A Japanese Boy
in all directions, making New Year calls. Upon meeting their
acquaintances they have not much to say, the chief thing being to keep
the head going up and down with great formality,--a bow it is intended
to be, yet a great deal more than that. It is almost an impossible act
for one not trained so to do, unless he goes at it with the spirit of
martyrdom. Of course, the parlor reception by ladies in white is
something unheard of in the far East. Ladies are to be good and remain
in the back parlor, except when their presence is desired by the
gentlemen who do the honor of receiving; you often detect the bright
eyes directed upon you through crannies.
The dinner is not so splendid an affair as the breakfast, but has many
customary dishes to be served. The fact will strangely strike the
reader, who associates in his mind such a sumptuous board as that of
Christmas with the term dinner. In that figurative sense in which we
frequently use it, it must properly be applied to the breakfast. I must
mention here that in the New Year meals we put aside our crockery ware
and take out from the store-room wooden bowls, japanned red inside and
jet black outside with our family crest in gold. The children's are
rendered more attractive with the pictures of flying cranes on the
covers, and tortoises with wide-fringed tails among the waves on the
exterior of the bowls, all in gold. A casual sight of them at other
times, in my rummaging for things, was sufficient to awake in me a
pleasant train of thoughts relative to the holidays. Oh, and that
tremendous big fish, I must tell you about that!--Every family provides
itself for New Year with a huge buri--Japanese name of course, I am
ignorant of its proper zoological term; I obtained my first idea of the
whale from this monstrous fish. It hangs in the kitchen from one of the
rafters throughout the holidays; the cook cuts meat from it, and the
family feasts upon it until it is reduced to a downright skeleton. My
impression is that the fish is caught in some of the provinces bordering
on the Pacific Ocean (Imabari looks on the inland sea) and sent to our
town: certain it is, the article we procure is always salted. The rush
for the buri in the market before New Year is just like the turkey
bargaining before Thanksgiving in this country; the difference is that
the buri is more expensive, and it is not everybody that can afford to
buy one.
Taking advantage of the last evening's ceremony, in the course of the
day female beggars appear in the mask of the Goddess Good Luck, and sing
and dance for alms. That is tolerable. But a host more of strong male
beggars, personating the devils with rattling bamboo bars and with
hideously painted faces, plant themselves before the houses and demand
in a strident authoritative voice a propitiation with hard coin. Some of
them paint themselves with cheap red paint, representing the "red
devils;" others smear themselves with the still more economical
scrapings from the sides of the chimney, becoming thereby the "black
devils." The idea of the devils of different colors came from the
Buddhist's pictorial representation of Hell, wherein the demons are seen
serving out punishment to the sinners,--throwing them into a sulphurous
flame, a lake of blood, a huge boiling caldron and to dragon-snakes;
giving them a free ride on a chariot of fire; driving them up a mountain
beset with needles; pulling out the tongues of the liars; mashing the
bodies as you do potatoes; and so forth. The pictures, by the bye, with
many others of saints and martyrs, are the same in nature as the
religious paintings of Rome and equally grand and magnificent. The bean
ceremony, to conclude, although it might have banished imaginary devils,
after all, has drawn together the very next morning an army of the
flesh-and-blood devils that want to eat and drink.
CHAPTER XI.
Among the recreations most fondly indulged in on the New Year holidays
is kite-flying. This is so well known here that I have often been
overwhelmed with questions regarding it by little Americans. Our kites
are mostly rectangular, with heroes or monsters painted on them in most
glaring colors. A wind instrument looking like a bow is sometimes
fastened to the kite, and when the kite is in the air the wind strikes
the string and makes a humming noise. At a kite fight the combatants
bring their flying kites in juxtaposition and strive to cut the string
by friction. Now and then an unfortunate, hero or monster, is seen
tossed about at the disposal of the wind, finding its fate upon the
water, the tree-tops, or I know not where. At the height of kite-flying
even those with more discretion enter into the full spirit of the young
and build prodigious kites. I have actually seen one so large that, when
flown high up on a fair windy day, the combined efforts of several men
could scarcely hold it. It was a hard-fought tug-of-war; after much ado,
with the aid of wrestlers and athletes, I remember, the monster was at
length secured to the main front oaken pillar of a great building. The
string fastened to such a kite is a strong twine hundreds of yards
long, yet it often gives way. And to fly such a kite on the streets of a
city is next to an impossibility; it will bump hard at houses and rake
down the tiles (our houses are roofed with tiles) over the heads of
passers-by; for which reason, it is always taken out to the open country
and afterwards brought into town when it has gone well up in the air.
What a mass of curious children surge beside the men who hold the kite
by the string as they walk home!
