We have had a number of social events this week. Tuesday eveningGeneral H——,who speaks no English but who came over on theShinyowith us, gave a party for us in the gardens of the Arsenal Grounds. We could not have entered the Arsenal Grounds in any other way. There were about twenty-five people there, mostly Christian Association people, and the clergyman of the Japanese church where I had spoken the night before. He is keen about introducing more democracy in Japan, and I spoke on the moral meaning of democracy. Well, the garden isn’t a garden at all in our sense, but a park, and the finest in Tokyo outside of the Imperial ones. It is quite different from the miniature ones we know as Japanese gardens, being of fair size, with none of those cunninglittle imitations in it; big imitations there are in plenty, as it was a fad of the old landscapists, as you might know, to reproduce on a small scale celebrated scenes elsewhere. The old Daimyo, who built this one two hundred years ago, was a great admirer of the Chinese and reproduced several famous Chinese landscapes as well as one from Kyoto. The extraordinary thing is the amount of variety they get in a small space; they could reproduce the earth, including the Alps and a storm in the Irish Channel, if they had Central Park. Every detail counts; it is all so artistically figured out and every little rock has a meaning of its own so that a barbarian can only get a surface view. It would have to be studied like an artist’s masterpiece to take it all in. The arsenal factory fumes have killed many of the old trees and much of the glory has departed.
Probably Mamma has written you that she has one young woman, Japanese, comingon the ship with us under her care, to New York to study; and to-day another young lady called, and said she wanted to go back to America. About the young women going home with us,Y——said we would have to be careful, as one time his mother was offered seventeen damsels to escort when she was going over, of whom she took three. You may not appreciate the fact that going to America to study means practically giving up marriage; they will be old maids and out of it by the time they return—also those who have been in America do not take kindly to having a marriage arranged for them. At a lecture I listened to yesterday, a Japanese woman, close to thirty, was pointed out to me as about to get married to an American architect here. There are exceptions, but this case is evidently a famous romance. The lecture was on Social Aspects of Shinto; Shinto is the official cult though not the established religion of Japan. Althoughnothing is said that wasn’t scientifically a matter of course to be said—I mean supposing it was scientifically correct—one of the most interesting things was the caution that was taken to avoid publication of anything said. On one side the Imperial Government is theocratic, and this is the most sensitive side, so that historical criticism or analysis of old documents is not indulged in, the Ancestors being Gods or the Gods being Ancestors. One bureaucratic gentleman felt sure that the divine ancestors must have left traces of their own language somewhere, so he investigated the old shrines, and sure enough he found on some of the beams characters different from Chinese or Japanese. These he copied and showed for the original language—till some carpenters saw them and explained that they were the regular guild marks.
This weather beats Chicago for changeableness. Monday, at midnight, it was storming rain; when we got up the next day it was the brightest, warmest day we have had. We spent it sightseeing and went out without an overcoat. The magnolia trees are in full bloom. Yesterday and to-day are as raw March days as I ever saw anywhere; there would have been frost last night but for the wind. Tuberculosis is rife here and no wonder.
Three of the University professors have called on me this morning. They wish to arrange in every detail for our movements when we leave here. I suppose I was asked twenty times how long we are to stay in Kamakura. When I said I didn’t know, it depended on weather and other things, they said, “Oh, yes,” and in five minutes askedthe same question again. Whether they arrange everything in minute detail for themselves in advance or whether they think we are helpless foreigners I can’t make out; some of both, I think. But they can’t understand that we can’t give an exact date for everything we are going to do till we go to China. At the same time I never knew anybody to change their own plans, especially socially, as much as they do.
There is a great anti-American drive on now; seems to be largely confined to newspapers, but also stimulated artificially somewhat, presumably by the militaristic faction, which has lost more prestige in the last few months than in years, with a corresponding gain in liberal sentiment. They have consequently found it necessary to do something to come back. Criticism of the United States is the easiest way to arrest the spread of liberal sentiments and strengthen the arguments for a big militaristic party, like twisting the lion’s tailwith us. Discussion about race discrimination is very active and largely directed against the United States in spite of Australia and Canada, and also in spite of the fact that Chinese and Korean immigration here is practically forbidden, and they discriminate more against the Chinese than we do against them. But consistency is not the strong point of politics in any country. Excepting on the subject of race discrimination, foreigners in contact with Japanese do not find the anti-American feeling which is expressed in papers. If the Anglo-Japanese treaty of alliance should lapse because of the League of Nations or anything else, America will be held responsible, even if the British are the cause. Two years ago there was a similar anti-British drive here, and pretty hard bargains were driven with the British ally in all war matters. Now that Germany and Russia are out of it, England has no apparent reason for snuggling up much and the shoe is on theother foot. Which makes the attack on the U.S. all the more stupid, as they are internationally quite lonely, even if they tie up with France on account of similar Russian interests, financial and otherwise.
To-morrow we are going to Kamakura again; it is only an hour and a half from here. We are going to take a little trip into the mountain and hot-spring district also, but the cherry blossom season is much advanced, ten days earlier than usual, and we are afraid it will spring itself in our absence if we go far, so probably we shall be back here in a few days for about a week. Then we shall take a five-day trip on our way to Kyoto, going to the shrine at Ise. This is the oldest and most sacred Shinto shrine in Japan, which means that it is the central spot for imperial ancestor worship. Speaking of ancestors, you remember our references to the Count. The father of his first wife has recently been made a Baron. Parliament being over, the Count has left for the southern Island to inform the ancestorsof his first wife, who are buried there, of the important item of family gossip. The oldest liberal statesman of aristocratic descent, who was quite intimate with the late Emperor, won’t go to the annual meeting to celebrate the granting of the Constitution by the late Emperor because he is so disgusted that no more progress has been made in constitutionalism, and says he cannot meet his late master until he can report progress to him. Otherwise he would be ashamed to meet him as he feels responsible to the Emperor. This would not be any place for a spiritualist to earn his living. They are clear past mediums.
