The Spell of Japan Part 8

j.a.pan has more than seventy cotton mills in operation, and can manufacture cloth as cheaply as any of its rivals. The home demand is large, since the lower cla.s.ses wear only cotton the year round. Cotton towels, printed in blue and white, have become so popular in America during the last year or two that the export trade in them has increased enormously.

Four years ago a boy of eighteen, Torakichi Inouye, succeeded to the hereditary management of a large towel firm in Tokyo. He realized that foreigners seemed much attracted by the pretty designs, and were buying them in surprising quant.i.ties at the shops where they were for sale. So he began trying them on the American markets, with the success that we have seen. To-day his factory is making two hundred thousand towels a day, and in ten months shipped over 175,000,000 pieces. He originated the idea of printing designs that could be combined into table-covers, bedspreads, etc. The patterns for the towels are cut in paper, like a stencil, and are folded in between many alternate layers of the cloth.

The indigo-blue dye is then forced through by means of an air-pump.

Instead of importing all their machinery, as formerly, the j.a.panese are now beginning to manufacture it for themselves. They get the foreigners to come and teach them how to build steamships and locomotives, and as soon as they have learned whatever they wish to know they put their own countrymen in charge of the work. Although at one time there were many foreign engineers in different parts of the Empire, every year finds fewer of them filling important positions. This is true in every branch of industry.

Inventive genius is being cultivated, too, for clever people are not content simply to imitate. A system of wireless quite different from that generally in use is said to have been perfected for the navy.

Wireless telephones are used over short distances, and are being rapidly improved and extended. Quite an advance has been made this last year in aviation also. Experts in both army and navy are making good records.

In spite of many difficulties several thousand miles of railway have been built during the last forty years. Engineers often find it necessary not only to tunnel through mountains, but under rivers the beds of which are shifting. To make matters even more interesting, there are typhoons, earthquakes, and torrents of rain which end in floods.

Notwithstanding the cost of building and maintaining the roads under such conditions, railway travel is cheaper than with us or in Europe.

First cla.s.s costs less than third in an English train.

For the wherewithal to feed her people, j.a.pan depends largely upon her native farmers. In spite of their poverty these are of a higher cla.s.s socially than in most Western countries. The _samurai_ and _daimyo_ made much of agriculture, ranking it above trade. The Government to-day continues to do all that it can to aid and encourage farming. Experiment stations have been established, and various cooperative societies formed for the use of the farmers, who also have a special bank of their own.

Prices are rising, and, on the whole, the prospects are good, although the nature of the land is against any great advance. The surface of the country is so mountainous that only about one-seventh can be cultivated, and that is not especially fertile. Sixty per cent. of the population is agricultural.

Each man owns his own little farm, which he tills in primitive fashion, growing rice, wheat, or beans, according to the soil or season. Almost no livestock is kept, and pastures are rarely seen. An average farm, supporting a family of six, has about three and a half acres.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RICE FIELD.]

The soya bean, which is much grown, really furnishes an industry in itself. It has many uses. _Soy_, the national sauce, is made from it, and also bean cheese. Recently an English chemist has discovered a method of producing artificial milk from it. Its oil is extracted and sold to foreign markets, rivalling the cottonseed oil, which is better known. The pulp remaining is used as fodder and fertilizer.

Rice is the favourite crop and is of such good quality that much of it is exported to India, whence a cheaper grade is imported in return for the use of the poorer cla.s.ses. Instead of forming the national diet, as we are inclined to suppose, rice is really such a luxury that many people never eat it except in sickness or on feast-days.

For all the j.a.panese farmer is so independent, he is often miserably poor. An acre of rice may in good years produce an annual profit of a dollar and a half, but there is quite likely to be a deficit instead.

When one considers that it takes the labour of seventeen men and nine women to cultivate two and a half acres of rice, this is not surprising.

Vegetables do better than grain, and mulberry plantations for the raising of silkworms do best of all, but it has been figured that a hard-working man, with very likely a large family to support, does well if he clears a hundred and twenty dollars in the course of a year. As a result of this, most of the peasantry are in debt, and many of them are leaving their farms and going to the city, as they are doing in our own country.

