THE JAPANESE GIRL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 42

THE JAPANESE GIRL.

The last thing a Japanese woman expects from her lord and master is faithfulness. She is his slave, not his equal. When his friends assemble at dinner she waits till she is summoned. She is content to work for her lord and to obey her roaster's imperial orders. She is one in a crowd of women, all made of the same pattern and out of the same mould ; and, after all, the man v is a man and has two arms with which to embrace, and two knees on which she can perch and sing to him. The civilisation of Japan has not yet extended to strict monogamy. The innocent child who is liable to be sold by her parents into bondage and sjlavery for 200dol is not able to dictate terms' of mutual faith to husband or lover either. On the other hand, there is much, very much, to be said in favour of the delightful cheerfulness and purring kittenish ways of the Japanese woman in all classes of life. Whatever she may be in her heart, or by circumstances, she is never outwardly mercenary or grasping. When she counts her dollars, she does so in the silence of her chamber and with closed doors. Her mission in life is to make all around her happy. She may take her little sip of sake, or put her lips occasionally to a glass of alcohol, bat she never loses her self-control or unsexes herself, no matter what her life may be. She will play with your watch chain, or locket, or rings, just like an overgrown baby, but she never begs for a glitterir.g ornament or cries her eye 3 out to get it. The Japanese woman never ceases to be a child, or wearies of romps and'games. Like a playful kitten she is never tired of the ball of cotton. She will laugh for hours together over the most trivial jest, and is never so happy aa when she iB quizzing or mimicking a stranger by voice or gesture. She appears to me to have the merest modicum of brains, and, as a rule, to be conspicuously unintelligent. But;, then, it is quite possible that the native of Japan, like the ordinary " passenger " who visits this delightful country, does not look for, or care for, intelligence and brains in the woman he chooses as his toy. The brains would bore him — he wants a kitten and a chattel 1 It is possible, no doubt, that these special oharacterißtics, this fund of cheer-

fulness, this incessant desire to make life merry, this playful gambolling spirit, has its charm for men jusc parted from a race of Women who are too often taught to be exclusive, reticent, and positively ungracious. Though the women of our own countries have nothing whatever to dread of the female beauty of Japan, they may, on the other hand, have much to learn from them concerning their art of charm. The European women too often sit still to be admired. But the bead-eyed, roly-poly little Jap lays herself out for laughter. I can conceive the man who has not acquired the art of understanding women, and has never experienced the delight of sincere intellectual companionship, being charmed and distracted by these chirping little " crickets on the hearth," who, at any rate, make the home bum, and do their best to drive dull care away.

In the course of ray wanderings I have had many an earnest discussion with talented European women on this subject of the Japanese craze. And though they feel very deeply — particularly those who have lived in and studied the country — the male preference for the Eastern doll and kitten, still they were liberal enough to own that a the European woman, particularly the beauty of her race, might with advantage cultivate the art of pleasing and understanding man, who is often driven away from her side by coldness, indifference, and neglect, to find elsewhere either the sympathy or the liveliness that [suits our various natures. For myself, physically or intellectually, this merry little Japanese bird has absolutely no charm. Ido not admire her plumage or her note. The one does not please my eye, and the other jars upon my nerves. But then I only speak for myself. As yet I am one of the few European foxes who has not lost his tail. When I arrived in Japan I was " approached " in the usual way by one in authority. Bat I politely declined the entertainment offered me. I came out to observe for myself an I not as an agent to advertise this 'or that Japanese institution. When I told what I believe to be the truth and refused to invest in " palm oil " or to be suborned in any interest, I was told in pitying accents that I was suffering from " Cupid and the catarrh." Well, after all, honours were divided. If I caught the first malady in England I captured the other in Japan. And I got rid of " the catarrh " without shaking off the Cupid. But even the most devoted admirers of the life, eocial and moral, of modern Japan must regret the gradual but sure influence of European custom on so art-loving and picturesque a nation. The modern male Jap, as I see him at the railway station or in the train, is a most comical creature. He sports a British pot hat or baggy cap, a second-hand ulster of English make, but does not discard the Japanese stocking with the divided toe, the moccasin slipper, or that dreadful wooden clog that squeaks over the pavement like a scratch of slate pencil on a schoolboy's slate. Soon the only Japanese costume will be sported by the jinricksha men, who have not thrown aside their mushroom straw hats or their scarlet and blue dyed blouses. And little Madame Chrysanthemum appears to have sent her lovely flowered gowns to the second-hand clothes shop, and ioves to deck herself out in European dresses, kid gloves, and, horror of horrors, high-heeled shoes and boots. The only advantage in this is that she is f6r the fust time neatly shod ; for, to tell the truth, Miss and Mrs Japan are the most slipshod and " down at heel " ladies in the wide woild. Mrs Wragge and Mrs Flintwinch were never more " down at heel " than these Eastern beauties. They do not walk, they "Blop" along the floor. Their movement is one eternal " dnck " and shuffle. — Clement Scott, in the English Illustrated.