We have chiefly been eating lately. I had two Japanese meals, a la chop sticks, yesterday and one to-day. Luncheon yesterday at a restaurant, where we had lots of things you never heard of, to say nothing of eating them, and a dinner at a friend’s. There were twelve courses at table and two or three afterwards—not counting tea, andmuch the same at another dinner to-night. We have a bill of fare written on fans, only in Japanese, and little silver salt cellars as souvenirs besides. One feature of both dinners was soup three times, at the beginning, about the middle and again at closing, at these functions rice is not served till near the last course. Then there were one or two semi-soupy courses thrown in. I can eat raw fish and ask no questions; and in a bird restaurant, Sunday for luncheon, I ate raw chicken wrapped in seaweed; abalone is my middle name, and some of the shell fish we eat is probably devil fish.
We have been here over six weeks now, and in taking an inventory it can be said that while we have not done as much sightseeing as some six-day tourists, I think we have seen more Japanese under normal home conditions than most Americans in six months, and have seen an unusually large number of people to talk to, not the official crowd but the representative intellectualliberals. I have seen less but found out more than I ever expected about Japanese conditions, which is quite the opposite of European experience in traveling. When I come back I shall try to see a few of the official people, since I now know enough to judge what they may say. On the whole, America ought to feel sorry for Japan, or at least sympathetic with it, and not afraid. When we have so many problems it seems absurd to say they have more, but they certainly have fewer resources, material and human, in dealing with theirs than we have, and they have still to take almost the first step in dealing with many of them. It is very unfortunate for them that they have become a first-class power so rapidly and with so little preparation in many ways; it is a terrible task for them to live up to their position and reputation and they may crack under the strain.
The Japanese do one thing that we should do well to imitate. They teach the children in school a very nice lesson about the beauty and the responsibility of being polite and kind to the foreigner, like being so to the guests of your own house. This adds to the national dignity.
Yesterday the Emperor got out and I caught him at it. Quite an amazing and lucky experience for me and no harm to him, as I had not known he ever went out before I picked him up in the street. I went down our hill as usual with a friend to take the car. At this side of the street where the car passes, we walk across the bridge on the canal and then turn and walk one block to the car stop. When we got to the other side of the bridge all the people on both sides of the street were massed in a nicelittle quiet line and three policemen were carefully and gently placing each one according to his height so he could see as well as possible. So we lined in with the rest while the policeman looked on in an encouraging fashion. Nobody spoke out loud, and after I had noticed the friend with me having a conversation with the officer, I ventured to ask why we were left standing there. With the same quiet, she said: “The Emperor is passing on his way to the commencement exercises of Waseda University.” Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I don’t suppose I should have known what was happening at all unless I could have figured it out from the Chrysanthemums on the carriage doors. I said to her: “How is he coming, in an automobile? How long are we to stand here?” I had visions of the stories about the streets being cleared, and the doors shut for some hours while white sand was sprinkled over the cartracks, and all the rest. “No,” she said, “just a little time.” I saw by now that I was not likely to have much gossip poured out to me about the Emperor, so I just fixed a nice little thing about three years old in front of me and then we waited with the rest of the school children. Soon the procession came, first a body of horse in plain khaki uniforms, then one very Japanese-looking man alone on the back seat in one of the light victorias, very clean and shiny, with the Chrysanthemums on the door. He was dressed in a khaki wool uniform just like the rest of the army with a cap on his head. Then came some other shiny, light little victorias with two horses, all just alike. I rubbered my best and I had a very good look at the one little man alone in the middle of the seat, and sitting up and looking straight ahead of him pleasantly. In the midst of the passing I asked the companion with me, “Which is the Emperor?” and she answered “The one in the first carriage,”and still there was that quiet of perfect breeding; and by and by all the nice little soldiers on horseback passed, and after I had stood a little longer on the edge of my bridge I started our little procession moving towards the car. The Emperor had gone the opposite way. After a little I said: “I did not know the Emperor went to commencements and things like that,” and I chattered on, and then my companion said in her slow, proper, calm tone: “That is my first experience to see the Emperor, too.” And I said “Is that so?” and asked some more questions, still wondering that no one had called out a Banzai nor made a sound, and it is not till to-day that I learned that all the people were standing with their eyes cast down to the ground, and that I was the only one who looked at the Emperor, and their reverence was so great that that was the reason I had not heard them breathe. For another thing, Waseda is the liberal university and private, so I wonderedstill till I learned then that the Emperor was going to the Peers’ School commencement, and that is the one commencement he goes to every year. So you see I had luck, and my conscience was clear for having rubbered, and I have seen the Emperor.
The Imperial Garden party comes off the week after we leave Tokyo. To this party all the nobles of the third rank and above, and all the professors in the Imperial University, and all the foreigners of latest arrival, are asked. So a foreigner can go just once and no more unless a Professor. We put our names down in the Ambassador’s book for an invitation before we knew all the niceties of the case. So now that we have learned that we can go once and no more, and that we are expected to go if we are invited, we will take back our request for an invitation as the party is on the 17th of April, and we are to be in Kyoto on the 15th. So in our good luck,a daughter of a Baron, who is a member of the Imperial household, has asked us to go with her to-morrow to see the Imperial Garden where the party is to be and we may see the gardens all the better. This Imperial Garden is one of the prince’s gardens and not the one behind the moat where the Emperor lives. It seems the fall chrysanthemum party is in that garden, though never inside the inner moat where no one goes unless he has an audience. The moat and the surroundings of the palace are lovely, but as you can read the guide book if you want a description, I will not bore you with an attempt. The walls of the moat were built by labor of the feudal dependencies, and like all such labor it spared no pains to be splendid. Some of the moats have been filled up long ago, but there are still three around the palace. Inside the outer one you may walk part of the time and see the grand gates with their solemn guards. In these gardens the air isfresh and the birds sing in the trees, and the dust of the city never gets there.
To-night I am wearing tabi, those nice little toe socks which will not fit my feet, but which are so much nicer than the felt toe slippers that fall off your feet every time you go upstairs. As a matter of fact, I wear ordinary house slippers in this house, but it is nicer not to and we always take them off when we come in from outdoors. Truly, the Japanese are a cleaner people than we are. Have I told you we bathe in a Japanese tub? Every night a hot, very hot wooden box over three feet deep is filled for us. This one has water turned in from a faucet, but in Kamakura the little charcoal stove is in the end of the tub and the water is carried in by buckets, and is reheated each night. It seems all right and I regret all the years our country went without bath tubs, and all the fuss we made to get them when this little, simple device was all there and as old as the hills. Butwe can catch up with the heating and cooking with charcoal hibashi.
