Through Western Eyes

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 1

Through Western Eyes

“Dancing, it is prohibited to us on| board,” a midshipment explained with solemnity. Saluting is certainly not shirked on board, officers and men clapping their hands to their'brows at every conceivable opportunity, including every passing. * * » Mechanics who got to work on the pinnaces when the ships were berthing wore white overalls and white peaked caps, like those worn, by American artisans. Not the least busy of the crew when the Idzumo berthed to-day, were the ship’s laundrymen who, established on the main deck, were putting the finishing touches to a pile of stiff shirts for “ceremonial” wear. The hospitality of the ward-room ran to Janpanese green tea, very pleasant and mild to the taste, and cigarettes, which by virtue of a cylinder of stiff paper attached to their ends, gave a cool smoke of leaf with an exotic flavour.

A chatty midshipman, who would think with a puzzled forhead for a few seconds about some words, gave the correct pronunciation of the names of the training squadron. One says “Issumo” with the accent on the “Iss.” Similarly the Yakuma has the emphasis on the “Yak,” and a slur for the rest of the word. The Japanese do things in their own way. In a rack were half a dozen brooms of the domestic sort, which would probably cause a mutiny among British bluejackets if they were asked to use them. When the Idzumo was alongside the wharf sailors carefully swept the deck clean with the brooms in preparation for the official calls. The uniform of the Japanese navy seems to be a cross between the American and the, British. The officers look decidedly like those of the United States with their braided coats, buttoning close round the neck. The sailors have less “slack” in their pants and only one white stripe in their collars, but otherwise—except for the slippers—they are British in dress. One officer, a high one, too, wore* slippers all the morning.