The Foundations of Japan Part 3

The indomitable experimenter swallowed another cupful of tea and declared that "in order to be prosperous, all the members of the family must work." All the members of his family did work. His wife was strong and there were five healthy children. He used the ordinary farm implements and his livestock consisted of only a horse and a few hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying farms were scattered in five villages--"there are always spendthrift lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the most profitable calling."

"Very often," he went on, "good people are not sufficiently precautious"--I give the excellent word coined by my interpreter.

"They spend for the public good, and in the end they are left poor.

Renowned, rich families have come to a miserable condition by such action. What they have done may have been good. But they are reduced to pauperism and they are laughed at by many persons. People jeer that they pretended to do good, yet they could not do good to themselves.

If all people who work for the public benefit are laughed at at last--and many are--it will come to be thought that to work for the public benefit is not good. Therefore I think that the man who would work for the public good must be careful in his own affairs. He must not be a poor man if he is to help public business. However philanthropic he may be, if his financial position is not strong he cannot go on long. He will be stopped on his good way. He cannot help other people. Therefore I am now gathering wealth for strengthening my financial position as a means to attain the higher end."

As the speaker awaited my judgment on his career, I ventured to suggest that gifts, qualities and inspiration which made a man a public man did not necessarily equip him for being a great success in business life. The question was, perhaps, whether the type of man who was pre-eminently successful in promoting his own pecuniary interests was necessarily the best type of public man. Was the average character equal to the strain of many years of concentration on money-making to the exclusion of public interests? When men emerged from the sphere of concentrated money-making, were they worth so very much as public men?

Might not the values of things have altered a little for them? Might it not have a shrivelling effect on the heart to resist applications which must be refused when the strengthening of one's financial position was regarded as the chief object in life?

At this point our host, Mr. Yamasaki, the respected princ.i.p.al of the big agricultural school of the prefecture and a well-known rural author and speaker, broke in with the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "He has got a needle in your head"--the j.a.panese equivalent for "touching the spot"--and continued: "Surely he is right who through his life offers freely what he may have as to members of his own family. I give away many pamphlets and I have guests. I could save in these directions.

But I am not doing it. I am content if I can support my family. I gave a savings book to each of my five children. When the boy becomes twenty-one he will have enough to finish at the university or start as a small merchant so as not to be a parasite. My girls will be provided with enough to furnish the costs of modest marriage. If I did more I might perhaps become greedy."

I cannot say that the farmer who had so kindly outlined his life's programme was impressed either by our host's views or by mine, but he told us that he now spent 5 per cent. of his income on public purposes, and that 150 yen received for giving lectures was spent on books and recreation "for enlarging mind and heart." He happened to mention that, though his family was of the Zen sect of Buddhism, he was a s.h.i.+ntoist. It is difficult to believe that a genuine Buddhist could have evolved such a life scheme. There is certainly a s.h.i.+nto symbolism in his plan of tree planting before his house. He has set there, in the order shown, eleven pines which he named as marked:

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THE ELEVEN SYMBOLIC TREES WHICH THE FARMER PLANTED OUTSIDE HIS HOUSE AND THE EVILS (REPRESENTED BY ARROWS) FROM WHICH THEY ARE s.h.i.+ELDING HIM]

The virtues inscribed on this plan are the guardians of the farmer and his family, which is represented in the middle of it. The words behind the arrows represent the character of the attacks to which the farmer conceives himself and his family to be exposed. Courage is imagined as going before and Wisdom as protecting the rear.

The talk turned to some advice which had been given to farmers to lay out "economic gardens." They were to plant no trees but fruit trees.

To this an old farmer of our company replied: "If you are too economical your children will become mercenary. Some families were too economical and cut down beautiful trees, planting instead economical ones. Those families I have seen come to an evil end. The man who exercises rigid economy may be a good man, but his children can know little of his real motives and must be wrongly influenced by his conduct." We all agreed that there was nowadays too much talk about money-making in rural j.a.pan. "Even I," laughed the owner of the symbolic trees, "planted not persimmons but pines."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] That is, before the Revolution of half a century ago, when the Tokugawa Shogun resigned his powers to the Emperor.

[15] The j.a.panese bed, _futon_, consists of a soft mattress of cotton wool, two or three inches thick. It is spread on the floor, which itself consists of mats of almost the same thickness, 6 ft. long by 3 ft. wide.

[16] Most of the really big men of Australia have left political life in comparatively impoverished circ.u.mstances. Not only did Sir Henry Parkes die poor. Sir George Reid took the High Commissioners.h.i.+p in London; Sir Graham Berry was provided with a small annuity; Sir George Dibbs was made the manager of a State savings bank; Sir Edmund Barton was lifted to the High Court Bench.--_Times_, January 11, 1921.