Really more important than rice, of which we hear so much, is the sweet potato, of which we hear so little. The first one reached j.a.pan some two hundred years ago as the gift of the King of the Loochoo Islands to the Lord of Satsuma. The latter prince was so pleased with the taste of it that he asked for seed-potatoes, and before long the Government commanded that the new vegetable should be grown throughout the country, since it could be raised even in famine years, when other crops failed.

In Tokyo there are over a thousand sweet-potato shops, where one buys them halved or sliced or whole, all hot and nicely roasted, serving in cold weather to warm one's hands before delighting the inner man--or rather, child--for they are a delicacy much prized by children. There is no waste in their preparation, for not only are the peelings sold for horse-fodder, but the ashes in which they are roasted are used again around the charcoal in the _hibachi_!

The silkworm was introduced into j.a.pan by a Chinese prince in 195 A. D., and a century later Chinese immigrants taught the people how to weave the new thread. To-day sericulture is largely carried on by the women and children of the farm, and is twice as productive as the rest of the crops. As in poultry-raising, however, the gains are not in proportion to the size of the plant, the smaller ones being the more successful.

The mining industries have been much slower to develop than most of the others, although they are of ancient origin. A great deal of metal--gold, silver and copper--was exported during the Middle Ages. It has been suggested that Columbus had the gold of j.a.pan in view when he set out upon the voyage which resulted in the discovery of America.

j.a.pan has been described as the missionary to the Far East. Certainly, whatever her motives, her influence in Korea and Formosa has been most helpful. The latter island has been nearly freed from smallpox and other plagues, while its revenues have been increased six hundred per cent.

Her influence in the liberalizing of China is marked, too, although it is less concentrated, of course, than in the smaller fields.

The j.a.panese have an undoubted advantage over other nationalities in China. Their agents know the language, but more than that, they are able to adapt themselves to native conditions of living and to "think Chinese." For ages past China has been the G.o.dmother of j.a.pan, teaching her many valuable lessons in art and industry. It is now only fair that the pupil should do what she can to help her ancient teacher. Naturally the form which this expression of grat.i.tude takes is by no means unprofitable commercially to the younger nation!

"With regard to that part of Manchuria which comes under j.a.panese influence," writes a British merchant, "the conveniences and facilities afforded by the j.a.panese to one and all in regard to banking inst.i.tutions, railway communications, postal and telegraph service are far and away superior to those afforded by the Russian and Chinese inst.i.tutions."

It has taken Europe six hundred years to do what j.a.pan has done in sixty, and if the little Island Nation has left a few things undone, or has made mistakes and perhaps gone too far in some directions, it is not surprising. The marvel is that with the thrill and bustle of modern business life she has kept so much of the ancient charm and delight as to make us even to-day feel the witchery of her Spell.

CHAPTER VII

A YEAR OF FESTIVALS

Most important and most generally observed of all j.a.panese festivals is the New Year, the holiday season lasting for about two weeks. The most striking feature to us was the varied decorations of the gates, which were adorned with a collection of emblems of one kind and another, producing an effect unique in the extreme, even if their significance was unknown. These decorations are put up before Christmas in the case of the foreigners, but those in front of the native houses are not completed until New Year, and remain in place throughout the holidays.

A large number of apparently incongruous articles are used in ornamenting j.a.panese homes for the New Year, and not until we learn the symbolic meaning of each one of these can we understand their use. They range from bamboo, ferns, oranges, pine-trees and branches of _yusuri_-tree to paper bags, straw ropes, bits of charcoal, seaweed and even lobsters, incomprehensible as it may seem to the Western mind that some of these objects should have any significance whatever.

As you enter a house you discover, stretched from post to post of the gateway above your head, a thick, twisted rope--the _nawa_--with the following emblems suspended from it: first, the _yebi_--lobster--whose bent back is the symbol of long life, suggesting the hope that he who pa.s.ses beneath may not die until time has bowed his back in like manner.

