The Critic in the Orient
This courtesy and good nature among the poorest class of the Japanese people is not confined to their treatment of foreigners; it extends to all their daily relations with one another. A nearly naked coolie pulling a heavy cart begs a light for his cigarette with a bow that would do honor to a Chesterfield.
A street blockade that in New York or San Francisco would not be untangled without much profanity and some police interference is cleared here in a moment because everyone is willing to yield and to recognize that the most heavily burdened has the right of way.
In all my wanderings by day or night in the large Japanese cities I never except once saw a policeman lift his, hand to exercise his authority. This exception was in Tokio, where a band of mischievous schoolboys was following a party of gayly dressed ladies in rickshaws and laughing and chattering. The guardian of the peace admonished them with a few short, crisp words, and they scuttled into the nearest alleys.
The industry of the people, whether in city or country, is as amazing as their courtesy. The Japanese work seven days in the week, and the year is broken only by a few festivals that are generally observed by the complete cessation of labor. In the large cities work goes on in most of the shops until ten or eleven o'clock at night, and it is resumed at six o'clock the next morning.
The most impressive spectacle during several night rides through miles of Tokio streets was the number of young lads from twelve to sixteen years of age who had fallen asleep at their tasks. With head pillowed on arm they slumbered on the hard benches, where they had been working since early morning, while the older men labored alongside at their tasks.
From the train one saw the rice farmer and his wife and children working in the paddy fields as long as they could see. These people do not work with the fierce energy of the American mechanic, but their workday is from twelve to fourteen hours and, considering these long hours, they show great industry and conscientiousness.
In some places women were employed at the hardest work, such as coaling ships by hand and digging and carrying earth from canals and ditches.
Scarcely less impressive than the tireless industry of the people is the enormous number of children that may be seen both in city and country. It was impossible to get statistics of births, but any American traveling through Japan must be struck with the fact that this is a land not threatened by race suicide.
Women who looked far beyond the time of motherhood were suckling infants, while all the young women seemed well provided with children. Girls of five or six were playing games with sleeping infants strapped to their backs, and even boys were impressed into this nursery work. The younger children are clothed only in kimonos, so that the passer-by witnesses many strange sights of naked Japanese cherubs.
In all quarters of Tokio the children were as numerous as in tenement streets of American cities on a Sunday afternoon, and in small country towns the number of children seemed even greater than in the big cities.
Another feature of Japanese life that made a profound impression on me was the pilgrimage of school children to the various sacred shrines throughout the empire. At Nikko and at Nara, two of the great seats of Buddhist and Shinto shrines, these child pilgrims were conspicuous. They were seen in bands of fifty or seventy-five, attended by tutors. The boys were dressed in blue or black jackets, white or blue trousers and white leggings. Each carried his few belongings in a small box or a handkerchief and each had an umbrella to protect him from the frequent showers.
The girls had dark red merino skirts, with kimono waists of some dark stuff. Many were without stockings, but all wore straw sandals or those with wooden sole and heavy wooden clogs. School children are admitted to temples and shrines at half rates and in every place the guides pay special attention to these young visitors.
Pilgrimages of soldiers and others are also very common. Whenever a party of one hundred is formed it receives the benefit of the half-rate admission. No observant tourist can fail to see that in the pilgrimages of these school children and these soldiers the authorities of new Japan find the best means of stimulating patriotism. Church and State are so closely welded that the Mikado is regarded as a god. Passionate devotion to country is the great ruling power which separates Japan from all other modern nations.
The number of young men who leave their country to escape the three years' conscription is very small. The schoolboy in his most impressionable years is brought to these sacred shrines; he listens to the story of the Forty-seven Ronins and other tales of Japanese chivalry; his soul is fired to imitate their self-sacrificing patriotism. The bloody slopes of Port Arthur witnessed the effect of such training as this.
