Jinrikisha Days in Japan/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
YOKOHAMA—CONTINUED
In the Settlement, back of the main street, the Chinese have an ill-smelling corner to themselves. Their greasy walls and dirty floors affront the dainty doll dwellings across the creek, and the airy little box of a tea-house, whose lanterns swing at the top of the perpendicular bluff behind them. Vermilion paper, baggy clothes, pigtails, harsh voices, and vile odors reign in this Chinatown. The names on the signs are curiosities in themselves, and Cock Eye, tailor. Ah Nie and Wong Fai, ladies’ tailors, are the Poole, Worth, and Felix of the foreign community. Only one Japanese has a great reputation as dress-maker, but the whole guild is moderately successful, and prices are so low that the British and French houses of Yokohama cannot compete with them.
There is a large joss-house near the Chinese consulate, and at their midsummer, autumn, and New-year’s festivals the Celestials hold a carnival of lanterns, fire-crackers, incense, paper-flowers, varnished pigs, and cakes. The Japanese do not love these canny neighbors, and half the strictures of the passport laws are designed to limit their hold on the business of the country. The Chinese are the stronger and more aggressive people, the hard-headed financiers of the East, handling all the money that circulates this side of India. In every bank Chinese shroffs, or experts, test the coins and make the actual payments over the counters. The money-changers are Chinese, and every business house has its Chinese compradore or superintendent, through whom all contracts and payments are made. The Chinaman has the methodical, systematic brain, and no convulsion of nature or commerce makes him lose his head, as the charmingly erratic, artistic, and polite Japanese does. In many foreign households in Japan a Chinese butler, or head boy, rules the establishment; but while his silent, unvarying, clock-like service leaves nothing undone, the attendance of the bright-faced, amiable, and exuberant little natives with their smiles, their matchless courtesy, and their graceful and everlasting bowing is far more agreeable.
Homura temple, whose stone embankments and soaring roof rise just across the creek, is generally the first Buddhist sanctuary seen by the tourist coming from American shores. Every month it has its matsuri, or festival, but sparrows are always twittering in the eaves, children playing about the steps, and devout ones tossing their coppers in on the mats, clapping their hands and pressing their palms together while they pray. One of the most impressive scenes ever witnessed there was the funeral of its high-priest, when more than a hundred bonzes, or priests, came from neighboring temples to assist in the long ceremonies, and sat rigid in their precious brocade vestments, chanting the ritual and the sacred verse. The son, who succeeded to the father’s office by inheritance, had prepared for the rites by days of fasting, and, pale, hollow-eyed, but ecstatic, burned incense, chanted, and in the white robes of a mourner bore the mortuary tablets from the temple to the tomb. Homura’s commercial hum was silenced when the train of priests in glittering robes, shaded by enormous red umbrellas, wound down the long terrace steps and out between the rows of tiny shops to the distant graveyard. Yet after it the crowd closed in, barter and sale went on, jinrikishas whirled up and down, and pattering women and toddling children fell into their places in the tableaux which turn Homura’s chief street into one endless panorama of Japanese lower-class life.
Half-way up one of the steep roads, climbing from Homura to the Bluff, is the famous silk store of Tenabe Gengoro, with its dependent tea-house of Segiyama, best known of all tea-houses in Japan, and rendezvous for the wardroom officers of the fleets of all nations, since Tenabe’s uncle gave official welcome to Commodore Perry. When a war-ship is in port, the airy little lantern-hung houses continuously' send out the music of the koto and the samisen, the banjo, bones, and zither, choruses of song and laughter, and the measured hand-clapping that proclaims good cheer in Japan. Tenabe herself has now lost the perfect bloom and beauty of her younger days, but with her low, silver-sweet voice and fascinating manner, she remains the most charming woman in all Japan. In these days Tenabe presides over the silk store only, leaving her sisters to manage the fortunes of the tea-house. Tenabe speaks English, French, and Russian; never forgets a face, a name, or an incident; and if you enter, after an absence of many years, she will surely recognize you, serve you sweets and thimble-cups of pale yellow tea. and say dozo, dozo, “please, please,” with grace incomparable and in accents unapproachable.
