JAPANESE RACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 March 1943, Page 4

JAPANESE RACE

ADDRESS ON CHARACTERISTICS ELABORATE FORMALITIES. ROTARY CLUB LUNCHEON. An address on Japanese characteristics was given at today’s luncheon of the Masterton Rotary Club by Captain A. Ashton, who spent eleven years in Japan, leaving there in 1941. He was a professor at Kyoto University. Mr J. H. Cunningham, president of the Masterton Rotary Club, presided., The Japanese, said Captain Ashton, were of short stature, yellow complexion, and many had a pronounced negroid silhouette —a low brow, no bridge to the nose and blubber lips. A considerable proportion, however, had delicate feature, hands, feet and flmbs and aristocratic, curved, highbridged noses. There was none of the variety of hair, eyes and skin colouring one found among Westerners, to most of whom all Japanese looked alike. The first thing that impressed Westerners, he said, was the light heartedness of the Japanese. They were easily moved to laughter. This was a genuine characteristic, though a good deal of it, at the same time, was due to conventional Japanese politeness.. It was not, for example, polite to make others uncomfortable by showing sorrow before them. Therefore one might experience the curious sight of a man passing off a family bereavement with what sounded like a silly giggle. Westerners noticed the elaborate formalities of the Japanese when meeting, the conventional phrases, each accompanied by mutual bowing. Bows were graduated according to the person addressed. There was politeness also in the language, so that to learn Japanese really thoroughly one had to learn five or six ways of saying everything, so as to be correct in whatever company one found himself. For example, one might say in one grade of society: “Uchi wa, doko desu ka?” and in another, “O sumoi wa dochira de gozaimasu ka?” In both cases a person would have merely said, “Where do you live?” but in the second case he said it infinitely more politely. Very great importance was attached to these outward forms and ceremonies. > Japanese was probably the only language that contained no strong language. “Baka,” meaning a silly fellow, was about the strongest term and to refer to another person as “yatu,” a fellow, was a very grave insult. This extreme conventional politeness, said Captain Ashton, was very noticeable, but so was the extreme impoliteness of the Japanese when they were dealing with something not covered by conventions and rules. Foreigners resented the flagrant rudeness of their frank questions. The Japanese were slaves to convention apd precept. For centuries each grade of society had lived according to a set of minute regulations governing all phases of life, clothing, etc. ' On the motion of Mr S. L. F. Free, Captain Ashton was accorded a vote of thanks for his address. Visitors present were: Dr. L. Bossard. delegate in New. Zealand of the International Red Cross Committee, Geneva; Second Lieutenant K. Robertson; Second Lieutenant Gillies, Lieutenant Cheetham, Dr. N. H. Prior, Messrs Harold Brown (Wellington), R. P. Black (Wellington), G. T. O’Hara Smith, F. J. Gair, R. S. Graham, R. McKenzie and Corporal W. Lee.