JAPANESE WAYS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 106, 28 January 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

JAPANESE WAYS

Kissing Not Approved

"I am afraid I can’t serve you after eight o’clock,” you are told by the girl behind Hie counter—but you can go outside and put the sixpence in a slotmaclrine which delivers what the shopkeeper lias refused. You call it silly, and why not? It is a restriction on our freedom, and we don't like it, but what a Utile restriction it is, says "Pearson’s Weekly,” compared with those the citizens of Tokio —pride of Japan—have to grin and bear. If you lived in ibis, the third biggest city in the world, a place of 6,000,000 inhabitants, you would have to be indoors by 11 o’clock. Tokio has its skyscrapers, its racing motors and flashing sky-signs, but it has -‘Dora,” too. This may surprise people who are familiar with, the tales of Oriental orgies: it is possible to dance till Hie early hours in your local suburb, but not in Tokio. There are only eight dance halls, and these must be shut down by 11 o’clock. But they are usualy closed before then because to be about on the streets after that time implies that one is far from respectable. Going home isn’t as easy as all that, either. Perhaps you feel you ought to see your partner to her door -but beware ! She may be one of the 600 official partners, all of whom are licensed by the police. Not that anything would happen to you, but if a policeman met you walking home together the damsel would probably spend the night in jail. These professional partners must oe demure and virtuous, for officialdom is continually poking its nose into their private lives.

The cinemas also close early to permit the audiences to get home by a “moral” hour. These cinemas are surprisingly popular, considering the stringent censorship of films. Indeed, it is a wonder that the Japanese film producers can find any subject to make a film. There must be no crime, nothing about burglars, or train-wrecks, no scenes of bloodshed, nor of police officers being bribed. Nothing can tie shown whicli makes fun of war, or fails to glorify military operations, nor can a picture which shows royal personages as being "human” (for the Japanese emperor is worshipped as a god). Even the film “Mutiny on the Bounty” was forbidden because it showed a naval uprising.

The producers are left with the topic of "love” you say? Yes, that is quite true, but of course, the hero must not kiss the heroine.

Anything more familiar than a cautious smile would be snipped out by the scissors. Even the word “kiss” is not allowed in a film title 1 To avoid Tokio’s virtual, or virtuous, curfew, it is popular to go to the rather less serious city of Yokohama, but even here a taxi occupied by a couple is liable to be stopped at night so that a zealous policeman can make sure that they are married people. If proof is not" available the woman must get out and walk home! Though many thousands of Japanese are arrested each year for “dangerous thoughts,” there is surprising freedom in other directions. A bard-up parent can, for instance, sell an unwanted child. But for all that, _if you must kiss your girl friend good, night iu public, stay away from Tokio. She might have to spend the night in a cell!