Both living and travelling are delightfully easy in Japan, and no hardships are encountered in the ports or on the great routes of travel. Yokohama has excellent hotels; the home of the foreign resident may be Queen Anne, or Colonial, if he like, and the markets abound in meats, fish, game, fruits, and vegetables at very low prices. Imported supplies are dear because of the cost of transportation. Besides the fruits of our climates, there are the biwa, or loquat, and the delicious kaké, or Japanese persimmon. Natural ice is brought from Hakodate; artificial ice is made in all the ports, the Japanese being as fond of iced drinks as Americans. Three daily English newspapers, weekly mails to London and New York, three great cable routes, electric lights, breweries, gas, and water -works add utilitarian comfort to ideal picturesqueness. The summers are hot, but instead of our eccentric variations of temperature, the mercury stands at 80°, 85°, and 90° from July to September. With the fresh monsoon blowing steadily, that heat is endurable, however, and the nights are comfortable. June and September are the two nyubai, or rainy seasons, when everything is damp, clammy, sticky, and miserable. In May, heavy clothing is put away in sealed receptacles, even gloves being placed in air-tight glass or tin, to preserve them from the ruinous mildew. While earthquakes are frequent, Japan enjoys the same immunity from thunder-storms as our Pacific Coast.
There is no servant problem, and house keeping is a delight. Both Chinese and Japanese, though unfamiliar with western ways, can be trained to surpass the best European domestics. Service so swift, noiseless, and perfect is elsewhere unknown. Indeed, cooks as well as butlers are adjusted to so grand a scale of living that their employers are served with almost too much formality and elaboration. The art of foreign cookery has been handed down from those exiled chefs who came out with the first envoys, to insure them the one attainable solace of existence before the days of cables and regular steamships. There is a native cuisine of great excellence, and each legation or club chef has pupils, who pay for the privilege of studying under him, while the ordinary kitchener of the treaty ports is a more skilful functionary than the professional cook of American cities. Such cooks do their own marketing, furnish without complaint elaborate menus three times a day, serve a dinner party every night, and out of their monthly pay, ranging from ten to twenty Mexican dollars, supply their own board and lodging. The brotherhood of cooks help each other in emergencies, and if suddenly called upon to feed twice the expected number of guests, any one of them will work miracles. He runs to one fellow-craftsman to borrow an extra fish, to another to beg an entrée, a salad, or a sweet, and helps himself to table ware as well. A bachelor host is often amazed at the fine linen, the array of silver, and the many courses set before him on the shortest notice, and learns afterwards that everything was gathered in from neighboring establishments. Elsewhere he may meet his own monogram or crest at the table. Bachelors keep house and entertain with less trouble and more comfort than anywhere else in the world. To these sybarites, the “boy,” with his rustling kimono, is more than a second self, and the soft-voiced amahs, or maids, are the delight of woman’s existence. The musical language contributes not a little to the charm of these people, and the chattering servants seem often to be speaking Italian.
After the Restoration many samurai, or warriors, were obliged to adopt household service. One of these at my hotel had the face of a Roman senator, with a Roman dignity of manner quite out of keeping with his broom and dust-pan, or livery of dark-blue tights, smooth vest, and short blouse worn by all his class in Yokohama. When a card for an imperial garden party arrived, I asked Tatsu, my imperial Roman, to read it for me. He took it, bowed low, sucked in his breath many times, and, muttering the lines to himself, thus translated them: “Mikado want to see Missy, Tuesday, three o’clock.” When a curio-dealer left a piece of porcelain, Tatsu, always critical of purchases, went about his duties slowly, waiting for the favorable moment to give me, in his broken English, a dissertation on the old wares, their marks and qualities, and his opinion of that particular specimen of blue and white. He knew embroideries, understood pictures, and was a living dictionary of Japanese phrase and fable. A pair of Korean shoes procured me a lecture on the ancient relations between Japan and Korea, and an epitome of their contemporary history.
