HOW JAPANESE LIVE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18073, 11 January 1921, Page 5

HOW JAPANESE LIVE.

THRIVE TO AMAZING DEGREE NEXT TO NOTHING. A Japanese house is one of the simplest tilings ever built, for it consists of little more than four posts and a roof. But- such impermanence, which is also seen in ether things, is a part of the strength of the nation for no people in the world have so lew wants The Japanese have no biead, no beds, no rires, no boots or shoes, no trousers lor the men, no petticoats for the women—lor both sexes wear several dressing gowns, one over the other. In their houses they have r.n windows, no doors, no walls, but paper shutters, fixed in grooves, no ceilings, no chests of drawers, not even a washstand.

In the kitchen tney have no range, no pots no pans, no dour bins, no kitchen tables But then they have no rabies or chairs in the drawing-room, and in the real native house the draw-ing-room itself is only a lot of bedrooms with the paper shutters taken down. There is no reason why you should find anything in a Japanese house except mats and a charcoal stove tor warming your fingers and making tea.

These and a cushion or two and a quilt to sleep on, with an elaborate conventional politeness, constitute the furniture of a Japanese house, except the guest chamber. And the articles in the guest chamber consist of a screen, a kakemono and a flower vase. Along with his magnificent of wants, sc to speak, the Japanete comtines a capacity to get huge pleasures out of what we would regard as trifles, and after labours and sacrifices that we should think intolerable. This extraordinary patience and wholehearted enjoyment under all the niggardliness of his lot marks the Japanese as unique among the peoples of the world.

EVERY DAY A WEEK DAY. He lives on next to nothing, and thrives on it. He always has a smile. He works whenever he can get any work to do. They are all week-days to him. Instead of a seventh day, Sunday, he has his festa, a national holiday or a temple festival. In either case he goes a-faring to some temple and takes his children or a friend. He IS never too poor to have money to treat

He gives himself a holidav onlv when he is cut of work, and his holidays are inexpensive. He just walks a hundred miles to see some famous garden in its glory; he carries his baggage in a box. wrapped in oil paper, and gets a bed at an inn for a sum equivalent to a halfpenny of our money. Hi s food is almost as cheap, and when the last turn m the road shows him the irises of •Honkari or the house and cherrv trees of Yoshino on the day of all the year he would not change places n ith the King of Great Britain and Ireland Judging by Western ideas, Japanese babies have a hard time; yet there are qo healthier children in the world. Ihe Japanese baby is dressed and undressed in a frigid temperature in winter. and in summer no care is taken to protecr its tender little eyes from the full glare of the sun. In winter the small head is covered a worsted cap of the brightest and gayest design and colour. ITie black hair is cut in all sorts of fantastic ways, just like the hair qf the Japanese dolls imported into this country.

The babies of the lower classes are generally carried bn the back of the mother or little sister; sometimes the small brother is obliged to be the nursemaid. The kimono is made extra large at the back, with a pocket of sufficient size to hold the baby, whose round head reaches the back of the neck of the person who is carrying it. It is not an uncommon sight to see children who are barely old enough to toddle burdened yvith a small brother or sister sleeping peacefully on their backs. At first one expects’ to see the child stagger and fall beneath the weight, but apparently none of its movements are impeded, and it plays w ith the other children as unconcernedly as if it were not loaded down with another member of the familv.