Page:LA2-NSRW-2-0528.jpg



Page 961 : JAPAN

at her own estimate as the British Empire of the Far East.

Physical Features. The situation of the Japanese archipelago of four large and nearly 4,000 small islands, off the eastern coast of temperate Asia, is similar to that of the British Isles off the western coast of Europe. Its area of 175,540 square miles is one-fifth greater, its population of 51,000,000 one fourth more. Its climate, running from the Tropic of Cancer to 50° north, is one of wider range, while its more varied surface gives it greater extremes of heat and cold in every part. The separation from the mainland, on the crest of a 900 mile-long, crescent-shaped mountain-chain that rises from the bed of the ocean, has deeply imbued an imaginative people with a sense of special creation. This colors their literature and art; their manners and customs and religion, and nourishes a fanatical patriotism. The island empire has an almost uncanny beauty of plain and valley; guarded by wooded ridges, watered by cascades, overlooked by the sacred, snowy peak of Fujiyama, flooded annually by rains and warmed by genial suns that awake myriads of flowers and butterflies, and girded by wide defensive seas.

Vegetable and Animal Life. The natural growth varies from palms and bamboos of southern valleys to the oaks and pines of the mountains of Yezo; the crops, from the camphor-gum of Formosa to semitropical tea and rice and mulberry groves for the silkworm; to tobacco, wheat and barley; and up to the wild grasses and reindeer-moss of Sakhalin. Of native wild animals there are foxes and wolves, boars and black bears, none of them numerous. But of birds there are the species common to the continent beside millions of waterfowl, heron and crane and gulls, ducks and geese and reed-birds that make any bit of coast look like the panel of a painted Japanese screen.

Minerals. The sterile, rocky ridges are underlaid with iron, worked for ages into swords for the samurai, and with coal dug out since the awakening, for warship, locomotive and factory. There are some gold and silver and copper, a great deal of sulphur and graphite and ancient beds of kaolin that centuries of porcelainrnaking have failed to exhaust. Yet Japan is a poor country in proportion to the population she must support. A large percentage of her area is infertile. History, however, proves that countries, like individuals, usually prosper in inverse ratio to their natural wealth. Like Great Britain, Japan is being forced by necessity into manufacturing and trade and immigration, to take toll of the world.

People and Customs. The philosophical students of history look for analogies. To them it is an equally striking fact that the Japanese, like the English and the people of the United States, are a mixed race, for the mixed races have been the conquerors. The Japanese are an amalgamation of Mongols, Tartars, Koreans and Malays with the aboriginal Ainu, of whom 12,000 still survive, making a race superior to any other yellow people. Their stature is that of southern Europe; their complexion lighter and clearer than the Chinese, their eyes less oblique; their extremities more delicately fashioned. In youth their cheeks are rosy. Their teeth are even and white, their hair fine, abundant and coal-black. It is almost superfluous to speak of the exquisite courtesy and cheerful demeanor of the Japanese, of their personal cleanliness, of the phenomenal good temper of the children. A Japanese baby is said never to cry, not because of an Indian stoicism, but from sheer happiness and well-being. Japan is the children’s paradise, where a harsh word is never spoken, obedience never refused.

European dress and habits of living have made little headway. They have been adopted in the imperial court, in the army and navy and at the university and colleges, but 95 per cent. of the men still cling to their long robes, girdled with brocade, their loose jackets and wooden-soled pattens. The jinriksha boys run bare-legged in the streets; the farm-laborers wear knee-breeches of blue or white cotton and bamboo umbrella-hats; the women and children their wide-sleeved kimonos and gorgeous silk obis, tied into nuge butterfly-bows in the back. The architecture peculiar to the land is likely to be retained, for it is the offspring of the earthquake — light, flat, elastic — bamboo, dove-tailed woodwork and paper-screens are not easily shaken down. Even the temples palaces and tea-houses are of these materials, richly gilded and painted and anchored by heavy, overhanging roofs. The floors are covered with thick, padded straw-mats and divided into temporary rooms by sliding screens. There is little furniture except tables and trays of bamboo and lacquered wood. The ornaments are inscribed rolls of silk, embroideries, art potteries, cloisonné enamels on brass and gold-lacquer art-objects, brought out a piece at a time for admiration. The land wears a holiday air, as of a summer show, clean, gay, fragile. Even the charcoal braziers used for cooking and heating the bath seem like devices for picnic use. The frequent fires are not a great calamity, for the buildings are quickly and cheaply replaced.

The holiday aspect of Japan is increased by the semipublic outdoor life of the people and by the profusion of tiny gardens. The rice and fish that form the staple food are easily cooked, as well in an arbor as in a house, and tea is brewed anywhere. Fruits, nuts, seaweed, beef, beans, poultry, eggs, wheat-bread and confections are used by the wealthy, and the introduction of

Individial articles: