JAZZING IN JAPAN

Southland Times, Issue 19278, 24 June 1924, Page 6

JAZZING IN JAPAN

GRIPPED BY THE CRAZE. “East is East and West is West, and ne’er the twain shall meet,” sang Kipling, but in these modern days there are diverse forces working to disprove his assertion. Missionaries mingle with the common people, the business men of the West trade with the business men of the East, the college professor from the West comes to teach the rising generation of the East, and in their wake trail the attributes, both bad and good, of their civilisation. The missionary has brought his religion, the college professor his knowledge, but the business man, in addition to his modern methods of doing business, has initiated the curious Oriental into the delights of his Western world, such as movies, radio concerts and jazz (writes “0.K.K.” in the Melbourne Argus). Take Japan, for instance —the Jazz king’s latest victim. The Miyako, a leading Tokio paper, has just published a cartoon of kimonoed beauties “shimmying” gaily to the wheedling of the saxophone. The paper condemns this change, but the young men and women do not pay the slightest attention to the bespectacled editor’s lament over foreign “crazes.”

Jazz has come into Japan, and it has come to stay. It promises to invade Japan as completely as it has done Europe. Everybody now is learning. At many restaurants there is now dancing, a gramophone doing duty in the less pretentious places, and a regular orchestra in the more fashionable resorts. Proprietors of cafes and refreshment houses find that, with the added attraction of dancing, their income is gratifyingly increased. Even the geisha girl is learning to jazz. At a dance at any of the bigger hotels can be seen young diplomats, university students, and women of all classes. Jazz tunes are popular, and messenger boys will ride their bicycles whistling or humming bars from ‘Leave Me With a Smile,’ or ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas.’ Tokio took the lead -in launching the dancing craxe, and now Osaka, Kioto and Kobe have taken it up enthusiastically. Husbands fire becoming progressive, thanks to the influence of jazz, and permit their wives to dance with friends. This is dubbed by the Miyako as “dangerous” and the paper then proceeds cynically to conclude that “perhaps these husbands are looking more to the pleasure of being able to dance with another man’s wife.”

The Japanese have now grown to accept the new dancing— that is, those Japanese who have succumbed to the fascinations of jazz. These laugh at the criticism by the more conservative element of the population. Changes are coming in a flood, and changes that, for Japan, are almost ievolutionary. Young Japanese men now whisper “sweet nothings” to young women, and most frequently at dancing parties, a thing that is supposed to be anathema, according to strict Japanese etiquette. Thus jazz is even tending tochange the customs of the nation. It certainly has been responsible for the passing of that rigid formality which was once a commonplace of Japanese social life. Anxious comments are heard that jazz may definitely oust the ancient classical “No” dance—a dance that is a combination of religious dances and popular tales. An attempt was made to resuscitate the old measure, but the young men and women would not have it. The call of jazz is irresistible in Japan to-day.