradually adheres to it. Under a
+little handling it will flake off.
+
+I suspect that it is much the same with famous courtesans the world
+over. When, after having been buried for a hundred years or so, they
+are, so to speak, dug up by novelists and playwrights, there adheres to
+them a beautiful iridescent patine.
+
+It is best, perhaps, to refrain from scratching the patine lest we find
+out what is really underneath.
+
+ [Illustration: It takes two hours to do a geisha's hair, but the
+ coiffure, once accomplished, lasts several days]
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV
+
+ _Japan and Italy--The Sense of Beauty--Poetry--Japanese Poems by
+ an American Woman--A Poem on a Kimono--Garden Ornaments--Garden
+ Parties and Gifts--The Four Periods of Landscape Gardening--The
+ Volcanic Principle in Gardens_
+
+
+It is interesting to observe that the two races in which highly
+specialized artistic feeling is almost universal have, despite their
+antipodal positions on the globe, many common problems and one common
+blessing. Both Japan and Italy are poor and overpopulated, both are
+handicapped by a shortage of arable land and natural resources, both
+lack an adequate supply of food and raw materials for manufacturing,
+both are mountainous, both are afflicted by earthquakes; but both are
+endowed with the peculiar, passionate beauty of landscape which is
+nature's compensation to volcanic countries--a beauty suggesting that of
+some vivid and ungoverned woman, brilliant, erratic, fascinating,
+dangerous.
+
+Where Nature shows herself a great temperamental artist, her children
+are likely to be artists, too. As almost all Italians have a highly
+developed sense of melody, so almost all Japanese possess in a
+remarkable degree the artist's sense of form.
+
+One day in Tokio I fell to discussing these matters with a venerable art
+collector, wearing silks and sandals.
+
+"What," he asked me, "are the most striking examples of artistic feeling
+that you have noticed in Japan?"
+
+I told him of two things that I had seen, each in itself unimportant.
+One was a well-wheel. The well was in a yard beside a lovely little
+farmhouse, one story high, with walls of clay and timber, and with a
+thick thatched roof, upon the ridge of which a row of purple iris grew.
+There was a dainty bamboo fence around the farmyard, with flowering
+shrubs behind it, and a cherry tree in blossom. The well-house was
+thatched, and the pulley-wheel beneath the thatch seemed to focus the
+entire composition. With us such a wheel would have been a thing of
+rough cast-iron, merely something for a rope to run over; but this wheel
+had been fondly imagined before it was created. Its spokes were not
+straight and ugly, but branched near the rim, curving gracefully into it
+in such a way as to form the outlines of a cherry-blossom. It was a work
+of art.
+
+My other item was a little copper kettle. I saw it in a penitentiary. It
+belonged to a prisoner, and every prisoner in that portion of the
+institution had one like it. The striking thing about it was that it was
+an extremely graceful little kettle, embellished in relief with a
+beautiful design. It, too, was a work of art, and there was to me
+something pathetic in the evidence it gave that even in this grim place
+the claims of beauty were not entirely ignored.
+
+These trifling observations seemed to please my friend, the art
+collector.
+
+"But," said he, "I think our national love of the beautiful is perhaps
+most strongly exhibited in our feeling for outdoor beauty--our
+pilgrimages to spots famous for their scenery, our delight in the
+cherry-blossom season, the wistaria season, the chrysanthemum season,
+and by no means least in our gardens."
+
+Undoubtedly he was right. The feeling for nature among his countrymen is
+general, mystical, poetic. Almost all Japanese write poetry. The poems
+of many emperors, empresses, and statesmen are widely known; and among
+the most celebrated Japanese poems those to Nature in her various
+aspects are by far the most numerous.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Let me here digress briefly to mention the interesting custom of _O Uta
+Hajime_, or Opening of Imperial Poems, a court function dating from the
+ninth century.
+
+Each December the Imperial Household announces subjects for poems which
+may be submitted anonymously to the Imperial Bureau of Poems, in
+connection with the celebration of the New Year. The poems are examined
+by the bureau's experts, who select the best, to be read to the Imperial
+Family.
+
+The choice for the year 1921 was made from seventeen thousand poems sent
+from all parts of the Empire, and when announcement was made of the
+names of those whose poems were read at the Court, it was discovered
+that, among them was an American lady, Frances Hawkes Burnett, wife of
+Col. Charles Burnett, military attaché of the American Embassy at Tokyo.
+Mrs. Burnett thus attains the unique distinction of being the only
+foreign woman ever to have won Imperial approval with a poem in the
+Japanese language.
+
+ [Illustration: Mrs. Charles Burnett in a 15th-Century Japanese
+ Court costume. Mrs. Burnett's poems written in Japanese have
+ received Imperial recognition]
+
+It is interesting, in this connection, to remark that the lady is a
+grand-niece of the late Dr. Francis Lister Hawkes, of New York, who
+accompanied Commodore Perry to Japan, and was Perry's collaborator in
+the writing of the official record of the voyage, published under the
+title, "The Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But to return to my friend the art collector.
+
+"Speaking of poetry and the love of Nature," said he, "have you noticed
+the kimono of our host's daughter?"
+
+(We were strolling in a lovely private garden as we talked.)
+
+I had noticed it. It was a beautiful costume of soft black silk, the
+hem, in front, adorned with a design of cherry-blossoms and an
+inscription in the always decorative Chinese character.
+
+"Do you know what the inscription is?" he asked.
+
+I did not.
+
+"It is a poem of her own," he explained; and presently, when in our
+stroll we caught up with the young lady, he made me a literal
+translation, which might be done over into English verse as follows:
+
+ Farewell, O Capital! I grieve
+ Thy lovely cherry-blooms to leave.
+ But now to Kioto must I fare
+ To view the cherry-blossoms there.
+
+We fell to talking of Japanese gardens.
+
+"You must see some of our fine gardens," he said, "before you leave
+Japan."
+
+I mentioned some I had already seen--the gardens of the Crown Prince,
+the Prime Minister, Marquis Okuma, Viscount Shibusawa, Baron Furukawa,
+and others.
+
+"But do you understand our theory of the garden?"
+
+I told him what little I then knew: that flowers are not essential to a
+garden in Japan; that, where used, they are generally set apart in beds,
+and removed when they have ceased to bloom; that because of the skill of
+the Japanese in transplanting large trees a garden of ancient appearance
+may be made in few years; that boundaries are artfully planted out, so
+that some houses, standing on a few acres of ground in great cities,
+appear to be surrounded by forests; that small garden lakes are
+sometimes so arranged as to suggest that they are only arms of large
+bodies of water concealed from view by wooded headlands; and that
+optical illusions are often employed to make gardens seem much larger
+than they are, this being accomplished by a cunning scaling down in the
+size of the more remote hillocks, trees, and shrubs, increasing the
+perspective.
+
+Also, I had seen examples of the _kare sensui_ school of landscape
+gardening--waterless lakes and streams, their beds delineated in sand,
+gravel, and selected pebbles, and their banks set off by great
+water-worn stones brought from elsewhere, and by trees and shrubs
+carefully trained to droop toward the imaginary water--water the more
+completely suggested by stepping-stones and arched bridges reaching out
+to little islands, with stone lanterns standing among dwarf pines.
+
+I knew, too, of the fondness of the Japanese for minor buildings in
+their gardens. Thus in the garden of Viscount Shibusawa, there is an
+ancient Korean teahouse of very striking architecture; in that of Dr.
+Takuma Dan, General Manager of the vast Mitsui interests, a farmhouse
+several centuries old; in that of Baron Okura, a famous museum of
+Chinese and Japanese antiquities and art works; and in the gardens of
+Baron Furukawa and Baron Sumitomo, smaller private museums. Tucked away
+in the corner of one garden near Kobe I had even seen a little factory
+in which the finest wireless cloisonné was being made, the owner of that
+garden having a deep interest in this art and using the productions of
+his artist-workmen to give as presents to his friends. And of course in
+many gardens I had seen houses built especially for the _cha-no-yu_, or
+Tea Ceremony.
+
+Moreover, I had been to garden parties at some of which luncheons were
+served under marquees of bamboo and striped canvas, while at others were
+offered entertainments consisting of geisha-dancing and juggling. At
+such parties souvenirs are always given--fans and kakemono painted by
+artists on the premises, or bits of pottery which, after being painted,
+are glazed and fired, and still warm from the kiln, presented to the
+guests.
+
+"Yes, yes," said my venerable friend, "you have seen a good deal; but as
+to the history and theory of our gardens, what do you know?"
+
+"Very little," I admitted, and asked him to enlighten me.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Japanese landscape gardening began twelve hundred years ago, when the
+Emperor Shomu, in residence at Nara, sent for a Chinese monk who was
+famed for his artistry and ordered him to beautify the ancient capital.
+This the monk accomplished chiefly by cutting out avenues among the
+lofty trees which to this day make Nara not only a place of supreme
+loveliness, but one rich in the aroma of antiquity. Thus came the first
+period of landscape gardening in Nippon, the Tempyo period.
+
+Five and a half centuries ago the second period began when, in the
+terrain surrounding the Kinkakuji Temple at Kyoto, gardens containing
+lakes, rocks, and gold-pavilioned islands were constructed in
+resemblance to the natural scenery near the mouth of the Yangtse River
+in China.
+
+The third period is best represented by the gardens of the arsenal in
+Tokyo. These were made three hundred years ago by a Chinese master named
+Shunsui, who was brought to Japan for the purpose by the Lord of Mito,
+brother of the shogun who at that time ruled Japan. In order to get
+water for this park a canal thirty miles long was constructed, and this
+same canal later supplied water to the city of Yedo, as Tokyo was then
+called.
+
+The current period is the fourth, and it is the aim of the present-day
+masters to combine in their work all the fine points of the preceding
+periods. This development is largely due to the ease of modern
+transportation, which has enabled the landscape gardeners of our time to
+travel widely and become familiar with the best work of their
+distinguished predecessors and the finest natural scenery. For instance,
+the Shiobara region, in northern Japan, a district famous for its lovely
+little corners, has been the inspiration for many modern gardens.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"And now," said my learned friend as we paused in a little shelter of
+bamboo and thatch, overlooking the corner of a lake bordered with
+curiously formed rocks and flowering shrubs, "I will tell you the great
+secret of this art; for of course you understand that with us landscape
+gardening is definitely placed as one of the fine arts." He paused for a
+moment, then continued: "The one sound principle for making a garden
+wherever water is used is what may be called the volcanic principle.
+That is to say, the artist in landscape gardening should go for his
+themes to places of volcanic origin; for in such places the greatest
+natural beauty is found.
+
+"And why? First of all, you have hills of interesting contours, made by
+eruptions. Then you have mountain lakes which form in the beds of
+extinct volcanoes. Our famous Lake Chuzenji, above Nikko, for example.
+From these lakes the water overflows, making splendid falls, like those
+of Kegon, which empty out of Lake Chuzenji. Below the falls you have a
+torrent rushing down a rocky valley, like the River Daiya, which flows
+from the Kegon Falls past Nikko, where it is spanned by the famous
+red-lacquered bridge. There is the basis for your entire garden
+composition.
+
+"But you must also remember that volcanic outpourings make rich soil.
+This soil, thrown into the air by volcanic explosions, settles in the
+crevices of rocks. Pines take root in it. But in some places the pocket
+of soil is small; wherefore the roots of the pine cannot spread, and the
+tree becomes a dwarf, gnarled and picturesque. Again, on the hillsides
+the rich soil makes great trees grow, with rich shrubbery and verdure
+beneath them. The torrent completes the landscape effect by sculpturing
+the rocks into fascinating forms. In that combination you have every
+element required. Reproduce it in miniature, and your garden is made."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV
+
+ _I Acquire Vanity--I Meet a Wise Man--The Distaste for
+ Boasting--Imperial Traditions--The First Ambassadors and
+ Consequent Embarrassments--Trappings of Rank--I Display My
+ Knowledge--And Come a Cropper--The Beauties of Calm_
+
+
+The garden theory of my friend the art collector, so Japanese in its
+completeness, charmed and satisfied me.
+
+"Now," I thought to myself, "I _know_."
+
+Thenceforward I looked at gardens not with the unenlightened enthusiasm
+of the casual amateur, but with a critic's eye. Here and there I would
+make a mental reservation, saying to myself that the man who made this
+garden had missed something in one respect or another; that the one
+great principle, the volcanic principle, had not been fully carried out.
+
+So time went on until presently I found myself in Kyoto, the cultivated
+city of Japan, seated at a table (upon which were glasses and a bottle)
+beside one of the most interesting Japanese I had met, a man of ripe age
+and experience and of a philosophical turn of mind. He loved the
+history, the legends and the psychology of his native land, and enjoyed
+sifting them through the interpretative screen of his own intelligence.
+
+I listened to him with eager interest.
+
+"To boast," said he, "is, according to our point of view, one of the
+cardinal sins. We so detest boasting that we go to the other extreme,
+depreciating anything or anybody connected with ourselves. Thus, when
+some one says to me, 'Your brother has amassed a fortune; he must be a
+man of great ability,' I will reply: 'He is not so very able. Perhaps he
+is only lucky.' As a matter of fact, it happens that my brother is a man
+of exceptional ability. But I must not say so; it is not good form for
+me to praise his qualities.
+
+"In speaking of our wives and children we do the same. We say, 'my poor
+wife,' or, 'my insignificant wife,' although she may fulfil our ideal of
+everything a woman should be.
+
+"Also the reverse of this proposition is true. We sometimes signify our
+disapproval or dislike of some one by speaking of him in terms of too
+high praise.
+
+"Among ourselves we fully understand these things. It is merely a code
+we follow. But I fear that this practice sometimes causes foreigners to
+misunderstand us. Being themselves accustomed to speak literally, they
+are inclined to take us so. Also, they are not likely to realize that we
+are most critical of those for whom we have profound regard. Why should
+we waste our time or our critical consideration upon persons who mean
+nothing to us or whom we dislike?
+
+"Yet, after all," he continued, with a little twinkle in his eye, "human
+nature is much the same the world over. There was an American here in
+Kyoto once who used to forbid his wife and sister to smoke cigarettes,
+but I observed that he was quick to pass his cigarette-case to other
+ladies."
+
+He drifted on to a further discussion of differences between the point
+of view of Japan and that of the Occident.
+
+"For twenty-five centuries," said he, "our emperors never lived behind a
+fortification. There was no need of it. The present imperial palace at
+Tokyo is, to be sure, protected by a moat and great stone walls, but
+that was originally built for shoguns, and was taken over by the
+Imperial House only at the time of the Restoration.
+
+"Our old Japanese idea is that the Emperor is the father of his people.
+There is a certain reverence, yet a certain democracy, too, in our
+feeling on this subject. We who have the old ideas regret that the
+Emperor now appears in a military or naval uniform. It is too much like
+the European way, too much like abandoning the feeling that he is the
+head of the family. For a uniform seems to make him only a part of the
+army or the navy.
+
+"But we had to modify our customs to suit those of other nations.
+Ambassadors began to come from foreign lands. The Emperor did not wish
+to see them, but was obliged to do so because they represented great
+powers to whom we could not say no.
+
+"At first, when the Emperor received ambassadors, he wore his ancient
+imperial robes and was seated upon cushions, Japanese fashion. But the
+ambassadors were arrayed in brilliant uniforms covered with decorations,
+and in accordance with their home customs they _stood_ in the imperial
+presence. They would stand before a European king or an American
+president. Therefore it seemed to them respectful to stand before our
+Emperor.
+
+"But, according to our customs, that is the worst thing that can happen.
+We must always be lower than the Emperor; we must not even look from a
+second-story window when he drives by. The Emperor's audience-room was
+so constructed that he sat in an elevated place at the head of a flight
+of steps. But even so, one never entered his presence standing fully
+erect. The idea of deference was visibly indicated by a stooping
+position, and as one ascended the steps toward the Imperial Person, one
+bent over more and more, until, on reaching the plane on which the
+Emperor was seated, one knelt, with bowed head, so as still to be below
+him.
+
+"A foreigner, on the other hand, wishing to show proper respect to an
+exalted personage, would make a bow from the waist and then assume a
+stiffly erect attitude, almost like a soldier standing at attention. Can
+you imagine an Occidental admiral or general, with his tight uniform,
+heavy braid, and sword, approaching any one upon his hands and knees? It
+would be foreign to his nature and training, not to say ruinous to his
+costume.[2]
+
+ [2] An extremely interesting account of the first audience
+ given by the Emperor to a foreign ambassador is contained in
+ "Memories," by the late Lord Redesdale, who was present.
+ Lord Redesdale was then Mr. Mitford, and was engaged in
+ preparing a volume which later became widely known under the
+ title "Tales of Old Japan."
+
+"Moreover, the important foreigners who came to Japan at the beginning
+of the period of transition were gorgeous with gold lace and jewelled
+decorations. Up to that time we had no decorations and no modern
+uniforms and trappings of rank. Even our Emperor, in his magnificent
+robes, was not adorned with gold braid, and no jewels flashed from his
+breast.
+
+"Naturally, then, we had to change. We created new orders of nobility;
+decorations were devised, uniforms were designed, all according to the
+European plan. In the old days we had shogun, daimyo, and samurai. Now
+we have princes of the blood, princes not of the blood, marquises,
+counts, viscounts, and barons. We have decorations to shine with foreign
+decorations. We have field-marshals and admirals to meet the foreign
+field-marshals and admirals."
+
+He sighed, and looked through the open window to the garden shimmering
+in moonlight.
+
+"Sometimes," he said, reflectively, "it seems to me that the only place
+where the spirit of Old Japan can feel at home is when it wanders
+through our ancient gardens. They are unchanged."
+
+He paused, still gazing through the open window, then went on:
+
+"That is another thing I must talk to you about. We Japanese have a
+profound feeling about gardens. The structure of a garden is a matter of
+the first importance. You must see some of our gardens."
+
+"I have done so already," I replied. "I have taken pains to visit many
+of them, and I----"
+
+"But," he interrupted, "I am not speaking entirely of vision in the
+sense of sight. One must have understanding of these things. I am
+talking of the basic principles upon which every garden should be made."
+
+"That is just what I am talking about," I returned, enthusiastically.
+"It happens that I have made quite a study of your theory of gardens."
+
+ [Illustration: A tea-house garden, Tokyo.--"The artist in
+ landscape gardening should go for his themes to places of
+ volcanic origin."]
+
+I must own that I did not speak without a certain complacency. I had the
+comfortable feeling that always comes to one who hears a subject
+broached and feels himself well equipped to discuss it.
+
+"That is very gratifying," said the philosopher, politely.
+
+It was indeed very gratifying. My memory was good. I casually mentioned
+the four periods of Japanese landscape gardening, making easy references
+to the Emperor Shomu, the scenery near the mouth of the Yangtse River,
+and the Chinese master Shunsui. Then I began to file my bill of
+particulars.
+
+"Of course," I said, "the one great secret of the art is to apply the
+volcanic principle. One should go for themes to places of volcanic
+origin--places like Lake Chuzenji and Nikko, places where lakes, formed
+in the beds of extinct volcanoes, overflow, making beautiful waterfalls
+and torrents which rush through rocky valleys. There, of course, is the
+basis for your entire garden composition."
+
+He sat staring at me. His eyes shone. Evidently I was making a deep
+impression on him.
+
+"Of course," I resumed, "volcanic explosions throw rich soil into----"
+
+"Stop!" he cried, half rising from his chair. "Who gave you those
+theories? Where did you learn all this?"
+
+"In Tokyo," I answered proudly, "I happened to meet----"
+
+"Never mind whom you met," he broke in, his voice trembling with
+intensity. "These things you have been saying are terrible--terrible!
+Such ideas are ruining art and beauty in Japan. A garden of that kind is
+an abomination."
+
+I sat stunned while he stood over me.
+
+"The thing above all others to keep away from," he continued,
+vehemently, "is anything volcanic. That should be apparent to any
+one--any one! The very cause of volcanic structure is violence. It is
+the embodiment of turmoil, unrest." He made a wild gesture with his
+arms. "A volcano blows up, it explodes--_bang!_ It throws everything
+about helter-skelter. It is horrible. That is a garden for a madhouse or
+the palace of a _narikin_--a new millionaire."
+
+"But don't you think----"
+
+"If one thing is more essential than another in a garden," he went on,
+ignoring my effort to interrupt, "it is peace, tranquillity, an
+atmosphere conducive to meditation. Fancy a cultivated gentleman, a
+philosopher, trying to meditate among volcanoes, waterfalls, and roaring
+torrents! A garden should have no waterfalls. Water, if it is there at
+all, should flow as placidly as philosophic thought. There should be no
+fish darting about, no noisy splashing fountains, no gaudy peonies, or
+other striking and distracting things. The purpose of a garden should
+not be display. Its proper purpose is not to excite the beholder, but to
+fill him with a rich contentment. A garden should be a bathing-place for
+the soul. And one no more wishes to plunge the soul than the body into a
+roaring torrent. No; there is in life already too much stress and
+turmoil. The soul cries out for repose. One must lave it in a crystal
+pool, healing and refreshing."
+
+He paused, short of breath.
+
+"But don't you think----"
+
+"Say no more! It is late. I must go home."
+
+I walked with him to the garden gate. A new moon hanging in a sky of
+blue and silver was reflected in a still pool, its margins soft with the
+dark, cloud-like forms of shrubbery. Near the gate some calla lilies
+stood like graceful, silent ghosts. The night air was fragrant with the
+scent of rich, damp soil and growing things.
+
+"But don't you think," I pleaded as I opened the gate to let him pass,
+"that there is, after all, something poetic in the volcanic conception
+of a garden?"
+
+"No, no," he cried. "Poetic? No. Good night. Good night. I do not
+understand this new Japan. There is no repose any more. It is all
+volcanoes, all exploding. It is the beauties of calm that we are losing.
+Calm! Yes, that is it, calm! calm! calm!"
+
+His agitated voice, shouting, "Calm! calm! calm!" came back to me as
+like a typhoon he whirled off into the darkness, leaving me in the sweet
+quiet of the garden--to meditate.
+
+
+
+
+ PART III
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI
+
+ _The "Connecticut Yankee" in Old Japan--Commodore Perry--The
+ Elder Statesmen--Marquis Okuma--Self-made Men--Viscount
+ Shibusawa--The Power of the Daimyo--Samurai Privileges,
+ Including That of Suicide--Education in Old Japan--Jigoro Kano
+ and Jiudo--The Farewell Letter of a Patriot--Kodokwan and
+ Butokukai--The Old Military Virtues--General Nogi--His Death
+ With Countess Nogi_
+
+
+Despite the convulsions, overturnings, and transitions through which so
+many nations have lately been passing, Japan still holds the world's
+record for swift and stupendous change. The thing that happened to Japan
+staggers the imagination. History affords no parallel. The nearest
+parallel is to be found in the fiction of a great imaginative writer. An
+American or a European going to Japan at approximately the time of the
+Imperial Restoration of 1868, found himself, in effect, dropped back
+through the centuries after the manner of Mark Twain's "Connecticut
+Yankee"; and the Japanese who lived through the transition which then
+began, met an experience like that pictured in Mark Twain's fantasy as
+having befallen the people of King Arthur's Court when modern knowledge
+was suddenly visited upon them.
+
+The true story of Japan, however, surpasses in its wonder the invention
+of Mark Twain; for whereas the facts of history compelled the author of
+"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" to let ancient Britain
+backslide into her semi-barbarism after the disappearance of the
+Connecticut Yankee, Japan not only changed completely but held her gains
+and continued to progress.
+
+The beginning of the period of transition is customarily dated from the
+year 1853, when Commodore Perry first arrived, or from 1854, when he
+negotiated his treaty; but though that treaty did open the door through
+which the spirit of change was soon to enter, the actual modernizing of
+the nation did not start until 1868, when Yoshinobu Tokugawa, fifteenth
+of his line, and last shogun to govern Japan, relinquished his power to
+the Emperor.
+
+Men able to remember the events of the Restoration are about as rare in
+Japan as are those who, in this country, remember the impeachment of
+Andrew Johnson, which occurred in the same year; and men who played
+important parts in the Restoration are of course rarer still--as rare,
+say, as Americans who played important parts in the Civil War. As for
+Japanese who can recall Perry's visit, they would correspond in years to
+those who, with us, can recollect the beginning of the struggle for Free
+Soil in Kansas. In neither land, alas, is there more than a handful of
+such old folk left.
+
+It so happens, however, that in Japan several very remarkable men have
+survived to great age.
+
+The three most powerful figures in politics at the time of my visit were
+the octogenarian noblemen known as the Genro, or Elder Statesmen: Field
+Marshal Prince Yamagata, Marquis Matsukata, and Marquis Okuma. Prince
+Yamagata, as a soldier, took an active part in the civil warfare
+attending the Restoration. Both he and Marquis Okuma were born in
+1838--that is to say seven years before Texas was admitted to the Union
+as the twenty-eighth state. Marquis Matsukata was born in 1840.
+
+Of these venerable statesmen, Prince Yamagata and Marquis Matsukata
+figured, I found, as great unseen influences; but Marquis Okuma, while
+perhaps not actually more active than his colleagues of the Genro,
+appeared frequently before the public, and was more of a popular idol,
+being often referred to as Japan's "Grand Old Man." In politics he had
+long been known as a great fighter and an artful tactician; also he was
+sympathetically regarded by reason of his having been, many years ago,
+the victim of a bomb outrage in which he lost a leg.
+
+I knew of his having been thus crippled, but through some trick of
+memory failed to recall the fact when, one day, I found myself a member
+of a small party of Americans received by the Marquis at his house. We
+were with him for something more than an hour; perhaps two hours. During
+that time he stood and made an address, moved about the room, and even
+stepped out to the garden, yet I was not once reminded of his physical
+handicap. I have never seen a person so seriously maimed who, in his
+movements, revealed it so little. And that at eighty-three years of age!
+
+I should have guessed him twenty years younger. Lean, tall, wiry, alert,
+with close-cropped white hair and snapping black eyes, he appeared to be
+at the very apex of his powers.
+
+That he was versatile I knew. All three of the Genro have at various
+times been Prime Minister, and have held other high offices under the
+Government, but Marquis Okuma's positions have been extremely varied,
+calling for the display of a wide range of knowledge and of talents. I
+was told that he had organized the Nationalist Party, published a
+magazine, edited a number of important literary and historical works,
+founded and presided over Waseda University, and had long been famed as
+a horticulturist.
+
+It was a curious thing to hear him speak in a language I could not
+understand, yet to feel so strongly his gift for swaying men with
+oratory.
+
+The experience reminded me of that of a newspaper man I know, who
+accompanied William Jennings Bryan on one of his political speech-making
+tours long ago.
+
+"I was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican," he told me, in recounting the
+experience, "and did not believe in Bryan or his measures, yet I
+continually found myself carried away by his oratory. While he was
+speaking he made me believe in things I _didn't_ believe in. I would
+want to applaud and cheer him like the rest of the audience.
+
+"Afterwards I would go back to the train and sober up. I wanted to kick
+myself for letting him twist me around his finger like that. But the
+next time I heard him the same thing would happen. It wasn't what he
+said; it was his voice and phrasing and his magnetism."
+
+I have no doubt that a Japanese unacquainted with English would sense
+Bryan's elocutionary power precisely as I did that of Marquis Okuma;
+indeed I am not sure that a foreigner, unfamiliar with the language of
+the orator, is not in a sense the auditor who can best measure his
+power.
+
+Marquis Okuma's features indicated extraordinary pugnacity, yet I should
+say that his pugnacity was under perfect control. He could exhibit both
+passion and icy coolness, and I believe he could turn on either at will,
+as one turns on hot or cold water. If he was William Jennings Bryan he
+was also Henry Cabot Lodge.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is worth remarking that these Elder Statesmen are without exception
+self-made men. None of them was born with a title; all were members of
+modest samurai families; all rose through ability.
+
+In this respect, as in many others, comparisons between the governmental
+system of Imperial Japan and that of Imperial Germany that was, do not
+hold. Japan is not governed by a hereditary ruling class. The government
+service is open to all men, under a system of competitive examinations,
+and promotion does not go by family or favour, but is in almost all
+cases a recognition of ability exhibited in minor offices. Young men in
+the consular service are in line for ambassadorships and may reasonably
+hope, if they exhibit great talents, ultimately to reach the highest
+offices.
