Peeps at Many Lands: Japan Part 1

Peeps at Many Lands: j.a.pan.

by John Finnemore.

CHAPTER I

THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

Far away from our land, on the other side of the world, lies a group of islands which form the kingdom of j.a.pan. The word "j.a.pan" means the "Land of the Rising Sun," and it is certainly a good name for a country of the Far East, the land of sunrise.

The flag of j.a.pan, too, is painted with a rising sun which sheds its beams on every hand, and this flag is now for ever famous, so great and wonderful have been the victories in which it has been borne triumphant over Russian arms.

In some ways the j.a.panese are fond of comparing themselves with their English friends and allies. They point out that j.a.pan is a cl.u.s.ter of islands off the coast of Asia, as Britain is a cl.u.s.ter of islands off the coast of Europe. They have proved themselves, like the English, brave and clever on the sea, while their troops have fought as n.o.bly as British soldiers on the land. They are fond of calling themselves the "English of the East," and say that their land is the "Britain of the Pacific."

The rise of j.a.pan in becoming one of the Great Powers of the world has been very sudden and wonderful. Fifty years ago j.a.pan lay hidden from the world; she forbade strangers to visit the country, and very little was known of her people and her customs.

Her navy then consisted of a few wooden junks; to-day she has a fleet of splendid ironclads, handled by men who know their duties as well as English seamen. Her army consisted of troops armed with two swords and carrying bows and arrows; to-day her troops are the admiration of the world, armed with the most modern weapons, and, as foes, to be dreaded by the most powerful nations.

Fifty years ago j.a.pan was in the purely feudal stage. Her great native Princes were called Daimios. Each had a strong castle and a private army of his own. There were ceaseless feuds between these Princes and constant fighting between their armies of samurai, as their followers were called.

j.a.pan was like England at the time of our War of the Roses: family quarrels were fought out in pitched battle. All that has now gone. The Daimios have become private gentlemen; the armies of samurai have been disbanded, and j.a.pan is ruled and managed just like a European country, with judges, and policemen, and law-courts, after the model of Western lands.

When the j.a.panese decided to come out and take their place among the great nations of the world, they did not adopt any half-measures; they simply came out once and for all. They threw themselves into the stream of modern inventions and movements with a will. They have built railways and set up telegraph and telephone lines. They have erected banks and warehouses, mills and factories. They have built bridges and improved roads. They have law-courts and a Parliament, to which the members are elected by the people, and newspapers flourish everywhere.

j.a.pan is a very beautiful country. It is full of fine mountains, with rivers leaping down the steep slopes and dashing over the rocks in snowy waterfalls. At the foot of the hills are rich plains and valleys, well watered by the streams which rush down from the hills. But the mountains are so many and the plains are so few that only a small part of the land can be used for growing crops, and this makes j.a.pan poor. Its climate is not unlike ours in Great Britain, but the summer is hotter, and the winter is in some parts very cold. Many of the mountains are volcanoes. Some of these are still active, and earthquakes often take place. Sometimes these earthquakes do terrible harm. The great earthquake of 1871 killed 10,000 people, injured 20,000, and destroyed 130,000 houses.

The highest mountain of j.a.pan also is the most beautiful, and it is greatly beloved by the j.a.panese, who regard it as a sacred height. Its name is Fujisan, or Fusi-Yama, and it stands near the sea and the capital city of Tokyo. It is of most beautiful shape, an almost perfect cone, and it springs nearly 13,000 feet into the air. From the sea it forms a most superb and majestic sight. Long before a glimpse can be caught of the sh.o.r.e and the city, the traveller sees the lofty peak, crowned with a glittering crest of snow, rising in lonely majesty, with no hint of the land on which it rests. The j.a.panese have a great love of natural beauty, and they adore Fujisan. Their artists are never tired of painting it, and pictures of it are to be found in the most distant parts of the land.

CHAPTER II

BOYS AND GIRLS IN j.a.pAN

In no country in the world do children have a happier childhood than in j.a.pan. Their parents are devoted to them, and the children are always good.

This seems a great deal to say, but it is quite true. j.a.panese boys and girls behave as quietly and with as much composure as grown-up men and women. From the first moment that it can understand anything, a j.a.panese baby is taught to control its feelings. If it is in pain or sad, it is not to cry or to pull an ugly face; that would not be nice for other people to hear or see. If it is very merry or happy, it is not to laugh too loudly or to make too much noise; that would be vulgar. So the j.a.panese boy or girl grows up very quiet, very gentle, and very polite, with a smile for everything and everybody.

While they are little they have plenty of play and fun when they are not in school. In both towns and villages the streets are the playground, and here they play ball, or battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, or fly kites.

