BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN
In no country in the world do children have a happier childhood than in Japan. Their parents are devoted to them, and the children are always good. This seems a great deal to say, but it is quite true. Japanese boys and girls behave as quietly and with as much composure as grown-up men and women. From the first moment that it can understand anything, a Japanese baby is taught to control its feelings. If it is in pain or sad, it is not to cry or to pull an ugly face; that would not be nice for other people to hear or see. If it is very merry or happy, it is not to laugh too loudly or to make too much noise; that would be vulgar. So the Japanese boy or girl grows up very quiet, very gentle, and very polite, with a smile for everything and everybody.
While they are little they have plenty of play and fun when they are not in school. In both towns and villages the streets are the playground, and here they play ball, or battledore and shuttlecock, or fly kites.
Almost every little girl has a baby brother or sister strapped on her back, for babies are never carried in the arms in Japan except by the nurses of very wealthy people. The baby is fastened on its mother's or its sister's shoulders by a shawl, and that serves it for both cot and cradle. The little girl does not lose a single scrap of her play because of the baby. She runs here and there, striking with her battledore, or racing after her friends, and the baby swings to and fro on her shoulders, its little head wobbling from side to side as if it were going to tumble off. But it is perfectly content, and either watches the game with its sharp little black eyes, or goes calmly off to sleep.
In the form of their dress both boys and girls appear alike, and, more than that, they are dressed exactly like their parents. There is no child's dress in Japan. The garments are smaller, to fit the small wearers--that is all.
The main article of dress is a loose gown, called a kimono. Under the outer kimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are girt about the body with a large sash, called an obi. The obi is the pride of a Japanese girl's heart. If her parents are rich, it will be of shining costly silk or rich brocade or cloth of gold; if her parents are poor, they will make an effort to get her one as handsome as their means will allow. Next to her obi, she prides herself on the ornaments which decorate her black hair--fine hairpins, with heads of tortoiseshell or coral or lacquer, and hair-combs, all most beautifully carved.
A boy's obi is more for practical use, and is not of such splendour as his sister's. When he is very small, his clothes are of yellow, while his sister's are of red. At the age of five he puts on the hakama, and then he is a very proud boy. The hakama is a kind of trousers made of silk, and is worn by men instead of an under-kimono. At five years old a boy is taken to the temple to thank the gods who have protected him thus far; and as he struts along, and hears with joy his hakama rustling its stiff new silk beneath his kimono, he feels himself a man indeed, and that his babyhood of yesterday is left far behind.
Upon the feet are worn the tabi--thick white socks, which may be called foot-gloves, for there are separate divisions for the toes.
These serve both as stockings outside the house and slippers inside, for no boots are worn in a Japanese house. When a Japanese walks out, he slips his feet into high wooden clogs, and when he comes home he kicks off the clogs at the door, and enters his home in tabi alone. The reason for this we shall hear later on. In Japanese clothes there are no pockets. Whatever they need to carry with them is tucked into the sash or into the sleeves of the kimono. The latter are often very long, and afford ample room for the odds and ends one usually carries in the pocket.
But fine kimonos and rich obis are for the wealthy Japanese; the poor cannot afford them, and dress very simply. The coolie--the Japanese working man--goes almost naked in the warm weather, wearing only a pair of short cotton trousers, until he catches sight of a policeman, when he slips on his blue cotton coat, for the police have orders to see that he dresses himself properly. His wife wears a cotton kimono, and the pair of them can dress themselves handsomely--for coolies--from head to foot for a sum of 45 sen, which, taking the sen at a halfpenny, amounts to 1 S. 10-1/2d. in our money.
[CHAPTER III]
BOYS AND GIRLS IN JAPAN (continued)
When Japanese boys and girls go to school, they make very low bows to their teacher and draw in the breath with a buzzing sound. This is a sign of deep respect, and the teacher returns their politeness by making low bows to them. Then the children sit down and begin to learn their lessons.
