Letters from China and Japan Part 3

We have had another great day to-day. This morning rose early and wrote letters, which were not sent in spite of the haste, as we decided the slow boat was slower than waiting for a later and faster one. So you ought to get many letters at once. The day has been sunshiny and bright, but not at all sultry, so perfect for getting about. We went to the art store to get some prints which we had selected the day before and then on to call on a Professor of Political Economy, who is also a member of Parliament, radical and very wide awake and interesting, quite like an American in his energy and curiosity and interest. We visited and learned a lot about things here and there and then he took us to lunch at his mother-in-law's house. They have a beautiful house in j.a.panese style, with a foreign style addition, like most of the houses of the rich, the j.a.panese part having no resemblance whatever to the foreign, which is so much less beautiful. In carpets and table covers and tapestries imitated from the German, the j.a.panese have no taste, while in their own line they remain exquisite. This house is one of the most absolute cleanliness. No floor in it but shines like a mirror and has not a fleck of dust, never had one. Let me see if I can describe accurately this entertainment. We took three 'rickshas and rode through the cherry lined narrow streets over hills where are the lovely gardens of the rich showing through the gateways and showing over the top of the bamboo walls, which are built of poles about six feet long upright and tied together with cords. They are very pretty with the green. When we reached the house Mr. U---- took us in to the foreign drawing room, which is very mid-Victorian and German in its general effect. This one has in it a beautiful lacquer cabinet, very large and quite overpowering every other thing in the room. There the ladies of the house came in and made their bows, very amiable and smiling at our thanks for their hospitality. The sister-in-law, a young girl of sixteen, who wants to go to America, and afterwards the grandmother, very much the commanding character that a grandmother ought to be. The children hovered round them all much like our children. The ladies brought us tea with their own hands in lovely blue and white cups with little lacquer stands and covers. Candy with the tea, which was green. I forgot to say that we had already, during the hour with Mr. U---- had tea three different times and of three different kinds, besides little refreshments therewith.

After a little we were summoned to lunch. Three places set on a low table and a beautiful blue brocade cushion to sit upon. The two younger ladies on their knees ready to serve us. They poured out wine for us, or Vermouth, and we took the latter. We had before us, each, one lacquer bowl, covered, that contained the usual fish soup with little pieces of fish and green things cut up in it. This we drink, putting the solid bits into our mouths with the chop sticks. The grandmother thought she ought to have prepared foreign food, but the clever girl of sixteen had spoken for home food, and so we thanked them for giving that to us, as we seldom get a real genuine j.a.panese meal. And this is the first we have had where we were served by the ladies of the house, except the dolls' food at the festival. It seems this is the highest compliment that we have had, as the real j.a.panese home is open to the foreigner only when the foreigner is asked to sit on the floor and is served by the ladies of the household. They kneel near the table and the maid brings the dishes and hands them to the ladies, who in turn serve the dishes to the guests. It is very pretty. I have reached the stage where I can sit on my heels for the length of a meal, but I rise very awkwardly, as my feet are asleep clear up to my knees at the end. We ate soup, cold fried lobster and shrimps, which are dipped in sauce besides; and cold vegetables in another bowl, and then hot fried fish; then some little pickles, then rice, of which the j.a.panese eat several bowls, then the dessert, which has been beside you all the time, and is a cold omelette, which tastes very good, and then they give you tea, Formosa oolong. We had toast, too, but that is foreign. Then we left the table and were shown the rooms upstairs, which contain many pieces of lacquer and bronze and woodwork, and then we went down and there was tea and a dish of fruit ready for us. We had not much time for this, as they were going to send us in a motor to the Imperial Gardens. But as the last kind of tea had to be brought we were at the door putting on our shoes when it arrived. This tea is strong oolong and has milk in it, with two lumps of sugar for you to put in yourself. Thus we had been served with tea six times within three hours.