+
+It would seem, moreover, that in Japan as in some other lands,
+aristocratic and wealthy families do not, as a rule, produce the
+strongest men. Thus I was informed that, of the entire cabinet of Prime
+Minister Hara, but one member was a man of noble family, that one having
+been Count Oki, Minister of Justice. And even Count Oki was only of the
+second generation of nobility.
+
+In the business world the same rule applies. The titled business men of
+Japan have risen, practically without exception, from humble beginnings.
+I was told that one of them, whom I met, had begun life as a pedlar, and
+was proud of it. Looking up another business genius in the national
+"Who's Who," I find the following statement, which may be assumed to
+have been furnished by the gentleman to whom it refers:
+
+ Arrived in Tokyo in '71, with empty purse; proceeded to
+ Yokohama, supporting himself by hawking cheap viands.
+
+If the honorary title, "Grand Old Man of Japan," had not already been
+conferred, and I had been invited to make nominations, I should have
+gone outside the realm of politics and cast my vote for Viscount Eiichi
+Shibusawa.
+
+Had the Viscount been, at the time of the Restoration, a member of one
+of the great clans responsible for the return of the reins of government
+to Imperial hands, his career might have resembled more closely the
+careers of the three old nobles of the Genro. But whereas Prince
+Yamagata, Marquis Matsukata, and Marquis Okuma were respectively men of
+Choshu, Satsuma, and Saga--clans that cast their lot with the coalition
+that returned the Emperor to power--Viscount Shibusawa was on the other
+side, having been a retainer of the last shogun.
+
+The spoils went, naturally enough, to the victors. Strong men belonging
+to the clans which had supported the Imperial House became the strong
+men of the centralized government. Even to-day, when clans, as such, no
+longer exist, the old clan sentiment survives, with the result that men
+of Satsuma and Choshu origin are most influential in politics. The
+militaristic tendency sometimes noticed in the action of the Japanese
+Government is said to be largely due to this fact, for the clan of
+Satsuma was in the old days notorious for its warlike inclinations, and
+there is evidence to show that those inclinations have, to some extent
+survived. Naval officers are to-day drawn largely from old Satsuma
+families, while Choshu furnishes many officers to the army.
+
+At twenty-seven years of age, Viscount Shibusawa had by his ability
+become vice-minister of the Shogun's treasury. Naturally, then, after
+the fall of the shogunate, he went in for finance. He founded the First
+Bank of Japan--literally the first modern bank started there--and,
+prospering greatly became a man of large affairs. Repeatedly he was
+offered the portfolio of Finance under the Government, but always
+refused it. A few years ago he retired from active business, and as has
+already been mentioned, gave his time thereafter to all manner of good
+works.
+
+When I met him he was nearing his eighty-second birthday. He distinctly
+remembered Perry's arrival in Japan and the events that followed. I
+wished to get the story of a representative man who had seen these
+things, and therefore asked him to grant me an interview. This he was so
+kind as to do, allowing me the better part of two days--for interviewing
+through an interpreter, even though he be the best of interpreters, is
+slow work.
+
+We talked in a pretty brick bungalow in the Viscount's garden. Outside
+the door was an English rose-garden, with bushes trained to the shape of
+trees.
+
+Prior to that time I had always seen the Viscount wearing a frock coat
+or a dress suit, but here at home, on a day free from formalities, he
+was clad in the silken robes that Japanese gentlemen put on for
+comfort--though they might well put them on for elegance, too.
+
+Short, stocky, energetic, with a strong neck and large round
+head, the face seamed with deep wrinkles, he was one of the most
+extraordinary-looking men I had ever met. He radiated force, courage,
+honesty. I knew a Sioux chief, long ago, who had a face like that, even
+to the colour, and to the deep wrinkles of humour about the mouth and
+eyes. Nor, in either case, did the promise of those wrinkles fail.
+
+When, having likened Viscount Shibusawa to an Indian chief, I also liken
+him to a barrel-bodied, square-jawed, weather-beaten old British squire
+of the perfect John Bull type, I may overtax the reader's imagination;
+yet there was in him as much of the one as of the other.
+
+He was born in the country, coming of a good but not aristocratic
+family. The Japan of his youth and early manhood was divided into some
+two hundred and fifty or three hundred feudal districts, each ruled by a
+daimyo, or chieftain, having his castles, his court, his concubines, his
+retainers--among the latter soldiers in armour, equipped with swords,
+spears or bows and arrows, and wearing hideous masks calculated to
+terrify the foe.
+
+These chiefs had absolute power over the people and lands in their
+domains. They could make laws, issue paper money, levy taxes, impose
+labour and punishment on the people, or arbitrarily take from them
+property or life itself.
+
+It was a land without railroads, without steam power, without
+window-glass; a land in which nobles journeyed by the highroads in
+magnificent processions, surrounded by their soldiers, mounted and
+afoot, their lacquered palanquins, their coolie bearers; a land in
+which, when great lords passed, humble citizens fell to their knees and
+touched their foreheads to the ground; a land of duels, feuds,
+vendettas, clan wars; a land in which the samurai, or gentry, alone were
+allowed to wear swords, and in which one of the privileges most highly
+prized by the samurai was that of dying by his own hand, if condemned to
+death, instead of by the hand of the executioner. Involved with the
+privilege of _hara-kiri_, or _seppuku_, was a property right. The
+property of a man beheaded by the executioner was confiscated, whereas
+one committing hara-kiri could leave his estate to his family.
+
+The education of young men varied in those times according to rank.
+Youths of the aristocracy were instructed in the Chinese classics, which
+in Japan take the place of Latin and Greek with us. Medicine and
+astronomy were also taught. The sons of lesser samurai received a
+training calculated to fit them for practical affairs. All those
+entitled to wear swords studied swordsmanship, and the process by which
+they learned it was sometimes severe, for it was the custom of masters
+to attack the pupil suddenly from behind, or even when he was asleep at
+night, on the theory that he should be ready at all times to defend
+himself. A samurai found killed with his sword completely sheathed was
+disgraced. At least two inches of the blade must show in proof that the
+dead man had attempted a defence. Jiu-jutsu was also taught to many
+samurai youths, and in this, as in swordsmanship, it was the practice of
+instructors to make surprise attacks upon their pupils.
+
+Viscount Shibusawa's recollections of old days, as he recounted them to
+me, will make a separate chapter, but before that chapter is begun, let
+me mention several points of samurai tradition--among them jiu-jutsu,
+and the more advanced art or science of jiudo, developed by my friend
+Mr. Jigoro Kano.
+
+As after the Restoration the craze for all things American and European
+spread through Japan, the old arts of jiu-jutsu, which for more than
+three centuries had been practised by samurai, fell into disuse. Before
+that time there had been many different schools of jiu-jutsu, teaching a
+variety of systems, but as the old masters of the art became
+superannuated no followers were arising to take their places.
+
+In 1878, when Mr. Kano took up the study of jiu-jutsu, he saw that,
+through lack of interest, many of the fine points of the art were likely
+to be lost. In order to preserve as much of it as he could, he went to
+great pains to make himself proficient, not merely in one system of
+jiu-jutsu, but in several systems as taught by the several great masters
+then alive.
+
+His first interest in jiu-jutsu arose through the fact that he had been
+a weak child and wished to make himself a strong man. I was reminded of
+Theodore Roosevelt's sickly childhood when Mr. Kano told me that; and it
+is interesting to recall that it was President Roosevelt who first
+caused jiu-jutsu to be widely talked of in the United States, and that
+he studied it, while in the White House, under one of Mr. Kano's pupils.
+Also I was interested to hear from Mr. Kano that, as a young man, he
+gave an exhibition of jiu-jutsu before General Grant, at Viscount
+Shibusawa's house in Tokyo.
+
+Far from being a professional athlete, Mr. Kano is a gentleman of
+samurai family, a graduate of the Literary College of the Imperial
+University, a linguist, a traveller, an educator of high reputation, the
+holder of several decorations. Among other offices he has been head
+master of the Peers' School in Tokyo.
+
+As the reader is doubtless aware, the theory of jiu-jutsu was to defeat
+the adversary, not by pitting force against force, but by yielding
+before the opponent's onslaughts in such a way as to turn his strength
+against him.
+
+Jiudo, which means "the way or doctrine of yielding," is a combination,
+created by Mr. Kano, of all systems of jiu-jutsu interwoven with a plan
+of mental, moral, and physical training, calculated to elevate the art
+above any mere consideration of combat alone--although that side is by
+no means neglected.
+
+Innumerable stories, exciting or amusing, might be told of the heroic
+adventures of celebrated jiudoists, but I know of nothing which sheds
+more light upon Mr. Kano's teachings, in their moral aspect, than does a
+letter written to him by Commander Yuasa of the Japanese Navy, a former
+pupil of the Kodokwan, the school of jiudo established by Mr. Kano in
+Tokyo. The letter was written by Commander Yuasa when he was about to
+take the steamer _Sagami Maru_ and sink her at the harbour entrance in
+the third blockading expedition at Port Arthur. The following are
+extracts from it:
+
+ We shall do all that human power can, and leave the rest to
+ Heaven. Thus we can calmly ride to certain death. I am happy to
+ say that among the members of this forlorn hope are three of
+ your former pupils: Commander Hirose, Lieutenant Commander
+ Honda, and myself. May this fact redound to the credit of the
+ Kodokwan.
+
+ Though I greatly regret that while living I could not do justice
+ to the kindness you have shown me, still please accept as an
+ expression of my gratitude the fact that I lay down my life for
+ the sake of our country, as you have so kindly taught us, in
+ time of peace, to be ready to do.
+
+The writer of this letter was lost, as was also Commander Hirose, one of
+the brother officers he mentions. The other, Lieutenant Commander Honda,
+was wounded by a shell, but was rescued and lived to tell the tale.
+
+Foreigners visiting Japan and wishing to see jiudo demonstrated, are
+welcome at the Kodokwan, where, if notice is given, an interpreter is
+provided. There are now some twenty thousand practitioners of jiudo who
+look to the Kodokwan as headquarters and to Mr. Kano as their master.
+
+Another place where jiudo may be witnessed is at the
+Butokukai--Association for the Inculcation of the Military Virtues--in
+Kyoto. The latter is a private organization, like an athletic club, with
+a fine temple-like building, and many branch establishments throughout
+the country. It has some two hundred thousand members, of which several
+thousands are active.
+
+The primary idea of this organization is to keep alive certain old
+Japanese military arts, such as jiudo, archery, fencing, the use of
+lances and spears, and the employment of the curious lance-like
+_naginata_, which, with its curved blade and long handle, was used only
+by women.
+
+Contests between men armed with dummy swords and women using wooden
+naginata are sometimes to be witnessed at the Butokukai, and are
+extremely interesting as recalling the days when the women of Old Japan
+fought beside their men, using the naginata as an offensive weapon, and
+a short dagger, worn in the fold of the obi, as a defensive weapon
+corresponding to the shorter of the two swords that men used to wear.
+
+Samurai women were taught to defend themselves with the dagger, and to
+use it for suicide if in fear of defeat and dishonour. Families in which
+the samurai tradition is sedulously maintained still make it a custom to
+present their daughters, at the time of marriage, with daggers of this
+type, though such weapons are now recognized merely as emblems of a
+spirit to be preserved.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The great modern samurai hero of Japan was General Count Nogi, the hero
+of Port Arthur, in memory of whom a shrine was recently dedicated in
+Tokyo.
+
+This shrine stands in the grounds behind the simple house in Tokyo where
+Count and Countess Nogi lived, and where they died together by their own
+hands. Nogi is canonized in Japan, and his house is held a sacred place,
+and is visited by thousands of persons each year.
+
+The theory upon which self-destruction is practised according to the old
+samurai tradition, and is widely approved in certain circumstances, is
+one of the things that baffles the Occidental mind.
+
+I therefore asked Viscount Kentaro Kaneko, who knew General Nogi, to
+tell me the story of his death, and to explain to me how he came to
+commit seppuku.
+
+ [Illustration: Viscount Kentaro Kaneko (Harvard '78), Privy
+ Councilor to the Emperor, President of the America-Japan Society
+ of Tokyo, and friend of President Roosevelt]
+
+"When Nogi was given command at Port Arthur," said the Viscount, "his
+two sons were officers under him. He told his wife to prepare three
+coffins, and to hold no funeral services until all three were ready to
+be buried together.
+
+"In the assault on Port Arthur some thirty thousand Japanese soldiers
+gave up their lives. This sacrifice of life was at first much criticized
+in Japan, but public sentiment changed in face of the fact that the
+General lost both his sons. He returned to Japan a victor, it is true,
+but a most unhappy man. Always in his mind were thoughts of the families
+of the thirty thousand brave young men it had been necessary to
+sacrifice. He did not want to be acclaimed in the streets, but to be let
+alone. He went about in an old uniform and tried to be as inconspicuous
+as possible.
+
+"One day at an audience with the Emperor Meiji, Nogi said to him as he
+was leaving, something to the effect that he should never see him again.
+
+"The Emperor, gathering that Nogi was contemplating seppuku, called him
+back.
+
+"'Nogi,' he said, 'I still have need of you. I want your life.'
+
+"So the General did not carry out his plan at that time, but lived on,
+as the Emperor had ordered him to do, becoming president of the school
+at which the sons of nobles are educated.
+
+"All through the years, however, he was haunted by the memory of the
+thirty thousand soldiers he had been compelled to send to their death.
+
+"When the Emperor Meiji died, Nogi was one of the guard of honour, made
+up of peers, who in rotation watched at the Imperial bier for forty days
+and forty nights.
+
+"Then came the state funeral. On the day of the funeral Nogi wrote a
+poem which declared in effect, 'I shall follow in the footsteps of Your
+Majesty.' This poem he showed to Prince Yamagata, who took it to mean
+merely that Nogi would be in the procession following the Imperial
+remains to the grave.
+
+"But when the guns announced the departure of the funeral cortège from
+the palace, Nogi was not there. Like the samurai of old, he desired to
+follow his dead master into the beyond. At the sound of the guns he took
+his short sword and committed seppuku, while in the next room Countess
+Nogi, his devoted wife, dressed all in white, cut the arteries of her
+neck. Thus the two died together, for the sake of the Emperor and the
+thirty thousand soldiers who had sacrificed their lives."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At no point is the outlook of the Oriental more completely at odds with
+that of the Occidental, than in the view it takes of suicide.
+
+Whereas with us suicide is condemned as cowardly, being resorted to as a
+means of escape from the hardships of life, there will oftentimes be
+something highly heroic in a Japanese suicide. Unhappiness, it is true,
+does drive some Japanese to self-destruction, but in many other cases
+the suicide represents something more in the nature of a self-inflicted
+punishment for failure of some kind. Thus it is with the schoolboys who
+sometimes kill themselves because they have failed in their
+examinations. Likewise, while in Japan I heard of two railroad gatemen
+who had, by failing to close their gate when a train was coming, been
+responsible for the death of a man travelling in a ricksha. A few days
+after this accident both these gatemen suicided by throwing themselves
+beneath a train. For their neglect they paid voluntarily with their
+lives.
+
+"And," said the Viscount, "we had in the old days another sort of
+suicide, examples of which sometimes occur even to this day. When a man
+believed profoundly in something, and was unable to attract attention to
+the thing in which he believed, he would sometimes commit seppuku as a
+means of drawing notice to it. He would leave a paper setting forth his
+beliefs, and people would give it attention, feeling that if a man was
+willing to die in order to emphasize a point, his message was worth
+considering."
+
+The Viscount paused. Then rather reflectively he added: "It is as though
+he were to underscore his protest--in red."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII
+
+ _The Old-time Anti-Foreign Sentiment--Prince Yoshinobu
+ Tokugawa--Emperor and Shogun--Prince Yoshinobu becomes
+ Shogun--His Highness, Akitaké, Goes to France--Humorous
+ Episodes--The Defeat of Prince Yoshinobu's Army--Various
+ Explanations--The Restoration of the Emperor--Prince Yoshinobu's
+ Retirement--The Viscount's Theory--Prince Keikyu Tokugawa--A
+ Roosevelt Anecdote--Swords and Watchchain_
+
+
+"I was a boy of fourteen," said Viscount Shibusawa "when your Commodore
+Perry came to Japan. At that time, and for a considerable period
+afterwards, I was 'anti-foreigner'--that is, I was opposed to the
+abandonment of our old Japanese isolation, and to the opening of
+relations with foreign powers.
+
+"The majority of thoughtful men felt as I did. Our trouble with the
+Jesuits, in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the
+seventeenth century came about through a fear which grew up amongst us
+that the Jesuits were trying to get political control of Japan. This
+fear brought about their expulsion from the country, as well as some
+persecution of themselves and their converts, and it was then that our
+policy of isolation began. More lately we had seen the Opium War in
+China, and that had added to our conviction that foreign powers were
+merely seeking territory, and that they were utterly unscrupulous.
+
+"When I reached the age of twenty-five, I became a retainer of Yoshinobu
+Tokugawa, a powerful prince, kinsman of Iyemochi Tokugawa, who was then
+Shogun. Not being of noble family, I did not belong to Prince
+Yoshinobu's intimate circle, but was a member of what might be termed
+the middle group at his court.
+
+"He was then acting as intermediary between the Shogun and the Imperial
+Court at Kyoto--for though the Shogun ruled the land, as shoguns had for
+centuries, there was maintained a fiction that he did so by imperial
+consent.
+
+"When Iyemochi died, the powerful daimyos nominated my lord, Prince
+Yoshinobu, to succeed him. I was opposed to his accepting the office,
+for the country was then in a very unsettled condition, and I felt sure
+that the next shogun, whoever he might be, would have serious
+difficulties to encounter; especially with the important question of
+foreign relations to the fore, and with such powerful lords as those of
+Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizan becoming increasingly hostile to the
+shogunate and increasingly favourable to the Imperial House.
+
+"The fact that Prince Yoshinobu had acted as intermediary between his
+kinsman, the fourteenth Shogun, and the Imperial Court at Kyoto, made it
+a delicate matter for him later to accept the shogunate. Moreover,
+though he belonged to the Tokugawa family, his branch of the family, the
+Mito branch, had continually insisted upon Imperial supremacy in Japan.
+However, circumstances compelled him to accept the office. I was greatly
+disappointed when he did so.
+
+"This occurred two years after I became his retainer. I was now
+vice-minister of his treasury, with the additional duties of keeping
+track of all modern innovations and supervising the new-style military
+drill, with rifles, which we were then taking up.
+
+"Shortly after becoming Shogun, Yoshinobu decided to send his brother,
+Akitaké, to France to be educated, and he appointed me a member of the
+entourage that was to accompany the young man. I was then twenty-seven
+years old.
+
+"We sailed in January 1867--a party of twenty-five, among whom were a
+doctor, an officer who went to study artillery, and various others
+besides Akitaké's seven personal attendants.
+
+"For international purposes the Shogun was now called Tycoon, for the
+word 'shogun,' meaning 'generalissimo,' carried with it no connotation
+of rulership; whereas 'tycoon' means 'great prince'--and of course it
+seemed proper enough for a great prince to treat with foreign powers. As
+brother of the Tycoon, Akitaké received, in Europe, the title
+'Highness'.
+
+"Matters looked very ominous for the shogunate at the time we left
+Japan, but I felt that the best thing for me to do was to go abroad and
+learn all I could, with a view to being better able to serve my country
+when I should return.
+
+"The members of our party wore the Japanese costume, including topknots
+and two swords. I, however, devised a special elegance for myself. I
+heard that the governor of Saigon, where our ship was to stop, intended
+to welcome our party officially, so I had a dress coat made." The
+Viscount shook with laughter as he recalled the episode. "It wasn't a
+dress suit--just the coat. And when we got to Saigon I wore that coat
+over my Japanese silks, in the daytime.
+
+"Our lack of experience with European ways caused many amusing things to
+happen. For instance, when we were in the train crossing the Isthmus of
+Suez--there was no canal then--one member of the party, unaccustomed to
+window-glass, threw an orange-peel, expecting it to go out of the
+window. The peel hit the glass and bounced back falling into the lap of
+an official who had come to escort us across the isthmus. We were much
+embarrassed.
+
+"Later, in Paris, another absurd thing occurred. You must understand
+that in Japan it is customary for guests, leaving a house where they
+have been entertained, to wrap up cakes and such things and take them
+home. One member of our party, who had never seen ice-cream before,
+attempted this, wrapping the ice-cream in paper and tucking it in the
+front of his kimono. Needless to say, the ice-cream was no longer
+ice-cream when he got back to the hotel, and he himself was not very
+comfortable.
+
+"The Paris Exposition of 1867 was in progress when we arrived. When it
+was over we travelled through Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and
+England. Originally it was planned that after our official tour we
+should settle down to study, and I was eager for this time to come.
+However, it was not long before we received news that the shogunate had
+fallen.
+
+"The news was puzzling. I could not gather what was happening in Japan.
+First I heard that Yoshinobu, as shogun, had publicly returned full
+authority of the Emperor, but later came word of the battle of
+Toba-Fushimi, in which troops of the Imperial Party defeated troops of
+the Shogun. This made it appear that Yoshinobu had played false, first
+publicly relinquishing the shogun's power and then fighting to maintain
+it. These seemingly conflicting acts puzzled me, for I knew that
+Yoshinobu was a man of the highest honour.
+
+"Presently came a messenger from Japan saying that Akitaké had become
+head of the Mito branch of the Tokugawa family, which made it necessary
+for us to abandon our plans and return. We sailed from England in
+December 1867, reaching Japan in November 1868, eleven months later.
+
+"I was dumbfounded by the changes I found. Though I knew that the Shogun
+Government had fallen I had not visualized what that would mean. My
+lord, Yoshinobu, was held prisoner in a house in Suruga. Learning that
+he was allowed to see his intimate friends and retainers, I journeyed to
+Suruga, where I had audience with him several times. I found him
+reticent, and was able to get from him little information as to the
+mysterious course he had pursued.
+
+"After having been held prisoner for a year he was released, but he
+continued for thirty years to reside in the neighbourhood of Suruga,
+leading a secluded life. Not until thirty-one years after his
+resignation of the shogunate did he come to Tokyo. Four years later the
+Emperor created him a prince of the new régime. This showed pretty
+clearly that the Emperor had not mistrusted him.
+
+"For twenty years after my return to Japan I was unable to get at the
+bottom of this matter. I tried to get some explanation from Yoshinobu
+himself, but he evaded my inquiries. Meanwhile the question was
+constantly discussed in Japan. Those hostile to Yoshinobu contended that
+he had not acted with sincerity, having been led by the burdens
+connected with the opening of foreign relations, to lay down the
+shogunate, and having later changed his mind and fought to retain it. On
+the face of it, this seemed true. Yoshinobu was called a coward and a
+traitor, and was severely criticized for having escaped after the battle
+of Toba-Fushimi.
+
+"On the other hand, those who supported Yoshinobu asserted that he had
+acted logically and wisely: that he had seen that his government was
+going to fall, and had been entirely honest in surrendering the
+shogunate prior to the battle. These adherents insisted that he had not
+wanted a battle, but had set out for Kyoto to see the Emperor with a
+view to arranging details, especially with regard to the future welfare
+of his retainers. "But when a great lord, travelled, in those times, he
+travelled with an army, and Yoshinobu's defenders maintained that this
+was what had brought on the battle--that when the men of Choshu and
+Satsuma learned that Yoshinobu was moving toward Kyoto with his
+soldiers, they came out and attacked him, believing, or pretending to
+believe, that he was on a hostile errand.
+
+"At this time the Emperor was but seventeen years of age, and the
+Government was in the hands of elder statesmen of the Imperial Party.
+The Emperor himself probably had no idea on what errand Yoshinobu was
+approaching Kyoto; and whether the elder statesmen knew or not, they
+belonged to clans hostile to the shogunate, and preferred to fight.
+
+"Many years passed before the truth began to become clear. At last, when
+the old wounds were pretty well healed, I undertook the compilation of a
+history of Yoshinobu's life and times. Finally I asked him point-blank
+about the events connected with his resignation and the subsequent
+battle. He told me that he had indeed started to Kyoto on a peaceful
+errand, but that when the forces sent out by the great clansmen
+appeared, he could not control his own men. He had neither sought nor
+desired battle. Feeling that his highest duty was to the Emperor, he
+withdrew from the battle, taking no part in it, and returned whence he
+had come, going into retirement. He knew, of course, that the battle
+would put him in a false light, and he decided that the wisest and most
+honourable course for him to pursue was to show, by his life in
+retirement, his absolute submission to the Emperor.
+
+"In order fully to appreciate why Yoshinobu was so ready to lay down his
+power, the old Japanese doctrine of loyalty to the throne must be fully
+grasped. This loyalty amounts to a religion, and permeates the whole
+life of Japan. That is why the shoguns who for so many centuries ruled
+Japan, never attempted to usurp imperial rank, but were satisfied, while
+usurping the power, to preserve the form of governing always as
+vice-regents.
+
+"It is my personal belief that when Yoshinobu Tokugawa accepted the
+shogunate despite the opposition of his trusted retainers, he did so
+with the full intention of restoring to the Imperial House its rightful
+power. I used to ask him about this, and while he never admitted it, he
+never denied it. That was characteristic of him. He was the most modest
+and self-effacing of men--the last man who would have claimed for
+himself the credit for performing a self-sacrificing and heroic act of
+patriotism. For him the performance of the act was sufficient."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Throughout my talk with Viscount Shibusawa I felt in him the passionate
+loyalty of the retainer to his lord. Where I had wished for
+reminiscences of a more personal nature, the Viscount, I could see,
+thought of himself first of all in his relation to the family of Prince
+Yoshinobu, the last shogun, whose retainer he was. He was not interested
+in telling me of his own career, but he was profoundly interested in
+seeing that I, being a writer, should understand the relationship of
+Prince Yoshinobu to the Imperial Restoration. His attitude reminded me
+of that of a noble old Southern gentleman, now dead and gone, who had
+been the adjutant of Robert E. Lee, and who loved Lee and loved to talk
+about him. When I talked with him it was the same. I had great
+difficulty in getting him to tell me about his own experiences.
+
+The loyalty of the retainer to the family of his lord is also to be seen
+in the relationship between the Viscount and young Prince Keikyu
+Tokugawa, son of Yoshinobu. After the death of the father the Viscount
+continued to act as advisor to the son. He became his chief counsellor,
+and when, a few years since, he resigned from the board of directors of
+the First Bank of Japan--the bank which he founded five years after the
+Restoration--it was young Prince Tokugawa who succeeded to his empty
+chair.
+
+The Prince, who is a member of the House of Peers, is known in the
+United States, having come here during the war as representative of the
+Japanese Red Cross.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Viscount Shibusawa is also a figure not unfamiliar to Americans, having
+visited this country several times. I am indebted to him for an anecdote
+illustrative of the prodigious memory of President Roosevelt.
+
+"Eighteen years ago," he said, "when Mr. Roosevelt was president, I
+called upon him at the White House. We had a pleasant talk. He
+complimented the behaviour of the Japanese troops in the Boxer trouble,
+saying that they were not only brave but orderly and well disciplined.
+Then he spoke with admiration of the art of Japan.
+
+"I said to him, 'Mr. President, I am only a banker, and I regret to say
+that in my country banking is not yet so highly developed as is art.'
+
+"'Perhaps it will be,' he replied, 'by the time we meet again.'
+
+"Thirteen years later, when I called upon him at his home at Oyster Bay,
+he took up the conversation where we had left off.
+
+"'The last time I saw you,' he said, 'I did not ask you about banking in
+Japan. Now I want you to tell me all about it.'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As I was leaving the bungalow in the garden late in the afternoon of the
+second day spent in interviewing the Viscount, the thought came to me
+that probably I should never again talk with a man who had lived through
+such transitions. I wanted a souvenir, and I wished it to be something
+emblematic of the changes witnessed by those shrewd, humorous old eyes.
+
+Therefore, not without some hesitation, I asked the Viscount if he would
+be so kind as to put on his two samurai swords and let me take his
+photograph.
+
+He dispatched a servant who presently returned from the house bearing
+the weapons. The Viscount tucked them through his sash, and I snapped
+the shutter, hoping fervently that the late afternoon light would prove
+to have been adequate.
+
+ [Illustration: Viscount Shibusawa, one of the Grand Old Men of
+ Japan, consented to pose for me, wearing his samurai swords]
+
+As the reader may see for himself, the picture turned out well. Indeed
+it turned out better than I myself had anticipated, for besides the
+swords and silken robes of Old Japan, there may be seen in it a very
+modern note.
