A Japanese Boy
At times our beloved master voluntarily offered to recite to us records
of famous battles and heroes that adorn the pages of Japanese history.
He did this from the love of telling them; the boys were as fond of
hearing as he was of telling. He had in hand no book to help him; the
gallant exploits of the brave and handsome, the rescuing of the virtuous
fair, the crash, dash and rush of horses, lances and swords he called up
from memory and decked with his teeming imagination. On such an occasion
his language was prolific, his voice modulated according to the shifting
shades of the subject matter; in short, his whole man, heart and soul,
went to the making of the story. His eyes and expression! they often
told half his story. Many a time the bells surprised us at the midst of
his soul-stirring recital, and suddenly called us back to the unromantic
light of modern day and to the homely exercises of school. The stories
were told to us serially, in the hours of intermission and were a sort
of optional course. They were so popular that very few were found
playing about the grounds when the eloquent romancer proceeded in his
narrative.
Yet he was not a man of weak indulgence toward the boys; his sense of
duty was equally strong. If a youngster was seen undertaking to do
anything naughty he would give him a stern look, his cheeks were
inflated, his eyes showed the white plainly. The whole room was then
silent as a tomb. But if a fun-loving fellow ventured, perhaps, to
thrust out his little tongue roguishly or let out a giggle behind his
hand, then the teacher irresistibly relaxed the corners of his mouth,
and in another moment the hall rang with the hilarious laughter of
reconciliation and good-fellowship.
Later I came under the instruction of different masters, but he it was
who led me in infancy so carefully by the hand, as it were, to the first
step of the ladder of knowledge, and he it will be who shall remain the
longest in my memory.
At school the common mode of punishment was to let the culprit stand
erect a whole hour together, facing his own class or a class in an
adjoining room. Although no dunce-cap was on his head, a roomful of
staring eyes struck a burning shame into his soul. Nevertheless, urchins
there were who considered it a supreme delight to be taken off the
troublesome exercises and carried to the next room on a visit, where
they had made many acquaintances at a previous banishment. Indeed, they
had become so inured to it that they thought nothing of it afterward.
Once the whole school, except a few good children, incurred the
teachers' displeasure. I have forgotten what the offence was; all were
prevented from going home after school and ordered to stand up till
dark, each with a bowl full of water. There they stood like a regiment
of begging saints with the bowls in the outstretched arms, which if they
moved the water ran over the brim, and the delinquents would have been
whipped. At first we thought it capital fun, because so many were in
company to commiserate; we laughed aloud, bobbed and courtesied to the
teachers in mockery; but in time we had to change our minds. The result
of standing still like a statue began to tell upon us; our limbs began
to ache and feel stiff; the jolliest member gave a cowardly sob; and the
patient fellow in the corner, hitherto unnoticed, attracted public
attention by dropping the burden. The china went to pieces. He blubbered
out, as if that was sufficient apology. Through the intercession of some
kindly folk we finally came home to supper and comfort.
We were continually threatened with another method of punishment, though
I doubt if the teachers would have inflicted it on its. It was an
intolerably cruel one: the offender was compelled to stand up with a
lighted bundle of senkoes until it burned down close to his hand. The
senko is a slender incense stick burned before the shrine of Buddha and
of our ancestors, and manufactured by kneading a certain aromatic powder
to a paste and squeezing it out into innumerable very slim, extremely
fragile, brownish rods. When dry, these are gathered into good-sized
bundles and put in the market. A few cents will buy you more senkoes
than you need. As the bundle burns away slowly--slowly to prolong the
agony, the fire encroaches on the skin and the flesh. Unless the
offender surrenders himself to the heartless will of his pedagogue he
must suffer injury from the heat. This punishment was actually in
practice in old days when the tyrannical masters had their way, but went
out of fashion at the dawn of civilization.
Our teachers carried flexible sticks, which they played with while
teaching, or used in pointing at the maps; they never whipped anybody
with them to my knowledge; but in going their rounds among the pupils,
if any were engaged in conversation or in any way inattentive, flogged
the table before them in such a manner as to cause the poor fellows to
jump into the air.
CHAPTER V.
When the close of a day called me home from school, and my father's work
was done, a sense of contentment and repose brooded over our household.
