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GLIMPSES OF JAPAN.Characteristic* of the People—Very tlni k to Admire.[Yokohama Cor. Sau PnaetaoQ Post}Few realize thut Japau is bo Urge an empire. Three little spot* on our maps picture her to ub, and she is really the rag etui of the largest continent, but she has thirty-five millions of people, and a spirit roach larger than her body, for she fears not to fight China with her continental territory and four hundred millions of people. Commercially, the Japanese are far above the average. Americans in this eountry complain that they are slow—fail to keep appointments, etc., etc.—but I think that they judge by the standard of their own impatience. They would chafe at the moderation of the Germans or the English if doing business in those countries where eating and sleeping are never interfered with by business rush, and where stores anti offices are closed at noon for an hour or an hour and a half for the quiet enjoyment of the noonday meal.They are careful calculators, deal only with actual experience in making prices, and the indispensable suriban is brought into requisition on every occasion. All in all they are a superior race, and there is much iu* them to admire. They are polite, affable, sociable, economical without being mean. They do uot pinch themselves and cheat their stomachs and their backs to save, but economic customs of dress and living prevail which are no inconvenience to personal comfortNo nation is more artistic, and their art is being copied all over the world. Borne of iheir formsare not graceful when judged from the standard of foreign prints, neither are the lightning flash pictures which Muybridge takes of birds, auimals and men in motion, but artists «ee in these very forms motion illustrated and nature copied.The faces that they paint are hideous when first seen, bntareeasily understood and appreciated after having seen their plays in the theater and the dances of the Gaishas. They are not the pictures of real men and women, but of actors who are depicting legendary tales. It is with them high art, and with them as with us, it is an educated taste. We look at their pictures as countrymen look at onm, and wonder at forms which seem ridiculous, but which iu reality tell beautiful stories. In dress, also, good taste blesses them. A thousand years ago, perhaps two thousand, they adopted costumes which were the acme of beauty and grace, and they have stuck to tnem. They do not pinch anywhere or interfere with any of the functions of the body. They may be op-jected to in some particulars for convenience, but there are counter advantages to recommend them. The clogs fur instance, which are worn in wet weather are easily thrown by an inexperienced wearer, and would not add speed to a foot race, but they lift the feet three inches from the wet, and are left outside the door, and the scrupulously clean matting is not polluted with tne mud and dust which underlies the carpets iu our houses, and is constantly rising to our nostrils when dry, and covering our furniture. Wearing dirty bools into our houses is a dirty custom, and the permitting of the mud
Newspaper Details
Weekly Cincinnati Times
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Thu, Apr 28, 1881
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Gisele S.
USA 14 Nov 2023
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