Surrounding the lobster, as a frame to its brilliant scarlet, are the _yusuri_ branches, on which the young leaves are budding while the old have not as yet fallen, significant of the several generations of the family within. Almost hidden by the lobster and directly in the centre of the _nawa_, are perhaps the prettiest of all the emblems, two dainty fern-fronds, symbolical of the happiness and unity of wedded life, and carefully placed between the two, a budding leaflet emblematic of fruitfulness.

From j.a.panese mythology we learn the significance of the _nawa_--the rope of rice straw. Ama-terasu, the Sun-G.o.ddess, in terror of her brother, Susa-no-o, fled to a cave, from which she refused to come forth. Then the Eighty Myriads of G.o.ds took counsel as to how they might induce her to bestow upon them the light of her face once more. They decided to give a wonderful entertainment, introduced by the songs of thousands of birds. Ama-terasu came out, curious to know the meaning of these sounds, daylight returned, and the G.o.ds stretched a barrier across the mouth of the cavern in order that she might never retreat to it again. The _nawa_ represents this obstacle, and wherever it hangs, the sweetness of spring is supposed to enter.

But one may ask, what is the connection between the New Year and the coming of spring? According to the old j.a.panese calendar, the year began at any time between January sixteenth and February nineteenth, so it came, as a rule, at least a month later than with us, and the idea of spring was always a.s.sociated with the New Year. Although spring arrives in Tokyo about the time it does in Washington, January first is far enough from any suggestion of buds and flowers: but the j.a.panese keep the old a.s.sociations and call the first fortnight of the year "spring-advent" and the second fortnight "the rains."

The mention of spring suggests a charming stanza by an anonymous j.a.panese poet, which I give in Professor Chamberlain's translation:

"Spring, spring has come, while yet the landscape bears Its fleecy burden of unmelted snow!

Now may the zephyr gently 'gin to blow, To melt the nightingale's sweet frozen tears."

That the G.o.ds may not be forgotten, propitiatory offerings in the shape of twisted pieces of paper cut diagonally--_gohei_, meaning purification--are attached at intervals along the _nawa_, looking for all the world like the horns stuck in the hair in the children's game of "Horned Lady." Setting off the scarlet hue of the lobster, on either side is placed a _daidai_,--a kind of orange--expressing the hope that the family pedigree may flourish. The rather incongruous piece of charcoal--_sumi_, meaning homestead--comes next, and gently waving to and fro beneath the oranges may be seen strips of seaweed--_konbu_--signifying rejoicing.

On either side of the gateway stands the guardian pine-tree, indicative of long life, supporting the _nawa_, which is about six feet in length--on the right the _me-matsu_ (the red pine), and on the left the _O-matsu_ (the honourable black pine). Behind, giving grace and dainty freshness to the whole, nod and sway the exquisite feathery branches of the bamboo, typical of health and strength. The full list of symbols is not always seen, as the task and the purse of the individual are both consulted before deciding upon his gateway decorations. But even among the poorest there is never a doorway wholly unadorned; the omission would be sure to bring harm to the householder and misfortune to his friends, and the G.o.ds unpropitiated would look frowningly down during the year. Although two diminutive pine-trees before a house may be all that can be afforded, the dweller within feels as securely guarded against harm in the coming year as if the whole panoply of emblems were waving over his humble doorway.

The pine-trees remind me of Basho's epigram on New Year decorations, beautifully translated by E. W. Clement:

"At every door The pine-trees stand: One mile-post more To the spirit-land; And as there's gladness, So there's sadness."

Much brighter colours are worn at the New Year than at other times, and presents are exchanged. The older people make gifts of dwarf trees, while the children give one another dolls and kites, and games of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, which one sees both old and young playing in the streets. The small, stocky horses that drag the carts with their picturesque loads are adorned with streamers of mauve and lemon and rose in honour of the first drive of the year, and many of the carts carry flags and lanterns on bamboo poles, so that the streets are very gay.

Tokyo is especially gay the last evening of the old year, because a _matsuri_, or fair, is held in the princ.i.p.al street, with little booths illuminated by lanterns, where any one who is in debt can sell his belongings in order to pay all he owes and begin the New Year fairly.