+
+It was the Viscount's grandson who, when I showed him the photograph,
+called attention to that.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a smile, "you have there the swords of Old Japan.
+But the watch-chain--that is an anachronism."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ _Viscount Kaneko's Home--Some Souvenirs--A Rooseveltian
+ Memory--Doctor Bigelow's Prophecy--A First Meeting with
+ Roosevelt--The Russo-Japanese War--Luncheons at the White
+ House--Roosevelt's Interest in the Samurai Tradition--Sagamore
+ Hill--Mrs. Roosevelt and Quentin--A Simple Home--The President
+ Brings Blankets--A Bear Hunt--The Peace of Portsmouth and a
+ Bearskin for the Emperor--A Letter of Roosevelt's on Relations
+ with Japan--A Letter from Mid-Africa--"American Samurai"_
+
+
+Never while in Japan did I feel quite so close to home as on the several
+occasions when I sat in the study of Viscount Kentaro Kaneko, in Tokyo,
+listening to his reminiscences and looking at his souvenirs of Theodore
+Roosevelt.
+
+No Japanese has been more widely known in the United States, or more
+familiar with our ways, than Viscount Kaneko (Harvard '78), Privy
+Councilor to the Emperor, chairman of the commission which is engaged in
+preparing the history of the reign of the late Emperor Meiji, and
+president of the America-Japan Society of Tokyo.
+
+I found him living in a good-sized but not ostentatious house, purely
+Japanese in architecture. But it was not purely Japanese in its
+equipment. Like the houses of other Tokyo gentlemen accustomed to see
+much of foreigners, it had carpet over the hall matting, rendering the
+removal of shoes unnecessary, and certain of its rooms were furnished in
+the Occidental style.
+
+Such rooms, in Japan, usually are stiff reception-rooms which look as if
+they were used only when visitors from abroad put in an appearance; but
+Viscount Kaneko's study held a homelike feeling which made me think the
+room was frequented by the master of the house when no guests were
+present.
+
+On the walls were framed photographs of notables, European and American,
+with the Roosevelt family very much to the fore, and I noticed beneath
+the photograph of President Roosevelt a cordial inscription in the
+familiar handwriting, so honest and boyish--writing as unlike that of
+any other great man as Roosevelt himself was unlike any other great man.
+
+When I had crossed and read the inscription, Viscount Kaneko called my
+attention to the frame.
+
+"That frame," he said, "is made from a piece of Oregon pine which was
+brought among other presents to the Shogun by Commodore Perry. The
+Emperor presented me with a piece of the wood, and I had made from it
+that frame and a writing box on which the scene of Perry's arrival is
+depicted in gold lacquer."
+
+There was also a photograph of Mrs. Roosevelt with two of her sons, and
+one of Quentin Roosevelt as a child, astride a pony, with an inscription
+to the Viscount's son Takemaro, dated August seventh, 1905. In the
+corner of the frame was inserted a photograph which the Viscount had
+caused to be taken of Quentin's grave in France.
+
+Viscount Kaneko was a student at Harvard when Roosevelt entered the
+university, but they were two years apart and did not know each other
+there. Their first meeting occurred in Washington in 1889, when
+Roosevelt was Civil Service Commissioner and Viscount Kaneko was
+returning to Japan after having visited the principal countries of
+Europe for the purpose of studying parliamentary forms. The first
+Japanese Parliament met in the year following, 1890, when Japan adopted
+a Constitution.
+
+In looking back upon my interviews with the Viscount I find myself
+marvelling to-day, as I did then, at the detailed accuracy of his
+memory. He recounted events of fifteen and more years before with a
+vividness and an attention to trifles that was extraordinary. It was as
+if he had refreshed his memory by reading from a diary.
+
+"I had two letters of introduction to Roosevelt," he told me, "when I
+went to Washington in 1889. One had been given to me by James Bryce,
+later Viscount Bryce, who was then in Gladstone's Cabinet. The other I
+received from my friend Dr. William Sturges Bigelow.
+
+"When Doctor Bigelow gave me the letter, he said: 'This will introduce
+you to a man who will some day be President of the United States.' I
+always remembered that and watched Roosevelt's career with the more
+interest for that reason.
+
+"On reaching Washington I called on Roosevelt at a private boarding
+house where he was living, and he returned my call next day. Naturally I
+perceived at once that he was a man of extraordinarily vigorous mind. I
+enjoyed him greatly, and was pleased and interested, after my return to
+Japan, to see him steadily ascending. He became Assistant Secretary of
+the Navy, Colonel of the Rough Riders, Governor of New York. 'Now,' I
+said to myself on reading that he had been elected Governor, 'he is on
+the way to fulfilling Doctor Bigelow's prophecy.' Then he became
+Vice-President, and I thought: 'That is too bad. They have shelved him.
+He won't be President after all.' But McKinley was assassinated and
+Roosevelt came to the White House.
+
+"Early in 1904, at the time of our war with Russia, I was sent to the
+United States on an unofficial embassy. I went first to New York, where
+I remained for a week; then to Washington. There I called on my old
+friend Mr. Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court--'Brother Kaneko' he used
+to call me--requesting him to take me to the White House to meet the
+President, who I thought would not remember me. But Justice Holmes had
+disagreed with Roosevelt over the Northern Securities case, and did not
+feel that he was persona grata at the White House just then. Therefore I
+arranged through our Minister, Mr. Takahira, for a meeting.
+
+"One morning in May, 1904, the Minister took me to call upon the
+President. Our appointment was for half past ten. We were not kept
+waiting long. I will never forget the picture of Roosevelt as he quickly
+thrust open the door and rushed into the room. The Minister had no
+chance to present me. 'I am delighted to see you again Baron!' the
+President exclaimed in that wonderfully hearty way of his. And as we
+shook hands he threw his arm over my shoulder, demanding: 'Why did you
+stay for a week in New York? Why didn't you come and see me right away?'
+
+"During our talk, which lasted an hour, he let me see that he was
+absolutely neutral in his official attitude toward our war with Russia,
+but nevertheless made me feel that he had much personal sympathy for
+Japan. He declared frankly that popular sentiment in the United States
+was favourable to Japan, and added that the Russian Government had
+complained that American army and navy officers were openly
+pro-Japanese. This had made it necessary for him to issue a proclamation
+of neutrality. But though, as President, he was particular to be
+scrupulously just to both sides, I was in no doubt as to the
+friendliness of his private sentiments.
+
+"He advised me not to stay in Washington, but to make my headquarters in
+New York, coming over to Washington to see him when it was necessary.
+This I did, and as time went on, and we became closer friends, he often
+did me the honour of inviting me to luncheon _en famille_ at the White
+House.
+
+"At one of these luncheons I told him of Doctor Bigelow's prophecy, and
+of how I had watched him mounting step by step to its fulfilment. That
+seemed to please him.
+
+"'Edith,' he called across the table to Mrs. Roosevelt, 'do you hear
+that? Here is a man who has kept a friendly eye on me from away off in
+Japan.'
+
+"Once at one of these intimate White House luncheons he remarked that as
+President it was necessary to preserve a certain style. 'Coming to see
+us here,' he said, 'you don't get an accurate idea of what our family
+life really is. You must come and pay us a visit at Oyster Bay this
+summer when we get home. Then you will know more about us.'
+
+"He did not forget the invitation, but early in July 1905, repeated it
+by telegraph. I went to Oyster Bay and stayed over night. It was in many
+ways a memorable experience.
+
+"He was always greatly interested in our samurai tradition and in the
+doctrine we call bushido. I remember his asking me how much money was
+required for the keeping up of a samurai's position. I explained that
+there were different classes of samurai--that the shoguns had themselves
+been samurai, with others of various grades below them.
+
+"'Middle-class samurai,' I said, 'do not need a great deal of money.
+They require only enough for dress to be worn on social occasions, for
+the education of their families, and the maintenance of their political
+position, whatever it may be. They need no money for pleasures or
+extravagances.'
+
+"'Just the same,' the President replied, 'a man doesn't want to fall
+behind his ancestors, materially or otherwise. Take my own case: I want
+to keep my place as my forbears kept theirs. I desire neither more nor
+less than what my father had. I want my children to be able to grow up
+in this old home at Oyster Bay just as the children of my generation
+did.' Then he began to ask me more about the details of samurai life.
+
+"'What about doctor's bills?' he asked. 'You didn't mention that item in
+estimating the expense of living.'
+
+"I told him of a curious custom we used to have. In each samurai class
+there were families of doctors who were endowed by the Government, the
+profession being passed down from father to son. These doctors took care
+of samurai families of the rank corresponding to their own, and charged
+nothing for so doing. Twice a year, in January and July, when it is
+customary to give presents, presents were given to the doctors. They
+also took care of the poor as a matter of charity.
+
+"That interested him, too. He was always intensely interested in the
+samurai, because our samurai virtues were virtues of a kind he
+particularly admired--courage, stoicism, love of duty and of country.
+
+"We sat on the wide verandah, overlooking the lawn sloping down toward
+Long Island Sound. Mrs. Roosevelt sat with us, knitting. It was July,
+but she was knitting mittens. Presently a maid came and spoke to her,
+and she left us.
+
+"When she came back she said to me, 'Baron, I want to ask a favour of
+you. Quentin has been crying. He took great pains to clean his pony
+to-day, to show it to you, and we promised that he should be allowed to
+do so. He has been riding around the lawn hoping you would notice him.'
+
+"Of course I sent for Quentin, and he appeared proudly upon his pony. I
+asked him to ride around the lawn, which he did.
+
+"'You ride splendidly!' I said, when he drew up again before the porch.
+
+"'Do you think so?' he asked, evidently much pleased.
+
+"'Indeed I do!' I said, and asked him to go around the lawn again.
+
+"When he came back I told him about my son, who was just his age. 'I
+shall have him learn to ride,' I said, 'and when he can ride as well as
+you can I shall have his picture taken on a pony and send it to you.'
+
+"That," continued the Viscount, "is how we happen to have this picture
+of Quentin on his pony. He sent it to my son, and my son sent him a
+picture. I always like to think of the good-will there was between those
+two boys--an American boy and a Japanese boy who had never seen each
+other.
+
+"That night we sat talking in the drawing room which is to the left of
+the hall as you go into the house. Mrs. Roosevelt was still knitting
+mittens for the children. It was all wonderfully simple and homelike. I
+could hardly believe that I was in the home of the head of a great
+nation. At that time the house was lighted with kerosene lamps, yet in
+Japan I had been using electric light for fifteen years.
+
+"At about ten o'clock Mrs. Roosevelt said good night to us and retired.
+Before she went upstairs she moved about, fastening windows and putting
+out lamps in parts of the house in which they would not be needed any
+more. Then she brought candles and matches so that we should have them
+when we were ready to go to bed.
+
+"After an hour's talk about the war, which was still raging, the
+President rose and lit the candles. Then he put out the remaining lamps,
+and conducted me upstairs to my room. It was a cool night. He felt of
+the coverings on my bed, and decided that I might need another blanket.
+'I'll get you one,' he said, leaving the room. And in a minute or two he
+reappeared with a blanket over his shoulder.
+
+"'Come,' he said, as he put it on the bed, 'and I'll show you the
+bathroom.' I went with him. 'Here's soap,' said he, 'and here are clean
+towels.' Then he took me back to my room and wished me a good night.
+
+"As for me, I was fascinated, almost dazed. I kept saying to myself,
+'This man who has lighted me upstairs with a candle, and carried me a
+blanket, and shown me where to find soap and towels, is the President of
+the United States! The President of the United States has done all these
+things for me. It is the greatest honour a man could have.'
+
+"Earlier in the same year, before the President moved from the White
+House to Oyster Bay, he went bear hunting. That was just before Admiral
+Togo's victory over the Russian fleet, in the Sea of Japan.
+
+"Before leaving, the President sent for me and told me, in the presence
+of Mr. Taft, who was Secretary of War, that if anything of importance
+should come up during his absence, I was to see Mr. Taft about it, and
+that in the event of its being anything absolutely vital, Mr. Taft would
+know how to reach him.
+
+"Mr. Taft showed me a photograph hanging on the wall of the President's
+office, showing the wild country to which the President was going on his
+hunting trip.
+
+"I remarked playfully to him that I thought it advisable, at that time,
+that the President refrain from killing bears, whatever other animals he
+might see fit to slay.
+
+"Roosevelt, sitting at his desk, overheard me.
+
+"'What's that you are saying?' he asked.
+
+"I repeated what I had said to Mr. Taft.
+
+"'Why do you think I should not kill bears?' demanded the President.
+
+"'Well, Mr. President,' I replied, 'you know that the various nations
+have their special symbols in the animal kingdom. America has the eagle,
+Britain the lion, France the cock, and Russia, well----'
+
+"He got up, laughing and came over to me.
+
+"'Nevertheless,' he said, 'I shall go right ahead and kill bears!'
+
+"Before he left on that hunting trip I went to see him and asked as a
+special favour that he give me the skin of one of the bears he should
+kill.
+
+"He refused, saying that if he were to start presenting trophies to his
+friends they would all be after him.
+
+"At that I said to him, 'If I were asking this for myself, Mr.
+President, I would not pursue the matter further, but I am not asking it
+for myself. I want that bear skin for our Emperor.'
+
+"'Very well, then,' he said. 'You shall have it.'
+
+"He went off on his hunting trip, and came back. Then followed the
+negotiations for a cessation of hostilities between Japan and Russia,
+and the Portsmouth Peace Conference, through which Roosevelt brought
+about the end of the war.
+
+"In August of the same year, 1905, I received this letter from him."
+
+The Viscount handed me the letter to read. It was as follows:
+
+ Oyster Bay, N, Y,.
+ August 30, 1905.
+
+ _Personal_
+
+ MY DEAR BARON KANEKO:
+
+ I cannot too highly state my appreciation of the wisdom and
+ magnanimity of Japan, which make a fit crown to the prowess of
+ her soldiers. Will you tell the Emperor that I shall take the
+ liberty of sending him by you a bear skin? I want you soon to
+ come out here and take lunch.
+
+ Sincerely yours,
+ THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+"Later," the Viscount went on, "I was asked by the President to come to
+Oyster Bay and select one of the skins. I however did not wish to make
+the selection, so the President did that, picking out the largest skin
+of all and giving it to me for the Emperor Meiji.
+
+"His Majesty was greatly pleased with the skin, not only because it was
+a trophy from the President himself, but because of the emblematic
+nature of the gift. That bearskin was in his library at the Imperial
+Palace in Tokyo as long as he lived."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One of the most important Roosevelt letters shown me by Viscount Kaneko
+was on the subject of Japanese-American relations. As this letter is not
+included in the two-volume collection of Roosevelt correspondence
+compiled in such masterly fashion by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Roosevelt's
+literary executor, I have asked the permission of Mrs. Roosevelt and of
+Mr. Bishop to quote it here.
+
+It was as follows:
+
+ THE WHITE HOUSE
+
+ WASHINGTON
+
+ May 23, 1907.
+
+ _Confidential_
+
+ MY DEAR BARON KANEKO:
+
+ I much appreciate your thought of Archie. The little fellow was
+ very sick but is now all right. His mother and I have just had
+ him on a short trip in the country.
+
+ I was delighted to meet General Kuroki and Admiral Ijuin with
+ their staffs. General Kuroki is, of course, one of the most
+ illustrious men living. Through his interpreter, a very able
+ young staff officer, I spoke to him a little about our troubles
+ on the Pacific Slope.
+
+ Nothing during my Presidency has given me more concern than
+ these troubles. History often teaches by example, and I think we
+ can best understand just what the situation is, and how it ought
+ to be met, by taking into account the change in general
+ international relations during the last two or three centuries.
+
+ During this period all the civilized nations have made great
+ progress. During the first part of it Japan did not appear in
+ the general progress, but for the last half century she has gone
+ ahead so much faster than any other nation that I think we can
+ fairly say that, taking the last three centuries together, her
+ advance has been on the whole greater than that of any other
+ nation. But all have advanced, and especially in the way in
+ which the people of each treat people of other nationalities.
+ Two centuries ago there was the greatest suspicion and
+ malevolence exhibited by all the people, high and low, of each
+ European country, for all the people, high and low, of every
+ other European country, with but few exceptions. The cultivated
+ people of the different countries, however, had already begun to
+ treat with one another on good terms. But when, for instance,
+ the Huguenots were exiled from France, and great numbers of
+ Huguenot workmen went to England, their presence excited the
+ most violent hostility, manifesting itself even in mob violence,
+ among the English workmen. The men were closely allied by race
+ and religion, they had practically the same type of ancestral
+ culture, and yet they were unable to get on together. Two
+ centuries have passed, the world has moved forward, and now
+ there could be no repetition of such hostilities. In the same
+ way a marvellous progress has been made in the relations of
+ Japan with the Occidental nations. Fifty years ago you and I and
+ those like us could not have travelled in one another's
+ countries. We should have had very unpleasant and possibly very
+ dangerous experiences. But the same progress that has been going
+ on as between nations in Europe and their descendants in America
+ and Australia, has also been going on as between Japan and the
+ Occidental nations. In these times, then, gentlemen, all
+ educated people, members of professions and the like, get on so
+ well together that they not only travel each in the other's
+ country, but associate on the most intimate terms. Among the
+ friends whom I especially value I include a number of Japanese
+ gentlemen. But the half century has been too short a time for
+ the advance to include the labouring classes of the two
+ countries, as between themselves.
+
+ Exactly as the educated classes in Europe, among the several
+ nations, grew to be able to associate together generations
+ before it was possible for such association to take place among
+ the men who had no such advantages of education, so it is
+ evident we must not press too fast in bringing the labouring
+ classes of Japan and America together. Already in these fifty
+ years we have completely attained the goal as between the
+ educated and the intellectual classes of the two countries. We
+ must be content to wait another generation before we shall have
+ made progress enough to permit the same close intimacy between
+ the classes who have had less opportunity for cultivation, and
+ whose lives are less easy, so that each has to feel, in earning
+ its daily bread, the pressure of the competition of the other. I
+ have become convinced that to try to move too far forward all at
+ once is to incur jeopardy of trouble. This is just as true of
+ one nation as of the other. If scores of thousands of American
+ miners went to Saghalin, or of American mechanics to Japan or
+ Formosa, trouble would almost certainly ensue. Just in the same
+ way scores of thousands of Japanese labourers, whether
+ agricultural or industrial, are certain, chiefly because of the
+ pressure caused thereby, to be a sources of trouble if they
+ should come here or to Australia. I mention Australia because it
+ is a part of the British Empire, because the Australians have
+ discriminated against continental immigration in favour of
+ immigration from the British Isles, and have in effect
+ discriminated to a certain degree in favour of immigration from
+ England and Scotland as against immigration from Ireland.
+
+ My dear Baron, the business of statesmen is to try constantly to
+ keep international relations better, to do away with causes of
+ friction, and secure as nearly ideal justice as actual
+ conditions will permit. I think that with this object in view
+ and facing conditions not as I would like them to be, but as
+ they are, the best thing to do is to prevent the labouring
+ classes of either country from going in any numbers to the
+ other. In a generation I believe all need of such prevention
+ will have passed away; and at any rate this leaves free the
+ opportunity for all those fit to profit by intercourse, to go
+ each to the other's country. I have just appointed a commission
+ on general immigration which will very possibly urge restrictive
+ measures as regards European immigration, and which I am in
+ hopes will be able to bring about a method by which the result
+ we have in view will be obtained with the minimum friction.
+
+ With warm regards to the Baroness, believe me,
+
+ Sincerely yours,
+ THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+ Baron Kentaro Kaneko,
+
+ Tokyo, Japan.
+
+The foregoing letter may well be studied at this time when, through lack
+of the kind of statesmanship shown by Roosevelt, the Californian
+situation has become worse instead of better.
+
+Another letter shown me by Viscount Kaneko was written in pencil on a
+large sheet of yellow paper torn from a pad. It came from the African
+jungle, and ran as follows:
+
+ Mid-Africa
+ Sept. 10th, 1909.
+
+ MY DEAR BARON,[3]
+
+ I have no facilities for writing here; but I must just send you
+ a line of thanks for your welcome note. I have had a most
+ interesting trip; my son Kermit has done particularly well. He
+ has the spirit of a samurai! I greatly hope to visit Japan; but
+ when it may be possible I can not say.
+
+ With warm regards to the Viscountess,[3] believe me,
+
+ Sincerely yours,
+ THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+ [3] Despite the fact that Roosevelt knew that Kaneko had been
+ made a Viscount he addressed him in this letter by his old
+ title.
+
+The last letter of the series was written on the stationery of the
+Kansas City _Star_, of which Roosevelt was an associate editor with an
+office in New York. The letter read:
+
+
+ New York, Aug. 21, 1918.
+
+ MY DEAR VISCOUNT KANEKO:
+
+ I thank you for your letter; and Mrs. Roosevelt was as much
+ touched by it as I was. Remember to give your son a letter to us
+ when he comes here to go to Harvard. One of our newspapers, the
+ Chicago _Tribune_, when the news was brought that Quentin was
+ dead and two of his brothers wounded, spoke of my four sons as
+ "American samurai." I was proud of the reference! As you say,
+ all of us who are born are doomed to die. No man is fit to live
+ who is afraid to die for a great cause. My sorrow for Quentin is
+ outweighed by my pride in him.
+
+ Faithfully your friend,
+ THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+The foregoing, written less than five months before Colonel Roosevelt's
+death, was the last letter of the series shown me by Viscount Kaneko.
+
+Reading it I was reminded of what Colonel Roosevelt said to me as he lay
+on his bed in the hospital the last time I saw him.
+
+Speaking of his four sons in the war he said:
+
+"We have been an exceptionally united family. Come what may, we have
+many absolutely satisfying years together to look back upon."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX
+
+ _Placidity and_ Sodans--_Talk and Tea--American Business
+ Methods_ versus _Japanese--The American Housekeeper in
+ Nippon--Japan's Problem-- Population and Food--The
+ Militarists--Land-Grabbing--Liberalism--Emigration--
+ Industrialism--Examples of Inefficiency--"Public
+ Futilities"--Comedies of the Telephone--The Cables_
+
+
+Elsewhere I have said that the Japanese are generally hard workers;
+wherefore it may seem paradoxical to add that they are also leisurely
+workers. But the paradox is not so great as it would seem. The hours of
+work are longer in Japan than in most other countries, but work is not
+so vigorously pressed.
+
+Without being in the least lazy, the Japanese take their time to
+everything. With masters and servants, employers and workmen, it is much
+the same. They appear placid. They hold _sodans_, conferring and
+arranging matters with terrible precision. If you attempt to use the
+telephone you are prepared for a long struggle and a long wait. The
+clerks in the cable office act as if the cable had just been laid--as if
+your cablegram were the first one they had ever been called upon to
+send, and they didn't quite know how to handle it, or how much to
+charge. Often they are unable to make change. Sometimes even the railway
+ticket agents have no change. Business conferences are conducted over
+successive cups of pale green tea, and I am told that it is customary to
+begin them with talk on any topic other than the main one. In the
+lexicon of Japanese trade and commerce there is no such word as
+"snappy."
+
+The hustling American business man who tries to rush things through
+often arouses the Japanese business man's suspicion. What is he after?
+Why is he in such a hurry? There must be something behind it all. It is
+necessary to be particularly careful in dealing with such a man.
+Negotiations drag and drag until the American, if he be of nervous
+disposition, is driven nearly wild. And sometimes this results in his
+making a bad bargain merely for the sake of getting through.
+
+"I'm sorry I ever came to the Far East!" he will declare bitterly. "I
+feel that I am getting nothing accomplished over here--nothing!" Then he
+will tell you what is the trouble with the Japanese:
+
+"They are used to playing only with white chips!"
+
+The American housekeeper in Japan, if she knows what nerves are, may
+have similar difficulties. Her Japanese servants will conduct her ménage
+well enough if she lets them do it in their Japanese way, but if she
+attempts to run her home as she would run it in the United States, she
+is lost. It can't be done. I know of an American woman who could not get
+a cook because her efforts to Americanize her household had given her a
+bad reputation with the Cook's Guild. Another could get no sewing done,
+for a like reason. For all the servants and working people have their
+guilds, and news travels. Thus many an American housekeeper in Japan has
+became a nervous wreck.
+
+Yet on the other hand, numbers of American business men and their wives
+enjoy Japanese life, and only come home when it is necessary to give
+their children an American education. The men are successful and their
+homes are comfortable and well run. But always you will find that they
+are people of calm disposition: people having sufficient balance to
+adjust themselves to the customs of the country.
+
+The essential point seems to be that the Japanese view life in longer
+perspective than we do. Where we see ourselves as individuals having
+certain things to accomplish in a rather short life, they see themselves
+as mere links in an endless family chain. We are conscious of our
+parents and our children but they are conscious of ancestors, reaching
+back to the mists of antiquity, and of a posterity destined to people
+the nebulous vaults of the far-distant future.
+
+But while, from a philosophical standpoint, this way of looking at life
+may be quite as good as ours, or even better, still I believe it tends
+to handicap the Japanese in meeting the urgent material problems by
+which they are confronted. And though these problems are not so terrible
+as those of war-racked Europe, they are, if measured by any other
+standard, terrible enough.
+
+Japan's fundamental problem--the one out of which grow all other
+Japanese problems in which the world is interested--is, as I have said
+before, that of great density of population coupled with an inadequate
+supply of food and raw materials. Fifty years ago the population of
+Japan proper was less than 33,000,000. To-day it is more than
+57,000,000. There has been an increase in five decades of more than 75
+per cent., but there has been no corresponding increase in the country's
+arable land.
+
+ [Illustration: The film was not large enough to hold the family
+ of this youngish fisherman at Nabuto. Nine children! Fifty years
+ ago Japan had a population of 33,000,000. To-day it is nearing
+ 60,000,000.]
+
+In Japan itself there have been various theories as to how this problem
+should be met. The militarists, who are still very powerful, have in the
+past undoubtedly favoured what we have come lately to call the Prussian
+system, the grabbing system: the system which has been followed in the
+Far East not by Japan alone but by England, Russia, France, and
+Germany--and by the United States (if in a form somewhat more moderate)
+in the Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippines.
+
+"If the others do it," the Japanese militarists have argued, "why
+shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we, who need additional territory so much
+more than they do, grab on the continent of Asia for land to which our
+surplus population may be sent, and from which we may get food and raw
+materials?"
+
+To which the other nations answer: "Unfortunately for you, you came
+along too late. The good old grabbing days are gone. The world is
+radiant with a new international morality, and woe be unto those who
+offend against it! Germany tried it--see what happened to her!"
+
+Japan did see what happened to Germany and the lesson was not wasted on
+her. Nor was the least striking part of the lesson contained in
+America's exhibition of military might. And truth to tell, Japan needed
+such a lesson; for her victories over China and Russia had put her
+militarists in the ascendant, and had made them, and perhaps the bulk of
+their countrymen also, over-confident, with the result that Japan
+occasionally rattled the sabre in the Far East somewhat as Germany was
+wont to do in Europe.
+
+But although it cannot be denied that the Japanese militarists exhibited
+undue aggressiveness in China and Siberia during the late war, and
+although their actions since have not been altogether satisfactory to
+the rest of the world, there is good reason to suppose that their
+old-time dream of vast territorial aggrandizement has diminished, even
+though it may not have entirely faded from the minds of some of them.
+
+This new tendency toward moderation is due to the war's lesson and to
+the marked growth of liberal and anti-militarist sentiment among the
+Japanese people. The militarists, though they still control the
+Government, are less aggressive than they used to be, both because the
+Japanese public protests when too much aggressiveness is shown, and
+because the more intelligent members of the militaristic group now
+realize that if Japan were to bring on a great war she would inevitably
+be ruined. So, while the power and aggressiveness of this dangerous
+element slowly wane, the liberal element, led by some of the sanest and
+ablest men in Japan, steadily gains strength.
+
+The outcome of this struggle between the advocates of force and those of
+fair dealing will, in my judgment, be determined largely by the course
+pursued by other nations. If, as we all hope, a new order of things is
+to grow out of the late war, then within a few years I believe we shall
+see the liberal group running Japan. But if, on the contrary, the world
+backslides, and the old selfish system is resumed, then the Japanese
+militarists will say to the people: "Well, you see that we were right
+after all!"