It is hard to describe the Imperial Gardens. Read the guide book and you will see that it is. Ten thousand orchid plants were the beginning of the sight. We saw the lettuce and the string beans and the tomatoes and potatoes and eggplant and melons, and all growing under gla.s.s, for the Emperor to eat. Never saw such perfect lettuce, all the heads in one frame of exactly the same size and arrangement, as if they were artificial, and all the others just right. Why potatoes under gla.s.s?

Don't ask me. Grapes in pots looked as if the raising of grapes under gla.s.s was in its beginning, but maybe not, as I was not familiar enough with those little vines to know whether they would bear or not. The flowers in the frames were perfection. Ma.s.ses of Mignonette daisies, and some other bright flowers I did not know were ready to put out in the beds which were prepared for the garden party. We cannot go on the 17th.

A very large pavilion with shingle roof under which the Emperor and Empress are to sit at the party is being built and will be taken down the next day, or rather week, as it will take more than one day. Then if it rains there will be no party. To-night it looks as if rain might spoil the blossoms. But to-day was perfect. It is a little surprising when one sees this famous garden after reading about j.a.panese gardens for all one's life. There is such a large expanse of gra.s.s with no flowers and the gra.s.s does not get green here so soon as with us, and it is now all brown, though big ma.s.ses of daffodils are superb. These under the cherry trees with the sunshine shining through slantways made one of the brilliant sights of a lifetime. The artificial lakes and rivers and waterfall and the bridges and islands and hills with big birds walking and swimming make enough to have come for to j.a.pan. The groups of trees are as fine as anything can be and across the long expanses the view of them is like a succession of pictures. There are a hundred and sixty-five acres in the park, no buildings. In the beginning it was pretty well to one side of the city, but now it is on a car track of much travel, though still on the outskirts on its outer edge.

On Monday we have arranged to go to the theater again at the Imperial.

To-day it is the great actor Ganjiro at a small theater. It is said the jealousy of the Tokyo actors and managers keeps Ganjiro from getting a fair chance when he comes here. Mr. T----, formerly of Chicago, has just been here to try to arrange a dinner for us before we leave, the dinner to be at a restaurant with all the old students present. The restaurants are always amusing and we agreed, of course. This may keep us in Tokyo one day longer, though that is not decided yet. For the rest of the time we are to make up on calls as far as we can and ride about to see the cherry blossoms, and I hope we may see some of the famous tea houses.

Thus far we have seen no tea house at all, and there is not one afternoon tea house where ladies go in this city excepting the new-fashioned department stores, and they do not stand for anything different than they do with us. This shows how little the real ladies of Tokyo go out of their houses.

The Sumida river is a big river gathering up all the small streams from one side of the mountains. It is full of junks and other craft and is the center of much history, both for Tokyo as a city and for the whole country.

TOKYO, April 4.

Ganjiro, the greatest actor from Osaka, is acting here now, and the show was great. He did the scene among other things they did in New York under the name of "Bushido." A dance by a fox who had taken the form of a man was a wonderful thing. There is no use in trying to describe it.

It was not just slow posturings, like the other j.a.panese dances we have seen, nor was it as wild as the Russian dancers; he did it alone, no companion, male or female. But it was as free as the Russian and much more cla.s.sic at the same time. You will never realize what the human hand and arm can do until you see this. He put on a number of masks and then acted or danced according to the type of mask he had on. He can do an animal's motions without any clawing--as graceful and lithe as a cat.

He is a son of an old man Ganjiro.

Our last days here are rather crowded and we aren't going to get the things done that should be done. Cherry blossoms are at their height--another thing indescribable, but if dogwood trees were bigger and the blossoms were tinged with pink without being pink it would give the effect more than anything else I know. The indescribable part is the tree full of blossoms without leaves; of course you get that in the magnolias, but they are coa.r.s.e where the cherry is delicate. We went to a museum to-day, which is finer in some respects than the Imperial; G.o.ds till you can't rest, and wonderful Chinese things, everything except paintings.

TOKYO, April 8.