Small groups go from house to house, carrying the strange lion-dog's head, which they put through various antics, while they dance and sing in order to drive away evil spirits. (The lion-dog is a mythical animal borrowed from the Chinese.) They are usually rewarded by the owner with a few pennies. People go about on New Year's Day, stopping at the doorways of their friends to say: "May you be as old as the pine and as strong as the bamboo, may the stork make nests in your chimney and the turtle crawl over your floor." The turtle and the stork symbolize long life.

Part of the preparation for the New Year festival consists in the annual house-cleaning. This custom is kept up to-day, and is carried out even in foreign houses. Under the old regime, we are told, officials of the Shogun's Court sent overseers carrying dusters on long poles to superintend the work and thrust their brooms into cracks and corners where dust might be left undisturbed by careless servants, at the same time making mystic pa.s.ses with their poles to form the Chinese character for water. The merchants, too, have their "big cleaning," when all their wares are tossed out into the street. As one of the j.a.panese poets has said:

"Lo, house-cleaning is here; G.o.ds of Buddha and Shinto Are jumbled together All on the gra.s.s!"

One of the most attractive customs a.s.sociated with the New Year is that of placing under the little wooden pillows of the children a picture of the _Takara-bune_, the Treasure Ship, with the Seven G.o.ds of Good Fortune on board. This ship is said to come into port on New Year's Eve and to bring a wonderful cargo, among other rare things being the Lucky Rain-Coat, the Inexhaustible Purse, the Sacred Key and the Hat of Invisibility. This is the j.a.panese interpretation of our expression, "When my ship comes in."

At the Emba.s.sy the observance of New Year's Eve was a mixture of American and j.a.panese customs. We invited all the unmarried members of the Staff, and after visiting the _matsuri_ we returned to the Emba.s.sy, and as the clock struck twelve we pa.s.sed a loving bowl, and all joined hands and sang songs. Then, as the pa.s.sing year was the year of the c.o.c.k, and 1913 was the year of the bullock, some one crowed a good-bye to the rooster of 1912, and some one else mooed like a bullock as a welcome to the newcomer, and we had a very jolly time.

But New Year's Day itself is not without its religious and ceremonial observances. Every man is obliged to rise at the hour of the tiger--the early hour of four o'clock--and put on new clothes. Then he worships the G.o.ds, does homage to the spirits of his ancestors, and offers congratulations to his parents and the older members of the family. All this must be done before he can breakfast.

The first repast of the year is in every sense symbolic. The tea is made with water drawn from the well as the first ray of the sun touches it.

The princ.i.p.al dish is a compound of six ingredients, which are always the same, although the proportions may be varied. A special kind of _sake_ is drunk from a red lacquer cup in order to ensure good health for the coming year. In addition to these things, there is always an "elysian stand"--a red lacquer tray, covered with evergreen _yusuri_ leaves and bearing a lobster, a rice dumpling, dried sardines, and herring roe, also oranges, persimmons and chestnuts, much as in a "lucky bag." All these articles of food are in some way emblematic of long life and happiness, and the stand itself represents the chief of the three islands of Chinese mythology, where all the birds and animals are white, where mountains and palaces are of gold, and where youth is eternal.

New Year calls are as much a part of the celebration in j.a.pan as in the Western world. Originally, these were genuine visits, and the "elysian stand" was set before the guests for their refreshment, but among the higher cla.s.ses the calls are now the most conventional of affairs, in which the visitor simply writes his name in a book or leaves a card in a basket, often without being received by the householder at all. The caller leaves also a little gift of some sort--such as a basket of oranges, a bunch of dried seaweed, or a box of sweetmeats--wrapped in a neat package and tied with a red and gold cord in a b.u.t.terfly knot. A finishing touch is given to the parcel by a sprig of green in a quiver-shaped envelope tucked under the knot.

The seventh of January was the proper time to go out into the fields and gather seven common plants, among which were dandelion, chickweed and shepherd's purse. These were boiled with rice and eaten for health, strength and good luck.