+
+But however these matters may turn out, I do not believe that Japan will
+ever fully settle her surplus population problem by means of emigration,
+whether to annexed territory, or to other countries. The Japanese do not
+like to leave home. There are only about 300,000 Japanese in China, for
+example, and they have not colonized to nearly the extent they might
+have in Siberia. If they do leave home they seek mild climates, but they
+are now barred from colonizing in the United States, Canada, and
+Australia and even when they settle in Mexico or South America one sees
+protests in our press. Yet if Japan's population is to remain static
+hundreds of thousands of her people must leave the islands every year.
+All considered, it seems more than improbable that they will ever
+emigrate in such a wholesale way.
+
+By what means, then, is the problem to be solved?
+
+Apparently the leaders of the small group that governs Japan came, some
+years ago, to the conclusion that the best means for solving their
+difficulties lay in turning Japan into an industrial country. They
+determined to manufacture goods, export them, and with the proceeds pay
+for imports of raw materials and food--in short, to adopt the plan which
+England began to follow nearly a century ago, and which Belgium has also
+followed. England's situation was in many respects like that of Japan,
+for there were certain essential raw materials which she did not have
+either at home or in her possessions; and like Japan she is unable to
+feed herself. With Belgium the situation was even worse than with
+England. Yet through industrializing themselves both countries have
+prospered greatly. Is it not then logical to suppose that by following a
+similar course Japan will likewise prosper? Recent statistics seem,
+moreover, to indicate that with industrialization the birth-rate tends
+to decline.
+
+In attempting a great industrial programme Japan has two advantages: she
+has abundant cheap labour and a short haul to the great markets of Asia.
+Geographically we are her nearest competitor for Asiatic trade, yet we
+have at the very least, four thousand miles farther to carry our goods.
+Obviously this is an immense disadvantage to us, and we are further
+handicapped by the high cost of our labour.
+
+Having us at so great a disadvantage in the matter of commerce with
+Asia, it would seem that Japan should have little difficulty in securing
+for herself the lion's share of the Asiatic trade.
+
+But it must not be supposed that Japan has as yet become sufficiently
+industrialized to solve her problem. She must become a much greater
+manufacturing and exporting nation than she now is. And in order to
+accomplish that she must greatly improve in one particular: she must
+master much more thoroughly than she has so far mastered them, the
+horrid arts of "efficiency."
+
+I do not mean to imply that the Japanese are never efficient, but only
+that they are not always so efficient as they ought to be, and as they
+must become. I am aware, now, that I expected too much of them in this
+particular. Reports of their astonishing military efficiency at the time
+of their war with Russia, caused me to think of them almost as supermen.
+And they are not that. Nor is any other race.
+
+It may be true that in military matters they are highly efficient.
+Probably they are. My own observation as a traveller on their ships
+convinces me that they are efficient on the sea, and this opinion is
+supported by what American naval officers have told me of their navy and
+their naval men. I visited a huge cotton mill near Tokyo which was
+clearly a first-class institution of the kind; also I was much struck,
+in going through a penitentiary, by the evidences of their understanding
+of modern and enlightened practice in the conduct of penal
+establishments; and I might go on with a list of other institutions
+which impressed me favourably.
+
+But that is not the side I wish here to bring out. On the contrary, I
+wish to call attention to the fact that the high degree of efficiency
+shown by the Japanese in certain instances serves but to emphasize their
+widespread inefficiency in others.
+
+In an earlier chapter I spoke of the fact that in Japan one sees three
+men instead of two in the cab of a locomotive, that hand-carts are used
+for watering city streets, and that more servants are required there
+than here in a house of given size. These are but minor items in the
+wholesale waste of labour. It is as if Japan said to herself: "I have
+all these people to look after and I must put as many of them as
+possible on every job." And that, in my judgment, is not the way Japan
+should look at it. Instead of putting on every job more people than are
+actually needed, she should endeavour to develop her industries to such
+a point that there will be a full, honest day's work for everyone. For,
+of course, her labour wastage keeps up her manufacturing and operating
+costs.
+
+An example of the way time is wasted may be seen wherever railroad gangs
+are at work. They swing their picks to the accompaniment of a song, and
+the rhythm is taken from the slowest man. Wastage is also exhibited in
+the way a house is built. They build the framework of the roof upon the
+ground. Then they take it apart. Then they go up and put it together all
+over again, in place. A whole house is constructed in this way. The
+parts are not fashioned on the premises as the building goes up, but are
+made elsewhere and brought to the actual scene of building to be fitted
+together. The tiles are fastened to the roof with mud, but instead of
+carrying this mud up in bulk they toss it up from hand to hand, six men
+forming a chain for the purpose.
+
+Or again, to cite a very simple example of domestic inefficiency,
+consider their method of washing a kimono. Instead of laundering the
+garment all at once, they rip it apart, wash the pieces separately, dry
+them on a board, and sew them together again.
+
+In factory management also one sometimes finds the most surprising
+inefficiency. I know of a great manufacturing plant in Japan which, if
+you were to go through it, you would call thoroughly modern. The
+buildings are modern, the machinery is modern. But there is one thing
+missing, and it is a vital thing. The plant stands a good half mile from
+the railway line; coal and raw materials are transported from car to
+factory in carts, or in baskets carried on the backs of coolies, and the
+finished product is removed in like manner.
+
+Though the cost of labour in Japan was trebled after the war, wages are
+still low as compared with other countries. But this fact, which should
+be taken advantage of in the struggle for world trade, is too often used
+only as an excuse for such waste of labour as I have pointed out. And it
+is because of this and similar inefficiencies that the Japanese now find
+themselves unable to compete in costs, in certain lines, with other
+nations, even though the labour of those other nations is much better
+paid.
+
+Among the things most criticized by visitors are the bad roads, both in
+the country and in the cities; the hotels, which except in a few places
+are poor (I am speaking only of the foreign-style hotels); and the
+miserable conditions of what the _Japan Advertiser_ humorously refers to
+as "public futilities."
+
+Tokyo, with a transportation problem which ought easily to be solved,
+has utterly inadequate street-car service. The rush hour there is only
+saved from being as terrible as the rush hour in New York by the lack of
+subterranean features.
+
+But it is in all matters having to do with communications that Japanese
+inefficiency is most strikingly brought to the notice of strangers. The
+postal service is poor, the cable service is expensive and absurdly slow
+(when I was in Japan it took about ten days to cable to America and get
+an answer back), and the telephone service is unbelievably awful. All
+these, like the railroads, are owned and operated by the Government.
+
+I began to suspect their telephones when I saw the old full-bosomed wall
+instruments they use, with bell-cranks to be rung; but little did I then
+guess the full measure of their telephonic backwardness.
+
+It is like opera bouffe. Though the demand for new telephones far
+exceeds the supply, the Government makes no appreciable effort to remedy
+the situation. Every year an absurdly small number of lines is added to
+the existing system. These are assigned by lot among those who have
+applied for them. Thus, if a man be lucky in the draw, he may get a
+telephone within two or three years. But I know one gentleman in Tokyo
+who was not lucky in the draw. At the ripe age of sixty-seven he applied
+to the Government for an additional office telephone. The instrument was
+installed shortly after he had celebrated his eightieth birthday. Long
+may he live to use it!
+
+If one be in a hurry to have a telephone put in, one does not apply to
+the authorities, but attacks the problem in a manner more direct--either
+through a telephone broker or through advertising. Thus one can get in
+contact with a person wishing to sell an installation and a number. The
+number must, however, be in the exchange serving the district in which
+the telephone is to be placed.
+
+Though this is a very expensive method, it is the one usually employed
+in Tokyo and other large cities. A telephone for the business district
+of the capital may cost as much as twelve hundred dollars, but in a
+residential district it will be considerably cheaper--five hundred
+dollars or less.
+
+A curious detail of this business is that low numbers bring the highest
+price in the open market. This, I was informed, is because green
+operators, in process of being broken-in, sit at that end of the central
+switchboard at which the high numbers invariably occur, thus
+guaranteeing the owners of high numbers a grade of service calculated to
+drive them to the madhouse.
+
+It must not be imagined that the Japanese are content with their
+telephone service. They are not. For some time prior to my arrival in
+Japan the press had been demanding a reform, and at last it was
+announced that action was about to be taken to improve matters.
+
+But all that happened was this: Instead of increasing the service, the
+government functionaries started a campaign to discourage the use of
+telephones. Up to that time, unlimited service had been given. Now,
+however, a flat charge of two sen (about one cent) per call was
+announced, the theory being that many persons would think twice before
+spending two sen on an idle telephonic conversation.
+
+After watching the new plan in operation for a few days the telephone
+authorities jubilantly announced that it was a great success--the number
+of calls had appreciably diminished. Apparently it never occurred to
+them that the result of such a policy, carried to its logical
+conclusion, would be to eliminate the telephone entirely.
+
+With the Japanese cables the trouble has been largely due to congestion.
+The use of two important lines was cut off by the war, and as service on
+these lines has not up to the time of writing been resumed, owing to the
+disorganization of Russia and Germany, a heavy strain has been placed
+upon the transpacific cables. I am assured, however, that conditions
+would not be so bad as they are if the Japanese were entirely efficient
+in their handling of cable business, and my own experiences with cable
+messages, while there, would seem to indicate that this is true.
+
+Moreover, at the time when cable congestion was at its worst, the
+Japanese refused to operate their transpacific wireless for more than
+seven hours a day; and even then they would take business only for San
+Francisco and vicinity, for the reason, it was explained, that they did
+not wish to be bothered with the details of figuring the rates to
+various parts of the United States. Lately they have increased their
+service to cover the states of California, Oregon and Washington; but
+that, at the time of writing, is as far as they have consented to extend
+it.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX
+
+ _The Average American and International Affairs--The Vagueness
+ of the Orient--A Definition by Former Ambassador Morris--"They
+ say"--The "Yellow Peril"--International Insults--Physiognomy--
+ What the Japanese Should Learn About Us--Our Race Problems--
+ Racial Integrity--Assimilation--Californian Methods--The Two
+ Sound Arguments Against Oriental Immigration_
+
+
+ If public opinion is fed with distorted facts, unworthy
+ suspicions, or alarming rumours; if every careless utterance by
+ thoughtless and insignificant men is to be given prominence in
+ print; if every casual difference of view is to be magnified
+ into a crisis, sober judgment and deliberate action become
+ impossible.--JOHN W. DAVIS, _former Ambassador to the Court of
+ St. James's_.
+
+
+Concerned with making a living, the Average American has as a rule
+neither the time nor the inclination to study international affairs. He
+expects his government to see to such things for him. He has no interest
+in what his government is doing with regard to other nations unless his
+personal feelings are in some way involved. Thus if he be a
+German-American he may take cognizance of our relations with Germany; or
+if he be a Russian-American he may desire that we recognize the
+so-called government of Lenine and Trotzky; or again, if he be an
+Irish-American he may wish the President of the United States to go
+personally to London and knock the British premier's hat off. But if he
+be simply an average unhyphenated American the chances are that he is
+disgusted with the clatter of the hyphenates and bored with the whole
+business of foreign relations and race problems. His main interest in
+governmental affairs at the present time has nothing to do with foreign
+relations but comes much closer to home. He is tired of paying heavy
+taxes, tired of paying exorbitantly for the necessities of life. He
+wants his government to remedy those two things. Then, because he is
+sick of hyphenated citizens and internal race problems, he wants
+immigration stopped.
+
+The Orient is all vague to him. If he does not live on the Pacific Coast
+or in some large city where Japanese have settled, he may never have
+laid eyes upon a Japanese. Or if he has seen Japanese over here he may
+have seen them in the farming districts of the Pacific slope. Whether he
+has seen them or not, he has gathered some impression of them through
+newspaper accounts of the trouble there has been about them in
+California. He understands that their customs, religion, and food are
+unlike his--which may be taken as implying a certain lack of merit in
+them. He understands that Japanese women and children work in the
+fields. His own women and children do not work in the fields, but wear
+silk stockings, chew gum, and go to the movies--all of which, of course,
+counts against the Japanese, since to work in the fields is in these
+times almost un-American. And of course it is still more un-American to
+do what the Japanese labourers did in California until the patriotic
+Californians stopped them; namely to save money and buy farms.
+
+Then there is this business about "picture-brides"--my Average American
+may have heard vaguely about that, though probably he does not know that
+the Japanese Government, in deference to our wishes, no longer allows
+picture-brides to come here. He would not think of such a thing as
+picking out a wife by photograph. None of his friends would do it,
+either.
+
+It may be well here to state the actual nature of the issue in
+California. This can be done briefly in no better way than by quoting an
+editorial published not long since in the New York _World_, a newspaper
+remarkable for the intelligence with which it has generally treated the
+Japanese question.
+
+The _World_'s editorial was published apropos an address made by Mr.
+Roland S. Morris, who served under the Wilson Administration as
+ambassador to Tokyo, and whose admirable work in Tokyo might have borne
+good fruit but for our unfortunate habit of relieving ambassadors,
+however able, when the political party to which they belong goes out of
+power.
+
+Said the _World_:
+
+ In his address at the University Club on the Japanese issue in
+ California, Roland S. Morris, American Ambassador to Tokyo,
+ refrained from discussing the merits of the case and merely
+ defined the question in accordance with the facts. It is only in
+ the light of the facts that a sound decision can be reached
+ where argument and judgment run along the line of fixed
+ prejudices.
+
+ As Mr. Morris explained, Japan does not question the right of
+ the United States, subject to its treaty obligations, to
+ legislate on the admission of foreigners. While under the treaty
+ of 1911 Japanese were granted full rights of residence and
+ admission, the Tokyo Government accepted the condition that it
+ would continue limiting emigration from Japan to the United
+ States in compliance with the "Gentleman's Agreement" of
+ 1908.[4]
+
+ [4] The "limiting" here referred to includes the stoppage of
+ labour emigration, not by us, but by the Japanese
+ Government, which took this amiable and dignified means of
+ avoiding a direct issue of the subject of racial equality.
+
+ The Japanese Government and people are not seeking the removal
+ of restrictions on immigration. The Japanese are not eligible to
+ American citizenship, but they have enjoyed in this country the
+ same personal and property rights as other aliens. It is here
+ that the friction has been created by the action of California.
+
+ In 1913 California deprived those aliens who were ineligible to
+ citizenship of certain property rights. In 1920, in Mr. Morris's
+ words, "this legislation was amplified by an initiative and
+ referendum act." What he does not state is that this measure was
+ intended to discriminate against the Japanese in buying and
+ leasing land.
+
+ Hence the protests of the Government at Tokyo. The Japanese
+ object to what they regard as the injustice of being set apart
+ as a separate class, suffering political disabilities and
+ deprived of rights other aliens enjoy.
+
+ Mr. Morris leaves the issue open when he says: "The Japanese
+ protest presents to all our people this very definite question:
+ In the larger view of our relations with the Orient, is it wise
+ thus to classify aliens on the basis of their eligibility to
+ citizenship?"
+
+ In pursuance of its local ends, California has adopted a
+ provocative position and played into the hands of Japanese
+ jingoes and militarists.
+
+Lamentably, these simple facts have been cast adrift upon a stormy sea
+of Californian prejudice. That sea, I fear, so fills the eye of the
+Average American that oftentimes he fails entirely to descry the
+shipwrecked waifs of Truth out there upon their little raft. Were he to
+attempt to state his views upon the California question he would in all
+probability quote as the source of his information that favourite
+authority, "They say."
+
+"They say Japanese immigrants are flooding into California and buying up
+the farming land; they say the Japanese have large families; they say
+they don't make desirable neighbours; they say that if things keep on
+this way they will ultimately control the state. Certainly we don't want
+any part of our country dominated by foreigners." The less familiar he
+is with certain Californian traits the more he is likely to conclude: "I
+guess it must be true or the Californians wouldn't be making such a row
+about it."
+
+His tendency to reason thus may be enhanced by the recollection of a
+phrase he has heard: the "Yellow Peril"--one of the most poisonous
+phrases ever coined. He does not know that the term was Made in Germany
+for the very purpose of exciting international suspicion and ill-will.
+He may not be alive to our real Yellow Peril--that of the yellow
+press--but may, upon the contrary, actually acquire his views on
+international affairs from such inflammatory sheets as those published
+by William Randolph Hearst, himself a son of California and a leader in
+the anti-Japanese chorus.
+
+My Average American knows little of Californian politics, and nothing of
+politics in Japan. He does not realize that Californian politicians are
+largely responsible for the stirring up of anti-Japanese sentiment,
+precisely as earlier politicians of the state were responsible for
+anti-Chinese sentiment, and that in both cases vote-getting was a chief
+motive. It is sometimes very convenient for a demagogue to have a
+voteless alien race at hand to bully.
+
+My Average American is probably unaware that more than two hundred
+thousand Californian voters cast their ballots against the
+discriminatory laws passed in November, 1920, even though the press of
+California was generally closed to spokesmen representing sentiment
+opposed to undue harshness toward the Japanese. Still less is he likely
+to be aware that politicians in Japan know all the tricks familiar to
+their Californian counterparts; that they, too, know how to gather votes
+by stirring up race feeling. So, when he sees in his newspaper-headlines
+that a Japanese whose name he has never before heard, but who, the paper
+says, is high in politics, has been talking of war with the United
+States, he begins to wonder whether those people over there are not,
+perhaps, looking for trouble. And when he reads of Japan's great naval
+building programme the notion becomes a little more concrete in his
+mind.
+
+Of course he does not understand that, meanwhile, in Japan there has
+been going on a process precisely similar: that hostile and insulting
+things said by American politicians are cabled to Japan and published
+there, where they carry undue weight; and that while we are reading of
+Japan's naval programme and wondering what it signifies, Japan is
+reading of ours, and likewise wondering.
+
+That any one could suspect the United States of aggressive purpose is
+inconceivable to my Average American. Though the United States has
+lately shown that she can fight, she has also shown she is loath to do
+it. The Average American has no feeling of hostility toward Japan, and
+the idea of war with Japan seems to him absurd to the point of being
+fantastic. There is, as he conceives it, but one way in which such a war
+could be started, and that is by Japanese aggression.
+
+Assure him that the exact reverse of this view represents Japanese
+sentiment and you will stupefy him. "You must be wrong about that," he
+will tell you. "The Japanese must know that we hate war and that we have
+no more desire to fight them than to select our wives out of a
+photograph album." And he may add something about Japanese
+"inscrutability."
+
+That is another point:
+
+When my Average American meets a stranger of his own race, or of almost
+any European nationality, he can form, from the stranger's physiognomy,
+some estimate of his character. It is a type of face he understands. But
+the Oriented physiognomy baffles him. He cannot read it. To him it is as
+a book in an unknown tongue--a very symbol for mystery.
+
+That it may be equally difficult for the Japanese to judge of us would
+not occur to him. Our faces are--well, they are regular _faces_; there
+is nothing queer about them. _We_ aren't queer in any way. It is other
+people who are queer.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+If certain simple facts about Japan were understood in the United
+States, and certain simple facts about the United States were understood
+in Japan, it might not follow that the two nations would thereafter
+cordially approve of all each other's policies and acts, but it ought
+certainly to follow that they could view such policies and acts with
+eyes more tolerant.
+
+You and I, for instance, might not approve the aggressive methods of
+some canvasser we had encountered, but if we knew that his wife and
+family were crowded into a single room wondering where to-morrow's
+breakfast would come from, we could forgive the man a good deal.
+Similarly, if he were to see you or me bulldozing a helpless guest in
+our own house, his disapproval of our action might be mitigated if he
+understood that the entire neighbourhood had fallen into the habit of
+using our house as a common camping ground for undesirable members of
+their families, and that we had been goaded by these unwelcome visitors
+into a state of desperation.
+
+What are the essential things for the Japanese to learn about us?
+
+They must get a better understanding of our various race problems. They
+must realize that, important as the problem involving their settlers on
+the Pacific Coast appears to them, it is to us a minor problem--being
+one of the least of a number of race-problems with which we are
+confronted.
+
+They must know that our population is derived from all the countries of
+Europe. And they must be made aware that though we have in the past
+viewed this situation with fatuous complacency, we no longer do so. Our
+old beautiful theory that the United States was properly a refuge for
+the oppressed of all other lands has lost a wheel and gone into the
+ditch. Some of us have even begun to suspect that the oppressed of other
+lands were in certain instances oppressed for what may have been good
+and sufficient cause. We have found that some of these individuals, on
+arriving in the United States, become so exhilarated by our free air
+that from oppressed they turn into oppressors who would fain take our
+government out of our hands and run it in the interest of the Kaiser,
+the Soviets, or of Mr. De Valera's interesting Republic.
+
+With these and other hyphenated racial problems we are continually
+contending. We no sooner meet one than another arises. Now we must needs
+create an Alien Property Custodian to take a hand. Now we deport a band
+of the more violent Bolsheviks. Now we summon glaziers to put new
+windows in the Union Club in New York, where the British flag (flying in
+commemoration of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, three hundred years
+ago) was hailed with bricks by members of a congregation emerging from
+St. Patrick's Cathedral, across the way.
+
+We used to speak with loving confidence of something called the "Melting
+Pot," which was supposed to make newly arrived immigrants into good
+American citizens. Sometimes it did so, but we have lately learned that
+its by-product consisted too often of bricks and bombs.
+
+We do not boast about the Melting Pot any more. Having overloaded it and
+found it could not do the work we put upon it, we want time in which to
+catch up with back orders, as it were. Meanwhile no new ones must be
+taken.
+
+But while the problems growing out of European immigration have of
+recent years troubled us most, they do not constitute our greatest race
+problem. Always in the background of our consciousness, like a volcano
+quiescent but very much alive, looms our gigantic negro problem--the
+problem which for the sins of our slave-importing and slave-holding
+forefathers we inherit, and from which, according to our characteristic
+way of "meeting" great quiescent problems, we are always endeavouring to
+hide. For it is not our way to advance upon a bull and take him by the
+horns. If a bull seeks to be taken by the horns he must do the
+advancing. We Americans all know this about ourselves, but it is our way
+to excuse the failing by boasting of the tussle we will give the bull if
+he ever gets us in a corner.
+
+There is no need here even to outline the tragedies of the negro
+problem, but there is one aspect of the matter which should be spoken
+of. Experience has shown that whereas immigrants from Europe can
+ultimately be absorbed into what we may term the American race, the
+negro, wearing the badge of his race in the pigment of his skin, is not
+to be absorbed. Even the octoroon is clearly distinguishable from the
+white. The negro race must, so far as the future can be read, remain a
+race apart.
+
+The case of the Indian affords another example of the failure of two
+races, separated by colour and other physical markings, to fuse. In the
+early days of this country's settlement, when the Indians strongly
+predominated, they did not absorb the then few whites. When the time
+came that there was an equal number of Indians and whites, still they
+did not fuse. And now, when but a handful remains of the once mighty
+Indian nations, that remnant still retains its racial integrity.
+
+Here, however, is involved no question of racial inferiority. Whites and
+Indians have to some small extent intermarried, and when both parties
+represent the best of their respective races, not only is there no sense
+of degradation to either, but the white descendants of such alliances
+are often proud of their Indian blood.
+
+In this whole matter of the fusibility of races there is, then, no basic
+principle of inferiority or superiority. Such questions are here as
+extraneous as in the case of oil and water, which though they will not
+mix are not therefore designated as a superior and an inferior fluid.
+
+The fact is that some inner consciousness tells us that the
+characteristic physical markings of the chief races of the world were
+not given them for nothing; that Nature intended the broad lines of race
+to be maintained; and we are told that crosses which disregard these
+natural race divisions are usually penalized by deterioration.
+
+To find in this truth the faintest implication of insult would be
+absurd. It would be as ridiculous to resent the statement that "like
+seeks like," as to resent the statement that "honesty is the best
+policy."
+
+No people insists more firmly than the Japanese upon racial integrity.
+The most fanatical English horseman could hardly be more finicky about
+the maintenance of pure thoroughbred stock. Marriages between native
+Japanese and foreigners are not encouraged and seldom occur. Among the
+upper classes they almost never occur. A citizen of Japan cannot enter
+into a legal marriage with a Korean or a Formosan, although Korea and
+Formosa are Japanese colonies. (I am informed that steps were taken in
+1918 to make such marriages legal, but up to the time of writing this
+has not been accomplished.)
+
+The law regulating the acts of the Japanese Imperial Family does not
+permit the marriage of members of that family with persons other than
+those of Japanese Imperial or noble stock. This law had to be amended in
+order to make possible the marriage, several years ago, of a Japanese
+Imperial princess, the daughter of Prince Nashimoto, with the heir to
+the Korean Royal Family--which family, by the way, now ranks as a sort
+of Japanese nobility. The marriage, it may be added, was unpopular with
+the Japanese masses, because of their strong feeling that Japanese
+blood, and especially Japanese Imperial blood, should not be diluted.
+Had the prince been a European it is not improbable that a louder
+protest would have been heard, for the Japanese does not, as a rule,
+look with favour upon Eurasians. There are exceptions, but in the main
+the man or woman of mixed Oriental and Occidental blood lives socially
+upon an international boundary line, on neither side of which is
+exuberant cordiality displayed.
+
+The intelligent and patriotic sentiment of the United States is at
+present overwhelmingly in favour of the stoppage of all immigration; and
+even if there comes a time when it is felt that the floodgates may again
+be opened, they will not, if wisdom prevails, be opened wide, but will
+admit only such aliens as are susceptible to assimilation.
+
+What does assimilation mean?
+
+It means that the immigrant shall lose his racial identity in ours. It
+means that he shall be susceptible to absorption into the body of our
+race through marriage, or at the very least that his children shall be
+susceptible to such absorption. And this in turn means, among other
+things, that he shall have no ineradicable physical characteristics
+which strongly differentiate him from our national physical type.
+
+This is one chief reason why, in my opinion, Orientals should never
+settle in the United States. Broadly speaking, they are no more suited
+to become citizens of the United States than are we to become citizens
+of Japan or China.
+
+Another chief reason why Japanese labour immigration is not acceptable
+to us is that the Japanese can live on less than we can. They are
+willing to work longer hours for less pay. Also they are thrifty. These
+are virtues; but the fact that they are virtues does not make Japanese
+competition the more welcome to white labour.
+
+This point also should readily be appreciated by the people of Japan,
+who find it generally necessary to exclude Chinese labour on precisely
+the same ground--that is, because a Chinaman can live on less than a
+Japanese, and can consequently work for lower wages.
+
+Had California, in her desire to prevent the further acquirement of land
+by Japanese settlers, rested her case on these two clean-cut issues:
+namely, unassimilability and economic necessity; had she refrained from
+vituperation, taking up the matter purely on its merits; had she
+recognized her duty as a state to the Nation and coöperated with the
+Washington Government, instead of ignoring the international bearing of
+the question and embarrassing the Government by radical and independent
+state action; and had she, above all, shown any disposition to deal as
+justly with the Japanese as the circumstances would permit; then,
+without a doubt, the entire Nation would have been behind California.
+And what is perhaps as important, the whole matter could then have been
+presented to Japan in a reasonable and temperate manner, without
+offence, yet with arguments the force of which Japan could hardly
+escape.
+
+But it is not apparently in the nature of the average Californian to go
+at things in a moderate way. Moderation is not one of his traits. His
+father, or grandfather, was a sturdy pioneer whose habit it was to
+express resentment with a bowie-knife and answer antagonism with a Colt
+.45. In the descendant these family traits are modified but not
+extinguished. If he does not approve of the manner in which an amiable
+alien wears his eyebrows he is likely to call him something--without a
+smile.
+
+Antagonism? Why should he mind antagonism? He likes it. He feels the
+need of it. He must have something to combat--something to neutralize
+the everlasting sunshine and the cloying sweetness of the orange-blossom
+and the rose.
+
+And alas, there is Senator Hiram Johnson, of whom the New York _Times_
+recently remarked that, "he would lose his proprietary political issue
+if the differences with Japan were peacefully composed. And we know,"
+the _Times_ continued, "that it is better to meet a bear robbed of her
+whelps than a politician deprived of his issue." And again, alas, there
+is ex-Senator Phelan--though the ex-, which has recently been added to
+his title, may tend, to some extent, to moderate his effectiveness as a
+baiter of the Japanese. And thrice alas, there is Mr. V. S. McClatchy,
+the Sacramento apiarist, whose "Bee" is trained to sting the Japanese
+wherever it will hurt most.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+That the difficulties between the two countries must be harmonized, all
+thoughtful citizens of both will agree. For myself, I do not see how
+this can be fully accomplished without some modification of the present
+discriminatory alien land law of California--a law which, aimed at one
+alien group alone, is not in consonance with the American sense of
+justice.
