PEN-FRIENDS’ CORNER

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20693, 31 December 1938, Page 19 (Supplement)

PEN-FRIENDS’ CORNER

NEWS OF OTHER LANDS

Peter knows that all of bis little members are Interested In the customs and people of other lands and he hopes that all of you will help to make this “Penfriends’ Corner” a splendid success by sending In your contributions from your penfriend letters and so help to share your pleasures with other folk.

THE JAPAIKEBC POOD The Japanese food is very similar to that of the Chinese, rice in some form being the chief item on the menu for both young and old, rich and poor. So long as the rice-box, the tea caddy and the pickle jar are well filled and there is also a large supply of vegetables, the Japanese housewife has little else to worry about. Fish and eggs are also eaten at times, and 6ince the war, as the price of rice increased greatly, flour has also been used. The influence of Buddhism, however, has been the means of restricting flesheating, even if Hie Japanese did like meat, which they dislike strongly. The universal drink is very weak tea served without sugar or milk, while a wine made from rice, called sake, is also used. The quality of the food is of little importance but the manner in which it is served is very important. To serve a twice-honoured guest before the thrice-honoured guest would bring everlasting disgrace upon the family. Tea houses are to be found everywhere; the majority are of humble structure, mostly of wood and paper but some are beautiful buildings with floors and ceilings of polished wood and tallies of ebony and gold. As soon as the visitor enters the tea house the girl attendant bows and kneels before him and then runs to get the tea, which arrives in small pots on a lacquered trav with five tiny teacups around the pot. If the tea is to be flavoured, salted cherry-blossoms are added but never sugar and mlYk. After the tea is consumed pretty little white cakes of bean-flour and sugar are brought in, to be followed by dishes of dried fish or sea-slugs in an evil-smelling sauce. When the meal is over, the giesha girls dance before the visitor until it is time to go home. Then as the visitor is preparing to depart his arms are filled with little white wooden boxes with the remains of the banquet which he has left uneaten inside.

THE OHINEBE OOOLIt The Chinese coolie is a very pleasing sight when he is first seen by the traveller, with his clothes shading from indigo to turquoise blue and then to the palest sky blue, for the coolie wears no other oolour than blue, and he seems exactly right as he trudge* along the narrow causeway between the rice fields or climbs the green bids with his load on hi 6 shoulder. 11 > clothing consists of no more than short coat and a pair of trouser* and if his suit was, at the beginning, all to match, he never consider* patching it with Ihe same shade but takes i piece of material that is the handiest lo him. His head is protected from the sun and the rain by a straw hat shaped like an extinguisher, with a very wide Hat brim. Hi* burden consists of long poles, worn across the shoulders, like oxen yokes, from the ends of which hang two great bales, one on each side He is capable of carryirw this burden for 30 miles or so & day. Although be i 6 very enduring and sturdy, he is considered a beast of burden in China, and is treated no better than an animal. It is no wonder that these coolies do their work cheerfully, however, for they have had the carrying of burdens, handed down for thousands of years, from one generation to auother, and even little children are to he seen with a yoke on their shoulders and staggering uuder the weight of the vegetable baskets. If a coolie desires to rest, he does not remove the yoke from his shoulders, but rests the load on the ground, remaining slightly stooped, so that in time his shoulders are rounded. PENFRIEND WANTED ISABEL PRICE (17), Beng-ough, Saskatchewan, CANADA. Wants a pen-friend In New i*. about her own ag’e.