We have learned to eat with chop sticks very well, and it is not a bad way. The main objection I see to it is that one eats too fast, and Fletcherizing is not known in this country. The nice little way of doing your own cooking is something to introduce for cuteness in New York. These last few days we have just been sightseeing in the real European sense, running about town and buying small things all day and then having the wonderful advantage of coming back to this delightful home of perfect comfort at night, which is quite unlike Europe, and spoils us for the common lot of knocking about.
The greatest actor of the country is here. He belongs in Osaka, his name is Ganjiro, and we have a box for Thursday. The play is the one that was given in New York called “Bushido.” It is much longer than as given there. It is called by anothername and is acted quite differently. On Sunday we are going again to the Noh Dance, or if no good tickets are to be had for that, we are going to a theater where women act all the parts to offset the usual way here of having only men in the company. The men who act women’s parts here do make up very well. They live and dress and act as women all the time so as not to lose the art. Only when they stand in pose they cannot conceal the fact that they are men. The play begins at one in the afternoon and lasts until ten at night. Tea and dinner is brought into your box in those nice little lacquer lunch boxes. Ganjiro is on the stage in every scene for eight hours, so you can see the actors work for their art here. The costumes are superb, but the actors do not simply strut to show off. Their speech being very affected in manner they have had to depend upon expression to get results, and as a consequence their acting is done with theirentire body more than any other school in the world. The best ones, like the ones we are to see, can express any emotion, so ’tis said, with their backs and the calves of their legs when you can’t see their faces.
Our activities of late have been miscellaneous; we spent three days, counting coming and going four days, at Kamakura last week. It is on the seaside and is a great resort, summer and winter, for the Japanese, and at the hotel for Europeans over weekends. For summers the foreigners go to the mountains, while the Japanese take to the seaside, largely because there is more for the children to do on the seashore, but partly because mountains seem to be an acquired taste. Kamakura is about ten degrees warmer than Tokyo, as it is sheltered by the hills. Peas were in blossom and the cherry trees all out. It was cold and rainy while we were there, however, except one day, when we crowded in so much sightseeing we got rather tired. Mamma and I are now catching up on calls, prior to leavingand doing some sightseeing. To-day we went to a shop where they publish very fine reproductions of the old art of Japan, including Chinese paintings owned in Japan, much better worth buying than the color print reproductions to my mind, though we have laid in some reproductions of the latter. There are so many millionaires made by the war in Japan, that lots of the old lords are selling out part of their treasures now; prices I think are too high even for Americans. The old Daimyo families evidently have enough business sense to take advantage of the market, though some are hard up and sell more for that reason. A week ago we went to an auction room where there was a big collection of genuine old stuff, much finer than appears in the curio shops, and this weekend there is another big sale by a Marquis. However, it is said they keep the best things and unload on the nouveau riche; not but what a lot of it is mighty good as it is.
My other experience that I have not written about is seeing Judo. The great Judo expert is president of a normal school, and he arranged a special exhibition by experts for my benefit, he explaining the theory of each part of it in advance. It took place Sunday morning in a big Judo hall, and there were lots of couples doing “free” work, too; they are too quick for my eye in that to see anything but persons suddenly thrown over somebody’s back and flopped down on the ground. It is really an art. The Professor took the old practices and studied them, worked out their mechanical principles, and then devised a graded scientific set of exercises. The system is really not a lot of tricks, but is based on the elementary laws of mechanics, a study of the equilibrium of the human body, the ways in which it is disturbed, how to recover your own and take advantage of the shiftings of the center of gravity of the other person. The first thing that is taughtis how to fall down without being hurt, that alone is worth the price of admission and ought to be taught in all our gyms. It isn’t a good substitute for out-of-door games, but I think it is much better than most of our inside formal gymnastics. The mental element is much stronger. In short, I think a study ought to be made here from the standpoint of conscious control. Tell Mr. Alexander to get a book by Harrison—a compatriot of his—out of the library, called “The Fighting Spirit of Japan.” It is a journalist’s book, not meant to be deep, but is interesting and said to be reliable as far as it goes. I noticed at the Judo the small waists of all these people; they breathe always from the abdomen. Their biceps are not specially large, but their forearms are larger than any I have ever seen. I have yet to see a Japanese throw his head back when he rises. In the army they have an indirect method of getting deep breathing which really goes back to the Buddhist Zenteaching of the old Samurai. However, they have adopted a lot of the modern physical exercises from other armies.
The gardens round here are full of cherry trees in blossom—and the streets are full of people too full of saké. The Japanese take their drunkenness apparently seasonly, as we hadn’t seen drunken people till now.
