"JAPAN. TO-DAY

Southland Times, Issue 22993, 12 September 1936, Page 7

"JAPAN. TO-DAY

Customs Of The East And West

TOURIST’S IMPRESSIONS

(Specially written for The Southland Times.)

(BY I. G. G. MACKAY.)

Japan is welcoming thousands of tourists this summer season. The hotels in the principal cities are filled with people from all parts of the globe lured by the pretty posters and the convincing literature issued by the efficient Japanese Government Tourist Bureau. The Land of the Rising Sun is attracting visitors because travel is so cheap. Most people arrive with a round-trip steamship ticket which generally allows them to travel, if they desire, by train between the ship’s ports of call. As all the famous places of beauty and the ancient temples and shrines are within easy distance of the main ports travelling expenses, while in the country, are not excessive. Hotel charges, too, are very reasonable, and a room may be secured in one of the first-class hotels in Tokyo by the day for 3.50 yen, which is a little over five shillings. At Nikko and Kyoto, places every tourist visits, the prices are higher, but single rooms may be had in hotels for less than 15/a day. All the hotels in Japan are modern structures and in most cases have been erected only three or four years. At the present rate of exchange the Australian and New Zealand £ is worth 13 yen, and let me emphasize that 13 yen will go a very long way in Japan just now.

But do not run away with the idea that Japan is a tourist’s paradise. It is not, definitely. The visitor feels he is a stranger in a strange and seemingly hostile land soon after his ship anchors in her first Japanese port. The Japanese officials who examine passports are generally brusque men who show the visitor little courtesy or consideration. A score of questions almost, have to be answered before about half-a-dozen men who must represent every branch of the Japanese Police service. One man questions the traveller, while the others listen with grave and serious faces. Nearly all the listeners are equipped with notebooks, and now and then one will record something which he thought was interesting. The knowledge of English possessed by some of these questioning officials is limited and often the passenger has to repeat some trivial answer three or four times. While I was awaiting my turn to appear before the tribunal a young woman who has a name that is a little difficult to pror.our.ee came up for questioning. The official could not pronounce her name. She repeated it fully ten times slowly and surely, but still he shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Never before have I come on a name like this. Repeat it to me.” The pool’ girl repeated it once more, yet the result was the same. The official still could not understand and he began to get a little annoyed. “This is the first time I have seen this name. What does it mean?” he asked. “Is there some meaning behind it? Answer me please.” But the question remained unanswered for the girl in her nervous excitement began to get a little hysterical. The subject was allowed to drop and a different question asked. Passport Examination. At every succeeding port a passport examination is held. Before the ship I was travelling in reached Yokohama calls were made at four other ports, and at every one of these places passports had to be presented and sometimes questions answered. When ’ I finally got into Japan I discovered that there were few people who could speak English. I refer to this subject because many people overseas imagine that today there is no language difficulty in Japan. “You will find the school-boys a great help.” someone told me before I arrived. “They all learn English and are anxious to improve themselves.” It is quite true that they learn English and are anxious to improve themselves, but very few of them are sufficiently advanced in the subject to know what the English visitor says. Until I gave up in despair I was stopping schoolboys all day. Odd ones mumbled something I could not understand, but the great majority shook their heads, registered blankness and walked on. In the shops the same conditions prevail. The assistants do not know a word of English. When one approaches to buy they call the shop-walker who has a few English words he produces from somewhere, and after many bows and smiles on the part of both parties the deal is completed. The visitor who loses his way in Osaka or Nagoya, the large industrial cities in Japan, is in a sorry plight; Few tourists pass through these cities so that most of the people never see a foreigner for years on end. The few words of Japanese the tourist possesses are quite useless for he does not understand the replies he receives. The People’s Food.

Here in Japan the people live on rice, raw fish and vegetables. This has been their diet for centuries. Only recently have the wealthy classes commenced to eat European food. In spite of the fact that many Japanese chefs have been trained abroad the food served at most places is cooked with a leaning towards the Japanese methods. This means that dishes possess an entirely different taste. Until one becomes accustomed to the cooking one is going to have a lean time in Japan for the sauces in which the food is cooked have at first a far from pleasant flavour. Good butter is unknown. I have travelled all over the country and stayed in the principal hotels and never once have I been served with first grade or even second grade butter. Often the butter has been rancid. Yet I have seen travellers whose nationalities I will not name, spread this butter thickly on their rolls and eat with evident enjoyment. It is the same with meat. The mutton and spring lamb which are listed on the bills of fare exist in name only. Some kind of meat is served, but where it comes from, I have never been able to find out. From a scenic viewpoint Japan has undoubtedly been “written up.” There are many pretty and novel sights, but there is nothing magnificent or aweinspiring in the scenery which unfolds before the tourist as he goes throughout the country. When writers first came to Japan they were so impressed with the charm and strangeness of everything that they wrote glowing and exaggerated accounts of the beauty of the main island. Japan possesses a subtle elusive beauty, and it is only when the visitor has been in the country for a month or so that he begins to really appreciate the attractions of the Japanese landscape. The Japanese think our ideas of beauty too obvious. In their gardens, for instance, they express their feelings in a way which is just the opposite of the western way. All this should oe remembered when a visit to Japan is contemplated. The Mountain. But the appeal of Mt. Fuji is universal. Fortunate is the person who sees the mountain from afar at this time of the year, for rain is frequent. Even though a visit is paid to the Fuji region it does not follow that the mountain will stand revealed. I was in Yokohama, the best place from which to get a good distant view of Mt. Fuji, for

