JUVENILE PARTIES IN JAPAN.

Evening Star, Issue 12884, 6 August 1906, Page 5

JUVENILE PARTIES IN JAPAN.

" It may be interesting to know how a Japanese children's party is conducted," says a writer in 'Junior Toilettes.' " Formal invitations in honor of the house child are sent out. At 3 p.m. the guests arrive, frequently attended by servants. The house child receives them at the top of the stono steps, and conducts each to the reception-room. The hair of the house child is drawn back, raised in front and gathered into a double loop in which scarlet crepe is twisted. Her face and throat are whitened, the paint terminating in three points at the back of the neck, from which all the short hairs have been carefully extracted with pincers. Her lips are slightly touched with red paint, and her face looks like a cheap doll. She wears a blue-flowered kimono with sleeves touching the ground, a blue girdle lined with scarlet, and a fold of the scarlet crepe lies between her painted neck and her kimono. On her tiny feet she wears white tabi (socks of cotton cloth), with a separate place for the great toe, so as to allow the scarlet-covered thongs of the finely-lacquered clogs to pass between it and the smaller toes. Ail children are dressed about alike, looking like a lot of animated dolls. They are met by the house child with formal, graceful bows. She and her mother squat before each guest and present tea and sweetmeats on lacquered trays. After these are disposed of, they play at verv quiet and polite games. One of their plays is most amusing. It consists of one child feigning illness and another playin" the doctor. The pomposity and gravity of the latter and the distress and weakness of the former are most excellently imitated. Unfortunately the doctor kills his patient, who counterfeits the death sleep very effectively with her whitened face; then follows the funeral and mourning. Before the guests leave tea and sweetmeats are again served, and as it is neither etiquette to refuse them nor to leave anything behind that one has once taken, several of the small ladies slip the residue into their capacious sleeves."