We have had another great day to-day. This morning rose early and wrote letters, which were not sent in spite of the haste, as we decided the slow boat was slower than waiting for a later and faster one. So you ought to get many letters at once. The day has been sunshiny and bright, but not at all sultry, so perfect for getting about. We went to the art store to get some prints which we had selected the day before and then on to call on a Professor of Political Economy, who is also a member of Parliament, radical and very wide awake and interesting, quite like an American in his energy and curiosity and interest. We visited and learned a lot about things here and there and then he took us to lunch at his mother-in-law’s house. They have a beautiful house in Japanese style, with aforeign style addition, like most of the houses of the rich, the Japanese part having no resemblance whatever to the foreign, which is so much less beautiful. In carpets and table covers and tapestries imitated from the German, the Japanese have no taste, while in their own line they remain exquisite. This house is one of the most absolute cleanliness. No floor in it but shines like a mirror and has not a fleck of dust, never had one. Let me see if I can describe accurately this entertainment. We took three ’rickshas and rode through the cherry lined narrow streets over hills where are the lovely gardens of the rich showing through the gateways and showing over the top of the bamboo walls, which are built of poles about six feet long upright and tied together with cords. They are very pretty with the green. When we reached the houseMr. U——took us in to the foreign drawing room, which is very mid-Victorian and German in its general effect. This one has init a beautiful lacquer cabinet, very large and quite overpowering every other thing in the room. There the ladies of the house came in and made their bows, very amiable and smiling at our thanks for their hospitality. The sister-in-law, a young girl of sixteen, who wants to go to America, and afterwards the grandmother, very much the commanding character that a grandmother ought to be. The children hovered round them all much like our children. The ladies brought us tea with their own hands in lovely blue and white cups with little lacquer stands and covers. Candy with the tea, which was green. I forgot to say that we had already, during the hour withMr. U——had tea three different times and of three different kinds, besides little refreshments therewith. After a little we were summoned to lunch. Three places set on a low table and a beautiful blue brocade cushion to sit upon. The two younger ladies on their knees ready to serve us. They poured out wine for us, or Vermouth,and we took the latter. We had before us, each, one lacquer bowl, covered, that contained the usual fish soup with little pieces of fish and green things cut up in it. This we drink, putting the solid bits into our mouths with the chop sticks. The grandmother thought she ought to have prepared foreign food, but the clever girl of sixteen had spoken for home food, and so we thanked them for giving that to us, as we seldom get a real genuine Japanese meal. And this is the first we have had where we were served by the ladies of the house, except the dolls’ food at the festival. It seems this is the highest compliment that we have had, as the real Japanese home is open to the foreigner only when the foreigner is asked to sit on the floor and is served by the ladies of the household. They kneel near the table and the maid brings the dishes and hands them to the ladies, who in turn serve the dishes to the guests. It is very pretty. I have reached the stage whereI can sit on my heels for the length of a meal, but I rise very awkwardly, as my feet are asleep clear up to my knees at the end. We ate soup, cold fried lobster and shrimps, which are dipped in sauce besides; and cold vegetables in another bowl, and then hot fried fish; then some little pickles, then rice, of which the Japanese eat several bowls, then the dessert, which has been beside you all the time, and is a cold omelette, which tastes very good, and then they give you tea, Formosa oolong. We had toast, too, but that is foreign. Then we left the table and were shown the rooms upstairs, which contain many pieces of lacquer and bronze and woodwork, and then we went down and there was tea and a dish of fruit ready for us. We had not much time for this, as they were going to send us in a motor to the Imperial Gardens. But as the last kind of tea had to be brought we were at the door putting on our shoes when it arrived. Thistea is strong oolong and has milk in it, with two lumps of sugar for you to put in yourself. Thus we had been served with tea six times within three hours.
It is hard to describe the Imperial Gardens. Read the guide book and you will see that it is. Ten thousand orchid plants were the beginning of the sight. We saw the lettuce and the string beans and the tomatoes and potatoes and eggplant and melons, and all growing under glass, for the Emperor to eat. Never saw such perfect lettuce, all the heads in one frame of exactly the same size and arrangement, as if they were artificial, and all the others just right. Why potatoes under glass? Don’t ask me. Grapes in pots looked as if the raising of grapes under glass was in its beginning, but maybe not, as I was not familiar enough with those little vines to know whether they would bear or not. The flowers in the frames were perfection. Masses of Mignonette daisies, and some other brightflowers I did not know were ready to put out in the beds which were prepared for the garden party. We cannot go on the 17th. A very large pavilion with shingle roof under which the Emperor and Empress are to sit at the party is being built and will be taken down the next day, or rather week, as it will take more than one day. Then if it rains there will be no party. To-night it looks as if rain might spoil the blossoms. But to-day was perfect. It is a little surprising when one sees this famous garden after reading about Japanese gardens for all one’s life. There is such a large expanse of grass with no flowers and the grass does not get green here so soon as with us, and it is now all brown, though big masses of daffodils are superb. These under the cherry trees with the sunshine shining through slantways made one of the brilliant sights of a lifetime. The artificial lakes and rivers and waterfall and the bridges and islands and hills with big birds walking andswimming make enough to have come for to Japan. The groups of trees are as fine as anything can be and across the long expanses the view of them is like a succession of pictures. There are a hundred and sixty-five acres in the park, no buildings. In the beginning it was pretty well to one side of the city, but now it is on a car track of much travel, though still on the outskirts on its outer edge.
On Monday we have arranged to go to the theater again at the Imperial. To-day it is the great actor Ganjiro at a small theater. It is said the jealousy of the Tokyo actors and managers keeps Ganjiro from getting a fair chance when he comes here.Mr. T——,formerly of Chicago, has just been here to try to arrange a dinner for us before we leave, the dinner to be at a restaurant with all the old students present. The restaurants are always amusing and we agreed, of course. This may keep us in Tokyo one day longer, though that is not decided yet.For the rest of the time we are to make up on calls as far as we can and ride about to see the cherry blossoms, and I hope we may see some of the famous tea houses. Thus far we have seen no tea house at all, and there is not one afternoon tea house where ladies go in this city excepting the new-fashioned department stores, and they do not stand for anything different than they do with us. This shows how little the real ladies of Tokyo go out of their houses.
The Sumida river is a big river gathering up all the small streams from one side of the mountains. It is full of junks and other craft and is the center of much history, both for Tokyo as a city and for the whole country.
Ganjiro, the greatest actor from Osaka, is acting here now, and the show was great. He did the scene among other things they did in New York under the name of “Bushido.” A dance by a fox who had taken the form of a man was a wonderful thing. There is no use in trying to describe it. It was not just slow posturings, like the other Japanese dances we have seen, nor was it as wild as the Russian dancers; he did it alone, no companion, male or female. But it was as free as the Russian and much more classic at the same time. You will never realize what the human hand and arm can do until you see this. He put on a number of masks and then acted or danced according to the type of mask he had on. He can do an animal’s motions without any clawing—as gracefuland lithe as a cat. He is a son of an old man Ganjiro.
Our last days here are rather crowded and we aren’t going to get the things done that should be done. Cherry blossoms are at their height—another thing indescribable, but if dogwood trees were bigger and the blossoms were tinged with pink without being pink it would give the effect more than anything else I know. The indescribable part is the tree full of blossoms without leaves; of course you get that in the magnolias, but they are coarse where the cherry is delicate. We went to a museum to-day, which is finer in some respects than the Imperial; gods till you can’t rest, and wonderful Chinese things, everything except paintings.
