Round the Wonderful World

by G. E. Mitton

As we run back to the town we notice the houses standing by themselves in the suburbs, quite good, large houses, some of them, surrounded by their own gardens, shut in by high walls so that only the sloping red-tiled roofs, curved up at the end, are visible. Some of these are two storeys high, but when we get into the town we see at first only rows and rows of one-storey houses. There are frequent earthquakes in Japan, and to build many-storeyed blocks would mean frightful disaster and loss of life. As it is, the people can rush quickly out of their little homes into the streets at the first signs of a shaking.

What do you notice about the streets that strikes you most particularly? To me it is the colouring—blue. You remember that in Burma there was practically no blue; the people wore red and pink and magenta and orange, but they seemed one and all to avoid blue. I used to think it was because they knew that blue would not suit their sallow, yellowish complexions; but the Japanese are just as yellow, in fact more so, for the Burmese yellow is a kind of coffee colour, and theirs real saffron, and yet the Japs are very fond of blue. The coolies and work-men all dress in it, with those astonishing signs on their backs that we noticed first at Yokohama, and the shops have blue banners hanging out beside them. These are for their names—they are signboards, in fact. Instead of running across horizontally, as our writing does, the Japanese writing—which is the same as the Chinese, though the spoken language is different—runs vertically. A Jap does many things exactly the opposite way from what we do. He begins to read a book from what we should consider the end, backwards, and instead of going along, he goes up and down a line; and the long thin strips, with those mysterious cabalistic signs on them, are the shopkeepers' names and businesses. The shops are all open to the street, without glass, in this quarter; they are just what we should call stalls; most of them seem to be greengrocers' or fruiterers'. And in the first there are always prominently in front huge vegetables like gigantic radishes or elongated turnips; the people eat them largely, though to a European both the flavour and the smell are nasty. In the fish shops the funniest things to be seen are great black devil-fish, or octopuses, with their lumpy round bodies and black tentacles stretching out on all sides. They are loathsome to look at, but the Japs are not the only people who use them for food; in parts of Italy the peasants eat them as a staple dish whenever they can catch them.

There are no pavements here, and the streets are very muddy after last night's heavy rain, but it doesn't seem to matter a bit to the numerous inhabitants. All those who can afford it go in rickshaws, which pass us every minute, and the others wear clogs which lift them high out of the dirt. These clogs are called geta, and they are the funniest footwear to be found anywhere. You would find it more difficult to get about on them than on roller-skates, but the Japs are so much used to them that they trip along morning, noon, and night in them without being the least tired. They are simply little stools of wood, one flat piece being supported by two smaller ones at the toe and heel, and they are held on by straps across the foot. Men, women, and children are thus raised inches out of the mud, and patter about, ting-tang, ting-tang, all day long. Some of the women have coarse white stockings made with a separate stall for the big toe, on the model of a baby's glove, so that the geta strap can go through.

GETA CLOGS.

We have now got into the middle of the town where the more populous streets are. You ought to notice how the colours of the clothes differ for the different ages of the people: the grandmothers and grandfathers wear dark purples and sombre hues; the middle-aged people have soft colouring, grey greens and palish shades; and the children are very gay, in every imaginable colour and often all mixed together. The girls have all a broad sash called an obi, humped up in a funny way behind their bodies; in the children this becomes a great bow like the wings of a butterfly. The people are small, and were it not for the clogs they would look smaller still; their country is not little, for Japan is larger than the United Kingdom, but the people are rarely tall, and they are slenderly built, with small bones, so that being among them makes an ordinary fair-sized Englishman feel clumsy and long-limbed. Now we are in the main street of all. Here comes a tram filled with Japanese, all smiling and chattering and looking happy; they take life with a smile. The houses here are larger than those we have passed, and some are just European buildings of stone, and the shop-windows are filled with glass, and show as fine a display as in the best London shops. There are many entirely for the sale of Western things, and others for the things of the country—the beautiful embroideries and silks, and silver-work and lacquer-work and carving, which you know so well by sight at home, for it is sent over in large quantities now, and anyone can buy it in London as cheaply as here.

As we near our hotel we tell the interpreter, whose "honourable name" we have learned is Yosoji,—everything belonging to other people is "honourable" here,—that we would like to see the palace where the Emperor lives; so he gives an order to the rickshaw man, and we set out once more.

On the way we see many open spaces and pass through a park, but when we get to the palace we find that no one is allowed to go in, and we can only drive round by the walls and moat. The Mikado, or Emperor, is worshipped by most of his people; he is in the position of a god, and it is no mere expression of speech to say that every schoolboy would be proud and glad to die for him. There is no country in the world whose people are more passionately devoted to their fatherland than the Japs. The idea of prominent Japanese going about in foreign countries trying to belittle their own, or undermine her power in the countries she has won by the sword, is unthinkable.

Later in the afternoon, coming out again from our hotel, we find Yosoji waiting for us, and we tell him we want to walk about on foot to look at some of the shops. He protests, and we can see he thinks us almost out of our minds to suggest going on foot. He pleads earnestly that rickshaws are very cheap. We have to explain that it is not the money we are thinking of, but that we really prefer to go on foot. He doesn't believe it—he can't, because no Japanese would prefer to go on foot when he could ride. So we take no further notice of him and just walk away, leaving him to follow humbly and despairingly. We have not taken many steps when a whole flight of rickshaw men swoop across the road and are on our heels, crying out, "Rickshaw, rickshaw, shaw, shaw, r'sha," like our old friends the pests of Egypt. We pretend not to hear, and walk on with what dignity we can, but they follow persistently, almost trampling on our heels, and reiterating their cries all the time. They can only imagine we must be deaf and blind. The crowd grows greater, the street is getting blocked. We pass a Japanese policeman in a stiff and badly made uniform, and are seized with sudden hope that he will send the offenders flying, but he does nothing of the sort; he fumbles in his pocket, brings out a little text-book Of English, and laboriously reads out, "Please secure me a good rickshaw," and looks at us triumphantly as if he had solved the difficulty!

I have no moral courage; I don't know if you have more, anyway, let us take two and then they can follow us if they like, and the others will go away. Accordingly we give orders to Yosoji, who bows, only half-satisfied, and interprets our orders. The plan works, the other men slink off, and the two selected ones follow us limply at a foot's pace.