UNBELIEVABLE JAPAN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5318, 27 August 1928, Page 4

UNBELIEVABLE JAPAN.

A kissless landstrange CUSTOMS TO US. The globe-trotter who writes -a book about Australia after being a mo.i\th in the Commonwealth is lightly regarded. When he ventures to treat Japan in the same superior fashion, we pay no heed to him. it is. a nice questioji whether legislation should not be invoked to prohibit anyone .writing an account of a country unless the has lived in it for at least ten years. Books of travel are tremedously popular, and on that account should be reliable. Among the stream c-f books about Japan the best informed and the most charmingly written within recent years is “Japanese' All,” J. Ingr.a.m Bryan. Dr. Bryan was for sixteen years professor in Japanese: colleges, and extension lecturer for the University of Cambridge in Japanese history and civilisation. In. Japan kisses are unknown. Visitors to Paris are familiar with RQdin’s masterpiece, Le Bajser. The. French Academy offered to lend fhis famous piece of sculpture to the Tbkio; Fine Arts Exhibition, and on its arrival in Japan the pojice, the only censors of morals ordered it to be surrounded by a high fence to conceal it from the public eye. Such a delineation! of Occidental emotion expressed by kissing was likely to, corrupt a nation’s morals. No one was permitted to see the statue save by official order. “Such isj the ingrained sentiment, the rigid practice and the. immemorial custom of kissless laud. Ah, mel the unkissed maidens, wives, and mother® of Nippon I” A bow and 1 a smile are the substitute for. kisses. No ope dares even to blo.w a kiss, imagine a kisslees courtship and a kissless wedding. Of course, there is no courtship before marriage,. One’s relations choose his wife, and love- follows mar-, riage, if at all. Aversions to kissing has. instinctive basis in fear of contamination. Foreign films abound in kisses, and thei kinema people had to submit to having those, parts eliminated. To conserve still more effectively the morality of t'he nation;, the auditoriums in picture shows are like old Gaul, divided into three parts—the left for spinsters, the middle for married, coiuples, and the- right for bachelors.

Nothing, says Dr, Bryan, lias done more tos lower Western civilisation in the eyes of the Japanese, and indeed of .all Asia, than the: kinema- 'hall. The films 'depict chiefly the manners of the lowest strata of Occidental society, but the; Orienta.l public, takingthis for Occidental civilisation at its best, loses any respeict it ever 'had

for Western nations. Japan is a country where kis.ses are, taboo;, n|ndo statues are accommodated with aprons and dances carefully chaperoned by the police-. There are ho mere guests ip Japan. Each of them Js “the, honourable gueist.” Etiquette demands that when making a call one must bring a pre? sent—, a. piece of soap, a spojnge cake, a silk handerchief, or a dozen, of eegs, are what ordinary folk present. Bowings, prostrations, pleadings, and apologies are profuse apd elaborate. Tea is given the vi&itojr, but the hostess assures her that it is not. fit for, human, consumption.. Depreciation is rampant. When the ceremony is oyer the guest declares, “Honourable exit will perform,” and when she. leaves the maid gives her whajt cake is left over from thei tea a token of gratitude for the visit. A banquet 8'0 es oh friom 5 o’clock to midnight. Music, geisha dancing, but no toasts Or speeches. The host prostrates

himself before e r a,ch important guest,

and drinks his health. There is so much drinking of native wine that some of the guests go to sleep, and n'o notice is taken.

The conductor of a trameay has a hard task. Up and down he goes, shotting, “Any uncut folk ?” a pojite

way of asking if anyone on the tramcar has -not yet had his ticket clipped. The passengers are very trying. The man settling next to you may suddenly whip out. his artificial teeth, polish the'm. an|d replace, them, every movement being followed by the other passengers as if it were part of an Bntertajniment. In another corner sits a man with puffed face and bandaged hands. He is a leper, and has lost the tips of his fingers, and is‘ losing the t*ip of hs ears. Another passenger has blood oozing • from a bandaged arm.

Etiquette is so extreme that it is unpardonable for. a wrqng-doer tq run away froim a policeman. In mak-

ing an arrest, tlie officer accosts the mah politely, smiles andl says : “August pardon deign,” The person arrested replies : “ Pray do aiot mention it.” At the police station the officer

®ays : “Deign to enter august gaql.” An accused person is held to be guilty nntiil he proves, his innocence, a,nd

sometimes .torture is uSeff to elicit confession.

Divorces are commefn iin Japan, largely because one’s relations choose his wife. Financ'al or fantily reasons determine the choice. In guest rooms he often sees the motto : “A woman’s tongue three- inches long can kill a man si* feet ta,11.” Women value their purply-bla.ck hair, which is so glorious that the husband has no, millinery bills to< meet. Only widows wear bobbed hair, and it is tire! sign of grief, or a kind of penance fob being the cause o|f her husband’s death. Thousands Qf women work ten to fifteen hours a day in fields, factories, minjes and shops, and arc insufficiently fed. Every year Christian teaching is injcre,asing the demand for women’s freedom.

Earthquakes are so persistent that little attention is paid to them. For 30 yeans the average annually for Tokio ha.s been 1463, or abo,ut four a day. while the average for the whole Empire is about 5000 earthquakes a year. Yet as a rule motor cars, in London kill more people every year than earthquakes do in Japajr in ten years. The 100,000' deaths in the upheaval of 1923 were caused not by the earthquake, but by the ensii'ing conflagration. ■

Shop signs show a keen de'siro to use the English language. “Ladlies furnished in the upper, storey” is the sign hung out by a maker of blouses “Ladies have fits tn the upper story,” means merely that the tailor’s fitting rqom for ladies is upstairs. The most startling announcement: “ Here ladies have co;a,ts made .from ,their own skins,” is an innocent way of saying that if ladies brought the>r oiwh material it would be made up -for them. Dr. Bryan sees old custopis and beliefs. gradually disintr.egating under the influence of the West, Bacteriology ijs abolishing the! ancient gods, and a. hew and greater Japan is evolving before out eyes.