The working hours in Japan are ten a day. Mechanics receive 75 cents and laborers from 30 to 40 cents a day. Rice, fish, and tea seemed to be the principal food, and if the quantities of food were no larger in proportion than some of the teacups in use, people live cheaply. A man seen eating a bowl of fish and rice with chopsticks was asked what he had paid for it, a vendor having just sold it; he said 30 sen—15 cents. Ten cents would seem a big price for the same portion in America.
Osaka is intersected by canals, and over a thousand bridges within the city lines cross these waterways, resembling Amsterdam, Holland, in this respect. There are nearly 2,000 places of worship, hundreds of schools, colleges, and academies, five daily newspapers, paper mills, machine shops, and an arsenal. Tea, silk, and copper figure largely in the exports from that busy center.
If few modern buildings, narrow streets, latticed front and part paper homes, one story in height, and shops located in these buildings, illustrate Japanese progress, then Kyoto, next visited, is to the fore. The old west capital, as Kyoto is termed, puts one in mind of a pile of wood boxes that have been gathered together to make a bonfire. This city is one huge tinder box. In size Kyoto is the third city of Japan, with a population of half a million people, and it is the bucket stove alone that saves the residents from becoming homeless through the ravages of fire, for if wood and coal stoves were used there would be frequent conflagrations. The roofs are covered with black tiling, and the houses have no chimneys.
The bazaars or shopping centers of these cities are busy places, and resemble an arcade. These are formed by reed blinds being placed above the street, which, pulled by ropes, roll on wires and stretch across, preventing the sun from shining below—similar to those in Canton. Meat is scarce about these shopping places, but rice, beans, dried fish, and vegetables are much in evidence. Radishes serve the same purpose in Japan as potatoes in America; they grow as large as a big cucumber, and when numerous in vegetable stalls an unpleasant odor arises from them.
When a horse or an ox was seen drawing a truck, the driver was always found at the side, or leading it by a rope; it seemed to be the custom not to ride in a loaded vehicle. Cabs are not seen in the city, ricksha pullers doing the hack work. A great many of the public streets are too narrow for a carriage to pass through. Men do most of the trucking.
Pulling a rope depending from a bell, to warn the spirits that a devotee has come to worship at a shrine, is a national religious custom of Japan. In front of each temple a thick rope dangles from a bell above, and, as the finger-soiled Bible indicates the owner's studious religious tendencies, so does the frayed ropes attest the frequency with which worshippers summon the spirits to bear witness to the supplicant's invocations.
Kyoto is well provided with attractive temples, built during the residence in that city of the governing powers. These buildings, like the homes, are constructed of wood, and as one walks about the churches the floors often squeak. As in India, shoes must be covered with canvas slippers before entering. The Japanese, also like Indian worshipers, leave their clogs or sandals outside. Priests are in attendance, and one of these escorts a stranger through the building. If the temple be a Shinto place of worship the priests are considered descendants of the Sun. In one respect there is no similarity between the priests here and those met in India, as the Japanese officials were free of the spirit of beggary. A fee is charged on entering—generally from 10 to 25 cents—and that is all that is expected.
No seats, pianos or organs were seen in the temples, but the floors were covered with mats, on which the worshipers kneel. Off the main church are rooms, where tapestry, with holy figures outlined, hang on the walls, and shrines are sometimes found in the cloisters. The temples are generally located in attractive grounds, often used by children at play. About the buildings are stone or cement posts, on top of which is a four-cornered cap, with a roof or covering larger than the pillar; these represent square lanterns. Under the roof the inside is hollow, with four corners as supports. Lights, put in these, radiate from the four openings. It is one of the sacred emblems of Japan, and hundreds of these lanterns stand in temple enclosures, each one the gift of a well-to-do adherent of the faith. The temples are covered by a roof which seems out of proportion to the building. The eaves are very deep, the supports often richly carved, the designs generally typifying some feature of the religion. The entrance to a Shinto temple is always marked by two stone or wood posts, one on each side, from 12 to 18 feet in height. About two feet below the top a long, straight beam of stone, from a foot to eighteen inches wide, rests in mortises of the upright posts. As the cross stone is solid, one end is placed in the mortise of one pillar and placed across to enter the mortise in the opposite one, the ends extending from two to four feet from the pillars. On top of these posts rest a wide stone cap piece of warped appearance. The whole is called a torii, and appears only at the entrance of a Shinto temple. For walks, the enclosures are covered with gravel, like the streets, or the natural soil serves the purpose of tiling or pavement. They bear no resemblance to temples seen in the other countries visited, neither are they as expensively fitted as some of the mosques and temples in India.
Poor people of other countries do not, as a rule, have two pairs of shoes, but every Japanese seemed to possess that coveted number. When we say shoes, we mean something—anything—to keep the feet from the ground. The Japanese "shoes" are pieces of wood, a trifle longer than the foot, arched at a point between the joint of the toes and instep, with heavy braid. Another strip of braid, coming from the point of the shapened wood on which the foot rests, is secured to the cross braid, which fits in between the big toe and the next. Under the footboard are fastened two other thin pieces of wood, two to three inches apart, and sometimes three inches high, resembling the bridge of a violin. In wet weather, high-bridged clogs are worn to keep the feet from the ground, and in dry weather low-bridged clogs are used. Sandals are worn by some Japanese, but the bridge clog is the shoe of Japan. High-bridge clogs make more noise than low-bridge ones, and when a dozen persons walk on a sidewalk wearing this footgear one knows the Japanese are coming. The clogs cost from 30 to 50 cents a pair.
Bathing in Japan is a custom that must not be overlooked. In the country districts one tub—of wood—is used by a family. Often the bathing takes place in a yard, and the members go through with the custom, one after the other, while steam is on the water. The same water answers the purpose of all.