We are actually packing up and get away to-morrow morning at 8:30--we travel all day, the first part till four o'clock on the fastest train in j.a.pan. The ordinary trains make about fifteen miles an hour, j.a.pan having unfortunately adopted narrow gauge in early days and going on the well-known principle of safety first. We have had various and sundry experiences since writing, the most interesting being on Sunday, when we were taken into the country both to see the cherry blossoms and the merry-makers; the time is a kind of a carnival and mild saturnalia based on bright clothes, and wigs, and sake, about ninety per cent sake.

There were a few besides ourselves not intoxicated, but not many.

Everybody practiced whatever English he knew on us, one dressed-up fellow informing us "I Chrallie Chaplin," and he was as good an imitation as most. Aside from one fight we saw no rudeness and not much boisterousness, the mental effect being apparently to make them confidential and demonstrative. Usually they are very reserved with one another, but Sunday it looked as if they were telling each other all their deepest secrets and life ambitions. Our host of the day laughed most benevolently all the time, not excluding when a fellow dressed in bright red woman's clothes insisted on riding on the running board. They get drunk so seldom that it didn't appeal to him so much as a drunk as it did as a popular festival; the people really were happy.

There were miles of trees planted each side of a ca.n.a.l that supplies Tokyo with water, all kinds of trees and in all stages of development, from no blossoms to full, no leaf and beautiful little pink leaves. The blossoms are dropping, it is almost a mild snowfall, and yet the trees seem full.

Yesterday we went to the theater again, the Imperial, a party of ten filling two boxes. We were taken behind the scenes and shown the green rooms, etc., and introduced to an actor and to his son, about eleven, who appeared on the stage later and did a very pretty dance. He had a teacher in the room and was doing his Chinese writing lesson, never looked up till he was spoken to, about the handsomest and most intelligent looking lad I have seen in j.a.pan. Acting is practically an hereditary profession here. I doubt if an outsider not trained from early childhood could possibly do the acting anyway, and I don't think the guild would let him break in if he could, though one man of British extraction has been quite successful on the j.a.panese stage. We saw some very interesting things yesterday, including dances, and learned that they are very anxious to come to America, but they want a patron. If the scenes were selected with great care to take those that have lots of action and not so much talking, and the libretto was carefully explained, they could make a hit in New York at least.

Our other blowout was the other evening at a j.a.panese cla.s.sic tea house, a part of a Noh dance for entertainment and a twelve-course meal or so.

The most interesting thing though is talking to people. On the whole I think we have a chance to see people who know j.a.pan much better than most. We haven't been officialized and putting the different things together I think we have as good an acquaintance with the social conditions as anybody would be likely to get in eight weeks. An experienced journalist could get it, so far as information is concerned, in a few days, but I think things have to be soaked in by c.u.mulative impressions to get the feel of the thing and the background. When they told me first that this was a great psychological moment, that everything was critical and crucial, I didn't know what they meant, and I could hardly put it in words now, any more than they did, but I know inside of me. There are few external signs of a change, but j.a.pan is nearly in the condition she was in during the first years of contact and opening up of things fifty or so years ago, so far as the mental readiness for change is concerned, and the next few years may see rapid social changes.

NARA, April 12.

