The Foundations of Japan

it for granted that their gods a

land of several farmers. In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being grown on a system under whi

cryptomeria or the redwoods of California to realise the impression made by dark giant trees that have stood before some shrine for generations. At the approac

evergreen bough with paper streamers. On receiving it I rose to my feet, passed through the beautiful building and advanced to what I may call, for the lack of a more accurate term, the altar table. On this table, which, as is usual in Shinto ceremonies, was of new white wood following the ancient design, I laid the offering. Then I bowed and gave the customary three

apan under the governance of our gracious Emperor. I, having made myself quite pure and clean, open the door of gracious eyes that they may look upon those who are here. May Dr. Robertson Scott be protected during night and day, no accident happening wherever he m

had seen in Denmark. Sugar, coarser than anything sold at home, was dear. Half the price paid for sugar in

bowled through were off the ordinary track, and the older villagers observed the ancient custom of coming out from their houses or farm plots, dropping on their knees and bowing low as we passed.[38] All over Japan, a villager encountered on the road removed the to

talked in a straightforward way with his villagers, reduced a number of rents and spent money freely in ameliorative work. To-day the village is "remarkable for its good conduct" and the relation between landlord and tenant s

use I saw several paper charms against toothache. There was also an inscription intimating that the householder was a director of the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert in the application

was drawn to the fact that the rice pot

not look unlike the wood taken out of bogs. A pit I stopped at was twenty-two

e simplest construction. The rate for villagers was 50 sen, that for outsiders 2 yen. No doubt there would be

d a half a month each until the funds needed had accumulated. The money was obtained by extra labour in the evening. Just before I left Japan t

s disputes in which each side blames the other without getting any farther forward. To take an unfair advantage in controversy is to draw water into one's own paddy. The equivalent for "pouring w

pleasant food resembling in flavour boiled chestnuts. Konnyaku (hydrosme rivieri), a near relative of the arum lily, is produced to the weight of 11 million kwan-a kwan is roughly 8? lbs.[40] The yield of burdock is about 44 million

e on light two-wheeled handcarts which carry sometimes four and sometimes six. A farmer will push or pull his manure cart from a town ten or twelve miles off. It is difficult to leave or enter a town without meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixtee

ilisers. Then there are brought into service all sorts of crop-feeding materials, such as straw, grass, compost, silkworm waste, fish waste, and of course the manure produced

have heard before, and another who was "distinguished by the righteousness of his public career." As in the Danish rural high schools, store is set on hard physical exercise. An hour of exercise-judō (jujitsu), sword play or military drill-is taken from six to seven in the morning and another at midday with the object o

tion which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe": the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript on education, thrift and morality, and the ceremonies at the end of rice planting, at harvest and at the maturity

ng in kuruma began to walk. Our agricultural celebrity had always had a passion for walking, so it was out of his power to economise in kuruma. What he di

y there was left in this peasant's village only one unbroken bale of rice. This rice was in the possession of the peasant, who was suffering from lack of food. But he would not cook any of the

ful face" and "Cast your eyes on high." On the wall there was also a copy of a resolution concerning a recent Imperial Rescript which

audience consisted of one old man. Although the official from Tokyo and the gunchō (head of a county) waited for some time, no one else put in an appearance. So they asked the old man the reason. He replied by asking them the object of the meeting. They told him. He said that he had so understood and that the community had so understood, but the farmers were very busy men. Therefore, as he was the oldest man in the district, they had sent him as their representative. Their instructions were that he would be able to

considerable hills, have been the work of unlettered peasants. In one place I found that 80 miles or more of irrigation was based on a canal made two centuries ago. It is good to see so many emban

old maple was one of his triumphs. Another was a pomegranate about a foot and a half high. It was in flower and would bear fruit of ordinary size. The wonder of dwarfing is wrought, as is now well known, by cramping the roots in the pot and by extremely skilful pr

Government, and because he is sometimes of a higher social grade than that to which policemen belong in other countries. At the Restoration many men of the samurai class did not think it beneath them to enter the new sword-wearing police force and they helped to give it a standing which has been maintained. As to the policeman being a representative of the Government, the ordinary Japanese has a way of s

meetings, even of the young men's and young women's associations, and no strolling players can give their entertainment without his presence. As to the movements of strangers, my own were obviously well known. Indeed a friend told me that in the event of my losing myself I had only to ask a policeman and he would be able to tell me where I was expected next! At the houses of well-to-do people I was s

the policeman has an almost magical effect in calming a disturbance. The Japanese policeman believes very much in reproving or reprimanding evil doers and in reasoning with folk whose "carelessness" has attracted attention. S

cal admirers cast about for a way of showing their appreciation of his work. They began by raising what was described to me as "naturally not a large but an honourable sum." With this money they decided to add three rooms to his dwelling. They had noted how visitors were always

said to me that, while he recognised the nobility of Nogi's action, he could but not think it unjustifiable. I was at once told that Japanese who do not approve of Nogi's action "must be over-influenced by Western thought." "Those who are quintessentially Japanese," it was explained, "think that Nogi did right. Bodily death is nothing, for Nogi still lives among us as a spirit. He labours with a stronger influence. Many hearts were purified by his sacrifice. One of Nogi's reasons for suicid

en standing. His admirers used to say that his face "beamed with beneficence." But Nogi, though he loved to be within reach of the Emperor and did his part as head of the Peers' School, like

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of cuttlefish and octopuses in Japanese waters.

e ground with finger-tips meeting

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en in the shops in white dried sections. A stiff greyish jelly mad

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eing learnt by the

statistics, s

of the Japanese garrison in a Korean town having committed seppuku because of a sense of responsibility for the irregularities of