When I Was a Boy in Japan

by Sakae Shioya

But I was going to tell you about the ceremony I had to pass through, wasn’t I? Well, it happened, or rather somebody especially arranged it so, I suspect, that I should have it just at the time of this great excitement. The ceremony itself is like this. They take a child fairly able to walk, load him with some heavy thing, and place him in a sort of a large basket shaped like the blade of a shovel. Now let him walk. The basket will rock under him, the load is too heavy for him, and he will fall down.

If he does, it is taken for granted that he has in that one act had all the falls that he would otherwise meet in his later life. So, if he appears too strong to stumble, he will be shaken down by some roguish hands before he gets out of it.

I was to go through this before august spectators—country girls. They liked to see me plump, because some of them were even more plump than I. At any rate, from everywhere they saluted me as “Bot’chan,” “Bot’chan.” If I had returned every salute by looking this way and that, I should have broken my neck. But it was customary to make a bow anyway, and I was ordered by my mamma to do so. On this occasion I made two snap bows with my chin, which excited laughter. Now a basket was produced, a brand-new one, I remember, and I was loaded with some heavy rice cake. I stood up, however, like Master Peachling of our fairy-tale, who is said to have surprised his adopted mother by rising in his bathtub on the very day of his birth! I was then placed in the basket and made to walk.

I looked intently at the basket, not because it was new, but because it gave me a queer motion, the ups and downs of a boat, a new sensation to me, anyway. Attracted, however, by the merry voices of the crowd, I looked at them, and suddenly, being pleased with so many smiling faces, raised a cry of delight, when down I came with a loud noise. A roar of laughter broke out with the clapping of hands. The noise buried my surprise and I also clapped my hands without knowing who was being cheered.

As the first-born of the house, I must have had lots of playthings. But there were two things I remember as clear as the day. One was a sword, all wood, however. As the son of a samurai, I should have had to serve my lord under the old régime and stake my life and honor on the two blades of steel. And so even if the good old days were gone, something to remind us of them was kept and made a plaything of. But really, I liked my wooden sword. The other thing was a horse—a hobby-horse, I mean. I don’t know just how many horses I had, but I wanted any number of them. I had some pictures, but they were all of horses. If not, I would not accept the presents. And with these two kinds of treasures I enjoyed most of my childhood days, the sword slantingly on my side, and the horse, which I fancied trotting, under me, while I shouted “Haiyo! haiyo!”

Although I had my own name, people called me “Bot’chan,” as I have said, because it is a general term of endearment, and papa and mamma would call me “Bô” or “Bôya.” Among those who addressed me thus, I remember very well one middle-aged woman who often came to steal me from mamma, and by whom I was only too glad to be stolen.

We had a long veranda facing the garden, on which I passed most of my days. There I rode on my hobby-horse or played with my little dog Shiro, who would go through all sorts of tricks for a morsel of nice things. Suddenly my laugh would cease and nothing of me would be heard. Wondering what the matter was, mamma would open the paper screen to see, and lo! not a shadow of me was to be seen. Even Shiro had disappeared. Attacked with a feeling something akin to horror, she used to picture—so I imagine—a winged tengu (a Japanese harpy) swooping down and carrying me away to some distant hill. But soon finding recent steps of clogs on the ground, coming to and receding from the veranda, she would nod and smile at the trick. She knew that I had been kidnapped by a good soul!

Now I want to give you some reasons why I liked this woman. First of all, it was because she always carried me on her back. The only way to appreciate what it is to be tall, would be to be a grown-up man and a small child at the same time. And that is exactly the feeling that I had. I could see lots of curious things over the forbidden hedges. I could even see things over the house-tops; they were all one-story, and built low, though. In a word, I always felt while on her back like a wee pig who had first toddled out into a wide, wide world. And then she would carry me through town. What life there was! After crossing a bridge which spanned the stream, coming from the beautiful lake on the north and going a little way along a row of pine-trees, we would come on a flock of ducks and geese on their way to the water. What a noise they made,—quack, quack! Then we would begin inspecting rows of houses, open to the street and in which all sorts of things were sold. Men, women, and children, as well as dogs, seemed to be very much occupied. Then I would spy some horses laden with straw bags and wood. Real horses they were, but I was rather disappointed to find them so big and their appearance not half so good as in my pictures. My faith in them always began to shake a little bit, but still I used to persist in thinking that my hobby-horses and pictures were nearer the reality than those we met on the street. And wasn’t it curious that my belief was at last substantiated by seeing a Shetland pony in America after some twenty years? Ah, that was exactly what I had in mind!

Then I would hear a merry prattle on a drum—terent-tenten, terent-tenten. Ah, here would come boy acrobats dressed in something like girls’ gymnasium suits, with a small mask of a lion’s head with a plume on it, on their heads. A funny sort of boy, I thought, but on my woman’s giving them some pennies, they would perform all sorts of feats which interested me never so much. The woman used to shake me to make sure that I was not dead, as I kept very quiet, watching.

The woman’s house was just behind the street, and she was sure to take me there. Here was another reason why I liked her very much. She seemed to know just what I wanted. She would set me on the sunny veranda and bring me some nice o-dango (rice dumpling). This she made herself, and it was prepared just to my liking, covered well with soy and baked deliciously. I was in clover if I only had that!