Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

One curious thing in a Japanese household is to see the formalities that pass between brothers and sisters, and the respect paid to age by every member of the family. The grandmother and grandfather come first of all in everything--no one at table must be helped before them in any case; after them come father and mother; and lastly, the children according to their ages. A young sister must always wait for the elder and pay her due respect, even in the matter of walking into the room before her. The wishes and convenience of the elder, rather than of the younger, are to be consulted in everything, and this lesson must be learned early by children. The difference in years may be slight, but the elder born has the first right in all cases. Etiquette, procedure, and self-control among the Japanese girls are the most important of the influences shaping a Japanese woman's life.

Considerable respect is shown to the girl of the family by her brothers. The native and conventional politeness of the Japanese shows itself even in the names by which the children address one another. The parents may leave off the appellatives of respect, but brothers, sisters, and servants must treat the young lady with dignity, especially if she be the eldest daughter.

What preparation does the Japanese girl have for her position in the social fabric of her people? Fortunately for her, there is some effort made to fit her for her future duties. Quite early the daughter of a household begins to feel the responsibilities of home cares. Even those families which are able to provide ample domestic service will give to the daughter of the household the duty of making the tea and of serving it to the guests with her own hands. This is regarded as of greater honor to the visitor than if a servant had performed the task. The eldest girl of the family must learn to act in the place of the parents, should a visitor appear in their absence, or when the younger children need the care and oversight of an elder. In such matters as sweeping the rooms, preparing the meals, washing the dishes, purchasing viands, and sewing, the Japanese girl finds ample scope for a practical education to make her ready for the exactions of the life of a housekeeper when she herself shall become a wife and mother.

Besides these practical duties in which the girl is early trained, there is education in simpler mathematics and, to a degree, in literature and the art of poetry. She is expected to be familiar with the classical poetry of her country, more particularly the choice short poems, which are well known to both young and old Japanese. Education, in the stricter sense of the term, is on the increase among the girls of Japan, as well as among the boys and young men. Besides native schools, schools for the education of Japanese girls have been established by missionaries from Christian countries. And even higher education is making rapid strides, as is seen in the Kobe College for Women. But the advance of the state or public education during the past decade or more renders the foreign schools less necessary; and the private teacher, to whom the girls of the better families were formerly invariably sent, is gradually yielding to the larger school. And it may be said that to-day the girls are provided for, educationally, equally with the boys. Japan has made wonderful strides in educational matters, being receptive of new ideas concerning the common schools; but there are adjustments that must be made to the social ideals and customs of the people, because of the rise of the new education. Among these there is probably none more difficult and perplexing than that which grows out of the need of adapting the old ideas of early marriage for the daughter of a family to the growing demands and the enlarged opportunities for female education.

The Japanese girl has better opportunity to experience the pleasurable side of life than have girls of most Oriental lands. Her recreations are more numerous and varied. Among them are the annual festivals, such as the Japanese New Year, the several flower fêtes, and, above all, the Feast of Dolls, which has been thus interestingly described: "The feast most loved in all the year is the Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the third month the great fireproof storehouse gives forth its treasures of dolls--in an old family, many of them hundreds of years old--and for three days, with all their belongings of tiny furnishings in silver lacquer and porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on red-covered shelves in the finest room in the house. Most prominent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified calm, each on a lacquered dais. Near them are the figures of the five court musicians, in their robes of office, each with his instrument. Besides these dolls, which are always present and form the central figures of the feast, numerous others more plebeian, but more lovable, find places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls' furnishings which is brought out on these occasions is something marvellous. Before Emperor and Empress is set an elegant lacquered service, tray, bowls, cups, saké pots, rice buckets, etc., all complete, and in each utensil is placed the appropriate variety of food. Fine silver and brass hibachi, or fire-boxes, are there with their accompanying tongs and charcoal baskets--whole kitchens, with everything required for cooking the finest of Japanese feasts, as finely made as if for actual use; all the necessary toilet apparatus--combs, mirrors, utensils for blackening the teeth, for shaving the eyebrows, for reddening the lips and whitening the face--all these are there to delight the souls of all the little girls who may have the opportunity to behold them. For three days the imperial effigies are served sumptuously at each meal, and the little girls of the family take pleasure in serving the imperial majesties; but when the feast ends, the dolls and their belongings are packed away in their boxes, and lodged in the fireproof warehouse for another year."

Besides the special festivals and holidays, there is opportunity all the year round for the little girls to play their merry games of ball and battledoor and shuttlecock, which they do with keen delight and with much grace of movement. The tales of wonder which are told them are a perpetual source of pleasure; for they have their Jack, the Giant Killer, in Momotaro, the Peach Boy, with his wondrous conquests, and many other tales to kindle their youthful imaginations. Among these are the early ancestral exploits, which tend to keep alive love of country. The Japanese girl may be seen occasionally in the theatre, seated on the floor with her mother and sisters, taking into her memory impressions of heroism and self-sacrifice, through the historical dramas which present the early experiences of patriotism and passion which characterized the fathers of old. Thus, the Japanese girl grows up to womanhood and is a finished product five or six years earlier than is an English or American girl. At sixteen or eighteen she is regarded as quite ready herself to take up the active duties of life.

The preparation given to the girls of Japan has been justly criticised in that, while furnishing the future woman with remarkable powers of observation and of memory, with much tactfulness and æsthetic taste, with deftness and agility of the fingers, there is little to strengthen the powers of reason and to cultivate the religious and spiritual side of the nature. Music is almost the sole possession of women, and many of them play the koto (a stringed instrument with horizontal sounding boards, not unlike the piano in principle) and the samisen, or "Japanese guitar," with great grace of touch and manner, but with little music, as adjudged by the Occidental ear;--however, standards differ. So, too, the artistic arrangement of flowers is an art much loved by the women of Japan. Their education and their daily occupation tend to cultivate the emotional at the expense of the intellectual side of life. Hence, much refinement but less strength, and the best and cleverest women of Japan, therefore, are attractive rather than admirable.

The diminutive size of the Japanese women, their pretty hands and feet, their taste in ornamenting shapely bodies, give them a personal attractiveness rarely surpassed. To what an extent the lowness of stature among the Japanese is to be attributed to their habits cannot be determined. It is the shortness of the lower limbs that is chiefly at fault; and the habit, early contracted, of sitting upon the legs bent horizontally at the knee, instead of vertically, inevitably arrests the development of the lower limbs.

The Japanese women have luxuriant, straight, black hair. The wavy hair which Western women prize so highly is not beautiful in the eyes of the ladies of Japan. Curly hair is to them positively ugly. They spend much care upon the arrangement of their tresses, and their mode of hairdressing is elaborate. Even the women of the poorer classes will visit the hairdressers. The locks are first treated with a preparation of oil, and then done up in the conventional style so familiar to all from pictures of Japanese women. This is expected with many to remain intact for six or eight days.

At present the modes of dressing the hair of female children and growing girls, as well as of married women, vary according to taste and circumstances. In ancient days, however,--and the custom still prevails in some of the more conservative regions,--the hair of the female children was cut short at the neck and allowed to hang down loosely till the girl reached the age of eight years. At about twelve or thirteen, the hair was usually bound up, although frequently this was delayed till the girl became a wife. In the romantic poem of Mushimaro, The Maiden of Unahi, we find this custom referred to, as well as the custom of secluding the young girl from the eyes of her would-be suitors: