The Gist of Japan Part 6

The average j.a.panese train has three cla.s.ses of coaches. The first cla.s.s corresponds to the ordinary first-cla.s.s day-coach at home; second cla.s.s corresponds to our smoking-cars; while third cla.s.s is poorer still. The fares are just about one half what they are in America, and one can travel in first-cla.s.s style for a cent and a half per mile.

Third-cla.s.s fare is only a little over half a cent, and most of the people travel in this cla.s.s. The trains do not have the conveniences to which my readers are accustomed. There are no sleeping- and dining-cars, no provision for heating in winter, and no water. The average running speed is about 20 miles per hour--a rate which would not at all suffice for the high-tensioned, nervous, always-in-a-hurry civilization of the West, but which meets all the demands of the slower, quieter life of the East. Running at this rate, accidents are comparatively rare, and the trains easily make their scheduled time.

There is one main trunk-line running throughout the length of the land, besides numerous shorter lines. All of the more prominent towns and cities are connected by rail. At present a railroad-construction craze has seized j.a.pan. Many are being constructed, others are being surveyed, and the papers daily contain accounts of new ones projected.

So far, j.a.panese railway stocks have yielded good dividends. That the {99} more important lines are owned and operated by the government is not the result of any political or economic theory, but simply because at first private individuals had neither the means nor the energy to inaugurate such huge and hitherto untried enterprises. Many of the smaller roads are now owned and controlled by private corporations, and most of those in process of construction are private enterprises. Some months ago a private corporation made a proposition to the government to buy its main railway, but the offer was rejected.

STEAMERS.--Steamboat service in j.a.pan is good. As the country is only a range of islands, the largest of which are very narrow, and as all the more important towns are on the sea-coast or only a short distance inland, it is possible to go nearly everywhere by boat. Travel by water is very popular. There are fairly good steamers plying daily between the most important ports, but foreigners generally prefer to travel only on those officered by Europeans or Americans. There are a number of native steamers, comfortable and speedy, which are officered by foreigners, and differ but little from the trans.p.a.cific liners.

These were nearly all built in England, but in recent years they are building very good ones in j.a.pan. The facilities for travel in this empire leave little to be desired.

TELEGRAPHS.--The j.a.panese telegraph {100} system is excellent. It extends to all towns of any size in the empire, and by cable to all parts of the world. From the old city of Saga, in which I live, I can send a cablegram to any point in Europe or America. A telegraph code on the basis of the Morse code has been made in j.a.pan, which admits of internal telegrams being transmitted in the native syllabary. In this respect the j.a.panese system is unique among Eastern countries. For instance, in India or China telegrams can be transmitted only in Roman letters or Arabic figures. By the formation of a vernacular code the telegraph was brought within the reach of the ma.s.ses of the people, and it soon became familiar and popular.

The tariff for messages is perhaps lower than any other in the world.

A message of ten kana, equaling about five English words, together with name and address of sender and receiver, can be sent to any part of the empire for eight or nine cents. Telegrams in foreign languages are sent within the empire for five sen per word, with a minimum charge of twenty-five sen for five words or a fraction thereof. No charge is made for delivery within a radius of 2- miles of the telegraph office.

There are no private telegraph corporations. The government builds, owns, and operates the lines just as it does the mails. The postal and {101} telegraph systems are intimately connected, and the same office does service for both.

The first telegraph line in j.a.pan was opened in 1869. The venture proving a success, the following year the line was extended and a general telegraphic system for the whole country decided upon. The rapid construction of telegraph lines began in 1872, from which year it has gone forward uninterruptedly. At present the lines extend to every corner of the empire. The first lines were surveyed, built, and operated under foreign experts; but the natives have learned so rapidly that they have been enabled to do away with all foreign employees. All of the materials and instruments in use, with the exception of submarine cables and the most delicate electrical measuring apparatus, are made in j.a.pan.

MAILS.--The j.a.panese mail system was modeled after the American in 1871. At first it was limited to postal service between the three large cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka; but in 1872 it was extended to the whole country, with the exception of a certain part of the Hokkaido, which was without roads and almost without population.

To-day there is no village or hamlet in the whole land which does not enjoy the convenience of a good postal system. The mails are sent with promptness and despatch, and it requires only a few days to communicate with any part of the {102} empire. The postal rates are very low.

Postal cards cost one sen and letters two sen--about five eighths and one and two eighths of a cent, respectively.

All mail is delivered free of charge. Not only is this so in the cities and larger towns, but in the villages and rural districts as well. There is no place where the dapper little postman does not go.

