BACK FROM JAPAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18496, 5 September 1923, Page 11

BACK FROM JAPAN.

AUSTRALIAN DELEGATION.

QUAINT EASTERN CUSTOMS.

Mr. D. A. Cameron, the senior member of the Eastern delegation of the Australian Meat Council, returned to Australia by the St. Albans recently, much impressed with the hospitality of tho Japanese.

The dinners given' to the delegation were on a lavish scale. On'one occasion only 25 persons worn present, but the bill must have cost' £2CO. the guests sat on the floor on cushions with a little table in front of them. Each was waited upon by a Geisha girl. Dancers performed, and a conjurer eD teitained them with Eastern magic.

A paper cutter in a few seconds cuts from a folded piece of paper figures of men and women, animals, flowers, and other studies, and even with a few snips of his scissors the artist made a -silhouette of Mr. Cameron himself. , Tho cutlery' consisted of chop-sticks, and Mr. Cameron stated that he became efficient in the ait of eating with them. He was not quite so successful, however, in learning ■to eat raw 'fish, but as etiquette in .Japan, demands • that one must eat of the food provided by the host, he at last succeeded in acquiring a taste for this dish. '' While ,in Japan Mr. Cameron noticed a striking parallel between that country and Australia. , He found that people on the land were working very hard, generally under great, difficulties, and the people in the cities aparently were not nearly' so industrious, but seemingly very prosperous.