+
+The Japanese labourers who are already legally here--many of them
+originally brought here, by the way, at the instance of Californian
+employers--should be treated with absolute fairness. They should not be
+deprived of the just rewards of their industry and thrift. Their racial
+virtues should be appreciated and might well be emulated.
+
+It should be clear, however, that for our good and the good of the
+Japanese, no further immigrants of their labouring class should ever
+enter the United States. And it should be equally clear that in such a
+statement there is no cause for offence.
+
+The United States does not invariably act wisely. Neither does Japan.
+But the American heart is in the right place, and so is the Japanese
+heart.
+
+Let us try, then, on both sides, to look at these problems with honest
+and disinterested eyes. Let us try to get each other's point of view.
+Let us even go so far as to make due allowance for the frailty of human
+nature, as exhibited on both sides of the Pacific.
+
+But let us have no thought of straining good will by attempting to
+become on any larger scale inmates of the same house, dwellers under the
+same national roof.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI
+
+_Some Reflections on New York Hospitality--And on the Hospitality of
+Japan--Letters of Introduction--Bowing--How Japanese Politeness is
+Sometimes Misunderstood--Entertaining Foreigners--Showing the Country at
+its Best--What is the Mysterious "Truth" About Japan?--Japanese _versus_
+Chinese--Leadership in the Far East--Will Japan Become a Moral
+Leader?--A "First-Class Power"--The New "Long Pants"--How to Treat
+Japan--The Wisdom of Roosevelt and Root._
+
+
+A vigorous and sustained display of hospitality must always be
+astonishing to one who calls New York his home; for New York is without
+doubt the most inhospitable city in the world. In the jaded hotel-clerk,
+the bored box-office man, and the fish-eyed head waiter, the spirit of
+its welcome is personified.
+
+There is no dissimulation. The stranger is as welcome in New York as he
+feels. If there be a hotel room, a theatre seat, or a restaurant table
+disengaged, he may have it, at a price. If all are occupied he may, so
+far as New York cares, step outside and, with due regard to the season
+and the traffic regulations, die of sunstroke or perish in a
+snowdrift--whereupon his case comes automatically under the supervision
+of the Street-Cleaning Department--and whatever else that Department may
+leave lying around the New York streets, it does not leave them littered
+with defunct strangers. Space in our city is too valuable.
+
+The visitor arriving in New York with a letter of introduction to some
+gentleman who is important, or who believes he is, may expect a few
+minutes' talk with the gentleman in his office, and may regard it as a
+delicate attention if his host refrains from fidgeting.
+
+Should the stranger have some information which the New Yorker desires
+to possess, he may find himself invited out to lunch. They will lunch at
+a club in the top of a down-town skyscraper. Or if the letter of
+introduction has a social flavour, the outlander will presently receive
+by mail, at his hotel, a guest's card to a club up-town.
+
+Let him make bold to visit this club and he will find there no one to
+speak to save a rigid doorman and some waiters. The doorman will tell
+him coldly where to check his hat and coat. He will see a few members in
+the club, but will not know them, nor will they desire to know him. All
+New Yorkers know more people than they want to, anyway. The stranger
+with a guest's card to a New York club is as comfortable there as a cat
+in a cathedral.
+
+In the West it is different.
+
+And again it is different in Japan.
+
+Those who go well introduced to Japan meet there an experience such as
+is hardly to be encountered in any other land. Japanese courtesy and
+hospitality are fairly stupefying to the average Anglo-Saxon. The
+Occidental mind is staggered by the mere externals.
+
+You see two Japanese meet--two gentlemen, two ladies, or a lady and a
+gentleman. They face each other at fairly close range. Then, as though
+at some signal unperceived by the foreigner, they bow deeply from the
+waist, their heads passing with so small a space between that one half
+expects them to bump. Three times in succession they bow in this way,
+simultaneously, their hands slipping up and down their thighs, in front,
+like pistons attached to the walking-beam of a side-wheeler.
+
+In conjunction with this profound and protracted bowing, especially when
+the bowers are Japanese of the old school, or are unaccustomed to
+associate with foreigners, the bystander will oftentimes hear a sibilant
+sound made by the drawing in of air through the lips. According to the
+Japanese idea, such sounds denote appreciation as of some delicious
+spiritual flavour. This ancient form of politeness is, however, being
+discarded by sophisticated young Japan for the reason that foreigners
+find it peculiar; and the practice of audibly sucking in food as an
+expression of gustatory ecstasy is also going out of fashion for the
+same reason. The old ways are, nevertheless, held to by many an
+aristocrat of middle age, or older.
+
+The American, accustomed to regard hissing as a sign of disapproval, and
+noisy eating as ill-bred, is naturally startled on first encountering
+these manifestations. Japanese bowing, when directed at him, he finds
+disconcerting. He may wish to be as polite as the politest, but he has
+in his repertory nothing adequate to offer in return for such an
+obeisance.
+
+In this country we have never taken to bowing as practised in some other
+lands. Our men look askance at Latin males when they lift their hats to
+one another in salutation, and it may be observed that some of us tend
+to slight the lifting of the hat a little bit even when saluting ladies,
+clutching furtively at the brim and perhaps loosening the hat upon the
+head, then hastily jamming it back in place.
+
+The fact is that very few American men have polished manners. We rebel
+at anything resembling courtliness. It makes us feel "silly." The
+dancing school bow we were compelled to practise in the days of our
+otherwise happy youth was a nightmare to us, and now in our maturity we
+have a sense of doing something utterly inane when, at a formal dinner
+party, it devolves upon us to present an arm to a lady, as if to assure
+her of protection through the perils of the voyage from drawing room to
+table. We much prefer to amble helter-skelter to the dining room.
+
+In these matters, then, as in so many others, we find ourselves at the
+opposite pole from the Japanese; and though Americans of the class
+willing to appreciate merits of kinds they themselves do not possess
+feel nothing but admiration for Japanese courtesy in its perfection, it
+sometimes happens, lamentably enough, that others, less intelligent,
+going to the Orient, utterly misread the meaning of Japanese politeness,
+mistaking it for servility, which it most emphatically is not. Far from
+being servile it is a proud politeness--a politeness grounded upon
+custom, sensitiveness of nature, delicacy of feeling, which cause the
+possessor to expect in others a like sensitiveness and delicacy and to
+make him wish to outdo them in tact and consideration.
+
+Nor does the failure of certain Americans to appreciate Japanese
+courtesy and hospitality for what it is, stop here. Our yellow press and
+organized Japanese-haters, aware that the higher hospitality of Japan
+has oftentimes an official or semi-official character, are not satisfied
+to seek a simple explanation for the fact, but prefer to discern in it
+something artful and sinister.
+
+It is perfectly true that the stranger going to Japan with good letters
+of introduction meets a group composed almost entirely of government
+officials, big business men, and their families. It is also true that he
+is likely to meet a selected group of such men. The reason for this is
+simple. While English is the second language taught in Japanese schools,
+and while many Japanese can speak some broken English, there are still
+relatively few men, and still fewer women, who have been educated abroad
+and are sufficiently familiar with foreign languages, customs, and ideas
+to feel easy when entertaining foreigners. This class is, moreover,
+still further limited by the financial burden of extensive entertaining.
+
+Thus it happens that there exists in Japan a social group which may be
+likened to a loosely organized entertainment committee, with the result
+that most Americans who are entertained in that country meet, broadly
+speaking, the same set of people.
+
+The Japanese are entirely frank in their desire to interest the world in
+Japan. The Government maintains a bureau for the purpose of encouraging
+tourists to visit the country and making travel easy for them. The great
+Japanese steamship companies, the Toyo Kisen Kaisha and Nippon Yusen
+Kaisha, are energetic in seeking passenger business. Journalists,
+authors, men of affairs and others likely to have influence at home, are
+especially encouraged to visit Japan. The feeling of the Japanese is
+that there exists in the United States a prejudice against them, and
+that the best way to overcome this is to show Japan to Americans and let
+them form their own conclusions. They are proud of their country and
+they believe that those who become acquainted with it will think well of
+it.
+
+Some Americans charge them with endeavouring to show things at their
+best, as if to do that were a sly sin.
+
+The attitude of the Japanese in this matter may be likened to that of a
+man who owns a home in some not very accessible region, the advantages
+of which are doubted by his friends. Being proud of his place the owner
+is hospitable. He urges those he knows to come and see it.
+
+When his guests arrive he does not begin by taking them to look at the
+sick cow, or the corner behind the barn where refuse is dumped, but
+marches them to the west verandah--the verandah with the wonderful view.
+
+To the average person such a procedure would seem entirely normal. Yet
+there are critics of Japan who do not see it in that light. Their
+attitude might be likened to that of someone who, when taken to the
+verandah to see the view, declares that the view is being shown not on
+its own merits, but because the host has cut the butler's throat and
+does not wish his guests to notice the body lying under the parlour
+table.
+
+Let an American of any influence go to Japan, be cordially received
+there, form his impressions, and return with a good word to say for the
+islands and the people, and the professional Japanese-haters have their
+answer ready. The man has been victimized by "propaganda." He has been
+flattered by social attentions, fuddled with food and drink, reduced to
+a state of idiocy, and in that state "personally conducted" through
+Japan in a manner so crafty as to prevent his stumbling upon the
+"Truth."
+
+The precise nature of this "Truth" is never revealed. It is merely
+indicated as some vague awfulness behind a curtain carefully kept drawn.
+
+Having so often heard these rumours I went to Japan in a suspicious
+frame of mind. Arriving there, I made it my business to dive behind
+whatever looked like a veil of mystery. As the reader who has followed
+me thus far will be aware, I found a number of mysteries--the
+fascinating mysteries of an old and peculiar civilization, out of which
+an interesting modernism had rapidly grown.
+
+I was considerably entertained in Japan; my sightseeing was oftentimes
+facilitated by Japanese friends; but the significant fact is that no one
+ever tried to prevent my seeing anything I wished to. And I wished to
+see everything, good and bad. I visited the lowest slums, a
+penitentiary, a poorhouse, a hospital, and some factories. I asked
+questions. Sometimes they were embarrassing questions--about militarism
+in Japan, about Shantung, about Korea and Formosa, about Manchuria and
+Siberia. And though I do not expect any Japanese-hater to believe me, I
+wish to declare here, in justice to the Japanese, that they gave me the
+information I asked, even though to do so sometimes pained them.
+
+I saw and learned things creditable to Japan and things discreditable,
+just as in other lands one sees and learns things in both categories. I
+found the Japanese neither angels nor devils. They are human beings like
+the rest of us, having their virtues and their defects.
+
+I came away liking and respecting them as a people. This fact I proclaim
+with the full knowledge that those who do not like them will accept it,
+not as a sign of any merit in the Japanese, but as proof of my
+incompetence, or worse.
+
+"But you have not been to China," some of my friends say. "You would
+like the Chinese better than the Japanese."
+
+That may be true or it may not. I am inclined to believe that there is,
+on the surface, more natural sympathy and understanding between
+Americans and Chinamen than between Americans and Japanese. The Chinaman
+is more easily comprehensible to us. Also he is meek. We can talk down
+to him. He will do as we tell him to. He is not a contender--as the
+Japanese very definitely is--and is therefore easier to get along with.
+As an individual he has many qualities to recommend him, though neither
+patriotism nor cleanliness seems to be among them.
+
+If I ever go to China I shall hope and expect not to fall into the
+mental grooves which lead travellers in the Orient generally to feel
+that if they like a Chinaman they cannot like a Japanese, and vice
+versa. I hereby reserve the right to like both.
+
+China appears to be an amiable, flaccid, sleepy giant who has long
+allowed himself to be bullied, victimized, and robbed. Japan, on the
+other hand, is a small, well-knit, pugnacious individual, well able to
+look after himself, and profoundly engaged in doing so. Naturally the
+two do not get on well together, and equally naturally the impotent
+giant comes off the worse. One is, to that extent, sorry for him, but
+one can hardly respect him as one would were he to rise up and assert
+himself. One may, on the other hand, wish the little Japanese less
+obstreperous, but one is bound to respect him for his prowess.
+Physically and materially he has earned for himself the undisputed
+leadership of the Far East. There remains, however, the question whether
+he is spiritually great enough to become, as well, a moral leader. In
+that question is bound up the future of the Orient. Some signs are
+hopeful, some are not. The answer is locked in the vaults of time to
+come.
+
+It is not surprising that the Japanese are proud of the leadership they
+have already attained. Being relatively new members of the hair-pulling,
+hobnailed family we call the Family of Nations, and having rapidly
+become important members, they are inclined to harp more than necessary
+upon this importance, so novel and so gratifying to them. They like to
+talk about it. They delight in proclaiming themselves a "first-class
+power." They rejoice exceedingly in their alliance with Great Britain,
+not because the alliance itself has any very real importance (in view of
+the attitude of Australia and Canada toward Japan, and of Britain's
+regard for American sentiment, it cannot have), but because of the
+flattering association. Japan likes to be seen walking with the big
+fellows. In this she reminds one somewhat of a youth in all the pride
+and self-consciousness of his first pair of "long pants."
+
+Now there is this to be remembered about a youth in his first "long
+pants": he requires careful handling. If you treat him like a child,
+either patronizing or ignoring him, you will offend him mortally, and
+not impossibly drive him to some furious action in assertion of his
+manhood. But if, on the other hand, you are misled by his appearance of
+maturity, and expect of him all that you would expect of a thoroughly
+ripened man, then you are very likely to find yourself disappointed.
+
+There is but one course to be pursued with a youth in this intermediate
+stage. He must be managed with tact, firmness, and patience. In dealing
+with the young, many adults fail to understand this, and in dealing with
+a nation in a corresponding state of evolution, other nations are as a
+rule even stupider than adult individuals.
+
+Britain, wisest of all the world in international affairs, has not made
+this mistake in her relations with Japan. The alliance is one proof of
+it. The visit of the Crown Prince of Japan to England in the spring of
+1921, is another. Nor was the tact of Britain in this situation ever
+better displayed than in King George's speech, when, toasting the
+Imperial guest, he said:
+
+"Because he is our friend we are not afraid for him to see our troubles.
+We know his sympathy is with us and that he will understand."
+
+Would that the United States might draw the simple lesson from these two
+short sentences spoken by England's king. Would that we might learn to
+take that amiable tone. Would that Americans might understand how
+instantly the Japanese--yes, and all other nations--respond to such
+approaches.
+
+The problem of maintaining friendly relations with this neighbour on the
+other side of the Pacific is not, in truth, nearly so difficult as many
+of our other problems. It has been rendered difficult chiefly by our own
+incredible bungling.
+
+Among men a bungler is oftentimes feared and disliked exactly as if he
+were malevolent, and among nations the situation is the same. No nation,
+however strong, can afford to give offence unnecessarily to other great
+powers; and the United States can least of all afford to irritate
+needlessly those powers with which her front yard and her back yard are
+shared: namely, Britain and Japan. Yet we are constantly annoying these
+two nations without accomplishing any counterbalancing good purpose.
+
+Britain, feeling, as we do, the tie of consanguinity, and having,
+moreover, a shrewd eye to her own interest, forgives us, or at least
+appears to. But in the case of Japan we are dealing with a very
+different situation. There is no blood relationship to ease the strain;
+nor is there always in Tokyo the calm, phlegmatic, self-interested
+statesmanship of London. Tokyo is sometimes temperamental.
+
+If we continue to bungle we shall ultimately gain the lasting ill-will
+of Japan, and if we do that we shall almost certainly find ourselves
+looking out of our back window not merely at a frowning Nippon, but at a
+coalition between Japan, Russia, and Germany--a coalition into which we
+ourselves, by our attitude, shall have driven Japan.
+
+It is for us to decide whether we wish to encourage such an alliance.
+
+With Mr. Hughes in the State Department we have, it appears, good reason
+to be hopeful, but Mr. Hughes has not as yet had time to accomplish much
+of an improvement in American-Japanese relations. If he does so he will
+be the first American statesman to have made headway in the matter since
+Roosevelt was in the White House and Elihu Root in the State Department;
+for not since their time has there been evident in our dealings with
+Japan a definite and understanding policy. The failure of our diplomacy
+is all too plainly reflected in the steady diminution of the good
+feeling which then existed.
+
+Though he never visited Japan, Roosevelt, with his amazing understanding
+of people, managed to sense the Japanese perfectly. He knew their
+virtues and their failings. He realized precisely the state they had
+attained in their evolution from mediævalism to modernity. He knew their
+samurai loyalty and pride, their sensitiveness, their love of courtesy.
+
+"Speak softly and carry a big stick," he used to say. In those words is
+summed up a large part of his foreign policy. He knew when to send a
+bearskin to the Emperor, and when to send a fleet.
+
+Even when he sent that fleet of sixteen battleships, the visit paid was
+one of courtesy. And courtesy, as I have tried to show, is never, never
+lost upon Japan.
+
+
+
+
+ PART IV
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII
+
+ _The Missing Lunch--The Japanese Chauffeur--The Little
+ Train--Japanese Railroads--The Railway Lunch--The Railway
+ Teapot--Reflections on Some American Ways--Are the Japanese
+ Honest?--A Story of Viscount Shibusawa--Travelling Customs--An
+ Eavesdropping Episode_
+
+
+Neither the box of lunch nor the automobile to take us to the station
+was ready, though both had been ordered the previous night. We waited
+until twenty minutes before train time; then made a dash for the station
+in a taxi which happened along providentially--something taxis seldom do
+in Tokyo.
+
+The drive took us several miles across the city. Through a picturesque
+and incoherent jumble of street traffic, over canals, past the huge
+concrete amphitheatre in which wrestling bouts are held, across a steel
+bridge spanning the Sumida River, through a maze of muddy streets lined
+with open-fronted shops partially protected from the hot sun by curtains
+of indigo cotton bearing advertisements in large white Chinese
+characters, we flew precariously, facing collisions half a dozen times
+yet magically escaping them as one always does behind a Japanese
+chauffeur. It is said that the Japanese chauffeur is not, as a rule, a
+good mechanic. As to that I cannot say, but I assure you he can drive.
+At an incredible speed he will whirl you through the dense slow-moving
+crowds of a street festival or around the hairpin curves of a muddy
+mountain pass with one wheel following the slippery margin of a
+precipice, but he will never hurt so much as a hair of your head,
+unless, perchance, it hurts your hair to stand on end.
+
+The Ryogoku Station, where we found our friends awaiting us, is a modest
+frame structure, terminus of an unimportant railway line serving the
+farming and fishing villages of the Boso Peninsula--which depends from
+the mainland in such a way as to form the barrier between Tokyo Bay and
+the Pacific.
+
+The train seemed to have been awaiting us. It started as soon as we had
+boarded it, and was presently rocking along through open country at
+twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. There was something of solemn
+playfulness about that little train. The cars were no heavier than
+street cars and the locomotive would have made hard work of drawing a
+pair of Pullmans, yet in its present rôle it gave a pompous performance,
+hissing, whistling, and snorting as importantly as if it had been the
+engine of a great express. The little guards, too, joined gravely in the
+game, calling out the names of country stations as majestically as if
+each were a metropolis. And the very landscape took its place in the
+whimsy, for our toy train ran over it as over a flat rug patterned with
+little green rice fields.
+
+The Japanese Government, which so woefully mishandles its telephones and
+cables, does better with its railroads. They are fairly well run. Trains
+are almost invariably on time, and the cars are not uncomfortable,
+although the narrower gauge of the Japanese roads makes them necessarily
+smaller than our cars.
+
+The ordinary Japanese sleeping-car is divided into halves. One half is
+like an American Pullman sleeper, very much scaled down in size, while
+the other half resembles a European _wagon-lit_ in miniature, with a
+narrow aisle at one side and compartments in which the berths are
+arranged transversely to the train.
+
+As in Europe, there are three classes of day coaches. Except where
+trains are overcrowded, as they often are, one may travel quite as
+comfortably second-class as first. Coaches of all three classes are like
+street cars with long seats running from end to end at either side.
+Usually the car is divided in the middle by a partition, the theory
+being that one end is for smokers; but in practice the Japanese, who are
+inveterate users of tobacco, seem to smoke when and where they please
+while travelling.
+
+Express trains carry dining cars which are like small reproductions of
+ours. Some of these diners serve Japanese-style meals, some European,
+and some both.
+
+Much thought has evidently been given to making travel easy for
+English-speaking people. Each car of every train carries a sign giving,
+in English, the train's destination; time-tables printed in English are
+easily obtained, railroad tickets are printed in both languages, and the
+name of each town is trebly set forth on railroad station signs, being
+displayed in English, in Chinese characters, and in kana.
+
+As in the United States, station porters wear red caps but they have the
+European trick of passing baggage in and out of the car windows, so that
+the doorways are not blocked with it when passengers wish to get on and
+off. Also at stations of any consequence there are boys wearing green
+caps, who peddle newspapers, tea, and lunches.
+
+The Japanese railway lunch is an institution as highly organized as the
+English railway lunch. On the platforms of all large stations you can
+purchase almost any sort of lunch you desire, neatly wrapped in paper
+napkins and packed in an immaculate wooden box. On each box the date is
+stamped, so that the traveller may be sure that everything is fresh. You
+may get a box containing liberal portions of roast chicken and Kamakura
+ham, with salad and hard-boiled eggs and a dainty bamboo knife and fork;
+or if you wish a light repast, a box of assorted sandwiches, thin and
+moist as sandwiches should always be but so seldom are. Or, again, you
+may get a variety of Japanese dishes, similarly packed.
+
+On this trip I selected a box of that delicacy known as _tai-meshi_, and
+was not sorry that my order for lunch had been overlooked at the hotel.
+Tai-meshi consists of a palatable combination of rice and shredded
+sea-bream cooked in a sauce containing saké which obliterates the fishy
+taste of the sea-bream. The box cost me the equivalent of seventeen
+cents, chop-sticks included. From the green-cap boy who sold it to me I
+also purchased, for five cents, an earthenware pot containing tea, and a
+small cup, and when I had drunk the tea I learned that I could have the
+pot refilled with hot water at practically any station, for a couple of
+cents more.
+
+Just as your English traveller leaves the railway lunch basket in the
+train when he is done with it, your Japanese traveller leaves the teapot
+and cup. Drinking the philosopher's beverage I found myself wondering
+whether such a system would be successful in the United States. I
+concluded that it would not. Some of the lunch-baskets and teapots would
+get back to their rightful owners, but many would disappear. There is a
+certain type of American, and he is numerous, who has a constitutional
+aversion to conforming to a nice, orderly custom of this kind. He has
+too much--let us call it initiative--for that. If he thought the
+lunch-basket and teapot worth taking home he would take them home; nor
+would he be deterred by the mere fact that they were not his, having
+only been rented to him. His subconscious sense of the importance of his
+own "personality" would lift him over any little obstacle of that kind.
+Without thinking matters out he would feel that because he had used them
+they were his. What he had used no one else should use--even though its
+usefulness to him was past. Wherefore, if he thought the basket and the
+teapot not worth taking, he would stamp his "personality" upon them. He
+might take the basket apart to see how it was made, or he might draw out
+his penknife and cut holes in it. Then he would consider what to do with
+the teapot. Finding that it fitted nicely in the palm of his hand, and
+sensing by touch its brittleness, he would want to use it as a missile.
+If he prided himself on the accuracy of his pitching he would throw it
+at a telegraph pole, but if he felt quite certain that he could not hit
+a pole he would wait for a large rock pile or a factory wall, and would
+hurl it against that with all his might, to make the largest possible
+explosion.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+People often ask me whether the Japanese are honest. Doubt on this
+subject is, I believe, largely due to the old story that Chinese tellers
+are employed in Japanese banks--all Chinamen being trustworthy and all
+Japanese the reverse. I know of no better example of the vitality of a
+lie than is afforded by the survival of this one. It is a triple lie.
+Japanese banks do not have Chinese tellers. The Japanese as a race are
+no more dishonest than other people. The leading bankers of Japan, many
+of whom I have met, are men of the highest character and the greatest
+enlightenment, and would be so recognized in any land. Nor is this
+merely my opinion. It is the opinion I have heard expressed by several
+of the greatest bankers and manufacturers in the United States--men who
+have done business with Japanese bankers and who know them thoroughly.
+
+It is true that trademarks and patented articles manufactured in other
+countries have been stolen by some Japanese manufacturers and merchants,
+and that this abominable practice is to some extent kept up even to-day.
+But conditions in this respect are improving as business morality grows.
+Nor should it be forgotten that the present standard of international
+commercial ethics, which so strongly reprehends such thefts, is
+comparatively a new thing throughout the entire world. It must, however,
+be admitted that Japan is not, in this particular, fully abreast of the
+other great nations.
+
+As for the average of probity among the people at large I can say
+this--that if I were obliged to risk leaving a valuable possession in a
+public place, on the chance of its being found by an honest person and
+returned to me, I should prefer to take the risk in Japan, than in most
+other countries. Certainly, I should prefer to take it there than in the
+United States--unless I could specify certain rural sections of the
+United States, where I should feel that my chances were better than in
+the neighbourhood of New York.
+
+The Japanese are respecters of property, private and public. One may
+visit the historic buildings of Japan without seeing a single evidence
+of vandalism. I was immensely struck by this. It was so unlike home!
+More than once, over there, I thought of a visit I paid, some years ago,
+to Monticello, the beautiful old mansion built near Charlottesville,
+Virginia, by Thomas Jefferson, and of what the caretaker told me. All
+visitors, he said, had to be watched. Otherwise vines would be torn from
+the walls of the house, bricks chipped, and marble statuary broken. They
+had even found it necessary to build an iron fence around Jefferson's
+grave to protect the monument from American patriots who would like to
+take home little pieces of it.
+
+The custom of visiting historic places and the graves of historic
+figures is much more common in Japan than in America. Many of Japan's
+most famous monuments are entirely unprotected, but instead of knocking
+them to pieces to get souvenirs the pilgrim will burn a little incense
+before them, and perhaps leave his visiting card on the spirit of the
+departed. Or he may write a poem.
+
+Dr. John H. Finley has told me a story which well illustrates the
+delicate and reverential attitude of the Japanese in such matters.
+
+When Baron--now Viscount--Shibusawa came to the United States several
+years ago, a banquet was given in his honour in New York by the Japan
+Society, of which Doctor Finley was then president.
+
+At the banquet Doctor Finley remarked to the guest of honour that he
+heard he had sent an emissary with a wreath to be laid upon the grave of
+Townsend Harris, first American Minister to Japan, who is buried in
+Brooklyn.
+
+"No," said Baron Shibusawa, "that is not exactly what occurred. I did
+not send the wreath. I took it myself and laid it on the grave. And I
+wrote two poems in memory of Townsend Harris and hung them in the
+branches of a Japanese maple tree overhanging his resting-place."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+But let us get back to our little railroad train.
+
+The men among our Japanese fellow travellers were sitting on the seats
+with their feet on the floor, as we do, but the women and children had
+slipped off their clogs and were squatting in the seats with their backs
+to the aisle, looking out of the windows or dozing with their heads
+resting upon their hands, or against the window-frame. One elderly lady
+was lying at full length on the seat, asleep, with her bare feet resting
+on the cushions.
+
+The Japanese are much less fearful than we of the interest of fellow
+passengers, and indeed, so far as concerns strangers of their own race,
+they are justified in this, for Japanese travellers pay little or no
+attention to one another. In foreigners they are more interested. A
+Japanese who can speak English will frequently start a conversation with
+the traveller from abroad, and will almost invariably endeavour to be
+helpful. Rustics stare at the stranger with a sort of dumb interest,
+just as American rustics might stare at a Japanese; and young Japanese
+louts sometimes snicker when they see a foreigner, and comment upon him,
+just as young American louts might do on seeing a Japanese passing
+by--especially if he was wearing his national costume.
+
+"Pipe the Jap," a New York street-corner loafer might exclaim; while
+similarly an ill-bred youth of Tokyo, Kobe or Yokohama might remark:
+"_Keto_," which means "hairy foreigner." The term _keto_ is not intended
+to be complimentary, yet no more real harm is meant by its user them
+would be meant by an American smart-aleck who should speak of "chinks,"
+"kykes" or "micks." Such terms merely exemplify the instinctive
+hostility of small-minded men the world over, for all who are not
+exactly like themselves.
