The Foundations of Japan Part 29

[189] _Satsuma-imo_ is sweet potato. Our potato is called _jaga-imo_ or _bareisho_. _Imo_ is the general name.

[190] See Appendix LII.

[191] The Salt Monopoly profits are estimated at 314,204 yen for 1920-21.

CHAPTER XXIX

FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN

(SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)

Those who suffer learn, those who love know.--MRS. HAVELOCK ELLIS

At Matsue, with which the name of Lafcadio Hearn will always be a.s.sociated, I chanced to arrive on the anniversary of his death. His local admirers were holding a memorial meeting. As a foreigner I was honoured with a request to attend. First, however, I had the chance of visiting Hearn's house. Matsue was the first place at which Hearn lived. He always remembered it and at last came back there to marry.

Except that a pond has been filled up--no doubt to reduce the number of mosquitoes--the garden of his house is little changed.

The most interesting feature of the meeting was old pupils' grateful recollections of Hearn, the middle-school teacher. The gathering was held in a room belonging to the town library in the prefectural grounds, but neither the Governor nor the mayor was present. A sympathetic speech was made by a chance visitor to the town, the secretary-general to the House of Peers. He recalled the antagonism which the young men at Tokyo University, himself among them, felt towards the odd figure of Hearn--he had a terribly strained eye and wore a monocle--when he became a professor, and how very soon he gained the confidence and regard of the cla.s.s.

I had often wondered that there was no j.a.panese memorial to Hearn, and when I rose to speak I said so. I added that it was rare to meet a j.a.panese who had any understanding of how much Hearn had done in forming the conception of j.a.pan possessed by thousands of Europeans and Americans. The fault in so many books about j.a.pan, I went on, was not that their "facts" were wrong. What was wrong was their authors'

att.i.tude of mind. I had heard j.a.panese say that Hearn was "too poetical" and that some of his inferences were "inaccurate." That was as might be. What mattered was that the mental att.i.tude of Hearn was so largely right. He did not approach j.a.pan as a mere "fact" collector or as a superior person. What he brought to the country was the humble, studious, imaginative, sympathetic att.i.tude; and it was only by men and women of his rare type that peoples were interpreted one to the other.

In that free-and-easy way in which meetings are conducted in j.a.pan it was permissible for us to leave after another speech had been made.

The proceedings were interrupted while the promoters of the gathering showed us a collection of books and memorials of Hearn, arranged under a large portrait, and accompanied us to the door of the hall. I do not recall during the time I was in j.a.pan any other public gathering in honour of Hearn, and I met several prominent men who had either never heard his name or knew nothing of the far-reaching influence of his books. But some months after this Matsue meeting there was included among the Coronation honours a posthumous distinction for Hearn--"fourth rank of the junior grade."[192]

During this journey I attended a dinner of officials and leading agriculturists and had the odd sensation of making a short after-dinner speech on my knees. At such a dinner the guests kneel on cushions ranged round the four walls of the room, and each man has a low lacquer table to himself, and a geisha to wait on him. When the geisha is not bringing in new dishes or replenishing the _sake_ bottle, she kneels before the table and chatters entertainingly. The governors of the feast visit the guests of honour and drink with them.

In the same way a guest drinks with his neighbour and with his attendant geisha. I have a vivid memory of a grave and elderly dignitary who at the merry stage of such a function capered the whole length of the room with his kneeling-cushion balanced on the top of his head. There is a growing temperance movement in j.a.pan but a teetotaller is still something of an oddity. My abstinence from _sake_ was frequently supposed to be the result of a vow.

Although the average geisha may be inane in her patter and have little more than conventional grace and charm, I have been waited on by girls who added real mental celerity, wit and a power of skilful mimicry to that elusive and seductive quality that accounts for the impregnable position of their cla.s.s. At one dinner impersonations in both the comic and the tragic vein were given by a girl of unmistakable genius.

Frequently a plain, elderly geisha will display unsuspected mimetic ability. Alas, behind the merry laugh and sprightliness of the girls who adorn a feast lurks a skeleton. One is haunted by thoughts of the future of a large proportion of these b.u.t.terflies. No doubt most foreigners generalise too freely in identifying the professions of geisha and _joro_. In the present organisation of society some geisha play a legitimate role. They gain in the career for which they have laboriously trained an outlet for the expression of artistic and social gifts which would have been denied them in domestic life. At the same time the degrading character of the life led by many geisha cannot be doubted. Apart from every other consideration the temptation to drink is great. The opening of new avenues to feminine ability, the enlarged opportunities of education and self-respect and the increasing opening for women on the stage--from which women have been excluded hitherto--must have their effect in turning the minds of girls of wit and originality to other means of earning a living than the morally and physically hazardous profession of the geisha.

When we left Matsue by steamer on our way to Tottori prefecture I saw middle-school eights at practice. An agriculturist told me of the custom of giving holidays to oxen and horses. The villagers carefully brush their animals, decorate them and lead them to pastures where, tethered to rings attached to a long rope, "they may graze together pleasantly." One of the islands we visited bore the name of the giant radish, Daikon, which is itself a corruption of the word for octopus.

