The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

A Japanese attains his majority at fifteen years of age. As soon as this time has arrived he takes a new name, and quietly discards the pleasures of infancy for the duties of a practical life. His first care, if he belong to the middle classes, is the choice of a trade or profession. The opportunities for this choice are much greater than in China, just as the scope of Japanese learning and life has increased in the last quarter century. Practically all of the businesses and trades that we know in our own country are to-day known in Japan, those which were not there before, having crept in with the advent of the foreigners. The Japanese young man, if he is to be a merchant or to learn a trade, serves an apprenticeship for a period sufficient to fit him for the mastery of his work, and then it is he provides himself with a wife.

The dress of the Japanese is changing in harmony with the introduction of other foreign habits. Custom has always obliged married women to shave their eyebrows and blacken their teeth, but of late years the practice has been decreasing and now it does not prevail among the better classes and in the larger cities. They have also made a most immoderate use of paint, covering their brow, cheeks, and neck with thick coats of rouge and white. Some have even gone so far as to gild their lips, but the more modest have been content to color them with carmine, and the excessive use of paints is diminishing.

The kirimon, a kind of long, open dressing gown, is worn by every one, men and women alike. It is a little longer and of better quality for the women, who cross it in front and confine it by a long wide piece of silk, or other material tied in a quaint fashion at the back. The men keep theirs in its place by tying a long straight scarf around them. The Japanese use no linen, the women alone wearing a chemise of silk crepe, but it must be remembered that they bathe daily or even oftener, and that simplicity of dress is affected by all.

The middle classes wear in addition to the kirimon, a doublet and pantaloons. These are also worn in winter by men of the lower orders, the pantaloons fitting tightly, and made of checked cotton. The peasants and porters usually wear a loose overall in summer, made of some light paper material, and in winter not unfrequently consisting of coarse straw. The women also envelop themselves in one or several thickly wadded mantles. Linen gloves with one division for the thumb are very generally worn. Sandals are made of plaited straw, and in bad weather are discarded for wooden clogs, raised from the ground by means of two bits of wood under the toe[toe] and heel. As might naturally be expected, locomotion under such circumstances is performed with difficulty, and the hobbling gate which these props necessitate has often been commented on. This peculiarity is most noticeable among the women, whose naturally easy gait is almost as much diverted from its normal movement by these small stilts as that of their sisters in the west by their high heeled shoes. The costume of the country is exactly alike for both the lower and higher classes, with the difference that the latter always wear silk material. The costumes worn by officials, and those of the nobility, are distinguished by the amplitude of the folds and the richness of the texture. Wide flowing pantaloons are often substituted for the kirimon, which trail on the ground, completely concealing the feet, and give the wearer the appearance of walking on his knees, which indeed is the delusion it is intended to produce. A kind of overcoat with wide sleeves reaching to the hips completes the costume.

JAPANESE BATH.

The dwelling houses of the Japanese are well adapted to their manners of life, except that they are not always sufficient protection against severe cold. Rich and poor live side by side, although in Tokio there are still traces of the castes of the feudal age, and there are also growing tendencies in the rising mercantile and moneyed classes to separate themselves from the common mass. There are now great portions of the capital densely populated by the working classes only, and quite destitute of any open spaces of practical value for health and recreation.

The proverb “Every man’s house is his castle,” might very readily be appropriated by the Japanese, whose home, however humble it may be in all other respects, is always guarded by a moat. In a feudal mansion the moat was usually deep enough to prove a genuine obstacle. While it is still almost universally retained, the muddy water is hidden in summer time by the leaves of the lotus, and the bridges are not drawn. The smaller gentry imitate the grandeur of those above them, and when at last we come down to the lowest level we still find a miniature moat which is often dry, of a foot or so in breadth, and at most about two inches deep.

In houses of some pretensions there is an enbankment behind the moat, with a hedge growing above it. Behind this there is either a wall or fence of bamboo, tiles, or plaster. As the name of the street is not to be found at the street corner as with us, it is repeated on every doorway. The towns are divided into wards and blocks, and the numbers of the houses are often confused and misleading. A slip of white wood is nailed on one of the posts of the gate, and is inscribed with the name of the street or block, the number, name of house holder, numbers and sexes of household. The gates of the larger houses are heavy, adorned with copper or brass mountings, and often studded with large nails.

When one enters by the gate there is generally found a court, from the sides of which the open verandas of the building may be reached. The verandas are high and there is a special entrance by heavy wooden stairs. The court is sometimes paved with large stones, and sometimes it is left bare or covered with turf. The gardens even of somewhat humble mansions are graced with carved stone lanterns. The well placed near the kitchen often has a rim of stone around it, and the bucket is raised by a beam or a long bamboo.