Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/45

 But the dinner-party and the ball of the Occident do not enter into the social philosophy of the Japanese or accord with their notions of hospitality. The formal call also is unknown. Ladies that live in Japanese style never have "days," nor do men leave cards upon each other as tokens of civility except at certain seasons. Every visit that has not a practical business purpose is made with the object of passing several hours in a friend's company, and it is an unwritten law that the visitor shall join the family circle of the visited at meals as well as in their intervals. No preparation is required except to add to the dining paraphernalia a pair of chopsticks and a set of apparatus, nor is any one obliged to reflect whether there is room at table or whether the viands suffice, for guests and hosts alike sit upon the mats, where accommodation can always be found, and a word to a neighbouring restaurant produces fish and soup in abundance. In a household of the upper classes this fortuitous hospitality has scarcely any limit. The physician, the teachers of music, of dancing, of painting, of cha-no-yu and of ike-bana, all share the family meal, and either they or the guests can be put up for the night merely by taking two or three silk quilts from the wardrobe and spreading. It is this absence of set, formal entertainment that constitutes one of the chief obstacles to social intercourse between foreigners and Japanese. The foreigner's principal device for establishing friendly