General.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 8, 21 January 1905, Page 5 (Supplement)

General.

JAPANESE POLITENESS. The politeness of the Japanese is what one might expect of a country where the thief apologises to the policeman for giving so much trouble. If you want to learn the language and hire a teacher, he is far too polite to tell you of your mistakes. “This authority,” says Mr Sell ere. a teacher who live dlong in Japan, “usually proceeds upon the hypothesis that a foreigner cannot learn Japanese anyway and that the most the teacher may hope to do is to persuade him that he can.” St. Francis Xavier, the first great missionary to Japan, held that the language was an invention of tl'ie devil to prevent the preaching of the Christian faith, and most students have agreed, so far as the first part of the phrase is concerned. Mr Scherer tells of a missionary who fancied he had made progress enough to deliver a sermon in the native tongue. This fe?lwas intensified when a dignified and interested listener came forward with wo; ds of gratified comment. But the appreciative auditor continued: “Truly, as for the honourable sermon, it was generally interesting. I listened to it well. If you ask why, this is the first time I ever heard a discourse in the English tongue. And how much your language is like the language of Japan!” Politeness may sometimes take a mercenary form. Mr Scherer says: “My own most impressive lesson in the art of oriental politeness occurred at an early pecuniary transaction. Upon asking a Japanese merchant the price of some fancy shells he told me they were ten cents apiece. ‘Now,’ I said to him, ‘ you have just fifteen of them left, and I need them all. So what will be the price if I take the entire lot?’ After elaborate figuring on the over present abacus, he replied that the fifteen would cost 1 dollar 75 cents. Thinking that my friend the marchant had made a mistake, or that his abacus was out of order, I confidently called attention to the fact that, since all the articles were being purchased, there shouiu rather be a reduction in the price than an increase. ‘Not at all,’ he replied, with a pitying smile. ‘I sell you my entire stock of shells. Then when some other customer comes to buy, I forsooth am out. And that will be impolitely inconvenient to him. Hence the extra charge is for my impoliteness.”