Well, we have started on our journey and have seen j.a.pan for the first time, scenically speaking, that is to say. The first day's ride from Tokyo to Nagoya was interesting, but not particularly so except for Fuji, which we saw off and on for several hours, and on three sides. As sometimes it isn't visible, and we had a fine warm day, we had good luck. Nagoya is where the best old castle in j.a.pan is, you may even in your benighted country and estate have heard of the two golden dolphins on top. The castle is an imperial palace and it turned out that you have to have a permit from Tokyo, but we set out to try to get in, and as we had met a nice young man at the X----'s in Tokyo who came from Nara, we telephoned him, and while we didn't get in through him (he said he could never get in himself under any circ.u.mstances) he promptly asked us to dinner. Then we were taken to the swellest tea house in Nara and had another of those elaborate dinners, on what he called the tea-istic plan. We began with the tea ceremony without the ceremony but with the powdered tea, the bowl being prepared for each one separately in succession. The Nara cooking is better, we all thought, than the Tokyo, the food being more savory and the variety of flavors greater, an opinion which pleased our host. Expressing some curiosity about some four-inch trout which seemed to have a sugar caramel coating, we found that they were cooked in a kind of liquor which deposited the sweetness, and then we were presented with a bottle of the drink known as Mirin, so now we are lugging gla.s.sware. Then after the dinner he said that he hoped that we would not think him guilty of improper action, but that he had invited the best samisen player and singer in Nagoya, and also some dancers. In other words, some geishas were introduced and sang, played and danced before King David. There are all grades from those comparable to chorus girls at Jack's to high grade actresses, and these were of the upper kind. He said he wished us to see something of true j.a.pan which few foreigners saw, this referring to the restaurant as well as the dancing. They won't receive anybody who isn't an old client or friend of one of these high toned places. But the ladies of the party thought he was especially interested in one of the girls. Personally I think the dancing and music are much more interesting than they are reported to be in the guide books.

The next day we went to the primitive Ise shrines, arriving cross and hungry at about two, but bound to get the pilgrimage over, especially as it wasn't good weather. Yamada, where the sacred shrines are, is a very beautiful place, with wooded hills and little streams. The trees are largely cryptomerias, which are evidently some relative of the California redwoods, and while not nearly as tall, make much the same effect. It is a darling spot, filled with the usual thousands of carpet bagger (literally the old Brussel carpet bags) pilgrims. As previously reported I toted a borrowed frock coat and stovepipe hat. Our guide said special clothing was not needed for the ladies. I put on my war paint, and the chief priest having been written from Tokyo of our impending arrival, an hour had been set. At the outermost gate, the Torii, the ceremony of purification, took place. We had water poured out on our hands out of a little ceremonial cup and basin and then the priest sprinkled salt on us; n.o.body else had this but us. Then when we got to the fence gate, we were told that the ladies not having "visiting dresses," whatever they are, couldn't go inside, but that I should be treated as of the same rank as an Imperial professor and allowed to go.

I forgot to say that we had a gendarme in front of us to shoo the vulgar herd out of our way. Then we marched slowly in behind the priest, on stones brought from the seaside, through a picket fence to designated spots near the next fence, I being allowed nearer to the gate than our j.a.panese guide; and we worshiped, that is bowed. I got my bow over disgracefully quick, but I think our j.a.panese conductor stood at least fifteen minutes.

KYOTO, April 15.

Here we are in the Florence of j.a.pan, and even more to see if possible than in Italy. We have had a rainy day to-day, which is perhaps a good beginning for a week of constant sightseeing. This morning we spent in Yamanaka's--the most beautiful shop I ever saw, composed of the finest j.a.panese rooms of the finest proportions and filled with the most beautiful art specimens of all kinds. But the kinds are properly a.s.sorted in true j.a.panese fashion. I bought a red brocade. It is a panel, old red with figures of gold and some dark blue, peonies and birds. It is what the Buddhist priests wear over the left arm in procession. We have the certificate that it is over a hundred years old.

The panel is about five feet long and one wide, the strips which compose it are four in number, sewed in seams, which turn the corners in mortise fashion, and yet they all match perfectly. Most of these strips are woven in these ribbons and sewed together. I got a second one which is purple with splendid big birds and peonies again. I like the peony in brocade much better than the chrysanthemum or the smaller flowers. Some fine ones with pomegranates are tempting, but I did not buy the most beautiful on account of the prospects of spending money better in China.

I also bought a pretty tea set which I have here in my room--it cost 30 sen, which means fifteen cents for teapot and five cups, gray pottery with blue decorations. There are many cheaper ones that are pretty too.

