When I Was a Boy in Japan

by Sakae Shioya

I suppose I don’t need to tell you exactly, my little friends, when and where I was born, because Japanese names are rather hard for you to remember, and then I don’t want to disclose my age. Suffice it to say that I was once a baby like all of you and my birthplace was about a day’s journey from Tokyo, the capital of Japan. I wish I could have observed myself and noted down every funny thing I did when very small, as the guardian angel, who is said to be standing by every cradle, will surely do. But when my memory began to be serviceable, I was well on in my infancy, and if I were to rely on that only, I should have to skip over a considerable length of time. How I should dislike to do this! So, my little friends, let me construct this chapter out of bits of things my mamma used to tell me now and then.

When I was born, my father was away. Grandma was very proud to have a boy for the first-born, and at once wrote him a letter saying that a son was born to him and that he was like—and then she wrote two large circles, meaning that I was very, very plump. Do you know how a plump Japanese baby looks? I have often wondered myself, and have many a time watched a baby taking a bath. Let us suppose him to be one year old and about to be put into warm water in a wooden tub. His chin is dimple-cleft, his cheeks ripe as an apple, and his limbs are but a continuation of his fat trunk. And how jolly the elfin is! After the queer expression he has shown on being dipped has passed away and he realizes what he is about, he will make many quick bows—really, I assure you, to show his thanks for the trouble of washing him. At this, mother, sister, and the maid assisting them give a burst of laughter, when, with a scream of immense delight, he will strike his fists into the water, causing a panic among the well-clad and not-ready-to-get-wet attendants. With royal indifference, however, he will then try to push his fist into his mouth, and not grumbling at all over his ill-success, he will set about telling a story with his everlasting mum-mum. Now he is taken out and laid on a towel. Glowing red, how he will move his arms and legs like an overturned turtle! Well, that is how I looked, I am very sure.

In Japan, in christening a child, we follow the principle of “A good name is better than rich ointment.” I was named Sakae, which in the hierographic Chinese characters represents fire burning on a stand. The idea of illumination will perhaps suggest itself to you at once, and indeed, it means glory or thrift. And my well-wishing parents named me so, that I might thrive and be a glory to my family. So I was bound to be good, wasn’t I? A bad boy with a good name would be very much like a monkey with a silk hat on.

Now begins my walking. Now and then mamma or grandma would train me, taking my hands and singing:

“Anyo wa o-jozu,

Korobu wa o-heta.”

But my secret delight—so I judge—was to stand by myself, clinging to the convenient checkered frames of paper screens, which covered the whole length of the veranda. When I went from one side to the other, at first without being noticed—of course walking like a crab—and then suddenly being discovered with a shout of admiration, I used to come down with a bump, which, however, never hurt me—I was so plump, you know. I must describe here a sort of ceremony, or rather an ordeal, I had to pass through when I was fairly able to stand and walk without any help. For this I must begin with my house.

My house stood on the outskirts of the town, where the land rose to a low hill and was covered with tea-plants. We owned a part of it hedged in by criptomerias.

We were not regular tea dealers, but we used to have an exciting time in the season preparing our crop. Lots of red-cheeked country girls would come to pick the leaves, and it was a sight to see them working. With their heads nicely wrapped with pieces of white and blue cloth, jetting out of the green ocean of tea-leaves, they would sing peculiarly effective country songs, mostly in solos with a short refrain in chorus. But they were not having a concert, and if you should step in among them, they would make a hero of you, those girls. And then we had also a good many young men working at tea-heaters.

Here they likewise sang snatches of songs, but their principal business was to roll up steamed leaves and dry them over the fire. But when work is combined with fun, it is a great temptation for a boy, and I, a lad of five or six, I remember, would have a share among them, and, standing on a high stool by a heater and baring my right shoulder like the rest, would join more in a refrain than in rolling the leaves.