Rare days in Japan

by George Trumbull Ladd

At the close of the engagement at Hakoné I was for the first, but by no means the last, time the recipient of a genuine old-fashioned Japanese “Sayonara.” There are many ways of speeding the parting guest which prevail in the different parts of the civilised and uncivilised world. But nowhere else, so far as I am aware, is there anything quite like the way characteristic of the “Old Japan.” Even among the Japanese it is being rapidly modified—necessarily so—by the multiplication of railway trains and by the other influences operating to produce a more hurried and self-centred mode of life. But the leave-taking of departing friends has there not yet contracted itself to a mere formal call days beforehand at the house, or to a “Good-bye,” an “Au revoir,” or the more familiar “So long,” or “Take care of yourself, Old Fellow,” from the platform of the railway station. The pleasure of having from fifty to a hundred persons—lords and ladies, professors, officials, together with your kurumaya and domestic servants—gathering at a distant station to see you off by train at six-o’clock in the morning is somewhat embarrassing. But one cannot steal away in silence and without notice from Japanese friends; and an old-fashioned “Sayonara,” in a country place and on an occasion like that of the breaking-up of the summer-school at Hakoné in 1892, is an experience which, while it makes one ashamed of one’s self for being the cause of so great unmerited trouble on the part of others, leaves behind unfading memories of the most encouraging and happiest character.

On a Sunday afternoon a so-called “farewell meeting” was held. At this meeting there was an address of thanks from the Rev. Mr. Honda, the President of the school, speaking in behalf of the central Committee; a complimentary address by one of the younger men; the presentation of written resolutions; an essay in English by a recent graduate of Doshisha Theological School; and a concluding response by the recipient of all these unaccustomed favours. All this together with the singing of several songs, both in Japanese and in English, made up what was called by all “a tender and touching service.”

But what was for me at that time the marvel of the whole affair came the following morning. A severe typhoon had been raging along the coast for several days. Although the wind had not been so terrific in the mountains back from the sea, it had been sufficiently strong to rock violently the inn where I was staying, and to keep the waters on which my room looked out furiously agitated. The rain had been constant and some of the time torrential. By this Monday morning, however, the wind had chiefly subsided; the rain was no longer a down-pour, but it had by no means wholly ceased; nor was there any sure means of knowing when it would be entirely over. The highways were deep in mud, and the smaller mountain paths were rivulets of swiftly flowing water. The bare rocks of the mountains were as treacherously slippery as weather could make them without coating them with ice. Certainly it was not a very proper, convenient, or safe time for an escorting procession to cross the mountains! And since we were returning by Ashinoyu and Miyanoshita, the first part of the route would be at its best rougher and more difficult for the bearers of a sedan-chair than the route over the Tōkaidō had been. But the demands of Japanese courtesy are inexorable. For me to deprecate the taking of so much trouble was wholly unavailing; to have declined to receive it would have resulted in a grievous disappointment to many others, and might even have occasioned a breach of friendship. I have since learned to let the Japanese have their own way in all such matters; and when one has thoroughly learned this lesson, there is no other people with whom the relations of host and guest are so full of heightened enjoyment to both parties. But I must confess that on that morning there was no little sympathetic suffering mingled with a large measure of happiness.

At about eight o’clock a conveyance similar to that which had been employed from Yumoto—a sedan-chair and four coolies—was ready in the front yard of the inn, Hafu-ya. About one hundred members of the school, headed by President Honda and the Rev. Mr. Harada (the former now Bishop of the native Methodist Church of Japan, and the latter the recently elected president of Doshisha) were on hand, ready to walk in train and convoy the parting guest on his way. Eight or ten of the ladies who had been in attendance on the meetings of the school, insisted on accompanying us for about half a mile down the village street. Then I was permitted to get down from the chair and part from the ladies with much ceremony of bowings and interchange of well-wishing for the future. The remainder of the escort tramped steadily on, through mud and water, often more than ankle-deep. The last mile and a half of the way over the mountains, the path was simply horrible. It led down over slippery stones, through shallow mountain brooks; and in one place by such a steep descent that it was necessary to cling to the chair with all one’s strength lest one might be pitched headlong from one’s seat. But the coolies proved sure-footed and the escort kept cheerfully on their way. In the courtyard of the inn at Ashinoyu, on the other side of the mountains, they gathered around the chair, and without allowing it to be lowered so that I could dismount, they gave in the heartiest manner the national cheer: “Banzai; banzai; ban-banzai,” (“ten thousand; ten thousand; ten times ten thousand years”). To raise my hat and bow, with—I am not ashamed to say—a sad heart and moist eyes, was all the way of expressing gratitude which was left to me.

From Ashinoyu the greater number of the friends turned back; but about a half-dozen of the younger enthusiasts kept on undaunted all the way to Yumoto, a distance of fully nine miles. The route from Ashinoyu to Miyanoshita discloses many points of interest. By turning aside from it and climbing some of the heights above, several distant and rarely beautiful views may be had; but neither the weather nor my method of conveyance at that time permitted of such an interruption. The picturesquely situated but insignificant village of Dogashima was just visible through the mist, in the always darksome valley several hundred yards below the path; and with the glimpse of it we were obliged to be contented. After an excellent luncheon at Miyanoshita, a jinrikisha carried me swiftly down hill all the way,—past the pleasant hotel, hot springs, white Russian chapel, and shop-windows full of mosaic wood-work, which are the attractions of Tonosawa—to Yumoto, the point of starting for my trip of some ten days before over the Tōkaidō. From here by tram to Kozu, and from Kozu by train to Tokyo, was a journey tame enough as compared with that of the morning.