+
+Some Japanese country folk who sat opposite us on our journey to the
+Boso Peninsula were clearly much interested in us--particularly in the
+ladies of our party, and as so few foreigners understand the Japanese
+language, they felt safe in talking us over amongst themselves.
+
+"What a strange little thing to wear on one's head!" said the husband,
+to the wife referring to a neat little turban worn by one of our ladies.
+
+"Yes," said the wife, "and I don't see how she can walk in those shoes
+with their tall, thin little heels. Aren't they funny!"
+
+These remarks and others revealing their interested speculations as to
+which women of our party were married to which men, were translated to
+us by the friend who had organized the excursion. Being a good deal of a
+wag, he let them talk about us until the subject seemed to be exhausted.
+Then he addressed a casual question, in Japanese, to the husband across
+the way. I have seldom seen a man look more disconcerted than that one
+did just then. He answered the question, but that was the last word we
+heard him speak. Though an hour passed before he and his wife got off
+the train, and though they had until then talked volubly together, the
+complete silence which came over them was not broken by so much as a
+monosyllable until they reached the station platform. There, however, we
+saw that they had begun to talk again, and with gestures showing not a
+little agitation. I had a feeling that each was blaming the other for
+the whole affair. Relations between husband and wife are, in some
+respects at least, a good deal more alike in all countries than is
+commonly supposed.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ _Katsuura and the Basha--A Noble Coast--Scenes on a Country
+ Road--The Fishers--A Temple and Tame Fish--We Arrive at an
+ Inn--I See a Bath--I Take One--Bathing Customs--The Attentive
+ Nesan--In the Tub_
+
+
+A journey of about three and a half hours brought us to the seacoast
+town of Katsuura, the terminus of the little railway line. The industry
+of Katsuura is fishing, and there is a kind of dried fish put up there
+which has quite a reputation. Almost every town in Japan has some
+specialty of its own, whether an edible or something else--something for
+the traveller to purchase and take home as a souvenir. Many of the best
+Japanese colour-prints were originally made for this purpose--souvenirs
+of cities and towns, celebrated inns, famous actors, and notorious
+courtesans.
+
+Leaving the train we got into a _basha_--a primitive one-horse bus with
+tiny wheels--and took a highway leading south along the shore. The day
+was brilliant and our road, skirting the edge of the lofty coastal hills
+half way between their green serried peaks and the yellow beach on which
+the surf played below, was white and dusty in the hot sun. On level
+stretches and down-grades we rode in the basha, but we always got out
+and walked up hills to spare the venerable horse. Nor will travellers
+who have ever followed such a system be surprised that, of the twenty
+miles we covered on our way to Kamogawa, fully fifteen seemed to be
+up-hill miles.
+
+This shore continually reminded me of other shores--Brittany, in the
+region of Dinard and Cancale, and the cliffs between Sorrento and
+Amalfi. But here the contours were more tender. Many a beach I saw, with
+tiny houses strewn along the margin of the sand, fishing boats drawn up
+in rows, and swarthy men and women bustling about among the nets and
+baskets, which made me think of the Marina at Capri. Even the air was
+that of Capri in the springtime. But here there was no song.
+
+ [Illustration: Tai-no-ura--Tiny houses strewn about the margin
+ of the sand, fishing boats drawn up in rows, and swarthy men and
+ women bustling about among the nets and baskets]
+
+A succession of lofty promontories jutting aggressively toward the sea
+gave interest to the road. Sometimes they turned its course, forcing it
+to swing out around them; in other cases tunnels penetrated the barrier
+hills, and we would find ourselves trudging along beside the basha,
+through damp echoing darkness, with our eyes fixed on a distant point of
+light, marking the exit, ahead.
+
+It was a much-travelled road. We were continually meeting other bashas
+creaking slowly through the white dust, or drawn up before inns and
+teahouses where passengers were pausing for refreshment. During the
+entire afternoon we met not a single automobile, and when, after an hour
+or two, a Japanese lady, beautifully dressed and sheltered from the sun
+by a large parasol, flashed past in a shining ricksha propelled by two
+coolies, she made a picture strangely sophisticated, elegantly exotic,
+against the background of that dusty country highway so full of humble
+folk.
+
+All the women of this region were hard at work. Some were labouring
+beside their husbands in the mud and water of the paddy fields, others
+were occupied upon the beach, piling up kelp and carrying it back to
+huge wooden tubs in which it was being boiled to get the juice from
+which iodine is extracted, still others were transporting baskets of
+fresh shiny fish from the newly landed boats to the village markets, or
+were drawing heavy carts laden with fish-baskets from one village to
+another. For this coast is the greatest fishing district of all Japan.
+
+On the streets of every village we saw fish being handled--large,
+brilliant fish laid out in rows on straw mats, preparatory to shipment,
+huge tubs of smaller fish, and great baskets of silver sardines. Nor was
+our awareness of piscatorial activities due only to the organs of sight.
+Now and then a gust of information reached the olfactory organs
+disclosing with a frankness that was unmistakable, the proximity of a
+pile of rotted herring, which is used to fertilize the fields.
+
+Winding down a hill through a grove of ancient trees, with the sea
+glistening between the trunks on one side of the way, we came upon a
+weathered temple, and, rounding it from the rear, found a tiny village
+clustered at its base, in as sweet a little cove as one could wish to
+see--low, brown houses nestling among rocks and gnarled pines, a
+crescent of yellow beach with fishing boats drawn up beyond the reach of
+the tide, and children playing among them looking like nude bronzes come
+to life.
+
+This place, known as Tai-no-ura--Sea-bream Coast--small and remote as it
+is, has a fame which extends throughout Japan. For it was the abiding
+place of the thirteenth-century fisherman-priest Nichiren, who, though
+he antedated Martin Luther by about two and a half centuries, is
+sometimes called the Martin Luther of Japanese Buddhism. The Nichiren
+sect is to this day powerful, having more than five thousand temples and
+a million and a half adherents. Its scriptures are known as the
+_Hokkekyo_, and I find a certain quaint interest in the fact that,
+because this word suggests the call of the Japanese nightingale, the
+feathered songster is known by a name which means "scripture-reading
+bird."
+
+The old weathered temple, which we visited, is known as the _Tanjo-ji_,
+or Nativity Temple, and is said to have been established in 1286, but to
+me the most appealing thing about this district is the respect which to
+this day is accorded Nichiren's prohibition against the catching of fish
+along this sacred shore. The fishermen of Tai-no-ura go far out before
+casting their nets, and this has been the case for so long that the fish
+have come to understand that they are safe inshore, and will rise to the
+surface if one knocks upon the gunwale of a boat.
+
+ [Illustration: The gates of the Tanjo-ji temple, dedicated to
+ Nichiren, "the Martin Luther of Japan"]
+
+I should have liked to linger at this place, but the afternoon was
+waning and we had still half a dozen miles or more to go.
+
+Sunset was suspended like a rosy fluid in the air when our basha drove
+down the main street of Kamogawa and stopped before the door of the inn.
+
+To an American, accustomed to the casual reception accorded hotel guests
+in his native land, the experience of arriving at a well-conducted
+Japanese inn is almost sensational. The wheels of our vehicle had hardly
+ceased to turn when a flock of servitors came running out to welcome and
+to aid us. A pair of coolies whisked our bags into the portico, and as
+we followed we were escorted by the gray-haired proprietress and a bevy
+of nesans, all of them beaming at us and bowing profoundly from the
+waist.
+
+While I sat on the doorstep removing my shoes, two coolies came from the
+rear of the building bearing between them a pole from which two huge
+buckets of hot water were suspended. Pushing back a sliding paper door
+they entered an adjoining room. A moment later I heard a great
+splashing, as of water being poured, and looking after them saw that
+they were emptying their buckets into a large stationary tub built of
+wood. Nor was I the only witness to the preparation of the bath. Two
+Japanese women and three children stood by, waiting to use it. And they
+were all ready to get in.
+
+There was something superbly matter-of-fact about this whole performance
+which gave me a sudden flash of understanding. All the explaining in the
+world could not have told me so much about the Japanese point of view on
+matters of this kind as came through witnessing this picture.
+
+Adam and Eve were not progenitors of these people nor was the apple a
+fruit indigenous to Japan.
+
+The other members of our party were preparing to bathe in the sea before
+dinner, but I desired a hot bath and had asked for it as soon as I
+arrived. While in my room preparing I found myself wondering whether I
+was about to have an experience in mixed bathing, and if so how well my
+philosophy would stand the strain.
+
+But the peculiar notions of foreigners concerning privacy in the bath
+were, it appeared, not unknown to the proprietress of the inn. When I
+descended the stairs arrayed in the short cotton kimono provided by the
+establishment, I was not shown to the large bathroom near the entrance,
+but was taken in tow by a little nesan, who indicated to me that I was
+to put on wooden clogs--a row of which stood by the door--and follow her
+across the street to the annex.
+
+The bath was ready. Entering the room with me the nesan slipped the door
+shut and in a businesslike manner which could be interpreted in but one
+way, began looping back her sleeve-ends with cord.
+
+"She intends to scrub you!" shrieked all that was conventional within
+me. "Put her out!"
+
+"But don't you like to be scrubbed?" demanded the inner philosopher.
+
+"Her being a woman makes me self-conscious," I replied to my other self.
+
+"It shouldn't. Your being a man doesn't make her self-conscious. What
+was it we were saying a little while ago about false modesty?"
+
+"As nearly as I can remember," replied Convention, evasively, "we agreed
+that Americans are full of false modesty."
+
+Whereupon I turned to the little nesan and with a gesture in the
+direction of the door exclaimed, "Scat!"
+
+Understanding the meaning of the motion if not the word, she obediently
+scatted, closing the door behind her. She did not go far, however.
+Through the paper I could hear her whispering with another nesan in the
+corridor. I went to the door with the purpose of fastening it, but there
+was no catch with which to do so. This left me with a certain feeling of
+insecurity as I bathed.
+
+A well-ordered Japanese bathroom, such as this one was, has a false
+floor of wood with drains beneath it, so that one may splatter about
+with the utmost abandon. One does one's actual washing outside the tub,
+rinsing off with warm water dipped in a pail from a covered tank at one
+end of the tub. Not until the cleansing process has been completed does
+one enter the water to soak and get warm. Bathtubs in hotels and
+prosperous homes are large, and the size of them makes the preparation
+of a bath a laborious business; for running hot water is a luxury as yet
+practically unknown in Japan, the water for a bath being heated either
+in the kitchen, or by means of a little charcoal stove attached to the
+outside of the tub. To heat the bath by the latter system, which is the
+one generally used, takes an hour or two; wherefore it is obviously
+impracticable to prepare a separate bath for each member of the
+household. In a private house one tub of water generally does for all.
+
+Foreigners newly arrived in Japan are unpleasantly impressed by this
+system of bathing, and in a Japanese inn they generally make a great
+point of having first chance at the bath.
+
+Though I do not expect to convince the reader that what I say is so, I
+must bear testimony to the truth that it is the idea rather than the
+fact of the Japanese bath which is at first unpleasant. You must
+understand that the Japanese are physically the cleanest race of people
+in the world; that, as I have already said, they bathe fully before
+entering the tub; that the tubbing is less a part of the cleansing
+process than a means for getting warm; and finally that the water in a
+tub which has been used by several persons looks as fresh as when first
+drawn.
+
+I once asked a cosmopolitan Japanese whether he did not prefer our
+system of bathing. He replied that he did not. "I don't think your way
+is quite so clean as ours," he explained. "Not unless you take two
+baths, one after the other, as I always do when I am in Europe or
+America. I wash in the first bath. Then I draw a fresh tub to rinse off
+in."
+
+Just as this gentleman prefers his native style of bathing I prefer
+mine; yet I should not object to succeeding him in the bath. Nor am I
+alone in liking the deep spaciousness of the large-size Japanese
+bathtub. An American gentleman who was in Japan when I was is having a
+Japanese bathroom built into his house near New York.
+
+With the bath of the proletariat the system is the same, but the tub is
+smaller and less convenient. It consists of what is practically nothing
+more nor less than a large barrel with a small charcoal stove attached
+to one side. Often it stands out-of-doors.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On emerging from the hot water I found myself without a towel. I went to
+the door, opened it sufficiently to put my head out through the aperture
+and summoned the nesan who stood near by.
+
+"Towel," I said.
+
+She smiled and shook her head, uncomprehending.
+
+I opened the door a little wider, thrust out one arm and made rubbing
+motions on it.
+
+"_Hai!_" she exclaimed, brightly, and went scampering off.
+
+As it was chilly in the room I returned to the hot tub to wait. There I
+remained for some minutes. Then it occurred to me that, understanding my
+desire for privacy in the bath, the nesan might be waiting outside with
+my towel, so I got out again with the intention of looking into the
+hall.
+
+Just as I emerged, however, the door opened and in she came.
+
+"Scat!" I cried. Whereupon she handed me two towels and fled.
+
+It was well that she did bring two, for the native towel consists of a
+strip of thin cotton cloth hardly larger than a table napkin. The
+Japanese do not pretend to dry themselves thoroughly with these towels,
+but, as I have elsewhere mentioned, wring them out in hot water and use
+them as a mop, after which they go out and let the air finish the work.
+
+I dried myself as best I could, slipped into the cotton kimono, and
+returned to the main building of the inn.
+
+In the corridor I encountered my friend the linguist.
+
+"I want to take a photograph of that bathtub," I told him.
+
+"It won't explain itself in a photograph," he returned, "unless there's
+somebody in it."
+
+I knew what he meant. An American or European, accustomed to the style
+of bathtub that stands upon the floor, would naturally assume from a
+picture of this one that it was similarly set. But that was not so. It
+extended perhaps two feet below the level of the floor; there was a step
+half-way down the inside to aid one in getting in or out; it was so deep
+that a short person standing in it would be immersed almost to the
+shoulders.
+
+"You get in it, then, will you?"
+
+"You ought to have a Japanese."
+
+"But that's out of the question."
+
+"No, it isn't."
+
+Nor was it. By the time I got my kodak and put in a roll of film he had
+a subject for me.
+
+It was the little nesan to whom I had said "scat!" Nor could a _grande
+dame_ in an opera box have exhibited more aplomb than she did when I
+photographed her.
+
+ [Illustration: Nor could a _grande dame_ in an opera box have
+ exhibited more aplomb than she did when I photographed her]
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ _A Walk in a Kimono--Dinner at the Inn--Sweet Servitors--An
+ Evening's Enchantment--The Disadvantages of Ramma--My Neighbours
+ Retire--A Japanese Bed--Breakfast--"Bear's Milk"--The Village of
+ Nabuto--An Island and a Cave--The Abelone Divers--A Sail with
+ Fishermen_
+
+
+"Let's take a walk before dinner," said the linguist when our
+photographic enterprise had been accomplished.
+
+"All right. I'll go and dress."
+
+"Come as you are."
+
+"After a hot bath I might take cold in this thin kimono."
+
+"No. That's a curious thing about hot baths in Japan. The reaction from
+them is much like that we get at home from cold ones."
+
+"But, dressed this way, won't we look queer?" I surveyed the lower hem
+of my kimono which hung only a little below my knees.
+
+"It's the costume of the country."
+
+"But it's awfully short on us. It seems to me we ought to put on
+underwear at least."
+
+"Nonsense. A man doesn't know what comfort is until he has strolled out
+in a kimono after a bath."
+
+Our costumes were identical. We looked equally absurd. I consented.
+
+My one difficulty on that stroll was with my clogs. I could not walk as
+fast as my companion, nor did I dare to lift my feet from the ground
+lest the clogs should fall off. And yet I can see that if one is brought
+up on clogs there is much to be said in their favour. They are durable
+and cheap. They neither suffocate nor cramp the foot.
+
+Once I spoke to a Japanese friend of the merits of the clog, but though
+he admitted that his clog-wearing countrymen had no trouble with their
+feet, he thought clogs, on the whole, a bad thing. "The movement for
+good roads in Japan," he said, "started when people began to wear shoes.
+Those who wear clogs do not object to bad pavements, and we shall never
+get good ones until clogs are discarded by the majority."
+
+We had not walked a block before I perceived that my companion had not
+overstated the case for the kimono as a costume for a stroll on a balmy
+evening. It does not bind one anywhere, but leaves one's arms and legs
+delightfully free. Moreover the air penetrates to the body, and the
+feeling of it after a very hot bath is as refreshing as an alcohol rub.
+
+The streets were full of people many of them fishermen dressed much as
+we were. But though reason told me that in our kimonos we were less
+conspicuous than we should have been in our customary attire, I could
+not rid myself of the feeling that we were masqueraders, and that if
+people were to recognize us through the darkness for foreigners, we
+should have a crowd following us. Wherefore, though our promenade proved
+absolutely uneventful, I was upon the whole relieved when, after having
+gone the length of the main street and back, we re-entered the hotel.
+
+Our dinner that night was purely Japanese; the nesans brought the usual
+little foot-high lacquer tables laden with covered bowls of porcelain
+and lacquer; we sat upon silken cushions on the matting in the
+linguist's room and struggled bravely with our chop-sticks.
+
+The room was on the second floor. Through the open shoji we could look
+across a tiny garden into other rooms, open like ours to the soft
+evening air, and we could see the nesans gliding back and forth between
+these rooms and the kitchen, moving along the polished wooden floor of
+the gallery with their characteristic pigeon-toed shuffle.
+
+In an American hotel our little party would have been served by one
+waiter; here we were attended by three nesans, one of whom squatted on
+the matting beside the rice bucket, ready to help us when we held out
+our bowls for more (for we had rice with our soup, our fish, and our
+tea), while the other two brought things from the kitchen, below stairs.
+And no matter how many times they had been in the room before, they
+always dropped to their knees, on entering, and bent their foreheads
+nearly to the floor in respectful salutation, ere they served the new
+course.
+
+This courtesy, so natural to them, made me feel very, very far from
+home, for in it seemed to be crystallized the romantic charm of the
+antipodes. The whole environment, moreover, enhanced my feeling. The
+exquisite simplicity of our room, and of the other rooms across the
+garden; the soft lights shining through the rice paper of shoji here and
+there; the silhouettes, so Japanese, which passed across them; the
+shimmering of the dark green leaves of small trees whose upper branches
+reached a little bit above the floor level; the tinkling note of a
+samisen played in some remote part of the building; the almond eyes and
+massed ebony hair of our gentle little servitors, their butterfly
+costumes, the strange, soft rattle of their language, the curious
+unfamiliar flavours of the viands; all these combined to make me feel as
+one transported into an enchantment, vivid and fantastic as a painting
+by Rackham or Dulac.
+
+And yet, fascinated as I was with all this magic loveliness, I felt a
+gentle melancholy. For the shoji at the rear of the room were pushed
+back like the others, and from the beach on which they opened there came
+to me through the darkness an insistent note of definite and almost
+terrible reality: the murmur of that ocean, black, restless, turbulent,
+ominous, unimaginably vast, by which I was cut off from home.
+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+My own room was next to that of the linguist, but the room beyond mine
+was occupied by a Japanese couple. The rooms were divided by walls
+consisting of opaque paper screens, sliding in grooves, and even these
+frail partitions were incomplete, for, as in all Japanese houses, there
+were _ramma_, or grills, over the tops of the screens. The purpose of
+these ramma is to give ventilation at night, when the building is
+solidly encased in wooden shutters; but though it is true that they do
+permit some air to circulate, it is equally true that they permit the
+circulation of sound and light. Herein lies the foreigner's chief
+objection to the Japanese style of house--it is utterly without privacy.
+
+I endeavoured to be quiet as I made ready for bed, and I am sure my
+Japanese neighbours likewise tried, but their whisperings and the little
+rustling sounds they made as they moved about, enhanced rather than
+diminished my consciousness of their proximity.
+
+After I had put out my light my room continued for some time to be
+illuminated by the glow which came through the ramma on both sides.
+Presently the linguist's light went out, but that from the room of my
+other neighbours persisted, keeping me awake. This was the first time
+that I acutely missed chairs as an adjunct to Japanese life; if I had a
+chair I could hang a kimono over it to make a screen for my eyes. At
+last, however, I heard a little click, which was immediately followed by
+darkness. Then a sound of soft steps. Then a comfortable sigh. Then
+silence.
+
+It was my first night in a Japanese bed. The bed consisted of two thin
+floss-silk mattresses, laid one above the other on the matting, and
+partly covered with what seemed to be a towel. It was all very clean.
+The pillow was a cylinder of cotton about six inches in diameter,
+stuffed with some substance as heavy and as crackling as pine needles,
+but odourless. I think the stuffing was of rice-husks. My nightgown was
+a cotton kimono like the one in which I had gone walking, and my
+coverlet was the usual bed-covering of Japan--a quilted satin robe, very
+long, with armholes and spacious sleeves: a cross between a comforter
+and a kimono. I did not use the sleeves, but pulled it over as one would
+if sleeping under an overcoat.
+
+In all but one respect it was a comfortable bed. The thing that troubled
+me was the hard round pillow. I moved it about; I tried to flatten it; I
+tried my hand under it, and over it, between it and my face.
+
+"I shall never be able to sleep on such a pillow!" I thought, irritably.
+And the next thing I knew it was morning and time to get up.
+
+This inn, being exceptionally well appointed, provided separate
+wash-rooms for men and women. We trooped down and bathed. Then we
+breakfasted. The breakfast was much like the dinner of the night
+before--rice, soup, fish, and tea.
+
+"If any one feels the need of coffee," said the linguist, "we may be
+able to get it, but the chances are it won't be very good. I've got a
+can of condensed milk here, too." He held up the can. I noticed that it
+was called "Bear Brand" Milk, and that the label bore the picture of a
+bear.
+
+"Don't they have fresh milk at these inns?" someone asked.
+
+"A few of them have it now," he replied, "but it is only in the last few
+years that the people of this locality have learned to use milk at all."
+
+This reminded him of a story which he told us.
+
+On one of his walking trips he had stopped at an inn which boasted of
+having been patronized by an Imperial Prince. The friend who accompanied
+the linguist on that trip wanted coffee for breakfast, and the innkeeper
+managed to supply it. The linguist had a can of "Bear Brand" Milk in his
+haversack, but he did not wish to open it if milk could be produced at
+the inn.
+
+"Can you get me some milk?" he asked the nesan.
+
+"What kind of milk?" she inquired.
+
+Perceiving that she knew nothing of our custom of using milk in tea and
+coffee, he amused himself by replying:
+
+"Whale's milk."
+
+The nesan went downstairs and presently returned to say that there was
+no whale's milk to be had.
+
+"This inn has been patronized by an Imperial Prince," exclaimed the
+linguist, affecting astonishment, "yet you have no whale's milk?"
+
+The nesan admitted that such was the case.
+
+"Then," said he, "bring me elephant's milk. I'll try to make it do."
+
+Again she departed.
+
+"The proprietor is very sorry," she reported when she came back, "but he
+has just run out of elephant's milk."
+
+"Let me see the proprietor."
+
+When the latter appeared he was most apologetic. There had been an
+unprecedented demand for elephant's milk in the last few days, he
+explained, and his supply had been exhausted. He expected to have some
+more shortly, but the express was slow.
+
+"Very well," said the linguist, "I suppose I'll have to get along as
+best I can on bear's milk." Whereupon he opened the "Bear Brand" can and
+poured some of its contents into his coffee, while the hotel proprietor
+and the nesan looked on with bulging eyes.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," I told him when he had finished
+the story.
+
+"The joke rebounded on me," he said. "After that I became a personage in
+the inn, and I had to tip correspondingly when I left--for according to
+the old custom of the country the size of the tip in a hotel is not in
+proportion to the service received, but in proportion to the rank of the
+tipper. And besides, the proprietor was very curious to know how they
+milked the bears. I had a devil of a time explaining that."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+After breakfast we set out on foot for the village of Nabuto, several
+miles farther along the shore. The road, winding around the rampart
+hills, was as beautiful as that we had travelled the day before, and as
+full of interesting figures and intimate glimpses of the life of these
+amiable industrious fisher-folk.
+
+Nabuto proved to be a tiny settlement at the tip of a rocky promontory,
+sheltered from direct assaults of the sea by a small, pinnacled island
+known as Niemon Island because it belongs, and has for eight centuries
+belonged, to a family of that name, residing there.
+
+An old sea-wife, looking like a figure from one of Winslow Homer's
+paintings, summoned the ferryman with a blast upon a conch shell, and a
+few minutes later we stepped from his skiff to a natural platform of
+granite at the island's edge. As we landed we were assimilated by a
+guide who began by indicating certain circular holes in the granite
+which, he declared, had been made by the hoofs of Yoritomo's horse. For
+legend has it that, when pursued, this mediæval military hero used
+Niemon Island as a hiding place. Nor are the horse's hoof-prints the
+only evidence supporting this tale. One may see the cave in which the
+great Yoritomo concealed himself.
+
+Thither, by a rough, ascending path, the guide led us. It was a small,
+damp cave. If Yoritomo lived there long he must have feared his enemies
+more than he feared rheumatism. Within was a small shrine dedicated to
+the ancient warrior, and hanging near it was a cord by which a bell
+could be rung to notify the spirit of the departed that callers had
+arrived. The guide signified to us that Yoritomo's spirit would be
+profoundly gratified if we put a few coppers into the box in front of
+his shrine. Having contributed we were allowed to ring the bell.
+
+The ledge outside commanded a view of leagues and leagues of amethyst
+sea into which jutted a succession of green bastioned promontories.
+Below us, at the base of the cliff, where the long swells were crashing
+in rhythmic succession, several small skiffs were tossing dangerously
+near the margin of the foam. These, said the guide, were the boats of
+abalone fishers--for the Niemon family, besides receiving tourists, and
+selling them trinkets, picture postcards, and flasks of Osaka whiskey,
+is in the business of canning abalone meat. I have attempted to eat
+abalone. Considering that it is a mollusc leading an absolutely
+sedentary life, it has astounding muscular development. A man who can
+masticate it ought to be able also to masticate the can in which it
+comes.
+
+Each skiff contained two men; an oarsman and a diver. The former would
+nurse his light craft close to where the seas were breaking on the
+island's rocky wall, while the latter, standing and swaying with the
+rise and fall of the boat, peered eagerly into the blue depths. Then,
+suddenly, with the swiftness of a thrown knife, the brown body would cut
+the water and disappear. One waited. One waited long enough to become a
+little anxious. But when it seemed that human lungs could not have held
+a breath for such a length of time, a head of wet black hair would pop
+out of the water and the glistening body of the diver would slip over
+the gunwale with the sinuous ease of a swimming seal. A moment later he
+would be standing again in the bow of the boat, a figure beautifully
+poised, gazing with the rapt eyes of a seer into the swaying, streaky
+mysteries of the under-water world.
+
+Out here the fresh sea breeze wove like a cool woof across the warp of
+rays from a hot noonday sun. Ashore there was no breeze. I was beginning
+to dread the baking dusty miles of highway leading back to Kamogawa.
+Then someone suggested that we sail there, and the linguist sent the
+guide to see about a boat.
+
+The vessel he secured was a two-masted fishing boat with a brave viking
+prow and long sleek lines. It was a piratical-looking craft and the
+appearance of the crew was even more so. They were like the Malay
+pirates in boys' books of adventure: almost naked, and tanned and
+weathered to a dark copper colour. Two of them wore short white shirts,
+open in front and terminating at the waist, but the others were innocent
+of such sophisticated haberdashery, the entire costume of each
+consisting of a pair of towels--one at the loins, the other wound around
+the head.
+
+All too soon they landed us upon the beach at the back of the hotel.
+
+"Now," said the linguist, as we waded up through the deep sand, "we'll
+pack our bags, get lunch, and be off."
+
+And precisely that we did.
+
+The whole staff of the inn assembled to see us depart. The proprietress
+gave us little presents. There was much bowing. Then the basha creaked
+away.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV
+
+ _I Take Gen's Photograph--The Pay of Fisher-Folk--Where All the
+ World Works--We Help Gen Pull Her Cart--And Surprise Some
+ Wayfarers--The Road Grows Long--Fairy Débutantes_
+
+
+In an exceptionally picturesque fishing village a few miles on, I paused
+to take some photographs. On a platform outside an old house overhanging
+the gray sea-wall at the margin of the beach, three women were unloading
+baskets of fish from a heavy handcart. One of them was fully sixty years
+of age, another I judged to be thirty, but the third was a girl not over
+twenty, a sturdy brown lass with eyes like those of a wild deer, and a
+ready smile which showed a set of glorious white teeth. She was as
+pretty a peasant girl as I had seen in Japan, wherefore through my
+bi-lingual friend, I asked permission to take her picture.
