THE TWO JAPANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 18

THE TWO JAPANS

TOPSY-TURVY COUNTRY

TWENTIETH CENTURY STATE

RUN BY FEUDAL

MINDS

No nation in the world has been the subject of more discussion than modern, pushing, restless, ambitious Japan. Yet no great nation remains so little known. Think of the Japan of 1937 as you picture it, and then read Ihe following article1 by a famous journalist now in that country,' which brings the real Japan to life, says the "News Chronicle." I have today been listening to a Budget debate held in a newly-built House of Commons, a superb building constructed of granite and wl-u'te marble, in1 which the Cabinet Ministers wore frock coats, and the M.P.s were attired in suits which might have been made in the West End of London, proceeds the article. The only difference between' that Parliament and our own at Westminster was that the furnishings were more ornate, the members spoke a strange language, and they clapped instead of shouting "Hear, hear." This evening the voters who elected that bright new "House of Commons" will/listen to a report of the debate on the. radio in frail wood and paper houses, clad in kimonos and seated erbss-legged on'straw mats before the charcoal braziers which serve as fires in the wet raw climate in which they live. ■.-•■■■■■;■'■'■■ •' ■ These two pictures—the frock-coated Parliament imported from London and set "down in modern Toldb, and the Rip' Van Winkle voters still living largely as their ancestors lived through centuries during which no foreigner was permitted to set foot on their shores,, belong to different centuries. Yet both exist side by side in the most amazing country on earth—the country which ninety millions of inhabitants call "The Land of the Gods," and which the modern world calls Japan. BOWLER HATS AND CHOPSTICKS. I had tea yesterday with a famous Tokio geisha who was educated in an English school in that city. She wears European clothes by day, eats with a

knife and fork, goes motoring, and is

a member of several women's clubs. Each evening she steps back two cen-

furies—piles' up her hair Japanese fashion, dons her kimono, and spends

the night hours dancing, and singing the songs of feudal Japan to parties of tired business men.

Those business men of Japan are quite as quaint as the geisha. Most of, them wear European suits and bowler hats during the daytime, ride to their labours in limousine cars, ascend to their, offices in up-to-date lifts, and. sit surrounded by modern steel furniture poring over blue-prints and; balance-sheets. Once the day's work.is done, 'however, they don kimonos and squat on the floor to eat the evening meal—mainly rice shovelled down with chopsticks.

Tokio is like that. A city of controls in.a iand of contrasts. With six million, inhabitants it is the. third largest5 city on earth. Skyscrapers, great department stores, huge restaurants to teat thousands line the wide, straigMt, modem boulevards and rub shoulders with the centuries-old Imperial Palace where lives his Majesty Hirohitp, the 124 th Divinely-descended Emperor of Japan—the monarch whom every' Japanese worships and' lew Japanese' have ever: seen. In< the middle of that super-city ; of skyscrapers, cinemas, and bustling life, tHe inhabitants stick doggedly to their bdwls< of rice. No bread for them! Western'" ideas, -.machinery, clothing, battleships/- even "Western drinks. But on.three things .the majority, of :the Japanese, rich and poor .alike, refuse to change their, ideas and habits. Those three things are the position of women, ttieVfodd they eat, and the Emperor tliey, worship. ■In Japan, women havo no civil rights whatever. They cannot own property. Their husbands are chosen by others. They cannot, under any circumstances, claim a from an unsatisfactory mate. They have no' vote. Their world, their; habits, and their lives, are fashioned, ruled, and regulated by men from-the, cradle to the grave. There is a. growing, suffragette movement in the.:couiitry, b,ut..it: : is little heard of. The-censor is a man!

REVOLT OF THE GIRLS.

Women who have never been out of Japan : accept such lives'. But the young Japanese girls who, in increasing numbers, are being educated abroad "kick" furiously when, upon their return to Japan, they are expect ed-to stay at home and obey the ligntest wish, of their; lord and master.

The' daughter of a rich Japanese family was recently fetcl-.ed home from a school in New York to marry a man she. had never seen. I travelled across the Pacific on the same boat. Day by dayshe got more morose as she thought of the life in store for her. One day before the vessel reached Yokohama she went overboard, leaving a note saying that; death was preferable to the servitude of feudal Japan.