We are actually packing up and get away to-morrow morning at 8:30—we travel all day, the first part till four o’clock on the fastest train in Japan. The ordinary trains make about fifteen miles an hour, Japan having unfortunately adopted narrow gauge in early days and going on the well-known principle of safety first. We have had various and sundry experiences since writing, the most interesting being on Sunday, when we were taken into the country both to see the cherry blossoms and the merry-makers; the time is a kind of a carnival and mild saturnalia based on bright clothes, and wigs, and saké, about ninety per cent saké. There were a few besides ourselves not intoxicated, but not many. Everybody practiced whatever English he knew on us, one dressed-up fellow informing us “I ChrallieChaplin,” and he was as good an imitation as most. Aside from one fight we saw no rudeness and not much boisterousness, the mental effect being apparently to make them confidential and demonstrative. Usually they are very reserved with one another, but Sunday it looked as if they were telling each other all their deepest secrets and life ambitions. Our host of the day laughed most benevolently all the time, not excluding when a fellow dressed in bright red woman’s clothes insisted on riding on the running board. They get drunk so seldom that it didn’t appeal to him so much as a drunk as it did as a popular festival; the people really were happy.
There were miles of trees planted each side of a canal that supplies Tokyo with water, all kinds of trees and in all stages of development, from no blossoms to full, no leaf and beautiful little pink leaves. The blossoms are dropping, it is almost a mild snowfall, and yet the trees seem full.
Yesterday we went to the theater again, the Imperial, a party of ten filling two boxes. We were taken behind the scenes and shown the green rooms, etc., and introduced to an actor and to his son, about eleven, who appeared on the stage later and did a very pretty dance. He had a teacher in the room and was doing his Chinese writing lesson, never looked up till he was spoken to, about the handsomest and most intelligent looking lad I have seen in Japan. Acting is practically an hereditary profession here. I doubt if an outsider not trained from early childhood could possibly do the acting anyway, and I don’t think the guild would let him break in if he could, though one man of British extraction has been quite successful on the Japanese stage. We saw some very interesting things yesterday, including dances, and learned that they are very anxious to come to America, but they want a patron. If the scenes were selected with great care to take those that have lotsof action and not so much talking, and the libretto was carefully explained, they could make a hit in New York at least.
Our other blowout was the other evening at a Japanese classic tea house, a part of a Noh dance for entertainment and a twelve-course meal or so. The most interesting thing though is talking to people. On the whole I think we have a chance to see people who know Japan much better than most. We haven’t been officialized and putting the different things together I think we have as good an acquaintance with the social conditions as anybody would be likely to get in eight weeks. An experienced journalist could get it, so far as information is concerned, in a few days, but I think things have to be soaked in by cumulative impressions to get the feel of the thing and the background. When they told me first that this was a great psychological moment, that everything was critical and crucial, I didn’t know what they meant, and I could hardlyput it in words now, any more than they did, but I know inside of me. There are few external signs of a change, but Japan is nearly in the condition she was in during the first years of contact and opening up of things fifty or so years ago, so far as the mental readiness for change is concerned, and the next few years may see rapid social changes.
Well, we have started on our journey and have seen Japan for the first time, scenically speaking, that is to say. The first day’s ride from Tokyo to Nagoya was interesting, but not particularly so except for Fuji, which we saw off and on for several hours, and on three sides. As sometimes it isn’t visible, and we had a fine warm day, we had good luck. Nagoya is where the best old castle in Japan is, you may even in your benighted country and estate have heard of the two golden dolphins on top. The castle is an imperial palace and it turned out that you have to have a permit from Tokyo, but we set out to try to get in, and as we had met a nice young man at theX——’sin Tokyo who came from Nara, we telephoned him, and while we didn’t get in through him (he said he could never get in himself underany circumstances) he promptly asked us to dinner. Then we were taken to the swellest tea house in Nara and had another of those elaborate dinners, on what he called the tea-istic plan. We began with the tea ceremony without the ceremony but with the powdered tea, the bowl being prepared for each one separately in succession. The Nara cooking is better, we all thought, than the Tokyo, the food being more savory and the variety of flavors greater, an opinion which pleased our host. Expressing some curiosity about some four-inch trout which seemed to have a sugar caramel coating, we found that they were cooked in a kind of liquor which deposited the sweetness, and then we were presented with a bottle of the drink known as Mirin, so now we are lugging glassware. Then after the dinner he said that he hoped that we would not think him guilty of improper action, but that he had invited the best samisen player and singer in Nagoya, and also some dancers.In other words, some geishas were introduced and sang, played and danced before King David. There are all grades from those comparable to chorus girls at Jack’s to high grade actresses, and these were of the upper kind. He said he wished us to see something of true Japan which few foreigners saw, this referring to the restaurant as well as the dancing. They won’t receive anybody who isn’t an old client or friend of one of these high toned places. But the ladies of the party thought he was especially interested in one of the girls. Personally I think the dancing and music are much more interesting than they are reported to be in the guide books.
The next day we went to the primitive Ise shrines, arriving cross and hungry at about two, but bound to get the pilgrimage over, especially as it wasn’t good weather. Yamada, where the sacred shrines are, is a very beautiful place, with wooded hills and little streams. The trees are largely cryptomerias,which are evidently some relative of the California redwoods, and while not nearly as tall, make much the same effect. It is a darling spot, filled with the usual thousands of carpet bagger (literally the old Brussel carpet bags) pilgrims. As previously reported I toted a borrowed frock coat and stovepipe hat. Our guide said special clothing was not needed for the ladies. I put on my war paint, and the chief priest having been written from Tokyo of our impending arrival, an hour had been set. At the outermost gate, the Torii, the ceremony of purification, took place. We had water poured out on our hands out of a little ceremonial cup and basin and then the priest sprinkled salt on us; nobody else had this but us. Then when we got to the fence gate, we were told that the ladies not having “visiting dresses,” whatever they are, couldn’t go inside, but that I should be treated as of the same rank as an Imperial professor and allowed to go. I forgot tosay that we had a gendarme in front of us to shoo the vulgar herd out of our way. Then we marched slowly in behind the priest, on stones brought from the seaside, through a picket fence to designated spots near the next fence, I being allowed nearer to the gate than our Japanese guide; and we worshiped, that is bowed. I got my bow over disgracefully quick, but I think our Japanese conductor stood at least fifteen minutes.