To the last day of his life, executions were levied in his house.--Rosebery on Pitt.

[17] For his figures see Appendix I.

CHAPTER III

EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES

I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious a.s.sentation.--MORLEY

"The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and five in the winter"--it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising Society who was speaking to me--are placed at the houses of the secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the houses of all the members allotted to him and to shout for the young men until they answer. Each member on rising walks to the house of the secretary of his division and writes his name on the record of attendances. Then the member goes to the shrine, where we fence and wrestle for a time. At first we thought that if we fenced and wrestled early in the morning we should be tired for our work, but we found that it was not so.

"Sometimes a clock gets damaged and does not ring, so a few of us may be getting up later that morning. Or a man becomes afraid of sleeping too late, fears his clock is wrong, and gets up at 3 o'clock and then goes off to waken members. Hence complaints. Some cunning fellows ask their friends or brothers to write down for them their names on the list of attendances. But we find out their deceit by their handwriting. It is very difficult to form the habit of early rising, because members are not expected to report at the secretaries' houses on a rainy day. As there is no control over them that day, they are easy in their minds and sleep on. Thus they break the habit of early rising that they are forming. Getting up early is necessary not only because it is good to begin work early but because early rising overcomes the habit of gadding about at night which is customary in many villages.

"You may say that all this is a great deal to ask of young men," the chairman continued. "But if you ask from them comfortable practices only, how can you expect from them a remarkable result? Young men should ponder this and be willing to exert themselves." Later on it was explained to me that it had been found that it took a great deal of time for the secretaries to call up all the members in the morning by shouting to them, "so the secretary obtained bugles; but even the bugles were not heard everywhere, so they were changed to drums, and now five drums go round our village every morning."

In every village of j.a.pan there is a young men's a.s.sociation, which is by no means to be confounded with the world-encircling Y.M.C.A.[18]

The village Y.M.A. of j.a.pan is an inst.i.tution of some antiquity and it has nothing whatever to do with religious effort. One day, when I was staying in a rural district, I was invited to a remoter part in order to see something of the discipline that the members of a group of young men's a.s.sociations were imposing on themselves. The members of this group of Y.M.A. belonged to the branches established in a village of nineteen _aza_, that is hamlets. This fact, with the further fact that the village containing the nineteen _aza_ had four elementary schools and one higher school, will show that a j.a.panese village may be much larger than a Western one.

Nearly six hundred young men were in the parade. They were dressed exactly alike in the tight blue calico trousers and kimono of jacket length which the j.a.panese farmer ordinarily wears. Each man had the usual _obi_ (waist scarf) tied round his kimono, and in the _obi_ was thrust the small cotton towel which j.a.panese carry with them everywhere. The young men wore puttees, _waraji_ (straw sandals) and caps. It is only of late that the j.a.panese worker has taken to wearing head-gear, or at any rate head-gear other than he could contrive with his towel. The physical condition of the young fellows was good and their evolutions with dummy "rifles" were smart and skilful. The paraders seemed lost in their desire to do their best for their credit's sake and their own good. After the first movements, the "troops" with "rifles" held as if there were bayonets at the end, made rushes with loud cries. The secret of this somewhat surprising display far away in the heart of j.a.pan was that the work of the young men had been done under the direction of two fit, be-medalled army surgeons, reserve officers, who were present in order to answer my questions.

Every morning half an hour before sunrise these Y.M.A. members a.s.semble in the grounds of their s.h.i.+nto shrine or of their school, where they exercise until the sun shows itself. In the evenings after work they also fence, wrestle, lift weights and develop their wrists.

This wrist development is done by two youths grasping a pole, one at either end, and then trying to rotate it one against the other.

The members endeavour to cultivate their minds as well as their bodies, and they also observe in their dress a self-denying ordinance.

On ceremonial occasions they permit themselves to wear a full-length kimono and the _hakama_ or divided skirt, but they deny themselves the third article of a j.a.panese man's full dress, the _haori_ or silk overcoat. An effort is also made to dispense with the use of "luxurious" _geta_ (the national wooden pattens).[19]

The object of all this varied discipline is to develop physique, self-control, self-respect and what the j.a.panese call the spirit of a.s.sociation, or, as we might say, good fellows.h.i.+p. The spirit of a.s.sociation is needed in order to promote greater administrative, educational and social efficiency. The modern j.a.panese village is no longer an historical but a political unit which covers a considerable district. It is, as I have explained, a combination of cl.u.s.ters of _aza_ (hamlets). Each of these _aza_ has its local sentiment, and this local sentiment when untouched by outside influences tends to become selfish, narrow and prejudiced. If, however, anything is to be done in the development of rural life there must be co-operation between _aza_ for all sorts of objects.

