Maturin Ballou - Due West - or, Round the World in Ten Months

The pictures and authorities relative to Japanese life which one has accepted as authentic have not quite prepared the traveler for the facts and experiences which crowd upon him, when among this very interesting race. The actual embodiment of the people, their manners and customs, together with the local surroundings, are all so different from the preconceived ideal, that everything comes with the force of a surprise. Figure, physiognomy, costume, nudity, – one is not quite prepared for anything; all is like a fresh revelation. Once brought face to face with Japanese life, our fabric of anticipation tumbles to pieces like a house of cards. Everything is unique. There is no criterion for comparison. Nothing but personal observation quite reconciles one with the manners and customs of a race, powerfully individualized by the isolation of centuries. The generally accepted idea that the Japanese resemble the Chinese in their lives and habits is entirely erroneous, the marked differences between them extend into all the relations of life. Especially is this the case as to courtesy and civility, qualities which cost nothing, but which buy everything.

A visit to the curiosity bazars, or curio-shops, as they are called, is one of the first excursions of the newly-arrived tourist. The Japanese have quickly discovered to what European and American tastes run, and they can manufacture antiquities as rapidly as purchasers can be found. In the line of antique bronzes they especially excel; and as to old china, from four to five centuries of age, it is now turned out by the wheelbarrow load daily at Yokohama, from half-a-dozen establishments. Of course there are some genuine pieces, though rare, and the prices charged for such are almost prohibitory. Well made, substantial lacquered ware takes the place of nearly all other for domestic utensils. China and glass are far too brittle and perishable for common use among the people. When strangers appear, the china is produced, and the universal tea served in it.

There are two streets in Yokohama known as Honcho-dori and Benten-dori, where the stranger will find an extensive collection of bricabrac, as well as other fine goods. It is amusing to examine the old spears, swords, daggers, bronzes, and astoundingly ugly carved idols. There are stores also devoted to lacquer, china, porcelain, and satsuma ware, not ancient, but choice, elegant and new patterns, far more desirable to our taste than the cracked and awkward specimens held at prices equal to their weight in gold. The former speak for themselves, the latter can be and are constantly imitated. The reason that so many swords and daggers are for sale, and at prices for which it would be impossible to manufacture them, is because the army has discarded the native weapons and adopted European arms. So the junk-dealers and curio-shops have the former supply of the army. The Japanese sword is remarkably well tempered, and will cut through a copper penny without turning its keen edge, this being the usual test of its quality. In these streets there are also some fine silk and lace stores, with many choice articles of ladies' wear, embracing very fine specimens of native silk industry. The Japanese trader has got the trick of asking twice as much as he is willing finally to take for his goods, but there are also some of these establishments where the one price system is honestly observed. As a rule, however, all through the cities, the price at first asked for an article need not be taken by the purchaser as any real criterion of its value. Strangers would do well to engage the services of a resident whom they can trust, when they go upon a shopping expedition; otherwise the result of their bargains will probably be anything but satisfactory, when the goods are received at home and prices considered. All buying and selling in the East seems to be a sort of warfare, where each party endeavors to take advantage of the other. In China it is much more so than in Japan. Main Street, as the name indicates, is the principal thoroughfare, quite Europeanized, mostly improved for stores and offices, and containing at the northwest end the town hall, telegraph and post offices.

A ride in a jinrikisha, a small man-propelled chaise, afforded us other agreeable surprises. The loveliness of the hills and valleys, so delicate and diminutive compared with our late Yosemite experience, seemed more like fairy land than reality, making one crave the pencil of an artist to depict them. In little plots adjoining the small, frail native houses, various cultivated flowers were observed, among which chrysanthemums and occasionally roses were to be seen; also a species of fuchsia, bearing a bell-like blue and scarlet flower. The foliage of the trees, and especially of the feathery bamboo groves, was very beautiful, while the specimens of the various pines, yews, and arbor vitæ were many of them odd and new to us. The leaves and minor branches of the pines seemed to emulate the alphabetical characters of the Japanese language, growing up, down, and inward, after their own eccentric will. The tea fields, mostly located upon side hills with favorable exposures, were in full bloom, looking as though there had been a fall of snow, and the flakes still rested on the delicate tips and branches. Far away and all around were yellow rice fields, heavy with the milk-white grain, the broad acres undulating gracefully beneath the pressure of the passing breezes. The abundant wild flowers were vivid in color and fantastic in shape, nearly all unknown to us, save now and then an azalea, an iris, or some single-leaved representative of the rose family.

In the houses which we entered – all are open; there are no fastenings upon dwelling-houses in Japan – we found neither chairs nor tables, the people all sitting, eating, and sleeping upon the floors, which were as neat and clean as a newly-laid table-cloth. The humility and deference of all classes was quite disconcerting, for when we entered or departed from a house, the host, hostess, and children bowed their heads until their foreheads touched the floor. Japanese women, both in features and general appearance, are far from prepossessing, but we were told there were marked exceptions among the people of rank. The exclusiveness and debased condition of the sex produces a shyness and diffidence very prejudicial to their appreciation by strangers. The eyes of the women, though elongated, are not nearly so much so as those of the Chinese, the features being more open in expression, and devoid of a certain cunning almost always observable in the face of a Chinese woman.

Japanese women give the greatest attention to dressing their ebon-black hair. None are so poor or humble as to forget this inexpensive ornamentation. Nature has endowed them with a profusion of covering for the head, and they wear no other. It is not very fine, to be sure, but always black as ink, long and heavy, and when arranged in their peculiar style, with broad-spread puffs, like old-fashioned bow-knots, it forms a very striking exhibition of head-gear, shining with oil and sparkling with flashy hair-pins. When once disposed to the wearer's satisfaction, the hair is not disturbed for several days, and is almost the only evidence of personal vanity which they exhibit, as they wear no other ornaments in the form of jewelry. The pillow of which they make use at night, when sleeping, is calculated to preserve the well-greased and plastered tresses in good order, being nothing more nor less than a curved piece of wood upon which the neck rests rather than the head and frightfully suggestive of an execution block.

Here and there, upon the roadside, shrines and holy niches were often observed, approached generally by a flight of stone steps, on a hill-side, looking very old and moss-grown. Upon these were placed consecrated idols, or religious emblems of peculiar character, calculated in our uninitiated eyes to provoke mirth rather than reverence. The principal object was usually a sitting figure in stone, wood, or metal, gilded, and more remarkable for contortion of features, multiplicity of arms, and obesity of body, than for any other characteristic, visible or symbolical. Fertility of soil was manifest everywhere, each square foot of earth bearing its tribute of rice, millet, or vegetables, the rice crop predominating. The fertilizing process is strictly observed and appreciated here, being the enrichment of the soil almost universally applied in liquid form.