Almost every little girl has a baby brother or sister strapped on her back, for babies are never carried in the arms in j.a.pan except by the nurses of very wealthy people. The baby is fastened on its mother's or its sister's shoulders by a shawl, and that serves it for both cot and cradle. The little girl does not lose a single sc.r.a.p of her play because of the baby.

She runs here and there, striking with her battledore, or racing after her friends, and the baby swings to and fro on her shoulders, its little head wobbling from side to side as if it were going to tumble off. But it is perfectly content, and either watches the game with its sharp little black eyes, or goes calmly off to sleep.

In the form of their dress both boys and girls appear alike, and, more than that, they are dressed exactly like their parents. There is no child's dress in j.a.pan. The garments are smaller, to fit the small wearers--that is all.

The main article of dress is a loose gown, called a kimono. Under the outer kimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are girt about the body with a large sash, called an obi. The obi is the pride of a j.a.panese girl's heart.

If her parents are rich, it will be of shining costly silk or rich brocade or cloth of gold; if her parents are poor, they will make an effort to get her one as handsome as their means will allow. Next to her obi, she prides herself on the ornaments which decorate her black hair--fine hairpins, with heads of tortoisesh.e.l.l or coral or lacquer, and hair-combs, all most beautifully carved.

A boy's obi is more for practical use, and is not of such splendour as his sister's. When he is very small, his clothes are of yellow, while his sister's are of red. At the age of five he puts on the hakama, and then he is a very proud boy. The hakama is a kind of trousers made of silk, and is worn by men instead of an under-kimono. At five years old a boy is taken to the temple to thank the G.o.ds who have protected him thus far; and as he struts along, and hears with joy his hakama rustling its stiff new silk beneath his kimono, he feels himself a man indeed, and that his babyhood of yesterday is left far behind.

Upon the feet are worn the tabi--thick white socks, which may be called foot-gloves, for there are separate divisions for the toes.

These serve both as stockings outside the house and slippers inside, for no boots are worn in a j.a.panese house. When a j.a.panese walks out, he slips his feet into high wooden clogs, and when he comes home he kicks off the clogs at the door, and enters his home in tabi alone. The reason for this we shall hear later on. In j.a.panese clothes there are no pockets. Whatever they need to carry with them is tucked into the sash or into the sleeves of the kimono. The latter are often very long, and afford ample room for the odds and ends one usually carries in the pocket.

But fine kimonos and rich obis are for the wealthy j.a.panese; the poor cannot afford them, and dress very simply. The coolie--the j.a.panese working man--goes almost naked in the warm weather, wearing only a pair of short cotton trousers, until he catches sight of a policeman, when he slips on his blue cotton coat, for the police have orders to see that he dresses himself properly. His wife wears a cotton kimono, and the pair of them can dress themselves handsomely--for coolies--from head to foot for a sum of 45 sen, which, taking the sen at a halfpenny, amounts to 1 S. 10-1/2d. in our money.

CHAPTER III

BOYS AND GIRLS IN j.a.pAN (_continued_)

When j.a.panese boys and girls go to school, they make very low bows to their teacher and draw in the breath with a buzzing sound. This is a sign of deep respect, and the teacher returns their politeness by making low bows to them. Then the children sit down and begin to learn their lessons.

Their books are very odd-looking affairs to us. Not only are they printed in very large characters, but they seem quite upside down. To find the first page you turn to the end of the book, and you read it backwards to the front page. Again, you do not read from left to right, as in our fashion, but from right to left. Nor is this all: for the lines do not run across the page, but up and down. Altogether, a j.a.panese book is at first a very puzzling affair. When the writing lesson comes, the children have no pens; they use brushes instead. They dip their brushes in the ink, and paint the words one under the other, beginning at the top right-hand corner and finishing at the bottom left-hand corner. If they have an address to write on an envelope, they turn that upside down and begin with the name of the country and finish with the name of the person--England, London, Kensington Gardens, Brown John Mr.

But j.a.panese children have quite as many things to learn at home as at school. At school they learn arithmetic, geography, history, and so on, just as children do in England, but their manners and their conduct towards other people are carefully drilled into them by their parents. The art of behaving yourself towards others is by no means an easy thing to learn in j.a.pan. It is not merely a matter of good-feeling, gentleness, and politeness, as we understand it, but there is a whole complicated system of behaviour: how many bows to make, and how they should be made. There are different forms of salutation to superiors, equals, and inferiors.

Different ranks of life have their own ways of performing certain actions, and it is said that a girl's rank may easily be known merely by the way in which she hands a cup of tea to a guest. From the earliest years the children are trained in these observances, and they never make a mistake.

The j.a.panese baby is taught how to walk, how to bow, how to kneel and touch the floor with its forehead in the presence of a superior, and how to get up again; and all is done in the most graceful manner and without disturbing a single fold in its kimono.

