CHANGEABLE JAPAN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue X, 7 March 1896, Page 254

CHANGEABLE JAPAN.

A fresh thought is strongly expressed in an article in the Atlantic Monthly— namely, the instability of everything in Japan. Everything in Japan, except the Mikado’s authority, is unstable. We have never changed our capital since the Roman time, nor has France ; but Japan has had sixty capitals within her historic period. We build, as a rule, with the idea of permanency before us, even the base architect who designs for jerry-builders intending his edifices to last during a short lease ; but the Japanese city is made up of houses of mud, bamboo and paper, put up in five days, and intended to last, with endless repairing, only so long as its owner may desire to change his abode. There are, in fact, no great buildings in Japan, except a few colossal fortresses erected by the nobles while feudalism prevailed. The modern factories in Japan, however extensive their business, or however beautiful and costly their products, are but long-drawn shanties, and the very temples must, by immemorial custom, be cut into little pieces every twenty years, and distributed among the pilgrims. Our workman’s first demand in boots is that they shall last, but the Japanese is content if his straw shoes will protect his feet during one stage only of any journey. We intend even our shirts to ‘ wear,’ but a Japanese unstitches his robe that it may be washed, and then stitches it together again. A Japanese workman never roots himself, or wishes to root himself. If he has any reason for changing his province he changes it at once, dismantling his ‘ house,’ the paper and mud hut which is so picturesque and cleanly, packing his belongings on his shoulder, telling his wife and family to follow, and trudging off with a light step and a lighter heart for his far-away destination, perhaps 500 miles off, where he arrives, after an expenditure of, perhaps, at the outside, ss, immediately builds him a house, which costs him a few shillings more, and is at once a respectable and responsible citizen again. All Japan is always on the move in this way, and change is the genius of Japanese civilisation, as it is the speciality of the islands, where from volcanic action the mountains alter, the rivers change their courses, the coasts lose their outline, the lakes appear and disappear.