JAPANESE CONTRASTS

Feilding Star, Volume 8, Issue 2496, 8 March 1930, Page 5

JAPANESE CONTRASTS

COURTEOUS PEOPLE FIRST OF W E.A. LECTURES BY MR J. A. BRA ILSFORiD, B.A. “You won’t ask mo will you, whether I like Japanese? For all that 1 could answer would be that in Japan. as everywhere it takes nil sorts of people t° make a world. Some of them wo found very annoying at times, just as your children and my children, whom we love, can bo very annoying. There wer© other Japanese that we found exceedingly lovable. Generalisations about racial character are always wrong. Races have customs and characteristics, but essential character belongs to the individual. But, looking at one racial characteristic of the Japanese, I believe that a great future awaits people who chcrjsh children and revere children as they usually do. They are a kindly and courteous people.” "With these words Mr J. A. Brailsford, 8.A., Jtutor-or gosiper :of the YV.E.A., concluded a lecture on “Japanese Contrasts,” at the Oddfellows’ Hall last nighf. It was the first address of this season’s series, and Mr .Humphries presided over the largest attendance yet recorded. The Japanese, said the lecturer, were a people of striking contrasts, lioth in appearance and characteristics. The beauty of their scenery and decorative art was offset against the ugliness of the exterior of most homes and the hideousness of the slums. Their personal cleanliness and spotless rooms contrasted with primitive sanitary conditions. There are farms following the methods of 3000 years ago, yet one was surprised to hear the whirring of little electric rice mills. In electric development Japan was said be fo second only to the United States. The officials were extremely severe upon radicals. They had outlawed the first Labour Party formed, and about 18 months ago, arrested fully 1000 Communists, and tried them in secret;. Similar intolerance was showp by some of the Labour leaders, who would persecute moderate reformers like fh Rev. T. Kagawa for their refusal to subscribe toi Marxism land their efforts to promote co-operation between employers and employed. Unlike these leaders, the majority of the people were gentle and tolerantWith children the Japanese were very gentle, ad so far as he could learn there was no corporal punishment in Japanese schools. The Japanese people were friendly and con.sideuatc, and exceedingly loyal t° their foreign friends. They would spend thwo and effort willingly \to help puzzled visitors. The martial heroism of the Japanese contrasted with the gentleness of the people in civil life and especially with the selfsacrifice of -religious leaders, who preached human brotherhood and renounced all material possessions. The Rev. T. Kagawa was an active spirit, doming from .tone of the wealthy governing families, He had given up everything to become a Christian and had plunge I into the life of the Kobe slums, living in a hovel o-n the poorest of food and refusing to possess more than one garment. For helping a group of strikers he had oeen imprisoned. He had organised the Japanese Labour Federation and a Peasants’ Union, hut had always worked for co-operation, not the class struggle idea. To raise money for his philanthropic efforts he had written novels and other works, which brought, in an income of about £ISOO a year. This income bad had given to a trust to ibo used for the slum work. The lecture was illustrated wifh. attractive views of Japanese life and scenery and also a number of phofos of the earthquake tragedy of 1923, and at its close Mr. Brailsford received a well deserved vote of thanks.