The Japanese Capital and Its Parks and Temples
Tokio, the capital of Japan, is a picturesque city of enormous extent and the tourist who sees it in two or three days must expect to do strenuous work. The city, which actually covers one hundred square miles, is built on the low shore of Tokio bay and is intersected by the Sumi river and a network of narrow canals. The river and these canals are crossed by frequent bridges. At night the tourist may mark his approach to one of these canals by the evil odors that poison the air. Even in October the air is sultry in Tokio during the day and far into the night, but toward morning a penetrating damp wind arises.
Although Tokio's main streets have been widened to imposing avenues that run through a series of great parks, the native life may be studied on every hand – for a block from the big streets, with their clanging electric cars, one comes upon narrow alleys lined with shops and teeming with life. Here, for the first time, the tourist sees Japanese city life, only slightly influenced by foreign customs. The streets are not more than twelve or fifteen feet wide, curbed on each side by flat blocks of granite, seldom more than a foot or eighteen inches wide. These furnish the only substitute for a sidewalk in rainy weather, as most of the streets are macadamized. A slight rainfall wets the surface and makes walking for the foreigner very disagreeable. The Japanese use in rainy weather the wooden sandal with two transverse clogs about two inches high, which lifts him out of the mud. All Japanese dignitaries and nearly all foreigners use the jinrikisha, which has the right of way in the narrow streets. The most common sound in the streets is the bell of the rickshaw man or his warning shout of "Hi! Hi!"
My first day's excursion included a ride through Shiba and Hibiya parks to Uyeno Park, the resting place of many of the shoguns. This makes a trip which will consume the entire day. Shiba Park is noteworthy for its temples (which contain some of the most remarkable specimens of Japanese art) and for the tombs of seven of the fifteen shoguns or native rulers who preceded the Mikado in the government of Japan. The first and third shoguns are buried at Nikko, while the fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth lie in Uyeno Park, Tokio. These mortuary chapels in Shiba Park are all similar in general design, the only differences being in the lavishness of the decoration. Out of regard for the foreign visitor it is not necessary to remove one's shoes in entering these temples, as cloth covers are provided. Each temple is divided into three parts – the outer oratory, a corridor and the inner sanctum, where the shogun alone was privileged to worship. The daimyos or nobles were lined up in the corridor, while the smaller nobles and chiefs filled the oratory. It would be tedious to describe these temples, but one will serve as a specimen of all. This is the temple of the second shogun, which is noteworthy for the beauty of the decoration of the sanctum and the tomb.
Two enormous gilded pillars support the vaulted roof of the sanctum, which is formed of beams in a very curious pattern. A frieze of medallions of birds, gilded and painted, runs around the top of the wall. The shrine dates back for two and one-half centuries and is of rich gold lacquer. The bronze incense burner, in the form of a lion, bears the date of 1635. The great war drum of Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns, lies upon a richly decorated stand. Back of the temple is the octagonal hall, which houses the tomb of the second shogun. This tomb is the largest example of gold lacquer in the world, and parts of it are inlaid with enamel and crystal. Scenes from Liao-Ling, China, and Lake Biwa, Japan, adorn the upper half, while the lower half bears elaborate decoration of the lion and the peony. The base of the tomb is a solid block of stone in the shape of the lotus. The hall is supported by eight pillars covered with gilded copper, and the walls are covered with gilded lacquer. The enormous amount of money expended on these shrines will amaze any foreign visitor, as well as the profound reverence shown by the Japanese for these resting places of the shoguns.
Passing along a wide avenue traversed by electric cars one soon reaches Hibiya Park, one of the show places of Tokio. To the European tourist or the visitor from our Eastern States the beauty of the vegetation is a source of marvel, but San Francisco's Golden Gate Park can equal everything that grows here in the way of ornamental shrubs, trees and flowers. On the south side of the park are the Parliament buildings, and near by the fine, new brick buildings of the Naval and Judicial Departments and the courts. Near by are grouped many of the foreign legations, the palaces of princes and the mansions of the Japanese officials and foreign embassadors. Here also is the Museum of Arms, which is very interesting because of the many specimens of ancient Japanese weapons and the trophies of the wars with China and Russia. In this museum one may see the profound interest which the Japanese pilgrims from all parts of the empire take in these memorials of conquest. To them they rank with the sacred shrines as objects of veneration.
