I felt strongly inclined to kiss the tiny piquant face, white paint and all, as we said good-bye; but that would have been far too great a breach of etiquette to be tolerated by the little lady, who, bowing low as I left the house, begged ‘to be very kindly remembered to my most honourable father, of whom she had heard so much.’
The following extract, taken from a German book written in 1841, shows us how much importance has always been attached to the rules of politeness and etiquette in Japan. It says, speaking of education: ‘Children of the higher orders are carefully instructed in morals and manners, including the whole science of good-breeding, the minutest laws of etiquette, and the forms of behaviour as graduated towards every individual of the whole human race, by relation, rank, and station.’
Compulsory education exists all over the country, even in remote country villages in the interior. A drum beats at seven o’clock in the morning to summon the children to school, and if one is energetic enough to be about at that early hour, one sees troops of quaint little figures wending their way to the school-house with satchels on their backs, very possibly flying kites or spinning tops, according to the time of year, as they go along.
On a wet morning, instead of the merry little faces, nothing is visible but a long procession of large yellow parchment umbrellas, and bare brown legs and feet. With one hand the kimono is carefully held up high out of harm’s way, with no respect to appearances; in the other hand the children carry their ‘geta’ (clogs), which are only used in fine weather.
As Miss Bird says, describing a Japanese school:
‘The model behaviour of the children during school-hours is quite remarkable; they are so imbued with the spirit of obedience that their teachers have no difficulty in securing quiet and attention. In fact, they are almost too good; and their little old-fashioned faces look painfully serious sometimes as they pore over their books or repeat verses and lessons in their monotonous voices.’
One of their recitations, which I have since seen translated, ran as follows:
‘Colour and perfume vanish away;
What can be lasting in this world?
To-day disappears in the abyss of nothingness.