From a New Book. JAPAN AND THE WEST

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 113, 6 February 1935, Page 7

From a New Book. JAPAN AND THE WEST

A director of a Japanese firm, or a Minister of State, will take a meal with a foreigner in. a Westernised restaurant dressed in the latest London fashion conforming, without apparent effort, to the method of eating and -the hour of-dining; but the- moment he has crossed the threshold of his house all things foreign will be forgotten. Leaving his shoes outside the door, he will cast coat, trousers, shirt aside and, having taken a bath, will appear in kimono and kneel before a small table eating his Japanese dinner with chopsticks at a time which in Europe is associated with afternoon tea. He will sleep on a mattress laid out on the “tatami” and rise early in the morning to take his breakfast of rice, raw fish. and soup. The wife, save in exceptional cases, takes no part in the husband’s official or. social life outside the home, and once lie has left the house, he will have to give her no account of what he- has been doing. H,e may lunch out. dine out, go away for the week-end. and all this lias little to do with the family. His only responsibility is to supply his dependants with lodging, food and clothes. It, must not. however, be supposed that the Japanese women have no influence in their homes, for in spite of this outward submissiveness, they keep a soft but firm hand/ on their husbands, and in many cases (exert a beneficial influence over their menfolk—From “The Drama of the Pacific,” by Major R V C. Bodiey.