The island devoted itself mainly to the growing of peonies and ginseng. The ginseng is largely exported to China and Korea, but there is a certain consumption in j.a.pan. Ginseng is sometimes chewed, but is generally soaked, the liquid being drunk. Ginseng is popularly supposed to be an invigorant, and j.a.panese doctors in Korea have lately declared that it has some value. The root is costly, hence the proverb about eating ginseng and hanging oneself, i.e. getting into debt.

In walking across the island I pa.s.sed a forlorn little shrine. It was merely a rough shed with a wide shelf at the back, on which stood a row of worn and dusty figures, decked with the clothes of children whose recovery was supposed to have been due to their influence. It was raining and the shelter was full of children playing in the company of an old crone with a baby on her back. Further on in the village I came across a new public bath. The price of admission was one sen, children half price.

A small port was pointed out to me as being open to foreign trade.

Everybody is not aware that in j.a.pan there is a restriction upon foreign shipping except at sixty specified places.[193] The reason given for the restriction is the unprofitableness of custom houses at small places. One day, perhaps, the world will wake up to the inconvenience and financial burden imposed by the custom-house system of raising revenue.

We stayed the night at a little place at the eastern extremity of the Shimane promontory where there is a shrine and no cultivation of any sort is allowed "for fear of defilement." Waste products are taken away by boat. I marked a contrast between theoretical and practical holiness. Our inn overlooked a special landing-place where, because a "sacred boat" from the shrine is launched there, a notice had been put up forbidding the throwing of rubbish into the sea. A few minutes after the board had been pointed out to me I saw an old man cast a considerable ma.s.s of rubbish into the water not six feet away from it.

When we visited the shrine three pilgrims were at their devotions. The next morning when our steamer left and the chief priest of the shrine was bidding us adieu my attention was attracted by loud conversation in the second storey of an inn, the _shoji_ of which were open. Our pilgrims, two of whom were bald, had spent the night at an inn of bad character and were now in the company of prost.i.tutes in the sight of all men. One pilgrim had a girl on his knee, another was himself on a girl's knee and a third had his arm round a girl's neck. In this "sacred" place of 2,000 inhabitants there were forty "double license"

girls, five being natives. A few years ago all the girls were natives.

A "double license" girl means one who is licensed both as a geisha and a prost.i.tute. The plan of issuing "double licenses" is adopted at Kyoto and elsewhere. As to the pilgrims to whom I have referred, someone quoted to me the saying, "It is only half a pilgrimage going to the shrine without seeing the girls."

Returning to the custom of launching a sacred boat it is not without significance that many j.a.panese deities have some connection with the sea. Even in the case of the deities of shrines a long way from the sea the ceremony of "going down to the sea" is sometimes observed.

Sand and sea water are sent for in order to be mixed with the water used to cleanse the car in which the figure of the deity is drawn through the streets.

The social and financial position of tenants was ill.u.s.trated by an incident at an inn. As the maid came from the country I asked her if her father were a tenant or an owner. My companion interrupted to tell me that the question was not judiciously framed because the girl would "think it a disgrace to own that her father was a tenant." The name of a tenant used long ago to be "water drinker." This waiting-maid was a good-looking and rather clever girl. I was dismayed when my friend told me that she had said to him quite simply that she had thoughts of becoming a _joro_. She thought it would be a "more interesting life."

When we reached Tottori prefecture we found ourselves in a country which grows more cotton than any other. j.a.panese cotton (grown on about 400 _cho_) is unsuitable for manufacture into thread, but because of its elasticity is considered to be valuable for the padding of winter clothing and for _futon_ and _zabuton_. Their softness is maintained by daily sunning.

At a county office I noted that the persons who were receiving relief were cla.s.sified as follows: Illness, 26; cripples, 17; old age, 16; schoolboys, 12; infancy, 1.

In the course of our journey a Shinto priest was pointed out to me as observing the priestly taboo by refusing tea and cake. I noticed, however, that he smoked. I was told that when he was in Tokyo he purified himself in the sea even in midwinter. I did not like his appearance. Nor for the matter of that was I impressed by the countenances of some Buddhist priests I encountered in the train from time to time. "Thinking always of money," someone said. But every now and again I saw fine priestly faces.

I have noted down very little in regard to the crops and the countryside in Tottori. Things seemed very much the same as I had seen in Shimane. At an agricultural show in the city of Tottori the varieties of yam and taro were so numerous as to deceive the average Westerner into believing that he was seeing the roots of different kinds of plants. A feature of the show was a large realistic model of a rice field with two life-size figures.

In the evening I talked with two distinguished men until a late hour.

"We are not a metaphysical people," one of them said. "Nor were our forefathers as religious as some students may suppose. Those who went before us gave to the Buddhist shrine and even worshipped there, but their daily life and their religion had no close connection. We did not define religion closely. Religion has phases according to the degree of public instruction. Our religion has had more to do with propitiation and good fortune than with morality. If you had come here a century ago you would have been unable to find even then religion after another pattern. If it be said that a man must be religious in order to be good the person who says so does not look about him. I am not afraid to say that our people are good as a result of long training in good behaviour. Their good character is due to the same causes as the freedom from rowdiness which may be marked in our crowds."