Not far away is the moat which surrounds the massive walls of the imperial palace, open only to those who have the honor of an imperial audience. These walls are of granite laid up without mortar, the corner stones being of unusual size. The visitor may see the handsome roofs of the imperial palaces. Those who have been admitted declare that the decorations and the furniture are in the highest style of Japanese art, although the simplicity and the neutral colors that mark the Shinto temples prevail in the private chambers of the Emperor. In the throne chamber and the banquet hall, on the other hand, gold and brilliant hues make a blaze of color. Near the palace grounds are the Government printing office and a number of schools.
Turning down into Yoken street, one of the great avenues of traffic, you soon reach Uyeno Park – the most popular pleasure ground of the capital, and famous in the spring for its long lines of cherry trees in full blossom. In the autumn it impressed me, as did all the other Japanese parks, as rather damp and unwholesome. The ground was saturated from recent rain; all the stonework was covered with moss and lichen; the trees dripped moisture, and the little lakes scattered here and there were like those gloomy tarns that Poe loved to paint in his poems. Near the entrance to this park is a shallow lake covered with lotus plants, and a short distance beyond from a little hill one may get a good view of the buildings of the imperial university. Here is a good foreign restaurant where one may enjoy a palatable lunch. Near by on a slight eminence stands a huge bronze image of Buddha, twenty-one and one-half feet high, called the Daibutsu. It is one of several such figures scattered over the empire. Passing through a massive granite torii, or gate, one reaches an avenue of stately cryptomeria, or cedar trees that leads to a row of stone lanterns presented in 1651 by daimyos as a memorial to the first shogun. The temple beyond is famous for its beautiful lacquer.
Near at hand are the temples and tombs of the six shoguns of the Tokugawa family, buried in Uyeno Park. These temples are regarded as among the finest remains of old Japanese art. The mortuary temples bear a close resemblance to those in Shiba Park. The second temple is the finer and is celebrated for the gilding of the interior walls, the gorgeous decoration of the shrines and the memorial tablets in gold lacquer. Here, also, are eight tablets erected to the memory of eight mothers of shoguns, all of whom were concubines.
A short distance from Uyeno Park is the great Buddhist temple known as Asakusa Kwannon, dedicated to Kwannon, the goddess of mercy. The approaches to this temple on any pleasant day look like a country fair. The crowd is so dense that jinrikishas can not approach within one hundred yards. The shrine dates back to the sixth century and the temple is the most popular resort of its kind in Tokio. On each side of the entrance lane are shops, where all kinds of curios, toys, cakes, et cetera, are sold. The temple itself is crowded with votaries who offer coins to the various idols, while below (near the stairs that give entrance to the temple) are various side booths that are patronized by worshipers. Some of these gods promise long life; others give happiness, and several insure big families to women who offer money and say prayers.
One of the remarkable jinrikisha rides in Japan is that from Uyeno to Shimbashi station through the heart of Tokio by night. This takes about a half hour and it gives a series of pictures of the great Japanese city that can be gained in no other way. Here may be seen miles of little shops lining alleys not over ten or twelve feet wide, in most of which work is going on busily as late as eleven o'clock. In places the sleepy proprietors are putting up their shutters, preparatory to going to bed, but in others the work of artisan or baker or weaver goes on as though the day had only fairly begun. Most of these shops are lighted by electricity, but this light is the only modern thing about them. The weaver sits at the loom precisely as he sat two thousand years ago, and the baker kneads his dough and bakes his cakes precisely as he did before the days of the first shogun. This ride gives a panorama of oriental life which can be equaled in few cities in the world. Occasionally the jinrikisha dashes up a little bank and across a bridge that spans a canal and one catches a glimpse of long lines of house boats, with dim lights, nestling under overhanging balconies. Overall is that penetrating odor of the Far East, mingled with the smell of bilge water and the reek of thousands of sweating human beings. These smells are of the earth earthy and they led one to dream that night of weird and terrible creatures such as De Quincey paints in his Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
The Most Famous City of Temples in All Japan
The most magnificent temples in Japan are at Nikko, in the mountains, five hours' ride by train from Tokio. What makes this trip the more enjoyable to the American tourist is that the country reminds him of the Catskills, and that he gets some glimpses of primitive Japanese life. The Japanese have a proverb: "Do not use the word 'magnificent' until you have seen Nikko." And anyone who goes through the three splendid temples that serve as memorials of the early shoguns will agree that the proverb is true.
