Japanese Girls and Women, Alice Mabel Bacon [ebook reader library TXT] 📗

there were bare poles. This seems to be the æsthetic Japanese equivalent for our prosaic potato race. Another contest is after this manner: Along the course of each runner are laid at certain intervals bright-colored balls,—a different color for each contestant. The object of the race is, within a certain time, to pick up all the balls and throw them into the nearly closed mouth of a great net at the far end of the grounds. The contest is not decided until the balls have been counted, when the girl who has succeeded in getting the greatest number of balls of her color into the net is declared the winner. Another and extremely pretty race, calling for great steadiness of hand and body, is the running from one end of the ground to the other with a ball balanced on a battledore. The Japanese battledore is made of light but hard wood, and is long and narrow in shape. If one had not seen it done, it would be well-nigh impossible to believe that any child could carry a ball upon it for more than a few slow steps: but these children run at a smart trot, keeping the ball immovable upon its small and smooth surface.

Beside the games and races, there are calisthenic exhibitions, in which great precision of motion and flexibility of body are manifested. One of the most graceful and attractive of these is the fan drill shown on this occasion, when some twenty or thirty girls, with their bright-colored dresses, long, waving sleeves, and red hakama, posture in perfect rhythm, with fans opened or closed, waving above the head, held before the face, changed from position to position, with the performers' changes of attitude, each new figure seemingly more graceful than the last.

In these and many other ways the nobility of new Japan are being fitted for the new part that they have to play in the world. No wonder that the education now given, awakening the mind, toughening the body, arousing ambition and individuality, is regarded by many of the ultra-conservatives as a dangerous innovation, and one likely to bring the nobility down to the level of the common people. Whether this new education is better or worse than the old, we can hardly tell as yet, but there are no signs of the immediate breakdown of the old spirit of the nobility, and the better health and stronger characters of the young women who have received the modern training promise much for the next generation.

Page 192.

While this was entirely true in 1890, it is interesting to observe that after ten years of commercial and industrial progress there are signs that the embroidered kimono is coming back into fashion. With the growth of large fortunes and of luxury that has marked the past decade, has come the custom of providing wedding garments as magnificently embroidered as were the robes of the daimiōs' ladies, and even the montsuki or ceremonial dress, which was severely plain in 1890, now has little delicate embroidery about the bottom. It will not be surprising if some day, when the present growing commercial and industrial enterprise has reaped a more abundant harvest, Japan blooms forth again in the beautiful garments that went out of fashion when the great political upheaval cut off the revenues of the old nobility.

Page 209.

At each encroachment of the enemy those of the population who could not find refuge at once within the inner defenses were driven to choose between surrender and self-inflicted death. The unconquerable samurai spirit flamed out in the choice of hundreds of women and children as well as men, and whole families were wiped out of existence at once, the little ones, who were too young to understand the proper method of hara-kiri, kneeling calmly with bowed heads for the death-stroke from father or brother which should free them from the disgrace of defeat.

Page 223.

That the spirit of the samurai women is still a living force in Japan, no one can doubt who listens to the stories of what the women did and bore in the Japan-China war of 1895. The old self-sacrifice and devotion showed itself throughout the country in deeds of real, if sometimes mistaken, heroism. Husbands, sons, and brothers were sent out to danger and death with smiles and cheerful words, by women dependent upon them for everything in a way that can hardly be understood by Americans. Even tears of grief for the dear ones offered in the country's cause were suppressed as disloyal, and women learned with unmoved countenances of the death of those they loved best, and found the courage to express, in the first shock of bereavement, their sense of the honor conferred on the family by the death of one of its members in the cause of his country.

A few incidents quoted from an article by Miss Umé Tsuda that appeared in the New York "Independent" in 1895 will give my readers an idea of the forms that this devotion assumed:—

"One instance comes into my mind of an old lady who sent out cheerfully and with a smiling face her young and only son, the sole stay of her old age. Left a widow while young, she had lived a life of much sorrow and trouble, and had with almost superhuman efforts managed to give her son an education that would start him in life. It was only a few years ago that the son had begun to help in the family support, and to be able to repay to the mother her tender care of him. Her pride in her son and his young wife was a pleasure to see, and the little home they had together seemed a safe haven for the coming years of old age. Now, in a moment all this was changed,—the son must start off for the wars. Yet not for one instant was a cloud seen on the mother's face, as, smilingly and cheerfully, she assisted in the preparations for his departure. Not in public or in secret did one sigh or regret escape her; not even to the son did a word of anxiety pass her lips. Her face, beaming with joy, looked with pride on the manly strength of the young soldier as he started to fight for his country and win honor for himself,—honor which would surely come to him whether he lived or died.