"What is wanted in the villages," said the other personage, "is one good personality in each." I said that the young men's a.s.sociation seemed to me to be often a dull thing, chiefly indeed a mechanism by means of which serious persons in a village got the young men to work overtime. "Yes," was the response, "the old men make the young fellows work."

The first speaker said that there had been three watchwords for the rural districts. "There was Industrialisation and Increase of Production. There was Public Spirit and Public Welfare. There was The Shinto Shrine the Centre of the Village. We have a certain conception of a model village, but perhaps some hypocrisy may mingle with it.

They say that the village with well-kept Buddhist and Shinto shrines is generally a good village."

"In other words," I ventured, "the village where there is some non-material feeling."

The rejoinder was: "Western religion is too high, and, I fear, inapplicable to our life. It may be that we are too easily contented.

But there are nearly 60 millions of us. I do not know that we feel a need or have a vacant place for religion. There is certainly not much hope for an increase of the influence of Buddhism."

As we went along in the train I was told that on a sixth of the rice area in Tottori there had been a loss of 70 per cent. by wind. When a man's harvest loss exceeds this percentage he is not liable for rates and taxes. A pa.s.senger told me about "nursery pasture." This is a patch of gra.s.s in the hills to which a farmer sends his ox to be pastured in common with the oxen of other farmers under the care of a single herdsman. It is from cattle keeping on this modest scale that the present beef requirements of the country are largely met.[194]

Although the opinions expressed to me by Governors of prefectures have been frequently recorded in these pages, I have not felt at liberty to identify more than one of the Excellencies who were good enough to express their views to me. A friend who knew many Governors offered me the following criticism, which I thought just: "They are too practical and too much absorbed in administration to be able to think. Often they read very little after leaving the university. They have seldom anything to tell you about other than ordinary things, and they seldom show their hearts. You cannot learn much from Governors who have nothing original to say or are fearful or live in their frock coats or do not mean to show half their minds or are practising the old official trick of talking round and round and always evading the point. One fault of Governors is that they are being continually transferred from prefecture to prefecture. You have no doubt yourself noticed how often Governors were new to their prefectures. But with all the faults that our Governors have, there are not a few able, good and kind men among them and they are not recruited from Parliament but must be members of the Civil Service. One of the most common words in our political life is _gens.h.i.tsu_, 'responsibility for one's own words.' If Governors fear to a.s.sume the responsibility of their own views they are only of a part with a great deal of the official world."

We turned away from the northern sea coast and struck south in order to cross j.a.pan to the Inland Sea en route for Kobe and Tokyo.

As we came through Hyogo prefecture my companion pointed to hill after hill which had been afforested since his youth. One of the things which interested me was the number and the tameness of the kites which were catching frogs in the paddies.

Before I left Hyogo I had the advantage of a chat with one who for many years past had thought about the rural situation in j.a.pan generally. He spoke of "the late Professor King's idealising of the j.a.panese farmer's condition." He went on: "While King laid stress on the ability to be self-supporting on a small area he ignored the extent to which many rural people are underfed. The change in the Meiji era has been a gradual transference from ownership to tenancy.

Many so-called representative farmers have been able to add field to field until they have secured a substantial property and have ceased to be farmers. An extension of tenancy is to be deplored, not only because it takes away from the farmer a feeling of independence and of incentive, but because it creates a parasitic cla.s.s which in j.a.pan is perhaps even more parasitic than in the West. A landowner in the West almost invariably realises that he has certain duties. In j.a.pan a landowner's duties to his neighbourhood and to the State are often imperfectly understood.

"On the other hand the position of the farmer has been very much improved socially. A great deal of pity bestowed by the casual foreign visitor is wasted. The farmer is accustomed to extremes of heat and cold and to a bare living and poor shelter. And after all there is a great deal of happiness in the villages. It is hardly possible to take a day's _kuruma_ ride without coming on a festival somewhere, and drunkenness has undoubtedly diminished."

I spoke with an old resident about the agricultural advance in the prefecture. "In fifteen years," he said, "our agricultural production has doubled. As to the non-material condition of the people, generally speaking the villagers are very shallow in their religion. Not so long ago officials used to laugh at religion, but I don't know that some of them are not now changing their point of view. Some of us have thought that, just as we made a j.a.panese Buddhism, we might make a j.a.panese Christianity which would not conflict with our ideas."

FOOTNOTES:

[192] This is, I am officially informed, the highest rank ever bestowed on a foreigner; but then Hearn was naturalised. In 1921 an appreciation of "Koizumi Yak.u.mo" was included by the Department of Education in a middle-school textbook. Curiously enough, the fact that Hearn married a j.a.panese is overlooked. Owing to the fact that Hearn bought land in Tokyo which has appreciated in value his family is in comfortable circ.u.mstances.

[193] Coastwise traffic is also forbidden to foreign vessels, as is traffic between France and Algeria to other than French vessels.

[194] See Appendix LIII.