DRAGON DANCE OF JAPAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1922, Page 3

DRAGON DANCE OF JAPAN.

ancient survival

CONTRASTS OF charm and

TERROR

(By .1 j(ird Nortlicliffe) ! To all who yearn for variety—for violent coniraist— lot me recommand wluit I have just done—travel in all the luxury and comfort of the olFieid hospitality of Japan: and thcnc.- go '• straight to Korea and China. I ~ame to Japan an outspoi-m •>]:- ponent of her war party; yet, despite m v oft-declared conviction tlm that par tv is a danger to the world, we were ; freely offered he best that Japan has to give. From the moment of our nr- ■ rival at Tokio on the first day of our , visit to our last in that enchanting land, when we sailed from Shimonosehei to Korea, the comfort of travel, , the l«a.uties of town and country, the i interest of the people and things that j we encountered, increased thanks to Go- j vernment care, steadily, and as if magically. The Japanese show their best to , strangers and they are both hospit- j able and right in doing so. j Our last two crowded days in the land of flowers included a stay at ! Kara (which might be called the Fontainebleau of Japan), where a forest j ranger obligingly called up all the deer j in the demesne to the steps of tile : club at which we lunched; a special J electric tram to bring us over the 20 ( miles to and from the vast city of j Osaka- a luxurious saloon in the train j from Tokio to Osaka ; 1,200-ton yacht , galled in Japanese ‘The Painted Lady ) j for the voyage through the Inland Sea j to Miyajima an exhibition of mystery j and horror unapproaclicd by anything j staged at the Grand Guignol. LWivajima. is a little village at the southern end of the Inland Sea—the place where the wine-red maples grow. It is charming in the most charming Japanese manner; and what better could he said of an v place?FROM luxury to horror, i From the upholstered, ventilated eecspringed luxury of our private railway car and the fathomless comfort of a well-run yacht, we entered, without a word of warning upon an uncanny, an ominous approach to a. scene of myst<'r\ and horror. We walked along the searoad under twisted pines (exactly like those in the picture-books), with strains and rather horrible stone figures—deformed animals with human eyes and things of that sort -leering out at us between the trunks. Jt was the first really wet day we had had since April; the rain and the wiiu. beat in our faces and the little bay was dark with hurrying squalls. Round the corner we came upon the Shinto temple, a wonderful three-sided thing, built out over the sea on gigantic piles. The shrine itself is a miracle of splendour, kept in hounds of restraint by Japanese tidiness. And before the shrine lay the Place of Dancing a large square platform jutting out into the water. Exactly facing it, and in a h"e with the shrine, stood the Fattier of Toiii the oldest of the famous scarlet gate- j ways which stand at the entrance of every temple in Japan Only this Torn stands half a mile out to sea. looking Ghinawards And on the Place of Dancing there leapt, poised, crouched, and twisted a .-littering nightmare. Its dress is beyond adequate description—scarlet and gold for the most j j.ai t, with -enormous sleeves and a •white muslin train like the train of an Knglislt bride. During that which they call the Dance, it swung this: train behind it with inncli the same action as women used in the ballrooms of 25 years ago—a backward sweep of the bee). On Its head It wore a mask of brass and gold and silver and lacquer- the Dragon’s Face. That was the supreme terror. For the face was the lace of no dragon known to a Western child, but the I cruel, sneering bestial face of swine. ; \ thin, pointed little snout, slightly | cocked up; loathsome black bristles | sprouting round the mouth; wicked, j listening ears—it was a face of ut-U 1 terror, a memory to wake one, shuddering, in the dark. WRITHING IN GREY LIGHT.

|«'oiir musicians dressed in "lute l>la>-,-d to Its dancing. And, to make the whole tiling more incredibly strange, the sounds Unit they tore and wrenched from lutes and drum were very nearly Kuropean music. In rhythm and cadence and coherence they were wholly unlike Chinese or Japanese music; and the rare syncopated tump of the drum (it recalled the shooting of blind-fold-ed men) made one think wildly for an instant of tangoteas. Hut tiie thought seemed not at all funny. Another thing there was that terrified the ruthless punch of the Dancer’s hed on the hoards, half a bni aftei the execution drum. ' Wi saw no movement of leg or body; only a flicker of slender ankle and n blow of the foot, merciless, shaking the planks. Hound and round It swept, darting a dreadful snout now tow aids the shrine, now in our faces, now and most often, towards the l-Oiii In Its hands It held two black wands and with these it invoked heaven knows wluit demonic powers, but always, as it seemed to me (shivering behind a pillar), appealing passionately, with insane desire, to somebody or something beyond the Torii- in far-off China. This is the art—now all but lost- of Shinto Dragon-dancing. The dancing is so old that no one to-day can. tell its story or its meaning; but that it is; full of evil I have no doubt. It is ; utterly malignant, a tiling of unclean ■ terrors. jj ,And all the while the sea splashed ' and muttered round liw piles beneath our foot; the wind and the rain swept; across the stage, and round about the j infernal Thing writhing in the grey light, and we stood in silence, and ap- j palled. We said good-bye to exquisite Japan ; at Shimonoseki- a nasty, windy wharf, j We paused at Seoul, the capital of Ivo- i ! n . lv; tin'll at Mukden, we entered both . i Russia and China; and, with the sud- 1 i den ness of a slamming door, the f *‘ * ! ; vated beauty of puzzling Japan was ! g o ne, and we were in a country sovorj al centuries behind the times. ; Attached to our train from Mukden to Helving was, a private car, or, a s it is properly called in Chinese, an “enshrouded (in much dignity) carriage” —a, good and comfortable ear, but not nearly so good as its nature. There

|'was a dining-car in the train, but' it j was not at all like a Japanese dining , ear. It was, if I may say so, exces- \ sively democratic. China is suffering j at present (she will get over it) from j an acute attack of infantile republican- | ism—the kind in which every man is i greatly the superior of every other and j-official salaries are always overdue, j Consequently, some of 'China’s diuj ing-cars resemble public-houses. Every j <>ne. comes in, whether he means to eat | or not. and brings all his luggage with j him. Everyone makes as much noise jas possible. It takes some stoicism to j sit out even the shortest repast in j such surroundings as wore ours in that | Chinese dining-car.

DENTAL OF MARRTAGE. NCAV YORK. Jan 13. Airs Chirr Sheridan, the British sculpt*c c s. tells me that there is “absolutely no truth” in the renorts telegraphed from London that site has been married to Charlie Chaplin. She is now in New York, where she has rented ai studio. From Holy wood, the California film town, Charlie Chaplin also sends a denial. Airs Sheridan said: “1 am afraid; my family must be terribly worried ’over these reports. They have grown to export anything of me over there.” Asked if she had ever contemplated marrying Charlie Chaplin, Airs Sheridsu oracularly replied, “Man proposes; wo man disposes,’ and declined to discuss the matter further. Why toil at the wash tub when then aro such gifts as “NO-RUBBING’ Laundry Help and Golden Rule Soap t< he had at all grocers*?