Another convenience of the mail system is its excellent parcel-post department. Very large parcels, containing almost anything, can be sent for a small charge. Still another praiseworthy feature is that each office is a savings-bank, where the people can deposit small sums of money at any time and receive a good rate of interest. This money can be withdrawn without previous notice. The government has established these savings-banks in connection with the post-offices to encourage the people to lay up small sums of money, and they accomplish their purpose well.

j.a.pan was admitted into the International Postal Union in 1879, with full management of all her postal affairs. As all her rates are now based on a silver standard, postage to foreign countries is much cheaper than from them to j.a.pan. To the United States or to China we pay five sen (about two and a half cents) per letter; to all other countries within the Postal Union ten sen per letter.

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LIGHTS.--The system of lighting is an index of the civilization of a country. In this respect j.a.pan is not yet so far advanced as the leading countries of the West, yet she is well lighted. In all the large cities there are good electric plants, and electricity is extensively used. The streets and many of the best stores and shops are very well lighted with it. However, electric lights are seldom found in interior cities of less than 40,000 people. I think electricity is too costly to come into general use, except in the centers. Illuminating gas is very little used.

The only oil used in former times was extracted from whales and large fish, and chiefly from the seed of a certain tree. Since the opening of the country, kerosene has come into general use, immense quant.i.ties being imported from the United States and from Russia. Oil has been found in several places in j.a.pan, but as yet has never been developed.

BANKING.--One of the most useful products of the introduction of our modern civilization is the present system of banking. This system will compare favorably with those of the West. There are a number of national banks distributed over all the land, together with many substantial private banking corporations. All forms of banking business are transacted, and good interest is given on deposits. The great {104} popularity of the banks is shown by the fact that to-day in Tokyo, only eight years after bank-checks have come into use, the amount annually drawn exceeds $100,000,000.

Having taken this rapid view of j.a.panese civilization, we are in a position to judge as to whether or not this is a civilized land; and we answer that it is. But although modeled after that of the West, it in many respects differs from Western civilization. j.a.pan has shown herself capable of doing great things, but she does not do them in the same way that they are done in Europe or America. For example, consider her manufactories, which now threaten to compete with those of our own country. In America manufactories mean enormous capital invested. Costly factories must be erected, the most approved machinery provided, and the completed plant operated at great expense.

Here almost no capital is used. The buildings are low, one-story sheds, not more costly than a row of stables at home. It is true that j.a.pan has a few large, substantial buildings for manufacturing purposes; but such are rare, and, when found, look out of harmony with their surroundings. Even nature seems to protest against huge piles of brick and stone, as she so frequently demolishes them. Most of the wares of j.a.pan are manufactured in small, cheap buildings, and little machinery is used. The best silk {105} made is woven in a house that cost scarcely $500. The best cloisonne, of which only a small piece a few inches high will cost hundreds of dollars, is made in a little, two-story house with only six rooms. Some of the greatest porcelain-makers in the world, whose products are better known in London and Paris than in their own country, do their work in small wooden houses in Kyoto, no better than the homes of the American laborer. "The vast rice crop is raised on millions of tiny farms; the silk crop in millions of small, poor homes; the tea crop on countless little patches of soil. j.a.pan has become industrial without becoming essentially mechanical and artificial."[3] On this small scale the great work of j.a.pan is done. j.a.panese civilization, in its parts, is miniature.

[3] Lafcadio Hearn.

When compared with the civilization of the West, it is unstable; in fact stability is almost unknown. The land itself is a land of change.

The outlines of the coasts, the courses of the rivers, the form of the mountains, by the combined action of volcanoes, earthquakes, winds, and waves, are constantly changing.

The people themselves are continually drifting about from place to place, changing their residence with the seasons. It has been said that no people in the world are so migratory. {106} Preparation can be made in a few hours for the longest journey, and all the necessary baggage wrapped up in a handkerchief. j.a.panese life is in a constant state of fluidity.

The average house, likewise, seems built but for a day. The walls, the roof, the floors, are made of the lightest materials, and apparently there is no thought of permanence.

We of the West are wont to think that no real progress can be made without stability, but j.a.pan has proved the contrary. A uniformly mobile race is, correspondingly, uniformly impressionable. The fluid ma.s.s of the j.a.panese people submits itself to the hands of its rulers as readily as the clay to the hands of the potter, and thus it moves with system and order toward great ends. It is thus that j.a.panese civilization is strong.

When compared with Western civilization, that of j.a.pan is seen to be less organized and developed, less hasty and feverish in its movements, It does not impress one so much with its hugeness and ponderosity. It is lighter, brighter, quieter, more soothing. It is the civilization of the West robbed of its immensity and seriousness, and reflecting the national characteristics of these light-hearted sons of the East.

