DRAGON DANCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3113, 17 April 1922, Page 8

DRAGON DANCE.

r fo all who yearn for variety—for vio-1 lent contrast — let me recommend what 11 have just done —travel in all the luxury and comfort of the official hospitality of j Japan; and thence go straight to Korea'" and China (writes Lord Northcliffe). 1 cam© to Japan an outspoken opponent of Iter war party; yet, despite my oftdeclared conviction that that party is a danger to the world, we were freely offered tlie best that Japan has to give. From the moment of our arrival at Tokio, on tiie first day of our visit to our last m that .enchanting land, when we sailed from Sbimonoseki to Korea, the comfort of travel, the beauties of town and country, the interest of the people and things that we encountered, increased, thanks to Government care, steadily and as if magically. The Japanese show their best to strangers, and they are both hospitable and right in doing so. Our last two crowded days in the land of flowers included a stay at Nara (which might be called tire Fontainebleau of Japan), where a forest ranger obligingly called up all the deer in the demesne to the steps of the club at which we lunched; a special .electric tram to bring us over the 20 miles to and from the vast city of Osaka; a luxurious saloon on the train from Tokio to Osaka; a 1200-ton yacht (called in Japanese “The Painted Lady”) for the voyage through the Inland Sea to Miyajima—and at Miyajima an exhibition of mystery and horror unapproached by anything staged at the Grand Guignol. Miyajima is a little village at the southern end of the Inland Sea—the place where the wine-red maples grow, it ib charming in the most charming Japanese manner; and what better could he said of any place? From the upholstered, ventilated bespringed luxury of our private railway car and the fathomless comfort of a wellrun yacht, we entered without a word of warning, upon an uncanny, an ominous approach to a scene of mystery and horror. We walked along the sea-road under twisted pines (exactly like those in the picture-books), with strange and rather Horrible stone figures—deformed animals with human eyes, and things of that sort —leering out at us between the trunks. It was the first really wet day w© had had since April; the rain and the wind beat in our faces, and the little bay was dark with hurrying squalls. Pound the corner we came upon the Shinto temple, a wonderful three-sided thing, built out over the sea on gigantic piles. The shrine itself is a miracle of splendour, kept in bounds of restraint by Japanese tidiness. And before the shrine Jay the Place of Dancing; a large square platform jutting out into the water. Exactly facing it, and in a lino with the shrine, stood the Father of Torii—the oldest of the famous scarlet gateways which stand at the entrance! of every temple in Japan. Only this Torii stands hah a mile out to sea, looking Chinawards. And on the Place of Dancing there leapt, poised, crouched, and twisted a glittering nightmare. Its dress is beyond adequate description—scarlet and gold for the most part, with enormous sleeves and a white muslin train like the train of an English bride. During that which they call the Dance, it swung this train behind it with much the same action as women used in the ballrooms of 25 years ago—a backward sweep ol the heel. On its head it wore a mask o*' brass and gold and silver and lacquer—the Dragon's Face. That was the supreme terror. For the face was the face of no dragon known to Western child, , but the cruel, sneering, bestial face of a swine. A thin, pointed little snout, slightly cocked up; loathsome black bristles sprouting round the mouth; wicked, listening ears—it was a face of utter terror, a memory to wake one, shuddering, in the dark. Four musicians dressed in white played to its dancing. And, to make the whole thing more incredibly strange, the sounds that they tore and wrenched from lutes and drum were very nearly European music. In rhythm and cadence and coherence they were wholly unlike Chinese or Japanese music; and the rare syncopated tump of the drum (it recalled the shooting of blindfolded men) made one think wildly for an instant of tango teas. But the thought seemed not at all funny. Another thing there was that terrified —the ruthless punch of the Dancer’s heel on the boards, half a bar after the execu-tion-drum, You saw no moveraeait of leg or body; only a flicker of slender ankle and a blow of the foot, merciless, shaking the planks. Round and round it swept, with its swine-face darting a dreadlul snout now towards the shrine, now in our laces, now, and most often, towards the Torii. In its hands it held two black wands; and with these it invoked heaven knows what demoniac powers, but always, as it seemed to me (shivering behind a pillar) appealing passionately, with insane de>sn;e, to somebody or something beyond Hie Torii—in far-off China. This is the art—now all hut lost—of Shinto Dragon-dancing. The dancing is so old that no one to-day can tell its story of its meaning; but that it is full of evil I have no doubt. It is utterly malignant, a thing of unclean terrors. And all the while the sea splashed and muttered round the piles beneath our feet; the wind and the rain swept across the stage, and round about the infernal thing writhing in the grey light, and we stood in silence, appalled. We said good-bye to exquisite Japan at fc'himonoseki—a nasty, windy wharf, which reminded me unpleasantly of Holyhead Bier On an ugly night. There followed an interlude on the Eea of Japan in a steamer (called in Japanese “The Wineloving Gentleman”), which had not dared to cross to Korea that morning because of the great seas that sweep down from the north. From Fusan, the port ol Korea, to Mukden we travelled still in luxury, under the watchful care of the Japanese South Manchurian Railway, revelling in the best sort of comfort, and still wondering about dainty, warlike Japan. _We paused at Seoul, the capital of Korea; then, at Mukden, we entered both Russia and China; and, with the suddenness of a slamming door, the cultivated beauty of puzzling Japan was gone, and we were in a country several centuries behind the times. : Attached to our train from Mukden to Peking was a private car, or, as it is properly called, in Chinese, an “enshrouded ( (in much dignity) carriage”—a good and comfortable car, but not nearly so good , ns its nature. There was a dining-car in ( the train, but it was not at all like a ( Japanese dining-car. It was, if 1 may say so. excessively democratic. China is < suffering at present (she will get over it) from an acute attack of infantile republic- 1 anism—the kind m which every man is ; greatly the superior of every other and ] official salaries are always overdue. ; Consequently, some of China’s dining- ■ cars resemble public-houses. Everyone i comes in, whether he means to cat or not, •( and brings all. his luggage with him. j Everyone makes as much noise as pos- \ sible. Some bring malodorous and repel- ■ lent coolies in with them. Many smoke rank tobacco, heedless of mealtimes. And, be heaven my witness, everyone spits without pause. That habit was the only thing to remind us of Japan, We had known vio-

|J . . ■lent contrasts, indeed. And it takes some ■stoicism to sit out even the shortest reHpast in such surroundings as were ours in ■ that Chinese dining-car.