Friendship between the sexes is becoming .. less ..rare in the large cities. Dancing .and jazz music are permitted in,'Tokio until 11 p.m,, but they are frowned upon by all good Japanese patriots. Not so long ago a group of young, students raided a Saturday night' dance at a fashionable Tokio hoteland forced the Japanese couples to leave the floor and go home as a '•disgrace to their country." Foreigners present were not molested; apparently the iCensors of conduct regarded them as hopeless.

Even today, when a vogue for teashops on the English mode has suddenly, sprung up in Tokio, it is the exception to see a boy and girl taking tea together in public. "Sweethoarting" is unknown. Kissing is taboo. Love as we know it doesn't exist. Ths Japanese young man gets no thrill from looking at a well-turned ankle— the centre of sex appeal in. that land is the back of the neck!

Most middle-class families have dualhomes—half Japanese, half Europeanstyle. Even the roofs are divided, with European tiles over the European rooms and Japanese tiles or thatcnover- the Japanese section. Inside, in the, bedrooms, there are two wardrobes —one for Japanese clothing, the other for European.

StEAM HEATING AND COLD

All public buildings, schools, and offices are steam-heated—a fact which has created a serious health problem owing to the high sickness rate among school children' and office workers who work all day in. carefully-conditioned rooms and offices and then go back to chill homes- made of. wood and paper and heated by charcoal. '

Most remarkable of all. however, to Western eyes is the attitude of the Japanese to their Emperor.

When Emperor Hirohito drives through modern Tokio, the streets are empty, tramcars have their blinds drawn, arid it is an offence to stand at a window, or on a roof, overlooking the streets. None must gaze upon the face of the descendant of the gods.

Not so long Dgo a signalman on the railway'held up the Imperial train for five minutes owing to traffic on the line. Upon, discovering what he had done, he committed suicide.

A* veallhy merchant of Osaka jnad-

vertently gave his newly-born son one of the names of the Emperor. Upon realising what he had done, he took his life to expiate the "crime."

The Emperor is a teetotaler and t non-smoker, and his hobby is collecting moths and butterflies. Those who have talked, with him tell me he is extremely intelligent and wellinformed on world affairs, and takes an active part in the government of his country. Ten months of every year he spends at Tokio.

Eleven o'clock, jach night is "curfew hour" for its six million inhabitants. It is not considered seemly that "night life" should exist under the very shadow of the Imperial Palace. Hence tin curfew.

ON THE RICE STANDARD

. The police can stop taxis in which a man and woman are together, between midnight and six a.m.. and in the absence of evidence that they are married, invite the woman to get out and walk.

' Japan has been, described as' a "twentieth century State run by feudal minds." Eighty years ago there wasn't a factory, a shipyard, jr a modern street in that land. Today one person in every three is engaged in commerce, and Japan has 85,000 factories, miles of ship-building yards at Kobe and Nagasaki, underground railways (ill Tokio;), 2000 newspapers, and a fleet of more than 2100 merchant ships.

Those girl-workers who live, eat, and work in the dormitories attached to the Osaka cotton mills in return'for a wage of Is 6d a day are swamping the world with cotton goods. At Tokio 1 have seen in the shops bicycles costing 35s each, and men's suits at 7s 6d. Everything from steamships to paper hats is being turned out in an everincreasing stream by those millions of workers who have no wants apart from a little house, a mat to sit on, clothes, and enough food. In millions of families, father and mother both work for a joint income of 25s a week; In millions more—the farmers—they are so poor that a cash income of about £20 a year is good going, and daughters : are regularly sold to the geishahouses to keep the wolf from the door.

Behini this Japan stands the other half of modern Nippon—the greatest army and navy in the East, serving the Emperor with enthusiasm for twopence a day!

I once asked a junior officer in that army for his opinion on a burning political question of the day. ■

"My opinion is my Emperor's opinion," he answered. '

"And opinion?

what is your Emperor's

He shook his head. "I do not know,1 he replied.