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VI

j.a.pANESE MORALITY

j.a.panese morality has been much written about by men of the West, and many dogmatic judgments have been p.r.o.nounced upon it. At one extreme, we have been told that "they are the most immoral people on the face of the earth"; at the other, we are told that in morality "they have nothing to learn from the people of Christendom." There is about as much--or rather as little--truth in the one statement as in the other.

The fact is that it is necessary to have an experimental acquaintance with j.a.pan before one can really understand or appreciate the moral condition of her people. The moral ideas and teachings to which they have been accustomed from childhood are so different from our own that they could not be expected to approximate to our standards. Judged by the ideas of the West, they are lacking in morality; but from {108} their own standpoint they are a moral people. While we cannot accept theirs as the true standard, it is but fair that, in judging them, we keep this in view.

Before the introduction of Chinese ethics there was no such thing as a moral code. The original native religion, Shinto, taught no doctrines of morality, as we understand them. According to it, to obey implicitly the mikado was the whole duty of man. As for the rest, if a j.a.panese obeyed the natural impulses of his own heart he would be sure to do right. Modern Shinto writers, in all seriousness, account for this absence of a moral code by stating that originally j.a.panese nature was pure, clean, and sinless, possessing no tendency to evil or wrong.

Barbarians, like the Chinese and Americans, being by nature immoral, were forced to invent a moral code to control their actions; but in j.a.pan this was not necessary, as every j.a.panese acted aright if he only consulted his own heart. They explain the need for the present moral laws--a need which they acknowledge--by the fact of a.s.sociation with outside nations. Immorality and dissoluteness were introduced by the Chinese and Western peoples, to counteract the evil influence of which they now have the shameful spectacle of a moral law even among the children of the "heaven-descended mikado." So much for the teaching of Shinto in {109} regard to morality. It would be exasperating were it not ludicrous.

Confucius is the master of j.a.panese morality. His teachings were introduced into j.a.pan early in the Christian era, but they became predominant only in the time of Iyeyasu, in the seventeenth century.

This great statesman, warrior, and patron of learning caused the Chinese cla.s.sics to be printed in j.a.pan for the first time; and from that day to this the morality of j.a.pan has been dominated by Confucian ideas.

In order to understand j.a.panese morality, it is necessary for us to shift our moral base and try to look at the subject through j.a.panese eyes. The average native of the West thinks of "morality" as something belonging to the individual. Even in religion his first thought is to save his own soul. The value of the soul, its immortality, its immediate relation to the infinite and eternal Father--these have been emphasized ever since the first establishment of the church. In consequence, there is a duty which man owes to himself. He may not disregard it even at the command of father or king. Within the soul is the holiest of all, for there is heard in conscience the voice of G.o.d himself. No external authority may be supreme, and at no external voice may one violate his own convictions of truth.

This thought exalts the individual, and, {110} therefore, sins which degrade our own personality become most repulsive. Thus, among high-minded men truth is almost first among the virtues, and an accusation of falsehood the most hateful of insults. For truth seems peculiarly personal and spiritual, as if belonging to the very sanctuary of one's nature. And in like manner, among women, in popular esteem chast.i.ty is of the essence of morality, as its violation seems to contaminate and debase her holiest self.

Now the Confucian ethics rest upon a quite different principle, and in this are at one with the ancient teaching of the Greeks and Romans.

The supreme duty is not to the self, but to the organization of which one is but a part--that is, to the family or to the state. The great Chinese moralists were statesmen, and their chief concern was, not the salvation of the individual, but the peace and prosperity of the state.

In their view, the family was the unit, and the state a greater family.

So the conflict of duties, in their questions of casuistry, is never between individual and social duties, but between duties owed to family and to state. Loyalty to the state and obedience to parents must be supreme; but China and j.a.pan differ as to the value of these two.

According to original Confucianism, the first duty of men is obedience to parents; the second, loyalty to rulers; but in j.a.pan the order of these {111} duties has been changed, the second being given first place.

The people have learned well this teaching of Confucius. j.a.pan was prepared soil for its sowing. The native religion taught that the emperor was a direct descendant of heaven, who ruled by divine right; the provincial lords were his ministers, and hence loyalty was a plain duty. The Confucian teaching only strengthened, deepened, and gave form and outline to a sentiment already existing. This principle of loyalty thus became the foundation stone of j.a.panese ethics, and one's duty to one's lord paramount to all other duties.

In the olden times the people did not look beyond their own feudal lords and clans to the emperor and the nation. They were to be faithful unto death to these, but no further. Now that loyalty once shown to the local princes and clans finds its apotheosis in the emperor and the empire.

