UNBLINKING EYELIDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21326, 29 October 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

UNBLINKING EYELIDS

WHERE CHILDREN NEVER CRY v " Few people have ever seen a little Japanese in tears, because in Japan the children are taught from earliest infancy not to cry. They are schooled to bear pain, disappointment and all the other little troubles that sometimes reduce Western children to tears, with courage and fortitude. One often sees little Japanese boys standing before their elders with straddled legs and unblinking eyelids, while swords are sent whistling past their noses Again and again the sword comes rushing down, but the little boy never moves —always there is a faint smile on his lips, a smile that says: "This is the way to .face danger!" Again, all Japanese children are poets, This is no idle statement., but a recognised fact, and travellers report that, although they have visited villages in Japan where the inhabitants are too poor to offer the visitor a cup of tea, they are all able to write poems to their gods and their shrines. The children of Japan are always happy, not because they are rich, well-fed, or live in nice houses, but because they are taught from the very beginning to look upon the sunny side of life and to fear neither man nor beast!