Tomorrow we go to the original temple where the tea ceremony originated and are to partic.i.p.ate in the tea ceremony, which the high priest will perform for us. You better get a guide book and read about the temples of Kyoto, as they are too numerous to tell about in letters. We have the munic.i.p.al car for all these occasions. Good thing we do, for Kyoto has shrunk like a nut in its sh.e.l.l since the days of its ancient capital size and the distances between temples are enormous. Next day we go to the Imperial Palaces, and so go on and on getting fatter and fatter.

The weather and the spring time are superb. Cherry blossoms were gone when we got here, but the young leaves of the maples are lovely green or red and the whole earth is paradise now. The hills are nearer than in Florence, the mountains higher, so that Kyoto has every natural beauty.

We shall only have a week here and then go to Osaka, where the puppet theater is and where there is a school of drama, of which Ganjiro is the leader. It is the doll theater we want to see, because that is the origin of all acting in j.a.pan. Many of the conventions of the theater are based on the movements of the puppets.

Kyoto in many respects is the most lovely thing the world has to show, such a combination of nature and art as one dreams of. These wonderful temples of enormous size, of natural wood filled with paintings and sculpture of an ancient and unknown kind, fascinate one to the point of feeling there must be many more worlds when such multiplicity of ideas and feelings can exist on a single planet, and we live unconscious of the whole of it or even of any part of its extent. The gardens we have seen to-day are the old j.a.pan unchanged since they were made a thousand years ago, when they took the ancient ideas of China and India for models. The temples of Tokyo seem like shabby relics of a worn-out era, but here the perfection of their art remains and is kept intact. The landscape of the first Buddhist monastery, where the tea ceremony originated, has the same rivers and islands and little piles of sand which were placed in the beginning, all in miniature, and planted with miniature trees, all imitations of real scenes in China when China was the land of culture. Now they say even the originals are destroyed in China, which is so out of repair that it depresses every one who sees it. Fifty years ago they advertised for sale here in Nara, a lovely paG.o.da five stories high for fifty yen. It is obviously necessary for some American millionaire to buy up the ma.s.sive gates and paG.o.das and temples of China in order to redeem them from complete ruin. The j.a.panese are the one people who have waked up in time to the value of these historic things, and several of the temples have been rebuilt before the old material was so rotted as to make them hopeless. Wood is a magnificent material when it is used in such ma.s.sive structures as it is here. The biggest bell in the world, twelve feet high, is hung on a great tree trunk in a belfry with a curled-up roof of flower-like proportions, first having been hauled to the top of the high hill. We shall hear it boom next Sat.u.r.day. We heard the one in Nara, the deepest thing I ever thought to hear, nine feet high. They are beautiful bronze and they are very mellow and melodious and reach to the center of whatever the center of your being may be and leave you to hope the greater unknown of the judgment day may be a call like that sound.

We had lunch with Miss D----. She tells stories about the efforts of the j.a.panese girls to get an education that make you want to sell your earrings, even if you have none, in order to give the money to these idealists. They are as much pioneers as our forebears who chopped down the trees, but they can't get at a tree to chop. She says she wants me to go back to America and to go to every Congregational church there and tell them they must send money here to give education to the people.

One day we have the mayor's car to go about in and the next day the University hires a car for us and we indulge ourselves in all kinds of doings we do not deserve and sometimes wonder if we shall have to commit suicide after it ends in order to condone the point of honor. Certainly these people have a n.o.bility of character which ent.i.tles them to race equality.

I want to find a nice quiet place to stay and come back and see the sights at greater length. The paintings on the walls are mostly ruined, but the kakemonas and the screens and the makemonas, those are wonderful and I am glad to say that we have got over seeing them as grotesque, and we feel their beauty. When once you see that the trees in the ground are real and that they look just as the trees in the pictures have always looked, then you begin to appreciate both nature and human nature as depicted.

KYOTO, April 15.

To-day is rainy and we haven't done much. We got here yesterday noon.

