NEW JAPAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 302, 13 March 1928, Page 16

NEW JAPAN

Skirts and Morals DANCE MANIA KOBE, January 15. It is not only in exalted circles that the adoption of new styles causes some breach with old prejudices. The present one-piece short-skirted style of dress has created a revolution in Japan that I shall not attempt to describe, because I should be accused of gross exaggeration, says the Kobe correspondent of the Sydney “Sun.” Until it came in, Japanese women showed their good taste by sticking to their national dress. In corsets, long skirts, and eccentric sleeves, they looked indescribably awkward and uncomfortable. In the short skirt of the day they look smart and quite at home. Moreover, they feel comfortable and they save money. A new generation has sprung up that its mothers hardly recognise. This has made possible a new social departure. It has greatly facilitated dancing, the girls have taken to it amazingly. Here, strangely enough, the traditional training of the Japanese girl has had unforeseen effects. Women in Japan are modest: they have been taught that they are of very little account. Consequently, when they approach some new' thing, such as acting or dancing, they simply do their best without any thought of whether they are making a good impression. The men’s training is all in the other direction, and the Japanese actor is as conscious of liis audience as a peacock, and frightfully stiff and affected in consequence. Hence, while the young men want to learn to dance, the young women are much the apter pupils, and they earn good money as hired partners and instructresses in dance halls, of which there has been a perfect epidemic. It is not to be supposed that where young people meet in this unaccustomed way their interest in each other always remains purely platonic; out for the dance halls it must be said that on the premises the proprieties are strictly observed, and the young gentlemen who frequent them learn a superior deportment to that to which they have been accustomed. What may happen outside is another matter. Contrast this with the traditional method of amusement. The old method is to go to a restaurant and squat on the floor to an expensive meal, to call in geisha to dance and to serve the liquor, and as often as not to finish with clumsy horse-play of attempting to dance with the geisha. However, the police became alarmed at the possible deterioration of public morals as a result of dancing, and for a long time now in Tokyo dancing has been prohibited after 10 p.m. In Osaka the dance halls have been closed up altogether. For a time Kobe was flooded with dancers as a result, but the police in Kobe have also got this moral epidemic, and restrictions are making the living of dance-hall proprietors and professional partners rather precarious. Meanwhile in Osaka, two new geisha quarters have been sanctioned, and the Governor, interviewed on the subject, said nothing about the importance of preserving native arts and elegances; he thought it sufficient to refer to the “sexual needs” of an increasing population. Naturally, the Society for the Promotion of Good Manners, and all similar bodies, are making things hum. From the official point of view it was not really the morals of the dance halls that mattered so much as the fact that it was impossible to assume that they were immoral and tax them on this basis. Thus there was a loss of revenue. Another point against them was that the girls employed in the dance halls are independent young madens, who earn their living like girls in offices and are at the beck of no man: the geisha, on the other hand, are attached to “call houses,” and are often financed besides, so that they are always in debt. Short skirts do not conceal so much as a kimono, but there is more in them than you might imagine.