Social life in these foreign ports presents a delightful fusion of English, continental, and Oriental customs. The infallible Briton, representing the largest foreign contingency, has transferred his household order unchanged from the home island, yielding as little as possible to the exigencies of climate and environment. The etiquette and hours of society are those of England, and most of the American residents are more English in these matters than the English. John Bull takes his beef and beer with him to the tropics or the poles indifferently, and in his presence Jonathan abjures his pie, and outlaws the words “guess,” “cracker,” “trunk,” “baggage,” “car,” and “canned.” His East Indian experiences of a century have taught the Briton the best system of living and care-taking in hot or malarial countries, and he thrives in Japan.
In the small foreign communities at Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki the contents of the mail-bags, social events, and the perfection of physical comfort comprise the interests of most of the residents. The friction of a large community, with its daily excitements and affairs, the delights of western art, music, and the drama, are absent, and society naturally narrows into cliques, sets, rivalries, and small aims. If most residents did not affect indifference to things Japanese, life would be much more interesting. As it is, the old settler listens with an air of superiority, amusement, and fatigue to the enthusiasm of the new-comer. Not every foreign resident is familiar with the art of Japan, nor with its history, religion, or political conditions. If the missionaries, of whom hundreds reside in Yokohama and Tokio, mingled more with the foreign residents, each class would benefit; but the two sets seldom touch, the missionaries keep to themselves, and the lives of the other extra-territorial people continually shock and offend them. Each set holds extreme, unfair, and prejudiced views of the other, and affords the natives arguments against both.
Socially, Tokio and Yokohama are one community, and the eighteen miles of railroad between the two do not hinder the exchange of visits or acceptance of invitations. When the Ministers of State give balls in Tokio, special midnight trains carry the Yokohama guests home, as they do when the clubs or the naval officers entertain at the seaport town. With the coming and going of the fleets of all nations great activity and variety pervades the social life. In the increasing swarm of tourists some prince, duke, or celebrity is ever arriving, visitors of lesser note are countless, and the European dwellers in all Asiatic ports east of Singapore make Japan their pleasure-ground, summer resort, and sanitarium. That order of tourist known as the “globe-trotter,” is not a welcome apparition to the permanent foreign resident. His generous and refined hospitality has been so often abused, and its recipients so often show a half-contemptuous condescension to their remote and uncomprehended hosts, that letters of introduction are looked upon with dread. Now that it has become common for parents to send dissipated young sons around the “Horn” and out to Japan on sailing vessels, that they may reform on the voyage, a new-comer must prove himself an invalid, if he would not be avoided after he confesses having come by brig or bark. Balls, with the music of naval bands, and decorations of bamboo and bunting, are as beautiful as balls can be; picnics and country excursions enliven the whole year; and there are perennial dinners and dances on board the men-of-war.
Those East-Indian contrivances, the chit and the chit-book, furnish a partial check on native servants. The average resident carries little ready money, but writes a memorandum of whatever he buys, and hands it to the seller instead of cash. These chits are presented monthly; but the system tempts people to sign more chits than they can pay. This kind of account-keeping is more general in Chinese ports, where one may well object to receive the leaden-looking Mexicans and ragged and dirty notes of the local banks. When one sends a note to an acquaintance he enters it in his chit-book, where the person addressed adds his initials as a receipt, or even writes his answer. The whole social machinery is regulated by the chit-book, which may be a source of discord when its incautious entries and answers lie open to any Paul Pry.
Summer does not greatly disturb the life of society. Tennis, riding, boating, and bathing are in form, while balls and small dances occur even in July and August. At many places in the mountains and along the coast one may find a cooler air, with good hotels and tea-houses. Some families rent country temples near Yokohama for summer occupation, and enjoy something between the habitual Japanese life and Adirondack camping. The sacred emblems and temple accessories are put in the central shrine room, screens are drawn, and the sanctuary becomes a spacious house, open to the air on all sides, and capable of being divided into as many separate rooms as the family may require. Often the priests set the images and altar-pieces on a high shelf concealed by a curtain, and give up the whole place to the heretical tenants. In one instance the broad altar-shelf became a recessed sideboard, whereon the gilded Buddhas and Kwannons were succeeded by bottles, decanters, and glasses. At another temple it was stipulated that the tenants should give up the room in front of the altar on a certain anniversary day, to allow the worshippers to come and pray.