After the trouble had all blown over, people said that it had all been worked out by clever Katsura. If this is true, it was one of his last achievements, for the Prince, who is considered the greatest Premier Japan ever had, died in October, 1913. His career was an interesting one. His father belonged to the samurai class, and the boy, Katsura Taro, became a staff officer when only twenty-one. During the Franco-Prussian war he was in Germany studying military tactics. Later he was given charge of the reorganizing and modernizing of the Japanese army. The success of the Japanese in the Chinese and Russian wars is attributed to his genius and to his "silent and unrewarded toil." Only after the battle of the Yalu, when he was made viscount, did his work begin to be appreciated. Later he was created prince. After the Chinese war he changed from soldier to statesman—was four times Prime Minister, and "almost a whole cabinet in himself."
Internal politics do not run any more smoothly in Japan than they do in our own country. On account of the frequent changes of cabinet there was often rioting in front of the Diet during the winter we were at the Embassy. Newspaper offices were attacked and burned, and the mob seemed to have an especial grudge against the police, who were hardly able to cope with the situation. Hearing that there was rioting near the Embassy one evening after dinner, several of us walked to a matsuri not far away, but the crowd was dispersing when we arrived, and only the policeman's sentry-box, which was overturned, remained to tell the tale.
Clubs are an important element in our modern civilization, and especially for foreigners in the Orient, where bachelors so greatly predominate—I believe the proportion is even more than that of forlorn damsels in Massachusetts. At Yokohama there are two organizations, the Yokohama United and a German club, besides the two American societies, the Asiatic and the Columbia.
The Tokyo Club has the reputation of being the most charming in the East. It is splendidly situated on a hill near the American Embassy. The charges are moderate, and the service is generally good. Japanese as well as Europeans belong to it. While we were in Tokyo my husband was invited to become the foreign vice-president, the president being an Imperial Prince. At first he begged off, but a committee of the club visited him and urged him to accept the office, saying that the Japanese were anxious to pay our country a compliment. The Tokyo Club is more than a register of social prominence in the city—it is also important as a political barometer, and this polite insistence upon L.'s accepting the place was, in its way, a tribute to America.
Many adventurers come to the East to seek their fortunes, and one hears strange stories, tragic or romantic as the case may be. A lover waits on the dock for his fiancée on the steamer, only to find that she has decided at the last moment to marry another whom she has met on the voyage; a wife returns from a long vacation at home to find her husband consoling himself with a geisha; a father who comes out to look for his son discovers him deep in debt and drinking himself to death. Such are a few of the many tales we heard.
Some differences in social customs may be noted here. It is polite, for instance, to remove your shoes at the door on entering a Japanese home. After you have entered it is only polite, as well as modest, to remain near the door! When you are offered tea or anything of the sort, it must be twice declined, but the third time it may be accepted.
In conversation one must exalt the person addressed, while everything belonging to the speaker must be held of no value at all. A father, on taking a bright boy to the teacher, would naturally say, "O honourable teacher, here is my idiot son!" And a mother, no matter how deeply she may feel the death of a child, must shed no tears but continue to smile and say, "Oh—child no good!"
What Hearn says about poetry is also true of the Japanese smile. When in danger, smile; when angry, smile; when sad, smile; in fact, it is etiquette always to smile! In so many ways the Japanese are an admirable race, and in none more so than in this. Their instincts are all for good taste and good manners.
Speaking of manners—of course, standards vary. It used to be a common thing in the country villages to see men and women bathing together in large tanks, but as Westerners disapproved of this custom, a few years ago an order went forth that men and women bathing together must put on suits. The result is that to-day they sit on the edge of the tank, or on the seashore, and dress and undress as they have always done, before one another, and wonder why they are obliged to put on bathing-suits when they go into the water! But an order is an order, they say, and must be obeyed.