Here we are in the Florence of Japan, and even more to see if possible than in Italy. We have had a rainy day to-day, which is perhaps a good beginning for a week of constant sightseeing. This morning we spent in Yamanaka’s—the most beautiful shop I ever saw, composed of the finest Japanese rooms of the finest proportions and filled with the most beautiful art specimens of all kinds. But the kinds are properly assorted in true Japanese fashion. I bought a red brocade. It is a panel, old red with figures of gold and some dark blue, peonies and birds. It is what the Buddhist priests wear over the left arm in procession. We have the certificate that it is over a hundred years old. The panel is about five feet long and one wide, the strips which compose it are four in number, sewed in seams, whichturn the corners in mortise fashion, and yet they all match perfectly. Most of these strips are woven in these ribbons and sewed together. I got a second one which is purple with splendid big birds and peonies again. I like the peony in brocade much better than the chrysanthemum or the smaller flowers. Some fine ones with pomegranates are tempting, but I did not buy the most beautiful on account of the prospects of spending money better in China. I also bought a pretty tea set which I have here in my room—it cost 30 sen, which means fifteen cents for teapot and five cups, gray pottery with blue decorations. There are many cheaper ones that are pretty too. Tomorrow we go to the original temple where the tea ceremony originated and are to participate in the tea ceremony, which the high priest will perform for us. You better get a guide book and read about the temples of Kyoto, as they are too numerous to tell about in letters. We have the municipal carfor all these occasions. Good thing we do, for Kyoto has shrunk like a nut in its shell since the days of its ancient capital size and the distances between temples are enormous. Next day we go to the Imperial Palaces, and so go on and on getting fatter and fatter.
The weather and the spring time are superb. Cherry blossoms were gone when we got here, but the young leaves of the maples are lovely green or red and the whole earth is paradise now. The hills are nearer than in Florence, the mountains higher, so that Kyoto has every natural beauty. We shall only have a week here and then go to Osaka, where the puppet theater is and where there is a school of drama, of which Ganjiro is the leader. It is the doll theater we want to see, because that is the origin of all acting in Japan. Many of the conventions of the theater are based on the movements of the puppets.
Kyoto in many respects is the most lovelything the world has to show, such a combination of nature and art as one dreams of. These wonderful temples of enormous size, of natural wood filled with paintings and sculpture of an ancient and unknown kind, fascinate one to the point of feeling there must be many more worlds when such multiplicity of ideas and feelings can exist on a single planet, and we live unconscious of the whole of it or even of any part of its extent. The gardens we have seen to-day are the old Japan unchanged since they were made a thousand years ago, when they took the ancient ideas of China and India for models. The temples of Tokyo seem like shabby relics of a worn-out era, but here the perfection of their art remains and is kept intact. The landscape of the first Buddhist monastery, where the tea ceremony originated, has the same rivers and islands and little piles of sand which were placed in the beginning, all in miniature, and planted with miniature trees, all imitationsof real scenes in China when China was the land of culture. Now they say even the originals are destroyed in China, which is so out of repair that it depresses every one who sees it. Fifty years ago they advertised for sale here in Nara, a lovely pagoda five stories high for fifty yen. It is obviously necessary for some American millionaire to buy up the massive gates and pagodas and temples of China in order to redeem them from complete ruin. The Japanese are the one people who have waked up in time to the value of these historic things, and several of the temples have been rebuilt before the old material was so rotted as to make them hopeless. Wood is a magnificent material when it is used in such massive structures as it is here. The biggest bell in the world, twelve feet high, is hung on a great tree trunk in a belfry with a curled-up roof of flower-like proportions, first having been hauled to the top of the high hill. We shall hear it boom next Saturday. We heard theone in Nara, the deepest thing I ever thought to hear, nine feet high. They are beautiful bronze and they are very mellow and melodious and reach to the center of whatever the center of your being may be and leave you to hope the greater unknown of the judgment day may be a call like that sound.
We had lunch withMiss D——.She tells stories about the efforts of the Japanese girls to get an education that make you want to sell your earrings, even if you have none, in order to give the money to these idealists. They are as much pioneers as our forebears who chopped down the trees, but they can’t get at a tree to chop. She says she wants me to go back to America and to go to every Congregational church there and tell them they must send money here to give education to the people.
One day we have the mayor’s car to go about in and the next day the University hires a car for us and we indulge ourselvesin all kinds of doings we do not deserve and sometimes wonder if we shall have to commit suicide after it ends in order to condone the point of honor. Certainly these people have a nobility of character which entitles them to race equality.
I want to find a nice quiet place to stay and come back and see the sights at greater length. The paintings on the walls are mostly ruined, but the kakemonas and the screens and the makemonas, those are wonderful and I am glad to say that we have got over seeing them as grotesque, and we feel their beauty. When once you see that the trees in the ground are real and that they look just as the trees in the pictures have always looked, then you begin to appreciate both nature and human nature as depicted.
To-day is rainy and we haven’t done much. We got here yesterday noon. The hotel is on the side of a hill with wonderful views, and is pretty good, though the one at Nara which is run by the Imperial Railway System is the only first-class one we have seen so far. In the afternoon the University sent a car and we took an auto ride into the suburbs to a famous cherry place—it was too late for blossoms, but the river and hills and woods were beautiful, and we saw the usual large crowd enjoying life. It is really wonderful the way the people go out, all classes, and the amount of pleasure they get out of doors and in the tea houses. I have never been anywhere where every day seemed so much of a holiday as in Japan—there is still saké in evidence but not so much.
This month a special geisha dance is given here at a theater connected with atraining school; the dance lasts an hour and is repeated four or five consecutive hours. We went last night; the dancing is much more mechanical posturing than the theater dancing, or than the little geisha dance we saw at Nara, but the color combinations and the way they handled the scenery were wonderful. There were eight very different scenes and it didn’t take more than a minute to make any change. Once a curtain was simply drawn down through a trap door, another time what had looked like a canvas mat in front of the curtain was pulled up and it turned out to be painted on one side. But they had a different method every time.
