One Evening I Met A Procession Of Sixty Boys And
Girls, All Carrying White Flags With Black Balls, Except The
Leader, Who Carried A White Flag With A Gilded Ball, And They Sang,
Or Rather Howled, As They Walked; But The Other Amusements Have
Been Of A Most Sedentary Kind.
The mechanical toys, worked by
water-wheels in the stream, are most fascinating.
Formal children's parties have been given in this house, for which
formal invitations, in the name of the house-child, a girl of
twelve, are sent out. About 3 p.m. the guests arrive, frequently
attended by servants; and this child, Haru, receives them at the
top of the stone steps, and conducts each into the reception room,
where they are arranged according to some well-understood rules of
precedence. Haru's hair is drawn back, raised in front, and
gathered into a double loop, in which some scarlet crepe is
twisted. Her face and throat are much whitened, the paint
terminating in three points at the back of the neck, from which all
the short hair has been carefully extracted with pincers. Her lips
are slightly touched with red paint, and her face looks like that
of a cheap doll. She wears a blue, flowered silk kimono, with
sleeves touching the ground, a blue girdle lined with scarlet, and
a fold of scarlet crepe lies between her painted neck and her
kimono. On her little feet she wears white tabi, socks of cotton
cloth, with a separate place for the great toe, so as to allow the
scarlet-covered thongs of the finely lacquered clogs, which she
puts on when she stands on the stone steps to receive her guests,
to pass between it and the smaller toes. All the other little
ladies were dressed in the same style, and all looked like ill-
executed dolls. She met them with very formal but graceful bows.
When they were all assembled, she and her very graceful mother,
squatting before each, presented tea and sweetmeats on lacquer
trays, and then they played at very quiet and polite games till
dusk. They addressed each other by their names with the honorific
prefix O, only used in the case of women, and the respectful affix
San; thus Haru becomes O-Haru-San, which is equivalent to "Miss."
A mistress of a house is addressed as O-Kami-San, and O-Kusuma -
something like "my lady" - is used to married ladies. Women have no
surnames; thus you do not speak of Mrs. Saguchi, but of the wife of
Saguchi San; and you would address her as O-Kusuma. Among the
children's names were Haru, Spring; Yuki, Snow; Hana, Blossom;
Kiku, Chrysanthemum; Gin, Silver.
One of their games was most amusing, and was played with some
spirit and much dignity. It consisted in one child feigning
sickness and another playing the doctor, and the pompousness and
gravity of the latter, and the distress and weakness of the former,
were most successfully imitated. Unfortunately the doctor killed
his patient, who counterfeited the death-sleep very effectively
with her whitened face; and then followed the funeral and the
mourning. They dramatise thus weddings, dinner-parties, and many
other of the events of life. The dignity and self-possession of
these children are wonderful. The fact is that their initiation
into all that is required by the rules of Japanese etiquette begins
as soon as they can speak, so that by the time they are ten years
old they know exactly what to do and avoid under all possible
circumstances. Before they went away tea and sweetmeats were again
handed round, and, as it is neither etiquette to refuse them or to
leave anything behind that you have once taken, several of the
small ladies slipped the residue into their capacious sleeves. On
departing the same formal courtesies were used as on arriving.
Yuki, Haru's mother, speaks, acts, and moves with a charming
gracefulness. Except at night, and when friends drop in to
afternoon tea, as they often do, she is always either at domestic
avocations, such as cleaning, sewing, or cooking, or planting
vegetables, or weeding them. All Japanese girls learn to sew and
to make their own clothes, but there are none of the mysteries and
difficulties which make the sewing lesson a thing of dread with us.
The kimono, haori, and girdle, and even the long hanging sleeves,
have only parallel seams, and these are only tacked or basted, as
the garments, when washed, are taken to pieces, and each piece,
after being very slightly stiffened, is stretched upon a board to
dry. There is no underclothing, with its bands, frills, gussets,
and button-holes; the poorer women wear none, and those above them
wear, like Yuki, an under-dress of a frothy-looking silk crepe, as
simply made as the upper one. There are circulating libraries
here, as in most villages, and in the evening both Yuki and Haru
read love stories, or accounts of ancient heroes and heroines,
dressed up to suit the popular taste, written in the easiest
possible style. Ito has about ten volumes of novels in his room,
and spends half the night in reading them.
Yuki's son, a lad of thirteen, often comes to my room to display
his skill in writing the Chinese character. He is a very bright
boy, and shows considerable talent for drawing. Indeed, it is only
a short step from writing to drawing. Giotto's O hardly involved
more breadth and vigour of touch than some of these characters.
They are written with a camel's-hair brush dipped in Indian ink,
instead of a pen, and this boy, with two or three vigorous touches,
produces characters a foot long, such as are mounted and hung as
tablets outside the different shops. Yuki plays the samisen, which
may be regarded as the national female instrument, and Haru goes to
a teacher daily for lessons on the same.
The art of arranging flowers is taught in manuals, the study of
which forms part of a girl's education, and there is scarcely a day
in which my room is not newly decorated.
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