Flash-lights From The Seven Seas Part 15

Coming back down the Sambas River, along its winding, beautiful way we sat one evening and watched a crimson sunset from the deck of the ship.

At one point in the river there was a row of dead, bare trees. There were no leaves on the branches--only monkeys: big red monkeys, which they call "Beroks," and little gray fellows, which they call "Wahwahs."

These monkeys were strikingly silhouetted against the crimson sunset in strange tropical fashion. From the tips of those dead trees down to the lowest branches dozens of monkeys stood like sentinels, or romped like children, or chattered like magpies. Their long curling tails silhouetted below the branches against the light of evening.

Most Americans who go in and out of j.a.pan get disgusted with the regulations that policemen impose upon them.

This is especially true of those Americans living in China who are compelled, for business reasons, to go in and out of j.a.pan, for at every trip they are required to answer the same list of questions. I traveled from Korea into j.a.pan with the Military Attache of the Spanish Legation.

When we landed a j.a.panese officer who had known him for many years insisted upon his answering the usual questions.

"I've been in this country for ten years and yet I never go out or in that they do not compel me to go through the same foolish police regulations which they have copied from Germany and haven't sense enough to give up!" he said indignantly.

I also traveled with a party in which there was a Methodist Bishop's wife. This Bishop's wife absolutely refused to give the j.a.panese policeman her age. Not that she had any reason to be ashamed of her age.

In fact she could easily have pa.s.sed for twenty years younger than she probably was, but she just had the average American woman's s.p.u.n.k and refused to give it.

For a few minutes it looked as if diplomatic relations between j.a.pan and America might be seriously cracked, if not broken; for the j.a.panese officer had no sense of humor. That is one of the chief defects of the j.a.panese police and military system. It has no sense of humor. It takes itself too seriously. It does not know how to laugh.

To the eight or ten Americans in the party the whole matter was a huge joke and we admired the s.p.u.n.k of the Bishop's wife, but the poor j.a.panese police officer was facing what he thought was an international problem.

Need it be said that the whole matter was finally settled to the entire satisfaction; not of the j.a.panese officer, but to the entire satisfaction of the Bishop's wife.

A friend of mine who happens to be in business in the Orient got so tried of being interviewed, trailed, and made to answer innumerable questions about his mother, grandmother, etc., that one day on landing in Yokohama, in a spirit of fun, he answered the officer's questions in this manner:

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-six."

"Have you a family?"

"Yes."

"How many children?"

"Three."

"How old are they?"

"One is thirty-eight, one forty, and one forty-five."

"What is your occupation?"

"Commander-in-Chief of the Greenland Navy."

"What are you doing in j.a.pan?"

"Getting a cargo of ice to take back to Greenland."

After satisfying his appet.i.te for information, the j.a.panese police officer departed to make his reports, while the young American went to his hotel with a grin all over his face.

While he was eating his dinner that evening suddenly the j.a.panese officer appeared in the dining room with a big smile on his face and walked over to where the American sat with a group of friends.

As he approached the American's table he said with a grin, "You American! I know! You American!"

"How did you guess it, my friend?"

"You make me one tam fool!" he said holding out the report.

Some of the most laughable things that one sees in the Orient are the j.a.panese signs translated into English by some j.a.panese merchant who has picked up a dash of English here and there.

One such sign which caused a lot of amus.e.m.e.nt was that of a tailor who was trying to cater to American Tourist trade. He had, evidently, also had some contact with the spiritual phraseology of the missionaries. He had painted on a big sign:

"BUY OUR PANCE!

THEY FIT YOU BETTER AND THEY WARM YOUR LEGS LIKE THE LOVE OF G.o.d!"

Perhaps the most exhilaratingly humorous thing that the j.a.panese have perpetrated on the Koreans was a list of advices printed and posted all over Korea by the Police Department as to the regulation of Fords:

RULES!

1. At the rise of hand of policeman, stop rapidly. Do not pa.s.s him by or otherwise disrespect him.

2. When a pa.s.senger of the foot hove in sight, tootle the horn trumpet to him melodiously at first. If he still obstacles your pa.s.sage, tootle him with vigor and express by word of the mouth the warning, "hi, hi."

3. Beware of the wandering horse that he shall not take fright as you pa.s.s him. Do not explode the exhaust box at him. Go soothingly by, or stop by the roadside till he gently pa.s.s away.

4. Give big s.p.a.ce to the festive dog that make sport in the roadway. Avoid entanglement of dog with your wheel spokes.

5. Go soothingly on the grease-mud, as there lurk the skid-demon. Press the brake of the foot as you roll around the corners to save the collapse and tie-up.

6. Number of people you put in the Ford: You put two in the front house and three in the back house.

There were other rules but this list will be sufficient as a Flash-light of Fun to give some idea of the ridiculous way in which the average j.a.panese twists the ideas and phraseology of English in the translations.

I saw one great sign which brought a smile. It was up on the island of Hokkaido. It had printed in large English letters:

"GET YOUR MOTHER'S MILK HERE!"

Below that sentence there was a picture of a cow which looked as much like a combination of an Elephant and a Camel as anything I know. The artist must have been a wonder. Attached to each of the cow's udders were long lines of hose that ran for about ten feet across a big bill-board. At the end of each line of hose was a nipple, like our American baby-nipples. At the end of each nipple there was a man-sized baby pulling away at the nipple. It was one of the funniest advertising signs I ever saw. I watched several Americans look up at it and every one of them laughed aloud. And the funny thing about it was that it was intended to be a serious advertising sign.

At a banquet given in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo one of the most side-splitting incidents happened unintentionally that ever happened at any banquet anywhere.

One of the sons of a great j.a.panese business man was speaking. The banquet was in honor of a well-known College President from America who had come to take up work in the Orient. This banquet was to welcome him officially to j.a.pan.

One of the speakers, sitting beside Mr. Uchida, the Foreign Minister, had been a student in America where this man was formerly the college president and he was trying to make the crowd see how happy he was to welcome the president to j.a.pan. He did it in the following language as nearly as I can remember it: