THE NATION UNDER THE KIMONOS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3525, 4 October 1921, Page 59

THE NATION UNDER THE KIMONOS.

JAPAN AND ITS GARISH GAIETY A remarkable novel of Japanese life has just been written, called “Kimono (W. Collins, Sons, and C-0., 7s 6d net). It is by John Paris, and is “a first novel.” There is much sensational incident m it, and it makes a good story. But the atmosphere of the book and its asides are' greater and more important than the story. It is a most sombre picture of Japan, and fills one with forebodings. There is something ominous in it. The writer evidently knows his subject at first hand, and handles it bravely and without fear. He effectively bursts the spurious glamour which certain of our musical comedies have thrown upon certain aspects of Japanese life, and shows it for the hideous thing it is. We would welcome from His pen a serious studv of the Japanese temperament, and how it is likely to develop in these swift-chang-ing days. The story centres round the marriage of an Englishman to a Japanese girl who does not know Japan. Here is a description of their first visit to Tokyo.’ The Japanese Capital.— “They drove through Tokyo. It was like crossing London for the space of distance covered; an immense city—yet is it a city or merely a village prepond erously overgrown ? “There is no dignity in the Japanese capital, nothing secular or permanent, except that mysterious forestland in the midst of the moats and the grey walls, where dwell the Emperor and the Spirit of the Race. “It is a mongrel c-it-v, a vast- congeries of native wooden huts hastily equipped with a few modern conveniences. Drunken poles stagger down the streets waving their cobwebs of electric wires. Rickety trams jolt past crowded to overflowing, so crowded that humanity clings to the steps and platforms in clots like flies clinging to some sweet surface. “Thousands of little shops glitter, wink, or frown at the passer-by. “Everywhere the same crowds loitered along the pavements. No hustle, no appearance of business save where a messenger bov threaded the maze on a breakneck bicycle, or where a dull-faced coolie pulled at- an overloaded barrow. Grey and brown the crowd clattered by in their wooden shoes. “The only bright notes among all these drab multitudes were the little gills in their variegated kimonos, who fluttered in and out of the entrances and who played unscolded on the footpaths. These, too. were the only notes of happiness. for their grown-un relatives, especially- the women, carried an air, if not an actual expression, of animal melancholy, the melancholy of driven sheep or of cows ruminant.” • —A Temple in Japan.— “A temple in Japan is not merely a building: it is a site. These sites were most- carefully chosen with the sami genius which guided our Lenedictnies and | Carthusians. The site of Ikeganii is a long abrupt hill halfway between Tokv< and Yokohama. It- is clothed with ervptomei-ia t fees. “These dark romf-is. like immense cypresses, give lo the spot that grave silent, ii revocable atmosphere with which Broecklin has invested his picture of lli< Island of the Ifi-ad. Tiles-' majestic tree: are essentinllv a part of the temple. They correspond to the pillars of mil Gothic cathedrals. The roof is the Idm vault of heaven : and the actual building.are but altars, chantries, and monuments “A steep flight of steps is suspeudui

like a cascade from the crest of the hill. Up and down these steps the wooden clogs of the Japanese people patter incessantly like water drops.” The Crowd at the Temple.—“The temple yard was an immense fancy fair. . . . “The crowd was astonishingly mixed. There were professors, merchants of Tokyo, with their wives, children, servants, and apprentices. There were students with their blue and white spotted cloaks, their kepis with the school badge, and their ungainly stride. There were modern young men in European dress with Panama hats, swagger canes, and side-spring shoes, supercilious in attitude and proud of their unbelief. There were troops of variegated children, dragging at their elders’ hands or kimonos, or getting lost among the legs of the multitude like little leaves in an eddy. “There were excursion parties from the country, with their kimonos caught up to the knees and with baked earthen faces stupidly staring, sporting each a red flower or a coloured towel for identification purposes.” Our Divine Mission. —- Some of the -thoughts moving in some of the minds of the Japanese are put in these words : “Twenty years ago Japan defeated China and took Korea. Ten years ago we defeated Russia and took Manchuria. This year we defeat Germany and take Tsingtao. In 10 years we shall defeat America and take Hawaii and the Philippines. In 20 years we shall defeat England take India and Australia. Then we Japanese shall be the most powerful nation in the world. This is our divine mission.” The Change in Asia.— “You must never forget your father’s country, and you must never say bad things about Japan, even if you have suffered here. Then the English people will love you. “The English are a verv great people, the greatest of all : but they know very little about us in the East. They think that because we are a yellow people, tV i Tore we are inferior to them. Perhaps when thev see a Japanese lady as one of their peer’s wives and a leader in society, thev will understand that the Japanese also are not so inferior, for the English people have a’great respect for peers. “Japan is proud to be England’s younger brother : but the elder brother must not take all the inheritance. Ho must- be content, to share. For perhaps he will not always be the strong one. This war will make England weak, and it will make Japan strong. It will make a great change in the world and in Asia most of all. Already the people of Asia are saying. ‘ Why should these white men rule over us? They cannot rule themselves. . . ” Disappointment with the East.— Tlie effects of disappointment which come to the traveller in "Japan is thus discussed by two Englishmen in that country—one a resident and the other a traveller only. “Geoffrey, yon have not been in tlie East long enough to be exasperated by it. T have.” “It’s not whit T thonsrht it was going to be. I must- admit. Everything is so much of a muchness. If you've seen one temple you’ve seen the lot. and the same with everything here.” “That is the first stage—disappointment. We have heard so much of the East and its splendours, the gorgeous East, and the rest of it. The reality is small and sordid, and like so much that is ugly in our own country.” “Yes, they wear shocking bad clothes, dont they, directly they get- out- of their kimonos; and even the kimonos look dingy and dirt-v.” “They are,” said Reggie. “Yours would he if you had to keep a wife and eight children on 39s a month.” The Second Stage.— Then he added : “The second stage t-o the observer's progress is Discovery. Have you reac Lafcadio Hearn’s books about Japan?” “Yes, some of them,” answerer Geoffrey. “It strikes me that he was c thorough -pa cod 1 iar. ’ ’ “No. he vvas a poet, and he jumper over the first- stage to dwell for sonu time in the second ; probably because hr was by nature short-sighted. That is ; great advantage for discoverers.” “But what do you mean by the seconr stage ?” —“The Stage of Discovery!”—“Have you ever walked about Japanese city in the twilight when tin evening bell sounds from a hiddei temple ? Have you turned into the by streets and watched the men returning to their wise little houses, and the famil; groups assembled to meet them and hel; them to change into their kimonos? Hav you heard the splashing and the c-latte of tlie bath-houses, which are the even ing clubs of the common people and tin great clearing-houses of gossip ? "Have you seen anything of this with out a feeling of deep pleasure and ; wonder as to how these people live am think, what we have got in common wit! them, and what we have got to lean from them? The Dead Who Rule. “‘The dead are the real rulers n Japan.' ssvs Lafcadio Hearn. L'ndei neatii the surface changing: the nation i deeply conservative, suspicious of a interference and uncoil veil (tonality--sir I icnlv .-cll-salislied ; and. above all. sti! as much locked in it- primitive famil sv.-lem a.- it was a thousand years agi You cannot be friends with a .Japanes unless vuu are friends with his family snd vuu cannot lie friends with hi S family unless you belong to it. This 1 I the deadlock: and that is why we lievt ' net anv forwarder.’’