I have sat many an afternoon after school whittling the bamboo frame for
a modest kite. It was my most interesting employment; my father calls me
into another room to run on an errand for him; I hear him plainly, but
pretend otherwise and make him call repeatedly--ungrateful son! Upon
hearing him approach and perceiving longer delay to be impossible, I
break away from the agreeable occupation and emerge as cheerfully as I
can, "Yes, sir, father." He inquires what I was about, reproves me for
not answering him quickly and gives me to know that if I do not heed his
behest he will surely throw my kite into the fire. After such
interruptions, however, the important frame-work is done. Oh, what
satisfaction I feel over it! Then I go to the kitchen and wheedle Osan
into giving me a bit of boiled rice, which I make into paste on a piece
of board with a bamboo spatula. With the paste I put white paper on the
frame and leave it to dry. There are many little technical points in
kite construction, but those I refrain from entering into in detail.
When it is dry, I write on the kite confidentially with my own hand some
appropriate word, say, Zephyr, in lieu of picture. I now tie the string
and try its flight; it dashes at the eaves this way, pitches into the
latticed windows that way, twirls in mid-air like a tumbler-pigeon, and
in general behaves badly. Thereupon I take it down, add weight to the
lighter side, attach a tail and do all to insure balance and
equilibrium, and, then try it again.
Since coming to this country, the request has been put to me more than
once by little friends that I should make them a genuine Japanese kite.
But the want of tenacious paper and bamboo has always prevented me from
complying with their wish.
As I write on, by the association of ideas I call to mind an event which
greatly provoked me. I was fond of poking into and turning over old
things up in the garret, as I hinted before, or I had archæological
taste, to give it a dignified name. One day, much to my surprise, I came
upon an old kite frame perhaps six feet by five, good for further use. I
found it hidden behind a worm-eaten chest of drawers; it was
constructed, I discovered, when my uncle was a boy; everybody in the
house had forgotten all about it. I was instantly possessed with the
desire to boast of a big kite, now that the frame was ready; and as if
to help out my plan, some one recollected that the reel of string that
went with the kite was put away in one of the drawers. This I
immediately sought and found. These relics I guarded with great care
until a visit from my uncle, who resided in the same town, when I
produced them and got him to tell me about his kite. I could not have
done a better thing; his old playthings before him put my uncle in mind
of his boyhood; they created in him the wish to see them restored once
more to their former usefulness; and he promised me he would attend to
them himself.
Attend to them himself he did in a few days, taking as lively an
interest as I did. Having papered the frame, we carried it to a man who
painted show-bills. He painted on it a squatting Daruma in scarlet
canonical robe, holding the high-priest's mace, a staff with a long tuft
of white hair at one end, while the white untouched margin left by this
large figure was stained blue. It was a glorious kite; the picture of
Daruma, who was a great light of Buddhism, the founder of a new sect,
who sat and thought through his whole life, suffering no disturbance
from matters temporal--hence his _papier-mâché_ image on a hemisphere of
lead for the toy "tumbler;" Daruma, I started to say, looked out from
our kite with a pair of immense goggle eyes, shaded by prominent shaggy
eyebrows; a furrow ran down on either cheek from the side of his nose
toward the corners of his mouth; large Hindoostanee ear-rings hung from
the enlarged lobes of his ears; and I may here add that, notwithstanding
his reputed sedentary habits, he is always drawn as a holy man of strong
physical features.
So far, so good. My uncle, as might be anticipated, wanted to see how
our kite would fly. Accordingly, we got a big boy to hold it up for us
against the wind, and my uncle at a distance hold the string ready to
dash at a run. The signal was given, and away my uncle ran, and up rose
the kite. Breathlessly I was watching. But it no sooner rose than it
pitched sidewise and struck on the spikes upon the fences of the Mayor's
house. I lost my heart! I did not cry just yet; the catastrophe was too
big for utterance and too sudden: there was no time to weigh the
calamity. The men pulled at the kite, which, I say, had stuck fast on
the pointed black wooden bars bristling unmannerly in all possible
directions. I bore the spikes an inveterate enmity ever after, till one
day they were every one of them pulled down with the house, at which I
felt extreme satisfaction. The tearing noise of the kite, however, rent
my breast then; and the men, being persuaded at last of the futility of
their proceeding, brought forward a ladder, and my uncle mounted it
deliberately. I could not contain myself any longer; I ran into the
house, threw myself on the floor and wept bitterly. After that I turned
over the whole affair in my mind at leisure, lying on my back, studying
the ceiling and sucking my finger in baby fashion. The phantom of the
broken kite rose before me; I swallowed down my grief with difficulty.
Who brought it about? Nobody else but uncle; yes, if uncle had not
wished to try the kite it would not have happened. I whimpered afresh at
the painful thought; I now reproached my uncle as much as I formerly
thanked him. After a considerable lapse of time my uncle came in,
crestfallen, with the tattered kite. But in dudgeon I would not speak to
him or look at him: he very awkwardly endeavored to console me and with
difficulty coaxed me to accept his atonement in patching the rents. The
moisture of the glue, nevertheless, scattered the original colors and
disfigured the beautiful picture. I forget how I forgave him that.
But to resume the holiday games. Boys play a sort of ball--the "pass and
catch" part--with a good-sized dai-dai (lemon); we call it dai-dai