A man's duty to his friends, to his wife and children, and even to his parents, is counted as nothing in comparison with his duty to rulers and country. There are many instances in j.a.panese history of men who, having slain their own parents, children, wives, for the sake of their prince, were praised. At the time of the recent tidal wave in northern j.a.pan, when the waters were rushing furiously into one home, a husband and {112} father turned a deaf ear to the cries of his drowning wife and children, permitting them to perish that he might save the emperor's picture; and he was applauded for the act. A fire recently demolished the beautiful new buildings of the middle school in Saga.

The library, laboratories, and scientific apparatus were mostly destroyed, and many of the students lost their clothing and books. The loss in buildings alone was some $20,000. Yet the thing the loss of which they lamented most deeply was a photograph of the emperor which could easily be replaced for a few yen.

A characteristic story, showing the devotion with which the old samurai carried out this principle of loyalty, is the tale of the forty-seven ronins. It is rather long to insert here, but as it ill.u.s.trates so well the power of this principle, I will relate it.

In the year 1701 the lord of Ako, Asano by name, visited Yedo to pay his respects to the shogun. While there the shogun appointed him to receive and entertain an envoy from the mikado. Now, the reception of an envoy from the imperial court was one of the greatest state ceremonies of the day, and as Asano knew little of ceremonies and etiquette, he asked the advice of another n.o.bleman, named Kira, who was expert in such matters. This man, who seems to have {113} been of a very mean disposition, grudgingly gave the information desired, and then asked a fee for the same. Asano refused to give the fee, and Kira, becoming angry, twitted and jeered at him, calling him a country lout, unworthy the name of daimio. Asano endured the insults patiently until Kira peremptorily ordered him to stoop down and fasten his foot-gear for him,--a most menial service,--when he drew his sword and gave the offender a deep cut across the face. This quarrel took place in the precincts of the palace, and instantly the whole court was in an uproar. To degrade the sacred place was an insult punishable with death and the confiscation of all property; and Asano was condemned to take his own life by hara-kiri that same evening, his estates were confiscated, his family declared extinct, and his clan disbanded.

Henceforth his retainers became ronins ("wandering men"), with no country and no lord. According to the ethics of their country, it was their bounden duty to avenge the death of their lord, and we shall see how relentlessly they followed their purpose until it was accomplished.

The senior retainer of the dead Asano, Oishu Kuranosuke, together with forty-six others of his most trusty fellow-lieges, took counsel as to how they might avenge their lord. They all were willing to lay down their lives in the attempt, but {114} even then the task was difficult, because of the vigilance of the government. For such vengeance was rigidly prohibited by law, although as rigidly required by custom.

Notwithstanding the fact that all who slew an enemy for vengeance were punished by death, not to take such vengeance never entered the mind of any chivalrous j.a.panese. After much planning the forty-seven ronins decided that to avoid the suspicions of the government it would be necessary for them to separate and for the time conceal their purpose.

So they separated, settling in different cities, and taking up various occupations. Many of them became carpenters, smiths, and merchants, and in these capacities gained access to Kira's house and learned all about its interior arrangements. The leader of this faithful band, Oishu, went to Kyoto and plunged into a life of drunkenness and debauchery. He even put away his wife and children, and led the most dissolute life possible, simply to throw off the suspicions of the authorities. All of the ronins were closely watched by spies, who secretly reported their conduct to Kira. But by these devices they finally lulled all suspicion, and the vigilance ceased. Then the day long waited for had come. Suddenly, on the night of January 30, 1703, two years after the death of their lord, in the midst of a violent snowstorm, these forty-seven faithful men attacked {115} Kira's castle, forced the gate, and slew all the retainers. Kira, who was a coward at heart, concealed himself in an outhouse. The ronins found him there, drew him forth, and requested him to kill himself by hara-kiri, as was the privilege of a man of his rank. But he refused out of fear, and the retainers of Asano were forced to kill him as they would have killed a common coolie. Thus did they accomplish their purpose and fulfil the high duty of loyalty to their dead lord, after two years of waiting, most careful planning, and ceaseless vigilance.

By the time their purpose was accomplished day had dawned, and, in plain view of the whole city, this brave band marched in order to the temple of Sengakuji, where Asano was buried. The citizens showed them every honor on the way. A wealthy n.o.bleman, as a reward for their loyal deed, sent them out costly refreshments. When they arrived at the temple the head abbot received them in person and showed them every honor. Finding the grave of their dead lord, they laid thereon the head of the enemy by whom he had been so deeply wronged, and then felt that their duty was done. They were all sentenced to commit hara-kiri, which they did willingly. Afterward they were buried together in the same temple grounds with their lord, where their graves can be seen to this day.