The mayor has invited me to speak to the teachers Saturday afternoon, and afterwards we are invited by the municipality to a Japanese dinner. They are also putting the city auto—the only one apparently—at our disposal, when they aren’t using it, and have arranged to take us to a porcelain and a weaving factory next Monday. This townis the headquarters of Japan for artistic production, ancient and modern. The University authorities also telephoned to Tokyo and got permission for us to visit the palaces here, but they are said not to be equal to the Nagoya ones which we missed. While at Nara we spent most of our time at the Horiuji temples, some miles out. I won’t do the encyclopedia act except to say that they are the headquarters of the introduction of Buddhism into Japan thirteen hundred years ago, which meant civilization, especially art, and have the wall frescoes, unfortunately faint, of that period, and lots of sculpture; this means wood carving, as of course there is no marble here. Well, it happened that it was the birthday of Prince Shotoku, who was the gentleman responsible for the aforesaid introduction, and of whom there are many statues, age of two, twelve and sixteen being favorites; his piety was precocious. Consequently, everything was wide open. Every kind of peep showand stall, and more than the usual hundreds of pilgrims who combine pleasure with piety in a way that beats even the Italian peasants; when they have money here they spend it; tightwadism is not a Japanese vice. Well, we were taken into the garden of the chief priest to eat our luncheon; of course, he was very busy, but greeted us in gorgeous robes and then sent out tea and rice cakes. The contrast between this lovely little garden and the drums and barkers just beyond the walls and the wonderful old artistic shrines beyond the barkers and ham and egg row was as interesting as anything in Japan.
You may rememberMiss E——is rather tall for an American woman, even. Mamma is something of an object to the country people, butMiss E——is a spectacle. Curiosity is the only emotion the Japanese are not taught to conceal apparently. They gather around in scores, literally. I don’t know how many times I have seen parents makesure the children didn’t miss the show. Several times I have seen people walk slowly and solemnly all the way around us to make sure they missed nothing. No rudeness ever, just plain curiosity. As we were going to the museum after breakfast, a few of those children, girls, appeared and bowed. First I knew one of them had hold of each of my hands, and went with us as far as the museum—girls of nine or ten. It was touching to see their friendliness, especially one evidently rather poor, who would look up at me and laugh, and then squeeze my hand and press it against herself, and then laugh with delight again. I haven’t been able to discover when it ceases to be proper for children to be natural. Sunday morning some soldiers were going off to Manchuria—or Korea—and before eight we heard the patter of the clogs down the street and some hundred of boys and girls were marching down to the station with their teachers; the same thing next morning, for the soldiers.
We have just come from another Geisha party, given by the mayor and about fifteen of the other officers of the city. Papa is quite stuck up because they say it is the first time the city of Kyoto ever entertained a scholar in that fashion. But if he is stuck up what should I be when a woman appears for the first time in history at a men’s carouse in Japan? The Geisha girls are all the way from eleven years old to something like fifty. One of the older ones is the best dancer in the city, and she gave us one of the wonderful pantomime dances that so fascinate one here. She has been in jail for her political activities, said activities consisting in the active distribution of funds in order to elect someone she favored. It is against the law for a woman to take any part in politics here. Like all the older women of that class that I have seen she hasa sad look when her face is at rest. But they all talk and entertain so busily that the sadness is not seen by the men. They are a very cultivated lot of women so far as we have seen them; of course we see only the best. They talk with the composure of a duchess and the good nature of a child. It is a rare combination. They are very curious about us and ask all sorts of questions. One girl of seventeen said she loved babies and how many did I have? When I told her five she was delighted. She had a rosebud mouth just like the old prints and danced with the old print postures. The girls pass the drinks and the rice which always comes at the end of such feasts. The little eleven-year-old gave a dance called “Climbing Fuji.” Wonderful flat-footed movements that make you feel exactly as if you were climbing with her. In the middle part she puts on a mask which is puffy in the cheeks, and then she wipes the perspiration and washes her little face and fans herselfand goes on again, flatfooted. All the motions are most elegant and graceful and subtle and serpentine, never an abrupt or sudden gesture, and never quite literal in any sense. After the dance was finished she came and sat by me and her skin was hot as if she had a fever. All the men were older and I must say they treated her very nicely.