five days and every morning I looked towards the direction of the peak. My enterprise was rewarded on the morning I was to leave the city. I awoke early and my heart leapt when I saw the sun was shining brilliantly. Immediately I was at the window and there in the distance Mt. Fuji, in splendid isolation, stood cold and clear against the blue sky. I thought of a poem I had once learned, written by Edmund Blunden: Down qut street when I was a boy I met with a friendly man Who took me to the stone-cross steps, and said to me, See Japan. I stared at the East he pointed: never have I seen a sky so fine, A shining height of clouds sun-bright, and loftier hyaline. And, See the Mountain, said my friend, and I traced the region cloud With intense wish to shape that peak, which made him smile so proud. I nearly saw, not that alone, but as it _ felt to me, x Cities and domes and lakes and falls and even doorway and tree. But just the final lineaments came not, and I told him so, I only know that the man was right, and that I was stupid and slow. He smiled, and said I should find all out. and the words he left me were these: I come from my shop to see Japan, and ■the Mountain, when I please. Tokyo To-day. Everyone agrees that the capital city, Tokyo, lives up to the descriptions and claims of the publicity writers. To-day Tokyo is the most modern city in the world. It has been completely re-built since 1923 when the earthquake and fire wrought such havoc, and was planned after a close study of the problems confronting the large cities of the west. The streets are wide and treelined, there are numerous park lands adjacent to the business areas and the magnificent buildings are all constructed to resist earthquakes. Japanese architects have been strongly influenced of late years by the new architectural movement which is usually called the “International” style. Excellent examples of this style are seen in the Central Post Office building, the Nihon Dental School building and the club house of the Tokyo Goff Club. A stranger could spend a month in Tokyo and never feel bored for a moment. The small shops with their seemingly endless supply of Japanese works of art, and the large departmental stores with their merchandise from every country in the world, exercise a fatal fascination. Then there are the theatres where Japanese drama both ancient and modern, may be enjoyed. These theatres are very uptodate and are equipped with all the latest technical devices. Their stages, for instance, are about as twice as wide as the stage in the Civic Theatre in Invercargill. At the theatres where classical dramas are played, the performances start at three o’clock in the afternoon and finish at night at ten-thirty. In the other play houses the curtain goes up at six o’clock. Each theatre has two or three restaurants and rows and rows of little shops and as the intervals between the acts are never less than 15 minutes, most play-goers pass the time by embarking on a buying tour. A Murder Play.

I saw a murder-play at a Tokyo theatre. The play was written by a Japanese and there must have been about 30 men and women in the cast. It was most elaborately staged. Towards the finish the detective who had been conducting the case assembled the suspected persons in a room. He produced a portable motion picture plant and threw ihe history of the case, from his viewpoint, on the screen. The film took about ten minutes to show and the people depicted were, of course, those who had leading parts in the play. Western music is very popular here and concerts are regularly presented by the New Symphony Orchestra, a very talented team of musicians. Recently Jacques Thibaud, the famous violinist, gave a series of recitals and they were all very well attended. His audiences were almost wholly comprised of Japanese. The life of the people in this great city interests me more than anything else. Their manner of dress first of all, claims the attention. Nearly all the women wear the kimono, while the men in shops and offices are dressed in western fashion.

It is easy to see that many pf the older males are ill at ease in the foreign clothes. Their suits fit badly, and their hats sit on the top of their heads in a precarious, often ridiculous, fashion. At night they change into the kimono and sitting on the floor of their houses, feel really comfortable. This practice of working under western conditions and of living under Japanese conditions shows no sign of changing. In the residential districts of the city houses are always built in Japanese style, while most of the rooms in the six-storied apartment houses, which are being constructed all over Tokyo, have straw-matted floors admitting only unshod feet. Japanese Wages. Houses built in Japanese style and apartments furnished in Japanese fashion will have to serve the needs of the people until wages rise and they are able to afford western homes and furnishings. I was talking recently to a clerk, a very intelligent young man, 28 years old. He was getting about 10 yen, 15/- a week. To improve his position he was studying English and French. “How much would a man in my position be getting in your country?” he asked. He was amazed when I said that clerks of his age and experience got at least £4 a week, about 52 yen. The Japanese food that this young man eats and his board do not cost very much, but his western suit and shoes are expensive in comparison with his wages. As he is studying English he wants to read English books and publications, but these luxuries are quite beyond his income. The cost of living is cheap in Japan for the labouring classes who exist very much as they did 60 years ago, but for men who desire something better and wish to live what I will term a semi-western life, conditions are very difficult. What of the Future. It is these “intelligent” workers who will in time demand better conditions and larger wages. The Government and employers of labour will be able to exploit the labouring classes indefinitely. These great masses of people rarely, if ever, come into touch with western thoughts and ideas. They know nothing of countries beyond the seas, their newspapers are carefully censored and if their rice bowl is full three times a day they are happy. But with tlie office and shop worker it is different. He is studying English, is reading whenever he can English books and newspapers and is making it his business to meet foreigners to improve his speaking and intellectual outlook. Numbers of these men have called on me and have asked me question after question about conditions overseas. And they are now making themselves heard in the Diet This, in Japan, is a tremendous step forward. The Government cannot ask these men to make sacrifices for the good of the country for ever, and the time must come when they will demand more consideration. In Old Japan the Samurai class were the rulers and received slavelike devotion and loyalty from the masses. To-day the capitalists have taken the place of the Samurai class, but they are finding a section of the people are becoming a little restive and discontented under their rule which was an outrageous offence punishable by death in the days of their forefathers.