Bertha Runkle

“ How do you suppose the babies take an airing? In baby-carriages, you say? Of course not: the Japanese never do anything the way we do it. When the baby ’s about three days old, it goes out for its first glimpse of the world strapped on somebody’s back, and that ’s the way it goes every day till it can go on its own feet. ”

“ The Japanese have a queer way of celebrating birthdays. Instead of a party in June for little Tama, and a party in September for little O’Tatsu, and a party in December for little Ume, there’s a party in February in honor of all little girls, and one in May for all little boys. In February every little girl receives from all her grown-up relatives and friends gifts of dolls, and beside these dolls her mother takes out of the closet many of the dolls she had when she was a child, and some even older dolls that the little girl’s grandmother had when she was a little tot ”

“ If I make the knife, and you answer with the handkerchief, you pay forfeit, for my knife will cut your handkerchief; if I make a stone, and you make a knife, out of the game you go, for my stone will ruin your knife. ”

“ The fishes look so very pretty and gay, flying over his house, and the boy gets so many treats at Fish Festival time, that I don’t think he minds even if the carp is a nice little jolly lecture on ambition. ”

“ You see, in Japan there are hardly any horses, and no automobiles and trolleys and delivery-wagons. Even the drays are. small enough to be drawn by one bare-legged coolie in a mushroom hat rather bigger than he is, and instead of taking a carriage you take a jinrikisha, that funny little buggy on two wheels, with a funny little man bobbing up and down between the shafts to pull it. ”

“ The grown-ups never dress in bright colors, because it is n’t thought proper, any more than it would be proper for our children to wear their party clothes to school. The only big people you see in gay
“The babies are perfectly happy, and hardly ever cry." colors (and they are n’t really big—nobody is, in Japan) are the maiko and the geisha. These are the pretty girls who dance and play the lute and sing, to entertain you while you ’re eating your dinner at a tea-house.
If it’s your first Japanese dinner you ’re having a dreadfully hard time. ”

“ All the people put on their very best clothes, and the children the best of all, jackets and trousers of bright blue or green or yellow or purple, the boy’s and the girl’s so much alike that you can only tell them apart by their hair, The boy’s, of course, is braided in a pigtail, and the girl’s is done up on her head with silver pins, or, if she ’s a very grand little girl, with gold or jade. ”

“ A clenched fist means a stone, a fist with the forefinger straight out means a knife, and an open hand means a handkerchief. Whatever the first player makes, the second player must make something better. ”

“ In Korea the little folks were by no means so prim. In that country everybody wears white clothes, but no one seems to say to the children, “Now, mind, don’t play in the dirt." Nearly everybody is poor in Korea, and so the children look poor and out-at-elbows. When we were taking a picture of an old, old monument inscribed with the history of a battle so long ago that the letters cut in the hard marble are almost worn away, two children came racing across the field to get into the photograph. ”

“ You kneel down, and when you turn your toes in till one laps over the other, and then you sit back between your heels, At first you are quite proud to find how well you do it, and you don’t think it ’s so very uncomfortable. ”

“ Sometimes its mother or its nurse takes it, but very often it rides on the back of a brother or sister, who is perhaps not more than four or five years old. These little nurses don’t seem to be troubled at all by their charges, as you would suppose; they play ball and tag, and run races and fly kites, in spite of the heavy loads on their backs. ”