This is the way those feasts go. We enter the restaurant in stocking feet, and are usually shown to a small room where we kneel on the cushions and take tea while waiting for all the guests to assemble. About six this time, we were shown to the large room, which is always surrounded by gold screens and shoji, which slide back before the windows. Cushions are placed about three feet apart on three sides of the long and beautifully shaped room. In the middle of one side they are piled up so the foreign guests of honor may sit instead of kneeling Japanese fashion. We place ourselvesafter having all the guests one after another brought up. We shake hands because their bows are rather impossible and they have adapted themselves to our way. Then we all squat again. Then the pretty waitresses come slithering across the floor, each with a tiny table in her hands. The first is for Papa, the second for me, then the mayor, and so on. The mayor is down at the end of the line. After each one has his table before him the mayor comes to the center of the hollow square and makes a little speech of welcome. He always tells you how sorry he is he has such a poor entertainment and that he could not do better for these distinguished guests who do him so much honor by coming, and how this is the first time the city has ever honored a foreign scholar by this kind of entertainment. Then Papa does his best to make a reply, and after he sits down we lift the cover of a lovely lacquer soup bowl and lift the chop sticks. You take a drink of soup,lift a thin slippery slice of raw fish from its little dish, dip it in the sauce and put it in your mouth. To-night this first soup is a rich and rare green turtle, delicious. So you drink it all and take a little fish, but our guide warns us not to take too much raw fish as we are not accustomed it. By this time another tray of pretty lacquer is put beside you on the floor and on it is a tiny tray or platter of lacquer on which are placed two little fish browned to perfection, and trimmed with two little cakes of egg and powdered fish, very nicely rolled in cherry leaves. Every dish is a work of art in its arrangement. These two fish are the favorite of the last emperor, and you do not blame him. They are cooked in mirin, a kind of sweet liquor made from saké, and you eat all you can pick off the bones with your hashi. As soon as this tray is in place you see a lovely little girl with her long, bright-colored kimona on the floor around her, and she has in her hand a blue andwhite china bottle placed in a tiny lacquer coaster, and you know the feast is really under way. She is followed by the older girls, and little by little one at a time and quite gradually the dancing girls come in and bow to the floor while they pour out the saké. They laugh at the ways of the foreigners who always forget it is the part of the guest to hold out his tiny cup for the poison. Everybody drinks to the health of everybody else and there stops my saké, but the Japanese drink on and on, one cup at a sip and the hand reaching out for more. Talk gets livelier, the girls take more part in it. They are said by some to be the only interesting women in Japan. At any rate, no wives are ever there but me, and the girls are beautifully cultured, moving at the slightest suggestion of voice or gesture and always seeing quickly and very pleasantly what each one wants. As soon as they see we do not drink saké they bring many bottles of mineral water for us. Then theydo their beautiful dances. Two, about seventeen years old, did one called “Twilight on the east hill of Kyoto.” In Nagoya, in Tokyo, or wherever you are, the theme is always some natural event connected with the nature near by. Always simple and classic. Then the famous old dancer did a subtle thing called “The nurse putting the child to sleep.” That is another favorite theme. This was lovely, but sometimes too subtle for us to grasp all the movements. These girls all dress in dark colors like the ladies, only with the difference prescribed by the profession, such as the low neck in the back and the full length of the kimona on the floor like a wave around her. With the young ones the obi is different, being tied to drop down on the floor in a long bow. The young ones also have the bright hair ornaments and the very long sleeves. But so do other young girls wear the long sleeves for company dress.
There are other courses of fish; one offour strawberries, two slices of orange, some mint jelly cut in cubes, and sweetened bamboo slices in the middle of the list. Then more fish courses, many of them bright-colored shell fish which are always rather tough. Then a very nice mixture of sour cucumber salad and little pieces of lobster or crab, very nice and any sour thing is good with these many courses of fish. At the end bowls of rice, which is brought in in a big lacquer dish with a cover looking some like a small barrel. This is put into bowls by one of the older dancers and handed about by the younger ones who get up and down from their kneeling posture by just lifting themselves as if they had no weight, on their toes. Many of the Japanese take the regulation three bowls full of rice, and eat it very fast. I must say their rice is delicious, but I cannot get away with more than one bowl, partly because I cannot gobble. Then, for the last, your bowl is filled with tea.
All this time the gentlemen from the other parts of the room are kneeling one at a time before you asking you if you like the cherry dance and what your first impressions of Japan were, and all such talk, and you have become intimate friends with the dancers as well, maybe with no common language except “thank you” and “very nice” and “good-bye,” and constant smiles and interpretations now and then from others who know a very little English. One thing no one expects is for a foreigner to know a word of Japanese. Therefore, when you pop out an awkward word or two, you are applauded by laughter and compliments on your good pronunciation. To-night we had the very tiniest of green peppers cooked as a vegetable with one of the dishes. That was good as it had flavor; three of them about as big as a hairpin were served in the dish. You always get tiny portions and are usually warned not to eat too much at the first part of the meal. In the tea-dinner therice comes along at the beginning so it can be eaten with the fish, and that is an agreeable variety though you are told not to eat too much of it as there are other courses to follow. I forgot to say there is always a course in the middle which is a hot custard made with broth instead of milk and seasoned with vegetables. That is good, too. In fact, I have become quite fond of this fish food.
When we got in the motor car at the gate of the restaurant, all the gay little dancers were standing there in the rain waving their hands in American fashion till we went out of sight. Then I suppose the tired little things went back and danced for more men. We were home at 8:30. All the dinners seem to be early here in Japan, except what are called the foreign ones and they follow our hours as well as our style.
I must tell you the best tea in Japan grows here at a place nearby called Uji. We had that tea after a lecture in the cityhall. It is strong to the danger point, and has a flavor unlike anything else. An acid like lemon and no bitter at all; leaves a smooth pleasant taste something like dry sherry, and is generally delicious. It costs at least ten yen a pound here, but I shall get some to take home. Very good ordinary tea here costs fifteen sen a pound, seven and a half cents.
To-day we were taken visiting schools—first a Boys’ High school, then an elementary school which had an American flag along with the Japanese over the door in our honor, and which was awfully nice. The children did lots of cunning stunts for us, one little kid beating the Japanese drum for their rhythmic marching, which they are good at. Then a textile school for textile design, weaving and dyeing, which for some unexplained reason was bad and poorly attended. The machines were old, German and out of date. In fact, it all looked as if it had been worked off on them second hand by some Germans who didn’t want them ever to amount to anything. All of the best work here is still done by hand, although they have good electric power developed from the water they have. Then wewent to a Girls’ High School, combined with a college for girls, preparing teachers for the regular high schools. The élite of Kyoto go there, and it, like the other schools, was very nice and good. They specialize in domestic science and we ate a fine Japanese lunch they had prepared. All this, like most our other trips, in the mayor’s car.
This is really a country where the scholar is looked up to and not down upon. In virtue of having lectured at the Imperial University I am “Your Excellency” officially. Osaka city does not wish to be outdone by Kyoto, so I am to lecture to the teachers there, and the city is to provide for us at the hotel, and the mayor to give us a banquet there. Of course, Mamma is the only woman present, as it would not occur to them to invite their own wives. Foreign women are expected, however, to do strange things, and they are very polite to them. The geisha women seem to be about the only ones who have an all-aroundeducation—not of the book type, but in the sense of knowing about things and being able and willing to talk—and I think the men go to these banquets and talk to them because they are tired of their too obeyful wives and their overdocility. One woman at the banquet we went to was known as the Singing Butterfly, and has the name Constitution as a nickname, because of her supposed interest in politics, especially on the liberal side. When we heard that she had been in prison because of her interest in politics, we sat up and took notice, but it turned out that it was for bribing voters to vote for a man she was interested in. But she is a local celebrity all right, and her stay in prison had evidently added to her interest and prestige.