THE FAN FROM NAGASAKI.
A few months ago, a friend who had been for several years a resident of Japan, came home to America for a visit, and brought with her a bright little son and daughter, neither of whom had ever set foot on our American shores before. The children were delighted with their American cousins; and evidently could not find words strong enough to sound the praises of the new games and sports which they were constantly learning.
Their lives had been spent with Chinese or Japanese nurses; and although kind-hearted and devoted as my friend assured me these people were, the little exiles must have had a sorry time of it in their foreign play-room, when compared with our own boys and girls. The respect and almost reverence with which they regarded Jack, the most daring scapegrace in our family, would have been very amusing had it not been pathetic. What Jack did was always marvelous in their eyes, and into many an unsuspected trap they were beguiled by his mischievous pranks. They were what most of you boys and girls would call very green, when they first reached us, but under Jack’s tuition, I fear that next winter—in fact, at the very time you are reading this—perhaps they will be trying the same tricks upon their innocent Japanese nurse that Jack tried upon them.
It will not be strange if that long-suffering personage does not in his secret heart have less respect for this illustrious nation than he has been wont to have before.
But if so ignorant in most things, these children were very ingenious and uncommonly happy in making things of paper.
One rainy morning, about a week after they came to us, I had occasion to go into the nursery for something, and was quite surprised to find the children busily engaged in folding paper. Edith had brought down some rice-paper from her trunk, and with the help of her brother, was fashioning all sorts of odd things from it; while the younger members of my own family were looking on with intense interest.
I left the room, after watching them for a few minutes, but an hour later, upon entering it again, found them still employed in the same amusement.
It seems that their nurse had been in the habit of teaching them many Japanese arts to keep them still while under his charge. Their nurse was a man, strange to say, as very few female servants are employed in either China or Japan, and now they in their turn were teaching these to us. I confess the graceful, pretty things they were making had quite a fascination for me, and I even left off what I had been doing, and became a pupil with the youngsters. I took up the article which they were just beginning to learn, and, following my little teacher’s directions, I made what I have styled “The Fan from Nagasaki,” because my little instructress was born and lived in that city, and learned her art from a native Jap, and not because the fan itself, if it can strictly be called a fan, came from that region.
The children called it by a delightfully odd Japanese name, which you would find it hard to pronounce even if I should invent a way of spelling it.
Edith used Japanese or rice paper for those she made; but we found a stout quality of brown wrapping-paper, not too stiff, answers nearly as well.
If brown paper is used, a rectangular piece about two feet long, by one and a half feet wide, is a good-shaped piece to use.
Mark off each of the edges which measure eighteen inches into six equal parts, each division being of course three inches long (see Fig. 1). Now double the paper on the line at x, and you have a shape like Fig. 2. Fold the uppermost half under at the line a a, and again outward at the line b b; then fold the under half in precisely the same manner, and your paper is like Fig. 3.
Upon examining the edge a a a, two openings between the folds will be seen; whereas at the edge b b b, three openings will be found. The hand has next to be placed in the middle of these three openings, and the paper spread out toward the right and toward the left; that middle fold lying flat or unfolded for the time being. Another figure is now made like Fig. 4. Now commencing at one end of this long strip, crinkle it the whole length as you would a lamplighter top, making the folds even, about a quarter or half an inch wide. Be careful not to make these folds wider than this, as the fan does not work as well when they are wide. Yon have now a figure like that seen in Fig. 5; and if your folds have been carefully and firmly creased, your paper is prepared to make all sorts of strange shapes. I think Edith told me her nurse could make sixty-five different forms from a similarly folded bit, and most of these she was able to reproduce; but as it is some time since the children left us to visit other friends, and I have not given the subject a second thought till now, I find I have forgotten how many of the more intricate ones were formed. Perhaps with the directions for these my readers will catch the knack, as we Yankees call it, and can improvise some forms unlike any of these, for themselves. Whatever you succeed in making, you may be quite certain that the Nagasakian nurse, away off on the other side of the earth, is ahead of you, and has made the same form before; for his sixty-five must include about everything one could possibly fashion from its folds.
In Fig. 6, the lower edge of Fig. 5 is held between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, while the top is spread out like a fan. For Fig. 7, take Fig. 6, insert the fingers at a, and pass them round to b, raising the paper outward. Fig. 8 is a continuation of 6 and 7, as the upper layer of the overhanging edge in Fig. 7 is raised by passing the finger under it at c, and bringing it out at d.
Fig. 9 is a reverse of Fig. 8. Catch the paper by the part now uppermost, pinch that part well together, and loosen the part which was confined in Fig. 8.
It must be remembered that every time the fan is changed, the paper must be pinched into its original form, Fig. 5. It will now be necessary to make that change. After creasing the folds firmly in place (Fig. 5), lift up the upper part a, bring the lower plaits b well together, and hold them for the handle. With the disengaged hand, arrange the upper part in the form of a sunshade. Another form may be got by raising the upper layer of the sunshade cover, a species of cup or goblet. By drawing out b until it is at right angles with the upright, the goblet form is nearer correct.
Now reverse the paper, and spread out the lower part so that it may represent the body of a wine-glass; that which in Fig. 10 was the top of the sunshade, is now the foot of the glass, as seen in Fig. 11.
The Chinese lantern (Fig. 12) is as easily made. Open out all the paper, and twist it around; catch it now by the central part, and by compressing the central folds well together, these wheels are produced (Fig. 13).
The hat, or cup and saucer (Fig. 14), is readily made by opening the paper out again, and catching it at the two ends.
We now come to a new form of subjects, so the original form (Fig. 5), must once more be reverted to. If the paper is caught at both ends, it can easily be folded so as to form Fig. 15, and a table-mat may be made by drawing it out like Fig. 16.
A “nappie” dish, oval in form, and resembling Fig. 17, may be made from Fig. 16, by simply raising up the sides a and b. By pressing the paper inward, Fig. 18 is obtained. Fig. 19 is made by drawing the paper out again, and letting it loose at the end. Thus you see, by pulling out some parts and drawing in others, a quantity of things could be made other than these I have shown. It would be quite interesting if every boy and girl who reads this, would try on some rainy day to see how near to the sixty-five he or she could come. If two or three friends in the same neighborhood should unite their forces, and count all which are unlike, without reference to the maker, they might not fall so far short of the illustrious Japanese—I wish I could remember his name—after all.
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