The railroad ride to Nikko is tedious, although it furnishes greater variety than most of the other trips by rail through the Mikado's empire. But as soon as one is landed at the little station he recognizes that here is a place unlike any that he has seen. The road runs up a steep hill to the Kanaya Hotel, which is perched on a high bank overlooking the Daiyagawa river. Tall cedar trees clothe the banks, and across the river rise mountains, with the roofs of temples showing through the foliage at their base. This hotel is gratefully remembered by all tourists because of the artistic decoration of the rooms in Japanese style and the beneficent care of the proprietor, which includes a pretty kimono to wear to the morning bath, with straw sandals for the feet, and charming waitresses in picturesque costumes.
The first Buddhist temple at Nikko dates back to the eighth century, but it was not until the seventeenth century that the place was made a national shrine by building here the mausoleum of the first shogun, Ieyasu, and of his grandson, Iemitsu. Hardly less noteworthy than these shrines and temples is the great avenue of giant cryptomeria trees, which stretches across the country for twenty miles, from Nikko to Utsunomiya.
One of the chief objects of interest in Nikko is the Sacred Red Bridge which spans a swift stream about forty feet wide. This is a new bridge, as the old one was carried away by a great flood nine years ago. Originally built in 1638, it served to commemorate the legendary and miraculous bridging of the stream by Shodo Shonin, a saint. He arrived at the river one day while on a pilgrimage and called aloud for aid to cross. On the opposite bank appeared a being of gigantic size, who promised to help him, and at once flung across the stream two green and blue dragons which formed a bridge. When the saint was safely over the bridge, it vanished with the mysterious being. Shodo at once built a hut on the banks of the stream. For fourteen years he dwelt there and gathered many disciples. Then he established a monastery and a shrine at Lake Chuzinji, about nine miles from Nikko. Nine hundred years later the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty sent two officials to Nikko to select a site for the mausoleum of his father. They chose a site near Nikko, on a hill called Hotoke-iwa, and in the spring of 1617 the tomb was completed and the coffin was deposited under it with appropriate Buddhist ceremonies.
The road to the mausoleum winds around the river. The first object on the way is a pillar erected in 1643 to ward off evil influences. It is a cylindrical copper column forty-two feet high, supported by short horizontal bars of the same material, resting on four short columns. Small bells hung from lotus-shaped cups crown the summit of the column. Just beyond this column is a massive granite torii, twenty-seven and one-half feet high, the gift of the Daimiyo of Chikuzen. To the left is a five-story pagoda, one hundred and four feet in height, which is especially graceful. Inside a red wooden wall are arranged a series of lacquered storehouses, a holy water cistern cut out of a solid block of granite, a finely decorated building in which rest a collection of Buddhist writings. A second court is reached by a flight of stairs. Here are gifts presented by the kings of Luchu, Holland and Korea, these three countries being regarded as vassal states of Japan. On the left is the Temple of Yahushi, beautifully decorated in red and gold lacquer, and just beyond is a fine gate, called Yomei-mon, decorated with medallions of birds. Passing through this gate, one reaches a court bordered by several small buildings, one of which contains the palanquins that are carried in the annual procession on June 1st, when the deified spirits of the first shogun, Hideyoshi (the great conqueror), and Yoritomo occupy them. Seventy-five men carry each of these palanquins.
