TOKIO

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 14

TOKIO

A CITY OF NUMEROUS VILLAGES

ODD IDEAS TO BE FOUND BY TOURISTS.

"For; all.the ffuide-bookstell, you might exoect to find Tokio. simply another Japanese city, overgrown and overcrowded,;with the old East arid, the new; West ."., in garish jumble with our own national/ capital's'wholesome idea 'Of numerous 3 parks and more than Boston's inherit.nco ; of crooked streets," Bays a bulletin frm the" National Geographic Society concerning the. Japanses capital whioh recently haa been experiencing more of its perennial earthquakes. ■

"Should you sail up the Bay of Tokio to Yokohama, and there seek to buy a railroad ticket V> Tokio, 18 miles to the north, you oould sense the first distinctive flavour of Japan's capital: Your ticket would-be for Shinagawa or Shinb&shi, not Tokio, nor yet for Yedo, the older name of the city, which you soon would be using in dating.your letters. / VILLAGES WHICH GREW TOGETHER.

j "Your ticket, experience would be ! equivalent to trying;to buy a ticket for New York; and having the agent hand you one for Brooklyn or Harlem. For Tokio iB not a city slowly grown from a town; it is a coagulation' of villages, a civic protoplasm, a series of communities . spread over some 30 square miles with; a population of 2,250,000 people. "Next there is the oover of tile guidebook'you arm. yourself with to find your way about Tokio. ; A railway ticket and a guidebook cover are not"'_ negligible things to the keen perceptions of an \_merican traveller It in of such casual wtities that impressions are, made. A

"The guidebook you acquire is 'An Ofhoial Guide to Eastern Asia,' which you. find upon turning to the inside cover is 'Prepared by the Imperial' Japanese Government. Railway.' Well, you do riot notice that fact } until you have been around Tokio for a few c|aye, and 'then the cumulative effect of the 'official' is boriio in upon you. ' You are not politically minded. You wont to Tokio to see it. Perhaps you will-go home and .have to acquire some opinions somewhere to answer questions of inquiring friends; • but just now you are interested in cherry. blossoms.,and the noisy lotus flowers thai bloom in the spring, pop, pop, as you un-", coiieiously paraphrase it, or in seeing a doll's festival, a dance by. geisha girls, or in visiting the 'Temple of Knotty Timber' whore- lies buried Koizumi Yakumc, native name taken by Lafcadio Hearn. when he beoame a Japanese citizen. A CITY OF MANY CHARMS. ; ' ''The fact that many things seem to bo officially ordered does hot annojr you as, did the 'Verboten' signs in Berlin. It is just one of the impressions you get. You are willing to leave its significance entirely to the publicists while you give yourself over to the spel' of a hiost elusive and fascinating city. ■'."'■. ; . "Now a guidebook is expected to give some useful facts, "arid sometimes does, but you find this one does ;more than that.';' It' gives you an atmosphere—unconsciously, it is true, but definitely, just the same. Under the heading of 'January' it informs you seriously that 'people are now in paying New Year calls,' and. if you are in Tokio in January, you find that the, guidebook spoke truly. Gradu-: ally you begin to realise, that the tradition.Ahe precedent, immemorial^customs of the old Japan do project through .all,its modernism, so that it. is perfectly proper to, predict what -'human nature will be like at any given period. -THE PARADOX OF TOKIO. A "Only tlie very casual visitor will fail to sense the paradox of Tokio. By joflficial regulation much of the mechanics of living is rigid: but in. many other respects it may.well rank as one of the1 most diverse cities in theworld. Each of its .amalgamated villages.has its own customs and view-points. Aristocratic Kojimachi is very unlike Kanda, the city's 'Latin quarter.'' Busy,, modern Nihombashi, with its 'Broadway' and 'Billingsgate,' is a far cry from Shida, village of ; the Tower Gate and giant bell, of native res-, taurants and distinctive dances."