The typesetters I saw in the Kokumin Shimbum office were singing like birds, but the field-hands I saw at Komaba were as silent as church-worshippers. The women carry children on their backs and not in their arms. The girls dance with their hands, not with their feet, and alone, not with partners. An ox is worth more than a horse. The people bathe frequently, but in dirty water. The people are exceptionally artistic, yet the stone "lions" at Nikko Temple look as much like bulldogs as lions. A man's birthday is not celebrated, but the anniversary of his death is. The people are immeasurably polite, and yet often unendurably cocky and conceited. Kissing or waltzing, even for man and wife, would be improper in public, but the exposure of the human body excites no surprise. The national government is supposed to be modern, and yet only 2 per cent, of the people--the wealthiest--can vote. Famed for kindness though the people are, war correspondents declared the brutality of Japanese soldiers to the Chinese at Port Arthur such as "would damn the fairest nation on earth." Though the nation is equally noted for simplicity of living, it is a Japanese banker, coming to New York, who breaks even America's record for extravagance, by giving a banquet costing $40 a plate. The people are supposed to be singularly contented, and yet Socialism has had a rapid growth. The Emperor is regarded as sacred and almost infallible, and yet the Crown Prince is not a legitimate son. Although the government is one of the most autocratic on earth, it has nevertheless adopted many highly "paternalistic" schemes--government ownership of railways and telegraphs, for example. The people work all the time, but they refuse to work as strenuously as Americans. The temples attract thousands of people, but usually only in a spirit of frolic: in the first Shinto temple I visited the priests offered me sake (the national liquor) {5} to drink. Labor per day is amazingly cheap, but, in actual results, little cheaper than American labor.

It is amid such a maze of contradictions and surprises that one moves in Japan. When I go into a Japanese home, for example, it is a hundred times more important to take off my shoes than it is to take off my hat--even though, as happened this week when I called on a celebrated Japanese singer, there be holes in my left sock. (But I was comforted later when I learned that on President Taft's visit to a famous Tokyo teahouse his footwear was found to be in like plight.)

Speaking of music, we run squarely against another oddity, in that native Japanese (as well as Chinese) music usually consists merely of monotonous twanging on one or two strings--so that I can now understand the old story of Li Hung Chang's musical experiences in America. His friends took him to hear grand opera singers, to listen to famous violinists, but these moved him not; the most gifted pianists failed equally to interest him. But one night the great Chinaman went early to a theatre, and all at once his face beamed with delight, and he turned to his friends in enthusiastic gratitude: "We have found it at last!" he exclaimed. "That is genuine music!" . . . And it was only the orchestra "tuning up" their instruments!

I might as well say just here that this story, while good, always struck me as a humorous exaggeration till I came to Japan, but the music which I heard the other night in one of the most fashionable and expensive Japanese restaurants in Tokyo was of exactly the same character--like nothing else in all the world so much as an orchestra tuning up! And yet by way of modification (as usual) it must be said that appreciation of Western music is growing, and one seldom hears in classical selections a sweeter combination of voice and piano than Mrs. Tamaki Shibata's, while my Japanese student-friend has also surprised me by singing "Suwanee River" and other old-time American favorites like a genuine Southerner.

Take the social relations of the Japanese people as another {6} example of contrariety. Here the honorable sex is not the feminine but the masculine. There is even a proverb, I believe, "Honor men, despise women." Perhaps the translation "despise" is too strong, but certainly it would be regarded as nothing but contemptible weakness for young men to show any such regard for young women, or husbands for their wives, as is common in America. The wives exist solely for their husbands, nor must the wife object if the husband maintains other favorites, or even brings these favorites into the home with her. And although a man is with his wife a much greater part of his time than is the case in America, he may have little or no voice in selecting her; in fact, he may see her only once before marrying.

After having seen probably half a million or more Japanese, Sundays and week-days, I have not noticed a single young Japanese couple walking together, and in the one case where I saw a husband and a wife walking thus side by side I discovered on investigation that the man was blind!

"For a young couple to select each other as in America," said a young Japanese gentleman to me, "would be considered immoral, and as for a young man calling on a young woman, that never happens except clandestinely." And when I asked if it was true that when husband and wife go together the woman must follow the man instead of walking beside him as his equal, he answered: "But it is very, very seldom that the two go out together."

My Japanese friend also told me that the young man often has considerable influence in selecting his life-partner (in case it is for life: there is one divorce to every three to five marriages), but the young woman has no more voice in the matter than the commodity in any other bargain-and-sale. When a young man or young woman gets of marriageable age, which is rather early, the parents decide on some satisfactory prospective partner, and a "middleman" interviews the parents of the prospective partner aforesaid, and if they are willing, and {7} financial and other considerations are satisfactory, it doesn't matter what the girl thinks, nor does it matter much whether young Barkis himself is "willin'." The Sir Anthony Absolutes in Japan indeed brook no opposition. All of which, while not wholly commendable (my young Japanese friend himself dislikes the plan, at least in his own prospective case), has at least the advantage of leaving but remarkably few bachelors and old maids in Japan. Here every man's house may not be his castle, but it is certainly his nursery. Usually, too, in the towns at least, his home is his shop; the front part full of wares, with no hard and fast dividing line between merchandise rooms and the living rooms, children being equally conspicuous and numerous in both compartments.

Japan is still governed largely on patriarchal lines. The Emperors themselves depend largely on the patriarchal spirit for their power, claiming direct descent in unbroken line from the Sun-Goddess, while the people are supposed to be themselves descendants of Emperors or of minor gods. In family life the patriarchal idea is still more prominent, the father being the virtual ruler until he abdicates in favor of the eldest son.

Ancestor-worship is general, of course, and a typical case is that of my young Nikko friend, who tells me that in his home are memorial tablets to six of his most recently deceased ancestors, and that hot rice is placed before these tablets each morning. Now the teaching is that the spirits of the dead need the odor of the rice for nourishment, and also require worship of other kinds. Consequently the worst misfortune that can befall a man is to die without heirs to honor his memory (the mere dying itself is not so bad); and if an oldest son die unmarried such action amounts almost to treason to the family.

Moreover, if a man be without sons (daughters don't count), he may adopt a son; and the cases of adoption are surprisingly frequent. Count Okuma, ex-prime minister of the empire, whom I visited last Sunday, adopted his son-in-law as his {8} legal son. A