A child is taught very carefully how to wait on people, how to enter the room, how to carry a tray or bowl at the right height, and, above all, how to offer a cup or plate in the most dainty and correct style. One writer speaks of going into a j.a.panese shop to buy some articles he wanted. The master, the mistress, the children, all bent down before him. There was a two-year-old baby boy asleep on his sister's back, and he, too, was awakened and called upon to pay his respects to the foreign gentleman. He woke without a start or a cry, understood at once what was required of him, was set on his feet, and then proceeded to make his bows and to touch the ground with his little forehead, just as exactly as his elder relatives.

This done, he was restored once more to the shawl, and was asleep again in a moment.

The art of arranging flowers and ornaments is another important branch of a girl's home education. Everything in a j.a.panese room is carefully arranged so that it shall be in harmony with its surroundings. The arrangement of a bunch of flowers in a fine porcelain jar is a matter of much thought and care. Children are trained how to arrange blossoms and boughs so that the most beautiful effect may be gained, and in many j.a.panese houses may be found books which contain rules and diagrams intended to help them in gaining this power of skilful arrangement. This feeling for taste and beauty is common to all j.a.panese, even the poorest. A well-known artist says: "Perhaps, however, one of the most curious experiences I had of the native artistic instinct of j.a.pan occurred in this way: I had got a number of fan-holders, and was busying myself one afternoon arranging them upon the walls. My little j.a.panese servant-boy was in the room, and as I went on with my work I caught an expression on his face from time to time which showed me that he was not overpleased with my performance. After a while, as this dissatisfied expression seemed to deepen, I asked him what the matter was. Then he frankly confessed that he did not like the way in which I was arranging my fan-holders. 'Why did you not tell me so at once?' I asked. 'You are an artist from England,' he replied, 'and it was not for me to speak.' However, I persuaded him to arrange the fan-holders himself after his own taste, and I must say that I received a remarkable lesson.

The task took him about two hours--placing, arranging, adjusting; and when he had finished, the result was simply beautiful. That wall was a perfect picture: every fan-holder seemed to be exactly in its right place, and it looked as if the alteration of a single one would affect and disintegrate the whole scheme. I accepted the lesson with due humility, and remained more than ever convinced that the j.a.panese are what they have justly claimed to be--an essentially artistic people, instinct with living art."

CHAPTER IV

THE j.a.pANESE BOY

A j.a.panese boy is the monarch of the household. j.a.pan is thoroughly Eastern in the position which it gives to women. The boy, and afterwards the man, holds absolute rule over sister or wife. It is true that the upper cla.s.ses in j.a.pan are beginning to take a wider view of such matters. Women of wealthy families are well educated, wear Western dress, and copy Western manners. They sit at table with their husbands, enter a room or a carriage before them, and are treated as English women are treated by English men.

But in the middle and lower cla.s.ses the old state of affairs still remains: the woman is a servant pure and simple. It is said that even among the greatest families the old customs are still observed in private. The great lady who is treated in her Western dress just as her Western sister is treated takes pride in waiting on her husband when they return to kimono and obi, just as her grandmother did.

The importance of the male in j.a.pan arises from the religious customs of the country. The chief of the latter is ancestor-worship. The ancestors of a family form its household G.o.ds; but only the male ancestors are worshipped: no offerings are ever laid on the shelf of the household G.o.ds before an ancestress. Property, too, pa.s.ses chiefly in the male line, and every j.a.panese father is eager to have a son who shall continue the worship of his ancestors, and to whom his property may descend.

Thus, the birth of a son is received with great joy in a j.a.panese household; though, on the other hand, we must not think that a girl is ill-treated, or even destroyed, as sometimes happens in China. Not at all; she is loved and petted just as much as her brother, but she is not regarded as so important to the family line.

At the age of three the j.a.panese boy is taken to the temple to give thanks to the G.o.ds. Again, at the age of five, he goes to the temple, once more to return thanks. Now he is wearing the hakama, the manly garment, and begins to feel himself quite a man. From this age onwards the j.a.panese boy among the wealthier cla.s.ses is kept busily at work in school until he is ready to go to the University, but among the poorer cla.s.ses he often begins to work for his living.

The clever work executed by most tiny children is a matter of wonder and surprise to all European travellers. Little boys are found binding books, making paper lanterns and painting them, making porcelain cups, winding gra.s.s ropes which are hung along the house-fronts for the first week of the year to prevent evil spirits from entering, weaving mats to spread over the floors, and at a hundred other occupations. It is very amusing to watch the practice of the little boys who are going to be dentists. In j.a.pan the dentist of the people fetches out an aching tooth with thumb and finger, and will pluck it out as surely as any tool can do the work, so his pupils learn their trade by trying to pull nails out of a board. They begin with tin-tacks, and go on until they can, with thumb and finger, pluck out a nail firmly driven into the wood.