A Boy of Old Japan

by R. Van Bergen

“Come, that is rather rough on me,” I laughed. “I find I can get along very well.”

“Yes? I always did admire my fellow-countrymen. They have now another claim to my regard. I speak in Japanese with you for the sake of old times; but, do you know that I sometimes need all my equanimity to bear with the way in which you murder our language. Sometimes you use expressions as if I were your superior in rank; that is all right and proper; but when, a moment late, you hurl a word at my head fit only for a coolie or a servant, I admire the perfect control I have of my temper. No!” he continued slowly and looking thoughtfully at me, “I don’t think you will ever learn Japanese.”

“I am satisfied with what I know,” I replied, “but if my use of your tongue shocks your ear, I am willing to converse in English, and I promise you that I shall not criticize either your pronunciation or grammar.”

He bowed ceremoniously and replied: “No, thank you! When I am in the United States, or in England, I speak English and try to act as regardless of the feelings of others as your fellow Anglo-Saxons act. As soon as I begin to think in English, it seems as if I forget that I am a Japanese gentleman.”

“You must have mastered our language better than I have yours, then, for when I speak in Japanese I can never bring myself to use those elegant circumlocutions which we call by a name which to us has an ugly sound.”

This time it was my friend’s turn to laugh. “Do you remember when poor Kato first came to see you? We were at our lessons, and he to do you honor had spent a few days in learning the phrases: ‘I have heard of your famous name,’ and ‘I am happy to see your face.’ He came in and recited those two sentences in very fair English, I thought. I see you jumping up yet. What a spitfire you were! Poor Kato! He did not know what to make of it. You roared: ‘Now, what is the use of talking that way? You never heard of my name, for it is not famous, and you don’t care about my face any more than I care about yours.’ Kato’s stock of English was exhausted, and he politely requested me to come to his assistance. Well, I had manners if you had not, so I told him that you were overpowered at the honor of his call, and that this was your manner to invite him to make himself at home.”

“So that was the reason that fellow bored me until eleven o’clock. I owe you one for that!”

“Yes? We paid you foreigners well in those days, more than we could really afford, but most of you were worth the money. Not on account of the duties you performed, not always satisfactorily but generally to the best of your ability, but on account of the never failing amusement you afforded us. At a time when you thought yourself a fair Japanese scholar I have heard you criticized right before you, and you were as unconscious as a babe.”

“Don’t you think that you show by what you say the real difference between you and our race. By your own confession, I showed you kindness, and, my memory deceives me badly, or you reciprocated to some extent my friendship for you. Yet you could stand by and patiently listen to an adverse criticism of one who was your friend, and, instead of resenting it, as I would have done in a similar case, you could be amused by it.”

“Ah! but you forget. At that time you were still an object of suspicion to us. Shimonoseki and Kagoshima were recent recollections, and we were eating humble-pie. It is different now. We know your strength and your weakness and we know also our own strength, and we can magnanimously condescend to treat you as our equals. At that time the whole nation dissembled; we hated you and every foreigner, although we treated you so as to flatter your conceit. It does not raise a people in its own eyes when it forces itself to discard, even for a time, its national pride, and pretend to honor those whom it despises and hates. I tell you, my old friend, I am proud of my country and of my people. We passed through a fiery ordeal, and came out purified. But I acknowledge also that the fire has left scars which only time can heal. We are growing better, not worse. The fact that we two still find pleasure in each other’s company proves that we are better able to appreciate each other’s good qualities, and that is a type of the feeling of Japan toward foreign nations.”