The remaining four weeks of my stay in Japan in 1892 were spent in Nikko. Since every tourist goes to Nikko, and makes the same round of sight-seeing, to be followed by similar exclamations and reflections, there is no excuse for writing about all that. I have, however, two or three memories connected with visits to this celebrated resort which are somewhat notable. While there on this first visit I received a letter and then a call from a young man who had come all the way from Sapporo in Hokkaidō to attend the summer-school at Hakoné; and who was now covering the several hundred miles back to his home on foot. To give his own explanation of the motive for so extensive an expedition, he had wished to determine for himself whether there were a God, or not. He begged the privilege of stopping two or three days at Nikko, in order to continue the conversations which we had begun at Hakoné. I heard that my young friend subsequently joined a Christian church; but after returning to this country I lost sight of him altogether. It was not until seven years later, when I was in New York for a few days, just about to start for a second visit, that he called upon me. He had been spending several years in Germany in the study of engineering, as a Government scholar. He was to remain in this country some months before returning for service in Japan; so that again my young friend passed quite out of my field of vision. Seven years still later, when on the way to Japan for the third time, on inquiry from a young engineer, a friend of my friend, I heard that the latter was in a responsible Government position and still a deeply religious man. I speak of this as an example of the serious and business-like manner in which many a Japanese youth of the last two generations has taken his religious opinions as well as his professional education.

One other incident which connects itself with memories of Nikko is worth mentioning. Through the favour of an introduction from the Head of the House, Prince Tokugawa, to the priest first in rank, and the kindly intervention of a friend whose father had been the teacher of the priest of the second rank, my wife and I were able to witness a ceremony, and to see temple treasures, that have been only extremely rarely or never accessible to foreigners. We were told by letter from the Shrine of Iyeyasu, that everything should be open to us, if we came at any time later than half-past one o’clock, when a representative of the Imperial Family, who were leaving Nikko to-morrow, would have finished paying homage to the memory of the divine ancestor there enshrined. We arrived at the Oratory not earlier than two p. m., and were treated with every show of respect. Although the ceremony was not over, and although the person rendering the act of religious homage was the representative of the mother of the Emperor, we were allowed to enter the shrine and witness its closing scenes. The ceremony was most simple, reverent, and impressive, as is all the worship of Shintō. Kneeling in prayer, bowing in reverence, and drinking the memorial cup of saké, were its principal features. After these acts of homage were finished, and the worshipper had departed, the priests, without taking off their white silk robes or black mitres, attended us with lighted lanterns and showed every detail of the shrines and all of the relics which it is permissible for any other than royal eyes to see. They lifted up the silk curtains before the beautiful gilt and lacquer work, and passed the lights over the entire surface so that no minutest feature of their beauty might escape us. They brought out the glass cases containing two of Iyeyasu’s swords, with scabbards of black lacquer, and his armour, including the helmet which he wore at the battle of Seki-gawara; or—according to my friend’s version of the tradition—the helmet which he put on at the end of this battle, with the celebrated saying: “After victory, one should tighten one’s helmet.” Then followed the exhibition of the more private relics of Iyeyasu, such as his futons, night-clothing, tea-service, etc.; and the original of his motto concerning the wise and safe conduct of life. In short, it was our privilege at that visit to see all that is, according to the guide-book, in the “rooms not accessible to visitors,” except the innermost shrine, where is the statue of the hero, and which no one enters but the princes of the Imperial household, and they only on orders from the Department of the Household.

Bringing these two exhibitions of the same human religious nature into close contrast—the devotions and discourses of the Christian summer school at Hakoné, and the simple but stately and solemn and most powerfully influential ancestor-worship of the Old Japan—may well suggest trains of most serious reflection for friends of the nation, both native and foreign. Perhaps nowhere else has the development of this more primitive form of religion been on the whole so strong on the side of its more salutary influences, and more free from the most objectionable and degrading of the features which have generally characterised it. To-day it is probably the most powerful of all bonds to unite the nation’s present with its own past, and to bind together for defence and for progress the different classes and elements of the national life. But in its present form it cannot resist the forces that make for change in religious beliefs and practices; especially as these beliefs and practices are represented by the highest ideals of Christianity. On the other hand, the Christianity which converts Japan is not likely to be the precise dogmas, ceremonies, or institutions, which go under this name in the too often misnamed “Christian nations” of the Occident. And it will be well for Japan not to lose the spirit of regard for the unseen, of reverence for the elders, and of obedience to authority, that consciousness of living and acting constantly in the sight of a “great crowd of heavenly witnesses,” and the desire to emulate the character and the examples of the heroes of old time, the worthies who have gone on before, which have characterised its earlier form of religion, if it is to preserve and enhance its ancient virtues, while rising superior to its characteristic traits of weakness, failure, and sin.

CHAPTER V
JAPANESE AUDIENCES

Audiences in Japan differ, as they do everywhere, in dependence on the social classes which compose them, their culture, varying points of view; and their more immediate or remoter interests. They all have, however, certain characteristics in common; and the more prominent of these seem to be of racial origin and significance. Perhaps the most obvious thing to the experienced and observing foreigner is a certain “secretiveness,” or demeanour due to trained habit of repressing the emotions, at least until they break forth into more emphatic or even extravagant form because of long-continued repression. This habit was acquired by the Samurai in his control of the passion of anger. He was taught as a boy to receive injury and insult from others with an appearance of calm; and not to draw his sword until he had determined that either he, or his insulter, or both, must pay the penalty with death. I have already told how “du calme” was given to General Jan Hamilton as the most important qualification for a field marshal or general in command of a grand army in time of battle. But this habit of repression is not confined to the more explosive of the emotions. It is the testimony of those who witnessed the behaviour of the two combatants during the Russo-Japanese war,—in battle, and when wounded or dying,—that the Japanese were generally quiet and the Russians more noisy and demonstrative. The same thing is true of expressions of appreciation and gratitude.