REVERSED IDEAS

Evening Star, Issue 17958, 3 May 1922, Page 9

REVERSED IDEAS

ODDITIES IN JAPAN.

Japan lias sonic curious customs arid ways—at. least, so they seem to the European. The ‘Literary Digest,’ in a special Japanese supplement, quotes the work of .Mr Julian .Street, who says the Japanese are full of “ reversed idea,a.” On the day of my arrival in Japan, ho writes, I started a, list of things which, according to our ideas, the Japanese do backwards — or which, according to their ideas, we do backwards. 1 suppose that every traveller in Japan has kept some Mich record. My list, beginning with the, observation that their books commence at what wo call the back, that the lines of typo run down tho page instead of across, and that “footnotes.” are printed at the top of the rage, soon grew to considerable propel lions. Almost every day I had been able to add an item or two, and ©very time [ did so I found myself playing with tlio fancy that such contrn.rio.tKw ought in Rome way to bo associated with the fact that wo stand foot-to-font with tho Japanese upon the globe. Tho Japanese method of beckoning would, to us, signify “go away”; boats are beached stern foremost; horses aro backed into their stalls ; sawing and planing arc accomplished with a pulling instead of a. driving motion; keys turn in their lodes in a. reverse direction from that customary with us. At the door of a. theatre or a restaurant tho Japanese check their shoes instead of their hats; their sweets, if they como at all, aro served early in tho meal instead of towards tho end : men do their sake drinking before rather than, after tho meal; and instead of icing tho national beverage they heat it in a kettle. Instead of slipping her thread through tho eye of her needle, a Japanese woman slips tho eye of her needle over tho point of her thread. Pho reckons her child one year old on tho day it is born, and two years old on tho following New Year’s Day. Mr Street joins other travellers in testifying that the J apanese, like, the English, aro persistent bathers; but whereas tho English take cold baths, the. Jananesc batho in water so hot that wo could hardly stand it. And when they have bathed they dry themselves width a small, damp towed, which they uso as a. sort of mop. Like the English, they drive to tho left of the road. There is much to bo said about that; but some of their other customs of the road surprise one. Wherever they have not been “civilised” out of their native, ’courtesy you will find that ono chaffenr dislikes to overtake and pass another. Surely to fin American this is an inversion! When a, procession of automobiles is going along a road ;md ono of them is, for somo mason, required to stop, tho cars which follow do not blow thoir horns and dash by in delight a.nd a cloud of dust, but draw up behind tho stationary car, and if it becomes ncce-sary for them to go on, the chaff-curs who do so apologise for’passing. Tims custom, which is dying out, comes, I fancy, from that of ’ricksha-men, who never overtake find pass ea«;h other on tho road, but always fall in belli ml the slowest runner, getting their pace from him. protecting him against tho comukunte which bis passenger would m»k« if others were- continually coming up behind and going by.