+
+From the amount of talking my friend did, and the laughter with which,
+on both sides, it was accompanied, I judged that the request, as it
+reached her, was festooned with gallantries. At all events she readily
+consented to be photographed--as a pretty girl generally will--and when
+the shutter had snapped she asked that I send her a print. This I agreed
+to do if she would write her name and address in my notebook. She did so
+in kana, which, being translated by my invaluable companion, revealed
+her name as Gen Tajima.
+
+ [Illustration: Pretty Gen was between the shafts, the other girl
+ was pulling at a rope, and the grandmother was at the rear,
+ pushing]
+
+Asked if all three of them were of the same family, the women replied
+that they were merely neighbours. They resided in the village of
+Amatsu-machi, several miles farther along the road that we were
+travelling, and it was their daily business to draw the cart from
+Amatsu-machi to this place, laden with baskets of fish to be salted and
+shipped. Their pay for this labour amounted to the equivalent of
+twenty-five cents a day in our money.
+
+"I suppose you are all of you married?" asked my friend.
+
+The old woman replied that she was; the other two laughed and declared
+that they were not. But they soon betrayed each other. "Don't you
+believe what _she_ says!" they warned us gaily. "She _is_ married. _I'm_
+the one who is looking for a match." Then, having had their little joke,
+each owned to a husband and children. Their husbands were fishermen, and
+earned, they said, two yen a day--about a dollar.
+
+"You work hard?" asked my friend.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why 'of course'?"
+
+"Everybody down here works hard."
+
+"Even those who don't have to?"
+
+"Yes. Even people with a lot of money work hard. Here any one who did
+not work would be laughed at."
+
+They were typical Japanese women of the fisher class, happy, innocent,
+industrious. They interested me profoundly. But there was a long trip
+ahead of us and it was necessary to push on. We bade them farewell, got
+into the basha, and drove away.
+
+But we had not seen the last of them. When we had driven a quarter of a
+mile or so, they came running up behind us with their cart. Pretty Gen
+was between the shafts, the other girl was pulling at a rope tied to one
+side, and the grandmother was at the rear, pushing. They ran
+pigeon-toed, like Indians, and what with the commotion caused by their
+rope sandals and the wheels, left a cloud of dust behind them.
+
+Full of merriment they closed in upon us. One of them called to us in
+Japanese.
+
+"What did she say?" I asked.
+
+My friend translated:
+
+"She says that because we are strangers they will escort us."
+
+"Come on," I said, jumping out of the basha. "Let's help them pull the
+cart."
+
+He joined me at once. We took up our places, naturally, at either side
+of Gen.
+
+She was full of questions. Where were we from? How long did it take to
+come all the way from America? What was America like? Didn't the
+American people like the Japanese people? Her brother was a sailor. He
+had made a voyage to America and said it was a very fine place, and that
+everyone was rich. It wasn't like that in Japan. Here almost everyone
+was poor. It was hard to earn enough to live on, now that food cost so
+much.
+
+Finding that there were now too many willing hands at the cart, we
+discharged the grandmother and the other woman, placing them in our
+seats in the basha.
+
+"It is a pity you can't ride, too," my friend said to Gen, "but it is
+better for you to stay here and see that we don't steal the cart."
+
+To which the old woman leaning out of the back seat of the basha
+remarked that she thought us much more likely to steal the cart if Gen
+went with it.
+
+This caused much hilarity. Gen, I think, was a little embarrassed, but
+she enjoyed it all the same.
+
+"As things are," she said, smiling and looking at the road, "I am well
+satisfied to walk."
+
+The chatter was so lively that I had a good deal of difficulty in
+finding out all that was being said; it was no small task for my
+companion to keep up his end of the conversation against all three of
+them, and at the same time translate for me. I began to find myself left
+out.
+
+Moreover, I had not anticipated that we should attract so much
+attention. The mere fact that we were aliens made us conspicuous in this
+part of the country, and the sight of two foreign men helping a peasant
+girl pull a cart, while the girl's usual companions rode ahead in the
+comparative magnificence of a basha, caused people in the villages
+through which we passed not only to stare in amazement, but to call
+their friends to come and witness the unheard-of spectacle.
+
+I remember an old woman bent under a great load of straw which she was
+carrying on her back, who, when she glanced up and saw us, looked as if
+she were going to fall over, and I shall never forget the quizzical,
+puzzled, fixed gaze of a middle-aged coolie, with a load of wood on his
+back and a little pipe in his mouth, who, on sight of us, hurriedly
+seated himself on the bank at the roadside to pass us in review. He was
+a fine type. I dropped my hold upon the shaft, unslung my kodak, and
+embalmed his features on a film.
+
+ [Illustration: The middle-aged coolie hurriedly seated himself
+ on the bank to pass us in review]
+
+"Come on back here!" called my companion. "Gen and I need you with our
+cart."
+
+Gen and I!... _Our_ cart, indeed! Who first thought of helping Gen with
+her cart, I should like to know!
+
+Without enthusiasm I returned and took hold of the shaft again. The cart
+was getting heavier. He and Gen weren't pulling as they should. They
+were too busy talking--that was the trouble with them!
+
+"Say, how far is it to this town where these people live?" I demanded of
+him.
+
+"I guess it's not very much farther," my friend interrupted his
+conversation with Gen to reply.
+
+"I should hope not! We've pulled this infernal cart about five miles
+already."
+
+"If you don't like it," he answered, "why don't you get back in the
+basha?"
+
+"How am I going to do that, when that old woman is in my place?"
+
+"Tell her you want to ride. Tell her to come back here and get on the
+job again."
+
+I looked up at her. It was quite out of the question to do such a thing.
+Much as I should have enjoyed my seat in the basha, she was enjoying it
+more. She and the younger woman were having a magnificent time,
+chattering, giggling, hailing every acquaintance they passed. And when
+other peasants who knew them gazed, astonished, they would burst into
+roars of mirth. All of which gave our progress more than ever the aspect
+of a circus parade in which, it began to seem to me, I figured as the
+clown.
+
+Left to my own thoughts I endeavoured to meet the situation
+philosophically. If I had been foolish to get myself into this
+cart-pulling adventure my folly was of a kind common to my sex. Other
+men without number had made even greater fools of themselves. And,
+whereas in a little while this incident would be ended, some men got
+into scrapes that lasted all their lives. It was pleasant to reflect on
+that.
+
+I began to see an allegory in the episode. In miniature it was like the
+story of a hasty marriage.... A man travelling the road of life in the
+comfortable basha of bachelorhood sees a pretty girl. Bright eyes, white
+teeth shown in a smile, and out he jumps.
+
+"Let me help you pull the cart!" he cries, without giving a thought to
+the future. So he takes hold, and as likely as not she eases off and
+lets him do most of the pulling.
+
+He wants companionship, but when he begins to look for it, what does he
+discover? He discovers that she doesn't know a word of his language, nor
+he a word of hers. He has sold his birthright for a mess of pulchritude.
+
+The road is long, the hills steep, the cart heavy. Presently appears
+another man and offers to help--some smart-aleck who _can_ talk her kind
+of talk. And, of course, this linguistic ass begins prattling a lot of
+nonsense to her and turns her head. The more she listens to him the more
+inflated he becomes. That's what happens to some men if a pretty girl
+shows them a little attention! Does he stop for a minute to consider
+that his advantage is purely one of language? Not at all! The idiot
+thinks himself fascinating.
+
+So much for that.
+
+But now imagine another picture. Take those two men out of a situation
+in which one has manifestly an unfair advantage, and place them on an
+equal footing in a totally different environment. Take them, let us say,
+to an American city, place them in a ballroom, bring in a lot of
+beautiful débutantes--hundreds of them, all in pretty little evening
+gowns and satin slippers--start up the band. _Then_ see what happens!
+
+One of these men is a bookworm. He knows a lot about languages. He can
+speak Japanese. (You see I am being perfectly fair to him.) But the
+other, though he cannot speak Japanese, is--you understand this is
+purely an imaginary case--a handsome, dashing, debonair fellow. While
+one has been learning Japanese the other has learned a few effective
+steps. In the intricate mazes of the dance he seems to float godlike
+through the air.
+
+All right! Now I ask you, which one of these two men is going to be a
+success with all those débutantes? Is Japanese going to advance a man
+very far with an American débutante? In all fairness I say No! A
+débutante is too clever--too clever with her feet--to be misled by mere
+linguistic talent. True worth is the thing that counts with her. She
+looks for solid merit in a man. In other words: _What kind of a dancer
+is he?_
+
+Is not the conclusion obvious? In the environment I have pictured one of
+those two men will be left practically alone, while the other will find
+himself constantly surrounded by a bevy of dainty, beautiful----
+
+"This is Amatsu-machi," I heard my companion say.
+
+With a start I came back to Japan.
+
+"They're leaving us at the crossroads," said he.
+
+The basha drew up. The two women got out. They thanked us prettily. Then
+amid many "_Sayonaras_" we drove off, while they stood and watched us,
+smiling and waving until we passed from their sight around a bend in the
+road.
+
+"They have lovely natures, these Japanese women," the linguist presently
+remarked.
+
+"If you'll look over a lot of American débutantes," I replied, "you'll
+find that they are just about as----"
+
+"You don't understand," he interrupted. "I'm not talking about mere
+prettiness--though you'd hardly say that girl Gen wasn't pretty. I'm
+talking about spiritual quality. Couldn't you tell, just by looking at
+her, that she was sweet right straight through?"
+
+"I guess she's all right," I answered in an off-hand tone.
+
+That did not half satisfy him. But though he kept at me for a long time,
+trying to make me say something more enthusiastic, I would not be
+coerced. He was too much puffed up as it was.
+
+I had another reason, too, for withholding from that pretty peasant girl
+the fullest praise. I must be faithful to the débutantes who, from far
+away, had come floating like a swarm of fairies to console me as I
+tugged Gen Tajima's lumbering cart along a dusty road upon the seacoast
+of Japan.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ _The Handkerchief as a Travelling Bag--Bags and
+ Bottles--Computing Time--The Mystic Animals of the
+ Zodiac--Superstitions Regarding Them--Temple Fortune-Telling--An
+ Ekisha--The Ema--Yuki Tells of a Wonderful Cure_
+
+
+The national travelling bag of the Japanese is a large, strong
+handkerchief of silk or cotton, in which the articles carried on a
+journey are tied up. The elasticity of this container, which is called a
+_furoshiki_, is its great advantage. It is as large or as small as its
+contents require, and when it is empty you do not have to lug it about
+by hand, like an empty suitcase, but merely put it in your pocket.
+
+The trouble with our style of suitcases and bags is that they are heavy,
+bulky, and not adaptable. On one occasion they are overcrowded, on
+another we carry them half empty. My own bags remind me of the way I
+used to feel about wine bottles in the cheery days when one could afford
+to regard such things with a somewhat critical eye. I always felt that
+wine bottles were either too large or too small. Pints held a little too
+much for one, yet not enough for two; and quarts held rather more than
+was required by three, yet left four dissatisfied. Let us, however, drop
+this subject. _De mortuis_....
+
+I was often struck with the fact that though the Japanese woman seems to
+be more heavily dressed than the foreign woman, and though her coiffure
+is generally more elaborate, she carries so much less baggage when she
+travels. In our Yuki's furoshiki there was always room for my cigars,
+cigarettes, books, and kodak films. Her own things seemed to take no
+space at all.
+
+There are several reasons for this. A Japanese woman carries no
+hair-brush and wears her comb in her hair. Nor do the Japanese generally
+take nightclothes with them on a journey, for a clean cotton kimono, in
+which to sleep, is supplied by all Japanese hotels. More than once, when
+I saw Yuki starting off with us for a two- or three-days' trip with
+baggage consisting of a furoshiki tied to about the size of two ordinary
+novels, I thought of Johnnie Poe's famous "fifty-three pieces of
+baggage--a deck of cards and a tooth-brush."
+
+A favourite theme for the decoration of the furoshiki embodies the signs
+of the Chinese zodiac, consisting of twelve animals. The Chinese
+calendar was adopted centuries ago by the Japanese, and they still take
+account of it, though they now generally use our Gregorian calendar for
+computing time. But even so, their era is not the Christian Era, but
+dates from the beginning of the reign of Jimmu Tenno the Divine, whom
+the Japanese count as the first of their Imperial line, and who is said
+to have ascended the throne, 660 B.C. Thus our current year, 1921, is
+the year 2581 in Japan. Time is also measured arbitrarily by the reigns
+of emperors, the present year being Taisho 10, or the tenth year of the
+reign of the present Emperor.
+
+The Chinese zodiac, however, figures largely in Japanese superstition.
+As there are twelve animals, the years are counted off in cycles of
+twelve; and the same animals are also associated with days and hours, in
+cycles of twelve. The attributes of the astrological animal governing
+the year of one's birth are supposed to attach to one.
+
+"My mother is a cow," a Japanese lady explained to me. "My husband is a
+snake and I am a rabbit."
+
+The lore of these animals is complicated. I have only a smattering of
+it, but what I know will suffice to show the general tendency of such
+superstition.
+
+It is considered good fortune to be born in the year of the horse
+because the horse is strong and energetic. 1920 was the year of the
+monkey. It is unlucky to marry in monkey year because the word _saru_,
+which means "monkey," also means "to go back," the suggestion being that
+the bride will go back to her former home, or in other words be
+divorced. A woman born in the year of the rabbit will be prolific. (The
+lady who said, "I'm a rabbit," though very young, was the mother of
+four.)
+
+Similarly the animals, in their cycle, bring good luck or ill luck in
+connection with events occurring on certain days. It is unlucky to take
+to one's bed with a sickness on the day of the cow, because the cow is
+slow to get up. It is lucky to begin a journey on the day of the tiger,
+because the tiger, though he travels a thousand miles, always returns to
+the point from which he started; but for the same reason it is unlucky
+for a girl to marry on this day, because she, like the tiger, may return
+to the place from which she started: her father's house. And the day of
+the tiger is a bad one for funerals, because the tiger drags its prey
+with it, suggesting that another funeral will soon follow. The
+significance attaching to each animal according to the Japanese idea is
+not always apparent, without explanation, to the stranger. For instance,
+though I know it is considered lucky for a bride to cut her kimonos on
+the day of the rooster, I do not know why. Nor do I know why it is
+considered particularly lucky to have, in one family, three persons born
+under the same sign.
+
+Superstition of all kinds plays a large part in the daily life of the
+Japanese masses, and persons of intelligence often patronize fortune
+tellers, among whom are the Buddhist priests in certain temples.
+
+ [Illustration: At Asakusa, the great popular temple of Tokyo,
+ the fortune-telling business is so brisk that two or three
+ priests are busy at it all the time]
+
+At Asakusa, the great popular temple of Tokyo, the fortune-telling
+business is so brisk that two or three priests are busy at it all the
+time. The system is simple. The diviner shakes a lot of numbered sticks
+in a box, draws one out, and takes a paper from a little drawer which
+bears a number corresponding with that on the stick. Your fortune is
+written on the paper, in multigraph. I paid two cents for mine, and when
+it was translated to me I felt that I had paid too much.
+
+Yuki, when she saw that I was disposed to take the matter lightly,
+seemed a little disappointed, and when later several of us decided to
+give the necromancers one more fling, she herself escorted us to the
+establishment called Hokokudo, at number 3 Chome, the Ginza, where
+father, son, and grandson successively have told fortunes for the past
+hundred and twenty years. Here we paid one yen each for our fortunes,
+but though the _ekisha_ took more time to the job, examining our hands
+and faces, rattling his divining rods and making patterns with his
+Chinese wooden blocks, he didn't do much better than the priest had done
+for two cents. Yuki was impressed when he predicted a sea voyage for me,
+but the prophecy did not seem to me to constitute a remarkable example
+of divination.
+
+The visit to the ekisha was however, an experience. The little house was
+picturesque, and it was interesting to see the stream of Japanese coming
+in, one after another, intent on learning what the future held in store
+for them. Also, while Yuki's fortune was being told I got a good
+photograph of the ekisha examining her hand through his magnifying
+glass.
+
+ [Illustration: While Yuki's fortune was being told I
+ photographed her]
+
+Another superstition is exampled in the _ema_, votive offerings in the
+form of little paintings on wood, which are put up at Shinto shrines by
+those in need of help of one kind or another. For almost any sort of
+affliction an ema of suitable design may be found, though the meaning of
+the grotesque design is seldom apparent to the foreigner.
+
+While in Japan I collected a number of these curious little objects and
+investigated their significance. Among them was one which Yuki
+recognized as an appeal for relief from eye trouble.
+
+"That very good ema," she told me. "I use one like that once when I have
+sore eyes."
+
+"Did it cure you, Yuki?"
+
+"Yes--in two weeks. I put it up at shrine and I promise the god I no
+drink tea for two weeks. In two weeks my eyes all right again."
+
+"And you are sure the ema did it?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I sure."
+
+"You didn't do anything else for your eyes?"
+
+"No, it just like I say. I put up ema for god and not drink tea. Then I
+wait two weeks."
+
+"Did your eyes hurt you during the two weeks?"
+
+"Oh, yes. They hurt so much I have to wash them two three times a day
+with boric acid, while I wait for ema to make cure. But when end of two
+weeks comes they not sore any more. That ema work very good."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ _Our Difficulties with the Language--The Questionable Humour of
+ Broken Speech--"Do You Striking This Man for That?"--"Companies,
+ Scholars, and Other Households"--Curious Correspondence--Japanese
+ Puns--Strange Laughter--The Grotesque in Art--Japanese
+ Colour-Prints--Famous Print Collections--Monet's Discovery of Prints
+ at Zaandam--Japanese Prints and French Impressionism_
+
+
+The complete dissimilarity between the Japanese language and our own,
+referred to in an earlier chapter, of course adds greatly to the
+difficulty of communication in all its various forms.
+
+In Tokyo and other cities I attended many luncheons and dinners
+organized for the purpose of discussing relations between the United
+States and Japan, and promoting a friendly understanding between the two
+nations, but though Japanese statesmen and men of affairs spoke at these
+gatherings in fluent and even polished English, I never met with one
+American who was equipped to return the compliment in kind. The
+Americans, even those who had lived for years in Japan, always spoke in
+English, whereafter a Japanese interpreter who had taken notes on the
+speech would arise and render a translation.
+
+The linguistic chasm dividing the two peoples is not, however, entirely
+a black abyss. If one wall is dark, the other catches the sun.
+Practically all Japanese students now study English in their schools,
+our language being considered next in importance to their own. And
+though, as I have said, many of them have perfectly mastered English
+despite the enormous difficulties it presents to them, there are many
+others whose English is imperfect, and whose "Japanned English," as some
+one has called it, achieves effects the unconscious grotesqueness of
+which startles and fascinates Americans and Englishmen.
+
+To be honest, I have been in some doubt as to whether I should touch
+upon this theme or not; for it has always seemed to me that humour based
+upon the efforts of an individual to express himself in a language not
+his own was meretricious humour, inasmuch as it makes fun of an attempt
+to do a creditable thing. It is a kind of humour which is enjoyed in
+some measure by the French and the British but which is relished
+infinitely more by us than by any other people in the world, as witness
+entertainments in our theatres, and stories in our magazines, depending
+for comedy upon dialect: German, French, Italian, Irish, Jewish,
+Cockney, Negro, or even the several purely American dialects
+characteristic of various parts of the country.
+
+This dubious taste of ours doubtless springs, to some extent at least,
+from the polyglot nature of our population; but whatever its origin it
+is a bad thing for us in one important respect. We find the English
+dialect of foreigners so funny that we ourselves fear to attempt foreign
+tongues, lest we make ourselves ridiculous. Wherefore we are the poorest
+linguists in the world.
+
+Even after the foregoing apology--for that, frankly, is what it is--I
+should still hesitate to present examples of "Japanned English" had I
+not discovered that Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, perhaps the
+greatest of modern authorities on Japan, a man whose writings reveal an
+impeccable nicety of taste, had already done so in his most valuable
+book, "Things Japanese."
+
+One of the examples given by Professor Chamberlain is quoted from a work
+entitled: "The Practical Use of Conversation for Police Authorities,"
+which assumes to teach the Japanese policeman how to converse in
+English. The following is an imaginary conversation intended to guide
+the officer in parley with a British bluejacket:
+
+ What countryman are you?
+
+ I am a sailor belonged to the Golden Eagle, the English
+ man-of-war.
+
+ Why do you strike this jinricksha-man?
+
+ He told me impolitely.
+
+ What does he told you impolitely?
+
+ He insulted me saying loudly, "the Sailor the Sailor" when
+ I am passing here.
+
+ Do you striking this man for that?
+
+ Yes.
+
+ But do not strike him for it is forbidden.
+
+ I strike him no more.
+
+One curious aspect of the matter is that so much
+of this weird English creeps into print, appearing
+in guidebooks, advertisements, and on the labels of
+goods of various kinds manufactured in Japan.
+
+Thus in the barber shop of the ship, going over,
+I found a bottle containing a toilet preparation
+called "Fulay," the label of which bore the following
+legend:
+
+ "Fulay" is manufactures under chemical method and long years
+ experience with pure and refined materials. It is, therefore,
+ only the article in the circle as ladies and gents daily toilet.
+
+And on a jar of paste I found this label, which will be better
+understood if the tendency of the Japanese to confuse the letters _l_
+and _r_ is kept in mind:
+
+ This paste is of a pureness cleanliness and of a strong
+ cohesion, so that it does not putrefy even when the paste grass
+ is left open. Though written down on paper or the like
+ immediately after pasting, the character is never spread. This
+ paste has an especial fragrance therefore all of pasted things
+ after using this are always kept from the frys and all sorts of
+ bacteria, and prevents the infectious diseases. This paste is an
+ indispensable one for the banks, companies, scholars and other
+ households. Please notice for "Kuchi's Yamato-Nori" as there are
+ similar things.
+
+The circular of one firm, advertising "a large assortment of ladies'
+blushes," might have been misinterpreted as having some scandalous
+suggestion, had it not gone on to discuss the ivory backs and high-grade
+bristles with which the "blushes" were equipped.
+
+Another circular was that of a butcher who catered to foreigners in
+Tokyo. After stating that his meats were sold at "a fixed plice" this
+worthy merchant mentioned the various kinds of beef he could supply.
+There were, "rosu beef, rampu beef, pig beef, soup beef, and beard
+beef"--which being interpreted signified roast beef, rump beef, pork,
+soup meat and poultry--the word "beard" being intended for "bird."
+
+In the admirable hotel at Nara I saw the following notice posted in a
+corridor:
+
+ REMARQUE
+
+ Parents are requested kindly to send their children to the Hotel
+ Garden for when weather is fine. When it is bad weather I will
+ offer the children the small dining-room, except meal hours, as
+ playing room for them, therefore please don't let them run round
+ upstairs and downstairs at all. Please kindly have the children
+ after dinner in a manner quiet and repose.
+
+ MANAGER, Nara Hotel.
+
+From a friend, an official of a large company, I got a number of letters
+revealing the peculiarities of "English as she is wrote"--at least as
+she is sometimes wrote--in Japan. All these letters are authentic,
+having come to him in connection with his business.
+
+The first one, written by a clerk to the office manager, refers to an
+admirable Japanese custom which in itself is worthy of brief mention.
+
+Throughout Japan there is housecleaning twice a year under police
+supervision. Certain districts have certain days on which the cleaning
+must be done. The shoji are removed, the furniture is carried out, and
+the mats are taken up and beaten. The streets are full of activity and
+dust when this is going on, and there is a pile of rubbish in front of
+every residence. Meanwhile police officers pass up and down, wearing
+gauze masks over their noses and mouths to protect them from the dust,
+and at the end they inspect each house to see that the work has been
+properly done, after which they affix an official stamp over the door.
+
+Wherefore wrote the clerk to the office manager:
+
+ MR. S----:
+
+ Excuse my absent of this morning. All of my neighbourhood have
+ got instruction to clean out nest.
+
+ SIDA.
+
+A more serious dilemma is revealed in the following:
+
+ To General Manager.
+
+ DEAR SIR,
+
+ My wife gave birth this noon and as it happened nearly a month
+ ahead than I expected, I much rather find myself in painful
+ situation, having not yet prepared for this sudden ocurrence.
+
+ Up to this day, unfortunate enough, I am destined most
+ unfavourably for the monetary circumstance, and consequently
+ have no saving against worldly concerns, I am forced to ask you
+ for a loan of ¥ 25.00 to get rid of the burden befallen on me by
+ the birth.
+
+ I know it is the meanest of all to ask one's help for monetary
+ affair but as I am being unable to find any better way than to
+ solicit you, I have at last come to a conclusion to trouble you
+ but against my will. I deem it much more shamefull to advertise
+ my poor condition around my relatives or acquaintances no matter
+ wheater it will be fruitfull or fruitless.
+
+ Yours obediently,
+ Y----.
+
+The subjoined was received from one of the company's agents in another
+city:
+
+ DEAR SIR,
+
+ We have the honour to thank you for your having bestowed us a
+ Remington typewriter which has just arrived via railway express.
+ We will treat her very kindly and she will give us her best
+ service in return. Thus we can work to our mutual satisfaction
+ and benefit.
+
+ Thanking you for your kindness we beg to remain,
+
+ Yours very truly,
+ O---- I----.
+
+The porter in a Japanese office not infrequently sleeps on the premises.
+But he must have the necessary equipment, as the following letter from
+an agent to a principal reveals:
+
+ DEAR SIR,
+
+ In accordance to your esteemed conversation of other day for
+ lodging the servant at this office, we consider we must provide
+ to him the bed or sleeping tools. Please inform us that you
+ could approve the expense to purchase this tool.
+
+ Awaiting your esteemed reply we are, dear sir,
+
+ Yours faithfully,
+ T---- A----.
+
+The next letter is from a man who wished to establish business relations
+with my friend's company:
+
+ DEAR SIR,
+
+ I am a trader at Kokura city in Kyushu, always treating the
+ various machines or steels and the architectural using goods.
+
+ I have known of your great names at Tokyo. Therefore I want to
+ open the connection with each other so affectionately.
+ Accordingly I beg to see your company's inside scene so clearly,
+ please send me the catalogue and plice-list of good samples of
+ your company.
+
+ I am a baby on our commercial society, because you will lead me
+ to the machinery society I think.
+
+ I trusted,
+
+ Yours affectionately,
+ I am,
+ K---- M----.
+
+One thing which sometimes makes these letters startling is the fact that
+they are couched in English which is perfectly correct save in one or
+two particulars. Thus the errors or strange usages pop out at one
+unexpectedly, adding an element of surprise, as in the case of a man who
+wrote to my friend applying for work:
+
+ DEAR SIR,
+
+ I beg leave to inquire whether you can make use of my services
+ as a salesman and correspondent in your firm. I have had
+ considerable experiences as a apparatus, and can furnish
+ references and insurance against risk.
+
+ Awaiting your reply, I am
+
+ Yours respectfully,
+ K---- S----.
+
+I have often been asked whether the Japanese possess the gift of humour.
+
+They do--though humour does not occupy a place so important in their
+daily life as it does in ours.
+
+A light touch in conversation is uncommon with them, and those who have
+it do not generally exhibit it except to their intimates. Yet they are
+great punsters, and some of their puns are very clever. A case in point
+is the slang term _narikin_ which they have recently adopted to describe
+the flashy new-rich type which has come into being since the war.
+
+To understand the derivation of this word, and its witty connotation,
+you must know that in their game of chess, called _shogi_, a humble pawn
+advanced to the adversary's third row is, by a process resembling
+queening, converted into a powerful, free-moving piece called _kin_. The
+word _nari_ means "to become"; hence _nari-kin_ means literally "to
+become _kin_"--which gives us, when applied to a flamboyant profiteer, a
+droll picture of a poor little pawn suddenly exalted to power and
+magnificence. The pun, which adds greatly to the value of this term,
+comes with the word _kin_. _Kin_ is not only a chessman; it also means
+"gold." Which naturally contributes further piquancy in the application
+to a _nouveau riche_.
+
+Moreover, through a play on the word narikin there has been evolved a
+second slang term: _narihin_--_hin_ meaning "poor"--"to become poor."
+And alas, this term as well as the other is useful in Japan to-day. War
+speculation has made some fortunes, but it has wiped out others.
