The Critic in the Orient

by George Hamlin Fitch

Will the Japanese Retain Their Good Traits?

Any thoughtful visitor to Japan must be impressed with the problems that confront Japan to-day, owing to the influence of foreign thought and customs. This influence is the more to be dreaded because the Japanese are so impressionable and so prone to accept anything which they are convinced is superior to their own. They have very little of the Chinese passion for what has been made sacred by long usage. They have high regard for their ancestors, but very little reverence for their customs and opinions. This lack of veneration is shown in striking fashion by those Japanese students who come to this country to gain an education. These young men are as eager as the ancient Athenians for any new thing, and when they return to their old homes each is a center of Occidental influence. This is frequently not for the best interests of their countrymen, who have not had their own opportunities of observation and comparison.

The qualities in which the Japanese excel are the very qualities in which so many Americans are deficient. Personal courage and loyalty are the traits which Professor Scherer, a distinguished expert, regards as the fundamental traits of the Japanese character. That these qualities have not been weakened materially was shown in the recent war with Russia. In that tremendous struggle was demonstrated the power of a small nation, in which everyone—men, women and children—were united in a passionate devotion to their country. No similar spectacle was ever shown in modern history. The men who went cheerfully to certain death before Port Arthur revealed no higher loyalty than the wives at home who committed suicide that their husbands might not be called upon to choose between personal devotion to their family and absolute loyalty to the nation. The foreign correspondents, who were on two-hundred-and-three-metre hill before Port Arthur, have told of the Japanese soldiers in the ranks who tied ropes to their feet in order that their comrades might pull their bodies back into the trenches. All those who were drafted to make the assaults on the Russian works in that awful series of encounters (which make the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava seem cheap and theatrical) knew they were going to certain death. Yet these foreign observers have left on record that the only sentiment among those who remained in the trenches was envy that they had not been so fortunate as to be selected to show this supreme loyalty to their country. General Nogi, who recently committed suicide with his wife on the day of the funeral of the late Emperor, had two sons dash to this certain death on the bloodstained hill before Port Arthur. As commander, he could have assigned them to less dangerous positions, but it probably never entered his head to shield his own flesh and blood. And the same loyalty that is shown to country is also proved in the relation of servant to master. The story of the Forty-seven Ronins is too well known to need repetition, but the loyalty of these retainers (who slew the man that caused their lord's death, although they knew that this deed called for their immediate end by their own hands) impresses one with new force when he stands before the tombs of these men in the Japanese capital and sees the profound reverence in which they are still held by the people of Japan.

What puzzles the foreign observer is: Will this passionate loyalty of servant to master survive the spectacle of the ingratitude and self-interest which the Japanese see in the relation of master and servant in most Christian countries? The whole tendency of life in other countries than his own is against this loyalty, which has been bred in his very marrow. How long, without the mainstay of religion, will the Japanese cling to this outworn but beautiful relic of his old life? And it must be confessed that religion is rapidly losing its hold on the men of Japan. Those who have been abroad are apt to return home freethinkers, because the spectacle of the practical working of Christianity is not conducive to faith among so shrewd a people as the Japanese. Even the example of the foreigners in Japan is an influence that the missionaries regard as prejudicial to Christianity.

Another trait of the Japanese which will not be improved by contact with foreigners, and especially with Americans, is thoroughness. This trait is seen on every hand in Japan. Nothing is built in a slovenly way, whether for private use or for the government. The artisan never scamps his work. He seems to have retained the old mechanic's pride in doing everything well which he sets his hand to do. This is seen in the carving of many works of art, as well as in the building of the ornamental gateways throughout the empire, that stand as monuments to the æsthetic sense of the people. Yet the whole influence of foreign teaching and example is against this thoroughness that is ingrained in the Japanese character. The young people cannot fail to see that it does not pay their elders to expend so much time and effort to gain perfection, when their foreign rivals secure apparently equal if not superior results by quick and careless work. It is upon these Japanese children that the future of the empire depends. They are sure to be infected by these object lessons in the gospel of selfish and careless work, which the labor union leaders in our country have preached until it has been accepted by the great mass of mechanics.

Another racial quality of the Japanese, which is likely to suffer from contact with foreigners, is his politeness. This is innate and not acquired; it does not owe any of its force to selfish considerations. The traveler in Japan is amazed to see this politeness among all classes, just as he sees the artistic impulse flowering among the children of rough toilers in the fields. And again the question arises: Will the Japanese retain this attractive trait when they come into more intimate contact with the foreigner, who believes in courtesy mainly as a business asset rather than as a social virtue?

So, in summing up one's impressions of Japan, there comes this inevitable doubt of the permanence of the fine qualities which make the Japanese nation to-day so distinct from any other. The Japanese may differ from all other races in their power of resisting the corrupting influences of foreign association, but it is to be feared that the visitor to the Mikado's land fifty years from now may not only find no Mikado, but none of the peculiarly gracious qualities in the Japanese people which to-day set them apart from all other nations.

PLATE I Street Scene, Asakusa Park, Tokyo. This Picture Gives a Good Idea of Japanese Street Dress of Men and Women. The Park Contains a Twelve-Story Tower, Two Hundred and Twenty Feet in Height

PLATE II Entrance Hall and Stairway of Modern Home of a Tokyo Millionaire. Note the Priceless Screens With Cherry-Blossom Decoration, the Bronze Stair Railings and the Inlaid Floor

PLATE III Bronze Lanterns and Sacred Fountain, Shiba Temple, Tokyo. These Temples in Shiba Park Are Among the Marvels of Japanese Art