Their books are very odd-looking affairs to us. Not only are they printed in very large characters, but they seem quite upside down. To find the first page you turn to the end of the book, and you read it backwards to the front page. Again, you do not read from left to right, as in our fashion, but from right to left. Nor is this all: for the lines do not run across the page, but up and down. Altogether, a Japanese book is at first a very puzzling affair. When the writing lesson comes, the children have no pens; they use brushes instead. They dip their brushes in the ink, and paint the words one under the other, beginning at the top right-hand corner and finishing at the bottom left-hand corner. If they have an address to write on an envelope, they turn that upside down and begin with the name of the country and finish with the name of the person--England, London, Kensington Gardens, Brown John Mr.
THE WRITING LESSON
But Japanese children have quite as many things to learn at home as at school. At school they learn arithmetic, geography, history, and so on, just as children do in England, but their manners and their conduct towards other people are carefully drilled into them by their parents. The art of behaving yourself towards others is by no means an easy thing to learn in Japan. It is not merely a matter of good-feeling, gentleness, and politeness, as we understand it, but there is a whole complicated system of behaviour: how many bows to make, and how they should be made. There are different forms of salutation to superiors, equals, and inferiors. Different ranks of life have their own ways of performing certain actions, and it is said that a girl's rank may easily be known merely by the way in which she hands a cup of tea to a guest. From the earliest years the children are trained in these observances, and they never make a mistake.
The Japanese baby is taught how to walk, how to bow, how to kneel and touch the floor with its forehead in the presence of a superior, and how to get up again; and all is done in the most graceful manner and without disturbing a single fold in its kimono.
A child is taught very carefully how to wait on people, how to enter the room, how to carry a tray or bowl at the right height, and, above all, how to offer a cup or plate in the most dainty and correct style. One writer speaks of going into a Japanese shop to buy some articles he wanted. The master, the mistress, the children, all bent down before him. There was a two-year-old baby boy asleep on his sister's back, and he, too, was awakened and called upon to pay his respects to the foreign gentleman. He woke without a start or a cry, understood at once what was required of him, was set on his feet, and then proceeded to make his bows and to touch the ground with his little forehead, just as exactly as his elder relatives. This done, he was restored once more to the shawl, and was asleep again in a moment.
The art of arranging flowers and ornaments is another important branch of a girl's home education. Everything in a Japanese room is carefully arranged so that it shall be in harmony with its surroundings. The arrangement of a bunch of flowers in a fine porcelain jar is a matter of much thought and care. Children are trained how to arrange blossoms and boughs so that the most beautiful effect may be gained, and in many Japanese houses may be found books which contain rules and diagrams intended to help them in gaining this power of skilful arrangement. This feeling for taste and beauty is common to all Japanese, even the poorest. A well-known artist says: "Perhaps, however, one of the most curious experiences I had of the native artistic instinct of Japan occurred in this way: I had got a number of fan-holders, and was busying myself one afternoon arranging them upon the walls. My little Japanese servant-boy was in the room, and as I went on with my work I caught an expression on his face from time to time which showed me that he was not overpleased with my performance. After a while, as this dissatisfied expression seemed to deepen, I asked him what the matter was. Then he frankly confessed that he did not like the way in which I was arranging my fan-holders. 'Why did you not tell me so at once?' I asked. 'You are an artist from England,' he replied, 'and it was not for me to speak.' However, I persuaded him to arrange the fan-holders himself after his own taste, and I must say that I received a remarkable lesson. The task took him about two hours--placing, arranging, adjusting; and when he had finished, the result was simply beautiful. That wall was a perfect picture: every fan-holder seemed to be exactly in its right place, and it looked as if the alteration of a single one would affect and disintegrate the whole scheme. I accepted the lesson with due humility, and remained more than ever convinced that the Japanese are what they have justly claimed to be--an essentially artistic people, instinct with living art."