+
+My friend O----, a truly lovable fellow, once spent the better part of
+an afternoon explaining a lot of Japanese puns to me, and I was hardly
+more pleased by the jests themselves than by my friend's infectious
+little chuckles over them. At parting we made an engagement for the
+evening, but about dinner time O---- returned to say that he could not
+spend the evening with me.
+
+"I have just heard that my best friend died last night," he said, "It is
+very unexpected. I must go to his house." So speaking he emitted what
+appeared to me to be precisely the same little chuckle he had uttered
+over the puns.
+
+The suppression of one's feeling is a primary canon of Japanese
+etiquette. To show unhappiness is to make others unhappy; wherefore,
+when one suffers, it is good form to laugh or smile. The foreigner who
+comprehends this doctrine must, if he be a man of any delicacy of
+feeling, respect it. But if he does not grasp the underlying principle
+he is likely to misjudge the Japanese and consider their laughter, in
+some circumstances, hard-hearted, apologetic, or inane.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The supreme proof of Japanese humour is to be found in the grotesqueries
+and whimsicalities of Japanese Art. You see it revealed everywhere--in
+the shape of a gnarled, stunted pine, carefully trained to a pleasing
+deformity; in the images of cats left in various parts of Japan by
+Hidari Jingoro, the great left-handed wood-carver of the sixteenth
+century; in the famous trio of monkeys adorning the stable of the Ieyasu
+Shrine at Nikko--those which neither hear, see, nor speak evil; in a
+thousand earthenware figures of ragged, pot-bellied Hotei, one of the
+Seven Gods of Luck, sitting, gross and contented in a small boat,
+waiting for some one to bring his abdominal belt; in the countless
+representations of the Buddhist god Daruma, that delightful egg-shaped
+comedian who will run out his tongue and his eyes for you, or, if not
+that, will refuse to stay down when you roll him over; in figurines
+without number, of ivory or wood; in sword-guards embellished with
+fantastic conceits; in those carved ivory buttons called _netsuké_,
+treasured by collectors; and perhaps most often in Japanese
+colour-prints.
+
+The hundred years between 1730 and 1830 was the golden age of
+wood-engraving in Japan.
+
+During the lifetime of this art it was regarded as distinctly plebeian.
+Many of the fine prints were made to be used as advertisements or
+souvenirs. Some, it is true, were issued in limited editions, and these
+cost more than the commoner ones, but generally they were sold for a few
+cents.
+
+Unfortunately, before the art-lovers of Japan perceived that the finest
+of these prints were masterpieces representing wood-engraving at its
+highest perfection, the best prints had got out of Japan and gone to
+Paris, London, Boston, New York, Chicago, and other foreign cities,
+whence the Japanese have lately been buying them back at enormous
+prices.
+
+From a friend of mine in Tokyo, himself the owner of a very valuable
+collection, I learned that the collection of 7,500 prints assembled by
+M. Vever, of Paris, has long been considered by connoisseurs the finest
+in the world. This collection was recently purchased intact by Mr.
+Kojiro Matsukata, of Kobe, president of the Kawasaki shipbuilding firm.
+It is said that Mr. Matsukata paid half a million dollars for it. My
+Tokyo friend tells me that the collection belonging to Messrs. William
+S., and John T. Spalding, of Boston, is probably next in importance to
+the Matsukata collection, and that it is difficult to say whether the
+Boston Museum collection or the British Museum collection takes third
+place. For primitive prints, the Clarence Buckingham collection, housed
+in the Chicago Art Institute, is also very important.
+
+How does it happen that it was in Europe that Japanese prints first came
+to be highly appreciated as works of art?
+
+Octave Mirbeau, in his delightful book of automobiling adventures, "La
+628-E8" (which, I believe, has never been brought out in English) tells
+the story.
+
+The great impressionist, Claude Monet, went to Holland to paint. Some
+groceries sent home to him from a little shop were wrapped in a Japanese
+print--the first one Monet had ever seen.
+
+"You can imagine," writes Mirbeau, "his emotion before that marvellous
+art.... His astonishment and joy were such that he could not speak, but
+could only give vent to cries of delight.
+
+"And it was in Zaandam that this miracle came to pass--Zaandam with its
+canals, its boats at the quay unloading cargoes of Norwegian wood, its
+huddled flotillas of barks, its little streets of water, its tiny red
+cabins, its green houses--Zaandam, the most Japanese spot in all the
+Dutch landscape....
+
+"Monet ran to the shop whence came his package--a vague little grocery
+shop where the fat fingers of a fat man were tying up (without being
+paralyzed by the deed!) two cents' worth of pepper and ten cents' worth
+of coffee, in paper bearing these glorious images brought from the Far
+East along with groceries in the bottom of a ship's hold.
+
+"Although he was not rich at that time, Monet was resolved to buy all of
+these masterpieces that the grocery contained. He saw a pile of them on
+the counter. His heart bounded. The grocer was waiting upon an old lady.
+He was about to wrap something up. Monet saw him reach for one of the
+prints.
+
+'No, no!' he cried. 'I want to buy that! I want to buy all those--all
+those!'
+
+"The grocer was a good man. He believed that he was dealing with some
+one who was a little touched. Anyway the coloured papers had cost him
+nothing. They were thrown in with the goods. Like some one who gives a
+toy to a crying child to appease it, he gave the pile of prints to
+Monet, smilingly and a bit mockingly.
+
+"'Take them, take them,' he said. 'You can have them. They aren't worth
+anything. They aren't solid enough. I prefer regular wrapping-paper.'"
+
+So the grocer enveloped the old lady's cheese in a piece of yellow
+paper, and Monet went home and spent the rest of the day in adoration of
+his new-found treasures. The names of the great Japanese wood-engravers
+were of course unknown in Europe then, but Monet learned later that some
+of these prints were by Hokusai, Utamaro, and Korin.
+
+"This," continues Mirbeau, "was the beginning of a celebrated
+collection, but much more important, it was the beginning of such an
+evolution in French painting that the anecdote has, besides its own
+savour, a veritable historic value. For it is a story which cannot be
+overlooked by those who seriously study the important movement in art
+which is called Impressionism."
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ _Living in a Japanese House--The Priceless Yuki--The Servants in
+ the House--The Red Carpet--Our Trunks Depart--Tokyo's Night-time
+ Sounds--Tipping and Noshi--The Etiquette of Farewells--Sayonara_
+
+
+My last days in Japan were my best days, for I spent them in a Japanese
+home, standing amid its own lovely gardens in Mita, a residential
+district some twenty minutes by motor from the central part of Tokyo.
+
+Through the open shoji of my bedroom I could look out in the mornings to
+where, beyond the velvet lawns, the flowers and the treetops, the
+inverted fan of Fuji's cone was often to be seen floating white and
+spectral in the sky, seventy miles away.
+
+After my bath in a majestic family tub I would breakfast in my room,
+wearing a kimono, recently acquired, and feeling very Japanese.
+
+While I was dressing, Yuki sometimes entered, but I had by this time
+become accustomed to her matutinal invasions and no longer found them
+embarrassing. She was so entirely practical, so useful. She knew where
+everything was. She would go to a curious little cupboard, which was
+built into the wall and had sliding doors of lacquer and silk, and get
+me a shirt, or would retrieve from their place of concealment a missing
+pair of trousers, and bring them to me neatly folded in one of those
+flat, shallow baskets which, with the Japanese, seem to take the place
+of bureau drawers.
+
+Thus, besides being my daughter's duenna and my wife's maid, she was in
+effect, my valet. Nor did her usefulness by any means end there. She was
+our interpreter, dragoman, purchasing-agent; she was our steward, major
+domo, seneschal; nay, she was our Prime Minister.
+
+The house had a large staff, and all the servants made us feel that they
+were _our_ servants, and that they were glad to have us there. With the
+exception of a butler, an English-speaking Japanese temporarily added to
+the establishment on our account, all wore the native dress; and there
+were among them two men so fine of feature, so dignified of bearing, so
+elegant in their silks, that we took them, at first, for members of the
+family. One of them was a white-bearded old gentleman who would have
+made a desirable grandfather for anybody. If he had duties other than to
+decorate the hall with his presence I never discovered what they were.
+The other, a young man, was clerk of the household, and enjoyed the
+distinction of being Saki's husband.
+
+ [Illustration: Saki, the housekeeper of some Japanese friends we
+ visited, obligingly posed for me. The mattress is stuffed with
+ floss silk, the pillow is hard and round, and the covering is a
+ sort of quilted kimono]
+
+Saki was the housekeeper, young and pretty. She and her husband lived in
+a cottage near by, and their home was extensively equipped with musical
+instruments, Saki being proficient on the samisen and koto, and also on
+an American melodeon which was one of her chief treasures. She was all
+smiles and sweetness--a most obliging person. Indeed it was she who
+pretended to be asleep in a Japanese bed, in order that I might make the
+photograph which is one of the illustrations in this book.
+
+Four or five coolies, excellent fellows, wearing blue cotton coats with
+the insignia of our host's family upon the backs of them, worked about
+the house and grounds; and several little maids were continually
+trotting through the corridors; with that pigeon-toed shuffle in which
+one comes, when one is used to it, actually to see a curious prettiness.
+
+Sometimes we felt that the servants were showing us too much
+consideration. We dined out a great deal and were often late in getting
+home ("Home" was the term we found ourselves using there), yet however
+advanced the hour, the chauffeur would sound his horn on entering the
+gate, whereupon lights would flash on beneath the porte-cochère, the
+shoji at the entrance of the house would slide open, and three or four
+domestics would come out, dragging a wide strip of red velvet carpet,
+over which we would walk magnificently up the two steps leading to the
+hall. But though I urged them to omit this regal detail, because two or
+three men had to sit up to handle the heavy carpet, and also because the
+production of it made me feel like a bogus prince, I could never induce
+them to do so. Always, regardless of the hour, a little group of
+servants appeared at the door when we came home.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Even on the night when, under the ministrations of the all-wise and
+all-powerful head porter of the Imperial Hotel, our trunks were spirited
+away, to be taken to Yokohama and placed aboard the _Tenyo Maru_, even
+then we found it difficult to realize that our last night in Japan had
+come.
+
+The realization did not strike me with full force until I went to bed.
+
+I was not sleepy. I lay there, thinking. And the background of my
+thoughts was woven out of sounds wafted through the open shoji on the
+summer wind: the nocturnal sounds of the Tokyo streets.
+
+I recalled how, on my first night in Tokyo, I had listened to these
+sounds and wondered what they signified.
+
+Now they explained themselves to me, as to a Japanese.
+
+A distant jingling, like that of sleigh-bells, informed me that a
+newsboy was running with late papers. A plaintive musical phrase
+suggestive of Debussy, bursting out suddenly and stopping with startling
+abruptness, told me that the Chinese macaroni man was abroad with his
+lantern-trimmed cart and his little brass horn. At last I heard a
+xylophone-like note, resembling somewhat the sound of a New York
+policeman's club tapping the sidewalk. It was repeated several times;
+then there would come a silence; then the sound again, a little nearer.
+It was the night watchman on his rounds, guarding the neighbourhood not
+against thieves, but against fire, "the Flower of Tokyo." In my mind's
+eye I could see him hurrying along, knocking his two sticks together now
+and then, to spread the news that all was well.
+
+Then it was that I reflected: "To-morrow night I shall not hear these
+sounds. In their place I shall hear the creaking of the ship, the roar
+of the wind, the hiss of the sea. Possibly I shall never again hear the
+music of the Tokyo streets."
+
+My heart was sad as I went to sleep.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Fortunately for our peace of mind, we had learned through the experience
+of American friends, visitors in another Japanese home, how _not_ to tip
+these well-bred domestics--or rather, how not to try to tip them. On
+leaving the house in which they had been guests, these friends had
+offered money to the servants, only to have it politely but positively
+refused.
+
+Yuki cleared the matter up for us.
+
+"They should put _noshi_ with money," she explained in response to our
+questions. "That make it all right to take. It mean a present."
+
+Without having previously known noshi by name, we knew immediately what
+she meant, for we had received during our stay in Japan enough presents
+to fill a large trunk, and each had been accompanied by a little piece
+of coloured paper folded in a certain way, signifying a gift.
+
+In the old days these coloured papers always contained small pieces of
+dried _awabi_--abelone--but with the years the dried awabi began to be
+omitted, and the little folded papers by themselves came to be
+considered adequate.
+
+Fortified with this knowledge I went, on the day before our departure,
+to the Ginza, where I bought envelopes on which the noshi design was
+printed. Money placed in these envelopes was graciously accepted by all
+the servants. Tips they would not have received. But these were not
+tips. They were gifts from friend to friend, at parting.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The code of Japanese courtesy is very exact and very exacting in the
+matter of farewells to the departing guest. Callers are invariably
+escorted to the door by the host, such members of his family as have
+been present, and a servant or two, all of whom stand in the portal
+bowing as the visitor drives away.
+
+A house-guest is dispatched with even greater ceremony. The entire
+personnel of the establishment will gather at with profound bows and
+cries of "Sayonara!" the door to speed him on his way Members of the
+family, often the entire family, accompany him to the station, where
+appear other friends who have carefully inquired in advance as to the
+time of departure. The traveller is escorted to his car, and his friends
+remain upon the platform until the train leaves, when the bowing and
+"Sayonaras" are repeated.
+
+Tokyo people often go to Yokohama with friends who are sailing from
+Japan, accompanying them to the ship, and remaining on the dock until
+the vessel moves into the bay. How Tokyo men-of-affairs can manage to go
+upon these time-consuming seeing-off parties is one of the great
+mysteries of Mysterious Japan, for such an excursion takes up the
+greater part of a day.
+
+To the American, accustomed in his friendships to take so much for
+granted, a Japanese farewell affords a new sensation, and one which can
+hardly fail to touch the heart.
+
+Departing passengers are given coils of paper ribbon confetti, to throw
+to their friends ashore, so that each may hold an end until the wall of
+steel parts from the wall of stone, and the paper strand strains and
+breaks. There is something poignant and poetic in that breaking,
+symbolizing the vastness of the world, the littleness of men and ships,
+the fragility of human contacts.
+
+The last face I recognized, back there across the water, in Japan, was
+Yuki's. She was standing on the dock with the end of a broken paper
+ribbon in her hand. The other end trailed down into the water. She was
+weeping bitterly.
+
+Wishing to be sure that my wife and daughter had not failed to discover
+her in the crowd, I turned to them. But I did not have to point her out.
+Their faces told me that they saw her. They too were weeping.
+
+So it is with women. They weep. As for a man, he merely waves his hat. I
+waved mine.
+
+"Sayonara!"
+
+I turned away. There were things I had to see to in my cabin. Besides,
+the wind on deck was freshening. It hurt my eyes.
+
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+ INDEX
+
+
+
+
+ INDEX
+
+
+ Abalone, diving for, 304
+
+ Actresses, increase of, 96
+
+ Architecture, democracy in, 40
+
+ Architecture and sculpture, horrors in, 27
+
+ Art, grotesqueries and whimsicalities, 330
+
+ Athletic sports, popularity of, 103
+
+
+ Back-end-formost methods and customs, 48
+
+ Bathing customs, 52, 65, 289
+
+ Beauty, artistic conceptions, 163
+
+ Beds, how arranged, 299
+
+ Bill of fare, luncheon, 127
+
+ Boasting, a cardinal sin, 173
+
+ Brides, outfitted for life, 36
+
+ Burglars, feared next to fire and earthquake, 42;
+ what to do when visited by, 45
+
+ Bushido, doctrine of, 76
+
+ Business methods, placidity in, 228
+
+ Butokukai--Association for Inculcation of Military Virtues, 195
+
+
+ Calendar, Chinese, adopted by Japanese, 316
+
+ California, Japanese issue in, 244
+
+ Calligraphy, a fine art, 55
+
+ Chafing-dish, cooking in, 149
+
+ Cherry Dance of Kyoto, 144
+
+ Children, in profusion, 23
+
+ China, American engineer among brigands in, 10;
+ compared with Japan, 266
+
+ Chinnung, Emperor, discoverer of tea, 69
+
+ Chop-sticks, lesson in use of, 120
+
+ Class, the distinctions of, 140
+
+ Colonization, efforts in, 233
+
+ Concubinage, still practised, 85
+
+ Cooking, chafing-dish, 149
+
+ Costume, regulated by calendar, 33
+
+ Courtesans, segregated, 154
+
+ Courtesy, the code of, in making farewells, 340
+
+ Crest, family, as used on kimono, 34
+
+ Customs changed to fit Western ideas, 174
+
+
+ Dancing girls, or maiko, 119, 135, 137, 141
+
+ Daruma, mythological creator of tea, 69
+
+ Divorce customs, 85
+
+ Dress of women, uniformity of, 31;
+ cost of, 35
+
+
+ Earthquakes, influence of, in building construction, 38, 42;
+ frequency and extent, 39;
+ best course to pursue during, 43
+
+ Efficiency and non-efficiency of the people, 235
+
+ Elder Statesmen, the, 185
+
+ Eliot, Sir Charles, on understanding Japan, 75
+
+ Ema, efficacy of an, 320
+
+ English as she is wrote, 323
+
+ Eri, neck piece worn with kimono, 34
+
+ European dress not popular with women, 31, 37
+
+
+ Fashions, little variation in, 36
+
+ Feudal Era, the, 70
+
+ Films, kissing scenes cut, 98
+
+ Finley, Dr. John H., on reverential attitude of the Japanese, 280
+
+ Flower Arrangement, the study of, 66;
+ origin of, 68;
+ in connection with display of paintings, 72
+
+ Folk dances by maiko, 137
+
+ Foods and delicacies, 129
+
+ Foreign customs adopted, 174
+
+ Fortune tellers, well patronized, 318
+
+ Fujiyama, as seen from the sea, 13;
+ the "Honourable Mountain," 14
+
+
+ Gardens, history and theory, 167, 177
+
+ Gardens, diminutive, 21
+
+ Geisha, the best dressers, 37;
+ at a luncheon, 116;
+ various grades in, 119;
+ no rhythm in their dancing, 132;
+ what they really are, 132;
+ in Japanese romances, 146;
+ cost of entertainment, 151
+
+ Geisha, male, or comedian, 156
+
+ Great Britain's attitude toward Japan, 268.
+
+
+ Haori, how worn, 35
+
+ Hara-Kiri, privileges associated with, 192
+
+ Hearn, Lafcadio, on the Japanese language, 56;
+ on Japanese women, 75, 82;
+ on the Tea Ceremony, 81;
+
+ Hiratsuka, Mrs. Raicho, efforts to improve marriage laws, 84
+
+ Honesty, Japanese and Chinese, 278
+
+ Hospitality, New York and Japan compared, 258
+
+ House cleaning, under police supervision, 325
+
+ Humour, extent of native, 328
+
+
+ Imperial Bureau of Poems, duties of, 165
+
+ Inouye, Jakichi, attributes bearing of Japanese ladies to study of
+ Tea Ceremony, 81
+
+ International Affairs ignored by Americans, 242
+
+ Intoxication, prevalence of, 123
+
+ Italy, compared to Japan, 163
+
+
+ Japanese-American relations, letter from President Roosevelt to Baron
+ Kaneko, 223
+
+ Jesuits, expulsion of, 201
+
+ Jiu-jutsu, in wrestling, 112;
+ taught to samurai, 192;
+ renascence of, 193
+
+ Jiudo, development of, 193
+
+ Johnson, Senator Hiram, agitator on Japanese question, 256
+
+
+ Kakemono, method of hanging the, 72
+
+ Kamogawa, visit to, 288
+
+ Kaneko, Viscount Kentaro, preparing history of Meiji Era 29;
+ interviews with, 212;
+ visits at Roosevelt's home, 213;
+ Roosevelt's letters to, 222, 223, 226, 227
+
+ Kano, Jigoro, revives art of jiu-jutsu, 193
+
+ _Kashima Maru_, voyage on, 1
+
+ Katsuura, visit to, 284
+
+ Kimono, use of, 34
+
+ Kipling, Rudyard, on understanding Japan, 75
+
+ Kissing, attitude toward, 98
+
+ Kodokwan, school of jiu-jutsu, 194
+
+ Kokugikwan, the national game building, 104, 107
+
+ Korea, conditions under Japanese control, 9
+
+ Korean Emperor, anecdotes on, 8
+
+ Kyoto, Cherry Dance at, 144
+
+
+ Labor, abundance of, 19;
+ waste of, 236
+
+ Landscape gardening, history of, 169
+
+ Language, peculiarities of the, 53;
+ difficulties with, 321
+
+ Leprosy, extent of, 90
+
+ Lunch, the railway, 276
+
+
+ Maple Club, luncheon at, 116
+
+ Marquis, Don, on reformers, 151
+
+ Marriage customs, 85, 93
+
+ Meiji Tenno, "Emperor of Enlightenment," 29
+
+ "Melting Pot," overloading of the, 251
+
+ Militarism, slowly waning, 232
+
+ Mirbeau, Octave, on discovery of Japanese prints by Claude Monet, 332
+
+ Morris, Roland S., address on Japanese issue in California, 244
+
+ Mothers-in-law, dutifulness toward, 93
+
+ Mourning, costume for, 36
+
+ Muko-yoshi, adopted son-husbands, 94
+
+ Music, unmelodious to foreign ear, 131
+
+
+ Nabuto, visit to, 302
+
+ Naginata, the woman's weapon 196
+
+ Namazu, "cause" of earthquakes, 40
+
+ Nara, luncheon party in, 137, 141
+
+ Nesan, serving maids, 117
+
+ Nitobe, Doctor, on bushido, 76
+
+ _No_ drama, masks used in 49;
+ knowledge of, necessary in study of the people, 75
+
+ Nogi, Count, story of his death, 197
+
+ Nurses' occupation popular, 96
+
+ Obi, chief treasure of woman's costume, 35;
+ how worn, 36
+
+ Okuma, Marquis, Japan's "Grand Old Man," 185
+
+ Old age, deference to, 50
+
+ Oriental Mind, the, 57
+
+
+ Partitions, removable, 118
+
+ Period of transition, beginning of, 184
+
+ Perry, Commodore, "knocking at Japan's door," 28;
+ opens door to progress, 184
+
+ Physicians, women as, 96
+
+ Picture brides, no longer allowed to come to America, 244
+
+ Pipes, diminutive, 130
+
+ Placidity in business and home life, 228
+
+ Poems, annually submitted to the Imperial Bureau, 165
+
+ Politeness, Japanese ideas of 260
+
+ Politics, lack of interest in, 103
+
+ Population, excess in 231, 233;
+ must be balanced by industrial expansion, 234
+
+ Prints, Japanese, important collections of, 331;
+ discovery of in Europe by Claude Monet, 332
+
+ Privacy, lack of in Japanese homes, 298
+
+ Public utilities, inefficiency in, 238
+
+
+ Race, unassimilability of, 253
+
+ Race problems of America, 249
+
+ Railroads, under government management, 274
+
+ Restaurant, cost of food and entertainment, 151
+
+ Riddell, Miss H., work with lepers, 90
+
+ Roosevelt, Quentin, Baron Kaneko's regard for, 213, 219, 227
+
+ Roosevelt, Theodore, on reign of Emperor Meiji, 29;
+ interest in jiu-jutsu, 193;
+ visit of Viscount Shibusawa to, 210;
+ Viscount Kaneko's regard for, 213;
+ letter to Baron Kaneko on our Japanese question, 223;
+ wise attitude toward Japan, 270
+
+
+ Sake, how served, 121
+
+ Samurai, strength of the, 70;
+ customs and privileges, 192
+
+ Sculpture and architecture.
+
+ Self-made men, 187.
+
+ Segregation of vice, 154
+
+ Servants, courtesy of and to, 117, 336
+
+ Shibusawa, Viscount Eiichi founder of school for actresses, 96;
+ interview with, 188, 201;
+ anecdote of President Roosevelt, 210;
+ visit to grave of Townsend Harris, 280
+
+ Shimabara, courtesan district, Kyoto, 160
+
+ Suicide, prevalence of 51;
+ the Oriental view of, 199
+
+ Sunday, as a holiday, 114
+
+ Superstition, prevalence of, 318
+
+
+ Tails, wild men with, 7
+
+ Tai-no-ura, and the Nativity Temple, 287
+
+ Tea, significance of, 68;
+ origin, 69
+
+ Tea Ceremony, or cha-no-yu, 71, 74, 81.
+
+ Tea Masters, veneration of the, 73
+
+ Teahouse, entertainment expensive, 143, 151
+
+ Teaism, as a study, 68
+
+ Telephone service, inefficiency of, 238
+
+ Tipping, proper procedure in, 339
+
+ Tobacco industry, a monopoly, 130
+
+ Tokugawa, Prince, interest in wrestling, 105
+
+ Tokyo, growth, 26;
+ architecture and sculpture, 27;
+ adopting steel for building construction, 38
+
+ Tourists welcomed to Japan, 263
+
+ Tray landscapes, art of making, 67
+
+ Tuberculosis, extent of, 90
+
+
+ Vandalism at historic places, 280
+
+ Vice, commercialized, 154
+
+
+ Waseda University, now open to women, 95;
+ founded by Marquis Okuma, 186
+
+ W. C. T. U., activities, 97
+
+ Women, costume of, 32;
+ sedate gracefulness of, 81;
+ suffrage, 83
+ legal status, 84;
+ condition slowly improving, 95;
+ in business and professions, 95;
+ the "new woman," 97;
+ husbands' attitude toward wives, 100;
+ position higher in early times, 100
+
+ Wood engraving, era of, 331
+
+ _World_, New York, editorial on Japanese issue in California, 244
+
+ Wrestling, the national sport, 103
+
+
+ Yajima, Mrs., leader in W. C. T. U., 97
+
+ "Yellow Peril," the true, 246
+
+ Yokohama, the landing, 16
+
+ Yoritomo, legend of, 303
+
+ Yoshinobu, becomes shogun, 202;
+ held prisoner after conflict with Emperor, 205;
+ battle neither sought nor desired, 207
+
+ Yoshioka, Dr. G. founder of Tokyo School for Women, 96
+
+ Yoshiwara, courtesan district, Tokyo, 154
+
+ Yuasa, Commander, heroism at Port Arthur, 195
+
+
+ Zodiac, belief in the signs of the, 317
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+ GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+ * * * * * *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
+speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
+
+Some of the original illustrations were pairs of illustrations related
+to different topics. Those pairs were separated and moved to text they
+illustrate. The list of illustrations refer to the original locations of
+those illustrations. In the paired illustrations, references to
+"(above)" and "(below)" have been removed.
+
+Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted.
+
+On page 29, "to day" was replaced with "today".
+
+On page 86, "mutally" was replaced with "mutually".
+
+On page 87, "bethrothal" was replaced with "betrothal".
+
+On page 113 a comma at an end of a sentence was replaced by a period.
+
+On page 138, "pantomine" was replaced with "pantomime".
+
+On page 149, "chafing-fish" was replaced with "chafing-dish".
+
+On page 160, "Tokugowa" was replaced with "Tokugawa".
+
+On page 163 a comma was added after the word "fascinating".
+
+On page 168, "sensui" was replaced with "sansui".
+
+On page 172, "Distate" was replaced with "Distaste".
+
+On page 176, "daimio" was replaced with "daimyo]".
+
+On page 185, "Marquise" was replaced with "Marquis".
+
+On page 202, "Hizan" was replaced with "Hizen".
+
+On page 203 a period was added after "Highness".
+
+On page 219 a comma at an end of a sentence was replaced by a period.
+
+On page 230 a period was added after "60,000,000".
+
+On page 254, "overwhemingly" was replaced with "overwhelmingly".
+
+On page 264, "supicious" was replaced with "suspicious".
+
+On page 273, "the Little Train" was replaced with "The Little Train".
+
+On page 275, "pratice" was replaced with "practice".
+
+On page 284, "orginally" was replaced with "originally".
+
+On page 285, "af" was replaced with "of".
+
+On page 292, "summond" was replaced with "summoned".
+
+On page 306, "event" was replaced with "events".
+
+On page 318, "Superstitition" was replaced with "Superstition".
+
+On page 323 a comma was added after "Basil Hall Chamberlain".
+
+On page 327 a space was added between "O----" and "I".
+
+On page 328 a space was added between "K----" and "S".
+
+On page 340, "despatched" was replaced with "dispatched".
+
+In the index, "peculiarties" was replaced with "peculiarities".
+
+Notice: There are no cites for the item Sculpture and architecture, and
+in the index some items are closed with periods, but most are not.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57861 ***
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