The hotel is on the side of a hill with wonderful views, and is pretty good, though the one at Nara which is run by the Imperial Railway System is the only first-cla.s.s one we have seen so far. In the afternoon the University sent a car and we took an auto ride into the suburbs to a famous cherry place--it was too late for blossoms, but the river and hills and woods were beautiful, and we saw the usual large crowd enjoying life. It is really wonderful the way the people go out, all cla.s.ses, and the amount of pleasure they get out of doors and in the tea houses. I have never been anywhere where every day seemed so much of a holiday as in j.a.pan--there is still sake in evidence but not so much.

This month a special geisha dance is given here at a theater connected with a training school; the dance lasts an hour and is repeated four or five consecutive hours. We went last night; the dancing is much more mechanical posturing than the theater dancing, or than the little geisha dance we saw at Nara, but the color combinations and the way they handled the scenery were wonderful. There were eight very different scenes and it didn't take more than a minute to make any change. Once a curtain was simply drawn down through a trap door, another time what had looked like a canvas mat in front of the curtain was pulled up and it turned out to be painted on one side. But they had a different method every time.

The mayor has invited me to speak to the teachers Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and afterwards we are invited by the munic.i.p.ality to a j.a.panese dinner.

They are also putting the city auto--the only one apparently--at our disposal, when they aren't using it, and have arranged to take us to a porcelain and a weaving factory next Monday. This town is the headquarters of j.a.pan for artistic production, ancient and modern. The University authorities also telephoned to Tokyo and got permission for us to visit the palaces here, but they are said not to be equal to the Nagoya ones which we missed. While at Nara we spent most of our time at the Horiuji temples, some miles out. I won't do the encyclopedia act except to say that they are the headquarters of the introduction of Buddhism into j.a.pan thirteen hundred years ago, which meant civilization, especially art, and have the wall frescoes, unfortunately faint, of that period, and lots of sculpture; this means wood carving, as of course there is no marble here. Well, it happened that it was the birthday of Prince Shotoku, who was the gentleman responsible for the aforesaid introduction, and of whom there are many statues, age of two, twelve and sixteen being favorites; his piety was precocious.

Consequently, everything was wide open. Every kind of peep show and stall, and more than the usual hundreds of pilgrims who combine pleasure with piety in a way that beats even the Italian peasants; when they have money here they spend it; tightwadism is not a j.a.panese vice. Well, we were taken into the garden of the chief priest to eat our luncheon; of course, he was very busy, but greeted us in gorgeous robes and then sent out tea and rice cakes. The contrast between this lovely little garden and the drums and barkers just beyond the walls and the wonderful old artistic shrines beyond the barkers and ham and egg row was as interesting as anything in j.a.pan.

You may remember Miss E---- is rather tall for an American woman, even.

Mamma is something of an object to the country people, but Miss E---- is a spectacle. Curiosity is the only emotion the j.a.panese are not taught to conceal apparently. They gather around in scores, literally. I don't know how many times I have seen parents make sure the children didn't miss the show. Several times I have seen people walk slowly and solemnly all the way around us to make sure they missed nothing. No rudeness ever, just plain curiosity. As we were going to the museum after breakfast, a few of those children, girls, appeared and bowed. First I knew one of them had hold of each of my hands, and went with us as far as the museum--girls of nine or ten. It was touching to see their friendliness, especially one evidently rather poor, who would look up at me and laugh, and then squeeze my hand and press it against herself, and then laugh with delight again. I haven't been able to discover when it ceases to be proper for children to be natural. Sunday morning some soldiers were going off to Manchuria--or Korea--and before eight we heard the patter of the clogs down the street and some hundred of boys and girls were marching down to the station with their teachers; the same thing next morning, for the soldiers.

KYOTO, April 19.

We have just come from another Geisha party, given by the mayor and about fifteen of the other officers of the city. Papa is quite stuck up because they say it is the first time the city of Kyoto ever entertained a scholar in that fashion. But if he is stuck up what should I be when a woman appears for the first time in history at a men's carouse in j.a.pan?