The main shrines are reached through the Chinese gate. The three chambers are magnificent specimens of the finest work in lacquer, gold and metal. The tomb of Ieyasu, the first shogun, is reached by ascending two hundred stone steps. The tomb is in the form of a small pagoda of bronze of an unusually light color caused by the mixture of gold. The body of the shogun is buried twenty feet deep in a bed of charcoal. Beyond is the mausoleum of Iemitsu, the third shogun. The oratory and chapel are richly decorated, but they do not compare with those of the first shogun's tomb. Back of these tombs, among the huge cedar trees that clothe the sides of the mountain, is a small red shrine where women offer little pieces of wood that they may pass safely through the dangers of childbirth. Near by is the tomb of Shodo, the saint, and three of his disciples.
These mortuary temples and tombs are genuinely impressive. They bear many signs of age and it is evident that they are held in great veneration by the Japanese, who make pilgrimages at all seasons to offer up prayers at these sacred shrines. More impressive than the tombs themselves are the pilgrims. On the day that I visited this sacred shrine several large bands of pilgrims were entertained. One party was composed of over a hundred boys from one of the big government military schools. These lads were in uniform and each carried an umbrella and a lunch tied up in a handkerchief. The priests paid special attention to these young pilgrims and described for their benefit the marvels of carving and lacquer work. Services were held before the shrines and the glorious conquest of the shoguns and of Hideyoshi (popularly known as the Napoleon of Japan) were described in glowing words. The Russian cannon captured at Port Arthur, which stands near the entrance to the tombs, was not forgotten by these priests, who never fail to do their part in stimulating the patriotism of the young pilgrims.
These boys were followed by an equal number of public school girls, all dressed in dark red merino skirts and kimonos of various colors. Some were without stockings and none wore any head covering, although each girl carried her lunch and the inevitable umbrella.
After these children came several parties of mature pilgrims, some finely dressed and bearing every evidence of wealth and position, while others were clothed in poor garments and showed great deference to the priests and guides. All revealed genuine veneration for the sacred relics and all contributed according to their means to the various shrines. Some idea of the revenue drawn by the priests from tourists and pilgrims may be gained when it is said that admission is seventy sen (or thirty-five cents in American money) for each person, with half-rates to priests, teachers and school children, and to members of parties numbering one hundred.
The shops at Nikko will be found well worth a visit, as this city is the market for many kinds of furs that are scarce in America. Many fine specimens of wood carving may also be seen in the shops. The main street of the town runs from the Kanaya Hotel to the railroad depot, a distance of a mile and one-half, and it is lined for nearly the whole distance with small shops.
On his return to the railroad the tourist would do well to take a jinrikisha ride of five miles down through the great avenue of old cryptomeria trees to the little station of Imaichi. This is one of the most beautiful rides in the world. The road is bordered on each side by huge cedar trees which are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in height. In many cases the roots of these old trees have formed a natural embankment and the road is thus forced below the level of the surrounding rice fields. These trees were planted nearly three hundred years ago and they are certainly in a remarkable state of preservation. A few gaps there are, due to the vandalism of the country people, but mile after mile is passed with only an occasional break in these stately columns, crowned by the deep green masses of foliage. Another cryptomeria avenue intersects this and runs for twenty-five miles across the country. The two avenues were planted in order that they might be used by the shogun's messengers when they bore important letters to him during his summer residence in Nara.
In Kyoto, The Ancient Capital of Japan
Next to Nikko, one of the most interesting cities in Japan is Kyoto, the old capital under the shoguns, the seat of several fine palaces and many beautiful temples, and the center of large manufacturing works of satsuma and cloissone ware, damascene work and art work on silk and velvet. Kyoto may be reached by a short ride from Kobe, but from Tokio it is an all-day trip of twelve hours by express train. This ride, which would be comfortable in well appointed cars, is made tedious by the Japanese preference for cars with seats arranged along the side, like the new American pay-as-you-enter street cars. For a short ride the side seat may be endured, but for hours of travel (especially when one is a tourist and wishes to see the scenery on both sides of the road) the cars are extremely tiresome.