GLIMPSES OF JAPAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

GLIMPSES OF JAPAN.

THE OLD AND THE NEW.; BY ItIENB ROBERTSON'. The first thing is to understand, or attempt to understand, your protagonists, if you are even indirectly concerned in the drama. But in the drama of China and Japan that is now playing itself out in tho flames and thunders of war the task is of more than common difficulty to tho Western mind. Lafcadio Hearn, the great expounder of English thought to Japan and interpreter of Japan to England, is not considered to have fathomed the inscrutable oriental mind at all points. Yet he has gone farther than most. And at his death it was said by a distinguished Japanese, "We could better havo lost two or three battleships." Thus and thus were the far-reaching results of his great intermediary influence through the medium of letters. Glimpses into the history and art of this astonishing people reveal the phenomenon of the blending of East and West. They reveal the old picturesque feudalism with lords, swords and castles, with woods and mountains, goblinhaunted, and a ghost-ridden countryside. They reveal these conditions melting into a new mechanised civilisation with a roar of trade such as we of the West suffer gladly. We watch tho blending of these two Japans with a fascination that is mingled with anxiety for the outcome. • Let us glance backward for a moment at a series of picturesque personalities as they pkss along the screen of time.

There was the first emperor of Japan, tho divine Jimmu Tenno, who in 660 B.C. founded the Empire of the Rising Sun. He was the fifth descendant of the sun goddess, she who sprang from the creators of Heaven and Earth. The divine descent of all his successors has never been questioned by the Japanese, and this belief goes hand in hand with the most advanced scientific thought and materialism. The emperor is the father of his people, and the imported inventions of Edison and Marconi and the scepticism of Huxley affect it not a whit. Crowds of thousands. still bow down silently and with reverence before the august emperor. Great Men and Women. There is the beautiful princess Tachibana, who saved the life of her husband, Prince Yamatodake, in a tempest, by • casting mats into the sea and leaping out upon them, thus lightening the boat and allowing him to reach the shore in safety. So, by this sacrifice of her life t to the sea-god, to save her husband, Ta'chibana became the permanent ideal of Japanese womanhood. There were the rival feudal • clans of Taira and Minamoto, who wa£ed ceaseless warfare against each other to the death. Their red and white banners fluttered over, their armies like the roses of York and Lancaster. And in far Japan it was a woman's tiny hand that held the balances of fate. For on the eve of a great Minamoto defeat Taira ordered that the rival clan be completely wiped <>ut. But the beautiful widow of the leader, Tokiwa, so pleaded for the life of her sons from the conqueror that-, overcome by her beauty, he granted it, on condition that the lovely lady should spend, the rest of her life in his harem. Her son, Yoritomo it was, who, grown to splendid, warlike manhood, finally wiped out, and thoroughly exterminated this time, the conquering Taira in the great battle of Dannoura in 1182. Legend tells how the ghostly forms of the mighty Taira warriors still haunt the shores near Shimonoseiki and fight again the dreadful battle of their massacre. There was Hideyoshi, in the sixteenth century, the diminutive and hideous groom, who by sheer force of genius made himself the greatest of Japanese generals and united the country for the first time.. There are hints of comedy behind his genius for tricks and strategy. He it was who permitted a foe always to keep his head, provided it contained sound brains that could and would be used in his service. The inept and useless ones he simply beheaded out of hand. A very effective method of getting results, too! Tho little foibles of this general are illustrated by the tubful of shorn enemy noses and ears which lie had planted in his temple grounds. The " earmound " and monument over it can bo seen in Kyoto to this day. Abolition of Feudalism. There are the forty-seven Ronin in 1703 who slew the Lord Kira -for insulting their master, who laid with all ceremony his head on their master's grave and then committed hari-kari. In what other country would it be possible to see the spectacle of two hundred and forty-one daimyos (feudal lords) uniting to ask the emperor td take back their territories for the good of tho State ? n Yet this was done in 1869, and at one stroke the whole institution of feudalism which had flourished since the thirteenth century was shorn away. The two hundred and forty-one daimyos received one-tenth of tho income derived from their former fiefs, but their feudal rights they voluntarily relinquished, together with lands, from pure patriotism, in order to make room for a centralised government. These are the people who make beauty an integral part of their everyday life. From labourer to emperor nearly everyone writes poetry. All forms of art are theirs; gardens, which approximate with the aid of art to landscape; a delicate perception of perfume and of the perfection' of an exquisitely placed spray of blossom; the daily singing way of a bamboo-weaver, rice-cleaner or washerman chanting folk songs at their tasks, throughout life there has always been interwoven the magic spell of loveliness. The delight of the eyes is for everyone there, however poor. Here is one of their little songs, slight and exquisite as a tiny etching;

The wild geese returning Through the misty sky, Behold, they look like A letter written In faint ink. And another: The spring rain Which hnngs to the branches Of (he green willow hooks like pearls Threaded on a string. Changing Rapidly.

Theso people arc changing so rapidly now that from day to day it is difficult to generalise accurately about them. Old and new, East and "Wost, are so closely intertwined. But it is a people alive and alert to learn. They have performed the incredible in the planned and accomplished chafigo of their civilisation, which does not supplant but supplements their own of ancient days. That was the work of a great and strong pooplu, a people intensely with wisdom and energy.

One of the keynotes of the Japaneso nation was expressed by the Emperor a little time ago: "Seek knowledge wherever it can bo found iu the world." This is tho noble ideal of an Eastern people. You may see them haunting bookshops, rickshaw-man and professor alike, searching there for knowledge.

Ingram Bryan justly points out that "Japan is the first country in the world to havo attempted the uniting of tho civilisations of the East and West with the virtues of each and the vices of neither. And while she would bo the first to admit how far short of this ideal she still remains, hers is the unique glory of having been the first to attempt it."

But. I pray that, in attaining Western standards, machinery and warfare, she may never be led to forsake the spray of cherry blossom and the delicate song.