I was a.s.sured that in addition to the development of physique, _moral_ and the spirit of a.s.sociation, there was to be seen, under the influence of the Y.M.A., a development of good manners and mental nimbleness. A special result of early rising and discipline in one area had been that "the habit of spending evening hours idly has died away, immorality has diminished, singing loudly and foolishly and boasting oneself have disappeared, while punctuality and respect for old age have increased." I was even a.s.sured that parents--whom no true j.a.panese would ever dream of attempting to reform at first hand--parents, I say, moved by the physical and mental advance in their sons, have "begun to practise greater punctuality."

After the drilling was over I was taken to a large elementary school and was called upon to address the young men, who were kneeling in perfect files. Mr. Yamasaki followed me and told the youths that j.a.panese were not so tall as they might be, and that therefore their physique "must be continuously developed." Nor were rural conditions all they should be from a moral point of view. Therefore, "every desire which interferes with the development of your health or morality must be overcome."

Let me speak of another village. It numbers a thousand families and it rises in the morning and goes to bed at night by the sound of the bugle. It has five public baths and a notice-board of news "to enlarge people's ideas." The shopkeepers are said to "work very diligently, so things are cheaper." The education of such of the young men as are exempted from military service is continued on Sat.u.r.day evenings for four years. The Y.M.A., in addition to the military discipline, fencing, wrestling, weight-lifting and pole-twisting of which I have spoken, exercises itself in handwriting--which many j.a.panese practise as an art during their whole lifetime--and in composing the conventional short poem. I was gravely informed that "the custom of spending money on sweet-stuff is decreasing." What this really means is that the young men were not frequenting the sweet-stuff shops, which are staffed by girls who are in many cases a greater temptation than the sweets. The worthy members of this a.s.sociation had "burnt their _geta_."

In some places Y.M.A. members give their labour when a school teacher or a fellow member is building his house, or they do repairs at the school. Bicycle excursions are made to neighbouring villages in order to partic.i.p.ate in inter-Y.M.A. debates, or to study vegetable raising, fruit culture or poultry keeping. The j.a.panese are much given to "taking trips," and the special training which they receive at school in making notes and plans results in everybody having a notebook and being able to sketch a rough route-plan for personal use, or for a stranger who may ask his way.

Not a few a.s.sociations favour members cutting each other's hair once a fortnight, thus at one and the same time saving money and curbing vanity. Several Y.M.A.s publish cyclostyled monthlies. Others minutely investigate the economic condition of their villages. Some Y.M.A.s provide public "complaint boxes," and have boards up asking for friendly help for soldiers billeted in the district. One a.s.sociation has issued instructions to its members that they are not to ride when in charge of ox-drawn carts. The reason is that the ox is only partially under control and may injure a pedestrian--unwittingly, I am sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the land of the s.h.i.+nto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of _sake_.

I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The diaries are distributed by the a.s.sociations and "afterwards examined and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s "old people are respected and comforted." More than one a.s.sociation has a practice of serving out red and black b.a.l.l.s to its members at the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to wors.h.i.+p at the s.h.i.+nto shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good, to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."

One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation with a geisha shall be fined 20 yen. There is even a village in which the young men's a.s.sociation and the young women's a.s.sociation have united to issue a regulation providing that at night time members, in order that their doings shall be public, shall carry lanterns painted with the ideographs of their societies.[20]

With regard to the young women's a.s.sociations, I found that one of them studied domestic matters and good manners, "asking questions and receiving answers." The motto of the organisation was "Good Wives and Good Mothers." A member, this Society believes, should be "polite, gentle and warm-hearted, but with a strong will inside and able to meet difficulties." Her hairdressing and clothes "should not be luxurious," and she "must not run after fas.h.i.+ons." She must "respect Buddha and abandon sweet-eating," for "taking food between meals is bad for your health, for economy and for your posterity."

Let us now hear something of Societies for the Cultivation of Rice by Schoolboys. The lads become responsible for the cultivation of a _tan_ of their family land, or of a small paddy, and they work it themselves with the help of such advice as the schoolmaster may give them. (The cultivation of a _tan_ of a paddy, a quarter of an acre, is supposed to need in a year about twenty-one days' labour of a man working from sunrise to sunset.) The report of one boy to which I turned in a collection of reports by members of a rice-cultivation society showed that he was between fourteen and fifteen. His diary of work and observations was as follows:

_June_ 5.--4 _to_ of herring applied.

_June_ 7.--Locusts and other insects arrive.[21]

_June_ 20.--153 clumps of rice transplanted from the seed bed.[22]

_July_ 11.--Rice cultivated and 4 _to_ of herring applied.

_July_ 27.--First weeding.

_Aug_. 6.--Second weeding.

_Aug_. 8.--Locusts again.

_Aug_. 11.--Third weeding.

_Sept_. 10.--All ears shot.