average stature of European women. The women are proportionately smaller. The lower classes are mostly strong, with well-developed arms, legs, and chests. The upper classes are too often weakly.
The above description will perhaps not be considered flattering. But it is not ours; it is the doctors. Then, too, ideals of beauty differ from land to land. We Anglo-Saxons consider ourselves a handsome race. But what are we still, in the eyes of the majority of the Japanese people, but a set of big, red, hairy barbarians with green eyes?
The Japanese women are, on the whole, better-looking than the men, and have, besides, pretty manners and charming voices.[1] Village beauties are rare, most girls of the lower class with any pretentions to good looks being, as it would seem, sent out to service at tea-houses in the towns, or else early obtaining husbands. Japanese children, with their dainty little ways and old-fashioned appearance, always insinuate themselves into the affections of foreign visitors. Old and young alike are remarkable for quietness of demeanour. The gesticulations of a southern European fill them with amazement, not to say contempt, and fidgeting of every kind is foreign to their nature.
The Japanese age earlier than we do. It has also been asserted that they are less long-lived; but this is doubtful. If statistics may be trusted, the number of octogenarians, nonagenarians, and even centenarians is fairly high. In Japan, as in other countries, the number of very old women considerably exceeds that of the very old men. The diseases which make most havoc are consumption, disease of the digestive organs, and the peculiar affection called kakke, of which an account will be found in a separate article. The Japanese have less highly strung nerves
- ↑ For a detailed analysis of the Japanese standard of female beauty, see Miss Bacon's Japanese Girls and Women, pp. 58—60, where also the true remark is made that foreigners long resident in Japan find their standard gradually change, "and see, to their own surprise, that their countrywomen look ungainly, fierce, aggressive and awkward among the small, mild, shrinking, and graceful Japanese ladies."
