Japanese self-esteem has just been mentioned; it often becomes insufferable arrogance, showing plainly, through a cloak of false modesty, “the pride that apes humility.” This arrogance, displayed chiefly towards foreigners, but also by Japanese in official positions towards their fellow-countrymen of inferior rank, is intimately connected with another national failing, excessive vanity. It is less noticeable amongst sailors and soldiers than amongst civil officials of corresponding rank.
Minor failings of the Japanese are jealousy, envy of those who achieve success, and, connected with these faults, a great love of gossip and a readiness to listen to slander, or to disseminate it.
A STREET SCENE IN A VILLAGE OF OLD JAPAN
Japanese Ideas of Modesty
There are, finally, two charges to be examined that are frequently levelled at the Japanese by those who profess to know them well—the accusations of immorality, sexual and commercial. The first of these charges may be disposed of by the statement that the Japanese are about as moral in their sexual relations as the Latin nations of Europe, with the advantage slightly in favour of the Japanese. What has given them an evil repute in this respect is, probably, the fact that they consider as natural, and treat accordingly, certain evils that the Northern Occidental peoples affect to ignore. The natural, simple life led by the vast majority of Japanese predisposes them to take a natural, sensible view of matters that the less primitive conditions of Western civilisation have imbued with an objectionable significance. They see, for instance, no harm in nudity where it is unavoidable, as in bathing, or convenient, as in the performance of hard work in hot weather. A Japanese woman will feel no shame at being seen naked when entering or leaving the daily bath, but would strongly object to what she would consider the gross immodesty of exposing a considerable surface of her body in Occidental evening dress. In the first case, the nudity is looked upon as quite natural; in the second, as useless and provocative of pruriency.
National Honour in Commerce
As to the commercial morality of the Japanese, it is necessary to observe the great difference that exists between the position, in this respect, of Japanese State institutions, financial and commercial corporations, and firms of the first rank on the one hand, and the great mass of traders on the other. The Imperial Japanese Government, municipal corporations, and the great financial institutions and industrial and commercial associations under State control (such as subsidised steamship companies), have always met their obligations with scrupulous fidelity and are likely to continue to do so. With them the national honour is considered at stake; it is certain that the last Japanese will part with his last garment sooner than involve the national credit in disgrace by failure to meet the nation’s engagements towards the foreign creditor.
Results of Old Class Divisions
It is, unfortunately, quite otherwise in the case of the great bulk of the trading classes. There are, in Japan, a number of first-class firms, some of them established for centuries, whose reputation is above reproach; but between these and the majority of the merchants a great gulf is fixed. It must be remembered that, until the beginning of the New Era, in the early ’seventies of the nineteenth century, the trading community formed the lowest of the four classes, then sharply and immutably divided one from the other, composing that part of the Japanese nation that had full civil rights (below them stood only the Eta, who carried on despised occupations, involving contamination by contact with dead bodies, human or animal, and the outcast Hi-nin).