A vigorous scrub at a public bath often gave our tired bodies a renewed
muscular tone. I accompanied my father to this resort; when I was very
young, my mother carried me thither. The bath-house is a private
establishment of its proprietor, and public in the sense that
towns-people betake themselves to it without restraint. The charge is
only a few mills for the adult, half the amount for the child and
nothing for the suckling. If a number of checks (branded, flat pieces of
wood) be purchased at one time, the average charge is still less. In
Imabari there are a dozen or more of these baths; they mostly occupy the
corners of the streets like American drug stores. They are opened from
late in the afternoon till late at night; on holidays accommodation
baths are ready at early daybreak. As soon as a bath is in readiness,
its keeper places a flag at the eaves, in the daytime, and a square,
paper lantern after dusk. At the entrance is a stand, where you deposit
your fare, and exchange a word on the weather with the keeper if you are
neighborly. Advancing a few steps, you leave your clogs on a low
platform, on the sides of which rise tiers of lockers for clothes. You
must bring your own towels; ladies also take with them little cotton
bags of rice-bran. They close the bags tightly with strings, soak them
in hot water and rub their faces and hands with the wet balls. The
process is said to refine the texture of the skin wonderfully.
The bath proper is a great, covered tank, full of hot water, with a
terrace-work of planks sloping down on the four sides, where you sit and
wash. The ceiling is low enough to bump your head unless you are
cautious; it projects forward and stoops to prevent the steam from
escaping unnecessarily; therefore, even when it is lighted within, it is
twilight, owing to the confined vapor. One feels in it as if working in
a mine or tunnel. Older men discuss town topics and business, and young
men hum popular airs as they bathe, and intimate friends press each
other to rub down their backs. The water is kept warm by a huge metallic
heater behind, which is in communication with the tank but covered with
planks so as not to scald the bathers' feet. In case the water proves
too hot, the bathers consult each other's comfort courteously, and one
of them claps his hands. It is answered by a sound at the entrance
stand, and immediately cold water spouts into the tank. Then the men
stir the tank thoroughly on all sides. Being but a child I took great
delight in the excitement. I would creep up to the hole and plug it with
my wet towel, and after a few minutes pull it out abruptly to see the
water spurt forth with redoubled energy. The wall has usually a small
door; pushing it open the fireman peeps in occasionally, when there is
too much noise. The first time I noticed it, I was almost scared out of
my wits; for, happening to look around, I saw on the dim wall a grim
human head staring me in the face.
Between the tank and the floor is a space paved with large, flat,
rectangular stones and cemented with mortar, where the people who think
it too close in the tank can step out and wash, sitting on long, narrow
benches; in some baths this place is overlaid with planks in such a
manner that water can trickle down between them. Here we may use soap,
but not in the tank. Several small wooden tubs are near at hand; with
them we pour the hot water over our body after rubbing, and in them we
give our towels a final clean-water washing when through using them. The
clear, cold water for the latter purpose is constantly bubbling up in a
shallow, well-like enclosure hard by. A couple of dippers float in it,
and the people also drink of the water, if thirsty. In well-regulated
baths, near the cold-water enclosure is a hot water cistern, constantly
fed through a bamboo pipe with boiling water that has not been used.
People of cleanly habits, on emerging from the common tank, dip out this
fresh, warm water and bathe again. Of course, it would be objectionable
to retain the same water in the tank all day and have people bathe in it
over and over; as a matter of fact, a portion of it is drawn off at
intervals and replaced with a fresh supply.
The ladies' side is precisely the same in arrangement as the
gentlemen's; a partition, however, separates them completely.
If you meet a man on the street in Japan with a wet towel hanging on his
shoulder, he is from the public bath. He wears no hat even in sallying
forth into the open air from the confined atmosphere, walks leisurely
along, dragging the high clogs and feeling thoroughly comfortable. In
summer evenings, while maidens, mothers and children are cooling
themselves in the breeze on movable platforms in front of their
residences, young men from the bath come strolling up, inquire politely
after their health and make themselves agreeable. As the after-bath
garment and towel are to be thus exhibited before the eyes of their
admirers new fashions arise every year in regard to them. The fashion
changes not so much in tailoring as in the color and pattern.
We are not without private baths, too. Large aristocratic families are
all provided with them. The bath-house is usually fitted up in a wing at
the back of the building; in it a tub large enough to admit a person in
a squatting position is placed on a caldron. The loose wooden bottom of
the tub is left floating while the water boils, serving as the cover; it
is fastened afterward. The head of the family goes in first; after him,
his wife; then come their children, beginning with the eldest; after
them follow the domestics, ranged according to their relative
importance.
Evenings at home were always spent very pleasantly, especially before my
sisters were married and went away. There were four of them, excluding
the eldest who had left us a good while ago, but used to visit us, and
add to our gayety. What did we do to enjoy ourselves? We had music and
dancing very often, singing, of course, parties to which our best
friends came, games of cards, social chat and fireside talk--whatever
goes to make home attractive. Mother took great interest in them
herself; she chaperoned the girls--we had young ladies of the
neighborhood come to us, and our house was looked upon as one of the
social foci of little Imabari. But a reverse in my father's fortune and
frequent change of abode put an end to those happy days of yore.
Japanese dancing, I declare without prejudice, is more elaborate and
graceful than your round and square dances, but may not be as
fascinating; ladies and gentlemen do not dance together. Moreover, our