"Another woman who is well on in years, and whose eldest son is a naval officer, furnishes an interesting example of mother love. Though never showing her anxiety on his account, or grief at his danger, she has taken upon herself, in spite of her old age and by no means vigorous health, to go on foot every morning to one of the temples and worship there before daylight, in order to propitiate the gods, that they may protect her son. She arises at four o'clock in the morning on the coldest of cold days, washes and purifies herself with ice-cold water, and then starts out before daylight for her three-mile walk to the temple. Thus through wind and storm and cold have the faith and love of this old woman upheld her, and one is happy to add that so far her prayers have been heard and no harm has come to the one she has called on her gods to protect.

"A touching story is told of the aged mother of Sakamoto, commander of the warship Akagi, who was killed in the thickest of the fight during the great naval battle of the Yellow Sea. Commander Sakamoto left an aged mother, a wife, and three children. As soon as his death was officially ascertained, a messenger was dispatched from the naval department to convey the sad tidings to his family. The communication was made duly to his wife, and before the messenger had left the house it reached the ears of the old mother, who, tottering into the room where the officer was, saluted and greeted him duly, and then, with dry eyes and a clear voice, said, 'So it seems by your tidings that my son has been of some service this time.'

"One reads pathetic stories in the newspapers daily in connection with the war. Not long ago a sad account was given of a young woman, just past her twentieth year, and only recently married to an army officer. She had belonged by birth to a military family, and, as befitted the wife and daughter of a soldier, she resolved, on hearing of the death of her husband, that she would not survive him, but would follow him to the great unknown. Sending away her servant on some excuse, she remained alone in her home, which she put into perfect order. Then she arranged all her papers, wrote a number of letters, and made her last preparations for death. She dressed herself in full ceremonial dress as she had been dressed for her bridal, and seated herself before a large portrait of her husband. Then, with a short dirk, such as is owned by every samurai woman, she stabbed herself. In her last letters she gives as the reason for her death that, having no ties in the world, she would not survive her husband, but wished to remain faithful to him in death as she had been in life.

"Many such stories might be cited, but enough has been given to show the spirit that exists in Japan. With such women and such teachings in their homes, can it be wondered at that Japan is a brave nation, and that her soldiers are winning battles? Certainly some of the honor and credit must be given to these wives and mothers scattered throughout Japan, who are surely, in some cases, the inspirers of that courage and spirit which is just now surprising the world."

Page 239.

Much surprise is evinced by foreigners visiting Japan at the lack of taste shown by the Japanese in the imitation of foreign styles. And yet, for these same foreigners, who condemn so patronizingly the Japanese lack of taste in foreign things, the Japanese manufacture pottery, fans, scrolls, screens, etc., that are most excruciating to their sense of beauty, and export them to markets in which they find a ready sale, their manufacturers wondering, the while, why foreigners want such ugly things. The fact is that neither civilization has as yet come into any understanding of the other's æsthetic side, and the sense of beauty of the one is a sealed book to the other. The Japanese nation, in its efforts to adopt foreign ways, has been, up to the present time, blindly imitating, with little or no comprehension of underlying principles. As a result there is an absolute crudeness in foreign things as attempted in Japan that grates on the nerves of travelers fresh from the best to be found in Europe or America.

There are signs, however, that the stage of imitation is past and that adaptation has begun. Here and there in Tōkyō may be seen buildings in which the solidity of foreign architecture has been grafted upon the Japanese type. Ten years ago, Japanese men who adopted foreign dress went about in misfitting garments, soiled linen, untidy shoes, and hats that had been discarded by the civilization for which they were made many seasons before they reached Japan. They wore Turkish towels about their necks and red blankets over their shoulders at the desire of unscrupulous importers, who persuaded them that towels for neck-cloths and blankets for overcoats were the latest styles of London and Paris. To-day one sees no such eccentricities of costume in the purely Japanese city of Tōkyō. Men who wear foreign dress wear it made