Part 14 (2/2)

I was told that in the prefecture we were pa.s.sing through there were no fewer than 360 co-operative societies. The credit branches had a capital of two million yen; the purchase and sale branches showed a turnover of three million yen. In time of famine, due to too low a temperature for the rice or to floods which drown the crop, co-operation had proved its value. The prefectures north of Tokyo facing the Pacific are the chief victims of famine, for near Sendai the warm current from the south turns off towards America. I was told that the number of persons who actually die as the result of famine has been ”exaggerated.” The number in 1905 was ”not more than a hundred.” These unfortunates were infants ”and infirm people who suffered from lack of suitable nourishment.” Every year the development of railway and steam communications makes easier the task of relieving famine sufferers.[122] In the old days people were often found dead who had money but were unable to get food for it. As j.a.pan is a long island with varying climates there is never general scarcity.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] For statistics of railways, see Appendix x.x.xV.

[115] The percentage of children ”attending” school for the whole of j.a.pan is officially reported in 1918 as: cities, 98.18 per cent.; villages, 99.23 per cent.; but this does not mean daily attendance.

[116] Since 1919 the salaries of elementary school teachers have been raised to 26, 16 and 15 yen per month, according to grade.

[117] Only last year (1921) another schoolmaster lost his life in an endeavour to save the Emperor's portrait from his burning school.

[118] See Appendix x.x.xVI.

[119] A hot bath is ordinarily obtainable only in the afternoon and evening in most j.a.panese hotels. In the morning people are content merely with rinsing their hands and face.

[120] In addressing a superior, many j.a.panese still draw in their breath from time to time audibly.

[121] That is, persons who might be considered not to have failed in their filial duties.

[122] After the failure of the 1918-19 crop in India, 600,000 persons were in receipt of famine relief.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (f.u.kUs.h.i.+MA)

I didn't visit this place in the hope of seeing fine prospects--my study is man.--BORROW

Before I left the town I had a chat with a landowner who turned his tenants' rent rice into _sake_. He was of the fifth generation of brewers. He said that in his childhood drunken men often lay about the street; now, he said, drunken men were only to be seen on festival days.

There had been a remarkable development in the trade in flavoured aerated waters, ”lemonade” and ”cider champagne” chiefly. I found these beverages on sale in the remotest places, for the j.a.panese have the knack of tying a number of bottles together with rope, which makes them easily transportable. The new lager beers, which are advertised everywhere, have also affected the consumption of _sake_.[123] _Sake_ is usually compared with sherry. It is drunk mulled. At a banquet, lasting five or six hours or longer, a man ”strong in _sake_” may conceivably drink ten _go_ (a _go_ is about one-third of a pint) before achieving drunkenness, but most people would be affected by three _go_. Some of the topers who boast of the quant.i.ty of _sake_ they can consume--I have heard of men declaring that they could drink twenty _go_--are cheated late in the evening by the waiting-maids. The little _sake_ bottles are opaque, and it is easy to remove them for refilling before they are quite empty.

The brewer, who was a firm adherent of the Jishu sect of Buddhists, was accustomed to burn incense with his family at the domestic shrine every morning. But this was not the habit of all the adherents of his denomination. As to the moral advancement of the neighbourhood, his grandfather ”tried very earnestly to improve the district by means of religion, but without result.” He himself attached most value to education and after that to young men's a.s.sociations.

As we left the town we pa.s.sed a ”woman priest” who was walking to Nikko, eighty miles away. Portraits of dead people, entrusted to her by their relatives for conveyance to distant shrines, were hung round her body.

As the route became more and more hilly I realised how accurate is that representation of hills in j.a.panese art which seems odd before one has been in j.a.pan: the landscape stands out as if seen in a flash of lightning.

Three things by the way were arresting: the number of shrines, mostly dedicated to the fox G.o.d; the rice suspended round the farm buildings or drying on racks; and the ma.s.ses of evening primroses, called in j.a.pan ”moon-seeing flowers.”

A feature of every village was one or more barred wooden sheds containing fire-extinguis.h.i.+ng apparatus, often provided and worked by the young men's a.s.sociation. Sometimes a piece of ground was described to me as ”the training ground of the fire defenders.” The night patrols of the village were young fellows chosen in turn by the constable from the fire-prevention parties, made up by the youths of the village. There stood up in every village a high perpendicular ladder with a bell or wooden clapper at the top to give the alarm. The emblem of the fire brigade, a pole with white paper streamers attached, was sometimes distinguished by a yellow paper streamer awarded by the prefecture.

On a sweltering July day it was difficult to realise that the villages we pa.s.sed through, now half hidden in foliage, might be under 7 ft. of snow in winter. In travelling in this hillier region one has an extra _kurumaya_, who pushes behind or acts as brakeman.

At the ”place of the seven peaks” we found a stone dedicated to the wors.h.i.+p of the stars which form the Plough. Again and again I noticed shrines which had before them two tall trees, one larger than the other, called ”man and wife.” It was explained to me that ”there cannot be a more sacred place than where husband and wife stand together.” A small tract of cryptomeria on the lower slopes of a hill belonged to the school. The children had planted it in honour of the marriage of the Emperor when he was Crown Prince.

Often the burial-grounds, the stones of which are seldom more than about 2 ft. high by 6 ins. wide, are on narrow strips of roadside waste. (The coffin is commonly square, and the body is placed in it in the kneeling position so often a.s.sumed in life.) Here, as elsewhere, there seemed to be rice fields in every spot where rice fields could possibly be made.

On approaching a village the traveller is flattered by receiving the bows of small girls and boys who range themselves in threes and fours to perform their act of courtesy. I was told that the children are taught at school to bow to foreigners. I remember that in the remoter villages of Holland the stranger also received the bows of young people.

On the house of the headman of one village were displayed charms for protection from fire, theft and epidemic. We spoke of weather signs, and he quoted a proverb, ”Never rely on the glory of the morning or on the smile of your mother-in-law.”

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